Categories > Celebrities > My Chemical Romance > 19
[A/N: I am so sorry for the late update! PartyPooper shall do better!
ALSO it has come to my awareness that I may have pissed off a few people about my views on the whole secretauthors account thing. I regret a lot of the stuff I said, and it was put majorly out of context, and I'm sorry to people who took it the wrong way.]
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As Frank waited, the warm summer night breeze drifted across the street, sifting through his hair and sending stray leaves dancing.
“We should do this again sometime.”
“Yeah.”
“How about you come over to dinner this week?”
“What, at yours?”
“Mhmm.”
“Does your wife mind?”
“It’s not a date, Frank, she’ll be there as well.”
“I know, I know, I just…okay.”
“Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”
“No, I wanna go. I wanna go.”
The memory of their last exchange of words echoed in his mind again and the boy bit down on his bottom lip, his tongue fiddling with the cool metal hoop hanging round his flesh and feeling a smile twinge at the corners of his mouth. Gerard had invited him to dinner. Gerard had invited him to dinner and he was nervous. He wasn’t sure what it was; maybe the subtle flirt and glimmer of a smirk hidden behind the clarification that it wasn’t a date, or the way Gerard’s eyes had lit up when he confirmed his availability, he didn’t know, but it was the thing that made his insides quake and his fingers drum a frantic rhythm on his leg as he waited there on the doorstep.
He realised how so incredibly fucking cliché his life had become.
“Frank—you came!”
He hadn’t noticed the door swing open and the older man had said it in the fashion a host uses to welcome his guests, like he was surprised Frank had made the great fucking effort to walk the twelve yards separating their houses. Gerard was smiling—genuinely smiling—and he was wearing an olive green button down shirt that few people could pull off, including him.
“Thought I was gonna skip out on you, huh?” Frank said wryly. Gerard just laughed and led him inside.
The house was an artist’s house, and he wouldn’t have needed Gerard to tell him so. Every wall in the place was some shade of green, blue, yellow or red and on them hung paintings, tapestries and even a nailed carpet at one point. He took his shoes off in the hall and looked at Gerard’s own pale bare feet, the carpet beneath them sticking up in little tufts between his toes. He wondered if he was as eccentric as he seemed.
“C’mon, let me get you a drink,” Gerard smiled and led him through to the kitchen.
“Champagne?” he called from the cellar, drawing out a bottle.
“What’s the occasion?”
Gerard’s beaming head reappeared from the cellar door. “You.”
Frank looked at his feet as that familiar rush of heat and bashful lopsided grin met his face again. He heard footfall on the stairs and looked back at Gerard who was busying himself with the cork of the champagne bottle.
“So this is the wonder boy, huh?”
The speaker was small, as small as him, and dark haired and red lipped. She stood in the doorway with a hand resting on her hip with casual grace, one perfectly arched eyebrow raised in something close to mockery. He watched her as she moved through the kitchen, her movements swift; almost gliding.
“Frank, this is my wife,” Gerard said, looking back at her with an amused expression, “Lindsey.”
Frank waved awkwardly, his only defence mechanism left as she surveyed him, her pale skin and hollow eyes making her look more like some kind of Tim Burton character rather than a real woman. Then those cherry lips cracked a smile in a heartbeat and she tossed her hair over a pale shoulder.
“Charmed.”
Lindsey helped herself to the champagne. Her wedding ring gleamed in the light. “Gerard’s told me a lot about you.” She spoke with her back to him.
Frank raised his eyebrow and looked at Gerard. He smiled to himself. “All good I hope?”
She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. That coy smile again. “All good.”
As the conversation slowed and he felt it was his turn to talk, he cast his eyes about the room in search for a topic. It was only until she went over to the oven and pulled out the dinner that he realised he smelt it the whole time.
“Smells good,” he commented, rolling on the balls of his feet.
“Yeah,” her voice strained as she rested the dinner on a work top. “Nothing quite like lasagne.”
Frank bit his lip and looked at Gerard. He was staring at his wife in cold dismay, his eyes turning hard. “He’s vegetarian,” he said quietly.
The atmosphere shifted suddenly as she stopped what she was doing and glared back at him.
“Then I’ll put some lentils in it,” she replied irritably. Frank could see her jaw clench and unclench under her marble skin.
He waited there awkwardly as they continue to scowl at each other, and decided to jump in to break the silence. “I don’t want to be a problem --”
“—It’s fine,” Gerard interrupted tightly. He looked back at Lindsey. “Right?”
He heard Lindsey exhale through her nose and she turned her back to them, fumbling around in the cabinets and draws. She turned back around holding a bag of lentils to her chest and forcing a warm smile. “It’s fine, Frank. Why don’t you boys go to the living room while I get dinner going?”
It wasn’t a question. Frank followed the older man out of the kitchen, his bare feet padding against the floor. They entered the living room and Gerard slumped down into a leather arm chair, sighing heavily, exasperatedly.
“Sorry about that,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “I told her about the whole vegetarian thing before, but…”
“It’s okay,” Frank said again, feeling all the more guilty. “I don’t wanna cause any trouble.” He didn’t sit down, his attention falling on the easel in the corner of the room. There was a half-finished painting on it; a bronze scorpion crouching on its legs and rattling its tail.
“You did this?” he murmured, tracing his fingers along the bumpy paint. It felt messy and uneven beneath his fingers, but that was why he liked it. He smiled in awe.
“Yeah,” Gerard sniffed, shifting in his seat. “It’s not finished yet,” he added unnecessarily.
“It’s awesome,” Frank grinned. “It’s really cool.”
He didn’t need to turn around to know that Gerard was smiling, probably letting his floppy hair fall across his face. “Yeah? You like scorpions, huh?”
“I guess.”
“What else do you like?”
He looked at him. Gerard was perched in the chair with his fingers overlapping each other. His eyes were gleaming.
“What do I like?” he asked doubtfully. Gerard nodded. “What is this, kindergarten?”
“You gotta like something.”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Why shouldn’t you? C’mon, tell me three things that interest the Mystery Man.”
Frank sighed and scratched his neck, feeling the roughly chopped hairs standing on end. “I guess I like guitars.”
“Guitars…” Gerard began to count on his fingers, his smile twisting playfully.
“I like…Black Flag…”
Gerard snorted loudly but put up another finger anyway. He wiggled them when Frank found there was nothing else to add, not really. “One more, kiddo,” he pushed.
Frank sighed again and thought for a second. “I like fixing things,” he said.
Gerard raised his eyebrow. “Like what?”
“Machines. I fixed my grandma’s TV once without any training.” He paused as the memory flooded his mind for the first time in a while. “She died a week later.”
He didn’t know why he said it, but it seemed necessary anyway, like the story wasn’t finished without it. Gerard watched him with sadness in his eyes and when he spoke he said it quietly. “My grandma died too.”
Frank laughed hollowly but it wasn’t funny. “Everyone’s grandma dies.” The silence fell upon them once again.
“What about your dad?”
“He’s not around.” Frank said it with as much emotion as a teacup. He’d become so trained to avoid talking about himself that he couldn’t take this sudden interrogation on his life. Gerard had just come along with his gleaming eyes and painted walls and bare feet bombarding him with questions like he had every right to play therapist and for once Frank was the one being forced to speak.
And he loved every second of it.
“Now I know three things about Frank Iero,” Gerard said triumphantly. “Didn’t think it would be as easy as that.”
Frank raised and lowered one shoulder. “I aim to surprise.”
“Damn right.” Gerard looked out the window. A pigeon stood on the rooftop of the house next door. It looked at him with big black eyes and held his gaze for a second. Then it flapped its feathers and flew away into the distance.
“Guess we’re not strangers anymore, huh,” Frank murmured, watching the pigeon shrink into a small black dot on the horizon.
Gerard looked back at him and only smiled in reply.
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“He’s very young.”
Gerard took a drag of his cigarette and looked over at his wife. “I know.”
“Did you meet at the clinic?”
“Of course not.”
Lindsey’s deep brown eyes searched his. “What are you doing?”
He blew a plume of smoke into the sky, watching it waft up and cloud around the stars. The cool air tickled his cheeks. “What do you mean?”
“Taking a random kid off the block and making him your new foster child.”
Gerard held back a snort. “He’s better than that.”
“Mhmm,” was her only answer.
He sighed and let his head loll back on his neck, gazed up at the stars. He could feel her eyes on him.
“Stop it, Lin.”
“I’m not doing anything!”
“Yes, you are. I’m just being friendly.”
“Right. Because you’re the expert on being friendly.” She looked at the cigarette between his fingers with disgust. “I thought you were quitting.”
“I said I was cutting down.”
“That’s an addict’s way of saying you’re not quitting.”
He gave her ‘the look’. She ignored it. The sound of late night New Jersey was beginning to fill the air, a signal to say it was nearing the time to head back inside. Gerard looked at her and the light from inside cast half her face in a golden glow.
“You look beautiful,” he said soundly.
Lindsey let a small smile creep onto her lips before giggling embarrassedly and rolling her eyes. “You are such a goon,” she said, resting her hand on his arm.
There was a tap at the back door behind them and they turned around to see Frank smiling sheepishly there. Gerard nodded and looked back at her. “I should walk him home.”
“Okay.”
He left her and headed back inside. Lindsey stayed there for a while after, gazing up at the sky and the stars and the aeroplanes. Then she decided she was getting cold so she as well went back indoors.
Outside on the street, Frank was thinking about what to say that would fill the empty silence between him and Gerard. After a while he just stuck with the orthodox script of any dinner party, something like, “Thanks for inviting me to dinner. It was nice.”
“It was.” Gerard’s voice was smooth and serene. “We should do it again.”
“Yeah, I’d like that.”
He shivered as the cold air seeped through his hoody. “You figure me out really easily, you know.”
Gerard shook his head. “No, I don’t. You’re one of the hardest minds to read that I’ve ever come across.”
Then they were at his yellow front door and Frank still didn’t know what to say. So Gerard said it for him. “You said you could show me there’s more to being 27.”
“I did.”
“How do you intend on doing that?” His eyes were smiling but his mouth wasn’t.
Frank started to grind the toe of his Converse into the doorstep of his house. “Well…from my experience so many people grow old at 30 because they feel old inside. You have three years left, and so far it isn’t going so well…”
“And?”
“And…you need to unwind,” Frank concluded definitely.
Gerard raised his eyebrow. “Unwind,” he repeated.
“Sure. Chill out. Relax. Y’know…get high or something.”
“Uh-uh.” Gerard shook his head. “No drugs.”
Frank sighed and ran a hand through his choppy hair. “Okay…you could try bungee jumping or something!”
Gerard chuckled, sending his hair falling forward over his face. “I’m not too good with heights.”
Frank chewed on the wall of his mouth, thinking of something that would cause Gerard to lose his inhibitions that his ‘age’ had barred him with and show him how to unbutton.
“When was the last time you got drunk?”
Gerard’s eyebrows disappeared into his mass of raven fringe. “How drunk are we talkin’?”
Frank could feel a mischievous grin creeping onto his lips and the look in Gerard’s eye could tell anyone there was no going back now.
“Very, very fucking drunk.”
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[A/N: Thank you for all your lovely reviews and again, sorry for the delayed update. Next chapter will be a lot more…exciting ;)…]
ALSO it has come to my awareness that I may have pissed off a few people about my views on the whole secretauthors account thing. I regret a lot of the stuff I said, and it was put majorly out of context, and I'm sorry to people who took it the wrong way.]
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As Frank waited, the warm summer night breeze drifted across the street, sifting through his hair and sending stray leaves dancing.
“We should do this again sometime.”
“Yeah.”
“How about you come over to dinner this week?”
“What, at yours?”
“Mhmm.”
“Does your wife mind?”
“It’s not a date, Frank, she’ll be there as well.”
“I know, I know, I just…okay.”
“Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”
“No, I wanna go. I wanna go.”
The memory of their last exchange of words echoed in his mind again and the boy bit down on his bottom lip, his tongue fiddling with the cool metal hoop hanging round his flesh and feeling a smile twinge at the corners of his mouth. Gerard had invited him to dinner. Gerard had invited him to dinner and he was nervous. He wasn’t sure what it was; maybe the subtle flirt and glimmer of a smirk hidden behind the clarification that it wasn’t a date, or the way Gerard’s eyes had lit up when he confirmed his availability, he didn’t know, but it was the thing that made his insides quake and his fingers drum a frantic rhythm on his leg as he waited there on the doorstep.
He realised how so incredibly fucking cliché his life had become.
“Frank—you came!”
He hadn’t noticed the door swing open and the older man had said it in the fashion a host uses to welcome his guests, like he was surprised Frank had made the great fucking effort to walk the twelve yards separating their houses. Gerard was smiling—genuinely smiling—and he was wearing an olive green button down shirt that few people could pull off, including him.
“Thought I was gonna skip out on you, huh?” Frank said wryly. Gerard just laughed and led him inside.
The house was an artist’s house, and he wouldn’t have needed Gerard to tell him so. Every wall in the place was some shade of green, blue, yellow or red and on them hung paintings, tapestries and even a nailed carpet at one point. He took his shoes off in the hall and looked at Gerard’s own pale bare feet, the carpet beneath them sticking up in little tufts between his toes. He wondered if he was as eccentric as he seemed.
“C’mon, let me get you a drink,” Gerard smiled and led him through to the kitchen.
“Champagne?” he called from the cellar, drawing out a bottle.
“What’s the occasion?”
Gerard’s beaming head reappeared from the cellar door. “You.”
Frank looked at his feet as that familiar rush of heat and bashful lopsided grin met his face again. He heard footfall on the stairs and looked back at Gerard who was busying himself with the cork of the champagne bottle.
“So this is the wonder boy, huh?”
The speaker was small, as small as him, and dark haired and red lipped. She stood in the doorway with a hand resting on her hip with casual grace, one perfectly arched eyebrow raised in something close to mockery. He watched her as she moved through the kitchen, her movements swift; almost gliding.
“Frank, this is my wife,” Gerard said, looking back at her with an amused expression, “Lindsey.”
Frank waved awkwardly, his only defence mechanism left as she surveyed him, her pale skin and hollow eyes making her look more like some kind of Tim Burton character rather than a real woman. Then those cherry lips cracked a smile in a heartbeat and she tossed her hair over a pale shoulder.
“Charmed.”
Lindsey helped herself to the champagne. Her wedding ring gleamed in the light. “Gerard’s told me a lot about you.” She spoke with her back to him.
Frank raised his eyebrow and looked at Gerard. He smiled to himself. “All good I hope?”
She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. That coy smile again. “All good.”
As the conversation slowed and he felt it was his turn to talk, he cast his eyes about the room in search for a topic. It was only until she went over to the oven and pulled out the dinner that he realised he smelt it the whole time.
“Smells good,” he commented, rolling on the balls of his feet.
“Yeah,” her voice strained as she rested the dinner on a work top. “Nothing quite like lasagne.”
Frank bit his lip and looked at Gerard. He was staring at his wife in cold dismay, his eyes turning hard. “He’s vegetarian,” he said quietly.
The atmosphere shifted suddenly as she stopped what she was doing and glared back at him.
“Then I’ll put some lentils in it,” she replied irritably. Frank could see her jaw clench and unclench under her marble skin.
He waited there awkwardly as they continue to scowl at each other, and decided to jump in to break the silence. “I don’t want to be a problem --”
“—It’s fine,” Gerard interrupted tightly. He looked back at Lindsey. “Right?”
He heard Lindsey exhale through her nose and she turned her back to them, fumbling around in the cabinets and draws. She turned back around holding a bag of lentils to her chest and forcing a warm smile. “It’s fine, Frank. Why don’t you boys go to the living room while I get dinner going?”
It wasn’t a question. Frank followed the older man out of the kitchen, his bare feet padding against the floor. They entered the living room and Gerard slumped down into a leather arm chair, sighing heavily, exasperatedly.
“Sorry about that,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “I told her about the whole vegetarian thing before, but…”
“It’s okay,” Frank said again, feeling all the more guilty. “I don’t wanna cause any trouble.” He didn’t sit down, his attention falling on the easel in the corner of the room. There was a half-finished painting on it; a bronze scorpion crouching on its legs and rattling its tail.
“You did this?” he murmured, tracing his fingers along the bumpy paint. It felt messy and uneven beneath his fingers, but that was why he liked it. He smiled in awe.
“Yeah,” Gerard sniffed, shifting in his seat. “It’s not finished yet,” he added unnecessarily.
“It’s awesome,” Frank grinned. “It’s really cool.”
He didn’t need to turn around to know that Gerard was smiling, probably letting his floppy hair fall across his face. “Yeah? You like scorpions, huh?”
“I guess.”
“What else do you like?”
He looked at him. Gerard was perched in the chair with his fingers overlapping each other. His eyes were gleaming.
“What do I like?” he asked doubtfully. Gerard nodded. “What is this, kindergarten?”
“You gotta like something.”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Why shouldn’t you? C’mon, tell me three things that interest the Mystery Man.”
Frank sighed and scratched his neck, feeling the roughly chopped hairs standing on end. “I guess I like guitars.”
“Guitars…” Gerard began to count on his fingers, his smile twisting playfully.
“I like…Black Flag…”
Gerard snorted loudly but put up another finger anyway. He wiggled them when Frank found there was nothing else to add, not really. “One more, kiddo,” he pushed.
Frank sighed again and thought for a second. “I like fixing things,” he said.
Gerard raised his eyebrow. “Like what?”
“Machines. I fixed my grandma’s TV once without any training.” He paused as the memory flooded his mind for the first time in a while. “She died a week later.”
He didn’t know why he said it, but it seemed necessary anyway, like the story wasn’t finished without it. Gerard watched him with sadness in his eyes and when he spoke he said it quietly. “My grandma died too.”
Frank laughed hollowly but it wasn’t funny. “Everyone’s grandma dies.” The silence fell upon them once again.
“What about your dad?”
“He’s not around.” Frank said it with as much emotion as a teacup. He’d become so trained to avoid talking about himself that he couldn’t take this sudden interrogation on his life. Gerard had just come along with his gleaming eyes and painted walls and bare feet bombarding him with questions like he had every right to play therapist and for once Frank was the one being forced to speak.
And he loved every second of it.
“Now I know three things about Frank Iero,” Gerard said triumphantly. “Didn’t think it would be as easy as that.”
Frank raised and lowered one shoulder. “I aim to surprise.”
“Damn right.” Gerard looked out the window. A pigeon stood on the rooftop of the house next door. It looked at him with big black eyes and held his gaze for a second. Then it flapped its feathers and flew away into the distance.
“Guess we’re not strangers anymore, huh,” Frank murmured, watching the pigeon shrink into a small black dot on the horizon.
Gerard looked back at him and only smiled in reply.
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“He’s very young.”
Gerard took a drag of his cigarette and looked over at his wife. “I know.”
“Did you meet at the clinic?”
“Of course not.”
Lindsey’s deep brown eyes searched his. “What are you doing?”
He blew a plume of smoke into the sky, watching it waft up and cloud around the stars. The cool air tickled his cheeks. “What do you mean?”
“Taking a random kid off the block and making him your new foster child.”
Gerard held back a snort. “He’s better than that.”
“Mhmm,” was her only answer.
He sighed and let his head loll back on his neck, gazed up at the stars. He could feel her eyes on him.
“Stop it, Lin.”
“I’m not doing anything!”
“Yes, you are. I’m just being friendly.”
“Right. Because you’re the expert on being friendly.” She looked at the cigarette between his fingers with disgust. “I thought you were quitting.”
“I said I was cutting down.”
“That’s an addict’s way of saying you’re not quitting.”
He gave her ‘the look’. She ignored it. The sound of late night New Jersey was beginning to fill the air, a signal to say it was nearing the time to head back inside. Gerard looked at her and the light from inside cast half her face in a golden glow.
“You look beautiful,” he said soundly.
Lindsey let a small smile creep onto her lips before giggling embarrassedly and rolling her eyes. “You are such a goon,” she said, resting her hand on his arm.
There was a tap at the back door behind them and they turned around to see Frank smiling sheepishly there. Gerard nodded and looked back at her. “I should walk him home.”
“Okay.”
He left her and headed back inside. Lindsey stayed there for a while after, gazing up at the sky and the stars and the aeroplanes. Then she decided she was getting cold so she as well went back indoors.
Outside on the street, Frank was thinking about what to say that would fill the empty silence between him and Gerard. After a while he just stuck with the orthodox script of any dinner party, something like, “Thanks for inviting me to dinner. It was nice.”
“It was.” Gerard’s voice was smooth and serene. “We should do it again.”
“Yeah, I’d like that.”
He shivered as the cold air seeped through his hoody. “You figure me out really easily, you know.”
Gerard shook his head. “No, I don’t. You’re one of the hardest minds to read that I’ve ever come across.”
Then they were at his yellow front door and Frank still didn’t know what to say. So Gerard said it for him. “You said you could show me there’s more to being 27.”
“I did.”
“How do you intend on doing that?” His eyes were smiling but his mouth wasn’t.
Frank started to grind the toe of his Converse into the doorstep of his house. “Well…from my experience so many people grow old at 30 because they feel old inside. You have three years left, and so far it isn’t going so well…”
“And?”
“And…you need to unwind,” Frank concluded definitely.
Gerard raised his eyebrow. “Unwind,” he repeated.
“Sure. Chill out. Relax. Y’know…get high or something.”
“Uh-uh.” Gerard shook his head. “No drugs.”
Frank sighed and ran a hand through his choppy hair. “Okay…you could try bungee jumping or something!”
Gerard chuckled, sending his hair falling forward over his face. “I’m not too good with heights.”
Frank chewed on the wall of his mouth, thinking of something that would cause Gerard to lose his inhibitions that his ‘age’ had barred him with and show him how to unbutton.
“When was the last time you got drunk?”
Gerard’s eyebrows disappeared into his mass of raven fringe. “How drunk are we talkin’?”
Frank could feel a mischievous grin creeping onto his lips and the look in Gerard’s eye could tell anyone there was no going back now.
“Very, very fucking drunk.”
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[A/N: Thank you for all your lovely reviews and again, sorry for the delayed update. Next chapter will be a lot more…exciting ;)…]
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