Archive of Our Own

Gerard blinks awake with the absolute certainty that he's late. Of course he's late, why wouldn't he be late, it's not like the week from hell is going to let up just because it's Friday, right?

He jams the heels of his hands into his eyes and scrubs, trying to wipe away the blurriness enough to read the numbers on his alarm clock. 8:05. Yep, definitely late. He scrambles out of bed and grabs the nearest pair of pants he sees, disregarding the fact that they're nearest because they're in the dirty pile. It's just the dirty pile, though, not the Seriously Dirty pile, so he figures he'll be okay.

He's almost out the door when Mikey yells, "Hey, can you give me a ride into work?"

Mikey works at a little record shop about halfway between their house and the train station, and technically Gerard's headed that direction anyway, but he's already hopping out the door, trying to get his shoe on, and irritated at the world, so he yells, "Don't have time!"

Mikey comes out of the kitchen, a piece of toast hanging limply from his hand, and looks at him dolefully. "But then I'll have to take the bus."

Gerard finally slams his shoe on and stands up straight, so not in the mood for this today. "You wouldn't have to take the bus if you'd get your own car."

Mikey frowns. "I might be able to afford my own car if you didn't borrow half my paycheck off me every week."

Gerard looks at his watch, more to avoid the look on Mikey's face than anything, and curses. "Are we seriously gonna get into this again right now? I'm already late-"

"For a job you don't even like!"

Gerard tries not to let it hit him as hard as it could, tries to let it roll off his back, but Mikey's been suggesting he quit Cartoon Network and find a different job for so long that Gerard snaps, "At least I'm out there doing something and not wasting away behind the counter of a record shop no one will ever visit because I'm too scared to try anything else."

Mikey's face falls, and for one clear, perfect moment, Gerard feels absolutely contrite. The job can go fuck itself; his paycheck can go fuck itself, he needs to stay here and make sure things are okay with his brother.

"I like what I do," Mikey says quietly. "Maybe you'd notice that if you weren't hung over all the time." And the moment is gone.

Gerard slams the door on his way out, peels out of the driveway, and tries not to focus on how absolutely right Mikey is.

--

The train station parking lot is already packed, and Gerard spends fifteen minutes circling, looking for a spot, squeezing the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles go white. Finally a space opens up and he slides in, ignoring the irritated horn of a car behind him, and just sits there for a minute. He could call Mikey, make sure he got to work okay, make sure things are okay between them. He's already got his phone out of his pocket before he realizes there's a good chance they'll just rehash the argument over the phone, and jesus, but Gerard just wants to get through today, go home, and drink himself into oblivion.

He sighs, squeezing the steering wheel again and muttering, "Fuck." Mikey's totally right, of course, which is the best part of the argument. Gerard hates his job, he hates his life, he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing, but working at a soulless nine-to-five isn't helping him figure it out any faster. Mikey's been suggesting freelance graphics work, or even starting up his own comic, and for as much as Gerard knows Mikey's intentions are good, he can't help but take the suggestions as a testament that he's just not quite the big brother Mikey had hoped for. And if he's honest with himself, he's not. Not even close. After Elena died... The thought of her being gone still makes Gerard's heart clench so hard he can barely breathe, and that's just the first in a long list of evidence that he's not even begun to properly deal with her death. Lately, his big brother duties have taken a back burner to avoiding his problems and drinking himself into a steady decline. He doesn’t blame Mikey for being disappointed; Gerard’s not exactly thrilled with himself, either.

Gerard makes himself get out of the car, makes himself lock it up, makes himself start toward the train station. There's an elderly woman crossing his path, and spontaneously, he puts on his brightest smile and helps her a little closer to her car. He’s been a pretty shitty person lately, on top of being a shitty brother. Helping the elderly isn’t a huge step toward changing that, but it’s something.

The woman thanks him and touches his arm briefly, and there’s a tiny shock, like transferred static electricity. It’s nothing unusual, but the woman smiles at him knowingly, a little sad, and he wonders if the fact that his life is so pathetic is outwardly visible. He’s suddenly hit with the desire to do things differently. To do things better. He ignores the fact that he has this kind of epiphany every few months, usually brought on by a spat with Mikey or a particularly oh-god-I-wanna-die kind of hangover. This time it’s gonna be different. He has to go in today, finish up what he's working on, but dammit. No more. After today he's going to start coming up with something better. He's going to talk to Mikey and really listen when he talks, and he's going to stop being such a disappointment to both of them.

It makes him feel a little better, to think like that, even if he's not a hundred percent convinced he can do it, but Elena would have believed he could do it, and Mikey-

Something's honking right in his ear, and then there's a bright burst of light, and then there’s nothing.

--

He wakes up on the ground, blinking up into the early-morning sun, and thinks, fuck. If he wasn't late before, he really is now, and somehow he doesn't think his bosses are going to take...whatever happened as an excuse.

He pushes himself up, groaning instinctively even though he realizes that nothing hurts. He rubs at his head a little and looks around, frowning at the group of people huddled around the front of a bus. That's kind of inconsiderate, really, that they're all over there and no one's over here making sure he's okay. He is, obviously, but still. Rude.

Maybe someone got really hurt, though. Maybe someone died. He edges a little closer to the group and peers over some shoulders, trying not to look too conspicuously gawky. There's a pair of legs sticking out that Gerard can see, one shoe missing from the feet, and that's kinda funny that the guy down there would have the same stripy purple socks that Gerard has.

His heart bottoms out in his stomach, and for a second he thinks he's going to be sick all over the backs of these people he's hovering over. This can't really be happening, can it? That isn't really him down there lying half under a bus, it can't be him if he's up here looking down at...himself. Can it?

The group divides up a little, and Gerard gets a good look at the body. At his body. His arm is twisted funny behind his back, and his face has blood streaking it from forehead to chin. In a very detached way, he thinks it looks pretty cool, all that blood and his pale skin, kind of artistically tragic, except that that really is him down there, not breathing, eyes wide and blank and staring at the sky. Well, shit.

Now that he knows what's going on, or kind of knows what's going on, or knows that he's dead, he realizes that no one's looking at him, no one’s reacting to him. The him that's still standing, anyway. The him that's lying on the ground is getting some pretty strong reactions.

"Hey, um," he says, and he has to clear his throat because it comes out warbly. "Hey." The guy right in front of him stares straight through him like he's not even there, and that freaks him out more than being dead. What if he's stuck this way forever? What if he's doomed to walk the earth, a tragic, lonely spirit? Aren't there supposed to be lights or something? A tunnel? Friendly faces?

There's the quiet snick of a lighter next to him. "Sorry about that."

Gerard's head whips around so fast he might have broken his neck if he wasn't already dead. The guy's staring at Gerard's body - his dead body, not his actual body like checking him out or anything - smoking slowly, so Gerard looks around to see if he might be addressing someone else. Everyone else on the scene is either crowded around the bus or off in little groups, talking, so unless this guy is talking to himself… He doesn’t look like the kind of guy that would talk to himself, though. Gerard knows crazy - he is the kind of guy that looks like he would talk to himself. But this guy looks pretty normal – short, extensively tattooed, and wearing a t-shirt with a band logo that Gerard vaguely recognizes as something Mikey listens to.

"Uh?" Gerard says.

The guy uses the fingers he's holding his cigarette with to indicate Gerard's corpse. "Sorry about you dying."

Gerard takes a second to clear his throat and shift around. "Um, thanks?" The guy nods but doesn't say anything else, and after a minute, Gerard gets antsy. "So, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm a ghost right now, aren't I?"

The guy nods again and finally looks up at him. "That you are."

Gerard frowns, looking around at the crowd again. None of them seem to notice him. "So are you like a psychic or something? Because of the..." He waves his hand around a little bit, trying to convey the whole "you can see me" thing.

The guy shakes his head. "No. I'm a reaper. And now so are you. Come on, you've got work to do." And with that enlightening bombshell, the guy starts walking away. Gerard doesn't really have any choice but to follow. Well, he could stick around and follow his body, he supposes, but he knows where dead bodies go. He's a pretty morbid guy sometimes, but he doesn't really have any desire to go to the morgue and watch them drain out his blood and bodily fluids, especially since he's going to be naked. He knows since he's dead it shouldn't really matter, but just the thought of someone seeing him completely naked is mortifying, and he doesn't really want to be around for that.

Gerard catches up to the guy. "So, uh. A reaper? Like a grim reaper?"

The guy says, "You know any other kinds of reapers?"

Gerard takes a second to think about it. "Huh. Okay. So, what now?"

The guy takes a sharp turn and heads into a waffle house. "Now we eat."

Gerard's not completely clear on what being a ghost entails, but he's pretty sure it doesn't include eating. But he follows the guy in anyway, sits across from him in the high-backed – seriously, it’s taller than Gerard - circular booth, and waits.

"What can I get you, hon?" The waitress is older, probably around Gerard's mom's age, and a sudden, stifling wave of grief makes Gerard suck in a breath. His mom's going to be crushed. And Mikey, jesus. The earlier argument flashes through his head, and he's suddenly overwhelmed with guilt. He hadn't really been mad at Mikey, and he definitely didn't mean what he'd said about the record shop, and more than anything right now he wishes he'd just fucking taken the five minutes to drive Mikey to work.

"-for you?" Gerard's focus snaps back into the present when he realizes there's an awkward tension hanging over the table. The waitress is talking to him.

"Uh," he says. He's been saying that a lot lately. "Coffee?" She marks it down and leaves, and Gerard's confusion is almost enough to overwhelm the guilt. "Is this like. Is this a ghost waffle house?"

The guy snorts and opens a bag, spilling a mountain of paperwork out over the table. "No, Gerard, this is not a ghost waffle house."

"Then how could she see me? And how do you know my name?" Gerard does not doubt that he’s dead, but more and more he’s beginning to suspect this is some kind of cosmic joke.

"One: she can see you because you're not a ghost anymore. And two: contrary to whatever you might think, I don’t go around randomly picking up the recently deceased. I was expecting you." He holds up a file with Gerard’s name on it, lets Gerard look at it long enough that he starts to wonder just how much information he could have amassed in twenty-six years of life that would be worth putting in a file, and then puts it back in his bag.

"So I'm me again?" Gerard thinks that was a pretty quick transition from ghost to…whatever it is he is now; he didn't even feel it or anything. For a second, he's elated. He can go home, he can tell Mikey he's okay - maybe leave out the getting hit by a bus part - and apologize.

"You're human again," the guy stresses. "And yeah, you're still you, but. You won't look like you anymore to other people."

Gerard reaches up to feel his face, trying to feel any distinguishable new features. "Wait, why? I don't want to look like somebody else."

The guy gives him a long, even look. "You won’t look different to yourself, or any of us. But how do you think it would go over if you ran into someone that had just been at your funeral and you still looked like you?"

"Not good, I guess. But how am I supposed to talk to my family like this? They won't believe it's me, they'll just think I'm some crazy person-"

"You're not going to talk to your family. That's over and done with, Gerard. They'll grieve and they'll move on, and you need to do the same thing." The guy dives into his paperwork, not giving Gerard another look.

"Now wait. I have to talk to my family. I have to talk to my family, I have another chance, you can't just bring me back from the dead and tell me I can't talk to my family."

"I didn't bring you back from the dead. You are still dead. Drink your coffee."

Gerard drops it, but only because it doesn’t really matter what this dude or any other dude’s got to say about it, he’s going to see his family at some point.

The waitress slides his coffee across the table to him and sets the guy's food out of the way of his paperwork. Gerard wraps his hands around the warm mug, oddly glad to see that his nails are still bitten down to the quick, that there's still a callous on his middle finger from his drawing pencils.

"So what now?" Gerard asks, voice muffled by the lip of his coffee mug, and much smaller and quieter than he remembers.

"Now you be quiet so I can get some work done while we wait for the rest of the crew."

Gerard isn't sure, but pissing off the boss of the grim reapers doesn't seem like the brightest of ideas (and he has had more than his fair share of dumb ones), so he tries to get himself settled in. But between the coffee and the dying, Gerard can’t stop fidgeting. He taps his fingers on the table, he shreds his napkin into confetti, he taps his fork against the side of his coffee cup to the beat of “Hey Mickey.” It's not even five minutes before the guy is looking at him, mouth pursed and eyebrows drawn together.

"Can you sit still?"

Gerard sits absolutely still for about five seconds, and then bounces his feet restlessly. The guy narrows his eyes.

"What! I'm sorry okay, I don’t have any paperwork to keep me busy. And you know, by the way, for the record, dying's kind of a big deal, and you haven't told me shit. I think I deserve to know what's going on."

The guy sets his paperwork aside with deliberate delicacy, pulls his plate of food to him, and sighs. "Demanding. Great. Just what I need because I don't already have my hands full with the crew I've got." He seems to be talking to himself, so Gerard stays out of it. Finally, the guy looks up at him. "I'm Brian. I'm - not your boss, but for better lack of a word, I'm your boss." Gerard is no less confused than he was. "It works like this: when most people die, they cross over."

Gerard leans forward, elbows on the table, and manages to shake it enough that his coffee sloshes over the lip of his mug and splatters Brian's paperwork. Brian looks at him like he's a dog that just did something disgusting on the floor, but mops it up as best he can.

"Cross over? Like to heaven?"

Brian looks at him like he’s slow. “How would I know? I haven’t crossed over. As evidenced by my sitting right here in front of you.”

Gerard thinks this guy is overreacting a little to a simple question. Like Gerard knows anything about how any of this works, geez. “Isn’t there like, a handbook or something? Like in Beetlejuice? A Handbook for the Recently Deceased or a case worker or someone I can ask questions?”

“I’m the closest thing you’re going to get to a case worker, buddy, and no, there is no handbook. This whole thing, the whole reaper thing? Works like a business. You’ve got your upper management who know everything, your middle management who know a lot less, and your grunts who know what they need to know.”

Gerard taps at his coffee mug. “I’m a grunt in that scenario, right?”

Brian sighs, confirming, “You’re a grunt in that scenario. You’ll know as much as you need to know to get the job done, and when the job’s done, you’ll move on and figure out everything else.”

“And my job is reaping people?”

“Yes. And for future reference, be careful when noting that title on any paperwork. ‘Reaper’ lends itself to unfortunate typos.”

Gerard considers this, gets the gist of it, and giggles. Brian does not look amused. He looks so not amused, in fact, that Gerard squirms in his seat and manages to slosh his coffee again. Brian’s level of Not Amused ratchets up to Really Annoyed. Luckily, his focus is drawn away from Gerard’s fail when two guys show up next to the booth. One’s bigger, blond, scruffy, with really cool sunglasses shielding his eyes from the harsh florescent lights of the waffle house. The other one’s got a big head of curly hair, an Iron Maiden t-shirt, and a grin that makes Gerard feel a little bit better about being dead.

Brian looks up at them and gestures for them to take a seat. “Bob, Ray, glad to see you’re upholding tradition by arriving half an hour late. Wouldn’t want to break the streak.”

Bob and Ray slide in, and Gerard slides over to accommodate. The blond inclines his head toward Gerard and says, “New guy?”

Brian, looking for all the world like he’s got a litter of puppies to wrangle rather than three grown men, nods. “New guy.”

Gerard huffs indignantly. “I have a name, you know.”

The blond snorts and takes his sunglasses off, revealing startlingly bright blue eyes. “Yeah, Shoulda-Looked-Both-Ways-Guy.”

Gerard doesn’t dignify that with an answer. Yeah, okay, maybe he should have checked to make sure there were no motor vehicles bearing down on him before he stepped into the street, but he was having a life transformation. He was thinking deep thoughts about how to improve his life, and that bus should have yielded.

“Anyway,” Brian says, “Gerard, this is Bob Bryar,” he gestures to the snarky blond one, “and this is Ray Toro.” He gestures to the curly-haired one. “They’ve been at this a while, so, you know.” He makes a vague hand gesture. “Whatever they do, do the opposite.”

“Hey!” Ray sounds offended, but he grabs a menu and starts looking it over at the same time, so Gerard doesn’t think he’s all that upset. “We’re awesome reapers.”

Brian looks like he wants to refute that, but the waitress comes over to take Bob and Ray’s orders. “The usual?”

Bob nods and Ray spends awhile looking over the menu with a creased forehead. Bob finally grabs the menu out of his hands and smacks it back down on the table. “I don’t know why you even bother, Toro. You’re gonna have two eggs over-easy, extra bacon, and hash browns. In three years, you have never ordered anything else. Just admit you’re a creature of habit and save us all the suspense.”

Ray glares at him, and then turns to smile at the waitress. “Two eggs, over-easy, extra bacon, and hash browns. With cheese.” She jots it down, and Ray shoots Bob a smirk.

Bob puts his hands up, palms out. “Whoa, slow down there, cowboy. I don’t know if I can handle the new you. With cheese? That’s a pretty radical change. Next you’ll be sleeping on the other side of the bed.”

Ray flips him off, and Brian eats his pancakes with a long-suffering hunch to his shoulders.

Gerard keeps mostly to himself while they all eat, feeling the familiar nervous nausea of new kid. After breakfast, Brian pokes around in his paperwork until he comes up with a handful of Post-It notes. He hands a few to Ray, a few to Bob, and one to Gerard.

“Unfair,” Bob grumbles. “Back in my day, the new guy got the most jobs, not the least.”

“And we had to walk uphill both ways in the snow to reap a single soul, isn’t that right?” Ray says, grinning, and Bob grumbles some more.

“Lay off, guys,” Brian says, and Gerard’s suddenly grateful for him, despite the bluster. “He doesn’t look like he could operate a toaster today, I’m not gonna pile on the jobs.”

Maybe not that grateful.

Ray scoots out of the booth, Bob not far behind, and stretches. “Well, I guess it’s about that time.”

Gerard glances around the booth like there might be someone sitting there that he’s failed to notice this entire time. “Is this it? Just us three?”

Brian, Ray, and Bob share a look, and Gerard gets the distinct feeling he’s just stumbled into awkward territory.

“We’re just one unit out of a lot more, but we are short a couple people,” Brian admits. “You’re taking one spot, but we’re supposed to have a five-man crew. We should be getting a couple more in...eventually.”

Gerard tries not to get too excited about the fact that he won’t be the new guy anymore and then doesn’t feel excited at all when he realizes he’s already acting like this is normal. He’s dead, he died, his body is on the way to the morgue right this instant, and his mom’s going to be getting the call any minute. None of this is normal. His stomach churns, and he slides out of the booth quietly.

“Gerard,” Brian says, and there’s already a warning in his tone, “Stay away from your family.”

Gerard’s head jerks up, and he narrows his eyes at Brian. Reapers aren’t psychic, are they? If reapers get cool superpowers, Gerard would feel marginally better about being one, but so far he hasn’t discovered any new abilities. Besides the whole being dead and still walking around thing.

“Come on,” Ray says, nudging Bob forward. “Let’s go take some souls.”

Gerard follows behind them a little like a stray dog hoping to be noticed, and behind him, Brian mutters something that sounds like, “My life, so hard.”

--

The three of them stand outside the waffle house, late morning sun glaring down at them. Bob and Ray pull identical sets of sunglasses out of their pockets and slip them on in some kind of synchronized badassery competition. Gerard is left sunglasses-less and participating in the individual squinting challenge.

"So," Gerard says, shoving his hands in his pockets and staring across the street. He can just barely see the yellow police tape from the scene of his death from here. "What now?"

"Now we get our reap on," Bob says, and he says it with a such a straight face that Gerard thinks it must be some kind of pre-reap psych-up or something. Ray gives it a minute, and then laughs, high-pitched and reedy, clapping Gerard on the back.

"Now you do your job."

Gerard stares down at the little piece of yellow paper in his palm, the innocuous office supply with the ominous words scribbled across it. D. Sanders, 12:18 PM, 220 Riverwood Drive. Twelve-eighteen is a while away, and 220 Riverwood Drive is...Gerard has no fucking clue where 220 Riverwood Drive is. He's going to need a map.

Ray sighs and shakes his head, glancing at Bob before taking pity on Gerard and offering, "You can tag along with us for a while, if you want. Get a feel for the job."

Gerard cannot think of a single thing he wants to do less than tag along and watch people die, but his options are limited. He could go back in and see if Brian's feeling charitable, or he could walk around aimlessly until his appointment. The former seems suicidal even for a dead guy, and the latter seems kind of lonely. "Yeah, okay."

Bob has a beat up little hatchback that looks like something straight out of the seventies with its burnt orange paint job and rust-brown interior. "She's not much to look at," Bob says fondly, "But she's a beauty under the hood." Gerard can't vouch for her inner workings, but her backseat sucks. He sits with his shoulders hunched in toward his chest, boxed in on both sides with drum equipment and speakers, feet swimming in a sea of discarded fast food wrappers. Occasionally a box from the back will shift and poke him in the head.

"So, you um. You're a drummer?" Gerard offers weakly.

"Occasionally. When I find a band without one. I tech, sometimes. Brings in a little cash, pays the rent, you know." Bob takes a turn at an alarming rate of speed and a speaker slides onto Gerard's lap, a corner coming dangerously close to his balls.

"Oh, yeah, right. Rent." Gerard parrots the words back without really thinking about them, and then he's got the speaker back in place and his balls are no longer in immediate peril, and he realizes what he's talking about. "Rent, uh. So you guys rent an apartment or what?" He hadn't had much time to think about it, but of course he's going to need a place to stay. Reapers still slept, and it's not like he can take up residence in his old bedroom without raising a few questions. ”Hey, you don’t know me, except that I’m your dead son and I’m gonna chill out down here while I reap some souls, cool?”

Ray turns his head to answer, bracing himself against the dashboard like he has had way too much experience with Bob’s driving. "Yeah, we've got a place. We used to crash wherever was open, one of the benefits of knowing when someone wasn’t gonna be using it. Always an empty place available for a few days, at least."

Gerard’s a little uncomfortable with the idea of squatting in a dead person’s home, especially when you were directly involved with their death, but Bob and Ray have been around longer than he has, so he doesn’t say anything. He’s trying to work up the courage to ask if they need a third roomie when Bob cranks the wheel to the left and the car squeals around a corner, shaking a snare drum loose and sending an avalanche of drum equipment down on Gerard.

The car stops suddenly and the engine goes quiet, and while Gerard picks his way out of the mess, Bob says, “This is it.”

Ray ends up helping Gerard out, shoving most of the equipment to the side and dragging Gerard out bodily while Bob hovers around the edge of a lawn, looking fairly conspicuous.

When he’s finally out, Gerard frowns at Bob and turns to Ray. “What’s he doing?"

Ray shrugs, leaning against a tree. “Besides doing a terrible job of lurking? Trying to figure out how it’s gonna happen.” He shifts, nodding toward Bob, who’s trampling through a flower bed to get around the side of the house. “Sometimes you notice an exposed wire or a badly-hung ceiling fan, and you can figure out how it’s gonna happen. Bob usually goes for the unlikeliest scenarios, which is why I usually win the round.”

Gerard’s horrified. “You make a game out of how people are going to die?”

Ray shrugs again, but he doesn’t look apologetic. “We have to make our own fun in this business.”

They stand around like that for a few more minutes, and then Bob comes back around the side of the house, walking stiffly and mouth in a thin line. Beside Gerard, Ray straightens up, suddenly tense, and says, “Bob?”

“It’s a fire,” Bob says, and his voice sounds so tight Gerard would say Bob’s scared, if Bob seemed like the type to get scared.

Ray relaxes a little, but he nods shortly and peers around the side of the house.

“Gerard,” he says, waving Gerard over, and Gerard shakes his head. Whatever’s over there that freaked Bob out, Gerard’s pretty sure he can do without. “Gerard,” Ray says, a little more firmly. “It’s not gonna hurt you, just come here.”

Gerard slinks over, just close enough to look around the side of the house, and catches sight of it. There’s a shadow looming over the corner of the house that obscures it for a second, makes it look like nothing more than a trick of the light, but then the thing jumps up against the side of the house, baring its teeth at Gerard and digging its claws into the paneling.

It looks like something straight out of a nightmare, a deformed dog or something, moving like gravity doesn’t apply to it and leaving little wisps of smoke behind it. “Sometimes you don’t have to guess,” Ray says as they watch the thing claw at the gas pipe. “You see one of those around, it’s a good bet they’re facilitating a death.”

Gerard feels a sick sort of fascination with the creature, and he tries to memorize the shape of it, the horrific twist of its face so he can draw it later. “What is it?”

“A graveling,” Ray explains. “Fate’s little helpers.”

Gerard backs away, back into the bright sunlight the sidewalk spot offers, and nods. “They’re always around for it?”

Ray shrugs, coming over to stand next to him. “In our area, yeah. We cover accidental deaths, and they’re usually responsible for any accidents that kill someone. Sometimes they get in and out before we get there, though.” He nudges Bob with his elbow, nodding toward the car. “I got this one.”

Bob looks like he wants to argue, but there’s a sudden snap and hiss from the side of the house, and he just nods gratefully.

When he’s back in the car, Ray lowers his voice and says, “He has some issues with fire.”

Gerard doesn’t ask. Reaper etiquette probably says you don’t ask about a reaper’s death or they get to scythe you or something.

A few minutes later, a dark sedan pulls into the driveway and a family piles out. Gerard’s stomach sinks to his feet.

Ray doesn’t miss a beat. “Mr. and Mrs. Kline?” He strides up the driveway, smile on his face, and extends a hand to the man.

Mr. Kline looks a little confused, hefting his toddler daughter onto his hip and holding his hand out warily. “Yes?”

Ray takes the man’s hand and squeezes it firmly, and Gerard can just barely see a flicker of blue pass between them. It almost looks like static electricity, shimmering faintly before dissipating completely. Gerard’s suddenly reminded of the woman he helped before he died, the tiny shock he’d gotten when she’d touched him. He is slightly miffed that the one person he’d decided to help out in his quest to become a better person had repaid the favor by taking his soul. “Ray Toro, I just bought a house in the neighborhood, thought I’d make the rounds.” His grin is completely disarming, voice betraying no sign of the lie, and even Gerard finds himself strangely comforted by the façade.

“Oh, well, good to meet you,” Mr. Kline says, and Ray drops his hand to greet Mrs. Kline, sliding his palm against hers and taking her soul so smoothly Gerard doesn’t even see the shimmer this time.

“And this must be…” Ray leans down to press a hand against the shoulder of the boy, finger going up to his lips like he’s thinking hard.

“Sam!” the boy offers, grinning toothily, and Ray’s fingers drag against his shoulder as he straightens up to greet the last member of the family.

“And Michaela,” Mrs. Kline says, reaching in to brush her daughter’s hair behind her ear. Ray takes the girl’s pudgy hand and shakes it seriously, pulling a face.

“Pleasure to meet you, Michaela.” The girl hides her face in her father’s shoulder, and Ray grins. “Well, I’ve got a whole neighborhood of houses to inflict myself upon yet, so you folks have a good night.” He raises a hand in a half-wave, and the Klines say their goodbyes, trooping into the house.

Ray rejoins Gerard on the sidewalk, and Gerard gapes at him. “But.” Ray turns a serious gaze on him, and Gerard sputters. “But, they’re kids. You can’t just, I mean, fucking. Can’t you warn them? You know what’s gonna happen, just warn them for Christ’s sake!”

Ray puts his hands in his pockets and glances back at the house. “That’s not how it works.”

“Then how it works is fucked,” Gerard says, already headed toward the front door. If he was any closer, he would have gotten sliced neatly in two when the door exploded off its hinges, but as it is, he just gets knocked down and singed a little. He lays on the ground for a few seconds, staring up at the sky and wondering just who’s up there calling such shitty shots. He can hear murmuring off to the side, so he turns his head and catches the tail end of Ray showing the family how to cross over. When they’re gone, Ray comes over and grabs his arm, hauling him up and helping him toward the car.

“It’s not fun,” Ray says quietly. “It’s a shitty job. But this is the way it works.”

Gerard climbs into the backseat, not bothering to push anything out of his way or try to avoid crushing anything important. He stays quiet while they drive to Ray’s appointment, and he doesn’t say anything while Bob takes the reap, catching a teenage couple outside a diner and brushing up against them surreptitiously. He doesn’t say anything as they drive past the crumpled heap of metal a few miles down the road, ambulance siren wailing in the distance, and he doesn’t open his mouth again until they get to 220 Riverside Drive.

“I won’t do it,” he says, planting himself on a bench. As it turns out, 220 Riverside Drive is a park, mostly flowers and bike paths, near the middle of the city. “You can’t make me.” He’s being petulant and he knows it, but fuck. This is all kinds of fucked up and he wants no part of it.

Bob and Ray exchange a glance, and then Bob sits next to Gerard on the bench. “It gets easier.”

Gerard gapes at him. “Killing people gets easier. Oh, gee, thanks for the reassurance, that totally makes it okay, let’s get to it!”

Bob doesn’t look amused. He doesn’t even look sympathetic. “Man, cut the bullshit. You know it’s not like that. We don’t kill people. We show up in time to take their soul and let fate take its course. This is the natural order of things, and you going on strike or whatever isn’t going to change that.”

Gerard crosses his arms, staring at a bubbling fountain. “Maybe, but I don’t have to go along with it.”

“Yeah, you do,” Bob says, sounding exasperated. “If you want to get to the next stage, the other side, whatever the fuck you want to call it, you have to log your hours like the rest of us. Otherwise, welcome to a very long life of being dead.”

Gerard doesn’t give in, but he doesn’t argue, either. As much as he doesn’t want to do this, be this, he’s not sure he wants to hang around forever, either. As it stands, he has no one. No one that recognizes him and nobody that would believe him if he tried to explain it. Well, maybe Mikey would. But even Mikey will grow old and die eventually, and Gerard would be stuck on a planet without him. Living forever in that situation is a pretty good motivator to get reaping. When twelve-eighteen rolls around, he uncrinkles his Post-It and stares at the name.

“You might have to do a little guess and checking,” Ray says. “First initial doesn’t really give you a lot to go on, it could be male or female, but sometimes you get lucky and they introduce themselves.”

Gerard looks around the park, takes in every person there. The older lady feeding the birds looks kind of lonely, but nice, the shawl wrapped around her shoulders reminding Gerard of the crocheted couch cover at home. The businessman eating a late lunch at the edge of the fountain, using his lap to do paperwork while he absently eats a sandwich. The young mother pushing a stroller around the cobblestone path, talking quietly to her baby, the older man fixing the chain on his bike, the middle-aged woman reading a paperback under a tree. He doesn’t want to be the reason any of them die.

Ray peers over Gerard’s shoulder to read his Post-It, and then scans the park much more quickly than Gerard had.

“There,” he says confidently, pointing to the guy fixing his bike. Gerard stares at him for a minute, trying to see what Ray had seen, and finally zeroes in on the guy’s bag. It says David Sanders across the side in small letters.

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Bob says, clapping Gerard on the shoulder.

Gerard stands up and shuffles toward the guy, his stomach tightening with every step. He doesn’t want to do this. God, but he’d give just about anything not to do this. He’s getting deep into thought about how much he really doesn’t want to do this when the guy looks up at him, and Gerard realizes he’s been standing over him for a creepy amount of time, not saying anything.

“Can I help you?” the guy asks, and it sounds more like he’s saying, ”Can I help you get away from me any faster?”

“Uh,” Gerard says. His mind’s a complete blank. What’s he supposed to do, make conversation? “You um, you need any help with that bike?” Gerard knows fuck-all about bike repair, but hopefully the guy will say no and shake his hand for offering to help or something.

“No.” The guy does not shake his hand. Instead, he scoots a little further away and stares at Gerard.

“Oh, okay.” Gerard decides to try a page from Ray’s book. “I’m Gerard, by the way, it’s nice to meet you.” He sticks his hand out.

The guy looks as likely to shake his hand as eat his own shoe. “That’s nice. I have to get going.”

The guy stands up and is about to walk away and Gerard moves without thinking, touching the guy’s shoulder and dragging his soul out. It’s not a pleasant sensation, but it’s not terrible, either, just brief pins and needles in his fingertips and then a weird sort of thud, like landing from a jump. Gerard’s still considering this when he realizes his fingers are still on the guy’s shoulder, and the move he’d used to take his soul had basically been a stroke. He just stroked this guy’s shoulder. The guy looks as creeped out as Gerard would if some random dude just stroked him.

“Look, pal, I don’t swing that way. I’m flattered, but take off.”

Gerard gapes, and the guy’s already halfway down the path before he finally splutters, “What. No! I don’t, I didn’t, what?”

Gerard can hear Ray and Bob snickering behind him, and he turns around to level his best glare at them. While he’s busy not having much effect on them, there’s a sudden grating noise behind him like metal on stone, and someone nearby shouts in alarm.

Gerard turns back around to see David Sanders on the ground, his bike twisted around him at an odd angle, and his head gushing blood onto the pavement. At almost the same instant, he’s standing next to Gerard, scratching his head and staring over at his own body.

“So you weren’t hitting on me?”

Gerard feels his face heat up, and his shoulders hunch up. “No, I was not. Not that I have anything against older guys, I mean, you’re good-looking for an old guy, not that you’re super old or anything, you’re just older than me, and while I wouldn’t say I would never date an older guy, you don’t seem like the type that would date me, and I’m not really the type that chases people who don’t seem interested, you know? So I wasn’t hitting on you, but don’t take that as a personal offense or anything, I might totally have hit on you if you seemed into it-“

At that point, Gerard realizes that Mr. Sanders is quietly walking into a brilliant tunnel of light, ignoring everything Gerard’s saying. Bob comes up behind him, patting him on the shoulder. “Gonna have to shorten up that speech, they usually don’t stick around long.”

The tunnel of light closes, taking David Sanders with it, and Gerard feels a pang of overwhelming loss. That tunnel was what he should have seen when he woke up. He should have had light to walk into, someone waiting on the other end. Elena. He can’t even work up the motivation to tell Bob that he doesn’t plan on accidentally hitting on any of his other reaps and so will not have the need for the speech. Instead, he just nods and follows them back to the car.

--

Bob and Ray drop Gerard back off at the waffle house, mostly because he has nowhere else to go. He can’t go home, he can’t go to his friends’, he can’t go to work.

He stands outside for a while, just loitering, trying to figure out what to do next. The crime scene tape is gone from the accident scene, and he wanders over. There’s nothing left to show for his death except a pair of skid marks on the road. By now, his family’s got the news. He can’t – doesn’t want to – imagine what they’re going through. Not that he has any inflated sense of his own importance, but he knows it’s going to be hard. He can’t even comprehend what he’d do if something had happened to Mikey instead.

He wanders back past the waffle house, and for being alive, or undead, or whatever it is he is, he feels pretty ghostly. No one looks at him as they pass, and when he catches a glimpse of himself in a window, he’s startled. He still looks the same as ever – dark hair just this side of too-long, wide eyes in a pale face, tiny rows of teeth when he smiles grimly at himself. For some reason, he’d expected it to show. Like the first time he’d gotten laid – logically he knew there was no outward signs to prove he was no longer a virgin, but still, he’d expected people to notice something different. It feels wrong that being dead hasn’t changed him at all.

He wanders away, just keeps walking in no particular direction. He thinks he should probably be looking for a place to stay, or a job so he can pay for a place to stay, but he’s dead, what does it matter? It’s not like he’ll freeze to death outside, or starve to death without food. At least he doesn’t think so. Maybe he should check with Brian before testing that theory out.

He walks for a long time, long enough that the sun sets on his first day dead, and when he stops, he realizes he’s walked himself home.

He takes a deep breath and settles himself on the curb opposite his house, patting himself down. There’s a crumpled pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket, and he manages to find one that isn’t crushed and light it.

There are a couple cars in the driveway he doesn’t recognize. His aunt’s maybe, or his cousin’s. His mom’s car is there, parked half in the grass, and his dad’s car is there, too. The lights are on in every room in the house, casting shadows out over the lawn as people walk by the windows, and more than anything, Gerard just wants to go in. He wants to go in and hug his mom, he wants to hug Mikey, he wants to tell them he’s sorry for dying, for not telling them he loved them more often, for not doing more with his life while he had it. He wants to curl up in his own bed and watch stupid cheesy movies with his brother and get drunk and make mistakes he’ll have a chance to fix.

He gets through two cigarettes before the door opens, and even in the darkness, the light from the hallway behind him the only thing illuminating his frame, Gerard can tell it’s Mikey. His heart lurches in his chest, and all he can think is Miss you miss you miss you.

Mikey stands out on the lawn for a few minutes, arms crossed, staring down at the grass. After a while he looks up, scans the street, and notices Gerard.

Gerard almost stands up. Brian’s warning is there at the forefront of his mind, vaguely promising bad things if he tried to interact with his family, but it’s Mikey. It’s the kid he’s spent his whole life with, and the kid he really can’t imagine his life without.

He forces himself to stay where he’s at even when Mikey heads over, even when Mikey sits down next to him and drags his knees up toward his chest.

They sit in silence for a while, and then Mikey says, “My brother died today.”

Gerard’s whole body aches with the need to just reach over and hug him, to reassure him that things are okay. I’m still here, he wants to say. I love you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to die. “I’m really sorry.”

Mikey nods, slowly bobbing his head a few times like once he stops he’s not going to know what else to say. Finally he says, “That asshole.”

Gerard’s heart sinks, and it’s suddenly hard to take a breath. Whatever grudges they’d had, however many fights they’d had, Gerard couldn’t imagine that any of them were bad enough that they’d last through one of them dying. He’s grateful to be sitting here, trying to offer the smallest kind of condolences he can to his brother for his own death, but knowing Mikey’s still mad at him for whatever it was they’d fought about makes Gerard kind of want to get mowed down by another bus.

“That asshole,” Mikey says again, and he has his face turned away from Gerard, chin hooked on his shoulder. His voice is muffled. “He was gonna do really great things, and then he had to go and die.”

Gerard fumbles around with his cigarettes, blinking fast, and manages to light one before he can say something stupid. Mikey, I’m so sorry.

Finally Mikey sniffles and drags the sleeve of his shirt over his nose. “Did you know him?”

Gerard sucks his cigarette down to the filter and considers the question. “Not very well.”

Mikey stands up, arms wrapped around himself, and says, “I gotta get back inside. My mom…” He shakes his head. “See you around.”

Gerard waves him off even though Mikey’s already headed back to the house, and then he spends a few minutes pretending he’s not crying.

Eventually he gets up and walks away, and in comparison to that, taking souls suddenly doesn’t seem like it’ll be so hard.

--

Gerard spends the night wandering town, and by the time the sun comes up, he’s out of cigarettes, exhausted, and starting to wonder if it’s all been some bizarre dream. Maybe he just fell asleep on the train and dreamt his own death. Maybe he dreamt the waffle house and the park and his visit home.

He lets himself believe it for about an hour, pretending that he can go home whenever he wants and his family will just roll their eyes at him. It’s a hollow sort of comfort, but it’s comfort.

Eventually he’s too cold and tired and hungry to pretend he’d be out if he had any other choice, and even the hollow comfort dissipates. He’s really dead, and he really has no place to go.

So he goes to the waffle house.

It’s early, way earlier than when he’d followed Brian in yesterday, but Brian’s there anyway. Gerard slides into the booth across from him and drops his head onto the table with a solid thunk.

“Rough night?” Brian asks, scribbling something down on a notepad and not looking up.

“This whole business sucks,” Gerard says miserably. “Not only am I dead, but I have no money, no job, and no place to live. And no cigarettes,” he amends even more miserably.

Brian finally looks up, pen poised over his paper, and a flicker of sympathy passes over his face. He sets the pen down and digs into his pocket, producing a pack of cigarettes and handing them over. “Now you have cigarettes. And in case you forgot, you do actually have a job. It’s called being a reaper.”

“Right. And when do I get my first paycheck?”

Brian frowns. “There’s a lot of reapers, Gerard, and all of them have to make their own way. You need to find a place to live, because if you try to reap smelling like that, you won’t make it within ten feet of the soul before they run the other way.”

Gerard sniffs himself. Compared to some days, he’s practically fragrant. He hasn’t even been drinking, although not for lack of wanting. Mostly for lack of more than the two dollars he has in his wallet.

Brian orders breakfast and Gerard gives him his best ‘please feed me’ look, and Brian folds and lets Gerard order on his tab. They’re almost done when Bob and Ray stroll in.

“You look like death warmed over,” Bob says. Gerard groans.

“You’re hysterical.”

“Get used to it,” Brian mutters. “Thinks he’s a comedian, this guy.”

Bob and Ray slide in and start talking about the show Bob had teched the night before. Gerard finishes his breakfast and stretches, suddenly feeling the effects of a full belly and a night of no sleep after a pretty eventful day. His whole body feels heavy, and before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s half-leaning against Ray, eyes already slipping shut.

It’s a pleasant sort of feeling, and Gerard lets himself drift in and out while the guys talk, catching bits and pieces that don’t really fit together. Eventually, Ray shifts his shoulder gently and Gerard sits up, fighting back a yawn.

The waitress comes by, and Bob orders but Ray declines. At Bob’s arched eyebrow, he nods toward Gerard and shrugs. “He’s drooling on me. I’m gonna take him home and let him get cleaned up, sleep for a while.”

Bob doesn’t look overly-enthused about that idea, but he nods. Brian grabs his bag and holds up a finger.

“Before you go…” He pulls out a thin pile of Post-Its and hands them to Gerard. “Your appointments.”

Gerard still has the niggling feeling he should be trying harder to rebel against this whole business, but he’s so exhausted it’s all he can do to reach out and grab the papers. He’ll rail against the system later.

Ray slides out of the booth and pulls Gerard out with him, letting Gerard hold onto his arm as he stumbles around trying to get his balance.

“Hey, tha-“ Gerard yawns, so wide his jaw cracks, and follows Ray out to the car. “…nks.”

Ray shrugs again. “The first few weeks are tough, I still remember that.” He stops at the driver’s side door, pointing over the roof of the car. “You can stay a few days, but you gotta look for your own place.”

Gerard nods sleepily and climbs in, already dozing off by the time Ray starts the engine.

Ray nudges him awake when they arrive at the apartment building, and Gerard stumbles after him when he leads the way up.

The door’s not even closed before Gerard’s dropping onto the sofa, tucking a decorative pillow under his head and pulling his knees up. He’s so tired he can barely think straight, and he’s looking forward to sleeping, but it’s kind of nice being half-awake, too tired to think about how confused he is, or how much he misses his mom, or how he’s, you know, dead.

Ray throws a blanket over him and pulls the shade, and in the dim light of the room, Gerard can almost pretend he’s home.

He hears the door click shut as Ray leaves, and then he falls into a hard, dreamless sleep.

--

It’s late afternoon by the time he wakes up, and for a split second, Gerard’s irritated that Mikey left the shades open again. It’s Gerard’s room, and if he wants to wallow in darkness, that’s his right, and Mikey should stop-

It hits him then, the unfamiliar couch he’s sleeping on and the smell of a different brand of laundry detergent on the blanket covering him and the sounds of people moving around him that aren’t his family.

He sits up, pulls the blanket around him, and curls up in the corner of the couch. An overwhelming sense of hopelessness settles over him, and he tucks his face into his knees. What’s he supposed to do now? Well, he knows what he’s supposed to do, but it doesn’t really mesh with what he wants to do.

“Coffee?” Ray comes up behind the couch and leans over, holding a steaming mug out to him.

Gerard accepts it gratefully and sips at the scalding coffee. “Thanks.”

Ray comes around and sits down next to him, letting his legs sprawl and resting his hands on his thighs. “You had an appointment earlier, but Bob took it. He said you looked too cute sleeping to wake up.”

Bob shouts from the kitchen, “I did not, Toro, you dirty liar. I said he looked like shit and needed the beauty sleep.”

Ray laughs, and Gerard forces a smile. “Thanks. I crashed pretty hard.”

“No big deal. You need a shower or something? I think I’ve got some clothes that’ll fit, if you want ‘em.”

Gerard doesn’t really want to shower, he’s feeling pretty comfortable in his own filth, but he supposes it’s impolite to stink up your host’s couch. He nods and gets up, setting the coffee aside. “Sure.”

Ray shows him to the bathroom and leaves to find clothes. Gerard slowly strips down, and he can’t resist checking his body for…tire marks or something, he doesn’t know. But his body’s the same as it ever was – pale, a little chubbier than he’d like, no distinguishing marks beside the few childhood scars he’d had before.

The hot water feels good on his tense shoulders, and he just stands under the spray for a long time before Ray knocks and peeks his head in and puts some towels and clothes on the counter, grabbing Gerard’s dirty clothes on his way out.

Eventually, Gerard starts washing up, and the smell of the shampoo almost makes him cry. It’s not his shampoo, it’s not Mikey’s top-shelf professional stuff, it’s not his Mom’s flowery stuff, it’s just some random generic shampoo that belongs to the people he’s crashing with because he has nowhere else to go.

Gerard scrambles to finish and throws a towel around himself. He tracks water all the way out to the living room, and he nearly slips in his own puddle. Ray looks at him curiously.

“Don’t.” Gerard suddenly realizes he’s naked from the waist up, and he self-consciously puts an arm over his chest. “Um, I uh, I’ll do my own laundry.”

Ray nods slowly. “Okay…your clothes are in the hamper.” He points across the room. Gerard grabs his clothes out, clutching them to his chest. Ray’s still looking at him weird, but Gerard just heads to the bathroom to get dressed. He doesn’t plan on wearing his clothes, but he doesn’t plan on washing them, either – his clothes may smell bad, but there’s the underlying scent of his mom’s detergent, and Mikey’s body spray, and home. He can’t lose the last trace of it he has left.

Ray’s clothes are a little long, slightly tight around the middle, but they’ll work. He curls up on the couch again, watching disinterestedly as Ray flips through the channels.

“You’re gonna have to get some new clothes,” Ray says.

Gerard has actually thought of that, but he’s kind of strapped for cash. “I don’t have any money.”

Ray mutes the TV and turns toward him. “Did Brian tell you anything about how we make money?”

Gerard shrugs. “He said I have to get a job.”

Ray laughs. “He’s an idealist.”

Bob snorts.

“Well, how else do I make money?” Gerard asks, rubbing his palms over his knees anxiously.

“Steal,” Bob says bluntly.

Gerard narrows his eyes. “Like…rob a bank? I don’t think I…I mean, I don’t even have a gun-“

Bob breaks down laughing, his whole face going red, and Gerard frowns at him. Well, what does Bob expect? Not everyone has a gun, Gerard wouldn’t even know where to get one, especially now that he has no identification-

Ray’s valiantly trying not to laugh as he says, “No, Gerard, you don’t need to rob a bank. Just take a few bucks here and there from your reaps. They’re not going to need it.”

Gerard stares at him. “Are you serious?”

Ray nods. “It’s that or get a job.”

Gerard doesn’t like either of those options. He’s about to ask for a third when Ray glances at his watch and says, “Oh, shit, you have an appointment.”

Gerard grabs his stack of Post-Its from the table and flips through them. Sure enough, M. Wu is scheduled to die in about fifteen minutes.

“Better get going,” Bob says, popping a peanut into his mouth and un-muting the TV.

Gerard grabs his shoes and tries to remember that every soul is a step closer to being done with this whole thing.

--

Gerard ends up taking up residence on the couch, ignoring Bob’s pointed looks when he gets home and has to push a pile of bedding out of the way to sit down. He’d leave, but it’s not like he’s got anywhere else to go. He’s even been keeping an eye on the apartments of the souls he’s reaping, but so far nothing’s panned out.

“So,” he says to his fifth-ever reap, a young guy named Steve who’d fallen to his death while trying to climb a tree (“Drunk and naked,” Gerard tells Brian later, “Drunk and naked. There needs to be more information on those Post-Its, seriously.”). “You’re not really going to need your keys anymore, right?” Steve’s busy walking into the light, and Gerard thinks that’s a pretty clear ‘go for it’, so he fishes Steve’s wallet and keys out of his discarded pants and takes a bus to Steve’s address.

Steve lives above his parents’ garage. Gerard pokes around, feeling distinctly skeezy while he pushes aside Steve’s porn magazines and tries to avoid looking at the picture of Steve’s girlfriend next to his bed. He feels like an intruder, even though Steve won’t ever be back, won’t ever need any of his stuff again. Gerard isn’t even sure why he’d let himself in; it isn’t like he can squat there, even for a night. It’s way too close to the parents’ house. But he can’t stop himself from picking through Steve’s things, flipping through his mail, turning the TV on to see what channel Steve had watched last. He learns that Steve’s dog, Maisy, died recently (her collar is hung around the neck of an urn, the inscription marking the date of death only a few weeks before), he’d graduated toward the top of his class from college and had been in the process of looking for a job (a neat stack of resumes sits next to Steve’s computer), and he’d been about to propose to his girlfriend (the engagement ring is next to her picture).

Gerard tries to imagine what people would have found going through his stuff after he’d died, and it makes him cringe a little in embarrassment. Sketches of vampires weren’t so bad, but sketches of vampires in various stages of undress was probably a little…sketchy.

Whatever his family had found, it wasn’t nearly the legacy he’d meant to leave behind. He’d had so many plans, had really believed that he’d been born to do something more than the mundane. He’s doing that now, he supposes, but it’s not really been what he’d had in mind, and it’s not really something he can leave behind for anyone to be proud of.

He doesn’t take anything from Steve’s except a few beers out of the fridge. More than anything, he wants to get wasted, so completely trashed that he won’t be able to feel anything. A few beers isn’t going to do that, but it’ll take the edge off.

Except they don’t even do that. As it turns out, Gerard’s theory about freezing to death or starving to death had been pretty accurate; reapers aren’t allowed to die, and while the whole regenerative tissue thing is a pretty cool discovery (upon finding out, Gerard had grabbed the nearest pointy object and sliced his palm open – it still hurt like a bitch, but as promised, it healed up almost instantaneously), it also means reapers can’t get drunk.

Brian says it’s a good thing, and Gerard can see the merits, but he’s been itching for a bender since he got hit by a bus, and the realization that henceforth he will have to deal with everything without even the promise of liquid courage is a little daunting.

A lot daunting. On top of the itch to drink that’s always under his skin, he’s spending his days killing people, and that’s enough to make him want to soak his head in a keg. Bob keeps telling him it’s not killing people, it’s just taking their souls, but it feels a lot like killing people.

He spends a lot of time on Ray’s couch, smoking just for something to do with his hands and watching TV with Bob. When he gets antsy, when he starts feeling like there’s something he forgot to do but he can’t remember what, Bob mutes the TV and lets him talk about comics or movies or music until it’s passed. When he starts pacing, thinking about taking the ten bucks in his wallet and buying a case of the cheapest shit he can find, Ray drags him to a movie or tries to teach him how to play guitar.

They never talk about it specifically, the whole Gerard having a problem with alcohol, but either Brian told them or Bob and Ray are just really good at picking up on when a guy needs some distraction from himself. He’d really like to believe he would have kicked the habit by himself if he’d lived a little longer, he’d like to believe that the promises he was making before he got ran over by a bus would have stuck, but if he’s honest, he knows he wouldn’t and they wouldn’t have. He still doesn’t like his current situation, but apparently there is a silver lining even in the big fat black raincloud that is being dead.

--

There's a little diner just across the street from the apartment, and it doesn't look like much, but every morning he wakes up to the smell of coffee just outside his window, and it's enough to make him consider trying to convince Bob and Ray to let him stay permanently.

The place only holds fifteen or twenty people at full capacity, so the quarters are a little closer than Gerard would like, but the coffee's better than anything he's had this side of death, and it’s somewhere he can go that isn’t someone else’s apartment or a waffle house. He can put up with listening to conversations that don't interest him and occasionally getting cracked in the elbow with a dish cart as it gets wheeled by.

He spends three days in a row there, stopping in for a cup of coffee before he hits the waffle house and quickly earning himself a spot in the waitress' heart by leaving her a five-dollar tip for a seventy-five cent cup of coffee (he still hasn’t stopped feeling guilty about raiding dead peoples’ wallets; like, what, taking their soul isn’t enough, he’s gotta swipe their last twenty bucks, too? But leaving generous tips makes him feel a little bit better about it). Her name's Blanche, she's not a day under sixty, and she wears a really fantastic red wig that sits a little wonky and perpetually gives the impression that she's cocking her head.

After the waffle house and his early reaps, Gerard goes back to spend the afternoon drawing. He'd kind of hit the jackpot with one of his latest reaps - she'd had a satchel full of sketchpads and pretty decent pencils on her when she’d died. He'd felt shitty just taking them - what if her family would have wanted them for sentimental value, or she would have wanted to donate them to a children's art charity or something? He'd felt shitty all the way up until Bob showed him the Rolex he'd snagged off a reap and Ray showed him the Fender he'd taken and Brian had waved his hand while they talked and mumbled something about denying all knowledge. After that, he'd decided a few sketchpads and some pencils weren't too bad.

The diner clears out after the lunch hour, Gerard discovers, and stays pretty quiet until dinner. All the old-timers have gotten their fill of coffee and gossip, and he's usually left his choice of tables. He always takes the one in the furthest corner, hunches himself over and toward the wall as much as possible, and takes advantage of the two-dollar endless cup of coffee. The first three days he gets a kid barely out of high school refilling his mug, and the jaded, world-weary attitude he affects is a little sad but works for Gerard since he's not really looking to make friends either.

But the fourth day, he waves his hand when the shadow looms over his sketchpad and an unfamiliar voice says, "You an artist?"

Gerard ducks his head a little more, stares down at the graphite vampires devouring an entire ballet troupe, and shrugs. He got that line in high school, sometimes, some overachieving jock looking to meet his quota early by picking on something other than Gerard's clothing, hair, girlish face, or perceived sexual preference.

"Not…really," Gerard says, still not looking up. He’d almost said not anymore, but that might bring up questions about why not, and it’s not really like he can say Been too busy reaping souls. Besides, maybe he is still an artist, or could be if he wanted to. He’s a reaper, but he doesn’t have to be just a reaper, right?

"Well, I think you missed your calling, then," the waiter says, and pours a neat cup of coffee while he peers over Gerard's hunched shoulder.

Gerard finally looks up and has to blink, the dim corner of the diner making his eyes grainy. It might also be because his waiter is incredibly good-looking. Like, not just kinda cute but flat-out hot. He's short, barely taller than Gerard even sitting, and he's got tattoos all down his arms and a couple curving around his throat. His dark hair's long, looks like it's been left to grow out without much thought as to style, but it suits him. It hangs thick around his ears, curling around his jaw and barely scraping against his neck. He's smiling, and Gerard's kind of breathless.

"Can I get you anything else?" the waiter asks, still smiling, and Gerard has to bite down on the urge to order something completely ridiculous just to keep this guy around a little longer.

"Just coffee," he manages to choke out, and the waiter gestures toward the full cup by Gerard's elbow.

"Gotcha covered. Need anything else, just yell. I'm Frank, by the way." He sticks his free hand out, and Gerard stares at it. There's barbed wire tattooed around his wrist, tiny and delicate words near it, and Gerard just wants to take Frank's hand and study it for a while. There's a good chance that a beating would hurt just as badly as a reaper as it did as a human, though, so he settles for a handshake.

"Gerard. Um, you know, that's me. Gerard. Thanks for the coffee."

Frank's smile widens into a grin and he nods, hair falling into his eyes. "Just doing my job. Good luck on the drawing, Gerard." He turns to attend to another table, and Gerard watches him go, barely blinking.

This is pretty much par for the course, really. Gerard had spent twenty-six years of his life doing nothing in particular, kissing a few people here and there, sleeping with as many people as he can count on one hand, and mostly sucking at romance in general. He'd always kind of figured he'd have a while to get it right. He didn't think he'd have to worry about it for a while. And now he's dead, and there's a hot guy who likes his drawings serving him coffee, and isn't that just the way it goes?

He doodles a little bit more, sketching a tiny guy next to one of the vampires, shading in a variety of indeterminate tattoos on him, giving him a stake at the last minute and sending him off to slay the newly-risen ballerina vampires. He drinks his coffee a little (a lot) faster than usual and ends up needing seven refills before his bladder starts complaining and his heart starts making noises about stopping completely if he doesn’t cool it with the caffeine. Gerard would like to have a stern word with his body, the traitor, cutting his waiter-ogling short, but he has an appointment anyway, so he leaves a hefty tip and hopes Frank doesn’t notice when he trips his way out the door.

--

Gerard starts timing his visits to the diner. He meets Brian and Bob and Ray for breakfast at eight, eats, gets his assignments, and spends an hour doing what he can to pass the time. Following Bob and Ray around tends to be a popular choice, especially since Ray usually takes pity on him and buys him a pack of smokes if he’s out. Bob even starts conversations with him occasionally, although they usually end with a bad joke about death or Gerard trying to figure out if he’s being teased or not. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with Bob.

At ten, Gerard heads to the diner. Frank’s usual shift starts at ten-thirty, and Gerard has enough experience to know showing up at the exact same time Frank does is a dead giveaway. Not that he’s ever stalked anyone before, and not that he’s stalking Frank, but Gerard’s been the quiet guy that takes a while to work up the courage for a very long time. You have to orchestrate these things so you don’t come off like a creeper because if you’re orchestrating them, you are definitely a creeper.

He spends half an hour doodling, usually variations of short, pretty, tattooed waiters named Frank. Vampire!Frank, Wolverine!Frank, Batman!Frank. Frank fighting mutant sharks, Frank playing in a zombie band, Frank kissing a pasty, dark-haired guy, and if that pasty, dark-haired guy bears any resemblance to Gerard, well, that’s just coincidence.

It’s only a matter of time before Frank catches him in the act. Because Gerard’s pretty sure most of his bad luck got used up on getting hit by a bus, the sketch Frank sees is not one of the more embarrassing ones. In fact, it’s not even one he could recognize himself in, since Gerard hasn’t drawn him in yet. It’s just a rough outline of a creepy old house, bats circling the spire and a ghostly figure in the window. He figured it would eventually serve as the setting for comic!Frank and comic!Gerard’s dramatic moment, wherein Gerard would use his totally awesome (and totally made up) reaper powers to defeat an angry spirit, saving Frank’s life in the process, and then Frank would somehow just know what Gerard was. But he wouldn’t care, and in especially self-indulgent moments, Gerard imagines Frank thinking reaping’s hot.

“Dude, I’m telling you. You should be doing this for a living.” Frank tops up Gerard’s cup of coffee without asking.

Gerard refrains from telling him he did kind of used to do this for a living, and it didn’t really work out that well. “Maybe someday,” he says instead. On a brave whim, he looks up and asks, “So what’s your hidden talent?”

Frank looks like he doesn’t know if he should be grinning or not, the sides of his lips twitching. “Uh?”

Gerard gestures at the sketch. “You’re one up on me, come on. Pouring a cup of coffee can’t be the only thing you’re good at.”

Frank does grin then - the kind of grin Gerard would expect to see on a little kid just before he puts a frog down someone’s shirt. Gerard’s pretty sure no human being should be able to look that good while plotting. And then Frank sticks his tongue out between his teeth, looking up while he thinks, and Gerard has to shift, because his dick has suddenly decided to join the conversation. It’s probably deserved punishment since Gerard hasn’t so much as touched it except for a cursory wash in the shower since he died. Fuck, he didn’t even know if it would still work. It seems pretty determined to remind him that yes, it does. And it does not appreciate being ignored, so ha ha, sucker, deal with a hard-on at a totally inconvenient moment.

“I’m pretty bendy,” Frank finally says, and Gerard would know if his dick and Frank had forged some unholy alliance in order to torment Gerard, right?

“I meant.” Gerard’s voice squeaks, and he has to clear his throat. “I meant, like, what do you do for fun?”

Frank glances behind him, and Gerard follows his gaze. The diner’s pretty empty at the moment, just a couple people in a corner booth and a guy reading a newspaper at the counter. Frank turns back and asks, “You wanna grab a smoke?”

Gerard really, really does, but he’s not sure standing up is the best move right now. “Uh. Yeah. Can I, let me just grab my stuff, I’ll meet you outside?”

Frank nods, already untying his apron and heading over to the counter to replace the coffee pot.

Gerard rapidly tries to think the unsexiest thoughts he can come up with. He thinks about the time he walked in on his great-aunt Edna in the shower. He thinks about that in more detail than his brain is comfortable with, and it redirects him to the great big mole on Aunt Edna’s upper lip. It’s a satisfactory replacement, and he’s able to stand up without too much problem after a minute.

He meets Frank outside and bums a smoke off of him. They smoke in silence for a couple minutes, and then Frank picks a piece of tobacco off his tongue and says, “I’m in a band. I do that for fun. Among other things.” He gives Gerard a sidelong glance, grinning, and no amount of naked great-aunt Edna can save Gerard now.

“Oh, uh-hum.” He sucks hard on his cigarette and asks on the exhale, “What do you play?”

“Some guitar, but I mostly sing. Kind of. It’s not really singing so much as yelling.”

Gerard nods, trying to picture Frank fronting a band, sweaty hair in his face while he screams into a microphone. Yeah, Gerard’s kind of screwed. He finishes his cigarette and stubs it out, trying to stand with his hips tilted away from Frank, and then he grabs his stuff and holds his bag in front of him. “I gotta go, but um. Yeah. Maybe I’ll come see you sometime?”

“You see me every day,” Frank teases, still taking long, lazy drags off his cigarette. “But yeah, okay. I’d like that. I’ll let you know next time we’re playing a show. We don’t exactly have regular gigs just yet.”

Gerard nods, thanks Frank for the smoke, and hightails it. He swings by the post office, brushes his hand across an elderly man’s back as he climbs slowly up the steps, and hides around the corner until the man slips and tumbles back down, breaking his neck on the way. He guides him toward the light as quickly as possible because yeah, okay, death is important and serious and can’t be rushed or whatever, but Gerard’s dick apparently doesn’t understand the sanctity of reaping. He has the apartment to himself for another hour and the visual of Frank in a band, and his dick understands the sanctity of that.

--

Between going cold turkey on booze and nursing a pathetic, overwhelming crush on a certain vertically-challenged waiter, Gerard’s getting punchy. Still a little dissatisfied with his job, still grieving the loss of his family, still trying to settle into his new life, he can’t really be surprised when something new goes wrong.

His Post-It says J. Levine, 5560 N. Main St, 7:14 PM. It’s nothing different than the handful of Post-Its he’s gotten in the past couple weeks, but when he gets to the address, the first thing he hears is, “Jennifer Leanne Levine, get your butt back on this sidewalk! What are you trying to do, scare me to death?”

Jennifer Leanne Levine is a little girl, not more than nine or ten, and she trudges back to her mother with her head down. The mom’s busy juggling two shopping bags and a baby, so when Jennifer heads toward the street again, the mom doesn’t notice. In fact, it doesn’t look like anyone really notices the kid in the street with the truck bearing down on her, and Gerard’s moving before he even thinks about it. He grabs her, but he doesn’t even consider taking her soul. He just pulls her out of the way, the whoosh of the truck going by way too close – and familiar – for comfort.

“Oh my god!” the mom screams, dropping her bags and leaning down, clutching the baby and the little girl to her chest. “Oh my god, oh my god. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She’s looking up at Gerard like he’s the messiah, and Gerard realizes what he’s just done. It maybe says something that instead of worrying about the universe imploding or something, he’s more concerned with the idea of Brian finding out. Brian’s been good to him so far, but Gerard’s insides go cold at the thought of Brian having an excuse to be pissed at him. Still, the fear isn’t enough to make him touch the little girl again; seeing the relief on her mom’s face is giving him a guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He doesn’t care about the rules; he’s not going to take Jennifer’s soul and watch the relief turn into grief.

“Uh, it’s okay,” Gerard says awkwardly, already trying to edge away. But there’s people all around him, clapping him on the shoulder and telling him he’s a hero, and the mom won’t stop looking at him like that. It makes him feel like a liar, getting kudos for saving someone he was sent there to make sure died. Eventually he just shoves his way through the crowd and runs, and he doesn’t stop until he can’t see the crowd behind him anymore.

He heads straight for the diner, even though it’s later than he usually goes in. He can’t go back to Ray and Bob’s; they’d know with one glance that something was up, and once they started pressuring him, Gerard wouldn’t be able to hold out. And he likes Ray and Bob a lot, they’re good guys, but he’s not sure how badly he’s fucked up. If he told them, maybe they’d have to tell Brian, and then maybe Gerard would get his ass kicked, and there’s a good possibility that’s the least of his worries. Maybe a fuck-up this big would get him fired, and hey, he doesn’t love his job, but he doesn’t think getting fired from reaping comes with a great severance package. Reaping’s severance package is probably like, a lightning bolt in the ass and a one-way ticket to hell.

Gerard’s not sure if he’s glad to see that Frank’s still working. He appreciates the friendly (and admittedly distractingly hot) face, but he doesn’t feel like pretending everything’s okay.

“Coffee?” Frank’s already flipping Gerard’s cup right-side up and pouring before Gerard can answer.

“You’re the best,” Gerard murmurs, cup already against his lips.

Frank grins. “I know.”

Gerard sips at the coffee and waits, but Frank doesn’t leave, just stands there grinning. Finally Gerard can’t help the half-smile that creeps onto his face, despite the fact that he’s probably in deep shit. “What? Do I look funny or something?” He swipes his hand across his face in case there’s a smudge or something.

Frank shakes his head, and the grin fades into something softer. “Nah. You look good.” Gerard can feel a blush starting at the bottom of his neck, and he tries to will it down. It’s never worked before, but maybe just this once he’ll get lucky. He doesn’t. “You didn’t bring your sketchbook today.”

It’s not a question, but Gerard nods. “Don’t really feel like drawing.”

“Everything okay?”

Gerard scrubs at his eyes and tries to remember if things have ever been less okay. He’s not coming up with anything. He’s got a heavy, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, the familiar weight of dread edged with guilt. “Trouble at work.”

Frank nods knowingly. “I know how that goes. What is it you do, anyway? I don’t think you’ve ever said.”

“Uh…I’m a…I kind of, repossess things.” Sure, that works.

“Dude, like a repo man?” Frank laughs. “You guys are like the bane of my existence. Stop taking my shit!” He’s still laughing, teasing, and Gerard wishes he felt like laughing along. “Well,” Frank finally says, “Just holler if you need a refill, man.” He gives Gerard a little salute and leaves, and Gerard finally lets his head drop into his hands. He doesn’t end up needing a refill, and after two hours of hiding and trying and failing to figure out a way to explain it so he doesn’t get his ass kicked, he heads home. Waiting for the other shoe to drop is almost worse than finding out exactly how bad he’d fucked up.

Bob and Ray are in front of the TV, watching a VH1 Behind the Music special. They grunt hello when he comes in, Gerard mumbles in reply, and he hightails it to the kitchen. He stays in there long enough that Bob eventually comes in and looks at him funny.

“You doing something weird in here?”

Gerard frowns. “What would I be doing?”

Bob narrows his eyes like he already knows Gerard’s doing something weird and he can intimidate him into confessing. “I don’t know. Why else would you be hanging out alone in the kitchen?”

“A guy can’t hang out alone in a kitchen without getting the third degree?” Gerard’s voice sounds high and defensive even to himself, but he can’t help the rising fear that Bob already knows. That he can see it all over Gerard, some outwardly visible sign of his fuck up.

Bob squints at him some more, and then goes to the fridge, not taking his eyes off Gerard the whole time. “All I’m sayin’ is that if you did anything weird to my food, not even Ray’s soft spot for strays is gonna save you.”

Gerard holds his hands up and tries for his best innocent face. He is innocent, so it shouldn’t be so hard – he didn’t touch Bob’s food. He just maybe instigated the end of the world.

The night goes by uneventfully – no planets fall out of the sky, no angry mobs of reapers come looking for Gerard’s head, no lightning bolts seem likely to strike him down where he stands.

By morning, Gerard’s so on edge he almost wants to tell Brian himself just to get it over with. Brian must know, someone upstairs must have passed the message along, and Brian’s just waiting until breakfast to call him on it so Gerard has time to stew in his own guilty juices.

But Brian orders his pancakes like he always does, rolls his eyes at Bob’s bad jokes, and hands out their assignments. When the bill comes, Gerard slides out of the booth, almost breathless with the idea that he just might get away with it. If he walks out of here without anyone saying anything, he’ll be home free.

“Gerard,” Brian says, a warning in his voice. Gerard freezes, half out of the booth, and turns baleful eyes on Brian. Maybe he can play it up, get a little sympathy. “We’re not gonna pay for your breakfast forever.”

Gerard almost collapses back into the booth, and he nods enthusiastically. “No, right, of course not, I’ll get it tomorrow morning. Everybody’s, I’ll get everybody’s breakfast, it’s on me.”

Brian looks at him strange, but he doesn’t say anything, and Gerard takes that as permission to leave.

Once he’s outside, he takes a deep breath and lets the relief wash over him. He got away with it. He never gets away with anything. His mom always had an uncanny ability to detect any wrongdoings, and Mikey inherited it, so even after she started mellowing out, Gerard still couldn’t get away with shit without Mikey finding out. Not that he usually minded; Mikey never told on him and usually just used whatever information he’d gleaned to make Gerard let him tag along on whatever stupid thing he was doing that day. As if Gerard wouldn’t have let him anyway.

But never getting away with anything before kind of seems okay if it means his one freebie is saving a little girl’s life instead of facilitating her death. He saved a life. He did something worthwhile. He did something he can be proud of – that other people could be proud of him for. It doesn’t feel right, exactly, but it doesn’t feel wrong, and it feels a whole hell of a lot more right than taking people’s souls and watching them die when he could do something about it. It feels like something he should have been doing from the start.

His next appointment is only an hour away, so he catches the bus and makes it with time to spare.

A. Williams is a nurse at the county hospital. Gerard would like to cite his astounding detective work as the source of this knowledge, but it’s more his astounding powers of standing in the way of people who need to get somewhere. Abigail Williams comes rushing out of a hospital room and almost knocks Gerard over, stopping just long enough to help him up and give him a look at her nametag. “Oh, geez, I’m so sorry! I have to go, are you okay?” Gerard nods and reaches out, already focusing out of habit, and then he stops. He doesn’t have to take her soul. He could let this one slide under the radar, too, and why shouldn’t he? She’s a nurse, she helps people, how many people might benefit from her not dying?

He curls his fingers back into his palm and waves her off. “I’m good, don’t worry about it. You might wanna slow it down, though, wouldn’t want anything happening to you.” He gives her what he thinks is a reassuring smile, but she looks at him weird and when she smiles, it’s forced and kind of creeped out.

“Right. Yeah, I’ll do that. Hey, do you have a visitor’s pass I could see?”

Gerard does not, in fact, have a visitor’s pass. He tends to think announcing his presence at what will usually become the scene of an accidental death is a bad idea. Luckily, Abigail does not call security on him; she just tells him to go back to the front desk and get a pass before he comes back. Gerard tells her he will, but as soon as he’s within sight of the front doors, he bails.

He has two other appointments, and he’s still feeling nervous enough that he’s not sure he should pass on three appointments in one day. The assignments both end up being elderly people in their homes. Gerard feels a little guilty – is he being ageist by taking their souls and not Abigail’s? He doesn’t want to be biased or anything, but he also doesn’t want to get busted.

The two souls don’t seem too upset about dying, anyway, so he feels a little better.

In the next three weeks, Gerard skips five reaps. In those three weeks, he also: moons dopily over Frank every day for at least two hours, fails to make any significant move on Frank, and decides that unrequited is what he does best.

“It’s not like him liking me back would even work out, right?” Gerard asks miserably.

Ray shifts, pulling one of Bob’s Xbox controllers out of the couch cushions behind him. “Right.”

Gerard groans. “You’re supposed to say, ‘no, it would totally work out!’”

“It would totally work out,” Ray repeats in a monotone. When Gerard groans again, Ray laughs and grabs his shoulder. “Man, come on. Relax. Either it’ll work or it won’t, and either way, you’ll be fine.”

“But I’m dead and he’s not. How would that even work? Is that even allowed?”

Ray shrugs. “Technically, it's against the rules for reapers to date anyone. Other reapers, the living, all no-nos. But it's happened.”

Gerard perks up a little. “Yeah? And it was okay?”

Ray looks away, and Gerard’s heart sinks. “For a while.”

“What happened?”

Ray pauses. “Well, you know reapers cross over without any warning, right?” Gerard shakes his head no. “There’s like, a predetermined number of souls you have to take, and no reaper has the same number. So you take your last soul and then you cross over. There’s no warning, you’re just gone, and the paperwork comes through for a new reaper to take your spot.”

Gerard can see where this is going. “One of the reapers just crossed over, and the person they were dating was left behind.”

Ray nods. “What’s worse is that the girl didn’t know the dude was a reaper, so she thought he just disappeared. And it’s not like anyone’s jumping to explain, not when the rules had been broken in the first place, so she just. Never knew what happened.”

“What about the other ones?”

“I don’t know if it’s better or worse than leaving someone you love behind without any clue about what happened. You can imagine what it would be like for oh, say, a vampire to date a human, right? The vampire never ages, never gets sick or hurt, and the human gets old and dies. That’s pretty much what happens with reapers. After a while, you can’t really pretend you don’t notice that she’s aging and you’re not. After a while, you either have to tell them the truth, fake your own death, or disappear.” Ray twists his fingers while he talks, and when he’s done, he seems to realize what he’s been doing. He laces his fingers between his knees and stares at the floor.

“But…you’d have to be reaping forever to have that happen. Reapers don’t actually stick around that long, do they?”

Ray shrugs. “Like I said, a predetermined amount of souls. It could be a hundred, and you’re around for a few months. It could be fifty thousand, and you’re around for eighty years, give or take.”

It takes a little bit to sink in, and even then, Gerard’s not sure he should say anything. He picks awkwardly at a thread on his jeans. “I can’t even imagine how terrible that would be.”

Ray smiles wryly. “It’s not so bad if you like the people you’re stuck with.”

Gerard smiles back, faintly. “That part might not be so bad, but being around long enough to see someone you love get old and die…I don’t know. I don’t know if I could do it.”

“You don’t really have a choice,” Ray sighs. “None of us do. The only thing you can do is follow your instinct and hope it works out, or avoid getting attached to anything. Anyone. And after a few years, that gets pretty lonely.”

“So I should just go for it?”

Ray shrugs again. “If you think it’s worth the risks.”

Gerard heaves a sigh. “Well, that’s the easy part. Now I just have to make him like me back.”

“What’s not to like?” Ray laughs, grabbing the Xbox controller he’d fished out and turning on the system.

“Yeah,” Gerard says, taking the other controller. “’Single dead male, likes horror movies, takes souls for a living.’ I’m sure he’ll be beating off the competitors.”

Bob comes through the room in time to hear him, and he offers nothing more than a snicker and, “Beating off,” before he goes into the kitchen.

Gerard rolls his eyes and focuses on kicking Ray’s ass at Lego Star Wars.

--

The sixth soul Gerard doesn’t take is James Wilcox, a harried-looking businessman hurrying home to his family. Gerard knows this because James tells him so, and he’s so excited to show off the pictures of his newborn son that Gerard doesn’t even think twice about mentioning the guy’s tires look a little flat, he might want to get those inflated before he heads home.

His next appointment is downtown, and it’s Gerard’s lucky day because the address is right next to a Starbucks. He doesn’t have time to grab a coffee before the reap, but he knows what he’s doing as soon as the soul has crossed over.

It turns out that he might be waiting a while for that coffee.

“But why?” the guy asks, stubbornly standing directly in front of the tunnel of light and refusing to walk into it.

“Because you have to cross over,” Gerard explains again. If souls were tangible, he’d have shoved this guy into the light about five minutes ago.

“But what if I don’t want to cross over?” Donald Fisher is pushing fifty, has a receding hairline and a paunch overhanging his belt, and about seven minutes ago, he stepped in a puddle with an exposed electrical wire laying nearby.

Gerard resists the temptation to sigh. “Why wouldn’t you want to cross over?”

Donald’s face falls slightly, and the antagonistic tone fades. “What if I don’t have anybody waiting for me on the other side?”

The thing is, Gerard has wondered the same thing. There’s no guarantee the other side is anything like what everyone thinks it is. He could lie and promise there is someone waiting for Donald Fisher, but he wouldn’t have wanted his reaper to do that to him, if he’d had the choice to cross over instead of sticking around.

“What’s left for you to do here?” Gerard asks gently. “You can’t be with your family anymore, you can’t do anything you used to do.” The words start feeling like sand in his mouth, rough against his tongue and hard to spit out. “You’d be alone.”

Donald shrugs. “I don’t have a family. Being alone’s nothing new.”

“Then you should cross over. Maybe it’s better there.”

The light behind Donald starts to fade, and Gerard starts to panic. No one told him that the light went away, that is bullshit.

“But maybe it’s not,” Donald says, and the light goes from large enough for a man to step through to a tiny pinprick and then pops out of existence within seconds. Gerard gapes. Donald looks unimpressed.

“Well,” Gerard says, because he can’t think of anything else to say. “Well.”

“Well,” Donald replies.

“Well, I have other things to do,” Gerard says importantly, mostly because he is at a complete loss as to what he’s supposed to do next, and he just kind of wants to get away.

“Okay,” Donald says amiably. Maybe it won’t be so bad, Gerard thinks. Maybe Donald will be happier just roaming around as a disembodied spirit, and Brian will never have to know about it.

Gerard is still going to get that coffee, and he’s in line and checking out the daily special before he realizes Donald is still next to him. “What. What are you doing?” Gerard hisses. The girl in front of him looks back and frowns.

“…waiting in line, same as you, pal.”

Gerard stares at her blankly for a second, and then nods and smiles. When he addresses Donald again, he tries to speak out of the side of his mouth and without moving his face too much. “You can’t follow me around.”

Donald shoves his hands in his pockets. “I don’t have anything else to do, and you’re the only one that can see me.”

The line moves ahead slowly, and Gerard keeps his eyes focused squarely on the menu board. “Well you should have thought about that before you refused to cross over,” Gerard mumbles.

“Can’t I just hang out with you for a while?”

“No,” Gerard says, and he forgets to keep it quiet. The girl looks back at him again, and several other people titter quietly. Gerard clears his throat – actually says “ahem, ahem” – and forces himself to laugh along. When everyone goes back to what they’re doing, he whispers, “I’m boring. You don’t want to hang out with me.”

Donald doesn’t argue, but he stays right next to Gerard all through waiting, ordering, and leaving Starbucks. He follows Gerard down the street, and Gerard lets him because he’s not really up on what to do with a clingy soul. He’s a little wary of letting him follow him home – Bob and Ray would probably know what to do with him, but the more souls Gerard fails to take, the more paranoid he gets that any little mistake will make the guys look a little more closely at what it is Gerard’s been up to lately. And he definitely can’t let Donald follow him to the waffle house. Brian’s sort of preoccupied most of the time, but Gerard thinks he’d notice an extra dead guy at the table.

Gerard mostly ignores Donald through his next appointment, minus one pointed look toward the light the other soul is going into. Donald scratches his head and looks very interested in the bird that’s perched on a branch above him.

He’s done with his appointments for the day, and he’s still hoping Donald will just change his mind on his own if he gives him enough time, so he goes the diner. It’s becoming his default place to be, and really, he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t think Frank minds, either, although he’s pretty sure Frank’s enthusiasm at Gerard’s entrance is usually more about boredom than anything.

Donald follows him in and sits in the chair across from him. Gerard keeps his head down and studies the menu, even though he never orders anything but coffee.

“Coffee?” Frank’s already there with the pot, pouring a steaming cup for him. When Gerard’s sipping at it, Frank asks, “Rough day?”

Gerard narrows his eyes at Donald. “Sort of.”

“More trouble at work?”

Gerard nods. “You could say that.”

Frank grabs a chair from a nearby table and flips it around, pulling up a seat next to Gerard. Gerard’s not sure why he didn’t just sit across from him; he can’t see Donald there.

“You need to just quit and come work with me,” Frank says, beaming.

Gerard laughs. “I’d drink you out of coffee, and I’m not really a people person.”

Frank makes a face. “You talk to me all the time, dude.”

“You’re different,” Gerard says, and immediately blushes from the tips of his toes to the tips of his ears. It’s a pretty innocuous statement, but he knows exactly what he means by ‘different’.

“Well, duh,” Frank says, rolling his eyes. He either doesn’t notice the blush or diplomatically doesn’t say anything about it. Gerard can’t remember Frank ever having trouble with his eyes before. “I’m the best, remember? But if you can talk to me, you can talk to anyone.”

“Is this your boyfriend?” Donald asks, and Gerard doesn’t stop to think before he answers vehemently.

“No.”

Frank looks a little taken aback and says, “Okay,” at the same time that Donald says, “But you want him to be?”

Gerard glares at Donald and Donald looks blandly back at him. Finally Gerard turns back to Frank and says, “Sorry, I just. Socially awkward.” He makes a vague flapping motion with his hand like, “as you can obviously see.”

Frank shrugs, but he seems sobered, and he stands up, putting the chair back where it belongs. “Okay, but if you ever change your mind, I can get you a sweet apron.” He gestures to his own plain white apron, double tied around his waist. “I’m in good with the boss.”

Gerard laughs and ignores Donald when he says, “It’s kind of sad how obvious you are.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Frank heads back to the counter, and Gerard sucks down his cup of coffee and leaves a generous tip. He still doesn’t have anywhere else to go, but he can’t sit around and listen to Donald’s commentary on his love life (or lack thereof) anymore.

By seven, Gerard’s tired, hungry, and starting to debate the merits of coming clean with Brian and taking the heat if it means Brian will know what to do with Donald. He climbs the steps to Bob and Ray’s apartment and stops just outside the door, holding a finger up to Donald. “Stay out here.” Donald opens his mouth to protest, but Gerard cuts him off. “I’ll be back, but these guys will be able to see you, too, and they might not appreciate you coming in uninvited.”

Donald looks like he might actually stay put, so Gerard slips in and runs a hand through his hair. Bob and Ray are on the couch, watching something on the History Channel. That is a good sign. They both love the History Channel, so if they’ve been watching it for a while, they might be in forgiving moods.

“Hey, guys,” Gerard starts, and they both raise a hand in greeting. “So, um.”

They both turn in slow motion, and they both have the same look of wary expectation on their faces. Gerard’s a little offended. All he’d said was “so, um,” that doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad. In this particular case it does mean something bad, but they don’t have to go jumping to conclusions.

“So, there’s this soul.”

Bob and Ray look sideways at each other. “And?” Ray asks.

“And he’s outside.”

Ray’s eyebrows skyrocket to his hairline, and he gets up. “By ‘outside’ you mean outside in the world somewhere, right, and not ‘outside’ like right outside our apartment.” The way he says it makes Gerard really, really want to agree, but he kind of shrugs and shuffles to the side, like maybe if he gets out of their line of sight they’ll forget to be mad.

“He followed me home. I don’t know! He just wouldn’t go into the light, and then he just started following me around, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

Bob ducks his head and makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a chuckle, and Ray glances behind him just long enough to send him a disapproving look. Bob looks up in time to catch it, and he says, “Oh, what? Like that never happened to you, Toro. Remember that dude that followed you around for like, two months?”

Gerard makes a horrified face. He hadn’t even stopped to consider that this wouldn’t be cleared up in a day or two. Two months? He cannot handle being followed around for two months. What if he wants to do something private? On the few occasions he actually fooled around with someone, he couldn’t even stand to have their pet in the room. It would be way creepier with an actual dead guy standing in the corner watching. Not that he’s expecting to have any opportunities to fool around with someone in the near future, and even if he does, he doesn’t even know if the person he would hypothetically be hooking up with would have a dog, except he totally knows that Frank loves dogs, he went off on a tangent one day about wanting to own a dog farm someday and refused to listen when Gerard quietly pointed out that he wasn’t sure you could farm dogs-

“Okay, well, there wasn’t really any need to bring that up, Bob, but thank you.” Ray interrupts Gerard’s increasingly rambling thoughts. “Did he say why he wouldn’t cross over? Did you say something to him, Gerard?”

“What, no! What would I even say to someone to get them to stay? Why would I even do that?”

Ray shrugs. “Just double checking. So did he say?”

“He’s worried it’ll be worse there than it is here.”

Ray scrubs at his hair and sighs. “Well, we’re gonna have to tell Brian.”

“We couldn’t just…figure it out by ourselves?” Gerard wheedles.

“Unless he’s got unfinished business you can help him out with, then no, we’re probably going to need Brian.”

Gerard considers it. He holds up a finger and goes to the door, peering out. Donald looks up hopefully. “Are you sticking around because you have unfinished business you need to resolve?”

Donald shakes his head, almost looking a little like he wishes he did. Gerard frowns. “Nothing? No pets you need looking after, no old lovers you need to say goodbye to or something?” Donald shakes his head again. “A plant that needs watering?” Donald just looks at him. “Yeah, didn’t think so. Okay.”

He goes back in and shakes his head at Ray. “No dice.”

Bob’s already on his phone, and Ray jerks his head toward him. “Bob’s already got Brian on the line, he’s on his way over.”

Gerard’s stomach explodes with butterflies. It’s not like he’s scared, really, it’s not even his fault this is happening, but it’s Brian, and Brian might be mad.

“Forgot to mention, he’s been trying to get a hold of you all day. Dude, you really need to get a phone.” The butterflies morph into dragons. Fire-breathing dragons with big fucking talons flying around in his stomach. Gerard has never been more than idly irritated that he doesn’t have the documentation to get a new cell phone, but he’s suddenly ridiculously grateful there was no way for Brian to get a hold of him. Ray looks suspicious. “Did you do something, Gerard?”

It’s more like what he didn’t do. He has no way of knowing for sure, but he’s got the distinct feeling that he is absolutely right in thinking this is about the souls he didn’t take.

Ray invites Donald in, and the four of them sit around in what has got to be the most uncomfortable silence in the history of uncomfortable silences until Brian arrives.

“So,” Brian says, lighting a cigarette. “What’s the problem?” He’s looking right at Gerard, and the way he says it makes it sound like he’s already figured out what the problem is and he’s looking at it. Gerard squirms. He’s pretty sure Brian already knows what’s going on, and he’s just enjoying putting Gerard on the spot.

“He doesn’t want to cross over.”

Brian’s gaze flicks over to Donald for a second, and he takes a deep drag off his cigarette. Donald actually looks a little concerned, and Gerard can’t really say that he blames the guy.

Brian waves Donald over, and then ushers him out into the hallway. He stops before he steps out and points at Gerard. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Gerard would actually like to be going anywhere but here as quickly as possible. The window looks like a viable option. He might have to wiggle a little, and he’s not really sure there’s a fire escape or anything out there, but falling three stories and breaking some bones that’ll heal anyway might be a decent alternative to waiting around for Brian.

He doesn’t get a chance to make the decision because Brian comes back in about a minute later, alone. Gerard gapes.

“He…you…he’s gone?”

Brian shrugs. “Sometimes they just need convincing.” Gerard does not even want to imagine what Brian could possibly have said to intimidate a guy that was not only already dead, but incorporeal. Brian motions to the couch. “Have a seat, Gerard.”

Gerard sits, but he keeps his ass on the edge of the cushion in case of emergency. Brian grabs the remote and flips the TV on, and for a second, Gerard thinks he was completely over-reacting. Brian might have just come over to hang out! …even though he’s never done that before and has never shown any interest in doing that before. Bob, Ray, and Gerard are pretty cool guys, though; maybe Brian realized what he was missing out on.

“…an eleven-car pile-up on the freeway has claimed the lives of at least seven people and injured ten others. Police are not releasing the names of the victims, but they have pinpointed the cause of the accident. The driver of a large SUV reports that his brakes failed when he attempted to stop, and the resulting crash caused a chain-reaction that has traffic halted for three miles in both directions.” The camera cuts to a shot of a totaled SUV, and the man standing next to it, visibly shaken, looks way too familiar. James Wilcox. “The driver of the vehicle is uninjured, and the police have not yet stated whether charges will be filed against him. In other news, a local school-“

Brian flips the TV off and looks at Gerard, giving him a minute to let it sink in. If he was innocent, he wouldn’t be able to connect things as quickly as he does. But he still doesn’t know how much Brian knows, so he scratches his head and says, “That sucks.”

Brian stubs his cigarette out in the ashtray and pulls his leg up to cross over his knee. “Seven people dead, yeah. That sucks.” He watches Gerard for a while, and Gerard stays quiet. Finally Brian heaves a sigh. “You know what else sucks? Those seven people weren’t on anyone’s list.”

Gerard’s heart drops, and his insides go cold. Even if this does have something to do with him not taking James Wilcox’s soul – and it obviously does – he had nothing to do with those people dying, right? Sometimes people just die, that can’t be unusual. Except not being on a list sounds pretty bad, and Gerard suddenly feels sick.

Ray frowns. “Wait, what? What does this have to do with us?”

Brian studies him for a second. “For your sake, I really hope you guys didn’t have any knowledge of this clusterfuck.”

Ray puts his hands up defensively. “First of all, Brian, don’t threaten me in my own home. Second of all, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Those people died because James Wilcox wasn’t reaped.”

Bob and Ray glance at each other, and it’s obvious they’re confused. “Never heard of the guy,” Bob says, looking sideways at Gerard.

“His name was on my list, and I put it on a Post-It. He was supposed to be reaped this morning.”

Gerard stares at his shoes. When no one else says anything, he says, small and quiet, “Did those people die because he didn’t?”

Gerard’s not even looking at them, but he can feel the level of tension in the room ratchet up. It makes his skin crawl, the way he knows they’re looking at him with a mixture of anger, or disappointment, or a combination of the two.

“Yeah, they did. And six people died last week because a girl named Jennifer Levine didn’t get hit by a truck, so the driver that would have hit her kept his job and ran his bus straight into a full bus stop. And four people have died over the last two days because a nurse named Abigail Williams didn’t get reaped, and she spread an infection to her patients. Should I go on?”

Gerard shakes his head. “No,” he mumbles. When it’s clear no one else is going to say something, he says, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that would happen, I didn’t mean for…I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.” He keeps staring at his shoes like maybe a hole will open up beneath them and swallow him up. He’d been so worried about the consequences of what he was doing, but he’d always thought it’d just be Brian getting mad at him, or getting removed from his position. He never in a million years thought saving one life would mean destroying others. At this point, a lightning bolt from above sounds pretty deserved.

When Brian talks again, his voice is tight, and Gerard hunches in on himself a little more. “Goddammit, Gerard. Don’t you think we have things set up this way for a reason? Do you think in all the time people have been dying, no one has pulled this shit before? You’re not special, you’re not some hero, you’re a reaper. You were chosen to reap out of all the hundreds of thousands of people that die every day, and you use it to fuck up yet again. Fucking up your own life is one thing, pal, but you have a responsibility to the people you reap. You have a responsibility to the people around them. How do you think James Wilcox feels right about now, knowing he’s to blame for seven people dying? Do you ever take anything besides yourself into consideration?” He’s yelling now, and Gerard just drops his head down lower and takes it. Brian’s right – Gerard has never fucked up this badly, not even while he was alive, and he’d had some pretty spectacular fuck-ups.

“Brian,” Bob says quietly, and Gerard looks up to see him squeeze Brian’s shoulder. “Man. Cut him a break.”

Brian scrubs his hands over his face and slumps. “Shit.” He pulls a cigarette out and lights it, taking a deep drag before he continues. “Look, I’m partly to blame here. I didn’t explain to you what would happen if you didn’t do your job, and that’s my mistake. I assumed you’d understand the gravity of what we do. But what’s done is done; we can’t bring those people back. The head office has already dispatched reapers to get the souls you skipped, so no one else should be dying unless they’re supposed to. Just. Fuck. Promise me you will never, ever do something this stupid again.”

Gerard nods hard, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “I promise. Brian, I’m sorry, I am, if I could take it back-“

Brian waves him off. “You can’t, so let’s just let it go.” He heads for the door, smoke trailing behind him. It reminds Gerard of the wisps that always trail the gravelings. “Be on time tomorrow. All of you.” He stops to point at them, and then he leaves, and Gerard feels like someone just pulled his spine straight out of him. He collapses onto the couch, pushing at his temples like it might help fend off the impending migraine.

--

Bob and Ray give him a wide berth for a few days, although whether that’s because they’re pissed at him or because they don’t know what to say, Gerard doesn’t know. He doesn’t really mind the time alone, though; he would have no idea what to say even if they did try to talk to him. Sorry I caused the deaths of a bunch of innocent people! Sorry I went behind your back and broke the rules even though you’ve been nothing but nice to me and tried to help me out! Sorry Brian’s been crankier than usual lately mostly because of me!

Brian treats him like he’s always treated him, and his influx of crankiness seems to be directed at not just his reapers, but every person who comes within a five-foot-radius of him. The waitresses at the waffle house started avoiding their table, so now Ray has to get Brian’s order beforehand and pass the message along so they don’t have to interact with Brian.

After three days of it, Gerard finally breaks the weird silence between him and Ray and asks, “What’s up with Brian?” At Ray’s look, he amends, “Besides the whole…me being a dumbass thing. I mean, there is something else, right?”

Ray sighs. “Yeah, there’s something else. I dunno, has anyone told you much about the reapers before you?” Gerard shakes his head. “Well, there were a few before you in our unit. Bob replaced Matt, and you replaced Elisa, but every handler’s supposed to have at least four reapers. We’ve been short for a while.”

“How come?”

“Red tape? Someone in the head office has it out for Brian?” He shrugs. “I honestly don’t know. But being short makes things tougher, and this recent thing with you really brought the shit down on Brian’s head. He’s just stressed.”

Gerard feels like a douche for being the major source of Brian’s stress, but he can’t help the guilty relief at knowing he’s not the only source.

He’s been trying to make it up, to Brian, to the head office, to all of them. He hasn’t missed a soul in a week, and it feels weirdly like counting his days sober. He finally gets it, the job they do, the balance they keep. He still hates it, hates that he has to be the one to finalize someone’s death, but he gets why he has to do it. And maybe he’s not dreading sticking around for however long it is he has to be a reaper as much as he was. He tries, and fails, to convince himself it’s not mostly based on the hot waiter at the diner.

The hot waiter who has been spending a lot more time talking to Gerard than he has been serving coffee. Not that Gerard's complaining, especially when it means he gets both a hot waiter at his table discussing his sketches and the entire pot of coffee within reaching distance, but it makes his whole attempt at admiring from afar sort of hard. He enjoys admiring from up close, but it just kind of reminds him that that's probably all the closer he's going to get.

"I like this one," Frank says, reaching over to grab a loose sketch half hanging out of Gerard's sketchbook. He smooths it out on the table and studies it, nodding. "Yeah, this is definitely one of my favorites."

Gerard goes pink to the tips of his ears. He'd shown Frank the drawing of the vampire ballerina troupe and their diminutive slayer on a whim, but it had been one out of a stack, so he hadn't thought Frank would pay much attention. Nobody ever really paid much attention to his artwork besides Mikey, and Gerard's having a hard time remembering that Frank seems genuinely interested.

"I especially like this little slayer dude," Frank says, pointing. He's grinning, but Gerard can't tell if it's because he really likes the drawing or if he recognizes himself.

"Yeah, that's uh." Gerard clears his throat. "That's sort of an older one."

"Oh yeah? How old?"

"Um, like three or four months, maybe."

Frank's grin widens. "Huh. That's about when you started hanging around in here."

Gerard's not sure whether he should be panicking because Frank may have just the slightest idea of who exactly is in that drawing or pleased that Frank apparently knows exactly how long Gerard's been coming to the diner.

"Oh yeah, uh, probably. That's probably about right."

Frank smooths his thumb over the drawing and then hands it back. "We've got a gig tonight."

It takes a second for Gerard to follow the jump in topic, but he gets it quick enough. "Oh hey, awesome!"

Frank grins and bobs his head like he knows exactly how awesome it is. "It's tonight." He glances at Gerard from the corner of his eye.

It's already after four and Gerard knows Frank's been on since seven. He is suddenly very, very glad that he took Bob and Ray's advice and doesn't actually have to hold down two jobs. "Oh man, that sucks. You're gonna be exhausted tomorrow."

Frank nods. "Yeah, but it's worth it. You're probably going to be really tired, too, huh? Like...you probably have to do some repo work tonight or something?"

Gerard does actually have a couple of appointments later. "Yeah, the life of a repo man, constant excitement." He rolls his eyes and grins, but Frank just kind of shrugs and nods.

"Oh, okay. I think we're playing this weekend, too, if you have like, nothing better to do, you could come. With your friends or...whoever you'd want to bring."

Gerard has to remind himself that Frank's definitely not asking him out. He's being friendly to the dorky guy that spends too much time alone in a diner, and the friendly thing to do in return would be to go to the show, even though it's definitely not a date. But after the week he's had, Gerard can't commit to anything except getting to his reaps on time and doing his job so perfectly no one would be able to find fault. He doesn't want to tempt fate any more than he already has, and he especially doesn't want to tempt Brian.

"I can try, but I don't know what my plans are this weekend." It comes out more dick-ish than he'd meant it to, and Frank's smile is tight when he stands up. "No, I just mean I don't know what my work schedule is and-"

Frank waves him off. "It's okay. No big deal." He pulls a folded flier out of his pocket and slides it across the table. "That's the address and stuff. In case you can come."

Gerard tucks the flier into his pocket and prays. He's never been the praying sort, but he figures after the stunt he pulled, some pretty hardcore praying is going to be the only chance he has of getting a schedule this weekend that allows him time to go to the show.

--

There are two pile-ups, a private plane crash, and a rash of drownings over the weekend. Gerard takes a break after the first pile-up and scowls at the sky. "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and believe that these were planned way in advance. But I reserve the right to be very suspicious."

--

When he’s not mooching off Bob and Ray or pining away over Frank, Gerard follows Mikey around.

Not having a car makes it a little more difficult to be an efficient stalker, but luckily Gerard’s pretty well-versed in Mikey’s life, and if he can’t actually follow Mikey from one place to another, he’s at least pretty sure where Mikey will be at most times.

He walks past the record shop at least once a week, peering in from the side of the display window to catch a glimpse of Mikey organizing records, or ringing up a customer, or just flipping through a magazine. Occasionally, he’ll watch long enough to see Mikey pause. It’s never a very long pause, never long enough for anyone else to notice, but Gerard notices. He’ll just stop whatever it is he’s doing, freezing in place for a second, staring at whatever’s in front of him. Mikey’s never been the most expressive of kids, but the look he gets on his face is one Gerard can read like a fucking book, and it makes his heart stutter in his chest every time he sees it.

Mikey’s grieving. He doesn’t break down and cry, and he doesn’t talk to many people that Gerard can see, but when he pauses, he looks so overwhelmingly sad that it takes everything Gerard’s got not to just call him, leave him a note, something to give him some kind of hope, reaper rules be damned.

“He’ll be better off not knowing,” Ray tells him. “Believe me. If he thinks you’re still out there, he’ll drive himself crazy trying to figure out how, trying to figure out why you’re not coming back to him if you’re still alive.” Ray sounds resigned, and a little bitter, and Gerard doesn’t ask how he knows.

Despite that, Gerard has had to talk himself out of just going in and laying it all out for Mikey more times than he can count. Every time he sees his brother, he gets this ache in his chest that he doesn’t realize has been there the whole time until it flares up. It’s similar to the itch of needing a drink, needing to hug Mikey, needing to talk to him as something other than a stranger, except a hundred times stronger.

Ray catches him one day, lurking outside the record shop, peering in like some weirdo. “You look like a weirdo,” Ray says. “Do you have an appointment here?”

Gerard shuffles his feet. “Uh. No.”

Ray frowns. “What are you doing here?”

“My brother works here.”

Ray’s head whips around and he peers in through the window, too, and Gerard wants to be mean and say now who’s the weirdo? but Ray grabs his arm and hauls him toward the alley. “Gerard, what are you thinking? You haven’t talked to him, have you?”

Gerard yanks himself away from Ray. “No. I’m not stupid.”

Ray looks like he seriously doubts the validity of that statement. “Have you been hanging around here a lot?”

Gerard pauses. “Define ‘a lot’.”

“Jesus,” Ray sighs. “Gerard, look, I know you’re…having a rough time.” It sounds like Ray’s softening the blow, and Gerard’s suddenly angry. He appreciates everything Ray’s done for him, taking care of him like he has, but he’s not actually his father, and this sounds suspiciously like the warm-up to a lecture.

“Go ahead,” Gerard mutters, kicking at a crumpled can. “You know I’m having a rough time staying on the wagon, I’m having a rough time settling into reaping, I’m having a rough time doing anything but fucking up.”

Ray looks taken aback. “What, no. Gerard, that’s not what I meant. I know you’re having a rough time letting go of your family.”

Just as fast as it had come on, the anger drains out of Gerard, and he slumps against the wall. “I shouldn’t have to,” he mumbles petulantly. “I don’t want to.”

Ray leans against the wall next to him. “I know.” He’s quiet for a minute, and then he asks, “Is he doing okay? Your brother?”

Gerard shrugs. “I think so. I don’t know. I’m a surprisingly bad stalker.”

Ray laughs and wraps his arm around Gerard’s shoulder. “I find that hard to believe.”

“You’re not going to tell Brian, are you?” Gerard suddenly blurts, and Ray shakes his head.

“No. I…shit, Gerard. Sometimes I forget how hard it is, this part. Letting go. I’m not gonna tell on you. Just try to keep the obvious stalking to a minimum, okay?”

Gerard agrees and tries to be a little stealthier when he goes back to the front of the store to look through the windows.

--

Gerard’s just settled in with his first cup of coffee of the afternoon, drawing pad out and ready, when Frank slides into the booth across from him. Gerard frowns; it’s not that he minds Frank sitting down with him, but he’s never done that before. Plus, he looks really serious, and he’s never done that before either. Gerard gets a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“So,” Frank starts, lacing his fingers together on the table. “You come here a lot.”

Gerard nods slowly. “I do.”

Frank pauses, and Gerard feels like maybe he should be saying something else, but he can’t really come up with anything.

“And you, um.” Frank pauses again, and now he looks Really Serious, and sounds like he’s going to say something Really Serious. Gerard’s suddenly convinced he knows about the reaper thing. “You always order a lot of…coffee.” Frank gives him a pointed look, and Gerard starts to get really confused. He does order a lot of coffee, but that’s good, right? “But you never order any…food.” Frank's look gets even pointier, and Gerard starts to panic. There is something going on here he doesn’t quite understand, and all he can make out of it is that Frank’s pissed he’s not ordering anything solid off the menu. Waiters don’t work on commission, as far as Gerard knows. Possibly he’s been mistaken.

“I usually eat before I come here,” he says, because he does, he eats at the waffle house with Brian every morning. Maybe Frank’s just concerned Gerard’s not getting enough to eat or something. He hopes this will clear it up.

Frank looks disappointed by this news. “Oh, so you have somewhere else to get your food, and you just come here for the coffee.”

Gerard is seriously, distressingly confused, and he starts looking around to make sure the clocks aren’t melting or people aren’t unzipping their skins or something because it’s starting to feel like one of those dreams. “I guess so.”

Frank stands up with a lot more force than necessary, making the table wobble. Gerard’s coffee splashes out over the side of the cup, splattering his sketchpad with dark blots.

“I see. Enjoy your coffee.” Frank storms away, and Gerard is left to stare at his ruined paper and wonder what the fuck just happened.

--

He’s sitting on a bench outside the waffle house, kicking idly at the ground, when Bob and Ray pull up. He doesn’t look up, but Bob’s car does this putt putt poof noise whenever Bob turns the engine off, so he can tell it’s them.

Ray heads inside, but Bob sits down next to him. “You look like you got hit by a bus.”

Gerard musters up a passable glare. “You are a master of comedy.”

“It was reaper or stand-up comedian.”

“Good thing you chose reaper; at least you have an excuse when people drop dead around you.”

Bob puts a hand over his heart. “I’m wounded. Seriously, what’s the problem?”

Gerard sighs and shrugs. “Frank’s acting weird.”

Bob looks wary. “Did you tell him about the reaper thing?”

“What? No! No.”

“Then what happened?”

“Nothing, that’s the problem. Absolutely nothing happened, but all of a sudden he’s talking about food and coffee like they’re some big important deal and getting mad at me and I have no idea why.”

Bob scratches at his beard and says, “Tell me exactly what he said.”

“He said something about how I always order a lot of coffee but not any food, and I was like, yeah, and he was like, ‘So I guess you have somewhere else to get your food?’ and I said ‘I guess so.’ I mean, that’s weird, right? Should I be ordering more food? I always tip him really well, I don’t know what the problem is.”

By this point, Bob’s shaking in silent laughter, and Gerard kicks at him ineffectively.

“What? What?” There is absolutely nothing funny about the situation; Gerard doesn’t want Frank to be mad at him for anything, especially something he doesn’t even understand, and Bob is being a dick.

Bob waves him off and gets himself under control. “I think Frank wants more than a tip from you, Geeway.”

Gerard thinks it over for a second, and Bob gives him a pointed look. Suddenly it clicks into place, and Gerard goes bright red. “Oh.” He’s mortified. He is the thickest person on the planet. He is ecstatic. “Really? You think-“

Bob shoves him off the bench – way harder than necessary – and says, “Get the fuck out of here. If I have to see that dopey lovesick look on your face anymore, I’m going to kill myself.”

Gerard pauses. “…is that even possible?”

Bob points. “Go.” He doesn’t sound like he’s kidding, so Gerard goes.

It’s a short walk to the diner, but it feels like the longest fucking trip Gerard has ever taken. By the time he gets to the last block, he’s practically tripping over himself to get there. Frank likes him. Frank, the totally hot, awesome waiter, likes Gerard, the terminally shy, vampire-drawing recluse who is apparently too dense to understand metaphors.

He bursts into the diner, a little out of breath, and glances around wildly. Wherever Frank’s at, whatever’s he’s doing, Gerard doesn’t even care. He’s gonna walk right up and tell Frank that he is so, so interested in getting food.

But Frank’s not around. Gerard goes to the counter and flags down one of the other waiters, his stomach already starting to clench in worry. What if Frank’s so pissed at him now he doesn’t want to see him? What if he changed his mind? “Hey, is Frank around?”

The waiter shakes his head and gives Gerard an apologetic look. “No, sorry, man. He took off early, he wasn’t feeling good.”

Gerard slumps down onto a stool. “Oh. Um, I don’t suppose you have his home address?” He looks up hopefully.

The waiter gives him a funny look and takes a step back. “We don’t…really give that kind of information out.”

Right, of course not. And probably with good reason, since Gerard was going to use it to stalk Frank so he could explain himself. He guesses he’s at least a little grateful that even if he can’t get Frank’s address, no one else can either.

He shuffles over to his regular booth and sits down, tracing the cracks in the worn tabletop. He’d left his sketchbook on the bench outside the waffle house, and he’s not about to leave to go get it, just in case Frank comes back. He’ll wait for as long as he needs to. He doesn’t even have any evening appointments, so his schedule is clear to be as stubborn and creepy as he wants to be.

--

The diner closes at eight, and the waiter Gerard talked to about Frank is less than sympathetic about throwing him out.

Gerard sets himself up on the curb, pulls out his pack of cigarettes, and waits. Around two, Bob’s car pulls up and Ray looks out at him from the passenger window.

He sounds resigned when he asks, “Gerard, what are you doing?”

“Waiting.”

Ray looks over at Bob and Bob shrugs.

“Get in the car. You can come back tomorrow.”

Gerard shakes his head stubbornly. “I’m just gonna wait.”

Ray looks like he wants to punch something. Gerard sincerely hopes it’s not his face. Eventually, Ray murmurs something to Bob, and Bob pulls ahead a little bit, parking near the curb and turning the engine off. They both get out, and Gerard tenses, pretty sure they’re going to try and drag him into the car. There’s no way he could take them, of course, but he’s not going to let them treat him like a little kid.

Ray sits down on one side of him and Bob on the other, close enough that Gerard can feel the body heat radiating off of them. It’s comfortable, soothing, like curling up in someone else’s spot after they’ve gotten out of bed. Gerard relaxes into it, dropping his head onto Ray’s shoulder. Ray pats at him awkwardly.

“I might’ve really fucked up,” Gerard whispers.

Ray sighs. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Won’t be the last,” Bob says, offering Gerard a cigarette.

By morning, Gerard’s eyelids are drooping. Bob’s already nodded off, and Ray’s gone quiet. Gerard’s ready to curl up on the sidewalk and hope for the best, but on a whim, he glances down the street and sees a short figure rapidly approaching. Gerard stands up and squints, and his heart simultaneously leaps into his throat and sinks into his stomach. It’s Frank, and by default Gerard’s happy to see him. But it’s Frank, who might’ve changed his mind and who might think Gerard is the failiest human to ever fail, so.

Gerard wipes his palms on his pants and nudges at Bob. “Guys. Guys. He’s coming.”

Bob grumpily pushes Gerard away and stands up, stretching and then leaning down to help Ray up. “C’mon, Toro. Let’s go order breakfast.” He glances at Gerard. “We’ll be at the waffle house. I’ll order you some eggs to cry into.”

“Shut up, go, go, go.” Gerard flaps at them and doesn’t notice that Frank’s almost on top of him until he whirls around and gets a face full of smoke.

Frank doesn’t look angry, just confused, and he waves the smoke away with a muttered, “Sorry,” before he drops his cigarette and twists his shoe over the top of it.

“What’re you doing here?” He sounds resigned but trying to keep the peace – the same tone Gerard used every year at Christmas when his aunt handed him a present. He knew it was going to be an ugly-ass sweater that wouldn’t fit right, but he had to pretend to be grateful to avoid getting smacked in the head by his mom.

Gerard shuffles awkwardly and suddenly realizes he should have spent the night figuring out what to say instead of listening to Ray debate the merits of Iron Maiden with Bob. “I, uh. About yesterday-“

Frank turns away, and Gerard feels his whole body freeze with the humiliation of rejection. But Frank’s just unlocking the diner doors, holding one open for Gerard. “Let’s talk inside, I’m freezing my balls off out here.”

Inside, the diner’s dark, and Frank only bothers to switch on one light before he’s facing Gerard again, arms crossed over his chest. “So what about yesterday?”

Gerard tries to figure out the best way to say, ”Hey, I really like you, too, in the sense that I’d really like to make out with you, and sorry I’m such a dumbass about getting hit on.” He settles on, “I don’t just come here for the coffee.”

Frank’s face twitches slightly, but he doesn’t uncross his arms. “Okay?”

Gerard frowns. He’s not sure how much clearer he can be. “I’d really like to try some food.”

Frank reaches behind the counter and grabs an order pad. “What can I get you?”

Gerard frowns harder. It should not be this difficult to confirm mutual attraction. He takes souls for a living. Saying I like you should be a piece of cake.

“A date with the hot waiter?” Gerard stares at the checkered floor and waits for the laughter, or the Haha, no.

There’s a pause, and then Frank’s Converse-clad foot comes into Gerard’s eyeline, nudging Gerard’s own foot until he looks up.

Frank’s smiling, toothy and wide. He scrawls something down on his pad and then tears the top page off and hands it over to Gerard. It’s got a phone number written on it. “Go get some sleep. I get off at five.”

Gerard grins back, and they spend a few seconds just standing there, grinning at each other like total lunatics. Finally Gerard starts backing out, paper clutched in his hand like it might try to get away. “Okay. Okay, have a good day, Frank.”

Frank nods and leans back against the counter. “You too, Gerard.”

Gerard grins all the way to the waffle house. Once he’s inside, settled into the booth next to Ray, he tries to take the grin down a notch, but it’s like it’s permanently etched on his face. He just can’t stop smiling.

“No one should be that cheerful this early in the morning,” Bob says, pouring himself another cup of coffee from the carafe on the table. "Especially when they're directly responsible for other people's lack of sleep."

Gerard's smile dims a little. "About that...um. Thanks. You know. For hanging out with me last night."

Ray smiles graciously, but Bob arches an eyebrow. "You owe me."

Gerard shifts. "...okay? How can I make it up to you?"

Bob rubs at his beard and stares at the ceiling for far too short a time to not have been thinking about this. "Let me watch you and the hot waiter."

Gerard's mouth drops open, and he stutters for a good fifteen seconds before Bob bursts out laughing. "Dude, you are too easy. I'm kidding." He reaches across Ray and squeezes Gerard's shoulder. "I'm glad things worked out."

Brian shuffles his papers pointedly and clears his throat. "As touching as this is, and it's really not, can we get down to business?"

Gerard's smile reappears, and not even Brian's cynicism can wipe it away.

"Jesus, Brian," Bob says, picking up a menu. "You'd think it was life and death or something."

Gerard bites back a laugh and forces himself to nod seriously when Brian starts in on the importance of filing the right form when a soul refuses to cross over.

--

Ray lets Gerard crash on the couch for a few hours, and Gerard falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. He's up in three hours, blearily blinking up at Bob.

"You've got an appointment."

Gerard nods and struggles to sit up, smacking his lips. It tastes like something died in his mouth. Luckily, there's a half-full pot of coffee on the counter, and Bob waves him over when Gerard gives it a longing look.

"Ray's got the car, but if you need a ride, I think the littlest reapers are in town, they'd probably give you a lift if you want."

Gerard peers over the top of his coffee and asks, "The littlest reapers?"

"You know..." Bob trails off, and then grins. "Oh, right. You haven't met them yet, have you?"

Gerard shakes his head slowly. Bob's grin is dripping schadenfreude, and suddenly Gerard's much more amenable to just walking to his appointment. Except it's already eleven, and his appointment's halfway across town, in half an hour.

Bob makes the call, and in ten minutes, there are four kids piling out of a little Honda Civic in front of the building. Gerard peers down at them from the window. "They don't look so little." He'd kind of been expecting nine-year-olds or something, although he's not sure why, because obviously nine-year-olds wouldn't be able to drive him anywhere.

"They're legal, nineteen or twenty or something, but they're pretty young." Bob rinses his mug out in the sink and leans against the counter. "You can have them drop you back off here later, if you want."

Gerard nods, but even Bob's hospitality isn't making him feel any more comfortable about the fact that Bob seems to be waiting for something bad to happen. "So, what's the deal with them?" Bob shrugs, but he's smirking, so there's obviously A Deal. Gerard crosses his arms. "No, seriously."

Bob chuckles. "They're just a little weird. They're fine, it'll be fine. See you later."

Gerard frowns at him but answers the door when someone knocks. The four guys are all standing there, one slightly in front of the other three. "Gerard?" Gerard nods. "I'm Spencer, this is Brendon, Ryan, and Jon. You ready?"

Gerard is not sure he's ready for whatever's coming, but he nods anyway and follows them out.

--

The car is a little cramped with five of them, but the two in back with Gerard don't seem to have much problem with personal space. Gerard thinks they’re the ones Spencer called Brendon and Jon, and they’re basically sitting on top of each other. Gerard wouldn’t really think so much about that, he’s not big on PDA but to each his own, except that every once in a while, one of them will reach up to run his fingers through the hair at the nape of Spencer’s neck or lean up to press a kiss against the corner of Ryan’s mouth. Gerard tries to stay on his own six inches of backseat and clears his throat nervously.

“So. You guys have been reapers for a while?”

Brendon untangles himself from Jon and grins. “Just about a year, I think. Right, Spence?”

“It feels like twenty,” Spencer says, and the tone sounds long-suffering, but Gerard can see the fond smile in the rearview mirror.

“And you guys got assigned to the same team, or…”

Brendon waggles his eyebrows. “Oh, we’ve always been playing on the same team.”

Gerard thinks that’s a sexual innuendo, but he just nods and smiles.

“We were together before we died,” Jon explains, smiling patiently and petting at Brendon’s shoulder. “We were a band.”

“Oh, so you died-“ Gerard cuts himself off. Not even Bob and Ray have told him how they died yet, and he’s known them for a lot longer than these kids. “Sorry, none of my business, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, that was really inappropriate-“

Spencer cuts him off this time. “Yeah, we died together. Bus crash. It’s not a big deal.”

Gerard thinks it is kind of a big deal, and he’s suddenly overwhelmed with sadness for these kids that died so young, doing what they loved. “Well…it’s good you got to stay together,” Gerard offers lamely.

“We had some help,” Spencer says enigmatically, and Gerard lets it drop.

They spend the rest of the ride listening to The Beatles while Jon and Brendon play some game that looks like it consists of who can pull the most ridiculous face. Gerard stares out the window, suddenly hit with the urge to ask them to drive him to Mikey’s work. He misses having someone to make ridiculous faces at, and he misses Mikey’s attempts to stay stoic in the face of Gerard’s ridiculousness, and his eventual capitulation. He misses having someone he could call with every stupid little problem, and he misses hearing about Mikey’s problems. He misses his brother. Ray and Bob are great, and Gerard thinks maybe Frank could be that kind of person eventually, but they’re not Mikey.

They drop him off at the address on his Post-It, and Gerard leans down to window-level to tell them thanks for the ride.

“No problem, we were gonna be in the area anyway,” Spencer says.

“Appointments?” Gerard asks.

Spencer nods. “We’re on natural deaths duty, and there’s four nursing homes within a two-block radius. We’re over this way pretty often.”

Gerard nods. “Well, thanks for the ride.”

“Want us to swing by and pick you up when we’re done?” Brendon pokes his head through the back passenger window, and most of his upper body follows. He twists around the divider and reaches in to kiss Ryan on the cheek before snapping back into his own seat, laughing. Ryan looks enchanted.

“Uh, no, but thanks. I’ve got some stuff to do later anyway. It was good meeting you guys.”

They wave and take off, and Gerard wonders if Bob knows something about them Gerard doesn’t know. They seem very affectionate, maybe that was what Bob meant about them being weird. Not that Bob has any room to talk – Gerard has totally seen him touching Ray like that occasionally, and Bob’s even deigned to pat Gerard’s shoulder every once in a while.

N. Rutherford is possibly the easiest reap Gerard has ever had. He’s standing around in the grocery store parking lot, trying to figure out if using the store’s intercom system to page N. Rutherford to the front of the store counts as too much or not, when a guy about his age steps in front of him. “Hi,” the guy says, holding out his hand. “I’m Nick Rutherford.”

“Really,” Gerard says, stretching out the first syllable. There’s not a Punk’d for reapers, he doesn’t think, but this would make an alright setup if there was.

“I’d like to tell you about some of our specials over at the Tech Bin,” Nick says, gesturing toward the building next to the grocery store.

“Oh,” Gerard says, and takes Nick’s hand. “Okay.”

Nick tells Gerard all about the new cell phones they’re offering, and the fantastic warrantee on them, and the cheap monthly calling plan he gets if he buys a phone up front. Gerard is actually considering taking him up on the offer because he really does need a phone, and maybe this place will be desperate enough to sell a phone to a guy with no ID, no credit history, and no steady source of income. He is more excited than he’s willing to admit that he has a number in his pocket to put into his phone. He has Frank’s number.

The point’s moot, though, because two minutes later a graveling shows up and kicks a rock into the path of the guy mowing the grass on the side of the road. The mower hits the rock, the rock goes flying into Nick’s head, and Nick says, “Dude, sorry about the spiel. That job sucked.”

“Nah, it’s okay. You’re actually really good at it, I was thinking about buying a phone.”

“No way, seriously, those things are crap. Check out the Radio Shack on Barker, they’ve got a kickass deal, that’s where I got mine.”

Gerard says he will, and Nick waves before he steps into the light. Gerard waves back.

He’s still stupidly gleeful about the idea of calling Frank at five, being able to just call him up and see if he wants to hang out. If he wants to hang out at the apartment that Gerard does not have. He could probably invite Frank back to Bob and Ray’s place, but that seems sort of lame for a first date.

His glee fades, and he gnaws on his bottom lip. Shit. He needs to come up with a place to live in two hours.

Nick’s body is still lying on the ground, his crisp blue button-up shirt soaked with blood. The guy mowing the lawn is crouched next to him, checking for pulse. He looks up at Gerard frantically. “I didn’t, jesus, I checked the yard for rocks before I started, it was clear, I swear to god-“

Gerard nods sympathetically. “It was an accident,” he says. “You should probably call 911, though.”

The guy looks like the thought hadn’t even occurred to him, and he jumps up and runs into the grocery store. Gerard can see him through the windows, gesticulating wildly at the cashier.

Gerard takes the opportunity to kneel down and brush his hand over Nick’s eyes, closing his wide-eyed gaze, and surreptitiously take his wallet and keys. He presses the alarm button on the keychain and it leads him over to a black Toyota Corolla. Gerard stares straight ahead as he drives out of the parking lot, trying to look like he’s the owner of this car and definitely not like he’s committing grand theft auto.

He lets himself into Nick’s apartment, listening for any sign of a girlfriend or roommate. There’s only one bedroom, and the bedroom only contains a twin bed, so Gerard figures he’s pretty safe.

Nick really had needed that shitty soliciting job. The apartment’s tiny and badly in need of a paint job and new carpet. The shag carpeting reminds Gerard of the interior of Bob’s car. But the place is clean and looks well-lived in, and most of Nick’s interests had been generic enough that Gerard can adopt them for his own without feeling too creepy. He still feels creepy, no doubt about it, he’s in a dead guy’s apartment pretending it’s his own, and there really isn’t a better definition of creepy.

Gerard stares at the clock, watching the minutes tick over until five oh one. He picks up Nick’s phone and dials Frank’s number. Frank picks up on the first ring.

“So we’re definitely doing something tonight, right?” Frank says, and Gerard can hear the grin in his voice.

“Uh, yep. If you want to, yep, definitely.”

“And it’s definitely going to be a date, right?”

Gerard bites his lip to keep his grin from splitting his face. “What constitutes a date?”

“Food’s usually a good start. Come pick me up?”

Gerard grabs Nick’s keys and is halfway out the door before he realizes he’s still carrying the cordless phone and it probably won’t double as a cell phone, much as he might like it to. He confirms Frank’s still at the diner, throws the phone back into the apartment, locks up, and goes to pick up his date.

--

“So,” Gerard says, dropping his keys on the table and closing the door, “This is it.”

By ‘it’ he knows Frank will assume ‘my place’, and Gerard’s happy to let him infer it. The date’s gone so well so far that Gerard’s kind on edge, expecting something to go bad or be awkward or something, but so far he and Frank haven’t found a lack of things to talk about (Frank’s into horror movies, too, and not just the cheesy American ones, but the foreign ones that are more like art than anything, and he thinks Batman’s the best superhero – Gerard can see this getting very serious very fast). The Indian restaurant they went to was amazing, and Frank had hinted he’d wanted to come over until Gerard had invited him. It’s the best date Gerard’s ever been on. It’s probably not that impressive considering it’s only the fourth real date he’s ever been on in his life, but still.

Frank spends a minute looking around, taking a particular interest in the posters hanging on the walls. “Oh, dude, you like The Stones? They’re so fucking awesome, I have like, every album they’ve put out.”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah! They’re really great.“ Gerard has never had much of an opinion one way or the other about The Rolling Stones, and he feels a little guilty lying, but he’s not sure how else to explain the poster.

“So.” Frank settles himself on the couch and grins up at Gerard, clearly inviting.

“So,” Gerard says, nervously playing with the zip on his jacket. It’s not that he doesn’t want to sit next to Frank, and it’s definitely not that he doesn’t want to participate in whatever might happen after sitting next to Frank, but he’s suddenly, painfully aware of how few times he’s done this. “You want something to drink?” He prays Nick kept a stocked fridge.

Frank nods, still smiling. “Sure. Whatever’s fine.”

Gerard goes to the kitchen, letting out a heavy breath once he’s behind the door. What is he doing? He opens the fridge and grabs two cans of soda, leaving the door open and staring in at the food in a panic. What if this is some rule Brian forgot to mention? What if dating the living is some unbreakable rule Gerard’s breaking? What if… Gerard suddenly feels sick. What if having sex with Frank would be like necrophilia? Gerard is dead, and Frank’s not. Would it be like reverse necrophilia, a dead guy having sex with a living guy? Is not telling Frank the whole truth taking away his right to choose? What if having sex with Frank would be necrophilia rape?

Suddenly there’s a hand on his hip and warm breath against the back of his neck, and Gerard starts so hard he drops the sodas. One of them bursts upon impact, spraying everywhere, and Frank laughs against Gerard’s skin. “Jumpy.”

Gerard shuts the fridge and leans down to grab the soda, shielding his face with one hand so he won’t get an eyeful of carbonation. Belatedly, he realizes the position pushes his ass up and back against Frank, although Frank’s moved to put his other hand around Gerard’s waist, steadying him as he leans over, so obviously he doesn’t mind. Gerard straightens up too fast, hits his head on the freezer door handle, and drops the soda again.

Frank makes a sympathetic noise and presses his hand against the back of Gerard’s head, but when Gerard turns around, Frank’s still grinning. Gerard doesn’t really see the humor in the situation, but Frank’s smile is kind of overwhelming, and he’s smiling back before he realizes what he’s doing.

“I’m not actually that thirsty,” Frank says, low and suggestive, and suddenly, Gerard really is that thirsty. His mouth feels like a desert, tongue sandpaper-rough against his palette, and he’s about to break away for a glass of water when Frank kisses him.

Maybe it’s the being dead and thus appreciating every bit of life more thoroughly, or maybe it’s the bump on the head, or maybe it’s just that Frank’s a really, really good kisser, but Gerard has never had a kiss affect him as completely as this one is. His head feels a little light, kind of dizzy in the best way, and he has to wrap his arms around Frank’s waist to keep his balance. Frank nudges Gerard back with his hips until Gerard’s pressed up against the fridge, and then wedges a knee in between Gerard’s legs, keeping him there.

He bites down on Gerard’s lower lip, gently tugging on it and then letting go to soothe over it with his tongue. Gerard moans a little, because fuck, Frank’s grinning at him and kissing him and his knee’s pressed up tight between Gerard’s legs, rubbing just right, and this is the best moment in his undead life thus far.

Frank breathes out hard against Gerard’s lips. “Do that again,” he says, biting at Gerard’s lip again and rocking his knee harder.

“Do what again?” Gerard’s surprised he’s got the ability to speak.

“Make that noise.” Frank trails his mouth across Gerard’s jaw and down to the hollow beneath his ear, hands sneaking their way up under Gerard’s shirt to stroke at his sides. Gerard squirms, laughing breathlessly, and then Frank finds Gerard’s pulse point and sucks, and Gerard moans louder.

Frank shudders, sucking harder, and suddenly his fingers are at Gerard’s belt, fumbling with the clasp. Gerard puts the brakes on, pulling his head back and grabbing Frank’s hands. He’s gotten better over the years, but he’s still ridiculously afraid of anyone seeing him naked. Especially Frank.

Frank blinks at him, concern written all over his face. “What? What’s wrong?”

Gerard laughs shakily. “Can we, uh. I don’t know.” He shakes his head, feeling like a total idiot. He wants this, he wants Frank, but his stomach’s rolling with nerves, and he can’t ignore it.

“Is this too fast?” Frank backs up a step, but he drops his hands to Gerard’s hips, squeezing lightly. “Shit, I’m sorry. I don’t usually…” He laughs, and Gerard’s stomach flutters for a completely different reason. “Okay, I do usually come on this strong, but fuck.” He leans in to press his lips against Gerard’s, catching his bottom lip in between his own for a second before he rests his forehead against Gerard’s. “You are really fucking hot. You know that, right?”

Gerard doesn’t know that, but hearing it is kinda nice. He gives a half-hearted shrug and wraps a hand around the back of Frank’s neck. “Can we just make out for a while?”

Frank kisses his way down to Gerard’s mouth. “Just make out? If it’s with you, it’s not just making out, Gerard. It’s ‘making out, fuck yeah!’” Frank backs up and throws up victory arms. Gerard laughs and grabs him by the belt.

“Let’s get to the kissing then.”

By the time Frank goes home, Gerard’s lips are kiss-swollen and cherry red, and his jaw hurts a little bit when he moves it. Frank’s not much better off, his hair sticking up at crazy angles and his clothes rumpled, but he kisses Gerard at the door and looks a little dazed, but mostly happy. Gerard feels pretty satisfied with himself. He promises to call Frank tomorrow, kisses him once more, and goes to jerk off in the shower. No disrespect to Nick, but he maybe feels like he’s going to pass out from lack of blood to his brain.

--

Gerard wakes up in Nick’s bed to the sound of someone in the living room.

He creeps to the door and peers out, panic setting in when he realizes it’s the family, already sorting through their loved one’s things. Gerard shuts the door as quietly as he can, fumbles with the lock, and grabs his clothes off the floor. His shoes are in the living room where he’d toed them off last night, but he’d much rather go barefoot than explain his presence in a dead man’s apartment.

He manages to slip out the window and get down the fire escape without any major incidents, and he hobbles to a payphone, trying to avoid stepping on any glass or things that look like they might be infected with something.

Ray picks up on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Hey, Ray.”

“Are you calling from a payphone?”

“Yes.”

Ray sighs audibly. “One of these days, Gerard, you’re gonna learn to vet your reaps before you squat in their apartments.”

Gerard lets his head rest against the side of the phone booth. “Today is not that day.”

“Tell me where you’re at and I’ll be there in a minute.”

Ray’s still in his pajamas when he picks Gerard up, hair flattened on one side of his head and pillow creases in his face. Gerard slides into the car and grins. Ray scowls. “You’re not allowed to be that happy this early in the morning.”

Gerard refrains from gushing for about thirty seconds.

He’s still talking when they walk into the apartment, Ray shuffling in and throwing the keys on the table and collapsing on the couch. Bob’s already in the chair, still in his pajamas, playing Xbox.

“Make him stop,” Ray groans, grabbing a pillow to put over his head.

Gerard sits on the couch and grins at Bob. Bob narrows his eyes. Gerard’s smile dims slightly. Bob narrows his eyes so much there’s no way he should even be able to see out of them. Gerard forces the smile off his face and clears his throat. Bob goes back to his game, and the smile pops right back onto Gerard’s face.

“So Frank came over last night-“

Ray groans from under his pillow and punches himself in the face through it.

--

Gerard starts spending a lot more time at the diner. He still brings his sketchpad, but for the most part, the pages stay blank. He’s usually too busy watching Frank being sexy pouring coffee, or Frank being sexy serving food, or Frank being sexy just standing around. Occasionally Frank crooks a finger at him and leads him into the bathroom and shows him how sexy he can be in there, too.

Gerard still hasn’t quite got the hang of relaxing and enjoying it, still too self-conscious, but he’s learning. Frank’s an excellent teacher.

“Belt?” Frank asks, mouthing at Gerard’s neck. His fingers are trailing down Gerard’s sides, catching a ticklish spot and making Gerard squirm.

“O-Okay.”

Frank looks up at him in surprise, but Gerard notices he doesn’t stop moving toward his belt buckle. “Yeah?”

Gerard nods, trying to catch his breath. Frank grins and unbuckles Gerard’s belt, letting the ends hang loose and running his hands back up Gerard’s arms until he can grab the sides of Gerard’s face and pull him into another kiss.

“Pants?” Frank asks, pulling away to lick his lips and sneak a hand down to palm himself through his pants, biting back a groan.

Gerard hesitates. On one hand, it’s his pants, and there is nakedness under there. On the other hand, it’s his pants, and his dick in there, and there’s a good chance Frank will touch it. But his hesitation must be answer enough because Frank says, “Okay,” and he doesn’t sound upset about it. He just dives back into the kissing, and when his break’s over, he adjusts himself awkwardly, washes his hands, kisses Gerard again, and says, “There’s a fresh pot of coffee with your name on it out there.”

Gerard adjusts himself, too, and tries to figure out what he would have done bad enough to get assigned reaper duty but awesome enough to get Frank.

--

For a while, almost everything in Gerard’s unlife seems to be what he had always hoped for when he was alive. He’s got friends, he’s got a job that’s important, he’s got a hot boyfriend who thinks he’s hot. He still can’t quite make himself stop stalking Mikey, but even he seems to be doing better, or at least he looks less sad less often.

Besides being hot, Frank ends up being the best boyfriend Gerard could have ever imagined. He prefers staying in to going out, he doesn’t push the nakedness thing, and he likes reality TV. This ends up being a staple of their relationship.

And when the night finally comes when Frank says, “Pants?” and Gerard says, “Sure,” and Frank grins and says, “Shirt?” and Gerard goes, “Yep,” and Frank tugs on Gerard's underwear and says breathlessly, “These?” and Gerard says, “Go for it,” Gerard’s pretty sure the only thing that would make his life any better would be if he had Mikey to go out for coffee with the morning after.

--

Things are good for long enough that Gerard stops waiting for the bad stuff, and the moment he does, the bad stuff shows up with a grin and punches him in the face.

Brian cracks a yawn, covering his mouth with his fist and shuddering.

“Late night?” Bob asks, smirking.

“Yeah, a very romantic evening with a pile of paper supplies,” Brian replies.

“Kinky,” Ray laughs, and Brian doesn’t miss a beat.

“Kinko’s.”

Gerard’s antsy to get his assignments and get going. The more time he spends with Frank, the harder it is to pretend he’s going off to repossess people’s possessions instead of repossessing people’s souls. Frank seems pretty content to let Gerard skim over any pertinent details about his job; Frank’s never exactly jumping to discuss his own job, and they have better things to talk about, but it’s starting to weigh on Gerard. He has to lie to Frank about so many things – his job, his family, his past, and at first it wasn’t too bad, he could gloss over some things and twist some things just enough to make them slightly true, but the more he and Frank get to know each other, the more he knows Frank isn’t really getting to know him at all.

Brian arches an eyebrow at him. “I told you, cut it out with the caffeine before seven AM.”

Gerard forces a laugh. “I just have some…stuff to do. Can I get my assignments?”

He’s supposed to meet Frank later for lunch, and he can’t even confirm he’ll be there until he knows what his schedule for the day is.

Brian frowns but hands the Post-Its over. Gerard shuffles through his quickly, just eyeing the times, and he hits the last one and almost breathes a sigh of relief – none of the times are near the lunch hour – and then he reads the name.

F. Iero, Fifth St. Diner, 11:30 AM

Gerard’s heart stops. He’d always thought it was just a saying, an exaggerated way of expressing shock, but it turns out it’s actually possible to feel your heart stop in your chest. He has to suck in a breath, and he can feel his face flush bright red, a sick sweat breaking out on his forehead. He can hear Brian talking, but it sounds like it’s from far away, tinny and small. The neat block text on the Post-It blurs together, and he realizes he’s staring at it like it might disappear if he stares hard enough.

“Gerard?”

Gerard finally looks up, blinking, and Brian actually looks concerned. “Are you okay? What- do you know one of them?”

Gerard finds himself shaking his head no before he even knows what he’s doing. “N-No. No, just. Not feeling very good.”

Brian doesn’t look like he buys it, but he doesn’t say anything else, and Gerard leaves without saying goodbye.

He gets outside and pukes in the alley, the fucking Post-It clutched into a crumpled wad in his fist.

Panic wells up inside him, and he tries to throw up again, but there’s nothing in his stomach. He can hardly breathe, can’t think through the fog in his head. Frank. Not Frank. Not now. Things had been going so good, and Gerard had finally thought the universe had let up on the shitstorm that was his life. He’d thought maybe being a reaper had kind of balanced things out, but apparently he hasn’t paid for whatever sins someone Up There thinks he’s committed.

It hits him suddenly, out of the blue, and the panic recedes as quickly as it had overwhelmed him. He feels weirdly calm after the rush, almost numb. It doesn’t have to happen. Frank doesn’t have to die. Gerard’s stopped people dying before, for way less important reasons. He hasn’t forgotten how fucked up that had ended up being, but at this moment, it’s worth repeating if it means Frank gets to stay alive.

Bob and Ray come out of the diner a few minutes later, obviously worried, but Gerard’s able to smile and make up some bullshit about being nervous about a big night out with Frank. He’s not sure they buy it, but it’s not like he can fake the flu and go home. Reapers don’t get the flu. Reapers just get Post-It notes with their boyfriend’s name on them.

Gerard has two reaps before eleven-thirty, and he does them both on autopilot, smiling woodenly at the souls and showing them toward the light. It makes him nauseous again, but he can’t help imagining Frank in both scenarios – Frank with his head cracked open and bloody after a fall, Frank’s body floating serenely on top of the water after a swimming mishap. He can’t help imagining Frank walking into the light, away from Gerard, gone for what might be forever. It makes his heart clench painfully in his chest, and he catches a bus an hour before he needs to, showing up at the diner an hour before Frank’s scheduled to die.

Frank grins when he sees him, face lighting up like Christmas morning, and it takes everything Gerard’s got to smile back instead of just grabbing Frank and holding on as tight as he can.

“You’re early,” Frank says, wiping his hands off on a dishtowel and leaning up to peck Gerard on the side of the mouth.

“Is that a complaint?” Gerard asks, falling into the comfortable rhythm.

Frank puts a fingertip to his chin and pretends to think about it. It only lasts a second before he breaks out in a grin and shakes his head. “Nah. I can probably take off early, if you want?”

Gerard nods. He feels disconnected, slightly mechanical in his movements. The panic is a tight knot in his stomach, ready to burst if there’s any hint he might not be able to stop this one. He’d never had any problem before, but there’s the niggling doubt in his mind that this is how the people upstairs have chosen to punish him, and there won’t be any way to save Frank, no matter how hard he tries.

It takes Frank a couple minutes to get his apron off and tell his co-workers he’s going, and by the time he comes around the counter to grab Gerard’s hand, Gerard’s bouncing with nervous energy.

“Where we going?” Frank asks, lingering.

Gerard tugs him toward the front door, glancing around anxiously, expecting to see a graveling lurking around every corner. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s just go.”

Frank follows him, but once they’re outside, he pulls his hand away and frowns. “What’s up?”

Outside the diner is still too close for comfort. Gerard scratches at the back of his neck and smiles awkwardly. “Nothing. Just hungry.”

Frank looks dubious, but he follows Gerard down the street and after a couple minutes, they fall into an easy silence. There’s a café about six blocks away from the diner, and Gerard only starts breathing easier once they make it there. They get seated outside, and once they’re sitting, Gerard hooks his ankle around Frank’s under the table. Frank holds his menu out, looking under the table with a grin, like maybe it’s not really Gerard down there.

Gerard shrugs, suddenly realizing that ‘clingy’ might not be the best choice for relationship behavior. He starts to pull his foot away, but Frank uses both his ankles to trap Gerard’s and keep it where it is.

“You’re still coming to the show tonight, right?”

Gerard nods. He’d completely forgotten about Frank’s gig between everything going on, but it's the first show Frank's invited him to since they started dating, so he’s not going to miss it. Not for the world.

“Of course. You still coming over after to watch Tivo’d episodes of bad reality TV?”

“Your obsession will never make sense to me.” Frank grins, shaking his head.

“Someday,” Gerard warns, “Someday you will miss an episode of Top Chef and you won’t understand why you feel so empty.”

The waiter arrives to take their order, and Frank says, “Well, I’m sure you’ll be around to alert me to my withdrawal and make it all better.”

Gerard watches Frank order and knows that he’ll be around. And if he has anything to do with it, Frank will be, too.

--

The first person is dead by the time they get back to the diner.

“Holy shit,” Frank says, eyes going wide at the sight of the stretcher coming out of the front doors.

They’d heard the ambulance siren wailing down the street, and Frank had craned his neck to see if he could catch a glimpse of it, but Gerard had gone on eating his pasta and ignored it until Frank turned back around and continued his story about the creepy guy that kept coming in and ordering nothing but half a scrambled egg.

The ambulance’s siren isn’t going now; the body on the stretcher is already covered from head to toe. There’s not really any rush to get them to the hospital when they’re definitely dead, Gerard guesses.

Frank rushes in as soon as the paramedics are out of the way, grabbing the arm of one of the other waiters and mumbling, “What the hell, Mark? What happened?”

Mark points to the spot above the counter where a big, bright neon sign exclaiming “Good eats!” used to hang. The sign’s been moved out of the way, but there’s still a big indention where the end of it hit the floor and a smear of blood where some other part of it hit the person on the stretcher.

“It just fell. No warning, nothing. Knocked some guy right off his booth, they said he was probably dead instantly.”

Frank gapes and then looks over at Gerard like can you believe this shit? Gerard shrugs helplessly. He knows who was supposed to die here today, and it wasn’t that guy. But he doesn’t tamp down the overwhelming relief that it’s not Frank on that stretcher, that Frank is still alive and standing right here in front of him.

The diner shuts down for the day and Frank’s unusually somber when they get back to his apartment.

“You okay?” It’s a dumb question and Gerard knows it, but Frank just shrugs and flops down on the couch.

“I guess. It’s just weird, you know?” When Gerard doesn’t answer, Frank waves his hand and says, “You know, death, and everything. Dying.”

Weird doesn’t even begin to cover it.

“My grandpa died when I was little, but I’ve never really had anyone I know die.”

Gerard sits down next to Frank. “You didn’t know this guy, either.”

“Yeah, but he died where I work. I could’ve been there; shit, if it’d swung a different way, it could’ve killed someone I work with. I don’t know. It just feels weird, like maybe if I’d been there he would have sat somewhere else, or I could’ve done something.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to,” Gerard says, and it sounds like a platitude, there’s nothing you could have done, but he knows better than anyone how true it is. If Frank had been there, he’d be the one getting carted off to the morgue.

Frank shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.” He glances at the clock and then squirms until he’s up close to Gerard, face tucked into Gerard’s shoulder. “We have a couple hours until the show. You wanna take a nap?”

Gerard’s not tired – he’s not sure he could sleep after a handful of Valium at this point – but he’s not about to turn down time spent wrapped around Frank. He fakes a yawn. “Sure.”

Frank makes a disappointed face and shakes his head. “One of these days I’m going to get you to recognize when I’m hinting that we should have sex. And that day will be awesome.”

“One of these days you’ll stop hinting and just get naked. And that day will be-“

Frank wiggles out from under Gerard’s arm and grabs the hem of his shirt, shucking it off in record time. “Today!”

They spend the afternoon in bed, kissing until their lips ache and then lazily exchanging blowjobs. Gerard can’t stop thinking about where he’d be if he’d made a different decision; how he might be spending his time if Frank had just died. He can’t stop thinking about the man that died in Frank’s place, and he can’t stop feeling guilty about not feeling guilty about the choice he made.

--

Frank goes back to work the next day for an early shift, leaving Gerard to mope around the apartment guiltily. He’s tempted to follow Frank in and spend all day half a step behind him, but he’d had to go to breakfast anyway.

Brian hadn’t said anything, and neither had Ray or Bob, but they’d both given him a couple of searching looks, like they expected him to explain his behavior the day before. Gerard had eaten his pancakes, accepted his assignments, and left. He knew there was no way any of them would know that he’d fallen back into old habits (not all of them, he reminds himself, trying to find something he can’t feel guilty about), but he’d still half-expected Brian to just know and bust out the “you’re fucking everything up” speech again.

The problem is, he knows. He knows exactly how much he’s fucking up right now, and he feels bad for the people that are going to die in Frank’s place, but every time he starts down that path, panic and premature grief bubble up inside him and replace any thoughts of making it right. It is right. Frank’s alive, and anything other than that can’t be right.

He picks Frank up at the diner at three, warily waiting for the news that someone else died at the diner. But Frank’s rambling about the gig they have tonight, how good they sounded at practice, and after a while, Gerard starts to relax. He doesn’t harbor any hope that things might be totally okay, doesn’t imagine that he can just slip Frank under the radar and life will go on uninterrupted, but he’s going to take what he can get for now.

The gig is at a tiny place on the other side of town, and between Frank’s rambling and the fact that they stopped at Frank’s apartment to pick up an amp and ended up having a quickie in the kitchen, Gerard’s feeling okay. He should know by now that that’s just a precursor to things going wrong.

“We were awesome, right?” Frank dives off the (fortunately low-to-the-ground) stage, scaring Gerard half to…life? Second death? Gerard still doesn’t really understand the terminology.

“You were awesome,” Gerard agrees, tugging Frank up closer to himself and starting toward the bar. He orders a Diet Coke for himself and a beer for Frank – they’ve discussed the alcohol thing, vaguely, enough for Frank to know not to offer Gerard any booze – and stares at the way Frank’s t-shirt is clinging to his body from the sweat he’d worked up on stage.

Frank notices him noticing.

“There a dressing room in this place?” Gerard asks, leaning closer to Frank to be heard about the din.

Frank fists his hands in the front of Gerard’s shirt and leans in, too. “There’s a bathroom,” he grins.

They’re halfway toward the bathroom, drinks in hand, when there’s a pop and one of the overhead lights blows, scattering sparks over the stage and the people around it. Someone screams and everyone rushes to get out of the way, but the sparks fizz out the second they hit the ground.

“Jesus,” Frank says. “I should go make sure the guys are okay.” He rushes off, fighting his way through the crowd, and Gerard follows behind, a sinking feeling in his stomach. It was just an accident, it had to be just an accident, things like that probably happened all the time in places like this, right?

He hears Frank before he sees him, voice tight and low and a little freaked-out.

“-know this was going to happen, fuck, you think we would-“

There’s a guy next to him, looking halfway between ready to cry and ready to punch someone. Gerard recognizes him as one of the guys in the band. He doesn’t recognize the guy on the floor, fingers blackened where they’re still gripping the frayed wire. There’s another guy over him, still beating uselessly at the dead guy’s chest.

Frank notices Gerard and comes over, running a hand through his sweaty hair. Gerard pulls out his phone, but Frank waves him off. “Ambulance is already on the way.”

Gerard slides his phone back into his pocket and stands awkwardly, shifting from side to side. Frank says helplessly, “We asked this guy to help us out tonight, doing sound and shit. He’s a friend of a friend or something, I didn’t- I didn’t even really know him.”

Gerard grabs Frank’s hand and squeezes, and by the time the cops and the ambulance show up, Frank’s holding on so tight Gerard’s fingers ache. The guy trying to revive the dead man has given up by now, standing off to the side as awkwardly as everyone else, and they all wait their turn to give statements. Frank keeps jerking, moving like he’s got to get somewhere or do something, and then aborting the gesture halfway. It’s pent up energy at not being able to do anything to help, Gerard can recognize it now, but he doesn’t know how to approach it. He just holds Frank’s hand until they’re done giving their statement, and then he guides Frank out of the bar.

Frank nibbles on his thumbnail the whole way home, and doesn’t say anything when Gerard asks if he wants him to stay the night. They end up going to bed early, still silent. Gerard knows Frank’s just freaked out, he knows Frank’s not upset with him. Deep down, he knows Frank should be.

--

Three more people die over a two-week period, and Gerard starts skipping breakfast. He’s squatting in a new apartment, so he doesn’t have to deal with Bob and Ray asking questions, and he doesn’t doubt that Brian could track him down if he wanted to, but he’s missed two days and there’s still no sign of him.

On the third day, Brian’s waiting outside Frank’s diner when Gerard walks him to work. Gerard stops short and Frank gives him a weird look, following Gerard’s gaze. “You know him?” he asks out of the corner of his mouth.

Gerard nods stiffly. “Brian,” he says by way of explanation and greeting.

Brian nods back, mostly at Frank.

“My uh, boss,” Gerard says. Frank gets an understanding, sympathetic look on his face, and he squeezes Gerard’s arm quickly before he heads in.

“Catch you later, Gee.”

Brian waits for Frank to get inside before he pulls out a cigarette and lights it, offering one to Gerard. Gerard declines. Brian has every right to be exceptionally pissed with Gerard right now, and Gerard hysterically wouldn’t put it past him to poison his own cigarettes with something he’d built up a resistance to just so he could trick Gerard into smoking one.

“So,” Brian says, pointing his chin toward the diner. “Boyfriend?”

Gerard nods slowly.

“I have a speech for that, you know,” Brian says, and he sounds so calm that Gerard’s really starting to get scared. “’Don’t date the living’, etcetera. But I think there’s a bigger issue here.”

Gerard thinks fuck it, I’m dead either way and motions for Brian to pass over the cigarette. Brian gives Gerard his and pulls out a new one for himself.

Brian squints through the smoke curling up off his cigarette. “People are dying again.”

Gerard keeps a straight face, and just how well he does it shocks him a little. He’s gotten a lot better at lying since he took this job, and that doesn’t sit quite right with him.

Brian watches him, expecting an explanation or an apology or a denial or something, Gerard’s sure, but he feels so fucking trapped in on all sides that the best he can do is look back and wait for Brian to just drop the other shoe already.

Brian stares at the end of his cigarette for a second, and when he looks back up at Gerard, he looks more sympathetic than Gerard has ever seen – has ever imagined Brian could look.

“You have to fix this, Gerard. I get it, but you have to fix it. Or someone else will, and I can’t keep them off your back forever.”

Gerard’s so shocked he still doesn’t say anything, and he’s still struck dumb by the time Brian gives him one last look and heads for the waffle house.

Brian’s been…keeping them off his back? Gerard can’t even parse what this means in the overall scheme of things, and he sort of dumbly waves at Frank through the diner window and mouths “be back later.”

He walks, stops by to stalk his brother for a while, and tries to figure out what the fuck he’s going to do. He can’t keep up what he’s been doing – just letting things fall as they may and hoping they work out okay. He’s either gonna have to convince Frank to move as far off the grid as they can possibly go and hope Reapers, Inc. doesn’t have the motivation to track them down – and even he knows how unlikely that is – or he’s gonna have to make things right in the eyes of the universe.

He walks for a lot longer before he ends up back at the diner.

There’s an ambulance just leaving, and a crowd of people hovering around the mess of a car wrapped around a light pole just outside the diner. Gerard swallows past the lump in his throat and goes inside, finding an empty table and pulling out his sketchpad.

Frank comes out of the back a few minutes later, taking his apron off and slinging it over his shoulder. He slides into the chair across from Gerard and drops his head into his hands. “What the fuck.”

Gerard shifts uncomfortably, but he reaches over to squeeze Frank’s wrist. “You okay?”

Frank shrugs, looking up. He looks exhausted, pale with dark bruises under his eyes. Gerard feels a stab of guilt. Frank’s been quieter than usual lately, up more often before Gerard, but apparently he’d been trying so hard to keep Frank under the radar that he’d lost track of him himself. He hadn’t noticed until just now how worn down Frank really was. “Not really. This is the fifth one, Gee, the fifth person who’s died under weird circumstances around me in two weeks. That’s not normal.”

Gerard squeezes Frank’s wrist tighter and tries to imagine what he’d do if he didn’t know what was going on. How would an innocent person act? He nods sympathetically and hopes he doesn’t look too guilty. “I’m sure it’s just coincidence.”

Frank leans back in his chair suddenly, pulling away from Gerard’s grasp. “It’s not fucking coincidence, something’s going on, and it’s not fucking okay.”

Gerard swallows thickly and stares down at his sketchpad. Frank leans back in and reaches over to grab Gerard’s hand. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap like that, I’m just so fucking tired. Everything feels…” Frank rolls his shoulders, visibly tense. “I don’t know, off? Everything just feels really off, like I’m a half-second out of sync with the whole world, you know? I can’t sleep, nothing tastes right, I’m snapping at my boyfriend who’s been nothing but totally awesome to me…” Frank tries for a grin, but on his wan face it looks more like a grimace.

Gerard flips their hands over so he can lace his fingers with Frank’s, and he stares down at them. His chest feels too tight, and his stomach keeps cramping, and he is far, far from an awesome boyfriend.

“Frank, we need to talk.”

He can feel Frank’s hand go tense in his own, and Gerard squeezes it reassuringly.

“About what?”

“Just. Stuff.”

Frank looks like someone just dropkicked his puppy into the middle of traffic and then pushed his grandma off a ledge. “About us?”

Gerard wants to say no just to get that look off his face, but technically it is kind of about them. “Kind of. Not like, I’m not breaking up with you, Frankie. I don’t want to break up with you.”

Frank doesn’t look very reassured, but he squeezes Gerard’s hand back and smiles wryly. “Like I’d let you break up with me, come on. You’d try and I’d give you my sad face and you’d take it back so fast.”

Gerard smiles. “Please. I’m the one with the irresistible sad face. How many times have we watched Rock of Love just because I gave you the sad face?”

Frank laughs, and just doing that makes him look so much more like himself that Gerard’s mood brightens considerably. “I’m pretty sure every time we watched Rock of Love it was because you promised me hot sex afterward.”

“Well I’m the one with the irresistible sad face and the indescribably hot sex.”

The bell at the kitchen window dings and Frank looks over, waving when the cook points at the plates piling up on the counter. He turns back to Gerard and leans across the table, planting a quick kiss on his lips and then standing up. “I won’t argue that.”

Gerard says, “Nothing to argue,” at Frank’s retreating back, but he’s frowning, fiddling with his pencil until he realizes he’s got graphite all over his hands. The thought of coming clean with Frank – not just about the reaper thing, but about Frank’s time being up – makes him want to throw up and cry and hide under the covers and pretend nothing’s wrong. He can’t do any of those things in the middle of the diner, so he scribbles down a quick note for Frank to meet him at Gerard’s place after work, leaves it with another waiter, and leaves.

--

Frank shows up at the address Gerard had left with the waiter at seven-oh-nine, which means he either left work a few minutes early or sped the entire way over. Gerard’s stomach, already flipping uncontrollably, clenches. He wants to say he hadn’t meant to get Frank so worried about the talk, but Gerard’s in a state of complete panic, and he can’t say he’s not feeling a little bit reassured by the idea of Frank being just as upset. That way it won’t be such a jump to devastated when Gerard tells him the truth.

The doorbell rings and Gerard answers it, letting Frank in with a wry smile. Frank answers it, scratching the back of his neck and looking around.

“New digs?”

Gerard motions for Frank to sit on the couch and sits down next to him, wishing more than ever that he had a real place of his own, somewhere familiar, some place filled with his own stuff and maybe some of Frank’s, too. Instead, they’re in a house that smells like Dentucreme and Ben-Gay, knitting basket on the floor next to the couch, a wall full of pictures of people Gerard doesn’t know.

“Kind of.”

Frank rubs his palms on the knees of his jeans, keeps looking around like he doesn’t want to meet Gerard’s eyes. Gerard’s kind of okay with putting this off, even if just for a couple minutes of awkward chit-chat. “You house-sitting or something?”

So much for chit-chat; it’s as good an opening for the discussion they need to have as any. “Not…really. The lady that lived here died yesterday.”

Frank finally looks at him, sympathy creasing his forehead and thinning his lips. “Oh, man, I’m sorry. That really sucks. You were related to her or something?”

Gerard shakes his head, reaching over to take one of Frank’s hands away from nervously picking at the hole in the knee of his jeans. “No. I didn’t know her at all.”

Frank rubs at Gerard’s hand with his thumb, laughing awkwardly. “So you’re…what? Squatting?”

Gerard watches Frank’s thumb move back and forth, tries to ignore the heat traveling up his arm at the touch. He nods. “Yeah.”

Frank’s thumb stops, and he takes a deep breath. “Oh. Shit.” Gerard nods, head bobbing just for something to do so he doesn’t have to say anything else. “Gee, what the fuck.” Gerard looks up, and Frank looks angry. “If you’re having problems with housing or whatever, why didn’t you say something? I can help, fuck, you can just move in with me. You don’t have to fucking…” He glances around again, making a sweeping motion with his arm that Gerard interprets as hole up in a dead woman’s house.

For a split second, Gerard’s brilliantly happy. Happier than he’s ever been, even alive. Frank wants to live with him, Frank’s offering to take the next step, Frank worries about him. And then reality sinks back in, and he chokes down a wave of grief at what the inevitable outcome of this conversation will be. The end of them, one way or another.

“It’s not really that simple.”

Frank squeezes Gerard’s hand so tightly it’s verging on painful. “It is that simple. I’m fucking in love with you, you epically dumb motherfucker. I want you to live with me.”

Gerard laughs, and it sounds like a sob. “I love you, too.”

Frank grins and leans in to kiss Gerard, reaching up with his free hand to tangle his fingers in the back of Gerard’s hair, keeping him pressed close. Gerard lets himself sink into it, clutching Frank’s hand and licking at Frank’s lips until they open. Frank slides his tongue along Gerard’s, flicks at the roof of his mouth, and then pulls back slightly, smiling. “So get your shit and let’s go.”

Gerard pulls back further, until Frank lets go of his hair, and says, “I’m a reaper.”

The smile stays frozen on Frank’s face for too long, and then widens. “Okay. Seriously, where’s your stuff, I’ll get it myself-“

“Frank.” Gerard clenches his hands, nails digging into the tender flesh of his palms. “I’m a grim reaper. I died six months ago, and now I take people’s souls for a living. I didn’t…I didn’t know how to tell you, and then I didn’t want to. I’m sorry.“

Frank stops smiling. “I don’t get it.”

“I’m not sure how else to explain it.”

Frank blinks. “If it’s a joke, I just…sorry, I don’t get it.”

Gerard starts getting frustrated, now that the words are out, now that he finally got himself to say it, he wants to just deal with the fallout. “It’s not a joke. Look, I got hit by a bus, I died, and the Powers That Be brought me back to be a reaper.”

Frank stands up, hands twitching like he doesn’t know what to do with them. “Is this some kind of breakdown? Are you trying to scare me off or something? I don’t, I don’t know what to do with this, Gerard.”

Gerard pulls the crumpled newspaper clipping out of his pocket and unfolds it, staring down at his own smiling face for a second before holding it out for Frank. Frank takes it, scans the picture and the text, and looks even more confused. When he finally says something, it’s slow, measured, like he thinks Gerard really is having a breakdown. “Gerard, that’s not you. It’s the same name, but that’s not you.”

Gerard takes a deep breath. “Look at it. Just. Really look at it.”

Frank stares at him for a beat and then looks down at the picture, studying it carefully. After a minute, something dawns on his face, and he slowly folds the clipping. “He looked a lot like you. Were you related to him?”

Gerard pushes himself up angrily, grabbing the clipping back and shoving it in his pocket. He grabs Frank’s wrist, and his stomach rolls when Frank tenses and leans backward a little. “Come with me.”

Frank lets Gerard drag him out the door, but he’s got the same careful, sad look on his face. “Gerard, whatever’s going on, just talk to me. We can figure it out.”

Gerard opens Frank’s car door and pushes Frank inside, slamming it shut and going around to the driver’s side. By the time he’s in, Frank’s already buckled himself in, and he’s got his cell phone in one hand. It’s not open, but Frank’s clutching it like he might need to use it as a weapon in the face of Gerard’s obvious insanity.

Gerard drives to the address printed on his little yellow Post-It, the one he’d hung onto even after he’d read the information off to Bob earlier. He parks haphazardly at the curb, not bothering to shut the engine off before he’s out and around the car to open Frank’s door. Frank steps out warily, but he takes Gerard’s hand and laces their fingers together, clutching it as tightly as he had the phone in the car.

“Where are we?”

They’re pretty obviously at the lake, and it’s a short walk to the water, so Gerard doesn’t explain. Bob’s already there, standing under a too-short umbrella staked in the sand. He’s got a long-sleeved shirt and jeans on, and despite the streak of sunscreen on his nose, his skin’s already bright red. He looks miserable. Gerard’s pretty sure he’s got Bob beat in the misery department.

“Change your mind?”

Gerard nods shortly. “Thanks for covering for me, but I need to do this one.”

Bob nods back and doesn’t ask twice, pointing to a heavy man sitting on a fold-out chair a few feet away. “That’s him.” He stays where he’s at, glancing at Frank curiously.

Gerard squeezes Frank’s hand, takes a breath, and heads over to the man. He’s got a cooler next to him and beach toys spread out around his feet, and he’s aiming a camera toward a group of kids building a sandcastle. “Molly, David, smile!” Two of the kids look his way and turn on bright, toothy smiles, and the man snaps the picture. “Daddy!” the little girl yells, “I’m gonna go swimming now!” The man nods, setting his camera aside. “Ok, baby, but don’t forget your floaties.”

Gerard stands behind the man, glances at Frank pointedly, and then touches the man’s shoulder gently. The bright blue static travels from the man’s skin into his own hand, the familiar tickle fading quickly. The man twists around to look at him curiously. “Yes?”

“I was just wondering if you knew what time the beach closes,” Gerard says quietly.

“Nine, I think. Good thing, too, kid’s’d keep me here all night if they could.” The man grins up at Gerard, and Gerard smiles back.

“Dad!” There’s panic in the voice of the little boy at the sandcastle, and the man jerks out of his chair before he’s even got his head turned in the right direction. David points to the water. “Molly went under, Dad, I can’t see her!”

The man’s off and running, fighting through the choppy waves at the edge of the sand and then diving in once he’s in deeper water.

Frank’s fingers are digging into Gerard’s hand, and then suddenly, he’s trying to get loose. “We should go help, Gerard, shit, what if something-“ Gerard holds on tight, refusing to let Frank go. Frank pushes at Gerard’s hand, starting to sound angry. “Gerard, what the fuck, come on, let go.”

“Molly!” David runs toward the little girl wading in out of the water, pushing her hair out of her face and grinning.

“Fooled you,” she laughs, and David grabs her arm.

“Dad went in after you,” he says, and Molly’s smile fades. They both turn to look out over the water, shoulders hunching up further and further the longer they wait. Frank finally pulls loose of Gerard and takes off toward the water, diving in. He stays under for a minute, pops back up to scan the people crowding around on the beach, and then goes back under. He does it a few times before he starts swimming back, frustration and disappointment evident on his face. The man never resurfaces.

“At least she’s okay,” the man says, standing next to Gerard, his clothes dry as a bone.

Gerard nods, forcing a smile for the man and squinting against the sudden bright light behind him. The man’s gone in a flash, and Gerard’s left squinting into the sunlight when Frank comes back, looking like a drowned rat. A kind of freaked out drowned rat, which Gerard supposes would be a natural reaction to drowning, but that’s neither here nor there.

“You knew he was going to die,” Frank says, wringing out his shirt. He states it pretty simply, an edge of hysteria lurking under the calm exterior.

“Yeah,” Gerard says. “I took his soul before he died, that’s my job.” Just saying it again makes him feel tired, sick of what he does and sick of explaining what he does and sick of waiting for Frank to freak out about what he does.

Frank wrings the bottom half of his shirt out until there’s nothing left to wring, and then he keeps squeezing it. “If you knew, why didn’t you…” Finally Frank looks up, cocking his head a little and squinting at Gerard, lips pursed, like if he doesn’t keep careful control of his face, he’s going to lose control completely. “Why didn’t you warn him? Why didn’t you make sure he knew?”

“That’s not how it works. People die, they’re supposed to die. You can’t stop it. You can just make it a little easier on them.” Gerard hears the hypocrisy in his words, knows how stupid it is to keep the lie going at this point. He can stop it, he did stop it, he is still preventing fate from taking its intended victim.

“What happens if you don’t? Because I can’t think of anything much fucking worse than letting two kids watch their dad die when you could have stopped it.”

Gerard absorbs the hurt of the words, lets them sink down deep and spread out. Letting Frank hit back is the only thing making this any easier. “Other people start dying. People who aren’t supposed to. Things get messy.”

Frank goes very still, face blanking of any expression. Gerard watches him, sadness invading every part of him. It’s the cowardly way out, just letting Frank figure it out on his own, but he can’t make himself say, You’re going to die. He can’t make himself say, I’m supposed to take your soul.

It’s a long time before Frank moves again. When he does, it’s like he’s coming out of a deep sleep, little parts of him moving first, waking up before his whole body does. “That’s why all those people have been dying around me. It was supposed to be me.”

Gerard nods. The sun’s beating down on him, making his skin stretch, and it feels tight on his bones. He can hear sirens in the distance, the disquieted murmur of the crowd near the water, the hysterical crying of the kids. He can’t make himself care about anything except the way Frank’s looking at him.

Frank stands there for a few more seconds, and Gerard’s pretty sure he’s going to get punched. He’s pretty sure he deserves it. But then Frank just takes a deep breath, turns, and walks away. Gerard watches him go, keeps him in eyesight until he gets to his car, gets in, and leaves. He stands there for a while longer, long enough that the ambulance arrives and a rescue team goes in after the dead man, long enough that eventually Bob comes back and leads him toward the car.

--

Two days go by, and Frank doesn’t call. He doesn’t show up to work, either, doesn’t even leave his apartment. Gerard knows this because he’s taken to hanging out across the street, huddled under a tree. Occasionally Ray stops by with a coffee or a sandwich, once Bob stops by to tell him to stop being such an emo kid.

On the morning of the third day, Brendon shows up with breakfast and doesn’t say anything when Gerard refuses the food and just sucks down the coffee without so much as a thank you. Brendon chatters for the better part of an hour, about everything and nothing, about his crew, Gerard thinks. He’s not really paying attention. He starts paying attention when Brendon says, “…Mikey.”

Gerard takes his nose out of his coffee cup. “What?”

Brendon grins. “I met Mikey.”

“…where?”

“At the music store. Pete mentioned Mikey worked there, so I stopped in. He’s a really cool guy.”

Gerard’s heart lurches. He hasn’t been to see Mikey in a week, and it’s been even longer since he stopped obsessively tracking his movements. Guilt rolls over him, and he doesn’t mean to, but he thinks, I hope Mikey didn’t forget about me, too. Because it’s not like he forgot about Mikey, he could never forget about Mikey, but the last time he’d been to see him, Mikey had been half-bent over the counter at the music store, peering at something in a magazine a guy was holding up, and he’d been smiling. He’d been smiling like he meant it, no hint of grief or sadness around the edges, and Gerard had breathed a little easier. He doesn’t want Mikey to forget about him, but he doesn’t want to be the only thing Mikey remembers.

Belatedly, Gerard asks, “Pete?”

Brendon waves his hand. “Oh, you know, our handler. Pete Wentz. He’s kind of a big deal. In the death business, anyway. Probably would’ve been in life, too, if he’d lived longer.” Brendon looks thoughtful.

“How does he know my brother?”

Brendon shifts uncomfortably, eyes sliding to the side. “Oh, uh. I guess I thought you knew?”

Gerard turns to face Brendon fully, coffee erupting over the side of his cup when he crushes it in his hand. Not Mikey, too.. He’s broken a lot of rules since becoming a reaper, he’s already going to catch hell when Brian finds out about Frank, but he’s willing to risk a double dose of wrath if Mikey’s in the crosshairs now, too. “How. Does. He. Know. My brother.”

Brendon scratches at the back of his neck and laughs nervously. “They’re dating, dude. I really thought you knew. Shit, Pete is so gonna have my balls for breakfast.”

Gerard feels a little dizzy, going from terrified to amused in about half a second flat. He laughs, and then he starts logicing it out in his head. “Wait, Pete’s a reaper, right?”

“Yeah.” Brendon still looks wary.

“And he’s a handler?”

“Yeah…” Brendon’s leaning back a little now, like maybe Gerard’s going someplace that ends up with Brendon being the one to blame for something.

“Aren’t there…I was told there were rules about that kind of stuff.”

Brendon laughs, relaxing a little. “Oh, yeah. Rules. Pete kind of has this rule about never following rules. It drives the boss crazy.”

Gerard’s starting to feel just as lost as he did the day he died. “The boss?”

Brendon sips at his own coffee and waves his hand again. “Pete’s boss, not The Boss, you know. Patrick.” At Gerard’s blank look, he explains, “He’s in charge of all the handlers, like our handlers are in charge of us. He makes sure they’re doing their jobs and stuff. Except Patrick has a soft spot for Pete, or Pete’s just good enough at his job that it doesn’t matter, I don’t know. I just know he doesn’t get in trouble for much, and he does a lot of trouble-making.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Like I said, Pete doesn’t really think much of the rules. He tells us a lot more than he probably should.” Brendon looks intensely proud of that fact. “He’s pretty great.”

“Sounds great,” Gerard says faintly, although he’s reserving judgment on his brother’s apparent boyfriend until he actually meets the guy, which he plans on doing as soon as possible. “You guys meet up every morning?”

Brendon looks confused. “No, why would we?”

“…to get your assignments.”

Brendon laughs and leans back so he can pull a Sidekick out of his insanely tight pants. “He just texts us. We only meet up if there’s a problem, but we usually see each other every couple of days anyway, to hang out or whatever.”

Gerard can’t imagine meeting up with Brian just to hang out. He imagines Brian would huff a lot and possibly try to make them do reaping drills or something.

“Are you guys meeting up anytime soon?”

“Yeah, later today. You wanna come?” Brendon looks so enthusiastic that Gerard wouldn’t say no even if he didn’t have ulterior motives.

“Sure. I might need-“

Brendon grins and stands up. “We’ll swing by and pick you up at four.”

Gerard settles back against the bench and smiles. It’s been long enough since the last time he did that his face feels a little funny, but mostly it feels nice. “Thanks, Brendon.”

Brendon shrugs. “I hope things work out with Frank.” A car pulls up at the curb just then, and Brendon’s close enough to the curb that Ryan can reach out and grab his wrist, tugging him toward the car with a grin. Gerard doesn’t get a chance to ask how he knows about Frank, or how much he knows about Frank, or come to think of it, how he knew where to find Gerard in the first place. He assumes the answer he’d get would either be, “Bob,” or “Ray.” Possibly both.

When the car pulls away, Brendon waving like crazy, Gerard sits back to finish his coffee and stare at Frank’s window some more.

--

At noon, Frank comes out. Gerard’s been busy thinking up ways to intimidate his brother’s boyfriend who is also a reaper and is possibly a Big Deal. Gerard is possibly the least intimidating person he knows, and he is far from a Big Deal in the death business, so really, he hasn’t come up with much yet. In any other case, he’d threaten death to anyone who might potentially hurt Mikey, but somehow he doesn’t really think that will have much impact here.

When he sees Frank, Gerard sits up and tries to look inconspicuous, tucking his face into his shoulder at an angle where he can still see Frank out of his peripheries, but it doesn’t seem to matter, because Frank’s headed right toward him.

“What are you doing?”

Gerard takes his face out of his shoulder and looks up, instinctively going for the “who, me?” face. “Uh. Sitting here?”

Frank crosses his arms and looks annoyed, and Gerard is so fucking in love with him he can hardly stand it. “Why are you staking out my building?”

“A guy can’t sit on a bench and relax? I’m not staking out your building.”

Frank taps his foot three times, tap tap tap, and shifts his weight. “A guy can sit on a bench. A guy can’t sit on a bench for almost three days straight staring at the same building. Well, he can, but then he’s a stalker.”

Gerard slumps. “I miss you.”

Frank sits down on the bench next to him and wipes his hand across his face. Gerard suddenly notices how tired he looks, the stubble on his chin that looks about three days old, the same t-shirt he was wearing at the beach. “I miss you, too,” Frank finally says, and it takes everything Gerard has not to just reach over and kiss him, tell him to forget everything, beg him to let things go back to the way they were.

“So what now?” Gerard asks softly.

Frank reaches over and laces his fingers with Gerard’s, staring at their intertwined hands for a few seconds before squeezing gently and letting go. “People can’t keep dying so I can stay alive,-"

Gerard shakes his hand loose and stands up. “No.” He busies himself with his pockets, pulling out a lighter and a handful of change, switching them to opposite pockets and then back again. Anything to avoid hearing what Frank’s going to say.

Frank stands up, too, slips his arm around Gerard’s waist, and catches his wrist to keep him from juggling the lighter and change any more. “Come in with me.”

Gerard stares at Frank’s hand, the vivid tattoos and the tiny scars. Gerard doesn’t know about all of them yet; he doesn’t know why Frank has barbed wire around his wrist, or why he has a tiny, jagged scar in the webbing between his third and fourth fingers. He doesn’t know what Frank wanted to be when he grew up, or whether he likes Chinese food, or if he wants kids. There’s so much he doesn’t know, and he’s suddenly, overwhelmingly angry with himself for not finding out sooner. He had all that time with Frank, all those months he spent arguing in favor of watching Rock of Love instead of the History Channel, all those hours he spent sleeping in or hanging out with Ray and Bob or drawing, and he could have been using them to find these things out.

“A few more months,” he says, and he knows before he’s done asking what the answer will be.

“How many people are gonna die while I’m alive?” Frank drops his forehead against Gerard’s shoulder, leaning in like he might fall over if he doesn’t have something to keep him standing. “I don’t…” He sighs. “I don’t wanna die, Gerard, I like my life. I like my life with you. And for a while I thought maybe I could live like that, knowing I was living on someone else’s time, if I had you. But I can’t. I won’t.” He lifts his head, gently pulling away. “If you won’t do it, I’ll find someone who will. Bob, or Ray.”

Gerard looks up in surprise, and Frank grins wryly. “I’m not completely blind. You guys hang out all the time, keep the same weird hours. If they’re not reapers too I’ll eat your socks that I know you’ve been wearing for at least three days. Gross, Gee. Seriously gross.” He’s still smiling, and just the idea of smiling right now makes Gerard want to crumple in on himself.

Frank shoves his hands in his pockets and tilts his head toward the building. “Come inside.”

Gerard takes a step forward, grabs Frank’s hand again, and nods. He knows just how selfish it is to want to talk Frank out of what he’s decided, but knowing doesn’t make him want to do it any less.

Frank’s apartment is cluttered, not really dirty, just covered in piles of stuff. Stacks of CDs, half of them out of their cases. Comics lay open everywhere, photo albums have half-blank pages, the pictures sitting out, most of them propped up on something. Frank makes a face. “Sorry about the mess.” He goes to the fridge and pulls out two beers, offering one to Gerard. Gerard wants one more than he can ever remember wanting one in his life, wants something to dull the pain in his gut, the pounding in his head, but even if it could, he doesn’t want anything to dull the time he’s spending with Frank. He shakes his head.

“Going through all your earthly possessions?” Gerard asks.

Frank flops down on the sofa and sips his beer. “Kind of. Not to like, make out my will or anything, I don’t really care what happens to my stuff. Just.” He picks up a picture from the arm of the couch and grins at it. “Just trying to process everything.”

Gerard sits down next to him and takes the picture. It’s Frank, probably three or four years old, wearing a huge pair of sunglasses and grinning cheesily at the camera. His grin hasn’t changed much. “Trying to decide if you want to die?” It sounds bitter, tastes bitter in his mouth, but he can’t help it. Suddenly, it feels a lot like Frank’s telling him he’s not worth living for.

Frank takes another drink of his beer, picks up another picture. It’s Frank again, this time at a white table with a god-awful yellow place mat, blowing out the candle stuck in half a pecan pie. His mom and what Gerard assumes is his grandma are behind him. “Trying to decide if I’d be okay letting someone I loved die so someone who should rightfully be dead could live.”

It hits Gerard in the gut, the guilt and the grief and the knowledge that if it was Mikey, if it was his mom in the line of fire, if they were going to die before their time because some selfish asshole couldn’t let go, he’d make sure fate carried through with the right death. But it’s Frank, and Gerard can’t help saying, “Did you decide whether or not it was okay to leave behind people who love you, when you have a choice?”

Frank looks at him, and Gerard can see the apology in his eyes, the fierce determination in the set of his mouth even before he says, “Yeah. It’s not okay, but it’s better than the alternative.”

Gerard presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and tries not to let the grief cripple him. Frank puts his hand on the back of Gerard’s neck, squeezes lightly, rubs at the tense muscles. “You should tell me about being a reaper.”

So Gerard tells him about Brian, and the littlest reapers, and how badly he fucked up at first, and how much he misses his family, and how eventually, he’ll cross over, too. Frank looks alternately amused and rapt, asking questions and making ‘aha!’ faces when Gerard mentions something that explains some past weird behavior or omission. He’s especially curious about Mikey, and Gerard’s spent so long keeping himself from talking about him to Frank for fear of having to pony up a brother he can’t actually produce that he talks himself hoarse catching up.

Before long, it’s four o’clock and there’s a car honking on the street. Gerard checks out the window to make sure it’s Brendon, and spontaneously says, “Wanna come meet Mikey’s boyfriend with me?”

Frank grins.

The car is definitely not equipped for five people, let alone six, so Frank ends up on Gerard’s lap, relaxing back against him until Gerard can nose at the stubble on his cheeks. They hold hands the whole ride there, and he’s not exactly self-conscious about it – all notions of embarrassment or too much affection have gone out the window at the prospect of only a certain amount of time left with Frank – but when he glances between the seats and sees Jon and Ryan brushing each others’ hands like some bizarre mating ritual before actually clasping, he feels a little more at home.

They pull up outside a club, and in the late afternoon sun, it looks too big, garish, out-of-place. They pile out of the car, and Spencer leads the way inside, taking them across the main floor and past the karaoke stage to a back room. It’s not exactly what Gerard imagined a VIP room would look like: it’s mostly old, worn couches, cushions sagging, a foosball table that’s seen better days, and a bookshelf crammed with so many books the shelves bow. The only luxury in the room is the flatpanel high-definition TV on the wall, but even that’s hooked up to an old-school Nintendo system whose controller wires are held together with duct tape.

There’s a guy sitting on one of the couches, furiously scribbling away in a notebook, and since he’s the only one there, Gerard can only assume he’s Pete. He’s small, way smaller than Gerard had imagined, only marginally bigger than Frank. He’s got the most ridiculous pair of bright orange sneakers on, and they clash horribly with his purple hoodie, but he doesn’t really look like the type that cares. When he hears them come in, he looks up and grins, and Gerard’s taken off-guard by the wideness of it, the genuine excitement behind it.

“You must be Gerard.” He bounces out of his seat and comes over to take Gerard’s hand, pumping it enthusiastically. “Dude, I have heard…” He makes a gesture with his hands, rounding them and using them to draw a bubble around his head. “So much about you, seriously. Between Mikey and these guys, I feel like I already know you.”

Gerard prickles a little at that. Pete doesn’t know him, and it sets off a deep-seated sort of jealousy that Pete – also a reaper – has gotten to spend enough time with Mikey to hear all about his dead brother, while Gerard has had to resort to skulking around like a sexual predator just to catch glimpses of him.

Frank stays close to Gerard, sitting so close to him on the couch Pete offers he’s practically in Gerard’s lap. The rest of them sprawl out over two of the other couches, and Pete perches precariously on the edge of the foosball table. “So, you’re probably like, kind of bummed about not seeing Mikey much anymore, huh?”

Gerard has to seriously restrain himself from knocking Pete over and using his head to score a foosball goal.

“Yeah. Bummed, you could say that.”

Pete waves his hands. “It’s fucked up, man, the whole system. Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t go see your family anymore, like you can just turn off all the things that tie you to them.”

Gerard relaxes a little, and he nods. “You seem to get away with not following the rules.”

Pete grins, and it verges on preening. “I’ve got someone upstairs looking out for me. That helps.”

“I bet.”

Pete’s grin fades, and he kicks his feet a little. “Me and Mikey, we’re good together, you know?”

Gerard doesn’t know, and as much as he wants to hate Pete just for having what he doesn’t – his brother and a relationship that doesn’t have an inevitable end in the immediate future – he wants to believe him. “He’s doing okay?”

Pete nods. “Better, anyway. I didn’t meet him until a while after you died, but he was still pretty torn up about it. He still is. He misses you a lot. But he’s getting better. He doesn’t freeze up every time we go to a comic store anymore.”

Gerard’s stuck between feeling guilty that such mundane things would affect Mikey so strongly and glad they’re not anymore. “Does he, uh. Does he know?”

“Nah. That’s kind of a heavy thing to bust out on someone, you gotta time it right or it fucks everything up.” He catches himself about halfway through the sentence, eyes sliding over to Frank, and last few words are spoken with a distinct air of ’oh shit’.

“I’m Frank,” Frank says, half standing up to lean over and shake Pete’s hand.

“I’ve heard about you,” Pete says, shaking Frank’s hand just as enthusiastically as he had Gerard’s. “The suits upstairs aren’t real happy about you.”

Frank doesn’t look too concerned, but Gerard’s throat suddenly goes dry. “They know about Frank?”

Pete makes a face.”They’re the ones that picked his name out of a hat or whatever, right? If you got the assignment and Brian gave you the assignment, stands to reason someone gave Brian that assignment. And since Frank hasn’t shown up all be-winged and be-harped, they probably know the score.”

“There’s not really wings and harps and shit, is there?” Frank sounds kind of horrified.

Pete laughs, and it’s such a ridiculous sound that Gerard can’t stop the smile that spreads over his face. “Nah, dude, I don’t think so. I haven’t been there so I don’t know for sure, but Patrick’s up there and he wouldn’t put up with wings. Harps maybe.” Pete looks thoughtful.

Gerard’s smile doesn’t last very long. He can’t really imagine what could be done to him as punishment for keeping Frank alive – keep him on Earth longer? Make him listen to one of Brian’s lectures? - but he’s suddenly struck with the idea that maybe they’ll punish Frank for it. “Are they really pissed about Frank?”

Pete shrugs. “I think you would’a heard about it by now if they were like, smite you down pissed.” Gerard breathes easier, but Pete adds, “You probably shouldn’t keep them waiting, though.”

Frank squeezes Gerard’s leg and says diplomatically, “We’ve got it figured out.”

--

They get back to Frank’s place late after dinner courtesy of Pete. Frank yawns, but he doesn’t look very tired.

“You wanna watch a movie?” Gerard asks. They haven’t talked about it explicitly, there’s no set time they need to say their goodbyes by, but he gets the feeling that at the end of the night, it’s going to be goodbye and not goodnight.

Frank shrugs. “Sure.”

They end up curled up on the couch watching Zombie Strippers, even though they’ve seen it at least five times already. Frank nuzzles his way under Gerard’s arm, rests his head on Gerard’s chest, and wraps an arm around his waist. He probably can’t see very well with his shoulder near his cheek and his face half-smushed in Gerard’s shirt, but it’s not like Gerard’s complaining.

It takes him half the movie to realize this is what he’s going to miss most: the stupid shit, the mundane shit like watching movies together or arguing over take-out or trying to fix a leaky faucet. He can’t remember what he used to do, before he met Frank, how he used to spend all his time alone. The idea of spending it all alone again makes his chest tighten, and suddenly he’s breathing shallowly, making horrible wheezy noises, and his head’s spinning.

Frank jerks up, puts his hand over Gerard’s chest, and mumbles soothing nonsense. When Gerard starts hyperventilating, Frank grabs the front of Gerard’s shirt and shakes him a little. “Gerard!” It gets Gerard’s attention off his own breathing, off the crushing devastation that’s making him feel like he can’t breathe, and as soon as he’s not in any danger of passing out, Frank kisses him.

This whole time, Gerard’s been a little afraid of how calm Frank seems to be about everything. He can’t actually want to die, he can’t know anything good comes after life, he can’t want to leave his family and his friends and everything he loves. Suddenly Gerard gets it, how terrified Frank is of going, how much he misses everything already, how hard he has to work every single second not to give in and take the easy way out. He gets how much harder he’s made it on Frank. He gets it because Frank’s kissing him like stopping will be the end of him. He’s clutching at Gerard’s shoulders, scrambling to get onto Gerard’s lap, sucking the air out of Gerard’s lungs and using it to make helpless, desperate little sounds.

Gerard kisses him back just as desperately, uncomfortably aware of every detail. The shape of Frank’s lips, the taste of his mouth, the weight of him on Gerard’s lap, the faint smell of his shampoo and his cigarettes. It makes it feel clinical, the way he’s cataloging everything, trying to burn it into his mind so he’ll never forget. He knows he will; he used to think he’d never forget the taste of his first kiss’s lip gloss, or the smell of Elena’s perfume, or a million other little things he’s tried to hold onto unsuccessfully.

So he stops. Gives over thinking to just doing, pressing Frank back and twisting their bodies so they can tumble back onto the couch, stretching himself out over Frank and grinding his hips down until he knows he’ll have bruises from the button of Frank’s jeans biting into his skin. Frank bends his knees and digs his feet into the couch, makes room for Gerard between his legs, and tangles his fingers in Gerard’s hair, holding on so tightly Gerard’s scalp burns.

The TV’s still on, flickering in the dark room and making the angles of Frank’s face stand out in sharp contrast. Gerard tears his lips away for a second, letting Frank hold onto his hair, just staring down at him. He’s so fucking beautiful Gerard aches just looking at him.

“Gerard,” Frank breathes, bucking up against him, trying to pull his mouth back down.

“Frank,” Gerard replies, leaning back down, letting himself get sucked back into the hazy desperation of Frank’s mouth.

Everything blurs for a while, individual movements lost in the rush of lips against lips and fingers on skin. He can’t remember how long they’ve been kissing, but it feels like it’s always been too long, and he fumbles with Frank’s pants until they’re unfastened. Frank lifts his hips and pushes his jeans down, hooks his thumbs in his underwear and tries to twist out of them. He ends up leaving bright red streaks against his own thighs where his nails got in the way, and in the high contrast of the dark room and the bright TV, they look worse than they are, like they’re scored into his skin permanently. Gerard pushes back and folds his legs up so he can crouch down by Frank’s feet. Frank reaches down for him, catches his hand and a tuft of his hair, and Gerard doesn’t bother trying to readjust his grip before he licks his way around the head of Frank’s cock.

Frank bucks up, cock sliding wetly against Gerard’s cheek. Gerard lets him ride it out until he’s flat against the couch again, and then he fits his hands into the grooves of Frank’s hips and presses down. Frank whimpers, tugging harder at Gerard’s hair, and Gerard lets the pain temper his lust until he’s not so close to the edge before sucking Frank into his mouth and pressing his tongue against the bundle of nerves on the underside. Looking up makes his eyes feel too wide, but it means he can see the silent movements of Frank’s mouth and the wet shine of his eyes as he stares down at Gerard. He works his mouth down until the tip of Frank’s cock is resting at the very back of his throat, and then he forces himself to relax and swallow until his nose is pressed against Frank’s skin, until the designs of Frank’s tattoos blend into a swirl of color at the edges of Gerard’s vision. He stays like that until Frank makes a noise that’s half plea, half demand, and then he slowly starts a rhythm, letting go of Frank’s hips so he can wrap one hand around the base of Frank’s cock. Frank reaches down and claims his other hand, lacing their fingers and squeezing so tightly that it’s painful. Gerard gets it, though; he doesn’t really want to let go, either.

He keeps the rhythm slow, makes it messy, doesn’t let Frank get too close. They have as long as this goes on, and what happens after, Gerard knows but doesn’t want to think about. So he just concentrates on the feel of Frank in his mouth, the taste, the sound of Frank’s labored breathing and the choked whimpers he makes when Gerard hollows his cheeks.

Even keeping it slow, it’s not long before Frank’s tugging on Gerard’s hair, bucking his hips a little to get Gerard to pull off. “Gee, Gerard, come on, stop, I don’t, fuck, I don’t wanna come yet. Stop.”

Gerard lets Frank slide out of his mouth with an obscene noise, and he doesn’t pause before he’s leaning up to kiss him, mouth slick all the way around. Their lips slide against each other, almost off of each other, but Frank gets his teeth into Gerard’s bottom lip and holds on. Gerard licks at Frank’s upper lip, catches the rough ridges of the bottom of his teeth.

Frank tries to turn them so they’re facing each other, but the couch is narrow and they almost roll off. Gerard catches Frank by the front of his shirt, holds on even though Frank’s body weight pulling against the fabric has to be cutting an indentation into his neck. Frank stares at him for a second, and then propels himself forward and pushes Gerard into the back of the couch. Gerard feels smothered, trapped between Frank and the couch, but it’s a cage he’d stay in forever if he could.

Frank nudges Gerard’s legs out from under him until his feet are resting on the floor and then throws a leg over Gerard’s lap and straddles his thighs. He fumbles with Gerard’s shirt, catching on to the hem and letting it slide out of his fingers more than once, and Gerard realizes then that Frank’s shaking. His hands, his shoulders, his whole body trembling, and it’s not just from what they’re doing.

“Frank,” Gerard whispers, but Frank just keeps trying to get Gerard’s shirt off, hitching it up around Gerard’s armpits and tugging, glaring at it like it’s the source of all his problems. “Frank.” He says it louder this time, and Frank looks up, still holding onto the hem of Gerard’s t-shirt like a lifeline. With his face lit by the TV behind them, Frank looks so fucking young. Gerard can’t ever remember being that young, doesn’t remember what he was doing at twenty-one, can’t imagine being told he was going to die at twenty-one. “Frank,” he says again, and Frank crumbles, pressing his face into Gerard’s neck. Gerard can feel something wet against his skin. Right now, he thinks, right now I could ask him to stay, and he would. Gerard wraps his arms around Frank’s back and holds on. He doesn’t say anything.

After a while, Frank breathes out heavily against Gerard’s throat and when he laughs, it’s muffled. “Sexy, huh?”

Gerard rubs his hands down Frank’s back, over the sharp wings of his shoulder blades and over the slight curve of his hips. “Always.”

Frank picks his head up and his eyelashes are clumped together wetly. “Come to bed.”

Gerard’s stomach clenches. Goodnight is too close to goodbye, and he knows neither of them will be sleeping. It’ll just be awkward silence, both of them pretending they’re not counting down the minutes.

“I’m not tired,” he says, and it sounds so stupid and stubborn, to be refusing Frank this last thing, but Frank laughs and scrubs his hands across his eyes.

“Come to bed, you dork. Come have sex with me. You’re never gonna learn, are you?”

Gerard follows him into the bedroom knowing that now he never will have a chance to learn.

Frank gets undressed slowly, peeling his t-shirt off and shucking off his jeans, pulling his socks off one by one and shimmying out of his underwear.

Gerard follows his lead, but Frank catches his wrist and holds it for a second. “Frank,” Gerard says, and it sounds desperate, plaintive. Frank starts rolling the hem of Gerard’s t-shirt up, slowly, inch by inch, until Gerard has to lift his arms above his head to let him pull it the rest of the way off. His pants get the same treatment – Frank pops the button and slides the zip down tooth by tooth, and by the time it’s down, Gerard’s vibrating with need. He wants to touch Frank, he wants Frank to touch him; every second they’re taking to get undressed feels like one second less they have. But he doesn’t rush it.

Frank kneels down and pulls Gerard’s pants and boxers off, holding onto Gerard’s hip to keep him balanced as he steps out of them. He’s not wearing socks, but Frank stays on his knees anyway, resting his forehead against Gerard’s hip and breathing out hot, heavy breaths against his skin. Gerard runs his fingers through Frank’s hair, tugging on the ends of it, and Frank looks up. He looks lost.

“C’mon.” Gerard helps him up and over to the bed, and Frank slides in, waiting for Gerard to lay next to him before he lays down.

“We don’t…” Gerard starts, and it sounds too loud in the quiet room. Softer, he says, “We don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want.”

Frank laughs, and he seems to pull himself together a little because he grabs Gerard’s hips and rolls them until Gerard’s on top. “I want.”

Gerard leans down to kiss him, and Frank clutches at his back. It hurts a little, like maybe Frank forgot Gerard’s skin is actually attached to his body and won’t come off no matter how hard he tries, but Gerard’s also kissing him like he can smother him this way, so he gets it.

Frank breaks off for a breath, and squirms out from under Gerard a little to reach over to the bedside table. He grabs the lube but gets distracted when Gerard bites his way up Frank’s neck, stopping at his jaw to lick the curve of it.

“Gerard,” Frank whines, high and needy, “Come on, fuck, please.”

Gerard grabs the lube and fumbles with the lid, suddenly noticing his hands are shaking. They’re shaking so bad he can’t get it open, and Frank laughs. It’s not mean, it’s the laugh that means you dork, and it makes Gerard want to scream at the unfairness of not getting to hear that laugh for the rest of his unlife.

Frank takes the lube and flips the top, pouring a pool of it into his hand. He drops the tube and fists his cock, biting his lip as he arches up into it. “Jesus, Frank,” Gerard says, unable to tear his eyes off the scene in front of him. Frank strokes himself a couple more times before he tightens his grip, holding onto the base for a second and breathing out heavily, like he’s trying to get himself under control.

Gerard barely moves when Frank does, just lets Frank push him sideways and push his knees apart. “You okay?” Frank murmurs, trailing a slick finger behind Gerard’s balls. Gerard manages an “mm-hmph” before Frank slides his finger in, easily adding a second when he gets to the first knuckle. Gerard squirms under him, trying to push down onto Frank’s fingers and wriggle away from them at the same time. Frank puts a steadying hand on Gerard’s hip and pushes in further, twisting his fingers slowly, so fucking slowly Gerard feels like he’s going to come out of his skin, and then he hits the right spot. All the air in Gerard’s lungs gets knocked out in a single breath, and he has to blink a few times before he can make out Frank’s face swimming above him.

“There?” Frank asks, almost whispering, and twists his fingers again. Gerard bucks up off the bed, nodding his head frantically. Frank grins and pushes down on Gerard’s hip, keeping him anchored, and leans down to drag the flat side of his tongue over the head of Gerard’s cock.

Gerard grabs fistfuls of Frank’s hair and pulls, biting down on his own lip so hard he feels the skin threatening to break.

By the time he can think straight again, Frank’s backed off, somehow managed to get Gerard’s fingers out of his hair, and he’s lining up, waiting for Gerard’s okay.

Gerard nods, desperately sucking in lungfuls of air, and hooks his ankles around Frank’s back. Frank slides in, eyes going unfocused, and Gerard taps his heels on Frank’s skin, urging him to move faster. “Shh,” Frank whispers, even though Gerard hasn’t said anything, and continues to take his fucking time. Gerard knows – he knows - he should be dragging this out, letting Frank go as slow as he wants, putting off the inevitable, but his whole body feels strung out, too taut, like if he bends wrong his back will snap from the tension. He just wants Frank, all of him, so he can forget to think and pretend this isn’t the last time he’ll ever get to have him.

Frank finally sinks all the way in and stays there for a second, holding himself above Gerard with an arm on each side of his head. His arms are shaking with the effort, and Gerard’s shaking with the need to do more than just wait. He squirms and Frank hisses, transferring his weight to one arm and reaching between them to fist Gerard. Gerard tenses and Frank groans like it’s being forcefully pulled out of him, his chest vibrating. Finally, finally he starts to move, pulling out slowly and then starting a tortuous pace that he mirrors with his hand.

Gerard whines, says, “Pleasepleaseplease,” and it looks like Frank’s having a hard time refusing. He only keeps up the slow pace for another minute, and then his thrusts get erratic and his hand keeps slowing down until it’s almost stopped, and then he jerks fast and hard like he’s trying to make up for forgetting.

“Gerard,” Frank grunts, and his arm jerks like it's going to give out on him. He lets go of Gerard to hold himself up and Gerard whimpers at the loss of contact. But when he reaches down to touch himself, Frank growls out a warning. “Wanna suck you after,” he says, the words all rushed together like it’s taking all he’s got just to say that much.

Gerard reaches up to tangle his fingers in Frank’s hair, something to keep his hands busy, and tightens his legs around Frank’s hips. Frank leans down to kiss him, mumbling something against his mouth that feels like “GeeGeeGee” and then he tenses, going completely still when he comes.

When he slumps down, his sweat-slick stomach brushes over Gerard’s cock, and he whines at the sensitivity. Frank’s barely coherent, but he manages to pull out and slither down Gerard’s body. It takes all of two sweeps of Frank’s tongue over his cock and Gerard’s coming so hard he can’t speak, can only open and close his mouth with what might have been words if he had the air for it. He thinks he’s staring at the ceiling, but he might as well be staring at the back of his eyelids for as much as he can see.

When his vision comes back into focus, Gerard blinks down at Frank, who’s resting his head on Gerard’s thigh and staring sleepily up at Gerard. Frank smiles, slow and easy, and for one blissful second, Gerard feels like everything is normal. They’ll clean up and go to bed now, and in the morning they’ll get breakfast, and maybe one of these days Gerard will work up the courage to introduce Frank to the guys. Frank will go to work, and Gerard will reap, and-

It all comes rushing back the second after, and Gerard has to look away from the smile on Frank’s face.

Frank climbs up Gerard’s body, ignoring the sticky, sweaty mess they’ve made, and just lies on top of him.

He’s a solid weight on top of Gerard, just this side of too heavy, but Gerard’s not about to make him move. Frank shoves his face into the crook of Gerard’s neck, his breath tickling the skin there, and he wedges his hands under Gerard’s back, their combined weights trapping them.

It’s not exactly comfortable, but Gerard could lay like this for the rest of his time on Earth and be happy. Frank’s warm and breathing and alive, which is all that matters because soon enough he won’t be.

Frank wiggles his toes a little and mumbles against Gerard’s throat, “It won’t be forever.”

Gerard doesn’t know that. That’s the part that scares him most, that has scared him most since the day he woke up dead. Eventually, he will cross over, and no one will tell him what happens then. Heaven? Reincarnation? Nothingness? There is no guarantee that wherever Frank’s going, Gerard will be able to follow.

He tightens his grip on Frank. “It might be.”

Frank snuffles a little and picks his head up so he can look at Gerard. Even this late, even after the day he’s had and the sweaty sex they just had, Frank looks amazing. This close up, Gerard can see the individual flecks of gold in his eyes.

“It might be. But I choose to believe it won’t be.”

Gerard cards his fingers through the back of Frank’s sweaty hair and tries not to think about how it’s the last time he’ll do that. The last time he’ll argue with Frank, the last time he’ll be able to hug him, the last time for everything. If he starts cataloging it, he’ll never stop, and it will make this harder than it already is.

“I can’t do it,” Gerard whispers, and his voice sounds so small that he repeats himself because Frank might not have heard. “I can’t do it.”

Frank’s face falls, and Gerard wants to take it back. He wants to be able to do this, to be there for Frank, to be the last person Frank sees before he dies and to be the one that helps him cross over. But the thought of it is making his chest feel like he’s being compressed, crushed by the weight of his grief. He knows that even if he agreed to do it, he’d back out at the last minute. He’d try to change Frank’s mind again, or he’d resort to something worse. He doesn’t want Frank’s death to be like that.

“I’d like it to be you,” Frank whispers back, and for a second Gerard panics, not sure if he’ll be able to tell Frank no if he insists. “But I get it. I. I don’t know if I could do it if it was you. I’d probably just tie you up and keep you in the basement forever.” It starts out teasing, but Gerard can see the realization dawning on Frank’s face – there’s a good chance he hadn’t reversed their roles until just now, and he’s serious.

“I can ask Bob to do it,” Gerard offers, and Frank nods.

“Yeah, okay.”

Gerard starts to gently disentangle himself from Frank’s grasp, wriggling out from under him and almost collapsing on the floor next to the bed. “I don’t think I can wait for him to show up, Frank.”

Frank sits up, sitting on his heels, and scratches at his bare chest. Gerard avoids looking, trying to gather up all his clothes instead, running a steady mantra of don’t break down, don’t break down, hold it together until you leave, don’t break down through his head.

“Okay.” Frank sounds disappointed but not angry. He waits until Gerard’s got all his clothes picked up, held tight against his chest like they can plug the gaping hole that feels like is there, and then he says, “I love you.”

The clothes bundle isn’t doing anything at all to make Gerard’s insides feel less open and raw.

“I love you, too,” he mumbles, scrubbing at his eyes. He’s just tired, he’s just overwhelmed, but he needs to get out of here before he starts begging. Frank’s made up his mind and deep down, Gerard knows he made the right decision. “I love you, too,” he says again, because he can’t think of anything more important to make sure Frank knows.

Frank helps him get dressed, sneaking kisses between every article of clothing, and when Gerard goes to the door, Frank throws on a pair of boxers and follows him. He can see Frank struggling with something to say, maybe it’ll be okay or take care of yourself or something trite and overused to fill the silence. Eventually he just says, “You’ll be okay,” and kisses Gerard again.

Gerard’s not sure he’s ever disagreed with something as strongly as he disagrees with that, but he nods and kisses Frank back, and then he leaves, biting his tongue and forcing himself to put one foot in front of the other until he can’t see Frank’s building anymore.

--

After he calls Bob, Gerard wanders for a while down streets he doesn’t recognize until gets back to ones he does. He doesn’t bother wiping away the dampness on his cheeks, and he doesn’t look at anything but his own feet.

Frank’s gone. Frank’s gone. He won’t be in the diner if Gerard goes to get a cup of coffee, he won’t be at his own apartment if Gerard goes knocking, he won’t be in bed if Gerard goes home.

It’s been six hours; he knows Bob well enough to know Frank’s dead. Fate had been chomping at the bit to get Frank, and Gerard can just about imagine how fast it must have come down after Bob took Frank’s soul. Slipping in the shower, maybe, or electrocution via faulty socket. Maybe the ceiling fan fell on top of him. It doesn’t really matter how he died, he’s dead, but Gerard’s got nothing else to keep his mind occupied.

These past few months have been nothing but Frank, and now Gerard’s looking at a long future of not being quite dead, but not really being quite alive either, without the one person who made him feel like not really alive was better than dead.

Eventually the sight of his own feet gets old, and he looks up. Somehow he’s managed to wander back home – his old home, his real home, the home with Mikey and his mom – just like the night he died. He guesses old habits die hard.

He sits down on the curb across from his house again, pats himself down for cigarettes, and realizes he left them back at the apartment. Maybe Frank finished the pack before…

Gerard scrubs at his face, desperately trying to think about something else, anything else. He’s gonna drive himself nuts if can’t.

There’s the quiet sound of a door being pulled shut deliberately slowly, and Gerard looks up to see Mikey standing just outside the house. He’s already got a cigarette in his hand, and he’s already headed over to Gerard.

Mikey sits down without saying anything and offers Gerard a cigarette. Gerard takes it, clamps his lips down around it and keeps them there, trying not to say anything. Mikey’s right next to him, his little brother, his best friend. If he starts talking, he’s gonna spill everything, about himself, about reaping, about Frank, because he needs to talk to somebody, and Mikey’s always been that somebody. Having him this close and acting like they barely know each other makes Gerard’s stomach clench painfully, so he just concentrates on staying quiet and smoking like his life depends on it.

Mikey talks first. “You knew my brother better than you said you did, before, didn’t you?”

Gerard is actually shaking with the effort of not just yelling, It’s me, Mikey, it’s me, I’m still here! He nods and keeps everything tightly tamped down.

“We had a fight the day he died.” Mikey sighs, and he sounds so weary, so worn down. “It was really fucking stupid. I knew we’d get over it, I mean, we always do, but then.” He shakes his head, ashing his cigarette near his feet. “But then he died, and I didn’t get a chance to tell him I was sorry.”

Gerard feigns a cough and turns to the side so he can press his knuckles hard against his mouth, willing himself to just stop shaking, willing himself to be able to speak without his voice cracking.

“I saw him,” he finally says, voice rough with could probably be explained by too much smoking. “The day he died. He said something about you guys having an argument.”

“Yeah?” Mikey sounds wary, and Gerard is so fucking disappointed in himself that he would have ever given Mikey a reason to think he’d talk badly about him behind his back.

“Yeah. He said he felt like a dick, but he knew you guys would get over it. He said he was pretty lucky to have a little brother like you.”

Mikey scrubs at his eyes behind his glasses, not even pretending that he’s not crying. “He said that?”

“Yeah, he said that. He really loved you a lot.” Loves, Gerard thinks. Loves.

Mikey smiles a little and pushes his glasses up his nose. “I know,” he says, and he sounds like he means it.

He stays until Gerard finishes his cigarette, and then he stands up and stretches. He doesn’t say goodbye, or good night, or how did you know my brother, or why do you keep showing up. He just waves a little and heads inside.

It’s just starting to get light out, and the birds are just starting to go nuts with their chirping, and Gerard doesn’t really think the people in the house behind him will be too stoked about a strange dude sitting on their curb at ass o’clock in the morning. When he stands up, his knees pop, and his ass is almost numb, but he feels better than when he sat down. Not great, still not even good, but better.

He heads back the way he came. He’ll be a little early, but the waffle house will be open.

It’s busier today than it usually is, and Gerard has to squeeze through a crowd waiting at the door, duck under a waitress’ full tray, and waltz with a guy coming out of the bathroom, both of them trying to go to one side so the other can pass.

Eventually he makes it to the regular booth, stands just behind it for a minute. He’s exhausted, drained, grieving, and he just needs a second to get himself together. He scrubs at his eyes and cheeks, runs his hands through his hair, straightens his jacket.

Bob says something quietly from inside the booth and there’s a chorus of laughter, and suddenly Gerard’s so pissed off he can’t see straight. Those asshole are sitting around eating breakfast, laughing like there’s nothing wrong, and they know. They know Frank’s gone, Bob’s the one that did the deed for Christ’s sake, and they’re still acting like everything’s fine. It’s not fine,, Gerard wants to say, while he slams their faces against the table, Frank’s dead and the world is a shittier place for it.

Before he can do anything too melodramatic, Bob says something else, and one laugh stands out from the rest. It’s too high-pitched to be Brian or Bob’s, lasts a few beats too long to be Ray’s. Gerard’s heart skips two beats right in a row, and he has to put a hand on the booth to stave off the dizziness.

He’s been up all night. He’s been up all night after an undeniably stressful day. He hasn’t eaten, and he can’t remember the last thing he drank. He could be dehydrated, having auditory hallucinations brought on by grief. He can hear his own harsh breaths, every third one catching in his throat. The guys must hear him, too, despite the din in the room, because they all go quiet.

No one says anything for a minute. Finally Gerard clears the frog out of his throat and says quietly, “New guy?”

He can hear some shuffling in the booth, and finally Ray answers. “New guy.”

It could be anyone. It could be someone Gerard’s never met, a newly-dead dude that just sounds familiar. It could be a transfer from another team. He’s still not giving up the ghost on the hallucination front. But he hears it again, that stupid, ridiculous giggle he’d know anywhere. “I have a name, you know.”

Bob says, "Yeah, Shouldn't-Have-Gotten-Involved-With-A-Reaper-and-Doomed-Himself-To-Also-Becoming-A-Reaper Guy."

Gerard holds his breath until he hears, “That’s kinda long. You should probably just call me Frank.”

He stumbles around the corner of the booth so fast he slams his hip into the table. Brian’s coffee cup wobbles precariously and Brian mumbles grumpily, but Gerard barely notices because Frank is sitting there. Frank is sitting in front of him, grinning like a goddamned loon, and Gerard doesn’t know what to do besides stand there and grin back at him.

Lucky for him, Frank seems to have a better idea of what’s expected. He stands up, clambers over the table – completely destroying Brian’s waffles in the process – and launches himself at Gerard. He kisses Gerard just as desperately as he had the night before, and Gerard fumbles to get his hands on as much of Frank as he can, skidding over Frank’s face and down to his shoulder, wrapping around his back and clutching at fistfuls of his shirt.

When they have to break for breath, Gerard pulls back and reaches up to brush his fingers over Frank’s face. Frank turns into the touch and kisses Gerard’s fingertips. “You’re here,” Gerard says, and it sounds so stupid, so insufficiently expressing what he’s feeling.

Frank nods, grinning. “I forgot you’d look different,” he says, reaching up to bat Gerard’s hair away from his face.

Gerard touches his hair self-consciously. “Is different bad?”

Frank shrugs, pretending to be indecisive. “It could be worse, I guess.” Gerard makes an indignant noise and shoves Frank a little. Frank laughs. “Kidding! I’m kidding. You’re gorgeous.”

Gerard hates that he’s blushing, but it doesn’t really matter because Frank kisses him again, and then they just hold onto each other for a while, grinning stupidly. Behind them in the booth, Bob and Ray are grinning into their coffee and Brian’s shuffling his papers an inordinate amount, frowning at the footprint in his waffles.

Eventually Bob says, “Get your asses back in the booth, you’re blocking traffic,” so Gerard slides in and tugs Frank in next to him, hanging onto his hand like Frank might disappear if he lets go.

Brian slides his ruined breakfast to the side for the waitress to pick up and starts sorting out Post-Its. “I always get stuck with the weirdos,” he mutters. “I always get stuck with the idiots who have to go and hook up with someone they know they shouldn’t.” He sounds grudgingly fond, and Bob and Ray smirk at each other over their coffee. Brian looks up and points at them each in turn. “Don’t even, assholes. I’ve known about you since the first time you defiled the bathroom here.”

Bob and Ray’s smirks slide off their faces, and Ray puts his coffee cup down a little shakily. “But.” He glances at Bob and they have a short conversation with their eyebrows. Eventually he turns back to Brian. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Brian shuffles his papers angrily and blusters a little bit. “Because if I’d said anything, I would have lost plausible deniability. Which I just did, so you’re welcome. Plus, I say something, the wrong person overhears, you guys could get pulled and I could get stuck with even bigger assholes.” He sounds self-consciously embarrassed.

“Sure,” Bob says, grinning again. “Whatever. You love us.”

Brian huffs.

Gerard’s not about looking gift horses in the mouth, but he can’t help asking, “So uh. How exactly did it work out that Frank got reaper duty and got put on our team?”

If Gerard didn’t know for a fact that Brian did not even have the capability to blush, he would say Brian was blushing. He shuffles his papers so hard they get bent at the bottom. “I just have terrible luck, I guess.”

Pete Wentz pops up from the booth next to them, peering over the divider. He’s got a mouthful of something, cheek puffed out like a chipmunk, and he has to talk around the mass of food. “Fuck you, Schechter, Patrick showed me that request for Iero. You are a totally sappy motherfucker.”

Gerard can hear someone else in the booth, too, hissing, “Sit down, Pete!” and then mumbling, “I am going to get fired, you are going to get me fired.”

Brian cranes his neck to look up at Pete, and Pete grins down at him, not moving until Brian starts to get out of the booth.

“Sanctuary!” Pete yells, disappearing from view, and then he tumbles out of the booth, what Gerard can only imagine is Patrick’s foot extended to the edge of the seat where Pete fell. Brian stands over him with a handful of Post-Its, which normally wouldn’t be too threatening, but it’s Brian, and Gerard – despite his overwhelming love for the man at the moment – is pretty sure Brian can kill someone, even an already dead someone, with a handful of Post-Its.

Frank squeezes Gerard’s hand under the table, and Gerard squeezes back, and he thinks maybe this whole death business isn’t so bad.

--

Epilogue

--

"Brian's gonna make you pay for his waffles for like, a year," Gerard says. It's been a week, and Brian still hasn't forgiven Frank for his ruined breakfast. Frank mostly deals by paying for a lot of waffles and dragging Gerard into the bathroom at the waffle house as often as possible to avoid Brian's glare.

Frank mumbles something unintelligible. Gerard forgives him for not enunciating, because Frank's mouth is currently attached to Gerard's throat. When he takes a break from sucking a row of hickeys into Gerard's skin, he looks up and grins. "He got me this job, right?" Gerard nods. "I will pay for his waffles forever."

"You underestimate his waffle-eating ability."

"Mmm, that sounds dirty." Frank grins and ducks in to kiss Gerard's jaw.

There's a banging on the bathroom door and someone jiggles the handle.

"You've been in there for exactly forty-two minutes. There are people out here who need to use the bathroom for the purpose it was intended, you selfish bastards." Bob doesn't sound too angry, and Gerard figures he's got at least a month to milk the fact that his boyfriend just died. Maybe less, since his boyfriend is actually still capable of kissing him silly, which he is taking advantage of in a very big way right now. They round it up, and come out after an hour.

"It's about time," Pete says, bouncing out of his seat. He grabs Frank's hand and shakes it enthusiastically. "Welcome to the dead dude club! It's awesome."

"I thought you got banned from ever coming in here again?" Gerard scratches his head, glancing around surreptitiously to make sure none of the waitresses have noticed Pete's presence yet.

"As if any earthly force could keep me from waffles," Pete scoffs. "Now come on, I've got a surprise for you."

"Wait, where are we going?"

Pete just grabs them and starts toward the door. "You know how I said I hadn't had the whole 'I'm a reaper' conversation with Mikey yet?"

A flicker of hope sparks in Gerard's chest, and he tamps it down. There's no way. There's no possible way. "Yeah?"

Pete propels them out the door and beams. "That's been rectified."

Mikey's sitting in a car by the curb, gnawing on his thumbnail. It takes him a second to realize there's someone standing next to the car, and when he turns to look out through the window, Gerard's heart stops in his chest. He's pretty sure it won't kill him.

Mikey's gaze flicks to Pete, who just motions for him to get out of the car. Gerard takes a step back, and Mikey opens the door and unfolds himself from the front seat, stepping out warily. "Hey...I know you."

Gerard nods slowly. His chest feels tight. "Yeah, you do."

Mikey looks at Pete, his eyes widening slightly in confusion. "You...this. You said I..." He gestures helplessly, and Pete nods. Mikey turns back toward Gerard, staring desperately. "Gee?" he whispers.

Gerard barely has time to nod before Mikey's lanky limbs are wrapped around him. Gerard squeezes back so hard he can feel Mikey struggling to breathe, but Mikey doesn't complain. He just tucks his face into Gerard's neck and says, "Don't you ever die on me again."

"I'll do my best." Gerard smiles against Mikey's hair, locking eyes with Frank over his head. He's willing to bet he screwed up enough early on that he's due for a very long stint as a reaper. He's kind of the luckiest undead guy in the world.