Chapter Text
Gerry Knew something was wrong. He had known for almost a week, he’d have to have been an idiot not to notice. Gertrude had said that her trip with Michael had gone well, and that Michael was just away getting over the trip. But he Knew she was lying. Michael wasn’t coming back, and while he hated being so closely tied to The Eye, it never lied, and especially seemed to take pleasure in informing him of facts he did not want to know. It made sure he Knew Michael was gone, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why Gertrude would lie about that. He often thought it might have been more tolerable being a part of The Eye if it would at least give him more than a fragment or two of information. Then at least he could possibly try to understand what on earth had gone on in Sannikov Land. What she didn’t want him to know, because there had to be a reason for not bothering to tell him his boyfriend was dead. Didn’t she realise how pointless the lie was? Wouldn’t it be obvious, when Michael never came back to work, when his belongings were removed from the institute and his desk cleared off?
He also knew though, that asking her directly would get him nowhere. While he liked Gertrude (most of the time) and while they were one the same side, he Knew that he could never truly trust her. No matter how blunt she was, she would just say whatever she needed to to get herself out of trouble in the name of her ‘goal’. No, like always this was now left to him, and he had no clue where to start. Talking to her would also do nothing to change the fact that Michale was gone. It wouldn’t change the fact that the one person he had ever truly trusted and loved wasn’t coming back. And that once again he was alone. Like always.
~
Michael knew he needed to get out of bed. Or did it. Why should it know anything anymore. He did not know, and it was not known. But he was. It was Michael. And whatever had been done to him could not be undone. He was here as much as a Michael could be. As much as it shouldn’t be. Maybe not fully. Maybe he wasn’t there. But he could move, and it was, and his feet or not feet or something was carrying him our of bed and through its door. It stopped at the mirror hung inside his front door, and stared at the fractured image reflected back at it. He did not recognise the thing looking back, mouth too big with the corners stretching out towards the edges of what looked to be his face, eyes wide with fear and no longer the warm honey brown it had come to expect. And for the first time in a week Michael Shelly, or what was left of him, truly felt afraid of what he had become. It stood confused and scared for a while, watching his reflection in a daze, watching the shifting and change unnaturally under his gaze. After a while it looked away, too sick with fear and confusion to look any longer. Gerry would know what to do, he hoped, as he always did. And oh, Gerry! Michael loved Gerry, he knew that at least. And it thought that maybe Gerry could help, make it know nothing again and make him be known once more.
~
This was so wrong. Gerry felt as though he was going to be sick. The thing cupping his hand and stretching that too wide smile over its too long teeth, softly murmuring his name was not his Michael. It looked so close to him, and he could feel the shape of what should have been Michaels soft hand with on that always smelled of old parchment and with nails bitten too far down, but it didn’t feel like Michael’s hand. It was so, so cold, and the skin almost felt like damp rubber, and whatever was under the thing that looked like skin was not soft anymore. And he Knew. Michael was dead, he had Known that for almost a week at that point, and Michael was never coming back. And the thing that was now standing in his doorway watching him, with something that almost looked like relief, was not Michael.
“Gerry, I’m so glad to see you” It sounded so close to his voice too, so relieved and happy. Just too many octaves higher than Michaels voice. And Michaels voice didn’t echo like that when he sighed. And when Michael wrapped him in his arms it didn’t feel like this. Like he was being swallowed alive and like nothing was touching him at all. But it was hugging him whether he wanted it to or not, head resting on top of his own, and Michael was never that tall or that thin, although the thing still collapsed against him like Michael did whenever he wanted just that little bit of comfort.
This is why Gertrude lied. He now understood that. Because this thing that looked to close to his Michael but with hands too big and eyes bulging unnaturally came back from Sannikov Land with her, and she was too fucking blinded by her stupid determination to end the ritual that she apparently never noticed what this thing was. Or maybe she did Know. She was aligned with The Eye after all, just like he was. Maybe she just didn’t care that he was gone, and that if this was all that was left of the ritual meant to end the world, Gerry found it hard to believe she would have bothered with getting rid of it. If this was the only thing left then what problem was it to her, just a little blip in the plan, not perfect but better then she could have hoped for. And now Gerry was left with this thing. This thing of the Spiral sent to torment and hurt just like the entities always did.
“Gerry?” It was now looking at Gerry with his face, its nose scrunched up like Michales always used too and its mouth downturned at the corner in that all too familiar way. And it was almost right, so close to the face of his boyfriend that he slipped, just for a moment, it almost seemed it was all in his head. That Michael had in fact just been away recuperating after his travels, and that his Knowing was all some fucked up game of The Eye for shits and giggles, and everything could go back to normal. So, he slipped, and kissed the unnaturally wide lips, pressed his mouth at the corner of Michaels smile like they always did. And that did it. He was right, of course his life could never be so easy. That was not his Michael. That did not feel like a person at all, the skin gave way under his mouth like a rubber balloon filled with too much water just waiting to burst. And the skin on top felt staticky, like warm sand parting and moving under his own lips. But as he did it he felt it sigh, the sound grating and sticky in a way noise should not be, and its arms came around him again enclosing him in that thing was so close to what a hug should feel like but so tight and nothing and he couldn’t breath.
“Get off of me!” Gerry even startled himself with how loud he was, and he knows he definitely startled the thing that looked like Michael. As he jerked himself out of its hold he seemed to slip through its arms, never fully moving past them as such as moving through them, leaving a searing heat where the tips of its fingers passed through his skin instead of being pushed out of the way. His breaths came in short panicked bursts, chest heaving with fear for what was in front of him. For a moment he almost felt bad as its eyes widened in hurt and it seemed to curl in on itself as it took a stumbling step back.
“Gerry? What. What’s wrong? Please-” Its voice seemed to waver, not like trailing off but more as though it was a microwave being shut off, the humming staticky noise of that sick imitation of his boyfriend’s voice cutting off harshly and slowly all at one, the sound of its pleaded ‘please’ echoing thickly in the air around Gerry and that thing. And that long, thin hand that he could now see was twisting at the edges reached out to him again, just barley brushing his knuckles and the eyes tattooed upon them leaving that searing heat in its wake.
“I said get off of me! I don’t what sick game the Spiral thinks it’s playing but don’t you dare touch me while wearing his face.” And oh. That did it. The warping, painfully bright fractals that he was so used to seeing while dealing with the spiral now started trialing off of the shifting edges of the form that almost looked like Michael, spilling like broken glass down the apartment blocks hallway. This made him feel, for the first time in a while, grateful for The Eyes ever present being as Gerry was fairly sure that without it he would not have been able to stay standing steadily on what now appeared to be a floor or a wall or the shifting swirling carpet under that things feet. And for the first time the thing wearing his boyfriends face started to crack, shifting and morphing under his gaze as it seemed to break.
“Gerry please, no, talk to me! I know I’m different but please! I’m still me, Michael! Please stop looking at me like that!”
~
“Gerry please, no, talk to me! I know I’m different but please! I’m still me, Michael! Please stop looking at me like that!”
He is such an idiot. It knew this would not work. He had truly unbecome, it knew that. It doesn’t know what he was thinking when he thought Gerry could help, he saw himself as he walked through those mirrored hallways. It no longer fit Michael Shelly, too large and too long and too thin. Mouth not quite fitting on its face and terrified eyes staring back at something that no longer was him and was too much of a him to not be able to avoid knowing. Even as it hopped on the boat wearing the scarf he had so loving packed, still smelling like Gerrys washing powder, he knew something had gone wrong. It just did not know where he had failed, he followed Gertrudes map, it stopped The Great Twisting, and it got out of those spiralling hallways. But he also knew it was no longer truly Michael Shelly in the way it once was. Gerry Knew things too, he would Know. Know that Michael was wrong and gone and too much all at once. He was so stupid for thinking that Gerry would want to see it, it didn’t even want to see itself, too much of a self and not enough all at one. That was it then. He was truly not become, truly alone except for the comforting unknowing of the fractals and colours that now made up himself.