Chapter twenty nine - i'm supposed to love you

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"You thought I was a what?" Lisa asked, eyes wide and eyebrows threatening to disappear into her hair.

"I thought you were a prostitute." I said. The majority of the Aurora's crew had shuffled down below deck with us, and while a few men sat on the floor tending to their injuries, Lisa and I were talking quite amicably, like we hadn't just been trying to kill each other's friends.

Lisa spluttered, rather horrified at my observation. "Do I look like a prostitute?"

I shrugged again. "There's nothing wrong with being a prostitute," I mused. "Such nice people."

"But–" Lisa struggled to grasp for words. "What was it about me that suggested that I was a prostitute?"

"You were a female," I stated. "On a boat."

The furrow in Lisa's brow deepened, and she stuck out her neck a little, as if leaning towards me would somehow grant her access to my mind. She seemed to be having immense difficulty understanding why the whole woman-on-a-boat thing was such a significant factor in the hooker illusion.

"Women don't go on boats, Lisa," I said. "Unless they're hookers." I looked at her, leaning down a bit to study her face. She wasn't having much of a reaction.

"I suppose that's why every crew we fought looked at me so strangely. They knew I didn't belong even before I did."

"No, no," Captain Wentz said, materialising from behind Lisa and gently resting his hand on her shoulder. "I'm certain that it was because you were just so ridiculously beautiful that they couldn't look away."

Lisa flushed red, trying to hide her smile and failing. "Peter," she chuckled, and he tucked her hair back behind her ear.

There was no doubt that Lisa and Wentz were courting. I still had yet to figure out where I stood with Gerard, though. My disgraceful Gerard. (Yes. I was really starting to grow very attached to that name.)

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Gerard had been talking with Lisa all night. I had woken up early and shuffled down the hall to stretch my legs and kill some time, expecting the rest of the ship to be sleeping, but Gerard's cabin was illuminated by candlelight, the yellow-tinged glow spilling out under the door, and the quiet murmur of voices and stifled laughter echoed through the worn wood of the walls.

I thought it would be best not to disturb them; I was sure they would have a great number of tales to tell each other and would need a lot of time to catch up with each other's lives. I wondered what it would be like to have to relay my entire life to someone in a story. Life wasn't like a story to me. It was a tangle of contradicting emotions, being scared and disregarding the feeling and playing brave, and I couldn't imagine how I could ever describe that to someone. Even less could I imagine what it would feel like to hear of all the adventures of another's life when previously I had not even known them to be alive at all. So many possibilities would suddenly appear, possibilities of the future and the past– because all Lisa's recent past was to Gerard was a story, something unknown and intangible, and he would never be able to experience it the way Lisa did.

The floor was cold, and I had not bothered to put on shoes, so I reluctantly shuffled down the corridor and up the steps onto the deck. I don't know what I had intended to do once I had got up there- probably just aimlessly stare at the sea, or watch the black sky slowly fade to a bruised pink as the sun rose– but I didn't make it halfway up the steps: Gerard had slipped out of his cabin and followed me. He rested his hand on my forearm, touching the goosebumps on my skin, and I turned my head and stepped down so that we were at the same level. (I was still a step above Gerard, but alas, I was small, and hunched even smaller from the chilly morning air, so it equalled us out.)

Gerard rested his fingers on the inside of my wrist for a moment, and briefly, I could feel my own pulse under the light pressure of his touch. Then he loosened his grasp, and I linked our hands together and kissed him. I was breathing more shallowly than I would have liked and trembling from the cold, but I ignored everything but where our skin was touching, and where I could feel the warmth of Gerard steadily exhaling when I took a moment to gasp in a breath of air. "Damn it," I said softly, with a shaky laugh.

"Frank?" Gerard said. It was the first time he had called me anything but 'pretty boy' for weeks, and it was startlingly different to me. Somehow it was almost more intimate than the pet names I had grown so accustomed to him addressing me by.

I rested my forehead on his shoulder, and he ran his fingers through my hair, rubbing lightly at the skin below my ear. "Are we courting?" I mumbled. I was rather ashamed to ask. I felt as though if we were, I should already know, but if we weren't, then I was just making a spectacular fool of myself by asking.

"Of course not," Gerard said, and I felt myself turn red despite the sinking cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. "Courting is so formal, I despise the term with passion. We're lovers, darling."

I prodded Gerard in the shoulder for embarrassing me, feigning irritation, but when he ducked his head down and kissed me once I gave up the pretence and found myself smiling. Gerard could see my expression despite how ridiculously close our faces were, to my mortification, and he smiled roguishly, and promptly brought our mouths together again.

When I broke away, Gerard's eyes looked watery. "Thank you," he said, in the most honest voice I'd ever heard him use. "Fuck, thank you."

"For what?" I asked, surprised.

Gerard held my waist and dipped his head to kiss me again. Then he pulled back and pressed lips to my cheek. "For bringing my sister back," he said. "Even if she's not exactly the same as she used to be." He looked tremendously unsteady–almost as if he was going to cry. I didn't comment when he grasped for my shoulder and missed, then proceeded to bury his face in my neck instead. I continued to not comment as he tugged me with him to his bunk, where Lisa was lying, half asleep.

"Lisa," Gerard mumbled, poking at her shoulder, then starting to prod at her face when she didn't respond.

"What," Lisa grumbled. It wasn't a question, more of a begrudging signal to fuck off.

"Lisa, this is Frank–"

Lisa waved her hand unceremoniously. "Your lover," she said, without opening her eyes. "I know."

"Ah, of course. I left the door open." He seemed completely unbothered by that fact, so I pretended to be as well. (In actuality, I was mortified.) "Frank, I'm going to need to borrow your bunk," Gerard said as he quietly closed the door to his cabin, leaving Lisa asleep inside.

I furrowed my brow, and Gerard fidgeted, waiting for me to move so he could reach my bunk down the corridor. "Can't I sleep in it as well? There's definitely enough space–"

"No."

"Yes, there is, you fuck."

"I like to stretch out."

I huffed. "You can do that with me there, you cretin. It isn't like I take up the whole bed."

"This is the stupidest argument we've ever had, just get out the way, and–" Gerard struggled to push me out of his path, but I refused to budge. "Let me past!"

"Why are you so afraid to sleep in the same bed as me?" I teased.

"Christ, Frank, I'm not afraid. What do you take me for?"

My face twisted into a smile. "You're afraid."

"C'mon, Frank, I'm-"

I stepped closer to him, still not letting up, and watched his face turn red as I crowded him against the wall. "Afraid?" I asked in a low voice.

The line of Gerard's throat shifted as he swallowed, the pale skin of his neck flushing a faint pink to match his cheeks. "Yes."

I dropped my arms, aware of the change in focus, and let him lean on me in place of the wooden wall of the hallway. He didn't try to push past me.

Silent words lingered in the air. I knew he couldn't bring himself to speak his thoughts, and I wasn't going to ask it of him– although a quiet part of me did like seeing him as vulnerable as this, with his face pink and his hands shaking. I held his hands in mine, and brought his knuckles to my lips to kiss them. Gerard opened his mouth a little in an attempt to speak, but he failed again, and swiped his tongue against his dry lips before pressing his mouth shut and locking his words inside.

"It's all right," I said, looking up to meet his eyes. "I know."

Gerard nodded, and pressed his nose into my neck. He was cold. I was acutely aware of how warm I was.

I ran my fingers through his hair, and let him walk with me to my bunk. "I know," I said.

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