The pirate boy (Frerard, Petekey)

Chapter twenty - freaky shit's going down also i love halsey

Chapter twenty - freaky shit's going down also i love halsey anyway here u go have a chapter

i wanted to find something
to numb the choking in my chest
and the sharp blood under my tongue
but all i could find
to numb myself
was bonjela

i am a fuck

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Gerard had disappeared.

Dewees, Stump and Toro had set off into Hartville to wreck shit long ago, and returned fairly quickly. But Gerard had been missing for hours since he walked out on me and still had not come back.

My hands ached from clutching the map and my neck was starting to lock– I'd not moved since Gerard left, and I only knew what had been happening from the muffled sounds of voices that echoed down from up on deck, just clear enough for me to hear. I needed to talk to someone about this– but not Dewees, not Stump, not the captain. I needed Ryan.

But, of course, Ryan was fucking dead. Just like the map said he would be.

I had been rather taken aback at first at the fact that there were scribbled notes defacing such an aged parchment, but as I scanned through them, their significance became clear. My whole mind became clear. I suddenly understood why Gerard had been acting so strangely since that night after the Aurora, why he would obsess over claiming me and then drop everything and ignore my mere existence. Why he was so desperate for me to be the alleged scorpion child.

Despite the clarity in some areas, there was still a catastrophic mess in my mind, a hideous jumble on the sheets of paper littered around me, and although I had managed to piece together a little part of what was going on myself, I knew I required Gerard to make sense of the rest of it. The doors of understanding had opened to some areas of the situation, while I had been firmly locked out of other parts I thought I'd had a fair grasp on.

I needed to know what was going on.

I finally dropped the map, and scrambled out the door to find Gerard.

----    ----    ----    ----

The thought of what Dewees would say if he knew what I was doing deterred me from telling any of the other men that I was leaving the ship. I just hoped that they would notice I wasn't on board before they went to set off sailing again.

I mussed up my hair to try to disguise myself a little– I didn't want anyone to recognise me as part of the Freighter's crew after the state Dewees had left the shops in– and hurried through the small town, glancing from person to person and scanning for Gerard. It wasn't long before I found him; it wasn't like he wasn't looking to be found, he was just afraid of my reaction.

As soon as he caught sight of me approaching him, he immediately started babbling about how I wasn't like the others and he was certain he was right this time, and he didn't shut up until I caught his wrists, and said, "I believe you, stupid."

The surprise on his face was rare and sweet. I let go of his hands before the contact began to get to me.

"I mean," I said, "I believe you as far as I know. I don't have much of an understanding of what's happening."

"I'll explain it," he said quickly. "I'll explain everything." He paused, and touched the scorpion shaped mark on my neck. "I am sure this time," he said softly. "I fucking promise."

----    ----    ----    ----

Allegedly, a virgin youngster with the mark of the scorpion held the power to unlock the gates to Parade Fountain, where just a sip of the water could grant you your deepest longing. Clearly, Gerard had wanted his brother back. Time and time again, Michael's name cropped up in Gerard's scrawls on the scraps of paper in my room, and I could see the desperate effort he had put into decoding the odd lines of cursive spiralling around the map.