Chapter Text
“And what about him?” The club bouncer asked, nodding behind Alex.
“Who?” Alex did a theatrical turn before barking out a laugh. “Oh, George!” As if there was anyone else the bouncer could’ve possibly been referring to. “Georgie? Yeah, George is my mate of course. Same class in college, freshly graduated! Seating plan partners, through the trials and tribulations of The Faerie Queene! Those classes change a man, and friendships formed under such circumstances are friendships for life.” And okay, even to his own ears, he may have been pushing the hard sell a tad too much.
“Really?” The bouncer said dryly, giving him a look. “So, this George mate isn’t a haunted doll?”
“A haunted -?” Alex gasped loudly, acting horrified. “That’s an awful accusation to lump on someone! I’ll have you know that George is directly descended to British royalty, right George?”
“Yes,” George uttered, somehow filling the single syllable with his own special, George-exclusive brand of blandness. Bored and stilted and painfully, wholly, completely unconvincing. Alex momentarily squeezed his eyes shut before turning to the bouncer.
“See?” He tried to play it off. “George is even - “
“Sorry kid,” the older man nodded to the side. “You know the rules.”
“But - “
“Want me to call security?”
Alex grabbed George’s sleeve, yanking him out of line.
-
“I’m sorry.”
“Shut up.”
“But I am truly sorry.”
“Just shut up please.”
George was finally quiet as they made the long walk home. Alex ground his teeth, the silence somehow even more grating on him than the chattering was.
“Stop thinking about how sorry you are,” he finally snapped. George blinked, eyes piercing blue.
“But you said - “
“I know what I said, but your thoughts are so fucking loud.”
“Thoughts can’t be –“
“Oh, poor Alex,” he put on a high-pitched voice, which, granted, sounded nothing like George’s real tone but still felt satisfying to use. I’m so sorry, what can I - “
“But I am so sorry,” George interrupted, undeterred. “I know you had been looking forward to this night for ages. I wanted to help and -"
“If you really wanted to help, you’d fuck off,” he snapped. Not exactly fair, but shoot him, he was pissed. He thought this time… With Charles’ foundation and blush darkening George’s porcelain complexion, and Pierre’s loose clothing and hoody hiding his pale hands and bright eyes, he’d thought… maybe this time. Finally. He could pretend to be normal, even just for one fucking night.
“You know I can’t do that,” George replied levelly.
“Fuck off,” Alex said quickly, trying to prevent the lecture.
“I am a haunted doll, Alex,” George began slowly, launching into said lecture. “And I’m your curse, you know this. I would if I could just, as you put it, fuck off. But I can’t. And you can’t either. We’ll die, and - “
“Please stop reminding me that my mortality is linked to you.”
“-And don’t you remember? When we went camping - “
“I went camping with my family. You just tagged along.”
“And you tried to lock me in the wood cabin just before you all left. Remember?”
“Of course, I fucking remember,” he muttered. He had only made it a few miles before he started throwing up. His mother, suddenly realising that George wasn’t actually the strategically arranged pile of clothes in the seat beside her son, freaking out. The car doing a 180 and speeding down the dirt track back to the camping grounds. The rest got a bit murky after that, but Alex did remember curled up on the ground, truly believing he was dying. His stomach felt like it was being ripping apart, his skull crushing his brain, his bones burning from the inside out. Groaning, and then his mother shouting, running back, a small bundle in her arms. Alex! George’s cry, and then cool fingertips pressing into his skin, relief pulsing outwards from the touch.
After that, even Alex had to admit that maybe the whole if a cursed person leaves the presence of their haunted doll, they will both die agonising deaths shpiel suddenly held a bit more water than previously.
“I just wish…” he began, hands buried in his pockets. “I just want to be…”
“Normal?” George suggested, and maybe it wasn’t his fault, but his directness was like fuel for Alex’s frustration.
“No,” he snapped. “Fucking hell George. Alone. I just want to be fucking alone for five fucking minutes. I want to go into a fucking nightclub on my final day of exams, and not have everyone stare at me, and leave you by the bar or something and go and dance and be fucking alone, without you as a shadow, and Georgie - “
“Ow!”
“What?!” Alex growled, spinning to face him. “Oh I’m sorry, did I hurt your feelings? You poor –“
The words died on his lips. George was still as he held a pale hand against his even paler cheek. His eyes, wide and startling and terrified, were staring at Alex.
“George, lower your hand,” Alex said slowly, stepping closer. George did, because George never didn’t do what Alex asked him to. There, running from the corner of his jaw across his cheek was a crack.
“Fuck,” Alex exhaled.
“Alex,” George began to say, his pitch rising.
“Don’t freak out,” Alex instructed him, even though he was very much freaking out. His internal monologue was going along the lines of - What the fuck. What the fuck? A crack? No. No, it wasn’t possible. Cracks were - it couldn’t be.
And yet it was. A hairline crack. A dark, stark line carved into George’s smooth skin. It was thin, barely thicker than the gossamer of a spider web, and if Alex didn’t know any better, he could’ve pretended it was just ink, a mishap featuring a pen in a class and a dozing student.
But he did know better. It was a crack, a fracture on George’s face. A splinter, a rupture, a split. A crack. Just the beginning of one, the light touch, but it would grow. Darken, widen, lengthen. Splitting.
“Don’t freak out,” he repeated, unsure if he was speaking more to himself or George. He forced himself to stop staring at the fracture, and belated realised that George’s eyes were wet. Welling up and teary, and his lips were thinning, and Alex suddenly knew he had been speaking for George’s benefit the most.
“Georgie,” he said, “it’s okay, okay? Just… I dunno, deep breaths and - “
“No, it’s not okay,” George shook his head, and the motion dislodged the first wave of tears. Alex watched as they rolled down his smooth, pale skin. The left one just rode along the shape of his cheek before gathering at the point of his chin. The right slipped into the crack, disappearing. Alex felt vaguely ill.
“It’s okay,” Alex repeated himself stupidly. “Okay, so… I mean, clearly, it’s not great, but we’ll just whack a plaster on it when we get home, okay? And maybe, I dunno, maybe it’ll heal? Like a cut? And if not, then that’s okay too. You’re not going to shatter anytime soon. You’ll survive a crack, and - “
“I don’t care about me,” George blurted out, more tears forming and falling down his face. “I don’t want to be the cause of your -“ he cut himself off abruptly, squeezing his eyes shut. Eyelashes fluttered like tiny wings, brushing the skin directly beneath his eyes. So long they were almost feminine. Like the eyelashes of the dolls his mother had had as a child. Maybe it was still the lingering alcohol in his system, but Alex wasn’t sure what came over him. Only he stepped forward and gently brushed his finger over George’s cheek.
His skin was ice cold. Like marble, and the same colour too. Alex paused, his fingertip hovering over the crack. Then he pressed forward, tracing the cleft. The slight unevenness, the hint of sharp edges not quite aligning. A hairline fracture, the one imperfection, the one hint of fragility. The single string to unravel them both.
George’s eyes flickered open. He was frozen, and Alex suddenly realised what he was doing, how close he was to George, and took a step back. He cleared his throat, looking to the side. Stupidly warm.
“I’m sorry,” George whispered, and Alex’s gaze jerked back to him.
“What?”
George blinked, and then looked away. A tear gathered on his lower lashes, like a raindrop spun on a spider’s web. Painfully delicate; a stillness in immortality.
“Georgie,” Alex said, and then felt the implausible desire to put an arm around George’s shoulder. Embrace him, comfort him. As if they were anything like that.
“It’s fine,” he repeated, “you crying about it won’t change shit, okay?”
“It’s not fine,” George whispered. He blinked; the tear fell.
“It is,” Alex insisted, his tone turning hard and heated. “We’ll make it okay, okay?! So, stop being… stop acting like this. So, fucking dramatic. You won’t… I won’t… It won’t happen, okay? Haunted dolls don’t break like that. Or, I mean, sure, they do. The first crack showing and all that. But,” he swallowed. “It doesn’t happen straight away. So, we’ll… find something. Fix it.”
George was watching him, blue eyes intense and never leaving his. He looked young, or as young as a haunted being could be. Young and afraid and leaning completely on Alex’s words. Which was ridiculous, because Alex was Alex, and George was George, and that was it.
“Okay,” George swallowed, the bob of his Adam’s apple noticeable. “Yes, okay. We’ll, yes, that’s… we’ll find something. We’ll fix this.”
From this angle, Alex couldn’t even see the crack. From this angle, George almost looked human under the streetlight’s cover.
“Sure,” Alex forced a smile. “Sounds like a plan Georgie. We’ll fix this together.”