Whispering Walls

Author's Note: Evening all! Just a few notes: I'd like to thank Isabel for her editing, and also Signore Calcio for his help with the original idea and plot development. Any errors still here are entirely my fault, as both of these people are fine examples of humanity and very helpful. Thanks, fellows!

Also, I really had no idea where to post this one. It has elements of the supernatural, but not enough to automatically make it fantasy, and it certainly isn't appropriate for erotic horror or whatever. So, it's here.

Votes, comments and feedback are entirely appreciated. Enjoy!

********************

It

could

have been a dramatic moment...

If it had been raining. If thunder had pealed overhead, like the waking roar of some ancient dragon. If the clouds had roiled in the same wind that whipped up detritus at ground level. If it had been dark.

If, in fact, it had been anything other than a bright summer morning.

'What a waste...' Ross sighed under his breath, leaning his head heavily against the car window. 'I had envisioned so much more for this moment.'

Claire leaned back in her seat, turning her head to regard the younger man, 'You say something, Ross?'

'Oh, just thinking aloud,' He tried not to sound overly disappointed. 'When you described this place to me, I had a way more exciting vision of it in my head.'

Claire gave a little giggle, 'You were thinking of a haunted mansion, or something? Do we look like the kind of people who would live in one of those, little brother?'

Ross shrugged, 'Tracy does. All pallid and creepy looking. Of course, I'd always thought he'd be living

alone

...' His teeth shone in a bright smile. From the driver's seat, Tracy stirred.

'Listen, kid,' His older brother's rumbling voice drifted between the seats. 'I am

not

pallid.'

Ross grinned; sometimes, this was too easy, 'Yeah, 'cause that's the part of the sentence

I

would have disagreed with first.' He rolled his eyes. Claire laughed, poked her tongue out from the corner of her mouth, and wriggled the fingers of her left hand in Ross' face, her wedding ring prominently on display.

'You two are funny,' She gave a sunny smile. 'But as much as I enjoy this back and forth banter, I get the feeling it could go on for a while. Can we cut it short, just this once?'

'Yeah,' Tracy sighed, pulling open the driver's side door. 'We

do

have work to do.'

Ross followed his brother out into the sunlight, Claire following suit with a series of barely audible giggles. He shielded his eyes against the bright morning sun, looking up at the house that had so much potential. During the day it wasn't creepy; more of a fixer-upper. It had been sitting abandoned for a couple of months now; the young couple who had sold it hadn't been willing to stick around until the sale was finalized. Of course, the fact that when they had moved out they hadn't done so

together

might have been a contributing factor in this.

Nobody quite knew why the couple, only recently married and seemingly deeply in love, had split up so suddenly. There were certainly rumors; whisperings that they had somehow blamed the house itself for the collapse of their fledgling relationship. Something the wife had said when asked, in a hushed voice, seemingly to herself...

"The walls whisper at night."

And they had both left angry at the other. Because of the ghost, apparently. At least, that's how Ross had heard the story. Claire had been the one to tell him, as if to arouse enough interest in him that he would come help them fix the place up. It had worked- he was here, after all- but only because he seemed to be the only one who could see the parallels.

Young married couple moving into an old dilapidated house that drove off its last occupants? Yup, that was Tracy and Claire Campbell. Hell, old houses with distressed former tenants are pretty much classic horror territory

anyway

, without adding a group of young people to the mix...

Ross shook his head to dislodge the thought. It was stupid, anyway, and the house looked pretty cool, actually. All dark wood paneling, high ceilings and vaguely ancient architecture. Worth every cent, in his book. Except for the fact that the weather was being uncooperative.

Inside, the place was even better; motes of dust spiraled through every finger of sunlight, eldritch shadows gestured darkly from the hallways coming off of the main room, and the floor creaked with every shift of Ross' weight. One could practically

hear

an evil laugh echoing out from some forgotten basement.

Claire jumped delightedly on the spot before running ahead of the rest of the group. Ross had to admit that, despite the vague head-in-the-clouds vibe he got from his sister-in-law, she was pretty damn cute. She was basically five-foot nine of pure

glee

, wrapped up in long, straight black hair, sparkly blue eyes and stunning, soft features, with a body that... Well, she bounced. It was hard to avoid noticing. He was sure she never noticed, but Ross had caught himself staring a number of times. And she was a

hugger

, too... His mind momentarily filled with soft things, pressing against...

He blinked a couple of times, trying to break his gaze from the woman. It wouldn't do to think that way. Claire was gorgeous, yes- possibly

too

gorgeous for his strange mountain man of a brother- but she

was

married to him, all the same. The

why

of the situation was another issue entirely; Tracy was his brother, but even Ross had to admit that he looked a little... crazy. He spoke rarely, preferring to communicate mainly through- in Ross' experience, at least- angry glaring and wordless growls. But then again, that could just be him. He never seemed to try intimidating Claire. In fact, when they were together he usually seemed to be laboring under the belief that he would somehow break her. It was like watching a bear trying to build a house of cards.

'Wow, how many people had to die here to make this place as creepy as it is?' Ross chuckled as he moved through a thick curtain of dust, picking cobwebs from his hair with an expression of vague irritation.

'Just the one,' Tracy rumbled.

'Wait, seriously?' Ross said with a start. 'Like, murder or something?'

Tracy just heaved a shrug loaded with annoyance and disappeared deeper into the house, the shadows seeming to close in around him. Ross frowned.

'Okay, fine...' He said to himself with a roll of the eyes and a click of the tongue. Sometimes he wondered whether Tracy even liked him, whether he liked

anyone at all.

Besides Claire, obviously. They were almost polar opposites, certainly in terms of verbosity and general gabbiness, but still... Blood and water, right?

Every footstep raised a little cloud of dust, every breath became just a little contaminated with the pervasive low level grime, every little gust of air made the eyes water... but there was something else. Some abstract, indefinable feeling, as though something was always watching. Standing here, alone, in the gloom with the dust trailing lazily through every spare inch, Ross could almost believe that the walls could whisper.

Of course, he

knew

that Claire was sneaking around in the background of the house. He could hear her giggling. She could never stop giggling, and besides, she did stuff like this

all the time.

But he still jumped dutifully at the first sudden touch to the thickly massed dark hair on top of his head. Claire gave a triumphant laugh as she skipped into his view, tousling his hair further. He even had the good grace to give her a pained look.

'Ha!' Claire clapped her hands together and smiled her supernova smile. 'I got you, didn't I?'

'Yes. You did,' Ross didn't have the heart to say otherwise. Claire lived at a higher intensity than most people, and even a slight disappointment would be magnified terribly on her cute little face. He tried shooting her a winning smile, to bring himself in on the joke.

She smiled back, but her heart had skipped a beat. It had been doing that a lot lately; as much as she loved Tracy, and simply adored his rugged look, she couldn't ignore her brother-in-law's youthful charms either. She had always melted for the handsome boy, just a little, even though he was only nineteen. She had fantasized, in the past; little half-formed speculative dreams of seducing him in his bed while her husband slept... But such things were harmless really; mere fuel for her engine that she could bring back to Tracy in the dead of night. She would never actually...

Anyway, she realized that Ross was staring at her expectantly. Had she drifted off again? For how long? She was

always

doing that.

The lights snapped on throughout the house, robbing it of its menace and mystery. Which made it just... dirty.

Tracy's voice drifted from the back of the house, 'Power's back on!' Which was sort of redundant, considering that the entire house was now bathed in light, but Ross would give his brother a pass on this one. Tracy was generally only willing to let his snarky comments pass for so long before he reacted, and

that

never went well.

The man himself loomed into view a moment later. Ross had to give him credit; the man could loom at a professional level. He could loom

sitting down.

There was a loud squeal as Claire threw open the closest window before rushing around the room on light, bouncing feet to open the rest of them. Tracy pressed a broom into Ross' hands with a vaguely amused look and an exhortation to "work." Ross sighed; oh, so

this

was how the day was going to go.

And so it was; the three of them pooling their efforts to clean and repair the mildly dilapidated domicile, with Ross only occasionally wondering how he had been suckered into helping for no remuneration. It was Claire, and her big damn eyes, it had to be. He'd never been able to say no to her, for

years

he'd been practically at her beck and call, much the same way as Tracy was. The same as any number of men who'd fallen under her spell; he sometimes wondered whether she was actually aware of the power she held, whether her careless and sunny exterior was just a façade.

Of course, with Tracy at his back, Ross didn't have a whole lot of time to think about things like that. His brother had always been implacable, like a brick wall that could frown, but he was excelling today, poking his head around the corner just as Ross would start to slack off even slightly. But there was something else...

It was just a feeling. A dim apprehension that there was something else in the room with him, but from the bothered looks he kept seeing on Tracy and Claire's faces, Ross could tell he wasn't alone in feeling it. It was bothersome, and he found himself distracting himself from it by engaging the visual centers of his brain. Unbidden, he found his eyes almost magnetically attracted to Claire every time she entered the room. With disturbing inexorability his gaze would slide to the pert curve of her butt, the enticing sway of her chest, the twitching hem of her skirt above creamy thighs that seemed to go on forever. It was entirely distracting.

Once or twice, Ross even thought he caught her staring at him...

Of course, one thing people never seemed to understand was that while they were staring out, others were also watching them. And inevitably, Claire took notice of Ross' staring. Only in glimpses, but it would have been hard to deny... She was attracting attention.

When her back was to him, Claire could practically feel his eyes on her ass, and a tiny smile unconsciously crested her lips at the thought. She began a series of playful, good-natured experiments to see how far she could push him; leaning heavily over a table to retrieve some small object or another, stifling laughter as Ross' eyes were glued to the momentary view of her deep, rounded cleavage. Standing on a chair to reach a high shelf, and not even having to hide her amused grin as he bent low for a better look at her legs in a skirt. As amusing as it was, it probably wouldn't be good to work up her brother-in-law too much, and she allowed her experiments to abate into the background level of perving that had been present before. Best not to tease, as fun as it was...

Still, she couldn't stop the ideas from poking into her head, vividly present for a few moments before fading out. And they were so much more

ribald

than before...

Over dinner, Claire kept blushing and refused to meet Ross' gaze for more than a few seconds at a time. Oddly, so did Tracy; in fact it seemed like nobody was getting a lot of eye contact that night. And there had been a point, a lull in the meager conversation where all three of them had heard whispering. It had been a cold voice, light as air with no recognizable origin point, and they had all agreed that the walls must be

very thin,

but it had clearly troubled them.

Still, the house was looking more palatable by the time they had stopped for the day. At least the thin patina of grime had been removed and the place no longer looked like an arcane nightmare. If it had been left the way it was, staying the night would have been a much less pleasant prospect. And as bummed as he had been to have been relegated to the couch for the night, Ross had always sort of wanted to stay the night in an old house like this one. It was a classic scenario. And though he lost that enthusiasm very quickly after about the third ominous shadow that passed over him with the faintest hint of whispering, it didn't stop him from falling asleep. He was still a teenager; very little did.

*********************

Claire turned over in the darkness, the reassuring weight of her husband now pressed against her back. She was having trouble sleeping; the walls were whispering.

Well, they probably

weren't,

from an entirely sane perspective, but sane perspectives could so often be precluded in dark old houses that had been whispering all goddamn day. Instinctively Claire knew that last sentence didn't make sense, but that was only more proof of her point. When a house speaks, you damn well listen even if you don't want to.

She could tell that Tracy and Ross could hear it too, at least periodically. The harried looks over their shoulders were all the indication she needed. But there had been long periods where they seemed to experience silence, and the voice had been gabbing at Claire all day. Almost constantly.

Oh, sometimes it was barely audible, the words smudged and indecipherable. But other times the intangible sigh became a scream that filled her head for periods of up to thirty seconds before fading down to almost nothing. Sometimes the voice was close by, almost perched on her shoulder; sometimes it was softly spoken from some distant, ethereal plain.

She tried to ignore it, but that wasn't working. It was unsettling, but it wasn't like she could broach the topic to the boys so easily; most of the time she couldn't even tell if the voice was external or all in her head. She could just be a little unhinged herself, which would explain the things the voice was saying...

It spoke of every tiny, barely acknowledged fantasy Claire had ever had. It urged her forward, demanded that she act, that she move, that she

do something!

Cold fingers wrapped around her neck, wove down her spine... stroked through her with strange, alien tenderness. The voice twanged through her nervous system like a thousand breaking violin strings, promising her so many wonderful things. Promising her fulfillment, the pleasures of the flesh...

Oh, it

demanded

the pleasures of the flesh.

It seemed to whirl around her in a heavy, warm miasma, touching her with a lover's familiarity. It laughed, she could feel it grinning in the dark. She felt herself grow hot at the things it growled in her ear, the promises, the demands, the cajoling, silky smooth tone. It seemed an ancient thing, but when it spoke to her it was so young and full of life; it knew exactly where to press to make her shudder at the mere thought of what it suggested. It caressed her mind, prodding her with gentle insistence; he's out there, woman. Downstairs. Practically waiting.

Move. Give him a thrill.

And she did. On trembling legs, with her heart pounding in anticipation and her brain fogged with the intensity of her desires, she moved. Slipped downstairs as silently as she could, afraid that the beating of her heart was audible in the outside world, loud enough to wake Tracy.

The voice was still there, giggling behind her back, and she giggled with it, as quietly as she could. There was something so deliciously decadent about all this; the sheer wrongness of it all, the fear of getting caught... Hell, the simple physical pleasure of the action, she and the voice

both

wanted that.

Ross was prostrate on the couch, his chest slowly rising and falling to the rhythm of his breathing. She gave a genuine smile in the dark; he looked pretty cute, laid out like that. She crept up next to him, stifling further giggles as she padded on bare feet across the wood floor to seat herself on the edge of the couch by his legs.

She slid down, and...

**************

In his dream, Ross was having sex with someone. Claire was there. Those two things were probably connected somehow, but his perception was a little fogged; he was

having sex

. It was distracting.

He was a teenager, so dreams like this one weren't incredibly rare, but something was off this time. Everything was so much more... vivid, than usual. Rendered in incredible detail. Heat was rising, some highly specific parts of his body were rising too. He could feel the dream slipping away, as substantial as fog. So many of his dreams ended like this.

Oh, good; he was going to wake up with a hard on again. How disgustingly

stereotypical

. Damn his biology...

His eyes opened slowly, taking time to adjust to the inky blackness. It was still dark, but the barest edge of dawn light could be seen from the window, casting the world in dark grey and silver. The stars spun through the black, slowly being obliterated by the spreading light. Dawn kills the night... how poetic.

Oddly enough, the really rather nice sensations of his dream were continuing, through the fugue of sleep. His legs felt strangely heavy, and... Oh.

Yes, that'd do it.

There was he, with his pants pulled down low. And- yes- there was Claire, dark hair falling around her face as she suckled at the head of his cock. How very incriminating. Oh my.

'Claire?' His voice sounded vague and fuzzy, still gripped by sleep. His sister-in-law's cool blue eyes flicked up to his in response, a smile twisting her lips against his dick.

'Hi,' She purred, lifting her mouth off of him for a moment that made him feel oddly bereft. 'Just go with it, kid.' Her voice, deep and purposeful, was so very different from its usual cheery, insubstantial tone. Her eyes spoke of myriad, lusciously carnal acts, and the imminence of their arrival.

Ross thought of what to say next, or at least he tried to. Recriminations, protests, even the odd encouragement slipped through his mind in the space of a few seconds. But they happened to be the few seconds between Claire's last words and the moment she took him back into her mouth; the sheer heat of which blasted away any coherent thought patterns Ross might have been hoping for. Only the moment remained; whatever the future had was at least a

whole second

away...

She was coiled around his legs, the heavy, soft weight of her breasts pressed against his thighs. Her lips, those perfectly kissable pink lips that he had secretly admired, wrapped tightly around his manhood, engulfing it in a mouth that

had

to have been designed for this; she was simply inhumanly skilled. Her tongue worked overtime, stroking along the underside of Ross' cock to the tempo of her lustful, soft moans.