Gerard never fails to feel shocked when he gets home to an empty house. He doesn’t even know why; it’s been seven years since he moved out of his parents place and he has always lived on his own since then.
But still, every time Gerard swings open the off-white door he feels a little drop in his stomach and he has to take a few shallow breaths before he can step fully into the small flat.
Gerard paints for a little while and considers watching some TV except he has no idea where the remote is and he has to admit that he's feeling beat, so he just ends up going to bed.
The sheets are cold when he first climbs in and Gerard really misses Otter right now, misses the companionship the small feline provided on nights like these. The bed covered in cat hair and Otter curled up on Gerard's pillow, pleased to see him and purring.
He always feels like this after the day is done, once the knowledge that his only and best friend is a seventy-eight-year-old woman with a lacking memory and dead husband, and though, most days he thinks that is kind of cool in a weird way, he still really needs someone to hang out outside of her, with someone that was born in the same decade as him.
Gerard tries to think good of the dinner party tomorrow, and almost convinces himself that it will be a fun night, he can hang out with people his age and see his brother and his wife and it will be nice. It will be good for him.
He falls asleep eventually and dreams about an elephant who works for the circus.
Every day the elephant has to lift it’s leg in order for one of the girls dressed in feathers to climb onto his back. When the elephant lifts it’s leg he’s given a peanut, so everyday the elephant lifts his leg even when he’s old and it hurts to do so, then one night when all the crowds have gone home and all the performers are back in their trailers, a lamp is knocked over by one of the monkeys and a fire begins to spread.
At first the elephant is too tiered to notice the approaching flames, but soon they lick against the steel bars of his cage and the smoke comes in to rouse the elephant from its sleep. The elephant tries to move away from the fire and the bars but the cage isn’t big enough for the elephant to run away, so he simply stands and watches as the heat spreads though the tent. The last thing the elephant thinks is ‘my leg really hurts’ then Gerard wakes up.
Gerard doesn’t know why the dream bothers him like it does, but he's woken up in a cold sweat and he has to push the hair out of his eyes with a clammy hand and just sit and breathe for a little while feeling lost, and scared and shaken up through his core.
It’s around ten by the time Gerard has just about let the dream go. I’ll paint it later, he think,s but first he has to do washing because he’s pretty sure the guests later wont want to sit next to a human ash tray, even if they will be too polite to say so. He decides he should probably wash his hair and make an effort for once because he hasn’t hung out with anyone but Mrs Harte in weeks. The razor feels too cold and sharp on his sensitive skin as he shaves, but he gets through it, one light stroke at a time.
He takes his shower and jacks off amongst the soapy water, not really thinking about anything or anyone just wishing that it wasn’t his goddamn hand again. It’s been too long since Gerard’s had a lover and though it’s not exactly surprising, since the only people he ever sees are Mrs Harte and his brother, he still blames his lack of action on his body. His awkward angels and pale skin that’s always stretched too tightly across his bones, so much that he can feel all of them working against one another and it makes him want to throw up.
Gerard lets out a shaky breath and just relaxes back into the water watching it skim and drip over his knuckles and his hips and all the other places Gerard just wants to be touched. Eventually, he gives it up because even if he wasn’t the awkward fag artist that he is, he still would find something else to get frustrated over and he just doesn’t see the use in it anymore.
