I just want to thank you all for being so cool about how long this has taken me to write and then how nice you were about it and I was going to dedicate this chapter to someone before I realised that you're all amazing so really it's dedicated to all of you because I love you and thank you all so much<3
(Ironically, this has been my favourite to write so far, so god knows why it took me so long...)
❝Kalon- beauty that is more than skin deep. ❞
For once, when my eyes fluttered open they weren't assaulted with the pounding of the rain on the windows. Supposedly it was summer, but I disagreed. This morning was sunny, however, and cast glittering prisms of colour across the room. Gerard was still asleep next to me, his arm tucked under mine and his feet knotted in the sheet. His mouth was open and his hair was a mess, splayed against the pillow. For some reason, I'd imagined Gerard as the kind of person to wake up at the crack of dawn and walk around the city or the woods being dramatic and photographic, but apparently that was not the case.
The clock on the wall told me that it was eleven o clock, and I realised with some degree of triumph that I was supposed to be at work. Well, I mean, I was supposed to be at work until I'd walked out on my boss, but that was a technicality.
I didn't know if I should wake him up or not. He'd mentioned that we were supposed to be doing something today, so time was important, but he looked as though he needed some sleep. A few moments passed as I remarked on the near-smirk that his mouth hinted at even in sleep, before deciding that my best bet would be to let him wake up by himself. In all honesty, I really didn't care what we did, so long as I was with him. I had the feeling that Gerard could make anything amazing.
Yet, as much as I planned to leave him where he was, I was not about to do the same. My body was protesting about the fact I'd drank a large glass of orange juice immediately before going to bed, so I tried to wiggle downwards and out of the bed, without losing my balance and falling on Gerard. It was going well until I tried to step down onto the floor, at which point I lost my already unsteady footing and stumbled forwards. There was a bang as my outstretched palms hit the wall, causing me to wince in pain at the sudden shock to my still-tired system.
"Good morning," Gerard mumbled groggily, sitting up. It was odd to see him in this newly-vulnerable state, with his eyes all puffy and his hair sticking up. He didn't really look like Gerard like this, he looked simply too cute (cuter than usual-yes) and he affixed me with a bleary-eyed stare.
"As bizarre as it sounds, I didn't think you ever slept," I remarked completely as he rubbed his eyes.
"You what?"
I shrugged, feeling very stupid on account of the fact that I was still standing sprawled against his wall, and had implied that he was some kind of undead creature. To be fair, there was something vaguely vampire-ish about him, and as much as I couldn't place it, there was still a small part of me that was completely in love with the idea.
"I hate to burst your bubble, loverboy, but one does not acquire such impressive bedhead as this without an obscenely 'teenager' amount of sleep."
Gerard's voice was raspy with sleep, and almost unbearably attractive, and of course it helped that he looked still completely wrecked, with his hair unkempt and his eyes dark with yesterday's eyeliner. Even this early in the morning, when he had been awake for at most thirty seconds, his vocabulary was at peak, and the sarcasm already running thick in his words. Before Gerard, I had taken pride in the fact that my vocabulary was extensive, and meeting someone who also boasted that was oddly comforting, and meant that I wasn't going to be completely misunderstood, as I often was in typical social situations. I say typical- I mean the rare.
I laughed to myself, before straightening up from the awkward position I'd fallen into. Gerard let out an elongated noise of complaint and irritation as he sat up, leaving the black bedding to pool around his waist. I realised then that he wasn't wearing anything but boxers, and I had to fight hard not to show what effect this situation was having on me currently.
"What time is it?" He asked, squinting through sleep-blurred eyes out of the window. Seeing as it was summer, the light of day meant nothing anymore so he wouldn't be able to tell anyway.
"Twenty to twelve," I answered, after glancing at the clock on the dresser.
Usually, Gerard had something planned for the day, and time was an invaluable concept to him. Sometimes I wondered if he was at one with the idea, and time and Gerard ran as one inseparable entity. Either that or he was just excellent at timekeeping, which is certainly not something that I could say for myself. I did well to get up in the morning. And when I say that I mean morning as in 'instead of accidentally afternoon'.
"Plenty of time for my plan, then," he mused as he stretched his arms up above his head, yawning widely as he did so. It would have been completely pointless to ask him what his 'plan' was, because it was entirely possible that it was anywhere between a 'petting zoo' and 'global domination'. With Gerard, I could never ever seem to tell.
"Is that the plan with the bag?" I asked, eyeing the ripped black mound in the corner. Gerard followed my eyes, smirking, and nodded.
"That's the plan with the bag."
-
He didn't tell me what was in the bag until the last possible second, in a gesture I found both endearing and impossibly irritating. We had eaten an odd breakfast of poptarts, grapefruit and Redbull, sitting at his chipped kitchen table with Mikey and his mom. Gerard had mentioned the plan, nothing about the plan, and neither of them had asked. That in itself spoke enough about Gerard.
"Where are we going?" I whined an hour or so later, when we were still walking through the oddly deserted streets with no clear indication of our actual destination. Gerard had remained aggravatingly silent about anything to do with 'the plan' all this time, and I was beginning to get fed up of waiting and walking with no idea of what was happening.
"I seem to recall that any time I've had an idea for us, you've complained the whole way," Gerard remarked pleasantly without turning around or looking at me.
"That's cause you won't tell me where we're fucking going," I sulked, beginning to scuff my feet against the pavement in a childish manner. I wasn't being ungrateful, not really, I honestly wasn't really that irritated, but I hated not knowing.
"Everyone likes surprises."
"I hate surprises," I mumbled to myself. And I did honestly hate surprises- when you have a surprise like your dad walking out on you for no reason as a child, they kind of lose their fun.
Gerard stopped dead in the street, turning around so he was facing me. I, however, had not realised this until I walked straight into him. Before I had chance to react, his hands were on my shoulders and his lips were pressed to mine in a quick kiss, before he held me at arm's length.
"It's really cool and I'll kiss you lots if you want me to," he said simply. He let go, and smiled proudly at me as I looked at him from under my eyebrows, still a little annoyed but blushing.
"There you go," he said triumphantly, "It's not a surprise anymore."
A part of me was aching to tell Gerard that surprises didn't tend to work like that, but the smile he'd flashed in my direction, and that adorable way he'd kissed me was holding me back. If he wanted to surprise me, then I'd only be an asshole if I made him tell me where we were going. So to make sure the smile remained on that face, I kept quiet and followed him down the street. At least until he turned to grab hold of my hand, and pulled me with him, stopping to kiss me quickly every five minutes or so.
-
"Um... Gerard?"
"Yes Frank?"
My eyes darted around where he'd brought us. Puzzlement was the only thing in my mind at the moment, because this was definitely not what I had been expecting. All the other places I'd been with Gerard had been some beautiful landscape, nature or something hidden and obscure. This was a massive construction of wrought iron, just down the left from the main road.
"I don't mean to spoil everything for you, but... I've been to the railway bridge before."
"Were you looking for something specific?"
My eyebrows furrowed of their own accord at Gerard's words, deepening my sense of complete bewilderment. That didn't have anything to do with what I'd said, had it?
"What?" I asked, completely blank, before Gerard smirked again, and led me around the corner, to where the support for the bridge was leaning on a brick wall, forming a sort of tunnel between the support on this side and the support on the other. The greenish metal stretched far above my head, and it was only when I looked properly at the wall on the other side that I realised why Gerard had brought us here.
The wall on the other side was a riot of colour, patterns and drawings sprayed straight onto the brickwork. In an impressive display of halting graffiti, so eye-catching and attention-grabbing that my eyes widened so comically Gerard laughed at me. Usually graffiti only annoyed me, but this was more than graffiti. This wasn't mindless scribble, tags and names that meant nothing- this was art. The fact that it was completely illegal only added to the amazing effect that it had on this bland little street, the warped and weather-beaten metal of the ugly bridge.
I didn't speak as I crossed the road, standing in front of the wall in complete awe. The designs were all interlocking, although none of them were even similar in style. Several different artists had done this, I could tell that in an instant, but they were woven together so beautifully that I could have been fooled, as though their souls had fitted like spoons. The pictures flowed like music, the way sounds curled around each other, in the same way that each detail complimented the ones around it. It was, quite simply, the most striking thing I'd seen upon first encounter, and the second most beautiful after looking at it properly. I said second, because Gerard was the first.
I hadn't heard or seen him walk over to me, but I was suddenly aware of his presence next to me. Quietly, and without taking my eyes off the art lest I miss some tiny detail, I said, "This is... Incredible."
I saw him nod, shaking his hair out of his eyes. "It'll all be gone by the end of the week, though," he said, although he didn't seem to have a problem with that notion.
"What? Is that not a massive waste of time?" It was more than a shame that a piece of art like this was going to be gone.
"It is. Belive me. It's always replaced, though. As long as they don't catch us, we'll just draw it back on once they've cleaned it. It's never the same, and it's never permanent, but I suppose that only adds to the beauty of it. Maybe because that's true of everything else, too- it's never the same, and it's never permanent."
Gerard's voice was only just reaching my ears as I slowly walked away from him, still listening but scrutinising the wall for whatever drawing he had done here. Never had he explicitly said that he'd done something, but the 'us', the way he'd talked about it... Gerard's art was here somewhere.
It didn't take me particularly long to find it, either. It was an explosion of colour on the wall, a burst of oranges and reds and gold. Flames. Fire.
It was a phoenix. A huge, majestic bird of fire that was writhing against the bricks as it burned, its wings ablaze in the heart of the inferno, feathers charring into ash as the flames licked around it. It wasn't moving, of course- a still picture on a stationary wall, but it could have fooled me. I could see the pain in its black eyes, but not fear. Fear wasn't associated with phoenix's. It was burning, it was dying, but in the most majestic way possible- completely still and utterly captivating.
Gerard's voice was quiet when he spoke, appearing again next to me without me realising. For the first time since I'd met him, he actually sounded shy- and it threw me off guard a little.
"It's metaphorical," he said simply. I was dying to ask what it meant, but I was too taken by the image, and besides, I could tell from the way he was talking that he was going to tell me anyway, even if it took a while for him to summon the words.
I heard him swallow. "When a phoenix dies, it burns. It bursts into flames, and it burns away. It hurts, and it's frightening, but they're reborn, and they can try again. I've always loved them- they give me hope. No matter what you do, you're always going to have another chance. Even if it hurt; even if you feel like you're going up in flames, you will get another chance. The end is only the end when the flames have stopped, and the future has promised you no more."
-
My legs were crossed as I sat on the pavement, watching Gerard. I had finally worked out what was in the bag- cans of spray paint. That's why it rattled, and why he'd been out so late that time with Mikey that we'd seen him when I went to pick Ryan up. Usually it was done at night, but there was nobody around, and it wasn't going to take long. Just in case, though, we were both wearing thick black balaclavas so we wouldn't be recognised if someone did spot us.
I was completely content to watch him paint. He moved so fluidly when he did it, stepping back every now and then to see what he'd done. He caught every single can I threw to him, and didn't seem to make one mistake. I couldn't see his expression for the balaclava, but I knew what it would be- that one of concentration, where one eyebrow was raised slightly, and his nose scrunched up.
There was some incredible, obscure beauty to this whole thing, and even more to Gerard. Sure, he was beautiful enough in the conventional sense; but this was something else. His beauty was more than skin deep, the way he thought, the way he spoke, the way he moved, the way he acted... Everything about him was so beautiful.
When he stepped back after twenty minutes or so, the wall that had been previously blank had been filled in. Gerard had painted a vampire, in white and blacks and greys, with red streaks at random intervals that made it look remarkably creepy. Fathomless eyes stared from the bricks, and pale, claw-tipped hands drew out a cloak on both sides, amid billowing curls of mist and smoke. He shrugged when I looked at him, amazed, as though it was nothing.
"Doesn't it make you sad, though, that it won't last long?" I asked after a moment or so spent looking at the newest addition to the wall, and Gerard shrugged again.
"Not really. In fact- I think I prefer it this way. If it doesn't last long, it's got to make a statement. It's got to be good enough that a short amount of time is all it really needs. If I had forever, all I'd do would be to put off doing it. If you've got to do it now, it will be better than if you've spent years planning it."
I was hit then, with an overwhelming desire to kiss him. In the balaclavas, though, it could have proved a little difficult. I decided it could wait until later.
We made eye contact for a second or two, before a yell jolted us from our moment.
An official-looking man was running in our direction, wearing something that looked horribly like a police uniform. Gerard swore loudly, picked up the bag, my hand, and took off sprinting down the road. I did well to keep up, and as strange as it sounds, I had finally found something to thank Rob for. All that time spent chasing imaginary criminals meant that I could run away fast enough that the police wouldn't catch me.
That sentence was one I didn't expect I was ever going to say.
Our feet pounded along the pavement as we fought to stay ahead of the policeman. He seemed to be on his own, so if we got away, we should be alright. The balaclavas meant that he couldn't see our faces, so we couldn't be caught that way, at least. Thankfully, he wasn't the fastest, and we were running in a way that was almost amusing, at least, Gerard was laughing hard as we tried to make our escape.
Out of nowhere, Gerard seized my arm and dragged me into a bush, my shoulder screaming in protest as we doubled back on ourselves, and ran up a flight of stone stairs to the center of the town. It was there purely to make the journey from the station to the town easier, although it meant for us that we had a quick escape, and could get lost easily once we'd taken off the ski masks.
Gerard was still chuckling to himself as we slowed to a walk, his face a little sweaty from running in a woolen mask. I was gasping for air, but with every lungful of oxygen that I replaced, another was lost in a burst of laughter.
"Well," Gerard began, grinning like an idiot as he swung his bag back onto his shoulder, "I can't say I've found the idea of jail as amusing as I seem to have done now."
I grinned back at him as he laced his fingers into mine, the pair of us walking almost in-step as we weaved our way through the crowd of shoppers, tourists or families out for the day.
"What have you done to me, Frank Iero?" He asked, under his breath as he looked at me out of the corner of his eye. I picked up on it, and smiled.
Gerard. Gerard with his stupid grin and his stupid voice and his stupid mouth that was great at talking and better at kissing. His laugh that made me think maybe everything was simply here to be laughed at- maybe there was no need to be so serious and cynical. Gerard had opened my eyes to things I needed to see, closed them to things I didn't, and saved me from the hellhole of my own home. Nobody before him had been as incredible as he was, and I was struggling to comprehend how much he meant to me, and what on earth I would have done without him.
"Gerard?"
"Yes?"
I tightened my fingers in his, met his eyes with mine. Steeling myself to say it.
"I... I think...," I breathed in, my stomach fizzing.
"I think I love you, Gerard."