[fic] EPILOGUE. (my mouth tastes of despair)
Title: Nine Weeks.
Fandom: Bandom AU (Thursdayverse)
Word Count: 1,017
Rating: G/PG
Pairing: Wait and see.
Warnings: None! For once!
Disclaimer: Didn't happen, we don't think it happened.
Notes: Because I cannot just let this 'verse be. Epilogue to The Thursday-kids 'verse
Gerard has been coming to the diner for two weeks now. He orders the same thing every time and sits at the counter shuffling his notes and chewing a ballpoint; Ray has offered to lend him a palm pilot, to show him how to use any number of disturbingly complex gadgets and computers, but Gerard prefers the traditional approach.
Ray has also pointed out that there is a café in the centre of town with free wifi. Gerard has pointed out that no one is asking him to stick around the diner all day. Ray has pointed out that no one asked Gerard to save his life either, and that sort of confers a considerable debt onto Ray's shoulders. Gerard has pointed out that the door is that way.
Bob and Frank are less easily budged. They are not spending their days and nights talking endlessly into a brand new cell phone in unbroken and excellent Spanish, trying to set up something that Gerard wants no part of, not like Ray; they're just following him, dogged and determined and loyal as ever, to see that no harm comes to him.
The diner's thick with disinterest and as always Gerard and his shadows are the only things living in here that aren't insectoid. He shuffles his notes again. This sermon is proving harder to write than the last, his priest's collar is too tight, and his mind is not on the task in hand.
His mind is on the waitress, who is smiling at him the way she always smiles at him; sharp and red and too smart for such a small place in such a small town, her hair blacker than madness in two scraggly bunches and her eyes like diamond-tipped drills through his chest.
The plastic badge on her breasts reads "LINDSEAY" - Gerard jerks his head up to meet her gaze as he has every time, and he gives her a cautious but heartfelt smile. She's shorter than him, and terrifying, and amazing, and she makes his leg jump like he's been poisoned.
"Hi," Gerard manages as she puts the coffee pot down next to him and stares at his sermon. "Uhm."
He doesn't want to come across as a pervert, or an asshole, and not just because what he's learnt in the last week makes it pretty certain she'd make his life a living hell if he did that; Lindseay fascinates him.
She is the only fascinating thing he's seen since he left the hotel in smouldering ruins.
"Did you ask about the Gospel according to St Mary?" she asks, making a vague gesture that is intended to take in the general direction of the town, and presumably the town library.
"I did."
"And?"
And he'd been intimidated in a whole other way by Librarian Beth than he was by Lindseay, but despite her justified distrust she'd given him the run-down, the documents, and a list of the things they needed. She never once used the word "help", or the word "favour". She was two hundred and fifty pounds of capable, brisk, strangely glamorous lesbian librarian with her finger on the pulse of an organisation Gerard hadn't even known existed until now.
("The Sisterhood of Indulgence," Gerard asked Ray, laying out prayer books on empty pews like someone might come this week, and Ray, who has always had his long fingers in so many pies it's dizzying, always stood at the centre of the flow of information like a statue to the god of crossroads, shrugs.
"I don't know that I can trust my sources any more," Ray says. He sounds hurt.
"Just a vague idea," Gerard begs. Bob and Frank stand at the back of the little room, jabbing each other with forefingers and muttering half-snarled endearments.
"Classed as a terrorist organisation."
"So are PETA."
"Mmm, well, the Sisterhood have been known to blow things up on occasion rather than merely being annoying and unhinged," Ray says dryly, watching Bob and Frank without watching. His suit is still immaculate. Gerard's given up wondering how he does it.
"They blow up things or people?"
"Things which occasionally have people in them," Frank says from the back of the room that is serving as a church.
Gerard wants to be horrified. In his new life as a good person, he ought to be horrified. But he wants just as much to see Lindseay's sin-red lipstick twist into a smile, and his mother's bleach in his hair has almost grown out completely.
Perhaps detaching himself from being a Way involves more than a facile about-face.)
"And I found out everything I needed to know," Gerard says with another careful smile. Her eyebrows are hypnotic. Her mouth is making him want to kneel. "For now."
"And you think you have an answer?" Lindseay's sharp-edged smile reminds him of someone, but he can no longer think who.
Gerard puts his elbows on his sermon and his chin on his hands, tipping his head back to smile back at her, giddy with thoughts of change. "I have." An answer he's been trying to word very precisely, because Beth made it quite clear with the things she didn't say that he is not in charge, and he will never be in charge, and that makes him the happiest he's been in a long time.
"Oh, now quit being a prick-tease and get it out," Lindseay sighs, tapping the counter with her forefinger. "The answer, not your little man."
Gerard's been practicing in front of the mirror. He's been driving himself crazy thinking up the right thing to say, without consulting Ray, without tumbling back into old, dangerous habits of family words, family talking.
"Oh, right. Well. Um." He scratches the back of his head. "If. If I can be of service to you or your, your … cause … at all, then." Gerard exhales slowly, feeling the world tip away beneath him, the road fork before him, everything changing once again. "Then I'm at your disposal."
And Lindseay pats him on the top of his head and says, "Yes. You are."
THE. MOTHERFUCKING. END.
Except nooooot. Because there are still four Guts stories (Bert's Boys) to read, check the index for those, the profiles (which will provide non-vital but definitely very illuminating material which could well change your opinions on the story), icons, wallpapers, fanmixes, fanart, and the header banner.
Fandom: Bandom AU (Thursdayverse)
Word Count: 1,017
Rating: G/PG
Pairing: Wait and see.
Warnings: None! For once!
Disclaimer: Didn't happen, we don't think it happened.
Notes: Because I cannot just let this 'verse be. Epilogue to The Thursday-kids 'verse
Gerard has been coming to the diner for two weeks now. He orders the same thing every time and sits at the counter shuffling his notes and chewing a ballpoint; Ray has offered to lend him a palm pilot, to show him how to use any number of disturbingly complex gadgets and computers, but Gerard prefers the traditional approach.
Ray has also pointed out that there is a café in the centre of town with free wifi. Gerard has pointed out that no one is asking him to stick around the diner all day. Ray has pointed out that no one asked Gerard to save his life either, and that sort of confers a considerable debt onto Ray's shoulders. Gerard has pointed out that the door is that way.
Bob and Frank are less easily budged. They are not spending their days and nights talking endlessly into a brand new cell phone in unbroken and excellent Spanish, trying to set up something that Gerard wants no part of, not like Ray; they're just following him, dogged and determined and loyal as ever, to see that no harm comes to him.
The diner's thick with disinterest and as always Gerard and his shadows are the only things living in here that aren't insectoid. He shuffles his notes again. This sermon is proving harder to write than the last, his priest's collar is too tight, and his mind is not on the task in hand.
His mind is on the waitress, who is smiling at him the way she always smiles at him; sharp and red and too smart for such a small place in such a small town, her hair blacker than madness in two scraggly bunches and her eyes like diamond-tipped drills through his chest.
The plastic badge on her breasts reads "LINDSEAY" - Gerard jerks his head up to meet her gaze as he has every time, and he gives her a cautious but heartfelt smile. She's shorter than him, and terrifying, and amazing, and she makes his leg jump like he's been poisoned.
"Hi," Gerard manages as she puts the coffee pot down next to him and stares at his sermon. "Uhm."
He doesn't want to come across as a pervert, or an asshole, and not just because what he's learnt in the last week makes it pretty certain she'd make his life a living hell if he did that; Lindseay fascinates him.
She is the only fascinating thing he's seen since he left the hotel in smouldering ruins.
"Did you ask about the Gospel according to St Mary?" she asks, making a vague gesture that is intended to take in the general direction of the town, and presumably the town library.
"I did."
"And?"
And he'd been intimidated in a whole other way by Librarian Beth than he was by Lindseay, but despite her justified distrust she'd given him the run-down, the documents, and a list of the things they needed. She never once used the word "help", or the word "favour". She was two hundred and fifty pounds of capable, brisk, strangely glamorous lesbian librarian with her finger on the pulse of an organisation Gerard hadn't even known existed until now.
("The Sisterhood of Indulgence," Gerard asked Ray, laying out prayer books on empty pews like someone might come this week, and Ray, who has always had his long fingers in so many pies it's dizzying, always stood at the centre of the flow of information like a statue to the god of crossroads, shrugs.
"I don't know that I can trust my sources any more," Ray says. He sounds hurt.
"Just a vague idea," Gerard begs. Bob and Frank stand at the back of the little room, jabbing each other with forefingers and muttering half-snarled endearments.
"Classed as a terrorist organisation."
"So are PETA."
"Mmm, well, the Sisterhood have been known to blow things up on occasion rather than merely being annoying and unhinged," Ray says dryly, watching Bob and Frank without watching. His suit is still immaculate. Gerard's given up wondering how he does it.
"They blow up things or people?"
"Things which occasionally have people in them," Frank says from the back of the room that is serving as a church.
Gerard wants to be horrified. In his new life as a good person, he ought to be horrified. But he wants just as much to see Lindseay's sin-red lipstick twist into a smile, and his mother's bleach in his hair has almost grown out completely.
Perhaps detaching himself from being a Way involves more than a facile about-face.)
"And I found out everything I needed to know," Gerard says with another careful smile. Her eyebrows are hypnotic. Her mouth is making him want to kneel. "For now."
"And you think you have an answer?" Lindseay's sharp-edged smile reminds him of someone, but he can no longer think who.
Gerard puts his elbows on his sermon and his chin on his hands, tipping his head back to smile back at her, giddy with thoughts of change. "I have." An answer he's been trying to word very precisely, because Beth made it quite clear with the things she didn't say that he is not in charge, and he will never be in charge, and that makes him the happiest he's been in a long time.
"Oh, now quit being a prick-tease and get it out," Lindseay sighs, tapping the counter with her forefinger. "The answer, not your little man."
Gerard's been practicing in front of the mirror. He's been driving himself crazy thinking up the right thing to say, without consulting Ray, without tumbling back into old, dangerous habits of family words, family talking.
"Oh, right. Well. Um." He scratches the back of his head. "If. If I can be of service to you or your, your … cause … at all, then." Gerard exhales slowly, feeling the world tip away beneath him, the road fork before him, everything changing once again. "Then I'm at your disposal."
And Lindseay pats him on the top of his head and says, "Yes. You are."
THE. MOTHERFUCKING. END.
Except nooooot. Because there are still four Guts stories (Bert's Boys) to read, check the index for those, the profiles (which will provide non-vital but definitely very illuminating material which could well change your opinions on the story), icons, wallpapers, fanmixes, fanart, and the header banner.