Épousez-moi, Restez la Même Chose

WiL sighed and got down on his knees, staining his new pants with dirt and wiping his sweaty face with his sleeve.

Even the flowers couldn't raise his spirit today, as he watered and talked to them, giving them more attention than he would most people. A heavy dark cloud was hanging over his head, and even though he liked rain, he just wished the sun was out. Today wasn't the right day for bleak weather, not when he was all alone and no one was there to cuddle up with on the couch and watch nature outside the big living room windows.

Gerard was gone. He went to a meeting for some sort of comic book, maybe something he himself was drawing, wiL couldn't remember because all he knew now was that Gerard wasn't here and that blocked everything else out. WiL had asked if he could go with Gerard, he promised to stay in the car if he had to, but Gerard didn't let him, told him that it was only for a day and he was going to be back soon. He'd hugged wiL and just left, and wiL had no idea that anything could feel like this.

It was better when he didn't have anyone to miss. Tons better, and he wasn't sure that he could handle it if Gerard needed to go to another one of these meetings. His whole world was turned on his axis because he didn't know what to do in the hours he had to himself, he didn't want the privacy that months ago he would have killed for. The whole house was dead and desolute without Gerard in it, as if he was the very heart of the house and nothing could flourish and live without him. That seemed about right to wiL. He himself was a flower and Gerard was the sun and water that he reached for, extending his leaves and growing up in time to tilt his petals full on to the sun's rays and catch all the warm glow he could.

Nothing was right, it didn't seem like he should have been here alone, it was--it just wasn't his house. The flowers were his, and he felt a little bit better when he stood in the center of the kitchen and closed his eyes and searched for the residue of the cigarettes they shared the morning he left, but it wasn't the same. He had caught whifts of familiar grungy, stale air, but that was as far as it went.

He pushed himself up and glanced up once more at the sky, with a little pain in his stomach remembering how much Gerard liked storms and how he'd run outside in the rain and throw his hands up like he could catch it and drink it all in. Remembering the look of joy on his face as he scrunched up his nose against the droplets and stood still in the yard, the only one in the whole neighborhood outside and alone and just so beautiful in his nonpareil, black tentacles of hair slinking down in front of his face going unnoticed as he was so enebrieated with the rain.

"Hey, kid."

WiL started, dropped the gardening trowel in his hand and turned to see an older man who was addressing him. He stood with the help of a cane, and wiL couldn't peg how old he was, it was past that point now, where the man's face was covered in wrinkles and it could have been any number.

"H-hello," wiL said cautiously, moving to lean against his fence but not getting too close to the man. Sometimes old men weren't all that feeble. He frowned when the man leaned on the other side of the fence close enough so he could smell the stale skin and rubbing lotion radiating off of him. He wasn't used to being this close to men without--well, other than Gerard, of course, because Gerard would never hurt him, but he wasn't so sure of this man. The man held out his hand for a handshake and wiL made himself extend his own hand, accompanied by a deep lurch of fear in the pit of his stomach.

"I'm Arnold. I live up the road." He didn't have the leering smile that was a tell-tale sign of a bad man, he had a kind smile, deep lines sinking below the cresents of his cheeks.

WiL nodded, bringing his hand up to his mouth so he could chew on the edges of his sleeve. He glanced up once at the end of the road like he was expecting Gerard's car to come into view. "I'm wiL." His voice was a squeak in response. The fence was starting to creak under his weight so he stood back up without it's help and his chest expanded a little with the relief of getting away from the permeated smell of the man. His legs started to twitch in a nervous little niche and he just wanted Gerard back, really.

Gerard would know what to do, he would know whether this man was bad or good. He didn't want to stand here in the permeated near-storm leaning as far away from the fence as he could, trying to figure out just what was happening.

"So, how are you, wiL?"

He sniffled a little and mumbled, "M'good," around his sleeve. He took another few glances up at the road and sighed. Gerard's car wasn't turning into the road that they lived on. He hadn't been expecting it, really, but it would have been nice to see Gerard's car. That meant that Gerard would be here, and they could go inside and not get soaked.

The man followed his gaze, smacking his lips together for some reason. "You lookin' at something?"

"I'm waiting for Gerard to get home..."

"Gerard? Issat the other boy who lives here? The...um, what is he?"

WiL didn't know what the man meant so he stayed quiet. He could mean a lot of things, he could mean the boy who takes the trash out, the one who drives to the grocery store, the one who makes comic books, anything. All of those applied to Gerard.

"The rockstar?"

*

Despite preconcieved notions, wiL did actually know how to use a computer, somewhat. He stayed away from it mostly, because Gerard's laptop showed all of the words in English, and wiL really prefered French if he has to do any reading, but he'd settle right now.

God, he'd settle for anything that could give him the truth.

At first, he didn't believe the old man, because--well, old men could be senile and not know what they were talking about sometimes. Once, he'd had a man who thought he was a girl the entire time he had him, even though wiL was so obviously male and had male parts and a deep voice. So it wasn't such a big deal that the crazy senile man who smelled bad thought Gerard was a rockstar, nah. Gerard was pretty fucking hot, and had the same look that a rockstar might, but that didn't mean anything.

He dug Gerard's laptop out of his art studio and carried it downstairs to the kitchen so he could sit it at the table. It hadn't been used for a while, not since Gerard had logged onto it to show wiL some toy car he was buying off of Ebay, and took a long time to start up.

But when it does, after wiL has found the right buttons and was on Google, and typed in Gerard's name--

Wikipedia pops up first, telling wiL all about Gerard's childhood in Bellville, about his mom and brother and little things that wiL already knew, but then. Frontman for My Chemical Romance. And hell, why couldn't Gerard have told wiL this before?