Chapter Text
Peter Lukas didn't like kids, as a rule.
Kids were needy. They needed to be kept fed and clean and that meant that you couldn't leave them alone for too long. Most of the younger ones were scared of being alone, so that was nice, made it very easy to feed off of, but all the work made them rarely worth it.
So Peter avoided kids.
He usually avoided Mary Keay too. She was rogue, not tied down to any entity, and he knew she wasn't opposed to fighting dirty. Even so, when he heard that she'd come across one of the Lonely's books (a manual to dealing with grief that guaranteed to make the reader isolate themselves), so he'd begrudgingly made the trip down to Pinhole books the next time he was docked.
Mary had raised an eyebrow at him when he opened the door, but let him in easily enough. Peter wasn't fooled. He'd been married to Jonah for long enough to understand how difficult it could be to persuade Mary to give up her beloved books, but he also knew that this wasn't a particularly powerful Leitner.
When he told her what he was after, she'd just hummed and bustled off to "look for it". Peter didn't bat an eye.
He waited alone in her cluttered sitting room for a long time, but he didn't mind. If Mary thought she could out-wait him, then she was an even bigger fool than he'd thought. He leaned his head back against the moth-eaten sofa and enjoyed the quiet bustle of the city. There were many types of loneliness, he thought. There was physically being alone, like when he was out at sea, but there was also the feeling of being ignored by the crowds of the city. Everyone else had something to do, someone to see.
He was broken out of his thoughts by the cushion bouncing slightly. He looked to his side and saw that a little boy with bright red hair had climbed up and was now staring at him with big brown eyes.
"Hello," Peter rumbled.
"I'm hungry," the boy said, chewing on the sleeve of his too-small onesie. There was a cartoon bear printed on it, but Peter didn't care to remember the name of it.
It took him a moment to decide that this was a real child and not a ghost or something similar. He'd heard rumour (because Fairchild didn’t at all appreciate how peaceful quiet could be) about Mary Keay’s child. That she'd been married to that fool Delano, who’d quit the Magnus Institute and then disappeared. Mary hardly seemed like the mothering type, and Peter supposed that might have been accurate. The big clock on the wall stated it was nearly two in the morning, and he was fairly certain that three year olds were supposed to be in bed by then.
“Go ask your mother,” he said gruffly.
“She’s busy,” the boy said.
“Not my problem.”
The boy pouted, but Peter looked back at the ceiling.
The shudders started almost immediately, but it took a few minutes for the sniffling to start. That was fine. Peter could ignore that.
Then the sobs began, still quieter than he would have expected for such a young child, but too loud to pretend it wasn’t happening. Peter sighed.
“What’s wrong then?” he asked.
“I’m hungry!” the boy mumbled around his fingers as tears ran down his face. “But Mum’s too busy to cook and I’m not allowed to touch the stove.”
“If I get you something to eat, will you shut up and leave me alone?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
He followed the boy to a kitchen that matched the rest of the house. Maybe at one point it had been a place for family dinners (Peter could see a high chair in the corner and a couple of crayons under the table), but there were now books cluttering every surface and a thick layer of dust covering those. The lightbulb had exploded and no one had bothered to clean it up, but the little boy didn’t seem to care, padding over to the fridge, then turning to Peter and raising his arms expectantly.
“What do you want?”
“Up.”
Peter groaned, but leaned down to pick up the child. Together, they examined the contents of the fridge. Pretty slim pickings, but Peter noticed an almost-empty jar of jam and a loaf of bread.
“Sandwich?” he offered.
“Okay,” the boy said.
Peter sat him down on the counter and got to work spreading the jam over the slightly stale bread.
“I’m Gerry,” the boy said. “Are you one of Mum’s friends?”
“We work together,” Peter said. “I’m Peter.”
Gerry hummed, accepting the sandwich eagerly. He swung his legs as he ate, and Peter wondered where the fuck Mary had gone off to. He studied the boy in front of him. Neglected children grew up to be delicious victims for the Lonely, and so Peter had grown familiar with the signs. He wondered, briefly, if he should bother calling it in, just to screw with Mary, but decided against it. She clearly had plans for this kid, and Peter couldn’t help the curiosity worming in his mind. He’d been spending too much time around Jonah.
“Done,” Gerry said, holding his arms up again.
Peter lifted him back to the ground and Gerry hugged his leg for barely a moment, leaving a small smear of strawberry jam on his trousers.
“Goin’ to bed,” he said. “Bye.”
“Goodbye, Gerry,” Peter said. Then, as if tapping into some instinct he barely remembered, he added: “Sleep well.”
Gerry toddled off into the house, and Peter returned to the sitting room, where Mary was waiting with the book.
“Found it,” she said, smiling with shark’s teeth. “Of course, I’m rather attached to it.”
Peter shook his head as they began to barter, removing all thoughts of Gerry from his mind.
Years later, when all thoughts of that little boy had left his mind, Peter would hear about a rogue agent; someone who knew about the fears but hadn’t aligned themself to any. He’d lost a couple victims to the guy, but all Peter really knew about him was that a) he was goth b) he was fast and c) he seemed obsessed with burning Leitners.
Peter finally met the kid in 2009. He’d lost a lone traveler that he’d been particularly interested in, and so he’d tracked down the little bastard who’d steered her away.
The kid was tall. Not quite as tall as Peter, but tall enough, with long, badly-dyed black hair and ripped jeans. He glared at Peter when he sat across from him at a cafe.
“Hello,” Peter said. “Who might you be?”
“We’ve met before, Peter Lukas,” the man said.
“I’m not so sure we have.”
“Well, it was a long time ago and you must be getting up there in years.”
Cocky little brat. Peter forced a smile.
“Remind me, then.”
The kid finished his drink and fixed him with a look. “I’m Gerard Keay. You were in my house.”
Even with the reminder, it took Peter a moment to place him. “Gerry.”
“That’s me,” Gerard said. “You wanted some old book Mum had. But I don’t have any of your patron’s stuff on me, so what do you want?”
“I want you to stop chasing away my victims,” Peter said simply.
“Not going to happen.”
“And why not?”
“Because they’re people. They don’t deserve to die.” The “unlike you” went unsaid, but Peter heard it loud and clear.
“I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”
“Doubt it.”
“I could vanish you to the Lonely.”
“You could,” Gerard agreed. “But it wouldn't be any fun. I’m not scared of being alone.”
“I think you’ll find anyone is if you isolate them for long enough.”
Gerard said nothing, eyes unblinking.
“How about this,” Peter said. He pulled the same manual he’d bartered away from Mary all those years ago. It hadn’t turned out to be too useful anyway. “I give you this. Read it, burn it, I don’t care. And in return, you stop helping people.”
Gerard squinted at the book. “I stop helping people outside of Europe.”
“Outside of London.”
“Outside of the UK.”
Peter thought about it. He wasn’t in London too often these days anyway, usually preferring to spend his days at sea, or in ports in North America. “Deal.”
“Deal.”
Peter watched as Gerard took the book and stalked off, his heavy boots clunking on the ground. Whatever plans Mary might have had for the boy, he was certain they weren’t going well.