FicWad

Hi guys, thank you all so fucking much for your amazing reviews! This chapter is...a bit of a risk and I don't know if I've managed to pull it off...please let me know. I hope it's okay, cause I feel like shit right now.


Chapter Nineteen

Steve drives us all to Revolutions, claiming that he can’t have us trekking through the city in the dark and the pouring rain, but I’m pretty sure the real reason is that he’s just scared of leaving me and Gerard without adult supervision in case one of us kills the other. Which, after the incidents during dinner, seems not entirely unlikely, actually.

So instead of trudging through the rain, we’re chugging through the hollow light and greasy pavements of the city centre in Steve’s Range Rover. In the dark, the city is just a sea of flickering lights. They could almost be pretty, sometimes; if you forget you’re in a grimy, depressing city of faceless, polluted people and dead-end dreams. They could just be memory candles, lighting out your shadows.

I’m sitting tensely in the darkened backseat between Ocean, who’s fixing her hair, and Mikey, who’s staring silently out the window. Gerard’s in the passenger seat, silent and impassive, and Steve, of course, is driving- although in such an apprehensive manner, I’m pretty sure there’s only a fifty percent chance of us arriving in one piece. The atmosphere curdling in the car’s interior is not a pleasant one; the aftermath of Gerard’s outburst and the events of dinner linger heavily.

Silence rains triumphant, crawling through the well-cleaned interior of the car and making everyone uneasy; Mikey’s gnawing anxiously at his bottom lip, almond eyes darting nervously from side to side as he watches the world slide by in a blur of rain and pollution. I’m relentlessly jiggling my left leg up and down, trying to ignore the nervous butterflies swooping in my gut. Ocean seems to be the only one of us relatively at ease as she applies neon green eyeliner in her little skull hand mirror, expertly timing it with the car’s movements to avoid poking herself in the eye.

Steve looks possibly the most worried of us all; the lines on his face are more prominent than ever, his knuckles going white from how hard he’s clutching the wheel, and his eyes keep flickering apprehensively from me to Gerard, as if his son is about to randomly explode and violently terminate my life with an axe.

I’m not too worried about that at this particular moment; Gerard doesn’t really seem to be showing any murderous signs right now. In fact, he isn’t really showing any signs of anything at all. He’s just sitting, still and silent, in the passenger seat, facing out towards the traffic jam of lights and angry horns. He’s clearly made an effort, though; he’s decked out in the skinniest pair of black jeans I’ve seen him in yet, a v-necked black ‘The Stooges’ top which shows off his milky neck, and his staple, beat-up, safety pin-adorned leather jacket. His hair is teased into a gothic tangle of dishevelled ebony hairspray, falling seductively in perfectly made up face, where the deathly pallor and the black smoky eyeliner has been painted on with as much expertise as the cool, indifferent expression.

However, despite my perplexing stepbrother’s would-be-casual demeanour, I can see a muscle clenched in his perfect jaw line, and although I can’t see his face properly, I’m almost certain it would be taut to the point of shattering with the neutral fallacy he seems so determined to masquerade.

As we turn out of the city centre and towards the club, I become vaguely aware that Ocean’s started chattering away to Steve about something pointless- I’m not really paying attention to anything but the city blurring past and the adrenaline fused butterflies buzzing through my blood, their tiny, anxious wings getting caught in my ribcage, weighed down by the gush of my erratic pulse.

I feel stupidly nervous and self conscious about going out. Crowds of people always make me edgy, so I’ve just tended to avoid them. Social situations such as clubs really aren’t my forte- especially these days; I’m not cool or good looking or witty, so I don’t even bother trying anymore.

I can’t even remember the last time I made the slightest bit of effort with my appearance- but for some reason that is completely lost to me, tonight, I have.

Instead of my usual scruffy clothes that give me the safety of sideline shadows, I’m wearing an awkwardly tight pair of black jeans with rips in the knees and a skull on one of the back pockets, a ripped, safety-pin adorned Sex Pistols shirt and a stripy black and white hoodie with a slightly dubious red stain on the left sleeve. I’ve even dared to smudge a little of my favourite red eyeliner round my eyes, and straightened my hair so that it tumbles across my injuries in less shifty kind of way.

I guess I look more acceptable than normal, but I still wanted to smash the mirror when I checked my reflection on the way out, and I feel uncomfortable and as if I’ve been thrust into the dusty limelight of someone I used to be. I feel like an ugly looser in a cool guy’s skin, the rubbery spandex-textured flesh slipping and sliding sickeningly across my soul. It doesn’t feel like me.

However, Ocean apparently doesn’t share that view; I tune into her and Steve’s conversation just in time to hear her say-

“Frankie looks great tonight, doesn’t he?” Ocean’s beaming, applying the finishing touches to her eyeliner. “You’d better watch out, Steve- he’ll come home with armfuls of girls.”

I choke slightly, and Mikey turns away from the window to give me a sympathetic glance. He’s been as quiet as me the whole ride so far. I’m pretty sure he isn’t looking forward to the club any more than I am-.

“Don’t worry, Steve,” I mumble in embarrassment, ducking behind my freshly straightened hair. “It’s not gunna happen.”

“Why not?” Ocean protests, prodding me with the end of her eyeliner stick and making me yelp. “You actually look pretty hot, Frankie. See how you can look if you just make a little effort?”

I snort derisively. “Yes. I’m practically a god.”

Ocean rolls her eyes heavily. “Oh don’t go all sarcastic, Mister. You really do look nice, okay? Jeez. I was just trying to compliment you!”

“Ocean. I look shit,” I point out in that oh-so-optimistic attitude of mine.

“No, you don’t,” Ocean insists determinedly. “Steve, doesn’t he look good?”

“Your hair looks nice,” Steve concedes, glancing briefly round at me. “And I like your hoodie. It suits you.”

“Mikey?” Ocean demands.

“You look great, Frank,” Mikey smiles shyly at me before going back to staring out the window.

“Mr. Way?”

There’s a very tense silence. My butterflies flutter more anxiously. Steve grips the steering wheel so tightly he’s gunna be in danger of ripping it right out of the dashboard in a second.

Gerard shrugs, not turning round. My heart sinks a little before I can stop it.

“Oh come on, Gerard!” Ocean says persuasively, batting her purple-mascara eyelashes at him in a manner that makes vomit swill round my stomach. “Seriously?”

“You look cute,” Gerard mutters reluctantly, eyes giving me a once over in the rear-view mirror. I feel my stomach twist in a funny kind of jolt, but I’m pretty sure it’s coincidence with Steve’s jerky driving. “Annoying, but cute. In an elfish sort of way.”

I feel heat rise to my cheeks as my eyes flicker up and catch Gerard’s glittering green eyes in the mirror, confusingly masked with undecided emerald depths, and shadowed by the half-light of the car and his own masquerade. He drops his gaze first, eyes turning down so as his long, midnight lashes fan out across the pale skin of his cheekbones, like black dove feathers.

He looks unbearably perfect.

I swallow hard, clenching my fists and looking back out the window, because suddenly the car feels strangely airless, the tension is thicker than ever, my hands are sticky with nerves, my mouth is dry, my cheeks are flaming.

And my heart is thumping against my ribs.


*
Thankfully, the queue into Revolutions club is a lot shorter than I’d predicted, as it’s still raining hard with bullets of icy rain that slam into my skin like serrated pebbles of winter. We’re standing close to the edge of the sidewalk, so that whenever a car whooshes past, we’re all spattered with the puddles of oil-contaminated rainwater, just adding to the freezing cold air that slices through us.

Shivering, I stand on my tiptoes to watch the queue taper away into the club doors; an endless ribbon of restlessly impatient sighs curling up into the murky night sky that’s veiled with a thick fug of pollution, ebbed up from the congested city roads.

“Jeez,” Ocean huffs irritably, shivering violently in her lacy purple top and stamping her biker-boot clad feet on the cracked pavement in some vain attempt to stay warm. “How long is this gunna take?”

“Chill it, Smurf girl,” Gerard rolls his kohl rimmed eyes and exhales impatiently, breath hot and smoky in the sullen ebony night, tinted slightly red from the tail-lights of the endless cars slugging along the road beside us.

“Smurf girl?” Ocean raises her perfectly plucked eyebrows and stops scowling at the frowning lines splitting the chewing gum speckled sidewalk beneath our feet.

“Yeah,” Gerard smirks slightly, meeting her eyes. “I think that works.”

“And why’s that?” Ocean questions, a smile playing across her purple-glossed lips. “Do you nickname everyone or something?”

“Only the ones I like,” Gerard grins in reply, flicking his ebony tresses out of his eyes so he can fix Ocean with his full attention.

“I thought you called Frank ‘elf-boy’,” Ocean points out, keeping her cool and looking amused as she gently flicks the sleeve of Gerard’s leather jacket.

Gerard’s eyes cloud for a second, but then the mask-like smirk’s back, stretching his flawless face in all the wrong direction. “That’s not a nickname,” he sniggers. “That’s just the truth.”

“Hey!” Ocean protests, but she’s giggling, hanging onto Gerard’s sleeve and laughing in my face. It’s harsh and it stings at my throat like tears.

I feel my cheeks flush with humiliation and turn away from them, scuffing my foot angrily at the uneven paving. Mikey’s shivering into his black denim jacket, looking skinnier and shyer than ever amongst the decreasing queue of Mohawks and studded chokers. He meets my eye for a second and something like the ghost of a smile flickers across his lips before he drops his gaze back to the murky rainwater in the gutter, letting his mousy brown hair shield his expression.

“Oh, come ON,” Ocean whines impatiently after a moment of silence. She stands up on her tiptoes to see if we’re any closer to the entrance, using Gerard’s leather-clad shoulder to support her weight.

“Seriously, chill out,” Gerard rolls his eyes again as he draws a carton of Marlboro lights and a slightly battered green lighter out of his jacket pocket.

“That’s my point,” Ocean growls. “I’m too chilled out. I’m fucking freezing.” Another car splashes past, just emphasising her point as it showers us all in dirty rainwater. Mikey winces, getting the worst of it, but saying nothing.

Ocean, however, groans loudly, flicking dampened tendrils of her vibrant blue hair out of her eyes and stomping on the chewing-gum speckled pavement in annoyance.

“Here,” Gerard says huskily, offering her one of his cigarettes with long, artistic fingers that shake slightly around the grip of the cancer stick as if he’s in need of one himself.

“Oh,” Ocean looks up, and her scowl melts away. “Thank you,” she smiles softly up at Gerard’s flawless mask, taking the cigarette. I don’t miss the way her fingers linger on his, or the crooked half-smirk he throws her.

The intimacy of the moment makes my skin crawl.

I suddenly feel sick, but swallow the sour taste back and clench my fists angrily, determined not to let the effect of his unvoiced fallacy show.

and I realise I must have been unconsciously staring at him and Ocean.

I drop my gaze to my shabby Converse trainers and shrug, cheeks flaming behind my hair.

“Surely you weren’t imagining I’d offer you a smoke,” Gerard laughs, lighting his own cigarette expertly and stowing the lighter back in his pocket.

“I wasn’t!” I protest angrily, looking up indignantly.

“Just as well- you’re far too young to smoke, elfiekins,” Gerard smirks patronisingly, blowing smoke in my face. It’s surprisingly sweet, but it clogs up my lungs with its aftermath and I frown angrily, confused and annoyed with myself.

“I’m the same age as Ocean,” I point out, spluttering crossly in the fumes that

Gerard shrugs. “Yeah, but Ocean’s cool. And you’re goblin size.”

Ocean doesn’t even try and defend me, she just continues to puff smoke out into the night and throw slightly flirty glances at Gerard. And I’m not even surprised anymore. Maybe, I think, I catch a tiny little glimpse of guilt behind her make-up smothered eyes, but then she looks away from me as if she doesn’t want to know me.

Is she ashamed of me?

“Ocean?” I appeal, anger prickling at my insides and curdling uncomfortably with the splintered hurt.

“Awww, that’s right,” Gerard sniggers. “Run to Ocean.”

“I don’t need to run to anyone,” I spit angrily.

“Actually, I think it’s that you’ve got no one to run to,” Gerard says lightly, taking a long drag of his cigarette.

I open my mouth furiously, but then stop, because I don’t have any idea what to say in return.

Thankfully, I’m saved the trouble of coming up with a retort when the queue in front of us suddenly surges forward and we’re shunted into the club’s doorway. My chest aches with every inhale, as if Gerard’s words are razors, scraping horribly close to the bone.

After getting past the grim looking bouncers, we make our way down a black, smoky smelling corridor towards the increasing smell of dry ice and sweat and alcohol, all pumped towards us by the dull thud of heavy rock music. Above it all, a singer’s coarse, angry yell dances through the air, like a cat-call of taunted freedom.

Ocean’s biker boots clack along the corridor, matching the metallic thud of Gerard’s beat-up black Doc Martens, while mine and Mikey’s Converse are the forever unheard footsteps.

My heart’s thudding in my chest, because I’ve never been somewhere like this. I feel like some kid who’s been dragged along by his older sibling and doesn’t know how to act. Gerard is strutting along confidently, as if he’s done this a million times before, Ocean hanging on his every word, touching his arm and giggling in a way that makes my skin crawl.

I might be with my best friend, but she’s slipping away, out of reach, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get her back. She’s going somewhere I don’t understand, and I don’t know if she does either.

However, I don’t have time to dwell on these thoughts because that’s when we pass through the doorway into the club, and the deafening bass and raw scream of the band playing drowns everything else.

Surprisingly, the deafening noise of people and music united as one soothes my writhing stomach of nerves a little, and I don’t feel half as vulnerable as I did moments before. Instead, I just let the music soak up all my fears and follow Gerard’s swinging hips and confident strut through the throng of people towards the bar in the corner.

“Drink?” Gerard asks loudly over the noise, flopping down on one of the turquoise bar stools and pulling out one for Ocean beside him. It’s as though Mikey and I don’t even exist.

“Sure,” Ocean shouts over the singer’s yelling.

Within minutes, they’re delving into flirtatious conversation and frothy glasses of amber cider, and Mikey and I, as always, are just the shadows of the two people that dominate our lives.

Scowling, I lean back against the wall behind me and close my eyes slightly, letting the angry screaming of the band and the chatter of the club infiltrate my mind and shut down my thoughts.

I wish I never had to think again.

“You alright?” Mikey’s quiet voice brushes my ear.

I open my eyes and sigh. “Yeah.”

I look back over at Ocean and Gerard. She’s smoking, drinking, polluting her life, and trailing her finger down the flawless cheekbone of the most polluting force of all. My stomach writhes furiously in frustration and ignorance.

“No,” I say suddenly, shoving myself off the wall and shaking my head. “No, I’m not okay.” my cheeks are blazing with anger, with hurt, with so much. I feel as though the angry singer up on the stage is stealing my angst and spitting every word I feel out into the crowd.

Mikey blinks. “…Frank?”

“No,” I spit angrily. “Just leave me alone.”

I turn away, fuming irrationally, and drag up a bar stool, asking for a beer. The barmaid looks a little suspicious at my claims to be eighteen, but looks too tired and defeated to press the point, so seconds later, she’s sliding a foamy pint of beer across the bar to me.

I survey the unknown liquid for a second, heart thumping. I can feel Mikey’s concerned gaze burning into the side of my face. He’d listen. I could tell him everything, sort it out the sensible way.

I glance to my left and see Gerard’s seductive smirk, his flawless composure, his lies all those lies that are reeling Ocean in. His eyes flicker up and brush gazes with me for a second, and in that moment, in that second of collided russet and emerald confusion, I make my mind up.

The beer is sour and bitter and cold with foam, cooling my anger yet burning at my throat. I gulp it down as though its water, disliking the cool, dour taste but relentlessly chugging it back, filling up my body with alcoholic painkillers.

I turn away from Ocean and Gerard, though their presence continues to burn a vivid scar into my back, burning right through my skeleton and making my hands shake around my glass. I don’t understand why I should feel so angry about it. I mean, I’m pissed at Ocean for ignoring me and I’m pissed at Gerard for being so fucking confusing and unreasonable, but even those two things alone couldn’t build up this horrible, churning pool of hatred sputtering and spitting fire right through me.

I take another long swig of beer, hoping to kill its flames.

It sort of works- my insides feel temporarily cooler, anyway. Beginning to feel slightly guilty about brushing Mikey off so harshly, I turn back round to apologise.

Only he’s not there.

I choke on my mouthful and panic sludges through the beer slopping round my gut and my eyes dart worriedly round the blur of dancing, fist-pumping misfits. Then I feel my jaw drop. Mikey is one of the dancing, fist-pumping misfits. He’s surged right to the front of the crowd and is jumping up and down just like everyone else, thrusting his fist in the air fearlessly, as if he was born to do it.

He looks at home, weirdly. Nothing but a streak of mousy hair and an Anthrax t-shirt jumping up and down wildly as if he wants nothing but to be completely absorbed by the music. As if he wants to blot out everything else.

Then I get it. Maybe live music is to him what this half empty glass of beer is to me.

That suddenly makes me feel even worse. Maybe it’s the sour alcohol slopping through my stomach. Maybe it’s that even someone as shy as Mikey is okay in a place like this. Or maybe it’s the hurt gnawing right through my chest.

I sigh and take another sip of beer, wondering as the dour liquid washes round my tongue, if this is my future. Watching everyone else have fun and pretending I’m okay.

Trying to distract myself from my own thoughts, turn my gaze to the other direction, and panic plummets through my alcohol slopping gut once more as I meet a pair of shark-like eyes I know far too well.

Dead eyes. When I say dead, I don’t mine without life, I mean without humanity. They’re not empty, they’re chokingly full of cold, unfeeling cruelty and the lust for destruction and pain.

Designer clothes with a rebel edge. Stylish, sexy blonde hair. A snare of teeth and venom. Danny.

However, his eyes aren’t on mine. For once, he doesn’t even seem to have noticed me. He has a new victim.

His eyes are on Gerard, who’s still sitting with Ocean at the bar, sipping from his glass of cider and laughing hollowly, eyes an empty mask, lips stretched out in self-protective fallacy.

He knows Danny’s eyes are on him. I watch his hand shake more every time he raises his glass. I watch him chug back the alcohol more frequently and order glass after glass after glass. I watch his eyes dart away from Ocean’s face to where Danny sits silently. I watch his whole body cower in on itself. I watch him chug back stronger and stronger spirits, his eyes getting wider and wider as his laugh gets louder and louder and his words get more and more slurred; not from alcohol, but from fear.

And the whole time, Danny doesn’t relinquish his gaze.

*

It must be about half an hour later, and I’m still sitting morosely at the bar, only a couple more sips through my revoltingly sour beer, dipping from watching Gerard and the mosh-pit where Mikey is still thrashing about wildly.

Gerard’s on his second tequila shot now, flirting with a trio of Scene girls. Ocean’s still there, hanging on his every word as if he’s god, but I seriously doubt he even notices. His eyes are somewhere far away from where he stands unsteadily, giggling and slurring.

I lapse out of thought for a while, just watching the blurring crowd and letting the music fill my ears as I gulp down my beer and wonder vaguely why none of the girls capture my interest like the black mystery who’s now chugging his way through a tequila shot and slurring loudly with the Scene chicks.

It kind of scares me just how different Gerard is from the trembling, wide-eyed one I sat with after school today- how can someone conceal their truth so easily? He’s dancing with the three scene chicks now, all with multi-coloured hair and facial piercings. They swarm around him like bees with a honey pot, stroking his face and playing with his dishevelled hair.

He’s flirting back, seductive and sexy, dancing wildly and slightly scarily, as if he’s slowly spiralling out of control, letting the dark waves pull him down into murky depths he won’t resurface from.

He might be a total hit with the girls, he might still manage to be alluring when he’s slurring and hiccupping and swaying all over the place, but he’s not okay.

He’s not just drunk, he’s out of control. I can see the fear etched in his eyes, scarring his skin, burning his soul.

He’s trying to blot it out with alcohol and socialising and flirting, but you can’t block something as strong as fear without it destroying you from the inside.

And it is.

I can see him breaking, as he dances. I can see every little bit of him falling apart, shattering like the tainted glass of his empty beer tankard.

Eventually, Ocean and the Scene chicks traipse off to the loos, leaving Gerard alone. The second their backs turn on him, his wonderfully damaged emerald eyes flicker with fear, and he sways back towards the bar, flopping down unsteadily on a vacant stool and he taking a long gulp of his fifth glass of cider. I watch his throat convulse the poison down, thinking how lethal a combination fear and alcohol is.

Danny thinks like a predator; Gerard is his prey, and Gerard is alone now. Time for Danny to pounce; to sink his claws into Gerard’s perfect flesh and unleash his venom into Gerard’s bloodstream.

I watch in suspense as Danny slithers over to Gerard, who’s sitting tensely on his bar stool, starting a glass of tequila and looking as though he wishes he was anywhere else. Danny is smiling a smile that should be stained in blood.

“….Well, well, well,” Danny bares his teeth as he reaches Gerard, but it sure as hell isn’t a smile. “It’s the arty faggot who cries his eyes out.” His menacing grimace widens as he sprawls on one of the bar stools beside Gerard, who silently recoils. It’s just a flicker in his flawless eyes, but I can see it.

I keep my face half-concealed by my half empty glass, not wanting them to realise I’m so close by- or that I’m eavesdropping. After all, I don’t think either Gerard or Danny would take well to that, and I’m pretty sure both instances would result in my blood being spilt.

“Leave me alone, Danny,” Gerard sighs as if he doesn’t care. He drops his gaze to his nearly empty shot glass, and hiccups.

“What makes you think I’m gunna do that?” Danny asks quietly.

“That’s a bit creepy,” Gerard retorts recklessly, hiccupping again. “Have you got some kind of creepy crush on me or something?”

I feel a smile tug at the corners of my lips at that. I really have to respect him for not letting Danny walk all over him- even though I know he’ll be forced to pay later on.

“You’re the creepy one,” Danny spits angrily. “You’re the one who’s drawing that ugly midget for part of your art portfolio!”

My heart stops.

“Shut it,” Gerard hisses, and he sounds angry now, even though his words are slurred. He slams his pint glass down and turns to face Danny properly. “That’s not him, anyway, okay?”

“Sure, faggot boy,” Danny laughs coldly. “Who else is that ugly? Well, apart from you, obviously.”

“Why don’t you go and bother someone who cares?” Gerard sighs again. It sounds a lot more tired this time. The kind of tired that can’t be bothered carrying on. The kind of tired that makes you scared for someone’s soul.

“That’s the thing, Way,” Danny sounds as though he’s smirking. “I think you do care, don’t you?”

“What the hell are you on about?” Gerard says carelessly, hiccupping violently, but I can tell he’s worried now. I can see it in his posture. Every inch of him is clenched, tensed away from reality, cowering in on himself so that no one else can get in.

But it’s no use. Danny can. Danny always can.

Danny’s sneer widens darkly, and he leans closer to Gerard, dropping his voice so as I have to strain my ears to hear his words. “Why do you think I’m so feared, faggot boy? I can read people. I can get inside your head. I can make you nothing.”

Gerard is silent. He’s hidden behind his ebony hair, staring at the floor.

I can feel my heart thumping away against my ribs in cold horror.

“I thought that might shut you up,” Danny whispers venomously. “Now, you’d better watch your back, because I’ll be following you, Way. You’re gunna wish you never fucked with me.”

“Dude I’d never fuck you in a million years,” Gerard retorts drunkenly. “Sorry to kill all your deepest dreams, honeybear.”

Danny’s gaze darkens further still, and I know that Gerard’s stupid little comeback that was probably just self protection, has done it. I think Gerard knows it too, because his eyes are full of demolition wishes now, emerald and alcoholic.

“Your life,” Danny whispers poisonously. “Is going to be nothing. Your precious little drawings. Your stupid girly hair. Your pathetic attitude. Your ugly face. You’ll be nothing but dust, Way.”

Horrified goose bumps prickle their tainted way up my spine and my blood curdles in my veins at the unmistakeable and horrific darkness laced copiously though Danny’s tone.

I hear the scrape of a bar stool, and then Danny’s walking away, melting away into the crowd as easily as silent venom.

I turn to look sideways at Gerard. He’s paler than normal, and his eyes are drowning in a saturated sea of someone else’s poison. He hides them with a quick sweep of his midnight hair and then drains his glass of cider in one, motioning for the barmaid to bring him another one.

My heart thumps with fear as I watch him, knowing somehow, that in seconds, he’ll only be pieces on the floor.

On his second gulp of cider, Gerard suddenly gags, his eyes dilated with honest emerald agony as he staggers up, face chalk-white and hands trembling. His eyes dart desperately around for an escape, drowning, spluttering, screaming.

Finally, he sees his escape and bolts, stumbling blindly for the fire exit in the corner of the club.

Before I even stop to consider what I’m doing, I’m leaping up in a tornado of adrenaline that’s a far stronger substance than any kind of alcohol, abandoning my glass and pushing my way through the sweaty, sluggish drunken mob of dancers to the fire exit. My hands tremble slightly on the cold metal of the handle as I fumble with it for a second, and then I’m flung outside.

The contrast of the outside air hits me like a knife, freezing and slicing right through me, cutting away all sluggish feeling of the sweaty club. I shiver violently, eyes darting round the grotty alley for any sign of Gerard. My vision swims slightly, but I’m not drunk on anything but adrenaline.

Near the end of it, I spot a slim, black figure of broken midnight is staggering drunkenly from side to side, buckling under the weight of himself until he finally crashes into a train wreck, gags violently, and throws up all over the rain-dampened concrete, choking and retching sickeningly.

Then he’s stumbling, collapsing to the floor in a mass of crumbled soul and defeated bones, gasping and shaking violently.

“Gerard,” I whisper. My heart’s thumping excruciatingly against my ribs. The cold air rips at my skin. The smell of vomit and fear scrabbles through my senses.

I’m scared now. Scared for someone I thought I hated.

“Gerard!” I’m yelling now, the sound rupturing through the deserted alley as my feet thunder over the grimy cobblestones, tripping and fumbling and stumbling. The wind scratches over my face, rusty blades of winter gouging through my flesh and whipping my hair out of my eyes like a tortured shriek.

My scars that illustrate the truth far too bluntly are fully on show, but I don’t even care as I drop to my knees, heart clunking clumsily at its strings. All I care about, in that moment, is the broken boy before me.

Gerard’s body convulses as I reach out to him, and he retches, eyes screwed shut with pain as he throws up all over again in a way that’s so brutal it’s as though he’s trying to puke up more than just his alcohol.

Shakily, trying not to breathe in the sour stench of half-digested alcohol, I reach out with trembling fingers and hold his sweat-tinted ebony hair back. It’s surprisingly soft and silky under my clammy fingertips, despite all its silken split ends.

“…T-hanks…” Gerard manages, shuddering violently and wiping his mouth once he’s done. Tears are streaming down his chalk-white cheeks, but he doesn’t even bother wiping them away.

He slumps back against the wall in exhaustion, trembling.

“You’re cold,” I bite my lip as he shivers violently; face a sheen of sweat and tears and streaky black eyeliner. I can hardly believe this is the same person as the perfect, unaffected Gerard in the car on the way to the club.

Gerard shakes his head wordlessly, trying to stem the tears with his trembling hand and hiccupping miserably.

“Do you want to go back and find Mikey?” I suggest, gnawing at my lip.

Gerard shakes his head wildly, eyes wide. “Please…please don’t make me go back in there,” he stutters, eyes pained.

“I won’t, its okay,” I reassure him. “Do you want me to call Steve?”

“No!” Gerard yelps in alarm. “…Can’t disappoint Dad…again-n.”

“…A taxi?” I bite my lip, not sure how else we can get home, and also realising that Gerard needs to get home as soon as possible.

Gerard shuts his eyes in a tortured kind of way, as if he’s battling something. Then, eventually, he nods silently, lips pressed together in the way that suggests he’s trying to hold everything together in silence.

Two perfect tears seep out from under his closed eyes, trickling past his spiky lashes and down his deathly white cheeks.

My heart aches like it never has before as I watch them drip off his chin and soak into his vomit-stained ‘The Stooges’ top, washing away his smoky eyeliner and his perfect mask.

After I’ve called the taxi and hoped to god I have enough to get us home, I look back at Gerard, sliding my phone back into my pocket and biting my lip. He’s shivering, and a single, glimmering tear is dribbling down the cheek closet to me.

Watching the salty sorrow wending its wobbly way down his cheek tugs painfully at my heart strings, and without thinking, I'm suddenly reaching out, tenderly wiping it away with trembling, nervous fingers. Gerard’s eyes flicker open, and blink in surprise at me.

I feel my cheeks flush, but a tiny, broken little smile ghosts its way across Gerard’s chapped lips, and I feel my own stretch out in a reply, spreading a little warmth through me to numb the ache of my heartstrings.

Then he shivers again, eyes closing against the world in defeat.

“Here,” I shrug my striped hoodie off and drape it round his convulsing shoulders. I leave my arm there too, in some vain hope that I can hold a thousand breaking fragments of someone together if I hold tight enough.

I expect Gerard to get angry or make some stupid, sarcastic comment, but instead he snuffles and lays his head weakly against my chest, clinging tightly to my free hand as if it’s his life support machine, sniffing softly.

His inky black hair is ruffled by the wind, blowing tiny tendrils of something darker yet more beautiful that midnight into my face so as I can smell cinnamon and cigarettes and alcohol and vulnerability.

I could say so much, but silence is sometimes the best healer, so instead, I just squeeze Gerard’s clammy, trembly fingers and lean my head gently on his and we sit against the freezing alley wall in harmonised silence, watching the night howl by and just trying to stay whole.


......


Sorry if that was absolute shit. If it was, please say so...like I said, I feel really crap right now, so I don't know if this was okay. I took kinda a big risk with this chapter, and it's quite different, so I'd really appreciate feedback? Pleeease? I may decide I hate this and delete it tomorrow, so if you want it to stay, let me know, cause I literally have no confidence right now. Really hope it was okay, cause I seriously love you guys and you deserve a good update. Thanks for reading!

CosmicZombie xo