(no subject)

[zmphony]

Title: A Lonely Avenue (chapter 15, pt.1)
Author: zmphony
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating/Warning: R, Frerard vampire AU.
Disclaimer: All fiction, I promise.
A/N: Okayokayokay. So yeah. This is uh. Really late. Like. Later than mcr's new album, which was supposed to be here by now.
. . . . . . . . .but it's good!! More cliffhangers, but good! I had so much drama with this chapter, it was like a really bad fifth grade crush or something. One day I liked it then I didn't so I ignored it for a couple days (or weeks) but then I ended up coming back to it and wallah! Here it is, the finished first installment of ze last chapter of A Lonely Avenue!! *insert dramatic horns to flare up* =D
I hope you like reading it as much as I liked writing it^.^
Summary: Willow Avenue. It's been quite alone most the time. It's always been alone. Atleast, at nighttime it is. He watched these nights, moved with these nights. Frank knew he did, he watched. The only thing he didn't know, was that he was watching him back. . .he was new to the neighborhood

one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten | eleven | twelve | thirteen | fourteen |

Scrape. Scuff. Repeat. The sidewalk looked like a gray version of the yellow brick road, spanning and winding endlessly. But somehow, he always found himself back where he started.

At one point he actually wished he'd end up somewhere else. Somewhere completely different, a brand new reality for his life, and just leave this one behind. The truth was, he didn't know where he was going. He didn't know where he was going because he didn't know where he could go. This was his home, and no matter how much it didn't feel like it, his whole life was here. He couldn't just walk away.
 So he hid. Where, he didn't know. He didn't know where when he was walking home, or when he was leaving his mom a note that he was spending a few nights at Hambone's house, or when he was filling his backpack with things he wasn't paying attention to, or when he was dumping all those things on the floor and shoving his guitar into its case and tossing it over his shoulders and trudging out into the vast city of nothingness to escape his whole life. And now he walked. He wasn't walking anywhere specific, just away. What's worse is that this was supposed to be the right thing to do. The right thing. Whoever cared about the right things anyways. Scrape. Scuff. Repeat. His eyes never strayed from his dirty laces and peeling rubber soles, dragging his feet across the lifeless pavement to nowhere.

The rain ceased slightly in this while he spent walking. He felt slightly grateful for this, he hated perspiration. But he just couldn't picture this day being sunny and bright. It might've just made things worse, so maybe the drizzle from the clouds peppering the sidewalks was a good thing. Maybe alot of things he didn't like were actually good things. Right, things.

Scrape. Scuff. Maybe. Repeat.

He heard his voice before he saw him. It wasn't a shout or a cry or anything really, more like a gasp. A loud one atleast, in Frank's ears. Then his eyes shot up from his anglets and he saw him, one strip of black and white pasted onto a grey scene, moving towards him in a flurry. Frank stopped, watching the man moving towards him, and his heart sunk because he knew what was coming next.

The closer he got the more Frank wanted to turn the other way and start walking again. But he couldn't. He didn't.

"Frank," He said, his eyes glowing in a way that reminded Frank of the candles in Father Adrian's church, but then they went out like them too when they saw the guitar case on his back. It was quiet as the two stood in front of each other, the wind hissing and whipping against the teenager's pink nose and cheeks and the other's white countenance. Just their appearances laid out every question and answer that buzzed through their heads, and Frank could do nothing but let his eyes wilt to the ground again.

"You never told me," He said, his eyes inching up to the other's. Gerard's eyes softened at the teenager's, and he suddenly knew this was going to be harder than he thought.

"I didn't think i'd have to." He replied, swallowing quickly before he spoke, "I didn't think we'd come this far."

Frank eyes glanced from Gerard's right eye to his left, wondering if his words where his words were coming from his heart or his mind. He wondered why he didn't tell him before, or yesterday, when they were on the roof. He had so much time, but Gerard answered that question before he could ask.

"I was hoping I would never have to." He said, taking a small step closer to him, "Because I didn't want to. I didn't want to. . ."

He looked down at the grey sidewalk which was becoming darker and darker by the seconds of the tiny passing raindrops, then said, looking up at him again, "I didn't want you to leave."

It felt like Frank had been waiting for him to say that, but even so it made a weight like a sharp anchor fall on his chest. Gerard saw the look on his face and couldn't turn his eyes away. He suddenly felt guilty. He was the cause of this. This was his fault. The look in Frank's eyes was all his fault; maybe everything was. Now nothing would erase that look, nothing he could do anyways. It was staring at a beautiful painting that he'd messed up, and it was no use trying to fix it because all he'd end up with was more stains and messy hands, more guilt. It was hopeless, but he'd give anything to put more hope in those eyes.

. . . Frank started slowly. "I didn't- I don't," He said, then stopped, swallowing and closing his eyes for a moment, then opening them, "It's the only thing I can do."

He didn't look at Gerard as he spoke. He wouldn't even be looking at himself if he could.
"It's not worth it if I didn't, not worth losing you," He went on, his eyes avoiding the ones before him insecurely.

For one second the vampire thought that Frank was too young to be hurting this way, as he listened to him go on. It looked as if each bit and piece of his self had cracked and broke, and he had to fix himself and patch himself back up in order to say these things. He never saw him like this, and in a incomprehendable way, how tragically beautiful he looked broke his heart.

"It's just I, I," He said, talking to the sidewalk, then when his voice trailed off, his eyes suddenly locked on Gerard's again, and stared, as if he could show him all his feelings through his eyes. Which worked.

"I need to know that you're still gonna be here," He softened, "I need that."

Gerard's eyes were weak, almost hollow. And when he compared his to Frank's, he figured it out; Frank wasn't broken. He was only breaking. Gerard was already broken.

The more they stared, the more they seemed to realize that, and it was then that words felt useless, because they couldn't free the feelings that stayed inside. Nothing could, nothing could save those, they were already lost and at their resting place. Only now Frank wished he could join them.

Gerard glanced at the floor, breaking the contact sharply. The look on his face was killing him. He wanted to tell him. He wanted to tell him that he wouldn't be here, that he wouldn't ever see him or talk to him or hold him again, but he couldn't. He couldn't hurt him even more. His face was like cracked glass, and if he told him it'd be just like stepping on it.

He looked at the teenager, and asked, "What if you're not?"

There was a pause, then Frank shook his head, pursing his reddened lips, "I don't know," He mumbled, incoherently, and his eyes twinkled wetly.

Gerard winced subtly. There was another pause where all he wanted to do was reach out to the other and hold him so close that it'd be impossible for either or them to leave each other. But he couldn't.

"Just. . .tell me something." He said softly, and didn't wait for Frank's consent to continue, "Will you still remember me?"

Frank's withering countenance flinched at that. Gerard held his gaze as he waited for an answer. Frank's face looked like it was about to crumble.

". . .He knew I would, that's why he asked me." He told Father Adrian, "He needed to hear me say it, to make me feel it. . ." His voice trailed off, and he pressed his palm against his lips when they started to tremble. Father Adrian pursed his lips, the deep lines on his brow receding into his forehead when he raised his eyebrows. The silence was thin, but at the same time strong, almost sharp-like. Usually he would think that silences were heavy, and easy to evaporate, or cut, or break, but not this silence. This silence wasn't to be broken. It wasn't thin enough to break, or thick enough to dwell in. It was just sharp, in the ways that made it impossible to touch. Maybe it was a reverence, not a silence, maybe that's why it was so untouchable. Sacred, even. Father Adrian hadn't felt a silence, or a reverence this holy even in his church. He wondered what made it so sacred, but his wonders were put to rest when he saw the quivering of the child next to him. It felt sacriligious to believe that the something this boy, this typical human teenage boy, had for a filthy, cursed creature-or man maybe-was strong enough to overpower the church's veneration (but wasn't it?). His priesthood felt challenged. What was it?

Gerard trudged down the street, his footing in almost a drunken pattern. It was raining harder now, but not hard enough. He wanted these skies to rip apart and pour out all of Heaven's blood, and let it soak the earth with the intense scorn it bore for it. Or maybe he just wanted empathy. He didn't know. He didn't even know where he was going, his subconscious was taking the wheel right now.

He payed attention to nothing. Not the nosy or irritated passerby's he pushed past or the widened peripheral vision he was looking through with his now darkened eyes, or anything. Nothing.

He wasn't looking at anything really. He couldn't see anything except the lacerations lacing his soul. He felt like the rain. Exactly like the rain.

His hair stuck to his face and his lips remained pressed together and weak. This was the end of the road, and all he wanted to do was throw himself over it. What else was there to do? He could feel everything now. Maybe it wasn't because he was a vampire that he could feel every nook and cranny of his soul being torn apart. Maybe it wasn't because he was a vampire that he could feel every single tear crawling past his eyes or drop of blood falling to the ground. Maybe it wasn't because he was a vampire that he could feel every cry of heart as it broke. Maybe it was just because he was human.

"He held my hand, and waited for me to say something, b-but I couldn't say anything." He started again, slower, and shivered, "There wasn't anything that could let him know, j-just nothing,"

Father Adrian's eyes were soft with an innocent marvel at the kid. Maybe it was his youth, his naive, inexperienced mind that made his small, trivial feelings so intensified and passionate, but maybe it wasn't.

He was seventeen. Some say you can't fall in love at seventeen, and some say you can't fall in love after seventeen. But then none of that seemed to matter when he looked at the teenager. There was just something, something that made it impossible for all those cynical and human things said about love just insignificant. Because it had nothing to do with this. This was something farther than human love reached, and it made everything the Father had spent his life on a blur of shit. Because there was no better word for it at this point of view; just shit. What feeling could make this child shake and tremble like his soul was trying to break free of his body, and what feeling could his silences so reverent, like a funeral? Maybe Father Adrian just didn't know, maybe he never experienced it, but in all his 72 years of living, he knew that this feeling, this something, was more than any love he'd seen or felt, by a god or a by a lover.

A pedestrian gasped indignantly at Gerard as he made a sharp left turn at the corner, but before they could let out some annoyed remark there eyes widened at Gerard's own darkened ones. They asked him if he was okay as he walked away, but he didn't reply. Usually he'd put them off with some drunken man's slurred response, as that would make up for everything, but it wasn't necessary now. It's not like they would have enough time to report him to the cops anyway; he'll be gone in the next four or five hours or so whether they liked it or not. He sauntered down the street with footsteps so heavy they could put cracks in the pavement. Maybe they were. Who knows. He didn't. His heart didn't pound in his chest in the fury it did when he spotted Frank walking aimlessly down the street with his guitar. He was pretty sure that meant he didn't have that much time left. Either that, or maybe he was already dead.

His house came into view, and briefly he wondered how he wound up here. He thought about what Mikey was doing right now, and he already felt like a ghost. Something punched a soft spot in his chest, and he wasn't even sure if it was him who decided to start walking towards the house, towards his brother. All he heard was a cracked voice saying he couldn't let what he'd said to his brother be his last words, and if he couldn't fix himself, he could certainly fix this.

". . .I didn't know what to do, so I just held his hand tighter and said. . .'always'," He said. His lip wasn't trembling anymore, neither was he. He was just sitting there, hunched over and staring at the floor without blinking, giving up his resistance and letting all those accelerating tears leave wet stripes down his cheeks while his face lay void of emotion. But as Father Adrian studied it, it looked like it was too full of emotion. It was like the color black; too full of colors to actually portray a singular one. So he stared, emotionally unemotional.

"I know, I know," He said, and his lip began to tremble again, "I know that this was the best thing to do, the right thing, but,"

He looked up at the priest, his poorly lit green eyes wet and soft and twinkling, and said, his lips still quivering erratically as he spoke, "Don't tell me i'm right."

The almost-white grey light that gazed into the pews fell across his head brightly, the white tone blanketing his aura like angel's wings, and Father Adrian knew that any type of grace wasn't far from where he sat. He'd watched this boy cry, quake, quiver and unravel, and proceed into his current state of letting his soul bleed through his skin, and nothing compelled him more than his heart did to make this boy stop, and just fix him. But he couldn't, because nothing could.

What took the life, heart, and soul of this human, this something, was more than just love. It was the tie of a noose called Human made of rope called Creature. It was a vampire's love.

His hand left his fingerprints as he walked away from the ajar, gaping door and into the house. It was quiet, and still. No sound at all. Gerard wondered if he'd already left. Where, he wouldn't know, because where could he go? He walked into the main room nonetheless.

"Mikey?" He called, his voice raspier than he'd imagined it would be, but as loud as a ghost's against the vacant halls of the house. Not a sound.

Nothing in the bedrooms upstairs, or the kitchen where he'd normally reside with cartoons and cereal; no static, no sogging of Frankenberry's in nearly-expired milk, not even the sound of dust forming in the closet in the upstairs hallway where the master bathroom was. But then. . .he heard a sound like curtains swishing against a hardwood floor. He turned, and wasn't surprised when he saw her standing there, sweeping the floors with her long white dress. But not being surprised didn't relieve him of the quelching, choking shock that hit his heart when he saw her and not his brother. His eyes narrowed, and a shroud of red cloaked the stark fear in his chest.
"No. . ." He murmured, his fists curling as he impulsively started towards her, "No,"

He was across the floor lashing for her neck in less than seconds, but his bloodthirsty hands went through thin air, and the sight of them empty made the knot in his chest tighten.

"Better soon than later, Gerard, i'm sure he realized that too," She said, but there was no smile on her face. Yet.

"What'd you do to him?" He asked, advancing towards her again, his eyes blackening even more so than before and glittering with wet spots again.

"S'not what I did this time Gerard, and i'm beginning to think it's going to become a routine soon," She said, but the playful tone vanished when Gerard bared his fangs at her, "It was his choice, for you Gerard."

"What choice? What did you make him do?" He asked.

"He wanted to save you, from all this," She said, but when Gerard growled in no way a human could she continued, irritatingly, "It was his decision, I just gave him the idea. There's no way you can fix this Gerard, the deal's already been made."

"What deal?" He hissed, hating all the feelings that the word 'deal' rang up.

"The Displacement Procedure, superseding deal-- the replacement process, Gerard," She said, and when she saw how his face opened and dropped, revealing all the hidden fear and horror that he'd kept stored in the forgotten place in his chest, she continued in satisfaction, "He sacrificed himself, for you."

He let his head hang, his eyes darting left and right frantically. She watched, and her smile returned with the bitter curl it had before as she said, "He wanted to save you from Hell, and let you live onto this world by yourself. But hey, alive and alone and is better than dead, right?"

The last words of her sentence were barely passed before he came lunging through her evaporated mist, slamming his fists into the wall when they'd met the wood instead of her mouth. And he kept slamming them, as hard as he could, and it only took the second punch to send his knuckles through the hardwood, and he screamed for everything except the pain of not being able to send his fists through her face.

She watched, no smile, no smirk, but with geniune curiousity at the being tearing up the wall and his vocal chords, but even his screams weren't loud enough to cover up the sound of the delicate salt water droplets crashing into the floor beneath him.

"Why," He cried, "Why can't you just leave?"

She stared at his face for the longest time, looking through him with the eyes of a scientist, and she saw everything. She saw all the damage, all the wreckage, how destroyed the human being inside this monster's body was, how there was barely anything left of it. And she was complacent, because it was exactly what she wanted. Nothing could be left inside this shell of a human being, it just couldn't work if there was anything left inside. Everything must've been eliminated of life, that's how it was done. He watched her gaze into him, and didn't care at all.

"I'm not here to leave, Gerard, i'm here to make deals." She said, walking towards him in her formal manner which she'd forsaken for the past few minutes, "Which leads me to tell you this: If you ever want to see your little brother again, you will come to the Mausoleum tomorrow at ten till' one in the morning. Anytime after that. . ."

Her train trailed behind her as she made her way to the door, leaving the crumbled soul (and the wall) to watch her walk away from the main room, then when she was at the door, she said,
"My deal expires."

With that, and not a glance behind, she left with the door closed behind her. Gerard stood for a minor few seconds before letting his knees give out and sinking to the cold, cold floor.

Not a sound.