geebee and frankie ficlet
Gerard/Frank, light of some kind
PG, Frank deals with Gerard's breakdown
inspiration: we are cities and turnyourankle's prompt ''inhaler''
light of some kind
(Few buildings, few lives are built so well even their ruins are beautiful.)
When it all had started…
When it all had started -if you can even observe time that way in situations like this, anyway, he doesn’t really think you can, but when it all had started, he had been shitfaced drunk as well.
It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and it didn’t happen in the course of one night but many, so it wasn’t as if he could have realized. No one else had, so how could he-
And still. And still the blame and the guilt and the gut wrenching nausea is overpowering and he can’t even - can’t even make himself look Gerard in the eyes the first few stormless days in the heart of the summer.
*
Mikey says, he comes to Frank and he sits down on the grass wrapping his long bony but soso comforting arm all around Frank’s shoulders and he says, “I know.”
And it isn’t so much Mikey’s words that make him feel like crying but the weight of his arm and the palm curving so well around the precipice of his shoulder, the warm breath just so under his ear. It all grounds him back to the ‘now’, back to where everything feels like shit, where he feels like shit but also ashamed, ashamed for being so selfish, so self-absorbed, when all that really matters is Gerard.
Mikey’s hand feels like magnet and superglue keeping Frank’s head just there, nevertheless. So they sit like this for maybe half an hour but Frank doesn’t even observe time that way in situations like this.
The shell pink sunrise is something he hasn’t experienced in a long time.
*
When he finally makes himself really look at Gerard (this is two days after the breakdown, after the phone conversation with Brian and after the failed suicide attempt - take your pick) Frank notices two things.
Gerard looks like shit.
He is still devastatingly beautiful.
*
The first time Frank goes to see them play, he’s barely hit the big two-oh.
They’re in somebody’s basement, he doesn’t know whose, the walls smell like cold wet moss, like he’s in the woods somewhere watching a couple of kids rock out like there’s no tomorrow. It’s kind of like who’s afraid of the dark but much too loud for that so not really at all.
It’s shows like this he loves the most and yet he realizes these kids will get to play the big venues, it’s only a matter of time, and he can’t fucking wait.
The singer -Gerard he thinks- is so sweaty and his jet-black hair keeps his face hidden like cotton curtains. Gerard’s step isn’t stable and his voice breaks and goes all over the place but Frank sees something beautiful in all of it.
After the show, Frank attempts a small conversation with Gerard and Mikey Way who he has learned is the bassist and the little brother and has the best fucking name in the whole fucking Jersey (possibly even in other places but he hasn’t got around that much, really, to be sure).
He ends up letting the guys crash at his place because the guitarist and the drummer had places to go, people to meet, and his apartment is basically just around the corner. Well, four corners and endless stumbling steps. These guys are fucking wasted, he thinks and says as much on which the young men in question agree by cackling and falling carelessly to the ground.
It’s a night Gerard says, later, much much later, he remembers only bits and pats from but that he wishes he could remember it in its entirety.
*
“Hey there Frankie,” Gerard says with a low warm voice that doesn’t feel as comforting as Mikey’s arm but it’s getting there.
Frank sighs as he settles down on the once light green, threadbare sofa that he has no idea from where it came to sit right in the middle of the parking lot but appreciates whoever put it there.
“Hi,” he says and wraps his arm around Gerard making him lean half of his back and his head onto him. “You look like shit,” he comments on untidy hair, the dark circles under Gerard’s eyes that have nothing to do with makeup and the lingering smell of liquor store on his clothes. He wonders whether the smelly clothes are a comforting blanket or a reminder of how bad things were just moments ago. A reminder to never ever go down that path again.
“Gee, thanks,” Gerard says and closes his eyes.
What Frank doesn’t say (because Gerard would want to discuss it, analyze the words and the meaning behind them, but the silence feels so good) is how beautiful a doleful snippet of life can appear like.
The sky is apricot now but just as pale as the previous sunrise he witnessed.
*
They have the fight when the worst is over; when Frank can finally find the energy to tell Gerard what a fucking piece of shit he is for not asking for help sooner; when Gerard is stone sober and looks like he can take the words.
They scream at each other in the same parking lot; they smack each other around the chests and heads, Frank aims a good kick on Gerard’s left calf that has Gerard cursing him and pushing him, pushing him down on the shabby sofa.
All the tension suddenly cracks and breaks like a neck that has been strangled violently for a long amount of time. Frank feels the effect immediately. It’s like finally finding his way back to the surface after a long drowning. He can breathe again freely, nothing’s strangling his throat anymore, nothing’s drawing him under dark waters anymore.
Gerard looks relieved also. Frank knows it’s what they both needed. He wonders if Mikey has had a chance to give his brother a piece of his mind already. He hopes that he has; he probably has.
*
When it all had started, Frank had been shitfaced drunk in Jersey, and California and Nevada, too. When it all had started, Gerard hadn’t been any worse than anyone else, everyone had been drunk or hungover or getting there.
Kids had enjoyed themselves; kids had fucking lit up in their faces moshing and screaming and this is how it had been like, to be famous. The price hadn’t felt like anything at all.
*
The first time Frank plays with a sober Gerard is terrifying, but at the same time, he feels as if they had been wrong all a long, like this is exactly how it should have been like from the very beginning.
Gerard is still devastatingly beautiful, even more so than before. His words aren’t slurred and he carries a tune, his eyes are clear from behind the curtain of jet-black hair when they meet Frank’s during every single song that finally sounds right, absolutely perfectly right, in his ears.
Long after the show has ended, just before dawn, Frank pulls Gerard from the immobile vehicle while everyone else is asleep in a mess of sweatshirts and blankets, limbs numb in positions Gerard would undoubtedly like to trace down his notebook with pencils and felt-tip pens. He pulls Gerard down the parking lot, hand wrapped tightly around his wrist until they reach the edge where asphalt meets untidy lawn and dandelions already transformed into small even balls of white fluff.
They sit down waiting for the sun to dye the sky whichever colors it chooses this time.
The air is fresh and easy to breathe.
PG, Frank deals with Gerard's breakdown
inspiration: we are cities and turnyourankle's prompt ''inhaler''
light of some kind
(Few buildings, few lives are built so well even their ruins are beautiful.)
When it all had started…
When it all had started -if you can even observe time that way in situations like this, anyway, he doesn’t really think you can, but when it all had started, he had been shitfaced drunk as well.
It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and it didn’t happen in the course of one night but many, so it wasn’t as if he could have realized. No one else had, so how could he-
And still. And still the blame and the guilt and the gut wrenching nausea is overpowering and he can’t even - can’t even make himself look Gerard in the eyes the first few stormless days in the heart of the summer.
*
Mikey says, he comes to Frank and he sits down on the grass wrapping his long bony but soso comforting arm all around Frank’s shoulders and he says, “I know.”
And it isn’t so much Mikey’s words that make him feel like crying but the weight of his arm and the palm curving so well around the precipice of his shoulder, the warm breath just so under his ear. It all grounds him back to the ‘now’, back to where everything feels like shit, where he feels like shit but also ashamed, ashamed for being so selfish, so self-absorbed, when all that really matters is Gerard.
Mikey’s hand feels like magnet and superglue keeping Frank’s head just there, nevertheless. So they sit like this for maybe half an hour but Frank doesn’t even observe time that way in situations like this.
The shell pink sunrise is something he hasn’t experienced in a long time.
*
When he finally makes himself really look at Gerard (this is two days after the breakdown, after the phone conversation with Brian and after the failed suicide attempt - take your pick) Frank notices two things.
Gerard looks like shit.
He is still devastatingly beautiful.
*
The first time Frank goes to see them play, he’s barely hit the big two-oh.
They’re in somebody’s basement, he doesn’t know whose, the walls smell like cold wet moss, like he’s in the woods somewhere watching a couple of kids rock out like there’s no tomorrow. It’s kind of like who’s afraid of the dark but much too loud for that so not really at all.
It’s shows like this he loves the most and yet he realizes these kids will get to play the big venues, it’s only a matter of time, and he can’t fucking wait.
The singer -Gerard he thinks- is so sweaty and his jet-black hair keeps his face hidden like cotton curtains. Gerard’s step isn’t stable and his voice breaks and goes all over the place but Frank sees something beautiful in all of it.
After the show, Frank attempts a small conversation with Gerard and Mikey Way who he has learned is the bassist and the little brother and has the best fucking name in the whole fucking Jersey (possibly even in other places but he hasn’t got around that much, really, to be sure).
He ends up letting the guys crash at his place because the guitarist and the drummer had places to go, people to meet, and his apartment is basically just around the corner. Well, four corners and endless stumbling steps. These guys are fucking wasted, he thinks and says as much on which the young men in question agree by cackling and falling carelessly to the ground.
It’s a night Gerard says, later, much much later, he remembers only bits and pats from but that he wishes he could remember it in its entirety.
*
“Hey there Frankie,” Gerard says with a low warm voice that doesn’t feel as comforting as Mikey’s arm but it’s getting there.
Frank sighs as he settles down on the once light green, threadbare sofa that he has no idea from where it came to sit right in the middle of the parking lot but appreciates whoever put it there.
“Hi,” he says and wraps his arm around Gerard making him lean half of his back and his head onto him. “You look like shit,” he comments on untidy hair, the dark circles under Gerard’s eyes that have nothing to do with makeup and the lingering smell of liquor store on his clothes. He wonders whether the smelly clothes are a comforting blanket or a reminder of how bad things were just moments ago. A reminder to never ever go down that path again.
“Gee, thanks,” Gerard says and closes his eyes.
What Frank doesn’t say (because Gerard would want to discuss it, analyze the words and the meaning behind them, but the silence feels so good) is how beautiful a doleful snippet of life can appear like.
The sky is apricot now but just as pale as the previous sunrise he witnessed.
*
They have the fight when the worst is over; when Frank can finally find the energy to tell Gerard what a fucking piece of shit he is for not asking for help sooner; when Gerard is stone sober and looks like he can take the words.
They scream at each other in the same parking lot; they smack each other around the chests and heads, Frank aims a good kick on Gerard’s left calf that has Gerard cursing him and pushing him, pushing him down on the shabby sofa.
All the tension suddenly cracks and breaks like a neck that has been strangled violently for a long amount of time. Frank feels the effect immediately. It’s like finally finding his way back to the surface after a long drowning. He can breathe again freely, nothing’s strangling his throat anymore, nothing’s drawing him under dark waters anymore.
Gerard looks relieved also. Frank knows it’s what they both needed. He wonders if Mikey has had a chance to give his brother a piece of his mind already. He hopes that he has; he probably has.
*
When it all had started, Frank had been shitfaced drunk in Jersey, and California and Nevada, too. When it all had started, Gerard hadn’t been any worse than anyone else, everyone had been drunk or hungover or getting there.
Kids had enjoyed themselves; kids had fucking lit up in their faces moshing and screaming and this is how it had been like, to be famous. The price hadn’t felt like anything at all.
*
The first time Frank plays with a sober Gerard is terrifying, but at the same time, he feels as if they had been wrong all a long, like this is exactly how it should have been like from the very beginning.
Gerard is still devastatingly beautiful, even more so than before. His words aren’t slurred and he carries a tune, his eyes are clear from behind the curtain of jet-black hair when they meet Frank’s during every single song that finally sounds right, absolutely perfectly right, in his ears.
Long after the show has ended, just before dawn, Frank pulls Gerard from the immobile vehicle while everyone else is asleep in a mess of sweatshirts and blankets, limbs numb in positions Gerard would undoubtedly like to trace down his notebook with pencils and felt-tip pens. He pulls Gerard down the parking lot, hand wrapped tightly around his wrist until they reach the edge where asphalt meets untidy lawn and dandelions already transformed into small even balls of white fluff.
They sit down waiting for the sun to dye the sky whichever colors it chooses this time.
The air is fresh and easy to breathe.