Work Text:
Usually, when Gerry is summoned for the first time, he takes on a form as terrifying as he can muster. A giant, roaring tiger with sharp teeth. A cloud of purple billowing smoke with glaring eyes that glow yellow with hatred and a booming voice. A silent, still shade with a pale face and a too-wide smile.
All he needs is for the magician to take a single step backwards, out of their circle, and Gerry would swallow them whole. Not very likely—magicians may be power-hungry fools, but they aren’t generally that stupid—but it’s always worth the attempt.
Today, though, as his essence is being grated against the physical plane, dragging him into a spatial existence, he recognizes the one summoning him. Sasha James. She’s no one who’s summoned him before, but still, he knows her, and he burns with the betrayal of it.
So instead, he takes a form she would recognize, his favorite form, the face he’d loved, that he still loves. She’s standing in her circle, a book open in her hands and a nervous smile on her face, practically beaming with pride that she’d done it. She’d successfully summoned him.
She’s older, now. Taller. She’d been a kid, before. Maybe that explains it, why she’s abandoned her empathy in exchange for power. He’s seen that happen enough times, hasn’t he?
He looks at her, hoping she sees the weariness in his eyes. Hoping there’s still something in her that remotely cares. “So you’re one of them, now?”
Her eyes widen. “No!” she says. “No, I—Please don’t think—It isn’t like that.”
Gerry looks at the circles surrounding the both of them. Keeping her protected. Keeping him trapped. “Could have fooled me,” he says. Then he points at a random spot on her circle. “You made a mistake there, by the way.”
Sasha tenses, looking down quickly, studying the floor, but she doesn’t panic. She doesn’t step out of her circle. She straightens, frowning. “Was that supposed to be a joke?”
Gerry shrugs. “I take it this is your first attempt at summoning? That’s ambitious.”
Sasha nods, color rising in her cheeks. “It’s been hellish trying to learn from outside the magicians’ circle. They guard their secrets so closely. It’s taken me six years just to learn this much.” She looks down at her book. “I wasn’t sure if you would even remember me.”
“Oh, how could I forget the noble Sasha James?” he says. No point keeping it secret, that he knows her true name. Better that she deal with that disappointment now than when she’s pointing some punishing spell at him, trying to prod him to do her bidding. He doesn’t want to hurt her, traitor or not.
But she doesn’t react to the news with any kind of dismay. Instead, she smiles.
“Oh yes,” Gerry continues. “I remember our meetings well. I especially remember, on one occasion describing to you how existence on this plane feels to us, how holding a physical form causes harm to our very essence, how what I desired more than anything else was for my name to be scrubbed from every last spellbook so I could finally be left alone.”
“Gerard…” Sasha says, finally looking as distraught as Gerry feels. Finally understanding what she’s done to him, what it means to him that he’s standing in yet another circle, subjugated to her.
“And you told me that the magicians are a scourge to you and every other non-magician in this city, that all you wanted was to find a way to rip them from their seat of power.” He laughs. “Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, I suppose.”
Sasha lets out a shaky breath. “I summoned you because I need your help.”
“That is usually how it works,” Gerry says dryly.
“No, it isn’t—” She rubs a hand over her face. “I need to know how it works. Where their power comes from. How I can use it against them.”
Gerry scoffs. “So I teach you all about magic. And then what? There’s one more magician out there, able and willing to enslave us?”
“No,” Sasha says. “If you teach me, if we work together, we can bring an end to this. We can destroy them.”
“No,” Gerry says.
“No?”
“No,” Gerry repeats. “I won’t do it.”
Sasha blinks, and he sees that her eyes are wet. “Why not?”
“Because I know how this plays out. You start out with the best of intentions, but then you get a taste of power and soon enough you’re in charge of your own little autocracy.” He shakes his head. “I’m not going to be a part of that.”
“I don’t want power.”
“All humans want power.”
“What about Jon?” Sasha asks, and Gerry’s simmering anger at her betrayal rises into a blaze.
“Don’t say his name!” he shouts, and Sasha cowers, shrinking behind her book. He forces himself under control, just barely. “Jon was different.”
Because she can’t leave well enough alone, because she has him trapped and she knows it, Sasha prods. “Why?”
It was always questions, with Jon, and never the normal questions. Not the kind of questions Gerry was used to, questions aimed at obtaining and consolidating wealth. It wasn’t greed that motivated him. It was ever-present curiosity. From the very first time he summoned Gerry, all he asked of him was answers to his burning questions and patience when his human understanding lagged behind.
It was, “What is magic made of?” and “What do you know about the existence of God?” and “Will you tell me about the spiritual plane? Will you take me there?”
“I was never Jon’s slave,” Gerry says. “We were equals.”
“You aren’t my slave either,” Sasha says. “As far as I’m concerned—”
“As far as I’m concerned,” Gerry interrupts. “I’m standing in a circle that says I’m bound to your will.”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do about that!” Sasha says. “If there was another way to summon you to this plane, I would do it, but—”
“There is something you can do,” Gerry says. “Step out of your circle.”
“Step—?”
“Step out of your little realm of safety. Prove that you trust me. Prove that you see me as more than a rabid dog that you have to keep tightly chained for your own protection.”
Sasha stares at him for a moment, and Gerry knows that she isn’t going to do it. She can’t place that much trust in him. It’s absurd of him to even ask that of her. They aren’t friends. They aren’t allies. They’re barely even acquaintances.
If she steps out of her circle, Gerry has every reason to tear her limb from limb and then return to the peace of the spirit plane for another few months or years, until someone much less foolish decides to summon him. It would be the stupidest thing imaginable, for her to do it.
Sasha sets her shoulders and steps over the fine white line of her circle. She stares at him, her eyes hard and defiant as she holds her arms out and drops them back against her side.
Holy shit.
It’s so unexpected he doesn’t even know what to do for a moment. His mind goes entirely blank, and all he can do is stare at her, an expression somewhat like horror on his face.
“So, are you going to smite me, or can we get to work?”
Gerry just stares at her. What is happening? Why did she do that? Doesn’t she realize that he could literally melt the flesh from her bones if he wanted to?
“Do you need help?” Sasha steps toward him and uses her foot to smear away part of the chalk circle at his own feet. Then she stays there, close, looking at him like he isn’t a monster that could at any moment choose to turn on her, like he’s—
Like he’s someone she can trust. An ally. A co-conspirator. An equal.
“Right,” he says, stepping out of his own circle, head still reeling that this is actually happening. “Let’s—let’s get to work.”