Author's note: This was inspired by a Twitter conversation with Kristen3! Enjoy!
Niles was fed up. He raced down the stairs and looked for the closest escape, which happened to be the back door. Once outside, he took a deep breath of the fresh evening air. To him, there was nothing so frustrating as his older brother, the boy in his early teen years that seemed to fire insults at Niles like a cannon. Just now, they had a squabble about The 1812 Overture. Frasier thought it was overstated and blunt, and Niles thought it was vivacious and lively. He had outwardly condemned Niles' taste and told him that he "was too young to understand great music." And that was when Niles ran out of the house.
Perhaps he had overreacted a little bit, but he most definitely was not too young for music. He was ten years old, after all! "Mozart composed when he was five years old,"he thought, "certainly I am old enough to know what good music is."
But he wasn't so sure he believed that. As he stood there on his back porch, he wondered if Frasier was right. He feared that he would be cursed for the rest of his days as a man who had a very poor grasp of music.
He stared out to what lied beyond the back of his house. There was a steep hill not to far away from it, followed by another shorter one. His dad, Martin, had always told him that it was the perfect place to play, but Niles and Frasier had always disregarded it. They weren't much for spending time outside.
The more Niles dwelled upon Frasier's hurtful words, the worse he felt, until soon tears filled his eyes. He drew his handkerchief from his pocket and was about to wipe his eyes when suddenly the wind ripped it from his hand. He wasn't much of a runner, but he chased after it down the hill and then up the next. Each time it touched the ground, it was only there for a second for a second before a breeze came and snatched it up once more, causing him to run further and further. When he was finally able to pick it up, he found that he stood in front of a small patch of evergreens. It looked rather scary inside of them, and Niles took a step back.
Then he thought of something.
"I might have a terrible ear for music," he whispered to himself, "but I'll show Frasier yet!"
With that he turned his chin upward, tucked his handkerchief in his po,cket, and headed straight into the trees.
Niles hated nature and was terrified as he did this, but he thought about how proud his father would be that he had explored outdoors, and how jealous that would make his brother.
It was definitely worth it.
As he walked, his eyes were glued to the ground, watching for bugs or thorns. Thankfully, he was wearing a sweater and long pants, so he needn't worry about poison ivy.
He didn't look up until he saw a large patch of sunlight before him, indicating a clearing.
Suddenly, he was face to face with a large, run-down house. Its faded yellow paint was peeling, and its windows were broken or boarded up. Fear rose up inside of Niles, and so did the urge to run all the way home and not look back.
But, how it would kill Frasier to know that he had wandered casually through and abandoned house alone! It would certainly prove his bravery if nothing else.
Niles took a deep breath and began to ascend the stone steps leading to the house. Vines grew on the pillars supporting the porch, and as he walked on the wooden boards that led to the door he literally prayed that they wouldn't give way. When the door did loom in front of him, its surface stripped of color and lacking a doorknob, his heart beat rapidly. He ever so slowly put his foot out and nudged the door open.
The next thing he knew, a scream was rising out of him.
For just inside the door laid a huge spider with an intricately crafted web, waiting to draw in its next meal.
Niles turned and ran like he never had before, through the trees and over the hills until at last he was back on the porch of his house. He collapsed on top of it and tried to regain his breath, as well as feeling in his arms and legs. He sat there for a few moments until he could stand, and when he did, he breathed deeply, opened the door slowly, and re-entered his home.
There had been a change of plans.
Niles wasn't telling anyone where he had been this evening.
"What am I doing here?" Niles thought as he got out of the car.
He was back at his childhood home, chasing a repressed memory. It had emerged earlier that day while he was sitting in his office waiting for his next appointment. He was leaning back in his imported leather chair, thinking about the other day when he had watched Daphne clean one of his brother's small statues with her soft and delicate hands. Just dreaming about it made him warm. Niles got up to get himself some cool water, and as he did he caught a glimpse of a pale yellow box of tissues he kept on his desk for patients.
In a sudden flash, he remembered an old, abandoned yellow house hidden in a grove of evergreens. He had gone home and thought about it for hours, trying to remember where he had seen it before. After all, it could have been something he saw in a movie or read in a book. He had nothing until he turned on his radio to the classical station and heard The 1812 Overture.
Suddenly it all made sense.
He could recall chasing after his handkerchief on that cool summer evening and finding that house, but what had happened that had made him repress the memory?
Niles had rushed out of his building, The Montana, and in to his car, where he drove quickly to the home where he was raised.
In his haste, he hadn't really thought about what he was doing. Now, this whole idea seemed preposterous.
"But I did drive all the way over here," he thought, "and what could it hurt, after all?"
There weren't any signs of someone living in the house, so there would be no worrying about that. Besides, perhaps a visit to where this memory had occurred would give him some insight as to what really happened.
So Niles walked around to the back of the house and looked out at the hills that made his backyard so long ago.
Perhaps he would get some answers if he started walking through them.
As he did, he was careful to walk slowly as not to damage his ankles in any fashion.
It was a nice day, and the sun was finally out. "It will do me good to be outside," Niles thought. Lately he hadn't been doing much lately except for going to work, spending time at Frasier's, and lying around his home. He had just recently discovered that Maris was cheating on him with their couple's therapist, and he hadn't really been in the mood to do much. Now, he felt better already.
He was almost expecting to have a sort of epiphany as he walked, but nothing happened, until soon he found himself right in front of the patch of evergreens. Surely it wasn't worth trudging through the trees to get the answer.
Then he thought of Daphne, and how she had told him about how she loved to walk through the woods outside her home in Manchester.
What might happen if he told her that he had taken a trip through the trees, too? Would she think differently of him? Perhaps she would think him more of a man if he did.
He began to crunch his way through the trees, his heart racing with fear all the while. Niles hoped his jacket would remain free of sap or tar.
Finally, there it was, the old house he had found all those many years ago. It looked even worse now, and Niles didn't dare go close to it. He noticed that door lay slightly ajar, as if someone had…
And that's when he remembered.
The big, black spider in that horrifying web…
It was enough to make Niles run all the way back to his car without stopping.
True to form, he would be telling no one what he had done with his evening.
