Big Bang: Parks and Recreation (Part 3)
Title: Parks and Recreation
Author: vinvyvinvy
Band(s): My Chemical Romance with a side of Panic! at the Disco
Pairing(s): slight Frank/Gerard
Word Count: 34,152 (total)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: violence, profanity, angst, slightly ridiculous magic tricks, shoddy Gaelic translations, dream sequences, and faeries
Part Two
That is, he doesn't worry until he’s typing up a receipt template for Clara while she’s out of the office. The formatting is almost perfect when the screen goes white. At first he freaks out because he must have done something wrong to the computer! Looking around, though- well, it’s not really looking because everything is in the same state as the computer screen- smeared and unclear.
Gerard makes an irritated sound and rubs at his eyes. Give it ten seconds and they’ll be back to normal- stupid eyestrain. Except ten seconds passes and he still can’t see. With a sinking in his stomach he realizes that whatever it was that Frank coughed up in his face was likely something he should have told Mikey about.
He’s leaning back in his chair and trying to keep his breathing under control. There’s no need to panic. It’ll be all right. Aside from the fact that he’s totally vulnerable and anyone could come in here and beat him to death while he was blind as an infant rat. Other than that things are going to turn out very well.
It takes him several tries to dial the high school- shaky hands and the inconvenient blindness keep him from hitting the right extensions.
“They called me out of Biology. This had better be good.”
“Yeah, Mikes, I know they did- I told them to.”
“Gerard,” Mikey sounds startled, “What’s up? Is mom okay? What about grandma?”
“They’re fine-“
“- oh, good-“
“- I can’t see.”
“Then why- what?”
“I can’t see. My eyes won’t focus. I can’t see,” Gerard repeats, starting to panic because saying it out loud makes it real when he doesn’t want it to be.
“Where are you?” Mikey speaks slowly in a tone that instantly makes Gerard feel idiotic.
“Work.”
“What happened? Did you, like, stab yourself with a pen? Get white out in your eyes? You need to call an ambulance for that, not me.”
“Don’t patronize me! This is serious,” he’s gripping the phone so hard his hand aches. He tells Mikey about Frank hacking up a lung and his face getting caught in the crossfire. It makes his brother go silent for so long that one of the secretaries at the school tells him to hurry up.
“Oh no.”
The undisguised horror in Mikey’s voice is about all Gerard can take. He stops praying that his boss doesn’t come back to find him useless and starts freaking out instead. “Am I going to stay like this? Am I going blind? Will this kill me?” He shouts because, holy shit, if Mikey is scared-
“No! No, Gerard, it’s not that. Gee, breathe, calm down. You aren’t going to be stuck like this, you won’t go blind or die. It’s going to stop soon. It- it just has to settle. It has to do with retinal enhancement and- just relax. It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.”
He’s one the edge of his chair, tense as a suspension bridge. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m going to come get you,” Mikey continues in a hushed voice, “It’s going to take a little time to get there because I have to take the damn bus. For the love of all things holy, stay where you are. Do not leave unless there’s a fire. If that happens then get out and keep your eyes down. Okay? Please.”
“Are you sure I’m not dying?”
“If you don’t suffocate from panic I’m absolutely sure you are not dying.”
“What’s wrong with my eyes? What did that damn kid give me?”
There’s a pregnant pause. It has an “I told you so” somewhere inside of it. “That’s going to take some explaining when I get you. Keep calm and stay put.”
“I thought it was “keep calm and carry on”,” he jokes in a shaky tone.
“Not this time.”
The line goes dead. One of the evil secretaries probably made Mikey hang up. Gerard is back to being alone in the quiet of the investigative office. Except it isn’t quiet. He can hear the air moving through the ventilation system, heating the cramped space. Every single time he shifts in the fake leather of the chair it creaks and makes him jump.
He groans and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. This is so weird. So bad. What if it’s cataracts? Those make your vision cloudy… but do they come and go like this?
The door opens and he gasps, straightening up and startling when he notices that he can see again, clearly and probably even better than before.
“Miss Kavanagh isn’t here right now,” he says to the guy who just walked in. “You can wait but I’m not sure when she’ll be back. I can take a message, if you’d like.”
The guy doesn’t respond from beneath the deep hood of his sweatshirt. He keeps walking towards Clara’s office.
“Hey,” Gerard says louder, standing, “I said you’ll have to wait.”
The guy’s head snaps in his direction like he’s just noticed that Gerard was there at the reception desk.
At first, he’s pleasantly surprised because- “Frank?”
...but Frank doesn’t look like that. Frank doesn’t have a green cast to his skin. He certainly doesn’t have a nice set of long, sharp teeth inside his slack jaw or holes in the back of his sweatshirt for- what? Are those fucking wings? Black, veined and iridescent wings?
Gerard falls out of his chair.
The desk cuts Frank out of his line of vision and he’s thankful for it.
“You can see me?” Frank smiles like some toddler asking Santa if he’s really real. He comes around the desk and squats down in front of Gerard. “You can see me.” He sounds a little giddy at the idea.
He is too close for comfort. His mohawk is brushed off to one side and Gerard can clearly see one of his pointy ears. And they’re pierced? What the fuck is he? A punk Legolas? There are little silver hoops running down the length of the cartilage.
Gerard scoots as far away as he can get, the handles of the file cabinet digging into his back. He closes his eyes. “This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening,” he chants. If he says it enough then it must be true.
“I’m sorry to burst your bubble, dude, but this totally is happening. You can see me!” He sounds giddy.
He opens his eyes a crack and flinches. Frank is still there, winged, fanged and slightly green. “Oh my god, no.”
The wings shift, their flared ends splaying a little. That must be the equivalent of shrugging. “Sorry. Trust me, this wasn’t the ideal result.”
“What?” Gerard’s voice is squeaky and his mouth is dry.
“Goblin spit gives people the Sight when it gets in their eyes,” he says apologetically, “I should have warned you, but choking on pesticides makes it kind of hard to think. For what it’s worth, I am really sorry for coughing on you.”
“You’re a goblin.” The squeak is nearing a shriek.
“Half to be exact. The other half is Sidhe. You know, Faerie nobility. It’s great because I can still get into all the goblin parties and shit but I’m not nearly as ugly as most of my cousins.” Frank smirks.
“Oh. My. God.” Gerard whimpers and rubs his eyes again. This is finally it. He’s losing his mind.
The bell above the door chimes. “Yo, Gee, you in here?”
“Mikey!” He shoves past Frank, scrambling to his feet and running up to his brother. “Please tell me I’m just crazy.”
“Wha-“ Mikey frowns when he sees Frank standing behind the desk.
“Hi,” Frank waves.
Mikey glares at him and says to Gerard, “Let’s get you home. Do you have a key so you can lock up?”
His hands are shaking too badly to manage the key so Mikey locks the office door behind them. It briefly concerns Gerard that they’re locking Frank in but since no one is supposed to be seeing him it doesn’t matter, anyway. It’s a non-issue. Mikey drives by default.
Gerard stares out the window in horror the whole way home because Frank being a goblin is not an isolated incident. His whole world is getting turned on its head.
There are kids streaming out of elementary schools. Among them are wizened old men, the size of children and dressed like children, but carrying gold or knives. A dog walker is being tugged along by a three-headed lizard that has stunted wings and a neon orange frill. A stunted dragon, Gerard thinks a little hysterically, the runt of the litter. A dealer standing at a gas station has the smiling head of a cobra and is selling bloody meat instead of cocaine. By the time they get home Gerard is scared out of his mind. The monsters from his comic books are real and worse than the artists could have imagined.
Mikey leads him inside, glancing over his shoulder in a paranoid manner.
“What’s going on?” Gerard says after a few minutes of sitting on the couch in silence, staring at the wall while his brother watches him intently.
Mikey pushes his glasses up on his nose. “You can see Faeries now.”
“Faeries aren’t real.”
“Saying that doesn’t kill them.”
“Faeries aren’t real,” Gerard insists as he stares down at his hands.
“Yeah,” Mikey sighs, disappointed in the truth, “they are.”
“No.”
“The truth hurts, bro.”
Gerard thinks for a moment. “... You can see them, too?”
“Yup.”
“How?”
“Magic.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
“Oh my god.”
“I know.”
“Grandma isn’t crazy.”
“No, she isn’t. She’s lost her memory but not her mind.”
Gerard takes a few very deep breaths, letting each one out slowly. That’s almost good news. “What do I do now?”
“You get used to it. Eventually.”
“Then what?”
Mikey considers this for a few seconds then says simply, “You don’t tell anyone. Especially if they ask you about it- you just pretend that they aren’t there if that happens. Never stare at Faeries. They’ll pluck your eyes out.”
“Frank didn’t pluck my eyes out.”
Mikey’s eyes narrow. “Stay away from Frank.”
“Why?”
“He’s dangerous. All Faeries are dangerous. Goblins, too, not to mention they’re low class.”
“How do you know?”
“Experience.”
“Mikey,” Gerard whines, exasperated.
“I can’t tell you anything else.”
“Go do your fucking homework, Jesus Christ,” he mutters, “I’m going to bed.”
Gerard stomps down to the basement and does just that. He even calls in sick the next day because, hey, he is sick. The mental kind. Faeries are real and he can now see them and this is way too much for one brain to process at once. Or over a long period of time. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to handle it.
When Mikey is at school on Friday he discovers that there’s nothing even close to resembling alcohol in the house. There isn’t even wine for cooking. Thanks for getting hammered and crashing mom’s car, Mikey. Way to be considerate. If ever there existed a situation in which it’d be appropriate to go on a bender this is it but wishful thinking doesn’t make liquor appear. He’s too scared to leave the house. This is fan-fucking-tastic. This must be a sneak preview of what hell is like- constant terror and no liquid courage.
Gerard stays curled up in one corner of the basement with his easel folded up and close at hand. It’s heavy enough to make a very good bludgeoning tool should any creatures with nefarious ideas get into his room and come after him. As a result of his diligence he comes within a few inches of braining Mikey when his brother shakes him awake on Saturday afternoon. To his credit, Mikey handles it in stride, wrestling the easel out of Gerard’s sleepy grip without so much as flinching.
“He really isn’t handling this well,” a strange and amused voice says from over by the stairs.
Gerard blinks rapidly, his eyes and mind adjusting when the light switch is flicked on. “Who are you?”
The stranger grins. He’s all white teeth and bouncing, curly brown hair. “I’m Ray Toro. I run a support group for the Sighted in town. Mikey said you might be interested in joining us.”
“A support group,” Gerard echoes vaguely.
“Yeah,” he says, sounding even more cheerful when he goes on, like an advertisement, “some folks have a really difficult time getting the hang of the Sight. The group is a place where they can let out their frustrations or fears or get advice or just chat with others in similar situations without the risk of getting maimed. The whole operation is sanctioned by both courts.”
“This insanity is legal?” Gerard is horrified.
“Oh, not that kind of court,” Ray laughs, “The Faerie Courts. Kingdoms. Well, they’re more like Queendoms.”
The conversation has Gerard coming back out of his melodramatic survival mode. He remembers that, thanks to a certain goblin and the city’s aerosol pesticides, he now has the ability to see through Faerie magic. He knows there’s a word for Faerie magic but it won’t come to mind.
“Glamour,” Ray says, making Gerard realize that he was thinking out loud.
Gerard groans. He needs coffee in the worst possible way. One look at Mikey’s face and he’s disappointed. There’s no way Mikey will risk getting in deeper trouble with mom to get his beloved big brother a caffeine fix because, of course, Mikey is such an angelic child. If Gerard wants it that badly he’ll have to go and get it himself. He presses his hands to his temples.
“How do I make it go away?”
Ray hesitates. “You don’t. Not really. The Sight isn’t one of those reversible things- the best cursebreakers in the world can’t get rid of it short of inducing total blindness.”
“Then call me fuckin’ Gloucester,” he gripes.
Mikey chuckles because he actually likes reading Shakespeare and referencing the old codger in conversation. Weird, wonderful kid.
“There’s something that works for some people-“
“What is it?”
“Promise you won’t get your hopes up?”
“Tell me,” Gerard snaps at Ray.
“Denial,” he replies simply.
“Seriously?”
“On rare occasions people can trick themselves into not Seeing. They still see the Folk, but they don’t recognize that they’re not human. They substitute the threatening reality with one they find more acceptable.”
“How rare are we talking?”
“Most people get so wrapped up in denying the truth that they go insane. It’s easier to accept it and learn to live with it. That’s what the support group is for. We have multiple chapters in most major cities, and at least one in each state- there are a few groups that are international, too. We’d really appreciate it if you decided to join us sometime.”
Gerard doesn’t know how to respond to how normally this man is acting so the rest of Ray’s visit is short. It’s hard to work with someone who can’t find the ability to speak in coherent sentences.
~~
It turns out that Gerard has no choice in going to this nameless support group because Mikey threatens to use his comic book collection for a beach bonfire come spring if he doesn’t go. It’s a very convincing argument. So, Gerard spends his Tuesday evening at a local youth center, seated in a cold metal chair, fidgeting with a Styrofoam cup of coffee, and feeling like he’s at an AA meeting. When the clock reads 6:00 straight up the eight other people take their seats. Gerard is glad to be sitting where he can see the door, right by Ray so he can use the taller man as a human shield if the situation calls for it.
“When do we get to sing campfire songs?”
“Ghost stories come first,” says a bearish blond as he sits down on Gerard’s left.
Gerard starts to apologize for being rude until he gets a good look at the man sitting next to him. He knows he isn’t exactly short but this man makes Gerard look petite. His palm is probably as big as Gerard’s face and the rounded set of horns at his temples are distracting.
“My mother was a troll. My name is Bob.” Bob the half-troll offers a massive hand.
Like Gerard suspected it totally envelops his when they shake. “I suppose that renders any and all “yo Mama” jokes invalid,” his mouth spouts without his permission. For a second he’s sure that Bob will crush his head into an edible pulp for saying that but then his bright blue eyes turn up in a way that suggests amusement and Gerard can breathe freely again.
The chatter around them dies out and the rest of the group alternates between looking expectantly at Ray then looking expectantly at Gerard. He forgot how fabulous it is to be the new guy.
“Hi,” he says with a little wave to break the silence, “I’m Gerard.”
A chorus of “Hi, Gerard,” is returned to him. Even Ray and Bob say it even though they both already kind of know him. If anybody so much as breathes a syllable about Kool Aid he is so out of here.
“Unlike the rest of us,” Ray announces, “Gerard came by the Sight entirely on accident, without any warning.”
There are a few sounds of sympathy. An “ooh, wow,” from one person, “that’s unique” from another and a loud “It sucks to be you,” from the freckled girl on Ray’s other side.
“Marisa,” Ray says in a mildly chiding tone.
She shrugs. “Well it does! The guy didn’t have any choice in this at all.”
“Because I clearly had a choice in being half troll,” Bob says. He sounds more bored than offended.
“I didn’t mean it like that!”
“Bob knows you didn’t, Marisa,” Ray interjects, “Bob, you know it’s rude to distress humans.”
Bob shrugs. This is a fact that he knows and doesn’t happen to care about. From what Gerard recalls about Faeries this is typical.
“I was thinking that we could all introduce ourselves for Gerard’s sake. Just say your name and a little bit about yourself if you feel comfortable. We’ll start with you, Marisa.”
The girl rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. She’s pulling off the dejected-teenager look very well. “I’m Marisa. My parents think I’m at church right now.” The pointed look she gives to the guy on her right says that that is all she’s got to talk about.
“My name is Brendon,” he pauses to push his hair out of his face, “I got cursed by a Reynardine.”
There are a few sounds that show empathy and maybe a little pity, too, because everyone but Gerard knows what that means.
“Basically,” Brendon explains, “I’m in love with a werefox that I’ll never get to see again and I won’t be able to enjoy sex for the rest of my life. Unless it’s with the Reynardine in question but that’s not going to happen- he’s in England and I’m stuck here.”
Gerard flinches. He’s no stranger to angsty pining or sexual frustration but to be stuck with both of them forever? That isn’t fun. He makes a mental note: no sex with Faeries unless you want to be miserable until you die.
Next in the circle is Rita. The middle aged mother of three made the mistake of glancing through a stone that had a natural hole in it, thinking that Faerie tales about such things weren’t true. Her family hiking trip had gone wrong very quickly after that.
Then there’s Gabe who’d made nice-nice with a Faerie noblewoman. The Sight had been given to him as a gift- regardless of whether he wanted it or not. It wasn’t like he could refuse it without offending the Faerie woman and getting punished for doing so- he’d been through all sorts of mental wards and drugs as a result. It had turned out to be a sick joke. One Faerie pastime is laughing while humans struggle with the mindfuck that the Sight boils down to.
When it’s Bob’s turn Gerard is feeling lucky. This might have been an accident but at least he doesn’t have any horror stories.
“You know my name and what I am,” Bob says concisely, “I’m just here for the free coffee,” then that’s that.
Ray takes a quick vote and the whole group agrees: they would rather spend the hour educating Gerard about the Courts and etiquette than discuss various methods for “coming out” to loved ones as Sighted. No one asks Gerard what he wants to do. This is probably a good idea because all he wants to do is go back home and stare at his useless pencils and markers.
At the end of the meeting Gerard is sent on his way only after receiving numerous, unasked for hugs from his new acquaintances (with the merciful exceptions of Ray and Bob, hallelujah) and a handmade pamphlet from Brendon. It’s titled Glamour: A Beginner’s Guide to Seeing the Unseen and the little illustrations are cute bubble characters. If he ever gets his ability to draw back he’s going to redo the art for Brendon- what he’s got is good but Gerard pictures it all looking a bit darker with sharper edges.
He’s flipping through the section on self-defense as he walks down the street to his car. The title is meant to be comedic: Oh no! You’ve been sighted!.
Haha, how ironic, Brendon you genius, you. No one has ever done that before. He’s in a perfectly vicious mood. Then he’s suddenly launched off down an alley and his head smacks against the side of a building. There’s a blissful second where he can’t see anything at all and his whole world is summed up by the stabbing in his skull. He only starts struggling when he notices that he’s being held in place by a figure on either side.
“Which eye do you see me with?” This third figure leans close at the horrible, tricking question. In the dim alleyway its skin is the same color, texture and smell as curdled milk. Teeth hang from its lipless mouth.
Brendon’s pamphlet advises keeping one’s calm when these things happen. The idea is to pretend you have no idea what’s going on and answer to nothing and therefore prove yourself Unsighted.
Gerard screams as loud as his lungs and vocal cords will allow him to. Fuck Brendon’s pamphlet. He clearly has never been in this situation before. Thanks to the pixies- Gerard guesses that’s what they are- at his sides he can’t move his limbs. It isn’t right for creatures so petite and child-like to be so strong, too.
“I’m going to assume that means “both”.”
From the corners of Gerard’s vision two little blue glows- Tinkerbell’s evil step sisters, a detached part of his mind thinks- perch on his shoulders to hold his head still and his eyelids open.
“No! No, no, no! Please, don’t,” he babbles, “I’ll do whatever you want. I mean it! You can have everything! My life savings! My- my art or my fucking soul! Please don’t do this!”
“Hazels always do have the most spice. This should be tasty,” the Faerie muses. The pixies giggle.
“You cannot do this to me! Please,” Gerard gets nauseous. This thing is going to pluck out his eyes and eat- the back door of one of the buildings opens.
“Help,” Gerard yells at the woman as she hefts a bag into the dumpster, “Help me! Please- you fucking bitch!” She’s walking back to the door. Gerard cannot believe this. “Get the fuck back here! They’re gonna kill me!” His voice breaks and he tastes blood at the back of his throat.
“Humans can’t hear you.”
“Fuck you,” he spits.
“Oh, is that an offer? That’s a lovely idea. After dinner, though, I’m famished.”
Gerard’s eyes are watering but it doesn’t stop him from seeing the knife in the Faerie’s hand. The little hands of the Faeries on his shoulders dig bruises into the tender skin of his eyelids. He starts up screaming again even though each breath slices into his throat. He tries with everything he’s got to struggle but it isn’t enough to shake their iron grip. The white Faerie pats his cheek with a slimy hand and raises the knife-
“Oi! Krean!” Foreign and lyrical sounds follow from the back of the alley.
The white Faerie’s head snaps to look in the direction of the approaching voice. It replies with a similar set of noises, sounding inconvenienced but friendly.
Frank steps into Gerard’s little nightmare like it’s an every day occurrence. He talks to the still-armed Faerie in a casual tone, making flippant gestures with his hands. The language is one that can’t possibly be human. There are too many consonants and trilling notes.
The other Faerie cuts Frank off mid-sentence, pointing the knife at Gerard impatiently.
Frank makes a surprised sound and turns like he’s realizing that Gerard is there for the first time. He gives Gerard a long once over while the other Faerie talks, his eyebrows raised. It’s absurd that the look makes Gerard flush. Frank clucks his tongue and turns back to the white Faerie. He says something in a dismissive tone.
Gerard doesn’t need to understand the language to be offended. He might be an inch away from getting irreparably maimed but that does not give Frank the right to look at him like he’s an object then say something that translates from any language into “You can do better”.
Frank bickers with the white Faerie for a few minutes then reaches into the pocket of his hoodie. His hand comes back overflowing with bright gold chains, some hung with jeweled pendants. The other Faerie sneers, irritated, but it takes the gold anyway then vanishes. The pixies and evil tinkerbells flutter off to lurk by the dumpster, picking through it for shiny things.
Gerard is so grateful and relieved that he can collapse right there. Frank doesn’t give him that chance, though. He pushes Gerard against the wall with one hand. “I just bought your eyes, your life, and your ass. You fucking owe me, human.”
Every syllable of that statement rubs him in the opposite direction of just-had-my-life-saved joy.
Frank pushes Gerard away with a glare and walks toward the street.
“If it was so fucking inconvenient then why’d you even bother, huh? Hey! I’m talking to you, asshole!” He grabs the shoulder of Frank’s sweatshirt. One of hte vindictive sprites shoves him in passint, pitching him forward at the same time Frank turns around to retort. Thanks to that he doesn’t end up with a faceful of wings or dyed hair. The angle and colliding teeth are too awkward and painful to call it a kiss but that memo doesn’t reach Gerard’s brain because he thinks Oh, I’m kissing a goblin for the split second before he jerks back. He stumbles away, starting to apologize-
“Assault and now thievery?” Frank has gone from irritated to unreadable- it might be amusement coloring his voice.
“What?”
He shakes his head. “First you try to kill me, then you get it so you owe me for your life, and now you steal from me? You know, if I felt like it, I could own your happy ass for the rest of your life and it wouldn’t begin to pay off your debt, Gerard. You really need to work on your social skills.”
Gerard sputters while Frank stands there with a smug smirk like he’s superior or something. He lets out a scandalized shriek before launching into a tirade.
“You insufferable jackass! It was an accident! That- that thing-“ he points violently at a giggling pixie, “shoved me! Don’t you dare laugh at me!” He’s scared on top of being angry. Gerard knows he’s in serious shit- not that it’s his fault! He will swear up and down that he was pushed. “You need to give people some fucking warning, you know that? Put up a damn sign about your weird ass trees! And the next time you feel like saving someone’s life don’t bitch at them about it after! No one made you step in! You selfish jerk!”
“Gerard.”
“If you tell me to calm down, so help me, Frank-“
Frank lifts one hand and wipes away the drying slime that the white Faerie had left behind. Then he lifts up onto his toes and leans in and he’s kissing Gerard, effectively shutting him up. He licks Gerard’s lower lip then kisses the corner of his mouth.
Unlike the shitty romantic-comedies that his mother loves, the kiss doesn’t win Frank any points. It doesn’t make Gerard go weak at the knees and want make up. It pisses him off even more. If Frank hadn’t pulled away so fast Gerard might have hit him.
“What the fuck, Frank? That was two,” he shouts as the goblin walks away. “That’s not even or fair!”
“The second one was a gift,” Frank shouts back, not looking over his shoulder. Gerard can hear the stupid smile in his voice.
“I don’t want it!”
“Then re-gift it, dumbass!”
~~A week later, Brendon is lounging in a diner booth while fondling Gerard’s scarf in a manner that is probably illegal in most states. “Is this alpaca? Oh my god it is so soft,” he fawns.
“I honestly have no idea what kind of yarn it is. You’d have to ask my brother,” Gerard says.
Last weekend, half-insane from technological withdrawal, Mikey had thought it a good idea to take up knitting. Since then the Way home has been filled with the steady clicking of knitting needles like an old folks’ home or a pregnant woman’s living room.
Gerard has a pretty sweet deal now that Mikey seems to have found his artistic calling- his new polka dot scarf and fingerless gloves, for example- but there is only so much one man can take. He’s fine with finding yarn scraps in odd places and tripping over unfinished clothing items. Sitting on a knitting needle, however, is not acceptable. Having certain things shoved up his ass is acceptable. Sharp, pain-inducing metal is not on that list of acceptable things.
“Your brother is a genius.”
“I’ll tell him his crafts have won him a fan,” Gerard replies, unamused. He’d gone through the trouble of looking Brendon up and taking him out for coffee to get away from the joys of all things handmade. Fate has other plans for him, it seems.
“I honestly could marry him, just for his knitting.”
Gerard snorts. “You’d have to get past my shotgun,” he jokes.
Brendon seems to understand perfectly and his laugh is jovial.
Gerard notices that his coffee is going cold and that he should probably get to drinking it. There’s a crash from the kitchen, however, that has him pause with the rim of the mug against his lips.
“No, don’t! Sir, don’t drink it!” Their waitress is sprinting towards their table.
Gerard stares down into the mug, scandalized at the astringent smell now rising from it. It’s making him light headed- in fact, it has been for a while now.
The waitress is pale and terrified. “I am so, so sorry,” she says over and over, “I don’t know how it happened.”
“How what happened?” Brendon is considering his own mug. It seems to be absolutely normal and Brendon is a bit disappointed that he didn’t get anything spectacular.
“S- someone put drain cleaner in his mug,” she replies, pointing at Gerard. “I. I’m going to get a manager, right now.” She’s distressed and keen on avoiding losing her job.
“No,” Gerard says slowly, his eyes wide, “That isn’t necessary. No. We’re. Just.” He pauses to swallow. “We’re just going to leave and pretend this never happened.”
The waitress tries to protest but doesn’t do anything to stop them from going. The last thing that Gerard wants to deal with is convincing some overworked owner that he’s not going to sue the restaurant. He’s just going to settle for never going within a three block radius of it again.
“That was weird.” Brendon sounds thrilled about it.
“You’re telling me- I could have died. How does someone not notice drain cleaner in a coffee mug?”
Brendon shrugs. “I’d say it was glamoured but you’re kind supposed to be able to see through that, aren’t you?”
“Hell if I know. My grandma has some books on, you know, Faeries and things like that. I guess there are, like, levels of glamour?
Some kinds are really easy to see through because the Faeries that laid them got sloppy. Then there are really heavy glamours that you have to be aware of and remove with special means. Clover or holy water.”
“You know a lot about this,” Brendon says in an admiring tone.
“Nah, not really. I think I’m trying to make myself feel better about it through knowledge. Power and all that jazz.”
“I like jazz.” Brendon is looking across the street, his face relaxed like a child who’s spotted a shiny penny.
“Are you alright?”
“Oh? Yeah, I’m fine,” he says in a rush, brushing his floppy hair out of his face. He’s standing a few feet behind Gerard.
“You’re acting a little odd all of the sudden.” Gerard unlocks his car.
“I’ll take the bus up to group this week, okay? I’ve got some time to kill, anyway.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m magnificent,” Brendon smiles and he looks like he means it. He jogs across the street before Gerard can get another word in.
Gerard has the niggling feeling that he ought to chase Brendon down and make him get in the car. It’s a free country, though, and the kid can do whatever he wants. That doesn’t mean Gerard has to like it. He watches Brendon dissolve into the early evening crowd then climbs into his car. It hiccups a few times before it starts. He viciously hopes it isn’t a sign of car troubles to come.
Not surprisingly, Brendon doesn’t arrive at group on time. Marisa is in the middle of describing the horror of being attacked by a sprite riding a robin when he slips into the room. She keeps talking but one by one everyone stops listening. When the properly timed commentary on her story stops entirely she looks up from her hands and gasps.
A little late Gerard thinks. There isn’t really anything remarkable about Brendon- he hasn’t shown up in a dress (though that wouldn’t be so shocking) or sprouted wings (that would be something to note). He’s pale, though, trembling all over like he’s survived a nuclear holocaust and he’s got all the time in the world to read but no glasses. The real kicker is, he’s happy about it.
“Brendon,” Ray begins, “what happened? I mean, we’re glad you showed up but you’re sick.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” he stutters out as he takes his chair, “I’m fine. Ryan’s in town, that’s all.”
He sniffs and that’s the end of it- a giddy giggle turns into a choked sob. Rita darts out of her chair and wraps herself around Brendon, the beads strung around her neck tangling in his hair. He doesn’t appear to mind. He’s alternating between glee and the most profound pain Gerard has ever seen in a single human being.
“Who’s Ryan?” Gerard leans close to Bob and speaks quietly so no one finds out he’s out of the loop.
“The werefox.”
“Oh,” Gerard says, drawing out the single syllable. He feels dumb for not learning about this earlier.
Around Brendon’s chair a sort of pity-and-sympathy party has developed. Brendon is in crisis mode as he tries to explain himself.
Ryan’s pretty much using him for his own amusement, which would be why he showed up in the States to begin with. Brendon knows this but he can’t really do anything about it. He doesn’t want to because he’s so in love!
He’s equal parts enthralled and appalled, Gerard supposes, having no idea what to do or say. There isn’t anything he can think of that would make things better.
“Want me to buy you a baseball bat?” Bob chimes in when there’s break in the consoling chatter and tears.
“What? No, that’s horrible!” That makes Brendon look physically hurt on top of everything else.
Bob sighs and mutters under his breath. “It looks like werefox is on the menu for my mother’s birthday. That should make her happy.” He gets up and stands beside Brendon, patting his shoulder in an awkward but friendly way before he leaves.
Gerard sits there for a few more minutes. He’s torn. He isn’t really involved in the situation, so he knows he can’t give advice. He doesn’t have any advice to give, either.
Ray tries to get Brendon into a semi-coherent state so they can discuss how exactly Brendon is going to handle Ryan. Is he going to continue seeing him? Does he want help keeping away from him?
Gerard already knows what Brendon thinks of that: Both. It’s obvious from how he’s acting. Like a junkie. The truest illustration of love-hate he’s ever seen. Gerard nods at Ray hoping he doesn’t look too much like he’s seeking permission to go. Ray doesn’t seem to notice a thing.
~~
The coffee shop on the corner serves overpriced espresso that looks, smells, and tastes nothing like drain cleaner. Granted, he has no idea what drain cleaner tastes like and he never wants to find out but he can safely guess that it’s a taste he’d know if he ever stumbled across it. He tries really hard to act like the barista’s antlers are a normal thing to see because getting gored by those would absolutely ruin his evening.
He frowns down into his coffee as he starts back down the dark sidewalk for his car. He wonders how in the hell he’d gotten slipped drain cleaner at the diner. Maybe it was some random serial killer? Don’t they usually use bottles of aspirin, though? He likes to think it was random happenstance, because the alternative is being a target and that isn’t-
“I hear the arsenic from that place is to die for.” Frank appears beside him.
Gerard can’t figure out if it’s actual magic or if he simply didn’t notice Frank approaching. He can’t reply at first because people popping up out of worm holes always tends to leave him a little tongue tied. “How do you know about that?”
“It’s a small town. Word gets around, you know.”
No, Gerard doesn’t know because he’s not normally the subject of town gossip. Since when is Belleville a small town? He’s always thought it to be moderately large if not a genuine city complete with slums and suburbs. He shrugs it off, though. Frank’s a goblin and goblins tend to just know things. That’s how it is in Elena’s stories.
“How’s the drawing been going?”
It’s hard to see any ill intention on Frank’s face. The black-straight-through eyes make him absurdly difficult to read. “It’s going,” he answers reluctantly.
It really has been, too. Even since the whole being Sighted business had solidified not only is his vision perfect but he’s incapable of going anywhere without a sketchbook and an array of pens and pencils. Not that he likes what’s been showing up in his sketchbooks. He figures skeletal sprites are pretty normal fare for him but elaborate scenes of Fae being held captive in labs and tortured- that he doesn’t even remember drawing afterward- are not. It isn’t so much the gore that bugs him, either. He feels fucking connected to the drawings. More than he usually does. Like the drawings are happening in real time and he’s there watching. A court reporter who can’t feel attached to victims or appalled by psychopaths but is secretly in agony over every single pen stroke because, fuck, these things are monsters and he’s doing nothing to stop them. Nothing in the way of revenge.
“Yeah, any time,” he says when he hears Frank say something that has a questioning lift at the end.
“Great! So now is good for you?”
“Sure- wait. What are we talking about?” He stops before unlocking the door to his car and fidgets with the keys.
Frank giggles. “You just agreed to show me what you’ve been drawing. You even said any time. That’s a verbal contract- you can’t back out of it.”
Gerard sputters. He was lost in his own thoughts! People like him should not be held responsible when they’re being distracted by their own minds!
“A contract is a contract. A promise, you might say,” the goblin grins, reading him perfectly.
He can’t help the small, irritated sound in the back of his throat. Thankfully, a passing car covers it. The basement is a mess. Mikey is home. Mom probably is, too. He does not want to do this. “Are you okay riding in the car? ‘Cause I know iron and steel and shit like that aren’t too Faerie-friendly.”
“We prefer the term “Fair folk” or any form of that or even-“ he says something in that odd language he’s spoken with the Faerie that had tried to rip out Gerard’s eyes “- if you really want to be formal. I can deal with cars, though.”
“Theena she?” Gerard cocks his head.
“Doaine Sidhe,” Frank spells it out for him. “It’s what you’d call Gaelic. Human Gaelic comes from the common tongue of the Folk. There are other languages, too. I speak fluent Gobledgik, Shishnir and Merrick as well as English and Gaelic.”
Gerard has trouble processing that. “What?”
“Sprigin, Goblin and Merrow,” Frank explains, listing species, “those are the names of their languages. I have family in all of those sub-species so I’ve had to learn the languages. As a goblin, my mothertongue is Shishnir, of course. English is my newest language.”
Gerard nods because it’s all he can do. He’s curious what the word “new” means to Frank in relation to time because he seems entirely fluent.
“Are you going to show me your art tonight or what?” Frank’s bare toes wiggle on the sidewalk.
He has to literally shake off the mental overload before he can get in the car. During the whole drive Frank fiddles with the radio controls. It takes every ounce of willpower that Gerard possesses not to rip the tuning dial off just to get him to stop changing the goddamn station.
Inside the house something kind of strikes Gerard and he has to say it. “What would you do if I got you shoes,” he asks, toeing off his own by the door.
Frank thinks about it for a minute and bites his lip. “You don’t want me to answer that.”
“No, really, I want to know,” he prods- in stories most Faeries freak out and leave when they get clothes from humans- then heads straight for his basement. He wants to get this over with as quickly as possible so he doesn’t offer Frank anything to drink or shout to warn Mikey that they have company. He goes down the basement stairs fast he might as well have fallen down them. He flicks on his desk lamp and grabs the first sketchbook in sight then shoves it at Frank.
“Someone doesn’t like showing off his artwork,” he teases, opening the book’s cover slowly.
Gerard pulls out his phone to have something other than Frank and his spattered and postered walls to look at. There are a couple of things in there that had started out magnificently… then he’d started inking them. The damage is irreparable and he’s too lazy to start from scratch again or to remove the evidence that he’d screwed something up from his sketchbook.
There are seventeen texts unopened on his phone, from mom and Mikey, surprisingly enough. How did he not hear those come through? The volume is on high. He frowns, feeling anxious. The first few are simple “Where are you” variations-
“Hey,” Frank puts his hand over Gerard’s phone. He won’t let Gerard jerk his hand away. “You’re really good at this. I mean, I know good when I see it and, damn, you’re good.”
He’s sure that a compliment from a Faerie is a very big deal. In fact he’s one hundred percent sure that it’s a huge deal. He’s tempted to get hung up on that and there’s this giddy feeling that he wants to indulge but his phone has been overrun by messages from his family and that cannot mean anything good.
“… skill should be be rewarded,” Frank finishes talking and Gerard realizes that he’s been standing there in a bit of a daze. He could listen to Frank talk forever.
“I need to call my mom,” he says but he doesn’t move Frank’s hand from his phone. He doesn’t want to, really.
Frank sighs, his face sympathetic when he looks up at Gerard. He reaches up and runs a hand over Gerard’s hair, careful to keep his small claws from doing any damage. “You’ve had a long day. Having people trying to kill you can’t make for low stress. You need rest.” He kisses Gerard’s cheek in an almost parental way. “Come on.”
He tries to focus on his phone while Frank pulls him towards his bed. He tries. He manages to read something about his grandmother. He’s half scared but then his head hits the pillow and he stops caring. Frank curls up beside him, stroking his hair and making soothing noises. If the goblin says it’s okay then it must be true because they can’t tell lies. It’s against their genetic coding.
His bed is comfortable- why hasn’t he noticed this before? He doesn’t mind being fully dressed, even.
Frank is kissing him now, in that weirdly innocent and completely meaningless way that little kids give kisses with their eyes open and yet it still means everything in the whole wide world. Everything is soft lips and smiles and wishes of sweet dreams and nothing is about anything else-
-and the funny thing is Gerard actually does dream and he knows that he’s dreaming. He isn’t sure if it’s a sweet dream yet, though, because it’s in third person and he’s freezing cold. The kind of dreaming cold where you kick off the covers in real life then dream about Antarctica.
He’s in the basement, still, watching himself and Frank. Lucid dreaming isn’t usually his thing. Except now it is and this is strange.
He’s asleep and Frank is perched on his stomach, his hair falling into his face.
Frank makes a few little, indecipherable sounds. He might be saying something or he might not. He unbuttons Gerard’s shirt, taking his time or stalling. From his posture it’s hard to tell which. The light from the small desk lamp casts Frank’s silhouette on the wall in sharp relief. The shadows of his wings stretch up to the ceiling where they tremble. It’s so cold.
The goblin’s hand is bright green against the never-seen-sunlight-white of Gerard’s chest. His reddish claws look like little holes. He presses his hand over Gerard’s heart, feeling it beat, beat, beat in a steady and warm tempo. Warm against his palm. Warm, red, and human. He leans down and kisses Gerard one more time and this time it isn’t a little child’s kiss. No, it isn’t. Frank actually closes his eyes when he does it and lingers for just a moment, breathing the same air as Gerard for a little bit longer, and there’s nothing innocent or meaningless about it.
He rubs a hand along the calf of his ancient jeans, his hand pausing by one particularly large hole in the side to pick at the edges. He says those small, untranslatable things again, bowing his head. The bone knife slides out of its sheath soundlessly. It glows in the yellowish dark of the basement. Frank replaces his hand with the tip of the knife. He holds it there, barely breathing.
The shadows of his wings quiver on the ceiling.
He draws a deep breath and lifts the knife-
-Gerard bolts upright, screaming. Cold sweat drips down his back and his right hand is clutched to his breastbone.
It takes a few swallows to stop the tears from choking him and for the room to solidify around him.
He’s awake. In the basement. No knives. No Frank. It’s still dark out.
Phone, phone, phone Mikey. Mom. Grandma. Phone! his mind shouts all at once. He fumbles for his cell and finds one of the earlier texts from Mikey. Grandma’s in the hospital. Mom and I will meet you there. Gerard’s stomach somersaults a few times. He is such a horrible person. How could he manage to sleep?
It only vaguely registers that his shirt is unbuttoned and slightly bloody when he pulls on a hoodie and runs out of the house.
Part Four
Author: vinvyvinvy
Band(s): My Chemical Romance with a side of Panic! at the Disco
Pairing(s): slight Frank/Gerard
Word Count: 34,152 (total)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: violence, profanity, angst, slightly ridiculous magic tricks, shoddy Gaelic translations, dream sequences, and faeries
Part Two
That is, he doesn't worry until he’s typing up a receipt template for Clara while she’s out of the office. The formatting is almost perfect when the screen goes white. At first he freaks out because he must have done something wrong to the computer! Looking around, though- well, it’s not really looking because everything is in the same state as the computer screen- smeared and unclear.
Gerard makes an irritated sound and rubs at his eyes. Give it ten seconds and they’ll be back to normal- stupid eyestrain. Except ten seconds passes and he still can’t see. With a sinking in his stomach he realizes that whatever it was that Frank coughed up in his face was likely something he should have told Mikey about.
He’s leaning back in his chair and trying to keep his breathing under control. There’s no need to panic. It’ll be all right. Aside from the fact that he’s totally vulnerable and anyone could come in here and beat him to death while he was blind as an infant rat. Other than that things are going to turn out very well.
It takes him several tries to dial the high school- shaky hands and the inconvenient blindness keep him from hitting the right extensions.
“They called me out of Biology. This had better be good.”
“Yeah, Mikes, I know they did- I told them to.”
“Gerard,” Mikey sounds startled, “What’s up? Is mom okay? What about grandma?”
“They’re fine-“
“- oh, good-“
“- I can’t see.”
“Then why- what?”
“I can’t see. My eyes won’t focus. I can’t see,” Gerard repeats, starting to panic because saying it out loud makes it real when he doesn’t want it to be.
“Where are you?” Mikey speaks slowly in a tone that instantly makes Gerard feel idiotic.
“Work.”
“What happened? Did you, like, stab yourself with a pen? Get white out in your eyes? You need to call an ambulance for that, not me.”
“Don’t patronize me! This is serious,” he’s gripping the phone so hard his hand aches. He tells Mikey about Frank hacking up a lung and his face getting caught in the crossfire. It makes his brother go silent for so long that one of the secretaries at the school tells him to hurry up.
“Oh no.”
The undisguised horror in Mikey’s voice is about all Gerard can take. He stops praying that his boss doesn’t come back to find him useless and starts freaking out instead. “Am I going to stay like this? Am I going blind? Will this kill me?” He shouts because, holy shit, if Mikey is scared-
“No! No, Gerard, it’s not that. Gee, breathe, calm down. You aren’t going to be stuck like this, you won’t go blind or die. It’s going to stop soon. It- it just has to settle. It has to do with retinal enhancement and- just relax. It’s going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.”
He’s one the edge of his chair, tense as a suspension bridge. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m going to come get you,” Mikey continues in a hushed voice, “It’s going to take a little time to get there because I have to take the damn bus. For the love of all things holy, stay where you are. Do not leave unless there’s a fire. If that happens then get out and keep your eyes down. Okay? Please.”
“Are you sure I’m not dying?”
“If you don’t suffocate from panic I’m absolutely sure you are not dying.”
“What’s wrong with my eyes? What did that damn kid give me?”
There’s a pregnant pause. It has an “I told you so” somewhere inside of it. “That’s going to take some explaining when I get you. Keep calm and stay put.”
“I thought it was “keep calm and carry on”,” he jokes in a shaky tone.
“Not this time.”
The line goes dead. One of the evil secretaries probably made Mikey hang up. Gerard is back to being alone in the quiet of the investigative office. Except it isn’t quiet. He can hear the air moving through the ventilation system, heating the cramped space. Every single time he shifts in the fake leather of the chair it creaks and makes him jump.
He groans and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. This is so weird. So bad. What if it’s cataracts? Those make your vision cloudy… but do they come and go like this?
The door opens and he gasps, straightening up and startling when he notices that he can see again, clearly and probably even better than before.
“Miss Kavanagh isn’t here right now,” he says to the guy who just walked in. “You can wait but I’m not sure when she’ll be back. I can take a message, if you’d like.”
The guy doesn’t respond from beneath the deep hood of his sweatshirt. He keeps walking towards Clara’s office.
“Hey,” Gerard says louder, standing, “I said you’ll have to wait.”
The guy’s head snaps in his direction like he’s just noticed that Gerard was there at the reception desk.
At first, he’s pleasantly surprised because- “Frank?”
...but Frank doesn’t look like that. Frank doesn’t have a green cast to his skin. He certainly doesn’t have a nice set of long, sharp teeth inside his slack jaw or holes in the back of his sweatshirt for- what? Are those fucking wings? Black, veined and iridescent wings?
Gerard falls out of his chair.
The desk cuts Frank out of his line of vision and he’s thankful for it.
“You can see me?” Frank smiles like some toddler asking Santa if he’s really real. He comes around the desk and squats down in front of Gerard. “You can see me.” He sounds a little giddy at the idea.
He is too close for comfort. His mohawk is brushed off to one side and Gerard can clearly see one of his pointy ears. And they’re pierced? What the fuck is he? A punk Legolas? There are little silver hoops running down the length of the cartilage.
Gerard scoots as far away as he can get, the handles of the file cabinet digging into his back. He closes his eyes. “This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening,” he chants. If he says it enough then it must be true.
“I’m sorry to burst your bubble, dude, but this totally is happening. You can see me!” He sounds giddy.
He opens his eyes a crack and flinches. Frank is still there, winged, fanged and slightly green. “Oh my god, no.”
The wings shift, their flared ends splaying a little. That must be the equivalent of shrugging. “Sorry. Trust me, this wasn’t the ideal result.”
“What?” Gerard’s voice is squeaky and his mouth is dry.
“Goblin spit gives people the Sight when it gets in their eyes,” he says apologetically, “I should have warned you, but choking on pesticides makes it kind of hard to think. For what it’s worth, I am really sorry for coughing on you.”
“You’re a goblin.” The squeak is nearing a shriek.
“Half to be exact. The other half is Sidhe. You know, Faerie nobility. It’s great because I can still get into all the goblin parties and shit but I’m not nearly as ugly as most of my cousins.” Frank smirks.
“Oh. My. God.” Gerard whimpers and rubs his eyes again. This is finally it. He’s losing his mind.
The bell above the door chimes. “Yo, Gee, you in here?”
“Mikey!” He shoves past Frank, scrambling to his feet and running up to his brother. “Please tell me I’m just crazy.”
“Wha-“ Mikey frowns when he sees Frank standing behind the desk.
“Hi,” Frank waves.
Mikey glares at him and says to Gerard, “Let’s get you home. Do you have a key so you can lock up?”
His hands are shaking too badly to manage the key so Mikey locks the office door behind them. It briefly concerns Gerard that they’re locking Frank in but since no one is supposed to be seeing him it doesn’t matter, anyway. It’s a non-issue. Mikey drives by default.
Gerard stares out the window in horror the whole way home because Frank being a goblin is not an isolated incident. His whole world is getting turned on its head.
There are kids streaming out of elementary schools. Among them are wizened old men, the size of children and dressed like children, but carrying gold or knives. A dog walker is being tugged along by a three-headed lizard that has stunted wings and a neon orange frill. A stunted dragon, Gerard thinks a little hysterically, the runt of the litter. A dealer standing at a gas station has the smiling head of a cobra and is selling bloody meat instead of cocaine. By the time they get home Gerard is scared out of his mind. The monsters from his comic books are real and worse than the artists could have imagined.
Mikey leads him inside, glancing over his shoulder in a paranoid manner.
“What’s going on?” Gerard says after a few minutes of sitting on the couch in silence, staring at the wall while his brother watches him intently.
Mikey pushes his glasses up on his nose. “You can see Faeries now.”
“Faeries aren’t real.”
“Saying that doesn’t kill them.”
“Faeries aren’t real,” Gerard insists as he stares down at his hands.
“Yeah,” Mikey sighs, disappointed in the truth, “they are.”
“No.”
“The truth hurts, bro.”
Gerard thinks for a moment. “... You can see them, too?”
“Yup.”
“How?”
“Magic.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
“Oh my god.”
“I know.”
“Grandma isn’t crazy.”
“No, she isn’t. She’s lost her memory but not her mind.”
Gerard takes a few very deep breaths, letting each one out slowly. That’s almost good news. “What do I do now?”
“You get used to it. Eventually.”
“Then what?”
Mikey considers this for a few seconds then says simply, “You don’t tell anyone. Especially if they ask you about it- you just pretend that they aren’t there if that happens. Never stare at Faeries. They’ll pluck your eyes out.”
“Frank didn’t pluck my eyes out.”
Mikey’s eyes narrow. “Stay away from Frank.”
“Why?”
“He’s dangerous. All Faeries are dangerous. Goblins, too, not to mention they’re low class.”
“How do you know?”
“Experience.”
“Mikey,” Gerard whines, exasperated.
“I can’t tell you anything else.”
“Go do your fucking homework, Jesus Christ,” he mutters, “I’m going to bed.”
Gerard stomps down to the basement and does just that. He even calls in sick the next day because, hey, he is sick. The mental kind. Faeries are real and he can now see them and this is way too much for one brain to process at once. Or over a long period of time. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to handle it.
When Mikey is at school on Friday he discovers that there’s nothing even close to resembling alcohol in the house. There isn’t even wine for cooking. Thanks for getting hammered and crashing mom’s car, Mikey. Way to be considerate. If ever there existed a situation in which it’d be appropriate to go on a bender this is it but wishful thinking doesn’t make liquor appear. He’s too scared to leave the house. This is fan-fucking-tastic. This must be a sneak preview of what hell is like- constant terror and no liquid courage.
Gerard stays curled up in one corner of the basement with his easel folded up and close at hand. It’s heavy enough to make a very good bludgeoning tool should any creatures with nefarious ideas get into his room and come after him. As a result of his diligence he comes within a few inches of braining Mikey when his brother shakes him awake on Saturday afternoon. To his credit, Mikey handles it in stride, wrestling the easel out of Gerard’s sleepy grip without so much as flinching.
“He really isn’t handling this well,” a strange and amused voice says from over by the stairs.
Gerard blinks rapidly, his eyes and mind adjusting when the light switch is flicked on. “Who are you?”
The stranger grins. He’s all white teeth and bouncing, curly brown hair. “I’m Ray Toro. I run a support group for the Sighted in town. Mikey said you might be interested in joining us.”
“A support group,” Gerard echoes vaguely.
“Yeah,” he says, sounding even more cheerful when he goes on, like an advertisement, “some folks have a really difficult time getting the hang of the Sight. The group is a place where they can let out their frustrations or fears or get advice or just chat with others in similar situations without the risk of getting maimed. The whole operation is sanctioned by both courts.”
“This insanity is legal?” Gerard is horrified.
“Oh, not that kind of court,” Ray laughs, “The Faerie Courts. Kingdoms. Well, they’re more like Queendoms.”
The conversation has Gerard coming back out of his melodramatic survival mode. He remembers that, thanks to a certain goblin and the city’s aerosol pesticides, he now has the ability to see through Faerie magic. He knows there’s a word for Faerie magic but it won’t come to mind.
“Glamour,” Ray says, making Gerard realize that he was thinking out loud.
Gerard groans. He needs coffee in the worst possible way. One look at Mikey’s face and he’s disappointed. There’s no way Mikey will risk getting in deeper trouble with mom to get his beloved big brother a caffeine fix because, of course, Mikey is such an angelic child. If Gerard wants it that badly he’ll have to go and get it himself. He presses his hands to his temples.
“How do I make it go away?”
Ray hesitates. “You don’t. Not really. The Sight isn’t one of those reversible things- the best cursebreakers in the world can’t get rid of it short of inducing total blindness.”
“Then call me fuckin’ Gloucester,” he gripes.
Mikey chuckles because he actually likes reading Shakespeare and referencing the old codger in conversation. Weird, wonderful kid.
“There’s something that works for some people-“
“What is it?”
“Promise you won’t get your hopes up?”
“Tell me,” Gerard snaps at Ray.
“Denial,” he replies simply.
“Seriously?”
“On rare occasions people can trick themselves into not Seeing. They still see the Folk, but they don’t recognize that they’re not human. They substitute the threatening reality with one they find more acceptable.”
“How rare are we talking?”
“Most people get so wrapped up in denying the truth that they go insane. It’s easier to accept it and learn to live with it. That’s what the support group is for. We have multiple chapters in most major cities, and at least one in each state- there are a few groups that are international, too. We’d really appreciate it if you decided to join us sometime.”
Gerard doesn’t know how to respond to how normally this man is acting so the rest of Ray’s visit is short. It’s hard to work with someone who can’t find the ability to speak in coherent sentences.
~~
It turns out that Gerard has no choice in going to this nameless support group because Mikey threatens to use his comic book collection for a beach bonfire come spring if he doesn’t go. It’s a very convincing argument. So, Gerard spends his Tuesday evening at a local youth center, seated in a cold metal chair, fidgeting with a Styrofoam cup of coffee, and feeling like he’s at an AA meeting. When the clock reads 6:00 straight up the eight other people take their seats. Gerard is glad to be sitting where he can see the door, right by Ray so he can use the taller man as a human shield if the situation calls for it.
“When do we get to sing campfire songs?”
“Ghost stories come first,” says a bearish blond as he sits down on Gerard’s left.
Gerard starts to apologize for being rude until he gets a good look at the man sitting next to him. He knows he isn’t exactly short but this man makes Gerard look petite. His palm is probably as big as Gerard’s face and the rounded set of horns at his temples are distracting.
“My mother was a troll. My name is Bob.” Bob the half-troll offers a massive hand.
Like Gerard suspected it totally envelops his when they shake. “I suppose that renders any and all “yo Mama” jokes invalid,” his mouth spouts without his permission. For a second he’s sure that Bob will crush his head into an edible pulp for saying that but then his bright blue eyes turn up in a way that suggests amusement and Gerard can breathe freely again.
The chatter around them dies out and the rest of the group alternates between looking expectantly at Ray then looking expectantly at Gerard. He forgot how fabulous it is to be the new guy.
“Hi,” he says with a little wave to break the silence, “I’m Gerard.”
A chorus of “Hi, Gerard,” is returned to him. Even Ray and Bob say it even though they both already kind of know him. If anybody so much as breathes a syllable about Kool Aid he is so out of here.
“Unlike the rest of us,” Ray announces, “Gerard came by the Sight entirely on accident, without any warning.”
There are a few sounds of sympathy. An “ooh, wow,” from one person, “that’s unique” from another and a loud “It sucks to be you,” from the freckled girl on Ray’s other side.
“Marisa,” Ray says in a mildly chiding tone.
She shrugs. “Well it does! The guy didn’t have any choice in this at all.”
“Because I clearly had a choice in being half troll,” Bob says. He sounds more bored than offended.
“I didn’t mean it like that!”
“Bob knows you didn’t, Marisa,” Ray interjects, “Bob, you know it’s rude to distress humans.”
Bob shrugs. This is a fact that he knows and doesn’t happen to care about. From what Gerard recalls about Faeries this is typical.
“I was thinking that we could all introduce ourselves for Gerard’s sake. Just say your name and a little bit about yourself if you feel comfortable. We’ll start with you, Marisa.”
The girl rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. She’s pulling off the dejected-teenager look very well. “I’m Marisa. My parents think I’m at church right now.” The pointed look she gives to the guy on her right says that that is all she’s got to talk about.
“My name is Brendon,” he pauses to push his hair out of his face, “I got cursed by a Reynardine.”
There are a few sounds that show empathy and maybe a little pity, too, because everyone but Gerard knows what that means.
“Basically,” Brendon explains, “I’m in love with a werefox that I’ll never get to see again and I won’t be able to enjoy sex for the rest of my life. Unless it’s with the Reynardine in question but that’s not going to happen- he’s in England and I’m stuck here.”
Gerard flinches. He’s no stranger to angsty pining or sexual frustration but to be stuck with both of them forever? That isn’t fun. He makes a mental note: no sex with Faeries unless you want to be miserable until you die.
Next in the circle is Rita. The middle aged mother of three made the mistake of glancing through a stone that had a natural hole in it, thinking that Faerie tales about such things weren’t true. Her family hiking trip had gone wrong very quickly after that.
Then there’s Gabe who’d made nice-nice with a Faerie noblewoman. The Sight had been given to him as a gift- regardless of whether he wanted it or not. It wasn’t like he could refuse it without offending the Faerie woman and getting punished for doing so- he’d been through all sorts of mental wards and drugs as a result. It had turned out to be a sick joke. One Faerie pastime is laughing while humans struggle with the mindfuck that the Sight boils down to.
When it’s Bob’s turn Gerard is feeling lucky. This might have been an accident but at least he doesn’t have any horror stories.
“You know my name and what I am,” Bob says concisely, “I’m just here for the free coffee,” then that’s that.
Ray takes a quick vote and the whole group agrees: they would rather spend the hour educating Gerard about the Courts and etiquette than discuss various methods for “coming out” to loved ones as Sighted. No one asks Gerard what he wants to do. This is probably a good idea because all he wants to do is go back home and stare at his useless pencils and markers.
At the end of the meeting Gerard is sent on his way only after receiving numerous, unasked for hugs from his new acquaintances (with the merciful exceptions of Ray and Bob, hallelujah) and a handmade pamphlet from Brendon. It’s titled Glamour: A Beginner’s Guide to Seeing the Unseen and the little illustrations are cute bubble characters. If he ever gets his ability to draw back he’s going to redo the art for Brendon- what he’s got is good but Gerard pictures it all looking a bit darker with sharper edges.
He’s flipping through the section on self-defense as he walks down the street to his car. The title is meant to be comedic: Oh no! You’ve been sighted!.
Haha, how ironic, Brendon you genius, you. No one has ever done that before. He’s in a perfectly vicious mood. Then he’s suddenly launched off down an alley and his head smacks against the side of a building. There’s a blissful second where he can’t see anything at all and his whole world is summed up by the stabbing in his skull. He only starts struggling when he notices that he’s being held in place by a figure on either side.
“Which eye do you see me with?” This third figure leans close at the horrible, tricking question. In the dim alleyway its skin is the same color, texture and smell as curdled milk. Teeth hang from its lipless mouth.
Brendon’s pamphlet advises keeping one’s calm when these things happen. The idea is to pretend you have no idea what’s going on and answer to nothing and therefore prove yourself Unsighted.
Gerard screams as loud as his lungs and vocal cords will allow him to. Fuck Brendon’s pamphlet. He clearly has never been in this situation before. Thanks to the pixies- Gerard guesses that’s what they are- at his sides he can’t move his limbs. It isn’t right for creatures so petite and child-like to be so strong, too.
“I’m going to assume that means “both”.”
From the corners of Gerard’s vision two little blue glows- Tinkerbell’s evil step sisters, a detached part of his mind thinks- perch on his shoulders to hold his head still and his eyelids open.
“No! No, no, no! Please, don’t,” he babbles, “I’ll do whatever you want. I mean it! You can have everything! My life savings! My- my art or my fucking soul! Please don’t do this!”
“Hazels always do have the most spice. This should be tasty,” the Faerie muses. The pixies giggle.
“You cannot do this to me! Please,” Gerard gets nauseous. This thing is going to pluck out his eyes and eat- the back door of one of the buildings opens.
“Help,” Gerard yells at the woman as she hefts a bag into the dumpster, “Help me! Please- you fucking bitch!” She’s walking back to the door. Gerard cannot believe this. “Get the fuck back here! They’re gonna kill me!” His voice breaks and he tastes blood at the back of his throat.
“Humans can’t hear you.”
“Fuck you,” he spits.
“Oh, is that an offer? That’s a lovely idea. After dinner, though, I’m famished.”
Gerard’s eyes are watering but it doesn’t stop him from seeing the knife in the Faerie’s hand. The little hands of the Faeries on his shoulders dig bruises into the tender skin of his eyelids. He starts up screaming again even though each breath slices into his throat. He tries with everything he’s got to struggle but it isn’t enough to shake their iron grip. The white Faerie pats his cheek with a slimy hand and raises the knife-
“Oi! Krean!” Foreign and lyrical sounds follow from the back of the alley.
The white Faerie’s head snaps to look in the direction of the approaching voice. It replies with a similar set of noises, sounding inconvenienced but friendly.
Frank steps into Gerard’s little nightmare like it’s an every day occurrence. He talks to the still-armed Faerie in a casual tone, making flippant gestures with his hands. The language is one that can’t possibly be human. There are too many consonants and trilling notes.
The other Faerie cuts Frank off mid-sentence, pointing the knife at Gerard impatiently.
Frank makes a surprised sound and turns like he’s realizing that Gerard is there for the first time. He gives Gerard a long once over while the other Faerie talks, his eyebrows raised. It’s absurd that the look makes Gerard flush. Frank clucks his tongue and turns back to the white Faerie. He says something in a dismissive tone.
Gerard doesn’t need to understand the language to be offended. He might be an inch away from getting irreparably maimed but that does not give Frank the right to look at him like he’s an object then say something that translates from any language into “You can do better”.
Frank bickers with the white Faerie for a few minutes then reaches into the pocket of his hoodie. His hand comes back overflowing with bright gold chains, some hung with jeweled pendants. The other Faerie sneers, irritated, but it takes the gold anyway then vanishes. The pixies and evil tinkerbells flutter off to lurk by the dumpster, picking through it for shiny things.
Gerard is so grateful and relieved that he can collapse right there. Frank doesn’t give him that chance, though. He pushes Gerard against the wall with one hand. “I just bought your eyes, your life, and your ass. You fucking owe me, human.”
Every syllable of that statement rubs him in the opposite direction of just-had-my-life-saved joy.
Frank pushes Gerard away with a glare and walks toward the street.
“If it was so fucking inconvenient then why’d you even bother, huh? Hey! I’m talking to you, asshole!” He grabs the shoulder of Frank’s sweatshirt. One of hte vindictive sprites shoves him in passint, pitching him forward at the same time Frank turns around to retort. Thanks to that he doesn’t end up with a faceful of wings or dyed hair. The angle and colliding teeth are too awkward and painful to call it a kiss but that memo doesn’t reach Gerard’s brain because he thinks Oh, I’m kissing a goblin for the split second before he jerks back. He stumbles away, starting to apologize-
“Assault and now thievery?” Frank has gone from irritated to unreadable- it might be amusement coloring his voice.
“What?”
He shakes his head. “First you try to kill me, then you get it so you owe me for your life, and now you steal from me? You know, if I felt like it, I could own your happy ass for the rest of your life and it wouldn’t begin to pay off your debt, Gerard. You really need to work on your social skills.”
Gerard sputters while Frank stands there with a smug smirk like he’s superior or something. He lets out a scandalized shriek before launching into a tirade.
“You insufferable jackass! It was an accident! That- that thing-“ he points violently at a giggling pixie, “shoved me! Don’t you dare laugh at me!” He’s scared on top of being angry. Gerard knows he’s in serious shit- not that it’s his fault! He will swear up and down that he was pushed. “You need to give people some fucking warning, you know that? Put up a damn sign about your weird ass trees! And the next time you feel like saving someone’s life don’t bitch at them about it after! No one made you step in! You selfish jerk!”
“Gerard.”
“If you tell me to calm down, so help me, Frank-“
Frank lifts one hand and wipes away the drying slime that the white Faerie had left behind. Then he lifts up onto his toes and leans in and he’s kissing Gerard, effectively shutting him up. He licks Gerard’s lower lip then kisses the corner of his mouth.
Unlike the shitty romantic-comedies that his mother loves, the kiss doesn’t win Frank any points. It doesn’t make Gerard go weak at the knees and want make up. It pisses him off even more. If Frank hadn’t pulled away so fast Gerard might have hit him.
“What the fuck, Frank? That was two,” he shouts as the goblin walks away. “That’s not even or fair!”
“The second one was a gift,” Frank shouts back, not looking over his shoulder. Gerard can hear the stupid smile in his voice.
“I don’t want it!”
“Then re-gift it, dumbass!”
~~A week later, Brendon is lounging in a diner booth while fondling Gerard’s scarf in a manner that is probably illegal in most states. “Is this alpaca? Oh my god it is so soft,” he fawns.
“I honestly have no idea what kind of yarn it is. You’d have to ask my brother,” Gerard says.
Last weekend, half-insane from technological withdrawal, Mikey had thought it a good idea to take up knitting. Since then the Way home has been filled with the steady clicking of knitting needles like an old folks’ home or a pregnant woman’s living room.
Gerard has a pretty sweet deal now that Mikey seems to have found his artistic calling- his new polka dot scarf and fingerless gloves, for example- but there is only so much one man can take. He’s fine with finding yarn scraps in odd places and tripping over unfinished clothing items. Sitting on a knitting needle, however, is not acceptable. Having certain things shoved up his ass is acceptable. Sharp, pain-inducing metal is not on that list of acceptable things.
“Your brother is a genius.”
“I’ll tell him his crafts have won him a fan,” Gerard replies, unamused. He’d gone through the trouble of looking Brendon up and taking him out for coffee to get away from the joys of all things handmade. Fate has other plans for him, it seems.
“I honestly could marry him, just for his knitting.”
Gerard snorts. “You’d have to get past my shotgun,” he jokes.
Brendon seems to understand perfectly and his laugh is jovial.
Gerard notices that his coffee is going cold and that he should probably get to drinking it. There’s a crash from the kitchen, however, that has him pause with the rim of the mug against his lips.
“No, don’t! Sir, don’t drink it!” Their waitress is sprinting towards their table.
Gerard stares down into the mug, scandalized at the astringent smell now rising from it. It’s making him light headed- in fact, it has been for a while now.
The waitress is pale and terrified. “I am so, so sorry,” she says over and over, “I don’t know how it happened.”
“How what happened?” Brendon is considering his own mug. It seems to be absolutely normal and Brendon is a bit disappointed that he didn’t get anything spectacular.
“S- someone put drain cleaner in his mug,” she replies, pointing at Gerard. “I. I’m going to get a manager, right now.” She’s distressed and keen on avoiding losing her job.
“No,” Gerard says slowly, his eyes wide, “That isn’t necessary. No. We’re. Just.” He pauses to swallow. “We’re just going to leave and pretend this never happened.”
The waitress tries to protest but doesn’t do anything to stop them from going. The last thing that Gerard wants to deal with is convincing some overworked owner that he’s not going to sue the restaurant. He’s just going to settle for never going within a three block radius of it again.
“That was weird.” Brendon sounds thrilled about it.
“You’re telling me- I could have died. How does someone not notice drain cleaner in a coffee mug?”
Brendon shrugs. “I’d say it was glamoured but you’re kind supposed to be able to see through that, aren’t you?”
“Hell if I know. My grandma has some books on, you know, Faeries and things like that. I guess there are, like, levels of glamour?
Some kinds are really easy to see through because the Faeries that laid them got sloppy. Then there are really heavy glamours that you have to be aware of and remove with special means. Clover or holy water.”
“You know a lot about this,” Brendon says in an admiring tone.
“Nah, not really. I think I’m trying to make myself feel better about it through knowledge. Power and all that jazz.”
“I like jazz.” Brendon is looking across the street, his face relaxed like a child who’s spotted a shiny penny.
“Are you alright?”
“Oh? Yeah, I’m fine,” he says in a rush, brushing his floppy hair out of his face. He’s standing a few feet behind Gerard.
“You’re acting a little odd all of the sudden.” Gerard unlocks his car.
“I’ll take the bus up to group this week, okay? I’ve got some time to kill, anyway.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m magnificent,” Brendon smiles and he looks like he means it. He jogs across the street before Gerard can get another word in.
Gerard has the niggling feeling that he ought to chase Brendon down and make him get in the car. It’s a free country, though, and the kid can do whatever he wants. That doesn’t mean Gerard has to like it. He watches Brendon dissolve into the early evening crowd then climbs into his car. It hiccups a few times before it starts. He viciously hopes it isn’t a sign of car troubles to come.
Not surprisingly, Brendon doesn’t arrive at group on time. Marisa is in the middle of describing the horror of being attacked by a sprite riding a robin when he slips into the room. She keeps talking but one by one everyone stops listening. When the properly timed commentary on her story stops entirely she looks up from her hands and gasps.
A little late Gerard thinks. There isn’t really anything remarkable about Brendon- he hasn’t shown up in a dress (though that wouldn’t be so shocking) or sprouted wings (that would be something to note). He’s pale, though, trembling all over like he’s survived a nuclear holocaust and he’s got all the time in the world to read but no glasses. The real kicker is, he’s happy about it.
“Brendon,” Ray begins, “what happened? I mean, we’re glad you showed up but you’re sick.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” he stutters out as he takes his chair, “I’m fine. Ryan’s in town, that’s all.”
He sniffs and that’s the end of it- a giddy giggle turns into a choked sob. Rita darts out of her chair and wraps herself around Brendon, the beads strung around her neck tangling in his hair. He doesn’t appear to mind. He’s alternating between glee and the most profound pain Gerard has ever seen in a single human being.
“Who’s Ryan?” Gerard leans close to Bob and speaks quietly so no one finds out he’s out of the loop.
“The werefox.”
“Oh,” Gerard says, drawing out the single syllable. He feels dumb for not learning about this earlier.
Around Brendon’s chair a sort of pity-and-sympathy party has developed. Brendon is in crisis mode as he tries to explain himself.
Ryan’s pretty much using him for his own amusement, which would be why he showed up in the States to begin with. Brendon knows this but he can’t really do anything about it. He doesn’t want to because he’s so in love!
He’s equal parts enthralled and appalled, Gerard supposes, having no idea what to do or say. There isn’t anything he can think of that would make things better.
“Want me to buy you a baseball bat?” Bob chimes in when there’s break in the consoling chatter and tears.
“What? No, that’s horrible!” That makes Brendon look physically hurt on top of everything else.
Bob sighs and mutters under his breath. “It looks like werefox is on the menu for my mother’s birthday. That should make her happy.” He gets up and stands beside Brendon, patting his shoulder in an awkward but friendly way before he leaves.
Gerard sits there for a few more minutes. He’s torn. He isn’t really involved in the situation, so he knows he can’t give advice. He doesn’t have any advice to give, either.
Ray tries to get Brendon into a semi-coherent state so they can discuss how exactly Brendon is going to handle Ryan. Is he going to continue seeing him? Does he want help keeping away from him?
Gerard already knows what Brendon thinks of that: Both. It’s obvious from how he’s acting. Like a junkie. The truest illustration of love-hate he’s ever seen. Gerard nods at Ray hoping he doesn’t look too much like he’s seeking permission to go. Ray doesn’t seem to notice a thing.
~~
The coffee shop on the corner serves overpriced espresso that looks, smells, and tastes nothing like drain cleaner. Granted, he has no idea what drain cleaner tastes like and he never wants to find out but he can safely guess that it’s a taste he’d know if he ever stumbled across it. He tries really hard to act like the barista’s antlers are a normal thing to see because getting gored by those would absolutely ruin his evening.
He frowns down into his coffee as he starts back down the dark sidewalk for his car. He wonders how in the hell he’d gotten slipped drain cleaner at the diner. Maybe it was some random serial killer? Don’t they usually use bottles of aspirin, though? He likes to think it was random happenstance, because the alternative is being a target and that isn’t-
“I hear the arsenic from that place is to die for.” Frank appears beside him.
Gerard can’t figure out if it’s actual magic or if he simply didn’t notice Frank approaching. He can’t reply at first because people popping up out of worm holes always tends to leave him a little tongue tied. “How do you know about that?”
“It’s a small town. Word gets around, you know.”
No, Gerard doesn’t know because he’s not normally the subject of town gossip. Since when is Belleville a small town? He’s always thought it to be moderately large if not a genuine city complete with slums and suburbs. He shrugs it off, though. Frank’s a goblin and goblins tend to just know things. That’s how it is in Elena’s stories.
“How’s the drawing been going?”
It’s hard to see any ill intention on Frank’s face. The black-straight-through eyes make him absurdly difficult to read. “It’s going,” he answers reluctantly.
It really has been, too. Even since the whole being Sighted business had solidified not only is his vision perfect but he’s incapable of going anywhere without a sketchbook and an array of pens and pencils. Not that he likes what’s been showing up in his sketchbooks. He figures skeletal sprites are pretty normal fare for him but elaborate scenes of Fae being held captive in labs and tortured- that he doesn’t even remember drawing afterward- are not. It isn’t so much the gore that bugs him, either. He feels fucking connected to the drawings. More than he usually does. Like the drawings are happening in real time and he’s there watching. A court reporter who can’t feel attached to victims or appalled by psychopaths but is secretly in agony over every single pen stroke because, fuck, these things are monsters and he’s doing nothing to stop them. Nothing in the way of revenge.
“Yeah, any time,” he says when he hears Frank say something that has a questioning lift at the end.
“Great! So now is good for you?”
“Sure- wait. What are we talking about?” He stops before unlocking the door to his car and fidgets with the keys.
Frank giggles. “You just agreed to show me what you’ve been drawing. You even said any time. That’s a verbal contract- you can’t back out of it.”
Gerard sputters. He was lost in his own thoughts! People like him should not be held responsible when they’re being distracted by their own minds!
“A contract is a contract. A promise, you might say,” the goblin grins, reading him perfectly.
He can’t help the small, irritated sound in the back of his throat. Thankfully, a passing car covers it. The basement is a mess. Mikey is home. Mom probably is, too. He does not want to do this. “Are you okay riding in the car? ‘Cause I know iron and steel and shit like that aren’t too Faerie-friendly.”
“We prefer the term “Fair folk” or any form of that or even-“ he says something in that odd language he’s spoken with the Faerie that had tried to rip out Gerard’s eyes “- if you really want to be formal. I can deal with cars, though.”
“Theena she?” Gerard cocks his head.
“Doaine Sidhe,” Frank spells it out for him. “It’s what you’d call Gaelic. Human Gaelic comes from the common tongue of the Folk. There are other languages, too. I speak fluent Gobledgik, Shishnir and Merrick as well as English and Gaelic.”
Gerard has trouble processing that. “What?”
“Sprigin, Goblin and Merrow,” Frank explains, listing species, “those are the names of their languages. I have family in all of those sub-species so I’ve had to learn the languages. As a goblin, my mothertongue is Shishnir, of course. English is my newest language.”
Gerard nods because it’s all he can do. He’s curious what the word “new” means to Frank in relation to time because he seems entirely fluent.
“Are you going to show me your art tonight or what?” Frank’s bare toes wiggle on the sidewalk.
He has to literally shake off the mental overload before he can get in the car. During the whole drive Frank fiddles with the radio controls. It takes every ounce of willpower that Gerard possesses not to rip the tuning dial off just to get him to stop changing the goddamn station.
Inside the house something kind of strikes Gerard and he has to say it. “What would you do if I got you shoes,” he asks, toeing off his own by the door.
Frank thinks about it for a minute and bites his lip. “You don’t want me to answer that.”
“No, really, I want to know,” he prods- in stories most Faeries freak out and leave when they get clothes from humans- then heads straight for his basement. He wants to get this over with as quickly as possible so he doesn’t offer Frank anything to drink or shout to warn Mikey that they have company. He goes down the basement stairs fast he might as well have fallen down them. He flicks on his desk lamp and grabs the first sketchbook in sight then shoves it at Frank.
“Someone doesn’t like showing off his artwork,” he teases, opening the book’s cover slowly.
Gerard pulls out his phone to have something other than Frank and his spattered and postered walls to look at. There are a couple of things in there that had started out magnificently… then he’d started inking them. The damage is irreparable and he’s too lazy to start from scratch again or to remove the evidence that he’d screwed something up from his sketchbook.
There are seventeen texts unopened on his phone, from mom and Mikey, surprisingly enough. How did he not hear those come through? The volume is on high. He frowns, feeling anxious. The first few are simple “Where are you” variations-
“Hey,” Frank puts his hand over Gerard’s phone. He won’t let Gerard jerk his hand away. “You’re really good at this. I mean, I know good when I see it and, damn, you’re good.”
He’s sure that a compliment from a Faerie is a very big deal. In fact he’s one hundred percent sure that it’s a huge deal. He’s tempted to get hung up on that and there’s this giddy feeling that he wants to indulge but his phone has been overrun by messages from his family and that cannot mean anything good.
“… skill should be be rewarded,” Frank finishes talking and Gerard realizes that he’s been standing there in a bit of a daze. He could listen to Frank talk forever.
“I need to call my mom,” he says but he doesn’t move Frank’s hand from his phone. He doesn’t want to, really.
Frank sighs, his face sympathetic when he looks up at Gerard. He reaches up and runs a hand over Gerard’s hair, careful to keep his small claws from doing any damage. “You’ve had a long day. Having people trying to kill you can’t make for low stress. You need rest.” He kisses Gerard’s cheek in an almost parental way. “Come on.”
He tries to focus on his phone while Frank pulls him towards his bed. He tries. He manages to read something about his grandmother. He’s half scared but then his head hits the pillow and he stops caring. Frank curls up beside him, stroking his hair and making soothing noises. If the goblin says it’s okay then it must be true because they can’t tell lies. It’s against their genetic coding.
His bed is comfortable- why hasn’t he noticed this before? He doesn’t mind being fully dressed, even.
Frank is kissing him now, in that weirdly innocent and completely meaningless way that little kids give kisses with their eyes open and yet it still means everything in the whole wide world. Everything is soft lips and smiles and wishes of sweet dreams and nothing is about anything else-
-and the funny thing is Gerard actually does dream and he knows that he’s dreaming. He isn’t sure if it’s a sweet dream yet, though, because it’s in third person and he’s freezing cold. The kind of dreaming cold where you kick off the covers in real life then dream about Antarctica.
He’s in the basement, still, watching himself and Frank. Lucid dreaming isn’t usually his thing. Except now it is and this is strange.
He’s asleep and Frank is perched on his stomach, his hair falling into his face.
Frank makes a few little, indecipherable sounds. He might be saying something or he might not. He unbuttons Gerard’s shirt, taking his time or stalling. From his posture it’s hard to tell which. The light from the small desk lamp casts Frank’s silhouette on the wall in sharp relief. The shadows of his wings stretch up to the ceiling where they tremble. It’s so cold.
The goblin’s hand is bright green against the never-seen-sunlight-white of Gerard’s chest. His reddish claws look like little holes. He presses his hand over Gerard’s heart, feeling it beat, beat, beat in a steady and warm tempo. Warm against his palm. Warm, red, and human. He leans down and kisses Gerard one more time and this time it isn’t a little child’s kiss. No, it isn’t. Frank actually closes his eyes when he does it and lingers for just a moment, breathing the same air as Gerard for a little bit longer, and there’s nothing innocent or meaningless about it.
He rubs a hand along the calf of his ancient jeans, his hand pausing by one particularly large hole in the side to pick at the edges. He says those small, untranslatable things again, bowing his head. The bone knife slides out of its sheath soundlessly. It glows in the yellowish dark of the basement. Frank replaces his hand with the tip of the knife. He holds it there, barely breathing.
The shadows of his wings quiver on the ceiling.
He draws a deep breath and lifts the knife-
-Gerard bolts upright, screaming. Cold sweat drips down his back and his right hand is clutched to his breastbone.
It takes a few swallows to stop the tears from choking him and for the room to solidify around him.
He’s awake. In the basement. No knives. No Frank. It’s still dark out.
Phone, phone, phone Mikey. Mom. Grandma. Phone! his mind shouts all at once. He fumbles for his cell and finds one of the earlier texts from Mikey. Grandma’s in the hospital. Mom and I will meet you there. Gerard’s stomach somersaults a few times. He is such a horrible person. How could he manage to sleep?
It only vaguely registers that his shirt is unbuttoned and slightly bloody when he pulls on a hoodie and runs out of the house.
Part Four