Set the Stars Ablaze.

"Is he awake yet?"
"Is he even alive?"
"Gerard, did you check his pulse when you found him?"
"Where was he, to begin with? The third floor, right? Aha, I knew it!"

Gerard looked up at the firefighters crowding around the boy and gave one of his infamous glares to them, before turning his attention back to the person sprawled on the stretcher in front of him. His face was caked with soot, and there were nasty burns on the exposed skin. His hair was matted to his forehead and he'd been flittering in and out of consciousness, before finally collapsing. The paramedic had insisted on preparing a rudimentary report before carting him off to the hospital, so that the injured individual's doctor could get to work at once, and that was what he was doing now, as fast he could, with a minority of the fire brigade watching.
The fire had almost been put out, but the smell of smoke and devastation still lingered in the air. The building had been reduced to a little more than a pile of rubble, and it had been determined that it was arson. There was little information pertaining to the person responsible for it, yet the irksome media kept haggling everyone who was allowed behind the yellow tape for more, more and more details.

"Shut up! We'll give you information when we'll get information!" Mikey had yelled to one particularly bothersome journalist, "Now fuck off!"

He'd gotten an appreciative pat on the back by his colleagues.

Nevertheless, despite Mikey's effective outburst, and the fact that this was the first Clinton Avenue fire in the first fifteen years to have less than three casualties, the reality of the matter still proved to be the somber fact, that yes, there was still a mortality. The general public would say otherwise about this, have opinions such as 'Oh, but it was only one this time' and 'It's better than the other fires!', and completely forget the solitary victim, but the fire brigade would know.

They'd look at the local newspapers which would congratulate them on this big "feat" and appreciate their "competence", and they would be reminded of the way they let a person, even if it was only a single homeless person, to die. It wasn't even a great accomplishment, considering the circumstances. There had been only two people in the building, and one had survived. Fifty percent of the people involved hadn't survived? What was that on a larger scale? Two fifty people out of five hundred hadn't survived in a fire? How about two hundred thousand people? Fifty percent of them, meaning a hundred thousand hadn't been saved? What was so great about that?

These thoughts bounced back and forth in Gerard's head, as he sat in the ambulance, with the youth he'd saved. The paramedic had finished his report a while ago, and insisted that the firefighter responsible for saving the victim's life come along with him to the hospital, as the doctor would like to ask him some questions. It was common knowledge that all doctors who worked at the Irvington Public Hospital liked to know anything and everything about their patients and the circumstances they had been found in, to ensure maximum chance of them living. It was nothing to do with work ethics or a "burning desire to save lives, even though they were being paid minimum wage", but the desperation to be removed from the perception the public had of public hospitals - lazy, worthless and nugatory good-for-nothings who knew little about the medicine and spent all their time gossiping around water coolers, letting their patients die. Gerard was used to it, and usually they'd ask him millions of seemingly pointless questions, but never questioned them, they had a massive success rate.

Unlike the firefighters, Gerard thought bitterly as he played with his ridiculously long fingers, intently watching the guy sprawled out on the stretcher, hoping for some signs of life. Of course he got none.

~*~

"Exactly, exactly, which position did you find him in?" the doctor probed, tapping his fingers on his chin, thoughtfully, "It's important we know, so we'd know if it's necessary to check him for brain damage."
"Uh," Gerard shifted around, uncomfortably, "He was lying on his stomach, when I came in, uh, his hands were sprawled all over the place."
"Would you say he looked like he was...sleeping?" the doctor asked, placing his face uncomfortably close to Gerard's.
"I..." Gerard trailed off, looking incredulously at the doctor, "I guess?"
"Okay," the doctor retreated, seemingly satisfied, "Any next of kin?"
"Not that we know of," Gerard bit his lip.
"I trust we'll have it soon from his records," the doctor smiled, graciously, "We'll require you to stay here until we figure out his identity and his guardian is contacted. You know, in case he's on the run or he's listed in Missing Persons or something equally important. We wouldn't want him to make a break for it, if there's no one watching."
"Guardian?" Gerard asked, "Isn't he above 18?"
"We don't know that yet."

Gerard groaned inwardly at the mere prospect of staying in the stuffy hospital for hours, simply to watch over someone the town's forces may be interested in. After spending hours in a place where the sky was overcast with toxic fumes and the intoxicating reek of depredation persisted in the atmosphere, spending the vast majority of his time there with a hose that refused to remain in his hands, and the rest in an ossuary in flames, he'd now have to wait in a medical institution, known for the disgusting smell of antiseptic and the inevitable feeling of despondency? Really? At any other time, Gerard would have been pleased to stay and cooperate with the doctors, but not today. He wanted to go home and ponder about the uneasy feeling he'd experienced his first time inside the building, the event never occurring before. Clearly, now he couldn't.

"Fine," he grumbled, "Where is he now?"
"First door on your left in the hallway but you need not go in now," the doctor beamed, "He's going in for a full body check up in a few minutes. You can wait here."
"He doesn't need surgery?" Gerard asked, hopefully.
"Perhaps he may," the doctor shrugged, airily, "Alright, then, I'll take your leave."

Before Gerard could open his mouth to say something else, the balding doctor in his pristine white coat had spun around on his heels and sauntered away, in the opposite direction. Defeated, Gerard sunk into one of the cold and inflexible steel seats, looking around for a coffee machine.

~*~

"Have you pulled dental records?" Gerard asked, fuming, "How about blood tests? Previous visits? Anything?
"We don't have any records for him!" the receptionist replied, indignantly, "Sir, I have to request you to sit down!"
"I can't just sit down when there is an unidentified man in my custody who's been in a coma for the past six hours!" Gerard yelled, angrily.
"We don't know who he is!"
"Well, what do you suggest I do, then?" Gerard asked, his insides blazing, "Maybe I should ask my colleagues to ask every person in Clinton Avenue to see if they've lost a friend, a son, a brother?!"
"What about putting up a report for him in Missing Persons?" the receptionist asked, sounding bored, "Or leaflets around town?"
"You and I both know that nobody looks at those damned reports," Gerard's voice dropped an octave, "And he's not a dog that I'll put up fucking leaflets around town!"
"I can't help you," the receptionist responded, frostily, turning her attention back to her computer, the navy blue header of Facebook reflecting painfully off her browline glasses.

Gerard gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to yank the computer off the table and throw it across the room, before stalking off to the man in question's room. The harsh lighting hurt Gerard's eyes, as he looked at the only thing that wasn't a pristine white in the room, for the third time in the past two hours. He traipsed softly toward him, and surveyed his features carefully, still not used to the serene expression on his face. Easily, he was one of the most alluring people Gerard had ever had the fortune to see. His inky dark hair was thick and lustrous, cut short, with a stray fringe partly covering the left side of his face. His rounded pink lips, combined with his tightly shut eyes and calm breathing gave an illusion of a dreamless slumber and Gerard had to again, resist an urge, only this time, it was to softly caress the side of his face, repressing the urge to feel the seemingly baby soft skin of his cheek under his calloused fingertips. Nonetheless, he couldn't refrain from picking up the unconscious individual's bony wrist in his fingers, amazed but not surprised at how skinny he was.

"Hi," he said, astonished at the strained sound of his voice, "I'm Gerard."

And as the introduction fell effortlessly from his chapped lips, the words appearing to hang in the air for a second, before swaying down to the comatose sufferer's ears, and eventually, to his mind, Gerard Way realized, that for the first time, it was him who'd introduced himself primarily, for the first time since he'd turned seventeen.