A Kiss And I Will Surrender

Chapter 2

When Jarla's eyes flutter open she is at first confused as to why the half of her vision is blocked, but as soon as she lifts her head up she realises she had buried her face in Gerard's arm. Blushing furiously she sits up and rubs in her eyes, looking down at his angelic sleeping face and pushing some strands of hair away that had found their way onto his face.

Sighing softly she thinks about how lucky she is to have met him, this perfect human being that blessed her with his friendship and who she had started to fall for. She didn't want to, but it happened.

Gerard stirs in his sleep and she removes her hand from his cheek where it had come to rest. He opens an eye and you smile, when he wakes up he always only opens one eye at first, probably as a reality check or something. She didn't dare to guess further.

"Mmhey..." He murmurs and then brings his hand to the front of his head and frowns. "Shit, I drank again, didn't I?"

Jarla nods slowly, knowing he'll be angry with himself for giving in again. "You showed up here, wasted and so I let you sleep here because you were very much incapable of getting home in that state."

"Thank you, I wouldn't know what to do without you, Jarla." His smile is genuine and soft and make her insides nearly melt.

"Sleep on the streets maybe?"

He chuckles but then groans, making her laugh in return. "Let me guess, pretty bad hangover?" he just sighs in response and closes his eyes again. She feels his hand touching her own, trying to open it so he can hold it and she let him.

"Want something to eat?"

"Yes. But I would also love some coffee..."

She sighs. "Fine I'll just get you something at the Starbucks around the corner."

"My saviour." He jokes and then turns back on his stomach to fall asleep again, so she throws a blanket over his unconscious form.

Walking back from her visit to Starbucks, Jarla's stomach starts rumbling and she takes one of the cinnamon rolls she had bought and takes a bite of it. When she saw them lying there she realised she actually had nothing to eat in house and knowing they both love cinnamon rolls, she bought two.

"Gee?" she calls as she walks back into her apartment, but then hears some choked sounds coming from the bathroom. "Gee?!"

Storming into the bathroom she finds Gerard bent over the toilet, spilling his guts. She scrunches up her nose and grabs a towel from the cabinet under the sink, she lays the towel on the front part of the toilet seat and brushes his hair from his face, making sure the vomit doesn't get stuck in it.

He looks slightly up, some spit mixed with vomit making its way from his lips to his chin and down into the toilet pot. She rips some toilet paper of the roll and wipes it along his chin, cleaning up the worst as much as possible.

"Oh look at you now." His face becomes a question mark. "Not able to handle the booze."

"No. That's not true." She opens her mouth to tell him to shut up, but he cuts her off before she can. "I caused it myself. I stuck my finger down my throat because I wanted it to be out of my body and I hoped to be done before you came back."

Her face that was turned down from pity now looks just sad. Maybe a little disappointed. "That's not true either, because you and I both know that it doesn't work like that. I thought you had gotten over this?" He bows his head down and rests it on the toilet seat.

"I didn't want you to know, I didn't want to disappoint you. I told you I was doing fine, because I just didn't want to see you worry. Your face gets all scrunched up when you're worried. I'd rather see you smile that beautiful smile of yours..."

His head shoots up and his expression shocked and Jarla starts to blush.

"I-"

"Thanks. But I'll smile when you stay sober, you do realise that?" He nods.

"C'mon, let's get you on the couch with a blanket."

"You know I'm not ill."

"Yeah, but a blanket won't hurt." He smiles weakly and she starts to remove the vomit from his hair. "By the way, you didn't even think about holding your hair back?"

"Shut up." He turns his head away, but not in time for her to miss the small smile he tries to hide.

The doorbell rings and Jarla walks to the front door. She opens the door, revealing Gerard's younger brother Mikey. "What are you doing here?"

"Gerard's here, isn't he?"

"Yeah, how-"

"He called me last night in a state that, I assume, was wasted, saying that he went to your place. I wasn't sure whether to pick him up last night or today. Seemed more socially acceptable"

"Oh don't worry, I kind of prepared for having him here the rest of the day and maybe even longer." She shrugs and opens the door further, stepping aside to let Mikey know he can come in.

They walk to the living room together where Gerard was just curling himself into the blanket that Jarla always keeps on one end of the couch, making a human burrito of himself. He always does that when they have horror movie marathons, where she would hide herself under the blanket and he would laugh at the movie, but once he realises she is scared he would drag her against his chest and pause the movie if necessary for her. She would be lying if she said she'd never pretended to be scared so she could lie against him.

She realises it must confuse Gerard why they keep having them, because she is deadly afraid of horror movies.

Shaking her head she gets out of her thoughts and notices Gerard has completed "burrito-ing" himself and smiles softly at her best friend. He mumbles something incomprehensible and both Jarla and Mikey laugh at him while he tries to free his mouth from the blanket.

"Mikey, whatcha doing here?"

"Answering your desperate call for help." Gerard's eyebrows shoot up in confusion and Mikey adds: "You called me last night when you were, well, in your 'state'." He air quotes.

"Oh." Is all he says as he casts his eyes down.

"It's okay, it's what siblings are for, apart from giving you homicidal tendencies." He shrugs and puts his hands in his pockets.

"Mikey, can I talk to you for a moment?" He nods and they walk to the kitchen together.