Porcelain ♡ Frerard

Chapter 12

"I'll hear your song, if you want me to. I'll sing along. And it's a chance I'll have to take. And it's a chance I'll have to break. I'm in love with you, I'm in love with you..."

— 'Luna', The Smashing Pumpkins. 

After Frank finished his dinner and the bill was paid, he was whisked out to the car again, hardly glancing back before they were speeding off towards their town again in a blur of color eventually fading into the velveteen of night.

Frank was breathless, vibrating all over knowing the part that came next. His ankle pressed against his newly purchased books he possibly wouldn't need to break into if he gained the rest of his answers that night. Frank still had one question left that Gerard told him he could ask eventually, something he saved until he found something worthy of asking, and now it was hanging on the tip of his tongue just aching to burst free.

Gerard was quiet and brooding over his own theory that Frank would run off once he learned the truth, despite all of Frank's reassurances and fleeting touches. Their hands remained linked during the rest of dinner and Frank couldn't bring himself to draw his hand away when strong security washed over him, the floral sensation of spring flooding his system like a euphoric high almost, only it wasn't intoxicating in a negative sense. Gerard allotted him a full view of how exquisite he was past the ice warding off intruders and Frank laid off the questions for a moment of peace as blissful as slowly drifting off into the warm waters of a river, rocking back and forth in lulling motions.

In the quiet of the evening, Frank ran over all of his evidence again, convinced he was less insane now that he knew Gerard definitely wasn't as ordinary as he pretended to be. If telepathy extended to his family was beyond Frank, but it wasn't about them in that moment, it was about Gerard and Frank obtaining the final piece of the shattered portrait Frank longed to string together since the moment he sensed something out of the ordinary loomed over the gray town of Astoria. Frank unsteadily rolled the dice and bit off the deep breath he sucked in.

"I've done so much thinking. Too much thinking. I've had the freakiest dreams and I honestly started to think I've gone crazy for even considering these things." Frank swallowed hard and tightly knitted his fingers together in his lap. "I'm not afraid the way a normal person should be. I guess you're not fully in the wrong for fearing I'll run away from you. But I'm not scared because you're— you're you."

You're you, and I'm so in love with who you are.

Gerard's jaw was tight as though he was angered by the mere idea crossing through Frank's scrambling mind, but his eyes in the review mirror were petrified. Frank turned away so they wouldn't cut him short and leave him only with the longing to comfort him, to spill out an idiotic confession surviving apart from any tendril of mystery gnawing away at them both.

"I think I know," Frank whispered, "Just, please, I need you to tell me the truth. Be honest with me."

"Honesty can get you hurt."

"I don't care." Frank shut his eyes. "I deserve to know. You owe me this for all the times you've lied to me and I forgave you for it, you know that."

Gerard's silence was arctic. Frank inhaled tremulously and skimmed his clammy palms along his pants, gripping onto his knees for dear life as he braced himself for the things he was about to say. He'd be a mad man or a highly observant one, either one he was willing to brandish the title of if it meant anything would be resolved tonight. 

"I've noticed things. Details that aren't normal or— or human. You've tried convincing me you're not good, that you're dangerous in some way. Despite what you told me, I saw you push that van out of the way before it could crush me. I can't get that legend about you and your family being something more than human out of my head." Frank took a jagged breath once it all poured out.