hey, guys! i'm back with the latest update to jet pack blues!
i hope you enjoy the read and i promise the chapters will get shorter eventually, i'm so sorry that their novel length.
disclaimer: i don't own harvest moon or its character.
At twenty-seven, Gill Hamilton liked to believe that he was successful, attractive, and cultured. He also liked to believe that he only deserved the best things in life and liked to believe he didn't live on a decaying landmass, and no matter how hard he tried; he couldn't find a just cause in why the nature had become so wonky. It kept him awake at night, chewing on his bottom lip as he scoured documents, old and new, sitting atop his comforter as weary eyes went over the same old information that he had come to know by heart. Nothing he ever did was good enough, the Harvest Goddess and Harvest Sprites were supposed to rely on the residence of the land of their land for help, and if anyone could help - it was him. He knew these things inside and out, thanks to his mother, who had sat him and his friend down for lessons although she never did acknowledge the young Harmon girl that was constantly with him. Looking back on it, it gave him a weird feeling, a sensation that she was never really there and figment of his imagination. It made him think he was crazy but then he would remember the other children, the ones that he had grown up with. They remembered her too, they had mourned over her too. But those feelings had to be put on the backburner, just as his mother's death had been.
There were larger things at hand than the things that haunted him from his past. His lips were pressed into a firm line as he organized the papers and slipped them back into the manila folders he had assigned them to. His father, even in his advancing age, wouldn't like to find him up this late despite being an adult.
"You need your rest, you can't be staying up so late!" Hamilton would tell his son with a wag of his index finger before shuffling off back into his own room.
He had to admit that he was still Hamilton's son and living underneath his roof, much to his chagrin, but it was only something he had retorted to doing when he returned from the mainland. He had only been back for a season, not too long, for his search for something or someone to help rejuvenate Castanet had proved fruitless. An exasperated sigh escaped his lips as he flung himself back, head falling on the pillow and his body involuntarily curled up like he was still a small child, and that his mother would saunter in at any second and tuck him in. Nights like this were the hardest, his thoughts were demons and wished nothing more than to hurt him in the worst kind of way, and all he could was portray to the best of his abilities that he was the exact opposite of what was whispered inside his mind. Gill was privileged, sophisticated, and one of the most eligible bachelors. If you weren't groveling at his feet then you weren't worth his time, in fact, he deemed a lot of the company that he kept unworthy but he had to keep up the appearance of having good relations. Good relations granted you power and he needed power, it was the only comfort he could find.
Fall, the sentimental season, as he had overheard Luke telling Owen one evening at the Brass Bar. He had gone on to say how got sad for no reason and Gill hated to admit it, but he agreed and understood exactly what the man child was saying. Sleep wasn't coming easy and like most nights when it didn't come easy, he found his way out of bed and out of the house, and into the cold world outside of the warm Hamilton's family door. A routine had been made of these evenings, Harmonica Town would be roamed and he'd try to find things that he had never noticed before, but there was nothing to be found in his all too familiar settings. The cemetery was where he'd head off to next, allowing the quiet engulf him as he sat in front of his mother's grave. Elizabeth Hamilton, a woman so beloved by the people of this island and taken so early, she hadn't even gotten into her forties when the cancer took her. It made him angry that no one could help her, not a single doctor had been able to prolong her life or completely eradicate the disease from her bones. His father had been the same, it had been a time of bonding for the two of them when she passed, but his father didn't hold onto that anger like Gill had and it wasn't long until he reverted back to his typical happy ways.
"She came and visited me, Irene," he overheard his father say one night as he poured himself another drink, and Irene declining politely. Hamilton continued on for the remainder of the night, saying over and over again that Elizabeth reassured him that it was okay to be himself again. Gill just thought his father was becoming a drunk.
The cemetery was his place of peace for an hour or two before he'd get off his butt, dusting the seat of his jeans before sneaking his way into the district that they now just called Clarinet Ranch without being seen by the occupants of the Brass Bar that we're making their way home in a drunken stupor.
There it sat, in shambles and without the warmth that it once radiated when she lived there. He had made this house his true sanctuary, the only place that he could really escape to without being found, no one ever thought that he'd come back here… He hardly left Harmonica Town, but Chase knew and had never said a word to anyone. He slept here most nights, waking up in the wee hours of the morning to make his way home without looking like a deranged man that couldn't let go of his past. Chase had told him that he cared too much about what people thought about him, they were still best friends after all these years, and Gill truly felt like the chef was the only one that understood him.
The door had fallen off some time ago, lying against the broken wooden floor of the porch as he overstepped it carefully like he did nearly every night, he couldn't bear it if he were to break this place anymore than it already was. It was like taking a step back into the past, a feeling of nostalgia that hit so hard that if he wasn't so used to shutting the tears and feelings out, he wouldn't began to cry. That little boy had disappeared a long time ago, he tried to reassure himself that he was stronger now than he was before and that this was for the best, and this was what made Luna attracted to him and him attracted to her. She could fuel all the emotions, the ones he had long 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 there air like that and not in his head. Taking his usual spot in the child's bedroom, he laid himself down and looked up through the nearly nonexistent roof over his head. It was like the night she had disappeared, nothing was visible, the sky was pitch dark and brought a certain melancholy with it. It was times like this when he could find sleep, a dreamless slumber that he would awaken from in 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 a scolding from his father when he walked into town hall with a coffee in hand, and dark circles underneath his eyes.
This particular morning, Hamilton looked completely exasperated as his son came in with a cocky grin on his face. "Gilly! Where have you been? I checked your bed this morning, and you weren't there. I was looking all over for you!" he sounded strained, his round cheeks were flushed red and a bead of sweat was already making its way down his forehead.
A large amount of paperwork was sitting atop the desk, the name obscured from Gill's vision since his rotund father stood in front of him. "Why? You ought to be a pro at this or has it become too strenuous for you, father?" he quipped, his voice not as deep as his father's, where Hamilton was a baritone, Gill was an octave higher - seated right in the middle of the tenor range. It was a pleasant voice as Luna had told him, a flirty smile on her face and her cheeks a light pink.
The pointed look was something new, it wasn't exactly something that he expected from his short father as he sat himself down and sighed, shoulders slumping in what seemed as defeat. "The work isn't too strenuous, son. It's the fact that the old house… That Clarinet Ranch needs to be spruced up a bit," he murmured, not knowing how his son would react to the news.
An initial surprise was what came first as Gill found his way into a seat, taking a sip of coffee in hopes that it would give him whatever confidence that it could muster him to have. "What do you mean? The house is in complete shambles, only an idiot would move into that kind of environment," he countered, his expression changing entirely as the situation's seriousness settled in.
No one could move into that house, it wasn't possible, he wouldn't let it happen. He was being selfish, he had claimed the house as his own since she had been away, and the fact that it needed sprucing up meant one thing… Someone was moving in.
"That isn't kind to say. The young lady didn't sound like an idiot, she saw my ad in the paper, and said 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 up to smooth the gray hair that stuck on his head once more.
The ad was the cause of all this, it was what was bringing this woman here. He felt like a woman scorned as he glared at his father, the man knew the significance of that house and he was just giving it away!
"She can't possibly live there in that house, you promised that I'd be able to move in once I had the money," Gill's voice had gotten increasingly serious, a little hostile even, but Hamilton wasn't one to be bullied. He had been a formidable enemy when he was a teenager and a formidable ally when he was a child, and now as an adult.
"Gilbert Augustus Hamilton, you will not bully me into relinquishing that home from this woman's ownership. She has already paid me the 5,000 gold," he answered, the playfulness of the elderly mayor was lost only for a second before he reverted back.
A stupidly happy smile spread out across his features as he got up and moved to the bookcase, his fingers dancing over the spines as if he was really paying attention to them. "You'll be showing her around when she gets here," he was looking back at his fuming son, wagging a finger playfully at him before his attention returned to the bookcase.
Typically, he wouldn't have minded a new resident had Castanet not fallen on hard times and that this woman had just usurped his house… No, her house from him. "When will she get here?" it was hard to seem excited, Gill no longer wanted his coffee and planned to trash it once he got back home, and then write in his journal.
It had been his mother's suggestion that he keep a journal, it had helped him draw himself out of the funk he had been in when she had disappeared, and it helped now when he felt like he was going to snap.
Hamilton didn't even turn around, the smile on his face had grown to the point that it looked disproportionate. "She'll be here next week."