monstermanual | visitor

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.

It was one of the stumbling blocks him and his own Cal regularly had - Cal's casual dismissiveness sometimes tripping into Gerard's hypersensitivity to anything that could be considered rejection. He still smiled but dropped the teasing edge to it, just marked down the book title and continued on with others until he had a little over twenty with author names and one line descriptions. Tearing the paper off and folding it into a neat square, he drew a quick illustration of a book on the outside before handing it over.

"There, hopefully there's at least one winner from the lot. Before I start - will nail polish smell bother you?"

He'd kept with it because out of all the ones he'd tried in black before his Cal complained the least about it's scent, but it was polite to check in before starting.

He wriggled in his seat, stretching so he could get ahold of his wallet, tucking the list into it so he could be sure he wouldn't lose it even if he ended up changing pants before he went on his way again.

He shook his head at the question, "Nah, it's fine. The remover's the problem, and only if it's the heavy-duty acetone kind."

He was quiet for a moment, ostensibly watching the movie, before he offered: "I can do your off-hand for you, if you like."

While Gerard had gotten pretty good at doing his off-hand after about fifteen years of practice, he wasn't going to turn down a chance to have a friend bonding experience here. He didn't have any friends until last year. His Cal was in fact his very first friend in his whole life.

"Yeah? That'd help. If you're sure. Thanks," Gerard said, trying to sound all casual about it like it wasn't a big deal or anything. Giving the closed polish a shake he handed it over, scooting a little closer on the couch so it would be easier to do.

"Don't usually say things like that if I'm not sure." He said, shifting around to give Gerard a knee to put his hand on even as he accepted the bottle, giving it a little shake himself as he continued, "I'm actually pretty good at it, toes too but we're not there yet." That second was accompanied by the same crooked little twitch of a smile.

He set to work with a careful, practiced precision, one stripe down the center, one on either side and a sweep along the edge even as he said, "One of the few halfway-good things to come out of being stuck in Kansas for a year."

"Oh, yeah. Toes are second sleepover only, you don't want people to get the wrong idea," Gerard replied after a moment, almost hesitant with the joking even if he did have a little smile of his own.

Gerard was very good at holding very still for long periods of time, no fidgeting or otherwise jostling to mess up Cal's work. It was good work, too. Color him impressed. "Why'd you learn this in Kansas of all places?"

He snickered faintly at the response, but cocked his head a little at the question, the movement standing in for a shrug so that he wouldn't jostle what he was doing, "I was there long enough that I actually made friends, a singular friend, which is less of a surprise than if I'd made more than that."

He shook his head, knocking himself back on track, "Needy. She was really good with her dominant hand, and honestly it was just a miracle if she didn't end up knocking the bottle or the table over when she tried using her off hand. So I got good at doing it for her, save everybody the trouble."

He took one last swipe along Gerard's thumb nail before capping the bottle again to pass it back, "And done."

Gerard took the bottle back, setting it down in the curl of his calf and thigh for the time being while he let his current hand dry before he started up on the other one.

"Sounds nice," he said, hoping they didn't part ways because something bad had happened. "... Cal, my Cal, he was the first friend I ever had."

To point out that Cal was not among company that had any place to judge for not making friends easily.

"Yeah, sounds familiar, most of us there were kind of flailing around and trying to work out what was happening, but she and I just clicked. Hadn't been stuck anywhere that long before, and haven't been since, so friends are pretty thin on the ground."

Another crooked little smile, "Only reason I'm any better at people than the Cal here is is because I've had to be. And it's not by much."

"I'm inclined to think he's better at it than he thinks he is," Gerard said with another small smile, blowing on his nails, judging them dry enough, and beginning to paint his other hand. He too had the even professional strokes of someone who had been doing this for quite some time and could sleepwalk their way through it if need be. "So I've no doubt you are fully capable of being more charming than you think, too."

"Oh no, I can be, I know I can, that's the worst part." He'd had enough experience doing so to know that much, "It's just that I can only keep it up for an hour, maybe, maybe two hours at a time, always just not quite long enough to get out of whatever social situation unscathed."

He settled himself comfortably against the arm of the couch again, "Mostly I just use that ability to keep myself out of situations." Especially when he was generally somewhere that he'd only be for a couple of days.

"That's still something," Gerard said - he was unfortunately very aware of his own lacking in that department. The weird outsider showing up foretelling bad omens, off-putting and strange.

"On the one hand I can't stop myself from saying creepy ass shit. On the other hand they're usually marked by a fear-devouring entity that might wear them as a skin suit if it gets ahold of them a second time so I think it's usually warranted. I'd rather have them alive than thinking what a friendly guy I was and dead."

"It's about balance." He replied with a solemn nod, but he couldn't maintain the straight face for more than a moment, snickering and shaking his head, "Almost, almost managed that. But yeah, as long as you don't tip towards the Cassandra side of prophesizing, you're probably doing something right."

Because alive and thinking he was just a creepy weirdo was something Cal was familiar with, just from a slightly different angle.

Gerard had thankfully finished his nail panting so that his own laughter didn't mess up his work. Re-capping the bottle he set it on the table and blew on his nails again.

"Ah state of mortal man! in time of weal,
A line, a shadow! and if ill fate fall,
One wet sponge-sweep wipes all our trace away--
And this I deem less piteous, of the twain."

Because of course he had whole lines from ancient Greek plays memorized. They didn't have a television when he was growing up.

"Ah-ha, now I understand why Nik doesn't mind having you around. Anybody who's going to broaden Cal's horizons instead of actively make him dumber is someone to keep close."

A little shake of his head followed, "It's been too long since I needed any of the deep cuts, I don't have anything to bounce back, but just wait, give it fifteen or twenty minutes for the long-term memory to engage and spit something out, it'll happen."

The drawback of being pale as he was, when Gerard blushed the color blossomed clear as day on his cheeks. He laughed a little too, giving a little shrug.

"I fully believe you as capable of it, no pressure for a delivery," Gerard replied, and there wasn't an ounce of sarcasm to it. He knew his Cal was clever, he didn't doubt this one was, too. "To be fair I'm pretty sure they were unaware of my ability to quote Aeschylus from memory when they took me in, but it was a nice bonus."

"Considering that's not the kind of thing that people usually just know, I'm going to guess they didn't, yeah. And definitely something that would work in your favor once it came up, which clearly you already know." He waved a hand briefly, "Don't mind me, adrenaline's finally clearing out, I either get real quiet or real incoherent even when I'm using actual words."

Mostly he was realizing that the statement sounded more than just halfway to being some kind of insult or roughly backhanded compliment, which wasn't his intention at all.

Cal's explanation came before Gerry could parse it in the Worst Way Possible, so it all worked out. Murmuring an 'it's okay', he sat quietly for a few moments while he rolled around the pros and cons for the offer he was considering before deciding to just do it.

"... I can set up Cal's heated blanket if that would help? I have a weighted one too on the other hand, I can bring it out."

He tried to make it sounds very casual so Cal wouldn't think he had to pick something if he didn't want either.

He gave a little shake of his head, "Not enough muscle strain to need heat." And he was never sure if it would be comfort or just make him cranky, or if it would start as one and shift to the other when he stopped paying attention for a few minutes.

His brow creased a little, considering, "Weight might be nice though? If you don't mind, obviously." It might keep him from getting shaky -a rare enough occurrence as it was- but it might also just make him feel a little trapped, though he reasoned if it was that second one, it would be easy enough to just shrug the blanket off again.

Gerard knew his Cal was comforted by the heat because when he was stressed reminding him he was not in Tumulus was a help, he wasn't certain if this Cal needed it too or if it was simply a different kind of weariness anyway. Better to ask, he figured. He did, after all, perk up a bit at the consideration of the weighted blanket. Niko had gifted it to him earlier than intended when Gerard had come back from Morden an absolute mess of emotions and he'd laid on the couch for quite some time under the wonderful pressure of it. Now he had two and one was in Morden for when he was there.

"Yeah, hold tight and get comfy," he said, stretching out his legs and standing, taking up the nail polish to return to his room at the same time. The blanket was damn heavy - technically it was recommended to get them at 10% of your body weight but Gerard's was a bit above that as Niko guessed rightly he preferred more weight to it, so it helped that Gerard was stronger than he looked. Once he came back to the couch with it, he draped it over Cal, making sure it was evenly distributed as much as possible. Gerard liked it especially as it reminded him of when Spartacus would sleep on his hip or back but all over instead of just in one spot.

It was an odd sensation, but more comfortable than Cal had been expecting, and what he said after a moment, when some of the lingering tension between his shoulders had begun to ease was: "Bet this is what paninis feel like. Probably why they're so good."

His nose wrinkled a little when the commercial break ended, realizing that the movie had changed sometime in the interim and that even though it was a marathon they weren't going in any sort of order, except maybe popularity or box office earnings.

He wriggled one hand out from under the blanket to retrieve the remote, passing it over to Gerard, "Find something besides Pierce Brosnan, his face is too punchable for me to deal with right now."

Gerard couldn't hide the pleased smile as Cal seemed to enjoy the weight of the blanket, the pressure it gave. He wondered if it was the same kind of smile Niko gave when he put the blanket over Gerry the first time and saw how well it worked.

He took up the remote when Cal passed it over, laughing a little and shaking his head.

"Alright, well, I won't argue that. He does look like a tool."

He scrolled through the channels, passing infomercials, television preachers, cop dramas. The best of past midnight entertainment.

"-are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before."

Gerard raised an eyebrow and looked to Cal to see if they should keep going or if sci-fi was acceptable.

He nodded, making a quiet little sound of agreement, Trek was usually enough to keep his brain the right amount of engaged to stay awake without being stressed about it.

It was apparently enough to get someone else's attention, as Spartacus appeared on the back of the couch a moment later, sniffing at Cal's head before setting in to grooming his hair, holding him in place with one paw, something that made Cal snort softly, "Fine, but you put any claws in my head and I'm keeping them."

He doubted that the bath would last long, it wasn't a common occurrence and rarely did, he mostly figured it was a case of Spartacus reminding him where he was in the house pecking order.

Gerard perked up at the sound of the cat as he made his appearance, and his whole face really did light up to see him. Gerard adored that cat, had from the first moment he met him.

Both Niko and Cal found it a little weird, which Gerard felt was somewhat unfair given Spartacus was their cat in the first place.

"The handsomest man of the house joins us, what a blessing," he cooed, reaching out to gently run the backs of his fingers along Spartacus' side.

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