Chalk Outline

7: Its All Over

Saturday. The day Gerard was dreading most because that meant tomorrow was Sunday. But, unlike any other Saturday night, instead of being curled up in his basement, he was curled up on the floor in Bert's place, biting his lip until it started to bleed. The whole room smelled like smoke, beer and other things Gerard didn't want to mention in case he began thinking about it for real. It was only the evening.

At first, Frank had been suspicious about where he was going, he probably still was, but Gerard had left before Frank had had a chance to interrogate him. The black haired boy knew he would have cracked under pressure. He couldn't keep lying to his the guitarist, yet there he was, shoving lies right in to his innocent face. Frank didn't deserve it, he hadn't done anything wrong, he wasn't screwed up in so many ways as Gerard knew he himself was.

Frank had just chosen the wrong friend to care about.

The singer pushed himself up to sit, resting back on the wall as he pulled his legs to his chest, putting his head on his knees. Muffled talking was coming from all different directions, there were a fair amount of people there and he didn't trust, or like, or know, or want to be around any of them - except bert. Even then, he didn't want to be with him very much either.

So far, he was proud of himself. At his hand there was beer, cigarettes and other curious things, yet he hadn't let any of them touch his lips. With all the insecurities he felt at that moment weren't helping with the strength to stay away, but he was resisting it - for himself and Frank.
 
~

The night went by quickly, Gerard found himself feeling sick, out of it. While everyone else was enjoying themselves, he had chosen to remain in the corner, keeping to himself and only peering at people through his greasy hair, not daring to show his face, let alone make some sort of eye contact.

"Gee?" A voice called. Gerard found it strange when he realised it wasn't Frank who had said it, usually he was used to the guitarist calling him that and he preferred to keep it that way, but he didn't care tell Bert what he could and couldn't say.

Slowly, Gerard got to his feet, brushing his hair back out of his face as he made his way through the crowd over to where he had heard Bert's voice come from. When he slipped past people, he swore he could feel hands on him in inappropriate places, though there were too many people around to dodge anything. And that made his anxiety levels rise higher. Finally, he reached Bert. He only knew because a hand tugged him, rather roughly, away from everyone else. That, he was grateful for.

"Wh-what is it?" He stuttered, messing with the hem of his sleeves, darting his eyes anywhere but the man in front of him, the one with the beer in his hand that Gerard just wanted to snatch off of him.

Bert shifted his weight to his other foot, placing the bottle on the floor by his feet before speaking, "you gotta loosen up. Your shoulders are so tense, you look like anything could make you jump five feet in the fucking air." He chuckled. "Relax." The singer from The Used said with a smirk, walking around Gerard, who froze on the spot, only looking out of the corner of his eyes. When Bert was behind him, he clapped his hands on Gerard's shoulders, leaning in to whisper in his ear. Though, Gerard didn't quite hear what he said, but he could feel his warm breath on his neck. "Here." Bert mumbled, beginning to take Gerard's jacket off.

"No, no, I want to keep it on." He refused to take it off, starting to grow self conscious.

"Come on." Bert sighed, ignoring Gerard's pleads and whines as he slid his jacket off, dumping it to the side on the floor. "Now, do something. Drink, snort, relax, I don't fucking care. Just stop looking like a dead deer caught in headlights." He mumbled, waving dismissively as he walked over to a couch, falling back on it with his hands clasped behind his head.