Crossover Big Bang: Graduation Day 2/2 (PG-13)
Title: Graduation Day
Author(s): chibifukurou
Artist: chibi_lurrel
Crossover: My Chemical Romance/Monica Hughes' Invitation to the Game(re-published as "The Game")
Type: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 17,500
Characters/Pairings: Frank; Gerard; Mikey; Ray; Grace
Warnings: Dystopian subject matter; Mental Illness
Spoilers: None
Summary:All I wanted was a family of my own. Why did my right to have a wife and kids have to hinge on getting a job?
Author’s Notes: A HUGE thank you goes out to chibi-lurel for not only making me some truly awesome art; but doing an awesome beta job. Not to mention taking on a completely new fandom!
Part 1
# # #
June 12, 2125: The House
# # #
Move-in day was two days later. It wasn't like it was a big deal though. We only had the clothes we'd gotten on that first day and the few personal effects we'd managed to bring with us from school. It barely totaled a bag a piece.
Still, the move was symbolic. This would be the first time since we were little kids that we hadn't been in a government institution. It wasn't like we could buy ourselves a house-warming present, but Ray and I planned to go to the nearest grocery store that took ration credits to see if we could get a treat of some kind to commemorate the experience.
Maybe some alcohol if they had it, but that seemed like a little much to ask for. Even back at the school it had been hard to get anything alcoholic that wasn't made out of turnips. And turnip rot gut was strong enough to make anybody drunk after a couple of swigs, but it wasn't anything you'd drink if you had any other options.
"Do you think the lady who lived here knew what was going to happen to her house?" Gee asked me when I walked into the house. I hadn't even made it into the entry way this time before he started asked me questions. It was more worrying than I liked. "Where is Mikey?"
"Oh, he's downstairs. He wanted to clean up the art studio and make sure we don't need to go scrounging for supplies,” he said, and then went right back to his original questions. “So, do you think she knew? I think so. It feels like she wanted someone to love this house as much as she did."
"I'm glad, Gerard." I exchanged a look with Ray. His hair was standing on end, so at least I least he was as worried as I was. "Gerard, I'm going to go see if Mikey needs any help. Can you help Ray put our clothes away?"
"Sure thing. Mikey's already picked the bedroom he wants and you two can pick from the others."
"Where are you going to be staying?" Ray asked.
"Oh, I'm planning to stay downstairs."
I didn't stay to hear the rest of the conversation. I didn't want to know what Gerard's plans were. The idea of him holed up in the basement where we couldn't look after him was worrying enough.
I found Mikey exactly where Gerard had said he'd be, though it looked less like he was checking for missed art supplies and more like he was removing anything that Gerard could use to hurt himself.
"He’s getting worse again, isn't he?" I asked. “I figured if we could get him out of the school and off the meds he’d get better, but…”
"He’s not depressed. Once things settle down he’ll be fine"
"He seemed happy yesterday, happier than I'd seen him in a long time, but it seems like he's gotten more manic today."
Mikey nodded.
"Is he still refused to let us wean him off the pills slowly?"
Mikey nodded again and pulled a paint-encrusted pallet knife out of a drawer.
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
"No, he has to do this himself. He won't take the pills unless we force him to and even then he'll probably do something stupid like throw them up just to because he doesn't think he needs them."
"So what are you planning to do?
"Wait and see what happens. Maybe it won't be as bad as last time."
Too bad neither of us believed that.
# # #
It ended up being me and Mikey that went on the grocery run. He needed to get out of the house even if he didn't want to leave Gerard alone, and Ray was okay with staying with Gerard. At least he was once he caught sight of the deep shadows under Mikey’s eyes.
The grocery was only a few blocks away from the house, so we didn't need the map. That was good because I wouldn't have managed to use it right, and Mikey looked too tired to deal with anything that took that much attention.
It was a little store that held barely anything but different flavored protein mixes and some droopy looking produce. There was a tiny meat counter, but I wasn’t convinced anything there was actually meat.
It didn’t matter anyway. I wasn’t going to start eating animal products just because we weren’t in school anymore. If the others wanted to, they could do their own cooking. “So what are you thinking, Mikey, beef-flavor protein or mushroom-flavor?”
He shrugged and hunched further into himself.
“Well we can always use both.” I moved on to the produce, decided on a nice looking batch of radishes and grabbed up a few apples as well. They would take up more credits than turnips but Mikey looked like he needed a treat.
Not that he noticed I was getting them. He was too hunched in on himself to notice anything that was further away from the floor than our shoes.
“You can talk to me if it gets to be too much. We’re family now. Not just dorm-mates.”
That at least got him to look at me for a second before he returned to staring at our shoes. “Are we really?”
“Well, we got a house together and are planned to live together for the foreseeable future. I’m pretty sure that makes us family.” It wasn’t like I had much experience with the whole concept. Mikey, Gerard, and Bob were the only kids I’d ever known who still had some connection to their biological family. I had happy memories of my mom. Wanting to cook for my kids, like she’d cooked for me, was what inspired me to take cooking classes in school, but cooking wasn’t a real connection. At least not one that would make up for the fact we hadn’t seen each other since I was five.
“It isn’t anything you’re going to be able to help with. He’s going to have to hit rock bottom on his own.”
Besides the radishes and apples, everything else in the produce section looked pretty sad, so I headed for the small shelf in the back that held bottles that looks suspiciously like liquor.
“Probably, but we can at least make sure that you don’t have to hit rock bottom with him,” I said. True to my suspicions, the alcohol was all way above our price range and way too high quality for our needs. “Just promise me you’ll think about it okay?”
# # #
June 18, 2125: The House
# # #
Gerard was well on his way to detoxing after a week of living in the house; unfortunately that didn’t mean there was any guarantee he’d survive the experience. He’d spent the first five days rearranging everything in the basement how he wanted it. Then he spent the following two days barely getting out of bed. I didn’t even know if he’d eaten or drunk anything besides sintho-café despite my attempts to stake out the kitchen.
Since there wasn’t anything we could do for Gerard until he finally broke down and agreed to take his pills, Ray decided we needed to be distracted. He put Mikey and me to work, cleaning out the whole house, getting rid of the rotten turnips and adding our supplies to those that we’d managed to salvage from the cupboard.
It was actually kind of boring with nothing to do but scrub, dust, or sweep. The dragon-lady had talked to us about scrounging from the refuse piles at the local stores, but there wasn’t much that we needed when it came to our basic needs. The house was fully equipped with furniture - sofas, mattresses, it was all present and accounted for even if it wasn’t in the best condition.
And I was pretty sure that whatever mattresses we managed to find in a refuse pile would be in worse or equally bad condition. We could try to find better furniture but it wasn’t worth fighting other unemployed over.
What we really needed was something to keep us from going insane from boredom. At school we’d had classes and projects to keep us busy. Now there was just a great big nothing. There were only a certain number of times you could scrub a kitchen before it began to feel pointless.
If we’d been allowed to have access to radios or readers we might have stood a chance of staving off boredom, but as it was there was nothing to do but sit around and stare at each other.
“I’m thinking about trying to start a garden in the back yard,” Ray announced about a month after we’d moved in.
“Do you even know how to grow anything?” Hell, I wasn’t even sure if the tiny plot of land that was choked with vines and weeds was something we could salvage.
“It’s not like we have anything to lose, and maybe if you didn’t have to use rations credits on produce we’d actually be able to afford some alcohol for once,” Ray snapped.
“Look, whatever, if you want to do the cooking you can go right ahead. It’s not like I fucking care.” I stomped out to the front porch just to get away from him. I knew he didn’t really mean anything by it; he’d used the same joke since the first time I’d come back from the store with apples instead of beer, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. Gerard had kept me up most of the night with his pacing. I was pretty sure he’d kept Mikey awake too since he hadn’t come out of his room yet and it was almost lunch time.
This was not what I’d planned for my life, when I was back at school. It wasn’t all bad, but I still dreamed about being employed. Having access to a computer, not having to barter and haggle for every bit of food we got.
I guess it was true what our teachers had always said: you knew you were grown up when you cared more about putting food on the table then about what kind of food you had.
When I’d finally calmed down enough to go back inside I found Ray happily extolling the virtues of fresh grown food to Mikey. Even if I still thought the idea was a pipe dream it was good to see Mikey looking at least a little excited about something. He’d gotten so thin and wan that it was hard to look at him. I’d have thought he was trying stay up all night to keep an eye on Gerard if I hadn’t caught him sneaking out of the house more than once. He was always back in the house by the time Ray and Gerard were up so I didn’t even know if Ray knew he was sneaking out. I’d have told him to stop going and get some sleep instead, except he wasn’t the type to do something he didn’t think was important. If he was sneaking off at night to spend time with the other unemployed he had to have a reason to do so.
“Since you two are so big on the idea of playing around in the dirt why don’t you go see if you can scrounge up some seeds,” I said.
“Ger…” Mikey started to protest but I wasn’t having any of it.
“I’ll stay with him. You look like you could use some sun anyway,” I said, and wasn’t that a huge understatement? If he got any paler you’d be able to see his veins through his skin. It was bad enough that Gerard was turning into a virtual vampire, refusing to leave his bed, much less the basement, for days on end.
Ray slung an arm around his shoulder. “Come on let’s get out of here, before he puts us to work scrubbing the kitchen again."
# # #
July 9, 2125: Food Market near border of District 8
# # #
After another day of staring at the wallpaper and trying not to go stir crazy, I headed for the market. It had been a month since we’d been assigned to the District and there were still two days before we could pick up our next batch of ration credits. There wasn't much that I could get with the limited credits we had left to feed us for the month, but I figured I might be able to scrounge for something to celebrate the anniversary of our graduation with, so I started scrounging among the garbage cans back behind the store. They didn't usually have anything truly filling since it was almost impossible for protein powders to expire. Vitamins and supplements weren't the type of thing that you usually wanted to risk taking after they'd expired.
But I was hoping that I might be able to find some half rotten turnips or maybe even some radishes or kale, something that would liven up our usual bland dinners of protein. Ray’s ongoing efforts to turn our little plot of land into a garden had yet to succeed. What few plants had managed to grow were quickly stolen by the crows and rats. They seemed to be the only animals who managed to survive in the city, where all but the most-hardy greenery had been stripped away. These days it was a miracle to even see a dandelion managing to survive in some forgotten crack in the sidewalk.
I was head-first in a garbage can when I heard a rustle. I froze, back tense, the edge of the can cutting into my belly. I was alone; something I usually didn't risk when I was scrounging. Not after Ray had nearly gotten himself gutted over an old set of records. Mikey was thankfully a vicious fighter, and had managed to chase them off before anything really serious had happened. Otherwise we’d have been in a hell of a lot of trouble. As unemployed we didn’t qualify for medical insurance beyond the required prescriptions.
I pulled myself upright, slowly enough that whoever was behind me wouldn't think I was doing anything stupid like reaching for a weapon. I didn’t want to have to patch myself up if I got stabbed over a misunderstanding.
It didn't end up mattering; by the time I was fully upright and had turned around to face the mouth of the alley, there was nobody in sight.
A stray cat maybe? The sound had been louder than I'd expect from an animal though. Since I wasn't being threatened with dismemberment if I acted threatening, I grabbed a piece of an old broken food crate that had been left out in the alley long enough to rot part way through.
Not the best weapon but it would have to do. I inched towards the mouth of the alley, looking around every box and can, waiting for something to jump out at me.
No pissed off alley cats or territorial dogs - the alley was completely quiet. Maybe I'd imagined the whole thing?
I turned back to the garbage cans to get back to scrounging. That was when I saw it: a little lump of brightly colored fabrics layer and a fluffy mop of curls.
I couldn't tell if they belonged to a boy or a girl. It didn't really matter though, the kid was WAY too tiny to be hiding out in a back alley.
I dropped down into a less threatening crouch, making sure that I didn't completely block the exit. I didn't want to give the kid a panic attack. "Hi! I'm Frank. What's your name?"
A pair of eyes peeked out over their rainbow legging covered knees. They were big and brown and way too sad.
I waited a minute or two hoping that they'd say something, even if they wouldn't tell me their name, but they just kept staring at me.
Reminded of the old stray cats that used to hide in the schools back garden, I backed away slowly. Some of the tension went out of their little body.
Stifling a sigh, I reached into my bag and grabbed a few single sized packs of protein powder I'd just bought from the market and one of the limp bunches of turnip greens I'd rescued from the garbage, putting it all down between us. Then I backed away further.
We stared at each other for a few minutes longer, before I was distracted by a scuffing sound. By the time I looked back around the food was gone, probably hidden somewhere under the kid's patchwork sweater.
"I'm going to have to head back to my house now. It was nice meeting you," I said, grabbing my bags of groceries and standing up. I'd prefer to take the kid with me and make sure they were properly fed but I'd learned my lesson after the second time I'd snuck a cat into school. If it wasn't the cat's idea to come inside then they'd just sneak right back out as soon as your back was turned. "I hope to run into you again soon."
I left the alley and hid myself in another alleyway across the street until I saw the kid scurry out, a lump under their sweater. They headed in the opposite direction as I was heading.
I bit back my immediate instinct to follow.
Hopefully I'd see the kid again; but I doubted that would happen if I scared them off by being a creepy stalker.
# # #
Despite the fact that I'd only managed to get a few rotten turnips and a two bunches of turnip greens, one of which I'd give to the kid, we still had an anniversary dinner. It wasn’t like we had any other reasons to celebrate.
Even Gerard showed up to dinner that night. I hadn't seen him come up for a meal in three days and there had only been two protein packs missing from the pantry. He had to be starving by that point.
Mikey sat next to him, a wall on the other side. Gerard still looked haunted, his eyes darting around to the table between the bites of food he shoveled into his mouth. At the rate he was eating he'd be back down into the basement before I was even halfway through.
Desperate for something to catch his interest or at least get him to consider staying out of the basement for a little while longer, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "I ran into a kid today while I was scrounging out behind the food market!"
"You went scrounging by yourself? Are you crazy?" Ray was so pissed off his hair was doing that 'standing on end' thing it did.
Mikey didn't look much happier, though all he did was scowl at me over his glasses. He wasn't much for showing emotions.
"Oh come on, Ray. It was just behind the market. It wasn't even like I was doing any real scrounging or anything. Who's going to care about a couple of half-rotten vegetables anyway?"
My argument was less than convincing if Ray was anything to go by, leaning further into my personal space and his hair growing exponentially bigger.
"Ray!" I squeaked, in a totally masculine way.
"Well obviously the trash heap behind the market is more interesting than you thought it was if you ran into somebody there. What would have happened if it had been a gang instead of some kid?"
I could still remember my terror when I thought I was about to be maimed over a bunch of rotten vegetables, but that wasn't the point. I was totally capable of taking care of myself. "It was just a kid!"
"And what if it hadn't been just a kid? If you'd been killed we might never have known what happened to you. Promise me that you'll take someone with you next time you go scrounging."
I slammed my fork and knife down on the plate. "No way!" There was no way the kid was going to come out again if I had somebody like Ray or Mikey following me around.
"This isn't negotiable, Frankie."
"The hell it isn't." I grabbed my plate and made for the kitchen.
# # #
July 12, 2125: The House
# # #
I didn't end up doing anything about my resolve to see the kid again until later in the week. I hadn’t had a good excuse for going back to check on them, until after we had our new ration credits. As long as Ray didn’t realize that I was planning to do more than shop I’d be able to check on the kid without being caught
I left earlier that I usually would, just to be extra sure Ray didn’t know what I was up to. It was only about an hour after the sun came up. The more rowdy unemployed usually sacked out for a couple hours after partying all night. I only made it half way to the store before I realized I hadn't been as successful at sneaking out as I thought I had been.
Just to be a brat, I snuck into an alley and waited for Ray or Mikey to come by. It was Mikey, all sulky and miserable looking with his glasses half way down his nose and looking more asleep than awake.
I grinned evilly to myself. He totally deserved a rude wakeup call after following me. Letting out a battle cry I leapt onto his back. "Good morning Mikey Way!"
He jumped about a foot in the air but didn't toss me off.
"You stink!"
I slithered down to the ground. "Oh come on. I didn't scare you that bad."
"Hmph."
"Like it's going to hurt you to wake up early for one day."
He glared at me out of the corner of his eye. "You could have just waited and taken Ray with you."
"Shut up." I shoved him.
An Employed came out of one of the apartment buildings we passed. When she saw us, in our bright colored clothes, she gripped her purse tightly and ran the other way.
Mikey and I shared an amused look. He rolled his eyes. "You're such a brat."
As expected, the kid didn’t show up that morning. At least we found a limp bunch of carrots and some turnip greens, so it wasn't a complete wash. Mikey acted like he didn't notice when I hid some protein under a trash kid lid just in case the kid did come back.
# # #
The next time I went the store it was Ray that went with me. We actually went inside that time, since we had our ration credits again. I budgeted even more tightly than I had been before, managing enough extra food between the four of our credits to feed one more small person.
I think that Ray thought I was crazy by that point. He certainly thought I was obsessed, but it just didn't seem fair. We were stuck in this shit hole of a situation throwing our lives away just like all the other unemployed but at least we’d gotten a chance to go to school, have friends, be kids. This poor kid had most likely been on the streets their whole life.
# # #
July 31, 2125: Food Market near border of District 8
# # #
"I don't want to be here." Gerard said. He hadn't agreed to come to the store with me by choice. I didn't want to know what Mikey had threatened him with to get him to leave the basement.
Arguments between the Way brothers tended to turn vicious in the way only fights between people who trusted each other to never leave could be. "Well I didn't ask you to come with me so at least we're in the same boat."
Gerard hunched further into himself instead of replying.
I watched him out for the corner of my eye. In the sunlight it was even more obvious how thin and pale he'd become over his last few months hiding in the basement. Hopefully, getting out in the sunlight would be as good for him as Mikey seemed to think it would be.
"If you guys would just let me go scrounging on my own, you wouldn't have to come with me." I kicked a pebble out of my way. The cement in this area was cracked and broken. It made a good excuse not to look at Gerard.
"We don't want you to get hurt."
"I've never run into a single gang while I've been scrounging at the store." Besides if Ray and Mikey were fine with me taking Gerard with me they had to be convinced there wasn't any danger. If we got caught by the Peace-keepers it would only take a simple blood test to prove that he wasn't taking his pills.
Then it would all be over. They'd take him away and Mikey would go crazy, do something reckless and get himself caught by the Peace-keepers on the off chance that he would be reunited with Gerard.
Times like that I just wanted to scream at Gerard. Tell him how selfish he was being risking Mikey like he was. I was thankful when we reached the alleyway. It was still strewn with garbage and broken food crates, but I was used to it.
Gerard, bless his heart, didn't really care about getting messy but he also wouldn't know an edible vegetable if it bit him. I left him poking the bits and pieces of rubble while I made a perfunctory search of the garbage cans.
It was a surprisingly good day. Someone had thrown out a couple sets of turnips. Vegetables, greens and all, just because some of them had gotten bird pecked. There was also a small bag of apples. Green and unripe, but I could wait until they were edible.
Eager to show off my spoils, I headed back to where I'd left Gerard near the mouth of the alley. He was crouched down, half-way hidden by a pile of crates. "It was a good haul today!" I called.
He didn't acknowledge me. Not that I was expecting him to or anything, but it was still rude. Then I got close enough to see what he was up to. The kid had been hiding behind the crates. She didn't look as frightened this time, in fact she was staring at Gerard in the same star-struck manner I recognized from back when I'd first met him all those years ago at school.
Gerard turned to me with a brighter smile than he'd had in months. He looked almost as star-struck as the kid. "Her name is Grace, she can live with us right?"
Logically I should have said no. Ray would kill us for being reckless, but I didn't want to leave her here anymore than Gerard did. Mikey would side with us as soon as he saw how exited Gerard was, so it wasn't like Ray would actually be able to do anything. "Why not?"
# # #
Ray, as expected, was the voice of reason. "What the hell were the two of you thinking? You were supposed to go out and scrounge for food, not bring home a kid. Do either of you even know anything about how to take care of a kid?" His hair was getting scary-big from the way he kept running his hands through it.
I decided that I better try to defuse the situation before he and Gerard really got into it. The kid, Grace, was ignoring all of us in favor of having a staring match with Mikey, but that was only going to last for so long. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her off. "You feed them, make sure they have somewhere safe to sleep at night, and they learn how to take care of themselves. It sounds simple enough."
Ray groaned in an unnecessarily dramatic way, and ran his hand through his hair again. "Why am I surrounded by idiots?" he asked the ceiling.
I leaned into Gerard and whispered in his ear. "Do you think he's talking about us?"
Gerard twisted himself around so that he could stare at me, despite the fact that he and I were smushed together on the love seat. I just batted my eyelashes at him.
He choked down giggles, but the sound of his hiccupping laugh was still loud enough for everybody in the living room to hear. The room became abruptly quiet. When I looked up Mikey and Ray were staring at Gerard in shock.
Ray recovered first. Brushing his hair back into its usual orderly shape. "Fine, I'll make up a bedroom upstairs for you to keep her in, but you two are going to have to figure out how we're going to teach her everything she needs to know. It's not like we can use edu-pads like we had when we were kids."
# # #
August 1, 2125: The House
# # #
It turned up being a responsible adult was both a hell of a lot more awesome and a hell of a lot more terrifying than I originally thought.
The morning after we brought Grace home I went to wake her up, and almost had a heart attack when I found her bed empty. I then almost broke my neck when I tried to run down the stairs and slid down them instead after tripping over the runner.
In the end the pain didn't really matter, because Grace was safe and sound and in the kitchen sharing a bowl of protein mash with Gerard.
Gerard hadn't made it to a single breakfast I'd made in three months and even before that it was hit and miss. More importantly was the fact that he was actually eating something for breakfast rather than downing cup after cup of sintho-cafe. He needed the weight so I wasn't going to mention his changed habit in case he stopped eating just to be pissy.
Instead I announced myself as loudly as I could, just to make him jump. Because while it was awesome that he was doing better he could have at least woke me up before getting Grace up.
"Good morning!" I shouted
Gerard jumped a respectable distance out of his chair and had to grab onto the table to keep from tipping over. Grace giggled quietly to herself.
Gerard glared at me, pulling himself upright. "What the hell, Frankie?"
"You were the one who didn't tell me you and Grace were getting up early. Were you trying to eat all of the breakfast protein before I got any?" I asked in my most aggravatingly aggrieved voice, fluttering my lashes for added effect.
Gerard froze. I snorted and went to make myself a bowl of mush. Grace was still giggling softly and Gerard was still doing his impression of a statue by the time I joined them at the table. I poked him with the spoon and his mouth finally snapped shut.
He went back to glaring at me, but he didn't say anything. HE probably knew that I'd trounce him into the ground if he tried to out talk me. He might not be as taciturn as Mikey but it was not like he was on my level of sheer inanity. I could talk him under the table even on one of his more vocal days.
Mikey and Ray stumbled down into the kitchen right about the same time we finished eating breakfast. Mikey took the seat next to Gerard and did a pretty good impression of falling back to sleep while Ray got both his and Mikey's mash. It felt like old times at the cafeteria.
"I think we should go to the check in station today," Ray said around his mouthful of food.
"Why would we do that?"
"Because if any of them anybody is going to know how we're allowed to get information and teach ourselves things it's going to be the lady in charge of the office. I mean who else are we going to ask?" He sent a look Mikey's way but it was impossible to tell if Mikey had fallen back to sleep or was actually awake enough to realize he's being glared at. "Except for Mikey, we don't have contact with any of the other unemployed and I'm not sure his friends are the kind of people we want to introduce Grace to."
I guess I wasn’t the only one who knew about Mikey’s night-time explorations.
I looked over to Grace to see if she has an opinion on what she wanted to do, learning-wise. I couldn't tell how old she was between her hair and her baggy clothes but I was willing to be that if she was old enough to figure out how to survive on her own without a Government assigned number or any schooling she was old enough to know what she wanted to do with her time.
I couldn't catch her eye though; she was hiding behind her hair again. "Well we can't take Gerard with us, so maybe just you and I should go. That way Mikey can see if any of his friends have any ideas while Gerard and Grace stay here."
"Why can't I come with you?" I want to help Grace." Gerard glared at both of us over his cup of sintho-cafe.
Ray and I shared a look. Neither of us wanted to have to explain to Gerard why he couldn't come with us.
Thankfully Mikey wasn't as asleep as he'd appeared and rescued us before we could stick our feet anywhere they didn’t belong. "You can't go with them because you haven't been taking your pills."
"I'm fine without them."
He totally wasn't, still going through the manic swings brought about by withdrawal, but that was another issue I wouldn't go near with a ten foot pole.
Mikey propped himself up enough that he could roll his eyes in Gerard's direction. "It doesn't matter if you’re fine or not they still won't have a problem taking you in for treatment if they realize you haven't been taking the pills."
I was pretty sure it wasn't just my imagination that had Mikey putting extra emphasis on the 'or not.' Still, we didn't have time for a Way brother blood bath. And even if we did I didn't want to scare Grace off.
"Anyway Grace can't come with us. According to the government she doesn't even exist. Who knows what they'll do if they catch her. So somebody has to stay with her here."
"Fine," Gerard growled. Grabbing his cup of sintho-café he stormed off towards the hallway. We could hear him stomping down the steps to the basement. Hopefully he'd come back out before we left. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Grace being down in the basement with all of the art supplies and Gerard's mess. Some of that stuff was totally toxic.
# # #
Ray and I came back to the house to find Gerard tearing the place apart, acting even more frantic then he usually was during his more violent fits of inspiration. We stood side by side in the foyer watching him, stunned.
He hadn't been like that in longer than forever. If Grace was having that much of an effect on him then maybe he was finally getting close to being completely over the withdrawal. It was something to hope for, since unless we sat on him or Mikey threatened some sort of truly terrible punishment he wasn't going to take even a partial dose the pills to make sure he didn’t get suicidal again.
Ray and I shared a conversation made up mostly of shoving, each of us trying to get the other to deal with Gerard's current mood. I lost of course. But that's only ‘cause Ray was huge and totally had an advantage, and I didn't like to cheat in friendly shoving matches. I could have totally taken him in a fight though.
I edged slowly into the living room where I could just see Gerard's butt sticking out from behind the loveseat. I was surprised he even fit there as close as it was backed up to the wall. Feeling more sure of myself since he didn't seem to have noticed me yet, I edged around the couch until I was between him and the door to the kitchen. Ray could be in charge of catching him if he went for the hallway and the door to the basement.
"Gee?" I called.
He jerked a little but didn’t stop digging around behind the loveseat.
"Gerard?" I called again, louder this time. "Do you need me to help you find something?"
This time at least I got a reply though was too muffled to make out what he said. It went something like. "I mphf MPHF!"
Ray didn't look like he understood that any better than I did, if his confused hair was anything to go by. Too bad Mikey hadn't beat us back. He would have made things so much easier.
"We need a little bit better of an explanation than that Gee," Ray finally said.
Gerard's head popped up from behind the loveseats back. His hair was clumped together with various pieces standing on end in a fairly good approximation of Ray's hairdo. The he yelled "I lost Grace!" and all thoughts of his ridiculous hair were banished from my mind by panic.
"How the heck could you lose her? We were barely gone for two hours." Great, now I was thinking about crawling behind the furniture and looking for her too. The things Gerard did to my sanity.
Thankfully Ray was his usual calm self. "She probably went back to wherever she was staying before she came here. There isn't any reason for her to stay if she got scared or upset."
"But we didn't do anything to upset her!"
"Maybe not bout you have to remember she's a street kid and we don't know all that much about her. For all we know she's got siblings or a friend or something she was worried about. There's no way to tell." He looked over at me. "Did you ever figure out where she went home to when she wasn't in the alley?"
"No, I know it's in the opposite direction of the house, and the edge of the district is only a block or two away from the grocery store. Since she's not registered with the government it's really likely that she can pass District lines without getting picked up."
"Well shit!"
"Maybe if we stake out the alley?"
Ray gave Gerard his best evil eye. "We are not staking out the alley. If anything that will just scare her off. Maybe you and Frank can go there and leave food like you’ve been doing to if it comes to that, but it's just going to freak her out if we stake the place out."
"But she said she wanted to come with us!" Gerard wailed.
"It's only been two hours, there isn’t anything to say that she won't come back. Come into the kitchen. I'll make you a mug of sintho-café. You need to calm down."
Gerard was asleep on the couch within five minutes of drinking his mug of sintho-café."
"You drugged his drink didn't you?"
Ray smirked and took another sip of his own mug of cafe. "I slipped one of Mikey's downers into it. I wasn't convinced that he wasn't going to do something stupid like go running around the neighborhood yelling for Grace."
"Do you really think she's coming back?"
"I don't know if she is or she isn't, but I do know that if she doesn't want to stay with us we can't make her, and given the fact that you went back to that alley at least once a week for over two months without seeing her I doubt we'll be able to find her if she doesn't want to be found."
# # #
Mikey got back to the house about the same time Gerard started to wake up from his "nap." I was extremely thankful for that because I did not want to have to break up a fight between Gerard and Ray on my own.
I particularly didn’t want to when I could understand both of their positions. I hated being drugged myself but we couldn't afford to go hunting Gerard through the city in the dark, especially not when neither Ray or I had a very good idea of what to expect when it came to the other Unemployed.
Ray had gone out with Mikey a few times, and I'd gone once or twice myself but that didn't mean we'd know what we were doing if the worse came to worst.
Besides if Gerard got stupid and ran across the district lines trying to find Grace we'd all be screwed.
Mikey was his usual quiet self when he came in. If I hadn't been too nervous to sleep I probably wouldn't have known he was even back.
He froze a few steps into the house and stared at the couch Gerard was draped over. His sprawled body completely opposite of how he usually slept. All curled up into a ball as tiny as he could make himself.
I expected him to demand answers about what we'd done to Gerard but all he asked was, "What's up?"
"Ray did it!" I yelled before running for the kitchen.
I could hear Ray's curses clear enough from there and totally wasn't taking the fall of Gerard's getting drugged. I was an innocent bystander when it came to the whole situation. That was my story and I was totally sticking through it.
And I didn't feel at all guilty for abandoning Ray to Mikey's epic bitch face. No seriously I didn't.
# # #
I gave Mikey and Ray until I finished brewing a carafe of sintho-café, to finish their fight. Gerard would be pissed enough about being knocked out without us having to worry about him plotting murder because he didn't get his habitual caffeine fix.
When I came out of the kitchen Mikey had retreated to the couch, with Gerard's head tucked safely onto his lap. While Ray, looking even more hunted then when I'd left him, was curled up into the corner of the love-seat farthest from the couch. When I handed him his cup of café he whispered. "You could have at least bought me some time to run."
I smirked instead of answering. Since Gerard still hadn't woken up the rest of the way I put his mug on the table, before handing Mikey his.
I curled up into the chair opposite Ray. It was closer to the couch than his corner but I didn't have to worry about Mikey beating me up.
It took another hour before Gerard went from the occasional snuffle as the drugs started to wear off, to groaning himself awake. Mikey propped him up and shoved the now cold mug into his hands.
He gathered it too his chest greedily and swallowed it down in two gulps. Only bothering to stick his tongue out at the taste after he'd finished it all off. "What happened?" He asked the room at large.
"Ray was worried you'd do something stupid so he slipped you one of my downers." Mikey answered for all of us.
Gerard combined his glare with Mikey's for the infamous Way brother evil eye double team. If possible Ray seemed to shrink down even further into the cushions. Even his hair was drooping.
Now I was stuck feeling guilty for siccing Mikey on him in the first place, though he had deserved it.
"We didn't want you trying to follow Grace. She probably lives in another district and the Government might not care about her crossing the boundaries, they'll notice if we try something like that."
"I'd be careful," Gerard insisted.
Mikey was looking at me considering, "You think she can go between districts because she doesn't have a Government ID? So she’s not trackable?"
"That and the fact that she is just a kid and harmless. I doubt any of the gangs who have territory in the area care what she does." Glaring down at the mug I hated myself for saying what I was about to say. "She is safer out there on her own, then she would be if we drew attention to her, or to wherever she's hiding out."
Gerard squawked and looked ready to protest, but Mikey put a hand on his arm and he froze.
Mikey looked at him over the edge of his glasses. "We'll look for her tomorrow."
"What if something happens to her before then?"
"We'll figure something out."
Reaching out, I grabbed the hand Mikey wasn't holding. "I promise I'll go out with you first thing in the morning to look for her, but for now we need to get some sleep."
He looked ready to protest, but a jaw-cracking yawn served the double purpose of shutting him up and proving my point.
# # #
August 2, 2125: The House
# # #
When I woke up from where I was curled up in the living room’s chair I had to blink a few times before I believed what I was seeing. Grace was back. She’d curled herself up on against Gerard's side, The opposite of Mikey who Gerard was using as a pillow.
There was a torn up and taped box on the coffee table. It was filled with various odds and ends. I saw a brightly colored sleeve of a sweater, a few broken toys, and what looked like an old analog boom box, the type that was so old the government hadn’t even bothered to outlaw them for the unemployed. I doubted it even worked right. In fact I wasn’t sure anything in the box was worth any money. It reminded me more of the little box of treasures we’d hidden under Gerard’s bed when we were kids. Filled with drawings and gold stars.
Still, it was kind of sad that this was the sum of Grace's life. One little box. I promised myself that we would make sure she had more now that she was living with us. It was the least we could do for someone who was going to be a part of our screwed up family, and who managed to break through Gerard’s withdrawal and depression and get him to care about living again.
Uncurling from the chair, I tip-toed over to the couch and shook her gently. Her eyes fluttered open after a few seconds. Her whole body tensed up.
I waited a second, and I made sure not to move in any way that she could confuse for threatening, and she relaxed back against Gerard’s side. He made a grumping sound in the back of his throat and burrowed further into Mikey's side.
I held my hand out to her. "Come on, let’s go make breakfast for them. Then we can wake them up."
It probably wasn't very nice to let Gerard sleep after I knew where Grace was but since he hadn't woken up to her curling up with him, I figured he was still sleeping off the drugs. Besides it wouldn't hurt to him to wait a few minutes until we had some food to help wake him up.
She didn't take the hand I held out to her, but she did follow me into the kitchen. I pulled a chair up to the kitchen counter so that she could see; and started getting out the ingredients for pancakes. The flour was rough, and protein laced, but with enough fruit stuffed into the pancakes they wouldn’t be half bad.
“Do you want to help me make teddy bear pancakes?" I asked her. She probably wouldn’t know what I was talking about, but you never knew. I knew about pancakes because my Mom used to make them for me back before I turned five and went off to school. Maybe Grace’s Mom had made them for her at one point.
She stared up at me for a second, before nodding . Her little chin only moved a fraction of an inch, but at least she was replying to me. I heated up the pan and prepared to make the teddy bears. She climbed up on the chair to watch.
Two little circle pancakes for ears. Then a second later I poured the batter for the big pancake. The one that would be the teddy bear’s head.
I handed the her the spatula . "Can you please keep an eye on that. Once it has bubbles all over it, I'll show you how to flip it.”
She nodded again but her eyes stayed glued to the skillet. I hid a smile by turning my back so that I could dig though the cabinet for the supplies to make coffee. The small coffee pot went on the back burner where it would be out of the way if the batter splattered and the can of instant coffee went on the table where it would be virtually impossible to knock over. The one and only time I’d made the mistake of spilling the coffee I’d had to deal with epic drama from Mikey, Gerard, and Ray combined.
Once the water was taken care of I started digging through the cabinet for the dried fruit I knew I'd gotten a few months before I'd started cutting our rations to make sure we'd have enough to provide for Grace. I felt something poking me in the back. I jumped and just barely managed to keep from squealing. When I turned around it was just Grace and the spatula, the handle of which she seemed to be using to prod me. I reached out to grab it away from her, but stopped myself. I should have realized that if she wasn't going to talk then it would be difficult for her to tell me when the pancakes was done.
"Did it start to bubble?" I didn't wait for her to nod and hurried over to the pan. I grabbed a spare spatula from the drawer and carefully pushed it under the edge of the pancake so that I could see the bottom.
Nice and golden brown. Pinching the teddy bear's ears between my fingers I used the spatula to flip the rest of the pancake over, and stuck my slightly burned fingers in my mouth when I was done.
Grace had climbed back up on her chair while I was distracted and was staring at the pancake again. I reached out slowly, so she'd know what I was doing, and ruffled her hair. "Thanks for letting me know it was done. Come get me again if I'm not back out of the pantry in a couple minutes, okay?"
She nodded. Her curls rubbed against my hand.
# # #
I eventually did locate the dried fruit. It was tucked up on the top shelf that I could barely reach and it looked like somebody had been eating from the bag. Probably Mikey or Ray. Gerard would have at least offered to share it with me.
At least they left enough to make the pancakes with.
I carried the bag of fruit over to where Grace was still watching the pancakes. We were on our third teddy bear now. Ray and Mikey could totally have the two bears without fruit faces. They deserved it for eating the berries.
"We're going to give the teddy bears faces now!" I announced in a loud whisper. It would ruin the surprise if I accidentally woke the others up at this point.
She stared at me like I was crazy, which to be fair was kind of true. Just to prove I hadn’t completely lost my mind, I started making a little teddy bear face on the pancake that was still in the pan. Two little dried fruit eyes and a big snaggle-toothed dried fruit grin, just like my mom used to make. "See! I told you I was going to give him a face."
She didn't seem convinced, but she used her spatula to move the eyes around anyway. "See you’re great at making teddy bear faces! We’ll have to see what other faces you can make. Gerard always wants to put fangs on his." I whispered since I was pretty sure that Gerard was the key to her heart.
She stared up at me. I couldn’t tell if it was because she wanted to hear more about Gerard or just because she still thought I was crazy.
"He totally does love vampires. Just wait and see. The basement has vampires and fanged teddy bears everywhere!"
She turned back to the pancakes.
I smiled at the back of her hair. She was just too cute. I'd never really planned to have a kid, but if they were as awesome as her I’d have to reconsider.
Mom had always helped me help her make teddy bear pancakes on Saturday mornings to wake my Dad up from his tough week of work.
It was nice to be able to share that kind of things with someone besides Mikey, Gerard, and Ray, who had family traditions of their own.
I flipped the pancake and she could see the dark spotches where the fruit eyes and mouth had sunk to the bottom of the batter. She reached out to poke at them, and I grabbed her wrist without thinking about it. It was just my first instinct. She froze. Her whole body tensed up.
"Sorry, sorry.” I dropped her arm and backed a few steps away. "I just didn't want you to burn your fingers. Just use your spatula to poke at it."
She stayed on the far side of the chair while she poked at the pancake, keeping a wary eye on me the whole time.
Not wanting to scare her more, I stayed back from the stove until it was time to flip the pancake out of the pan. And I made sure to approach the pan slowly when I did come back. Just to be on the safe side
I handed her the bag of fruit as a peace offering. "Do you want to put the face on the next one? It can be the one we give to Gerard."
She took the bag out of my hand, ever so carefully, so that she was a far as way from me as she could get without dropping the tiny bag. I made sure not to move.
She carefully dropped two eyes into the pancake and started to work on the mouth. It got a bright big smile. A few extra pieces of fruit on either side then the last pancake we'd made. Then she looked up at me seriously for a minute. I wondered what I was supposed to be doing. Then she actually spoke. It was only one word ‘Fangs!’ but I had to clamp down on the urge to hug the stuffing out of her.
No way did I want to scare her away.
"Fangs huh? Well I bet Gerard will like that."
She smiled.
I reached carefully into the bag keeping my movements slow and careful and pulled out six pieces of fruit. Then I made little triangles on either side of the smile. Where the fangs would be.
She smiled so big and bright that I couldn’t keep myself from grinning too.
# # #
I took the pan with us into the living room. Where the others were still sleeping. Grace was like a little shadow behind me. Once I was in the middle of the rom. I jumped up on the coffee table and gave her an exaggerated wink. Then I started pounding the spatula into the back of the pot. It clanged and its clangs made the others jump upright. Gerard fell off of the couch and landed on the floor between the couch and the coffee table. Mikey jumped but managed to keep his cool. I couldn't see what Ray did from where I was standing but I was willing to bet it was equally hilarious. "We made pancakes you lazy bums. So get up already!"
Mikey started cursing me out, under his breath. Ray didn't bother trying to muffle his curses. Gerard probably would have been cursing me too expect he was still busy untangling himself from where he’d fallen.
I was preparing to jump off of the coffee-table and make a run for the kitchen when Grace started giggling. It wasn't very loud but it was enough to get everybody’s attention. Even Gerard stopped wriggling about. "Grace?"
She jumped on his back, still giggling.
"Grace." Gerard's voice was almost reverent as he managed to twist himself around enough that he could pull her into a hug. Unlike with me she didn't try to wiggle away.
I started to grin. Looking at Mikey I saw that he was doing his own version of grinning, his Eyes soft and loving as he watched the two of them cuddle on the floor.
Since I was so busy staring at Gerard and Grace, I almost missed Ray sneaking past me towards the kitchen. I launched myself onto his back and grabbed his shoulders so he couldn't shake me off. "So it was you that stole the dried fruit! Villain! Ruffian!"
"Come on Frank, get off!" He reached behind him trying to get me to pry my hands off his shoulders.
"I shall not be vanquished!" I yelled just to make a point, since the way he was twisting around meant that I was only a few inches away from his ear.
He yelped and covered his ear. "Frank!"
"I told you I wouldn't be vanquished." I used his distraction to scamper the rest of the way up his back so that my arms were wrapped around his neck. "Onward to the kitchen!"
Gerard and Grace started giggling again and I almost thought I heard Mikey chuckling. It was almost like being a family again.
This was what I had hoped things would be like when we were sent away from the school, but I never thought it would happen again. It was the kind of stupid dream that kids had. So it was probably a good thing that I was still mostly a kid at heart.
Even if I was going to have to grow up a little; now that I was going to be a big brother to Grace.
Author(s): chibifukurou
Artist: chibi_lurrel
Crossover: My Chemical Romance/Monica Hughes' Invitation to the Game(re-published as "The Game")
Type: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 17,500
Characters/Pairings: Frank; Gerard; Mikey; Ray; Grace
Warnings: Dystopian subject matter; Mental Illness
Spoilers: None
Summary:All I wanted was a family of my own. Why did my right to have a wife and kids have to hinge on getting a job?
Author’s Notes: A HUGE thank you goes out to chibi-lurel for not only making me some truly awesome art; but doing an awesome beta job. Not to mention taking on a completely new fandom!
Part 1
# # #
June 12, 2125: The House
# # #
Move-in day was two days later. It wasn't like it was a big deal though. We only had the clothes we'd gotten on that first day and the few personal effects we'd managed to bring with us from school. It barely totaled a bag a piece.
Still, the move was symbolic. This would be the first time since we were little kids that we hadn't been in a government institution. It wasn't like we could buy ourselves a house-warming present, but Ray and I planned to go to the nearest grocery store that took ration credits to see if we could get a treat of some kind to commemorate the experience.
Maybe some alcohol if they had it, but that seemed like a little much to ask for. Even back at the school it had been hard to get anything alcoholic that wasn't made out of turnips. And turnip rot gut was strong enough to make anybody drunk after a couple of swigs, but it wasn't anything you'd drink if you had any other options.
"Do you think the lady who lived here knew what was going to happen to her house?" Gee asked me when I walked into the house. I hadn't even made it into the entry way this time before he started asked me questions. It was more worrying than I liked. "Where is Mikey?"
"Oh, he's downstairs. He wanted to clean up the art studio and make sure we don't need to go scrounging for supplies,” he said, and then went right back to his original questions. “So, do you think she knew? I think so. It feels like she wanted someone to love this house as much as she did."
"I'm glad, Gerard." I exchanged a look with Ray. His hair was standing on end, so at least I least he was as worried as I was. "Gerard, I'm going to go see if Mikey needs any help. Can you help Ray put our clothes away?"
"Sure thing. Mikey's already picked the bedroom he wants and you two can pick from the others."
"Where are you going to be staying?" Ray asked.
"Oh, I'm planning to stay downstairs."
I didn't stay to hear the rest of the conversation. I didn't want to know what Gerard's plans were. The idea of him holed up in the basement where we couldn't look after him was worrying enough.
I found Mikey exactly where Gerard had said he'd be, though it looked less like he was checking for missed art supplies and more like he was removing anything that Gerard could use to hurt himself.
"He’s getting worse again, isn't he?" I asked. “I figured if we could get him out of the school and off the meds he’d get better, but…”
"He’s not depressed. Once things settle down he’ll be fine"
"He seemed happy yesterday, happier than I'd seen him in a long time, but it seems like he's gotten more manic today."
Mikey nodded.
"Is he still refused to let us wean him off the pills slowly?"
Mikey nodded again and pulled a paint-encrusted pallet knife out of a drawer.
"Is there anything I can do to help?"
"No, he has to do this himself. He won't take the pills unless we force him to and even then he'll probably do something stupid like throw them up just to because he doesn't think he needs them."
"So what are you planning to do?
"Wait and see what happens. Maybe it won't be as bad as last time."
Too bad neither of us believed that.
# # #
It ended up being me and Mikey that went on the grocery run. He needed to get out of the house even if he didn't want to leave Gerard alone, and Ray was okay with staying with Gerard. At least he was once he caught sight of the deep shadows under Mikey’s eyes.
The grocery was only a few blocks away from the house, so we didn't need the map. That was good because I wouldn't have managed to use it right, and Mikey looked too tired to deal with anything that took that much attention.
It was a little store that held barely anything but different flavored protein mixes and some droopy looking produce. There was a tiny meat counter, but I wasn’t convinced anything there was actually meat.
It didn’t matter anyway. I wasn’t going to start eating animal products just because we weren’t in school anymore. If the others wanted to, they could do their own cooking. “So what are you thinking, Mikey, beef-flavor protein or mushroom-flavor?”
He shrugged and hunched further into himself.
“Well we can always use both.” I moved on to the produce, decided on a nice looking batch of radishes and grabbed up a few apples as well. They would take up more credits than turnips but Mikey looked like he needed a treat.
Not that he noticed I was getting them. He was too hunched in on himself to notice anything that was further away from the floor than our shoes.
“You can talk to me if it gets to be too much. We’re family now. Not just dorm-mates.”
That at least got him to look at me for a second before he returned to staring at our shoes. “Are we really?”
“Well, we got a house together and are planned to live together for the foreseeable future. I’m pretty sure that makes us family.” It wasn’t like I had much experience with the whole concept. Mikey, Gerard, and Bob were the only kids I’d ever known who still had some connection to their biological family. I had happy memories of my mom. Wanting to cook for my kids, like she’d cooked for me, was what inspired me to take cooking classes in school, but cooking wasn’t a real connection. At least not one that would make up for the fact we hadn’t seen each other since I was five.
“It isn’t anything you’re going to be able to help with. He’s going to have to hit rock bottom on his own.”
Besides the radishes and apples, everything else in the produce section looked pretty sad, so I headed for the small shelf in the back that held bottles that looks suspiciously like liquor.
“Probably, but we can at least make sure that you don’t have to hit rock bottom with him,” I said. True to my suspicions, the alcohol was all way above our price range and way too high quality for our needs. “Just promise me you’ll think about it okay?”
# # #
June 18, 2125: The House
# # #
Gerard was well on his way to detoxing after a week of living in the house; unfortunately that didn’t mean there was any guarantee he’d survive the experience. He’d spent the first five days rearranging everything in the basement how he wanted it. Then he spent the following two days barely getting out of bed. I didn’t even know if he’d eaten or drunk anything besides sintho-café despite my attempts to stake out the kitchen.
Since there wasn’t anything we could do for Gerard until he finally broke down and agreed to take his pills, Ray decided we needed to be distracted. He put Mikey and me to work, cleaning out the whole house, getting rid of the rotten turnips and adding our supplies to those that we’d managed to salvage from the cupboard.
It was actually kind of boring with nothing to do but scrub, dust, or sweep. The dragon-lady had talked to us about scrounging from the refuse piles at the local stores, but there wasn’t much that we needed when it came to our basic needs. The house was fully equipped with furniture - sofas, mattresses, it was all present and accounted for even if it wasn’t in the best condition.
And I was pretty sure that whatever mattresses we managed to find in a refuse pile would be in worse or equally bad condition. We could try to find better furniture but it wasn’t worth fighting other unemployed over.
What we really needed was something to keep us from going insane from boredom. At school we’d had classes and projects to keep us busy. Now there was just a great big nothing. There were only a certain number of times you could scrub a kitchen before it began to feel pointless.
If we’d been allowed to have access to radios or readers we might have stood a chance of staving off boredom, but as it was there was nothing to do but sit around and stare at each other.
“I’m thinking about trying to start a garden in the back yard,” Ray announced about a month after we’d moved in.
“Do you even know how to grow anything?” Hell, I wasn’t even sure if the tiny plot of land that was choked with vines and weeds was something we could salvage.
“It’s not like we have anything to lose, and maybe if you didn’t have to use rations credits on produce we’d actually be able to afford some alcohol for once,” Ray snapped.
“Look, whatever, if you want to do the cooking you can go right ahead. It’s not like I fucking care.” I stomped out to the front porch just to get away from him. I knew he didn’t really mean anything by it; he’d used the same joke since the first time I’d come back from the store with apples instead of beer, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. Gerard had kept me up most of the night with his pacing. I was pretty sure he’d kept Mikey awake too since he hadn’t come out of his room yet and it was almost lunch time.
This was not what I’d planned for my life, when I was back at school. It wasn’t all bad, but I still dreamed about being employed. Having access to a computer, not having to barter and haggle for every bit of food we got.
I guess it was true what our teachers had always said: you knew you were grown up when you cared more about putting food on the table then about what kind of food you had.
When I’d finally calmed down enough to go back inside I found Ray happily extolling the virtues of fresh grown food to Mikey. Even if I still thought the idea was a pipe dream it was good to see Mikey looking at least a little excited about something. He’d gotten so thin and wan that it was hard to look at him. I’d have thought he was trying stay up all night to keep an eye on Gerard if I hadn’t caught him sneaking out of the house more than once. He was always back in the house by the time Ray and Gerard were up so I didn’t even know if Ray knew he was sneaking out. I’d have told him to stop going and get some sleep instead, except he wasn’t the type to do something he didn’t think was important. If he was sneaking off at night to spend time with the other unemployed he had to have a reason to do so.
“Since you two are so big on the idea of playing around in the dirt why don’t you go see if you can scrounge up some seeds,” I said.
“Ger…” Mikey started to protest but I wasn’t having any of it.
“I’ll stay with him. You look like you could use some sun anyway,” I said, and wasn’t that a huge understatement? If he got any paler you’d be able to see his veins through his skin. It was bad enough that Gerard was turning into a virtual vampire, refusing to leave his bed, much less the basement, for days on end.
Ray slung an arm around his shoulder. “Come on let’s get out of here, before he puts us to work scrubbing the kitchen again."
# # #
July 9, 2125: Food Market near border of District 8
# # #
After another day of staring at the wallpaper and trying not to go stir crazy, I headed for the market. It had been a month since we’d been assigned to the District and there were still two days before we could pick up our next batch of ration credits. There wasn't much that I could get with the limited credits we had left to feed us for the month, but I figured I might be able to scrounge for something to celebrate the anniversary of our graduation with, so I started scrounging among the garbage cans back behind the store. They didn't usually have anything truly filling since it was almost impossible for protein powders to expire. Vitamins and supplements weren't the type of thing that you usually wanted to risk taking after they'd expired.
But I was hoping that I might be able to find some half rotten turnips or maybe even some radishes or kale, something that would liven up our usual bland dinners of protein. Ray’s ongoing efforts to turn our little plot of land into a garden had yet to succeed. What few plants had managed to grow were quickly stolen by the crows and rats. They seemed to be the only animals who managed to survive in the city, where all but the most-hardy greenery had been stripped away. These days it was a miracle to even see a dandelion managing to survive in some forgotten crack in the sidewalk.
I was head-first in a garbage can when I heard a rustle. I froze, back tense, the edge of the can cutting into my belly. I was alone; something I usually didn't risk when I was scrounging. Not after Ray had nearly gotten himself gutted over an old set of records. Mikey was thankfully a vicious fighter, and had managed to chase them off before anything really serious had happened. Otherwise we’d have been in a hell of a lot of trouble. As unemployed we didn’t qualify for medical insurance beyond the required prescriptions.
I pulled myself upright, slowly enough that whoever was behind me wouldn't think I was doing anything stupid like reaching for a weapon. I didn’t want to have to patch myself up if I got stabbed over a misunderstanding.
It didn't end up mattering; by the time I was fully upright and had turned around to face the mouth of the alley, there was nobody in sight.
A stray cat maybe? The sound had been louder than I'd expect from an animal though. Since I wasn't being threatened with dismemberment if I acted threatening, I grabbed a piece of an old broken food crate that had been left out in the alley long enough to rot part way through.
Not the best weapon but it would have to do. I inched towards the mouth of the alley, looking around every box and can, waiting for something to jump out at me.
No pissed off alley cats or territorial dogs - the alley was completely quiet. Maybe I'd imagined the whole thing?
I turned back to the garbage cans to get back to scrounging. That was when I saw it: a little lump of brightly colored fabrics layer and a fluffy mop of curls.
I couldn't tell if they belonged to a boy or a girl. It didn't really matter though, the kid was WAY too tiny to be hiding out in a back alley.
I dropped down into a less threatening crouch, making sure that I didn't completely block the exit. I didn't want to give the kid a panic attack. "Hi! I'm Frank. What's your name?"
A pair of eyes peeked out over their rainbow legging covered knees. They were big and brown and way too sad.
I waited a minute or two hoping that they'd say something, even if they wouldn't tell me their name, but they just kept staring at me.
Reminded of the old stray cats that used to hide in the schools back garden, I backed away slowly. Some of the tension went out of their little body.
Stifling a sigh, I reached into my bag and grabbed a few single sized packs of protein powder I'd just bought from the market and one of the limp bunches of turnip greens I'd rescued from the garbage, putting it all down between us. Then I backed away further.
We stared at each other for a few minutes longer, before I was distracted by a scuffing sound. By the time I looked back around the food was gone, probably hidden somewhere under the kid's patchwork sweater.
"I'm going to have to head back to my house now. It was nice meeting you," I said, grabbing my bags of groceries and standing up. I'd prefer to take the kid with me and make sure they were properly fed but I'd learned my lesson after the second time I'd snuck a cat into school. If it wasn't the cat's idea to come inside then they'd just sneak right back out as soon as your back was turned. "I hope to run into you again soon."
I left the alley and hid myself in another alleyway across the street until I saw the kid scurry out, a lump under their sweater. They headed in the opposite direction as I was heading.
I bit back my immediate instinct to follow.
Hopefully I'd see the kid again; but I doubted that would happen if I scared them off by being a creepy stalker.
# # #
Despite the fact that I'd only managed to get a few rotten turnips and a two bunches of turnip greens, one of which I'd give to the kid, we still had an anniversary dinner. It wasn’t like we had any other reasons to celebrate.
Even Gerard showed up to dinner that night. I hadn't seen him come up for a meal in three days and there had only been two protein packs missing from the pantry. He had to be starving by that point.
Mikey sat next to him, a wall on the other side. Gerard still looked haunted, his eyes darting around to the table between the bites of food he shoveled into his mouth. At the rate he was eating he'd be back down into the basement before I was even halfway through.
Desperate for something to catch his interest or at least get him to consider staying out of the basement for a little while longer, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "I ran into a kid today while I was scrounging out behind the food market!"
"You went scrounging by yourself? Are you crazy?" Ray was so pissed off his hair was doing that 'standing on end' thing it did.
Mikey didn't look much happier, though all he did was scowl at me over his glasses. He wasn't much for showing emotions.
"Oh come on, Ray. It was just behind the market. It wasn't even like I was doing any real scrounging or anything. Who's going to care about a couple of half-rotten vegetables anyway?"
My argument was less than convincing if Ray was anything to go by, leaning further into my personal space and his hair growing exponentially bigger.
"Ray!" I squeaked, in a totally masculine way.
"Well obviously the trash heap behind the market is more interesting than you thought it was if you ran into somebody there. What would have happened if it had been a gang instead of some kid?"
I could still remember my terror when I thought I was about to be maimed over a bunch of rotten vegetables, but that wasn't the point. I was totally capable of taking care of myself. "It was just a kid!"
"And what if it hadn't been just a kid? If you'd been killed we might never have known what happened to you. Promise me that you'll take someone with you next time you go scrounging."
I slammed my fork and knife down on the plate. "No way!" There was no way the kid was going to come out again if I had somebody like Ray or Mikey following me around.
"This isn't negotiable, Frankie."
"The hell it isn't." I grabbed my plate and made for the kitchen.
# # #
July 12, 2125: The House
# # #
I didn't end up doing anything about my resolve to see the kid again until later in the week. I hadn’t had a good excuse for going back to check on them, until after we had our new ration credits. As long as Ray didn’t realize that I was planning to do more than shop I’d be able to check on the kid without being caught
I left earlier that I usually would, just to be extra sure Ray didn’t know what I was up to. It was only about an hour after the sun came up. The more rowdy unemployed usually sacked out for a couple hours after partying all night. I only made it half way to the store before I realized I hadn't been as successful at sneaking out as I thought I had been.
Just to be a brat, I snuck into an alley and waited for Ray or Mikey to come by. It was Mikey, all sulky and miserable looking with his glasses half way down his nose and looking more asleep than awake.
I grinned evilly to myself. He totally deserved a rude wakeup call after following me. Letting out a battle cry I leapt onto his back. "Good morning Mikey Way!"
He jumped about a foot in the air but didn't toss me off.
"You stink!"
I slithered down to the ground. "Oh come on. I didn't scare you that bad."
"Hmph."
"Like it's going to hurt you to wake up early for one day."
He glared at me out of the corner of his eye. "You could have just waited and taken Ray with you."
"Shut up." I shoved him.
An Employed came out of one of the apartment buildings we passed. When she saw us, in our bright colored clothes, she gripped her purse tightly and ran the other way.
Mikey and I shared an amused look. He rolled his eyes. "You're such a brat."
As expected, the kid didn’t show up that morning. At least we found a limp bunch of carrots and some turnip greens, so it wasn't a complete wash. Mikey acted like he didn't notice when I hid some protein under a trash kid lid just in case the kid did come back.
# # #
The next time I went the store it was Ray that went with me. We actually went inside that time, since we had our ration credits again. I budgeted even more tightly than I had been before, managing enough extra food between the four of our credits to feed one more small person.
I think that Ray thought I was crazy by that point. He certainly thought I was obsessed, but it just didn't seem fair. We were stuck in this shit hole of a situation throwing our lives away just like all the other unemployed but at least we’d gotten a chance to go to school, have friends, be kids. This poor kid had most likely been on the streets their whole life.
# # #
July 31, 2125: Food Market near border of District 8
# # #
"I don't want to be here." Gerard said. He hadn't agreed to come to the store with me by choice. I didn't want to know what Mikey had threatened him with to get him to leave the basement.
Arguments between the Way brothers tended to turn vicious in the way only fights between people who trusted each other to never leave could be. "Well I didn't ask you to come with me so at least we're in the same boat."
Gerard hunched further into himself instead of replying.
I watched him out for the corner of my eye. In the sunlight it was even more obvious how thin and pale he'd become over his last few months hiding in the basement. Hopefully, getting out in the sunlight would be as good for him as Mikey seemed to think it would be.
"If you guys would just let me go scrounging on my own, you wouldn't have to come with me." I kicked a pebble out of my way. The cement in this area was cracked and broken. It made a good excuse not to look at Gerard.
"We don't want you to get hurt."
"I've never run into a single gang while I've been scrounging at the store." Besides if Ray and Mikey were fine with me taking Gerard with me they had to be convinced there wasn't any danger. If we got caught by the Peace-keepers it would only take a simple blood test to prove that he wasn't taking his pills.
Then it would all be over. They'd take him away and Mikey would go crazy, do something reckless and get himself caught by the Peace-keepers on the off chance that he would be reunited with Gerard.
Times like that I just wanted to scream at Gerard. Tell him how selfish he was being risking Mikey like he was. I was thankful when we reached the alleyway. It was still strewn with garbage and broken food crates, but I was used to it.
Gerard, bless his heart, didn't really care about getting messy but he also wouldn't know an edible vegetable if it bit him. I left him poking the bits and pieces of rubble while I made a perfunctory search of the garbage cans.
It was a surprisingly good day. Someone had thrown out a couple sets of turnips. Vegetables, greens and all, just because some of them had gotten bird pecked. There was also a small bag of apples. Green and unripe, but I could wait until they were edible.
Eager to show off my spoils, I headed back to where I'd left Gerard near the mouth of the alley. He was crouched down, half-way hidden by a pile of crates. "It was a good haul today!" I called.
He didn't acknowledge me. Not that I was expecting him to or anything, but it was still rude. Then I got close enough to see what he was up to. The kid had been hiding behind the crates. She didn't look as frightened this time, in fact she was staring at Gerard in the same star-struck manner I recognized from back when I'd first met him all those years ago at school.
Gerard turned to me with a brighter smile than he'd had in months. He looked almost as star-struck as the kid. "Her name is Grace, she can live with us right?"
Logically I should have said no. Ray would kill us for being reckless, but I didn't want to leave her here anymore than Gerard did. Mikey would side with us as soon as he saw how exited Gerard was, so it wasn't like Ray would actually be able to do anything. "Why not?"
# # #
Ray, as expected, was the voice of reason. "What the hell were the two of you thinking? You were supposed to go out and scrounge for food, not bring home a kid. Do either of you even know anything about how to take care of a kid?" His hair was getting scary-big from the way he kept running his hands through it.
I decided that I better try to defuse the situation before he and Gerard really got into it. The kid, Grace, was ignoring all of us in favor of having a staring match with Mikey, but that was only going to last for so long. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her off. "You feed them, make sure they have somewhere safe to sleep at night, and they learn how to take care of themselves. It sounds simple enough."
Ray groaned in an unnecessarily dramatic way, and ran his hand through his hair again. "Why am I surrounded by idiots?" he asked the ceiling.
I leaned into Gerard and whispered in his ear. "Do you think he's talking about us?"
Gerard twisted himself around so that he could stare at me, despite the fact that he and I were smushed together on the love seat. I just batted my eyelashes at him.
He choked down giggles, but the sound of his hiccupping laugh was still loud enough for everybody in the living room to hear. The room became abruptly quiet. When I looked up Mikey and Ray were staring at Gerard in shock.
Ray recovered first. Brushing his hair back into its usual orderly shape. "Fine, I'll make up a bedroom upstairs for you to keep her in, but you two are going to have to figure out how we're going to teach her everything she needs to know. It's not like we can use edu-pads like we had when we were kids."
# # #
August 1, 2125: The House
# # #
It turned up being a responsible adult was both a hell of a lot more awesome and a hell of a lot more terrifying than I originally thought.
The morning after we brought Grace home I went to wake her up, and almost had a heart attack when I found her bed empty. I then almost broke my neck when I tried to run down the stairs and slid down them instead after tripping over the runner.
In the end the pain didn't really matter, because Grace was safe and sound and in the kitchen sharing a bowl of protein mash with Gerard.
Gerard hadn't made it to a single breakfast I'd made in three months and even before that it was hit and miss. More importantly was the fact that he was actually eating something for breakfast rather than downing cup after cup of sintho-cafe. He needed the weight so I wasn't going to mention his changed habit in case he stopped eating just to be pissy.
Instead I announced myself as loudly as I could, just to make him jump. Because while it was awesome that he was doing better he could have at least woke me up before getting Grace up.
"Good morning!" I shouted
Gerard jumped a respectable distance out of his chair and had to grab onto the table to keep from tipping over. Grace giggled quietly to herself.
Gerard glared at me, pulling himself upright. "What the hell, Frankie?"
"You were the one who didn't tell me you and Grace were getting up early. Were you trying to eat all of the breakfast protein before I got any?" I asked in my most aggravatingly aggrieved voice, fluttering my lashes for added effect.
Gerard froze. I snorted and went to make myself a bowl of mush. Grace was still giggling softly and Gerard was still doing his impression of a statue by the time I joined them at the table. I poked him with the spoon and his mouth finally snapped shut.
He went back to glaring at me, but he didn't say anything. HE probably knew that I'd trounce him into the ground if he tried to out talk me. He might not be as taciturn as Mikey but it was not like he was on my level of sheer inanity. I could talk him under the table even on one of his more vocal days.
Mikey and Ray stumbled down into the kitchen right about the same time we finished eating breakfast. Mikey took the seat next to Gerard and did a pretty good impression of falling back to sleep while Ray got both his and Mikey's mash. It felt like old times at the cafeteria.
"I think we should go to the check in station today," Ray said around his mouthful of food.
"Why would we do that?"
"Because if any of them anybody is going to know how we're allowed to get information and teach ourselves things it's going to be the lady in charge of the office. I mean who else are we going to ask?" He sent a look Mikey's way but it was impossible to tell if Mikey had fallen back to sleep or was actually awake enough to realize he's being glared at. "Except for Mikey, we don't have contact with any of the other unemployed and I'm not sure his friends are the kind of people we want to introduce Grace to."
I guess I wasn’t the only one who knew about Mikey’s night-time explorations.
I looked over to Grace to see if she has an opinion on what she wanted to do, learning-wise. I couldn't tell how old she was between her hair and her baggy clothes but I was willing to be that if she was old enough to figure out how to survive on her own without a Government assigned number or any schooling she was old enough to know what she wanted to do with her time.
I couldn't catch her eye though; she was hiding behind her hair again. "Well we can't take Gerard with us, so maybe just you and I should go. That way Mikey can see if any of his friends have any ideas while Gerard and Grace stay here."
"Why can't I come with you?" I want to help Grace." Gerard glared at both of us over his cup of sintho-cafe.
Ray and I shared a look. Neither of us wanted to have to explain to Gerard why he couldn't come with us.
Thankfully Mikey wasn't as asleep as he'd appeared and rescued us before we could stick our feet anywhere they didn’t belong. "You can't go with them because you haven't been taking your pills."
"I'm fine without them."
He totally wasn't, still going through the manic swings brought about by withdrawal, but that was another issue I wouldn't go near with a ten foot pole.
Mikey propped himself up enough that he could roll his eyes in Gerard's direction. "It doesn't matter if you’re fine or not they still won't have a problem taking you in for treatment if they realize you haven't been taking the pills."
I was pretty sure it wasn't just my imagination that had Mikey putting extra emphasis on the 'or not.' Still, we didn't have time for a Way brother blood bath. And even if we did I didn't want to scare Grace off.
"Anyway Grace can't come with us. According to the government she doesn't even exist. Who knows what they'll do if they catch her. So somebody has to stay with her here."
"Fine," Gerard growled. Grabbing his cup of sintho-café he stormed off towards the hallway. We could hear him stomping down the steps to the basement. Hopefully he'd come back out before we left. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Grace being down in the basement with all of the art supplies and Gerard's mess. Some of that stuff was totally toxic.
# # #
Ray and I came back to the house to find Gerard tearing the place apart, acting even more frantic then he usually was during his more violent fits of inspiration. We stood side by side in the foyer watching him, stunned.
He hadn't been like that in longer than forever. If Grace was having that much of an effect on him then maybe he was finally getting close to being completely over the withdrawal. It was something to hope for, since unless we sat on him or Mikey threatened some sort of truly terrible punishment he wasn't going to take even a partial dose the pills to make sure he didn’t get suicidal again.
Ray and I shared a conversation made up mostly of shoving, each of us trying to get the other to deal with Gerard's current mood. I lost of course. But that's only ‘cause Ray was huge and totally had an advantage, and I didn't like to cheat in friendly shoving matches. I could have totally taken him in a fight though.
I edged slowly into the living room where I could just see Gerard's butt sticking out from behind the loveseat. I was surprised he even fit there as close as it was backed up to the wall. Feeling more sure of myself since he didn't seem to have noticed me yet, I edged around the couch until I was between him and the door to the kitchen. Ray could be in charge of catching him if he went for the hallway and the door to the basement.
"Gee?" I called.
He jerked a little but didn’t stop digging around behind the loveseat.
"Gerard?" I called again, louder this time. "Do you need me to help you find something?"
This time at least I got a reply though was too muffled to make out what he said. It went something like. "I mphf MPHF!"
Ray didn't look like he understood that any better than I did, if his confused hair was anything to go by. Too bad Mikey hadn't beat us back. He would have made things so much easier.
"We need a little bit better of an explanation than that Gee," Ray finally said.
Gerard's head popped up from behind the loveseats back. His hair was clumped together with various pieces standing on end in a fairly good approximation of Ray's hairdo. The he yelled "I lost Grace!" and all thoughts of his ridiculous hair were banished from my mind by panic.
"How the heck could you lose her? We were barely gone for two hours." Great, now I was thinking about crawling behind the furniture and looking for her too. The things Gerard did to my sanity.
Thankfully Ray was his usual calm self. "She probably went back to wherever she was staying before she came here. There isn't any reason for her to stay if she got scared or upset."
"But we didn't do anything to upset her!"
"Maybe not bout you have to remember she's a street kid and we don't know all that much about her. For all we know she's got siblings or a friend or something she was worried about. There's no way to tell." He looked over at me. "Did you ever figure out where she went home to when she wasn't in the alley?"
"No, I know it's in the opposite direction of the house, and the edge of the district is only a block or two away from the grocery store. Since she's not registered with the government it's really likely that she can pass District lines without getting picked up."
"Well shit!"
"Maybe if we stake out the alley?"
Ray gave Gerard his best evil eye. "We are not staking out the alley. If anything that will just scare her off. Maybe you and Frank can go there and leave food like you’ve been doing to if it comes to that, but it's just going to freak her out if we stake the place out."
"But she said she wanted to come with us!" Gerard wailed.
"It's only been two hours, there isn’t anything to say that she won't come back. Come into the kitchen. I'll make you a mug of sintho-café. You need to calm down."
Gerard was asleep on the couch within five minutes of drinking his mug of sintho-café."
"You drugged his drink didn't you?"
Ray smirked and took another sip of his own mug of cafe. "I slipped one of Mikey's downers into it. I wasn't convinced that he wasn't going to do something stupid like go running around the neighborhood yelling for Grace."
"Do you really think she's coming back?"
"I don't know if she is or she isn't, but I do know that if she doesn't want to stay with us we can't make her, and given the fact that you went back to that alley at least once a week for over two months without seeing her I doubt we'll be able to find her if she doesn't want to be found."
# # #
Mikey got back to the house about the same time Gerard started to wake up from his "nap." I was extremely thankful for that because I did not want to have to break up a fight between Gerard and Ray on my own.
I particularly didn’t want to when I could understand both of their positions. I hated being drugged myself but we couldn't afford to go hunting Gerard through the city in the dark, especially not when neither Ray or I had a very good idea of what to expect when it came to the other Unemployed.
Ray had gone out with Mikey a few times, and I'd gone once or twice myself but that didn't mean we'd know what we were doing if the worse came to worst.
Besides if Gerard got stupid and ran across the district lines trying to find Grace we'd all be screwed.
Mikey was his usual quiet self when he came in. If I hadn't been too nervous to sleep I probably wouldn't have known he was even back.
He froze a few steps into the house and stared at the couch Gerard was draped over. His sprawled body completely opposite of how he usually slept. All curled up into a ball as tiny as he could make himself.
I expected him to demand answers about what we'd done to Gerard but all he asked was, "What's up?"
"Ray did it!" I yelled before running for the kitchen.
I could hear Ray's curses clear enough from there and totally wasn't taking the fall of Gerard's getting drugged. I was an innocent bystander when it came to the whole situation. That was my story and I was totally sticking through it.
And I didn't feel at all guilty for abandoning Ray to Mikey's epic bitch face. No seriously I didn't.
# # #
I gave Mikey and Ray until I finished brewing a carafe of sintho-café, to finish their fight. Gerard would be pissed enough about being knocked out without us having to worry about him plotting murder because he didn't get his habitual caffeine fix.
When I came out of the kitchen Mikey had retreated to the couch, with Gerard's head tucked safely onto his lap. While Ray, looking even more hunted then when I'd left him, was curled up into the corner of the love-seat farthest from the couch. When I handed him his cup of café he whispered. "You could have at least bought me some time to run."
I smirked instead of answering. Since Gerard still hadn't woken up the rest of the way I put his mug on the table, before handing Mikey his.
I curled up into the chair opposite Ray. It was closer to the couch than his corner but I didn't have to worry about Mikey beating me up.
It took another hour before Gerard went from the occasional snuffle as the drugs started to wear off, to groaning himself awake. Mikey propped him up and shoved the now cold mug into his hands.
He gathered it too his chest greedily and swallowed it down in two gulps. Only bothering to stick his tongue out at the taste after he'd finished it all off. "What happened?" He asked the room at large.
"Ray was worried you'd do something stupid so he slipped you one of my downers." Mikey answered for all of us.
Gerard combined his glare with Mikey's for the infamous Way brother evil eye double team. If possible Ray seemed to shrink down even further into the cushions. Even his hair was drooping.
Now I was stuck feeling guilty for siccing Mikey on him in the first place, though he had deserved it.
"We didn't want you trying to follow Grace. She probably lives in another district and the Government might not care about her crossing the boundaries, they'll notice if we try something like that."
"I'd be careful," Gerard insisted.
Mikey was looking at me considering, "You think she can go between districts because she doesn't have a Government ID? So she’s not trackable?"
"That and the fact that she is just a kid and harmless. I doubt any of the gangs who have territory in the area care what she does." Glaring down at the mug I hated myself for saying what I was about to say. "She is safer out there on her own, then she would be if we drew attention to her, or to wherever she's hiding out."
Gerard squawked and looked ready to protest, but Mikey put a hand on his arm and he froze.
Mikey looked at him over the edge of his glasses. "We'll look for her tomorrow."
"What if something happens to her before then?"
"We'll figure something out."
Reaching out, I grabbed the hand Mikey wasn't holding. "I promise I'll go out with you first thing in the morning to look for her, but for now we need to get some sleep."
He looked ready to protest, but a jaw-cracking yawn served the double purpose of shutting him up and proving my point.
# # #
August 2, 2125: The House
# # #
When I woke up from where I was curled up in the living room’s chair I had to blink a few times before I believed what I was seeing. Grace was back. She’d curled herself up on against Gerard's side, The opposite of Mikey who Gerard was using as a pillow.
There was a torn up and taped box on the coffee table. It was filled with various odds and ends. I saw a brightly colored sleeve of a sweater, a few broken toys, and what looked like an old analog boom box, the type that was so old the government hadn’t even bothered to outlaw them for the unemployed. I doubted it even worked right. In fact I wasn’t sure anything in the box was worth any money. It reminded me more of the little box of treasures we’d hidden under Gerard’s bed when we were kids. Filled with drawings and gold stars.
Still, it was kind of sad that this was the sum of Grace's life. One little box. I promised myself that we would make sure she had more now that she was living with us. It was the least we could do for someone who was going to be a part of our screwed up family, and who managed to break through Gerard’s withdrawal and depression and get him to care about living again.
Uncurling from the chair, I tip-toed over to the couch and shook her gently. Her eyes fluttered open after a few seconds. Her whole body tensed up.
I waited a second, and I made sure not to move in any way that she could confuse for threatening, and she relaxed back against Gerard’s side. He made a grumping sound in the back of his throat and burrowed further into Mikey's side.
I held my hand out to her. "Come on, let’s go make breakfast for them. Then we can wake them up."
It probably wasn't very nice to let Gerard sleep after I knew where Grace was but since he hadn't woken up to her curling up with him, I figured he was still sleeping off the drugs. Besides it wouldn't hurt to him to wait a few minutes until we had some food to help wake him up.
She didn't take the hand I held out to her, but she did follow me into the kitchen. I pulled a chair up to the kitchen counter so that she could see; and started getting out the ingredients for pancakes. The flour was rough, and protein laced, but with enough fruit stuffed into the pancakes they wouldn’t be half bad.
“Do you want to help me make teddy bear pancakes?" I asked her. She probably wouldn’t know what I was talking about, but you never knew. I knew about pancakes because my Mom used to make them for me back before I turned five and went off to school. Maybe Grace’s Mom had made them for her at one point.
She stared up at me for a second, before nodding . Her little chin only moved a fraction of an inch, but at least she was replying to me. I heated up the pan and prepared to make the teddy bears. She climbed up on the chair to watch.
Two little circle pancakes for ears. Then a second later I poured the batter for the big pancake. The one that would be the teddy bear’s head.
I handed the her the spatula . "Can you please keep an eye on that. Once it has bubbles all over it, I'll show you how to flip it.”
She nodded again but her eyes stayed glued to the skillet. I hid a smile by turning my back so that I could dig though the cabinet for the supplies to make coffee. The small coffee pot went on the back burner where it would be out of the way if the batter splattered and the can of instant coffee went on the table where it would be virtually impossible to knock over. The one and only time I’d made the mistake of spilling the coffee I’d had to deal with epic drama from Mikey, Gerard, and Ray combined.
Once the water was taken care of I started digging through the cabinet for the dried fruit I knew I'd gotten a few months before I'd started cutting our rations to make sure we'd have enough to provide for Grace. I felt something poking me in the back. I jumped and just barely managed to keep from squealing. When I turned around it was just Grace and the spatula, the handle of which she seemed to be using to prod me. I reached out to grab it away from her, but stopped myself. I should have realized that if she wasn't going to talk then it would be difficult for her to tell me when the pancakes was done.
"Did it start to bubble?" I didn't wait for her to nod and hurried over to the pan. I grabbed a spare spatula from the drawer and carefully pushed it under the edge of the pancake so that I could see the bottom.
Nice and golden brown. Pinching the teddy bear's ears between my fingers I used the spatula to flip the rest of the pancake over, and stuck my slightly burned fingers in my mouth when I was done.
Grace had climbed back up on her chair while I was distracted and was staring at the pancake again. I reached out slowly, so she'd know what I was doing, and ruffled her hair. "Thanks for letting me know it was done. Come get me again if I'm not back out of the pantry in a couple minutes, okay?"
She nodded. Her curls rubbed against my hand.
# # #
I eventually did locate the dried fruit. It was tucked up on the top shelf that I could barely reach and it looked like somebody had been eating from the bag. Probably Mikey or Ray. Gerard would have at least offered to share it with me.
At least they left enough to make the pancakes with.
I carried the bag of fruit over to where Grace was still watching the pancakes. We were on our third teddy bear now. Ray and Mikey could totally have the two bears without fruit faces. They deserved it for eating the berries.
"We're going to give the teddy bears faces now!" I announced in a loud whisper. It would ruin the surprise if I accidentally woke the others up at this point.
She stared at me like I was crazy, which to be fair was kind of true. Just to prove I hadn’t completely lost my mind, I started making a little teddy bear face on the pancake that was still in the pan. Two little dried fruit eyes and a big snaggle-toothed dried fruit grin, just like my mom used to make. "See! I told you I was going to give him a face."
She didn't seem convinced, but she used her spatula to move the eyes around anyway. "See you’re great at making teddy bear faces! We’ll have to see what other faces you can make. Gerard always wants to put fangs on his." I whispered since I was pretty sure that Gerard was the key to her heart.
She stared up at me. I couldn’t tell if it was because she wanted to hear more about Gerard or just because she still thought I was crazy.
"He totally does love vampires. Just wait and see. The basement has vampires and fanged teddy bears everywhere!"
She turned back to the pancakes.
I smiled at the back of her hair. She was just too cute. I'd never really planned to have a kid, but if they were as awesome as her I’d have to reconsider.
Mom had always helped me help her make teddy bear pancakes on Saturday mornings to wake my Dad up from his tough week of work.
It was nice to be able to share that kind of things with someone besides Mikey, Gerard, and Ray, who had family traditions of their own.
I flipped the pancake and she could see the dark spotches where the fruit eyes and mouth had sunk to the bottom of the batter. She reached out to poke at them, and I grabbed her wrist without thinking about it. It was just my first instinct. She froze. Her whole body tensed up.
"Sorry, sorry.” I dropped her arm and backed a few steps away. "I just didn't want you to burn your fingers. Just use your spatula to poke at it."
She stayed on the far side of the chair while she poked at the pancake, keeping a wary eye on me the whole time.
Not wanting to scare her more, I stayed back from the stove until it was time to flip the pancake out of the pan. And I made sure to approach the pan slowly when I did come back. Just to be on the safe side
I handed her the bag of fruit as a peace offering. "Do you want to put the face on the next one? It can be the one we give to Gerard."
She took the bag out of my hand, ever so carefully, so that she was a far as way from me as she could get without dropping the tiny bag. I made sure not to move.
She carefully dropped two eyes into the pancake and started to work on the mouth. It got a bright big smile. A few extra pieces of fruit on either side then the last pancake we'd made. Then she looked up at me seriously for a minute. I wondered what I was supposed to be doing. Then she actually spoke. It was only one word ‘Fangs!’ but I had to clamp down on the urge to hug the stuffing out of her.
No way did I want to scare her away.
"Fangs huh? Well I bet Gerard will like that."
She smiled.
I reached carefully into the bag keeping my movements slow and careful and pulled out six pieces of fruit. Then I made little triangles on either side of the smile. Where the fangs would be.
She smiled so big and bright that I couldn’t keep myself from grinning too.
# # #
I took the pan with us into the living room. Where the others were still sleeping. Grace was like a little shadow behind me. Once I was in the middle of the rom. I jumped up on the coffee table and gave her an exaggerated wink. Then I started pounding the spatula into the back of the pot. It clanged and its clangs made the others jump upright. Gerard fell off of the couch and landed on the floor between the couch and the coffee table. Mikey jumped but managed to keep his cool. I couldn't see what Ray did from where I was standing but I was willing to bet it was equally hilarious. "We made pancakes you lazy bums. So get up already!"
Mikey started cursing me out, under his breath. Ray didn't bother trying to muffle his curses. Gerard probably would have been cursing me too expect he was still busy untangling himself from where he’d fallen.
I was preparing to jump off of the coffee-table and make a run for the kitchen when Grace started giggling. It wasn't very loud but it was enough to get everybody’s attention. Even Gerard stopped wriggling about. "Grace?"
She jumped on his back, still giggling.
"Grace." Gerard's voice was almost reverent as he managed to twist himself around enough that he could pull her into a hug. Unlike with me she didn't try to wiggle away.
I started to grin. Looking at Mikey I saw that he was doing his own version of grinning, his Eyes soft and loving as he watched the two of them cuddle on the floor.
Since I was so busy staring at Gerard and Grace, I almost missed Ray sneaking past me towards the kitchen. I launched myself onto his back and grabbed his shoulders so he couldn't shake me off. "So it was you that stole the dried fruit! Villain! Ruffian!"
"Come on Frank, get off!" He reached behind him trying to get me to pry my hands off his shoulders.
"I shall not be vanquished!" I yelled just to make a point, since the way he was twisting around meant that I was only a few inches away from his ear.
He yelped and covered his ear. "Frank!"
"I told you I wouldn't be vanquished." I used his distraction to scamper the rest of the way up his back so that my arms were wrapped around his neck. "Onward to the kitchen!"
Gerard and Grace started giggling again and I almost thought I heard Mikey chuckling. It was almost like being a family again.
This was what I had hoped things would be like when we were sent away from the school, but I never thought it would happen again. It was the kind of stupid dream that kids had. So it was probably a good thing that I was still mostly a kid at heart.
Even if I was going to have to grow up a little; now that I was going to be a big brother to Grace.