One Night And One More Time (Chapter Twelve)
Title: One Night And One More Time
Author:
whitechinadoll
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
POV: First, Gerard
Rating: R
Summary: Gerard's getting out of hospital, but is it for the best? (uh, duh, no.)
Disclaimer: It's all a figment of my over-active and deranged imagination.
Author Notes: Link goes to my journal, sorry for the long wait (but this chapter is over 3,000 words, so be happy ;D)
Beta: The wonderful talent of:
gee4president who, unlike my other beta's, didn't go on holidays
Warnings: angst, self-harm, depression, suicidal thoughts, character death, suicide attempts, drug use.
Previous Chapters: listed here
When I woke up the next morning, Brian was sitting in the room with me. He had a bag lying on the floor next to him, and was talking sharply into his phone. He gestured to the bag, and I sat up, reaching down to pick it up. I pulled it onto my lap and opened it, rifling through it. He had brought me a change of clothing. I looked at him for a few seconds, unsure as to whether I was meant to put them on, and he gestured irritably at the bathroom door.
I got changed quickly, uncomfortable due to the lack of a lock on the bathroom door. Brian knocked on the door, then sighed slightly as I came out, still wearing the same top as I had on yesterday.
“Gerard,” he frowned, “you need to be vaguely clean and un-smelly. You have an interview today in -” he checked his watch, “- half an hour. We need to sign you outta this place and get you down town in that time. Put on the clean top.”
I shook my head mutely. He sighed in exasperation.
“I’ve been on the phone for the last day and half, attempting to create a plausible reason for you being in hospital. Food poisoning is only legitimate a certain number of times. Now go and change your fucking shirt.”
“I have an interview, right?”
“Yes. That’s what I -”
“In person?”
I saw him grit his teeth before answering.
“Yes.”
“And no one knows the truth about why I was here?”
“No.”
“Then maybe, maybe you shouldn’t have given me a fucking short sleeved top to wear to this stupid fucking interview!”
He looked at me weakly for a few seconds before answering,
“Whatever.”
Then he turned and walked out of the room, calling back a curt,
“Hurry up!”
I slid my feet halfway into my shoes, transferred the prescriptions from my trackie-pants to the jeans I was currently wearing, and reached out and took the Diet Coke from the bedside table. As we waited at the reception, I opened it, and drank a mouthful. It had gone flat overnight. So, basically, the bubbles died overnight. Wouldn’t be wonderful if you could just die overnight? It’d save you and everyone else a lot of trouble. You know what you can do now, though? As soon as this stupid interview is over, you can go find a chemist. And then you can go find a liquor shop. And then you can just go and disappear forever…
“Hi! How can I help you?”
I suppressed my smile at those words. Brian started talking. I stood there and stared off into the distance, purposefully ignoring the looks that the nurse kept shooting at me. Eventually, all that was left was for me to sign the sheet of paper. I skimmed it briefly, and then scrawled my name at the bottom. Brain nodded at me slightly, and we made our way out of the hospital, the nurse calling out,
“Have a good day!” to our retreating backs. Once again, I suppressed the urge to smile.
Brain led me over to his car, and opened it, getting in the drivers’ side. I slipped in the passenger door, and immediately reached into his glove box, helping myself to a cigarette from the box I knew he always kept in there. He looked over at me, frowning slightly, but allowed the use of his cigarettes to go unmentioned. I think he knew it was a lost cause. He started talking, and I went to turn on the radio, but he reached out his hand and stopped me.
“Gerard…this is serious.”
I nodded, digging through his glove box again, this time pulling out a pair of his sunglasses. I put them on, hiding my eyes.
“I’m not fucking…look. You got released into my care. Do you know what that means?”
I nodded again.
“Okay. Well, I’m not going to be able to keep and eye on you all the time, so Frank’s said he’ll help out. Gerard…you can’t go trying to get rid of Frank, okay? It was hard enough getting them to release you now; I don’t know what I’d have to do if…just…Don’t fuck it up, okay?” That’s hilarious. Like you could ever not fuck something up. He does know that doesn’t he? Or does he really think he can trust someone like you? I exhaled softly, blowing smoke through the interior of his car, as opposed to out the window.
“Whatever.”
He shook his head slightly, but didn’t protest.
We arrived back at the hotel, predictable, a few minutes late for the interview. Rock stars always keep people waiting. The woman talking to me was polite, and asked the same boring questions that they always did. I took my sunglasses off, pushing them into the pockets of my jeans. I smiled, nodded, and rambled; attempted to be happy, to seem okay.
Why did you start the band?
What do you think of people’s reactions to The Black Parade?
What’s going on with Mikey? Was the recording difficult for everyone?
How are you doing as band now?
I heard you were in hospital recently…
Food poisoning has always been the easiest way to excuse an unexplained trip to hospital. And it’s believable, because, when it comes down to it, how can anyone ever prove it? Of course, it was accepted without a murmur, and the interview wound up. She showed me the stock-photos Brian had already agreed to let her publish with the article, and wished me good day.
I made my way to me room, tailed by Frank, who had been waiting outside of the room I’d been interviewed in. He didn’t say anything, just walked beside me, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.
“I bought the new Bouncing Souls record yesterday.”
I nodded, and glanced at him.
“Any good?”
“Yeah. You should listen to it…It’s all uplifting and shit.”
I nodded again. Silence. The only sound was the elevator doors dinging open, and then the music that played as it traveled up three floors. When we reached the doors to my room, Frank put a hand over my arm. I looked at it pointedly, and he blushed slightly, removing it.
“Just so y’know…I packed all your stuff up the other night, so…don’t get freaked and think someone’s stolen it just because it’s not scattered all over the floor.”
I walked into the room, and Frank followed.
“Dude. Wait outside.”
He opened his mouth, and then shut it again. He took a few steps closer to me, and looked at me slightly apologetically.
“Gerard, I…I’m not allowed to. I have to…someone has to be with you all the time.”
There was silence for a few seconds, then I nodded, and he let out an audible breath. I picked my bag up from on the floor, and sat it on the bed, opening the zipper and digging around to find a clean shirt. Surprisingly, everything was folded, and clean. Despite everything that had happened in the last few days, Frank had still washed and put away my clothes for me. And here you are pretending that you hate him. He does so much for you, and this is the way you repay him? Look how dependent you are…it’s pathetic. It’ll probably be a relief for him to have to stop caring for you and running around after you like a slave trying to clean up after everything that you fuck up. I blinked away the tears that were filling my eyes, and picked out a black long sleeved shirt and hoodie to wear. I moved to the bathroom, to put them on, but as I was closing the door, Frankie spoke again.
“You’re not allowed to have the door shut, Gerard.”
“Whatever.”
I scowled, and turned away from him, quickly yanking off the old top and putting the new one on. I walked back out of the bathroom, and dropped the dirty shit into the bag, then pulled on my hoodie. He picked up the dirty shirt, and placed it in a side pocket on my bag, zipping up both of them.
“This way the clean ones won’t smell.”
“Thanks.”
It was quiet, barely murmured. I was thanking him for so much. I don’t think Frank has ever realized how much he’s done for me, how much he’s meant to me. At every turning point in my life, there’s Frank, picking me back up and telling me to keep going. Too bad he can’t save you now. And it was an apology. Because, yep, I’d stopped trying, and he never wanted me to do that, but I guess that maybe he was always just too good for me, meant to carry on without me there to drag him down and keep him stuck. He pulled me into a hug, which I quickly wriggled out of, and whispered, “no problem,” in my ear.
After I pulled away, there was an awkward pause, before I turned away from him, looking out of the window instead.
“What time are we leaving?”
“Tonight, in about -”
He checked his watch,
“- three hours.”
It turned and picked up my bag.
“I’m putting this in the bus, and then going for a walk.”
He opened the door for me, and said,
“I’m coming with you.”
I opened my mouth to protest, before shutting it again. He had to. I had no choice, neither did he, really, and all that was going to happen was that he’d lose faith in me even more. He couldn’t actually physically stop me from buying alcohol, could just look on in disappointment as I ‘threw it all away.’ But…I wasn’t throwing it all away. I had nothing left to throw away, just memories of things that I shouldn’t have done. I had nothing more to become, nothing to dream of aspiring to. All I had left were scars that would never go away, that would mark me as ‘disturbed’ for the rest of my life. They couldn’t go away, I couldn’t make them disappear. Death was the only way to let it go, to have it finally leave me alone. I didn’t want happiness and I wasn’t looking for relief in death. I just wanted it all to go away.
The bus was parked behind the hotel. I walked in, dropping the bag on the foot of my bunk. I unzipped the main pocket, digging through it to find the last pair of pants I had been wearing. When I found them, I pulled out my wallet and put into my pocket. I surveyed my bunk. The clothes that had been neatly folded were now strewn across the blankets. I sighed, and simply drew the curtain, turning to walk back into the main part of the bus, only to narrowly avoid collision with Frankie.
“Frank. What the fuck, man?”
He smiled at me, and shrugged.
“I’m not supposed to -”
“Yeah, I got that part, but you don’t actually have to be on top of me either!”
He smirked, and I punched his arm. He feigned a look of pain.
“You’re so weak, Frankie-wankie.”
He pushed me towards the door of the bus, poking my back.
“Fuck off!”
He laughed. So did I. He faced me as he got off the bus; his eyes alight with something more than laughter and happiness. Hope, maybe? Which you’ll soon destroy, Gerard. No matter how happy you think you are now, no matter how much you feel like maybe it could get better, it never will. You can’t forget that. Have you forgotten lying in bed at night, tears dripping down your face, too scared to make a sound in case someone hears you? Clawing at your arms when it’s too risky to cut yourself? Desperately trying to make all the bad things go away before they explode out of you? I turned away from him again, pulling Brian’s sunglasses from my pocket, and putting them back on again.
Frank and I wandered down the street. It was mid-afternoon on a Sunday, and no one was interested in the two men making their slow way down the main street of the town. We passed a pharmacy, but I kept walking as though it didn’t interest me in the least. Frank wouldn’t let me go in there and get the prescription filled. He had always been the most protective when it came to me keeping clean. Then again, I doubted that he would let me buy alcohol either, but buying alcohol involved no forged documents that may be examined if a scene was caused. We kept walking and chatting casually, determinedly ignoring any topics that had been involved in the last couple of days. It was when I saw the third bottle shop, seven blocks down from the hotel, that I stopped. Frank kept walking for a few steps, before he turned round, frowning. His frown deepened when he saw me turning to walk inside the shop.
“Gerard, what…this is a liquor shop.”
“I know.”
“But…what are you doing?”
I sighed, pushing open the door, and didn’t answer him.
“Gerard!”
His voice had risen in pitch, and he grabbed my arm, pulling it back from the door handle.
“No fucking way. You’ve been through too much to throw it all away now. Fuck, don’t you understand?”
I didn’t look at him, just kept my gaze fixed on the glass door.
“Gerard, there’s nothing to hide anymore. You can start to get better now. You don’t have to go back to what it was before!”
I pulled my arm from his grasp and walked in. It was a different bottle shop to the one I’d chosen last time. The spirits were in a different section of the shop, the back left hand corner. I looked at their selection for maybe two minutes. Frankie had followed me into the shop, talking in my ear. Didn’t he understand that I knew everything he was trying to tell me? I just didn’t believe any of it. This was the right thing to do, the only way to ever make it all go away. Everyone dies in the end, right? So a couple of years here or there shouldn’t matter. I reached out my hand, to pick up a bottle of Absolut Vodka. But Frankie took hold of my hand before I could pick anything up. He was standing on my right, and had my right hand clasped in his left. Despite my attempts to extract my hand from his grasp, he linked our fingers together.
“Frankie. Let go of my fucking hand.”
“No. I’m not gonna let you do this to yourself, I’m not gonna let you do this to our band, and I’m not gonna let you do this to Mikey.”
I laughed hollowly.
“To Mikey? He doesn’t care about me. He’d probably be happy if I was…if I spent all my time drunk and out of his way.”
“What were you about to say, Gerard?”
Fuck. Good job, Gerard. You manage to fuck up the one thing you had left. You’ve really gone and exceeded yourself this time.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
“Just fucking let go of me!”
“No.”
In contrast to my voice, which kept rising in pitch, Frankie was remaining calm, his voice steady and level. He was gripping my hand slightly tighter, but was still only holding gently, just with enough pressure to make sure I would remember he was there.
“Gerard…I’m not just going to let you fall apart. I’m not just gonna let go and watch as you destroy everything that you’ve built up.”
I laughed bitterly, and again tried to remove my hand from his grip. He didn’t know. He had no fucking idea what I was doing now, didn’t seem to realize that Mikey hated me, that everything I’d worked for had already fallen apart. It was lying around my feet in tatters, and he was trying to tell me that everything was still okay? It was funny.
“Gerard…”
He tugged slightly on my hand, leading me outside. I went with him. What would it matter? He would tell me that I shouldn’t drink, lose hope and give up. Then I could buy the vodka and the medication, go lie on a park bench somewhere, like a hopeless vagrant, and finally…finally let everything fade away. He looked up at me, staring into my eyes, searching for something I was sure he wouldn’t find. I hugged my free arm around myself, glad that Brian’s sunglasses were still offering me some from of protection from his penetrating gaze. He pulled that arm away from my body, holding my left hand as well. He linked the fingers together, pulling me closer to him, resting his head on my shoulder for a few seconds. Then he looked back up at me. He unlinked the fingers of his left and my right hand, taking the sunglasses off my face, and hanging them off the front of my shirt. I opened my mouth to protest, but he put the fingers of his left hand up against me mouth, shushing me.
“Gerard…you’re forgetting that I’ve been through this too. Not exactly the same, but…I have a fair idea of what you’re going through.”
He wasn’t looking at my eyes anymore, but had his gaze fixed on my left cheekbone. His eyes flicked to mine for a second before he continued. They were full of sympathy.
“So…I’m pretty sure you don’t want to talk, but you need to. And you can talk to me whenever you need to. I’m serious about that. You can wake me up at three in the morning if you want to, or drag me away from playing computer games. I’m always gonna be here, whether you like it or not!”
He smiled lightly at the last line, linking his left hand with my right again.
“I love you so fucking much, I don’t care how shitty you feel, I’m gonna keep you here with me Gerard. I’m never gonna let you forget how hard you’ve worked to get where you are, but I’m not gonna remind you of anything you want to forget, either. I only want to help, because despite what you might think…you need it.”
I sighed, looking away from him. He tugged on my hands, looking into my questioning gaze insistently.
“I mean it. And speaking of talking…Mikey made an appointment with you for tomorrow, with Bruce, over the phone.”
I scowled.
“I don’t fucking need -”
“Yes you do.”
“Anyway, why would Mikey do that…he hates me.”
“No he doesn’t.”
“Ye -”
“No. He doesn’t. He’s just so fucking worried. Because he’s seen you like this before, and he’s been like this before, and he doesn’t know what’s going to happen. He doesn’t know what to do.”
I scoffed disbelievingly, and he tugged on my hands.
“Don’t doubt it, Gee. Just give it some time…okay? It’ll get better. I know. I’ve…I’ve been in your situation before…And now I’m here, helping you, and I know that some day you’re gonna be around to do that for someone else.”
He smiled, slightly hopefully and slightly desperately, and pulled me into a hug.
“I don’t need your sympathy.”
I mumbled into his neck.
He pulled away, looking into my eyes.
“It’s not sympathy, it’s empathy.”
“Whatever.”
I turned away, pulling Brian’s sunglasses on, not moving, just staring down the street.
“C’mon.”
Frank took my hand again,
“We need to get back to the bus.”
“I’m okay.”
He looked at me briefly, and smiled slightly.
“I know,”
“No…Frankie. Really, I’m okay.”
He frowned.
I pulled my hand from his, putting it in my pocket, touching the small slip of paper.
I promise.