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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

Chapter List
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Deontic was sitting on a computer chair at the desk, folding origami, when they heard the bicycle return below.   Fenian lay, half-curled in his quilt, on another long table, set against the wall.   He was battling between the twin needs of getting warm, though the cold seemed in his bones, and sorting out his back.   Deontic said it was just bruised, but it ached like something had snapped inside.   Another couple of minutes of the foetal-shaped search for body heat and he would turn onto his back. Keep it straight.   Try not to do any more damage.

But, Mother of God, he wanted to be out there. He couldn't stand the waiting much longer. Deontic had said that Kiana was undoubtedly on her way back.   Valerie would be returning with someone and Deontic deduced that it would be Kiana.   Fenian worried over it.   It was more likely that Century would return.   As long as Kiana thought Fenian still down that shaft, she would stay, whatever the cost to her.   He had seen Valerie. He was sure that they had seen him too.   It had all been so much of a daze.   Stumbling out of those tunnels.   Fenian shuddered.    Cold terror settled in his stomach and he couldn't make much sense of all that he'd seen by the end.   Hallucinating badly; or seeing the world as it truly was.     He prayed that Valerie had seen him; and she had told Kiana that he was out.

Fenian started at the sound from the foot of the stairs.   Deontic rose, stiffly, and walked to the window.   Fenian tried to jump up, but pain ripped through his shoulder and the small of his back.   He clenched his teeth against it, trying not to even wince, let alone cry out.   Deontic saw. She had her back to him, but he knew that she saw.   She turned now, surveying him carefully.   Fenian gasped, more loudly than he had intended, "Who's back?"

"It's Kiana and Century."   She stepped to the doorway.   "Stay here. I'll send her up."    Fenian made to rise anyway, but Deontic waved him down.   "Stay." She said, like he was a dog.   Then she hurried out into the freezing night.

Fenian slid off the table.   He kept the quilt around his shoulders, all bunched up in his fist at the front.   He steadied himself, then wandered out, to the top of the stairs, to wait for Kiana.    She would be here soon.   She was going to marry him. He shouldn't have left her.   She was going to kill him.    He should have gone back for her.   She was coming up the stairs.    She was with Century. She looked up and saw him.   "You fucking wanker!"   Kiana broke away from Century on the upper stairs, rushing up towards him.   She was furious.   Fenian felt the fear flood his senses. "You fucking cac ar oineach!"

Deontic was rushing back up too.   "Kiana!"   She passed Century; the teenager falling back to let her do it, looking drawn and full of dread himself.   "He's..."

"You left me in that fucking place!   With your man! Who I'd just had under a gun!"   Kiana spat out, right in his face.   "What the fuck, Liam? What the sweet...?"   She barged past him into the relative warmth of the computer hub.    Candles softly illuminated the place.   "Oh! Very cosy!"

It was hopeless, but Fenian had to try.   She was all he had left.   He followed her in, "Ki, I thought..."

Kiana gave a frustrated sound, turning away from him.    Deontic moved behind Fenian.   Her hands on either side of his torso gently guiding him further away from the doorway.    Deontic stepped around him.   "Enough, Kiana."   She stated firmly.   "He's injured.   He's been in a very dark place and he's been outside, sopping wet, for a considerable length of time."   They watched Kiana's face soften, but not much.   Deontic carried straight on; and Fenian didn't know whether to thank her or shrink in mortification. "I've had a terrible time trying to stop him coming to get you.   He thought you'd have been back before him.   In truth, he's been sitting here telling me that you've probably ended your relationship and he's devastated about that."

"Really?"   Kiana was still blazing.   She addressed Fenian rather than Deontic, having to stare over the little Malaysian woman to do so.   "Have you got any idea what it was like for me up there?   Or down here for that matter?    I'm fucking overwhelmed, you inconsiderate, fucking..." She roared out her embitterment, unable to even pin down an insult that encompassed all her fright and rage.   "I wasn't an Aisling up there. I was a fucking scared stupid, silly fucking woman."

Century was in the room now.   He'd put the defibrillator against the wall and was sitting breathlessly witnessing this.   He spoke up now. "Ki, you were..."

"I couldn't feel you, Liam!" She yelled.   "I couldn't feel if you were in this world or the next! I was fucking surrounded! And all the time you were..." She gestured around the room.    "Where the fuck were you?"

Fenian was rooted to the spot.   Unable to form the words; unable to believe that Deontic was fighting his corner for him. Just thinking of all the things that he'd planned to say to this woman.   They came out now, in a gush, that made no sense even to his ears, but kept on coming.   "I wasn't born in Connemara.   I was born in Galway city.   We spoke English at home."

Century's head rose, "Dewi! Did you?"

Kiana was just staring at him, incredulous.   The fight seemed suddenly to go out of her and she sat down heavily, on the seat recently vacated by Deontic.   "What does it fucking...?"

Fear drove Fenian on.   He had to tell her.   He had to tell the truth.   "My Ma looked down on An Ghaeltacht.   She said that there's no future in the language and the best thing for the areas would be to be dragged into the 21st century.   Mrs O'Riley and her friends were always talking in Gaeilge, down the shop, and Ma was convinced they were talking about her. It used to really rile her."

"Liam, I think we long since established that you're a lying toerag." Kiana looked tired. "What the fuck happened back at that house?"

Fenian was grinding his teeth. This was the bit that he was dreading.   "We had nothing whatsoever to do with Óglaigh na hÉireann."

Kiana bowed her head, replying tersely, "Right."

"IRA?" Century translated from his smattering of Irish Gaelic.   "I thought your family had someone in it. Killed transporting arms up Derry, was it?"

"I lied, Century! Ok?"   Fenian snapped.   It hadn't even occurred to him, when he started, that Century would be listening too. It was fine. Century had to know the truth too.   He just wished that the teenager wasn't looking at him with such disappointment.   He wished even more that Kiana would look at him.   He'd lost her. He knew it down to the bones of him.

Deontic raised her hands for calm. "Please."   She stood right in the middle of them.   "Kiana, if he'd known you were still up there, he'd have killed himself getting back to you.   The house has played on everyone's emotions and brought everyone's paranoias into sharp focus.   Century, you know this.   Can you all please assume that your worst fears are psychosomatic?    Please stop judging one another, because most of it isn't real.   You are doing it to yourselves."    She glanced at Kiana. "He's been doing this since he got back.   He's in crisis, but so are you. We have to remember that we still have people up there in the midst of it.   Can someone please tell me what is happening at the house?"

Century was shaking his head, breathing normally, "I can't believe that you lied about that. Here's me feeling guilty, I was! Because I didn't think any of mine were involved in Meibion Glyndŵr!"

"Century!" Deontic glared. "Stop. Now."

"Fucking lie, the whole thing." Century ranted on. "All that time at Wammy's House, when..."

Fenian couldn't tear his eyes from Kiana.   "Are we over?" She didn't look up.   He was going to cry and he refused to do that in front of them.   He turned away, towards the door, stooping painfully once to pick up his jeans.   They were wet, but they had his stuff in it.   His wallet. His stone.   It wasn't until he held the sodden jeans in his hand that he realised that he had already transferred his belongings. He was a mess.   His mind was spinning out.

"Liam."   Kiana spoke up, sounding exhausted.   "Will you please, for the love of God, calm it down?   I need a minute, that's all.   Just a fucking minute to sort my head out."   Hope flared and Fenian stared back at her.

Deontic sighed, "Kiana, I know it's hard, but he needs more than that.   You know the power of that place.   You don't know the power of the place he was in before."

"Oh! I do."   Kiana countered.   She rubbed her face. "I've seen it with knobs on today."

Fenian had never quite felt like this before. He'd been scared; he'd been distraught; he'd been lost.   But all of those seemed to hang in a pinpoint of emotion.   It was like the world was crashing down around his ears and, worse, that there was something that he could do about it. But he didn't know what.   He didn't know what to do.   His whole genius was ebbing away in sheer desperation of being.   He wanted to fling himself at her feet and beg her to stay with him.   He didn't want Century or Deontic to see him like that.   He didn't want Kiana to see him like that.   He wanted to flee. He wanted to stay.   He didn't know whether to stay silent or go on speaking, telling her the truth, letting her see him. Really see him. Before, when he thought he might still have been sane, he had decided then to tell her everything. He should still be doing that. But she was hurting.

It had gone very quiet.   Awkward.   Kiana looked at him.   It was like she was looking right into him.   "I think you'd better tell me what happened to you down there."   Her gaze fell to the pile of his wet clothes, in their damp patch on the carpet.   It travelled over Deontic, who seemed unreadable to Fenian, but Kiana still gave her a knowing stare; then she glanced at Century.   "And before you start, I want to get something clear.   I've been here now and I've met them.   I'll tell you something for nothing. There's a little boy inside Mello that's screaming.   There's your monster, Liam.   A little boy screaming.   As for Matt, he scares me more than Mello ever could, for all it's Mello you've been calling the fucking Beast.   There's something broken inside him and I'm not sure what it is."   She shrugged.   "I just know this.   The pair of them are in big trouble and I'm not participating in anything that's a fucking internal war anymore.   You lot have your playground squabbles on your time, not mine. Understood?"

Century and Deontic were both watching her with blank looks.   Fenian felt like he was fighting for his life; like this was another Wammy's House test and all could be won or lost on how well he performed.    His mind was like glue. He stood there, holding his quilt around him, no longer for warmth but just because it was something to hold on to.   It occurred to him that it might look like he literally had a comfort blanket.   He nearly let it drop.   He remembered that, somewhere underneath it all, he was still cold. He held onto the quilt.   Deontic spoke, quietly, but firmly, "Mello and Matt are in trouble?   What is happening up there?"

"Call it instinct." Kiana replied, shaking back her hair, then catching it in her hand. She pinned it back with a large hair-slide. "We left them standing by the road.   Daf and Valerie have gone back, haven't they?"

Deontic nodded. "Did they outline a strategy?"

Fenian couldn't wait any longer.   Kiana had asked him a question, then she'd been diverted off into this. It was Deontic, trying to get higher in the rankings.   He cut in before Kiana could answer her.   "There was a quartz monolith down there.   The house is built up around it.   It looked like it came from the Preseli Mountains to me, but I didn't have much time to inspect it.   If it is, then it's the same rock that part of Stonehenge is made from.   Same source anyway.   Then..." Fenian remembered that voice. The gruff, deep, male voice that had spoken right into his ear.    He shuddered.   He was staring dead ahead, seeing nothing but the darkness and the falling.   Smelling the putrifying flesh in the room beneath.   Seeing the scattered skeletons. Feeling the pain of his suspected broken back.

"Liam?"   Kiana had somehow stood and walked across to him without his having seen her move. Deontic had shifted too. She was sitting beside Century. They were all watching him.    "An buachall ban?"   As his focus found her, Kiana smiled.   She brushed his hair with her fingers.   "Sit with me."    He let the quilt drop to the carpet.   He wrapped his arms around her and held her close.   Her hand moved lightly up and down his spine.   It felt like electricity.   She whispered into his ear,   "Stay with me." She pulled away from him and picked up the quilt again.   A corner had landed onto his wet clothing. He didn't know how damp that would make it.   It wasn't dripping.   Kiana took him over to the table and sat him down on it.   It felt safer, like he had already passed.   Fenian's mind slipped.   He couldn't remember what it was he was trying to pass.

Deontic said quietly, like she was trying not to startle him, "Can we please establish if there is a priority?   You said that Mello and Matt are in trouble. Is there something that I should be doing?"

Fenian stared at her.   Kiana was easing him along, so that she could perch on the table beside him.   They had their backs to the wall.   The stench of vomit was suddenly overpowering, then just as quickly receded.   Century and Deontic were both moving their chairs, so that they could face him.    Even Century looked cautious, no word from him anymore about heart attacks or feeling afraid.   He awarded Fenian a tight smile. It was reassurance.   Fenian blinked, "Fuck!"   He shook his head, trying to clear it. "Someone give me a fucking cigarette.   You're all looking at me like I'm going under!"

Century found the packet and the lighter.   He inspected them. "These Matt's?"   As he handed them over, he laughed. It sounded forced.

Fenian lit the cigarette.   He sucked on it like there was sanity in the smoke.   Kiana had the quilt around them both.   She had to have had the wet corner tucked away by her, because it was dry around him.   Fenian found that he was shivering quite badly and hoped that that was still with cold. There was no central heating switched on.    The boiler was electrical.   "Why is there a power cut?"

Century and Deontic exchanged glances.   Deontic replied, "It happened last time too, but only with the manor house itself.   We thought it was whatever phenomena was active had tripped the circuit in some way.    Matt couldn't find a cause."

Kiana smiled, "Matt was probably looking for something in the wiring."   She had her arm around Fenian, cuddling up to him.   It occurred to him that the comfort was for her too.   It wasn't all for him. That made him feel better about it.    "They need energy to manifest.   It's hard work for them."

"Who?" Deontic demanded.

"The ghosts."   Kiana's expression hardened.   She awaited a challenge that never came. "When this is over, people are going to look at the grid, the transformers and all of those sub-stations, and they are going to scratch their heads.   There is no power cut. The electricity is getting through.   It's just being soaked up immediately by them.   Can't you feel it in the air?   Can't you feel them here?"   Her gaze flickered to a spot by the kitchenette.    Century turned to see, but Deontic just watched her.   Fenian could already view the whole room.   He half imagined that the space shimmered very slightly; that a shape could almost be seen in the faintest golden specks against the half-light.   He stopped looking.   He didn't want ghosts here.   Not even those he had known in life.    "I felt it surge.   After Liam disappeared.    I felt the presences grow in intensity.   It was their chance to get their messages across and so they grabbed it.   You did this at Samhain.   I did try to warn you."

Deontic gestured to be allowed to interject.   "What is Samhain?   Hallowe'en?"

Fenian desperately wanted to get his story out. He was ready again to tell them about the tunnels.   But Kiana was talking. "The short answer?   It's new year's eve." Kiana addressed her comments to Deontic, but the other two already knew.   "The time between the times.   You're in a Celtic country now."

"Cymric.   Gallic, if you like." Century lazily interrupted. "You realise that the whole Celtic thing is a 19th century invention?   Yes, there has been a more or less stable population since the last Ice Age receded, but they wouldn't have called themselves Celtic.   The word's fucking..."   Fenian was glaring at him.   Century's words petered away.

Kiana carried on. "Two things you need to grasp to understand the Celtic mind.   The first is that everything is interwoven. This world, the otherworld, the world of fairy, every plane of existence.   The second is that you can access them more easily in the in-between places.   Shorelines, neither land nor sea; new year's eve, neither one year nor the next; midnight, the witching hour," Kiana smirked, "neither one day nor the other; sunrise and sunset, neither night nor day.   These are all the places and times, where the veil is thin.    These planes are layered on top of each other or, if you prefer, they are twisted together."   She kissed Fenian's cheek.   Fenian jolted.   It felt more like she was with him.   "Are you too cold to roll up your sleeve?   I want her to see your tattoo."

Deontic stopped her. "I saw it.   The DNA double helix encircling his bicep."

All three Celts smiled.   Kiana replied, "It's not the double helix, though that works too. It's a Celtic band. It's the interwovenness of being."

Fenian exhaled smoke, "It's the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost."

Kiana looked at him. "It's the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone.   The land, the sea and the sky."

Fenian glanced at Deontic's neutral expression, "Stick with the double helix.   She'll get that more.    Only it's three bands, if you look closely.   I think that what you took for the shading between the two strands of the helix was the other band."   He was looking for the flicker in her eyes and he saw it.   No-one else would have. Her face was too studied in blankness for that. Deontic was angry with herself for not having seen it properly.   That was not in keeping with her training and it told Fenian that she was just as freaked out as the rest of them.   "What's your double helix?   It's a spiral polymer of nucleic acids, with the nucleotides holding them together. Yes?   And that's the basis of life. That tells you what is, what's reality.   It's the difference between a human being and a banana. But what would happen if you split the DNA?   Shaved the double helix right down the middle?"

Deontic frowned, "That is how DNA multiplies, in effect. There are spare nucleotides floating around inside and the bond wants to reform. So they recreate the strip.   It renews itself."

Fenian nodded.   He was helping Kiana translate this into a language that Deontic understood. That had to get him brownie points.   "Keep the double helix in your mind, but expand it.   Imagine that, instead of nucleic acid, we are talking about planes of existence.   Keep to this concept, as you hear what Kiana has to say."

Deontic nodded once.   Kiana waited a few seconds to see if anything more was going to be said.   She went on. "There are points in the spiral, when things can cross over.   When the state is neither one nor the other or has a foothold in both.   Imagine yourself asleep and dreaming.   You are in the physical world, but you are also in the dreamworld."

Deontic shook her head. "Not really.   The dreamworld is still in the physical world. It's in my mind."

"Yes!" Kiana smirked, like she had encountered a prize pupil.   "The mind. The psyche. I'm a psychic.   Sceptics say that ghosts are all in the mind and they are right.   But not my mind."   She glanced at that spot near to the kitchenette again. "Their own mind."   She looked just as suddenly back to Deontic.   "When someone dies, how do you know?   Heartbeat gone, yes.   No pulse. Not breathing.   But what is the definitive call for death?"

"Brain death."   Deontic replied.   It was only subtle, but she was showing signs of impatience.   This needed to be relevant.   Kiana urged her on with a movement of her head. "The electrical impulses, which activate the brain, have gone."

Kiana smiled, "Can electricity be destroyed?"

"It can be lost." Deontic challenged.

Kiana grimaced, "It can be transmuted, but not destroyed.   It's not activating the brain anymore, but it's still out there. Powering the television or something."   She had enough experience of living with Fenian to know that she was opening the floodgates to a debate here.   She hurried on.   "If I asked a scientist to show me where the mind is, could that be done?   Where are thoughts? Point to it in your body?"   The questions were rhetorical, she gushed on. "That's what some ghosts are. They are minds freed from the body.   Minds with thoughts and a memory of a body.   Close your eyes.   You still know what you look like and so do they.   But could you, with your eyes closed, project an image of yourself out there, so that we could physically see it?   No! This is what those kind of ghosts are up against.   It is actually possible, but I'm not going to try and convince you of that now. It's possible when the conditions are right and when they have an energy source.   They need something to boost that image and that takes a lot of energy.   It can't be maintained."

Century sucked on his lollipop.   Deontic just stared at her.   "It's a theory." She said, eventually.

"That house, up there, has energy.   Some places just do.   I'm not the geologist here and I'm struggling to convince him to become a para-geologist to get answers for us."

Fenian's heart pounded. "If that's what you want me to do."   His hand, under the quilt, was tapping on his thigh.   He knew Kiana's theories. They weren't distracting him anymore.   His mind was out there, under the mountain, in those tunnels, seeing.   His mind was in this room, trying to analyse all that Kiana said and did. Trying to guess if they had a future.    He lit another of Matt's cigarettes and wondered if there was another packet.   There were only three in this one.   At this rate, they would soon be gone.

Kiana raised her eyebrows. "We'll discuss it later.   Along with everything else."   She directed her attention back to Deontic.   "Something about that house is already wide open.    I've only told you about one sort of ghost.   Those who, when the electricity, or the mind, fled the body, held onto it.    They weren't ready to have their life transmuted, if you like.   But a lot of things get shoved into the category of 'ghost' and some of them have nothing to do with the supernatural at all.   The senses, body and mind can play tricks on us and the environment can help us do it. But then there is residual energy.   Have you ever walked into a room, when there's been an argument or great emotional upset?   And you can feel it, even if no-one is in the room anymore?"

Deontic smiled kindly, "You are talking to three people trained to look for clues.   Of course we can perceive things."

"No doubt you can." Kiana pressed. "But these are times when there are no clues to be found.   Or have you been to a place which is normally busy, but when it's empty?   Like a school at night or an empty railway station.   Have you felt as if the atmosphere is buzzing?"

"With respect, is this informing the case?"

"Yes, because that fucking house is full of residual energy."   Kiana sighed. "I wish I could fucking communicate this!   Sometimes, especially when great emotion has been felt, things get imprinted onto the environment.   Smells are the first, but sounds and, in strong scenarios, visuals too.   You aren't seeing ghosts, you're seeing it as it happened. It's like a video recording being replayed."

Century raised his head.   "That fucker running up to the roof.   Ioan Prothero."   Beside him, Deontic nodded, but what she believed, she didn't let on.   Century stood. "I'll be right back."

Deontic grabbed his sleeve. "Where are you going?"

"Get some books from my study chalet."   He shrugged. "Want to look some more at the history."

Deontic rose too.   "I'll come with you."    He didn't argue and the two left the room.

Kiana grimaced.   Fenian felt frozen.   They were alone.   He looked at her, "Ki?"

"Liam, I know what you're going to say."   Kiana replied.   "But not now, please?   I'm all over the fucking place and I just don't know.   I know that's not what you want to hear, but I'm being honest with you."   Fenian grit his teeth, wanting to plead his case. Wanting to know.   "Is it reassurance that you're wanting?   Well, I'm not walking out on you.   We'll go back to Leam and we'll hash it out."   He nodded, knowing that that was the best that he could hope for right now.   Kiana sighed and seemed to relent.   "I do love you, Liam.   Is that what you're waiting for?"   Fenian looked sharply at her, but the others were coming back. Kiana just smiled and nodded.   It felt like a breakthrough.   "We'll talk it through back home."

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