A dynamic where Gerard starts dating The Distortion, and then it gets unspiraled and turns into Michael Shelley again, has so much angst and just in general potential.

When Gerard started dating The Distortion, he knew from the start that their relationship was…different. After all, Michael is a monster and he is a man. That creates a dynamic that’s hard for most people to get.

But Gerard has already spent most of his life resigning himself to not being “most people.” He’s spent so long around monsters that they make more sense to him than the average Joe who lives their life blissfully unaware of the world around them. A monster was one of the only thing he ever could have ended up with really, and he’s fine with that. It means he gets to stay in his world that he understands.

Then there’s The Distortion, who has ever conflicting thoughts about it’s identity. Is not Michael, but it is Michael, and neither and both can understand why someone with so much humanity would be so eager to be with madness. What’s left of The Distortion would not want to intertwined with humanity if it had a choice, and what’s left of Michael would not want to be intertwined with a monster if he had a choice. No matter who they are, it can’t understand the choice Gerry makes to be intertwined with something not made for him, and that lead’s to the assumption, and perhaps insecurity, that Gerard would be happier if it were human.

More Undercut

Then they get undone somehow, and Michael Shelley’s left to put his life back together again. As overwhelming as that is, he’s relived that he gets to choose to have normalcy again. Humanity. He’s actually pretty excited about what the undoing means for his relationship with Gerard, because obviously Gerard is going to be happier with a fellow human then a creature made out of deceit.

But Gerard is not happier. In fact, he’s scared. He can deal with a hallway monster, that’s just an average day for him, but he doesn’t know how to handle other people. He doesn’t know how to handle a normal, kinda boring, guy who just wants a normal, kinda boring, life.

So Michael and Gerard’s relationship goes into this uncomfortable place where Michael feels like his humanity has been rejected and Gerry feels like he’s a fish who had been drug on land told he needs to grow legs to walk. Both of them feel like they’ve been rejected by the other in some way, and their relationship is on unstable ground a long time.

However, it does get better eventually. It takes Gerard having to step out of his comfort zone a lot, and really think about what type of life he wants for himself, but he does decide that there’s value in the normal life he wishes he was given before he was shown things he can’t unsee. And, meanwhile, Michael has to do feeling sorting about whether he wants to be with someone who’s so deeply tied with the fears that he was initially lost when his boyfriend turned back into a human. Michael does decide that Gerard is trying, and that’s enough for him, even if it means accepting that the fears will always be apart of how they met.

(Or you could go with a bad ending where Gerard just can’t be comfortable with normalcy no matter how hard he tries, and Michael just can’t accept that Gerard was more content with a monster no matter how hard he tries. Which leads to a break up.)

ANYWAY, I am clearly thinking a lot about the doorkeay dynamic. I love a ship where there’s canonically at least four different ways you could interpret their relationship (Gerry/The Distortion, Gerry/ Michael, Gerry/The Distortion who turns back into Michael, Gerry/Michael who turns into The Distortion.) and that’s even including ghost! Gerry!