FicWad

I'm trying for the third time to get this updated; everytime the chapter title and the summary shows up but the actual story text is missing...
One more thing - the lack of reviews doesn't exactly motivate me to update so if there's someone -anyone- who actually reads this story and always comes back to check the newest chapter then please review. It means a lot.





I hadn't touched my pancake while Frank was shoving in his fourth one. The guy for sure had an appetite.
The ride here had been silent, even awkward for the most part. I'd commented on the weather and he'd made a few remarks concerning other people's driving skills.
Or the apparent lack of them.

Neither of us were any more at ease here at the diner, the silence was even worse now that you could here other people around us chatting, emphasizing the fact that we weren't. I felt like I should give it another try so I asked about his pancakes. For the third time.

"Are those good?" I smiled a little.

"Not as good as the last ones" He shrugged. He was obviously not making as much effort as I. I decided I'd have to ask something else than a 'yes or no' kind of question.

"So, um.. Did you have a reason you wanted to take me here or do you just have a problem with Gerard?" I mused

"I don't have a problem with Gerard" He replied then paused and chuckled lightly "Except that he makes you pay for his shit, too"

"Right" I smiled expecting him to answer the other half of the question but he said nothing.

"So, there is a reason?" I tried again.

"I guess" He shrugged again.

"You wanted to talk about something?" I guessed. How frustrating it was trying to get him to talk when sometimes it was hard to shut him up.

"Yeah, I guess"

I sighed dramatically.
"Frank, what did you want to talk about then?" I paused to smile as softly as I could "Have you guys decided to kick me out, is that it? You can tell me, you know"

"No, no, nothing like that at all" For the first time it felt like he was listening to what I said.

"Just talk, whatever it is" I sighed again, taking a bite now and chewing mechanically. I didn't taste anything, these pancakes were a disgrace.

He put his fork down and took a deep breath
"Nothing in particular" He started, stretching the words "I just.. kind of wanted to.. spend time with you I guess" He sighed, careful not to make eye contact with me.

I was a little caught off guard. He just wanted to spend time with me? Why? Wasn't I the weird chick who somehow managed to squeeze herself into their lives in a matter of days for no good reason? Huh.

I had been telling myself not to get ahead of things, to not think of these men as my friends, whatever on earth that meant and now he's saying he considers me as a friend? I felt a wave of warmth flush through my body as I watched him sit there uncomfortable and self-conscious.
It was touching, but I didn't know what to say.

"Oh.. Okay. Well, this is.. fun" I tried only receiving a slight chuckle from him in return.

"No, really" I tried again "this is.." I racked my brain for the right word.

"Awkward" He finished my sentence.
He looked into my eyes for the first time and by the way his gaze drilled through the air between us I could tell he wanted to say something more, but I didn't understand the look on his face.

First I was too busy looking at the tattoo on his neck to notice that he kept staring at me. When I finally tore my eyes off the beautiul artwork on his body, I realized that something in his expression had changed. It was less like eye contact and more like him scrutinizing me now.

I stared back blankly, was there maple suryp on my face?
He was not so much looking into my eyes as looking at my eyes. His face gave away something between shock and interest.
There was a long pause.

"Frank..?" I spoke in a low voice "Are you okay?"
Another long pause, during which he didn't move or speak or even, judging by the pale blue tone on his face, breath.

"Frank, you're not choking on something are you?" I hesitated, not sure if I should be helping him or not.

He shook his head briefly and without taking his eyes off mine, he lifted his hand and brought it towards my face slowly but stopped mid-way. I looked at his frozen hand that hung on the air. He looked like a retarded marionette.
I would've laughed at that if the look on his face hadn't been so frightening.

"Your eyes.." He whispered, moving his hand an inch closer again.
I backed away instinctively. I had still a clear memory of what his touch had caused last time.

"My eyes?" I repeated in monotone, not really understanging what he meant.

Was he complimenting my eyes in some weird huiman way?
I would've asked him what he meant, what it was about my eyes that had him so confused, but I didn't. By the way he seemed to be scanning my eyes instead of looking at them and the perplexed expression on his face I could tell he saw something he shouldn't see..

I turned my face away to snap him out of the trance-like state he'd been for almost a good ten minutes now.

"I'll just" I cleared my throat "Use the bathroom, I -uh- I'll be right back" I stuttered with a tiny smile and nearly sprinted towards the little sign with a hand-drawn picture of a 19th century lady on it.

I struggled a little with the heavy swing door and ended up wedging myself into the small bright-lit room.
The face in the mirror surprised me. Instead of the light grayish blue eyes I had gotten used to over the few days, I could now see something else.
It was like a cloud of smoke in front of my actual eye colour. And it was moving, my face reminding me of a hypnotized cartoon character.

I could see why Frank had been confused, the difference wasn't something you noticed unless you really looked but when you did notice, it was impossible not to see it. It was nothing ominuos, nothing magical, but it was definitely not normal, either...

I recognized these eyes, in a way they seemed to be a strange mixture of my human eyes and the cloudy, dark grey eyes of the other world.
The only difference besides the hint of blue was that the eyes in the mirror were constantly changing, moving in a way, like there was not enough smoke for it to stay still. As if my eyes were constantly adjusting to something.

And then it stopped.

My eyes remained a cloudy faint blue but the moving had stopped. There was no change in my eyes sight, though, that I was sure of. It was as undefined and inaccurate as before. Even though my heart rate had propably reached lethal heights, I decided that this was nothing to worry about.

I mean, taking into consideration that I had only a few days ago have my immortal body transferred into a human one, this sort of adjustments were to be expected. I couldn't assume that all the changes had been complete in a matter of seconds after I'd crossed over, of course there would be this sort of fine tuning. No big deal.

I took a deep breath, and tried to think happy thoughts. I studied the face in the mirror again. Atleast my eyes were still a normal enough colour, only a little more light grey rather than blue.
Also, I was very content with the fact that the weird movement had stopped. If it hadn't, I don't think I could've ever made myself exit the bathroom and face Frank's observing gaze again.

Thinking of which, I had totally lost track of time as I'd stood here staring at the person in the old stained mirror and I knew I had to get back before Frank would start to think I'd ran out on him.

I took another few deep breaths, relaxed my face to hide all emotion visible on it and left the ladies room. Frank was still sitting at the table and much to my amusement I could see that his hand was still extended towards my end of the table in a way that looked extremely uncomfortable. I plastered a goofy smile on my face and took a seat.

"Damn these spontaneously dissolving contacts" I announced in what was meant to be a whiney tone causing his head to snap up. His eyes concentrated on mine only as he tried to see a glimpse of what he'd seen before.

"I know, it looks freaky. I hadn't realized three hours had passed since I put them on this morning" I lied, smiling softly at the clueless guy.

"Oh" His voice sounded like he had been choking on something. "You wear contacts?"
His voice was an octave higher than usually and the blush that colored his cheeks now made me think that had most likely had some wilder theories in mind.
I didn't want to hear any of them.

I nodded, "Yes but not to replace glasses or anything. I know it's silly, but I always kind of disliked my eye colour and a while ago found out that coloured contacts made the blue a little more, well, blue" I laughed a little. I hope it sounded natural. Gladly, Frank was easier to convince than Gerard before, and I could see him smiling now.

"I like that colour, it's still grayish and blue but lighter, in a way" he stated "That was the fucking freakiest thing I ever saw, fuck, by the way the grey shit started swirling, I thought you were going blind or something" He chuckled in disbelief, shaking his head a little at his previous thoughts.

"That 'grey shit' is my actual eye colour" I snorted

"I'm an idiot" He added and laughed.

"You guys just read way too much comic books" I snickered, relieved.

We agreed to leave the place, Frank was going to pay a visit to his mother and I pretended to have some errands to do as well. On the way back to Ray's he asked what felt like a thousand questions.

He had smiled and said that this was the kind of information a friend was entitled to know. I felt bad having to lie to him, so I stuck to the truth - to an extent. I answered everything I could, making up a few tiny details on the way and joked about the rest. I'd told him I grew up here in New Jersey, in East Rutherford, and that my father had been an accountant and my mother a servant.

"A servant? Like a maid?" He'd asked.

"It's the same" I'd scoffed and reminded myself the tenth time to remember to use words that didn't belong in the previous century.

I'd told him they were both dead now, and that I had no siblings or alive relatives of any kind. His smile had turned sad and I'd shrugged since I didn't even remember any of them that well anymore. He asked me difficult questions like what school did I go to and I'd answered it by stating that I skipped so much that you couldn't exactly say that I ever really went to school. He'd laughed at that and I'd been pleased with myself for covering another hard one.

Then there were the easier ones about my favorite colour, favorite season and favorite scents.. I had to think for a while when he wanted to know my favorite band, so I settled on making up something that sounded like a band name and was not surprised when he told me he'd never heard of it.

The ride back to Ray's was the opposite of the ride the diner, we were both comfortable and laughing felt easy and right.
When he dropped me off and drove away in the old yellow van -that from what I knew, belonged to Gerard- I immediately missed his company.

I found myself wishing he would be back soon.