Wintertime (Frerard, Sequel to Summertime)

25: The Right To Maintain Your Aesthetic, Even In Death

Gerard hadn't said a word to Frank in regards to the burn.

Frank hadn't seemed to noticed it, or connected it all together, which led Gerard to believe that it hadn't even hurt, and perhaps if these injuries caused him no pain then they were indeed insignificant, but still, it confused him, because he was pretty fucking sure that this wasn't supposed to happen.

Of course, thinking about it, perhaps the injuries that he came into contact with in this state might have to go somewhere, but Gerard's first thought was his physical body, which he could leave to rot away with very little care, and not his still living boyfriend, who he cared about very much.

He wondered if it was something to do with their connection, and how it had strengthened recently, and that in turn led him to wonder if his connection to Frank was perhaps even stronger than his connection to his body, but still, he wasn't quite sure, and for the life of him, he couldn't quite figure out how this worked.

And he most certainly didn't want to worry Frank with something that, all in all, might amount to very little.

Especially, regarding what state Frank was in recently; he insisted that he was okay, but he seemed to have been forgetting that Gerard could feel the presence of his emotions, and that he most certainly was not.

The thing was, that dream, hadn't just been one dream, it had reoccurred three times now, every night following, and Frank had told Gerard that the dream followed very much the same structure, only growing just a little longer each night: Frank having followed the man down the stairs the second time, into the hallway the third time, and towards the front door the fourth night.

Gerard knew it was freaking Frank the fuck out, he also knew that Frank was more than excessively reluctant to discuss it in any form of detail, and as unhelpful as it was, he respected his boyfriend, and after all, dreams couldn't cause any immediate harm to him, and if it stayed just like this: following a man around a house, it seemed little but insignificant.

They both had a lot to think about, and for the past few days, the two had done very little, sitting in either their bedroom or the room with the big window, curled up together, exchanging very little in the way of conversation, and sometimes Gerard would draw, and sometimes Frank would text Brendon, but they really did very little more than think - time moving far more quickly now, and Gerard could feel it, and even though he knew Frank couldn't, he was still reluctant to give him much more to think about.

Gerard's artwork was now fuelled directly by his subconscious: wild, and unpredictable in nature, the kind of things he'd conjure up as a nineteen year old, and hey, perhaps that was just what this house did to him: the impact of memories, and the way he felt them physically and such, or perhaps the change was far more tangible, and in his head too, and not just his art.

He found himself thinking about himself physically a lot more; about who he'd been, when he was alive in particular, and about how this had all changed things. He found himself mentally making his way to the cemetery and searching for his own grave - something very few people could say they'd done, and somehow, that made it appeal to him, or perhaps he just wanted to roll his eyes at the epitaph.

Because Gerard hadn't made it to the funeral.

He hadn't made it to his own goddamn funeral, and it was down to the logistics of it all, really, unable to really control himself in that early stage, and finding himself attached more so to Frank than his body, because Frank hadn't gone to his funeral either, and Gerard didn't at all blame him.

But still now, he was curious what his family had left of him, he was curious in regards to his body too, he was curious what would happen so close to his body and so close to Frank - whether he'd get superpowers or something equally ridiculous, or maybe he'd feel again, even if just momentarily: emotions, strong, pure, and real - not just reflections of Frank's, which although certainly did the trick, never quite felt the same.