FicWad

Kind of a filler chapter, just so you know.. Not a lot of action coming your way in this one lol



"I need you to shut up, my parents are leaving town in the morning and they'll be gone for a couple weeks. I was hoping you'd be knocked out and silent until they left but apparently you decided to be very awake and very loud"

I was starting to really dislike that spite and anger in Gerard's voice. His words were always delivered with a set of sliced lemons, bitter and sour, and there was hardly anything left of his boyish goofy manners.

"Please let me out" I whispered

"No way" I could almost see him shaking his head "I'm not having you anywhere near Mom and Dad"

"I already am near Mom and Dad" I tried a desperate attempt at mock "don't you think that if I was really that dangerous right now I would be sitting here begging you to let me out?" I hissed and prayed for him to open the door. The room was closing down on me, I felt like asphyxiating in this dark, closed space.

"yÝeah..You say you ain't dangerous right now" he repeated my words. "what about in a hour? two hours?"

"There won't be any danger, I promise you, Gerard, I promise, I promise.." I chanted and sobbed. I didn't care how pathetic I sounded, or looked, I just wanted him to let me out. I'd leave again and never come back and this time I was quite positive that Gerard wouldn't be too keen on the idea of dragging me back into their lives. If he'd just let me out, I'd be gone forever. That was the only thing I had left to bargain with and I was about to suggest it when Gerard lowered his voice even more, his tone changed.

"I don't even wanna ask you this but are you really suggesting that you didn't see it coming? Is that what you really want me to believe?"

"It's the truth" I choked out. I hesitated, and decided to add "Or atleast I.. erm.. I thought it was. I wanted it to be"

"And what's that supposed to mean?" he spat "It either is or isn't!"

I tried to come up with a diplomatic response when I heard another set of footsteps echo in the space behind the door. Gerard seemed to be holding his breath, judging by the tension that I suddenly felt in the air.

A quick "Shh" Was all he said to me.

I heard a muffled exchange of words, and as much as I wanted to know who Gerard was talking to I kept my mouth shut and focused on being still and silent. I might as well humor Gerard and act like he wanted me to - it was my best shot at getting the hell out of this damn basement after all.

But what can I say, I couldn't help myself when I recognized the person to whom the sweet, melodic murmur belonged to.

"Frank..?" I called tentativelly. "Is that you?"

Gerard shifted and grunted and after a moment that seemed to go on forever, footsteps faded into nothing and I realized that Gerard had gone, leaving Frank and I alone. I sighed, I could feel his presense ooze from between the floor and the door, I wanted to press my nose against the little cracks to feel more of his closeness, inhale his intoxicating scent and pretend for just a while that it was something I had a right to.

The tension in the atmosphere grew stronger, but it was a different kind of tension. Anticipation on my behalf. On Frank's behalf.. I couldn't tell, but seeing as though he had obviously requested Gerard to leave us alone, I figured that the aggressive and spiteful reaction I had been waiting for wasn't about to come.

"Hi" He whispered before I had had the chance to think over what I wanted to say.

"Hi" I smiled at his warm tone.

"I wanted to tell you myself that Gerard told me everything"

I blinked in shock before it really hit me, after which I trembled a uneven gasp as my heart seemed to skip several beats.
"Everything?" I repeated tonelessly. I was glad to hear that my voice hadn't betrayed me by displaying the pure horror and panic I felt inside.

"Yeah"

"And you- How do you-.. feel.. about that?" I breathed out, and almost chuckled at how stupid my question sounded. I was some sort of a man-eating beast from another universe, in the gerard-dictionary also known as vampire. I bit you. How do you feel about that? Good god..

"I must be insane but I believe it, if that's what you're asking"

"Why?"

"Why? Uhm.. I felt it, Willow. Avery, whatever. You could've offered me any rational explanation and I would never have bought it. I really really felt it." He said slowly "Right now, what Gerard told me is the only thing I believe in anymore, I guess"

"Are you afraid?" I was pushing the boundaries, I realized, but too late to take it back.

He took a deep breath, and when he spoke it was apparent that he wasn't going to answer my question.

"Gerard seems to think that this stupid door is gonna hold you back in case you decide it's dinner time" he scoffed. At me or at Gerard, I wasn't sure.

"Gerard doesn't know half as much as he thinks he does"

"Why not?"

"The things I left untold didn't exactly concern him.." I found it hard to pick the right words "And they still don't, in a way.. But I didn't realize that they were still things that needed to be out in the open because through him and I being friends they would eventually concern him, too, just indirectly.." I tried.

He seemed to consider that for a while.

"Would you tell me? Does it concern me - directly?" I could almost picture the intensity on his features as he spoke.

"Frank, I.. I'm sorry. I know that it sounds like the most idiotic thing to say but it's the only thing I know to start with. I am terribly, terribly sorry. I never ever wanted to hurt you. I did not want your blood, you have to understand that. I wanted-"

I cleared my throat. I felt dizzy, was I really going to say all this out loud? To Frank? I should slap myself.

"I wanted you. Just you. I wanted to pretend that I didn't know a thing about the risk involved, I wanted to fall into oblivion so that I could have what I wanted without wanting to kill myself for putting your life at stake like that. Yours, of all people! For what it's worth, I cherish your life more than anyone else's. I don't know if you will ever believe that, but it's the truth. When I realized that I wasn't strong enough to resist, that the monster in me still resurfaced everytime we touched, it was already too late. I couldn't control it, Frank, I swear to you"

By the time I had managed to choke out everything, I noticed that my cheeks were soaked with tears yet again. I sniffed and shrank back, leaning on the cold cement wall that had long ago been painted the same shade as the basement's. My feet were starting to get numb and fall asleep for sitting too long on the stairs and I tried to stretch them in the small space. I was definitely not going to go back down into the dark room - sitting here close to the door gave me some sort of faint hope.

The silence hummed in my ears.

"When you say that it happened everytime we touched-"

"I mean you and me. I am no danger to anyone but you. I'm human, Frank.. For the life of me I don't know what it is but something about you makes it happen, through physical contact. And when I said everytime, yes, I meant every single time. I could've killed you easily several times. The first time in the corridor, back at Ray's, when you took my hand in yours - it was hard. Impossible, almost. But I could control it. Maybe cause the contact only lasted for a short while, and it wasn't as... uhm- intense.." I paused and cursed under my breath for blushing at this "But for the moment there was nothing human about me." I explained quietly.

"And when you say you wanted me?"

"Oh for christ's sake Frank! Of all the things to talk about, you want to know more about that? Yes I wanted you. Not your blood or your life, but you."

"Like... physically?"

Did he just sound smug? What the hell was wrong with these people?! I all but ripped his throat out and he's flattered about the fact that I let that happen in order to have him kiss me? These guys obviuosly had no sense of self-protection at all, which had already turned out to make things unnecessarily hard for everyone involved. Fuck!

"Yes" I cringed.

"Just.. Checked, 's all."

"Right." I scoffed "Now that you know for fact that you are literally irresistable to the point where it almost got you killed, you can leave me here to rot and go have a nice life with that giant newfound ego" I buried my face in my hands, having just noticed that I'd adapted the hostile attitude again, which obviously wouldn't get me out of here anytime soon.

"I don't want to leave you here"

"Frank. You can't possibly want to have anything to do with me, I mean, what part of 'I feel an intense urge to rip you to shread when you touch me' did you not fully comprehend? Is it hard understanding? I got this close to killing you, are you guys waiting for something even worse before you start running?"

To my surprise, I heard a tiny chuckle escape his lips.
"Well, Gerard just wants to keep you away from all things alive. He's taken it to be his responsibility to make sure you'll hurt no one. He's going to save the world, you know"

I groaned.

"You're not gonna believe me ever, are you, when I say that I am completely, utterly human at all times and places, except well.. you know the exception."

"I think I do believe that" he mused "but Gerard sure doesn't"

I frowned. "I'ts really not that I don't enjoy you being so trusting and all, but seriously.. I could be lying to you about everything. I realize I'm digging my own grave my asking this but are you like... stupid, or something?"

Oh great going, Avery. Keep up the good job and you'll spend the rest of your days in this cellar that felt like it was getting smaller by each passing minute.

"I do realize that if you were on a killing spree you could've already killed us and a bunch of other people ten fucking times already, so that's kind of something I have to take into account"

"Huh. I didn't expect you to look at it like that" I whispered.

"Well I do. My head is goddamned mess right now but all I know is that you're some kind of a.. Can I just call you a vampire - Gerard does that?" he asked quickly.

"Fine. But thanks for asking"

"You're a vampire and you crossed over from some other place and became a human. And you say you are an actual human, and that only when we touch you become something more, something else. I either have to believe it or not, I can't choose to believe one thing you say and ignore the other. With as little knowledge and understanding as I have about all this fucking craziness, I gotta take what I can get" he explained.

"Then let me out" I challenged.

His speech was quite convincing, but I had a feeling he was trying to convince himself more than anyone else. He wouldn't be letting me out, and we both knew that.

"Just wait it out, Willow. It can't be so bad in there. Shit, Gerard spent the first two decades of his life down there."

"Yeah and look what it did to him" I pouted.
I heard silent laughter from the other side. I smiled - the sound had made my world that much brighter in just a second.

"Just wait it out" He repeated after a moment, and the shuffle that followed told me he'd left.

I hadn't been given a lot of choices, so I slouched back down and switched on the lamp on the desk and the one on the nightstand.
The crackers had been long since consumed and I stared at the crums grudgingly. So no food? Thanks so much.

Can't be so bad - ha! I'm stuck in a freaking basement with no food, a very limited access to light and absolutely zero company. It was propably the fastest way to insanity and telling me that Gerard spent his entire life here is more of an explanation than a consolation.
The fear of being murdered by that creep who spent his life in this dark, underground space didn't help much either.

Sleep was an impossibility at the moment so I settled on grabbing a sketchbook and a couple pencils and doodled my time away.

I drew buildings, landscapes, people - even faces of people I knew, but there was something off with how everything looked. It took me a while to realize that I was drawing home. My sketches consisted of things familiar but distorted into the way everything looked on the other side.

A tone darker, a barely noticable lack of colour, of life. And the shadows weren't truly the shadows of the objects I'd drawn - they were the kind of shadows that reflected the new world. You could see them everywhere you went back home - shadows great and small that seemed to come out of nowhere and didn't move accordingly to the lights - they were called reflections, faint, see-through copies of things that were becoming permanent parts of the new world.

I had learned a lot from those, a big help when it came to crossing over.

Sometimes, when the reflections grew stronger, more visible, they became a part of the old world, too. Real and touchable. Most of them were buildings, highways, but even some of the modern machinery had made their way to us. I'd even driven a car a couple times, neither of which ended well....The old world was fast becoming a nearly perfect replica of this world.

I missed home, in a way. I missed the familiar and comfortable things. I missed my senses, my rationality and the simplicity of life. No turmoils of feelings, no complications.. It all came down to life and death, really. Stay alive and kill. I shuddered suddenly. The thought of killing, of violence in general, had become sickening to my human mind.

To have a conscience, compassion, wow - it took a little getting used to. Which, I thought, was exactly why I didn't ever want to go back. The thought of living that way now seemed impossible, immoral.. repulsive. Also, I knew that if I ever went back I'd suffer the consequences of leaving. In fact, I was quite sure that everyone else would suffer it, too. Even Frank.

I realized I had tears in my eyes yet again and wiped them away with the sleeve of my jacket silently praying that I could just stop being an emotional mess by willpower.

I decided that I'd be damned if I hadn't spent atleast an hour and a half down here. It was hard to tell, though, without a watch. Being locked up could really mess with your sense of time. Walking back to the stairs I started to hear sounds of life coming from upstairs. I climbed silently to the top and listened.

"Remember-"

"What? What else? to flush the toilet after I'm done? God, Mom, I'm not an idiot and I'm not eight years old"

"Stop that, Gerard. You offered to watch the house and I'm giving you instructions. Now please, please remember to water the plants - I've really worked hard to see them bloom"

"I'll take care of the plants, Mrs. Way. Don't you worry about a thing" I heard Frank promise in a trustworthy scoutboy tone that would've worked magic on any lady if it wasn't for his appearance.

"You boys be good" The lady, apparently Mrs.Way, said before an older male voice urged her to hurry up. After that, a door closed with a click and I was suddenly more nervous than I'd been all night.

'Mom and Dad' had gone and whatever was about to happen, was about to happen right now.