Suspension of Disbelief, part seven

[lizhanne]

Title: Suspension of Disbelief, part seven
Rating: PG13 for this part
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Author’s notes Oh god, this story. I never thought I'd actually finish it, and posting the three final parts at last feels like putting away a part of my life. I wanted to complete it for veecious's birthday, and even if late in posting it got to the birthday girl on time. Hope you like it, Vee ♥.
Thanks to ky_betty for the wonderful beta job on this part, and to sourcream_onion, who was there from the beginning, and zephyrina for being amazing and whipping me when I needed it.
No altar boys were (or will ever be) harmed in the writing of this story.
Disclaimer: this is an AU; you can't get much faker than that, right?


- Part one
- Part two
- Part three
- Part four
- Part five
- Part six

Frank is fidgeting. He hates it, hates feeling restless, the constant nudge at the back of his head that he has to do something. Much as he wishes he could stop caring, he feels guilty. Gerard has been very kind to him, and Frank had every intention of being nice and friendly, but at the first sign of him wanting to talk, to ask questions, he closed down again, like a small hedgehog sensing peril. It’s stupid. He looks at Gerard, who’s nursing his cup of coffee and staring out of the window, looking – offended, maybe? No, he just looks intent on whatever he’s thinking, and maybe just a little bit sad.


While he’s trying to summon the courage, will, whatever, to go and talk to him, Ray spares him the effort. Gerard’s order is ready, and Frank has to go to his table anyway. He puts the dish on the table, wearing a shy, apologetic smile, but Gerard hasn’t noticed him, still lost in his thoughts, and he only looks up with a start when Frank suddenly blurts out “I’m sorry”.


Gerard’s eyes focus on him, and he smiles softly before replying: “What for?”


“For being an ass earlier. You’ve been so cool about the whole situation in your house, and all I can do is growl in your general direction. Even though I still have to understand if you’re incredibly kind, extremely stupid, or both.”


Gerard laughs at this, and Frank silently curses himself. “Shit, I’m not making things any better, am I? I’m sorry.”


“You’re repeating yourself.” The look in Gerard’s eyes is amused, not offended. “But I suppose you’re right, leaving people alone in one’s house in this area is not a good idea. I just couldn’t help it when I saw you.”


“Why?”


“Well, professional habit, I guess. I can’t stand the sight of misery and must do something to help, it’s in my job description.”


Frank is aware he’s grimacing now. “Really? You’re the first one of your kind who seems to think that and actually do something instead of preaching.”


Gerard cocks an eyebrow. “Frank, I was joking. I would have done it anyway.”


“Then, as Ray says, you won’t last long here.”


“Ray’s your friend, I suppose?” Gerard seems amused as he throws a look in the direction of the kitchen.


“Yeah, he’s pretty much the only friend I have. He’s a great guy, just a bit of a gossip.”


“Been gossiping about me, have you?” Gerard’s right eyebrow keeps shooting up, punctuating his words. Frank wonders why he hasn’t noticed that before.


“Yes. Well, no, not exactly, but…” There’s no way in hell Frank’s going to tell Gerard what Ray said about him.


Before Gerard has the time to answer, Frank’s attention is diverted by the door opening and he stands up, turning to greet the new customers. Only they are not new customers. They have never been at the diner before, but that’s not the point: they’re not customers, because they’re his parents, and they are the last people he wanted to meet tonight. They can only mean trouble, and actually they do look mightily pissed off about something, or even more pissed off than usual, since that is their standard reaction when it comes to Frank, lately.


“What are you doing here?” are his first words to them, politeness be fucked. Even if he knows he technically didn’t do anything wrong in leaving, guilt is his Pavlovian response to his parents, and anger is his only way of expressing it.


Ray, clearly wondering what the hell is going on, pops his head out of the kitchen door, only to disappear right away the moment he sees Frank’s parents. He probably doesn’t want to make even more of a scene, remembering the last time Frank’s father saw him, and Frank can only thank him in his mind.


His mind, by the way, is not a nice place right now. The frown on his father’s face and the sad, wounded expression on his mother’s are way too familiar to him. He tries to keep the growing buzzing noise in the back of his mind down, concentrating on his breathing. The diner is usually a quiet place for him, but he’s too upset right now.

“Frank, we expect you to come home tonight, after you finish working.”

At that, Frank almost laughs. Of course, his father doesn’t ask, his father expects. Frank’s mother is standing right next to him, her mouth in the usual tight reproachful line. He gets nauseous just seeing it, and for a second he’s tempted to give up and go back to his safe and miserable life. The temptation to give in and accept the routine of self-repression and sadness, just to avoid fighting and confrontation, is so strong it catches him by surprise.

No, he thinks, no. His head is already killing him and he feels the first symptoms of the vertigo that always assaults him when he’s fighting, shadows pulling at the edge of his consciousness as soon as he lets his guard down. He’d like to scream, shake his head and see if it would clear his mind, but his voice is strangely low-pitched, if a little tense, when he opens his mouth and simply replies “No.”

It’s not what his parents were expecting, of course. The colour on his father’s cheeks intensifies into purple at the same time as his mother’s mouth almost disappears, so tight she’s pulling it, and he can feel the scream that is about to come. He can almost visualize it, gathering strength in the air between him and his father.

Right as he’s about to scream first, just to shut him up shuthimupshuthimup, Frank feels someone gripping his right wrist, pressing down urgently as if to say Stop. He stares at his hand, startled, and recognizes Gerard’s white fingers, curled around his wrist. When Frank looks up and stares at Gerard, puzzled, he simply mouths “Let me handle this,” silently and steps in front of him, cutting the tense line between Frank and his parents. Suddenly exhausted, Frank relaxes – no, that’s not the correct term, he collapses on the inside, too tired to even think – and watches numbly as Gerard smiles congenially at his parents, suddenly looking like a priest for the first time since Frank met him.

Frank doesn’t even bother listening; he doesn’t care what Gerard is telling his parents, the only thing he cares about is that they are shutting up at last, and the noise in his brain is calming down. He closes his eyes and rubs at his temples, and when he opens them again and looks up, Gerard is ushering his parents out of the diner, smiling and shaking Frank’s dad’s hand, as if nothing was wrong.

They don’t look convinced and his father’s eyes are steely cold when he looks at Frank before going, but his mother is nodding at Gerard and most importantly, they are going away. As soon as they’re out of the door, Gerard turns to him and lights up a cigarette, inhaling as if his life depended on it.

“What the fuck did you tell them to make them stop?”

“Bullshit,” Gerard replies, waving his cigarette in the air and taking a big gulp of coffee. “I’m all for respecting your parents and shit, but I didn’t like the way they were talking to you, and I can’t see what you might have done that’s so bad to allow them to treat you like garbage. I made up something about you coming to me for help, and how I’m going to make you pray and talk and think about your life.”

Frank laughs, he can’t help it – his mother would have paid for something like this, years ago.

“My mother probably pissed herself in joy, man. Thank you.”

“Oh, wait before you thank me,” Gerard says, rolling his cigarette between his fingers as he avoids Frank’s eyes. “I’m not letting you roam the streets after putting my ass on the line for you tonight. You’re coming back to my place, and tomorrow we’ll see what we can do about you. And we’ll talk, whether you like it or not.”

Frank is so vehemently against this idea that he does not even know how to express it, but he’s also too tired to argue, to connect his thoughts to proper words. He’s barely opened his mouth when Gerard interrupts him again.

“I’ve known you two days and I already see that you cannot fucking live like this, Frank. I don’t care what happened, no one should live like this. Let me at least try, and if you don’t want to talk, that’s fine. Just come and sleep on my couch, let’s call it a ‘thank you’ for making my kitchen decent again.”

Well. Having a place to sleep for one more night doesn’t sound bad, and Gerard does make him feel sort of relaxed when he’s around, for some reason. Frank can use tonight to rest a bit, get some decent sleep, and tomorrow he can look for a place.

“I really, really don’t want to talk about myself,” he starts, “but that... would be nice, thank you.”

“We’ll see. And that’s good, good. Now let’s get you home.”

Ray signals to him from the kitchen to go, he’ll take care of closing down, so Frank gathers his stuff and gets in the car with Gerard, who demands the keys and drives. The mist has turned into light, drizzling rain, and Frank watches the moving wipers as they go.

*

When they get home, Gerard can tell that Frank, be it exhaustion, stress or simply the fact that it’s freezing cold outside, is freezing. He almost has to drag him out of the car and inside, because Frank seems to have dropped back into the trance-like state of supreme tiredness he was when they first met.

“Come on, get inside,” he says, and locks the door once they’re both in. The house is warm and comfortingly dark. He tries the living room switch but the light doesn’t turn on.

“That’s my fault, sorry. I wanted to buy you a new light bulb but I had no money today, I’m getting paid tomorrow. I’ll get it before I go to work,” Frank mumbles, rubbing his eyes.

He looks so exhausted. Something clenches in Gerard’s chest and for a second he would like to hug him, just to see him relax – even if he’s pretty sure that would have the opposite effect instead.

“I shouldn’t have come here again, I’m only a bother, I’m sorry. And if anyone finds out about me here, if we get caught, you might get shit. People talk, and usually not in a good way.”

Gerard was ready to reply that really, it’s nothing, and not to worry, but now he stops and thinks about it for a second. Yeah, he probably might have problems if someone finds out he’s keeping Frank here, but he really doesn’t care. He has nothing to hide, and he also has the feeling that it’s time someone did something for Frank. It’s also selfish, maybe, just a bit.

The idea isn’t clear in Gerard’s brain, but he hasn’t felt so awake in months, and he suspects that having to concentrate on someone else’s problems instead of living in his head all of the time is helping. Why exactly it had to be Frank, he doesn’t know. Right now, he just smiles reassuringly and steers him to the kitchen.

“Let me be the one to decide. And maybe we won’t. Get caught.”

He swallows around the sudden knot in his throat, and starts making coffee. Frank doesn’t say anything about having coffee this late at night, he just sits at the table and picks at a loose thread on his jeans.

When Gerard hands him his coffee, Frank doesn’t drink it, though. He just wraps his hands around it, as if to warm them up, and inhales the steam rising from the mug. Gerard doesn’t exactly know what to do or what to say. he’s tired himself, and he doesn’t want to seem pushy, but he’d really hoped that Frank would drink the fucking coffee and regain some energy, so that maybe they could talk.

Putting down his mug on the kitchen counter with a sigh, Gerard excuses himself to the toilet to piss, and when he comes back Frank isn’t in the kitchen anymore, the barely touched mug sitting on the table.

It only takes Gerard a minute to find Frank in his bedroom, sprawled on his back and already apologizing.

“I’m sorry,” Frank says with a small smile, “I thought I’d just crash for a minute while you were in the toilet, and I couldn’t get up again. Your bed is so fucking comfortable.”

Gerard smiles and shakes his head, glad to see Frank smile at last.

“It’s okay, you can sleep here and I’ll have the couch, your day was much shittier than mine.”

“No, don’t be an idiot, it’s your bed. I’ll move in a second.”

Frank seems to be holding his breath for a second, his thoughts visible through his eyes.

“Sit down with me for a while? I don’t know why and I don’t want to sound weird, but you make things quieter in my head.”

It’s good that the room is almost completely dark, because Gerard can tell he’s blushing right now. He can tell that Frank is not hitting on him or anything, but the situation is a little awkward. He sits down on the bed anyway and stretches a little, leaning against the pillow and trying to avoid brushing against Frank. They stay there, completely still, for five, ten minutes, or at least Gerard thinks – he’s starting to wonder if maybe Frank has fallen asleep, but he’s not.

“Alex,” Frank says. “His name was Alex.”

Gerard doesn’t say a word, almost holds his breath, afraid to stop him. He stares at the shadows on the ceiling, ghosts of cars passing outside in the grey light of mist and streetlamps.

“We were in school together. Volunteered to put up the Christmas decorations, and I thought he liked me, I really did. I kissed him and he freaked out. I was kicked out, my parents... My parents weren’t happy. That’s it. Nothing glamorous, nothing tragic, nothing -weird.”

As if he didn’t have his suspicions already, the way Frank seems to linger on the word “weird”, as if trying to play a Jedi mind trick on him, confirms that there must be more to the story then what Frank’s telling him. He’s about to ask, gently, trying to find the right words, when he feels Frank shivering lightly beside him. Fuck, he’s an idiot. Frank’s tired and cold and probably needs to sleep.

He gets off the bed and takes the spare blanket from the closet, turning to give it to Frank.

“I’m sorry, you are still cold and need to sleep, here is one more blanket if the one on the couch is not eno-” and then he shuts up, because Frank is sleeping already, mouth slightly open and hands resting at his sides. He can’t bring himself to wake him up.

“Goodnight, Frank,” he whispers, mostly to himself, and closes the bedroom door, taking the spare blanket with him.

Eight