monstermanual | visitor

The movement caught his eye, but didn't register as anything more than some kind of mild nervous tic, something reflexive and not necessarily worth noting as anything more than that, but the explanation definitely made him curious, "What is it you do?"

Something that had been enough to make the cousins decide he needed a rescue was already Something™. Cal had met the family here, they were no less murderous than the ones he avoided back home, but they weren't especially murderous towards him and that was really what made the difference. He'd even played with some of the youngest a time or two when he visited, which was still strange to him.

There was a briefly startled moment at the question from Cal - Gerard hadn't dealt with someone who didn't know in so long it threw him for a loop. And of course the hesitation, how much was safe to say - but it was easier to come to the conclusion this time. He knew what his Cal was able to handle, able to understand, and that regardless additional knowledge would not put this Cal in more danger.

"I deal with haunted books. Only they're not haunted by the dead, but something else. The Auphe here call them 'psychic vampires', and I guess that's not wrong?" he began, figuring that might be easier for Cal than the whole metaphysical explanation from square one. "They're things that live just outside of our reality, they are our fear, as well as feeding off of it. They can't interact directly, so they send parts of their power through. One of the ways it manifests is the books. Back in the 90's some Scandinavian asshole tried to collect a bunch of them but he just put a bunch of powerful bad shit in one place and the expected happened and now they're out. I try to track them down and ... take them out of circulation."

He listened intently, watching Gerard's face as much as he was actually listening to what he was saying, just nibbling at his pop tart, alternating with equally careful sips of his tea. Considering what he'd been eating the past few days, maybe jumping right back into highly processed high sugar wasn't the best idea, but he'd never really let that stop him before, and had only regretted it a handful of times.

The idea of something being both made of and feeding on fear sounded familiar, but not in a way he could actually put his finger on, so he just let that simmer in the back of his mind for now in case anything surfaced.

There was an exasperated huff at the rest, shaking his head, "Why do people keep thinking that storing that amount of Not Good" and somehow he managed to pronounce the capital letters, "all in one place is going to end any other way than badly?"

There were plenty of leftovers in the fridge should Cal decide he want something more filling - moreover, Gerard was good at some basics of cooking by now as well, even if he wasn't Niko.

"I know right?" Gerard declared, exasperation and annoyance in clear evidence, such a sharp contrast to the mild and soft-spoken deference of before. "The only worthwhile thing to come of that is that since nobody's seen him since his library went kaput is that he was probably killed when it happened. Thank fuck. He ruined enough lives in his time."

Gerard counted his own among that number.

He couldn't help the flash of a smile at the obvious aggravation, he was always glad to know that other people were capable of that kind of thing, and doubly so when he wasn't the cause of it.

"Always makes things easier when they do themselves in." He agreed, "'Course, someone still has to go in and clean up the mess, but at least they aren't getting in the way of it." That sounded like the voice of experience, and sure, he tried to stay out of things when he ended up in unfamiliar territory, sometimes he even managed it, but he also wasn't the kind of person to just stand by when someone was causing that level of trouble. People being idiots about things, that was something that could go either way, but people being actively malicious? That was when he stepped in, especially when it was with some kind of magical artifact or some kind of Paen on a leash, and generally one that wasn't as sturdy as it needed to be.

Gerard wasn't quite ten when the library of Jurgen Leitner imploded and let all those unspeakable horrors back out into the wild. Probably for the best the man was well beyond Gerard's reach by the time Gerard had the means to do something about him.

If he wasn't already dead, Gerard would kill him himself.

"The point is - see anything with a bookplate on it saying 'from the library of Jurgan Leitner'? Don't mess with it. Throw it in a box and bury it. Some can be safely destroyed but others -it's about containment. Cal, my Cal, says they've got a particular smell to them he can pick out easily now, but for anyone unfortunate enough to deal with it regularly ... it's a vibe you learn to pick up."

"Noted." He replied, giving a little nod and dusting the crumbs from his fingers, "That also mean I should dump the guy himself in a river if I ever meet him somewhere?"

One of the problems with multiple dimensions was that sometimes there were people who had only died in one or two of them who shouldn't be allowed to continue on in any of them, and for the most part Cal tried to stay out of that kind of quandary as well, if only because different circumstances may have made them a different person, or led someone else down the path they'd taken everywhere else, and Cal didn't like being the one responsible for figuring that out.

"At the very least," Gerard said, bitterness in his voice. He took a sip of tea. "If the option to feed him to your extended relatives comes up, I cannot emphasize enough how much he fucking deserves it and I've seen them eat."

Gerard meant it when he said Leitner ruined lives. His mother was interested in the books long before Leitner ever made a name for himself, but he turned it into an obsession that controlled every aspect of her life and thus Gerard's as well.

"Yeah, no, not, uh, not really an option." He shook his head, "The ones here don't mind me, but any of the others I've come across it's kill on sight." He gave a little shrug, "Just how it's always been. They've always been real upset that I got away."

Or, in some cases, really upset that he wasn't their half-breed which meant he needed to be destroyed. In a few realities he'd been to there just weren't any Auphe, and those always weirded him out in ways he couldn't really put into words. Some kind of contrast between feeling like that should be a relief and not knowing what could have done that, and more than that, not wanting to find out, either.

Gerard reached out to cover Cal's hand with his own before he stopped himself. This was not his Cal, no matter how similar they looked. Not his Cal who welcomed touch and especially Gerard's touch. He pulled back, putting both hands around his mug instead. Remembering the stumble that was talking about Niko, he gave a little one-armed shrug instead.

"The point is, no fate is too awful for what he deserves," he said instead, taking another drink. "... Do you want something more than pop tarts? There's leftovers I could heat up, or I could make something."

Truthfully Cal was about as tactile as the resident Cal was, it was just that Gerard was a new factor, and he'd just spent a week in the dino dimension, which would be enough to leave anyone a little wary of unexpected contact.

"I'll keep it in mind." And now that he knew, there was very little chance of him forgetting the name, either, even with the chances of him ever meeting the guy being somewhere between 'slim' and 'zero'.

He considered the question, but shook his head, "Not yet. Need to see how those settle first." Which so far seemed to be fine, and ironclad stomach was something else the Cals had in common, but he'd learned the hard way not to test that any more often than he had to.

"Okay," Gerard said, probably as much of a mother hen as Niko to be honest even if he ultimately didn't push things. He had his own issues with pushing against refusals. But still-

"... When was the last time you had a good rest? Do you need to take one? Three beds and a couch to chose from. Spartacus could be convinced to be a cuddle buddy too if you'd like."

Gerard was uncommonly fond of Spartacus, who he adored as only someone denied a pet their whole life could adore one. He'd gotten a thrifted cat tree set up in his room and had been slowly adding 'branches' to it in further art projects as time allowed.

"Oh good, Spartacus is still around." Not that he'd been worried that the cat had died, that wasn't likely given the givens, but he might well have gotten tired of sticking around and gone on to other hunting grounds.

A little head shake followed, "But no, I've actually been sleeping alright, I know the whole uh, velociraptor thing makes it seem like maybe I wasn't, but there were people there too." He scratched the back of his neck, squinting ceilingward, trying to sort out how to explain, "As far as I could figure out while I was there, the 1993 cinematic masterpiece Jurassic Park was uh, an actual historical event and not just an entertaining movie. And if you've got stuff to do, don't let me interrupt, I can keep myself entertained."

"... huh," Gerard said, because what else could be said about 'Jurassic Park actually happened'? He'd seen the movie, once, when it was on television late at night and he wasn't able to sleep. Read the book too on a long train ride. Didn't think he wanted to live in a world where they actually happened.

"I was mostly just - staying awake waiting for Cal and Niko to get home and about to start doing more detail work on my walls to pass the time," he explained. Not strictly necessary things to be doing, just things to feel like he was less spinning his wheels than he actually was.

That was pretty much the only necessary, or even understandable response. It had been Cal's response when he'd figured out that was what had happened. He'd landed himself in a few different post-apocalyptic situations before, but 'literally dinosaurs' had been a new one.

He nodded at the answer, because that was a situation he was familiar with, "Usually that's when I resort to seeing if I would get a better score than the contestants in a game show, or just find movies to watch that won't put me to sleep out of boredom, but aren't super thinky ones. Just kind of, you know, engaging."

"Oh, I kill at game shows that's not even fun anymore," Gerard said, though with a little grin that said that wasn't entirely true. Really the most fun was seeing if he could beat Niko to answers, and without Niko there it was less entertaining. Finishing off his tea, he stood to clean up the little mess had been made from it. Putting the sugar and milk away, washing the mug. "You as into westerns as my Cal?"

"I used to be, but then I got stuck in Kansas for..." He shook his head, "About a year, fighting demons, even went to demon-hunting boot-camp in South Dakota. Kind of lost interest in most of them after that. Which also means I don't read as much as I used to, Westerns are out, anything political spy thriller is definitely out, sci fi is... debatable, and high fantasy is actually painful more often than not, urban fantasy is worse."

A little shrug as he went about washing his own plate, "Which pretty much leaves speculative fiction, and that's just boring since it's mostly 'but what if the other guys won the war?' and not 'but what if someone assassinated John Francis Queeny founder of the Monsanto company?' or 'what if Tesla actually got recognized for the ideas Edison stole?' who even cares if they're not going to do anything interesting with it, you know?"

Gerard, a rare books dealer by trade even if they were mainly the haunted kind (he was a surprisingly decent hand at the mundane aspects of the job), nodded along as Cal gave a rundown of his issues with various fiction.

"Two questions -" he held up one finger to indicate the first one "Do you want recommendations for books?" he asked, before holding up a second finger. "Is this for all forms of fiction or just books? Because I can find out how to get a copy of that movie with the blonde actress about two timelines from the late 90s if it is."

"Just books, I'll watch pretty much anything, always figured it took up different parts of the brain and things being wrong or boring visually is easier to ignore than in text, and I'm always looking for recommendations with the obvious caveat that I might not be able to find them wherever I end up next."

There was a brief pause before he added, "One issue in visual media is realistic gore, but like, old hammer-movie, over the top, definitely corn syrup fountain is fine." He wasn't sure if that was an issue for the resident Cal, he couldn't remember it having come up in conversation at all.

Gerard nodded to show he was listening, non-judgemental.

"If you want to go turn on the tv then and find something I'll be there in a sec after I grab some stuff from my room. It's probably different than the last one when you were here, apparently Cal threw something into the old one during a baseball game?" Gerard couldn't quite remember. A rowdy sport of some kind sounded right though and he was pretty sure baseball was the one Cal was into.

Gerard loved the man, but his own knowledge of sports began and ended with 'fit guys running around in shorts' and he was just fine with that. Drying his hands off on a dishtowel Gerard headed back to his own room to grab a notepad and pencil to write down a book list on for Cal, and since they were going to be sitting around anyway his black nail polish too. It had been a while, might as well redo his.

He made a sound that was either a startled laugh or a stifled cough, but nodded, smile having returned, "Yeah, that sounds about right." Baseball was the one that still got him riled up on occasion, mostly because he was of the opinion -even now- that there should be more biting and fewer shoes involved. Not necessarily in that order.

He didn't exactly wedge himself in against one arm of the couch, but he was in one of those half-folded positions that only the Cals could actually look comfortable in, leaning more or less back against the arm of the couch, with one leg folded under him and the other drawn up, remote resting on his knee so he wouldn't lose track of it.

He'd found a James Bond marathon, which wasn't necessarily his favorite, but it was engaging enough to keep him awake, but dumb enough not to need his full attention.

Notebook and pen in one hand and bottle of black polish in the other, Gerard raised an eyebrow at the screen as he paused to watch it for a few moments.

"Shit I cannot parse Sean Connery at that age," he muttered, mostly to himself, but Gerard was never strong with most actors to begin with either so perhaps that wasn't saying a whole lot. Taking his place on the other end of the couch, Gerard seated rather comfortably on it with one leg folded up as well so he could balance the notebook on. Polish went on the coffee table for now while he worked.

"Okay - there's actually a lot of books like what you want, but you won't find them on best seller list because the authors aren't well known. I'll make a list for you, hopefully they exist in at least a few universes," he explained as he began to write, noting which were potentially bloodier with their descriptions than others because of course war was involved in some, but he imagined Cal was talking more about the second world war and possibly the American civil war as overdone, not things like the establishing of the Ming dynasty back in 1368. To be fair that one didn't even try to derail which side won, just reimagined the identity of Hongwu Emperor.

Both world wars, the American Civil War, the Revolutionary War, the Cold War and in one baffling instance, the French-Indian War. Basically any war Americans had been involved in, or could potentially have been involved in that weren't currently ongoing.

He snorted softly, "You're presuming anyone can parse him at any time." He nodded at the explanation, because chances were good even if that exact title didn't exist, something like it would, and it would give him something to go on no matter what library he wandered himself into. He didn't generally mind straight up historical fiction, either, as long as the author wasn't trying for a 'new' historical viewpoint that had already been done to death, "I even resorted to romance novels for a while, because at least if they're being historical, it's usually because the author actually likes the time period they're writing about." He shook his head, "But they all end up being too much like getting a lecture from Robin, and I'd rather not."

Gerard glanced up from his list, flashing Cal a grin. He knew how squeamish his Cal got when it came to lectures from Robin and while Gerard knew this wasn't his Cal to gently tease in private he couldn't help but let a little of it out.

"Yeah? Sure? I know a good regency era one that involves two guys and one's an ex soldier sharpshooter," he said coyly.

The squint Cal gave at that question was less suspicious and more considering, and he finally just shrugged one shoulder, "Might as well put it on the list. Worst case, I don't find it, second-worst, I just don't like it and put it back, no harm done."

Oh he realized it was probably a tease, or at least part of one, but he'd learned that the easiest way to defuse that kind of thing was to play along, at least to an extent. And truthfully, that didn't sound like too terrible a book, though the tone of the narration would be the deciding factor in whether or not he finished it, if he even found it.

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