Folie a Deux

Hey everyone! It hasn't been too long since the last update, but I've done a lot of thinking since then, and have decided that it's time for Folie to come to an end. I love this fic, and I love writing this fic, but it can't last forever. I've been writing it since 2012, I started it when I was thirteen years old and I'm fifteen now and so much has changed. I've done a lot of growing, and the characters have, too.
I knew since I started the story that I didn't want the ending to seem final. When something ends, there is always opportunity for something new to begin. This being said, there will not be a Folie sequel of any sorts, because I think all that needs to be said has been said. The new beginning, here, is the beginning of the rest of these character's lives. I decided not to make this ending seem final, because the boys are young and in love and there is so much left for them to learn together.

I hope that this chapter is good closure for the story. If there are any questions that you still have, please, feel free to ask them. If I get many questions, I might do an FAQ to clear up any confusion.

I've truly, truly loved writing Folie. It's been an amazing experience, and the support, comments, and encouragement that I've received has been astounding. I never thought that this story would become this big of a deal or receive so much positive feedback. I'm so thankful for everyone who has read this- anyone who has commented or sent a kind word has had an impact on my writing habits, encouraging me and reminding me to keep writing each time I hear from you guys.

Knowing all of this, it's hard to move on, but for those of you who are interested, I am now writing a second fic called The Ghost Room. It's an AU about Frank, who works in a record store with his best friend Ryan (yes, Ryan Ross, for those of you wondering,) when one day he meets Gerard and things start to get a little crazy from there. It's posted on both my Wattpad account (adrenalineparty) and on my AO3 account (youhitlikeagxrl,) and I really hope that you guys will all check it out. (I won't be able to post it here, sadly, due to having troubles balancing so many accounts at once, but I do hope that you'll still give it a chance.) I'm hoping to write it even bigger and better than Folie, I'm still working on just the second chapter but the ideas and scenes that I'm creating so far have been so fun to write and the plot is coming together so intensely. I really hope that people enjoy The Ghost Room as much as they have Folie.

There's not much left to say, I suppose, so I'll send you all off to reading with this: keep an eye out for familiar phrases, in this chapter. There's a lot of references to the first Folie chapter that I'm hoping people will catch, haha.

This has been fun and this had been amazing. I sincerely do hope that you all enjoy. Thank you.

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You could tell a lot about a person by seeing how they act in a cemetery. You could tell a lot more if you actually, y'know, talked to them, but cemeteries held a lot of secrets. They were private but annoyingly open in nature- they were raw, upsetting places to be. People cried there, they got angry. Cemeteries were extremely honest, though, so I guess that's what I liked about them. The names and dates on the tombstones didn't lie.

Where my grandma was buried wasn't the nicest place. The grass was unruly, so long it looked tangled in places. The hills seemed to slump with the weight of all the grieving that went on between the old iron fences. The entire place looked tired. Tired and sad and very much alone. It was dark out, it was four thirty in the fucking morning, but it wasn't eerie or anything. I'd never been afraid of graveyards, I found their atmosphere calming. No matter who we were or what we had done or how we had died, we still ended up buried with polished stones like crowns above our heads. All living creatures are equals in the end and I guess I found that comforting, because no matter how terrible of a person I felt I sometimes was, when I was dead no one would have to put up with that anymore. I would just be another patch of grass with a granite crown.

"I would've brought coffee," I said to the gray stone in front of me. "I know it's probably weird seeing me without any." My crown metaphor felt nice, I'd always tried to treat my grandmother like a queen and knowing I could still do that made things feel sort of okay again. "But it would've been cold by the time I got here. I was gonna' make some for Frank, too, but I figured it would've stressed him out if I'd woken him up."

It was dark and I felt kind of dumb, talking to a dead woman.

"It's awfully quiet this morning," I told her. "Like the whole world is asleep, or something."

I sat down in the grass, it was dry and the ground was hard. It was weird to think that my grandma was in a box six feet beneath me and the thought made my hands tremble.

"I'll be okay," I said, but we both knew I was lying.

I shoved a hand through my hair, trying to give my fingers something to do besides shake. I felt curled up, like a scared child hiding in the corner. I had my feet flat on the ground, my chin resting on my knees, my thighs pulled up as close to my chest as I could get them.

"I wish you were here. You'd love the weather."

I titled my head back and looked at the sky. It was dark out, there were still stars in the sky.

"I used to think maybe I just have seasonal depression but it's summer and I'm still sad."

She would've put a hand on my shoulder, right then, if she had been there.

"I mean, things are better with Frank around, y'know?" I sighed and looked at my knees. "I'm not, uh, counting. Not as much as I used to." I counted to seventeen in my head just because I was thinking about it and that made me want to punch myself in the face. "And I'm eating more too, I guess. I mean, you used to always complain about how skinny I was, how you wish there were more of me for you to love. I've been thinking lately, maybe you- maybe you were right, y'know?" I scratched the back of my neck, frowning. "I don't think Frank likes it when I skip meals. He likes, like, sitting at the table together, and that type of stuff. Or just laying on the couch and eating chips. He treats it like a social activity, or something, I think he gets offended when I don't want to eat in front of him." I rested my chin on my knees and sighed again. "We're practically engaged but sometimes I'm still paranoid that he's not attracted to me. I don't want him to see me eating and start to think I'm fat or a slob or gross or whatever." My eyes were burning from staring at my grandmother's grave so I blinked until they watered. "But I'm trying, as much as I can. For him. We're more or less done moving everything into the apartment and it's been really nice with just the two of us, but it's scary. I always feel like I'm going to fuck up everything. We're both so young. Frank still- he still gets beat up by people he goes to school with. Sometimes I feel like we're a really pathetic couple. He's seventeen, has constant mood swings, and still has bullies. I'm eighteen, hate myself, and don't know what I want to do with my life. It's fucking sad."
I stretched my legs out on the ground and sighed for what felt like a millionth time, putting one hand on either side of my hips so I could shift my body weight, wincing because my leg had fallen asleep. I wiggled my ankle to try and get some of the feeling back.

"I don't want to get a real job, I don't want to get stuck doing something I hate. I've always sort of wanted to travel, I guess, but I don't know if Frank would be into that or not. I think I could spend the rest of my life just traveling and drawing people and places I come across." Then I laughed at myself, rolling my eyes. "Yeah, that's dumb, I know. I don't even know if Frank likes to travel or not. But you always told me to do what I love with who I love, y'know? And you always said that if you don't travel it's an insult to the earth."

My vision went blurry and I realized that just thinking about my grandma made me want to cry- just thinking about her making Mikey and I breakfast and telling us about growing up and falling in love and getting through life without wanting to quit.

"I'm an adult," I said, wiping the back of my hand across my cheek even though no actual tears had fallen. "I just got my first job and it's at a stupid comic book store. I already know who I want to marry, but the rest of it is a huge fucking blur. You made everything seem so easy. You never divorced, you raised good kids. You taught your grandkids more than school ever did." I shook my head and ran my fingers through my hair, twisting black strands tight around my fingers. "Fuck, Elena, I miss you."

Everything was silent until someone said, "That's really bad for your hair, you know."

I sort of jumped, looking up and behind me. The boy standing there was looking at me and giving a half-smile, flicking his own hair out of his face. He had on skinny jeans and a hoodie twice his size, and his smile wasn't real because the skin near his eyes didn't crinkle up like I knew it should, but that didn't stop him from being the prettiest thing I had seen all day.

"The twisting isn't healthy," he explained, like I didn't already know that. He pointed a finger up and made a swirling motion. "It's like twisting the stem of a flower, y'know?"

"Yeah," I said. "I know." I turned back to the tombstone and rested my chin on my knees again.

"You mind company?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I guess not. How long have you been here?"

He was just a shadow as he sat next to me, saying, "Long enough to hear you to say things are better with me around."

"Oh," I said, soft, not looking at him. "You must've woken up right after I left, then. I wasn't here long before you got here." I had my eyes focused on the gray granite in front of us. The boy reached over with slim fingers and slipped hair away from my face and off of my forehead, tucking it behind my ears.

He asked something but I wasn't paying attention, so I said, "What?"

"Why're you here?" he repeated, sort of sighing like he was annoyed with me. "It's the middle of the night."

"Well. I wanted to be alone."

"Oh." He hesitated before asking, "Do you want me to go, then?"

I shook my head and looked at him, his watercolor-hazel eyes were staring at me like I was a puzzle. His eyes were mud brown and grass green, like colored raindrops had fallen on his face and stained them.

"Why'd you follow me?"

He shrugged. "I don't like being alone."

He produced a cigarette from somewhere, and a lighter, too, and held the stick of nicotine out to me. "Here." I slipped the cigarette between my lips, the flavor dirty and papery, not quite like fire when unlit.

He raised the lighter for me and I leaned my neck forward, letting the flame catch, and then we sat in silence for a while, me sucking in on the cigarette and trying not to cry, him watching me smoke.

I took the cigarette out of my mouth with two fingers, saying, "Frank?"

His name was sweet, like kissing, and I liked the amount of effort it took to say. It was like loving him, the way it made my throat tense up, the way it clicked right and solid in my mouth. It was familiar like a favorite book, it tasted like smoke and coffee and like his skin. His name was a memory that was hard to recall, though, I loved how it had never become just a subconscious thing in the back of my mind. It was never easy to say like I'd once hoped it would be, it took effort. He took effort, loving him was hard and I wasn't going to lie about that, because sometimes I wondered why either of us had stuck around this long. But saying his name felt like home, and he felt like home.

I hoped I felt like home to him, too.

"Huh?"

"Thank you for coming," I said. "She would've wanted to, uh, meet you."

He leaned over and kissed my cheek, his mouth warm and soft. "I figured you'd want some company. I know you don't like being alone when you're sad, no matter how much you try to lie about it."

I nodded, sighing. "This has gotten to the point where you know me better than I know myself."

His head rested on my shoulder. "Well, I love you," he said, like that should explain it. "Y'know?"

"Yeah, I know." I turned my face and pressed my nose against his hair, he was warm and smelt like the cigarette that was in my hand. "Elena would've loved you."

"You think so?"

I nodded. "She would've appreciated how stubborn you can be sometimes. She was like that, too. Really insistent, but not forceful or anything."

Frank looked at the tombstone and sort of chuckled. "Here this asshole calling us stubborn, Elena? He needs a reality check, he's more stubborn than the both of us combined."

I sucked in on my cigarette and tried not to smile. "Like I said, she would've loved you."

It made my chest feel heavy to think about my grandmother not being around anymore, but there was a weird sense of comfort with Frank sitting so close to my side.

"Do you think emotions can be reincarnated?" I asked. "Without a birth being involved?"

"Emotional reincarnation? What?"

"Well, like." I frowned. Frank was looking at me with his eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. "I don't know how to explain this without sounding weird."

"Just go for it," he said. "It won't be weird."

"When I was with my grandma there was always this sense of belonging." Frank's fingers brushed up against mine. "She gave off this- this vibe, almost. I would be mid-panic-attack and she was always the only one who could talk me down from it."

"I get that," Frank said, nodding. "But reincarnation?"

I couldn't look at him. "She died right after I met you. That night. Four hours after I got home."

He didn't say anything. Even though we both knew that, it was still shitty to think about.

"I keep, like, trying to blame God for it," I said. Knowing Frank wasn't religious made me feel stupid for even bringing up the topic but I felt like I was going to cry and if I didn't get out the theory then I probably never would. "I met someone that I eventually fell in love with the same night my grandma died? It seems too- too fucking planned, y'know? That you make me feel safe, like she did."

He held my hand. "You're crying," he said, soft, kissing a wet spot on my cheek, lips like wingtips on my skin. Sometimes I felt like the butterfly theory must be real, like the beating of one butterfly's wings really could start a hurricane. Frank was my butterfly, and I was his storm. He was the sole cause of the chaos in my head. "It's okay, Gee."

I smushed my cigarette into the ground and wiped at my face with the back of my free hand. "I felt really guilty," I told Frank, squeezing his fingers. "I feel guilty all the time because I wanted a replacement, for whatever she had been to me emotionally. Someone who I could just talk to, y'know? I never admitted to myself that that's why I got so insistent on being your friend after that first day, I think part of me knew that if I could just get close to you, you could- you could be that type of replacement, sort of. Part of me knew that you could, uh. Fix me."

But he hadn't fixed me, had he? I was still pretty fucked up. He was, too, though, so I guess maybe that's what love was. Not fixing someone, but living in a mutual state of acceptance.

His thumb moved down the side of my hand, soft and slow.

"The more I got to know you the easier it got to talk to you. And I started to want you, but I was so selfish about it. I've always felt like a bitch for forcing that on you."

"You didn't force it," he said, his hand that wasn't holding mine pushing hair off of my forehead.

"But I was so selfish about it," I said again. "There were moments when I knew you could be happier somewhere else, or times when I knew I was trying to push things too far, but I kept trying because I knew that you were what I wanted."

"Well, I'm glad you kept trying."

"Yeah, I am too. But what I guess I'm asking is, do you think when someone dies, the sense of comfort- or whatever other emotions they gave you- can be sort of reincarnated in someone else? Even if that someone else is already alive?"

Frank tilted his head, thinking about it. "Like a passing of emotional energy?"

I nodded. "Yeah, exactly like that."

"Well, you know I don't believe in God and stuff, so." He frowned. "I think people can make you feel the same sorts of things. Like, you can get the same chemical reaction off more than one person, scientifically, but on a more basic level two people can't ever be the same to you." He paused, looking at my hand in his, and then said, "Because even though you associate both your grandma and I with comfort and safety, or whatever, emotionally it's totally different, because she was there first and she was family. The conversations you had with her about life and whatnot might've been way deeper or maybe even more honest than the ones you've had with me, since it was a blood relation. The things you talk about with family just aren't the same types of things you talk about with a significant other I don't think the feelings were passed on so much as, like, inspired. Does that make sense?"

I didn't answer for a few seconds, nodding and thinking about all of that. "Yeah. But it's weird to think that feelings are all just chemical reactions."

Frank shrugged, not meeting my eyes. "Most things can be explained with science, man."

I shrugged, too. "It's nice to think that there's someone watching out for you, though." Frank's palm was smooth against my hand. "Heaven and hell and purgatory, and whatnot. Like a fucked up form of karma. Everyone gets what they deserve in the end."

Frank poked his nose against my jaw, pressing a chaste kiss against my neck. "I remember you telling me your theories about all that," he said. "It feels like a million years ago. Do you still think all that stuff? Life is purgatory and we choose if we're in heaven or hell?"

"Sometimes I think maybe it's just never-ending purgatory," I confessed. "And I've never believed in an afterlife, so sometimes the whole 'God' thing can get a little sketchy. But what is there to keep us in moral check if we don't all have personal heavens and hells?"

"Well, I'd like to believe you're a personal heaven, for me," Frank said, soft, his face still close to my neck. "A metaphorical nirvana."

"Metaphorical nirvana," I echoed. "That sounds a lot cooler than 'heaven.' What's hell, then?"

He was quiet for a moment, thinking about it, and then he said, "Loneliness and jealousy. Since those two sort of go hand-in-hand. When you're alone it hurts like fucking hell, and knowing there are people out there having the types of connections that you don't just makes it worse."

His head settled against the crook of my shoulder so I let my cheek rest on top of his head, looking at my grandma's name carved in stone and saying, "I'm glad I'm in metaphorical nirvana with you."

"Yeah," he agreed. "I never want to go back to being lonely."

"You won't have to," I promised him, putting my arm across his shoulders. "I won't let that happen."

I could hear his breathing, soft and slow, his skin warm against mine.

"When we get married," he said, quietly, "Will it be indoors or outdoors?"

I considered for a moment and then said, "It depends on the weather, I guess."

He nuzzled his face against my neck. "I was thinking October," he said. "A few weeks before my birthday, or something. The weather is always so nice then."

"You'll be in school," I reminded him.

"It doesn't have to be this October. It can be any October."

"Any October?"

"In a few years," he explained. "I don't think I want to go to college. But maybe after I've gotten a job, or something."

His hair brushed soft against my jaw. I sort of wanted to comment on the college thing, because Frank was a smart kid and he shouldn't waste that. Maybe we could sit down one day and talk about the options. There had to be some type of photography classes he could take, right?

"The comic book store might be hiring again," I said.

He sort of laughed. "Working at a comic book store together. We'd seem like such dorks."

"Not the bad type of dork, though," I said. "Just the way-too-in-love-for-their-own-good type of dorks."

"Yeah, hey, speaking of dorks in love, I talked to Mikey on the phone before I left. He seems really excited about the thing with Pete."

"The thing with Pete," I echoed. "There's a thing with Pete? Is it, like, official now, or what?"

"It's officially unofficial. Evidently they're a bit like boyfriends but don't want to call themselves boyfriends until Mikey is older. I told Mikey that they have your metaphorical blessing, I hope that's okay."

I nodded. "That seems like a good way to go about it, and yeah, that's fine. They do."

"Maybe they'll have kids one day," Frank said thoughtfully. "They'd be cute, I guess. Bass-playing, sarcastic dweebs, but cute."

I laughed. "You seem to be forgetting that neither of them can give birth."

Frank shrugged and grinned, and we both knew he had said it just to get me to smile. "But it's fun to think about."

"Yeah, I guess it is. Do you think they're gonna' work out?"

"Hopefully they do. I'm seeing some serious double dating in our future."

"Oh, gosh." I scrunched up my nose. "Double dating with my little brother and a kid who kissed my boyfriend. Seriously?"

Frank rolled eyes, bumping his shoulder against mine. "Okay, okay, yeah. It doesn't sound that great when you say it like that. But dude, seriously, double dating. Dating. Dates."

I rolled my eyes, too, bumping my shoulder back against his. "I know, I know. We don't have enough date nights."

Frank pouted. "We're, like, the lamest couple ever. We never do anything except for fuck and eat."

"Fuck, sleep, eat, and smoke," I corrected.

He sort of snuggled in closer against my side. "Yeah," he said, happy with my answer. "I think my favorite two are fucking and eating."

"I like the other two, too, though."

"But, like. Sex and food."

"Well, yeah. Yeah, sex and food, too."

"Food," Frank echoed, nodding. "You and food."

I looked away. "You heard what I was saying earlier, I guess? About eating?"

"I'm proud of you," he said. "Okay? Any type of progress is progress."

"Progress towards what, though?" Progress towards gaining weight? Was that really a good thing?

"Progress towards being healthy," Frank told me. "One day we're going to sit down and have an entire meal together and you'll see what I mean."

"We've had entire meals together."

"Not without you getting that look, though."

"What look?"

"Y'know." He lifted a hand to my face and touched my nose. "Frustrated and like you want to puke."

"Eating doesn't make me want to puke. Not all the time."

He sighed so I kissed the side of his head. "Don't worry about me, Frank. I'm getting better. You know that."

"Yeah, I know that. I wish you didn't have to, though. I wish it could just happen. I wish we could just wake up one morning, and- and everything would be okay."

I moved my thumb across his hand. "We're getting there, babydoll."

"We're getting there," he agreed. Frank kissed my cheek. "We should go," he said. "Before someone realizes two idiot kids jumped the fence."

I kissed his cheek, too, standing up and pulling him with me. "Yeah, we should probably head home."

Frank still had my hand, but I reached my free one out to touch the smooth top of my grandmother's tombstone. "Bye, Elena," I said. "We'll come visit again soon."

Frank's hand slid away from mine so he could light a cigarette, taking a drag from it and looking at the slab of granite in front of us. "Elena Lee Rush," he read. He looked at me and said, "If we ever adopt a kid I think Lee would be a nice middle name."

"I like that idea."

We shared the cigarette, taking turns sucking the smoke into our lungs. "She'd be proud of you," Frank said, looking at me. "Of who you're turning out to be."

His hand found my skin again as we started walking away from my grandma's grave and towards the iron gates of the cemetery, his fingers slipping down my wrist and over my hand.

I passed him the cigarette, breathing out smoke. "I haven't really accomplished much, though."

Frank shrugged. We stood next to the fence. "You've made my life a lot better. Pete's, too. And, dude, Mikey is turning out to be pretty cool, and I know that's because you're his big brother."

I rolled my eyes. "None of that is because of me."

"Yeah, it is." He was standing close to me, kiss-close. "Remember what I said when we first met?" I could practically taste the smoke on his breath. "I asked you what you wanted from me. You said nothing but I gave you everything, anyway." His eyelashes might as well have had stardust in them, right then, he looked so pretty. "You could've ruined me. But you gave me everything, too."

"I didn't fix you, if that's what you're trying to say. You were never broken to begin with."

"I know." He was so close, his skin was so close. "I know that now, yeah. No one is ever broken, but they can be lost, like I think I was. And lonely, too. I was empty and you filled in all the cold spots."

"You won't ever have to be lonely again," I promised him again.

He kissed me, then, soft and slow and tongue-in-mouth. My head tilted to the left because that's the side of the body that hearts are on, and I've always been a sucker for metaphors.

"I love you, Frank," I said, lacing my fingers tighter through his.

"I love you, too, Gerard."

And my name sounded almost as beautiful coming from his lips as his mouth tasted against mine.