FicWad

32. “When you say it, I hear it.”


“Your relationship with Defne Yalcin was surprising. You had just broken off an engagement to another girl right before this tour started. Come June, you announced that the two of you were together.”

“I know!” Gerard exclaimed, scratching his head in sudden discomfort, messing up his hair even more in the process. The interview had finally gotten to this point, apparently. “Actually I didn’t feel like throwing myself into another relationship. ‘Cause I was in this… point in my life where I was actually content at last. I was finally happy with myself, with how my life had turned out to be… And I was sorta okay with being alone for a while – which is a whole lot easier to be on tour. But… I guess it’s always when you’re not looking for it.”

The interviewer raised his eyebrows at him in question and asked:

“So you found her when you weren’t even looking for her and then you took her band on tour –”

“Oh, no!” Gerard cut in. “I didn’t… I mean, we didn’t even know each other before this tour. I wasn’t aware that people thought we were together before this. I don’t get over an engagement that fast!” He frowned slightly as he spoke the words. He couldn’t believe people would think they would tour with Soul Purpose just because he wanted to fuck the lead singer. Yeah, no one had put it like that but he’d gotten the message, nevertheless. He didn’t make his business decisions via his dick, dammit!

This time, the interviewer’s eyes widened in surprise and slight suspicion. “Oh!” he let out, “You didn’t know each other before? Well, then, how did you decide to take Soul Purpose on tour with you?”

Gerard stared at the man in irritation and disbelief. He scowled a bit, his facial expression slipping out of his control for a moment. Then he let his eye brows relax forcefully, blinking at the man in front of him for a few times and scoffed.

“Have you ever listened to Soul Purpose? Seen them perform live?”

When there was no response, he shook his head slightly and went on.

“’Cause I’ve talked about how we made this decision before and it’s impossible to get my point if you’ve never had the experience… I mean, their performances are… raw and full of this completely fresh and wild spirit. The energy is literally naked and the band’s presence hits you over the head like a hammer once you’ve listened through a few songs. They… they don’t have any limits. At least not yet,” he ended, chuckling quietly.

The interviewer nodded, intrigued. “So you saw them perform live and decided to ask them to open for you?”

Gerard didn’t make any smart-ass remark about the number of times he had answered that same exact question. He just smiled and nodded politely.

“Yeah. Basically, we happened to be hanging out at this club in San Francisco at the time and they were on stage. We were really impressed. We all thought it’d be great to have these new fresh spirits with us on the road. ‘Cause you get inspired from other people’s music whether you want it or not. And… they definitely deserved a chance. I was actually a bit shocked that no one had discovered them for real until then…”

The interviewer flashed him a 300-megawatt-strong smile. Gerard resisted the incredible urge to hide his eyes with his hands.

“Wow! Now I wanna go see them real bad…” the interviewer trailed off, “Do you think there’re any tickets left for your show tonight?”

Gerard laughed, pleased with himself. “Dude, I’ve got no fucking idea…” he responded, still grinning, “But I think we could arrange something for you.”

The other man nodded, smiling apologetically. “I’d really love that… But I got a plane to catch in the evening so…”

“That’s bad,” Gerard said, sympathizing.

“Yeah, so. Hey! Let’s turn back to you and Defne. Could you tell me about how the two of you happened exactly? People really want to know.”

Gerard tried hard to keep his smile in place as he rubbed his forehead furiously. “You know what? I’m gonna answer you so that finally everyone can know and then maybe you guys wouldn’t ask the two of us about this all the time.”

“Lucky me!” the interviewer exclaimed, grinning.

Gerard took a deep breath and started talking.

“So, yeah. We met and literally a week later we were all sharing a stage, a bus and practically most of our time with each other. So it wasn’t really hard for anyone to get to know each other. And… all of us became pretty good friends soon. You have to, when you’re practically living in a metal tube – no matter how big it is – or it won’t work out. And uhh… we went through a lot of things together since February and that allowed us to find out how much we had in common. One thing led to another basically and here we are.”

He pursed his lips, opening his eyes wider and slightly swaying back and forth on his seat like an impatient little kid. As if asking the man in front of him if that had been enough.

The interviewer smiled a slow pleased smile but still asked another question:

“Hmm… So, the tour’s been going on for about six months and you’ve been together for like…” he trailed of on purpose, looking at the front-man pointedly.

“Two months,” Gerard answered obediently.

“Okay. Well, uhh, thank you for answering these rather personal questions.”

Gerard gave him a pleasant smile. “Nahhh, it’s okay, man. I just sincerely hope I won’t have to answer them ever again.”

The interviewer chuckled. “Sorry,” he apologized, “So… Let’s move onto My Chemical Romance’s future plans, now, shall we?”

The front-man let out an inner-sigh as they finally crossed to safe waters.

“Absolutely,” he responded enthusiastically, “The tour’s gonna be over in about a week and we’re gonna head over to Europe to do a quick wrap up of the album after that. And then we really want some rest…”

-------

“Look who’s not-smiling on the cover!” hollered a grinning Matt right before he thrust something colorful into Defne’s face. The lead singer blinked up at the colorful yet meaningless images in her vision and tilted her head back in order to be able to focus on the paper. When that didn’t work, she scooted backwards on the picnic table she was sitting on, planting her feet more solidly on the seat and took the magazine from the excited drummer’s grasp. She was met with her own dark eyes staring back at her fiercely from somewhere near the middle of the front cover. Recognizing the photograph, she smiled at the memory of that photo shoot. It had been fun.

“I think they’ve printed that interview we gave a few weeks ago,” Matt stated, something close to pride radiating off of his voice.

Defne looked up at him for a moment and smirked, giving him a mock-suspicious look. “You were dying to get your hands on this issue, weren’t you?” she asked.

He made her a face. “Yeah. I was searching for it in every gas station we ever stopped at, didn’t you notice?” he told her sarcastically.

She laughed and gave him a violent shove on the shoulder that made him stagger back a few steps. “Get out, Mackenzie. You’re totally gonna start googling yourself soon – if you’re not doing it already, of course.”

He shook his head, moving forwards to sit next to her feet planted on the bench. “At least I’m not sulking on the front cover of a music magazine.”

“I’m not sulking! I can’t even sulk properly…” she protested, scowling slightly, “… I’m just not… smiling. Like I usually do. I mean, that’s how they wanted me to pose, anyway.”

Matt nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah… Why does every band photo has to be like that? It’s so unoriginal…”

“Mmmh-hmm,” she agreed before turning her attention back to the magazine in her hand. She scanned the cover, taking in a few more familiar faces from other bands. Gerard was there, too, close to her. In the end, her eyes stopped on her figure sticking out from between two other lead singers. Her dark hair was framing her pale, serious face, contrasting perfectly with her complexion and the burgundy top she was wearing. It had a wide neckline that left her neck and collarbones bare. She sighed in awe-filled amazement. She’d have never thought she’d see the day her picture would be printed on the cover of a magazine. She had only started to get used to having interviews printed in them.

And the camera had caught the glow of her snowflake. She smiled, her fingers immediately wrapping around the pendant around her neck, stroking in a slow, affectionate manner. Then her gaze fell to the block letters under the photograph, tagged with a big shiny “EXCLUSIVE!”

“Gerard Way’s Soulful Romance:
Couple On Tour Together”

Defne’s brows furrowed deep into an uncomfortable, angry frown as she let out a hot puff of a breath before turning the pages of the magazine frantically, trying to find the interview. She couldn’t believe those assholes had managed to cut down a whole band interview into a romance tale between her and Gerard. And the way they put it in the cover… So overused and literally unoriginal. Clashing the two bands’ names together! Like no one has done that before with various different versions of My blahblahblah Romance. She felt like she’d been tricked. Like they’d all been tricked. The only reason she wasn’t yanking her hair like a mad person was that she had her hair up on top of her head in a tight mess in order to keep her neck cool in the unbelievable summer heat.

“I can’t believe those fuckers…” she muttered angrily, yanking open the pages one by one in her grinding fury.

Matt looked up at her face with a confused expression and asked: “Hey, what is it?”

She responded with another angry huff. They hadn’t even printed the band’s full name on the cover. What had they done to deserve this, honestly?

“C’mon. Is there something wrong with the picture?” he started, “Your hair doesn’t look perfect or something?”

She shot him a heated glare, almost enough to make him burst into flames right there on the spot. “Yeah, like I’d care about that!” she yelled.

“Just give the fucking thing to me,” he muttered crankily, snatching the magazine from her grip roughly.

“Did you even read the front cover before buying that shit?” she asked him, her tone still more high-pitched than normal.

“No, I just grabbed it when I saw your face on it… God, what is it that made you so fucking ma –”

He stopped in mid-sentence as he took in the words under her picture. He could feel her shifting restlessly on her seat on the table; folding her arms under her breasts, unfolding them, biting at her nails and batting her hair away from her face as she waited for a reaction from him. So he tried to make light of the situation although he was bugged about it almost as much as she was. After all, they did deserve having at least their fucking name under their front-person’s picture.

“Well… I’m not really sure if I wanna be a part of Gerard Way’s Soulful Romance.”

She hopped of the picnic table and grumbled furiously before she walked away from her drummer friend.

“Right now, I don’t want to be a part of it, either!”

Matt stared after her back for a moment before shouting as she stalked off towards the general direction of the gas station.

“What does that fuckin’ mean, now?”

She turned on her heels and gave a frantic cry.

“I don’t fucking know!”

The temperamental drummer chose that moment to have a mood swing. “Then stop fuckin’ screaming at my face, goddammit! I’m not the one who caused all this bullshit!”

Her eyes widened as the sharp, venomous words hit her viciously, making her mentally stumble backwards a few steps. Her chest already felt so fucking tight. She opened her mouth to retort an equally cruel remark but stopped herself at the very last second, hearing Zack’s voice from afar.

“Hey!” he was yelling, “What’s goin’ on over there?”

Her head snapped sideward to see the blonde guitarist hurriedly walking over to where they were standing a few feet apart from each other. She shook her head and immediately took off in the opposite direction and somehow found herself in the ladies’ room.

She walked over to a dirty-looking sink and just stood before it, staring at her reflection in the foggy mirror. Her cheeks were flushed pink with rage, her eyes narrowed and her jaw tight. Her face looked ugly. Outright revolting. She wasn’t a Hollywood star with the flawless angry-face. But she already knew that. Though that didn’t keep her from getting angry so very easily. She just couldn’t understand how she could not learn to control the violent beast lurking inside her body, mind or soul or whatever-the-fuck it was. Realizing she was shaking with the lingering effects of the adrenaline pumping through her veins, she gripped the edges of the sink and leaned her weight on her hands.

She stood there, staring into her own wide-pupilled eyes and the horrifying assessment of the hidden reality hit her right on the face after a few minutes. She was flabbergasted at first, as if she was lying on the ground, bleeding and her brain still hadn’t processed the fact that a truck had just run her over. Then it all came crashing down to her and she had to grip the sink tighter because it was sort of making her head spin.

Matt was right. She knew he was right. He wasn’t the one who was responsible for this.

She was.

She should have known this was going to happen. And maybe she did.

But she did nothing to keep it from happening. Absolutely nothing. She was so far gone that she didn’t even care what happened after one point.

She had been so fucking reckless. And irresponsible. And thoughtless. And an outright empty-headed fool. She had brought this upon her and the band herself and now she was complaining. She didn’t have the right – no the luxury – to complain when it was her own damn fault they were in such a situation.

And then there was Matt. And the fact that they had practically had a fight. When exactly had things started to go downhill in such a blindingly fast pace? Her right hand curled into a fist and she brought it down to collide with the wall beside her, banging on the tiles with the side of her clenched fist until she couldn’t even feel the pain anymore. After that, she stared at the mirror some more, feeling a tad bit better and less tense. She jumped on her spot when someone yelled from outside the door all of a sudden.

“Deff?... Hey, Deff! You in there? ...Defne?”

It was Devon. She pursed her lips and closed her eyes, determined to just make him go away with the sheer willpower of her psychic mind or something.

“Deff!” he shouted louder, “Defne, c’mon… I know you’ve gotta be in there. Just come out already… You’re making me look like a pervert verbally molesting women in the restroom. Deff, c’mon…” he whined in the end.

She opened her eyes and was surprised to find them suddenly wet and leaking like a shitty ceiling on a rainy day. Blinking furiously, she grabbed a paper towel and dabbed at her eyes, trying to get rid of the salty liquid before it became obvious that she had been crying.

“Defne!” the bassist called one more time, “Look, I’m getting worried… Are you okay in there?”

Once satisfied with the seeming dryness of her eyes, she strode towards the door and yanked it open. Her messy-haired friend was leaning against the wall next to the door.

“’m fine. What d’you want?” she asked, trying not to sound very hostile.

He gave her the tiniest hesitant smile before answering. “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t committing acts of vandalism in there.”

She gave him an empty, dull look as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her black suspender pants. Then Devon got all serious-faced on her and touched her upper arm, gently squeezing it, offering comfort.

“Okay, I just… Just wanted to see if you were all right.”

She raised her eye brows higher and spoke up: “I told you. I’m fine.”

The bassist nodded and rubbed her arm in a continuous motion. “That’s good. That’s… umm… so, you wanna like… Come out?”

She just blinked at him.

“… I mean, uhhh… We’re gonna be leaving, so.”

She blinked a few more times and nodded in the end. “Okay, let’s. Let’s go.”

As they walked out towards the bus, Devon started talking once more. “Umm… I also kinda think Gerard’s been looking for you.”

She slowed down unconsciously, dragging her feet a bit. “I’m not sure if I should be seeing him right now… I don’t wanna yell in his face, too.”

“Nahh, you won’t. You look calm enough,” Devon assured her.

“I do?” she doubted with a surprised face, “I don’t feel very calm.”

The bassist wrapped a hand around her arm and stopped her completely. “Look,” he began, “I heard about what happened… And I think much worse would have happened if you hadn’t been at least a little bit calm, okay?”

She gave a dry chuckle. “How could it have gone any worse?”

“Well, you could have responded with an equally stupid remark and then we’d probably have had to hold you two back from indulging in a fist fight. You know Matt’s temper is even worse than yours at times… But the point is, you didn’t. You just chose to stalk off rather than throwing up your frustration all over our drummer’s face.” He looked at her expectantly at the end of his little speech, hoping to see some kind of a positive emotion on her face.

She scoffed and folded her arms over her chest. “Well, that was only because I heard Zack approaching us,” she said, “And I didn’t wanna say something stupid and cruel right in front of him and then have him nag me to death about it.”

Another tiny, half-hearted smile escaped the bassist. “But that’s my point. You were calm enough to resort to pragmatism.”

She tossed rebellious locks of hair away from her face and stared at him. “So… what are you trying to prove exactly? That, secretly, I am a calm person? What good is that?”

Devon reached over and put his hands on her shoulders.

“No, I’m just… I think I’m trying to. To make you feel better about yourself. And not blame yourself so much about all this mess.”

The lead singer bit on her lower lip trying to contain the flow of emotion in her body and took a few steps towards her wild-haired friend. He shot her a hesitant look but she sighed and wrapped her arms around him in clear gratefulness. He paused for only a moment before encircling her body with his arms, rubbing her back soothingly.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Anytime,” he stated as they broke apart after a few seconds. She gave him an uncertain smile and they made their way back onto the bus, stepping on more solid ground this time.

------

Defne sat in the front-lounge, perched on the edge of one of the couches, biting at her nails nervously. Her eyes were glazed over, her mind lost in hundreds of different thoughts, oblivious to the outside world. She was at a complete loss as to what she should be doing, now. She was pretty sure she should be talking to Matt and smoothing things over but no matter what Devon had said, she didn’t feel calm enough to trust herself not to make things even worse than they already were.

She huffed loudly and rubbed her forehead, probably hoping for a genie of a solution to pop right out of her ears. But that wouldn’t happen, of course. The only thing she had only succeed in was giving herself a perfectly solid headache with that much brooding.

“Hey,” called a soft voice from the direction of the hall that lead to the bunks. “What’s wrong?” Gerard asked as he stepped into the front-lounge completely. He stopped in his tracks, considering the pointlessness of his question and paused to rephrase it. “… I mean, I know what’s wrong. But… Are you okay?”

Letting her elbows rest on her knees, she frowned and consequently, managed to multiply the strength of her headache by three.

“I’m fine,” she mumbled, getting slightly irritated at how many times she had had to repeat that phrase over the past hour. “Just got a headache.”

“Oh,” Gerard let out silently, walking over and settling himself beside her on the couch. He cautiously placed a warm hand on her back before asking lightly, “Is this about that stupid magazine?”

She cast him a sideways glance and sighed. “You know?” she asked, perplexed. Apparently none of her band mates cared about keeping their problems to themselves.

He licked his lips and scooted closer to her before replying. “Well, I knew something was wrong… And you didn’t really seem like you’d welcome a conversation right then so I went to go see if the guys would tell me anything…”

“They did, huh?”

He shook his head slightly, sending locks of raven hair dancing around the air around his pretty face. She couldn’t help but be at least a little hypnotized by the utter elegance of the movement. “No, they didn’t,” he muttered, “... And then I got this nagging, sinking feeling in my stomach that kept saying that somehow all this had something to do with me… Well, then I kinda figured it all out when I found the magazine lying on the floor. So…”

She blinked, feeling so very tired, and buried her face in her hands, massaging the muscles above her brows, begging the evil headache to leave her alone, to spare her life. “… Matt and I,” she began uncertainly, “had a… some kind of a. Fight-like-thingy.”

She felt Gerard nod beside her and plant his hand more solidly on her back, rubbing it in an attempt at comfort. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled in a truly miserable way and she raised her face from her hands to notice the look on his open face. It was an apologetic one mixed with worry and discomfort. No. She wouldn’t let him blame himself on this, no. She brought a hand to cup his cheek and let her thumb stroke the soft flesh silently. “Don’t do this,” she whispered, “It’s not your fault.”

“It kinda is,” Gerard told her with wide eyes.

She shook her head vehemently and winced in pain immediately, her face scrunching up. “It isn’t,” she choked out, taking a shaky breath and praying to whomever for the terrible ache to go away. Hurt-filled noises escaped her throat involuntarily.

Gerard looked at her helplessly for a moment before gathering her body in his arms securely. “Sshhh,” he hushed her, “It’s gonna go away…” he assured her, planting two fingers against her temples and starting to rub gently. “It’s gonna be a’right.”

She let out a weak little hum as her body settled itself more comfortably against his chest in order to sink into the warmth of him. Gerard continued to rub her temples for some time until he ducked his head and kissed the corner of her eye smoothly and asked: “You want me to get you some painkillers?”

She turned her face in search of his lips and caught the edge of his mouth, her hand disappearing in his gorgeous hair for a moment. They both sighed deeply as they broke apart. “Nahh, it’s okay,” she told him, “I’ll get them on my way to the bunks… I should probably try to sleep this one off…”

The front-man nodded against her lips and pushed a few strands of dark hair behind her ear gently. He gave her a light peck on the lips before drawing away and looking in her eyes to speak. “You go get ready for bed and I’ll get you your painkillers, ‘kay?”

She blinked a few times and nodded in the end, dragging her reluctant body away from his to go search for something not-too-hot and oh-so-very-comfy to sleep in. It was only yet getting dark outside and she was going to bed. She hated that…

In the end, she threw on lavender pajama shorts and a loose-fit black tank top before letting herself sink into her bunk and curling up in fetal position, facing the wall. She’d have loved to sleep in her old, faithful Nirvana t-shirt – it just managed to make her feel better no matter what – but unfortunately, it was too hot to sleep in the middle of the sticky-hot summer. Her hand curled itself around the snowflake around her neck and she held onto it until Gerard popped by her side with a glass of water and two pills in his palm. She accepted the medication gratefully, thanking him sincerely, and chased them down with a few hurried gulps of water. Gerard looked at her affectionately and brushed his hand across her forehead, muttering “Try to go to sleep now…”

She nodded slowly, as to not trigger the worst part of the headache again, and turned to face the wall once more. She felt Gerard leave and heard him pad over to the kitchenette to rinse the glass. Her hand played along the arms of the snowflake, taking odd comfort from the silver rubbing against her guitar-calloused fingertips. Soon, she felt the mattress dip under the added weight on top of it and Gerard’s arm wrap around her waist lightly, the other sprawling across the pillow to play with her hair. He spooned her perfectly, radiating waves of sleepy warm comfort from the lines of his body against hers.

“Sometimes… I just. Just wanna hold you like this… for some time,” he whispered to her neck. She made an approving noise and pressed back against him, the whispered “s”s in his words sliding down her bare arms, tingling. He went on. “… It’s like. It’s like touching you is second nature, somehow and… and I feel like I’m never gonna feel so… so peaceful ever again if I don’t wrap myself around you and breathe you deep. It’s… your scent. Your warmth. Something… Just… I never ever wanna lose this. Kinda like when you buy a new comic book and it smells of that unique paper smell and fresh ink and it’s just… addictive. You almost don’t wanna open it and read it. Too terrified that that smell is gonna wear off by time... Or like, when you’ve only yet finished an oil painting and it has this mind-numbing, chemical paint smell that makes your nostrils flare and makes you wanna… makes you wanna fondle the painting. To feel the texture, the spiky parts and the smooth parts all together. But you know you’ll ruin the artwork because it’s not dry yet… It’s… God, I’m not makin’ any sense, I know. But I think you’d –”

“I understand,” she mumbled, craning her neck to look him in the eye. “It’s like. When you walk into a little bookshop and it smells of paper and ink, fresh out of the printing house… The smell’s so strong that it… it hits you on the head when you first walk in and that’s why e-books are never gonna give the same pleasure to you. You can’t touch an e-book. You can’t smell it… You can’t accidentally tear a page of it. It can’t make your head spin... But then if you stay in the bookshop for a while, your nose won’t recognize the smell anymore unless… umm, unless you walk out of there and come back sometime else…”

Gerard beamed at her with sparkling eyes and nodded against her shoulder. “Yeah…” he breathed. “I’ll release you in the morning and then… when it’s time to go to bed again, you’re gonna be all fresh and new and… addictive… again.”

She smiled at him, lifting her head up an inch to press a kiss on the flipped-up tip of his nose and put her arm on top of his, wrapping it tighter around her waist. But Gerard still wasn’t finished. “Even when I’m… the one who’s comforting you, sorta…” he began, “I’m feeling the comfort, too. Just by being… close, I’m… Being close to you comforts me. And when you’re holding me so tight, I know that you never wanna let go. But I also know that you’re gonna have to let go… It’s not like we’re Siamese twins… But the thing is… I somehow know that… we’re never gonna lose this. But when I’m away from you, I can’t be so sure… I get scared, sometimes…”

She turned in his arms then. Turned on her other side so she could face him and kiss him longingly, devouringly and just a bit desperately. So she could whisper “Don’t be scared,” in his ear, kiss it and bury her face in his neck, tucking head under his chin and wrapping herself tight around him.

“You are my dream,” he whispered to her, still playing with strands of her dark hair, sighing in contentment.

And at that moment, right before the painkillers dragged her off to a lightly-sedated sleep, Defne understood what she had to do. She had a dream and…

She knew what she should do.

She couldn’t even feel the painful tightening in her chest before falling asleep in peace in the protective cocoon of his arms that held a surprising strength that Gerard usually used for nothing. And at that moment, he could have never known what had suddenly popped into her mind.

She had to give up.

She had to give him up.

Gerard.





A/N: Hey, guys! This chapter's a bit weird, I know. It's just that... I made myself write this because myself couldn't make me write it. I know that doesn't make sense at all. It's just that... I didn't feel the motivation, I guess. So, umm... I'd be ecstatic if you could tell me what you think about this one. By reviewing and/or rating, of course. Hell you could send me an e-mail even, if you'd care about that. I'm that desperate. I want to feel motivated. And inspired. Gahhhh! I want to put up the next chapter before my second college year starts which is on September 17. I hate updating late and I hate these nagging voices in my head that keep chanting that my patience is not gonna be enough for me to finish this story...

And the title is a quote from the movie Requiem For A Dream. I recommend it for anyone who hasn't already seen it. I really do. It's been such a long time since I watched that movie and I'm still in its spell. But don't watch it when you're down or anything. It's really... traumatic. It leaves you in this weird empty place with your thoughts and your thoughts alone.

So, umm. Okay. I guess, we'll see if the wheels in my head are gonna start turning for real, this time. I'll be waiting... For you guys to poke and prod at the wheels... or something.