Gerard found himself sat outside the 'house', 'their house', and in fact the notion of it being as such seemed utterly ridiculous in his mind, but it was, for the time being, this place was home, a home he shared with Frank Iero, and perhaps that was all he'd ever wanted.
He found his eyes fixated upon the horizon: sunrise, he hoped Frank wouldn't worry too much when he woke up and found the bed beside him empty - Gerard had just need space, needed the forest more than he'd needed Frank.
He'd taken his sketchbook outside, but found himself simply mesmerised by the drawing he done yesterday: the one of the daffodils in April, as Frank had called it, significant, as Frank had called it.
It seemed special to Gerard too now, but really only because Frank had said it was special to him, and Gerard had seriously become a soppy mess ever since he'd died, and dear god he was well aware of that fact, but he definitely seemed to be fucking up less now, so maybe he'd sacrifice his dignity to be the kind of person that could stick around this time.
Because he knew now certainly that he could never leave Frank alone, because if he did, Frank would be completely alone in this world: no mother, no father, with everyone close to him ending up with a terrible fate: dying before their time, and of course it wasn't Frank's fault, but it was a little as if he was a ticking time bomb or something, something ridiculous.
Ridiculous, that was all it was. Gerard loved Frank, and Frank was just unfortunate.
Gerard had started work on another sketch, having done so a little absent mindedly, this sketch depicting a tree line, a familiar one, the one upon the horizon, and the sun rising, a new day, hope, in the winter, and no snow, there'd been no snow, which was odd, and Gerard had indeed thought it odd, but not really odd enough to mention, you know, with Frank's father hanging himself from the ceiling fan, and Frank finding his mother buried in the forest he'd spent his teenage years in.
Gerard wondered just how much of their relationship Mrs Iero had shown; he fucking hoped she'd looked away when things got a little less PG-13, because well, that'd be kind of awkward when it came to taking Frank to talk to her. God, he wondered what she could possibly think of him, because she had to have a good idea of who he was.
Gerard let out a sigh, finding this all so fucking trivial, because suddenly his biggest worry in the world was what his boyfriend's mother thought of him, and he, technically, was thirty two. Thirty fucking two, dear god, it almost made him glad he'd died and stopped ageing, because yeah, twenty two wasn't a bad age to stay forever.
Sure, it'd get a little weird when Frank started growing older, but he kind of had a baby face so they'd be good for a while, and if they made it longer than a decade or so, then he guessed they'd have to start saying that Frank was his sugar daddy, and really Gerard wasn't nearly as opposed to that idea as he would make himself out to be... if they ever got that far, of course.
And Gerard could hope, and Gerard would hope that they'd last forever, and hope was certainly strong, but when faced with the harsh brutality of life and hardship, hope was just hope.
And one day Frank was going to die.
Gerard swallowed hard at the notion of that; he couldn't imagine standing there, forever connected to Frank's body, watching as the man he loved was buried six feet underground.
He wondered where they could go from there, he wondered how death would fare Frank, whether he'd end up clinging on to this world, like Gerard had, and whether they'd find each other in death again, or whether Gerard would be stuck there, connected to a body, an empty shell that man he loved had departed from, and had moved onto heaven or hell or whatever was on from here, because Gerard quite honestly didn't know if he'd ever find out.
"Hey?" Gerard jumped a little at an all too familiar voice, his boyfriend making his way around the front of the house and sitting down on the grass beside him. "You alright?" He continued to ask, noting the somewhat distant look in Gerard's eyes, but of course, Gerard wasn't just going to tell Frank how he'd been thinking about the inevitability of his death, because although the afterlife did kind of suck, at least Gerard had immortality on his side.
"Yeah, course." Gerard forced a smile, letting Frank glance at his sketchpad, his eyes flickering over the image and then back up to the horizon and the forest upon it.
"You should draw more often: I like your art." Frank smiled: a genuine smile, leaning into his boyfriend's side, watching as Gerard added a few more pencil lines around the drawing, perhaps just to keep himself busy in the silence as he did all he could to rid himself of thoughts of Frank's death.
"Yeah, I mean, I can now, but before, I couldn't really draw, back in New York, I wasn't strong enough back there, I don't think I even would have been able to properly hold a pencil without you being close to me, and then you'd have to let me like sit on your lap if I didn't want to give myself a headache concentrating myself. It's much less of a strain just to exist, you know, here." Gerard let out a sigh, putting his pencil down.
"It's a strain to exist?" Frank exclaimed, his eyes widening a little in concern for Gerard.
"Not excessively for the most part, but you know, when you're alive, you belong here, you're a part of this world, but I'm dead, I don't belong here anymore, I just can't let go, and it's clinging on... it's like a cliff, and you and all the other alive people are stood on top, and the ocean below is wherever the dead are 'supposed' to go, and you have your hand over the edge, reaching out to me, and I'm holding on tight to you and this, but I can't ever let go, and say, the further away from the cliff's edge you move, the harder it is to hold onto your hand."
Frank paused for a moment, running the image through his head, "so when I... when I die, when I fall off the cliff, would we both fall into the ocean?"
"I don't know, Frank, I mean I'm connected to my body too, and you could end up connected to someone too, hey, maybe we could end up clinging onto the edge together, or maybe one of us would be clinging on, and the other-"
"No, that wouldn't happen." Frank insisted, "if you 'let go', then so would I. I don't wanna be somewhere where you're not- hey, can you even 'let go'?"
Gerard shrugged, "I don't know, it's not something I've really thought about, but I suppose you could try, you know, get as far away from whatever's linking you to this world as possible, until you just fade out completely."
"Don't you ever dare," Frank smiled, pressing a kiss to Gerard's cheek, "I can't imagine losing you again."
"Of course not," Gerard let out a sigh, "I'm not going to do that to you again. I can't lose you either, I was just too stupid to realise it before."
-
Frank was nervous, of course he was.
It just wouldn't be quite the same unless he was, and he knew that, and Gerard knew it too as he held on tight to his boyfriend's hand; the forest around them forever autumnal in colour and this time they had the explanation, they had Mrs Iero who'd always been there for her son, they had Mrs Iero who had died at his fault, and no one had ever known.
If Gerard didn't take those pills that day in the forest, Frank might have not ever known, and such a realisation was of course terribly complex to handle, because there were a million things Frank wanted to say to his mother, but he didn't know where to start, he didn't know how to start, he didn't even know how this would work, what would befall of them, and of course, just as to what his mother could possibly think of his boyfriend, which definitely deserved its place on Frank's top list of concerns, no doubt about it.
"What was it like for you with my mother? I mean, it's obviously different, I mean she's not dead, and-"
"Gerard," Frank let out a sigh, forcing a small smile as he looked up at his boyfriend. "It's gonna be fine. Don't tell me you're nervous, because that's not helping, like really not helping." He proceeded to laugh a little.
"I'm meeting your mother, that's a... thing, and oh dear god what can she possibly think of me in regards to what she must have seen in that forest? I mean, I'm nervous because you're nervous, but... man..." Gerard continued to cringe, his mind flashing with images of his younger self and Frank, and just how their relationship had gone whilst he was still living, and what Mrs Iero could have possibly seen of it in snapshots, in the scenes that occurred in the forest. "We... did some things in that forest-"
"Gerard, please!" Frank exclaimed, shaking his head in utter disbelief. "She's my mother, and dear god I'm so scared of what she could possibly think of me, because she knew me last over twenty years ago, and dear god, what kind of a mess am I now? I mean, I never even got to come out to her, or explain anything, it's just... fuck, how must it be for her? I'm there, and suddenly you're there too and you're this boy I'm in love with, and she can't say anything or do anything, she can't disagree, she can't agree, nothing."
"So what?" Gerard raised his eyebrows at that, "you'd rather your mother disagreed with our relationship? Would that somehow make this better?" He continued to laugh a little, "she doesn't disagree, or if she doesn't, I highly doubt it matters in the scheme of things."
"You're right." Frank let out a sigh, smiling as he shook his head, "dear fucking god, why are you always right?"
"I know, I'm just so smart and so handsome, beautiful, a perfect boyfriend - why wouldn't she like me?" Gerard continued to exclaim, leaving Frank shaking his head in disbelief.
"Did I ever tell you about the one girl I dated?" Frank asked, looking up at Gerard.
"What?" Gerard exclaimed, trying to imagine Frank in a straight relationship and failing severely.
"I was like twelve. I was, you know, freaked out by this all. I didn't like her, I just felt forced to be interested in girls because everyone else was, you know what I mean?" Gerard nodded, finding his head back in his childhood: a place he'd done a lot to push away, and for reasons he of course wouldn't dare detail. "And so, her name was Molly, well I guess that still is her name, but. Molly, and we were twelve and she told me she'd be my girlfriend if I went with her to the cinema as her date so she could look cool in front of her ex-boyfriend- Twelve," Frank reiterated, "Gerard, we were twelve."
"I know," he continued, laughing his fucking head off, "I'm just having excessive trouble imagining that anyone would ever think of you as someone to make them look cool."
Frank narrowed his eyes, shaking his head in disbelief, "fuck, you're such an asshole."
"Mmm..." Gerard nodded, grasping Frank's hands and pressing a kiss to his lips, "you love me, though."
"Yeah," Frank admitted, a small smile upon his lips as he pulled away. "Me and Molly broke up because her friend thought I was gay. Fucking Becky."
"Becky was right," Gerard laughed a little, "tell Becky she's a smart girl, intuitive- gaydar!"
"Oh fuck off!" Frank shook his head in disbelief, the two coming to silence as they spotted the clearing ahead, and knew what lay inside, who, and just what was about to occur.
"You're scared: I can feel it." Gerard turned to Frank, "don't be, she loves you."
Frank grasped Gerard's hand for support as the two made their way into the clearing, and Gerard began to focus upon the tree line, doing all he could to make out a figure: her, of course, and then practically burning himself out with the act of focusing upon her.
"Can you see her?" Frank asked, glancing around and becoming somewhat of a nervous mess in the silence that followed.
"Mm..." Gerard nodded, giving Frank's hand a squeeze as he felt the figure- Frank's mother, make her way out into the sunlight.
She gestured towards her body and Gerard nodded, understanding instantly, and proceeding to lead Frank across the clearing, towards his mother's grave, which was something the shorter man didn't exactly understand, but what he didn't understand he made up for with his trust in Gerard, which was almost unnervingly unbreakable in nature, and it was most definitely either the best or the worst thing about his existence.
"It's easiest if I just speak through you, Gerard, like a medium," She began, speaking into Gerard's head.
Gerard nodded, glancing at Frank, who still appeared overall quite baffled in regards to what could possibly be happening that he just couldn't quite see. "She's going to speak through me, like a medium, she can hear you but you won't be able to hear her."
"Okay." Frank nodded, following Gerard's gaze to the figure, "god," he began, biting his lip, "so, mum, I love you and that I apologising profoundly for anything at all I may have done that you're even slightly offended by."
Gerard laughed a little, pulling Frank into his side, and feeling him shudder a little.
"Tell him, I love him too, and that he's done nothing wrong and that I'm so sorry I left him with that monster of a man he had to call a father." Gerard bit his lip, pausing for a moment and thinking in response to what she'd said; he hated how he'd been able to leave Frank with that man sometimes.
He relayed her words to Frank, watching as he nodded a little, beginning to cry. "I'm so sorry you had to die, I'm sorry it ended up like this. Is there anything you want us to do for you?"
"No, of course not, Gerard," she met Gerard's eyes directly with the next part, "you look after him, I'm trusting you to do so, but I can tell, I can feel that you love him. You won't let him go."
"No." Gerard stumbled, speaking aloud instead of in his mind, and causing Frank to raise his eyebrows in disbelief, because he certainly hadn't expected that his own fucking mother would be having her own little private conversation with his boyfriend, but she totally was, because in a way, there was nothing all that different about this.
This was just Frank taking his boyfriend to meet his mother, and they had an awful lot in common: being dead just happened to be one of those things.
And Frank let out a sigh, holding on tight to Gerard's hand, and nearly having a heart attack as he did so: a figure stood just a few feet away beginning to flicker.
"Fuck, you can-" Gerard didn't take long to make sense of the situation, looking between Mrs Iero and Frank and focusing a little harder as he grasped Frank's hand. "I didn't know this could happen, I-"
"You two have a very strong bond, it's... unbelievable." She began, her eyes finding their way to Frank's, and for the twenty eight year old, it seemed like the whole world had stopped: everything no longer relevant, because the woman before him: pale and half translucent in nature, was indeed his mother, and he loved her so much.
"I love you." Frank choked out, tears streaming down his chests as he bit his lip, never daring to pull his gaze away from his mother's, perhaps fearing that she might suddenly fade away into nothingness.
"I love you too, Frankie." She whispered, her voice instantly soothing, and fuck, that name, that fucking name.
Frank's eyes opened wide and suddenly the world around him filled with light: echoes and voices roaming throughout his mind, memories in living form - a little boy and a young woman, in this very forest, one autumn, back when everything was alright with the world.
Frank suddenly blinked, the images pulled almost forcefully away from him, leaving him stood, grasping onto Gerard desperately as his head began to spin with a great velocity.
"Frank?" Gerard exclaimed, grasping Frank tighter with concern.
"I don't think exposing him to me is a good idea." Mrs Iero continued, "he's not supposed to see me... it sounds horrible, but it's damaging him, you can feel it, can't you?"
Gerard nodded, biting his lip in regret as he pulled his focus away from Frank's mother, and in response the spirit seemed to drift away, back into the tree line, but this time Gerard couldn't think to watch her go, desperately fixated upon his boyfriend and the tears in his eyes.
"Fuck, Frank, I-" He stuttered out, pulling Frank into his chest, "are you okay, baby? Please tell me you're okay? Maybe we shouldn't have done this so soon, I-"
"I saw..." Frank trailed off, rubbing his eyes, and resisting the urge to vomit as the world around him continued to spin, "I was little and me and her were here, in the forest, the two of us happy, I saw it... I saw it... like... everything was so bright and it was drowning out everything, fuck, I think I stopped breathing, I-"
"Fuck," Gerard cursed, holding Frank tighter, "I must have channeled it to you... you're not strong enough to deal with these kinds of energies, well, maybe strong's not the right word, you're a very strong person, Frank, I just..."
"I'm alive... and I..." Frank sat down on the floor, his head still spinning a little as Gerard joined him, "you saw that, you got that memory from my head, because we were focused and we were connected and you channeled it back to me and I feel like you nearly exploded my brain!" Frank exclaimed, laughing a little.
"I think we should have just stuck to speaking through me." Gerard continued, glancing around the clearing, "I can't see her anymore-"
"Is she alright, I didn't... I didn't hurt her, I-"
"No, Frank, of course you didn't," Gerard explained, pressing a kiss to his boyfriend's forehead, "I can still feel her, she's still, I think the moment she ever faded away, we'd know: this forest would begin to decay around us: the leaves would rot away, it'd be cold and gloomy just like the rest of the world."
"I don't think the world's so cold and gloomy." Frank continued, pressing his head into Gerard's side, "not when you're around."
"Yeah, not when I'm around to nearly get you killed, or god, I don't know what could have happened to you. I mean, I don't know much about this stuff, I just think a lot: it's all just theories, really, a lot of them just happen to have some logic to them."
"Theories," Frank raised his eyebrows in disbelief, "why do I trust you?"
"Why do you? Indeed..." Gerard trailed off, biting his lip, "I really don't think I'd trust myself, you know?"
"Whether I trust you or not, is really not up for you to decide," Frank insisted, glancing around the clearing once more, before getting to his feet, making a grab fro Gerard's hand, "I think maybe we should try this again tomorrow or something, I still feel a little dizzy. Are you alright, Gee, I mean, surely like channeling-"
"You're forgetting again, Frankie, I don't feel a thing!" Gerard exclaimed, laughing it off, because somehow this was their normal now, this was the happiest Frank had ever been, and if that didn't make him insane then he didn't know what did.
Well, that or the fact that he'd stopped taking his medication a long time ago.
-
hey pals i hope u enjoyed this chapter !!! if u did then u can vote n comment n it would be cool !!! lov u