Our Pan

((Still haven't a clue exactly what is going on, but I'm getting closer! The boys have been running rampant through my head all day! Let's see what setting them free will do for us all!

Please let me know if this is of interest at all to you. Otherwise I think I might bag it and go on to a more appealing idea.))

Our Pan, of The Tale of My Family Tree

Gabriel leans back in his chair and looks down at the chart before him with a steady intake of breath. The name above it, that of a Mrs. O'Hara, is not his least favorite by any means. But the widow takes up more energy than many of his patients and he finds it more than helpful to prepare himself mentally for the barrage of need that he's come to expect from her.

She was 'a dear' as Mrs. Vantage called her. And he'd had more than one evening's supper at her house while she attempted to ply him with food and foist her daughter on him. It was a relief when her daughter came unglued during a lengthy talk with Mrs. O'Hara over her wifely qualities and told her aged mother that she was engaged, thank you very much, I wanted to tell you another way but gods, Mother, you drive me insane!

"Oh Dr. Chelsea!" Mrs. O'Hara flutters in with her overly loud pink sweater and her tan slacks over her somewhat generally rotund frame. She's a large woman both in size and height but her voice is soft as a bird, breathy and sweet. "Oh, thank you so much for seeing me on such short notice! It's my back you see," and she settles upon the table, allowing him to do his blood pressure checking, all the while prattling on about the state of her garden in this rain. "Just one day of sunshine, that is all I ask! Just enough to get the bloody roses to open!" The sweetness of her voice is untouched by the strength of the language she chooses, along with the clear blue of her eyes and the brightness of the colors that cover her frame.

Gabriel smiles and takes her hand in a friendly manner, patting it. "How is your daughter, Mrs. O'Hara?"

The woman pinks and titters. (What a strange sound coming from a large woman.) "Oh Dr. Chelsea! She is doing wonderfully. She and her Howard are settled into London. They've a flat there, you know."

That topic lasts a goodly way through the examination of a particular rash on her inner arm. Once the cream is decided upon and the prescription is given, Gabriel settles upon his stool, tucking his legs underneath him, grasps his knees and prepares to listen.

"You've heard of course that the old Black place has been taken up, haven't you? By an American of all people!"

He hadn't heard that, no. But he doesn't think he'd have time to tell her that, for even if he'd heard it all, he'd have been told it all again as it is.

"Well! Miss Jennings went up with a plate of biscuits for him, intending on introducing herself, and getting a proper look you know how nosy and gossipy she can be, only she says that he just about kicked her out of the house! She says he's got the foyer filled with objects covered in sheets. I think they are more than likely something expensive and rather garrish, you know how they can be. However, Harriet believes that he's a scientist, a physicist from Washington. That's where he got his money, you see."

Gabriel makes a mental note to stop by the new home. It was tradition, much as it can be deserved to call it so, that two people, beyond the welcome wagon, came to one's house. The doctor and the priest. He can be fairly certain that Father Howe has already made his way past. With Miss Jennings doing the initial foray into the gossip circles with her information, that leaves he alone to clinch the deal and welcome this newcomer to their village.

"But as I was saying," Mrs. O'Hara continues, "Howard is just delightful. His parents on the other hand. I don't want to speak unkindly of course, but his mother I think is from lower roots, if you know my meaning. To be sure, he -"

The O'Hara slot was routinely made to be one hour total and always with another patient waiting. When Mrs. Vantage rescues him, Gabriel is well acquainted with any ailments and angry spats that have occurred in the last two months since he'd seen Mrs. O'Hara last. From then, he has a ten minute act of considerable will in moving the "dear woman" out of his office.

"She's a dear," Mrs. Vantage murmurs to him after Mrs. O'Hara has gone, a moment before his next appointment. Then she hands him a file and with what could only be described as a wicked grin, adds, "Mrs. Dale is next."

"Dear God," Gabriel prays aloud and laughs. "You are an evil woman, Gladyce."

"Of course, Doctor," She smiles. "That's what I'm paid for."

~*~*~*~

The pathway leading up to the Black Manor is of stone, well tended even after five years of standing vacant. It was the means of the estate, that the Manor would stay thus between owners and apparently monies were set into an ancient trust to ensure such things would happen, so far as to give a family name for the caretakers and provisions if there were none of those as well.

Christian Lowe, the present Master Caretaker, ninth in a run of Lowe men to take on the job, pauses and wipes his brow before smiling. "Good afternoon, Dr. Chelsea."

"How is your back, Chris?"

"Muscle's back to working quiet well, thank you. Master Finn will be grateful to meet you. I've told him to expect you."

"Has the father been by as well?" Gabriel transfers his keys from his hand to his pocket.

"Aye, been and gone, really."

"Well then, thank you."

"Certainly, sir," Christian nods then turns back to his weeding.

The bell sounds deep into the Manor and Gabriel purses his lips as he waits. When the door opens, he smiles politely to the tall man standing there, staring at him silently.

"Hello," he offers. "I.. err.. well now. I was hoping that Mr. Finn was home?" The man quietly regards him and Gabriel feels his cheek flushing. Were all manservents or butlers or however one wished to consider this one, as cold as this man?

Or as drop dead gorgeous?

Yes, that was a concern as well. For the man standing in the doorway, watching him with eyes that are a nondescript grey, his slender face pale and his mouth closed in a shadowed line is the very type that makes Gabe's heart race. He is all angles and well constructed muscle, like a long distance runner, slender hips and shoulders; a blend of strength and fragile. The silver hair seems strange, so pale that it could be only be described as platinum as it couldn't possibly be grey, cut to just below the reach of his collar, it wisps out as fine as corn silk, and possibly even more soft.

"Martin?" a soft voice breaks across the threshold. "What have you.. oh!" and another man, the same slender, the same strange gaze, yet more present if such a thing were possible, appears. His hair light brown, his body more fleshed out, less transitory, as if he were more firmly in the world? It is as if Gabe hadn't realized how ethereal the beauty of the first was until he'd met with the more human handsome looks of the second. "You must be the doctor," the man says calmly and touches the arm of the slender man. "Come, Martin, let him in."

Gabriel swallows, letting his eyes rise to look into those distant grey eyes. They see through him almost. Martin licks his lips and his tongue is almost sensuously pink against his pale skin. "Perhaps I ought not to.." he begins.

"Well, Martin wasn't so very keen on having the Father come in, actually. But I would have thought he'd have let you in," the other gentleman says and then smiles when Martin looks back into the house as if he'd suddenly been reminded of a forgotten task. "There.. see?" and he moves to the side, watching Martin slip soundlessly into the darkness of the house, through white covered masses in the foyer, and out of sight.

"Do come in," the other man offers with a hand and an apologetic smile. "My name if Finn. Rather, my friends call me that. You're more than welcome to call me it as well. My housemate Martin." He jerks his head back in what seems far more graceful than anyone's head jerk should be, "He's a tad lost, I'm afraid. We're still trying to find where he belongs."

"You said you thought he'd let me in?" Gabe asks with interest, his mind already captured by the fae creature passed from his vision.

"Ah, well I had hoped, of course," Finn shrugs. "He's picky but he seems to like other young men and the more scientific your background, the more he enjoys their company. He is a chemist you see. But it has been a long time since he's done any work in the field. We keep hoping that he'll come out of his quiet some day, rediscover the sciences."

Gabe is about to answer when a chill hits him and he watches a woman enter the foyer. Her eyes almost pure black, her skin white, mouth full and frightfully blood red. Beside him, on the threshold of the house, Finn stiffens. "My wife," he says with the coolness of a true Englishman. "Etain, this is Dr. Chelsea. We were told to expect him."

"Good morning, Mrs. Finn," Gabe inclines his head slightly toward the woman.

"Dr. Chelsea," her voice is smooth, like a petal of nightshade, dark and rich seeming. Yet it gives him a shiver and he gives a half step back. Still, it can't be his imagination that sees her pleasure at his nervousness. This woman likes power, rather, she radiates it, far more than her husband does. The pair of them together, however, is almost overwhelming, he concludes. The man's eyes behind a pair of spectacles still see more than they should and she... her very presence speaks of something ancient, uncaring, cold as the grave, but far too alive.

They remind him of a long buried stone in a cairn with a long forgotten sorcerer stationed beside, the pair working on forgotten and selfish arts that man has long lost memory of.

"Would you care for some tea?" Mrs. Finn asks and Gabe finds himself within the closed up house without knowing how he had gotten there. The sitting room has many of the old furniture that stands as testament to each of the Manor's owners, their things left behind to furnish the empty halls and speak of their passing. It is a jumble of timed pieces, this from the forties, that from the eighteen forties.

He looks about him, blinking back shock, finding himself upon a couch. Beside him, the silent, beautiful Martin sits, watching the fire. Before him is a cup of tea resting on his knee, untouched and cooling. Mrs. Finn is absent yet Finn himself watches with a bemused air.

"It is fairly good tea," he says calmly. "But not quite to my liking," and shows how his cup remains untouched. "I don't think anyone would find it upsetting should you pass."

"Of course," Gabriel murmurs. "I hadn't meant to impose."

"No one does," Finn states cryptically. "Now then, my brother has not been looked at in some time. You could give him a look over?"

"Brother?" Gabriel blinks.

"I had not named him so before, I apologize," Finn says ruefully. "This house tends to dampen or exacerbate truth at times."

Gabriel laughs. "You speak as if it were able to do such things. Yet you've not lived here but a week."

"A week, two hundred years, does it matter?" the American asks and then smiles, standing, walking to the fireplace. "I've heard it is beautiful in the wintertime. And about Martin. He does not like to leave the manor. Are you able to continue this already begun habit of personal visitation?"

"What is it that troubles him?" Gabriel isn't sure he wants to take on a full time patient. But looking aside at the silver, almost glowing man, he finds himself more than tempted. He's drawn, tempted beyond yearning. His fingers itch to reach out, touch the soft cheek, see if it's real or if by some magic, his fingers pass right through.

"I think he is aging," is the reply. "We, neither of us, are as young as we used to be. He does not speak and he will not recognize us. Though he eats well, he finds no taste in the food. He will not leave the manor, he sleeps but little, and he does not dream, not that I can tell. He used to have such vivid dreams, really."

"Mmm," Gabriel nods slowly, tearing his eyes away from a man he's taken on as a patient when he really doesn't need the extra hassle. "Perhaps a psychiatrist?"

"They do not make house calls," the other man smiles painfully. "And I'm afraid I don't think it is purely emotional. Much of it is perhaps something far more insidious. I fear some brain issues, perhaps petite mals or TI's?"

Gabriel does not put off such an idea, though the man alongside him seems far too young to have such medical issues. "I will look him over. I am sure I could find you a reputable psychiatrist who would be willing to come in and see him. I might wish to give him a CAT scan or something along those lines. We could try and sedate him before we took him from the house to keep him from panicking."

"No," Finn shakes his head pleasantly, yet Gabe feels there's something sickened underneath the surface of that simple word and head shake. "No I'm afraid that won't work. We'll have to do all of our work from here for now. Later, if we can? But we'll only be here a few weeks. Then we've a more permanent residence for the winters."

Gabriel nods and stands. "Then I'll look into it straight away." However long a few weeks are, he can manage to put some time into a rich man and his brother.

"Thank you," Finn smiles and leads the way to the foyer.

At the door, the man pauses and gazes quietly at Gabriel. The look is so intense that Gabe suddenly feels as if he should be doing something, responding in some way; whether it be to cry and run away, to laugh hysterically, or maybe just to say something candid and honest and awe inspiring. Yet not knowing what is expected, he merely smiles. "Yes?"

The movement is too quick for his eyes. He feels a pressure, a yank on his arm, lips touch his and he stiffens as a kiss is stolen by a man married and brother of his newest patient. It is a swift kiss and while not pleasant, neither is it demanding or hurtful. It is, instead, almost questioning. And when Finn pulls away, he's not looking as if desire were the result. But there is some hidden delight in his small smile. His eyes hidden behind the flash of the outside light on this glasses, he takes a step into the shadow. "Thank you. We'll see you tomorrow, doctor."

Gabriel is half way down the road before he even realizes that he is driving away.