Pretty. (Frerard, Petekey, Ryden, Peterick)

18: Bob Bryar Craigslist Entrepreneur

"Gee, please." Lindsey's voice on the phone was firm but in fear: a pleading whimper, and that hardly mattered because Gee was far too stoned to even decipher what she was saying half the time, let alone look into her tone of voice and her choice of words.

In fact, he was possibly too stoned to even speak, and the silence proved it as he sat on the stained carpet of his now wrecked, once bedroom: eyes blurry as they spun around the room of their own accord and he tried to stop himself from forgetting where he was and who he was, but it seemed to be proving harder than the highly intoxicated twenty five year old had accounted for.

The phone thrown against the carpet on speakerphone, without a damn care as to whoever the conversation they shared as he came to accept that it would be rather likely that he would have nothing but his call log to prove this moment even happened by tomorrow morning.

And Gerard found himself strangely okay with that.

It was so weird how it only took only like fuck up to put everything into perspective and send his whole life toppling down like a little domino trail, except these were definitely stone hedge esque dominos because as they fell down, it fucking hurt.

It didn't hurt like this though, it didn't hurt when he'd forgotten the pain almost the moment he'd felt it, and it didn't hurt when his middle name was a concept he just couldn't quite grasp, and maybe this had reduced him to some sort of self-destructive vegetable, but hadn't everyone always said that vegetables were good for you and surely this state couldn't do more harm to him than he did in his usual pattern of tragic existence.

"Gee? Are you there?" Lindsey found herself impatient and concerned in the silence, which the twenty five year old had given her as his only answer, and Gerard only smiled, and it wasn't at her, and it didn't matter, because she couldn't see, and it was just at himself and how ridiculous it felt and with his vision as blurred as this, how the light streaming in through the window seemed to act like a ballroom for the dust dancing within it.

Gee couldn't dance; he didn't mind, he liked watching.

"Gerard?" She cried again, her voice with morning meaning this time, and perhaps enough to get Gee to listen, and this time he did find himself responding, but perhaps only for the immediate benefit her comfort in his existence would bring, and for that Gerard let himself be selfish, comforted only with the knowledge he'd probably forget all of this anyway.

"Lindsey." He repeated, his voice almost sarcastic and mocking in tone, and he was simply blessed with the fact that Lindsey was too worried about him to be offended, let alone make a big deal about how unacceptable what he'd just said was.

Gee swore she acted more like his mother than his friend most of the time, and that really wasn't a good thing, because she wasn't. She wasn't his mother, and she never would be - Lindsey was far too nice, and Lindsey cared, and Lindsey tolerated him for who he was, and maybe it was just nice having someone who cared about him like that.

But it was just a little game, a facade, and a facade that would soon wipe itself clean the moment his real mother reared her ugly head once more.

And let's just say, the facade was long gone by now.

And perhaps so was Gee's sanity as he rolled himself another spliff and popped another pill and tried to recite the alphabet but only go to the letter E, before he got distracted in the noises coming from down the phone line, because she'd started talking again and this time he wasn't even pretending to be listening.

"...please, Gee, I don't even know what you're doing, but you're being a fucking idiot and you need to come back - you just can't do this, please."