Gerard "Gerry" Keay (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skeletonkeay) wrote2023-11-19 01:51 pm
skeletonkeay) wrote2023-11-19 01:51 pm
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Point of contact for Pumpkin Hollow. Gerry can be reached by phone, mail, or a visit to his shop during business hours. Pinhole Printing and Binding is open from 11am to 6pm every day except Tuesday, because fuck Tuesday, or unless Gerry deigns otherwise.
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Amusement flowers across her face, 'stupid' caught on the tail-end of a laugh. "You can reach higher than I can, and I hate climbing trees. It works out perfectly. Don't worry, Gerry, I'll make it worth your while. Cook you up something awful like canned soup and crappy coffee."
Carolina angles herself toward him.
"Fae... I didn't know the word for it. But, yeah. That sounds right. I don't know how I couldn't believe in them even if I wanted to. It's hard when the thing's right in front of your face, buzzing around and being a nuisance."
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The neat wires in her brain spark a little. She chases down the rest of her drink.
"You're an idiot."
To any unsuspecting on-lookers, Carolina looks muscles-primed to kill him. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Do you dance?"
And like all threats, there's a clear right answer here.
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...Honestly, probably, now that he thinks about it. He wonders if she's ever known anything else, with her soldier crowd.
"Yeah, of course I dance." He offers a tattooed hand decked out in pewter rings.
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The answer to that question, although he doesn't ask it, is no.
She'd needed to get York dead-drunk to dance with her. That, and toy with him enough to think she'd sleep with him. (Cruel, she knows, but she loves dancing). Even then, he only swayed. As most jocky, cishet men tend to do.
His admission comes as a pleasant surprise. Carolina's eyes say as much, igniting like green fire.
Gerry offers her his hand.
She grabs his wrists and starts toward the empty patch of floor by the stage.
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Gerry's only had one beer, so his weird dance choices cannot be credited to drunkenness. No, the blame for his dance moves, which consist mainly of somewhat coordinated jumping and kicking, can be attributed to his growing up in the 80s and 90s, and his alternative taste in music. But he does so with enthusiasm, genuinely having fun and grinning surprisingly genuinely at Carolina as he tries to coordinate with her.
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Gerry's dance choices are odd. He kicks his feet in beats of two like there's a very large, very angry rat nipping at his ankles, and he does so without a care. Confidence in every kick, twist and arm circle. His hair flies wildly— he hasn't even bothered tying it back.
She loves it.
Carolina jumps right in, every bit as confident as a dance like this requires. Where his movements are weighted and unrestrained, her's are loose and graceful. Limbs like ribbons. Years spent at the barre doing pliés and Rond de Jambes form the structure and now movement of solid muscle.
Her two glasses of straight whisky on an empty stomach make her face feel hot and her feet feel weightless.
"Not bad!" She calls over the thundering band.
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"Phew!" Thoroughly tossed hair sticks to sweaty skin in a few places as he laughs breathlessly. An arm is thrown over Carolina's shoulder. "You picked that up quick! That was wicked."
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She's pleasantly surprised that Gerry makes it through one song, let alone three of them. She honestly doesn't know how he keeps himself upright. It's like watching a skyscraper jump on a trampoline, its hundred stories swaying left and right to the beat of folk rock. He's unable to be stopped even by the chair he swears 'came out of nowhere', and she commends him for it— without saying, obviously.
By the end of the third song, the room teeters.
Gerry slings an arm over her shoulder. Carolina scowls, irritation surging like a flamethrower's pulse, and although she threads fingers in his shirt and begins to push him away, he's just as useful as an anchor.
"You're sweaty," She mutters, eyeing the wet sheen and black tendrils plastered across his forehead. For emphasis, Carolina draws her thumb across his skin and feels dangerous doing so. For some reason. Whatever happened to hands-off.
"Let's leave."
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She bids that they leave, and Gerry doesn't protest. It is as the lady commands. A hand extends to gesture to the door. "Back to yours, then?"
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Carolina lingers, as if testing the space. Taking advantage of proximity to gleam details that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. Then she peels away from his chest to make confidently toward the door.
"It's a long walk," She warns, intent on dragging him along anyway, and made obvious by the way she looks expectantly over one shoulder. "I live in the middle of nowhere. Farmland." Her brows rise, "You up for a hike?"
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She stops, turns around.
"Is that a challenge? I could walk five laps around this whole island wearing you like a backpack."
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Okay, maybe bridal style isn't ideal for carrying weight long distances, but there's no way she's chickening out now. Not with Gerry staring at her like he's got bees in his mouth. And anyway, she's strong enough. Even if she's a little drunk.
"Fine."
Carolina meanders her way over to him, eyes him up and down a little pointedly, then scoops him up in well-muscled arms. One hand splays across his back. Heat radiates from him. She tries not to think about it. Just walk.
"Better start rehearsing your vows now."
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Gerry’s laughter, giddy and unrestrained, grates her nerves for all the wrong reasons. Again, Carolina insists on ignoring it. No point in acknowledging nothing— and this is nothing.
She’s carried dozens of soldiers like this. All he needs now is a few bullet holes in him.
She hoists Gerry once or twice to adjust her grip, then starts the long trek home.
“You have an actual response? Mm… Sentimental, then funny. I want both.”
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"When I met you, you seemed like you were barely restraining yourself from hauling me across the counter and killing me. At first glance, you seemed like just a surly, fresh-off-the-boat fighty type who didn't wanna be here and might not even last. So when I somehow managed to annoy you into liking me, I was surprised. Moreover, I was pleased with myself, 'cause it meant I'd get to see more of you," he intones in the manner of a speech. He gazes into the distance as he thinks out his words, partially skyward.
"And now I'm here, marrying you under the sunset on our birthday. Funny how life works. But I'm not complaining. Not just 'cause you'd hit me if I did," Gerry teases, looking up at her. "Thanks for being the prettiest thing to ever want to kick my ass. Of which there have been many."
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Every new sentiment is somehow worse than its predecessor. She can't fathom how he does it. They collect like cars piling one on top of the next on a city freeway, thoughtful monologue of blaring horns, runaway tires and mass casualties. She's mortified. Feels laid out across the pavement.
Carolina thinks about dropping him flat on his ass.
She thinks about bidding him goodbye and sending him off in the opposite direction, never to see him again.
She considers the horror of him— Gerry goddamn Keay, cryptic, scrawny, shoddy dye-job, covered in tattoos and cloaked in black and so, so far from the military meat-heads who she might have entertained otherwise— in the same awful, chrome-and-glass room as her father, poorly indulging his Southern traditionalism.
And what, exactly, are your intentions Mistah Keay? He'd ask in his slack-jaw drawl, and Gerry would respond with something crass or stupid or both. Probably get himself killed.
He's looking at her again. She wishes he wouldn't do that. Her face is a clenched fist.
"That's all very sweet, Gerry," She says, indulging in his stupid game of pretend before she can tell herself not to. "I'm touched." There's a lowness to her voice, as if she'll turn on him at any moment. "We can consummate the union by never speaking about it again. How's that sound?"
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Easy to pretend it's a joke. Especially when this feels like rejection. That's fine, though. She's a friend. They're friends. Gerry is fortunate to even have those, especially in such abundance. What he had before was his mother, and Gertrude Robinson, and those fucking Hunters. Beyond that, he only ever knew monsters for more than ten minutes.
Cecil was an exception. Lightning in a bottle. A bottle Gerry let crack. He cannot be trusted with another, even if he wasn't being violently shot down dead by the look on her face.
If Gerry knew what she was thinking, he'd tell her exactly how he'd handle her father. He played the role of "polite young man who just happens to be alternative" for George Stacy flawlessly until he was given a reason not to, back during the too-brief run of the Visitor's Center. Gwen, his shop girl, like a daughter to him, deserved far better than the blame and disrespect thrust upon her by her ignorant cop father, and Gerry told him so. Politely at first, then violently. His own father, long dead, was one of the ghosts haunting that Visitor's Center as well. Gerry thinks, entirely separately, of how warmly the man might have welcomed Carolina into their family. Considering Gerry's mother murdered me, I'd say he got his taste in women from me, so you're welcome! And they'd both groan with embarrassment.
"I s'pose you've suffered my commitment to the bit long enough! You can let me down."
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She lets him down. Something like dread settle in her stomach where there had once been glowing embers. Cool night air hits Carolina's front and her temperature drops steeply. She's never been good at these things. No use in pretending. The UNSC soldier boys that had steeled themselves enough to approach her were left running with tails between legs. They were distractions. Irritations. She was smarter than to fall for their sweet words. Knew they'd call her a bitch in the inevitable aftermath. No, she kept her head on her shoulders and worked hard.
Now, she kicks herself for dropping something she hadn't realized she'd been holding onto.
They walk quietly. Her's is a clenching silence. His, loose and cool. Cobbled streets break down into dirt roads; city housing into cropped hills. They roll out into fields and small pastures where animals graze, pink and orange light sprawling across their bowed heads and backs. She points to a calf which trips over its own gangly legs and springs back to galloping. 'Looks kind of like you'.
The dirt path slopes down, and on the horizon is a quaint, if somewhat run-down farmhouse with a strawberry field flanking its side.
"That one's mine."
Carolina slows her gait and takes ahold of his hand.
"Careful. It gets slippery."
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He does an impressive job of underreacting to his hand being taken, instead focused on steadying his walk.
It's a beautiful evening.
"You're probably sick of 'em, though."
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"Go ahead," she says, first nodding him along the path then going a step further to lead him herself. Easier, that way. She's already holding his hand, and she has no intention of letting go. "I thought I'd be sick of them too. I feel bad, letting them go to waste. Animals come and eat them sometimes, which makes me feel a little better. I couldn't pick them all by myself anyway."
Tucked between foliage are the generous red fruit. Carolina weaves between fence spokes to reach them, Gerry in tow.
His hand is a warm anchor amidst cool air. Her grip on him is strong, declarative.
Carolina pulls him down into a crouch beside her. Reaches into the leafy furl and plucks out a strawberry.
"Usually I'd wash them off first, but... Here."