(c) Crazy Close [PG-13]

by **rock and/or roll** Tue 14 Apr 2009, 2:55 pm

Title: Crazy Close
Author: Me.
Fandom: My Chemical Romance/Mindless Self Indulgence (some Ger-Z)
Rating: PG-13 for swearing and sexual references and references to suicide.
Type: Chaptered/Incomplete.
Summary:
When Gerard receives an unexpected phone call, he and Lindsey take it upon themselves to remind Frank just how important friendship is.

Chapter One: The Call.

It started with a song, and continued with eleven words.

The world continued to rotate and time continued to pass, unnoticed by each peace-filled head as they rested upon pillows as weightless as clouds to their dreams of fulfilment and past loves. Gerard dreamt with his palm wedged between his oblong pillow and the mattress that stretched out behind him, dipping down again where a second body lay curled, dark hair reaching like vines over the creased material.

The song began.

And the outcome was in the hands of the dozy man, who squirmed to find his phone as it squealed with synthesized sounds and a low-toned voice purring about sexy and how it was being brought back – Gerard was at a loss as to when sexy had actually left, but that was besides the point. The taste of midnight weighed down on his tongue as he took a yawning breath, insides becoming cold with the thick air – hanging there like the large moon poking light through their curtains. His eyelids flickered, sleep caught between his lashes, before his irises met the world again.

They quickly scoured the room, still sleep-blurred, as his mind attempted to catch up with his body, searching for the offending noise, lest the crooning voice wake his gently-breathing girlfriend, wrapped up in her Elmo t-shirt and checkerboard pants. The little red fur-ball stared at Gerard out of the folds of dull grey, his mouth wide and black with a childlike smile. But Gerard couldn’t return it (or even fathom ‘tickling this’ as the fuzzy muppet suggested), his mind muddled, his body sloppy and his nerves shoved to snapping. Where the fuck was the phone?

He searched, like a small child eager and desperate to find Waldo among sand and beach towels and fat ladies sunbaking in striped bikinis.

A chaotic pile of clothing seemed to be glowing with an eerie UFO-esque light as the breaths of 'Get your sexy on' upset the balance of silence. It vibrated slightly too as if trembling under Gerard’s grumpy gaze and sleep-weakened frame, which was suitable in his eyes; whoever was on the other end of the line was going to get their ear verbally beaten off as soon as he dug the stupid phone from under the weight of clothing that had seen cleaner days.

He tossed a few clean-enough pairs of identical black jeans out of his way, followed by a few band t-shirts that Lindsey had threatened to burn unless they were soaked in detergent for a good twenty-four hours; or strapped with sticky-tape to the roof of their shitty car as scungy brushes scrubbed and polished at the flaking metallic paint and windshield befouled thanks to birds with good aim.

He made a sluggish mental note to invite Frank over again the next time the old bomb needed a do-over. Car washing for the two men was akin to picnics or a milkshake with two straws for couples; a bonding moment, and the younger man had a blast soaping up the metal and glass by hand, making sure to give Gerard an impromptu shower fully-clothed while at it. Neither had been to a real car wash in years. It was a waste of hard-earned moolah, as Frank put it, when the two could just as easily grab a bucket or two, a hose, old kitchen sponges and a bit of laundry detergent.

And it’d be harder to drench Gerard while disapproving eyes and clucking tongues glared at the pair over antennas and windscreen wipers. For even though he always bitched and moaned when the freezing water hit him like sharp icicles, hearing Frank giggle raucously as he ran off into the house - almost head butting an amused Lindsey as he fled - was worth the fingers of a sure cold creeping down his forehead and pulling at his clothes. The hose lay abandoned, water still dribbling out of its nozzle like spittle and Gerard would hitch up his water-logged pants, chasing after the still laughing man.

The house was devoid of laughter now, that incessant tune still blaring from under an inside-out t-shirt. Gerard reached under it, a label demanding the shirt not be dry-cleaned scratching up his arm and making the hairs there bristle.

“Hmm, what do you know,” he mumbled groggily to himself as his eyes blinked into the blue light tearing at his retinas. The song died, all exclamations of 'I’m bringing sexy back' being swallowed by the room and its dense air, and he pressed the warmed phone to his ear, eyes still fighting to see. “Okay, I don’t know what time it is in lala-land, Frankie. But it’s damn near one AM here, I’m fucking tired and my body is not happy with this whole being awake business.”

His words slurred off into silence, which was the first indicator that something was out of wack. Frank should have been sniggering now, finding delight in Gerard’s annoyance and teasing the tired man.

And then came the eleven words.

“I’m going to kill myself if I’m left alone much longer.”

And Gerard had to clutch at the phone to keep it from falling.

by **rock and/or roll** Wed 03 Jun 2009, 2:28 pm

Chapter Two: Homeless.

Lindsey didn’t always have normal dreams.

There was the night she was terrorized by a stranger in a charcoal lab coat and bug-eyed goggles, and another where a fairly vindictive cat taunted her with hissing exclamations of sadistic glee as its jaws chewed through what she was sure had once been a mouse – now oozing blood and shedding clumps of fur and bone as its squeaks were swallowed. Eyeless and figureless shapes watched her, chased her and talked with sounds, while familiar faces appeared to her in unfamiliar universes.

They followed her into waking, trying to dig their fingers into reality; so it wasn’t an unusual occurrence for her to sip slowly on a mug of full bean in the morning, eyes vacant as the caffeine warmed her, washing away all the fears lingering back in the dark recesses of the night. She replayed some of them to Gerard - as he reheated left-over lasagne in their thirty dollar microwave - in a vain attempt to gather some perspective on the creeping outlines and demonic creatures that took such joy in shrouding her subconscious with terror. He put it down to stress – she did work a five day week with small children after all - and then proceeded to dunk a giant scoop of chocolate ice-cream into his coffee.

But as it was, she wasn’t the least bit disgruntled at being shaken awake by a frantic and scarecrow-haired Gerard, the nasty nothings of that particular night fading with the absence of sleep. He was perched on the edge of the bed when her eyelids pulled slowly apart, fluttering a few times as they adjusted to the harsh beams streaming from the reading lamp; she wiped at a line of spit creeping its way down her chin in a perfect diagonal, and blinked at the figure of Gerard sat there, his phone fixed to his ear and a scared frown so definite on his face, it might have been set in clay.

Pieces of his speech filtered through her still post-terrorized haze; ‘wait outside,’ ‘have you been drinking?’ and ‘just hold on’ being a few. But they didn’t make sense, at least, not to her sleep-laced brain; they might have been random words or gibberish for all the sense they made, merging into tangled messes to her ears.

“Hang on a minute.” He covered the phone with his pale fingers and turned his worry-glazed eyes towards her. “Hey...Lindsey? Linds” – her tired eyelids creased together as she felt a warm hand on her shoulder – “I’m going to Frank’s. He sounds...well, he needs help.”

“Why? What’s going on?” Her words were slurred, but with an added dose of concern. She sat up, back squished into the flimsy pillow and the wall behind her that spread its uneven paint under her curved spine, vertebra screaming out; her eyes still stared with remnants of her dream world clinging to them, but they reflected the unsure worry in Gerard’s. She was well awake.

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t say and he seems really out of it and confused and” – he broke off as his throat constricted painfully with a resounding worry – “I just have to go. I don’t know why.”

“Okay. Okay, I’ll...I’ll put the front light on, and – how long will you be? – I can make tea or something.”

“I-I don’t know. I have no idea. I’ll call you. I just...I have to go,” he stressed as a shaky hand found refuge in his messy hair.

Lindsey nodded, alarmed at her boyfriend’s frantic disposition- she doubted she’d ever seen him so tense and worried- but the gesture was lost as Gerard climbed off the mess of sheets with his car keys and Batman keychain jangling from his unsure fingers; they trembled a little as he leant forward, pressing a quick and chaste kiss to her face. Her skin was warm with natural body heat and the penetrating glare of the lamp casting abstract shapes on the walls and their grainy paint. She was still part-asleep and groggy, but it was a bewildered and concerned Lindsey that was left sitting sprawled and haphazardly on their unmade bed as he left.

-

Gerard was well aware that Frank wasn’t the most stable person when it came to mentality and happiness. He recalled past events, past memories, where Frank cried over a dull-orange and half-drained glass of beer or sometimes just the can or bottle, eyes red and swelling and ugly with tears and black make-up gone bad. And sometimes there weren’t any tears or sobs or smeared make-up; just blank stares and pessimistic words.

Gerard always sat with him, however long it took for the tears to dry up and leave their marks like scars, and a lip-quivering smile to be forced on his face. It might have been a broken relationship, a fight with another loved one or, “just one of those days,” as he chose to put it. “Sometimes life just gets you so fucking down. It sucks.” He’d laugh sardonically. “But who am I to complain? Kids are fucking dying in Africa, and here I am whining for no reason.”

And Gerard was always there, ready to hug the shorter man to his side. Ready to listen to anything he had to say, regardless of whether it made sense or not.

But it’d never come this far.

As Gerard pulled up at Frank’s place in his old bomb, and as he spotted Frank, lying there like a cadaver on the dying grass, he knew this was different. There wasn’t any trace of alcohol or drugs or anything really in the man’s eyes as Gerard approached him at a sprint. They just stared upwards, lids half open as the universe lay stretched out before him like a cryptic road map. He might have been sleeping with his eyes open.

“Frank...” Gerard was breathing heavily at that point, a combination of adrenalin, relief and subsiding fear flowing faster than the blood pumping around his body. “Oh my god...oh man, you scared me” – he gulped – “so fucking bad.”

And silence.

His own laboured breaths slowed down into an almost-stable state of apprehension, waiting for Frank to talk, to cry, to explain, to do anything other than stare at nothing like a corpse. It was unnerving, it was uncomfortable and it wasn’t Frank. The chirping of crickets rubbing their wings together could be heard somewhere in the distance, repeating like a broken loop; it was eerily beautiful, with the man on the grass continuing to absorb the night air as its fingers probed through the wrinkled fabric of his shirt – his mouth unsmiling and his eyes dulled with gloomy thoughts.

Gerard couldn’t see any tears that needed to dry in their corners, nor streaked down the cheeks; no sobs that needed to ring throughout the silence until petering out into quiet hiccups – and he was at a loss. His limbs demanded that he sit, and he did, letting them drop him heavily to the sparse grass and slightly damp earth that clung to the messy denim hanging off his hips, awkward movements and a dry mouth betraying the uncertainty he harboured.

The other man breathed in deeply.

“Nice night.” His insides jumped as Frank finally spoke, voice just as despondent as his face. But he paid full attention with worried eyes locked in on those that looked away.

“Yeah...”

“You know what’s funny?” Frank continued, ignoring Gerard’s piss weak attempt. “I’ve been lying here, staring up at all those stars up there, and instead of thinking about how beautiful a picture this is and how fortunate I am to be seeing this while other people are missing out, I’ve been thinking about how fucking insignificant everyone of us is and I don’t want that.

"I don’t want to live as this... this nobody. I...I just – god...I may as well be a fucking hobo. That – that place isn't home."

A near growl slipped from his throat. “It doesn’t feel like home. It’s fucking cold a-and empty. And I spend all, well, nearly all of my nights watching the most pointless things on TV, wasting my life by myself and eating fucking baked beans from the can.

"And...and fuck...just...” – sigh – “I want to matter to someone.”

“You matter to me,” Gerard whispered, and he trembled slightly.

“You’re only saying that so I won’t down a shitload of pills once you’ve gone,” said so matter-of-factly and with such a deep-seated snort that Gerard’s stomach almost hurt with the words, and he wondered how long and how deeply Frank himself had been hurting, alone. He must have been a stick insect with twig legs or a chameleon apt at camouflaging to suit whatever the occasion needed.

“No...”

He reached out tentatively - in more ways than one, not completely sure that Frank would accept - fingertips softly ghosting over Frank’s as he bound them like the childish craftsmanship of a braided friendship bracelet. The grass was itchy against their skin as both left their imprint in it, and the dirt was grainy, but the warmth was there. And Frank finally turned to him, still every part the cadaver with the sightless eyes.

But it was still something.

And Gerard’s own were anything but sightless as his jaw set with a fierce rigidity.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

(c) Crazy Close [PG-13]

(c) Crazy Close [PG-13]

Re: (c) Crazy Close [PG-13]