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Annals of Fear II	By : DeathNoteFangirl Category: Death Note > Yaoi-Male/Male > Mello/Matt Views: 5803 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note and I do not make any money from these writings

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Deontic tested the path before her with her toe.    For all the previous rain, it seemed dry enough. She stepped onto it.   She was between the sea and the river here.   The great, dark plains of the river valley swirled with a faintly luminous, dark grey mist.   Unseen clouds covered the moon.   Even if there had been no potential influences from whatever had been disturbed in the house, this landscape would have been suggestive enough.   It felt haunted.   Of all of the directions that Deontic could have been sent, this was the worst one for her.   She could hear the water crashing behind her, rushing alongside her.   It filled her world.    She walked on.

"I am Lim Pek Wan." She whispered, under her breath.   She was holding herself, mentally and physically, in a firm grasp.   "This is not Malaysia.   Not the East.   This is Britain.   I am Lim Pek Wan."   It didn't sound exotic enough, in a strange world such as this.   "I am Deontic.   I..."   She stopped and listened.   Something had scampered in the darkness.   It was small and was lost in the bushes.    A rabbit or water-vole or something.    The water sounded wild and very close.   Deontic knew that she was very close to hallucinating a monsoon.   She walked on.   "I am Deontic.   Heir to L.   I am walking alongside the River Ystwyth, in Wales.   That is reality."

For half a mile or more, she kept up her whispered mantra.   Somewhere, in fields to her right, sheep cried out.   She doubted that they were loose.   She half hoped that their panic was something as prosaic as a fox getting in.    Something brushed her face. It wasn't sharp, but did feel wet.   She stopped dead and felt.   Reeds, or some other tall foliage.   She worried that she was straying from the path and strained for her night vision to work a little better.   She took a breath and peered at her immediate surroundings. She was still on the river path.   The water was lapping over it.   She saw it amidst the mud and froze.

The moon peeped through a crack and illuminated the way.    It was only a puddle.   She was not in a Malaysian monsoon. That was not going to happen this time.   Deontic hurried on, while the way was clear, practically running on the slippery surface.   She saw the mist ahead coalesce into a dark shape.   She heard the shuffling gait.   She stopped, staring; her mind filled with the figure that she had seen last time, rising from the depths with talons and a screaming visage.   It moved closer and her fear drained into relief. "Fenian!"    He was who she had come to find, but the reality of him being here raised spine-chilling questions.    She hurried forward to close the distance between them.

Fenian looked dead.   The murkiness of the light and the soullessness of his gaze added to the illusion.   It took him a few seconds to even recognise her.   "Dee, I'm wet."   He shivered.   Deontic nodded and shook out the blanket, that she had carried, folded, all this way.    "I've hurt my back."

"Can you walk?"   She asked, wrapping the blanket around him.   "The chalets are just fifteen minutes away. Can you make it that far?"    He was trembling.   She gave into the impulsion to hug him.   Fenian hugged her right back.   She hadn't thought that he would.   "Wow, you really are wet. Your hair is wet."    Dark imaginings threatened to take over.   Deontic asked quickly, "What happened?"

"Passages. Underground. One flooded."

Deontic frowned.   "You walked through a flooded tunnel?"   She considered it further. "Was there no option but to go through it?"

Fenian dithered under his blanket, walking doggedly on. "Did Kiana come back?   I've been a lot longer than five minutes."

Deontic walked alongside him. The path seemed so much wider, now that she wasn't alone.   "No. As far as I know, she's still at the house."   He stopped abruptly, so she did too.   "All of the car batteries have drained, throughout the town.   I doubt she could drive down, even if she'd wanted to.   None of them are back."

Fenian's expression was lost in shadow, but there was panic in his voice.   "I need to go back."

"No." Deontic stood in his way.   "Fenian, you are wet and you're injured.   Do you want pneumonia?"

"Does it fucking matter?" Fenian snapped. "She's up there!"

Deontic could only make out the shape of him, shrouded in his blanket.   She prepared to catch him anyway, if he should try to push back the way they'd come. "Someone is sopping wet, in freezing cold air, what would you do with them, Fenian?   If this was a rescue?"   He gave a strangled sound of distress.   "The house has got to you, Fenian. You know how I know?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "Because the Fenian I grew up with would never have let himself get into this situation.   If getting wet was unavoidable, he'd have taken shelter and built a fire.   Or climbed the bank and knocked on someone's door.   Now please," she advanced on him, shepherding him forward with both arms stretched wide, "let us go to the chalets.   At least dry yourself off and get changed.   We will get Kiana, if I have to go there myself to do it."

To her utter surprise, he did as he was told.   He turned around and started trudging into the direction that she wanted him to.   "I lied to her." Fenian said, huskily, after a few yards.   "I've told her so many things to get her to like me."

Deontic bit her lip.   "What's not to like?    Keep walking, not far now."

"I need to tell her the truth.   I need to take her home."

"There will be time enough." Deontic's gaze skimmed the faint contours of the mountain above.   The sea sounded closer. They had to be nearly there now.    She feared that she would miss the turning and that they would end up in the river, as it twisted to meet the town's second river, then onto the sea.   There were sniffs from the silhouette before her.   She worried that Fenian was crying.   She wondered how far his mind had gone under.   "Fenian." She waited, but he gave no indication that he had heard her.   "What are these mountains?"

There was a beat, then he softly replied, "Cambrian."

Deontic stiffened, but she could see the bridge.   She knew the way now, but Fenian was frightening her.   He had given Century's answer.   He had told her the name of the mountains.   When that same question had been asked by Hal, on the first day, Fenian had replied, 'Silurian'.    The antiquity of the rocks was apparently from the geological Silurian period, despite their name being Cambrian.    Deontic took a handful of his blanket in her hand and steered him over the bridge.   It was only a short stroll, down a lane, then up the road, to their chalets now.   "We'll soon have you warm."

"Can I use your car to get Kiana please?"   Fenian asked, quietly.

"No." Deontic grimaced.   He already knew this.   "There is a power cut. All of the batteries are dead too. Cars, 'phones, torches, everything."   She kept hold of his blanket.   He felt so docile now, shuffling alongside her on the tarmac.    "I have a flask of tea.   You can have a nice cuppa in a minute."   Fenian just nodded.   He wasn't asking any of the right questions.   He even followed her up the concrete stairs, into the computer hub, without asking why they weren't going into his own chalet. His clothes were there. It would have been the logical choice.   But she wanted him here, where she had to be.   In case the machines came back on.   She could fetch his clothes and the flask.

Fenian stood in the centre of the room, with the blanket still clasped around him, while Deontic moved around lighting all of the candles.   She had a good look at him once she had light.   He looked terrible.   Deontic pointed towards a chair and she heard his groan, as he sat down on it.   She was in the bathroom, collecting up all of the towels.   He moaned, as she returned, "Kiana's going to kill me."

"I think she'll understand."   Deontic handed him the towels.   "What have you done to your back?"

"I fell. From a height. I landed on it."   His face crumpled, but he didn't cry now. It looked like it was taking a huge effort of will not to cry.    "I had to move. I was winded. It aches. I don't want to never be able to pot-hole again."

"You can walk. You're fine." Deontic reassured, wondering if she dared leave him now to get his clean clothes.   A hot shower might help him, but she doubted that there would be any hot water.   Unless it was heated by gas. She didn't know if the gas had gone down too.

"Ciaran O'Neill fell. Not even down a hole, it was from a fucking tree, out on the lash in the city.   He landed on his back and we all took the fucking piss. He got up and walked home.   We passed his fucking front door.   Waved him into it. He was fine, you know? Fucking fine."   Fenian was staring at a patch on the floor.   "Next fucking morning, we get the news.   He'd woken up in the night for a slash.   He'd gone to get up and couldn't.   His fucking back was broken. From the fucking tree. But walked home, he did, to be sure.   I was with him."

Deontic stared, then made up her mind.   She grabbed a wind-up torch.   "Get out of those wet clothes.   I'll have a look at your back, if you're that worried.   But I really do doubt that you've broken it."   She scurried to the doorway.   "The house makes you paranoid.    It plays with your mind.   I'm going to get some clothes for you."   She hurried back out, into the night, then across to Fenian's chalet.     The torch's handle whirred in her hand, until she had enough light to find spare jeans, a t-shirt and a jumper.   She couldn't see another coat, but there were some trainers to replace his sodden boots.   It took longer than she would have liked, but as soon as she had light, it dimmed again.   She had to keep on turning the handle.    She wrapped it all up in the quilt from his bed, then visited her own chalet before rushing back.

Fenian's clothes lay in a pile beside his chair.   The carpet beneath was damp, but there was no puddle of water heading towards the electrics.    He sat on the chair still, huddled under his blanket and smoking one of Matt's cigarettes.   There were dried bloodstains on the packet, from when Valerie had returned it to the hub.   She never had managed to hand the cigarettes to Matt, in Hal's chalet, before he had attacked her.   Deontic gave Fenian a horrified look, realising that he was naked under that blanket.   She closed the door and dropped her bundle onto the table behind him. She said, tightly, "I've brought you clothes and your quilt."

"Grand." Fenian's eyes were red, but he still wasn't crying.   He eased himself painfully up and reached for them.   His gaze fell on the flask.   "How did you know to make tea?"

Deontic released a breath. "I was leaving. It was for my journey back to Winchester, before all of this kicked off."

"You were really going?"   He asked, gathering up his jeans. His eyes moved over the pile.

"Yes." She bit her lip.   She hadn't thought to bring him undergarments.   He didn't mention it, but turned away to pull on his jeans.   She had her back to him too, wishing that he'd just gone into the bathroom, but she looked around at him, as she heard a wince of pain.

"Fuck." Fenian exhaled, speaking under his breath. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

"Let me look at your back." Deontic sighed.   Fenian dropped the blanket.   She could see without moving any closer that his back was badly bruised.   It was mostly down one side, but also across his right shoulder.   As she watched, he flexed his muscles and that startled her.   She snapped, sharply, "What are you doing?"

"Do you think it's any fucking easier being looked at, than it is doing the looking?   This is fucking awkward, so it is."   Fenian railed.   "And cold."

Deontic lowered her eyes, but she did hurry forward.   She took up a candle and used it to illuminate his back.    After a while, she raised two fingers and lightly traced down the curvature of his spine.   He flinched as she reached the bruising.   "It's ok. You're just bruised."

"Fine."   Fenian snatched up his plain, navy blue t-shirt and hurriedly put it on.   Then picked up the jumper.   "This is Kiana's."

"Oh."    They both stared at it.   Deontic shrugged, "It doesn't look feminine."

Fenian shivered and put it on.   "How did you know?"

Deontic poured him a cup of tea from her flask.   "Know what?" She prompted, though she knew what he was going to ask.   She rejoiced in his asking, because it meant that his brain was working again; and that she could share her own burden of knowledge.

"To come for me.   Down the river."   Fenian left his quilt on the table and returned to the blanket.   He felt both sides, before swinging the driest side over his shoulders.   He transferred his wallet and keys, pausing to look at them, into the jeans that he was wearing.    He placed a soaking packet of cigarettes into the bin and took up the half a packet abandoned there by Matt.   He lit one. "Deontic?"   She was holding out the tea.   He took it. "Thanks a million.    How did you know to come for me?"

Deontic had been testing her response out in her head.   In the end, she just said it.   "Lamond told me."

His eyes bulged. "What?"

"I was sitting here and a text document opened."   She indicated the desktop monitor.   "It said, 'Honey-bun, Fenian is dying of hypothermia on the riverside. You should take him a blanket.'"   She bit her lip. "It's gone now."

Fenian's head moved backwards and forwards, taking in the blank screen and Deontic, then back again.   "No shit."

"That's how I knew."   Deontic bowed her head.

"For real?" Fenian gaped.   She didn't reply.   There was nothing more there to say.   "How do you know that was fucking Lamond?"

Deontic peered owlishly up at him, "Who else would call me honey-bun?   Fenian," she looked apologetic, "can you not smell her perfume?   She's been here for hours."

Every candle flickered, as if from a breeze in the centre of the room.   Neither of them felt it, but they saw the effect. Fenian leapt to Deontic's side, sucking on his cigarette.   "Fuck."

Author's Note: This story is being discussed here: http://mrsjeevas.joharrington.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=11
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Annals of Fear II