I never told you what I do for a living.

Gerard POV.

Pain is only here to protect us. To protect us from what is eventually going to kill us. Pain is the first sign that something is wrong in the body, may it be physical pain or mental pain. If you scrape your knee or you bump your toe against the furniture, you know something is wrong. And when you check it out to examine it, you can check it out if it needs some proper care or not, and then you just go on with your day. As simple as that.

Mental pain is way more complicated, simply because most of the time you don’t know what’s wrong with you. You can feel the aching numbness in your heart, you can’t bear to look at your own reflection in the mirror or just the most simple things as waking up become the most difficult task of the day so far. To others who haven’t experienced it, it is simply unexplainable. It’s just there and you can’t make it go away with a band aid or some over-the-counter medicine.

Sometimes I wish I could still sleep whole days away, coping with everything I was feeling would be so much easier.

Most of the time, I couldn’t even understand myself. At one point I couldn’t handle anything I was dealing with and the other moment I couldn’t give less than a fuck. Sometimes I would stare into the darkness so long I couldn’t even remember for how many hours I’ve been sitting on my bed.

But how can it be that pain can be so addicting, too?

If pain is meant to warn us, why am I being so attracted to it? If pain was meant to push me away as far as possible, how can it be that I want to be as close as I could get?

Pain had become a trusted friend. It just was always there, never leaving my side. When I cried, it was there, when I was happy, it was still there, as complicated as that may sound.

I recognized it in Frank and that was the hardest part. Frank had experienced the same pain as me and even more important; Frank caused me the pain I was addicted to. The old trusty feeling that would never leave my side, but it felt good. It felt familiar.

The look in his eyes before I walked away, revealed everything I ever needed to know. He was familiar with this feeling and it was here to keep him comfort for the time that I would be gone. It was like I could hear the cracks that formed in his heart, as if I could hear it shatter. At that moment, my own heart shattered too.

When Frank was gone, my pain turned into anger, from anger into rage, from rage into loneliness and from loneliness into jealousy. The anger was felt from the abandonment and the rage felt from pure frustration of not being able to do something. And loneliness... Well; I don’t think that needs a clear explanation. I found my mate and I realized it only when he was gone.

The jealousy I felt was from a whole different caliber. I was jealous at Frank and I was jealous at death. Frank had death and death had Frank and I wanted both. I wanted Frank to be mine and mine alone. I was jealous of death because I was tired of living, I just couldn’t go on anymore. The fact that I had tried too many times to kill myself, and it never worked, explained why I was jealous. I felt rejected and alone.

When I look back on my past life, I hadn’t experienced more emotions that just dull pain in all sorts and shapes. The feeling of being lost. The feeling of grief. The feeling of hopelessness; it was all too familiar. It was almost boring, almost. It kept me busy, still.

The sort of emotion that washed over me when I saw Frank standing on the other side of the square, I hadn’t felt before. There was a warmth building up in my chest that felt like it was going to explode within the minute. I wanted to run to him and kiss him and to never let him go again.

But instead of doing what I wanted to badly, I did the exact opposite. My feet froze to the ground and my head was spinning. My mind was going crazy because I just couldn’t actually believe it was him. I was sure my mind was playing tricks on me again and I had the feeling that this was all a dream or that I was hallucinating, this simply couldn’t be real.

I turned around and ran, I had to get away from the chaos in my head. I ran away from the square, up into the forest. The tornado of thoughts and memories that was forming inside of my head, wasn’t going to be stopped by itself so I needed to get away as soon as possible.

The pain I felt all these months, caused me to not trust myself anymore in which I couldn’t see what was real and what wasn’t.

I ran into the dark forest until my lungs gave up. When I looked around me, I could see nothing more than just trees, darkness and a pale and heavy moon shining above me. There was nothing more to hear. The muffling sounds from the screaming at the square disappeared and the only sounds that surrounded me were the sounds of an owl flying by or the sonar from a bat that was flying over my head.

I let myself fall against an oak and I slid down. I curled myself up into a ball, knees folded against my chest. This just wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be real.

He died in my arms. I went to his grave and I had actually seen him be put in his coffin. I was there when they closed the coffin. How? Just how?

I needed to go back to the cemetery. I needed to see what had happened, because this just all felt like a hallucination to me.

~

The cemetery was dark and quiet. The heavy feeling of grief washed over me as soon as I arrived. Still afraid to find the answers I was looking for, but oh so desperately to find out. On the other side, I didn’t want him to be in that coffin. I wanted him to be alive again so I could tell him what I felt and more important; what I found out about myself regarding to him.

When I walked towards the mausoleum, my steps became heavier and the cold air I was breathing in, became smothering. With the mausoleum in my sight I couldn’t concentrate properly anymore and I almost stumbled over some random stones.

When I arrived at the mausoleum, I softly pushed open the door, being afraid of what I would find. And the thing I dreaded so much, became the truth.

His coffin was pushed open, and the faint smell of blood hung in the air like velvet. My legs became weak from the shock and I fell onto my knees. As soon as I hit the cold, marble floor, I started to cry. All this time I had beaten myself up over his death, I blamed myself and I wanted to be in his place and as soon as I started to get used to this, he suddenly pops up out of nowhere. Not to forget that Hayley turned into a beautiful vampire because of him.

Everything just went so fast and I couldn’t keep up. Everything that was happening around me confused me and I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t.

I softly started sobbing, not knowing something approached me and kneeled next to me.

“Finally, there you are.” A voice said softly. He put his arms around me and hugged me tightly.

I recognized the voice. As hell I did. I was too scared to open my eyes, scared that it would be a dream after all.

“Gee…” he sighed. He softly caressed my cheek with his thumb.

“Open your eyes and look at me.” He whispered into my ear.

“No...” I sobbed into his chest. My hands were almost clawing through his clothes, afraid that he would be gone again the second I would let him go.

I was so confused. It felt like my mind was playing tricks on me and at this moment, I was too mentally unstable to keep up with the rhythm of happening events. First Hayley who appeared in front of me with her teeth into some humans’ neck, then all the chaos from the people who were afraid, and to top it all off; Frank standing right in front of me, smirking at me like nothing ever happened.

Then it hit me. The pure frustration and anger from the past months started to pour out of my system and as much as I regretted it, I started to hit Frank in his chest. It didn’t want to cause him any pain, it was just bottled up emotions flowing out of my system. Luckily I didn’t hurt him, because after all, I was too weak to actually hurt him.

Frank hushed softly at me as he grabbed my wrists to calm me down. He didn’t hold me firmly, he just took my wrists so I would calm down a little.

As Frank held my wrists down, I opened my eyes to look at him. It was very hard at first, the tears that kept building up didn’t help my vision, but after a few moments I could see him clearly. I almost forgot how beautiful he was. And his scent, oh yes, his scent. It smelled like being safe and coming home at the same time.

Time stood still when I looked him in his eyes. He didn’t change at all. He was still the same. The look in his eyes was gentle and caring and he smiled softly at me, his fangs still showing through and his eyes still full of hope.

“Gee, are you okay?” he asked me.

“I... what? Am I okay?” I asked him, suddenly feeling very offended.

“Yes?” he asked confused.

“Am I okay!?” I started raising my voice.

“Am I okay?!” I repeated. ”You were gone for four months. I arranged your funeral, you died in my arms, I visited your grave every day, and then you ask me if I am okay?!” I continued. I became angry at him, how dare he think that I am the slightest bit of okay after everything that had happened. He was gone for so long and suddenly he appears again and expects me to be okay with all this?

“Gee, I-I’m sorr-.” He mumbled.

“No, Frank, I know you can’t help it but what the fuck?!” I cut him off. My voice cracked at the end of the sentence.

He looked away from me, not knowing what to say. His breathing became hitched and his lower lip started trembling. He let go of my wrists and let his own arms hang loosely, looking surrendered.

“I just missed you so much and the first time I see you after all this time, I hoped you would be happy to see me.” he whispered and looked at the ground. He was defeated and didn’t know what to say anymore. When he looked at me, his eyes were filled up with tears, one escaping and rolling down his cheek.

Guilt washed over me when I looked at him. How could I be so selfish? I should be happy to see him, I would wait for him forever, after all. Even if it did take 500 years for him to wake up, I’d still be waiting for him.

“Oh Frankie… I’m so sorry…” I said to him. Suddenly I felt very panicky, afraid to have scared him off.

I wiped his tears away and took his face in my hands. He was cold, but it was the familiar cold I was used to. He is the answer to my sudden pain ebbing away. The skin on skin contact felt so good after all this time, even if it was only the contact on my hands. It felt otherworldly. Angelic almost.

I didn’t know what was going on between the two of us. In the past few months I’ve had so many new experiences that I just lost track, but it was worth it. When I looked at him, a storm arose in my heart and I knew this was where I was meant to be.

For a split second I looked at him and he looked at me. His eyes were still the same color as they’ve always been and they still had the same fire in them as I was used to. That was so typical about Frank, his eyes had this gaze and passion in them that I just couldn’t explain. I haven’t seen it in other people or other vampires, just only him. His eyes will always be mesmerizing to me, I was sure about that.

His eyes flitted to my lips several times, and I knew what he wanted because I wanted the same so desperately.

With my hands still on his cheeks, I slowly pulled him to me and before our lips touched, I could feel his breathing on my lips. That alone was enough to make me want him even more. He grinned one second before he hungrily pushed his lips against mine.

The taste on my lips was still salty from the tears I had shed, but he kissing me made it only more consoling. His lips felt like velvet against mine as they danced against each other.

We kissed lazily, there was little lust present, but even more passion. We didn’t kiss in a sexual way, it was just lovingly and I could make out from it that he just missed me the same way as I missed him.

I wonder what he was feeling when he was laying in his coffin. Could he feel? Could he hear? Was he even conscious? There were a bunch of questions floating in my head that I had to remember myself to ask Frank when the time was right. Right now, the only time was for us to be with each other and for me to make him feel welcome and wanted, something I failed to do so in the past.

Notes