The Old Straight Track, Part 1

[jjtaylor]

Title: The Old Straight Track
Fandom: Bandom, Frank/Gerard, AU
Rating: Adult
Warnings: Uh, character death? One of two stories.
Author’s notes: Thanks to ataratah and phineasjones for beta.
Disclaimer: This is fiction.

Summary: Death is weird, Frank thinks, though he suspects this is not the way it’s really supposed to go.



Frank hadn’t really thought that pneumonia was going to be the thing that killed him. A car accident, maybe, or some freak electrical accident, or some other, much cooler way to die. But it was pneumonia that knocked his breath out of him, that made him collapse in the hallway of his apartment with his coat and gloves still on, and bag of groceries - salad dressing and orange juice and some dishwasher soap - which he knocked over as he fell forward, and blacked out.

When he wakes up, he isn't in his body anymore. He is still there in his apartment, and it seems like he can still feel his body. He thinks he’s still wearing clothes. He’s still breathing. He is just not actually doing any of those things.

Frank looks at his hands. He couldn't see through them or anything, but they also weren't exactly solid. He tries to touch the light switch, because he is sitting in the dark. He can feel the switch under his hands, but he can’t make it move. Frank figures if he was out of his body, maybe he was supposed to find his body, so he searches the apartment. The problem is that his body isn't anywhere, and neither was any of his stuff. The whole place is completely empty.

Frank loved this apartment. He’d rented it from Ray, who’d converted the big house that had been in the Toro family since his great-grandmother into a two family, updated all the heating, repaved the driveway from the gravel it used to be, and made it into a place Frank was only able to afford because he was a friend of the family, and because Ray didn’t actually like the idea of renting his home out to strangers. Frank had his own entrance to his side of the house, and the insulation in the walls was thick enough that Frank couldn’t even hear Ray walking around, and so he knew he wouldn’t bother Ray on the nights he couldn’t sleep because he was coughing too loudly. He was sick with one thing or another almost the whole time he’d lived here. Sometimes he’d see Ray as they were both coming home at the same time. Ray would offer Frank some of Mrs. Toro’s home cooking and Frank would offer to help rake the leaves in the fall or shovel in the winter. Ray would always say no, that he liked doing those things, and anyway, Frank was obviously both pretty weak and pretty small and Ray could get it done a lot faster without risking his health. Ray would insist that Frank call if he needed anything and Frank would promise he would, even though he never did call, because he never wanted to bother Ray, because Ray did so much for him already. Frank used to go out, used to go to clubs and concerts and actually leave the house, but it had seemed like the more often he was sick, the more likely it was that he’d just get sick again as soon as it seemed like he was close to recovery.

Ray had been there a couple of weeks ago when Frank had locked himself out, jacketless in late fall and in slippers going to get the mail. Ray had insisted that Frank come in and have something warm to drink, and he’d wrapped Frank in one of his big shirts and talked about what might have happened if he wasn’t home, if he should get a lock box outside because these sorts of things seemed to happen to Frank a lot, bad luck things, accidental, forgetful things and Frank had just shrugged because, yeah, that was his life lately, a series of hapless moments between illnesses. He’d had a good time just sitting and talking with Ray, and Ray had let Frank back into his own apartment when Ray had judged him to be suitably warmed up, and he’d insisted they do this again, hang out without the accidental getting locked out in the cold thing. Frank had agreed, but it just never really happened. Frank just didn’t want to bother Ray. He was right next door if he ever needed him and Frank didn’t think Ray would ever need anything from him, anyway.

Frank needs Ray now, because someone had taken all of his stuff, and left him here, in an empty, dark apartment, with no cigarettes. Not even a fucking tea kettle. Maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal, that much tragedy, because he hadn’t had that much stuff in the first place, and nothing of real value, but it had been his.

Frank laughs, suddenly and a little hysterically, because he’s thinking about all his lost stuff and not thinking about being dead, which he’s decided is the only explanation. He’s dead, or a ghost, or probably both, and he was upset because all his stuff was gone. He hadn’t really done anything all that great with his life, but he’d still had time, or he thought he had, to do whatever it was he was supposed to do. He thought that was the way life worked out, you just went along and the things you were supposed to accomplish just made themselves known and there you were, living your life. Frank had never expected he’d die of pneumonia, at what he thought was a reasonably young age, and then be stuck, as a ghost or whatever, in his old apartment. He may not have had much of a plan, but this certainly wasn’t a part of it. He feels lost and desperately alone, his thoughts racing, swinging from one thing to another, panicked ideas that this was Hell, or that he was just hallucinating and he’d wake up in the hospital, none of it making any sense or making Frank feel any better.

It takes him a long time to realize that the jangling sound he is hearing is someone was unlocking the door, and that the light had changed, that it was seemingly earlier in the day than it had been a few minutes ago. The door swings open, revealing Ray, speaking over his shoulder, "No one wants the place, because they all knew Frankie and they all know he died here. I thought about not renting it, but I could really use the money and it’s weirder if it’s empty now that Frank’s passed….You're not weirded out?"

There was nothing more disheartening to prove that Frank no longer lived here than someone else moving in. Frank wonders how much time had actually passed, whether Ray had tried to rent the place for months, if it had just been a few days, if Ray had struggled with the idea of renting it to someone he didn’t know.

“Ray?” Frank says, and it comes out slow and garbled. “Hello? Hello?”

The guy Ray was talking to just shrugs. He had weird bony cheekbones, messy greasy black hair, a giant messenger bag so full the top didn't stretch over it. "I bet someone's died in every apartment at some point. You just never know," he says. Ray looks mildly alarmed at this thought. Frank watches as Ray fidgets with the keys and the guy with the messenger bag opened up the closet door and peered inside. "So it's 600 a month," Ray finally says.

"Ok," the guy says, "I'll take it. I’m Gerard, by the way, I don’t remember if I said.” He smiles at Ray, all cheeks and bright teeth. “I’m sorry about your friend,” Gerard adds, touching Ray for a moment on the arm. Gerard hesitates visibly for a moment before saying, “My grandmother passed away, just last month. Death’s weird.”

Death is weird, Frank thinks, though he suspects this is not the way it’s really supposed to go.

Frank looks away for what feels like a moment, and Ray and Gerard are gone, before Frank could even decide to try and speak to them, before he could even do anything other than stand there dumbly and watch time pass in his apartment like scene changes in a play.

"I'm dead," Frank says. He’d figured as much, there weren’t that many options when you were out of your body in the empty apartment that used to be yours, but he couldn’t help that spark of hope that there was something else that was wrong, that this was just some out of body experience. Death was so irreversible, so permanent. It was supposed to be the end, and so it was kind of impossible for Frank to think about anything that happened after.

"I'm actually dead," he says again, because there isn’t much else to say. Frank couldn't tell if he was making any sounds - it sounded to him like he was, but in a distorted sort of way, like he was shouting underwater. Frank knew he was short on actual reliable source material, since whatever he knew about ghosts came from movies and comic books, but he'd never really believed ghosts were real and yet here he was, one of them, and so he had to go with what he knew, however questionable and fictional the source.

He still thought it was a pretty good assumption that ghosts couldn't talk. They could sometimes move objects if they really concentrated, though Frank had no luck trying to pull out the telephone wire running against the baseboard. He couldn’t walk through walls, either, though Frank only tried half-heartedly to walk through the wall between the hallway and the living room because he wasn't looking forward to the unpleasant feeling of banging his forehead. There weren't a lot of small objects left in the place so Frank tried to close a kitchen cabinet door to no avail. Like the light switch, he could feel it under his fingers but couldn't seem to make it move.

Frank tried to think of all the other things ghosts could and could not do, but his mind kept wandering into all the other things he knew about ghosts, which were mostly about why they happened. Grisly murders, vengeful spirits, people with unfinished business. Frank didn't think he had much to seek revenge against besides pneumonia, and man, if he could wrap his vengeful fingers around that nasty disease that caused him so much misery, he sure would. Frank didn’t really think he had any unfinished business, either, nothing more specific than the fact that he didn’t want to be dead.

He still kept hoping maybe he wasn’t really dead, but the way Ray's voice had sounded when he'd told Gerard that Frank had died here made Frank realize suddenly very clearly that it was probably Ray who found him - found his body in the hallway, all of his groceries spilled around him - and Frank wants to go over there right now, go over to Ray's and tell him he's ok, and apologize for dying alone where his landlord had to find him.

But Frank stops with his toes at the front door, at the very edge. He can't open the door because he can't move it. Even if he could even get over to Ray’s side of the house, what would he do, moan at him, blow some papers around, probably scare the fuck out of him? Frank didn't want to haunt Ray, he just wanted to say he was sorry.

Frank sees a beat-up sedan pull up in front of his house, and then Gerard gets out of the driver's seat and a skinny kid, all arms and legs and glasses, unfolds out of the passenger seat. Gerard bounds up the steps and peers into the window, right where Frank had been looking out. Frank jumps back, and he hears the jangle and click of keys in the door and then the door swings open, revealing Gerard, the wind blowing his messy hair back away from his face.

The lanky kid with glasses appeared behind Gerard a minute later, carrying a pillow. "Thanks, Mikey," Gerard says, and Mikey brushes past him, past Frank, and up the stairs.

The sunlight is unmistakably morning light, and little bits of snow are blowing in, right past Gerard’s worn and scuffed sneakered foot that’s holding open the door. Frank realizes, even though he’s standing right by the door, right in the path of the draft, that he isn’t cold at all.

Mikey comes flying back down the stairs, seemingly freer now without the heavy weight of the pillow slowing him down. He goes back to the sedan, and Gerard follows him. Frank notices his pale fingers, which he shoves into his pockets.

Mikey comes back up the front stairs carrying milk crates of comic books and one with an alarm clock perched on top of what might be boxes of cereal. Frank recognizes this for what it means - Gerard has probably never lived anywhere else but with his parents.

Gerard keeps getting waylaid in the open doorway, seemingly not bothered by the cold either, too occupied with taking the whole apartment in, as though composing the space in his head. There doesn’t seem to be all that much in the sedan, at least from what Frank can see over the kid's shoulder. There has to be a moving van coming, or else Gerard doesn’t own any furniture.

Frank remembers that, his first crappy apartment. He had a couch only because someone else left it behind. He had a couch in this place too; not very comfortable and pretty ugly. Gerard could have had it, since Frank didn’t need it anymore, but it was gone and he didn’t know where. Frank wondered if you had to burn furniture after someone had died of pneumonia. All he could think of was scarlet fever, and the Velveteen Rabbit. Maybe somewhere his couch was crying a real tear.

"Did you remember the Velveteen Rabbit?" Gerard asks Mikey, coming up behind him with another milk crate, and Frank shivers.

Gerard and Mikey finish unloading the car while Frank stays out of their way, lingering in the stairwell when they’re downstairs or at the very back of the living room where Gerard is piling boxes - there really isn't much in it, Frank was right. Mikey shouts over and over and over, for him to give him the keys. "Gerard!" Mikey shouts one last time before Gerard finally hands over the keys. "I'm going to get pizza," Mikey says and Gerard's face lights up. "You remember that the next time you're cursing little brothers," Mikey says and then flips his hoodie up over his head and runs off toward the car.

"Get some Coke, too," Gerard says. "And not diet, ok?"

Gerard leaves the door open when he goes to pick up a few of the boxes that Mikey left on the curb. Frank is still thinking about going to see Ray, about getting away, about just trying to leave and seeing what happens, and so he walks toward the door. He's thinking, at least, of walking around the house, feeling what the outside feels like because Gerard's left the door open. Though he stops and thinks about what's going to happen if he gets to Ray's and the door is closed. Is he going to try to climb through a window? Can he make himself a vapor or something and blow through the mail slot? And if somehow he does get into Ray's house, how's he going to communicate? What happens if, on his way back, the door to his apartment - to Gerard's apartment - is shut? Is he going to stand on the porch waiting for someone to come by and open the door, Mikey with pizza, Gerard answering the door for the moving truck? It doesn't seem like he's going to get cold, but he'll certainly get bored, standing outside on the porch without even a cigarette to smoke.

Frank decides just to go for it while Gerard's bent over the boxes, but something weird happens. Frank walks into an invisible force field, or that's what it feels like, something strong and unseen that bounces him back from the door. He tries again, his hand on the door - he's bounced back to about the middle of the hallway. Frank stays there, in the hall, his elbows against the wall, as Gerard walks past him once, and then twice, bringing in the boxes, and then shuts the door. It isn't hard for Frank to figure out what's going on. He can't leave the house. He's stuck inside his old apartment, with someone else unpacking right in front of him.

Frank stands there, at the closed door, watching outside, trying to settle the panic, hoping desperately that some insight will come to him.

He stands there until Mikey returns with pizza, until the moving truck, which is more of a big van with just a few pieces of furniture arrives. Then Frank hides in the bathroom as the two movers try to maneuver Gerard's mattress up the stairs. Gerard seems more like the sort of person who would own a second-hand futon and not a real mattress, but there appears to be no bed frame or box spring. After that, Gerard directs the movers to drop off an old, ugly chair in the downstairs living room. Gerard looks fondly at it when they set it down, and then puts all of his weight behind it to shove it toward the window.

Frank feels better when he’s watching Gerard and Mikey, it makes him feel less alone, less trapped in his head, less panicky. They’re so normal, they’re just starting to unpack, and Frank walks toward the living room to be closer. He thinks maybe he should let them be, give them some privacy, set some boundaries, or maybe try to ignore the idea that other people are now living in his apartment, try to figure out what’s going on with him, but it’s such an impossible puzzle, he’s not sure what in the world he’s supposed to do, and so he watches Mikey pull open the tops of boxes until he finds one of curtains, and then he goes to the kitchen and comes back with a chair under his arm. "From Mom," Mikey says, and shakes out a clean but yellowed lace curtain. "Lace, or lace?" Mikey says, showing Gerard the options.

"I need curtains?"

"This is a nice neighborhood, Gee, you need curtains."

Mikey stands on the stool and as Gerard pulls up a chair to start helping, he stops, his fingers on the lace of the curtain panel. “These were Elena’s,” Gerard says, and then twirls the material around his fingers.

Frank is captivated by the expression on Gerard’s face, which is both wistful and sad. Frank takes a few steps closer and watches Gerard’s eyes, which trace over the curtain in his hand, and then go somewhere unfocused and far away, and then come back to look at his brother.

“Yeah,” Mikey says, and stops trying to hang them for a minute. “Is that - is that okay?” he asks, taking a step up the stool and putting the curtains on the rod before Gerard answers.

“Yeah,” Gerard says. “She had good taste in curtains,” and Mikey hides his smile in his sleeve.

Elena, Frank realizes, must have been their grandmother. He watches closely and he thinks he can see Gerard arrange the curtain Mikey has hung with a special attentiveness.

Frank drifts around the room as Mikey and Gerard unpack and talk, and so much of what’s going on between them is like the secret language of brothers, of people who have known each other forever and Frank can’t follow all of it.

Frank sees a shadow in the kitchen, something out of the corner of his eye, and he goes to investigate while Gerard asks Mikey if he knows which box has his clothes. Frank can’t see anything that he thinks might have been the shadow, but he has a weird creepy feeling at the back of his neck, almost like a static charge. The longer he stays in the kitchen, the more normal it seems and the more relaxed he feels, so he thinks it’s just freaking out. He isn’t giving himself enough credit for keeping it together as well as he is. There’s someone moving into his old apartment and he’s a ghost and so it’s ok if he thinks he sees things lurking in the shadows.

When he comes back into the living room, time has speeded up again, because most of the boxes have been rearranged and half-opened and a few of them are actually waiting to be broken down by the door, and Mikey has his coat on and is standing with his hand on the door.

Frank feels a rush of relief at the realization that it’s just one person, that Mikey isn’t living here, too, and Frank isn’t sure why except that it doesn’t feel as crowded. Just one person, and it’s more like how Frank lived.

“So, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Mikey says. “I’ll tell Mom you’re all unpacked, ok?”

“Thanks,” Gerard says, and then goes and hugs his brother. Mikey hugs him back hard, and then goes out the door.

“Hello,” Gerard says, turning and walking back down the hall, and Frank startles, because there’s no way Gerard can know he’s here. Frank is just about to say a tentative hello back, but then it’s clear from the way Gerard is walking around, his hands crossed in front of him, that Gerard’s just greeting his apartment, and Frank feels a swell of tenderness for him. “Hello, so, I guess I live here now, so, uh, I hope I’m a good occupant.” That seems to be all Gerard can manage and he lifts up a box and carries it upstairs and, after a long moment, Frank follows him up. It’s as though there is a current tugging him toward Gerard and it’s too hard to walk against it.

Gerard deposits the box in the bedroom, and after some rummaging around in a bag, is holding a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt and a bright-blue towel in his hands. Gerard then flicks the light on and goes into the bathroom, tugging open the new shower curtain that Ray obviously put there. Gerard takes his shirt off in an awkward pull over his head, messing up his hair and catching his nose. Frank feels a rush of warmth as Gerard starts to unbutton his pants, and then stops and turns on the water of the shower before pulling his pants all the way down. Frank has a second to decide to follow Gerard all the way into the bathroom before Gerard closes the door, and Frank does it, steps in just as Gerard reaches forward and closes the door. He feels compelled against his better judgment, like there wasn’t really a choice for him to make at all. Frank presses his back against the door, the towel hanging there on the back, and Gerard takes off his underwear, and Frank can’t help but stare at his ass.

It’s incredibly intimate in the small tiled bathroom, the steam starting to fill the room. Frank shouldn’t be here, but he can’t leave now, and he feels better in here, closer to Gerard, and Frank looks away from Gerard’s ass, at least, when he steps over the side of the tub and pulls the transparent shower curtain behind him. Frank feels a strange kind of euphoria winding its way around him and he holds his arms close to his chest, trying to stop the need to reach out for Gerard, to step closer. He wants to see if he can touch the shower curtain, the feel of the towel under his fingers, the hot water. He can almost remember it all - he wants to get into the shower himself, but not alone, because Gerard’s there, and what Frank wants more than anything is to be in there with Gerard. It’s overwhelming, and scary now much he needs to be closer than he already is, with this guy he doesn’t even know. His chest aches with it, and he breathes through the desperate waves of it, finally sitting on the floor with his back against the tile, his arms around his knees, and there are stray droplets of water falling as Gerard stands with his body under the stream of the water and Frank should be able to feel them, but he can’t, and so he just imagines how warm they’d feel.

It’s a really small room, Frank’s never really thought about it, with the shower taking up most of the place. There’s nowhere else for him to look but at the other person in the room. Frank tries, though, looks at the pattern of the tile, the fraying edge of the bath mat, the aged ceramic of the bathtub, the water beading on the curtain, the steam fogging up the mirror. And when he can no longer look away from Gerard, he looks at Gerard’s calves, visible just above the edge of the tub, and then, because there’s really nowhere else for Frank’s eyes to go, he looks up at Gerard’s silhouette, watches as Gerard dunks his head under the stream of water, rubs soap over his chest, over his ribs, his stomach, and Frank can’t look away as Gerard reaches down and touches his cock. And, oh god, Frank thinks, oh god, he’s totally not supposed to be in here right now, except that he can’t actually look away, no matter how hard he tries. And he does actually try, because this is private, and no matter how much he likes Gerard, they’re practically strangers.

Gerard is stroking his cock, his face falling forward into the stream of the water, then his head tilts back, streams of water running down his neck, and Frank just watches, like it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and it feels like it may be, maybe it really is. All his guilt fades away, the strangeness and the ridiculous wrongness of the situation falls into the background in the exhilaration Frank feels. His body goes limp as Gerard’s tenses, and it’s blinding, it’s ecstasy, as Gerard comes and Frank feels it course through him.

Frank lays there, spent, listening to the water fall in the shower, and as Gerard turns off the water and reaches for the towel, Frank doesn’t move out of the way. He’s desperate to find out what will happen if Gerard touches him, but Gerard’s hand seems to bend around Frank, like reflected light. Frank can’t feel a thing.

Frank scrambles to the door and when Gerard slips on his sweatpants and opens the door, Frank takes his opportunity to step out into the hallway and totally lose his shit. Because the euphoria has faded enough for Frank to feel guilty, and disgusted, and horrified, and panicky, because everything is completely wrong about this situation, there’s nothing about it that’s right. There’s not a single goddamn thing that’s ok or that makes sense. Except that when Gerard opens the door all the way, his t-shirt inside out and his hair a complete disaster, rubbing the towel over it and making it worse, Frank feels his panic subside. He feels everything get calm when he’s looking at Gerard. He decides he needs to set some boundaries, like the bathroom is totally off limits from now on, and he really ought to try to look away anytime Gerard gets anywhere close to naked. He needs to learn to control himself, to resist the compulsion that’s pulling him closer and closer to Gerard. This shower thing had just been a mistake, he couldn’t have known what was going to happen. He felt better with those rules in place, at least. He’d just have to try to forget about what had just happened, what he had felt, no matter how amazing it was.

Downstairs, Gerard rummages through a few boxes, tearing out newspaper used as stuffing and Tupperware without lids and yanking back the cardboard flaps, ripping one. Frank still feels amazing, the afterglow like sex but better than he remembered. He wonders if it’s being out of his body so long, maybe he doesn’t really remember what sex feels like. But, Jesus, just watching Gerard like that, it’s he didn’t even have to - it’s like he couldn’t even touch himself, it was like Gerard was touching him. It was the best sex he’d ever had and all he’d been doing was watching Gerard through a shower curtain. He could only imagine what it would be like if - well, it’s not like he could touch Gerard, but he wondered, maybe, if he tried -

Gerard swore as he tore through another box. He had coffee filters in his hand but, from what Frank could see, no coffee maker. After a few minutes, he found the coffee, but still not the coffee maker. He did, however, have a pot which he filled with water and put on the stove. He then rinsed out the glass he had drunk out of earlier, arranged the coffee filter meticulously, and then carefully poured in the boiling water. Frank was caught up in the artistry of it, as though Gerard were a master chef, and Frank couldn’t help thinking his fondness, his attention to Gerard had something to do with the connection he felt, and that the connection opened him up in some way that felt new, shining, fresh, like a perfect morning, like Gerard’s smile as throws the coffee filter away, sips his coffee, and sighs.

“You taught me how to do that,” Gerard says to the room and Frank startles. He doesn’t know how to brew coffee like that, and so Gerard can’t possibly be talking to him, although who else, really, could be he talking to? Maybe Gerard knows he’s there, now, after, but then what Gerard says next makes Frank realize he’s not talking to Frank at all. “I miss you. And you, uh, probably can’t hear me. It’s just - I never talked to you enough while you were here, did I? So this is what I’ve got left.” Gerard sighs, and Frank’s heart breaks for him, for his sadness, for whoever he’s talking to and lost, for who taught him how to make do brewing coffee with what he had at hand. “Goodnight,” Gerard says, and takes his coffee to sit in his favorite in his chair. Frank can almost pretend that Gerard is talking to him.

It’s not hard for Frank to remember that this really isn't his apartment anymore, not when everywhere he looks, someone else is living, someone else's things are all over the place. His apartment doesn't even seem to have the same shape, the way Gerard puts the kitchen table makes it look like a different kitchen. The curtains on the living room window make the light come in differently, and even the bedroom, where it's so small everything's in the same place, doesn't seem like Frankie's bedroom anymore, because Gerard is everywhere. His dirty clothes, the ashtray by the bed, the untied shoes, the trail of daily debris looks familiar, because Frank did the same thing, but enough like Gerard that it’s clearly someone else’s.

He watches Gerard like he’s the only spot of light in a dark room. He watches Gerard getting up, showering, shaving, not showering, getting scruffy and shadow-eyed. Something weird happens when Gerard’s asleep, though. Everything becomes like static on a TV screen, and hours pass in what seems like only a few minutes. The rest of the time, Frank is like Gerard’s shadow, because he can’t stay away.

When Gerard is gone, Frank gets lost trying to remember every detail of his morning routine, the things he didn't have to - couldn't - do now. Shaving, the smell of his shampoo. Laundry. The longer he thinks about his day in the term of tasks, of chores and routines, the more meaningless it feels. He wonders where his time went, what he really did with his days, what any of it meant.

For a long time Frank doesn't have any clue where Gerard goes when he leaves. He knows he must go to work, because mornings and some afternoons Gerard leaves the house at the same time. And he's not wearing sweat pants for torn flannel pajama pants, or torn jeans. He's not wearing anything Frank could consider a dress shirt, either, so he probably doesn't work in an office. A store, maybe, or some computer place where nerds behind the scenes can wear whatever they want because they don't interact with the public.

Gerard also doesn't have a television. Frank thinks it makes sense - he doesn't own one and doesn't have the money to buy one, though Gerard seems like the sort of person people give electronics too because they feel bad about his pathetic existence. Still, Gerard doesn't seem like the sort of guy who could afford a cable bill, either. Instead, when Gerard gets home from work, he calls Mikey, or he draws, or he falls asleep. That's really it. There isn't much room in that schedule for falling asleep in front of the TV, so it seems very Gerard that he's just left that part out.

Frank doesn't even miss television, really, not the way time works in his new ghost state. He doesn't miss any of the shows, and it's not like he has time to be bored when Gerard is there. Gerard is like a magnet, like a shiny object Frank can't seem to stay away from, not that he really feels like he's in control of himself that much anyway. When Gerard is there, Frank has to watch him, has to follow him around, has to be aware of where Gerard is, what he's doing, what he might be thinking. Frank would feel like a creepy stalker if he had any control over it, but he doesn't. And so he watches Gerard like he's television, like he's the best television Frank has ever seen.

He especially likes to watch Gerard draw. Gerard sometimes draws in bed, with the sketchbook balanced on his knees and uncapped markers staining the sheets blotchy reds and blacks. Or Gerard will sit on the floor with his sketchpad on the carpet and hunch over it, like he’s trying to light a cigarette in the rain. He'll push his lanky hair out of his face, and it will fall right back, and Frank wants to walk over there with a pair of scissors and cut it all away, so Gerard can have his hands free, so Frank can see Gerard's eyes. And there is a moment, every single time when Gerard draws, where Frank watches him let go. Sometimes it’s only for a second, and sometimes it lasts for twenty minutes, until Gerard finishes something, some corner or sketch, and looks up into the room, blinking, unsure where he is.

Every day, when he's done making coffee, burning grilled cheese, and talking to Mikey on the phone, Gerard sits in front of the window with the best light and sketches, long wild pencil marks that reveal themselves to be monsters or zombies or the tree in the neighbors yard. He's good, too, not in the way that Frank expected, the kind of average doodles he'd seen his friends do when they think they're artists. Gerard knows the shapes of things, and where their shadows fall.

One day, after Frank clings to Gerard’s presence as he made a peanut butter sandwich until the strange, heavy feeling of treading water fades and he sits on the floor, his legs crossed, looking at Gerard draped over the ratty, slightly smelly arm chair with an afghan over his legs like he's a cripple, a charcoal pencil making soothing, scratching noises on the paper. Frank closes his eyes and listens to the sound and it's louder somehow than Frank feels like he's ever heard sound, clearer, like Gerard's pencil is the only thing in the whole room making noise besides their breathing and the beating of their hearts. Or Gerard’s heart. Frank thinks his probably isn’t making noise anymore. Frank listens hard, and when he opens his eyes, he sees that Gerard has drawn Frank's face. It's unmistakably him, with his stupid crooked smile, his round face, his hair even looks exactly right.

Frank keeps looking at Gerard, at the drawing, at Gerard again, wondering how Gerard could possibly know what he looks like. It gives him hope that Gerard will actually figure out he’s here, that there’s some chance that Gerard actually knows he’s here, subconsciously, and that it’s only a matter of time before Gerard figures it out, because the connection can’t just be one-sided. Frank’s sure of it now. Gerard can help Frank, can save him from this limbo. Gerard can bring him back. Gerard regards the drawing curiously, like he’s a little surprised himself, and then he starts to fill in the shape of Frank’s eyes with short little pencil strokes.

The next morning, he thinks he should remind Gerard that he should take out the trash, because that's the sort of thing you never remember about moving in to a new place. But Gerard, who fell asleep on the armchair, has pen on his hands and his face, paper lines and sweatshirt lines crinkled all over the right side of his face and his neck, is already grabbing the trash bag and tying it up. Gerard didn't always sleep in his bed. Sometimes he'll be there, comic books and half-eaten Pillsbury cinnamon rolls on dirty plates, ash and pencil shavings and one sock and three shirts and a figure-drawing book under his pillow in a way that would be terrible to lay down on. But just as often he falls asleep downstairs, in the armchair.

Gerard hesitates at the door, deciding to zip his jacket and then turning around to search the floor for an umbrella and Frank stands at the door, wishing he could feel the wind and the rain, or smell the wet leaves and the wet pavement. He imagines getting into Gerard's car, the air humid and chilly, and Gerard turning on the radio - he'd watch Gerard's hands on the wheel, the curve of Gerard's shoulders as he checked the intersection, the skin of his neck as he turned to look behind him before pulling out of the driveway. Frank wants to climb inside the idea, inside Gerard's car, inside Gerard's morning. He wants to sing along to the radio with Gerard, steal sips of his coffee, smooth his hand down Gerard's shirtsleeve. He wants Gerard to turn to him and smile that goofy, all-teeth smile. He wants Gerard to say his name.

Frank listens to the rain and sighs. He wants a cup of tea, like his mother used to make him while he was sick, and like he'd make himself when it got really bad but before he went into the hospital. He thinks maybe he should have never moved out of his house, or he should have gotten a roommate, but Frank liked being alone, and, he thinks, he could have died while his roommate was out. Frank thinks he's being morbid, thinking about dead bodies lying around in the hallway, even if it’s his own body, and so instead he thinks about tea again, orange-y and bitter. He wants to watch Gerard drink a cup of tea this very moment. He thinks of Gerard's lips on the cup, of Gerard's throat swallowing each sip.

Gerard's found an umbrella, and Frank watches, broken-hearted, as Gerard steps out into the morning, like Frank's a dog left home alone, waiting only for his master to return and barking at passersby who dare disturb his vigil.

When Gerard leaves is when time gets the weirdest. Frank can watch from the windows the activities of the neighbors, he can watch them get into their cars and drive off, walk the dog, jog behind a baby carriage, bring home bags of groceries into their warm kitchens, but he can't do anything until Gerard gets home. He can't seem to stay put. His mind, his attention, his awareness of space just sort of drift away like he's not grounded without Gerard, like he has no context for anything and can't have his own thoughts, like he fades away the longer Gerard is gone, and rushes back as soon as Gerard opens the door, his hands full of comic books, mail, a jug of milk. Frank feels it like the sun coming out, like the heat coming on. He's not sure if it's because it's Gerard or just being near someone, but Frank's never really sure where the days go - where he goes - when Gerard is gone.

Frank doesn't like being alone. He's too alone. He realizes that when he thought he was on his own, when he was alive, he was actually just spending time by himself when his world was filled with people he could call at any moment. It hadn’t always been that way, but it had somehow become his life, too tired to return phone calls, too sick to be anyone’s friend. Now there's only Gerard, only the neighbors, and none of them see Frank, he only watches them, pretending he's a part of their lives when they don't even know he exists.

Frank wonders if Gerard is lonely. He wonders if Gerard says things like Frank used to, that it's easier to be alone, that it's better to have his own schedule, keep his own hours, keep his space the way he wants it. He knows those things don't mean you can't have friends, but friends can just be people you end up disappointing, who turn out not to like you when they get to know your real self, especially when that real self is prickly, solitary, morose and sometimes dark. Frank can’t help but understand if that's the way Gerard feels about friends, if it’s just easier not to bother to reach out to people. Gerard at least has Mikey, and they are close and Frank envies that, because siblings kind of have to stick with you, no matter what kind of an asshole you are. Frank wonders maybe if Gerard's solitary nature is just accidental, if he wouldn't prosper with someone to make sure he leaves the house dressed for the rain so he won’t come back soaked, that he remembers his gloves so that his fingers aren't practically blue when he opens the door. Someone to wake up next to him in the morning, share coffee and a cigarette. Someone who is more than a friend. And it’s easy for Frank, Gerard’s constant shadow, to consider how good he would be at all of those things, how easy it would be to care for Gerard. Frank would be really, really good at being Gerard's more-than-a-friend.

It’s a few weeks after Gerard moves in that Frank notices that the door to the basement keeps popping open. Gerard doesn’t seem to notice, or if he does, it doesn’t seem to bother him that he has to keep closing it a couple of times a day. Frank would think it was just the heat, the furnace coming on, wood expanding and all that, except that it never happened when he lived here, and it feels like everything goes quiet for a second right before it happens. It starts happening to Gerard’s bedroom door, and the bathroom door, and then Frank can tell that Gerard actually notices it, because he’ll sort of pause for a second before closing the door, stand with his hand almost touching the handle, like he is waiting for it to reopen. It seems, though, that Gerard just considers it a quirk of the house, because he’ll shake his head slightly and then go back to whatever it was he was doing.

Once Frank starts noticing it, he can’t stop. He wonders if it was something to do with focusing so much of his attention on Gerard - he notices the things that are only on Gerard’s periphery.

Frank notices, too, that Gerard seems cold a lot, and even though it's winter, Gerard seems to have the heat set pretty high. Frank remembers wearing fingerless gloves himself on some mornings when the place was chilly, but not like this, Gerard starting out in a t-shirt and then being struck by a sudden bout of shivering, where he runs upstairs and grabs a hoodie, pulls his hands into the sleeves and the hood over his head - and then a few minutes later sitting down in another part of the house, rolling his sleeves up, finally taking the hoodie off again. Frank worries that maybe Gerard has a cold, is having hot and cold flashes, that he's going to get pneumonia like Frank, and Frank wonders if there are germs lingering, if anyone scrubbed the place down, and he pictures Ray here, with gloves and a surgeon's mask, scrubbing the hallway down with Lysol.

Frank pays even closer attention, watching Gerard for other signs of illness, of a fever, and he realizes the cold comes from certain spots in the house - drafts, Frank thinks at first, maybe the heat isn't working properly or maybe Gerard just gets colder than Frank, who always ran kind of hot even when he wasn't sick.

Gerard comes out of the bedroom, half-dressed and ready for work and Frank let his gaze linger a little longer than really polite on Gerard’s back, the way his half-buttoned pants show the small of his back as he bends over the put on his socks. Gerard shivers suddenly, and breaks out all over in goose bumps, and Frank thinks maybe he was the one to make it happen, ghosts were supposed to cause cold spots after all, but Frank isn’t sure why. He wracks his brain for every movie or comic it had appeared in - was it the presence of the ghost that made things cold? Was it some area around where they were? Frank can not think of a single time that it was a ghost looking at you that made you break out in shivers like someone was blowing icy cold breath across your back. Gerard reaches for his shirt, pulls it over his head, but seems unconvinced that the cold was entirely just from being shirtless. He looks up at the ceiling, holds his hand out as he approaches the baseboard heater and then checks the thermostat.

It happens again when Mikey is visiting, making nachos under the broiler while Gerard picks at pieces of shredded cheese from the bag.

“You could move in here, you know, Mikey,” Gerard says thoughtfully. “It’s big and I don’t really own that much stuff.”

Frank hates the idea immediately, and he’s hit with a sudden rush of jealousy even though he actually likes Mikey. It’s completely irrational, he knows, since it’s not like he actually lives with Gerard. Gerard doesn’t actually know Frank is here, but the idea of sharing this place with someone else other than Gerard makes him furious.

“Yeah, like Mom would let me,” Mikey says. “Anyway, you can’t cook and she can.” Mikey stands up suddenly and rubs his arms. “Also, she turns on the heat.”

“I have the heat on,” Gerard says immediately. “But I think there’s something weird with it, there are all these cold spots.”

“You know what cold spots mean,” Mikey says, holding his hands over the oven door and rubbing them together.

“HVAC problems?” Gerard says.

“Ghosts,” Mikey rubs his hands faster. “You know, you could get me a sweatshirt.”

Gerard does get Mikey a hoodie, which Mikey sniffs first. It isn’t a bad idea since Frank hasn’t seen Gerard do more than a few loads of laundry, and then Mikey reluctantly puts it on while Gerard makes a pot of coffee.

“How’s Mom?” Gerard asks when the coffee’s done, turning to a blank page of his drawing pad and starting to sketch.

“You should call her,” Mikey answers.

“I did, just two days ago!” Gerard protests. “I mean, how is she, with, you know.”

Frank wishes he could sit at the table, could grab Gerard’s hand and squeeze, because he knows Gerard’s talking about his grandmother.

“She’s worried about you, actually,” Mikey says. “More than normal, I mean. You did move out just after she’d cleaned out Elena’s room.”

“It wasn’t that,” Gerard says.

“But it was about her, wasn’t it? It was about her being gone.”

“It just wasn’t the same,” Gerard says quietly. “And it was time for me to move out anyway.”

Mikey nods, but he still looks concerned. “I miss her,” Mikey says, and Gerard gets up, seemingly to refill his coffee cup, but when he turns his back and gets the milk out of the fridge, Frank can see that Gerard’s eyes are teary when he says, “Me too.”

Frank runs for the door when Gerard gets home, desperate to see him like he is every day after the weird, nowhere place he goes when Gerard is gone, the timeless, never-ending place where it’s just him and the empty house. Gerard is fumbling with his keys, taking his jacket off, toeing off his sneakers and kicking them over to the radiator. He hangs up his jacket on the coat hook and then greets the house, silently, now, but Frank recognizes the gesture, and wonders where Gerard picked it up. It seems just deliberate enough, not quite natural. Frank thinks it seems like a gesture of remembrance, and then he knows instantly and without a doubt that it must have been something Gerard’s grandmother did, and Gerard, greeting his new apartment, was thinking of her every time he did it.

Gerard measures out coffee for the coffee maker and turns it on, and while it sputters to a start, Gerard digs something out of his bag. Frank realizes it’s a photocopied piece of paper, and Gerard slips it under a magnet on the fridge. Frank gets close to see it and then stops short of reaching for the paper, forgetting for a moment he can’t touch it. Because it’s a photocopy of his obituary, and Frank scans the next without really seeing it.

Frank retreats back to the doorway, thinking about whether it means something that he feels more comfortable in doorways, the possibility of a choice to go in our out. It’s easier to think about than his obituary, which Gerard straightens on the fridge, eyes lingering on it as he skims over the text. Frank’s looking everywhere but at the obituary, and he’s looking right at the kitchen light when it start to flicker. It looks at first like a bad light bulb, and Gerard cranes his neck to check whether the light is about to go out, but then the hallway light starts to flicker, too, and the lamp in the living room. Gerard gets up on a kitchen chair and reaches up slowly to tap the glass of the kitchen light, and just before he makes contact, the light goes out. Frank gasps, but Gerard seems unphased. He continues his path toward the light, tapping on the glass. When it doesn't come back on, he turns the switch off, turns it back on. He steps out into the hallway, whose light flickers and goes out. Gerard flicks the hallway switch to no avail, and the rummages around in the box nearest the closet where he finds a box of light bulbs. Gerard replaces both the one in the kitchen and in the hallway, and flicks the switches a few times, but nothing happens, and then, just as Gerard throws the old light bulbs in the trash, both lights come on. Gerard looks pleased, but Frank can’t help but feel unsettled by the whole thing.

Gerard calls Ray about it the next day, apologizing as if the weird hot and cold issues with the heating and the flickering lights in the apartment were his fault, a mess he got himself into and now Ray was the only one who can fix it. Ray comes over after dinner the same night Gerard calls, and Gerard is washing dishes with his hood up over his head, the steam from the hot water in the sink making his face and fingers pink.

Ray knocks and Gerard grabs the towel and half-heartedly dries his hands as he goes to answer the door. "Ray!" Gerard says, like it's a surprise that Ray is here, and a good one. "You can just come in, man, this place is actually yours, I'm just living here."

Ray looks both warmed by the offer and a little hesitant. "Thanks," he says eventually, and there's a real smile on his face and Frank feels a pang, because he lived next door to Ray for a couple of years and he's sure he never once said anything to Ray that made Ray smile.

Frank had forgotten what Ray looked like, what Ray sounded like, what it meant for a landlord to come in, someone who used to be his friend. He didn't want to forget, but it seemed the more time passed since his regular life, the less he remembered, and not in a wholly normal way. He remembered phone numbers and random things, like Ray up on the top of the stairs shouting down when he was a kid, and his mother making chocolate chip pancakes, but he was feeling more and more disconnected. He'd look at Gerard's calendar and not understand it, even though he knew he was supposed to. He'd hear the phone ring and think it was someone calling for him and forget that he couldn't move the same way, couldn't answer it, couldn't make his voice work even if he tried.

He has to spend more time closer to Gerard, looking right over his shoulder, being in the same room, and even then, Frank can tell it isn’t the same as it was before. He isn’t as strong. He wonders whether or not his time is up, if he had, in fact, been given a certain amount of time. He isn’t sure what he was supposed to do with it, but he figures he isn’t doing it right, and the place he is supposed to be is taking him, slowly, piece by piece.

Gerard starts telling Ray about the drafts, about how they're not always in the same place and how he checked the windows and everything, checked the heat and it's coming out of all the old radiators. Gerard diverges for a while talking about which radiator is his favorite - the one in the hall right by the front door, because he puts his snowy gloves on it and his shoes under it, and the snow and the frost all melts away - until Gerard wonders aloud if it was something that always happened with this place.

"If it happened while Frank was living here, I didn't hear about it," Ray says, a little sadly. "He didn't call for much." It hangs in the air, that Frank didn't even call for help when he was sick, and Frank had never wanted to bother anyone, especially not Ray who was nice and seemed busy a lot and probably didn't want to help a sick kid get groceries, or remind him when he should actually go see the doctor. He'd never realized Ray had noticed how Frank avoided asking for help, and felt rebuffed, and guilty, because Frank going it alone had ended up with him dead.

“What was he like?” Gerard asks. “Did you know him well?”

Ray gives a small smile and shrugs. “I guess. Our families knew each other, and he rented from me for a few years.” Ray shoves his hands in his pockets. “Frank was kind of a hard guy to get close to. Liked to keep to himself.”

Gerard nods thoughtfully. “I’m sorry he died,” Gerard says, and Frank wants nothing more to than to slip his hand in Gerard’s, press his mouth to Gerard’s shoulder, feel his heart beating.

Ray opens his toolbox and says, “Ok, let’s see if we can’t figure out what’s going on with this heat.”

Ray’s down in the basement for maybe twenty minutes, and he comes up again with a few gadgets in his hands and starts pointing various ones at the vents. Gerard’s drawing at the kitchen table, and his sketching slows and eventually he puts his pencil down and watches Ray.

“How’d you learn how to do that?” Gerard asks and Ray laughs.

“This? This is just holding a thermometer up to the vent,” Ray says.

“I mean, all of this.” Gerard gestures to the apartment.

Ray adjusts a knob on the gadget. “I learned because I was the one who had to fix things, and it was cheaper than calling a handyman.”

“So you became one,” Gerard says, impressed. “I don’t think I can fix anything.”

“Well, I can’t teach you how to fix the heat, since I don’t know what’s wrong with it,” Ray says, “But the next time something breaks, let me know and I’ll show you how.”

Gerard beams at him. Frank wonders why he never managed to have a conversation with Ray like this, and at the same time feels a twinge of jealousy that Ray and Gerard are hitting it off. He’s distracted, though, when the kitchen light starts to flicker again.

“Does it need a new bulb?” Ray asks. “You know how to change a light bulb, right?”

“I do!” Gerard says proudly. “I just replaced that one yesterday.”

Ray laughs, and reaches out and taps the kitchen fixture. It flickers faster, and then the hallway starts.

“My brother says I have a ghost,” Gerard says, making a joke. The flickering stops.

Ray laughs, and then asks, obviously concerned that he’s offended Gerard, “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

Gerard shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “I mean, maybe they exist.” He trails off, looking out into the distance, as though he’s looking for a ghost. Frank wants to find a way to show Gerard that he exists, that ghosts are real, but he can’t think of a thing to do, and he’s still concerned about the way the lights keep flickering, about the cold spots and the shadow he keeps seeing out of the corner of his eye, and he thinks maybe showing Gerard that ghosts exist can happen later, once he figures out what’s going on.

“I’ll go check the circuits downstairs,” Ray says. “You know where the breaker box is? Come on, I’ll show you.”

“Ok, I’ll be right down,” Gerard says, and as soon as Ray’s down the stairs, Gerard says, quietly, “If you’re really a ghost, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings by not believing in you.”

Gerard follows Ray down the stairs, and closes the door before Frank can follow him, and Frank stands at the door the whole time Gerard and Ray are down there, waiting.

Ray decides that there are loose wires, maybe, and he tells Gerard he’ll call a real electrician in to check on it at the end of the week. The cold spots seem to lessen a little bit, or Gerard doesn’t seem to notice them as much, and Frank wishes he could feel the cold so he could know whether it was the heating system or something else, something that had nothing to do with the heat. And then there’s one day when Gerard breaks three glasses. He seems as surprised as Frank is when it happens, each time. And each time it’s not clear whether Gerard brushed past them and they fell or he was clumsy somehow, but by the second one, Gerard curses aloud and Frank gets the feeling that Gerard can’t have developed a new sort of clumsiness. Frank actually sees the third glass break, and although Gerard’s standing right near the table where the glass full of water is, he’s not actually touching it when it slides off the end of the table and breaks. Frank thinks he can see something move off out of the room, and he thinks of the shadow he saw when Gerard first moved in, and he follows it out into the hallway, but there’s nothing there.

Mikey knocks and then opens the door as Gerard is Gerard is gathering some of the larger shards of glass carefully in the palm of his hand and throwing them away.

“What happened?” Mikey asks, and Gerard explains. Frank is actually glad Mikey is there, because Mikey listens to Gerard’s story of the mysterious and inexplicable clumsiness, and gets out his computer out of his bag and sets it up on the kitchen table.

Mikey drums his fingers on the table, scrolls down a page on the computer, drums his fingers again. Frank tries to read over Mikey's shoulder, but he can't seem to get close to Mikey for some reason, not the same way he can get right next to Gerard. It feels a lot like the feeling Frank has when he tries to step out the front door. He doesn’t feel the same pull to be close to Mikey the way he does to Gerard and so he wonders if that’s why the closer he gets to Mikey, the more Mikey seems foggy around the edges, like he’s not quite in focus.

"So," Mikey says, and Gerard pauses for a second, then continues bending down to pick up another shard of glass, "I think you have a ghost."

Frank wants to laugh, because, yeah, Mikey sure has this one nailed. Gerard, however, looks skeptical, which hurts Frank's feelings. "Come on, Gee, how do you explain all the weird stuff that's happening to you?"

"What weird stuff?”

“You had, like, a dozen cold spots all over your apartment. And the glasses? You’re not Mr. Graceful or anything, but who breaks three glasses in a row and is not even sure he was touching them?"

"Maybe I have a problem with my inner ear!"

Mikey just makes a disgusted snort. Gerard sits down with his sketch pad as Mikey turns his attention back to the computer. Frank keeps checking the hall where he thought he saw the shadow, turning quick, hoping to catch it full on, but never seeing anything that wasn’t just the shadow of the tree out front or the reflection of a car passing by disrupting the light.

“Did you get an aquarium?” Mikey asks, and Gerard looks up at Mikey, frowning.

“Was I supposed to?” Gerard asks, sounding almost worried.

“No, it just says that sometimes people have aquariums and they make it seem like their house is haunted. Weird sounds and lights and stuff.”

“I didn’t get an aquarium,” Gerard says.

“And Ray couldn’t find anything about the heat?”

“He said it was fixed!” Gerard says.

“But there are still cold spots?”

“No,” Gerard says, and then at Mikey’s disbelieving stare, adds, “Well, I don’t know, I’m not really sure.”

Mikey’s eyes fall on Gerard’s sketchbook, and as soon as Gerard notices, he tries to close the cover, but Mikey grabs it away from Gerard and flips a few pages.

Mikey is looking at the drawing of Frank. "Who's this?"

Gerard shrugs. "Just some guy I had in my head. Probably say him on the bus or at work or something." Mikey flips through the pages and Gerard protests, yanks the sketchbook back from Mikey's hands. Frank sees that there are pages filled with drawings of him.

"You've drawn him, like, 18 times, Gee, what the fuck." Mikey pauses. “Is this the guy who used to live here?”

Gerard sighs, exasperated. "I just....can’t stop thinking about him."

“Is this about Elena?” Mikey asks.

“What? No,” Gerard says. “It’s not the same thing.”

Mikey stills looks concerned. “You’re just acting strange,” he says.

“You’re the one who brought up ghosts!” Gerard shoots back, and then apologizes. “Really, Mikey, I’m fine. It’s just something that’s been on my mind since I moved here. You’d feel the same if you moved in here. I think it’s respectful, to think about him. This guy died here, Mikey, all alone. At least she had us.”

Part 2