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The greatest unsolved mystery: how the fuck Gram got to do whatever he did.
See: anyone else– bar White, but he didn’t really count, they had the same face after all– couldn’t get within a metre of Black without a snarl and a warning look. If they made an attempt to actually make physical contact, they’d often find themselves on the receiving end of a rather skilled punch. Or, if Black was feeling lazy, a glob of spit on whatever was accessible.
But Gram, somehow, someway, was able to waltz into a room and drape himself all over Black to his heart’s content and come away without a single scratch. Sometimes Black would even adjust to accommodate the ridiculously long limbs that liked to use him as furniture on occasion, which was frankly fucking unheard of. No one knew how Gram did it, or why he specifically was allowed, and it was all in all weird.
Yok was curious by nature. He couldn’t help it, no thread should be left unpulled. So when he noticed the special treatment Gram got (especially after White came into the picture) he absolutely needed to know why.
His need for answers usually got him in trouble (see: the cop who shall not be named) so he tried his best to shove his questions down and just get on with life. But then he’d watched Black allow Gram to lay his head in his lap for two hours, whilst he fucking played with his hair, albeit making comments about his roots and insulting the dye job he must’ve done himself. (Though the implication Black helped Gram do his hair was not lost on Yok. In fact, he zoned out about it for about ten minutes.) Now the need was so intense he feared his brain would leak out of his ears if he didn't ask, like, soon.
So, when Black had excused himself for a smoke, it all rushed out.
“I just don’t get it!” He cried, at a level of distress far too great for the situation at hand. The present company– Gram, Sean, White– all eyed him, not unused to his outbursts but still confused nonetheless. He gestured wildly to the door in which Black had just left through. “What kind of sorcery do you have?” This question is directed at Gram, as is the next. “How is he so chill with you all over him but if I so much as touch his shoulder he tries to kill me?”
Gram started chuckling to himself, cryptically. “Actually– I wanna know, too.” White chimed in, sitting forward. Narrowing his eyes. “Sometimes I think he’s more comfortable with you than he is with me. How did you do it?” Sean does nothing to contribute to the conversation. He does not want to touch Black in any capacity, after all, so it doesn’t concern him.
Gram sat back, sort of smug, grinning. “Well,” He sighed heavily and dramatically. “My dearest friends, I boiled him.” There is no trace of sarcasm to be found in his words, no matter how hard White and Yok stare at him.
“You boiled him.” Yok repeated, monotone. Gram nodded sagely, which really only exacerbated matters. “What the FUCK do you mean, you boiled him?!” White dropped his head into his hands, contemplating his decision to stay with this gaggle of idiots. Maybe Black had the right idea, after all. Sean sat on his phone. Probably tweeting, who knows.
“You know frogs?” Gram asked. Yok blinked at him incredulously, then turned to White, who’d raised his head to look at Gram like he’d grown a second one. He mouthed ‘frogs’ at him, the picture of agony. White nodded, as if to say; ‘I know.’ Gram, undeterred, went on. “There’s this really interesting experiment I heard about a few years ago. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water–”
This got Sean’s attention. “Why would you want to do that?” He asked, genuinely horrified. White shushed him, muttering some assurances about hypotheticals. Gram briefly considered pointing out that this was an actual experiment that had actually happened, because he had actual results, but decided that one comically distressed friend was enough.
He pressed on. “Anyways– if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, they’ll hop out instantly.” He mimes holding a cup (he didn’t know how to accurately represent a pot) with one hand and a frog with the other, demonstrating it hopping out. Yok was a visual learner, after all. “But! If you put the frog in the water and then boil it,” He puts his hand-frog back in the pot/cup. “It’ll stay there. Even when the water gets too hot, it won’t leave. It’ll just end up dying.”
Sean’s grimacing. White’s furrowed his eyebrows so hard Gram’s worried his face might stay like that. Yok is staring at Gram’s hands. All three still look confused. “So– okay, you know about a weird frog experiment,” Said White, “What does that have to do with Black?” Gram dropped his mimic.
“Because I applied the same technique.” Three pairs of eyes stared at him. Seriously. “Look– if I treated Black the way I do now the minute I met him, what would have happened?”
“He would’ve killed you.” Said Yok.
“Probably got a punch to the face.” Said White.
“Oh my– please wrap the metaphor up already.” Moaned Sean. Gram nodded at White and Yok, and actively avoided Sean’s withering gaze.
“Like the frog that gets put in the boiling water.” Gram continued. White nodded, the reasoning seemingly dawning on him. Yok still looked lost. “So. I boiled him. I was slow in my approach. Getting a piece of dust off his jacket here, something out of his hair there… then it evolved to hand on the shoulder, then over the shoulder–” He sat back triumphantly, spreading his arms out. “And now I have free reign, because he got boiled.”
White nodded, thoroughly impressed. Yok, finally understanding, wore a similar expression. Sean was back on his phone. “He was boiled and didn’t even realise. Like a frog.” Yok whispered, as if possessed. “You’re so smart.”
“Genuinely a very good technique.” White agreed, “I wonder if that’d work for other things, too?”
All three sat on that for a second, quietly plotting. It was this scene that Black walked back into. He stopped, squinted at them all. Sean looked up from his phone, and– in a rare moment of being the sanest one in the room– slowly shook his head.
Black, in a rare moment of his own, listened to Sean. Muttered a quick, “Yeah, fuck whatever that is.” And backed out of the room.