FicWad

9: Turn Off The Lights, Turn Off The Shyness
Thursday, January 10, 2009: 5:48 AM

Ray watched him put the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. The gunshot reverberated through the house and the young man's body jerked once and slumped over the stair railing, blood hitting the wall from the gaping hole in the back of his head, the syringe falling from his grip...His eyes opened a second later and glared out around him, but there wasn't any emotion in them; they were flat and dark and dead, staring straight at him. Ray wanted to run but his legs were frozen in place as the dead man turned from Frank to Bob to Mikey to Gerard until he was finally staring at a dead version of himself.
Ray's eyes flew open and he found himself, not at the Iero house, but in the tour bus, staring at the low ceiling. His jaw was clenched and his fists were in tight balls-so tight that his jagged nails were drawing blood. He relaxed his hands, feeling a little bead of blood roll down his palm.
He forced himself to relax, drawing in several deep breaths. "Christ," he mumbled. He'd always had a problem with nightmares, even as a kid, so it was only right that he'd be tortured by dreams about Frank.
He swung his long legs over the side of the bed and ran his guitar-weathered right hand over his face, trying to direct his train of thought away from Frank, which, unsurprisingly, proved impossible. Mike had told him, when he'd come back at nearly midnight, that they'd called the police, Jamia and Frank's family. The service had been set for the twelfth, a Saturday; Frank's body was to be cremated that day. Ray was as nervous about that as he was anything. He'd been to funerals, funerals for people close to him-his father had died last year and both sets of grandparents had passed away when he was a teenager-but nothing like this had ever happened. Shit, he didn't even know if he had a suit.
Fuck this, he thought, he would make coffee and steal Mikey's cigarettes and go outside and watch the sunrise for an hour. And then he would come back inside and apologize to Gerard as soon as he woke up and get the hell on with everything.
He walked into the tiny bathroom that seemed to be the same in every bus they'd ever been on and took out his contacts. There was a loud clatter as his hand knocked over a bottle of something during his futile search for his glasses and he listened for a second in case he'd woken anyone up, but there was only the usual raucous snores from Bob an Mike's rooms.
He finally found them and the world snapped back into focus. He pulled a clean-at least, he thought it was clean- white t-shirt over his head and left his black pajama bottoms on. For a second, he found himself hoping someone had made coffee, then remembered that it was still dark out and that there was a slim chance that anyone was awake.
He flipped on the light as he entered the common room-the beer-stained couch and God-knows-what littering the floor were as familiar to him as his own house, so he didn't have any need to turn on the light, but he did anyway. Five minutes later, after finally locating a pack of smokes and lighting one, he opened the door and planned on sitting on the fold-down steps.
Trouble was, there was already someone sitting there.
Gerard was on the steps, his chin propped in his palms, his dark hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, staring at the dark sky. He glanced up at the new arrival.
"Hey," he said, moving over to the right so that Ray had room to sit. "You're up early. Couldn't sleep?"
"Yeah," Ray said softly, watching the first golden glow on the edge of the eastern horizon begin to show. A silence fell between the two men, but it could hardly be called awkward or tense.
"I just wanted to-" Both of them began at the same time.
"Go ahead." Ray said, and a split second later, Gerard said, "Yeah?"
Ray rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry for yesterday," he said finally.
He turned his head to look at Gerard's face, the profile silhouetted against the night sky and coming dawn. A dark lock of hair had fallen into his eyes and he brushed it back impatiently with long, pale fingers.
Christ, Toro, you're losing it. You've got Lucy, he's got Liv, what the hell are you thinking?
Ray ground his cigarette out against the railing, leaving a little circle of ash. "I'm sorry for walking out," he said hesitantly, his voice quiet, "but not for... what happened before." Well, it was out, no taking it back now.
Gerard turned his head and caught Ray's gaze for a moment. "You serious?" he asked.
Ray nodded, then, before he could do anything, Gerard had kissed him again and gotten to his feet.
"Come on, hurry up."
"Where are you going?" Ray asked, still slightly dazed from the unexpected kiss.
"I don't know, but I'm not freezing my ass off out here. Come on," he said impatiently.
Ray got to his feet and followed Gerard. "You sure about this, man?" he asked, "I mean, we both have girlfriends..."
"Okay, look," Gerard said patiently. "See, me and Frank figured this out when we started touring. No sex involved, not cheating. So, don't worry about Lucy." He flashed a grin that brought an insanely bright blush to Ray's cheeks. "At least, for the time being."
"I'm not even going to ask what you mean by that," Ray said, shaking his head. He flopped down on the couch and Gerard proceeded to flop down next to him, laying his head on his chest and peering up at him through a curtain of dark hair.
Ray looked down at him and smirked. "You know, right, that it's six in the morning on a day when we don't have a practice?" He got up and Gerard's head hit the couch with a muffled thump. "I'm goin' back to bed."
"Mind if I join you?"
Ray almost laughed, but he wasn't sure if Gerard was serious or not. "No." After a moment, as if to mock Gerard, he added, "At least, for the time being."