Beyond the Gateway (Cranksepticeye)

Fifteen

The Avalon was on fire, and there was nothing Jack could do about it.
All of Manhattan was on fire.
Brighter than day, the night sky was orange with the light of the flames, leaping to singe clouds. Terrible music thundered; pipes and drums and skirling voices clawed the air with triumphant, horrific noise. There was the sound of hooves. He looked down at the ground, far, far below, and saw that the streets of the city ran red with blood.
He could not stop it.
He didn't want to.
A savage glee filled the space where his heart should have been, and Jack opened his mouth wide to add his voice to the sounds of the war cries ringing through the air all around him.

"Hey, McLaughlin, get some sleep last night?"
Jack looked up, jolted from the remembrance of his disturbing dreams. "Hey, Alec," he sighed. Scenes if carnage had paraded through his head all last night. " Yeah, I slept. A ton. Wish I hadn't."
Alec regarded him with a grin. "You are an odd, odd guy."
Jack smiled back. "That's what I was thinking for my bio in the show program. You know, and that only playing the part 'cause the real actor went snap . . . "
"Hey! Don't kid yourself, I think you're a smokin' Titania. And just between you and me? Before he went snap? I shuddered at the thought of having to do the bower scene with Crazy B every night. With you it'll be fun!" Alec leaned beside him against the wall. "Wanna go practice? It'll only take a second to grab my ass . . . uh . . . head. My ass head."
Jack threw back his head and laughed, his mood brightened. It was becoming pretty obvious that, bad jokes notwithstanding, Alec could have cheerfully run off to a darkened corner of the theater to 'reherse' with him. He chose to ignore that and punched him lightly on the shoulder. "You know I'm still the only hired help around here, right?" He wave one hand in an airy gesture, intoning imperiously, "I, Titania, King of the Fairy Realm . . . had better go mop the stage before Mindi sets my wings on fire."
With that, he made his escape, surprised to find this his heart was pounding a little too fast in his chest. He was cute . . . but it wasn't the thought of rehearsing in dark corners with Alec Oakland that set his heart racing.

He ducked Alec after the end of rehersal, too. Another day of having Lucky stuck in the tub had led Jack to the conclusion that the only way he was going to get rid of him was if he could find out to whom he actually belonged. He had spent the morning on his computer, printing up fliers on hot pink paper with a picture of Lucky (taken with his phone camera) and just enough information to hopefully get someone to call him without calling the police or a mental institution. After rehersal, armed with the fliers, a stapler, and a roll of tape, he hit the park and headed toward the few scattered bulletin boards so that he could post his notice. He started at the south end of the park and sneaked a look at his watch, wondering despite himself whether . . .
Cue actor - enter stage left.
Sure enough, he'd been in the park only about five minutes when and increasingly familiar reflection appeared over his shoulder in the glass-cased bulletin board.
Jack didn't even turn around.
"Don't you have a home?" he asked, awash in studied nonchalance. He opened the glass and stapled a pink flier over a free-concert notice from last summer on the corkboard.
He answered the question with a question: "What are you doing here?"
"I'm posting information fliers," he replied, waving the little sheaf of paper he held. "Not that it's any of your business."
"You shouldn't be here."
Jack glanced back to where he stood behind him, brooding.
"Nice to see you again, too," he said as he walked away.
He'd caught up before Jack had taken five full steps. "That isn't what I meant," he said, a note of frustration in his voice.
Hee couldn't tell if it was frustration with him or himself. He realized he felt almost exactly the same way. The crisp fallen leaves crunched under their feet as they walked side by side in what, under any circumstances and with any other guy, would have felt like compassionable silence.
"I'm sorry about yesterday," he said at last.
"What, exactly, are you sorry about?" Jack didn't slow down and didn't look at him.
"Uh . . . I'm sorry that I frightened you." his voice was gruff, awkward, as though he was unused to having to apologize.
Jack was determined not to make this easy. After all, he got frightened, badly. Why was he even talking to this guy? "Apology not accepted."
Beside him, his steps faltered, and he fell a bit behind as he said, "Oh. All right. I . . . understand."
"No, you don't!" he called over his shoulder, and kept up his pace.
A moment later and he was back at Jack's side, his long stride having made up the difference without effort. He walked silently beside him for another moment. "You're right," he said finally. "I really don't."
Jack sighed. "I don't see any reason to accept an apology of that kind from a total stranger, under these particular circumstances. I can accept 'sorry about that' from the guy who bumps into me on the subway car. That is entirely appropriate." He shot him a nother brief glance. "However," he continued, " sorry about that from some mysterious guy who gives me a gift, then disappears, then shows up at my place of work, then disappears, then shows up lurking in the alley beside my place of work, then  disappears-"
"You ran away that time!"
"Don't interrupt."
"Sorr- Er, go on. Please."
"And then shows up again, as if by magic, when I am running errands in the park-" Jack stopped abruptly and held a finger up to Ethan's chest. "Well, I do not accept a bland, measly, unembellished, unexplained 'sorry about scaring the hell out of you' apology from that guy." He turned away again and continued his swift progress down the path. "As a matter of fact, I'm not even going to accept the shiny, impressive embellished, explained apology from that guy. Without knowing who, exactly, that guy is. Your choice."
After he had gone several more yards, Ethan put a hand on his arm and pulled Jack to a stop. "Ethan."
Jack looked up.
He shook his head, smiling a little, and tapped his chest. "My name is Ethan." He paused, his expression turning just a bit cautious. "Ethan Nester."
"Jack." he said slowly. "Jack McLaughlin."
"And you're an actor." The tone of his voice made it almost a question , as though Jack was just something else entirely and Ethan just wasn't sure what.
"Yes . . . ," he answered hesitantly. "You saw me at the theater, right?"
"Right."
"About that, . . . Ethan." It felt funny suddenly knowing his name. "Seeing as how you know more about me than I know about you, how about returning the favor?"
His brow clouded. "There is nothing the least bit interesting about me."
Jack laughed. "I'm pretty sure that's not true!'
Ethan remained silent.
"Okay. So . . . do you go to school? College? Work? What do you do?"
"I'm a . . . a guard." He shrugged , feet scuffing through fallen leaves. "Of sorts."
"Like security?" Jack asked.
Ethan hesitated for a moment and then nodded. "Like security . . . I suppose."
"Fine. So you're a night watchman."
His mouth quirked. "Yes."
"Nothing wrong with that." Jack turned to continue their stroll again, and Ethan fell in step beside him. Jack remembered Tim's theory the Ethan was some sort of junior PI or something, hired by his crazy uncle to keep an eye on him. It name a certain kind of sense - especially if he worked for a security firm. He tried it picture him wearing an ill fitting rent-a-cop uniform with scratchy gray polyester pants and decided, just for the sake of his own imagination, that he worked plainclothes.
They took the path that led east around Bethesda Fountain and down through a leafy stone archway, skirting the north side of Conservatory Water. Usually there was a smattering of toy-boat hobbyists, sailing remote-controlled yachts on the shallow pond, but it was deserted so late in the day. Jack hugged his elbows.
"It's going to be chilly again tonight," he said.
Ethan froze in his tracks as if Jack had uttered some kind of curse or spell. He turned away, shoulders stiffening. Jack was startled by his sudden change.
"Damn it," he muttered under his breath.
Jack looked around but couldn't, for the life of him, figure out what was wrong. Everything seemed utterly still and silent in the park.
In the distance, a dog howled.
"You shouldn't be here," Ethan said, hid voice harsh, as he looked off in the direction from which the sound had come. He seemed a thousand miles distant. Closed off. Hard.
The abruptness of Ethan's mood shift caught Jack off guard and swung him sharply back into defensive mode. Had he offended him somehow? How?
Still, he tried to keep his tone light. "You know, the last time I checked, this was a public park. I" -he pointed to himself- "am public."
The dog howled again, closer this time. Jack knew it was a dog because he was standing in the middle of one of the largest cities in North America. If he'd back at home in the Catskills, he would have said it was a coyote.
Ethan turned to him, his eyes dark. He pointed very deliberately to the west. "The sun is going down."
Jack crossed his arms. "It does that, I've noticed."
He suddenly seemed years older. He was frightening. "I'm glad. Now you should go before you get yourself into any more trouble. Like you did the other night."
"What? That was not my fault!" Jack was flabbergasted enough not to bother questioning how Ethan knew about his near drowning. "How is that somehow my fault?"
"Whose fault is it then?"
Jack glared at him pointedly.
"What?" he yelped, jarred for an instant from his menacing attitude. "You can't possibly think to blame me for . . . I'm not even sure what you're blaming me for."
Jack was irate. "Okay. You see, if you hadn't been all Mr. Chivalry in the first place - with the romantic gesture and the rose and the lilty voice and the eyes and everything - the I never would have hung around here long enough to habe found Lucky and he wouldn't be standing in my bathtub and I" -Jack dug through his bag and pulled out the slightly rumpled pink sheets he was supposed to be posting- "wouldn't have had to come back here with these stupid fliers. Which means we wouldn't have run into each other again, and I'm starting to think that would be a really good thing!"
" 'Lucky'?" Ethan looked lost.
"He's a horse. Jack shook the handful of fliers at him angrily.
"Of course."
"Don't start that."
"I'm not starting anything. Wait . . . " Ethan's eyes went wide. "Do you mean you have a horse in your bathtub?"
"Don't look at me like that. Animal Control didn't believe me either."
"Is there water in the tub?"
"Yes!" Jack blurted, surprised. "How did you know? Every time I try to pull the plug and drain the bath, he nips at me and manages to turn on the taps with his nose. I think he's a circus horse or something. But I worry he'll get hoof rot!"
"He'll be fine. I mean, as far as his hooves are concerned, anyway . . . You don't know what you've gotten yourself into!"
Jack snorted and shook his head, refusing to indulge any more of this kind of crap. He turned sharply on his heel, heading north up the path.
Ethan shot out a hand and grabbed him, stopping them both in the shadow of the park's famous Alice in Wonderland statue. "You can't go that way."
"I can go any way I dammed well please!" Jack erupted, shaking loose. What was with this guy?
Ethan huffed. "Why? Why?"
"Why what?"
"Do you see anyone else here?" he flung out an arm.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Jack was mystified and angry, although he had to admit that they did seem to be the only living souls around.
"Most of your kind avoid this place like it's plague ridden at times like this!" Ethan snarled. "Why did I habe to get the one nutcase mortal who thinks it's somehow fun to fling himself repeatedly into the midst of dire peril?"
Jack stared at him, openmouthed in his astonishment. "I'm not even going to pretend I know what you're talking about." He stabbed a finger at his chest. "And I am clearly not the 'nutcase mortal'- Wait a minute! What the hell does that even mean?"
"What- nutcase?"
"No! Mortal!"
"Aren't you?"
"Of course I am!"
Ethan shrugged and muttered, "It's getting harder and harder to tell."
Jack took a deep breath and said, "Okay. Okay, I'm going home now." He took a few steps and them turned back. "Do I even need to tell you not to follow me again?"
" No." Ethan wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. He looked upset and relieved at the same time. "I promised the first time I wouldn't, and I haven't."
"So what is this then?" Jack cried. It made no sense to him - he barely knew him - but this hurt him. "What is this constantly running into you? Coincidence? It's a big park, Mr. Nelson. It's a big city! And yet, somehow, you just happen to find me here. Just like you managed to track me down at the Avalon-"
"That was planned. I told you: I went looking for you. And this was not coincidence because there is no such thing as coincidence," he said bitterly. "This is your stubbornness and  my sheer, bloody-minded bad luck. The Fates have it in for me. What did I ever do to them?"
"Why do you hate me?" Jack's voice was very quiet in the still air. "I don't even know you!"
And there it was. That look. The look from his dreams, the one that broke his heart. Ethan's face became open, wounded, his expression wide with longing and a strange anguish.
"Oh, Jack," he said. "I am so very far from hating you that I think it would be a great deal safer if I did. For both of us- Get down!"
Suddenly he launched himself in a running dive through the air, knocking Jack off the path toward the Wonderland statue. His head bounced off the cap of the Caterpillar's mushroom, and all the breath was driven from his lungs. Jack fell to the ground, gasping, head swimming from hitting solid bronze.
The howling creature charging out of the nights thin air had barely missed him, thanks to Ethan's shove. The enormous thing spun around with an agility that belied its size and sprang at Ethan, slamming him to the earth about ten feet away from Jack with such force that he was sure Ethan's spine must be broken.
Ethan lay on the gravel path, unmoving, as the rabid thing swung its buffalo-sized head in Jack's direction, fastening red eyes upon him. Its slavering jaws opened impossibly wide.
Jack stared in utter disbelief at its huge, hairy paws. They didn't seem to be touching the ground. . . .
Through a fog of paralyzing terror, Jack heard Ethan shout something that sounded like, "Turn, hell-hound!"
He thought to himself, That's the wrong play. . . .
That's from Macbeth, not Midsummer . . .
I'm in the wrong play. . . .
As the beast lunged at him, the dull ache in his head suddenly flared into blinding agony.