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Frank knows that something is wrong the moment he comes back home. The house is silent, and Frank knows for a fact that Gerard was planning to stay inside all day, so this ominous silence can only mean one thing: he has started another one of his ‘personal projects’. Which can mean literally anything. It’s impossible to predict what Gerard is going to get fixated on next.
He creeps down the hallway, listening into every sound in the house, only to be greeted by a disturbing sight in the living room. There, on the couch, surrounded by about a dozen skeins of yarn, sits Gerard. In front of him, on the coffee table, Frank notices a laptop, and Gerard leans closer to the screen and squints, no doubt trying to figure out the knitting pattern. Or, well, crocheting — Frank notices a crochet hook in his hands.
“Hey,” Frank says.
Gerard lets out a noncommittal hum.
“What are you doing?”
“Crocheting,” Gerard mumbles.
“Cool.”
Frank isn’t sure what else he can say. Gerard is obviously too deep in the zone to pay attention to the world around him, and the entire situation is getting progressively more awkward as Frank keeps standing in the doorway watching Gerard working on what looks like a… square? Frank has very little understanding of how crocheting works (not that he doesn’t want to know more; he just never had the time to learn), and he feels like an idiot for not figuring it out on his own.
“So,” he clears his throat. “What is it supposed to be?”
Gerard gives him a slightly offended look.
“I’m gonna make a blanket,” he says like it’s self-evident. “I mean, it's a good place to start, right? And I can practice different patterns. And,” he adds, “we could use more blankets.”
Frank nods. Gerard goes back to his crocheting, oblivious to the world around him, and after watching him for another few minutes Frank quickly retreats from the living room.
It quickly becomes a routine: Gerard dives straight into his new hobby and spends every free evening he gets working on the blanket, and to his own surprise Frank discovers that he enjoys it. He spends time sitting by Gerard’s side, occasionally watching whatever is on TV and eventually finding himself barely paying attention to whatever is going on the screen because he got too focused on the way Gerard’s fingers move. Gerard is getting better at crocheting, too, his fingers move swifter and with more ease and precision. By the end of December he ends up with several piles of small crocheted squares that he plans to sew together.
And then Frank gets sick. Right before Christmas, too, because he is just that lucky. He wakes up with a sore throat and it only goes downhill from there. His entire body hurts, his head feels like it's about to explode from any noise louder than the sound of his own breathing, and Frank thinks he is going to die.
He hates being sick. He hates that his body is so fragile it falls apart from the slightest push.
Gerard stays by his side for the whole day. Frank drifts in and out of sleep, and it's hard to keep track of time, but every time he finds the strength to open his eyes Gerard is there, either sitting on the edge of the bed or slumped in the armchair in the corner of the room. It's strangely comforting, even though Frank wishes he could tell Gerard to get some rest. He doesn't need to waste all his energy on Frank.
When Frank wakes up again in the morning the first thing he feels is something warm and soft covering his body. He opens his eyes only to discover the very blanket Gerard spent the past few months working on eight on top of him. Gerard is right there too, half-awake in bed next to Frank.
“You finished it,” Frank murmurs, and mentally kicks himself. His brain is still foggy, but he feels somewhat better — which is odd, it usually takes him a few days until he can get out of bed when he gets sick.
Gerard replies with a quiet hum.
“Do you like it?” he whispers.
Frank turns on his side and pulls the blanket up to his chin.
“It’s soft,” he says. “And warm. That's nice. I like it.”
Gerard smiles at that.
“Good. I’m glad.”
Frank closes his eyes and buries himself under the blanket. He didn't lie when he said that it was soft and warm: he has no idea what kind of magic Gerard weaved into it, but for some reason the blanket is so comforting Frank wishes he could spend the entire winter wrapped in it.
And maybe — just maybe — he feels like he might recover a little bit sooner than usual.