Chapter twenty three - Yet again, Frank is enlightened by a prostitute.

i have like eight homeworks tonight fuck me with a barbie

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The air smelled like strange, and the slick, dark walls of the Aurora were lit dimly by pale blue paper lanterns, dappled and torn like moonlight. The men all looked disturbingly clean: their clothes were well-fitted, their skin was of a healthy colour rather than pallid and tinged with grime, and some of them even had clean-shaven faces. Everything was out of place and I was already starting to regret the choice I had made, but it was done now, set in place, a heavy brick weighing down my stomach that I would have to live with.

Despite the unsettling mood of the ship, the crew all seemed fairly ordinary and unthreatening. Captain Wentz looked a little tough, with tanned skin from the open sun, dark hair swept over his eyes, and a perpetually smug expression on his face, but he was hospitable enough.

I recognised a few men from fights in the past, and the captain introduced me to some of them. The bearded man who had confronted me back on the Freighter– the captain had called him Hurley– somehow seemed a lot less intimidating after putting a name to his face. Seeing him talk to other crew members, he was more shy and awkward than aggressive, and I wondered if the Aurora's brutality and hate had just been a matter of perception, shifting easily the moment you accepted the view of another side.

Trohman, the man with curly hair who had been rather snarky towards Gerard, approached me when he saw me absently watching him talk with Hurley. "You made a smart choice, kid," he said.

I nodded uneasily. I wasn't sure I had. It had seemed a logical plan, in the moment– I didn't want to lose my mind, and I didn't want to stay in such close quarters with a man who had hurt his little brother– but it was only dawning on me now that these men had killed Michael, or at least tried to, and whether it had put him out of his misery or not, it was still horribly wrong. I was almost dizzy at how fucking stupid I'd been.

"Way's not one you want to be sailing under," Trohman said gruffly, shaking his head.

I opened my mouth to point out that Gerard wasn't actually the captain, but a clamour of whistles and cheers interrupted my train of thought, and I found myself turning with all the other men to what inspired the racket: a tall, beautiful woman making her way down the stairs from one of the cabins on the upper floor. Her dress was surprisingly classy, and not a single thing in her appearance looked amiss, despite the fact that she was leaving a man's room in the late morning, and it was rather clear what had taken place in the night. I expected her to sidle up to one of the men and ask for her payment, but instead, she walked straight up to me, the steady click of her heels on the planks slowing as she came to a still before me. "So," she drawled, "You're the little castaway from the Freighter?"

I raised an eyebrow. "I'll have you know I left of my own free will."

She parted her lips slightly, with a soft intake of air. "You're the scorpion boy."

"Perhaps," I said, carefully guarding my emotions and thoughts. I tried to remain closed and collected.

"I'm surprised Way let you escape."

My poised demeanour slipped briefly, but I held myself steady. "He didn't. He was gagged and bound." I tried not to flinch at the thought of Gerard struggling to reach me, left weak and helpless and bleeding. "What's it to you, anyway?" I asked curtly.

She cocked her hip. "You're the first one we've actually managed to save from him."

My mind flashed back to Michael. If the Aurora didn't consider killing him saving him, why the fuck did they feel they had the right to do it? I was about to confront the woman, but then it occurred to me that she was a prostitute, and most likely not privy to the innermost workings of the captain's mind. "And what do you intend to do with me now that you've allegedly saved me?"

She smiled at that. "What do you want to do? Where do you want to go?"

I wanted to go back to the Freighter. I wanted to tell Gerard that I was sorry, that I don't know why I did what I did– I was just scared and I regretted everything. "I want a drink," I said pathetically.

The girl snapped her fingers with a swift breeze of scented warmth, and one of the men immediately scuttled away to fetch me some rum. I had forgotten the compelling effect women could have on men after so long at sea. (It was rather amusing to witness, in all honesty, but I couldn't escape the niggling confusion as to why I was immune.)

Shortly, I was handed a bottle, and I downed it in about four gulps. I had hoped that it would give me the courage to say that what I really wanted was to go back to the place I had just been rescued from, but I did not feel any more courageous in the slightest. In fact, I was just a little more on edge, because all I could think about was the way that Gerard's mouth had tasted like rum, and that he was probably fucked out of his mind right now because of me.

"Come on, kid," the girl said. "We don't have all day."

Hurley perked up. "Actually, we do," he said brightly, momentarily reminding me of Dewees. "The captain said we're far ahead on course, so–"

"It's an expression, Andrew," the woman in exasperation.

"Sorry, Lise, I was just telling it as it is."

"Don't fuckin' call me that. My name is Lisa."

"The captain calls you Lise," Hurley defended.

Lisa reddened. "The captain is an exception."

I raised my eyebrows and distanced myself from the conversation, feeling a little like I was intruding, and knowing I would be far better off making myself invisible. I twisted my fingers together, Gerard lingering in my mind and under my skin. I hadn't meant to speak, but the words had just bubbled over before I could stop them. "I want to go back," I blurted out.

Lisa turned around. "Sorry?"

"I want to go back to the Freighter," I said. "Please?"

Lisa's eyes sharpened. "You want to go back to that monster?"

"He's not a fucking monster," I snapped. "What have you all got against him?"

"He hit one of his kids and killed the other," one man said gruffly.

My head was spinning. "Gerard doesn't have kids," I said shakily. He couldn't have– and he would never have hurt them.

"Gerard?" Lisa repeated, sounding breathless. "Gerard is dead. He died just after we rescued Michael."

"Gerard's not fucking dead, he's back on the Freighter! You fucking spoke to him, how could you think–" I dug my fingers into my hair with a growl and tugged on it in exasperation. "Michael is the one who's dead. You fucking killed him."

Lisa had paled to the point where she looked like she was made of porcelain. "Gerard's alive?" she asked.

"Yes," I insisted. "Hurley, you fucking spoke to him. We were just talking about him– how could you think Way meant anything but Gerard?"

"Donald Way," the captain said. "We were talking about the captain of the Freighter."

I shook my head and braced myself against the railings, furious and aching and confused. "Bryar is the captain of the Freighter. Gerard is first mate– not captain– and he's not fucking dead."

"Gerard is Donald's son," Captain Wentz said. "I thought– Bryar was first mate."

"Look, I don't know where you get your information, but all your facts are wrong. When Gerard's father died, Bryar took over as captain, with Gerard as first mate. Nobody's fucking undead. We're not working with a ghost crew here."

"Gerard's alive," Lisa murmured.

"Just fucking take me back," I muttered. "I'm not spending another minute with you lunatics."

Captain Wentz obliged, blindly turning the wheel and staring ahead, a rather bewildered look on his face. Of course, everything had just been a matter of perception, and it had all shifted the moment the Aurora took the time to listen to the truth.

I sat down on a small step by the rail and slumped back, letting my head rest on the wood of the railings. I was exhausted, mentally and physically, and I wanted to go back and alter every single thing I had done in the past day. I wished that I could get a new ration of water from Captain Bryar, and drench myself in it, and scrape away all my regrets and guilt under the spray.

I wanted to close my eyes so I could block out this whole situation, but Lisa had sunk down beside me, and suddenly I was back in Belleville, and it was terribly improper to turn your back on a lady. I lifted my head a little to look at her. "You'll crease your dress," I murmured.

"I have lots of dresses," she shrugged, adjusting the scarlet sash around her waist.

I sighed and rolled my head back, the dull splinters in the wood catching on my hair. Lisa didn't lean back. Her hair was far too fragile and glossy to be mussed in such early hours of the morning. I wondered how much time she spent brushing it to smooth it down so neatly.

"What's he like?" she asked softly after a while, breaking the silence.

I shifted so I could look up at her. "Gerard?"

She nodded.

I didn't ask why she wanted to know; the gentleness in her eyes was enough to tell me she meant no harm. "Honestly, he's mad," I laughed. "But he's brilliant. He fights like no one you'll ever see, and he's never told me a lie. He'll play you dirty, but he'll never lie."

Lisa smiled a little. "Did he ever talk about Michael?"

I was taken aback at how personal the question was, but nodded nonetheless. "He loved his brother," I murmured. "A whole lot."

Lisa didn't reply to that. "We didn't kill Michael, you know," she said after a while, her voice quiet. "He was happy here for years. This crew raised the kid. But he got real sick, and he... wasn't right in the head after that. And then a few weeks later, he died."

"Oh," I said, my mouth dry. This changed everything.

"We thought Donald had killed Gerard," Lisa said. "Michael was distraught when he found out. He loved his brother too. More than anything."

My chest was burning, and I felt like all my blood was streaming down the insides of my lungs, choking up my throat when I tried to breathe in. "I'll tell him that," I managed. I was bearing too much weight on my shoulders, too much guilt in my chest, and too much hurt in my heart. All I wanted was my home, the place I loved the most– and only now the startling realisation was beginning to dawn on me that it was with Gerard.