schmerica: (the creative process)
[personal profile] schmerica
Today I've thinking a lot about Bob. Bob and always-been-a-girl!Gerard.

*****

"It's like in grade school, right, all of us had all this Lisa Frank stuff, and it's just complete shit," Gee says. She has a cigarette in one hand, and Bob's eyes follow it as she gestures, big and wide, like flailing helps her make her point. "Really, shit, because it's this fantasy, it's fairies and unicorns and magic, but it's like just. Pretty and nice and completely boring, completely bowdlerized, you know? Which just fucking sucks, because it's such a waste! Why even bother if you're going to take out the cool bits?"

Gee takes a long swallow from her soda can, and Bob leans forward over the table to look more closely at Gee's sketchbook. The page is full of fairies, he can tell that, but they're different fairies, drawn in Gee's spiky dramatic style. Instead of pretty and delicate, they look sharp and ... plotting, maybe? Like they have a plan. Tough. The wings aren't like butterfly wings, but something else, something textured and maybe even leathery. It makes Bob want to touch them.

"They look kind of mean," Bob says, staring down at the one in the corner. He's not sure if it's a boy or a girl, but it's wearing something like a corset. It's blond, with dark-rimmed eyes that are gazing straight out of the paper, so it's like it's looking right at you and knows all about you.

"Fairies are fucking mean," Gee says, nodding. "They have their whole own morality, and it's got nothing to do with people. It's like it's all about what's good for them. Stealing babies, playing tricks. People dying in the real world while they're partying away in fairy land on cakes and wine. It's brutal, man. The fucking Unseelie Court."

"It's cool," Bob says. "Really cool."

It makes Gee smile, one of her wide smiles that shows all of her teeth, the same way little kids smile, totally unself-conscious. Gee has a lot of facial expressions, but that one might be Bob's favorite. "Thanks. I've been really happy with the drawings I've been doing lately. I think it might just be the sexual frustration, right? I mean, I haven't gotten laid since -- well, since I stopped drinking." Gee stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray. She says thoughtfully, "All that creative energy has to go somewhere, you know? I'm trading orgasms for art."

Bob's face feels warm. It's weird; he's not the sort of person who has ever blushed about sex, and he's spent years around bands who find nothing more entertaining than thinking up the dirtiest things they can to say to each other. Bob's not used to being fazed, but Gee fazes him.

Bob knew Gee for a long time before he joined the band, okay, and one of the things everyone knew about Gee was that she was ... Bob shies away from the word slutty, even in his own head, because that's not right. Promiscuous sounds kind of judgy, too. Gee was really friendly, and really affectionate, and she had a lot of sex. Bob walked in on her and Bert a couple times -- he's pretty sure everyone did. She and Ray got together right when they started the band, although all Ray says about it is that afterwards they were best friends in a way they weren't before. She and Frankie only happened once, despite how much they kiss and cuddle and hold hands, a giggly one night stand they were both too drunken to really remember. Bob doesn't know any of the details of what happened between her and Brian, but he knows something did.

Basically, the Never Slept With Gee Club consists of Bob and Mikey. And Mikey's her brother.

It would be funny if it wasn't so sad, considering how stupid in love Bob is with her.

At first it was just a crush, but it's been four months since Bob joined the band, and it keeps getting worse. Last night the caffeine and sugar Gee had been running on ran out, all at once, in the middle of them sitting together watching stupid shows on the Food Network. Gee fell asleep on Bob's shoulder, and he watched her sleep, her whole body relaxed and her mouth gaping open just a little bit. He was afraid to move at all, in case she woke up, so they stayed like that, his arm slowly falling asleep, until the others drifted into the room and Frankie's high-pitched giggle stirred her awake.

Gee shakes another cigarette out of her pack, and Bob is taking his lighter out of his pocket even before Gee leans forward across the table. Gee can't keep a lighter on her for more than a few minutes at a time; she always needs a light, every time. Bob holds out his lighter and flicks it on for her.

Gee closes her eyes, breathing in deeply. When she opens her eyes, she's smiling again, but small, chewing on the side of her mouth. She pushes a large clump of her hair back behind one ear and sits back in her chair.

Bob gets out one of his own cigarettes, too, and lights it.

"Next," Gee says, "I think I'm gonna draw about the fairy dances. There's all these young girls and guys, and the fairies just take them at night and bring them to these dances. And everything is shining and beautiful and gorgeous and it's just, like, real life doesn't even compare. So they dance all night, and then all day they're in the human world, and it just doesn't mean anything to them anymore. And they're dancing all night, so they're not getting any sleep, so eventually. Eventually they all just die. It's intense."

Bob frowns down at his own fingers, the ash at the end of his cigarette. "I thought fairy tales had happy endings."

"Nah, man," Gee says, wrinkling her nose and shaking her head. "Who gets a happy ending?"

Bob just shrugs and thinks: he believes in happy endings. Sometimes they just take a while.
This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting

December 2015

S M T W T F S
  12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223 242526
2728293031  

Most Popular Tags

Page generated 16/1/26 09:51

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags