Take the Pieces and Build Them Skywards - part 2

[quarterturn]

back to part 1

Gerard ends up taking up residence on the couch, ignoring Bob’s pointed looks when he gets home and has to push a pile of bedding out of the way to sit down. He’d leave, but it’s not like he’s got anywhere else to go. He’s even been keeping an eye on the apartments of the souls he’s reaping, but so far nothing’s panned out.

“So,” he says to his fifth-ever reap, a young guy named Steve who’d fallen to his death while trying to climb a tree (“Drunk and naked,” Gerard tells Brian later, “Drunk and naked. There needs to be more information on those Post-Its, seriously.”). “You’re not really going to need your keys anymore, right?” Steve’s busy walking into the light, and Gerard thinks that’s a pretty clear ‘go for it’, so he fishes Steve’s wallet and keys out of his discarded pants and takes a bus to Steve’s address.

Steve lives above his parents’ garage. Gerard pokes around, feeling distinctly skeezy while he pushes aside Steve’s porn magazines and tries to avoid looking at the picture of Steve’s girlfriend next to his bed. He feels like an intruder, even though Steve won’t ever be back, won’t ever need any of his stuff again. Gerard isn’t even sure why he’d let himself in; it isn’t like he can squat there, even for a night. It’s way too close to the parents’ house. But he can’t stop himself from picking through Steve’s things, flipping through his mail, turning the TV on to see what channel Steve had watched last. He learns that Steve’s dog, Maisy, died recently (her collar is hung around the neck of an urn, the inscription marking the date of death only a few weeks before), he’d graduated toward the top of his class from college and had been in the process of looking for a job (a neat stack of resumes sits next to Steve’s computer), and he’d been about to propose to his girlfriend (the engagement ring is next to her picture).

Gerard tries to imagine what people would have found going through his stuff after he’d died, and it makes him cringe a little in embarrassment. Sketches of vampires weren’t so bad, but sketches of vampires in various stages of undress was probably a little…sketchy.

Whatever his family had found, it wasn’t nearly the legacy he’d meant to leave behind. He’d had so many plans, had really believed that he’d been born to do something more than the mundane. He’s doing that now, he supposes, but it’s not really been what he’d had in mind, and it’s not really something he can leave behind for anyone to be proud of.

He doesn’t take anything from Steve’s except a few beers out of the fridge. More than anything, he wants to get wasted, so completely trashed that he won’t be able to feel anything. A few beers isn’t going to do that, but it’ll take the edge off.

Except they don’t even do that. As it turns out, Gerard’s theory about freezing to death or starving to death had been pretty accurate; reapers aren’t allowed to die, and while the whole regenerative tissue thing is a pretty cool discovery (upon finding out, Gerard had grabbed the nearest pointy object and sliced his palm open - it still hurt like a bitch, but as promised, it healed up almost instantaneously), it also means reapers can’t get drunk.

Brian says it’s a good thing, and Gerard can see the merits, but he’s been itching for a bender since he got hit by a bus, and the realization that henceforth he will have to deal with everything without even the promise of liquid courage is a little daunting.

A lot daunting. On top of the itch to drink that’s always under his skin, he’s spending his days killing people, and that’s enough to make him want to soak his head in a keg. Bob keeps telling him it’s not killing people, it’s just taking their souls, but it feels a lot like killing people.

He spends a lot of time on Ray’s couch, smoking just for something to do with his hands and watching TV with Bob. When he gets antsy, when he starts feeling like there’s something he forgot to do but he can’t remember what, Bob mutes the TV and lets him talk about comics or movies or music until it’s passed. When he starts pacing, thinking about taking the ten bucks in his wallet and buying a case of the cheapest shit he can find, Ray drags him to a movie or tries to teach him how to play guitar.

They never talk about it specifically, the whole Gerard having a problem with alcohol, but either Brian told them or Bob and Ray are just really good at picking up on when a guy needs some distraction from himself. He’d really like to believe he would have kicked the habit by himself if he’d lived a little longer, he’d like to believe that the promises he was making before he got ran over by a bus would have stuck, but if he’s honest, he knows he wouldn’t and they wouldn’t have. He still doesn’t like his current situation, but apparently there is a silver lining even in the big fat black raincloud that is being dead.

--

There's a little diner just across the street from the apartment, and it doesn't look like much, but every morning he wakes up to the smell of coffee just outside his window, and it's enough to make him consider trying to convince Bob and Ray to let him stay permanently.

The place only holds fifteen or twenty people at full capacity, so the quarters are a little closer than Gerard would like, but the coffee's better than anything he's had this side of death, and it’s somewhere he can go that isn’t someone else’s apartment or a waffle house. He can put up with listening to conversations that don't interest him and occasionally getting cracked in the elbow with a dish cart as it gets wheeled by.

He spends three days in a row there, stopping in for a cup of coffee before he hits the waffle house and quickly earning himself a spot in the waitress' heart by leaving her a five-dollar tip for a seventy-five cent cup of coffee (he still hasn’t stopped feeling guilty about raiding dead peoples’ wallets; like, what, taking their soul isn’t enough, he’s gotta swipe their last twenty bucks, too? But leaving generous tips makes him feel a little bit better about it). Her name's Blanche, she's not a day under sixty, and she wears a really fantastic red wig that sits a little wonky and perpetually gives the impression that she's cocking her head.

After the waffle house and his early reaps, Gerard goes back to spend the afternoon drawing. He'd kind of hit the jackpot with one of his latest reaps - she'd had a satchel full of sketchpads and pretty decent pencils on her when she’d died. He'd felt shitty just taking them - what if her family would have wanted them for sentimental value, or she would have wanted to donate them to a children's art charity or something? He'd felt shitty all the way up until Bob showed him the Rolex he'd snagged off a reap and Ray showed him the Fender he'd taken and Brian had waved his hand while they talked and mumbled something about denying all knowledge. After that, he'd decided a few sketchpads and some pencils weren't too bad.

The diner clears out after the lunch hour, Gerard discovers, and stays pretty quiet until dinner. All the old-timers have gotten their fill of coffee and gossip, and he's usually left his choice of tables. He always takes the one in the furthest corner, hunches himself over and toward the wall as much as possible, and takes advantage of the two-dollar endless cup of coffee. The first three days he gets a kid barely out of high school refilling his mug, and the jaded, world-weary attitude he affects is a little sad but works for Gerard since he's not really looking to make friends either.

But the fourth day, he waves his hand when the shadow looms over his sketchpad and an unfamiliar voice says, "You an artist?"

Gerard ducks his head a little more, stares down at the graphite vampires devouring an entire ballet troupe, and shrugs. He got that line in high school, sometimes, some overachieving jock looking to meet his quota early by picking on something other than Gerard's clothing, hair, girlish face, or perceived sexual preference.

"Not…really," Gerard says, still not looking up. He’d almost said not anymore, but that might bring up questions about why not, and it’s not really like he can say Been too busy reaping souls. Besides, maybe he is still an artist, or could be if he wanted to. He’s a reaper, but he doesn’t have to be just a reaper, right?

"Well, I think you missed your calling, then," the waiter says, and pours a neat cup of coffee while he peers over Gerard's hunched shoulder.

Gerard finally looks up and has to blink, the dim corner of the diner making his eyes grainy. It might also be because his waiter is incredibly good-looking. Like, not just kinda cute but flat-out hot. He's short, barely taller than Gerard even sitting, and he's got tattoos all down his arms and a couple curving around his throat. His dark hair's long, looks like it's been left to grow out without much thought as to style, but it suits him. It hangs thick around his ears, curling around his jaw and barely scraping against his neck. He's smiling, and Gerard's kind of breathless.

"Can I get you anything else?" the waiter asks, still smiling, and Gerard has to bite down on the urge to order something completely ridiculous just to keep this guy around a little longer.

"Just coffee," he manages to choke out, and the waiter gestures toward the full cup by Gerard's elbow.

"Gotcha covered. Need anything else, just yell. I'm Frank, by the way." He sticks his free hand out, and Gerard stares at it. There's barbed wire tattooed around his wrist, tiny and delicate words near it, and Gerard just wants to take Frank's hand and study it for a while. There's a good chance that a beating would hurt just as badly as a reaper as it did as a human, though, so he settles for a handshake.

"Gerard. Um, you know, that's me. Gerard. Thanks for the coffee."

Frank's smile widens into a grin and he nods, hair falling into his eyes. "Just doing my job. Good luck on the drawing, Gerard." He turns to attend to another table, and Gerard watches him go, barely blinking.

This is pretty much par for the course, really. Gerard had spent twenty-six years of his life doing nothing in particular, kissing a few people here and there, sleeping with as many people as he can count on one hand, and mostly sucking at romance in general. He'd always kind of figured he'd have a while to get it right. He didn't think he'd have to worry about it for a while. And now he's dead, and there's a hot guy who likes his drawings serving him coffee, and isn't that just the way it goes?

He doodles a little bit more, sketching a tiny guy next to one of the vampires, shading in a variety of indeterminate tattoos on him, giving him a stake at the last minute and sending him off to slay the newly-risen ballerina vampires. He drinks his coffee a little (a lot) faster than usual and ends up needing seven refills before his bladder starts complaining and his heart starts making noises about stopping completely if he doesn’t cool it with the caffeine. Gerard would like to have a stern word with his body, the traitor, cutting his waiter-ogling short, but he has an appointment anyway, so he leaves a hefty tip and hopes Frank doesn’t notice when he trips his way out the door.

--

Gerard starts timing his visits to the diner. He meets Brian and Bob and Ray for breakfast at eight, eats, gets his assignments, and spends an hour doing what he can to pass the time. Following Bob and Ray around tends to be a popular choice, especially since Ray usually takes pity on him and buys him a pack of smokes if he’s out. Bob even starts conversations with him occasionally, although they usually end with a bad joke about death or Gerard trying to figure out if he’s being teased or not. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with Bob.

At ten, Gerard heads to the diner. Frank’s usual shift starts at ten-thirty, and Gerard has enough experience to know showing up at the exact same time Frank does is a dead giveaway. Not that he’s ever stalked anyone before, and not that he’s stalking Frank, but Gerard’s been the quiet guy that takes a while to work up the courage for a very long time. You have to orchestrate these things so you don’t come off like a creeper because if you’re orchestrating them, you are definitely a creeper.

He spends half an hour doodling, usually variations of short, pretty, tattooed waiters named Frank. Vampire!Frank, Wolverine!Frank, Batman!Frank. Frank fighting mutant sharks, Frank playing in a zombie band, Frank kissing a pasty, dark-haired guy, and if that pasty, dark-haired guy bears any resemblance to Gerard, well, that’s just coincidence.

It’s only a matter of time before Frank catches him in the act. Because Gerard’s pretty sure most of his bad luck got used up on getting hit by a bus, the sketch Frank sees is not one of the more embarrassing ones. In fact, it’s not even one he could recognize himself in, since Gerard hasn’t drawn him in yet. It’s just a rough outline of a creepy old house, bats circling the spire and a ghostly figure in the window. He figured it would eventually serve as the setting for comic!Frank and comic!Gerard’s dramatic moment, wherein Gerard would use his totally awesome (and totally made up) reaper powers to defeat an angry spirit, saving Frank’s life in the process, and then Frank would somehow just know what Gerard was. But he wouldn’t care, and in especially self-indulgent moments, Gerard imagines Frank thinking reaping’s hot.

“Dude, I’m telling you. You should be doing this for a living.” Frank tops up Gerard’s cup of coffee without asking.

Gerard refrains from telling him he did kind of used to do this for a living, and it didn’t really work out that well. “Maybe someday,” he says instead. On a brave whim, he looks up and asks, “So what’s your hidden talent?”

Frank looks like he doesn’t know if he should be grinning or not, the sides of his lips twitching. “Uh?”

Gerard gestures at the sketch. “You’re one up on me, come on. Pouring a cup of coffee can’t be the only thing you’re good at.”

Frank does grin then - the kind of grin Gerard would expect to see on a little kid just before he puts a frog down someone’s shirt. Gerard’s pretty sure no human being should be able to look that good while plotting. And then Frank sticks his tongue out between his teeth, looking up while he thinks, and Gerard has to shift, because his dick has suddenly decided to join the conversation. It’s probably deserved punishment since Gerard hasn’t so much as touched it except for a cursory wash in the shower since he died. Fuck, he didn’t even know if it would still work. It seems pretty determined to remind him that yes, it does. And it does not appreciate being ignored, so ha ha, sucker, deal with a hard-on at a totally inconvenient moment.

“I’m pretty bendy,” Frank finally says, and Gerard would know if his dick and Frank had forged some unholy alliance in order to torment Gerard, right?

“I meant.” Gerard’s voice squeaks, and he has to clear his throat. “I meant, like, what do you do for fun?”

Frank glances behind him, and Gerard follows his gaze. The diner’s pretty empty at the moment, just a couple people in a corner booth and a guy reading a newspaper at the counter. Frank turns back and asks, “You wanna grab a smoke?”

Gerard really, really does, but he’s not sure standing up is the best move right now. “Uh. Yeah. Can I, let me just grab my stuff, I’ll meet you outside?”

Frank nods, already untying his apron and heading over to the counter to replace the coffee pot.

Gerard rapidly tries to think the unsexiest thoughts he can come up with. He thinks about the time he walked in on his great-aunt Edna in the shower. He thinks about that in more detail than his brain is comfortable with, and it redirects him to the great big mole on Aunt Edna’s upper lip. It’s a satisfactory replacement, and he’s able to stand up without too much problem after a minute.

He meets Frank outside and bums a smoke off of him. They smoke in silence for a couple minutes, and then Frank picks a piece of tobacco off his tongue and says, “I’m in a band. I do that for fun. Among other things.” He gives Gerard a sidelong glance, grinning, and no amount of naked great-aunt Edna can save Gerard now.

“Oh, uh-hum.” He sucks hard on his cigarette and asks on the exhale, “What do you play?”

“Some guitar, but I mostly sing. Kind of. It’s not really singing so much as yelling.”

Gerard nods, trying to picture Frank fronting a band, sweaty hair in his face while he screams into a microphone. Yeah, Gerard’s kind of screwed. He finishes his cigarette and stubs it out, trying to stand with his hips tilted away from Frank, and then he grabs his stuff and holds his bag in front of him. “I gotta go, but um. Yeah. Maybe I’ll come see you sometime?”

“You see me every day,” Frank teases, still taking long, lazy drags off his cigarette. “But yeah, okay. I’d like that. I’ll let you know next time we’re playing a show. We don’t exactly have regular gigs just yet.”

Gerard nods, thanks Frank for the smoke, and hightails it. He swings by the post office, brushes his hand across an elderly man’s back as he climbs slowly up the steps, and hides around the corner until the man slips and tumbles back down, breaking his neck on the way. He guides him toward the light as quickly as possible because yeah, okay, death is important and serious and can’t be rushed or whatever, but Gerard’s dick apparently doesn’t understand the sanctity of reaping. He has the apartment to himself for another hour and the visual of Frank in a band, and his dick understands the sanctity of that.

--

Between going cold turkey on booze and nursing a pathetic, overwhelming crush on a certain vertically-challenged waiter, Gerard’s getting punchy. Still a little dissatisfied with his job, still grieving the loss of his family, still trying to settle into his new life, he can’t really be surprised when something new goes wrong.

His Post-It says J. Levine, 5560 N. Main St, 7:14 PM. It’s nothing different than the handful of Post-Its he’s gotten in the past couple weeks, but when he gets to the address, the first thing he hears is, “Jennifer Leanne Levine, get your butt back on this sidewalk! What are you trying to do, scare me to death?”

Jennifer Leanne Levine is a little girl, not more than nine or ten, and she trudges back to her mother with her head down. The mom’s busy juggling two shopping bags and a baby, so when Jennifer heads toward the street again, the mom doesn’t notice. In fact, it doesn’t look like anyone really notices the kid in the street with the truck bearing down on her, and Gerard’s moving before he even thinks about it. He grabs her, but he doesn’t even consider taking her soul. He just pulls her out of the way, the whoosh of the truck going by way too close - and familiar - for comfort.

“Oh my god!” the mom screams, dropping her bags and leaning down, clutching the baby and the little girl to her chest. “Oh my god, oh my god. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She’s looking up at Gerard like he’s the messiah, and Gerard realizes what he’s just done. It maybe says something that instead of worrying about the universe imploding or something, he’s more concerned with the idea of Brian finding out. Brian’s been good to him so far, but Gerard’s insides go cold at the thought of Brian having an excuse to be pissed at him. Still, the fear isn’t enough to make him touch the little girl again; seeing the relief on her mom’s face is giving him a guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t care about the rules; he’s not going to take Jennifer’s soul and watch the relief turn into grief.

“Uh, it’s okay,” Gerard says awkwardly, already trying to edge away. But there’s people all around him, clapping him on the shoulder and telling him he’s a hero, and the mom won’t stop looking at him like that. It makes him feel like a liar, getting kudos for saving someone he was sent there to make sure died. Eventually he just shoves his way through the crowd and runs, and he doesn’t stop until he can’t see the crowd behind him anymore.

He heads straight for the diner, even though it’s later than he usually goes in. He can’t go back to Ray and Bob’s; they’d know with one glance that something was up, and once they started pressuring him, Gerard wouldn’t be able to hold out. And he likes Ray and Bob a lot, they’re good guys, but he’s not sure how badly he’s fucked up. If he told them, maybe they’d have to tell Brian, and then maybe Gerard would get his ass kicked, and there’s a good possibility that’s the least of his worries. Maybe a fuck-up this big would get him fired, and hey, he doesn’t love his job, but he doesn’t think getting fired from reaping comes with a great severance package. Reaping’s severance package is probably like, a lightning bolt in the ass and a one-way ticket to hell.

Gerard’s not sure if he’s glad to see that Frank’s still working. He appreciates the friendly (and admittedly distractingly hot) face, but he doesn’t feel like pretending everything’s okay.

“Coffee?” Frank’s already flipping Gerard’s cup right-side up and pouring before Gerard can answer.

“You’re the best,” Gerard murmurs, cup already against his lips.

Frank grins. “I know.”

Gerard sips at the coffee and waits, but Frank doesn’t leave, just stands there grinning. Finally Gerard can’t help the half-smile that creeps onto his face, despite the fact that he’s probably in deep shit. “What? Do I look funny or something?” He swipes his hand across his face in case there’s a smudge or something.

Frank shakes his head, and the grin fades into something softer. “Nah. You look good.” Gerard can feel a blush starting at the bottom of his neck, and he tries to will it down. It’s never worked before, but maybe just this once he’ll get lucky. He doesn’t. “You didn’t bring your sketchbook today.”

It’s not a question, but Gerard nods. “Don’t really feel like drawing.”

“Everything okay?”

Gerard scrubs at his eyes and tries to remember if things have ever been less okay. He’s not coming up with anything. He’s got a heavy, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, the familiar weight of dread edged with guilt. “Trouble at work.”

Frank nods knowingly. “I know how that goes. What is it you do, anyway? I don’t think you’ve ever said.”

“Uh…I’m a…I kind of, repossess things.” Sure, that works.

“Dude, like a repo man?” Frank laughs. “You guys are like the bane of my existence. Stop taking my shit!” He’s still laughing, teasing, and Gerard wishes he felt like laughing along. “Well,” Frank finally says, “Just holler if you need a refill, man.” He gives Gerard a little salute and leaves, and Gerard finally lets his head drop into his hands. He doesn’t end up needing a refill, and after two hours of hiding and trying and failing to figure out a way to explain it so he doesn’t get his ass kicked, he heads home. Waiting for the other shoe to drop is almost worse than finding out exactly how bad he’d fucked up.

Bob and Ray are in front of the TV, watching a VH1 Behind the Music special. They grunt hello when he comes in, Gerard mumbles in reply, and he hightails it to the kitchen. He stays in there long enough that Bob eventually comes in and looks at him funny.

“You doing something weird in here?”

Gerard frowns. “What would I be doing?”

Bob narrows his eyes like he already knows Gerard’s doing something weird and he can intimidate him into confessing. “I don’t know. Why else would you be hanging out alone in the kitchen?”

“A guy can’t hang out alone in a kitchen without getting the third degree?” Gerard’s voice sounds high and defensive even to himself, but he can’t help the rising fear that Bob already knows. That he can see it all over Gerard, some outwardly visible sign of his fuck up.

Bob squints at him some more, and then goes to the fridge, not taking his eyes off Gerard the whole time. “All I’m sayin’ is that if you did anything weird to my food, not even Ray’s soft spot for strays is gonna save you.”

Gerard holds his hands up and tries for his best innocent face. He is innocent, so it shouldn’t be so hard - he didn’t touch Bob’s food. He just maybe instigated the end of the world.

The night goes by uneventfully - no planets fall out of the sky, no angry mobs of reapers come looking for Gerard’s head, no lightning bolts seem likely to strike him down where he stands.

By morning, Gerard’s so on edge he almost wants to tell Brian himself just to get it over with. Brian must know, someone upstairs must have passed the message along, and Brian’s just waiting until breakfast to call him on it so Gerard has time to stew in his own guilty juices.

But Brian orders his pancakes like he always does, rolls his eyes at Bob’s bad jokes, and hands out their assignments. When the bill comes, Gerard slides out of the booth, almost breathless with the idea that he just might get away with it. If he walks out of here without anyone saying anything, he’ll be home free.

“Gerard,” Brian says, a warning in his voice. Gerard freezes, half out of the booth, and turns baleful eyes on Brian. Maybe he can play it up, get a little sympathy. “We’re not gonna pay for your breakfast forever.”

Gerard almost collapses back into the booth, and he nods enthusiastically. “No, right, of course not, I’ll get it tomorrow morning. Everybody’s, I’ll get everybody’s breakfast, it’s on me.”

Brian looks at him strange, but he doesn’t say anything, and Gerard takes that as permission to leave.

Once he’s outside, he takes a deep breath and lets the relief wash over him. He got away with it. He never gets away with anything. His mom always had an uncanny ability to detect any wrongdoings, and Mikey inherited it, so even after she started mellowing out, Gerard still couldn’t get away with shit without Mikey finding out. Not that he usually minded; Mikey never told on him and usually just used whatever information he’d gleaned to make Gerard let him tag along on whatever stupid thing he was doing that day. As if Gerard wouldn’t have let him anyway.

But never getting away with anything before kind of seems okay if it means his one freebie is saving a little girl’s life instead of facilitating her death. He saved a life. He did something worthwhile. He did something he can be proud of - that other people could be proud of him for. It doesn’t feel right, exactly, but it doesn’t feel wrong, and it feels a whole hell of a lot more right than taking people’s souls and watching them die when he could do something about it. It feels like something he should have been doing from the start.

His next appointment is only an hour away, so he catches the bus and makes it with time to spare.

A. Williams is a nurse at the county hospital. Gerard would like to cite his astounding detective work as the source of this knowledge, but it’s more his astounding powers of standing in the way of people who need to get somewhere. Abigail Williams comes rushing out of a hospital room and almost knocks Gerard over, stopping just long enough to help him up and give him a look at her nametag. “Oh, geez, I’m so sorry! I have to go, are you okay?” Gerard nods and reaches out, already focusing out of habit, and then he stops. He doesn’t have to take her soul. He could let this one slide under the radar, too, and why shouldn’t he? She’s a nurse, she helps people, how many people might benefit from her not dying?

He curls his fingers back into his palm and waves her off. “I’m good, don’t worry about it. You might wanna slow it down, though, wouldn’t want anything happening to you.” He gives her what he thinks is a reassuring smile, but she looks at him weird and when she smiles, it’s forced and kind of creeped out.

“Right. Yeah, I’ll do that. Hey, do you have a visitor’s pass I could see?”

Gerard does not, in fact, have a visitor’s pass. He tends to think announcing his presence at what will usually become the scene of an accidental death is a bad idea. Luckily, Abigail does not call security on him; she just tells him to go back to the front desk and get a pass before he comes back. Gerard tells her he will, but as soon as he’s within sight of the front doors, he bails.

He has two other appointments, and he’s still feeling nervous enough that he’s not sure he should pass on three appointments in one day. The assignments both end up being elderly people in their homes. Gerard feels a little guilty - is he being ageist by taking their souls and not Abigail’s? He doesn’t want to be biased or anything, but he also doesn’t want to get busted.

The two souls don’t seem too upset about dying, anyway, so he feels a little better.

In the next three weeks, Gerard skips five reaps. In those three weeks, he also: moons dopily over Frank every day for at least two hours, fails to make any significant move on Frank, and decides that unrequited is what he does best.

“It’s not like him liking me back would even work out, right?” Gerard asks miserably.

Ray shifts, pulling one of Bob’s Xbox controllers out of the couch cushions behind him. “Right.”

Gerard groans. “You’re supposed to say, ‘no, it would totally work out!’”

“It would totally work out,” Ray repeats in a monotone. When Gerard groans again, Ray laughs and grabs his shoulder. “Man, come on. Relax. Either it’ll work or it won’t, and either way, you’ll be fine.”

“But I’m dead and he’s not. How would that even work? Is that even allowed?”

Ray shrugs. “Technically, it's against the rules for reapers to date anyone. Other reapers, the living, all no-nos. But it's happened.”

Gerard perks up a little. “Yeah? And it was okay?”

Ray looks away, and Gerard’s heart sinks. “For a while.”

“What happened?”

Ray pauses. “Well, you know reapers cross over without any warning, right?” Gerard shakes his head no. “There’s like, a predetermined number of souls you have to take, and no reaper has the same number. So you take your last soul and then you cross over. There’s no warning, you’re just gone, and the paperwork comes through for a new reaper to take your spot.”

Gerard can see where this is going. “One of the reapers just crossed over, and the person they were dating was left behind.”

Ray nods. “What’s worse is that the girl didn’t know the dude was a reaper, so she thought he just disappeared. And it’s not like anyone’s jumping to explain, not when the rules had been broken in the first place, so she just. Never knew what happened.”

“What about the other ones?”

“I don’t know if it’s better or worse than leaving someone you love behind without any clue about what happened. You can imagine what it would be like for oh, say, a vampire to date a human, right? The vampire never ages, never gets sick or hurt, and the human gets old and dies. That’s pretty much what happens with reapers. After a while, you can’t really pretend you don’t notice that she’s aging and you’re not. After a while, you either have to tell them the truth, fake your own death, or disappear.” Ray twists his fingers while he talks, and when he’s done, he seems to realize what he’s been doing. He laces his fingers between his knees and stares at the floor.

“But…you’d have to be reaping forever to have that happen. Reapers don’t actually stick around that long, do they?”

Ray shrugs. “Like I said, a predetermined amount of souls. It could be a hundred, and you’re around for a few months. It could be fifty thousand, and you’re around for eighty years, give or take.”

It takes a little bit to sink in, and even then, Gerard’s not sure he should say anything. He picks awkwardly at a thread on his jeans. “I can’t even imagine how terrible that would be.”

Ray smiles wryly. “It’s not so bad if you like the people you’re stuck with.”

Gerard smiles back, faintly. “That part might not be so bad, but being around long enough to see someone you love get old and die…I don’t know. I don’t know if I could do it.”

“You don’t really have a choice,” Ray sighs. “None of us do. The only thing you can do is follow your instinct and hope it works out, or avoid getting attached to anything. Anyone. And after a few years, that gets pretty lonely.”

“So I should just go for it?”

Ray shrugs again. “If you think it’s worth the risks.”

Gerard heaves a sigh. “Well, that’s the easy part. Now I just have to make him like me back.”

“What’s not to like?” Ray laughs, grabbing the Xbox controller he’d fished out and turning on the system.

“Yeah,” Gerard says, taking the other controller. “’Single dead male, likes horror movies, takes souls for a living.’ I’m sure he’ll be beating off the competitors.”

Bob comes through the room in time to hear him, and he offers nothing more than a snicker and, “Beating off,” before he goes into the kitchen.

Gerard rolls his eyes and focuses on kicking Ray’s ass at Lego Star Wars.

--

The sixth soul Gerard doesn’t take is James Wilcox, a harried-looking businessman hurrying home to his family. Gerard knows this because James tells him so, and he’s so excited to show off the pictures of his newborn son that Gerard doesn’t even think twice about mentioning the guy’s tires look a little flat, he might want to get those inflated before he heads home.

His next appointment is downtown, and it’s Gerard’s lucky day because the address is right next to a Starbucks. He doesn’t have time to grab a coffee before the reap, but he knows what he’s doing as soon as the soul has crossed over.

It turns out that he might be waiting a while for that coffee.

“But why?” the guy asks, stubbornly standing directly in front of the tunnel of light and refusing to walk into it.

“Because you have to cross over,” Gerard explains again. If souls were tangible, he’d have shoved this guy into the light about five minutes ago.

“But what if I don’t want to cross over?” Donald Fisher is pushing fifty, has a receding hairline and a paunch overhanging his belt, and about seven minutes ago, he stepped in a puddle with an exposed electrical wire laying nearby.

Gerard resists the temptation to sigh. “Why wouldn’t you want to cross over?”

Donald’s face falls slightly, and the antagonistic tone fades. “What if I don’t have anybody waiting for me on the other side?”

The thing is, Gerard has wondered the same thing. There’s no guarantee the other side is anything like what everyone thinks it is. He could lie and promise there is someone waiting for Donald Fisher, but he wouldn’t have wanted his reaper to do that to him, if he’d had the choice to cross over instead of sticking around.

“What’s left for you to do here?” Gerard asks gently. “You can’t be with your family anymore, you can’t do anything you used to do.” The words start feeling like sand in his mouth, rough against his tongue and hard to spit out. “You’d be alone.”

Donald shrugs. “I don’t have a family. Being alone’s nothing new.”

“Then you should cross over. Maybe it’s better there.”

The light behind Donald starts to fade, and Gerard starts to panic. No one told him that the light went away, that is bullshit.

“But maybe it’s not,” Donald says, and the light goes from large enough for a man to step through to a tiny pinprick and then pops out of existence within seconds. Gerard gapes. Donald looks unimpressed.

“Well,” Gerard says, because he can’t think of anything else to say. “Well.”

“Well,” Donald replies.

“Well, I have other things to do,” Gerard says importantly, mostly because he is at a complete loss as to what he’s supposed to do next, and he just kind of wants to get away.

“Okay,” Donald says amiably. Maybe it won’t be so bad, Gerard thinks. Maybe Donald will be happier just roaming around as a disembodied spirit, and Brian will never have to know about it.

Gerard is still going to get that coffee, and he’s in line and checking out the daily special before he realizes Donald is still next to him. “What. What are you doing?” Gerard hisses. The girl in front of him looks back and frowns.

“…waiting in line, same as you, pal.”

Gerard stares at her blankly for a second, and then nods and smiles. When he addresses Donald again, he tries to speak out of the side of his mouth and without moving his face too much. “You can’t follow me around.”

Donald shoves his hands in his pockets. “I don’t have anything else to do, and you’re the only one that can see me.”

The line moves ahead slowly, and Gerard keeps his eyes focused squarely on the menu board. “Well you should have thought about that before you refused to cross over,” Gerard mumbles.

“Can’t I just hang out with you for a while?”

“No,” Gerard says, and he forgets to keep it quiet. The girl looks back at him again, and several other people titter quietly. Gerard clears his throat - actually says “ahem, ahem” - and forces himself to laugh along. When everyone goes back to what they’re doing, he whispers, “I’m boring. You don’t want to hang out with me.”

Donald doesn’t argue, but he stays right next to Gerard all through waiting, ordering, and leaving Starbucks. He follows Gerard down the street, and Gerard lets him because he’s not really up on what to do with a clingy soul. He’s a little wary of letting him follow him home - Bob and Ray would probably know what to do with him, but the more souls Gerard fails to take, the more paranoid he gets that any little mistake will make the guys look a little more closely at what it is Gerard’s been up to lately. And he definitely can’t let Donald follow him to the waffle house. Brian’s sort of preoccupied most of the time, but Gerard thinks he’d notice an extra dead guy at the table.

Gerard mostly ignores Donald through his next appointment, minus one pointed look toward the light the other soul is going into. Donald scratches his head and looks very interested in the bird that’s perched on a branch above him.

He’s done with his appointments for the day, and he’s still hoping Donald will just change his mind on his own if he gives him enough time, so he goes the diner. It’s becoming his default place to be, and really, he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t think Frank minds, either, although he’s pretty sure Frank’s enthusiasm at Gerard’s entrance is usually more about boredom than anything.

Donald follows him in and sits in the chair across from him. Gerard keeps his head down and studies the menu, even though he never orders anything but coffee.

“Coffee?” Frank’s already there with the pot, pouring a steaming cup for him. When Gerard’s sipping at it, Frank asks, “Rough day?”

Gerard narrows his eyes at Donald. “Sort of.”

“More trouble at work?”

Gerard nods. “You could say that.”

Frank grabs a chair from a nearby table and flips it around, pulling up a seat next to Gerard. Gerard’s not sure why he didn’t just sit across from him; he can’t see Donald there.

“You need to just quit and come work with me,” Frank says, beaming.

Gerard laughs. “I’d drink you out of coffee, and I’m not really a people person.”

Frank makes a face. “You talk to me all the time, dude.”

“You’re different,” Gerard says, and immediately blushes from the tips of his toes to the tips of his ears. It’s a pretty innocuous statement, but he knows exactly what he means by ‘different’.

“Well, duh,” Frank says, rolling his eyes. He either doesn’t notice the blush or diplomatically doesn’t say anything about it. Gerard can’t remember Frank ever having trouble with his eyes before. “I’m the best, remember? But if you can talk to me, you can talk to anyone.”

“Is this your boyfriend?” Donald asks, and Gerard doesn’t stop to think before he answers vehemently.

“No.”

Frank looks a little taken aback and says, “Okay,” at the same time that Donald says, “But you want him to be?”

Gerard glares at Donald and Donald looks blandly back at him. Finally Gerard turns back to Frank and says, “Sorry, I just. Socially awkward.” He makes a vague flapping motion with his hand like, “as you can obviously see.”

Frank shrugs, but he seems sobered, and he stands up, putting the chair back where it belongs. “Okay, but if you ever change your mind, I can get you a sweet apron.” He gestures to his own plain white apron, double tied around his waist. “I’m in good with the boss.”

Gerard laughs and ignores Donald when he says, “It’s kind of sad how obvious you are.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Frank heads back to the counter, and Gerard sucks down his cup of coffee and leaves a generous tip. He still doesn’t have anywhere else to go, but he can’t sit around and listen to Donald’s commentary on his love life (or lack thereof) anymore.

By seven, Gerard’s tired, hungry, and starting to debate the merits of coming clean with Brian and taking the heat if it means Brian will know what to do with Donald. He climbs the steps to Bob and Ray’s apartment and stops just outside the door, holding a finger up to Donald. “Stay out here.” Donald opens his mouth to protest, but Gerard cuts him off. “I’ll be back, but these guys will be able to see you, too, and they might not appreciate you coming in uninvited.”

Donald looks like he might actually stay put, so Gerard slips in and runs a hand through his hair. Bob and Ray are on the couch, watching something on the History Channel. That is a good sign. They both love the History Channel, so if they’ve been watching it for a while, they might be in forgiving moods.

“Hey, guys,” Gerard starts, and they both raise a hand in greeting. “So, um.”

They both turn in slow motion, and they both have the same look of wary expectation on their faces. Gerard’s a little offended. All he’d said was “so, um,” that doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad. In this particular case it does mean something bad, but they don’t have to go jumping to conclusions.

“So, there’s this soul.”

Bob and Ray look sideways at each other. “And?” Ray asks.

“And he’s outside.”

Ray’s eyebrows skyrocket to his hairline, and he gets up. “By ‘outside’ you mean outside in the world somewhere, right, and not ‘outside’ like right outside our apartment.” The way he says it makes Gerard really, really want to agree, but he kind of shrugs and shuffles to the side, like maybe if he gets out of their line of sight they’ll forget to be mad.

“He followed me home. I don’t know! He just wouldn’t go into the light, and then he just started following me around, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

Bob ducks his head and makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a chuckle, and Ray glances behind him just long enough to send him a disapproving look. Bob looks up in time to catch it, and he says, “Oh, what? Like that never happened to you, Toro. Remember that dude that followed you around for like, two months?”

Gerard makes a horrified face. He hadn’t even stopped to consider that this wouldn’t be cleared up in a day or two. Two months? He cannot handle being followed around for two months. What if he wants to do something private? On the few occasions he actually fooled around with someone, he couldn’t even stand to have their pet in the room. It would be way creepier with an actual dead guy standing in the corner watching. Not that he’s expecting to have any opportunities to fool around with someone in the near future, and even if he does, he doesn’t even know if the person he would hypothetically be hooking up with would have a dog, except he totally knows that Frank loves dogs, he went off on a tangent one day about wanting to own a dog farm someday and refused to listen when Gerard quietly pointed out that he wasn’t sure you could farm dogs-

“Okay, well, there wasn’t really any need to bring that up, Bob, but thank you.” Ray interrupts Gerard’s increasingly rambling thoughts. “Did he say why he wouldn’t cross over? Did you say something to him, Gerard?”

“What, no! What would I even say to someone to get them to stay? Why would I even do that?”

Ray shrugs. “Just double checking. So did he say?”

“He’s worried it’ll be worse there than it is here.”

Ray scrubs at his hair and sighs. “Well, we’re gonna have to tell Brian.”

“We couldn’t just…figure it out by ourselves?” Gerard wheedles.

“Unless he’s got unfinished business you can help him out with, then no, we’re probably going to need Brian.”

Gerard considers it. He holds up a finger and goes to the door, peering out. Donald looks up hopefully. “Are you sticking around because you have unfinished business you need to resolve?”

Donald shakes his head, almost looking a little like he wishes he did. Gerard frowns. “Nothing? No pets you need looking after, no old lovers you need to say goodbye to or something?” Donald shakes his head again. “A plant that needs watering?” Donald just looks at him. “Yeah, didn’t think so. Okay.”

He goes back in and shakes his head at Ray. “No dice.”

Bob’s already on his phone, and Ray jerks his head toward him. “Bob’s already got Brian on the line, he’s on his way over.”

Gerard’s stomach explodes with butterflies. It’s not like he’s scared, really, it’s not even his fault this is happening, but it’s Brian, and Brian might be mad.

“Forgot to mention, he’s been trying to get a hold of you all day. Dude, you really need to get a phone.” The butterflies morph into dragons. Fire-breathing dragons with big fucking talons flying around in his stomach. Gerard has never been more than idly irritated that he doesn’t have the documentation to get a new cell phone, but he’s suddenly ridiculously grateful there was no way for Brian to get a hold of him. Ray looks suspicious. “Did you do something, Gerard?”

It’s more like what he didn’t do. He has no way of knowing for sure, but he’s got the distinct feeling that he is absolutely right in thinking this is about the souls he didn’t take.

Ray invites Donald in, and the four of them sit around in what has got to be the most uncomfortable silence in the history of uncomfortable silences until Brian arrives.

“So,” Brian says, lighting a cigarette. “What’s the problem?” He’s looking right at Gerard, and the way he says it makes it sound like he’s already figured out what the problem is and he’s looking at it. Gerard squirms. He’s pretty sure Brian already knows what’s going on, and he’s just enjoying putting Gerard on the spot.

“He doesn’t want to cross over.”

Brian’s gaze flicks over to Donald for a second, and he takes a deep drag off his cigarette. Donald actually looks a little concerned, and Gerard can’t really say that he blames the guy.

Brian waves Donald over, and then ushers him out into the hallway. He stops before he steps out and points at Gerard. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Gerard would actually like to be going anywhere but here as quickly as possible. The window looks like a viable option. He might have to wiggle a little, and he’s not really sure there’s a fire escape or anything out there, but falling three stories and breaking some bones that’ll heal anyway might be a decent alternative to waiting around for Brian.

He doesn’t get a chance to make the decision because Brian comes back in about a minute later, alone. Gerard gapes.

“He…you…he’s gone?”

Brian shrugs. “Sometimes they just need convincing.” Gerard does not even want to imagine what Brian could possibly have said to intimidate a guy that was not only already dead, but incorporeal. Brian motions to the couch. “Have a seat, Gerard.”

Gerard sits, but he keeps his ass on the edge of the cushion in case of emergency. Brian grabs the remote and flips the TV on, and for a second, Gerard thinks he was completely over-reacting. Brian might have just come over to hang out! …even though he’s never done that before and has never shown any interest in doing that before. Bob, Ray, and Gerard are pretty cool guys, though; maybe Brian realized what he was missing out on.

“…an eleven-car pile-up on the freeway has claimed the lives of at least seven people and injured ten others. Police are not releasing the names of the victims, but they have pinpointed the cause of the accident. The driver of a large SUV reports that his brakes failed when he attempted to stop, and the resulting crash caused a chain-reaction that has traffic halted for three miles in both directions.” The camera cuts to a shot of a totaled SUV, and the man standing next to it, visibly shaken, looks way too familiar. James Wilcox. “The driver of the vehicle is uninjured, and the police have not yet stated whether charges will be filed against him. In other news, a local school-“

Brian flips the TV off and looks at Gerard, giving him a minute to let it sink in. If he was innocent, he wouldn’t be able to connect things as quickly as he does. But he still doesn’t know how much Brian knows, so he scratches his head and says, “That sucks.”

Brian stubs his cigarette out in the ashtray and pulls his leg up to cross over his knee. “Seven people dead, yeah. That sucks.” He watches Gerard for a while, and Gerard stays quiet. Finally Brian heaves a sigh. “You know what else sucks? Those seven people weren’t on anyone’s list.”

Gerard’s heart drops, and his insides go cold. Even if this does have something to do with him not taking James Wilcox’s soul - and it obviously does - he had nothing to do with those people dying, right? Sometimes people just die, that can’t be unusual. Except not being on a list sounds pretty bad, and Gerard suddenly feels sick.

Ray frowns. “Wait, what? What does this have to do with us?”

Brian studies him for a second. “For your sake, I really hope you guys didn’t have any knowledge of this clusterfuck.”

Ray puts his hands up defensively. “First of all, Brian, don’t threaten me in my own home. Second of all, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Those people died because James Wilcox wasn’t reaped.”

Bob and Ray glance at each other, and it’s obvious they’re confused. “Never heard of the guy,” Bob says, looking sideways at Gerard.

“His name was on my list, and I put it on a Post-It. He was supposed to be reaped this morning.”

Gerard stares at his shoes. When no one else says anything, he says, small and quiet, “Did those people die because he didn’t?”

Gerard’s not even looking at them, but he can feel the level of tension in the room ratchet up. It makes his skin crawl, the way he knows they’re looking at him with a mixture of anger, or disappointment, or a combination of the two.

“Yeah, they did. And six people died last week because a girl named Jennifer Levine didn’t get hit by a truck, so the driver that would have hit her kept his job and ran his bus straight into a full bus stop. And four people have died over the last two days because a nurse named Abigail Williams didn’t get reaped, and she spread an infection to her patients. Should I go on?”

Gerard shakes his head. “No,” he mumbles. When it’s clear no one else is going to say something, he says, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that would happen, I didn’t mean for…I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.” He keeps staring at his shoes like maybe a hole will open up beneath them and swallow him up. He’d been so worried about the consequences of what he was doing, but he’d always thought it’d just be Brian getting mad at him, or getting removed from his position. He never in a million years thought saving one life would mean destroying others. At this point, a lightning bolt from above sounds pretty deserved.

When Brian talks again, his voice is tight, and Gerard hunches in on himself a little more. “Goddammit, Gerard. Don’t you think we have things set up this way for a reason? Do you think in all the time people have been dying, no one has pulled this shit before? You’re not special, you’re not some hero, you’re a reaper. You were chosen to reap out of all the hundreds of thousands of people that die every day, and you use it to fuck up yet again. Fucking up your own life is one thing, pal, but you have a responsibility to the people you reap. You have a responsibility to the people around them. How do you think James Wilcox feels right about now, knowing he’s to blame for seven people dying? Do you ever take anything besides yourself into consideration?” He’s yelling now, and Gerard just drops his head down lower and takes it. Brian’s right - Gerard has never fucked up this badly, not even while he was alive, and he’d had some pretty spectacular fuck-ups.

“Brian,” Bob says quietly, and Gerard looks up to see him squeeze Brian’s shoulder. “Man. Cut him a break.”

Brian scrubs his hands over his face and slumps. “Shit.” He pulls a cigarette out and lights it, taking a deep drag before he continues. “Look, I’m partly to blame here. I didn’t explain to you what would happen if you didn’t do your job, and that’s my mistake. I assumed you’d understand the gravity of what we do. But what’s done is done; we can’t bring those people back. The head office has already dispatched reapers to get the souls you skipped, so no one else should be dying unless they’re supposed to. Just. Fuck. Promise me you will never, ever do something this stupid again.”

Gerard nods hard, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “I promise. Brian, I’m sorry, I am, if I could take it back-“

Brian waves him off. “You can’t, so let’s just let it go.” He heads for the door, smoke trailing behind him. It reminds Gerard of the wisps that always trail the gravelings. “Be on time tomorrow. All of you.” He stops to point at them, and then he leaves, and Gerard feels like someone just pulled his spine straight out of him. He collapses onto the couch, pushing at his temples like it might help fend off the impending migraine.

part 3
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