November 1st (Frerard)

21: Sunday, October 21st

It was one am.

Or close to that, at least.

Twelve fifty eight.

Close enough.

And Gerard was half asleep.

They were sat on Frank's bed now.

They, being Frank and Gerard, the two of them, as an item, a collective, a two piece, something more than just Gerard Way, and then Frank Iero, but not solid enough to real mean something, not quite yet.

Perhaps not quite ever.

Maybe Gerard wouldn't end up living that long.

And Frank sat there unaware.

They were sat on the end of Frank's bed, Frank having laid back and Gerard curled up almost awkwardly: desperately trying to fake the image of comfort, and feeling safe inside himself, inside the mistake he'd made, and with Frank's fingers reaching out to touch his.

A mistake among many: at home, perhaps, but still out of place: the rebellious teenager in the house of the perfect family, perhaps, but nowhere near as glamorous, nowhere near as cliché, or theatrical, just a mistake, and Gerard knew he really should stop glorifying things, but there was this horrible affliction cursed upon him, in the form of an addiction with his own inadequacies.

Perhaps instead he should sit there, making something beautiful out of the idea of Frank, and not the one of his own death, and heartbreak, and the wreck he'd leave behind him.

But Frank was already beautiful.

There was nothing left for Gerard to think, for him to say even, as they sat in prolonged silence, and Gerard wondered when they'd try sleeping, or when he'd have to leave, because it was usually Frank in his room, and Frank sort of seemed to know what to do with himself better than Gerard did.

For a start, Frank hadn't tried to drown himself in a bath little over a week ago.

For a start, Frank wasn't going to drown himself in a lake in little over a week's time.

For a start, Frank was going to have a November, and a December, and a Christmas.

And Gerard found himself hurting at the notion, and glancing at Frank, and finding the younger boy smiling at him in the darkness.

Because somehow, in naivety, Frank was happy, silent yet content, in the fact that they'd kissed, and it hadn't been spectacular or romantic, just kissing, just something, just an ache in Gerard's chest, and his mouth wetter than it had been before: an awkward kiss, a stumbled kiss, before Frank seemed to have forgotten that he was shorter than Gerard just as he'd leaned in, but it had been okay, they'd managed it, and Frank had told him that he was beautiful again, and Gerard had nodded, silently returning it, and then, they'd sat, a little closer for the rest of the night, and for the most part Gerard had listened to Frank talk, and now, come perhaps twenty minutes ago, Frank had run out of things to say.

Silence was okay, though. They were okay, though.

Gerard's whole life seemed to consist of late nights and early mornings, and silence, and too many feelings, and too many regrets: a mess of a life, and a mess of an ending, because this was something like his final chapter now - his not quite final week, but this was definitely the wrapping up of it all.

This was indeed him getting everything in order.

He still hadn't quite managed to write a decent suicide note to anyone even in weeks now, and it had come to the point where he'd almost given up, but, he owed Frank much more than a pretty polaroid of the ocean now, now with what had happened.