The Fall and Rise of The Black Parade, 3/10
II.
III.
Frank was eleven years old when he figured out what his family did for a living, but by that time, he’d been earning pocket money as an errand boy for over a year already. When he’d started, all he’d known was that it was the family business, and that had been all he’d needed to know.
His mother had wanted to keep him out of that business, and that might have been a possibility. He was an only son, but his father was a youngest son, and from childhood Frank could list the uncles and cousins ahead of him in line to take charge when his grandfather died. If he’d wanted out, they might have let him go. But they were his family, and there was a reason one of the words he’d chosen to inscribe into his skin was “loyalty”.
He killed for the first time when he was seventeen-in self-defense, which made it a little easier. After that, his mother stopped talking about him getting out, and Frank couldn’t help but feel like he’d failed her. It was hard, sometimes, having to choose between loyalty to her or to his father.
But if he couldn’t get out, then he was in, and as last in line, he had nothing to lose.
By the time he was twenty-one, the year he got the guns tattooed on his back, Frankie Iero (the youngest one) was known and feared among the people his family did business with. He was the guy you called when you needed something crazy done, something that should have been a suicide mission. He was the guy who got the job done when no one else would, the guy whose enemies knew it was useless to try to intimidate or threaten him and, most of all, useless to try and bribe him to betray the family.
His cousins used to joke about him having a death wish, but if he’d ever seriously wanted to die, he probably would’ve just used his own gun and spared himself the suspense. He might’ve suspected he probably would die young, but at twenty-five, when the time came, it wasn’t like he just sat back and let it happen-he went down fighting.
But in the end, tenacity only counts for so much when you’re simply outgunned.
Frank’s never seen any of his family in the city. He doesn’t know what that means, if he went somewhere different than them or what.
On the one hand, it’s changed him-he’d like to think for the better. He’s been in the city for longer than he was alive, and he has his share of secrets, but few enemies and no cause to kill anyone, even if he could. There hasn’t been a gun in his hands in almost seventy years, something he would’ve had a hard time imagining once.
On the other hand, every time he did hold a gun, everything he ever did in life, he did for his family, and in exchange for it all, he had them-his own blood, surrounding and supporting him at all times, no matter what. Here, he’d been alone-at least, until he found the House of Wolves.
He’d loved the club from the start. Not liked it-there was nothing exactly likable about a run-down dive in the afterlife where people went to drink away their sorrows or their boredom or both-but Frank had loved it, from the first time he’d heard Brian explain with a wry grin that the name was “kind of a fuck-you to the wolves outside the city, y’know?”. When Brian figured out Frank could play guitar and offered him a job, it started out as a way to keep occupied, and ended up being how he met one of his best friends in the city.
When Toro showed up, he wasn’t the first newcomer Frank offered crash space to, but he was the first to stick around longer than a week or so. Frank never thought much about why that was-Ray’s a good guy, and they do okay living together, and it wasn’t like Frank had been using that second bedroom for anything.
And then Gerard shows up.
Frank doesn’t even know what it is about him. Gerard drinks all the fucking coffee and steals the covers and seems to be allergic to showering and his face is kind of weird, when you think about it, with his pointy nose and permanently crooked mouth. But it’s a weird that doesn’t stop him from being kind of amazing to look at sometimes, just like the coffee-stealing and the shower allergy doesn’t stop Frank from wanting to put his hands all over Gerard, or talk to him for hours, or just sit and watch the way his face scrunches up when he’s concentrating on a drawing.
As families go, two guys, one of whom he’s sleeping with and both of whom he would once have considered outsiders, wouldn’t have been what Frank ever expected to end up with. But he’s been on his own, and he’ll take this over that any day of the week.
Frank always thought Ray was a pretty low-maintenance housemate, but Gerard gives new meaning to the term. Three weeks in, he has yet to accumulate any possessions beside the bare essentials Frank picks up for him on a shopping trip, like a toothbrush and underwear. Frank figures Gerard will go looking for more clothes when he feels like it, but Gerard goes on cheerfully wearing the same clothes every day until Frank steals them for the laundry, at which point he starts wearing some of Frank’s-they’re close enough to the same build to share shirts, and if Frank’s pants are a little tight on Gerard, neither of them minds that too much.
All the same, this isn’t going to work for very long if Gerard’s sticking around. Frank makes up his mind about this, and finds Gerard sprawled in bed, smoking and reading, which is a better time to interrupt him than when he’s drawing or writing.
“You need clothes,” Frank announces, draping himself against Gerard’s back. “And you still haven’t been out of here except to go to the House, and you really should, at some point.”
“And?” Gerard says, not an I dismiss your concerns as trivial ‘and’, but an I can tell you’re going somewhere, so I’m just going to let you get there on your own ‘and’.
“So we should go out,” Frank says determinedly, and, when Gerard makes a reluctant face, “I bet we could find you a real sketchbook somewhere. And colored pencils or paints or something. You should really come, though, because I don’t know anything about art supplies, so I’d probably bring back the wrong kind of stuff.”
Gerard laughs, and turns his head to kiss Frank, catching the corner of his mouth. “Okay, okay, you got me. Put a shirt on and we’ll go.”
It’s been weeks since Gerard did anything but cross the few feet from the apartment building to the House, and he still looks anxious as the three of them step out. The flash and echo from the trenches can’t be helping-the fucking soldiers are really going at it today, though at least there hasn’t been another skirmish in the city since the one three weeks ago.
Ray puts a reassuring hand on Gerard’s shoulder for a moment, and Frank slips his hand into Gerard’s without really thinking about it. Gerard looks from one of them to the other and gives a tiny smile, and then three of them set out.
“This part of the city’s mostly residential,” Frank explains as they walk. He figures talking might help Gerard be a little more at ease, and it’s easy enough to do. “A lot of people end up at the House first thing when they get here, and their first stop from there is finding a place to stay. Lots of buildings like ours, but there’re some houses a couple blocks down. And where we’re headed is pretty much the merchant district.”
“I thought people just got stuff out of warehouses?” Gerard asks. “Where do merchants come in?”
“Mostly? People want something to do.” Ray takes the explanation baton and runs with it. “You can get the raw materials for anything you need in the warehouses, and people take what they want and work as cooks or tailors or whatever. There’s a loose barter system, but it’s pretty arbitrary, and you can get things even if you’ve got nothing concrete to trade. We get stuff from people who come to hear us play, for example.”
“Sounds like an okay system,” Gerard says, then adds, slightly hesitant, “Maybe I could, like, draw stuff for people. Take commissions.”
“That could work,” Frank says. “Like I said, I don’t know shit about art, but I’d pay for what I’ve seen you do so far.”
“Anything else I should know about the city?” Gerard asks. Aside from when he asked for their opinions, he still doesn’t talk too much about his art, but fuck knows there are things Frank and Ray don’t talk about, so whatever.
Besides, there are other things he should know about. “Crime’s pretty low, with people able to just get what they want so easily, but it does happen,” Frank tells him. “We’ve got sort of a homegrown police force-nothing official, ‘cause there’s no government to officiate anything. But the people who started it have been at it a long time and never fouled up once, and they personally screen anyone who wants to join up, so it’s pretty solid. I wouldn’t walk the streets alone at night or anything, but it’s not too bad.”
Gerard nods. “So…I’m kind of picking up on the fact that there’s not much evidence of any kind of higher power here? Just…people like us?”
“Well,” Toro begins with a thoughtful face. “That’s a subject of debate. You’ve met the twins, you know about Mother War-some people think they’re a higher power. But some people think they started out human, and have just been here so long that they’ve gone native, so to speak.”
“What do you think?” Gerard asks, and Ray hesitates a moment.
“I don’t think they were ever human,” he finally says. “Hell if I know what they are, but they’re no more human than the wolves.”
Gerard’s expression darkens at the mention of the wolves, and Frank senses it’s time for a subject change (he’s getting pretty good at the care and feeding of Gerards, if he does say so himself) and tugs on his hand. “C’mon, we’re almost there.”
The merchant district isn’t as busy as it sometimes gets, which Frank figures is good. Gerard looks mildly and briefly panicked at being in the middle of a crowd that’s bigger than a busy night at the club, but when no one accosts him or anything, he starts to loosen up a little.
They get what they need for the apartment, and Gerard indifferently picks out some clothes-mostly black, denim, or black denim. The one thing he seems excited to get is a worn leather jacket that fits like it was made for him; he’s a little worried about having nothing to trade, but the shopkeeper makes him spread out his arms and turn around, then shrugs and declares that it looks so good, he doesn’t have the heart to make Gerard take it off.
Once everything practical is taken care of, they ask around and end up at a small shop full of writing and drawing things, pencils and pens and bottles of colored ink and books full of blank paper with bindings that look handmade. Gerard’s eyes light up the moment they step inside, and he talks with the shopkeeper for a while, explaining his idea of doing commissions. The shopkeeper seems reluctant to give him very much with nothing in return up front, but she also recognizes Gerard’s true artistic spirit or something, and they walk out with a big sketchpad as well as a smaller, leather-bound book, a set of ink pens, and some charcoal, all of which Gerard practically clutches to his chest on the walk back through the city.
Having obtained his new supplies, Gerard seems reluctant to actually use them. Frank gets back from the club to find him sitting in bed with the smaller book on his lap, running a hand distractedly over the cover.
“You gonna draw in that thing or just fondle it?” Frank asks, and Gerard gives a faint smile.
“It’s a little intimidating,” he says quietly. “It’s like…all these blank pages, waiting to be filled. What if I fill them with the wrong stuff?”
Frank’s not sure if this is one of the things where Gerard doesn’t actually expect an answer or not, but he settles on the bed next to him, resting his chin on Gerard’s shoulder and his hand on Gerard’s knee.
“Well…you’re the artist, so wouldn’t whatever you decide to put in it be right?”
Gerard’s brow furrows. “I guess. But…I don’t know.”
Frank glances at him sidelong. “You don’t know don’t know, or you’re doing that thing where you have a problem with words don’t know?”
It takes a while for Gerard to answer.
“I think there’s something I’m supposed to do. Regret said something to me when I got here…but I don’t know what. Or how. Or why.”
Frank frowns as well, thinking about that for a second. “If she wants you to do something, but didn’t tell you anything about what, then it kinda seems like it’s on her if you don’t do it.”
Gerard leans against him. “What if I’m supposed to figure it out on my own?”
Frank shrugs. “Then…I don’t know from ‘supposed to’, Gee, but just because you haven’t yet doesn’t mean you won’t, I guess.”
Gerard tips his head back, lips brushing Frank’s jaw. “Sorry. I know I’m hard to put up with sometimes-”
“I like putting up with you,” Frank reminds him. “And if you put that sketchbook away, I’ll do more than that, unless you’re planning to sleep with the thing.”
“You’ll do more than put up with me? Is that supposed to sound sexy?” Gerard makes a face, but gets up and tucks the book away with the rest of his new stuff.
Frank waits until he comes back towards the bed, then grabs his arm and tugs, sending Gerard tumbling into his lap. Gerard squawks and flails a little, which shouldn’t be adorable, and then squirms around to get comfortable. It’s all awkward limbs for a moment, and then Gerard is straddling Frank, and completely without any premeditation on Frank’s part, his cock is sliding against the curve of Gerard’s ass. Gerard goes still, hands digging into Frank’s shoulders, and then leans into it, eyes wide, cheeks a little flushed.
It’s one of those things that was a complete mystery to Frank before Gerard, and even for a while after-seriously, why would you want anything stuck up your ass, let alone someone’s dick?-but Gerard fingered him during a blowjob once and okay, Frank can see the appeal. He pushes up a little, and Gerard moans, dropping his forehead against Frank’s shoulder.
“Frank-”
“It’s okay,” Frank whispers, running a hand up and down the length of Gerard’s spine. “I mean, you’ll have to talk me through it a little, but I’m game if you are.”
It’s a little awkward getting started; Gerard says he can do it with just spit, but Frank’s worried about messing up, so he undertakes a stealth mission to the bathroom for soap (Toro’s in his own room, thank god), and when he gets back, he has no clue what do about, like, positioning, but Gerard’s a little more sure of himself by then.
“Here-” He lies on his back and spreads his legs, tilting his hips up. “I want to see you,” he explains, in this throaty whisper that goes straight to the base of Frank’s spine.
“You’ve done this before, right?” Frank asks, slicking up his fingers, and Gerard nods.
“Yeah. Not very recently, but.”
Gerard whimpers a little when Frank pushes in with his fingers, but shakes his head and gasps “Don’t stop,” when Frank hesitates. Frank takes his time, until Gerard tugs at his hips, sounding almost desperate as he insists that he’s ready. Frank bites his lip, then braces his hands on Gerard’s thighs and pushes forward.
It’s not all that different from a girl, in some ways-tight heat that feels so good it seems like it shouldn’t be allowed. At the same time, it’s completely different. It’s Gerard, arching his back and wrapping his legs around Frank’s waist and making noises that are downright obscene, and Frank lowers his head and closes his eyes and just moves, because looking at Gerard is giving him a funny feeling in his chest that feels like it doesn’t actually have much to do with sex.
Frank comes pretty quick, but has the presence of mind to get a hand around Gerard’s cock, jerking him off roughly. Gerard shudders all over and goes limp, and they lie there, Gerard wrapped around Frank, Frank still inside Gerard and not sure he could move if he wanted to.
Frank peels himself away eventually and gets them both cleaned up, and when he settles back in bed, Gerard has his thoughtful face on again.
“What?” Frank prompts patiently, letting one hand rest on Gerard’s hip.
Gerard lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Just…thinking. About us. Like, of all the people who’ve ever died, what’re the odds of you and I ending up together?”
Frank shrugs as well. “Dunno. I’m just glad we did.”
One corner of Gerard’s mouth quirks up in a smile. “Yeah.” He slips an arm around Frank’s middle, snuggling close. “Don’t mind me, I’m just…”
“You’re just being you,” Frank says, pulling the blankets up. “But cut it out for now and go to sleep, ‘kay?”
A few days after that, Frank wakes up alone and finds Gerard in the kitchen, chain-smoking with his hair sticking out at odd angles. He’s got the leather-bound book and one of his new pens, but he’s writing, not drawing, covering the page in a fast, messy scrawl that leaves ink smudges on both the paper and his hands.
“I had an idea,” he says without looking up, and Frank’s not sure if Gerard’s talking to him or to himself. “Still don’t know if it’s what I’m supposed to do, but it’s something. Ever get that feeling, when an idea hits you and you feel like you need to get it down on paper as fast as you can, before it gets away?”
“No,” Frank says honestly. “But then, I’m not a crazy genius.” He ruffles Gerard’s hair as he walks past on his way to the pantry. “Coffee?”
Gerard stays where he is for a few more hours, Frank and Ray moving around him the way they always do when he gets like this, and then crashes in spite of the three or four cups of coffee he drank, barely making it to the couch before he’s out like a light. Frank takes the book from where Gerard left it on the table and stows it back in the bedroom, not looking inside-he’s curious, sure, but it’s for Gerard to show Frank what he’s working on or not. Besides, from the glimpse he got earlier, he’s not sure he could read any of what Gerard wrote today anyhow.
Around mid-afternoon, Gerard starts out of his sleep, looking the way he usually does after a nightmare. Frank’s in an armchair across from him, feet propped up on the couch’s armrest. He’s been tuning his guitar, but he sets it aside, ready to stand and move across to the couch.
“Hey. You all right?”
Gerard blinks a few times, then relaxes and nods. “Yeah. I mean, bad dreams, but nothing I haven’t had before.” He rubs his eyes with the back of one hand, looking a little bleary and a lot less manic. “Uh. Was I being weird earlier?”
“Kinda,” Frank informs him placidly. “You get anything good down?”
“Maybe,” Gerard says. “It can be hard to tell until I, like, go back and look over it with a clearer head.”
He gets up and heads to the bathroom, where Frank hears him piss for a really damn long time, and then to the kitchen, coming back with another cup of coffee even though what was left in the pot is stone cold by now.
“Where’s Ray?” Gerard asks; Toro’s bedroom door is open, and the room’s empty.
“Went over to the House,” Frank tells him. “Had something he wanted to talk to Schechter about, I think.”
Ray comes back about half an hour later, and it takes exactly one look at him before Frank knows something’s up.
“Hey, man,” Frank says, laying his guitar aside. “What’s the word?”
“Hey.” Ray looks kind of pale and really serious, and he casts a look around the living room before answering. “Is Gerard up?”
Frank jerks a thumb towards the bathroom. “Taking his weekly shower,” he says dryly. “Why?”
The door opens while he’s still speaking, and Gerard leans out, dressed again (in the same clothes as before he showered, because if he didn’t still smell a little it would apparently break some inherent law of Gerardness) and toweling off his hair.
“What’s going on?” he asks, his own expression turning serious the moment he sees Ray.
“There’s, uh-there’s something I thought you should maybe know,” Ray begins awkwardly. Gerard moves out into the living room, towel draped around his neck.
“What is it?”
Ray swallows hard. “There’s a newcomer down in the House. Really new, it seems like.” He hesitates, then goes on. “He…he says his name is Mikey Way.”
Gerard is sort of pale to begin with. Frank still sees all the color drain from his face.
“What?” he asks, but it’s really just his lips shaping the word, no sound.
“That’s what he told Brian, anyway,” Ray goes on, and shrugs helplessly. “And the whole time I’ve been here, I don’t think I’ve met many people with that last name, besides you.” He looks at Gerard, cautious and concerned. “I figured…if you and he…it might be best if the first time you saw him wasn’t a surprise.”
Gerard hasn’t lost that look of blank shock, hasn’t moved. Then, like a switch being thrown, he’s in motion, dropping his towel and shoving past Ray on his way out the door.
“Fuck,” Ray hisses. “I shouldn’t have-”
Frank shakes his head, already on his feet. “What else were you gonna do? Except try and keep ‘em from seeing each other, and the city’s not that big.” Ray doesn’t look completely convinced, and Frank claps him on the shoulder as he heads for the door. “Look, let’s just get down there, okay?”
Frank doesn’t know what he’s hoping to accomplish by being down there, except to be on hand for Gerard. When he gets into the club, he actually runs smack into him-he’s standing frozen about ten feet from the door. The collision doesn’t seem to register at all; Frank braces himself against Gerard’s back, and leans around him to look.
The House is usually pretty dead this early, but even if it weren’t, it’d be easy to pick out the reason Gerard’s frozen. It’s the skinny, dark-haired guy standing at the bar, equally still with his eyes locked on Gerard.
Frank looks him over. If he wasn’t tipped off by the last name and Gerard’s reaction, he might not catch it-the new guy’s angular where Gerard is round, hair jet-black to Gerard’s white-blonde and eyes brown to Gerard’s green. But if you know to look past that, the new guy’s bone structure could be a longer, pointier version of Gerard’s, and their mouths are kind of the same but Gerard’s is thinner, which is kind of funny because everything else is the other way around.
New Guy-Mikey, Ray said-is the first to break the staring contest Frank’s walked in on, taking a single step forward and opening his mouth.
“Gee-” he starts, and holds out a hand.
Gerard flinches with his whole body, it feels like, and it only takes Frank a second to spot why.
The scar on Mikey’s forearm is a lurid, dark red in the club’s flickering light, starting at his wrist and running down in a thin vertical line.
“Gee,” he says again, sounding lost and a little scared, like he’s asking for help.
Gerard turns and runs, his shoulder slamming into Frank’s hard enough to bruise. Frank starts to turn after him, then looks back at Mikey.
“Hi,” he says. “Uh. Stay here? I’m gonna go…see if I can…”
He doesn’t know what he’s going to see if he can, so he just goes. He passes Toro on the way out and doesn’t respond to his “What the fuck, Frankie?”, and he hopes Mikey doesn’t take it the wrong way, having two people run out on him, but apparently Gerard’s having some sort of crisis and if Gerard’s having a crisis, Frank knows where he needs to be.
Frank finds Gerard in the lobby of their building, huddled at the base of the spiral stairs with his knees up and his head down.
“Gerard?” Frank drops into a crouch next to him. “Baby, who is he?”
Gerard’s shoulders heave like he’s either crying silently or struggling for breath, and then he looks up at Frank, eyes wide and pale.
“He’s my brother,” he whispers.
“Your-oh shit, man,” Frank says, and reaches for him. Gerard doesn’t move for a few seconds, then goes limp against Frank like a puppet with its strings cut, and Frank gets both arms around him and strokes his hair with one hand.
Eventually, a shadow falls across them, and Frank looks up as Ray clears his throat.
“He’s outside,” Ray says gently. “If you can’t handle seeing him, I’ll find somewhere else to take him, but I didn’t want to just leave him in there. He…seems a little messed up, Gee.”
Gerard draws in a slow, shaky breath, and then looks up. “Bring him in.”
Ray steers Mikey into the lobby with both hands on his shoulders, and Mikey lets himself be steered, that lost look still on his face. His expression doesn’t change until Gerard-who looks fucking terrified, by the way-stretches up a hand from where he’s sitting.
“Hey, Mikey,” he says in a hoarse whisper, and that does it. Mikey’s face crumbles and he just sort of falls forward, Gerard catching him the way Frank caught Gerard just a minute ago. Whatever made him unable to be in the same room with Mikey not that long ago, it’s gone now; Gerard hauls the kid into his lap and buries his face in Mikey’s hair, rocking back and forth a little as Mikey’s shoulders start to shake. Frank swallows hard and looks away, feeling like he’s already seen things he shouldn’t have.
Frank gets to his feet and stands awkwardly next to Toro for a few moments, not sure if he should leave, or usher the two brothers into someplace more private and then leave, or stay where he is and glare threateningly at any curious passersby. Eventually he asks Ray about it with his eyebrows-he’s still really proud that they’ve successfully worked out an eyebrow language, although Ray always points out that as long as they’ve been around each other, it’d be more worth commenting on if they hadn’t-and Ray’s eyebrows agree that yeah, the lobby is probably not the ideal place for this. Ray bends down and says as much to Gerard, and Gerard doesn’t look up or verbally acknowledge, but he struggles to his feet, pulling Mikey with him.
It’s a miracle that they make it up the stairs with no broken necks; Gerard looks down at his feet and steps carefully, but Mikey keeps his face buried in Gerard’s shoulder and trips more than once. With Frank navigating from in front and Ray steering from behind, they make it to the apartment and Frank and Gerard’s room, ending up with Gerard and Mikey in a heap on the bed. Frank sits down on the edge of the mattress, resting a hand on Gerard’s back.
“Hey,” he says quietly. “I’m guessing you two could use some alone time, so…”
Gerard looks up, eyes red-rimmed, face still ashy. “Are you guys going back to the House later?”
Frank shrugs. “Unless you want us to stick around, which we could do. Schechter’ll bitch, but the other guys could do without us for a night.”
Gerard shakes his head. “No. I mean, we’ll be okay. I think.”
“Your call,” Frank says, and then bends down and plants a kiss on the top of Gerard’s head. He feels a little stupid and sappy, but there you have it. “You know where we’ll be.”
Mikey falls asleep pretty soon after they lie down, and Gerard lets him stay that way, even after his arm falls asleep where Mikey’s lying on it. He knows at some point, they’re going to need to exchange more than two or three words, but he’s not exactly in a hurry to get to that part. He leans his cheek against Mikey’s hair and closes his own eyes, because his eyes keep wandering back to the scars on Mikey’s wrists if he keeps them open.
(There’s a small, treacherous part of him that’s glad to have Mikey with him again, no matter what the cost is. Gerard does his best to ignore that feeling, which of course only makes it harder to ignore.)
Mikey stirs eventually, and then sits up suddenly. “Gee-”
Gerard reaches for his hand. “Right here.”
Mikey blinks, then scrubs at his eyes with the heel of one hand. “Thought I might have been dreaming.”
“No such luck,” Gerard says darkly. There’s anger coiled in the pit of his stomach, and he tries to keep it locked down, because god knows that won’t help anything. “What are you doing here, Mikey?”
“I was looking for you,” Mikey says in his usual quiet tone. “I met the twins outside the city and asked them, and they said they’d sent you here-”
Gerard shakes his head. “That’s not what I mean-if you’re gonna be here at all, I want you with me.” He tugs on their joined hands, turning Mikey’s forearm up to expose the scar. “What the fuck is this?”
Mikey swallows hard, but meets his eyes unflinchingly.
“I was looking for you,” he repeats.
Gerard stares at him, speechless.
“No,” he finally says. “You-you’re not that fucking stupid.”
Mikey’s jaw tightens. “Wanting to see my brother again makes me stupid? Thanks a lot, Gee.”
“Killing yourself to do it does!” Gerard shouts. So much for keeping his anger locked down.
Mikey tugs his hand free and stands, angry himself now. “Like you’ve got any room to fucking talk! If what I did was stupid, what was that shit you pulled?”
Gerard closes his eyes, pressing the heels of both hands against them. “What I did was an accident. If I’d been thinking about it…I never would’ve done that to you.”
“But you weren’t thinking about it, were you?” Mikey presses, and the bitterness in his tone is clear. “So what’s worse-me knowing what I was doing, or you killing yourself on accident?”
Gerard looks down, drawing in a deep breath. He doesn’t have any answer for that-he can hardly ask Mikey to excuse what he did when he hasn’t found a way to excuse himself for it, yet.
“I’m sorry,” he says eventually. “I know it doesn’t count for much, saying that now, but…God, Mikey, I’m so sorry.”
“You left,” Mikey says, and all the anger’s dropped out of his voice. “You left, Gee. I couldn’t not try to find you.”
“I’m sorry,” Gerard repeats, holding out his hands. After a moment, Mikey comes back to sit on the edge of the bed, lets Gerard hug him, even though his own hands stay limp at his sides.
“Can I stay here?” Mikey asks after few seconds.
Of course, Gerard wants to say, but makes himself hold off. “I should talk to Frank and Ray. It’s their place, they took me in when I got here. But they’re cool.”
If they’re not okay with Mikey staying…Gerard’s not sure. He and Mikey could look for an apartment of their own, he supposes, but he’s gotten used to sharing a bed with Frank, and all other considerations aside, he’s not sure how well he’s sleep without him. But the most important thing now is what’s best for Mikey-all the more so because he’s let himself forget that in the past.
“Of course we’re okay with it,” Ray says.
“Not like you’re using the couch anymore,” Frank puts in. Gerard coughs and doesn’t look at his brother, who raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment.
Mikey seems a little weird, frankly. Which is not something Frank has any grounds to hold against him, because hi, Gerard’s one of the weirdest motherfuckers Frank knows. But after only a month, Gerard is familiar, known in some fundamental way even though there’s still a lot Frank doesn’t know about him. Mikey’s-what Mikey is, actually, is one of the things about Gerard that Frank hasn’t known about, suddenly brought from the background to the foreground. It throws Frank off.
But he’s Gerard’s brother, and if there’s one thing Frank knows, it’s the importance of family.
Mikey says he’ll be okay on the couch, but Gerard’s a little reluctant to leave him alone. Frank weighs ‘chance of getting laid’ against ‘anxious Gerard’ (which, really, lowers his chances of getting laid anyway), and they leave the bedroom door open.
In bed, Gerard curls up on his side facing away from Frank, which is a bad sign. Frank presses himself against Gerard’s back, kissing the space behind his ear.
“You wanna tell me what’s goin’ on in there?” he whispers.
Gerard silent for long enough that Frank figures he’s not going to answer. When he does, Frank can barely hear him.
“I used to have nightmares about him dying. Sometimes it was just like watching a movie or something, and sometimes I’d be there, but I could never stop it. I…I had one of those dreams today, and figured it was just the same shit my subconscious always gets up to. I’m not so sure now.”
Frank’s brow furrows as he listens. “What, you think you, like, dreamed what was actually happening to him?”
“I don’t know,” Gerard whispers. “He-he did slit his wrists, in the dream, but…I don’t know.” He falls silent for a long moment, then says, “But it’s my fault he’s here.”
Frank sits up, looking down at him. Gerard’s face is pressed into the pillow, and in the dark, Frank can’t see much but the curve of his brow and cheek.
“Don’t do that,” he says, keeping his voice low.
“Frank,” Gerard says, and Frank can tell he’s struggling with it. “I died of a drug overdose. Not on purpose, but if I hadn’t been such a fucked-up idiot, it wouldn’t have happened, and Mikey wouldn’t have-”
“Stop it,” Frank tells him, with as much force as he can manage without raising his voice. “I don’t care how many reasons you’ve got for thinking it, I’ve been here longer than you, and I’ve seen what happens when people go down that road. Look-”
He gropes for Gerard’s hand in the darkness, brings it back to press against the scars on his ribs. Gerard’s run his hands over those scars night after night and never asked about them, but one confession deserves another.
“I could say these are here because of my family and what they did, and it wouldn’t be a lie. But it would also be a fucking cop-out, because I was an adult and I made my own fucking choices. Okay?” Gerard makes a noncommittal noise, and Frank strokes the back of his hand with a thumb. “I get that you feel responsible for your brother, Gee, but don’t drive yourself crazy over it.”
Gerard doesn’t say anything, but he turns around, pressing his face into the curve of Frank’s neck. Frank pulls him close, and when Gerard’s breath hitches and his shoulders start to shake, Frank pets his hair and holds him tighter.
IV.