Folie a Deux

"Tomorrow?" Frank groaned as the weather report switched to local traffic, flopping his head back. His head hit the back of the couch, nearly hitting where my hand rested. "How the hell am I supposed to walk home through a storm? I don't even like being inside when it's storming!"

I gave him a sympathetic look. I knew how it felt, having to face phobias. It felt like you were going to die. "You can stay here until it's over, if you want," I offered, not even thinking about it.

He looked up, hazel eyes wide. "Oh, I couldn't do that, Gerard, I-" Thunder crashed outside, the windows shaking, and he jumped, eyes going even wider. "Okay, okay, never mind," he rushed, stumbling through his words. "I'll spend the night here, it's only one night, right?"

"Right," I said, offering him a sad smile. I hated seeing him scared. He looked so weak. "I'm sure my mom will be fine with it. I hardly ever have visitors and she's always telling me to be more social- she'll love you, trust me. Do you want to call your mom?"

"Y- yeah... Let's wait for your mom to get home first, though. Just to be sure it's alright."

"Okay. But like I said, I know for a fact that she'll let you stay."

"Okay." He blinked at me for a few seconds, and then smiled. "Thanks, Gerard. Really. I probably would've fainted if I had to walk home through the mess going on out there. It means a lot."

"No problem," I smiled back. "I understand."

He grinned. "So, wh-"

The front door bursts open and my mom walked in, singing loudly. "Gerard," she sang, off-tune and overly exaggerated. "We're home! You forgot to lock the door back!"

I rolled my eyes as Frank burst out laughing. My mom had obviously just bought a new pack of cigarettes- she was always in such a beautiful mood, when she had a new pack of rolled-up death in her pocket. I didn't blame her, though. Every once in a while I would sneak a cigarette from the pack and enjoy a taste of my own demise, too.

It was quite a relaxing experience, breathing cancer into my own lungs.

"Ma," I chuckled as she twirled dramticaly into the living room. "We have company, stop!"

She froze, mid-spin, dropping her arms down to her sides as the bottom of her skirt swirled around her ankles. "Oh? Who is this?"

"Ma, this is my friend Frank. Frank, this is my mom."

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Way," Frank smiled.

"Nice to meet you, too, Frank, but please, dear! Call me Mama Way," she winked. "'Mrs.' makes me sounds so old."

Frank just grinned. "Okay, sure."

"Frank needs a place to stay tonight," I said, glancing between my mom and Frank. "Is it okay if he stays here?"

Mom grinned. "Of course!" She turned slightly to the kitchen. "Mikey! Come welcome the house guest!"

Mikey walked into the room, glancing at Frank, and then me, and then back at Frank, looking a bit confused. "Um, hi..."

Frank nodded, waving. "Hi."

Mikey looked at me, and then at our mom. "Uh, I'm just gonna'... Go to my room, so, uh..."

"Go right ahead, dear," Mom said, moving around in that fluttery way of hers, waving her hand slightly. "Oh, Frank, does your mom know you're staying here yet? Do you have a change of clothes? Oh, Gerard, have you two had lunch yet? Do you guys know what you want for dinner? I was going to order pizza, but I feel like we should do something nicer..."

"Ma," I laughed, shaking my head. "You're getting ahead of yourself. One thing at a time."

She nodded, reaching down to the pocket in her long skirt. "Right, right..." She pulled out the pack of cigarettes that I knew she had, and flipped it open. She sent Frank a concerned look. "Oh, do you mind? I can go outside if the smoke bothers you, or-"

"No, no, it's fine, It doesn't bother me."

My mom smiled. "Okay, I'll open a few windows, though. It gets rather stuffy in here when we're all cooped up."

She started walking away, but I called out. "Hey, Ma?"

She paused, turning.

I offered a small, timid smile, holding out my hand. I didn't know if she would let me smoke with a guest in the house, or not.

She sighed, but slipped a cigarette out of the pack and held it out to me. "This is your seventh this week, Gerard. You've gone from one a week to one a day in under a month."

"Yeah, but it's Saturday," I reminded her. "Tomorrow is the start of a new week and I'll be an entire day clean, so maybe I'll go back to one a week."

"You said that last week!"

"And so I was wrong. How do we know that I'm not right, this time?"

My mom just rolled her eyes as she turned, doing an over-exagerated walk out of the room. "I'm such a bad mother," she crooned dramaticly.

"But I love you all the same," I sang, matching her slight laugh with my own.

I could see Frank watching me from the corner of my eye, shaking his head. "Your mother lets you smoke?" he asked with a slight chuckle.

I grinned, sliding my lighter out of my pocket and flicking it open, appriciating the warmth of the little flame as I touched it to the tip of the cigarette, igniting it in a tiny burst of smoke. "She also bought me my own lighter."

Frank just grinned, shaking his head again. "If my mom knew I smoke, she'd kill me."

I just rolled my eyes, lifting the cigarette to my lips and taking a drag, before I had realized what he said. I let the smoke out from between my lips slowly, considering. "So, you smoke?"

"Used to," he shrugged, watching me. "Evidently once the guys from school found out I was only sixteen, I stopped being cool enough to give cigarettes to..."

I scoffed. "That's stupid. Sixteen is a perfectly acceptable age. I would kill to be sixteen again."

He just laughed. "And I would kill to be seventeen, Gerard, but some things can't be achieved with murder."

I laughed, too. "True... So, when was the last time you had a cigarette?" I asked, pressing the very object of our conversation to my lips again, shivering against the taste of nicotine and deadly addiction.

He laughed nervously, shrugging. "A few months ago, I guess."

"When was the last time you craved one?"

He turned slightly pink. "Now, I guess."

I nodded, blowing smoke from between my lips again. "That's what I was guessing." I held the cigeratte out to him, twisting my hand so he could take it without getting burnt. "Here."

He blinked at me a few times. "S-seriously?"

I nodded, reaching over to the table next to the couch and moving the ashtray onto the couch between Frank and I, so that we could both use it.

"But your mom, she won't give you another one, will she...?"

"We can share it." That had been my intention in the first place, anyway. As much as Frank was my friend, I wasn't one to just give away a cigarette.

He hesitantly took the cancer stick from me, bringing it close to his lips. "Are you sure...?"

"I'm positive, Frank."

His fingers were trembling with excitment- he needed the nicotine much more than I did. I got my addiction filled once a day. The last time he had a taste of the deadly attraction was quite some time ago, from the sounds of it.

His shaking fingers slowly placed the cigarette in his mouth, and the instant relief was visable on his face. "God, that tastes nice."

I laughed, grinning at him. "See? I told you."

He just nodded, holding the cigarette between two fingers and letting the smoke out in a slow breath, closing his eyes for a second. "Do you think your mom will mind, that we're sharing...?"

"She won't," I assured him, watching him smoke. There was a certain gace, to smoking, that not many people possesed. Frank had that charm, though. Instead of looking like he was commiting the long, much drawn-out suicide that smoking was, it looked like he was making love to the addiction.

He took another drag, nodding a bit, before handing the ciggarete back to me.

I just smiled, raising it to my mouth.

It tasted different, now that Frank's lips had touched it.

Not a bad different.

I don't even think that there was an actual difference. I just knew Frank's lips had touched it, so in my mind I guess I was adding whatever I imagined Frank to taste like to the flavor of the nicotine.

"So," my mom said, re-entering the room, cigarette dangling from her lips. She reached up, removing it from her mouth. My mom didn't possess the grace that Frank did. She didn't smoke for pleasure, she smoked for the addiction. "Do you need to call your mom, Frank?"

He nodded, glancing at me. "Yeah..."

I leaned over and picked the home phone off of the reciever, handing it to him. "Here."

He eyed the cigarette as he took the phone, dialing his own phone number. I slipped the cigarette from between my lips and passed it to him, and he blushed a bit, sending my mom a nervous glance.

She didn't even seem to notice, though. She was too busy going back to the kitchen, calling to me over her shoulder. "So, have you boys had lunch?"

"We have," I said, trying not to be too loud as Frank's mom seemed to evidently answer the phone. Frank started talking quietly, sighing with annoyance every few seconds.

"What do you guys want for dinner, then?"

"Uh, I don't know, Ma... I was just kind of thinking salad, or something... Frank is vegitarian, anyways, so..."

"Oh! Okay, then! Salad it is!"

And then she fell silent, the only sounds her moving things around in the kitchen and Frank sighing at his mom.

"Okay, okay. I get it, mom. Whatever." He took an angry drag from the cigarette, letting the smoke out in an annoyed breath. I was amazed by the fact that even when he was angry, the way he pressed his lips around the cigarette was still so... Well, so attractive. "Bye."

He hung up, handing me the phone and not meeting my eyes.

"Everything okay?" I asked wairly, setting the phone back in it's spot.

He just closed his eyes, pressing the cigarette to his lips again. "It's fine. My mom is just being... Well, herself."

"Oh."

He held the cigarette out to me, rubbing his temple with his other hand. "H- here."

"Keep it."

He wiggled his fingers slightly. "No, take it. Those things will be the death of me."

"Frank, keep the cigarette. You need it."

Besides, I liked watching him smoke far more than I liked the taste of nicotine.

He sighed, but didn't argue any further, placing it between his lips again. "Thanks," he muttered quietly.

"No problem."

My mom came into the room again. "So, Frank, I guess you'll be needing a spot to sleep... Which do you prefer, the couch, or I could maybe bring a few blankets into Gerard's room?"

He removed the cigarette from his mouth quickly and my mom sent me a glance, her eyebrow arched slightly. I knew that look. It was the 'since when did you start sharing cigarettes?' look. I just shrugged in response.

"Uhm... I don't know... It doesn't really matter, I guess..."

I glanced around the room. "There's less windows in my room," I observed. "There's only one, actually. There's three in here."

"Your room, then."

My mom glanced between us, confused.

"I'm not exactly the biggest fan of storms," Frank explained, cheeks turning slightly pink as he took one last, slow drag from the cigarette and then put the tiny bit of it left out into the ashtray.

"Oh, well, that's understandable," my mom grinned. "I was the same way when I was younger... I'll just go dig up some blankets and whatnot..."

She disapeared again, making Frank chuckled a bit. "Is she always like that?"

"Moving around a lot? Yeah..." I looked at him for a few seconds before grinning. "You in the smood for sharing another cigarette? I know where her last pack is hidden. I think there might be one left."

"Yeah, okay," he laughed, nodding.

　

---

　

"Gerard?"

I leaned over the side of my bed, looking down at Frank. Last night after dinner, he'd chosen to sleep on the side of my bed furthest from the window, on top of a few blankets. We hadn't managed to find a spare pillow, but I always had two on my bed, so I just spared one and let him use it for the night.

"Yeah?" I whispered, blinking down at him.

"Wh- what time is it?"

"Four twenty-eight in the morning."

He blinked at me a few times. "O- oh."

We were both silent for a second and then he rubbed his face, squezing his eyes shut. "I'm sorry for waking you up so early. It's just, th- the thunder woke me up, and I was- Well, I..."

"It scared you?"

He nodded, chewing on his bottom lip slightly. "Yeah... Still, s- sorry for waking you..."

"No, no, it's fine. I was already awake..."

"Oh, uh, okay..."

I tilted my head. "Frank, are you okay?"

He shrugged a bit, flinching as a bolt of lightening lit up the room.

I sighed, slinging my legs over the side of the bed and sinking down to the ground.

He blinked a few times as I shuffled around next to him. "What are you doing...?"

I shrugged, stretching my legs out and laying on the ground. "If you're scared, I can lay down here with you."

He stared at me. "Oh, Gerard, you don't have to-"

"I insist."

We just stared at each other for a second, and then he moved around a bit, too, and then suddenly there was a blanket covering my shoulder. "Here," he murmured, looking everywhere but me. "At least share the blanket."

I sighed, pressing my face against the short side of his pillow, so I could stay close enough so that he could still have the majority of the blanket. "Okay. Thanks."

We fell silent for a while, and I closed my eyes, even though I knew I wouldn't fall asleep. I couldn't fall asleep. Not with Frank here. Especially not sharing a blanket with him. I'd have a nightmare, I'd move too much, I'd wake him up and probably scare him, too.

Exactly three minutes after I thought he had fallen asleep, his fingers brushed my cheek, jolting my eyes open.

"Gerard?"

"Yeah?"

He blinked at me through the dark. "Thank you."

"For what?"

He just stared at me. "For everything."

I gave him a small smile and he returned it through the dark. "Don't thank me," I said. "Just take it as it is."

Over the next hour and twenty-six minutes, I didn't sleep at all. I didn't have much to do besides think and watch Frank sleep. Normally at night when I can't sleep- whether it's for instinces like this, when I'm afraid that I'll wake someone if I do, or if it's because I simply can't fall asleep, it doesn't differ much- I think. I run through scenerios in my head, I ponder over events of the day, I calculate how long, exactly, I had spent alone that day.

I think, when I'm all alone in my head. Sometimes I start thinking about things that I shouldn't think about. Sometimes I think about what the point in even thinking anymore was, sometimes I think about life and how in the grand scheme of things, in however many years, my existance will no longer matter, and sometimes I think about how I've slowly begun to lose my mind, and sometimes, I get sad, and often, I enjoy these bad thoughts, and often, I have more of them.

Not tonight, though. Tonight I didn't lose myself in my own head. I had Frank as a distraction.

I suppose most people would find watching someone for an hour and twenty-six minutes boring. I suppose most people would start thinking about other things.

But not me, not while I had Frank as a distraction.

I knew that we hadn't known each other for long, but there was just something about the way his hair fell around his face as he slept and something about the way his breathing steadied itself to the same pace as mine and something about the way he still smelt of cigarettem smoke that caught my attention almost immeadiatly.

Frank just had that effect on me. He was already a very strong presence in my life, one that was very distracting and very pleasant to be distracted by.