The first thing he saw was a man; a man who found himself staring at it again.
That room.
His room.
It had been his, a long time ago.
It wasn't anymore.
The place was familiar but Frank couldn't place as to how; he couldn't move, he could only watch: eyes fixated upon a figure he didn't quite recognise, as the figure stared at the room - a closed door, a door he didn't dare open.
Frank stared too, and felt himself sick to his stomach as he did so.
Because consciously, he didn't have the slightest clue as to what this all meant, but the sinking feeling was proof that his subconscious was more than well informed, and perhaps even just protecting him from the truth.
And just like that, Frank was scared, and he didn't quite know why.
He felt safe, in an odd way, but one he didn't think to question, as the man he'd been watching stepped away from the door and let out a sigh, shaking his head as if to himself, and staring right past Frank as if he wasn't really there.
And Frank began to doubt that he was for a moment.
"Fuck," the man spoke aloud; his face somewhat blurred and turned away from Frank, rendering him unrecognisable in the frozen state Frank found himself in.
"Hello?" Frank called out to the man, well attempted to, but his words seemed to fade out as he pushed them out, creating little more than a muffled whisper, and in fact, the man didn't even look up, and Frank was left confused, but somehow calm, as the man continued to curse to himself and glance back at the door - he even looked close to crying.
"Why?" Was the first non curse word he uttered, speaking to no one, or perhaps himself as he leaned back against the wall, tapping his foot out of what Frank assumed to be anxiety and nerves.
Frank wished he could he could communicate somehow: nothing seemed to make sense, and in fact, he seemed to find himself coming to realise that this place couldn't be real, that this all couldn't be real, because the guy would have to be able to see him, and he began to wonder if this was just some kind of fucked up dream.
However, he found himself hesitant to believe such a thing; he hadn't had a dream of any sort since leaving New York and he really wasn't keen to have another, but at its current point, whatever Frank found himself baring witness to in that moment seemed pretty harmless, but well, everything seemed as such at first.
But if this was a dream, he no longer found himself caring for the man and who he was, and the door and what could be behind it, his mind revolving solely around the matter of waking up, of getting back to reality, of opening his eyes in the bedroom in that house, 'their house', and rolling over in bed and seeing him, seeing Gerard.
Because for Frank, nothing was real, and nothing was okay until Gerard said it was.
"Why?" The man choked out for a second time, before getting to his feet and making his way downstairs, and it was at that point, that instead of following him, Frank's vision faded out entirely.
He found himself accompanied by nothing but black for a good minute: a low hum like buzz of sound in the background, until he managed to push his eyelids open, until he managed to let the light in and 'wake up'.
He sat up in bed, his eyes wide, shuddering a little all over, and glancing across towards the window: guessing the time to be something like six am from the amount of light coming in.
"What's wrong, Frankie?" Gerard asked, stirring in bed next to him, reaching for Frank, having been alerted by the sudden change of emotions in Frank: the increase in his heartbeat, and the way he couldn't quite get enough oxygen to his brain. "I can feel it, there's something wrong, I-"
"I had a dream." Frank exclaimed, stumbling out of bed and nearly tripping as he did so. "A dream. I haven't had a dream since New York." He continued, his heart pounding in his chest as he sat down on the windowsill, glancing out at the sun, at the forest, at the world, at the place he called home, and then to Gerard, as the black haired man made his way over to him.
"Fuck," He stammered out, unsure quite what to say - what to tell Frank to make it all better, or if he even could. "Was it like... bad? What happened? It'd help me understand if you did, but of course, you don't have to."
"It didn't make much sense, it wasn't necessarily bad. I was just watching this guy stood outside a door, and he started crying before walking down some stairs - it made no fucking sense, but it's just the fact that it's a dream. I'm just scared they'll get bad again, I'm just scared it'll get how it was again, because I can't fucking handle that."
"I don't understand why it would." Gerard added, putting his arm around Frank. "Perhaps, I know this sounds stupid, but maybe it's just a normal dream, like how people just have weird dreams sometimes, and you're just oversensitive to dreams because of what happened in the past, so maybe you're just making something out of nothing, because you know, we both feel better here, don't we? You still feel that, don't you?"
Frank turned to the forest outside, exhaling a little, "yeah." He nodded, smiling, reaching for Gerard's hand, "yeah, I do. I don't know if that's you or this place though," he admitted with a small smile.
"Shut up," Gerard laughed a little, brushing Frank's hair from his face, and pressing a kiss to his lips, "you gotta stop being so cheesy, Frankie."
"Or what?" Frank asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Or you're gonna kill me, or something," Gerard laughed at that, because he was being an asshole, and he knew it.
"Fuck off," Frank let out a sigh, rolling his eyes, before focusing his gaze back upon the dawn and the forest around them, and in turn, the overwhelming sense that this was home.
However, that sense went hand in hand with the sense that the 'dream' was a little more than insignificant, and the latter of the two senses was one he absolutely could not shake.
-
Gerard had this odd look in his eyes for the duration of the day that followed Frank's dream. Frank put it down to thinking - something Gerard had done very little of when he was alive, and in severe excess in death, not that thinking was necessarily or inherently a bad thing; the simple action of thought and the simple notion of possibilities and explanations made just a little clear did nothing bad, but there was no saying it would necessarily do much good either.
But of course, it mattered little as to what Frank thought of this all; he had no say as to what went on in Gerard's head, and was just left with that vacant look in his boyfriend's eyes as found himself attempting to draw again; he'd been drawing quite a lot more as of late, which was again something Frank had noticed, but not really felt the need to reflect upon - it was just drawing after all, but was anything really as it seemed?
Gerard moved a little closer to Frank; the two men sat upon the sofa in the downstairs room with the massive window, Gerard with his sketchbook upon his lap and a pencil in his hand, and Frank with an empty coffee mug, having finished the drink it had once held something like two hours ago, but with Gerard, in this odd state of thinking and silence, in this forest even, time seemed to pass a little differently: as if it held a little less meaning, and as if it wasn't exactly in shortage, and as if life was a little less more than one great big ticking time bomb.
Frank was only perhaps vaguely subconsciously aware of the aforementioned, still stick in the mindset that everything was as it seemed, that despite the existence of ghosts and this whole new plane of existence - something Gerard had made Frank more than well aware of, everything was as it came to him, and that the possibility of there being something more to this all was incredibly unlikely.
Gerard was however incredibly aware of the way time seemed to differ in this house, and spent a lot of nights pondering over it, in fact. Time wasn't a different kind of time, it was in fact the very same concept, it was just the way it was perceived: relativity and all that nonsense. He was coming to understand that time was far more relative to them in place, rather than being set in stone: a minute perhaps no longer lasting sixty seconds, but the amount of time he took himself to come up with an explanation after Frank confronted him with a problem of sorts.
Gerard wasn't entirely sure what was causing this, as he found himself to be with a lot of the things in life connected to the plane of existence more unfamiliar to him, after all, he wasn't a scientist, barely even an artist, just a guy that never really grew up, just a guy that didn't quite deserve a second chance, but still he had a head, he had a brain, and he had nights to think, perhaps even too much time to think.
He could conclude that for ghosts, for the things less tethered to life and the world of the living, aging wasn't a matter for concern, and from that he found himself wondering if time applied itself in much the same manner, and somehow, it was the way that the house and the forest were connected to him, and the way that caused the barriers between the world of the dead and the world of the living seemed to crumble a little.
Gerard was also incredibly aware of the fact that he couldn't really talk to Frank about this. The thought of it all and as to what it could possibly mean unnerved him a little, because he felt for sure that things weren't supposed to be like this, and he didn't want to worry Frank with matters that he didn't have to; Frank had lost both his parents and his boyfriend, after all, and Gerard had only lost himself.
Gerard had even been thinking so excessively that he'd found his head pulled away completely from the sketchpad and the pencil held in his hand, and in turn, the sketch appearing upon the paper before him, but it was exactly the act of fixating and focusing upon it that brought him back down and out of his head.
"T-that's..." Gerard had Frank's head snapping up and towards him as he struggled to push any form of explanation out, "t-that's... my..."
Frank had almost drifted off, his eyes widening a little as they met Gerard's, before in turn falling down upon the sketch before him. "Your room, from when... when you were alive."
Gerard nodded, biting his lip, and hating how he found himself immediately unable to make sense of what was before him, "I don't know why I drew that. I wasn't even that aware that I was drawing, I kind of zoned out, you know?"
Frank nodded, linking his fingers with Gerard's, "I kind of zoned out too. It's good, though," he gestured towards the sketch, "the art. I like it. I know it's kind of an uncomfortable part of your head for you, but it's just a sketch and as a sketch, it's great." Frank smiled up at his boyfriend, but Gerard didn't really seem to care.
"Hmm..." Gerard let out a sigh, getting to his feet and ripping the sketch away from the book, and dropping the sketchbook to the floor. He turned the sketch over in his hands, examining it as if it was some form of significant historical artifact, and not indeed just a sketch of his bedroom as a teenager.
"Are you okay?" Frank found himself daring to ask, struggling to understand what could possibly be going through Gerard's mind, and as to how a sketch of his bedroom could really hold so much significance.
Gerard shrugged a little, not really in response to Frank's question, and more so in response to noise, having heard him but not really listened.
"Gerard?" Frank continued, getting to his feet, his eyes widening a little as he felt his head spinning a little, "what's going on?"
"Give me your lighter." Gerard said, his tone firm, suddenly rather sure of himself.
Frank was more than a little confused, but had more faith in Gerard than he really should, and regardless of his inability to make sense of the situation, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his lighter, watching with a fixated gaze as he placed it into the taller man's hand.
Gerard didn't even so much as nod in Frank's direction, before clicking the lighter with his free hand and fucking setting fire to the sketch, which had seriously gotten Frank more confused than he'd ever thought possible.
"Okay, so what the fuck are you doing?" Frank asked, watching as the paper burned away, turning brown and then black in places.
"Burning it." Gerard of course, was exceedingly helpful in his response.
"Yeah, I fucking noticed that," Frank rolled his eyes a little, "but why? Also you might want to put it out before you burn your hand off-"
"Frank, I'm fucking dead, it's fine," He let out a sigh, glancing up at his boyfriend and conveying a non-verbal kind of apology, "I have this bad feeling, and this isn't just me thinking too much, but maybe it is, but maybe what I'm thinking about is making sense."
"And what are you thinking about?" Frank continued to ask, his eyes fixated upon the sketch burning away, and the way the little burst of fire slowly made its way closer to Gerard's hand.
"A fucking hell of a lot of things." Gerard laughed a little, seemingly entirely unfazed by the fire in its entirety.
"Detail, Gerard? Logic, Gerard? Ever fucking heard of them?" Frank asked, before snapping, "oh for fucking god's sake, put the fire out-"
Gerard looked up at him, noting the look in his eyes and in turn the destroyed nature of the sketch and nodding, dropping it to the floor and and stamping the flames out with his foot, his fucking bare foot.
"I can't feel pain." He reminded Frank for the seven hundredth time, glancing at the bottom of his foot once the fire was out and examining in great interest how the fire, although very real had left no mark at all. "I can't apparently get scars either - this is something I've been thinking about as well."
"What?" Frank exclaimed, seriously struggling to make sense of well everything Gerard was saying.
"Frankie, come on, my foot, no fucking scars at all." Gerard sat back down on the sofa, leaving Frank to follow him.
"Okay, so how and what the fuck?" Frank asked, his eyes widening a little, "I mean, I get that you don't feel pain, but like, you put the fire out, so you were able to touch it, but I don't get how it wasn't able to touch you."
"Maybe I'm Jesus." Gerard offered, laughing a little. "Hey, just a thought: I could be Jesus, I mean it's unlikely, but there is a chance."
"If Jesus was reincarnated or whatever, I doubt he'd chose you of all people as the body he'd want to be in. Then there's also the fact that you get fucked in the ass - I doubt Jesus is down for that-"
"Goddamn it!" Gerard exclaimed, almost as if genuinely upset. "Satan then, perhaps? I mean the red hair, the fiery pits of hell, that fit? And black hair, darkness and eternal suffering? Also fits."
"Gerard, you're basically saying that all gingers are the reincarnation of Satan." Frank pointed out, unable to stop himself laughing as he realised just what the fuck he'd just said.
"Only some of them." Gerard shrugged it off, laughing a little, before leaning into Frank's side, "hey, it's freaky, but not something to worry about, is it? Technically, it's an advantage, isn't it, because I literally can't be touched!"
"Doesn't mean you should just take it for what it is, though. I'm pretty sure that nothing comes without a single disadvantage or curse." Frank added, his eyes fixated upon his boyfriend, "or maybe that's me being a negative little shit, but still, I care about you, I love you, Gee, and I think it's best that you don't fuck up your afterlife, this second chance or whatever by being, well an idiot."
"Yeah," Gerard nodded, smiling, "you've got a point. You always have a point, you know? And I love you too, Frankie." He put his arm around Frank, pulling him closer.
"Shame you burned that sketch, though - I liked it." Frank added after a few moments of silence had passed.
"Seriously?" Gerard exclaimed, his expression contorting into one of confusion. "It made me uneasy as fuck, I thought we were on the same level with that now?"
Frank shrugged a little, "I've been kind of uneasy all day, I mean after that dream, but that's just the dream, isn't it, and I'm starting to think that as long as I don't get another nightmare it's just me overthinking things."
"I guess." Gerard nodded, thinking it best not to worry Frank more than he had to. "Guess maybe we just don't understand somethings, I mean, this emotional connection thing, maybe it doesn't always work one hundred percent?" He offered his best harmless explanation.
"Yeah," Frank nodded, seeming not to notice the way Gerard seemed to be overcompensating for something in his tone, but really, once again, Frank found himself a little different, "like you said, not everything's fucking significant."
"Yeah, I mean, my art isn't even that good!" Gerard exclaimed, laughing a little as he found settling into Frank's side a little more comfortably.
"Oh shut up, your art's amazing." Frank, however wasn't taking that kind of nonsense, shifting a little so he was kind of sprawled out across the sofa with his legs in Gerard's lap. "And I fucking mean that."
Gerard only nodded in response, unable to argue his case for mediocrity as he found his attention taken by something far more significant: a little mark upon the bottom of Frank's foot, a little mark that looked an awful lot like a burn.
-
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