The Weekend (Sleep Spent)
Title: The Weekend (Sleep Spent)
Author: sakurashakedown
Pairing: Frank/Gerard, Pete/Patrick
Rating: R
Warning: Drug abuse, Language, Adult situations
Disclaimer: Don't own anything....
Summary:Frank remembers the first time he saw Gerard... Frank wakes up one day and realizes his life has spiraled wildly out of control.
PART ONE: To Not Expel The Truth
PART TWO: To Split A Heart From A Name
Frank remembers the first time he saw Gerard in the club and how he thought he was the most beautiful thing ever with his kohl rimmed eyes and ivory skin. He remembers going home, breathless, smiling and giddy and not being able to wait until the next day to ask him out.
He remembers his first date with Gerard and how he was so nervous, because he’d never liked someone so much, that he drank too much at the restaurant and started hiccupping halfway through the meal and couldn’t stop. Gerard, he was just as nervous because he’d never been in this part of town before - the trendy park area that was inhabited mostly by cougars and young professionals - and he felt underdressed and common and really wanted an Ativan or a Xanax.
After stumbling through an awkward dinner, they’d tripped through the park together and watched the sky get dark and the moon come up and at one point, while they were watching the ducks curl up and sleep on the shore of the lake, Gerard let Frank hold his hand and Frank couldn’t help but notice how nicely their hands fit together; like pieces of a puzzle. It made his heart race the way his heart always raced when he’d walk into a bar after being dry for a week. He liked it.
Frank remembers his first kiss with Gerard and how he tasted like cigarettes and something sweet and fruity, like candy. This was on their third date, which wasn’t really much of a date at all; just the two of them wandering around some downtown all-day arts festival together. They had just finished watching some belly-dance troupe belly-dancing and the sky was blue and the air was warm and Gerard Way turned to Frank Iero and said, “Well, aren’t you gonna kiss me already?”
And Frank, well, he’d scratched his head and got embarrassed and turned red and started mumbling something and Gerard just stood there watching him with his earthy green eyes until Frank got over himself and pressed his lips against Gerard’s. Gerard, his mouth was sticky with something and his tongue was soft and warm and, right before they pulled apart, he nipped Frank’s bottom lip real quick - quicker than Frank could blink - and the sting reminded Frank of the first time he downed hard liquor. And he liked it.
Frank also remembers the first time he and Gerard made love. They were laying on the couch making out - whatever movie they’d been watching long forgotten - and Frank was just about to slip his hand under the band of Gerard’s pants when Gerard pushed him away and sat up. His hair a mess from where Gerard had been pulling at it, Frank was just about to start apologizing when Gerard reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out two little candy-colored, candy-shaped pills and said, mouth red and swollen, voice nervous, hand shaking, “Y-you want one?” Gerard always stammered when he was worried about what Frank was thinking of him.
Frank, he didn’t even bother asking what it was, just plucked one up out of the soft, moist palm of Gerard’s hand and popped it, because he was a try-anything-once type of guy; he’d done shrooms in the park with Pete before, dropped LSD once with a cousin - and didn’t like it - and had taken one of Ryan Ross’ little red seconals once during a party, just to see what would happen. He’s never been much of a pill person, but he’d taken it and he’d watched Gerard eat his own little colored pill with the same sort of burning animalistic craving he got sometimes when he watched porn or was craving vodka and, when he ravished Gerard, it was quick and instant; their clothes on the floor, Frank bruising Gerard’s neck with his mouth. They ended up falling on the floor, making love at the foot of the couch, Frank pounding into Gerard for all he was worth. He got one look at Gerard’s eyes - they were hazel this time; gold and green-flecked and wide and dilated - before he came, hot and heavy.
It was probably the one of the best orgasms he’d ever had.
And afterwards they just laid tangled together on the floor, sweating and panting and staring into each other’s eyes and, even though his mind was racing a million miles a minute, somewhere, deep inside, Frank thought, could this be love?
---<>---
Saturday, Frank gets a call from Pete. He’s in some club downtown with the music blasting so loud he has to yell over the phone. Frank is in the kitchen making pasta - because now that he’s getting clean his body is demanding regular meals again - and it’s quiet and calm and everything that wherever Pete is, isn’t.
Frank stabs a noodle, tastes it, and says, “Yeah?”
Pete, Frank can tell he’s getting close to being drunk because his words are starting to slur, says, “Hey? Hey! Yeah, I’m at this club or wherever and - I mean I wasn’t even going to bother with telling you this or whatever, but Patrick thinks you should know - that, um, yeah - your boyfriend’s out of control. I mean, I thought Gabe was bad, but your boyfriend’s fucking crazy. Patrick thinks he’s gonna get thrown out; he keeps blacking out and shit and arguing with that other guy. And, like, Patrick wants to take him home or whatever, but he is not staying with me, dude. ‘Cause I mean -”
The phone goes out and Frank blinks at the receiver for a minute, worried and wondering what happened with the service, before he realizes he was the one who’d hung up; he’d done it entirely without thinking.
And maybe it was just some instinctual self-preserving reflex to save him the trauma, Frank doesn’t know. He doesn’t try to know. Instead, he busies himself with cooking dinner, throws himself into the nitty-gritty details of it all and even sets the table the way they taught him in private school, just to fill his mind enough so that he doesn’t think of Gerard. Frank’s still not used to all this clear thinking. He’s not used to all this extra space in his mind that he has now that he isn’t a druggy.
Right now, Frank really wants a vodka and tonic or a hit of cocaine and that scares him, so he just ends up making a salad and dessert instead.
---<>---
Monday morning Pete and Patrick come over to check on Frank and give him the Talk. Well, Patrick comes to talk and Pete just comes to help eat all the excess food from Frank’s anxiety-fueled cooking fit on Saturday.
Pete rifles through the kitchen and Frank and Patrick go to sit in the living room. Frank wonders if Patrick ever envies Pete’s ability to eat everything and stay model-thin, while Patrick only has to eat an apple to gain seven pounds - he can’t help it, with all this new space in his mind, he wonders about everything now.
Patrick’s wearing his gray suit because he has a job - he works at some record company - and has to be there after he visits Frank. Patrick is unique in that, unlike a lot of people dancing in Frank’s social circle, Patrick actually has goals and dreams and doesn’t drink to excess or pop pills or take acid or snort cocaine or shoot heroine. He went to public school, went to college on a scholarship, and got a job because he works hard and actually gives a shit and has talent. Before he moved in with Pete, Patrick was living in a modest-sized apartment, in a nice, quiet neighborhood that he paid for with his job at the record company. On the weekends he went to shows or jazz clubs or worked on his own music. Sometimes he’d go club hopping, but that was only when the mood struck him. He didn’t - and doesn’t - lay around like a lot of Frank’s friends, living off his trust fund and worrying about chaise lounges and planning on, but never actually moving out of one swanky, expensive neighborhood and into another. He’s not spoiled and bored with life or running away from demons. Frank realizes then, after utilizing his new, clear thinking thought process, that, one day, he wants to be just like Patrick.
Patrick’s straw-blonde hair is thick and neat, he’s got his glasses on and the ball cap he hates to live without when he says, “So, Frank, how’ve you been holding up?”
Frank wants to light a cigarette right now - smoking is the one bad habit he’s keeping, at least for now - but doesn’t because Patrick’s not smoking and he feels like if he lit up now he would just look trashy and cheap. Instead, Frank says, “Good enough. My head doesn’t hurt as much and I’ve been eating regularly again.”
“That’s so good, Frank,” Patrick says, excited, “I was worried about you but -” and this is where part one of the Talk comes in “- are you sure you don’t want to check into a rehab? At least for a few weeks? Coming off is one thing, staying off is another and I mean -” and this is part two of the Talk “- it’s gonna be a lot harder for you to stay sober with Gerard, you know, not.”
Patrick hasn’t really figured out what Frank and Gerard are right now - on break or breaking up - and so he doesn’t really know how to broach the topic. He watches Frank’s face for any sign that he’s stepping on his toes and, when Frank’s expression doesn’t change - except for a slight twitch of the mouth which Patrick may or may not have seen - he goes on.
“I think you should go, at least for a week or two. I asked one of the secretaries at my job and she told me about this place -” Patrick digs in his blazer pocket for the pamphlet “- and I think you’ll like it.” Frank takes it and looks at it the way awkward nerdy kids look at pamphlets of sports camp. “It’s away from the city, but it’s still in-state so you won’t be too far from home and me and Pete can come visit you on weekends.” Frank looks at pictures of smiling counselors and clean rooms and feels homesick already. “And it’s on the beach,” Patrick says brightly.
Frank puts on a smile for Patrick and says he’ll think about. Somewhere in the kitchen, he can hear Pete belch.
Patrick makes a face that looks something like disgust and something like affection and then says, quietly, so Pete can’t hear, “So, um. What are you going to do about Gerard?”
Frank shrugs. Thinking about Gerard makes him feel sad and empty now and so he tries not to think about him at all. He cooks instead and cleans - his whole apartment is slowly becoming spotless - and reads all the books he’s been meaning to read for the past twenty-one months; he’s done the math and that’s how long it’s been since he met Gerard. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. Patrick is quiet. “It’s just. I mean; I love him, Patrick, I really do. I’ve never loved anyone more and I miss him so bad already, but…”
“But you can be around him,” Patrick finishes, “and that’s perfectly fine.”
Frank suddenly wants to cry - he find himself wanting to cry a lot lately - and he’s ready for Pete and Patrick to leave, but these are probably the best friends he has right now so he just waves the pamphlet and says, “I’ll think about this, okay? Really, I will.” And then they talk about Frank’s A Clockwork Orange poster and the book, 1984 and other dystopian novels and Frank notices, for the first time maybe, how really smart Patrick is and that just makes him want to be like him even more.
When they leave - Patrick has to go to work and Pete has to make an appearance at one of his dad’s board meetings - Frank feels alone and lonely and, against his will, misses Gerard.
---
On Tuesday, Frank makes a huge breakfast, eats part of it, and thinks about Gerard. It’s early and his defenses are down and his thoughts just kind of drift naturally toward his favorite subject in the world.
Frank thinks about Gerard and the first time he said “I love you.”
They’d been dating for a while - about two months - and summer was reaching the finish line and going out with a bang, making the days hot and long and the afternoons humid and golden. Frank had been meaning to say it for a while - practically since the first day they met - but the time never seemed right until, one hot sultry afternoon, Frank looked over at Gerard sweating next to him on the balcony and it just came out.
They were watching the day end. It was Thursday and Gerard wasn’t living with Frank then, so he didn’t know about Gerard’s demons, the hidden ones he only talked about on Thursday nights when he was anxious for his Friday night fix. Gabe had invited them to hang out on Friday. Frank was noticing that Gabe liked to hang out with them a lot on Fridays; they’d go to shows and clubs and bars and take shots on the beach and share joints. This was before they started spending whole weekends with Gabe, before Frank started doing lines of cocaine next to Gerard, before he knew how bad Gerard could get.
It was Thursday, and Frank looked at Gerard sitting in the patio chair across from him, hair damp with sweat, face flushed from the sun. He was nursing an ice coffee and looking down at the street - Frank’s apartment is only three stories up - and Frank felt his heart melt and swell in his chest and, when he opened his mouth to sip his coffee, he said, “I love you,” and it surprised even Frank because he’d never thought he’d spit it out.
Gerard had looked at Frank and laughed nervously and blushed bright sunset-red. Later, when it was time for Gerard to go back home to his one-room apartment downtown, he’d kissed Frank very softly on the lips and said, “I love you too,” before getting on his bus to go home.
Frank had stood on the bus stop and watched Gerard’s bus round the corner with his heart fluttering fast in his chest and the biggest goofiest smile plastered on his face. Involuntarily, he’d put his hand to his heart like some type of lovesick school girl and walked back to his apartment in a daze sweeter than any high he’d ever been on, dreaming of their future together.
When Frank comes out of his reverie, his eggs are cold and his coffee is too bitter and he realizes that he’s been poking his vegan bacon with a fork for five minutes and that, once again, he’s made too much food.
---
Wednesday, around noon, Frank goes to the park to sit and read, people watch and breathe fresh air. Even though spring has just come, for the past couple weeks it’s been really nice out during the day; clear sunshine shining on everything, very mild breezes. All throughout the park, the air smells like baby leaves and clean mist.
It’s only when Frank parks himself under a tree with his book and his coffee that he realizes this is the first Wednesday in what feels like forever that he hasn’t spent with Gerard. It’s like a wet blanket has been thrown over him all of a sudden; cold and heavy and suffocating. He looks at the spot next to him and imagines all the times Gerard’s sat next to him in this park, under this tree, reading a book or staring into space or, more often, sketching out drawings. He can just picture Gerard sitting next to him, so close their shoulders touch and they can hear each other breathing. He can just see Gerard’s shaggy black hair, dirty tennis shoes. The sun’s out, so his eyes would be a vivid green. Frank wonders what they would be talking about, if they would even be talking about anything at all; they spent so much time together that, sometimes, conversation wasn’t even required. Sometimes, they’d just lean on each other with their matched breathing and didn’t even worry about what the other was thinking because they already knew.
Frank sighs. He misses Gerard. He misses him more than anything. More than his mom, more than the father he rarely sees, more than drinking and cocaine combined. It’s like he’s missing a piece of himself, like Gerard was a limb that got amputated and he can still feel himself moving the fingers, bending the elbow, only we he goes to rub his arm, there’s nothing there and the realization of this absence is more bitter than the absence itself.
He wonders where he is and what he’s thinking and if he’ll ever come back. He hopes he’s dry and warm and safe. More than anything, he hopes he’s not dead. He remembers his first conversation with Gerard. It was in the club, on the night they’d met. They’d talked about George Romero. He can’t remember why - even though he probably could if he tried, but he doesn’t want to.
Frank takes a deep breath, picks up his book, and tries to get lost in the words.
---<>---
Thursday night, Frank wakes up around one-AM and can’t go back to sleep. It’s dark and quiet and still and Frank, Frank’s just not used to that. He’s used to Gerard tossing and turning, then sitting up and talking until sunrise. He’s used to a warm body next to him, but the space where Gerard would be is cool, that side of the bed still perfectly made up from this morning when Frank was obsessively straightening out the sheets, as if by organizing everything he could somehow make his life make sense.
Right now, Frank’s never felt more lonely, so he grabs his lighter and cigarettes and goes out onto the balcony in a hoodie and allows himself to think about Gerard and the day he asked him to move in.
It was cold; autumn had come in damp and chilly. Gerard was brushing his teeth in the bathroom with the door open and Frank was in bed smoking a cigarette and watching him, the way he always used to watch him back when things were different.
He’d said, “You should move in with me,” in that sudden, out-of-the-blue way he has sometimes. Gerard had looked at him through the mirror and said, “Are you sure you won’t get tired of me?”
And Frank had blown out a stream of smoke and said, “Positive. You stay here all the time anyway. It’ll be fun. Like being married.”
“Since when has anyone ever referred to marriage as ‘fun’.”
Frank had looked at the ceiling and contemplated this. “You’re right. All of my friends’ parents are divorced or hate each other and mine live on opposite sides of the state. Still, I think it could be fun if you made it. I just don’t believe anyone tries hard enough anymore.” Frank tried and failed to blow a smoke ring. “I think we could do it, though.”
He could hear water running in the sink and Gerard laughing in that coquettish way he had sometimes. “Frank Iero, are you asking to marry me?” he’d said, voice pitched and exaggerated, trying hard not to laugh.
Frank had smiled to himself and said, “Not yet.”
On the balcony, in the chilly night air with just the streetlights and the moon illuminating the darkness, Frank thinks about how ironic it is that he’d spent all that time trying to reel Gerard in, bring him close, only to cast him back out into the city. He’d found his soul mate and, no, maybe it’s not better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, because the only thing Frank feels right now is pain; the dull headache that’s been with him all week and the gaping, throbbing wound in his heart.
What sucks is that Frank doesn’t have any coping mechanisms right now. He can’t clean the apartment, because there is nothing to clean. He could cook something, but he’s getting low on groceries and besides, his refrigerator is full of leftovers and he’s not even hungry.
So he decides to take a walk instead, clear his mind. He’s heard that works, though he’s never tried it. Back in high school, he’d buy a joint from Bob Bryar if he needed to relax and punch the brick wall of his mother’s house until his knuckles bled, if he was angry enough. In college, he learned to drink his problems out, but he can’t do that now.
He goes to his room, pulls on jeans, and heads out into the night. Outside, the neighborhood’s quiet and sleeping, all the lights in all the windows turned off. He knows if he goes left he’ll just be wandering through more of the residential area and that he’ll get suspicious looks from every cop and insomniac looking out his window he passes, because this just isn’t the neighborhood for that type of nonsense, so he goes right instead, towards the shops and bars and restaurants.
His hands in his pockets, he gets to the main drag of the commercial area everything’s closed except the bars. Frank feels his blood rush and as he walks slowly past the signs, he feels his heart beat and his lungs take in air. The past two weeks, he’s mostly confined himself to the apartment - partially because he’s still not feeling one-hundred percent, but mostly because if Gerard ever turns back up, he wants to be there - and this is the first time he’s been on Trade Street since he quit everything.
It’s unreal, all the neon signs glowing pink and red and green; the yellow streetlights lighting up the sidewalk; the couples stumbling, laughing up the street and the groups of people sitting outside the bars on patio furniture, drinking and laughing, smoking hookahs and talking. Two weeks wasting away in his apartment and the whole world was just going on without him.
He wonders, for a moment, if Gerard’s out there right now doing the same thing; drinking outside bars with Gabe and Adam or stumbling up the block, laughing and oblivious. He gets the crazy notion all of a sudden that maybe Gerard’s somewhere on Trade Street in one of the bars and that he might run in to him. There’s a mad moment where Frank’s walking down the street, looking all over, and every black-haired boy and pale, hazel-eyed girl looks like Gerard.
Frank ends up standing in the open doorway of some bar when he calms down and realizes that there’s no way Gerard would be over here. The park area is too tame for Gabe and his tastes, too casual. It’s the type of place you go to make memories, not the type of place to go to forget. Inside, the bar is all orange light and laughter, warmth and noise. It smells like beer and bar food and, yeah, maybe it’s a bad idea, but Frank goes in anyway.
He sits at the bar like a robber in line at a bank and the bartender comes over and asks him what he wants to drink. There’s one painful moment where Frank has to fight himself to keep from asking for bourbon on the rocks. He orders cranberry juice instead and the bartender slides it to him, no questions asked.
Franks hands are shaking and when his sips the cranberry juice, there’s no sting of alcohol present. He looks around the bar. No one is nearly as torn up as he, not even the drunks starring into their beers. He pays for his drink and, when he gets up to go, this girl in a silver dress grabs him by the arm and says, “Dance with me!”
Frank awkwardly holds her by the waist as they just kind of sway to some slow pop song pouring out of the speakers. She says, “My names Amber,” and Frank says, “Yeah.”
She looks at him with big brown eyes and says, “What’s your name?”
“Frank.”
The song lasts for years and, when the pull apart, this girl, Amber, she says, hands still on Frank’s shoulders, “Want my number?”
Frank just smiles at her, takes her hands away and says, “I’m sorry,” and then leaves as fast as he can because he feels like the walls are closing in on him.
Instead of backtracking to his apartment, he walks around the block - just in case, you know, Gerard is somewhere nearby - and he drops into a little convenience store before heading home - one of those little, 24-hour stores that sells everything.
He buys milk, because he doesn’t have any, and bread, because he’s used all that up too. He picks up some orange juice too and stands, transfixed and starring at all the liquor lined up in the refrigerated section, the light inside making the bottles and cans glow. He tears himself away though and goes to stand in line. The guy in front of Frank is already drunk and can’t find his credit card and doesn’t have enough cash for everything, so he ditches some things, pays, and stumbles out into the night.
When Frank gets up to the counter there’s a tall, clear bottle of Absolut standing calm and aloof next to the pieces of penny-gum. Frank eyes it as the guy rings up his stuff and, just as he’s about to hand the guy his debit card, he says, nodding his head towards the bottle, “Yeah, and I’ll take that too.”
---<>---
Friday morning, Frank’s eyes are sore and he’s got a headache again, a big one. Also, there’s a big gash in his hand that’s still bleeding a little. When he walks into the kitchen, from the living room floor where he woke up, there’s glass and blood on the floor and dried red handprints on the counter and a nearly empty bottle of Absolut in the sink. He surveys the mess with squinted eyes - because his head hurts that much - and then sighs, sits at the table, and covers his face with his undamaged hand and feels varying degrees lost and hopeless and disappointed and sad and angry until Pete and Patrick show up.
---<>---
When Pete and Patrick show up, there’s none of the flurry of excitement that usually comes with their arrival. Pete walks in, mouth open to give a loud greeting, surveys the mess, closes his mouth and looks at Frank. When Patrick comes in, he sighs, unsurprised and unfazed, puts his hands on his hips for a brief second before coming over to Frank and lifting his chin with two fingers. He says, “Oh, Frank,” exactly the way his mother would when she’d come back from work after a long day, open up a wine bottle, and tell Frank, the only one who really listened to her, about her disappointments and long day.
Frank doesn’t look at Patrick, doesn’t want to see whatever’s in Patrick’s eyes right now. He doesn’t look at Pete either, who’s standing silent and aloof at the edge of the kitchen, near the refrigerator. It’s only when Patrick’s done picking out invisible shards of glass from his palm and peroxiding and bandaging him up that he realizes he’s crying; one big teardrop plopping onto the table after another. And all these weeks of wanting to cry, this is the first time he’s done it.
Frank is silent the whole morning, silent and motionless at the kitchen table as Patrick packs him a bag and grabs his toothbrush. The whole time, he’s silent and not looking at Pete who’s still looming in the corner of the kitchen like he just doesn’t know what to do with himself.
When it’s time to go, Pete walks close as he can to Frank, the way Gerard always did and it makes Frank want to hit him. In the car, he sits in the back next to Frank and lays his head on Frank’s shoulder like he’s the one heartbroken and relapsing, not Frank.
---<>---
Pete’s condo in midtown is massive, taking up most of the seventeenth floor with its four bedrooms, two and a half baths, and sprawling open floor plan connecting the living room to the dining room to the kitchen. It makes Gabe’s condo look like a bedroom and Frank’s apartment look like a closet.
Pete comes from old money; his family has stocks in everything and owns, like, four companies. Pete’s condo in midtown was his grandfather’s - and before that, his great-grandfather's - but now Pete’s grandfather lives on some Floridian estate and so Pete lives there now with Patrick. On the wall in the living room, right above the faux fireplace is a large portrait of Pete’s great-grandfather, which, Frank always imagined, is exactly what Pete will look like when he gets old.
They set Frank up in one of the guest bedrooms - they use they third bedroom as an office - and leave him to have his thoughts to himself. Frank lays on his back on the bed and stares up at the smoothness of the ceiling. He stays that way for a long time and, deep inside, he’s already accepted what he has to do, the same way he accepted the truth - could it really be only - three weeks ago.
When he rolls off the bed and wanders, slowly, into the living room hours later, the TV’s on Patrick is reading a book through his glasses with Pete laying sprawled out and miserable across his lap. He’s just laying on his side, staring into the nothingness just above the TV set.
Patrick looks up at him when he hears him come in, adjusts his thick-framed glasses, says, “Hey, Frank,” like nothings happened.
Frank, his head hurts and he’s never been one for beating around the bush when there’s something to say, so he just comes out with it. He says, “Patrick. I’m going to check myself in.” Pete moves a little on the couch, but doesn’t look at Frank. “Can you drive me there tomorrow?”
Patrick says, excitement evident in his voice although he tries hard to keep his expression somber, “Yes, yes, of course.”
Frank sighs, “I’ll give you the keys to my apartment. Just, if -”
Patrick cuts him off, “We’ll take care of everything."
---<>---
Saturday morning is bright and blue when Frank, sighing and exhausted, gets into Patrick’s car. The sun is shining and Frank can feel Pete Wentz looking at them somberly from seventeen stories up. There’s no clouds in the sky and Patrick says, almost too excited, “Well, Frankie, let’s get a move,” and the last thing Frank sees before they hit the highway is this little restaurant he and Gerard liked to eat at sometimes and it’s everything he can do to keep from flinging himself out the car.
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A/N: Sorry about the wait. I had exams and work and holiday shopping and just life in general. Hope you all enjoyed and tell me what you think XD
Author: sakurashakedown
Pairing: Frank/Gerard, Pete/Patrick
Rating: R
Warning: Drug abuse, Language, Adult situations
Disclaimer: Don't own anything....
Summary:Frank remembers the first time he saw Gerard... Frank wakes up one day and realizes his life has spiraled wildly out of control.
PART ONE: To Not Expel The Truth
PART TWO: To Split A Heart From A Name
Frank remembers the first time he saw Gerard in the club and how he thought he was the most beautiful thing ever with his kohl rimmed eyes and ivory skin. He remembers going home, breathless, smiling and giddy and not being able to wait until the next day to ask him out.
He remembers his first date with Gerard and how he was so nervous, because he’d never liked someone so much, that he drank too much at the restaurant and started hiccupping halfway through the meal and couldn’t stop. Gerard, he was just as nervous because he’d never been in this part of town before - the trendy park area that was inhabited mostly by cougars and young professionals - and he felt underdressed and common and really wanted an Ativan or a Xanax.
After stumbling through an awkward dinner, they’d tripped through the park together and watched the sky get dark and the moon come up and at one point, while they were watching the ducks curl up and sleep on the shore of the lake, Gerard let Frank hold his hand and Frank couldn’t help but notice how nicely their hands fit together; like pieces of a puzzle. It made his heart race the way his heart always raced when he’d walk into a bar after being dry for a week. He liked it.
Frank remembers his first kiss with Gerard and how he tasted like cigarettes and something sweet and fruity, like candy. This was on their third date, which wasn’t really much of a date at all; just the two of them wandering around some downtown all-day arts festival together. They had just finished watching some belly-dance troupe belly-dancing and the sky was blue and the air was warm and Gerard Way turned to Frank Iero and said, “Well, aren’t you gonna kiss me already?”
And Frank, well, he’d scratched his head and got embarrassed and turned red and started mumbling something and Gerard just stood there watching him with his earthy green eyes until Frank got over himself and pressed his lips against Gerard’s. Gerard, his mouth was sticky with something and his tongue was soft and warm and, right before they pulled apart, he nipped Frank’s bottom lip real quick - quicker than Frank could blink - and the sting reminded Frank of the first time he downed hard liquor. And he liked it.
Frank also remembers the first time he and Gerard made love. They were laying on the couch making out - whatever movie they’d been watching long forgotten - and Frank was just about to slip his hand under the band of Gerard’s pants when Gerard pushed him away and sat up. His hair a mess from where Gerard had been pulling at it, Frank was just about to start apologizing when Gerard reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out two little candy-colored, candy-shaped pills and said, mouth red and swollen, voice nervous, hand shaking, “Y-you want one?” Gerard always stammered when he was worried about what Frank was thinking of him.
Frank, he didn’t even bother asking what it was, just plucked one up out of the soft, moist palm of Gerard’s hand and popped it, because he was a try-anything-once type of guy; he’d done shrooms in the park with Pete before, dropped LSD once with a cousin - and didn’t like it - and had taken one of Ryan Ross’ little red seconals once during a party, just to see what would happen. He’s never been much of a pill person, but he’d taken it and he’d watched Gerard eat his own little colored pill with the same sort of burning animalistic craving he got sometimes when he watched porn or was craving vodka and, when he ravished Gerard, it was quick and instant; their clothes on the floor, Frank bruising Gerard’s neck with his mouth. They ended up falling on the floor, making love at the foot of the couch, Frank pounding into Gerard for all he was worth. He got one look at Gerard’s eyes - they were hazel this time; gold and green-flecked and wide and dilated - before he came, hot and heavy.
It was probably the one of the best orgasms he’d ever had.
And afterwards they just laid tangled together on the floor, sweating and panting and staring into each other’s eyes and, even though his mind was racing a million miles a minute, somewhere, deep inside, Frank thought, could this be love?
---<>---
Saturday, Frank gets a call from Pete. He’s in some club downtown with the music blasting so loud he has to yell over the phone. Frank is in the kitchen making pasta - because now that he’s getting clean his body is demanding regular meals again - and it’s quiet and calm and everything that wherever Pete is, isn’t.
Frank stabs a noodle, tastes it, and says, “Yeah?”
Pete, Frank can tell he’s getting close to being drunk because his words are starting to slur, says, “Hey? Hey! Yeah, I’m at this club or wherever and - I mean I wasn’t even going to bother with telling you this or whatever, but Patrick thinks you should know - that, um, yeah - your boyfriend’s out of control. I mean, I thought Gabe was bad, but your boyfriend’s fucking crazy. Patrick thinks he’s gonna get thrown out; he keeps blacking out and shit and arguing with that other guy. And, like, Patrick wants to take him home or whatever, but he is not staying with me, dude. ‘Cause I mean -”
The phone goes out and Frank blinks at the receiver for a minute, worried and wondering what happened with the service, before he realizes he was the one who’d hung up; he’d done it entirely without thinking.
And maybe it was just some instinctual self-preserving reflex to save him the trauma, Frank doesn’t know. He doesn’t try to know. Instead, he busies himself with cooking dinner, throws himself into the nitty-gritty details of it all and even sets the table the way they taught him in private school, just to fill his mind enough so that he doesn’t think of Gerard. Frank’s still not used to all this clear thinking. He’s not used to all this extra space in his mind that he has now that he isn’t a druggy.
Right now, Frank really wants a vodka and tonic or a hit of cocaine and that scares him, so he just ends up making a salad and dessert instead.
---<>---
Monday morning Pete and Patrick come over to check on Frank and give him the Talk. Well, Patrick comes to talk and Pete just comes to help eat all the excess food from Frank’s anxiety-fueled cooking fit on Saturday.
Pete rifles through the kitchen and Frank and Patrick go to sit in the living room. Frank wonders if Patrick ever envies Pete’s ability to eat everything and stay model-thin, while Patrick only has to eat an apple to gain seven pounds - he can’t help it, with all this new space in his mind, he wonders about everything now.
Patrick’s wearing his gray suit because he has a job - he works at some record company - and has to be there after he visits Frank. Patrick is unique in that, unlike a lot of people dancing in Frank’s social circle, Patrick actually has goals and dreams and doesn’t drink to excess or pop pills or take acid or snort cocaine or shoot heroine. He went to public school, went to college on a scholarship, and got a job because he works hard and actually gives a shit and has talent. Before he moved in with Pete, Patrick was living in a modest-sized apartment, in a nice, quiet neighborhood that he paid for with his job at the record company. On the weekends he went to shows or jazz clubs or worked on his own music. Sometimes he’d go club hopping, but that was only when the mood struck him. He didn’t - and doesn’t - lay around like a lot of Frank’s friends, living off his trust fund and worrying about chaise lounges and planning on, but never actually moving out of one swanky, expensive neighborhood and into another. He’s not spoiled and bored with life or running away from demons. Frank realizes then, after utilizing his new, clear thinking thought process, that, one day, he wants to be just like Patrick.
Patrick’s straw-blonde hair is thick and neat, he’s got his glasses on and the ball cap he hates to live without when he says, “So, Frank, how’ve you been holding up?”
Frank wants to light a cigarette right now - smoking is the one bad habit he’s keeping, at least for now - but doesn’t because Patrick’s not smoking and he feels like if he lit up now he would just look trashy and cheap. Instead, Frank says, “Good enough. My head doesn’t hurt as much and I’ve been eating regularly again.”
“That’s so good, Frank,” Patrick says, excited, “I was worried about you but -” and this is where part one of the Talk comes in “- are you sure you don’t want to check into a rehab? At least for a few weeks? Coming off is one thing, staying off is another and I mean -” and this is part two of the Talk “- it’s gonna be a lot harder for you to stay sober with Gerard, you know, not.”
Patrick hasn’t really figured out what Frank and Gerard are right now - on break or breaking up - and so he doesn’t really know how to broach the topic. He watches Frank’s face for any sign that he’s stepping on his toes and, when Frank’s expression doesn’t change - except for a slight twitch of the mouth which Patrick may or may not have seen - he goes on.
“I think you should go, at least for a week or two. I asked one of the secretaries at my job and she told me about this place -” Patrick digs in his blazer pocket for the pamphlet “- and I think you’ll like it.” Frank takes it and looks at it the way awkward nerdy kids look at pamphlets of sports camp. “It’s away from the city, but it’s still in-state so you won’t be too far from home and me and Pete can come visit you on weekends.” Frank looks at pictures of smiling counselors and clean rooms and feels homesick already. “And it’s on the beach,” Patrick says brightly.
Frank puts on a smile for Patrick and says he’ll think about. Somewhere in the kitchen, he can hear Pete belch.
Patrick makes a face that looks something like disgust and something like affection and then says, quietly, so Pete can’t hear, “So, um. What are you going to do about Gerard?”
Frank shrugs. Thinking about Gerard makes him feel sad and empty now and so he tries not to think about him at all. He cooks instead and cleans - his whole apartment is slowly becoming spotless - and reads all the books he’s been meaning to read for the past twenty-one months; he’s done the math and that’s how long it’s been since he met Gerard. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. Patrick is quiet. “It’s just. I mean; I love him, Patrick, I really do. I’ve never loved anyone more and I miss him so bad already, but…”
“But you can be around him,” Patrick finishes, “and that’s perfectly fine.”
Frank suddenly wants to cry - he find himself wanting to cry a lot lately - and he’s ready for Pete and Patrick to leave, but these are probably the best friends he has right now so he just waves the pamphlet and says, “I’ll think about this, okay? Really, I will.” And then they talk about Frank’s A Clockwork Orange poster and the book, 1984 and other dystopian novels and Frank notices, for the first time maybe, how really smart Patrick is and that just makes him want to be like him even more.
When they leave - Patrick has to go to work and Pete has to make an appearance at one of his dad’s board meetings - Frank feels alone and lonely and, against his will, misses Gerard.
---
On Tuesday, Frank makes a huge breakfast, eats part of it, and thinks about Gerard. It’s early and his defenses are down and his thoughts just kind of drift naturally toward his favorite subject in the world.
Frank thinks about Gerard and the first time he said “I love you.”
They’d been dating for a while - about two months - and summer was reaching the finish line and going out with a bang, making the days hot and long and the afternoons humid and golden. Frank had been meaning to say it for a while - practically since the first day they met - but the time never seemed right until, one hot sultry afternoon, Frank looked over at Gerard sweating next to him on the balcony and it just came out.
They were watching the day end. It was Thursday and Gerard wasn’t living with Frank then, so he didn’t know about Gerard’s demons, the hidden ones he only talked about on Thursday nights when he was anxious for his Friday night fix. Gabe had invited them to hang out on Friday. Frank was noticing that Gabe liked to hang out with them a lot on Fridays; they’d go to shows and clubs and bars and take shots on the beach and share joints. This was before they started spending whole weekends with Gabe, before Frank started doing lines of cocaine next to Gerard, before he knew how bad Gerard could get.
It was Thursday, and Frank looked at Gerard sitting in the patio chair across from him, hair damp with sweat, face flushed from the sun. He was nursing an ice coffee and looking down at the street - Frank’s apartment is only three stories up - and Frank felt his heart melt and swell in his chest and, when he opened his mouth to sip his coffee, he said, “I love you,” and it surprised even Frank because he’d never thought he’d spit it out.
Gerard had looked at Frank and laughed nervously and blushed bright sunset-red. Later, when it was time for Gerard to go back home to his one-room apartment downtown, he’d kissed Frank very softly on the lips and said, “I love you too,” before getting on his bus to go home.
Frank had stood on the bus stop and watched Gerard’s bus round the corner with his heart fluttering fast in his chest and the biggest goofiest smile plastered on his face. Involuntarily, he’d put his hand to his heart like some type of lovesick school girl and walked back to his apartment in a daze sweeter than any high he’d ever been on, dreaming of their future together.
When Frank comes out of his reverie, his eggs are cold and his coffee is too bitter and he realizes that he’s been poking his vegan bacon with a fork for five minutes and that, once again, he’s made too much food.
---
Wednesday, around noon, Frank goes to the park to sit and read, people watch and breathe fresh air. Even though spring has just come, for the past couple weeks it’s been really nice out during the day; clear sunshine shining on everything, very mild breezes. All throughout the park, the air smells like baby leaves and clean mist.
It’s only when Frank parks himself under a tree with his book and his coffee that he realizes this is the first Wednesday in what feels like forever that he hasn’t spent with Gerard. It’s like a wet blanket has been thrown over him all of a sudden; cold and heavy and suffocating. He looks at the spot next to him and imagines all the times Gerard’s sat next to him in this park, under this tree, reading a book or staring into space or, more often, sketching out drawings. He can just picture Gerard sitting next to him, so close their shoulders touch and they can hear each other breathing. He can just see Gerard’s shaggy black hair, dirty tennis shoes. The sun’s out, so his eyes would be a vivid green. Frank wonders what they would be talking about, if they would even be talking about anything at all; they spent so much time together that, sometimes, conversation wasn’t even required. Sometimes, they’d just lean on each other with their matched breathing and didn’t even worry about what the other was thinking because they already knew.
Frank sighs. He misses Gerard. He misses him more than anything. More than his mom, more than the father he rarely sees, more than drinking and cocaine combined. It’s like he’s missing a piece of himself, like Gerard was a limb that got amputated and he can still feel himself moving the fingers, bending the elbow, only we he goes to rub his arm, there’s nothing there and the realization of this absence is more bitter than the absence itself.
He wonders where he is and what he’s thinking and if he’ll ever come back. He hopes he’s dry and warm and safe. More than anything, he hopes he’s not dead. He remembers his first conversation with Gerard. It was in the club, on the night they’d met. They’d talked about George Romero. He can’t remember why - even though he probably could if he tried, but he doesn’t want to.
Frank takes a deep breath, picks up his book, and tries to get lost in the words.
---<>---
Thursday night, Frank wakes up around one-AM and can’t go back to sleep. It’s dark and quiet and still and Frank, Frank’s just not used to that. He’s used to Gerard tossing and turning, then sitting up and talking until sunrise. He’s used to a warm body next to him, but the space where Gerard would be is cool, that side of the bed still perfectly made up from this morning when Frank was obsessively straightening out the sheets, as if by organizing everything he could somehow make his life make sense.
Right now, Frank’s never felt more lonely, so he grabs his lighter and cigarettes and goes out onto the balcony in a hoodie and allows himself to think about Gerard and the day he asked him to move in.
It was cold; autumn had come in damp and chilly. Gerard was brushing his teeth in the bathroom with the door open and Frank was in bed smoking a cigarette and watching him, the way he always used to watch him back when things were different.
He’d said, “You should move in with me,” in that sudden, out-of-the-blue way he has sometimes. Gerard had looked at him through the mirror and said, “Are you sure you won’t get tired of me?”
And Frank had blown out a stream of smoke and said, “Positive. You stay here all the time anyway. It’ll be fun. Like being married.”
“Since when has anyone ever referred to marriage as ‘fun’.”
Frank had looked at the ceiling and contemplated this. “You’re right. All of my friends’ parents are divorced or hate each other and mine live on opposite sides of the state. Still, I think it could be fun if you made it. I just don’t believe anyone tries hard enough anymore.” Frank tried and failed to blow a smoke ring. “I think we could do it, though.”
He could hear water running in the sink and Gerard laughing in that coquettish way he had sometimes. “Frank Iero, are you asking to marry me?” he’d said, voice pitched and exaggerated, trying hard not to laugh.
Frank had smiled to himself and said, “Not yet.”
On the balcony, in the chilly night air with just the streetlights and the moon illuminating the darkness, Frank thinks about how ironic it is that he’d spent all that time trying to reel Gerard in, bring him close, only to cast him back out into the city. He’d found his soul mate and, no, maybe it’s not better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, because the only thing Frank feels right now is pain; the dull headache that’s been with him all week and the gaping, throbbing wound in his heart.
What sucks is that Frank doesn’t have any coping mechanisms right now. He can’t clean the apartment, because there is nothing to clean. He could cook something, but he’s getting low on groceries and besides, his refrigerator is full of leftovers and he’s not even hungry.
So he decides to take a walk instead, clear his mind. He’s heard that works, though he’s never tried it. Back in high school, he’d buy a joint from Bob Bryar if he needed to relax and punch the brick wall of his mother’s house until his knuckles bled, if he was angry enough. In college, he learned to drink his problems out, but he can’t do that now.
He goes to his room, pulls on jeans, and heads out into the night. Outside, the neighborhood’s quiet and sleeping, all the lights in all the windows turned off. He knows if he goes left he’ll just be wandering through more of the residential area and that he’ll get suspicious looks from every cop and insomniac looking out his window he passes, because this just isn’t the neighborhood for that type of nonsense, so he goes right instead, towards the shops and bars and restaurants.
His hands in his pockets, he gets to the main drag of the commercial area everything’s closed except the bars. Frank feels his blood rush and as he walks slowly past the signs, he feels his heart beat and his lungs take in air. The past two weeks, he’s mostly confined himself to the apartment - partially because he’s still not feeling one-hundred percent, but mostly because if Gerard ever turns back up, he wants to be there - and this is the first time he’s been on Trade Street since he quit everything.
It’s unreal, all the neon signs glowing pink and red and green; the yellow streetlights lighting up the sidewalk; the couples stumbling, laughing up the street and the groups of people sitting outside the bars on patio furniture, drinking and laughing, smoking hookahs and talking. Two weeks wasting away in his apartment and the whole world was just going on without him.
He wonders, for a moment, if Gerard’s out there right now doing the same thing; drinking outside bars with Gabe and Adam or stumbling up the block, laughing and oblivious. He gets the crazy notion all of a sudden that maybe Gerard’s somewhere on Trade Street in one of the bars and that he might run in to him. There’s a mad moment where Frank’s walking down the street, looking all over, and every black-haired boy and pale, hazel-eyed girl looks like Gerard.
Frank ends up standing in the open doorway of some bar when he calms down and realizes that there’s no way Gerard would be over here. The park area is too tame for Gabe and his tastes, too casual. It’s the type of place you go to make memories, not the type of place to go to forget. Inside, the bar is all orange light and laughter, warmth and noise. It smells like beer and bar food and, yeah, maybe it’s a bad idea, but Frank goes in anyway.
He sits at the bar like a robber in line at a bank and the bartender comes over and asks him what he wants to drink. There’s one painful moment where Frank has to fight himself to keep from asking for bourbon on the rocks. He orders cranberry juice instead and the bartender slides it to him, no questions asked.
Franks hands are shaking and when his sips the cranberry juice, there’s no sting of alcohol present. He looks around the bar. No one is nearly as torn up as he, not even the drunks starring into their beers. He pays for his drink and, when he gets up to go, this girl in a silver dress grabs him by the arm and says, “Dance with me!”
Frank awkwardly holds her by the waist as they just kind of sway to some slow pop song pouring out of the speakers. She says, “My names Amber,” and Frank says, “Yeah.”
She looks at him with big brown eyes and says, “What’s your name?”
“Frank.”
The song lasts for years and, when the pull apart, this girl, Amber, she says, hands still on Frank’s shoulders, “Want my number?”
Frank just smiles at her, takes her hands away and says, “I’m sorry,” and then leaves as fast as he can because he feels like the walls are closing in on him.
Instead of backtracking to his apartment, he walks around the block - just in case, you know, Gerard is somewhere nearby - and he drops into a little convenience store before heading home - one of those little, 24-hour stores that sells everything.
He buys milk, because he doesn’t have any, and bread, because he’s used all that up too. He picks up some orange juice too and stands, transfixed and starring at all the liquor lined up in the refrigerated section, the light inside making the bottles and cans glow. He tears himself away though and goes to stand in line. The guy in front of Frank is already drunk and can’t find his credit card and doesn’t have enough cash for everything, so he ditches some things, pays, and stumbles out into the night.
When Frank gets up to the counter there’s a tall, clear bottle of Absolut standing calm and aloof next to the pieces of penny-gum. Frank eyes it as the guy rings up his stuff and, just as he’s about to hand the guy his debit card, he says, nodding his head towards the bottle, “Yeah, and I’ll take that too.”
---<>---
Friday morning, Frank’s eyes are sore and he’s got a headache again, a big one. Also, there’s a big gash in his hand that’s still bleeding a little. When he walks into the kitchen, from the living room floor where he woke up, there’s glass and blood on the floor and dried red handprints on the counter and a nearly empty bottle of Absolut in the sink. He surveys the mess with squinted eyes - because his head hurts that much - and then sighs, sits at the table, and covers his face with his undamaged hand and feels varying degrees lost and hopeless and disappointed and sad and angry until Pete and Patrick show up.
---<>---
When Pete and Patrick show up, there’s none of the flurry of excitement that usually comes with their arrival. Pete walks in, mouth open to give a loud greeting, surveys the mess, closes his mouth and looks at Frank. When Patrick comes in, he sighs, unsurprised and unfazed, puts his hands on his hips for a brief second before coming over to Frank and lifting his chin with two fingers. He says, “Oh, Frank,” exactly the way his mother would when she’d come back from work after a long day, open up a wine bottle, and tell Frank, the only one who really listened to her, about her disappointments and long day.
Frank doesn’t look at Patrick, doesn’t want to see whatever’s in Patrick’s eyes right now. He doesn’t look at Pete either, who’s standing silent and aloof at the edge of the kitchen, near the refrigerator. It’s only when Patrick’s done picking out invisible shards of glass from his palm and peroxiding and bandaging him up that he realizes he’s crying; one big teardrop plopping onto the table after another. And all these weeks of wanting to cry, this is the first time he’s done it.
Frank is silent the whole morning, silent and motionless at the kitchen table as Patrick packs him a bag and grabs his toothbrush. The whole time, he’s silent and not looking at Pete who’s still looming in the corner of the kitchen like he just doesn’t know what to do with himself.
When it’s time to go, Pete walks close as he can to Frank, the way Gerard always did and it makes Frank want to hit him. In the car, he sits in the back next to Frank and lays his head on Frank’s shoulder like he’s the one heartbroken and relapsing, not Frank.
---<>---
Pete’s condo in midtown is massive, taking up most of the seventeenth floor with its four bedrooms, two and a half baths, and sprawling open floor plan connecting the living room to the dining room to the kitchen. It makes Gabe’s condo look like a bedroom and Frank’s apartment look like a closet.
Pete comes from old money; his family has stocks in everything and owns, like, four companies. Pete’s condo in midtown was his grandfather’s - and before that, his great-grandfather's - but now Pete’s grandfather lives on some Floridian estate and so Pete lives there now with Patrick. On the wall in the living room, right above the faux fireplace is a large portrait of Pete’s great-grandfather, which, Frank always imagined, is exactly what Pete will look like when he gets old.
They set Frank up in one of the guest bedrooms - they use they third bedroom as an office - and leave him to have his thoughts to himself. Frank lays on his back on the bed and stares up at the smoothness of the ceiling. He stays that way for a long time and, deep inside, he’s already accepted what he has to do, the same way he accepted the truth - could it really be only - three weeks ago.
When he rolls off the bed and wanders, slowly, into the living room hours later, the TV’s on Patrick is reading a book through his glasses with Pete laying sprawled out and miserable across his lap. He’s just laying on his side, staring into the nothingness just above the TV set.
Patrick looks up at him when he hears him come in, adjusts his thick-framed glasses, says, “Hey, Frank,” like nothings happened.
Frank, his head hurts and he’s never been one for beating around the bush when there’s something to say, so he just comes out with it. He says, “Patrick. I’m going to check myself in.” Pete moves a little on the couch, but doesn’t look at Frank. “Can you drive me there tomorrow?”
Patrick says, excitement evident in his voice although he tries hard to keep his expression somber, “Yes, yes, of course.”
Frank sighs, “I’ll give you the keys to my apartment. Just, if -”
Patrick cuts him off, “We’ll take care of everything."
---<>---
Saturday morning is bright and blue when Frank, sighing and exhausted, gets into Patrick’s car. The sun is shining and Frank can feel Pete Wentz looking at them somberly from seventeen stories up. There’s no clouds in the sky and Patrick says, almost too excited, “Well, Frankie, let’s get a move,” and the last thing Frank sees before they hit the highway is this little restaurant he and Gerard liked to eat at sometimes and it’s everything he can do to keep from flinging himself out the car.
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A/N: Sorry about the wait. I had exams and work and holiday shopping and just life in general. Hope you all enjoyed and tell me what you think XD