November 1st (Frerard)

25: Thursday, October 25th

When Gerard looked at him, every thought was speculation and a lacklustre attempt in predicting how he might react.

He was distracted, to say the least, and he hadn't listened to a single word Frank had said for the last ten minutes, but you had to admit that it was a little difficult just to interact with someone you'd already written a suicide letter addressed to like nothing was wrong.

It wasn't that Gerard wasn't good pretending that nothing was wrong, because if he excelled at anything at all, it was clearly that, but he just couldn't focus upon Frank and not imagine the look upon his face when he'd read that letter, when he'd hear the news, when he'd see the body, when he'd attend the funeral, and first of all when he'd wake up alone on November 1st and go through a house full of people looking for Gerard.

But Gerard wouldn't be there, and Frank would look in the garden and Gerard still wouldn't be there, and Frank would look at the beach, and Gerard still wouldn't be there, and he eventually go to Gerard's house and Gerard wouldn't be there either but what would be was a note on his bed, and Gerard was stricken with Frank's face as he read it over and added everything up and cursed himself for everything he'd missed and began to break down as it really sank in, and that Gerard was gone and there was no changing it now.

And that hurt, that hurt for Gerard who knew this had to be done, and he hurt now because he wouldn't be able to hurt later when Frank was hurting, and he reckoned that he owed Frank that at least, to hurt for him, as a gesture of kindness, of respect - all there was left to do to make this better. All that was left that he could do.

And Frank was so beautiful and he never wished a frown upon that face, and he never wished tears upon those cheeks, not even in his worst nightmares, not even in his wildest dreams, but somethings were just out of Gerard's control, and he had indeed already concluded that this was his final act and it would be for himself and not for the benefit of anyone else.

The last glimpse of selfishness before the lights when out and the tide went in, and the waves swept the world away, because the rain in the clouds became part of the waves, and the tide would one day rain back down again on his face - what goes around comes around, and nothing was ever the end.

Because the earth kept on spinning even as he ceased to breathe, and he could indeed only wish that his body would burn into beautiful ashes and that something could become of whatever remained, because it wasn't existing that Gerard had so many qualms with, it was just existing in this form, existing like this.

Because if he had be born as a bird or a flower or something he reckoned he'd never encounter such an urge to kill himself, now of course, that may just sound logical, calling upon the notion that neither a bird nor a flower really possessed the capacity for the want to kill themselves, but perhaps that was rather the point.

Or perhaps there was little point to anything at all, but what did that indeed matter in the six days he had left?

Gerard's heart seemed to start beating again as Frank reached for his hand a sudden wave of warmth flooded through his veins: a tender kind of love and care alongside his blood and that was what kick-started his heart: hammering in his chest, as the same mixture of love and blood rushed to his cheeks, marking them a less than subtle pink, and continuing to do so as Frank gave Gerard's hand a little squeeze.

The squeeze felt no way little or insignificant to Gerard, however, who felt it like a shockwave: a shockwave of feeling - every nerve in his body suddenly sparking and lighting up, and it was as if everything had been reset and switched on again, and suddenly Gerard was so much less floating away up inside his head like particles of dust: a premonition of the ashes he would become, but the seventeen year old boy called Gerard Arthur Way who stood on the beach close to his house, with Frank Anthony Iero, with his hand in his, and the waves just beside their feet, and a slight odd smell in the air, and a cold October chill about them, and a certain dampness in the air.