Big Bang: Parks and Recreation (Part 4)
Title: Parks and Recreation
Author: vinvy
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 Three
Strangling the nurse at the front desk is a morally reprehensible thing to do, he has to remind himself when he finally gets to the hospital. After speeding the whole way here, parking crooked in the fire lane, then almost trampling a woman in labor on his way up to this floor he is not going to be held up by some asshole who refuses to believe he’s Elena Way’s grandson.
“I don’t care,” he growls, leaning in close to the squat man’s face, “if visiting hours are over. My mother and brother are in here and my grandmother is sick. Let me in.”
A rumpled and sleep-deprived art school drop out must be an intimidating sight because the nurse can’t give Gerard the room number fast enough. Maybe it’s the insane-hobo hair. He should have gotten in the guy’s face to begin with- it was much more effective than being diplomatic and showing proof of his identity and answering inane questions.
Mikey is slouching in a chair outside of Elena’s room. Their mom is sleeping against his shoulder. He seems even more bothered by the pervasive stench of ether and sickness and the muted pastels than Gerard is. When he hears his brother approach his head snaps up. He straightens his glasses and sets his jaw.
Gerard assumes the worst. “Oh, no-“
“-No.” Mikey interrupts him quietly so as not to wake Donna. The tension in his voice still reads clearly. He’s unhappy with Gerard. There’s probably a very long list of reasons.
“I- I’m sorry I’m so late. I didn’t get any of your texts until- and then, you see-“
“She wants to see you, not us,” he interrupts again.
“What? ... Oh. I. Uh.”
“Yeah.”
Gerard bites his lip. He’s thrilled that Elena is all right and wants to see him but she’s excluding Mikey and mom. That’s not like her. “Mikey, I’m sorry-“
“I don’t care, Gee, just go see grandma. We can talk later.”
Gerard nods, choosing to take it as a promise and not a threat.
The soft hiss of oxygen through tubing is punctuated by the steady chirp of the heart monitor. The TV is rerunning informercials on a low volume. It smells like her apartment at the assisted living facility- loads of sweet herbs to cover the stench of medicine. Elena is sitting up in bed, looking frail and small on the mattress. She looks over when Gerard comes in and smiles, deepening the lines around her mouth and eyes.
“Gerard, it’s so good to see you.”
“Hi, grandma,” he offers a small smile and pulls a chair over to the bedside. The plastic squeaks when he sits down.
“How are you?”
“Oh you’ve been listening to the so-called doctors, haven’t you?” Her voice is lively with a hint of rebellion, “Don’t pay them any mind, sugar. The elf-shot missed me this time. Those idiots think I had a stroke but, as you can see, I’m perfectly fine.”
In a second his brain flips from taking her seriously to disregarding her delirium. It takes conscious effort to remind himself that Faeries are real and Elena isn’t losing her ability to function in reality. “That’s good, grandma. When will they let you go home?”
“They won’t tell me. They want to ‘run a few more tests’. They can’t seem to take my word for it. I know my own body than any of them,” she snorts and picks up a plastic cup from the rolling table at her bedside. “You look worried.”
“I kinda- yeah,” he agrees so he doesn’t have to explain, “I am.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“Then here,” she offers him the cup, “your brother made me tea. It might calm your nerves a bit.”
“Thanks grandma,” he says and takes it. It burns his hand a little when some sloshes over the side. He sniffs it. It has a sweet smell, not like the knock-out juice Mikey had given him when Frank was sick. He decides it’s safe and takes a sip. It tastes like apples.
“I swear he lives for this stuff.”
“Well there are those who believe that tea can fix everything.”
Gerard nods and they sit in companionable silence for a minute more. Then he hears himself say, “I... I learned something a few weeks ago.”
“What would that be?” Her hazel eyes gleam. “Don’t forget about your tea,” she adds.
He takes another drink. It makes him feel warm down to his knees. “Faeries are real.”
Elena winks. “Whatever would give you such an idea?”
Gerard chuckles hollowly. “Lots of things, grandma.”
She nods and pats his free hand where it rests on the bed, “There are always lots of things to prove their existence if you know what to look for. Now, what do you say we watch Jeopardy? If I remember correctly there’s a rerun coming on right about now.”
“That is a great idea, grandma.” He really should stick his head out to get Mikey and mom. They deserve to be in here. But mom’s asleep and Mikey is going to be pissed no matter what Gerard does. What’s more is that Gerard is selfish when it comes to Elena. He’ll share later.
The tea seeps through his skeleton while he and Elena watch contestants answer trivia. He starts to forget that there have been two attempts on his life in the last day. (Four since he came home from New York, counting the first meeting with Frank and getting attacked by the thing that was going to eat his eyes.) Elena shouts an answer to the Daily Double that the contestant gets wrong.
“You just won three grand,” Gerard says.
“Damn straight.”
That makes him feel even better. There’s something too perfect about this little old lady swearing that’s entirely comforting. He finishes off his tea and leans against the bed. He ends up hugging one of Elena’s spare pillows while she runs her bright red nails through his hair. It reminds him of being a little kid again. He drifts off feeling nostalgic and safe into a gray haze.
Something shifts and things come back into focus. It’s only a little though. Enough to make him want to go back to sleep. He feels fuzzy and can’t figure out what woke him up.
“Hey, Elena- oh.”
“Don’t worry, he’s asleep. He never could tolerate seraph flax. I used to give it to him when he was a little boy to calm him down.”
A small chuckle. “I remember that.”
“You know you have some explaining to do.”
“...I know.”
“Then start.”
“I didn’t mean to. Well. I meant to, otherwise I wouldn’t have, but I didn’t want to. She-“
“- made you?”
“… Yeah, pretty much.”
“Something has to be done about this.”
“I know.”
“You’re better than that.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
“I think he’s awake, Elena.”
“He’s just dozing. He’ll drift back off in a minute or two.” She starts tracing her fingers over Gerard’s scalp again and he does.
The not-dream he’s having (it’s not a dream because he isn’t entirely asleep but it is because he’s not awake either) has something to do with sunburns. It has his back stinging. He doesn’t like how it feels. It feels like anger. If it tans he’s going to be very unhappy. He knows it inevitably will because Italian genetics pretty much promise him that.
The tone of the room catches up to his brain and that’s why he feels sunburnt. People are angry and he can feel every breath of it pricking his skin and leaving behind pain.
“- so help me god if you touch my brother-“
“God? You don’t buy into that human illusion do you? He’s not even your-“
“Not another word out of you-“
“Boys.” Elena’s quiet tone stops the whispered argument.
It’s soft and low but it makes Gerard feel more aware. He can feel life tingling back into his limbs and he stops thinking about sunburns.
“I think you both should go.”
“Elena-“
“Grandma-“
“I’m not angry with either of you. He needs his sleep.”
Somehow the weight of sleep comes back as footsteps retreat and he doesn’t wake up again until the middle of the next morning. Donna and Elena are discussing the finer points of foreign affairs while Mikey knits what looks like a sweater in a corner. Elena has forgotten the year again and she believes that Kennedy is still the president. Donna seems content to humor her, agreeing in all the right places while Elena laments the scandal Kennedy’s affair with an East German caused.
The surreal feeling that Gerard has sticks around for the next few days. There’s no further talk of Faeries while he’s visiting his grandma- probably because Donna is around- and no mention of who’d come to visit Elena that first night. Gerard thinks he knows but admitting that to himself would break the illusion. He’s rather fond of his illusions so he keeps his nose to his sketchbook.
At the moment he’s doodling out a nonsense comic about a zombie-caterpillar who is trying desperately to become a butterfly. Faced with failure, the undead bug goes on a rampage through some poor human’s ear, eating her way straight through his brain. The angst and hilarity really get going when-
“-Gerard,” Elena puts a cool hand on his arm. She’s sitting in a wheelchair with one of her get-well-soon bouquets in her lap. “It’s time to go, sugar.”
Mikey stands at the door, his face obscured by a massive vase of red daisies. Beside him Donna holds a duffel bag of Elena’s things.
“Breaking out already,” Gerard jokes, stashing his sketchbook and pencil in the messenger bag Mikey finished off that morning. (The kid is possessed by a knitting demon, seriously.) He takes his place as navigator of the wheelchair without a passing glance at the nurse he has to elbow past to do it. It’s the same guy from the admissions desk and Gerard hasn’t forgiven him just yet.
~~
The drive to the nursing home is uneventful.
The whole way there, Elena stays confused about the date. It clearly gets on Donna’s nerves as she drives. It makes Gerard feel a little sick and a little jealous. Forgetting things for a while might be nice. He wouldn’t have anything to question- he could just wander aimlessly and do whatever he was directed to.
He pinches the inside of his wrist to stop thinking that way. He has no business romanticizing Elena’s decline. Eventually, she won’t be able to remember him or Mikey or even her own name. Forgetting like that must be hell on earth. It isn’t like Elena is oblivious to the holes in her mental timeline.
That gets him good and depressed, complete with a hollow feeling in his chest. He hangs on to Mikey’s hand and stares out the window for the rest of the drive. Once in a while Mikey’s fingers will give a reassuring squeeze but he’s more withdrawn than Gerard is. It’s hard not to wonder what he might be thinking. Neither of them notices the Faeries they pass as anything other than blips on the radar. The rest is autumn chill and red, red leaves.
Kisses and prolonged hugs are given multiple times. No member of the Way family wants to leave though it’s unlikely that she’ll realize she’s being left. Not today, at least. When they finally get out of the plush suite (since it was “decided” that Elena needed assisted living they’d made sure to get the best they could afford) Gerard has to turn on his heel and go back one last time. Elena is rearranging her flowers when he wraps his arms around her. She gives a surprised laugh and pats his back.
“I love you, grandma.”
“I love you, too, Gerard,” she stands on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, “and if they kill you I’ll miss you. Try not to let them kill you.”
~~
Gerard groans quietly and sits up. Last time he checked, his room wasn’t tiled and brightly lit. This means he’s either been abducted by aliens or he’s dreaming. There’s a shiny table a few yards away. It is quite possibly made of porcelain. Seeing as he isn’t on it he can safely assume that he hasn’t been taken by the aliens.
A door swings open. Several men in white enter. They’re carrying something. They’re carrying color.
It’s Frank, he thinks in a voice that isn’t his own the second the colors catch is eye. It must be all the white that makes the goblin look washed out, more gray than green or black.
Then men in white lay him out on the table and Gerard throws himself to his feet. Veins stand out a dark green everywhere there’s bare skin. The shade reminds Gerard of blackthorns in summer. The men are speaking English around him but he can’t understand them. He doesn’t really want to. Someone has just wheeled in a table that looks like the ones he sees on medical shows full of sharp horrors like needles.
When he wraps his fingers around Frank’s wrist the goblin’s eyes snap open. They’re all iris- no cornea or pupil- brown shot through with warm gold like someone replaced his eyeballs with marbles of tigerseye. “Don’t be afraid. It’s just what they do to us.”
He is definitely not speaking English but Gerard hears every word. He doesn’t understand, though, until the of the humans takes up a scalpel, dictating into an out-of-date microphone. The tape reel clicks as it rolls on -
- The clicking follows him into waking.
“Nightmare?” Mikey has somehow sandwiched himself between Gerard’s back and the wall without disturbing his brother. He’s knitting. What reason he has for being awake and knitting in the middle of the night Gerard can’t fathom.
“Frank,” he says around the phlegm at the back of his throat. He’d better not be getting sick.
“He’s a bad influence. Wanna watch ‘The Lord of the Rings’? The first one is already in the DVD player.”
“I don’t think I have a choice.” Gerard sits up and stretches. He debates whether or not there’s a point in getting out of bed.
“Nope, but it’s polite to ask anyway. Here,” Mikey finishes off the sweater and drops it into Gerard’s lap, “You don’t need to get sick.”
“Mind reader.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Mikey commandeers his brother’s pillow and snatches the remote from the nightstand.
Gerard curls up against the headboard as Galadriel’s narration starts, wrapping a blanket around them both. He’s out again before the Fellowship is even formed. Mikey’s bony shoulder make a better pillow than he’d thought possible.
When his alarm clock goes off- why did he leave it set on the weekend?- it takes some time for his brain to catch up. The basement is bathed in a blue glow from the TV screen. He and Mikey slid out of sitting position and now Mikey is curled up at the edge of the bed with all of the blankets bunched around his shoulders.
Gerard vacates the bed gingerly to avoid waking his brother and impaling his foot on any stray pencils. He changes in a ratty pair of jeans he hasn’t seen since art school and tugs on the sweater Mikey knitted. Somehow, he’d managed to knit a cartoonish, lopsided skull onto the front of it. Gerard decides he will wear it with pride. His brother is a knitting genius.
“Where’re you headed?” Donna sticks her head out of the kitchen right as he passes. Then she sees the sweater. “Oh he is getting so good at that. Being grounded could make him some money.”
So does not being grounded he doesn’t say out loud. He’s having a brief flashback to Mikey’s freshman year of high school. Immediately the younger Way brother had found a lucrative niche in the party scene. From cigarettes to pot to ecstasy- Mikey swore up and down that he never touched the stuff, just that he’d made a killing selling it.
“I’m going out for coffee. Do you want anything?”
“If you see anything I like. Don’t be too long- I’m making waffles once the kitchen is cleaned up.” She hugs him. The static from her pink pajamas and stale smell of last night’s bar tending follow him out the door.
The world outside of Gerard’s front door has moved well into October without consulting him on the matter. Front yards are piled with fiery leaves. Storefronts are bedecked with shiny black garland and cutouts of witches and goblins. Oh, God, he does not like goblins.
He must be getting pretty comfortable with the Sight because this time he barely registers the barista’s antlers when he buys the coffee. The Faerie is hardly worth mentioning, really, outside of the magnificent coffee she makes. She does the same steps as everyone else who works there but somehow her caramel machiatos are just better.
The trip back down the block to his car is a pleasant one- the sunlight isn’t too harsh and the air is crisp enough that he can pretend it isn’t polluted. Until Frank steps out of the air and shoves Gerard into a doorway. He takes the coffee and sets it on the ground. Gerard’s still-sleepy mind goes from zero to panic in that second. Headlines about murders, muggings and rapes happening daily in broad daylight on crowded streets just like this one are bubbling up all over his brain and-
The goblin isn’t doing anything other than keeping his hands on Gerard’s shoulders. Even with his hood up and hair in his face, his eyes catch the light. It reminds Gerard of his nightmares and he stops being scared.
“Why’d you try to kill me?”
The second he says that Frank’s hand shifts down to Gerard’s chest, settling right over a small bruise and a faint, healed scratch that Gerard has done his very best not to think about this week.
“I didn’t want to,” Frank says, frowning, like he’s been interrupted “I still don’t. ...and I don’t think the element of surprise is the way to go with this.”
“Then-”
“I have to, but I can’t. It’s complicated.”
His stomach turns. Maybe his fear of getting killed in broad daylight isn’t so invalid. “Explain it. I’ve got time.”
Frank shakes his head. That one gesture hangs there in silence, final and taunting. A car passes. A gaggle of teenaged girls fall into a startled hush that breaks the second they’re three steps away from the doorway.
“Tell me, Frank.”
“Can you just... accept that I won’t kill you and move on?”
“You’ll keep trying, though.” Living with Mikey has made him very good at listening to the truth between words.
“I have no choice,” Frank replies, despairing.
“That doesn’t inspire much confidence, you’ve got to know that.”
Frank sighs, his breath coming out in a puff of fog. He breaks eye contact. His eyelashes almost touch his cheeks when he looks down. The darker shade of green-blue that creeps up his neck doesn’t register as a blush at first but Gerard almost announces it aloud when he figures it out. Frank is ashamed. Of course, he has a very good reason to be ashamed because attempted murder is a shameful thing! ... That doesn’t mean Gerard can get rid of the pity he feels for the Faerie.
A passing draft kicks up a whirl of dead leaves and dust that their doorway conducts perfectly. This close Gerard can see Frank shiver and break out in goosebumps.
“My trees need me,” Frank says before Gerard can articulate what he’s thinking.
“They won’t miss you that much. They’re trees. come on- my mom is making waffles.”
“You’re inviting someone who tries to kill you on a regular basis home for waffles- think about your decisions for a minute.”
“You said you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. Besides, they’re delightful waffles- think about your decisions.”
“That is true.” He finally takes his hands off of Gerard. “I can’t even let someone else do it.”
“What? Seriously? Couldn’t you have gotten someone who didn’t reek of old milk?”
“No, all the sirens I know were busy, sorry. I had to call in a family favor...” he sounds irritated, “Why else did you think he was so pissy when I showed up? It was a legitimate reason for me to step in, though- blinding you was not part of the contract.”
“You really have tried everything, haven’t you?”
“Not quite everything yet but either way Elena is displeased," Frank says quickly, like he can't control his mouth.
“How do you know my grandma? You need to tell me what this is about,” Gerard surprises himself with the authority in his voice.
“No. You have to work it out on your own. I mean, the whole not being able to kill you thing is evidence enough for me but I still can’t say anything. It’s up to you. You’ve got all of Elena’s books- do some reading.”
“Some reading!” Gerard is annoyed and about to storm off but then he has a minor epiphany. He pinches be bridge of his nose, unable to believe what he’s about to suggest. “... What about ... What if I found, oh, I don’t know, a study buddy? To help make sure I don’t get distracted.” He chews his lip.
“I really don’t know,” Frank starts slowly having caught on instantly,“of any humans who would be up to the task-”
“- you’ve got a point. There’s really no one better for studying magic and mystery than a Faerie-”
“- I invented magic and mystery, thank you very much-”
“Come here,” Gerard grabs Frank and leaves the coffee, “you’re coming over for breakfast.”
~~
Stepping into the house, the air shifts and feels heavier. Frank winks at him and that’s when he notices the dull shimmer that the goblin has taken on. If Gerard doesn’t look at him directly he looks entirely human. He’s even glamoured himself some clothes that aren’t full of holes. To anyone without the Sight the effect is the opposite- it’s only when they look out of the corner of their eye that they see the goblin.
“You go out for coffee and bring home company. I’m not even properly dressed.” Donna’s tone doesn’t match her words. She stands in front of the waffle iron smiling and humming to herself. On the counter beside it is a steadily growing pile of waffles.
“Mom, this is-”
“Tony,” Frank says with a charming smile, stepping past Gerard and offering his hand, “it’s nice to meet you, ma’am. Gerard talked a lot about his family at school.”
As far as Gerard can tell Frank hasn’t lied. He hasn’t actually claimed that “Tony” is his real name. Nor does he seem displeased to be talking to Donna. The myth about Faeries being unable to lie seems to hold water... How does he know that Gerard talked about his family at SVA?
“Call me Donna, please.”
“Yes, ma’am. You must be Mikey,” Frank turns his grin to the table where Gerard’s brother sits.
Mikey says nothing, does nothing to acknowledge Frank’s presence in his home. Gerard has to sit by him at breakfast, though. While the glamoured goblin is chatting up Donna about soap operas, the strength of the emotion rolling off of Mikey almost makes Gerard sick. He never thought it was possible for Mikey to be this angry. It goes deeper than anger, though, but it’s not a feeling he can put his finger on and he’s glad to retreat to the basement with Frank once their plates are cleaned off. So far as Donna knows Mikey is an antisocial brat and Gerard is going to have a vigorous videogame marathon with a friend from SVA. Oh, what Gerard would give to swap places with his mother.
~~
By the evening, the basement smells like book dust. Gerard has taken on his reading endeavor seriously from the first box of books they’d opened. He’s cleared out a space on the floor for piles of useful books, interesting books and useless or illegible books. Frank sprawls on Gerard’s bed. He’s supposed to be supervising but he’s far more interested in playing Snake on an ancient cell phone that has appeared seemingly from nowhere.
“What exactly am I looking for?” Sure, he’s interested in the mythological histories of Ireland and Scotland but it doesn’t seem to be relevant to anything and the archaic wording is giving him a headache.
“Not the Ulster Cycle, that’s for sure,” Frank reaches down and plucks the book out of his hands. “Try this one- it looks more promising.” This book is falling out of it’s leather binding. It’s a journal.
“I can’t read someone’s journal.”
“It’s, like, fifty years old. You won’t be hurting anything,” Frank coaxes.
“Yeah, but it’s private.” He peeks inside the front cover. “And it’s Elena’s!”
“There’s a reason she left it in her books, Gerard.”
Gerard makes a scandalized noise. “So? I won’t read her journal. That’s wrong- she’s my grandmother.”
“Do you want to figure out what’s going on or don’t you?”
“Who’s making you try to kill me? It’s a woman. I remember that much from when you were talking to my grandma- how do you even know her? Ignore that last question.” Gerard is not going to be the first one to break the staring contest they’re having. He needs answers.
“Don’t change the subject like that,” Frank puts the phone aside, “it isn’t fair.”
“Don’t dodge the question. You can’t tell me why but you must be able to tell me who.Quit wasting my time.”
“No, I’m not. It’s against the damn rules.” Frank groans dramatically, half hanging off the edge of the bed, the ends of his wings splayed on the floor. “It is way harder to bend the truth than you humans appreciate. Have you ever even tried to say something without saying it? Do you understand the mental acrobatics that go into it?”
“Quit dodging. Say it. I demand that you tell me,” he puts on an authoritarian tone, not expecting to get a useful reply.
“Oh fuck you, pulling the official order card like that.” Frank’s hands knot in his hair. He closes his eyes and stays like that until Gerard wonders whether he’s passed out due to the blood rushing into his head. “You boss wouldn’t like that,” he whispers, eyebrows drawn in like he’s in pain.
“Who gives a fuck about-” He stops himself. “No way.”
“Have you been inside that bitch’s office?”
“Hey, Clara is-”
“A bitch,” Frank insists, “Trust me, dude, I’ve known her way longer. You don’t even know her real name.”
“No way.”
His eyes snap open and he points at Gerard, “Don’t start this outright denial shit- I have no patience for it.”
“Why?”
“She eats people. There are more reasons than that for her wanting you dead but, essentially, that’s it. I’m, like, her zookeeper. Regular feedings and all that.”
“For how long?”
“A long, long time,” he replies, and the years show in his eyes.
Gerard feels his eyes go wide. “… The kids they found in the park-“
“Yeah, but I’ve been unable to kill you or anyone in your family for decades longer, if that helps.”
Gerard pouts. “It doesn’t.”
“It’s the best I can do. I’m pretty sure that this is going to make me sick anyway.”
“Sick?”
“If I try to lie or if I break a promise it makes me sick. Violently so,” Frank says, looking pale already, “Sometimes it’s respiratory, other times it’s only a fever or sores. We’re meant to be truthful and loyal, which is why it’s fucking impossible for us to guarantee anyone anything.”
“All the stories about farmers getting screwed out of treasure-”
“Exactly.”
“That’s ironic.”
Frank slides off the bed and sits beside Gerard, their shoulders touching. “Aren’t you going to ask why I can’t kill you?”
“If I do, will you tell me?”
“No.”
“That answers your question, then.”
“He can be taught,” Frank says triumphantly. He leans close across Gerard, his wings brushing velvety soft against the underside of Gerard’s jaw. “Here,” he says when he sits back up, “try this one.”
This book is a much more modern. The cover has a castle on it. It still has a sheen to it and the spine snaps like it hasn’t been opened before.
“Organization of Medieval Fiefdoms,” Gerard snorts, “It sounds fascinating.”
“Oh, it’s as dry as dust,” Frank assures him, laying his head on Gerard’s shoulder and flipping past a few chapters. “It’s useful, though. Read the bit on military conquests and how land got divided up after that.”
It’s harder than it should be to focus with Frank this close. The goblin might as well be laying on him, his wings stretched out of the way and legs falling against Gerard’s like they are. Curled slightly into himself as he is, though, Frank doesn’t seem to be bothered by it. He’s much more fascinated with the outdated brick of a cell phone in his hands.
Introduction to the Feudal System is the first heading. Gerard drops his head against Frank’s with an irritated sigh. Land equates to power. That’s all that feudalism means. How in the hell could there be a whole book on it?
“After you read that there’s an article in one of the older dictionaries that you might want to look at. I promise it’s more interesting. It’s got to do with, like, getting to Otherworld if I remember properly.” He reaches out with his foot and knocks over a stack to slide the dictionary in question closer.
“Lazy.”
Frank sits up a little. There are still far too many points of contact between them for Gerard’s liking. “Says the college drop out.”
“Hey, I had a good reason.” He gives Frank a look that he hopes reads as “watch yourself”.
“No reason is good enough to give up on something you love,” Frank says. He’s leaning too close again with his forehead resting against Gerard’s neck. His tone keeps Gerard from snapping at him. He isn’t really arguing so much as- caring? Trying to give advice? The warm way that Frank’s breath ghosts over his throat goes a long way to distract Gerard from being defensive.
He glances up at his prized poster from Indiana Jones. Posters are nice- they don’t cast judgement. “I just... couldn’t create anything any more, Frank. You don’t understand.”
“Maybe you should have gotten a new roommate. I have a feeling that the one you had was probably jealous. Jealousy makes people do stupid things.”
He rolls his eyes. “Like physics? There wasn’t a creative bone in James’s body.”
“Like feed off of the creativity of others by warping labradorite to kill inspiration instead of draw it. Did you ever look under your bed? There was probably a good-sized chunk of it sitting there in a bowl of toad entrails.”
He rolls his eyes. “I was cursed. Of course I was. That’s... disgusting.”
It also explained the smell- it’s nice to know it wasn’t just his squalor- and how he’s been getting back to drawing lately, albeit slowly and in short bursts. The curse must be wearing off like a lingering sickness- he’ll be rid of it eventually. That’s good to know. It hums a giddy tune in his veins.
“You’re telling me. The really unlucky thing about being part goblin: the school lessons. I will forever wish I could forget most of the magic they taught me.”
“Was it all gruesome?”
“No,” Frank says with a slight shake of his head, “That doesn’t mean I enjoyed it. Corporeal punishment wasn’t banned, especially where social anomalies were concerned. I’m a breathing contradiction- Sidhe and goblin. They aren’t supposed to mix so well. You’d think there would be some fundamental genetic difference there that’d keep the likes of me from being conceived but... I suppose not.”
“That’s not such a bad thing, I think.”
Frank looks up at him with his eyebrows raised in curiosity, like he genuinely doesn’t understand how it could be a good that he was born. Gerard has a split second to change his mind and he doesn’t take it. He dips his head so that his lips brush gently against Frank’s. The second he does it his brain catches up which makes his stomach start doing anxious flips. He lets go of the book and cups Frank’s cheek to keep his hands from shaking.
Kissing a goblin- now that he’s willing to pay attention to it, it isn’t quite what he expected. Inhumanly warm and soft lips. Behind them, jagged teeth that are too much fun not to run his tongue over. No lacking enthusiasm on either side.
Frank chuckles into Gerard’s mouth and reaches up to run his hands through Gerard’s hair. The laugh makes Gerard pull away so he can giggle, too, because the attack of nerves is dissolving into giddiness. Frank slides his mouth away and down Gerard’s neck, pausing here and there to suck on the skin.
The light vibration against his side isn’t noteworthy until it keeps up and makes Frank detach his mouth from Gerard’s throat. The source- that old cell- gets tossed over the goblin’s shoulder to fend for itself in the wilds of the basement floor. Frank leaves a line of half-kisses up Gerard’s jaw and buries his face in the human’s hair.
“Hey, Gerard?”
He hums in response, busying his hands with pulling Frank onto his lap. Frank giggles, letting himself be moved.
“Gerard,” he says again in a sing-songy tone that ends in a little gasp. Gerard has discovered that there’s a scorpion tattooed on high Frank’s neck and he’s intent on showing the goblin just how much he approves of it.
“Yes?”
“Wanna go out? There’s this- this party that I’m supposed to be at,” his fingers dance through Gerard’s hair, making new knots and snarls at the lightest touch, “and you should really come with me.”
A party is not very high on Gerard’s list of things he’d like to do. Unless, of course, said party involves no more walking that what it takes to get on his bed, losing a whole lot of clothing and the privilege of drawing on the little uninked skin that Frank has left in the afterglow.
Frank must be able to hear him thinking that because he makes a small, needy sound and nips at Gerard’s earlobe. “Please? It’ll be really quick,” he promises, “just need to be there long enough to be seen. Then we can make our escape and come back here and…” The not-coy chuckle at the end of that sentence does its job.
Gerard, a tragic victim of his nonexistent sex life, can’t agree fast enough and he ends up regretting it.
~~
Seedy parts of town always make him nervous. He doesn’t appreciate being drug through them at ten o’clock at night in the cold, either. He wishes sorely that he had been willing to be seen in the skull sweater, but parties at chic clubs aren’t coffee runs.
“Thin Iron Maiden shirts aren’t sweaters, either,” he mutters where Frank can’t hear him, wrapping his arms around his middle. How Frank handles running around like a Dickensonian orphan he can’t even guess.
Gerard’s car is a block behind them and they’re headed into a gratified and surprisingly well-lit alley.
The expectation he has is one of beats, black lights, and glitter. Of heated bodies that smell like perfume and liquor and sweat. The plan is simple- let Frank get his face time while trolling around the bar. Once whatever strange social requirements have been met he’s going to take Frank straight back home, no detours, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Gerard decides to implement this plan as soon as they get inside.
Clearly, Frank’s been here before because he strides past the long line in the alley with Gerard in tow. The backs of the bouncer’s hands and head are covered in hedgehog spikes. He exchanges a few words with Frank- this foreign language thing is getting very old, if anyone asks Gerard, which they don’t- and let’s them in without further ado or cover charge.
A distinct lack of homo sapiens in the club is the first thing that Gerard picks up on. Everything breathing in the club is a Faerie. Wings, tails, tentacles, fur, shells, talons and hooves. Even the most human-looking are freakishly beautiful and tall without any real color to their complexions. They’re so beautiful that Gerard wants to just look at them forever…
Which makes him notice they they’re all looking at him. There’s no outright staring but every eye meets up with his while Frank leads him along by the elbow. Each step has him less and less enthused.
Frank comes to a stop, suddenly, to lean up and kiss Gerard’s cheek. “Just be patient.” The breath against Gerard’s ear feels like a whisper but he still hears Frank perfectly. The goblin pulls sharply away and slips away into the crowd.
Then, just as quick, a blond that Gerard doesn’t quite believe he’s seeing sidles up to him. “Hey, wanna dance?” James smiles at him, standing too close for comfort.
The urge to ask him about SVA gossip and rumors of professors hitting on students dies when instinct screams at him to back the fuck up right the fuck now because touching James will not end well. The pale strands of hair that hang in the man’s face remind Gerard of a box jellyfish’s tentacles- poisonous, pretty and barely visible. It’s an absurd idea but he can’t make it stop.
“How’ve you been Gerard? Still drawing?”
He swallows to get some moisture into his throat but it doesn’t really work. “I’ve been great,” he says. He steps into the lie like his favorite pair of jeans. “I’m looking into getting an agent, actually. I think I’m about ready to start doing shows. I’ve already taken a few commissions.”
“Oh you always were a prodigy,” James sneers at the half-truth. He comes even closer and Gerard backs up another step.
Before he knows it he’s been herded into the middle of the room and the music has stopped. The lights are still going. James is grinning and the Faeries are watching like Gerard is some titillating masterpiece.
“That’s quite enough, James.” A girl in French-braided pigtails says.
James doesn’t back off but he stops moving.
Behind the girl- shouldn’t middle-schoolers be in bed this time of night?- is Clara in her business-casual best. She’s got hooves. Of course she does because she’s a Faerie- how else would Frank know her? Beside her Frank is staring down at his toes. Gerard can see a slice of his neck and his ears and they’re burning that dark shade of green that means humiliation. His eyes go back to the girl. The dainty circlet that dips in line with her widow’s peak isn’t fake- queens don’t do fake jewelry, he thinks.
His lips go icy cold and that means he’s as white as a sheet. Betrayal, fear and anger turn everything a gross shade of yellow with black spotting the edges.
“It’s nice to meet you, Gerard,” the queen says again, “I’ve heard quite a bit about you and I’d like to welcome you personally to the Unseelie Court, however short your time with us will be.”
He’s not going to vomit on his shoes. He isn’t. A trickle of cold sweat goes down the middle of his back.
“I have a proposition for you and I want you to understand,” she continues with a smile, “that you will die no matter what decision you choose to make. You have no reason not to do what I ask of you.”
Gerard gapes at her, hands trembling.
“Now, as I understand it, you are in possession of some land which is of no importance to yourself but it is of great strategic importance to me. You’re going to take this lovely knife here, give just a little of your blood and hair, then repeat what I tell you. That will clear up this whole mess and you can die knowing that your property is under my protection and you’ve done right. Do you understand?”
The Unseelie Queen moves to stand in front of him and she is beautiful in the way all Faeries are but she’s better. Every inch pale and regal. Her black eyes tell him she feels nothing, not for him. He’s below her and to be glanced at- much less spoken to- is a high honor. He should be on his knees, groveling for some form of mercy, grateful for being allowed to breathe the same air. Gerard loves her. If he never sees her again, he has glimpsed heaven in her face. He can’t ever look at anything again and see anything but ugliness. She is his queen and there is nothing else. He will do anything-
The sharp smell of overripe sloes clears Gerard’s head of the glamour. Frank is staring over at him, his eyes panicked and black. Gerard’s got no idea what the queen is talking about but Frank does. Frank obviously does. Land? Since when? Maybe she means Frank’s trees? There’s a whisper of understanding, like wind through dead branches, that chases the numbness out of his face and fingertips.
It takes a couple of tries to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “I’m- I’m going to die regardless of what I do.”
“Yes, Gerard. Clara has decided that she requires your blood to keep her going for this year. I’m not about to interfere with my general’s dietary needs.”
He has a flashback to having blood drawn for medical records before he went off to college. The sick feeling from that fear is so normal that he hangs onto it. “Then, no. I’m not getting anything out of this. I might as well irritate the fuck out of you in the meantime.”
“I don’t think you understand me, boy,” she looms, somehow intimidating in her sun dress, “you do not want to deny me anything. I’m getting my way regardless of what you say- however, things will be much easier for you if you simply agree.”
“Fuck easy. That’s Elena’s, not yours,” he says it as it pops into his head. He doesn’t stop to think how Elena is involved- he doesn’t want to know. He just needs to get out of here, go home and sleep. He’ll probably buy a gun first thing tomorrow-
She scoffs. It’s a barking, mocking sound. “What’s the quote? From that nonsensical wizard? Oh, yes,” she pats Gerard’s cheek, “I gave you the chance of aiding me willingly-
- but you have elected the way of pain” the line finishes in Gerard’s head but he doesn’t hear her say it.
James has his hand on the back of Gerard’s neck and Gerard wishes it’d snap. His skin is burning but it goes deeper than that. Straight pins lodge themselves into his vertebrae and start picking out the discs in between. That’s what must be happening because nothing else can hurt this badly.
He guesses he screams. He knows, in some distant way, that he collapses. James follows him down to the greasy floor, perching on top of him. Clothes don’t dampen anything.
Now his torso is on fire- he can smell the skin bubbling and boiling off. Where James’s calves are pressed against his thighs the muscle is being sliced off the bone again, and again. A hand settles on his chest and the air flies from his lungs, a pneumonia-like ache that morphs into a boulder on his rib cage.
His eyes hurt and bruise from how hard they’re rolling into the back of his head. He’s definitely screaming. He listens to his bones cracking and tastes blood in his mouth-
“You’re killing him,” Frank says, shocked and cutting through to that deep place where Gerard is still aware of his surroundings.
“Of course. Clara needs his blood, not his life. There are ways around getting a treeherd’s consent.”
“Don’t you know who I am?” Frank is comically indignant, “Tell me all of you Sidhe aren’t this stupid-”
- James shifts again, probably because a writhing body isn’t the most comfortable thing to straddle, and the hell shifts with him. Gerard now knows exactly where his liver is because it’s being ripped to shreds inside his body. He vomits and chokes. His abdominal muscles seize.
Then it stops.
No weight, no fire, no knives, no poison.
There’s a light pressure inside of his ears. It’s a special kind of ringing deafness that comes only after spending too many hours next to a speaker at full volume. The dark feels like he’s floating. It feels kind of like glamour except he really doesn't mind it because it doesn’t hurt or feel like he’s being manipulated. Cushions line his body from the inside out and he wants to stay feeling comfortable like this.
There’s nothing.
No James, no school, no pain, no time at all.
A jarring shove.
Flashing, colorful lights.
“Move it motherfucker! I can’t keep time stopped like this- not my area!”
Gerard is on his feet and being pushed forward. That’ll bruise. He stumbles on trembling legs, goes down on his knees. He’s uninjured but pain drains the body. A giant leech on his heart. He could sleep for a thousand years-
“If you don’t keep the fuck up you’ll be sleeping like the dead,” Frank snarls at him, manhandling him by the collar of his shirt.
They’re running and they’re being followed. Out of the corner of his eye he spots projectiles. They round a corner just in time for an arrow to get stuck in the wall by his head. This is great.
The club isn’t so much a club as a glamoured castle and Frank knows where he’s going. Gerard hopes Frank knows where he’s going. If they get lost... he can’t handle that. His bones are too weak to hold together long enough to backtrack.
He bangs into sconces and walls. Metal decorations take pieces of skin out of his arm. Real pain like this wakes him up. The sting and steady throb-stab from moving his arm while he runs. It doesn’t matter that he’s out of shape and having a hard time breathing because if he stops running there’s a horde of Faeries that wants him dead and he can’t let that happen.
No way, no how is he going to let that happen, however tempting giving up may be.
Frank shoves him around another sharp corner, into a room. In three seconds Frank has the door locked and barred with a heavy-looking table. He pushes Gerard towards the other side of the room and the staircase waiting there. “That leads straight to a door. Go through it and it’ll get you back to your world.”
“We’re in Faerieland?” Gerard feels dizzy again. This lull has him confused.
“We’ve been in Otherworld since we left your house. It was a bitch to keep you from noticing. Now go, okay? If you die, I die, and that shit ain’t cool.” Frank pushes him into the stairs.
“I’m not leaving without you!”
“The last time I checked, you don’t do magic. You don’t even have enough Faerie in your blood to give you the Sight- I had to huff fuckin’ pesticides so you could get it from me. You go and keep yourself alive and I hold off the people who want to eat you. That’s how this works, Gerard. It’s my job.”
That opens up a whole battery of questions but now really isn’t the time or the place. He does his best to commit each one to memory for an interrogation at a later date. “Come with me.”
Frank has gone back to the door. He’s got the pocketknife that’s responsible for everything out and he’s gashing little symbols into the frame. “Don’t make me use magic on you, asshole. I need to save it for the guards and James. You could have mentioned that he’s your ex-roommate. I could have prepared for this.”
“Well maybe if you’d told me there was something to be prepared for I’d have told you!”
Something runs into the door for the second time. Whatever yelling is happening is unintelligible through the wood. Frank mutters while he works on the doorframe. When Gerard’s hand lands on his shoulder he whips around and snaps his teeth.
“Rith, leathcheann,” he growls, planting his hand against Gerard’s sternum and sending him reeling backwards. “Don’t make this a waste of my time.”
Gerard wants to get up and push him back then drag the goblin out of this crazy place so they can go back to pretending that life is a somewhat stable thing.
He manages the getting up part. His legs aren’t acting on his orders when he starts for the stairs, taking them two at a time. Behind him there’s a massive sound that by all rights should knock him over. Six inches of solid wood shattered. Again with the yelling and he knows Frank is back there, fending for himself, protecting Gerard for some absurd sense of duty or whatever his damage is.
Cold lodges itself up and in where his neck and left shoulder meet. He pitches forward. It startles him enough to make him forget to breathe but it doesn’t hurt until he slams into the door at the top of the stairs instead of opening it. That makes the muscle feel ripped and jammed tight. He fumbles with the glass doorknob, lightheaded. He slams it on the footsteps climbing behind him without looking back.
His shoulder burns. He’s bleeding, hot down his back. When he tries to crane his neck to look at whatever’s stuck there- he has a sickening feeling it’s medieval weaponry- pain laces all the way into the back of his head and down his arm. He really wouldn’t mind if the hurting thing would quit. He’s tired of it.
A cursory glance tells him he’s in the park. How convenient. There are no doors or Faeries or goblins in sight. It’s a freezing night in late October and the street lamp is flickering, telling him in Morse code that it’s time to go home in case the monsters came out.
He collapses onto the slide. The chill of the metal feels nice on the burning that’s started to creep over his entire body. He can’t get his back against it because of whatever’s stuck in his back- damn it, it hurts- but he lays down, twisted on his side, feet still braced against the ground.
The fever in his cheeks warms the slide up. Sweat and blood tickle their way down his back. This has been an exhausting night. Every inch of his body has stopped cooperating. It’s hard enough to remember to inhale and exhale with his head spinning like this.
His car’s stuck in Otherworld. He’ll just stay here and rest for a little bit to get his strength back because he’s got to walk home.
Gerard shivers. He wants his sweater.
Part Five
Author: vinvy
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 Three
Strangling the nurse at the front desk is a morally reprehensible thing to do, he has to remind himself when he finally gets to the hospital. After speeding the whole way here, parking crooked in the fire lane, then almost trampling a woman in labor on his way up to this floor he is not going to be held up by some asshole who refuses to believe he’s Elena Way’s grandson.
“I don’t care,” he growls, leaning in close to the squat man’s face, “if visiting hours are over. My mother and brother are in here and my grandmother is sick. Let me in.”
A rumpled and sleep-deprived art school drop out must be an intimidating sight because the nurse can’t give Gerard the room number fast enough. Maybe it’s the insane-hobo hair. He should have gotten in the guy’s face to begin with- it was much more effective than being diplomatic and showing proof of his identity and answering inane questions.
Mikey is slouching in a chair outside of Elena’s room. Their mom is sleeping against his shoulder. He seems even more bothered by the pervasive stench of ether and sickness and the muted pastels than Gerard is. When he hears his brother approach his head snaps up. He straightens his glasses and sets his jaw.
Gerard assumes the worst. “Oh, no-“
“-No.” Mikey interrupts him quietly so as not to wake Donna. The tension in his voice still reads clearly. He’s unhappy with Gerard. There’s probably a very long list of reasons.
“I- I’m sorry I’m so late. I didn’t get any of your texts until- and then, you see-“
“She wants to see you, not us,” he interrupts again.
“What? ... Oh. I. Uh.”
“Yeah.”
Gerard bites his lip. He’s thrilled that Elena is all right and wants to see him but she’s excluding Mikey and mom. That’s not like her. “Mikey, I’m sorry-“
“I don’t care, Gee, just go see grandma. We can talk later.”
Gerard nods, choosing to take it as a promise and not a threat.
The soft hiss of oxygen through tubing is punctuated by the steady chirp of the heart monitor. The TV is rerunning informercials on a low volume. It smells like her apartment at the assisted living facility- loads of sweet herbs to cover the stench of medicine. Elena is sitting up in bed, looking frail and small on the mattress. She looks over when Gerard comes in and smiles, deepening the lines around her mouth and eyes.
“Gerard, it’s so good to see you.”
“Hi, grandma,” he offers a small smile and pulls a chair over to the bedside. The plastic squeaks when he sits down.
“How are you?”
“Oh you’ve been listening to the so-called doctors, haven’t you?” Her voice is lively with a hint of rebellion, “Don’t pay them any mind, sugar. The elf-shot missed me this time. Those idiots think I had a stroke but, as you can see, I’m perfectly fine.”
In a second his brain flips from taking her seriously to disregarding her delirium. It takes conscious effort to remind himself that Faeries are real and Elena isn’t losing her ability to function in reality. “That’s good, grandma. When will they let you go home?”
“They won’t tell me. They want to ‘run a few more tests’. They can’t seem to take my word for it. I know my own body than any of them,” she snorts and picks up a plastic cup from the rolling table at her bedside. “You look worried.”
“I kinda- yeah,” he agrees so he doesn’t have to explain, “I am.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“Then here,” she offers him the cup, “your brother made me tea. It might calm your nerves a bit.”
“Thanks grandma,” he says and takes it. It burns his hand a little when some sloshes over the side. He sniffs it. It has a sweet smell, not like the knock-out juice Mikey had given him when Frank was sick. He decides it’s safe and takes a sip. It tastes like apples.
“I swear he lives for this stuff.”
“Well there are those who believe that tea can fix everything.”
Gerard nods and they sit in companionable silence for a minute more. Then he hears himself say, “I... I learned something a few weeks ago.”
“What would that be?” Her hazel eyes gleam. “Don’t forget about your tea,” she adds.
He takes another drink. It makes him feel warm down to his knees. “Faeries are real.”
Elena winks. “Whatever would give you such an idea?”
Gerard chuckles hollowly. “Lots of things, grandma.”
She nods and pats his free hand where it rests on the bed, “There are always lots of things to prove their existence if you know what to look for. Now, what do you say we watch Jeopardy? If I remember correctly there’s a rerun coming on right about now.”
“That is a great idea, grandma.” He really should stick his head out to get Mikey and mom. They deserve to be in here. But mom’s asleep and Mikey is going to be pissed no matter what Gerard does. What’s more is that Gerard is selfish when it comes to Elena. He’ll share later.
The tea seeps through his skeleton while he and Elena watch contestants answer trivia. He starts to forget that there have been two attempts on his life in the last day. (Four since he came home from New York, counting the first meeting with Frank and getting attacked by the thing that was going to eat his eyes.) Elena shouts an answer to the Daily Double that the contestant gets wrong.
“You just won three grand,” Gerard says.
“Damn straight.”
That makes him feel even better. There’s something too perfect about this little old lady swearing that’s entirely comforting. He finishes off his tea and leans against the bed. He ends up hugging one of Elena’s spare pillows while she runs her bright red nails through his hair. It reminds him of being a little kid again. He drifts off feeling nostalgic and safe into a gray haze.
Something shifts and things come back into focus. It’s only a little though. Enough to make him want to go back to sleep. He feels fuzzy and can’t figure out what woke him up.
“Hey, Elena- oh.”
“Don’t worry, he’s asleep. He never could tolerate seraph flax. I used to give it to him when he was a little boy to calm him down.”
A small chuckle. “I remember that.”
“You know you have some explaining to do.”
“...I know.”
“Then start.”
“I didn’t mean to. Well. I meant to, otherwise I wouldn’t have, but I didn’t want to. She-“
“- made you?”
“… Yeah, pretty much.”
“Something has to be done about this.”
“I know.”
“You’re better than that.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
“I think he’s awake, Elena.”
“He’s just dozing. He’ll drift back off in a minute or two.” She starts tracing her fingers over Gerard’s scalp again and he does.
The not-dream he’s having (it’s not a dream because he isn’t entirely asleep but it is because he’s not awake either) has something to do with sunburns. It has his back stinging. He doesn’t like how it feels. It feels like anger. If it tans he’s going to be very unhappy. He knows it inevitably will because Italian genetics pretty much promise him that.
The tone of the room catches up to his brain and that’s why he feels sunburnt. People are angry and he can feel every breath of it pricking his skin and leaving behind pain.
“- so help me god if you touch my brother-“
“God? You don’t buy into that human illusion do you? He’s not even your-“
“Not another word out of you-“
“Boys.” Elena’s quiet tone stops the whispered argument.
It’s soft and low but it makes Gerard feel more aware. He can feel life tingling back into his limbs and he stops thinking about sunburns.
“I think you both should go.”
“Elena-“
“Grandma-“
“I’m not angry with either of you. He needs his sleep.”
Somehow the weight of sleep comes back as footsteps retreat and he doesn’t wake up again until the middle of the next morning. Donna and Elena are discussing the finer points of foreign affairs while Mikey knits what looks like a sweater in a corner. Elena has forgotten the year again and she believes that Kennedy is still the president. Donna seems content to humor her, agreeing in all the right places while Elena laments the scandal Kennedy’s affair with an East German caused.
The surreal feeling that Gerard has sticks around for the next few days. There’s no further talk of Faeries while he’s visiting his grandma- probably because Donna is around- and no mention of who’d come to visit Elena that first night. Gerard thinks he knows but admitting that to himself would break the illusion. He’s rather fond of his illusions so he keeps his nose to his sketchbook.
At the moment he’s doodling out a nonsense comic about a zombie-caterpillar who is trying desperately to become a butterfly. Faced with failure, the undead bug goes on a rampage through some poor human’s ear, eating her way straight through his brain. The angst and hilarity really get going when-
“-Gerard,” Elena puts a cool hand on his arm. She’s sitting in a wheelchair with one of her get-well-soon bouquets in her lap. “It’s time to go, sugar.”
Mikey stands at the door, his face obscured by a massive vase of red daisies. Beside him Donna holds a duffel bag of Elena’s things.
“Breaking out already,” Gerard jokes, stashing his sketchbook and pencil in the messenger bag Mikey finished off that morning. (The kid is possessed by a knitting demon, seriously.) He takes his place as navigator of the wheelchair without a passing glance at the nurse he has to elbow past to do it. It’s the same guy from the admissions desk and Gerard hasn’t forgiven him just yet.
~~
The drive to the nursing home is uneventful.
The whole way there, Elena stays confused about the date. It clearly gets on Donna’s nerves as she drives. It makes Gerard feel a little sick and a little jealous. Forgetting things for a while might be nice. He wouldn’t have anything to question- he could just wander aimlessly and do whatever he was directed to.
He pinches the inside of his wrist to stop thinking that way. He has no business romanticizing Elena’s decline. Eventually, she won’t be able to remember him or Mikey or even her own name. Forgetting like that must be hell on earth. It isn’t like Elena is oblivious to the holes in her mental timeline.
That gets him good and depressed, complete with a hollow feeling in his chest. He hangs on to Mikey’s hand and stares out the window for the rest of the drive. Once in a while Mikey’s fingers will give a reassuring squeeze but he’s more withdrawn than Gerard is. It’s hard not to wonder what he might be thinking. Neither of them notices the Faeries they pass as anything other than blips on the radar. The rest is autumn chill and red, red leaves.
Kisses and prolonged hugs are given multiple times. No member of the Way family wants to leave though it’s unlikely that she’ll realize she’s being left. Not today, at least. When they finally get out of the plush suite (since it was “decided” that Elena needed assisted living they’d made sure to get the best they could afford) Gerard has to turn on his heel and go back one last time. Elena is rearranging her flowers when he wraps his arms around her. She gives a surprised laugh and pats his back.
“I love you, grandma.”
“I love you, too, Gerard,” she stands on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, “and if they kill you I’ll miss you. Try not to let them kill you.”
~~
Gerard groans quietly and sits up. Last time he checked, his room wasn’t tiled and brightly lit. This means he’s either been abducted by aliens or he’s dreaming. There’s a shiny table a few yards away. It is quite possibly made of porcelain. Seeing as he isn’t on it he can safely assume that he hasn’t been taken by the aliens.
A door swings open. Several men in white enter. They’re carrying something. They’re carrying color.
It’s Frank, he thinks in a voice that isn’t his own the second the colors catch is eye. It must be all the white that makes the goblin look washed out, more gray than green or black.
Then men in white lay him out on the table and Gerard throws himself to his feet. Veins stand out a dark green everywhere there’s bare skin. The shade reminds Gerard of blackthorns in summer. The men are speaking English around him but he can’t understand them. He doesn’t really want to. Someone has just wheeled in a table that looks like the ones he sees on medical shows full of sharp horrors like needles.
When he wraps his fingers around Frank’s wrist the goblin’s eyes snap open. They’re all iris- no cornea or pupil- brown shot through with warm gold like someone replaced his eyeballs with marbles of tigerseye. “Don’t be afraid. It’s just what they do to us.”
He is definitely not speaking English but Gerard hears every word. He doesn’t understand, though, until the of the humans takes up a scalpel, dictating into an out-of-date microphone. The tape reel clicks as it rolls on -
- The clicking follows him into waking.
“Nightmare?” Mikey has somehow sandwiched himself between Gerard’s back and the wall without disturbing his brother. He’s knitting. What reason he has for being awake and knitting in the middle of the night Gerard can’t fathom.
“Frank,” he says around the phlegm at the back of his throat. He’d better not be getting sick.
“He’s a bad influence. Wanna watch ‘The Lord of the Rings’? The first one is already in the DVD player.”
“I don’t think I have a choice.” Gerard sits up and stretches. He debates whether or not there’s a point in getting out of bed.
“Nope, but it’s polite to ask anyway. Here,” Mikey finishes off the sweater and drops it into Gerard’s lap, “You don’t need to get sick.”
“Mind reader.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Mikey commandeers his brother’s pillow and snatches the remote from the nightstand.
Gerard curls up against the headboard as Galadriel’s narration starts, wrapping a blanket around them both. He’s out again before the Fellowship is even formed. Mikey’s bony shoulder make a better pillow than he’d thought possible.
When his alarm clock goes off- why did he leave it set on the weekend?- it takes some time for his brain to catch up. The basement is bathed in a blue glow from the TV screen. He and Mikey slid out of sitting position and now Mikey is curled up at the edge of the bed with all of the blankets bunched around his shoulders.
Gerard vacates the bed gingerly to avoid waking his brother and impaling his foot on any stray pencils. He changes in a ratty pair of jeans he hasn’t seen since art school and tugs on the sweater Mikey knitted. Somehow, he’d managed to knit a cartoonish, lopsided skull onto the front of it. Gerard decides he will wear it with pride. His brother is a knitting genius.
“Where’re you headed?” Donna sticks her head out of the kitchen right as he passes. Then she sees the sweater. “Oh he is getting so good at that. Being grounded could make him some money.”
So does not being grounded he doesn’t say out loud. He’s having a brief flashback to Mikey’s freshman year of high school. Immediately the younger Way brother had found a lucrative niche in the party scene. From cigarettes to pot to ecstasy- Mikey swore up and down that he never touched the stuff, just that he’d made a killing selling it.
“I’m going out for coffee. Do you want anything?”
“If you see anything I like. Don’t be too long- I’m making waffles once the kitchen is cleaned up.” She hugs him. The static from her pink pajamas and stale smell of last night’s bar tending follow him out the door.
The world outside of Gerard’s front door has moved well into October without consulting him on the matter. Front yards are piled with fiery leaves. Storefronts are bedecked with shiny black garland and cutouts of witches and goblins. Oh, God, he does not like goblins.
He must be getting pretty comfortable with the Sight because this time he barely registers the barista’s antlers when he buys the coffee. The Faerie is hardly worth mentioning, really, outside of the magnificent coffee she makes. She does the same steps as everyone else who works there but somehow her caramel machiatos are just better.
The trip back down the block to his car is a pleasant one- the sunlight isn’t too harsh and the air is crisp enough that he can pretend it isn’t polluted. Until Frank steps out of the air and shoves Gerard into a doorway. He takes the coffee and sets it on the ground. Gerard’s still-sleepy mind goes from zero to panic in that second. Headlines about murders, muggings and rapes happening daily in broad daylight on crowded streets just like this one are bubbling up all over his brain and-
The goblin isn’t doing anything other than keeping his hands on Gerard’s shoulders. Even with his hood up and hair in his face, his eyes catch the light. It reminds Gerard of his nightmares and he stops being scared.
“Why’d you try to kill me?”
The second he says that Frank’s hand shifts down to Gerard’s chest, settling right over a small bruise and a faint, healed scratch that Gerard has done his very best not to think about this week.
“I didn’t want to,” Frank says, frowning, like he’s been interrupted “I still don’t. ...and I don’t think the element of surprise is the way to go with this.”
“Then-”
“I have to, but I can’t. It’s complicated.”
His stomach turns. Maybe his fear of getting killed in broad daylight isn’t so invalid. “Explain it. I’ve got time.”
Frank shakes his head. That one gesture hangs there in silence, final and taunting. A car passes. A gaggle of teenaged girls fall into a startled hush that breaks the second they’re three steps away from the doorway.
“Tell me, Frank.”
“Can you just... accept that I won’t kill you and move on?”
“You’ll keep trying, though.” Living with Mikey has made him very good at listening to the truth between words.
“I have no choice,” Frank replies, despairing.
“That doesn’t inspire much confidence, you’ve got to know that.”
Frank sighs, his breath coming out in a puff of fog. He breaks eye contact. His eyelashes almost touch his cheeks when he looks down. The darker shade of green-blue that creeps up his neck doesn’t register as a blush at first but Gerard almost announces it aloud when he figures it out. Frank is ashamed. Of course, he has a very good reason to be ashamed because attempted murder is a shameful thing! ... That doesn’t mean Gerard can get rid of the pity he feels for the Faerie.
A passing draft kicks up a whirl of dead leaves and dust that their doorway conducts perfectly. This close Gerard can see Frank shiver and break out in goosebumps.
“My trees need me,” Frank says before Gerard can articulate what he’s thinking.
“They won’t miss you that much. They’re trees. come on- my mom is making waffles.”
“You’re inviting someone who tries to kill you on a regular basis home for waffles- think about your decisions for a minute.”
“You said you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. Besides, they’re delightful waffles- think about your decisions.”
“That is true.” He finally takes his hands off of Gerard. “I can’t even let someone else do it.”
“What? Seriously? Couldn’t you have gotten someone who didn’t reek of old milk?”
“No, all the sirens I know were busy, sorry. I had to call in a family favor...” he sounds irritated, “Why else did you think he was so pissy when I showed up? It was a legitimate reason for me to step in, though- blinding you was not part of the contract.”
“You really have tried everything, haven’t you?”
“Not quite everything yet but either way Elena is displeased," Frank says quickly, like he can't control his mouth.
“How do you know my grandma? You need to tell me what this is about,” Gerard surprises himself with the authority in his voice.
“No. You have to work it out on your own. I mean, the whole not being able to kill you thing is evidence enough for me but I still can’t say anything. It’s up to you. You’ve got all of Elena’s books- do some reading.”
“Some reading!” Gerard is annoyed and about to storm off but then he has a minor epiphany. He pinches be bridge of his nose, unable to believe what he’s about to suggest. “... What about ... What if I found, oh, I don’t know, a study buddy? To help make sure I don’t get distracted.” He chews his lip.
“I really don’t know,” Frank starts slowly having caught on instantly,“of any humans who would be up to the task-”
“- you’ve got a point. There’s really no one better for studying magic and mystery than a Faerie-”
“- I invented magic and mystery, thank you very much-”
“Come here,” Gerard grabs Frank and leaves the coffee, “you’re coming over for breakfast.”
~~
Stepping into the house, the air shifts and feels heavier. Frank winks at him and that’s when he notices the dull shimmer that the goblin has taken on. If Gerard doesn’t look at him directly he looks entirely human. He’s even glamoured himself some clothes that aren’t full of holes. To anyone without the Sight the effect is the opposite- it’s only when they look out of the corner of their eye that they see the goblin.
“You go out for coffee and bring home company. I’m not even properly dressed.” Donna’s tone doesn’t match her words. She stands in front of the waffle iron smiling and humming to herself. On the counter beside it is a steadily growing pile of waffles.
“Mom, this is-”
“Tony,” Frank says with a charming smile, stepping past Gerard and offering his hand, “it’s nice to meet you, ma’am. Gerard talked a lot about his family at school.”
As far as Gerard can tell Frank hasn’t lied. He hasn’t actually claimed that “Tony” is his real name. Nor does he seem displeased to be talking to Donna. The myth about Faeries being unable to lie seems to hold water... How does he know that Gerard talked about his family at SVA?
“Call me Donna, please.”
“Yes, ma’am. You must be Mikey,” Frank turns his grin to the table where Gerard’s brother sits.
Mikey says nothing, does nothing to acknowledge Frank’s presence in his home. Gerard has to sit by him at breakfast, though. While the glamoured goblin is chatting up Donna about soap operas, the strength of the emotion rolling off of Mikey almost makes Gerard sick. He never thought it was possible for Mikey to be this angry. It goes deeper than anger, though, but it’s not a feeling he can put his finger on and he’s glad to retreat to the basement with Frank once their plates are cleaned off. So far as Donna knows Mikey is an antisocial brat and Gerard is going to have a vigorous videogame marathon with a friend from SVA. Oh, what Gerard would give to swap places with his mother.
~~
By the evening, the basement smells like book dust. Gerard has taken on his reading endeavor seriously from the first box of books they’d opened. He’s cleared out a space on the floor for piles of useful books, interesting books and useless or illegible books. Frank sprawls on Gerard’s bed. He’s supposed to be supervising but he’s far more interested in playing Snake on an ancient cell phone that has appeared seemingly from nowhere.
“What exactly am I looking for?” Sure, he’s interested in the mythological histories of Ireland and Scotland but it doesn’t seem to be relevant to anything and the archaic wording is giving him a headache.
“Not the Ulster Cycle, that’s for sure,” Frank reaches down and plucks the book out of his hands. “Try this one- it looks more promising.” This book is falling out of it’s leather binding. It’s a journal.
“I can’t read someone’s journal.”
“It’s, like, fifty years old. You won’t be hurting anything,” Frank coaxes.
“Yeah, but it’s private.” He peeks inside the front cover. “And it’s Elena’s!”
“There’s a reason she left it in her books, Gerard.”
Gerard makes a scandalized noise. “So? I won’t read her journal. That’s wrong- she’s my grandmother.”
“Do you want to figure out what’s going on or don’t you?”
“Who’s making you try to kill me? It’s a woman. I remember that much from when you were talking to my grandma- how do you even know her? Ignore that last question.” Gerard is not going to be the first one to break the staring contest they’re having. He needs answers.
“Don’t change the subject like that,” Frank puts the phone aside, “it isn’t fair.”
“Don’t dodge the question. You can’t tell me why but you must be able to tell me who.Quit wasting my time.”
“No, I’m not. It’s against the damn rules.” Frank groans dramatically, half hanging off the edge of the bed, the ends of his wings splayed on the floor. “It is way harder to bend the truth than you humans appreciate. Have you ever even tried to say something without saying it? Do you understand the mental acrobatics that go into it?”
“Quit dodging. Say it. I demand that you tell me,” he puts on an authoritarian tone, not expecting to get a useful reply.
“Oh fuck you, pulling the official order card like that.” Frank’s hands knot in his hair. He closes his eyes and stays like that until Gerard wonders whether he’s passed out due to the blood rushing into his head. “You boss wouldn’t like that,” he whispers, eyebrows drawn in like he’s in pain.
“Who gives a fuck about-” He stops himself. “No way.”
“Have you been inside that bitch’s office?”
“Hey, Clara is-”
“A bitch,” Frank insists, “Trust me, dude, I’ve known her way longer. You don’t even know her real name.”
“No way.”
His eyes snap open and he points at Gerard, “Don’t start this outright denial shit- I have no patience for it.”
“Why?”
“She eats people. There are more reasons than that for her wanting you dead but, essentially, that’s it. I’m, like, her zookeeper. Regular feedings and all that.”
“For how long?”
“A long, long time,” he replies, and the years show in his eyes.
Gerard feels his eyes go wide. “… The kids they found in the park-“
“Yeah, but I’ve been unable to kill you or anyone in your family for decades longer, if that helps.”
Gerard pouts. “It doesn’t.”
“It’s the best I can do. I’m pretty sure that this is going to make me sick anyway.”
“Sick?”
“If I try to lie or if I break a promise it makes me sick. Violently so,” Frank says, looking pale already, “Sometimes it’s respiratory, other times it’s only a fever or sores. We’re meant to be truthful and loyal, which is why it’s fucking impossible for us to guarantee anyone anything.”
“All the stories about farmers getting screwed out of treasure-”
“Exactly.”
“That’s ironic.”
Frank slides off the bed and sits beside Gerard, their shoulders touching. “Aren’t you going to ask why I can’t kill you?”
“If I do, will you tell me?”
“No.”
“That answers your question, then.”
“He can be taught,” Frank says triumphantly. He leans close across Gerard, his wings brushing velvety soft against the underside of Gerard’s jaw. “Here,” he says when he sits back up, “try this one.”
This book is a much more modern. The cover has a castle on it. It still has a sheen to it and the spine snaps like it hasn’t been opened before.
“Organization of Medieval Fiefdoms,” Gerard snorts, “It sounds fascinating.”
“Oh, it’s as dry as dust,” Frank assures him, laying his head on Gerard’s shoulder and flipping past a few chapters. “It’s useful, though. Read the bit on military conquests and how land got divided up after that.”
It’s harder than it should be to focus with Frank this close. The goblin might as well be laying on him, his wings stretched out of the way and legs falling against Gerard’s like they are. Curled slightly into himself as he is, though, Frank doesn’t seem to be bothered by it. He’s much more fascinated with the outdated brick of a cell phone in his hands.
Introduction to the Feudal System is the first heading. Gerard drops his head against Frank’s with an irritated sigh. Land equates to power. That’s all that feudalism means. How in the hell could there be a whole book on it?
“After you read that there’s an article in one of the older dictionaries that you might want to look at. I promise it’s more interesting. It’s got to do with, like, getting to Otherworld if I remember properly.” He reaches out with his foot and knocks over a stack to slide the dictionary in question closer.
“Lazy.”
Frank sits up a little. There are still far too many points of contact between them for Gerard’s liking. “Says the college drop out.”
“Hey, I had a good reason.” He gives Frank a look that he hopes reads as “watch yourself”.
“No reason is good enough to give up on something you love,” Frank says. He’s leaning too close again with his forehead resting against Gerard’s neck. His tone keeps Gerard from snapping at him. He isn’t really arguing so much as- caring? Trying to give advice? The warm way that Frank’s breath ghosts over his throat goes a long way to distract Gerard from being defensive.
He glances up at his prized poster from Indiana Jones. Posters are nice- they don’t cast judgement. “I just... couldn’t create anything any more, Frank. You don’t understand.”
“Maybe you should have gotten a new roommate. I have a feeling that the one you had was probably jealous. Jealousy makes people do stupid things.”
He rolls his eyes. “Like physics? There wasn’t a creative bone in James’s body.”
“Like feed off of the creativity of others by warping labradorite to kill inspiration instead of draw it. Did you ever look under your bed? There was probably a good-sized chunk of it sitting there in a bowl of toad entrails.”
He rolls his eyes. “I was cursed. Of course I was. That’s... disgusting.”
It also explained the smell- it’s nice to know it wasn’t just his squalor- and how he’s been getting back to drawing lately, albeit slowly and in short bursts. The curse must be wearing off like a lingering sickness- he’ll be rid of it eventually. That’s good to know. It hums a giddy tune in his veins.
“You’re telling me. The really unlucky thing about being part goblin: the school lessons. I will forever wish I could forget most of the magic they taught me.”
“Was it all gruesome?”
“No,” Frank says with a slight shake of his head, “That doesn’t mean I enjoyed it. Corporeal punishment wasn’t banned, especially where social anomalies were concerned. I’m a breathing contradiction- Sidhe and goblin. They aren’t supposed to mix so well. You’d think there would be some fundamental genetic difference there that’d keep the likes of me from being conceived but... I suppose not.”
“That’s not such a bad thing, I think.”
Frank looks up at him with his eyebrows raised in curiosity, like he genuinely doesn’t understand how it could be a good that he was born. Gerard has a split second to change his mind and he doesn’t take it. He dips his head so that his lips brush gently against Frank’s. The second he does it his brain catches up which makes his stomach start doing anxious flips. He lets go of the book and cups Frank’s cheek to keep his hands from shaking.
Kissing a goblin- now that he’s willing to pay attention to it, it isn’t quite what he expected. Inhumanly warm and soft lips. Behind them, jagged teeth that are too much fun not to run his tongue over. No lacking enthusiasm on either side.
Frank chuckles into Gerard’s mouth and reaches up to run his hands through Gerard’s hair. The laugh makes Gerard pull away so he can giggle, too, because the attack of nerves is dissolving into giddiness. Frank slides his mouth away and down Gerard’s neck, pausing here and there to suck on the skin.
The light vibration against his side isn’t noteworthy until it keeps up and makes Frank detach his mouth from Gerard’s throat. The source- that old cell- gets tossed over the goblin’s shoulder to fend for itself in the wilds of the basement floor. Frank leaves a line of half-kisses up Gerard’s jaw and buries his face in the human’s hair.
“Hey, Gerard?”
He hums in response, busying his hands with pulling Frank onto his lap. Frank giggles, letting himself be moved.
“Gerard,” he says again in a sing-songy tone that ends in a little gasp. Gerard has discovered that there’s a scorpion tattooed on high Frank’s neck and he’s intent on showing the goblin just how much he approves of it.
“Yes?”
“Wanna go out? There’s this- this party that I’m supposed to be at,” his fingers dance through Gerard’s hair, making new knots and snarls at the lightest touch, “and you should really come with me.”
A party is not very high on Gerard’s list of things he’d like to do. Unless, of course, said party involves no more walking that what it takes to get on his bed, losing a whole lot of clothing and the privilege of drawing on the little uninked skin that Frank has left in the afterglow.
Frank must be able to hear him thinking that because he makes a small, needy sound and nips at Gerard’s earlobe. “Please? It’ll be really quick,” he promises, “just need to be there long enough to be seen. Then we can make our escape and come back here and…” The not-coy chuckle at the end of that sentence does its job.
Gerard, a tragic victim of his nonexistent sex life, can’t agree fast enough and he ends up regretting it.
~~
Seedy parts of town always make him nervous. He doesn’t appreciate being drug through them at ten o’clock at night in the cold, either. He wishes sorely that he had been willing to be seen in the skull sweater, but parties at chic clubs aren’t coffee runs.
“Thin Iron Maiden shirts aren’t sweaters, either,” he mutters where Frank can’t hear him, wrapping his arms around his middle. How Frank handles running around like a Dickensonian orphan he can’t even guess.
Gerard’s car is a block behind them and they’re headed into a gratified and surprisingly well-lit alley.
The expectation he has is one of beats, black lights, and glitter. Of heated bodies that smell like perfume and liquor and sweat. The plan is simple- let Frank get his face time while trolling around the bar. Once whatever strange social requirements have been met he’s going to take Frank straight back home, no detours, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Gerard decides to implement this plan as soon as they get inside.
Clearly, Frank’s been here before because he strides past the long line in the alley with Gerard in tow. The backs of the bouncer’s hands and head are covered in hedgehog spikes. He exchanges a few words with Frank- this foreign language thing is getting very old, if anyone asks Gerard, which they don’t- and let’s them in without further ado or cover charge.
A distinct lack of homo sapiens in the club is the first thing that Gerard picks up on. Everything breathing in the club is a Faerie. Wings, tails, tentacles, fur, shells, talons and hooves. Even the most human-looking are freakishly beautiful and tall without any real color to their complexions. They’re so beautiful that Gerard wants to just look at them forever…
Which makes him notice they they’re all looking at him. There’s no outright staring but every eye meets up with his while Frank leads him along by the elbow. Each step has him less and less enthused.
Frank comes to a stop, suddenly, to lean up and kiss Gerard’s cheek. “Just be patient.” The breath against Gerard’s ear feels like a whisper but he still hears Frank perfectly. The goblin pulls sharply away and slips away into the crowd.
Then, just as quick, a blond that Gerard doesn’t quite believe he’s seeing sidles up to him. “Hey, wanna dance?” James smiles at him, standing too close for comfort.
The urge to ask him about SVA gossip and rumors of professors hitting on students dies when instinct screams at him to back the fuck up right the fuck now because touching James will not end well. The pale strands of hair that hang in the man’s face remind Gerard of a box jellyfish’s tentacles- poisonous, pretty and barely visible. It’s an absurd idea but he can’t make it stop.
“How’ve you been Gerard? Still drawing?”
He swallows to get some moisture into his throat but it doesn’t really work. “I’ve been great,” he says. He steps into the lie like his favorite pair of jeans. “I’m looking into getting an agent, actually. I think I’m about ready to start doing shows. I’ve already taken a few commissions.”
“Oh you always were a prodigy,” James sneers at the half-truth. He comes even closer and Gerard backs up another step.
Before he knows it he’s been herded into the middle of the room and the music has stopped. The lights are still going. James is grinning and the Faeries are watching like Gerard is some titillating masterpiece.
“That’s quite enough, James.” A girl in French-braided pigtails says.
James doesn’t back off but he stops moving.
Behind the girl- shouldn’t middle-schoolers be in bed this time of night?- is Clara in her business-casual best. She’s got hooves. Of course she does because she’s a Faerie- how else would Frank know her? Beside her Frank is staring down at his toes. Gerard can see a slice of his neck and his ears and they’re burning that dark shade of green that means humiliation. His eyes go back to the girl. The dainty circlet that dips in line with her widow’s peak isn’t fake- queens don’t do fake jewelry, he thinks.
His lips go icy cold and that means he’s as white as a sheet. Betrayal, fear and anger turn everything a gross shade of yellow with black spotting the edges.
“It’s nice to meet you, Gerard,” the queen says again, “I’ve heard quite a bit about you and I’d like to welcome you personally to the Unseelie Court, however short your time with us will be.”
He’s not going to vomit on his shoes. He isn’t. A trickle of cold sweat goes down the middle of his back.
“I have a proposition for you and I want you to understand,” she continues with a smile, “that you will die no matter what decision you choose to make. You have no reason not to do what I ask of you.”
Gerard gapes at her, hands trembling.
“Now, as I understand it, you are in possession of some land which is of no importance to yourself but it is of great strategic importance to me. You’re going to take this lovely knife here, give just a little of your blood and hair, then repeat what I tell you. That will clear up this whole mess and you can die knowing that your property is under my protection and you’ve done right. Do you understand?”
The Unseelie Queen moves to stand in front of him and she is beautiful in the way all Faeries are but she’s better. Every inch pale and regal. Her black eyes tell him she feels nothing, not for him. He’s below her and to be glanced at- much less spoken to- is a high honor. He should be on his knees, groveling for some form of mercy, grateful for being allowed to breathe the same air. Gerard loves her. If he never sees her again, he has glimpsed heaven in her face. He can’t ever look at anything again and see anything but ugliness. She is his queen and there is nothing else. He will do anything-
The sharp smell of overripe sloes clears Gerard’s head of the glamour. Frank is staring over at him, his eyes panicked and black. Gerard’s got no idea what the queen is talking about but Frank does. Frank obviously does. Land? Since when? Maybe she means Frank’s trees? There’s a whisper of understanding, like wind through dead branches, that chases the numbness out of his face and fingertips.
It takes a couple of tries to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “I’m- I’m going to die regardless of what I do.”
“Yes, Gerard. Clara has decided that she requires your blood to keep her going for this year. I’m not about to interfere with my general’s dietary needs.”
He has a flashback to having blood drawn for medical records before he went off to college. The sick feeling from that fear is so normal that he hangs onto it. “Then, no. I’m not getting anything out of this. I might as well irritate the fuck out of you in the meantime.”
“I don’t think you understand me, boy,” she looms, somehow intimidating in her sun dress, “you do not want to deny me anything. I’m getting my way regardless of what you say- however, things will be much easier for you if you simply agree.”
“Fuck easy. That’s Elena’s, not yours,” he says it as it pops into his head. He doesn’t stop to think how Elena is involved- he doesn’t want to know. He just needs to get out of here, go home and sleep. He’ll probably buy a gun first thing tomorrow-
She scoffs. It’s a barking, mocking sound. “What’s the quote? From that nonsensical wizard? Oh, yes,” she pats Gerard’s cheek, “I gave you the chance of aiding me willingly-
- but you have elected the way of pain” the line finishes in Gerard’s head but he doesn’t hear her say it.
James has his hand on the back of Gerard’s neck and Gerard wishes it’d snap. His skin is burning but it goes deeper than that. Straight pins lodge themselves into his vertebrae and start picking out the discs in between. That’s what must be happening because nothing else can hurt this badly.
He guesses he screams. He knows, in some distant way, that he collapses. James follows him down to the greasy floor, perching on top of him. Clothes don’t dampen anything.
Now his torso is on fire- he can smell the skin bubbling and boiling off. Where James’s calves are pressed against his thighs the muscle is being sliced off the bone again, and again. A hand settles on his chest and the air flies from his lungs, a pneumonia-like ache that morphs into a boulder on his rib cage.
His eyes hurt and bruise from how hard they’re rolling into the back of his head. He’s definitely screaming. He listens to his bones cracking and tastes blood in his mouth-
“You’re killing him,” Frank says, shocked and cutting through to that deep place where Gerard is still aware of his surroundings.
“Of course. Clara needs his blood, not his life. There are ways around getting a treeherd’s consent.”
“Don’t you know who I am?” Frank is comically indignant, “Tell me all of you Sidhe aren’t this stupid-”
- James shifts again, probably because a writhing body isn’t the most comfortable thing to straddle, and the hell shifts with him. Gerard now knows exactly where his liver is because it’s being ripped to shreds inside his body. He vomits and chokes. His abdominal muscles seize.
Then it stops.
No weight, no fire, no knives, no poison.
There’s a light pressure inside of his ears. It’s a special kind of ringing deafness that comes only after spending too many hours next to a speaker at full volume. The dark feels like he’s floating. It feels kind of like glamour except he really doesn't mind it because it doesn’t hurt or feel like he’s being manipulated. Cushions line his body from the inside out and he wants to stay feeling comfortable like this.
There’s nothing.
No James, no school, no pain, no time at all.
A jarring shove.
Flashing, colorful lights.
“Move it motherfucker! I can’t keep time stopped like this- not my area!”
Gerard is on his feet and being pushed forward. That’ll bruise. He stumbles on trembling legs, goes down on his knees. He’s uninjured but pain drains the body. A giant leech on his heart. He could sleep for a thousand years-
“If you don’t keep the fuck up you’ll be sleeping like the dead,” Frank snarls at him, manhandling him by the collar of his shirt.
They’re running and they’re being followed. Out of the corner of his eye he spots projectiles. They round a corner just in time for an arrow to get stuck in the wall by his head. This is great.
The club isn’t so much a club as a glamoured castle and Frank knows where he’s going. Gerard hopes Frank knows where he’s going. If they get lost... he can’t handle that. His bones are too weak to hold together long enough to backtrack.
He bangs into sconces and walls. Metal decorations take pieces of skin out of his arm. Real pain like this wakes him up. The sting and steady throb-stab from moving his arm while he runs. It doesn’t matter that he’s out of shape and having a hard time breathing because if he stops running there’s a horde of Faeries that wants him dead and he can’t let that happen.
No way, no how is he going to let that happen, however tempting giving up may be.
Frank shoves him around another sharp corner, into a room. In three seconds Frank has the door locked and barred with a heavy-looking table. He pushes Gerard towards the other side of the room and the staircase waiting there. “That leads straight to a door. Go through it and it’ll get you back to your world.”
“We’re in Faerieland?” Gerard feels dizzy again. This lull has him confused.
“We’ve been in Otherworld since we left your house. It was a bitch to keep you from noticing. Now go, okay? If you die, I die, and that shit ain’t cool.” Frank pushes him into the stairs.
“I’m not leaving without you!”
“The last time I checked, you don’t do magic. You don’t even have enough Faerie in your blood to give you the Sight- I had to huff fuckin’ pesticides so you could get it from me. You go and keep yourself alive and I hold off the people who want to eat you. That’s how this works, Gerard. It’s my job.”
That opens up a whole battery of questions but now really isn’t the time or the place. He does his best to commit each one to memory for an interrogation at a later date. “Come with me.”
Frank has gone back to the door. He’s got the pocketknife that’s responsible for everything out and he’s gashing little symbols into the frame. “Don’t make me use magic on you, asshole. I need to save it for the guards and James. You could have mentioned that he’s your ex-roommate. I could have prepared for this.”
“Well maybe if you’d told me there was something to be prepared for I’d have told you!”
Something runs into the door for the second time. Whatever yelling is happening is unintelligible through the wood. Frank mutters while he works on the doorframe. When Gerard’s hand lands on his shoulder he whips around and snaps his teeth.
“Rith, leathcheann,” he growls, planting his hand against Gerard’s sternum and sending him reeling backwards. “Don’t make this a waste of my time.”
Gerard wants to get up and push him back then drag the goblin out of this crazy place so they can go back to pretending that life is a somewhat stable thing.
He manages the getting up part. His legs aren’t acting on his orders when he starts for the stairs, taking them two at a time. Behind him there’s a massive sound that by all rights should knock him over. Six inches of solid wood shattered. Again with the yelling and he knows Frank is back there, fending for himself, protecting Gerard for some absurd sense of duty or whatever his damage is.
Cold lodges itself up and in where his neck and left shoulder meet. He pitches forward. It startles him enough to make him forget to breathe but it doesn’t hurt until he slams into the door at the top of the stairs instead of opening it. That makes the muscle feel ripped and jammed tight. He fumbles with the glass doorknob, lightheaded. He slams it on the footsteps climbing behind him without looking back.
His shoulder burns. He’s bleeding, hot down his back. When he tries to crane his neck to look at whatever’s stuck there- he has a sickening feeling it’s medieval weaponry- pain laces all the way into the back of his head and down his arm. He really wouldn’t mind if the hurting thing would quit. He’s tired of it.
A cursory glance tells him he’s in the park. How convenient. There are no doors or Faeries or goblins in sight. It’s a freezing night in late October and the street lamp is flickering, telling him in Morse code that it’s time to go home in case the monsters came out.
He collapses onto the slide. The chill of the metal feels nice on the burning that’s started to creep over his entire body. He can’t get his back against it because of whatever’s stuck in his back- damn it, it hurts- but he lays down, twisted on his side, feet still braced against the ground.
The fever in his cheeks warms the slide up. Sweat and blood tickle their way down his back. This has been an exhausting night. Every inch of his body has stopped cooperating. It’s hard enough to remember to inhale and exhale with his head spinning like this.
His car’s stuck in Otherworld. He’ll just stay here and rest for a little bit to get his strength back because he’s got to walk home.
Gerard shivers. He wants his sweater.
Part Five