Chiaroscuro, Frank/Gerard, PG-13
Jan. 6th, 2006 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizhanneTitle: Chiaroscuro
Fandom: My Chemical Romance RPS
Pairing: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1876
Author's Notes: Written for the Suspension of Disbelief Challenge. This story is an AU, or better yet an AR (Alternate Reality), as you'll discover when you read. Extended notes, including the challenge prompt, are at the end of the story. I'd like to thank my friend Olga for helping me with research, and my wonderful betas![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
the_devils_weed and tarteaucitron.
Disclaimer: Lie: an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive.
Gerard sat in the dark garden, enjoying the moment of peaceful stillness that always preceded the rising of the moon. Frank would wake up soon – or maybe he should wake him up, Gerard thought, so that he won’t be late for work – and they’d have breakfast together before going out, but for now, he was happy to sit like this, alone.
He sat in silence, calmly blowing on his steaming cup of coffee to cool it a bit, letting his eyes get used to the milky lightness that was slowly etching shapes out of the dark background. When a check of his watch, halfway through his cup, showed him that it was almost late already, he got up and went back inside to wake Frank, while there was still time to do it gently, and – he thought with a smile – to stay in bed with him for another five minutes, too.
Moving quietly through the silent house, Gerard stopped in the kitchen to get a fresh cup of coffee for the sleeping beauty, and slipped inside their room, hastily putting the scalding mug down on the bedside table before he had to choose between dropping it or having his fingers permanently burned. The mattress sank slightly under his weight when he sat down next to Frank’s sleeping form, and he could see him shift and frown in his sleep as he crept closer, stopping a few inches from his face to admire the shadows drawn on his skin by the faint light coming in from the window.
One fingertip gently trailed down the curve of Frank’s cheek as Gerard leaned down to kiss him, murmuring “Good morning” against his lips, while Frank still refused to open his eyes. He lifted his hands to Gerard’s hair instead and brought him closer, his lips locking him in a kiss. Gerard knew that Frank could taste the coffee in his mouth, and that, invariably, this would make him open his eyes at last, and ask for breakfast.
“Did you bring some for me?”
Gerard welcomed the soft mumble of Frank’s sleepy voice with a knowing smile, shifting on the mattress to lie beside him.
“Of course I did, I know that it’s the only way to lure you out of bed… – Frank? Frank? What’s the matter?”
Frank had opened his eyes, but it was clear to Gerard that something wasn’t right: he was staring fixedly at him with a wide-eyed, panicked expression, rubbing his eyes violently every few seconds.
“Frank! Frank, you’re worrying me. What’s the matter?”
But he didn’t get an answer, at least not a coherent one, because Frank hastily got up from the bed, still looking wildly at Gerard and at the room, and stuttering “Your…your skin, it’s…the room, everything!”, he closed the window curtains and ran to the bathroom, locking himself in.
Half an hour later, a very puzzled and worried Gerard was sitting in front of that same bathroom door, uselessly pleading with Frank to let him in and tell him what was wrong. Unfortunately, the only thing he had been able to get from him was a pained “I’m going mad, Gee, I’m going mad”, that had done nothing to make Gerard feel better.
He sighed and leaned his back against the door, tiredly rubbing his eyes and trying to understand what could have possibly gone wrong, what the problem could be. Frank had seemed to be alright until he had opened his eyes – right, his eyes. Gerard turned to face the door again, and knocked lightly, resting his forehead on the cool dark polished wood.
“Frank? Are you…is there something wrong with your eyes?”
A soft rustling from behind the door was the only answer he got, but after a second the door was unlocked and opened, and Gerard cautiously stepped into the room. Everything was completely dark in there – Frank had closed the shutters and turned off the lights, and Gerard could barely make him out, sitting curled with his back against the bathtub, in the soft light coming from the corridor. He headed towards the switch to turn on the light, but Frank’s loud “No!” stopped him abruptly, echoing on the bathroom’s cold tiles.
“Don’t, Gee. Leave the light off, please.”
“Why, Frank? What’s the matter?”
“I…I don’t know. Everything’s strange, I think I am hallucinating…please, leave the lights off.” His voice was small and tired, and Gerard crouched next to him, reaching out to caress his face, but he could feel Frank tense immediately under his touch.
“Can’t I even touch you? Tell me what’s wrong, Frank…you’re driving me crazy here.”
“It’s just that – your skin. When I opened my eyes and I saw you, before…it looked – ” Frank bit his lip and shook his head, his eyes firmly closed again. Gerard could see his frown in the shadows, the worried lines around his eyes, and instinctively tried to touch him again, wanting to comfort him, but he stopped in mid-motion, remembering Frank’s previous reaction.
“I don’t understand, but…is there anything at all I can do to help you?”
“No, unless you can give me my brain back” – Frank grimaced, tilting his head back against the edge of the bathtub – “oh, but – yes, could you please call work and tell them that I won’t be going today?”
“Of course. Do you want me to call the doctor, too?”
“No, no doctors, please, Gee.”
Gerard shook his head, but he didn’t want to argue with Frank in that state, not until he calmed down a bit more, at least, so he started to get up, only to be blocked by Frank’s hand, clammy and tense on his arm but holding on to him anyway.
“Gerard?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
***
A couple of hours later, things had progressed a bit: Gerard had managed to make Frank get out of the bathroom with the promise of closing all the shutters in the house and keeping all the lights off, and they were now sitting on the couch, Frank curled up close to him but still not touching him, and refusing to eat anything. Gerard had convinced him to try some coffee and cereal earlier, but Frank had taken one look at them, even in the dim light of the bathroom – yes, they still had been in the bathroom then – and pushed them away with a nauseated expression, and closed his eyes, repeating meaningless things – “It doesn’t work, it’s the same, even if I close my eyes…”
Gerard’s concern was growing exponentially, not least because Frank still wouldn’t tell him what the problem was. He had gathered that it had something to do with his eyes, but what was troubling him exactly, he couldn’t understand. Frank didn’t want to touch him, wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t touch food – got sick just looking at it – and hated light even more than usual.
“Gee, I’m cold.”
Fighting his first impulse to warm Frank with his own body, hugging him fiercely until he could make all the fear and tension go away, Gerard nodded, realized that Frank probably couldn’t see him, and said that he’d get a blanket, getting up from the couch and promptly stumbling on something in the dark.
“Frank, my eyesight is good, but I’ll have to turn on at least one light if I want to get to the other side of the room without hitting every single piece of furniture on the way.”
He heard Frank shifting uncomfortably on the couch before he whispered an unconvincing “Okay”.
“Keep your eyes closed, it will only take a minute.”
The lamp on the small tea table next to the couch filled the room with a soft, quiet light, and Gerard reached the cabinet on the other end of the room with no problems, taking the first blanket he could find.
“No, not that. The other one.” Gerard turned, and saw with surprise that Frank had opened his eyes, and was now staring confusedly but determinedly at him, or rather at the blanket he had in his hands. “It clashes less.”
“What do you mean – it clashes less with what?”
“With…everything” – Frank gestured vaguely at the room – “the couch, the walls – everything.”
“Frank, I don’t understand what the hell you’re saying. This blanket is light, as the other one is, as the walls are. And the couch is dark. What’s the problem?”
“They’re not! They’re not! They’re…how can I explain it to you? They’re clashing, and violent, and different! Just as your skin was, this morning…it was alien, disgusting, as food is. And I can’t even close my eyes and make it go away, because it all looks the same in my mind and I’m going crazy I’m going crazy I’mgoingcrazy, I told you…”
Frank hugged himself, rocking back and forth on the couch, and didn’t even react when Gerard quickly crossed the room and embraced him, kissing his hair and gently stroking his back.
“It’s alright, Frankie, it’s alright. Go on, explain it to me.”
“I don’t know what happened, this morning I opened my eyes and…everything was different. The light didn’t seem to be enough, and you know I have good eyesight, especially with the full moon. You looked – your skin looked too alive, too alien to me, as does the food. It’s the contrasts! The contrasts are killing me, they make me go crazy – everything’s too different, too confusing. I don’t know what the hell happened, but I see everything differently now, and I don’t like it, I don’t like it, I want to go back to normal!”
Trying to ignore the panic in Frank’s voice, and battling his own uneasiness – Frank needed him to be calm, now, not to freak out and start calling doctors – Gerard held him tighter, pressing a kiss to his temple.
“Let me try and understand this. So you mean this room is not light, dark, and in-between? That the walls are different from the floor, to you, and those two blankets do not look the same?”
“No. I mean yes, I mean no, they’re not the same. They clash horribly, they make my head ache. But I can see they’re different.”
***
Frank sat in the black garden, trying to find some order in the chaos, as he had explained to Gerard earlier when Gerard had convinced him – after lots of crying and I’m sorry I can’t touch you, I just can’t right now – to go out and face the world in that new light, instead of hiding in the dark.
He could handle Frank not being able to look at him without shuddering, and not touching him – for a while, at least. Maybe. But he couldn’t handle seeing him so fearful and distraught, even if Gerard couldn’t even imagine what he would do if he found himself in the same situation. It must be horrible, he thought, having the soft light of the moon reveal chaos and confusion instead of the calming combination of darks and lights and in-betweens.
But looking at him from the porch, Gerard was struck by a sudden thought, and walked down the three steps to the garden, sitting next to him.
“Frank?”
“Hm?”
“Maybe, once you get used to this, you’ll be able to look at the sun, now.”
NOTE:
The prompt I was given was “Character suddenly gains superpowers”, and the challenge was to use it in an “original” way. So I thought I’d place it in a different reality, where it’s normal not to see colours, and have the character suddenly gain the ability to see them. I researched a bit on colour-blindness, and tried to reverse the symptoms to fit them to someone who normally can’t see colours, and now can, but does not even have names for them.
Fandom: My Chemical Romance RPS
Pairing: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1876
Author's Notes: Written for the Suspension of Disbelief Challenge. This story is an AU, or better yet an AR (Alternate Reality), as you'll discover when you read. Extended notes, including the challenge prompt, are at the end of the story. I'd like to thank my friend Olga for helping me with research, and my wonderful betas
the_devils_weed and tarteaucitron.Disclaimer: Lie: an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive.
Gerard sat in the dark garden, enjoying the moment of peaceful stillness that always preceded the rising of the moon. Frank would wake up soon – or maybe he should wake him up, Gerard thought, so that he won’t be late for work – and they’d have breakfast together before going out, but for now, he was happy to sit like this, alone.
He sat in silence, calmly blowing on his steaming cup of coffee to cool it a bit, letting his eyes get used to the milky lightness that was slowly etching shapes out of the dark background. When a check of his watch, halfway through his cup, showed him that it was almost late already, he got up and went back inside to wake Frank, while there was still time to do it gently, and – he thought with a smile – to stay in bed with him for another five minutes, too.
Moving quietly through the silent house, Gerard stopped in the kitchen to get a fresh cup of coffee for the sleeping beauty, and slipped inside their room, hastily putting the scalding mug down on the bedside table before he had to choose between dropping it or having his fingers permanently burned. The mattress sank slightly under his weight when he sat down next to Frank’s sleeping form, and he could see him shift and frown in his sleep as he crept closer, stopping a few inches from his face to admire the shadows drawn on his skin by the faint light coming in from the window.
One fingertip gently trailed down the curve of Frank’s cheek as Gerard leaned down to kiss him, murmuring “Good morning” against his lips, while Frank still refused to open his eyes. He lifted his hands to Gerard’s hair instead and brought him closer, his lips locking him in a kiss. Gerard knew that Frank could taste the coffee in his mouth, and that, invariably, this would make him open his eyes at last, and ask for breakfast.
“Did you bring some for me?”
Gerard welcomed the soft mumble of Frank’s sleepy voice with a knowing smile, shifting on the mattress to lie beside him.
“Of course I did, I know that it’s the only way to lure you out of bed… – Frank? Frank? What’s the matter?”
Frank had opened his eyes, but it was clear to Gerard that something wasn’t right: he was staring fixedly at him with a wide-eyed, panicked expression, rubbing his eyes violently every few seconds.
“Frank! Frank, you’re worrying me. What’s the matter?”
But he didn’t get an answer, at least not a coherent one, because Frank hastily got up from the bed, still looking wildly at Gerard and at the room, and stuttering “Your…your skin, it’s…the room, everything!”, he closed the window curtains and ran to the bathroom, locking himself in.
Half an hour later, a very puzzled and worried Gerard was sitting in front of that same bathroom door, uselessly pleading with Frank to let him in and tell him what was wrong. Unfortunately, the only thing he had been able to get from him was a pained “I’m going mad, Gee, I’m going mad”, that had done nothing to make Gerard feel better.
He sighed and leaned his back against the door, tiredly rubbing his eyes and trying to understand what could have possibly gone wrong, what the problem could be. Frank had seemed to be alright until he had opened his eyes – right, his eyes. Gerard turned to face the door again, and knocked lightly, resting his forehead on the cool dark polished wood.
“Frank? Are you…is there something wrong with your eyes?”
A soft rustling from behind the door was the only answer he got, but after a second the door was unlocked and opened, and Gerard cautiously stepped into the room. Everything was completely dark in there – Frank had closed the shutters and turned off the lights, and Gerard could barely make him out, sitting curled with his back against the bathtub, in the soft light coming from the corridor. He headed towards the switch to turn on the light, but Frank’s loud “No!” stopped him abruptly, echoing on the bathroom’s cold tiles.
“Don’t, Gee. Leave the light off, please.”
“Why, Frank? What’s the matter?”
“I…I don’t know. Everything’s strange, I think I am hallucinating…please, leave the lights off.” His voice was small and tired, and Gerard crouched next to him, reaching out to caress his face, but he could feel Frank tense immediately under his touch.
“Can’t I even touch you? Tell me what’s wrong, Frank…you’re driving me crazy here.”
“It’s just that – your skin. When I opened my eyes and I saw you, before…it looked – ” Frank bit his lip and shook his head, his eyes firmly closed again. Gerard could see his frown in the shadows, the worried lines around his eyes, and instinctively tried to touch him again, wanting to comfort him, but he stopped in mid-motion, remembering Frank’s previous reaction.
“I don’t understand, but…is there anything at all I can do to help you?”
“No, unless you can give me my brain back” – Frank grimaced, tilting his head back against the edge of the bathtub – “oh, but – yes, could you please call work and tell them that I won’t be going today?”
“Of course. Do you want me to call the doctor, too?”
“No, no doctors, please, Gee.”
Gerard shook his head, but he didn’t want to argue with Frank in that state, not until he calmed down a bit more, at least, so he started to get up, only to be blocked by Frank’s hand, clammy and tense on his arm but holding on to him anyway.
“Gerard?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
***
A couple of hours later, things had progressed a bit: Gerard had managed to make Frank get out of the bathroom with the promise of closing all the shutters in the house and keeping all the lights off, and they were now sitting on the couch, Frank curled up close to him but still not touching him, and refusing to eat anything. Gerard had convinced him to try some coffee and cereal earlier, but Frank had taken one look at them, even in the dim light of the bathroom – yes, they still had been in the bathroom then – and pushed them away with a nauseated expression, and closed his eyes, repeating meaningless things – “It doesn’t work, it’s the same, even if I close my eyes…”
Gerard’s concern was growing exponentially, not least because Frank still wouldn’t tell him what the problem was. He had gathered that it had something to do with his eyes, but what was troubling him exactly, he couldn’t understand. Frank didn’t want to touch him, wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t touch food – got sick just looking at it – and hated light even more than usual.
“Gee, I’m cold.”
Fighting his first impulse to warm Frank with his own body, hugging him fiercely until he could make all the fear and tension go away, Gerard nodded, realized that Frank probably couldn’t see him, and said that he’d get a blanket, getting up from the couch and promptly stumbling on something in the dark.
“Frank, my eyesight is good, but I’ll have to turn on at least one light if I want to get to the other side of the room without hitting every single piece of furniture on the way.”
He heard Frank shifting uncomfortably on the couch before he whispered an unconvincing “Okay”.
“Keep your eyes closed, it will only take a minute.”
The lamp on the small tea table next to the couch filled the room with a soft, quiet light, and Gerard reached the cabinet on the other end of the room with no problems, taking the first blanket he could find.
“No, not that. The other one.” Gerard turned, and saw with surprise that Frank had opened his eyes, and was now staring confusedly but determinedly at him, or rather at the blanket he had in his hands. “It clashes less.”
“What do you mean – it clashes less with what?”
“With…everything” – Frank gestured vaguely at the room – “the couch, the walls – everything.”
“Frank, I don’t understand what the hell you’re saying. This blanket is light, as the other one is, as the walls are. And the couch is dark. What’s the problem?”
“They’re not! They’re not! They’re…how can I explain it to you? They’re clashing, and violent, and different! Just as your skin was, this morning…it was alien, disgusting, as food is. And I can’t even close my eyes and make it go away, because it all looks the same in my mind and I’m going crazy I’m going crazy I’mgoingcrazy, I told you…”
Frank hugged himself, rocking back and forth on the couch, and didn’t even react when Gerard quickly crossed the room and embraced him, kissing his hair and gently stroking his back.
“It’s alright, Frankie, it’s alright. Go on, explain it to me.”
“I don’t know what happened, this morning I opened my eyes and…everything was different. The light didn’t seem to be enough, and you know I have good eyesight, especially with the full moon. You looked – your skin looked too alive, too alien to me, as does the food. It’s the contrasts! The contrasts are killing me, they make me go crazy – everything’s too different, too confusing. I don’t know what the hell happened, but I see everything differently now, and I don’t like it, I don’t like it, I want to go back to normal!”
Trying to ignore the panic in Frank’s voice, and battling his own uneasiness – Frank needed him to be calm, now, not to freak out and start calling doctors – Gerard held him tighter, pressing a kiss to his temple.
“Let me try and understand this. So you mean this room is not light, dark, and in-between? That the walls are different from the floor, to you, and those two blankets do not look the same?”
“No. I mean yes, I mean no, they’re not the same. They clash horribly, they make my head ache. But I can see they’re different.”
***
Frank sat in the black garden, trying to find some order in the chaos, as he had explained to Gerard earlier when Gerard had convinced him – after lots of crying and I’m sorry I can’t touch you, I just can’t right now – to go out and face the world in that new light, instead of hiding in the dark.
He could handle Frank not being able to look at him without shuddering, and not touching him – for a while, at least. Maybe. But he couldn’t handle seeing him so fearful and distraught, even if Gerard couldn’t even imagine what he would do if he found himself in the same situation. It must be horrible, he thought, having the soft light of the moon reveal chaos and confusion instead of the calming combination of darks and lights and in-betweens.
But looking at him from the porch, Gerard was struck by a sudden thought, and walked down the three steps to the garden, sitting next to him.
“Frank?”
“Hm?”
“Maybe, once you get used to this, you’ll be able to look at the sun, now.”
NOTE:
The prompt I was given was “Character suddenly gains superpowers”, and the challenge was to use it in an “original” way. So I thought I’d place it in a different reality, where it’s normal not to see colours, and have the character suddenly gain the ability to see them. I researched a bit on colour-blindness, and tried to reverse the symptoms to fit them to someone who normally can’t see colours, and now can, but does not even have names for them.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-06 09:53 pm (UTC)That really was original.
And after reading your note, I understand what is going on.
That is really cool.
Good job. ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 12:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-06 09:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 12:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-06 10:02 pm (UTC)♥
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 12:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-06 10:39 pm (UTC)*adds to memories*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-06 11:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-10 08:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 12:17 am (UTC)I'm glad you liked it, and that it doesn't work only in my mind!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-06 11:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 12:18 am (UTC)(thanks again!)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-06 11:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 12:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 12:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 02:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 11:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 03:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 11:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 03:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 11:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 08:18 am (UTC)did i mention awesome?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 11:50 am (UTC)N'aww, thanks! I was scared shitless that this didn't make any sense at all to anyone but me.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 09:30 am (UTC)if AR is alternative reality, is AU like alternative universe or something like that? me and my friend have been wondering.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 11:51 am (UTC)I'm glad you liked this! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 03:42 pm (UTC)this was just so fucking great, though.
♥♥
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-07 08:32 pm (UTC)I am glad you liked it, thanks! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-08 07:19 am (UTC)i really liked this! it definitely is an original idea. =]
xx
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-08 04:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-08 04:30 pm (UTC)brillant brillant idea.
♥
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-11 10:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-09 10:00 am (UTC)i loved this SO much.
it reminded me of that part in the giver but way awesomer cause frank was freaking out.
asdaklsd loved it.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-08 10:47 pm (UTC)what I foundwho's here again.Read it again, loved it again. ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-18 05:12 am (UTC)this was great :)