They Outlawed Love So We Do It In The Dark
Ignorance Is Strength
Gerard wakes up from his dream with most of his back drenched in sweat, already cooling in the morning chill while his t-shirt is still stuck to his skin. It’s a horrible sensation, but he dares not to show any disgust on his face lest the telescreen sees it. He’s never had a chance to talk about dreams with anyone else, but he’s sure if they do suffer from nightmares as much as he does, they’ll keep their mouths shut about it. It’s never wise to reveal your mind’s deepest corners to others – it’s more or less the only place you can keep a sense of self. Besides, they’d probably think he’s neurotic, and these little details that render you different, render you abnormal – they’re best to be hushed up.
Just seconds after Gerard gets off his bed and starts folding up the sheets, the telescreen lets out a shrill cry to announce that it’s seven hours. A female voice subsequently sounds from the little machine, and Gerard wants to grumble. It’s the daily morning exercises again, or as they call it, the Physical Jerks. He has to fight to keep the frown off his face as the female instructor delivers, in that ever-enthusiastic voice of hers, “Good morning, comrades! Alright, stand up now!” Gerard’s never liked anything to remotely do with the sports, but Physical Jerks are mandatory. So he swallows down all his unwillingness, careful to keep his face fixed in grim enjoyment, while his mind wanders off. In his dream he saw the dimmed faces of his family again. They’re almost blurs, the memory of them so ancient that his mother’s face could be the same as the woman he passed by on the street the other day, but somehow his brother’s face stays clear. Mikey, that was his name, and they must have been really close as kids because Gerard can sometimes still feel the engulfing hugs he used to give Mikey. They are now no more than phantom imprints on his body, but it is enough to tug at his heartstrings. He doesn’t really remember how he lost touch with his family – most days he’s convinced they’re nothing more than dust and ashes now, but it must have been before he was even a teenager, before he was given a place in the Outer Party. Somehow it feels like he traded his family in for survival, and this morning he wishes, more than ever, that he was resting beneath the ground with them.
A yell of his name from the telescreen anchors him back to the present. At least that’s the only time he’s called on, and he counts that as a victory.
Every morning, except the weekends, Gerard takes the subway to commute to New York City. NYC is a regional capital city – at least, that’s what Gerard’s been told in school. He’s never really travelled out of the tri-state area, then again, he supposes only the members of the Inner Party have access to such privileges. He’s just one of the many Outer Party members working in NYC’s own branch of the Ministry of Truth, which is responsible for all sorts of media publication within Oceania. From a young age, the school has noticed his penchant for illustrating, and he’s at least clever enough to keep his original, less than orthodox creations out of sight when they recruited him onto the team that produces painfully propagandistic cartoons for the Party. Mostly he’s asked to recreate the style of the celebrated caricaturists that have gone down in history, legendary names such as Rutherford. It’s hardly creative.
Sometimes, he’d see a piece he’s helped work on, placed on one of the roadside posters, or published in The New York Times. They never arouse in him pride though – if anything, they just add to his ever-growingsense of self-loathe, because he’s an artist advocating a cause he doesn’t believe in. Yet almost at once, another feeling will rise in his chest, and take over – helplessness will swathe his entire being, because there is no other way he can get by. Without his job, he’d lose his title as an Outer Party member as well as the basic privileges he’s entitled to, and he wouldn’t survive a week in this city. There are few moments in his life when he is feeling neither powerless nor disgusted at himself. But then he realises, with a sinking feeling, that most days he’s already given up. It is almost impossible to keep one’s morals alive in a world where morals have been all bent out of shape – for decades.
Of course, one would easily go crazy, dwelling on this maddening subject all by himself. It is only morning, and there are still some things he can look forward to. So he turns to stare outside the windows on the train, just to give himself something to do.All he sees staring back at him is yet again a row of Big Brother posters, hanging vertically on the fronts of most buildings.They’re everywhere, that face always looming, watching. The expression lies somewhere between over-protective and menacing, and he can’t decide between the two. But one thing is for certain – to him, it’smost definitely creepy to find the moustached face following him wherever he goes, like some sort of newly-invented surveillance that gets under your skin. But it’s probably meant to evoke, in those unthinkingly devout Party members, a certain sense of belonging, if not pride.
And, as usual, sandwiched between the Big Brother posters, are the Party slogans, printed large and in bold.
WAR IS PEACE.
Gerard has never understood the true meaning behind these three sentences – they seem to make no sense, their paradoxical nature entirely too befuddling. He’s never questioned them either, afraid of the very likely possibility that he’d be labelled an enemy of the state. The three sentences are, after all, the nationwide doctrine. But, having grasped their full meaning or not, some long-forgotten, primitive part of him is quick to object whenever he sees the slogans. There was a time when his country celebrated true freedom, he’s as sure of it as he is of the fact that he use to have a family. Besides, isn’t it an intrinsic concept of mankind? No animal would willingly ask for enslavement, and he’d expect the same of humans.
Except, he knows, very clearly, that he is alone in this belief, because nobody so much as blinks an eye whenever they see the slogans. And they’re pretty hard to miss – the slogans are pasted all around the city. Most things are dead these days, he concludes. Curiosity is dead. Creativity is dead. True intelligence is dead. So it’s hardly surprising when the emotions that make humans, well, humans, are dead. Empathy, for instance, is certainly dead. But then there’s just no room for it anymore, and maybe that’s the bigger problem.
A prickling feeling on the back of his neck fishes him out of his thoughts, and Gerard whips his head around to find a few stares on him. It’s the blue suit, that just screams to the world his status as a Party member, that’s drawn their attention. Some of the stares are that of respect, some are of camaraderie, but what stands out the most to Gerard are the envious stares. He could almost scoff at that. There is nothing to envy about, being a Party member. He’d sooner live in the squalor proles are subject tofor just a taste of freedom, than be scrutinised for his every breath and movement.
Because the moment you become conscious of the fact that you’re lesser than a bug is when your days become numbered.
He spends the whole morning holed up in his cubicle, tracing lines and drafting the new one-panel. It isn’t that surprising, to be honest, because it’s what he does every day. He takes great care to not deviate from the instructions he was given earlier in the morning. The instructions were written in a heavily-abbreviated sort of Newspeak, and even after all these years it still seems more like a code that needs decrypting before Gerard can understand the message’s meaning.
Another thing that Gerard does every day is follow the throng of people headed for the elevators to get to the cafeteria when bell for lunch sounds. It feels very much like they’re sheep being herded into the lunch hall. And as usual, after he picks up his lunch tray, receives a gloopy mess handed to him on a plate as well as a mug of Victory coffee, and heads over to the benches, he sits alone, several seats away from the one other stranger that occupies his table. He counts to twenty in his head, and when none of the people from his department sit down beside him trying to talk about the horribly positive Party-issued news, he lets out his breath slowly and starts eating in as much peace as achievable in the crowded and noisy hall.
The blob of food on his plate is, as expected, a bit too much on the side of overcooked. Tastelessness is only a bonus, but Gerard’s taste-buds are already used to it. Well, almost. In a vain attempt to wash down the horrible taste of the food, Gerard takes a big gulp of coffee, only to regret his decision completely. He almost chokes on the stale and sour taste; he’d forgotten to dump in as much saccharine as they’ve given him to drown out the horrid taste. Gerard recalls a time in his life when things weren’t always so abysmal, when the coffee tasted less like watery bitterness and had real sugar to accompany it with, and chocolate wasn’t only accessible in black markets. Then, he thinks, nihilistic and amused, ‘abysmal’ won’t even be a concept in a few years’ time. It’s all the doing of Newspeak and its ever-receding vocabulary. The ideal Oceanian citizen would write, speak and read fluent Newspeak, without any apparent hints of Oldspeak in their every speech and thought. None of the present generations are able to do this yet, nor required to, but it is largely encouraged. Secretly, Gerard finds a sort of beauty in old-fashioned, long words that are about to become – or has already become – obsolete in this world. To him, they’re a lot more cultured and sophisticated-sounding. But he keeps this thought to himself – never, under any circumstances, must he let anyone else know of it – because while he is by no means the perfect Party member, being called out on digressing from the rest is the last thing he needs.
From The Principles of Newspeak, Appendix of 1984:
Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism.
It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050.
The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.
Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.
*
Evenings of work days are meant for partaking in any sort of social activity as long as it is held in a Community Centre. It is never advisable to spend long periods of time in solitude – that is a surefire way to arouse suspicion. But most days Gerard’s just too tired to make much of an effort, and tonight is not an exception. When Johnny (whose last name he’d never managed to remember) who sits in the cubicle across from his, asks him if he’s coming along to the Centre for a few drinks and a game of snooker, Gerard declines as politely as he can, bringing up his exhaustion as the reason.
“Well that’s a shame. Have a good night’s rest, I’ll see you tomorrow!” Johnny says enthusiastically, as if they’re old pals or something, and Gerard returns a small smile. He barely speaks to the guy, but it doesn’t hurt to hold up appearances.
Truth be told, exhaustion is only part of the reason Gerard avoids Community Centres. Evenings are also the only time Gerard may be free to spend some time by himself, just to escape from the world around him a bit, but that is not what he looks forward to doing tonight, no. When he commutes back out from the city centre by public transport again, he gets off the subway a few stations too late, coming up the stairs into the open air to find himself in the prole (short for proletarian) neighbourhood.
He’s still in his work clothes, briefcase in hand and the blue suit recognisable miles away, making him stick out like a sore thumb in the proletarian streets. He doesn’t really care though; in fact, he can hardly contain his excitement at the prospect of seeing him – seeing Frank – the second time this week again. Frank is, to put it bluntly, a prostitute. It’s not the prostitute part of that statement that’s surprising – perhaps the most successful business that has managed to thrive out here in the proletarian districts is prostitution, most of the men, especially those that are Party members, all too eager to put their bodily sexual frustration at ease. (It is never a psychological issue – the Party’s made sure of that, extinguishing the ability to love from a very young age.) And the proletarian women know how to charge enough to sustain themselves on this bordering-on-illegal business. What is surprising is that Frank is, well, a male prostitute, and that he has managed to get by this way for years. It is all too well-known that the Party advocates same-sex, monogamous relationships – for the sole purpose of procreation, of course. They even go so far to encourage artificial semination, or artsem, in Newspeak, so that there is as little sexual contact as possible. The point is to have the current Party members that are in their adulthood reproduce, so as to ensure that there is always a new generation for the Party to bring up, all obedient, unquestioning and eager to do anything for the Party. They enrol in the state-controlled youth group – the Little Spies, they’re called, and it’s exactly what it says on the tin. They’re horrid and highly dangerous – Gerard’s seen for himself, the lot of them savage and ready to denounce their own parents at the littlest mistake. It’s a relief Gerard’s never managed to have children of his own. He nearly shudders at the thought of how much worse his life can be otherwise – he’d have to watch his every step thrice as carefully to avoid arrest.
So it is truly beyond shocking when Gerard stumbles upon Frank one day, on his occasional escapades to the proletarian brothels. He had been looking for the usual – a quick fuck to get the tension out of his system, and hurry back to his apartment as soon as he can afterwards, without having to even remember the prostitute’s name properly. But then he’d seen the boy in the corner, androgynous-looking and more beautiful than any of the women Gerard had ever seen in his life, and he just couldn’t resist. He’d gone into it knowing it could only end in death, but he still went for it anyway. And now he’s in it too deep. He needs Frank – he needs to see him, almost as much as he needs to breathe air.
Somewhere down the road, Gerard realised he’s in love. Against all odds, Frank had confessed, in quiet murmurs, that he feels the same when Gerard had finally felt courageous enough to admit it out loud. And Gerard knows, right then, that he is a dead man. But he still gets out of his way to travel to Frank’s half-dilapidated neighbourhood as much as he can. Gerard remembers reading a book he’d found in his father’s study, when he had only barely just learned enough words to read the really simple children novels, and frowning because he didn’t understand at all the romance written across the pages. And now Gerard understands. It’s the best feeling in the world – to love and to be loved, and he can understand why the Party would have wanted to outlaw it from the start. Love can make people do things they wouldn’t have dared to otherwise – stupid and dangerous things, like risking certain death to just see, and know for sure, that the person you love is alive and breathing.
Gerard almost gives it all away, a smile starting to creep its way across his face, and he manages to suppress it until he’d found the entrance to Frank’s building. He slinks inside quietly, the stairs creaking under his feet as he makes his way to the top floor – that’s where Frank’s flat is at, and it gets plenty drafty during winter. Gerard remembers giving Frank his old woollen sweater as a Christmas present the first Christmas they’d spent together, and how Frank’s eyes had widened first in surprise, then in grateful wonder. He lets slip his smile now as he knocks on Frank’s door, tapping his feet against the floor as he waits for the younger man to appear.
But Frank never answers the door.
Just seconds after Gerard gets off his bed and starts folding up the sheets, the telescreen lets out a shrill cry to announce that it’s seven hours. A female voice subsequently sounds from the little machine, and Gerard wants to grumble. It’s the daily morning exercises again, or as they call it, the Physical Jerks. He has to fight to keep the frown off his face as the female instructor delivers, in that ever-enthusiastic voice of hers, “Good morning, comrades! Alright, stand up now!” Gerard’s never liked anything to remotely do with the sports, but Physical Jerks are mandatory. So he swallows down all his unwillingness, careful to keep his face fixed in grim enjoyment, while his mind wanders off. In his dream he saw the dimmed faces of his family again. They’re almost blurs, the memory of them so ancient that his mother’s face could be the same as the woman he passed by on the street the other day, but somehow his brother’s face stays clear. Mikey, that was his name, and they must have been really close as kids because Gerard can sometimes still feel the engulfing hugs he used to give Mikey. They are now no more than phantom imprints on his body, but it is enough to tug at his heartstrings. He doesn’t really remember how he lost touch with his family – most days he’s convinced they’re nothing more than dust and ashes now, but it must have been before he was even a teenager, before he was given a place in the Outer Party. Somehow it feels like he traded his family in for survival, and this morning he wishes, more than ever, that he was resting beneath the ground with them.
A yell of his name from the telescreen anchors him back to the present. At least that’s the only time he’s called on, and he counts that as a victory.
Every morning, except the weekends, Gerard takes the subway to commute to New York City. NYC is a regional capital city – at least, that’s what Gerard’s been told in school. He’s never really travelled out of the tri-state area, then again, he supposes only the members of the Inner Party have access to such privileges. He’s just one of the many Outer Party members working in NYC’s own branch of the Ministry of Truth, which is responsible for all sorts of media publication within Oceania. From a young age, the school has noticed his penchant for illustrating, and he’s at least clever enough to keep his original, less than orthodox creations out of sight when they recruited him onto the team that produces painfully propagandistic cartoons for the Party. Mostly he’s asked to recreate the style of the celebrated caricaturists that have gone down in history, legendary names such as Rutherford. It’s hardly creative.
Sometimes, he’d see a piece he’s helped work on, placed on one of the roadside posters, or published in The New York Times. They never arouse in him pride though – if anything, they just add to his ever-growingsense of self-loathe, because he’s an artist advocating a cause he doesn’t believe in. Yet almost at once, another feeling will rise in his chest, and take over – helplessness will swathe his entire being, because there is no other way he can get by. Without his job, he’d lose his title as an Outer Party member as well as the basic privileges he’s entitled to, and he wouldn’t survive a week in this city. There are few moments in his life when he is feeling neither powerless nor disgusted at himself. But then he realises, with a sinking feeling, that most days he’s already given up. It is almost impossible to keep one’s morals alive in a world where morals have been all bent out of shape – for decades.
Of course, one would easily go crazy, dwelling on this maddening subject all by himself. It is only morning, and there are still some things he can look forward to. So he turns to stare outside the windows on the train, just to give himself something to do.All he sees staring back at him is yet again a row of Big Brother posters, hanging vertically on the fronts of most buildings.They’re everywhere, that face always looming, watching. The expression lies somewhere between over-protective and menacing, and he can’t decide between the two. But one thing is for certain – to him, it’smost definitely creepy to find the moustached face following him wherever he goes, like some sort of newly-invented surveillance that gets under your skin. But it’s probably meant to evoke, in those unthinkingly devout Party members, a certain sense of belonging, if not pride.
And, as usual, sandwiched between the Big Brother posters, are the Party slogans, printed large and in bold.
WAR IS PEACE.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Gerard has never understood the true meaning behind these three sentences – they seem to make no sense, their paradoxical nature entirely too befuddling. He’s never questioned them either, afraid of the very likely possibility that he’d be labelled an enemy of the state. The three sentences are, after all, the nationwide doctrine. But, having grasped their full meaning or not, some long-forgotten, primitive part of him is quick to object whenever he sees the slogans. There was a time when his country celebrated true freedom, he’s as sure of it as he is of the fact that he use to have a family. Besides, isn’t it an intrinsic concept of mankind? No animal would willingly ask for enslavement, and he’d expect the same of humans.
Except, he knows, very clearly, that he is alone in this belief, because nobody so much as blinks an eye whenever they see the slogans. And they’re pretty hard to miss – the slogans are pasted all around the city. Most things are dead these days, he concludes. Curiosity is dead. Creativity is dead. True intelligence is dead. So it’s hardly surprising when the emotions that make humans, well, humans, are dead. Empathy, for instance, is certainly dead. But then there’s just no room for it anymore, and maybe that’s the bigger problem.
A prickling feeling on the back of his neck fishes him out of his thoughts, and Gerard whips his head around to find a few stares on him. It’s the blue suit, that just screams to the world his status as a Party member, that’s drawn their attention. Some of the stares are that of respect, some are of camaraderie, but what stands out the most to Gerard are the envious stares. He could almost scoff at that. There is nothing to envy about, being a Party member. He’d sooner live in the squalor proles are subject tofor just a taste of freedom, than be scrutinised for his every breath and movement.
Because the moment you become conscious of the fact that you’re lesser than a bug is when your days become numbered.
He spends the whole morning holed up in his cubicle, tracing lines and drafting the new one-panel. It isn’t that surprising, to be honest, because it’s what he does every day. He takes great care to not deviate from the instructions he was given earlier in the morning. The instructions were written in a heavily-abbreviated sort of Newspeak, and even after all these years it still seems more like a code that needs decrypting before Gerard can understand the message’s meaning.
Another thing that Gerard does every day is follow the throng of people headed for the elevators to get to the cafeteria when bell for lunch sounds. It feels very much like they’re sheep being herded into the lunch hall. And as usual, after he picks up his lunch tray, receives a gloopy mess handed to him on a plate as well as a mug of Victory coffee, and heads over to the benches, he sits alone, several seats away from the one other stranger that occupies his table. He counts to twenty in his head, and when none of the people from his department sit down beside him trying to talk about the horribly positive Party-issued news, he lets out his breath slowly and starts eating in as much peace as achievable in the crowded and noisy hall.
The blob of food on his plate is, as expected, a bit too much on the side of overcooked. Tastelessness is only a bonus, but Gerard’s taste-buds are already used to it. Well, almost. In a vain attempt to wash down the horrible taste of the food, Gerard takes a big gulp of coffee, only to regret his decision completely. He almost chokes on the stale and sour taste; he’d forgotten to dump in as much saccharine as they’ve given him to drown out the horrid taste. Gerard recalls a time in his life when things weren’t always so abysmal, when the coffee tasted less like watery bitterness and had real sugar to accompany it with, and chocolate wasn’t only accessible in black markets. Then, he thinks, nihilistic and amused, ‘abysmal’ won’t even be a concept in a few years’ time. It’s all the doing of Newspeak and its ever-receding vocabulary. The ideal Oceanian citizen would write, speak and read fluent Newspeak, without any apparent hints of Oldspeak in their every speech and thought. None of the present generations are able to do this yet, nor required to, but it is largely encouraged. Secretly, Gerard finds a sort of beauty in old-fashioned, long words that are about to become – or has already become – obsolete in this world. To him, they’re a lot more cultured and sophisticated-sounding. But he keeps this thought to himself – never, under any circumstances, must he let anyone else know of it – because while he is by no means the perfect Party member, being called out on digressing from the rest is the last thing he needs.
From The Principles of Newspeak, Appendix of 1984:
Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism.
It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050.
The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible.
Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.
*
Evenings of work days are meant for partaking in any sort of social activity as long as it is held in a Community Centre. It is never advisable to spend long periods of time in solitude – that is a surefire way to arouse suspicion. But most days Gerard’s just too tired to make much of an effort, and tonight is not an exception. When Johnny (whose last name he’d never managed to remember) who sits in the cubicle across from his, asks him if he’s coming along to the Centre for a few drinks and a game of snooker, Gerard declines as politely as he can, bringing up his exhaustion as the reason.
“Well that’s a shame. Have a good night’s rest, I’ll see you tomorrow!” Johnny says enthusiastically, as if they’re old pals or something, and Gerard returns a small smile. He barely speaks to the guy, but it doesn’t hurt to hold up appearances.
Truth be told, exhaustion is only part of the reason Gerard avoids Community Centres. Evenings are also the only time Gerard may be free to spend some time by himself, just to escape from the world around him a bit, but that is not what he looks forward to doing tonight, no. When he commutes back out from the city centre by public transport again, he gets off the subway a few stations too late, coming up the stairs into the open air to find himself in the prole (short for proletarian) neighbourhood.
He’s still in his work clothes, briefcase in hand and the blue suit recognisable miles away, making him stick out like a sore thumb in the proletarian streets. He doesn’t really care though; in fact, he can hardly contain his excitement at the prospect of seeing him – seeing Frank – the second time this week again. Frank is, to put it bluntly, a prostitute. It’s not the prostitute part of that statement that’s surprising – perhaps the most successful business that has managed to thrive out here in the proletarian districts is prostitution, most of the men, especially those that are Party members, all too eager to put their bodily sexual frustration at ease. (It is never a psychological issue – the Party’s made sure of that, extinguishing the ability to love from a very young age.) And the proletarian women know how to charge enough to sustain themselves on this bordering-on-illegal business. What is surprising is that Frank is, well, a male prostitute, and that he has managed to get by this way for years. It is all too well-known that the Party advocates same-sex, monogamous relationships – for the sole purpose of procreation, of course. They even go so far to encourage artificial semination, or artsem, in Newspeak, so that there is as little sexual contact as possible. The point is to have the current Party members that are in their adulthood reproduce, so as to ensure that there is always a new generation for the Party to bring up, all obedient, unquestioning and eager to do anything for the Party. They enrol in the state-controlled youth group – the Little Spies, they’re called, and it’s exactly what it says on the tin. They’re horrid and highly dangerous – Gerard’s seen for himself, the lot of them savage and ready to denounce their own parents at the littlest mistake. It’s a relief Gerard’s never managed to have children of his own. He nearly shudders at the thought of how much worse his life can be otherwise – he’d have to watch his every step thrice as carefully to avoid arrest.
So it is truly beyond shocking when Gerard stumbles upon Frank one day, on his occasional escapades to the proletarian brothels. He had been looking for the usual – a quick fuck to get the tension out of his system, and hurry back to his apartment as soon as he can afterwards, without having to even remember the prostitute’s name properly. But then he’d seen the boy in the corner, androgynous-looking and more beautiful than any of the women Gerard had ever seen in his life, and he just couldn’t resist. He’d gone into it knowing it could only end in death, but he still went for it anyway. And now he’s in it too deep. He needs Frank – he needs to see him, almost as much as he needs to breathe air.
Somewhere down the road, Gerard realised he’s in love. Against all odds, Frank had confessed, in quiet murmurs, that he feels the same when Gerard had finally felt courageous enough to admit it out loud. And Gerard knows, right then, that he is a dead man. But he still gets out of his way to travel to Frank’s half-dilapidated neighbourhood as much as he can. Gerard remembers reading a book he’d found in his father’s study, when he had only barely just learned enough words to read the really simple children novels, and frowning because he didn’t understand at all the romance written across the pages. And now Gerard understands. It’s the best feeling in the world – to love and to be loved, and he can understand why the Party would have wanted to outlaw it from the start. Love can make people do things they wouldn’t have dared to otherwise – stupid and dangerous things, like risking certain death to just see, and know for sure, that the person you love is alive and breathing.
Gerard almost gives it all away, a smile starting to creep its way across his face, and he manages to suppress it until he’d found the entrance to Frank’s building. He slinks inside quietly, the stairs creaking under his feet as he makes his way to the top floor – that’s where Frank’s flat is at, and it gets plenty drafty during winter. Gerard remembers giving Frank his old woollen sweater as a Christmas present the first Christmas they’d spent together, and how Frank’s eyes had widened first in surprise, then in grateful wonder. He lets slip his smile now as he knocks on Frank’s door, tapping his feet against the floor as he waits for the younger man to appear.
But Frank never answers the door.
Notes
I deleted all the chapters 'cause I realised I forgot to upload this one - which is actually the first chapter *facepalm* And this site doesn't let me re-order the chapters after submission, so yeah.So yeah, my chapters tend to be long - but I swear, the lengths of rest of the chapters will never surpass that of this one.
@fiftyshadesofmrway
thanks for reading and leaving feedback ^_^ much appreciated :)
4/13/14