Disclaimer:I do not own Harvest Moon or its characters. I only own my own.
At twenty-seven, Gill Hamilton liked to believe that he was successful and that he was attractive and cultured, and that he deserved only the best things in life. He also liked to believe that he didn't live on a decaying landmass and that no matter how hard he tried; he couldn't find a just cause in the reason that nature had become so wonky. It kept him awake at night, sitting atop his comforter with documents, old and new, spread out and weary eyes wandering over the same old information that he had come to know by heart. Nothing he ever did was good enough, the Harvest Goddess and the Harvest Sprites were supposed to rely on the residence of their land for help, and if anyone could help them – it was him. He knew these things inside out, thanks to his mother, who had sat him and his friend down to learn even though, she never did acknowledge the young Harmon girl that was constantly with him. Looking back on it, it gave him a weird feeling like she was nothing more than a figment of his imagination and that he was crazy, but then he would remember the other children. The people that he had grown up with and they remembered her too, they had mourned over her too. But those feelings had to be put on the backburner, just like his mother's death had been.
There were larger things at hand than things that haunted him from the past. His lips were pressed into a firm line as he organized the papers and slipped them into the manila folders that he had assigned them too. His father, even in his advancing age, wouldn't like to find him up this late despite being an adult. Although, he would admit that he was still Hamilton's son and living underneath his roof – something that he had retorted back to after returning from the mainland, not too long ago, in search of something or someone that could help rejuvenate Castanet and return it to its former glory. A sigh escaped his lips as he flung himself back, head landing on the pillow and his body curling up like he was still a child and that his mother would saunter in like it was nothing and tuck him in. Nights like this were always the hardest, his thoughts were demons that wished only to hurt him and he did the best to portray the exact opposite of what he heard in his head. Gill was privileged, he was sophisticated and he was one of the more eligible bachelors. If you weren't graveling at his feet then you weren't worth his time, in fact, he deemed a lot of the company that he kept not worth his time but he had to keep good relations. Good relations granted you power and he needed power, it was the only comfort that he could find.
Fall, the sentimental season as he had overheard Luke telling Owen one evening at the Brass Bar. He had went to say that he got sad for no reason and though, Gill hated to admit it – he completely understood and agreed with what the man child said. Sleep was not coming easy and like most nights when it didn't come easy, he found his way out of bed and out the house, and into the cold world outside the warm doors of the Hamilton home. A routine had been made of these evenings, Harmonica Town would be roamed and he'd try to find things that he hadn't seen before but of course, there was nothing new to be found in his own too familiar settings and then he'd make his way down to the cemetery and let the quiet engulf him as he sat in front of his mother's grave. Elizabeth Hamilton, a woman so beloved by her people and taken so early, she hadn't even gotten to enter her forties when the illness took her. It made him angry that no one could help her, that several doctors couldn't prolong her life for a couple more years or completely obliterating the disease that riddled her bones. His father had been the same, it had been a time of bonding for the two when she passed but it didn't take long for the mayor to revert back to his typical happy ways. Hamilton had brought home Irene one evening, a mindless chat as he remembered, and explained that he had seen Elizabeth in his dreams and that she told him to leave behind the negative feelings. That they didn't suit him whatsoever and she wanted her husband to be happy even if she wasn't with him. It made Gill wondered why his mother hadn't done the same for him or if his father was just becoming a drunk, becoming a little too fond of several tonics that he wouldn't have been caught drinking if she were still around.
The cemetery was his place of peace for an hour or two before getting off his butt, dusting one of the few pair of blue jeans that he owned before making his way into the district that they now just called Clarinet Ranch. There it sat, in shambles and without the warmth that it once radiated when she lived there. It was his other place of peace and most nights, he found himself falling asleep on the floor and waking up in the wee hours of the morning so that he could return home without looking like a loon. Chase had told him that he cared too much about what other people thought of him, they were still best friends after all these years, and Gill believed that the peach-haired man was the only one that understood him. Knew what he was going through and why the once warmer, kinder, and gentler Gill had disappeared. The door had fallen off some time ago, lying against the broken wooden floor of the porch and he overstepped it, trying to be as careful as he could be so that this sanctuary of his couldn't become anymore broken than it already was.
It was like taking a step back into the past, a feeling of nostalgia that hit hard and if he hadn't been so used to shutting the tears and feelings out than he probably would have cried. That little boy had disappeared a long time ago, he tried to reassure himself that he was stronger than he was before and that this was all for the best, and that this was what made Luna attracted to him and him to her. She could fuel all the emotions, the emotions that he had forgotten how to express without seeming like a complete and utter jerk because he didn't know what to say. Things just came out wrong, they never sounded right when they were up in the air like they did when they were in his head. Taking his usual spot in the child's bedroom, he laid himself down and looked up through the nearly nonexistent roof that was over his head. Stars dotted the night sky and the moon was waning, and the sky was just as dark as ever. It was times like this when he could find sleep, a dreamless slumber that he would awaken from in only a few hours.
The early hours of the morning and the darkest hours of the night were Gill's favorite times. It often brought on scolding from his father when he waltzed into the town hall with coffee in hand. This particular morning, Hamilton looked completely exasperated as his son came through the door with a cocky smile on his face. "Gilly! Where have you been? I've been looking all over for you!" he sounded strained, his round cheeks were flushed a bright red and a bead of sweat was finding its way down his forehead. A large amount of paperwork was sitting atop the table, the name obscured from his view. "Why? You ought to be a pro at this or is it becoming too strenuous for you, father?" his voice wasn't quite as deep as his father's, where Hamilton was a baritone, Gill was somewhere in the tenor range, not quite low but not quite high – he sat right in the middle. A pleasant voice as Luna had told him, a flirty smile on her face and cheeks a light pink.
The pointed look was something new, it wasn't exactly what he expected from his short father as he sat himself down and sighed, shoulders slumping as he seemingly claimed defeat. "The work isn't becoming strenuous son, it's the fact that the old house… Clarinet Ranch needs to be spruced up a bit," he murmured, not knowing how his son would react by the news. A look of initial surprise came onto his face as Gill found a seat, taking a sip of coffee for whatever confidence it could muster him to have. "What do you mean? The house is in complete shambles, only an idiot would move into that sort of environment," he countered, his expression changing immediately as seriousness washed over him. No one could move into that house, it wasn't possible. He was being selfish, he had claimed it as his house in the time that she had been gone and the fact that it needed sprucing up meant one thing. Someone was moving in.
"Well, that isn't very kind to say. The young lady doesn't necessarily sound like an idiot but she saw my ad in the paper, and said that she'd move in on any date that was possible," hopefulness plagued Hamilton's voice now, a weary smile gracing his features as a pudgy hand went to smooth the gray hair that stuck up on the top of his head. The ad was what was bringing this lady here, he felt like a woman scorned as he glared at his father especially when he knew the significance of that house. "She can't possibly live in /that/ house, you promised that I'd be able to move into it once I got the money," Gill's voice had gotten increasingly serious, a little hostile but Hamilton wasn't one to be bullied. He had been a formidable enemy when he was a teenager but also a formidable ally when he was a child, and now as an adult. "Gilbert Augustus Hamilton, you will not bully me into relinquishing from this woman's ownership. She had already paid the 5,000 gold," he answered, the playfulness of the elderly mayor was lost for only a second before he reverted back. A stupidly happy smile spread out across his features as he got up and moved to the bookcase, looking back at his fuming son. "You'll be showing her around when she gets here," he told him, wagging a finger at him before his attention went back to the bookcase.
Typically, he wouldn't have minded a new person on the landmass had it not fallen on hard times and the mere fact that this lady was moving into that house, his house, her house. "When will she be getting here?" it was hard to seem excited, Gill no longer wanted his coffee and would probably end up trashing it when it got back to the house, and then write in the journal that his mother had suggested that he keep when he turned ten. She had hoped that it'd help draw him out of the funk that he had set himself in after his friend's disappearance.
Hamilton didn't even turn around, the smile growing a bit wider on his face that it almost seemed disproportionate. "She'll be here tomorrow."
Hello there!
An update on this lovely story ~ I'll probably end up sprucing the chapter up later on.
But here it is! Enjoy. c:
