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Gerard Keay is not afraid of many things.
He isn’t afraid of traditional things -- heights, bugs, even death -- because he knows the logic behind them, the entities controlling them. More importantly, he knows how to stop them, and having that kind of power over something really limits the amount of fear it can cause.
He isn’t even afraid of the more abstract fears. Loneliness. Being chased. Being watched . He knows those powers, too (some more… personally than others). He has resources, connections. Needless to say, Gerard Keay would not consider himself to be a man of many fears.
He is, however, afraid of the thing in his kitchen cabinet.
He first noticed it about three weeks ago. He had reached absentmindedly for a bowl, and instead opened his cabinet to reveal a writhing mass of colors and TV static and radio waves, blinking at him. Gerry stood in confused panic for half a second before slamming the cabinet door closed, which had turned a color that was like yellow, but not quite. The thing cackled, distorted, and Gerry kept his hands firmly on the cabinet door for what felt like hours as he waited for the laughter to trickle off into a pleased sigh. Gerry didn’t leave his kitchen for a long time after that. Not until he was sure that taking his hands off the cabinet wouldn’t release the thing into his apartment.
He knew it was the Spiral almost immediately, or at least it was Spiral-oriented. Not to say he’s afraid of the Spiral. Gerry knows his own mind, and isn’t scared of losing it. So, no. Not scared of the Spiral.
But that thing , shifting and twisting within his kitchen cabinet, is frightening . Gerry knows it’s there even when he isn’t looking. The sound follows him throughout his flat -- the inconsistent hum of static, occasional giggles, high and gasping, more akin to breaking glass than real laughter. It’s disturbing, and- and infectious , the joy radiating from Gerry’s kitchen, and he hates it, and sometimes he laughs along, heart beating wildly in his chest.
Gerry knows that whatever it is feasts off his fear, his adrenaline. Whether it got Gerry to laugh, or lock himself in his bedroom, or leave his flat for days before returning again, disheveled from lack of sleep -- it was fed, and therefore would stay where the food was. Gerry is constantly keeping it entertained as long as he is aware of the presence of the thing in his kitchen cabinet.
But, of course, Gerry has other things to do. When he isn’t thinking of the thing in his kitchen cabinet, he’s researching, chasing, burning. Sometimes Gerry spends over a week at the Institute for reasons entirely unrelated to avoiding the thing in his kitchen cabinet. Sometimes longer.
Weeks pass. The thing in Gerry’s kitchen cabinet does not leave, but its presence becomes more tolerable. The staticky hum becomes another background noise in Gerry’s apartment (although he refuses to admit the way his heart stutters every time it laughs from his kitchen). He buys some extra bowls to replace the ones that used to live in his cabinet, keeps one eye on the yellow-but-not door every time he walks into the kitchen, and life continues on as normally as it can.
Until one day, when Gerry walks into his kitchen and it’s quiet . Eerily so. No static, no humming, no laughter. The cabinet door is still that same off-yellow color, the kind that gives Gerry a headache if he stares for too long, but it is completely, uncannily silent. Frightening .
Gerry squints at the cabinet, considering. Weeks ago, this would have been a welcome absence, but the room feels… empty without the knowledge of the thing in his kitchen cabinet. Empty in a way he can’t contribute to the Eye.
So he makes a decision, and opens the door.
What stares back at Gerry this time is, credibly, more human than the mass of colors from before, but it still isn’t… right . Its limbs are bent and twisted in ways that don’t seem possible. Two eyes stare back from behind a curtain of bright, blond curls. They blink once, deliberately, and Gerry could’ve sworn they had been a bright blue before, but now they look more green, with pupils the color of an oil spill.
Fighting back the urge to slam the cabinet door closed again, Gerry takes a steadying breath.
“Hello.”
The thing in his kitchen cabinet frowns at him -- well, it makes some kind of face, Gerry isn’t exactly sure what , but it seems upset -- and says, “You’re no fun when you aren’t scared, bookburner.”
Its voice has a fizzing behind it, like it had been carbonated. Gerry blinks. “Excuse me?”
The thing shifts, glitches, once. “You aren’t scared of me anymore.”
The air in Gerry’s kitchen seems to buzz. “Well, you aren’t being very scary,” Gerry points out.
The thing in his cabinet makes that same almost-frowning face. Gerry hears a snap , and a bright burst of color explodes out from his cabinet. He shuts his eyes on instinct, and when he opens them again, the thing is sitting on the counter in front of him, limbs unraveled to unreasonable proportions, grinning . Gerry spares a glance down to the countertop, where the thing’s hands now rested next to his own, and audibly gasps. Its fingers looked sharp , less like fingers and more like knives, taped precariously onto its ever-shifting form.
Gerry jumps back, staring in a mix of astonishment and admitted fear. “What are you?”
“You may call me Michael,” it says, its grin almost splitting at the edges, just daring to melt off its face. It huffs a quiet laugh once, twice, like it was referencing some joke Gerry isn’t in on, bringing a hand up to its face to poorly cover its smile.
“Michael Shelley…” Gerry mutters, entirely unprompted, and then cusses under his breath because fuck off Beholding, now is really not the time .
Michael’s grin actually does slip off its face then -- literally -- glitching out of existence for a half second before returning, much more forced and showing far more teeth. Gerry hears a sharp crackle in the air around them. He gulps.
“No. Michael Shelley was , once, but he is not me . He does not exist anymore. Not in the same way.” Its voice sounds strained, cracking, ringing in Gerry’s ears.
Gerry takes a step back and flinches, watching as Michael’s form becomes almost pixelated, its hands gripping the marble countertop tight enough to crack it. “I’m sorry,” he blurts out.
Michael softens, returning to a less pixelated state. The crackle in the air settles, leaving the same steady buzz of static from before. “I’m just Michael,” it says, its voice still pitched slightly higher than before.
“Well, then, Michael,” Gerry says, taking another tentative step back. “What were you doing in my cupboard?”
Michael giggles again. It sounds like the clinking of sea glass, all staticky and cracking and- and warm , Gerry realizes abruptly. He had never heard it laugh so close before. It was still infectious, and Gerry has to bite down a smile of his own.
Michael’s laughter tapers off. “Not important. Do you have a name, bookburner?”
Gerry pauses. This thing had been living in his kitchen for the past few weeks -- surely it wouldn’t do any harm to tell it his name? “Ah, Gerard. Gerard Keay. Or Gerry, if you’d prefer.”
He adds the last bit on a whim. “Gerry” sounded so much less like his mother, and if this conversation was going to lead to something dangerous, he might as well be content in his last moments.
Michael grins brightly. “Gerry,” it says, sing-song, as if trying to taste the name as it said it. Gerry very nearly blushes.
Michael pushes itself forwards off the countertop. “Wonderful!” it exclaims. It giggles, bringing the back of its hand up to its face again, sharp fingers flexing, and oh , that is a sight, isn’t it?
It takes a step towards Gerry, bringing its other hand to tilt Gerry’s chin upwards. Gerry freezes, perfectly still, the thought of those razor-like fingers so close to his neck filling him with an unfamiliar fear. Michael grins again -- had it ever stopped? Gerry isn’t sure, couldn’t be sure if anything, really -- and blinks.
“I think this will be fun, bookburner.”
With that, it turns and leaves unceremoniously through Gerry’s front door, leaving behind a steady hum of static and a very flustered Gerry, rooted to the spot in his kitchen with his eyes fixed on the doorframe.
In a perfect world, Gerry could say that Michael left him alone after that, what with his fear nearly-almost forgotten. At the very least, Gerry wishes he could say that Michael becomes a nuisance, or some kind of threat.
Instead, Michael very quickly becomes an admittedly welcome presence in Gerry’s kitchen (which it never seemed to leave, whenever it was visiting). Every so often, Gerry wakes up to a steady hum of static and a buzzing behind his teeth, and when he makes his way to his kitchen for breakfast, Michael is sitting on a counter somewhere, swinging its legs back and forth, ankles phasing through the cabinets behind it. It’ll grin, and wave, and Gerry rolls his eyes with a fond smile, and life just… continues.
After a while, it becomes routine. Sometimes they talk in the morning, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes Michael is still there when Gerry gets back from the Institute, and he sits next to it on the counter and rants about some statement he has to follow-up on, or some Leitner he has to hunt. Sometimes, if Gerry is feeling particularly brave, he asks Michael pointed questions which it dodges with twisting answers, grin growing wider with each response until it seems almost predatory.
And on the days that Michael isn’t in his kitchen, the days where it’s off chasing some terrified Londoner through its hallways, Gerry starts to miss its presence. He brings it up once, after a particularly long stretch of absences.
“What exactly do you do, when you’re not around?”
Michael does not answer -- it never answers , not really, but it does respond after a moment, its hair curling and twisting around its shoulders in a strange sense of glee.
“Starting to miss me, are you, bookburner?”
It grins, and Gerry scoffs, muttering an “as if” under his breath, which he and Michael both know is as vulnerable as he ever allows himself to feel. A moment of crackling static (the closest thing to silence Gerry has known for months, the closest thing he feels comfortable with anymore) passes between them.
Gerry thinks about what he’s doing, in that moment. Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with a vaguely human-shaped amalgamation of colors and spirals and radio frequencies on the counter of his kitchen. He thinks about what Gertrude might think. What his mother might have thought. What either of them would do in a situation like this, so close to something so inhuman. He takes a steadying breath.
“You’re not… unwelcome, Michael,” he starts, slow. “I think you know that by now. So you can, you know, act like it.” He tries to stop his voice from raising near the end, like he was proposing something. It doesn’t really work.
Michael twists to face him, eyes glowing iridescent.
“How?” it asks, startlingly breathless.
Gerry pauses. Michael has never been a creature for questions -- which makes sense, considering the nature of its existence -- but it sounds so… enamoured with the idea of being welcome. Gerry had yet to hear it sound so enamoured with the idea of being anything.
“Well…” Gerry turns away from Michael’s face, as the pupils in its eyes begin to distort, a dizzying display that shoots a pang through Gerry’s head. “You can start by joining me in the living room.”
He hops off the counter with an attempt at nonchalance and starts towards the door, turning around when he heard no sound of movement from behind him, and is very suddenly faced with an empty counter.
“Michael?”
Gerry turns back towards the door and peeks around the corner to find Michael already on his living room couch, melting slightly around the bend of the armrest. It grins.
“That was fast,” Gerry mumbles, moving to sit on the other end of the couch.
Michael hums, a static-ridden note that makes Gerry’s head swim.
“Formal invitations are hard to come by, bookburner,” it croons through its teeth. Gerry rolls his eyes and pretends not to smile.
“Sure, Michael. Whatever you say.”
//
Gerry throws open his closet door and blinks, hard . Inside, instead of the usual monochrome spectrum of shirts and jeans, is a dizzying rainbow of colors. Neon greens and yellows, socks with mismatched patterns. The colors shift in front of Gerry’s eyes and he turns, willing away his oncoming headache. He leans back towards his bedroom door.
“Michael, what the fuck did you do to my clothes?” He yells down the hallway, into the kitchen where he knows Michael is waiting. They hadn’t really talked about it yet. Michael knows it’s welcome in other areas of Gerry’s flat -- but it seems to think it’s only welcome with permission. It never leaves Gerry’s kitchen, not by an inch , unless Gerry invites it to his living room, or his balcony, or on one memorable occasion, his bathroom, to help wash the dye out of his hair. Gerry’s not complaining , mind you. It’s sort of cute to see Michael standing in the doorway, nearly vibrating in anticipation, waiting for an invitation to sit on the couch and watch bad cartoon reruns while Gerry worked on some Institute case or another.
He hears Michael laugh suddenly, the sound bouncing down the hallway, reverberating in Gerry’s bedroom and startling Gerry from his thoughts. It fizzles out slowly and Gerry bites down a smile.
“I made them better!” it calls back. “And now we match!”
Gerry can practically hear the bright smile in its voice, the infectious glee that worms its way into his mind. He sighs, defeated, and searches desperately for the dullest colored shirt he can find. When he finally walks out into the kitchen, dressed in what can only be described as a technicolor nightmare, Michael starts to vibrate so intensely Gerry thinks it might shatter.
The blinding grin on its face as it waves goodbye is worth it, though. And if Gertrude thinks anything of his outfit when he walks into the Institute that morning, she doesn’t say.
Needless to say, Gerry is very grateful for the lack of commentary.
//
Gerry knows it’ll be a Michael day when he wakes up the next morning. He can feel the static prickling across his skin as he sits up in bed and smiles. He won’t admit it out loud, not quite yet, but he’s starting to enjoy waking up to the feeling of Michael in his apartment. It’s strangely domestic. Gerry hadn’t ever had another person sharing his space -- not since his mom -- and even if Michael doesn’t truly count as a “person”, it’s still… nice.
Nice, until Gerry walks into his kitchen and finds himself face-to-face with a normal, empty kitchen.
It isn’t unusual for Michael to be late to its near-daily visits at this point. As much as Gerry tries to forget, Michael is still a monster, a creature of distortion and confusion and terror , and it needs to eat.
But the static in the air of Gerry’s flat is hard to ignore. And despite his resistance, the pull of unusual in Gerry’s mind means he Knows that Michael is here, somewhere , and likely somewhere in his kitchen. So he begins his search for the spiral creature that sort-of lives in his apartment.
When searching his kitchen cabinets and drawers proves futile, Gerry pokes his head back into the hallway and calls out.
“Michael? You here?”
Really, Gerry doesn’t know what to expect in terms of a response, but a staticky musical beep! from the room next to his kitchen was not high on the list. It doesn’t sound like Michael, not exactly. It sounds like…
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
Poking his head into the laundry room adjacent to his kitchen, Gerry’s eyes drift first to the curled pool of yellow hair, spilling out from the washing machine and onto the floor, before trailing up to the bright, upside-down grin stretching over and off of Michael’s face.
“Hello , bookburner,” Michael sing-songs, followed by a similar chirp to the one Gerry heard earlier.
“Hello Michael. Are you coloring in my clothes again?”
Michael giggles (when does it not , anymore). “ Hmm . I try not to repeat myself, bookburner. Unless you would rather I-”
“No , thank you, Michael, I like my clothes how they are.” Gerry bites down a smile at Michael’s poorly smothered laughter. “What’s with the change of scenery?”
Michael twists around itself to face Gerry at a proper angle, resting its chin on its hands, elbows perched on the edge of the washing machine door. “Speaking in technicalities, I am still in your kitchen. Wouldn’t you agree, bookburner?”
Gerry rolls his eyes. “I’m not one to get hung up on technicalities , Michael. And honestly, you know my name. We’re well past the point of you using it.”
Michael grins in lieu of a response, eyes shining ever-so-slightly brighter. Gerry grins back, only half sarcastic, and tries his best to ignore the way his heart flutters at the sight. “Well. I’m going to leave for work now.”
“Yes.”
“Will I find you here when I get back?”
Another fit of giggles. “Perhaps I will find a different appliance.”
“Michael.”
“How deeply do you value your microwave, Gerry?”
Gerry feels his face flush, sputtering. He tries to pretend it isn’t because of the way Michael says his name -- sweet and swirling, wrapping around his mind and squeezing all sensible thoughts out of him.
“You- you leave my microwave alone .”
When Michael grins again, wide and twisting, Gerry takes a step back. “I’m leaving. Now. You- goodbye, Michael.”
Gerry is out the door without a second to spare, silently thankful for the crisp London air to explain away the blush on his cheeks to the inevitable questioning stares from Gertrude.
//
He really doesn’t get much work done that day. He hasn’t in a while , not since his priorities became more… Michael-oriented. Gertrude doesn’t notice -- or if she does, she doesn’t say anything. It’s not like Gerry does much more than lounge about the office being a nuisance to Elias on a usual day, but this was a very different type of non-productivity. Gerry spends almost the entire day thinking about Michael, wondering if it would be there when he got home. If it’d want to watch something with him. If it would want to order-in or go out. God, when did he get so domestic?
More than that, Gerry thinks about its voice . The way Michael had said his name earlier, all sweet static, is bouncing around his skull and making it very difficult to focus. He had read statements before of people encountering… things like Michael, even becoming friendly with them before their eventual demise. There were even a few statements about a romantic partner becoming something less-than-human. But how could Gerry be sure this is safe ?
The Eye pulls at his head for a moment, and Gerry shakes it off. No . He’s not going to invade Michael’s privacy like that, and definitely not with the help of another godforsaken entity. He’d just… ask. Like a normal person.
Gerry shivers, blaming it on a draft from a window in the Archives (an oxymoron to anyone who’s spent more than a few minutes down there). For the first time in months, he isn’t looking forward to going home.
//
Gerry doesn’t ask when he gets home. It’s not because Michael’s not there -- it’s perched on its spot on the counter, where the countertop had begun to warp into a spiral design -- but because the words get stuck in Gerry’s throat and he offers a smile instead.
He doesn’t ask over dinner. He doesn’t ask while they watch Sailor Moon on Gerry’s shitty TV. It’s a couple hours later, while they’re playing cards, that the words spill out. Gerry had suggested playing “go fish”, but he’s pretty sure Michael’s playing poker. Somehow it’s winning at both.
Michael takes a moment to look at its cards, which no longer looked like they belonged to the same deck, and Gerry’s thoughts swirl in his mind.
Just ask it, he tells himself. It won’t get mad. Ask. Can I ask you a personal question.
Can I ask you a personal question.
Can I ask-
“Why did you come to me?”
Michael pauses, and Gerry barely resists the urge to smack himself upside the head. The last thing he wants is to set Michael off. He knows how uncomfortable it can be for it to talk about it’s past, and for whatever reason, the idea of Michael being in pain makes Gerry just as uncomfortable.
The silence, littered with static, lasts a few more minutes before Michael responds.
“I think… Michael. He saw you, before.”
Gerry tries not to look too surprised, though he’s sure his eyes give it away. He’d seen Michael Shelley around the Archives before- well . But he had no memory of ever talking to him. Michael presses on regardless.
“He wanted- there was a connection he held onto. Wanted it. When he- I… the institute was all he ever knew, and I-”
Michael breaks off into a static crack and winces. Gerry nods, and reaches out to lightly touch its hand, understanding.
“You don’t agree with it. With Gertrude.”
Michael nods, still shaking. “But not you.”
Gerry lets that sit in his mind awhile.
“You- don’t really like talking about… him , do you?”
“It’s hard to separate one’s sense of self when that “self” does not actually exist.”
Gerry laughs, hollowly. “Existence is tricky with you.”
Michael grins, and this time Gerry lets it distract him. He closes his eyes, relishes in the feeling, opens them again.
“Why did you stay?”
Michael’s grin turns almost predatory. “Why did you let me?”
Gerry feels his breath catch in his throat.
“I- I don’t know,” He stammers, and for a moment, he gets lost in the feeling of finally not knowing.
“It… felt like the right thing.”
Michael is standing now. Gerry isn’t sure when it moved, or if it moved at all. It extends a hand, warping the air around its sharp fingers, and Gerry takes it without so much as a flinch. The air feels alive with static, rushing through his hair as he’s pulled to his feet.
Michael stands impossibly close, twisting around and around until it takes up all the space surrounding Gerry’s body without actually touching a single part of him. Gerry takes a shallow, shaking breath.
"Michael…” he mutters, unsure of how to proceed.
Michael looks at him with wide, swirling eyes. “I need permission,” it states simply, its voice a breathless tremor.
“Then ask.”
A moment of silence passes; then:
“Can I kiss you?”
It’s the clearest Michael’s voice has ever sounded. Another moment.
“Yes.”
Michael’s hands are in his hair. It’s the first thing Gerry feels -- or, at least, he thinks he feels it. It takes him a good few seconds to realize he’s being kissed, and it takes a few seconds more for him to kiss back .
Michael’s mouth is a lot softer than he imagined (yes, he had imagined. Small, fleeting moments he allowed himself when Gertrude’s assignments got boring. Oh god, don’t think about Gertrude while you’re kissing Michael. Jesus.)
His whole body feels like static, radio waves. He feels as incomprehensible as Michael looks and Gerry revels in it. It’s like the air around him isn’t there , or it is but it’s no longer made of what air should be made of. Gerry’s head spins trying to make sense of it, but when Michael’s fingers tug gently at his fading black hair, he gives up trying to make sense of anything.
Gerry’s not sure when either of them pull away, but they end up back on the couch eventually, breathless and wide-eyed. The tattoos lining Gerry’s joints burn faintly, and as if Michael can read his mind, it places a hand over Gerry’s. The sensation fades in a wave of numbing static.
His mind feels scrambled. He opens his mouth a few times to say something, anything , and what he comes up with is:
“Does this mean I can stop inviting you out of my kitchen?”
Michael dissolves into sweet, spiraling laughter. It’s still headache-inducing as usual, but Gerry smiles at it anyway, watching the edges of Michael’s smile twirl and mix with its hair.
Gerry leans up to kiss it again. He doesn’t think about Gertrude. He doesn’t think about Elias, or Leitner, or the institute, or any of it. His mind is wonderfully, addictingly empty, save for the hum of static and the occasional echoing giggle.