So Long, Not Goodnight

Chapter Fifteen

Gerard stared at the ceiling without a blink or a breath and then there was the crunch of bone snapping cleanly as his face ticked inch by inch to his right until lining up his eyes with Frank's. His lips parted and showed dark twine stitching that pulled sharp points of pale pink gum from inside his mouth, a second row of teeth. With each gradual pull, a seam bust open one by one until a trail of string fell from tongue and cheek, a reverse pullstring. "Shhh," Gerard hushed. 

His face was listless in death, having no regard for any pain nor pleasure. Frank held his free hand over his mouth and his eyes reflected the horrific black of the eyes boring into his. "I..." Gerard continued, his lips barely touching as he spoke. "I lied, Frankie."

His hand felt asleep with just barely a feeling of touch crawling up his wrist and arm and slowly blooming throughout his body. Feet floating and the cold of the cathedral mellow and soothing. "I," Gerard whispered, the spool of twine tangling against his tongue. "Lied. And she... Died."

The whites of his eyes began to throb in his cathartic numbness and began to fill with ink that spilled out and over his cheeks and through his nose and out his mouth. The throbbing melted away as the feeling drained from his entirety. A trickling sensation like a phantom limb as his own body pumped what poison was replaced in his veins, filtering through right and left ventricle. "And now," Frank saw the string flick from side to side, a serpent's tongue, as Gerard spoke. "You'll. Die. Too."

Frank found himself lying in a coffin beside Gerard on the altar and their hands were now firmly gripped in one another's dangling over the gap between the wooden slats. They lay toe to chin and Frank could see Gerard still holding onto her rosary, the black beads contrasted against his skin. The altar became the plot of a grave and there were multiple black silhouettes peering down at them from an eternity above, eyes all glowing red, as a dozen roses rained down onto them, their thorns pricking and tearing at their dead flesh but they didn't feel a thing. The dirt scattered over Frank's face, lids still open, fingers still twisted together and frozen as one. "Gerard!" Frank's whisper reverberated throughout their grave.

"Shhh," Gerard responded, the bones of his wrist breaking as he pulled himself up from his coffin and stared down at Frank, who's eyes became heavy with anesthetic. Gerard blurred in and out of focus. "You'll die too."

"Frankie!" Gerard was out of bed and the color had returned to his face. "Frankie! Wake up! You were having a nightmare, baby."

Frank gasped and felt a cold sweat dripping all over him and flushing his face. "Fuck, Gee, it... It felt so real. You were..." 

The words were mangled up inside, not wanting to be spoken. This would frighten Gerard more than it did himself. The frames of breaking bones and blacked out eyes was a stamped image in a television set, burned into the pixels forever and always showing over anything new playing. The thick clay of the ground felt so real, Frank brushed at face and through his hair swearing that he'd find just one stray speck in proof, but there was nothing there. The faces that Gerard explained to him earlier that were following her, he would bet anything he had that those were of the same staring down at their demise. The frayed thread that sutured Gerard's mouth, he remembers the dull brown with flecks of scabs a perfect photograph in his memory and how it strained against it's stitching sent goosebumps up from the base of Frank's spine to behind his ears causing him to shudder and flinch. 

Yet, here he was, sitting on the cold floor with a very much alive Gerard fussing over him, combing back his hair, holding his body close with ropes of muscle that would make the perfect noose to hang himself with; what a way to die. Frank pulled Gerard in further, trying to use him to ricochet the images from his mind; he is here, he is in my arms, he is breathing, he is alive.