Eisenstein Syndrome.

I kind of wish -

zmphony — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 17:14:46 GMT

That there was a fic or something out there about Jet Star having a secret affair with the BLI spokesperson lady (aka the 'asian lady'). I mean, him and his eye-patch? And her and her katana? Combine that with the dark scandalous dirtyness of fraternizing with the enemy?

It would be totally hot.

Blink-182 Fandom?

zmphony — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 01:43:37 GMT

I have no clue if Blink-182 has a fandom or if it's a very large fandom, but just in case anyone has more information about this I'd love to know ALL about it. I recently got into some mark hoppus/tom delonge fic and DUDE, this band is awesome *__*

If anyone has any info don't hesitate to let me know! :)

It so totally just happened.

zmphony — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 16:29:49 GMT

I totally just passed Belleville, New Jersey in my car.

I've seen it guys.

Its. Real.

BRAAAAIINS

zmphony — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:33:56 GMT

I swear to god I don't think anybody has as many freak dreams as I do. I just woke up from my best friend as a blue-ish grey total Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead zombie in my garage and me being forced to cut off his head with a hatchet - not even an AXE, a HATCHET - in order to secure safety upon me and my other bestie's brains. And it took like four or five wacks to get the monster-best-friend's head flying off - and it did fly, like seriously it flew. And just to top it off, my dad ended up getting bitten cuz my brother was too busy playing Killzone 3 to help me with the onslaught of neighborhood flesh-addicts.

My LIFE.

PS; has anybody besides me noticed that hollywood zombies don't even EAT brains anymore? They're always pulling off limbs and ripping out insides but one never thinks to go for the grey matter. Ugh, monster culture has seriously digressed.

Things The Universe Says NO to me for:

zmphony — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 02:08:38 GMT

1.) Trying to go blonde.
2.) Quote of the Day; I can't even afford that type of commitment. Ah well, at least I was philosophical for two days.

I have a feeling this list will make more appearances in the future.

Quote of the Moment:

"When your dreams turn to dust, vacuum."

-Anonymous.

/sigh

zmphony — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 06:02:32 GMT

so who else had the worst day of their life?

Quote of the day [2]

zmphony — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 04:11:25 GMT

. . .Some people walk the thin line and some people snort that shit like Belushi.

-Frank Iero.

Quote of the day [1]

zmphony — Tue, 31 May 2011 02:27:12 GMT

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

-Neale Donald Walsch

Decisions Decisions

zmphony — Tue, 24 May 2011 05:13:45 GMT

So mychem's coming back to concord on that Honda civic tour on October fourth! I'm pumped. And broke, my whole family's been going through the shittiest financial crisis right now. Not to mention emotional crisis. I can't believe they're actually getting divorced, after so long.
Doesn't matter, a lot of people get divorced. It's not my business anyways, its their marriage, not mine.

Anyways, I reeeeally hope floor tickets are less expensive than before - less expensive meaning, less than one hundred dollars.
I reallyreallyreally wanna get floor tickets. I've never been in the pit before! I've always watched the bands from the very back rows, watching them perform on the big screens. Radio stations never tell you that the tickets they give away are tickets to the empty seats in the back, lol.
But it was still pretty sweet. But this time I want to actually be there, y'know?

I'm thinking maybe I can convince my rents to get me a floor seat ticket for my birthday, which is a month before the show. Although, I was crossing my fingers about that bass guitar I was hoping for...well. Hopefully the green scene will be better by then :D

-hands flap- If anybody else from the bay area is planning on seeing them on October fourth, totally comment or hit me up! Maybe we can meet or something :D

I really just got to let this out...

zmphony — Thu, 12 May 2011 05:42:19 GMT

Okay okay, so I really tried to tell myself to not be excited about this, but I fail at everything of course, so.

So y'know how there's that frerard rec blog? At blogspot.com? Well I was browsing there, y'know, doin' that thang that I do, and guess what's in the vampire section of supernatural listings?

Uh-huh, yeah. A Lonely Avenue.

I don't know what drives me to underestimate that story soo much, but I do, and I can't help but feel so pathetically excited whenever I find it mentioned somewhere. Weird, I know I am. It's just a rec list, but still. Still.

Anyways I just wanted to kind of gush about that. I'm going to try and publish A Lonely Avenue this summer, just to put that out there.

I'm gonna go do that thang that I do now.

FLIST EMERGENCY?

zmphony — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 08:15:35 GMT

I've been searching allll night for this fic, raided delicious accounts and mems, and I'm desperate to find this little one-shot. It's mikey/gerard, I cannot remember who the author is for the life of me, but I already posted to two comms asking if anybody knew it, and so far, nothing :(
In the story they were kind of young and on a field trip of some sort. Gerard was shunned by all the kids there and Mikey kind of shunned him too at first because he was the more popular kid with friends, then gerard's notebook gets tossed down the mountain they're all hiking and while everybody's on the move up the mountain he has to run back down it to get his notebook...I remember Mikey leaves him there to go with the rest of the class, then comes back to the lodge later after feeling guilty and thinking that gerard would still be there, and he is, and then dirty shenanigans ensue.

Its so vague, but really if anybody has ever read this fic or knows anything about it i'd be soo grateful :D

**EDIT! Found! Thanks to a lovely deux_lunes the fic was found "in the anals of livejournal communities" .
To anyone else who wants to read it , its here.

My new default pic looks so much smaller than my last one ;___:

zmphony — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 07:24:30 GMT

oh and my chemical romance+smashing pumpkins at NotSoSilentNight 2010?

so there.

Finale.

zmphony — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 02:43:18 GMT

Title:A Lonely Avenue (chapter 16 – the end)
Author: zmphony
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating/Warning: R, Frerard vampire AU.
Disclaimer: All fiction, I promise.
A/N: That’s right. It’s the end. I hope everybody enjoyed this story as much as I did writing it, it was a whirlwind of emotions. In a good way. Aha. Anyways, thanks to all the readers and comments, it meant more than you thought it did =D But BEFORE YOU READ; you must listen to this song: Killian's Red by Nada Surf. There's a youtube video of it if you click the link. And now, on with the show!
Summary: His eyes would look exploded, as if somebody had set the whiskey color inside them on fire and at that same time the glass holding them would shatter from the heat. He’d look down at Frank like he was staring at the sun, and say, “You’re dead.”
Sometimes he’d wake up screaming.

one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten | eleven | twelve | thirteen | fourteen | fifteen pt.1 | fifteen pt. 2 | fifteen pt. 3

“. . . Can you believe that shit? Shaun says we gotta write something about it, I’m all for it. . .”
The spoon in Frank’s cereal bowl clinked as he mumbled in agreement, staring blankly at the TV on top of the kitchen counter. There was a thin woman speaking with about twenty tongues against her fuzzy microphone as she stood outside of a buzzing stone building, its sides charred and roof nothing but fragmented tiles that reminded him of what would be left on an old man’s balding crown. There were workers with hard hats and shovels and law men in suits and latex gloves with clear plastic bags and funny equipment filing in and out of the decaying building like rats and flies festering around dead flesh, inspecting and disposing of what and what didn’t seem important at the scene. As if they even knew what caused the fire to begin with.

“I mean, half the corpses in that tomb have been turned into graveyard barbeque! It’s art!” The static stuffed voice of Hambone said through the phone; sounding as excited as a five-year old witnessing the first snowflakes of winter hit the ground, “We’re so on that shit. By this weekend we’ll have another gig at the ‘Cat, they already want us back for the crowd we gave ‘em last time anyways . . .”
Four men were carrying delicate boxes out of the building’s remnants while more men proceeded into it with more boxes. The reporter mentioned something about the leftover bodies being transferred to the graveyard, and he could only imagine what they were going to do about all those ashes left behind. He wondered if any of his relatives were being carried off in boxes now.

“. . .Y’know maybe we’ll call it that, ‘The Graveyard BBQ’, yeah. . .”

Frank looked over at the clock on the wall, its slender hand crawling towards the oddly shaped three. He turned off the TV, the twenty-tongued reporter disappearing behind a screen of black. He didn't bother to tell Hambone that there was already a band titled that.
“S’gonna be the most kick-ass jam ever, dude,” Hambone said, “Dude, are you getting this?”
“Yeah, kick-ass,” Frank replied, his mind absent as he put his half uneaten bowl of flakes in the sink and reached for his jacket.

Hambone snorted.

“You’re so spacey these days that cold’s gotta be a killer,” He said, and Frank could practically hear his eyes rolling through the phone, “I still don’t get how we could swim around shirtless in the freezing rain and remain unscathed, but you’re the one who gets a bug from a soggy hoodie. That immune system of yours is pure shit, dude.”

“Blame my mom.” Frank murmured, moving towards the window and pulling the lacey curtain back to peer out at his empty grey driveway.

“Yeah well, at least you get to skip school.” There was some rustling sounds from the other end of the line, “Teacher-Creature decided to shit out homework assignments the size of my ass. Speaking of which, I’ve gotta see Tim about getting this done for me.”

“Yeah, me too.” He said idly, and Hambone laughed.

“‘Gotta sleep off that bug, spacer,” He said, “I’m gonna go see this man about a dog.”

“Later,” Frank replied, just when his friend’s voice echoed his reply before leaving the line dead.
Frank left the phone on the table before he left the house for the chalk-grey curb in front of his house, sitting and staring at the road. He didn’t look over at the empty house beside his own, its closed curtained windows, or the vacancy shadowing it. Not even at the upstairs window.
It wasn’t long before a narrow black Cadillac slowly came to a halt beside his gangly and torn-up shoe laces. He got up and slid into the passenger seat, a wave of warm air meeting him from the small vents in front of him as he did so, seemingly washing away all the winter air hanging onto him from outside. He nodded at the driver briefly, and then the car started moving again.

“Y’see the news?” Frank asked, his voice sounding like he was speaking in a soft box in the car.
“Mm, yes.” Father Adrian replied dully, “’Said the fire had something ado with a lighting technicality. I’m sure the mausoleum can be restored quite successfully by the next fall.”
“Do you think they found her?” He asked. The priest gave his head a slight and decent shake.
“She was nothing but charred bones by the time the ambulance and fire station was alerted, just like the rest of the occupants in the building.” He said, “Well. Besides us.”
Frank nodded, looking out at the passing scenery outside his window, watching as the church and burnt down mausoleum rolled by. There a fence of yellow and orange tape around it, similar to the kind they put around crime scenes, but this looked more to be a construction site now. They had no idea of the crimes that sent that night up in flames.

“You were right,” He said, “That day in the graveyard, when you had that weird feeling,” He looked over at the elder focused on the road,

“She’d been there.”

“Waiting, at the likeliest.” Father Adrian agreed, “She seemed to like playing with her food.”

Frank winced and looked back out the window. The memory of empty black eyes and tiny sharp teeth made its way back to the front of his mind. His smile looked just like hers. “You never told me,” He said, and the priest looked over at him, “About your. . .profession.”

“Yes well, you never told your band or your mother that you weren’t really sick so you could skip school with no questions asked, now,” Adrian replied, as they neared their destination, “Some things are better left unspoken.”

“How long had you been doing it?”

“Ever since I was ordained.” He said, hooking a right as they pulled into the hospital parkinglot, “You can’t believe in God without first believing in the devil.”

Frank stared for a moment at the blue-eyed and white-haired priest, then turned away. It seemed like everybody he knew had a flip-side. He looked at the hospital, how still and quiet it was as the sun went down behind its tall white towers. Just like the rest of the occupants in the building. Father Adrian slid the gear into park and unbuckled his seatbelt, giving Frank a short look as his hand went for the door handle. He’d done this every time they came to visit, for the past week or so that they had been. It was a turn of the chin, then a slight nod that could easily be mistaken for a tilt of the head. Frank acknowledged him with a barely reassuring glance, then they proceeded.
The hospital’s insides weren’t much different from its outsides. Visiting hours wasn’t such an exciting time. Father Adrian walked up to the desk routinely. The lady behind it smiled at him.

“Father,” She nodded, glancing at Frank who’d wandered off a distance. Adrian returned her smile when she handed him the visitor’s log book for him to sign. Frank was already walking down the white hall, knowing exactly where to go, and exacly who he’d see. Or what was left.
A nurse pushed a brittle-looking old lady with all sorts of tiny tubes tunneling out of her nostrils and bare, pasty arms in a wheelchair down the hallway as Frank passed, Father Adrian not long behind him, and he could see all the thickened veins that rose up against the skin in her tiny arms, barely any barren patch of white skin visible, only blue, green and purple hues colliding together in blotchy clouds.

Somewhere in his mind the thought that those arms were once purely white and smooth seemed distant. They looked like rainclouds now.
He pressed his thumb against the ‘up’ button for the elevator, and Father Adrian stepped in with him before they landed on the third floor of the building, and continued down an even lonelier hall than before.

They stopped at Room 104, but the door opened before they could get to it.

“Michael,” Father Adrian smiled, stepping to the side to allow him pass. He smiled back.
His left wrist was still in a cast, and under his thin shirt were thick bandages wrapped around his torso for the fractured ribs that lie underneath. There was a thin line of stitches at the very top of the side of his forehead which would make for a ghastly scar when it healed, but his hair could help him with that. His eyes had bags that could’ve easily been mistaken for punching bags, with a bloody purple sunken at their bottoms. He was always here in this place, now.
“Father,” He shook Adrian’s hand with his good wrist, nodding at Frank, whose gaze was looming into the room behind Mikey. “How’s the hand?” Adrian asked.
“Better,” He said, “Only a few more weeks ‘till they take off the cast for the wrap.”
“Hm yes, that is better,” Adrian hummed, “Did you manage to get more sleep today?”
“Enough.” He said, but the tiny pale-green veins crawling against his eyelids and temples seemed to answer the question better than he did. He looked battered, in more ways than one.

Father Adrian nodded respectfully, if not sadly, and Mikey’s sunken eyes fell on Frank, whose quiet gaze looked at the spot behind his head before returning to his face.
“How’s that cold of yours?” He asked, smirking slightly.
“Mom hasn’t taken me to the doctor’s, yet.” Frank replied with a small smile that didn’t last.
Mikey laughed, his head ducking downways slightly and Frank stared into the space left exposed behind it. He could see plastic covered seats of chairs and the side of a hospital bed with a long, limp limb lying flat on the white sheets it was camoflaged against. He looked back at Mikey, who had already noticed his staring. “Anything?” He asked, his deadened eyes glinting against the static white light reflecting itself against the linoleum. Mikey looked back and stepped out of the doorway, muttering something about coffee. Father Adrian smiled and followed Frank in.

The room was still, like it was cut out of a magazine; just a bed, a being, and nothing but cold machines and frivolous wires surrounding him. It was a death scene constantly repeated.
Frank sat down in the chair Mikey had drawn beside the bed, and Adrian took a seat beside him.
His body was always in the same position when he came, ever since he’d been pulled into the ER on a shiny new gurney. His arms would lie narrow and outstretched with his palms up on either side of his body, with his neck long and outstretched with nothing but muscle jutting against stale, grey/white skin. The left side of his face fell against his sour pillow, and his eyelids covered the dark glowing amber he used to know.

“It’s been a week,” He said, his voice interrupting the constant of the monitor’s beeping.
“And a half.” Father Adrian added, holding his small cross necklace softly.
There were hardly any veins or blotchy colors clouding his skin. There seemed to be only outlines of the sort; he looked like a colorless sketch of a dead man growing older. It made Frank wonder if he really was dead or not. He wondered if there was still amber behind those eyelids. All he could think about when he thought about those ghostly colors was the ink-spill of pitch black washing out any whiskey-soft and stinging amber. He wondered if it was still there.
Maybe that was what he only wanted to know, maybe that was the only reason he was visiting this white hell everyday; to know if the eyes behind those closed lids were black or amber. Who was left in this death bed? Who was lingering in that dream of impending life, or none at all, where everything short circuits after the heart rate monitor flatlines and somebody whispers - “Stopped.”
Maybe he just wanted to know if it was the monster left lying on that white coffin, or the man he fell in love with. The man he’d watched die but already seemed dead before so.
There was so much bile when they’d brought his body in. There had only been two clear shouts of “Clear!” before they realized that something was wrong with his lungs, or much more correctly, his stomach. Frank, Father Adrian and Mikey were all there. They’d tried to get Mikey to go to a separate room to get treated for his own injuries, but he wouldn’t leave.
When they’d taken to pumping Gerard’s stomach, they’d found out that his lungs were filled with alcohal, that he was drowning in it. Father Adrian’s lips never once stopped moving the whole time they were there, and neither Frank nor Mikey could understand what he was saying. Once they’d removed everything they could of it, they finally got a pulse. Everybody was relieved, and after a half hour or so Mikey accepted treatments for his wounds.

They stayed overnight, watching, waiting, and in Father Adrian’s case praying. When he didn’t wake up the first day it wasn’t too unusual. But then it turned into the second day, and the third day, and the fourth, and his skin got grayer, and grayer. . .
“The curse had left him in his last human form before it had first taken effect,” Father Adrian had explained to him, when Frank had asked him the second day, “Since both the monster and the man had died in his body, it is left in a limbo-like state, waiting for his soul to surface.”
Comatose, he meant. Frank understood it in a way. He wondered if she’d taken his soul with her, when she purified herself in that fire. He wondered if there was anything left in that body at all.
“Will she come back?” He asked him, as the priest was explaining this to him.
“Hard to say.” Adrian replied, “You said her life was a deal, that she had rules to follow, I’m sure none of her superiors would have taken lightly to the news of a failure. I guess it just depends on if the devil believes in second chances or not.”
The sound of a door opening made Frank advert his gaze from the bed.
“I’m gonna go grab something at the cafeteria, you want anything?” Mikey asked.
One of the main things Frank noticed about Mikey during this week and a half was that he wasn’t so much like the younger brother Gerard made him seem. He acted older, mature, even looked it at most times. Then again, he didn’t have so much of a chance of being young.
“I’ll join you.” Adrian said, “Frank, you want anything?”

Frank shook his head, even though he knew the priest was going to bring him back a soda anyways. He had a feeling that it depressed Adrian to stick around with him, he didn’t understand exactly why he offered him rides to the hospital and back. A part of him wanted to believe that the priest knew something about the comatose victim that he himself didn’t, something that would bring this death-impending state to an end. An end without amber.
“We’ll be back in a bit.” And with that, the door closed. The monitor beeped.
He reached up and slid his hand underneath the frail, skeleton one on the sheets. The cold that wrapped around his fingers made him hold on tighter. Remember me.
“Will he come back?” He’d asked, on the fourth night, where he sat in the exact same chair he sat now, holding the exact same hand he was holding now, thinking the exact same thought.
“Maybe.” Adrian replied, and Mikey glanced over at him from where he sat to his left, no expression on his face besides the slight quirk in his brow.
“There wasn’t much time between his soul leaving his body – and the world – and then being suddenly pulled back.” He continued, “He should be passing planes right now, but since his body isn’t entirely dead, he has nowhere to go. You could say that in these cases, his soul is quite literally lost. The only hope we could hold onto is if he were to find his way back.”
Frank thought about that. He’d thought about it over, and over, and over again.

*

When Frank fell asleep that night around two am, having left the hospital only an hour or a half before, he dreamed. He would dream the same dream every night for a week, and a half.
It would start with the same ending from the one he’d had before; on a roof with a demon whispering silent pleads to a teenager, before their lips brushed, and the creature turned into a small, helpless heap of ash that slipped through the kid’s fingers and into a white coffin that the roof had turned into. He’d reach in to catch it, but it would fall into the empty coffin, because that’s exactly what it was; empty. It was like a rabbit hole, a tiny, roundly shaped abyss, and when he didn’t catch it he’d crawl into it himself, and fall. He’d keep falling, and falling, and he would feel his unconscious body jerk and spasm in his bed, until he would just - crash.
Then he’d wake up. So sudden.
He wouldn’t find a cold sweat, like the other dreams she had given him. But he’d find tears.
After a while he wouldn’t really notice them, and would go back to sleep. . .then it’d continue.
It’d start up again like the rewinding of a tape, beginning where he’d just hit the ground. He felt nothing. He pressed his palms against what was sharp, grimy pebbles, like crushed asphalt, and pushed himself off the ground. Everything around him was sharp, even the air. Sharp and sweet.

He was in the middle of a road. His road, the road he lived on. But there weren’t any houses on the road except for one. The one next door, and there was only one light on.
He began walking towards it; it seemed miles away. He felt like he was in the middle of a ghost town. There was nothing around, not even a streetlamp. Just the avenue, Willow avenue and that house. The loneliest avenue around. He stepped onto the front porch, and considered knocking before he walked in, only considered though. Closing the door on his way in, the first room he peered into was the kitchen. The tv was left on, nothing but white noise and static coming from it, and a bowl of sogging cereal was on the table beside a pair of glasses. The chair wasn’t pushed in. He moved into the main room, and it was odd how it looked no different from all the other times he’d seen it. He’d only noticed it when he’d watched Mikey clean it from his room.
He was already turning to the steps and walking upstairs just as soon as he entered the living area that wasn’t lived in at all; nothing was in this house.
When he walked into the bedroom, he found him. He was sitting in the chair beside the bed, staring out the windows at the Frank’s own bedroom window. He was so wordless.
Frank would walk up and kneel beside the chair, letting his hand fall on the one on the chair’s armrest, and stare up at the eyes that would fall on his own.
His eyes would look exploded, as if somebody had set the whiskey color inside them on fire and at that same time the glass holding them would shatter from the heat. He’d look down at Frank like he was staring at the sun, and say, “You’re dead.”
Sometimes he’d wake up screaming.

Months passed. Eventually he had to go back to school, but he kept going to the hospital after.
Hambone kept asking him to come to practice, but he would always make up some excuse about homework, the stuff he always left in his backpack in his room where his mom would find it and ask him about it the next day. After a while she began to ask about his grades, too.
October rolled around again, and his birthday passed in silence, in room 104, reading the card his mom had left him on the table before he left talking about the present she left him on his bed. He was eighteen now, and was spending his birthday in a hospital. It didn’t phase him at all.
The hospital was all he could think about, waiting was all he could think about. He had to.
Father Adrian would sometimes find him at the hospital instead of at his house, but when he sat down next to him he wouldn’t say anything about it. Nobody did, but Frank knew they were talking. He knew everybody was. Nine months of this wasn’t easily ignored.
He knew his mom was asking around with his friend’s moms to see where he was going every night, knew she was considering calling up a psychiatrist. He knew she was scared so bad it hurt.
He also knew that Hambone and the band were already looking for a new singer, even though they weren’t successful. He knew they were going to want to talk to him soon.
But if there was one thing he wished he didn’t know, it was that Father Adrian and Mikey knew something he didn’t. He knew they wanted to have a talk soon as well. Sooner than he thought.

“Your mom’s worried sick.”

The monitor beeped, and Frank didn’t look up from where he stared at a peculiar thread on the hospital bed. Mikey glanced over at the priest, who wasn’t exactly staring at Frank, but his head was pointed in that general direction.
“What do you want to tell me?” He asked, his voice like a sound in the dark.
“This isn’t right.” Mikey said, flatly. Adrian gave him a glance, and Frank’s eyes lowered.
“It’s true,” Adrian spoke softly, as if he was tip-toeing over the topic, “Frank, it’s been nearly a year. Nothing has changed.”
“You said he could come back.” Frank said, and he could feel Mikey’s gaze as he did.
“Could.” Adrian repeated, “Frank, there are so many options we haven’t weighed yet.”
Frank was quiet, and when nobody replied for the three to five seconds, Adrian continued.
“I wanted to tell you.” He said, slowly, “These aren’t the best of cases, you must understand. . .”
“What, do you want to –“
“He might not be coming back,” Mikey interrupted Frank, his eyes set on the teenager as he swallowed in recognition to the words he just spoke. Frank looked up at the two, only now seeing how desperate Adrian’s face was, or how he didn’t bother to correct Mikey at all.
“We don’t know much, Frank,” Adrian continued, his face pleading, “There might not have been much time between his soul leaving and returning, but there was certainly enough to have sent him anywhere. He could have passed on to someplace, for all we know –“
“Where he can’t leave.” Mikey finished for him, still staring at him.
“- these chances aren’t too likely, it’s not right for you to suffer through this,” Adrian said, “You’re so young. You know this isn’t easy, for any of us, but you shouldn’t have to. . .wait.”
“What do you want me to do?” Frank asked weakly, “Forget about him and live my life like he was never there? Maybe find a pretty girlfriend and be a teenager again?”
“Frank, don’t misunderstand – “

“How would you have me understand this?” His voice raised as he stood up suddenly, Mikey not short to follow, “You want me to believe that he’s as good as dead and just walk away like that’s it? That he’s stuck somewhere in purgatory and there’s no use in waiting, that he’s dying and I should just pull the plug on him and start new?”
“Maybe he’s not the one who’s dying here, Frank.” Mikey said, his voice firm.
“This isn’t any easier on either of us, you know that we wouldn’t be telling you this if it was,” Adrian cut in, his voice sounding much older than Frank had remembered.
“And you think that I’ll feel better if I just forgot about him?” He snapped, practically glaring at the zombie-like figure and brittle elder who still rested in his seat in front of him.
They were quiet, and Frank looked from one to the other expectantly.
“I can’t even sleep without him being there,” He said, his wet eyes glistening as they darted from one man to the other. Mikey swallowed again, and they didn’t say anything about it anymore.

Even though it was always the same dream every night, it changed sometimes. Sometimes, when he’d enter the room, Gerard would be sitting on the bed, the side that Frank had found himself on that time he’d woken up there, or he’d be standing by the window. But that wasn’t the only thing that changed. Whenever he would look down at Frank and whisper those two words, Frank tried every night now to convince him he wasn’t. He wasn’t dead. That neither of them were, that none of this was real, that he could leave. He always ended up looking away, his eyes faint.

But he started to change, too. He started to look different near the end of the year, when December rolled around. He began to look confused. Angry. Trapped.

Once he walked into the room to find one of the windows broken, the chair turned over on the floor not far from it, and the sheets on the bed torn and pillow fluff scattered. Gerard was on his knees on the floor beside the broken window, and not one part of him was bleeding. He looked up at Frank in the doorway, and there were wet trails down his cheeks.
“I’m dead,” He whispered, his voice nothing but a cracked sound in the emptiness, like an out of tune piano. Frank moved towards him but stopped when Gerard stood to his feet and staggered towards him. His face looked torn apart. He reached out towards Frank and held onto his shirt tightly – weakly, but tightly. Frank’s hands fell and rested on the others immediately.
“Let me out.” Gerard said, pleading. Frank wanted to say he couldn’t, that he could escape on his own if he just knew how, if he tried a little more. He wanted to tell him how, but he didn’t know.
He didn’t know.

Frank looked at himself in one of the mirrors in the hospital’s men’s room. He was beginning to look a lot like Mikey, who’d by now had his cast and bandages removed. Ragged, torn, worn out.
He could see the colorful green and purple veins in shapes of claws and lightening pushing against the thin skin of his temples and eyelids. He was decaying. Like the dead growing old.
He moved past the familiar nurses and doctors in the hallways, returning to the room that was now his home and his tomb. He was beginning to feel used to sitting next to the comatose case he couldn’t get out of love with, began to treat it like a shelter. He just had to be there for him.

Needed to, He thought, as he pushed open the door, and then. Gerard wasn’t there.
Father Adrian stood beside the bed with a stricken expression that looked even more panicked when Frank opened the door to see the empty bed, sheets in a messy heap at the end.
He looked up at the priest with a heaving chest and narrowing eyes.
“What did you do?” He cried, moving towards the elder.
“I-I, I don’t know, I walked in and he was –“ Adrian was cut short when the door flew open once again, and Mikey came flooding in, gaining Frank’s attention fully. “Where is – “
“ – He’s gone,” Mikey replied, his mouth open with breaths pouring in and out like his lungs were about to explode, and there were nurses gathering in the entrance way.
Mikey and Adrian exchanged glances, but Frank was already grabbing Adrian’s keys that’d been left on the small end table and pushing past the nurses and doctors and blurs and blurs of white and running out the door. He needed to be there. He needed to be there.
The tires screeched against the asphalt as he drove. It was so silent inside the vehicle, he could almost hear how loud the world was on the outside. It was wordless, and loud. Like a scream.

He stopped when he’d reached the church.

The remains of the mausoleum.

The Wild Cat.

He was running. He was running because that’s what humans do when they’re scared, when they’re scared so much it forces their bodies to take action, and run. And it hurts.
He passed the alley where he’d been rescued, passed his school, but everywhere was empty without the one he was searching for in it. Everything was nothing.
The car was parked halfway on the curb when he resorted to the house on that lonely avenue, and the driver’s door was left ajar with the key still in ignition when he ran out and into his neighbor’s house. The tv in the kitchen wasn’t on, and there was no cereal bowl left on the table or glasses. The furniture had white sheets placed over it, and the staircase was gathering dust.

But the bedroom was empty. The sheets were in tact, so were the windows, and the chair was left right where it was when he first saw it. His head felt numb, he couldn’t take it.
He searched the rest of the house, the basement, but found nothing but an empty coffin. He realized the coffin was white. He’d known it was before, but now he realized it. White.
When he left the house to look at his own, he didn’t feel as if it was a last resort to look up at the roof. But nobody was there.
So he didn’t feel as if it was a last resort to climb on top of it as well. It wasn’t easy, it was an awkward angle, but he was able to climb onto it, earning some scrapings on his palms.

He sat there for a while, staring out at the five thirty sun, watching as it inched closer to absence, like all it wanted to do was leave this sky.

Leave.

He looked down. He remembered falling in his dreams, falling for nine months just to keep waking up, waking up just to fall back asleep. Everything repeated, everything felt like what just happened and he didn’t know if he could take it anymore. Maybe he was supposed to fall.
Maybe he was supposed to find him, like he just tried to do. Maybe he’s already dead.
The avenue was lonely, just like him. Just like everybody and everything.
He leaned over the edge, and just thought about amber. . .
And then he smelled smoke. Before he could turn around, there was a fleck of scintillating ash that passed his face and fell to the ground he felt so near to at this moment. He closed his eyes.
“Did you put me up here on purpose,” He began, not looking up, “Did you put me up here because you knew I was afraid of heights and wouldn’t run away from you, to trap me?”
It was quiet. A cloud the size of a breath misted against his neck, curling its way into his own body when he inhaled shakily, as if his lungs were trembling like aspen trees.

“Yes.” A secret voice replied, “I did, this time.”
Frank’s eyes opened as he turned around, and it was a collision when his cool greens met warm amber, amber. His face was cold and sharp, but his eyes were the same; amber, not black.
He was still wearing his hospital shirt, but he managed to find his pants and leather jacket, and apparent cigarettes left within, since there was one halfway finished hanging from his bloodless lips. His hair was thinner and messy, and tiny little blades fell against one side of his face.

Frank reached out, slowly, and touched one grey hand that moved towards the cigarette perched between his lips. It was warm, and curled around his own. He couldn’t stop staring.

“Am I dead?” He asked the ghost, his grip tightening weakly. One of the amber eyes twinkled.

“No.” Gerard replied, returning the grip, “Nobody is, anymore.”

Frank collapsed. They both did, onto a roof, and held each other, tightly. They were broken but they fit together so perfectly. They didn’t say anything, everything was one resounding note, meeting every thought and feeling with a pulse, with life. They were alive.

“I saw you,” Frank said, his voice muffled in leather, “They weren’t dreams, I saw you.”

“I waited for those,” Gerard replied, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know I wasn’t the one waiting.”
Frank pushed at him as if he was trying to punch quicksand, and Gerard held on tighter, his cigarette having vanished somewhere on the front lawn.

“I didn’t know if I’d find you again,” He whispered into Frank’s hair, “It felt like years. . .”

“I couldn’t stop remembering.” Frank looked up at him, then down again, “I couldn’t stop.”

They stayed like that for a while. Until the sun began to go down. Their grip didn’t lessen for a while, either.
Frank saw for the first time what Gerard’s face and eyes looked like with light in them.

“It’s sunset.” He said, looking at the sky briefly before turning back to him. He was staring at him, almost as if what he’d just said didn’t matter at all from him.

“I don’t think a sunset was really what I needed." He said, not once looking away.
Frank looked out at the horizon as Gerard pulled him closer and said, “Maybe a sunrise.”

He tried to picture that without remembering his dreams about him turning to ash when the sun looked at him. It scared him when he realized he’d still had the fear that it might happen.
He turned and pressed his fingers against Gerard’s face, padding against his cheeks and lips and spots underneath his eyes softly. Gerard let him, almost reverently. He knew what he was asking.
“I had to find you.” He answered, “I couldn’t get back without finding where you were; because that’s where I was. With you.”
He took Frank’s hands in his own and held them against his chest, pressing his palms down flat.
“I never left you because you never left me.” He said, and Frank could feel something faint, something deep against his hands. A heartbeat, “You remembered.”

Frank looked up, but before he could speak, the sound of a car skidding to a halt distracted him.

Father Adrian and Mikey rushed out, looking up at the two as if seeing Santa and his reindeer trying to shimmy down the chimney. Gerard and Frank looked down, not moving.
“Are you going to tell them?” Frank asked, the sight of Mikey reminding him, “Your parents?”
“Well I guess after faking my death it’s only appropriate to come out to them now,” Gerard replied, looking down at his brother. If Frank was in a clear state of mind he might have laughed.
“I meant about your other death.” He smiled, for the first time in nine months.
“Which one?” Gerard snorted. Frank mumbled a ‘nevermind’.

Mikey stared up at Gerard, his eyes wide behind his glasses. Gerard’s face looked vacant.

“He wasn’t injured too bad,” Frank said, “Just a few scars.”
“Those aren’t the ones I’m worried about.” He replied softly, returning his brother’s stare.
It was quiet for a elongated moment, and Adrian had joined Mikey when he leaned against the car, murmuring words to each other. Frank didn’t doubt their conversation was much different.
“I thought everyone was dead,” Gerard said, “I thought they were dead for a long time.”
He looked down at his and Frank’s still interlinked hands, and Frank said, ”We were.”
Another pause, only their hands and eyes speaking to each other. That was all they needed; amber, ash, and a lonely avenue.

A Lonely Avenue

zmphony — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 04:42:46 GMT

Title:A Lonely Avenue (chapter 15, pt.3)
Author: zmphony
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating/Warning: R, Frerard vampire AU.
Disclaimer: All fiction, I promise.
A/N: okay so I lied. Chapter 16 might not be the last chapter, it'll end on whatever chapter it'll end but it'll end soon! there. That explanation is convenient in my mind at least. Anyways, a hugehugehuge rose-smelling thankyou to all the lovely people who urged me to continue this, much less remembered this hah, and any constructive critisicm or personal opinions and comments are spectabulous=) Now on with the show!
**note: this is NOT the end=) the next installment will be posted soon.
Summary: “What are you doing to him?” He cried, not caring if the question gave him no answers or not. “Showing him what happens when he breaks my deals,” She said, her tone carved from ice.

one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten | eleven | twelve | thirteen | fourteen | fifteen pt. 1 | fifteen pt. 2

He was back there. Maybe for a moment, maybe a second. But he was gone, and right where he wanted to be. His thumb stroked the soft skin of the hand he held, moving in slow, hazy circles. He could feel the rough exterior of the rooftop leaving its pattern engraved in the palm of the hand he leaned on as it rested behind him, and he could feel the soft, warm exhales and inhales from the one beside him. Their noses were touching, their lips moving, but only in whispers, almost quieter than the wind that hissed into his ear, reminding him of the danger. Rules.

But he didn't listen. He only listened to the words leaving the other's lips, ghostly secret and oh so sacred. He wanted to keep the words forever. The other brought his hand up to his lips, kissing his knuckles softly, and whispered something about how he slept.

Pretty. It made him smile.

He kept talking, the one holding his hand, pressing the back of his warm palm against the white skin of his face and threatening red of his grin, the sharp ends of his teeth peeking out from behind those lips. The teenager's eyes were faithful to their gaze and never strayed. The hands that held him seemed to grow colder and colder as words continued to slip and slip out of his mouth, and as he stared he waited for the sunlit amber eyes in front of his to darken and cloud, and blacken, like they did in the dream. Like he knew so well.

But they didn't. They stayed, and grew brighter as his hands grew colder. But his lips wouldn't stop moving. His smile wouldn't wither. The teenager looked out towards the sky. It was a grayish blue. The creature wasn't fazed, even when the teenager looked back at him with wider eyes than before. He just kept talking, whispering things, important things. He needed the teenager to know these things. Feelings.

He needed the teenager to take them from him, somehow, because he couldn't keep them by himself. He needed them to belong to their maker, and he wouldn't hold them by himself. The teenager tried to respond, but his responses weren't needed yet. The grip on his hands remained, the back of his hand feeling the ice in the creature's cheeks. The sky was blue and yellow, the sun was moving faster than ever. The teenager grew frantic.

But then the creature's lips stilled. The teenager wasn't looking at him, he was looking at the star just about to climb over the horizon, in all its monstrous form of glory. He turned the teenager's face to his, and asked a question the teenager couldn't answer. He tried to kiss him instead, but his lips touched ash, and his hands were empty. And the sun came out.

Frank's hands pressed against the doors, willing him to reality, and as he thought about that question, he knew the reason he couldn't answer.

Because he wouldn't have to remember him.

He was still running after the doors gave way to his hands, his heart in sync with his soles when he instantly spotted the midnight locks that belonged to only one midnight creature he knew—but then he stopped. Halfway down the aisle. Not too far from the one standing in front of him.

She was here.

Her eyes, her hair, her dress—all of it. She stood tall and ghostly in front of the altar like a queen about to be crucified. Her chin was tilted just high enough to expose her white, crystal neck in ways that made Frank and Gerard look like insects. She didn’t look real. Her eyes were furiously emerald, pristine and glittering as she stared down at him with a razor sharp gaze, her wordless, yet at the same time verbose crimson lips hiding those sharp, tiny teeth, just as white as the train of the dress that covered more than half of one of the steps and furled with the night chill. Suddenly it felt colder than when he was running from the church to the mausoleum.

“Frank!”

The teenager’s head turned just in time to see Gerard taking his third rushed step towards him, before he suddenly stopped, his face contorting in a twisted sort of pain as if someone had punched him in the stomach from the inside, and he fell onto one of the pews. Frank made a move towards him as he writhed in the seat, his head flung back and his hands clutching the wood so tightly the bones of his knuckles turned the skin above them white as they pressed against it. Frank looked back at the woman—thing, standing on the platform with round eyes. She was still looking at him, as if never she stopped. She had an expression that was almost unreadable. He knew she was doing this to Gerard, and he turned to continue moving towards the vampire, when a sudden wave of déjà vu hit him. His gaze was pulled back to hers, as if she wanted him to keep his eyes on her, not him. But he didn’t. He sprinted towards the other frantically – but right when he’d reached the end of the aisle, pain shot into his knees and he fell to the hard floor.

He crawled towards the vampire effortlessly. Gerard looked like he was dry heaving for a moment, but then Frank noticed he was trying to say something. He moved closer, reaching out to him, only to hear him whisper hoarsely, “Leave.”

His amber eyes met his own panicked green ones for a second, and in that one, fleeting second Frank could see black growing.

“It hurts,” She said, her voice sharp at his ears, making him look up at her, “watching the most powerful being you know die
so easily.”

A sharp, loud and pained moan escaped the paralyzed monster beside Frank, almost unintentionally. He could see teeth sharpening. Frank moved to get up – relieved when his knees cooperated – but when he moved towards Gerard the pain just barely singed against his skin, as if there was a hot, invisible circle of fire surrounding him.

“You can’t save a monster,” She sighed, looking away from the two sadly.

“He’s not a monster.” He said, firmly, and looked up at her venomously.

“Monster and man are one and the same, yet people refuse to see it that way.” She finished his thought for him, knowing exactly where he was going. She looked down at him and his round eyes, and then said, “But maybe you can change that.”
Another wave of déjà vu pulsed. Gerard let out another sound of pain, almost a scream.

“What do you want from me?” Frank asked, “What are you doing to him?”

“Him? He’s just going through what he does every night,” She said simply, “It’s nothing, he’ll feel a lot better after he eats something.”

“No!” Gerard cried out, trying to fold in on himself before the unseen force pushed his back roughly against the seat again. Frank’s eyes shot over at him, widened at her words, and when he looked back up at the twisted angel above him for the first time he felt nothing but cold fear.

“What do you want from me?” He asked, slowly.

“You’re so young, you know so much of wants yet so little of needs,” She said, a small laugh escaping her lips, “All you know is that you have them. Or rather one, particularly, correct?”

She gestured to the current creature in agony beside him, and he looked over at him before nodding softly. “And you know what he needs, right?” She asked, and when Frank didn’t answer, she quirked her head to the side with her quaint smile and asked, “Do you want to know why he kills every night?”
“Because of the pain.” She said, looking at Frank with a funny stare, as if his innocence to this subject was amusing, “Would you like to know what I am doing to him right now?”

“He’s dying.” She stated, almost proudly, “Everything that is human in him; his heart, his soul, his mind—it’s all being taken away from him. That’s why his eyes are always so black when he kills, or afterwards. That pain that comes just before death forces all of his impulses to surge forward into his mind with just one thought; how much he needs life. Naturally, he suddenly feels compelled to compensate for the life he is losing. Immediately. So, he kills. He kills to take other’s lives so that he can live. Because if he doesn’t, he will of course, die. Like a vampire.”

The creature in context writhed against the pews again, as if its wooden frame was burning him. Frank watched, panicked with fear and fascination. That’s why he didn’t have a heartbeat, he thought, and it all made sense to him now.
“The human inside of him is destroyed for the moment, and all that’s left is the monster.” She said, then paused for a moment, “Really, if I never tore his counterparts away like this, you’d never notice just how great that monster within him truly is. You should think of it as a favor.”

Frank was quiet, staring at the one crying in pain before him. Struggling. Dying.

“But unfortunately, this will be the last time.” She said.
“What?” He asked, his somber eyes sobering significantly.
“Gerard made a deal with me and failed to withhold it,” She replied, and Gerard’s cries became louder with each word she said, “Now, he must suffer the repercussions.”
“Repercussions? None of this was his fault, you’re the one who caused all this.” Frank almost shot back, feeling more nervous as the cries beside him got louder and strained.
She was quiet for a moment, staring at the anguished creature below her. Then, she smiled.
He stopped looking at Gerard and stared at that smile, small, crimson and almost sad if not malicious. She just stood there, letting that smile grow like a bad thorn on a rose.

“I didn’t tell anybody this,” She began, looking down, “Mainly because I wasn’t sure I was the only one who knew this. But, as it seems, apparently I am.”
She looked back up at him, that smile still there, and said, “Gerard committed suicide.”
The statement seemed so out of place even the screams stopped - for a moment.
The smile didn’t move.
“That’s not true.” Frank said, unmoved, “He wouldn’t, the only reason he’s here is because of Mikey, he would never-“
“He didn’t care about him.” She cut him short, her voice controlled but somehow louder than the screams from beside him, “If he did, do you honestly think he’d have been out every night, drinking himself into a coma?”
Frank was silent. He knew Gerard had problems, but . . . did he know Gerard at all?
“You don’t know much about him at all, do you?” She asked, her voice sounding like it’d been peeled out of his mind. He looked up at her with defiance. She looked slightly piteous at that.
“Gerard was a selfish human being.” She continued, “He resolved all of his problems in self-destructive ways, he was an absolute wreck. He didn’t care about how much what he did to himself had affected everybody else. The night I found him was the night he finally crashed and burned. He’d taken so much medication and drunk so much, there was no natural power that’d let him live again after that.”

She stopped and looked at Gerard fondly before continuing with her story, “He was throwing up for hours after I fixed him. He could barely keep open his eyes. He passed out as soon as all of the drugs had left his system; the most sober he’d been in his whole life. As far as he’s concerned, all that happened that night was a very unfortunate one-night stand. But, what he fails to understand is that . . . well, even if this curse was lifted from him, he would still die.”
Frank’s chest ran cold at that. He glanced over at Gerard immediately, who had stilled in his seat. His screams weren’t as loud now, but still very much screams. One of his hands held his opposite shoulder while the other hand was strapped firmly across his stomach, and he rocked back and forth, his breathing harsh. He could see tears. He could also feel them.

“His life became part of this deal.” She said, with an absence of emotion, “I think it’s only fair;
I gave him life, now he has to give it back.”

Frank shook his head, “I don’t believe you.”

“I didn’t ask you to. In any case, it won’t change the fact that he’s dying, with or without your consent.” She replied, plainly. Frank’s lip curled.

“What do you want from me?” He asked—then corrected himself, “What do you need?”

“That’s irrelevant. I’m not the one who’s dying right now,” She said, sounding almost like she was enjoying herself. Frank looked over at Gerard, whose screams had turned into shaky whimpers now. He guessed the pain had leveled down. He wondered if she caused that.

“You already know what he needs, though.” She went on, gaining his attention at her words, “It’s the only thing he’s losing, right now.”

A beat struck. Then everything just sort of slipped together, all the questions just evaporated.
His soul. That’s why she showed up when he was asleep, to tell him, to show him that there was a chance . . . he could live.

“He would live.” She corrected him, and he didn’t acknowledge how her voice ran with his thoughts as if they were part of them, it felt so insignificant at the moment. He was literally standing there, listening to Gerard—the monster he’d fallen in love with, die right next to him.

“What will happen to me?” He asked, ignoring how the sudden whimpers began to tremble and get louder, “To my soul, I mean.”

“Well it’d belong to me, of course. Yours would supersede his.” She said.

“And. . .me?” He asked, watching the man beside him start to writhe and quiver again.

“You become exactly what he is – or is this case, used to be.” She replied, that answer was just waiting for him, “You’d work for me ‘till your time is done. Your choice, take it or leave it.”

He paused, listening to the frantic whimpers and trembles that grew louder and louder. He couldn’t tell if it was just pain or fear he was hearing, they were both so loud and helpless – but he knew they weren’t for the one who made them. He felt like a murderer, by how he wouldn’t just be killing so much in this offer – and oh, how he knew it. He’d be killing himself. He realized that those sounds of fear and pain he was listening to wouldn’t just go away after tonight; they’d just keep coming back, maybe louder and more pained that how he’s hearing them now. He couldn’t dwell on it, the more he thought about it the more horrible it seemed. Her eyes were trained on him, and if only he could see the pride that pooled in them, if only. She studied him almost thoughtfully, watching the ways his glossy eyes stayed anchored to the floor profoundly, and listening to the sounds his soul made whenever they strayed, and those sounds were louder than the ones from beside him. It was as if he was already being torn apart when she hadn’t even lifted a finger yet – although, she knew she wouldn’t be the one to do it this time.

“Do you want to know how I died?” She asked, her voice cutting the silence with an echo.
His face looked like a graveyard when he stared at her, and when she didn’t return the gaze he turned it back to Gerard’s still, listlessly beating frame, his chest pulsing choppily.
“He’s not dead.” She said, glancing at him with one twinkling emerald eye, “Yet.”

*

“I was young,” She said, her eyes following the moon’s orbit like a satellite, “Like you. I lived with my family; a mother, a father, and a younger brother, in an aristocratic neighborhood in New Jersey. I can’t remember its name.”
Frank gazed at her through two broken glass eyes, and listened without reason to.
“My father was the founder and owner of one the city’s most powerful law firms in that year.” She continued, monotonously, “No one could withstand my father’s business - with the exception of a long time rival who had never been on good terms with my father.

Ever since he denied a partnership between them, their relationship was pure business vendetta, and took up most of my parents’ time and energy. My mother was proud to support my father in everything he did. Their lives belonged to their business, much like how mine does now. . .”
Frank’s eyes wandered back to Gerard, watching as his breathing sped upandupandup, then slowed down again, softly and gently, taking more than seconds to rise and repeat, erratically.

“. . .I went to a university of political science, and it was my last year that year. I can’t remember what year it was, but I remember how happy I was that it was the last. I had big plans for my future. I wanted to do business, like my father. Although at that time and year, it was a socially awkward place for a woman to be in such a legit business, and my father made this issue a noticeable one with me. He saved his seat of inheritance for my younger brother. He would teach my sibling day in and day out business etiquette, while my mother would teach me proper ladyship. My life was home economics, religion, a schoolbook, and dreams. Until I met him.”

Frank’s gaze returned to her, his left eyebrow quirked like a quiet spark of interest had been lit.

“He worked at the library downtown, not too far from my university.” She spoke as if she was describing a ghost, “I’d never seen him before that year, but in present time his face seems to appear everywhere now; a white face, dark hair, and eyes that glow in the dark. . .”

She glanced over at the hyperventilating sounds in the pews, her expression distorted in the light, “I don’t even remember his name, just his face.”

Frank looked over to where she gazed, almost protectively. His mind sped to the many reasons that answered maybe just why she was doing this to them – to Gerard – but he was interrupted as she continued on, looking back through the window she stood by.

“We were one person when we were together, and we were together almost every day that year.
I remember the intensity of the feelings I felt, but I don’t remember how the feelings themselves felt. They changed me, though. Made me feel so very human, more than I’d ever been.
It was only when the stranger I loved proposed to me later that year, that everything had somewhat . . . combusted. You see, my parents were aware of my suitor who courted me at the library, but it wasn’t until we decided to become serious that . . . well, my parents decided to get serious as well, and took more notice upon this man.
It was apparent to my father and family, that my fiancé was the son of my father’s rival. Of course, it wasn’t apparent to me. My fiancée later explained to me that he knew it would have made our relationship difficult if he’d told me in the beginning, and he’d only wanted us to be together. I forgave him. I wish I couldn’t remember why, though.”

Her face didn’t change, nor did her voice. It was like listening to a voicemail machine. Frank could almost feel a twinge of pity at how lifeless she was when she wasn’t condemning.

Or killing.

“The wedding came a month later. It was the happiest moment I’d ever experienced, when I stood in front of the dressing room mirror in that church, in this dress, with my mother telling me how proud she was of me for the first time in my life, and also the last time. That day is more pronounced in my memory than any other. Everybody was happy with everything that day, even me – but only on that day. It wasn’t long before things started to change.

Maybe two months had passed before everything seemed drastic, more so than before.

Business started to tangle with our lives, me and my husbands. The wedding only seemed to peace my father’s and his rival’s businesses for a moment before their differences and anger started to show again like mad dogs, even more intense than before. With new ideas came new disagreements. My husband needed my support more than ever with the place his own father was keeping warm for him. But it only solved to disgust the father on my part to see me supporting such a blemished and disfigured business. Suddenly my father wanted nothing from me and my husband. He wanted nothing to tie him to his enemy, even if it was me.

Everything became so hard so fast. I still received a fair share from my family financially, thanks to my mother, but apart from that I wasn’t even part of them anymore. My life seemingly belonged to my husband at this point. But he was faring no better than me. Or so he said. He soon came home to tell me he had lost his job. His father had grown to disgust the man he’d become, the woman who’d tied him to his rival, and the tainted grandchildren that would one day be the result of it all. He wanted none of it. We were lost, nothing left but what my family would send me. Everything was so scarce suddenly. We had nobody to turn to. There was nothing we had left, except each other. Then, one day, he brought home an idea.”

She paused and looked down at her dress distractedly, combing a red ringlet with her finger.

“He wanted us to leave. He said there was nothing left for us here, and we could either live the rest of our lives dying to be alive or die while we still were alive. Together, and happy. While we still could be happy. And at that time, much like a lot of other times, that’s all I wanted.

That night we went back to the church, dressed in the same clothes we wore on our wedding day – the happiest day of our lives, and stole into the mausoleum beside it. This one, to be exact.”

She looked around as she spoke, her eyes glistening in the candles’ light, “We found this room, this Remembrance Room with its wooden pews and candles and Memory book, and lit up all the candles together, one by one. We weren’t in a rush.

At least, I wasn’t.

We wrote our few thoughts in the book, few secrets, and knelt down across from each other. Everything was respectable; we even spoke a few prayers. He told me I was beautiful. Then, he brought out the drink we’d prepared together, champagne and arsenic in two shiny glasses. . .it was such a peaceful moment, I remember it eloquently. Everything was so clear, the sounds of the candle flames hissing and the clinking of glass ringing like the quiet memories of our small moments at the library - and fading like them too. We kissed slowly, closed our eyes, and drank. The taste was bitter, but. The sight I saw next was far worse, because.”

Frank watched her gaze around the whole room, as if she was watching the scene repeat itself like a phantom silent film – and then it suddenly stopped, as she said, “His glass was still full.”

“. . . I didn’t die instantly. I watched, as he held my face between his hands and I listened, as he told me he was sorry, but he just couldn’t bear to live with nothing, and he wasn’t going to die for less than that now – and after that, I just couldn’t hear anything else. I just felt. It’s almost funny how I can only remember the burning and tearing of arsenic, and not those last small emotions and feelings I ever had.”

Gerard gasped abruptly, and Frank felt a tug in his legs to go to him, but didn’t move. He looked over at the white lady only to see her eyes and voice still addressing the cosmos beyond the tainted glass mausoleum windows. She hadn’t even glanced over, only continued speaking.

“I died then, my body left in that now unsacred tomb, insides charred and flesh cold, but my heart. . .gone. The last things I’d expected or wanted was my eyes to open again. I was dead. But I could see everything. I saw my funeral. I saw my family, broken and dysfunctional. I saw the news, about the tragic bride who couldn’t handle a life without her family or the hardships of the low-class, and the heartbroken husband who could do all but save her from taking her own life – and oh how tortured he was without her. I saw him, too. He cried like it hurt with my parents. There was a lady was with him, too, and she looked familiar. I could faintly recall her as a business partner to his of sorts - or so he said. But that’s not all.

I later saw him with our prenuptial agreements, with our material dollars, even my Will. I saw him take from my family, my unfixable family. And he left not long after, with the money, with the lady, with my family’s happiness, and with me. My father’s business wasn’t the same after that. He died an early death, at around sixty. My mother was left alone to handle the business with my younger brother, but it wasn’t soon before long that everything crumbled. My father’s business was his life, as I said, and his business died when he did.”

“What about your brother?” Frank broke the silence with a slight tremble in his voice.

Loretto looked down at him insignificantly, “There wasn’t much about him. He lived with my mother for a long time, and I believe he found a job at the local manufacturing company after most of what they’d salvaged from my father’s business and life insurance began to dwindle.”

“You couldn’t help them?” He asked after a moment of silence, and when she shook her head he asked, “What were you, a ghost?”

She stared at him for a precise moment, and then said, “Almost.”

Loretto waited a few seconds for any further questions, and then continued.

“I wandered for a long time in the misery. I was the only thing left. Only a thing, nothing more. But I was left with something. It wasn’t a curse back then. Back then it was a wish, one I’d asked for over and over again. A wish that rather than to pass on from this world to the next, I would be granted a deal. Not from anybody on Earth, or Heaven, of course.
I never would have thought that the devil could have sympathy back then, but I just didn’t know that he didn’t. He was just a business man, like my father. I was just an advocate. But never the less, he’d heard my wish. The deal was that if I was allowed to avenge myself, I’d spend my eternity harvesting the lost souls of this world - like I myself was - so they could take their place in the Inferno. You already know what my answer was.”

Then Frank’s mind began racing again, connecting how her story had collided with Gerard’s.

That was it, that was how everything worked. It was one curse to another curse, one pain to another. But then he thought, if that was Gerard’s reason, what was his?

“I sought out for my husband with the most passion a dead person could have, and believe me it didn’t take long.” She went on, bringing the teenager’s attention back to her voice, suddenly so venomous, “He had married that woman, and was living with her in a two story house with four bedrooms and three bathrooms. They had children, one of thirteen years and one of seven. I’d watched them for a long while; days maybe, watching how prosperous the family was. He was.”

Frank’s movements were fragmented and fluid as he took the smallest of steps towards the labored breathing and hiccuping from his beloved monster, so far away from him. Suddenly her whole emotionless expression and docile demeanor had been folded over with the one he’d first been introduced to; peacefully poisoned and silently sinister.

“Apparently, after my father’s business had fallen, his rival’s had taken his place. And, apparently, my husband had managed to regain his own father’s approval once I was dead, and was ruling that exact empire. He’d finally had everything he’d wanted. It was such a beautiful family, I could have cried.

But I did worse.

I made that house haunted. My own death wasn’t near as horrifying as theirs. The wife, the children, the lives and the love – I tore it apart with the hands he’d once held and hands he’d once destroyed. I let him watch, I wanted him to see death the way I had seen it. His face was shattered with salty blood when I had finished them. Their bodies were scattered across the floor like ash, and he shook when I moved closer to him. His eyes were like glass, and I could see myself in the reflection. But it wasn’t me, only what was left. Horror, and hate. I left the house the way I’d found it, but I stayed to watch the news. I wanted the whole world to see the family, especially him, for who he was on the inside. It shouldn’t have been too hard, since most of that was all over the floor anyways. The police thought it was the work of a wild beast. There wasn’t a trace of me left there, no way they could find out who the murderer was. Because I was dead.”

Frank’s pace quickened only slightly, so much slower than his heart was going right then. He kept listening to the sounds in the pew, the harsh breathing and loud gasps and croaks. It seemed as if every moment where her story got worse so did Gerard’s condition. He tried to move faster, but he stopped altogether when it got silent. He looked back up at the demoness above him – because that’s what she was, wasn’t she? Ghosts couldn’t kill, not like that – but she still stared out the window. Her face looked contorted, as if she was looking at her past through a mirror and hated every sight of it.

“I kept waiting for satisfaction, for some sort of peace, some sort of rest.” She swallowed, “But there wasn’t any. Nothing had changed. I was still here, I was still dead, and that was never going to change. It never did. I was never satisfied, and I certainly wasn’t then.
After I’d killed that family it just didn’t seem enough - there was no justice. I wasn’t at peace.
So I went out and found my father-in-law. Alone in his cold office, crying over the kid he never really cared about. Not as much as his business, anyways. And then I realized that this business might’ve been part of the problem. Isn’t that part of what caused everything to begin with?

So I destroyed that too. The old man’s business became his grave, burnt right into the earth. I left his wife, just like my mother was left alone, and my younger brother. But through it all, when it was all finished . . . nothing changed. I still had to hold up my part of the deal, not only that but I also felt the need to. To try and bury that dissatisfaction that dwelled in me by burying others, others who were just like me. I found that most of those people weren’t a lot like me, though. Most of them wanted death, craved for it. I was only there to make sure they received it.”

She glanced down at Gerard, watching his chest convulse and his white hands grip the pews frantically, looking as if he was drowning in the air. She then looked over at Frank, who watched Gerard with a panic clearly visible no matter how hard he tried to hide it. She looked away.

“Watching my mother and brother’s funeral only fueled the passion for my job. I felt nothing anymore, only because nothing was left. . .” She said quietly, “I am never going to change. I’m not her, anymore. She is still lying somewhere in this mausoleum, rotting as the years go by. She was alive once, but now she’s just what’s left. When I made that deal in Hell, I left her down there and there she stayed to this very day; this is all I have left of her, this job. She was the first soul I’d ever harvested; I am all that remains of myself.”

There was a thin silence hanging in the air when she finished, just waiting to be cut with a word. Frank eyes mirrored the white beast almost perfectly, watching her gaze meaninglessly out the window. This was her job, her life by taking others’. She’d killed herself – not once but twice, just trying to find peace. The first time was in this little church and the second time in Hell when she’d been granted her vengeance.

Frank looked over at Gerard again, panic racing through his nerves every time he heard a stalled breath. The vampire’s eyes were closed and it took Frank all that he could to keep himself from handicapping himself in order to just peel back those eyelids just to make sure they weren’t all black. Please, not yet.

“Doesn’t your job have retirement?” He asked, hoarsely, looking up at her again.

She smirked, “My job is my retirement.”

“I have bosses too, you know.” She shook her head, glancing down at the two men dismissively. “I have rules to follow. My life is a deal, and deals have rules to abide by.”

“You said you felt nothing anymore, that nothing was left,” Frank spat, his eyes at war with her very being, “If there’s nothing left then why are you still doing this? To make people as miserable as you are?”

“People are already as miserable as me,” She hissed, her volume suddenly louder than it was just a second ago, but nowhere near yelling, “Death is not an end, to people like me, or him” – she send an icy glare in Gerard’s direction – “it’s not a natural form of nature, it’s not something inevitable, or an obstacle or an aesthetic or whatever you’d think it is. Death is a choice. A way out, an escape. A mindless, selfish choice.”

Frank looked away, struggling to swallow the sudden knot that had appeared in his throat.

“What I gave you is the only ultimatum you’d have in this deal,” She said, going back to her professional voice and posture, “If you want to save your boyfriend here” – Gerard coughed hoarsely – “I’d suggest you’d make your decision quickly. My patience is running out.”

He looked back up at the white lady, standing like a ghost above him – before he heard something. It wasn’t a whimper, or a tremble, or a groan. It was a word. Just one, in particular.

He kept his gaze on the demon in front of him. Maybe she didn’t hear it, only he did. It certainly didn’t seem like she heard it, he thought, as he listening to a raspy, shaky whisper being repeated over and over again from beside him . . .Mikey.

Mikey. His memory flashed back to when he first left the house, when he looked out the window to the house beside his own. No lights on, not even in the kitchen. Nobody was home.

Mikey wasn’t home. Mikey wasn’t here.

Before he knew it, he was thinking about when Mikey spoke to him, told him about Loretto, told him about Gerard, told him to leave, and now this deal . . . then he saw Loretto flinch.

She noticed. The whimpers had stopped, and he didn’t dare look to see if the trembles remained.

“He’s gone.” She said, staring down at Gerard, “He wanted to fight for Gerard, to try and break the deal by getting rid of me,” She looked back at Frank, “he lost.”

He didn’t want to believe another word that she said. True or untrue, either way it wasn’t righteous. He couldn’t take it anymore. He just barely glanced over at Gerard, only to see his form leant back against the pews, his neck limp and so clearly white the moon was yellow compared to it. He didn’t want to look again. His heart felt like charcoal. He stared down at the floor, his fists clenched.

“You’ll never have him.” He said, looking up at her with a collapsed and faint smile that looked like it could crack and crumble into a thousand pieces of warm memories with the way it struggled against the sorrow filling his features.

Her eyes narrowed on him skeptically, “What?”

“He’ll never be yours,” He said, looking up at her with a face that could’ve have been a mirror for what he felt inside – what Gerard had felt, what Mikey had felt - and what she was untouched by, “because he was mine first.”
Something small and fleeting grazed her expression, almost like a shooting star. One eyebrow hitched, and if Frank could think of it he would say she almost looked . . . insulted.

“I suppose Gerard wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand depth, especially when it came to reasoning.” She said, “You’re foolish to say no.”

“What if I said yes?” He asked, “Would I end up just like him, or like Mikey, when he said yes?”

He moved towards her slightly, “Has anyone ever said no to you?”

She tilted her chin up ways, indignantly. Gerard suddenly roared out with pain, and Frank turned to look at him, fear racing through his veins again like the sound of a flat line.

“You’ve never had him,” He turned back to her and took another step towards her, glaring and ignoring the wetness that came with it, “In the end, he was always mine. He always will be.”

“Maybe so,” She said, moving away from the window, “We’ll just have to see how loyal he truly is when he’s hungry.”

Frank stopped moving, “What do you mean?”

“When I said he was dying, I meant the man in him was dying,” She said, then shrugged, “I suppose all you’ll have left to be yours is the monster he’s always been.”

He gazed back to the limp man in the pews next to him, but he saw two eyes gazing back at him. Not black, amber. Whiskey-colored amber, filling those eyes. He wasn’t too sure of them staying that way for long, though.

“But I suppose you could have the dying version of him for right now,” She said, smiling down at Gerard as his screams and whimpers and trembles and groans began to die down to pure silence. Frank didn’t know he was moving until he found himself reaching for Gerard’s hand and clutching it tightly, ignoring how icy and shrill it felt in his palm.

“Gee?” He whispered, pulling his frail frame against him preciously, his eyes never straying from the others. His lips were grey and his skin was colorless, and his dark, glowing eyes were wet.

“What are you doing to him?” He cried, not caring if the question gave him no answers or not.

“Showing him what happens when he breaks my deals,” She said, her tone carved from ice.

Frank’s gaze darted back and forth between the two bourbon-colored eyes beneath him. He shook him gently, his fingertips running across his bitterly sharp, glacial lips wishing they’d move, just once. Frank’s lips trembled and quivered frantically as he whispered his name like a ghost possessing a broken record player, his nose brushing against the others, and tears ran down Gerard’s face even though they didn’t belong to him.

“I fell in love with a monster, just like you,” She said, watching the two with a cold amusement and a sick sense of irony, “And just like you, I was killed by a monster.”

He touched the soft spot beneath his eye shakily, watching like a child as the small round pupils in his vampire’s eyes widened like a retracting camera lens. And nothing but black was left.

“Gee?” He lifted his lifeless face closer to him, “Gee?”

Loretto gave herself a moment to let her smile split across her face before beginning to take two or three steps toward the two – now only one human, just to justify the smile that liberated her spirits. Frank shook the now corpse frantically, chanting his name over and over like some ritual to bring him back to life, before something cold and hard clamped down on his hand sullenly. He looked down only to find that it was Gerard’s hand, and when he looked up again, the two empty black eyes he’d been willing away were suddenly straight into his own.

“Gee?” He asked, looking from one black hole to another as he tried to pry his hand out of the icy, iron grip locked around his wrist. Every one of Loretto’s sharp, tiny teeth glinted, malice and glee, and she moved to walk down the steps of the platform – Before a loud, sudden crash sounded and an abrupt weight pushed her to the stone floor. Blood leaked through the side of the white lace in her dress, and when Frank turned to glance at the sudden noise he saw a bloodied and thoroughly abused

Mikey pinning her down while pulling a dirty spade from her side. His clothes, or what was left of them, had blood and mud stains on them and traces of dirt and moist soil made a trail from one of the open windows behind Loretto. He looked like a man who’d crawled out of a grave that wasn’t deep enough to keep him in. He hooked a fist around her gasping neck, squeezing tightly, and heaved his lacerated frame (or, what was left of that as well) onto her waist, keeping her down, and while the skin straining against the bones in his fingers went white from squeezing, he plunged the rusty spade back into her flesh, fresh blood sprayed across his forearms, then pulled it out once again, raising it to the air with all the strength a dead man could have, and driving it back inside of her empty chest.

Frank didn’t have time to keep looking before the sharp, crushing grip on his wrist reminded him to move quickly out of his seat. “Gee what’s wrong?” He asked, keeping a safe distance from the corpse of his beloved, that which was now sitting up and out of the pew and moving towards in slow, threatening steps. His eyes were wide and empty, like he was staring off the edge of the Earth. He looked exactly like how he did when he was rescuing Frank from the muggers in the alley way that one night, and it frosted Frank’s nerves more than the first time because he was looking at him just like that.

“Gee. . .” He pleaded, taking clumsy steps backwards when all Gerard did was take long strides towards him. Gerard paused for a moment, the bones in his fingers snapping like broken match sticks when he curled them into fists, and then, he answered Frank’s question with a smile made of tiny pearl razors, one that matched Loretto’s exactly.

Meanwhile, a boiling screech tore past Loretto’s lips when Mikey twisted the spade with both his hands while it rested deep in her side, and with darkened eyes she reached out with one thin, razor-like hand and wrapped it around his own neck, digging her nails into his skin venomously. He didn’t have time to pull out the spade before she began to stand up and raise him off the floor, blood seeping through her fingers and curling around her bony wrists from where her nails stuck into his skin. He clawed at her hand fiercely, gasping, and her teeth glinted with a mix of disgust and hatred. She let his feet dangle for a brief moment before throwing him against the window opposite of her. His body collided against the glass, shattering it into tiny fragments like confetti, littering the floor and his clothes like glitter.

Gerard made the first lunge towards Frank at the exact moment that glass shattered, all claws and a mouth full of blades. Frank made for the pews, climbing over the first one and jumping into the second, tumbling over another and another as Gerard took no hesitation to catch up.

When Frank glanced back between crawling over pews, Gerard was nowhere in sight. He looked around, frantic, until two arctic hands gripped his shoulders and pulled him up out of the pews, and threw him out into the aisle roughly. Frank hit the ground with a loud thud, pain searing his elbows, but wasn’t quick enough to crawl away when another cold grip snatched a handful of his hair and drug him up ways. Frank clenched his teeth, grabbing and scratching at the hand.

Loretto turned to just notice his predicament, her breath heavy and rackety. She reached down and pulled out the bloody spade violently, throwing it into the distant pews. Blood began to drip past her lips, and she spat the taste out like it was insulting. Her chest heaved in and out, and she stared down at her soiled and ruined dress, dripping with red and dirt stains. Then, quaintly, it began to shred itself, her train unraveling and lace undoing itself like a witch’s spell. While doing so her skin suddenly grayed, the ringlets in her hair shriveling up and losing their color like an infection spreading across her whole body. Her nails stretched thin and narrow and sharp, while her eyes began to hollow. In mere seconds, all that was left of her was a tall, sharply thin grey ghoul-like creature with dead, dry strands of dark hair, too dead to distinguish an exact color. Her wedding dress was in pieces, a lot like her soul. She – It, had charcoal black lips that seemed to only be there to reveal the long, knife-like teeth that protruded behind them. The lips had a slash of a fleshy red color going down them, as if they had been burnt by some substance, and down its neck and chest had been graced by long, hollow gashes. It looked like a burnt china doll, and when It turned and gazed at the world around it, It screamed a scream so loud and lacerated that just the sound felt like the tip of a knife. It was like the voice was tearing apart the vocal chords strung together in its throat, like nails against a chalkboard.

The monster grasping Frank cried out at the sound, holding its ears painfully, releasing the teenager in the process. Frank took no time in crawling away, his hands and knees padding across the stark ground, coughing and looking back at the monster possessing his love’s body with a look no other than terrified. Once Loretto silenced, however, she started for the one responsible for making her like this. Mikey grasped the inside pane of the broken window and quickly, frantically pulled himself up, ignoring the sharp, stinging pain of shattered glass.
He looked around for the spade, for anything, and ended up settling on a long shard of glass, holding it against his chest preciously while she advanced towards him.
Gerard looked around for Frank as soon as the horrible sound had left the air, his teeth barred and eyes angrier than before. Frank had by this time crawled underneath the pews, not noticing how his hands shook from where they lay flat against the ground. He held his breath when he heard Gerard’s prowling footsteps going down the aisle, the heels of his boots making every step a resounding echo against the floor. One leather-clad shoe came into view, and Frank suppressed the shudder that came when a pair was made in his sight. Then, the shoes were climbing on top of the pew he hid under, sauntering across it like a suicidal pirate on a plank. Frank, slowly and quietly, made to slip into the pew beside him, shaking as his palms hovered above the floor and stretched out to ease himself away – but as soon as he moved, the footsteps stopped.
His eyes closed.

Then, a sudden bang came.

Frank had a split second to move before the sound came again, this time with Gerard’s foot coming down through the seat of the pew. Frank scrambled out from underneath the pews, dragging himself across the floor only to find those exact same leather boots in front of his nose. He didn’t glance up before he was wrenched up off the ground and suddenly pushed against the stone wall brutally, the back of his head hitting the wall behind him.

All the while, Mikey lifted the jagged glass, defensive and quivering. Loretto’s reflection shone clearly in the weapon, and she only seemed more hideous when she saw herself through it.
She reached out abruptly and grabbed the shard in her hand, clutching it tightly, then, Mikey watched with widened eyes as she brought it back down against her wrists in two harsh slashes. Then, she shoved it right into her chest, pushing and pushing ‘till it was more than halfway in her, before pulling it out just as easily. The only thing that made horror lash across Mikey’s face was when he saw that she wasn’t bleeding. She was completely empty.

Frank writhed against the grip, choking as his feet wouldn’t touch the ground.

“Gee, please,” He gasped.

Loretto dropped the shard, letting it shatter as it hit the floor, shattering not only the glass but her reflection. Mikey swallowed before her hand enveloped his throat for a third time that day, dragging him to the center of the platform. He looked over at Gerard, or the last he had of him.

“Gee,” Frank cried, as the grip tightened, “Look at me, this isn’t you. . .”

She turned his face towards hers, their eyes level and her mouth parting, just like in the vision Gerard had earlier.

“You don’t want to do this,” Frank pleaded, his eyes red and watering from the tightness constricting throat when he spoke,
“Gerard, you aren’t like her. . .”

She lifted him up high, opening her mouth wide, ignoring his kicks and struggles. . .

“You’re not a monster, Gee. . .”

. . .and shrieked, like a loud and harsh gasp, as the sharpened end of a wooden blade was suddenly pierced through her grey-blue chest, stopping at a strict inch away from Mikey’s own.

The grip on Frank’s throat weakened suddenly, and he gasped asthmatically as he slid to the ground, the same time Mikey had fallen to the platform floor, still staring up at the impaled creature above him. She wavered, looking down at the stake nailed through her and wrapping a hand around it curiously.

Meanwhile, Gerard stumbled, walking towards her aimlessly as she pulled at the stake in a profound expression. But before she could pull it out, she was suddenly raised off the ground by an unseen force behind the stake, and letting out one last burnt, scarred scream, was thrown onto the candles behind her, knocking over the Memory book as her body roasted over the chorus of candles. Gerard’s knees gave out then, and Frank was already holding onto him before his body hit the floor, laying him down gently and touching his cold face softly.

Mikey stared at the man watching the demon he’d impaled burn, now as an ember in the candles - a priest, by the look of it. He was murmuring words in Latin and sprinkling what looked like water (holy water, in this case) over her, before turning and acknowledging the wounded and shocked man dismissively, then making his way to Frank, who held Gerard’s body preciously. Mikey wasn’t slow to follow.

“Gee get up, you’re okay now,” Frank shook him frantically, tucking his hair away from his face as Father Adrian joined his side, performing a quick Hail Mary before going back to murmuring foreign holy words in Latin, spilling them out like emergency vomit.

Frank paid no attention to him, just kept repeating ‘Gee, please get up’ over and over again, his voice in sync with Adrian’s prayers.

“C’mon kid,” Mikey murmured, pulling Frank away as Father Adrian took the body in his hands, ignoring the kicking teenager’s calls and cries to his brother, how he clawed to return to his side.

The cries and prayers filled the small makeshift church, the flames up on the altar burning brightly against the stark moonlight, and all the deep light streaming inside the hearts and minds of the people there seemed to do all but rebel against the only two eyes in the room dark enough to keep them both at bay; and they weren’t only black before they closed.

zmphony — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:58:41 GMT

title: Phantom Dancer [one-shot]
author: zmphony
pairing: guess.
warnings: none.
disclaimer: it's their story, not mine.
summary: "You never knew who you were."

You never knew who you were.

Faceless and crucified by every eye that took a turn. You only had a rhythm; no beat, no words, you made a pace. But no face.
You were a silent shortage to a heart and made no recognition to revival. You were a holy grail to strangers in the dark. Streetlight spotlights know your every move, but nobody knew just who it was.

You were a nettle, and oh so holy. Spoke of nothing. You looked for something. Not someone.
You needed a creature, just like yourself. The same blood.

I know.

A monster. Angel. Monster. And your footprints were left not only on streets. Souls, too.

I was road kill.

Was it so impossible that you could reach in, teeth and claws, and tear them out like plucking daffodils?
You didn't even leave a mark. You're a stain, you're a curse, you can't relieve yourself.
But above heaven, you're mine.

Every day, every year, you change but remain faceless. You're a whisper. I hear you every night. You kill the loneliness, because lonely isn't what you are. Just alone. It's an echo in the cathedrals you dance in, the ones you always find when you enter another phantom city. When sinners have dispersed and you're left abandoned with only the moonlight tainted by painted glass in that vacant sanctuary to hold you, wreathe its arms around your breakable waist, you dance. Like we danced. You're just about as empty as the building.

You won't confess. Not here. Not to this place. You don't want absolution. You just want somebody to dance with. You want a somebody to absolve you, not a church. To hollow you out, reap the cross you carry that might as well be of your own flesh and the disdain in those memories, worse than shame. The ones you swallow every morning you awake in a strange place.

They are, strange. Not home. Home was where your heart was left. And you left in a flurry. Left it with me. You know I’d never forgive you, I wouldn't. Not when I see the love you make to the night, every night. So desperate.

It's not like ours. You can try, it will never be like ours. You're so pure you don't even know it. You never even knew who you were. But I do. Because you see that creature every day, in every watery reflection and broken glass. And his eyes are just. Like. Mine. You and your washed-up retreats to empty temples, waltzing with shadows and making love to memories, do nothing. Your heart is insatiable. You don't understand why. But I do. It's because I still have it. You left it when you left me.

It's a dying ember when your mind creeps back to it, as you dance in that vacant sanctuary. It's all so familiar. Everything. Even the church looked familiar as you slipped in tonight. You can't remember anything. It's supposed to be gone now.

But I’m not.

My footsteps are acknowledged by the silence as I watch, but you don't hear me. Don't see me. That familiar feeling is too loud, the memories are too loud. I'm not real. You aren't either, to me. Up close, you're a seamless image.
Holographic and torn, and you dance like it too. I know every one of your moves. I know how this will end, too. Maybe it will just begin again, though.

But you can't leave. You can't hide from me anymore. Not if I’ve already found you. I'd found you three long years before you even tried it. You won't disappear.

Your eyes are glass when your waist is laced by my hands. You are cold. It's like a prophecy.
And when we sway, we become spirits. Spirits in a sanctuary.
Because you never knew who you were. That's why I'm here. To remind you. To dance with you.

zmphony — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:03:00 GMT

I think what i'm trying to say is I've lost contact.

Some sort of virus, mental disturbance, they're all the same things anyways, but it feels very surreal. Do I know where I am?
I see hands move, I see my hair grow longer and the tips change color, I see the polish on my fingernails change color, I see my eyes change color and I see this world change color too. What do I have to do to know the real me hasn't gone?

Questioning my sanity is the only factor I have that reminds me that I still have my sanity.

Why do I need to be reminded of everything I used to know so well? My own thought process?
Was I someone else before or am I someone else now?

I left no anchor, I can't return home. I'm just out there now, in deep dark blue and I don't know where it ends.
Do I darken or do I fade? I want to darken. But then I might get lost in myself. But if I fade, I might never see darkness again. I might fly away.
Maybe life is just a suicide mission.

Maybe all an writer wants is to be fictional. I don't know it, maybe we are. Maybe a writer never stops writing, and that makes us fictional. If we are fictional, and since writers write fiction, do we write ourself to our death? Like journal pages, we keep writing more and more of ourselves, our fiction, with the less and less pages we have, pages like time, until there's no more room to write.

Then there's no more writer.

My circuit's dead.

zmphony — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 23:19:11 GMT

Title:A Lonely Avenue (chapter 15, pt.2)
Author: zmphony
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating/Warning: R, Frerard vampire AU.
Disclaimer: All fiction, I promise.
A/N: Part twooo. Okay so i must clarify that chapter 15 is broken up into three parts; this is the second part, the one before this one was the first and there will be a third, 16 will most likely be the last chapter.Oh--Constructive criticism is a must! And about any grammatical/spelling errors, I'm very sorry because unfortunately I do not have a beta >.< so. enjoi=]
Summary: "You're a monster, Gerard." She said, "Now, look what you've done."

| one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten | eleven | twelve | thirteen | fourteen | fifteen pt. 1 |

It tore now. The skies, the ground, the pavement and sidewalk, the tombstones and grass bedding that made the grave's surface, everything. Even the very outskirts of vision that stitched together his dream was ripping and tearing in pain. He could barely see where he was walking in his own fiction, but he could feel everything. He could feel the concrete ripping itself apart under his very feet, the thunder clapping, the hot, hot rain that made it seem like Hell and Heaven had switched positions, the lightening screeching like a banshee--almost like the entire universe was destroying itself. He stumbled when the steps he took were suddenly interrupted by the sidewalk pulling itself apart and jutting the concrete upward, pushing him forward against the iron graveyard gate that fell open when he reached to it for stability. He couldn't hear any sound emit from himself when he fell to the wet grass, and he could still hardly see anything. It was like he had strobe lights for eyes; every other blink he could see himself, pulling himself to his feet and stumbling towards light.

Dead leaves decomposed on the hunter green grass he tread on, making sharp waves whenever the wind hissed upon it, and he hugged his cold, wet hoodie against himself as he wandered. He could see a shape flash in the near distance whenever the lightening struck. It sparked his vision, feeling like a bad battery. It lit up his eyes to a neon green color, his very pupils star-like dots as they reflected every burnished flare. He didn't dare look up at the sky as it raged and tore, screaming and crying, like a monster. It reminded him of another monster he knew.

The shape was now coherent in his vision. It was square, like a smaller version of the Father Adrian's church, which was somehow missing in his dream.

The mausoleum. He moved towards it, mindlessly, eager to escape the moribund, lacerated world surrounding him. He pushed open the heavy, rusty doors, and suddenly found all the noise, lashing lightening and barking thunder, non-existent. The room dim, but a light kind of dim, blue and soft. Grass covered the ground, and the walls were covered in dark, almost black vines, but it was too dark to see a ceiling. He moved forward, slowly, and there, not quite faraway, sat the white lady on a slightly elevated ground, the train of her dress fanned out perfectly around her like a halo. Her curls seemed darker and deeper a crimson red than ever, and her eyes glowed so bright it was like the lightening had struck them and sunken inside like orbs. In her small, delicate fingers she held a flower with only half its petals left on it. She looked up at him, smiling her quaint smile with her tiny red lips, then plucked one single lavender petal, and let it fall to the grass floor below. That's when he saw him.

He was moving towards the small, limp figure beside her instantly, his heart tugging him towards the small, almost lifeless figure like a iron chain. He looked frail now, thin and helpless. His hands were clasped behind his back as he sat on his knees on the ground, his head barely lifted in recognition to the teenager running towards him. His eyes were weak.

Suddenly, when he reached his hands towards the vacant vampire, his legs gave out, and he fell to the ground. He moved to get up again, but his whole lower half seemed disabled. He tried to drag the rest of himself forward, but not only was his legs disabled, they felt like anchors, and wouldn't budge.

He looked up at the lady again, and somehow he knew she was the cause of the phenomena. But she didn't even seem to notice. She just sat there with her flower, humming a faint melody.

"Your love's enough. . ." She plucked another petal, letting it float to the floor, ". . .your love is not. . ."

His gaze turned back to his immobile vampire's body, which stared back at him with more sorrow than a graveyard. His chest rose slowly, and fell fast.

Frank reached out to him, but the other didn't respond. Just stared. His gaze hurt. He turned back to the lady, whose position hadn't changed from the previous.

"Let him go," He cried, his tone interrupting the silence harshly, but she paid no attention. There was a ringing in the background, like a white noise, quiet and still but existing. He repeated himself again, louder this time, but received nothing in return. The white noise got louder with every petal that fell to the ground. That wasn't what made Frank scream louder though; it was Gerard's face. It was turning grey. His skin grew thinner, the veins underneath rising against it unnaturally. Frank cringed. He tried against to move, digging up roots of grass to heave himself forward, but to no avail. The petals kept falling. The noise was getting louder.

Gerard's pupils were getting larger, with the black that only occupied them when his soul was temporarily vacant. But it didn't feel temporary to Frank this time. Frank kept calling out to her, louder and louder, frantically, his voice cracking, only to find her deaf.

His eyes wouldn't leave the other one's now black ones. The noise was hysteric, he could barely hear her singing anymore.

"Your love's enough. . ." She said, plucking off the last, lavender petal as she turned and gazed at him with emerald eyes, now suddenly a flaring red, and said, ". . .your love is not."

Suddenly, the noise just seemed to explode. The screams of lightening and hammering thunder came crashing in again, making the black vines tear themselves away to the world of agony outside as light filled in the room like a lunar flood. Gerard's head fell backwards, his eyes wide and cheekbones nearly tearing through his thinned-out skin of mechanical grey. Frank screamed, in terror, in horror, pain, and breaking.

The lavender petals that had gathered on the grass were lifted by the deranged wind and spun in the air, flying past his face as he helplessly watched his beloved creature be destroyed. The rain that came down in torrents gave a harsh red tint to itself as it landed against Gerard's face, burning like acid onto his feeble skin and eyes, and melting like acid as well. Hair fell from his head. His lips parted just slightly as his body began to burn, a thin sheen of smoke rising from his cadaver, and Frank could hear a faint scream come from those lips; a ripped, horrified scream that felt to have come from torn up vocal chords. He could feel tears run down his face, then saw black, powder-like material run down and out of the sleeves of the vampire's leather jacket.

He watched and watched, and came to find that it was ash. His head began to shake hysterically, still crying, and turned to the lady controlling everything.

She looked at the dying creature beside her with an approved look, her chin slanted upwards, then turned and looked at Frank with an almost innocently proud expression, as if she was asking him if he liked what he saw. When he didn't reply with gaze or words, she looked back at Gerard.

There was nothing left of him. His screams were gone, and so was he. The ash ran faster, and faster, and faster. . .

She turned to Frank again, her eyes holding that dark, fierce red color, and. . .smiled.

The lightening struck again, white and stark, and when Frank blinked, he saw the white of his ceiling above his bed. His hair stuck to his cold, sweaty forehead and his breaths were shallow. He could still hear him, screaming as if vocal chords had a knife scraping their sides. He sat up unthinkingly and ran towards his window, pulling back the curtains and peering out at the house across the way. No lights were on, not even in the kitchen downstairs where they usually were, and the front door was left open, dangling in the breeze. He felt a shock touch his heart.

He slid down to the floor beneath the window, his breaths still shaky and erratic, not giving a second look to his now haunted bed. The images from the nightmare were still fresh too, reappearing in his eyes like a demonic film that just wouldn't stop playing. He saw everything, he heard it, he felt it from the beginning to the end; the hot rain, the stark lightening, the death, but most of all, her smile.

The iron gate shrieked as it was pushed open violently, banging against its bars when it crashed backwards by momentum. It clapped against the iron as he ran from it, its metal ringing like laughter behind him. His soles left depressions in the grass where he tread, and the flattened grass perked up from the indents after long seconds passed. The sound of his footsteps were past him by the time he created them, and he could barely feel them in his ears.

All he felt was panic. Attacking his entirety in itself, forcing his feet to move, his blood to race out from their vessels, leavings his heart a clamoring mess.

He saw him.

Walls of bricks flew past his left, and he knew the mausoleum was not far. His pathway seemed practically lit by the moon above, glowing like a midnight sun. The tips of the green grass were glazed blue, standing sharp and tall in his presence. But even in the radiance of night, he could still feel the crimson rain branding itself against his crawling skin. His world felt twisted, haunted. Everything was haunted.

His breath tangled in the words that burst past his lips when he saw the snow-white of the priest's hair.

"I saw him," He cried, halting abruptly in front of him, "I saw him, when I was sleeping, she had him,"

"Breathe child," Father Adrian said, turning and looking at him with a look half fearful, half confused, "What on earth are you doing out this late?"

"I saw him," Frank repeated, practically panting, "He was inside the mausoleum with her, she had him tied up--"

"Mausoleum? Frank the mausoleum's closed now. . ." Father Adrian interrupted, his words spoken overtop of the adolescent's continuing ones, "She who?"

"The. The lady," He replied, almost surprisingly, as if he expected the priest to know who "the lady" was, "The lady, the one who took Gerard. The one who turned him into, into. . ." He tried to say what he was, but he just couldn't. That wasn't who he was. That's what she made him. He couldn't- wouldn't, say it.

"She has him," He continued, his breathing semi-even now, as Father Adrian watched him with wide and disoriented eyes, "I saw, I saw everything. She took him, Father. She had him, in the mausoleum. She tied him up while she plucked at this flower--"

"Frank stop," The priest said, as if his old ears just couldn't keep up with the teenager, and he breathed through his nose deeply. Frank pursed his lips together, his gaze darting in bee lines at Father Adrian's expression, his seventeen year old eyes round, wet and pink with tiny bags, looking at the man in front of him as if he just didn't understand the horror of this situation the way he should've been.

Once the older one had composed himself, he looked down at the boy again. "When did this happen?"

"Last night, while I was asleep." Frank said, "She's always there when I sleep, and now she has him too."

"The woman who turned Gerard. . ." He asked, and Frank nodded, ". . .comes to you in your dreams?"

"Yes," He said firmly, "At first it was just her, in this graveyard, but then last night--"

"The graveyard?" Father asked, and Frank nodded vigorously then continued describing last night's dream as Adrian's eyes strayed somewhere into the darkness of the luminous deathbed they stood in, his lips slightly parted, before returning to the teenager's frantic storytelling.

". . .she kept singing something about my love, and then when she ran out of petals--she killed him," He said, his eyes searching the priest's own for shelter, for understanding, for help.

"Frank, these are dreams, how don't you know if these are just caused by your subconscious?" Father asked, and Frank shook his head feverishly, "You think about him constantly. All of this, everything is already crazy enough as it is, Frank. Perhaps this whole ordeal is just making you a little bit--"

"Father, I saw him." He said defiantly, his voice shaking, "He was right in front me, staring into my eyes, for christ's sake," Father Adrian looked away, frowning, and Frank grabbed his arms desperately, "Father. . .I watched him die."

Father Adrian looked back at him as he released his arms. Frank's eyes looked as if they were about to crash like waves onto the bags beneath them, pleading at him. He didn't have to ask him for Adrian to know what he needed, help.

"Well. . ." Adrian said, swallowing decently before he spoke, "We need to fix this, then, don't we?"

He knew everything. He did, he really did.

He knew what would've happened when he took his first sip of brandy; he exactly how he'd feel, how he'd thought it would taste, and how he'd end up forgetting the taste all together in the near future- not when drinking and eating became superfluous in his life, but before that. When he'd had too much to drink of it to remember the taste. He knew that. He also knew what would've happened to first time he bought his own bottle, when he brought it home, when he finished it all by himself. He knew what it would do to him, how he'd feel, and how he'd want more. More of nothingness.

Maybe he just didn't know that the more he longed for the numbing, elating nothingness, the more the nothingness longed for him. Maybe he just didn't know that one day, it would've took him.

It was 12:00, am. He'd closed the door behind him, and even though this was the second time he did, he hoped that door stayed closed, forever. He'd turned off all the lights, leaving the kitchen for last. The sheets in the bedroom upstairs remained disturbed, ruffled and empty. Missing. He didn't have to lean down to the pillow to smell the remnants of the only life that was ever there. The one that now remained living without him.

But maybe it was like that from the beginning.

In the kitchen, he could still smell the sugary powder of Frankenberry's lingering in the air and feel the static from the tv as he flipped the switch.

Now the door was closed. Now the lights were turned off, and now he was leaving. And now, maybe he just wouldn't come back, like he wasn't supposed to.

On the doorstep, he paused, a lit a cigarette, and let the lighter fall on the lawn.

He realized that at this moment, he felt more empathy for that one cigarette than anyone or anything else in the whole universe.

He counted the steps from the door to the sidewalk. He didn't glance at the rooftop of his neighbor's dark house as he walked. But it was empty.

His white trans-am lie dormant in the driveway. He never really used it, only Mikey did when he needed to clean up his mess for him. He never really thanked him for that. He supposed it was a little belated now.

He passed the Wild Cat on his way. It was loud, the bass reaching into the concrete below like roots and reverberating wildly against the pavement, drumming against his rib cage, making it beat verbosely. It reminded him of how another did the exact same to him, without even touching him.

The sky looked cracked, black nowhere in sight, just grey, covering it all. The clouds seemed to all be connected, not a glimpse of the night heaven revealed, just cracked, broken clouds, looking like it was about to break at any second. He noticed this, and as he neared the church he noticed a familiar alleyway.

There were still puddles left in the alley from the previous rain, and at first the water looked red- only at first, though. He only paused for a beat when passing it. He could hear faint memories echoing in the back of his mind, reminding him, like deathly ghosts moving him from one life to another, and he listened intently as red bricks appeared in the distance. Will you still remember me?

Gravestones made a path to the small building behind the church. Her own party decor. He didn't walk over or in front of any.

. . . .always, the ghost said, and a cold breeze shuddered against his skin, always, before he pressed his lips to other's chastely.

Gerard's fingers wrapped around the door and opened it, this time the last, always.

A breathe of icy air rushed against his skin as the door to the cold, dead mausoleum swayed open. The soles of his leather shoes seemed to stick to the almost-white stone floor as he walked down a long, wide hall. Pictures were hung up on the grey walls of the founding members of the mausoleum and church, all old, finely aged catholic men (priests, mainly) with white hair and thick, trench-like lines furrowing deep into their foreheads and their frowns. The youngest one there had grey hair with white streaks going through it, and judging by the date that was engraved on the frame his hair was probably faring no better than the other snow-headed priests on the wall by present time. His name, "Father Adrian Christoph", was etched to the left of the date.

None looked too familiar, but he remembered a few from when he and Mikey were young, being drug to church by their mother.Mikey.

He walked further, short, heavy rays of lunar light falling across his shoulders and hair when he passed the tainted glass windows, same as the ones in the church. The corridor stretched out for a while longer with meaningless pictures and portraits of people grateful for the people keeping their dead safe and sheltered. He passed a door every five or seven steps, they appeared on either side of him. Each door had dates on it; 1940-1945, 1945-1950, etc. Must've been how they organized their graves.

He thought about her, and her deals. Her original plan on giving him forty eight hours had apparently been forgotten when Mikey gave himself up--or maybe he just gave up. He guessed one ideal ended when a better one came along.

Tombs. When he looked at the dates from the past five years, there had to be two doors those five years, before the dates continued. He paused and gazed at the doors a while longer, before coming to the conclusion that there were too many graves behind the first door, so they had to put the rest in the room next to it, hence the two doors for the five years. It seemed almost as if half the town was there, behind those two doors. Maybe because of him, too.

The more he thought about that the more it made sense that she'd want him to come here. To show him how much of a monster he truly is.

Other doors kept appearing in the walls of the wide hall. He wondered if his body would be in this place one day, when there was nothing left of himself in it, when it didn't belong to him anymore. Maybe after the town had hunted down the monster in his body and ripped him apart, just like he ripped apart their friends. He wondered if he would lay cold and lifeless, surrounded by his own victims (and many more no doubt, after his soul was gone), the people who he tore and drained of life and left nothing but slippery, tattered remains of in the back alleys and ditches, rivers and trash cans--anywhere.

He wondered if his parents would know, if Mikey would be able to explain everything correctly when they called him asking why his brother was having another funeral. If, Mikey could.

It was only now he began to realize how unfair everything truly was. If he himself wasn't suffering, in death or the lack thereof, then Mikey would be. But then who is to say the pain wouldn't stop when it began in Mikey? They were brothers; their pain was one, and if anything, it belonged to Gerard.

But it didn't stop there. It wasn't only Mikey, it was his parents, his family, those people who used to know him in highschool, friends, and. . .Always, he said, always. . .

Soon, a left passageway opened, and instead of continuing down the hall of tombs, he turned into it, and there it spanned into a wide, glowing room. There were windows, big, glass windows, taking up the walls on either side. The moonlight streamed in through the glass holes and fell over slender pews. He took a short steps, the fuzzy sound of his soles moving against the dark, velvety green of the floor beneath him buzzing in his ears, before another sound met them. He looked up, his gaze trailing the green carpet till' it met white marble, stone steps, before the soft of an ivory stained skirt began. Its train blanketed two of the four white marble steps that began a platform. Candles bordered the platform, starting at the lefts and rights of the stairs and circling the rest of the platform. The sunless orange and yellows from the flames glared at the somber, lucent pale blues and whites flowing through the windows, while the warm hunter green covered the floor--but when the colors collided it just made her dress seem all the brighter.

He saw her, but looked past her. He wasn't ready to acknowledge her. The room seemed to be for memories, for the people who come to remember their loved ones in spirit and sanctuary, who want to remember in the peace of a church, since it looked to be designed in a sanctuary sort of mold. The candles, the pews, the small bibles (no hymnals), and there seemed to be one more thing he hadn't noticed yet.

It was a book, a large , black book with wide pages on an altar, a pen linked to the altar left sprawled on the first page of the book. Or, what he thought to be the first page. There were scraps of torn out pages lining the inner spine of the book. He stared at it oddly.

"It's for the memories."

His gaze snapped over to the sitting anti-christ on the steps, her knees folded neatly on top of each other under her silky lace gown. Her eyes were wide and deeper than the green ground beneath them as she returned his gaze. He'd wondered if he could stare straight into her soul, but as he knew if he could he'd never find it. Her small, razor sharp red lips were set in a profoundly peaceful line, almost genuinely smiling at him. For no malevolent reason yet, though.

"Some think it's also a way to communicate with the deceased, but the priests believed it would help family and friends learn to let go of their memories and pain and such," She said, glancing back at the book on it's small steeple behind her in a sort of awe fondness. He took a step towards her, watching her drag her burnished ringlets across her milky collar bones softly when she turned her head. She turned her gaze back to him, tiny spirals and galaxies appearing like emerald wonderlands in her eyes when he looked at them.

"You take the pen and write a memory, or a thought of them, then rip out the page and burn it over a candle." She explained, her voice a soft immaculance that only made it seem like it didn't belong to her when her words came through those crimson lips, "It's symbolic, of course. By burning it, you are releasing it, so that pain does not harm you or belong to you anymore."

Candle light burned his eyes as he looked at the small ritual, the flames seemingly lighting his amber ones on fire. His bruises, inside and out, seemed to glow in the light, and she stared up at him, still in her sitting position, "I thought you might want to know."

His eyes shot down at hers, glaring bitterly at her thinly veiled insult.

"Why was it me, that night?" He asked, his eyes unchanged, "I know there's a reason."

Her eyes fell from his, and she stood a few inches taller than him as she walked up the stairs, "There is." Her hand fell on the book, dragging her fingertips across the torn scraps of paper leftover from ripping out pages. He watched intently, his fists clenching when a silence fell.

"You deserved it," She almost whispered, still staring at the book, "You knew it, too, yet when it happened, it still feels unfair to you. . ."

His gaze fell for a moment, and he winced as a small pain in his chest clenched.

"You were reckless and selfish," She continued, spite twinged in her voice, "And you still feel guilty everyday, but that doesn't make it up to your brother. You said he needed you, and you lied. You needed him, and always have. You need an anchor, something to remind you that you weren't all monster before. You don't understand how much pain you've caused him."

He gritted his teeth subconsciously, "That doesn't answer my question-"

"That's not all." She interrupted, moving away from the book and turning to him. She looked much taller this way.

"It wasn't only him. You brought in another, too. You could've left him, if not killed him." She went on, "You could've let him be and live. But you didn't. You brought him down with you, now look what you've done."

"I didn't try to-" He didn't finish. He could see him, flashing like a silent movie in front of his eyes. He could see his small shoulders shaking, he could hear the tears falling onto wooden floors and pews he sat on. He could feel the heat rising up into his mossy green eyes and pain throbbing in his chest.

He didn't look at her as he swallowed dryly, the pictures being burnt away by the seething candle light. Her chin was high, almost as if his feelings were a toxic waste that she didn't want to reach her.

"You didn't understand depth until now." She said, "You're a monster, Gerard. A lying, killing, sick monster. It wasn't just because of me, you know that. You've always been this way. You can't be alone, even if it causes others around you to hurt. You must take them with you, no matter what. You need them."

His fists unclenched, his fingers hanging limply as she said, "And that, makes you a monster."

He wanted to fall. He felt boneless. This wasn't true. She made him this way. He wasn't. . .he wasn't. . .No. He heard something frantic, like knocking, but after a few moments he knew he wasn't hearing it, he was feeling it. His heart, beating, almost like it still had a voice in this.

He was so absorbed he almost didn't hear her whisper, "Like me." And the beating stilled.

She looked back at him, and her eyes looked moist, that soft fondness returning to them as she turned.

"That night wasn't the first time I'd seen you." She said, her voice calm, and she smiled again. The smile was so different. It wasn't hers, she'd never had that before. It couldn't belong to her, it was too real. Her thin lips slowly split across her face, curving sweetly and it almost looked like they were about to start bleeding. Her eyes crinkled just slightly, and blazing emerald toned down to a soft glow. Her whole face seemed to change when she smiled.

"You were so happy when you were younger," She continued, looking away, "I almost couldn't understand it. It made more sense when you told me about your brother, why you were always so happy. I always knew that particular happiness would never return when I was done with you, and it almost saddened me, until--Well, until it did return."

He stared oddly, and she didn't reciprocate.

"He brought it back, somehow, that boy." She said, with a quaint curiosity, "It was such a strange thing. Almost like reviving a cold, frozen body after years of still death. He just. . .appeared, and suddenly, it started to wake up again."

She turned and looked at him, "You feel it now, too. Just speaking of it, of him. . ." She laughed brokenly, "That feeling is harder to kill than yourself."

He waited, a sudden heat filling his voice as he said, "It will always be there."

Her head quirked, and he went on, "It can't die, it never will. Not even after I do."

The corner of her lip pulled upwards, "You think so?" And his face was defiant.

"You're not going to die, Gerard." She said, "Do you think I would've let you live this long just to kill you?"

She shook her head, "I'm not near finished with you. This is only half of the process so far."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about your soul, Gerard." She said, almost irritably, "Your body is already dead, so why would I be talking about that?"

He spoke slowly, "You're going. . .to let me keep my soul?"

"In a sense," She said, quaintly, "Your soul will remain in your body, but your body will not be yours anymore. Neither will your mind, your heart, everything. All of it will be, in a way, lifeless. But you will still be trapped inside it, forever."

His heart hit a cold stone as he realized what she meant. She smiled again, her usual smile, and he'd never seen it more horrifying than now.

"You'll hear, see, and feel everything that it does. And it will do exactly what it's supposed to. . ." She said, walking over to a candle and taking two dry fingers, then pressing them into a small helpless flame, but instead of smothering it or burning her, the wax from the candle began to melt furiously, till' there was nothing left, and she said, ". . .kill."

"It will be the only thing you can do," She continued, as panic flooded his eyes, "Everyone you see, everything you hear, you'll want to destroy. And there, deep inside that murderous cadaver, will be you, looking through your blackened eyes and watching as blood is sprayed across your face, listening through drumming ears and hearing every scream across the city is torn right from your victim's throat, and feeling the monster you are take wings. . .and fly."

"Frank--" He began.

"Him too," She answered, turning and looking at him with a cat-like grin, "Like I said, you've never understood depth until now. And now, you'll understand it better than ever. . ."

He wasn't paying attention as she went on. His mind was racing almost as fast as his heart was. No.

She turned her body away so that he couldn't see it, and looked out one of the windows, up at the lonesome moon, spilling its gaze into hers, "How strange, how those feelings are, aren't they?"

"You feel everything so well." She said, in almost jealous tone, "It will such a different thrill to see one of your loved ones destroyed by a hand other than mine this time."

He stopped. His eyes shot up at hers, and asked shakily, "Where's Mikey?"

Her wondering, thoughtful face withered back into one of her smiles, as if she was waiting for that question. She turned to him, her body still facing the window, her little teeth that peeked out from her little lips all seemed to offer a different answer to his question.

"He told me to tell you," She said, "To thank him."

Then, she faced him again, and suddenly a sharp, piercing scream more than familiar shot into his ears, and his eyes snapped shut and his hands flew up to his sensitive ears in an effort to become deaf. His knees pushed him back into one of the pews, and he pressed his hands onto his ears harder and harder but the sound wouldn't stop. He wasn't able to hear himself as he screamed as well, and when he opened his eyes again, red covered her dress, staining the front and pouring down the skirt with hand prints and holes where he tried to grip onto it for stability, but tore it instead. He could see him, his brother, scrambling away, blood pouring sickeningly and spreading onto the floor where he would slip and be too weak to get up, before thin, skeleton-like hands wrapped around his neck and picked him up, bringing his eyes level with the large, round white ones and his lips level with the black ones, torn down the middle with red, before, engraving its fingers into the skin of his neck, it brought their lips together. And just before his body went limp, his pale spirit flew from his corpse and into her mouth. Then, he fell to the ground.

Gerard could hear his own screams now, and when he blinked, all the images and the reddened dress turned back to white, and the vision of her was blurry.

He couldn't move. He didn't advance towards her, he stayed put, his eyes making everything look so blurry and watery and he couldn't think of why. His skin was thin as everything just crashed down on him in horror.

"You're going to experience life as I know it, Gerard," She said, solemnly, "Without anyone."

Then something clicked. Frank. He had to warn him, he had to--

"I knew you'd want that," She said, proudly, "So I arranged that for you. Oh, don't thank me, I figured you deserved atleast some decent last words with him."

"You didn't," His eyes were stark, and he stumbled towards her, "No, you couldn't--"

"You're a monster, Gerard." She said, and he could hear racing footsteps on stone floor, "Now, look what you've done."

The footsteps grew louder, and louder, and her smile grew larger, and larger. He could still hear Mikey's screams, echoing, and then another one joined in--not his, or Mikey's--but everything suddenly stopped when he burst through the door.

zmphony — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 08:58:59 GMT

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.

A Lonely Avenue

zmphony — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:32:37 GMT

Title:A Lonely Avenue (part fourteen)
Author: zmphony
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating/Warning: R, Frerard vampire AU.
Disclaimer: All fiction, I promise.A/N: Almost over! I know I know, im totally crushed too. Again, totally sorry about the laggy/lame updating, but I hope its worth it =] comments would be so great from u guys, since i'm thinking about publishing this one, so plzplzplz leave any thoughts you have, whether its constructive criticism or cynical thoughts you think I should know about--anything's great XD hope u enjoy
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. Frank knew he did. He was new to the neighborhood.

Frank stared at the trail of liquid footprints that followed him from the large double door entrance to where he sat quietly, his shivering hands tucked firmly between his damp, denim-clad thighs, and some part of him told him he wasn't shivering because of the cold and rain from outside. Not as Father Adrian sat next to him in the pews listening to his recollection of yesterday and yesterday night.

His jacket clung to his skin, his clothes nearly soaked by the pouring rain outside, and his thin black hair stuck to his forehead messily.

Somehow, when his mom had left for work, his house no longer felt safe, and the feeling nearly pushed him out the door and to the church. It was warm inside, the stone armor of the sanctuary keeping the frenzied rain at bay, and the maybe hundreds of candle flames glowing and flickering like a tiny choir of fire. He didn't even believe in god, or any religion for that matter, but it wasn't like he needed to in order to know that the church was a safe place. A refuge, and he was the refugee in this sanctuary, hiding from the horrors of what now was his life. Every decent decision he'd lead in his life felt upside down now, after all of. . .well, this. It felt as if Life and Love had turned into a couple of school bullies, lifting him up and turning all his pockets free of his sanity.

And now he sat by himeslf, alone, empty and lost, turning to a faithful priest for guidance. Atleast he wasn't turning to Jesus, he thought. God knows how that would turn out.

He didn't even know what he was asking from Father Adrian, really. He knew that there was nothing that could truly help his situation, because apparently, he was in love with a cursed man who would die if he continued to be in love with him, not only that but he also had to try and avoid said cursed lover who also happened to conveniently live rightnextfuckingdoor, and just to keep this sounding like the horrible romantic tragedy it was, he was also being plagued by nightmares featuring this ugly monster imitating the appearance of said cursed lover. So really, what is the solution to that? Or anything, in this matter?
The church was heavy with silence when Frank finished talking. His eyes stared openly at the floor, the light glow of the candles emanating gently against his face, and he was sure if you listened closely enough you could hear the small thread embedded in the wax being burnt, slowly, the defenseless flames flickering against the light breezes, yet remaining anchored to the wick.

Frank thought it was strange; how flames could be so powerful, so destructive, yet be so defenseless to such gentle things, like a simple breath, or a tear. He wasn't sure how, but it reminded him of Gerard.

A monster, or a miracle?

His eyes glanced over at the priest, the usual ashen shade of it condensed in the warm glow of the candles, his eyes looking up at the altar ahead of him, his thin lips still and unmoving. He didn't glance back.

"Love was never a fair game." He said, and Frank didn't know if he should've been offended at the simplicity of his answer. He certainly felt it, just a little. "Nobody said it was easy."

"Yes, but no one said it'd be like this, either." Frank's voice was between bitter and weak. Maybe both.

"You already know what to do," The priest said without looking at him, and Frank shook his head at his words, "You've known how this would end ever since you first began it."

"I don't, and I don't want to," He said, but the protest was withered in his voice, the strong, fierce defiance of before now thinned out to frail denial, only denial.

"This matter is not yours, Frank." Father Adrian said, his voice soft, "Your voice has been dismissed, so has your presence."

"How?" He asked, strained, "How can he expect me to just leave him like that? Why didn't he tell me this before, when I didn't know him as well, when I wasn't so. . .attatched?"
"Maybe he couldn't," The priest said, thoughtfully, "Questions like that are exactly what make up love; as unfair."

Unfair. That word reeked of so many things, so much denial, so much rejection, so many things that made the knot in Frank's chest tangle even more. What made it worse, was that he didn't even have a choice; this was life, unloved, or death with love, for Gerard. He knew this wasn't his choice, or his place, and he knew that something this crucial should've made him back off completely, but everything he knew felt like nothingless trash compared to what his heart knew, and unfair wasn't even the beginning of it all.

"Gerard's life is ending in yours, he just wants you to have more of it than he did," Father Adrian said.

He wanted to lash out. He wanted to throw his fists into a wall and scream, just scream and nothing else. He wanted to shake Father Adrian and order a solution to this, a real one. But no.

He couldn't, couldn't do anything because there was nothing he could do. He sat there, wishing, wishing as his soul became part of the candles. Something rang through his head, some weak voice of reality, but he refused to hear it. He didn't want to, therefore he couldn't. His whole being was fighting against this brick wall that was reality, the reality that he didn't have a choice. Gerard wasn't his anymore.

He heard silence, each raindrop ending its life on the walls of the church, the flickering of candles, but not on the inside. Inside he heard screams. He felt tears. He felt the song of breaking.

Gerard peered into the small window, scanning the empty inside frantically. Nobody. Again.

Led fell into his stomach again, the same heavy weight that'd crashed when he'd left the local highschool, the Wild Cat, and just about every other place he'd looked for him. Too late.

But he was indignant. He had to be here, somewhere, anywhere. He couldn't have left. Not without saying good-bye, at the least. Would he? You didn't.

He swallowed thickly, then went to the roof instead. But no. No one, just the ghost of someone. His someone.

Meaninglessly, he sat down on the edge, the weight inside him telling him it didn't matter if he fell or not. It's not like he'd die or anything. He looked at the spot beside him without thinking. Empty, just like him.

He kept staring at it, helplessly. Too late. That's all he was, too late. He swallowed at the knot in his throat again, the rain weighing him down in their own parade. Down. That's where all the weight was taking him. He hadn't felt this much feeling for a long time. Seven years, maybe. It's strange, since he'd never felt this much even before seven years. Maybe this was a first, and a last.

Maybe the only one he'd ever have. Then something in his head seemed to open up, a new door. Never a good one though. It was the realization, the epiphany, that something like this wouldn't happen ever again. Not to him. Maybe to Frank, he'd probably have it again. But not him. He was here for Mikey, that was it. He was running on a emergency lifeline, his brother, and that was all he had now; an hourglass. Not even that, as he remembered her words. Soon he'd be an empty shell, a walking corpse. Not too different from now.

Something in his eyes flickered. Something dark, something with a flare. He felt it, and it felt bitter. Bitter, grim--then he thought: Mikey.

The something began to flare up even more, spreading like a wild fire inside him. His fists curled, and it felt like his whole being was snarling at the rain now. He did this.

He didn't blink before his surroundings changed to the frontroom of his house. He could hear the tv static from the kitchen across the way and down the hall, and his ears pricked up at the sound. It wasn't a second before he came bursting through the door to find a small, curled up version of his brother staring emotionlessly at the small tv perched on the countertop, his shoulders slumped in an angle that let his earlobes touch his collarbone. The tv blared a show that he hadn't seen before, and it made him skeptical if Mikey was even watching the thing.

"Why?" He asked, his breath seemingly seething past his teeth, "Why'd you make him go?"

Mikey's eyelids closed tightly, then opened slowly, like a procrastinated blink. He didn't look up at Gerard, whose hair clung to his neck and dropped tiny tears onto the floor. Gerard couldn't tell if the tears belonged to him or the rain. His black pupils stretched like a cat's, but his fangs weren't barred. He stared at the frail person in front of him with the same stare he gave to her.

"Because you wouldn't." Mikey said, and it took a second for his eyes to slide up to his brother's; weak, soft hazel ones meeting the vacant black ones, almost like the sun meeting the moon in the ways they collided and held each other's gaze like two rams.

"You had to, didn't you?" He said, moving towards him, and Mikey looked away, "You couldn't let it go. You coudn't let me have this, could you?"

"It was too dangerous, you knew that," Mikey said, in a limp kind of defense.

"Too dangerous to lose me?" He said, dryly, "Maybe you haven't noticed, but i'm pretty much already lost, Mikey."

"If I didn't she would've."

"So what, you ran him off? Figured you were doing the right thing?"

"I wasn't trying to-"

"You needed me, didn't you?" Gerard said, and if his voice wasn't in a snarl, his face was, and there was a voice inside him telling him that the one snarling at his brother wasn't his own.

Mikey looked up at him, his eyes long and soft behind his glass windows. He could see past the blackness in Gerard's eyes. He was looking past them right now, staring with that sense of a dissecting knife of brotherly intuition that cut across every cloud of black and grey until it pierced his soul, and sliced through every wall that hid Gerard's wounds, opening them for what seemed like the world to see.

Gerard felt it, and the knot he'd been swallowing at earlier came back to his throat. Mikey continued to stare, stared and stared until he'd found every scratch and scar within him, unravelling each one like a package and spilling out its contents, and Gerard knew what'd he found in each one; him, gone.

"You told her," He said, not an accusation, but a realization, "You, she knew because of you."

"You know I didn't," Mikey said, his gaze snapping up at him in a startled sort of way, "She already knew, I was just trying to-"

"You didn't have to," He stopped him, "You didn't have to do any of this. But you did. You needed me, you always have."

"You know what she would've done, Gerard." He said, standing up defensively, "It's easier this way."

"How would you know what's easier for me?" His voice got louder, hissing past his teeth venomously, "You don't know what any of this is like."

"What would you have done?" He asked, his tone matching his brother's, "You know you wouldn't leave him to her, and you know I couldn't let her do it. Atleast now she doesn't have to."

"So now that he's gone everything's better?" He said, bitterly, "Everything will just go back to the way they were before, i'll stay this way, and we'll live like this until you die? Is that what you thought?"

Mikey looked at him wearily, and it was only now that Gerard noticed the miserable fog that surrounded his younger brother. Mikey winced at his brother's words, and the air seemed so much thinner.

"I couldn't let you. . ." He said, still staring at him, even as he swallowed stickily, "Not again."

Gerard kept his gaze for only a moment before looking away. He felt a blood flow, straight from his chest. Heart. He felt it now, but only in fragments. The tightness in his chest began to loosen, ebbing away like falling ribbons. Because suddenly everything. . . .everything was stopping. Not time, time was gone already. Everything, his whole life, everything that seemed to be at the end of the road of time, was suddenly right in front of him, and he realized that this was the end of the road. And all he could see were two green eyes, lost, fading into nowhere.

"Too late." He said, his still-black eyes staring at the floor, "You were right; she knows. About everything; me, Frank, you, maybe even right now--she knows. She knew this would happen, she was just waiting for a slip-up," He paused, looking up at his brother, "The deal's over."

Mikey's face was blank, empty, maybe even hurt. His eyes darted back and forth from Gerard's eyes as if searching for a bluff, hoping for one. Gerard watched as his face slowly crashed, spilling out every emotion his heart couldn't show, and looked away when he didn't say anything.

"I've lost two good-bye's," Gerard said, his eyes drifting into the vacant air glossily, before returning to his brother's lost ones, "Atleast I didn't waste this one."

Mikey opened his mouth to say something, his body shifting as it to move, but nothing came. Gerard watched with amber filling his eyes once more, and when the silence was no longer needed, he left, leaving the door open behind him this time. There were no slams, no sounds of doors shutting--nothing. He left a silence, and it stayed with Mikey like a ghost, the only thing he had left of his brother.

He moved out of the kitchen, into the frontroom, knowing he'd find no one, but following wordlessly, resting against the wall as he stared into the lonesome hall, or what appeared to be the rest of his life.

Then there were footsteps. Silent ones, almost as if they belonged to silence. He looked into their direction, peering into the dark hallway across from him.

White. A train of white. It was like she was eavesdropping with the way she crept out from the hall, her small feet hidden underneath her dress as she glided towards him slowly, half of her face hidden behind a curtain of shiny red velvet. He watched her move with her back alongside the walls, avoiding the little light that creeped across the floor like how Gerard did when he'd wake in the middle of the day to escape a bad dream or get a drink. His chest tightened. Her. She was a reaper, a greedy reaper. She'd taken everything, left his life lifeless.

"What more do you want?" He asked the white shadow, as it drifted closer and closer, "He's gone, there's nothing left here." He didn't even wish that the last part of the sentence wasn't true.

She was silent, moving towards him like a fog. Her toes dipped into the light, letting it stream up her sparkling gown, 'till it showered against her hair like a halo. It disgusted him.

Her hair fell limply to the sides of her face as she gazed at him, her emerald stare reflecting all the light descended onto her. A green-eyed monster.

"It's awfully quiet here, isn't it?" She asked, softly. He didn't reply. Her eyes caught him off guard. They looked. . .different. She continued without his consent.

"It's such a big place. . ." She went on, looking around the house as she walked towards him, ". . .for only one person."

They were soft, those eyes. Almost sore. Interested, but sore, softly sore. Only on the inside though, nothing physical. It was the expression.

"I'm supposing you're going to leave it then, aren't you?" She asked, her fingertips gracing the smooth wooden interior of the staircase railing almost sadly.

She looked over at him, and then it hit him; sympathetic. He tensed, and somehow the look made him uncomfortable. What was she doing?

When he didn't reply, she looked back at the stairs despodently, her eyes dragging their gaze like heavy chains. They looked almost hollow.

"You know he'd never want you to be this way," She said, not looking at him, "Alone in this place."

He didn't want alot of things, he thought, his eyes moving to the floor. She looked over at him again, and when he glanced up she was closer than she was before. Her eyes bore into his in a curious way.

"You really love him, don't you?" She asked, in that same soft, sore-eyed--sympathetic, tone. He knew it was fake. An imitation. She wasn't capable of sympathy, it just wasn't in her nature.

Then he thought; an imitation. He gazed at her analytically, then he realized it wasn't an imitation. It was a reflection. And he knew what of; the person was staring back at him within the mirrors of her pupils.

His eyes shifted at hers, and his answer was so clear that it must've been transparent since he couldn't say it. Her eyes looked into his, almost searching for the answer that he knew she already knew. Maybe she was searching for doubt, for any slight chance of a different answer. He felt that that was futile, since he hadn't found it yet either.

"You can stop this," She said, once she'd given up staring, and gone back to looking around the house, "He doesn't have to leave."

Mikey's eyes followed her, "What do you mean?"

"I mean you can save him," She replied, her voice suddenly firmer, "You can let him live again, fully human."

She must've noticed him figuring out her sympathy act, since she stopped. He hesitated before asking, "How?"

"Supersede, replacement," She said, and it dawned on Mikey the whole reason she was here, "One soul can equal another."

He didn't look at her. His mind was buzzing; the same way it was buzzing before he decided to cross onto the neighbor's lawn yesterday--with options.

"It's a simple business procedure, really, you wouln't be the first one to do it," She continued, her tone changing gradually from soft and gentle to firm and professional, "He lives, you die."

He thought about what Gerard would want. Really, he'd always been thinking that way, in a sense. Maybe even before his brother turned. His own life seemed so irrelevent most the time. He never really thought about it, but as it occurred to him, he realized that maybe that was because his life wasn't much without his brother.

It was just then he realized why she was pretending to be so crushed about the thought of him living alone in this house; because it was just like his life without Gerard. Empty. She was reflecting, trying to show him how meaningless his life was Gerard; like this house without people, empty. Pointless. Lonely, at the least. Tragic.

It made him tremble inwardly, how she could figure out how dependent his life was to his brother's, even back before he turned. Maybe she'd always been there, watching them, waiting for the moment to throw their lives over the edge, observing each little detail and intricate design that made up their lives so that when she actually did force them off the cliff she'd know just what to do to make sure they never climbed to safety ever again. She was a hunter, a reaper, and she made sure to leave her plate clean.

He thought over her words, searching for any hidden catches or tricks. Did it matter with death, anyways?

So many options came up, so many different reasons that pushed him towards a yes. He thought about the look on his brother's face when he'd creep back into his basement with the miasma of Frank still clinging to his being, or the cracked countenance on his face when he'd talk about him, and now the look of twisted pain that drained out all his expression like runny make-up at the absence of him.

"He's interesting. . ."
". . .He looks pretty when he sleeps."
". . .He called me a monster,"
"You think I could actually make him live in the same hell that I do?"
"I'm in love with him."

He thought about his life, in comparison to his brother's. He thought about who was waiting for him at the end of the day, who was there to make him feel like he wasn't alone. Then he realized; he was alone.

She was looking at him, watching him evaluate these thoughts and flip them over like rocks in the mud to find new discoveries underneath them--but never good ones.

When he finally met her eyes again, he ignored the knob in his throat.

"I'll do it," He said, his words processing slowly, "If you tell him to do one thing for me."

Her eyes glinted, almost perkily, and he knew, he knew she wanted to say that whatever it was couldn't be too hard, since it'd probably be the only thing he'd ever done for him (besides use him as an excuse for his life). The silence withered as he looked down, the floor becoming blurry around its edges.

"Tell him to thank me."

The Great Cheewawa Happening: Fozzie, from Frisco.

zmphony — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 09:00:18 GMT

So.
I never particularly believed in the whole cat people/dog people thing. Never did, really. I always thought it was kind of bias, so I just kind of biased as well in the non-belief of cat people/dog people things.

Even as I progressed to be fifteen with three cats plus a stray, I still didn't believe it. Well. Maybe I did, just a little. People mature, whether they are aware of it or not, but. I'm no sure if I ever notice until something like this happens.

So my bestie calls me up and spills out this wondrous plan of going to San Francisco this Friday. And i'm just totally into it, because i'm always totally into it. And I have this undying love for cities such as Frisco--which, by the way, there was actually a law against calling it "Frisco". Like fifty or seventy five dollars or something that as a charge. Totally radical right? Yeah. I love it.

So Friday rolls around, we're having this awesome time in the city, and then we head over to Blondie's for dinner, and quaintly meet this kind hispanic lady in the restrooms with a little brown/white/caramel chiwawa (sp?) in her arms. My bestie turns into a squealing ball of unrestrained pubescence at the sight of a puppy. I, of course, awaited annxiously to return to our table. I was hungry, and puppies weren't the ideal yummy-for-my-tummy.

After some perky questions about said puppy, we come to find that said puppy is on sale for twenty bucks. Said bestie is floored.
So, in turn, said bestie turns to her totally loaded mom and says, 'GIMME'.

It might be ironic, and it might karma, but this is exactly how I find myself in the backseat of my bestie's mazda van with a urinating and regurgitating chiwawa on my lap.

Yeah. Seriously.

Unsurprisingly, my bestie cannot afford another canine. Well. Not money-wise, but y'know, house wise. She already has two dogs and apparently that's the max. This does not in any way falter said bestie. She presses on. You can't get chiwawa puppies for twenty bucks, y'know. And seeing this display of defiance, somehow, made said bestie's mom turn to meee for help. She says I could use a chiwawa.
Do I want one?

It's a lie to say that I did want one, but it would also be an exaggeration to say I didn't. I mean. It's a puppy, y'know? Who doesn't want one?
Just I had three cats, two of which are males, a slight irk towards the stereotypical chiwawa (I know i'm spelling that wrong EVERY time I try but what can I do?), and absolutely no puppy experience.

Said bestie says Why not try a month-trial with said puppy to see if it works out, and if it doesn't, then said bestie shall keep said puppy.
You see how this works, don't you?

In conclusion, I am now sitting at this laptop, writing to you of this joyful experience, with a puppy crawling up my shoulder.
I stand firm in my non-belief of cat people/dog people things.

---ps, story is coming up great, just in case you were wondering. Might be a little slow, due to some crappy schedule issues at the moment, but progress is moving^.^

ohoh. And the puppy's name is Fozzie XD

A Lonely Avenue

zmphony — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:31:29 GMT

Title:A Lonely Avenue (part thirteen)
Author: zmphony
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating/Warning: R, Frerard vampire AU.
Disclaimer: All fiction, I promise.
A/N: Chapter 13, short, but worth it I promise XD
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. Frank knew he did. He was new to the neighborhood

Sirens wailed in the distance. He could hear some trash cans being scoured through by tiny, dirty paws and long, slender, grey noses in the alley not too many blocks away from the sidewalk he stepped on.

The streets were cold. The wind was blowing in sort of a passive aggressive way; slow, calm and smoothe, then it suddenly sped up and thrashed against buildings, knocking over recycling bins and tearing through his hair as if trying to tear out the very black roots--before settling again, swaying back into steady, sensual streams.

The rain made barely audible pitter-pattering noises as it crashed to the ground in its heavy masses, the sound of water hitting concrete sounding like a thousand water balloons meeting their demise over and over again in his head. He could almost feel the tiny explosions of prespiration detonating against the ground, and it almost made it harder for him to overhear the other sounds lurking the area.

He could hear quiet, still voices behind buildings--the rustling of paper, a flickering flame, and a silent stem of smoke drifting in curls around a man's knuckles, then floating away. He could smell it, too.

It reminded him of his pack hidden inside the innerpocket of his leather coat. He didn't know why he still smoked, or why he hadn't broken that habit of it. It didn't have any effect on him like it did before he changed, and he couldn't even taste it either. Maybe it just relaxed him in the way it made him feel a little more human, and a little less creature.

His hair clung to his forehead stickily, and he swept it back with one pale, slender hand. The air smelled sweet. There was faint traces of laundry detergent, marijuana and petroleum. His eyes wandered, his ears taking in every sound that they picked up. Sometimes he reminded himself of a bat with the ways he could've been completely blind and still found his way down the street, maybe even through traffic. Who knew.

He heard tires screeching around Ivory Lane. A couple was fighting in the apartment complex down the road; room 28B, third floor, in the kitchen. A plate crashed, then he heard it--footsteps.

They were soft, not heavy, almost as if they weren't touching the ground at all. He could hear the light cloth of a dress just barely scraping the concrete gently; the white just grazing the grey.

He knew these foosteps. He looked up and around instantly.

There was a church he walked next to. It was a tall, red brick building with large, brown doors in the front. There was tainted glass windows about as big as the walls in his house, and he faintly wondered how they looked when sunlight poured through them, what kind of colors and patterns they made when they fell onto the mossy green carpet. He only wondered.

Behind the church was a mausoleum. That's where the footsteps came from, the tiny echoes of small, petite white feet dancing across the pavement. They moved towards him, slowly, sliding between rows of stone and grass, and the soft, silky satin brushing the marble tombstones as she slyly swept by. She.

She didn't whisper to him. She didn't have to call him; she would talk to him whether he liked it or not.
That's how it always was; whether he liked it or not. That's just how deals worked.

He kept walking, not ignoringly, but more in the way that he didn't feel like stopping. Why should he, anyways. He heard the green grass flattening under the thin skin of her heels as she neared him.

She was humming a song contently, and he heard a barely audible snapping-- more like a plucking, he decided, when he heard the sound again, and then a soft rustling of downy hair as something was put through it. Then he saw it, the enigmatic flashing of white from where the iron fenced gate was. He could hear the creaking of the metal as it opened, and he knew that she was aware of him hearing her entrance. She wanted him to. She liked attention. He wanted to ignore her, so badly, but he couldn't. Because she just wouldn't ignore him.

Her humming got louder when she neared him, and he saw the familiar white of her dress flowing in the night breeze, but he kept his eyes on the ground. Her bare feet left barely a sound as she glided towards him. She seemed to be in a good mood. That wasn't good, of course. Her humming turned into giggling. He hated her laughter. He hated everything happy about her.

"A merry heart does good like a medicine; but a broken spirit dries the bones." He heard her say, and when he looked up, she wasn't in front of him.

He turned, and there she was, standing there about five yards aways. She held a small, almost child-sized umbrella with maybe too much fringe with her careful hands, and the color of it matched her dress.

The wind seemed to get excited as it rushed through her crimson hair, the dark ringlets falling in curls around her tiny shoulders. Her small lips twisted into a smile, like a tiny dancer across her face.

Her eyes glinted at him, and he could see the bright, penetrating green from where he stood. He kept his distance.

"It's been awhile, Gerard," She said, her grin burning holes into his still, silenced heart.

"I hadn't noticed," He said, and his words sounded like the wind had swept them up, despite how firm he held his tone. Her grin widened a bit in an almost fond way, as if she'd maybe missed his old slams.

It made Gerard's stomach twist. She noticed, and her grin did anything but shrink. He could hear the helpless rain peppering the skin of her umbrella now too.

"You've changed." She said, smiling as if she was proud of that fact. Her eyes didn't study him over though, like when normal people would say so.

"You haven't." He replied, looking over her dress and bare feet. Her dress seemed whiter for some reason, and fuller, like a wedding dress. Alot like a wedding dress.

"You're taller, stronger," She went on, ignoring his statement, "It's almost like you're maturing." Conforming.

He could almost hear himself internally sighing, "What do you want?"

Her face seemed to lighten, but stayed small and decent, "You know, your brother's maturing too."

She didn't mean conforming that time. He knew it. He knew her. More than he would've liked too, at that. She could see his tension, see his nerves feeling curled, that weird prickling at the back of his neck that always ended up with his claws tangled in somebody's flesh. He knew that sensation more than he would've liked too, as well. But never the less, she was satisfied by his state.

"I almost forgot about you and that little brother of yours," She went on when he didn't respond, taking small steps towards him, "As unusual as it may seem, I seemed to have left some confidence in you after the six or seven months that i'd left you on your own. I thought, at the time, that you'd adapted to your new lifestyle, and come to accept it, therefore leaving me no worries. But, now. . ."

She wasn't so faraway now, only about four or five feet, but it still seemed to close for him. He was compelled to back up, but the man within him kept his feet anchored.

She gazed up at him with those wide, lush emerald eyes that looked like they could literally break under the moonlight, and her skin looked so porcelain with her little heart-shaped red lips jutting out with a contorted smile that he was pretty sure if he wrapped some ribbon around her and stuffed her into some plastic she could totally pass as a china doll. But he refrained. Barely.

". . .It appears our deal has been altered now, apparently?" She says, her voice curving into a question that sounded more like a purr than anything.

He could hear the joints in his hand cracking faintly as he clenched and unclenched his fists. There was that twitchy itch underneath his skin playing up again, that one he always got around her, the one that always urged them towards her neck. He only wished he could only grip it when he actually did, instead of finding soulless air. He didn't reply to her question, to put it simply.

"Hasn't it, Gerard?" She said again, tilting her head to the side with a smirk, her umbrella swirling loosely between her fingertips, "Last I checked, we never agreed on you ever seeing Michael again, or leaving Jersey, or returning with him and deciding to live with him. . ." She let the words sink in, almost smugly, then continued, ". . .did we?"

We never agreed on a thing, he thought bitterly, and kept his eyes on the wet, dark grey sidewalk. The silence seemed to feed her ego, and she twirled her umbrella vainly.

"So, I assume that our deal has been. . .revamped, at this state." She said, in a cheery voice that only made his innards curl, "What with all these terms and conditions somewhat abolished, I would say it's practically. . .well, broken."

His eyes snapped up at her, half fearful half hateful, but when he found no words to spit he lowered them to the ground again. The ends of her dress that touched the pavement were soaked through, he noticed as they neared him. He wanted to say something, to have reasoning, but he had nothing to help him. He was helpless, again.

"Do you agree, Gerard?" She said, probing his patience playfully, "Don't you think this accord has been defiled enough to be considered dead?"

She was teasing him. Revamped, dead, she was just toying with him, trying to get into his head. The rain suddenly felt hot against his skin, for some reason.

"You couldn't have expected me to stay away from him." He said in a low voice, referring to Mikey, as if that was the only alibi he could conjure up.

"Well of course I didn't," She said, her smile growing drastically, "I mean, you are human. Well. Partially."

He glared at her, but no matter what he did, he could never succeed to hurt her in any way; physically or. Well. He was pretty sure she was hollow-bodied. She expected him to go back to Mikey.

That was why she made up the rule in the first place; because she knew he would break it. Maybe that was the reason for all the rules she made, so that he could break them. Break the deal.

"He needed me." Was all he could say, his eyes wandering to the hypothetical image of his brother in his mind; his helpless little brother.

"Did he?" She asked, looking up at the sky as it cried bittersweetly, "Or did you need him?"

He looked over at her, and he couldn't tell if she was still trying to get into his head or if she was already in there, sabotaging his sanity--what was left of it. She looked over at him again, her eyes glinting.

"Your brother isn't a boy anymore, Gerard." She said, "He's grown up, mature, independant. Have you ever thought that maybe you were the one dependant on your brother, now?"

He looked away, his mind returning to all the times he's looked over his shoulder to see Mikey not far behind, not unwilling to hide Gerard's existence from the world, not hesitant to cover up all the tracks that he left behind after a listless night, not shy to badger priests and scientists endlessly for solutions to his brother's curse (even if it meant being called crazy and thrown out), not relunctant to dispose of the week's toll of empty corpes, not disinclined to put off a few of his own life goals in order to salvage a little more of Gerard's time with him.

Suddenly his brother's life didn't look so convenient, as much as he thought it was when he initially returned to him. He knew Mikey wanted more than anything to have him back in his life, as his older brother, and when he found him again he knew that Mikey was happy again. But it felt like such a long time ago. Mikey wasn't nineteen now, he was twenty five. He was sure that Mikey had goals, dreams to pursue, albeit he never asked about them. He knew that his own condition wasn't a typical one, yet it felt so when he thought about how Mikey's life was being put on hold so he could burden himself with his brother's responsibilities. But this was what he wanted, wasn't it? His mind felt like it was vibrating. Did Mikey ask himself that question sometimes, too?

He just then felt a weird irony to the reality that Mikey did everything he could to get him to stop going out every night, and then when he finally found him after he was missing for months, he still went out.

Maybe Mikey never fully did have Gerard at all; maybe he didn't need Gerard as much as Gerard needed him.

Loretto looked over at him, almost as if she could hear the clicking going on in his brain, and if Gerard wasn't so disorientated right now he would tell himself that that wasn't humanely possible.

Then again, she wasn't human.

"Michael loves you, i'm sure," She said, snarkily, "But you do know, that as long as you remain with him, he will never leave that house. Then again, it's not like he ever does, anyways. . ."

This shouldn't have made something inside Gerard sink limply, but that something didn't feel or beat any longer, so he ignored it. All that was left of him was broken by this curse; Mikey was all he had left.

"Is that why you've come here?" He said, not looking at her until he added, "To try and make my life a little worse?" What was left of it.

She held his gaze for a moment, then giggled behind her closed lips, cocking her head this ways and that at him.

"No, actually." She said, leaning her frail hand outside of her umbrella curiously, her lips jerking when the rain broke against her palm, as if she tickled, "Despite how vital your brother seems to be in the midst of all this, he is only partial to the reason of my meeting with you."

He waited, watching her, expecting the worse. She never had good news, good news was non-existent in her world, and now his world ever since she stepped into it. Her soul purpose was to bring Gerard's life closer and closer to death, to make his soul dwindle, to drain the life out of him. That's practically what she lived for. No. That was why she lived.

"I have to say Gerard, I wasn't surprised when I'd found out about your little escapade to Italy with your family," She said, and if her expression wasn't showing how much she lavished doing this to Gerard her words certainly were, "It was pretty edgy of you--I mean, i've never known another vampire to actually travel internationally, what with the risks of the sun poisoning and such, and not to mention slipping past your parents, or booking a nightly flight, or any of the other radical solutions you found. I was thoroughly impressed, especially seeing how you even made it to your funeral on time."

Gerard wasn't looking at her. His chest felt like stone with the memories that sprung up in his mind when she mentioned his funeral, and he willed himself effortlessly to push them away, to ignore the memory of the scarred and broken look on his father's face, or the pain that swelled up in his mother's eyes and fell to the grass below, only leaving salty trails down her cheeks. He'd never seen his parents cry before.

"You're certainly covered your tracks very well," She talked almost like he used to when he'd just finished a good book and decided to gush about it to Mikey, "Your brother as well, but I don't suppose those people at the Vatican will ever forget him."

"Where are you going with this?" He snapped, almost accidently. She looked over at him with a cocked eyebrow, not the least moved, but her smiled stayed nonetheless.

"It was that one rule that you broke that I hadn't expected," She said, continuing with a suspense, "I suppose that I hadn't thought about it that much. The rule, that is. It's just so standard, I don't even think about it anymore with these deals. I assume it's because vampires have no intent on breaking that rule anyways, since they don't have the human emotions that you do, or the capabilities of feeling anything for anyone, so I just let it slip right past me. I must've forgotten that you're only half, what with your soul still intact and whatnot, so the rule would've applied to you, and if i'd just paid more attention to it--"

"What rule?" He asked, loudly and a bit uncontrolled.

She looked back at him from where her eyes wandered into the rain, then her smile returned from where it was vacant just a few moments ago. He guessed she took her mistakes critically.

"This wasn't everything that I hadn't expected, however," She went on, "I suppose you like to keep all your surprises up your sleeves--but a boy, Gerard?"

His eyes suddenly felt hollow, gapingly hollow. He couldn't feel the rain anymore. He couldn't feel anything. The corner of her lips hooked upwards instantly when his face fell, and her eyes started to dance.

"You left me in a storm, Gerard," She laughed, "I mean, it was one thing that you'd let yourself fall for someone--illegally, according to my terms of service, might I add, but a boy?"

She shook her head, her red ringlets bouncing, "I never imagined you so careless."

He didn't find anything funny about it at all. He'd never thought about Frank being the first guy who interested him, it just seemed insignificant in these matters. Or maybe not insignificant enough.

"He doesn't mean anything," He began, his tongue stalling before sewing any words together.

"Does he really, Gerard?" She said, even more amused at his defiance, "I mean, you are the one who said vampires couldn't love. I'm sure you were aware of how that was only half-true in your case. But that didn't matter later on, did it? Not when you were offering to spare his life, or watching him rush out your window, or letting him escape you--for the second time, I should remind you, or not even when you were waiting for him atop of his house, sharing cigarettes with him. I suppose that rule just never occured to you, as it never did to me--well, until now."

He stared at the pavement, but he wasn't seeing concrete, or the rain hitting it. He was seeing his favorite sparkling green eyes, the ones his own had journied into so many times before. Even as her words floated in his head like a cursed echo, repeating endlessly, he could see those eyes when they glided with his own, he could feel the soft, gentle skin when their fingers linked, and smell his sweet licorice-black hair when his head rested against his chest, and he could feel him inside his heart, glowing like a sun and warming his soul, the one he knew he didn't hold onto as desperately as he held onto him.

"I never thought you'd ever let someone in," She went on, remaining as the only link he had to reality, "Much less a boy, apparently. You never seemed like the type to be interested so,"-He couldn't tell if she was referring to his interest in men or his interest in love, but maybe she meant both-"even before you met me, I never thought so much on you ever even considering letting anybody else into your world, as it was fully occupied by your brother at the time. But then now, after seven years of living this way, you've finally found somebody maybe just as special as Michael--special enough to replace him, even."

His eyes glared at her darkly, glistening wetly at her, but when she saw that the moisture in his eyes wasn't from the rain, she smiled even more, as if she was proud of finding the secret spot he'd hidden from her for so long. He tore his gaze away from her quickly, repeating what he knew was the truth over and over again.

"I guess time does take its toll on the heart, even an unlucky vampire's, but irony is on your side, isn't it?" She continued, laughing at her poetics, "It's strange how, when your life is just hanging by a string, when there is no more room for love, this boy pops up, and suddenly your whole life is running like a newborn machine again." She waited a beat, then started laughing again.

"He has nothing to do with this." Gerard muttered, ignoring the growing fear as it pulsed erratically in his chest.

"Oh but he does," She said, the last of her giggles peeling out, "He has everything to do with this; with you, with me, even your brother pitched his part in this matter."

"What are you talking about?" He said, looking up at her.

"Oh that's right, you don't know yet." She continued, as if reminding herself of the whole reason of why she was here, "Well it turns out your brother got to your little neighbor before I did. I must clarify that when I said your brother had grown up, he truly did."

"What'd you do to him?" He asked, his voice harsh, but not as firm as he wanted it to be.

"I didn't do anything this time, unfortunately," She said, sounding honest for the first time, "Apparently Michael seems to have taken care of the problem before either of us could."

"Either of us?"

"Well originally I was going to put you to the challenge of disposing this human," She explained formally, "If not, I was to do it, and then deal with you later. But surprisingly, your brother took the kind hospitality of doing it for me. I must say, he has grown into a very responsible young man, a very valuable asset for a business such as my own."

"What happened to him?" He asked, and when she pursed her lips and started giggling again he silenced her with "Tell me!"

She cleared her throat, looking down, then looked up with twinkling eyes, "He just told him the truth, Gerard."

"Truth?" He asked.

"Yes," She said, her voice sounding small and sweet again, "You know you wouldn't have lasted that long with him anyways. Obviously, your hour glass with Mikey was already running thin, what could possibly make you think you'd last that long with that boy? And do you truly believe he'd be safe with you once Mikey had finally given you up?" She laughed dryly, "He'd be just as dead as you are."

Gerard stood there, his knuckles dryly white, "Where is he?"

"Who?"

"Frank," He said, loudly, "Where is he?"

"Now Gerard, you know i'm not the one you should be asking," She said, smiling, "Maybe you should ask that to your brother, he seems to be on top of things. I would be thanking him if I were you. He's proven to be a far more resourceful and assertive one than expected. I can only imagine how he'll be when he turns."

Gerard' eyes widened, blackened, and one of them twitched, even though he didn't notice, "You wouldn't."

"Waste not want not, Gerard, it's all business," She said, showing her tiny sharp teeth when she grinned, "He will be no use when i'm done with you, all alone like that. Plus, he'd be such a great apprentice. Don't you think so? He seems to be pretty good at following the foosteps of those people he truly depends on. I mean, look at the five to six months after you'd first disappeared as an alchoholic; he was already at the bars. It was almost like he was waiting for you, wasn't it?"

He was shaking now, his chest heaving in and out, "You touch him and I swear-"

"You don't have that much time, Gerard," She cut him short, "Last I checked, your little neighbor was already packing. Forty eight hours; he'll be gone, and our deal will be over."

He could barely talk. Everything was happening too fast. Too soon. "But you-"

"Let's not forget that you did break a rule here," She said, holding up her fingernails and studying them for a second, "Many rules, considerably. This deal is now in the process of termination, i'm just giving you what little time you have left of it to spend it. Hopefully, wiser than you did before. Maybe you'll actually say goodbye before you leave this time."

Gerard's fists trembled, and he looked back at the roads, then at her. He couldn't do anything to her. It was impossible, and it was no use saying anything. He turned to go, cutting across the street in the vague direction of his house, before her voice stopped him again.

"And Gerard," She said, still studying her nails. He turned and faced her, eyes wild and black without any emotion besides hate.

"I would hurry up and get to that brother of yours," She said, her thin lips twitching into a smile again, "Before I do."

He could see her again. Wearing the same white dress that fell past her ankles, with the same dark, velvety red hair. She was closer this time, not so far into the cemetery. He stayed behind the fence, though.

She moved towards him, but slowly, stalling her steps with a still turn, or a lissome spin, or even taking a few seconds to pause and toy over an insignificant tombstone. She treated the graveyard like a somber playground, as if she was the only being who didn't take the sleeping grounds seriously whatsoever. He only got short glimpses of her small, white, bare feet from under her ivory gown, and when she turned and spun past a headstone he found her back bare; pale, soft, and pure, all exposed until it her long, slightly curved spine stopped--then the dress would begin again.

Her small, almost maroon curls fell vulnerably down her unguarded back; petite, precious little crescant shaped curls, like tiny bloodstained moons curling like claws against the pure white immaculance of her skin, and something made Frank believe that the picture was more of a reflection of himself, right now, as she looked upon him with those cat-like emerald spheres and licked her crimson lips.

His hands found themselves wrapped around the iron bars, his knuckles white, but he didn't feel any extreme amount of pressure he exacted into them. Then again, there wasn't much he could feel right now.

Not with the words she whispered, or the tongues she spoke in. He couldn't hear what she was saying, in reality, but the boy in his sleep could. He heard everything.

But to the eye of the subconscious beholder he was, he didn't hear anything--but he felt it. He knew what she was saying, she just wasn't using words, not a single one. Her gaze bore into him, and he felt the impact of familiar words. He felt the effect of Father Adrian's words, when he told him that vampires have no soul, that they were demons, that they couldn't love. He felt how they sunk in, burning all other hope and happy feelings to ashes like acid. Then he felt the effect of Mikey's words, the ones just spoken today. He felt how those words were like a sharp blade, digging into his chest and oh, how deep it went with every syllable uttered. He felt them, all of them, including Father Adrian's, and she watched him take in all those feelings, her green eyes sparkling like the tip of a sword in the scorching sun.

The feelings wouldn't go away, either. They stayed, and kept growing more intense, and he couldn't tear his eyes away from hers, no matter how harsh the effect was having on him. The words turned into pain, and he was sure she could feel that pain too, she could probably feel every bit of it as it swelled up inside him like a bad infection. Yet she watched, and that hurt Frank too, somehow.

He didn't feel the tears streaming down his cheeks. He wanted to scream. He wanted to let out every ounce of pain and sorrow that caged itself in him, but he couldn't look away from her.

She moved closer to him. He could feel her moving, because the closer she was to him the more the feelings inside him grew, flashing and flaring up in him as if showing some sort of fond acknowledgement to this. . .thing. He didn't move, because suddenly he wasn't seeing her. He was seeing Gerard, reaching out towards him through her. Or maybe she was reaching out towards him through Gerard. He couldn't tell. One second it was her, then it was him, and the way they kept changing reminded Frank of malfunctioning hospital lights, flickering on, then off, then on, then off. . .

It suddenly got darker. The blue of the moon began to dissipitate, and when he found it in him to tear his eyes away from the creature in front of him he looked up at the sky.

The dark, pacific blue was draining from it. He didn't know where it was going, but suddenly it was like the sky sprung a leak, and then all of the pale lunar blue from the now great white ball called the Moon was bleeding off the ends of the empty circle and pouring into the zenith, along with what he used to know as the navy sky that stretched farther than the heavens; all of it, flooding into the ground like water poured into a glass. The beautiful creature still reached out towards him, and when he looked at her he realized she was just on the other side of the fence. But he couldn't focus on her.

Her green eyes had turned into a bourbon-amber, and he already knew that they were meant to look like Gerard's, but they didn't. They were too dark. Too vacant. Too lifeless.

Then, the vibrant red of her hair began to dry out of it. When his eyes fell upon her hair, all he saw was the red being choked out of it, almost too literally for a dream, and then bleeding out of the strands.

He watched as a pitch-black color replaced the red, the crimson red that was now flowing down the precious ball of her shoulder like another crimson liquid Frank knew better than he wanted to, and then, as if magnetically attracted, the red found its way into the sky, crawling into it like a parasite and then filling it with the rage of white thunder, poisoning it and quenching the dead black and white that it was before with the new bright, vivid red. It happened fast, like an epidemic of horror unleashing itself right before Frank's own trembling eyes. He felt tears, but they weren't his own. They were the sky's.

It was raining, but not transparent, clear tears that he knew, not the empty tears he knew. He knew tears that spoke no volumes, had no life, had no depth of sorrow in them besides their own being.

But these tears did. These tears were red, thick, and they spoke in many volumes. They were the words, words he'd heard before. Words that hurt. And these tears did hurt; they stung.

And then suddenly she was there again, her fake eyes and her fake hair and her. He hated her, he was afraid of her, but he could feel every bit of her. And she wasn't even touching him.

She simply held her small, harmless white hand out towards him from under her long, pallid and lucent sleeve. He stared at her, and something fascinated him about her.

He felt the pain inside him, devouring his soul and heart like a bloodthirsty monster, and the tears running down his cheeks, burning him with mental anguish, and then he knew, he knew what that bloodthirsty monster was, he knew why he hurt and why she just watched. She wasn't watching, though. She was there, inside him, she was the reason. Lighting up a match to his heartburn and pouring kerosene all over his leftover being--she was there. He looked down at her hand. It was a small hand, a defenseless and helpless hand, but her nails were very sharp.

He looked up again and shook his head at the creature. Her appearance was flickering again, from Gerard to herself, herself to Gerard, ad nauseum. He backed way, stumbling over the fog that felt so thick now, curling around his legs. She extended her hand out further, and thunder screamed above him, lightening lashing against the sky, and since this was a dream Frank felt that it was okay to admit the fact that yes, the sky did start bleeding more red when the lightening pierced it. But this didn't feel like a dream. Not anymore. Because the fog was gripping him now, not letting his legs move, and it kept moving slowly upwards, like possessed vines of vapor. She moved towards him again, and Frank's eyes felt dry in the rain when he saw her whole body move right through the iron fence, and it was at that moment that he knew that she couldn't be a ghost or anything like that, because ghosts go right through fences with their whole physical beings in tact. Her's wasn't.

She pushed her way through the fence in one slow, lucid motion, but the fences went through her, as well. He didn't remember the tips of the fence being so sharp, but they were, and when she was finally on the same side of the fence as he was, her body was torn and shredded with elongated tears where the fence came through. She reached out for him again, and her eyes were hollowing, with long, black and purple circles sagging below them. His lips wouldn't move when he tried to scream. She was there, her white, empty face barely two inches from his own. Her black shreds of hair were falling out as she leaned towards him, and her eyes were nothing but black holes, cold, dead, and no soul to look into. He was crying.

Her frail, skeleton-like hands held his neck gently as she leaned in and said, "Give him."

He shook his head again, fervently, and her grip on his neck tensed as she whispered, softly, "Give in."

He simply stared at her, his eyes dialating with fear, and suddenly, there was a white flash of lightening, a scream of thunder tearing through the sky, and then she wasn't there anymore. Instead there another.

It wasn't Gerard, it wasn't anyone. The body was hairless, grey and unhealthy like a skeleton, but had more. The eyes were large and white, and the lips were black and torn down the middle with red.

It gripped him lethally, and suddenly he couldn't breathe. The lightening struck again and the creature was gone, replaced by the one before, and the fog was trapping him, filling his eyes and ears and he couldn't breathe anymore--then it was gone.

His screams zero'ed in on his ears, and then his mother was beside him, shaking him, slapping him, yelling at him to wake up. And he was awake. Very awake.

He sat up, and he felt something sticky on him, and when he looked down he saw bile split onto his covers. His face was stale with tears, and his mother's was cracked with fear, almost broken with the worry she had plastered all over it. He swallowed thickly, wiping a hand across his damp forehead. He still felt her, he knew he did. It felt like a trainwreck inside of him right now, that's how he knew.

He looked out towards his window. It was raining.

A Lonely Avenue

zmphony — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:15:32 GMT

Title:A Lonely Avenue (part twelve)
Author: zmphony
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating/Warning: R, Frerard vampire AU.
Disclaimer: All fiction, I promise.

A/N: Alrighty, so MAJOR apologies on my behalf for like posting this about fifty thousand years later. I'm pretty sure everybody's totally forgotten about fic and proclaimed it dead, but um. It's NOT! So ha. Anyways, you should like. Totally read this. Cuz' it's not the story's fault, it's all mine, me and stupid writer's block and lack of endurance. But I am sorry x[[ I hope you enjoy dis, and the next chapter should be out about the same time next week. Or earlier, depending on how bad I feel XDDD Enjoi!
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. Frank knew he did. He was new to the neighborhood.

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten | part eleven |

The front door slammed behind Frank when he got home. There was a note on the oven about dinner being in the oven. Frank decided he would look at it later. There was only about two hours 'till sundown, but for some reason it felt like two minutes, in a way. His footsteps echoed in the empty house, and he let his backpack fall to the floor when he reached his room.

But when he turned around, instead of being greeted with a empty room, he was greeted with the sight of someone on his bed. And it wasn't Gerard.

The door closed behind him when his back fell against it tensely. He looked alot younger up close. He pushed up his glasses when Frank entered the room, his dark, dirty brown hair paper thin and completely straight. He didn't look much older than Frank, maybe about three or four years at most. He looked up at him with round eyes that reminded Frank all too much of two hazel ones he'd known maybe too well. He knew who the person was, but he didn't know that he was a person, exactly.

Michael.

How, was the first thought that rushed into Frank's head. It wasn't because Michael broke into his house, but because. Well. Last he'd recalled, Michael wasn't much different from his brother. Atleast, that's what he had thought. That Michael was a vampire too, he meant. And it was currently three forty' five, broad daylight, and he was in Frank's bedroom.

Frank was pretty sure that vampires just couldn't do that.

"We need to talk." Michael said, his seldom voice contradicting the harmless features he sported. Frank was quiet, staring at the non-vampire in marvel. The man returned his gaze, his two brown dot-like eyes seeming kind of unreal in the ways they imitated Gerard's own. It was a short moment in silence before either one of them spoke again.

"How'd you get in here?" Frank asked, examining him with much scrutiny.

"That doesn't matter," He said, his tone like a hand slapping away any inquiry Frank had, "We need to talk about Gerard. Sit down."

Frank looked to where he gestured for him to sit down on the bed beside him, back to him, confused. But then Michael gave him a stern look, and he went over and sat down next to him.

"What about him?" He asked, timidly. He made sure he sat a good distance away from him.

"I know about you and him," He said, after a beat, "I know about everything between you two; The Wild Cat, the roof, last night, all of it."

Frank looked down as he spoke, not sure if he should be embarrassed or proud at this fact. Maybe both. Was that even possible?

"And, I know how strong your feelings are for him," He said, sounding a little awkward, "So I hope you understand that. . .it needs to stop."

Frank looked up at him sharply, but his expression hadn't changed a bit with the tone of his voice. "What do you mean?" Frank asked, a little incredously.

Michael (Or Mikey, which was seemingly more convenient)glanced down at the off-white carpet, as if rehearsing his words in his head before speaking them.

"Six years ago was when Gerard got turned," He started, as if he had to tell him, "We still lived in the house next door. Well, Gerard only did half the time."

He didn't give Frank a chance to ask anything before continuing, "It was late when he decided to go out. I didn't want him to, but then again I didn't want alot of things to happen."

Footsteps resonated in the still house, interrupting the static sound from the television Mikey sat in front of, cereal sogging in the bowl on the table he sat at. He didn't have to see to know who was walking down the steps. This was the fourth night in a row he was doing this.

Yesterday was the last time, according to him.

"Again?" He asked, not looking away from the small square electric box perched on the counter across from him.

Gerard stopped at the door, looking over at him as he passed by the kitchen, his musky leather jacket pulled tightly over his shoulders and his hair inky and greasy. Mikey slowly turned to him, the electric box reflecting itself in the glare of his glasses. It was almost like he was waiting for him to make his escape again, just sitting patiently so he could try and guilt-trip him out of going, Gerard had usually thought. Sometimes he wished it worked.

"I'm just going to buy s'more cigarettes," He replied, "I'll be back in a bit."

"I thought yesterday was the last time." Mikey said, ignoring his false pretense.

"It was," He said, his voice slightly tired, "Chill out."

"You said you wouldn't do this again." He said, looking at him sharply.

"I'll be right back, quit worrying," Gerard said, twisting the knob and opening the door. Cold air rushed in. It made Mikey's arms bristle with goosebumps.

"Gee, don't," He said, making sure to keep his voice down in the darkness of the house, so as to not awake his parents. But the only reply he got was the soft click of the door shutting, leaving only the cold draft to reverberate in the room as a ghost of his brother leaving.

". . .He didn't come back for months," Mikey continued, still looking at the carpet, "We did everything we could to find him, but came up with nothing. The cops sent out search parties, we put up fliers, checked out all the bars in the area, nothing. Nobody knew him. After a while, they stopped searching-so did we. We just thought he was dead."

"Why did he go out so much?" Frank asked gingerly, when he got quiet.

"He was. . .an alchoholic," He said, as if he couldn't find a more respectable term, "He used to stay indoors, but. Our parents changed that."

It was quiet again, Mikey in his own collective memories and Frank just watched, following along like a lost puppy.

"After a few weeks the family wanted to give him a funeral," He went on, looking back at the carpet, "It was only respectful. I didn't want to, but I was only nineteen at the time. I was. Stubborn, I guess. Anyways, the family cemetary was back in Italy, along with alot of our relatives. They told me they were going to stay there, leave this town behind, try to put the past behind them. It didn't sound right to me, but I didn't have much of a voice in the matter, so I just went along with it."

"Then one night, when I walking home from a bar i'd been going to that past week. . .I found him," He said, his expression unchanging.

The tall wooden door slammed behind him, echoing throughout the cold, desolate Jersey night. Probably the last night he'd have here, he thought bitterly, as he departed from the place he'd been returning to for the past week and a half since it'd been made official. The move, he meant. He couldn't help but feel some faint irony in the way that he was practicing the exact same indulgence that took his brother away from him. He couldn't help but wish that it'd take himself away too.

The icy air seemed to whisper at him harshly as he walked down the sidewalk, the soles of his leather boots scuffing against the cracked concrete, and as he walked he wondered if this was the kind of path Gerard was on the night he went missing; stumbling out of a bar, walking down an anonymous sidewalk and blurring his existence when he got lost in the night without a trace--not even a ghost, left behind. Suddenly there was a crash to his left. He stumbled to a halt on the slightly downhill path, staring down into the black tunnel that made an alley way to his left. His head tilted as he squinted at the darkness. He could barely focus on anything with the way his head swayed unsteadily, as if he was balancing a goldfish bowl on his head, and maybe if he drank a little more he would've actually seen a little orange fish swimming in circles above his head, but he was too preoccupied with the skittering noises in the darkness. What was left of his brain told him it was just a rat or a possum or some equally feral and vicious creature of the suburbs dwelling there, but his body obviously wasn't processing that before his feet started shuffling towards the noise. He couldn't see where he was going, but most of him didn't care.

In some outcast and deserted part of his mind he thought about the case of him really dying or getting kidnapped or some other worst-case-scenario shit like that actually happening to him, as he wandered in the bleak, smelly tunnel. A case where he would just suddenly disappear and never be seen or heard of ever again, maybe even be absent as his family cried lost tears at his fucking funeral because they gave up looking for him. Just the thought made him want to turn around and ask for another drink. Maybe that goldfish could take its cue now.

Then suddenly, there was another noise from behind him. He swiveled around, which wasn't very nice for his head. His heartbeat was thrumming loudly in his ears, and it made him wanna box his own ears so he could the unknown noises more clearer, but he didn't have time to before something from behind him pushed him up against the alley wall roughly. Then when he looked up. . .he found out it was someone.

"Ssh," The ghost whispered harshly, gripping Mikey's shoulders like a crutch. If peripheral vision could cut through glass, Mikey's glasses would've been shattered by now, because this ghost had inky black hair, dark brown amber eyes and maybe Mikey did drink a little too much.

"Mikey," It breathed, touching its slender white fingers to his cheek lightly, as if maybe Mikey was the ghost in this picture.

Mikey didn't reply. Instead, he looked down at the ground for any fragments of optometric glass. Then looked back up at the ghost when he found none.

No, it couldn't be his brother. His brother wasn't as pale and white as this one was, and his eyes weren't quite so dark and wide as this one was as well. But. . .

"He's not always so. . .feral, like that," Mikey said, interrupting himself for a moment. Frank's face quirked, "What do you mean?"

"Like. Cold," He explained, eyes softening as he stared at the floor in thought, "White, big and dark-eyed and--dead. He's like a human most the time. He's only like that when he has to be."

"When he has to be?" Frank questioned, and it wasn't until Mikey cocked an eyebrow at him that he realized what he meant; when he hunts, "Oh. . ."

Frank remembered the night he saved him from the muggers in the alley, how wide and black his eyes were, how cold his skin was, and also how it all went away after about a minute or so when he finished. He'd never really thought about it all that much before, but now it seemed to stick out like a sore thumb when he looked back on it. He'd ask questions later, though.

"I guess he probably thought I was some hopeless drunk or something," He said, ignoring the fact that he kinda was at that time, "Those are the ones he usually goes for, since they don't have much to live for anyways. But he must've stopped himself midway when he recognized who it was. . ."

"Mikey, it's me. Gerard."

He still just stared at him, his eyes moving from his poor ashen face to his musky clothes, torn and brown at the edges from the abuse of wherever he'd been and his shoes barely having any soles left. His eyes began to weaken as he gazed at him, the black clouds diminishing to reveal the warm hazel ones he'd known before, and they twinkled like celestial diamonds up at him, as if two chunks of the moon had fallen into them. A flushed pink rose up in his cheeks gradually, and it was almost like he was coming to life again, like back from the dead or something.

"Is it. . .really?" Was the most he could conjure up into one sentence, and the other nodded his head fervently, the shiny, thin strands of his hair slapping against his blushed skin ernestly. His chest was heaving in and out, and when he wrapped his now-warmed arms around Mikey's frozen frame tightly Mikey realized he didn't smell that great either. But he didn't care, nor did he notice the hot salt liquid slithering down his cold cheeks and soaking into Gerard's ratty jacket when he buried his face into his brother's neck. His brother.

My brother, he thought, over and over again.

"We didn't talk that much," Mikey went on, tonelessly, "He told me everything when we got home, when the parents were asleep and all. He wasn't ready to see them, I guess."

It was silent, his voice nearly echoing in the beat of silence. Frank almost stammered when he gingerly asked, "And then what?"

Mikey looked up, finally looking at him square in the eye, and Frank almost wished he hadn't by the way it made him feel so small and insignificant, especially in the story he told.

"That's when he told me," He said, "About everything. Everything that'd happened when he was missing; from the first night he left to when he found me."

"He went to this club, down on the corner of Maple. It wasn't very popular, but he liked it." He continued, "It was almost like a routine, I guess. The night he left wasn't any different from any other night. He did the same thing every time he went; drink, dance, and find a way home. I was usually asleep by the time he got home though, but anyways. . ."

He paused, and Frank almost thought that he was trying to avoid the subject, but Mikey was just as toneless as he was expressionless, like he was some monotously recorded voice message sent to him.

"He couldn't remember her face," He said, "He couldn't even remember what they were talking about. He just followed her into some room- -then that's where he stopped remembering everything. He woke up in some hotel across town. He said he had the worst hangover ever,"-he chuckled lightly at that-"and ended up sleeping till' sundown. It wasn't until he took a shower and stuff that he saw the scars on his neck."

"Scars?" Frank asked. Mikey nodded.

"He heals pretty quick," He said, "All that was left from the night before were scars by now. They're probably the only scars he has that haven't faded."

"He still has them?" And Mikey nodded again.

"He didn't know how he'd gotten them, at the time," He said, "He didn't remember practically anything from the night before. Well--not until he went out again. The front desk at the hotel said some chick paid for his room. They said she'd used Gerard's name when he asked for her's. But that didn't seem to matter much when he tried to find his way home. He didn't have any money, or his wallet on him, so hailing a cab was useless. He didn't have a cell phone, either. All he could do was walk, try to figure out a way home himself. But he didn't get very far.

He was on either First or Third street when it hit him. He said he didn't know what it was. It started out small though, like those hunger pangs you get sometimes. But it got worse. At first he thought it was just because of how he hadn't ate anything all day, but it wasn't just his stomach, after a while. It went up to his chest, and it made his nerves twitch. He said he knew then that it wasn't normal hunger pain, because if it was he would've felt weak. But it didn't. He said it hurt every time he'd breathe, and his heart began to beat slower.

Soon he didn't even know where he was going. He remembered falling alot though, and crying a little bit. He said it felt like he'd been walking for hours before he saw somebody."

"He didn't even notice it was the Wild Cat he was walking past when he saw some couple stumbling out of the backdoors. They had to be drunk or something, 'cause they didn't even notice him standing there watching them. They were all over each other, he said. He said he stood there for like ten minutes. He said he could barely hear anything besides his heart beating every ten seconds or so. He said his body felt like it was about to implode, and all he could see was those two people up against the wall. Then, he said everything around him just kind of froze, except the couple. He could hear them breathing, their clothes shuffling against each other, their heartbeats quickening every few seconds--everything. He said he didn't know what came over him. One minute he was standing there, and the next he was. . ."

Mikey stopped, looking as if to find the right words. Frank followed along every bit he could, and it felt strange knowing this was the Gerard he knew, his Gerard. Then again, he really didn't know him at all.

". . .He said he felt unstoppable. He lost control, or something." He continued, after a moment's pause, "He said everything just sped up, like a blur. All he remembered was blood--everywhere. He didn't stop, he said. But he remembered all the pain going away. He said everything just kind of disappeared, and he even remembered smiling at one point, too. He said he heard screaming, too. Probably from the girl, since she was the only one there. When he'd actually stopped, she was gone. He stayed there for a long time though. He said he'd never seen anything so horrible in his life than what was left of the guy."

He paused, quaintly reminding Frank of paragraph indent spaces in a novel with the way he kept stopping here and there.

Maybe he just needed to remember, or think out what he was saying next. Frank felt like asking questions, alot of them, but he restrained himself until after he finished speaking. He couldn't tell if that was because he was intimidated or polite. Or maybe intimidated into politeness.

"When he actually realized what he did," Mikey continued, speaking slower, "He tried to run. He didn't know what else to do. He said he was too afraid to touch the body again, so he just panicked, and ran. He made it out of the alley way and into the street. . .before she appeared."

Frank's mouth opened almost instantly to ask who, but stopped himself short when Mikey noticed. He closed his mouth.

"He said he recognized her immediately. . ."

. . .Gerard's chest moved erratically as he panted against the brick wall, his eyes not blinking as he stared at the corpse now in front of him. He could hear a terrifed scream in the distance, but he hardly noticed it as much as he noticed the ringing of sirens singing in the New Jersey night. His back was pressed against the wall a she sat slumped on the cold hard ground. He could feel a warm, wet liquid polishing his mouth; lips, cheeks, dripping down his chin, past the slippery crimson skin of his neck and onto the red carpet that now made up his shirt, sliding down the smooth material of his leather jacket. . .he felt like it was everywhere. He couldn't escape it. He looked down at his hands, once cool and white, now shaking with the blush of a murderer staining them. He let one numbly reach up and tentatively graze the fine row of teeth that felt so much bigger in his mouth now. He could feel them. It felt like they just grew there, pushing through soft and sensitive pink of his gums like a cat's retractable claws. He was sure some of the blood in his mouth was his own from the new daggers that claimed the spaces beside his front teeth. The gums around them felt sore and hurt. But he could hardly pay attention to it. His lips trembled. They tasted thick. Iron. Death, but not just belonging to the male corpse lying so coldly on the pavement. It looked so merciless, like leaving a sparrow for hawk's dinner, but not just one hawk. No, this wasn't the work of just one. This work was done by many. Many of one person. And this person. . .this person wasn't him. When could he do this? He never was this powerful. He never wanted to be. He couldn't stop staring at the body, strewn across the floor like a mad dog's plaything. A helpless victim, not so different from himself. But powerless. Not like him.

The corpse didn't stop bleeding for a while. It got slower though, until it was just a gentle stream of red pouring from the man's neck. Or what was left of it.

When Gerard got up, knees wobbly and legs quivering, he could see his reflection in the large crimson puddle in front of him. He didn't look at it for more than two seconds before forcing his legs to move, awkwardly stumbling in a panicked rush towards the street. He couldn't think about where he was going, or about leaving the body there, or where the girl had gone or if she'd already called police. . .

"You won't have to worry about her."

He tripped at the sound of the voice, falling and scraping his palms on the asphalt in the middle of the street. It was familiar. It made something twitch almost painfully in his mind. He looked up in the voice's direction, the ends of his oily black hair adorned with little droplets of red tears, and when his eyes met hers, he could almost hear his whole being cracking in realization.

"She didn't get very far," She went on, a small smile tugging on the corners of her red lips, "I must admit though, you were pretty impressive for your first time, Gerard."

He scrambled to his feet, advancing towards her almost impulsively. "You," He said, "Who are you? What have you done to me?"

She smiled, like a mischievous little sister who sold all your comics behind your back so she could buy herself a new barbie doll, but said nothing, simply looking up at him with a playful glint in her eyes.

"Tell me," Gerard ordered, nearly yelling as he moved towards her. She stayed silent, glancing down from the road to back up at his advancing figure, blood-ridden and bloodshot eyes, black and wide, and when his arms lunged out at her venomously her whole being disappeared. He stared at the air in front of him with gaping eyes.

"It wasn't my doing, Gerard. . ." She said, making him spin around hatefully, "It was a mutual agreement."

"I was drunk," He spat, and he realized that gritting his teeth wasn't the most logical of gestures with the stinging pain that shot up the roof of his mouth when he did.

"And who's fault was that?" She asked slyly, delicately moving to circle him, even though she was many yards away from him.

He glared at her. "Who are you?"

She looked up at him and smiled petitely, her small, sweet lips curving like a heart in the middle as she said, "I am yours, Gerard. I'm here for you."

"Her name is Loretto," Mikey said, "He didn't know what she was. She wasn't a vampire, but she wasn't human. She never really told him about herself. She was only interested in him."

"Why?" Frank asked, automatically. He couldn't tell if it was pangs of hate or pangs of jealousy that were striping that soft spot inside him and irking him to shoot out questions, but either way, he'd completely forgotten his intimidation of Mikey.

"His soul," He said, solemnly, "She worked like she was the Devil's Advocate or something. He wasn't the only person who she'd done this to, either. I don't even know how many innocent people she'd turned, but I know they were all alot like Gerard; depressed, hopeless, drunks, and usually suicidal They were easy to take, and didn't have alot to live for most of the time. That's probably why he hunts the same people she does."

Frank couldn't help think he was being a little harsh when he described Gerard, it was probably true at the time. He wouldn't know, as much as he wished he did, "Why his soul?"

Mikey shook his head, "Vampires don't have souls, so she took them for herself. Maybe she needed them."

"She took his?"

"No," He said, "If she did, then you'd be dead by now."

Frank begged to differ. "Then what happened?"

"He brought me up."

"You have no choice in this, Gerard," She said, her voice echoing in the wind, "The mistakes you've made in your life have accounted for this, and it's time for your dues to be paid."

"I can't," He said, tenderly, "I can't abandon him like this, I can't do that something like that to him."

"Like you did last night, and the countless nights before?"

He looked up at her with eyes narrowed, as if all his hatred was pent up behind his black iris's.

"I didn't--I wasn't thinking." He said, eyes falling to the ground again, "But I can't do that to him, not again."

Two small, silent seconds passed before he a whispered a frail, "Please."

He didn't look at her as he spoke, but she looked at him. Her dark eyes travelled him up at down, her tiny smile never weakening for a moment.

"Does he really mean that much to you?" She asked.

"More." He said, almost immediately.

"Then. . ." She said, circling again, her smile twitching a little, "I'll make a deal with you."

His mouth opened impulsively to say no. If was anything like the devil she was acting to be, then this could go nowhere but downhill. But, of course, he's already so low right now that, in order to get back uphill, he'd have to hike just a little lower. So he said, "What deal?"

"I'll let you keep your soul," She started, "Until your brother no longer needs you."

She looked over at him with a quirked eyebrow, waiting for his approval (of course it's not like she needed it). He barely nodded, just raising his chin a bit.

"After that time," She went on, "It will belong to me, forever."

He was quiet for awhile, rolling over the choices (or lack thereof, in this case)in his head with scrutiny. The whole usage of the word 'forever' just kind of made the knife sink in a little lower. But she probably meant it that way. He knew he couldn't say no, though. Not if he wanted to keep his soul, and actually live for a couple years more. He thought about Mikey not needing him; maybe when he was older, had a job, a wife, maybe some kids. . .Gerard definetly wouldn't be needed in that scenario. It was inevitable, really. Mikey wasn't going to stay a nineteen year old forever, always looking up to his older brother.

"Will I ever see him again, after that?" He asked.

"In spirit, maybe," She said, her smile twitching just a bit more, "But no; your soul will have gone to the Afterlife, your corpse will have been governed by one of my colleagues, and you will be amongst the living no more."

She said it so conditioned and business-like that it was as if she'd done this too many times for Gerard's spine not to shudder. He swallowed deeply.

It was quiet for a few moments before she got impatient with his silence and said, "What'll it be?"

He thought about his brother's face, how his eyes lit up from behind his awkwardly round glasses whenever laughed, or how it looked before he shut the door in front of it the night before, not giving it a second look, or wondering if he'd ever see it with a bright smile strewn across it.

Then, he nodded, not looking at her as he murmured, "Yes."

Her face didn't brighten or darken at his answer, but she looked slightly complacent at his reply, "Wonderful."

He didn't acknowledge her. He instead focused on trying to make himself feel good about his decision, thought about Mikey.

"But there are a few rules, however," She said, almost sheepishly. He looked up at her, "What?"

"You will remain a vampire," She answerd, and if his pupils could blacken anymore he was pretty sure they would.

"What?" He repeated, "Why?"

"I don't make many exceptions, Gerard," She said, "You should consider yourself lucky."

"Lucky?" He echoed, looking down at his reddened clothes and skin, "This is lucky?"

He could hear a faint giggle come from her, as if she was saying "you have no idea". Yeah, this chick totally abolished the no-hitting-girls rule for Gerard.

"You want to keep your soul, correct?" She said, and he looked down, defeatedly, "Then you are very lucky."

He looked around him, at a loss and suddenly uncomfortable with the handle she had on him. "Will I have to do this every night?" He asked.

"Not every night," She said, "Just every few days to a week. It depends on how much willpower you have, which will most likely be alot for you, due to you actually having a soul."

He felt a slight relief at that, and he wondered if he would have any other benefits from having his soul.

"But even vampires with souls can only stand so long." She said, smirking, "I mean, you obviously didn't last that long just a few minutes ago. Or last night."

"I killed someone when I was with you last night?" He asked, his eyes shooting up at her.

"I wasn't talking about killing anyone, Gerard." She said, looking at him with a knowing smirk, and he contorted his face into a mix of hate and disgust. She giggled again. He figured he must've been sincerely drunk last night to have hooked up with her.

"I'm done here," He said, turning around to leave.

"Oh but you're not going home, Gerard," She called after him, her voice resonating in the streets. He turned back to her, slowly, "Why not?"

"You think your family would ever accept you this way?" She said, and before he could say yes, she said, "Or do you think you'd ever be safe, around them?"

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"Gerard," She said, walking towards him, "What would you do if you went back?"

He looked at her, completely lost. She continued, regardless.

"Would you simply tell them about your curse and hope to god that they'd just be okay with you going out every night and ripping out people's necks?" She asked, slightly amused, "Or would you keep it to yourself and pray they don't ask any questions?"

He was silent for a moment, and when he was about to open his mouth in defense she said, "What if something happens when you're with them?"

She continued walking as she spoke, "What if you have another one of your. . .urges, around them? Or around Mikey?"

He was mute, even as she stood in front of him, her presence giving his spine this sort of itchy, hostile friction.

"You could hurt him, Gerard," She said, and he hated it when she said his name, "Maybe even kill him. Or worse. . .you could turn him."

His eyes shot up at hers, thin slits of rage burning into hers, but he said nothing. He knew what she wanted. She wanted him to stay away from Mikey, to leave him so that he would become independant of him quicker. The longer he was apart from him made the time he had with his own soul shorter.

"Fuck you," He spat, already moving away from her.

"Oh but Gerard, that's not part of the deal, is it?" She said, when he took two steps with his back turned. He looked back at her, his fists clenched.

She merely smiled widely, showing all of her sharp white teeth proudly, then turned to leave.

He watched her go, burning holes into her back, but then she turned and said, "And Gerard?"

"What?" He muttered, cold blood thrumming in his veins.

"You already did." She said, her smirk returning thinly.

That was the last straw for Gerard. It didn't take more than two seconds for him to reach her, fangs barred and a loud growl ripping past his throat, but his white fingers clenched around thin, empty air. He could hear her giggles hanging in the air like ghost laughter, and his screams weren't long to follow.

. . ."So he's only half vampire?" Frank asked.

"In a sense," Mikey said, "The only times he's not a vampire is when he's not feeding or sleeping until six o' clock. Then he's just like a normal human. He still has alot of the human emotions too, obviously."

"Where did he stay, if he couldn't come home?" He asked, grateful that Mikey actually answerd him.

"He said she financed an apartment for him, as long as he stayed under the alias of an artist and never brought his victims back." He said, "Then again it's not like she would've ever know. She didn't check up on him much after the first week or so."

"Why did he talk to you?" He continued, "Y'know, if he wasn't supposed to?"

"I don't know." Mikey replied, after a moment.

"What about your parents?" Frank went on. He had waited the whole conversation to ask questions, in his defense.

"We went to the funeral, so did Gerard, after booking a separate flight." He said, "He didn't have it in him to tell our parents. He ended up watching his own funeral. . .He didn't talk much afterwards."

Frank let a respectful beat of silent resonate before asking another question, "So you guys stayed in Italy?"

Mikey nodded, "For a while. Sometimes i'd go to the library and try to find a way to help him, find some way to get everything back to normal. I even went to the Vatican a few times. Well. Before they kicked me out. He told me to stop,'said he was as good as dead and he just wanted to spend as much time with me as he could before I 'matured'."

Frank wanted to ask him if he ever thought he would 'mature', but he refrained. It was obviously a sensitive subject, anyways. And he was Gerard's brother. The last thing he wanted to do was offend him, somehow.

It was a short while before he asked, "So. . .is that why you came here?"

Mikey looked at him. Frank could only imagine what feelings were hid behind his expressionless countenance.

"No," He said, after a beat or two, "I came here to tell you that you need leave him alone."

Something in Frank unsettled at that, but he refrained from letting it show on his face, "Why?"

"He's not supposed to be doing this," He said, sounding as if he didn't know what to call their relationship, "It was one of the rules; he couldn't become emotionally attatched to a human like this, it's dangerous."

"He's emotionally attatched to you," Frank protested.

"Yes, but I was part of the deal," He explained, calmly, "I was the whole reason he still has a soul. He's already broken one rule by talking to me, much less living with me, but if she finds out about you, there won't be a deal anymore."

Frank was silent, half stubbornly and half because he didn't know what to say.

"Why are you telling me this?" He asked, "I'm not the only one in this relationship."

He didn't mean to sound like he didn't care about Gerard's situation, but he was wondering why Mikey had to come to him about it.

"I tried telling him," Mikey said, looking away, "He won't listen to me, he's stubborn."

"Well what makes you think that i'll just forget about him?" He asked, frustratedly.

"He's in love with you, Frank," Mikey said, probably with the most expression he's used all day, "He won't stop seeing you, and the more he does, the more attention he'll get from her. You know what that means?"

Frank didn't answer. He just stared at the floor, kind of like they had switched roles just then.

"Less time," He continued, thickly, "The sooner she finds out about him and you, the sooner that deal gets broken. I need Gerard just as much as you do, and if you cared about him as much as you seem like you do, you'd understand this."

Frank remained quiet, not moving to look or acknowledge the person next to him. What could he say anyways?

Mikey stood up, the bed rising slightly at the absence, and walked towards the door. Frank counted the steps he took, his mind so full of thoughts it felt like an overheated motor. Mikey turned and gave him one last look before leaving.

"For him," He said, tonelessly. Frank didn't look up at him until the door shut, and he stared at the blan white wood hopelessly.

He just heard the last two words, over and over again in his head; for him.

A Lonely Avenue

zmphony — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:14:26 GMT

Title:A Lonely Avenue (part eleven)
Author: zmphony
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating/Warning: R, Frerard vampire AU.
Disclaimer: All fiction, I promise.
A/N: Totally sorry about the HUGE wait on updating. It's xmas and shiz, so things have been going pretty hectic and slow at the same time. I hope it doesn't show through my writing tho XDD the plot is thickening! like soup! Ha ha Idk why I just said that. It's actually wayy past twelve here in californication. I am determined to get this up though. Ha ha that sounded kind of wrong. Yeah now i'm just rambling. anyways. Merry x-mas!
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. Frank knew he did. He was new to the neighborhood.

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine | part ten |

Frank's soles scraped across the concrete awkwardly as he ran towads the steeple peeking out from above the trees, last night's grin still plastered on his face defiantly. He didn't know why exactly the church was the first place that popped up into his mind when he awoke to an empty bed, the sun filling it sweetly, but he wasn't going to try and figure out why at this point. He stumbled as he ran.

His head felt airy and blissfully empty, as if every worry and anxiety had fallen out of his skull, following the night before, and now all that was left was blind joy. His heart felt like it had expanded and broke the bars of his rib cage, and it was as if at any instantaneous moment it would shoot out of his throat and fly away into the clouds above. But nothing could dampen his spirits now.

Then again it wasn't like he could even conceive anything bad happening at this moment. In fact, he was pretty sure he couldn't conceive anything at all when Gerard had taken up his mind, bloating up and filling every nook and cranny that was left vacant by the absence of all the derogative thoughts that had inhabited it about eleven hours ago. Not that he was counting.

"Father Adrian!" He cried, when he burst through the big iron doors of the wooden cathedral. But the priest wasn't there. Only two other people were there, kneeling in the pews, and they raised through bowed heads at the boy with furrowed eyebrows. He swallowed, muttering some incomprehendible apologies, then slipping back out of the church, closing the doors behind him softly.

He looked around, and something inside him was telling him quite indiscreetly that this wasn't the best of approaches for a conference, but then he noticed a sign to the side of the church.

It said Mausoleum in big, bold letters, and had an arrow pointing to the back. The sign looked old and had orange and brown leaves covering it, but as soon as he read it, he rushed in the arrows direction.

There was a small, tall, squarely shaped brick building not too far away from the church, and surrounding it was a quaint graveyard. An iron fence outlined it, and to be honest, the whole place looked decrepit. The tombstones were big and awkwardly erect with cracks here and there, and the mausoleum's roof looked to be made of leaves and dirt and bird excrements. Frank liked an authentic graveyard, though.

Then there was Father Adrian, walking through the graveyard pacifically. Frank almost felt bad for interrupting his calm, peaceful moments, but he did anyway.

"Father Adrian," He panted, when he reached the priest. The priest turned and looked at him, his eyes widening and his eyebrows quirking upwards in a mixed expression of horror and disbelief.

Frank grinned at him, his face nearly split in half with his toothy smile. Father Adrian, now that he could see him without a screen between them, didn't look as old as he thought he was. His hair was a clean shade of snowy white, and it seemed to have anything except age lacing its strands, and he kept it swept back neatly. His bright, vivid and aquatic blue eyes saw through a pair of clear, rectangle glasses, and the lines of his face seemed to deepen as he recognized the voice of the boy, the one who'd been harrassing him all week with his vampire stories. Well. 'Stories'.

"Sweet Saint Agatha, child," He said, looking the boy up and down, "Are you trying to wake the dead?"

"Not exactly," He grinned, "I saw him again. Last night."

Father Adrian's mouth went ajar by an inch, "Lord. . ."

"Uh-huh!" Frank said, his crooked teeth shining at the priest, "I saw him, a-and I told him--well not exactly told him but y'know-"

"You spent the night with him, didn't you?" Father Adrian finished, his brow cocked to the corner of his forehead. Frank nodded excitedly, his head bobbing up and down, his hair falling over his eyes carelessly. The priest shook his head at the teenager, his gesture making Frank giggle. Giggle.

"This," The priest said, over Frank's intense giggles, "This is a sin,"

"I'm in love with him," He gushed.

Father Adrian's eyes widened at him, then calmed again, and Frank just stared at him, his grin never faltering for a moment. He was pretty sure that at some point or another it'll just fall right off his face. Maybe freeze up and crack against the sidewalk. Or melt. Frank giggled again. The priest kept looking at the ground, then up at the boy, then back at the ground, insecurely. He knew he had encouraged this, maybe not the first time he talked to the kid, but he was pretty clear on the second time. And now that it'd actually happened he wasn't sure what to make of it.

". . .Did you atleast get rid of that confounded garlic?" He asked. Frank shook his head, but he was pretty sure his mom took care of it.

Then he noticed the graveyard, "What are you doing back here, anyways?"

Father Adrian looked around the graves, his eyebrows creasing in a sort of nervous expression at the boy. Frank was pretty certain about 95% of his expression came from his eyebrows.

And his nostrils. He flared them quite often.

"I fear someone has been interrupting the graves these few nights. . ." He said, his tone sounding hurt. Well, he was a priest. And apparently a grave-sitter. Frank was pretty sure his relationship with those who rested in peace (or didn't rest at all, in some cases, such as his own) was very intimate, in a. Er. Priestly way. Or something like that.

"Everything looks normal," Frank said, looking around at the rusty tombstones queerly.

"It's not about what you see, kid," The priest said, barely a murmur, his fingers grazing the top of a nearby stone, "It's about what you feel."

Frank quirked an eyebrow at him, then shrugged in agreement.

"This vampire. . ." Father Adrian said, looking up at him, "He returned your feelings?"

Frank nodded again, the grin returning at attention on his face, "Well. More or less correct. We didn't really clear up much."

The priest cocked an eyebrow at him, and Frank glanced down at the ground sheepishly.

"Well what did you clear up?"

Frank was silent in thought. Father Adrian rolled his eyes.

"Well . .I don't think he wants to kill me anymore."

-eleven hours ago-

"She knows."

Gerard slouched lazily in the oversized arm chair he sat in, looking up at his brother with a blank expression. Mikey was tense. He could tell.

"You shouldn't have brought him here." He mumbled, shifting his weight from one foot to the other every two seconds, "You shouldn't have gone out looking for him, you shouldn't have even met him. . ."

"Chill out." Gerard said, over his incessantly irritating mumbling. Gerard wasn't tense. Gerard wasn't even fully paying attention to what his younger brother was saying. His mind was still upstairs in bed with the sleeping adolescent, and he'd preferred it stay there, where no worries or fears could reach him, where he could just lay there with his fingers entangled with the other's and talk and think about nothing, where he could entwine his body with the other's and let Earth and gravity and vampires and curses just slip out from beneath their feet, and bask in blissful nothingness, where everyone and everything wasn't allowed. Just the two being one, together. That was the moment when life and lifelessness had no difference; when he was with Frank.

"Chill out?" Mikey hissed, not raising his voice (due to the slumbering teenager still upstairs), but adding more venom to it, "Gerard, do you know how much shit you've caused? You slept with a teenager. You fucking fucked the kid!"

"I'm in love with him."

"Shut up," Mikey said, his eyes darkening, "Okay? Just shut up. What happened to 'vampires can't love'? What happened to that?"

"I'm not a vampire," Gerard mumbled, his eyes stuck on the carpet.

"You said you were, you told me you were," Mikey said, "You said you were as good as dead. Dead people don't fall in love, Gerard."

"I'm not dead," Gerard shrugged.

"Not dead? You're a fucking vampire, Gee." He went on, his eyes squinting at him, "And this is. . ." He trailed off mindlessly, flipping his wrist in a helpless motion.

Gerard looked at the floor, his face void of any expression and his mind no better with thoughts. He knew this was bad. Hell, he knew. If the Earth could just collapse in on him from all the mistakes he'd made in his life he'd be buried alive in shit. But he didn't feel bad. And he felt he had every right not to feel that way. Being with Frank that night felt like the most right thing he ever could've done, even if, technically, it wasn't. Everything was wrong about it, but nothing felt wrong about it. Gerard quite faintly wondered how anything that didn't feel wrong ended up being wrong.

Mikey broke the silence.

"She knows." He said again, leaning against the cold wall behind him, "She's knows, and she's coming after you."

Gerard didn't look at Mikey. He was listening to the soft rustling of silk bed sheets from upstairs.

"I know."

"Where the hell have you been?"

Frank's shoulders tensed up as he shut the door slowly, the sharp, electrifying voice of his mother making his spine shrink.

"Out?" He replied, turning and facing her sluggishly. Her face looked dishelved, and her eyes zero'ed in on her son like two fighter jets with missiles ready to launch at any moment.

For some reason Frank was suddenly reminded of the Bride of Frankenstein.

"Out?" She repeated, her lips in a thin, razor-like line, "I miss out on a whole day of sleep waiting for you, arrive late for work, and you're just out?"

Frank nodded slowly, and it felt like the worst thing he could've done, because his mom's eyes disappeared into two black slits below her death-threatening eyebrows. "I hope you have a better alibi than that, Frank," She said, moving towards him, "Because I have been here, calling police, calling city hall, looking for you, and you didn't even leave a note."

Frank would've told her that he kind of didn't have time to since on the way home he'd been mugged by prison escapee's then rescued by a vampire with whom he'd slept with later on that night and sort of didn't have time to stick a post-it on the door with all that on it.

"So you better tell me right now where the hell you've been all this time, or so help me God you will not see the light of day until you are eighteen." She said, taking some decent steps towards him as she spoke. Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest, and Frank vaguely felt that she was taller in this light.

". . .church?"

The door to his bedroom slammed shut behind him, and as he slumped on his bed with a sigh, he was pretty sure, as far as his mother was concerned, that they weren't going to open up for another two weeks. Atleast it wasn't until he was eighteen. He looked out at the window across from his own. It was still daylight, and about five or six more hours 'till the sun would evacuate the skies, but he looked out the window at the house anyways, remembering everything from the night before vibrantly. It was like whenever he thought about the vampire a breath of fresh air would breeze through him, making his heart kind of float on thin air, making his whole body float on thin air. He could feel his smile curve again.

He didn't know how many hours later it was when a familiar tapping sound woke him up. He lifted his face up from floor, barely two feet from his bed. His guitar wasn't too far away, either, but apparently he didn't make it to either of the two objects. He pressed his knuckles against his eyes lazily, then looked out the window. It wasn't dark, but it was definetly past sundown. The sky had a warm teal color painted over, only little hints of pale orange and pink here and there leaving any trace of the sun's existence at all. The streetlights weren't turned on yet. He crawled over to the window.

His mom's car wasn't in the driveway, and of course nobody was in the driveway. He ran a hand through his tangled hair, turning to back to his bed.

Then the tapping sound came again. He looked back out the window, opening it up and sticking his head out.

"Boo."

He jumped, but when he recognized the voice, a smile creeped onto his face. He turned and looked upwards, only to be met with a familiar smiling face.

Gerard sat above him, one knee up with his arm resting on it and the other hanging complacently off the edge of the roof, grinning down at him.

"There's a front door, you know." He said, looking up at him.

"And then there's a roof," Gerard replied, patting the spot next to him. Frank cocked an eyebrow at him.

"If you think I am getting up there again you are sorely mistaken," He said, already heading back into his room.

"Take my hand." Gerard said, slinging out his hand towards the boy. Frank just a stared at it. Gerard rolled his eyes, then grabbed his shoulders.

"I swear to god, Gerard if you touch me-" Frank said, when he felt his feet being lifted from the ground. Gerard just grinned when he landed sprawled out next to him on the roof. He scooted away from the edge nervously, then looked up at Gerard and glared, "Jerk."

He smirked, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box of Marlboro reds, flicking one stick onto Frank's lap.

"What are you doing up this early anyways?" Frank said from around his cigarette. Gerard shrugged, lighting up his cig, then holding the lighter out to Frank.

" 'Couldn't sleep?" He said, watching the tiny flame light up Frank's whole face.

"Or maybe you just missed me?" Frank said, half-smiling. Gerard laughed, exhaling as he turned his head to the side.

"Admit it, you did," Frank said, nudging him nosily, "You couldn't wait to see me again."

"Hey, i'm not the one with carpet marks on my face," Gerard said, looking at him. Frank's hand shot up to his cheek immediately, and he could already see the tiny red bumps making a pattern across his cheek. Gerard chuckled, and Frank hoped that the red marks washed out any sign of a blush.

He mumbled something along the lines of 'Fug'you' and Gerard blew smoke in his face.

"Thanks for leaving a note, yesterday." Frank said, after a moment of silence, "Way to leave a one-night-stand vibe, there."

"I didn't wanna wake you up," He replied, simply, looking over at him with his head tilted upwards slightly.

Frank made a pschft sound at that, then he felt something warm fall over his hand. He looked down to see Gerard's hand overtop of his.

He watched as the vampire brought to his lips, kissing it softly.

"You look pretty when you sleep." He said, his smoke-breath drifting in small swirls around his knuckles. Frank smiled.

Frank twitched in his sleep. He didn't know where he was, or what exactly he was looking at from behind his closed eyelids. Usually when he had dreams they weren't in first person view, like some sort of dream simulation. But this time it was.

He couldn't see much of anything at first. Everything was black, like it should've been when you slept. Then he saw a sidewalk to his right.

When he walked on it, it seemed like it was the only thing there. Everything else was just pure abyss. He looked down to see a soft, thin fog crawling past his feet.It wasn't anywhere else except on the sidewalk, looking sort of stuck on the concrete by the way it flowed gently down the sidewalk.

He followed it, not really knowing where he was going but figuring there was no where else to go anyways.

Not long, an iron fence appeared beside the sidewalk, lacing its right side as it continued growing. . .somewhere. Then, grass animated next to the fence, curling out of the emptiness like someone was speeding up its natural growth, and then it was like an entire scenery just started growing like flowers.

Tombstones were popping out of the mossy grass like theatre props, then a road paved over the air next to him to his left, and not too far off in the distance he could see a small, square brick building lifting itself up from the ground like a giant.

The tombstones immediately reminded him of the tombstones from the Father Adrian's mausoleum, but these ones were worse off. They were planted crookedly, their cracks running thick and deep down the middles of the stones, and the names engraved on them were barely distinguishable.

The fog became thicker as everything materialized around him, and soon it was flowing through the whole place like misty veins. He couldn't even see the grass not too long after that. He stared at the graveyard, apathetic to the mystery of its being, when something white flashed behind the brick building.

He tilted his head, walking up to the iron fence curiously. He could only see the ends of what appeared to be white cloth floating from behind the brick wall, then it disappeared behind it. He followed it for a moment, then stopped when it stepped out from behind the building.

He couldn't see the spectacle's feet, or ankles for that matter, but he knew it was a lady. Her white dress fell at her shoulders, exposing the soft beige tint of her clear, pearly skin. Long, shining red locks draped themselves from her head like Broadway curtains, and she stared at Frank like a phantom.

Even from where he stood he could see the sharp, glinting emerald green of her eyes. She moved through the fog as if she was dancing with it, her dress swirling around the tombstones. Her gaze didn't stray from him for a moment, and he suddenly felt insecure at that fact.

She continued moving through the graveyard, swaying and swirling without any music playing. Frank backed away from the iron fence, but when he passed the sidewalk he stepped on nothingness, and as his body disappeared into oblivion, he could see a glint in those emerald eyes.

He woke up late for school.

"What's that?"

Hambone poked at him as he spoke. Frank barely glanced over at him from where he looked out into open space, "What's what?"

"That," He said, poking his neck with his index finger, looking like a little girl scared of cooties. Frank's hand slapped up at his neck instictively, as if he could see through his fingers. Then, he abruptly remembered looking at himself in the mirror yesterday and finding a small, crescant shaped pink mark.

"Bug bite," He mumbled, keeping his hand over the spot insecurely.

"Yeah, cuz' mosquitos totally like to make little moon shapes on your neck when they bite you," Hambone sarcasd, flatly.

This one did, Frank thought, ducking his head to hide the smirk that came with that thought.

"So, who is he?" Hambone asked, his tone girly and a little nasally.

"His name is Buzz and his corpse is still on the bottom of my shoe," Frank said, "You wanna see?"

Hambone flicked a piece of his sandwich at him, "Whatever. I'll find out."

Just then Shaun and Neil plopped their food trays down on the table. "What'd I miss?" Neil asked.

"Frankie's fucking someone." Hambone replied.

"Already?" Shaun asked, his face fallen, and Frank rolled his eyes.

"I'm not fuckin' anyone," He said, glaring at Hambone, "It'sa bug bite."

"It's the lead singer jive," Neil said, nudging a depressed Shaun's shoulder reassuringly, "Don't worry, they'll notice you after the third gig or so."

"Speaking of which, people really liked our show. In fact, they even sent a record dude to talk to our frontman," Hambone interrupted, turning and looking over at Frank, who was focused on his lunch, "You never told us about how that turned out, Frankie."

"Where's Tim?" Frank asked, ignoring Hambone.

"Sick," Neil replied, "Got a cold or something."

"Pussy." Shaun added.

"He changed the subject. That's motive." Hambone pointed out.

"I'm blocking you." Frank said, not looking at him.

His footsteps echoed in the empty house, and he let his backpack fall to the floor when he reached his room.

But when he turned around, instead of being greeted with a empty room, he was greeted with the sight of someone on his bed. And it wasn't Gerard.

The door closed behind him when his back fell against it tensely.

He looked alot younger up close. He pushed up his glasses when Frank entered the room, his dark, dirty brown hair paper thin and completely straight.

He didn't look much older than Frank, maybe about three or four years at most. He looked up at him with round eyes that reminded Frank all too much of two hazel ones he'd known maybe too well. He knew who the person was, but he didn't know that he was a person, exactly. Michael.

How, was the first thought that rushed into Frank's head. It wasn't because Michael broke into his house, but because.Well. Last he'd recalled, Michael wasn't much different from his brother. Atleast, that's what he had thought. That Michael was a vampire too, he meant. And it was currently three forty' five, broad daylight, and he was in Frank's bedroom.
Frank was pretty sure that vampires just couldn't do that.

"We need to talk." Was all he said.

A Lonely Avenue

zmphony — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:51:49 GMT

Title:A Lonely Avenue (part ten)
Author: zmphony
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating/Warning: R, Frerard vampire AU.
Disclaimer: All fiction, I promise.
A/N: Sorry this so long to post, I've been trying to make the updates faster than once a week, but i'm kinda stuck with that deadline =[ i know, totally ballsy. But I hope this chapter makes it better^^
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. Frank knew he did. He was new to the neighborhood.

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight | part nine |

Silence. Cold, dead, silence.

Frank's house was never this mute, even when he was the only one at home. Frank knew that, and he couldn't stop thinking about that fact, even as he was slowly roused to reality. He barely opened his eyes before he was shutting them again, because, usually, whenever he opened his eyes in the morning, he was either greeted with the plain white ceiling of his bedroom, or the blur of blue from his pillow that he'd somehow smushed into his face at some point during the night.

But that's not what he saw when he opened his eyes for but two seconds.. No white ceiling, no blue blur from his pillow--nothing, and one thing that Frank knew for sure was that his bed didn't have a canopy. Particularly a white one, but it looked more like a baby blue due to the moonlight pouring in through the two large windows, black curtains settled at their sides. Then Frank thought; moonlight, as he clenched his eyelids shut tightly, as if he was waking up to a nightmare, instead of awaking from one. Then he began to remember the sequences of events that happened before his eyes closed.

The last thing he'd seen was the blur of Gerard's black shirt when his head fell against his chest as the vampire carried him. . .here.
And then it just seemed to click like plugging in a lamp in his brain. He was at Gerard's house.
But it was quiet. Like. Super-quiet. Part of him thought that it was normal for a vampire's domain to be quiet, but then part of him thought that maybe they were downstairs. And the more he lay there, eyes closed, listening to absolutely nothing, not even the sound of breath, or any sound of life at all (but what life is to be heard in an undead house, right?), he began to lean towards the second thought, and slowly opened his eyes and sat up a little.

Yeah. The canopy was definitely white. It was silk too, actually the whole bed set was silk (including the pillow cases), and it seemed to shine in the pale lunar light. The silk stretched out over the four poles of the bed's frame, and was tied to them like bound curtains. He looked around him. There were portraits on the walls, each shadowed since the moonlight only extended to the middle of the room, but Frank recognized them. They were the ones of sunsets, the ones he'd observed from his own room. Then he realized it. He was in the room where he'd first seen Gerard. Not the man, the vampire.

"It's about time you woke up."

Frank jumped at the sudden voice to his side, then when he looked in it's direction, he slid off the bed immediately.
Gerard was sitting in a velvet lounge chair beside the bed, placed just barely out of the moonlight, so all Frank could clearly see was the legs of his form fitting pants and fuzzy shine from the maroon fabric of the seat. He could make out his silhouette though. The vampire's legs were crossed, one over the other, with his clean hands folded neatly on his lap. The rest was just a black shadow of his face, and Frank was vaguely surprised that his two amber eyes weren't glowing in the dark. They seemed bold enough to do that before.
At least Frank thought they did.

"You've been asleep for a little over an hour," Gerard continued, his voice seeming to cut the silence apart in the lonely room.

Frank swallowed, and he looked around him again. Then he noticed the absence of pain in his leg.
"My leg--" He started, but was silenced by the voice in the darkness.

"I fixed it." It said, the figure perfectly still as he spoke, "You can thank me later."
Then the black figure stood up from the seat and moved towards him, carefully avoiding the blue rays spilling across the floor. Frank subconsciously backed away when he first moved, but stayed still after that. He looked around for the exits, and as he did so, he noticed the first window beside him. Right across from it, was the window to his bedroom. He gazed out at it. The curtains were closed, and there was no light behind them. It felt slightly eerie looking in at his bedroom window, like he was in a twilight zone or something. It just seemed so lifeless without his presence filling it with cheap horror films and a cheap guitar.

"Why did you bring me here?" Frank asked, turning to him again.

"Well, obviously I couldn't take you to your house," He replied, taking another step closer to him, "So I brought you here instead. I hope you don't mind."

Frank remembered how the vampire wasn't allowed in his house, and for some weird reason it felt strangely ironic since that rule came back on him, rather than Gerard. The toes of shoes peeped out into the light, and then Frank started feeling his nerves rushing again. But his mind was already filled with the different ways Gerard could end his life right there, and he tried to control himself.
"Stay there," He said, not really with any sort of expression except anxiety.

"Where, here?" The vampire asked, playfully. Then, the moonlight was suddenly gliding up his legs, past his belt. Then, it ran up his black v-neck shirt, around his leather jacket, and then glowing against his beautiful pale face. His hair swept backwards, only a few strands falling down loosely. His eyes twinkled at him, and the corners of his lips were curved upwards slightly, as if he was teasing him.
Frank could glimpse the white of his chest that peeked out from his low cut shirt, and backed away again.

"You're afraid, aren't you?" Gerard asked, still moving towards him, taking small, slow steps.

"Why shouldn't I be?" Frank mumbled, making sure to keep his distance. Gerard glanced at the floor, then looked up at him with a low gaze.

"I'm sorry that you had to see what you did, back in the alley," He said, his gaze slightly off center of Frank, "I only did what I thought was necessary."

"Was what you did last night what you thought was necessary, too?" Frank asked bitterly, referring to the previous night on the roof.
The vampire looked at him with shining eyes as he gravely said, "Yes."
Frank looked at him, eying him up and down with a scrutinizing look. For one bare, naked second, it seemed like he was actually telling the truth. But he looked away, that second disappearing quickly, and he said, "I don't believe you."

"Then what do you believe?" Gerard asked, taking another step towards him, and Frank took another step back. It was silent, only the sound of footsteps filling the room, then Frank looked up at him again and said, quietly, "I believe you're a murderer."

Gerard took a glimpse at how far apart they were in the room, only about four feet in reality, but of course in his mind it was more like four miles. "What else?" The vampire asked, his lips still curved up in the tiny little smirk of a smile.

"I believe you're a liar," Frank went on, his eyes staring at Gerard's feet nervously, "I believe you're a demon, and a killer, and a--"
His back suddenly hit a wall, and he looked up to see two dark, bourbon colored eyes staring back at him. He froze, swallowing dryly.
"And?" Gerard asked, his smirk growing a little bit.

Frank glanced down at his position, then at the patient person awaiting his reply. Seconds passed before he did reply, however. His chest suddenly felt fragile with the way his heart began pounding against it erratically, seeming to grow bigger with each massive beat, and his fingertips pressed up against the wall behind him.

"I believe. . ." He said, slowly, "that you're a vampire."

Something in Gerard's face seemed to twitch at that, like the flame of a candle flickering. But it was gone in a moment, as he leaned down close to Frank, brushing his nose against Frank's, then moving it down to his neck and breathing against it gently. Frank pressed up against the wall even more, his palms flattening out against it. Gerard inhaled lightly, then brought his eyes level with Frank's again. They looked dark, but not even close to as dark as they were in the alley. They looked hungry, but not for blood this time, and it sent waves of warmth down Frank's spine and all through his veins. He felt as if his heart fell into a jar of hot fizz in his stomach, and he glanced down at the lips scarcely an inch away from his own.

"Does it matter, right now?" Gerard asked, softly. Frank looked up at his eyes again, burning with that same glow that whiskey had in the bottom of a clear shot glass.

He licked his lips absently , but kept his eyes away fearfully. "You're a monster," Frank said, but it sounded more like he was saying it to himself as he turned away from the vampire,"A sick, evil monster."

Gerard was quiet, his breath suddenly appearing at his neck once more, and his voice was down to a whisper when he spoke again.
"Am I that evil to you?" He asked, quietly, "When you're the one who's made me like this?"

Frank was about to ask him what he meant, but then he felt the fervent lips pressed against the skin of his neck, and his words seemed to fly away like birds.

"I wasn't lying, back at the Wild Cat," He continued, kissing him lightly whenever he paused, "I meant it, every single word."

Something behind Frank's eyes felt moist and warm, and he suddenly found himself leaning into the vampire's kisses, lost and manipulated.. It felt like the lifeless atmosphere in the room turned hot and thick, falling upon his body like rain. He could feel Gerard's lips pressing harder against the heated skin of his neck, moving faster as they trailed up to his jaw. Frank's chest heaved in and out, and it was just then he noticed his arms pinned against the wall. It felt just like that night at the Wild Cat, the one that kept him in his room for days. And then the memory of shining white teeth grazing his neck came alive, and his hands were suddenly against Gerard's chest.

"Stop," He panted, his tone quivering as he tried to push him away, but the vampire didn't budge, "Stop it,"

"Stop what?"

"This," Frank said, "Now, stop."

Gerard's eyes shot up to Frank's when he said stop, and Frank looked back at him with glossy and slightly red eyes--but not for any reason besides the heat that filled his veins. Gerard's lips looked like they'd been lit by a match, and he stared at Frank with a heavy gaze.

Then, he said, "Make me."

He put his hands over Frank's own, pressing them against his chest as if he were challenging him to do just that. Frank felt the warmth above and behind his hands, and he trembled, because he didn't feel a heartbeat. He swallowed, looking down at his hands, then back up at Gerard, whose gaze hadn't moved.

Gerard looked at him heavily, pressing his palms against his chest even more so, and when Frank didn't respond, his lips came crashing against Frank's. Frank felt his whole body tense up instantly as the vampire entangled his lips with his own, kissing him in a way that made his eyes fall shut almost immediately, and every thought that stopped him from working his lips in reply just disappeared. Gerard moved his palms against his chest slowly, guiding them up and down the thin shirt, letting him feel the firmness of what lie behind it. Frank's lips fell apart softly, his breath hitching when he felt Gerard's warm, wet tongue slide over his lower lip, letting their breath dance for a moment before joining their lips together again. Frank felt as if gravity had crashed on his shoulders, and he suddenly felt that if death was to follow this, whatever this was, he wouldn't have regretted it with any piece of his mind--or what was left of it, anyway.

Gerard sucked his lower lip between his two rows of teeth, and at first Frank's hands jerked against his chest again, but when he felt his spine sort of melt and his lower stomach fizz up again, his whole body relaxed. His hands slid up around Gerard's neck, pulling him closer. Gerard's arms wrapped around his waist firmly, and it felt as if he didn't want to let go even if the world depended on it.

The gap between them was abruptly filled as Gerard leaned his hips against his own, and Frank gasped when he felt his thigh press against the zipper of his pants, moving against it smoothly, and suddenly he was kissing Gerard harder, curling his fingers in the vampire's hair with broken breaths. Gerard's lips fell down to his neck again, kissing every spot that he'd seemed to miss, and Frank could feel his fingers crawling under the hem of his shirt and jacket, stroking his skin gently. He shuddered, arching his back off the wall and spreading his legs farther apart, and when he felt Gerard's knee creeping up under his zipper he stifled a moan, the only sound escaping his lips being muffled against the vampire's neck.

And then Gerard's hands were at the zipper of his jacket, pulling it off of the boy's arms and throwing it onto the floor uselessly. Then, his arms went back around his waist, and right when Frank blinked, he suddenly found himself where he was when he first opened his eyes, except this time Gerard was on top of him, his hands under his shirt and his lips sucking on his neck sweetly. He watched as his shirt rode up the farther Gerard's hands went 'till his entire torso was exposed, the cloth bunched up above his chest, and when Gerard's fingertips grazed his nipples he moaned--almost unintentionally.

Gerard pressed the pads of his thumbs against them when he'd heard that, moving them in slow circles firmly enough to make Frank squirm from underneath him, arching his back and curling his toes and trying so hard to steady his breath because oh, he was throbbing. The vampire looked up at him, his lips flushed and red, then he pulled off the rest of his shirt, tossing it somewhere in the darkness of the room. Then, he leaned down and kissed his blushing nipple, circling it with his tongue and sucking it between his teeth. Frank pushed his hips against Gerard's roughly, his stumbling breaths and soft, pleading moans sounding like he was praying. Gerard's lips moved downwards, licking short stripes across his skin as he trailed to the skin below his naval, holding down the hips that kept bucking upwards. Frank watched as his hand snuck down to the zipper of his jeans, letting it linger above the cloth of his boxers before sneaking it underneath the uncomfortable denim. Frank let out a strangled moan when he saw the pale white hand cupping the hard curve pressing up against the fabric of his underwear, and his head fall backwards.
He let his own hand crawl down over Gerard's, pushing it up against his length roughly.

"Fuck," He said, when Gerard started palming the spot slowly, and he rolled his hips into the touch. Gerard crawled up and kissed him again, pressing his head against the pillows as he continued moving his hand against him, pressing harder with each stroke.

"Please," Frank panted between kisses, moving his hand up his arm, gripping it tightly. Gerard squeezed him harder at that, making his hips buck up in response, then, his pants were sliding off his legs, along with his boxers, and Gerard's jacket followed the two onto the floor. Frank fumbled at the buckle of his belt and pants messily while he removed his shirt, and when he'd finished off both of them, Frank let his hands roam the milky, bare skin that made his chest. He wasn't buff, but he had the lines and curves that designed a toned body. Gerard took his wrists into his hands and pushed them down against the silk covers, holding them above his head as he let his lips free themselves against the hot, vibrating skin of the person that was his. A high whine materialized from Frank's throat when he felt how hard Gerard was. He didn't even notice his own legs parting, letting Gerard's body rest between them gently. One of the hands that kept his wrists above his head ran down his thigh, sliding around it and lifting it up around his waist securely, and not long after that did the other find itself wrapped around his waist as well. Frank looked down at his position, exposed, trapped, helpless--but blissfully helpless.

Gerard didn't bother preparing him; he just ran his tongue wetly against his palm, then wrapped his hand around his length, coating it with the warm saliva. Frank knit his hands in the vampire's hair, kissing his neck as if to conceal the heavy, shaky breaths that seemed to sputter out of his mouth as he watched him stroke himself. Gerard turned and kissed him sloppily right when the tip was suddenly pushed inside him, smothering the cry that fell from his eccentric lips. His mouth sagged open as Gerard thrust into him, pushing him back against the pillows. He clutched at the vampire as if he was life support, his hips rocking upwards with every sharp thrust given.

"Ah, Gerard," He moaned, dragging his nails against the immaculate white skin he grasped onto so desperately. Gerard's lips were suctioned to his neck, his hips charging faster against him. He held Frank's thigh tightly, his thumb stroking the skin tenderly. Frank's back arched when Gerard went faster, thrusting against him at sharp angles that made him cry out in incomprehensible words.

He only went faster, and in seconds he was slamming against him, holding his hands firmly above his head, their fingers entwined as they kissed abstractedly. Frank cringed when he felt a sharp sting on his lower lip, from where he had been cut before by the mugger's ring, and he felt a warm trail crawling down his chin. He didn't have to look to know it was blood.
Gerard's thrusts seemed to slow down at this, and Frank's heart froze when the vampire soaked up the crimson liquid with his tongue. The red seemed to stand out in the blue room, and as Frank's eyes fell to the vampire's wet lips, he heard a soft, almost barely audible moan slip those same lips.. His eyes had darkened again, darker than they had turned before, and suddenly the lagging thrusts began to quicken, heaving into him roughly, and his eyelids limply fell closed again. Gerard's grip tightened harshly, and before Frank could realize what exactly was happening, he found himself flipped over on his stomach.
His hips were hiked into the air, his knees digging into the silk covers that had bunched up around them, and Gerard's hands were holding his own down against the bed unyieldingly.

His heart was racing, and he really couldn't tell if he was supposed to be afraid or not, but Gerard was pounding into him, rough and hard, and he really couldn't tell anything anymore. His face was pressed down against the pillows, and whenever he tried to look back at the person behind him he was shoved back down deliberately. He could only feel him; the thick heat being propelled inside him, the wild, feral kisses running down his back and in between his shoulder blades--everything, and whenever he thought he was going to slow down, he just went faster. His cries filled the room, and he reached a hand down to touch his dripping, aching member, but it was instantly shoved back against the sheets by the vampire, who brought his own hand down to it instead..

He groaned into the pillow sheets loudly when he felt the other's hand tighten around his erection securely. Gerard moved his hand in tune to his thrusts, then, with his empty hand, he grasped a handful of the boy's hair and yanked his head up from the pillows, his dark, black and brown eyes scanning over Frank's face keenly. His eyes stared back at him in an almost glaring way, but he bit his lip, making blood trickle out from his lower lip quicker. Gerard leaned down and kissed him, smothering the blood against the two's mouths indecently. Frank's voice grew louder as he felt his lower stomach slowly tightening, and Gerard's hand and thrusts sped up, both bodies crawling closer and closer to the edge. Frank let out a final scream as he came into the vampire's hand, his voice breaking near the end of it. It didn't take Gerard much longer before he was collapsing onto Frank's back, his breath slow and damp against the other's neck. Only Frank hands were perspiring when Gerard took them into his own, after cleaning off the soiled one on the sheets. It wasn't only his hands though; the boy's hair clung to the back of his neck and forehead.

Seconds passed before either one of them moved, then the vampire rolled off of him and onto his side. Gerard placed a effortless kiss against his hair softly, wrapping his arms around the motionless body beside him and pulling him against his chest gently. Then, he pulled up the covers, letting their bodies curl together in the warmth, only one of them feeling sleepy.

Gerard stroked Frank's pink cheek with his thumb, watching with nocturnal eyes as the other wrapped himself around him snugly, his eyelids half closed in post-coital drowsyness, and when his eyes had finally drifted shut, his breaths soft and silent, he leaned down and kissed him sweetly.

*

"Tell me something." Frank said.

Gerard looked up at him from staring at their entangled hands, his eyebrow quirked, "Like what?"

Frank loosened his fingers from Gerard's, then linked their pinky's together, "Anything. Tell me about you. Tell me a secret."

Gerard disconnected their pinky's and entwined their fingers together again. They lay there, in the same bed as before, just letting their hands fumble around with each other's idly. Frank had fallen asleep maybe a minute or two after they'd collapsed, and wakened about thirty minutes later. Gerard remained awake. After all, it was only two thirty in the morning. He didn't fall asleep until sun-up.

"I'm a vampire." He said. Frank rolled his eyes, "Tell me something I don't know, Nosferatu."

"Like what?" Gerard asked, his mind absent as he stared at their hands tangle then untangle, entwine then untwine, etc.

Frank was quiet as he thought. "Like your paintings." He said, "Were you an artist before?"

Gerard shook his head (the best he could from where it rested on his pillow), "Nah, just trying to be."

"Do you want to be?" Frank continued.

"I think it would be a little strange to be an artist that only worked at night." He said quietly, turning Frank's palm over and deciding to stare at the back of his hand.

Frank was quiet, then he asked, "What about your paintings?"

"What about them?"

"Well what do you paint?" He asked. Gerard's eyes fell off center of their hands, and gradually the two hands stopped fumbling with another's. Frank glanced down at their hands, then up at the vampire.

"I paint what I can't have." He said, simply, his eyes still distant. Frank looked over at the paintings on the wall; the sunsets, the two [dead] lovers asleep, the sunlit beach. . . It seemed to make more sense in Frank's mind now, but it didn't cease to make something inside him hurt just a bit. It was silent, as if the conversation that was spoken had slipped into their heads and they were suddenly telepathic.

Then, Gerard brought his eyes up to Frank's again, and he said, "I painted you once."

His fingers entangled with the other's as he spoke, and Frank glanced down at the sheets, "Really?"

"Well actually it was more like a sketch, but yeah." He said, a small, half-smile twitching onto his face. Frank pursed and unpursed his lips, "Why?"

"I thought I'd never have you," He said, eyes staying comfortably on Frank's, "I thought the only happiness a monster could feel was death."

Frank's heart sunk in resentment at those words, remembering how they'd first came from his own lips before the vampire'd spoke them. "I'm sorry."

Gerard was silent, lifting the hand held between his own to his lips gently. His other arm slunk around his waist, pulling him closer, then, he replaced his hand with his lips, kissing him in a way that somehow washed away every word that could ever be said between them, that could ever be painted.

"Don't be," He said, his smile glowing softly at him, "You've made up for all the sunsets i'll never have."

A Lonely Avenue

zmphony — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:59:33 GMT

Title:A Lonely Avenue (part nine)
Author: zmphony
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating/Warning: R, Frerard vampire AU.
Disclaimer: All fiction, I promise.
A/N: Sorry it took so long to get this up, alotta stuff been happening on my side of the planet. I hope you like 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. Frank knew he did. He was new to the neighborhood.

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six | part seven | part eight |

"And that's when I went back inside." Frank breathed, finally finished pouring out last night's story to the priest from inside the same booth he was in the day before. He'd come to terms with the fact that he simply had nowhere else to go except to this Father Adrian, and didn't think about how awkward it was when he found himself gushing out his stories of Gerard on the roof, and everything that came with it.

He'd decided that he'd might as well tell the priest everything, starting from the first day he'd seen the vampire stroll into his house from his white trans-am, to the kiss that blew him off of his roof (quite literally). "I see. . ." Father Adrian said, drawing out his words as if he diagnosing Frank's situation, which Frank was sure he was. He was just wondering if he was diagnosing his predicament within the boundaries of religion, or without any boundaries at all.

"Do you believe that the vampire means you no harm?"
Father Adrian had also come to terms with referring to Gerard as a member of the undead. Frank was relieved at that, it made him feel more sane.

"I don't know," He sighed, "It's too hard to tell, y'know? I mean just the other night he was try'na rip out my neck, and now. . .I just don't know."

"Do you want to believe that he means no harm?"

Frank pursed his lips, and nodded, even though Father Adrian didn't notice at all, "Yeah, I do. But then. Then I don't."

"You don't because you're afraid, am I right?"

Oddly, Frank felt like Father Adrian had turned into Dr. Adrian, "Yeah."

"Coward."

"What? Why?" Frank jumped at the screen separating the two.

"Look at yourself," The Father began, and Frank inpulsively looked down at his clothes, "You have cowered in your bedroom for the past week in fear of this man."

"But he tried to kill me--"

"Tried, and failed each and every time." He said, his tone a little louder, "Are you in your right mind to believe that his intentions were to have brought death upon you, when he hasn't succeeded even halfway with the task?"

"What do you mean?" Frank asked, goosebumps suddenly animating on his arms.

"I mean, if he truly wanted you dead, then why are you still alive, child?"

Frank was quiet, stroking his arms with his hands to ease the sudden chill that rushed over them. He thought about each time he'd been confronted by the vampire, and how the chances of death were always there like poker cards on a table.

"But. . .but the night at the club--"

"Do you honestly think he would've killed you even without that guard appearing?" Father Adrian asked,

"And why didn't he kill the guard as well?"

"Because he didn't want--" Frank protested, but Father Adrian sighed, making him stop short and fall soft again, "I don't know."

"The emotions you deny are your own fault, child, but you came to me yesterday with these emotions and without the mind of what to do with them," The priest said, sounding tired and distressed, "I cannot tell you what mistakes to avoid and what mistakes to make, but denying the feelings you have will not get rid of them."

"What am I supposed to do?" Frank all but cried, "He's a vampire, he'll kill me! Plus, I don't even know if he feels the same, anyways."

"Coward."

"I'm not a coward, I'm just. . .I'm just . . ." He started, then swallowed, his lips falling closed helplessly. It grew quiet again.

"He had you trapped on that roof, with no way that he could've been stopped from killing you." Father Adrian said, matter-of-factly to which Frank mumbled in agreement,"Don't you think that he might be afraid, as well?"

Frank didn't reply at first, then quickly said, "Maybe he's just trying to gain my trust or something."

"Or something, but what for? Every chance he's been given he's let slip by, and very short of deliberately. Whatever kind of vampire he is, he isn't a very good one."

The weak argument Frank was holding up simply growing weaker, as he said, "But you said vampires were demons, that it was impossible for them to feel--"

"And I said right," The priest piped up, "But obviously, we are not referring to a demon here."

Frank slumped back in his seat again, giving in to the priest's words, turning each one over in his head and examining them as if trying to perform a mental autopsy. Then, he began thinking about Gerard's words on the roof, and it was like he was trying to piece both of the two conversations with the priest and the vampire together like a puzzle, to see if they made any sort of sense to him. But nothing seemed to show, nothing except the way his stomach softened and his chest seemed to cave in at the very thought of his neighbor. Gerard was turning his mind round and round like how superman had made the earth go beserk, and he was helpless to it. Gerard probably knew how helpless he was, too, and for some reason whenever he thought about it that way it just made Gerard seem more like the killer he was supposed to be, yet the killer that he at the same time wasn't. It was like he had two different people inside of him; one man, one vampire. But isn't that what being cursed was like?
"I'm just scared." Frank said, shallowly.

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment." The priest said, simply, "He that feareth is not made perfect in love."

"What am I going to do?" He asked, looking up at the screen as if he could actually see the man.

"Well, as a start, you can remove that bloody garlic from your room."

*

The sky looked bloated as Frank walked back home, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his faded blue jeans and his hoodie zipped up right to the brim. The clouds were swelled up with a harsh grey color that Frank could all but groan at, and quickened his pace towads Willow Avenue.

Father Adrian had rushed him out of the church when the clouds first starting grouping together, knowing the distance between the church and his home, but by the time he'd made it halfway there the clouds had multiplied to form this leviathan puffball of greyness. He was doomed.

He pulled up his hood when the first few drops of rain met the earth, peppering the sidewalk and darkening the asphalt streets. He watched them fall like tiny liquid soldiers by the streetlamps, the light they provided revealing the tiny army of rain to the human eye. It was about five o' clock now, and the lights were just beginning to flicker on. He hugged himself, his thin hoodie making him wish he'd brought a bigger jacket as he tucked his hands underneath his armpits securely. He re-ran what Father Adrian had said to him that day as the clouds began to pour out their tears, dispensing more amounts of water about every ten minutes or so. He wasn't a coward, he just. . .he just didn't know what to do. What could he do? Throw himself into the arms of a half-man half-killer, who he also has no idea if he feels the same or not? No, he couldn't even fathom that, because every time he tried he saw sweet kisses from warm lips being replaced by pearly white fangs tearing his skin apart. It sent his spine into the Ice Age whenever the vampire even appeared--but then there was his rapturous heart, beating against his ribcage, screaming and pleading for freedom into Gerard's hands, just for a moment, so it could bask in that warm, safe ecstasy that sometimes felt like a prison with the way Frank was helpless to the man, but felt so beautiful and perfect all the same, and he could just stay there forever if it meant such heaven.

. . .And that's when Frank's mind enters, and batters his heart back to a bloody pulp for even thinking that it could ever be safe in a killer's hands, making sure to leave it limp and broken, throwing away any kind of naive fantasies of an undead romance. And then, everything just goes cold, and dark.

Frank can't help but to wonder what it'd be like if he could just toss his mind clear out of his skull, simply throw it away all together, and let his heart take control. Yes, he'd be stupid, oh so stupid, but maybe he'd be happy. Maybe he'd be happy throwing himself into the arms of a cursed man whom was unknown to have felt the same. For all Frank knew, it'd probably be like tossing a mouse to a hungry cat, and there's the end of that story. And the more Frank thought about it that way, the more it seemed to be that way. He ignored how his heart seemed to deflate at that thought.

He hooked a right into an alley, deciding to use the backalley routes as a shortcut.

It was raining harder now, not like a downpour, but a sort of excessive shower, if there's any difference between the two. Scattered trash decorated the alley way, with moldy green dumpsters appearing occassionally with torn black trash bags half-sprawled out of them. He avoided stepping on as much trash as he could, but there were a few crunches from soda cans animating under his shoes. Just then, he heard something behind him. At first he thought it was just a rat or something he stepped on, and stopped for maybe a second or two before continuing. And of course, then, maybe a minute later, he heard something again. He sped up, then turned left, hoping to maybe give whoever it was the slip or something. He kept making sharp turns, then, when he thought the sounds had gone away, he stopped. It was quiet, just the sound of the rain's pitter-pattering footsteps. Letting out a sigh of relief, he continued walking, slightly disorientated when he realized that he took about three wrong turns, but never the less turning around to retrace them--when suddenly there was a tribal scream unleashed in the alley and he was picked up by two large arms.

He screamed at first, then recognized the pair of arms holding him up, and rolled his eyes as two other beings appeared from behind the person.

"Dick-move, man, dick-move." Frank said, as Hambone dropped him to the ground again, his face split across the middle with a cheshire grin, and Tim and Neil were howling behind him. All three of them had wifebeaters on, their ams fully exposed in the rain.

"Hey, i'm not the one trying to find Mr. Whoopee without the help of his bandmates," Hambone said, Tim and Neil chorusing in reponse.

"I'm not trying to get high, dumbass, i'm just taking a shortcut home." Frank retorted, smirking, "What the hell are you guys doing?"

"Try'na scare the shit outta you," Neil replied, and after Frank gestured to their shirts, he said, "And seeing who can last the longest without their balls dropping off!"

"In the rain?" Frank asked, and they all nodded eagerly, then Neil continued, "Actually Tim just lost his jacket though."

"Wanna join?" Hambone asked.

"Hell no," Frank laughed, "What are you guys drunk or something?"

"Only Tim." Neil said lightly, patting Tim's shoulder, and Tim grinned at that, "We're gonna go swimming in the pond later."

"You guys are crazy."

"Oh wait," Hambone said, stopping him short when he turned to go, "How'd that thing with that dude go?"

"What dude?"

"The one at Wild Cat," He said, his grin growing slightly, "Y'know, the one who wanted to sign us up for that promotional shit?"

Frank swallowed, and Hambone nudged him proddingly and said in a quiet voice, "The one you were getting it on with out back?"

He was quiet for a few seconds, just plastering a grin onto his face as he stared at the pavement, "Dude, I was so wasted, I can't remember shit."

"So he was good then!" Hambone said pulling Frank under his arm proudly, and Tim and Neil laughed and cheered, "My boy's not a virgin no more!"
"Go home," Frank laughed, shoving himself away from the others, then, before they were out of earshot, he cried, "And I wasn't a virgin!"

Hambone yelled something incomprehendible in reply, but Frank just waved him off and continued down the alley, hiking his hood over his head a little more as well. It was getting darker as he walked, and the rain was seemingly pouring now. He could feel the fabric of his hoodie growing damper and his shoes were completely soaked through due to every time he took a step his foot would fall into a puddle. He ignored it and pressed on.

Home wasn't too far away. He would've taken his bike, but he was pretty sure his tires would've slid with how wet the streets were. Then again, by now, he was pretty sure it wouldn't have mattered if it got him home sooner. His mom is gonna be so pissed when he comes home with a cold--"Watch it!"
And suddenly, Frank was on the ground, the back of his clothes drenched in water as he stared up at the figure he had just crashed into.

It was too dark to notice any details concerning the man's face, same goes for the two or three men behind him, but what he saw didn't help at all. They were all tall and had facial hair of some kind, noticeably, with muscled upper bodies and baggy pants. Sleeves of tattoos covered their necks and arms, and in fact, from what Frank could see, the only place they were tattooed were their faces. He could only stare.
The one he'd bumped into was staring back down at him. He was bald and had a goatee, and when he leaned down to grip Frank by his thin hoodie and drag him upwards (the guy had to be about 6'1 or something cuz' Frank was hanging by four or five inches off the ground-then again, Frank was kind of short) Frank noticed the tattoo of stitches running down split-center of his hairless head, and the scar stretching vertically on his right cheek. It was too dark to see the man's eyes.

"You ever watch where you're going, punk?" He growled, his grip clenching the boy's hoodie, and by the tone of the man's voice Frank could tell that he had alot of run-throughs with "punks" like himself and by the look of it, didn't like a single one, either.

"I'm in a hurry home." He blurted, his feet dangling below him.

"Yeah?" The man said, gripping his hoodie tighter, "And i'm late for my dress rehearsal."

The guys behind him snickered, and the man holding him smirked.
He was panicking. "No, I actually really gotta--"

"Not anymore you don't." The man said, and then, he grinned, showing his dirty, metallic gold teeth. Frank's eyes widened, and then the man suddenly threw him against the brick wall beside them. He was only able to let out the beginning of a scream before a damp cloth was shoved in his mouth, and something metal hit him hard on the back of his leg, just below his knee, making him go limp. The man grabbed a handful of his hair, holding him up like a puppet, then pulled him away from the wall, holding him in the middle of all three men. He clawed at the hand holding him by his hair, his one leg feeling numb and the other struggling to keep his balance.

He spat the cloth out, and as it fell to the ground he noticed some dull brown stains on it.
It took him a second to realize they were blood stains.
"C'mon punk," The man taunted, swinging Frank's had left and right by his hair, "Show me what you can do."

Frank dug his nails into the man's hand, but only succeeded in making the man pull him higher from the ground. He grit his teeth, struggling to keep from screaming as the man practically yanked his hair from his scalp. He tried to pull himself away from the man, groaning harshly through his clamped teeth, but the man just laughed, shaking his head around with his loose strands of hair like a rag doll. Then, as his feet began to be lifted away from the ground, one of the men in front of him sent his clenched first squarely into Frank's jaw. All Frank could see was a blur of tanned, inked knuckles with a glistening gold ring on one of them come straight towards him, then his eyes drooped shut for a moment. He could feel a metallic taste on his lower lip, and he figured that it must've been from the man's ring tearing the flesh on his lip.

His mouth lie ajar as he hung by the other man's clenching hand, limp and lifeless like a marionette. Then, he was dropped to the cold, wet ground, only hearing the ringing laughter of the men around him. Lifting his head up, he spat out the murky water and blood that had escaped into his mouth when he hit the floor, and attempted to get up, but decided against it when he felt the sharp pang in his leg.

"C'mon man, let's get outta here," One of them said, after spitting in the puddle Frank's face had fallen into.
"Not yet," The man said, picking up the kid once again, not to his feet, but only so he could see his face, "I wanna leave this brat a souvenir."

Frank watched, panting in effort to steady his breath, and just then, a glint of steel passed in front of his face, then reappeared in the man's hand as a knife.
He held it up to his own face, right beside the scar on his right cheek, then grinned when Frank's eyes grew and he began struggling again, squirming like a a worm as the man brought the knife down to Frank's own right cheek.

He could feel the tip of the blade pressing sharply against the dip of his eye, and he closed his eyes tightly, turning his face away from the man desperately, and he could feel it piercing his skin, sinking into his--

But then, his back suddenly hit the pavement again, and when he opened his eyes, the body of the man who was holding him fell on top of him. Frank gaped at it, looking into the now empty eyes of his mugger, his body heavy on top of his own. Blood was slowly pouring from his scalp and the back of his neck, and some of it got onto Frank's hoodie. Looking up, he saw another shadow, not as tall as his mugger's, but tall enough for him to know who it was.

He hurriedly pushed the body off of his and scooted away, but then a hand from behind yanked him up from the ground. He didn't even get a chance to figure out which of the other two muggers it was who was holding him before another knife was put to his throat. The hand was shaking. The shadow moved into the light, and Frank could see his whole being now, and he didn't notice how all along this time he himself was trembling as well.

He was too busy staring at his rescuer, the one with red, bloody hands and wide, black, feral eyes, looking like a stray cat's eyes with the way the pupil was stretched so much it was like something eclipsed in his eyes. They glistened in the dim light, and although Frank couldn't tell what he exactly he was looking at with the way his eyes had changed so, he knew that he was looking at him. He could by the way his emotionless face stayed perfectly still as he walked towards them that he was looking at Frank, and Frank was scared shitless.

"Fuck off, man," One of the men said with his shaky voice, pressing the knife against the kid's neck harder. Gerard's face twitched over to the speaker, laying his gaze down on the man like he'd just then noticed him. And suddenly, he disappeared, barely a shadow left behind him, and reappeared behind the man holding Frank. Before the man could turn, his head was sharply twisted around, and the sound of breaking bone cracked way too clearly in Frank's ear before the man's corpse fell across from the other man's, the knife clashing to the ground beside its owner.

Frank turned quickly, but only to see the last man with Gerard's hand clasped firmly around his neck, lifting him nearly three inches off of the dirty black concrete.
Frank kept moving backwards as he watched the man gasp and wheeze, clawing and tearing at the vampire's hand pleadingly.

Gerard's face was blank, almost vacant if his eyes weren't so taken, like stained spheres, and he just kept tightening his hand further. Frank backed up against a wall, swallowing deeply as finally, the man went still, and his body slid to the floor, and Frank's did the exact same thing. His chest was heaving in and out, his lip was bleeding, and his leg felt like it had a perpetually painful cramp in it. He gazed at the vampire, still standing over his victims, silently, until he slowly turned to Frank. When Frank saw those two blackened eyes staring back at him his body immediately jolted, but there was nowhere to go with the corner he was curled up in and the lack of a working leg. His breath was racing again, but this time it wasn't the kind that he had on the roof. No, this was different.

Gerard noticed his face, how his sparkling green eyes had freezed and gone cold, and his own eyes began to soften. His pupils seemed to grow to their normal size once more, the glowing, radiating amber filling the place of the thick black, and he rushed to Frank's side, impulsively.

"Stay away from me," Frank said weakly, but it sounded more like a breath, his eyes following every one of Gerard's moves. He was too stunned to scream.

"Frank, I'm sorry about last night," Gerard said, running his hand down Frank's trembling face, wiping away the blood from where the mugger had almost cut him and also from where it had seeped out from his lower lip, and his hands were cold, "I didn't mean to scare you."

Frank couldn't help but think he was doing one hell of a good job at it.

"Where else are you hurt?" He asked, when Frank didn't say anything in reply.

"My. . .my leg," The traumatized boy said, and suddenly he felt dizzy, like his head was swelling up. His eyelids fought to stay open, and his mouth felt stuck.

"Which one?" Gerard continued, and when Frank just gave a weak gesture to his left, he said, "You're coming with me."

Frank began to shake his head, making pitiful, shortbreathed sounds, but Gerard was already slipping an arm underneath his legs and a hand behind his back, and by the time he was lifted off the ground his eyes had already fallen shut.

*

"What did you do?" Mikey asked, his tone loud and firm as he watched his brother carry the limp body of the seventeen year old boy into the house.

"I didn't do anything, he was mugged." Gerard said, moving past his brother.

"So you take him to a hospital, you don't bring him back here." He protested, following him as he spoke.

"Too many questions." The vampire replied, holding the body carefully as he walked up the stairs.

"What about his mom? What's she gonna think in the morning?" Mikey continued, close behind his brother.

"We'll just have to find out." He said, opening the door to the spare bedroom with his hip, the room where
he'd brought all his guests to, and he couldn't ignore the strange vibe he got from taking Frank in here. But it's not like he was gonna pull that trick with the coffin again.
Then he'd probably injure both his legs.

"Gerard, what are you doing?" Mikey asked, as his brother set down the teenager on the white bed gently, as if he could fall apart all together with one jostle.

"Taking care of him." He replied, pulling out a hankerchief from his back pocket and wiping the blood of the boy's face, tenderly.

"This is out of control, Gerard, this isn't safe, not for any of us--"

"I'm taking care of him," The vampire said, sternly, looking up at his brother from where he sat beside a recumbent Frank. Mikey held his brother's gaze, and it was almost like they were glaring at each other, if it weren't for the mutual understanding they had between one another.

Mikey sighed, then, wordlessly, he left the room, closing the door on his way out.

Gerard stared at the bedspread after his brother left, the room as silent as a morgue. Then, he looked at the resting teenager in front of him, and he didn't know what to feel right then. He knew what he should've felt at that moment, and he knew that it was far from what he was feeling.

The memory of the look on Frank's face after he'd released that mugger from his deathlock of a grip passed in front of his eyes, and as it did it felt like something inside his chest was just slashed with a razor. He continued to wipe the rest of the now dry blood off of the boy's face, his mind wandering somewhere out of his skull was he did so.

He watched as a different image passed his eyes, this one of the teenager's face on the roof, after he'd kissed him; that cold, terrified, and slightly sorrowed face, and soon another image appeared, this one of Frank's face when he was running from him outside the Wild Cat. Different images kept coming, kept flashing behind his eyes like horror picture show.

"You're a monster. . ."

"Let me go. . ."

"You're a vampire. . ."

". . .Stay away from me. . ."

And suddenly they all stopped. Everything stopped, and the silence set into his ears again, the silence he knew so well. He looked down at the face his hand lay rested on, softly, and saw a small droplet of salt water crawling down the side of his hand, and he closed his eyes, ignoring the thin, wet trail left underneath his right eye. He stayed like that, as silent as the dead, because he was a monster.