A/N: I give up on improving this chapter. It is long and delayed and terrible and unedited and you may all begin to judge me for my terribleness starting right now, but I've had it forever and am just going to inflict it on you all now
Sorry OTL
The wind was chill against Matthew's skin, salt spray and soft breeze a cool contrast to the hot sun overhead. It was nice, he reflected, being up here, away from the noise of the passengers (half of which probably had something to do with the Bad Touch Trio) - nice, really, cool and calm and quiet as the interplay of wind and water beneath his feet. A nice contrast. Peacefully comfortable, really, as Matthew leaned against the railing of the ferry -
- until, that is, he was promptly shoved away from the edge of the ship, stumbling as his glasses were knocked askew and his body nearly knocked into New York Harbor.
"Alright now guys, say cheese!"
Flash of coordinated colors and caps against the railing, poses being struck; gleams of white and metal, lips pulled back into smiles that more resembled grimaces; click, preliminary blinking of red lights, setting - then click-click-click, white light that flashed and blinded three times in succession.
When the dots in his vision had cleared, Matthew - blinking as he stood back up - could see the figures at the railing in motion once again, reposing as the baseball-cap wearing, I- -NYC t-shirt clad figure that appeared to be their mother readjusted the settings on her Kodak.
Matthew watched them for a few moments more - the camera-clutching mother; the well-shaven and slightly bemused husband standing behind, a beer in his hands and an American flag bandana on his head; their children, fidgeting in matching red and green outfits that made them look like overgrown Christmas ornaments - and then closed his eyes and sighed.
Well, so much for peace and quiet.
"Okay, now time for the funny pose!"
Suppressing another sigh, Matthew reluctantly began walking back to the inside of the ferry, where - no doubt - the Bad Touch Trio were raising ten different types of hell.
Sad thing, really, when they could be considered saner company.
Among all the flora and fauna of New York City, one species dominates the natural landscape: tourista vulgaris, or common tourist (genus bacillus).
Abiding in a variety of natural habitats and coming in many variants, the common tourist can, nonetheless, be identified by a number of shared traits: large, often excessively bulky backpacks, generally accompanied by a worn and wrinkled map clutched as though it was a newborn child; a very marked tendency to flock together, usually in specific locations and in passenger pigeon-like numbers (much to the annoyance of native species); a need to carry cameras with them at all times, so much so that several scientists have hypothesized a symbiotic bond between the two; a magpie-like obsession with acquiring extremely overpriced, gaudy objects that invariably all turn out to be made of plastic; and a perpetual confused, lost look that often translates into much abuse of security guards. In the hierarchy of New York fauna, they are considered somewhat above cockroaches and significantly below pigeons.
Yet though well-documented and the subject of much study, the behavior of the common tourist continues to baffle modern scientists, who have yet to come up with a suitable hypothesis of many of tourista vulgarism's common behaviors.
Like, for example, the one where they completely and uttered failed at following basic instructions.
Matthew wasn't sure how many of fellow passengers were native English speakers, but as the signs declaring NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPH and DO NOT LEAN ON RAILING were printed in thirteen languages and accompanied with pictures, he suspected that many of the flash-photograph-taking, railing-leaning, flagrant-rule-breaking visitors could not be excused by ignorance.
"So that's the statue!" Gilbert said, cheerfully sitting back on the railing. "So whaddyathink?"
Matthew thought about that for a moment, looked up again at the rest of the statue from his place on the pedestal as Gilbert kicked out a rhythm on worn marble.
"It's…impressive," he finally said.
And it was.
Matthew didn't really know what else to add to the description.
Gilbert, however, didn't seem to mind the lackluster response to both the destination and his impromptu twenty-minute guide about it, because - jumping off the railing - he grinned a "great!" and then promptly shot off after something across the room, probably a passing butterfly or something of the sort.
Matthew wasn't sure if he should consider it a good sign or not that he was starting to label this type of behavior as "normal" from his roommate.
"Is he finished?" Francis asked, looking up from examining his nails (a task that he had been thoroughly engaged in for all twenty minutes of Gilbert's tour). "Oh, quel soulagement - mon Dieu, I thought it would be worse than when we went to that German museum -"
"O dios mio, don't remind me," Antonio said, shuddering. "What was it, two? three hours? - he just kept talking and talking, I honestly thought he was going to asphyxiate from not pausing to breathe -"
"Notre Gilbert? No, mon ami - things would be far, far too easy if that happened, and we can't have that, can we?"
"Well," Antonio said, shrugging as he smiled helplessly, "we could get lucky?"
Francis made a noise that could have been scoffing if it were not for the affection in it.
"I do wonder though, sometimes," Francis said, after a short pause. "About Gilbert."
"Oh?" Antonio asked.
"Yes," Francis said, (illegally) leaning his elbow on the railing and gazing out into the harbor. "I do."
There was another pause.
"Ooooh-kay," Antonio said. "And? Because I worry about Gilbert all the time, I'm fairly certain it's a requirement for anyone with a speck of sanity to do -"
Straightening, Francis turned around and gave Antonio a Look.
"Oh, dios mio, Francis," Antonio sighed, "not that again -"
"The suspense of the moment, mon ami, the sheer beauty of the suspense, how many times must I remind you -"
"- o dios mio, why are we even talking about this again - Francis, mi amigo, lo siento, but we're not in one of your French movies, ¿bien? There is nothing symbolic about the color of my t-shirt -"
"- sauf en tant que métaphore de terrible taste -"
"I will have who know I bought this shirt two weeks, Francis -"
"At what? A garage sale? Mon Dieu, that shirt couldn't be more fluorescent if it glowed in the dark -"
"And now we're back to that one, again -"
"- and your hair, mon ami, simply awful - if you would only give me a week -"
"- and remind me again why I would let you go after my hair again, hm? I don't think it ever did anything to you -"
Matthew waited for a bit, in a politely loitering sort of way, and - when ten minutes had passed and more than the ordinary amount of people had begun staring - then, only shaking his head slightly, delicately edged away. Far, far away.
He managed - after much accidental stepping on feet and mumbled "sorries" - to find a somewhat quiet corner, where he sat down.
It wasn't a particularly large corner nor a particularly scenic one, but it was a quiet one, and that was nice. Matthew liked quiet.
From what he sat, he gazed out at the harbor.
It wasn't, of course, the best view - in fact, it was less a view of the harbor and more of the view of the backs of people gazing at the harbor - but it wasn't as if Matthew didn't know what it would look like if it was. The blue of the water would be glimmering in the sea, the towering skyscrapers reduced to specks in the distance, the grass far, far beneath suddenly stripped of all weeds into a clear swath of green - all very nice, yes, all postcard-perfect pretty and wall-calendar scenic, something that Matthew would normally enjoy, could normally enjoy -
If it weren't for the people.
Pushing, shoving, packed like sardines and thronging just to get a glance at a what was really a lot of grass and steel and water they never really paid much attention to in the first place because now it was suddenly special, all the guide books said it and, besides, look at how much it cost to even visit, they wouldn't charge that much for a place that wasn't worth going to -
It just seemed like an awful lot of fuss, that was all.
"Pretty, isn't it?"
If it weren't for the fact that he was sitting in a very wide bench with arm rests, Matthew would have fallen out of his seat.
As it was, there was a moment when his heart leapt into his throat and may have forgotten to beat - but it was only a moment, as it soon settled down and began to beat again, albeit now in the slightly hostile manner of someone who has been through this routine just one too many times already.
Acclimation to insanity, Matthew thought. It couldn't be a good thing.
It did, however, help in keeping his responses more coherent than gasping for breath.
"U-uh, um, yes. It is. Very pretty," he added. "Um," he said, faltering a little under the blank expectancy of dark sunglasses, "a-and impressive, too. Really impressive."
The man - who, by the American flag bandana he wore, Matthew guessed was the father of the Camera Clan - looked vaguely unsatisfied for a moment, then nodded and turned to gaze out at the harbor once more.
There was a moment of extremely awkward silence. Matthew fought the urge to shuffle his feet.
"It's a wonderful city, New York," the man said, though whether he was talking to himself or Matthew it was difficult to tell. "Symbol of everything good in this world. Opportunity, progress, democracy."
There was a pregnant pause, during which he gazed expectantly at Matthew.
"Of America," the man added, taking pity and extracting the answer out of the unresponsive silence.
"Oh - uh, yes? Um. Yay. America."
"Best country in the world," the man said. It was not the type of statement that warranted disagreement.
"Erm -"
"Haven't been to a lot of countries, I haven't. Don't travel a whole lot - don't see why you'd want to. Watch a lot of news, you see," he said, voice hoarse and suddenly conspiratorial. "Awful place, the world. Full of thieves and swindlers and pickpockets who would rob the wallet out of your grandmother's pocket – lowlifes, all of them, foreign scum who couldn't run a country if it came with a how-to guide."
"Um -"
"And what do they do when we take pity on them - when we bring them medicine, clothes, food? What do they do when we shoot the bastards running their countries and give them to chance to be free for once in their fucking lives?"
"Uh -"
"They hate us. Fucking hate us when we gave them clean water and decent food, tell lies and resent us and call us dictators because we tried to make their lives a little more civilized. Hate us. Hate us. And then!" he said, whirling around, eyes twitching behind tinted lenses. "Then they come to our country, bring themselves and their dirt and diseases, drink our food and sleep in our hotels when all they know is their nasty foreign babble, step on American soil when they're not worthy of being stepped on themselves - FILTH!" he suddenly screamed, leaning so close that Matthew could feel the spittle on his face. "Filth, all the fucking bastards! FILTH! Aren't they? Aren't they?"
"Um -uh -"
"Aren't they?!"
"Yes!" Matthew shouted, backing away from the man staring at him. "Yes, yes, they are!"
"Of course they are," the man replied, voice perfectly calm as he straightened up. "Disgusting, really, all of them - ruining my perfectly wholesome vacation with their foreign ways. It's good you know they're no good, though - not a lot of people recognize it these days, and it's a shame. But you, you look like a nice, American boy - nice and sensible, and God knows it's good to know your generation still has some sense - not at all like one of those, the young people in my neighborhood who hang around them -"
"Hey, Mattie! What'cha doing?"
Trying to breathe, one part of Matthew wanted to say, but another part - one that was very happy about getting away from the American flag lunatic talking to him - said, "hi, Gilbert."
"Hi yourself, roomie - though, seriously, what the fuck are you doing here, looks boring as hell, Antonio and Francis aren't even around to pick a fight with - oh, hey!" he said, brightening as he noticed the sunglasses lunatic. "Tourist, huh? - well, then, welcome to New York Fucking City, best place in the whole fucking world - no, but seriously, don't believe any of that Disney World shit, place is cool enough but fucking expensive as hell, I think we blew through half my college fund when we visited -"
"Ah, Gilbert, mon ami, back to terrorizing the locals again. Dites-moi, Antonio, why am I not surprised?"
"Because you participate in it half the time?" Antonio answered, sighing as he walked up to his lunatic friends and the lunatic tourist they were accosting. "Hola, señor - my name is Antonio Fernadez Carriedo, and these," he said, quotation marks practically dripping off the word, "are my friends. I wish I could say that they weren't usually like this, but, unfortunately, they are."
"Oh, vous plaisantez, Antonio – ce n'est pas une chose très agréable to say about your friends, non? Francis Bonnefoy, monsieur," he said, gently taking a hand and kissing it. "Enchanté."
"Yeah, yeah, that's very nice and all, but here, take it from me," Gilbert said, leaning in in what he must have thought was a covert manner, "Francis seems all nice and harmless in a vaguely gay way at first, but he's really a complete and utter bastard underneath -"
"Excusez-moi, Gilbert, but I believe you were describing yourself again - well, sans the part about seeming 'nice -'"
"Alright, alright niños," Antonio sighed, pulling Francis and Gilbert apart before pushing them away, "come along, now - we don't want to traumatize the nice man, now, do we?"
"The nice man," however, seemed unfortunately too busy staring at his hands in horror to appreciate Antonio's effort.
Pity.
These things, Matthew decided, ought to come with warning labels.
Like political ads, Matthew thought, or maybe cigarettes - nothing too big, really, just a nice surgeon general's warning that Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy next to the bright pictures of attractive celebrities cheerfully acquiring lung cancer, heart disease, and emphysema. That was all, really. A nice, helpful warning. Something like "Statue of Liberty: Beware of Tourists with Cameras and Unlimited Patriotism," or maybe "This College Contains High Concentration of Crazy, Apply with Caution," though, really, "Prolonged Exposure to Lunacy May Be Hazardous to Your Health" seemed to sum it all up neatly.
Not that it wouldn't have been nice to have specifics, though. Something like "This Attraction Contains Exorbitantly Long Lines and Dense Crowds," for example, would have been nice. Ultimately futile, yes - the Bad Touch Trio no doubt regarded reading warnings as one of those things for other people, like obeying laws or sleeping - but nice, nonetheless.
He would, at least, be warned before he spent two hours in a line with Gilbert Beilschmidt and Francis Bonnefoy.
It had been Disco Pogo night all over again, with the sole difference this time being that the staring crowd had not been deeply drunk.
Though, Matthew had to admit, the reactions when Francis and Gilbert had begun leaning over the rails and singing Titantic songs at full volume (a mixture of scandal, horror, and "oh God how high are they") had been quite amusing.
Which was, of course, another sign that insanity was catching.
Matthew sighed - not loudly, no, but apparently audibly enough for the girl serving them wine to glare at him.
Wonderful. Given how well the restaurant staff had responded to Francis's advances, Antonio's inability to resist petting every service dog he saw, and Gilbert's horrible habit of being himself, this meant Matthew could look forward to having his food spit in as well.
Matthew sighed again, not caring this time what the girl thought of him, and wondered why he was even here.
(which was, of course, a terribly ungrateful thing to think and he felt awful about it, really, awful and ungrateful when all they had done was invite him on this trip in the first place, paying for all the tickets and the horrible light-up snow globes they'd seen in the Ellis Island gift shop and then on the way inviting Matthew to what was the probably most expensive restaurant in Rockefeller Center and definitely the most expensive one Matthew had been to, Francis offering to pay for it all and he knew that he should be happy, properly enjoying himself, it would have been the least he could do - only, only only -)
Well. It would only be considerate, that was all.
It was, after all, a nice restaurant. A little intimidating, yes, what with the fancy lighting and bilingual staff and three types of salad fork - but pretty, too, in a velvet and chandeliers and fifty-dollar-entrees kind of way.
Matthew supposed he liked it, even if it was a bit too gilt-and-Gouda for his taste. It was just a little, well, just a little -
Fancy? Pricey? High-end tabloid heiress? -
"This place," Gilbert says loudly (but very luckily when the wine server is several feet away), "is boring."
- well, not exactly (not at all) what Matthew had been looking for, but it worked just as well.
"Je suis désolé," Francis said, not sounding apologetic at all as he flipped through the leather-bound menu, "that I forgot to pick someplace with a children's menu."
Gilbert stuck his tongue out at him.
"Shut up, crayons are totally badass, it's not my fault Mommy and Daddy only bought you oil pastels when you were growing up –"
"Um," the black-aproned (and extremely pretty) waitress said, smile faltering for a moment as she approached their table. It quickly returned, though, as she flipped open her notepad and gave them all a dazzling smile.
"Hello, my name's Alice, and I'll be your server today! What can I get for you today?"
"Je voudrais quatre bols de soupe à l'oignon gratinée avec pain et du fromage, suvie par plateaux de fruits de mar - "
"Um - I'm sorry? Could you repeat that, please?"
Slowly, very slowly, and with an air of almost gentrified haughtiness, Francis looked up over his menu -
And then down. And then down, down, and down -
"Oh, por el amor de dios," Antonio said, sighing before he kicked Francis in the shin.
"-ow, Antonio, pourquoi -"
"Four orders of onion soup, cheese and bread, and trays of seafood for three," Antonio said, cheerfully ignoring Francis. "And then a plate of cookies with four bowls of ice cream. Chocolate and caramel, please."
"Um - okay," the waitress said, briefly glancing at Francis before returning her attention to Antonio, smile slightly confused but still indefatigably cheerful. "Is there anything else you'd like today?"
"Your number peut-être, mon cher -"
"Another bottle of wine," Antonio said, smiling as he kicked Francis again (and harder, too, by the sounds of it). "And maybe another one after that, too."
"Well then, I'll just let you decide that later, okay?" Flipping over her notepad, Alice looked up and gave them a brief smile. "Your food should be ready in a bit."
"Thank you."
She nodded, smiled again, and then left.
"Antonio," Francis said, when he had stopped swearing, "je vous jure, that hurt -"
"Oh, come on now," Antonio said, rolling his eyes as he reached for his wine, "I didn't kick you that hard."
"You didn't have to kick me at all -"
"Yeah, seriously Tonio, what the actual fuck, you could have at least let me kick him –"
"Oh, s'il vous plaît, Gilbert - comme si nous ne savions pas already that you hit as a hard as a Catholic schoolgirl -"
"- and you would know how hard that is how? - Wait, never mind, don't answer that question, I don't need to know more about your creepy fetishes -"
"This is going to be a long wait, isn't it," Antonio muttered, sighing as he sipped his wine.
"Weeeelll, we could have just gotten Chipotle, you know, there was one just outside for fuck's sake, could have gone nice and easy if Francis hadn't been such a drama queen about not being able to eat mass produced rice or something, I mean seriously, what the actual fuck, where the hell would you buy locally grown rice, we live in New York - fuck that, we should have just ignored him and gone, it would have taken all of thirty minutes and we wouldn't be stuck here staring at Francis's face for two hours -"
"Bien, alors que c'est simply another good reason we came, non?"
"Maybe if I was a masochist, yeah - "
"Niños, niños," Antonio said, sighing as he poured himself (another) glass of wine, "please. We're in public. Stop fighting."
"But I'm b-ooooo-red," Gilbert whined, leaning back in his chair until the top of it nearly touched the head of the woman behind him, "and there's nothing else to doooooo."
"Gilbert, we've only been here ten minutes."
"See?" Gilbert cried, throwing his arms up as his chair hit the ground again with a thwump. "That means there's another hour and fifty minutes to go!"
"No, Gilbert, we're not there yet. Stop asking or I'm not buying you ice cream anymore."
"Francis always gets ice cream," Gilbert grumbled, taking a vehement swig from Francis's wineglasses. "And besiiiides, I'm booooored - "
"Oh, continuez," Francis said, rolling his eyes as he took his glass back from Gilbert, "il ya plenty of people - crash a date or ask out a waitress or something, ce que vous voulez. Amusez-vous, I know you can do it."
In the silence, Francis sipped calmly at his wine – and then, suddenly, stopped as the full meaning of what he had just said seemed to hit him.
"Okay!" Gilbert said brightly, abruptly pushing his chair in as he stood up. "Seeeee you when the ice cream comes!"
"Gilbert - where are you - oh, merde, Antonio, again?"
"What did you expect?" Antonio asked, shrugging as he sipped his wine, Gilbert already long gone. "It's Gilbert - you honestly didn't expect him to sit still for more than five minutes, did you?"
Francis made a tsking sound, and then he sighed, too.
"Bien entendu, bien entendu," he said, smiling faintly. "What did I expect, non? Gilbert attracts trouble like honey attracts flies."
"And this has been a problem since when?" Antonio asked, cheerfully draining his glass.
"Never, bien sûr! C'est amusant. It's only," Francis added, a (decidedly calculating) note of thoughtfulness creeping into his voice, "it would be so terrible, honnêtement, if Gilbert were to do something stupid - which he will, sans doute, il est Gilbert, après tout - and we all ended up, well, qui sait? In prison, peut-être, someplace oh so dark and terribly gloomy - et pauvre Mattieu, aussi! - well, it would just be awful, tout simplement horrible-"
"You know," Antonio said, sighing as he poured himself more wine, "if you didn't want to share the ice cream, you could have just said so."
"Moi?" Francis said, face the very picture of guileless outrage. "You wound me, Antonio - as though I would value mere pastries beyond my friends! Non, mon cher, c'est tout simplement Gilbert and his welfare that I am concerned about - et pauvre Mattieu - we cannot simply invite him on a grand tour of New York City and end up in a correction center, mon Dieu, it simply wouldn't do at all -"
"Alright, alright," Antonio said, putting his hands up in resignment as he stood up, "lo comprendo, lo comprendo - it's my turn to go and baby-sit Gilbert while you sit here and eat macarons and chocolate ice cream. Lo comprendo. I'm going, ¿bien?"
"Ah, je t'aime, Antonio, je t'aime vraiment -"
"Sí, sí," Antonio said, brushing Francis off in a gesture that would have been dismissive if he weren't smiling so widely. "Although, I have to remind you, this is the thirteenth time it's been my turn to do this - "
"Ah, but mon ami, you do it so well-"
"Mostly because you prefer to join in with him," Antonio said, rolling his eyes as he carefully pushed his chair in. "Y déjame some of those profiteroles this time, okay?"
"Oui, oui, maman," Francis said, smiling indulgently and holding up his wine glass as Antonio walked away. "Bien sûr, bien sûr."
Alice comes by two times after that, brings more wine and obligatory bread and queries about how they were doing. Francis hits on her blatantly (and surprisingly chivalrously) each time, but she doesn't seem to mind it too much – laughs at his ridiculously outdated pick-up lines, smiles when he begins segueing into French for his compliments, actually flips her hair when she notices his eyes on her chest (something Matthew had thought only terrible pop singers and people in movies did) – and by the end of the second visit, Francis not only has her number but also her email, her schedule, and a date for next Wednesday.
It all happened so quickly, too, Matthew couldn't help feeling a little dazed by the end of it, but Francis didn't seem to be much affected by it.
"Plus de vin, mon ami?"
"Um, no thank you," Matthew said, smiling briefly as he held up his full wineglass.
"Ou plus de pain? Honnêtement, mon cher, it's almost two, you must be quite hungry by now, et vous n'avez pas mangé beaucoup ce matin, aussi –"
"Non, non, ce n'est pas grave - je n'ai pas faim. Vraiment," he added, holding up his hands and smiling as Francis continued to look doubtful.
"Weeell," Francis said, the doubt still not entirely gone as he reached to refill his wineglass, "if you say so, mon cher. If you so say. But do try some, though," he added, pushing the breadbasket towards Matthew, "c'est du très bon pain, and it would be waste if we didn't eat it, non?"
After hesitating a moment, Matthew nodded and, smiling, took a piece.
It was, as Francis had said, quite good bread – warm and thick and yeasty, it was spread thick with rosemary and thyme and olives that went beautifully with the olive oil aioli it had come with.
And as he took another piece, Matthew found himself completely and suddenly ravenous.
They sat for a while, then, in a sort of comfortable silence, Matthew quietly attacking the breadbasket's contents while Francis slowly sipped his wine.
"Well, mon cher?" Francis asked, after a few moments of silence. "Vous me admirant – very understandable, bien entendu – or is there something you want to talk about, hm?"
"W-what?"
"Oh, ne semblez pas tellement supris, mon cher," Francis said, "you've only been stealing glances at me for the last half-hour. Il est evident qui vous voulez parler avec moi, non? So talk."
Matthew hesitated a moment, and then nodded.
"Well, yes, actually. I was, well, wondering if I could ask you something."
"Bien entendu, mon cher," Francis said, gently swirling his wine between two fingers. "Demandez l'écart."
Matthew nodded, did not look up.
"Well - about earlier," he began, then stopped, unsure of how to continue. "Um."
"Well?" Francis prompted, but his voice was gentle, soft. "What about earlier?"
"Um." Glance up, tentatively meet patient blue eyes. "Well - it's just - um, earlier, at the Statue, before Antonio interrupted, you said something about wondering about Gilbert, and I was just, it's just that I was, well - kind of wondering what you meant?If that's okay with you," he added hurriedly, becoming very interested in his shoelaces again.
"Porquoi pas?" Francis asked. "It's a perfectly natural thing to wonder. Although," he added, smiling as he sipped at his wine, "je m'excuse si mes réponses ne sont pas quite as exciting as you expected."
He smiled, again. It was a friendly smile, a gentle one. And - slowly, slowly - Matthew smiled back.
"That's okay," Matthew said, voice quiet but smile still present, "I was just curious."
"And with reason, too," Francis replied, "si vous vivrez avec Gilbert pour - what? the next four years? - Mon Dieu, that would be a nightmare, et combien plus the fact that you know hardly a thing about Gilbert and his friends whisper about him in secret? Perfectly reasonable, mon ami, perfectly reasonable.
"Et pour votre question - well," Francis said, shrugging slightly as he idly swirled his wine, "who wouldn't? It's Gilbert. He picks arguments with police officers, tries to seduce prostitutes, knows the chemical formula of and how to synthesize every substance banned in America but also – et pour l'amour de Dieu! - forgets that he burns like cheap tissue paper in the sun. Et cette is only what Antonio and I know from a year of knowing him, mon cher. That poor family," Francis said, shaking his head, "living with Gilbert for nineteen years - how they survived, je ne sais pas, je ne sais pas tout simplement. And one wonders, non? One wonders how they did it - et aussi how, exactly, Gilbert managed to survive beyond the age of four without dying (although, entre vous et moi, it is quite possible there was some brain damage -")
The sound of an alarm, somewhere outside going off, interrupted Francis.
"Oh, mon Dieu," Francis groaned, placing a hand over his face as the other patrons stared around in startled shock, "not again."
Sighing, Francis poured the rest of the wine into his glass, sipped at it pensively for a few moments before abruptly drowning the contents and standing up in one fluid, elegant motion.
"Well, mon ami," Francis said, straightening his shirt cuffs as the siren glared around them, "je suppose we ought to help Antonio. Pity," he said, gazing sadly around the restaurant, "and I was so looking forward to the ice cream, too."
Outside, the day was sunny, fresh - picture-perfect pleasant, really, except for the police officers standing in the middle of it.
And what made the terrible picture worse was the – in retrospect, not completely unexpected but nonetheless terrifying –fact that they were talking to two very, very familiar faces.
There was a crowd. Matthew wasn't sure whether it was a basic rule of New York City or the Bad Touch Trio, but there was always a crowd. Matthew was fairly certain there could be a professional assassination in a dark alley and there would still be a crowd. They were like pigeons, really, or maybe tourists.
If he would have to guess, though, Matthew would say tourists; pigeons weren't quite so good at making you feel like you were an exhibition at the zoo.
Also, pigeons didn't have cameras.
They were taking pictures, actually taking pictures – not even NBC people or journalists, that would have been bad enough, but actual random bystanders, normal, everyday people with calzones and Coke cans who just stood there, camera phones open and blink-blink-blinking away.
It was like very strange, like something out of a dazed dream, Wonderland and rabbits smudged with the scent of cigarette smoke and halal gyros; Matthew was sure that if he stepped any closer, touched anything or said anything, it would all fade away, vanish like smoke into the air.
"What, again?" Francis asked, but there was more outrage than surprise in his voice. "And I wasn't invited? Bien, allons-y, Mattieu," he said, tugging the other boy forward as he began wading through the crowd, "I am going to have to have un discours très grave avec un idiot certaine –"
Matthew nodded, "um-ed" and "yes-ed" at opportune moments as Francis continued, but he wasn't listening. Couldn't, not when, inside his head, the pictures were already starting to form – bright TV screens and newspaper reporters, polished wood and the Dean of Education gravely shaking his head, the shock and outrage in his parents' eyes that he knew was hiding the disappointment they didn't dare admit –
Matthew found that suddenly breathing was very, very difficult.
"Excusez-moi, excusez-moi," Francis said as he pushed people out of the way, grip firm on Matthew's wrist, "merci, thank you, excusez-moi, pardon– merde, ce un salaud –"
Images. Images images images: all the hundreds of scenarios, thousands of could-haves and what-ifs, what was the worst that could happen coming to vivid life inside his mind –
"That's what happened, I swear – pinkie-promise, cross my heart and hope to die –"
"Antonio! Gilbert!" Francis called, pushing his way to the front of the crowd with Matthew in tow. "Que faites-vous –"
"Francis? Oh, God no, we don't need your ugly face here –"
"Excusez-moi Gilbert, but I do think you must need another vision check, tu sait qui mon visage est très belle–"
"-compared to what?"
"Dios mio, niños –"
"Hey," the police officer said, interrupting the fracas and pointing to Francis, "are you friends with these guys?"
"Well, yes," Francis said, and Matthew is sure he feels the bottom go out of his stomach, "mon dieu, why else would anyone want anything to do with them –"
The officer nods, slowly turns around.
"Well then," he said, "in that case, I'm going to have to tell you –"
- he was going to arrest them, pull out a pair of handcuffs and demand Matthew and Francis put their hands up, say it in front of the whole crowd too, every moment of it recorded on a hundred blurry mobile screens, and oh God what if they really ended up on television? What if what if what if – and oh God oh God oh God –
"-to get these two somewhere else. Maybe somewhere with a drink," he added, running a hand through his hair, "I think that might help with the shock."
-wait.
"Shock?" Matthew asks, blinking as he pulls his hand away from Francis.
"More likely than not," the officer answered, tucking his pad of paper into a pocket, "seeing an assault like – well, you can't help but be shaken up by something like that. Either way, a stiff drink or two would probably help –"
"Assault?"
"Yeah!" Gilbert says, voice ridiculously enthusiastic for someone in shock. "There was this guy who got pissed at the girl at the candy counter, pretty fucking stupid actually, if you ask me, what the hell is there to get angry about in a candy store? Raisinets? – although, okay, those things are pretty disgusting, who the fuck likes raisins who isn't at least eighty years old –"
"It's probably the shock, officer," Antonio said, trying desperately to keep a straight face as he tugged Gilbert away, "estoy seguro that he'll be better once we get those drinks you suggested –muchas gracias for your help –"
"-so that was when we started on him – mostly me, of course, but Toni, too, and some of the other people who'd seen – although it was mostly me –"
"Shock?" Francis said, raising an eyebrow as they walked away from the officer. "Si seulemente."
"Eh, lo hizo, ¿no? Besides, I do want a drink –"
"-I mean, you don't fucking do shit like that to people, the girl was like sixteen and had to be taken away by an E M fucking T–"
"I know, I know," Antonio said, sighing as he patted Gilbert on the shoulder, "yo sé. Some people – pero debemos stop thinking about this. Let's just get a drink instead, ¿bien?"
"As if you had to ask," Gilbert said, but some of the glower still lingered in his eyes. "C'mon, let's go to Times Square and get plastered."
And they would, no doubt, gone to Times Square and gotten plastered, if it weren't for Times Square.
Again, another thing that Matthew, in retrospect, should have really seen coming.
Times Square was all shops and crowded streets, a million people going everywhere at once alongside the taxi drivers who cursed and blared their horns at them as the billboards above proclaimed the virtues of a million diet pills and skin care products: an epileptic's nightmare, it was also the perfect place for several impulsive college students to get lost in.
Which, Matthew thought with a mental sigh, was exactly what was going to happen. Very soon, in fact.
"– I don't know, Francis, I really can't see myself wearing this –"
" – oh, but Antonio, croyez-moi, the color, c'est parfait –"
Probably once the moment Francis turned around, too.
Matthew sighed, shuffled a little on the bench as he watched Francis continue to press some combination poncho-coat-dramatic-Draculaesque-cape on Antonio. Under his feet, his bag of new (Francis-approved) clothes rustled with the movement.
It was, Matthew decided as he continued watching at the Bad Touch Trio in action, indeed, a very strange piece of clothing – certainly not something he'd expect Antonio to wear of his own free will, but somehow Francis managed to force him into a dressing room with the poncho-coat-dramatic-Draculaesque-cape thing.
"Oh mon dieu," Francis murmured as Antonio came out, looking slightly awkward and significantly more like someone who had walked out of a theatre's prop closet, "Antonio, you look–"
"– like some hipster douche that walked out of Pretentiousness 101–"
"– wonderful," Francis said, absent-mindedly hitting Gilbert with a clothes hanger as he continued to stare adoringly at Antonio. "Oh, yes, Maman was correct – I am good at this, very good – c'est parfait, I knew it dès le moment où je l'ai vu – it fits you well, very well, in fact – ne pensez-vous pas, Antonio?"
"If you say so," Antonio said, more than a little bit doubtfully tugging at the poncho-coat-cape he was currently draped in. "I'm still not sure, though – pero, puuues, un pocito demasiado, well, black? And expensive," he added, lifting up the price tag and staring at it in horror.
"No, nonsense, mon ami! Ne savez-vous pas? – black never goes out of season, it's simply not something you can overdo. D'ailleurs, you need something to balance out all the Technicolor you wear – et ne vous inquiétez pas au sujet du prix, I can pay for it, of course."
"Not fair, Francis,how come both Mattie and Toni get these super fancy-ass gratis French wardrobe makeovers, and I don't?"
"Because I promised Antonio one earlier and because Matthieu is adorable and, lastly, because you arehopeless, mon ami, complètement désespérée," Francis replied, snatching a green scarf from a random rack. "Now, Antonio, if you could try this on, too –"
Matthew watched them for a while longer, but after a while his eyes began to wander. Gilbert and Antonio could watch people get assaulted and then harass Francis about his ridiculously non-heterosexual hobbies without blinking an eye, but Matthew was still rather shaken from his near run-in with the wrong side of the law, and the edges of his mind were still fuzzy with the shock members of the Bad Touch Trio apparently never felt. Culture shock, he expected. Too much time spent in sleepy suburbs and not enough in the types of places where helping stop violent battery was just par for the course, the type of thing you did before stopping at Starbucks.
Oh well. He couldn't help that, now could he?
So Matthew let himself rest, closed his eyes against the world and let his mind go blank. It'd been a long day, after all, and all he really needed, now, was some proper peace and quiet.
When he opened his eyes a few minutes, the Bad Touch Trio was nowhere to be seen.
Matthew blinked, then took out his cell phone and checked the time.
6:07. A grand total of three minutes had passed since he'd closed his eyes.
Well. This was…odd. He certainly hadn't expected this to actually happen.
Matthew decided against panicking, however, and instead picked up his bags and walked into the store, strolled quietly and methodologically through each aisle.
No one in sight.
Okay. That was still okay. If there was no one inside the store, then it only meant that they were somewhere else, right? Probably outside, distracted by something shiny in a storefront. Right. That was probably it.
So, bags in hand, Matthew walked out –
– and immediately realized what he'd forgotten in his plan: Times Square.
He stared out at the crowds, trying desperately to curb the dismay he felt building as he stared out across head after head. There were just so many people –
Okay. Okay. It'd been only three minutes, after all, and even if there were a lot (so many, so so many) of people and maybe quite a few more shops than he was used to seeing in Goshen (lined back-to-back and side-to-side, oh God so many), they couldn't be that far, right? Right? (even if they could, they could, and there were a million people here and a million places they could be –)
– why hadn't he gotten their phone numbers? Wasn't that one of those basic things you were supposed to do when you met someone? With friends? – though, maybe, if he'd actually had more than a total of three friends, he would actually know about things like this –
– no. No. That was panicky and uselessly despairing and scarily close to self-pity. All of which were not conductive if he didn't want his Panic Attack of the Day Count to go up to two. It was (he was) okay (okay okay okay), nice and good and manageable. He knew where the University was, could find a Metro and ride back there if worst came to worst (even if he didn't know how to get there, which route to take or which stop to get off at), and if all else failed, well, there was still the police, right? Weren't they supposed to help with these kinds of things, lost tourists and whatnot? Right?
Right.
So that was good, that was nice to know. That was a nice last resort, if he had to go to it. But, in the meanwhile, Matthew could just continue looking for his roommate and his friends in peace. Right?
Right.
So he did. Waded through the crowds, trying desperately not to notice when his skin brushed someone else's as he searched for a glint of white hair, desperately hoping to hear a snatch of French or a lost Spanish phrase, to see or hear a sign a word anything any any anything –
Nothing.
Nothing.
All he saw were faces, faces unrecognizable and unfamiliar, faces faces everywhere, right left edging him on all corners and all strange, all unusual, everything familiar and known lost within the throng of sheer people –
Someone jostled against him, and Matthew lost his balance, trip-stumble-fell in the middle of the sidewalk, new clothes spilling everywhere as people walked around him. A few of the passersby helped, gathering clothes and handing them back to him; stumbling to his feet, Matthew murmured his thanks.
There was dirt and taste of blood when Matthew got to his feet, and lights, lights, (so many) lights – but it was okay, it was (he was) okay (okay okay okay, even if it was all too much, too many people and so many lights that it was garish, Salvador Dali bright, and he was drowning, drowning in a sea of colors and people and what might have been tears at the edge of his vision –)
"Mattie! Hey, there you are!"
Matthew blinked, and suddenly he was being attacked by a blur of white hair and red eyes.
"Where were you, seriously, Tonio and Francis are still looking around – getting lost, probably, couldn't find their way out of paper bag, fucking pathetic, really – but, seriously, where were you? – Toni saw this really tacky I NYC shirt in a store, so we were going to surprise you with it, because you haven't properly been to the city until you've got one of those things, but then we check out and, bam! Gone. Seriously, what gives?"
Gilbert paused, then, glanced at Matthew with the largest grin on his face and excitement and expectation in his eyes –
– and then stopped.
"Hey, Mattie, are you okay?"
-no, no he wasn't, not when it was like this too many lights and too many streets and too many names and eyes and people, so so many (all seeing all watching, taking him in and quietly taking him apart) that he couldn't move couldn't see couldn't couldn't breathe –
"Roomie – hey, roomie? Roomie?"
Worry in the words – stronger nowthan before, edging on incipient panic. Worry. Worry (and that was rude, Matthew knew, that was wrong, wrong wrong wrong when he was only the guest, after all, and mustn't complain mustn't criticize impose make a fuss be a bother –)
"Mattie?!"
"I – I think I need somewhere to sit down," Matthew managed to say, not making eye contact as he slowly pulled his hand out of Gilbert's. His hands were shaking, slightly, and he put them in his pockets to stop.
"Okay," Gilbert finally says, and his voice is more subdued than Matthew has ever heard it. "Let's find one."
They did, a small table inside a tiny diner between the edge of Times Square and nowhere. It was not a fancy store, and certainly not the type of place to attract much more than the occasional passerby – but it was a quiet one, empty except for them and the waitress chewing gum at the dusty counter.
Gilbert orders them both cream soda floats, taps his fingers on the table and talks an endless stream of nonsense as they eat. He seems in no hurry to text Francis and Antonio, and that is okay with Matthew, who quietly sits and sips at his soda.
"- so, yeah, and of course that was when Francis had to fucking say something –"
Matthew nods, wordlessly stares outside the window as he clutches at his soda.
"-I mean, what the actual hell –"
There was a couple outside. Through the dusty window, Matthew could see them, a pretty girl in a too-short skirt and a dark-haired boy in skinny jeans holding hands, all lanky teenage limbs and daring as they stumbled through the empty streets, laughing.
"-who even says that, I mean fuck, I'm pretty sure it's been a couple of hundred of years since the nineteenth century –"
The teenagers had stopped, now, were leaning against the wall outside the diner as they alternately gasped for breath and laughed. They were, Matthew realized, very, very young – probably no more than fourteen or fifteen. Far too young to be running around the streets of New York City. Where were their parents?
The girl giggles and in the dim light, Matthew could see that her eyes were the clearest shade of green.
"-but, seriously, though, are you okay?"
Matthew starts, turns away from the window and stares at Gilbert out of surprise and reflex. Then, after a moment, lowers his eyes on the tablecloth.
"You were pretty freaked out there, you know," Gilbert says, and again his voice is just so restrained it almost feels eerie."Feeling any better?"
Matthew takes a while to answer that, slowly swirls his drink as he stares at the checkered tablecloth.
"I think so," he says finally. Quietly, still not looking up at Gilbert.
"You sure? I mean, I know Times Square's pretty big, lots of security and all so it's usually real safe, but the City's still pretty rough – so if anyone did anything –"
"No!" Matthew says, shocked as he stares up at Gilbert. "No, it wasn't that, it wasn't anything like that –"
"Then what?" Gilbert asks, so quickly that it is almost astute.
Matthew's eyes dropped back to the tablecloth.
"It's just," he began, then stopped. "Just, well, I'm not good with people, that's all."
Um.
"Not exactly people," he clarified, "just, well – lots of people, I guess. Crowds, mostly."
Right after the words left his mouth, it struck Matthew just how stupid telling something like this to Gilbert Beilschmidt, of all people, was.
Gilbert, however, only nodded and said, "okay."
Well, technically, he didn't only say okay, as with Gilbert Beilschmidt it was never just "okay," but neither were there any of things Matthew had expected, no incredulous stares or "why the fuck would you think that?" comments. Just…okay.
Okay.
Which was…unexpected.
But nice. Nice, too.
Antonio and Francis arrived a few minutes after Gilbert texted them, entering the store in typical Bad Touch Trio fashion, a flurry of bags and tinkling bells and mon dieus as they rush over to Matthew.
"– o dios mio, Matthew, I'm so sorry – are you okay? Did anything happen? Are you okay? – pero dios mio, I didn't mean for it to happen, I'm so so sorry, really –"
"– honnêtement, Gilbert, you should have called us earlier, tu ne sais pas how worried we were – vous allez bien, non? Etes sûr?"
"Oui, oui – je vais bien, je suis sûr –"
"– êtes sûr? Très, très sûr?"
" – so sorry, I really, really am, dios mio, I am–"
"Oui! Très sûr! Vous n'avez pas à vous soucier, vraiment –"
" – really, really all my fault, Isaw this silly T-shirt and then you got lost, don't know what I can do to make it up to you –"
"You can start by giving him some fucking breathing space," Gilbert snapped. "Mattie's freaked out enough, don't be an asshole and make it worse."
Which was unexpected enough to make Francis and Antonio stop and more than unexpected enough for Matthew to forget the claustrophobia creeping up on him.
"Oh," Francis said, coughing as he awkward moved away from Matthew. "Of course – well. Je suis désolé, mon cher."
"Y yo también," Antonio said, following Francis's example and gingerly stepping away. "I know I already said it but, well – I'm sorry. I really am."
And after that, suddenly no one had anything to say.
"So what do we do, tout de suite?" Francis asked, breaking the silence. "Eat here, premier, or return to campus–"
"Don't be silly, Francis, of course we're going straight back to campus – pobre Matthew's been through enough today, honestamente –"
"Wait, wait – who said anything about going back?" Gilbert asked, looking at Francis and Antonio in surprise. "This trip isn't even over, okay – we haven't even gone to the most awesome stop!"
"Oh, ave Maria, not now, Gilbert – we don't have time for another 'super-secret-special-awesome plot twists' –"
"But it is awesome, Toni –"
"– not when Matthew is so upset already –"
"– oh come on, Tonio, when the hell did you get to decide everything –"
"– this is not up for debate, Gilbert, alright? – this is not something we are going to vote on, I'm sure Matthew would agree –"
"Eh bien, why don't you ask him?"
And suddenly all eyes were on Matthew.
"Mattie?" Antonio said, and his voice was ridiculously gentle – like someone talking to a scared child or coaxing a startled animal. "It's okay if you don't want to go – we won't be offended or anything."
"It really is awesome, though," Gilbert added, "you'll like it."
There were two pairs of eyes on Matthew, and both were equally pleading.
"Um…"
"And I promise the asshole per square mile quotient is lower than it is here," Gilbert added.
And even Francis groaned and Antonio gave Gilbert another of his terribly scandalized stare, Matthew couldn't help it – he started laughing.
And that shut everyone up quite a bit.
"Okay," Matthew said, when he could breathe without his stomach aching again, "I think I'd like to go."
"Are you sure?" Antonio asked, worry still in his eyes. "You don't have to –"
"Yes," Matthew said, still smiling. "I like going to places with low asshole densities."
And who wouldn't be sold on that?
The ride to reveal the "super-secret-special-awesome plot twist" was short and almost scarily quiet ("it's a see-cr-et, of course I can't tell you," "he really won't, c'est vraiment quite stupid"), but as they neared their destination, the groans began.
"Honnêtement, Gilbert, you took Mattieu all the way here just to show him your bedroom –"
"Fuck you, Francis, my bedroom's awesome. And no, asshole, I'm not – that's legitimately creepy, who even does that besides perverts like you –"
"– people who don't hang Toy Story posters on their walls, peut-être?"
"You are arriving at Second Avenue, Lower East Side," the automated voice overhead announced, cutting off what would have been a truly impressive retort from Gilbert – and one which he launched into the moment they were outside the station.
"What are you talking about, Francis?" Antonio asked after several minutes of intense debate and accusations of homosexuality. "I'm pretty sure you cried during Ratatouille, too –"
Lower East Side, Matthew noticed as they turned a corner, was – though undoubtedly still crowded – not nearly as polished as Times Square had been; there were barely any obnoxious billboards, and no men in Elmo costumes accosted them as they walked. And as they continued walked, Matthew noticed that the buildings got a little older, the languages on the streets a little more varied, the asshole per square mile quotient a little lower –
"– no, fuck you, just because Robin Hood kind of sucked doesn't mean you can just go and discount classic Disney like that –"
"– Lion King, Francis, I thought you liked Lion King, too –"
– and the drama of the current argument exponentially higher.
"Bien, bien!" Francis said finally, collapsing against a lamppost. "Je comprends – it has come to this. Adieu, mes amis – your inferior cinematic taste has left me no choice but to sever all ties. Adieu, adieu – jusqu'à ce qu'il soit jour."
"Yeah, well, I don't need you either," Gilbert said, shrugging, "c'mon Mattie, let's blow this shitty black-and-white crepe stand –"
And with that, he proceeded to take Matthew's arm and stride angrily away.
"Um, Gilbert," Matthew said, glancing back as he tried to keep up with Gilbert, "I don't think anyone's coming after us –"
"Well, yeah," Gilbert said, not slowing one bit as he stared at Matthew as though he'd grown another head, "that was kind of the whole point of the plan."
And despite not knowing about and still highly doubting the existence of a plan, Matthew went along with it.
He had a feeling that this attitude had been the root of a lot of his recent problems, but as he ran through the streets – turning sharp corners and splashing puddles of laundry water on passersby who swore at him with foreign words – he decided it was (he was) still okay (okay okay okay –)
(– and much more besides.)
They stop on the doorstep of an old, slightly weathered apartment ("my Vati's place, but don't worry, I'm not actually going to bore you with my room or whatever"), from which Gilbert – after punching in a code that is mostly asterisks and numbers – takes a key hanging around the inside of the doorknob ("won't your parents notice?" "You mean Vati? Nah, he works real late, practically lives in the office") and ushers Matthew up the stairs.
At the top, Gilbert unlocks a door, and then they step out into cool night air.
The view is not as scenic as it was from the Empire State Building or even the Statue of Liberty, but it is much quieter up here, the Manhattan buzz only background and not foreground noise in the absence of tourists.
In the darkness, there is no one else but them, and the night sky is full of stars.
"My Opa used to take me up here sometimes," Gilbert said, putting the key away and leading Matthew out onto the deck, "the neighborhood's not really crowded and there's not too much industry over here, so the view's pretty good. Anyway, so we'd sit here, and he'd point out all the constellations and tell me about them – apparently the old gods were all kind of dicks, Hera was a complete PMSing bitch and there wasn't anything Zeus wouldn't bang –"
"Kind of like Francis?"
"Like Francis with unlimited power, holy fuck, what a nightmare that would be – I mean, you see that?" he asked, pointing at a cluster of stars. "That's Cygnus – supposed to look like a swan, 'parently – that's the neck there, see it?"
"…no?"
"Yeah, neither do I," Gilbert said, shrugging and sitting on the edge of the roof, "I always thought the Greeks were high when they thought of this stuff. But, anyway, so Cygnus is a swan and not just the shitty X it really is because Zeus once turned into a swan and decided to have sex with some chick –"
"Leda?" Matthew prompted, sitting down next to him, legs dangling over the streets below.
"Yeah, that one – apparently she had some sort of bird-fetish or Zeus was really just that hot as a swan, because seriously, why would anyone want to do that –"
"Furries don't count, then?"
There were several moments of intensely awkward silence.
"What?" Matthew asked, trying desperately not to blush as Gilbert stared at him. "We had internet and I had a lot of spare time."
"4chan?"
"Um…once?"
"Prank?"
Matthew nodded. "Never again."
"Never again," Gilbert agreed, shuddering slightly. "Even Francis gets creeped out by some of the stuff on /b/, and that is fucking saying something – although Luddy seemed okay when we were browsing through, which is kind of really, really disturbing now that I think of it – actually, how did we even get on this topic, I don't want to think about what my little brother does in his bedroom, what were we even talking about –"
"We were talking about swans raping people."
"Oh yeah, we were, weren't we? Yeah, the Greeks were fucking weird, too – Opa's stories, oh God, apparently he had to learn all about that shit while he was in school, part of some classics bullshit at the gymnasium he went to –"
"Gymnasium?"
"Yeah – that's the fancy-ass school smart kids go to in Germany, which was probably why Vati and Old Fritz always got so pissed when I'd get into fights or some other shit – probably explains Luddy, too, now that I think about it, because he'd always get on my case, too – fucking family trait passed through several generations, the curse of the Beilschmidts, actually."
"Except you?"
"Obviously – just too fucking awesome for stuff like that, you know? Although Opa was pretty cool, too," he added, after a pause, "did all sorts of stuff – went to Uni and all the usual stuff like all the other fancy-ass stuff
"Nah," Gilbert said, "not for a couple of years. Moved out after Luddy hit high school and Vati could trust us not to burn the house down entirely."
Only partially, Matthew was tempted to say, but instead he asked, "where is he now?"
For a while, Gilbert didn't answer, just sat there, suddenly intensely interested in the stars again.
"In Sanssouci," he said finally.
"Oh." Matthew was silent for a while, too, quiet as he watched Gilbert trace patterns in the dust. "Do you ever visit him?"
Another silence, so long this time that – if it weren't for prior experience – Matthew would have wondered if Gilbert had heard him.
"No," Gilbert says, and the words are softer this time, quieter than Matthew has ever heard Gilbert. "Can't afford it. Funeral was expensive enough."
And then Gilbert is quiet, and then there is silence and then there is shock.
"Oh my God," Matthew begins, "I'm so –"
"Sorry?" Gilbert finishes, and there is this small smile on his face, a tiny ghost of a thing as he turns to Matthew. "Nah, it's okay – it's not that bad, that shit was all a year ago. Only sad thing about the whole business now is how cheap you have to be to not let your own kids visit their dead grandfather over the summer, I mean fuck, Vati, I would have paid for half too, y'know, how fucking much can two plane tickets cost? 'Sides," he added, almost-smile fading a light, "things aren't that sad after a year."
"I'm still sorry about it, though."
"Yeah, well," Gilbert said, shrugging, "so am I."
And for a while, there was silence.
Then Gilbert begins talking again, so softly at first Matthew has to strain to hear him.
"And that's Andromeda, and that's Leo over there –"
"We should get Francis and Antonio," Gilbert says when he finishes, the night sky categorized into a dozen myths and demigods, "make sure they aren't getting drunk off their asses without us or anything like that. 'Sides, it's pretty late, and it's not like they can hold their own in a bar fight or anything."
"Okay."
Gilbert nods, stands up and takes his cell phone out.
"Sorry about Times Square," he says, pausing in the middle of his texting to look at Matthew over his phone. There is a smile on his face, but it is apologetic. "Guess I should have asked first, huh?"
And Matthew suddenly finds himself saying "no, no – that's fine," as he stands up, too. "It was really nice that you asked me – I wouldn't have done anything anyways."
"Doesn't mean I shouldn't have fucking asked," Gilbert said, scowling slightly as he kicked at a piece of gravel. "I mean, it's not like you could do anything about it – it was pretty much just Francis, Tonio, and me dragging you around wherever-the-fuck."
"Well, yes," Matthew admitted, "but the food was pretty good, so that makes it all okay."
"Really?"
"Really. That was some wonderful French food."
Matthew smiled.
"Hmf," Gilbert finally said, turning around with his hands in his pockets, "if you think that was proper food, then we really need to get you to Francis's place sometime – or, better yet, my house because, really, fuck Francis, my cooking is obviously way better than his will ever be."
An image of exploding blue cake with eggshells in it briefly crossed Matthew's mind, and he can't stop from making a sound that might have been a laugh.
"Hey, I'm serious," Gilbert said, whirling around with indignation in every move, "German food is the best – not that shitty stuff you buy at Costco's, fuck that stuff, it's disgusting – but actual, real German food, that stuff is pretty fucking awesome. Ever had soßklopse, or Königsberger marzipan? – Opa used to make it all the time, 'cept when I'd skip school or get Bs in some class, he wouldn't let me have any, so half the time it was always just Luddy who got any –"
"You skipped school half the time?"
"Hey, it's not like they were teaching anything interesting – most of it was just repeating the same stuff over and over again: hey, kids, here's how you solve quadratics, now do the same thing eighty million times in a row so you can remember how to do it – boring shit, really, they mentioned Prussia, what, twice? – I mean, really, fuck you tenth-grade history class, that's bull –"
"You should have taken AP Euro, then."
"Yeah, I did that," Gilbert said, running a hand through his hair, "junior year, all the kids in there were total tools, too scared to pull even the fucking fire alarm – I mean, come on, we had drills fifty times a year, I'm pretty even the principals couldn't tell the different – although the teacher was pretty cool, basically one of those dropout beatniks from Marxism 101 who brought in organic cookies every other day and would interrupt class to ramble on about Solidarity or patriarchy or why prostitution should be legalized, pretty interesting stuff, actually –"
There was, really, no stopping Gilbert when he started – so Matthew did the next best thing, and listened.
It was late when they got back to NYU, halfway between when the last nightclubs began opening and when the first bars began kicking people out, but Matthew didn't mind. Francis and Antonio had both had enough drinks to be not entirely sober but not enough to begin plotting spontaneous nightclub takeovers again, and Gilbert didn't seem in the mood for doing so, either, so it was a relatively peaceful ride back to the dorms – with 'relatively' being the most important word in that description.
Halfway through Francis's fourth attempt to pick up a(nother) date, Matthew can't help but think of what Francis himself had told him earlier, about Gilbert and surviving and knowing everything about chemistry except to stay away from UV lights, and wonders if Francis knew he could have been describing himself, too.
That was okay, though. Francis always did everything with such class, even impropriety, that somehow it all became charming.
The metro stopped a few blocks from NYU, so they walked the rest of the way, stopping occasionally for spontaneous dance numbers, pondering of the universe's secrets ("I mean, have you ever wondered if dogs can get high, too –" "don't you even try." "Ah, Antonio, n'est pas amusant –" "You shouldn't do that to dogs. What if they got addicted?"), and general traumatizing of the occasional bystanders and odd tonsil-hockey playing couple.
It was a nice night, warm and clear with a soft breeze that blew through it. Above, the stars shone down, Cassiopeia and Ursa Majors and Minor as bright as the moon and the moon as bright as a coin on streets that were – if not quite empty – close enough.
Notes:
I felt a little strange with writing the tourism parts - it felt a little sharper than the humor I generally do, especially since I do love to travel – so go ye forth and be tourists! Just not the obnoxious kind ^^;
Bacillus - a genus of "Gram-positive, rod-shaped bacteria," according to Wikipedia
Currently, the Statue of Liberty is closed to the public because of renovation, meaning that people can't go inside - however, for purposes of plot, please imagine the visit occurs a little before/after the renovation process. In addition, going to the Statue is actually fairly cheap, with the bulk of fees coming from paying to go across in the Ferry. The Empire State Building, however, IS pretty expensive and, when I visited it, EXTREMELY crowded.
The restaurant I used was Brasserie Ruhlmann, which is real and apparently very posh and French. Food was taken off the online menu, although certain details are my own invention, not being rich enough to actually go there ^^; As another side note, the bread eaten was fougasse, which Wikipedia makes look really delicious
I think the moment I realized I was insane was when I began Googling maps of the night sky so I could have accuracy for the rooftop scene. As it is, the map's probably inaccurate as hell anyway because I know nothing about astronomy. I am disheartened to say this legitimately grieves me.
Maybe that's why I'm single.
Translations (MY GOD I hate you Francis, stop speaking in languages no one around you can understand):
Bien – basically "fine" in French (apparently)
Bien entendu/ sûr – of course/obviously, etc
Peut-être – perhaps
S'il vous plait – please
Honnêtement – honestly
Vraiment – really/actually
Quel soulgement - what a relief
Sauf en tant que métaphore de – except as a metaphor of
Dites-moi – tell me
Vous plaisantez- "come on"
Ce n'est pas une chose très agreeable – that's not a very nice thing
Je voudrais quatre bols de soupe à l'oignon gratinée avec pain et du fromage, suvie par plateaux de fruits de mar – (basically what Antonio says) I would like four bowls of gratinée onion soup with bread and cheese, followed by plates of seafood
Je vous jure – I swear
Comme si nous ne savions pas – as if we didn't already know
Alors que c'est – then that is
Ce que vous voulez – whatever you want
C'est tout simplement – it's simply
Je t'aime – I love you
Y déjame – and leave me
Ou plus de pain – or more bread?
Et vous n'avez pas mangé beaucoup ce matin, aussi – and you didn't eat much this morning, either
C'est du très bon pain – it's very good bread
Vous me admirant – are you admiring me
Ne semblez pas tellement supris – don't be so surprised
Il est evident qui vous voulez parler avec moi – it's obvious that you want to talk with me
Demandez l'écart – ask away
Je m'excuse si mes réponses ne sont pas – I'm sorry if my response aren't
Si vous vivrez avec Gilbert – if you will live with Gilbert
Et combien plus quand - and how much more when
Je ne sais pas, je ne sais pas tout simplement – I don't know, I simply don't know
Entre vous et moi – between you and me
Un discours très grave avec un idiot certain – a very serious talk with a certain idiot
Merde, ce un salaud – (roughly) Damn, what a bastard
Tu sait qui mon visage est très belle – you know that my face is very beautiful
Estoy seguro – I'm sure
Lo hizo – it worked
Yo sé – I know
Pero debemos – but we should
Croyez-moi – believe me
C'est parfait – it's perfect
Dès le moment où je l'ai vu – from the moment I saw it
Ne pensez-vous pas – don't you think so
Pero, puuues, un pocito demasiado – but, weeeeeell, a little too
Ne savez-vous pas – Don't you know?
Vous allez bien/je vais bien – are you okay/I'm okay
Etes sûr/je suis sûr – are you sure/I'm sure
Vous n'avez pas à vous soucier, vraiment – you don't have to worry, really
Adieu, adieu – jusqu'à ce qu'il soit jour – goodbye, goodbye, parting is such sweet sorrow
N'est pas amusant – you're no fun
