(no subject)
Title: New Starts and Clean Surfaces
Pairing: Gerard/Gabe
Rating: pg
Wordcount: 1936
Summary: Gerard should have known better than to think this would work. Real estate agents help a lot of people, but they help average people. Gerard is not average.
Disclaimer: This is a non-profit, non-commercial work of fiction using the names and likenesses of real individuals. This fictional story is not intended to imply that the events herein actually occurred or that the attitudes or behaviors described are engaged in or condoned by the real persons whose names are used without permission.
Author's Notes: I'm pretty sure this pairing is why I originally friended you. It went pretty AU, but I hope you still like it.
Being a stationary empath is bad. On the surface it doesn’t seem to be as difficult to manage as some, say intuitive empathy. He’s not actively hearing thoughts of people around him, just picking up impressions long since past.
The problem is it’s easier for his kind to get sucked into a feeling. Intuitive, retrocognitive, and precognitive empaths can all escape if they’re feeling overwhelmed in the swarm of information they gather from the people around them. They just have to get a certain distance away from people and the information to stop. He and the rest of the stationarys don’t have that option. There’s no surface Gerard might touch that doesn’t retain information -just feelings, thankfully, some stationarys even worse off than him can pick up both feelings and thoughts- which means from birth to death there is no escape. Often times just standing in a room makes him want to scream.
They didn’t decriminalise empathy until the year after Gerard graduated high school. It was a federal change for equality rights, so he’s better off than the gays in the fourteen states where sodomy is still illegal. Knowing that now didn’t make school hurt any less then. He drank every day to get through class after class where the desks radiated the bored, jealous, bigoted, occasionally homicidal with rage teenagers that sat in them the decade and a half before he plopped his ass down. At least now they have federal refund programs for tutors, and assigned seating and collapsible desks for those brave enough to still go to public school.
The neighbourhood looks decent. Gerard’s not the best with people -the emergency move from Los Angeles back to Jersey should make that obvious- so he probably won’t be attending any block party. Still, it’s nice to see thick trees that will block out any obnoxious morning light, and cars parked on the street with cd books still inside them like no one is worried about B&E. They’re nice touches, things he’s vaguely mentioned to the realtor -a history of safety and shadow so I can sleep- in their conversations, and apparently she’s pulled it off.
The sidewalk is moderately bad, but that’s to be expected. Mail carriers that hate their job, kids that don’t really want to peddle chocolate bars, and teenagers that know they’re about to get caught skipping curfew; sidewalks are often used by sullen people.
Gerard puts his key in the door and opens it, only to collapse in the front hall. The maple hardwood floor has so much rage and fear and hurt that he can’t stand it, literally cannot stand. Whoever moved out last hated each other, probably hit each other. The feeling is even worse collapsed. Curled in an instinctual ball on his side there are far more points of contact.
It takes a minute for the horror of feeling to overwhelm the system-shock and let Gerard jump start his body. He rolls onto his hands and knees, not confident in his ability to stand or walk. Co-ordinating enough to crawl out of the house takes all that he’s got. The resentment on the concrete step should be a relief compared to the feelings of abuse, but it’s really just jagged, like sandpaper on a sunburn.
There aren’t many options left open to him. He can’t go back in his house the way it is. Gerard wouldn’t last an hour inside, he’d quite literally go insane.
Staying with his newlywed brother won’t be much better. Gerard doesn’t have to walk inside Mikey and Alicia’s house to know every room will be radiating love and lust. It’s great for them, of course, he’s thrilled Mikey’s found someone perfect for him. His happiness doesn’t negate that it would be extremely awkward for him. Five years of showering and trying to ignore his post-puberty brother’s intense need to jerk off each morning was bad enough. Another body will only double the passion on any surface.
Hotels are likewise out of the question. Aside from the families that book in during a vacation, a strong majority of those that rent a room are totally miserable. Someone that wasn’t a empath would be surprised at how many people consider committing suicide while in hotel rooms. A few individual rooms might be okay, but the certified stationary safe rooms only exist in European countries, not the states. It’s not like they’ll let him wander down the halls and pick his own room.
What is really needs in an imprinter. It’s a long term solution, really, probably the only solution. He can’t resell the house so quickly. He can’t move back to California. He can’t move in with family. He can’t stay in temporary housing. He needs this place to work, and the only way that’s going to happen is with an imprinter; the rarest of the empaths.
Gerard calls the Empath Help Hotline from his front step, expecting to be on hold for ages. He’s never called before, not even when he was constantly overwhelmed in high school. To him it was pointless, nothing they could tell him would prevent the walls from screaming at him. But he knows the number -1empath- and he knows they can connect him with imprinters for a small fee. Real, accredited imprinters, not fakers.
They answer on the second ring, and he’s never put on hold. The woman’s voice is placid, clear and low as Gerard explains his problem. He appreciates the calm. Both his parents had the tendency of freaking out when he got caught in the pulsing of an object. It was part of the reason he moved away. More than that though, he appreciates that the imprinter can come immediately and won’t cost him anything. Apparently the Hotline has volunteers.
Immediately winds up being about half an hour. Not bad, for evening traffic. Gerard is grateful and hopeful for the time it takes the person to stride up the sidewalk. Then the person pulls their hood back and sticks their hand out to shake, and it’s only confusion. Gerard isn’t as scene as Mikey, not even close. But he knows bands. The guy waiting for a handshake is definitely Gabe Saporta of Midtown.
Instead of being polite and returning the gesture for a firm shake, or even just saying hello, Gerard says what’s rolling around in his head. “Why are you here?”
“Community service. Me and my friends are a bad influence on each other.”
Well, shit. If he’s forced to be here how is that supposed to help anything? He’ll just rewrite the surfaces with resentment. Sure, in this case that’s better than pain and hate, at least he can tolerate resentment. Gerard was really hoping for more than toleration though. He wants to be happy in his new house, and since the realtor couldn’t give him that, he was really hoping an imprinter could.
Gabe obviously sees the look of dismay on his face. He shakes his head. “I know what I’m doing. I’ve volunteered doing this before. Shit, I mighta gone into the field professionally if music hadn’t been so awesome.”
Gerard gets that. Some days he thinks about how awesome it could be to be on stage. He could command a captive audience. He could sing about things that need to be said. Then he thinks about the logistics of it. Airplanes, hotels, stages, pens of fans; there are so many things he would have to touch without prior vetting. It’s an impossible life.
Gabe grins. It looks less menacing than it does when he’s performing. “I recommend we make out here first. You won’t be able to get hard in there. Then, when you’re really into it, one foot in the door. Work our way inside in steps.”
“You want to make out with me?” He’s not entirely sure where that came from, but it’s hard to find ambiguity in Gabe’s words.
“Yeah. It’ll make you, and about three square feet happy, so.”
“Doesn’t that make you kind of like a hooker?”
“You denying that sex would cheer up the vibe in here?” Gerard thinks about it for a second but he just can’t do it. He says as much, to which Gabe snorts and crosses his arms. “Well, I don’t know what else to do for you. It’s my imprinting method.”
Gerard doesn’t want to exploit Gabe, but all the problems he had a half an hour ago are still present if Gabe won’t fix his house. He scrambles for a solution. “How about you brainstorm tonight? Take me home with you. You can log the whole time as volunteer hours, I’ll vouch for you. You can think of another way to imprint!”
“You won’t make out with me, but you’ll go home with me?”
“Do you want your hours or not?”
It’s essentially a bluff. Gerard’s sure that there are already other calls stacking up in the New Jersey-New York branch of the Hotline. Gabe doesn’t need him. But the musician just shrugs and heads back towards his car. Gerard stops for a second to grab the duffel of shit he uses on a daily basis, the stuff he needed for the road trip from Los Angeles to Newark, and joins Gabe. He’s already sitting in the passenger seat before it occurs to him to run back and lock the door of his inhabitable residence.
Gabe’s house is nice. Impressively neat for a bachelor in his twenties, about a thousand times cleaner than Gerard’s new-build condo was. Most of the furniture actually matches, without being a boring middle age five piece floral set. There’s even a guest room, so he doesn’t have to couch surf. Not that a night on a couch is a terrible sleep. In his wealth of experience it isn’t, not by far.
Better than being aesthetically pleasing, the man’s house feels nice. Gabe hasn’t imprinted it with a single bad feeling. Not even accidentally while drunk, and Gerard knows from experience that it’s difficult to be joyous while puking up half a bottle of vodka. He can’t remember the last time he entered a place so nice. He’s not sure he ever has. It doesn’t necessarily mean Gabe is always happy, just that he knows he to overwrite the bad. If he was happy constantly Gerard would probably feel creeped out. As it is, he’s just incredibly relieved.
The day goes on, and apart from a brief moment of awkwardness when he asks for his autograph so Mikey actually believes Gerard’s recollection later and Gabe laughs at him, the singer of Midtown actually turns out to be a really cool guy. He even provides him with dinner rather than force him to go hunt down his own fast food. Technically he doesn’t do anything, just microwaves some leftovers a friend of his made, but Gerard appreciates it anyway. Especially the dessert.
While Gerard’s drying the short stack of dishes Gabe is washing, the man suddenly leans in for a kiss. It’s deep, but not chokingly so. Gerard doesn’t pull away. Not just because he’s a fan, not just because it’s been a while since the last time he was with a guy, and he misses it. He moves his tongue against his because it feels right, right with no other feeling attached, the way every single other thing in his life has been tainted.
“You could stay here a while, if you wanted.”
The floor is radiating happiness, Gabe’s mouth tastes like orange chocolate, and his hand is cupped lightly against his growing erection. How could Gerard want anything else?