Magnetic stars. (Frerard, Petekey)

Chapter three - peel my skin and climb inside

// Anatomy. Magnetic stars. //

Chapter three - peel my skin and climb inside

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Gerard liked dreams. He liked nightmares, to be more specific. He admired the way that they were so viciously real, and could easily contort people's minds into searing agony merely with thoughts from the victim's own head.

Sometimes Gerard wished that he was a nightmare.

He liked to twist people. To climb under their skin and ruin them from the inside out with little observations he made and secret pieces of information he gathered that no one else seemed to notice. The minor alterations in someone's voice, their stance, posture, pupil dilation and contraction. It was habit. Once a subject had caught his eye, every little detail of their personality-- from their movements to their expressions to their way of getting around others-- would automatically be filed away in his head for later use.

Some people would call it cruel, but Gerard called it intelligent. He was only utilising what everyone so blatantly put on display. And he didn't manipulate his subjects; he only gave them what they deserved. An enlightening, an education on things they should have had drilled into them long ago. It was just karma, essentially. Targeted karma.

It was beautiful to watch people crumble, and beautiful to witness the instantaneous rise in status Gerard would gain from merely indirectly influencing someone's downfall. There was a strange serenity in witnessing how at a waver in his malevolence, his level on the social ladder in the eyes of his peers would plunge. Gerard didn't enjoy popularity at all; he made it his mission to scare away anyone that admired him. He just found it morbidly amusing how changeable and impressionable teenagers were. Didn't they understand? If someone is malicious towards you once, they are guaranteed to be malicious towards you again. It's the fucking rule of nature. People never learn.

This was his art now. Wrecking people, and watching as no one helped pick up the pieces. He only destroyed those who had already caused destruction themselves, of course, so if they had any common sense at all they would know that it was bound to happen sometime and they simply brought it upon themselves.

And of course, once malicious, always malicious, the rule would come into play again. Karma would snap back on his past subjects as soon as they had rebuilt their status in the school, and their towering pride would come crashing down yet again. Gerard would just laugh. People never learned.

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Frank woke up with ungraded test papers stuck to his face and crumpled under his hands, and a broken fountain pen leaking permanent ink onto his white button-up shirt.

He groaned and shuffled the papers into a vague pile on the desk before hauling himself up and trudging into the bathroom. The ink was stubborn, and the stain refused to diminish when he took off his shirt and scrubbed at it, and his hangover was equally as reluctant to go away even when he swallowed three more aspirins than the packet advised. He did manage to get the stink of vodka on his breath to disappear when he rinsed his mouth out with mouthwash, but he knew that within about ten minutes he would only reek of cigarettes instead.

The point in his life where Frank had been stable and happy was long gone. The point in his life where he wasn't an alcoholic or a chain smoker or potentially addicted to aspirin was so far away, it was a fucking dot.

When he thought about it, he sort of hated his life.

Frank fumbled in his pocket and clutched at his cigarette packet, then slid one out and held it between his teeth and lit it. Clotted smoke and charred tar filled his lungs, suffocating his blood and clouding his head with relief. He sighed, letting out a disgusting swirl of smoke.