Sequel: Gerard Way: Artist

Frank Iero: P.A.

Thirty Eight

“Thank you for coming,” Gerard says to Dr. Moore for the third time since she got here.

He’s currently showing her out of the apartment. The baby is fine, but Dr. Moore stressed that Alicia has to remain as calm as possible for the remainder of the pregnancy. Yeah, try telling a pregnant woman who just buried her husband that she has to stay calm for a month.

I’m in the kitchen pretending to cook while I eavesdrop on Gerard and Ray; while the doctor was examining Alicia, they were in the living room discussing the Mikey/Alicia/Ray love triangle and what it all meant. Now that Dr. Moore has left they’ve resumed their conversation. They’re speaking in low voices, but from what I’ve heard Ray has been reassuring Gerard that his crush on Alicia was only out of pity and desperation brought on by the trauma of Mikey’s diagnosis. Gerard seemed to understand where he was coming from – which is good for Ray’s sake – but it has me thinking about the mountains and today at the funeral.

It was only two weeks ago that Gerard was telling me that the kiss at the cottage was an “impulse” brought on by his sadness. I could accept that logic and reasoning – he had a lot on his mind back then – but today at the funeral when he kissed me... it felt like more than that. Is it the same sort of thing as the feelings Ray had for Alicia? Gerard and I haven’t spoken about today’s incident, but I’m going to have to confront him about it eventually. There was something in that look when I removed his glasses. He looked me right in the eyes and then kissed me again. Sure, the second kiss was just a peck, but he still did it, and I know it wasn’t a mistake.

“How’s dinner coming along?”

I jump at the sound of Gerard’s voice. I’ve been so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t hear him come in.

“Uh...” I look about the chopping board in front of me; there’s a carrot on it that has been roughly chopped, but it was more so for display purposes in case someone walked past the kitchen.

“Cooking isn’t really your forte, is it?” he asks rhetorically. He pushes me out of the way gently and takes up the knife in his right hand. Scraping my deplorable attempt aside, he takes a new carrot and slices it expertly. “I appreciate you offering to cook, but I could really use the distraction.”

“No, no – go ahead,” I enthuse. Some of us are born to cook, others are born to eat. I am the latter.
I watch him chop up more vegetables to make some sort of stew for dinner. His technique with a knife is flawless. You know those ads for restaurant quality knives on TV? Well, he slices vegetables as fast and as accurately as the chefs in them do.

“So, how much of that conversation are you going to pretend not to have been listening to?” he asks after a minute.

My cheeks heat up and I know they must be beet red. How does he do that?

“I was curious,” I force myself to say casually. Knowing I didn’t pull off the tone like I had hoped, I sigh inwardly and ask, “How are you feeling about what Ray said?”

He shrugs, still chopping away violently. “I like that he didn’t tell me I overreacted.”

“Did you ever tell Mikey?”

He shakes his head. “I blamed Ray for the kiss entirely; there was no point in potentially destroying a marriage when Alicia didn’t do anything wrong. But if the situation were reversed, I would have.”

So Mikey died not knowing that his best friend kissed his wife. I’m not entirely convinced if that was the right way for things to be, but in the end he died thinking the absolute best of everyone around him, and what’s wrong with that?

“You beat yourself up all the time, thinking you’re the worst guy in the world, but Gerard – you’re a good guy. You saved a marriage and a friendship by not saying anything even though you were pissed off as hell,” I tell him, because no one else is going to and he needs to hear something positive today. I touch his wrist gently, causing him to cease his chopping and look at me. “You’re so much better than you’ll ever know.”

“I hold the same opinion of you,” he says softly, beginning to dice an onion now.

***


Alicia didn’t join us for dinner, but I don’t think any of us really expected her to. I went to get her while Ray set the table and Gerard ladled out portions of vegetable stew into bowls, but when I opened her bedroom door I found her sobbing into her pillow. Generally when you see someone cry you attempt to comfort them, but I could tell Alicia just wanted to cry on her own, so I shut the door quietly and let it appear like I’d never been there. Gerard and Ray both understood when I told them, but that didn’t keep the worried looks from their faces.

We made small talk over dinner, tiptoeing around the topics of Mikey and Alicia. It’s been a traumatic day and we’re all just looking for distractions. Part of me wants to discuss it so I can get these feelings off my chest, but as I didn’t know Mikey as well as Ray and Gerard I feel guilty about being so upset; talking to them so I can feel better would be so insensitive. While we ate my mind wandered to thoughts of Gerard. What would happen once we get into bed together tonight? Would he want to talk? Cry? Hold hands? Kiss... All of those prospects make me uncomfortable. It’s too intimate for an employer/employee relationship, even if we are friends.

Dinner over, I throw myself into the task of washing up. Strangely, all three of us fought over who would get to do it – that’s how desperate for distraction we are. I’m glad I won, though, because I need to be in a room without Gerard for a while. As I wash bowl after bowl, I listen to the conversation being conducted in a whisper in the living room.

“So what’s the deal with you and Frank?” Ray asks Gerard.

“There is no deal,” he replies defensively, emphasising the word deal.

“I saw you kiss him.”

I drop the spoon I’m washing back into the water. Thankfully, it doesn’t make much of a sound when it hits the bottom of the sink. I listen more intently as Gerard is forced to offer an explanation.

“One kiss doesn’t imply something is going on between two people. I kiss Ellie and Alicia all the time.”

“True, except you are gay, Ellie is a like a mother to you and Alicia like a sister, and most importantly, you kissed Frank twice,” Ray counters.

There’s a long silence and I wait for Gerard’s response with bated breath. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what all this physical stuff with Gerard means, and I might now just find out.

“Emotions always run high at a funeral; people lose control. That’s all it was,” he says, his voice more hushed than before. And even quieter than that, more to himself than Ray, he says, “It meant nothing.”

“If it were anyone else, I’d accept that excuse, but you’re Gerard Way – you are always in control of your emotions, particularly when around large crowds of people,” Ray replies. “If you ask me, I’d say you like him.”

“Well, nobody asked you,” Gerard snaps back.

They go quiet. I imagine Gerard has his back to Ray, sending him the message that he’s done talking about it. Ray is probably sitting on the sofa, his arms spread out across the back of it, observing Gerard’s body language and thinking to himself about how touchy Gerard is on the subject of me. I’m frustrated that Ray couldn’t get more out of him, because now I’m stuck here washing up and needing a distraction from my distraction; all I can think about is how defensive Gerard got and what that could translate to.

Ray materialises beside me and begins drying the dishes I’ve already washed. I thank him for helping out and he nods back at me. We work side by side in silence. Both of us are thinking about that conversation with Gerard, I can tell. As far as I can see, it’s only a matter of time before he begins to interrogate me like he did Gerard.

“All done,” Ray says, closing the pantry door.

I wring out the dishcloth, counting down the seconds until he asks me the dreaded question: why did you let Gerard kiss you?

“Why don’t you go sit down? I’ll finish cleaning up in here.”

I look at Ray suspiciously. He looks sincere, and now a little confused because I’m eying him like I think he stole the last cookie from the cookie jar or something as equally trivial.

“Um, okay,” I reply.

Gerard is sitting on the couch when I return to the living room. His eyes are fixed on the wall ahead of him and he’s not blinking; he’s deep in thought. I consider sitting beside him, but that might startle him, however, if I sit at the dining table it might look as though I’m avoiding him. It’s just after nine o’clock – I could go to bed instead of sitting out here, but then again, doesn’t that look like I’m avoiding him, too? Is this how things are going to be like from now on? Me struggling with the simplest of decisions because I don’t want to offend, annoy, upset, or give the wrong impression to Gerard. I really hope not.

After two minutes of standing awkwardly in the doorway weighing up my options, I decide to just go to bed. It’s been a long day and it has taken a lot out of me like it has everyone else. I know it’ll take a while for me to get to sleep, with everything that’s pressing on my mind, but I hope that when I do sleep that I’ll dream of Gerard kissing me today. At least with that I’ll awake in a cold sweat, which is better than waking up with tears streaming from my eyes because I’ve been dreaming of Mikey. Walking back into the kitchen with this thought in mind, I come to an abrupt halt as I see Ray wiping down the stovetop. Am I being presumptuous about tonight’s sleeping arrangements? Where’s Ray going to sleep?

“You off to bed?” he asks lazily, his own exhaustion evident in his tone.

“That depends,” I say. “Did you want to sleep in the spare room?”

“No, no – I called dibs the couch hours ago,” he tells me hurriedly. “I’ll grab a blanket from the linen closest later when Gerard looks like he’s going to join you.”

I am not liking what is being implied by that phrase. I want to tell Ray that there’s nothing going on between Gerard and I, that we’re just friends and colleagues, that our sleeping in the same bed is purely innocent, but I’m not sure if there’s enough truth in all that for it to be an adequate response. So, I say nothing, give him an awkward smile, and walk briskly out of the kitchen and to the spare bedroom.

Since Mikey passed away, Gerard and I have spent just one night – two nights ago – here with Alicia; with the exception of last night, she spent the rest of the time at the mansion. I had the foresight then to bring a pair of sleep pants and a set of clothes with me to stash in the built-in wardrobe in case of an impromptu visit. I mentally pat past Frank on the back as I slide open the wardrobe door and grab out my pyjamas. Undressing, I put my dirty clothes on the floor of the wardrobe and pull on my checkered sleep pants. It’s not often that I wear these pyjamas – my mother bought them for me in a failed attempt to get me out of pyjamas adorned with cartoon characters – which is why I left them here; they’re a bit snug, but I’ll live. I turn the light off and climb into bed, hoping that I soon fall asleep.

My mind races at a million miles an hour. I drown in thoughts of Mikey. As I lie there on my back staring up at the ceiling I envision his last moments. The sound of Gerard screaming out his name echoes in my ears. I see him atop his brother’s lifeless body, shaking it violently like the action would bring him back. It repeats over and over again, the echoes getting louder. I feel the tears roll down my cheeks and blink rapidly in an attempt to stop them, but despite this the memories keep up.

It’s not until the bedroom door creaks open that the memories vanish. My vision is cloudy as I try to focus on the door; I wipe at my eyes until Gerard’s silhouette becomes clear. He steps into the room quietly and shuts the door. The darkness conceals his figure, but I distinctly hear him undress, garment after garment lightly dropping to the floor. Out of respect, even though I can’t see anything, I close my eyes. They remain closed until the covers rustle and the mattress shifts beneath me as Gerard gets into bed. My heart beats faster in anticipation; every time we’ve shared a bed Gerard has touched me in some way, and I doubt tonight will be any different. I roll onto my left side, my back to him and my body on full alert. Something will happen, I know it.

The minutes pass and still I lay there, waiting for the moment he’ll touch me, and I find myself becoming disappointed the longer I wait. I’ve felt him move around through the mattress a couple of times, but he hasn’t so much as brushed against me. It has to have been at least ten minutes since he got in beside me. Maybe all of this was just in my head. Maybe tonight will be different.

Just as I’m about to give up and focus on getting to sleep, I feel the mattress move. Seconds later his warm arm snakes around my waist, and he uses his grip on me to pull himself in closer. His right hand slides up to rest over my heart, while his left works its way under the pillow to take hold of my hand and link our fingers together. Right now my heart is hammering in my chest and I know he must be able to feel it. My whole body tenses. This is the most intimate I have ever been with a person. I’ve slept with two women in my lifetime, and even when I was inside them with their legs wrapped tightly around me and their fingernails clawing at my back, I never felt as close to them as I do with Gerard in this moment. I don’t think things could get more intimate with Gerard, even if we were having sex.

He proves me wrong, though.

He pulls me in closer, holding me against him protectively, and then in the most intimate gesture I know I’ll ever receive, he presses a kiss to my shoulder. The softness of his lips sends chills down my spine and I shiver against him.

I feel his hot breath against my ear, and he whispers, “Just one night...”
♠ ♠ ♠
I just want to tell you guys that during my writing this week this story reached 100,000 words. That's monumental for me, and I'd like to thank you all for your continued support of this story that encourages me to keep writing. You guys are amazing <3

Coming up in Frank Iero: P.A. ...

I shake my head, the pillow rustling in the silent room. How can I tell him that I’m not cold, but terribly nervous, that my nerve endings are on high alert from his touch? Sparks of awareness travel through my body, and there’s no way I can deny it any longer.

I’m attracted to Gerard Way.

I’m attracted to Gerard Way! Fuck...