The Enigma’s Anomaly

“Gerard if you don’t need me here, I should be heading out,” I say.

“Aw, why Frankie?” Oh there he goes with the Frankie thing. I think I just died a little inside, in a good way.

I check my watch, and it’s almost seven at night. Gerard is frowning on the couch next to me and he looks honestly upset by my words. I don’t want to leave, but I also don’t want to over stay my welcome.

“Gerard,” I groan, “Mikey said he’s staying over. You don’t need me!”

“Yeah, but I want you to stay over, I don’t have a choice when it comes to Mikey,” he says, and I feel kind of giddy at his words. Mikey left half an hour ago to get an overnight bag or something. I honestly do want to stay here with Gerard, but I’m too afraid of being too intrusive. The trouble is that now that he’s here, and now that I’m not trying to kill him, I have no real reason to be near him other than to be near him. I don’t want to spend so much time that he starts to dislike me though.

“Pwease?” Gerard says and he bats his eyelashes repeatedly at me. He’s like a fucking hypnotist, I swear to god. Gerard could be a magician. He would just ask the audience to imagine a bunny being pulled out of a hat and they’d probably see it.

“God, Gerard!” I say sighing, “fine.”

“You’ll stay?” Gerard asks, and he looks absolutely thrilled.

I nod grimly and he smirks. A second passes and I’m not sure what’s happening anymore. I think I’m going crazy.

Because one minute I’m sitting next to him and the next he’s kissing me.

And oh shit he’s kissing me. Oh shit. Oh shit. Shit!

Like actually. He’s actually kissing me. That’s actually Gerard and this is actually me and holy fuck.

The worst part is that this boy can kiss. I never really make a distinction between good kissers and bad kissers but Gerard is definitely a good kisser.

I can’t even stop myself from kissing him back, because he’s amazingly good at it. My stomach feels kind of tingly. What is he doing to me? He’s making me lose my guard.

I’m supposed to kill him. Except I’m not. I’m not going to do that. Now would be a perfect time. Absolutely perfect. I could just take my gun, and put a bullet through his head without even having to look but I can’t. I can’t, and I won’t and I sure as hell don’t want to.

But I can’t kiss him either. This is too quick, and I don’t know what I’m doing yet so this just can’t happen right now.

It takes me a minute to find my bearings, but I do manage to push him away. I really don’t want to though. I would rather do anything but push him away.

“No Gerard,” I mumble, and look down at my hands.

I can’t bear the thought of looking at him, but he probably looks hurt. I’d feel hurt too. I kissed back, who wouldn’t feel hurt?

“I thought... I thought...” he says, but he doesn’t finish and I feel even worse.

“I’m sorry. Gerard, I’m sorry,” and oh god I am sorry, but I lift my head and look anywhere but at him.

“You kissed back,” he says, and it’s so quiet I almost can’t hear it.

“I can’t mix work and, er, you know,” I say. That’s very true, but he doesn’t know that I mean my other job, rather than the journalism thing.

“You don’t like me anyway,” He mumbles and my guilt becomes infinite.

He doesn’t say anything more and I turn to look at him, but that is a big mistake. He’s like a wounded puppy, and I just kicked him. I just kicked a puppy.

I want to tell him that’s not true, but I don’t know how. Its better off that he thinks I don’t like him. It’s painful and I hate it, but it’s just better off this way.

“I should go,” I say, and stand up. How cliché. I’m the kind of guy who runs away from this situation. Oh god, I’m an awful human being! I already knew that, but I’m ten times worse for hurting Gerard. It’s Gerard. He’s perfect. Who would hurt him?

I’m out of the apartment before I even realize I started walking. I head down the hallway, keeping my head down.

Fuck, I just ran away from the hottest guy in the world. I’m an idiot. I already knew that though.

I am such an idiot. A real justifiable, indescribably stupid idiot. So stupid that it actually hurts to try encompassing how stupid I am.

Whilst dwelling on the stupidity of myself, I practically walk into something. Well, someone given the fact that the thing I bump into has a pulse.

“Whoa Frank,” the thing with the pulse says and I look up to see Mikey. Blank expression as always. I’m starting to wonder if he has another mode besides neutral, but now’s not the right time to think about it. I just want to get out of here so that I can fully process the last 24 hours.

“I’m sorry, I have to go,” I say hurriedly. “Tell Gerard I’m sorry.”

“Sorry about what?” Mikey calls after me.

“Just tell him,” I say and then I walk out into the night.

I don’t know what to do, nor do I know where to go. I don’t think I want to go back to my apartment right now. I’m a little wigged out, and scared. I feel like I should go back to his apartment, but it’s too late now with Mikey being there. I can’t believe I walked away like that though.

I’ve never been a flight kind of guy. I’m a fighter. Then again nothing I normally do seems to apply to the way I am with Gerard. He makes me a different person. I don’t even know who I am with him.

I think when I disappeared into the assassin Frank persona I lost ahold of the real me. The strange part is that I didn’t know my true personality was lost until I tried to fake it. I was a fake Frank when I walked into that coffee shop two weeks ago, and it took Gerard to pull the real me out. With Gerard, I’m me. I’m raw, unfiltered Frank. I’m not assassin Frank, nor am I undercover journalist Frank, I’m just Frank. I’m the Frank who likes to play guitar and passionately lip sync to The Smiths. How can the real me have been discovered by him so quickly?

The hard part is trying to define myself outside of Gerard’s presence? Who am I when Gerard’s not looking? I thought I knew already... but that assassin I just don’t think he’s me. I think he’s The Enigma. I think The Enigma part of me was taking over my natural personality and all it took was a fucking dork and his fucking dorky comic book.

I’m not sure when ‘fucking dork’ became synonymous to ‘Gerard Way’ in my head but it definitely has. The two terms are one and the same.

Wherever my intended destination originally was, takes a detour because the next thing I know I’m on the Subway. I like to ride around the trains sometimes to clear my head. Whenever I’m here it’s because I just need a break of priorities. I want to be unproductive and completely off the grid for a little while, and that helps my mental stability.

I like to write stories for all the people who sit around me and it’s a way to escape my mind. I just observe people and make up their back story in my head.

For example, the guy sitting across for me who keeps checking his phone, he’s an expecting father. His wife’s due date is sometime in the next few days and he keeps checking his phone for any missed calls. Maybe he stayed at work late because he’s taking paternity leave for a few weeks soon. He hasn’t eaten but he’s hungry and he might be waiting for his wife to call him and ask him to pick something up for dinner. He’s hoping for a baby girl, and all he can do is imagine the day when she rides her first bike. He’s nervous, but he also can’t wait.

I know nothing about this guy whatsoever, but that’s who he is in my head. It helps me escape my reality to create a new one for other people.

My head is starting to feel a little woozy after an hour so I wait out a few stops until it’s close to my home. I get off about five blocks away from where I need to be, but I don’t mind the stroll.

I don’t live in Fort Knox or some shit, but I don’t live in the Bronx either, so it’s not too busy and there aren’t any gangs hanging about that I know of. It’s not the safest place in the world but considering the fact that this is New York, its safe enough.

As soon as I step into my apartment I head straight for my computer, and send a message. I can’t do this anymore, and it’s best if I transfer the money back to its original owner. I only got a small portion upfront for this job, but I’m not going to keep it. For Gerard’s sake, I have to get rid of that money.

I tell my client that I’m giving up the case, and once the message is sent I sigh. No turning back now. I am no longer Gerard Way’s assassin. I will do my best to make sure he never has another assassin, but I can’t just ask my client for his identity. That’s not going to be fruitful and it would be suspicious.

I just sigh and start to take down the bulletin board of Gerard. I stack it all up into a neat pile, and then put it into a new folder and make a place for it in my secret nook under the floorboards.

I notice a sheet of paper that’d fallen when I was cleaning up, so I grab it to evaluate it. It’s the piece of paper with the instructions on Gerard’s hit. This paper, as well as a few documents, had been left under a discreet park bench for me to find a month ago. It seems like it’s been years since I took this case. Have I really only known Gerard for that long? Only a few weeks? The way he makes me feel is like I’ve known him forever.

I look at it for a while and then it dawns on me that there’s handwriting on this. Someone actually typed it up and wrote on it. They might also have put fingerprints on it. I don’t have any way to find out who wrote this though. I don’t have access to a fingerprint database.

Unfortunately I’ve already put my hands all over it so my prints are there too now. I can still do one thing with this paper though.

It’s not that difficult to make a copy of the note. There’s handwriting on it so it might be of some help in finding whoever is trying to kill Gerard. I put on a pair of disposable gloves, replace the ink in my cartridges with an untraceable kind, and then print the note on an untouched piece of paper. There won’t be any fingerprints linking me to this note and nothing else should be possible to link onto me either. I replicate the note, then put it in an envelope. I stamp it, and print out an address label so that I don’t have to incriminate myself with my own handwriting.

As soon as the duplicate is made, I take the original to my stove, turn the burner on and then set it on the stove. It takes a little while, but eventually a small black crinkling at the edge and then small little blue flames flicker on the end. It takes a little while for the yellowing and blackening to spread, and then the flames start turning redder but soon the entire letter is gone.

As soon as it’s gone I take the envelope, and head out of my apartment. I take a long walk down the road, find a mailbox and then drop the letter in. Obviously I didn’t put a return address on it, but I’d still rather send it far away from my home.

The police will be getting that note soon, and then they’ll have more to go on. I don’t have as many resources so they’ll be better off and it’ll be so much easier to find this son of a bitch. Whatever it takes to keep Gerard alive, that’s my number one priority. Gerard will live to see season four of Sherlock, you have my word. I just need him alive, at all costs.