Unholyverse

~Part 23~

He didn't actually sleep for a month. He slept for most of a week, though, only waking up to eat his Mom's food and mumble answers to her questions and fall asleep again with his head in her lap. He only really felt like a human being again on Sunday, when he woke up early and stumbled into the kitchen to find his Mom already up, sitting at the table with the paper, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette.

"Morning, sweetie," she smiled, pushing the chair opposite out with her foot so he could slump into it, clutching his coffee cup to his chest. "I'm supposed to go over to Rose's house after Mass, but did you want me to come back here instead?"

"Hmm? No, Mom, you should go, I'm fine." Frank drank about half his coffee in three huge, scalding, absolutely necessary gulps, then played with the handle of his mug for a while before asking her, "Can I come?"

His Mom gave him a look. "To Rose's house?"

Frank shuddered demonstratively and snuck a cigarette out of the open pack. "To Mass."

"Of course!" she said, beaming at him but also managing to look like he'd just told her he could fly. "That would be wonderful!"

"Well, all right then," he said, putting the cigarette in his mouth.

His Mom frowned and clicked her tongue. "You know I don't like you smoking," she said, and then leaned across the table and lit it for him.

Frank inhaled deeply and nodded his thanks. "Like mother like son," he said sadly. "I never had a chance."

"Oh, smart guy." His Mom turned the page and bent over the paper, ignoring him. Frank grinned at the top of her head.

At Mass, he was totally unsurprised to see Mikey, Ray, Bob and Brian. They gathered in the parking lot afterwards and Frank was instantly thirteen again, huddling around one shared cigarette and pretending they weren't scared of their Moms finding them.

"If you guys aren't busy," Brian said, sounding weirdly nervous, "I kind of have something to show you."

Frank had no plans for the rest of, oh, ever, so he followed Brian with the others until they came to a shuttered-up building on a side street Frank knew so well he could have found it in the dark.

"Uh," said Mikey. "Am I insane, or are we at the shop?"

Brian beamed and shook a bunch of keys at them. "Surprise!"

It was so weird to go back inside again. It hadn't changed at all; it smelled exactly the same, just a little musty from being empty for so long.

"I mentioned it to Craig and he found out it was empty right now," Brian said excitedly. "He convinced the current owners to sell it to him."

"Brian," Ray started. "I don't want to rain on your parade or anything, but I don't know if I want to go back to cutting hair."

Brian waved his hands impatiently. "No, no - okay, you have to imagine this all cleared out, okay?" Brian pointed to the back wall. "And I thought we can have a board up there for brainstorming, you know when we research, and then maybe, Frank, if you don't mind, Ray can have your old room for his kit, because I think it should probably have a door in case anything explodes."

"Hear, hear," said Bob.

Brian bounced a little on his toes. "And then we can use the backroom for books, you know? And anything else we need to keep away from the public," he went on excitedly. "And then there's my old office, and that's more private, you know, if a client has something sensitive to discuss."

"Client," Frank said blankly. He looked at Bob. "Is he making sense to you?"

"Yeah," Bob nodded. "But only because he already told me about it."

"Told you about what?" Mikey said, frowning. "Brian, what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about what we do. I'm talking about helping people." Brian looked at Mikey. "I haven't heard from the Father - I mean, I assume he's okay?"

"He is," Mikey said quickly, glancing at Frank.

"But I know we're not allowed to work with him anymore," Brian went on. "And I was on the phone with Craig, and you know he's always saying how he wants to help, and I thought - I started thinking, maybe it doesn't matter that the Father isn't here. It sucks, but - it doesn't have to mean that we can't carry on."

Ray asked, "How exactly can Craig help?"

"With money," Brian said. "He wants to set this up like a business, or really more like a charity - I don't know how exactly it's gonna work yet, but I know we'll have this base to work out of, and the supplies we need and - well," he ducked his head a little, "we won't ever be millionaires, but he can pay you more than I ever could."

"You paid us enough," Bob said staunchly.

Brian gave him a small smile. "Well. Either way, it'll mean that we can do what we do without worrying where our next meal's coming from. And I know the thought of doing this on our own is daunting, but I just..." he trailed off, looking embarrassed, and shrugged. "Well, I guess that's it."

"No," Frank pressed. "No, what were you going to say?"

Brian hesitated, rolled his eyes at himself, and said, "I just think that we could do some real good, maybe even more this way because we're not answering to people who don't understand us, and we don't understand them. Maybe it wasn't Gerard's calling we were following, you know? Maybe - maybe it was ours."

"I'm in," Bob said. "You already know I am. But how are we supposed to know who to help? How are we gonna get people through the doors?"

Brian smiled. "Same way we always did. Mikey."

Mikey blinked, and folded his arms, but he was pleased, Frank could tell. He saw Ray squeeze his shoulder, rub the back of his neck. Mikey said, "Will I have to answer the phone?"

Brian smirked. "God knows you never did before."

Mikey pretended to think about it. He said slyly, "Well, but do we even have access to the sewers here?"

"What?" Brian frowned, and then his face cleared and he rolled his eyes. "This is nothing like that. None of us is a vampire."

"Yet," Bob said darkly.

Ray grinned. "Can we embarrass Brian by handing out poorly-designed business cards at bars?"

Frank gave him a look. "Dude, Brian is not embarrassed by business cards, okay. He dreams about them at night."

Brian flipped him off. "Look, I just think we can make this work, for real. I know it's a lot of work to remodel and everything. I don't know, maybe you just wanna forget this year ever happened and go work in an office or Burger King or something. What do you guys think?"

Nobody spoke at first. Bob, Ray and Mikey all looked at Frank, and he knew they were waiting for him to decide. He looked around at the shop, at all the things that had happened there and all the things that hadn't come to pass yet. He thought about the scars in his skin, about Gerard. He thought about what the Cardinal had told him.

"I hate Burger King," he said. "Let's do it."