Gerard Way's (Vampire) Detective Agency, Part 1
Title: Gerard Way's (Vampire) Detective Agency
Band(s): My Chem, Panic, Pete, and general ensemble
Pairing(s): Frank/Gerard, implied Pete/Mikey
Word Count: ~43k
Rating/Warnings: Adult, character undeath
Author's note: Written for the amazing bandombigbang. Thanks to phineasjones and ataratah for beta.
Summary: Pete, in Decaydance Mansion, with a yarrow stake. Frank and Gerard, in the greenhouse, with a plant of questionable origin. Bob, everywhere you look, with a gang of assassins for justice. Vampires, valets, pamphlets, haunted furniture, dub-thrall, disembodied voices, zombie couriers, and sinister rituals.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Bonus Tracks/Enhanced Content
Fanart:
Would you like me to draw you a bath? by poseys_demise
Fanmixes:
You're Better Off Dead! by civilbloodshed
The Art of Service by by spuzz
The sign on the door reads, “Thank you for visiting Gerard Way's Vampire Detective Agency. If calling after daylight hours, please speak with Mr. Iero upon arriving. If calling during the day, please come back at night.”
The first thing Frank thinks is that the grandfather clock is not supposed to be moving like that, kind of ambling along down the hallway and, if Frank wasn’t misunderstanding the twisted glass front, trying to be inconspicuous about it. The second thing he thinks is that the grandfather clock is not supposed to be moving at all, and then everything is full of chimes like it is high noon and Gerard is urgently waving him down the hallway as the grandfather clock shudders, crouches down, and takes flight. It is quite deft at navigating the third floor of the mansion, which had been used to store furniture that was not currently in use. Most of the larger pieces are draped with sheets, and that is where Gerard beckons him, to hide with him under what Frank belatedly realizes is an alarmingly small tea table. Frank pulls his knees close up to his chest so his toes don’t peek out from under the sheet, but it brings his side flush up against Gerard, who is using a pair of binoculars to try to locate something through the fabric of the sheet.
“I think it’s gone downstairs,” Gerard says, lowering the binoculars and blinking as his eyes refocus on Frank. “I’m sorry, Frank, haunted clocks aren’t usually this mobile. This makes the case so much clearer now,” Gerard says, a note of triumph creeping into his voice. “The clock may be haunted, but the piano is most certainly possessed.”
“Isn’t it going to be able to find us?” Frank whispers, as the clock chimes out the quarter hour and then the half hour a moment later. “The clock knew the moment we arrived.”
“Oh, I’m much more worried about the piano,” Gerard says, and the moment Gerard says it, Frank can hear the distant tinkling of out of tune piano keys between the clock chimes.
Frank imagines an airborne piano splintering the tea table to kindling.
Gerard’s hand brushes Frank’s, though Frank puts it down to the very limited amount of movement afforded them. “Do you think you can get us both over the stair rail?” Frank nods, and Gerard’s fingers brush over Frank’s hand again, just for a moment before Gerard says, “On my count - one, two -”
The three was unspoken as Frank grabs Gerard’s shoulders and leaps, guiding them both, a little gracelessly, onto the landing, where they run for the door. Gerard stands, for an impossible moment, in the open doorway, his arms flung wide, a grand piano soaring straight for him. Frank doesn’t think it will fit through the door, but enough of it would survive the crash to impale Gerard. Frank is not about to argue Gerard’s methods during a case, but it was most certainly his duty to make sure Gerard did not die by provoking a possessed piano, no matter how much the solution to the Salpeter case rested on proving the malicious intent of the instrument. Just as Frank is about to run at Gerard and catch him around the middle to knock him out of the doorway, the soaring piano stops, hovers, and sets itself down in the foyer as though it had entertained many concerts in that exact spot.
“I knew it!” Gerard says with relish. He steps cautiously into the foyer, Frank a step behind him, and plays a scale with a flourish. “Possessed or not, the fact that the piano - ”
“Sir!” Frank shouts, knocking Gerard onto the floor just as the grandfather clock sweeps by and smashes itself to pieces against the opposite wall. Frank promptly takes out a handkerchief and begins to wipe away debris from Gerard’s face and shoulders.
“Thank you, Frank,” Gerard says.
“Not at all, Gerar - Mr. Wa - sir,” Frank stutters. The lifesaving part of the job came pretty easily, but the manners, oh, the manners were hell.
Being a valet for Gerard Way, the famous midnighter detective, Frank reflects, is not really as easy as Gerard had made it sound when he offered him the job. Frank had just been a messenger then, and the Way Mansion hadn’t even been on his route, but it was the full moon and they were short-staffed, and Frank didn’t actually expect to meet the detective himself.
“You’re a very nice zombie, but it's just not working out.” Frank heard the voice shouting as he came in the main door, which had been left ajar. “You're simply not active enough, and while I appreciate your efforts at service, I just need someone whose midnighter range is a little wider. I'm not saying all zombies are inappropriate for service positions, but it depends entirely on the manner of death and resurrection and you're just a little too. . . slow.” The zombie had groaned. Drool, or possibly brains, had leaked out of its mouth. A short man with a stern expression had escorted the zombie out. Frank had tried to get Gerard's attention, but he was covering his eyes with what seemed to be a tea towel. “Brian, I feel so terrible about firing him, but he took, like, half an hour to hand me a folder, and I'm not really sure his zombie master re-taught him the alphabet very well, because his filing was atrocious.”
“Uh,” Frank said, holding out a letter. “Delivery from Pencey Prep.”
“Oh,” Gerard said, looking up to realize that he wasn’t talking to who he expected, “Oh, thank god you’re here. I was sure they'd tell me they didn't have anyone to spare, but I think they're just afraid I'll steal away their best servants. Now, come on, tell me about yourself, what your preferred rates are, what your preferred midnighter schedule is, whether or not you're allergic to coriander.”
“There are midnighter creatures allergic to coriander?”
“Not really, but I am, and I’d feel less alone if I found someone else who has a spice allergy.”
“I just brought this letter,” Frank finally managed to say through his boggled state. “I think they're probably telling you they're short staffed, it's what I've been delivering all day.”
Gerard frowned at him. “So they didn't send you as a replacement valet?”
“Uh, no,” Frank said. Gerard looked quite heartbroken.
“Why not?”
Frank was not sure what that really meant, but he finally said, “I'm not a valet.”
Gerard eyed him keenly. “Well, I'm sure you could learn if you wanted the job.”
They had an accidental staring match because Frank wasn’t really sure how he was being bullied into taking a position he was barely qualified for with one of the most prestigious households in town.
“Uh,” Frank said, and then, because there was no real other answer, “ok.”
Gerard's face lit up. “I'll write back to Pencey, and look in the file drawer, there, there's a paper with the salary and vacation.”
Frank opened the file drawer but found instead a giant mummified spider. “Ugggggggh,” Frank said. He offered it emphatically to Gerard.
“Oh my god, that zombie really couldn’t file,” Gerard said, examining the spider. “Mummified spiders go under “s” for spider, not “u” or “uggggggh.”
Frank found two more mummified spiders before he discovered the file with salary and vacation. He stared at it a long time.
“Is the vacation not enough?” Gerard asked anxiously. “The salary has to be better than Pencey's paying you, since I know they have to get by trying not to pay you, despite what their charter says. And I can't really give you more vacation since it'll become abundantly clear that I need a valet for pretty much everything, every moment of the day. The midnighter detective business is busy and I'm not always the most not-forgetful person. But you know the hours are all evening, I sometimes have to take cases during the day but you are never required to come with me if there's a risk of sunlight. You can have rooms here, and the house is sunlight-proofed, 10 degrees beyond the Wentzian index.”
“It's just,” Frank said and stopped because Gerard looks really, really concerned. “This is a really good job. You don't even know if I can make up a bed.”
“Oh, I'm sure you can,” Gerard said evenly, but there was something warm in his voice and Frank flustered. “Here, take this back to Pencey,” Gerard said, handing him a letter, “and pack up your stuff and have them deliver it express, an hour before dawn. Brian will have to interview you later.”
Frank suddenly understood that Brian was the stern-looking man who had escorted the zombie out. Which meant it had to be Brian Schechter - the Brian Schechter - the sorcerer.
Gerard must have seen that Frank looked nervous and so he said, “Oh, don't worry, he's just very protective, and I think he gets a weird sort of glee out of following the Hiring Code of Non-Human Personnel. He likes codes.”
Frank was not certain that was at all reassuring. “So I guess I’ll be back in an hour,” Frank said, thinking he didn’t have all that much stuff to pack up.
“Hey,” Gerard said when Frank turned to leave, “What's your name?”
“Frank,” he said, and Gerard beamed.
“See you soon, Frank,” Gerard said, and put the tea towel back over his face.
Cleaning up at Pencey didn't take very long, and no one was really that surprised that Frank was leaving, until he told them where he was going and everyone sort of stared at him. He went back to his apartment where Dewees had broken in again and was lying, shirtless, across the kitchen floor. Frank had known Dewees years before he was brought back as a zombie, and he broke into Frank’s apartment and crashed randomly on his floor just as often reanimated as he had when he had been alive. “'M tired, man,” Dewees said and Frank walked past and nudged him with his foot. “You're not supposed to be back until dawn.”
“This is my apartment, bitch, I can come in whenever I want.” He hesitated, because he almost didn’t want to tell Dewees the news until it was real, until he'd passed the sorcerer’s interrogation, but he couldn't help it. “Actually, you can stay here, if you can pay the rent,” Frank said. Dewees opened his eyes and looked up at him from the floor.
“Oh my god, Frankie, you're not talking a Long Sunlit Walk are you? Step away from the light!”
“That would be a lot more convincing,” Frank said, “If you could get your ass off my floor. And no, I'm not suiciding, I have a new job.”
“That gives you room and board?”
Frank nodded.
“Did you sell your body again?”
“Fuck you, and that was not what happened that time. I'm a valet.”
Dewees was struck silent. “How in the world did you - you don't even know how to - ”Frank nodded as Dewees struggled to find the words. “Whose valet?”
“Gerard Way.”
Dewees sat up so hard he hit his head on the table and his eye popped out.
“Put that shit away,” Frank said, as Dewees reached for his eye and popped it back in.
“Valet for the greatest detective of our time?” Dewees asked, incredulous. Frank explained how he was delivering the letter just as Gerard's valet was being relieved of duty. “Are you sure you didn't make a deal with a shaman or something, Frankie? That's good luck right there.”
Frank just shrugged. “I need to be there before sun-up.”
“Do you have a suit?” Dewees asked, knowing the answer before he asked the question, and Frank frowned. “You at least have a shirt with a collar, right? Jamia never bought you a shirt with a collar? Oh, you left them all behind, didn’t you.” Frank shook his head and Dewees looked him up and down and scowled. “You can borrow one of mine.”
“I’m not going there smelling like a zombie.”
“That insult is in violation of the Clan Code for Creature Stereotyping. I keep my clothes very clean, and a little bit of lemon and vinegar goes a long way to keeping me fresh.”
“Keep that information to yourself,” Frank said, but Dewees was already crawling back out the window, heading for his place.
“I’ll be back in five minutes,” Dewees had said. “And you’re wearing a tie.”
“You don’t have to go out the window,” Frank said, but Dewees just slid out and down the back of the building.
“You’ll look cute in a tie, Frankie,” he shouted. “My boy, working for the famous detective! In a tie!”
Live in an area with a high zombie population? Remember to keep ham on hand.
Most zombies are not dangerous, and can be welcome additions to your neighborhood. Sometimes, though, zombies are not properly cared for by their zombie masters and get lost and confused. If you interact with a zombie who does not appear to be acting rationally, cannot speak even when you command it to, appears to be repeatedly walking into things, or is exhibiting any aggressive behavior, offer the zombie some ham. Ham has been found to be a universal zombie sedative, and in 90% percent of the cases where there was a sub-normal zombie incident, ham was found to stop the zombie from continuing in its unwanted behavior. (In 9 percent of cases where ham was refused, tofu was the most successfully accepted brain-replacement food item.)
Attached please find a coupon that can be used at your local deli.
“Good morning, Mr. Way. Here’s your coffee.” Frank almost stumbles over the greeting, since his days usually begins with “Good evening, here’s your coffee.”
“It’s late, Frank, shouldn’t you be in your coffin?” Gerard says, squinting at Frank with that unique look of concern mixed with an attempt to seem authoritative. Gerard had spent all night writing up his notes on the culpability and destruction of the Salpeters’ grandfather clock, insisting he get all the details recorded before he went out on this morning’s appointment, and Frank had stayed up to help, even though it was ridiculous to think that Frank would remember some detail that Gerard’s sharp mind would forget.
“I’m perfectly fine for a few hours, sir,” Frank says, though he tries and fails to stifle a yawn in his sleeve. “You have a case this morning. I thought you would need your coffee.” Frank watches Gerard’s reflection in the mirror of Gerard’s dressing table, where Gerard is repeatedly brushing his hair away from his forehead. It’s taken him some time to get used to the fact that he can’t see his own reflection even though he’s standing just behind Gerard. It made getting his tie on straight a real bitch the first couple of weeks.
“Indeed, I most certainly do,” Gerard says gratefully. “It’s easy to forget that the people who prefer to do business during sunlight hours expect the same quality of service from me, with or without my valet.”
“Mr. Vaughn Stump did say he required secrecy, so perhaps he insisted on the daylight meeting on purpose?”
“Oh, I’m sure of it,” Gerard says. “The coffee’s delicious,” Gerard adds, taking a long, luxurious sip.
“Thank you, sir,” Frank says, not actually trying to hide his smile even though he knows a valet isn’t supposed to be proud of making his master excellent coffee. Frank has a hard time choosing humility over pride.
“If I’m driving you, we should get going,” a disembodied voice declares. “I don’t want to get caught up in the market traffic.”
“I really wish he could just walk over here, instead of magically shouting,” Gerard says and Frank nods his agreement. “Talking without your body is rude, Brian,” Gerard shouts in return.
“Hurry up,” is all the voice responds.
When Frank met Brian Schechter for his job interview, all that Frank knew about him was that he was rumored to be an extremely powerful sorcerer, and that he’d worked for the Way family for as long as anyone could remember.
“I need to ask you a few questions before we can officially hire you,” Brian had said, polite but rigid. “Though let's be clear about one thing, I may be just the formality as far as Gerard is concerned, but I am here to make sure nothing happens to him. So, fill out this sheet and let me know when you’re ready.”
All Frank saw was a short, muscley guy with lots of tattoos and some very effectively narrowed eyes. If Schechter was as powerful a magician as they said, then he was good at hiding it. Usually magicians broadcast from miles away, at least to other midnighters. Schechter read to Frank like he shouldn’t let the guy get too close to his wallet, not that Schechter could bring down the house if he thought hard enough. Frank wondered if it was something in between, or whether Schechter was just excellent at deception. The tattoos, though, were probably totally magical.
“Are you a class 1, class 2, class 3, unknown class, or something this code does not yet define,” Schechter read from a stack of papers in an even voice. He looked up at Frank, who realized he was staring at him open-mouthed, and added, “If at any point you feel these questions unfairly target you as a midnighter - ”
“No, no, it's ok,” Frank said. “It's just that no one has ever read the Hiring Code to me. Usually they just assume, or it doesn't really matter. Pencey didn't care if I was turned voluntarily or not, as long as I had my Clandestine certification, that's all that mattered.”
Schechter kind of frowned and so Frank added quickly, “I'm a class 2, level b.”
“Turned before death from an illness. No wonder you look so scrawny,” Schechter said and Frank cracked a smile. “So not quite voluntary, but you're transitioning well?”
“No identity crisis,” Frank said.
“Are you master to any class 1 or 2 midnighter beings, including partial mastery of zombies?” Schechter asked.
“No,” Frank said, and then, thinking it's better to seem totally upfront, “I have a friend who's a zombie, but he's got his own master. Sometimes he crashes at my apartment, though.”
Schechter nodded without comment. “Were you turned before, during, or after the full enactment of the Clandestine Code of Voluntary Blood Loss? I know you said you were a level b, but there were a surprising number of violations before that Code went into effect.”
Frank could only imagine. There was a ton of fucking paperwork when he was turned, and he could see why some people might have wanted to skip that step. “I was turned after. I have all my papers and I've never fed on a daylighter outside of a Clan clinic, and that was only when I was new and still trying to get my teeth to work.”
Schechter held up his hands. “I can't officially ask you that information,” he said and Frank shook his head.
“Nah, it's ok, I'm not shy about it. I didn't become a vampire to feast on humanity. I just didn't want to die of a lung infection before I turned 25.”
Schechter nodded and made a few checks on the top sheet of paper. After he got to about the middle of the page, he asked, “Do you have any experience in detecting or human-midnighter law?”
“I temped as a paralegal for a few months,” Frank said after a thoughtful pause. “Their office was taken over by a poltergeist, but only during the day. So, they went to a nocturnal temp agency to fill in the gaps.”
“What kind of poltergeist keeps daytime hours?”
“I think he had a grudge against one of the attorneys. No one wanted to talk about it. So I know some legal language and how some of the process of filing a case works, but I've never solved a case or anything.”
Schechter said, “It's not a requirement, you'll just find it helps you to understand what Gerard is talking about. It's entirely up to you how much involvement you have in the actual detective agency, but it's pretty hard to separate Gerard's home life from his work, so, I should also show you the legal library, incase you wanted to do any reading. Can I have a look at your paperwork?”
Frank shuffled it out of his bag. “I’m looking for valid Clan number, valid address, last place of employment,” Schechter said as he scanned down the pages. “And by valid address here I only mean an actual address and that you were not squatting. I make no judgments about any sort of form of living space.”
“It’s ok,” Frank said. “I got an apartment right away through the Midnighter Housing Assistance Program. My old place was not sun-proofed.”
Schechter rifled through the papers Frank had handed him, and then passed his hand over it as though reading it through his palm, which was the first sign that Frank had that the rumors about Schechter’s magic weren’t unfounded.
“I’ll need to check your references before you’re officially hired, but you seem great. We’ve had a lot of trouble keeping valets - we’re a weird operation, not like other service positions, you should know that up front. You can’t really have a job description that isn’t fluid when you work for Gerard,” Schechter said. “Still, here are the specs of the house, the midnighter-compliance, the Clan-code compliance. You are responsible for your own safety and your awareness of your own limits and requirements as the Clan Code says, but if there’s something you need or something you see that isn’t working, talk to Gerard or talk to me. Despite our record, we really are interested in keeping a valet for more than a couple of weeks.” Frank could tell he wasn’t lying; there was something quite earnest about him, sorcerer or not. “This applies to every room in the house except the greenhouse, which is down the corridor to the left, at the back of the house. It’s all glass windows, no sun shield, it’s no good for the plants. And it locks from the outside so Gerard won’t want you to go in there at all, even at night, the risk is too great you could get accidentally trapped.”
Frank wouldn’t consider it. Glass windows in an enclosed room with a lock set off all sorts of alarms, even if he went out there at night. It was the sort of place daylighters would lock a midnighter, way before the Clan Code, when there were more attacks.
“Gerard likes plants,” Schechter had said with a shrug, “It’s kind of a weird hobby for someone with his hours, but he’s kind of a weird guy. You're free to go anywhere in the house, and unless there are some secret rooms in here I haven't discovered yet, this map should help you get around. Welcome to the Way Mansion,” Schechter said with a grin. “You can find Gerard in his office. Pretty much all the time.”
If Frank had any doubt that Gerard lived in the same building as the detective agency's office, it was erased his first night there when was summoned to Gerard’s office and found him there in his pajamas. “I had a thought about the Salpeter case,” Gerard began without bothering to explain what the Salpeter case was about or how he thought Frank could help him. “If the haunted piano isn't really haunted, then it shifts the whole investigation to the grandfather clock. How's your room?” Gerard asked abruptly and Frank took a second to switch gears.
“Oh, it's huge,” Frank said. “I mean, it’s fine. But huge.” After a moment, Frank added, “How do you prove the piano isn't haunted?”
“Exactly!” Gerard said.
That was the first Frank had heard of the Salpeter case and the murderously haunted objects. He realizes there’s a splinter from the clock remains under his fingernail as he helps Gerard on with his traveling cloak. Gerard notices Frank examining his hand and becomes very concerned. “That’s it, I’m not going,” Gerard says abruptly.
“It’s just a splinter, sir, I’m fine.”
“What if there are more you missed? What if you get wood poisoning while I’m gone!?”
“He won’t get wood poisoning from a splinter,” Schechter’s disembodied voice rings out. “Get in the carriage.”
“You promise you won’t wait up for me and you’ll go back into your coffin?”
“Yes, sir,” Frank says automatically, though he had been considering waiting up.
Mr. Vaughn Stump had sent correspondence to arrange a meeting with Gerard, in the daylight, at 9 in the morning, so not even close to dawn. It was clear that Mr. Vaughn Stump wanted to have a meeting alone. Which isn't all that odd, considering who Mr. Vaughn Stump is, and considering who he represents. Like Gerard, he is a daylighter who straddles the divide between worlds, helping the midnighters by having access to the daylighter world and things they can’t have. Mr. Vaughn Stump is Pete Wentz’s right hand man, the one Pete says keeps him together. And so when he sent a letter asking to schedule an appointment with Gerard, Frank assumed it was a part of Pete’s business, and obviously, therefore, secretive, because so many of the things Pete is working on rely on secrecy. Frank was not offended, but Gerard was offended on his behalf.
“It's just insane,” Gerard says, “And rude, I think, to not invite you. He knows I take you everywhere.”
Frank does not say that it is uncommon for valets to be included in meeting plans, even if Frank goes with Gerard to crime scenes, client interviews, suspect interrogations, society parties, and visits to Mrs. “call me Donna” Way. Gerard does his best to make sure his customers know that Frank comes with him on cases, and Frank has seen no end of daylighters yawning their way through 2 am appointments with Gerard, drinking whole pots of coffee. Sometimes, though, cases like this come up, when the person either cannot meet at night or insists on meeting in the daytime. It is Gerard's right to refuse, like any business with hours of operation. Gerard had not refused Mr. Vaughn Stump and Frank understands. There are just some things it doesn't make sense to do, not even on principle on behalf of your valet.
“I don’t expect to be out long,” Gerard says, and when Frank is about to interrupt him that Mr. Vaughn Stump had scheduled the meeting for several hours, over brunch. “Regardless of what Patrick says,” Gerard says, noticing the look on his face.
“He mentioned he’d be serving French toast,” Frank says.
“Oooh, French toast!” Gerard says, and then he frowns. “I won’t be bribed by food, no matter how delicious. I don’t like traveling without you.”
Frank helps Gerard on with his coat, warmed by Gerard’s protests on his behalf and the fact that he hadn’t said he didn’t like being without his valet - but specifically Frank. They meant the same thing, of course, but it still made Frank feel appreciated.
Frank hears the front door and thinks Schechter’s impatience has finally driven him to use more than his voice when a heavily cloaked figure comes rushing by in a hurry to get to the stairs.
“Mikey!” Gerard shouts. The clocked figure stops and then reluctantly turns. Frank can barely see Mikey’s face under all the covering. “Take that ridiculous thing off, where did you even get a cloak like that?”
Mikey does not answer, but pulls off the cloak. He’s still wearing sunglasses and a large hat, and the collar of his shirt is turned up and buttoned all the way up under his chin.
“Where have you been?” Gerard asks.
Mikey removes his hat before answering, “Out.”
“With Pete?” Gerard asks.
Mikey peers out from behind his sunglasses at his brother, smiles winningly at Frank, and then runs up the stairs, stopping at the mezzanine to unbutton the abnormally high collar of his shirt.
“Mikey, while you’re up there, could you get me the urban horticulture guide? I need something to read in the carriage.”
Mikey just stares down at Gerard.
“I’ll get it, sir,” Frank says, and leaps up to the mezzanine, into the library, retrieves the book, and leaps back down in a matter of seconds.
“Did you see how he just did that?” Mikey says, leaning over the railing and gesturing between Frank and Gerard.
“I'm sorry, should I not - ” Frank says at the same time, Gerard says, “I said no, Mikey!”
Mikey decided to plead his case to Frank. “Being a vampire is cool!”
Frank nods, though cautiously. “But so's being not un-dead,” Frank says, trying his best to stay out of an argument between Gerard and Mikey. Any argument between them is best to stay out of, but this one is an old one and still going strong. Gerard gestures emphatically at Frank.
“Mikey,” Gerard says, irritated. “It's just because of who you're hanging out with, it doesn't mean you need to become a vampire.”
Suddenly, Mikey’s extremely sun-protective get-up seems highly suspicious to Frank.
Mikey just rolls his eyes at both of them. “I just don't think it's such an unreasonable thing to want, not anymore. Not with the new laws.” Mikey says, and then when Gerard just stares at him, Mikey huffs and walks off.
Frank was just thinking that Gerard was being unusually quiet about the whole thing when Gerard explodes into a series of expletives about little brothers and Pete Wentz. “I mean, no offense,” Gerard says, suddenly looking deeply concerned that he had offended Frank. “I really like vampires, I do, but I think it's kind of a dramatic life choice for my brother to be making at his age, regardless of what sort of thing that Wentz is telling him.”
Frank already agrees.
Gerard Way is infamous for several things, the first and most significant is that he was one of the very few non-supernatural individuals to make the midnighter community their permanent residence. Gerard is human, and that was it. No magical powers, either, unless you considered his skills as a private detective their own brand of magic, which some certainly did. Gerard is uniquely gifted at moving between the daylighter and midnighter communities, allowing him to solve cases no one else could handle. By living in the community and keeping midnighter hours, as well as his obvious and genuine empathy with midnighter clientele, Gerard earned their trust, and his ability to retain human legal privileges and function in the daylighter community without any additional accommodations (apart from coffee) meant that Gerard was rarely short on business.
Gerard’s Vampire Detective Agency was started (and named) when vampires were his primary clients, though soon he was investigating cases for werewolves, zombies, and countless other supernatural creatures that couldn’t get due legal consideration in cases regarding daylighters. Midnighter cases often featured exceptional issues that the human legal system was ill-equipped to deal with, such as sunlight-poisoning and crypt real estate and the complex but unspoken rules of turning. Gerard never revealed to Frank what his first real (or his first paying) case was, midnighter clientele not always being able pay, or at least not in a traditional way.
Everyone knows, though, the case that made him famous: the attack on Pete Wentz the day the Clandestine Code of Midnighter Rights was enacted into law.
Crafted by Wentz, the renowned vampire activist, the Clandestine Code for Midnighter Rights encompassed an entire movement of midnighter-daylighter cooperation, above and beyond the traditional service roles that midnighters so often occupied. The Clan Code made provisions for legal and consensual vampire feeding, werewolf sick leave, haunting rights, and hundreds of other supernatural-creature specific guidelines the then-current daylighter legal system or system of employment didn’t take into account. Daylighter shops that also served midnighters were required to keep certain night hours, buildings had to be sun-proofed, a common language of commands had to be established for use by zombie masters, and exorcisms, except in cases of extreme peril, were required to be consensual.
The Clan Code also enacted a series of laws for the midnighter community that set up a network of employment, housing, food, and social adjustment support, establishing safe guidelines for consensual inter-midnighter transformation, punishments for non-consensual supernatural acts, and rights within the midnighter community for midnighters who passed as daylighters and kept exclusively daylight hours.
The transformation was almost instantaneous and the success was widespread. It was as though daylighter employees just needed a standardized method for hiring non-human personnel, and the frequent communication in the form of widely distributed pamphlets informing both midnighters and daylighters of changes in practice kept rumors and misunderstandings to a minimum.
But then Pete Wentz was found beaten unconscious and left tied up in a public park with morning sun exposure just one month after the establishment of the Clan Code reformation. He was found before the sun had fully risen, but the sun poisoning on top of his injuries left him close to fatal death. When he had just barely recovered, he enlisted Gerard to investigate the case, to bring his attackers to justice.
When Gerard solved the Wentz case just a week after the attack, bringing dual midnighter-daylighter charges against a group of fairies who objected to Pete’s willingness to cooperate so readily with humans, he had become the glue that held the two communities together during a crisis.
Just after Gerard’s carriage has left, Mikey brings down a handful of mail and places it in the basket by the door. He waves hello to Frank, who is replacing candles in sconces, and heads off for his brother’s office before Frank can point out that Gerard isn’t there. Mikey returns a moment later, studies Frank picking at a particularly wax-laden sconce fitting, and then says, “Is Gerard really out during the day?”
It’s not as unusual as Mikey’s disbelief might make it seem, but Gerard does rarely go out during the day. Since most of his business clientele keeps midnighter hours, his schedule naturally re-adjusts, and from what Frank has heard, Gerard was always like this, before there were cases to do at night, naturally suited to getting up when the sun went down.
“He has an appointment, sir,” Frank says.
“Don’t call me sir,” Mikey says absently. “And what kind of appointment does he have during the day? Don’t tell me the Governor’s office doesn’t have anymore open evening appointments. Or that he’s taken another all-daylight investigation,” Mikey says, his eyes widening. “You know he hates those. He was miserable during the last one.”
“I recall, sir,” Frank says, remembering how Gerard had been impatient, forgetful, irritable, and a complete mess until Schechter had to dose him with a sleeping potion, after which Gerard slept for three days straight. “The client would not accept any other time.”
“I hope they’re paying him in coffee. Who is so important that he’s going out before noon?”
“He’s meeting Mr. Vaughn Stump,” Frank says.
Mikey looks momentarily horrified. “Patrick. Not Pete?”
“Weren’t you just with Mr. Wentz? Or have you decided that dressing for sunlight protection is a new fashion statement?”
“Don’t call him that,” Mikey says. “And I was with him…earlier.”
Mikey’s clearly lying about something but Frank is just as wary of getting into an argument with Mikey alone. “It seems like it was only Mr. Vaughn Stump,” Frank says, giving in.
Mikey seems relieved. “I know Pete and Gerard have things to work on with the Clan code, whatever,” Mikey says dismissively. “But I don’t want them, you know, spending time together. Like, having breakfast.”
“It would be some feat to get Mr. Wentz out in the daylight, French toast or not,” Frank says.
“True,” Mikey says, and then, “My brother’s on a breakfast date with Patrick. Weird.” And then runs back up the stairs.
The phrase ‘breakfast date’ sticks in the air, even though Frank doesn’t believe it and doesn’t think Mikey meant it that way.
Not that Frank has any opinion about Gerard’s social life. It’s just that, as long as Frank’s been working here, Gerard hasn’t had much of one. The idea that Frank might be bringing up breakfast trays for two jumps into his head and he chases it out as quickly as possible. Valets don’t have those sort of opinions about their masters. They don’t.
Certainly Frank does not have opinions like that about Gerard. Gerard is - Mr. Way is - a phenomenally skilled investigator, who can solve any mystery, any puzzle, no matter how bizarre or seemingly impossible. Frank still remembers the first week working for Gerard, when he went back to Pencey to turn in his badge which he’d forgotten to do on his spontaneous last day. He’d assumed the trip would be so quick he didn’t need to let anyone know where he was going. Frank had barely left the front walk of Pencey when Gerard appeared from behind a tree and just barely stopped himself from embracing Frank.
“I thought you were kidnapped!” Gerard had said. “You didn’t leave a note, but I tracked you here after a brief cold trail that led to your old apartment, and there was a zombie there, he was quite helpful.”
“You - tracked me?” Frank had said. He was barely sure he could have done the same thing for Gerard and he was the one with super-senses.
Gerard had just nodded. “This is what I do, Frank,” Gerard had said with an air of competent delight, and Frank had never felt more humble in his life. Tracked by the great detective because he’d disappeared without leaving a note. Gerard - Mr. Way - helped bring about the change in the laws that allowed Frank to safely become a vampire. And Frank was just - he wasn’t even a trained valet. So Gerard’s business was his own, and Frank was there to be at his service, when he was needed.
Vampire FAQ
So you’ve hired a vampire! Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about the Nosferatus Nocturnus, commonly known as “vampire”:
Q: Do they miss the sunlight?
A: The destructive power of sunlight on a vampire usually overpowers any nostalgia they might feel.
Q: Can they hear my heartbeat from a mile away?
A: Yes, though only if they have established a close working or personal relationship with you.
Q: Can they turn into bats?
A: No, that’s only the Chiropteran People of the Northwest.
It makes Frank itchy with impatience a few hours later when Gerard is running late. Frank knows it isn't actually appropriate to be angry when Gerard does not return from a meeting at the time he had said. He knows, but it doesn't stop him from being angry about it, sulking around by the door, even though there was no sign of his approaching carriage. Even though there was no chance that Gerard could arrive home without Frank actually noticing, without Frank hearing him from at least a mile off.
Gerard is Frank's one and only duty, and whenever Gerard is out, it leaves Frank out of sorts, with no one to attend to. After he does the laundry, laid out Gerard's clothes, instructs Cortez on the week’s menus making sure to take into account Gerard’s spice allergies, cleans up the files, makes a few notes about the open cases, even writes a few follow-up letters, he has nothing left to do.
Schechter has some runes nailed to his door so Frank can't even do anything for him (and didn't want to - the last time Schechter had had runes nailed to his door, Frank had knocked not knowing what they meant and 47 toads had hopped out the door. Frank had to chase them all down. He never told Schechter he had only counted 45 and still suspected there were a few living in the downstairs bath.)
Frank is pacing up and down the stairs, wondering if maybe he should clean the upstairs evidence rooms because there was always an inch of dust in there overnight, like snowfall, making it look like a haunted house. Frank suspected one of the cursed objects must be a dust-creator.
The evidence room isn’t so much a filing system as it is a room full of precariously balanced items, too few of them in proper containers and almost none of them labeled in any manner that made sense to anyone other than Gerard. Which is fine, since Gerard has a keen visual memory and can remember that the yellow plumed hat from the Pope case was turned upside down to hold the contents of half a jigsaw puzzle that was a key clue in the Blackinton case. Gerard could probably tell what piece of the whole picture those puzzle pieces made. But it is Frank’s intention to commandeer the room for a weekend and categorize everything, or at least sort by subject, so that someone other than Gerard - namely him, though sometimes Schechter and Mikey, could get in there, get the thing they needed, and not get yelled at for accidentally upending a crooked chair cushion (the chair that was instrumental in solving the Lipshaw mystery) which was somehow acting as the single stable support for the complete set of dining room table chairs, which had been stacked one on top of the other and tumbled out over the mezzanine and broke an antique table. Besides, it made it ridiculously difficult to dust, and if it was one of the cursed objects, it was only going to get worse day by day until the entire mountain of evidence was covered, indistinguishable under the dust, and even Gerard wouldn’t be able to navigate through that.
One of the benefits of having vampire valets is their super senses, which, when tuned properly, acted like internal compass that pointed at their masters. So when Frank hears Gerard a few blocks away, Frank runs off to make coffee, and then, with the tray ready, stands behind the foyer sun curtain, and closes his eyes as Gerard opens the door. He can feel the sunlight against his eyelids, warm and dangerous. He doesn't miss the sun, exactly, because all of his instincts tell him to run from it, to hide from even the hint of the thing that could vaporize him in less than 30 seconds. But he misses the idea of the sun's warmth, the way it changed the way the day looked, the expressions on people's faces. He misses the way it sparkled on water, in a way no other light sparkled. And he’s jealous of the fact that Gerard got to go into it.
Frank waits until the door is closed and the danger of the sun is gone to take his coat, but Gerard shrugs himself out of it and hands it to Frank. Gerard's face looks red from the sun, the material of his coat still warm, radiating, and Frank touches it, knowing it won't actually hurt him, but wondering, just the same.
“Cortez has dinner and if you'd like, I have some coffee. . . .” Frank trails off when it’s clear Gerard is not actually listening. “Sir?” Frank tries, and then, “Gerard?”
Gerard seems to come back to himself with a shake of his head. “I need to talk to my brother. Pack a suitcase for him, you know what he’ll need.”
“What he’ll need for what, sir?” Frank asks.
“Some time at our mother’s.”
“Did she send for - “
“No, she didn’t send for him,” Gerard says impatiently. “I’m sending him away.”
“Yes, sir,” Frank says, hurrying up the stairs.
Upstairs, Frank knocks on Mikey’s door. “Your brother requests your presence right away, sir,” Frank says, and begins opening drawers and pulling out Mikey’s clothes.
“Did he find out something about Pete?” Mikey asks, noticing Frank’s hurried packing.
“I don’t think so,” Frank says, though the urge to ask Mikey about the cloak and the sunglasses is back and he has to bite his tongue. If it means - if it means something, it is not Frank’s place to ask. “I think there’d be more shouting. But he is very agitated, and he said he was sending you to your mother’s.”
“Ha!” Mikey says with a shout of triumph. “Like I don’t know how to get away from Mom’s.”
Frank imagines that, yes, if Gerard wants Mikey locked up somewhere, the last place he is going to have success with it was the house they grew up in, where Mikey had years of practice breaking out. Gerard has either taken this into account, and set up some sort of security system, or is strong in his belief that his brother is better behaved than he actually is, and Frank isn’t really going to talk to Gerard about it.
Mikey holds out his hand for Frank to shake and Frank does, first having to transfer a pair of Mikey’s socks to his other hand.
“I’ll see you soon,” Mikey says.
“Whatever it’s about - at least wait until the second day to break out,” Frank says. Mikey just laughs and flies down the stairs.
Mikey puts on a good show, shouting that Gerard can’t treat him like this, that he doesn’t need to be watched by their mother, that it’s unfair and disruptive, that Gerard can’t control his life like this. Frank is less alarmed than he would have been if he hadn’t seem Mikey’s nonchalant reaction to where he was being sent, but he still thinks Mikey isn’t really faking the part about Gerard controlling his life.
Frank hears the carriage pull up and loads Mikey’s suitcases, and then steps aside as Mikey rushes out, pausing for a moment to grin at Frank as he pulls up his cloak again, wrapping himself in it like a blanket, and then climbs up into the carriage and takes off for his mother’s.
Frank tries not to grin too much as he locks the door and comes back in, imagining Mikey hugging his mother, going to his room, and promptly climbing out the window.
He calls for Gerard. “Sir, was there something in particular that has caused you to send away the younger Mr. Way? Sir?” Frank adds when he can’t seem to find Gerard anywhere. Finally, Gerard emerges from his office, a distant expression on his face.
“Sir,” Frank says. “Did you need dinner?” He’s concerned that Mikey’s departure is taking its toll on Gerard, who seems lost. “Are you all right, sir?” Frank asks.
“Have dinner put on a tray and sent up to my rooms,” Gerard says abruptly. “I need to visit the greenhouse first.”
“Yes, sir,” Frank says, hesitantly. He had wanted to ask Gerard about what had happened with Mr. Vaughn Stump, how the case was looking, why he'd been out so late, but if Gerard was going to the greenhouse, it meant he wanted to be alone. “Yes, sir,” Frank says again sadly, and goes to the kitchen to tell Cortez. He looks back and thinks he sees something disconsolate in Gerard's expression, but he isn't sure it isn't just the fading warmth of the day.
Gerard's greenhouse is kind of an odd thing. Gerard's apparently uncanny ability to keep an indoor garden, producing fruits and plants and flowers, despite the fact that he was practically nocturnal and the majority of the plants he kept were non-midnighter, came quite as a surprise to Frank when he first learned about it. Gerard didn't strike Frank as the sort of person who was good at gardening, especially not when he spent most of his time awake at night, and the majority of things midnighters did when they said they were digging in the dirt was actually more about corpses rather than plants. The greenhouse made Gerard happy, though, when he'd tell Frank about the plants he was growing how they were doing, when he'd bring a plant inside for Frank to see.
Because Frank can’t actually ever see the greenhouse during the day, when most of the plants were open and flowering, Gerard had never invited him into the greenhouse. Frank knows it was because it was so exposed, because it wasn't protected, because it had a door with a lock where Frank presumably could get locked in there until the sun came out. It was a really dangerous place for him to get stuck, Frank knows, but it was also the only room in the house Frank could not actually go into, and so it troubled him more than he wanted to acknowledge that he could see Gerard in the bath (covered over by bubbles of course) and he could see Gerard getting into bed and getting out of bed, and he could dress him and work with him and listen to him ramble away about case ideas, but he could not follow Gerard into the greenhouse.
People would send Gerard rare plant cuttings as thank yous for finishing cases, and Schechter would insist on examining them incase they proved to be poisonous which had only happened once, but apparently a plant that shoots tiny poisonous darts from its flowers into the palm of your hand is a hard thing to forget, because Schechter brought it up all the time.
Gerard stays in the greenhouse for several hours, until it is just nearly dark. Frank, who had already cleaned and straightened everything in the house that could be cleaned or straightened while he had been waiting for Gerard, ends up pacing the library, a copy of Tea Preferences of Various Creatures of the Night, An Addendum to The Valet's Guide open in his hands. Every once and a while, he flips a page. He learns that he is not, under any circumstances, to serve holly to werewolves and that it was poor taste to serve any herbal infusion that resulted in a red tea color to a vampire, which Frank figures was pretty much a given.
When the stars come out, Frank goes around opening the curtains at the back of the house where the starlight and the moonlight could come in. He sees Gerard come out of the greenhouse and lock it, pausing with his hand on the door as though he was about to reconsider and go back in. Before Frank can ask if something is wrong, there is a sharp rap at the door and Frank speeds to answer it.
It’s Dewees. “Hey, man. Don't mean to bother you at work, but I'm actually on messenger duty. Whatever the Master says and all. Fuck, I don't have the shoes to be a messenger, almost twisted my ankle back there on the curb.”
“So tell me the message already,” Frank says, because he can feel Gerard lurking just behind his shoulder, and because Dewees sometimes needed prodding to get the point.
“Oh, it's not good, it's not good,” Dewees says. “The Wentz is dead.”
Frank freezes. He can feel Gerard stepping forward. “Mr. Way,” Dewees says, offering kind of a half-bow.
“Dead?” Frank repeats.
“Murdered,” Dewees says, and then he looks up at lights going on and doors opening down the street.
“Looks like word is getting around fast. I'd better go and finish my rounds. Bonne journée,” Dewees says and shuffles off.
Frank turns to look at Gerard, whose mouth is set in a thin line. “Help me get my things, we need to go over there,” Gerard says, as though pulling himself out of a stupor. “Quickly.”
Frank goes upstairs and methodically gathers Gerard's traveling case, all the things he might need to investigate a case. They've had murders before, though not that many, because murders in the midnighter community are usually dealt with (or covered up) by the creature species, and murders in the daylighter community involve the police force, who Gerard tends to detest or be bored by, depending on the detective. This isn't just any other case, though, so Frank packs an extra set of clothes and some of Gerard's more sensitive equipment, and he changes his own outfit, because if they're going to the Decaydance Mansion, Frank is going to represent Gerard well.
Frank uses the excuse of getting dressed to distract himself from thinking about how Gerard had just been with Patrick, how Gerard had just sent Mikey away, how Gerard had hidden himself in the greenhouse as though there was something he didn’t want to talk about. It doesn't mean - of course Gerard couldn't have been involved, it is just - it’s - Frank will just wait for Gerard to explain and then he will understand everything.
Part Two
Band(s): My Chem, Panic, Pete, and general ensemble
Pairing(s): Frank/Gerard, implied Pete/Mikey
Word Count: ~43k
Rating/Warnings: Adult, character undeath
Author's note: Written for the amazing bandombigbang. Thanks to phineasjones and ataratah for beta.
Summary: Pete, in Decaydance Mansion, with a yarrow stake. Frank and Gerard, in the greenhouse, with a plant of questionable origin. Bob, everywhere you look, with a gang of assassins for justice. Vampires, valets, pamphlets, haunted furniture, dub-thrall, disembodied voices, zombie couriers, and sinister rituals.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Bonus Tracks/Enhanced Content
Fanart:
Would you like me to draw you a bath? by poseys_demise
Fanmixes:
You're Better Off Dead! by civilbloodshed
The Art of Service by by spuzz
The sign on the door reads, “Thank you for visiting Gerard Way's Vampire Detective Agency. If calling after daylight hours, please speak with Mr. Iero upon arriving. If calling during the day, please come back at night.”
The first thing Frank thinks is that the grandfather clock is not supposed to be moving like that, kind of ambling along down the hallway and, if Frank wasn’t misunderstanding the twisted glass front, trying to be inconspicuous about it. The second thing he thinks is that the grandfather clock is not supposed to be moving at all, and then everything is full of chimes like it is high noon and Gerard is urgently waving him down the hallway as the grandfather clock shudders, crouches down, and takes flight. It is quite deft at navigating the third floor of the mansion, which had been used to store furniture that was not currently in use. Most of the larger pieces are draped with sheets, and that is where Gerard beckons him, to hide with him under what Frank belatedly realizes is an alarmingly small tea table. Frank pulls his knees close up to his chest so his toes don’t peek out from under the sheet, but it brings his side flush up against Gerard, who is using a pair of binoculars to try to locate something through the fabric of the sheet.
“I think it’s gone downstairs,” Gerard says, lowering the binoculars and blinking as his eyes refocus on Frank. “I’m sorry, Frank, haunted clocks aren’t usually this mobile. This makes the case so much clearer now,” Gerard says, a note of triumph creeping into his voice. “The clock may be haunted, but the piano is most certainly possessed.”
“Isn’t it going to be able to find us?” Frank whispers, as the clock chimes out the quarter hour and then the half hour a moment later. “The clock knew the moment we arrived.”
“Oh, I’m much more worried about the piano,” Gerard says, and the moment Gerard says it, Frank can hear the distant tinkling of out of tune piano keys between the clock chimes.
Frank imagines an airborne piano splintering the tea table to kindling.
Gerard’s hand brushes Frank’s, though Frank puts it down to the very limited amount of movement afforded them. “Do you think you can get us both over the stair rail?” Frank nods, and Gerard’s fingers brush over Frank’s hand again, just for a moment before Gerard says, “On my count - one, two -”
The three was unspoken as Frank grabs Gerard’s shoulders and leaps, guiding them both, a little gracelessly, onto the landing, where they run for the door. Gerard stands, for an impossible moment, in the open doorway, his arms flung wide, a grand piano soaring straight for him. Frank doesn’t think it will fit through the door, but enough of it would survive the crash to impale Gerard. Frank is not about to argue Gerard’s methods during a case, but it was most certainly his duty to make sure Gerard did not die by provoking a possessed piano, no matter how much the solution to the Salpeter case rested on proving the malicious intent of the instrument. Just as Frank is about to run at Gerard and catch him around the middle to knock him out of the doorway, the soaring piano stops, hovers, and sets itself down in the foyer as though it had entertained many concerts in that exact spot.
“I knew it!” Gerard says with relish. He steps cautiously into the foyer, Frank a step behind him, and plays a scale with a flourish. “Possessed or not, the fact that the piano - ”
“Sir!” Frank shouts, knocking Gerard onto the floor just as the grandfather clock sweeps by and smashes itself to pieces against the opposite wall. Frank promptly takes out a handkerchief and begins to wipe away debris from Gerard’s face and shoulders.
“Thank you, Frank,” Gerard says.
“Not at all, Gerar - Mr. Wa - sir,” Frank stutters. The lifesaving part of the job came pretty easily, but the manners, oh, the manners were hell.
Being a valet for Gerard Way, the famous midnighter detective, Frank reflects, is not really as easy as Gerard had made it sound when he offered him the job. Frank had just been a messenger then, and the Way Mansion hadn’t even been on his route, but it was the full moon and they were short-staffed, and Frank didn’t actually expect to meet the detective himself.
“You’re a very nice zombie, but it's just not working out.” Frank heard the voice shouting as he came in the main door, which had been left ajar. “You're simply not active enough, and while I appreciate your efforts at service, I just need someone whose midnighter range is a little wider. I'm not saying all zombies are inappropriate for service positions, but it depends entirely on the manner of death and resurrection and you're just a little too. . . slow.” The zombie had groaned. Drool, or possibly brains, had leaked out of its mouth. A short man with a stern expression had escorted the zombie out. Frank had tried to get Gerard's attention, but he was covering his eyes with what seemed to be a tea towel. “Brian, I feel so terrible about firing him, but he took, like, half an hour to hand me a folder, and I'm not really sure his zombie master re-taught him the alphabet very well, because his filing was atrocious.”
“Uh,” Frank said, holding out a letter. “Delivery from Pencey Prep.”
“Oh,” Gerard said, looking up to realize that he wasn’t talking to who he expected, “Oh, thank god you’re here. I was sure they'd tell me they didn't have anyone to spare, but I think they're just afraid I'll steal away their best servants. Now, come on, tell me about yourself, what your preferred rates are, what your preferred midnighter schedule is, whether or not you're allergic to coriander.”
“There are midnighter creatures allergic to coriander?”
“Not really, but I am, and I’d feel less alone if I found someone else who has a spice allergy.”
“I just brought this letter,” Frank finally managed to say through his boggled state. “I think they're probably telling you they're short staffed, it's what I've been delivering all day.”
Gerard frowned at him. “So they didn't send you as a replacement valet?”
“Uh, no,” Frank said. Gerard looked quite heartbroken.
“Why not?”
Frank was not sure what that really meant, but he finally said, “I'm not a valet.”
Gerard eyed him keenly. “Well, I'm sure you could learn if you wanted the job.”
They had an accidental staring match because Frank wasn’t really sure how he was being bullied into taking a position he was barely qualified for with one of the most prestigious households in town.
“Uh,” Frank said, and then, because there was no real other answer, “ok.”
Gerard's face lit up. “I'll write back to Pencey, and look in the file drawer, there, there's a paper with the salary and vacation.”
Frank opened the file drawer but found instead a giant mummified spider. “Ugggggggh,” Frank said. He offered it emphatically to Gerard.
“Oh my god, that zombie really couldn’t file,” Gerard said, examining the spider. “Mummified spiders go under “s” for spider, not “u” or “uggggggh.”
Frank found two more mummified spiders before he discovered the file with salary and vacation. He stared at it a long time.
“Is the vacation not enough?” Gerard asked anxiously. “The salary has to be better than Pencey's paying you, since I know they have to get by trying not to pay you, despite what their charter says. And I can't really give you more vacation since it'll become abundantly clear that I need a valet for pretty much everything, every moment of the day. The midnighter detective business is busy and I'm not always the most not-forgetful person. But you know the hours are all evening, I sometimes have to take cases during the day but you are never required to come with me if there's a risk of sunlight. You can have rooms here, and the house is sunlight-proofed, 10 degrees beyond the Wentzian index.”
“It's just,” Frank said and stopped because Gerard looks really, really concerned. “This is a really good job. You don't even know if I can make up a bed.”
“Oh, I'm sure you can,” Gerard said evenly, but there was something warm in his voice and Frank flustered. “Here, take this back to Pencey,” Gerard said, handing him a letter, “and pack up your stuff and have them deliver it express, an hour before dawn. Brian will have to interview you later.”
Frank suddenly understood that Brian was the stern-looking man who had escorted the zombie out. Which meant it had to be Brian Schechter - the Brian Schechter - the sorcerer.
Gerard must have seen that Frank looked nervous and so he said, “Oh, don't worry, he's just very protective, and I think he gets a weird sort of glee out of following the Hiring Code of Non-Human Personnel. He likes codes.”
Frank was not certain that was at all reassuring. “So I guess I’ll be back in an hour,” Frank said, thinking he didn’t have all that much stuff to pack up.
“Hey,” Gerard said when Frank turned to leave, “What's your name?”
“Frank,” he said, and Gerard beamed.
“See you soon, Frank,” Gerard said, and put the tea towel back over his face.
Cleaning up at Pencey didn't take very long, and no one was really that surprised that Frank was leaving, until he told them where he was going and everyone sort of stared at him. He went back to his apartment where Dewees had broken in again and was lying, shirtless, across the kitchen floor. Frank had known Dewees years before he was brought back as a zombie, and he broke into Frank’s apartment and crashed randomly on his floor just as often reanimated as he had when he had been alive. “'M tired, man,” Dewees said and Frank walked past and nudged him with his foot. “You're not supposed to be back until dawn.”
“This is my apartment, bitch, I can come in whenever I want.” He hesitated, because he almost didn’t want to tell Dewees the news until it was real, until he'd passed the sorcerer’s interrogation, but he couldn't help it. “Actually, you can stay here, if you can pay the rent,” Frank said. Dewees opened his eyes and looked up at him from the floor.
“Oh my god, Frankie, you're not talking a Long Sunlit Walk are you? Step away from the light!”
“That would be a lot more convincing,” Frank said, “If you could get your ass off my floor. And no, I'm not suiciding, I have a new job.”
“That gives you room and board?”
Frank nodded.
“Did you sell your body again?”
“Fuck you, and that was not what happened that time. I'm a valet.”
Dewees was struck silent. “How in the world did you - you don't even know how to - ”Frank nodded as Dewees struggled to find the words. “Whose valet?”
“Gerard Way.”
Dewees sat up so hard he hit his head on the table and his eye popped out.
“Put that shit away,” Frank said, as Dewees reached for his eye and popped it back in.
“Valet for the greatest detective of our time?” Dewees asked, incredulous. Frank explained how he was delivering the letter just as Gerard's valet was being relieved of duty. “Are you sure you didn't make a deal with a shaman or something, Frankie? That's good luck right there.”
Frank just shrugged. “I need to be there before sun-up.”
“Do you have a suit?” Dewees asked, knowing the answer before he asked the question, and Frank frowned. “You at least have a shirt with a collar, right? Jamia never bought you a shirt with a collar? Oh, you left them all behind, didn’t you.” Frank shook his head and Dewees looked him up and down and scowled. “You can borrow one of mine.”
“I’m not going there smelling like a zombie.”
“That insult is in violation of the Clan Code for Creature Stereotyping. I keep my clothes very clean, and a little bit of lemon and vinegar goes a long way to keeping me fresh.”
“Keep that information to yourself,” Frank said, but Dewees was already crawling back out the window, heading for his place.
“I’ll be back in five minutes,” Dewees had said. “And you’re wearing a tie.”
“You don’t have to go out the window,” Frank said, but Dewees just slid out and down the back of the building.
“You’ll look cute in a tie, Frankie,” he shouted. “My boy, working for the famous detective! In a tie!”
Live in an area with a high zombie population? Remember to keep ham on hand.
Most zombies are not dangerous, and can be welcome additions to your neighborhood. Sometimes, though, zombies are not properly cared for by their zombie masters and get lost and confused. If you interact with a zombie who does not appear to be acting rationally, cannot speak even when you command it to, appears to be repeatedly walking into things, or is exhibiting any aggressive behavior, offer the zombie some ham. Ham has been found to be a universal zombie sedative, and in 90% percent of the cases where there was a sub-normal zombie incident, ham was found to stop the zombie from continuing in its unwanted behavior. (In 9 percent of cases where ham was refused, tofu was the most successfully accepted brain-replacement food item.)
Attached please find a coupon that can be used at your local deli.
“Good morning, Mr. Way. Here’s your coffee.” Frank almost stumbles over the greeting, since his days usually begins with “Good evening, here’s your coffee.”
“It’s late, Frank, shouldn’t you be in your coffin?” Gerard says, squinting at Frank with that unique look of concern mixed with an attempt to seem authoritative. Gerard had spent all night writing up his notes on the culpability and destruction of the Salpeters’ grandfather clock, insisting he get all the details recorded before he went out on this morning’s appointment, and Frank had stayed up to help, even though it was ridiculous to think that Frank would remember some detail that Gerard’s sharp mind would forget.
“I’m perfectly fine for a few hours, sir,” Frank says, though he tries and fails to stifle a yawn in his sleeve. “You have a case this morning. I thought you would need your coffee.” Frank watches Gerard’s reflection in the mirror of Gerard’s dressing table, where Gerard is repeatedly brushing his hair away from his forehead. It’s taken him some time to get used to the fact that he can’t see his own reflection even though he’s standing just behind Gerard. It made getting his tie on straight a real bitch the first couple of weeks.
“Indeed, I most certainly do,” Gerard says gratefully. “It’s easy to forget that the people who prefer to do business during sunlight hours expect the same quality of service from me, with or without my valet.”
“Mr. Vaughn Stump did say he required secrecy, so perhaps he insisted on the daylight meeting on purpose?”
“Oh, I’m sure of it,” Gerard says. “The coffee’s delicious,” Gerard adds, taking a long, luxurious sip.
“Thank you, sir,” Frank says, not actually trying to hide his smile even though he knows a valet isn’t supposed to be proud of making his master excellent coffee. Frank has a hard time choosing humility over pride.
“If I’m driving you, we should get going,” a disembodied voice declares. “I don’t want to get caught up in the market traffic.”
“I really wish he could just walk over here, instead of magically shouting,” Gerard says and Frank nods his agreement. “Talking without your body is rude, Brian,” Gerard shouts in return.
“Hurry up,” is all the voice responds.
When Frank met Brian Schechter for his job interview, all that Frank knew about him was that he was rumored to be an extremely powerful sorcerer, and that he’d worked for the Way family for as long as anyone could remember.
“I need to ask you a few questions before we can officially hire you,” Brian had said, polite but rigid. “Though let's be clear about one thing, I may be just the formality as far as Gerard is concerned, but I am here to make sure nothing happens to him. So, fill out this sheet and let me know when you’re ready.”
All Frank saw was a short, muscley guy with lots of tattoos and some very effectively narrowed eyes. If Schechter was as powerful a magician as they said, then he was good at hiding it. Usually magicians broadcast from miles away, at least to other midnighters. Schechter read to Frank like he shouldn’t let the guy get too close to his wallet, not that Schechter could bring down the house if he thought hard enough. Frank wondered if it was something in between, or whether Schechter was just excellent at deception. The tattoos, though, were probably totally magical.
“Are you a class 1, class 2, class 3, unknown class, or something this code does not yet define,” Schechter read from a stack of papers in an even voice. He looked up at Frank, who realized he was staring at him open-mouthed, and added, “If at any point you feel these questions unfairly target you as a midnighter - ”
“No, no, it's ok,” Frank said. “It's just that no one has ever read the Hiring Code to me. Usually they just assume, or it doesn't really matter. Pencey didn't care if I was turned voluntarily or not, as long as I had my Clandestine certification, that's all that mattered.”
Schechter kind of frowned and so Frank added quickly, “I'm a class 2, level b.”
“Turned before death from an illness. No wonder you look so scrawny,” Schechter said and Frank cracked a smile. “So not quite voluntary, but you're transitioning well?”
“No identity crisis,” Frank said.
“Are you master to any class 1 or 2 midnighter beings, including partial mastery of zombies?” Schechter asked.
“No,” Frank said, and then, thinking it's better to seem totally upfront, “I have a friend who's a zombie, but he's got his own master. Sometimes he crashes at my apartment, though.”
Schechter nodded without comment. “Were you turned before, during, or after the full enactment of the Clandestine Code of Voluntary Blood Loss? I know you said you were a level b, but there were a surprising number of violations before that Code went into effect.”
Frank could only imagine. There was a ton of fucking paperwork when he was turned, and he could see why some people might have wanted to skip that step. “I was turned after. I have all my papers and I've never fed on a daylighter outside of a Clan clinic, and that was only when I was new and still trying to get my teeth to work.”
Schechter held up his hands. “I can't officially ask you that information,” he said and Frank shook his head.
“Nah, it's ok, I'm not shy about it. I didn't become a vampire to feast on humanity. I just didn't want to die of a lung infection before I turned 25.”
Schechter nodded and made a few checks on the top sheet of paper. After he got to about the middle of the page, he asked, “Do you have any experience in detecting or human-midnighter law?”
“I temped as a paralegal for a few months,” Frank said after a thoughtful pause. “Their office was taken over by a poltergeist, but only during the day. So, they went to a nocturnal temp agency to fill in the gaps.”
“What kind of poltergeist keeps daytime hours?”
“I think he had a grudge against one of the attorneys. No one wanted to talk about it. So I know some legal language and how some of the process of filing a case works, but I've never solved a case or anything.”
Schechter said, “It's not a requirement, you'll just find it helps you to understand what Gerard is talking about. It's entirely up to you how much involvement you have in the actual detective agency, but it's pretty hard to separate Gerard's home life from his work, so, I should also show you the legal library, incase you wanted to do any reading. Can I have a look at your paperwork?”
Frank shuffled it out of his bag. “I’m looking for valid Clan number, valid address, last place of employment,” Schechter said as he scanned down the pages. “And by valid address here I only mean an actual address and that you were not squatting. I make no judgments about any sort of form of living space.”
“It’s ok,” Frank said. “I got an apartment right away through the Midnighter Housing Assistance Program. My old place was not sun-proofed.”
Schechter rifled through the papers Frank had handed him, and then passed his hand over it as though reading it through his palm, which was the first sign that Frank had that the rumors about Schechter’s magic weren’t unfounded.
“I’ll need to check your references before you’re officially hired, but you seem great. We’ve had a lot of trouble keeping valets - we’re a weird operation, not like other service positions, you should know that up front. You can’t really have a job description that isn’t fluid when you work for Gerard,” Schechter said. “Still, here are the specs of the house, the midnighter-compliance, the Clan-code compliance. You are responsible for your own safety and your awareness of your own limits and requirements as the Clan Code says, but if there’s something you need or something you see that isn’t working, talk to Gerard or talk to me. Despite our record, we really are interested in keeping a valet for more than a couple of weeks.” Frank could tell he wasn’t lying; there was something quite earnest about him, sorcerer or not. “This applies to every room in the house except the greenhouse, which is down the corridor to the left, at the back of the house. It’s all glass windows, no sun shield, it’s no good for the plants. And it locks from the outside so Gerard won’t want you to go in there at all, even at night, the risk is too great you could get accidentally trapped.”
Frank wouldn’t consider it. Glass windows in an enclosed room with a lock set off all sorts of alarms, even if he went out there at night. It was the sort of place daylighters would lock a midnighter, way before the Clan Code, when there were more attacks.
“Gerard likes plants,” Schechter had said with a shrug, “It’s kind of a weird hobby for someone with his hours, but he’s kind of a weird guy. You're free to go anywhere in the house, and unless there are some secret rooms in here I haven't discovered yet, this map should help you get around. Welcome to the Way Mansion,” Schechter said with a grin. “You can find Gerard in his office. Pretty much all the time.”
If Frank had any doubt that Gerard lived in the same building as the detective agency's office, it was erased his first night there when was summoned to Gerard’s office and found him there in his pajamas. “I had a thought about the Salpeter case,” Gerard began without bothering to explain what the Salpeter case was about or how he thought Frank could help him. “If the haunted piano isn't really haunted, then it shifts the whole investigation to the grandfather clock. How's your room?” Gerard asked abruptly and Frank took a second to switch gears.
“Oh, it's huge,” Frank said. “I mean, it’s fine. But huge.” After a moment, Frank added, “How do you prove the piano isn't haunted?”
“Exactly!” Gerard said.
That was the first Frank had heard of the Salpeter case and the murderously haunted objects. He realizes there’s a splinter from the clock remains under his fingernail as he helps Gerard on with his traveling cloak. Gerard notices Frank examining his hand and becomes very concerned. “That’s it, I’m not going,” Gerard says abruptly.
“It’s just a splinter, sir, I’m fine.”
“What if there are more you missed? What if you get wood poisoning while I’m gone!?”
“He won’t get wood poisoning from a splinter,” Schechter’s disembodied voice rings out. “Get in the carriage.”
“You promise you won’t wait up for me and you’ll go back into your coffin?”
“Yes, sir,” Frank says automatically, though he had been considering waiting up.
Mr. Vaughn Stump had sent correspondence to arrange a meeting with Gerard, in the daylight, at 9 in the morning, so not even close to dawn. It was clear that Mr. Vaughn Stump wanted to have a meeting alone. Which isn't all that odd, considering who Mr. Vaughn Stump is, and considering who he represents. Like Gerard, he is a daylighter who straddles the divide between worlds, helping the midnighters by having access to the daylighter world and things they can’t have. Mr. Vaughn Stump is Pete Wentz’s right hand man, the one Pete says keeps him together. And so when he sent a letter asking to schedule an appointment with Gerard, Frank assumed it was a part of Pete’s business, and obviously, therefore, secretive, because so many of the things Pete is working on rely on secrecy. Frank was not offended, but Gerard was offended on his behalf.
“It's just insane,” Gerard says, “And rude, I think, to not invite you. He knows I take you everywhere.”
Frank does not say that it is uncommon for valets to be included in meeting plans, even if Frank goes with Gerard to crime scenes, client interviews, suspect interrogations, society parties, and visits to Mrs. “call me Donna” Way. Gerard does his best to make sure his customers know that Frank comes with him on cases, and Frank has seen no end of daylighters yawning their way through 2 am appointments with Gerard, drinking whole pots of coffee. Sometimes, though, cases like this come up, when the person either cannot meet at night or insists on meeting in the daytime. It is Gerard's right to refuse, like any business with hours of operation. Gerard had not refused Mr. Vaughn Stump and Frank understands. There are just some things it doesn't make sense to do, not even on principle on behalf of your valet.
“I don’t expect to be out long,” Gerard says, and when Frank is about to interrupt him that Mr. Vaughn Stump had scheduled the meeting for several hours, over brunch. “Regardless of what Patrick says,” Gerard says, noticing the look on his face.
“He mentioned he’d be serving French toast,” Frank says.
“Oooh, French toast!” Gerard says, and then he frowns. “I won’t be bribed by food, no matter how delicious. I don’t like traveling without you.”
Frank helps Gerard on with his coat, warmed by Gerard’s protests on his behalf and the fact that he hadn’t said he didn’t like being without his valet - but specifically Frank. They meant the same thing, of course, but it still made Frank feel appreciated.
Frank hears the front door and thinks Schechter’s impatience has finally driven him to use more than his voice when a heavily cloaked figure comes rushing by in a hurry to get to the stairs.
“Mikey!” Gerard shouts. The clocked figure stops and then reluctantly turns. Frank can barely see Mikey’s face under all the covering. “Take that ridiculous thing off, where did you even get a cloak like that?”
Mikey does not answer, but pulls off the cloak. He’s still wearing sunglasses and a large hat, and the collar of his shirt is turned up and buttoned all the way up under his chin.
“Where have you been?” Gerard asks.
Mikey removes his hat before answering, “Out.”
“With Pete?” Gerard asks.
Mikey peers out from behind his sunglasses at his brother, smiles winningly at Frank, and then runs up the stairs, stopping at the mezzanine to unbutton the abnormally high collar of his shirt.
“Mikey, while you’re up there, could you get me the urban horticulture guide? I need something to read in the carriage.”
Mikey just stares down at Gerard.
“I’ll get it, sir,” Frank says, and leaps up to the mezzanine, into the library, retrieves the book, and leaps back down in a matter of seconds.
“Did you see how he just did that?” Mikey says, leaning over the railing and gesturing between Frank and Gerard.
“I'm sorry, should I not - ” Frank says at the same time, Gerard says, “I said no, Mikey!”
Mikey decided to plead his case to Frank. “Being a vampire is cool!”
Frank nods, though cautiously. “But so's being not un-dead,” Frank says, trying his best to stay out of an argument between Gerard and Mikey. Any argument between them is best to stay out of, but this one is an old one and still going strong. Gerard gestures emphatically at Frank.
“Mikey,” Gerard says, irritated. “It's just because of who you're hanging out with, it doesn't mean you need to become a vampire.”
Suddenly, Mikey’s extremely sun-protective get-up seems highly suspicious to Frank.
Mikey just rolls his eyes at both of them. “I just don't think it's such an unreasonable thing to want, not anymore. Not with the new laws.” Mikey says, and then when Gerard just stares at him, Mikey huffs and walks off.
Frank was just thinking that Gerard was being unusually quiet about the whole thing when Gerard explodes into a series of expletives about little brothers and Pete Wentz. “I mean, no offense,” Gerard says, suddenly looking deeply concerned that he had offended Frank. “I really like vampires, I do, but I think it's kind of a dramatic life choice for my brother to be making at his age, regardless of what sort of thing that Wentz is telling him.”
Frank already agrees.
Gerard Way is infamous for several things, the first and most significant is that he was one of the very few non-supernatural individuals to make the midnighter community their permanent residence. Gerard is human, and that was it. No magical powers, either, unless you considered his skills as a private detective their own brand of magic, which some certainly did. Gerard is uniquely gifted at moving between the daylighter and midnighter communities, allowing him to solve cases no one else could handle. By living in the community and keeping midnighter hours, as well as his obvious and genuine empathy with midnighter clientele, Gerard earned their trust, and his ability to retain human legal privileges and function in the daylighter community without any additional accommodations (apart from coffee) meant that Gerard was rarely short on business.
Gerard’s Vampire Detective Agency was started (and named) when vampires were his primary clients, though soon he was investigating cases for werewolves, zombies, and countless other supernatural creatures that couldn’t get due legal consideration in cases regarding daylighters. Midnighter cases often featured exceptional issues that the human legal system was ill-equipped to deal with, such as sunlight-poisoning and crypt real estate and the complex but unspoken rules of turning. Gerard never revealed to Frank what his first real (or his first paying) case was, midnighter clientele not always being able pay, or at least not in a traditional way.
Everyone knows, though, the case that made him famous: the attack on Pete Wentz the day the Clandestine Code of Midnighter Rights was enacted into law.
Crafted by Wentz, the renowned vampire activist, the Clandestine Code for Midnighter Rights encompassed an entire movement of midnighter-daylighter cooperation, above and beyond the traditional service roles that midnighters so often occupied. The Clan Code made provisions for legal and consensual vampire feeding, werewolf sick leave, haunting rights, and hundreds of other supernatural-creature specific guidelines the then-current daylighter legal system or system of employment didn’t take into account. Daylighter shops that also served midnighters were required to keep certain night hours, buildings had to be sun-proofed, a common language of commands had to be established for use by zombie masters, and exorcisms, except in cases of extreme peril, were required to be consensual.
The Clan Code also enacted a series of laws for the midnighter community that set up a network of employment, housing, food, and social adjustment support, establishing safe guidelines for consensual inter-midnighter transformation, punishments for non-consensual supernatural acts, and rights within the midnighter community for midnighters who passed as daylighters and kept exclusively daylight hours.
The transformation was almost instantaneous and the success was widespread. It was as though daylighter employees just needed a standardized method for hiring non-human personnel, and the frequent communication in the form of widely distributed pamphlets informing both midnighters and daylighters of changes in practice kept rumors and misunderstandings to a minimum.
But then Pete Wentz was found beaten unconscious and left tied up in a public park with morning sun exposure just one month after the establishment of the Clan Code reformation. He was found before the sun had fully risen, but the sun poisoning on top of his injuries left him close to fatal death. When he had just barely recovered, he enlisted Gerard to investigate the case, to bring his attackers to justice.
When Gerard solved the Wentz case just a week after the attack, bringing dual midnighter-daylighter charges against a group of fairies who objected to Pete’s willingness to cooperate so readily with humans, he had become the glue that held the two communities together during a crisis.
Just after Gerard’s carriage has left, Mikey brings down a handful of mail and places it in the basket by the door. He waves hello to Frank, who is replacing candles in sconces, and heads off for his brother’s office before Frank can point out that Gerard isn’t there. Mikey returns a moment later, studies Frank picking at a particularly wax-laden sconce fitting, and then says, “Is Gerard really out during the day?”
It’s not as unusual as Mikey’s disbelief might make it seem, but Gerard does rarely go out during the day. Since most of his business clientele keeps midnighter hours, his schedule naturally re-adjusts, and from what Frank has heard, Gerard was always like this, before there were cases to do at night, naturally suited to getting up when the sun went down.
“He has an appointment, sir,” Frank says.
“Don’t call me sir,” Mikey says absently. “And what kind of appointment does he have during the day? Don’t tell me the Governor’s office doesn’t have anymore open evening appointments. Or that he’s taken another all-daylight investigation,” Mikey says, his eyes widening. “You know he hates those. He was miserable during the last one.”
“I recall, sir,” Frank says, remembering how Gerard had been impatient, forgetful, irritable, and a complete mess until Schechter had to dose him with a sleeping potion, after which Gerard slept for three days straight. “The client would not accept any other time.”
“I hope they’re paying him in coffee. Who is so important that he’s going out before noon?”
“He’s meeting Mr. Vaughn Stump,” Frank says.
Mikey looks momentarily horrified. “Patrick. Not Pete?”
“Weren’t you just with Mr. Wentz? Or have you decided that dressing for sunlight protection is a new fashion statement?”
“Don’t call him that,” Mikey says. “And I was with him…earlier.”
Mikey’s clearly lying about something but Frank is just as wary of getting into an argument with Mikey alone. “It seems like it was only Mr. Vaughn Stump,” Frank says, giving in.
Mikey seems relieved. “I know Pete and Gerard have things to work on with the Clan code, whatever,” Mikey says dismissively. “But I don’t want them, you know, spending time together. Like, having breakfast.”
“It would be some feat to get Mr. Wentz out in the daylight, French toast or not,” Frank says.
“True,” Mikey says, and then, “My brother’s on a breakfast date with Patrick. Weird.” And then runs back up the stairs.
The phrase ‘breakfast date’ sticks in the air, even though Frank doesn’t believe it and doesn’t think Mikey meant it that way.
Not that Frank has any opinion about Gerard’s social life. It’s just that, as long as Frank’s been working here, Gerard hasn’t had much of one. The idea that Frank might be bringing up breakfast trays for two jumps into his head and he chases it out as quickly as possible. Valets don’t have those sort of opinions about their masters. They don’t.
Certainly Frank does not have opinions like that about Gerard. Gerard is - Mr. Way is - a phenomenally skilled investigator, who can solve any mystery, any puzzle, no matter how bizarre or seemingly impossible. Frank still remembers the first week working for Gerard, when he went back to Pencey to turn in his badge which he’d forgotten to do on his spontaneous last day. He’d assumed the trip would be so quick he didn’t need to let anyone know where he was going. Frank had barely left the front walk of Pencey when Gerard appeared from behind a tree and just barely stopped himself from embracing Frank.
“I thought you were kidnapped!” Gerard had said. “You didn’t leave a note, but I tracked you here after a brief cold trail that led to your old apartment, and there was a zombie there, he was quite helpful.”
“You - tracked me?” Frank had said. He was barely sure he could have done the same thing for Gerard and he was the one with super-senses.
Gerard had just nodded. “This is what I do, Frank,” Gerard had said with an air of competent delight, and Frank had never felt more humble in his life. Tracked by the great detective because he’d disappeared without leaving a note. Gerard - Mr. Way - helped bring about the change in the laws that allowed Frank to safely become a vampire. And Frank was just - he wasn’t even a trained valet. So Gerard’s business was his own, and Frank was there to be at his service, when he was needed.
Vampire FAQ
So you’ve hired a vampire! Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about the Nosferatus Nocturnus, commonly known as “vampire”:
Q: Do they miss the sunlight?
A: The destructive power of sunlight on a vampire usually overpowers any nostalgia they might feel.
Q: Can they hear my heartbeat from a mile away?
A: Yes, though only if they have established a close working or personal relationship with you.
Q: Can they turn into bats?
A: No, that’s only the Chiropteran People of the Northwest.
It makes Frank itchy with impatience a few hours later when Gerard is running late. Frank knows it isn't actually appropriate to be angry when Gerard does not return from a meeting at the time he had said. He knows, but it doesn't stop him from being angry about it, sulking around by the door, even though there was no sign of his approaching carriage. Even though there was no chance that Gerard could arrive home without Frank actually noticing, without Frank hearing him from at least a mile off.
Gerard is Frank's one and only duty, and whenever Gerard is out, it leaves Frank out of sorts, with no one to attend to. After he does the laundry, laid out Gerard's clothes, instructs Cortez on the week’s menus making sure to take into account Gerard’s spice allergies, cleans up the files, makes a few notes about the open cases, even writes a few follow-up letters, he has nothing left to do.
Schechter has some runes nailed to his door so Frank can't even do anything for him (and didn't want to - the last time Schechter had had runes nailed to his door, Frank had knocked not knowing what they meant and 47 toads had hopped out the door. Frank had to chase them all down. He never told Schechter he had only counted 45 and still suspected there were a few living in the downstairs bath.)
Frank is pacing up and down the stairs, wondering if maybe he should clean the upstairs evidence rooms because there was always an inch of dust in there overnight, like snowfall, making it look like a haunted house. Frank suspected one of the cursed objects must be a dust-creator.
The evidence room isn’t so much a filing system as it is a room full of precariously balanced items, too few of them in proper containers and almost none of them labeled in any manner that made sense to anyone other than Gerard. Which is fine, since Gerard has a keen visual memory and can remember that the yellow plumed hat from the Pope case was turned upside down to hold the contents of half a jigsaw puzzle that was a key clue in the Blackinton case. Gerard could probably tell what piece of the whole picture those puzzle pieces made. But it is Frank’s intention to commandeer the room for a weekend and categorize everything, or at least sort by subject, so that someone other than Gerard - namely him, though sometimes Schechter and Mikey, could get in there, get the thing they needed, and not get yelled at for accidentally upending a crooked chair cushion (the chair that was instrumental in solving the Lipshaw mystery) which was somehow acting as the single stable support for the complete set of dining room table chairs, which had been stacked one on top of the other and tumbled out over the mezzanine and broke an antique table. Besides, it made it ridiculously difficult to dust, and if it was one of the cursed objects, it was only going to get worse day by day until the entire mountain of evidence was covered, indistinguishable under the dust, and even Gerard wouldn’t be able to navigate through that.
One of the benefits of having vampire valets is their super senses, which, when tuned properly, acted like internal compass that pointed at their masters. So when Frank hears Gerard a few blocks away, Frank runs off to make coffee, and then, with the tray ready, stands behind the foyer sun curtain, and closes his eyes as Gerard opens the door. He can feel the sunlight against his eyelids, warm and dangerous. He doesn't miss the sun, exactly, because all of his instincts tell him to run from it, to hide from even the hint of the thing that could vaporize him in less than 30 seconds. But he misses the idea of the sun's warmth, the way it changed the way the day looked, the expressions on people's faces. He misses the way it sparkled on water, in a way no other light sparkled. And he’s jealous of the fact that Gerard got to go into it.
Frank waits until the door is closed and the danger of the sun is gone to take his coat, but Gerard shrugs himself out of it and hands it to Frank. Gerard's face looks red from the sun, the material of his coat still warm, radiating, and Frank touches it, knowing it won't actually hurt him, but wondering, just the same.
“Cortez has dinner and if you'd like, I have some coffee. . . .” Frank trails off when it’s clear Gerard is not actually listening. “Sir?” Frank tries, and then, “Gerard?”
Gerard seems to come back to himself with a shake of his head. “I need to talk to my brother. Pack a suitcase for him, you know what he’ll need.”
“What he’ll need for what, sir?” Frank asks.
“Some time at our mother’s.”
“Did she send for - “
“No, she didn’t send for him,” Gerard says impatiently. “I’m sending him away.”
“Yes, sir,” Frank says, hurrying up the stairs.
Upstairs, Frank knocks on Mikey’s door. “Your brother requests your presence right away, sir,” Frank says, and begins opening drawers and pulling out Mikey’s clothes.
“Did he find out something about Pete?” Mikey asks, noticing Frank’s hurried packing.
“I don’t think so,” Frank says, though the urge to ask Mikey about the cloak and the sunglasses is back and he has to bite his tongue. If it means - if it means something, it is not Frank’s place to ask. “I think there’d be more shouting. But he is very agitated, and he said he was sending you to your mother’s.”
“Ha!” Mikey says with a shout of triumph. “Like I don’t know how to get away from Mom’s.”
Frank imagines that, yes, if Gerard wants Mikey locked up somewhere, the last place he is going to have success with it was the house they grew up in, where Mikey had years of practice breaking out. Gerard has either taken this into account, and set up some sort of security system, or is strong in his belief that his brother is better behaved than he actually is, and Frank isn’t really going to talk to Gerard about it.
Mikey holds out his hand for Frank to shake and Frank does, first having to transfer a pair of Mikey’s socks to his other hand.
“I’ll see you soon,” Mikey says.
“Whatever it’s about - at least wait until the second day to break out,” Frank says. Mikey just laughs and flies down the stairs.
Mikey puts on a good show, shouting that Gerard can’t treat him like this, that he doesn’t need to be watched by their mother, that it’s unfair and disruptive, that Gerard can’t control his life like this. Frank is less alarmed than he would have been if he hadn’t seem Mikey’s nonchalant reaction to where he was being sent, but he still thinks Mikey isn’t really faking the part about Gerard controlling his life.
Frank hears the carriage pull up and loads Mikey’s suitcases, and then steps aside as Mikey rushes out, pausing for a moment to grin at Frank as he pulls up his cloak again, wrapping himself in it like a blanket, and then climbs up into the carriage and takes off for his mother’s.
Frank tries not to grin too much as he locks the door and comes back in, imagining Mikey hugging his mother, going to his room, and promptly climbing out the window.
He calls for Gerard. “Sir, was there something in particular that has caused you to send away the younger Mr. Way? Sir?” Frank adds when he can’t seem to find Gerard anywhere. Finally, Gerard emerges from his office, a distant expression on his face.
“Sir,” Frank says. “Did you need dinner?” He’s concerned that Mikey’s departure is taking its toll on Gerard, who seems lost. “Are you all right, sir?” Frank asks.
“Have dinner put on a tray and sent up to my rooms,” Gerard says abruptly. “I need to visit the greenhouse first.”
“Yes, sir,” Frank says, hesitantly. He had wanted to ask Gerard about what had happened with Mr. Vaughn Stump, how the case was looking, why he'd been out so late, but if Gerard was going to the greenhouse, it meant he wanted to be alone. “Yes, sir,” Frank says again sadly, and goes to the kitchen to tell Cortez. He looks back and thinks he sees something disconsolate in Gerard's expression, but he isn't sure it isn't just the fading warmth of the day.
Gerard's greenhouse is kind of an odd thing. Gerard's apparently uncanny ability to keep an indoor garden, producing fruits and plants and flowers, despite the fact that he was practically nocturnal and the majority of the plants he kept were non-midnighter, came quite as a surprise to Frank when he first learned about it. Gerard didn't strike Frank as the sort of person who was good at gardening, especially not when he spent most of his time awake at night, and the majority of things midnighters did when they said they were digging in the dirt was actually more about corpses rather than plants. The greenhouse made Gerard happy, though, when he'd tell Frank about the plants he was growing how they were doing, when he'd bring a plant inside for Frank to see.
Because Frank can’t actually ever see the greenhouse during the day, when most of the plants were open and flowering, Gerard had never invited him into the greenhouse. Frank knows it was because it was so exposed, because it wasn't protected, because it had a door with a lock where Frank presumably could get locked in there until the sun came out. It was a really dangerous place for him to get stuck, Frank knows, but it was also the only room in the house Frank could not actually go into, and so it troubled him more than he wanted to acknowledge that he could see Gerard in the bath (covered over by bubbles of course) and he could see Gerard getting into bed and getting out of bed, and he could dress him and work with him and listen to him ramble away about case ideas, but he could not follow Gerard into the greenhouse.
People would send Gerard rare plant cuttings as thank yous for finishing cases, and Schechter would insist on examining them incase they proved to be poisonous which had only happened once, but apparently a plant that shoots tiny poisonous darts from its flowers into the palm of your hand is a hard thing to forget, because Schechter brought it up all the time.
Gerard stays in the greenhouse for several hours, until it is just nearly dark. Frank, who had already cleaned and straightened everything in the house that could be cleaned or straightened while he had been waiting for Gerard, ends up pacing the library, a copy of Tea Preferences of Various Creatures of the Night, An Addendum to The Valet's Guide open in his hands. Every once and a while, he flips a page. He learns that he is not, under any circumstances, to serve holly to werewolves and that it was poor taste to serve any herbal infusion that resulted in a red tea color to a vampire, which Frank figures was pretty much a given.
When the stars come out, Frank goes around opening the curtains at the back of the house where the starlight and the moonlight could come in. He sees Gerard come out of the greenhouse and lock it, pausing with his hand on the door as though he was about to reconsider and go back in. Before Frank can ask if something is wrong, there is a sharp rap at the door and Frank speeds to answer it.
It’s Dewees. “Hey, man. Don't mean to bother you at work, but I'm actually on messenger duty. Whatever the Master says and all. Fuck, I don't have the shoes to be a messenger, almost twisted my ankle back there on the curb.”
“So tell me the message already,” Frank says, because he can feel Gerard lurking just behind his shoulder, and because Dewees sometimes needed prodding to get the point.
“Oh, it's not good, it's not good,” Dewees says. “The Wentz is dead.”
Frank freezes. He can feel Gerard stepping forward. “Mr. Way,” Dewees says, offering kind of a half-bow.
“Dead?” Frank repeats.
“Murdered,” Dewees says, and then he looks up at lights going on and doors opening down the street.
“Looks like word is getting around fast. I'd better go and finish my rounds. Bonne journée,” Dewees says and shuffles off.
Frank turns to look at Gerard, whose mouth is set in a thin line. “Help me get my things, we need to go over there,” Gerard says, as though pulling himself out of a stupor. “Quickly.”
Frank goes upstairs and methodically gathers Gerard's traveling case, all the things he might need to investigate a case. They've had murders before, though not that many, because murders in the midnighter community are usually dealt with (or covered up) by the creature species, and murders in the daylighter community involve the police force, who Gerard tends to detest or be bored by, depending on the detective. This isn't just any other case, though, so Frank packs an extra set of clothes and some of Gerard's more sensitive equipment, and he changes his own outfit, because if they're going to the Decaydance Mansion, Frank is going to represent Gerard well.
Frank uses the excuse of getting dressed to distract himself from thinking about how Gerard had just been with Patrick, how Gerard had just sent Mikey away, how Gerard had hidden himself in the greenhouse as though there was something he didn’t want to talk about. It doesn't mean - of course Gerard couldn't have been involved, it is just - it’s - Frank will just wait for Gerard to explain and then he will understand everything.
Part Two