Like Ghosts in the Snow ▹ ▶︎ Gerard Way

▶︎ Marigold.

▶︎ Cherilynn.

"You sure I look okay? Does my hair look okay?"

"Mikey, you look exactly the same as you did when you asked me ten minutes ago."

Mikey and Valentine hadn't seen each other in only three days. But from how fidgety and excited Mikey was as we walked to her apartment, you'd guess he hadn't seen her in years. And though it was pretty adorable, I could tell Gerard was getting fed up with his brother's constant questions as he (badly) tried to disguise his disinterest.

"You look great, Mikes," I smiled at him and subtly kicked Gerard's shin, which earned me a tiny grin and an eye roll. "Don't mind your brother; the old man's already bitter and stone-hearted at his big age."

"Dude, I'm twenty-five," Gerard complained as Mikey laughed his ass off, relaxing a little for the first time since we set foot in Little Italy. "I'm not even that much older than you two."

"And yet you're twice as boring."

"Shut up, Michael."

"No, no, he's got a point."

"You too? Wow, my own girlfriend gangs up against me with my kid brother, unbelievable."

Gerard and I had been officially dating for a little over a month now, but my heart still swole whenever he called me his girlfriend. And from the subtle smirk and the squeeze he gave my hand as he said it, I knew he noticed. He noticed everything, really; how I liked to sit on the left side of the couch rather than the right, but I preferred the right side of the bed, how I took my coffee, how my knees got weak whenever he kissed between my neck and shoulder- he noticed things about myself that not even I did.

But I saw many things too.

I noticed more than he probably imagined.

I knew his pinky stuck out strangely, and he used his hands a lot more whenever he talked about something he was passionate about. And I knew how he adopted a tight-lipped simper whenever he was faking being interested in something, and how he always gave me a tender smile whenever he was about to reach his climax, looking at me with nurturing adoration despite the obscene position we found ourselves in.

That was one of the things I loved the most about Gerard: the underlying lovingness and homeliness of everything he did. I enjoyed the soft brush of his lips over my hand as he subtly kissed it at the dinner table and the domesticity of stolen kisses while we cooked breakfast. Much to my dismay, though, all of these characteristics disappeared as soon as he overdid it with the alcohol.

When he was drunk, it was like Gerard shed his sweet skin, making room for a lustful- animalistic, almost- version of him. And although that dominant, unexplored side of him thrilled me at first, it didn't take me long to grow resentful. His needy, desperate eyes used to tie knots in my stomach, but they lost their charm once I noticed the emptiness behind them. When he was shitfaced, Gerard used me almost like a TV- remembering I existed only when he needed some mindless, brain-numbing fun.

So saying his recent sobriety (or extremely well-hidden intoxication, maybe) had me over the moon was an understatement. And it kept a stupid, lovesick smile on my face even as Val's parents interrogated poor Mikey while Danielle tried to hold back a laugh at my poor brother-in-law's terrified expression.

"I'm glad they didn't ask me so many questions," Gerard whispered as Mikey said his fourth "yes, sir" in a row. "You'd never imagine they met him once before."

"I mean- I'd probably ask a shit-ton of questions too if my daughter started dating this dude she met a day ago," I whispered back, probably a bit too loud because Val rolled her eyes while her sister choked back a chuckle. "Besides, you look less... "I always have a different lady on my bed" than Mikey."