Chapter Text
get underway - to begin a journey
───── ☆ ─────
The shade underneath the open metal slide is cooler than the breeze. Gerard couldn’t have chosen a more peaceful place to sit down and close his eyes.
The wood chips underneath him aren’t the softest thing to rest on, but so long as he stays perfectly still they don’t cut into his legs with their edges. His rucksack smells like his room at home.
But if he closes his eyes, all he hears is the park. The sweet chirrup of birds that haven’t ever felt the isolation of captivity. The laughter of children younger than him, playing with their affectionate parents nearby. If they fall down, they’re scooped up with laughter and kisses. If they run off, they’re followed out of love.
It's almost enough. Gerard is on the edge of falling asleep.
He doesn’t quite know how long he’d traveled to get here since leaving the bookshop. The city’s sign had said Bournemouth when he passed it walking from the train station. Gerard has no real idea of where that is on a map, but at least it isn’t London. He’d stolen enough money from mum to buy a one-way ticket on the train from Waterloo and had taken it as far as it would go before his body itched to move, which was evidently only about two and a half hours worth of a ride.
He itched at the looks from other passengers, so visibly wondering where his guardians were. Creating scenarios in their heads to explain his presence in a way that isn’t uncomfortable, perhaps hoping he’d been placed on this train by someone who loved him and was headed to the house of an equally as pleasant relative for the spring season. Or perhaps, due to his carrying only one rucksack, he had already been on a short trip and was going back home. Maybe that would justify imagining him being entrusted with too much responsibility at such a young, gangly age.
Given his disposition it shouldn’t have been hard to believe. He’d sat quietly in the window seat, his temple leaned upon the glass, and said nothing. He kept his bag on his lap and didn’t put his feet up on the seat opposite of him, even when his ankle got sore. He’d behaved himself, and met eyes with no one. The rumble of the train as it moved was more comforting to him than every sick, foreign-world lullaby his mum had ever crooned in his ear.
The conductor had come around to collect all the tickets and nearly recoiled when she reached out a hand to accept one from a boy no more than ten years old, and without a guardian. He had kept his ticket raised in obedient offering, waiting for it to be punched and returned to him. The conductor had verbalized what he assumed everyone around him was thinking and asked if he was on his way to stay with family living southern seaside. For lack of a truthful answer, he had nodded.
He may ache for someone to notice but he wants it to come without needing to explain.
Mum sleeps in the wee hours, thriving in her way at night. Gerard knows when she’s asleep because she’s always down when he wakes up to catch the school bus, and watch it drive past. He often wondered what would happen if he walked to the stop near his house and stowed away, pretended to be a new student. That his coming back to London from one of their trips was just him moving here for the first time. He knows he wouldn’t get far, but it’d be nice to sit in on a class about history that mum doesn’t touch on in her lessons at home. Maybe he could at least talk to someone his age before he was caught.
When it came time to he stared at maps and schedules, rapidly flicking through names of cities and towns he only somewhat recognized. They made him dizzy after a while. When he'd had enough and went to purchase his ticket from the window, he simply chose one that he knew would bring him towards the ocean.
This park is the first place he’d seen fit to sit down. He plopped down onto the ground against some thick, knotted rope bridge and pulled from his rucksack one of the three peanut butter sandwiches he’d fixed himself in a hurry at the crack of dawn. It was oddly dry in his mouth but he would take it. He’d eaten the first half on the train. Can’t go through them too fast.
After that, he made it his mission to try every little piece of the playground area; slides, swings, monkey bars. None of it was all that captivating, but he did it anyway.
Swinging is the best of it — wind on his face, momentary weightlessness — but after a little while, his legs got too tired to keep himself moving. He let himself go limp, heels of his trainers dragging in the concave of packed dirt underneath him until he skidded and twisted to an anticlimactic stop. He let his arms fall to his sides, leaning the joint of his shoulder into the chain.
It was cold against his ear. He relished in the sharp feeling. It wasn’t quick and loud like a slap in the face, or the whole-handed caress of a dishonest apology. It just reminded him of where he was.
Eventually a few other kids flocked to the swings next to him. One girl dawdled back, left out. Wordlessly, he stood up to make room for her and find someplace else to sit. She perked up immediately with a toothy grin and all but skipped over to take his place. He reached for the strap of his rucksack where he had left it against one of the swingset’s poles and slung it back over his shoulder, scanning for an empty space.
The shade under the playground beckoned him in whispers. Aside from the group who had commandeered the swings and a few other errant parents with their toddlers, there’s hardly a crowd to speak of. He had put his rucksack in his lap and hugged his arms around it, resting his head down and closing his eyes, and lost track of time.
He looks up when he hears a body hit the ground.
It doesn’t make a wet noise or even all that heavy of a thud. There is no sound of screaming or blades being pulled or blood squirting through an opening in something that shouldn’t be there.
Just another kid on his knees in the wood chips.
He’s small, shorter than Gerard and made of soft, round shapes. He’s feeling around on the ground for something — a pair of glasses that lie discarded not too far from his reaching hands, but far too close to the ruddy trainers of the person standing over him.
The person could be better described as a young man. He’s much too tall, much too old to be standing over a kid that size in any such threatening manner. His posture almost implies that he’s trying to decide between stepping on the glasses or kicking the boy right in the stomach, but then he freezes.
In his hands is a book. There’s a look in his eyes, a hunger, that Gerard recognizes.
It takes Gerard a moment to recognize the pain in his own stomach. Dread, it feels like. Like that cold, slimy stone that Mum had had him fish out of their own sink after she let it drop from from the ruined cloth she’d had it wrapped in, the water black and murky.
The weight of it had started to grow in his hands once he touched it, as if the slime had cemented him to it like waxy glue. It never even hardened. Just stuck. He couldn’t let it go, and the more he tried to wrench himself away, the further it sank.
It had pulled him in, then, to a depth far beyond that of any normal bathroom sink. He had cried out for help before his head went underwater — his mum had left the room, she wouldn’t hear him if he didn’t scream — and he had hung folded over the edge of the sink, kicking his legs and knocking his knees against the cabinets, until she finally walked back in.
He doesn’t know how she got him out, or even why, but he came back to himself in a puddle of water and with a stomach ache from bending over the porcelain. Wiping his face free of black water and tears was out of the question; his hands felt unclean for weeks. No amount of scrubbing had helped.
Remembering it now, he clenches his fists to will away the phantom muck, the push of cold otherworldly substance between his fingers.
The feeling in his stomach now is a lot like that. Like a lumpy boulder in his belly with no right way to have gotten there. A mountain inverted, dragging him down into the watery, black sky.
No. No, it can’t be one of those. He’d been running away for a reason.
Just as quickly as that sinking-dreadstone feeling had come and gone, some part of him wonders suddenly if this was planned. If maybe, somehow, mum had only left enough money in plain view for a one-way ticket from Waterloo station to Bournemouth, because she knew what he might find there. If she had done what she did to drive him away specifically when she did it because she knew he had to be the one to sit in this park and see with his own eyes what running away could never spare him from. Spare anyone from.
Someone will die if he stays put. If he doesn’t do something. He could die if he does, but that’s no contest.
So Gerard rises from the shadow of the slide. He starts to roll up his sleeves as if readying his hands for dirty work. He has no way of knowing just how dirty it will become, but there are two things he does know.
One: He would be a terrible person if he let those glasses get crunched under that shoe like an insect. Let that kid get kicked like a sack of unimportant meat.
Two: He can’t let that book out of his sight.
The young man appears none the wiser as Gerard stomps up to him until the very moment he makes a bold reach for the book. The bastard had been so engrossed in it that he actually loses his grip and it falls to the ground.
Gerard can see now what it looks like; the fat, ugly spider on the cover and the stupid little hat it wears. The innocence of the little hat is such a lie that it could make him laugh if he weren’t so furious at the book’s very existence.
They both dive for it. Gerard’s cheekbone catches a hard elbow as penance. It seems more accidental than anything but still he twists with the impact, blinded for a moment with pain. The backs of his knees catch the shape of the previously fallen boy, who had been scrambling back and away in silent panic, and he nearly falls.
Nearly, until the sole of a shoe flattens itself against his ribs and gives a solid shove. Gerard lets himself roll with the momentum now, reluctant to push back.
Maybe it would have been smarter to leave his sleeves down. The wood chips are sharp against his elbows when he hits the ground, too.
It doesn’t matter. If he can just grab the book—
But the thief starts to walk away with it, like all urgency had left him the moment it was back in his hands. Like he might not have even bothered getting physical if it hadn’t been taken from him. Gerard wouldn’t consider himself so foolish as to believe he never would have gotten physical with kids at all were this book not involved, but for a moment it had been as if he had forgotten that the people he was fighting for it were children half his size.
It’s like he’s in the same kind of trance that Gerard had found himself in when he got off the train and started drifting down streets whose names escape him now, turning random corners as if he would find himself a new and better home over the water. A sleepwalker’s dream of waking up somewhere more fulfilling.
For a moment all Gerard can do is watch him go. His desperation wavers. He avoids moving his fingers, keenly aware of the wood chips stuck to his hands and the splinters that have most certainly already taken refuge in the skin of his palms. His cheek hurts, his elbows, his tailbone.
When he does move, it’s to turn and face the other boy. He’s just sitting there, too, his chubby face drawn in shock as he watches the man walk away. He hasn’t picked up his glasses yet, so Gerard reaches out for them. He holds them out in offering, and the boy numbly accepts them.
“You alright?” is the first thing he mumbles out. His voice sticks to the inside of his throat like it had grown mould after so long without using it, despite the last time he had spoken being the previous night, practicing wonky prayers at mum’s side.
The boy finally turns to stare at him with those owlish eyes, still uncovered by the glasses held so limply in his hands. The first words out of his mouth are, “I need my book back.”
Gerard stares at him. The words are hollowed out and all the more strongly said for it. He must have read a few pages before it was taken from him.
Well, Gerard hadn’t. He’d only caught a glimpse of the cover. It held nothing over him.
When the boy starts to stand up, his eyes trained on the back of the retreating thief once again, Gerard reaches out a hand to stop him. His eyes drop down to the boy’s arms, catching the silvery glint of something hanging off of the fabric of his sleeves. Like long, loose hairs, limp and slipping as if cut from a spool.
He thinks of the spider on the cover of the book and fights another wave of ill in his stomach. He swats the severed strands away, and they don’t seem to hit the ground.
“I’ll get it. You stay.”
He doesn’t wait again for an answer. He doesn’t have a plan of any kind, but he knows he has to go. Not even that mum would want him to, but that he needs to stop something terrible from happening.
Whether something awful happens to that guy or not — he’d been throwing children to the ground, for crying out loud, Gerard won’t forget that — once the book leaves his hands, it’ll find someone else’s.
That’s what Gerard needs to put a stop to. He doesn’t know how, doesn’t even know why; it’s the precise opposite of what mum would want from him.
Maybe that’s the reason. Maybe he doesn’t want this to have been orchestrated. By her or anyone else.
He starts to stand up, doesn’t bother to brush the wood chips off of his trousers, and starts towards where the young man had taken off. He can see him; even walking so slowly with his face buried in that book, he’s managed to get far enough ahead that Gerard has to jog to catch up.
When they reach a corner, Gerard slows down, creeping along the wall. He stands no chance at tackling the guy, but maybe he can rush past him and grab the thing out of his hands in one go. Maybe he can outrun him, and get out.
It’s starting to get dark. How long had he been half asleep under the slide?
It’s when he rounds the next corner to the line of dim houses that he realizes the other kid had followed him anyway. He spares him only a quick glance, gritting his teeth in his mouth. No one ever listens.
Gerard doesn’t say as much. It isn’t important now; he’s been involved from the beginning. Technically, Gerard was the one sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.
There’s no forcing the other boy away. Any whispering that either of them starts up could get them seen, be it by the man with the book or by whatever is lurking in wait for him. For all of them, if Gerard is too slow.
For a moment he wonders if it’s selfish to be glad he isn’t alone.
When the thief starts to approach a house, Gerard slows down even more. He doesn’t realize that he had stuck both of his arms out at either side until he feels the soft jumper of the other kid bump his sore right elbow. He feels keenly the squeeze of fingers wrapping around his forearm. He watches the darkness shine off of strings of silvergrey wrapped in bracelets around the limbs of the wandering thief, and allows the boy behind him to hold onto him.
The ritual knocking begins, and Gerard doesn’t wait to see what it is being summoned. Not the full scope of it, anyway. The quick flash of long, hairy legs is enough.
Somehow, he’d gotten both of his arms around the other kid’s middle before taking off running, clumsily half-dragging him away. The kid is thicker around the middle than he is but just short enough for Gerard to lift him. Probably because he tucks his legs up to curl up like a pillbug, clinging tightly to Gerard’s arm now with both of his.
Unfortunately, a ten-year-old can only run with another child in his arms for so far. He only reaches the second street corner over before the boy starts slipping out of his grasp and tries to touch his feet to the ground. Gerard stumbles over a shoelace he can’t remember letting fall loose. His right ankle screams at him, the sharp pain of thorn grinding against bone shooting up the length of his leg. He catches himself with a scraped elbow on the side of the wooden fence next to them and hisses, silencing himself when he catches the sound of a whimper fall from his own trembling mouth.
He stares at the sidewalk in front of him for a moment, eyes wide. How long had his hearing been this warped? He doesn’t want to cradle his elbow, he knows his hands are grimy and it’d only hurt more. He needs to pull himself together. Best he can do is straighten up and let out a big breath, and look to the other kid.
The boy looks like he’s seen a ghost, which would be markedly better than what he actually did just see.
Gerard can’t think of what to say to him just yet. He’d expected him to have run away by now, but he doesn’t move. Just stands there with his shirt half-untucked and his glasses askew — they’d cracked, Gerard can’t tell when that had happened — and it takes a long time for his eyes to come back into focus.
When they do, they land on Gerard’s arms. After that, he reaches out for his wrist.
“Come on,” he says as he starts walking.
Gerard doesn’t think to ask where they’re going now. Apparently he’d done enough leading them around for the evening. It’s his turn, now, to be led.
Only when they come upon the silhouette of the playground does he remember that he’d left his rucksack under the slide. He needs that if he’s going to be going anywhere; it has all of his clothes in it, and his peanut butter sandwiches. His notebook, and his torch, and what’s left of his money.
The boy doesn’t argue when he starts to pull away and limp back towards the park, only makes a questioning little noise in the back of his throat like he doesn’t understand why he would want to go back there. Still, he follows close behind. He must not want to be left alone, either.
The rucksack hadn’t been stolen. Gerard allows himself a momentary gladness at that, slinging it over his shoulder with relief. When he faces the boy again, without really knowing why, he sticks out his arm again in offering. The boy takes it.
For a while, neither of them say a word. Gerard knows his own reason for that; there’s nothing to say. He can’t speak for the other boy, though. He’s probably still just scared.
When the boy finds his voice again, it’s to tell Gerard, “My first aid kit is under the sink. We need to clean up your cuts and put disinfectant on them.”
The words come out over-enunciated — dis-in-fect-ant — like he’s practiced his pronunciation in preparation for the day that he would need to say them to someone else.
Gerard doesn’t think he really needs first aid, even though it hurts. A tweezer would be nice for the splinters, though.
He lets this other kid do whatever he thinks he has to do. It must be important to him to feel like he gets to decide what happens next. Gerard owes that to him, he thinks, considering what he had led him to witness.
The house is bigger than his mum’s narrow flat. Too big considering how empty it is; the darkened windows say that no one else is home. The boy reaches around in a potted plant on the porch for a house key and opens the door to reveal a neat openness that Gerard immediately envies. He studies the floating shelves on the walls, the muted paintings and picture frames, absently walking forward until the boy stops him with both hands on his chest.
“No shoes in the house,” he says, pointing past Gerard to indicate the mat by the door. “Go put them there.”
Gerard falters, but obeys. It makes him nervous for some reason, leaving something of his in a room he won’t stay in. The boy nods in approval before he starts walking again, his pudgy fingers circled around Gerard’s wrist.
When they pass a room lined with bookshelves, the envy quickly dies.
The boy drags him into a spotless bathroom and flicks on the lightswitch. Gerard squints against the light, keeps his head down. Still, he catches a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror. There’s a small bruise starting to take root in the flesh of his cheek, a growing purple-red in the harsh, new brightness.
It hardly makes a difference. There are worse on the rest of him.
His rucksack hits the ground with a thud when he drops it. The boy has crouched to open the cabinet under the sink, rifling around for a sizable red box to set on the counter. He can hardly reach into it once he does, he’s so short.
Gerard doesn’t intervene again, though. Only watches as he fishes out what he thinks he needs, which turns out to be the promised disinfectant and a worn out box of plasters with Winnie the Pooh characters on them. The box of plasters is nearly empty. Gerard eyes them for a long moment, wondering at how long he’s had it. In the light now, he can see that the boy already has about three on his own hands, a purple one with Eeyore on it all but wrinkling off of his right middle finger.
The boy glances between Gerard’s arms and the plasters he had dumped into his hand, his mouth poked into a thoughtful pout. He seems to decide that he needs three more, and so empties the box onto the counter to create a small pile.
Gerard helps by sticking his elbow under the running faucet and staying still while the other boy pats at his wounds with a clean washrag. He does his best not to complain when the sting of disinfectant lances through his arms, ducking his head to shy away from the truth of how uncomfortable it is.
The boy places the colourful cartoon plasters over the scrapes with steady hands. Gerard counts how many whole honey pots decorate the one on his elbow before they become halves and quarters.
“That was dumb,” the kid says eventually. “I would have been fine.”
Gerard looks at him, both brows raised. Yeah, okay. Is he forgetting the giant legs that had swept that other guy through the door, surely never to be seen again lest someone find a spat out set of bones?
Maybe it’s the shock. Sometimes being scared can make you go numb; Gerard knows. He knows it doesn't last forever. The kid’s hands had been steady when he was placing the bandages but now that he’s reclaimed them to cross his arms, Gerard can see his very outline shaking.
Or maybe he’s just talking about the first part. The part where he’d been knocked to the ground for no good reason before anything creepy crawly came into it. Maybe he wants to rewind and get back to that part, the part that he’s probably been through before. The part he almost definitely used up cartoonish plasters over.
Either way, there’s really only one thing Gerard can say to that.
“Better do something dumb than do nothing at all.”
At this, the kid looks suitably stunned. He fidgets and glances away, his eyes fluttering around the room like a nervous bird — he kind of reminds Gerard of a bird right now, the way he moves — and so Gerard continues staying still. He remembers the time he’d gotten a pigeon to eat a piece of a sandwich he’d left on the ground very close to his shoes once by doing that, not close enough to reach out and pet it but enough that it didn’t fear him.
“W-Well, thank you, um. For helping.”
Gerard nods. When the kid frowns down at his shoes, Gerard realizes just how heavily he’s distributing his weight onto his left side. He hadn’t noticed that he’s hardly let his foot touch the ground since getting comfortable leaning against the sink.
“Did you hurt your leg running?”
“No,” Gerard mumbles.
“Okay, so did you hurt it before?”
Gerard’s lips pinch. “It’s old. Don’t worry about it.”
The kid wipes his hands on the sides of his trousers, glancing about the room still as if the random items scattered about will tell him what to say next. The way he fidgets makes Gerard think for a moment that maybe he’s not doing so badly at this whole meeting new people thing himself, but he second guesses that when the boy finally gives his name.
“I’m Jon?” he says, like he’s double-checking to be sure. “Jon Sims.”
He holds his hand out to Gerard for a shake, his fingers rigidly stacked together, so stiff that they curve back a bit.
How is Gerard supposed to introduce himself? Is it John by itself, or Jon, short for Jonathan? If it’s a nickname, maybe Gerard can give one, too. He debates this as he stares down at Jon’s outstretched hand, otherwise motionless, until he comes to the decision to simply say what he knows.
“Gerard.”
By the time he has the sense to reach out and actually complete the handshake, though, Jon’s arm has withdrawn to curl across his stomach again. Better this way, probably. Gerard had never asked for a tweezer.
“Well, Gerard,” Jon starts to announce in this voice that says he’s still trying to sound grown up. “You’ll probably be wanting to get home soon. It’s dark out.”
Gerard has no answer for that. He watches the tile floor by his feet, quiet.
He sees Jon tip his head to the side through the corner of his eye.
“Where do you live?” he tries. “I… I can walk you there, or we can wait for my dadima to come home. She can drive you.”
Gerard’s brow creases. “Who?”
Jon bounces to straighten up, suddenly excited. “My grandmother! Daa-dee-ma.” He taps his chin for a moment, thoughtful. “You should just call her dadi if you meet her, since it still means granny, sort of, but you’re not her grandchild. It’s important to respect your elders.”
Dadi. Daa-dee. Okay.
Gerard doubts he’ll ever call anyone by name in this house, but he can’t risk saying the wrong thing. It’s important to respect your elders here. He doesn’t want to know what will happen if he makes a mistake. Better to be seen and not heard.
“So… what do you want to do?” Jon asks. “Walk home, or wait for dadima?”
Gerard shrugs. Jon shuffles where he stands, discomfited.
“Well, what does that mean? I can’t help you if you don’t talk.”
“I don’t need help,” Gerard says. “I’m— I’m here on my own.”
Jon steps back a little. Gerard feels his face heat up with embarrassment. He wishes his hair was longer so that he could hide behind it like a curtain.
“...Why, though? Where are your parents?”
“Where are yours?”
The way Jon goes slack in the shoulders now makes Gerard rethink his tone. How had that come out sounding? He lowers his head again, this time apologetic, but provides no answer of his own.
He hadn’t wanted to tell the conductor on the train, and he doesn’t want to tell Jon or his dadi. He doesn’t want to be sent back to London, or have anyone call his mum.
“Where are you supposed to go, then?” Jon asks, recovered.
Gerard shrugs again. “I can find somewhere, I bet.”
Jon’s face screws up like he’s just smelled something foul. The cross of his arms becomes resolute. “That’s hardly practical. You’ll just have to stay here.”
Gerard’s eyes go big in his head. “What?”
Jon clutches at the sleeves of his jumper. “That… that thing, it’s still out there. I can’t let you go outside by yourself. Besides, we— we should stick together.”
The determination in Jon’s statement fizzles into bashful uncertainty by the time he declares what he thinks they should be doing, a mumbling whisper directed at the floor. It’s as if he can’t decide whether he wants to be brave or wrestle it back down under the lid of a box in the back of his mind. Gerard can see the limbo dancing across his face, in how he tries in short bursts to hold strong eye contact before something cracks.
Gerard doesn’t know what sticking together will do for their situation, but he’s hardly in any place to argue. He really has no clue where he would go if he were to leave here right now.
This house, however big and unfamiliar, is warm and the door was locked with a very safe sounding click when Jon had turned the latch behind them. Even the room with the bookshelves that had struck a sense of renewed dread into Gerard’s heart hadn’t actually given off an air of danger. They were probably just normal books.
Gerard doesn’t quite recall how long he’s been silent by the time he finally nods his agreement. Jon takes it as it is, and starts cleaning up the first aid kit. Gerard turns to look at himself in the mirror again, counting now the bright splotches of colour stuck to his arms. Jon had put more plasters on him than he needed.
It’s a surge of tenderness in his hand that shakes him out of his head. He had reached out to grab onto the counter and froze, frowning down at his palm. Some part of him finally grasps onto the sense he needs to reach for the faucet handle and turn on the water to stiffly rinse his hands.
“What’s wrong?” Jon asks, peering over.
“Splinters,” Gerard says simply. The word comes out sounding like one.
Jon starts to dig through the box again, the sound of bottles and boxes clunking into each other filling the room. He pulls out a small metal instrument and reaches again for Gerard’s wrist, pulling his hand over the basin of the sink and squinting down at it. He doesn’t bring the tweezers to his palm, hesitating.
“I can’t see anything.”
“I can feel them,” Gerard supplies. It feels like if he were to close his fists one more time, he’d only drive them deeper.
“Dadima can help,” Jon says. “I-I have to tell her you’re here anyway. She just doesn’t come home ‘til late sometimes.”
Gerard gives a quiet hum. He doesn’t quite know what that bit of information explains, but it does.
“Will you be okay ‘til she comes back?” Jon asks him. Gerard takes the hand towel he’s offering him, nodding again. Jon keeps the tweezers out on the counter while he puts the first aid kit back under the sink, grabbing them to drop into his pocket when he straightens up again.
“Tonight was bingo night.” He squeezes past Gerard and back out into the hallway, turning around to wait for him. “She wins a lot, so she lets me have the prizes as long as they're appropriate for my age. If it’s sweets again, you can have some.”
Gerard loops his arm through the strap of his rucksack without grabbing it by hand, shrugging it on to follow Jon wherever he’s headed. Jon leads him across to the kitchen and drags a tall chair over to one of the counters. Gerard leans on the back of another chair and watches as Jon proceeds to use his to climb up onto the counter, and start rifling through cabinets.
“We don’t keep too many sugary snacks,” Jon informs him. “But I can make sandwiches until dadima makes dinner. I’m hungry.”
The way he says it implies that he assumes Gerard is, too. Dumbly, Gerard speaks up to protest.
“I have sandwiches.”
Jon turns around to face him, dropping his hands onto his knees. “You do? What kind?”
“Peanut butter. S’two in my bag.”
Jon swivels to get his legs out from underneath him and sit on the counter properly, feet dangling off the edge. “Want to have those now and dadima will make something better later?”
Gerard answers by swinging his rucksack up onto the high table, carefully pinching the zipper between two fingers to pull it open. The sandwich bags are a bit crushed against the front of the rucksack, the bread flattened into creases and some of the peanut butter squishing out of one of them into a corner. Gerard takes the messier of the two and places the other in front of where Jon is setting the chair back up before he climbs onto it again, this time to sit.
They eat quietly but for the crinkle of plastic, until Jon decides that these sandwiches are too dry to have without milk and announces so rather loudly, jumping down from his chair with a thunk. Gerard watches him bustle around and decides that he’s definitely scared out of his wits. It shows in the way he busies himself with literally everything but questioning what he’d seen today, and whether he’ll ever see it again.
He can’t have forgotten it so quickly. He can’t be this good at choosing between his own thoughts. For all of his attempts at sounding grown up, he’s clearly a few years younger than Gerard and had probably, hopefully, been leading a relatively normal life until this afternoon.
Gerard’s envy returns and dies all over again in quick succession. Jon’s life isn’t normal anymore. Not tonight, it isn’t. Not for as long as Gerard darkens his doorstep, sits at his table and gives him squished peanut butter sandwiches from inside his runaway bag.
Maybe it could be normal again after he leaves. With the added bonus of no longer being beaten up by book thieves in parks.
Gerard doesn’t realize he’s nodding off at the table until Jon shakes his arm. He’d drooped forward in his seat, the last dredges of his sandwich still held between his fingertips. He hears Jon say, “You can’t sleep here,” and feels a tug on his arm, so he obediently slides off of his chair to wobble to his feet. He leaves his sandwich on top of the plastic bag, his rucksack still open on the table.
The trip from kitchen to couch is a blur. It’s a big, soft, olive-coloured couch with lace doilies on it and everything. Gerard sits down heavily on the center cushion and sinks backwards, turning his head to watch Jon tromp back towards the kitchen to gather up their plastic bags and throw them out. There go his provisions, wasted all in one go.
As Jon places their empty glasses in the kitchen sink, Gerard slowly teeters sideways. His hands are still smarting, so he does his best not to fold them underneath himself when he gives in and curls up around a nearby pillow.
He doesn’t know when he got so tired all of a sudden, or why he’s not trying harder to fight it. This house is warm and the front door is locked and he’s not all by himself. Maybe that’s it. He might not go so far as to say he feels safe, but as far as he can tell, there are no evil books left in Jon’s possession and the beast they had encountered has already been fed tonight.
Sleep prickles at him like itchy grass on a dry summer day. Some very persistent, very dark space in the back of his mind tries to liken it to hairy, gargantuan spider legs; the part of him that can’t ignore what he’s hiding in this house from. What he’s content to let Jon think is the only thing he’s hiding from.
It’s the same part that knows how disappointed, furious, hateful his mum would be if she knew — will be when he surely has to face her. When she sees the nightmare written on his face before he has the chance to try and burn the page.
But she isn’t here. The only pieces of her that have entered this place are inside Gerard’s head, and he refuses to let them out. Not so soon.
He won’t let himself look down at the pillow under his head and see it seeping with ink like a bloody gunshot, a liquefied headache poured out of his ear to poison the room. He won’t turn his head to see her standing over him, or worse, her silhouette in the doorway outlined by sinister candlelight. He refuses.
Instead he’ll close his eyes and think of what it might mean to be left peacefully on the couch in a house that is not his, while his host tarries on in the kitchen. Like it isn’t a problem that he’s in here alone. Like he’s being trusted not to ruin anything.
Mum isn’t here. No one is here but someone who had run from the monster, too, and lived. Someone who is directly responsible for running the tap in a sink that is not full of darkness and slimy stones and memories of drowning. Just swishing water in tall glasses and emptying them out enough times for Gerard to count the soft splashes from the other room. Unhurried. Killing time.
He drifts off thinking that maybe this is as close as “safe” gets.