Little Ball of Cells
Title: Little Ball of Cells
Author: xx_anarchy_xx
Raiting: PG-13
Pairing: Gerard/Lindsey
Summary: “Why do we need an axe in the bathroom?”
Warnings: AU
The sound of Gerard’s bathroom cabinet creaking open caused him to stop showering. He froze, mid grab to get the shower gel from its special hook on the white tiled wall. Over the sound of the running water cascading down his body he could defiantly hear someone rooting through the cabinet, pausing every once in a while to scoff at something before continuing. Fear gripped Gerard’s exposed chest. He was meant to be the only one in the house. Lindsey had gone to work an hour or so ago and he’d only just managed to drag himself out of bed to set the coffee machine going so when he was done showering he wouldn’t have to wait for his first cup of the day. No one else had a key and Gerard was certain, as much as he knew Dr. Manhattan was blue, that Lindsey had slammed the door so it locked when she left.
The fear intensified the longer Gerard stood under the showerhead as hundreds of horror movie cinereous ran through his mind of situations just like the one he was in. He couldn’t recall a single one where the hapless person used to fill the studio’s body quota survived the encounter. He cursed himself silently for not being stronger when trying to persuade Lindsey into letting him install an axe in the bathroom.
-- “Why do we need an axe in the bathroom?” She asked, looking at different shades of paint on a colour chart for the one that would look best in the living room.
“In case there’s a fire and the lock breaks. Need to get out somehow,” Gerard answered, leaning over the handlebar of the cart looking more like a bored kid than a 30 year old man with fully working legs that were more than capable of keeping him upright for longer than they’d been in the store. Lindsey paused briefly to look back at her husband. She saw that look in his eye and sighed before turning back to the colour swatches.
“Zombies aren’t going to attack you in the bathroom Gee; they’re not gonna attack you at all.” Gerard made an angry noise in the back of his throat and tried again to convince his wife that he was right. They needed an axe in the bathroom, neigh, every room! Who knew when they were going to attack? It was a matter of household security and was more important that getting a burglar alarm installed.
“I’m over that now Lyn; I really think we should consider it in case of fire and other such emergencies.” Gerard tried to sound as sincere as possible. He was only looking out for the love of his life and in no way looking for the opportunity for his own TV series about surviving an attack from the rioting rotting undead on prime time.
“Where would we keep it?” Lindsey asked, not turning away from the colours in her hands. Gerard grinned as he could feel himself winning. He has already picked out the perfect one that would make him look really heroic for the news crews while it was implanted in a zombie’s skull.
“In a glass case I guess, like most fire axes,” he shrugged. Lindsey again paused and turned.
“Water and broken glass. No way!” --
Something, probably a medicine bottle, was popped open to a little cheer and a happy sigh. Gerard was still frozen under the spray. He knew he couldn’t stay there forever, he would prune up like crazy for one thing. He quickly looked around the shower for something he could use in self defence and grabbed the shower gel. It he got the assailant in the eyes it would give him enough time to lock the door behind him and call the police. Slowly Gerard pulled back the shower curtain and saw the intruder’s back but slipped and fell to the floor, ripping the shower curtain from its hooks at the same time. The intruder turned round as Gerard wrapped the curtain around himself to cover his modesty but couldn’t get off the floor that was now covered in water from his little mishap.
It was in that split second Gerard realised, once more, that he could never be a superhero.
Gerard looked up at the intruder who had his eyebrows set to ‘what the fuck’ and suddenly felt really foolish. He really could be nothing more than the human equitant to an over grown house cat. His intruder glanced at the shower gel in Gerard’s hand and smiled.
“Vanilla and rose petals? Real manly!” He laughed, scratching the back of his head, showing off more tattooed covered skin than before as the dirty white t-shirt rose a little.
“Hey,” Gerard started before his brain could tell him that he was shit at comebacks so all he could conclude with was “Shut up.” It was then he remembered that this person had obviously broken in somehow and had the gall to laugh at him. “Who the hell are you and what the fuck are you doing in my house?”
“I’ve been sent to talk to you,” The stranger replied, still looking down at Gerard. “And you won’t be able to pronounce my name so call me…Frank.”
“Why won’t I be able to pronounce your name?” Gerard asked angrily. He’d gone from scared to embarrassed to angry in under a minute and the stranger implying that he was an imbecile unable to pronounce names on top of that wasn’t helping.
“Because to get it right I’d have to cut out your tongue and force it up your nose,” Frank replied in all seriousness. “And I hate people saying my name wrong.” He really wasn’t kidding. Gerard shook his head roughly, spraying water everywhere, and creating a damp line across Frank’s jean covered shins. Frank leaned back against the pristine sink, using his hands for support so the porcelain didn’t dig into his lower back.
“So what the fuck are you doing here?” Gerard asked again, staring up at the tattooed stranger and his seemingly trying-to-hard-to-be-casual attire. Last time Gerard checked people who looked over twenty five shouldn’t wear ripped jeans unless they were homeless or in a band and even though Frank looked like he could be both the red hair dye on one side of his head would rule out him being homeless and surely people in bands had better things to do than to break into people’s homes in the middle of the day while people were showering.
Then again…
“I have news,” Frank chirped, holding out a hand for Gerard to shake. Gerard only glared at him through a pissed off red mist that had descended in front of his eyes. Frank saw this and withdrew his hand like a timid child. “Congratulations!”
“For what?” Gerard asked in the most monotone voice he could muster. The whole encounter had gone on far too long for him to care about anymore. He just wanted Frank gone so he could get up and not freeze to a near death on his own floor. The last thing he wanted was for Lindsey to come home and find his blue corpse lying on the floor wrapped in a shower curtain holding shower gel in a rigor mortis stiff hand. It just wouldn’t look good. That and for Grant Morrison to suddenly appear and climb through the window but the latter was far less likely to happen.
“Well…for becoming a dad,” Frank said hesitantly, tracing a spider web tattoo on his right hand just for something to do in the awkward silences.
Everything in Gerard’s world froze. He was pretty sure time itself had stopped. Frank coughed quietly and waiting for Gerard’s shock to subside, which seemed to take forever. It certainly wasn’t what he signed up for. Telling a man some of the happiest news he’ll ever hear: yes. Waiting around for the best part of an hour when Frank had better things to do than talk to a man wearing a clear plastic shower curtain with a slightly misty effect: no. Frank coughed again, louder, and Gerard snapped out of his trance like state to get to his rather shaky, damp and pruned feet.
“What?” He asked, his voice trembling with what was either fear or joy. Frank couldn’t tell which because when it comes down to it they sound very similar.
“Umm….you’re gonna be a dad…” Frank repeated with caution. He’d seen people with Gerard’s reaction before and eight times out of twelve they tried to hit him but only ended up breaking their wrists when they connected with the wall behind. Gerard’s mood, once again, went back to anger like it was on a switch in his brain and the little person working it was on a caffeine high.
“How the fuck would you know?” He questioned aggressively, almost moving towards Frank, still against the sink, but then deciding against it because of the wet floor. He looked stupid enough in his shower curtain as it was without slipping on the tiles. Frank sighed and rolled his eyes before reaching into the trash can and pulling out and pregnancy test, throwing it at Gerard who let it fall to the floor otherwise his curtain would do the same. From the very little that Gerard knew about pregnancy tests, which was very little indeed, he wasn’t sure if it was positive or not but didn’t want to be the fool once more so took it as a definite positive.
The frozen effect that had been in place before broke and shattered around Gerard’s ears as his legs gave way beneath him and he slid down the side of the bathtub making a rather loud squeaking sound as bare damp skin and porcelain rubbed together to create a friction burn that would hurt later on when his common sense had returned.
Because common sense would have told him to call the police by now.
A million different things ran through Gerard’s mind at such a pace he had to hold his head for fear it would break open like an Easter egg if he didn’t. The most important being why didn’t Lindsey tell him. At the very beginning of their relationship she was the one who said they should be completely honest and keep nothing from each other which then lead to them staying up all night talking about all the bad shit that had happened in their lives and Gerard explaining how he used to be an alcoholic. In his personal view that’s more of a fifth or even a sixth date conversation, maybe even a tenth, not a second.
Frank sighed softly and sat on the edge of the bathtub next to Gerard. For him it was an extremely awkward silence. Where he spent most of his time the inhabitants wouldn’t shut up, constantly bragging about where they’ve been and who they’ve seen and who they’ve saved which most of the time is an utter lie, but there’s hardly ever a moment’s peace. It’s why Frank liked being in mortal realms. He could walk practically unnoticed and not be bothered by people wanting to tell him stories.
“How did you know about this?” Gerard asked quietly, gesturing towards the test on the floor, not taking his eyes off it. Frank shrugged before he realised Gerard couldn’t see him.
“Let’s just say it’s my job to know,” Frank feebly replied. Gerard was no longer in the right frame of mind to argue, or be angry, anymore so he simply nodded and swallowed silently.
Now the axe really wouldn’t be a good idea.
Frank managed to make 24 anagrams out of ‘vanilla and rose petals’ (those being van, roast, tails, tales, sets, set, sat, sits, sit, vans, roses, petal, Peta, lies, lie, villa, rise raise, lap, leap, rap, raps, rape, and tall. Yeah, he was never very good at anagrams) before the shock wore away from Gerard’s mental state enough for him to realise it would be a really good idea to put some clothes on but he was still in too much disarray to get up. It dawned in him that he would have to ask Frank for help, the scruffy stranger who had broken into his house, how Gerard still didn’t know. Despite all the water that was around him Gerard’s throat was too dry to talk so he lifted his arm and hoped Frank would get the unsubtle hint. He did and helped shaky Gerard to his feet. Padding slowly across the hallway, trying to cover what was left of his modesty; Gerard backed into his room and gave a facial expression to tell Frank that he was fine from here. Frank nodded and turned the other way as the door was closed. Gerard collapsed instantly on the bed; face first no longer caring about the shower curtain that bunched up around his hips painfully, sharp plastic creases digging into his skin. His mind was still racing with the single thought why didn’t she tell me?. With a heavy hearted sigh that was mostly absorbed by the sheets Gerard rolled his head so he didn’t accidentally smother himself and looked up at their pillows, both completely different to the duvet cover. Gerard’s was black, but not for gothic purposes, it was so Lindsey could never really see how covered in paint flecks it was even though she nagged him to always wash his face before coming to bed if he’d been in the study all day. Every time Gerard did a squirrel like impression of her, high pitched voice and a strange expression that was meant to be mocking but made him look more like a day release patient, when her back was turned or she left the room. He then turned his head to look at Lindsey’s pillow, different shades of swirling red and orange that has cost him $47.
-- “Why the hell would we need a pillow case that expensive?” Gerard argued, not using the cart for support for the first time since they entered the store. He was an arm flailing machine now. “You’re just gonna put your head on it, not hang it on a gallery wall.”
“Because it’s comfortable, looks nice and ‘helps for a good night’s sleep,’” Lindsey quoted, reading the last part of the packet.
“But it’s $47. $47!” Gerard flailed, raising his voice, not caring if he made a scene. “It would have to record fucking dreams for that money!”
“I don’t care. I’m having it!” Lindsey huffed, dropping the case into the cart. “You can have this one cause you’re such a fucking baby about it!” She picked something up off the shelf and threw it in the cart too before strutting off towards the cushions. Gerard looked into the cart and saw she’d picked up a baby’s pillow case with building blocks printed on it that spelt ‘boy’ in a triangular formation. All of Gerard’s flailing power and anger at having to pay $47 for one pillow case dropped and he suddenly felt terrible watching his wife go down into the next aisle. He put the baby case back and ran after her to apologise and say that he’d pay for the pillow case, and anything else she wanted. His treat. --
Looking up at it, he had to admit it did look nice, especially compared to his student style one. His side of the bed did look like a student was sleeping there. No grown man has a Jabba Glob on their alarm clock that was only used to gather dust (it’s not like he ever had to be anywhere). Least none of the grown men Gerard knew did. He rolled over completely to stare at the ceiling and the light shade he couldn’t remember buying because he used the last one to make his brother a helmet for a Halloween costume. It would explain why it didn’t match the walls. Lindsey liked to do that, it was a theme throughout the house.
Gradually the cold started to get to him as the water evaporated from his skin. It was only then he remembered about Frank, who had been temporarily forgotten for memories of trying to fit a broken light bulb without turning the power off at the switch and Lindsey finding him collapsed on the floor with smouldering hair and a twitch in his left eye before doing it herself as well as the water balloon fight they had when they first moved in, before they started making the house theirs. Gerard contemplated putting the shower curtain back up but dismissed it for his curiosity to find out who Frank was and left it lying in a crinkled plastic heap on the floor. He grabbed what was nearest, old paint clothes that were far too big for anyone but were good to get dirty in, and went downstairs to find out where Frank had gotten too. He wasn’t in the living room though evidence that he had been there was, namely the fort made out of newspaper on the coffee table. Frank was found in the kitchen with the roll of silver foil and a bowl. A number of cutlery pieces had already been wrapped in silver foil so they had the look of the world of tomorrow as thought up in the 50s.
“What are you doing?” Gerard asked, hastily taking away the foil from Frank’s hands. He turned and looked up at Gerard.
“Passing the time. I dunno what you were doing up there but you sure took your time about it,” Frank answered, moving out from under Gerard’s gaze and slipping into a chair at the breakfast table pressed against the wall.
“Just thinking. Anyway who the hell are you? You still haven’t told me.” Gerard put the foil back in its proper place and started unwrapping the bowls, plates, spoons and mugs that had been covered, putting them back where they belonged. It was like a shit Christmas.
“You won’t believe me if I did tell you. No one ever does.” Frank’s voice hit a sad note that Gerard thought, just by looking at him, that he could never reach.
“Try me. I’m more open minded than I look.” Gerard turned around and leaned against the side, having left a bowl and a spoon and a mug out for immanent use.
Frank sighed and ran a hand over the red part of his hair. “I’m an angel.”
Silence echoed through the room, only the second hand ticking on the clock was breaking the heavy stillness. Neither of them moved. Gerard blinked a lot before daring to speaking.
“Well you don’t look like any angel I’ve ever seen.”
“And how many have you seen?” Frank questioned sarcastically.
“Good point.” Gerard turned and grabbed a box of Frankenberry and the now unwrapped bowl. Good manors got ahold of his tongue and made him turn and shake the box a little at Frank. “Want some?” Frank shook his head and started playing with the salt dispenser that was always on the table. Admitting the truth about himself always made him feel a little depressed. It made him think of the time he wasted when he was alive and how if he could he would go back and make something of the brief time he had. Say goodbye to his family, maybe even obey his mom’s wishes and stay in that fateful night instead of sneaking out and having the police call her up in the middle of the night about her son. Frank could never forgive himself for that. The agony she must have felt, the pain she went through. Having to bury her own son…
“So…how did you die? If it’s not too personal…” Gerard asked, slipping into the chair opposite with a bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee that surprisingly, though having been left to sit for a long time, hadn’t gone cold.
“Promise you won’t laugh?” Gerard nodded, mouth full of pink milk and marshmallow, as Frank poured salt onto the table. He ran his finger in it so he wouldn’t have to look at Gerard and see him trying to hold back the laugh Frank knew was coming. “An amp fell on my head and crushed me.” He winced as he waited for a laugh that never came. It was replaced by:
“Sounds painful.”
Frank opened his eyes to see Gerard looking very serious, even though he was technically eating a child’s cereal, and sincere.
“I didn’t feel it. One minute I was surrounded by hundreds of people in a very cramped room listening to a band, the next all I could see was white and a chick was pulling the ring out of my nose and putting me in this shirt. Apparently my death was instant and even if I survived I would have been brain dead for the rest of my life.”
After he died Frank had to witness his own funeral. It was a very creepy experience. Seeing his mom crying her eyes out, his dad standing next to her for the first time in years. United in grief. Relatives Frank had never seen before had turned up and were crying. Before then Frank didn’t know he had such a large family and being dead just made him want to be alive to meet them all, find out about them and how they were related. Seeing his own body in a coffin was the creepiest experience of all. He didn’t look like himself. He looked normal. No sign of a personality that used to run through the now deceased body and everyone who knew him knew Frank had a lot of personality.
“Probably best you died then,” Gerard commented, breaking the angel’s train of thought with another spoon of cereal. “And there’s a sentence I’d never thought I’d say.”
“Yeah,” Frank sighed, rubbing his finger through the salt again, his head resting on his folded arm that was on the table. Another silence fell that was permeated by Gerard’s eating noises more than the clock.
“So, what are you here for? I’m not gonna die soon am I?” Gerard asked, sounding surprisingly calm if he genuinely thought he was about to die. Frank couldn’t tell if he was joking or was serious. Gerard was getting increasingly hard to read by voice alone.
“You’ve fathered a child. That was pretty much it,” the punk angel shrugged. When he thought about it he didn’t really know why he’d been sent to deliver news that a plastic stick with pee on it could do just as well and in all honesty, it pissed him off.
“That’s it? Why am I getting the angel treatment for that? Most people find out without the aid of any religious symbol,” Gerard pointed out, slurping pink milk from his spoon loudly like it was soup and he was a small child at a fancy restaurant.
“Would you rather a fucking star appear above your house to guide weirdoes in from around the globe? Cause I can do that ya know! This place with be filled with drunken hobo fights before the end of the month!” Gerard stopped and looked up at Frank with shock in his eyes. He didn’t know angels could get angry too. The well trained punk attitude that had been locked away for so long had been set free for a breath. Frank ran his hand over the red part of his hair, it was becoming a nervous habit, and sighed. “Sorry.”
Gerard’s spoon rattled against the porcelain of the empty bowl when he dropped it. “It’s okay. You wouldn’t be the first to get angry at something I’ve said.”
-- It all started with How to Kill Your Boyfriend. It was the time of the month where Gerard would read comics constantly, hoping to see something new within the well worn pages that would inspire his creative juices. That and he liked to read them, curdled up in the corner of the couch in a jumper three sizes too big with thumb holes picked into the sleeves. Lindsey knew her husband had his ‘time of the month’ but didn’t know he would be so messy about it. You could easily tell where he’d been sat because during Gerard’s ‘time of the month’ he chose not to shower because “it could ruin a possible idea that was yet to flourish into life.” Apparently “dirt holds a lot of secrets for those who seek them”. This was also the time when Lindsey thought her husband spent far too much time playing online games but she let that slip. Everyone’s allowed their childish pleasures. While Gerard stayed huddled up in his jumper (or ‘The Rag’ as Lindsey called it when he wouldn’t let her wash it even though it smelt worse then a dog blanket in a hot car) coffee cups would grow like weeds around him in tall towers, the cups from different coffee franchises stacked within each other like it was meant to be modern art. It was Gerard’s 21st century fort from the real world. As well as the cups the take out would appear, the empty cartons strewn across his corner of the room, of the couch, like a territory boundary. Beware all ye who enter. All the mess pissed Lindsey off, it wasn’t that she strived to be the perfect housewife, far from it (she had a job and had married a househusband thankyouverymuch) but it was the idea that the cycle was never ending. Every month Gerard would break out his box of comics from the downstairs closet, the jumper resting on top of them all, and it would start all over again, the coffee, the take out, the incessant chain smoking that billowed out whenever the door was opened. While lying in their bed, Gerard still in his jumper that he now refused to take off, Lindsey hatched a plan. She snuck out and put away the comic box back in the downstairs closet, locking the door. It may have seemed a little extreme but desperate times call for desperate measures.
The next morning Lindsey awoke to a girl like shriek that even she’d never been able to reach. That was quickly followed by the sound of feet rapidly hitting the stairs and the door being swung open so it slammed against the wall. Covering her head with the duvet she quickly caught a glance at her clock.
11:55
“Fucking Watchmen reference…”
“LYN!” Gerard yelled, shaking her cushioned cocoon. She groaned loudly and tried to turn over, put her face in the pillow and ride it out. Gerard got bored easily sometimes. Sadly, this was not one of those times. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BOX?”
“Put it away,” Lindsey grumbled, keeping her face in the pillow. The one day off work she decides to sleep in all hell breaks loose. In all fairness, she did bring it on herself. Gerard had looked everywhere for his box in the ten minutes he’d been awake and was frantic. The closet door was locked, that much he knew so using powers of deduction he deducted that it was in there. He scurried under the bed in search for the key. Lindsey sighed loudly and sat up; flipping her matted morning hair off her face and peer at the man she married, though at certain moments she often wondered why. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for the key,” came the response. “I didn’t know there were so many magazines down here.”
“They’re all yours!” Lindsey gritted. Even under the bed there was a definite spilt of who slept on either side. Piles of magazines that Gerard read before falling asleep littered his side. Most were month old TV guides that he never threw out.
“Where’s the damn key?” He started shouting. That seemed to be the typical male thing to do. Get angry and suddenly the thing you were looking for would come to you. He would start singing to it next!
“I’m not giving you the key,” Lindsey said clearly, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Gerard scuttled back out so he was on his knees next to her. “It’s been a while since he’s been like that,” she couldn’t help but think.
“But…why?”
“Cause I’m sick of this routine. Every month it’s the same and I’m sick of it!” She exploded, slamming her fists into the mattress by her sides. Gerard was so surprised by the outburst he fell on his ass.
“Hey, you knew I was like this when you met me,” Gerard defended, putting his hands up.
“But I didn’t think you’d stay like it! Jesus Christ Gerard you’re a fucking kid trapped in a man’s body! You need to grow the fuck up!” Suddenly it was all out. The little thing that had been put to one side in Lindsey’s mind, thinking she could ignore it if she just didn’t think about it. Gerard stared at his wife, completely shocked. He’d never known her to get that angry. It was even worse that she directed it at him.
“Oh, so it’s alright for you to have a shit load of things that I don’t say a word about and you have a go at my one thing? This is what I do Lyn, you know that. You knew that when we met, I never hid it from you!”
“I didn’t think it would last! I thought you would have grown up.”
They sat in silence, Gerard still on the floor in the jumper that has been one of the main boiling over points for Lindsey even though she hadn’t said it.
“I knew you would turn out like your mother,” Gerard mumbled hoping no one would hear. Sadly they did. Lindsey’s eyes went wide as she stared at him with nothing but anger in her irises. Her knuckles went white with how hard her hands were balled into fists.
“What did you just say?” She hissed, not taker her eyes off the man on the floor. They weren’t husband and wife anymore. This was war. There was a second of breathing space where no one said anything and nothing could be heard apart from their separate heartbeats flooding in their ears.
Instead of taking it back Gerard stood up straight, hands by his sides, and cleared his throat. “I said I knew you would turn out like your mother you deaf bit-”
Gerard never finished his sentence, it’s probably best that he didn’t, because Lindsey had slapped him so hard he ended up back on the floor clutching his cheek like the skin had been ripped off it. She still stared at him like a woman possessed.
“Get out,” she whispered, barely audible. Her hands were still fists. Her face was going red.
“Why the fuck should I?” Gerard said back. “You started this!”
“GET OUT!” Lindsey screamed, ripping the duvet off her and pushing Gerard out of their bedroom and out of the house. He didn’t put up much of a fight. Common sense told him not to. Once he was firmly out of the house, after nearly falling down the stairs, Lindsey locked the door and went back up to their room. Gerard was stuck in the front yard so all he could do was try to reason with his hysterical wife. He sighed and ran a hand over his face. Something told him he wasn’t going to come out of his with his pride intact. Or still having complete ownership of his balls.
“Lyn? Lyn, please sweetie, I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean it right?” He yelled up as the bedroom window was opened. A shirt hit him square in the face, one of his best ones. It still had the hanger in it. “Lyn?”
“I am not like my fucking mother!” She screamed down. This naturally caused a few curtains to twitch from either side. Neighbours wondering what was happening. A pair of jeans was balled up and thrown towards Gerard’s crotch, which he narrowly missed.
“This is my house too. It’s in both our names!” Gerard briefly fought back, only to have a shoe graze past his ear.
“Who pays most of the bills? ME! Who does most of the grocery shopping? ME! You know most of the time I lie awake wondering why the fuck I even married you!” Another shirt was thrown. It wrapped itself around Gerard’s head before he pulled it off in a daze.
“What?”
“My dad was right about you. He told me never to marry you cause I’d be lowering myself. AND HE WAS FUCKING RIGHT!” Lindsey slammed the window shut, leaving Gerard in the middle of the lawn stunned and surrounded by various items of clothing. He tentatively walked towards the door and opened the mail slot to talk through.
“Lyn? Lindsey? Sweetie?” She wasn’t biting. Unknown to Gerard she was on their bed, on his side, hugging his pillow and crying silently into it. She could still hear him. “I had no idea you felt like that. I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you unhappy. You mean the world to me. If you can hear me go into my study and look in the second drawer of my desk. Was meant to be a gift but I guess that seems pointless now. If you want me I’ll be at Mikey’s since it’s obvious you don’t want me here anymore.” He listened briefly for any signs of life before picking up his clothes and walking towards his brother’s house. Lindsey waited until she knew Gerard was off the driveway before moving. Everything was in baby steps, like she was just learning to walk again. Carefully pushing open the door, hoping not to disturb anything that was important, she stepped around boxes and action figure dioramas depicting scenes that, she guessed, were yet to be drawn and walked towards the desk pushed into the corner of the room. It was covered in paper and opened letters, prototype merchandise and three lamps that constantly burned. In the second drawer was a red envelope that hadn’t been sealed. With shaking hands Lindsey pulled out what was inside and her heart tore into as she read the poem:
I love you more than Han loves Leia, I love you more than Aragorn loves Arwen, I love you more than Peter loves Mary Jane, I love you more than Neo loves Trinity, I love you more than Anakin loves Amidala, I love you more than Clark loves Lois, I love you more than Mr Fantastic loves Invisible Woman, I love you more than Jack loves Sally.
You’re my angel, you mean the world to me.
(And please forgive the fact I can’t write poetry)
Her hands started shaking more as she turned over the card it was written on. Torn from another piece of paper into a rough heart shape were two sketches they had done for each other on their first valentines. They had both drawn each other, only Gerard had kept them both, or stolen Lyn’s from her safe box at the back of the closet in their bedroom, and stuck them together. The drawings looked so happy. It was a stark contrast to what was happening.
Lindsey collapsed in the study in tears clutching the card like it was the only thing keeping her alive.
“LYN!” She heard Gerard yell from the front yard sometime later. She got up, after falling asleep on the floor, and walked towards their bedroom. Something was on fire. The orange flames cracked in the dead night air. It must have been late. “I’M SORRY!”
She noticed Gerard wasn’t in his jumper. The clothes she threw at him were in a heap away from the fire.
“I PROMISE I’LL CHANGE!”
Lindsey rubbed her red eyes. “What’s burning?”
“Take a guess,” Gerard winked, turning around on his heals like the dancer he was when he did the housework when his wife was at work, so she wouldn’t see and mock. It suddenly clicked in Lindsey’s mind. She left the window and ran down the stairs to unlock the door. They ran to each other and hugged in the middle of the lawn.
“You promise you’re not gonna buy another one?”
“I promise.” --
“So, what do you do now then?” Gerard asked, dropping his empty bowl in the sink and running the water to wash it up. Frank didn’t respond. It was only when the sink was filled with water that Gerard turned round to see Frank wasn’t there anymore. There was just a message written in the salt:
‘Good luck’
Up to his elbows in soap suds Gerard started to think about what was going to happen. Was Lindsey going to walk in and tell him or would he have to say that he found out? Leaving out the angel bit obviously, otherwise she could put the discovery down to a coffee overdose and hide the evidence until she wanted to say. Gerard didn’t think that she’d actually do that but he’d learnt never to put anything past her in the years they’d been married. He started to think about all the things that would change. He hoped that he and Lindsey would grow closer because of it but then a baby was a double edged sword, it could drive couples apart. Couples that didn’t have strong foundations. Gerard’s marriage had a strong foundation, didn’t it? They had their fights just like every other couple but they always made up afterwards and had, half of the time, awkward make up sex that dissolved into everything being alright again the next day. Then there would be all the stuff that would fill up the house.
Gerard froze suddenly. A thought had bitch slapped him hard.
He would loose his beloved study. His study which he had to fight for to get in the first place otherwise it would have become a guest bedroom. Gerard shuddered at the idea of there being a bed in his space replacing his beanbag chair. Or it could have been from the water that was now cold.
Emptying the sink and finding a dishtowel to dry up he started to wonder if the baby, his baby, their baby, would be anything like him. A part of him hoped it would be just for the joy of teaching the, so far, ball of cells how the original Star Wars films are much better then the later, the art of peg-warming and how Frankenberry is Frankenawesome. There wouldn’t be much stopping him doing all the stuff anyway. He hoped most of all that the baby would be a delightful mix of both of them, that way it would have Gerard’s geek streak and Lindsey’s, at times, much needed sensibility, because there were times when she just went completely nuts when they first got together.
-- “Chicken!” Lindsey smirked as the wind wiped at both of their faces. They were both on a constant battle keeping hair out of their faces. She was inches away from making the noise and Gerard knew it.
“I’m not chicken; I just don’t think this is a good idea.” Gerard wrapped his arms around himself in a vain attempt to keep some of his body heat from escaping from his bare torso.
“This isn’t about thinking, it’s about doing!” His girlfriend’s smile wasn’t doing anything to make him feel better about the situation. Standing on a cliff top with no shirt on wasn’t his idea of fun, though it did mean he could sneak the occasional glance at Lindsey’s chest when she looked down as she was also topless. Apparently they had to be. It wasn’t a very high cliff but it was a cliff none the less. Below the couple the sea hit the rocks, white surf rolling up towards them. “You gonna jump or not?”
Gerard shivered, his skin pricking up against the cold. “Do I have too?”
Lindsey shrugged, seemingly unaffected by the harsh wind. “Not if you really don’t want to.” She took one deep breath. “Just don’t try and stop me.”
With that Lindsey left solid ground behind and jumped off the edge, hitting the sea before Gerard could even think about stopping her. His heart raced as he stared over the edge, searching for any sign of life. For what felt like hours he could see nothing below the water, not even bubbles and he thought he’d lost her for good. Tears were beginning to form in his eyes when Lindsey’s head appeared above the water line, grinning and sweeping her wet hair back so she could see.
“Come one! It’s one hell of a rush!”
“Fuck no!” --
Gerard walked every room in the house while it was still empty, thinking about what to do. In past difficult times he just picked up a pencil and drew his troubles away until a solution appeared in the page. It had a habit of doing that, like the end of Scooby Doo. The answer was always there, staring right back at him. When he tried to draw this time nothing would appear. Nothing but an angry dot of uninspired procrastination. It had dawned on him that he could either ask as soon as Lindsey walked through the door or he could leave it and act like he hadn’t seen anything. Only then the not knowing would eat Gerard up inside until he yelled it out at a totally inappropriate moment.
It took Gerard the rest of the day to decide to just come out with it so he stood by the door waiting for his wife to come home, unconsciously tapping his fingers against the banister because he couldn’t twitch his foot while standing up. As the lock clicked open Gerard’s heart notably stopped for a few seconds. To say Lindsey was surprised to see him waiting would be an understatement. Normally he was the study listening to some musical soundtrack from about twenty years ago. There was a few seconds of silence before Gerard sucked it up and started to speak.
“Lyn…I-”
“Got you something,” She interrupted, pulling out a bag from behind her back. Gerard tried to ignore it by shaking his head but a gloss paper finish caught his eye. That could only mean one thing, because it wasn’t his birthday as far as he could remember. It had been a pretty weird day. “You’ve been so good lately I thought you deserved this.” Lindsey handed over the bag and smiled sweetly. Gerard’s hand shook when he took it and peered inside. It took all his strength not to drop the bag in shock. Hellboy #1 lay inside, teasing Gerard to look inside its delicate pages, just a little glimpse, surely that couldn’t hurt. Gulping and shaking his head again Gerard put the bag on the floor and tried to start over.
“I-”
“Don’t you like it?” Lindsey asked, her smile fading.
“No, I do, it’s just there’s something more important that I have to do right now-”
“More important than comics? That doesn’t sound like the man I married. What have you done with the real Gerard?” She laughed, hanging her coat up on the hook before turning to walk away.
Gerard had planned to ask in a quiet manor, like an adult, but what transpired was more like the soap operas his grandmother used to watch. “I found the test!” Lindsey froze in the doorway. It was lucky the doors weren’t on double hinges or it would have sprung back and hit her in the face. She slowly turned to meet her husband’s eyes. “How long?”
“A few days. I swear I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know when or how you’d react.” The door closed when she walked back towards Gerard. “And how are you going to react?”
Gerard stayed motionless for what felt like an eternity before sweeping towards Lindsey and hugging her tightly. She hugged back just as tight, falling into his chest with a smile. When they finally parted Gerard put his hand on Lindsey’s stomach and sunk to his knees.
“Hello little ball of cells. I made you!”
“Yeah, so can every other man on the planet.” She ruffled Gerard’s shaggy locks a little, resisting the urge to play with them. He smiled up at her. “You know what this means?”
“What?”
“We’re gonna have to do something about your study.”
Gerard rose to his feet as Lindsey walked away, already talking about colour schemes. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that actually….”
Author: xx_anarchy_xx
Raiting: PG-13
Pairing: Gerard/Lindsey
Summary: “Why do we need an axe in the bathroom?”
Warnings: AU
The sound of Gerard’s bathroom cabinet creaking open caused him to stop showering. He froze, mid grab to get the shower gel from its special hook on the white tiled wall. Over the sound of the running water cascading down his body he could defiantly hear someone rooting through the cabinet, pausing every once in a while to scoff at something before continuing. Fear gripped Gerard’s exposed chest. He was meant to be the only one in the house. Lindsey had gone to work an hour or so ago and he’d only just managed to drag himself out of bed to set the coffee machine going so when he was done showering he wouldn’t have to wait for his first cup of the day. No one else had a key and Gerard was certain, as much as he knew Dr. Manhattan was blue, that Lindsey had slammed the door so it locked when she left.
The fear intensified the longer Gerard stood under the showerhead as hundreds of horror movie cinereous ran through his mind of situations just like the one he was in. He couldn’t recall a single one where the hapless person used to fill the studio’s body quota survived the encounter. He cursed himself silently for not being stronger when trying to persuade Lindsey into letting him install an axe in the bathroom.
-- “Why do we need an axe in the bathroom?” She asked, looking at different shades of paint on a colour chart for the one that would look best in the living room.
“In case there’s a fire and the lock breaks. Need to get out somehow,” Gerard answered, leaning over the handlebar of the cart looking more like a bored kid than a 30 year old man with fully working legs that were more than capable of keeping him upright for longer than they’d been in the store. Lindsey paused briefly to look back at her husband. She saw that look in his eye and sighed before turning back to the colour swatches.
“Zombies aren’t going to attack you in the bathroom Gee; they’re not gonna attack you at all.” Gerard made an angry noise in the back of his throat and tried again to convince his wife that he was right. They needed an axe in the bathroom, neigh, every room! Who knew when they were going to attack? It was a matter of household security and was more important that getting a burglar alarm installed.
“I’m over that now Lyn; I really think we should consider it in case of fire and other such emergencies.” Gerard tried to sound as sincere as possible. He was only looking out for the love of his life and in no way looking for the opportunity for his own TV series about surviving an attack from the rioting rotting undead on prime time.
“Where would we keep it?” Lindsey asked, not turning away from the colours in her hands. Gerard grinned as he could feel himself winning. He has already picked out the perfect one that would make him look really heroic for the news crews while it was implanted in a zombie’s skull.
“In a glass case I guess, like most fire axes,” he shrugged. Lindsey again paused and turned.
“Water and broken glass. No way!” --
Something, probably a medicine bottle, was popped open to a little cheer and a happy sigh. Gerard was still frozen under the spray. He knew he couldn’t stay there forever, he would prune up like crazy for one thing. He quickly looked around the shower for something he could use in self defence and grabbed the shower gel. It he got the assailant in the eyes it would give him enough time to lock the door behind him and call the police. Slowly Gerard pulled back the shower curtain and saw the intruder’s back but slipped and fell to the floor, ripping the shower curtain from its hooks at the same time. The intruder turned round as Gerard wrapped the curtain around himself to cover his modesty but couldn’t get off the floor that was now covered in water from his little mishap.
It was in that split second Gerard realised, once more, that he could never be a superhero.
Gerard looked up at the intruder who had his eyebrows set to ‘what the fuck’ and suddenly felt really foolish. He really could be nothing more than the human equitant to an over grown house cat. His intruder glanced at the shower gel in Gerard’s hand and smiled.
“Vanilla and rose petals? Real manly!” He laughed, scratching the back of his head, showing off more tattooed covered skin than before as the dirty white t-shirt rose a little.
“Hey,” Gerard started before his brain could tell him that he was shit at comebacks so all he could conclude with was “Shut up.” It was then he remembered that this person had obviously broken in somehow and had the gall to laugh at him. “Who the hell are you and what the fuck are you doing in my house?”
“I’ve been sent to talk to you,” The stranger replied, still looking down at Gerard. “And you won’t be able to pronounce my name so call me…Frank.”
“Why won’t I be able to pronounce your name?” Gerard asked angrily. He’d gone from scared to embarrassed to angry in under a minute and the stranger implying that he was an imbecile unable to pronounce names on top of that wasn’t helping.
“Because to get it right I’d have to cut out your tongue and force it up your nose,” Frank replied in all seriousness. “And I hate people saying my name wrong.” He really wasn’t kidding. Gerard shook his head roughly, spraying water everywhere, and creating a damp line across Frank’s jean covered shins. Frank leaned back against the pristine sink, using his hands for support so the porcelain didn’t dig into his lower back.
“So what the fuck are you doing here?” Gerard asked again, staring up at the tattooed stranger and his seemingly trying-to-hard-to-be-casual attire. Last time Gerard checked people who looked over twenty five shouldn’t wear ripped jeans unless they were homeless or in a band and even though Frank looked like he could be both the red hair dye on one side of his head would rule out him being homeless and surely people in bands had better things to do than to break into people’s homes in the middle of the day while people were showering.
Then again…
“I have news,” Frank chirped, holding out a hand for Gerard to shake. Gerard only glared at him through a pissed off red mist that had descended in front of his eyes. Frank saw this and withdrew his hand like a timid child. “Congratulations!”
“For what?” Gerard asked in the most monotone voice he could muster. The whole encounter had gone on far too long for him to care about anymore. He just wanted Frank gone so he could get up and not freeze to a near death on his own floor. The last thing he wanted was for Lindsey to come home and find his blue corpse lying on the floor wrapped in a shower curtain holding shower gel in a rigor mortis stiff hand. It just wouldn’t look good. That and for Grant Morrison to suddenly appear and climb through the window but the latter was far less likely to happen.
“Well…for becoming a dad,” Frank said hesitantly, tracing a spider web tattoo on his right hand just for something to do in the awkward silences.
Everything in Gerard’s world froze. He was pretty sure time itself had stopped. Frank coughed quietly and waiting for Gerard’s shock to subside, which seemed to take forever. It certainly wasn’t what he signed up for. Telling a man some of the happiest news he’ll ever hear: yes. Waiting around for the best part of an hour when Frank had better things to do than talk to a man wearing a clear plastic shower curtain with a slightly misty effect: no. Frank coughed again, louder, and Gerard snapped out of his trance like state to get to his rather shaky, damp and pruned feet.
“What?” He asked, his voice trembling with what was either fear or joy. Frank couldn’t tell which because when it comes down to it they sound very similar.
“Umm….you’re gonna be a dad…” Frank repeated with caution. He’d seen people with Gerard’s reaction before and eight times out of twelve they tried to hit him but only ended up breaking their wrists when they connected with the wall behind. Gerard’s mood, once again, went back to anger like it was on a switch in his brain and the little person working it was on a caffeine high.
“How the fuck would you know?” He questioned aggressively, almost moving towards Frank, still against the sink, but then deciding against it because of the wet floor. He looked stupid enough in his shower curtain as it was without slipping on the tiles. Frank sighed and rolled his eyes before reaching into the trash can and pulling out and pregnancy test, throwing it at Gerard who let it fall to the floor otherwise his curtain would do the same. From the very little that Gerard knew about pregnancy tests, which was very little indeed, he wasn’t sure if it was positive or not but didn’t want to be the fool once more so took it as a definite positive.
The frozen effect that had been in place before broke and shattered around Gerard’s ears as his legs gave way beneath him and he slid down the side of the bathtub making a rather loud squeaking sound as bare damp skin and porcelain rubbed together to create a friction burn that would hurt later on when his common sense had returned.
Because common sense would have told him to call the police by now.
A million different things ran through Gerard’s mind at such a pace he had to hold his head for fear it would break open like an Easter egg if he didn’t. The most important being why didn’t Lindsey tell him. At the very beginning of their relationship she was the one who said they should be completely honest and keep nothing from each other which then lead to them staying up all night talking about all the bad shit that had happened in their lives and Gerard explaining how he used to be an alcoholic. In his personal view that’s more of a fifth or even a sixth date conversation, maybe even a tenth, not a second.
Frank sighed softly and sat on the edge of the bathtub next to Gerard. For him it was an extremely awkward silence. Where he spent most of his time the inhabitants wouldn’t shut up, constantly bragging about where they’ve been and who they’ve seen and who they’ve saved which most of the time is an utter lie, but there’s hardly ever a moment’s peace. It’s why Frank liked being in mortal realms. He could walk practically unnoticed and not be bothered by people wanting to tell him stories.
“How did you know about this?” Gerard asked quietly, gesturing towards the test on the floor, not taking his eyes off it. Frank shrugged before he realised Gerard couldn’t see him.
“Let’s just say it’s my job to know,” Frank feebly replied. Gerard was no longer in the right frame of mind to argue, or be angry, anymore so he simply nodded and swallowed silently.
Now the axe really wouldn’t be a good idea.
Frank managed to make 24 anagrams out of ‘vanilla and rose petals’ (those being van, roast, tails, tales, sets, set, sat, sits, sit, vans, roses, petal, Peta, lies, lie, villa, rise raise, lap, leap, rap, raps, rape, and tall. Yeah, he was never very good at anagrams) before the shock wore away from Gerard’s mental state enough for him to realise it would be a really good idea to put some clothes on but he was still in too much disarray to get up. It dawned in him that he would have to ask Frank for help, the scruffy stranger who had broken into his house, how Gerard still didn’t know. Despite all the water that was around him Gerard’s throat was too dry to talk so he lifted his arm and hoped Frank would get the unsubtle hint. He did and helped shaky Gerard to his feet. Padding slowly across the hallway, trying to cover what was left of his modesty; Gerard backed into his room and gave a facial expression to tell Frank that he was fine from here. Frank nodded and turned the other way as the door was closed. Gerard collapsed instantly on the bed; face first no longer caring about the shower curtain that bunched up around his hips painfully, sharp plastic creases digging into his skin. His mind was still racing with the single thought why didn’t she tell me?. With a heavy hearted sigh that was mostly absorbed by the sheets Gerard rolled his head so he didn’t accidentally smother himself and looked up at their pillows, both completely different to the duvet cover. Gerard’s was black, but not for gothic purposes, it was so Lindsey could never really see how covered in paint flecks it was even though she nagged him to always wash his face before coming to bed if he’d been in the study all day. Every time Gerard did a squirrel like impression of her, high pitched voice and a strange expression that was meant to be mocking but made him look more like a day release patient, when her back was turned or she left the room. He then turned his head to look at Lindsey’s pillow, different shades of swirling red and orange that has cost him $47.
-- “Why the hell would we need a pillow case that expensive?” Gerard argued, not using the cart for support for the first time since they entered the store. He was an arm flailing machine now. “You’re just gonna put your head on it, not hang it on a gallery wall.”
“Because it’s comfortable, looks nice and ‘helps for a good night’s sleep,’” Lindsey quoted, reading the last part of the packet.
“But it’s $47. $47!” Gerard flailed, raising his voice, not caring if he made a scene. “It would have to record fucking dreams for that money!”
“I don’t care. I’m having it!” Lindsey huffed, dropping the case into the cart. “You can have this one cause you’re such a fucking baby about it!” She picked something up off the shelf and threw it in the cart too before strutting off towards the cushions. Gerard looked into the cart and saw she’d picked up a baby’s pillow case with building blocks printed on it that spelt ‘boy’ in a triangular formation. All of Gerard’s flailing power and anger at having to pay $47 for one pillow case dropped and he suddenly felt terrible watching his wife go down into the next aisle. He put the baby case back and ran after her to apologise and say that he’d pay for the pillow case, and anything else she wanted. His treat. --
Looking up at it, he had to admit it did look nice, especially compared to his student style one. His side of the bed did look like a student was sleeping there. No grown man has a Jabba Glob on their alarm clock that was only used to gather dust (it’s not like he ever had to be anywhere). Least none of the grown men Gerard knew did. He rolled over completely to stare at the ceiling and the light shade he couldn’t remember buying because he used the last one to make his brother a helmet for a Halloween costume. It would explain why it didn’t match the walls. Lindsey liked to do that, it was a theme throughout the house.
Gradually the cold started to get to him as the water evaporated from his skin. It was only then he remembered about Frank, who had been temporarily forgotten for memories of trying to fit a broken light bulb without turning the power off at the switch and Lindsey finding him collapsed on the floor with smouldering hair and a twitch in his left eye before doing it herself as well as the water balloon fight they had when they first moved in, before they started making the house theirs. Gerard contemplated putting the shower curtain back up but dismissed it for his curiosity to find out who Frank was and left it lying in a crinkled plastic heap on the floor. He grabbed what was nearest, old paint clothes that were far too big for anyone but were good to get dirty in, and went downstairs to find out where Frank had gotten too. He wasn’t in the living room though evidence that he had been there was, namely the fort made out of newspaper on the coffee table. Frank was found in the kitchen with the roll of silver foil and a bowl. A number of cutlery pieces had already been wrapped in silver foil so they had the look of the world of tomorrow as thought up in the 50s.
“What are you doing?” Gerard asked, hastily taking away the foil from Frank’s hands. He turned and looked up at Gerard.
“Passing the time. I dunno what you were doing up there but you sure took your time about it,” Frank answered, moving out from under Gerard’s gaze and slipping into a chair at the breakfast table pressed against the wall.
“Just thinking. Anyway who the hell are you? You still haven’t told me.” Gerard put the foil back in its proper place and started unwrapping the bowls, plates, spoons and mugs that had been covered, putting them back where they belonged. It was like a shit Christmas.
“You won’t believe me if I did tell you. No one ever does.” Frank’s voice hit a sad note that Gerard thought, just by looking at him, that he could never reach.
“Try me. I’m more open minded than I look.” Gerard turned around and leaned against the side, having left a bowl and a spoon and a mug out for immanent use.
Frank sighed and ran a hand over the red part of his hair. “I’m an angel.”
Silence echoed through the room, only the second hand ticking on the clock was breaking the heavy stillness. Neither of them moved. Gerard blinked a lot before daring to speaking.
“Well you don’t look like any angel I’ve ever seen.”
“And how many have you seen?” Frank questioned sarcastically.
“Good point.” Gerard turned and grabbed a box of Frankenberry and the now unwrapped bowl. Good manors got ahold of his tongue and made him turn and shake the box a little at Frank. “Want some?” Frank shook his head and started playing with the salt dispenser that was always on the table. Admitting the truth about himself always made him feel a little depressed. It made him think of the time he wasted when he was alive and how if he could he would go back and make something of the brief time he had. Say goodbye to his family, maybe even obey his mom’s wishes and stay in that fateful night instead of sneaking out and having the police call her up in the middle of the night about her son. Frank could never forgive himself for that. The agony she must have felt, the pain she went through. Having to bury her own son…
“So…how did you die? If it’s not too personal…” Gerard asked, slipping into the chair opposite with a bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee that surprisingly, though having been left to sit for a long time, hadn’t gone cold.
“Promise you won’t laugh?” Gerard nodded, mouth full of pink milk and marshmallow, as Frank poured salt onto the table. He ran his finger in it so he wouldn’t have to look at Gerard and see him trying to hold back the laugh Frank knew was coming. “An amp fell on my head and crushed me.” He winced as he waited for a laugh that never came. It was replaced by:
“Sounds painful.”
Frank opened his eyes to see Gerard looking very serious, even though he was technically eating a child’s cereal, and sincere.
“I didn’t feel it. One minute I was surrounded by hundreds of people in a very cramped room listening to a band, the next all I could see was white and a chick was pulling the ring out of my nose and putting me in this shirt. Apparently my death was instant and even if I survived I would have been brain dead for the rest of my life.”
After he died Frank had to witness his own funeral. It was a very creepy experience. Seeing his mom crying her eyes out, his dad standing next to her for the first time in years. United in grief. Relatives Frank had never seen before had turned up and were crying. Before then Frank didn’t know he had such a large family and being dead just made him want to be alive to meet them all, find out about them and how they were related. Seeing his own body in a coffin was the creepiest experience of all. He didn’t look like himself. He looked normal. No sign of a personality that used to run through the now deceased body and everyone who knew him knew Frank had a lot of personality.
“Probably best you died then,” Gerard commented, breaking the angel’s train of thought with another spoon of cereal. “And there’s a sentence I’d never thought I’d say.”
“Yeah,” Frank sighed, rubbing his finger through the salt again, his head resting on his folded arm that was on the table. Another silence fell that was permeated by Gerard’s eating noises more than the clock.
“So, what are you here for? I’m not gonna die soon am I?” Gerard asked, sounding surprisingly calm if he genuinely thought he was about to die. Frank couldn’t tell if he was joking or was serious. Gerard was getting increasingly hard to read by voice alone.
“You’ve fathered a child. That was pretty much it,” the punk angel shrugged. When he thought about it he didn’t really know why he’d been sent to deliver news that a plastic stick with pee on it could do just as well and in all honesty, it pissed him off.
“That’s it? Why am I getting the angel treatment for that? Most people find out without the aid of any religious symbol,” Gerard pointed out, slurping pink milk from his spoon loudly like it was soup and he was a small child at a fancy restaurant.
“Would you rather a fucking star appear above your house to guide weirdoes in from around the globe? Cause I can do that ya know! This place with be filled with drunken hobo fights before the end of the month!” Gerard stopped and looked up at Frank with shock in his eyes. He didn’t know angels could get angry too. The well trained punk attitude that had been locked away for so long had been set free for a breath. Frank ran his hand over the red part of his hair, it was becoming a nervous habit, and sighed. “Sorry.”
Gerard’s spoon rattled against the porcelain of the empty bowl when he dropped it. “It’s okay. You wouldn’t be the first to get angry at something I’ve said.”
-- It all started with How to Kill Your Boyfriend. It was the time of the month where Gerard would read comics constantly, hoping to see something new within the well worn pages that would inspire his creative juices. That and he liked to read them, curdled up in the corner of the couch in a jumper three sizes too big with thumb holes picked into the sleeves. Lindsey knew her husband had his ‘time of the month’ but didn’t know he would be so messy about it. You could easily tell where he’d been sat because during Gerard’s ‘time of the month’ he chose not to shower because “it could ruin a possible idea that was yet to flourish into life.” Apparently “dirt holds a lot of secrets for those who seek them”. This was also the time when Lindsey thought her husband spent far too much time playing online games but she let that slip. Everyone’s allowed their childish pleasures. While Gerard stayed huddled up in his jumper (or ‘The Rag’ as Lindsey called it when he wouldn’t let her wash it even though it smelt worse then a dog blanket in a hot car) coffee cups would grow like weeds around him in tall towers, the cups from different coffee franchises stacked within each other like it was meant to be modern art. It was Gerard’s 21st century fort from the real world. As well as the cups the take out would appear, the empty cartons strewn across his corner of the room, of the couch, like a territory boundary. Beware all ye who enter. All the mess pissed Lindsey off, it wasn’t that she strived to be the perfect housewife, far from it (she had a job and had married a househusband thankyouverymuch) but it was the idea that the cycle was never ending. Every month Gerard would break out his box of comics from the downstairs closet, the jumper resting on top of them all, and it would start all over again, the coffee, the take out, the incessant chain smoking that billowed out whenever the door was opened. While lying in their bed, Gerard still in his jumper that he now refused to take off, Lindsey hatched a plan. She snuck out and put away the comic box back in the downstairs closet, locking the door. It may have seemed a little extreme but desperate times call for desperate measures.
The next morning Lindsey awoke to a girl like shriek that even she’d never been able to reach. That was quickly followed by the sound of feet rapidly hitting the stairs and the door being swung open so it slammed against the wall. Covering her head with the duvet she quickly caught a glance at her clock.
11:55
“Fucking Watchmen reference…”
“LYN!” Gerard yelled, shaking her cushioned cocoon. She groaned loudly and tried to turn over, put her face in the pillow and ride it out. Gerard got bored easily sometimes. Sadly, this was not one of those times. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BOX?”
“Put it away,” Lindsey grumbled, keeping her face in the pillow. The one day off work she decides to sleep in all hell breaks loose. In all fairness, she did bring it on herself. Gerard had looked everywhere for his box in the ten minutes he’d been awake and was frantic. The closet door was locked, that much he knew so using powers of deduction he deducted that it was in there. He scurried under the bed in search for the key. Lindsey sighed loudly and sat up; flipping her matted morning hair off her face and peer at the man she married, though at certain moments she often wondered why. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for the key,” came the response. “I didn’t know there were so many magazines down here.”
“They’re all yours!” Lindsey gritted. Even under the bed there was a definite spilt of who slept on either side. Piles of magazines that Gerard read before falling asleep littered his side. Most were month old TV guides that he never threw out.
“Where’s the damn key?” He started shouting. That seemed to be the typical male thing to do. Get angry and suddenly the thing you were looking for would come to you. He would start singing to it next!
“I’m not giving you the key,” Lindsey said clearly, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Gerard scuttled back out so he was on his knees next to her. “It’s been a while since he’s been like that,” she couldn’t help but think.
“But…why?”
“Cause I’m sick of this routine. Every month it’s the same and I’m sick of it!” She exploded, slamming her fists into the mattress by her sides. Gerard was so surprised by the outburst he fell on his ass.
“Hey, you knew I was like this when you met me,” Gerard defended, putting his hands up.
“But I didn’t think you’d stay like it! Jesus Christ Gerard you’re a fucking kid trapped in a man’s body! You need to grow the fuck up!” Suddenly it was all out. The little thing that had been put to one side in Lindsey’s mind, thinking she could ignore it if she just didn’t think about it. Gerard stared at his wife, completely shocked. He’d never known her to get that angry. It was even worse that she directed it at him.
“Oh, so it’s alright for you to have a shit load of things that I don’t say a word about and you have a go at my one thing? This is what I do Lyn, you know that. You knew that when we met, I never hid it from you!”
“I didn’t think it would last! I thought you would have grown up.”
They sat in silence, Gerard still on the floor in the jumper that has been one of the main boiling over points for Lindsey even though she hadn’t said it.
“I knew you would turn out like your mother,” Gerard mumbled hoping no one would hear. Sadly they did. Lindsey’s eyes went wide as she stared at him with nothing but anger in her irises. Her knuckles went white with how hard her hands were balled into fists.
“What did you just say?” She hissed, not taker her eyes off the man on the floor. They weren’t husband and wife anymore. This was war. There was a second of breathing space where no one said anything and nothing could be heard apart from their separate heartbeats flooding in their ears.
Instead of taking it back Gerard stood up straight, hands by his sides, and cleared his throat. “I said I knew you would turn out like your mother you deaf bit-”
Gerard never finished his sentence, it’s probably best that he didn’t, because Lindsey had slapped him so hard he ended up back on the floor clutching his cheek like the skin had been ripped off it. She still stared at him like a woman possessed.
“Get out,” she whispered, barely audible. Her hands were still fists. Her face was going red.
“Why the fuck should I?” Gerard said back. “You started this!”
“GET OUT!” Lindsey screamed, ripping the duvet off her and pushing Gerard out of their bedroom and out of the house. He didn’t put up much of a fight. Common sense told him not to. Once he was firmly out of the house, after nearly falling down the stairs, Lindsey locked the door and went back up to their room. Gerard was stuck in the front yard so all he could do was try to reason with his hysterical wife. He sighed and ran a hand over his face. Something told him he wasn’t going to come out of his with his pride intact. Or still having complete ownership of his balls.
“Lyn? Lyn, please sweetie, I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean it right?” He yelled up as the bedroom window was opened. A shirt hit him square in the face, one of his best ones. It still had the hanger in it. “Lyn?”
“I am not like my fucking mother!” She screamed down. This naturally caused a few curtains to twitch from either side. Neighbours wondering what was happening. A pair of jeans was balled up and thrown towards Gerard’s crotch, which he narrowly missed.
“This is my house too. It’s in both our names!” Gerard briefly fought back, only to have a shoe graze past his ear.
“Who pays most of the bills? ME! Who does most of the grocery shopping? ME! You know most of the time I lie awake wondering why the fuck I even married you!” Another shirt was thrown. It wrapped itself around Gerard’s head before he pulled it off in a daze.
“What?”
“My dad was right about you. He told me never to marry you cause I’d be lowering myself. AND HE WAS FUCKING RIGHT!” Lindsey slammed the window shut, leaving Gerard in the middle of the lawn stunned and surrounded by various items of clothing. He tentatively walked towards the door and opened the mail slot to talk through.
“Lyn? Lindsey? Sweetie?” She wasn’t biting. Unknown to Gerard she was on their bed, on his side, hugging his pillow and crying silently into it. She could still hear him. “I had no idea you felt like that. I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you unhappy. You mean the world to me. If you can hear me go into my study and look in the second drawer of my desk. Was meant to be a gift but I guess that seems pointless now. If you want me I’ll be at Mikey’s since it’s obvious you don’t want me here anymore.” He listened briefly for any signs of life before picking up his clothes and walking towards his brother’s house. Lindsey waited until she knew Gerard was off the driveway before moving. Everything was in baby steps, like she was just learning to walk again. Carefully pushing open the door, hoping not to disturb anything that was important, she stepped around boxes and action figure dioramas depicting scenes that, she guessed, were yet to be drawn and walked towards the desk pushed into the corner of the room. It was covered in paper and opened letters, prototype merchandise and three lamps that constantly burned. In the second drawer was a red envelope that hadn’t been sealed. With shaking hands Lindsey pulled out what was inside and her heart tore into as she read the poem:
I love you more than Han loves Leia, I love you more than Aragorn loves Arwen, I love you more than Peter loves Mary Jane, I love you more than Neo loves Trinity, I love you more than Anakin loves Amidala, I love you more than Clark loves Lois, I love you more than Mr Fantastic loves Invisible Woman, I love you more than Jack loves Sally.
You’re my angel, you mean the world to me.
(And please forgive the fact I can’t write poetry)
Her hands started shaking more as she turned over the card it was written on. Torn from another piece of paper into a rough heart shape were two sketches they had done for each other on their first valentines. They had both drawn each other, only Gerard had kept them both, or stolen Lyn’s from her safe box at the back of the closet in their bedroom, and stuck them together. The drawings looked so happy. It was a stark contrast to what was happening.
Lindsey collapsed in the study in tears clutching the card like it was the only thing keeping her alive.
“LYN!” She heard Gerard yell from the front yard sometime later. She got up, after falling asleep on the floor, and walked towards their bedroom. Something was on fire. The orange flames cracked in the dead night air. It must have been late. “I’M SORRY!”
She noticed Gerard wasn’t in his jumper. The clothes she threw at him were in a heap away from the fire.
“I PROMISE I’LL CHANGE!”
Lindsey rubbed her red eyes. “What’s burning?”
“Take a guess,” Gerard winked, turning around on his heals like the dancer he was when he did the housework when his wife was at work, so she wouldn’t see and mock. It suddenly clicked in Lindsey’s mind. She left the window and ran down the stairs to unlock the door. They ran to each other and hugged in the middle of the lawn.
“You promise you’re not gonna buy another one?”
“I promise.” --
“So, what do you do now then?” Gerard asked, dropping his empty bowl in the sink and running the water to wash it up. Frank didn’t respond. It was only when the sink was filled with water that Gerard turned round to see Frank wasn’t there anymore. There was just a message written in the salt:
‘Good luck’
Up to his elbows in soap suds Gerard started to think about what was going to happen. Was Lindsey going to walk in and tell him or would he have to say that he found out? Leaving out the angel bit obviously, otherwise she could put the discovery down to a coffee overdose and hide the evidence until she wanted to say. Gerard didn’t think that she’d actually do that but he’d learnt never to put anything past her in the years they’d been married. He started to think about all the things that would change. He hoped that he and Lindsey would grow closer because of it but then a baby was a double edged sword, it could drive couples apart. Couples that didn’t have strong foundations. Gerard’s marriage had a strong foundation, didn’t it? They had their fights just like every other couple but they always made up afterwards and had, half of the time, awkward make up sex that dissolved into everything being alright again the next day. Then there would be all the stuff that would fill up the house.
Gerard froze suddenly. A thought had bitch slapped him hard.
He would loose his beloved study. His study which he had to fight for to get in the first place otherwise it would have become a guest bedroom. Gerard shuddered at the idea of there being a bed in his space replacing his beanbag chair. Or it could have been from the water that was now cold.
Emptying the sink and finding a dishtowel to dry up he started to wonder if the baby, his baby, their baby, would be anything like him. A part of him hoped it would be just for the joy of teaching the, so far, ball of cells how the original Star Wars films are much better then the later, the art of peg-warming and how Frankenberry is Frankenawesome. There wouldn’t be much stopping him doing all the stuff anyway. He hoped most of all that the baby would be a delightful mix of both of them, that way it would have Gerard’s geek streak and Lindsey’s, at times, much needed sensibility, because there were times when she just went completely nuts when they first got together.
-- “Chicken!” Lindsey smirked as the wind wiped at both of their faces. They were both on a constant battle keeping hair out of their faces. She was inches away from making the noise and Gerard knew it.
“I’m not chicken; I just don’t think this is a good idea.” Gerard wrapped his arms around himself in a vain attempt to keep some of his body heat from escaping from his bare torso.
“This isn’t about thinking, it’s about doing!” His girlfriend’s smile wasn’t doing anything to make him feel better about the situation. Standing on a cliff top with no shirt on wasn’t his idea of fun, though it did mean he could sneak the occasional glance at Lindsey’s chest when she looked down as she was also topless. Apparently they had to be. It wasn’t a very high cliff but it was a cliff none the less. Below the couple the sea hit the rocks, white surf rolling up towards them. “You gonna jump or not?”
Gerard shivered, his skin pricking up against the cold. “Do I have too?”
Lindsey shrugged, seemingly unaffected by the harsh wind. “Not if you really don’t want to.” She took one deep breath. “Just don’t try and stop me.”
With that Lindsey left solid ground behind and jumped off the edge, hitting the sea before Gerard could even think about stopping her. His heart raced as he stared over the edge, searching for any sign of life. For what felt like hours he could see nothing below the water, not even bubbles and he thought he’d lost her for good. Tears were beginning to form in his eyes when Lindsey’s head appeared above the water line, grinning and sweeping her wet hair back so she could see.
“Come one! It’s one hell of a rush!”
“Fuck no!” --
Gerard walked every room in the house while it was still empty, thinking about what to do. In past difficult times he just picked up a pencil and drew his troubles away until a solution appeared in the page. It had a habit of doing that, like the end of Scooby Doo. The answer was always there, staring right back at him. When he tried to draw this time nothing would appear. Nothing but an angry dot of uninspired procrastination. It had dawned on him that he could either ask as soon as Lindsey walked through the door or he could leave it and act like he hadn’t seen anything. Only then the not knowing would eat Gerard up inside until he yelled it out at a totally inappropriate moment.
It took Gerard the rest of the day to decide to just come out with it so he stood by the door waiting for his wife to come home, unconsciously tapping his fingers against the banister because he couldn’t twitch his foot while standing up. As the lock clicked open Gerard’s heart notably stopped for a few seconds. To say Lindsey was surprised to see him waiting would be an understatement. Normally he was the study listening to some musical soundtrack from about twenty years ago. There was a few seconds of silence before Gerard sucked it up and started to speak.
“Lyn…I-”
“Got you something,” She interrupted, pulling out a bag from behind her back. Gerard tried to ignore it by shaking his head but a gloss paper finish caught his eye. That could only mean one thing, because it wasn’t his birthday as far as he could remember. It had been a pretty weird day. “You’ve been so good lately I thought you deserved this.” Lindsey handed over the bag and smiled sweetly. Gerard’s hand shook when he took it and peered inside. It took all his strength not to drop the bag in shock. Hellboy #1 lay inside, teasing Gerard to look inside its delicate pages, just a little glimpse, surely that couldn’t hurt. Gulping and shaking his head again Gerard put the bag on the floor and tried to start over.
“I-”
“Don’t you like it?” Lindsey asked, her smile fading.
“No, I do, it’s just there’s something more important that I have to do right now-”
“More important than comics? That doesn’t sound like the man I married. What have you done with the real Gerard?” She laughed, hanging her coat up on the hook before turning to walk away.
Gerard had planned to ask in a quiet manor, like an adult, but what transpired was more like the soap operas his grandmother used to watch. “I found the test!” Lindsey froze in the doorway. It was lucky the doors weren’t on double hinges or it would have sprung back and hit her in the face. She slowly turned to meet her husband’s eyes. “How long?”
“A few days. I swear I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know when or how you’d react.” The door closed when she walked back towards Gerard. “And how are you going to react?”
Gerard stayed motionless for what felt like an eternity before sweeping towards Lindsey and hugging her tightly. She hugged back just as tight, falling into his chest with a smile. When they finally parted Gerard put his hand on Lindsey’s stomach and sunk to his knees.
“Hello little ball of cells. I made you!”
“Yeah, so can every other man on the planet.” She ruffled Gerard’s shaggy locks a little, resisting the urge to play with them. He smiled up at her. “You know what this means?”
“What?”
“We’re gonna have to do something about your study.”
Gerard rose to his feet as Lindsey walked away, already talking about colour schemes. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that actually….”