Chapter Text
There’s something wrong with Garraty.
Gary’s been watching that little group of people, The Musketeers, they call themselves, for a while now. It’s not in some creepy fucking stalker way, they’re just real loud.
He sits behind one of them in all but two of his classes and his lunch table’s right next to theirs so it’s kind of hard not to spend every waking second of the day noticing them. At first, it’d just been mild interest born out of a genuine difficulty to ignore the way they practically yelled when they talked. Now, though, he’s big enough to admit that it’s on purpose.
Garraty keeps flinching every two seconds. The door to their history class slams shut and he reacts like a gun’s gone off. Flinches so damn bad Gary’s almost convinced one has. But there is no gun and Garraty quickly forces himself to calm down.
Now, originally Gary figured this had something to do with Garraty’s girl going missing. Jan was a spitfire of a thing and a real loud mouth, louder than any of the boys at the table. It was clear to Gary that they only included her cause she and Garraty were bumping uglies and not out of any real care for her, it made him understand her in a way he really didn’t feel like dwelling on.
The teacher muttered on and on about how the American government came to be, they were supposed to do a project on Supreme Court Cases. “Find a partner.” Their teacher said and thus lost all of Gary’s attention. Not that he’d been giving him much. How could he be expected to when Garraty was scrunching his nose up like something smelled funny and covering his ears with his hands.
See, it’d make sense if it was Garraty, if he’d finally lost his temper with Jan and BAM! She’s gone. The issue is, it also doesn’t make sense if it was Garraty cause Gary was with him when Jan disappeared.
Not with him, really, but Gary had eyes on him at the time. They say Jan was seen walking home from school at 3:15 on Monday and was supposed to get there by 3:45 or else her mama’d go out looking. Garraty was at the park at 3:12 and didn’t leave till 5:52, throwing a ball around with McVries and going on and on about nothing.
Gary was there to take pictures, it was one of the reasons everyone at school thought he was a freak. He likes when photos have movement to them, more than just a concrete wall with some graffiti. He likes when photos have people.
The Musketeers are pretty much the only people in the whole town who haven’t threatened to beat Gary black and blue for photographing them. Sometimes Baker asks for a copy of the pictures, or he used to, at least. Now, they kinda just give Gary funny looks and sometimes they call him names, but they don’t tell him to stop taking pictures, so he doesn’t.
So, Garraty’s not flinching because of some violent flashback about how he killed his girlfriend and dumped her body in a ditch never to be seen again, but he is flinching about something and the mystery of it all makes Gary’s body itch. He scratches mildly at the skin on his wrist and toys with different theories, letting them get crazier and crazier as the time passes.
Maybe Garraty is thinking about how his dad died. Everyone said it was a mountain lion attack, deep in the woods where he’d been camping, but Garraty always said it had to be something else.
Maybe his mama beat him, slamming doors and liquor bottles around the house, making Garraty scared of all kinds of noise.
Maybe it wasn’t his mama, but Jan who hit him. Garraty’s on edge, waiting for her to come back and rain hell fire on him cause he knows he’ll never be safe from her wrath.
None of them are all that plausible, though. Gary heard from his daddy that William Garraty was absolutely torn to shreds two years ago and he’s met Mrs. Garraty before at the store, she wasn’t buying liquor or nothing, just milk and peanut butter. Mrs. Garraty is always kind to Gary, she calls him honey and gives him soft smiles when she sees him.
And Jan, well Jan doesn’t have it in her to hurt anyone no matter how loud and abrasive she is. Gary once saw Jan cry over a mouse caught in a trap. No, none of Gary’s ideas are working, but the way Garraty’s twitching has him desperate to know more.
The bell rings and the day goes on, he doesn’t have any other classes with Garraty, so he’s forced to just think and think and think until school lets out.
“Everything’s just so loud today,” Garraty complains, placing his head on McVries’ shoulder. The other puts his hand on the small of Garraty’s back and guides them as they walk towards the park again.
Gary understands it, how everything is way too loud sometimes and just a tad too quiet others and nothing is ever just right. Sometimes he feels like Goldilocks, gorging himself on porridge that’ll never actually satisfy.
McVries makes a face when he turns and sees Gary, but he doesn’t shoo him away. He thinks it’s probably because even after Baker called him a murderer he still drops most of the pictures into his locker and goes about his day, so they walk and Gary stays a good fifteen feet away, wasting film on squirrels while they do.
This time, McVries throws the ball and Garraty catches it. He almost always does, it was something he did with his dad a lot, Gary once overheard him tell Baker. The thing that makes this different is that Garraty’s fast, McVries tries and fails to trip him up a few times but he’s always right where he needs to be. Gary can tell they both notice it, but they don’t say a damn thing about it.
He snaps a picture of Garraty, ball in hand and shit eating grin on his face. He’s staring at McVries like he ain’t ever seen anything prettier and if Garraty didn’t have a girl Gary’d think he was a fruit.
When the camera goes off Garraty’s head snaps to look at Gary, grin morphing into a frown until he huffs and starts making his way over, cursing, “What the fuck do you want, Barkovitch?”
McVries watches with a bored expression and it doesn’t change when Gary looks to him for help. “I’m just taking photos, man, like I always do.” He holds his hands up in surrender, but pulls them down quickly cause his right hand is starting to sweat and he doesn’t want to risk dropping his camera.
Garraty reaches to grab at it and Gary pulls back immediately, yelling, “Fuck off!” which makes Garraty flinch, but he doesn’t stop trying to grab the camera.
“It’s too fucking loud, Barkovitch,” Which strikes him as odd even within his panic, his camera’s been called a lot of things before, creepy, annoying, a piece of shit, but never loud. He grabs Gary’s arm, squeezing hard enough to remind him of his daddy and then-
Garraty falls to his knees, hands flying up to cover his ears as he shouts in distress. The only sound is that of a distant car alarm, irritating but faint.
McVries rushes up then, pushing Gary out of the way causing him to almost trip. He cradles his camera in his hands in a similar way to what McVries is doing with Garraty’s face. “What did you do?” He says, panic evident in his voice, “Barkovitch! What did you do?”
“I didn’t..” Gary looks around for any other culprit, but he finds none, “I was just takin’ photos.” He mutters, pulling his camera even closer to his chest.
Garraty’s breathing heavy and Gary’s been called a psycho his whole life, but he knows he isn’t crazy when he sees literal claws grow from Garraty’s nails.
McVries must notice it too because his face goes from panicked to horrified and he takes a few steps back, like he’s scared of Garraty or something. The whole thing rubs Gary the wrong way. This is his best fucking friend, shouldn’t he be telling him it’s all okay? Rubbing his back until the sharp shit goes away?
Gary carefully places his camera on the ground and crouches in front of Garraty, grabbing his hands and pulling them from his ears. With his arms down Gary can get a better look at his face and he feels his own eyebrows furrow as he takes a look at the, for lack of a better word, furry state of Garraty.
“Listen,” He says instead of what the fuck is your deal you goddamn freak of nature. Garraty perks up, listening for something that isn’t there. “No more car alarm,” Gary says, “You can chill out now.”
And he does. It takes him a second, long enough Gary debates whether he should take a picture to document it. By the time Garraty’s back to normal McVries is already on his knees by his side again and Gary has forced himself away.
He wants to know more. He wants to know why Garraty grew fur and claws and fangs, wants to know why the shutter of a camera and a car alarm fuckin ages away could set him off so bad. Obviously, he has his guesses. Nothing will satisfy him until he knows the truth, the real honest truth.
“You got bit, you said.” Mcvries is muttering, all but holding Garraty to his chest, “You said it was a wolf.”
“I don’t know what it was,” Garraty shakes his head, “I thought it was, but..” He looks up at Gary then, fear openly coloring his face, “I don’t know what it was.”
Oddly enough, Gary feels the need to comfort him. The thought unsettles him so much he brings the camera to his eye, putting a shield between him and Garraty’s misery. The shutter clicks and Garraty doesn’t flinch this time, just shuts his eyes and lays his head on McVries’ shoulder.
Gary goes home after that, not liking the way the whole scene makes him feel.
Ray Garraty is a monster and, judging by the way he ran to McVries for comfort, probably a fag too, but Gary doesn’t think he’s filthy, he just feels sorry for the poor bastard. It’s one thing to be queer like that, but to have claws and fangs too?
It’s fitting, Gary supposes, for someone like that to be such a creature. Shit like that is always born of evil. He should just cut his losses, force himself to ignore all the curiosity and avoid Garraty like the damn plague he probably is. God knows what his pa would do if he ever found out, Gary can’t afford something like that.
But… Mrs. Garraty calls him honey when she sees him. Mrs. Garraty gives him soft smiles and is kind to Gary when no one else is. Could a woman like that raise something so disgusting? It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes any goddamn sense.
He’s probably going crazy, he and McVries and Garraty all affected by some kind of group psychosis. There was no fur and no claws, just Garraty and his crazy rubbing off on the two people closest to him.
It makes sense that Mrs. Garraty could raise a sissy, she’s kind and without a husband Garraty’s got no firm hand to guide him. It makes sense that Garraty would stray from the light like that, no one can blame the woman for trying her best on her own. No one can blame Garraty for not knowing how to act without a father.
There’s no such thing as monsters, Gary’s sure.
Still, as he walks home, Gary pulls out his phone and opens the search engine. He spends the whole trek staring down at it, almost bumping into about four people and earning himself a lot of insults on the way.
If he’s honest, Gary’s not all that book smart. He doesn’t do very well in school, he gets pretty solid Ds, not including his C in calculus and his F in english 12. None of it’s really interesting enough to keep his attention and he has a real hard time doing stuff just cause he’s been told he has too. It’s been a problem between him and his pa recently.
This is interesting, though. Even when he reaches his house and kicks off his shoes at the door, even when he’s in his room lying on his bed, he’s still scrolling through article after article, website after website. Anything and everything he can find that’ll explain what just happened.
If his teacher asked him to study this instead of old Supreme Court Cases he’s sure he could pass with at least a B. There’s a lot online, most of it random information from shitty teen dramas, but some of it actual lore dating back to fucking beginning times and it has Gary completely enthralled.
By the time he falls asleep later that night, he has all the answers he could possibly dream of and more. Still, it’s not enough. He needs to see it for himself.