Perfect Numbers. Challenge 04: Prompt 1: Pink Ribbon
Title: Perfect Numbers. [Challenge 04: Prompt 1: Pink Ribbon]
Author:
soulsdisband
Pairing: Bert/ Gerard
Rating: PG13.
POV: Gerard's. Speaking To Bert.
Summary: Can maths explain love? A mangled, mathematical, human, anomoly of love which jolts and jumbles and shouldn't be questioned.
Disclaimer: Don't own Mychem or theused. Don't sue.
Author Notes: Don't ask why. Just enjoy the fact she comes. Also, I didn't intentionally use the word chemicals a lot. Now that I notice it, I wish I could change it. But it fits, and if this was real life no one would care.
There is a young man at the bus stop who I can see from my window. He sits every day for twenty minutes, even though the bus is never early. His head is bald and rounded perfectly. He looks bandaged, although mostly, I think it’s just his coat.
You tug at my sides as though pulling me from another world - sometimes you are.
“Don’t” I squirm. “They’re my tyre.”
“They’re your love handles. And they’re perfect.”
You are so insulting, but you meant it as a compliment. It’s all down to interpretation in the end, and perhaps that’s all love is. You know what I mean, no matter how mangled my words are, and you can read my mind when we kiss. Maybe we shouldn’t kiss anymore.
“Can I kiss you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because I want to kiss you.”
“Why do you ask? Why not surprise me?”
“Because I want to ask you”
“Do you always calculate?”
“Life is a series of numbers. A list of equations and shapes that explain why the sun rises and how life is born.”
“But not why you love me.” I repeat, like a thousand times before. We know these lines; we’ve played this part, but still we go through the motions because it leads us to what we want, what we’re here for. What science can’t explain.
“But not why I love you.”
“Happiness is just chemicals.”
“But where’s the equation?”
“Who would have guessed Bert McCracken is a maths geek?”
“I just like patterns.”
“I just like you.”
“Can I kiss you?”
“Why not surprise me?” But you press your lips to mine before the sentence is fully out, and before we know it equations don’t matter and the only numbers that matter are two, then one, then none as we run into each other, hot and sticky, like slick oil in the frypan.
We lay quietly. Sleeping. Breathing. Loving. All we needed was there. Your fingers traced slowly over the hair on my thighs, filling in time with movements so still they hardly happen at all. In these moments time stops for us, and as the word holds its breath we hold our chests and mouths to each other deeply inhaling the scent of history before we sigh and all the stirring of the world comes tumbling from our lips with an I don’t want this to end, and an I can’t stay here.
We sat for hours and minutes and countless seconds hoping to stop time again, rather than letting you go. But when the blazing sun died down on the neon horizon and a dark cool settled over us we knew it was time. Your bags were packed, they had been for days, while we anticipated the value of x, and what it meant we were.
“Aren’t lines endless? And circles continuous?”
“Don’t numbers go to infinity? You’d say, Gerard, but you know equations end and life has answers for whatever calculation you throw out there.”
“So what’s the answer? Why do you love me?”
There is a pause as your brain weighs up the amount of ways you can say this and not hurt me.
“I don’t know.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought life had answers.”
“And I thought you loved me back.”
When you have gone, I wonder if you’ll ever find the answer. There are numbers churning through my head, as if my prime is still to come. Impossibly perfect numbers where they are simple and nothing more than the sum of their parts. I look out to the street, and you have sat yourself next to the boy at the bus stop.
I rumble down the steps, counting them as I go - 16, 16, 17 - and I wonder why there is an anomaly before I hurtle out the door and careen across the street to your side. I go to apologise, to explain myself and why we don’t add up but the boy isn’t real. He is a she, and her delicate frame is proportioned perfectly when I take away her clothes. She looks me in the eyes and your voice says “She is why you don’t love me.”
She is bandaged. Simple and ready to explode - like a grenade with the pin still in. I look at the tiny pink ribbon, where her breast should be, before watching her shy mouth unfurl.
“Love me.” she says, more hopeful and questioning than direct.
I lift her face toward mine and lavishly stroke her sides. She smiles on my breath and I can see the sea in her sapphire eyes. The tears push like an ocean tide and her emotions swell with her breath. I place my hands on her breast, and in the air as if she is still whole. I can feel the differing degrees of infinity as my hand slips through her skin. It is warm and soft inside her, more so than her lips that are still hovering over mine. She comes with the bus, her insides slipping through my hands. And as she walks away, with her fingers lazily hanging in her mouth I realize we never kissed.
The bus hunches and jolts into life, jerking my head back to you. You stand next to me, fitting perfectly into my side. My hand is on your cheek and the wetness is warm against your bristled skin.
“Love is man made.” I begin
“But you and I are nature. So why aren’t we perfect for each other?”
“Because love is just chemicals. Don’t do this.”
“It’s too late.”
“You missed your bus.”
“You missed your chance.”
“I don’t love her. I don’t know her.”
We have sat down. Your face is still wet, but my hand has been wiped away. I am still waiting for your answer, for you to tell me why we don’t add up. But when you speak it is not mathematical. It is love, and something you cannot explain, but something you feel deep inside.
“I don’t think I know you anymore.”
Oh no, I think, maybe this is how love ends.
You kiss me one last time, looking into my eyes. “Maybe it’s not maths, maybe you were right. Maybe it’s just interpretation, and maybe, this is how love ends.”
Author:
soulsdisband
Pairing: Bert/ Gerard
Rating: PG13.
POV: Gerard's. Speaking To Bert.
Summary: Can maths explain love? A mangled, mathematical, human, anomoly of love which jolts and jumbles and shouldn't be questioned.
Disclaimer: Don't own Mychem or theused. Don't sue.
Author Notes: Don't ask why. Just enjoy the fact she comes. Also, I didn't intentionally use the word chemicals a lot. Now that I notice it, I wish I could change it. But it fits, and if this was real life no one would care.
There is a young man at the bus stop who I can see from my window. He sits every day for twenty minutes, even though the bus is never early. His head is bald and rounded perfectly. He looks bandaged, although mostly, I think it’s just his coat.
You tug at my sides as though pulling me from another world - sometimes you are.
“Don’t” I squirm. “They’re my tyre.”
“They’re your love handles. And they’re perfect.”
You are so insulting, but you meant it as a compliment. It’s all down to interpretation in the end, and perhaps that’s all love is. You know what I mean, no matter how mangled my words are, and you can read my mind when we kiss. Maybe we shouldn’t kiss anymore.
“Can I kiss you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because I want to kiss you.”
“Why do you ask? Why not surprise me?”
“Because I want to ask you”
“Do you always calculate?”
“Life is a series of numbers. A list of equations and shapes that explain why the sun rises and how life is born.”
“But not why you love me.” I repeat, like a thousand times before. We know these lines; we’ve played this part, but still we go through the motions because it leads us to what we want, what we’re here for. What science can’t explain.
“But not why I love you.”
“Happiness is just chemicals.”
“But where’s the equation?”
“Who would have guessed Bert McCracken is a maths geek?”
“I just like patterns.”
“I just like you.”
“Can I kiss you?”
“Why not surprise me?” But you press your lips to mine before the sentence is fully out, and before we know it equations don’t matter and the only numbers that matter are two, then one, then none as we run into each other, hot and sticky, like slick oil in the frypan.
We lay quietly. Sleeping. Breathing. Loving. All we needed was there. Your fingers traced slowly over the hair on my thighs, filling in time with movements so still they hardly happen at all. In these moments time stops for us, and as the word holds its breath we hold our chests and mouths to each other deeply inhaling the scent of history before we sigh and all the stirring of the world comes tumbling from our lips with an I don’t want this to end, and an I can’t stay here.
We sat for hours and minutes and countless seconds hoping to stop time again, rather than letting you go. But when the blazing sun died down on the neon horizon and a dark cool settled over us we knew it was time. Your bags were packed, they had been for days, while we anticipated the value of x, and what it meant we were.
“Aren’t lines endless? And circles continuous?”
“Don’t numbers go to infinity? You’d say, Gerard, but you know equations end and life has answers for whatever calculation you throw out there.”
“So what’s the answer? Why do you love me?”
There is a pause as your brain weighs up the amount of ways you can say this and not hurt me.
“I don’t know.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought life had answers.”
“And I thought you loved me back.”
When you have gone, I wonder if you’ll ever find the answer. There are numbers churning through my head, as if my prime is still to come. Impossibly perfect numbers where they are simple and nothing more than the sum of their parts. I look out to the street, and you have sat yourself next to the boy at the bus stop.
I rumble down the steps, counting them as I go - 16, 16, 17 - and I wonder why there is an anomaly before I hurtle out the door and careen across the street to your side. I go to apologise, to explain myself and why we don’t add up but the boy isn’t real. He is a she, and her delicate frame is proportioned perfectly when I take away her clothes. She looks me in the eyes and your voice says “She is why you don’t love me.”
She is bandaged. Simple and ready to explode - like a grenade with the pin still in. I look at the tiny pink ribbon, where her breast should be, before watching her shy mouth unfurl.
“Love me.” she says, more hopeful and questioning than direct.
I lift her face toward mine and lavishly stroke her sides. She smiles on my breath and I can see the sea in her sapphire eyes. The tears push like an ocean tide and her emotions swell with her breath. I place my hands on her breast, and in the air as if she is still whole. I can feel the differing degrees of infinity as my hand slips through her skin. It is warm and soft inside her, more so than her lips that are still hovering over mine. She comes with the bus, her insides slipping through my hands. And as she walks away, with her fingers lazily hanging in her mouth I realize we never kissed.
The bus hunches and jolts into life, jerking my head back to you. You stand next to me, fitting perfectly into my side. My hand is on your cheek and the wetness is warm against your bristled skin.
“Love is man made.” I begin
“But you and I are nature. So why aren’t we perfect for each other?”
“Because love is just chemicals. Don’t do this.”
“It’s too late.”
“You missed your bus.”
“You missed your chance.”
“I don’t love her. I don’t know her.”
We have sat down. Your face is still wet, but my hand has been wiped away. I am still waiting for your answer, for you to tell me why we don’t add up. But when you speak it is not mathematical. It is love, and something you cannot explain, but something you feel deep inside.
“I don’t think I know you anymore.”
Oh no, I think, maybe this is how love ends.
You kiss me one last time, looking into my eyes. “Maybe it’s not maths, maybe you were right. Maybe it’s just interpretation, and maybe, this is how love ends.”