Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hii!!

I apologize for the long absence. Several things happened and this is the moment I managed to stabilize myself. I didn't give up on work and I appreciate the comments ❤️

Here is a short teaser video I made for this fanfic. A longer trailer is in the works and finally the first chapter will be posted :3

Chapter Text

?- When the flies fell.

I was born with tragedy in my blood. And that same blood is disappearing.

The sound of breaking glass almost rips through my ears and comes as a relief from the pain. Tears run down my face and I let them flow, as if this act releases the weight of everything. I look at the cut on the palm of my hand and the blood is still flowing, the rose on my other hand is the only thing that seems real now.

I have no idea which is worse: the vase breaking or Frank shouting and threatening to break down the door if I don't open it.

Apparently, the second sound isn't going to stop any time soon, so that's the worst.

"Open this shit now, Gerard!" Frank yells, now banging wildly on the door.

A minute ago, all I wanted to do was shout at my own reflection in the mirror until my voice disappeared completely. That would be enough time for the drugs to take effect, for all the blood in my body to escape through my wrists, in which case I would die of an overdose or hypovolaemic shock, a bit of both.

There would be no time to save myself. It was the perfect plan for the perfect occasion.

My biggest mistake was crying and shouting too loudly, so Frank started to get desperate and asked me to please come out of the bathroom so we could talk.

Who the fuck does he think he is?

The requests turned into pleas and the pleas evolved into threats.

All the psychologist's respect went away the moment I threw the fucking toilet against the door. He doesn't know that my hands now bleed more than my wrists - or worse, he doesn't know that I'm alive.

Oh, no. Frank must think I'm dead.

As soon as the glass broke, my outrageous crying was interrupted. There was silence on my part. That's when I started picking up the shards of glass with my bare hands - my glove is lying on the floor.

A genius idea for someone who wants to die of blood loss.

Close your eyes and disappear.

He has no idea how low I'm sinking.

"Gerard, I'm going to break down this fucking door!" Every word comes out like a punch against wood, a piercing scream that hurts me even more.

I'm Felix's Broken Heart.

"Go away, Frank!"

"I'm not going anywhere without you! I'm not leaving, dude. I need to see you, I know everything isn't right and I just want to help you!" Frank insists, his determination is surprising.

What I'm doing is going to tear you apart.

"No, you don't want to help me!" I shout, leaning my hands on the door. "How could you do this to me?! I... I trusted you..."

Sirens blare in the background. They're coming. It's an omen, a warning of what's to come.

I lean against the door and go to the floor, not caring if the shards of glass hurt me even more. The light in the bathroom flickers, reflecting off the huge piece of glass that I hold so tightly that my fingers throb. I hear a frustrated sigh from Frank. The handle is turned again, another attempt to get me out of here.

I don't want to come out of this bathroom alive. The police are coming, I'll be taken to death row and Jersey City will explode.

"Gerard... I just wanna help you..."

"So you've decided to call the police?" I don't let him finish talking. "That's your brilliant idea?" I say with sarcasm in my tone, followed by coughs.

"Listen to me, I didn't call the fucking police. I called an ambulance."

"What a difference, I'm going to end up behind bars one way or another."

"Nobody's going to be hospitalised, let alone arrested! Open this door now!"

The tears are choking me.

"I know how this works and you've thrown me in at the deep end. And you don't fucking love me! You betrayed me! You forsaken me!"

The door handle is turned once more, followed by an angry knock.

"Gerard, what the fuck did you want me to do?! Let you die?!"

Yes.

It would be much better than being stabbed in the back.

My breathing is heavy.

The glass slips out of my hand, falls and shatters even more on the floor. I look once again at my hands, bloodied and bruised.

And look, the haemorrhage has made me dizzy. I hold my hands up as if I'm praying, watching the blood drip from my palms, down my wrists and over to my elbows, from where it drips onto the floor. The cuts started to burn a long time ago, but I've only just started to pay attention to them. I can see the blood inside the blood vessels pulsing outwards.

I can feel death calling me.

Next to this pool of blood, I see one of the 12 roses that belonged to the broken vase. I pick it up smiling, careful not to hurt myself with the thorns. It's beautiful like all the others, it didn't deserve to suffer such a tragic fate, lying in a pool of blood with glass all around it. It didn't deserve to end up in my hands.

I didn't realise roses had thorns until I touched one.

"Gerard..."

Frank's voice comes back to haunt me, but it's bitter and weak. Is he crying?

"I'm sorry, please open this door..." he begs, his hand turning the handle again.

I didn't want it to come to this. I didn't want to hurt Frank, he's one of the people I care enough about not to leave alone when the world explodes.

He was the only person who made me not want to die.

Frank cared, so why did he call the emergency services? Obviously, he didn't want his favourite human being to die. I'm a complete idiot. He doesn't deserve to be going through something like this.

Frank made me exist.

I'm Felix's Restless Heart.

What am I doing? What do I really want? One last chance?

I'm sobbing non-stop, I feel so weak that my throat hurts with every tear that falls. Consumed by the end of life, the end that I myself proclaimed. I'm still holding the rose with trembling hands, my vision is blurred by crying and all I can see is a red blur. It's the rose, not my blood.

I don't want to have it in my coffin.

"Gerard..."

I don't want to rot in this bathroom.

"Frank" I finally call out to him, "don't let them catch me."

"Arthur, open this door."

"If they catch me, I want you to kill me."

Silence. He doesn't answer me.

The sirens are getting closer now, I'm regretting my bad decision as I try to organise my thoughts. If I make it, where will I go? To a place where pain can't follow me? Where nothing can get to me anymore?

"I'm not just talking about the police. And if I don't die, I'll continue to raise hell in your life. You'll see me go mad several times."

"You don't make my life hell, stop it..."

"I'm the fucking antichrist. I'm a loaded gun, a bomb with a fucking defect that explodes at any minute. I could have killed you if that door had been open... You said I was a hopeless case, you wanted to save me, but guess what? I'll never get better, Frank!" I punch the door, grunting in pain afterwards.

It was a shit idea. One of the shards got into my finger and must be circulating in my blood now.

The sound of sirens is almost deafening now and mixes with the sound of movement on the pavement. I see the red and blue light coming through the bathroom window and I freeze, putting my hands to my ears to shut out the noise.

What if I never find peace?

The creak of the door echoes and, before I can reflect on the mess I've got myself into, Frank walks in. I move away from the door, still on the floor. I can see the worry and panic on his face, his wide, watery eyes looming over me. He's crying and yet he looks like an angel from head to toe. He's just a blur with a glow so strong that can burn my eyes.

I made him fall apart too, and that made me cry even more. How could I do this to him?

I'm irreversible, Frank. Please leave me.

"What the hell have you done?" he asks, there's hesitation in his way of speaking.

I just give him a melancholy smile and shrug as I return my attention to the flashing lights outside. I can't say another word.

"Gerard, give me that razor!" he snarls and snatches the rose out of my hands. Frank throws it on the floor, away from me, and hugs me, just to get me away from the glass. 

I don't remember him being so strong.

Suddenly, I can see nothing but darkness.

My vision is completely gone. I feel life slipping away from me, and the siren becomes part of that chaos.

Is this the rock bottom Bert was talking about?

"Frank..." I whisper, pausing for a moment. "... What would you do if I wasn't here?"

Silence. And then another sound destroys me completely: a sob.

I can no longer feel him holding me and I start to despair, my hands searching for him in the total darkness. I'm alone again, just when Frank promised me he wouldn't let the angels of death take me. 

I started calling his name, whispering it through my sobs.

Frank, where are you? Are you gone again? 

What's going on?

I hear a bang outside the bathroom, the door of the room being smashed in and hurried footsteps coming closer and closer to where I am. Then I hear a voice still far from me. Isn't Frank. It's a deep voice, with an air of authority, and it seems to be coming from the corridor.

"We know where you are!"

I just need to know that everything is going to be all right. If I have a chance.

If Frank has a chance.

I feel several hands grab me at once and lift me up.

What am I about to lose?

Chapter Text

? - The Artist (in the Ambulance).

Hypocrisy begins when the current calendar marks a normal Friday, and not Friday the 13th, the date known as the "haunted day". So the problem isn't fate or God, it's me. Worse still, God must have a problem with me.

I've heard my family say that I'm incapable of thinking twice. If that weren't true, I wouldn't have made a huge series of mistakes in a single day. 

If I'd been less irresponsible, I wouldn't have completely ruined someone's life.

None of us would be standing in the hospital corridor, fearing that the life of that poor human being could vanish inside the operating theatre at any moment. And that, in the next second, the nurse might appear announcing that she couldn't save the boy or girl and that we need to decide whether or not to donate the organs. Then the police car parked outside will take me to death row. Everyone is invited to watch my execution, beheading-style in a public square. 

I'm in the sights of the police, the gazes of the three officers are shooting at me from there, at the end of the corridor. I've repeated the statement countless times and they refuse to believe it, even though it's a fucking lie. Gentlemen, I said, we didn't fucking fight. I would never do such cruelty to a human being - except the guilty ones, if they are considered human. Listen to me, I shouted, what we had was mutual! I loved her with my fucking life!

Gentlemen, it was an accident.

This version of events was cancelled out when the police saw my condition. My right hand was bandaged, blood staining the originally white bandage, resulting from a fracture of the metacarpal bone in my hand. It's the kind of fracture that anyone can get if they throw one or more punches improperly, such as not having a firm grip on the fist or having an inadequate technique, or both. 

Apart from the bandage, what most caught the police's attention were my bloody clothes, a bit of my face too, and the pan exploded when I told them it wasn't my blood. The grains flew all over the room, in flames, and even my boss was horrified.

Now I must be a potential suspect for attempted murder, bodily harm and...

Extra, extra! Fake psychologist arrested for trying to kill a cross-dresser. The suspect offered a can of Monster Energy to buy the victim's silence.

Morgana made me omit the truth from start to finish, but it was no use. The forensic examination will reveal, despite possible inaccuracies, what happened that night. And yes, I really wanted the police to know all the details or to pass them on to me, but Morgana swore she'd kill me if I fucked up.

To put it another way, Morgana no longer exists. She, or he, is anything but Morgana. I have to get used to that too. So her ghost is going to tug at my foot when I go to sleep.

The last request that so-and-so made to me, as well as from wanting to sink our relationship to the bottom of the barrel, is the opposite of the chaos that is happening:

"Save me."

I should've realised long before that there was something wrong with this person. My only duty was to keep her safe and I was completely useless. And I'm sure I'll go on without the answers I need, regardless of what news the nurse intends to give me soon.

The nurse has just come out of the room with a clipboard, the same one she's been holding since the start of the tests, with an apprehensive and sympathetic face that is noticeable despite the surgical mask. She approaches me when I stop walking in circles and looks at her intently, which must be a relief for Pete, who has been losing patience with my agitation since we arrived at the hospital.

The nurse greets the policemen with a nod and they reciprocate. The short, tense walk from the room to where we are is brought to an end, a few metres separating us. She takes another look at the file, checking the information, carefully removes her mask and begins to speak:

"Mr. Iero, are you responsible for Patient No. 1306?"

"Yes, I am. I mean, not exactly, but I'm the only contact so far... How is he?" I take a step forwards, my expression forlornly peaceful as I try to disguise my nervousness.

She watches us, now that Pete has got up from the bench and stood next to me while I spoke.

"The procedure went well, there were no complications and the patient is recovering in the ICU" she explains, softening her worried face.

A weight lifts off my chest at this news. Taking a deep breath, I begin to calm down and try to investigate the whole situation again. 

The boy is alive. This obviously isn't the end point, but it must be a great first step. He could be hanging by a thread or, at best, lucky enough not to have literally lost his head. 

The image of him bloodied on the floor hammers incessantly in my head. The shards of glass lacerating and disfiguring his beautiful face, as well as tearing his gothic dress. The screams echoing throughout the place and almost making my ears bleed, the devastating cries begging for intervention, the moans of purest pain that reflect the worst scenario in hell. The moment he said he couldn't breathe. Cruel, the most brutal reality shock I've ever had in my life. I saw blood running down his thighs.

I may have destroyed a life.

"So..." Pete interrupts my strange train of thought, even though he doesn't know it. "Excuse me, but how serious are his injuries?"

There was blood running down his thighs.

My gaze tries to convey to Pete a deep gratitude for having asked that question.

The nurse reads the file before explaining, with a more serious countenance than before:

"The patient suffered some fractures and eye trauma with blood. I have to be honest, the doctors are worried about the cuts. The wound to the throat, for example, required more than ten stitches."

Yeah, whatever. Pete didn't reverse the pre-panic situation.

"Also, about the facial wounds" the nurse continues, "they needed at least five stitches each."

Isn't anyone going to talk about the bleeding?

Pete crosses his arms apprehensively. He watches me for a while, waiting for me to say something, as if to say "okay, I've done my bit, now do yours".

I've destroyed a life.

I sigh in frustration and bring a hand up to my temple, massaging the area and pushing my fringe away from the middle of my forehead. It doesn't take me long to ask, my voice choking:

"He, damn it... Where were the fractures? "

"Two ribs, my left ankle and my nose. As well as a dislocated jaw and a dislocated left wrist" she recapitulates robotically, reading the file as if it were a shopping list.

She pauses, looking startled by the abrupt way my eyes have widened. I feel like the situation is going to go from bad to worse.

"And..." she sniffles, "the boy will probably be tube-fed until his jaw heals."

How could I let this happen?

Everything is falling apart and I, as ridiculously shaky as I was before I went on stage, keep trying to keep my head on straight, even though it's in vain. I can't even start shouting at God and the world, precisely because I'm the biggest culprit. I have to do something good this time. 

Morgana would never accept shit like that. Firstly, she wouldn't subject herself to being fed baby food, but this scenario can't be changed. Perhaps the probe is reversible.

I crack an indignant smile, look at the nurse and say, trying not to sound debauched:

"How is it? What about the fracture? Are they going to ignore the fact that his nose was almost severed? He's not going to have a tube stuck up his nose!" I protest, restraining my arrogance and frustration.

The woman frowns, snorting low.

"I'm sorry, sir, but there's not much that can be done. He won't be able to force his jaw for at least six weeks. Until the joint deflates, the patient has to avoid opening his mouth as much as possible" she reassures, the simultaneous caution and concern in her expressions visible.

That's professionalism. I don't give a damn about it, I can't cope. I can't imagine the boy having a wire running through his body to his stomach, it's like purgatory in a normal situation and hell with a broken nose. It's worse than an enema. What the hell is going through these people's minds?

"Girl, I don't understand, how do you want to insert a tube into someone's broken nose? Look, the injury could get worse and he could die of asphyxiation. He won't be able to breathe... at all, in fact" I interrupted myself, stopping to list all the misfortunes planned for the fake Friday the 13th. "Oh, shit. How is he going to breathe if he can't open his mouth and his nose is blown?"

I look at the nurse with her injured hand on her forehead, wiping away the sweat with the bandage, then sliding it up to her eye where I squeezed it wanting to relieve a fucking migraine. The distressed woman remains silent, preparing for another unfortunate announcement. That's the smell of tragedy in the air.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, and see the nurse doing her best to comfort me.

"The emergency surgery was for jaw reconstruction, even though it won't do much good in the first few days after the operation. Don't worry, we've made a tracheostomy to help you breathe." At the height of her sympathy, she flashes a gentle smile.

Shit, they've opened his throat and they expect me to relax.

"It's only a temporary measure," she continues, "maybe the patient doesn't even need it. It all depends on how he wakes up."

Morgana's going to kill me when she smashes down the door of that bloody imaginary coffin.

"Hey, Frank," Pete whispers in my ear, pulling me up by my free shoulder. "What's that she said?"

I wonder what black hole Pete threw his two years of study into, when he had a direction in life.

"I don't know, it must be when... they make a cut in the guy's neck, then insert a tube into the windpipe to let air through" I explain stammering, at the same volume as him, feeling like I'm going to collapse at any moment. "It happens when the airways are affected."

"Holy crap." Pete walks away, recomposing himself in front of the nurse.

A small series of swear words come out of my mouth, barely audible, as I look away from the nurse. My heart is about to burst out of my mouth, and then the new irony of the occasion is that I can't calm down. The same thing as hours ago, I'm losing control, but without an extra death on the bill.

The nurse must have noticed how close I am to snapping out of it and is trying to wake me up. It's no use, it seems that nothing else is as real as the suffering of a young man due to my sheer recklessness. Her words are like a distant echo, increasingly inaudible. Is it her or me who's moving away?

It's impossible to understand what Pete and the nurse are arguing about, I assume from their features that it's about the seriousness of the injuries or contacting the young man's relatives. I've been through this before. The problem is that we don't know what the boy's name really is, let alone the name of a member of his family tree. 

There are other procedures to be carried out, such as a DNA test and a background check at the hospital. There are also fingerprints to be taken so that the police can identify the person, using database searches.

If none of this works, he'll be taken to social services and his face will be printed on a milk carton or in a TV commercial. That's what they do, or used to do, with missing persons.

And no, I don't want to see him, not now. Not at all. I'm not ready to see his disfigured face, without the blood from before. I'm not ready to reopen our recent argument. I don't have the courage to look him in the face after the shit I've done. 

I remember Morgana's expression, the melancholy gleam in her eye, intensifying with every word I said. 

Words are weapons, tanks of war. They make you bleed like a razor, you'll never be the same after the attack.

Morgana cried in front of me, and what did I do? Nothing at all. Regret hit too late, and I lost her. I lost my ray of sunshine. And what comes next?

ICU. Post-surgery. Intubation. Police investigation. Suspects.

Nothing is real, apart from the fluorescent light flashing incessantly. This is more unbearable than the muffled screams from across the corridor that I could hear until seconds ago. What's happening is that I've lost auditory functionality along with visual and I'm sure I'm close to the biggest collapse I've ever had.

The completely blurred scenery has gone unnoticed by me until now. Everything is distorted. My perception of the world returns only when my body falls hard onto the linoleum floor, the strong smell of disinfectant and ethyl alcohol sapping all my strength to get up.

I see the nurse running and struggling to get me to my feet, but I'm drowning more and more in the deep, dark sea in my head. What an irony.

I want to live imprisoned in the day I met Morgana. I would have done something different, anything. I want to hug her, tell her I'd do anything to keep the glow - which didn't exist - burning in her big deep eyes, which would feed the spark in her soul and set her body on fire. Okay, that was weird. 

I need to hold her in my arms again, to promise that no one will ever, ever touch her body again. There will be nothing left of anyone who dares to lay their hands on your porcelain skin, to destroy the perfect image of my dreams. 

Oh, dear. I want to see that devilish smile, as her liqueur lips cry out for more romance, begging for perversion, attention, freedom. The intensely faithful portrait of promiscuity and dignity, or madness. The most beautiful setting for all horror stories and cursed fairy tales. 

Her body and soul were what had kept me alive for the last four months. Am I going to lose everything in one night? 

She's alive, just not in the condition that any human being would want to be. I've been through this before. 

I'm so sorry, vampire girl. I hope you'll forgive me for turning your beautiful dress into tatters and your angelic face into carnage. Please come back. I'll avenge your ghost if nothing else, my angel, my little angel of death. 

Forgive me.

I want you back.