Art Brut [2/?]
Title: Art Brut [2/?]
Author: break_kitkat
Pairing: Gerard/Frank, others to come!
Rating: PG-13 this chapter for swearing. Rating adjusted by chapter.
POV: Third.
Summary: It was a dry midsummer day the last time Mikey saw his brother. Then Gerard went missing, and no one knows if he's ever coming back.
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own, don't sue. Never happened, not reality, not real people. Faker than a big ol' bowl of silicone.
Author Notes: In this 'verse: Gerard and Frank are married, they have a daughter called Sarah. This is my return to fandom after two years' absence, I hope this is alright. Comments and crit so very welcome. Thank you very much for the comments on the previous chapter, they were very much appreciated :D
Warnings: None for this chapter, a bit of stress and Mikey's shoddy parenting skills.
Part One
Part Two: Going Underground
Halfway through the conversation, Mikey slapped the kitchen counter in frustration: Frank wasn't taking this seriously. Sarah looked over at her uncle with wide eyes, from her seat strapped into her car carrier at the table since Mikey didn't have a high chair, and he turned away. There was too much of Gerard in her for him to look at her at the moment.
"He was drunk, Frank."
"He's changed medications, they make him like that sometimes," there was a note of uncertainty starting to creep into his friend's voice, despite his denial.
"He told me he'd run out of meds." Silence from Frank's end. Mikey sighed. "I could smell it on him man, he's drinking again."
"Well...what the fuck?" He could picture Frank tugging on his hair as he tried to comprehend the information and figure out how to respond. "What's he got to say about it?"
"I don't know. He didn't say anything. He went off to a doctor's appointment hours ago." Mikey glanced out of the window at the drive again, as though expecting to see his brother's return, though it didn't occur. He was beginning to get a little worried.
"Just tell him to call me when he gets back, I need to find out what's going on." Frank huffed out a breath too irritably for it to be called a sigh, disguising his emotion in frustration. "He's been acting weird for a while, but I didn't know things were this bad."
"Well, Frank, you live with him!" The exclamation was met with silence and Mikey reflexively reached up to push his glasses up his nose (he was usually used to not having them, but sometimes habit still took over) before relenting. "Sorry, it's not your fault. Gee can hide things better than anyone."
"He couldn't hide it from you." Frank finally muttered.
"You'd notice too if he stank of whiskey."
That killed the conversation for both of them, and silence crackled for a minute so long they thought it might never end. Then Sarah started to cry, and the real world came crashing back in on them.
"I gotta go," Mikey unbuckled her awkwardly from her car seat and balanced her on his hip, trying to comfort her. "Liss'll be back in like an hour, so you don't have to worry about my shoddy parenting skills."
This drew a short laugh from Frank and Mikey smiled, trying to force his concerns to the back of his mind, though they refused to be tamed for long.
"He was supposed to be back hours ago." The bassist said quietly, and on the other end of the line Frank bit off his thumbnail for the first time in a year. Gerard had persuaded him to stop biting his nails, but what was the point if neither of them could give up their bad habits?
"He'll just be sitting having a smoke and have lost track of time. Wouldn't be the first time." Frank tried to rationalise, to calm the slowly rising panic in his gut. "It's not like we haven't done this before Mike."
"I know, I know," he bounced his niece gently to try and calm her crying. "Just can't believe history's repeating itself again."
"We'll catch him this time, he's not gonna fall too far." A strand of black floated down before his eyes and Frank brought his hand down to grip on the hotel bedspread instead of his hair: he hadn't realised he was tugging hard enough to pull it out. "I'll be back tomorrow anyway, but tell him to call me when he appears, whatever time it is."
"I will. I can't believe you're being the rational one here." Sarah's volume increased and Mikey winced at the assault on his eardrums. "Okay, I really have to go. I'll get him to call you, take care."
"Thanks Mikey. Give Sarah a kiss for me, I'll see you soon."
After they hung up, Frank sat perfectly still on the unfamiliar, too-hard bed for a few moments before he noticed he was squeezing his hand into a fist so hard his nails had broken the skin. Not thinking about anything but Gerard, and what the hell had gone wrong now, he dully examined the crescent-shaped wounds in his palm, not really seeing anything outside his mind's eye.
"Rational." He muttered, and laughed.
Then fell into silence again, too worried to cry.
*
*
The nausea increased as the bus turned another corner, nearing its final destination. It was the sickest he'd ever felt, in the oppressive, sticky heat of too many bodies pressing too close together in a tin can. The neurons in his brain seemed to have stopped firing, an electrical short. He'd run. He didn't think about Frank, or Sarah, or his brother and his friends. He couldn't think at all.
All he knew at that moment was sickness.