Needless to say, Gerard was more than a little confused as Frank dragged him towards a particularly dodgy looking house, and it really didn't help that Frank seemed to utterly refuse even the concept answering a single question: and Gerard was pummelling him with questions by the dozen.
"Gerard, please, just- just shut up, for a minute, please. This is complicated." Frank's excuse was just so out of touch with adequacy, that Gerard stopped for a minute to wonder as to whatever Frank was even trying here, and maybe that was exactly what Frank had wanted, as it certainly shut the artist up for a moment or two.
"You told me you'd explain." Gerard protested: all puppy dog eyes and smiles, but Frank wasn't interested, turning away from his boyfriend and slamming his finger down against the doorbell with enough vigour to ensure that it fucking hurt.
The loud ring seemed to silence Gerard, momentarily, at the least, so perhaps the ache in Frank's finger was worth it - it wasn't all that important, anyway: it was only his index finger, and everyone knew that the only finger Frank found any use in was his middle finger.
Within seconds, Lindsey had answered the door, shaking her head and grinning at Frank, before pulling him into a bone crushing hug without a word of warning, and leaving Gerard to stare there awkwardly as he glared in the most jealous manner he could muster, and really, he was doing better than he had expected, so today was good for that, at the very least.
"Fucking hell, Frankie, I've missed you." Lindsey finally pulled away from the twenty four year old, letting him breathe, which was really quite lovely of her, because it was highly doubted that she'd be all that appreciated for killing off poor Frank Iero via the means of accidental suffocation: Gerard would definitely kill her for that, after all, it was only fair. And then, Alicia would feel left out, and probably shoot Gerard for the hell of it, and then Pete would get pissed off because he would have thought that Gerard was cute, and kill Alicia for killing him, and then Pete would just stand there looking at all his dead friends as he worked on getting himself a new lawyer, and a good one, because for a mess like that, he would need one.
Fortunately, or unfortunately - it really does relate to perspective, that didn't happen and Lindsey Ballato did eventually let go of the twenty four year old, and they carried on living, and Gerard carried on glaring, because he was really pulling off the jealous boyfriend act very well by now, and he hadn't even had all that much practice.
"This is Gerard, my boyfriend." Frank turned to the artist, introducing him to Lindsey, who was really not appreciating the way she was being glared at right now, but she'd keep it civil, for Frank's benefit, at the very least: she couldn't personally see any reason as to why Frank wanted to date this scowling emo manchild, but whatever - that wasn't her place to judge.
"Hey." Lindsey forced out a smile, leaving Gerard to copy her, but not managing a result anywhere near as good as Lindsey's.
"Hey. You're Lindsey, I guess?" Gerard sighed out, biting down on his bottom lip, and trying his best not to make eye contact with Frank, who had suspected by now that there was just some sort of unspoken feud between the two, but he still hadn't quite figured it out, and within a few minutes, it was likely that he'd even forget all about it.
"Yeah. Right, come on, inside - I told Pete not to be weird, okay, but he's had an excessive amount of alcohol already and probably twice that much now that I've left the room for a few minutes." Gerard could only shrug her comment off as he followed her into the kitchen: wondering just how much he'd want to punch Pete in the face on a scale of one to ten - right now, he was guessing at least a seven or so.
Pete and Alicia looked up as the three of them made their way into the kitchen, Frank kicking the door closed behind him with his foot, and Pete's face practically lighting up at the sight of his favourite prostitute, and with that grin, Gerard reckoned he was up to a nine on his scale right now.
Lindsey made her way over to Alicia immediately, and sat down really close to her in a totally heterosexual manner, well, at least she'd claim so, and more in aid of getting Pete to shut the hell up, than keeping closeted about her sexuality.
Lindsey Ballato wasn't straight, to say the least, but from then on, no one really knew.
"Frankie, I thought you were dead!" Pete exclaimed, grabbing Frank by the hand and pulling him over into the kitchen, as Gerard's one to ten scale snapped right in half as he went up to an eleven.
"I'm not dead, Pete." Frank grinned a little, rolling his eyes as Pete placed a can of beer into his hand. "But if you're planning on forcing a load of alcohol onto me, then pretty soon, I will be." Frank got away from Pete at the first opportunity, making his way to sit down beside Lindsey, and noticing that Gerard was still stood awkwardly near the door. "Give Gerard a beer, okay? Be nice."
"Since when did you trust Pete with the alcohol?" Alicia asked: quietly to Lindsey, again in a totally heterosexual manner. "That can't be anything but a bad idea."
"It's a social experiment - I'm seeing just how drunk he gets before he starts hitting on Frank, well, more than the flirting he does with everyone, and then I just want to see socially awkward emo trash over there punch him in the face for it, because goddamn, he looks like he wants to now." Lindsey replied in a particularly hushed tone, which Frank only caught snippets of - on one hand, he wanted to know what they were talking about, but he knew that usually it was best to just not know.
"Basically you want to indirectly punch Pete Wentz in the face?" Alicia raised her tone a little as Gerard sat down, Pete at his side, which was of course, a recipe for disaster: a battle of the gay emos.
"Excuse me?" Pete piped up, clearly having heard that.
"Nothing." Lindsey smirked, rolling her eyes, and leaving Gerard to fiddle awkwardly with the tab on his beer can: pulling it back and forward half way in a manner that was enough to drive anyone crazy.
"Gerard, stop looking like you've just been told that your whole family are dead- unless you have... which would be unfortunate, and unlikely, but- Gerard, please." Alicia finally broke the silence, and being the only one with the guts to address Gerard's awkward fidgeting: Lindsey was sitting this one out, for her social experiment, of course.
"I'm not exactly happy to watch some asshole I've never even met flirt with my boyfriend, just saying." Gerard pointed out: trying his best to look anywhere but Pete and Frank, and failing miserably.
"I flirt with everyone - I'll flirt with you if it makes you feel better, Gerardo." Pete grinned at the artist: completely oblivious as to just how close he was to being punched in the face right now.
"Gerard's fine." Gerard insisted, narrowing his eyes.
"Meh... I like Gerardo." Pete shrugged it off, leaning into Gerard's side and putting his arm around his shoulders.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
"Flirting with you." Pete remarked, grinning across the table at Frank, who only shook his head: not nearly as fussed as Gerard would have liked him to be, but then again, Frank knew Pete better than Gerard did: Pete meant well, and for the most part, anyway.
"I will punch you in the face." Gerard warned him, and Lindsey met Alicia's gaze, her face practically lighting up at the chance that her social experiment was succeeding.
"Like to see you try, kid. You're skinny as fuck, and you're so cute: you're all baby face and big doe eyes, and pretty pink lips - you're the least intimidating person I've ever met, but I'd totally have sex with you if it makes you feel any better-"
"Pete." Frank raised his eyebrows, drawing the line right there. "Stop it, you're being an asshole." Pete rolled his eyes in response, pulling away from Gerard, or 'Gerardo', and folding his arms like a moody toddler.
"Are you ever going to explain to me just what's going on here, Frank?" Gerard spoke up, clearly just as pissed off as Pete was as he received the news that he couldn't cuddle Gerard anymore.
"This is Lindsey, she's like my best friend, but I haven't seen her for a while, Pete's an asshole that I slept with for money sometimes, and really, he's one of the nicer guys about it, but I haven't seen either of them since I had to hide out with you due to that asshole, and they were worried about me, okay, calm down, Gerard?"
"Yeah, Frank about that dude, I can get some of my guys to sort him the fuck out, if you want, because that shit's out of order. He's an asshole." Pete offered, with probably the most mature sentence anyone had ever heard leave his lips.
"Thanks Pete."
"No problem-"
"'My guys'?" Gerard piped up, widening his eyes a little, in Pete's direction, because that sounded fucked up, to say the least.
"Oh, yeah, Pete's a gang leader." Lindsey added, practically swallowing her grin, because damn, that was just fucking funny, and the expression on Gerard's face was just priceless.
"Frank-" Gerard choked out, his eyes practically popping out of their sockets at this point. "A gang?"
"Gerard, I'm a fucking prostitute - get your head together, and anyway, it's not as if you're exactly all that respectable, you paint dicks and nudes for a living - get over yourself." Frank rolled his eyes, pulling his knees up to his chest.
"Seriously?" Lindsey's eyes widened at that: having expected Gerard to work in like a store or something, and that Frank had met him buying cigarettes or something else pathetically Frank Iero esque.
"Could you paint me?" Pete's answer was of course the best one, in everyone except Gerard's eyes, that is.
"He's really good, like seriously, he's a fucking talented painter, like he could be famous and shit, and still he's insistent upon wasting his life away painting cock." Frank addressed everyone else, leaving Gerard to scowl to himself in a totally edgy, angsty emo manner.
"Am I the only normal one here?" Alicia piped up, grinning a little.
"You shot a dude like an hour ago, Alicia." Lindsey reminded her, leaning into her side a little, again, in a totally heterosexual manner, because what, lesbians? What do you mean lesbians? Lesbians don't exist, surely?
"Wait, what?" Gerard exclaimed, ready to slam his head through the table at this point.
"It's okay, Gerardo, she's not going to shoot you-"
"Fuck off, Pete. No thanks. No thanks, Pete." Gerard turned to Frank, his eyes wide with something not far off fear. "Come on, Frank, tell me that you know this is fucked up."
"It's not my business - I can't judge her for it." Frank shrugged it off, resting his head on Lindsey's shoulder.
"Why are you all so accepting of murder, what the fuck? That's- illegal." Gerard exclaimed, and almost as if he'd completely forgotten about all the pills he took daily, and every ounce of weed he'd smoked in his life, oh yeah, and the fact that he was dating a prostitute.
"As I said, I'm in a gang... it's quite normal-"
"Gerard, I don't give a fuck about the law - there are places where you can get shot for being gay, so shut the fuck up and look at yourself: half the things you do on a regular basis are illegal, and being a prostitute, I'm one of them."
"But you shot someone, and what's Mikey going to say-" Gerard stuttered out, still wide eyed and panicking in a room of calm, slightly drunk people.
"Mikey isn't going to find out, unless you want him to find out that you paint cock and that you're dating a prostitute." Alicia snapped, gritting her teeth as she came to realise that she'd forgotten all about Mikey, and god, Mikey Way and their house together and making pancakes in her underwear seemed to be worlds away.
"This is fucked up."
"The whole world is fucked up, Gerard, burst your fucking bubble and grow the fuck up."
-
And Gerard was the perfect picture of angst: curled up in the corner away from everyone and the drink and the laughter - he was the friend reluctantly dragged along to the party and then soon abandoned by the friend that had brought them there in the first place.
But of course, Gerard had missed that teenage innocence by far too many years now, and it was really starting to show. Perhaps Frank was right, and perhaps he should never have stormed off, because then Frank would at least be discreet when it came to flirting with fucking Pete Wentz, whereas now, Gerard could hear them from where he was sat, and god, it fucking sucked.
And right now, Gerard felt like fucking killing someone, so maybe he ought to apologise to Alicia, and perhaps punch Mikey in the face for whatever the fuck he'd done to bring her here, and in consequence Frank, and then himself, because fuck, it fucking sucked, and somehow Mikey had managed to stay so far out of this mess and out in the picture painted happiness of a 'normal' life.
Gerard was never exactly the most conventional of people, and he most certainly wasn't an office worker by any means, but this life was everything he had, and still everything he hated.
And Frank was beautiful and laughing and everything he didn't deserve, and maybe, just maybe, karma had finally kicked in - not that Gerard believed in karma, at all. He reckoned he didn't even believe in anything anymore.
It was depressing and he hadn't the pills on hand to put his sorrows on silent and turn off reality for a second or two, because reality: Gerard was living the picture painted lie as much as Mikey was, and it was nothing but a matter of appearances that separated the two of them, and Gerard hated everything that had brought him to that conclusion.
Hate was certainly a strong word: one used too much but never enough, and Gerard's head didn't stop spinning after minutes of in and out breathing and maybe he'd never be okay again, and maybe that was an understatement, but maybe it wasn't: maybe Gerard was dying and soon Pete Wentz would find nothing more than a corpse sat on the bottom stair of his staircase, and at least as Frank and Pete went up to Pete's bedroom, that would make them stop and think.
Perhaps Gerard thought about dying far much more than he should, but perhaps there was comfort in nothingness, especially when everything was full on and killing him all the time: perhaps he just need a break, a less permanent death, and that was exactly where the pills fell into place, and that was exactly when his empty pockets began to burn holes in his sides.
And he wasn't sure whether he needed Frank or just the distraction: perhaps he was just the new drug - the new obsession for his obsessive head - a new way to bide away his time as the clock struck down to zero, but never quite made it, and really, the possible was becoming all the more likely by the minute.
"I'm sorry." He jumped out of his thoughts with far too much vigour: praying for the voice to be Frank, even if he knew by its feminine qualities that it most certainly wasn't, and he wasn't a hopeless dreamer, Gerard Way was just pathetic - at least he did that well: his talents were few and far between, so even ones of the least credibility ought to be celebrated.
"Lindsey?" Gerard was more than a little shocked to see the person who'd done nothing but whisper to Alicia about him all the time before him - the only one with the slightest regard for his emotions, and really, Gerard was more than a little butt hurt that it wasn't Frank.
"Gerard." She nodded, sitting down beside him with very little emotion to show for herself and her actions, leaving Gerard hopeless and hoping that somehow she'd wave a magic wand and make everything okay.
"Why are you here?" Gerard found himself breaking the silence, and really, this was not how it was supposed to go, but fuck it, this was the way it was, and he'd have to just grow the fuck up and deal with it, as he'd been told.
"Because you're sad, and Frank's being a stubborn asshole about it because he's no good with feelings, and Pete's far too drunk to even stand up anymore, and there's not a hope that he's going to point out Frank's wrongs here." Lindsey rolled her eyes, avoiding Gerard's gaze and all emotional connections, because this wasn't like that - this was just her making sure that Frank didn't get away with being such an asshole, and mainly due to the fact that if he started being such an asshole to Gerard, then eventually he'd be the same with her, and perhaps Lindsey valued the asshole just a little bit too much.
"Okay." Gerard bit his lip: unsure of what to make of Lindsey and the way he couldn't even see straight, and the way he couldn't even remember the pills he'd taken when he'd gotten up this morning and as to whether they were the right ones or the ones that voice at the back of his mind directed him to.
The voice was getting louder today, and it was getting harder to ignore the longer he went on with it.
"You're overreacting, I think, but so's Frank - you're both being idiots and that's typical, because boys are idiots: I would know, I spend far too much time with them, especially Pete Wentz. And let me tell you, Gerard, Frank doesn't hate you - he means well, but he doesn't take well to emotions and people and complicated things and he cares about Pete, don't get me wrong, but he doesn't care about Pete in the same way he cares about you."
"And how would you know?" Gerard choked out, rolling his eyes: utterly unconvinced, and for once sharing an opinion with the voice at the back of his head, and that was that Lindsey Ballato was wrong, perhaps not a liar, but wrong nonetheless.
"Because when he was fucked up and needed somewhere to hide from someone out to get him - when he needed protecting and needed to feel safe and happy: he went to you and not Pete. Damn, I would have thought he would have gone to me, but he met you, and that changed: Frank and I are close friends, but it's evident you mean more to him than I do, and I'm jealous, to say the least, but I'm happy, because he's happy: you make him happy."
"He certainly doesn't make me happy with what he's doing right now."
"Well, go back and tell him so, and get him alone to talk to him, and if he calls you an asshole, kiss him until he shuts up, and if he tries to apologise, kiss him harder." Lindsey smiled, meeting Gerard's gaze for the first time. "Frank makes out like he's a complicated person, but he's not, not really: he thinks in simple terms - it's love and hate, and he's all hormones and not enough thought and emotion. You're thinking too deeply - you're an artist, of course, you are, everything's complex with you, and you think that everything means something, but it doesn't: Frank's flirting with Pete, because Pete's flirting with him, and he's not stopping because you're letting him do so."
"So you want me just to grab him and kiss him?" Gerard raised his eyebrows a little at that.
"Yeah, preferably not in front of everybody, but yeah, he's kind of tipsy anyway, so he'll kiss you back regardless of whether he's pissed off at you, and when he's sobered up, just convince him that you never even argued in the first place."
"That sounds an awful lot like lying."
"Yeah, it does."
-
hey guys:))) hope you liked this chapter and if you did it would be totally 100% cool if you could vote and comment or whatever anyway i love you all lots okay?<3