Work Text:
Gertrude isn’t sure why she’s here.
‘Here’ being sat at a table in the house of a potential Flesh avatar, having tea and an almost pleasant—if horribly boring—conversation. Yes, she is currently preparing to deal with the upcoming Flesh ritual, but this man, Lars Anderson, certainly doesn’t know anything about it.
The statement she took from him without much struggle or even recognition of what she was doing is painfully mundane. He found a book—superficially a normal knitting manual which turned out to talk much more about blood vessels, nerves and sinew than any knitting manual should—and is slowly growing obsessed with it. Certainly, he is likely to commit a number of murders if he continues like this, but if Gertrude were to concern herself with every half-baked murderer in the country, or even just in the city, she would never have the time for anything else. The man isn’t even a proper avatar yet, just heading there.
Why, then, was Elias so insistent she would find the visit interesting? She’s starting to wonder if she couldn’t have sent Michael without any significant negative consequences. Is he simply trying to waste her time? That seems unreasonably petty, even for him.
She has more or less decided to leave at the first opportunity when a thump from upstairs makes them both pause and look up.
The last time she checked, Anderson lived alone, and she knows for a fact any pets he had have already fallen victim to his new hobby, so there should be nothing upstairs capable of making noise, and yet she believes she can hear faint footsteps. Judging by the frown on Anderson’s face, she’s right that they don’t belong.
“I’m… I’m sorry, I just have to check if…” he excuses himself, putting his teacup down and getting up from the sofa.
“Of course, don’t mind me,” she assures him.
The stairs up to the second floor are at the back of the room, running along the wall. Anderson approaches them with confusion and a hint of growing anger on his face. He only gets as far as putting his hand on the bottom post of the railing before he stops, shocked.
A young woman races down the stairs, stopping abruptly in the middle and gaping down at Anderson.
Then she laughs and takes a backwards step up the stairs. “Oh shit! Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think anyone was home!”
She’s really just a girl. Early twenties at best, dressed in a simple sundress and practical sandals against the July heat. She’s laughing nervously, but there’s not a single shred of true fear in her eyes.
“Who in the goddamn are you?” Anderson exclaims, still frozen at the bottom of the stairs.
“No one! No one, I’m sorry, haha, I’ll be out of your hair in a second, I promise, I’m so sorry about—”
“Why are you in my house?”
“That’s a really good question!” The girl’s hands flutter as she talks. She’s horribly nonchalant. Peppy. “I shouldn’t be, I know, but I was just walking past outside and I noticed your window was open and it looked like it’d be really easy to climb up and I’m probably the most impulsive person in the world? So once I had the thought I just sort of went and I promise I wasn’t gonna do anything or steal anything, I mean I have pockets on this but all I’ve got is my keys and my phone…”
She turns her pockets out to show. Gertrude thinks she can hear Anderson’s teeth grind together from where she’s sitting.
The threat is tangible in his voice when he says, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, love…” and starts up the stairs towards her.
The girl seems completely unconcerned, though she must see him coming. She shoves her keys back in her pocket and reads something off her phone when it buzzes in her hand. “Woop, alright,” she says.
Then she shoves the phone away as well and vaults the railing.
The abruptness of it lets her run across half the room before Anderson catches himself and starts running after her, yelling, “Let me get my hands on you!”
“No thank you, I don’t want to be a vest!” she yells back, wrenching the front door open and sprinting out into the street.
She knows about the knitting manual, then.
Gertrude gets up and heads for the open door. Whatever this is, it’s most certainly what Elias thought she might want to watch, and she’s interested in seeing whether the girl gets away with her tendons inside her body.
It doesn’t look good. She has a good head start, but Anderson is faster and is chasing with single-minded purpose.
He must be having serious tunnel-vision if he didn’t even notice the dark-clad young man climbing out of his second-storey window, just above and beside the door.
The young man drops to the ground and sees her standing there, and Gertrude recognizes him immediately. How could she not? She’s had the thought of Eric niggling in the back of her mind since Mary’s visit a week ago, and Gerard looks shockingly like his father.
He seems to recognize her as well, by the widening of his eyes as he meets hers, but he only looks at her for a moment before his eyes go over her shoulder to where the girl is still being chased. Then they snap to the window above him and he reaches up and makes urgent grabbing motions. “Give it, give it!”
There’s a second young man climbing out the window. He fumbles something for a moment, then drops a book into Gerard’s waiting hands.
On catching it, Gerard instantly steps into the street, brandishing the knitting manual over his head and shouting, “Oy! Asshole! Got your book!” Then he twirls around and sprints in the other direction.
Anderson roars. He stops before he can catch the girl and turns around, putting on a burst of speed to chase down Gerard instead.
It’s somewhat interesting, Gertrude notes as he races past, how quickly the Flesh can turn you from civilized humanity into visceral, animal rage. It’s hardly a new observation, but there is always something disturbing in observing it.
The second young man seems to have a harder time with the climb, getting down one slow, hard-earned step at a time.
Gerard is a fast runner, even considering his height, but not quite fast enough to outrun Anderson, and he can clearly tell. He gives up on running, skids to a stop, yells, “Catch!” and throws the book back towards the girl. It flies in an impressive arc far above Anderson’s head.
Anderson, of course, has no other choice than to turn around again and head for the girl, who has just about caught her breath from the sprint.
The second young man finally drops to the ground with an ‘oof’. He nods politely at Gertrude, says, “Excuse me, Ma-am,” and then runs two steps and tackles Anderson as he passes by.
Gerard catches up a second later and starts kicking before anyone’s blood vessels can be torn out of them.
The girl isn’t running this time. Her companions keep Anderson firmly on the pavement, and she holds the book by the spine, spreading the pages just enough so that when she runs a lighter under them, they catch immediately. Then she watches it burn.
Anderson’s screaming reaches a crescendo. He trashes like a wounded animal, struggles against the asphalt and claws at ankles, but the only thing he can catch is the laces on Gerard’s unseasonable boots.
The girl drops the burning, inert remains of the book to the ground and yells, “I got it! Go! Go!”
They scatter in various directions, leaving Anderson to struggle to his knees, bruised and bleeding and with loss and devastation haunting his eyes.
Gertrude leaves before he might decide to take his frustrations out on her. There’s nothing left of interest here.
“I still can’t believe playing keep-away turned out to be one of our best weapons,” Georgie says once she’s settled properly into the bar booth with her drink.
Jon chuckles beside her, and nearly spills his own. He sits pressed against her with an arm over her shoulders, and she thinks she has a good chance for some quality cuddles tonight. Especially with the drinking they’re about to do.
“It makes sense,” Gerry says from across from them. “Once you’ve got your hands on the thing that matters most to them, you have a lot of power over them. Makes it easier to stay in control.”
“For the simple fears, at least,” Jon says.
“Well, obviously. If we were to try that on a spider freak—or even a bloody hunter—we wouldn’t last long.” Gerry drains a good third of his drink in one go, then fixes Georgie with a glare. “And speaking of bad ideas…”
“I know, I know,” she says, raising her free hand defensively. They’d just needed a couple more minutes to find the Leitner and escape, and they’d heard the man coming towards the stairs. “It seemed like a good idea at the time, but yes, in hindsight, we probably could have found a less risky way to cause a distraction.”
“Or,” Jon says, regrettably pulling away so he can look her in the eyes. “Or we could have simply left and come back another day. There were many possible ways to solve the situation with much less danger to you.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“You did see the, ah, the mittens.”
“Yes. I did.” A shudder runs through her. She might not feel fear these days, but the disgust once she’d realized what those things were made of is still sticking. She sighs, leans towards him in the hope he’ll return. “Sometimes it still feels like all my emotions are new, fresh off the presses. I’ll think I have a handle on myself, and then some impulse I’d forgotten about catches me off guard. I don’t think I’m compensating as well as I thought I was.”
Delightfully, Jon does lean back on her, even puts his drink down so he can hug her. “You scared the life out of me,” he murmurs.
“I’ll do better. I promise.”
He smells nice, sun-warmed and pleasant. When he pulls out of the hug, she tilts her head a little and he kisses her without hesitation. He’s a decent kisser by now, despite how rarely he’s interested in doing it, and she takes what she gets with enthusiasm.
It’s a couple minutes before she remembers Gerry is still there.
He doesn’t seem bothered, though. Utterly relaxed, he’s smiling at them like he doesn’t know he’s doing it, fond and warm and happy.
She clears her throat and isn’t sure all of a sudden where to put her eyes. “I hope that old woman got out alright,” she says, then frowns. “Actually, I wonder what was up with her. She looked weirdly calm about all that.”
Gerry laughs. “She’s fine. I think that was Gertrude Robinson.”
“Who…?”
“She’s the Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute.”
Georgie blinks. She can feel Jon startle. “The Eye guys?”
“Yeah.”
Jon makes a confused noise. “What possible business could she have had there, then? This one hardly seemed to have anything to do with the Eye’s business.”
“Who knows.” Gerry shrugs. “I don’t know much about her, to be honest. Pokes her nose in where no one likes it, makes enemies all over, but no one’s managed to take her out yet. I think my mum sort of respects her.”
“That’s a good sign,” Georgie snarks.
“I mean, she ‘respects’ her.” He makes air quotes. “About as much as she does any woman who’s survived in this shit. Might be some messed up feminist thing? I have no idea. You know what she’s like.”
She’s at least heard more than enough stories. “Irrational and murderous?”
“Yeah. You know.”
She huffs a laugh and shakes her head, and they collectively drop the subject. If they don’t know, they don’t know, though she can practically feel Jon still chewing on it.
“How’s the house hunting going?” Gerry asks once they’ve moved on.
It’s been harder after they decided they needed a flat with two bedrooms, but Georgie doesn’t say that.
“Pretty sure we’ve found what we’re looking for,” Jon says, and then launches into a spiel that is mostly complaining about the horrible ordeal of looking for a non-awful flat for two students located anywhere remotely practical.
As they talk, all thoughts of horrible, god-like beings of fear and pain fall away for more important things. They have a whole evening to spend, and good friends to spend it with.