The Kiss of Vanity Blessed Me With A Spiritual Murder

Gerard's face looks kind of paler than usual in the mirror.

It's probably just because of the stupid fluorescent lighting, but it's still making him uneasy as he's sniffing abruptly and trying not to get any dye on his shirt. It always makes his head itch when he first applies it to his roots, and it stings a bit, too, as if his scalp is punishing him for letting them grow out so much. He'll think of it sooner next time, he promises it to himself, and shoves a plastic bag over his head when he's finished.

His room is cold, but he likes the breeze, and he leaves the window open again despite his mother's plea from this morning to keep it shut because of the moist. He can't help himself, he hates feeling like he's suffocating- he gets a weird kind of claustrophobia when there isn’t enough oxygen in the room, and everything seems to trap around him.

His breathing is soft but his hands are shaking anyway, they always are, even as he puts some random record on for background noise. It's some old, dark punk rock, raw as hell, but it flows through the air just right, and Gerard can feel it relaxing the muscles of his back as he lights a cigarette. It barely catches, and he reminds himself to buy a new lighter soon, but he puts that thought at the back of his mind as he lets it go blank for a moment or two.

The plastic bag is smushed between his scalp and the hardwood texture of his headboard, he can hear it whenever he tilts his head upwards to take a drag. It's calming; in a sense- Gerard is one of those people who can find a chunk of peace only in the harsher kind of noises. He isn’t sure what he means by that, but he still understands- it’s mostly just the fact that muffled background noise makes other, unexpected ones quieter than they should be.

It's already close to sundown when he reckons that 30 minutes had passed, and he flicks the butt of his third cigarette out the window.

He's always loved the way all the foam turns lavender blue after it's left his hair black, and he can't help but to appreciate the flow as it's traveling towards the drain. He just watches it disappear for a few moments- he sometimes wishes he could follow the blue, along with the one inside his head.

His hair reminds him of oil tar again, now that the dye is renewed, and he flinches uncomfortably at the thought.

He rinses the remainders out of his hair quickly, cursing at his own clumsiness when the shampoo gets into his eyes. It smells like fresh daisies, green tea and early spring peaches, and it reminds him of his old home so much that he wonders if he'd maybe deliberately brushed it over his eyelids just so that the pictures would come back. They're abstract, some just fractals of forgotten memories while the others are pretty live and vibrant inside his brain- they make him feel like his younger self is dancing over his imagination and pushing all the wrong buttons.

It makes him want to puke, so he turns the faucet to the right and embraces the cold that streams across his scalp in that moment; washing the unwanted thoughts away.

*

Gerard doesn't register that he's put his oldest, most faded band t-shirt on until his mother mentions it later.

“You’re going out. Not to bed,” she remarks, tilting her head to the side lightly. She looks like she’s studying him, but he’s so used to it when it comes to her that it doesn’t bother him as much as it usually would. Her hair is in her eyes and her shoulders are bare, and he can’t help but to wonder if it’s a good thing that he’s indeed inherited his mother’s shoulders.

“It’s comfortable. Besides, it makes me feel nicer,” he responds rather coldly, and it’s nothing unusual for him, but she still walks over and straightens it up for him. The sunset is shining lilac and China rose through the window pane, and her skin looks like it’s glowing in all shades of transparent mulberry right across the arm that’s currently fixing his collar. She always looks home as the sun is falling asleep.

“Prince of scruff,” she rolls her eyes, but reaches up and kisses his cheek.

He smiles, content, “Queen of compliments.”

She huffs at his sarcasm and lightly kicks him in the shin. “You’ll be late.”

*

The sky feels as if it’s about to combust anytime as Gerard’s docs are trying to grab to the sidewalk firm enough.

It’s pretty warm, but everything is in that post-sunset blue, and Gerard can’t help but to sympathize as his fingers are dancing and cramping uncomfortably against his thighs. He knows he’ll feel like an asshole if he chain-smokes all the way there, but his anxiety is making it three times harder not to reach for his back pocket and empty it whole. He’s a little uncertain on his feet- as if the ground is pulling him down like it knows it’s where he belongs.

He feels like checking if it’s possible to drown in any of these huge puddles stacked around the street, but he supposes it’d be too much trouble. Besides, he’s just dyed his hair; it’d be a waste- maybe next time, when his roots grow out again.

Jamia’s house is rather close, and if you look at it from an angle right enough, it will start feeling as if it’s threatening to eat you alive. Gerard likes it, though- he likes everything that looks sad and twisted enough to fit into his standards.
The lawn is mostly just dead weeds and there’s mud everywhere, but the stone path that leads to the front porch looks like it’s been spared by the rain. He isn’t sure if he’s supposed to step on the welcome mat but he somehow manages to ignore it, and before his knock has even reverberated down his fist, someone is already opening the door.

Ryan has flowers in his hair and his three quarter jeans are washed out and sliced above his bare feet and his smile is little, but genuine. Gerard dares to return it to him with a twitch of the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t actually think you’d come, to be perfectly honest.”

Gerard coughs, his stomach twisting uncomfortably. “I tend to surprise people. Well, not really. This just kind of happened.”

There’s a pause where all they’re doing is looking at each other, but then Ryan’s hand touches Gerard’s elbow, ghostly, so light that Gerard isn’t sure if he’s made it up or if it actually happened. “I’m glad you’re here,” Ryan offers, and Gerard can feel his face stretching into a smile.

The hallway is dark and narrow, but as welcoming as fawn walls and iron chandeliers can be. It’s antique and warm, and he feels calmer the moment he hangs his trench coat on the rack by the front door.
The carpet in the living room is dark marine and it suits Gerard’s mood well, while the walls are soft cream and enveloping some landscape paintings and black and white photographs like flame would a building on fire. There are a few people in the room but Jamia is the loudest, and she immediately comes up to Gerard when she sees him. “I told you he would come,” she huffs at Ryan, who just backs away slowly, and Gerard almost laughs at the way she squints her eyes at him. “Now, this is Pete- the heart and soul of the party.”

The dark haired boy stands up and smiles wide. All Gerard can really see is chin and teeth and straightened black hair, and even though he knows he’s red in the face he accepts the hand extended for him to shake. “I don’t usually do these queen-of-England kinds of gestures, but Jamia threatened to hurt my kidneys if I said or did anything rude.”

*

Blending in feels like home sometimes.

Jamia’s armchair is incredibly comfortable even for skinny jeans standards, and Gerard appreciates the fact his knees have stopped shaking after Jamia said he doesn’t have to refrain from smoking in here. He’s sitting by the balcony door and it seems as if he’s participating in the conversation, but he’s really just nodding his head whenever someone talks to him. He doesn’t think they mind; they understand.

At one point, when he’s gathered all the courage he has in his system, he asks Jamia if he could step outside to the balcony, just to get some fresh air and clear his head. He isn’t sure if she even heard him right because Pete is trying to annoy Ryan by singing some horrible song loud and directly into his ear, but she smiled and said ‘yes’ anyway.
He doesn’t like the floor of the balcony because it’s too neat to feel real, but the fence is made out of stone that seems as if it will fall apart any second now. Jamia’s back yard is simple and all he can really see in the distance are a few hills and a forest, but he likes how the remains of the sunset bit a light strap right above the horizon. It’s soon gone, just like half of his pack, and he’s reminded of his brother again when he sees the first few stars blooming in the sky. He always associates him with the sky- he supposes that it too is sad that it’s not looking down at him anymore.

“Mind if I bum one?” a vaguely familiar voice from behind him says, and Gerard’s breathing immediately speeds up when he acknowledges the fact he’s not alone anymore. He turns his head around as far as it can go, his feet still stuck to the floor stiffly, as if they’re silently forbidding him to move. He sees the messy hair and wide eyes of the guy from the library and his primary instinct tells him to run, but he’s aware that it isn’t an actual possibility right now. So he nods, a bit slowly, and hands out the pack without a word.

Gerard knows that his lighter is shitty as hell and that it needs to be flicked a bit sideways when you’re using it, but he isn’t sure how the guy figured it out on his first try. Maybe it’s just that Gerard is slow by nature and isn’t aware of how people’s logic works, but he’s at least figured out that he’s staring at the guy before he did.

“You need to get a new lighter, man,” he remarks, and Gerard just snorts obnoxiously. He’s a bit surprised when the guy chuckles at his reaction, but he just shakes his head and accepts the pack and the lighter with the hand that is trembling less. “I know you from somewhere.”

That’s when the lump in Gerard’s throat becomes a rock, and he can’t seem to swallow it as he tries to shrug his shoulders as indifferently as possible.

“Oh, I know. You’re the guy from the library.” He says it in such a tone that makes Gerard’s body freeze even though he feels like he’s suffocating from the heat in his stomach. He nods weakly, avoiding any possible eye contact for all he’s worth. “You’re not very talkative.”

It takes Gerard a moment, but then the rock from his throat turns into a bubble of hysteria that just somehow rolls onto his tongue. When it comes out, it’s in the form of a really loud, intrusive laughter, and he somehow feels as if it would be labeled as morally questionable by anyone who heard it. “I’m sorry, I just-” he wheezes out as his eyes are watering a bit, and he feels slightly calmer as he coughs out the rest of the bubble. He ignores the way the guy’s looking at him and uses the remainders of adrenaline to try to speak like a normal person.

“Why aren’t you inside?”

“Well,” he sighs before taking a drag, and Gerard notices the way his fingers curl just a bit against his jaw line while he’s doing it. He’s got nice hands, he concludes, and curses himself internally after he realizes he’s even thought about that. “Wentz hates me, I don’t particularly like Wentz, everyone else likes Wentz and they all kind of tolerate me. You do the math.”

Gerard’s stomach swirls a bit just because of the familiarity of it all. “Why does he hate you?”

“He thinks I’m all shades of fucked up,” he says, sour. He seems pretty distant, but the glint his eyes get after saying those words feel closer to Gerard than his own two hands do. “Why are you out here all alone? I mean, I’m here now, but that doesn’t count as much.”

Gerard sniffles a bit and grimaces at the sound, but finds his own mouth before his nervous brain does. “I suppose I just don’t know how to have fun.”

“Ha, the finest trait of a loser,” he says, and the words seem bitter and stingy, but they don’t hurt as much as they would usually. “I don’t know how to have fun either. Well, not in an acceptable way anyway.”

When Gerard doesn’t respond, the guy just sighs quietly and turns around. “I’m off. Thanks for the smoke. I’m Frank, by the way. Even though you probably don’t care.”

Gerard smiles a bit and looks at him sideways. “Gerard. Even though you probably don’t care.”

Frank smirks, “You’re right,” he starts walking towards the balcony door. “I don’t.”

Notes

yo. so, guess what, i'm alive. [i feel like i should be happier abt that than i am.]
since when does "hotel room with three beds" equal "hotel room with actually two beds and a pull out couch" ? if you know this information pls contact me at stumpbats.tumblr.com,, thanks.

so you met frank and hopefully realized he's an asshole. asshoe. ass. rabbit stereos.
i am not sure why my train of thought went there. i should probably get more sleep. [i probably would if i didn't have to sleep on a pull out couch in a supposedly three-bedded hotel room.]

yolo.
xomls