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It happens quickly. Suddenly, the world is just too heavy, the air too thick. The atmosphere crushes his ribs and gravity betrays him. He feels like he weighs tons, not pounds, and it’s impossible to breathe.
Each inhale is a curse, every exhale a battle. Every thought is a burden he can’t simply shrug off. They build sky high. They implode, self-destruct into glass and ash. They leave his sense of self in ruins and any attempt to reconstruct is quickly detoured by another tidal wave of devastating doom and gnawing gloom. It’s a beast that scratches and claws, snarls and screeches, only kept at bay by the cage that holds Gerard’s heart in place. It preys on anything good, on any shred of light that Gerard attempts to hold onto. It all fades. They become shards of glass squeezed tightly against his palm. He bleeds for this light and sometimes, it feels like it may hurt less to simply let go.
“...Gee?” Frank’s voice is soft, a whisper against the gale force winds that threaten to steal Gerard away again. “Gee, baby…look at me.”
Gerard’s only vaguely aware of Frank’s presence; he’s a shadow in the looming darkness, a single star in an inkblot sky. His hands shake, fingernails pressing into his palm, creating misshapen crescent moons. Stumbling back slightly, shoulder hitting the wall, Gerard gulps down every breath greedily. His lungs ache. He wishes they’d burst. It might hurt less.
The distance between them disappears within an instant. Frank crosses the room and gently touches Gerard’s shoulder. “Gerard, look at me ,” he pleads, attempting to pull Gerard closer, encouraging their gazes to meet. Doesn’t force. Never forces.
There’s hesitance in the action but Gerard looks up. He’s pale, eyes wide like a doe’s. It’s a struggle to focus on Frank’s eyes, his own darting from corner to corner, seemingly searching for a threat only he can see. “F-Frankie…” he whimpers in an exhale.
“There you are,” Frank replies. Cautiously, he moves his hand to rest on Gerard’s cheek. He’s warm to the touch, heat pooling in his cheeks all the way up to the tips of his ears. “It’s alright. You’re alright.”
It doesn’t feel that way. Sometimes it feels like alright is fleeting, impossibly far away and out of reach. Gerard tries to shake his head, but Frank is now cupping either side of his face.
“Gerard,” he hums, voice firm though maintaining a softness to it. “Breathe. You gotta breathe, baby. You’re gonna make yourself pass out.”
When he tries, it’s all disjointed. Even when the inhale is deep enough to matter, it threatens to strangle him on the way out. In through his nose, out through his mouth. He knows. God, he knows. So why is this so hard?
Frank helplessly watches as Gerard continues to spiral. The pads of his thumbs, rough and worn, trace slow circles over Gerard’s cheeks, attempting to bring him down from his frantic high he’s put himself in. This isn’t uncommon but it’s never any less startling to Frank, watching the man he loves war with himself inside of his own brilliant head.
“Can’t…” Gerard huffs, growing frustrated with himself. Breathing shouldn’t be this hard. He’s been doing it his entire fucking life and suddenly, his brain makes him forget how. It focuses its efforts on every little catastrophe it can conjure up but it forgets how to breathe.
“In,” he replies, leaning forward to press his forehead against Gerard’s. A center. An anchor. Frank waits for Gerard, waits for the trembling inhale. “Good…now out, nice and slow through your mouth.”
Gerard feels Frank’s breath splash across his face, smells the coffee on his lips. He’s aware of it, of him. He mirrors Frank and exhales. His heart continues to hammer against his chest, but he’s beginning to remember how to breathe again.
“Perfect, baby…again. In. Out.”
They follow this pattern for a few long minutes. Gerard’s eyes flutter shut and the chaos behind his eyelids starts to quiet. Frank. Self-deprecation. Coffee. The loss of sense of self. Those tattooed fingers brushing against his cheeks. Good outweighs bad and the scale shifts. The world doesn’t feel like it’s bearing down on Gerard’s shoulders so harshly. It doesn’t feel so abysmal. His thoughts circle back to this moment, this man, their memories.
His breathing steadies. Stubborn tears cling to his lashes. In. Out. The intensity of his panic washes away, returning to the deep, dark depths from whence they came. They settle like grains of sand on the ocean floor, present but still beneath the water’s surface.
Calm.
Frank takes a slow, deep breath in through his nose. Their foreheads never part, resting against one another as if they were simply meant to connect that way. His fingertips skate around Gerard’s cheek, trailing just beneath those perfect hazel eyes. As much as he longs to reach inside of Gerard’s head and scoop out every bit of darkness, combat every demon that resides inside, he knows those efforts are fruitless. Instead, he has to hold the line on the outside, remind Gerard that he isn’t alone. He remains on guard, a sentry armed with a relentless, reckless love, finger on the trigger of an adoration so powerful that the kickback makes him dizzy on a daily basis.
“Life?” Frank whispers, moving his left hand to thread through Gerard’s hair.
“Life,” he replies, exhaustion weighing down the word. Shoulders slumped, fingertips numb, he tilts his head and catches Frank’s gaze. “Frankie, ‘m so–”
“Hey,” Frank interrupts, “none of that. You know that. Never sorry, alright?”
Sheepishly, Gerard nods. The urge to apologize, beg forgiveness for suddenly just forgetting that life wasn’t always the dark, cruel place it sometimes could be was oftentimes intense, but Frank refuses each time. Wasn’t a need for an apology, he says.
He offers Gerard a smile, pressing a ghost of a kiss to the tip of his nose. “I gotcha, Gee.” An arm moves down to snake around Gerard’s waist, tugging him a little closer. They slot together perfectly, hip to hip, heart to heart.
Gerard feels like he can breathe again. In Frank’s arms, he feels weightless.