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.

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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."

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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.

Much of it appeared to be Latin; I recalled from my studies the spelling patterns and most of the words, but there were a few peculiar symbols thrown into the mix that made it difficult to decipher– not to mention the fact that the map itself was a chaotic disaster of layers of words, and near impossible to read.

"How did you get ahold of this?" I asked Gerard, frowning at the map. "I'm guessing it wasn't a reputable salesman."

"I bought it from a respected clairvoyant," Gerard said indignantly. "I don't usually believe in this. It was only a joke. But then all those scribbles around the edge– they started coming true."

I stared at the writing with a look of mild horror, drinking in all of the disturbingly accurate prophecies. 'The lover of the man who possesses this parchment is not long for this world.' Ryan. Oh, Ryan. 'A scorpion boy in the village of belles.' –That should have made no sense, but– Belleville, it was my hometown. It all seemed to fit. 'Smothered in protection from all but the birds.' That was odd. I echoed the phrase aloud.

"I could only get into your house by your balcony," Gerard said. "I thought that might have something to do with it."

"You knew even then?" I demanded. "My god. That's why you took me instead of the gold."

Gerard nodded in admittance. "I know it's a little far-fetched," he said quietly. "Well, to be honest, it's downright preposterous. But I just want my brother back."

"I'll–" I said hesitantly. "You've got a fair amount of proof here that I could be this child. If you can properly convince me that all of this is true, I'll do it. Help you, I mean."

Gerard's brown eyes widened and he grabbed at my jacket sleeves. "Thank you, Frank, I don't know how to–"

"But it must be on the condition that you tell me everything. No tricking me like the others," I bargained. Then I paused. "And I'd like to meet your brother."

Another rare hint of surprise flourished in Gerard's eyes. "Why would you want to meet my brother?"

I patted Gerard's shoulder. "I want to see if he turns out as fucked up as you."

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It only took one single short phrase on the parchment for Gerard to convince me completely that the story was painfully, irrevocably true. He had come into possession of the map years ago, but had only started trying to read the mad, overlapping scribblings several weeks after I came aboard the ship. Just a few short words had stood out over all the others, and when I skimmed over them, a familiarly sobering feeling started to drip into the back of my brain, slithering down my spine. I felt like someone had climbed inside my mind. I felt like someone had been watching my every move for the past year.

"Pretty boy," I read out dumbly. Gerard had been calling me that since the day he took me. "How. That's not possible."

"I nearly lost my mind when I saw it too," Gerard murmured. "That was how I knew it was you. It had to be you."

I put the map down on the desk and turned to Gerard. "If you knew I was the key to unlocking this miracle fountain thing–"

"Parade Fountain," Gerard said.

I scowled. "If you knew I was the key to unlocking the 'Parade Fountain' right from the start, then why were you so insufferable? Shouldn't you have wanted to get me on your side? How did you persuade the other children?"

"The other kids..." Gerard looked uneasy. "I was kind to them," he said. "I made them feel special. Cared for them."

"And in exchange they let you drag them to certain doom?"

"It wasn't like that." There was a vaguely wounded expression on Gerard's face. He almost looked ashamed. "I just omitted certain details when relaying the map's instructions to them. Only a few– just the doom part, really."

I narrowed my eyes. "But only one man can drink from the fountain each year." I prodded the map insistently. "It says so right here. Why would they let you steal their opportunity?"

"Kids are impressionable, and I can be pretty persuasive. It was just sheer idiocy on their part."

I raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "How did you persuade them though? Those are some quite impressive persuasion skills you must have," I said teasingly. I knew Gerard, and I knew that would have offered them something rather than making an effort to talk them into it.

Gerard huffed, infuriated. "I promised I'd fuck them, okay?"

I tilted my head and nodded appreciatively. "That's fairly clever. You don't lose anything material, and you keep the child a virgin until it's over. Gosh, I could almost class that as smart. Almost."

Gerard laughed tiredly, carding a hand through his tangled hair. "Thanks, kiddo. Hope I'm not gonna have to make a deal like that with you."

I frowned, confused at the realisation: "You never tried to bargain with me at all, even though you seemed so certain right from the start. How in the name of god did you expect me to help you when you were so awful all the time?"

"I just thought that... Every time I had a plan, it failed. Every time I guided the kid in what they had to do, they failed. I started to think that maybe the real key would just come to me without a plan, and I wouldn't have to coax them into it. They'd go willingly. Y'know, instead of being bribed."

I rubbed my face with the heels of my hands. "This whole affair is just disturbing," I said. "But the realest things are always the scariest. So I suppose I'm in."

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i am still a numb fuck