So I posted a message about this story last month explaining that it's a work in progress for a Space-AU challenge I'm doing (and very excited about). I have check-ins and deadlines for the work and so I'll be posting here what I have on each of the check-ins so that you guys can give me your honest opinions and then i can improve and edit before the final deadline.
So please, please let me know your thoughts, what's working, what isn't, what you like and dislike.
The title is a song by Death Cab for Cutie and it will make more sense once more has been written.
They had pulled him out of the water on the first Tuesday- it was a Tuesday, Frank knew, because the nurse in the sick bay was the type to cross off each passing day on the calendar parallel to Frank's bunk. He was dragged into the infirmary hacking up his lungs along with half of the pacific ocean, and Frank thought, great, now I'm not the Earnshaw of these choppy, blue mores. Even if the man looked far more Heathcliff than Frank ever would, with the long swing of his wet hair and heavy, buckled boots.
When he looked up, his face was very pale and his eyes were very wide. He was pretty like a girl, even though Frank wouldn't ever say so out loud, or even very loudly in his own head. He feared, with those eyes, the man might be able to see into Frank's brain, right into the back where Frank kept all his thoughts of porn and boys looking like girls.
People gathered outside of the room, prying eyes and not so hushed whispers, ponders on where he came from and what he was doing in the middle of Sector One's ocean, a lady draped in a red dress and with even redder cheeks exclaimed that he should of been dead, that there were sharks in the waters, man killers.
The nurse, a stocky lady with a severe bun, closed the door and smiled sweetly at Frank, running a hand over his forehead to check his temperature. His fever wasn't burning as hot today, but Frank knew better than to expect that he was getting better.
The nurse didn't look at the man with the same gooey eyes she looked at Frank with, but that was okay, Frank was used to that. Frank was thin and his hair was too long and his Ma called him Bambi whenever he was sick or unstacked the dishwasher at home. The only lady who didn't look at Frank with honey, melted eyes was Frank's grandma, but her eyes were such an icy blue that Frank didn't even think the real Bambi could melt them. Frank liked his Grandma a lot.
Girls his age didn't look at him with that affection either, they didn't look at him much at all. Frank was mostly okay with that though, girls weren't all that great, and he was in hospital too much to date anyway.
The nurse helped the man down onto the bunk next to Franks, the one closer to the wall, and he collapsed with a sigh. The noise was full of tiny rocks and honeycomb, and the sheer exhaustion of it made Frank want to pass out himself. He only didn't because he'd spent every minute since four PM Sunday sleeping, covered head to toe in sheep and half formulated fever dreams. This was the most excitement he'd had since boarding the luxury cruise.
The man looked at Frank and his mouth quirked up. Frank guessed it was a sort of smile. He grinned back.
And then the nurse was there again and fussing with all the things she'd fussed about with on Frank. The man was a good sport about the whole ordeal and didn't even roll his eyes when the nurse went to re-check his temperature after searching for signs of concussion.
"You look okay." The nurse said, said it like Gerard had hoped for a life threatening illness. "You should count that a miracle." The man nodded and smiled at her, and the nurse told him to rest up before drifting out of the room.
Frank stared at the man without any of the shame his mother would of expected him to have had. His eyes were closed and his breathes were even. His nose was pointy and small, and his lips were thin, but pink.
Just when Frank thought he was asleep, the man turned to him and opened his eyes.
"Who are you?" Frank asked, because they had been the words on everyone's lips since the man had been hoisted aboard from the icy waters below.
"Gerard." The man said.
Frank scowled, disbelieving. Gerard was not the name of a man just taken from the depths of the ocean, it could not belong to a man with victorian buckled boots and a brass compass around his neck.
"I have offended you?" Gerard asked, his eyebrows drawing together in concern.
"Why were you in the water?"
"I fell." He said simply.
"From another boat?"
"From my ship." The man corrected, sweeping his inky hair away from his eyes in one fluid movement.
"That's what I said." Frank scowled again, feeling oddly chastised.
They sat in silence for a moment, a moment long enough for the silence to fill the air and make it thick, swamping and full of nothingness, the quiet room overflowing with it. Frank coughed to free his throat and lungs from the serenity and Gerard looked back over, concerned this time.
"You're sick." He said, then pulled a small metal box from the folds of his coat.
The coat was old material and heavy, like the thick jackets his country's soldiers would wear in the days of war. He should have sunk in a coat like that.
He flicked a switch on the side of the box and the whole thing lit up, a wonderful golden light that moved in waves across the box. He pushed another button and there was a sound of mechanics, whirring cogs humming and disturbing the silence. Frank watched, enchanted as a ray of yellow light raked over him, it was warm like the sun and tingled wherever Frank's bare skin was touched.
"Sick, but not dying." The man said, turning the machine off and tucking it back into his pocket.
"What was that?" Frank asked, his eyes fixed on the spot where the box had disappeared.
"It's a medical scanner." The man explained. "It checks your body for disease and injury."
Frank nodded, barely understanding. "What's your real name?"
"You don't believe it to be Gerard?" He asked, his eyes studying Frank's face. Frank shook his head. "Well, I told you no lie; my name is Gerard Arthur Way, I am captain of HMS Banshee as was my farther Donald Arthur Way before me."
Frank only felt more puzzled by this landslide of information. "What kind of name is Banshee for a ship?"
Gerard shrugged. "She screams." He said, said it like that should have been obvious, like Frank should have known. A screaming ship, of course!
Frank didn't think it was very obvious at all. "You're lying to me. That or you hit your head on the way down from whatever ship you fell off of. I'm not an idiot."
"You don't have to believe me, you'll hear her soon enough." Gerard said, shrugging again.
His hair was almost dry now, sitting in messy black tendrils on his broad shoulders, hair like his looked as though it was filled with hundreds of black devils, as if it could move and breathe unattached to his body. Frank itched to both run his hands through it and to give it a good wash.
"I should go back to sleep." Frank said and rolled away from Gerard.
-
Frank was in the ships canteen with his mother. The nurse said he had to check in with her twice a day, but he was well enough to enjoy the ships attractions as long as he was carful. Frank thinks the main reason he's allowed out of the sick bay is Gerard. His mother hadn't wanted a man like him near her baby, a man like Gerard was too dangerous with his pretty pale face and black, inky hair.
The rest of the ship was so different from the sick bay, the day was bright, full of sharp light that flooded through the open doors of the food hall, making everything look crisp and open. There was not a cloud in the sky but the sea winds promised to bring rain the following day, the captain had told everyone over the ship's loud speakers. Frank felt free, even trapped on a boat full of passengers in the middle of the ocean, there was so much space when compared to the cramped confines of the infirmary.
"Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?" His mother asked, stirring her tea with a small wooden stick.
"I'll be fine, Ma." Frank said, staring at his mother's fussing hands.
She worried a lot about Frank. Frank had given her a lot to worry about in his life. He'd always been sickly, a wiry little thing with brittle bones and a poor immune system, he was the Don Draper of getting stomach aches and he only had to look at himself wrong in the mirror to come down with the flu. He was asthmatic too, and his eyesight was poor. She had a right to worry.
"I just don't trust that man." His mother said, taking the stick from her drink and balancing it on the saucer. "Rumour has it he had a gun tucked into his belt. I want you to be carful around him."
"I'm always carful, Ma." Frank said, as earnestly as a boy of his age could.
-
When Frank returned to the infirmary, the nurse was in the office talking in hushed tones on her phone. Gerard was talking on something too, but it didn't look much like a phone to Frank.
It was a conch. Made of some kind of dull, bronze metal and covered in golden wires and silver cogs. Just like Gerard's medical scanner it hummed as it emitted rays of sunshine bright light . He whispered with it close to his mouth, his tone hushed, his lips pulled up to the side.
Frank made an uncomfortable noise from the doorway and Gerard looked up, he grinned and muttered something else into the mechanical shell before tucking it into one of the folds of his coat, now hanging on the chair parallel to Gerard's bed.
"What was that?" Frank asked, though he was sure he'd get an answer he couldn't quite comprehend.
"My shell phone." Gerard answered easily.
"Your shell phone." Frank parroted, stoney faced.
Gerard nodded, uninterested in the conversation's direction. "You're feeling better?"
Frank just shrugged in response, it was best not to encourage his immune system with wishful thinking. "Who were you talking to?"
"My brother." Gerard responded breezily, "He's having some trouble pin pointing out coordinates. There's a lot of static between our worlds, especially in this heat."
"Oh." Frank said, because that was a lot of information for an average Wednesday afternoon.
"But don't worry!" Gerard added, misreading Frank's reaction and whatever emotion his face had chosen to display. "The Banshee's got a really good navigator and Lindsey's the most qualified pilot I know." He said. "I'm sure they'll be here by nightfall. The ship can see better in the dark anyway."
"Lindsey?" Frank asked without meaning too.
"My first mate." Gerard explained, "Though traditionally it should have been Mikey since he's blood, but Lady Garnet insisted if we were going to take one of her ships, we'd also aught to take one of her pilots, and she had more training than all of us, so she was a natural choice. Besides, Mikey much prefers it in the engine rooms." Gerard said without explaining who Lady Garnet was, or why she had decided to give them a ship, only stopping for seconds at a time for short, quick breathes. "And I think the ship likes him with her too, she can be ever so temperamental and Mikey's the most patient man this side of Saturn. They make a good team."
"Of course." Frank replied gingerly. "Anyway, I should erm," He gestured to where the nurse had just hung up her phone.
"Oh, Frankie!" She said, coming out of her office in a fluster. "Oh you are a good boy remembering to come visit, take a seat and we'll get right to it." Frank nodded and did as she said as she pulled out her clipboard and thermometer. "So, how are you feeling?"
-
Frank was as feeling the same as ever when he finally returned to his mother a half hour later. They ate dinner while she asked him questions about the nurse and his condition, and Frank replied mechanically, bored of the conversation taking place over their dinner table for the hundredth time.
"Gerard told me he's from a different world." Frank said conversationally during one of the longer silences.
"Gerard?"
"The man they pulled from the water. He says he captains a ship that screams." Frank goes on, his tone neutral.
His mother shakes her head. "I knew I shouldn't of let you go down there alone."
-