(c) Burn [MA]

Title: Burn
Author: waste my sanity.
Rating: MA, for swearing and vague sexual content.
Genre(s): Romance/Angst.
Status: One shot; complete.
Summary: Frank is sick of intervening.
Authors Note: Originally for a prompt contest back on Mibba. My prompt was 'intervention'.


Gerard is not a chef. He’s a man who shouldn’t be allowed within five hundred feet of a kitchen appliance. He’s a man who can spend days in a dark room with a bare, dull bulb hanging limp over a cheap wooden desk with a pencil gripped in his hand so much he gets splinters. But he’s nothing close to a chef.

Gerard, with his tangled black hair and his bitten down and bloody fingernails, Gerard doesn’t belong in a kitchen. The kitchen, though, the kitchen’s the furthest from the front room when we’re not sleeping. The furthest from that old oak cabinet Gerard’s mom gave him when he moved out, that holds all of Gerard’s little glass demons. You know; Absolut and Smirnoff black and that nasty highest-percent-legally-allowed-in-Europe stuff that Mikey brought over.

If I can keep him away from that, I don’t have to come home and find him nut sack deep in some other guy’s colon on our sofa. Because let me tell you, that’s not a pretty sight. Walking in after work, the last thing I want is to find my best friend with his pants around his ankles and a stranger bent over in front of him, sex in his hand and the other clutching the throw my mom gave me.

“Frank, I can’t fucking do this. I’m going to watch TV.” He drops the knife onto the counter and turns to walk away.

“Turn back around and keep trying,” I mutter and try to pretend that this whole time I’ve been reading a magazine this whole time, when it was really just sitting in my lap.

“Don’t pretend to read that,” Gerard sighs. He snatches it out from under my nose. “Firstly, it’s upside down. Jeez, I thought that only happened in movies. And secondly, it’s a fucking...okay, it’s Rolling Stone, but it was still upside down. Why are you making me do this? You know I can’t cook to save my life.”

“I’m trying to teach you. I’m tired of being the one that has to cook all of the time.”

“We’ll live on take out.”

“Yeah, because we can afford that. Shut up and keep going.” I fold my arms over my chest and lean back in my chair. He frowns at me and looks back at the counter, to the half naked, shining, wet yellow potatoes he’s abandoned. “Smile, Gerard. It’s not like I’m making you kill anything.”

“But...but everything I cook turns to shit. You’re a chef. You work in a fucking restaurant! You’re like Monica from Friends but without the obsessive compulsions and the nerdy brother and the high pitched voice.”

“And the tits, ovaries and womb. I’m nothing like her. I’m just... a chef with dark hair.”

“That,” Gerard mutters, pointing the knife at me, “is beside the point. I’m not a cook. You are.”

“Somehow, I feel this conversation is going around in circles.”

His brow furrowed, he looks back at the counter and starts again. His wrist flicks sharply and it’s almost as if he’s trying to spite me by doing it so angrily. My legs stretch out in front of me and cross at the ankle, and I see Gerard looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

Slice. Slice. Slice slice slice.Slice. Slicesliceslice.

And I already know he’s doing it too fast. I can see it. His pale cheeks sucked into a pout and his forehead creased in concentration. He’s thinking Look at me, you big, smug professional. Look at me, slicing potatoes like my life depends on it. I can do it just as well as you can. And I’m thinking, Well, no, Gerard, you can’t. I’ve been trained to slice potatoes. So, fuck you.

“Gerard, slow down or you’ll-.”

“Fuck off.”

Cut yourself. “Sorry.”

“Fuck! Shit, oh, Frank, I’ve cut myself.” He seems to be too upset about the cut on his finger to stop and give me a look that says ‘Fuck you,’ like I’d expected. “Fra-ank,” he whines.

“I tried to warn you.”

“Warnings don’t put band aids on cuts, Frank,” Gerard says with a soft sigh and a roll of his eyes.

“You’re right,” I nod. “Stupid men who don’t listen to their friends put band aids on cuts. It's tiny, Gerard. You haven’t chopped your friggin’ hand off. Do it yourself.”

His face falls like he’s in slow motion; bottom lip jutting out of place and the corners of his mouth tilting down. His eyes widen, as if I’ve done something terrible, like expose myself. He’d probably like that.

Gerard is the kind of guy who’d fuck you without knowing your first name, but wait until the third date to actually kiss you. He’s the kind of guy you can know for five minutes and immediately want to know for the rest of your life. I don’t know why, but every time somebody meets him they’re asking their friends about him for days afterwards.

What’s that Gerard guy’s cell phone number? and Who was that Gerard guy last night? And my personal favourite: Ah, you know that guy...the one with the black hair we met last night, what’s his name again? This is said in a ‘I remember every tiny, insignificant detail about that man and I want to start a conversation about him’ kind of way.

You remember the creases he gets around his eyes when he smiles, and the funny, staggered way that he laughs. You remember how he sometimes sounds like he talks from the back of his throat and the fact that when he’s drunk he likes to stick his hands down your pants without warning. Oh, you definitely remember that, because that’s what you remember the next day when you ask yourself How did we get here? after waking up in his bed alone. The sound of the coffee machine may make you smile and give you some reassurance, but when you leave the bedroom and see that the front door's already open, and the coffee is for Gerard plus somebody that’s not you – it’s me, by the way – the reassurance is gone faster than you can say ‘I had a great time last night.’

“Frank, please,” he whines again, eyelids batting like a chick trying to flirt her way into a club.

“Fine! Jesus fucking Christ, you’re like a child.” I get up, and I’m close to going into the bathroom before worrying that he’ll take the opportunity to raid for a half finished bottle of whiskey. “Come on, then.”

“What, I actually have to move?”

“I’m not your servant. I already cook!”

“Well after today, I think I’ll be the one cooking. Did you see how fast I was cutting that potato?” he asks excitedly, cradling his hand as if there was a gaping wound in it.

“Until you screwed up.”

“You distracted me.” Gerard shrugs and walks past me, his shoulders twisting left, right, left, right.

“How?”

He waves a hand, which is a sign that the conversation has to take an abrupt and conspicuous change in subject or it doesn’t continue at all.

In the bathroom, he’s sitting on the edge of the closed toilet and inspecting the nail beds of his wounded hand. I half expect him to have one leg crossed over the other, filing his nails and biting his lip seductively. There’s a box of plasters in the cabinet with the mirror for a door above the sink, but Gerard won’t have bothered getting them out. That would be more work for him, obviously.

“Aw, I’m afraid we don’t have any cartoon band aids this time,” I grin, flipping the box of flesh coloured band aids over in my hand.

“Shame.”

“I’m about to put a fucking band aid on a cut on your finger. The best you could do is pretend to be offended when I make jokes at your expense.”

“Oh, sorry,” Gerard pauses and looks at the wall, then back at me. “Fuck off, you dick. Just get on your knees and do it.” He grins at me, showing his tiny white teeth. Baby teeth. “Better?”

“Much. But I think the ‘get on your knees’ part was unnecessary.” And yet, I do it regardless, my knees pressing into the cold tile flooring as I open the box.

“Anything worth doing is worth doing well. You know that’s my motto.” He pushes his hand pretty much under my nose, and I see the cut for the first time. Pretty fucking pathetic if you ask me.

Sometimes I can’t believe the things I do for him. I cook everyday because he can’t, and now I’m putting a band aid on for him because he cut himself whilst I was trying to change the fact I cook every day. I put up with listening to him grunting and groaning and moaning and screaming, hearing the headrest of his bed banging against the wall of my room, all the while wishing it was me lying underneath him, eyes clenched shut and lips pushed hard and hot against his.

“No, Frank. You don’t fold them in at the same time. They meet and then they’ll crease! You fold one and tuck it under, and then you fold the other over the top!” And I put up with him giving me step-by-step instructions on putting on the fucking band aid. So I just do as I’m told, because you know, maybe me doing as I’m told could put me in his bed. “Perfect. Thank you, Frankie.” But he only calls me Frankie so I’ll be sweet to him the next time he wants something from me but doesn’t want to give anything back.

“Mhm.” I stand up, putting the box back in the cabinet.

“Are you okay?” he asks. And I’d give him a proper answer if he wasn’t making sure I’d stuck the fucking thing on properly instead of looking at me.

“Yeah, I’m fine. C’mon, you have to -.”

“Nah,” he breathes, standing up and stretching his arms behind his back. “No more cooking today. I’m wounded.”

“No, you’re not. Don’t be a little bitch.”

“Frank, I don’t want to, okay?” Gerard’s frowning at me, his face scrunched up. “Jesus.” And he’s heading out of the bathroom, and through the open door I can see he’s going straight for that fucking cabinet.

“Hey, Gee, uh, why don’t we -.” I stop. I have absolutely nothing. He’s not even listening, he’s just walking. So, I guess I don’t really have a choice. I run out of the bathroom and in a few steps I’m on Gerard’s back, bringing him down onto the couch.

“Frank! What the fuck?” he screams into a cushion. “What are you doing?” He flaps his arms and slaps at me, twisting underneath me so I’m sitting on his stomach. I can feel him breathing. “Is this...is this about the ...the fucking drink? You don’t want me to cook at all, do you? This was never about me cooking.”

Your friends never see how what they’re doing effects you. They just think it’s their health their ruining and their life that’s going to get fucked up. But they never think about the fact that if you live with them, and they can’t pay their share of the rent because they’re too drunk to work, your ass is out on the pavement too. They don’t think about how you actually do care if they die, because – weird, I know – they’re not just some random stranger you live with. You love them, more often than not. And Gerard just can’t see this.

“Frank!” Gerard shouts. I’m flipped ass over ankle onto the floor. “Are you fucking crazy? Why were you doing that?”

“Because,” I say, looking up at him from where my legs are crumpled underneath me. He’s sitting on the couch, just staring at me. It’s like I’ve done something really, really fucking terrible. Something a million times worse than exposing myself. “Because, I’m sick of hearing you come home wasted with some guy. I’m sick of you sitting here and getting wasted on your own. I’m sick of being kept up every fucking night when you’re not home, hoping you’re not passed out in some fucking gutter or dead. And I’m sick of... I’m sick of lying on my own, night after night and wishing that I was lying with you instead. ”

Gerard stares at me, his black hair raised from his skull and his jaw slack.

“And you don’t even noti-.”

I’m on my back, Gerard’s pale, thin fingers clutching my hair and his lips against mine. His hands are all over me, and I’m in too much shock to do anything but kiss him back and dig my fingernails into the carpet. He laughs and drags his teeth down my neck, sticking his tongue out and leaving a wet trail down my skin.

“Frank, you’re not even trying.”

“I-I don’t-.” We’re just a tangle of limbs, knees hooked behind knees and arms wrapped around necks and tongues wrapped around tongues. His nails scrape down my back as he pulls me up, tripping over his own feet as he tries to drag me to the bedroom.

Our clothes are a crumpled mess, leaving a trail from where we started to where we’re continuing, our limbs hanging out of the bed and the sheets barely covering our bodies. Gerard isn’t being nice about it, he’s grabbing my arms hard and he’s clamping his teeth on my earlobe. But sometimes, his teeth are replaced with his tongue and he’s sucking on me instead of biting me, and his fingers are brushing against my skin, stroking my thighs instead of trying to make me lose circulation.

And sometimes, instead of spitting into my ear that I should have been a man and told him sooner instead of being a little pussy and tip-toeing around like a ‘fucking fairy boy’, he’s whispering into my ear that he’s felt the same way for a long time and he’s sorry for what he’s been doing. And when he explodes, his hand wrapped around me and pulling me over the edge so hard I want to just black out, he’s breathing short and hard and fast into the crook of my neck.

He pulls out, laying on his back with his chest going updownupdownupdown. His hand runs through his hair, and I roll onto my side. Not facing him, because I don’t know if I want to. I don’t want to look at him and see a smirk on his face. Anything that makes me think that he knew it would happen will break me.

I don’t know how long I’ve been laying there on my side, but Gerard hasn’t done anything. He hasn’t spoken or moved or touched me. I’d think he was dead, if I didn’t feel the bed rise and hear his light footsteps. I hope, I really fucking hope that he’s just going for a piss or to get something to eat. Or even to call his mom, but fuck knows why he’d do that. And my stomach sinks when I hear the clink of glasses and bottles and I know that he’s not pissing, or eating, or talking to his mom.

I guess it doesn’t matter how many times I intervene, or tell him I love him, or let him fuck me senseless. Gerard’s always going to go back to the bottle. But maybe I can make sure that every time he comes back to bed, I’m the one asleep beside him.