your wooden heart gave me splinters.

there's something in this, i'm sure

2009-11-09T21:56:21Z

you tell me i'm not really human because i only ever laugh in silhouettes and often there's no sound, just air like i'm gasping, like i'm drowning, like there's nothing left but shadows in my lungs and they're dancing and they're dancing and oh look how they dance... and i say you're not really human because you only ever laugh in block colours and sometimes i dream i'm inside of you and you are full of people and all these people are colours and all these colours are red and blue and yellow but everyone's too afraid to meet and greet and, green, who? i'm too afraid, we're constantly too afraid, because there's no structure in this and sometimes i am nothing but the looks you give me until i keep existing as you're laughing in colours that refuse to exist and i keep existing until i'm laughing in people which are people with nothing but contours and somehow, somehow, you are there and you are fabricated from something that refuses to live inside of me and somehow, somehow, we are human once more

GEOGRAPHY FOR THE HORNY

2009-09-07T19:56:55Z

his smile is all the contours of an equator
trembling
a little self conscious; see, here, he is all instinct
no demeanor nor poise

see, here, this is the world in him
he laughs so wide i think i can see his
core

inner and outer

they are a little self conscious, too,
in the way that they are exposed when i skitter my fingers
among the hollows of his curves
ribs
neck
like spiders, running, dancing, skating
as the ground shakes beneath their scurrying legs
laughter erupting through his ribcage

and his inner and outer cores

they are a little scared, too,
see, they are so central
they are necessary when they crave contingence

necessary is such a raw need, a passion,
we are nothing without our passions.

necessary is the passion for the earthquakes, the bones shaking and rattling
in his world
when my equator aligns against his

past friends will screw you over

2009-08-05T23:09:35Z

they are saying, darling, you've become positively romantic, at the time in your life when you despise the only romance you possess.

and i say, yes, darling, that's what makes it so darn charming.

500 something words perhaps. or almost.

i say to you, you wanna know what? this is our wedding day. if we ever got married, today would be today. we nevergetmarried. not together, but separately. sure. but this is it. this is how it'd be.

i cough, and you fidget, and i am in a white gown and the band is calling us to dance

(calling us: inviting, beckoning. the sharp strings plucked from a violin on stage and the sound is swallowed by our muffled breathes. we are laughing. the violin laughs alongside us, like an old college friend who's familiarity materialises laughter from our bellies, hungrily spilling from our lungs like a prisoner crawling from its cell desperately. its grubby fingers cling and clutch as they pull it away from its entrapment. i feel it tug inside of me like butterflies).

your eyes are small from up close, and swinging side to side side to side you are the only object that is not thrown back in movement, the only one that my own eyes can keep up with. we are alone figures of stagnation, but we never stop dancing. voices cheer behind and in front and beside us like walls. the violin splutters out hysterically, and we laugh with it. our college friend. it says, you remember colin cripton, the head of the cricket team? and we do, and we remember that night he got so drunk he stripped round campus, and oh god yes, i remember that time too! just like that, we are old friends, companions, pals and we are sharing this movement, this time, together. the air is thin around us. we eat it like it will taste more real each time we gobble it up.

the first dance is over and the dance floor floods with the others, our guests, and i have almost forgotten they were even there. the music changes tempo -- faster beat, quicker fingers. the violin is no longer how we remember and it no longer plays for us. we forget how, no one ever stays the same. half those assholes from college will share a story or two with us before leaving. theyalways do.

the sky -- we point up to it, and it is darkening with time. ripening like fruit and wine and suddenly my mouth fills with the ache to taste it, the colours in front of me. you, my husband, stand beside me and the air between us warms. you say, you see? the sky's not leaving for night. the sky in light and the sky in darkness, they're the same, and i think you're right.

the air dampens back in my kitchen. you say, so we never marry? that, all that you just told me, never really happens? and i say no.

we marry, sure. just not together. just not to each other. you laugh and say, you're crazy, you know that right? and when you walk away the prisoner inside my lungs cling and clutch, begging to flee.

there was a silver tree

2009-06-12T22:51:05Z

for apparently my feelings are fucking transparent. let's runaway, you and i.

there was a silver tree.
(because i like my brightest diamond and her lyrics). 450 words of whatever i felt like writing.

the day history was swept from this earth was a day of peace. if only we knew, if only we knew.

we watch morning give birth to light, and day erupts into our fragile shells, until the sun falls from the sky and we wonder where it has landed, whether it is happy there. whether it will miss us. (for we miss it, the way the light scatters shadows and shade among us, giving birth to dark reflections that follow us loyally where the ground was once baron.) but then there is night, and there is dark, and up there those gold speckles are watching just for us. we wonder, how small must we seem from up there? how fleeting and insignificant? why, if our feet were to raise above the ground the stars would surely never be able to see it, all the way from their homes, but they will whisper among themselves, are they getting closer? perhaps they have not forgotten us? but we never rise, and we never remember. we keep going.

we have not forgotten our words, when we open our mouths the sound is loud, clear -- as if our mouths know, they will never forget their past. our tongues have tasted so many syllables that surely they must have materialised from their own memories, their own knowledge. but we forget what our words were used for, what did i once call you? our feet are dragging behind us. we keep going.

look at that space there by your collarbone, that dip your eyes can't reach. the air catches in it and casts shadows among the bone there, as if the darkness is retreating in that shelter. and my, look at how our fingers entwine -- they fit like the ribcage inside of us that shakes and splutters with the air moving inandoutinandout. perhaps the bones miss the air when it is gone, perhaps it shrinks into itself out of sorrow -- look, i am nothing without you, it is saying, take me with you. then the air returns once more and it gains its once expanded form, until the ribcage is left again. oh, what a shallow life, so captivated by the love that fills its empty space.

there, look! there is the sun once more! and when we take our gaze to the sky the sun has filled the sky like it had oh so long ago. there we are, you and i, hand in hand, watching time shift past until our bodies are too tired to stand any longer, and our ribcages are left alone once more, retreated in heartbreak.

imyourlostsoul @ 2009-05-03T20:46:00

2009-05-03T19:54:17Z

i. don't even know. my bb brandixcyanide is a BB and we have all sorts of shenanigans. GLORIOUS CHATFIC WHERE PANIC VISIT THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH~ or something.

imconfusedotcom: we got oldddd, brandikins

brandixcyanide: we did. WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN AND HOW DO WE MAKE IT STOP?

imconfusedotcom: TO THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH!
i'd love a story where they find the fountain of youth, idek

brandixcyanide: dude, yes.
that would be awesome.

imconfusedotcom: because they're all turning ~older and want their youth back, except for spencer stays in there for too long and becomes a preteen again. and then they discover that even 12 year old spencer had a bitchface
and they all fail at trying to turn him back older and have to look after babyspence

brandixcyanide: ahahahahaha
brendon thinks he's adorable! he's going to buy him a SKATEBAORD.

imconfusedotcom: and all he wants is to be a skaterboy, except for ryan gets protective and insists that he wears elbow pads and a helmet
he'll never be an awesome skaterboy with kneepads!

brandixcyanide: jon laughs at them and takes lots of pictures, much to chubby bb!spencer's dismay.

imconfusedotcom: brendon is delighted
they won't give him any caffeine and spence is UNAMUSED.

brandixcyanide: "IT WILL STUNT YOUR GROWTH SPENCER! AND YOU WANT TO BE 6 FEET TALL JUST LIKE... YOU USED OT BE?"

imconfusedotcom: and he'll insist he's old enough to stay up and watch mtv, thank you very much, but he gets all tired and snappy. he gets frustrated because he can't go out anymore and they have to have babysitting shifts
spencer hates brendon's shifts. he insists they play connect4

brandixcyanide: SPENCER IS TOO MATURE FOR CONNECT FOUR, BRENDON. at least that what he says when loses.

imconfusedotcom: brendon's a big cheater anyway

brandixcyanide: he totally cheats at candy land, too. spencer saw him shuffle the cards, he KNOWS, ok?

imconfusedotcom: and monopoly, he totally steals from the bank

brandixcyanide: so does ryan, who insists on wearing one of those green accountant visors when he's the banker.

imconfusedotcom: ahaha omg y ♥ spence always mocks him and asks, 'would you like a monocle with that outfit, too?' but ryan politely refuses and shuffles his cards very seriously

brandixcyanide: and then sells jon boardwalk for a ridiculously low price. ryan is playing favorites ands spencer is not amused.

imconfusedotcom: he insists that you can't change the price that's already stated for a property but ryan just smirks and raises an eyebrow and says, 'oh can't i?' and on spencer's next go sells him a property for double the price

brandixcyanide: spencer is through playing monopoly with ryan, who was a cheater evene when they were BOTH 12.

imconfusedotcom: eventually they get very tired of spencer's huffs every two seconds and decide that somehow they need to fix his age and revert him back

brandixcyanide: and of course the asnwer to this is? call pete wentz.
who tells them to call gerard because the same thign totally happened to frank last time they were on warped.

imconfusedotcom: whilst they're waiting for gerard to come over pete insists on dropping by, who brings along lots of candy and 12 year skater t shirt and makes cooing noises at a very pissed off spencer

brandixcyanide: spencer is not going to turn down the candy though.

imconfusedotcom: he glares at ryan the whole time as he munches on his candy because ryan keeps telling him he's getting chubby
and it's not his fault he has babyfat, ok?

brandixcyanide: he does however, kick pete in the shins. and it's only in the shins because last time he went for the nuts? brendon kicked him back. hard.

imconfusedotcom: so gerard drops by with the guys, and spencer's delighted because bob shows him a few tricks on the drums and spence is secretly still a little fangirl and is all star eyed

brandixcyanide: absolutely. in the mean time, ryan is giving them the third degree on how to FIX spencer. Gerard rambles off soething about voodoo practitioners and gris gris bags, and mikey rolls his eyes.
Ryan thinks gerard is amybe a little unhinged (but he's still a little starstruck himself)

imconfusedotcom: so they take all of gerard's voodoo crap and thank them, and that night spence crawls into bed with ryan and ryan acts all pissed that spencer is stealing all the sheets, but when he falls asleep ryan whispers, "i'll miss you, bby spence' and the next morning when he wakes up, spencer is back to his former state

brandixcyanide: when ryan calls to thank gerard, he's all "wait, that really worked? i was just throwing otu suggestions. frank returned to normal on his own after a few weeks."

imconfusedotcom: and there went the mystery of baby spencer. (they learn never to mess with the fountain of youth again, even when brendon tries to drag ryan there, "please ry, i just wanna freak some people out!" ryan is having none of it.)

brandixcyanide: \o/

imconfusedotcom: that was a glorious story :D

imyourlostsoul @ 2009-03-13T17:42:00

2009-03-13T17:46:33Z

cosmic radiation and sun burn
1600 words of me practising speeches. con-crit very much needed.

"you're the type of person who likes plain dark chocolate. you're the type that is given a box of variations of dark chocolates for a special occasion and eats every plain one, but never once attempts to explore the possibilities, even though they're really all compiled from the same idea," he tells me, as his fingers drum out a faint beat against the desk. a beautiful oak desk, surface stained and bruised, curls of brown and the faintest trails of white. i tell him i do not understand what he means. (i want to add that i hate dark chocolate; that rich, bitter taste that lines my mouth, slips down my throat, i can still taste it on the ridges of my teeth and on the back of my tongue as it stains my inside black but i do not think that that's what he meant.)

he leans back in his chair and begins speaking, "there was a fellow i used to know, faintly, connections trailing on past where i can find the start. now this man, he used to take polaroid pictures." he looks up once, straight at me, to make sure i have his attention. he does. he continues. "he had this huge, old contraption on his desk and an old shoebox full of film. he carried it everywhere he went in a clear bag, keeping his camera in plastic lining, until his box began to rot. the edges were damp, softening from the inside out, curling and fraying with every place he took this damn shopping bag with his camera and film. i ask him one day, what types of photos do you take? because i am seriously beginning to doubt that this camera even works, it's as old as anything, thick and black and solid. and he tells me that everyday for the last two years he has taken a photo of the sky.

now; you may not realise, but that's a lot of sky. 730 photos of one exploration of the world. it must surely get boring, that one aspect of life. so i ask him, do you travel a lot, then? because surely, surely this man must at least explore the ground, taking shots of the vast sparse of blue and grey and white. and he says, no, i haven't slept in a bed other then my own for two years.

and i'm thinking, 730 days in his own bed. that's a whole lotta days to never be exploring, if you think about it. i don't know how i would survive, all that time waking up in the same destination. i'm the kinda guy who likes hotel beds, likes falling asleep in newly washed sheets and not recognising where the fuck am i for the first few groggy seconds of my morning. i like booking myself into beds and falling into bed with strangers and sleeping out on friends of friend's couches. i like that moment of irreplaceable confusion; i like being secluded in my own mind for hours on end, and waking up into the light utterly, utterly lost. it's a thrill for me. but this guy, he won't have it. 730 whole fucking mornings waking up knowing, can you imagine that? but that's just exactly the type of guy he was.

so here i am, out on the street where i've bumped into him, and i'm questioning him about his film. and i'm saying, what type of film you using? because i'm curious and polite and honest to god, no matter what type of film he pulls up out from that splitting, aging bag of his i'm not gonna be able to distinguish it from any better or worse brands. i can hear the russle that the bag makes as he digs his arm in, elbow deep in clear plastic, and pulls out in his fist with a box. i notice here that his hands are exceptionally clean. the backs of them are hairless; these smooth, spotless canvases of skin. i'm beginning to wonder for a moment whether it's the chemicals in the dark room. i mean, you're always hearing about that, right? a friend of mine back in college used to have no fingerprints, swear to god. smooth as anything. it was like he had no identity."

he looks at his own fingers as he talks. i think that he is probably inspecting his own fingerprints. i'm wondering if this is making him feel alive, individual, a somebody, knowing that there are swirls of tiny unique patterns carved ever so finely into the soft pads.

he continues, "but then i realise that polaroids come out automatically, right? no need for dark rooms. he shoves this box, this fraying, unopened box of film into my hands before i can question, and i read the box vaguely interested. i have no idea what half the words mean, or what they are trying to specify about the product. so i just scan read half heartedly, wondering why the hell i asked in the first place. the guy's still standing there, looking polite as i rub my fingers around the dulled corners of the packaging.

and that's when i notice the expiration date, printed in black, small figures on the lid, fading just enough that i have to squint to make it out. i didn't even know that camera film had an expiration date in all honesty, so i check twice, but yes, that is most definitely an expiration date.

i say to him, it's the eighth today, isn't it? and he says, yes, i'm fairly sure it is. i jab out a finger to the little date and push the box a little further to his vision line and say, this film's gonna expire by tomorrow. you gonna be able to use all this up, you reckon?

i almost feel bad for pointing this out as soon as i see his face fall. he scrambles his hand back into the bag, pulling out box after box of film, checking the dates. i suppose that he bought all the film together on a special deal. the lines on his forehead deepen and his frown extends lower and lower.

i suppose i didn't realise they expired so soon, he murmurs he checks one last box before sighing in defeat, dropping it back in with a faint crinkle of the bag. it seemed odd to me that someone who could carry the same objects around with him for two years could not quite possibly realised the date they expired. it seemed absurd. we are bathed in quite for a moment before i inform him that i didn't even realise that film didn't last forever.

he doesn't smile but the deep set lines on his forehead soften a little. he mumbles something about thermal stress and cosmic radiation and chemicals inside the film, causing these ugly little brown spots to appear that stain the image. i reply jokingly that it would probably be quite noticeable, what with the sky not having brown clouds, but he doesn't seem very happy. he sighs very sadly and scuffs the ground with his toe. he whispers to me, very quietly, i guess i'll have to throw it away now.

now to me, this seems the most absurd of it all. why don't you go out and take photos of the world?, i say, because this seems like the opportunity for him to move on, try something new. and he's reluctant at first, kick kick kicking away at the damn ground with the toe of his sneakers, until he finally gives in with a soft, i suppose i could try."

he finishes talking and i do not even realise that is this the last of the story. i nudge my head encouragingly. "go on," i say.

he laughs. "well, that's it."

"how can that be it? how is that in anyway relevant to me?"

"you want to know what happens next?" he asks, and i'm beginning to get frustrated here, feel the blood sweep across my body in flush movements. my fingers curl a little and i sound indignant when i speak.

"well of course i do!"

"he takes my advice. this man, who has never slept anywhere but his bed nor taken a photo of anything other then the sky without fail for 170 days solid, goes out and takes photos of the world. he travels out on the train, never venturing too far, but takes dozens and dozens of photos. there are hundreds of thousands of colours and images and stories and it is so much more then anything he has ever captured before. they are beautiful, these polaroids, the real deal. and you know what he does when he finally arrives home that night?" i shake my head. "he tucks the photos away beneath his bed except for the first one, that first photo he took that day of the watery sky outside his window, and sticks it on his bedroom on the wall next to to 170 others. he never looks at those photos again, and that night he has a dreamless night sleep in a bed he has slept in for 170 days without fail."

"oh." i breathe out softly, wondering why i was hoping for something different, something incredible. "so that's me? that man with the bag full of expiring film and an old, dingy camera?"

he looks at me and doesn't reply, but i suppose he doesn't really need to. the story is clear.

that night i crawl up on the sofa, my bed untouched, and dream of everything similar as it has always been, and it is as bitter as that dark chocolate, swirling down my throat.

imyourlostsoul @ 2009-03-08T13:20:00

2009-03-08T13:28:36Z

took me last night and this morning to write. i am, quite possibly, on a role.

grateful for the sun
mostly gen (pete orientated), ~1300 words, based on we are cities prompt april 03 08. yada yada yada, my mind has lost itself, etcetc. enjoy.

It's about the blood
banging in the body,
and the brain
lolling in its bed
like a happy baby.
At your touch, the nerve,
that volatile spook tree,
vibrates. The lungs
take up their work
with a giddy vigor.
Tremors in the joints
and tympani,
dust storms
in the canister of sugar.
The coil of ribs
heats up, begins
to glow. Come
here. -- yes, catherine doty.

i. there are times when pete can press his fingers against the shallow of her collarbone, skim the runway of her spine, mouth secrets into the curve of her hip and think of a million different words in a second, every letter curling against another against another against another until they blot out the light that gives birth to their shadows and they just, disperse. as simple as that.

he can feel the slight indented curve of the bottom of her skull where it meets her neck, hidden beneath the short curls of hair there. curl his fingers around her wrists and feel the push of her bones beneath his grip, feel the movement that he has created but has no control over. and he has made her, he has created this -- materialised thoughts into skin and bones and flesh and he wonders sometimes how she can be oh so delicate, how she can be oh so reliant on the air that fills and leaves her lungs and the blood that rushes round her (and only occasionally leaves again, when she scrapes her skin against surfaces too hard for her). he worries; he worries that he is too solid for her, that she is all liquid and colour and really not very stable at all.

and then he realises that really, she is just as delicate as he is, and that thought is the most worrying, the one that races his heart so fast he can hear the own beats trembling inside of his mind. but he always sleeps a little easier those nights, a gentle grip around her wrists so that he dreams of the movement inside of her.

ii. he has made none before her and none after and he wonders whether this makes her both the beginning and the end, or neither at all.

perhaps her fabrication into this world has always happened, or was always designed, or perhaps in a distant land she has never been there, or perhaps she always has. he is curious whether perhaps there was ever a possibility of her existence never coming into place. whether she is god given or man made or just a little of both. whether it is possible for him to hold on so tight that he can hear her thoughts, louder and clearer and enunciated so more more punctually than his own.

pete has always been curious, he has always needed and wanted and desired to know, but now that he has known and now cannot the hunger is sharper then it once was, because she has answered so little but asked so much.

he asks her one day, when the light from outside is grey and the whole room is dulled with this off white shade that makes every colour inside of it just a little brighter, what she believes happens when you die. he wonders if she believes. he wonders if perhaps since every ridge of her tooth and the curve of her jawline and the curl of her pinna of her ear is created by him then perhaps so are her thoughts. he wonders if perhaps her thoughts are the thoughts that he has never believed -- their minds work in opposites, a flip of the coin. the question is black or white and only as simple as that and he decides on white and so she decides on black, just like that. or perhaps it is really not as simple as that and there must be an in between, a space for other possibilities. for grey and silver and slate. perhaps her mind is both a literal and metaphorical parallel universe for his dreams that have never happened, his thoughts that never were, his ideas he could never quite grasp. and in the four and a half second delay it takes for her to respond, he wonders all of this. he wonders whether perhaps they have been made for each other even if she was created by him.

she says, finally, "i think that you cannot emerge from nothing. there must be substance, of course there is substance, because you are compiled of energy that has always been and can never be destroyed, only reused, but there must be design." (and he remembers teaching her that; about how energy can never be created or destroyed. her eyes went big as he spoke and her chin was rested on the palm of her hand so that her fingers were turned upright, pressing into the side of her cheek.) "there must be something more. and i think that in this life you must learn and live and wonder, and in the next you will know. does that." she pauses, as if suddenly conscious that perhaps her chain of methodical thinking may be wrong, self conscious of her own beliefs. pete recognises this as one of his own flaws; worries that he has passed on his own paranoia through his flawless creation. "does that make sense, do you think?"

he smiles and nods, yes, he says, that makes perfect sense. she laughs and looks downwards, playing with her fingers on her lap as if not quite sure how to show that she is pleased. and it is beautiful to see and she is beautiful and oh, how could he have created something so beautiful when there was no beauty to begin with? and he leans forwards to press a kiss against the corner of her lips, just because he can.

she smiles and smiles until the dimples in her cheeks appear to be a permanent feature to anyone who wouldn't know otherwise. she smiles and smiles as she looks down, plays with her fingers.

he writes it down that night, when the light is dimmed down so the words on the pages seem like they don't exist, she has changed. he writes, my desire to read her is so fixating that i forgot she is not the same as me any more and then curls into his side of the bed. when he tries to close his eyes he can't seem to be able to do it and even blinking seems too slow for him, as if after that split second he was cast in darkness he will open his eyes once more to something completely deviating from what it was before and he would have missed the process of change.

at some time during the night, when he can hear her soft breathing beside him, he pulls the sheets off of him and grabs his pen, not bothering to turn on the lamp (she is so aware of light, he forgets, even in her dreams she can feel the gold press into her) and adds, i forget that she is not mine anymore. that i am not the same as her. i had become so addicted to knowing that i fear i will never know anything else again and after that, he sleeps a little better.

iii. he begins a new journal. he writes in this journal the everyday happenings. he notes every time she smiles; every time she pauses, looking concerned; every time she is too aware of the light; every time she isn't.

he thinks that this is healthier. he thinks that this is what a designer would do. and he thinks that somewhere else, there is a journal with every time she doesn't smile; every time she looks relieved; every time she is isn't cautious of the light; every time she is. he doesn't worry about it too much, though. the possibilities. just writes and writes and stops every time she touches his wrists, presses kisses against the corner of his lips.

imyourlostsoul @ 2008-12-27T11:53:00

2008-12-27T12:05:52Z

disputing madness and burlesque bars
pete/mikey, (mikey/alicia), time traveling, pg-13, 6035 words

a big thank you to idktbh who's the reason i didn't pull out of this. thank you maryam, for everything. big big big thank you to eternelle for checking through my chaotic mess of writing. ♥♥

warnings: gross historical inaccuracies, plot?, THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN. I AM OUTRAGED., and cliche galore. oh, my.

for bandom_solstice.

disputing madness and burlesque bars

It starts with a slight tremor, just a fault in the system, a skip in a heartbeat. Mikey blinks and the world falters to the distance before it comes flashing back again, too loud and too bright and too intense to handle all at once.

"You okay?" Pete asks, voice tinged with concerned, an abrupt dose of reality once more, reaching out a hand to place on Mikey's shoulder. It feels too heavy, sitting there, and so very hot, as if there is no fabric separating the two, just the bare skin of Pete's hand against the bare skin of Mikey's shoulder. There is a ringing in his ears as if he has just been inside of a train in of a tunnel when another slides past it, a sudden burst of tense pressure, and everything feels too thick around him.

There's a dull ache that shakes through his entire body. "Yeah, I’m. I’m fine."

Somewhere merged in the distance, there is the background clatter of porcelain being dropped against the tiled flooring. An embarrassed waitress readjusts the strap of the apron fastened around her waist and sweeps the broken plate back onto the tray, cheeks tinging red from the occasional whoop whistles and applaud from customers in the cafe.

Reality flutters back. Mikey wonders if perhaps he was imagining that anything happened at all. He sips his coffee and smiles at whatever Pete is saying.

*

The first time it happens (or perhaps it's the second, Mikey is still unsure whether he can count the first flicker of traveling. That was just the aftermath, none of the experience) he only lands a day back in the past.

It is the fourth of April. It is a day that he has already lived.

He wakes up in Pete's bed, just like the previous morning, Pete curled into his side, just like the previous morning, and the morning sinks into the room the same way. He’s pretty sure that even the bed sheets have twisted and twirled into the exact same position, each strip of slightly curled fabric mimicking the past, or perhaps it's the current now. Mikey is not sure anymore.

It’s an unsettling feeling of déjà vu -- the way that Mikey knows how Pete will wake up no longer then a minute after he does, the way Pete looks up at him and blinks stupidly whilst mumbling a content,

"Morning, tiger."

It’s a ridiculous nickname and Mikey can't help but smile, corners of his lips upturning in just the same way they did yesterday (today, now, currently, whenever.)

He settles for déjà vu. It seems plausible, somehow, allowing him to not have to over think each action that he knows has already happened every time it repeats itself, and that night he is content to sleep the same way he already had done before.

It’s only the next morning when Mikey wakes in a different bed opposed to the one he fell asleep in, his own bed this time rather then Pete's, that he realises that perhaps it wasn't déjà vu after all.
His alarm clock is loud and unforgiving, so so very loud, in his right ear.

Today is the seventh of April.

He blinks and rubs his eyes, feeling a stretch pull through his body, his blood dancing a little frantically around the course of his veins. He has already turned his alarm clock on snooze yet the ringing refuses to cease, repercussions of the shrills playing over and over on repeat through Mikey's mind.

"Fuck." he murmurs to himself, sitting himself upright in bed and running a hand through his unwashed hair.

He stumbles around to find his sidekick in his pants pocket, each sleep induced footstep more slurred then the previous. There are six messages, each from Pete, gradually processing to more frantic until finally, they stop.

They begin with, "heymikeymikey, where you up to? werent there when I woke up. call me" and each one is typed in the exact way Pete types to everyone, lack of capitalisation and no real grammar. Fast fingers against the keys. He scrolls down a little further, until finally, they end with, "fuckyou mikey, if youre gonna brake up with me at least do it to my face."

Mikey groans and begins to furiously type out an apology.

He’s going to need answers to questions he doesn't even know how to begin thinking up.

*

He tells Gerard first because it's Gerard, and if anyone else would understand this then it would be him.

The walls of the cartoon network staff room are just that little bit off white, all that less pristine and bright with age. Across them is an array of posters pinned up, designs, those cartoons that made it to the screens and the ones That Never Were, but the creators still hold close to their heart. Vibrant marker pens and sketchy outlines and the 2D characters watch him from every angle. From beside Gerard's head, just behind him, Mikey can see an old movie poster, paper corners frayed and curled with the strain of being moved around so much, probably.

"So what's up? Thought you hated coming down here." Gerard asks, blunt fingernails pushing against the empty styrofoam cup as he talks, layering the white material with different thicknesses that makes the surface look endless, rolls and rolls of inconsistent waves like the ocean.

That was, in actual fact, not strictly true. It wasn't that he hated coming down here, he just wasn't particularly fond of the people who worked here. They all seemed to be thinking thoughts against of him, a collective group of disliking to Mikey. Gerard always told him that he was crazy, no one where he worked hated him, told him that no matter what he thought they weren’t all vampires eyeing up their new fresh meal, but even Gerard’s vampire jokes didn't assure Mikey anymore. He was always reluctant to come down here, but he was desperate today.

Mikey sighs. There is no one else in the room but them, just the hungry thrum and whirr of the coffee machine and press press press of Gerard's finger tips indenting the cup. He could afford to be honest right now, perhaps, but the words seem to hesitate leaving the comfortable realms of Mikey's mind into the real world, the cool surroundings of the air-conditioned staff room.

"So it seems that I have been time traveling, or whatever."

Gerard blinks, but he seems relatively unfazed. Mikey works it out to be because Gerard’s the type of person who prepares himself for the unexpected, always was and always will be, and even the flicker of surprise leaves as abruptly as it arrived. His grip leaves the cup and it comes to rest at last onto the table between them, plastic surface scratched with a variation of white lines.

"Dinosaur time traveling?"

Mikey laughs. It’s a typical thing for Gerard to say, and the slight upraised corners of Gerard's lips shows that he probably knows it is too.

"Not really, no. I don't know how I would survive being chased by a dinosaur."

"Yeah. Those mother fuckers are huge," and then Gerard shifts in his seat, eyes resting on Mikey's seriously for a second. "How often has it happened?"

His voice seems to have softened, and Mikey's not sure why. He’d rather have Gerard have a sharp tone, sharp words, loud and disbelieving, because then perhaps this wouldn't seem as frighteningly real. As if he could have someone else tell him he's being crazy, he hasn't had enough sleep recently and his mind probably isn't in the best of states, then perhaps it would all stop for a second. But it doesn't.

The coffee machine's whirls in the background cease. The quiet is unsettling.

"A few times, now. I don't know when they're going to happen, I can't feel it. There’s no warnings signs. Just the after effects."

"After effects?"

"Yeah, um. Ringing in my ears. Everything feels intensified, each of my senses. It’s like I can feel my own heart beat, you know? The blood travel round my body. It’s... I can't describe it."

"You get nose bleeds?"

"No," Mikey pauses. "I don't think so, not yet. Why? Should I be getting them?"

Gerard shrugs. "It was just a guess. Happens in the butterfly effect, right?"

Mikey manages to a small laugh. Gerard loves that movie, and really, so does Mikey. The concept of it all; memories stitched together by words printed on a page, images in a photo, let your mind feed off of them and suddenly you're reliving the moment again. The past is about as steady and forgiving as the future, and every second can be changed, altered.

"I seem to be getting further and further in the past though, every time it happens. Is that normal?"

"I don't know. I don't think that time traveling happens consecutively, one period of time after another and you make your way across them gradually. Unless fiction has been lying to me all this time, it should be random outbursts of any time period."

"Well that hasn't been the case yet. Seems like Hollywood’s tricked you again."

Gerard smirks. "Perhaps I have a secret weapon. I’ll use it when they least expect it."

"I don't think that you no longer buying their movies isn't gonna do a whole lot."

"You see Mikes, that's just where you're wrong -- "

The air conditioning makes the room feel artificially light, summer breezes and thin veils of air too tangible to be real. Mikey shuts his eyes to the sound of Gerard talking and let's himself forget about it all for an instant, one beautiful moment where all he can see is light, and he feels tired, so very very tired.

When he opens his eyes, he's no longer opposite Gerard, in the uncomfortably bright and modern seats of Cartoon Network's staff room. Instead, he is situated in an unfamiliar living room, beige curtains drawn tightly shut so that the light in the room is stained, and the furniture is all dated, something out of his grandmother's house.

He blinks. These changes are getting more and more out of hand, he thinks.

*

The thing is, if he could just control this, perhaps it would be okay. If he could just know a little beforehand when it would happen, if he could know where he was going instead of having to work it out on arrival, if he could understand why this is happening.

If if if.

*

He travels to the future, one time, the week after he talks to Gerard.

The future feels perhaps more distant then the past; more changeable, more delicate, as if everything is dependent on him and every movement he makes. He is overly cautious and overly aware for every minute of the night he spends there.

After that, he doesn't ever travel to the future again. He’s surprisingly grateful.

*

He tells Pete next (yet then again, there aren’t a whole lot of people in Mikey’s life anymore to tell). It had to happen eventually, now with days and days spilling onto weeks of disappearing, and suddenly now, "I’ve just been really busy," doesn't seem to cut it anymore.

Pete doesn't seem to be angry or confused or worried. Not curious as much as realising, as if all the pieces have suddenly come together. He smiles a little, too forced to be real (and Mikey knows that smile, that fake smile he shines in the faces of others when he's leaving something behind), and his eyes are clouded with exhaustion and anxiety, too many thoughts layering upon one other, and Mikey wonders why he never noticed before just how tired Pete looks these days.

He considers that he is quite possibly the world's worst boyfriend (friend, lover, fuck mate, he still isn't completely sure what 'this' is, exactly). He’ll have to fix that, he thinks, after he manages to work this whole Time Traveling business.

"Just. Promise that you won't go sleeping round with the past?" Pete murmurs jokingly later that night, dim and dark air settling against his skin, riveting shadows past the covers and into the shaded contours of the room, but his voice's tone has a sharp edge of seriousness, heartbreakingly real. Mikey doesn't think that he has ever heard Pete sound genuinely concerned when it comes to his faithfulness, but suddenly he wants to promise it all, his fidelity, promise and promise and promise until the words wind into one like stretches of grey road in front of him.

"As long as you promise to not go fucking round in the modern day?"

Pete laughs a little, shuffles forwards. "Deal."

Pete's grin is bright in the darkness and Mikey feels his heart flutter inside of him at the sight. Presses a little closer, feels his heartbeat sing to Pete's.

*

The funny thing is, the most ironic, shining proudly on top of this all (irony's sin is pride, too boastful, just a little overbearing) is that perhaps, a time not so distant from now, Mikey would have wanted this. Overwrite the mistakes and errors, always thinking backwards, rewinding and rewinding until all the present are scenes that have already been lived, words recited and scenes unable to be changed, intangible through a glass screen.

But not like this. No, because this is different, this isn't a way of correcting his mistakes. He’s reliving it all, lives that he's never lived and days that he has, unable to control the inconsistent flickers between reality and present and past and future. Unobtainable and frustrating and the ringing in his ears is an almost permanent fixture, uncomfortably familiar, fragments of sound knotted together until it's all he can ever hear.

His body feels worn.

He feels older than he once was (but no more wiser).

*

Mikey was never a homesick child, not once (okay so perhaps this one time in camp, but he was twelve and the sound that the rain made when it threw itself against the roof of his tent made it seem like the world was ending. He can be forgiven for that) but now it seems to have developed inside of him, worming itself through his body, across the course of blood until everything aches with wanting.

He feels drowsy with worry.

It’s been one month since he arrived here. He has no idea how long it's been since he's been missing back home.

It happened during the afternoon of the twenty-eighth of August. Great pillars and rays of brilliant white flooding the room and suddenly the humid, sweltering air is replaced by chills of wind, uninviting in their appearance. The living room of his apartment where he was standing just minutes ago (seconds, hours, days) has reached inside of itself with long, needy fingers and pulled and pulled until it has successfully pulled itself inside out, skin lining the inside of its body and organs exposed for the whole world to feast its eyes on.

The uneven streets are lined with layers of crystal, sparkling white and falling from the sky in handfuls, and Mikey can't remember the last time he saw so much snow.

Nothing, here, seems to make any plausible sense. Everything he read in time traveling showed him that he should be flipping through time, past and future, for more regular periods of time, and he should be able to grasp more control then this, time more tangible. But nothing here is solid and nothing here seems real and it's as if Mikey's thoughts and dreams have emptied themselves into a blank white room until they have all materialised into 3D concepts.

And most importantly, if any of this would make sense, then he should most definitely not be wearing clothes.

But he is. Threads and fibers and cotton should not be able to travel here alongside him, yet they've traveled alongside him nonetheless. He needs Gerard here. He needs ridiculous words. He needs familiarity.

He needs Pete.

It takes him a while before he's willing enough to start making a move. Snow has already begun aligning the contours of his jacket and resting against the top of his head, threading between and melting into strands of his hair.

He wanders through a map of alleyways, crisscrossing through pathways of brick walls, dark settling against soft footsteps in the snow, and enters the first place that he can find.

(And really, he should be more surprised that in a Victorian alley the first place he enters is a burlesque house. but he's not, somehow. He remembers what Gerard used to say -- "those Victorians were kinky like fuck, man" -- and when he thinks about how much Gerard would love to be here right now, how ungrateful Mikey is actually being for all of this, his head starts to hurt.

Except for then he remembers that fuck, he doesn't want this. He doesn't want this at all, he shouldn't feel guilty for being ungrateful for something he doesn't want or need or asked for.

The headache doesn't disperse with the revelation.)

The club is owned by a blonde guy (and the word that comes to his mind when he sees him is 'burly', but it sounds too embarrassing to admit), who tends the bar and takes a liking to Mikey, luckily.

"Bob." He introduces himself when he first sees Mikey, quirking a small smile when Mikey stumbles over a stool leg. His handgrip is firm but a steady, good warmth. Solid. It feels like a nice contrast to everything else; a sharp, deep difference that cuts jaggedly through the center of it all.

Bob dries glasses half heartedly whilst he talks to Mikey, tucked beneath his arm and drying them with a white rag that doesn't seem to have been cleaned since the first time it was bought. But then, Mikey doesn't really want to complain. The glasses seem to be the cleanest thing here.

"Well, you can always stay here if you want. I’ve got an extra room,” Bob says, stopping to slide a few more glasses beneath the shelf before he begins the whole process again. Pick up a wet glass. Dry. Tuck back in.

Mikey pauses, suddenly remembering where he is. The music plays loudly in the background and there is applause, laughter, and he feels oddly uncomfortable for an instant. It’s not sleazy exactly, just not perhaps the type of place where he would want to work to earn his stay. He fidgets uncomfortably with the rim of his glass.

"I’m not really the type of guy to, well, you know -- "

Bob raises an eyebrow not understanding, and then chokes with the comprehension. "No, no. God. No. You don't have to like," he moves his hands in the air to try get his point across, and he seems strangely reluctant to mention the subject considering he works in a burlesque house. "It’s just. I remember first coming to this city, I had no idea where to go. This real nice guy offered my place and I’ve always remembered that. I’ve always thought, 'damn, when I get the chance, I’ll do that too,' you know?"

Mikey has at least the courtesy to blush, pink tingeing on pale skin.

"Sorry," he murmurs into his glass, and Bob just laughs, reaches down to push another glass away, swipe marks sharp against the surface dull with dirty water. He grabs another glass, and they're almost all gone now, and for a second Mikey wonders what Bob will do when they're gone. It seems too routine now to suddenly end.

He bites his lip.

"How long you gonna be staying for, anyway?" Bob's voice brings him back, and Mikey glances back up to him as if only just remembering his presence.

Mikey shrugs. The stage behind him is currently home to stand up, and beautiful women stroll around the place, curling around the guests and asking if they need anything. One saunters their way over to him then, red corset glimmering in the lazy artificial light and smiling a little too hard, as if she's not completely comfortable with what she's wearing, with what's she's doing, or where she is. She settles herself in the stool beside him, long legs crossed, elbows perched on the bar with her back turned against it and head tilted curiously.

"I’m Alicia," she starts, smiling. It’s a little contagious. Mikey finds himself smiling back, and Bob grins knowingly before strolling over to where another customer is, leaving the two alone. "You need a top up?" she asks, nudging at a bottle of whiskey and glancing at Mikey's empty shot glass.

The air is hot and murky and this girl (Alicia, Mikey reminds himself) refuses to leave his side for the rest of the night.

Mikey doesn't object.

*

Mikey gets a job at the bar; and it's all frustratingly natural to him, this life, fate and destiny and everything he doesn't believe in. They almost get shut down by the cops at one time, and there was an incident where a customer got the wrong impression of what the girls actually did, but after Bob had tried to explain as politely as possible to him that no, these girls weren't hookers, he had been escorted off the premises with minimal fuss.

(He uses 'minimal fuss' vague in the loosest of terms. but then again, a little drunken thrashing and kicking around never really hurt anyone, right?)

Other then that, and perhaps all of this really just contributed to how well Mikey fit in here, this place is like a home (not first home, of course, this is like a second life, an afterlife that arrives before the person had left the realms of earth yet. premature. Mikey has experienced too much in too little).

Days are a blur of whiskeywinebeercider and a merge of color, shining in dim light as if it is fluorescent, as if this is all it has ever lived for, bright outfits and sparkling cloths attached to the girls with long legs and sharp smiles.

*

And really, it's been two months here, god knows how long it's been since he first went missing here back in the current (future, past, wherever Pete is right now), this can't really be considered cheating on Pete, not with Alicia’s lips tingling with too bright lipstick and arms wrapped around his shoulders.

Mikey sighs and tries not to think, tries and tries and tries until all he can see and feel and hear is Alicia.

Somewhere in the distance, the music flutters and his hands glide down lower her back.

*

The year is eighteen ninety-eight, and in a few moments time it will be eighteen ninety-nine.

It will be officially four months since he landed here.

He tips back his glass, feeling the bubbles and thin liquid swirl itself around his mouth. The glass feels too weak, too light, when it's empty and he places it back on the table beside him. The wine is just a little bitter, sharp against his dulled out senses. He shuts his eyes and chants to himself again and again and again.

He opens them up once more and Alicia is smiling at him, big eyes and big smile and he wants this, doesn't want this, wants something more.

When she disperses into the crowd he wishes again, just for an instant, but nothing happens and he's not quite sure why he really was expecting anything to take effect, why he let himself become deluded.

I wish I wish I wish.

That night the building is riddled with people, and Mikey's legs ache with the efforts of moving around so frequently and Alicia’s smile is so forced after a while the strain from the effect of having to constantly smile is visible by the time the doors have been shut closed with a flutter of noise and the last customer has shuffled out into the early hours of the next day.

When they get upstairs they go straight to bed wordlessly, sliding inside of the covers and rolling away from each other. They are not the only ones in this room, after all (Bob may get good business, yet he's still nowhere near vast wealth) and Mikey's exhausted, physically and mentally and everything in between the two.

He falls asleep to Alicia’s lulled breathing.

*

The wedding is really, well, as about as respectable as it can be with a man with no supposed identity and a woman working at a burlesque house during the night times, swooping around cat calls and serving over priced wine in grimy glasses who have been sharing a room together for the last eighteen months without the smallest of traces of commitment until recently.

Not that her parents know that, of course.

In the back of his mind, Mikey swallows down PetePetePete and tries to submerge the thoughts with smiles and white gowns and newly found relatives. Music plays somewhere in the background, silhouetted by the atmosphere, the steady encore of voices and guests.

It’s been eighteen months. Mikey has tried (and failed) to grow stubble, worn five new suits since then, been with Alicia for sixteen with them.

Eighteen eighteen eighteen.

It’s a big number. He can be excused for this, he thinks, because perhaps he'll just have to accept that he's never going to get home. Time and destiny and fate and whatever gods there are up there don't want him to go back to his time zone.

He is not sleeping round with the past.

He is not. He is not. He is not.

Mikey smiles and it seems perhaps more forced then the rest of this. He drains his drink and submerges himself back into the voices, allows his mind to switch off a little, thoughts fall away with the wine that he drinks, glass after glass of red and white and red until the colours mesh together, form one continuous row and suddenly thoughts don't hurt so much. He prefers it this way.

*

(And there are moments when Mikey dreams in such vivid color, so strong and immersed into the vibrancy it's as if his whole life has been a black and white movie, and this is all so new to him, he forgets where he is and where he's been and suddenly he's in places he's never been before. Or perhaps he has visited them before, but the memories seem distant, as if he's never actually been there, just seen the photos of himself in front of locations, hazy and unclear backgrounds, but he can't recall when.

It’s hot and the sun is hostile against his bare shoulders. The dusty air is scolding, uninviting, and it scratches at his skin bitterly with the isolation it presses on him. The sand beneath him is too orange, too red, too yellow, and it whips at his naked legs as he walks along down the side of the empty road. It’s too exposed here, in clear view for everyone and no one here to see it.

A car skids past, wheels rolling dust into the empty air, large and over towering. It casts no shadow against the ground. A darkened window rolls down an inch or two, and then halts in its movement, beckoning Mikey forwards with its sudden coma. Mikey scurries two steps forwards, balancing on tip toes and peering inside of the vehicle.

He is suddenly overwhelmed with a chorus of words, one single voice chanting and chanting, but multiplied, saying different sentences, tripping over itself.

" I want to fix this --

-- I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry --

-- I just don't know how to."

He knows that voice. He knows it like the hands that have traced every contour of his body, grown accustomed to every inch of him, knows it like those eyes and that smile and suddenly the familiarity is a burden, too much too much.

"Pete?" he asks gently, cautiously, and his voice almost cracks with the tension even with that single syllable.

There’s a split moment, a crack in the exterior, and Mikey is so sure he can see Pete's eyes, so so sure, and his stomach lurches at the familiarity, his heart singing and singing until all he can hear is its words, muffled beneath his ribcage.

The window rolls back up and the car leaves a trail of thick dusty air behind it.)

*

The air when Mikey wakes up is too cool, as if it had just moments before been too hot, and now it hasn't really grown accustomed to the change.

He is in his bed, his apartment.

He has no idea what date it is today.

He checks the blearing alarm clock beside him and the red smears in with the night air, just clear enough that Mikey can make out a rough 4:32.

"Huh." He grunts, voice deepened with sleep and he manages to push himself into the upright position, ringing ricocheting around the bedroom (it seems oddly unfamiliar now, these surroundings, not his anymore) and his body attempting to disobey every action his mind commands it to do, too sore to work properly.

And then it dawns on him, sudden and intense as he realises.

No more burlesque house, no more Bob, no more Alicia. The ache that grows in his chest is inordinately intense, and he has to settle back into the bed, close his eyes, try to make it hurt less. It’s not a relief, being back here, not even with every wish he made whilst he was back there. He wants what he can't have and his body and soul and heartache when it craves what it can't be granted.

He decides that he'll visit Pete in the morning, first thing. The clock beside him is taunting, flickering numbers inaudibly and too slow.

It’s a dreamless night.

*

When Pete opens the door the next morning, it strikes Mikey to just how much older he looks now, since he last saw him, different from each of his memories (and of course, he is, he must be older, it's been so long now). He resists the urge to lean forwards, pinch Pete's cheek and say, "my my, how you have grown!" like his aunt Christa used to do when he was younger. But he doesn't have to time to think, because Pete's hugging him then, hard and fierce and Mikey feels stupidly unstable, all fluid and no stability, beneath his touch. He leans into the contact.

"Fuck Mikey, fuck." Pete murmurs into his ear, voice more hoarse then he last remembered. Mikey wonders if his voice is any different, or perhaps it has stayed preserved over the last few years. "I searched everywhere for you, and I couldn't find you anywhere and -- "

Mikey smiles a little into Pete’s hair, and he can't help it, really, he can't, but it's all too much and Mikey craves more, needs this, more then he's ever needed anything in his whole life.

"Shut up, Pete." he laughs, and it feels strange to be using it, as if he hadn't been speaking in years and years. The sounds that leave his mouth are strangers to him. He pushes away from Pete's tight embrace, and Pete's rambling stops abruptly, instead eyes wide and curious and searching Mikey's for anything and everything and Mikey's not entirely sure what, exactly. "Let’s just. Let’s just go in, okay?" Mikey doesn't want to add the afterthought that this could quite possibly be the only time in a long time that they'll get to spend together, doesn't want to talk about what happened, not right yet, just wants to savour each of these moments. Each and every one of them.

Pete's apartment is almost no different to how it was before.

Mikey wasn't sure if he was expecting it to be (Pete was always afraid of change, too reluctant for 'new') and Pete's touch is still the same, soft and lingering and gentle against Mikey's skin, and he’d forgotten how much he missed this. He arches a little, and Pete presses desperate kisses against his neck, down his shoulder, across his forearm.

"Missed you," he murmurs between kisses, so frantic, and Mikey's heart is racing faster with every touch. "Missed you so fucking much," and he's pushing Mikey backwards into the apartment, straight into the direction of the bedroom.

Mikey wants to reply, tell Pete every single thought and every second he missed him but it's all consumed with time, rolling on and on and his thoughts are blurred and slurred with Pete's kisses and caresses and he thinks it can wait, it can definitely wait and finds Pete's lips once more.

Pete tastes of colour and time and just a little desperate, and it's everything familiar and everything Mikey once knew but all so new this time, all so unbearably alien and he is desperate to remember every movement, every sound.

He clings a little closer, so that there is no part of him that is not touching Pete, not one piece that isn't drowning in this, washing over him in seconds and minutes and time doesn't seem to have any substance now, not anymore.

The next morning comes too soon now, it seems, but Pete is still there, Mikey is still there, nothing has changed and everything is new and it's all ok. Mikey can breathe again.

He rolls the sheets off of him, settling them over onto Pete's side on his still form, and climbs out of bed with slow, unsteady movements. The light is overbearing and his eyes are unaccustomed to them, being shut for so long, as if months and months have passed away in dreams and he never really saw the light before this. He sits perched on the edge of the mattress, watching the air twist and turn, the sun rise steadily through the open window where they forgot to close the blinds the day before.

His heartbeat calms, descending to what seems like the first regular pace in years. He traces out invisible lines on his thighs with his fingertips, sketching out words that erase themselves as soon as he's brought them into existence, too short-lived to survive in this world. He writes pastpresentfuturehim and the letters curl around themselves until there's nothing there again.

He’s not sure how long it is exactly between the moment he wakes up to the moment where he feels hot breath steadied against the side of his neck, and when he turns he finds Pete smiling a little sheepishly, eyes dull with sleep induced fatigue.

"Morning, tiger," Pete murmurs, and Mikey can't help but laugh softly. In that moment, with the faint morning light casting the room and Pete inside it softer, as if the outlines of them have been blurred so that the contrast between the air and them has hardly any difference, he doesn't want to talk about Alicia or Pete's possible one night stands whilst he was away or more or about Bob and his burlesque house with the stained glasses, not right now.

He leans backwards to rest his head against Pete's shoulder, facing the ceiling until all he can see is the faint imperfections of the white surface above him. It feels almost claustrophobic, as if with every second longer he stares up at it descends just a little closer to him, being beckoned subconsciously and unwillingly, and Mikey's head is swimming, but not quite drowning. Just laying on the surface of the water, body flat and floating until he’s suspended in the pale blue. Blissful.

Somewhere, in the back of Mikey’s mind, he can almost hear a clock ticking, counting down in fractions of lives and seconds and days. It’s continuous and loud and lingers in the shadows of his mind, right where he can’t quite grasp it, wrap his fingers around it and flatten out the sound until it’s too obscure to make out properly.

He presses closer to Pete and tries to drown it out.

imyourlostsoul @ 2008-11-30T15:46:00

2008-11-30T15:49:37Z

i have built a time machine. i am going back. i am going to make things right.

i wish i could have given cavemen some crayons to draw with

she has history last thing on a tuesday morning. her teacher has premature greying hair and skin flawless of wrinkles, and really, it shouldn’t make any plausible sense in the faintest. except for it somehow does.

she doesn’t like history much. with history, there is no future, because the future has already happened and the consequences are just the story for the history class in one hundred year’s time.

before anyone comes into the class, she sticks a post it note against the desk. it says:

“i have a built a time machine. i am going back. i am going to make things right”

and it is signed off with her name in careful block letters.

the teacher loses it. there is a searching party for her and the whole classroom is emptied in such a frenzy it’s almost as if their fear has arrived from the possibility that any minute now, the girl will arrive where history has already been written and there will be a sudden fault, and soon they will disappear before their own eyes.

meanwhile, she hides beneath the teacher’s desk and draws cavemen on the palm of her hand, listening to the life outside and her own breath.

imyourlostsoul @ 2008-11-28T17:29:00

2008-11-28T17:34:04Z

i haven't written bandom in a while (other then nano) so really this is just me getting back into it.

i forgot to say lift off.
pre brendon/ryan, pg, early panic! days. ~820 words.

the light that escapes from the artificial night lights outside plays on the sheets, pastel white and sharp yellow shifting on beige. when brendon closes his eyes, he thinks of limes and charles dickens novels and patterned bed sheets.

(his thoughts seem to come alive at night, when he blocks everything out, tiny feet belonging to run away thoughts dancing on ivory piano keys and sliding down curls of paper sharpenings.)

he feels a weight push down on the bed springs and a slight chill where the sheets are raised for a moment before they fall down again, like paper suspended in the air, and then rest back on his body once more.

he turns to look at the culprit. ryan grins sleepily at him in return.

“you’re not asleep.”

it’s more of a statement then a question.

“neither are you.”

brendon can’t think of a reply to that. ryan yawns a little and closes his eyes, shifting his body a little and it makes the whole mattress yawn along with him. his face is just a few mere inches from brendon’s and the proximity is making brendon feel uneasy. his heart is singing and his blood is roaring and now all he can see and think and smell is ryan.

*

the nightclub tastes of sweat and smoke, musty and heavy in brendon’s lungs. the music’s too loud to hear anyone else and not loud enough for brendon. he wants to feel like the bass is ricocheting inside of his ribcage, overpowering his heart, and so suddenly he’s not relying on his organs or blood or body, instead the steady and repetitive beat of the music, washing through his skin and sinking inside of him.

ryan is at the bar chatting up some girl with bleached blonde hair, dark roots just beginning to show where it’s outgrowing the dye, and smeared eyeliner, eyelids sparkling glitter. ryan laughs his fake laugh and smiles his fake smile and when he leans forwards to kiss her brendon has to turn away. ryan’s just trying to get them a place to sleep tonight, brendon knows that, but he also knows that ryan’s really fucking horny. ryan informed him of that this morning.

brendon turns to face his attention to the stage. the band that are playing aren’t too awful. the lead singer tries too hard and the guitar solos last a little too long, but they could be worse.

*

it works, though, whatever ryan does. she lets them stay at her apartment for the night, ryan, brent and spencer sleeping in the spare room and brendon sleeping on an old mattress in the living room. the place is cramped but it’s nice enough, even though the spare room didn’t have enough room for all four of them so they had to try fit in room for brendon in the living room with no heating.

“what was so bad bout the spare room?” brendon asks softly, mind suddenly remembering where he is, voice almost trembling to a whisper on its own accord. there’s something about ryan half asleep, looking so heart breakingly gentle, that makes brendon want to bathe them both in silence.

ryan shrugs lazily. “thought you might be lonely.” and then he opens his eyes suddenly, shining just a little in the low light. his smile is just a little sharp. “count to me.”

brendon’s not completely sure whether he’s joking or not.

“count?”

“yeah. numbers and all that shit.” ryan mumbles out, eyes beginning to shut once more. he looks like a kid like this, all worn out and curled up limbs, taking up barely any room on the sagging mattress. he sounds serious enough for brendon to believe he’s not kidding.

“erm.” brendon feels a little ridiculous. “one. two. three.”

ryan’s eyes open up again and he huffs, a little frustrated. “no, i mean like. just count. say whatever numbers come into your mind, not that consecutive bullshit.”

“oh.”

ryan’s already settling back into the sheets and then it’s silent, an expecting sort of quiet.

brendon looks around; the blinds across the window are only ever so partially closed, three strips of wood exposed, and there are two mugs settled on the windowsill. along the sofa there are five cushions propped up, and there are seventeen dvds aligning across the shelf beneath the tv. from here brendon can just about make out the titles ‘thirteen going on thirty’ and ‘lucky number sleven’, and perhaps one or two disney films in there.

“three.” he starts, pause. “two, five, seventeen, thirteen.” the corners of ryan’s lips raise a little, as if he’s smiling in his half slumber. brendon continues. “thirty. seven. fifty six, two, eighty one, twenty two, twenty three, forty nine.”

by this time ryan’s breathing has slowed down and quietened, and brendon can tell he’s asleep.

“one.” brendon murmurs, then shuts his eyes too.

imyourlostsoul @ 2008-11-11T17:48:00

2008-11-11T17:52:21Z

POST CLIPPITS OF YOUR NANO KINDA-MEME-THING :D

“there has to be something else.” ryan whispers, eyes closed and back leant back flat against brendon’s bed. brendon imagines that there’s a painted a backdrop of sky against the canvas of the back of ryan’s eyelids, blue sky and white clouds and the sun a colour so bright it’s just a little too brilliant to be classified as white. ryan looks serene, too still to be peaceful but there’s no other word to define it. brendon’s never been as good with words as ryan is, can never quite articulate them as well, never sound quite as right on the tip of his tongue. he guesses that their minds work in different ways; ryan’s thoughts expelled on ink and paper and inside his head they fluttered into images like butterflies, but brendon, brendon thinks in 2D. nothing really comes alive until he says it, he can’t live in his head just like ryan does. it hurts, sometimes, how ryan can be so comfortable in silence and not invite brendon in; all doors locked, bolts and passwords and brendon sits on the ‘Welcome’ mat outside (oh how ironic that ryan puts that out there when he never lets anyone inside) in hopes that one day he’ll be let in. “this can’t be it, can it?”

brendon wants to say something intelligent, something that ryan would understand and maybe, just maybe their worlds would entwine and the bolts would swivel the opposite way and the doors would swing open. you see, brendon, he lives in dreams and implausible futures he knows he can never have. instead, he just says, “i don’t know ryan.”

ryan sighs and shifts on the bed. “you don’t get what i mean do you?”

“no, not really.”

the light filters in through the windows and plays on ryan’s skin, twilight shifting and dancing and shattering against his still figure, over his contours and between the gaps of his eyelashes and curling just past his neck. brendon swallows. sometimes, ryan really just has no idea what he does to him.

“it’s like, imagine that this world isn’t this world.”

“you mean, like an after world?”

“kinda but. well, not really.” ryan shifts again, eyes suddenly open and the painted sky evaporates into the claustrophobic walls of brendon’s bedroom. brendon wants to reach out and grasp onto a piece of the broken imagery, but his hands are too slow and his movements are out of place, and in the end, they all fall away. he watches them as they disperse into the air and shoves his hands into his pockets. “what we see now is not what there is. puppets and objects casting shadows against brick walls and the light is fire, flames spitting into the air and we’re led to believe this is real when there’s a whole world and universe out there that we’re not being exposed to. jesus, you’ve heard of the theory of plato’s cave right?” brendon shakes his head and ryan moves to the edge of the bed, legs crossed and actions quick and smooth. he brings a delicate hand to his head, resting against his forehead like the beginning of a migraine. brendon guesses it’s the shock from falling all the way from the sky to here, the aftermath of an earthquake. “it’s a theory. means that what we’re seeing isn’t what’s there, what’s really there is just behind us and we’re been chained to see just the shadows of what’s real. i want to break away, brendon, i want to see what’s real for myself."

now go post yours here! go go go ~

imyourlostsoul @ 2008-11-02T15:09:00

2008-11-02T15:13:15Z

THE MCR FIC MEME

& my pirate mikey/pete is here.
(yes maryam, I decided to post it after all D:)

I'm behind on Nano, hm. I should probably go fix this but stupid work prevents me from doing so D

this house is not for sale.

2008-08-24T18:14:08Z

inspired by the song this house is not for sale by ryan adams. it's also where i stole the title from. this kinda went over its word expectancy by almost 3000 words. i told you i could ramble forever, geez. includes a barely-there ending & plot line and leaps through time. started this months ago and never got round to finishing it until recently, so. enjoy :D

this house is not for sale.
frank/gerard. pg.
7700 words (exactly, which i thought was kinda awesome).
ghosthouse!au. (the one with the two boys who don't seem to feel much, anymore.)

i. it begins the night when the darkness filters through the window where gerard forgot to close the drapes. there are thousands and thousands of shadows that black out the sky and the covers are tucked right up to his chin and frank can hear footsteps pitter against the floorboards beside the rhythmic sound of gerard's gentle breathing beside him.

he wonders whether either the shadows are wearing shoes with hard heels or he has lost his mind, curls himself closer to gerard and squeezes his eyes shut tight.

*

when frank wakes there is an empty space in the bed where gerard should be, white covers disheveled and thrown back in the corner to mark the place he left. frank finds an old t shirt he hasn't worn in days thrown and forgotten beneath the bed and its old old wooden frame and slips it on, dark fabric cold against his cold skin.
today the weather is as grey as yesterday and dust fills the room like air.

the wooden stairs creak beneath him whenever he puts pressure on them, even with the very lightest step on his tiptoes, and he jumps past the last two steps. downstairs is darker than he ever recalled it to be; the hallway seeming so much smaller without the light.

gerard is stood in the centre of the living room with his back to frank, facing the wall with the window stretched across the centre of it, and frank can see silver cigarette smoke spiraling from his hand. he carries his gaze to where gerard is facing and sees that the window has been blocked off from the inside with a large piece of cardboard sheet, each inch of the glass covered and no light comes in.

gerard starts to talk before frank can even open his mouth to question.

"someone blocked all the downstairs windows when we were asleep," he says, taking a pause to inhale from his cigarette. frank notices that gerard's hands are shaking. "someone was in our house, frank. someone came into our house while we were asleep and blocked up all our windows. why would anyone do that?"

when gerard turns around to face him on the last question frank can see that his skin is as pale as it has ever been, even in the dark light, but his eyes are wide and frightened.

frank steps closer to him, allows a hand to rest comfortingly on the curve of his shoulder, "i don't know, gerard. how did they get in? i thought we locked the doors."

"i know." deep breath out. "so did i."

gerard is unreassuringly cold beneath frank's touch. he replaces the hand resting on gerard's shoulder with his chin, wraps his arms around gerard's body. gerard holds frank's arms by his chest with his hands and tilts his head to rest lightly against frank's.

"i can't feel your heart beat," gerard whispers, voice cracking on the brink of tears, and the sadness in his voice is almost overwhelming. frank pushes closer against him, just a little and rocks him gently from side to side, whispers in his ear;

"it'll be ok, baby. it'll all be ok, i promise," even though he doesn't know if it will be.

*

in the afternoon gerard finally rips the boarding off the windows. the light that escapes from its cardboard covering leaks into the room and suddenly it fills bigger again, and gerard throws the pieces into the fireplace. he lights the pile up with one of the last matches frank has and sets the whole thing alight, an orange and red glow masking the room, and gerard is silent as he sits cross-legged in front of the flames and watches. frank sits beside him without saying a word and leans his head against frank's shoulder's, the warm warm fire heating his cold skin and bones and blood until his whole body feels like it's on fire.

that night the footsteps are back and frank shuffles against gerard and covers his ears with his hands to protect him from hearing, even though he knows he's already heard it, can feel gerard's breathing go a little erratic anyway.

ii. they decided to move here when things at gerard's house became too much (always 'house', never quite 'home').

"we need to get away from here, i can't stay here any longer," gerard says one night, presses himself closer to frank to whisper right in his ear. his breath is hot, so hot and frank's breath gets caught stuck in his throat. "you'd run away with me, wouldn't you? we can leave together, just me and you. please, frankie, please."

"gerard-- "

"please frankie. i can't do this without you."

*

the last time frank ever sees his house is a memory that he keeps for the nights where gerard is already sound asleep and the only thing to judge his thoughts is the painting that hangs on the wall opposite the bed that gerard brought home once, a family who's face and features are distorted in a swirl of red and green paint, blurred heads bowed down in prayer ("it's like a modern day last supper, frankie"), but even then the picture is silent, forgiving.

he'd never actually said goodbye to his mother when they'd left. there was a note, sure, which he'd left neatly folded and perched up on the kitchen counter by the thick, metallic toaster, but the words were never spoken, somewhere lost in his throat.

sometimes he has dreams still, where he finds himself on the driveway outside his old house, and there is the silhouette of his mother in the kitchen window, illuminated in the bright yellow artificial light. there is a bag hitched over his shoulder, he can feel the pressure the strap leaves as it digs into his shoulder, and the sky is as dark as it was on the night he left, except for this time there is no gerard behind him with his hand stretched out for him to take it, ("come on frankie, we've got to go now"). there is an instant where she turns around, and frank is so sure that she is looking straight at him, but his voice is lost and the lights turn off and she is gone again before he gets the chance to find it again.

gerard had never said goodbye to his parents. frank had insisted he should, pushed and pushed until gerard finally snapped out:

"they're the reason we're leaving, frankie. i wouldn't care if i found out that they'd died."

frank hadn't talked about it after that. there was something about how gerard reacted to the subject that scared him, eyes too old for a person too young darkening so suddenly.

*

the road that they take is a long winding one, grey and even and never ending. by the time they gather up everything and leave it is already almost daylight, the sun rising across the pastel horizon in the chilled morning. they follow it until the sun sets, swallowing their sight as it leaves.

"come on, i promise we'll be there soon," gerard promises, and extends a hand to help tug frank along further as he begins to trail a few steps behind.

frank has no idea where they're going, but gerard is determined that he knows the route well enough, ("they never sold my grandmothers house after she died. i went there after school almost everyday, i know where we're going") even though frank knows that he doesn’t.

they both have large rucksacks over their shoulders; frank’s considerably heavier considering he has packed almost every single item of clothing from his cupboards that he could fit in, two boxes of matches even though one’s already almost completely filled with burnt out sticks, a half empty box of cigarettes, two apples, three sheets of paper, one fountain pen and four envelopes incase his mother ever finds their address and decides to write to him. he has a wooden rosary his mother gave him when he was younger tucked into his pants back pocket, the beads hanging out a little.

gerard has only packed two pants and four shirts, the rest of the space in his rucksack filled with blunt sketching pencils and oil paints and an old notebook filled with almost two years worth of sketching.

he tells frank that there is still furniture up in the house, probably a little dated and dusty but decent enough to live with. frank just nods and agrees with him, no point in arguing, keeps tucked by gerard's side and walks even though his legs are starting to hurt and his throat aches for water.

the road is almost completely deserted but they still remain on the far right side of it, frank counting the occasional cars that pass by. (there are five on the first night, only four on the second, but one of those is the brightest yellow frank has ever seen and that colour stays embedded in his mind). at night the cars that pass leave an orange yellow light across the road and during that they have a few seconds of light to make their way with, but then the car is gone again and it takes a few seconds -- blink once, twice -- before their eyes learn to adjust to the dark once more. frank can see the faint outline of gerard's pale figure leading the way in front of him, and he takes as much comfort out of that as he can, out of the familiarity even when he knows they’re so, so lost.

the first night they don't stop, ("the less we spend stopping, the quicker it'll be 'till we get there"), but the second they spend huddled on the doorstep of a block of apartments, knees tucked tightly into their chests, until the first signs of morning emerge and they leave before the sun and the birds and the residents of the apartment wake and catch them there. they eat their two apples that have already begun to bruise on the second night, frank laughing at the clear juice dripping down gerard's chin and wiping it dry with his free hand, smile still intact. the third night they sleep in a field sleeping on top of three of frank's shirts laid across the wet grass to prevent the damp from seeping through.

it does anyway.

they stop by a roadside cafe the morning after the field, their clothes still soaked through. the fluorescent red and white lighting of the building is so harsh and bright against the pale morning and its watery sky.

frank orders beans on toast and two cups of chocolate, cuts his toast neatly into bite size pieces to savour the taste and stirs three spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee. gerard gets a cup of coffee and a bacon sandwich and tears off and chews each crust individually. he eats slowly as he draws out a rough map of where they are and where they've been on a napkin using directions they manage to get and a pen their waitress lends them. when he finishes gerard folds the thin white fabric into four and tucks it into his pants pocket and wipes the crumbs on his hands against his upper thigh. the denim is getting dirtier and dirtier as the days go on.

he keeps the pen.

"almost there, frankie," he says, taking a sip of his coffee with a bright smile, and the hope rises in frank's stomach for the first time since they left.

after the third night frank forgets to keep count of where they stay, but it’s not that much later when they arrive at the house and suddenly it doesn't really matter all that much anyway.

*

the house, when they arrive, is just like gerard described it to be -- just with an added inch of dust that has roamed the empty space and thrown itself across every contour of furniture in the months that it has been abandoned.

there are stacks of tins and dried meat in the cupboards in the kitchen and the water still runs, even if it is mostly cold, and there is a wind up radio above the fireplace that still works, even if the sound on the majority of the stations is crackled and distorted.

frank stretches out his arms in the centre of the living room and spins round, laughing as the rush of air hits him and his surroundings dissolve into a bright blur.

"home," he says, and gerard watches him from the kitchen doorway, smiling affectionately as he agrees,

"home."

iii. three days after the windows are covered the painting goes missing.

frank wakes up before gerard, taking a few seconds to adjust to the morning light before it finally registers in his mind that the painting hanging on the wall facing their bed is missing. he pulls himself out of bed to stand in front of where the picture once was, turns his head to check that gerard is still sleeping, and then turns back to the empty wall that suddenly seems so horribly empty and plain without the picture.

there is a slight noticeable rectangle on the wall where the cream wall paper is just a little brighter and cleaner where the painting was, less aged from where it was protected from the light, and frank lightly traces the outline with his finger, suddenly feels overwhelmed by the loss and swallows hard. he quickly retrieves his hand so that it hangs by his side once more as if the wall burnt his finger, and only allows himself to stand there for a few seconds longer, ('perhaps it'll come back suddenly', he hopes, prayers, but it doesn't) before forcing himself to leave.

gerard is silent and sullen when he finally arrives downstairs, and frank watches him carefully from where he's sitting on the stool by the kitchen counter. gerard takes a brief second to look at him, doesn't say a word, and leaves again; frank can hear the front door swing open and close shut behind him. frank wonders if perhaps gerard was even there at all or if perhaps he had just imagined him to be.

(and there’s a part of him too, that aches to go outside again. he hasn’t in too long, since he lost his job, and it’s not like anyone outside ever notices him anyway. it’s as if he’s invisible to everyone but gerard, these days.)

gerard doesn't return until the early hours of the morning and that night frank dreams of his mother again; in his dream he can hear his mother crying from the kitchen window where he stands in the driveway but when he tries to run to find her the air becomes as thick as liquid and the bag on his back is heavier, weighing him down, and he is motionless. the lights switch off in his dream and she is gone before he has a chance to do anything.

suddenly his mother seems less tangible than ever.

*

the next day they wake up to find the cupboards emptied and the day after that the water is cut off. frank doesn't really miss it; he hasn't been hungry or thirsty in weeks, just misses the luxury of a shower even if it was a cold one.

he climbs into gerard's grandmother's old porcelain bathtub, its metal structure curved and intricately carved and the inside stained from years of use, and curls into one side of it with his fingers gripping tightly against the sides, knuckles flashing white under pressure. the porcelain is as cold as his skin and he closes his eyes tight.

for a second everything feels numb except for the prickling sensation beneath his eyelids and frank almost forgets about the boarded windows and missing painting and loss of food and water supplies, just thinks of gerard's crocked smile and the softness of his hair against frank's fingertips and smiles to himself.

*

it's about another week before anything else significant happens. there is always the occasional moving of furniture, where they'll wake up and find the coach pushed from its original place in the centre of the lounge to the window, or where they'll find the coffee mugs in a different cupboard, but as it grows more frequent they in turn become more indifferent to it.

it's late evening early night when they first hear the voices. there are footsteps at first, different sets of them that bounce off the hollow walls, but they gradually gain volume as they gather closer to the living room where frank and gerard are. gerard grabs frank's arm and yanks him in a swift, jerky action into the gap between the wall with the window and the back of the sofa.

"what the hell are you playing at?" frank asks incredibly, staring at gerard who crouches beside him, breathing a little erratic.

"be quiet for fucks sake," he hisses, tone low and quiet as the voices and footsteps in the hallway get louder, "you can't let them know we're here."

frank wants to ask why, ask him who are these people, why are we hiding, but in the end swallows his questions and stares at the fabric of the back of the couch in front of him and keeps quiet.

there is the sound of the lounge room swinging open, the murmur of footsteps walking through, and then there is the sound of a low, male voice, " -- and this then leads to the sitting area, as you have here," the male says, and then there is a pause where frank can hear a quieter murmur of different voices, "as you can see, it's a fairly spacious room. open fireplace with original tiling still intact. large south facing windows, and this then leads straight onto the kitchen."

there is another pause, another gathering of voices before: "and how much is this property going on the market for again?" asks a female voice, sounds younger than the male's, more relaxed with a bridge of sophistication, frank thinks, perhaps an edge of interest lingering in her tone.

"25 000," he starts, which then leads to a few hushed voices in response, "but the seller is willing to let it go for the right price," he continues, and this time the response is more excited, and the female speaks up again to ask to be led up to the kitchen.

there is a clatter of footsteps, frank works out that there is probably perhaps three or four people here, (the woman who's voice they heard is wearing heels, he thinks, he can hear the distinctive rhythmic drumming they make against the wooden flooring) and their voices fade as they leave into the kitchen.

still hidden behind the sofa, frank lifts his gaze up to gerard who remains silent, finger in mouth to gnaw at already bitten, painful nails.

"what's happening?" frank asks after a beat, voice still quiet; inquisitive and unsure. gerard twitches, takes his nail out of his mouth to observe it, and then bites it again.

"i don't know," he finally says, and it sounds so defeated that frank feels a little queasy at the tone, but then he's talking again and frank tries to swallow it down, "i saw a 'for sale' sign outside our house the morning the painting went missing. i didn't know how to tell you."

frank is awfully quiet for an instant, tries to digest it in as quickly as he can, but he just ends up feeling nauseous and he can feel the bile rising up in his throat, thick and bitter, enough to make him gag.

"they can't sell our house," he finally says, voice wavering at the words, "this is our home gerard, this is our home. they can't sell it. they just can't."

"we've been out here for months, i'm surprised they didn't try to sell it sooner."

"but it's our home. they can't sell our home. i won't let them take it, they can't take it, gerard! tell them they can't take it, please don't let them take our home," frank pleads, voice desperate and eyes pleading, and he knows he's not even making any sense anymore but it doesn't matter, frantic rambling gradually getting quieter until: "please don't let them take it."

frank starts to shake and gerard takes his trembling body into his arms, feels frank slump into his arms and body vibrate as he cries, stroking frank's hair and rubbing circles across his back, whispering promises into his hair.

"i know baby, i'm scared too. but it'll be ok. i promise it'll all be ok again soon, baby," he whispers, even though he doesn't know if it will be.

iv. it's a couple of weeks after they move in that gerard decides they need to find themselves jobs to support themselves.

there aren't any electricity or water bills, and their home, for now, doesn't cost them anything. mainly, the income will just help them so that they can afford buying their own food again instead of living off the remainders of what was here when they arrived. they've been running on short supply recently, and frank is deteriorating at such a fast rate under gerard's eyes that it's scaring him, as if one day he'll just reach out for him and all there will be is dust encrusted on his fingertips where someone solid should be.

gerard has a dream about it, once, and if he's being honest with himself -- he's terrified.

for the most part, the guilt comes from the simple truth that gerard made frank come with him. he can't help thinking that if it wasn't thanks to him than frank would probably still be at home right now eating regular food and living a regular life, not living in a deserted home in the suburbs where the birds never cease to sing and the sky's never too bright.

gerard manages to find a job down at the mechanics a couple miles down.

when he starts he has little to no knowledge on cars, but around the low populated area there doesn't seem to be too many car owners anyway. eventually he learns the difference between the parts, even if it's not by name, just knows that the smaller thing on the right hand side attached to the bigger thing on the left can be replaced and refilled with a liquid that comes in a bottle with a tightly spun lid, and when it's opened the whole room smells toxic.

he learns by sight and touch, and for now, even if it's not ideal, it helps to make ends meet.

frank works part time at the groceries a little closer to their home than gerard's workplace, but they catch the bus together in the mornings on the days that they both work, frank's hand a little warmer and a touch more solid in gerard's, and gerard is happier with frank not working full time anyway (the instinct comes singing from somewhere in the protective part of gerard's mind).

sure, it means that frank doesn't earn as much as gerard does and his hours are less, and when he comes homes his clothes and skin and hair aren't stained with the stench of car fluid, and neither are the fibers in his fingers discoloured with black and grey and brown, but frank's suddenly happy again, and he's always just right there beside gerard when he has to spend hours in the bathtub scrubbing the oil from his skin.

he decides that, if anything ever had a worthy enough cause, then this is it:
the smile that frank's face nearly always wears these days, and the soft, barely-there touches he leaves gently on gerard's skin when the lights are turned off.

*

gerard is fairly certain that, in a previous lifetime, he must have done something to piss karma off so bad that it's ricocheting on his new life, this life that frank and him have made for themselves, staining everything it can get its grubby hands on.

the summer seems to have made an appearance and left once more all too soon, and now august is here and leaves its golden and red and brown leaves all around its trail like a pathway to winter, the wind colder and faster than gerard can ever recall it being. he wraps at least two scarfs around his neck when he leaves to work and swaps his light-wear jacket that he has worn for the duration of summer for a heavier version which keeps the draught out, to some extent.

frank, however, doesn't seem to have ever been taught the importance of layers like gerard has, doesn't understand why gerard always insists to him that fingerless gloves aren't going to do him any good, why he constantly swears to god that he'll lock him inside the house next time he walks outside with wet hair when it's practically below zero outside.

this is why when frank gets ill, when he somehow manages to gain a forehead twice as hot as his shivering hands, manages to catch something that makes his throat raw and eyes drowsy, that gerard should probably be blaming frank himself for this, not karma.

but he's never worked like that, and he strongly doubts that he ever will.

(it's that protective part of gerard's mind again -- it always seems to overwhelm rational thoughts these days, whenever frank is involved.)

gerard takes as many days off work as he can without being fired (he would easily quit his job without a moments hesitation if it meant that he could be at home beside frank to keep an eye on him, but two days ago frank was fired from the groceries for not coming in for two solid weeks even though there was no way he could go to work when he can barely stand -- gerard argued this point repeatedly. so now he keeps working so he doesn't loose his job, because he doubts that having no money for food will help frank now).

this thing, though, whatever this illness that has seemed to have taken a liking to frank and has now gotten itself a permanent hold on frank's body and bones and blood, won't seem to go away.

gerard has that dream again -- the dream where frank is just there, but when he stretches out his fingertips, tries to take a hold of frank as his heart beats a little frantically, something's not right it's telling him, screaming in his veins, muffled by the blood that flows through there, frank disappears right before his eyes.

when he wakes frank is leant by the windowsill, the arch in his back more prominent by just how damn thin he's gotten, even through his t-shirt, and from his bed gerard can still see that he's violently shaking. he pushes himself out of bed over to frank, wraps an arm around frank's shoulders and takes one of frank's hands, leading him back to bed where he wraps him up tight, presses a kiss against his pale forehead as frank finally rests his eyes.

the skin there is so hot it almost burns his lips.

*

when it finally occurs to gerard that maybe, just maybe, things won't be ok again, that maybe frank won't get better after all, is when he finds frank shivering so much and so loudly whilst huddled up in their bed, that he runs him the hottest bath he can muster, careful not to scold his skin (he's so gentle now, so fragile) and frank's skin is still as icy as it once was.

frank seems to notice it too, as if he's burrowed into gerard's mind and read his thoughts, and come down to the same conclusion as him: that perhaps they're never going to get out of this. and frank seems so frightened at the thought of that, hazel eyes bigger and body shaking at something now other than the cold, that gerard doesn't even care that his clothes will soak through, and wraps his arms around frank's wet body anyway, feels frank's arms fall around his torso in response, nimble fingers clench against his t-shirt in handfuls, as he sobs into gerard's shoulder.

when he's dried frank off, wiped away the last salty remains from the crinkles of his eyes with corner of the towel with a small smile, they fall asleep together in the bed, arms and legs intersecting each other as if there's no difference between them.

*

when it actually happens though, the thing that gerard still can't really come to terms with yet, still makes his heart cease to beat a little and that protective part of his mind rise and falter like it's unsure what to do either, gerard doesn't go to work. it seems that now, there doesn't seem much point anymore.
his work calls a few times, but gerard never picks up. the sound of the phone is hollow against the walls for a few minutes, and then it's gone, just like that.

silence in this house doesn't seem like such a stranger to him, anymore.

*

it's a few mornings after when gerard wakes and decides what he wants to do, suddenly so determined he can't seem to shake himself from his own thoughts, and decides that today he's going to go outside and face a world where there are no walls or windows just vast open air. the decision is like exhilaration, such a rush, and he only quickly grabs the first jacket he finds before he goes.

(he later finds that in fact the jacket he picked up was one that once belonged to frank, and he has to bite down so hard on his lip it bleeds to resist the urge to cry).

he stays there for as long as the winter daylight will allow him to. it seems refreshing, somehow, as if the air has cleaned him of an impurity and washed over his mind.

when he returns inside though, he can't seem to shake himself from the cold. he can almost feel the hot blood surge through his veins, feels like it's burning his cold cold skin, feels a prickling sensation up and down his arms and he has to lie down to prevent his tired limbs from collapsing from beneath him, shuts his eyes.

two weeks later, frank is standing over him with a dazed smile and he helps to raise gerard to his feet, his hands cold but eyes warm.

gerard wants to question it -- how it seemed not so long ago that frank was gone and he didn’t know what to do or how to cope, couldn't stop his own body from shaking, from failing him -- but now frank is here and he's leading him to their bedroom, to their bed, and gerard suddenly can't find the words.

(later when frank is softly sleeping and gerard leans over him, reaches out a finger to press gently against frank's wrist, hoping that perhaps they'll be some sort of movement beneath it, hoping that he'll feel the blood pump through the pulse, there's nothing. there’s nothing on his own either, and it frightens him.

they never talk about the incident again.)

v. gerard hasn't really talked to frank since the night they discovered their house was up for sale. it seems stupid, really, since frank was always under the assumption that situations like this brought people together, not drove them apart.

it seems these days though, that gerard won't even look at him anymore; not in a way that he lets frank knows he's looking. there are times when frank will catch a glimpse of gerard in the toaster or the window, just a faint reflection, distorting their shapes and contours, but the principle is still there -- and frank can see gerard watching him, just small looks when he doesn't know frank's looking.

frank tries to reach him one time; gerard is standing in the kitchen with his back to frank, and frank swallows hard, can feel his hand clam up into a fist and flexes his fingers out, then shuffles forwards and hesitantly lays a hand on his shoulder. gerard twists around in one swift motion, startled by the intrusion, but doesn't seem to relax even once he's recognised the face.

"what'd you want?" gerard asks when frank doesn't immediately says anything, just tilts his head to the side as he watches gerard a little intently, a little cautiously, bites down hard on his lip and leans forwards.

gerard's lips are cold and unresponsive and his arms remain still by his sides, he doesn't push frank away but makes no efforts to react either, and after a beat or two frank pulls away.

his heart tugs beneath his ribcage and he wonders whether this is what it feels like to be heartbroken.

*

frank tries to prepare himself for what’s to come; forms out and replays the what if’s and would could be’s so that he’ll be able to know what to do when the scenes actually formulate, step out of his imagination into reality. even so, it seems a little sudden, a little too sudden, when they really do happen, and frank doesn’t think he’s ever been so confused in his entire life.

he uses his rosary one time, wonders if his previous infatuation with religion will save them now, but nothing ever happens (he’s not utterly sure if he ever thought that anything would happen in the first place, though) and he finds himself staring at the blank patch on the wall in their bedroom where the painting once was and feels suddenly very alone.

when frank opens his eyes, he finds himself tucked up in the corner of their bed with the duvet pushed onto the opposite side from him, and tries to recall ever falling asleep, but even that memory seems so distant now like every other one, disbanded from his history. he can hear a heavy thrum of engine from outside, feel its vibrations disrupt the quiet sleeping house.

he makes his way over to the window, pulls his hoody a little tighter to his body because this house is always so cold, so damn cold and finds the sight of a moving van parked just beside the sidewalk by their house, back doors swung open. there are other cars there too, faces and bodies he doesn’t recognise as they move assorted objects and possessions and furniture back and forth between their vehicles and the porch (he does although catch the sight of the woman he remembers from a few weeks ago, the woman with the loud heels and sophisticated voice).

there are voices too, loud and distorted through the glass and walls and frank’s kinda relieved that he can’t make the words, just hear the gentle tones through the foundations of the house (their house, his and gerard’s, not these strangers. it’s not their house, never will be).

he tiptoes across the hallway as he tries to recall all the places where the floorboards creek beneath the pressure so that he can avoid them, and from over the wooden banisters that curve a path down to the downstairs he can see the front door has been left wide open as people wander in and out freely. he hurries down the stairs, two at a time, and finds gerard hidden in the space between the sofa and the wall with the back of his left foot sticking out in the corner. he slides in beside him silently but they don’t make eye contact, don’t utter a word to each other even though they both know they’re thinking the same things, hearing and seeing what the other is.

they wait there until the people begin to disband, the light from the day dying out as the clouds gather over the sky like a thick blanket that refuses to let any light fall from it, until finally, the last person shuts the front door behind them, muttering out to someone in the front yard as they go about how they’ll be finished by tomorrow evening by latest, the last of the strangers’ conversations muffled by the shutting of the door.

frank waits a moment before he can breath again, hadn’t even realised he was holding his breath, and gerard beside him is making hardly any noise at all, is horribly horribly quiet, eyes unfocused and body shaking a little.

“frank, frank. i’m sorry.”

his voice is sudden and it surprises frank just a little. “no. no, gerard -- shit. don’t be sorry. we’re both stuck in the same situation, god, why are you sorry?”

gerard’s takes a moment to reply after that, breathes deep and loud and unsettled.

“it’s my fault,” gerard finally manages to get out, voice loosing all its edge and suddenly it’s soft again, round and smooth.

“no gerard, of course it’s not your fault that -- ”

“no, you don’t understand frank.” he takes a deep breath out, uncurls from behind the sofa and starts pacing up and down the baron room distractedly, giving frank a headache just trying to follow him. “it’s all my fault. if i hadn’t dragged you out here in the first place than you would probably still be home right now, coming home to some pretty, blonde wife who makes you dinner every night.” he laughs then, low and bitter, somewhat ironic, falls back onto the sofa with his elbows perched on just the tip of the round of his knee and his head in his hands, shaking it sadly. “i mean, i can’t even make toast properly. what kind of guy can’t even make his own boyfriend breakfast in the mornings without setting off the fire alarm, huh?”

frank lets out a laugh then there, too; breathy and quiet, almost not there at all, and he doesn’t even know why it’s funny.

he clambers out from his hiding, walks over to the armchair where gerard is and crouches down so that their heads are the same height, almost touching. he unpeels gerard’s hands that are covering his face and takes them in his, clasping his fingers over his cold palms.

“i think you’re forgetting that i like burnt toast,” he says a little fiercely, and gerard smiles weakly at that, that crocked smile at the side of his lips which makes frank’s heart twist a little. “and i don’t want some blonde wife who can cook.” pause, breath. “i want you.”

gerard looks up and suddenly frank’s a lot closer than he remembered him being, but he doesn’t really mind, not really, just lets frank lean forwards until their foreheads are resting against each others and his eyes go a bit uncoordinated and cross eyed at the angle. frank laughs breathily, and gerard thinks it sounds kinda shy, unsure almost, and his heart skips a hesitant beat or two, before he leans forwards an inch and closes the gap in between them.

frank’s lips are warm and soft and welcoming against his own, tilted at an opposite angle and slotting against his mouth just so, like the jigsaws his grandmother used to do and stick the completed ones up in frames on the walls like portraits to remember them (he wants to remember this, too). he can feel frank bite down on his lower lip and he laughs a little under his breath, stifled as it mingles between their two mouths, can feel frank bleed colour on the tip of his tongue and roof of his mouth and the edges of his teeth.

he takes a deep sigh, not out of despair or uneasiness, but a blissful sigh, and frank lets him wrap his arms around frank and hook them there.

they fall asleep that night tucked between the two armrests of the chair, frank half sitting in gerard’s lap with his head tucked beneath his chin. when he wakes up, the arch in his back has prickles of dull pain running up and down his spine like a staircase, wants to loosen the crock in his neck but can’t manage without disturbing gerard, and so just huddles a little closer and allows his eyes to fall closed once more.

gerard is the one who wakes up first, roused by the heavy sound of furniture being moved around and voices, loud and clear against the echoes of the house. his mind is still heavy from sleep and it takes a moment to realise what’s happening before his senses kick in and he sits up straight, delayed reactions overcoming him.

“frank, frank. wake up, shit you’ve got to wake up frank, we’ve got to go.” he says a bit desperately, shaking the sleeping form beside him. frank rolls over and groans a bit, before finally opening his eyes. he looks up at gerard through his eyelashes and blinks stupidly.

“what?” he murmurs, his voice sounding as tired as he looks.

“the people are back, come on get up. we gotta go.” he’s a bit frantic now, rising to his feet and tugging at frank’s arm to get him up. frank’s still mostly asleep, and is moving in slow motion, allowing gerard to pull him up as he desperately tries to find a place to escape to without the people finding them.

it’s too late, though. the living room door swings open and a young woman strolls in, her slender red heels clicking against the wooden flooring with each footstep. she looks around the room confused, trying to find something gerard thinks, and stares directly at where frank and gerard, frozen in their movements by the armchair, or perhaps it’s just the wall behind them, and walks back out again, unnoticing.

“i don’t know, i swear i could hear voices too but there’s no one there. where’s dan? he’s got my handbag.” she calls out to a person on the top of the stairs as she leaves.

frank looks up to gerard curiously, a little dazed perhaps, and tries to find his voice that has lost itself somewhere in his throat, blocking up his access for air.

“do you think that she really couldn’t see us?” he finally makes out, and he’s no longer sleep doused now, fully awake and aware.

gerard looks at him with a disbelieving look, the same expression frank is sure that he is wearing too, and he knows then that gerard has no idea either. “i don’t know. i mean, she couldn’t have not seen us.”

it’s not the answer that frank wanted to hear.

“so i guess we’re just invisible now then, huh?”

“erm.” gerard thinks about the time when frank got ill and he was gone and gerard was just so sure that he’d gone forever. but then suddenly gerard was ill too, but he woke up and frank was just there, and maybe they had both worked out what had happened but they just don’t want to think about it. it seems the only plausible explanation but somehow it also seems so unrealistic and he just really does not want to think about it. “i guess. i guess we kinda are then, huh?”

frank doesn’t make any effort to reply and it’s only when he turns to face him that he sees that he’s crying, and maybe it breaks his heart just a little bit.

“hey. hey,” he whispers as he reaches out a hand to frank’s cheek and glides his thumb over the smooth skin there, back and forth and back and forth, in a relaxing manner. frank leans into the touch, maybe, just a little. “it’s just. ok, so, hey it’s like we’re invisible, right? it’s just like when we were back home with mikey and we used to talk about being superheroes, remember that?” the familiar name is thick in his throat and god, it’s been so long since he’s thought about him, since he’s said his name. it’s almost alien now -- memories less and less clear as the days go on, fading into the distant corners of his mind. he feels guilt and maybe, just a tinge of sorrow, seep deep in the pit of his stomach, and he has to pause before he carries on, keep his composure. “they don’t even know we’re here, frankie, this whole invisibility shit is totally badass if you think about it. we could totally mess with these people.”

frank laughs a little, then, a little startled and a little breathy. “you mean like, moving the furniture round and running round the house in white sheets?”

“yeah. i mean, yeah! we’d have to cut eye holes in the fabric but it’d be just like in the movies. and we could like, make wind noises too and like jump off the furniture and shit, because you know, they can’t see our legs and all. it’d be like we’re floating!”

frank laughs for real then -- a little loud and clear and a lot beautiful. the idea of gerard running round the house beneath their bed sheets whilst attempting to make wind noises is really rather ridiculous, but he loves it all the same.

“yeah, i think i’d like that.”

he slumps against gerard’s shoulder and lets his head fall on his shoulder as gerard’s arm comes round to wrap itself round frank. he’s grateful for the contact, allows the thoughts of this house and these strangers and the fact they’ll have nowhere to go so soon, too soon, disappear just for an instant, replaced by the softness of gerard’s touch and his warmth and the gentle tone to his voice, let’s it devour him whole.

in the distance he can hear the voices still, moving in and out of the house obliviously, but even now they seem to get quieter and quieter, gradually dispersing so far away that he can barely him them anymore. he shuts his eyes so tight that the back of his eyelids flash red and yellow and white, and then suddenly they all stop.

s i l e n c e

Flash

2008-08-19T23:58:14Z

flash.
batman/the joker. ficlet. pg.
based from the film The Dark Knight.
(just wrote this for fun, really. an imaginary kiss from an imaginary fight scene.)

There is a taste of blood lining the crevices of his mouth, thick and bitter, heavy against the inner hollows of his cheeks and the tip of his tongue. He snaps his head to the side, his cheek scraping down against the cold rough ground where he is sure it’s indented marks against the exposed skin not covered by his mask, pale white against the black, and spits out red, heavy droplets falling across the ground in separate puddles. When he turns his head back his focus is unsettled, keeping everything in sight in full motion even when completely still, and just a little too distant to make them tangible, vision stained by the night air and the fierce pain pounding against the crown of his head. He has to shut his eyes for an instant or two, and red is painted against the inner side of his eyelids, swirling bright and fast.

He opens his eyes again.

There are two hands pinning his arms back against the ground; pushing down with enough force that he can imagine two fist shaped bruises pressed against his forearms next morning, brown and red and purple blossoming beneath his skin. The pressure makes his arms throb a little, small veils of pain trickling across his body, throbbing beneath the weight of the weight pinned against him. He clenches his fists -- once, twice -- but the feeling feels faint, as if distant from reality, his mind telling him he can feel it when his body is un-reactive to it. He feels the blood in his mouth grow again, too thick to swallow down. He just leaves it to swell there this time, though, metallic and sharp against the roof of his mouth.

When he finally guides his gaze upwards again, their face seems closer than he had last remembered to be. They catch his eye at the same time he looks up, and even in the dark he can see the whites of their eye catch the night’s light, bright against their dark eyes and wide pupils, like broken shards of glass disbanded against gravel. He feels his whole body tense, if only for a moment, and he’s sure that they can feel it too.

(And when he thinks about it now, on the occasional moments when his mind wanders and his thoughts betray him and he just sees that smile, fresh and engraved in his mind, he wonders if it perhaps it all went a little fast, if perhaps he should have someone grasped onto it for a little longer, with every remaining bit of fierceness he could manage in his tired body.)

Because all he can remember now is the faint warmth they left printed across him, strong and solid compared to the chilled wind biting against his skin in the dazed night, and how they kissed -- all teeth and liquid movements, like the smile they flashed him when they pulled away, private and open at the same time, secretive in the way it sung I know something you don’t know, and the bitter taste of blood that lined their bottom lip, shining in the dim light.

imyourlostsoul @ 2008-08-15T20:09:00

2008-08-15T19:24:30Z

{works in progress}

i. Entry for periodbandom. It's a western! Gerard's a sheriff and Frank's a badass! Kinda sorta reminiscent of Brokeback Mountain... but without the sheep )':

ii. Entry that I decided not to use for periodbandom. Frank/Gerard inspired by the song This House Is Not For Sale by Ryan Adams. Relatively close to finishing, about ~6000 words long.

iii. Friends AU (The One That Could've Been). Brendon/Ryan with Writer Ryan hopelessly flailing over Virgin Brendon who's dating Doctor!Jon.

vi. Second part to 'The Most Ridiculous and Obscene Fic Ever In Which Frank Has Frank Sex' which has taken me forever to post, but whatever, this one has actual parts of Frank having Frank sex, and who doesn't love that?

v. EPIC CRACK!VERSES WITH brandixcyanide. One involves Patrick and Pete's love child Petrick, and the other involves Pete's actual journal, with yellow pompoms :D:D

omg i'm so busy D:

grey and gold

2008-06-11T22:09:47Z

grey and gold
frank/gerard. pg. 3180 words.
contains some surreal themes.
roughly based from prompt mar 13 07 we are cities post.
frank's a city boy who falls in love with a boy of the sea.

“There’s this boy; this boy with black hair and white skin and gold eyes,” he says. “I think I’m in love with the dip in the curve of his back and the way he holds himself when he stands and the way he blinks twice every time he smiles his crooked smile.”

It’s somewhere between dusk and twilight -- Frank thinks that he’ll always be able to remember the way the dim light floods out across the water; so fragilely pale in the shadows. The seaside air is so unlike the city air; tastes fresh and salty, strong and real, feels like it can rip through his throat in every inhale.

He first catches sight of the boy behind him in the silhouettes draped across the cobweb of ripples of the water’s surface, his footsteps light across the sand, barely leave a print across the yellow grains.

He doesn’t seem to react when Frank turns around, eyes his figure accusingly. He stands about two feet behind Frank, hands on the curve of his hips, elbows bent to a point on either side of him, makes his presence wider. The boy’s eyes never escape the sea, captivated by the waves turning over themselves as they lap up at the edge of the shore.

Frank watches the way the boy’s eyelashes fan across the pale skin beneath his eyes when he blinks, the way his jaw remains stiff as he clenches it together, watches his black hair fly away from his white skin into the wind and his gold eyes flash as they stare into the sea. Frank turns to face the sea once more, to the dim glint of light harsh against the obscure waves. The sky darkens steadily, perching on the bridge of nightfall until the sun is swallowed by the tide.

When Frank turns back, the boy is gone.

*

Frank next sees the boy at a carnival beside the beach weeks later. He thinks that he’ll always be able to remember the smokey scent of the area; stale with the smell of fried oil from the burger carts, and the way his fingertips tasted of the butter that dripped from the popcorn he'd just had.

He traces around the back of the fair -- music not so loud, thoughts not so quiet. He finds the boy on a bench, arm draped across the back of the wooden planks across the back of the chair, looking so casually out of place as if his angles are all wrong to fit where he places himself. Frank examines him for a while, standing out in front of the boy for an instant, then shuffles beside him, places himself too close to a boy he doesn’t know enough about even when there is room to distance himself. The boy though, doesn’t react, continues to stare out in front of him, at the rusting metal frames of the caravans and uneven ground where the cement is cracking to sprout with not-so-green grass.

“I’m Frank,” he finally says, voice catches the boy’s attention, and the boy turns to look for the first time at Frank, their faces just millimeters apart, breathes mingle (just a little).

“Gerard,” the boy replies, offers a smile full of white sharp teeth and full eyes that crinkle in the corners.

Frank smiles too, catches the boy’s eyes for just a second longer before they’re away into the distance again, and his own eyes trail to follow them. A second, two, four, passes into the past, and then Frank rests his head against the slope of the boy’s shoulder, feels the warmth of his skin through the thin fabric of the boy’s t shirt onto his cheek, feels the boy’s head rest against his own in response.

“Hi Frankie,” he hears the boy whisper, addressed to no one in particular, just himself and Frank and the wind that hurries past them.

“Hi,” he replies, smiles a little, lets the smile stay there printed across the upturned corners of his lips. He thinks he’ll always remember the scent of Gerard that night -- of smoke and sea and something that Frank doesn’t think he’ll ever quite place.

*

Frank traipses through the city, through the grey grey map of sidewalks and grey grey buildings that reach up into the grey grey sky with their fingertips. He thinks it’s like a jungle, the city, with its own busy flurry of people and its bright fluorescent lights that disobey the night and its own grey grey world that it has build for itself. He pushes his hands deeper into his pants pockets, keeps his hood fastened tightly over his head and allows himself to duck in and out of crowds that rush past him at frequent intervals.

Frank thinks that Gerard, this boy that never ceases to burrow into his thoughts and skin and beneath his bones, is a sea creature, somehow arisen from the depths of the water into the grey grey of the city, and he’s choking, Frank thinks, can’t quite adapt to live in this grey grey world. Somehow, though, he looks like he belongs here, always was and always will be airborne as if it has always been engraved into the history books with deep dark ink, with his black hair and white skin. But then Frank sees those gold gold eyes, and suddenly Gerard no longer belongs in this grey grey world anymore, was always a sea creature and always will be.

Frank passes a dark window, reflection following him in the tinted glass, slightly obscured by the background beneath the clear surface, and sees his own black hair that’s not really black and his white skin that’s not really white and wonders if he even belongs in the city at all.

He keeps on walking anyway, not sure which path to follow because there are just so many routes, just so many splits in the sidewalk, and instead just keeps walking forwards, hands tucked into pocket and head lowered and feet scuffing across the floor at their own accord in their own pace.

I’m lost, he thinks, so so lost, but he keeps walking anyway.

*

The sand digs beneath his fingernails when he rakes his fingers through it, through the thousands and thousands of yellow grains, and stays there, trapped beneath the nail plates. It’s almost dark, almost settling into nightfall, and Frank waits here every night with the cool sand beneath his body and the seaside air falling all around him until he sees the boy, the boy with the golden eyes and crocked smile. He’s never quite sure when Gerard will arrive, never really matters though -- somehow time melts into the grains of sand here as if it never existed at all.

Frank feels something brush past his back, and when he turns his head he faces the boy beside him, sitting just next to him with a smile eased on his face as if he was there the whole time.

“Hi,” Gerard says, voice soft and gentle, eyes twinkling in the half light, face so close that Frank can see every individual gap between the curls of his eyelashes.

Each of those gaps have a secret, Frank thinks, each one of those spaces beneath those spidery eyelashes have a hundred and one secrets that he won’t tell me, and then he shakes his own paranoid thoughts away because Gerard is not his, there is no imperative that forces him to tell Frank every single thought that passes through his head.

“Hi,” Frank replies, a smile forcing its way on his face to mirror the one on the boy’s face.

“Hi,” Gerard repeats again, laughing a little, and then stops, waits, before: “So I think we should go swimming tonight.”

And Frank -- Frank can never quite refuse that brilliant smile and those golden eyes even when they’re framed with those secrets that just taunt him.

*

The first time Frank ever kisses Gerard, Frank thinks that he’ll always be able to remember the way Gerard’s mouth was so hot and needy and desperate and Gerard’s body was on fire as it pressed against Frank’s even when the ocean they struggled to keep afloat in around them was icy against his skin.

*

When Frank slumps into the wooden chair in the kitchen of their apartment the next morning, surface stained with old paint and chipping varnish, chin rested against his upturned palm, Ray watches him with a certain caution, before stumbling around the kitchen to make a coffee. He drops the porcelain mug with the red and cream stripes spread out across the curve of it with a thud against the kitchen table, metal spoon banging against the sides of the mug with the impact, and pushes it in the direction of Frank before settling himself in a similar looking chair.

Frank stares at the black liquid for a second, sighs a little and looks upwards at Ray, who returns the stare with an expectant look in his eyes.

“There’s this boy; this boy with black hair and white skin and gold eyes,” Frank begins, swallows a little. “I think I’m in love with the dip in the curve of his back and the way he holds himself when he stands and the way he blinks twice every time he smiles his crooked smile.” Then he stops, looks downward again, and pushes the coffee round the porcelain with the teaspoon, always in the clockwise direction, never anti-clockwise, “I think he belongs to the sea and I don’t know how to stop him from returning.”

And Ray, he pauses, has that glazed look over his eyes that Frank has interpreted as his ‘deep thinking’ face over the years, just looks back at Frank for an instant before pushing himself from the table and smiling a little,

“He better be worth you not drinking, because your coffee is getting cold,” and then he leaves the room as if he was never there, and Frank just wonders when Ray became so shit at giving out advice.

*

When Frank sees Gerard that night at the beach, he automatically leans his head against the dip in his shoulder when the boy comes to sit beside him, smiling a little when Gerard leans his head back against his. It reminds him of the second time they ever met and the déjà vu he gets runs through his finger tips like electric shots in his veins.

“I feel lost,” Frank finally says, sighing a little as the words leave his lips. Gerard’s smile fades a little, but its presence is still there, strong and bright against his pale pale complexion, and he fumbles his hand around until it finds Frank’s, interlinking their fingers together when they meet.

Gerard’s fingers are cold and the pale skin feels rougher than the appearance lets it off to be, but Frank’s heart still races a little, grows too big for his ribcage, battling for space in his chest with his organs and bones and blood.

“Then we’ll just have to find you, won’t we?”

*

The first time Frank and Gerard ever do ‘it’ is actually all Gerard’s fault, Frank thinks. The late-night-early-morning seaside air bites at the suddenly exposed circles of skin on his neck where Gerard’s lips and tongue and teeth once were just seconds ago, and the sand that dug beneath Frank’s fingernails is no longer just beneath his nails, but now everywhere, fighting for space in every crevice in his body, feels like it’s invading beneath Frank’s skin and between his teeth and in the hollows of his ribcage. The beach is empty, is always so empty, and suddenly his and Gerard’s presence seems to take up so much room in the vast space, his heart beating so fast and erratically that his body feels about two sizes too big, his skin too tight and limbs too slow and hands too clumsy.

When Gerard’s skin is exposed Frank is almost surprised that what he finds is perfectly normal --just a plain canvas of white white skin, this time smooth beneath his fingertips, not calloused like Gerard’s fingertips, and Frank wonders why he was half expecting thin green scales to emerge beneath Gerard’s t-shirt, or anything, just something to show that Gerard really does belong to the sea.

Frank presses kisses all over Gerard’s body, smothering the boy’s pale pale skin with small caresses; from the round of his neck his palms and the gaps between his fingers to the smooth curve of his hips.

Frank thinks that he’ll always be able to remember the way that Gerard’s skin tasted that night; of sea and sweat and coconut shampoo and the way that the light falling from the stars and moon and street lights hit the arch in Gerard’s back as he rolled back, stubby nails digging into Frank’s shoulders to stable himself.

Frank hopes that those semi moons scaring his skin will always stay there, little reminders buried deep down into his flesh, Gerard’s marks engraved there for all time.

*

When he wakes the next morning; Gerard is gone, and his shoulders are smooth of markings.

*

Gerard is already there, waiting for Frank’s arrival by the time Frank makes his way down to the beach. Frank’s jeans trail in the sand, hands plunged deep into his jacket pockets. Gerard sits almost motionless on the rocks, grey grey rocks against the long black shorts that hang off his legs and his white white skin, chin tucked on knees, sun descending into the ocean.

“Hi Frankie,” he whispers when Frank is sat beside him, voice a little too soft, voice a little too sad, and the hairs on Frank’s arms rise at the unfamiliar tone, “So I think that maybe we need to talk.”

The wind is too much and not enough and Frank wonders when his hands started to shake. Gerard takes a deep breath, looks up at him from those gold gold eyes of his, the ones that remind him of glitter and pirate treasure and jewelers shops, and Frank thinks that he’ll always be able to remember how Gerard, that boy, the one not really from here, from this city at all, gives him that indistinguishable look that happens just before that sharp intake of breath and those soft soft words: “You know I can’t stay here, don’t you?”

*

Ray’s there when Frank returns home -- is always there, always always always, and suddenly Frank’s so welcome for that fact that the revelation is overwhelming, suffocating him with air too hot and too thick and leaves him off balance.

Frank slumps into the wooden kitchen chair, the one with the grooved surface and chipping polish, feels like just gripping the wood in his palms and hurling it across the wall, watching the splinters fly across the ground like snow.

“Want to talk about it?” Ray asks and no, Frank really doesn’t, but Ray’s arms are warm and inviting around Frank’s trembling body and his hands soothing as it strokes his hair and suddenly it doesn’t really matter that Ray gives out the worst advice, because Ray’s hugs just happen to be the best thing to ever happen to Frank right now.

*

The city is too grey and Frank wishes that the ocean would roll into the gaps and crevices of it, spit colour into its grey grey world. He follows the slots of concrete against the floor, feet slipping in front of him, left right left right, across the sidewalk.

There is a bench at the shallow of two buildings; wooden planks that cross together between the grey grey stones, and there is a boy, a boy with golden eyes and Frank’s heart sinks and soars, thinks it’s that boy, the boy with the white skin and black hair and gold eyes.

But this boy -- this boy’s skin tastes of vanilla body wash and linen detergent and of the city, Frank can’t taste the sea anymore, it’s gone all gone, feels like he’s choking on the smoke, has to close his eyes shut tight to stop grey grey flooding into his mind and thoughts and body.

When he opens them again, the boy with the golden eyes the boy that wasn’t really him, is gone, finds himself in a bed that’s not his and a taste of city on his tongue and lips and in the corners of his mouth that doesn’t wash out with water or mouthwash or toothpaste.

*

Frank finds himself wandering around the grey grey sidewalk once more, perhaps for the last time he thinks, thinks he’ll always be able to remember the smokey scent and the way that he’s sure pale bruises will emerge from beneath his skin from the numerous times crowds push past him, purple and brown and blue, bleeding colour from beneath his not-really-white skin, this time his feet finally leading him somewhere that his mind operates them to.

The sidewalk is scarred with the reminiscence of old gum, blackened with footprints, and cigarette butts dug into the grey grey cement. He watches them as he walks along, head down to face the tattered sidewalk.

His legs only seem to stop when they reach something softer, something not so grey. He finds a place to sit right in the centre of the space, legs crossed and hands digging into the sand so the grains push under his nails, feels like there’s no sense in ever getting rid of it if all it does it return again.

The late summer has left the sky light and clear, yet somehow today the sun has been swallowed by the clouds that push their way into attention, grey and thick and bold. Frank watches them with the upmost detail, as if he’s never seen clouds before, the long summer evenings leaving the whole concept alien to him.

They’re grey, he thinks, grey like the city and sidewalks and smoke that flows from the cars but they’re here, swimming above him and the beach and the ocean so tauntingly, wonders whether maybe Gerard can see them right now from wherever he is, from his gold gold eyes, feels an overwhelming urge to protect him from the grey as if he’s too delicate to see it.

He feels something hard against his head, looks up and sees the grey grey clouds rip apart and the rain begin to fall swiftly against the beach.

It’s grey, he thinks, the rain and the clouds and the sky, and it’s harsh against the beach, feels like the grey grey city world falling into the ocean, watches with curious eyes as the rain falls heavily against his body. For just an instant, he thinks he’ll always be able to remember the way the raindrops felt pounding against him as he closed his eyes and turned his head up to the sky, the image of those gold gold eyes dissolving into the back of his mind as quickly as they grew there.

imyourlostsoul @ 2008-06-07T10:06:00

2008-06-07T09:09:59Z

just finished updating this journal - tags, icons, redoing my fiction masterlist (which is all small and cut down now, bless it)... basically everything i've been too lazy to do in the first place.

took me for fucking ever, and could have probably used that time writing but whateverrr. it's all donedonedone now.

got to go to work now, and then i'm going out all night so the frank/frank fic might be another few days unless i get time tomorrow to finish D:

The Most Ridiculous and Obscene Fic Ever In Which Frank Has Frank Sex

2008-06-01T21:24:27Z

Hahaha I can't believe I just wrote this, but whateverrr.

Basically. Started off with this post which led up to this completely ridiculous and hilarious thread by perspexsea. And theeeen there was this post, and like I couldn't resist, OK? So have some poorly written, rushed TIMEFIC! FRANK.

This is part one - part two will have FRANK SEX WITH HIMSELF. YES IT WILL.

So I now present the first part of:
'The Most Ridiculous and Obscene Fic Ever In Which Frank Has Frank Sex'

Frank, the first time ‘it’ happens, is in the basement, cross legged on the concrete flooring and flicking through a box of about ONE HUNDRED ZILLION old records, (actually, it’s more like 56? but they’re all very similar looking so it feels like more). They all once belonged to his Dad, were his pride and joy for as long as Frank can remember, but since he left they’ve just been pretty much abandoned in a cardboard box beside a folder of his mom’s magazines and beneath the foosball table that stopped working like, forever ago. The card sleeves where the black disks are slotted in are faded, colours no longer so vivid, corners tearing with senectitude.

Frank’s only been down here for about half an hour but already his jeans are covered in a sheen of dust and dirt from the floor, and god when was the last time someone cleaned up down here? because the room has the strong stench of damp wood and dust and DEATH, and Frank doesn’t think he’s being a drama queen here or anything, just thinks that seriously, this place really needs a broom or two or something. He keeps flicking through the vintage records anyway, in the vague hope that maybe he’ll find something decent, because old music’s pretty cool anyway, mumbling and groaning beneath his breath all the time.

“Take it I haven’t grown out the faze of talking to myself yet, huh?” comes a voice from somewhere behind Frank, the unfamiliarity of the tone startling him and in the surprise, raises a hand up to lay across his chest.

He’s greeted with some guy who’s probably early twenties but looks like he’s still trying to recover from awkward teenage years, dreadlocks framing his kinda sorta chubby face, baggy jeans handing off him, all tatty and worn and too big at the seams and seem to resemble flares, the type that his mom would have thought would have been trendy ‘back in the day’. Frank thinks ‘hey, you seem kinda familiar’ then that thought is followed by the immediate ‘WHY IS THERE A WEIRD OLDER GUY WHO STINKS OF POT IN MY BASEMENT’ which is then finished with the thought ‘uncle graham?’ But then suddenly it kicks in, that the weird guy just referred to Frank in the first person and he blurts out,
“Dude, are you me?” which sounded totally more logical in his head, anyway.

Dreadlocks guy just laughs; this high pitched, unnerving kinda laugh and Frank thinks ‘even I have a lower laugh than you, man’, except for then realises that that is his laugh, technically, in some kinda weird way, because Frankie may be edging 15 but his voice hasn’t even broken yet, so what the fuck anyway? and the older guy moves to sit beside Frank.

“You should probably take your hand down now,” Dreadlocks guy says, nudging his head in the general direction to where Frank still has his hand placed over his heart in a dramatic gesture. Frank takes that as a no to his question.

“Oh,” Frank laughs embarrassed and peels his hand away reluctantly, feels his cheeks tinge red, “So like. Who are you exactly, anyway? Because last time some guy came to come ‘see me’, they were like 80 and had a beard and I can’t really remember why he was here? but I think he was grandma’s ‘special friend’ because I like, heard them together and I felt really sick because they’re both really old and wrinkly except for mom was just like ‘it’s good that she’s with someone’ but I think she was really creeped out too because she took me out for ice cream and then there was --”

“I remember, I was there,” Dreadlocks guy interjects, and Frank just looks up to him with big surprised eyes and such a look of shock that it starts to look almost comical.

“So you’re --”

“You, yeah. Hi. I’m you from like, 5 years in the future.” Older Frank points out casually, sticking his hand out for it to be shaken, but Younger Frank seems so frozen in shock that he doesn’t take the gesture, and Older Frank’s hand just falls back limply to his side.

Younger Frank just keeps gaping at Older Frank as Older Frank just looks around the basement, observing the environment. He slumps back to lean on his hands, so fucking casual and Younger Frank really can’t believe this, because seriously, his older him has come back to visit him from the future? and he’s got dreadlocks? seriously, not cool. Not cool at all.

“But you’re chubby,” Younger Frank finally says to break the silence, looking at his older self with a look of somewhat displeasure, “Mom said I’d grow out of my baby chub by the time I graduate high school!” He moans, poking his own slightly rounded stomach. “And dreadlocks? Oh my god I’m going to be a freak aren’t I? Oh god...” Younger Frank slumps forward into his hands, shaking his head in disbelief. For some reason, he had this dream that when he graduated he would grow up from Dorky, Chubby Frank into Super Cool Frank. This dream seems to fade even further into the distance when Older Frank goes on to explain that he’s a used-to-be-in-a-semi-successful-band-that-split college drop out.

’This is not happening, this cannot be happening.’ Younger Frank mutters to himself. He peers up from his hands, looking up to the Older Frank who just continues to look around oblivious as if thinking it’s perfectly normal to have just shown up at the past so that he could talk to his younger self, like ‘hey, I do this all the time’ kinda thing.

“So this is what I have to look forward to in my life? A band that didn’t work out and a really bad hair do? that stinks FYI, might want to look into that,” Younger Frank qwerks, tilting his head to imply Older Frank’s dreads.

Older Frank just smiles, this bright and in all honestly, kinda cute, smile, seemingly unfazed by Younger Frank’s reaction, and reaches into the denim pocket of his tattered-resembling-flares jeans, pulling out in his clasp a screwed up sheet of paper.

“Yeah but this, little Frankie,” Older Frank begins as he straightens out the paper in his hands, which quickly shows itself to be a photo of a guy about Older Frank’s age, black straggly hair adorning his pale complexion, “is who you’ll be fucking for the rest of your life. Nice, hey?” He says, passing the photo over to Younger Frank who takes it eagerly, eyes flashing with curiosity.

“Huh,” Younger Frank mumbles out, staring intensely at the poor quality, creased photo as if the man printed on it would suddenly jump out, “he’s actually pretty cute. Hey, can I keep this?” He asks, sticking the photo out to Older Frank.

“No!” Older Frank quickly snaps, yanking the photo back from Younger Frank’s hands, ignoring the dejected look in his younger self’s eyes, and safely tucks it back into his back pocket as he pushes himself off the concrete floor. “Mine, OK? You’ll have him to yourself, soon enough anyway.” He offers in comfort to the younger boy still sitting cross legged on the basement floor, whose expression swiftly turns from about-to-tear-up to the glee of a four year old getting a birthday present early. “Look, I gotta go, but I’ll visit you again soon one day, OK? Stay safe, little dude.” He says with a smile, beginning to walk away from Younger Frank whose focus quickly falls onto his hands, and it’s silent in the basement once more beside the sound of Older Frank’s scruffy trainers dragging across the dust ridden floor.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Older Frank suddenly announces as he snaps around quickly, immediately catching the Younger Frank’s attention, “Stay away from that box on the left to the old records - spider bigger than your face. Nightmares for weeks. No lies.” And with that, Older Frank leaves Younger Frank’s life completely, leaving nothing to remember him by or to prove that he ever existed but the faint scent of pot that he leaves around the basement.

It stays there for days to come.

Pete/Patrick!

2008-05-11T20:25:01Z

guysguysguys.

so i've just started writing a pete/patrick fic, along with my other WIPs.
i'm still working on my main fic right now, which is frank/gerard, and once the first part gets beta'd i'll post it up.

but that's irrelevant right now, because pete/patrick, guys.
it'll totally suck so hard and i don't even care :D

' Pete suspects that perhaps him and Patrick were lovers in previous lives. He’s mentioned this theory to Patrick once, when the dark air was thick with stars and his breath was a little ragged from one or two beers (or six, but who’s keeping count anyway?) he had drunk earlier back at the bar. And he had dragged Patrick out for some air because it was unbearably hot in the club but then refused to go back inside because it was too humid in there, and he really didn’t like the way the guy at the bar was looking at Patrick, all hungry eyes and obvious want, which he casually mentioned to Patrick (“Pete, we’ve talked about this protective shit”) and Patrick is so his anyway, even if he won’t admit to it. It was one of those moments where Pete really does think it’s relevant to say, “You eyeballing my woman?” in a tough voice, brimmed with faux authority like in the movies, but he’s pretty sure Patrick wouldn’t appreciate the sentiment nor being called a woman.

He imagines it'd be pretty cool, anyway.'

Tinted Light

2008-05-10T22:27:15Z

Title: Tinted Light
Pairing: Pierre/David (Simple Plan)
Word Count: ~1100
Warnings: This is really quite innocent, tbh. Bad writing. Fluff.
AN:So this is my first ever Pierre/David. I told blackeyedwicca I would write one eventually, although we had plans for a whole different one but I completely forgot how that went D: so this one was born instead C: Happy birthday, Pierre.

The sweltering sun makes the air thick and shade hard to come by. Pierre’s skin feels about two sizes too small and the mixture of sweat and layers of suntan lotion is slick down his face and exposed torso. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand in the hope of relieving some of the heat, but to no results. He pushes back against the body of the tree behind him; the bark is sharp against his back and scratches the soft flesh, but it’s the most shade that he’s been able to find all day so he’s not complaining.

And David cannot stop staring.

Pierre readjusts his sunglasses, completely obliviously to David's watching, pushing them further up the bridge of his nose, and pushes past the hair that falls over the tinted glasses. The sky is practically blinding. The grass beneath him is surprisingly soft, and he’s not sure if the tickling across his legs is the hair being blown in the weak breeze that is cooling his body to a poor extent or ants crawling across his limbs. He’d move to check but his whole body feels too stiff and heavy to move.

Hot days bring out the laziness in him.

He can practically feel his skin darkening beneath the sun’s hot rays. He feels like he’s burning up, but he’s put practically a whole body of suntan lotion on and so the likeliness of that happening is poor. He knows that’s not the reason his mind feels heavy, but he’ll pretend it is for now, because he really doesn’t want to think about what the real reason is. “He forgot” swims through his mind every once in a while, but he’ll push it out again, trying to regain the thoughts of the sun against his skin and the grass beneath his fingertips and the wind against his arms. Still, he finds himself worrying, just a small niggling at the back of his mind, so he leans even further back against the tree and closes his eyes. If they’ve got a day off, he might as well use it up.

*

“So what did you get him, then?” Comes a familiar voice from behind David, almost making him feel guilty for being caught watching Pierre sunbathe, and it would have made him jump if he hadn’t heard the footsteps heavy against the pathway just an instant before.

He is stifled for an instant of the question, takes a second to try recall what Jeff is on about, and concludes to nothing.

“Get what for who now?”

“Pierre. Birthday. Who else?”

“...Shit.”

*

A fly surrounds him, humming insistently as it circles Pierre as he tries half-heartedly to swat it off. It rests for a second on the curve of his shoulder, twitching slightly so that its transparent fluttering wings catch the light, and suddenly they are no longer ordinary, but quite beautiful instead, and flies off again in the opposite direction it came from as if it has fed off the second of beauty the sun has given it. Almost as soon as it leaves another sensation follows it; this time just a warm exhalation of air against the darkening skin covering his shoulder blade, so light Pierre is not sure whether it exists purely as a fragment of his imagination. But it is insistent, repetitively blowing against him, and it is only when he hears the soft mutter of his name that he realises that the breeze is in fact someone breathing behind him.

He keeps his eyes closed and pretends to still be asleep.

“Pierre.” It whispers again, slightly louder this time round, tone with a slight more urgency.

His eyes remain shut. He recognises David’s voice and he’s not too sure if he wants to face him right now.

“Happy birthday.” The voice insists, and Pierre feels his heart speed up just a little, just for a fraction of a second, as his mind races, “he didn’t forget. He remembered, he remembered,” and he tries to keep down the twitching of the corner of his lips from turning into a smile. The exhalation of breath against his shoulder is quickly soon replaced by the sensation of something soft pressing down against the side of his neck, trailing down to his collarbone, as David places small kisses there, and it tingles where he has marked him.

He hears shuffling as the movement disturbs the grass blades beneath him (his eyes are still pressed shut, he’ll refuse to open them incase he opens them to nothing again) and he feels a slight pressure against his legs stretched out in front of him. It’s a light, welcome weight. He’s not objecting anytime soon even if it gives his legs cramps after a while.

He squints his eyes for just a second, risking it, and David’s still there through his sunglasses tinted light, straddling him in the middle of the grass beneath the tree. He’s not dreaming, but it feels oddly surreal -he’s not sure why, but he kind of likes it like that. He shuts his eyes fully once again.

Pierre feels breath close against his so that it tickles his face, and suddenly the light pressure of where his sunglasses had sat on the bridge of his nose and had indented the skin there a bit leaves as David pulls of his sunglasses and sets them to the side gently. There is a slight pressure on his arms as David grips the side of Pierre’s upper arms, stubby fingernails pushing a bit into the flesh there, and then there is the sudden arrival of alien lips pushing against his own before Pierre can even comprehend what’s happening. They’re slightly moist, tilted at an angle, and it takes everything Pierre has to not push with all his force back, but this kiss is gentle, really quite innocent. He’d never dreamed of it being so simple, but it seems so much better like this.

David pulls away after a few seconds, not too far away though, still close to Pierre, and then leans his forehead against Pierre’s.

He smiles and finally opens his eyes, instantly greeting with David’s, looking straight into his.

“Happy birthday.” David repeats, a shy smile adorning his face that Pierre can’t help but to mirror, and David laughs a little breathily, “So, since I have you topless already, where would you like the rest of your present to take place?”

Pierre laughs, and David just sends him a cheeky smile, and oh god he thinks his heart just melted a little.

“Here, oh god, here, right now.” He thinks, but just grins as David reaches forward so that their lips meet once more.

Foundations

2008-03-30T15:13:32Z

Title: Foundations
Warnings: Implied character death, very brief mentions of prostitutes and sex
Pairing: Implied Frank/Gerard
Word Count: ~800
Summary: Sometimes foundations is a reliance on someone you never knew you had built.

It’s odd how one single change can alter your very foundations that you have grown to depend upon, or perhaps fracture the foundations that you never knew you had relied on.

Frank doesn’t see it as his foundations falling, no, instead just a change that he’s not quite adapted to yet, a change that took so long to fashion his life around in the first place that he’s not sure how long it will take to adjust now that it’s gone.

It’s not that he relied on Gerard. No, it’s just sometimes he finds himself longing for him to be there, like when he buys a new jacket and he needs the assurance that in fact bright blue is his colour, no matter how long Bob laughs at him for because of it. Someone to make him feel that perhaps he doesn’t need to supply himself with jackets and tailored suits to look good, because the superficial can never outlast the authenticity that has always existed. Someone to distract him with smothering kisses and smooth hands from the worries that the newly purchased clothes that have been peeled off his body and thrown carelessly on the ground will crease.

It’s just sometimes when he feels breath exhale against the back of his neck and dirty words swallowed by thick air that has the stench of sex, that he wishes he was sober enough to even recognise the face in the morning, or distinguish his body from another in a chaotic tangle of limbs, or if he’s desperate enough, sometimes he finds himself climaxing with Gerard’s names on his tongue. They never ask who Gerard is, not once, they just accept the money with sweaty hands, dirty hands, and leave without as much a goodbye. And that makes Frank feel dirty, and Gerard had spent so much time convincing him that he was so much better than that that his whole body just aches when he thinks about it.

It’s just sometimes he finds himself repeating the same things he had done before, repeating a life he had worked so hard to fight against, all drugs and booze and pretty boys in one night stands and expensive clothes, and he doesn’t want that life anymore, not now he’s experienced a life so much better than that. He tries to summon the willpower to change, but he is only one man, a weak man at that, and sometimes he just wishes that there is the man who would promise him that he’s better than that, so much better than the frivolous life he had once led, but the man is no longer here, so now there is almost no purpose in the attempts.

And sometimes it’s just stupid things that he’s sure are so insignificant that they feel almost empty in comparison to the wider scale of life. Unsubstantial things like when he listens to ‘Let Me Kiss You’, full volume so that the sound is slightly distorted through the chipped headphones, and he wishes that it is not only his voice singing along with Morrissey’s, no, he wishes that there’s Gerard’s voice singing full blast along with him. It always had made him feel less self-conscious, less stupid for singing along when someone else joined in, and now when he listens it almost feels empty, as if the other man’s voice had become part of the song, and now that he’s not there the song is not quite complete.

But most of all, he just wishes that he could relearn the art of trust; because he’s learnt it before, learnt every crevice of it, memorised all the small corners of it, as if trust is a person and he can recite the precise shape and touch and texture of it’s skin and the roundness of it’s limbs. There are always people there trying to comfort, crowds drowning him with ‘if you ever need to talk, I’m here,’ but he can’t be assured by their promises, because he’s been promised before, and now he’s just suffocating in the mistaking of his trust.

It’s just sometimes he wishes that when they tell him they’ll be there for him, that they’ll always be there, that the man who had promised him all that in the first place is still here when he told him he would be, because Gerard was never his foundation, just the one that had built it in the first place.

And he is just the one who broke it.

Enchanted AU [6 Part 1/?]

2008-03-26T19:40:10Z

Title: Enchanted AU [6i/?]
Author: imconfusedotcom
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
AN: Set in the early 90's. Sorry for the wait - real life catching up on me. Part two up soon.
Summary:This is what Gerard had wanted since he was the little 4 year old boy watching with adoration and wonderment as the tall, stick thin man clad in a tight red waistcoat fitted around his frail body brought out a pure white rabbit from the dark material.

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

It’s a bad habit that Gerard had developed when he was younger that he hasn’t quite grown out of yet. He wakes up early and goes to sleep late, earning him only a few hours of sleep.

He’s worn out after a permanent fixture of traveling and working constantly, and sometimes he’s so close to messing up on stage it’s scary, and yet he just can’t find himself the energy to sleep more. It’s still dark when he wakes, the same as it was when he fell asleep, and the body beside him is still far from waking.

Sara always sleeps until at least noon.

The sheets are soft and warm beneath his bare skin, the air around him comfortingly homely as he pretends for just an instant that this is his home, that the rush to leave tonight will be to pick up children instead of performing routines in front of hundreds of unfamiliar faces. The epitome of normal. He wants to surround himself in the linen for just a while longer, breathing in a life he has never had, using the hotel walls around him as part of his own fantasy bedroom, never mind the fact that dozens of people have been in them before him.

Of course it doesn't last; it never does.

Slowly he peels himself from the bed, and the figure beside him twists slightly in her sleep, but does not wake.
The bathroom is still reminiscent of last night; the floor is covered in odd bits of clothes thrown around lazily and the sink counter is hidden beneath layers of make up covered tissues and mix matching parts of jewelry. He somehow makes some sort of organization in the bleach smelling room and takes a long shower whilst the hot water lasts, lavishing in the clean feeling.

His hair is still damp when he leaves the hotel; it’s slightly lighter outside now as the sun is just a little higher in the sky, but the early air is chilled and sticks to his wet hair in clumps. The sky and ground are the same colour, the numbing scene of grey against grey, and the smoke that spirals from the cigarette between his fingers is as grey as the day is. He positions himself in a bus stop placed on the side of the grey road, the bench facing an opposite park, and beside that is another bus stop, exactly the same to the one he’s sitting in. He watches it in between puffs of his cigarette; the park unsurprisingly empty, the only inhabitants are the winter baron trees that wave gently in the grey morning air.

When he next looks beside him there is a man there, he is not sure when he arrived, but he catches the stranger looking at him before the man quickly averts his eyes. He appears to be just as cold as he is, even in the coat and scarf he is wrapped in, and he thinks he looks oddly familiar, even if he can’t quite place where from. He can’t distinguish how he knows the stranger, nor does he particularly recognize their features, but his presence is familiar. They wait together in silence for a few more minutes until finally the question of how he knows this man get to him and he snaps,

“Do I know you?” He finally asks, feeling as surprised with the sudden question as the stranger looks.

“I don’t think so...” The stranger replies, internally debating with himself whether to add the last part. He does. “Well, I went to your show here a few nights ago. But that’s about it.”

“Oh.” Gerard makes out, his mind finally registering with him where he recognizes this man from. Of course; he was from the crowd two nights ago, he can remember the expression of his face as he sat nearby stage. “Yeah. That’s it. Thanks.”

And that’s it, nothing more to it. The stranger wonders to himself why the hell his heart is pounding so hard beneath layers of warm clothing.

The watch on Gerard’s wrist claims it to be the time the bus should arrive, and even minutes later it is nowhere to be seen. He can’t have missed it - he’s been here the whole time, and the stranger beside him is still there so it would have meant they both didn’t see the bus, which doesn’t sound very plausible to him. There’s not a lot of traffic on the road either, and it’s when he’s looking out across the road that he sees his bus arrive at the bus stop opposite him.

“Shit.” He hears the man next to him mumble under his breath, and realizes that he must see it too.

“Your bus too?” Gerard asks, not sure whether to stay here for the next hour to catch the next bus or run across the road in an attempt to try catch this one. The stranger nods, and muffles something out about how he cannot afford to miss this bus, making up Gerard’s mind.

“C’mon, we can probably catch it on time if we run now.” He grabs the stranger’s arm and begins to drag him behind him across the road. If he was thinking properly right he would be dropping this stranger and running away as fast as he could, but he’s just running on instinct right now, and has somehow landed himself in the middle of a road in between traffic attached to some man he’s hardly said a sentence too. He feels the man hesitate a bit, feet not quite as quick as his as they dodge between cars.

By the time they reach the other side the bus is on the edge of leaving, and in a blurred moment of catching their breathes from sprinting, they grab their tickets and board the bus. It’s not busy at this time in the morning; just after rush hour, just before lunchtime. He settles himself opposite the seats that the stranger sits in, and at first he’s too lost in a daydream as he stares outside the foggy window to realize the man is now wheezing.

“Shit, are you OK?” He asks as the man’s cheeks tinge red as he chokes on the air uncomfortably.

“Yeah, j-just wait a second.” He makes out between deep breathes, breathing becoming slowly better, “I just have t-this thing about cars.” He laughs breathily, face gaining it’s natural colour back again.

“Irrational fear?” He asks, curiousity getting the better of him. 

“Not really irrational. There was this... accident that happened to me a few years ago. Someone close to me got pretty injured. I don’t know. Don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Oh... sorry to hear about that.”

 “Don’t be, not your fault right?” The stranger laughs nervously again, he hasn’t talked about it in three years and right now he doesn’t want to spill his life story to some guy.

“So what’s your name anyway?” He’s not quite sure where the reserved Gerard has gone now, but he seems so distant that he can’t quite grasp him and replace this new man that’s taken over his body. He’s never even talked to a stranger before in his life.

“Frank. You're Gerard, right? Sorry, I’m not creepy or anything. I saw it on the posters.”

“Yeah.” Gerard laughs too, smiling slightly, “It’s nice to meet you.”

imyourlostsoul @ 2008-03-23T23:51:00

2008-03-23T23:55:18Z

Based around Bert, set during the warped tour.

Closure
Bert/Gerard, pg.
~1500 words.

'“I’ve met someone, Bert. She’s really awesome, I think you’d love her.”'

Oh.

He supposes it’s as simple as that, over before any existing feelings could be developed into actions. He probably wouldn’t even have made a move anyway, fear of rejection over the possibility of acceptance. In a way he’s kind of glad for it all; the knowledge that there can never be anything between them preventing any feelings growing deeper. He thinks of it as if he was falling, and he was falling so quickly he was lost in a blurred twirl of surroundings, but now something’s caught him on his way down, and now he’s no longer plummeting down.

He just wishes he would stop wondering what could happen if he kept falling.

*

Gerard still talks to him. In fact Gerard still talks to him a lot, and it’s like nothing has changed at all with the way Gerard is always finding a way of starting a conversation with him. But of course he stills talks to him -- why wouldn’t he? It is still routine like always, it’s just now Gerard does not wander into their bus at odd hours in the morning because he wants to talk, no, because he has someone else now and a mobile for cases of boredom, so why would Gerard need him anymore? And it’s not like he misses the man with those hazel eyes just pleading for him to let him stay in his bunk tonight because he’s too tired to go back to his.

At least he gets some more sleep now, even if it is restless without the body warmth he had grown familiar to beside him in the claustrophobic enclosed space.

And without Gerard constantly pestering him for attention all the time at least he gets some more alone time now, right? Some time to sort thoughts out, spend time to process the world around him, because sometimes when it’s rushing past you so fast it seems so easy just to allow it to speed off without you, and now he has more time to see the world, think out things. Even if the thoughts end up back onto the one person that even when he’s not there in presence seems to drowning his thoughts.

He’s just a little obsessed right now because it’s the whole Want What You Can't Have situation, that’s all. He knows he’ll get over it, eventually.

He’s just frustrated that’s all -- frustrated with himself for harboring feelings that he should have known better than to feel, frustrated that he can’t quite let it go, can’t quite accept that nothing will happen between the two. He’s frustrated ever so slightly with Gerard for being so oblivious to the clear attachment he has for him. Frustrated that he can’t stop dreaming of soft kisses against chapped lips and interlinked fingers over and over again; when he closes his eyes, when he tries to sleep at night, and eventually he just wants to scream, yet still the images continue to repeat themselves until he just aches all over.

But most of all he’s frustrated with the small voice niggling in the back of his mind, he should be mine because Gerard does not belong to him, and he was never his possession in the first place, it’s just his wishful thinking making him wish he was.

*

It’s when Gerard starts to cancel on him that he starts getting pissed off though. Because who does he think he is? You can’t just cancel on friends like that, it’s just damn rude that’s what it is.

And he tries to be mad, tries to yell at him, but then Gerard does that apologetic smile, and it’s that smile that he thinks he could fall in love with alone, and he’s pretty sure his inner fan-girl is melting at the sight, and he just wants to scream love me! at him, his inner voice clawing at his mind to speak the words. But he resists, no matter how strong the temptation is, and it’s quite worrying now, how strong this desire is becoming. He just wants it all to stop, because this is getting out of hand now, and he doesn’t know how long he can take without wrapping his arms around Gerard in a possessive manner and never letting him go off to see his girlfriend.

*

Closure, he decides. That’s what he needs. Closure.

So he switches off his phone, wanders off outside whenever he can so if Gerard visits their bus it looks like he’s busy with someone else, not that he’s trying to make him jealous or anything, because it’s just closure, and whenever he’s at the bus when Gerard comes around to hang out he claims to be too busy writing songs.

“Oh.” Gerard says on the third day of rejection, “You’re ignoring me, aren’t you?”

Shit.

“No, I told you already, we’re going through a good stage right now. Just trying to get down all the creative shit we’re coming up with before we forget it, alright?”

“Alright. Yeah... yeah, OK. I’ll see you later then?”

“Yeah sure, whatever. Bye.”

He did not look as the man walked away, no, he was happened to be watching the scenery behind him, because if he was to watch him walk away then that would be against the closure he's making for himself.

He can’t deny that this power is surprisingly satisfying, nor can he deny that this ability to be so dismissive makes him curious onto how far he can use it to his advantage, but he’ll never admit that his force is weakening with the longing for the other’s company.

He perches a cigarette between his lips, the thin smoke curling through the musty bus’s air, surrounding him with the scent of ash, and pulls a guitar over his lap as he goes through the basic chords for a song they’re working on.

Closure, he thinks, that’s all it is. He’s not ignoring Gerard, it’s just closure.

He hates closure.

*

The air is frighteningly different at night around the tour bus area. The serenity of it all, the cool air hissing at him compared to the warm summer’s air that fills the day time. Everything is far more beautiful at night then at day.

It’s a familiar walk; a walk he’s done dozens of times when he craves the company of someone, when he has a longing to just talk to someone, spend the night in conversation about things so insignificant it just makes him feel normal again.

He has his brother and the rest of the band mates, he knows that, it’s just sometimes good to take in the company of those that can’t read you, of those you can’t read either.

He can’t read Bert a lot of the time; although his words are blatant and clear, there’s always a second meaning to it, forcing you to have to piece together the body language along with the brisk words to find the real meaning.

He fumbles with the key in his pocket, the key Quinn gave to him to stop him banging on the door at 2 in the morning, slotting it into it’s place and turning, entering his second home. The contours of everything are hard to distinguish in the dark, hands fumbling over surfaces to place where he is, but he gets to his destination in the end.

He positions himself on top of the bump beneath the sheets of the bunk, recognizing the twitching of the figure beneath him as them waking up.

“What the fuck? Gerard, is that you..?” He whispers hoarsely into the darkness, voice thick with disrupted sleep.

“Yeah. Can I sleep here tonight? Mikey’s snoring like hell.” He replies, nudging the body he is straddling over to get his attention when he suspects he’s falling asleep again.

“What? Oh right. Yeah, whatever. Come on in.” He makes out drowsily, peeling back the corner of the sheets and shuffling closer to the wall to make room for the visiter in sleep induced actions.

“Night Bert.”

“Night Gee.”

And then it’s silent again in the room except for the slight murmur of outside life and the slow, heavy breathing of the body beside him. It’s usually comforting to have, but Gerard finds it hard to rest, constantly twitching and fidgeting to manage to find a position somewhat comfortable.

“...Bert?” He finally asks, and Bert would be more pissed right now for him to be woken up by this intruder so early in the morning if he wasn't so tired to do anything about it.

“Gerard.”

“Friends forever, right?” He implores, searching for an answer that will somehow put him at rest. It’s asked in an oddly innocent voice, and Bert’s sure if he was to turn his head slightly to the side to face the man beside him then he would be greeted with big enquiring eyes. But he doesn’t turn around, instead keeping his gaze up at the bunk above.

“Yeah.” He finally replies, smile tugging at the corner of his lips and he says it, “Yeah. Friends forever.”

Friends forever, yeah, he can deal with that.

Saviour

2008-03-23T15:09:50Z

Title: Saviour
Pairing: One sided Bert/Gerard.
POV: Bert
Word Count: ~400
AN: Drugs are so stereotypical, I know, but since everyone portrays Bert as the bad guy and Gerard as the poor, vulnerable one, I thought I'd do one with Bert's POV.

It's raining.

It's practically flooding at the rate it's going, pouring down so heavily I feel like I'm draining away with it, and yet - I don't think you even realize it's raining.

You haven't moved in the time it's taken the blue sky to fall into heavy clouds, and you're still just sitting there with a smile gracing your face, completely oblivious to the world. Your straggly hair is swept up along with the ruined make up cascading across your face as the water soaks into your skin, but you're just sitting there showing off your utter bliss with a crooked smile and a childish delight in your diluted eyes.

You're the epitome of disaster.

You're shaking now, not from laughter, not from the cold, but from the high you're descending from, from the buzz that has been occupying your body which is now leaving you. The toxins are going to make you alone again until you take more and more so that you do not have to face the emptiness - but then they leave you again, don't they? Deserting you with nothing but bewildering and complex thoughts that have led you far beyond the point of complete sanity, so you take more and more, drowning out the eventual flummoxed thoughts of loneliness; just one vicious circle.

But you're never really by yourself, are you?

I'm here. I've always been here.

I'm not sure if you even notice, perhaps I'll always remain just another shadow in the army that descend across the walls that surround you, or perhaps one day I'll be the saviour, the saviour who will one day save you from the loneliness occupying your mind from the poisons you intoxicate yourself with.

The second, preferably.

I watch you as you sit on the now wet bench, the poisons leaving your body as if the rain is washing you of them, and I want to take the pills away from you, become the rain as I wash you clean and pure once again, oh I so do, but I can't.

Because without the pills, where would I be in your life? I would not even be the shadows in your dreams.

So instead I watch, awaiting for the armor to arrive that I will dress myself in for the day I become your saviour, and until then I will continue being a shadow, just a shadow, filling your needs with white powder and pills. I'll be watching, just watching the effects, until you're so desperately vulnerable you'll need a knight.

A knight like me.

Fall

2008-03-22T15:40:14Z

Title: Fall
Pairing: Implied Frank/Gerard
Rating: 13
Word Count: ~300
Beta: The ever amazing blackeyedwicca serious love, dude.
Summary: 'And then the younger man is there, suffering from the same fall that he has.'

Exhilaration through performance; crowd's praises vibrating through blood, ripping through flesh until it is unquenchable, hungry and tempting, begging for something to try and fulfil the spot it had left in the man's body.

And then the younger man is there, suffering from the same fall that he has. He can feel it through the pulse humming beneath his skin, feel it when he brushes his fingertips across his arms, outlining the curves of lips and the ink staining olive skin.

It's all desperation to relive the high through dirty kisses, all tongue and friction, and ‘should we?’ precise words spoken with just enough tone to give impression of authority, of need.

Not a lot, just enough to keep the younger man wanting more, enough to keep him craving the exhalation of breath against the side of his lips when the words are spoken, swallowed by the eventual friction of lips against his, just enough to keep him counting the words.

Words cautiously whispered into air thick with desire and secrets; ‘I love you, I love you’, the younger man speaks it, but there is never a reply, never a response, ‘I love you, I love you’, unrequited through the movement of bare skin against skin.

It's all a flutter of movement drowning in sheets wrapped around limbs, tangled in familiar black linen; sheets that through the day are used to rest upon, the witness to five men's conversations blurred by the permanent movement of the world around them, the same linen living through the night in fixations of lust.

Then the buzz dies down, all satisfied until the next show, and the whole thing finishes as quickly as it had begun. Temptation dying into the night air humid with sweat, and when the younger man wakes he is alone tangled in the black linen sheets with only the dazed feeling the older man has stained upon his skin; a broken hearted tattoo.