Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/2103879.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Bandom, My_Chemical_Romance
  Relationship:
      Frank_Iero/Gerard_Way
  Character:
      Frank_Iero, Gerard_Way, Mikey_Way, Bob_Bryar, Ray_Toro, Original_Male
      Character(s), Original_Female_Character(s)
  Additional Tags:
      Self-Harm, Suicide_Attempt, Bullying, Hospitalization, Underage_Drinking,
      Consensual_Underage_Sex, Please_Don't_Kill_Me, Implied/Referenced_Drug
      Use
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-08-27 Chapters: 5/5 Words: 24503
****** Pray For The Dead ******
by RyanRossIsAPrincess
Summary
     And you say that you can save me ✬ Don't hope to ever find me ✬ And I
     fear I'm too far gone✬ Pray for the dead
***** Chapter 1 *****
Title and description from Bring Me The Horizon's song Crucify_Me.
 
 This is a standalone ficlet. It is not connected to any of my other works in
any way whatsoever. 
 
TRIGGER WARNING. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.  
 
***** And You Say That You Can Save Me *****
Blood isn’t fun, Gerard’s learned. He feels better for .002 seconds, and then
it all blows up in his face and he feels disgusting and ashamed.
Blood is insistent too, clinging to his skin, the sheets, everything, staining
it a harsh, rusty color. Hiding the evidence, he’s noticed, is even less fun.
Gerard’s fucked up, and he knows it. He just….can’t anymore. It all hurts.
Everything. Fucking breathing hurts.
He’s so far gone, and he’s scared, he’s fucking terrified he’s never gonna come
back. This is bad, so bad.
But he’s figured out how to keep it under wraps. Of course it slips through
sometimes, but then he grabs it and pulls it right back in. No one needs to
know. He’ll just drag them down.
Mikey cares, of course he does, he’s Gerard’s baby brother, but he doesn’t
understand. That’s the catch. There’s always a catch. Either they care, and
they don’t understand, or they understand, but couldn’t give less of a fuck.
Whichever way, Gerard is alone.
Very, very alone.
✬✬✬
Everyone knows that high school is hell. It’s just a fact.
But there’s different levels of hell, and Gerard has managed to discover the
deepest one. His body is bruised and tired and more and more purple-blue-red
splotches are being added to it with each passing period.
You would think that teachers had a fucking clue, or that they’d get one.
Sadly, that isn’t the case, even though anti-bullying posters cover every
square inch of the school hallways and once every trimester a video is shown
portraying why you should speak up if you are bullied.
Gerard can make a video about why you shouldn’t speak up. Actually, it wouldn’t
be a video. It’d be a picture, just one, a singular, clear shot of his torso.
And that’s the damage without tattling.
No one likes a snitch. Snitches get their asses beat, and Gerard doesn’t want
to go to the hospital for broken ribs again. The nurses are starting to doubt
his usual cover stories, although it probably doesn’t help that he only has
three, and he keeps rotating through them.
Gerard is brought back from his thoughts by the hand fisted in his hair
tightening and slamming his face into the closed locker once more. His nose is
bleeding profusely, and there’s a cut above his eyebrow and one at the crown of
his head that’s running blood down his forehead and into his eyes, blurring his
vision with a sticky crimson mess.
Honestly, he isn’t sure why he’s being bullied so much. He’s always kept his
head down and his mouth shut, and he’s pretty sure he hasn’t purposefully made
any enemies. Then again, this is high school. Everyone hates everyone and
everything for no apparent reason, and all their frustrations are exorcised in
the most violent forms their brains can think of.  One of the most common forms
happens to be the abuse and torture of their classmates.
Blurred black and white stars are starting to appear at the edges of Gerard’s
vision. Internally, he braces himself for the last excruciating blow and then
the deep unconsciousness that usually follows.
True to his predictions, his face meets the blood-coated locker once more
before it all goes black and Gerard can’t feel anymore.
✬✬✬
When he wakes up, he isn’t at school anymore. For a moment, he’s disoriented.
He has no fucking clue where he is, until he sees the familiar Misfits poster
tacked to the wall and realizes that the blankets beneath him smell like that
gross body spray his brother insists on using.
God bless Mikey.
Gerard breathes in deep and then flinches. Ribs. Fucking ribs. He hopes absent
mindedly that they aren’t broken or fractured, not that that makes a
difference. Gritting his teeth, he flips over onto his stomach and cuddles up
with the pillow, hoping to find some solace in sleep.
✬✬✬
Rest is a lost cause. Nightmares plague his mind for far too long before he
washes back into a hazy consciousness. Gerard wants nothing more than to sleep
a dreamless, empty sleep and never wake up.
But since when has he gotten what he wanted?
Gerard pushes himself up into a sitting position and winces. His head
fucking hurts. There’s a mirror in the bathroom down the hall, he remembers,
and drags himself out of bed to go inspect the damage.
Immediately upon seeing his reflection, he almost wishes he hadn’t looked. The
cut on the crown of his head is nasty, blood encrusted around the sight of the
wound and the wound itself leaving Gerard wondering if he’s going to need
stitches. He traces his finger idly across the cut directly above his eyebrow.
It doesn’t look too bad, if he cleans it up a little it should heal just fine.
He turns on the faucet and grabs a washcloth from the towel rack behind him.
 Fiddling with the hem of his shirt for a moment, he decides he’d rather not
get this one more bloody than it already is and pulls it over his head with a
tremendous amount of pain and effort.
In this state, he can see the damage done to his chest stunningly well. Gently
prodding them, he thinks for a flicker of a second that his chest looks like a
piece by Jackson Pollock. Violent blues, greens, reds, yellows and purples are
gracelessly splattered across his frame, and Gerard thinks the artist would
have appreciated the current hues that make up his battered body. 
Gerard shakes the thought from his mind and dips the washcloth beneath the cool
water. Water runs down his wrist and face as he gently dabs at his wounds,
doing his best to clean them before he locates some decent Band-Aids and covers
them.
Watered down blood slides down the bridge of his nose, and he squints at his
reflection in disgust. He silently damns his inability to fight the assholes
off. 
Shockwaves of pain course through his face when he presses a little too hard on
the deeper of the two wounds, and with those shockwaves comes an intense
upsurge of self-hatred.
Negativity floods his mind. He wants to die. He wants to stop having to hurt
like this, he doesn’t want to be this ugly anymore, he wants to be strong, and
he wants to be loved.
Gerard breathes a weak hearted insult into the otherwise silent room and
collapses against the wall, letting the sobs ravage his body.
✬✬✬
For the second time in the day, Gerard wakes up disoriented from having passed
out again. Fucking weak. No wonder he gets his ass beat.
Once again, Mikey has been his savior. The chorus of weak from inside his brain
increases in volume. Saved by his baby brother, how fucking pathetic. It should
be the other way around.
Mikey must have dressed him, because Gerard’s bloodied jeans have been replaced
with sweatpants, and he isn’t wearing a shirt. Weak, weak, weak, pathetic.
He’s a burden, a useless weight no one needs or wants and he should just down
that bottle of pills and get it the fuck over with. People will be happier
without him.
Mikey’s soft voice breaks his internal berating hate speech.
“Gee? You awake?”
Gerard breathes in and winces again. Goddamn ribs.
“Yeah, I am. Thanks for bringing me home.” He directs his gaze upward and is
met with his brother’s small, sweet smile.
“Well, you weren’t gonna get yourself here. You wanna watch a movie, or
something?” Mikey asks, dropping the topic about Gerard’s current state
completely.
Gerard would guess that Mikey avoids all confrontations about how his brother
is hurt because he’s scared. Mikey is the luckier one out of the two of them in
the social aspect. He’s surrounded by friends and girls and is close to the top
of the social ladder. Gerard, however, is at the very bottom, maybe
even below the bottom. If Mikey acknowledged Gerard’s presence in a social
setting it would be suicide. Gerard was okay with being ignored by Mikey, as
long as it meant Mikey wasn’t getting hurt like this. As long as Mikey was
safe, nothing mattered.
“Definitely. You pick, I’m too tired.” He responds at last.
Mikey flashes him the same small smile from before and walks over to the
disorganized pile of DVDs next to the TV.
The movie Mikey chooses is some horror movie they’ve both seen a million times.
They’ve seen it enough that neither of them care enough to even remember the
name.
“Mikes….. I’m gonna sleep. ‘M tired.” Gerard mumbles about three quarters of
the way through the movie, his already quiet voice muffled by the pillow.
“Okay. I’ll wake you up before I leave for that party thing someone invited me
to.”
“Good plan.”
✬✬✬
It is well into the early, early hours of the morning when Mikey nudges Gerard
awake.
“I’m leaving now, will you be okay?”
Gerard wants to beg Mikey to stay. He wants to cling to Mikey’s arm like he is
the younger brother and plead not to be left alone, he wants to tell Mikey that
all he wants is to take all the pills in the house and drink until he blacks
out, but he doesn’t. Instead, he says a quiet ‘yeah’ and watches Mikey’s lanky
frame walk out of the room and tries not to sob when he hears the front door
close.
He lays on his back for a moment, eyes glassy and out of focus, lost in his
head. For a long while, he tries to resist the call of the blades he’d so
carefully hidden, but the feeling of worthlessness and disgust overpowered any
rational thought he may have ever possessed.
So really, it’s no wonder he finds himself swearing quietly and trying to mop
up blood with an old t-shirt. He didn’t exactly remember doing it. He remembers
before, when he briefly considered scavenging up some booze and pills to take
instead, and he remembers after, when he legitimately wondered how much it
would hurt to throw himself out the second-story window.
His eyelids feel agonizingly heavy and his head is spinning from the blood
loss. Sleep isn’t necessary yet, he has to stay awake, has to make sure Mikey
was okay, has to, has to…..
Caught in a tidal wave of black, sleep pulls him under against his will. You’re
exhausted, a rational part of his mind says, you’ve had a really rough day. A
little more sleep won’t kill you.
But it could. Oh god, it could.
✬✬✬
When Mikey comes back, he doesn’t come back alone. Gerard’s first thought is
that he’s  going to fuck the person he brought back, but then he hears Mikey’s
signature ‘condescending tone’. Whoever he’s with is more than likely a friend.
Gerard debates about whether he should leave Mikey’s room so he and his friend
can be alone (like hell they’d wanna hang out with Mikey’s bloodied-up loser of
a big brother). The wounds win over, however, when he goes to move and his head
pounds and his entire body felt like it’d been thrown beneath a bus.
Their voices grew closer. Gerard began to panic, worried out of his mind that
the friend Mikey had brought back was going to be one of the assholes that beat
on him at school.
The doorknob turns and his pulse shoots upwards.
“Gee? Hey, Gee. Wake up.” Mikey says, gently shaking his shoulder, unaware that
his brother was actually already mostly conscious. He does his best to channel
his inner movie star and pretends to wake up.
“Hey, Mikes. What – What time is it?” Gerard asks, rubbing his eyes to get them
to adjust to the darkness.
“Like, five in the morning. That’s not important though, what is important is
the fucking dumbass that I call a friend. He got himself a little lot fucked
up, and ah, the people that were at the party weren’t the most… reliable, if
you get what I mean. So I took his sorry ass home with me. His name’s Frank.
Say hi, Frank.”
Gerard looks at Mikey’s significantly smaller companion. The most distracting
things about his appearance, Gerard immediately notices, are his two piercings.
One on the nose, one on the lip. Admittedly, the rest of Frank is distracting
too, but what captures Gerard’s attention the most is the lip ring, and how it
might feel if he kissed him.
No. No way in fuck was he going to do this right now. This is probably one of
his worst ideas, right next to the ‘staying alive’ one.
“Hello, Mikey’s brother. Your face is all…. Hurted. Mikey, why is your
brother’s face all hurted?” Frank asks, tugging on Mikey’s sleeve like a child.
“What the hell did he take?” Gerard asks, looking at Frank, then Mikey, with
shock and confusion.
Mikey shrugs. “A little bit of everything, I think. That’s why I brought him
here. If I had left him at the party, by now he’d be drugged out of his skull
and probably with some dude that should never be trusted.”
Gerard lets a small smile slip across his face. “You’re a good friend, Mikey.”
“Yeah, Mikeyway. You’re a good friend. Goooood friend.” Frank agrees, rubbing
his face on Mikey’s shoulder.
Mikey sighs heavily. “Do we have any stuff around that we could sober him up
with?”
“Uh,” Gerard thinks for a moment, “We have a shower that runs cold water. We
have coffee, and beds.”
“Bed? Beeeeed!” Frank chimes in, wrestling a little bit in Mikey’s hold before
breaking free and diving onto the bed next to Gerard.
Gerard does not squeak in surprise. He doesn’t. Rather, he scoots silently away
from Frank until his back is pressed against the wall, giving Frank more than
three quarters of the bed. Mikey looks at him with a raised eyebrow.
“I’ll give him the whole bed when I remember how to move.”
Mikey’s eyebrow elevates more.
“Have you seen the state my body is in? I’m surprised I’m breathing
successfully.” Gerard retorts, raising his arms in exasperation the best he
can.
Frank flops over to face Gerard. “Your chest is hurted too? Lemme see.” Frank
says, yanking the comforter down, successfully exposing Gerard’s nearly bruised
beyond recognition chest.
His eyes were wider than dinner plates as he drank in Gerard’s image. Gerard’s
hands twitch and grab at the blanket, moving to pull it back over his chest.
Frank grabs his wrists and holds them away from his body so he can look,
really look at the extent of the damage done to Gerard.
Frank releases Gerard’s wrists and flops back over to look at Mikey. “Your
brother is really, really hurted. I don’t like it. I’m gonna fix it. Or you
should. Fix it, Mikeyway. Fix it or I’m gonna.”
Mikey can only shake his head at Frank’s huge doe eyes. “I don’t think I can.”
Frank pouts. “Of course you can. You’re Mikey fuckin’ Way.”
“And you’re really, really intoxicated. Go to sleep Frankie, I promise I’ll
take care of Gee.”
“Gee? That’s your name? That’s a good name. I like that name. Gee.” Frank says,
turning his head to face Gerard. “Gee,” He whispers one more time. His
eyelashes flutter closed and Mikey stays next to Frank, watching his chest rise
and fall evenly.
As soon as they’re sure Frank is asleep, Mikey shuffles over to the end of the
bed by Gerard’s feet.
“Can you sit up?” Mikey asks. Gerard nods weakly, and pushes himself into a
sitting position, resisting the spinning of the room.
Mikey reaches out, arms widespread, and Gerard crawls weakly into them. He
helps Gerard delicately to his feet, a palm flat against the small of his back,
trying to help him stand.
When Gerard gets his feet finally stable on the ground, the next challenge is
getting downstairs and into the basement. There’s a moment where Mikey actually
considers just carrying his brother, it’s not like he weighs anything anyway,
but Gerard protests, saying he weighs too much and will break Mikey. That isn’t
true at all. Mikey lets it slide however, because he’s a good person and
neither of them are really up for an argument about self-imagery right now.
Mikey acts as Gerard’s human shadow as they descend the steps into the
basement, keeping a hand attached to his waist or shoulder throughout the
entire ordeal.
Slogging their way through the train wreck that is the basement is another
problem entirely. Once more, Mikey really thinks about carrying his brother,
but Gerard denies his help, again. Eventually, they make it to Gerard’s bed.
Mikey watches closely, trying to gauge his brother’s pain, as Gerard disappears
beneath the covers.
 Much like with Frank, Mikey stays by Gerard’s side until his breathing evens
out and he is completely asleep.
Mikey tiptoes upstairs, sliding back into his room as quiet as he possibly can.
Frank is still out cold, and Mikey slides in next to him, knowing Frank won’t
mind sharing a bed with him for the night.
Sleep doesn’t come quickly, though. No, his brain has to stay abuzz with the
worst kind of thoughts. He’s got a severely fucked up brother who he can’t help
and a best friend who’s practically in the same place.
Christ, he thinks, what am I supposed to do?
The answer never comes. Rest drowns him before he can elaborate on the thought
any farther.
✬✬✬
When Frank wakes up, he’s confused and has one motherfucker of a hangover. He
remembers vaguely whatever it was he took, and then he remembers Mikey bringing
him home.
Shit, did they fuck?
Frank does a quick mental scan, assessing where he hurts, and his ass isn’t one
of them.
Unless Mikey bottomed, his brain whispers. His concerns are put to rest when he
sees that he’s still fully clothed, and so is Mikey.
Thank god.  
He remembers a little more, too. Some boy with dark hair and a lot of bruises.
A lot of bad bruises. Frank passes him off as just a drug induced dream
character. A really pretty drug induced dream character.
For a moment, Frank considers getting up and finding food. He decides against
it, however, when Mikey makes snuffly noises next to him. The glaring red
numbers of the alarm clock situated by the bed declare that it is just past
noon, and he decides that he is a teenager and can go back to sleep if he
fucking wants to.
So he does.
✬✬✬
Gerard’s body is being torn apart by wolves. And when he says torn apart, he
means fucking torn apart. His skin is being peeled off his body, his limbs are
being chewed right off his torso and it hurts. It hurts. 
Just as the wolves start to sink their teeth into his neck, his body jolts
violently from his sleep. It takes him a second to realize what woke him up,
and when it hits him he rolls his eyes and groans.
“Get back here you tiny little shit!” Comes Mikey’s shout. The cackle in
response has to be Frank’s. A few thumps and crashes accompany more weightless
insults and the same maniac laughter.
Gerard decides his brother and his brother’s friend are annoying as all fuck.
He also decides, practically simultaneously, that the sound of laughter
(whether it be evil or not) is a welcome noise.
Skin stretches and throbs as he tries to sit up again. Stupid fucking ribs. The
bruises pulsate and Gerard is forced to consider whether or not he needs a
hospital trip.
Remembering how many zeroes the last visit’s bill had makes that decision for
him. He’s fine. He’ll be fine.
It takes him a full ten minutes to figure out what fucking day of the week it
is. Once he figures out it’s a Saturday, he practically sobs with relief.
“Motherfucker!” Mikey shouts again, his voice startlingly closer. Gerard has a
brief moment of panic that only swells higher when the door to the basement
opens.
In, out. Oxygen gets to your brain by breathing, he reminds himself. The whole
breathing thing isn’t as difficult when it’s just Mikey walking down the
stairs.
“Morning, sunshine. How do you feel?” he asks.
“Like I was thrown beneath a bus. How are you and Frank shouting and yelling
and shit? Shouldn’t at least one of you be really hung over?” Gerard inquires,
mystified by his brother’s capability to be coherent and functioning this early
in the day….. Evening, he realizes, when the clock on the wall proves to him
that his brother does not have magic powers and just slept the whole day, like
Gerard apparently just did.
“Well yeah, Frank’s says he had one earlier in the day but its ‘gone now’
because he slept. I think he’s a liar, but he’s okay enough that he’s eating
all our food and being the most annoying person on the planet.”
“Hey, I heard that Mikey! Who’re you talking to down here, anyway, yourself?
That isn’t healthy – Oh. Um. Hi.”
Frank appears at the bottom of the basement steps, cheeks a gentle shade of
pink and hands shoved in his pockets. Gerard is sure, that if he wasn’t
practically paralyzed right now, he’d look the same way, or very close to it.
“Frank, this is Gerard, my brother. You two met last night, but somebody was
drugged off their ass,” Mikey says, sending the best death glare he has at
Frank, “So they probably don’t remember it.”
Frank presses a hand against his chest in mock offense. “I’m appalled at you,
Mikey.  I remember. Kind of.”
“See, there it is. You kind of remember. For all you know Gerard was the one
giving you drugs.”
Frank snorts. “Yeah fucking right. If he sold drugs I’m pretty sure I would’ve
known by now.”
Gerard forces his voice to work for a fraction of a second.
“You don’t have to worry, I don’t sell drugs, although some right now would be
nice.”
It’s as if that sentence brings Mikey back to his head. He practically jumps up
from the bed and rushes to the bathroom in the basement, throwing open multiple
cabinets and muttering to himself.
“There’s, ah, movies over there if you wanna put one in so we can watch one.You
can go ahead and sit on the couch too.” Gerard says to Frank. He can feel the
definite blush spreading across his cheeks.
Dammit.
Mikey, as always, is his savior.
“Here’s some weird pain pill shit, and some water, and some whatever the fuck
this is, it says it helps with sore throats.” Mikey says, dropping a few pills
into Gerard’s hand and passing him a glass of water.
“My throat doesn’t hurt though.” Gerard protests in confusion. Mikey’s glare
silences any further inquiries and Gerard takes the pills without any more
questions.
“I’m going to go get you something to eat, don’t like, die or something while
I’m gone.” Mikey says as he pivots on his heel and walks back upstairs.
Gerard directs his attention to the movie on the screen. Frank has picked one
of the shittiest documentaries Gerard will even admit he owns. It’s something
about aliens and government cover-up, and it’s one of those things that’s so
bad it’s funny.
Frank breaks the silence.
“You know, I do remember a bit from last night.”
He doesn’t realize his heart is hammering until he starts to hear it in his
ears. Forcing himself to speak, he replies. “Yeah? What do you remember?”
Frank leans his head back, making upside down eye contact with Gerard.
“I remember a pretty boy, and bruises.”
Oh. Gerard subconsciously pulls the blanket close around his chest. He watches
Frank’s adam’s apple bob as he swallows, and the question that comes out of
Frank’s mouth next throws Gerard completely off track.
“Can I see how bad they are?” Frank asks.
Against all his better judgment, Gerard nods.
He watches Frank semi-gracefully sling himself over the back of the couch and
stand over Gerard.  Gerard is lying flat on his back, eyes wide and locked with
Frank’s.
Gently, he pushes back the cover, revealing his chest once more to Frank.
Frank’s breath hitches in a sharp gasp. He sinks into the mattress next to
Gerard, fingers gently touching the edges of the worst of them.
“I meant what I said, you know.”
Gerard is very confused. “About what?” he replies.
“About fixing you. I meant it.”  Frank says, fingers stilling over Gerard’s
heart.
The most Gerard can offer is a small smile, shoving the words that want to
escape his lips back.
I can’t be fixed, Gerard wants to say, I’m a lost cause. 
***** Don't Hope To Ever Find Me *****
I’M NOT FUCKING KIDDING TRIGGER FUCKING WARNING
Frank becomes a near permanent fixture in Gerard’s life. Whenever Mikey is
home, so is Frank. Apparently, Frank is Mikey’s best friend. That really throws
Gerard for a loop, because every single one of Mikey’s friends Gerard has ever
met is evil. Frank isn’t evil. He’s actually the exact opposite. Frank is kind,
and sweet, and funny, and is most definitely not out to hurt Gerard.
Gerard spends a lot more time than usual hanging out with Mikey and Frank,
watching movies and playing video games.  He’s almost sad when Mikey ignores
him at school in the days after their horror movie marathons and comic book
binge fests, but then he remembers what would happen if Mikey didn’t ignore
him. So he disciplines himself. Mikey is his brother at home, and at school
Mikey is a stranger. If it was to be any other way, Mikey may be worse off than
Gerard.
Frank doesn’t know anything about how Mikey ignores him at school. That may
have something to do with the fact that Frank doesn’t go to the same school as
Gerard and Mikey. He goes to a Catholic school on the other side of town, and
because he doesn’t even have the slightest clue about the staggering difference
in the social dynamics between the two brothers, he’s unreasonably kind to
Gerard.
He also happens to be very affectionate. Frank will use Mikey as a human
pillow, or cuddle up close to Gerard during a movie. And when Gerard
says cuddle, he means that Frank curls himself around Gerard, pressing up
against him completely, Frank’s chest against his back and Frank’s knees curled
in behind the tops of Gerard’s thighs, a hand generally splayed over Gerard’s
heart, or sometimes entangled with Gerard’s own hand.
Truthfully, Gerard doesn’t know what to make of this. He thinks (who is he
kidding, he knows) he doesn’t deserve Frank’s warmth and affection. He deserves
to be ignored and shunned. Gerard isn’t worthy, isn’t worthy of being treated
like Frank’s equal. Frank is perfect, and gentle, and Gerard isn’t any of those
things. He’s abrasive and disgusting.
But because he’s Frank, he’s determined to conceal Gerard in a cocoon of
kindness he doesn’t feel he’s worthy of.
Frank, it happens, is more relentless than the voices telling him to blow his
brains out. Every time he and Gerard happen to be alone, he scoots himself back
so he can face Gerard and makes him lift up his shirt so Frank can see how well
the bruises are healing. He says meaningless, empty shit about how he’s sorry
Gerard has to hurt like this, and how pretty he is. Sometimes Frank will rub
his knuckles gently against Gerard’s cheek and look at him with wide eyes full
of wonder and astonishment, and Frank will let a word fall out of his lips.
Every time he does, Gerard has to resist the urge to cringe.
The thing is, the voices are right when it comes to his appearance. Gerard
knows he’s ugly, and he doesn’t appreciate Frank’s lying. But he doesn’t show
it, he doesn’t want to hurt Frank’s feelings. Then he’d really have to kill
himself.
One day, he asks Mikey about it, about why Frank insists on calling him those
words. Mikey just shrugs.
“It’s how Frank is,” he says. “He just wants to help.”
Help. Someone wants to help Gerard. He concludes that this is why Frank is so
bent on ‘fixing’ him. Frank doesn’t mean what he says, and never has. He never
will.
Fucking kill yourself. Now. You’re so pathetic. People have to help you.
People pity you. Disgusting.
Gerard shakes his head like that will silence the voices and wipes away the
tears blurring at the edge of his vision. He drags himself back into reality.
He’s alone in the house for once. Frank and Mikey are out doing god knows what,
and all Gerard can concentrate on is the draw and appeal of the sleeping pills
that he knows are in the cupboard above the kitchen sink.
“Fuck it,” he mutters into the empty house. Gerard grabs a pen and a sheet of
paper before he marches determinedly upstairs.  
It’s dark out, well past nine in the evening. His mother had left for the
graveyard shift at the hospital shortly after Gerard and Mikey got home from
school, heating up some leftover lasagna and shouting her goodbye down the
basement stairs before she left.
His mom isn’t really ever around, and his dad left them when they were small.
Gerard just barely remembers him, and all Mikey’s ever known about their dad
comes from stories and faded pictures.
In all honesty, it pisses Gerard the fuck off that their dad left them. He left
without a word, without a clue left behind. All they know is he took all his
clothes and his car and was just… gone. He put Gerard and Mikey to bed the
night before and then just left the next morning before anyone was awake. It
baffles Gerard that someone could just do that, that someone could have a wife
and children and then just leave them like they never even mattered.
He scribbles out a note furiously, offering next to no explanation as to what
he’s about to do. Gerard basically bullshits his way through the note like a
science test he was unprepared for before he reaches above the sink and grabs
the bottle of sleeping pills. He opens the bottle and dumps them gracelessly on
the counter and counts them.
“One, two, twenty, fifty, three hundred and ninety-seven, five hundred.”
Satisfied with the number, which he admits he may have miscounted, he gathers
the pills into his hand and tosses them into his mouth. He holds them there
while he fills a large glass with water and washes the plethora of pills back
with one swallow, a chalky aftertaste settling in his mouth.
And now comes the fun part……..
Gerard drops to the floor of the kitchen and lets his back rest against the
cabinets. In the back of his mind, he wonders how long it will be before the
pills kicked in, and he wonders how long it will be before Mikey and Frank, or
worse, his mother get back. He wonders if his dad will find it in himself to
care enough to come to his funeral, or if he’s forgotten he ever even had sons.
It could have been a few minutes, it could have been an hour, but the idea
stops mattering when the room begins to spin and Gerard can feel his stomach
churning.
He concentrates on not being sick. He has to keep these down.
The room begins to spin faster and Gerard progressively feels his consciousness
sliding away from him.
Even though his stomach hurts terribly, even though he’s so dizzy he can’t keep
his eyes open, Gerard sighs contentedly. It’s finally over.
That is, until someone shouts his name and suddenly his body is moving.
He wants to protest, he wants to tell the person to stop and that if they keep
moving him he’ll throw up and his plan will be ruined.
Suddenly, he’s cold, freezing cold. Water. The person is dumping lots of cold
water on him, but it’s constant, too constant to be a bucket or something
else. Shower, Gerard’s hazy brain supplies, as his ‘rescuer’ forces his mouth
open and shoves their fingers down his throat.
He tries to wiggle away from the person, but his body won’t move. It’s like
there’s immensely heavy weights tied to each of his limbs, his mouth, even his
eyelids.
“Oh god,” They say, and Gerard’s brain scrambles. The voice sounds like it
belongs to Frank, but it’s too far away to belong to the person that is
currently holding him beneath the cold water.
“I know, I know,” That’s Mikey’s voice trying to soothe someone. Is….. Are they
both here? Are both Mikey and Frank here? “C’mon, Gerard, c’mon. Please.” Mikey
pleads again.
 “Mikey, I want to call 911,” Frank says, confirming Gerard’s suspicions. 
“No, Frankie. I can take care of this. Gerard, Gerard can you hear me? C’mon,
throw them up, come on.”
Mikey jams his fingers down his throat again and Gerard’s stomach lurches. His
brother’s knees press closer to the small of his back and Mikey repeats the
action. This time, Gerard vomits. Rather violently, he might add.
And he doesn’t stop for what feels like forever. It just keeps coming and
coming, the bile burning his mouth and throat.
Eventually, it comes to a stop, Gerard’s chest heaving.
“Gee? Hey, can you hear me?”
Gerard tries to make his mouth work, he tries to form words, but he can’t.
Fuck.
Instead, Mikey laces their fingers. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”
For a moment, tension hangs in the air while Gerard summons the strength. It’s
a weak squeeze, just a gentle tightening of Gerard’s hand, and that’s it,
that’s all of his strength. Mikey’s body relaxes against his and an exhale of
relief fans across the back of his neck.
“He’s alive,” Mikey says, presumably to Frank, and Gerard allows himself to
slip into a sleep that won’t bring death.
Gerard will admit that he’s disappointed.
✬✬✬
He doesn’t know how much time has passed since he blacked out. All he knows is
that he’s awake again, and someone is gently pressing a cool cloth across his
face.
The thought of opening his eyes is daunting. He’d been ready to die, he had
been okay with never opening his eyes again, with never seeing the world again.
Besides, he doesn’t know whether his eyes will even open or not. They feel like
they’re glued shut, and the same can be said for his mouth.
“Gee? Are you awake?”
Frank.
Oh boy.
Gerard gathers all his strength and forces himself to open his eyes.
The lights are harsh against his eyes, all he wants is to just sink back into
the bed and sleep. Despite what he wants, he makes himself stay awake and looks
at Frank’s face. There’s a whirlpool of emotion written across his features,
fear, concern, shock and… something else. Something Gerard isn’t really
familiar with, hasn’t ever been familiar with.
“You motherfucker,” Frank says, tossing the cloth to the side and pulling
Gerard against his chest, holding on to him like if he lets go Gerard will
disappear forever.
Gerard is at a loss. He doesn’t know how to respond, and he’s a little too weak
to hug back. But Frank seems perfectly content to just hold him, so Gerard lets
him.
Frank’s breathing is shaky against Gerard’s ribcage. When Frank speaks again,
his voice is strained and quivering, like he wants to cry.
“Don’t…. Don’t ever do that to me again. Jesus Christ,” He says, and pulls
Gerard impossibly closer, a hand entangling itself in Gerard’s damp black hair.
For a moment, Gerard can trick himself into thinking Frank is pressing a kiss
to his temple.
“Jesus Christ,” Frank says again. Gerard gathers his strength and brings his
arms up to wrap them around the younger boy, awed at the way Frank’s body
immediately caves into his touch.
Frank pulls away to cup Gerard’s face in his hands. He calls him that word
again, and this time, this time Gerard flinches.
Confusion flits across Frank’s face.
“You don’t believe me when I say that, do you?” He says, rubbing the pads of
his thumbs across Gerard’s cheekbones.
Gerard looks down. He doesn’t want to look Frank in the eyes when he answers.
“No.”
A small, sad smile slides onto Frank’s face.
“Well, you are,” Frank says, leaning his forehead against Gerard’s, bringing
his hands away from Gerard’s face to encase his hands. “Beautiful.”
Gerard shakes his head and nuzzles his face into Frank’s shoulder. “I’m really
not.”
“You can go ahead and believe that for right now.” Frank whispers in response,
moving his arms to once again curl them protectively around Gerard.
“Why would you do this?” Frank says, rubbing his thumb tenderly on the back of
Gerard’s neck.
Gerard shrugs. He really doesn’t have too good of an answer. Well, he sort of
does, but Frank is going to hate it.
“No, really. Gerard, what made you do this?” Frank says insistently.
Gerard shrugs again. He doesn’t want to say. Ever.
“Gerard,” Frank says, hooking two fingers beneath Gerard’s chin to force him to
look Frank in the eyes. “Why?”
He shrugs once more. “I don’t know.”
“That’s a lie,” Frank spits, his fingers tightening around Gerard’s jaw to the
point of pain. “Why?”
Gerard whimpers and grabs Frank’s wrist. Frank doesn’t falter, rather, he
tightens the pads of his fingers against the flesh of Gerard’s cheeks.
“I- I don’t know! I don’t know Frankie, please, let me go.” Gerard says, a few
tears wiggling free from beneath his eyelids.
Should have fucking tried harder. You deserve to die. Look what you’ve done to
Frank. Look.  
“Oh, honey, oh. I’m so sorry, don’t cry, please.” Frank gathers Gerard back
into his chest and rubs the flat of his palm up and down Gerard’s spine.  He
shakes in Frank’s hold, tears jerking their way through his body. All Gerard
can manage to do is cling to Frank like he’s the last life preserver on a
sinking ship.
“I was scared,” Frank whispers into Gerard’s hair. “I don’t want to lose you,
Gee.”
Gerard pulls his face from Frank’s shoulder to stare at him in wonder.
“Why?” He asks. “I’m nothing special. There are thousands of people like me,
and there are even more people that are a better person than I am. I’m not-“
Gerard is cut off by the gentle press of Frank’s lips against his own.  His
head (his heart) scrambles. He presses into the kiss, ignoring his inner mantra
of oh god oh god oh god what am I doing oh god and just letting Frank kiss him.
When they finally pull apart for air, Frank touches his cheekbone yet again.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he whispers, like those six words hold every answer
in the universe. Gerard can’t resist leaning into his touch.
✬✬✬
When Mikey sees that Gerard is awake, he doesn’t offer more than a hug and a
small smile.
Unfortunately, Mikey has seen him at his worst, which happens to be more
drastic than this. He’s helped Gerard through an overdose before, but Frank
doesn’t know that. That is probably for the best.
Mikey brings him a glass of water and mutters things to himself about checking
for a fever and getting him something to eat. Gerard just nods and complies.
Frank refuses to let Gerard go, not even when he calls his mom to stay he is
going to be staying the weekend at Gerard and Mikey’s and yes, their mom is
fine with it, no, he won’t need a change of clothes, he can just take some of
Mikey’s.
Oddly enough, Mikey doesn’t question Frank’s clinginess. It makes Gerard wonder
if Mikey knows something he doesn’t, and because it’s Mikey he’s talking about
here, that is more than likely true. Mikey has this… way of coaxing people into
opening up to him. Maybe it’s because he’s so quiet, or because he
just looks like someone you could trust. Gerard is probably being a little lot
biased here, because this is his brother and he already has an unreasonable
amount of trust in him. He just has to settle with the fact that Mikey has to
know something he doesn’t.
Gerard is still thrown off by how Frank kissed him. Frank kissed him.
Butterflies do not rise up in his stomach. He does not feel a little dizzy.
He does not lean further into Frank’s hold.
✬✬✬
It’s a little bit past midnight and Frank hasn’t slept at all. Instead, he’s
been watching over Gerard, keeping the fingers of his left hand laced around
Gerard’s wrist so he can track his pulse, the palm of his right hand spread
flat across Gerard’s heart.
He’s alive. He’s okay. He’s alive. He’s alive.
Frank keeps repeating that to himself, but he doesn’t believe it unless he’s
holding Gerard. He knew Gee was getting bad, but the idea that he
was this bad…… Frank doesn’t want to think about it.
“I don’t know if you really understand,” Frank whispers into Gerard’s hair.
Gerard snuffles against his chest, and Frank smiles. “I can’t…. I can’t lose
you. I just…. can’t.”
Frank pulls Gerard impossibly closer against him. He shoots a glance across the
room in the general direction of where Mikey crashed.
Frank has tried to explain to Mikey how he feels, but there doesn’t appear to
be any words in the English language that can peg down exactly what it is he
feels for Gerard.
At first, he expected Mikey to be pissed that Frank had a crush on his older
brother. But to his relief, Mikey being Mikey, he just shrugged.
“I think you would be good for him. Just don’t hurt him more than he already
is, okay? Because if you do, I will fucking kill you. I’m serious, Iero.”
So Frank proceeds to waste away boring classes running through a mental list of
all the words that could possibly describe what it is that flutters around his
chest whenever he thinks about Gerard.
Of course, his idle-mindedness gets him a few glares and the occasional
detention from the nuns, but Frank thinks it’s worth it. After all, ‘detention’
translates into ‘more time to read’, and Frank definitely does not intend to
complain about that.
Frank doesn’t even really know what it is that lead him to develop… feelings
for Gerard. He’s Mikey’s brother, a pretty boy with big eyes and bruises. It
bothers Frank that he doesn’t really know for sure where those bruises came
from. They’re brutal, the smallest ones the size of a softball. The
very idea that someone would do that to Gerard makes Frank homicidal. He’ll
fucking rip whoever did that to him to pieces.
He doesn’t realize he’s gripping Gerard’s wrist ridiculously tight until he
hears Gerard whimper and stir quietly against him. Frank takes a few deep
breaths, counts to ten and eases his grip.
Sleep is inevitable, he knows. He’s so exhausted, but he’s afraid that if he
goes to sleep something bad will happen to Gerard.
His eyelids are beginning to burn, weighed down with the imminent need for
rest.
He relents and wraps Gerard in his arms, their heartbeats pulsing in and out of
sync and lulling Frank into darkness.
✬✬✬
Against Mikey and Frank’s wishes, Gerard goes to school on Monday. His chest
hurts when he inhales deeply and he has issues with keeping larger amounts of
food down, but like hell he’s going to miss school. He’s this close to failing
the semester. Even though the school’s policy about ‘missing more than fifteen
days of school in a semester is and automatic fail’ is a load of bullshit, he
has to listen to it. He can’t escape this hellhole of a town if he fails his
way through the rest of this year.
And that stupid fucking godforsaken policy is why he’s currently sitting at the
back of the classroom, ignoring the old bat of an English teacher.
The most amusement Gerard can find in this class comes from the teacher. And
it’s not because she’s a funny person, she isn’t, she really really isn’t, but
it’s because of the nickname the students have given her.
The entire student body, and he means the entire student body, calls her ‘The
Cow’.
No one really knows for sure who coined the nickname, but Gerard suspects it
has something to do with her slightly rounded appearance. That, and the
hundreds of cow posters and cow figurines that adorn her classroom.
The first time Gerard walked into her classroom, he thought it was some kind of
senior prank, but when the room remained in that state for the rest of the
first semester, Gerard knew it was for real. What also gave it away was when he
caught her lovingly stroking one of the cow figurines.
Gerard wonders why the fuck this lady is a teacher if she clearly would rather
be knee deep in cow shit. Fuck, cow shit has to smell better than a room full
of unwashed sweaty teenagers. Gerard practically would rather be knee deep in
cow shit.
He starts to doodle a little cow at the top corner of his notes. They’re
covering something about Shakespeare, and Gerard has found himself bored as all
fuck.  When the fuck in his life are iambic pentameters going to matter?
Gerard decides his cow doodle needs a friend. He starts to draw a zombie flower
chewing on the doodle cow’s ankle, but he is interrupted by a sharp call of his
name.
“Mr. Way? Can you answer the question for the class, please?”
His heart plummets through his stomach and proceeds to crash through the floor.
“Uh,” Gerard stumbles, “Could…. Could you repeat the question?”
Snickers and whispered jeers circulate the room. The Cow glares at him from
above the glasses perched on the end of her pointy, crooked nose. “Thirty
minutes detention, Mr. Way, served by the end of the week or it doubles.”
The jeers increase in volume, but quickly drop away when The Cow spreads a
menacing glare across the room.
Gerard drops his head to the desk with a painful, heavy thunk.
✬✬✬
Gerard gets home before Mikey. He figures he’s got about ten, twenty minutes to
destroy himself. Not like last time, though, Frank would never forgive him, and
neither would Mikey.
He settles for a…. less destructive form of destruction. Does that even make
sense? He wonders.
It doesn’t, really, but he guesses it’ll do for now.
Gerard unzips his hoodie and drops it to the floor. He hangs his head and looks
at the floor, feeling the guilt wash over and around him for what he’s about to
do.
Before he’s truly even fully aware of what he’s doing, there’s a thin
razorblade in his hand and the inside of his left wrist is stinging.
He ignores all reality and lets the world absorb him in bursts of pain, the
echoes of jeers resounding throughout his empty head.
✬✬✬
Pulling the ruined dish towel tighter around his wrist and does his best to mop
up the blade and the small droplets that wriggled their way to the sheets.
Everything comes crashing down around him when he hears the front door slam
close and Mikey and Frank’s voices nearing the basement steps.
Fuck. Fuck. FuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK.
He scans the room in a panic before he sees his previously discarded jacket and
pulls it on quickly, ignoring the way his blood sticky skin clings to the
fibers of the jacket.
In haste, he throws the bloody dishrag across the room and into a pile of
useless crap and tosses the blade haphazardly under his bed.
Gerard dives in to his bed and pulls the covers around his face, covering the
stinging, sticky mess of his arm.
Just in time, it seems. Mikey and Frank open the basement door, talking loudly
and animatedly, their laughter echoing down the stairwell.
“Hey, Gee. Frankie and I are gonna have a Halloween marathon. You in?” Mikey
asks. Gerard runs his hands through his greasy hair and forces a hopefully
believable smile.
“Hell yeah. Someone go make popcorn? I’m too tired to move.”
“Lazy ass princess.” Mikey says lovingly before he gets up to go make the
popcorn, leaving Frank and Gerard alone in the basement.
As soon as they’re alone, Frank practically runs across the room and dives into
Gerard’s bed, pulling him against Frank’s chest despite Gerard’s startled
squawks.
Frank chants that word against Gerard’s temple. He realizes, most definitely
too late, that Frank’s fingers are putting the slightest pressure against his
stinging wrist, and he has to have realized what Gerard had done.
He does. Frank stops abruptly and rubs the pad of his index finger gently on
Gerard’s wrist. Gerard whimpers and tucks his face into Frank’s shoulder.
He feels the sleeve of his jacket being slowly pulled back, and he feels
Frank’s breath hitch in his chest.
Gerard expects a blow. He expects to be shoved away and yelled at.
What he doesn’t expect is to be held closer and to feel the gentle press of
lips against his wrist.
Frank whispers that word again, and Gerard wants to respond, wants to tell
Frank he’s wrong, didn’t he just see what made him ugly? But Mikey reappears
then with two bowls full of popcorn, offers the entangled pair a cryptic-as-
all-fuck smile, and says, “Let’s get this shit started, shall we?”
Gerard doesn’t find the time to tell Frank he’s wrong for the rest of the
night. 
***** And I Fear I'm Too Far Gone *****
Yo this part is stupid long just thought I should warn you
Come morning, there’s a sliver of light filtering through the thin basement
window, hardly illuminating the otherwise nearly pitch-black lower floor.
Gerard is drifting in that delicate limbo between awake and asleep, the one
thing keeping him there being the weight of his eyelids and the comforting
sensation of Frank’s arm wrapped around his middle.
He flicks his half-open eyes wearily to the TV screen, wondering how many
movies Frank and Mikey managed to watch before they fell asleep. Gerard had
passed out just before they started the third Halloween movie, vaguely aware of
Mikey calling him weak and then saying something to Frank, something that had
sounded a lot like ‘you two are so cute it’s disgusting’ or some shit like
that. Gerard doesn’t really think Mikey said that, because the tone of voice
Mikey was using was the one he used when he was teasing someone about their
crushes. He had heard it used multiple times on Mikey’s friends, and a few
times on himself, but never directed at Frank, and maybe Gerard’s reading into
it a little too much, but the way Frank’s arm tightened around his waist and
how Frank buried his face in the back of Gerard’s neck immediately after almost
convinces him that Frank had been blushing, or something of a similar nature
that required him to hide his face.
Gerard decides he’s probably reading into it too much. Nonetheless, Frank’s
presence is more comforting than anything of any other volume. He feels
impossibly safe next to Frank, like nothing in this world can touch him because
Frank won’t let it, won’t ever let it.
It is possibly the oddest and most welcome feeling Gerard has ever fathomed in
his short hell of a life.
Behind him, Frank makes these adorable snuffle noises and buries his face in
Gerard’s hair, his fingers gripping the fabric at the bottom of Gerard’s t-
shirt. He smiles lazily and cuddles back into Frank, letting his eyes droop
down and allowing sleep to swallow him, feeling the safest he thinks he’s ever
felt.
✬✬✬
Gerard dreams. Well, he doubts this actually qualifies as a dream, it’s really
more of a nightmare, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is the
terrifying image of Frank’s bloody and mutilated body that his brain is
plastering throughout his whole mind. Every twist and turn his nightmare takes
is accompanied by the corpse of Frank in various bloody stages of death.
Sometimes his body looks ashen, the wounds bloated and leaking strange fluids
that in reality probably wouldn’t be there, but this is in his head. And he is
determined to tear himself apart from the inside out.
Sometimes it looks like he’s just died, and Gerard had just barely missed the
opportunity to save him. Those are the worst. Those are the ones where there
are voices, empty, hallow, harrowing voices that yell at him for failing to
save Frank. They tell him he’s weak, he’s worthless, that he’s all the words
that have ever been thrown at him.
And the worst part, he supposes, is that he believes them.
Gerard is trapped in this dream. He can’t wake up. He keeps willing himself to
wake up, keeps trying to come back into contact with his body, but it’s not
working and he’s beginning to panic. Oh god, he doesn’t want this, he wants to
wake up, please, now, oh god, he’s sorry, so sorry—
And just like that, his mind and body abruptly reconnect, thanks to whatever is
currently shaking him and pulling him up into a sitting position. Gerard
doesn’t really realize he’s going to vomit until a trashcan is being shoved
underneath his mouth and he’s upheaving everything he’s consumed in the last
twenty-four hours (which isn’t much).
There’s a hand rubbing small circles into his back and presumably the voice
belonging to the hand’s owner saying gentle and kind things that Gerard can
hardly distinguish above the noise of his vomiting.
Finally, he manages to draw in shaky breaths without retching.  
Someone is taking away the trashcan and handing him a bottle of cool water, and
another person, the one holding him up, is running a hand through his sweaty
hair.
“What happened, Gee?” They’re asking. Gerard’s head spins and he grips onto
their forearm in a weak attempt to steady himself.
“Bad dream. Don’t wanna talk about it,” He mutters, taking a long gulp of water
and collapsing back against their chest, eyes once again weighted before the
realization that he has school today barrels into him with so much force his
eyes fly wide open.
“I have school today. Gotta get up. Can’t miss any more,” He says groggily and
attempts to wriggle out of the person’s grasp. They don’t let him. If anything,
they pull him closer.
“Mikey already took care of it. He called Bryar and sweet talked him into
sneaking down into the office and marking all three of us as present on all the
attendance sheets for the whole day. God bless your brother and his ability to
manipulate Bryar by batting his eyelashes.” 
So Frankie is the one holding him.
Frankie. Gerard twists around in his hold so he can bury his nose in Frank’s
neck and revel in the heavy thud of his pulse against Gerard’s cheek and just
breathe. He’s alive, he tells himself, Alive and here and alive.
Frank mutters soothing nothings, rubbing his hand up and down Gerard’s upper
arm, lips pressed against his forehead. Gerard hears a whimper, and it clicks a
little too late that he made that noise. He feels the blush creep across his
cheeks and Frank drags Gerard into his lap.
“You wanna tell me what your dream was about? You don’t have to if you don’t
wanna, of course,” Frank says against his temple. Gerard releases a shaky
exhale.
His brain fights with itself for a few moments, weighing the pros and cons of
telling Frank that his dream was about Frank dying, repeatedly. It disturbs
him, and he had the fucking dream, what the fuck is it gonna do to Frank?
Fuck it, he decides.  He takes a deep breath and just says it.
“In my dream, you died. A lot. And people….. Voices…… kept telling me it was my
fault. And I couldn’t wake up,” he says at last, chewing his lower lip and
fiddling with the edges of his blanket, not wanting to look at Frank while he
says this.
Frank goes still. Gerard’s brain begins to panic, supplying scenarios
consisting of Frank shoving Gerard away, calling him names, leaving and never
coming back. He really doesn’t want that to happen, god, that’d be worse than
never waking up.
As always, Frank does the exact opposite of what his brain assumes he’s going
to do.
Frank shuffles them around until they’re lying horizontally, Gerard’s face
tucked into Frank’s chest and encircled completely by Frank’s arms. With the
way they are currently laying, Gerard can feel the steady beat of Frank’s
heart, and he figures that this is the reason Frank moved them to this
position. Gerard most definitely isn’t complaining, the steady pulsations of
Frank’s heartbeat are an unfathomable comfort.
He doesn’t quite understand Frank’s constant need to hold him. He’s not
opposed, although. Even if he’ll never admit it out loud, he really does like
being held. It makes him feel protected, and that’s new to him, because he’s
always on watch, always waiting for the next asshole to jump out and beat his
body into the pavement.
Frank begins sliding his long fingers through Gerard’s dark hair, humming
softly. Shivers bolt down Gerard’s spine, the vibrations from Frank’s vocal
chords fluttering through his ribcage and leaving small, tickling kisses of
noise across Gerard’s face, the tremors beating just out of time with Frank’s
heart.
The sense of peace he feels is almost overwhelming. It feels as though the
world has cracked and is dragging him into some world coated with a sky like
black velvet and stars made of crystalized summer raindrops and it feels like
Frank created this world for him, created this entire alternate dimension so
Gerard could feel safe.
Gerard huddles close against Frank’s body and thinks about that. He thinks
about someone building a world with another person in mind, teaching the stars
to shine just so, showing the light how to resonate with the water in an
intricate glow, coaxing flowers and trees to grow to perfection, guiding the
birds across the sky and teaching them new anthems.
He isn’t worth someone building a world for. Worlds should be built for kind
people with a long life ahead of them and not some teenage boy blasting a whole
through his own existence with hollow point bullets. People like Frank and
Mikey deserve worlds. Gerard doesn’t, and probably never will.
“I can see your brain working in there,” Frank whispers against the top of his
head. “Stop thinking about whatever you’re thinking about so hard.”
“Can’t,” Gerard whispers back. “My brain hates me.”
Gerard can feel the small smile pressed against his hair. “Well,” he says. “It
should stop, because I don’t hate you.”
The blush creeping around Gerard’s cheeks is so red in color it could have
easily blended in with the cheap rendition of blood on the cover of the horror
movies stacked in a precarious pile not too far from the pair.  Frank is
obviously distracted by it, and Gerard’s cheeks flush brighter, causing Frank’s
smile to widen.
He whines in embarrassment and drops his head against Frank’s sternum, nuzzling
like if he tries hard enough he could become invisible. This makes Frank laugh,
and Gerard can’t resist letting a smile of his own slide across his face.
✬✬✬
Frank is fucking screwed. He thought that maybe he could manage to get over the
little crush he has on Gerard, despite Mikey’s affirmation that he thinks he’d
do Gerard some good. Frank figured that Gerard was pretty messed up and maybe,
maybe he should back down.
But that notion was blasted to bits when Gerard had had that nightmare. In that
moment, Frank wanted nothing more than to keep Gerard with him for the rest of
forever and morals be damned, he wanted to be allowed to kiss him better.
He is so fucking screwed.  And it doesn’t fucking help that he’s currently got
Gerard burrowing into his chest like an adorable little kitten.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Aforementioned adorable kitten picks his head up off of Frank’s chest and looks
at him quizzically. “Where’s Mikey?” Gerard asks.
“He went upstairs to take a shower and get coffee from that café down the
road,” he responds. Gerard nods, deeming his response a plausible answer and
cuddles back into Frank’s arms.
Frank doesn’t really know what it is about Gerard that makes him all clingy and
shit. It’s not like this is exactly a new occurrence, Frank is constantly
laying on Mikey or climbing up Bob’s shoulders and making him carry him places,
but he’s never really been this cuddly. He’ll do it sometimes to piss people
off (particularly the guys that say ‘no homo’ every five seconds) and sometimes
just because. Nonetheless, he snuggles Gerard like a koala made of Velcro.
What the hell are you doing to me Gerard Way, he thinks as he tugs Gerard
impossibly nearer. What the hell are you doing to me?
✬✬✬
Mikey returns about twenty minutes later with coffee and a stupid knowing,
teasing smile. Frank wants to smack it right off his face but he know Gerard
really wouldn’t appreciate that, so he settles for glowering at him, even as he
hands Frank his coffee.
They talk about meaningless, empty things while Mikey silently gauges how his
brother is feeling. Gerard is still too tired to notice, but Frank notices. He
watches Mikey measure his brother’s stability, Gerard being too tired to really
notice Mikey’s scrutinizing gaze.  In under five minutes, Mikey appears to have
soundlessly declared his brother’s stability (or lack thereof) tolerable for
the time being.
Eventually, Frank and Mikey talk Gerard into taking a shower. Gerard whines and
bitches his way through it, but after Mikey threatens to make him get his own
coffee for the rest of his life he gets up and goes. Frank is silently
relieved, even though Gerard is so fucking cuddly, it’s not all that easy to do
when a fucking garbage can is beginning to smell better than him.
As soon as they are alone, Mikey fixes Frank with a look that is equally
incriminating as it is questioning.
“What?” Frank asks, breaking the otherwise pristine silence.
“When are you going to tell him you like him?” Mikey says. Frank’s brain spins
for an answer. He doesn’t really like him, does he? The most he thinks is that
Gerard is pretty, and sweet, and it pisses him the hell off that he’s getting
hurt as badly as he is. It’s just a stupid little crush, it’s not anything
more, and it’s more than likely never going to be.
“I’m not,” Frank responds at last.  Mikey scoffs.
“Yes you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
Mikey glares harshly at him. If looks could kill, Frank would be very, very
dead.
“Then stop fucking with his feelings. He needs a fucking support system, and if
you’re just gonna sit on your ass and do nothing then you can fucking leave. I
told you not to hurt him goddammit, and you’re doing just that by not fucking
manning up and admitting you have emotions.”
For a moment, he sees red. He brings himself down rapidly, however. He doesn’t
really want to hurt Mikey.
Frank takes a deep breath and tries to see sense
“I’m fucking scared, okay?” He admits. “I don’t want to fuck him up even more.
And we’re always out Mikey, getting high off our asses and if Gee needs a
support system, then I think we should be looking somewhere else because you’d
wind up taking care of the both of us, and you know that.”
Mikey sighs heavily.
“I know, I know. But we’re not that bad that often, are we?”
“You’re right, we aren’t. But I am.” Frank says, crossing his arms. This is the
first time he’s really admitted that he may have a little bit of a problem. Oh,
who the fuck is he kidding, it’s a little lot of a problem. He’s already
getting the shakes from withdrawal, and who fucking knows from what drug.
Someone hands it to him, he does it, the end. Mikey uses his brain and only
drinks or only gets high, never both. Frank, however, is more often than not,
an extreme combination of both forms of intoxication.
“Then detox, asshat. Gerard needs you to be all in one piece, because in case
you haven’t noticed, you mean something to him. And I need you all in one
piece. I’m not going to let my best friend fucking die because I didn’t say
something. So here I am, saying something. Get clean, douchewad.”
Frank takes another deep breath and closes his eyes. He wonders how much
detoxing is going to hurt.
✬✬✬
He learns the answer to that question within the next three weeks. It starts
out small, with the occasional headache that he just sleeps off, and then it
escalates to the full on feel of being stuck in his itchy, scratchy, too-tight
skin and vomiting. The entire time, Mikey is with him, handing him cold water,
helping him stand up, distracting him from the burn beneath his skin with
videogames. Even when Frank goes to his own home, Mikey goes with him, even if
it’s only for a short time. Frank is extremely thankful, either way.
Frank doesn’t think Gerard is really aware of what is happening to him. Every
now and then he’ll catch Gerard looking at him with a very concerned, very
puzzled look, but Frank will just play off whatever happened to him like it’s
nothing, like it’s a completely normal occurrence. Frank can see that Gerard
doesn’t completely buy it, and he doesn’t really blame him, but Gerard asks no
questions, and Frank offers no answers.
When his head is splitting apart and cold tremors are shooting down his spine,
Gerard cuddles close to him, obviously unsure of what is happening to Frank.
Those are the moments where the most Frank can do is cling to him in response
and just let a chorus of ‘worth it, worth it, worth it’ slide across his mind.
✬✬✬
Gerard has been going to school while Frank detoxes, trying to even out the
tasks of worrying about him and keeping his head down. It’s proving difficult,
yet he manages. He even serves out his detention, never mind that the way it’s
wasted is distressing over Frank’s condition.
The social balance between Gerard and Mikey is off. Usually, the day will pass
with Mikey making no effort to acknowledge his brother’s presence, and vice
versa. But today, along with these last few days, Mikey has pulled Gerard aside
at least once a day to check on him.
Every time, Gerard turns to leave, telling Mikey in a hushed voice that Mikey’s
going to get his ass kicked if he’s seen talking to Gerard, and every time,
Mikey hisses back that he doesn’t care.
Gerard suspects that Mikey’s sudden change of pace has to do with Frank being
all weird. He can’t quite pin what exactly it is that’s wrong with Frank, but
he knows it isn’t good, and he doesn’t like it. At all. Gerard feels a stab of
guilt, because if this is anything near the feelings that he put Frank through
when he overdosed then he hates it and is never going to do anything like that
again. Even if it means living in an impressive hell.
Frank seems to be spending more and more time at his own home, and Mikey is
spending an equal amount of time with him. Gerard doesn’t blame them, but
sometimes he wishes they’d be here more so he wouldn’t destroy himself so much.
But he deals. He’s alright. It’s nothing new, being alone. It’s just….. He’d
forgotten a little bit about what alone was like. At first, the abrupt silence
and cold bed threw him off and made him a little scared, but as the weeks wore
on he fell back into the all too familiar rhythm of ignoring the voices pushing
suicide and sleeping away the hours he should have spent doing homework.
He figures that he better get used to it. Frank’s probably not going to be back
for a while.
✬✬✬
The moment Frank can get through the day without a single itch beneath his skin
or a single pull telling him to find the nearest dealer, he nearly sobs with
relief.
Just to test himself, he goes to a party that night, one he knows will be chock
full of drugs and pills and sex and booze.
And, true to his predictions, it is. The music is loud and person after person
comes up to him with a grin and offers a drink, or a smoke, or something to
shoot up. Each time, Frank says no, and each and every time, a burst of pride
settle across his chest.
The people there are a little confused, but respect Frank’s wishes nonetheless.
Pete, the kid hosting the party, is the only person throughout the whole night
to question his sobriety. Frank makes up an on-the-spot lie about his mom
finding his stash. Pete nods solemnly and offers his condolences, telling him
that detoxing sucks, and Frank wholeheartedly agrees.
For the rest of the night, Frank just loses himself between the seas of bodies
and the pulse of the music. He surfaces a couple times to talk to some of the
people there that he recognizes. But other than those rare and far in between
moments, he watches the severely intoxicated people drift around, wondering if
that’s what he looked like when he was all fucked up.
If it is how he looked and acted, then he is most definitely never touching any
kind of intoxicant ever again.
He leaves the party at two in the morning, one hundred percent sober, and smile
stretched so fucking wide across his face he feels like his cheeks are going to
pop.
It’s really fucking tempting to dance in the middle of the street, he’s so
happy. Frank sprints to Mikey’s house, the grin sticking to his face like
bubblegum to the bottom of a shoe. He climbs, rather gracelessly, up the gutter
and onto the small sliver of roof right outside Mikey’s window.
Frank makes a silent prayer that either Mikey is up, or his window is unlocked.
He raps his knuckles three times against the window and waits. The window
slides open with a gust of air sucked into the house and Mikey’s face appears.
“The fuck, Frankie? Get in here, you idiot. Are you aware of what time at night
it is? You’re lucky I have shitty sleeping habits,” Mikey chides, as Frank,
maintaining his grin, crawls through the window and drops to the floor.
“And where the fuck have you been? You smell like booze and weed and…… Frank.
You didn’t.”
Impossibly, Frank’s smile gets bigger.
“I just spent the last five hours at one of Wentz’s parties. I am completely
sober. I didn’t even drink.”
Mikey’s grin nearly rivals his own as he grabs Frank and hugs him tight.
“You are a miracle, Frank Iero. Gerard’s downstairs, you wanna go see him?”
Mikey asks, eyebrows raised almost comically high, asking another question
simultaneously without words.
“No, Mikey, I came here to see you and just you. Of fucking course I do,
asshole!”
“Go on then,” Mikey says, nudging him out the door.
✬✬✬
Gerard is struggling to go to sleep. He’s slept so much today, so much that his
body doesn’t want to sleep anymore. His brain wants to though. His brain is
really fucking tired.
But he’s awake, even if it’s a little hazy. Gerard is just conscious enough
that he’s aware of a new voice joining in with his brother’s filtering in
through the vents, new footsteps making their way to the basement door.
For a minute, he panics, his mind racing. After a moment, he calms himself,
considering that if Mikey let them in, then they must be someone they know.
Someone they know, indeed. Gerard’s heart stutters when he sees Frank calmly
descending the stairs, hands in pockets, eyes scanning the room, utilizing the
minimal light so he can see in the darkness.
“Gee?” he whispers. “Are you awake?”
Gerard swallows thickly, his throat suddenly having gone dry. “Yeah,” he
breathes into the darkness.
“Can I come sit with you?” Frank asks.
“Yeah,” Gerard says again. Frank calmly moves to the bedside and sits down by
his feet.
Peeling himself up from the mattress, Gerard launches himself at Frank wrapping
his arms around him and letting Frank drag him closer, until Gerard is
literally in his lap.
For a while, they just breathe. Gerard doesn’t completely understand what
happened to Frank, or why. It doesn’t matter though, he’s back, and it doesn’t
seem like he’s going to leave anytime soon.
He has to admit, it’s weird as fuck not being alone all of the sudden. His bed
is already warming around their bodies, his heartbeat adjusting to the happy
thrum Frank gives it. The question is perched on his lips, but he doesn’t know
if he wants to ask it.
After a while of just breathing, basking in a comfortable silence, Gerard
relents and asks.
“What happened to you?” His voice is gentle and soft, like if he says it too
loud he’ll break something delicate.
Frank’s chest expands and deflates beneath Gerard’s.
“I was detoxing.”
Oh.
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Frank says. “I’m sorry I left you alone.”
“Don’t be, I was fine,” Gerard lies. But the lie is necessary, he knows,
because if he told Frank the truth he’d feel terrible. Detoxing is more than an
acceptable reason to leave. In fact, practically everything is more than an
acceptable reason to leave Gerard.
“You sure?” Frank asks, giving him a final chance to tell the truth.
He still goes with the lie.
“I was fine, Frankie, don’t worry,” He assures, pulling off the little white
lie in the most convincing way he thinks he can manage.
“Good,” Frank responds. For a single moment, Gerard feels like shit for lying.
It passes quickly, however. He did the right thing, at least, he thinks so.
Once again, they fall into a comfortable silence. He doesn’t notice right away
that Frank is rubbing his thumb idly against Gerard’s wrist. The second he
does, his brain follows the small rotations in Technicolor.
All his head (or maybe it’s his heart?) wants right then is to kiss Frank. It’s
irrational and stupid, but it’s happened before, so it can’t be that
improbable, can it?
Gerard, once again, loses awareness over his movements. His face is tilted
backwards, the back of his head resting on Frank’s shoulder, staring at the
blank expression that’s found its home on his face. Images flicker through his
mind, mostly consisting of pressing his lips against Frank’s.
He chides himself once more, telling himself that it’s not something he should
do and that just because it happened once doesn’t mean it’s a promise.
“You’re staring,” Frank whispers, right next to his ear, causing Gerard to jolt
in his arms.
“A-am not!” He stutters. Predictably, pink appears high on his cheekbones.
“You sure?” Frank says. Gerard doesn’t have to turn his head to see the teasing
smile he knows is plastered across Frank’s face.
Gerard nods jerkily. “Positive.”
Frank hooks his index and middle finger beneath Gerard’s chin and tilts his
face so his eyes can lock with Frank’s.
His heartbeat increases at an alarming rate, so fast that he wonders (briefly)
if it’ll grow wings and beat out of his chest. Gerard’s almost sure Frank can
hear it growing wings and preparing for takeoff.
The gentle press of Frank’s lips against his fucking throws his pulse up so
high that now he’s positiveit’s audible. Nonetheless, he kisses back, with
maybe a little too much enthusiasm.
That doesn’t stop Frank from matching his pace, however. Gerard wishes they
could take it farther, he wants that, oh god does he want that, but he’s a
wreck right now. His whole body is caked in multicolor bruises and lacerations
in various stages of healing, some, unfortunately reasonably fresh.
But he kisses Frank anyway, mesmerized by how soft his lips are in comparison
to his own chapped and rough ones. He tugs Frank’s lip ring smoothly into his
mouth, reveling in the small, barely audible whimper it earns him. Frank is
gentle, so gentle, treating Gerard and this kiss like some rare flower that
must be handled with the most caution humanly possible otherwise it will wilt
and die. Never in his life has he ever been treated with so much care, Gerard
realizes. That causes him to completely melt against Frank’s body, and Frank
holds him there, supporting their weight with some kind of practiced ease.
They part, after a moment, both breathing heavily.
Frank rests his forehead against Gerard’s and skitters the tips of his fingers
down the contours of Gerard’s face.
“Beautiful,” he says. Rather than respond, Gerard says nothing in return and
just brings Frank’s hand away from his face and intertwines their fingers.
“One of these days,” Frank says, “I’m going to get you to believe me.”
He presses a kiss to the back of Gerard’s hand, like the action will seal the
promise. But Gerard knows, better than anyone, that all promises are easily
broken. The same can be said for the bindings holding the assurances together.
✬✬✬
Inevitably, Frank crashes at Gerard and Mikey’s house. After all, it was two in
the fucking morning when he showed up, and he’s lucky as it is that he managed
to stay coherent long enough to talk to Gerard. He’s not going to pass his
promise off as sleep deprivation, though. He really meant those words with
every fiber of his being.
When he manages to wake up (and really wake up, not that half assed zombie shit
that 95% of the teenagers that make up high school pull), he sees that Gerard
has tangled himself up in Frank’s legs, head resting just above his heart and
arms encompassing his ribs. Frank smiles and runs his fingers through Gerard’s
dark hair, keeping his breathing as steady as possible as to not disturb
Gerard’s sleeping (and incredibly warm) form.
He hears the basement door open and shoots a glance at the glowing blue numbers
of the digital clock on the DVD player. It’s ten in the morning, too early for
his tastes. Awake or no, Frank considers going back to sleep, but the lanky
form that is now filling the doorway at the bottom of the stairs requires his
attention.
“What do you want, Mikey?” Frank whispers. He sees Mikey’s shadow shrug and
come a little closer.
“Just making sure neither of you were eaten by zombie mice. Also, your mom
called. She’s pissed as fuck.” Mikey responds in an equally hushed tone.
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah, dumbass. Sneaking out? Come on Frankie, you’re usually better than that.
I can cover for you if you say you’re coming over here, but no, your stupid ass
just had to go and sneak out. You’re lucky Gerard likes you as much as he does,
otherwise I’d release you to your mother.” Mikey hisses, smacking in the
general direction of Frank’s face.
“So what did you tell her then? Or is she coming with the cavalry?” Frank says
quietly.
“I told her that I called you over here this morning and that you must have
forgotten to leave her a note. You’re fucking lucky, you little shit, because
she bought it.” Mikey whispers, smacking at Frank’s face again.
“Yes, yes, okay, you’re the best Mikeyway, thank you for saving my stupid ass,
you’re beautiful and talented yadda yadda yadda. Can I go back to sleep now?”
Frank says, batting Mikey’s hands away from his face.
“I guess. But you owe me, fucknut.”
“I’ll give you my first born child.” He says as he curls himself back around
Gerard.
Mikey chuckles, pats him on the head and leaves, drowning the basement in
silence, save for the gentle sound of Frank and Gerard’s breathing.
✬✬✬
When they’ve all managed to get up, Frank leaves in a rush. Of course, that’s
only after multiple and near-constant assurances that Gerard is going to be
okay.
In all honesty, Gerard lied his way through all the confirmations. He is not
going to be okay, especially after he’s abruptly readjusted to not being alone.
The shock of being left on his own once again is almost too much for him to
handle. It almost makes him crazy, the sudden abandonment. The pills call to
him louder than ever, taunting him, saying that everyone leaves him anyway,
even if he thinks they come back.
Gerard almost does it, too. He holds the bottle of sleeping pills and lets them
rattle around in the bottle as he tips it up and down, up and down. The noise
they make is like music. Like raindrops, his brain supplies.
 The voices goad him to an even harsher extent while the pills plunk against
each other and the plastic bottle. They tease him, tell him that even though
Frank says he cares, says he wants to fix him, he doesn’t, not really.
“You’re not fixable,” they criticize. “You may as well fucking end it, because
you aren’t going to be saved by anyone, or anything. Fucking useless, ugly
piece of shit. You’re bound to die like this, so just get it over and done
with.”
A small part of his brain, a part that he didn’t think even existed (and sounds
suspiciously similar to Frank’s voice) tells him to hold on, just a little
longer, that living can’t be too hard, and all he has to do is just keep his
heart beating.
It’s probably thanks to that little voice that he didn’t down that bottle right
then.
✬✬✬
The world has come off its hinges by the time the weekend arrives and Frank is
back again. Overdosing becomes such a reasonable thing, and the voices have
become louder and more frequent, pushing him to eat less and damage himself
more. He has to wear loose pants (something very foreign and something he’s
most definitely not fond of) and hoodies and has covered himself in Band-Aids,
gauze and medical tape. He might hate himself, but he doesn’t want to die of an
infection. Then again, he really could give less of a fuck. Dead is dead, who’s
he to be picky about how it happens?
Frank very narrowly convinces his mother to let him stay over. The voices hiss
that they wish she hadn’t so Gerard could just kill himself already. They don’t
want Frank around extending Gerard’s pitiful existence, they’d rather he just
left and let Gerard die already.
The smile Gerard pushes onto his face doesn’t convince Frank in the slightest.
It doesn’t convince Mikey either.
After a silent agreement between Frank and Mikey, Mikey gets up and leaves the
basement where they’ve convened, muttering things about calling Pete and
meeting up at Ray’s.
“What’s wrong?” Frank asks literally the second the latch of the basement door
clicks shut.
“Nothing,” Gerard lies.
“Please don’t lie, Gee. Are you okay?”
Gerard stares at his dirty shoes and the floor, avoiding meeting Frank’s
searching, concerned gaze.
“I’m fine.” He says, still ignoring Frank’s stare.  The floorboards are
particularly interesting today.
“Gee,” Frank implores again.
“What, Frank?” He spits, a little too harshly. The volume of the voices
increase considerably, and his fingers itch for a pill bottle or a blade or
something. The hurt on Frank’s face is too much, and now he’d really like to
die, no matter if the voices want him to or not.  This feeling, he’s pretty
sure, is all his.
“Sorry. You don’t have to tell me,” Frank says, withdrawing visibly, shrinking
in on himself. Gerard wants to bash his own skull in.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-“
“No,” Frank interrupts him with a wave of his hand. “It’s fine. You had every
right to. I was out of line.”
“No you weren’t, Frank. I was. There was no acceptable reason for me to do lash
out like I did. I’m sorry.”  Gerard says, his tone starting out as something
forceful and then dwindling down to a volume that can only be described as
small and afraid. 
“What’s going on, Gerard?” He asks, his voice the equivalent of a warm hug.
Gerard shrugs. “I don’t feel good,” He says, like he has a cold or a
stomachache or something of a similar nature. 
Those words appear to break Frank. Gerard doesn’t understand why, the most he
understands is that Frank somehow gets sadder after Gerard falls silent.
Frank leans forward abruptly and grabs Gerard’s upper arms, tugging his body
until his chest is pressed to Frank’s and his arms are wrapped around Frank’s
ribs, Frank’s own arms around Gerard’s shoulders, one hand holding the back of
his head, keeping his face against Frank’s chest.
It’s then that Gerard guesses he breaks.
Before he’s even really aware it’s happening, he’s shaking and crying in
Frank’s arms and muttering useless, meaningless nonsense into Frank’s shirt.
Frank is petting his hair, letting him sob until his throat is raw and his head
is starting to hurt.
He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t fucking get it. Why is he so emotional? He hasn’t
cried this hard since he was fucking ten years old and scraped the shit up out
of his knee.  And he just has to do this when Frank is here, god fucking
dammit. When Gerard cries, he ugly cries, his face scrunches up and gets all
blotchy and it’s hideous, no one needs to see him like this, least of all
Frank.
“Fuck,” Gerard says into Frank’s sleeve, his voice a rough and ruined.
“I’m sorry,” he snuffles, pulling away from Frank’s body so he can wipe at his
face. Frank’s face creases in confusion.
“What for?” he asks.
“Getting your shirt all wet,” Gerard says. Frank makes a noise that Gerard
doesn’t really have a word for and pulls him back against him.
“Get it as wet as you want, I don’t care,” Frank says, re-threading his fingers
in Gerard’s hair.
They sit like that for a while, just holding each other, tangled up on the
couch pretending everything’s okay.
✬✬✬
This time, Frank can’t hold himself back. He and Gerard are huddled up on the
couch, Gerard still snuffling quietly, small tears sliding off his cheeks and
onto Frank’s considerably dampened shirt. 
Frank pulls Gerard off of him and curves his palms around Gerard’s tear-tracked
cheeks, caressing his cheekbones with the edges of his thumbs, studying his
eyes, his lips, the contrast of his hands against Gerard’s pale face.
He thinks, that this time, Gerard is the one to lean in first.
The kiss, to summarize, is perfect. Frank doubts it could be anything but, and
the way Gerard just sort of collapses and melts against his body just adds on
to the feeling flowering throughout Frank’s body.
When they break apart for air, Gerard looks at him like he’s the eighth wonder
of the world.  In all honesty, he hates that look, it’s questioning and
doubting and too many bad things for Frank to just sort of let himself exist on
standby.
“What? What is it?” He asks, tucking a stray lock of Gerard’s hair back behind
his ear, only separating their bodies just enough so that they can see each
other clearly. Gerard swallows thickly, inaudible, although Frank watches his
Adam’s apple slide beneath the pale column of his throat.
“Why do you keep doing this?” He whispers, kiss-reddened lips breathing out
words that send Frank’s brain spinning around in a staggering combination of
desperation and confusion.
“What do you mean?” He responds.  Gerard swallows again.
“K-kissing me. Why do you keep kissing me?”
Frank has to stop and think for a second. He doesn’t really want to admit the
reason out loud, because it scares him, and he isn’t really afraid of much
(except for spiders, he fucking hates those, but that’s beside the point). It
is necessary in this situation, he knows. So he shoves all the condescending
and chastising thoughts out of his head and just says it.
“Because I like you. Is it a problem? I’ll stop if you want,” Frank says, a
little too relieved when the creases of confusion and worry disappear from
Gerard’s face.
“No,” Gerard says, falling forward and snuggling into Frank’s chest, “It’s not
at all a problem.”
“Good,” Frank replies, “Because I like kissing you.”
His comment causes Gerard’s cheeks to flush a little and a smile stretches
across Frank’s face.
They sit in a comfortable silence for a while, tangled together in a manner
that can only be described as pacifying, Gerard’s breathing evening out,
changing from broken and shaky breaths to smooth, small ones.
“So does this make us anything?” Gerard says after a bit, his voice a little
scratchy from the abuse sobbing inflicted on his vocal chords.
“It can if you want it to,” Frank says. Butterflies burst and pulse against his
stomach and ribcage, the excitement of Gerard’s potential answer causing his
grasp on the moment to weaken before he forces it to tighten once again so he
can fully comprehend the words Gerard is saying.
“Do youwant it to?”
Yes, Frank thinks, yes I really, really do.
“Uh uh,” He says instead. “This is up to you. How I feel can come second.”
He watches the answer spin around behind Gerard’s eyes before the words are
actually spoken.
“I want it to.”
The world comes alive in vibrant colors and feelings, the wings of the
butterflies buried beneath his chest beating rapidly, significantly out of time
with the increased speed of his heart. Gerard closes his fingers around Frank’s
wrist and squeezes, successfully bringing him back to the present.
“So do you?”
“Yes.”
Gerard beams, the tired darkness in his eyes being pushed around by a light,
airy happiness. The dead in his eyes doesn’t leave, however, and Frank wonders
if it’s permanent.
“Does that make us…. Boyfriends?” Gerard asks, failing to keep the hopeful tone
in his voice masked.
“If you want,” Frank says again. Gerard surges up and kisses him.
“I do, I do want,” He says, smiling.
“Awesome,” Frank says, his smile rivaling Gerard’s.
✬✬✬
Mikey comes home a few hours later, finding Gerard and Frank cuddled together,
Gerard asleep and Frank awake, eyes unfocused as they hazily watched whatever
shitty reality show is on the TV.
“What’s up?” Mikey asks. Frank grins, wide and deliriously happy.
“I’ve got a boyfriend,” he says. Mikey looks at him in surprise.
“Really? You made it official?”
Frank nods.
“We did. Holy shit dude, I have a boyfriend,” Frank says, his smile broadening
to an extent that Mikey wonders if the muscles in his face are going to give
out.
It’s almost sickeningly cute, the way Frank tightens his arms around his
brother and chirps ‘Boyfriend!’ before looking at Mikey like a child that’s
just been given an early Christmas present.
“I like this one, Mikeyway.”
Mikey smiles and sits down on the floor by the middle of the couch. “I’ll still
kick your ass if you hurt him,” he says definitively. Frank nods.
“I’ll kill me too.”
“Fair enough,” Mikey responds, directing his attention to the TV screen.
✬✬✬
A few weeks have passed since Frank and Gerard made it official. Even though he
and Frank are dating now, even though Frank is so obviously infatuated with
him, the voices tell him relentlessly and endlessly that Frank is a liar and
only says these things, does these things because he pities him.
Despite the fact that he knows none of that true, the voices hold an immense
amount of power over him and it’s ridiculously hard to remind himself that they
aren’t real and Frank really does care.
Especially on the nights like this one, the nights where he is alone and all he
has is the vague memory of the feeling of being held by Frank. He imagines that
in the dark arms are wrapping around him and keeping him safe, that he can feel
a heartbeat against his back and can feel hands lacing their fingers with his
own..
It’s always hard to wake up in the morning alone, having fallen asleep with the
ghost of the feeling of being comforted. He hates it.
Frank does make an effort to be with Gerard as often as he can, however. He can
see that Gerard is physically bothered by being alone as often as he is, so he
does everything in his power to keep whatever it is that makes him hate
solitude at bay.
And yet, Gerard still destroys himself. His eating habits are shit and he’s
getting low on gauze. Sooner or later he’s going to have to steal more from his
mother.
She hasn’t been around too much lately. His mother is a spectacular person,
don’t get him wrong, but ultimately it is that trait that keeps her away from
her two children. She’s elected to cover a few people’s shifts at the hospital,
coming home for a little less than five hours every night. Even then, it’s
usually late at night and Gerard and Mikey have finally gone to bed hours
prior. She usually scribbles out a note and leaves some cash on the table for
take out or pizza and crashes, rising even earlier than the sun and going back
to work.
Gerard admires her strength and determination, and he knows it’s selfish, but
he wishes she could be around for them more. It’s hard enough as it is without
a father, but being almost a literal wreck and having to do your best to look
after your baby brother is a challenge that he’s not sure even his mother could
conquer.
Everything is spiraling downwards quickly. He doesn’t know if he can hold on
for too much longer, the voices are getting louder with every breath he takes
and even Frank’s kindness and affection can’t keep them away for too terribly
long.
Somehow, Frank picks up on that. Every time he sees Gerard, his face shifts to
an expression that’s almost mourning, like he’s on the edge of crying. Frank
doesn’t know it, but it’s those faces that make everything worse. Those faces
make Gerard blame himself and itch for the release that comes with discovering
the color of his veins.
It doesn’t matter. Frank doesn’t need to know that, ever. It doesn’t matter.
The first time they have sex, Frank worships Gerard’s body like he’s some kind
of precious relic that requires every last ounce of his attention. It’s a
Thursday, Gerard thinks, and Frank is curled happily around him on the bed,
holding Gerard to his chest with his back resting against the wall as he
peppers small kisses down the back of his neck and on the tendon that connects
Gerard’s neck and shoulder. They’re both hardly paying any attention to
whatever film they’ve mindlessly put into the DVD tray this time. He twists
around in Frank’s lap and catches his lips, ignoring the rise and surge of
negative voices and just losing himself in the feeling of Frank.
The kiss deepens, Gerard’s mouth open and pliant beneath Frank’s. Their tongues
slide hotly against each other and Gerard can no longer successfully ignore the
feeling of arousal growing and spreading throughout his body.
He’s scared. It’s not like he’s a virgin, oh god no, he’s been drunk too many
times at too many parties, fucking an excess of nameless faces only referred to
as ‘babe’, phone numbers written in ink that was scrubbed away from his skin as
quickly as possible. But he feels like this may as well be the first time he
has sex. In a way, it is. This will be the first time he’s had sex with someone
while his body is in such a ruined state. It is repulsive and he doubts someone
will want to fuck him if they’re forced to stare at wounds artlessly tended to
and the scars from moments of destruction from the past.
Frank’s hand trails up the inside of his thigh and stops just where his torso
ends and his legs begin. Gerard can’t bite back the whimper that swells up in
his throat. He may be in a devastated state, but that doesn’t stop his body
from wanting what it wants.
Fuck it, he decides. He slides his hand down, away from Frank’s arms and down
to his hips, curling his fingers around the growing bulge in his jeans and
swallowing the moan it earns him, his body retaliating with a moan of his own.
Frank pulls away to look at him. Another wave of want settles through his body
when he sees how dilated Frank’s pupils are, how his lips have swollen just
slightly from the pressure of his mouth against Gerard’s.
“Do you want to?” He asks. Gerard holds back the temptation to roll his eyes
and tell him, of fucking course, you moron. He knows how important consent is,
and he’s never had sex with someone when consent was not given or was doubted
by either party. So he nods, perhaps a little too excitedly and Frank kisses
him again, playing with the hem of Gerard’s sweatshirt.
Panic rises up in his throat, not truly wanting Frank to see his body. 
He keeps chanting to himself that the way he looks doesn’t matter, that Frank
really doesn’t care. It’s useless, even though Frank stops kissing him for a
moment to breathe and looks Gerard in the eye and tells him that he’s beautiful
in this perfect, breathless voice that causes Gerard to make an embarrassing
whine back in his throat. Frank giggles, and Gerard considers smacking him. He
doesn’t, but he would really like to.
“You’re lucky you’re cute,” he says and surges back in to kiss Frank.
Frank giggles again and then hums into his mouth. He recommences tugging at the
edge of Gerard’s sweatshirt, and Gerard gladly returns the favor, bunching the
edges of the fabric of Frank’s t-shirt in his hands and pulling a little
harshly.
Frank breaks the kiss and slides his shirt off, diving right back in the second
it’s been thrown aimlessly to the floor and kissing Gerard’s distended lips
again.
And he wants. God, Gerard wants. But once more, his physical state is holding
him back and he wants to fucking scream. His clothes (although they are loose)
feel way too fucking tight, and he needs them off off off. Frank’s clothes,
too. He wants skin against skin and he wants, now.
“Fuck,” he breathes against Frank’s mouth and pulls himself away, grabbing the
hem of his sweatshirt and pulling it up and off, revealing the bare, battered
skin beneath. He hears Frank’s breath catch in his throat and moves to cover
his chest. Frank catches his arms and pins them to his sides, ducking his head
down and dropping kisses from the hollow of his throat, down his chest and
kissing every individual scar that’s made its home on his stomach and ribs. He
pays extra attention to the huge one that goes from in between his pectorals
and trails all the way down to the top of his belly button. Frank has shifted
his grip from Gerard’s lower arms to his hands, looking up at him with a
burning gaze when he abruptly bites down and sucks a hickey into the soft skin
next to a particularly nasty scar on his hip.
Gerard shouts, twisting his wrist so he can grip Frank’s fingers and dig the
nail of his thumb into Frank’s palm.
Frank smiles against his skin, obviously pleased with Gerard’s reaction. He
goes to bite another mark into his skin, but Gerard yanks a hand free and grips
Frank by the back of the neck, dragging him in for another kiss. His hand
slides down Frank’s back, tracing the bumps of vertebrae pressing against his
skin with fingers lighter than butterfly kisses. Frank squirms beneath the
touch, the shivers racing down his spine channeling through Gerard’s arm and
down his own body.
Everywhere they’re touching feels like it is a lit fuse, destined to explode,
the heat from their skin meeting and molding together, creating a warmth that
Gerard thinks could only be closely simulated by a fire. Frank is distracted by
a certain spot on Gerard’s neck that multiple people have discovered and
exploited, the one where every time it is licked or bit at he makes some sort
of embarrassing moaning noise. And he has most definitely tried to hold them
down before, but the efforts appear futile, because the more he tries to muffle
them the more humiliating they get, so he’s just stopped resisting and allows
himself to be vocal.
He’s had it with his stupid fucking clothes, and Frank’s too.
“Off off off off off off,” He chants, tugging at Frank’s pants, and when he is
met with resistance put in place by a belt, he starts fighting with the button
and zipper of his own. Frank laughs when Gerard makes a distressed sound, and
Gerard looks up at him with a pout.
“Don’t laugh at me,” he says, and Frank laughs again. “Stop it or no sex for
you!” At that, Frank’s eyes widen.
“You wouldn’t dare,” he says. Gerard crosses his arms.
“Wouldn’t I?” he replies defiantly.
“No you wouldn’t,” Frank says and undoes his belt, tossing it in the same
general direction as his shirt.
Gerard makes a noise in agreement. “You’re right, I wouldn’t.”
He nudges Frank’s hands out of the way and goes to undo his button-fly (because
Frank is some kind of sadist, why the fuck do people actually wears these
things, Christ on a fucking boat) with a dexterity well-practiced.
While Frank hurriedly kicks off his pants, Gerard fights with his own, finally
managing to get the button open, zipper down and shoves the denim a little too
roughly down his thighs. The coarse fabric catches against the open lacerations
on his thighs and he hisses in pain. Frank looks at Gerard in confusion until
he glances down and sees the gashes. His face softens, and he runs his hands
delicately up the back of his thighs, and then back down the front of them,
fingers hardly making contact with the injured skin.
The barest pressure makes them sting and Gerard silently curses himself for not
having cleaned them out better. He bites at the tip of his tongue to keep the
pained noises back in his throat, and Frank slides himself down until he’s
pressing small kisses to the top of Gerard’s right knee, up his leg, and he
very, very gently presses his chapped lips against the angry welts that Gerard
has placed on his own skin.
Frank repeats the process on Gerard’s other leg and then hooks his fingers over
the top of Gerard’s boxers.
“Can I?” he asks, dropping teeny kisses on Gerard’s inner thigh. “Wanna suck
your brain out through your dick.”
Gerard nods. “Only if you promise to fuck me through the mattress.”
Frank groans and furiously tugs Gerard’s boxers off, his erection popping free
and hitting the skin beneath his bellybutton.
He gets right to it, wrapping a hand around the base of Gerard’s dick and
sucking the head into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the scar tissue at
the base of the head, giving no warning and Gerard’s hips cant upward into
Frank’s mouth. Frank scowls up at him and pulls off, ignoring Gerard’s whimper
of protest.
“Keep yourself still or I’ll hold you down,” he says and shifts so his
shoulders are near Gerard’s thighs. “You got lube?”
“Yeah. Down there somewhere,” Gerard says, gesturing to the small pile by the
headboard of his bed.
“Real helpful, fucker,” Frank mutters as he leans over the side of the bed,
scavenging through piles of ‘God-knows-what-the-fuck-this-is’ and arising
triumphant with a small bottle of lube. He pours an excessive amount over three
of his fingers and settles back between Gerard’s legs. Frank sucks the head of
his dick back into his mouth as he pushes in the first finger and Gerard
whimpers again and slides a hand into Frank’s hair.
Frank begins to thrust his finger in and out, very, very slowly. When he crooks
his finger just right and sucks down particularly hard, Gerard’s hips pump
upward once again, and again Frank pulls his mouth off of Gerard’s dick and his
finger out and glares.
“Keep. Still,” he practically growls.
“Okay, okay,” Gerard says, desperate to get Frank’s mouth and fingers back
where he wants them. Frank nods and ducks his head back down, nudging his
shoulders beneath Gerard’s thighs and swallowing around Gerard’s dick to the
point his mouth almost meets his fist. He chooses then to slide in a second
finger and push them both against the spot he knows he’s going to be taking
more than his fair share of advantage of tonight.
Gerard tightens his fingers in Frank’s hair and has to physically concentrate
on not moving. Frank pushes in a third finger and he moans embarrassingly
loudly. He is most definitely thankful that no one is currently in the house
but them.
Frank hums in a manner that can only be described as appreciatively around his
dick, sending pulsations of noise shooting rapidly up and down his spine,
throughout his whole body. He watches as Frank hollows his cheeks and slides
his mouth down farther, mouth actually meeting his fingers this time, his
tongue sliding up and down the sides of Gerard’s dick and he’s pushing his
fingers against Gerard’s prostate he’s going to fucking come and-
Frank pulls off and slides his fingers out. He shifts up and forward, sliding
Gerard’s legs off his shoulders so he can bite at Gerard’s neck, lips curving
into a smile when they feel the distressed moan bubbling up from Gerard’s
throat.
“I believe,” Frank says as he runs his hands up and down Gerard’s ribs, “That I
promised to fuck you through the mattress. You have a condom?” he asks as he
reaches back down the side of the bed to pick the lube up from where he dropped
it.  When he looks back up, Gerard is blushing.
“Um – Well, I – No. I don’t. But uh – I’m clean if you are?” he says, avoiding
meeting Frank’s eyes.
Frank leans down and kisses him, the pressure potentially bruising.
“I’m clean,” he says, pulling back so he can look at Gerard’s face.
“Good,” Gerard says and kisses Frank again. He starts pulling at Frank’s boxers
and wonders how he still even has them on.
“How do you still have these on?” he says, making his last sentiment vocal.
“Like hell I know,” Frank replies, helping Gerard get them off of him.
Frank uncaps the lube and slicks himself up, using what probably could be
defined as an excess amount. He just really doesn’t want to hurt Gerard, and
you really can’t blame him.  
He leans back over Gerard, face happily burying itself in his neck as he lines
himself up. He peels his torso off of Gerard’s body so he can look at his face,
asking for consent one more time.
“Fuck me, please,” he breathes, eyes blown beautifully wide and knees pulling
themselves farther apart. Frank has to hold himself back from slamming in all
at once. He leans back in and kisses Gerard as he pushes in, slowly, letting
Gerard adjust to the head of his dick, and then pushing more of his length in,
painstakingly gentle and deliberate.
Gerard is pretty tempted to push Frank onto his back and just sit on his dick,
but he’s never really had slow, sweet sex before. Hookups tend to be quick and
messy and both people tend to be a little too intoxicated to do much else other
than get off.
So they go slow.  Frank holds him, one hand cradling the back of his head, the
other pressing the flat of his palm against the small of Gerard’s back, holding
his hips off the bed just a few centimeters. The entire time Frank is speaking
ceaselessly, low and directly into his ear, and Gerard is progressively losing
himself in the touch, the feel, the words.
The pace that Frank has set is driving Gerard insane. He’s babbling a mindless
mantra of ‘please please please please’. Frank keeps snickering into his neck
and replying, “What, what do you want?” and all Gerard can do in response whine
and say please again.
“You gotta talk to me Gee,” Frank says as he thrusts deep into Gerard, hitting
his prostate directly, throwing any coherent thoughts and words that Gerard may
have had right out the window.
“What do you want?” Frank asks, breathing rough into Gerard’s ear and biting at
the lobe.
“F-faster, please, faster,” He moans, locking his thighs around Frank’s hips
and rocking his ass upward to meet Frank’s thrusts.
“Mm. How fast?” he responds, speeding up his thrusts, but just barely.
“Through the fucking mattress, you promised, goddammit,” he says and slams his
hips up to meet Frank’s.
Frank sighs. “I guess I did. And it’d be bad manners to go back on my word…..”
With those words, he bites down sharply on Gerard’s pulse point and drops
Gerard’s hips, hitches his thighs up higher on Frank’s middle and slams hard
against Gerard’s prostate and doesn’t stop.
He cries out and thrusts against empty air, desperate for some kind of friction
so he can just come already.  Frank is holding himself up above Gerard, jaw
dropped and loose in pleasure and sweat forming at the crown of his head, eyes
screwed shut and he is perfect and beautiful.
It’s after they both come, after Frank makes this gyrating motion with his hips
that grinds up against Gerard’s prostate and he loses it, Frank biting down on
his shoulder and following not too long after that it hits Gerard like a train.
He loves him. He loves Frank, and they didn’t just fuck. No, they did something
Gerard’s never done, never thought he would do. They made love and Gerard feels
like such a fucking girl for saying it like that. But it’s true. After, as he’s
cuddled against Frank’s body, sweat drying between them and come poorly cleaned
up with an old shirt that Gerard realizes that he feels very, very loved.
He hopes, for the sake of both of them, that Frank loves him too.
✬✬✬
They can’t keep their hands off of each other in the days after and Mikey is
getting a little pissy about it.
“There’s this new thing, called decency? I doubt you’ve heard of it. Anyway,
what it entails is keeping your hand out of my brother’s pants and vice versa
while I’m within a 500 meter range,” he says with his arms crossed, glaring at
the pair like a disapproving mother.
Frank, just to spite him, leans over and drags his tongue over Gerard’s cheek.
 
“Do I need to fucking tattoo it to your forehead? Keep it in your fucking pants
until I’m gone!” Mikey says, exasperated and way beyond fucking done with Frank
and Gerard’s bullshit.
“Whoops,” Gerard says, shrugging slightly and tilting back at an admittedly
awkward angle so Frank can latch his teeth onto the skin above Gerard’s Adam’s
apple.
“That’s it, I’m fucking leaving, and I’m bringing Pete back and I’m going to
give him a fucking lap dance in front of you two and see how much you
appreciate it.”
Mikey stomps loudly and furiously up the stairs, and Gerard looks at Frank in a
panic.
“Do you think he’s actually going to do it?”
Frank snorts and nuzzles his nose against the back of Gerard’s neck.
“Knowing Mikey, and also knowing Pete Wentz, unfortunately, I think they might.
But, on the bright side, they’ll probably drag Ray and Bob with them, and Bob
has this whole thing about keeping sex and sex acts inside of bedrooms, which
means no lap dances. That also means that I can’t grab your tits or give you a
hickey, but I think avoiding the trauma of having to see Mikey and Pete act
like they’re in a strip club is a fair trade.”
Gerard nods solemnly. “My tits will miss your hands,” he says in a feigned
somber tone.
Frank giggles and moves his hands over Gerard’s pectorals, giving them a
playful squeeze.
“They’re not here yet, so your tits are mine,” he says impishly. Gerard
snickers and covers Frank’s hands with his own, gripping his hands and Frank’s
so they’re both grabbing his tits.
“My boobs demand their release now,” Gerard says. Frank pouts, but removes his
hands.
“That’s such a shame, you have nice tits.”
Gerard laughs again, his stupid, beautiful, honking laugh and cuddles back
against Frank.  
This is perfection, Frank thinks, and he wouldn’t trade this or any other
moment with Gerard for anything in the universe.
✬✬✬
True to his word, Mikey brings Pete back, and true to Frank’s predictions, Ray
and Bob are with them.
Mikey and Pete are holding hands and muttering back and forth at each other in
a hardly audible tone, shooting glances up at Frank and Gerard and muttering
more intensely.
Thankfully, Ray and Bob aren’t any of the dickwads from school. In fact,
they’re surprisingly nice, particularly Ray. Bob’s the kind of person that
looks constantly either done with everyone’s shit or pissed as fuck, and Frank
takes a little too much amusement in causing either one of those looks to
appear or intensify.
Rather than collapsing in on himself and participating in as little
conversation as possible, Gerard finds himself open and engaging in strange but
nonetheless pleasant conversations with Frank, Ray, Bob and Mikey, and
occasionally Pete, when he isn’t staring off into space or concentrating on
Mikey’s crotch.
They talk for a long time, about absolutely nothing, like they’ve all been
friends for a really long time. Mikey sits in Pete’s lap, but doesn’t start
giving him a lap dance (thank Jesus) and just sort of leans against Pete like
Gerard tends to do with Frank.
Somehow, they get to talking about videogames, and when Frank claims he could
easily kick Bob’s ass at Halo, Bob’s only response is “bring it, midget”.
So the next three or so hours are wasted with Frank’s evil cackles and Bob’s
excessive and loud swearing, paired with the occasional triumphant cheer and
Frank’s shouts of “I let you do that, I let you do that”.
Pete and Mikey heckle them (although Gerard isn’t really sure why, he figures
it must be a thing they do), and Ray just smiles and laughs at their antics.
It’s infectious, and Gerard catches himself smiling and laughing along with his
newfound friends.
Friends, he thinks to himself, plural. He smiles wider and his insides feel
like sunshine.
✬✬✬
It’s getting dark out when Ray, Bob and Pete decide that they should head back
to their homes. Frank shouts that he totally kicked Bob’s ass (even though Bob
won) while Mikey pouts and winds his arms around Pete’s neck. Their muttering
recommences, abruptly silenced with a kiss.
“Get your tongue out of his mouth and get your ass in gear, Wentz,” Bob says,
smacking Pete over the head glowering at the two. Ray just shakes his head and
pats Gerard on the shoulder, telling him it was nice to meet him and leans over
to ruffle Frank’s hair, which earns him a glare and a middle finger.
“I’ll walk with you guys,” Mikey says. Bob rolls his eyes but doesn’t say
anything and they troop out of the house, an argument over whether or not to
stop at Taco Bell erupting halfway out the door.
Frank crawls up from the couch from his previous position of sitting on the
floor with his back between Gerard’s legs and cuddles up happily against
Gerard’s side, sighing in contentment.
“They’re good people, aren’t they?” he says, and Gerard wholeheartedly agrees.
“Yeah, they are. I’m glad I met them.”
“Look at you, being a social butterfly!” Frank quips. Gerard scowls and smacks
Frank’s arm.
“Shut your whore mouth or I’ll fuck it.”
Frank grins and rests his chin on the side of Gerard’s shoulder.
“I’m not exactly opposed to that.”
Gerard’s face flushes and he smacks Frank again.
✬✬✬
Two weeks later and Gerard is back at square one. The bruises and cuts that had
healed have been replaced with new ones and they are worse, so much worse than
the ones they covered.
The pain is almost unbearable, to the point where every breath feels like
someone is stabbing him. One or two of his ribs are probably broken (or
fractured, that’s happened before).
And Frank, Frank knows about none of it.
Mikey scolds him about it, leaning against the door frame of the bathroom while
Gerard tries to clean up some of the more gruesome lacerations.
“You really should tell him. He deserves to know,” Mikey says, frowning at
Gerard’s half ass attempt at placing butterfly bandages over a wound.
“I don’t want to tell him. We both know he gets real mad real quick and if he
sees how hurt I am he’ll be on the ten o’ clock news for murder,” Gerard says.
Mikey sighs heavily and rests his head against the wall.
“And what is your plan for when he wants sex?”
Gerard shrugs, winces, and wishes he hadn’t decided to move his shoulders.
Fucking ow.
“Suck his dick and come in my pants.”
“Not the best plan you’ve ever had, but I don’t really have a say, do I?”
“No, you don’t. Sorry. Okay, fuck this shit,” he says, tossing aside the tape.
“Hand me the superglue.”
Mikey shakes his head, but complies nonetheless. He winces as Gerard squeezes
the tube while pinching the cut together, spreading the tacky substance
generously over the pursed skin.
 “Whatever, Gee,” he says, defeated. Mikey leaves the bathroom and goes to his
room, closing the door with a near-silent click that seems to reverberate
through the whole house.
In that moment, Gerard wants nothing more than to die. He wants to die for
doing this to Mikey, for doing this to Frankie, for doing this to his mother.
The voices surge back with a stronger force and he grips the edge of the marble
counter, staring at the basin of the sink, the world drifting in and out of
focus.
Just write a note, they push. You don’t have to do anything, you won’t be
hurting anyone. Just write the note.
Gerard stumbles down to the basement and rummages through his desk for pen and
paper.
With tears welling up in his eyes and a heart heavier than the anchor of a
ship, he begins to write.
✬✬✬
To the horror of Gerard (and the sick pleasure of the voices in his head) Frank
finds the not-really-a-draft of the note a few days after it’s been written.
His heart crashes through the floor and through the crust of the earth and
plummets into the depths of hell and burns.
“Gee – what – what is this?” he asks, eyes wide in fear and hands trembling
around the paper.
Gerard forces himself to suck in a shaky breath.
“It’s what you think it is.”
Frank’s mouth stays open in shock and his eyes shine with tears. He reads the
note again and cover his mouth with a hand, the tears escaping his eyes at a
rate quickly increasing.
“Why? Are you – are you planning something?” Frank asks, the fear, the sorrow,
the pain prominent in his voice and whatever life was left in Gerard’s soul is
slowly being carved out with every word out of his lover’s mouth.
“I wasn’t planning anything,” Until now, the voices insist. “I just had to get
it out of my system.”
“Fuck, Gerard. Fuck,” Frank says, setting the paper aside and covering his face
with his hands, shoulders sagging beneath the weight of the moment.
“Hey,” Gerard says, scooting forward and moving one of Frank’s hands away from
his cheek so he can replace it with his own. “Look at me. I’m not going
anywhere, okay? I’m staying right here, with you. I promise.”
Frank leans into his hand and tilts his head so he can press a kiss to the
palm, face warm and damp with tears.
“Please don’t leave me,” he whispers. Gerard leans forward and presses a gentle
kiss to Frank’s quivering lips.
“I won’t. I won’t,” he says.
The words are empty. Gerard is empty, hollowed out, and not even Frank can
restore the will to live that he now lacks.
That night, they lay tangled in each other, Frank’s head resting over Gerard’s
heart. While he cards his fingers through Frank’s hair, he mentally plans out
the final draft of his note.
✬✬✬
His mom manages to take a week off from work so she can catch up on sleep and
check in on her kids. Gerard pushes his selected suicide date back a bit, just
so he can spend a few more days with his mother.
After sleeping for two solid days straight, she announces that Mikey and Gerard
are taking the day off from school and the three of them are spending the day
together.
Gerard doesn’t object or complain. He gets the day off from school and he gets
to see his mom. It’s a very acceptable exchange for pushing his date back.
She takes them out to their favorite restaurant and spends the day watching
shitty horror movies and heckling the actors and characters with them. It’s
almost as if she has psychic mind powers and can tell that Gerard’s about to do
something rash and stupid.
By the time his mom has to return to work, Gerard misses her presence immensely
and very nearly regrets what he’s going to do in two days.
He spends an entire day with Frank, the day before he plans to die, on an all-
day date of sorts. It had occurred to him that he and Frank had never gone on a
date, so he decides to make it one of the last things he does.
They go to an abandoned children’s park and play on the swings, spend a stupid
amount of time and money at an arcade and share a massive stack of pancakes at
IHOP. Gerard thinks it’s a pretty good first date, even if it’s probably going
to be their only one.
Gerard is so utterly in love it isn’t even funny. But the hollowness outweighs
his love for Frank, and his love for Frank is something massive. He’s
collapsing beneath the pressure of keeping his heart beating.
Ray and Bob come over for a bit too, and it physically pains Gerard, how
unaware everyone is.
The day before his suicide date is spent with Frank and Mikey, hidden in the
basement away from the world. It’s honestly Gerard’s ideal last day, spent with
the two people he cares about the most. When Frank leaves, he gives him the
sweetest kiss he can and tries to channel everything he feels for him into that
kiss, hoping Frank gets the message, or at least part of it.
He hugs Mikey and tells him he loves him, and although Mikey looks confused, he
says it back.
Gerard lays in his bed later that night and stares at the ceiling for forty
five minutes, exhausted, biting back tears, before rolling out of bed, taking
out a pen and a stack of paper and writing out his suicide note in the
cleanest, neatest writing he has.
✬✬✬
Dear reader,
I’m sorry, but not sorry enough to stop this. This is inevitable. I am an
empty, hollowed out shell and although I am very much in love I have no will to
live. For that, I am sorry.
Sorry Mikey. Sorry Frank. Sorry Bob, sorry Ray, sorry anyone that’s been
affected by my death. I love you mom. And to the bastard I call my father, see
you in hell, fucker.
All the love and regards I have left,
Gerard Arthur Way
✬✬✬
He leans back in his chair and reads over his note. Deeming it satisfactory, he
digs out the mix of antidepressants and pain pills that he’s had stashed in his
desk for a while. Finding a mostly full bottle of alcohol, he folds the note
neatly in half drags himself to the bathtub and climbs inside it, leaving the
note on the counter.
The porcelain is shockingly cool on his skin, it sends shivers up and down his
spine. His hands shake as he dumps the pills down his mouth and swallows them
down with the liquor.
He rests his head against the rim of the bathtub and forces his body to sleep
as the pills start to take effect.
Horror floods him when a knock on the bathroom door drags him near
consciousness. They turn the handle of the door and open it, and they don’t
scream, or gasp, or make any noise at all. They rush to his side and pull him
up and out of the bathtub, saying things to him, things he can’t really hear.
“Fuck Gee, fuck, no, please no, please Gee, stay with me, I – “
They swear again and then they’re talking to someone else, and even though
Gerard can’t make too much sense out of it, he catches the words ‘overdosed’
and ‘ambulance’ and ‘quickly’.
“Fuck,” They say again and cradle his head in the crook of their arm, his body
awkwardly splayed across their lap.
“Please live Gee, please, I – I love you, please,” they beg.  Gerard forces his
eyes to open one last time and summons every last ounce of energy he has.
Frank is the one holding him, and the tears dripping onto Gerard’s chest belong
to him.
“Frankie,” he smiles, using all of his effort to raise his arm and cup Frank’s
cheek in the palm of his hand.
“I love you too. More than you’ll ever know,” he whispers.
“Fuck,” he says and turns over in Frank’s arms so he can vomit blood, red red
red, red like Frank’s lips after he’s kissed them for a long time, red like the
color he feels when he holds Frank, red like the sun when it sinks beneath the
sky.
Red like love.
Frank swears once again and Gerard can hear sirens in the distance. He shouts
something into the house, and someone shouts something back (Mikey, again, his
brain says,). The sirens draw nearer and nearer still until they’re loud, too
loud, too close.
He’s just barely conscious when he hears more shouting voices.
The sound of the footsteps running toward him get farther and farther away with
every palpitating heartbeat. Frank’s voice is only a vague tether, until
something cuts it and Gerard is swallowed in a void black like the emptiness
that’s swallowed him whole, black like the most violent bruises.
Black like death. Black like this is end.
***** Pray For The Dead *****
✬One and a half years later✬
Gerard sits on the cold cement steps of the looming building behind him, eyes
scanning the street for the telltale vehicle signaling his brother’s and
mother’s arrival.
He nudges the suitcase by his side idly with a toe, directing his gaze up at
the chilled November sky and breathes in deeply.
This is the first time in a year and a little more that he’s been outside
without a nurse with him. For whatever reason, the world seems more beautiful
now that he’s allowed to do as he pleases, when he pleases, without constant
supervision.
“Gerard! Hey!” a voice shouts from behind him.
He twists around a bit and grins.
Usually, the hospital would arrange releases so that none of them overlapped,
but with the swamp of outpaitents a few had, thankfully.
He hadn’t been completely alone this last year. He’d made a few friends, some
that had gotten released shortly after his arrival, and some, like the
approaching girl, that had been there the whole time.
“Six!” he calls, grin stretching wide across his face like it always does with
her.
“What the fuck are you doing?” She asks, sitting down by his side and pulling
the sleeves of her hoodie farther down her hands in an attempt to keep them
warm.
He shrugs. “I’m waiting for Mikey and mom. You?”
“If my Nana would stop fucking watching reruns of Sex In The City then I’d be
at home right now with my cat and bed.”
Gerard laughs and she smiles.
“It’s fucking cold out,” she says. “My piercings are going to mold into my face
at this rate.”
He doesn’t think that’s possible, but he doesn’t say so. If it is, it’d sure as
hell be painful for her, as she has piercings on her lips, eyebrow, nose, and
multiple up, down and through her ears.
“If they do, then you won’t ever have to worry about them closing up again,” he
points out. She nods.
“Excellent point.”
They sit in a comfortable silence for a while, staring at the crisp winter
landscape around them.
Six breaks the silence, and Gerard almost wishes she hadn’t.
“So are you going to go see Frank when you get home?”
Gerard shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so. He probably hates me. I mean,
Mikey was pissed as fuck and yet he still visited me. Frank hasn’t visited me
once, not even a call.”
“But he loves you, right?”
“I highly fucking doubt it. I’m not very lovable, especially after what I’ve
done.”
Six picks up a twig from beside the pair and starts poking at a teeny ant
that’s crawling over her shoe.
“I think he still loves you, even if he didn’t visit, even if he didn’t call,”
she says softly.
“Honestly? I hope he does. I still love him, even if he’s stopped loving me,”
Gerard admits.
“Now that, motherfucker, is true love.”
“You make me sound like a Disney princess,” Gerard says with a laugh.
“Oh dear god no, please don’t burst into song and start talking to birds and
deer and shit,” she says and Gerard laughs again.
Just then, a car pulls up with Mikey in the passenger seat. He’s grinning, eyes
wide and happy for the first time in a while.
Gerard stands, and Six stands with him.
“See you ‘round, motherfucker” she says, and pulls him into a bone crushing
hug.
“You have my number, right?” he asks after they pull away, as he picks up his
suitcase.
“Yup. It’s in my notebook.” She confirms. Gerard knows she wouldn’t have lost
it even if it wasn’t in her notebook.
“Great. Call me or text me or some shit, okay?”
She smiles and mock salutes him.
“Aye aye, captain.”
“Bye, Sixta.”
“Adios, fucknut.”
He turns his back to her descends the hospital steps slowly and deliberately,
reveling in the noise his shoes make on the cement. After a year of nothing but
slippers, normal shoes feel like a luxury, and so do his jeans and Iron Maiden
shirt.
Never again will he touch sweatpants or plain t-shirts unless he absolutely has
to.
Mikey almost literally jumps out of the car and wraps Gerard in a hug so tight
he almost can’t breathe. And he thought Sixta gave rough hugs.
“Don’t ever fucking do that again,” he says, still crushing Gerard’s
intestines.
“Trust me,” Gerard says, “I don’t ever intend to, or want to. Jesus Christ.”
Mikey releases him and his mother swoops in, re-administering the bear hug and
saying things into his shirt about her baby being okay, her baby coming home.  
The most Gerard can do is hug back and make more promises that he won’t ever
try to take his own life again.
Gerard gets shotgun on the way home, Mikey opting to sit in the back.
He marvels at how beautiful the city is, and how the place he once came to
dread now seems so full of life. He’s tempted to just run around the block a
few times and feel free, but he’s low on energy from the lack of sleep brought
on by the excitement of his release.
So he just closes his eyes, rests his head against the back of his seat and
rests, his heart fluttering like the first beats of a bird’s wings on open air.
✬One and a half years prior✬
The dark coddles Gerard, keeping him wrapped in its clutches like a greedy
child.
That is, until a steady beep, beep, beep and the sound of voices begin to
gently tug him away from the blackness.
He doesn’t want to open his eyes. He knows he failed, he knows he’s alive, and
he hates himself, he dreads having to look at the sunlight, having to face
Mikey, his mother, and Frank.
Oh god, what has he done?
His eyes stay closed and he focuses on making the voice that’s talking become
clearer.
“He has three broken and two fractured ribs, a plethora of seemingly self-
inflicted wounds, paired with bruises that could only have come from someone
else, or a very bad fall down multiple staircases,” the voice is saying. It
makes sense to Gerard, his chest fucking hurt, though it doesn’t so much now,
but that may have something to do with the fact he can’t feel his body.
“His stomach had to be pumped and he was severely dehydrated, as well as
malnourished.  Were you aware of any of this?”
Silence. Well, not silence. The annoying beepy machine is still, well, beeping,
and he thinks he can hear his breaths. He must have one of those weird ass
oxygen thingies on his face.
“No, not at all,” a new voice says. A new femalevoice.
Mom.
He tries to say it, tries to make his mouth work, but it won’t. It’s almost
like it’s been glued shut.
Eyes, he realizes. I can open my eyes.
His eyelashes flutter open and immediately squish back closed, blinded by the
harsh white lights of the hospital room.
“Gerard? Gerard?” his mom says, and her hand finds his and squeezes.
Internally, he takes a deep breath and opens his eyes again, much slower this
time.
Instantly, there are doctors and medical personnel standing over him, his
mother and Mikey’s faces appearing and blending into the crowd.
His mouth is still stuck, and a nurse comes to his side and takes the plastic
breathing mask off of his mouth.
“Gerard? Oh my god, oh my god, you’re awake, oh my god –“  his mom starts
choking and gasping, sobs wracking through her body, Mikey rubbing her back and
repeating a chorus of ‘it’s okay, he’s okay’ while asking Gerard a silent
question.
“I’m tired. Gonna go back to sleep now,” he says. A nurse tries to start
talking to him, but the weight of his eyelids paired with the lack of gravity
in his body drag him away from consciousness.
✬✬✬
When he wakes up again, god knows how long later, the beepy machine is still
making noise, but the oxygen mask has been removed. He tries to sit up, but his
efforts are discouraged when the room spins, so he lays back down against the
pillows and thinks about what he’s done.
Tears slide down his face and he looks up at the hospital window. There’s
golden orange evening sunlight spilling through it, casting shadows around the
room and over his bed, highlighting Mikey’s face with spindly black shapes
where he sleeps in the chair in the corner of the room. The tears turn gold
against the pale skin of his face and hands, reflecting and absorbing the
light. The only things in this room that ruins the pristine combinations of
golden and white are Gerard and Mikey, Gerard’s hair stark against the
faultless light and Mikey’s entire being put out of place, his dark clothes and
brown hair the only things bringing some form of color into the room.
Gerard really starts to cry then. He had been okay with never seeing the sun
again, with never seeing his brother again, with never seeing Frank again. He
had been okay with dying.
And now he’s here in this godforsaken hospital room with doctors that have been
pumping fluids and medicine into him and keeping him alive. Gerard almost
wishes he’d written “DNR” in big block letters on his note and left it so
people could see.
Across the room, Mikey snuffles and stirs. Gerard holds his breath and watches
as Mikey’s eyes slowly open and adjust to the glowing room.
“Gee?” He asks, slowly sitting up.
“I’m here, Mikes.” He says. Mikey nods and sits up, getting to his feet and
awkwardly stumbling to the hospital bed and crawling into it next to his
brother.
Gerard scoots over to give him a bit more space (also so that his arm isn’t
pinned beneath Mikey’s bony as all fuck chest) and ruffles Mikey’s tawny hair.
“Mom’s a wreck,” he says into the stiff hospital pillow.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“Me too. Frank’s worse.”
The beepy machine speeds up. Gerard glares at it.
“The fuck is this thing even for?” he says and idly smacks the arm currently
not preoccupied by Mikey at it.
“It keeps track of your heartbeats, fucknut,” Mikey says.
“Well I know that, but what is it for?”
“For annoying the fuck out of you.”
Gerard laughs, although it’s hollow and empty, like he feels.
“They’re gonna put you in a mental hospital, you know,” Mikey says after a
minute, turning his cheek so he can look at Gerard.
“I figured they would,” Gerard says solemnly.
“Has Frank come to see me?” he asks. Mikey sighs.
“Yeah, he did. He actually rode with you in the ambulance. Held your hand a
lot. Cried himself out.”
“I fucking hate myself,” Gerard says. Mikey reaches over and pats his cheek.
“None of this is your fault. Chemicals and shit. Science.”
“Yeah,” Gerard agrees, “But it isn’t science making my boyfriend feel like shit
and making my mother cry.”
“Technically speaking, it is, well, chemistry actually –“ Gerard cuts him off
with a smack at his face.
“I get what you’re saying,” Mikey says instead.
A nurse raps her knuckles on the door.
“Gerard Way? The vehicle that will take you to the hospital is ready when you
are,” she says, smiling a little too brightly for Gerard’s tastes. Gerard
forces himself to smile back.
“Okay, I’ll let you know,” he responds, and she exits the room.
“Make some cool friends, okay?” Mikey says, sitting up and pulling Gerard into
a tight hug.
“Frank gonna come say goodbye? What about mom?” he asks, curious, since he’s
only been aware of Mikey’s presence for the majority of the day.
“Mom’s passed the fuck out, she’s tired, and Frank, I don’t know. I don’t think
he’s coming back. I’m sorry Gee,” Mikey says, and pulls him into another hug.
Gerard pretends it doesn’t hurt. He’s numb, he can’t really feel anything to
begin with. “It’s okay. You’re here, and I think that’s all I need.”
They stay like that for a while, hugging on the stiff and sterile hospital bed,
the dying sunlight lightening the room just barely as it slides away and
stretches the shadows longer across the tile floor.
“I’ll visit you as soon as I can, and I’ll tell Frankie you’ve gone. Sound
good?” Mikey asks.
“Yeah. Sounds good.”
Gerard takes a deep breath.
“Alright. Off to the loony bin.”
That’s the most sincere joke he’s made in a long, long time, and even though
there’s no life behind it, it makes Mikey laugh nonetheless, bringing alive
sunshine into the room for just a moment.
✬✬✬
His first night at the hospital isn’t so bad. His roommate is a boy named Will,
with tired eyes and a Blink-182 shirt, who smiles at him and then redirects his
attention back to the book he was reading prior to Gerard’s arrival. The nurse
instructs Will to show Gerard around, please, and to actually speak, for once.
Will nods and the nurse glares.
After she leaves, Will starts talking. It turns out they have a lot in common,
even if Will is Mormon and tries to teach Gerard the Ways of Jesus. Gerard
politely declines and Will shrugs and resumes talking about whatever band
they’d been most recently talking about. They’d talked about quite a few that
first night.
Dinner is an event to be remembered, the food is pretty good and even though
he’s shaky and obviously scared, everyone is so, so nice to him. The staff
hover, but don’t say anything, and oddly enough, Gerard feels like he has some
form of a family.
That night, when he lays down on the bed parallel to Will’s, he stares at the
ceiling and thinks about Frank.
His heart feels hollow, even though he loves Frank, he’s so terrified that his
feelings are no longer returned.
✬✬✬
After the first week, time flies by. The doctors start giving him whatever
antidepressant and he starts seeing one of the counselors every day for two
hours.
It’s approximately five months later that he feels on his feet, held together,
for the first time in a long, long time. The doctors insist on keeping him for
a little while longer however, so they can keep an eye on him while they adjust
the dosage of his medication.
Mikey visits every other weekend, or whenever he can sucker Ray or Bob into
driving him to see Gerard.
His mother visits sometimes, whenever she can catch a free day from her
grueling shift at her work.
Frank doesn’t visit. He doesn’t call. And even though Mikey and he are still
best friends, Frank says nothing to Mikey about Gerard. At all.
“It’s almost like he’s convinced you aren’t real,” Mikey says. Gerard bites his
tongue and swallows back tears. He just nods.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” Mikey says.
“No,” Gerard sighs. “Let him live. It’s okay.”
Even though it’s not, it’s really, really not.
✬One and a half years later✬
“Gerard, wake up. We’re home,” Mikey says, shaking his shoulder from behind the
passenger seat.
He forces his legs to work and gets himself out of the car. The shock of the
freezing November air successfully waking him up.
Once inside, he breathes in the smell of coffee, the morning’s breakfast and
something else distinctly home and basks in it. After a year of perpetual
hospital smell and that weird sterile soap anything other is a luxury,
practically a myth.
He tells his mom that he’s taking a walk down to the children’s park after he’s
artlessly thrown his suitcase down into the basement (which is somehow clean,
holy shit). She shouts back a response that Gerard doesn’t completely catch,
but he doesn’t hear no, so he goes.
The swings make the most obnoxious squeaking noise on the planet, but somehow
it’s kind of soothing.
He realizes while he watches his feet swing upward and cover the clouds, that
this is the park he and Frank went to on their first date.
Breathing in deep, he bites back tears and thinks about Six and all his other
friends, particularly Will, who always talked about seeing his girlfriend when
he got out.
That was how all of their best conversations started. When I get out…….
Some kids said they were going to confess their love. Some kids said they were
going to punch whoever in the face. And some kids, kids like Gerard, kids like
Will, said the first thing they were going to do when they were released form
the hospital was cling to their lover and never, ever let them go.
When I get out, he thinks sadly.
When I get out.
✬✬✬
God knows how long he swings for, he sort of loses track of time, transfixed by
the sky and the leaves and the occasional family that appears, their child (or
children) bundled in coats and scarves.
He hardly notices when someone sits next to him on the swings and begins
swinging with him.
It’s only after he slows to a stop and the person next to him does as well that
he really pays attention to them.
At first, he doesn’t believe it. It doesn’t seem real, or possible.
“Frankie?” He asks, his voice shaky and small.
Frank smiles. Even though he looks different (duh, he thinks, people change in
almost two years, what else was he supposed to be expecting) it’s still the
same smile. Still the same Frank.
“Hi, Gee.”
✬✬✬
He kisses Frank, long and hard, pressing his entire body up against Frank (even
though he’s smaller) and holding him like he’s the last lifejacket on a sinking
ship.
“I missed you, so much,” Gerard says against Frank’s mouth. Frank hums.
“I missed you too. More than you’ll ever know.”
Gerard loops his arms around Frank’s neck and buries his face in Frank’s
shoulder, nose happily tucked in the crook of his neck. 
He feels like crying and he feels like celebrating all at once.
Gerard draws in a shaky breath before speaking.
“I love you,” he whispers against the skin of Frank’s neck.
Frank pulls Gerard away from his neck and cups his face in his hands, looking
Gerard in the eye. Gerard can see the honesty and warmth shining there, and the
feeling of love surges up again.
“I love you too, Gerard, with everything I am and then some. I love you, I love
you, I love you,” he says, each declaration punctuated with a kiss filled with
just as much passion.
“My mom isn’t home,” he says, and Gerard’s eyes widen.
Frank and Gerard practically sprintback to Frank’s house, losing their clothes
almost the moment they’re in the door.
They make love, and Gerard isn’t ashamed of saying it this time, because that’s
what it is, and it most definitely couldn’t be anything but.
Frank whispers endlessly that he loves Gerard, and after, as they lay in
Frank’s bed, a sticky mess, Frank tells him he’s beautiful.
And Gerard?
Gerard believes him.
✬END✬
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