Walking Shadow

I'm trudging up a million flights of stairs.

My bag is becoming heavier on my shoulder, but I can hear the voices of Emiline and Tan, two Romance new marchers we got about three days ago, so I know I'm getting close. I then hear a sound that stops me dead, mid-step: Gerard's melodic laugh. I shake my head and carry on, angry at myself for stopping. I push open the creaky wooden door, and I see that the dingy hall has only two doors branching from it, and is a very short hall. The common room at the end is filled with Marchers, several of which turn to greet me.

"Hey, where were you?" Sarah asks me. She's sitting with Frank on some kind of large, round chair. Their legs are intertwined. I am almost annoyed at the sight for some reason.

"I was walking," I say to Sarah, who shrugs and she and Frankie continue to be distracted with each other as I sit uncomfortably on another of the round chair things.

This room, unlike the rest of the building, does not smell like mildew and dust, or bandages and blood. It has the unique smell of people. The chair is not that uncomfortable, and soon I am dragging my bag up to rest with me and I'm drawing. I draw things I saw today; the rushing black river, the ash snowflake that broke into a small mist of the back of the helmet of a marcher named Ream. I draw Sarah flirting with Frankie, I draw Fear as she kisses my face with her glass-cold lips, I draw my jacket with a coffee stain on it.

A scent like what I've always imagined morphine must smell like, heavy and male and deeply exciting, envelopes me as I draw. I don't realize what it is until I feel two hands on the back of my chair, a pair of eyes that aren't mine staring at my notebook. I whip around, my short dark hair flying out as I stare into the handsome face of Gerard. My breathing sticks, then doubles.

He grins at me winningly. "Did Mother War get you in trouble for my blood on your jacket, is that why you're avoiding me?"

I stammer, "I'm n-not avoiding you, I'm... I'm... I h-had to lead form-mation today."

"Right, and that's why when we stopped in the afternoon, you didn't eat on your normal side of Three-"

"Are you stalking me?" I accuse him, and he laughs and goes on unabashedly. I glower.

"You walked the opposite direction around Two when you snagged that bandage for one of your marchers, and you haven't gone NEAR One all day," he said, still not angry or accusing, merely... smug.

I sigh. "Don't know what you're talking about," I say shortly, going back to my drawing of his brother chasing him.

He shakes his head, and without warning steals my pen, drops down right next to me on the oversized chair, and hands the pen back.

I sputter. "Do you mind??"

"Mind what?" he says sweetly, and it almost infuriates me how the little smile he's giving me is keeping him out of trouble.

"There's... there's more than enough chairs for everyone!"

All he does is move my bag gently to the floor so he's not mashing it between us, and he looks at me like he's inspecting me. It's disconcerting. "What are you looking at?"

He doesn't stop looking, but he answers "Your eyes. They're brown, I couldn't remember today what color they are, it was driving me nuts."

I ask "WHY are you so fascinated with me?"

"Because you don't like me. Or you do. Or you don't. I can't tell. That's why," he says cheerfully.

He's so sweet and nonchalant, I almost want to touch him for a second. I mentally slap myself. Then, as he stares at me some more, I want to take his face in my hands and look at him, just look at him like he's looking at me. I mentally smack myself again. I'm debating moving on from mental slaps to real ones.

He looks me in the eyes, and for a second I'm scared he read my thoughts. "Are you all right? You're very quiet."

I nod. "I'm fine; just kinda tired. Those stairs are killers."

"Tell me about it," he laughs, and suddenly he's stretching and yawning and lounging back in the chair with his shoulder on me, relaxed and loose and so utterly sexy that my mind admits how attractive I find him and god, oh dear god he's too close to me, he's too close...

I gulp and shift so that he's forced to sit up again, not touching me. He then looks at me. "You're a Nameless, aren't you?" he asks, and I nod.

"I never got renamed, and I don't go by my Livingworld name, so nobody calls me anything."

He looks at me and suddenly a light comes to his eyes. "Vhena. Like Venom, but twisted. I don't know why, but that's what I'd name you. Well, wait..." he turns his head to the side, looking at me again. "Wait. I lied. That's too weird. I'd go simple... Mary. Mary is a perfect name for you. What's wrong?" he asks, because I've looked down at my lap and I want to scream, cry, hit things. I just stare at my lap. And try not to cry.

"Mary was my Livingworld name... I never liked it, I never thought it fit me..." I say as I grab the loose fabric on the leg of my jeans and squeeze it.

"I'm sorry..." he says quietly. "I think it's a pretty name, though, and I think it fits you."

The little tone of sympathy and sweetness in his voice melts me a little. My hand releases my jeans. "Well... thank you... Mary it is then, I guess." I smile weakly, and Gerard touches my face with his fingertips. He blushes.

He looks so sweet; he isn't wearing his uniform. He has on faded jeans, he's obviously kicked his shoes off and has been padding around in his black socks, he has on a black shirt with long sleeves and on a silver chain around his neck there is a pewter charm of a gun. His eyes, I just notice, are a dark green. They're quite beautiful. I shake the thought out of my head, only to somehow focus on his lips, how since he's been blushing, his mouth has become a sort of soft, pretty pink. The phrase that enters my head is 'nibble-able', but after a few mental slaps I think I'm over it, until I notice how his ghost-white hair is mussed up a little, how it just makes him look touchable, cuddly even. That mental slaps vs. real ones debate starts up again for me, and I shake Gerard's touch away. He looks a little injured.

That was not the best time for Tan to accidentally blow the lights out.

As soon as it happens, the room goes ink dark and cursewords bounce around with the screams. Gerard laughingly wastes no time knocking me down and holding me against the chair in the dark, holding my wrists above my head. I gasp, I can feel his chest touching mine, his mouth by my ear. I pray to god he's just messing around, why I'm hoping that I don't know, but when he starts to talk all thought departs from my head.

"Ha ha! This is lucky. I want you to tell me why you're avoiding me."

"I'm not!" I insist, and his hands tighten a little. There's no pain, he's just trying to be threatening. I try and grasp why my brain is equating it being sexual. His mouth is so close to my neck, and suddenly he's biting, nibbling, tasting my skin. I gasp and can't imagine how in all the hells he knows that's what turns me on, I'm trying to remember if I told him, but I just can't think.

"Oh god... fuck" I curse breathlessly and he growls playfully at me. The chatter rises and falls around us and I know nobody will hear or care about anything I say. Gerard attacks the other side of my neck, playing vampire, and this time I actually moan.

That makes him laugh and he settles his whole body on top of me. "You DO like me," he says, kissing my neck, my jawline, my chin. I want to protest, but inside I'm finally crumbling.

"Gerard... there's no reason for me to fight it anymore. I didn't want to even TRY... you know, love... because love hurts. I'm dead and I don't want to hurt anymore. So I just..."

Gerard shushes me, "Sssh. Mary, I know. But listen... all love hurts. It's the ability to heal each other in-between that makes love what it is." He nuzzles me. "And since you're so great at giving people medical aid..."

I laugh. "When the lights come back on and people see us like this, what happens?"

He grins. I can feel it against my neck. "Your Formation makes bad promotion jokes. Ray teases me about my 'emotional virginity' you know, how I've... never really... LOVED someone like... well, this... everyone else in my band catcalls, and the officers try to shut them up. Normal stuff. WHEN the lights come back on."

"Speaking of which, are the lights even going to come on again?" I tug my wrists out of his grip, and his hands immediately spring into action, zooming up the back of my shirt and stroking my back with warm fingertips, pressing the palms flat as he presses me to his chest.

"Do you care if the lights stay off?" he whispers to me.

"Not if I get to stay like this, I don't." I answer, and he chuckles in the back of his throat. It's almost a growl, and I shiver again.

"Good."

I feel a pair of lips, soft and searching, brushing lightly up my neck from my chest, to my cheekbone, the tip of my nose, my forehead. It's driving me nuts, not kissing him full on his mouth like I've wanted to for a long time.

It doesn't matter, though, because suddenly we're both sitting up, he's looking a little hurt because I moved his hand off my face, his pretty pink mouth is fading back to pale and the lights never went off in the first place. Frankie and Sarah are staring deep into each other's eyes while they talk and Lime, Kamden and Kiko, three more Marchers, are starting a small dance contest.

The plunge from fantasy to real is so nastily grating that I cough like I'm embarassed, not a total forgery, and then get up and walk to the other side of the room, where the blankets are piled, neatly folded in the trademark precision of Regret and Mother War. Gerard doesn't follow me. I didn't expect him to, and I'm telling myself I didn't want him to.

We only use our blankets on extra-cold nights, but they'll do for right now since Mother War, Fear, and Regret didn't feel like separating everyone's sleeping bags from the tents. Everyone's blankets are different. Mine is pure black with a rose clumsily embroidered in chunky red thread on one corner. It's a huge, fluffy blanket and it takes no time to locate it right under the pale blue of Sarah's blanket. I take mine up and dive behind the nearest couch, shrouded in dark and the blanket that smells like the Parade's laundry soap. I've never quite liked all the rumors about how the soap on your blanket is supposed to morph to smell like the place you died in, or if that's too grating, then it's just supposed to smell like a hospital room.

My blankets have never had a smell, save for just a soap smell. It makes me feel odd.

The blanket aggravates my clothes and I sit up carefully so the couch back keeps me hidden and I take off my sweatshirt, bunching it up so it can be my pillow. After a second's deliberation, I remove my t-shirt as well, and I lay down again in my red tank top, wrapping the blanket around me. The soft material feels nice on the skin of my shoulders and the cushiony layer of blanket under me protects me from the hard floor. My mind rushes back to my stupid fantasy and I feel the lips on me again. I move, turn, and toss, but when I smell the morphine cologne again I know I am in big trouble. I squeeze my eyes shut tight and draw a blanketed hand over my nose like a kitten does with his paw as he sleeps, just trying to block it all out.

"So you're hiding from me now?"

I jump, and he's right above me. I pull my blanket over my head and snuggle down, fine where I am in the complete dark. Somehow I find myself mumbling, "You're a cool guy and all Gerard, but this is really making you act like a jackass."

He laughs, that stupid little laugh I am falling in love with. "Ok, ok. I get it, I'll try tomorrow."

So not only is he incredibly sexy, an insane vocalist, amazingly sweet, and a bit stubborn, but he's a persistent, incorrigible bastard as well. "Greaaat," I say under my breath, and he laughs at me and pulls the blanket off my face.

"I do like you," he says, and kisses me gently on the cheek.

I melt into my blanket as he leaves.

Goddamnit.