Beware the Manor House
Title: Beware the Manor House (8/?)
Rating: PG to R
Pairing: Dom/Billy, others implied
Warnings: AU, angst, horror, ghosts, implied murder, violence, scary imagery, etc. This is sort of, but not really, a death fic. Suffice it to say, major characters are no longer living and as such, are in fact dead. But in the spirit of whodunnit and AU, it really doesn’t matter much. M’kay? Just trust me.
Summary: Everybody has a hobby. Some people have an obsession.
A/N: See? I told you this fic wasn't dead (pun)! It was stuck on a ridiculously idiotic hiccup in my brain, but not dead. I just needed two years pondering to unstick it, apparently. Or more like just get over it. Anyway, sorry, filler chapter is filler. Kinda boring. And yet, unsticking things.
The lock stuck so firmly that Billy had to simultaneously heave upwards, twist both key and doorknob, and curse it creatively until it finally gave way. The house loomed over and around him, the long hall dark and foreboding with his new knowledge that someone else was here watching, someone besides one murdered young man.
He clicked on the light, finding one of his cameras set on the hall, its battery unsurprisingly dead. He left it, moving forward into the house, clicking on lights as he went, no sound at all but his own breath.
What he wanted was a do-over, a clean slate. Collecting proof of the existence of ghosts seemed immaterial now. Billy knew they existed. He’d known it long before he’d come here. This was no longer about proving it to anyone.
He advanced slowly down the main hall. On his first walkthrough, his head had been full of camera angles, drafty windows and faulty electricity. He’d roundly ignored the idea that this was someone’s house once, crafted with a family in mind. He neglected to think about it as a home, the place where Dominic grew up, where he lived, and for some unknown reason, where he died, young and violently. It was about people, real people. Ghosts were people too, Cate’s voice said in his head, and he smiled wryly.
In the music room, he walked the perimeter, studying the paintings on the walls, skirting round the chairs and settees. At the piano he lifted the lid and slid an unschooled finger along the out of tune higher keys, and thought about just how long it had been since he’d bothered to take his old guitar out of its case. Who in Dominic’s family would have played, he wondered, who would they have entertained in this room? It brought to mind those period films Maggie was so fond of, and that he typically fell asleep trying to watch, the language so pomp and the people so stiff and formal.
Dominic was the son of a doctor. A particularly well-off doctor, he thought as he entered the study, but a middle class man nonetheless. The smell of leather and paper and dust was heavy in this room, full of books and high wingback chairs, and a big carven desk. He brushed cobwebs from one set of books, thumbing carefully through the thin parchment pages which showed, in gruesome detail, drawings of organs, some spread open or cross sectioned. The text was Latin, which might as well have been Greek for all Billy could make of it. Austin Monaghan had been a well-educated man, and likely he’d expected it of his son as well.
After a quick turn though the dining room with its long table and straight-backed formal chairs, he came to the kitchens, which he’d given only a cursory look before. The ceramic sink where he had slaked his thirst seemed original, as was the butcher-block preparation table dominating the center of the room, which must have been sanded down numerous times. There was a magnificent old cast-iron cook stove as well, a thing that had to weigh near a ton. It must have cooked many a proper supper for Dom’s family and guests. However, to the other side of the kitchen was an almost modern group of appliances, from the refrigerator to the electric stove, at least the age of most of his own kitchen back in his sorry flat in London.
Another door off the kitchen he’d assumed to be a pantry led down a narrow flight of stairs, and there was no light switch here. Pulling a penlight from his pocket, he descended, the smell of earth strong in his nostrils. The brick walls were icy cold under his fingers, and the floor underfoot was hard-packed dirt. Rows of wine racks stood empty, save for a few dusty bottles dating again from the sixties.
He shivered at the chill, the temperature down here in a room dug deep into the hill far colder than the rest of the house, perfect for a wine cellar. The hairs on his neck stood up as he walked among the wine racks, his ears almost pricked for any noise but the shift of dirt beneath his trainers. He felt odd, a little lightheaded, and stopped to put a hand out on one rack to take a deep breath, his pulse beginning to race. He took another step and felt his stomach flutter, felt heat rise in his skin like a fever.
But it wasn’t the sick, gut-wrenching feeling he’d had in the coachhouse. He took another cautious step and gave a nearly involuntarily exhale as the rest of it bowled him over, a feeling he hadn’t experienced in quite a long time, really. He gasped another breath as his groin inexplicably tightened, heat pooling low with arousal.
He flushed heavily, though no one was here to see. He looked down along the darkened space between the wine racks and could see nothing, but his mind insisted, something had happened here in the dark.
He tsked to himself. There was no way he could know that. There was no way he should be feeling what he was feeling. And yet, heat ran through him, the hot, immediate, naughty feeling of a secret tryst, of the possibility of being caught, an excitement and urgency he hadn’t felt since he was quite a young man.
He held his breath and closed his eyes for a time to quell it. When he looked again, there was still nothing but bare brick and empty cellar, the feeling melting away as if it had never been.
Back to the main floor, he walked back down the main hall to the foyer, standing at the foot of the stairs for a long while in the silence. “I know you’re here,” he spoke quietly, all of his senses pricked, “Both of you.”
There was a sound like a breath being taken, and the room temperature plummeted around him, but nothing else. He took one himself, deep and centering, and started slowly up the staircase.
The anxiousness descended as expected as he arrived on the landing, clutching the banister just in case. It felt as though he was moving through water, a presence swimming around him, making itself utterly known.
He came to Dominic’s door, still shut. He reached for the knob and then jerked away with a hiss. The knob burned like it was bright hot, and even as he stared and his scorched palm and fingers, the stuffy air pressed around him, a warning.
Billy sighed, annoyed. “Dom,” he called, “Your old mate won’t let me in. Maybe you can come out? Talk with me some more?”
Silence. There wasn’t even a flicker of the lights. He turned, looking down toward the rest of the upper floor, feeling that immediate intensity blocking him. “Maybe you can grow a set and talk to me yourself, yeah?” he challenged, bracing himself, but nothing happened.
He took a step past Dominic’s door, and another, and the air descended, even his ears popping and eyes smarting with the pressure change. Another step had his ribs feeling on the verge of collapse, a claustrophobic fear setting off as his lungs seized. He couldn’t force himself any further, retreating to the relative safety of Dominic’s door.
“Why can’t I go back there?” He muttered, mostly to himself. If Holm had purchased this place, he couldn’t have done without seeing the whole house, and others had lived here prior. Why was he specifically being blocked? “What is it I’m not allowed to see?”
But his questions brought no answer, from Dom or otherwise.
The rest of the night continued in this vein as he went back to the parlor. He tried for conversation with his recorder, and with the lights. Several hours worth of little to no response left him frustrated, pouring over his papers again in search of some new bit of information to use, hoping to strike a nerve, but nothing worked. After all that had already happened to him, and Cate’s discovery of this new entity, he couldn’t help but feel duped.
It was a misty dawn when Billy sat up and yawned, bored and frustrated with yet another night of more questions and no answers. Stretching, he pulled himself out of the chair and made his way down the hall to the kitchen.
He searched the cupboards, locating a few chipped cups and some tea bags, but there was no kettle, and in his rummaging he only came up with a pot that had been used to catch a drip beneath the sink, covered in years of lime scale and completely useless for boiling water. It peeved him further that such a leak could have easily been remedied by simply tightening a joint fitting, but this was unnecessary now as the lime had sealed the leak up on its own many years ago. A shoddy, forgotten fix was certainly not a proper fix, in Billy’s professional mind. This whole place would probably benefit from being replumbed entirely.
Glancing up at the breaking dawn through the windows, he jumped a clear inch at what he saw go passed: the brim of a hat, a quick yet lurching step. It was half obscured in the thick morning fog, ghostly and unreal, yet he simply must have seen it. He leaned over the sink and craned his neck against the panes of glass, but the vision was gone around the edge of the house.
He ran for the kitchen door, yanked it open and trotted round the corner, where he now saw this ghost was, in fact, a living man, walking quickly with a cane, wearing a straw panama hat.
“Oi! What are you doing?” Billy yelled, his heart nearly throwing itself against his ribcage.
The man started and turned, as surprised as Billy was. “Oh!” He exclaimed, coughing a bit, before turning full around and spreading his hands wide in placation, the cane looped over his wrist. “I am sorry. I’m afraid I was trespassing, and knowingly at that.”
Billy looked him over carefully, assessing his harmlessness. He was an elderly chap, the hat topping a bearded, kindly face. He wore tan slacks, and cardigan a few shades lighter with suede patches on the elbows over a crisp white shirt, a light scarf tied loosely round his neck. Despite age and the cane, he stood quite upright.
“I’ve noticed lights up here the past several weeks, you see, though I’ve known this house to be vacant for some time, so I’m afraid my curiosity bested me this morning.” The old man’s voice was warm and rumbly, though clearly schooled, not unlike Holm’s high toned and proper speech. “Do accept my apology.”
Billy found his own gutter born accent coming through in response, “I didn’t see a car pull in.”
“Oh no,” the man nodded, smiling and pointing vaguely the direction he’d come from, “No, I came up the hill from the village. I rather enjoy a walk on a fine autumn morning, though I’m afraid my knees do not agree anymore, particularly with these damn hills. But I do apologize, and I’ll simply go the way I came. I shall not darken your doorstep again, as it were.”
The man gave him a wide berth, leaning heavily on his cane with the lurch in his step from an aching knee, making his way back toward the crest of the property. “Doesn’t matter much to me, it’s not mine,” Billy said, and the man stopped and turned back to him, “The house. I’m only working on it. I’m a plumber.” He indicated his van parked at the opposite corner, with his name screened on the side. He wasn’t quite willing to divulge the real reason he was here.
“Ah,” the man nodded politely. “I imagine it needs a great deal of work, as you’re certainly not the first. Good luck to you.”
“How do you know that?” Billy asked, more curious than anything.
The old man smiled, looking up at the manor fondly. “Because many years ago, I called this place my home.”
“You lived here?” Billy asked sharply.
“Oh yes,” the man confirmed, looking Billy over thoughtfully before coming forward to put out his hand, “Ian McKellen, at your service.”
“When?” Billy asked, and got a rather twinkling but stern look for his impropriety. “Sorry, Billy Boyd.”
“Charmed, Mr. Boyd,” McKellen smiled broadly at that as they shook hands. “Yes, I lived here when I was a young man. But why would a plumber be so interested, I wonder?”
Billy took in the old man’s curious and yet knowing expression. He shrugged nonchalantly, “It’s an old place. Seems like it has a lot of… history.”
“Indeed,” McKellen’s eyebrows rose. He looked at the packet of teabags still clutched in Billy’s other hand. “Perhaps you’d allow me to reminisce over tea, if you’ve time for a break? But, of course, I wouldn’t dream of it if the new owners have you indisposed.”
“No, they not even moved in yet, I’ve got time,” Billy said, shifting the packet around. “I’d rather a coffee, to be honest, but there’s no kettle here. Nothing to boil water but an old rusty pot I found under the sink.”
McKellen laughed heartily, “Good lord, still there? That’ll be Patrick’s handywork. My housemates and I were not plumbers, I’m afraid,” he grinned, “Well, this is easily remedied. Why don’t you come down the hill to my cottage? I’ll wager my tea leaves are considerably fresher than those. Or I have coffee, if that tempts you.”
Billy smiled at the old man’s charm. He turned back toward the kitchen door, rubbing his arms at the morning chill. “I’ll just get my jacket, then.”
“Of course,” McKellen followed, pausing at the threshold, “May I? It’s been so long since I’ve been inside.”
Billy shrugged, “Suit yourself. Like I said, it’s not mine, the bloke who owns it left me with the keys.”
The old man followed him through the main hall to the parlor where he’d left his jacket thrown over the side of an armchair. As he shrugged it on, all of the lights flickered, humming, and a draft flew around and through the room.
“I see the electricity is still a bit temperamental,” McKellen merely chuckled, and the lights gave another popping surge. The old man’s eyes trailed around at them, smiling with remembrance and something else, “Yes, it’s been so very long, hasn’t it, old friend?”
CHAPTER NINE
Rating: PG to R
Pairing: Dom/Billy, others implied
Warnings: AU, angst, horror, ghosts, implied murder, violence, scary imagery, etc. This is sort of, but not really, a death fic. Suffice it to say, major characters are no longer living and as such, are in fact dead. But in the spirit of whodunnit and AU, it really doesn’t matter much. M’kay? Just trust me.
Summary: Everybody has a hobby. Some people have an obsession.
A/N: See? I told you this fic wasn't dead (pun)! It was stuck on a ridiculously idiotic hiccup in my brain, but not dead. I just needed two years pondering to unstick it, apparently. Or more like just get over it. Anyway, sorry, filler chapter is filler. Kinda boring. And yet, unsticking things.
The lock stuck so firmly that Billy had to simultaneously heave upwards, twist both key and doorknob, and curse it creatively until it finally gave way. The house loomed over and around him, the long hall dark and foreboding with his new knowledge that someone else was here watching, someone besides one murdered young man.
He clicked on the light, finding one of his cameras set on the hall, its battery unsurprisingly dead. He left it, moving forward into the house, clicking on lights as he went, no sound at all but his own breath.
What he wanted was a do-over, a clean slate. Collecting proof of the existence of ghosts seemed immaterial now. Billy knew they existed. He’d known it long before he’d come here. This was no longer about proving it to anyone.
He advanced slowly down the main hall. On his first walkthrough, his head had been full of camera angles, drafty windows and faulty electricity. He’d roundly ignored the idea that this was someone’s house once, crafted with a family in mind. He neglected to think about it as a home, the place where Dominic grew up, where he lived, and for some unknown reason, where he died, young and violently. It was about people, real people. Ghosts were people too, Cate’s voice said in his head, and he smiled wryly.
In the music room, he walked the perimeter, studying the paintings on the walls, skirting round the chairs and settees. At the piano he lifted the lid and slid an unschooled finger along the out of tune higher keys, and thought about just how long it had been since he’d bothered to take his old guitar out of its case. Who in Dominic’s family would have played, he wondered, who would they have entertained in this room? It brought to mind those period films Maggie was so fond of, and that he typically fell asleep trying to watch, the language so pomp and the people so stiff and formal.
Dominic was the son of a doctor. A particularly well-off doctor, he thought as he entered the study, but a middle class man nonetheless. The smell of leather and paper and dust was heavy in this room, full of books and high wingback chairs, and a big carven desk. He brushed cobwebs from one set of books, thumbing carefully through the thin parchment pages which showed, in gruesome detail, drawings of organs, some spread open or cross sectioned. The text was Latin, which might as well have been Greek for all Billy could make of it. Austin Monaghan had been a well-educated man, and likely he’d expected it of his son as well.
After a quick turn though the dining room with its long table and straight-backed formal chairs, he came to the kitchens, which he’d given only a cursory look before. The ceramic sink where he had slaked his thirst seemed original, as was the butcher-block preparation table dominating the center of the room, which must have been sanded down numerous times. There was a magnificent old cast-iron cook stove as well, a thing that had to weigh near a ton. It must have cooked many a proper supper for Dom’s family and guests. However, to the other side of the kitchen was an almost modern group of appliances, from the refrigerator to the electric stove, at least the age of most of his own kitchen back in his sorry flat in London.
Another door off the kitchen he’d assumed to be a pantry led down a narrow flight of stairs, and there was no light switch here. Pulling a penlight from his pocket, he descended, the smell of earth strong in his nostrils. The brick walls were icy cold under his fingers, and the floor underfoot was hard-packed dirt. Rows of wine racks stood empty, save for a few dusty bottles dating again from the sixties.
He shivered at the chill, the temperature down here in a room dug deep into the hill far colder than the rest of the house, perfect for a wine cellar. The hairs on his neck stood up as he walked among the wine racks, his ears almost pricked for any noise but the shift of dirt beneath his trainers. He felt odd, a little lightheaded, and stopped to put a hand out on one rack to take a deep breath, his pulse beginning to race. He took another step and felt his stomach flutter, felt heat rise in his skin like a fever.
But it wasn’t the sick, gut-wrenching feeling he’d had in the coachhouse. He took another cautious step and gave a nearly involuntarily exhale as the rest of it bowled him over, a feeling he hadn’t experienced in quite a long time, really. He gasped another breath as his groin inexplicably tightened, heat pooling low with arousal.
He flushed heavily, though no one was here to see. He looked down along the darkened space between the wine racks and could see nothing, but his mind insisted, something had happened here in the dark.
He tsked to himself. There was no way he could know that. There was no way he should be feeling what he was feeling. And yet, heat ran through him, the hot, immediate, naughty feeling of a secret tryst, of the possibility of being caught, an excitement and urgency he hadn’t felt since he was quite a young man.
He held his breath and closed his eyes for a time to quell it. When he looked again, there was still nothing but bare brick and empty cellar, the feeling melting away as if it had never been.
Back to the main floor, he walked back down the main hall to the foyer, standing at the foot of the stairs for a long while in the silence. “I know you’re here,” he spoke quietly, all of his senses pricked, “Both of you.”
There was a sound like a breath being taken, and the room temperature plummeted around him, but nothing else. He took one himself, deep and centering, and started slowly up the staircase.
The anxiousness descended as expected as he arrived on the landing, clutching the banister just in case. It felt as though he was moving through water, a presence swimming around him, making itself utterly known.
He came to Dominic’s door, still shut. He reached for the knob and then jerked away with a hiss. The knob burned like it was bright hot, and even as he stared and his scorched palm and fingers, the stuffy air pressed around him, a warning.
Billy sighed, annoyed. “Dom,” he called, “Your old mate won’t let me in. Maybe you can come out? Talk with me some more?”
Silence. There wasn’t even a flicker of the lights. He turned, looking down toward the rest of the upper floor, feeling that immediate intensity blocking him. “Maybe you can grow a set and talk to me yourself, yeah?” he challenged, bracing himself, but nothing happened.
He took a step past Dominic’s door, and another, and the air descended, even his ears popping and eyes smarting with the pressure change. Another step had his ribs feeling on the verge of collapse, a claustrophobic fear setting off as his lungs seized. He couldn’t force himself any further, retreating to the relative safety of Dominic’s door.
“Why can’t I go back there?” He muttered, mostly to himself. If Holm had purchased this place, he couldn’t have done without seeing the whole house, and others had lived here prior. Why was he specifically being blocked? “What is it I’m not allowed to see?”
But his questions brought no answer, from Dom or otherwise.
The rest of the night continued in this vein as he went back to the parlor. He tried for conversation with his recorder, and with the lights. Several hours worth of little to no response left him frustrated, pouring over his papers again in search of some new bit of information to use, hoping to strike a nerve, but nothing worked. After all that had already happened to him, and Cate’s discovery of this new entity, he couldn’t help but feel duped.
It was a misty dawn when Billy sat up and yawned, bored and frustrated with yet another night of more questions and no answers. Stretching, he pulled himself out of the chair and made his way down the hall to the kitchen.
He searched the cupboards, locating a few chipped cups and some tea bags, but there was no kettle, and in his rummaging he only came up with a pot that had been used to catch a drip beneath the sink, covered in years of lime scale and completely useless for boiling water. It peeved him further that such a leak could have easily been remedied by simply tightening a joint fitting, but this was unnecessary now as the lime had sealed the leak up on its own many years ago. A shoddy, forgotten fix was certainly not a proper fix, in Billy’s professional mind. This whole place would probably benefit from being replumbed entirely.
Glancing up at the breaking dawn through the windows, he jumped a clear inch at what he saw go passed: the brim of a hat, a quick yet lurching step. It was half obscured in the thick morning fog, ghostly and unreal, yet he simply must have seen it. He leaned over the sink and craned his neck against the panes of glass, but the vision was gone around the edge of the house.
He ran for the kitchen door, yanked it open and trotted round the corner, where he now saw this ghost was, in fact, a living man, walking quickly with a cane, wearing a straw panama hat.
“Oi! What are you doing?” Billy yelled, his heart nearly throwing itself against his ribcage.
The man started and turned, as surprised as Billy was. “Oh!” He exclaimed, coughing a bit, before turning full around and spreading his hands wide in placation, the cane looped over his wrist. “I am sorry. I’m afraid I was trespassing, and knowingly at that.”
Billy looked him over carefully, assessing his harmlessness. He was an elderly chap, the hat topping a bearded, kindly face. He wore tan slacks, and cardigan a few shades lighter with suede patches on the elbows over a crisp white shirt, a light scarf tied loosely round his neck. Despite age and the cane, he stood quite upright.
“I’ve noticed lights up here the past several weeks, you see, though I’ve known this house to be vacant for some time, so I’m afraid my curiosity bested me this morning.” The old man’s voice was warm and rumbly, though clearly schooled, not unlike Holm’s high toned and proper speech. “Do accept my apology.”
Billy found his own gutter born accent coming through in response, “I didn’t see a car pull in.”
“Oh no,” the man nodded, smiling and pointing vaguely the direction he’d come from, “No, I came up the hill from the village. I rather enjoy a walk on a fine autumn morning, though I’m afraid my knees do not agree anymore, particularly with these damn hills. But I do apologize, and I’ll simply go the way I came. I shall not darken your doorstep again, as it were.”
The man gave him a wide berth, leaning heavily on his cane with the lurch in his step from an aching knee, making his way back toward the crest of the property. “Doesn’t matter much to me, it’s not mine,” Billy said, and the man stopped and turned back to him, “The house. I’m only working on it. I’m a plumber.” He indicated his van parked at the opposite corner, with his name screened on the side. He wasn’t quite willing to divulge the real reason he was here.
“Ah,” the man nodded politely. “I imagine it needs a great deal of work, as you’re certainly not the first. Good luck to you.”
“How do you know that?” Billy asked, more curious than anything.
The old man smiled, looking up at the manor fondly. “Because many years ago, I called this place my home.”
“You lived here?” Billy asked sharply.
“Oh yes,” the man confirmed, looking Billy over thoughtfully before coming forward to put out his hand, “Ian McKellen, at your service.”
“When?” Billy asked, and got a rather twinkling but stern look for his impropriety. “Sorry, Billy Boyd.”
“Charmed, Mr. Boyd,” McKellen smiled broadly at that as they shook hands. “Yes, I lived here when I was a young man. But why would a plumber be so interested, I wonder?”
Billy took in the old man’s curious and yet knowing expression. He shrugged nonchalantly, “It’s an old place. Seems like it has a lot of… history.”
“Indeed,” McKellen’s eyebrows rose. He looked at the packet of teabags still clutched in Billy’s other hand. “Perhaps you’d allow me to reminisce over tea, if you’ve time for a break? But, of course, I wouldn’t dream of it if the new owners have you indisposed.”
“No, they not even moved in yet, I’ve got time,” Billy said, shifting the packet around. “I’d rather a coffee, to be honest, but there’s no kettle here. Nothing to boil water but an old rusty pot I found under the sink.”
McKellen laughed heartily, “Good lord, still there? That’ll be Patrick’s handywork. My housemates and I were not plumbers, I’m afraid,” he grinned, “Well, this is easily remedied. Why don’t you come down the hill to my cottage? I’ll wager my tea leaves are considerably fresher than those. Or I have coffee, if that tempts you.”
Billy smiled at the old man’s charm. He turned back toward the kitchen door, rubbing his arms at the morning chill. “I’ll just get my jacket, then.”
“Of course,” McKellen followed, pausing at the threshold, “May I? It’s been so long since I’ve been inside.”
Billy shrugged, “Suit yourself. Like I said, it’s not mine, the bloke who owns it left me with the keys.”
The old man followed him through the main hall to the parlor where he’d left his jacket thrown over the side of an armchair. As he shrugged it on, all of the lights flickered, humming, and a draft flew around and through the room.
“I see the electricity is still a bit temperamental,” McKellen merely chuckled, and the lights gave another popping surge. The old man’s eyes trailed around at them, smiling with remembrance and something else, “Yes, it’s been so very long, hasn’t it, old friend?”
CHAPTER NINE