Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > The Incendiary Heart
Chapter 4
14 ReviewsWhat's in a dream?
Chapter 4
Hang on tight friends. This road’s got some bumps and there will be bruises. It’s all going to be okay. Just not yet…
When Frank finally finished telling his dream, Mikey was ready for his turn to talk. “That’s quite a dream,” Mikey smiled. “Most people just dream about silly stuff. I like your dreams, Frank,” he nodded.
Frank smiled. “I do too. Most of the time.” He sighed, “When they’re not frustrating the hell out of me.”
“What do you think it means?” he grinned.
Frank smiled back. “There’s so much I don’t know where to begin. But I get it. And I know you got it long before me,” he laughed. Frank continued, more quietly then. “Gerard and I are caught in this dance I guess. No one’s leading and we keeping running ourselves in circles. I think the masks are all about me not knowing what he wants, what I want, or who we’ll be if we decide to dance the line between friendship and…whatever’s out there.” He shifted uncomfortably, avoiding his own blush. “And I think me being the only one not wearing a costume, when everyone thought mine was the best, is me just really struggling with what all this means, ya know? I guess I’ve been pretending to be something I’m not for so long that it’s just become second nature.”
Mikey nodded with a smile. “I think you’re dead on, friend.”
Frank nodded back, frowning and looking away. His hot mug was not big enough to hide him and it only left him feeling more exposed. “I worry a lot,” he said softly.
“About what?” Mikey asked, pouring his own coffee.
Frank shrugged. “Everything. What Gerard would say. What everyone would think. I care about him though.”
He nodded. “Sure. I know you care about him, Frank. I’ve never questioned that at all. I just don’t know if you’re ready for him.”
“If we’re talking about this,” Frank said, “then you must know he feels something for me too.” He eyed Mikey closely. “I need to hear that. What does he feel?”
But Mikey just sipped his coffee quietly. When the silence between them became unbearable, he finally offered him something, even if it was not what Frank wanted. “Gerard feels,” was all he said.
How could Mikey play both sides? Frank threw up his hands in complete frustration. “Would you just be straight with me here?”
“I am,” he insisted. “What Gerard feels for you is something only he can tell you. I can only tell you that he feels. Gerard feels everything. He’s the most empathetic person I’ve ever known. He takes everything onto his own shoulders and when someone feels something, he feels it too. And long after they’re gone, he’ll still feel it. He’ll carry it around with him whether he wants to or not. And what Gerard feels for you…what I see inside him when he’s around you…” Mikey shook his head and softly said, “Fuck, Frank. It hurts him sometimes to be near you. It literally pains him to be around you sometimes.”
Frank felt like he had just been punched in the stomach. “Why?” he breathed sadly.
“I think he’s felt for you for a real long time, Frank. But he knows you don’t know what you feel. And he’s been dealing with that a long time. A lot longer than you have. He’s been waiting for you to make a choice long before you thought you had a decision to make. And I’m sorry…but I don’t think you’ve chosen yet. I don’t think this is the time to make a move. You still don’t know for sure what you want.”
“I do,” Frank insisted.
“No. You don’t,” he said almost harshly. Mikey got up and headed for the door. “We need to get ready for soundcheck.”
Frank didn’t move though. He called after him as Mikey passed through the bunks. “What makes you so damn sure that I don’t know what I want?” he accused.
Mikey stopped and turned back to him sadly. “Frank. You haven’t even said it out loud to me. You can’t even say the words. What makes you so damn sure you’re ready to say it to him?”
Frank gritted his teeth and watched Mikey’s back as he slowly walked away. He sat in the silence of the room, in the fury of his fever, and thought about everything Mikey said. So he wasn’t ready to say the word ‘gay’. Frank was not even sure that he was. All he knew was that he had feelings for Gerard he could no longer ignore. Who cared if he said it out loud? Why couldn’t he just show Gerard and explore the feelings from there? What was the big deal if he wasn’t sure yet? Frank shook off the whole conversation and the bad taste it left in his mouth. He was going to test his feelings on Gerard tonight and then he would know for sure. Then he would have his answers.
Later that night after the show, after the crowds had all gone home and the adrenaline had finally worn off, Frank tore off the sweaty shirt that clung to his skin and retired to the back of the bus, where Gerard was. Waiting. Silently biding his time until Frank became tired and went to his bunk. But Frank was feeling proactive for once. He sat down beside him and nudged his arm with his nose, imploring Gerard to put his arm around him so Frank could nestle into the crook of his shoulder. It was comfortable there. It always had been. It always would be; whether things changed or not. But Frank felt as though perhaps it was time for a change.
“Let’s sleep here tonight,” Frank smiled.
Gerard played absently with Frank’s soft hair, brushing through it as it ruffled against his fingers. “You tired?” he smiled.
“No,” he grinned. “Just comfortable. Very comfortable.”
“Me too,” he nodded. “We can stay if you like.”
Frank was glad. “I’d like that.”
“You’re still warm,” he frowned, feeling his forehead as he brushed his hair.
Frank shook his head. “Not warm. Toasty,” he laughed, snuggling in closer.
“You played a good show tonight, Frankie,” he smiled. “Do I tell that you that enough?”
“Sure,” he nodded. “Thanks.”
Gerard nodded, still softly tangling his fingers through Frank’s hair as they closed their eyes and spoke without seeing. “Did you dream last night?”
Frank grinned, “You know I did.”
“Do I?” he smirked.
Frank laughed. “You know everything.”
Gerard shook his head, his smiled weighted down into a frown. “I know nothing.”
“What else don’t you know?” Frank asked sleepily.
Gerard continued to smirk. “Now if I knew that…I would know something.”
They sat together quietly a long time, only the comfortable silence between them. An hour, maybe two passed without a single word in their shared company. It was enough simply to be, as Frank kept his eyes closed, breathing with Gerard as they curled against one another. Finally, from somewhere far away, Frank heard him break the quiet solace of their breathing.
“Tell me about your dream?” he whispered.
Frank shook his head, his nose rubbing Gerard’s chest. “I already told it once today. You should’ve caught me earlier,” he grinned.
Gerard giggled, his gentle laughter shaking Frank in the process. “I was with you when you woke!”
“But you didn’t ask then.” If Gerard could be mysterious, Frank could be coy; and maybe they could dance in between.
Gerard nodded, smiling. “Only one of my many mistakes. I’ll try harder next time,” he smiled.
“What did you dream last night?” he wondered, his eyes heavier by the second. Lying with Gerard was like being at home at Christmas by the fire. And it was good to have the fire beside him, instead of inside himself. Frank’s dreams paled in comparison to Gerard’s. His dreams were always beautifully dark or hauntingly stunning; always at odds with the duality of who he was. Sometimes Gerard’s dreams scared Frank. But it was the thrill in the horror that kept him in the dark, biting his nails, peeking through his eyes, refusing to turn away. “Share it with me?”
Gerard smiled, his fingers trailing down Frank’s hair to caress his neck, feeling his breathing change as they touched Frank’s bare skin. He traveled down to the slope of his neck and over his shoulder, tenderly testing the difference between soft flesh and obscured bone. “There were angels,” he whispered, his eyes closing again as his fingers traced the differences over Frank’s body. “Angels everywhere,” he said softly, his fingers moving down Frank’s arm, his memory knowing by heart exactly which picture his fingers danced over.
Frank felt the electricity move through him; not sharp like a shock, but slow like a current as it flowed from Gerard into him. It seemed almost unnatural for Gerard to dream of angels, like God dreaming of angels; how amusingly odd. But as Gerard turned his face, ever so slightly, his eyelashes blinked against Frank’s cheek like angel’s feathers and butterfly kisses and the dream seemed perfectly in sync.
His heart began to race, feeling Gerard’s light touches. He was breathless at the intimacy of that barely there touch. Gerard had done a million things to show his human side over the course of a timeless friendship. And yet, somehow, this one motion, was far too human for such an entity as Gerard. Gods simply did not blink. They never missed a beat.
Frank began to lose his breath. Lost was the wrong reaction though since he knew exactly where it was going. He was passing it into Gerard as they shared the air between them. Gerard’s lungs would fill, his chest expanding as Frank exhaled and gave it freely to him. Then Gerard’s chest would slowly fall, Frank’s head moving with it as he breathed in the air, filling himself up on Gerard’s heaven-soaked scent and life-altering air. And he breathed with him, for him, through him.
Gerard’s fingers played along Frank’s skin, touching him lightly, letting him know he was still there. He tickled with his touches and ravished him with soft rubs as Frank drank each feeling in. Soon their breathing combined, depending on one another as they found a smooth rhythm between them of breaths and touches. Gerard kept his words close, placing them in Frank’s ear with care, turning them over with his tongue.
Frank was growing uncomfortably comfortable and Gerard was close enough to not only see it, but feel it. Frank was dizzy with his eyes closed but he did not dare open them. He would go blind to see him so closely. He would never survive the impact of those eyes so close. Frank started holding his breath, trying to slow his heartbeat that Gerard could surely hear, feel, see the beating of his chest where it throbbed. The slightest motion down below would catch Gerard’s eye and Frank could not bare to watch, feeling Gerard’s touches across his naked skin calling to his manhood like a marionette on strings. He was getting hard and he didn’t want it to stop. He needed it to stop. He was being given away and there was nowhere to hide but deeper inside Gerard. Frank fought to listen as the touching continued down his arm, over his jean-covered thigh in lazy dragging waves that crashed so close to his shore.
Gerard whispered again finally, Frank’s breath completely sucked away. “Those angels, Frankie…they were pure white; without a single blemish. A complete absence of color,” he remembered, moving back up to Frank’s arms. “And in the moment, as it was happening, as much as I was in awe of their complete perfection…I missed the color they couldn’t create. And I started to cry for them.” Gerard’s fingers danced back down Frank’s body, his palm flat and whole as it spread across Frank’s lower stomach, an inch from the wasted material that could barely contain Frank’s growing body. Gerard smiled strangely, “Imagine…me…crying for them.” He pressed his lips to Frank’s ear, covering it with his breath, filling it with heavy air so he could feel it push back to his lips. “But I did cry. Because as perfect as they were, they were blank all over. And it broke me down just to see them like that,” he said sadly.
Gerard’s voice was composed of broken breathing; his words were sadly humble and his touches were erotically charged. Frank was losing himself in every whisper, dying with every breath and living for every second of that moment as it passed over him.
Frank whispered, his eyes still softly closed as he listened to Gerard’s voice seduce him into a trance. “What did the angels do when you cried?”
Gerard turned his head, only slightly, but his lips moved against the soft cavern of Frank’s ear, his voice whispering its way inside him again. “When I began to cry…the angels caught fire…they burst into blue flames…large white feathers falling slowly…all around me…like giant snowflakes that had never been cold. A tribe of ghostly phoenixes that burned my eyes just to see them with my naked humanity.” He whispered still, “I was blessedly destroyed by their beauty…and I was so unworthy of their sight.”
Frank was nearly on fire himself, dizzy and drowning, falling slowly against Gerard’s warm body. Gerard continued to caress Frank’s bare skin, nothing but naked touches between his hand and Frank’s lower abdomen. He was imagining angels and the colors they burst into; Gerard before them, humbled and weeping. And Frank did not want to look away. He wanted to stay and hold him, his back to the angels because there was only one angel he wanted to see, save, and spare for himself. Frank began to softly pant and he was becoming so beautifully hard as Gerard’s hand danced over him he no longer cared if the man knew. Frank wanted him to know. He clenched his eyes, his hips fighting to stay down when all they wanted was to reach for him, grab him, pull him back down.
Frank asked softly, feeling Gerard’s lips against him, “Was that the end of the dream?”
Gerard spoke slowly, his breath warming Frank’s ear. “I think it went on…without me…I think that was all I got to see…but that it kept going after I woke up.” His fingers moved down over Frank’s stomach, lower, farther, meeting the border of his jeans and crossing over. He slid his hand down over the jean to the side, missing Frank’s target, feeling his way over his trembling thigh. His fingers bent, clawing into the jean and raking back over Frank with undeniable presence.
Gerard’s lips moved against Frank’s ear, breathing his life into him. He moved lower to his neck, breathing across him. Frank was not sure if it was his imagination or the actual reality of Gerard’s tongue running wild across the nape of his neck. When Frank’s whole body clenched, he was brought back into the moment. Maybe it had not been his tongue; perhaps it was the soft wet kiss of his lips as they passed over his skin but something was there; wet and alive.
“Tell me your dream,” Gerard whispered, reclaiming his focused attention.
Frank could not speak. He could barely breathe. And his every pant gave him farther away. Gerard wanted words? Actual thoughts released on breath? Improbable at the moment. Impossible by the second. His breath hitched as Frank tried desperately to stifle the need to moan. He gathered himself together, as best he could, and forced the words out softly and quickly.
“Why are you so interested in my dreams these days?” And it was out! A feat of accomplishment in itself. Frank was proud and then back to flushed excitement, trying to think through the pleasure that enraptured him.
Gerard’s breath was slightly labored, still in control. He was one up on Frank but all over him at the same time as his hand rubbed across Frank’s thigh and his lips breathed against his ear. “I guess because…since you’ve been sick…your days are all I have. Every time I come to see you at night…you’re dreaming. So I want to share your dreams with you. Then it can be like I was there at night too.”
Frank’s flustered state came to a head as his body fell away from him and his mind wrapped around what Gerard was really saying. “Are you telling you’ve missed me while I’ve been dreaming?” he asked, his eyes now open, his soul on alert.
Gerard smiled and Frank could feel it against his cheek. “You know something Frank? I think I have.”
His fingers softened, stopped raking Frank’s thigh and smoothed their way along him, moving up, away, to his side where it held him close. His breath either stopped completely or moved slightly away, but stopped haunting Frank’s ear altogether. He leaned his head back on the couch, a tightness of pain in his body or mind; Frank could no longer tell the difference.
“I should go,” Gerard whispered.
Frank bit his lip, holding back, feeling the warmth slipping away and knowing that if he did not speak now, he would be alone and this would all be a memory in a matter of seconds. He couldn’t hold back. He had to hold on. Gerard was still in his reach. “I need you to stay,” he whispered.
“Want me to stay,” Gerard said.
Frank shook his head, “No. It’s definitely a need,” he said, gaining control on his shallow breath.
“I can’t,” Gerard said, closing his eyes, and Frank felt the pain in his tone.
“Why not?” he asked, brokenly repeating the tone back to him.
Gerard looked away. “You need rest, Frankie. You’re burning up.”
Frank turned facing him, close enough to touch him with his heated lips. “I’m burning,” he nodded, but not in the way Gerard meant. Frank stared at him, his eyes moving over Gerard’s face, wildly trying to take it all in but being too close to focus on him as a whole. Gerard was too close to see as anything whole. He was a blinking, hazel, swirl of green; an upturned nose that steadied to a point; a single pair of blushing lips so close he could only take him in, one piece at a time.
Gerard stared back at him, his eyes moving just as quickly to focus on Frank, so close, he could not see him at all. “You have to ride the fever out,” he breathed, every syllable reaching Frank’s lips, only a kiss away.
“Wait it out with me,” Frank begged. Gerard swallowed hard, so close to him, Frank could hear it. “You said we could stay if I like,” he reminded him.
Gerard asked, “What do you like, Frank?” His words a pale whisper of a question.
Frank leaned in closer, barely space between them at all, lips in parallel sinking in deeper. “I like you,” he breathed, placing the words right over Gerard’s lips. He kissed him softly, so tenderly he was not even sure he could feel him until Gerard pressed back and they were locked together, not even air fitting between them now.
They held together, their lips hugging gently, the puzzle complete as they fit together. Until finally, for the survival of air alone, Gerard pulled back a fraction of an inch, their eyes meeting where their lips left off. They passed the air back and forth through their breathing, neither one sure it had ever happened. The only proof was the tingle on their lips, the moist wet remnants of a kiss that’s lost speed, the shock in their eyes that held the memory of what was already slipping away.
Gerard moved back, just far enough to see all of Frank’s face, all at once. He stopped his breath, letting it hinge on his lips, but he would not let it go. And finally he released it, his words sent out into the air between them where he could not take them back. “I’m far too here for this moment,” he breathed. “And you’re too far gone to realize it,” he said sadly, still slipping away. Frank’s warmth was going away as his eyes fell into darkness, unable to watch him go. Farther and farther away. They were both slipping, drifting.
Frank’s eyes shot open as he grabbed for him through the air, gripping his waist and throwing him to the bench seat that lined the bus. He tackled him to it and pressed him against the black leather. The time for timid fumblings passed and Frank pressed his lips to Gerard’s, hard with need and fierce determination. There was no room for error. No room for misinterpreted intention. No room between them at all.
Gerard pushed Frank back and for a moment he was afraid Gerard was angry. There was a fire in his eyes but he could only place it somewhere between fury and shock. And then Gerard crossed the line and showed him the blur between that place. He pulled Frank’s legs out from under him, toppling him backward as he hit the couch and Gerard pressed his body hard over him, pinning him down and snarling over him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he growled.
Frank struggled beneath him, afraid and misguided by Gerard’s harsh reaction. He whimpered beneath him, his words lodged in his throat and corked by his fear. What had he done wrong?
Gerard slid his hand down Frank’s body, inching through the press of his body over him. He grazed his fingers over Frank’s jeans, straight down the middle, cupping him with force. “You wanna play with me, Frank?” he asked angrily. Gerard ran his tongue up the side of Frank’s neck and bit into his soft flesh as Frank screamed.
Frank pushed Gerard up and off him, holding his hand to his sore neck to cover the angry bite. “Go to hell!” he shouted furiously with fear.
Gerard backed away from him, wiping his mouth with his arm. His dark eyes swirled and his chest rose and fell hard with each breath. He growled, “Don’t you recognize the hell I live in every day around you?”
Frank’s lip quivered and he hated that Gerard could see it. He bit it down, held it in place, willing himself not to cry. Not yet. Not until he was gone and he wanted him gone! “What’s wrong with you?” he cried, his eyes wet with pain.
He shook his head, the growl still festering in his angry throat. “Nothing that will ever be right with you.”
“Get out,” Frank snarled. He needed to cry and he needed Gerard gone when he did.
Gerard backed his way towards the door and stopped suddenly, his breath still labored with anger. “You ever fuck with me like that again…and I’ll break more than your heart,” he spat. Gerard turned and ripped through the doorway, slamming the door and storming through the bunk hall.
Frank felt the whole bus shake as Gerard marched his way to the front and out the door. And then Frank collapsed to the floor, holding himself in the smallest ball he could make and letting the pain tear him in two. He had thought Gerard wanted the same thing as him. Why did Gerard touch him if he did not want to feel him? Where did all go so wrong? He cried hysterically, gripping his knees to his chest trying to hold his heart in as the fever burned through him and Mikey sat down beside him.
“What happened?” he asked, in shock and horror as much as Frank.
Frank cried, “What did I do wrong? How could I have been so wrong?”
Mikey sighed, pulled Frank over to him on the floor and holding him while he let it all out. He rocked him back and forth, trying so hard to soothe the inconsolable shell of a man. “Shhh,” he hushed. “It isn’t you,” he whispered.
Frank pulled away, wiping his eyes on his bare arms. “It was me though! It was me who kissed him! It was me who gave in to the pull he was putting out! It was me he crucified after I made the sacrifice! It’s me who he’s disgusted with for being so honest!” he screamed.
Ray and Bob hovered in the door as Mikey waved them away. “Tell me exactly what happened, Frank. Help me make sense of what you’re not saying,” he pleaded.
“I kissed him!” Frank cried. “I kissed him and he attacked me for it!” He groaned with inner pain and soon released that too. “He thinks I’m sick!” he yelled. “And maybe I am! He never wanted me!” he shook his head, tears spraying off to the sides. “He never liked me and now he hates me! He hates me and he’s the one who started it!”
Mikey jumped up with him, a safe distance from Frank’s flailing arms. “He doesn’t hate you, Frank!” he insisted. “He’s confused I think.”
Frank kept shaking his head. “That wasn’t confusion, Mikey! You didn’t see it!”
“And whatever you think you saw you didn’t!”
Frank cried, “I was there!”
“You were dreaming!” Mikey shouted.
Frank stopped short, one breath to gather his thoughts. “No,” he breathed.
“Yes!” Mikey snapped. “Whatever you think just happened, it didn’t. I was in here not two minutes before and you were sleeping against him, Frank,” Mikey said firmly with conviction. “I was here. And you were out. For hours before I came in you didn’t make a sound.”
Frank shook his head, denying what he was hearing. It couldn’t be true. It had happened! “We were quiet,” he insisted. “You didn’t hear because we were quiet.”
“No, Frank!” he shouted. “Because you were dreaming!” He stepped carefully forward as Frank’s head started to spin. He grabbed hold of him trying to make him understand. “There wasn’t a sound, Frank. I was ten feet away in my bunk with the door open and you never made a sound. I saw you asleep with my very own eyes and the next thing I heard after leaving was Gerard yelling,” he explained. “What happened?” he asked softly.
Frank’s head was spinning faster and faster. He was dizzy with the blur of dreams and reality. Could it be true? Had he fallen asleep in those hours they silently beside one another? Had it all been a dream from the start of their dream talk? Frank gripped his head, trying to steady himself and the thoughts that swirled in his mind. If what Mikey was saying was true, then all Gerard knew was that Frank woke from a dream and tackled him out of nowhere with a hard kiss. If all of it was true than none of it was real except for Frank attacking Gerard! His sudden reaction made far more sense if Frank had come out of nowhere with the fierce kiss he had planted upon him, wrestling him down to the couch.
Mikey moved his hand from Frank’s arm where he gripped it to his forehead to feel it. “Jesus, Frankie. You’re on fire!”
Frank shook his head. “No. I’m freezing,” he said with a dizzy tremble. Then the world went blurry as he fell, and dark as he hit the ground.
When Frank woke up, Bob, Ray and Mikey were leaning over him. He was no longer in the back and he was not on the floor. He was on the couch in the front of the bus and everyone looked worried. Everyone who was there and who was not Gerard.
“He’s coming-to,” Bob said softly. “Frankie? Are you alright?”
Frank shivered beneath the blankets, struggling to see around him. “What-t-t…h-h-happened?” his teeth chattered.
Ray looked at Mikey and back to Frank. “I think you hallucinated or dreamed or something.” He bit his lip awkwardly. “I think you might have attacked Gerard.”
Frank sat up, too fast for his head to handle. He gripped it as it pounded. “What’ve I done?” he whimpered. “Where is he?”
Mikey sat down on the couch beside Frank’s stretched legs. “He took off.” He put his hand on Frank’s shoulder gently. “He’ll be back,” he told him gently.
“Fuck,” Frank muttered, still holding his head. “It was so real.”
“We need to get you to a doctor,” Ray urged.
Frank shook his head. “You need to get me to Gerard. He doesn’t understand.”
“Later,” Bob said firmly.
“Now!” Frank snapped, pushing off the pile of blankets and feeling the cold suck into him in their absence.
Mikey held his arm out, “You need to lie down.”
Frank pushed past Mikey’s arm, past Ray’s entire body, and ran for the door. “I need to find him!” he shouted, running right off the bus and out into the cold to search the darkness he had banished Gerard to. He looked all over the lot and warily fumbled around to no avail. He spent half an hour trying to find him before giving into the fever and returning to the bus defeated of will and depleted of energy. When he got back onboard, Ray and Bob looked to Mikey for an answer to give him. Frank looked from face to face. “What?” he asked worriedly. “He’s not back?”
Mikey swallowed hard, looking away and down at the floor. “He’s back,” he nodded.
“Then what?” Frank pleaded.
Mikey did not raise his head. It was clear he did not want to look at him. “He’s not alone,” he whispered.
“What?” Frank whispered on a sharp intake of breath. The others looked away too and Frank finally stepped back towards the bunks.
“Don’t,” Ray said softly, shaking his head.
And Frank didn’t go any further. He didn’t have to. He could hear Gerard from where he stood, through the door on the other side. There was moaning and it wasn’t all his. It was hers. It belonged to a random ‘her’ and she was moaning in time with him. Frank felt even more sick than before and his legs would no longer move. His eyes got wide as the bile inside him reached for air that would not come.
He turned and ran out the door, making it a safe twenty feet before throwing up onto the cold black concrete. He heaved a few times before Ray was beside him, pulling him back from the mess. He could not get away as easily from the mess he had made inside though. And it all left him sicker than ever. Ray helped him back inside where they sat down on the couch and Bob brought him some water to drink. It would not cool Frank’s body. It would not wash away what he’d done; what Gerard was still doing. Frank was thankful when the second blackout came, and he prayed it was all another dream he would soon wake up from.
When Frank woke up, Ray was still by his side. It could not have been long. No one had moved from where he had left them. But the moaning had stopped and the moment had passed and there was a small comfort in knowing it was over. It was then Frank heard the giggling; the soft mix of Gerard’s tender laugh and an unknown girl in post-coital bliss. And Frank felt sick again.
He sat up as the door opened from the back and Gerard and the girl stumbled out into the front room. Everyone stared at them as they slowly stopped laughing, embarrassed and suddenly aware.
“Sorry,” she giggled, blushing a deep red that Frank hoped was from embarrassment and not from anything Gerard had done to make her feel good.
“Um,” Gerard said, biting his lip. “I’ll walk you out.”
Ever the gentleman, Frank thought, the knife twisting in his heart.
The girl stopped beside the booth, slowly approaching the couch. Her messy hair hung loosely from a pony tail tied in the dark. Her make up was smeared and she looked like a keg party leftover, the walk of shame only steps ahead. A fan no doubt. They didn’t do that though. They had never done that though. But it was clear what Gerard had done now. And it was over. It was all over. For some before it ever began.
She paused, coyly, biting her perfectly polished pink nail. “You’re Frank,” she smiled nervously. “I’m Becca.” It was hardly even a name.
Imagine the nerve of such a groupie to fuck a band member and then introduce herself to another! Frank’s stomach churned with empty spite.
“I haven’t had the pleasure,” she smiled, reaching her hand out to him.
Frank glared at the girl, whose fault could be so easily found, and then turned his angry eyes on Gerard. “You’ve still had more than me,” he spat, getting up, walking past her. He pushed past Gerard, making sure to clear his shoulder with a hard shove as he passed and fell into his bunk with a kick of the door behind him.
He listened to the quiet apologies mumbled beyond the door. “…sorry. He…out of it…just sick…not himself.”
Frank gripped his pillow, yanking the curtain closed and glaring at the bed above him. It smelled dirty. Angry resentful dirty deeds that were made to prove a point. A point that stabbed Frank over and over as he laid there all alone. He snatched his pillow and blanket and tore through his curtain, storming to the back.
He stood in the doorway, biting his lip, staring at the couch where it had all begun. Where it had never happened in the first place. Not until he ruined it. He collapsed on the couch, still smelling Gerard there. Still smelling his scent before it was tainted with hers. And Frank cried into his pillow, stifling the sounds and burying them where they might never be found.
Mikey checked on him a while later after the fight in the front Frank tried not to hear. Ray checked on him next and Bob was the last. And Frank lay there in the dark of the back of the bus as it started up and they headed to the next town. But they would leave nothing behind. And he waited all night for the one person to come check on him who wanted nothing to do with him now. Gerard never came. Frank fell asleep alone. And that time, he knew the sleep was real when it came.
Alright, I know this was a painful one but rest assured I’m going to make it up to you in the next chapter. I promise I will make this pain go away. I feel it too and it was hard to write but there’s a new dawn coming. It’s so close it’s already on its way. There’s a happening on the horizon. Please…just wait for it…xoxo Harley
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Hang on tight friends. This road’s got some bumps and there will be bruises. It’s all going to be okay. Just not yet…
When Frank finally finished telling his dream, Mikey was ready for his turn to talk. “That’s quite a dream,” Mikey smiled. “Most people just dream about silly stuff. I like your dreams, Frank,” he nodded.
Frank smiled. “I do too. Most of the time.” He sighed, “When they’re not frustrating the hell out of me.”
“What do you think it means?” he grinned.
Frank smiled back. “There’s so much I don’t know where to begin. But I get it. And I know you got it long before me,” he laughed. Frank continued, more quietly then. “Gerard and I are caught in this dance I guess. No one’s leading and we keeping running ourselves in circles. I think the masks are all about me not knowing what he wants, what I want, or who we’ll be if we decide to dance the line between friendship and…whatever’s out there.” He shifted uncomfortably, avoiding his own blush. “And I think me being the only one not wearing a costume, when everyone thought mine was the best, is me just really struggling with what all this means, ya know? I guess I’ve been pretending to be something I’m not for so long that it’s just become second nature.”
Mikey nodded with a smile. “I think you’re dead on, friend.”
Frank nodded back, frowning and looking away. His hot mug was not big enough to hide him and it only left him feeling more exposed. “I worry a lot,” he said softly.
“About what?” Mikey asked, pouring his own coffee.
Frank shrugged. “Everything. What Gerard would say. What everyone would think. I care about him though.”
He nodded. “Sure. I know you care about him, Frank. I’ve never questioned that at all. I just don’t know if you’re ready for him.”
“If we’re talking about this,” Frank said, “then you must know he feels something for me too.” He eyed Mikey closely. “I need to hear that. What does he feel?”
But Mikey just sipped his coffee quietly. When the silence between them became unbearable, he finally offered him something, even if it was not what Frank wanted. “Gerard feels,” was all he said.
How could Mikey play both sides? Frank threw up his hands in complete frustration. “Would you just be straight with me here?”
“I am,” he insisted. “What Gerard feels for you is something only he can tell you. I can only tell you that he feels. Gerard feels everything. He’s the most empathetic person I’ve ever known. He takes everything onto his own shoulders and when someone feels something, he feels it too. And long after they’re gone, he’ll still feel it. He’ll carry it around with him whether he wants to or not. And what Gerard feels for you…what I see inside him when he’s around you…” Mikey shook his head and softly said, “Fuck, Frank. It hurts him sometimes to be near you. It literally pains him to be around you sometimes.”
Frank felt like he had just been punched in the stomach. “Why?” he breathed sadly.
“I think he’s felt for you for a real long time, Frank. But he knows you don’t know what you feel. And he’s been dealing with that a long time. A lot longer than you have. He’s been waiting for you to make a choice long before you thought you had a decision to make. And I’m sorry…but I don’t think you’ve chosen yet. I don’t think this is the time to make a move. You still don’t know for sure what you want.”
“I do,” Frank insisted.
“No. You don’t,” he said almost harshly. Mikey got up and headed for the door. “We need to get ready for soundcheck.”
Frank didn’t move though. He called after him as Mikey passed through the bunks. “What makes you so damn sure that I don’t know what I want?” he accused.
Mikey stopped and turned back to him sadly. “Frank. You haven’t even said it out loud to me. You can’t even say the words. What makes you so damn sure you’re ready to say it to him?”
Frank gritted his teeth and watched Mikey’s back as he slowly walked away. He sat in the silence of the room, in the fury of his fever, and thought about everything Mikey said. So he wasn’t ready to say the word ‘gay’. Frank was not even sure that he was. All he knew was that he had feelings for Gerard he could no longer ignore. Who cared if he said it out loud? Why couldn’t he just show Gerard and explore the feelings from there? What was the big deal if he wasn’t sure yet? Frank shook off the whole conversation and the bad taste it left in his mouth. He was going to test his feelings on Gerard tonight and then he would know for sure. Then he would have his answers.
Later that night after the show, after the crowds had all gone home and the adrenaline had finally worn off, Frank tore off the sweaty shirt that clung to his skin and retired to the back of the bus, where Gerard was. Waiting. Silently biding his time until Frank became tired and went to his bunk. But Frank was feeling proactive for once. He sat down beside him and nudged his arm with his nose, imploring Gerard to put his arm around him so Frank could nestle into the crook of his shoulder. It was comfortable there. It always had been. It always would be; whether things changed or not. But Frank felt as though perhaps it was time for a change.
“Let’s sleep here tonight,” Frank smiled.
Gerard played absently with Frank’s soft hair, brushing through it as it ruffled against his fingers. “You tired?” he smiled.
“No,” he grinned. “Just comfortable. Very comfortable.”
“Me too,” he nodded. “We can stay if you like.”
Frank was glad. “I’d like that.”
“You’re still warm,” he frowned, feeling his forehead as he brushed his hair.
Frank shook his head. “Not warm. Toasty,” he laughed, snuggling in closer.
“You played a good show tonight, Frankie,” he smiled. “Do I tell that you that enough?”
“Sure,” he nodded. “Thanks.”
Gerard nodded, still softly tangling his fingers through Frank’s hair as they closed their eyes and spoke without seeing. “Did you dream last night?”
Frank grinned, “You know I did.”
“Do I?” he smirked.
Frank laughed. “You know everything.”
Gerard shook his head, his smiled weighted down into a frown. “I know nothing.”
“What else don’t you know?” Frank asked sleepily.
Gerard continued to smirk. “Now if I knew that…I would know something.”
They sat together quietly a long time, only the comfortable silence between them. An hour, maybe two passed without a single word in their shared company. It was enough simply to be, as Frank kept his eyes closed, breathing with Gerard as they curled against one another. Finally, from somewhere far away, Frank heard him break the quiet solace of their breathing.
“Tell me about your dream?” he whispered.
Frank shook his head, his nose rubbing Gerard’s chest. “I already told it once today. You should’ve caught me earlier,” he grinned.
Gerard giggled, his gentle laughter shaking Frank in the process. “I was with you when you woke!”
“But you didn’t ask then.” If Gerard could be mysterious, Frank could be coy; and maybe they could dance in between.
Gerard nodded, smiling. “Only one of my many mistakes. I’ll try harder next time,” he smiled.
“What did you dream last night?” he wondered, his eyes heavier by the second. Lying with Gerard was like being at home at Christmas by the fire. And it was good to have the fire beside him, instead of inside himself. Frank’s dreams paled in comparison to Gerard’s. His dreams were always beautifully dark or hauntingly stunning; always at odds with the duality of who he was. Sometimes Gerard’s dreams scared Frank. But it was the thrill in the horror that kept him in the dark, biting his nails, peeking through his eyes, refusing to turn away. “Share it with me?”
Gerard smiled, his fingers trailing down Frank’s hair to caress his neck, feeling his breathing change as they touched Frank’s bare skin. He traveled down to the slope of his neck and over his shoulder, tenderly testing the difference between soft flesh and obscured bone. “There were angels,” he whispered, his eyes closing again as his fingers traced the differences over Frank’s body. “Angels everywhere,” he said softly, his fingers moving down Frank’s arm, his memory knowing by heart exactly which picture his fingers danced over.
Frank felt the electricity move through him; not sharp like a shock, but slow like a current as it flowed from Gerard into him. It seemed almost unnatural for Gerard to dream of angels, like God dreaming of angels; how amusingly odd. But as Gerard turned his face, ever so slightly, his eyelashes blinked against Frank’s cheek like angel’s feathers and butterfly kisses and the dream seemed perfectly in sync.
His heart began to race, feeling Gerard’s light touches. He was breathless at the intimacy of that barely there touch. Gerard had done a million things to show his human side over the course of a timeless friendship. And yet, somehow, this one motion, was far too human for such an entity as Gerard. Gods simply did not blink. They never missed a beat.
Frank began to lose his breath. Lost was the wrong reaction though since he knew exactly where it was going. He was passing it into Gerard as they shared the air between them. Gerard’s lungs would fill, his chest expanding as Frank exhaled and gave it freely to him. Then Gerard’s chest would slowly fall, Frank’s head moving with it as he breathed in the air, filling himself up on Gerard’s heaven-soaked scent and life-altering air. And he breathed with him, for him, through him.
Gerard’s fingers played along Frank’s skin, touching him lightly, letting him know he was still there. He tickled with his touches and ravished him with soft rubs as Frank drank each feeling in. Soon their breathing combined, depending on one another as they found a smooth rhythm between them of breaths and touches. Gerard kept his words close, placing them in Frank’s ear with care, turning them over with his tongue.
Frank was growing uncomfortably comfortable and Gerard was close enough to not only see it, but feel it. Frank was dizzy with his eyes closed but he did not dare open them. He would go blind to see him so closely. He would never survive the impact of those eyes so close. Frank started holding his breath, trying to slow his heartbeat that Gerard could surely hear, feel, see the beating of his chest where it throbbed. The slightest motion down below would catch Gerard’s eye and Frank could not bare to watch, feeling Gerard’s touches across his naked skin calling to his manhood like a marionette on strings. He was getting hard and he didn’t want it to stop. He needed it to stop. He was being given away and there was nowhere to hide but deeper inside Gerard. Frank fought to listen as the touching continued down his arm, over his jean-covered thigh in lazy dragging waves that crashed so close to his shore.
Gerard whispered again finally, Frank’s breath completely sucked away. “Those angels, Frankie…they were pure white; without a single blemish. A complete absence of color,” he remembered, moving back up to Frank’s arms. “And in the moment, as it was happening, as much as I was in awe of their complete perfection…I missed the color they couldn’t create. And I started to cry for them.” Gerard’s fingers danced back down Frank’s body, his palm flat and whole as it spread across Frank’s lower stomach, an inch from the wasted material that could barely contain Frank’s growing body. Gerard smiled strangely, “Imagine…me…crying for them.” He pressed his lips to Frank’s ear, covering it with his breath, filling it with heavy air so he could feel it push back to his lips. “But I did cry. Because as perfect as they were, they were blank all over. And it broke me down just to see them like that,” he said sadly.
Gerard’s voice was composed of broken breathing; his words were sadly humble and his touches were erotically charged. Frank was losing himself in every whisper, dying with every breath and living for every second of that moment as it passed over him.
Frank whispered, his eyes still softly closed as he listened to Gerard’s voice seduce him into a trance. “What did the angels do when you cried?”
Gerard turned his head, only slightly, but his lips moved against the soft cavern of Frank’s ear, his voice whispering its way inside him again. “When I began to cry…the angels caught fire…they burst into blue flames…large white feathers falling slowly…all around me…like giant snowflakes that had never been cold. A tribe of ghostly phoenixes that burned my eyes just to see them with my naked humanity.” He whispered still, “I was blessedly destroyed by their beauty…and I was so unworthy of their sight.”
Frank was nearly on fire himself, dizzy and drowning, falling slowly against Gerard’s warm body. Gerard continued to caress Frank’s bare skin, nothing but naked touches between his hand and Frank’s lower abdomen. He was imagining angels and the colors they burst into; Gerard before them, humbled and weeping. And Frank did not want to look away. He wanted to stay and hold him, his back to the angels because there was only one angel he wanted to see, save, and spare for himself. Frank began to softly pant and he was becoming so beautifully hard as Gerard’s hand danced over him he no longer cared if the man knew. Frank wanted him to know. He clenched his eyes, his hips fighting to stay down when all they wanted was to reach for him, grab him, pull him back down.
Frank asked softly, feeling Gerard’s lips against him, “Was that the end of the dream?”
Gerard spoke slowly, his breath warming Frank’s ear. “I think it went on…without me…I think that was all I got to see…but that it kept going after I woke up.” His fingers moved down over Frank’s stomach, lower, farther, meeting the border of his jeans and crossing over. He slid his hand down over the jean to the side, missing Frank’s target, feeling his way over his trembling thigh. His fingers bent, clawing into the jean and raking back over Frank with undeniable presence.
Gerard’s lips moved against Frank’s ear, breathing his life into him. He moved lower to his neck, breathing across him. Frank was not sure if it was his imagination or the actual reality of Gerard’s tongue running wild across the nape of his neck. When Frank’s whole body clenched, he was brought back into the moment. Maybe it had not been his tongue; perhaps it was the soft wet kiss of his lips as they passed over his skin but something was there; wet and alive.
“Tell me your dream,” Gerard whispered, reclaiming his focused attention.
Frank could not speak. He could barely breathe. And his every pant gave him farther away. Gerard wanted words? Actual thoughts released on breath? Improbable at the moment. Impossible by the second. His breath hitched as Frank tried desperately to stifle the need to moan. He gathered himself together, as best he could, and forced the words out softly and quickly.
“Why are you so interested in my dreams these days?” And it was out! A feat of accomplishment in itself. Frank was proud and then back to flushed excitement, trying to think through the pleasure that enraptured him.
Gerard’s breath was slightly labored, still in control. He was one up on Frank but all over him at the same time as his hand rubbed across Frank’s thigh and his lips breathed against his ear. “I guess because…since you’ve been sick…your days are all I have. Every time I come to see you at night…you’re dreaming. So I want to share your dreams with you. Then it can be like I was there at night too.”
Frank’s flustered state came to a head as his body fell away from him and his mind wrapped around what Gerard was really saying. “Are you telling you’ve missed me while I’ve been dreaming?” he asked, his eyes now open, his soul on alert.
Gerard smiled and Frank could feel it against his cheek. “You know something Frank? I think I have.”
His fingers softened, stopped raking Frank’s thigh and smoothed their way along him, moving up, away, to his side where it held him close. His breath either stopped completely or moved slightly away, but stopped haunting Frank’s ear altogether. He leaned his head back on the couch, a tightness of pain in his body or mind; Frank could no longer tell the difference.
“I should go,” Gerard whispered.
Frank bit his lip, holding back, feeling the warmth slipping away and knowing that if he did not speak now, he would be alone and this would all be a memory in a matter of seconds. He couldn’t hold back. He had to hold on. Gerard was still in his reach. “I need you to stay,” he whispered.
“Want me to stay,” Gerard said.
Frank shook his head, “No. It’s definitely a need,” he said, gaining control on his shallow breath.
“I can’t,” Gerard said, closing his eyes, and Frank felt the pain in his tone.
“Why not?” he asked, brokenly repeating the tone back to him.
Gerard looked away. “You need rest, Frankie. You’re burning up.”
Frank turned facing him, close enough to touch him with his heated lips. “I’m burning,” he nodded, but not in the way Gerard meant. Frank stared at him, his eyes moving over Gerard’s face, wildly trying to take it all in but being too close to focus on him as a whole. Gerard was too close to see as anything whole. He was a blinking, hazel, swirl of green; an upturned nose that steadied to a point; a single pair of blushing lips so close he could only take him in, one piece at a time.
Gerard stared back at him, his eyes moving just as quickly to focus on Frank, so close, he could not see him at all. “You have to ride the fever out,” he breathed, every syllable reaching Frank’s lips, only a kiss away.
“Wait it out with me,” Frank begged. Gerard swallowed hard, so close to him, Frank could hear it. “You said we could stay if I like,” he reminded him.
Gerard asked, “What do you like, Frank?” His words a pale whisper of a question.
Frank leaned in closer, barely space between them at all, lips in parallel sinking in deeper. “I like you,” he breathed, placing the words right over Gerard’s lips. He kissed him softly, so tenderly he was not even sure he could feel him until Gerard pressed back and they were locked together, not even air fitting between them now.
They held together, their lips hugging gently, the puzzle complete as they fit together. Until finally, for the survival of air alone, Gerard pulled back a fraction of an inch, their eyes meeting where their lips left off. They passed the air back and forth through their breathing, neither one sure it had ever happened. The only proof was the tingle on their lips, the moist wet remnants of a kiss that’s lost speed, the shock in their eyes that held the memory of what was already slipping away.
Gerard moved back, just far enough to see all of Frank’s face, all at once. He stopped his breath, letting it hinge on his lips, but he would not let it go. And finally he released it, his words sent out into the air between them where he could not take them back. “I’m far too here for this moment,” he breathed. “And you’re too far gone to realize it,” he said sadly, still slipping away. Frank’s warmth was going away as his eyes fell into darkness, unable to watch him go. Farther and farther away. They were both slipping, drifting.
Frank’s eyes shot open as he grabbed for him through the air, gripping his waist and throwing him to the bench seat that lined the bus. He tackled him to it and pressed him against the black leather. The time for timid fumblings passed and Frank pressed his lips to Gerard’s, hard with need and fierce determination. There was no room for error. No room for misinterpreted intention. No room between them at all.
Gerard pushed Frank back and for a moment he was afraid Gerard was angry. There was a fire in his eyes but he could only place it somewhere between fury and shock. And then Gerard crossed the line and showed him the blur between that place. He pulled Frank’s legs out from under him, toppling him backward as he hit the couch and Gerard pressed his body hard over him, pinning him down and snarling over him.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he growled.
Frank struggled beneath him, afraid and misguided by Gerard’s harsh reaction. He whimpered beneath him, his words lodged in his throat and corked by his fear. What had he done wrong?
Gerard slid his hand down Frank’s body, inching through the press of his body over him. He grazed his fingers over Frank’s jeans, straight down the middle, cupping him with force. “You wanna play with me, Frank?” he asked angrily. Gerard ran his tongue up the side of Frank’s neck and bit into his soft flesh as Frank screamed.
Frank pushed Gerard up and off him, holding his hand to his sore neck to cover the angry bite. “Go to hell!” he shouted furiously with fear.
Gerard backed away from him, wiping his mouth with his arm. His dark eyes swirled and his chest rose and fell hard with each breath. He growled, “Don’t you recognize the hell I live in every day around you?”
Frank’s lip quivered and he hated that Gerard could see it. He bit it down, held it in place, willing himself not to cry. Not yet. Not until he was gone and he wanted him gone! “What’s wrong with you?” he cried, his eyes wet with pain.
He shook his head, the growl still festering in his angry throat. “Nothing that will ever be right with you.”
“Get out,” Frank snarled. He needed to cry and he needed Gerard gone when he did.
Gerard backed his way towards the door and stopped suddenly, his breath still labored with anger. “You ever fuck with me like that again…and I’ll break more than your heart,” he spat. Gerard turned and ripped through the doorway, slamming the door and storming through the bunk hall.
Frank felt the whole bus shake as Gerard marched his way to the front and out the door. And then Frank collapsed to the floor, holding himself in the smallest ball he could make and letting the pain tear him in two. He had thought Gerard wanted the same thing as him. Why did Gerard touch him if he did not want to feel him? Where did all go so wrong? He cried hysterically, gripping his knees to his chest trying to hold his heart in as the fever burned through him and Mikey sat down beside him.
“What happened?” he asked, in shock and horror as much as Frank.
Frank cried, “What did I do wrong? How could I have been so wrong?”
Mikey sighed, pulled Frank over to him on the floor and holding him while he let it all out. He rocked him back and forth, trying so hard to soothe the inconsolable shell of a man. “Shhh,” he hushed. “It isn’t you,” he whispered.
Frank pulled away, wiping his eyes on his bare arms. “It was me though! It was me who kissed him! It was me who gave in to the pull he was putting out! It was me he crucified after I made the sacrifice! It’s me who he’s disgusted with for being so honest!” he screamed.
Ray and Bob hovered in the door as Mikey waved them away. “Tell me exactly what happened, Frank. Help me make sense of what you’re not saying,” he pleaded.
“I kissed him!” Frank cried. “I kissed him and he attacked me for it!” He groaned with inner pain and soon released that too. “He thinks I’m sick!” he yelled. “And maybe I am! He never wanted me!” he shook his head, tears spraying off to the sides. “He never liked me and now he hates me! He hates me and he’s the one who started it!”
Mikey jumped up with him, a safe distance from Frank’s flailing arms. “He doesn’t hate you, Frank!” he insisted. “He’s confused I think.”
Frank kept shaking his head. “That wasn’t confusion, Mikey! You didn’t see it!”
“And whatever you think you saw you didn’t!”
Frank cried, “I was there!”
“You were dreaming!” Mikey shouted.
Frank stopped short, one breath to gather his thoughts. “No,” he breathed.
“Yes!” Mikey snapped. “Whatever you think just happened, it didn’t. I was in here not two minutes before and you were sleeping against him, Frank,” Mikey said firmly with conviction. “I was here. And you were out. For hours before I came in you didn’t make a sound.”
Frank shook his head, denying what he was hearing. It couldn’t be true. It had happened! “We were quiet,” he insisted. “You didn’t hear because we were quiet.”
“No, Frank!” he shouted. “Because you were dreaming!” He stepped carefully forward as Frank’s head started to spin. He grabbed hold of him trying to make him understand. “There wasn’t a sound, Frank. I was ten feet away in my bunk with the door open and you never made a sound. I saw you asleep with my very own eyes and the next thing I heard after leaving was Gerard yelling,” he explained. “What happened?” he asked softly.
Frank’s head was spinning faster and faster. He was dizzy with the blur of dreams and reality. Could it be true? Had he fallen asleep in those hours they silently beside one another? Had it all been a dream from the start of their dream talk? Frank gripped his head, trying to steady himself and the thoughts that swirled in his mind. If what Mikey was saying was true, then all Gerard knew was that Frank woke from a dream and tackled him out of nowhere with a hard kiss. If all of it was true than none of it was real except for Frank attacking Gerard! His sudden reaction made far more sense if Frank had come out of nowhere with the fierce kiss he had planted upon him, wrestling him down to the couch.
Mikey moved his hand from Frank’s arm where he gripped it to his forehead to feel it. “Jesus, Frankie. You’re on fire!”
Frank shook his head. “No. I’m freezing,” he said with a dizzy tremble. Then the world went blurry as he fell, and dark as he hit the ground.
When Frank woke up, Bob, Ray and Mikey were leaning over him. He was no longer in the back and he was not on the floor. He was on the couch in the front of the bus and everyone looked worried. Everyone who was there and who was not Gerard.
“He’s coming-to,” Bob said softly. “Frankie? Are you alright?”
Frank shivered beneath the blankets, struggling to see around him. “What-t-t…h-h-happened?” his teeth chattered.
Ray looked at Mikey and back to Frank. “I think you hallucinated or dreamed or something.” He bit his lip awkwardly. “I think you might have attacked Gerard.”
Frank sat up, too fast for his head to handle. He gripped it as it pounded. “What’ve I done?” he whimpered. “Where is he?”
Mikey sat down on the couch beside Frank’s stretched legs. “He took off.” He put his hand on Frank’s shoulder gently. “He’ll be back,” he told him gently.
“Fuck,” Frank muttered, still holding his head. “It was so real.”
“We need to get you to a doctor,” Ray urged.
Frank shook his head. “You need to get me to Gerard. He doesn’t understand.”
“Later,” Bob said firmly.
“Now!” Frank snapped, pushing off the pile of blankets and feeling the cold suck into him in their absence.
Mikey held his arm out, “You need to lie down.”
Frank pushed past Mikey’s arm, past Ray’s entire body, and ran for the door. “I need to find him!” he shouted, running right off the bus and out into the cold to search the darkness he had banished Gerard to. He looked all over the lot and warily fumbled around to no avail. He spent half an hour trying to find him before giving into the fever and returning to the bus defeated of will and depleted of energy. When he got back onboard, Ray and Bob looked to Mikey for an answer to give him. Frank looked from face to face. “What?” he asked worriedly. “He’s not back?”
Mikey swallowed hard, looking away and down at the floor. “He’s back,” he nodded.
“Then what?” Frank pleaded.
Mikey did not raise his head. It was clear he did not want to look at him. “He’s not alone,” he whispered.
“What?” Frank whispered on a sharp intake of breath. The others looked away too and Frank finally stepped back towards the bunks.
“Don’t,” Ray said softly, shaking his head.
And Frank didn’t go any further. He didn’t have to. He could hear Gerard from where he stood, through the door on the other side. There was moaning and it wasn’t all his. It was hers. It belonged to a random ‘her’ and she was moaning in time with him. Frank felt even more sick than before and his legs would no longer move. His eyes got wide as the bile inside him reached for air that would not come.
He turned and ran out the door, making it a safe twenty feet before throwing up onto the cold black concrete. He heaved a few times before Ray was beside him, pulling him back from the mess. He could not get away as easily from the mess he had made inside though. And it all left him sicker than ever. Ray helped him back inside where they sat down on the couch and Bob brought him some water to drink. It would not cool Frank’s body. It would not wash away what he’d done; what Gerard was still doing. Frank was thankful when the second blackout came, and he prayed it was all another dream he would soon wake up from.
When Frank woke up, Ray was still by his side. It could not have been long. No one had moved from where he had left them. But the moaning had stopped and the moment had passed and there was a small comfort in knowing it was over. It was then Frank heard the giggling; the soft mix of Gerard’s tender laugh and an unknown girl in post-coital bliss. And Frank felt sick again.
He sat up as the door opened from the back and Gerard and the girl stumbled out into the front room. Everyone stared at them as they slowly stopped laughing, embarrassed and suddenly aware.
“Sorry,” she giggled, blushing a deep red that Frank hoped was from embarrassment and not from anything Gerard had done to make her feel good.
“Um,” Gerard said, biting his lip. “I’ll walk you out.”
Ever the gentleman, Frank thought, the knife twisting in his heart.
The girl stopped beside the booth, slowly approaching the couch. Her messy hair hung loosely from a pony tail tied in the dark. Her make up was smeared and she looked like a keg party leftover, the walk of shame only steps ahead. A fan no doubt. They didn’t do that though. They had never done that though. But it was clear what Gerard had done now. And it was over. It was all over. For some before it ever began.
She paused, coyly, biting her perfectly polished pink nail. “You’re Frank,” she smiled nervously. “I’m Becca.” It was hardly even a name.
Imagine the nerve of such a groupie to fuck a band member and then introduce herself to another! Frank’s stomach churned with empty spite.
“I haven’t had the pleasure,” she smiled, reaching her hand out to him.
Frank glared at the girl, whose fault could be so easily found, and then turned his angry eyes on Gerard. “You’ve still had more than me,” he spat, getting up, walking past her. He pushed past Gerard, making sure to clear his shoulder with a hard shove as he passed and fell into his bunk with a kick of the door behind him.
He listened to the quiet apologies mumbled beyond the door. “…sorry. He…out of it…just sick…not himself.”
Frank gripped his pillow, yanking the curtain closed and glaring at the bed above him. It smelled dirty. Angry resentful dirty deeds that were made to prove a point. A point that stabbed Frank over and over as he laid there all alone. He snatched his pillow and blanket and tore through his curtain, storming to the back.
He stood in the doorway, biting his lip, staring at the couch where it had all begun. Where it had never happened in the first place. Not until he ruined it. He collapsed on the couch, still smelling Gerard there. Still smelling his scent before it was tainted with hers. And Frank cried into his pillow, stifling the sounds and burying them where they might never be found.
Mikey checked on him a while later after the fight in the front Frank tried not to hear. Ray checked on him next and Bob was the last. And Frank lay there in the dark of the back of the bus as it started up and they headed to the next town. But they would leave nothing behind. And he waited all night for the one person to come check on him who wanted nothing to do with him now. Gerard never came. Frank fell asleep alone. And that time, he knew the sleep was real when it came.
Alright, I know this was a painful one but rest assured I’m going to make it up to you in the next chapter. I promise I will make this pain go away. I feel it too and it was hard to write but there’s a new dawn coming. It’s so close it’s already on its way. There’s a happening on the horizon. Please…just wait for it…xoxo Harley
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