Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > The Incendiary Heart
Chapter 2
12 ReviewsFrank's not the only one dreaming...
Chapter 2
I get so excited when you guys get excited!! After writing Anonymity, I just kind of need a sex break. Haha And while this will be Frerard, there’s a whole lot more to it and I like that. I hope you do too. I’m gearing up to write the prequel to Murder, Inc. soon and I hope you’ll all come back for it!! And now, on with the show! Xoxo Harley
When had Frank gone from friend to fan? It was too peculiar to even question. Gerard was his best friend, just as he had always been. But now, in the wake of the dream, he seemed so much more. And Frank began to wonder if he always had been. He thought back on all the times he had watched Gerard, stared at him a little too long. He thought of all the different ways he had actually seen him, but never let himself realize. On the stage Gerard was a Knight amongst thieves who fought for his attention. On the bus he was a Prince amongst men who held his holy court. And on the nights when Frank was alone with him, sharing him only with the darkness, Gerard was a King amongst the loyal follower Frank found himself to be. Gerard was more than a friend and he was only now beginning to struggle with what that might mean to him.
Frank watched Gerard talk with the girl through the fence, her face sectioned into pieces by the wire like a puzzle he had no desire to put together. He wished he could pick her apart the way she tried to analyze Gerard with her sultry smile that wasn’t fooling anyone; least of all the man she was trying to win over in the five minutes she would be granted to try.
He had always admired Gerard’s ability to see right through people. It was less impressive when he looked right through Frank, but entertaining in itself when it was directed towards others and he was on the same side as Gerard. They were on the inside looking out sometimes, a bond built by the team they had been drafted to by becoming a band everyone thought they knew. Gerard was their Captain and he kept his team by his side like an impenetrable wall in a game of Red Rover. He called out to the fans but if they tried to break through, the team was there to strengthen his side. They were his side and they would never let go. No one was getting by.
The girl prattled on and it did not matter that Frank could not hear what she was saying. He knew it all too well. Her adoration dripped from her overdone lips and her eyes batted from beneath her mascara-weighted lashes. Frank could see through them all just like Gerard, no matter how much eyeliner they used to disguise themselves. It was not a disguise when they all looked the same. Her laugh cackled through the fence and echoed across the lot between the tour buses and he could see the chill run through Gerard’s hidden spine beneath his hoodie, despite the layers he hid behind.
Frank did not need to read her lips. He could read Gerard, even from the side. His crossed arms built a second barrier between the fence and the girl on the other side. His solid weight shifted from hip to hip in a tiny, solitary dance of awkward discomfort. She probably thought it was endearing; thought it was some sort of musician’s intuition like he was writing a song in his head and she was the inspiration. But Frank knew better. He knew Gerard. Knew the uncomfortable pose as he raised his hand to his mouth while he listened to her story as he bit his nails down to the quick. She most likely saw it as a flirtatious sign he was making purposely just for her; look at my mouth, aren’t I sexy? But it had nothing to do with indulgence. It was a tick almost; the nervous habit of a man out of his element.
Gerard was a siphon for the spotlight, basking and calling to the crowd from the stage. But out of character, when he was forced to be nothing more than himself, Gerard was awkwardly nervous and chasing the shadows he would never again be able to hide behind. The only time he had complete control of his confidence off stage was when he was with the guys. When he was alone with Frank, Gerard had total control.
It was awkward for Frank to even watch him like this. It was uncomfortable to feel him from so far away. For Gerard, that fence was not thick enough. For Frank, Gerard was too far. He tossed his cigarette down to the ground and snubbed it out into the dirt with his shoe. He took a last glance at the spectacle across the lot and turned to go back inside.
“Frank! Wait up!” Gerard called to him desperately. Frank watched as he turned back to the girl. “I’m sorry. I gotta go. It was nice to meet you!” he waved as he ran to catch up with Frank.
He jogged to Frank’s side and slowed as he reached him with a slight pant already in his breath. Whether it was nerves from the impromptu meet and greet, the heavy breath of a smoker or the jog across the lot substituting a work-out, Frank could not decide.
“Man,” he laughed. “I didn’t think I was ever getting out of there.”
Frank smiled, happy to have him back and all to himself. He shook his head at his unwarranted jealousy. “Did you save her life?” he smirked.
Gerard laughed and lit up a smoke, leaning his back against the bus. “She didn’t get that far.”
Frank was not sure if he meant in the story or in her life. Either way, he lit up the second smoke he did not want and joined Gerard for the conversation he wanted more than anything.
“Why didn’t you come save me?” Gerard smiled, his lopsided grin cocking to the side with his head but scaling lower than the rest of his lip.
Frank smiled back, unable to resist. “You save her life, I save yours…and then who the fuck will save me?”
Gerard watched him closely as though dissecting his joke for some hidden meaning Frank was sure he would never find. It was a clever response and Frank’s wit was sharp. There was no depth to it to unravel. He leaned toward Frank, his smile dissolved, a seriousness behind his concerned eyes. “I will always be here to save you, Frank.”
He had said it with such emotion, Frank took a step back on his heel. “I don’t need to be saved,” he practically whispered, feeling quietly dazed in the presence of Gerard’s feeling.
The smirk crept back up over his lip on one side as it rose to greet him. “That’s why I’ve never stepped in,” he smiled, the rest of his lip slowly catching up.
Gerard tossed his unfinished cigarette to the ground, wasting it, through with his opportunity of the moment and satiated by Frank’s unbalance. He smiled and walked inside. And Frank was sure, as he was stepping onto the bus and looked back, there was a wink. A misplaced blink on one side that held too long to be anything else. And then he was gone.
Frank sighed, finally breathing again in his absence and there was no doubt in his mind what he felt and who those feelings were for. And it hurt because for all of Gerard’s teases, they would never be promises. Only one of them had something invested in the other and it was not Gerard who felt it.
He was left alone to finish the cigarette he never wanted in the first place. Frank continued to smoke, still needing the distraction it no longer provided. He was exposed and all by himself. With Gerard on the bus and the fans by fence, he had nowhere left to go unless he wanted to be faced with questions he did not want to answer. So Frank sat down on the hard ground, his back against the giant black wheel, and lit another cigarette he would hold and not smoke, just to look like he had purpose for being there. Frank no longer felt purpose though. Everything he felt made him feel increasingly useless.
Later on in the day Frank sat in the booth, picking at the hardening crust of his sandwich that had sat out too long, the air decaying it with its natural breath. Mikey slid into the seat across from him, a piping cup of coffee warming his hands as they stared at its steam and pretended not to see one another through it. Mikey poured in the powdered creamer and swirled it inside the mug, watching the black liquid dissolve into a chocolaty brown. Frank observed him as Mikey tore open little yellow Splenda packets and added their pristine white granules of sweetness, leaving the little wrappers scattered across the table like discarded husks of natural element. To Frank’s surprise, as Mikey lifted the mug, he did not drink from it. Instead, he passed it over the table to Frank with a smile of offering.
Frank grinned and wrapped his hand around the mug, their fingers brushing awkwardly in the passing. He sipped the hot coffee and let the heat fill his throat, feeling it as it passed down through his body, spreading its warmth to his insides. He bit his lip, wondering if what should have been a simple gesture of kindness really meant something more. For Mikey to give up a perfectly made cup of coffee could only mean he wanted something in return. And that something must be awfully special.
“What’s up, Mikey?” he asked, collecting the remains of Mikey’s preparatory ritual and the sandwich he could not stomach, getting up to throw them away.
Mikey nodded, admitting there was something. “I keep thinking about the dream.”
Frank laughed sitting down again. “Give it up, Mikey. Let the poor panda go.”
He smiled back at him, his curious brow raised like he was going to ask something he already knew the answer to. Frank had seen that look on his brother’s face and he had memorized its meaning to prepare for it every time it flashed his way.
“Did I say it was my dream I’ve been thinking of?” he grinned.
Frank sighed, sinking down in the booth and wishing he could slide right under the table. “I’m tired of thinking of the dream. I’m having enough trouble with the waking hours.”
Mikey’s smile never ended. “Something on your mind, Frank?”
“Nothing worth saying out loud,” he groaned, hiding behind his mug as he sipped slowly, drowning in the wet burn.
“Au contraire,” Mikey grinned. “I think you want to talk about it somethin awful. That’s why you brought it up in the first place. Isn’t it?” he smiled.
Frank laughed, “So because I don’t lie to you about my dreams that means I must want to talk about something? That’s hardly logic, Mikey,” he shook his head. “It barely even makes sense.”
“Anything else you’re working out in your head right now, Frank?” his knowing smile asked.
He shook his head again. “No.”
“No, you’re not working anything out, or you haven’t worked it out yet?”
Gerard opened the door that divided the bunk hall from the front of the bus, grabbing a peach from the bag on the counter. Frank had picked them up in Georgia when they passed through. It was not meant to be communal fruit but nothing was really off limits if it was left out. There was only one forbidden fruit on that bus. Gerard slipped into the booth beside Frank, resting his head on the comfy shoulder like it was waiting for him; which it was. “What are we talking about?”
“We aren’t talking about anything,” Frank sighed flicking his finger around their triangle.
Mikey smiled pointing to Frank and back to himself, “But we were talking about Frank’s dream.”
Gerard’s head lifted, turning as he looked at him with a curious smile. “What did you dream?”
“I don’t remember all of it,” he shrugged, trying to end the conversation he did not want to have.
Mikey’s smile pushed further, “But you didn’t forget it all either.”
Gerard did not seem to notice Frank’s angry glare towards his brother. He nodded, biting into the peach, his teeth piercing the skin and sinking through the juicy tenderness inside as it made delightfully squishy sounds against his mouth. Frank stared at the dribble of nectar that ran down Gerard’s chin, an escaped sweetness his mesmerizing lips could not hold.
Gerard nodded again, “I had a dream about you last night, Frankie.”
Frank froze even more than he already was since he was sitting and not really moving to begin with. The freeze came from within as his heart skipped a beat and his lungs failed to fill. He had heard those words before. Last night. In his dream. “What…what was it about?” he asked, his body starting to function inside again.
He continued to bite into the peach as Frank stared. He was devouring it as though starving. If someone was really so hungry, why a peach? It would quench a craving but hardly fill a ravenous need. Frank watched him turn the soft fruit as his lips moved across it like a typewriter. He would stop at the curve, sucking out the juices and swallowing slowly, Frank’s eyes hypnotized by the rise and fall of his adam’s apple. Gerard chewed each succulent bite as though he was completely nourished by it and finally he swallowed again, making room for the words in his throat.
“It was about your sparrow,” he nodded as though it were a complete sentence by itself. But there was no information in his informative attempt of an answer.
The sparrows were in his dream too. “Both of them?” he asked, remembering the birds.
“Nah. Just one,” he said, his teeth diving back into that damn peach like Frank wasn’t hanging on his every word.
Frank wanted to rip the fruit out of his juice-covered hand and chuck it toward the tinted window of the bus just to hear it splatter and condense against the hard pit inside. The pit in Frank’s stomach ached and his mouth became sour like lemons. “Which one?” he asked, cursing Gerard’s full mouth and hoping he would be comfortable enough in their friendship after all these years to not let manners stop him from continuing to talk with it full.
“The one by ‘Search’,” he said, casually still chewing.
It was so specific. Frank needed to know more and fast. “Are you sure it was by itself?” he asked strangely.
Gerard looked at him just as oddly. “Who’s dream is this, Frank? Mine or yours?”
He looked away, across at Mikey, and then away again to avoid his smile. “I don’t know anymore,” he muttered.
“What?” Gerard leaned in to a place too close for Frank’s comfort.
“Nothing,” he shook his head. “Go on. What about them? I mean it?”
Gerard rolled his eyes at Frank’s behavior and continued on with both his snack and his story. “So the sparrow…the one from right here,” he said, his free hand reaching over Frank’s lap and tracing across his stomach to where Frank could almost feel the bird flutter beneath his shirt. “It came to life,” he shrugged. “It was that sparrow,” he nodded, “and it was real. But it was all wrong,” he said, corking his next words with the peach.
“Because it flew away?” Frank asked.
Gerard shook his head. “Because it couldn’t fly at all.” He frowned, staring down at the table as though he could see it all in his mind again. His face looked sickened as his hand rested beside his staring place, his snack nearly finished, a carcass of fruit. “It was all burned and its feathers were matted together with black soot and melted flesh,” he frowned. “It was lying on its side and it would flutter upward, an inch off the ground at a time, and then fall back down again.” He lifted the peach towards his mouth and stopped, setting his hand back down again, still staring blankly, his appetite lost. “It was awful.”
Mikey asked, “Did you help it?”
Gerard shook his head slowly, lifting the fruit back to his lips and letting it hover before his mouth as he spoke. “No,” he said softly. “I couldn’t. It just had to do it on its own.” He was still staring at the table as he finished the peach, gnawing the tiny threads that clung to the pit.
Mikey nodded, putting something together in his head he did not share. And as much as Frank wanted to know, the smile on Mikey’s face told him to be thankful he was not sharing it out loud.
“What do ya think that means?” Gerard asked, popping the pit into his mouth as he suckled it and it made a cracking sound as it bumped his tiny teeth.
Ray slipped out of his bunk and through the open doorway, grabbing the last peach from the bag on the counter. He took the peach, left the bag, and said in passing, “Dying birds mean wasted ambition,” and left as quickly as he’d come. He returned to his bunk and pulled the curtain across, signaling the end of his sudden strange involvement in their conversation.
Frank took a deep breath and released it as a sigh of frustration. He had no peaches. He would be the one to throw the empty bag away and Ray’s answer left Frank with only more questions. He was unnerved by the sound of the pit in Gerard’s mouth as his tongue passed it from side to side like a weird game of Pong against the barrier of his teeth. Mikey was still smiling and he wished Bob would come and knock the grin right off his face. He wished he would appear and make Gerard spit out that damn pit. He wished he was sleeping again and this was only a dream. “When the hell did we all become so interested in dreams?” he sighed with annoyance at it all.
Gerard shrugged, taking the pit from his mouth and examining it for any remaining potential threads of fruit. He nodded with satisfaction in finding none and set it down on the table with a tap of the shriveled seed that twisted with natural grooves. He smirked as they all stared at it and cryptically said, “When our minds started to say more than our mouths could.” He gave the pit a spin with his fingers as Frank stared at it turning on the table. Gerard faced Frank’s profile, kissed his cheek with a smile and slid out of the booth, retiring to the back, closing the door behind him again.
And then it was just Frank and Mikey again, watching the pit slow to a final stop and they looked up at one another finally. Mikey was still smiling, Frank was still frustrated and the pit sat wasted between them.
“Have you figured it all out yet?” Mikey grinned.
Frank looked back down at the discarded pit, avoiding his smile again. “No,” he said flatly.
Mikey nodded. “Then you should go back to sleep and try it again.”
Frank’s eyes darted up to face him. “You’re not going to tell me what you know?”
He shook his head, his smile staying in place. “No. I can’t tell you what you already know, Frank.” He got up from the table and headed for the front of the bus, grabbing his jacket off the couch. He tugged it on and looked at the back of Frank’s head as he smirked. “It’s like Gerard said…you just have to do it on your own.”
Frank turned in the booth and stared back at him. “That’s not what he said. He was talking about the bird.”
Mikey grinned, stepping down the first stair. “It’s what he said,” he nodded, confirming it. “And it’s what he didn’t say just as much.” Mikey made his way down the last of the steps and opened the door with a pressured sound of release as he walked out into the cool evening air that had not yet seen the sunset.
Frank turned back to the pit, feeling the pit in his stomach and thinking about how only one of them was still growing. He sighed and got up, grabbing the empty bag from the counter and folding it over the seed to throw it away. He shuffled his feet, trudging back to the bunks and crawled inside, pulling his curtain closed where no one would bother him. No one would see him… staring up at the man who lay above him.
Frank felt discarded like the pit of that stupid sweet peach, sucked dry and bared to the core. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, wishing another fever would help him along. It would not be long before another one came. They always did. Just like his dreams; there would always be another on its way.
Frank awoke with a startle his heart was not prepared for. It took his mind minutes to even catch up. Gerard was lifting Frank’s shirt, slowly and from what he could see in his eyes, he was looking for something.
Gerard nodded as though he had heard Frank’s thoughts. “I dreamed again. I wanted to see it. On you,” he whispered. “I needed to know it was still there.”
“Where would it go?” he asked, trying to hold still so Gerard would not sense his tremble. He needed to ask the question. Not to get the answer, but to hear him answer. To know it was not still a dream. He asked again, feeling Gerard slipping inside himself as Frank clutched to his presence like he was losing a dream. “Where would it go, Gee?”
Gerard closed his eyes, his finger still tracing as though it could feel the ink rise above Frank’s skin to become something tangible. “I don’t know. Somewhere farther than you already are from me,” he frowned.
“I’m right here, Gerard,” he whispered.
He shook his head. “No. You’re not.” Gerard opened his eyes to the filtered darkness and slipped slowly, farther away.
Frank could see Gerard was awake, but it was almost as it he was sleepwalking.
“Get some sleep, Frank,” he frowned. As he slid out of the bunk, reaching the hall, his hands on the frame above him, ready to hoist himself up, he paused with a smile. “I want to hear about your dreams in the morning.”
Frank did not want to let him go. Once he was in his bunk again the moment would be lost, his nerve abandoned with Gerard’s company. “I could tell them to you now,” he offered. Anything to make this moment last one moment longer still.
Gerard shook his head. “You’re never as honest as you are at night, Frankie,” he smiled. “You’re not ready for that kind of honesty now.”
“How do you know?” he frowned, unable to hide his disappointment in the honesty of the night like Gerard said.
“How could I not?” he shrugged.
Frank would not let him get off so easily this time. He had him this time. Gerard had come to him. “Answer me,” he demanded gently.
Gerard just smiled down at him again. “Ask me a more important question.”
Frank’s lips moved but nothing came from them. What would he ask? Do you want me? Do you need me? Do you love me? Those questions were alive in his throat but dead on his lips. He said nothing as Gerard smirked and nodded, winning again as Frank realized he had never had him at all. He watched the curtain close and listened to the weight distribute above him. The moment lost, his chance over. That was the beauty of Gerard. He always had the lost word. But he always gave another chance. And Frank fell asleep quickly, simply to pass the time faster until his next chance came. He hurried towards his dreams just to have something to tell in the morning. Anything that might bring Gerard back the next night to have another awkwardly confusing conversation. Another opportunity loomed on the horizon of a night just a day away.
I wasn’t sure if anyone would like this story. It’s strange and dreamy and probably just my mind working odd things through. All of the dreams are mine and I’m figuring this story out as it comes through them. We’ll see where it goes tomorrow…after I dream again tonight. Thank you guys! Xoxo Harley
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I get so excited when you guys get excited!! After writing Anonymity, I just kind of need a sex break. Haha And while this will be Frerard, there’s a whole lot more to it and I like that. I hope you do too. I’m gearing up to write the prequel to Murder, Inc. soon and I hope you’ll all come back for it!! And now, on with the show! Xoxo Harley
When had Frank gone from friend to fan? It was too peculiar to even question. Gerard was his best friend, just as he had always been. But now, in the wake of the dream, he seemed so much more. And Frank began to wonder if he always had been. He thought back on all the times he had watched Gerard, stared at him a little too long. He thought of all the different ways he had actually seen him, but never let himself realize. On the stage Gerard was a Knight amongst thieves who fought for his attention. On the bus he was a Prince amongst men who held his holy court. And on the nights when Frank was alone with him, sharing him only with the darkness, Gerard was a King amongst the loyal follower Frank found himself to be. Gerard was more than a friend and he was only now beginning to struggle with what that might mean to him.
Frank watched Gerard talk with the girl through the fence, her face sectioned into pieces by the wire like a puzzle he had no desire to put together. He wished he could pick her apart the way she tried to analyze Gerard with her sultry smile that wasn’t fooling anyone; least of all the man she was trying to win over in the five minutes she would be granted to try.
He had always admired Gerard’s ability to see right through people. It was less impressive when he looked right through Frank, but entertaining in itself when it was directed towards others and he was on the same side as Gerard. They were on the inside looking out sometimes, a bond built by the team they had been drafted to by becoming a band everyone thought they knew. Gerard was their Captain and he kept his team by his side like an impenetrable wall in a game of Red Rover. He called out to the fans but if they tried to break through, the team was there to strengthen his side. They were his side and they would never let go. No one was getting by.
The girl prattled on and it did not matter that Frank could not hear what she was saying. He knew it all too well. Her adoration dripped from her overdone lips and her eyes batted from beneath her mascara-weighted lashes. Frank could see through them all just like Gerard, no matter how much eyeliner they used to disguise themselves. It was not a disguise when they all looked the same. Her laugh cackled through the fence and echoed across the lot between the tour buses and he could see the chill run through Gerard’s hidden spine beneath his hoodie, despite the layers he hid behind.
Frank did not need to read her lips. He could read Gerard, even from the side. His crossed arms built a second barrier between the fence and the girl on the other side. His solid weight shifted from hip to hip in a tiny, solitary dance of awkward discomfort. She probably thought it was endearing; thought it was some sort of musician’s intuition like he was writing a song in his head and she was the inspiration. But Frank knew better. He knew Gerard. Knew the uncomfortable pose as he raised his hand to his mouth while he listened to her story as he bit his nails down to the quick. She most likely saw it as a flirtatious sign he was making purposely just for her; look at my mouth, aren’t I sexy? But it had nothing to do with indulgence. It was a tick almost; the nervous habit of a man out of his element.
Gerard was a siphon for the spotlight, basking and calling to the crowd from the stage. But out of character, when he was forced to be nothing more than himself, Gerard was awkwardly nervous and chasing the shadows he would never again be able to hide behind. The only time he had complete control of his confidence off stage was when he was with the guys. When he was alone with Frank, Gerard had total control.
It was awkward for Frank to even watch him like this. It was uncomfortable to feel him from so far away. For Gerard, that fence was not thick enough. For Frank, Gerard was too far. He tossed his cigarette down to the ground and snubbed it out into the dirt with his shoe. He took a last glance at the spectacle across the lot and turned to go back inside.
“Frank! Wait up!” Gerard called to him desperately. Frank watched as he turned back to the girl. “I’m sorry. I gotta go. It was nice to meet you!” he waved as he ran to catch up with Frank.
He jogged to Frank’s side and slowed as he reached him with a slight pant already in his breath. Whether it was nerves from the impromptu meet and greet, the heavy breath of a smoker or the jog across the lot substituting a work-out, Frank could not decide.
“Man,” he laughed. “I didn’t think I was ever getting out of there.”
Frank smiled, happy to have him back and all to himself. He shook his head at his unwarranted jealousy. “Did you save her life?” he smirked.
Gerard laughed and lit up a smoke, leaning his back against the bus. “She didn’t get that far.”
Frank was not sure if he meant in the story or in her life. Either way, he lit up the second smoke he did not want and joined Gerard for the conversation he wanted more than anything.
“Why didn’t you come save me?” Gerard smiled, his lopsided grin cocking to the side with his head but scaling lower than the rest of his lip.
Frank smiled back, unable to resist. “You save her life, I save yours…and then who the fuck will save me?”
Gerard watched him closely as though dissecting his joke for some hidden meaning Frank was sure he would never find. It was a clever response and Frank’s wit was sharp. There was no depth to it to unravel. He leaned toward Frank, his smile dissolved, a seriousness behind his concerned eyes. “I will always be here to save you, Frank.”
He had said it with such emotion, Frank took a step back on his heel. “I don’t need to be saved,” he practically whispered, feeling quietly dazed in the presence of Gerard’s feeling.
The smirk crept back up over his lip on one side as it rose to greet him. “That’s why I’ve never stepped in,” he smiled, the rest of his lip slowly catching up.
Gerard tossed his unfinished cigarette to the ground, wasting it, through with his opportunity of the moment and satiated by Frank’s unbalance. He smiled and walked inside. And Frank was sure, as he was stepping onto the bus and looked back, there was a wink. A misplaced blink on one side that held too long to be anything else. And then he was gone.
Frank sighed, finally breathing again in his absence and there was no doubt in his mind what he felt and who those feelings were for. And it hurt because for all of Gerard’s teases, they would never be promises. Only one of them had something invested in the other and it was not Gerard who felt it.
He was left alone to finish the cigarette he never wanted in the first place. Frank continued to smoke, still needing the distraction it no longer provided. He was exposed and all by himself. With Gerard on the bus and the fans by fence, he had nowhere left to go unless he wanted to be faced with questions he did not want to answer. So Frank sat down on the hard ground, his back against the giant black wheel, and lit another cigarette he would hold and not smoke, just to look like he had purpose for being there. Frank no longer felt purpose though. Everything he felt made him feel increasingly useless.
Later on in the day Frank sat in the booth, picking at the hardening crust of his sandwich that had sat out too long, the air decaying it with its natural breath. Mikey slid into the seat across from him, a piping cup of coffee warming his hands as they stared at its steam and pretended not to see one another through it. Mikey poured in the powdered creamer and swirled it inside the mug, watching the black liquid dissolve into a chocolaty brown. Frank observed him as Mikey tore open little yellow Splenda packets and added their pristine white granules of sweetness, leaving the little wrappers scattered across the table like discarded husks of natural element. To Frank’s surprise, as Mikey lifted the mug, he did not drink from it. Instead, he passed it over the table to Frank with a smile of offering.
Frank grinned and wrapped his hand around the mug, their fingers brushing awkwardly in the passing. He sipped the hot coffee and let the heat fill his throat, feeling it as it passed down through his body, spreading its warmth to his insides. He bit his lip, wondering if what should have been a simple gesture of kindness really meant something more. For Mikey to give up a perfectly made cup of coffee could only mean he wanted something in return. And that something must be awfully special.
“What’s up, Mikey?” he asked, collecting the remains of Mikey’s preparatory ritual and the sandwich he could not stomach, getting up to throw them away.
Mikey nodded, admitting there was something. “I keep thinking about the dream.”
Frank laughed sitting down again. “Give it up, Mikey. Let the poor panda go.”
He smiled back at him, his curious brow raised like he was going to ask something he already knew the answer to. Frank had seen that look on his brother’s face and he had memorized its meaning to prepare for it every time it flashed his way.
“Did I say it was my dream I’ve been thinking of?” he grinned.
Frank sighed, sinking down in the booth and wishing he could slide right under the table. “I’m tired of thinking of the dream. I’m having enough trouble with the waking hours.”
Mikey’s smile never ended. “Something on your mind, Frank?”
“Nothing worth saying out loud,” he groaned, hiding behind his mug as he sipped slowly, drowning in the wet burn.
“Au contraire,” Mikey grinned. “I think you want to talk about it somethin awful. That’s why you brought it up in the first place. Isn’t it?” he smiled.
Frank laughed, “So because I don’t lie to you about my dreams that means I must want to talk about something? That’s hardly logic, Mikey,” he shook his head. “It barely even makes sense.”
“Anything else you’re working out in your head right now, Frank?” his knowing smile asked.
He shook his head again. “No.”
“No, you’re not working anything out, or you haven’t worked it out yet?”
Gerard opened the door that divided the bunk hall from the front of the bus, grabbing a peach from the bag on the counter. Frank had picked them up in Georgia when they passed through. It was not meant to be communal fruit but nothing was really off limits if it was left out. There was only one forbidden fruit on that bus. Gerard slipped into the booth beside Frank, resting his head on the comfy shoulder like it was waiting for him; which it was. “What are we talking about?”
“We aren’t talking about anything,” Frank sighed flicking his finger around their triangle.
Mikey smiled pointing to Frank and back to himself, “But we were talking about Frank’s dream.”
Gerard’s head lifted, turning as he looked at him with a curious smile. “What did you dream?”
“I don’t remember all of it,” he shrugged, trying to end the conversation he did not want to have.
Mikey’s smile pushed further, “But you didn’t forget it all either.”
Gerard did not seem to notice Frank’s angry glare towards his brother. He nodded, biting into the peach, his teeth piercing the skin and sinking through the juicy tenderness inside as it made delightfully squishy sounds against his mouth. Frank stared at the dribble of nectar that ran down Gerard’s chin, an escaped sweetness his mesmerizing lips could not hold.
Gerard nodded again, “I had a dream about you last night, Frankie.”
Frank froze even more than he already was since he was sitting and not really moving to begin with. The freeze came from within as his heart skipped a beat and his lungs failed to fill. He had heard those words before. Last night. In his dream. “What…what was it about?” he asked, his body starting to function inside again.
He continued to bite into the peach as Frank stared. He was devouring it as though starving. If someone was really so hungry, why a peach? It would quench a craving but hardly fill a ravenous need. Frank watched him turn the soft fruit as his lips moved across it like a typewriter. He would stop at the curve, sucking out the juices and swallowing slowly, Frank’s eyes hypnotized by the rise and fall of his adam’s apple. Gerard chewed each succulent bite as though he was completely nourished by it and finally he swallowed again, making room for the words in his throat.
“It was about your sparrow,” he nodded as though it were a complete sentence by itself. But there was no information in his informative attempt of an answer.
The sparrows were in his dream too. “Both of them?” he asked, remembering the birds.
“Nah. Just one,” he said, his teeth diving back into that damn peach like Frank wasn’t hanging on his every word.
Frank wanted to rip the fruit out of his juice-covered hand and chuck it toward the tinted window of the bus just to hear it splatter and condense against the hard pit inside. The pit in Frank’s stomach ached and his mouth became sour like lemons. “Which one?” he asked, cursing Gerard’s full mouth and hoping he would be comfortable enough in their friendship after all these years to not let manners stop him from continuing to talk with it full.
“The one by ‘Search’,” he said, casually still chewing.
It was so specific. Frank needed to know more and fast. “Are you sure it was by itself?” he asked strangely.
Gerard looked at him just as oddly. “Who’s dream is this, Frank? Mine or yours?”
He looked away, across at Mikey, and then away again to avoid his smile. “I don’t know anymore,” he muttered.
“What?” Gerard leaned in to a place too close for Frank’s comfort.
“Nothing,” he shook his head. “Go on. What about them? I mean it?”
Gerard rolled his eyes at Frank’s behavior and continued on with both his snack and his story. “So the sparrow…the one from right here,” he said, his free hand reaching over Frank’s lap and tracing across his stomach to where Frank could almost feel the bird flutter beneath his shirt. “It came to life,” he shrugged. “It was that sparrow,” he nodded, “and it was real. But it was all wrong,” he said, corking his next words with the peach.
“Because it flew away?” Frank asked.
Gerard shook his head. “Because it couldn’t fly at all.” He frowned, staring down at the table as though he could see it all in his mind again. His face looked sickened as his hand rested beside his staring place, his snack nearly finished, a carcass of fruit. “It was all burned and its feathers were matted together with black soot and melted flesh,” he frowned. “It was lying on its side and it would flutter upward, an inch off the ground at a time, and then fall back down again.” He lifted the peach towards his mouth and stopped, setting his hand back down again, still staring blankly, his appetite lost. “It was awful.”
Mikey asked, “Did you help it?”
Gerard shook his head slowly, lifting the fruit back to his lips and letting it hover before his mouth as he spoke. “No,” he said softly. “I couldn’t. It just had to do it on its own.” He was still staring at the table as he finished the peach, gnawing the tiny threads that clung to the pit.
Mikey nodded, putting something together in his head he did not share. And as much as Frank wanted to know, the smile on Mikey’s face told him to be thankful he was not sharing it out loud.
“What do ya think that means?” Gerard asked, popping the pit into his mouth as he suckled it and it made a cracking sound as it bumped his tiny teeth.
Ray slipped out of his bunk and through the open doorway, grabbing the last peach from the bag on the counter. He took the peach, left the bag, and said in passing, “Dying birds mean wasted ambition,” and left as quickly as he’d come. He returned to his bunk and pulled the curtain across, signaling the end of his sudden strange involvement in their conversation.
Frank took a deep breath and released it as a sigh of frustration. He had no peaches. He would be the one to throw the empty bag away and Ray’s answer left Frank with only more questions. He was unnerved by the sound of the pit in Gerard’s mouth as his tongue passed it from side to side like a weird game of Pong against the barrier of his teeth. Mikey was still smiling and he wished Bob would come and knock the grin right off his face. He wished he would appear and make Gerard spit out that damn pit. He wished he was sleeping again and this was only a dream. “When the hell did we all become so interested in dreams?” he sighed with annoyance at it all.
Gerard shrugged, taking the pit from his mouth and examining it for any remaining potential threads of fruit. He nodded with satisfaction in finding none and set it down on the table with a tap of the shriveled seed that twisted with natural grooves. He smirked as they all stared at it and cryptically said, “When our minds started to say more than our mouths could.” He gave the pit a spin with his fingers as Frank stared at it turning on the table. Gerard faced Frank’s profile, kissed his cheek with a smile and slid out of the booth, retiring to the back, closing the door behind him again.
And then it was just Frank and Mikey again, watching the pit slow to a final stop and they looked up at one another finally. Mikey was still smiling, Frank was still frustrated and the pit sat wasted between them.
“Have you figured it all out yet?” Mikey grinned.
Frank looked back down at the discarded pit, avoiding his smile again. “No,” he said flatly.
Mikey nodded. “Then you should go back to sleep and try it again.”
Frank’s eyes darted up to face him. “You’re not going to tell me what you know?”
He shook his head, his smile staying in place. “No. I can’t tell you what you already know, Frank.” He got up from the table and headed for the front of the bus, grabbing his jacket off the couch. He tugged it on and looked at the back of Frank’s head as he smirked. “It’s like Gerard said…you just have to do it on your own.”
Frank turned in the booth and stared back at him. “That’s not what he said. He was talking about the bird.”
Mikey grinned, stepping down the first stair. “It’s what he said,” he nodded, confirming it. “And it’s what he didn’t say just as much.” Mikey made his way down the last of the steps and opened the door with a pressured sound of release as he walked out into the cool evening air that had not yet seen the sunset.
Frank turned back to the pit, feeling the pit in his stomach and thinking about how only one of them was still growing. He sighed and got up, grabbing the empty bag from the counter and folding it over the seed to throw it away. He shuffled his feet, trudging back to the bunks and crawled inside, pulling his curtain closed where no one would bother him. No one would see him… staring up at the man who lay above him.
Frank felt discarded like the pit of that stupid sweet peach, sucked dry and bared to the core. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, wishing another fever would help him along. It would not be long before another one came. They always did. Just like his dreams; there would always be another on its way.
Frank awoke with a startle his heart was not prepared for. It took his mind minutes to even catch up. Gerard was lifting Frank’s shirt, slowly and from what he could see in his eyes, he was looking for something.
Gerard nodded as though he had heard Frank’s thoughts. “I dreamed again. I wanted to see it. On you,” he whispered. “I needed to know it was still there.”
“Where would it go?” he asked, trying to hold still so Gerard would not sense his tremble. He needed to ask the question. Not to get the answer, but to hear him answer. To know it was not still a dream. He asked again, feeling Gerard slipping inside himself as Frank clutched to his presence like he was losing a dream. “Where would it go, Gee?”
Gerard closed his eyes, his finger still tracing as though it could feel the ink rise above Frank’s skin to become something tangible. “I don’t know. Somewhere farther than you already are from me,” he frowned.
“I’m right here, Gerard,” he whispered.
He shook his head. “No. You’re not.” Gerard opened his eyes to the filtered darkness and slipped slowly, farther away.
Frank could see Gerard was awake, but it was almost as it he was sleepwalking.
“Get some sleep, Frank,” he frowned. As he slid out of the bunk, reaching the hall, his hands on the frame above him, ready to hoist himself up, he paused with a smile. “I want to hear about your dreams in the morning.”
Frank did not want to let him go. Once he was in his bunk again the moment would be lost, his nerve abandoned with Gerard’s company. “I could tell them to you now,” he offered. Anything to make this moment last one moment longer still.
Gerard shook his head. “You’re never as honest as you are at night, Frankie,” he smiled. “You’re not ready for that kind of honesty now.”
“How do you know?” he frowned, unable to hide his disappointment in the honesty of the night like Gerard said.
“How could I not?” he shrugged.
Frank would not let him get off so easily this time. He had him this time. Gerard had come to him. “Answer me,” he demanded gently.
Gerard just smiled down at him again. “Ask me a more important question.”
Frank’s lips moved but nothing came from them. What would he ask? Do you want me? Do you need me? Do you love me? Those questions were alive in his throat but dead on his lips. He said nothing as Gerard smirked and nodded, winning again as Frank realized he had never had him at all. He watched the curtain close and listened to the weight distribute above him. The moment lost, his chance over. That was the beauty of Gerard. He always had the lost word. But he always gave another chance. And Frank fell asleep quickly, simply to pass the time faster until his next chance came. He hurried towards his dreams just to have something to tell in the morning. Anything that might bring Gerard back the next night to have another awkwardly confusing conversation. Another opportunity loomed on the horizon of a night just a day away.
I wasn’t sure if anyone would like this story. It’s strange and dreamy and probably just my mind working odd things through. All of the dreams are mine and I’m figuring this story out as it comes through them. We’ll see where it goes tomorrow…after I dream again tonight. Thank you guys! Xoxo Harley
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