Wintertime (Frerard, Sequel to Summertime)

18: Gerard's Excellent Sense Of Aesthetic

Perhaps sleeping in an abandoned house wasn't exactly the best idea, perhaps running away to New Jersey with your dead boyfriend wasn't exactly the best idea either, but Frank had still done both of them.

The place had something in the way of bed at least: it was kind of moth eaten, but Gerard had assured Frank at least a thousand times that he'd slept here like ten times before, and it had only been a matter of time before Frank grew tired and gave in, all just to curl up into Gerard's side: moth eaten abandoned house bed or not.

Of course there was the addition of, 'it's either the bed or the floor, Frank', which had certainly helped encourage him, but that didn't sound anywhere near as pathetically cute, and that's what Frank wanted from this: cute and happy, because he could sleep again - it had been the second night, and come what appeared to be five am the next morning, Frank just laid there: well rested and ecstatic, and it wasn't like you could blame him.

The past two days had easily been the best in his entire life, and all he had was an asshole of a not quite 'real' boyfriend, an abandoned house, and some sleep for once in far too long - Frank was easy to please, it seemed.

Or perhaps it was something to do with how hot Gerard looked with black hair. Of course, Gerard looked hot with red hair, this was just different, and Frank needed different, but the same: he needed New Jersey, but he needed this shitty house and not 'his own', he needed Gerard, but it seemed he needed him like this, as opposed to the version of him that had died in the forest, not at all far from here.

Gerard was different now, mature, a good different, still an asshole, of course, but perhaps he'd learned something after he'd spent ten years watching the man he loved go through the worst kind of hell, and with nothing he could do to stop him, or perhaps it was just the whole realisation of it all: seeing your body, motionless, dead, lying there with a bottle of pills, and having yourself forced to watch as the people who mattered the most discovered what you never would wish upon them in a million years.

Frank didn't know; Frank didn't want to think about it.

He got out of bed, making his way over to the window on the right side of the bedroom, finding himself comforted once again by the Jersey sunrise, and the familiar skyline: littered with little buildings, an all too familiar treeline, however finding itself barren and nowhere near as beautiful in the January skies.

Frank perhaps needed to go back there; it just seemed right, however, he wasn't quite sure if he couldn't handle it, or what Gerard would say, because to the man still curled up in bed, not even asleep, just lying there, the forest was not just the place where they'd met, but the place where he'd died, the place where the world changed, where the world stopped, and Frank didn't even dare to imagine what it must be like in Gerard's head.

"Stop it." Gerard let out a half muttered groan, sitting up in bed, and causing Frank to turn away from the window to look at his boyfriend in the sunrise lit room.

"Stop what?" Frank asked, furrowing his brow, watching as Gerard pulled the sheets away from him, running a hand back through his now black hair, and getting to his feet and making it to Frank's side.

"You're thinking bad thoughts: I can feel them. Be happy, come on, Frank, I thought you said this place was making you feel better." Gerard met the shorter man's gaze with a deep concern, putting his arm around Frank's shoulders as he stood closer to him.

"It is making me feel better: so much better." Frank let out a sigh, far too content in Gerard's arms, because perhaps Gerard was really all that he needed; he'd focused so much on the normality and routine of his 'life' in New York, and he relied so much upon it, but now, all he had was Gerard and somehow he was easily ten times as content. "I didn't dream tonight either," he continued with a smile, "I'm so well rested, it's like this feels wrong. And I just feel happy here, with you, and just you, and this house is so... I don't have the word, it's decaying, but it's doing it in the most beautiful way, and I don't know, I just feel at peace with the world, with myself."