Inbox

[skeletonkeay]

INBOX OF GERARD KEAY

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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[cyansoldier]

She sniffs. Turns a page; infrastructure turned confectionary, cloaked figures caught on winter winds... "Seems to me like you've gone from one supernatural slog to another. How's this one any different?"

You're the butt of the jokes. The expression pierces Carolina's hubris like a round of ammunition. An animal pulled mid-hunt and expected to play, to be laughed at by... whatever it is that rules here. Facial musculature twists and twists until she realizes she's scowling.

Her lips go slack.

A mask cracked, reconstructed, cracked again and brought back to life soon after.

Funny, she still can't tell if he's joking... It's starting to roil her nerves.

"I don't follow."

[skeletonkeay]

"It was a slog because it was constant. And all of it was profoundly horrible. Here, sometimes houses turn to chocolate or you get a curse that makes goats hate you. Back home, I spent three years chasing evil clowns embodying the abstraction of identity while they roamed the globe stripping the skin off of people to recycle it for making monsters, trying to stop them from turning the world into a merry go round of endless incomprehensible unreality, and I got sidetracked in France by a guy who'd become an apartment complex for sentient beetles, and then again in Australia having to seal a man-eating pig into concrete."

Yeah, that's a ton of information. A lot of it completely insane. But the point isn't for her to parse it--- it's to demonstrate just how challenging it is to parse it all.

"If the real monsters only show up a few times a month, and the rest are just tricks designed to make a fool of me, I'll take it."

He notes the scowl. How could he not? He does, after all, have such an eye for detail. But again he does not remark. Gerry shrugs again, casual. "And in between, I get to have a life of my own. I'm not ashamed to say that's new to me. My last crack at life was centered around what I could do for other people."

[cyansoldier]

What to digest first; the parade of evil clowns? The filleting of human beings for the purpose of reconstruction— whatever that means? Abjection in its most unreasonable form, suggesting the real existence of the supernatural? But men can't turn into buildings. Beetles don't lease apartments. Curses are an excuse for poor skill and goats hate everyone. Carolina strains, trying her damndest to make sense of it all or at the very least network it from her ears into her brain.

And if this is a joke, it's an elaborate one.

His postamble cuts loose the stubborn threads that hold her arms up and she lowers her newspaper to look at him. Really look at him, not so different from the way he'd looked at her (excluding, of course, the cobwebs and burns and every other awful physical manifestation). Who she sees is uncomfortably familiar.

"Three years is a long time. But if they were so bad, why chase them? Seems counterproductive, doesn't it?"

[skeletonkeay]

"Had to stop 'em ending the world, mate. Unless we wanted everything to be evil clowns forever. Which we didn't," Gerry remarks. "My world was kind of a lot. Can't say I miss it. But I did find out it didn't turn into a clown world from some folks who came here after me, so that's nice."

He wears a light smile on his face. Half joking, half genuine. He extends a hand.

"Name's Gerry, with a G. You?"

[cyansoldier]

Somehow, Carolina musters the energy for a smile. Tired, chary, a half-assed excuse, but a smile nonetheless. "I never did like clowns. Even the nice ones. If you can call any of them nice. You probably aren't so inclined to do so."

She clasps his hand in hers, firm. An officer's shake.

And perhaps a bit more firm than necessary.

"Strange name. Mine's Carolina. With a C."

The redhead deflates a little now that pleasantries are out of the way. "You don't have anywhere I can sit for a second, do you?

[skeletonkeay]

"Eh, it's short for Gerard." He shrugs lightly, then opens the wooden flap-gate of the counter and pushes a chair out from behind it. "There ya go. Not for sale, though."

He pats it twice, then comes out from behind the counter and hops up to sit on it.

"You smoke?"

[cyansoldier]

"So your name's Gerard with a G," She makes an attempt at ribbing. "Got it."

Carolina tips her head gratefully. Takes up the seat he's offered, folding her newspaper across her lap like a napkin at some fancy restaurant. She watches him hoist himself up. Big rubber boot soles thump against the side of the counter.

"Oh. No, I don't."

[skeletonkeay]

"No worries, just thought I'd offer." Gerry shrugs. "Takes the edge off. Terrible for your health, but hey, no one stays dead here. Might as well make the most of the extra lives."

[cyansoldier]

A flash of metal. Click, flick. Like a tiny engine igniting or the flash before the pow and smoke of gunfire. She likes the smell; fuel and hot metal. "Terrible for your breath, too."

Wait. Did she hear him right?

Carolina turns in her seat to face him, elbows pressed against knees. "So if I walked off a cliff, or you crushed my head under one of your print presses, I'd come right back?"

[skeletonkeay]

"You'd come back tomorrow," Gerry corrects her. "You'd have to spend the rest of the day as a ghost. Why? Looking to go barreling bravely into danger?"

[cyansoldier]

"Depends on what kind. Got any recommendations?"

Nicotine smoke makes her nose crinkle.

"Usually throwing myself into things isn't quite my style, but contrived danger— that, I could maybe get behind." She needs out of here, and if she has to die again and again to make it happen, so be it.

"But I get it. It's against whatever cosmic-supernatural rules exist. I've heard that enough already."

[skeletonkeay]

Sorry, Carolina, you'll have to get used to the nicotine smoke if you're going to be hanging around Gerry. He reeks of the stuff. He fiddles with a brass lighter idly.

"I'm guessing the transition from a totally non-supernatural world to one with magic and monsters just parading around like they own the place is a bit of a culture shock. But you'll acclimate. Most people do, and you strike me as adaptable."

She also kind of strikes him as the sort of person who could really use some external verbal affirmation, but he can't place where he gets that impression. (Certainly not because he sees some of himself in her.) He most definitely doesn't remark on that part.

"So, what sort of place is it, then? The world you came from. Completely average city in the mid-2000s? Wild west? Sci-fi space adventure? Wild west sci-fi space adventure?"

[cyansoldier]

Oh, that's alright. If she concentrates hard enough, it's like she's at a very shitty barbecue. Nicotine braised meat with a side of paper pulp. Anyone want a shot of black ink, too?

She watches black-nailed hands fuss with his lighter, her expression sort of far away. Old friends, same habits. Same stupid lighters. Same lame party tricks.

"Thanks, I am. But— yeah, this stuff's way beyond my wheelhouse."

The only clowns she'd ever had the pleasure of meeting were those damn Reds and Blues. Idiots, all of them. The least they could have done was made her a balloon dog for her efforts.

"I guess you could call it a sci-fi space adventure. Grew up on Earth, Earth extended its reach far into the galaxy and before you could blink, war. We called them The Covenant. They were aliens, and not the nice green kind."

[skeletonkeay]

Gerry snorts out a laugh. "Us humans are pretty good at that, aren't we? War. What was it over, anyway?" Hands on the counter, he leans forward coyly. "Did someone steal someone else's toy from the sandbox?"

[cyansoldier]

"Remarkably."

Gerry's question, by no fault of his own asking, draws a groan from Carolina's throat. She presses a hand to her forehead like she's got a headache.

"It's— complicated. There's an alien race called The Covenant, like I said. They're incredibly advanced in their technology but their customs are old, sacred. Their religious leaders believed that humans were a contradiction to their principles and so they began a genocide. We didn't stand a chance and we didn't win very often, either. But... Yes. There was stealing."

[skeletonkeay]

"Wow! We finally made it past the Earth's backyard in terms of the universe and we managed to find sapient beings that were more xenophobic than we are. Amazing." Perhaps that's reductive, but Gerry can't help but be bitter. Every universe is just like his own.

No gods of love or hope.

No aliens whose ideology is as progressive as their technology.

Nothing capable of complex thought is anything but hostile and selfish.

Isn't the multiverse amazing?

"Well, you're here now. New things to fight with, but you're in good company. I'm absolute shit in a fight against anything other than another human, but intel? I got that covered in spades." He flicks his lighter closed and pockets it again. "True sight, they call it here. Easy enough way to explain the Beholding. I can see things others can't. Mostly things related to people's fear, since that's the name of the game where I come from, but also passkeys, lock combinations, secrets... I can see through illusions, pick out small details. The more someone doesn't want me to know something, the easier it is for me to see."

[cyansoldier]

She matches his bitterness blow for blow, nothing but contempt for the alien race who'd attacked her people. "Yeah, they weren't a welcoming bunch. Not that we made it any easier for ourselves. Factions— Outer Colonies, most of them— had the great idea to revolutionize while this was happening. Wars within wars. We couldn't even manage to hold ourselves together."

Humankind's propensity for dissevering never ceases to amaze, does it?

True Sight, Beholding; they're ancient-sounding words from ancient script she's never had the misfortune to read. "Banks must hate to see you coming."

And it's all innocuous enough; magic to unlock doors or see through mirages beyond her non-magical comprehension. Like a parlor trick. A practical skill, like York's. Then he continues. A natural propensity to see through things extends to fears, to people, and she goes cold. I can see through illusions, pick out small details.

The more someone doesn't want me to know something, the easier it is for me to see.

What a treasure-trove she must be, then. Her lifetime of masking, compartmentalizing and crushing her emotions to a fine, numb paste is suddenly rendered useless, and she feels naked. Seen, although she can't be certain what he sees, and somehow that makes it all worse. Carolina's flight instinct begs her to leave. To give him no more than crumbs. To wrap the thick black cloth over herself and disappear.

When she speaks, it's through a battled-tightened jaw.

"Sounds more like a curse than a blessing."

[skeletonkeay]

"Yeah. It is." His transparency comes unflinchingly. It's only fair. If he can know her so well, then she can know whatever she likes about him. "I lived in a world governed by malicious gods made of primordial terror, hiding just on the outskirts of the world. My mother brought me into that space without my consent, before I was even old enough to meaningfully give it, and once you know it, you can't escape it. Eventually, there came a point where I had to align myself with one of them to survive. Even then, it didn't keep me alive forever. But I stood a better chance with it than without. All that's left now is to try and use it to help."

[cyansoldier]

He sees you.

He said so himself. The harder you try, the easier it is.

She doesn't know how to reorient herself. How to make her face into something less... threatened. It's fine, she thinks. It's not as literal as you're thinking. It could be— an aura or an energy. He doesn't really see—

She never imagined a simple statement could paralyze so utterly. Of course she's seen; he's got a pair of working fucking eyes and then some. But it isn't the seeing that's the problem it's the knowing. She hadn't walked into this conversation expecting to be filleted. It's fine. It's not what you're thinking.

Gerry speaks candidly about the horrors he's born within, more so than she anticipates. A mother who took his hand and lead him into her world's cacophony without first considering his own, then marrying him to it. She gropes at his every syllable to keep herself a float. Feels herself recoil from him and lean forward all at once, a horrible ebb and flow

There's a heft in her chest she'd usually address on the training floor. She's sitting at full attention. Her body wants to move.

"What an awful thing for a mother to do to her son." Carolina forces the words up her throat.

And she means it.

And she needs to know what he sees.

And she needs to walk out through the door.

To help, he says. He wants to help you. He thinks you need help. He thinks you're wrong and weak and need fixing.

"What happened to you?" Carolina asks. Because asking about him is easier than addressing herself. "To bing you here. What happened?"

[skeletonkeay]

Gerry cannot read her mind or know her thoughts, he is no Archivist. But he doesn't have to be to see the halo of eyes upon eyes upon eyes engulf the air around her head, all ogling her, drinking in her insecurities, her fear. Oops. Yeah Gerry can tell he did that.

"Cancer," he replies bluntly. "Brain tumor caused intense seizures. I really shouldn't have been capable of standing up for months beforehand, but I just... didn't notice. After everything I dealt with, cancer got me. Insulting, really."

He shrugs.

"You can relax. I'm not psychic. I can't read your mind. If you have questions, I'm---" He stops a moment to laugh at his own joke. "I'm an open book."

[cyansoldier]

"You chased abstruse curses and monsters who flay people and evil clowns— and cancer is what killed you?" She doesn't mean for it to come out so flat, so dry. It's an awful, awful thing to have experienced and Christ she's an idiot—

"That's... horrible. And insulting, yeah. Like... Elvis dying on a toilet."

Oh my god, shut up.

He tells her to relax. She tries, and when Carolina tries to do anything she really does give it her all. These attempts don't always amount to anything, like when she'd told herself she ought to try and be nicer, but the intention is there. He's right, anyway. She's making a fool of herself. Her shoulders go minutely slack. Her eyes drift away from him, toward the door or the number of print presses at the back room.

"You see everyone's fear? If you look in a mirror, can you see yours?"

[skeletonkeay]

At the "Elvis dying on the toilet" remark, he howls with laughter. "Christ, it really is! God, that's fucked. I didn't even think about that," he says through tapering chuckles.

She relaxes. The eyes diminish. Smaller, less. Imperfect, but less intense.

"Yeah, I can see my own marks," he says. "I try not to look too hard at 'em. It makes me... dwell. It's not worth it."

Red raw Desolation marks up around his neck, crimson stains of Flesh set deep into his hands, sickly spinning Vast at his temples, Stranger-shaped vivisection lines, Spiral snaking up his jawline, Buried seated heavily at his shoulders, and a big veined End mark that takes up his whole chest. Lonely sprawled out around his feet, lingering like a bad smell. He knows why they're there. He doesn't need to reminisce.

"No sense focus on the negative, right? It's in the past." Most of it.

[cyansoldier]

She wants to ask him how he does it. How could he not dwell on his past when he wears it like a mismatched costume? It's not worth it, Gerry says, and the statement bewilders that innermost cruel part of her. Forgiving to himself in a way she can't afford. Won't allow. You deserve this, it says in protest. Their deaths were your responsibility.

She gets far enough to open her mouth, but the words dry out like sand on her tongue.

"You make it sound simple," Carolina scoffs. "Do you also give seminars on self-forgiveness and embracing change?" Okay, that one she does mean to deliver dryly. Even so, there's no real malice to the tease, just incredulity. Curiosity, at an arms length. Safely far away.

"...What do they look like? Generally."

In other words; not mine. God, not mine.

[skeletonkeay]

Gerry snorts. "Not yet, but I gave a seminar on queer theory once, so maybe I ought to. It's definitely a learned skill. Originally it was just apathy, you know? But this is---"

He hesitates a moment, rolling the idea around in his head until the words look right.

"This place has been good for me. In spite of everything, it's a hell of a lot better than where I came from. I spent my original life being passed from one set of chains to another. For the first time ever, I've got none. So I taught myself to allow myself to start fresh. Things got better." Finally, he shrugs.

What do they look like? God, what a question.

"Scars," he admits. "Sort of. They're like... spider-web. Shimmers of something you can only see half the shape of, when the light hits right or when a person turns just so. The shape of it depends on the fear. Fear of agony and loss looks like burn scars. Fear of being controlled looks like spiderweb. Fear of madness is spirals. Fear of scrutiny and judgement looks like... well." He holds up a tattooed hand, waggling his fingers.

[cyansoldier]

Things got better.

He would give a good seminar.

And Carolina is glad for him; she is. That being said, the idea of staying in this place for any longer than what's required makes her stomach summersault. Triggers some animal instinct to flee, knowing it cannot within the confines of the cage it finds itself, driven closer and closer to madness.

This is temporary, she tells herself. That's fine. She'll figure it out. Make the most of wasted time. It doesn't have to be wasted so long as she does something productive. Something useful. Work, train, run, climb, stretch, train, run, work, work work work.

And she'll be out of here in no time. No time at all.

"Finally got the chance to figure out what it is you want. Were newspapers always part of the plan?"

Carolina leans forward to inspect his hand, her own eyes partially narrowed as if she were unconvinced by the entire thing.

"What happens if someone has an obscure fear? Like... the fear of odd numbers. Or eating out for dinner. Do they get a special scar? Maybe the irrational ones don't count."