FicWad

Hey lads.

So...I have a few things to discuss with you wonderful people here at FicWad.

1. I know, I know, I know, in the last chapter I said Frank would be really badass and take no shit, but I’ve been wanting to do this chapter since like the start of the story and I just thought it would be good to get into his past-like we did with Gerard’s in #39. I don’t know if this one will be as traumatic or something but...I’ll try my best and we’ll see what happens.

2. I amn’t fishing for complements here or trying to get sympathy-which I actually really hate, I’m just so bad at getting it, if someone’s like “oh darling I’m so sorry” I’m just like “err...okay thanks”-but I’m basing this upcoming theme on the death of my own mother back in Christmas 2009. I was sixteen at the time and I guess she just didn’t wanna live anymore. She had depression for a while-that I did not know about-and eventually just overdosed on prescription pills. I didn’t get on with her, and I doubt she ever really loved me, so it was strange that when she died I felt this weird kinda love-hate complex. I mean, I know that’s awful, no one deserves to die, and she was my mom and all, but she did hate me so...I thought it was going to be pretty easy writing this chapter, due to personal experience.

I was very wrong.

I don’t know what your favourite chapter of this story is, hell I don’t know if you even like it, or you’re just bored on a Saturday night with nothing to do and you stumbled across my shite, but I think this is my mine. I normally write chapters fairly quickly, like I can write about 3500 words in an hour (approximately) but this took me way longer. I kept going over it and going over it and going over it again until I had it word-perfect, in my mind anyway. I basically just took out a part of myself and placed it in the story. Not the drugs and drink bit exactly, but....

And sure, you could argue I do that quite a lot of the time-I am the fucking author, I make it up. But somehow this was different to my weird sense of humour and my little note things-this was actually goddamn hard. I never find writing hard. I fucking cried here, lads! God there really is no hope for me, is there?

So yes. I apologize if you think I sound like such a bitch because it sounds like I hate my mom or whatever. But this chapter was a bit more “therapeutic session” than “FOTGTD #44”.

3. I know this is weird, but I have decided that at the end of the story, the very last chapter-which is titled ‘First of the Gang to Die’, haw haw-I will show you people my horrible face. I know it’s strange, and very disturbing, and some of you will die from the sheer horror of it all, but I want to do it because this is probably the last story of mine that will ever be posted on FicWad (due to personal reasons of mine that I would like to keep private-I am completely inept of living in the real world outside of fan fiction and the ilk) and I was like,” well, y’know what, they might have been (probably not) wondering what in fuck’s name I look like, so hey, I’ll give it a go.” So, at the end of the story, when I do acknowledgements and shit like that, you will be able to see me.

Lornaigh’s Inner Demons: Oh happy day.

Lornaigh: Shut the fuck up.

4. Lastly, just saying that my favourite line I HAVE EVER WRITTEN IN THE HISTORY OF MY LIFE was

“EAT METAL, BITCH!”

I am quite proud of it. I texted it to my dad last night just to see what he’d say back and he just replied:

“sometimes I worry about you lorna.”

Aw yeaaaaaaah.

Title is from blink 182. Actually strongly dislike them, but hey, its a pretty good song.

First of the Gang to Die
Quarantaquattro
I Miss You


Frank sat at the kitchen table, in his pyjamas, staring at the white slip of paper in his hands.

The black letters on the white swam before his eyes like birds. They actually angered him in a way-they weren’t feelings, or commiserations, or comforting sings whatsoever-they were just letters from the English letter printed onto a piece of paper, shoved into an envelope and delivered to his address. They weren’t particularly loving or emotional, they didn’t speak alone to him, they weren’t exclusively for his eyes and his eyes only-they would show for anyone willing to read, anyone who wasn’t blind.

And it’s not like he cared for the person who placed the words on the paper-no, he didn’t care for that cold hearted, alcoholic, drug addicted, depressed, emotionally abusive, fucked in the head, psychotic bitch in any way or form, he hated being around her, absorbing her hideous presence, fighting with her. He didn’t just dislike her but hated her, detested her in a way that wasn’t normal in a relationship between a mother and son. He never knew what it was like to be loved in a maternal way, and he had vowed to any God willing that-even though he was homosexual, and therefore unable to have kids without a bit of help-if he were ever to be a parent, however unlikely, he would be a million times better than that horrible cunt.

And that’s why he was so angry as to why he was crying.

It was barely eight o’ clock on a Saturday morning in July, which was hilarious, because, frankly, it was pissing raining outside, and Iero thought he could hear claps of thunder approaching from the other side of the city. He sat at the table and just let his eyes drift over the letter again and again and again, more and more tears filling up his ducts, more knots twisting themselves in his stomach. He was biting his lip so hard that small beads of red were making appearances along the edge of his tooth. He was trying to stop himself crying and whimpering-why the fuck are you doing it, goddammit, you hated that crackhead-but he couldn’t, and he didn’t know why, he just couldn’t.

He didn’t even look up when he saw the door swing open, and Bob step inside the kitchen, muching on some toast.

“Hey man-“ he stopped dead. “Frankie, man, you okay, Jesus-“

The twenty three year old sniffed loudly and looked up to the blond man, red eyed and swallowing. His chest felt tight and uncomfortable.

“Uh...just a minute,” he stammered, backing up to the door only to bump into someone solid and muscular behind him. “Oh-Coro-“

“Robert,” the other greeted, not noticing his husband before the defender pushed him out of the kitchen.

“Bryar, what the fuck, I’m fucking hungry, don’t try to come between me and food-“

“Coro, Coro, listen to me,” he said quietly, not quite a whisper, “Frank’s in there.”

Way raised an eyebrow. Bad answer.

“You halted me in the working process of eating to inform me that my husband who lives with me, is, in fact, living with me?” He narrowed his eyes and sucked at his cheek. “Well, Robert, I will have to really look into the promotion I was going to bestow upon you.”

“You were gonna promote me?!”

“No matter of importance,” he said vaguely, waving his hand. “Are you going to explain why I am not currently having breakfast?”

“Well, I don’t know, sir, mainly just because he’s upset.” He lowered his voice. “He’s very upset.”

“Upset?” He was paying attention now-oh fuck was he. “Upset in what way?”

“Cryin,” Bob answered faithfully, “kinda all shook up and sick and stuff. He ain’t talkin.”

The leader nodded sharply and signalled for him to leave quickly and without fuss. The blond complied and scuttled away, not wanting to agitate his boss further.

The black haired pushed the door open and looked down at the boy who had brutally tortured his former fiancée last week and then celebrated greatly. Life since then had been great, even better than great-Frank had now found out that shooting and stabbing was not so much his thing as much as anatomy destruction and total dismemberment. It struck Gerard as how strange it was that the innocent, small thing he was married to that squeaked, screamed when he saw a spider and couldn’t stand to watch Dracula without diving into the lap of the latter, could be gruesome and gross when it came to killing. He supposed it was just a mystery or something.

The boy didn’t look up when he came in. That was weird.

“Frankie?” Gerard said softly, dragging back the opposite chair to the other and sitting down at it. He saw that he was reading-reading what exactly, he didn’t know, but it looked like a telegram of some sort. He stretched his arm across the table and laced his fingers with the boy’s, trying to look at him directly, hidden underneath his fringe. “Sweetheart, are you alright?”

No answer. This was getting worrying.

“Please, sugar, talk to me,” he whispered, rolling the pad of his thumb into the smaller’s palm. “I hate seeing you upset and you don’t tell me why, baby.”

His capable eye travelled downward to the letter in his lover’s hand, and he figured this was the source of the abnormality. He gestured to it with his left index finger.

“Is this why you’re so upset, sugar?”

A faint, barely disguisable nod. Gerard took that as a promising sign.

“May I look at it, please?” He paused. “I don’t mean to come across as inquisitive, honey, I just want to help you.”

The smaller fingers lifted off of the paper so that the older could take it from across the table and open it up to read it. He was surprised to see it was written in small, neat script that suggested it was sent by a woman rather than a man.

“Am I allowed to read this?”

Another small nod. Gerard brought his eye back down and began to read.

July 19st 1934

My son-

I don’t really know where to begin, sweetheart. I don’t know if there really was a beginning to this, or if there was a time when you were there and then when you went off with that man. I don’t think I noticed.

I hate writing this-well, I’m not writing it so much as the woman in the bunk next to me, you know I was never great with the whole reading/writing thing-because I think I seem like such a bad mother. I can’t lie and say it was your father’s fault, or blame Taft for getting the country in the War, or blame anyone for what I put you through, because it was, after all, down to me.

I know you hate me, Frank, and I really can’t blame you for that either-I’d hate me. I never treated you well enough, scratch that,never treated you well at all-I guess I took you for granted the whole time, honey. That sounds so awful right out in the open, but I think it’s best we come to terms with what our relationship was.

I can’t sit here and make excuses for myself, and say that I did my best-but I did at least try to make ends meet, darling; you have to understand that. I was eighteen, just out with my girlfriends and then I met your father-oh, I can’t even begin to imagine what you must think of me. I am so truly sorry, honey, that your life was just ruined by my inability to be a mother-the boyfriends who were brutes, the beatings at school, the nights alone by yourself when I was out working-oh Frankie, my baby, you were so young, and so precious and so vulnerable, and I can’t believe I was just the worst person to you, that I never stood by you, I never protected you-

I’m sorry; I have to calm down just a bit. I’ve started to cry, can you believe it?

And when you just said one day that you were leaving, with James, and you didn’t think you were going to come back-I know it never showed at the time, honey, but I was so heartbroken. I was always so lonely and depressed when you were gone with him; I just used the drink and drugs because I had nothing else to turn to, no one to talk to. You were my special little boy, Frank, and I know it doesn’t show from what I’ve helped make of your life so far but I do love you so very much, baby, and I need you to know that. I haven’t seen you in what, eight years, and my love for you still remains strong every day.

I heard what happened recently-that James is dead, and you’re married? (There’s a girl in here whose boyfriend is involved in the Mafia. If I was a decent mother I would be giving out to you for being in love with someone so dangerous but I would only sound like the hypocrite I am.) That really is great, sweetheart, and I hope you’re happy with him. I only heard his name in passing and God knows what the booze has done to my memory, so I’m afraid the name has just escaped from me-but I can only pray that he treats you well and you’re happy with him. Michelle says he’s pretty high up in the ranks so he must be fairly ruthless-but who am I to judge? He’s probably not an alcoholic, or a drug addict, or stuck in some hospital for both of them, and he certainly can only treat you better than I ever did.

Although, that is not hard.

The main thing I wanted to say was this-this is the last time you’ll hear from me, Frankie. I've got the cancer and God knows I haven't got the dough to get chemo or whatever.I don’t want to die some woman who was completely heartless and alone when she kicked the bucket, so I’m doing what I should have done twenty four years ago, when you became the best thing in my life-I’m telling you that I love you, that I care for you and that you are the most amazing thing to happen to me in my life.


I must go, love, because I think it’s time to go. You can go ahead and hate me if you like but I just needed to tell you that. Maybe that can be my one good deed in life and I might snatch a place in Heaven. Just be aware that in her dying moments you were the only person on my mind, and the only person in my heart.

And if that man hurts you, I don’t care if I’m dead or that he’s a killer, I will kick his sorry Italian ass into next goddamned year.

All my love,

Linda


Gerard looked up to the other, crystal tears hanging around the edges of his mismatched eyes. He blinked and one slipped down his cheek, streaking down his pale features to drip down his jaw, sneaking into his collar. The boy was still weeping silently.

“Frank,” he started, getting off his seat and kneeling down in front of his husband, letting his hands rest in the lap of the other. “Frank, I am so sorry. I had no idea, baby.”

Gerard wrapped his arms around his waist and nudged his head into Iero’s chest. Soon enough he felt arms cling around his neck and he lifted his head up to press his nose to the boy’s.

He trailed his fingers along Frank’s cheekbones, water dripping down his hand and sliding into his sleeve. He didn’t care.

Then someone extremely unwise tapped on the door.

“Go away!” Gerard snapped suddenly. “Get the fuck away from that door or I’ll stab you!”

Quick pattering of footsteps assured the pair they were alone again.

“I don’t know why I’m crying over her,” was the first words he said, “she treated me like shit my whole life.”

“She was your mother,” the older cooed gently to him, rubbing his knee, “you still have feelings towards her. Just because she hurt you in the past doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you now. And I’m sure you love her.”

“You don’t love your dad,” Frank interjected.

Gerard flinched and shut his eyes, his lover then remembering the reason for the hatred.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, clinging to the gangster tightly, afraid he might be very pissed off with him. “I’m really sorry, Gerard, that was so mean of me.”

“It’s fine,” Way returned, shoving files labelled ‘Family’ back into their respective cages. “Don’t worry about it, sugar, you’re the one who’s upset.” He nuzzled into him. “My poor little rabbit.”

Gerard pulled himself up and sat on a chair, and Frank got off of his, climbing on top of his husband, clinging to him again. The stronger decided it was best to let him vent his troubles and try to ease him as best he could.

“She never loved me before,” the younger continued, starting to cry all over again, “she never even liked me! I’d be in my room all the time, sometimes really really late while she worked!” He sniffed and snuggled into the warm neck of his lover. “She’d bring back men from everywhere and they’d just hang around in our apartment.”

“She was a prostitute?” Gerard questioned quietly. It had never crossed his mind about the boy’s past before James-he had assumed everything was okay. How wrong he was.

“Uh huh,” the boy answered, wrapping his legs around the other’s hips. “That’s how I met James. He ran a brothel down the street.”

Way tried to comprehend just how much of a bastard Romano really was, but was unable to think of absolutely everything done wrong by the fucker. So eventually he just stroked his lover’s hair and kissed his jaw.

“She just was never nice to me,” he whispered, tickling Gerard’s cheek. “She sold herself for money and spent it on drugs and drink and never for me.” He sniffed and mumbled into Gerard’s shoulder. “She never loved me then. When it mattered.”

“She was so troubled,” he replied tactfully. “I’m not saying it wasn’t her fault but it was her lifestyle choices, sweetheart. They were complex enough without a son to look after.”

Frank was a little confused.

“It was my fault?”

“No! No, no; of course not. I’m simply saying that maybe she was just under the influence of mind-numbing anti-freeze and narcotics.” He faced the boy, still crying, in front of him. He rubbed the soft of his hip and his lover was momentarily distracted. “I’m sure she loved you a lot, baby.”

“Why didn’t she ever tell me?” His bottom lip stuck out. “Why didn’t she ever care about me?” He was more than perplexed-he was a little angry. “She didn’t try to stop me when James took me. I asked her to come back and visit me.” He trembled and Gerard pulled him closer. “She never did.”

“Like I said, honey,” was breathed to him, “when people are on bad things they do things they will later regret.” He tried to simplify it-he knew he could be very verbose at the best of times.

“Momma,” the rabbit squeaked, “I miss you. I want you back.”

He wasn’t crying, just shuddering and snuffling. Gerard was having a hard time not crying himself.

“I don’t want you to go,” he whimpered, eyes wide and shiny, “I want you to be alive. I...love you, Momma.”

He broke down again and started to sob into his husband’s chest, refusing to believe his mother was dead. She was only forty one.

“I’m sorry,” he managed between wracks, “you must think I’m being annoying.” He as bearing in mind that Gerard had seen his own mother die years before.

“Shhh, pet,” the older soothed, “you cry as long as you want.”

“Will you do something for me?” Frank requested.

“Anything.”

“Will you tell me you love me?” He asked meekly, gazing up into the jade and crimson combination. Way marvelled at how adorable and heartbreaking the appeal was.

He looked at him in the eye, tracing his jaw, picking up tears still running.

“I love you so much,” he murmured, “that I can hardly stand it and I need to keep you to myself all the time. I want to shout it to everyone who will listen that Frank Iero is my husband, and the most amazing man in the world. I love you so much and I hate seeing anything happen to you, hate seeing you upset and crying and so hurt.” His lips brushed to the other matching pair. “I love you so much and I want you to be happy and cheerful and the little rabbit that lights up my life in such a way that I cannot describe.” He let his eyes shut as he tugged on the metal stud and the boy sighed. “I love you so much and I want to be with you and only you until the day I die.”

Frank wore a small smile and rubbed at his wide, hazel orbs.

Gerard chuckled and opened his eyes.

“Was that good?”

The smaller nodded. “Thank you.” He clung to his neck again. “You’re my favourite person ever. I can’t speak like you but you’re the person I want to be around all the time.” He kissed the gangster again. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Sure.”

He bit his lip and looked down.

“You know the way...I’m in the gang now...and I killed someone?”

Gerard nodded. “Yeah, baby, I do.”

“Will I...”he trailed off. He thought he’d sound stupid. “Will I still be your bunny rabbit?”

Gerard smiled and ruffled his hair.

“You’ll always be my bunny rabbit,” he rubbed his nose against the others. He was glad the tears were stopping now-his eyes were still damp and red, but that would soon be ailed. He was sure he could help that. “Mmm, you smell so good, sugar, I could just eat you...”it was working. Not only was it working, it was true. A small pink rose in the cheeks of his lover. He bit down on Frank’s ear lobe. “Such a fuckable little rabbit.”

“You’re so weird,” Frank pointed out, but he was trying not to giggle.

“You know it,” he replied, satisfied that the boy was semi-content again. Then he picked up the letter. “What should we do with this, sweetheart?”

“Put it away somewhere,” he said quickly. “But...don’t throw it away.”

“Of course.” They kissed again. “Remember, baby,” he said quietly, “there’s a big difference between wanting to be alive and not wanting to die.”

“What do you mean?”

He shook his head. “I’ll tell you later.”