Visitation by Haeron

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Chapter 1

UPDATE - A series of sequel chapters have been planned! I'm hoping to add five or so more chapters to this fic, so check back on Tuesdays and Saturdays for updates ~

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Erestor was reading the obituaries in the back of the paper, a macabre morning ritual well worth the pocket change it cost to buy the local rag. He was perched on the stool behind the counter, the pages of the paper covered near the entire musty countertop. The articles were drab, the listings dire and the sports supplements of even lesser interest - yet Erestor did like to read the obituaries, it sated a morbid curiosity that Elrond had called perturbing, but Erestor just liked to be informed. He was wetting a thumb and about to turn to the next page when the chime above the shop door tinkled. Erestor braced himself for a gust of cold air to be ushered in alongside the customer (the second of the day), but the breeze was warmer when it came. The warm breath of a giant, perhaps.

 

Was winter withered away so quickly? Seasons, even time itself, meant nothing in an antiques shop. Sometimes Erestor worried that he himself was turning into a old relic. Perhaps Elrond could stamp a price tag on him and make a fair profit.

 

Erestor smiled at that but didn’t look up right away, rather he withheld a loping sigh and cast a quick glance over the names on the next page of the newspaper. There was nobody he recognised there, smiling up at him from an inch by inch square black and white portrait, and when he did look up to espy the newly entered customer, they had already become submerged in the maze of the shop. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here, Erestor thought to himself, reckoning there should be a sign saying just that above the door. Or the counter.

 

Clutter heaped upon clutter, tables and wardrobes and wicker chairs made up the aisles of the antiques shop and Erestor saw not who had just entered. He heard them, strangely enough, heard the tapping of shoes on the polished floor.

 

It was an oddity that made Erestor lose his focus on the obituaries. The text melted to a blur as he listened, lines of black print suddenly foreign to the eye. Most customers had the decency to mask their footfalls; the shop was quiet and well respected, and Erestor knew he and his default nonplussing provided ample motivation for hushedness. Who then, would think to come striding in like so?

 

A sudden trepid, tense shiver panged at Erestor like an elastic band snapping against the base of one’s back. An inspector? The thought was only half conceivable but plausible enough to slacken Erestor’s breathing. Elrond had made no mention of an inspector, there had been no friendly reminder jotted down on the post-it notes in the staff room (the staff cupboard, more like) and surely if there were to be inspection - Elrond wouldn’t have taken the day off to visit his wife in hospital. And yet, perhaps...

 

The word hung like a dull pendulum, ticking to and fro.

 

There was nothing out of order in the shop. The goods were good, the store was clean despite the disorganisation that Elrond so vehemently claimed was homely. Perhaps, Erestor mused, distractedly glancing over the grainy photo of dear deceased Annie Sugden in the paper, the inspector would have a problem with the non-regulation music quietly filtering through the store. Erestor would take responsibility for that, but there came a point where one cannot abide to listen to live Radio Five any longer. And anyway, who didn’t like Frankie Goes To Hollywood?

 

Erestor took a peek over the top of the paper, and what he saw was no inspector. A tall man, something of a hulk, was meandering through the aisles. Erestor watched him for a time, or as much of him as could be seen, and the low, wooden counter between himself and the mystery man seemed a welcome, impenetrable barrier. Relief swept through Erestor and was promptly swept away.

 

A thug, then?

 

It would be marginally better than an inspector, Erestor never had to smile and play the smalltalk game with the thieves who occasionally targeted the little shop. Sometimes a group or an addled individual would be stricken with the idea of making a fair wad of cash from stealing a few pieces of tarnished silver or gold. Erestor listened to the footsteps, unabashed in their presence. A sliver of fresh apprehension melted cold under the skin of his spine. The clocks were ticking out of time with one another somewhere in the store and all the eyes of the people in the weathered paintings seemed to watch the man, warily. It was quiet, and for the first time in his life - Erestor did not like it.

 

Elrond kept a bat under the desk, but Erestor deemed it too clumsy a weapon even if the thought of wielding it did appeal to him for a primitive moment. He knew better that to confront this maybe-miscreant with a blunt object. Erestor lifted a hand, slowly, time was heavy in the air like an ethereal tar that cloyed the senses. Had the windows always tinted the sunlight amber? Had there always been so many shadows here, merging and pushing into one another? Erestor’s fingers touched the metal of a hair slide he wore, he removed it and a dark lock fell free. It was a dainty thing, the slide, and Erestor turned it between his fingers like a rosary. It was sharp at one end and blunt at the other. Erestor felt his heart in his chest; a caged canary and just as skittish. He slid off the stool and the weight of himself on his feet felt heavier somehow.

 

The sunlight caught on the crockery and figurines as a thin band of luminescence as he went by, stepping quietly towards the “thief” in attempt to put himself between him and the door. Erestor could see his shape through the gap between a 16th century wardrobe and a chaise longue propped up on its side. Why are you here, Erestor asked with nary a sound, a silent interrogation, is it for money? Drug money? That was usually the case, but judging by the size of this fellow, the money would spent on roids of some kind.

 

Erestor could have laughed. He could always count on himself to find his jokes funny, even in the face of (potential) mortal peril. He clutched the pin in hand like a tiny stiletto blade. He was certain the mafia used to kill people with ice picks, didn’t they?

 

He couldn’t remember where he’d heard that, though.

 

And when Erestor rounded the corner nearest the door, with bated breath and a sweating palm, he saw the thief, and the thief saw him.

 

They both gaped for a moment. Erestor squeezed the slide into his palm.

 

And then the man smiled pure sunshine, said hello, said that he’d wondered if he’d accidently “popped in” when everyone was on a dinner break. Erestor could only blink and stare and furrow his brows in response to the barrage of drivel being spouted at him. He was a tall man, at least a head taller than Erestor (who was, in his own opinion, criminally short), and luxuriantly blonde. His hair was tied back, not neatly, but practically. He was a man of the outdoors, evidently.

 

Antiques shops never usually saw many men like that.

 

With no regard for the fragile serenity of the shop, the man talked as though they were sat in a cafe sharing coffee and work gossip and not actually in a small, cramped antiques shop where even a slightly raised voice seemed like to make all the porcelain crack. Erestor was staring, blankly, whilst the man was detailing his journey to the shop from the “track”. It was not a riveting divulgence but Erestor rather suspected the fellow took his open eyed surprise for engagement.

 

In truth, Erestor was musing to himself and thinking on how much this man looked as though he belonged in a porn flick. Playing a “plumber” or a “masseur” or some such. He was well built, strong, and well dressed in a thick, black coat with soft collars that would soon be redundant as spring asserted herself.

 

It was almost a shame he was probably a thief.

 

The heaviness of the sun beaming through the window was an unexpected manifestation of spring’s bright foreshadowing, it warmed the wooden table under Erestor’s palm and warmed too the bones in his body, though he could apportion that to relief. The man, who may or may not be aglib thief, had not bolted for the door with a fistful of French spoons and knives, so Erestor exhaled and bade himself remember his customer service courses.

 

Smile, that was always the first lesson.

 

Erestor didn’t smile.

 

‘Can I help you, sir?’ he asked, effectively cutting short the man’s descriptive tirade.

 

Stopping short in the telling of how he found not one, but two car air fresheners in the pack he had bought that morning at the petrol station (joy of joys!), he looked around, the blonde fellow, and there was an innocent, almost childlike, curiosity in his eyes. He smiled, though it turned to more of a beseeching grimace when he saw the frown Erestor bore him.

 

‘Maybe you can!’ he said, quite merrily.

 

Erestor frowned anew. He didn’t seem like a thief, not even in the kind of mayhap he’s pretending to be a charming gentlemen to knock me off my guard sort of way. He was genuine, Erestor gleaned it easily.

 

‘What are you after?’

 

Ouch. The question was blunt, overly so. The man seemed not to notice, however, or if he did he hid any offense well. ‘I’m just browsing,’ he said, an answer Erestor had head many a time before. Nobody came into a shop such as this to do ought but browse, it would seem. That and leave garish fingerprints all over the tea trays.

 

‘Are you a collector?’

 

He smiled. It was assured and sultry; it suited him and Erestor well suspected that he knew it only too well.

 

‘An opportunist,’ said the man.

 

‘We don’t get a lot of those.’ Erestor loosened his hold on the pin in his hand, brushed a thumb over its length and slid it back into his hair with practised precision. The fellow watched him, more than mildly interested, and met Erestor’s eyes when he turned them to him.

 

Another oddity. People usually looked away. He even smiled, made a noise of breathy laughter. Erestor raised a brow, was he full of such smiles to be able to give them out so easily? ‘Well,’ he began, feeling outright unusual, ‘let me know if you do need any help.’

 

The man nodded and said he would indeed. Erestor bowed his head shallowly and turned, leaving him to his browsing. He was no thief, plainly, but then he wasn’t one of the regular customers either - in more sense of the word than one. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, either. The regular customers were those old folks who came in on occasion to buy a monstrous vase and gossip about the ongoing social politics of the retirement home across the canal. He wasn’t even the other sort of regular customer - the playboys and heiresses that would roll up from time to time and buy up half the stock. The tip one mature gentlemen had given Erestor had been enough to see him to wine lunches every day for a month.

 

Elrond had not been best pleased, but, strangely enough, Erestor remembered very little of it.

 

With a wry glance over his shoulder he looked to the stranger. There lingered still a ghost of a smile on his face that had tapered into something of a simple appreciation for the artefacts abounding him. Erestor let out a sigh that was not borne of derision or suspicion, but something that was both and yet neither. The man was browsing, it seemed. Erestor let him be and returned to his stool behind the counter in the corner of the shop, by the window obscured by curtains and wardrobes and stacked Regency tables. He liked his privacy, and liked even more to be surrounded by fine things.

 

Erestor restored the paper to its natural order of pages and folded it neatly in half. He watched the man, at all times, as he lined the paper up with the edge of the counter nearest the window. It was not often a mystery would walk so directly into one’s path, and there was a twinge in Erestor’s gut that said indeed this man was a mystery, fit for unravelling. Was there anything better to do, after all? The cold soup and microwave in the staff room (staff cupboard) was suddenly not the most riveting part of Erestor’s day.

 

Watching the man work his way around the store, pouring over the more delicate items and lifting them occasionally to the sunlight to be viewed, Erestor pondered. Who was he? What was he? A sportsman? A paramedic? Certainly, he had to be engaged in some sort of physical career.

 

And Erestor could appreciate that.

 

He liked to watch folk from his corner, he liked to watch and see which pieces they were drawn to, which items would sing to them. For every person there was a relic, a part of history, that time had decreed belonged to them now. And sometimes folk found those pieces in this shop; it was a base human pursuit, Erestor thought, for did not every human want a part of history for themselves?

 

What will sing to him? What will catch his eye? The thoughts swirled gently in Erestor’s head now that quiet had been restored. The air was not as hot, the music tinkled softly like the ambience of an early morning’s dream. The man would look to him on occasion and Erestor would look back and raise a brow.

 

It was always matched with a smile; a honey smile.

 

-

 

Ten sombre and slow minutes passed and the man had barely moved from where he started, so thorough was his search. Erestor had half a mind to offer his assistance once again but the fellow seemed quite happy within himself as he hummed to an old song Erestor did not know and poured over a glass vase that wasn’t worth the £30 price tag. He had a certain musicality about him, a lilting spirit and step that gave him an air of approachability. How nice for him, Erestor thought to himself, watching him pick up a broad china plate.

 

The man made an appreciative noise, said something in a sing-song voice that Erestor did not catch.

 

But Erestor could have laughed, the urge to was a thing of grim vitriol. That plate, that garish blue and white deviation, was the most expensive thing in the shop. It was one of the few authentic pieces here; here being the country, of course. And yes, naturally, the blonde man was bringing it to the counter looking as though he had every intention to purchase it.

 

Erestor recounted the wine for lunch days fondly. If he were dosed up on Chardonnay, this would be so much easier. The man set the plate down, proudly, as though he had discovered it himself in the bowels amidst the rubble of an oriental palace. He looked as though he might be able to play the part of intrepid explorer quite aptly though Erestor refrained, with an unholy shiver, from thinking about him roughed up as it were, with grazes and dirt and a split lip.

 

I need to go outside more often.

 

The dust particles were dancing in the beams of sunlight, those that could pierce through the gaps in the window. They floated slow, this way and that, and Erestor watched them as he in turn was watched. Inhaling, closing his eyes, Erestor felt the sun on his eyelids. It was pleasant. Did the evening grow near?

 

And then he opened his eyes again, and stared down the maw of reality.

 

‘You’ve read the price, yes?’ he asked, clacking the nail of his forefinger against the pricing sticker in the centre of the plate. A pretty three digit label was affixed. The man looked at it, considered it, and then looked at Erestor.

 

He smiled, as if it were pocket change, enough to buy the morning rag.

 

Surely he’s not serious. Three digits for a gaudy plate? Erestor could have smashed the damn thing against his forehead, but somehow he got the impression this man had no problem with gaudy; he probably had a collection of Hawaiian shirts somewhere.

 

‘It might be worth more someday.’ said he, and Erestor considered the answer.

 

Certainly, it could be true.

 

‘An opportunist,’ Erestor said, wryly, peeling the pricing sticker off and flicking it off his finger. Dozens of such stickers were trodden into the floor behind the desk, the bin was on the other side of the store near the door.

 

‘And much else besides.’ he chimed, Erestor didn’t doubt it and made a low noise in answer. ‘Can I pay by cheque?’

 

The request took Erestor by surprise, he raised a brow and nodded, all the while thinking to himself who the fuck still uses cheques? Last time Erestor had checked a calendar, it had said 2014, not 1984. He was inwardly cackling at his own joke, again, when he saw the pen the blonde man pulled out of his coat pocket. He saw the cheque book.

 

It was all golden, everything was golden.

 

Holy shit.

 

The man saw him gaping unceremoniously and asked if he needed to sign anywhere else. Erestor, shaking himself free of his momentary lapse in reality, nodded and stammered an affirmation. This man had remembered store protocol before he had remembered it? It was absurd! Erestor grudgingly knelt to pull out the transactions book, wishing Elrond (much like the blonde man) would upgrade to the standard of retail technology available in the present century.

 

When Erestor rose with the book, it was clear the man had been watching him.

 

Who the hell are you?

 

It was no longer an accusation, an interrogation - it was astonishment, wild curiosity.

 

‘You really should open up those curtains, it’s a bit dim in here,’ the man suggested airily with another sweet smile as Erestor flipped through the book to find the correct page. Was he aware he was buying an £700 plate? Was he aware he was going to get home with said plate and question the direction of his life?

 

‘The curtains are for sale, sir, so we have to display them in the window, this is where curtains go, you see.’

 

The man laughed and signed his large, looping signature in the free space that Erestor had pointed to. ‘Perhaps you need more breaks then, it does a person no good to be cooped up all day.’

 

There was concern there, genuine concern, but the words, for all their wisdom, were old to Erestor. He looked at him, the proud owner of the plate, and afforded him a small, coy smile. The man’s eyes were very blue, his lashes were long and blonde.

 

Get a grip, Erestor. The lump in his pants is obviously his wallet.

 

‘Do I know you?’ Erestor asked, leaning forward a touch to narrow his eyes. He did not truthfully suspect so, but the question seemed to beg to be asked. The fellow leaned forward more boldly and Erestor leaned back. His smile was candid.

 

‘You could get to know me.’ he said. He put the pen back in his pocket. The sunlight loved his hair, and gave him an earthly halo that was the light of dusk and warm evenings. He carried it within him, like another man might carry the scent of his cologne.

 

Erestor, at a loss for what to say in response, remembered suddenly his customer service courses.

 

‘Do you need me to wrap this up for you?’

 

The man shook his head and picked up the plate in such a way as told Erestor he still didn’t know the value of the thing he held so awkwardly, despite having just wrote out a damn cheque for it. He was holding it like a Frisbee. ‘No, no,’ he said genially, ‘I’m just parked outside.’

 

You were not supposed to just park outside.

 

‘Then thank you, sir.’ Erestor said.

 

‘Thank you,’ the man said.

 

It was a farewell, Erestor realised, and it did not sit well with him. The man would walk out of his door with his £700 discus and he would be left to sit in the staff room (cupboard) with his microwave soup and the remaining obituaries. It felt dull. This man was energy, and when he left...

 

He smiled brightly and Erestor smiled back and was not entirely convinced that it had not been a silent plea. The blonde man was just turning to leave when he seemed to trip and his hand let go of the plate! Erestor gasped. His heart exploded in his chest. He leaned across the table, practically launched himself over it in fact, to grasp the damn thing before it shattered.

 

He grasped it with two hands. Or rather, he grasped the plate with one hand and the mystery man’s hand with his other. And he was laughing - the man was laughing?

 

He let go of the plate and the hand quickly, though a part of him was loathe to do so. The man’s hand had been rough but not unkind, it was warm - and Erestor imagined the rest of him would be so too, the rest of his... body. But, in the end, some marbled blend of mild irritation and exhaustion moved him more strongly that the stroke of lust that, just like a warm hand, in fact, had trailed hotly from stomach to groin.

 

A feint, of course!

 

Erestor covered his face with a hand and wished very suddenly that he might lay on the floor and be forgotten for an eon. Perhaps Time Team would find him in about a hundred years and think he was valiantly slain in battle. The man was chuckling away and Erestor might have joined him, though his laughter would have been borderline hysterical. Laughing at his own joke, the depravity!

 

‘I should bar you!’ he said, and for reasons he could not fathom - he was laughing too.

 

‘I’ll be back tomorrow,’ said the man, and winked.

 

Erestor smiled, and waved him off with a hand.

 

-

 

As he walked past the window, outside, to his illegally parked car, he blew a kiss. Erestor smiled and raised the V of his fingers as return gesture.

 

The last Erestor saw of him, at least for that day, was his golden laughter as he ducked into his car.