Folie a Deux

After a few minutes of silence, I was still munching away on my salad, letting the fact that I finally had a friend sink in, and Gerard was still drinking his coffee, humming some song between every sip.

I tilted his head to the side, trying to place the tune. "What song is that?"

"Oh, uh..." He turned pink, making me smile. I'd never seen Gerard blush before, but it was a look that he wore well. "It... Well, it doesn't really have a title."

"Oh! So did you write it yourself?"

He looked down at his coffee mug, gripping it tight with both hands as he brought it up to his lips. "Yeah," he said quietly, drinking a bit of his coffee.

"On the guitar, or do you sing, or-?"

"I play piano." He was still a slight shade of pink, and I couldn't keep the amused and interested grin off of my face.

"Piano? Really? How long have you been playing?"

"For a while, I guess... For as long as I can remember, actually... I don't really remember a time when I wasn't playing piano..."

"Could I hear sometime?" I asked.

His cheeks were nearly red by now, "Sure. I guess."

I smiled. "Yay."

Gerard laughed a bit, rolling his eyes, even though he was still obviously embarrassed. "You're easy to please."

"Not always," I said, truthfully. "I just like music."

"Oh, do you play an instrument?"

"Yeah," I grinned. "I play guitar." I was rather proud of that fact- it had taken a while for me to get the hang of it, considering my mom refused to pay for lessons. Everything I knew I either learned from the Internet, by watching other people, or was self-taught. "We should play together, sometime."

He smiled, one side of his lips pulled slightly higher than the other in a nervous smile. "Uh, yeah. Sure."

I grinned back at him. It was funny how nervous he suddenly was. He came across as someone who wouldn't get modest about things, but I guess everyone has things that they don't like to talk about because it embarrassed them. Mine was photography, his must be music.

We fell into silence again, and I couldn't help but notice how different this silence was then the ones that I'd grown up to so desperately hate. My house was always quiet, except for when my mom was telling me to do something, I was playing the guitar, or my mom and I were having another one of our screaming matches. This silence, the quiet that Gerard and I shared, was a lot different than the one my mom and I struggled with. It was a pleasant silence. It was comfortable. He sipped on his coffee and I ate my salad and for the most part, we were comfortable together.

Every few minutes we'd accidentally meet eyes- if he just happened to look over at the same time as me, or if he had been looking at me, I couldn't exactly tell, but I didn't exactly mind, either. Being looked at by Gerard was almost a compliment. It meant I was worth his time, and for some reason, that felt like a big accomplishment, when it came to Gerard.

Gerard rested his head on his hand, closing his eyes and sighing.

I looked at him for a few seconds before feeling myself frown. "Are you okay, Gerard...?"

"Yeah... Just... I just haven't been feeling too well today," he said, eyes still closed. "Besides the whole, uh, 'not in a good mood' thing..."

Now that I thought about it, he was right. He didn't look well, today. I felt instant regret for being so rude, earlier. "Did you get enough sleep last night?"

He was silent for a few seconds, but then he forced his eyes open, sighing and looking at me sleepily. "No."

My eyebrows went up. "Then that's probably your problem...."

"Actually, it's probably not." He shifted himself until he was sitting upright again, taking a sip of his coffee.

"But it probably is," I argued. "You weren't feeling well yesterday, you're not feeling well today, and it's all because of a lack of sleep..."

"Frank, shut up," he snapped.

I did, shrinking back a bit. I hadn't meant to make him mad... We'd argued enough today already, and neither of us had had a good day. I just wanted to help him.

"Shit, Frank, I'm sorry..."

I just kept looking at him.

"Really," he insisted, sitting his coffee down and rubbing his face. "I'm sorry... I- I guess I am just tired... And you're- you're right. I didn't sleep well."

I sighed, not hiding my discomfort well. "Why haven't you been sleeping well?"

He started to raise his hand to his neck, rubbing his shoulder slightly, lips parted to explain.

"Don't give me that shit about sleeping on your shoulder wrong, again."

He dropped his hand, looking down to where he had laced his fingers on top of the table. "Sorry. I just haven't slept well, I guess."

I lifted my hand, hesitantly, reaching out and touching his arm before pulling my fingers away. I wanted to help him, but I didn't know how. I wasn't good at the whole comforting thing. I was too messed up, myself, to know what to say to make him feel better. Eventually I just found myself saying his name, pleading him with my eyes to tell me what was wrong.

He sighed, shaking his head. "Can we talk about it later, Frank? We've had enough depressing conversation for one day."

I nodded, agreeing. "Yeah. Sure." I glanced outside, to where the sky was a bright, pretty blue. "Want to go to the park? We haven't been here too long, we could just spend the rest of the day there."

"Sure," Gerard said, nodding back. "And it's been- well, never mind."

I blinked a few times. "What? I'm curious, now."

He shrugged. "It- it's nothing. I was just going to say that it's been an hour and three minutes, but... It's kind of irrelevant, I guess."

"Oh. Okay."

---

Two weeks later, and Gerard and I were still friends. That was a big feat, for me- I'd managed to not screw anything up.

We met at the diner today, like always. It was Saturday. Gerard never got anything more than a coffee, even on weekends, when I knew for a fact that he hadn't eaten lunch yet.

"Black, one sugar."

He liked to do the cream himself, measuring out more or less the same amount each time, stirring it for a certain amount of time, and then placing the spoon on his napkin next to the mug. He always licked the spoon before he sat it down, never failing to back me laugh.

He was such a coffee whore- he never left any coffee in the cup or on the spoon- and if he did, he ordered a second coffee and drank the whole thing, making sure not to waste a single drop of the new mug.

It had concerned me for a while that he wasn't eating lunch, but he always claimed to have eaten a big breakfast, and got far too defensive for his own good.

The first few days or three, we argued for a good five or six minutes about his dietary habits. After a five days, we only spent about a minute or two on the topic. After a week, I'd offer him part of my salad, and he would always decline. By now, I had stopped asking.

I caught on to the fact that he just didn't want to eat. Whether it was because he wasn't hungry or because he was embarrassed to eat in public, or if it was because of some eating disorder he had, I didn't know, and he didn't share.

It didn't matter, though.

I stopped worrying about him, and he stopped having to provide answers. It was a simple solution for both of us.

Eventually, he stopped asking about the little things I did, too. He stopped asking why I always glanced over my shoulder before I entered the diner and he stopped asking why I looked so nervous when I left the park. He stopped questioning why I was always early to our little meetings and he stopped asking why I always wanted to wait a bit longer at the park.

I think he caught on to the fact that I was just afraid of everything. He caught on to the fact that there was a reason why I didn't want to go home ever again, and there was a reason why I was scared that someone would be following me home.

I wanted to waste my life away- I always have, and probably always will want to- away from home, and Gerard was the perfect excuse to do that. I'd always been told that I was socially retarded and was incapable of making friends, and Gerard was both proving that wrong and helping me achieve my goals of being away from home.

It was a win-win situation.

"It's pretty cloudy out today," Gerard observed as I settled into the booth across from him.

I nodded, following his gaze out the window. "Yeah. It is pretty ominous, isn't it?"

I was still being surprised by how easy it was to talk to him- most people I probably looked like an idiot in front of, but I was much more comfortable around Gerard. I think it was because he had approached me first, the day we met. I didn't have to try and make friends because he had already done that for me.

"Maybe we should skip the park," I frowned. As much as I didn't want to go home and as much as I enjoyed being with Gerard, I didn't want to be caught in the rain, either. Anyway- I had less things to be scared of at home, with this storm. If it looked like rain, Ross and the rest of my tormentors were almost never waiting on the side of the street for me.

It's been nice, being with Gerard so late in the afternoon. I'd managed to miss Ross and his friends most of the time... When I did see them the punishment for being, well, me, was a bit worse because they had to make up for missed time, but it was still better than being harassed every day of my life.

Gerard sent me a surprised look, eyes a bit wide. "Skip the park? Why?"

I shrugged, shifting nervously. "I-I really hate thunderstorms, is all. I mean, it's just one day... We can go early tomorrow, if you want."

He shook his head frantically, sitting up a bit straighter in his seat. "No, no, no- l-let's still go today. Okay?"

I blinked at him a few times. I'd never seen Gerard look scared before. It was not an emotion that he wore well. It clashed against his entire demeanor.

If there was one thing I had learned about Gerard in the past two weeks, it was that he knew how to handle practically every situation. No matter what happened, he stayed completely calm and confident. Even when I came thirty minutes late because the kids from school had managed to stop me on the way here, he didn't say anything when my fingers shook as I tried to eat my food, and he didn't freak out when the tiny rip in my bottom lip that they had caused started bleeding again. He had just given me a sympathetic look and brought me a piece of cake and a sad smile the next day.

He'd never looked so scared, as he did right now.

"O-okay," I managed to agree, for his sake. Whatever was making Gerard so freaked out was making me terrified. It was supposed to be hard not knowing what to be afraid of, but as someone who was scared of everything without an explanation for my fright, I had a natural fear of the unknown, so it only helped me to sympathize with him more.

As soon as Gerard finished his coffee- we never left until he finished his coffee- we made our way out onto the street.

I felt instantly nervous as we stepped outside. I hated rain. I hated storms. I hated thunder and lighting with a passion.

They all scared the living hell out of me.

"Frank...? Are you okay?"

I nodded a bit, not really paying attention. "Y-yeah. I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

"But I am."

He looked at me intently for a second. "Don't lie to me Frank, I'm not as stupid as some other people may be. I know body language, and something's bothering you, but the question is what, exactly, it is that's bothering you."

I glared at him and put my hands in my jacket pockets. I just wanted to get back inside before it started raining.

He blinked at me for a few seconds and then suddenly turned, walking away.

"Gerard?"

"Are you coming?" he asked.

I stared at the back of his head. He stopped, putting his hands in his pockets, too, rocking back on his heels.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"Are you coming, Frank," he said, back still towards me. "Or are you going to wait until it rains?"

I sighed and fell into step behind him.

"Where are we going to go, if not the park?"

"A place."

"What type of place?"

"A familiar one."

A familiar one? How could we possibly be going to a familiar place when he was leading us aimlessly down the road?

I wanted to ask, but I was positive that he wouldn't answer.

After a few minutes, it started raining.

"Gerard," I said, moving my feet a bit more quickly than before. "Please walk faster."

He stopped mid-step to lift the hood on his hoodie, taking extra care to smooth his unnaturally red hair back behind his ears. I stopped, too, turning back to face him. He looked at me, raising an eyebrow. "Aren't you going to put your hood up? I thought you didn't like rain."

"I don't like storms," I corrected. "Rain I guess I can deal with. Thunder and lightning are what bother me... Can we just go, please?"

"Not until you put your hood up."

"Gerard, no, I-"

He pouted a bit, putting his hands on his hips. "Hood. Now."

I just rolled my eyes, trying not to laugh at him. "Gerard, I'm fine. Let's just go."

"You're getting your hair wet," he protested, throwing his hands in the air slightly. "It's going to be all disgusting later!"

I sighed, not really caring and just wanting to get somewhere safe before the thunder started, but he moved to stand in front of me, reaching out and pulling my hood up for me. I laughed as he took extra time to move my hair out of my face, like he had done for himself, his fingers lingering on my cheek for a few seconds as he grinned at me.

"Now what do you say?" he asked, tapping the tip of my nose with his index finger as he pulled his hands away.

I laughed again, grinning at his need for something in return for an unwanted gesture. "Thank you, your majesty Gerard."

"The 'your majesty' was a bit sarcastic, but... You're welcome," he said smugly, falling in step with me as we started walking again.

"So... Where, exactly, are we going?"

I could almost feel the smirk radiating off of his skin.

"A place."

"A place? What type of place."

"Just... A place."

"But-"

"Butts are for sex, Frankie."

I sent him a mock-disgusted look, bumping my shoulder against his, something that we'd both started doing when we were joking around. "You're horrible."

He just laughed, bumping my shoulder back. "And yet, you stick around."

I rolled my eyes, but something about the statement struck me as odd. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged, looking over at me with a slight smile. "You're still here. Not many people stick around me for too long."

"Well, I can't see why," I frowned. "You're an enjoyable person to be around."

He laughed, loud, tossing his head back slightly. His hood slipped back a bit and I reached over without thinking about it, pulling it back up. He grinned at me. "Just remember that you've never been around me for more than a few hours. Spend at least an entire day with me and you'll be gone in a second."

"I doubt that." My hands were in my back pockets, and I looked everywhere but him, suddenly not knowing what to do with my eyes. I felt like maybe if I couldn't see him, then he wouldn't see the slight, embarrased shade of red that was rising in my cheeks. "You're the first friend I've had in a while."

Gerard looked at me for a long minute, and I felt myself get nervous. Had that come out wrong?

"You're the first person in a long time to consider me their friend, Frank."

I looked up at him, blinking in confusion. "Really?"

He nodded, eyes focusing ahead of us. "Yeah," he said distantly. "Not many people like being around me."

I just sighed, shaking my head. "We're a sad pair, Gerard."

He nodded in agreement. "At least we're together, though."

I smiled. "Yeah, true... So, where, exactly, are we going?"

Maybe he would tell me, now.

"You'll see."

I sent him a playful glare and he just laughed.

As we walked, it slowly started raining harder. Gerard glanced up as a shot of lightening went out across the sky. I felt my eyes go wide. "G-Gerard, maybe we should get in- inside somewhere," I panicked, starting to look around for a store or something.

He gave me a worried look and I just stared at him, not understanding why he wasn't doing anything about our impending doom. It was not at all safe to be out in the middle of a storm. And considering the fact that we were next to a park filled with trees and I had a my metal house key in my pocket, we were completely exposed to lightning, too. And, oh, god, the zippers on our jackets! Those were metal, right? And all metal attracts electricity...

"Gerard!" I urged, trying to make him make a decision.

He just reached over and grabbed my hand, and we both started running. I didn't really know where we were going, but he was dragging me along with him.

"Gerard," I whined. "What-"

"Just run!" he insisted.

We both picked up the pace, his hand on mine keeping me running. He turned around a corner, jerking me with him, and I stumbled a bit. "Wh-"

"We're almost there!"

It thundered and I ducked my head, running faster. Eventually I managed to get to Gerard's side, and he let go of my hand, slowing down to a walk, so I did, too.

"Come on."

We crossed the street and I blinked as we approached a little brick house.

"Gerard...?"

He jogged up the few steps and I followed behind, efficiently confused.

"Welcome to the Way residence, Frank," he said, pulling a key out of his pocket and jiggling the door open.

I blinked a few times in confusion. "What?"

"My house," he said, shooting me a smile over my shoulder. "I figured we didn't have much of a choice between here and your house," he explained. "And I didn't really think that you'd want to go to your house, so..."

I grinned as I followed inside. "Good decision."

Gerard's house was much more interesting then mine.

The front door led into the kitchen, and the first thing I noticed was a bowl of chocolate on the table. I sent him a look, smiling. "Can I...?"

He laughed, nodding. "Of course."

"Yay." I picked a piece of chocolate out of the bowl, unwrapping it and looking around as I chewed it, curious. His house was much warmer and a thousand times friendlier than mine. My house was always either completely dark or painfully bright, and looked untouched and un-lived in. Gerard's house, however, looked alive. The lighting was warm and cast soft, gray but not dark shadows, and the light yellow walls of his kitchen made me smile. There were used cups and dishes in the sink, and a bit of clutter on the table. The fridge was covered in magnets and pictures, and the walls held lots of pictures, too.

"Is that your mom?" I asked, nodding to a picture on the wall nearest us.

It was taken probably a few years ago, Gerard looking a bit younger then he did now, and his hair dark brown instead of bright red. The picture was of him with a girl who looked to be about his age on his back, her hands in the air and her legs wrapped around his waist as he held her up, arms wrapped around her legs. Next to them stood a young boy, and the woman who I guessed to be his mom, and they all looked like the picture had been taken unexpectedly, the girl the only one looking at the camera. They were all smiling.

"Yep," he said, nodding and coming to stand next to me. "And the kid is my brother."

"Mikey, right?"

He nodded.

I titled my head slightly to the side. "Who's the girl?'

He fell silent for a few moments, and I could tell that something was wrong, but I couldn't bring myself to look at him.

I took the silence as a second to really look at the picture. The girl looked so happy, Gerard grinning up at her. The girl's hair was a light, natural red-ish brown, and her arms and legs were covered with freckles.

"A friend," he said eventually, voice quiet. There was something wrong, I could tell.

I sighed, not knowing how to fix the sadness. "She's pretty."

"She was beautiful," he sighed.

She was beautiful?

I somehow managed to stand closer to him, not knowing what to say. "Gerard..."

He had moved closer to me, too. I could tell that he needed comforting, but god, I was the worse person to ask.

I sighed, closing my eyes and resting my head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," I said quickly, eyes snapping open. "I- I just don't... I'm not very good at this. The whole, uh, comforting thing, I mean. I, um-"

His head tilted, resting on top of mine with a sad smile that I could see from the corner of my eye. "You're doing just fine, Frank."

We stood there for a while, and eventually, my eyes slipped closed again. I didn't know what to say, so I just tried to send helpful thoughts his way.

"Her name was Bonnie," Gerard said finally, breaking the silence.

"Bonnie," I echoed, opening my eyes. "That's a pretty name."

His lips pulled back in a small smile. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."

"How long ago was that picture?"

"I was fourteen, so three years ago..."

"Were... Were you guys close?"

"You could say that."

He shifted a bit, fingers brushing my arm. I sighed, not having even noticed his arm move behind my back.

"It's okay, now, though," he said, standing straight suddenly, making me move my head, his arm dropping. His hand flew to the back of his head, running through his hair. "I'm- I'm over what happened."

I nodded, not sure what he meant by that or how to respond. "That's good," I said.

"Come on," he said, turning away from the picture. "I'll show you my piano, if you want."

"S- sure."

I followed him through his house, taking in the warm glow of everything. It didn't at all feel like just a house- it was a home. People lived here, the thrived here, they enjoyed it here.

Gerard led me down the hall, pointing out each room on the way. "My mom's room, the bathroom, that just leads to the basement, this is Mikey's room..."

We reached the last door, on the right. "My bedroom," he said simply. I nodded, following him inside and over to the piano.

"It's nice in here," I said, looking around.

He shrugged. "I guess... I spend too much time in here to form an opinion, I think."

"Really?" I said, looking around. "I didn't know that was possible."

"It is," he said, sitting on his piano bench. "The longer you spend around something, the more you get used to it, so eventually, you become indifferent to it and your opinion becomes irrelevant."

I nodded, taking that in as I gazed around his room. It was more or less the same size as mine, with not too much furniture. His piano was pushed up against the wall; a white desk and black chair was next to it. On the wall directly opposite was his bed, the sheets white, the blanket black, and on his other wall was a dresser and a guitar, leaning against the wall.

"I thought you didn't play?"

"I do... Just not well."

"Oh... Do you mind if I...?"

"No, go ahead!"

I grinned, walking over to the guitar. "Okay, thanks."

I came back over to Gerard, sitting in the black chair by his desk, strumming a bit. "I haven't played in a while..."

He just smiled. "That's okay."

I looked down at the guitar, running through a few chords, not really knowing what to play.

"Do you write your own music?" he asked after a few minutes.

I nodded. "Yeah... I mean, kind of..."

His head tilted to the side. "Play something you wrote, then."

I looked up, startled. "Now? I don't know..."

"Oh, uh, it's fine, if you don't want to. I just thought, maybe-"

"No, no," I said awkwardly. "I just... I just don't know what to play, is all."

He glanced around a bit and for a few minutes, neither of us said anything.

"So, where is everyone?" I asked.

"Oh, my mom probably took Mikey out to eat somewhere. They should be back soon."

"Oh. Okay."

Conversation died out for a good minute or two- thunder crashed outside, making me jump.

"How long is this storm supposed to last?" I asked timidly.

Gerard shrugged, glancing out the window next to his bed. "I don't know... Let's go check the news."