Pathos - A Duskwood Fanfiction

Chapter 17

(Author's note: an absolutely massive thanks to Rikosjarangaistus for catching my fuck up with the ages of Hannah, Jake, and Lilly. You just saved my literary ass ❤️)

As Jake closed the front door of the Donfort family home behind him with a soft click, he let himself look at his surroundings silently. His father and sisters had a nice place, he thought as he took in the living room that stood a few feet down the entrance hallway that he was now standing in. There was an understated wealth to the furnishings, the dark walnut gloss of the hardwood flooring at pleasant odds with the off-white and beige furniture that sat upon it. As he knelt down to remove his boots, he looked up at the family photos that seemed to cover every available surface with frames on every wall and on every table.

Nathan Donfort's face stared out at him from almost every picture, a face instantly recognizable after so many years of memorizing the only photo that Jake had of his father. Even though the years had aged his father significantly in each of the photos that Jake could see, there was still an undeniable handsomeness to his features that Jake - begrudgingly - acknowledged had been handed down to himself. He let himself linger on the face of his father's wife in the photo closest to him on a small hutch, scanning it with detached curiosity. Lilly looked a lot like her, he realized, as he regarded the picture in silence, whereas himself and Hannah were undeniable variations of the Donfort patriarch. The only features that he had gotten from his mother were the colour of her eyes and the slender refinement of her facial structure that had tempered Nathan's aggressive masculinity.

Having had fully removed his boots, he tucked them to the side of the entryway and walked further in, casting about for Hannah in silence. When a cursory glance of the living room and kitchen yielded no results, he ascended the hardwood stairs to the second floor, his footfall almost completely soundless as his socks glided upon the glossy finish.

Once he had reached the second storey landing, he could see that the door to the room that corresponded to Hannah's bedroom window was slightly ajar. He padded down the hallway until he stood in front of it, and after a few steadying breaths, lightly rapped his knuckles on the wooden door.

"I'm here,' Hannah's quiet voice came from within, and after a moment's hesitation at this unspoken invitation, Jake entered the room.

Hannah was seated on the bed that sat dead centre in the room, her back against the headboard and her legs crossed. It was very obviously her childhood room, Jake saw, the furnishings and linens all being slightly different shades of soft pink. He knew from their many conversations from four years ago that Hannah had a special hate in her heart for the colour, and perhaps the ubiquitous presence of the colour in this room was evidence of why. She watched silently as Jake slowly walked forward, and then nodded slightly as Jake extended a hand to the bed in an unspoken request for permission to sit.

As he settled himself down, he could see her nightstand beside the bed, and silently noted the disarray of medication bottles that littered it. When he looked back at his sister again to establish eye contact, she was watching him quietly, seeming to survey every single movement that he made. They sat like this for a while, simply looking at each other, and then Hannah spoke.

"Lilly told me everything," she said in a faint, low tone, to which Jake nodded slowly, his eyes intently scanning hers as he did so. He knew that this statement was incorrect, but it wasn't one that was intentionally so. Lilly had not told Hannah everything, as per his request. Who he really was something that he needed to tell Hannah himself. Something that he should have told her a very long time ago.

"What you did -" Hannah began and then stopped, and Jake could see the slow welling of tears in her eyes as she was momentarily rendered silent. "She told me what you did. For me."