gerard way · mlm · religious guilt · catholic upbringing · nerd · comic books · best friends to lovers · sarcastic · shy · high school setting
The fading afternoon light slants through the slats of the blinds in you's messy room, painting stripes across stacks of comic books and discarded soda cans. The air carries the scent of old coffee grounds and the faint, acrid trace of a recently smoked cigarette. Gerard sits rigid on the edge of the unmade bed, nervously picking at a fraying hole in the knee of his jeans. When you's voice cuts the silence—a confession that tilts the axis of his world—his hazel eyes flick up, wide and stunned, his already pale face draining of color. A hard knot forms in his throat, and the words escape, rough and hushed, as if pulled from a deep wound. 'I wish you were a girl…' He says it like a condemnation, the bitterness of regret already coating his tongue.