The Majesty of Choice

“Is this a good idea?” Mikey asks.

“Will you shut up?”

“Why? Who is going to hear me? It’s nearly midnight, who are you expecting? A flock of angry bats?”

“We’re near ogre country, you nimrod,” Gerard says. It’s like they’re catching up on several years’ worth of insulting each other, or at least, over the past few hours, that’s what it has felt like. He supposes that they’re brothers though, this is sort of implied.

“Dude, we live in the area designated as ‘near ogre country.’ We literally always have. Why is it different now?”

“Because we’re about to go through it, and that is something we’ve never done before. It’s kind of the stupidest thing that we’ve ever even thought about doing.”

“Aren’t you the guy who’s supposed to be vocal about ogre rights and all that shit?” Mikey asks.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have the right to be afraid of the unknown,” Gerard says.

“Oh okay, so like how you’re afraid of totally crushing on the Prince because it’s unknown.”

“Oh my god, you know about that?”

“Ray is a really good source of information, believe it or not. He’s bad at keeping secrets. From what I hear, somebody is totally gaga over this guy. Mind you though, I’ve seen him, I understand. He doesn’t have a bad face.”

“I seriously do not want to talk about this,” Gerard groans.

“So I hear.”

“Please just let the subject go,” Gerard pleads.

“You’re going to have to embrace it at some point.”

“What for? I’m never going to see him again. He’s the Prince, for god’s sake.”

“Well yeah, but you have to deal with the fact that he was a boy at some point or another, or you are going to be miserable,” Mikey replies. “The fact that he’s ab oy is the only thing throwing you off, and we both know it. If this had been a Princess, you wouldn’t have blinked twice at the idea of liking her, but it’s the fact that he’s a boy. You’d have the same reaction to him now if he weren’t royalty. It’s not about him being the Prince, it’s about him being a him.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Is that your catchphrase? Do you have any other response besides that?”

“What do you want me to say Mikey?”

“Well I don’t know. How about, ‘hey Mikey I’m really scared of what I’ve been feeling lately for this guy who I might really like and I need your advice on the matter.’ To which I would respond, ‘no problem bro, I get why that is scary for you, but you’re still a good person and it’s okay to be who you are.’”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Well why the fuck not?” Mikey asks.

“Because he’s a boy!” Gerard groans, self-consciously looking around him even though he wouldn’t be able to see if anyone was near anyway. It really is dark at this time of night, and with only a candle for light, Gerard’s range of vision is only a couple of feet. He’s trying to keep an ear out for noises around him, but there’s animals roaming around that pose no threat and they keep throwing Gerard’s senses off. How is he going to know if someone is sneaking up on him to attack him? Especially when Mikey won’t shut up. Sure he’s glad the guy is back but he hadn’t realized how much vacant space there should be between words until he’d met someone who hasn’t talked to anyone in like six years.

“Lots of people are boys,” Mikey says, “Literally half of the population are boys. Isn’t it rather limiting to restrict yourself only to half the population. Actually, it’s even less than that, because you’re limiting yourself further by age range, as well as people who are already taken, and then you’ve gotta exclude the ax murderers so that’s only like, I’m no mathematician, but like maybe ten percent of the population. If you were then to add boys who aren’t taken, aren’t really old, or really young, or vicious killers, then you’ve got like a whole ten percent more.”

“You were not lying when you said you weren’t a mathematician.”

“Well, whatever. My point is, it’s rather limiting, and you’ve already got the hots for someone who you would have been excluding if you were using those parameters, so I’m just saying that you should keep your options open.”

“I’m going to ignore you, because I don’t want to hear about it,” Gerard says.

“Do what you have to do, but we both know I’m right.”

“We don’t both know that, as it is,” Gerard says.

“Well-”

“Okay, shut up we’re almost here.”

“Want me to check on him for you?” Mikey asks.

“Sure, why not,” Gerard says.

“Well, you don’t need me to tell you that he’s sleeping, I mean it’s after midnight, what kind of idiot would be awake at this hour?”

“Us,” Gerard groans. He’s not even sure if he’s longing for his bed or if his own adrenaline is keeping him awake, or maybe it’s the immediate threat of death, but he knows that for some reason he is both painfully tired and acutely awake.

“Valid point,” Mikey says. “So how do you plan on playing this?”

“I was going to throw a rock at his window and hope for the best,” Gerard replies.

“Well I know who got the smarts in the family, don’t I?” Mikey says sardonically, and Gerard would hit him, but he doesn’t actually know how to injure a book, so he just rolls his eyes. Mikey as a book is quite a bit lighter than Mikey as a human would be, but he’s still a damn heavy book and Gerard is not in any way looking forward to lugging this book halfway across the kingdom. He needs Mikey however, so he will do what he has to do.

Gerard sets his candle and Mikey down, much to the protest of Mikey, and looks up at the window above him, trying to figure out the best way to do this. He doesn’t want to shatter the window so he’s going to have to aim for the space next to the window. Gerard doesn’t have fantastic aim, so he just hopes he doesn’t accidentally vandalize this house. That would not make this situation better by any means. Especially given how precarious this situation already is, breaking a window would really decrease his charismatic rating substantially.

Gerard picks a rock up off the ground, and carefully, with his heart beating faster than he knows it should, tosses it to the right of the window above him. He waits a moment and when he doesn’t see a hint of movement, he tosses another and this one almost smashes through the glass, making Gerard’s heart rate pick up again.

It’s going to take a couple of rocks, he knows. The first one was to make Gerard’s presence known and the rest of them are just him demanding to have attention.

Gerard waits for a moment, but he doesn’t hear anything other than the sound of an owl somewhere off in the distance. Still, nothing. Gerard grabs a third rock and it’s a little off this time, nowhere near the right window so he takes another and this one is perfectly on point.

“There’s movement,” Mikey says, apparently spying on him, because what else is there to do when you’re a magical book? Gerard doesn’t want to think about the many uncomfortable situations Gerard has been in that he would not like Mikey spying in on, and it’s really awkward knowing that Mikey’s bound to have seen at least some of them. He’s really hoping that Mikey is ignorant of the time that Gerard thought he saw some money next to a riverbank and accidentally fell in. Gerard’s actually got quite a few falling into large bodies of water stories that he would rather be kept on the down low.

Gerard picks up a final rock and aims it one last time, and that’s when he sees the window being played with before it’s opening up and Gerard smiles at the face looking down at him.

“What the heck do you think you’re doing?” he asks, and Gerard can’t see the details of his face so much as he can see the outline of a head, but he’s picturing anger and confusion. To be fair, that anger is perfectly warranted.

“Well, Patrick,” Gerard starts, “I promised you that I would never go on a life altering adventure without inviting you along.”

“A life changing adventure?” Patrick asks, confused. “Gerard, are you aware that it is midnight?”

“Well it’s closer to eleven,” Mikey whispers, but Patrick can’t hear him, and probably wouldn’t believe it if he were there, so Gerard disregards him.

“When is the official hour for starting life changing adventures? Do you know?”

“Alright, fine, but are you aware that earlier today you told me you never wanted to see me again? And that I was never allowed back into your house. And that you don’t want to be my friend. And I could go on.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that, but I didn’t mean any of it.”

“Then why did you say it?” Patrick asks.

“Hattie and Olive told me to,” Gerard says.

“You didn’t have to listen,” Patrick replies.

Gerard’s immediate response is to say ‘yes I did’ but his tongue won’t allow it. It’s been nearly ten years since his mom died, and he still isn’t able to bypass her command not to tell anyone about the curse. Even though he knows Patrick would never use it against him, he can’t do it. He really wishes he were allowed to make his own decisions sometimes instead of just allowing himself to be a carpet for everyone around him to walk all over. Then again, this is one of the driving factors behind him going on this life altering adventure in the first place. That, and it would be really fucking fantastic to not have to comply with every goddamn thing he’s ever told.

“It’s a long story,” Gerard says, “and unfortunately, I can’t tell you most of it. The fact is, I’m leaving, and I don’t know if I’m coming back. I don’t want to leave without at least asking you to come along with me.”

“Well what is this life altering adventure you’d have me uproot my life for, anyway?”

“Well, I’ve got to find this fairy,” Gerard says.

“Why?” Patrick asks.

“I, uh, can’t tell you?”

“Can’t or won’t?” Patrick asks.

“Can’t,” Gerard says, “I promise. I would tell you literally everything if I could, but I can’t, and unfortunately, I can’t tell you why I can’t, because it’s part of the whole ‘I can’t tell you thing.’ Listen, my life is convoluted, messed up, and shitty at the moment, and there’s nothing I can do to change that except maybe find this specific fairy who could change everything for me.”

“Who is this fairy?” Patrick asks. “And why do you need this specific one? Ray is a fairy.”

“I know he is, but it has to do with how strict fairy guidelines are, I’ll explain more, or whatever I can, later. It’s just, well it could be life or death for me to find him, and finding him is also probably going to be life or death.”

“Where is this fairy?” Patrick asks.

“That much, I can tell you. He’s in Giantville.”

“Giantville?” Patrick asks.

“Yes.”

“And how do you suppose we’re going to get to Giantville? That’s at least a week’s walk. Not to mention that this walk would require us to go through ogre country. I get that you have righteous ideas of ogres, but you do realize that we don’t actually know what they’re like. Especially after they’ve been blamed for the King’s death, they’ve been getting more violent. There’s quite a fear of the unknown there.”

“I know,” Gerard says, also feeling like he should say ‘I told you so’ to Mikey, because this was exactly his worry as well. Gerard doesn’t have any skills that will help him outside of this town really. His extent of survival knowledge is contained to how to boil water and how to mend a roof when you’ve got a leak. Most everything he knows about not dying is under the assumption that he has a roof over his head, which he will likely not be having at all for a while.

“And neither of us have ever even really been out of this town,” Patrick says. “How do you suppose we’ll get there?”

“I’ve got a map,” Gerard says, looking at Mikey and then back up at Patrick.

“Great, a map!” Patrick says sarcastically. “Do you also have something that will protect us from inevitable death on this little adventure of yours?”

“No not really,” Gerard says, because it’s better to be honest than to lead Patrick astray.

“So what you’re saying is that you want me to come on a surely peril adventure with you, the guy who just today told me he hated me and never wanted to see me again, to a far off and also probably dangerous place on a mission to find a fairy who might be there for a reason that you can’t tell me about?”

“Yes,” Gerard confirms.

Patrick sighs, long and hard, and it’s audible from two stories below him where Gerard now stands. There is literally no way Patrick is going to say yes. It sounds completely idiotic when you say it like that, but Patrick literally just stated a bunch of facts, so why on earth would anyone in their right mind agree to go on a quest this stupid?

Patrick, sighing once again with even more exasperation says, “give me five minutes to gather my stuff.”

“Wait… you’re serious?” Gerard asks.

“I’m not missing out on my only opportunity to leave this place just because the proposition is the stupidest one of all time,” Patrick says.

Gerard, in disbelief, looks down at Mikey whose face is an equal one of disbelief because this is the dumbest thing that anyone in the history of history has ever agreed to.

“This is the most amazingly unexpected thing ever,” Gerard says.

“Wow, so Patrick sure has become an idiot since I last knew him,” Mikey says, “but I’m still glad that you’re not going to die alone.”

“All this time that I’ve been missing you and it turns out you’re just a ruder version of me,” Gerard says, shaking his head.

“I wouldn’t say ruder. I would say more cynical.”

“A synonym of ruder,” Gerard says, peering up at the window above and hoping that Patrick isn’t just bullshitting him and going back to bed.

Five minutes later however, Patrick comes walking out his front door with a small bag and he looks tired, disheveled and very confused about this entire ordeal. Gerard is almost dumbstruck by the fact that he’s here at all. Under these conditions, with the fact that it’s a deadly adventure, Gerard hasn’t told him anything helpful about the purpose of this quest, and the fact that only a few hours ago, Gerard had told him he never wanted to see him again, it’s pretty astounding that Patrick would even hear him out on this matter. Then again, it’s not new information to Gerard that Patrick is one of the kindest souls to have ever walked this earth. He’s only further proving that now.

“I sure do hope you know what you’re doing,” Patrick says.

“Not a clue,” Gerard replies grinning back at him with complete awe.

“Dandy,” Patrick says resignedly as Gerard gathers his stuff and starts leading them in the direction of their very probable oncoming deaths.

Notes

There's been a lot of lead up for the actual story but we're finally on our way! Please leave a comment and you will receive my undying love (and if you don't leave a comment you'll still receive my undying love anyway, it would just be lovely if you left a comment).