We hadn't spoken.

Nothing had been spoken: not a sound, not a whisper, since I let the words slip and I let us fall down into a slippery mess of silence and missed glances that never turned out to be what we intended them to be.

Perhaps an apology would have fixed this; perhaps an apology would have fixed everything, or perhaps it wouldn't have, but we never got to find out because Gerard was arrogant and I was far too self pitying, and I was struggling with the concept of hating Gerard right now, because I wanted to, but I didn't, and I just... I couldn't.

He'd driven us up to the next town or something, but by now I hadn't the slightest clue as to where we were, because this wasn't some fucking honeymoon perfect adventure - this wasn't anything like that, this was just us and the mess falling into the ground around us and I knew by now that I was destroying myself by still being with him, but I loved him and my heart overweighed my head, and right now I was pretty certain that if my head tumbled right off my shoulders right now I would barely even notice.

I jumped a little, flinching like an idiot at the click of his lighter, lighting what was probably near to his hundredth cigarette in this damn car that someone would eventually grow to care that he didn't own - hell, he didn't even have a fucking driving license, surely we were all so fucking fucked if the police even did so as to bat an eyelash in our direction.

Gerard, of course, found himself utterly oblivious to this, leaving me to break down in a state of worry for the both of us as he drowned himself in nicotine and I looked at my cellphone up on the dash and considered just fucking calling his mother and telling her where we were, but that made me feel like the older of the two, and Gerard the teenager calling himself an adult for nothing more than egotistical reasoning.

He acted like a fucking fifteen year old like this and he seemed all too reluctant to admit that fact. He acted like a fucking fifteen year old who thought he was the coolest fucking piece of shit ever because he managed to bum some cigarettes off some hungover senior kid, and then I realised that Gerard wasn't acting, Gerard was just that kid, or at least what that kid had grown up to be, and I almost buried my head in the backseat as I came to piece together just how fucked up his head would be right now.

He killed his ex-boyfriend, he shot his ex-bestfriend, he ended the life of someone who changed his fucking life, even if not for the better, it still made an impact, and here I was thinking all about myself, and the fact that he hadn't taken some fucking pills, and none of this mattered in the slightest when I met his gaze for the first time and saw the tears in his eyes and his teeth dug down deep into his bottom lip, almost willing it to bleed.

And we just stared at one another for far too long entirely, because I didn't know what to say, and I couldn't say anything, and even if I managed to get accept what he was feeling and what had happened, that we'd still have the problem of convincing him to accept what he'd done and getting him to let me call Mikey and turn this car back around, and still then we'd have murder allegations that we'd struggle with and as he'd said, Bert's gang to hide from, and all due to perhaps one fucking cigarette Gerard got off some guy when he was fifteen.

And it almost scared me how such seemingly small decisions could pretty much turn your whole life around in what seemed like an instant, and it hit hard as I came to accept that right now, and right here and the two of us would probably define what happened with the two of us for the rest of our lives, and that only made what I said to him right now all the more important as I felt my head falling apart at the concept of where we'd even go from here in the long run.

Things weren't working and that was obvious, and I wanted them to work more than anything and perhaps that was even painfully obvious and really I would just kill to know what Gerard thought and what Gerard wanted, but the silence made clear as to just how unrealistic such a demand could be. But I soon came to realise I had no long term plans as to what I wanted to do with my life or with Gerard and I for that matter: I was simply naive enough to think that as soon as we got back home and Gerard was on medication that everything would be fine.

But nothing would.

Because maybe I didn't quite want to go back to living just yet, because I needed to do something with his life and I needed to make my mind up about Gerard, because reality would say that things wouldn't last, and things didn't look all that good right now, but I was hanging on far too tight and for what I could never know, but I'd never let my grip slip on the asshole lighting another cigarette in the front seat.

And even approaching the subject plaguing my mind would probably kill the both of us, but I didn't even know what mattered right now and if that did at all, because right now it was just Gerard and I and some highway in a place I didn't know the name of: a temporary escape that created more problems than it solved, but it seemed to do a pretty good job of putting them off just long enough for us to grow up and accept how we'd end up dying and how we'd hate living.

"I'm sorry." I started with an apology and he froze, obviously not having expected the fact that I would have uttered a single word at all, but really, the reality of it was nothing more than bone crushing presence of inevitability.

"For what?" He asked after a few moments had passed, pulling the lighter away from his lips and putting the nearly lit cigarette back in the packet in a gesture that meant entirely too much to me.

"For thinking about myself, and not about you." I told him, my words seeming to reverberate in the silence: Gerard's eyes almost empty as they fixated upon the front window and the traffic zooming past on the road we'd pulled up by.

In the silence I climbed over into the front seat beside him, letting my gaze follow his and my breath to hitch as his hand made its way into mine, and then everything seemed to just disappear, but not into silence, not again, as this time it was my turn to jump as Gerard spoke.

"I'm sorry." He corrected me, his eyes never meeting mine though and his hand getting clamming against mine like he was nervous and he was never nervous, so I guess this at least had to be important for him. "I said some shit that, it wasn't, it wasn't okay."

"And I forgot that you could actually be upset about the fact that you shot your ex-boyfriend for far too long entirely, because I think about myself too much, and I think of him how he is to me and that only, and I never even consider who he used to be to you and how you can never quite erase that - for better or for worse."

"He fucked up my life." Gerard’s tone was snide, almost like he didn't quite believe what he was repeating and it was almost as if they were the words of some therapist simply pushed into his head and through his lips.

"And I guess you fucked up his in the end." I admitted, not sure as to exactly what worth my words brought at all and just how long it would be before one of us punched the other in the face because it felt like it was coming soon for sure.

"I guess." He mumbled, his fingers reaching for the cigarette packet, before stopping himself and meeting my gaze like something had finally clicked in his brain, and really, from that look in his eyes, I almost dreaded to know.

"Frank, do you really think the medication will help me or are you just like the rest of them?" He asked, his words sincere and his eyes open wide in a manner that left me nothing more than utterly perplexed.

"What do you mean? Of course it's going to help - that's what it's for, and that's why I'm concerned, that's why your mum and Mikey are concerned about you not taking it." I told him, eyes wide and concerned, because seriously I both dreaded and yearned to know just what on earth went through Gerard Way's mind on a regular basis.

"I don't want to be some psychiatric ward patient that no one gives a fuck about. I don't want to be controlled or shit, I just.. I don't want to be dangerous; I don't want to be psychotic... I don't want to be mad; I just want to be... I just want... I want us to work out, you don’t, and I'm destroying myself over that. I just don't want to go home where you can go off and ignore me for the rest of your life: it's selfish but I'm selfish and I don't want to let you do that."

"Gerard, of course I wouldn't... I love you... I... I thought you didn't want us to work out, I mean, I only want us to go home so we can sort things out properly, because as much as you hate to admit it, Gerard, you need to take the fucking pills and you need to sort things out with your family, and, and so do I... but we can sort out Bert's gang later, because one fucking bunch of assholes shouldn’t reduce you to running away and ruining your life, because Gee, I want us to last, but I know we're not going to last out here, like this."

"So what do we even do? When I drive us back to Jersey and I take some pills and my mum will hate me for eternity and then you'll go back to school and Mikey will go back to hating us and everything will just bubble out into nothing." He exhaled, slamming his fist against the dash and swearing just a little at the impact, leaving me to catch my phone as it slid off the surface.

He met my gaze as I held the device in hand, guessing what I wanted to do within instants because he was Gerard and he mattered far too much right now and all there was between us was so tangled and messy and complicated that no matter what we said or even wanted, we could never truly separate and we could never truly be nothing to one another.

"You want to call them, you want to tell them what's happening and you want to 'fix' this, but I'm scared Frank, but I'm scared, I'm so fucking scared and I hate being scared because I'm never scared, but I am, and I am so scared, because I don't want to lose you and I don't want to lose us and my head's spinning even thinking about what could happen-"

"Then don't." I finished for him: a small smile making its way upon my lips. "Don't think about what could happen and think about what is happening and think about the fact that I love you and that I don't want to let this go and that Mikey is probably going to cry when you come back home and just how amusing that will be."

"I'm enough of an asshole already than to laugh at my own brother crying." He smirked a little though, pulling the seatbelt on around him in a manner that left me wide eyed and mouth gaping for entirely too far as he struggled to piece together just what was happening. "Promise me something though, Frankie? That even when we get to the inevitable, that I will fuck up, you'll give me another chance and that you won't just leave, because I hate to admit that you're the only thing that matters right now."

"I'd never. You matter more than anything, I promise you that, Gee."

"Well, I guess, go on then, call them, and tell them that I'd rather Mikey waited until tomorrow before he punched me in the face, you know, my face kind of hurts from trying not to cry right now-"

"Gerard you can fucking cry. I don't care: I love you." I told him, looking at him so strangely, because really the thought that he was scared of crying in front of me made me want to punch myself in the face, and even if that felt or even seemed stupid, I couldn't care less right now, because maybe this was all stupid, and maybe the thought of Gerard and I working out was just damn stupid, but I didn't care, because it was our kind of stupid.

"Never before have I had a request to cry, you know." He told me, a smile pulling at his lips, and almost breathing air back into my lungs as he almost seemed to relax down into the seat beside me, grabbing the packet of cigarettes and pocketing them before turning to me with a full smile, and for once I felt like flying.

"Shut up." I teased, rolling my eyes, yet I could never truly be angry with Gerard, especially not now, especially not with that smile and especially not with the hope that for once, everything was truly going to be alright, because right now my head was spinning like hell and the cellphone was shaking in my hand as future and its possibilities loomed ahead.

"You know, Frankie..." He let out a sigh, throwing his head back against the seat, placing his hands on the steering wheel as he considered starting the car and starting an entirely new chapter of our lives: right now we both knew that things could only go in two directions from here - terribly, or beautifully, and it was just that the bad always seemed to stand out more than the good, especially in minds dwelling and drowning in all too familiar pessimism. "I'm really... I'm really scared."

"Why?" I asked, certain that what I'd said had encouraged him a little, and then again Gerard just wasn't the type to cry, or the type to be scared, but then it hit me that there wasn't a type, there was just the people who were too scared to let their emotions out: too scared to be scared.

"Because... because... I don't know what's coming and I'm not prepared and anything could happen, and I could die, and this sounds so fucking stupid, especially from the suicidal fuckup, but Frankie, I'm really scared of dying..." He exhaled, his words far too heavy against his chest as he almost struggled to get them out without drowning in his own tears. "I... just... there's so much to do and to say before you die, I mean, I just want to get it right... I want to time it right, and this sounds so fucking stupid; this is just lock me up in a mental asylum stupid, but when I die... I don't want it to be random or anything... I want it to be planned... I want to do it myself..."

"But how would you know when life really didn't have anything else for you?" I spoke into the silence after far too many painfully silent minutes in which I attempted to piece together just what Gerard had just told me and simultaneously, he tried not to give up and run away once again, because really, he reckoned by now that running away from his problems was seriously the only thing he was good at.

"I don't know..." He trailed off, his eyes hitting the floor as his mind was swamped with memories of a time he'd done his best to bury. "I always thought it was all over, I mean... like before I met you, but then I did meet you, and everything just kind of changed, because there was always just something about you, Frankie, and I just... I don't know what it is or how you did this, but you changed my view on a lot of things."

"I'm scared too." I finally broke the silence with a confession that snapped the tension in two with his gaze immediately connecting with mine like he couldn't quite believe the truth I'd just uttered. "I'm only eighteen, I mean, I have nothing really. I don't know what I want to do after school and that's far too soon now, and I have no real family, I'd say my best friend is my music teacher and it's questionable whether Mikey or Pete actually hate me or only dislike me... I have no ambitions, and I just have you, and that's not permanent, I'm like a bullet fired from a gun by accident, aimed at nothing - free-fall and only one thing's for sure, and that's that I'll most definitely be nothing but a destructive force."

"It's our choice if we're permanent, Frank." He uttered in response, turning the key in the ignition and causing my heart to start almost simultaneously with the vehicle. "And right now, I know that we both want to make this work, and really, I guess, I guess nothing's certain, nothing's permanent, and there's nothing we can count on, but right now, and right now is what matters, I know we both want to make this work, and maybe we should just stop worrying about the future and the consequence of every single action and just live in the now."

He started the car up, turning onto the road, catching my gaze for nothing more than a second: no longer than necessary for him to pass me a smile, and only long enough for me to smile in response as his head turned, turning away to the road.

"You can call them, if you want." He added, his voice back to its usual demeanour of arrogance and self-concocted self-righteousness, but really, I was far too glad to have it back. "I don't care, either way... it'll make a nice surprise, I guess."

But it was then I noticed his phone lying on silent in the backseat: caller I.D. displaying a name that it couldn't and a name I never wanted to see again - Bert.

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Hey guys:) I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and after all I reckoned I needed to pick things up a little with the cliffhangers;) Anyways I'd appreciate it if you could leave a vote/comment if you enjoyed, and I love you all<3