You should have never come

Gerard Way stands awkwardly among the other kids as Ballash counts them, making sure no one has gotten lost on the way among the trees and rocks or even worse, slipped and fell into the river unnoticed. That idea, which seemed totally legit to him, terrified him, and the panic in his eyes was evident. It made his face age slightly. He furrows his thick eyebrows thoughtfully, trying to remember exactly how many kids were even there in the first place. He knows it’s not 15, and yet the number doesn’t leave him alone. 15 kids. 15 kids.

Meanwhile, Gerard’s shoes are completely mud stained and soaked, and he can practically hear the “squish” sound his soles make with every step he takes, or whenever he shifts his weight from foot to foot. He can feel it too, the cold water running in between his toes, destroying his socks. He shivers, feeling the sun’s ungenerous warmth on the right side of his face, softly caressing him. It makes him even more aware of the cold around him, and he rubs his arms in an attempt to speed up the blood flow. A waterfall hike in the forest is the main reason for all this distress.

But even if the conditions of the walk happened to be more pleasant, it wouldn’t be easier for Gerard, and it would definitely not make him any happier. Not even a tiny bit. He feels blank and numb. His thoughts are occupied with Frank and his own hopeless stupidity, which weightens him down and which he can’t seem to shake off. And he has his reasons to worry, that’s for sure. And he definitely isn’t wrong about his being stupid, either.

Everyone has already noticed that Gerard is in a bad mood, but nobody has yet confronted him about it. Perhaps, no one cared enough to ask, or maybe they just saw that he desperately needed some alone time with his own thoughts. Even Diego, who himself felt a bit sick since the morning and now hardly had any will to communicate, stays almost completely silent, only once in a while whining about his wet clothes.

The two of them, unlike usual, quietly walk in front of the line, behind Ballash. Gerard has no desire to approach Frank and feel him breathe into their backs. He turns over his shoulder to look at him once in a while, always to be met with the same scene- Frank walking in the end of the line as he’s supposed to, but his head is hung low and his sad eyes seem to be stuck to the muddy road. He doesn’t have his earphones plugged in, which also seems to be off. Gerard isn’t sure whether he should feel sorry for him or not- he hasn’t sorted out what exactly happened yet. He can’t even judge whose fault the whole situation is, because technically, there is no situation. There is just the invisible barrier, which prevents him from talking to Frank, like a brick wall.

Gerard tries to analyse everything what’s going on. The scary part is, he knows that the barrier didn’t come up by himself. He knows that he, somehow, built it. He crafted it with his own bare hands. What’s even more terrifying, he has already experienced such barrier, and he knows how this kind of stuff ends. You know when you are on very good terms with someone, and once you don’t show them enough attention or sympathy. There can be various reasons for your distant attitude- annoyance, generally bad mood and everything in between. But after that, things become a bit awkward and then, without a warning, BOOM- the barrier is there, strong and shiny, ready to stand for centuries. You can’t even imagine talking to that person anymore. Gerard has no idea how that happens, but he has put up many, many walls like this in his 17 years. And it sucks, losing your friends to something unmaterialized and imaginary.

He tries to go back to the morning, moments before he went downstairs for breakfast. He remembers his line of thoughts as Frank hugged him tight in the empty hallway: an inexperienced sex toy for two weeks, not worth anything. Frank probably sensed the mood radiating off him, and noticed that Gerard wasn’t hugging him back, and felt the coldness in his speech. Gerard sprinting downstairs without another word was probably what finished the deed. He could have stepped over himself, he could have tried to explain to Frank that he thought they were going too fast… He could have worked his feelings out, but he didn’t.

Not all of Gerard felt guilty though- a part of him still wanted to blame Frank for having sex with him on the third day of what they both wanted to consider “dating”. He wanted Frank to be responsible for the heavy feeling in his chest- the feeling that indicated him that he did something wrong, that he missed a step. That he didn’t see something obvious, something he should have noticed from the beginning.

The hardest part about being separated by an invisible barrier is that none of the sides know what exactly happened.

Notes

Ayee i think im getting back on with this story

sorry if this chapter is kinda shitty