#ghostsotories

[starrypawz]

(Wow this set of questions is REAL good) ❝ sometimes, i just need the world to be beautiful. i know how dark and ugly it can be but i just want to see something good and focus only on it for a few minutes. ❞

It's all about the yearning prompts // AO3

Mild cw for discussions of childhood neglect/emotional abuse and the concept of running away from home as a child

To no one’s surprise, London’s skies are grey and there’s a chill in the air that makes neither of them feel like lingering more than necessary. So instead they’ve lingered  amongst Monet, Seurat, Reubens, Van Gogh, Turner, Degas and Rembrant amongst others in the much more pleasant environment of The National Gallery. 

Nemo’s been mostly lulled into comfortable silence (Which they’ve noticed happens a lot around him) as they’ve wandered the galleries with Gerry as he’s given his input (And Nemo’s found he has a lot)

The gallery’s been quiet, not that surprising for a grey weekday afternoon outside of peak tourist season. There’s been a secondary school trip of adolescents of various degrees of enthusiasm that they lost track of several galleries back, a handful of other patrons likely out of season tourists and a few art students studying the masters. (Nemo had noticed Gerry watching the students with a wistful look before they’d moved on)

They’ve been bathed in comfortable silence for a long while now only broken by the occasional echo of footsteps from the nearby corridor as they’ve sat on one of the wooden benches, another grand oil painting from another Old Master before them. 

Gerry breaks the silence with a snort that sounds like he’s bitten off a chuckle. 

“What?” 

“Just… remembered something.”

“What?” 

“I…” Gerry pauses, “First time I tried to run away.” 

Nemo turns to him, “I… How old were you?”

Gerry sighs, “I was… eight? I think,” He pauses, “Mum had left me alone to deal with… something and I decided it was a great idea to finally run away and I came here,./ 

“Why?”

“I… Don’t really know why… or don’t really remember,” Gerry shrugs, “Just had some idea I could live here, hadn’t really planned all the details out,” He snorts, “Not much has changed on that front.” 

Nemo offers a weak chuckle in response, “Then what happened?”

Gerry shrugs, “I… stayed here for a few hours seemingly unnoticed and then realised maybe running away wouldn’t really work and I went back home.”

Nemo turns to him, their expression a combination of concern and confusion. 

“No one noticed you?” 

He shrugs again, “Yeah no idea how that worked, guess people just assumed I was with whatever adult was nearest to me, I think there was a school trip here on that day so I guess people thought I was a straggler. I managed to slip through the barriers at the tube station easily enough, and somehow I just knew what trains I needed.” “Gerry Keay, faredodger, I never expected.”

Gerry snorts, “I do mostly pay for my tickets these days.”

There’s a long pause before Nemo speaks up,

“Did…” Nemo pauses, “Did she-” 

“She was still out,” Gerry tenses his hand grips the edge of the bench, “Nearly made myself sick thinking she’d find out either that I made some mistake to expose myself or that she’d just know what I did but she never mentioned it-”

“Gerry-” “I’m ok,” Gerry sighs and relaxes his grip, “She came home late, I pretended I was asleep and woke up the next morning and it was… normal,” He gives a bitter snort, “I mean as normal as it ever is with her.” 

“And?”

“Made me realise eventually I could maybe pull one over once in a while, guess it was one of my first acts of petty rebellion,” He pauses, “Or maybe she wants me to think that, let me occasionally get away with something so I lower my guard and-” Gerry claps his hands together to pantomime something getting crushed and the sound echoes around the gallery.

“Cheery thought.” “Comes with the territory, right?” Gerry laughs, seems a little brighter, “Have that moody freak reputation to hold up…”

“You’re not that moody.” 

“Didn’t say anything about me not being a freak though.” 

“Well that’s undeniable,” Nemo grins, “And I’d like you a lot less if you weren’t one and anyway us freaks need to stick together right?”

Gerry’s actually smiling by this point, whatever looming darkness seems to have been shoved back into its box for now.

“Yeah.” 

Nemo shuffles closer to him, “So… art?”

“Art.” 

“You know a lot about it?”

“I guess I kinda do?” Gerry sighs and gives Nemo a brief smile, “I think you’re the only person I’ve ever really been able to talk about it with,” 

Nemo smiles

“Does… she… mind?” Nemo pauses, “That you’re into art?” 

“Weirdly she doesn’t,” Gerry pauses, “I don’t think she’s as fond of my interest in the… academics of it? Probably feels i’t a distraction from her bigger picture but she does seem to like the fact I’m apparently not totally terrible at actually making it” 

Nemo gives him a nudge, “I’d say you’re a bit better than ‘not totally terrible’” 

Gerry grins and nudges Nemo back, “Maybe I’m just fishing for compliments,” 

Nemo nudges him harder (Not that it makes much impact on him) and Gerry chuckles.

Gerry shrugs, “Yeah I don’t know maybe she just appreciates the fact it was a way to keep me out of trouble as a kid when she wasn’t… teaching me,” 

With a sigh Gerry leans back, his attention on the ceiling long enough he starts counting the panes in the skylight and Nemo leans into his shoulder. And although this has become a feature in the time they’ve known each other this time Gerry feels a warmth blossom to his cheeks that almost derails his thoughts instead after a pause he wonders if it bordered on awkwardly long he says

“There’s a lot of fucked up shit out there,”

Part of Nemo wants to respond with ‘You’re telling me’ or ‘No shit’ but instead keeps quiet. 

“And art,” Gerry pauses as he tries to get the words together, “Art… there can be fucked up shit in there too but it’s contained and it can’t hurt you… not really. It can make you uncomfortable, it can scare you, it can make you have to face things you don’t want to but at the end of the day it has no claws,” His gaze drops from the ceiling, “And often there’s still something beautiful there,” Gerry sighs, “And even the most realistic art is just… an approximation of reality, it’s all an escape really.”

“An escape?”

“Yeah…” Gerry pauses, “And I mean,” He gestures to the painting they’ve been seated across from, “Look at it,”

“It’s beautiful,” Nemo offers up. 

“Exactly,” Gerry pauses again, “It’s… See there it’s art, it’s beautiful, it’s all contained within that gilded frame, nothing more nothing less, it’s an escape into an approximation of reality where-”

“Nothing bad happens?” 

“Yeah,” Gerry sighs, he shifts his gaze away from the painting towards Nemo, “Everything is kind of fucked up and ugly out there when you look at it for too long,” And finds he’s again taking in every little detail in Nemo’s face, the exact shape of their hairline on the shaved side of their face, the distance between the piercings in their ear,  the exact constellations of freckles against their cheeks, the rounded tip of their nose, the shape of their lips, how it all adds up to make their specific profile. “And maybe sometimes I need things to be beautiful and look at something… good for a while.” 

Gerry swallows and then shifts his focus back to the painting, he only just realises that Nemo hooked their little finger around his at some point whilst he was talking. Nemo settles against him again and that warmth comes to his cheeks once more and with a soft sigh he relaxes against Nemo.