Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > Stockholm Syndrome

Forty-Seven

by whoah-that 7 reviews

Category: My Chemical Romance - Rating: R - Genres: Angst,Drama - Characters: Gerard Way - Published: 2013-03-23 - 1250 words - Complete

5Exciting
“It’s loud in here!” Paulina could barely hear herself above the pounding bass of the music in the bar, which seemed more like a dance club than the casual bar she’d been led to believe she’d be going to. She was certain before she even finished her sentence that Damien wouldn’t hear a word she said.

“What?” Exactly.

“I’m gonna--” Paulina gestured wildly to the door of the place and then to herself, and then back to the door. “Go get some air!”

“Ah!” Damien yelled back, nodding and smiling. However, he obviously hadn’t understood her for the second time because he began to follow her out as she weaved her way through the sweaty crowd of unfamiliar faces.

Once Paulina was out in the clear moonlight, she took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, staring at the sliver of a crescent moon shining dully in the star-speckled sky. Damien followed close behind and joined her after just a moment.

“What did you need?” He was smiling down at her, but she took very little reassurance from this warm gesture. She had known that coming here would be a mistake. All the people made her anxious, and she could feel her hands and knees begin to tremble the moment she’d walked through the door. While Damien’s friends were nice, they were all so much older than her and they had very little in common. Anything that Paulina really wanted to talk about she couldn’t share with anyone, not any of the strangers in that bar and certainly not Damien.

“Nothing. I was just trying to tell you that--” She broke off mid-sentence, her hands frozen in the act of rubbing up and down her upper arms in an attempt to warm up. She sniffed, then inched closer to Damien, nostrils busily working. “What cologne do you use?”

“Sorry?” His grin widened and he lifted his arm and sniffed deeply. “Ah. It’s my roommate’s. I forget what it was called. Something with a number. I think it’s some fancy Calvin Klein his mother bought him for--”

“Can you ask him? What it’s called, I mean,” Paulina interrupted. She didn’t care how the boy had gotten it, she just needed to know what it was. She hadn’t been able to detect it in the bar with the strong smells of booze, sweat, and smoke masking it, but now she couldn’t ignore the familiar fresh, so fresh it was almost sweet, scent that Damien had obviously bathed in before leaving his apartment. Indeed, it was too heavy, but there was no mistaking what it was.

“Uh, sure...” Damien faltered, wondering why his semi-date cared so much about his cologne. “Be right back.” He disappeared back inside the mesh of bodies that was the bar, and Paulina returned her gaze to the curved silver light of the moon.
Frank. He smelled like Frank. Whatever that cologne was, it was the same one that Frank had used, Paulina was certain. It smelled so right. She wanted to lean into Damien’s arms and pretend they were Frank’s muscular, tattooed ones, and pretend that she was back where she belonged, where she wanted to go back and stay forever, where--

Paulina snapped herself out of her reverie and began to really look at the spot where she’d been absently staring across the street. A group of people were gathered around the porch of an apartment building. Some were getting into cabs, some were bidding goodbye and walking off into the dark, and some--two, to be exact--were standing on the bottom step, smoking cigarettes and laughing about something. Pauling didn’t recognize any of the people standing outside that building.

Except one.

“Gerard!” Paulina yelled it without even thinking about what she was doing. Yes, it was dark, yes, they were across the street, but it wasn’t the chin-length black hair, or the pale skin that shone like mother-of-pearl in the dank moonlight, it was the way he held himself. His slightly sloped posture, one shoulder higher than the other, one leg turned out, arms crossed loosely across his middle. It couldn’t have been anyone else. It was impossible. “Gerard!”

He didn’t hear her. There was probably so much noise coming from inside the open door of the bar, the two men in easy conversation had just blocked out all outside noises.

She began to run, not bothering to see if any cars were coming. Had she been in a less frantic state, she would have noticed the red Honda that stopped just short of running her down, the driver honking madly from the behind the wheel and shouting obscene things about the woman that had birthed Paulina. However, she took no notice of anything but the dark-haired man that had finally been drawn out of his conversation to look on at the commotion in the street.

“Gerard!” Paulina gasped, out of breath from her impromptu run, drinking in every aspect of his appearance, his round face, his dark, scraggly hair, the casual posture that defined him in every form of being. It was him. Now that she was up-close there was no question at all. It was him. “Gerard, I can’t believe it’s you.” Her eyes were wide as plates as she stared up into the face of a man she had truly believed she would never see again. He cocked his head to the side, puzzled but polite smile on his face, removing a hand from his arm and shoving it into his pocket.

“Well, hello, beautiful stranger. Have we met before, because I really hope so.”





So...this is a bit awkward. It's been a year and some change since I've updated this story, and probably almost as long since I've even been on this site. I know what you're all thinking: is this another fluke update that pulls us back in and then we're left waiting and waiting for another year? The answer to that question is: I really hope not, and I really don't think so. I recently checked the email I'd been using for this site and noticed that I had very recently gotten comments asking for an update. So, tonight, at about 1:00 am, EST, I sat down at my computer and I read over the last six chapters of this story. And, at about 1:30, I decided to try and finish the story. Tonight. That's not to say that I'll be uploading the three (give or take a chapter or two) remaining chapters to this story tonight. No, what I hope to do tonight is to simply finish the story for myself. Over the next few days to a week, I'll read and reread until I'm satisfied with the end of the story, and then I will post. I know there are probably a good amount of you that are saying "Yeah? Well, fuck you and the horse you rode in on, lady, I'm not getting back into your shitty story." Perfectly understandable. I have no real faith that many of you will return for the conclusion of the story, it's just that I'd like to finish this thing I started a few years ago. So there it is. Expect the next chapter within the next couple of days. Continue to comment if you wish, subscribe if you wish, and I'll see you in a few days. OverandOutxx
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