World Has Lost Its Mind

by CaptainVastolation

Summary:

Gerry just wants to burn some books.

Michael likes to play with its food.

Gertrude is... Gertrude.

What could go wrong?

Notes:

I wanted to get several chapters of this written before I started posting in the hopes of not disappointing people. Hopefully I can try to adhere to some vague idea of a schedule.

Anyway, I adore these boys so much it's honestly kind of concerning. So I'm gonna scream into the void about it and hope I can collect some other DoorKeay lovers.

Chapter 1: Trading Crimes

Gerry had seen a news story the night before, not much more than a footnote, of a bizarre and evidently grizzly murder at a second-hand shop in Hackney. Given that the incident had already happened, he was afraid the book at he believed to be at the center of the mess might already be gone again. But he figured it was worth checking.

In an unexpected stroke of good luck, the book hadn’t been taken into evidence. It had been cast behind the front desk, away from the main event, a worn little paperback that was easy to ignore. Gerry felt under the front cover – no need to open and read the damn thing – for the damning nameplate. Sure enough, his fingers brushed the cool metal, and he slipped the book into his coat without further inspection. He could give it a once-over in the Archives or Artefact Storage, someplace a bit more less full of gore.

In an expected stroke of shit luck, the only person to pass him rummaging around a crime scene was a Hunter, judging by the way their body stiffened and eyes fixed hungrily on him.

Gerry held his hands up. “Not looking for trouble,” he said evenly. “Just a bit of morbid curiosity, I’m headed out.” From their current positions, he would have to walk directly past them in order to leave. There were a few front windows he could attempt to fling himself through if he really got desperate, but it’s not like that would make for a clean or efficient getaway. The sheer absurdity of it was almost tempting, but Gerry was tired and didn’t need to crush the mostly empty pack of cigarettes in his pocket any further.

He began to inch forward toward the entrance, keeping his eyes locked on the Hunter’s gaze. They kept looking him over, evaluating every movement with a pointed curiosity. A flicker of recognition lit up their face and they shifted their weight. “Of course something with The Eye would be snooping. Do you think it would like to watch while I gut you? You could feed your master one last time. What a kind act of service.” They grinned and shifted forward to truly take up the whole doorway. Dammit.

“Not really with The Eye. Just thought it would be a fun way to try to keep the others at a little further distance, if possible,” Gerry said, flexing his hands to emphasize the tattoos on his knuckles. “No real interest in serving anyone, mostly just try to keep my head down. Burn a few books every now a then. I promise you I’m a lot less interesting than your normal lot.” He began shifting his weight back on his heels, his mind turningtoward a new plan of action. “If you really want, I can probably point you in the direction of something that might be… a little more satisfying.”

It wasn’t a lie, exactly. Good enough odds that somebody from The People’s Church would be lingering around one of their typical haunts. That would give the Hunter a real chase. Instead they just took another step into the store.

Fine. Gerry turned on his heel and bounded up the stairs he had noticed during his earlier explorations. Hadn’t gone up them, of course, but he was betting that there was an upstairs flat that he could find his way out of. The extent of his plan was to find a window with a fire escape and get back on the street as soon as possible. The building was far from new, with narrow hallways and a several half open doors that Gerry started to fling open, hoping gut instinctmight nudge him toward something useful.

His hand was already pulling the handle of the next door when Gerry realized his mistake. He had been too focused on the footsteps of the Hunter on the stairs behind him, likely taking two at a time, closing in on him far too quickly. The small knob was slightly warm under his fingers, inviting against the January chill that seeped in through the old walls, and the worn wood was a soft yellow unlike any other door in the building. Before him stretched a long hallway, walls a sickly green that seemed to keep pulsing yellow, nauseating thick purple carpet standing in harsh contrast. Trying to focus his attention on any particular spot made his eyes twitch. A lilting giggling came from somewhere deep inside. Gerry swore through his teeth. Yes, of course, a Thursday was a wonderful day to be stuck between two monsters.

Gerry whipped around as he heard the Hunter tear around the corner to catch up with him, but they also stopped dead at the sight of the open door. They were eager, but they weren’t stupid. The two stood there for a long moment, each trying to decide how the other would play this. The giggling grew and spilled out around them, bouncing too many times around the narrow hallway of the flat.

“Well this is a curious sight, even for me.” The giggle melted into a sickly-sweet voice, effortlessly melodious but still raising the hair on the back of Gerry’s neck. He didn’t know which was worse, having his back to the hallway and voice behind him, or having his back to the Hunter in front of him. He shifted to press himself against the open door, settling on having both in his periphery. He quietly cursed not having more allegiance to The Eye in this moment.

“A Hunter and a Watcher stumble up to my threshold. I am sure a chase through my corridors would be enthralling.” A hazy form had somewhat materialized in the corner of Gerry’s eye. It leaned just inside its doorway, seemingly speaking to the Hunter. He hazarded a full look it and regretted it almost immediately. The figure was relatively human-shaped, but it blurred and faded like watercolor, shifting at the edges in a way that made Gerry’s teeth itch. He felt a throbbing ache begin to build behind his eyes as he tried to examine it, to See what this thing was. Its attention snapped to him.

“There is no need to be rude, Watcher,” it spit toward Gerry. It unfurled itself from the casual position it had assumed, halo of golden curls bouncing out of time. It loomed well over Gerry. He became acutely aware of its long hands, spindly fingers stretching and flexing in a decidedly inhuman way.

“Hunter, you are dismissed,” it said, a smile spreading slowly across its face. It didn’t look at the Hunter, instead fixing its gaze on Gerry. He made a point to look just past it down the stomach-churning hallway. Seemed like a better option than making eye contact with this kind of thing.

The Hunter took their opportunity gladly, the hurried steps inspiring another giggle from the figure. This close to it, the sound enveloped Gerry, ringing in his ears unsteadily and causing the world around him to shift. He gripped the edge of the door to keep himself steady. With one threat gone, he needed to pull himself together and decide on his next steps.

“Apologies for the, erm, rudeness,” he started, still not quite looking up at the creature. “Rock and a hard place, you know. Nothing personal. I was just here for a book and things seem to have gotten wildly out of hand.” He still wasn’t entirely sure what he was dealing with here. The uncanny nature of the thing pointed squarely toward The Stranger, but the touch of vertigo was decidedly uncharacteristic for them. To be fair, the whole aesthetic wasn’t anything Gerry had ever seen them go for. They tended toward the theatrical, and this thing fell somewhere between kaleidoscope and fever dream.

The Spiral. Wonderful. Its aversion to being Seen made sense, and Gerry realized the depth of his misstep in offending a creature of madness. Fuck.

The creature drew back a bit, examining him again. The motion was sharp, almost birdlike. Gerry decided to finally look up and meet its gaze. Its wide eyes were a soft green, surprising pastel against the oversaturated nature of everything else around it. It blinked, and suddenly they were purple, shifting slowly toward pink. The instinct to note and catalogue the phenomenon pulled at the back of his mind. He pushed against it, not wanting to See too much of the creature again and risk upsetting it further.

“Things do not apologize to me, Watcher,” it said slowly. Between its shifting edges and Gerry’s wariness to look at it too intently, the expression that passed over its face was impossible to read. Its brow decidedly furrowed. “Even without the help of your master, you should know better than to try to play games with something like me.”

Gerry leaned his weight off the door and held up his hands. “Wasn’t trying to, just speaking the truth. Came for a book, got the book, just want to go home and burn it. Playing games isn’t really my thing.” He couldn’t decide if being straightforward with it was his best bet or not, but it at least seemed like a good place to start. He reached slowly into his jacket pocket and retrieved the small volume, holding it up for the creature to see.

“I think it’s The Slaughter. Haven’t really had time to check though. Maybe some limited edition of A Clockwork Orange or something,” he chuckled. He was calming back down, grounding himself again. He took a step back from the doorway. Proximity to the thing and its hallway had to account for some of the lingering unsteadiness in his mind.

“Surely your Institute would prefer to study and catalogue it, inspect its every page?” There was a subtle venom in its voice, but the furrow in its brow seemed to have softened.

“Not with the Institute. Like I told the Hunter, I’m not really with The Eye. Try to remain mostly unaffiliated if I can manage.” Gerry’s conversation skills had never been particularly impressive, but this thing seemed, at least for now, more interested in chatting than eating him. It was an opening he could work with.

“Fascinating,” it crooned, cocking its head and leaning back against its doorway. “For what purpose?”

“Oh, now you’re trying to understand something?” Gerry raised an eyebrow at it. He knew he should tread lightly, but the more he let himself look at the creature, but more the image of a bird seemed to fit. It was lean and moved mostly in a series of small, jerky motions. Considering the way it blurred at the edges, maybe it was more like watching a spinning fan, with his brain catching snapshots of the constant motion. Knifehands aside, it was one of the least horrifying monsters he’d seen.

It seemed to enjoy his sarcasm, at least. It face split into a wide grin – far too many teeth, Gerry noted – and clasped its long hands together. Watching them move that quickly, the knifehands were definitely not to be dismissed. He added a few points back on the horrifying scale.

“Delightful,” it beamed down at him. “What a delightful little thing you are, Watcher.” Gerry met its eyes again, the colors in them shifting faster now. He bit back again at the instinct to pin the creature up like a butterfly and inspect it, study the gradients and their changes.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe you don’t want to, you know, trap in me the trippy hallway and eat me?” He gestured back into the hall that stretched out behind the creature and took another step away from it. It gave another head-churning giggle of delight.

“I will allow it this time. Since you have been such stimulating company. But you will owe me,” its voice trailed upward, teasing. “Sending away the Hunter does not come for free.”

Gerry tried to think if he had ever owed a favor to a monster before. It seemed like a categorically horrendous idea, but he didn’t have much choice. There was still a sliver of something resembling a self-preservation instinct inside him, and it screamed at the alternative option of surrendering himself to the acid-trip-horror-hallway creature in front of him. Bloody hell.

“Fine,” he said, gesturing with the book still in his hand. It occurred to him vaguely that he could throw the book into the hallway as a means to trying to dispose of it. Bad idea though. He’d already acted on enough of those today.

The cheshire cat grin on the creature’s face split wider, its whole body shimmering softly as the motion seemed to extend past what could generously be called the boundaries of its face.

“Magnificent. Another day then, little Watcher,” it stepped back into its hallway and pulled the door closed in a strangely languid motion. Gerry blinked, and the yellow door was gone, the wall blank in its absence. Of course it couldn’t just replace a real door.

Replacing the book back in his jacket, he took a deep breath. With the creature finally gone, his head was finally clear, and the stupid idiotic God awful decision he had made to owe a favor to a monster stood stark in his mind. If he hadn’t been so scrambled in its presence, maybe he could have figured something else out. Couldn’t do anything about it now.

He strode back down the stairs and through the crime scene below, cigarette already lit between his lips by the time he stepped back into the January cold.

Chapter 2: A Gambler at Heart

Summary:

Michael appears again. Gerry has some A+ interpersonal skills.

Nobody said that The Eye *wasn't* trying to claim Gerry.

Notes:

I have no self control, so here's another chapter. I'm hoping to write a few more before I post another one for y'all, but I'm not always good at pacing myself. Evidently I'm also not good at chapter summaries.

All my chapter titles are going to come from Gregory Alan Isakov songs for this fic. I used up all my creativity writing this, you expect me to name it too??

It was almost a week before Gerry saw the cheerful yellow door again, this time tucked into an alley near a pub that he frequented. He liked this pub specifically because it was dingy and sparsely populated, and even in the shadow of the corner, the door stood in harsh contrast to the grime of the street around it. He stopped for a moment, staring at it and letting a groan fall from his throat. It was not a good sign that this thing was popping up again so soon, and so close to one of the few places he was at with any regularity. Gerry had really just wanted one too many beers and a moment of peace. Fuck the door.

He stared at it, hands firmly in his pockets. He would not approach; he certainly would not knock or consider opening it. That was out of the question. If it wanted to pop up near him, fine. But he would not be interacting, even if the feeling of the dimly warm handle lingered in his palm.

“Fuck the door,” he mumbled aloud this time, and strode past it into the pub.

*******

Gerry had more than one too many beers.

He leaned against the wall outside the pub, cigarette dangling dangerously from his lips as he lit it. He held the flame of his lighter close to his face for an extra beat as he took his first drag. The midnight cold clung to him aggressively, eagerly finding purchase under his sleeves and the collar of his coat. The pinpricks of pain on his cheek cut through it effectively but did little to actually warm him. Or clear his head. He wondered absently why The Desolation hadn’t come for him yet, tried to claim him. Maybe it had, and he was unknowingly feeding it meager offerings each time he burned a book. Shaking the thought, he flicked his lighter again, holding the flame up under his fingers, trying to coax some life back into them.

“Burning more than just books are we, little Watcher?” A melody of a voice wrapped around Gerry’s head, bouncing unevenly between his ears. The adrenaline that kicked into his system did a better job at sobering him up than the nicotine had, but it still wasn’t enough to keep the world from spinning a little when he whipped around to try to find where the voice was coming from. A laugh unfolded from the dark, and he tried to blame the way it hung in the air on the alcohol.

His gaze finally settled – no, not really settled, it’s like his eyes kept slipping off the thing, god damn he was fucked up – on a tall form with a halo of golden curls leaning against the streetlamp.

“Jesus Christ, you’re still here? Why not just pack up your little door and go anywhere else?” He was drunk and he should not have been snapping at this Spiral monster, he knew. But aside from the initial startle of its presence, he really wasn’t that afraid of it. Wasn’t going to underestimate it, or its bizarre knifehands that it seemed to have tried to fold behind its back, but at the very least it hadn’t been particularly aggressive toward him.

Yet.

It laughed again, straightening up to its full height and sauntering toward him. Outside of its doorway, Gerry could now appreciate just how much larger than him it was. He was not a small man by any means, but it was probably a foot taller than him. Its exceptionally lean frame made for a very jarring effect, nothing like The Stranger, but still decidedly uncanny. Gerry made a mental note that the knifehands were probably much longer than he had originally thought. Better try to keep a fair distance from the thing.

“What the hell do you even want with me?” He sputtered, frustrated. He produced another cigarette from his coat pocket. He had evidently thrown the first one when the thing had startled him, but he needed something for his fried nerves.

The creature seemed to stiffen, its hazy edges suddenly becoming acute and vicious. Its fingers lengthened further. “I thought we had gotten past such rudeness, Watcher. I do not care if it is in your nature,” it spat the words out at him. The juxtaposition made Gerry’s head hurt. He didn’t know what it meant by that until he registered the faint residue of static in the back of his throat.

Shit. That was new. He didn’t really have the capacity to think about the implications of that at the minute, though.

“Sorry. Again. I didn’t know- Didn’t mean- Yea. Sorry about that. Won’t happen again,” he was almost muttering under this breath. If this was how he finally died, he was going to be pissed. Drunkenly trying to compel a Spiral creature was not how he had wanted to go, even if he had to admit that it wasn’t particularly uncharacteristic of him.

It stopped and cocked its head slightly, its hair bouncing and drifting aimlessly around it. The furrow of its brow was the only thing about it that seemed stationary.

“Right, yea, the apologizing. Erm, forget that then. Just leave it at ‘won’t happen again’, yeah?”

“It is not often that I am perplexed. I do not care for it,” it finally said, gaze pointed down at Gerry. He opened his mouth to ask for clarification before quickly thinking better of it. Instead, he look a long drag from the cigarette smoldering between his fingers.

“Don’t really love it either, but I guess I am a lot more used to it than you are.”

He look up to meet its eyes, and Gerry could see the shifting colors in them. Backlit by the streetlamp, it was almost angelic in its own bizarre way.

“Your master does not provide you with whatever information you need?” Its voice was soft and incredulous. Gerry noted how quickly its mood seemed to shift. It made sense that it would be unpredictable by nature, but he wasn’t thrilled about it.

“Like I said mate, not really with The Eye.” Not intentionally, at least.

It giggled at this, the sound vibrating under his fingernails. He was pretty sure he couldn’t blame that one on the alcohol.

“What a fun little thing you are, Watcher,” it smiled, leaning down to be more in Gerry’s line of sight. It reached an arm out curiously toward him, and he decided to hold still. He seriously doubted that he had any chance of fending it off in his current state, and he definitely wasn’t going to run and make himself prey for the second time in a week. So, hold still it was.

The shimmering edges of its talon-like fingers hovered a few inches away from his face. He considered how humiliating it would be if it decided to stop playing with its food and he just stood there and let it happen.

Instead, it plucked the remnants of the cigarette from between his lips and squealed with glee, jumping back away from Gerry and holding its stolen prize aloft. The sound shot a splitting pain behind his eyes, and he pressed the heel of his hand up between his eyebrows. He was too tired and too fucked up for this.

“C’mon, ok, if you’re going to be around then we need to set some-” The words died on his tongue as he watched the creature pop the cigarette in its mouth like a candy, too many teeth flashing in the dark, a fingertip seeming to both catch on and pass through its lower lip as it did so. It giggled again in obvious delight.

“… ground rules,” Gerry finished, staring up at the creature, dumbfounded. Maybe unpredictable was an understatement.

“I follow no one’s rules, Watcher,” its eyes glimmered with mischief. It was clearly so pleased with itself, Gerry couldn’t help but finally laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation. It started as a low chuckle, but quickly it grew until his shoulders shook and his chest heaved. He shouldn’t be laughing at this thing, he knew. He leaned back against the wall to hold himself steady and focused on his breathing, eyes closed to the strange creature with the colorful stare. The world really needed to stop spinning.

Between the exhaustion and beer and vague mental fog that came over him in the presence of the thing, Gerry’s mind was reeling. He kept his eyes closed as he spoke.

“Two ground rules.”

He heard a sound like radio static that he assumed was a discontented grumble from the creature. But it didn’t give any further protest, so he continued.

“One, you don’t steal my cigarettes. One and a half, I guess, you definitely don’t eat them. They’re not cheap, and they’re bad enough for me, I’m sure they don’t go well with… your system.” Gerry looked up at it as he gestured toward it, its victorious grin now faded. It didn’t seem to disagree with him, and he wondered if it had the madness monster version of a tummy ache.

“Two, stop calling me Watcher. I told you, I’m not with The Eye.” Not intentionally, at least. 

“Then how should I address you?” Gerry thought that it lifted an eyebrow, given the way its face pulled out of shape.

“My name is Gerard. If you’re going to follow me around, you can at least use my name.”

“I do not usually have much use for names,” it voiced with that same radio static.

“And I don’t usually have much use for a Spiral creature, but here we are.” Gerry closed his eyes again and smiled to himself. It was either going to kill him or it wasn’t. There wasn’t much he could do about either outcome, so he might as well live a little. Throw some sarcasm at the thing.

It paused for a moment, seeming to consider its option. It finally made a small huffing sound that he decided to interpret as a sigh.

“I will accept your terms… Gerard.”

It’s sing-song voice gave his name a shape he hadn’t heard before. The vowels seemed to twist in some new, indecipherable way.

He wasn’t sure this was an improvement.

“And what do I call you?” He looked back up at the lanky creature, all joints and pixelated edges and oversaturated colors. He still had no idea what it wanted with him, but it didn’t seem to want him as his next meal. Gerry could work with that.

“I told you, Wat-” it started and stopped. Taking a breath, it tried again. “I told you I do not have much use for names.”

“Well, I know I’ve been rude to you several times already, so I figured it would be polite to ask if you had a name. If you don’t pick, I’ll probably just stick with Knifehands.”

It looked quickly between its fingers and Gerry. “No, you will not do that.”

“Pick something else then.”

“Michael,” it finally said in hushed tone, the word reverberating significantly less than the rest of the conversation had. “I had a name once, and it was Michael. So you may call me that.”

Gerry was taken aback by the normalcy of the name. He didn’t know what he had expected, but not that. By the time he had turned his attention back to the creature, all he caught was a yellow door shutting and shimmering out of existence.

“Alright, Michael. Next time then.”

Chapter 3: All Your Secrets to Defend

Summary:

Gerry stops by the Institute and tries his luck with both Gertrude and Michael.

Notes:

Someday I'll get better at chapter summaries. For now, you'll get a sentence and you'll be glad for it lol.

Yes I know that *technically* Gerry isn't aware of the tunnels under the institute, canonically. Let me have my fun.

Title from Gregory Alan Isakov's "Was I Just Another One".

Gerry knocked on the thick oak door to announce himself and immediately opened it. Gertrude wasn’t really one for pleasantries or permissions. He appreciated her practicality.

“Pleased to see you’re still in one piece, Gerard.” She didn’t look up from her desk to greet him. “I’ve actually got a fairly recent statement that I wanted you to take a look at. I believe it’s connected to The Hunt, of all things.”

“Lovely one, The Hunt,” he groaned. Gerry wondered if the Hunter he ran into had made trouble for somebody else. “I’ve actually got something I thought you might want to take a look at too.”

She eyed him skeptically. “Gerard, I have told you not to bring any of those books into my Archives.”

He paused theatrically, hand already around the spine of the book in his coat, and returned her glare. “We can take it down to the tunnels, if you prefer.” He tossed it on her desk. “Just thought you might appreciate the chance to put this particular one in Artefact Storage rather than have me burn the thing behind the Institute.”

Gertrude finally sat back in her chair to give him the full weight of her disapproval. “Gerard, I know that your instinct for self-preservation leaves a lot to be desired, but you should know better than such… nonsense.” She gestured at him vaguely, but she didn’t say this with as much bite as she once would’ve. Maybe he was actually gaining a sliver of her favor.

“Gertrude, please just look at the damn book before it bleeds on your desk.”

Her attention immediately snapped to the volume in front of her. She had made a point to avoid looking at it until now, but the last thing she needed was an eldritch biohazard in her office.

“How in the hell…” her voice trailed off as she gingerly picked up the thick black paperback.

“Hopworth didn’t really need it anymore. Figured the Institute might appreciate it.”

She hadn’t asked, but Gerry allowed himself to be a little proud of being able to snatch The Boneturner’s Tale from the many hands of The Flesh. He had set his eyes on the challenge several years back, but hadn’t had any good leads on where it might have been until a few days ago.

He slid into the chair in front of her desk and propped his boots up on the corner with a smug grin. Gertrude pushed them back down onto the floor, and his knee flashed with an ache at the impact. He didn’t exactly know how knees were supposed to go together, but he was pretty sure his wasn’t quite right anymore. One of the Flesh gremlins had managed to grab hold of his pant leg at some point on his way out the door, and evidently it had been enough to do some damage.

“I will give you this, Gerard. I am impressed by both your stupidity and your tenacity. Thank you.” Gertrude reached for the phone on the opposite side of her desk and punched a few numbers quickly. “Yes, Sasha, I’ve got something here that needs to get to Artefact Storage immediately.”

A pause.

“A book. A Leitner.”

Another pause.

“Yes, I know it shouldn’t be in the Archives,” she grumbled, shooting Gerry another glare. “Which is why I need you to come collect it as soon as possible. Thank you.” Once off the call, she gathered up a few papers that had been disturbed by the book that had been unceremoniously tossed on her desk.

“Didn’t you say last time I was in that you had a few statements that might mention more books?” Gerry inquired absently. He didn’t love spending time at the Institute, so if he could bring more with him to work on literally anywhere else, he wanted to do so.

“Yes, I’ve included those in a separate file.” She handed a thin stack of files over to him. “I will need these back. No burning.” Was that a joke? There might have been a flicker of a grin on her ever-stoic facade, but he knew better than to search The Archivist’s face.

“Any chance you’ve got a file on weird doors that I could grab too?” he asked, casually flipping through the ones that she had just handed him.

Gertrude tensed slightly at that. “Have you encountered any strange doors?”

“Just heard a few mentions of them, figured it couldn’t hurt to be prepared.” Gertrude was a good ally to have in his corner, but he didn’t trust her enough to confide in her. It was like she was embroiled in a number of three-dimensional chess games, and anyone would be lucky to have a clear view of the board they shared with her, let alone know much about what was going on in other matches. If she continued to slowly let him in, he would do the same. But he had no interest in showing too much of his hand.

She leveled a Knowing look at him for a moment, pondering his words. “I’ll have a few things for you next time you come by.”

“Right then. I’ll take a look at these and let you know what I think.” He was back on his feet then, leaving without any real goodbye. He had begun to squirm under The Archivist’s full attention and was keen to get out of the Institute.

He bounded up the stairs and back into the austere lobby. The hair on the back of his neck bristled, tension rising in body as he bit back the urge to run.The feeling was deeply uncomfortable, and it got more intense as he stepped into the harsh light of the lobby. The sound of his boots on the marble floor bounced up to the high ceilings, echoing back in some mocking way. He hardly noticed as the receptionist smiled and nodded at him on his way out.

Out the doors, a few steps down to the street, and he was clear of it. Gerry felt his body relax as the weight of being Watched slipped from him. God, he hated the Institute. He flexed his hands, choosing not to think too much about the eyes tattooed across them. He wondered if getting them removed would hurt The Eye at all. It was an interesting idea, at the least.

He started in on his walk to the tube station. It was a few blocks away, but the ride would give him time to give the files Gertrude had given him a cursory read. Real research couldn’t start until he was home, but he could familiarize himself with them. It would be a good use of his time, but his mind seem to skitter around the idea of it.

He ran his hands through his hair and let out a deep sigh. He was still frazzled.

Cigarette. Yes, nicotine.

Ducking around the corner of an alley to get out of the wind, Gerry deftly had it between his lips and lit in moments, the first deep drag softening the edges of his mind. He closed his eyes and let himself enjoy the anonymity of being alone in a big city, no one Seeing or Knowing or even particularly caring about him.

He opened his eyes to find a yellow door in the side of the dumpster a few meters further down the alley.

Ignoring it hadn’t really worked last time, so he decided to take a different approach.

“Hello, Michael,” he intoned, taking another drag off his cigarette. The door opened slightly, and spindly fingers wrapped around the edge of it. “You don’t have to do the dramatics for me, but if you’re enjoying it then by all means, continue.”

Michael leaned out from the door with a grin, his presence rippling the metal of the dumpster. It was fascinating. Gerry tucked the image away in the back of his mind. That urge to examine was back, more fierce than before, but it still hurt his eyes to try to track the edges of the thing, determine where metal and spiraling curls and body all stopped and started. It ignored his searching gaze and fully emerged from the door, the rippling effect ending once the door was shut again.

“Good afternoon to you too, Watcher,” it giggled, and this time he was a little more prepared for the way the sound bounced and enveloped him.

“We talked about this.”

It huffed, but the smile didn’t fade. “The way you speak to me is so fun. As if you do not know what I could do to you.” It took one long step and was suddenly inches from him, the cold edge of one of its fingers pressed into the skin of his cheek, tracing a thin scratch across his face. Being this close to it, his vision spun. He tasted iron on the back of his tongue.

Gerry swallowed hard. He was obviously aware of the power the creature had, and did actually have a healthy respect for it. It was dangerous. But he couldn’t give it what it wanted, even if he could feel the faint trickle of blood on his jaw. He tilted his head up to meet its gaze and flicked the ash off the end of his still-smoldering cigarette. “I am well aware,” he said, taking another puff and exhaling the smoke between them.

It seemed to bristle at this. The hues in its eyes flashed, changing rapidly, almost glowing through the haze of smoke. He felt a ringing in his ears.

Gerry might have overplayed his hand.

It took a slow step back, looking at him intently. His head swam under the scrutiny of its gaze, an equally uncomfortable but altogether different sensation from the look The Archivist had given him earlier. He was all too aware that its fingers still hovered near his throat. Its shifting hair took up most of his field of vision.

“What fun you are, Gerard,” it finally said through a fresh Cheshire Cat grin that pulled far too wide across its face. It dropped its hand and stepped back to a comfortable distance. Gerry forced himself to exhale slowly, hating that it still shook a little as he did it.

“Thank you. After all, you were the one initially going on about being rude.” He took a final drag and flicked the butt over Michael’s shoulder. “And while we’re at it, thank you for not eating that one.”

It giggled at this, jerking a fist up to cover its mouth. It was such a human thing to do, Gerry was a little stunned at the motion. It would frankly be kind of endearing if the laugh didn’t make his teeth itch.

“Been following me again?” He tossed the question out casually, his heart rate still working on settling down to a normal pace.

“I am all places at all times,” it said unhelpfully. He knew better than to ever think he could ever get a straight answer from it, but it didn’t hurt to try. It had been a little over a week since their encounter outside the pub, and Gerry had started to wonder if the flicker of vulnerability it showed him had been uncomfortable enough that it hadn’t wanted to return.

“Is that how those doors of yours work?”

“You are welcome to come in and find out.” It gestured back toward the dumpster with a flourish, and the door opened for them. The hallway that stretched away was a vivid red this time.

“Think I’m good for now. Need to get home, got some reading to do.”

“Oh? Does The Magnus Institute send you back with homework?”

“Like I said, not with the Institute. But they do have useful resources, so I am there on occasion.” Gerry did his best not to let the confusion show on his face. Ok sure, if it was all places at all times like it claimed, it made sense it would have known he was at the Institute. But what the hell did an acid trip door creature know about homework? “Plenty of people do research there,” he said, almost defensively.

It considered him a moment, its head cocking lightly in that birdlike way he remembered from their first encounter. He wondered vaguely if its bones were hollow. If it had bones, that was. It didn’t seem particularly dense, but that could have something to do with the whole not-quite-part-of-this-reality thing that it seemed to have going on.

“That is a lot of effort to find books,” it mused. It was a simple statement, and Gerry couldn’t tell if the curl at the edges of its voice was just part of the way it spoke or something that hinted at a question.

“Yea, well, it’s something that matters to me. Burn evil books, fewer people get hurt.”

Michael met his eyes again. Gerry was getting more accustomed to the dizziness that came with making eye contract with it. The colors shifted in its eyes slowly, mesmerizing. He almost had a word for it, something to classify the particular phenomenon, but he didn’t want to contemplate it too much in front of it. The Spiral creature didn’t seem to take kindly to being perceived too intently.

“Well, yea, probably missed the train I had intended to catch. Should probably head toward the station if I’m going to get home before it gets dark.” He broke its unblinking gaze, grateful that the world stopped spinning almost immediately.

It straightened up, as much as it could with its hazy edges that shifted in the late afternoon light, and twisted a few fingers through the ringlets around its shoulders.

“Very well,” it said, seemingly to itself. It turned on its heel and took two quick strides back to the door on the dumpster, stepping through the still-open frame. Gerry caught the metal rippling again as it passed through, and the door closed softly behind it. It didn’t immediately flicker out of existence this time, and he wondered if anybody else could even see it, or if a passerby would just see a man staring at a dumpster.

At least he wasn’t the worst conversationalist in his life anymore.

Chapter 4: Broken Bottles Shine Just Like Stars

Summary:

Michael is an immaculate house guest, and Gerry is a gracious host.

Notes:

I have no apologies for this thing that I have done. In fact, I am far too pleased with myself.

Do I wish Gerry had some better coping strategies? And by that I mean, *any*? Yes very much so. But alas, he does not, so he will be our broody little boy for a while. We love him for this.

Brushing into Michael became a more frequent event after that. Every few days he would see a yellow door somewhere he was almost positive it didn’t belong, or hear the echo of a giggle that seemed to somehow come from far ahead and far behind him at the same time. Once the door opened for him, swinging inward just before he passed it. He stopped and looked down the swirling corridor, having forgotten brief how uncomfortable it was to try to do so.

“You know,” he called in, “that you can say hello like a normal person if you really want to.”

Gerry severely doubted that it wanted to do anything that a normal person might do.

It took two weeks of these lesser encounters before Michael let itself into his flat. He shouldn’t have been surprised when it happened, but when he heard a door creak open and a light footstep hit the worn kitchen linoleum behind him, he instinctively wheeled around, pulling a knife from its place at the waistband of his jeans. A shout had formed in in his throat, half threat, half fear, but the sound came out strangled as his mind made some sense of the form that stood frozen next to his fridge. It still had one hand on the door handle behind it, one foot in the flat, one foot still in its hallway. The halo of spiraling gold undulated of its own accord. It seemed to be caught off guard by his reaction to a monster appearing in his home.

“Fucking hell, Michael,” Gerry sighed, slumping back against the counter. “Have you considered knocking?”

“Why would I knock on my own door?” That toothy grin split its face as it fully stepped into the room and closed the door behind it. The door disappeared the second it clicked shut. Gerry glared at him, the adrenaline still pumping in his system.

“You could at least announce yourself or something instead of sneaking up on me like some spooky stick bug. I don’t appreciate you just barging in like that.” He returned his knife to its sheath and turned back to the bag of crisps he had opened, the contents of which were now scattered across the counter.

“It is so good to know that I do, in fact, scare you,” it crooned, perching on the edge of the table. Gerry looked over his shoulder at it as it tried to arrange itself. Maybe stick bug wasn’t quite right. It looked more like a praying mantis doing its best attempt at acting casual, crossing and re-crossing its legs at the knees and ankles. How many pairs of joints were bending? Gerry turned back to the task of collecting his crisps back into the bag, shaking its questionable anatomy from his mind.

“A jump scare hardly counts and you know it.” He wasn’t entirely sure what to do at this point. His plan had been to retire to the couch and find some God awful show to numb his mind with. It had been several long days of pouring through Buried statements for Gertrude, though he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be looking for. He had tried to Know something about the situation, glean any scrap of a direction to work in, but the effort had left him physically and mentally exhausted. He didn’t particularly want to entertain this Spiral creature.

“Look,” he huffed over his shoulder, not turning to look at Michael as he spoke. Its presence seemed to be bringing on a headache already. “I’m exhausted. I don’t really know what your plan was when you let yourself into my flat, but I’ve got a date with the couch and a beer. I’m not going to be very interesting company, but I can’t exactly make you leave, so can you just… maybe not fuck with me tonight?” Gerry finally turned to look at the folded figured on his table once he had a beer in hand.

It considered him for a moment, the low static hum – he was pretty sure at this point it was a disgruntled sound – filled the kitchen and rumbled in his chest. It rolled its eyes dramatically.

“I can agree to this, Watcher,” it sighed with a smile.

Gerry lifted an eyebrow at it as he made his way to the couch. He sprawled across the tattered black cloth, taking up the whole space with ease. Michael remained perched in its place, long fingers tracing the wood grain. It was difficult to tell from his current position, but he was pretty sure the patterns were warping in jagged arcs under its touch.

He began flipping channels, late night news and infomercials and reruns of decade-old soap operas drifting past. None of it appealed to him.

But reruns of The Bachelor? That was something he could work with. He suddenly regretted only bringing one beer over with him.

“Hey, Michael, if you’re gonna loiter in my flat, can you at least bring a few more beers over?” He lifted his head up to look at it to find it standing over the cutlery drawer, spoons bent into bizarre twists in its hands.

“Michael.”

It delicately set the spoons down on the counter, biting its lip in a vain attempt to hide the smile that curled up its cheeks. It did turn toward the fridge though.

“Wait alright, hold up. Beer costs money, like real money that actual humans have to worry about, so can you promise you’ll not just, I don’t know, turn the whole can to foam? Please?”

“I suppose tampering with your drinks would come rather close to, as you so eloquently put it, fucking with you. Which, you will recall, I already agreed not to do.” Its words were pointed but playful, the edge of a giggle reverberating around the small space.

Michael leaned over the back of the couch to place the beers on the coffee table, its hair briefly cascading over him, willowy and golden. Under the canopy, Gerry struggled to let his eyes land in any one place for long. The spiraling curls moved of their own accord, flashes of silver and metallic pinks flitting across his field of vision.

And as quickly as it had engulfed him, the halo of hair was gone, and he found his eyes focusing on the all-too-static water stain on the ceiling. But there they were, three beer cans that didn’t immediately seem to be wrong in any way. He reached out a hand to feel the pressure of one, and sure enough, it seemed fine. He looked back up at Michael.

“Thanks then, I guess.” He downed most of the rest of his current beer and tried to let himself relax. Michael still hovered over the couch, looking down at him with a soft smile. It stood still, but the edges of its figure seemed to flicker and shift, like it was full of potential energy straining to find a form. Gerry supposed that could actually be an apt metaphor, given that it seemed to make trouble when left to its own devices.

“Want to sit down? Better than having you up there staring at me.” He pulled his legs up into himself to clear a space. Without breaking his gaze, it climbed over the back of the couch and folded itself into the corner furthest from Gerry.

What a weird fucking night.

He turned his attention back to the screen, where the women had just gathered for a rose ceremony. The bachelor in question was another blandly-handsome white man, not particularly his type. All of the women seemed far too attractive to be vying for his attention.

Gerry felt more than heard the static that emanated from the other end of the couch. He glanced down to Michael, who had wrapped his long arms around his knees and seemed to be vibrating slightly. Its wide eyes shifted colors quickly, pausing for a moment on a shimmering teal when the first rose was given out. It looked briefly back up to him and the vibration in the couch grew stronger. It narrowed its eyes slightly, thinking.

“I do not understand what is happening,” it admitted, gaze suddenly focused on the finger that it traced along the worn arm of the couch. Gerry bit his lip to hold back a laugh at the irony of the moment. There was a Spiral monster on his couch that was uncomfortable with being a little confused.

“To be fair, plenty of people don’t get it either,” he said. “The wanker in the suit is kind of dating all these women, and they are pretty much competing to be his wife. They didn’t know him before, but they’re all pretty sure they’re in love with him, and he kicks off a few at a time until there’s just the one left that he proposes to. So if he gives them a rose, that means they get to stay and continue putting up with him.”

Michael stared back at the screen intently, and for a moment the colors deepened and the contrast sharpened. The vibrating in the couch lessened and the screen returned to normal.

“Yea, I know, madness. Seems like something your lot would do, really,” he chuckled. There were about a dozen women on the screen, and only four held roses so far. The bachelor called another name, and a relieved brunette in a red dress stepped forward. “So she gets a rose, and that means he likes her and wants her to stay.”

“And you like this?” Michael turned toward him with the question, as straight-faced as he thought it could manage. There was still a curl at the edge of its lip that seemed to grow without actually changing shape. Gerry rolled his eyes.

“Like might be a strong word. It’s kind of like watching a car crash in slow motion. You know it’s going to be bad, but you can’t help but watch.” He finished off his first beer and cracked open another. “And, if we’re being honest, it’s nice to watch people deal with entirely human problems. No shape-shifting skin-stealers, no otherworldly bloodlust. Just jealousy and insecurity and typically human pettiness.” As he said it, it hit him which one he was more accustomed to, more comfortable with. He took a long sip of his beer.

They sat quietly through the rest of the rose ceremony, but as the number of available roses dwindled, the soft rumble of static grew in the air. By the time there was only one left, Gerry’s attention had left the show and was focused entirely on the figure folded up at the other end of his couch. Michael’s arms still wrapped around its legs, but now its chin rested on its knees, eyes round and wholly fixed at the figures on the screen. The edges of its form subtly crackled and shifted, bleeding like running watercolor. The bachelor assigned his last rose, and the static peaked enough that Gerry felt it in the air. It slowly dissipated, and Michael’s frame slumped.

“Yea? What are you thinking over there?” Gerry reached out a toe and prodded it teasingly. He was surprised at how quickly the buzz had risen in his blood, but he also couldn’t remember the last time he had a real meal.

Michael startled at the touch, its eyes darting between Gerry’s face and the offending foot. A dizzying rush of lavender rose in its face.

“He should have picked her,” Michael said softly, nodding at the screen to one of the two women who hadn’t received a rose. “She has a nice dress.”

The dark-haired woman in question was draped in an iridescent green gown that shifted into golds and yellows in the light.

“Yea, I guess it is pretty nice. Seems a little tame for your taste though,” Gerry replied with a gesture at its jumper. It was, to put it generously, an eyesore, with hot coral melting into neon orange hues. As garish as it was, he had to admit that it suited the creature.

Michael smiled, a soft giggle drifting from behind them. It fidgeted with one of the sleeves, and the colors desaturated and changed, landing on an equally abstract array of cool charcoal and muted greens.

“Is this more to your taste, Gerard?” It gave a thrilled giggle at the confusion that flashed across his face.

“What the fuck?” Gerry managed, giving into the laugh that was building in his chest. He was exhausted, and this was ridiculous.

What a weird fucking night.

“Perception is reality, little Watcher. You of all people should understand that,” it teased, finally relaxing some. It eased the tight grip on its legs to lean back into the couch and close its eyes for a moment, long blonde eyelashes fluttering across its cheeks. The more it sank back, the more Gerry lost sight of its face behind the mane of curls.

“Hey. I don’t know if you even need to sleep or anything, but don’t pass out on my couch. I need to be able to sleep at some point, and I’m not going to be able to do that with you here.” He prodded its leg with his foot again. It leaned back up to look at him, brows raised.

“I do not sleep like you do, though it is wise of me to occasionally… rest. Would you like me to leave?”

“Oh, so you’ll let yourself into my flat unannounced and without permission, but you’re willing to leave if I ask? As if there’s no possibility of you coming back once my back is turned and finally flaying me or something? I guess that tracks for a Spiral monster.” Gerry closed his eyes, his head starting to ache from watching the shifting figure. He felt Michael stand up almost immediately, a tense static filling the air. The creak of hinges came from somewhere behind the couch

“Very well then, Gerard,” it mumbled before the door clicked shut behind it.

Gerry sighed and rubbed his hands down his face. He hadn’t meant for his comment to be sharp, not really. However comfortable he was starting to begrudgingly feel around Michael, he was not so naive as to think upsetting it didn’t have the potential for repercussions. But between his typical physical and mental exhaustion and the added layer of feeling like he was stuck in a chess game with the Cheshire Cat, there was only so much politeness he could muster.

He sat up and looked at the space behind the couch, eyes scanning over the empty space where Michael’s door probably would have been. A knot settled into the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t new, having some Avatar or other monster displeased with him, but typically they couldn’t just waltz into his flat. And typically the slight didn’t feel quite so personal.

Gerry grabbed another beer off the coffee table and emptied it without much thought, crushing the can in his hand before tossing it across the room in the direction of the kitchen trashcan. Maybe the rush of the buzz in his head could take the edge off his discomfort and maybe let him sleep.

Chapter 5: Even Midnight Caught Fire

Summary:

I was not planning an introspective Gerry chapter. But uh.... here's an introspective Gerry chapter!

Notes:

I know that I'm supposed to feed the rats on schedule or else they'll get sick. Life's been life-ing, ya know?

Anyway, here's some some more DoorKeay for all of our sad little rarepair loving hearts.

The next day came too soon. Gerry had slept fitfully, which was normal enough, but typically his body had the decency to let him toss and turn until at least noon or so. When he had finally accepted that he would not, in fact, be falling back asleep, he groaned at the time glowing green from his bedside table. 7:46AM.

But if there was any one motivator for Gerard Keay, it was spite. So he got up, strapped on his boots, and headed toward the Magnus Institute.

He didn’t see any yellow doors on his commute.

He nodded toward Rosie at the front desk, who was visibly surprised to see him, and made his way down the polished stone steps toward the Archives. Nobody else seemed to be around at the early hour, but he had a hard time remembering if he had ever seen anyone else in the Archives. Surely employees came down periodically, but it seemed like Gertrude worked alone down in the basement.

“Gertrude?” Gerry called across the empty floor.

The echo of clipped steps came from around the corner, and the slight woman poked her head out into the main room. She was also noticeably surprised to see him, though she leveled out her expression again after a beat.

“Good morning, Gerard. I wasn’t expecting you quite so soon.” She stepped fully into the room, assessing him, thin hands wrapped around her steaming mug of tea. She must have come from the break room. “Have you slept, or are you still awake from yesterday?”

It was a fair question, but he snorted at it nonetheless.

“I’ve had the misfortune of rising with the damn sun this morning, so I figured I might as well get to work doing something other than staring at the ceiling. I looked over those statements that you gave me. I was curious to know what you thought about them.” He fished a handful of files from the worn backpack he had slung over one shoulder. The had managed to stay mostly unbent in transit. “Any chance you’ve got a coffee pot around here somewhere? That would make existing at this hour significantly easier.”

Her gaze landed on the now-tarnished manilla folders in his hand, and she let out a resigned sigh.

“Yes, we do, though it might have a few cobwebs. I can show you where it is.”

*******

The coffee wasn’t good, but it accomplished the goal of pumping a little more life into Gerry’s limbs. He sat in the same worn fabric chair across from Gertrude’s desk, files and pages strewn across the old wood and spilling onto the floor. They were arranged in chronological order, with a few different colored sticky notes designating geographic areas: yellow for Europe, green for North America, and pink for Other. There were plenty of yellow flagged statements, as would be expected, and a handful credited to experiences from Africa and Australia. There were significantly more from the United States than he had expected.

“What do you make of all this?” he asked, leaning back into his chair and taking another sip of his now cold coffee. It was quite a lot to take in. He had been surprised when Gertrude had asked his opinion on statements in the past, but this was a step beyond that. She was letting him see behind the curtain.

“I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something. It wasn’t all that long ago that I was in the States myself, and I thought that I had… resolved a few things. Lately there seemed to be a lot of activity from the Buried, and I while I felt confident that they weren’t ready for any large-scale action, I wanted to get another set of eyes on what I was seeing.” She looked up at him over the frames of her thin silver glasses. “It has been an odd thing, not have assistants around. I figured you were well-versed enough in this to act as a sounding board.”

Gerry was a little taken aback. He and Archivist across the desk from him had a delicate relationship. It had lifted enormous weight off him when she has offered to take care of the particular book that still haunted his fitful dreams. She hadn’t needed to do it. But she had offered, and he had been at the end of his rope. They had developed a comfortable, if reserved, working relationship in the months since. He got books, she got whatever baddies she was after, and they traded notes when it was relevant.

This was a different thing entirely. He chewed on the inside of lip while he considered his next move. Gertrude made for a powerful ally, but he already hated how close he was getting to the Institute.

“Glad to be of service. Can’t have you buried under all these statements,” he said flatly, looking back up at her over the rim of his coffee mug. She was unamused. “But really, where are your assistants? Why do they have you working down here alone?”

“Staffing levels are low throughout the Institute. I believe Mr. Bouchard believes that I can be trusted in the basement on my own.”

Given the current state of the Archives, Gerry wasn’t sure he agreed with Mr. Bouchard. There were stacks of folders scattered across the main area, books left open with haphazard bookmarks on empty desks. Surely she must know where everything was, but he doubted anybody else would be able to make heads of tails of the mess. He changed the subject.

“Got anything else you want me to look at? Heard tell of any spooky books?”

“Nothing at the moment. Any particular books you’re trying to track down?”

“Not really. I know there’s some weird astronomy something floating around. I thought I nearly had it a couple years ago, but it seems to have slipped my grasp.”

“Can’t speak to that one,” Gertrude said, starting to tidy the mess they had made of her work space. “But I’ll let you know if that changes for some reason.”

“Right then.” Gerry stood and collected his bag, stretching his leg for a moment. He’d been folded up in that chair too long, and his knee was still wonky with his run in with the Jared and Company. He wondered absently about getting a knee brace of some sort if he was going to have to live with this.

“Oh, Gerard?” Gertrude’s hands paused in her shifting and sorting, but she didn’t look up at him. “Seen any more peculiar doors?”

“Nope.” He dug his nails into his palms. “Like I said, I’d just heard something about them. Haven’t had any problems though.”

“Very well,” Gertrude murmured. He took as a dismissal.

Back outside, and out from under the lingering feeling of being Watched, Gerry let himself relax. It still wasn’t even noon, and he squinted in the late morning light. The February cold caught the inside of his wrist and found its way up his sleeve. He pulled a cigarette from his coat pocket and ducked around the corner to light it out of the wind. Luxuriating in the first drag, he took stock of himself.

No new leads. No new statements. No new doors. Fuck it. Might as well go home and see if he could get some more sleep.

*******

Once back home, keys toss on the coffee table, boots kicked off by the door, Gerry was very aware of the things he ought to be doing. The flat was a mess. He knew the fridge was damn near empty. But all he wanted to do was take a shower and crawl back into bed.

He waited for the water in the shower to heat up and ran his hands through the tangles in his hair. As the mirror began to fog, he caught his reflection and stopped for a moment. Gerry stared at eyes on his hands. The eye on his throat. Pulling off his shirt, he gazed down to the one over his heart. He didn’t blame anyone for not believing that he hadn’t fully given himself over to Beholding. It was something he had seriously considered.

All his life he had struggled to find footing in the nasty mess that his mother had pushed him into. He had realized in his teens that he wasn’t going to be able to extricate himself from the hellish world of fear and monsters. His mother had worshipped that book of the End. He was never going to let his allegiance fall there. It also seemed too passive, didn’t give him an outlet for his anger.

The Desolation was the obvious choice, but he wanted nothing to do with cults and ceremony. And though he never admitted it, destroying things didn’t make Gerry feel any better. He just began destroying himself.

The Ceaseless Watcher, though. That had caught his attention since childhood. Surrounded by all those rare books, the troves of knowledge and the power they carried, he was filled with that wonderful curiosity that had him reaching up for shelves far too high, struggling to hold books far too heavy. He had no real idea of what they contained, between his rudimentary understanding of the powers at play and the simple fact that many of them were in other languages. And when he was interested in the books, his mother was interested in him. As he grew, he felt the gnawing anger grow in the pit of his stomach and the gnawing curiosity grow at the back of his mind. Gerry learned to wield the former like sword, the latter like a scalpel.

When the Eye started depositing scraps of information into his mind, he felt powerful for the first time in his life. The mundane things, less so. It was helpful to know when the train was running a few minutes late or the name of a business partner’s cat. But the things that gave him leverage gave him a new outlook. Hunting down Leitners for him mother gave him purpose, and he hoped it would curry her favor. When that didn’t work, he used what he Knew to try to ruin her plans, or at least pull them apart some.

When all he had left was reputation as murderer, a wrathful ghost of mother, and an empty bookshop to call home, he was desperate for something to belong to. Beholding had been the only thing left to turn to, aside from the booze.

It wasn’t until finishing the eye on his throat that Gerry realized he didn’t really want to serve one of the powers. He was too resentful of the games that were played in their honor, the horror that rode in their wake. Looking in the mirror, all he saw was a sad little boy, desperately Seeking something to cling to. And the thing that he was reaching for still didn’t actually care about him, no matter how much he wanted it to.

At this point, he was grateful that the tattoos freaked most people out enough that they didn’t bother him. He enjoyed his relatively solitary life. He had no one to report to and no one to take care of other than himself, which was enough of a task on its own.

He let the nearly scalding water run down his face and wished for a moment it would melt him down like wax. Smooth over the scars that marred his skin.

It did neither.

At around half past noon, Gerry Keay got back into bed and was blessed with a dreamless sleep.

Chapter 6: Churches and Trains

Summary:

The boys go to Bristol. Gerry talks books. Michael talks... yea. Michael talks.

Notes:

How many times did I open up maps of Bristol and walk around on Google street view just to not even really put in specifics? Too many. I have no chill.

Also I'm hoping that I can get the next chapter up much sooner. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to set this one up for the things that I want to play with in the next one.

It was a nearly a week before Gerry caught sight of a yellow door again.

He stopped when he saw it to crane his neck and make sure he had seen properly. But yes, the flash of canary yellow at the edge of his vision was indeed an otherwise innocuous looking door tucked between two other doors toward restrooms. He wondered if anybody else could see it, or if it just there for him.

Paddington station was less than buzzing that morning. Gerry had heard of a bookshop in Bristol that has trying to shift into the rare book trade, fill in some of the gap left by the closing of Pinhole Books. He was hoping they might have something interesting, or that they might at least be a good contact to have. And he was hoping that they might not immediately recognize him. Probably a big ask, but he could hope.

So here he was, as fresh-faced as he could muster for a Tuesday morning, catching a train out of London.

He spun a cigarette between his fingers, fidgeting while he thought. He really couldn’t ever leave well enough alone, could he?

Gerry strode over to the door and leaned back against it, finally lighting his cigarette instead of just toying with it. He took a deep breath and let his head rest against the sturdy wood.

“Hi, Michael,” Gerry said with an exhale, pointedly blowing the smoke in the direction of the door knob.

The door did not respond. He hadn’t exactly expected it to, but that damn curiosity of his was difficult to satisfy. He took another slow drag.

“Excuse me, sir,” a prim voice called from a few yards away. It was one of the attendants. “You can’t smoke here.”

“I know,” he responded flatly, blowing the smoke out through his nose and not really looking up at her. He didn’t need to see her to feel her glare.

“I’m going to have to ask you to put that out, sir.” Gerry took another drag and looked up at her. She was a small woman with dark eyes and sharp features. Honestly put him in mind of his mother, in a way.

“Yep.” He tossed the offending cigarette on the ground and ground it out with the heel of his boot.

The woman sighed at him and turned away toward some business that was more pressing than an overgrown punk with too much eyeliner.

“Right then,” he said with a sigh of his own and hoisted himself off the door with a rap rap of his knuckles. The bothering could go both ways. It was only fair.

The train to Bristol rolled into the station, and Gerry strode over to wait for the doors to open. It didn’t seem to be a particularly full train. If he played his cards right, maybe he could get a car to himself. He hung back while the few other passengers loaded in, wandering further toward the back of the train. Just before the doors closed, he slipped into an empty rear car. Perfect. He hated when strangers tried to make small talk with him.

He slid into a seat with a table top and propped his feet in the seat opposite, getting himself comfortable. He was, as usual, exhausted, and planned to nap for the duration of the relatively short trip. He’d always found the steady rhythm of the train was oddly relaxing, and he let his eyes close as it started moving.

“Hello, Gerard,” came a giggle from behind him.

Fucking hell. So much for his nap.

“Hi, Michael.” He opened his eyes to find the lanky figure seated across from him, next to the seat he had his feet in. Its bright jumper stood in stark contrast to the drab grey of the seats. He blinked at it for a moment, forgetting how disorienting it could be to look straight at it from this close.

“You know, Gerard, wherever you are going, I assure I could get you there much more quickly.” It looked down at its hands, fingers running casually along the edge of the table between them. “I know a shortcut,” it said in a loud whisper, grinning and looking up at him through its eyelashes.

“Oh do you now? And what, pray tell, would that be?”

Gerry already knew what it would be.

Michael made a sweeping gesture with one hand, and a door appeared in the aisle of the train car.

“You know, I appreciate you being so considerate of my travel plans and offering to help me out. Can I offer something to you?” Gerry pulled his feet out of the chair and folded himself to lean forward on the table. Michael’s eyebrows rose in curiosity.

“You should look into this new thing called subtlety,” he intoned in a similar faux-whisper.

It giggled softly at this, the wild mass of curls undulating slightly. Its laughter was a little less vertigo-inducing, and Gerry wondered if he was starting to get used to the thing. If it was going to keep coming around, it was probably for the best.

“That is a tactic that I dabble in. A slow decent into madness is quite a lovely thing to behold,” it chuckled and waggled its eyebrows at him. He did his best to not give it the reaction he knew it was looking for.

“So,” he intoned. “You just decided to hop on my train even though you don’t seem to know where I’m going?”

“As I told you before, I came to offer you a shortcut – a kindness – that you unceremoniously rejected.” Michael wrapped a gleaming curl around its finger, coiling it again and again, many more times than Gerry would have expected. He realized he wasn’t sure if the hair was wrapping around the finger or the other way around. Better he just close his eyes again and not look at it. He could hear the smirk it always seemed to wear without needing to see it. “I have stayed because your being disgruntled is rather amusing to me.”

“Excellent,” he sighed, resting his head in his hands. “Glad I could be of service to one of the Fears after all.”

“Oh, I am sure that you have been useful to several of them,” it countered matter-of-factly.

“Alright, look,” Gerry straightened back up and spread his hands flat across the table between them. “I am exhausted, and I have errands to run. I hadn’t exactly penciled eldritch socializing into my day.” He paused for the giggle this elicited from Michael. “If you will allow me some peace on the way over and during my errands, I will fully consent to your heckling and mind games for the remainder of my day in Bristol. Deal?” He met its gaze, determined to hold eye contact even if it gave him a headache. He couldn’t let it constantly keep him back on his heels.

It turned to face him fully, matching his hands splayed out across the small table. Even in his periphery, he could see that its spindly fingers took up a significant portion of the space. It thrummed them on the surface theatrically as it pondered, smirking softly as its eyes shifted from a deep purple up into a warm, shimmering pink.

“Do you have a penchant for making deals with devils, Gerard, or am I a special circumstance?” There was a flash of that Cheshire Cat grin as it rested its chin in one long hand and continued thrumming the fingers of the other.

“Something like that,” Gerry muttered and rooted around in his jacket pocket for his cigarettes. He knew he wasn’t supposed to smoke on the train, but it’s not like anybody else was around, and something about being this close to Michael for this long was putting his nerves on edge. The husky flick of the lighter was a sound he took a small comfort in, the taste of the smoke on the back of his tongue –

“You can’t smoke here,” came the clipped voice of the station attendant from over his shoulder. It caught him off guard and he jumped, his breath catching in his throat. He devolved into a coughing mess that was almost embarrassing. “I’m going to have to ask you to put that out, sir.”

Gerry glanced over his shoulder and found, of course, nothing but an empty train car. He turned back to Michael with a glare.

“Oh yea, fuck you too,” he coughed, raising a middle finger at the giggling tangle of gold curls. He was quietly grateful that the coughs covered his own chuckles. “The hell, are you a door monster by day and one of those mimicking birds by night?”

“I contain multitudes.” It rose with a flourish, door opening silently behind it.

“I take that as a you accepting my offer, then?” Gerry propped his feet back into the seat across from him.

“Indeed,” it said over its shoulder as it stepped across the threshold. “À bientôt, Observateur.” The door closed behind it and blinked out of existence.

“Fucking hell,” Gerry muttered and rolled his eyes. He took another drag off his still-smoldering cigarette. “Fucking hate French.” He did have to admit that it did seem like the most appropriate language for The Spiral.

*******

The bookshop was a bust. The prim little man that emerged from a back room at the sound of the door barely contained the disdain that flashed across his face when he saw the leather clad man bringing dirt in on his boots. The feeling was mutual, especially once Gerry realized how little he knew about rare books, let alone anything esoteric. It was only about ten minutes before he was back out into the street swearing under this breath.

There hadn’t been any real plan, of course, to meet back up with Michael. He hadn’t worried about it too much, what with its all places at all times thing it had going on. Trouble seemed to find him readily enough. Surely Michael could.

It had been a long time since he had been in Bristol. He had vague recollections of running around the area in his twenties, asking prying questions to a handsome man with strange scars when they had been on what could have been generously called a date. They’d gone to the observatory, and the look in the man’s pale eyes held a surprising depth as he leaned back to take in the view of the night sky. He had known significantly more about rare and interesting books than the bloody shopkeeper had.

But the views of the city had been impressive, and as the winter began to thaw slowly toward spring, Gerry figured it would be a nice walk. If he remembered right, it shouldn’t be more than ten or fifteen minutes, and his train back home wasn’t for a few more hours. It’s not like he was in a particular rush to get somewhere.

The shops and brownstone buildings gave way to the rolling lawn and trees along the river. Bundled figured dotted the paths and benches, reading, chatting, tossing seed out for the birds. There was one that stood out, a shock of golden curls bright against the grey sky. Gerry was not surprised to see Michael there waiting for him, but he was surprised at how normal it looked. It had traded the usually garish jumpers for a thick beige knit run through with a shimmery silverly thread that caught the soft light. Michael didn’t look at him as he sat down.

“Are you ill? You look disturbingly normal.” He gestured to its handed folded in its lap. “Those are nearly human-sized.”

“I was recently told that I should expand my ventures in subtlety,” Michael giggled softly and splayed out its fingers across its legs, and Gerry noticed that its nails were painted a bright, glittering orange. “Believe it or not, Gerard, I am perfectly capable of blending in. It is occasionally necessary, though typically far less fun.”

“I can only imagine what you consider fun,” he retorted. “And I’d rather like to not find out.”

“Luckily for you, our plans are relatively tame.” The grin creeping across its face gave him a very different impression, and it was his turn to chuckle.

“Our plans? I knew that I didn’t really think this through, but I hadn’t considered that you might actually put together plans for us. You’re finally scaring me.” Gerry grinned and eyed the bridge stretched out across the river. “You didn’t suddenly develop an interest in bungee jumping, have you?”

“Oh, certainly not. I believe Mr. Fairchild would have something to say about that, and he is not a man that I particularly want to cross. Now,” Michael stood, his lanky form casting a shadow that wavered at the edges. “The terms of your agreement were the rest of your day in Bristol after your errand, so I believe we should be off.” It strode down the path he had come from, leaving him sitting on the bench alone for a moment. He swore under his breath with a smile and followed suit.

“You’re not even going to offer a shortcut this time?”

“No use in wasting my talents on someone who so consistently rebuffs them.” It turned to look at Gerry over its shoulder. “You wound my pride, Gerard.”

“Of course, heaven forbid I hurt your feelings, Michael.” He jogged a few steps to catch up. He was a tall man, but Michael had several inches on him that seemed to all be in his legs. “So, the fuck are we doing?”

“All things in due time.” It giggled softly and pushed its hands into its pockets.

Chapter 7: Threw Stones at the Stars

Summary:

The two of them stared at each other across the table, the prim praying mantis and shabby peppered moth locked in their feigned fireside standoff. Gerry lazily raised an eyebrow at it, and noticed the corner of its tight lipped mouth quiver. He wasn’t sure if it was the wobble of a bitten-back smile or the whole unreality thing at play. It had done a remarkable job of staying inside its lines during their outing.

Notes:

THIS FIC IS NOT ABANDONED!

Hello children, I'm back from the dead. And by that I mean, I was working my ass off to prep for, and have then been recovering from, TOP SURGERY! I'm almost 4 weeks post op, but I've been pretty exhausted for most of my recovery and haven't been able to work as much on this as I had wanted.

Anyway. The holidays can be hard for a lot of people, so please enjoy our boys being silly and not having to deal with The Horrors for a moment. Enjoy a little fluffiness with a nice warm beverage and your favorite cozy blanket.

This shit is *hot off the press*, so it's extra not beta read. So it goes.

What Michael had in mind, it seemed, was grabbing a pint. Which was more than fine with Gerry, who was never one to turn down a drink, but it did surprise him greatly.

They arrived outside the pub, Michael’s curls shining in stark contrast to the deep blue facade and the grey day, and it gestured with a slender hand in a sort of ta-da. The place seemed exceptionally ordinary as far as he could tell, but the look on its face seemed to be one of satisfaction.

“Eh, yea. It’s a pub. Are we actually getting a pint, or did you drag me a half hour across town to, don’t know, look for drunks taking a wrong turn into a suspicious door?”

Michael shot him an amused look. “Maybe next time.” It opened the door for him, but Gerry eyed the creature and the door in turn.

“And I’m just supposed to believe you that this door is perfectly normal? I’ve never been here before. I don’t know if this door should be here.” He cast a suspicious look its way as he stepped across the threshold. Its soft giggle drifted over his shoulder.

The pub was sparsely populated, which Gerry was grateful for. A fireplace crackled on the far wall, the warm light glowing against the dark walls and worn woods. Not his usual type, but he could appreciate a cozy corner just as much as the next person.

Michael strode to the bar, and leaning against it, it almost looked comical. It really was putting on a great show of blending in as a regular person, but its towering figure and mess of gleaming curls seemed inherently out of place under the low ceiling. It fidgeted, drumming its fingers mindlessly on the weathered bar top. It really did a pretty good job at acting human, when it wanted to.

As Gerry joined it, the bartender emerged from a back room. He didn’t say anything, just raised his eyebrows slightly to raise the question: what can I get you?

“Pint of bitter, thanks.”

Michael echoed his order, and soon enough they had slid into a booth near the fireplace. The leather of the seat was cracked in places, but compared to the grime of the typical places Gerry visited, it felt almost luxurious. He took a long sip of his beer and wiped the foam off the stubble on his top lip. Fuck, he needed to shave. Across from him, Michael took a tentative sip of its drink and grimaced.

“Not a fan of the bitter, then?” Gerry chuckled.

“Oh no. I much prefer a G&T, but this is not really the place for that.”

“You chose this place though,” he fired back with a smirk. “We could have gone anywhere in the city.”

“Yes, but I rather enjoy the atmosphere here. It is a lovely reprieve from a dreary day.” Its gaze landed on the fire, and the flickering light illuminated its face in a soft warmth. Amber flecks seemed to glitter in its eyes, and strands of bronze wove through the shadows of its curls.

“I can’t imagine you care too much about the weather,” he retorted over the rim of his drink. “Can you even feel the cold? Or are the jumpers just an aesthetic choice?”

It cocked it head, gaze shifting back to the table between them as it mulled over the thought.

“I am aware of the surrounding climate, certainly, but I do not experience it the way that you do.” It took another sip, grimacing a little less than before. “I think it would be more accurate to say that I feel things like barometric pressure more than temperature. Hot and cold…” It focused on the grain of the table between them as it thought. “Warm feels more like this,” it decided, splaying out its fingers in the space between them like it meant something. Gerry looked between its face and hands, but Michael’s focus was down in front of it. “And cold feels more like this.” Gerry watched as the rounded nails and fingertips stretched toward the sharp shapes he was more used to. He stopped where he had been raising his glass for another drink and slowly set it back down on the table.

“Fuck off,” he finally sighed with a smile. “This whole unreality thing you do is… it’s something.” He took another drink. Michael folded its hands together with a practiced smile.

“Unreality is not what I do, Gerard. It is what I am.”

“I really set myself up for that one, didn’t I?’

“You did. I am grateful,” it said, that full, overly toothy grin breaking out across its face. Gerry leaned back in his seat. He wanted a cigarette. Instead he toyed with his lighter in his pocket.

“So. Ok,” he spoke slowly, picking his words carefully to avoid any potential Knowing influence. “You don’t like your beer. Can you fuck with that and make it something different?”

“Oh, no, not in any meaningful sense,” it replied quickly, but looked thoughtfully at the glass in front of it. It ran a spindly finger along the rim. “Though I cannot say a trip through my corridors would leave it unchanged. It is not something I have ever investigated.”

“So the hallways could change things, but you can’t?”

“No, that is not –” it sighed and looked back toward the fire. The smile was gone, its mouth now pressed into a thin line that flickered with the firelight. Gerry watched its eyes fade to a crystalline, icy blue as it focused on the shifting shapes in the hearth. The weight of the cut-off thought settled over the table between them, and the low hum of radio static rumbled softly in his chest. He cleared most of his pint glass in a few easy drinks.

“I’ll get something else next round,” he offered, also looking toward the fire.. “Maybe you’ll like that a little better.” The corner of Michael’s mouth quirked into a lopsided grin, and it turned back to face him.

“If we are asking questions, then let me pose my own: what did you do with that book, Watcher?” Elbows on the table, it interlaced its fingers and set its chin on them. They really were eye to eye now, and Gerry watched the iciness fade into a deeper, cloudy blue. It bat its eyelashes at him, and the color changed with each blink: azure, olive, and finally a deep ruby red. He snorted a chuckle at it.

“Took it home. Burned it.”

“Oh? No light reading? Or were you not feeling particularly curious that day?”

“Oh, c’mon,” Gerry countered over the lip of his glass. “Light reading? I’m almost offended, Michael. What do you think, that it was my first day on the job?”

“I seem to recall that you were being pursued by one Hunter already when you opened my door.” It made a show of nonchalantly tracing a finger along the edge of the table and leaving the wood grain jagged and sharp under its touch. “Not exactly the something I would expect from a seasoned professional.”

“Piss off,” he said with no real venom and finished his drink. “Any preferences for the next round? Wanna make sure I get something you hate again, fucking muppet.” He rose without waiting for an answer and strode back toward the bar, the overlapping echoes of a giggle wrapping around him.

He leaned against the worn bar top and tapped his fingers on it absentmindedly. The bartender was busy at the other end with a couple who didn’t seem to understand that their tastes were a bit higher brow than the pub’s offerings, and Gerry couldn’t help but smirk at the sounds of exasperation that punctuated the conversation. Hands splayed out, the eyes scattered across his skin almost flowed with the warped wood grain. It felt a little bizarre that any part of him might look like it made sense in the space.

He glanced back at Michael, who seemed to eyeballing the fireplace again. He looked briefly between its eyes and the fire, trying to puzzle out if it was somehow… what, controlling the fire like some witch in a spooky story? Maybe the madness monster thing was finally getting to him after all.

Soon enough he settled back into the booth, two pints of lager in hand. Michael’s drink had seemingly vanished, so Gerry slid the fresh glass in front of it.

“Goodness, Gerard. I was beginning to worry that you had decided to abandon me and return to the station.” It peered through its translucent lashes at him with all the faux-offense of a fine Victorian lady.

“Didn’t realize that was an option, actually,” he quipped and clicked their glasses before taking a drink. “Even if I did, at this point I assume you would pop up again at some point.”

“This is true, though I do dislike the idea that I am becoming predictable.”

“If you’re slacking at your own job, Michael,” he tried to mimic the lilting melody of its voice. “That’s on you, not me.” It smiled from behind its beer, and then straightened up and tried to look serious.

“Well, now, I think it is time to get down to business,” it intoned. The image of a teenager playing boss while the manager was away sprang to Gerry’s mind, and he was proud that he was able to keep his face neutral.

“Oh?” He fished a cigarette out of his jacket pocket. “One moment, please.” He strode over to the hearth and, bending down, lit his cigarette in the embers of the fire. He settled back into the booth once he took the first drag.

“Are you quite ready?” Michael was clearly biting back a laugh, but its attempts at a stern facade were spoiled by the sparkling champagne pink of its eyes.

“Just about.” Gerry kicked his feet up into the seat across from him and crossed his legs at the ankles. With an overly contented sigh, he gestured toward it with his cigarette. “Alright, get on with it.”

The two of them stared at each other across the table, the prim praying mantis and shabby peppered moth locked in their feigned fireside standoff. Gerry lazily raised an eyebrow at it, and noticed the corner of its tight lipped mouth quiver. He wasn’t sure if it was the wobble of a bitten-back smile or the whole unreality thing at play. It had done a remarkable job of staying inside its lines during their outing.

“Alright, fuck it. Out with it.” Gerry broke first when the smoldering end of his cigarette singed his fingers.

“It really is such a shame that your talents are wasted with The Watcher,” Michael held its head in its hands, curls heaving with bitten-back laughter. “The Watcher is no fun!”

“Evidently you have never considered the idea of a teenage Eye avatar at a party playing truth or dare,” he countered from behind his drink.

“I had not,” it said, pleasantly shocked. “That sounds delightfully horrific.”

“Oh, it would be a blood bath. I don’t even feed on fear and I’d want to watch.”

“I am sure. You are so curious, after all.”

“Eh, it’s really more that I’m just kind of an arsehole.” He took a deep, slow pull off his cigarette and tried to blow out a smoke ring. He was successful, but his efforts quickly churned into a tight spiral as the smoke floated up. “And evidently, so are you.”

“I am sure I have no idea what you mean.” It sipped at its beer. He hadn’t seen it grimace this time, so the larger must have been a better choice.

“On with it.”

“I bring you here, to this fine establishment-”

“Shit hole, more like.”

“This fine establishment,” Michael doubled down. “And after all of your prodding and general rudeness-”

“Michael, we just established that I am an arse.”

“I am well aware, yes. But if I remember correctly, you owe me, and I intend to start collecting on that debt.”

Gerry paused in earnest at that. He had managed to mentally push aside the debt that he had incurred when Michael had sent away the Hunter and spared him from the hallways when he had run into it first. In general, he didn’t like owing things to anyone, let alone something like Michael.

Of all of horrors and chaos that he found himself entangled in, this was something that actually scared him.

“Alright. And what form is my debt taking, in this case?” He took another drink and schooled his face into neutrality.

“I would like to know more about you.”

Fucking hell.

Chapter 8: Treading Water

Summary:

It sighed softly and returned to running its fingertips along the edge of the tabletop. The quiet between them was heavy, and Gerry wasn’t sure if the ringing in his ears was from the fight response that he was biting back or another effect of Michael’s moods.

He made a decision.

“Gerard –”

“What the hell do you want from me, Michael?” Gerry whipped up to look it in the face and felt the static ripple from his throat into his chest.

Notes:

It's a Christmas miracle everybody. I got yall at another chapter in a reasonable amount of time. To be fair, I was way too excited about this chapter to stop thinking about it for very long. I'm definitely not staying up in my Christmas pjs with some hot chocolate and Baileys to finish this off and give it to yall.

I'm going to tentatively estimate that this fic will maybe be about 18-20 chapters? Seeing how long it's taken us to get to this point, I feel like that might be reasonable. We'll see how that statement ages though.

Anyway, the boys are traumatized and dramatic and we love them for that. Thank you for loving them with me.

Something akin to panic flashed through Gerry’s chest.

Nope, nope, absolutely the hell not. We are not doing this.

Actually, no. It was just panic.

He would be able to reflect, later on, that his initial reaction was not quite proportionate to the situation at hand. Maybe some part of The Eye in him chaffed at the idea of being seen or examined. There was definitely a level of social anxiety in the flare of emotion. He couldn’t think of the last time a normal human had “just wanted to get to know him”, especially without repercussions or invisible strings attached to the interaction. Really, any time anyone paid him much mind, things quickly went sideways for Gerry.

Even aside from The Ceaseless Watcher, knowledge was power. Knowledge was currency. To be known was to be vulnerable, and though he had fallen into a comfortable ease with Michael, he was still acutely aware that, at the end of the day, it was an eldritch being that was borne of and subsisted on fears based in delusion and deception. To be known by Michael on anything but a surface level was incredibly dangerous.

It did not, of course, look particularly dangerous at the moment, halo of curls shining bronze in the glow of the fire. A faint lavender blush spread across its cheekbones. Could it really be flush from alcohol? It’s not like it actually had blood and a system that worked that way, right?

Focus, Keay.

He was way too sober for this.

Gerry took a long, slow pull on the last of his cigarette and put it out on the table between them. Between the warm, earthy taste lingering in his throat and his nails digging into the palm of his other hand, he was settling back down.

“I literally owe you my life, as much as I deeply hate to admit it out loud,” he started, keeping his words measured. “And what, you want to play twenty questions as payment? That doesn’t track for me.”

He held up a finger to Michael to wait hold on while he tipped his head back and cleared the contents of his glass.

“I know that deception is like, you’re whole thing, but I thought at this point there was some level of, I don’t know, mutual respect or some shit,” he said with a low chuckle. His leg was bouncing aggressively under the table and it was starting to shake the booth. “So if you’re gonna fuck me over, can you at least be straight with me about it?”

He’d been talking to some spot on the floor in front of the hearth, just past Michael. In his periphery, the edges of its figure crackled and fizzed, catching the firelight in a thousand kaleidoscopic points, before snapping back into relative stillness.

It sighed softly and returned to running its fingertips along the edge of the tabletop. The quiet between them was heavy, and Gerry wasn’t sure if the ringing in his ears was from the fight response that he was biting back or another effect of Michael’s moods.

He made a decision.

“Gerard –”

“What the hell do you want from me, Michael?” Gerry whipped up to look it in the face and felt the static ripple from his throat into his chest.

There was a moment, as pinpricks of electricity crackled under his skin, and the ink on his knuckles and throat warmed, that the weight of the compulsion settled behind his ribs. His breath shook as he exhaled, power coursing through him like an adrenaline rush.

Gerry loved the feeling.

He held Michael’s gaze as static built in the air around them. It bit down on its lip as its eyes blinked through a flash of colors: rose, violent, navy.

Aurora borealis.

The word that Gerry has been searching for since he first caught the shifting colors in its eyes firmly materialized in the forefront of his mind. The impulse to pin it up like a butterfly, to See and Know, overwhelmed him.

“I wanted you to be my friend,” it murmured. It seemed to speak to something behind him, its eyes focused anywhere but him. They had settled into a rich emerald hue. “It has been a long time since I have encountered something that is not loath to be in my presence.” Michael seemed to have forgotten that it was trying to blend in, curls rising and falling of their own accord. It kept flickering wildly outside its edges.

“Foolish of me,” it spat. At all once it was up and striding across the room.

Gerry felt like he’d been kicked in the chest.

“Michael.” He rose and tried to match its pace, but it was already ducking through the door.

By the time he was out the door, the clouds had cleared enough to grace the streets of Bristol with a few streaks of golden hour. Michael was easy enough to spot down the block, and Gerry was grateful that it hadn’t simply walked out the pub door and through its own.

“Michael!” He called down the street and was resoundingly ignored. He kicked into a jog.

His breath was a stream of obscenities in time with the pounding of his boots on the pavement. His mind was a mess, half-finished thoughts and fragments of memories flashing in and out of focus.

Blue dye stains on his hands. The stairs up into Pinhole Books. The white-hot pain of a tattoo needle in his knuckle. His mother, her words kind but her hands cruel. A pitiable old man, nose bloody and begging for mercy -

A car horn pulled him back to reality as tires screeched to his right. He’d been so in his head that he’d walked straight into the cross street. Gerry patted the hood of the car and absently waved at the driver, who swore at him.

Yeah, probably deserved that one.

He was closing the distance as Michael ducked into an alley. He’d been grateful that it hadn’t just opened a door in the middle of the street, but out of sight, he knew that luck wouldn’t hold.

“Michael!” Gerry round the corner behind it as the shimmering door in the middle of the alley began to swing shut. He managed to get his foot between the door and the jam and leaned his forearms up against the trim. Panting, he leaned his forehead against the wood of the yellow door. It was softly warm like the handle had been when he’d first opened it.

“If you cross my threshold, I cannot guarantee that you will find your way back out,” Michael hissed through the crack in the door. The typically melodious quality of its voice was cut through with dissonance that made his teeth ache.

“Nope, just staying here.” He wasn’t sure what sort of dream logic allowed his foot to hold open a portal into an eldritch nightmare realm, but he was happy to work with it. “Michael, I’m sorry.”

“You have made your opinion of me clearly known, Gerard,” it seethed. Gerry could feel the pulsing static energy radiating off of it through the door. “Leave me alone.”

“Nope. Not gonna happen.” He tried to sound nonchalant, but he could only imagine what the scene looked like behind the door. Michael, sitting on the ground, back against the wall, form stretched out like fractals, claws hooked into the garish carpet.

He was very afraid of what might happen if Michael decided to open the door back up.

“At least…” his resolve wavered. “Will you listen, at least? For a second? And if you never want to see me again after that, then fine. I won’t knock on strange doors, and you’ll never have to deal with me again.”

There was nothing but the pulsing static. It thrummed in the back of his head and was honestly starting to hurt. But there were no forces pushing him from the doorframe, no knifehands reaching out to flay him.

“Michael. I’m sorry.” Being able to close his eyes and talk to a door was nice, in a strange way. It was easier than navigating the unspoken rules of eye contact and how long his pauses were allowed to be. “You’re right. You haven’t given me any reason to not trust you. And that’s part of what put me on edge. Typically in this world, it’s pretty straightforward: everybody else is probably happy to kill you. The fact that you didn’t has been… confusing. I didn’t know if it was part of some long game, some slow decent into madness or something.”

He stopped for a moment to steady his breathing.

“You are…” he struggled for words that didn’t feel cheesy and found none. “Infinitely more powerful and dangerous than I am. You could end me in a moment, in any number of ways, and you’ve got this whole evil doors and corridors thing going on on top of that. I have a knife, Michael, and the occasional passing nudge from The Eye. Trust isn’t something I have ever been able to afford. It makes me vulnerable in game where, again, I have to assume everything wants to kill me.” He wasn’t sure he’d ever monologued this much in his life. It wasn’t like there was usually anybody around to really talk to.

“I shouldn’t have done that, Michael. The first time, when you found me back in London, that was an accident. It hadn’t ever happened before; I didn’t even realize I had done it. I didn’t realize I could do that. And then tonight, I guess… I let my guard down. I really let myself relax, and then I felt so stupid and powerless for having done so.” The thoughts were coming out in a torrent now. “I felt like whatever awful thing that is forever out there waiting for me was here, and I was trapped. And I panicked.”

The pulse of the static threatened to break through the place it pounded in the back of his skull, but there wasn’t any other reaction from the door or the creature behind it. Gerry resisted the urge to kick the door in frustration. If he’d felt vulnerable before, he felt raw now. He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste iron.

“I have had very few allies in my life. Not even my bloody Mum,” he sighed. “I don’t think I’ve really considered the luxury of a friend in a long time. But I would like that.” He chuckled to himself. Fuck, this felt stupid. Like some kid in primary trying to make friends on the playground. But he’d never really gotten to be that kid, bumbling around and trying to learn social niceties. He’d spend his childhood learning about blood, and books, and Fear, and fear.

The relentless static pulse had blessedly begun to wane. Gerry took a few deep, slow breaths to try to bring the frazzled pieces of himself back together. He let the quiet stretch out, the gentle warmth of the door lovely against his face as the evening chill began to descend.

“It hurt, Watcher.” Finally a voice came through the cracked door, soft and warbling. “Being untangled and Seen like that. It hurts.”

It was like one of the slender talons had slipped between his ribs. He slid down the doorframe until he was balanced on the balls of his feet, forehead pressed against the opening.

“I will never do that to you again, Michael. I promise.”

“I am not something that can be Known.” Its voice still came quietly.

“I know,” he replied and smiled at the irony.

“You think I am a monster. You will not trust a monster.”

“To my credit, you are technically kind of a monster? You’re like, a literal jump scare when you just appear somewhere through one of your doors.” He knew it was skirting the question at the heart of its statement. “What if I promised to try, at least? I can’t pretend that I’ve tried very much, up to this point.”

Gerry held himself steady against the strange yellow door in the middle of the alley as he bargained with the creature behind it. It was far from the weirdest or most dangerous thing he’d ever done. Now that he had said it out loud, it settled into him just how much he meant it. He was aching to have someone he could genuinely trust, have on his team. Call a friend. In a way, it made more sense that it would be something like Michael rather than another human.

“Michael,” he tapped his fingers on the wood when the silence had stretched for a while. “Open the door, please.”

To his surprise, it did. The door swung inward suddenly, and he lost the precarious balance he’d achieved. Gerry fell back onto the pavement – not into the corridor, regardless of how much he wanted to trust Michael he did not want to be in the corridor – and landed back on his elbows. In the doorway, Michael’s wavering form towered over him.

“You deserve for me to grab you by the ankle and drag you in here, you know.” He hadn’t really tried to look at Michael while in its corridor since they had first met, and he found it easier to try to focus on it this time. It fizzled and melted significantly more in its own domain than it did outside of it, with proportions beyond bizarre and a halo of gold that had a life of its own. But he could more readily spot the trademark Cheshire Cat grin that was breaking out across its face. It hardly even made his eyes hurt.

“We’ve established that I’m a bit of an arse,” Gerry said from the ground.

“You look a bit pathetic like this, Gerard. We best not let something else see you in this state.” It giggled and stepped out into the alley, form solidifying as it did. It reached a lithe hand down toward him, and Gerry accepted. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but he was surprised to find how relatively normal its hand felt in his. It was cool and solid, if lacking the typical feeling of bones under the skin. He went to leverage himself against it, but it hauled him off the ground effortlessly.

“Erm, thanks,” he said, dusting himself off. He wasn’t used to be manhandled. “Am I forgiven then?”

“Hmm. That is yet to be determined,” it crooned.

“Uh huh. Sure thing.” He rolled his eyes and fished his phone out of his pocket to check the time. The tumble had only worsened the spiderwebbing pattern of cracks in the glass. He squinted through them at the time. It had gotten away from him. “I probably ought to start heading back to the station. My train’s in an hour, and I think it’ll take about that long to get back over there.” He shot Michael a look.

“I told you, I am no longer offering my services to those who do not appreciate them.”

“You know, some day I’ll be ready to take you up on your offer, and you’ll never know because you stopped offering.” He could feel the look Michael returned him. “Right, Temple Meads then?”

“Lead the way.”

“Michael. I don’t know where we are, much less how to get there from here. You’re the one who brought us to this neighborhood.”

“Perhaps your master would be willing to help,” Michael chirped.

“Oh piss off, would you?” Gerry chuckled as he reached for the crumpled remains of a cigarette.

Michael smirked and lead them out of the alley and back up the way they had come.

Chapter 9: Proud and Lonesome

Summary:

Gertrude makes Gerry an offer.

Notes:

Don't mind me bursting forth from the grave as if 90% of this chapter wasn't staring at me accusatorially from my laptop for... a while.

Anyway, I've come bearing a Gertrude chapter! More spirally shenanigans to come here soon.

Gerry woke to the chirp of his phone somewhere in his sheets. He fumbled for it, eyes still closed, and managed to retrieve it from somewhere near his feet on the fourth ring.

“Yeah?” He answered without looking to see who it was. There were very few people that might have a desire to call him.

“Yes, good morning Gerard. I had hoped that 11AM would have been generous enough, but I see that I’ve underestimated you yet again.” Gertrude’s voice was always cool and level. It was difficult to tell if he was being poked fun at or vaguely reprimanded by the old woman.

“Huge mistake, underestimating me. Be sure you don’t do that again.” He snorted and rubbed a hand across is face. He finally started blinking against the light streaming in through his faded curtains. “So what’s going on that warrants a call?”

“Well,” she cleared her throat. “I’ve got something that I want you to take a look at. I will admit, having another set of eyes and a fresh perspective is helpful.”

“Isn’t that what assistants are supposed to be for?” His parents had met that way, working for Gertrude in the Archives. He wondered briefly at what his mother would’ve thought of his deepening affiliation with her.

“Not so much anymore. I suppose Mr. Bouchard believes I can take care of things on my own down here, after all these years.” There was an edge to her voice that she quickly bit back in favor of her typical tone. “Regardless, I’d like for you to come over today, assuming you don’t have any other pressing matters to attend to.”

“Dance card’s pretty full these days, but I’m sure I can move something around,” he said, deadpan, reaching to his nightstand for his cigarettes and lighter. He certainly didn’t have any social occasions on the horizon, and without any promising leads on Leitners, Gerry figured heading to the Archives might actually be a good use of his time. Surely the old woman could direct him toward statements with a certain literary flavor.

“How accommodating of you,” she quipped back, mirroring his tone. “Think you can be here this afternoon?”

“Yeah, give me a couple of hours.” He shimmied up in bed to sit back against metal frame and lit up.

“Wonderful.” The line clicked off. For all her looking like a fragile grandmother, she could be rather short. Gerry thought it was sensible.

He was finally awake enough to start slowly putting himself into motion. If he was actually going to meet Gertrude at a reasonable afternoon hour, he needed to pull himself together. It usually took an hour or so to get over to Chelsea. If he’d ever thought that he’d be building something of a working relationship with the Institute, he might have reconsidered his choice to move up to Camden. But when he was able to get away from the bookshop, he wanted to get as far away from Morden as he could afford, and Camden was that.

Breakfast consisted of a second cigarette on his walk to the tube station and, after a pang in his stomach, a sesame bagel from a corner shop that never seemed to mind when he paid with loose change.

Down in the tube station, the cloying London cold clung to every bit of skin it found. He cursed and readjusted his threadbare scarf. The afternoon in Bristol had been a welcome reprieve, but winter was far from being done with them. When his train came, he settled into a corner and turned the brief trip over in his mind.

Gerry kicked himself for getting his hopes up about the bookstore. He should have known that it would more than likely be a bust, but the closing of Pinhole Books left a distinct niche notably empty. At some point someone had to be stupid enough to come along and try to take on the mantel.

The posh little man, with his stupid little mustache and his horrendous little waistcoat, had been a waste of his time. He had been more than tempted to punch him in the nose, the way he talked down to him while having to look up to meet his gaze. He smelled of old money and cabin fever, a good old boy with more money than sense who wanted an impressive-looking hobby to show off with. But he had been a man with lawyer money, and the last thing Gerry needed was an assault charge.

He wondered if Michael might know anything about weird books. He’d encountered a Spiral book before. As the story went on, the character names and plot points and settings changed abruptly, but to go back and reread previous sections would show that of course those had always been the names and places. You’d just misremembered. Gerry had been a teen then and let his curiosity get the better of him. He’d read until the first name changed, and the primal fear that spiked in his belly made him snap it shut. Remembering names had been a struggle for the next few weeks.

His mind lingered on Michael and their evening together. As much as the cold, calculating thing in the pit of his stomach hated to admit it, it really hadn’t given him a reason not to trust it. Or at least, to distrust it. He chewed on the inside of his lip, fiddling with the scar from a long-removed piercing. It would be insane to actually considering trusting a creature made of lies and nightmares, and he snorted a chuckle to himself at the irony. He’d never really been one for making the expected choice, or listening to what remained of his self-preservation instinct, for that matter.

Soon enough the train ground to a stop in Chelsea, and Gerry was back on the bristling London streets. He lit up another cigarette to steady his hands and center his mind. While he had made up his mind about Michael – Jesus, what is wrong with you Gerry, fucking ridiculous – he wasn’t sure just yet of what to think about Gertrude. The Archives were an excellent resource, and given that she seemed to be the only one there to help him navigate the mess, she was a valuable resource by extension. He had significantly fewer reasons to distrust her than he did Michael, and he wondered if his general dislike of the Institute itself colored his perception of her. He certainly didn’t want to get himself intertwined with the workings of the Institute. What little his mother had spoken about it couldn’t be considered a glowing review, for as much as her word could be taken at face value about anything.

Ah, there we go. Of course Mary Keay and the gentle, loving home she’d raised him in had set his social compass to spinning so hopelessly that it would point first toward something like Michael instead of Gertrude.

At least Gertrude had taken care of that for him. The standoffish woman hadn’t had any real reason to help him, but she had. That in and of itself had to count for something. He ground the smoldering butt of his cigarette into the steps of the Institute and steeled himself to go in.

As much as he generally disliked being in the Institute, with it’s austere atmosphere and that heavy Watching feeling, he had to admit that the Archives, tucked down into basement, had a much more approachable feeling. While the rest of the building felt like the eyes in the stately portraits were following you, judgmental glares down their long noses, the Archives felt more like someone looking over your shoulder. It was annoying as hell, but it was much more manageable.

“Gertrude,” Gerry called into the stacks, “I hope you know that if you keep calling me in like this, you’re going to have to start compensating me for it.”

“I highly doubt that you would do well as a proper Institute employee, least of all in the Archives” the soft voice from behind him startled him, and he had to make a small effort to keep a straight face as he turned to face her. Gertrude stood in the doorway to the break room, steaming mug held between both lithe hands. He was at least a head taller than her, but her quiet presence was larger than her frame. “Firstly, it would require that you be here around 9AM, which I’m quite confident would prove… problematic.” She took a sip of her tea, and Gerry thought it might have been covering for a soft smile.

“And Lord knows I don’t have a work appropriate wardrobe. If statement-givers ended up sitting across from me, I’m sure half of them would think they were having a secondary spooky experience.”

“Quite right. I don’t image you are suitable in public-facing positions,” she agreed into her mug as she turned toward her office. “Now, if we’re quite done with the pleasantries, I believe you cleared your dance card for me.”

He snorted and fell into step just behind her.

“And pray tell, what exactly was so pressing that I needed to clear my dance card?” He flopped into the chair that he had begun to think of as his spot in her office and tossed an arm over the worn fabric of the back.

“Well,” she sank into a deep sigh. “As I’ve said before, I used to have assistants. And while I have made due without them fairly well at this point, I wasn’t strictly working alone. I’ve found that having someone outside the Institute to share information with and broaden our collective set of resources is invaluable.” She looked up at from the files on her desk to meet his eye. “Did you ever happen to cross paths with Adelard Dekker?”

Gerry wanted to quip back that he very rarely knew the names of the people and things that he often came across, but the softness at the edge of her voice as she said the name made him hold his tongue.

“It’s not a name I recognize, no.”

“I figured if you two had ever met, he would have told me about it, but I can’t presume to know much about his personal life outside of our work. But he was a steadfast ally to me, and I dare say by the end, I could call him a friend.” She flipped through a file on her desk just to set it aside again. “Last year he was on a fool’s errand in Germany and fell to The Corruption.”

May you rest where no shadows are cast, and no eyes may see you slumber.

The phrase appeared at the edge of his consciousness and settled into his chest with a quiet weight.

“All that to say,” she continued. “I’ve been impressed by your insight. I should’ve have been surprised, knowing your parents, but nonetheless. I believe that working together on a more consistent basis would be beneficial to both of us in our respective goals. The Archives and the Library are good places to help you find your books, and Lord knows that you’re more in tune with a lot of what is going on outside these walls than I could manage.”

“I don’t want to be part of the Institute,” he said quickly.

“You would not be affiliated with The Magnus Institute in any official sense,” she replied. “You are a professional colleague of mine, and all that I am proposing is that we pool our resources and knowledge. For both of our sakes, I do not want you to become an archival employee.”

The cool grey of Gertrude’s gaze was as unyielding as ever. The offer she’d put on the table carried an inherent level of vulnerability, but everything about how she held herself and moved through her space made a valiant effort to ignore it. She was already reaching for a thick binder on a high shelf behind her desk, business as usual.

Fuck it. He’d made worse choices lately.

“So, what, an overgrown teenage dirtbag and a granny with a handmade jumper against the world?”

“Don’t sound so excited.” She flipped through the file and pulled out of a few different packets. A few of them were dark at the edges from time and handling.

“Oh, it’s the stuff legends are made of,” Gerry quipped, leaning forward to get a better look at what she was assembling. “But really, what exactly did you have in mind?”

“What do you know about the rituals that the Fears periodically attempt?” She swatted his hand away from the packet of papers sitting closest to the edge of her desk.

“I’m not sure. Are we talking a larger-scale ritual than say, binding oneself to a wretched book?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Then very little.” He settled back into his seat and bit the inside of his cheek to keep his leg from bouncing. “Is this like, a more collective power grab somehow?”

“Something like that. I believe that the goal of these rituals is to bring through the full power of the patron in question and remake the world in its image.”

“Well… shit.” His personal slice of hell had been awful enough when he’d been able to escape the bookshop and get away from her for at least a moment. “How the hell would that work?”

“The details of each one are, naturally, unique to the nature of the fear they are trying to harness. There are statements stretching back hundreds of years that seem to hint at what different attempts might look like. As you can imagine, The Flesh looks rather different than The Buried.” She paused and fixed her gaze somewhere the middle distance for a moment, clearly contemplating something with a soft smile. “Well, perhaps those aren’t the best examples, but the idea still stands.”

Whatever private joke she seemed to be making was lost entirely on Gerry, and he cocked an eyebrow at her in hopes that she would continue toward whatever her point was. She understood and centered herself again with a slow sip from her mug.

“I’ve managed, over the years, to keep an eye out for the activity that seems to accompany the preparation for such rituals and intervene when necessary. Such things seem to take decades, if not centuries, to pull together, so while it has been on my radar for many of my years here at the Institute, it has recently begun to take up significantly more of my time.”

“So you need help.”

“Yes,” she sighed as if it pained to her to admit it.

“So tell me if I’ve got this right,” Gerry desperately wanted another cigarette, but he wasn’t about to pull out a lighter in the Archives, of all places. Instead, he stood up to pace the length of the cramped office. “So the desultory followers of evil fear gods are coming together to try to bring about some unholy apocalypse, and you’re asking me,” he made sure to meet her eye for a moment. “You want me to help you stave off the end of the world.”

“You don’t need to embellish it with such dramatics.” Gertrude leaned back into her ancient desk chair and adjusted her thin-framed glasses. “But yes, that is more or less the idea.”

“Bloody hell.” He leaned his forehead against the thick office door and closed his eyes. “This is stupid. This is ridiculous!” His voice cracked and he whipped back around just as quickly as he had settled. “This is absurd!”

“Excellent use of synonyms, Gerard.”

“Gertrude, you cannot be serious.” Gerry flopped back into his seat, and it creaked loudly in protest. He chewed on the inside of his lip, biting down hard to cut through the noise in his mind. “How would someone even stop that kind of thing? I could hardly do shit against a particularly nasty book.”

“Often it’s actually rather straightforward,” she said, leaning back in her seat to reach for a folder on a shelf behind her. “Sometimes you get to blow things up.”

“Ha ha.” It was his turn to flatly glare across the desk. He was too overstimulated for bad jokes. She didn’t acknowledge him and continued riffling through the fresh file in her hand.

“I’ll have a few statements for you to read, but generally speaking…” she looked up and past him, searching for an apt comparison. “I supposed it’s a bit like color theory. Some shades enhance and empower each other, and but some don’t mix quite so well and end up more or less negate each other.”

“Like colors, but if colors hated me. Got it.” Fuck. He definitely needed a cigarette.

“More like how you are often a theatrical pain in the arse and I am pragmatic.”

“A pragmatic pain in the arse.”

“I’ll concede that, I suppose.” She tossed a sheaf of papers toward him on the desk. “There, you’ll want to read that one as a start.” He scanned the beginning of the poorly photocopied transcript and scowled.

“Statement of Lucia Wright regarding… a hole filled with… meat?”

“Indeed. Consider this your homework. That’s one of the more straightforward statements regarding rituals.”

“I haven’t even agreed to help you yet,” he retorted, continuing to skim the statement.

“Well. When you’re done posturing and you’re ready to get to work, I want to hear your thoughts on that statement.”

Gerry was readying to fire off something very witty and not at all childish when the phone on Gertrude’s desk crackled to life and beeped.

“Ms. Robinson?” The cheery tone of the receptionist floated through the old speakers.

“Yes, Rosie, what can I do for you?”

“I’ve got a gentleman here who would like to make a statement, if you’re available.”

“Yes, so ahead and send him down. I’ll make another cup of tea.” She clicked the intercom off and turned back to Gerry. “Now,” she stood and brushed the front of her smart grey trousers. “I have actual work to do. I’ll see you tomorrow, Gerard.”

Chapter 10: Plain Jane Glory

Summary:

“Gerard?” Michael asked into the quiet that had settled over them.

“Hmm?” He didn’t look up, still stretching his neck.

“Do you need help?”

Gerry’s attention snapped up to it. “Nah, I’ve done this forever. Just getting too old for my bullshit, I suppose.” He studied its face. No shit eating grin, no mischievous quirk of an eyebrow. Its eyes flitted through a series of barely-there pastels in an almost opalescent glow. “Besides, I don’t need you going all Scissorhands on me,” he joked gesturing at its hands folded in its lap.

Notes:

RING-A-DING-DING come and get it kids. This stupid scene was the inception of this whole fic for me, and it just took a casual 21k words to get there. I poked around a little and was shocked that I couldn't find a scene of Michael helping Gerry dye his hair. Be the change you wish to see in the world, they say.

And yes, I am well aware this chapter is more than twice the normal length. I got a little excited, alright?

I hope yall enjoy this half as much as I did writing it. I'm finally getting into a space where I can pull in more canon references, and I'm a very happy little camper about it. Thank you all for going on this still little journey with me.

Gerry chain smoked the whole way to the tube station and contemplated walking to the next one so he could continue, but settled for sucking down the last drags on the stairs. What he wanted more than a smoke was a fucking drink.

God dammit, Gertrude.

He hated how much the voice in his head sounded like his mother. She had always spat the Archivist’s name when she’d had occasion to say it. He’d never gotten much backstory on the animosity and just chalked it up to Mary’s ego clashing with any authority figure, but he’d found over the last few months that she could be plenty irritating.

She knew what she was doing, laying the situation out like she had. Now that he knew, he felt something akin to a moral obligation to help her. He couldn’t in good conscious just sit back while fuckheads like The People’s Church tried to turn the world into one giant fear factory for their gods. She hadn’t really left with him much of a choice.

All the same, everything in him chaffed at the idea of being part of some little team. He had been dragged into this sick world, and he’s spent most of his life trying to navigate it on his own terms. Gerry didn’t trust anyone else to really be on his team. Allowing himself to be on someone else’s just set him up to be taken advantage of, at best. An “us versus them” mentality only worked if there was really an “us” to begin with.

A particularly noisy turn in the line cut through his racing thoughts. He ran a hand down his face and let the prickle of stubble against his palm ground him. God, he was a mess. He’d never been able to grow much in the way of facial hair, and the patchy blond scruff he saw in the mirror just made him look like an idiot. If nothing else, he could shave. At least that was something that he had control over.

Back on the street, he popped into a shitty corner store with rusty bars across the windows for a cheap bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes on the way back to his flat. He was going to need something stronger than the watery beer in the back of his fridge. The next cigarette was already between his lips as he stepped out the door. It was less that he wanted one and more that his hands desperately needed something to do.

Gerry kicked off his boots and let them tumble into the corner, much to the chagrin on his downstairs neighbor. A quick thump thump thump echoed up from the apartment below. He figured they had a broom on hand to try to scold him with. He stamped extra hard on his way to the couch and threw himself unceremoniously onto the old springs. He really ought to not abuse the poor thing like that. He’s run across it when somebody had left it on the curb to be thrown out, and he’d managed to haul the pitiful thing up two flights of stairs. But it had been free, and that was hard to beat. There was no way he could afford to replace it if the springs decided to give into their age and collapse, or better yet, pierce the worn grey cloth and try to poke an eye out.

He chuckled to himself and pondered what the Beholding would do if he lost an eye, or even both. Would it make use of the surrogates he’d inked all over his skin? That would be quite a thing to learn to navigate, seeing all those different angles at once. He took a few long gulps from the bottle in his hand. Even for him, it burned going down. This shit was awful.

Exactly what he deserved, he thought.

He spent the better part of an hour sipping his way through the bottle and channel surfing, hoping to find anything that could hold his attention and quiet the conversation with Gertrude that played on a loop in his mind. But even as the whiskey settled into his muscles and allowed his shoulders to blissfully relax, he felt restless. Something in him craved to get up, to run, to do anything.

Eventually Gerry gave into his bouncing leg and hoisted himself off the couch, though he still had no direction. He took another long drink from the bottle and wiped his lip.

That was something he could do. Fucking shave. Give him something he would have to focus on.

He ambled into the small bathroom and inspected his face in the foggy mirror. Blond, uneven stubble spread across his jaw and crept up his cheeks. He shouldn’t have let it get this long to begin with. It made him look like some overgrown child. Even if it was overarchingly true, he didn’t need to be broadcasting that fact to everyone around him.

The long-practiced routine helped to soothe the restless anxiety in his chest. Lather the shave cream, brush it over an area of his cheek, and enjoy the satisfying sound of the straight razor. He’d started using a straight razor after he picked one up at a rummage sale in his twenties. It was a closer shave than using a regular safety razor, and moreover, he enjoyed the fact that it took a modicum of skill. It was one thing that he could do well and take a small pride in.

It also felt nice to be the one holding the blade against his throat for once, instead of something or someone else. 

The razor slid smoothly across his cheek, and he leaned in to inspect his work. As he held up back up to his face, a deep pounding echoed in from the living room. Gerry jumped and the razor bit into his skin. The cut was clean and crisp, a few inches long in the middle of his cheek. It wept bright red blood and stung sharply. Swearing, he wet a hand towel and held up it against his face.

“What the absolute fuck –” He stormed out of the bathroom, razor still in the hand that wasn’t pressed against his face. He whipped around, trying to figure out what the sound was and where it could’ve come from, and eventually his gaze landed on a likely suspect.

He groaned and rolled his eyes as he approached his refrigerator. He couldn’t be sure, but he was pretty confident that it hadn’t always had a canary yellow door that would seemingly open into the side of it.

“What the fuck, Michael? Was that you?”

The door creaked open a few inches, just enough for an amber eye and a few wayward curls to peak out.

“Did I startle you, Gerard?” It did a poor job at biting back the giggle in its voice.

“What the hell was that?” He kept his voice level, not wanting to give it the satisfaction of more of a reaction.

“Last time, you lamented the fact that I did not knock. I thought it would be more polite if I did so.” It strode confidently into his kitchen, crouching through the door frame that was only as tall as his dingy fridge.

“And you consider that knocking? It sounded like you threw a box of rocks down the stairs. I’d have preferred if you’d knocked like a cop, Christ.” He pressed the bridge of his nose with a knuckle. “But yea, sure, come on in, I guess. Why not.” Gerry swiped the whiskey off the table and took another long swig. He was pleasantly buzzed, but it was suddenly far from enough.

“What is wrong with your face?” Michael perched on an area of the kitchen counter that wasn’t cluttered with trash and dirty dishes.

“Technically, I could blame you for this.” He removed the towel from his face to reveal the angry cut. The lack of pressure made it string all over again, and he winced.

Michael cocked its head slightly, thinking. “Is that where I cut you?”

“What? No, this was…” He held the razor aloft. He had mostly forgotten about the night he had pushed his luck and ended up with a similar mark on his face. It had healed relatively quickly, and he had filed it away as just another encounter with something that went bump in the night.

“Then how would that possibly be my fault?” It was grinning again, that wide Cheshire cat smile that pushed at the edges of its face.

“You won’t gaslight me, you overgrown grasshopper. Not in my own damn flat, at least.” He pointed at it with the razor and contained the smile that threatened to anger the cut further. It laughed in delight at the comparison, but didn’t disagree. “Now can you at least let me finish this? The only thing worse than being this stubbly is having half my face shaved and the other not.” Without waiting, he went back to the bathroom, this time bringing the liquor with him.

“Isn’t that dangerous, Gerard?” It crooned from its place on the counter.

“Oh no, my face just decided to open up spontaneously when you showed up,” he called back, already leaning into the mirror to continue the job.

“You do not seem to mind dangerous things. It is rather odd.”

“Rich coming from you,” he chuckled to himself. “So what, nothing better to do than bother me? No lost children to lure into innocuous looking doors today?” He called out louder.

“Goodness, I had no idea you thought so little of my work.” Gerry could hear that face-splitting grin in its voice. “Do you think me that simple? The Mother may be the master of great plans and long games, but I do pride myself in building something up. It is a delight, savoring fear that has developed slowly over the years.”

Gerry paused to look at himself in the mirror and remind himself that he had, in fact, befriended an unreality monster that ate people and their fear. It was a wild animal. It could choose to be docile, but it was still dangerous.

He took another long drink and resumed his task.

“Heaven forbid I speak poorly of your very important work,” he jested. “What’s in those doors of yours, anyway?” He leaned back to point at it with his razor. “And no, I do not want to go in and see for myself.”

“You really are no fun, Gerard,” it sighed dramatically. It slid off the counter and strode silently toward him. It stopped just outside the door to the cramped bathroom and held on to the door jamb to lean into the space. “I thought you were unafraid of such things, hmm?”

Looking at it in the mirror, Michael was somehow even less human and real. The edges of its form sparked and crackled, the proportions deeply wrong. Its limbs seemed to stretch on forever. Gerry had to close his eyes to stop the spinning sensation in his head.

“Yea, but there’s a difference between that and being stupid,” he said, clutching the edge of the counter as he steadied himself. “Also, why are you even more fucky in the mirror than you normally are?”

“I am sure I do not know what you mean,” it said, mocking innocence. “Perhaps it helps you better see my true nature.”

“Well it’s gonna give me a damn migraine, so could you, like, not? Or something?” He slowly opened his eyes to see Michael sliding into the room and sitting on the small countertop space like it had in the kitchen. It leaned back fully against the mirror so that its reflection was covered by the halo of gold ringlets. He never would have guessed that looking straight at it would be the better option, but it seemed to fit the theme. “Oh, eh, thanks.” He had no idea how the thing actually fit on that sliver of counter without blocking the sink, but he decided it chalk it up to “unreality monster” and leave it at that.

They sat for a few minutes in silence while he finished and washed the remnants of shave cream off his face. The cut still stung, but at least it had stopped bleeding. He leaned into the mirror to check his work one more time and found that the only offending blond was at his roots. Fucking hell. He wasn’t sure how often people were actually supposed to touch up their hair – six weeks, maybe? – but he was lucky to get to it every couple of months. How had he managed to let it go this long? There was well over an inch of regrowth. He looked like a damn skunk.

“Fucking hell,” he sighed to himself and crouched to rummage around in the cabinets. He swatted at Michael’s legs to get it to lift them out of the way, and it obliged with a pointed look.

“What are you doing now?” It peered down at him from behind its knees. It had curled up into a tight fold on the counter much like it had on the couch the first time it had showed up at his flat. Gerry found the effect quite funny, actually. How it could go from something so large and imposing into such a relatively small ball was beyond him.

He rummaged around blindly, pushing past old, rough towels and half-used but long-forgotten tubes of toothpaste before his fingers brushed against what he was hoping for: the smooth edge of a little box he’d stolen from the chemist a few months ago, probably whenever he did his hair last.

In a few practiced motions, the various chemicals were in a small plastic bottle, and he shook it hard with his thumb over the top. His free hand riffled through the instructions and other nonsense in the box. What, no shit plastic gloves? It wasn’t that he cared if the dye stained his skin some, but he’d done his hair before without any precautions, and the deep bluish stains on his hands and nail beds took eons to fade. It almost made it look like his hands were unevenly rotting, and it was something he’d done his best to avoid since. He set the bottle back down to properly search through the few drawers under the sink. Hadn’t he had gloves at some point?

Ah, yes. The empty box laughed at him in his hand. Gerry of the past really enjoyed making things difficult for Gerry of the future. Presently, he was vexed with himself.

Michael’s question lingered unanswered as he chewed the piercing scar inside his lip. He glanced up at it, and its eyebrows still raised as if asking again what the hell he was up to. He sighed deeply and leaned back against the opposite wall.

“I need to do my damn hair, but I’m out of gloves, and since I get the cheap stuff it stains like hell. And I hate dealing with majorly stained hands for weeks.” He took another swig from the bottle of whiskey. It was nearly empty. “Guess I’ll just try to do it fast and scrub my hands while it’s processing.”

“I did not realize I was interrupting your regularly-scheduled grooming day,” it said with a giggle. It bounced in its bizarre echoes around the small space, but he found that he was pretty unphased by it at this point. Or maybe he was just still recovering from looking at it in the mirror and didn’t notice the additional headache.

“Oh, piss off. Guess I’m having uh, one of those…” he snapped his fingers a few times searching for the word. “Self care days! Yeah, that’s what rich white women call it. Why not.”

“Self care day?” It tittered back at him.

“Yeah, it’s when you do shit for yourself so you want to die a little less, or something like that.” He found a hair tie in the depths of another drawer and pulled the top part of his hair up into a tight bun. He grimaced slightly at the sight of it. Preppy did not suit him.

He focused on the task at hand, tracing the sectioned part with the nozzle, rubbing it into his scalp, moving to the next little section. He hadn’t realized until he put it up just how long his hair had gotten. Tilting his head to the side, a section spilled around to the front. It was damn near to his shoulder blades. Might not have enough dye. Shit. It was a problem for later. He’d already started; no stopping now.

As he continued working around the back of his head, he stopped to stretch his neck and shoulders. Twisting around to try to cover his scalp evenly was wearing on him, especially as the tipsiness settled into a comfortable drunk. Already paused, he tipped back the bottle and finished it off. Tasted like shit and burned going down. Between the burn in his throat and the sharp smell of hair dye, he reveled in the familiar discomforts. 

He tried to turn his head in the mirror to see where he might have left off. He was trying to use his hands as little as possible at this point, since it would hardly be seen anyway. Michael’s soft laugh wrapped around him again, and he shot it a glance.

“Can I help you? You’re the one loitering in my flat watching me do this.”

“Oh, does someone not enjoy being observed? How curious,” it replied casually. “I find it funny that the Little Watcher has no eyes in the back of his head to see what he is doing.”

Gerry snorted and raised a middle finger to it, equally casual. He saw the first dark splotch sinking into the whorls of his fingerprint. Dammit.

It broke into a full laugh like he hadn’t heard before. It was a true belly laugh, with its head tipped back and its eyes closed. Its shoulders and chest shook with the force of it, and the sound deeper and fuller than its usual creeping giggles, washing over him in waves from every direction. Try as he might to keep a stern face, the unfettered joy was contagious. He had to set down the dye bottle and use both hands to hold onto the counter as he joined in. It was beyond ridiculous, every part of this. But dammit, for the first time in a long time, he was actually having fun.

“Christ, alright,” he finally said, carefully wiping the tears from his eyes with the knuckles that were least likely to have dye on them. “You have to let me actually do this in a timely manner, otherwise it’s gonna look even worse than usual.” He gingerly tapped a finger along the part to find where he had left off and was rewarded with glob of dye on his finger when he pulled it back. What a fucking pain. The acrid smell of the chemicals was getting to be overwhelming. He regretted finishing off the bottle already.

He stopped again to roll his shoulders and stretch his neck, sighing deeply through the familiar ritual. Push the parts that hurt, see how much more they could take, carry on.

“Gerard?” Michael asked into the quiet that had settled over them.

“Hmm?” He didn’t look up, still stretching his neck.

“Do you need help?”

Gerry’s attention snapped up to it. “Nah, I’ve done this forever. Just getting too old for my bullshit, I suppose.” He studied its face. No shit eating grin, no mischievous quirk of an eyebrow. Its eyes flitted through a series of barely-there pastels in an almost opalescent glow. “Besides, I don’t need you going all Scissorhands on me,” he joked gesturing at its hands folded in its lap.

It chuckled and held them up for him to see. “Mr. Scissorhands, I am not.” Like in Bristol, the fingers had lost their sharp edges, and the proportions were shockingly normal. He chewed on the inside of his lip. “Friends,” its voice caught slightly on the word. “Friends help each other, yes?”

He bit down on the piercing scar hard enough to taste the copper bloom of blood in his mouth. The whiskey had settled languidly into his bones, but his chest tightened. He looked back up at it, taking in how surprisingly normal it looked. Between the alcohol and having gotten more used to the strangeness that typically radiated off of it, Gerry hadn’t realized that it had pulled back into that same near-human form it had taken in Bristol. To anyone else, it would just be a tall blond man in a cheery yellow jumper and mismatched socks. It was trying to make him comfortable.

“Uh, yea. Ok. Sure,” he conceded with a sigh. “There’s not much room in here though, so I’m not really sure –”

“Oh, nonsense,” it said with a smile, sliding off the counter. It stepped behind him with ease, its eyes just peeking over his head in the mirror. Gerry frowned and turned around. The narrow bathroom was suddenly about twice as wide as it normally was, giving the two of them plenty of room. A short wave of dizziness rolled over him and he turned back into the mirror to meet its eye. Whatever it had done to look so normal must have been quite a feat, since it didn’t hurt to look at its reflection this time.

“I’m gonna pretend like I didn’t see that and just assume that, once we’re done here, everything will be back to normal.” He eyed it in the mirror.

“I would have thought that you would appreciate a little extra space, but if that is what you prefer, then I suppose that could be the case.” It rolled its eyes at him with a giggle. The uneven smile that stretched across its face didn’t push at the boundaries of its jaw, instead pressing little wrinkles around the corners of its eyes, now a luminous coral.

It pushed up its sleeves and cleared it throat. “Now. What do I do?” It met his eyes in the mirror again.

“You want to get the roots first, all the blond right around my scalp. Once you finish that part, I’ll let some of my hair down to make a new section, and we’ll go all the way up my head that way. Then we’ll go over the rest of the hair to, theoretically, even it all out.” He held its gaze firmly. “Michael,” he pointed at it in the mirror. “I need you to promise me you will not magically make my hair like, pink or green or some shit.” It giggled again and scooped the dye bottle out of his hand. “Hey,” he snapped his fingers up near its face. “Promise.”

“I promise,” it sighed dramatically. “Though you really are no fun sometimes.”

They settled back into a comfortable quiet. It took several minutes for the tightness in Gerry’s chest to relax. Michael’s touch was featherlight but steady. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected its touch to feel like, but was surprised by the coolness of it. In some whisper of a memory, he was in primary school holding the hand of a pretty brunette girl. Her fingers were icy, and she had blamed it on poor circulation.

It was methodical as it moved through his hair, long fingers easily working the color into his roots. After the first time he had let his hair down and shown it how to portion out the next section, it continued the pattern effortlessly. After a few stumbling attempts, it even managed to put the remaining hair back up in a neat little bun.

Gerry watched it work in the mirror. It was focused on the task at hand and making significantly less of a mess than he generally did. Its unruly curls fell around its shoulders, and it reminded him vaguely of the gold leaf glow around important people in old art he saw in churches sometimes. Was that just Jesus, or maybe some saints? He had no idea, but the juxtaposition was amusing.

“So… what’s up with the doors? Is that where you live or something?”

“What a fascinating question.” It broke out into that broad grin without looking up from what it was doing. “I am them, and they are me. We are one and the same.”

Gerry blinked at it in the mirror. “Enlightening.”

It huffed and looked up toward the ceiling for a beat. “It goes against my nature.”

“What does?”

“Talking about myself. It is not something I am used to doing, so…” Its eyes met his in the mirror for a moment before shifting its focus back to his hair. “I am sorry if I am not very good at it.”

“I feel like that’s the most straightforward thing you’ve said yet,” he chuckled. “Here, how about this. I’ve asked you plenty of… prying questions.” He was trying to pick is words carefully. “What if I open up the floor for you? You’re doing me a favor. The least I can do is try to not be an arse for a few minutes.”

Its gaze darted up to meet his, its interest clearly piqued.

“The Watcher, allowing himself to be seen? Maybe you are more fun than I have previously given you credit for.” The shit eating grin was on full display now.

“I told you not to call me that,” he fired back.

“Question number one,” Michael continued on, summarily ignoring him. “Why do you burn the books?”

“Because the world is better without them.”

Michael let down the last section of his hair and raked its fingers through it. Most of the remaining scalp area was the hairline around his face. It studied the area in the mirror for a moment before putting a hand on his shoulder and turning him around to face it. Gerry took a steadying breath. The last time they’d been face to face like this was when it had cut his cheek.

“It is easier to reach this way. Is that alright?” It leaned back to look at him, cool hand slipping off his shoulder.

“Eh, yea. That’s fine,” he mumbled toward the floor. Michael turned its focus back to his hairline, evenly working its thumb across this forehead as it swept the baby hairs up and back into place.

“Why do you say that? About the books?” It continued.

“They’re fucked up. They eat people or kill them or cause God knows what. They’re evil. And if I can destroy the ones I get my hands on, they can’t hurt more people.” Talking to its collarbones was easier than dealing with the weight of eye contact.

Its fingers slowed as it worked the in the last of the dye around his forehead. It leaned back to study its work, its gaze tracing the edges of his face before meeting his.

“Is a thing evil when it simply obeys its own nature?” It asked quietly before turning Gerry back around by the shoulder to start working the dye through the rest of his hair. A soft static hum crept into the air.

He tipped his head back slightly and closed his eyes as Michael’s fingers began working through the thick mass of his hair. His head swam as the silence stretched out.

“My mother helped me with my hair once,” he finally said, eyes still closed. “I dyed my hair for the first time when I was, what, maybe fourteen? Got dye everywhere, stained up the bathroom and my skin and clothes, and it looked awful. I didn’t know what I was doing. She was furious. Not with me dying my hair, or even fucking up the shower, but with the fact that I looked such a mess. She said nobody could take us seriously looking like that. She scrubbed the stains until my skin was raw.” He swallowed and took a deep breath. “A few weeks later, she sat me down and did my hair herself. She said that if I was going to do it, then I needed to know how to do it properly. I needed to look respectable, she’d said. She yanked on my hair a lot while she did it, scolded me for not brushing it well enough. But I listened, and I learned, and she made me promise that I would do it better in the future. And I did.” He stopped and let himself revel in the feeling of its fingers moving methodically through his hair. He’d gotten a handful of haircuts in the last decade, but in recent years he had just done it himself. It had been a long time since he’d been touched like this. “But that was the only time she ever helped me. I’ve done it by myself ever since.”

Neither of them spoke for a while after that. Gerry kept his eyes closed and let Michael work, tilting his head as it worked toward the underlayers. The static hum was barely audible, but it lingered all the same. The fingers worked through the very ends of his hair, scratching his back and shoulders lightly in the process. Before long, the last of the tangles loosened, and it stepped back.

“I think it is done,” it said, eyes roaming over its handiwork. “Would you like to look at it?”

He finally opened his eyes and leaned into the mirror. Everything was pushed neatly back from his face and over his ears, and he couldn’t find anywhere that the dye had escaped the hairline to mark his skin. It had done a remarkably good job.

“It’s perfect, honestly,” he said, meeting its eye in the mirror. “Um, could I ask you to put it up? So it doesn’t get everywhere?” He raised his mostly clean hands sheepishly. He had noticed that the dye never seemed to stain its skin like it did his.

“Oh, yes, ok.” With a few rakes of its long fingers, his hair was swept back up into the bun that it had perfected. “Like this?” It was clearly pleased with its work, a smile tugging at the edges of its mouth.

“Yea, like that.” He said with a gentle laugh.

Dear diary, not only did the Spiral monster not eat me today, but it did my hair better than I’ve ever managed to. Of all of the bizarre and bullshit things he’d dealt with, this one wasn’t trying to kill him. He could work with that. He looked back up at Michael in the mirror.

“Thank you, Michael. Really.”

“You are welcome, Gerard.” Its reflection flickered at the edges, smile treading back into Cheshire cat territory. Gerry bit the raw spot in his lip again and swallowed hard.

“Gerry,” he said softly. He saw Michael’s brow quirk, clearly not understanding. “My mother called me Gerard.” He cleared his throat and glanced down at his knuckles. “I always wanted my friends to call me Gerry.” He couldn’t bear to look up at it again. The whiskey had made him feel reckless, but saying it out loud was terrifying in its vulnerability.

“Oh.” Its voice came soft. “Very well then. You are welcome, Gerry.”

Hearing it out loud sounded strange. It was a name he’d only ever used for himself in his head. But in the strange melody of Michael’s voice, it felt good.