Dark Shines

"You're afraid of the dark," Gerard's eyes bored into the dark curtain of greasy dyed hair that concealed Frank's face. It was quite obvious, despite the lack of facial expression, that Frank was embarrassed. But hey, who wouldn't be?

"Frank, Frank, it's okay. I'm not gonna laugh at you," Gerard reassured, reaching out a hand to rest awkwardly on his new boyfriend's arm. They had been together for a grand total of three days, and needless to say, neither of them were the best with relationships.

Frank lifted his head, ignoring Gerard's weak attempt at comfort. He flicked away the clumps of dark fringe that had grown too long recently, to reveal his burning red face.

"Why?" He asked in barely a whisper, genuine confusion clouding his expression. Gerard felt a little pang in his chest that Frank would seriously think that the man he'd been the closest friends with since they met in their first year of high school, and had recently had the strength to confess feelings as powerful as love to, would laugh at something as personal to Frank as a fear.

"Because I love you," Gerard replied simply. And it was true. So, so true. So true that he felt a twitch in his lips, a twitch he couldn't hold back, and before he knew what was happening, that minuscule twitch had led his lips into a full on grin. Frank's eyes bugged out a little, but Gerard could see the tell tale twitch in Frank's lips too, and within seconds both were grinning like love-struck teenagers. Something they hadn't been for many years.

Gerard took Frank's hand in his own grip, and led the other man over to the ratty old sofa placed precariously in a junk cluttered corner of his apartment. When they were both seated, and he'd let Frank rest his head against his shoulder, Gerard stroked his hair slowly and spoke.

“We’ve known each other since the very first day when we managed to both get jumped by those guys at the same time. They took us both out, but even when we were both bleeding on the floor, and they left us to rot in the middle of the corridor, what did you do? You had the strength to pull yourself right back up, and me with you. Every weakness of yours that they discovered and used against you, you were strong enough to just brush it off and not let it affect you.” Gerard ran his fingers through the hair, untangling little clumps and placing light kisses against Frank’s forehead. When it didn’t seem as if he was about to continue speaking, Frank turned and gave him a quizzical look, his throat too tight and constricted to speak.

“So why is it any different now?” Gerard finished quietly. “Why are you so afraid of people finding out about this, when so many other things, more important things, happened back in high school? If anything, people will love you more for having a weakness now than they would back then, it makes you seem more like them, more human,” Gerard restarted his act of brushing through Frank’s mop of hair, but this time held the other man’s head so that their eyes were locked while he spoke. Gerard watched the glossy hazel eyes opposite as they tried to find anywhere else to look at but his own, and slowly but surely the tears began to leak out and cascade down his pale cheeks, each one breaking Gerard’s heart more than the last.

“It’s different now because it’s pathetic. When they found out about me being gay it was okay, because that’s not something pathetic, and the only reason that’s a weakness is because they were pathetic. I was short, but that’s not pathetic, that’s natural, they just treated it like it was something they could insult me because of.

“There were so many other things too, but they were insecurities I had a reason to be insecure about. But then there’s always been this, this stupid and babyish fear of something that preschoolers are afraid of, something that I’ll never be able to change yet I’m still fucking afraid of it. It just doesn’t make sense!” Wide glistening hazel eyes begged Gerard to understand what was happening in his boyfriend’s head, and in some aspects he did understand. He understood why Frank felt being afraid of the dark was pathetic, and why he felt people might tease him for something like that, but he didn’t understand why Frank would possibly think he couldn’t tell the people he loved the most.

“Neither me, nor any of the other guys would ever think of you as any lower just because of something you’re afraid of. Look, Frank, I think you’ve been building this up into something much bigger than it actually is over time, you really just need to loosen up about stuff a bit,” Gerard replied, and he couldn’t help a smirk reaching his lips when his last sentence was spoken. Hopefully Frank was feeling well enough to understand what he meant, otherwise there was a very awkward conversation imminent.

Luckily, Frank started to wipe away his retreating but lingering tears with his hoodie sleeve, his own matching smirk lighting his face. “I think I might be up for a bit of loosening up, to help me take my mind off everything."

"Good," Gerard quickly closed the distance between the two of them, locking their lips tightly together in a deeply passionate kiss. He was overwhelmed by the sparks flying through his body from the taste of Frank's moving lips. So many different tastes hit him, and it was just so Frank.

He was just getting really into it, deepening the kiss and trying to get Frank pinned beneath him, when the other man jerked away, his eyes wide and frightened as he detached their lips and yanked his body towards the opposite end of the sofa. Gerard felt a horrible pang deep in his chest. Oh my god I’ve gone too far. He’s going to hate me! What if he just walks out now because I took advantage of him while he was upset? Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!

“I’m sorry! Frank, I shouldn’t have done that. Why did I do that? Why did I think it was okay to do that to you when you felt that bad? Oh god I’m a fucking idiot, oh god Frank!” He babbled, eyes welling up with tears as scenarios of Frank standing up and marching out of the apartment filled his head. Why was it always him who fucked up relationships before they’d even begun?

Frank, meanwhile, stared at Gerard in confusion. He’d pulled away from the kiss because he hadn’t felt ready, why was Gerard taking it so badly?

“Um... Gee?” He spoke quietly, reaching out a hand to rest on the other man’s arm, in much the same way that had been done to him earlier, except nowhere near as awkward and definitely had the right effect on Gerard. He stopped the stream of apologies and met Frank’s eyes as he blinked away the tears that had started to flow at the thought of upsetting someone as fragile and beautiful as Frankie.

“Sorry,” Gerard mumbled, his eyes travelling down to the scruffy jeans he was wearing, and his fingers began to twirl the loose threads around his fingers. He was unable to look at Frank; embarrassed of his reaction to the abrupt end of their kiss. Frank probably thought he was a lunatic now, babbling on about how sorry he was for trying to think he could take it any further. Plus he’d cried. He was supposed to be comforting Frank and reassuring him about how his fear was nothing to be ashamed of, how everyone had them and lots of people shared the same phobia. Instead he’d tried to have sex and proceeded to freak Frank out completely.

Frank sighed heavily. He loved Gerard. He loved Gerard a <i>lot.</i> But even he would admit that the man sometimes needed to get his emotions under control before he ended up doing something stupid. Like crying on live TV. Or throwing himself off a bridge. Or whichever one happened first. “Gee, stop being so dramatic,” Frank winced at how hypocritical that sounded. “I just wasn’t ready. Kissing is fine, but we’ve only been together for a few days, even though we’ve been in love with each other for way longer than that. Stop worrying and let's just... Cuddle. I think that's what I need to make me feel better right now." Frank gazed at Gerard shuffling closer until they were shoulder to shoulder. Their arms tangled around each other and they were forced closer together, with Gerard's head leaning on Frank's as Frank snuggled in closer.

"You need a shower," Gerard mumbled into his boyfriend's hair, earning a little chuckle. But Frank wasn’t really listening, he was off in his head, curled up against Gerard and daydreaming of the future they could have together. Corny, he admitted, but he’d never been so in love with anyone before. Not since the day they first met, in seriously unfortunate circumstances.

Frank hugged his arms around his skinny body, feeling completely exposed with the way everyone around him was staring with dark eyes full of anger and hatred. He was in the youngest year of high school, the year when you were either labelled as a target for the rest of your time in the school, or when you joined forces with the older and much more powerful kids, the ones who chose your fate when you were face to face in a corridor and no teachers were in sight.

He presumed there was no other way; you were either the bully or the victim of high school, and that was that. But he’d seen a few people in the year above, the ones who seemed to drift around the school like ghosts, like nobody around could see them, or even bothered about them. They were the people Frank envied right now, the ones who had no friends, but were happy with their position in the ranks of the school. In some ways they were lower than the victims on the level of high school ranks, with considerably less attention payed to them and less people caring what they did. But they were luckier than the victims, the victims were the bottom of the food chain. The invisible ones weren’t even included on the food chain.

That was what Frank was trying to be. An invisible. Non existent. Someone that no one needed to care about. And it was not working whatsoever.

Frank hitched his bag higher on his shoulders and tried not to lower his head to the polished school corridor out of embarrassment from all the eyes trained on him as he walked alone through the sea of taller and more intimidating students. He could feel one set of eyes in particular, ones that hadn’t let him go all day and were really starting to scare him from their firey intensity.

He pushed open the double doors at the end of the corridor and sighed in relief when he noticed how bare and empty this one was. At the far end, he could see the red bank of lockers that he’d been desperately trying to get to through all those mazes of corridors around the school. His destination was in sight.

Frank's pace slowed to a stroll as he revelled in the free feeling of not having eyes constantly trained on you wherever you moved.

But he was being too relaxed.

A body flew towards him and his feet were knocked right off the floor. Everything spun for a few moments before his vision cleared and he found himself sprawled across the wooden floor panels with his head resting against the locker it had previously crashed into. The shadow of a much larger body loomed over him and he had to bite back the terrified noise fighting to crawl it's way out of his trembling throat.

Before Frank could do anything-stand up and fight or curl into a ball-another larger shadow came over him, soon joined by a heavy body as it was thrown towards him. The body blocked out all his light, and Frank had only a second to roll out of the way of the incoming silhouette.

He heard the crash and yelp of the owner of the body and couldn't help but feel a bit sorry, knowing how much it had hurt when he went through it. But this was high school. In high school you protected yourself and sacrificed other people to pain when needed.

A hand shot out and took Frank's collar in a rough grip, yanking him to his feet. Colours hit his brain as his head stabbed with shocks of pain. Whoever this bully was, he was very strong to be able to inflict that much pain using his body and a locker. Frank glared into the pair of narrowed dark eyes opposite as the bully's arm and fist drew back, ready to crash into Frank's smaller, thinner body.

"HEY!" A voice yelled from beside Frank's feet. He looked down to be met with the sight of a very angry kid with dark overgrown hair and a slightly pudgy frame. The bully smirked, fist still hovering in the air.

"Midget's got a boyfriend!" And the fist met Frank's face.


Sat there, in the arms of the other boy he'd shared so many beatings with, Frank still couldn't remember all the details of every beat up.

To him, those times were just flashes of light and dark, stained by blood and bruises and the pain shooting through his body. But beneath all that pain, he always had hope. Hope because Gerard was always there with him, through all the hard times. It really was no different now, despite fame and love playing parts in their lives. Every fear Gerard had, Frank had fought it away. So why any different the other way round?

Frank looked over at Gerard's pale face framed by short dark hair and smiled at how beautiful he was. He really couldn't ask for anyone better as a boyfriend to love and care for him.

"I love you Gerard," He smiled. Gerard turned his head to look at Frank and mirrored the smile.

"I love you too, Frank."