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"Do you know if Frank's alright?" asked Mikey while foraging through the refrigerator in search of soda.

"What do you mean?" Gerard said, worried that something had happened to Frank. 

"Well, a few days ago - when you were passed out - he looked all depressed when he looked at you."

Gerard frowned. "I dunno." Gerard suddenly thought about the time he and Frank had walked home together from the park and the way Frank had looked disappointed at one point. He remembered that it had happened again the first time he went over to Frank's house. "I don't know why he'd be upset about anything."

"Hm." Mikey handed Gerard a Dr. Pepper. 

"Hey, Mikey? Have you ever had nightmares where you feel - I dunno...uneasy, I guess? I mean it's not the fact that you get scared, but it's something about the dream that keeps giving you a feeling that you're forgetting or missing something...?"

"Oh, yeah!" Mikey grinned. "One time I had this amazing dream that I had a pet unicorn named Mr. Fluffy, like my old stuffed animal, but then it ran away and I got lost in the jungle looking for him." His smile turned into a frown. 

Gerard raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"And when I woke up I felt weird. Like something was missing. So I looked around and my stuffed unicorn was gone!"

Gerard did a mental facepalm and shook his head. "Mikey, that was ages ago. Remember I stole it from you and hid it under Mom's bed?"

Mikey turned the color of an angry beetroot. "SO IT WAS YOU ALL ALONG!"

Gerard couldn't help but grin. "Does it really matter that much to you?"

"You know I loved Mr. Fluffy."

I sorta got that from the one part in Despicable Me where the little girl's got the unicorn and she's like IT'S SO FLUFFY I'M GONNA DIE!!!

Gerard snorted. "Whatever." He stood up and headed toward the front door. 

"Where you going?"

"Where do you think? I'm going to Frank's."

"Oh. Right."


~


"No...why?"

"Well, I've been having these nightmares and in every one I've had so far, I'm pretty sure I'm always in the same house. But the thing that bothers me the most is the guy that died in my first dream. I don't...it just makes me feel like there's something I'm missing."

Frank bit his lip. "I wish I could help you - but I have no idea what I'm supposed to do."

"I-you know what, I don't think anyone can help." Gerard grimaced. "Just forget about it - I'll just ignore it."

Frank glanced worriedly at Gerard - he looked rather unsure of himself at the moment. "Are you sure you're alright?" As if you're doing any better than him... he thought to himself with a frown. 

"Uh - yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." Gerard seemed to be assuring himself more than he was assuring Frank. He avoided Frank's gaze and his eyes landed on a poster of Billie Joe Armstrong. 

nomnomnom

"You really like Green Day, don't you?"

Frank smiled and nodded. "I started playing guitar because of them. I actually used to imitate Billie Joe - I still do sometimes." his cheeks flushed slightly. 

"I see."

"So, um - do you want to…er, take a walk, or something…?" Frank asked clumsily. 

"Uh, sure."

They pulled on their hoodies and headed out the front door. As they shuffled down the quiet streets they began to have a debate between Black Flag and The Misfits. 

"...well yeah, but you can't get much better than songs like Scream, they're - OW!" Gerard's hand flew to the back of his head and he whipped around to see a group of sniggering boys behind them holding pebbles and garbage in their hands. 

"Fags!" one of them called out. 

By now Gerard was used to this needless name-calling and didn't have any trouble ignoring it, but he looked over at Frank and immediately felt a surge of anger toward the other boys. Frank was obviously distraught; his cheeks were flushed and he was biting his lip so hard the silver ring threatened to tear out half his lower lip at any second. Gerard realized it must be quite a bit more upsetting for Frank to be called a fag seeing as he was, in fact, a "fag." 

"Frankie? Are you alright?" Gerard asked in a low voice. 

Frank looked at his shoes and shook his head. 

"Just try to ignore them. Just keep walking and they'll leave us alone."

Frank nodded slowly and followed Gerard's lead as they continued to walk down the rest of the block. Gerard was planning to turn at the nearest corner, hoping to lose the other boys. After a minute of silence and speedwalking, Frank and Gerard were on a completely different street. 

"They should be-"

"Agh!" Frank suddenly yelped in pain. 

Gerard stopped in his tracks and turned to see Frank rubbing the back of his head and on the verge of tears. He looked down at the pavement; there was a half-empty water bottle slowly rolling away from Frank's feet. While the group of boys had seemingly gone away, one of them had apparently decided to leave the rest of his little gang to continue following Frank and Gerard and had thrown a bottle at the smaller's head.

"Gerard..." Frank whimpered. "It hurts."

Gerard glared furiously at the baggy-pantsed boy who was currently guffawing and jumping around with laughter like a moronic hamster on crack. 

"You son of a bitch." Gerard immediately wished he had kept his mouth shut. 

The hamster boy stopped laughing and returned Gerard's glare. 

"What did you just say?"

"Fuck you."

Hamster Boy lunged toward Gerard and tried to grab him, but Gerard had been in enough situations like this to anticipate the violence. He dodged and shoved Hamster Boy toward the road. 

Frank had enough sense to keep at a safe distance from the action, though he was frightened out of his wits for the safety of Gerard. He balled his hands into fists in an attempt to stop them from shaking so much. 

Hamster Boy and Gerard were pretty much having a wrestling match in the middle of the road - thankfully, there were no cars at the moment. Frank squeaked and bit down hard on his lip when Gerard took a fist to the mouth. But Gerard, being the stubborn little misfit that he was, gave Hamster Boy a hard blow to his privates. He doubled over in pain and in that moment of imbalance, Gerard attempted to pin him onto the ground. 

Unfortunately, Hamster Boy was no amateur at these kinds of things. He immediately straightened up and grabbed Gerard's arm, catching him off-guard. He proceeded to knock him down on the ground. As Gerard fell, his head flew backward and smacked on the hard pavement. Hamster Boy lifted his arm to punch him but stopped when he realized his victim was no longer moving. It dawned on him what he had done and he scrambled up to run away, being too cowardly to face the consequences of his stupidity. 

Frank stared in horror at his friend lying motionless in the middle of the road. After a moment he shook himself to his senses and ran out to Gerard. He did his best to drag him back on the sidewalk out of any other possible dangers like being run over by a careless driver. 

"Gerard?" Frank shook his shoulders in hopes that he might wake up. "C'mon Gerard..." his voice cracked. He looked for any signs of serious injury, but the only thing he could see was a bruised nose. Then he looked at the area around the back of his head, and his stomach lurched at the sight of blood. He had cracked his head open upon hitting the pavement as he fell. 

The last thing Frank remembered was shakily pulling out his phone and dialing 911. 


~


Frank opened his eyes to blinding white lights and found himself lying down. He suddenly remembered Gerard and immediately sat up. 

"Gerard? Where are you? Ger-"

Frank was forced back down onto his bed. 

"Hey! What - Gerard-"

"Calm down, kid. He's just in the room next door." said the doctor as he took the boy's pulse. 

"Is he okay? I need to know, he-"

"Calm down!" the doctor exclaimed. "You can see your friend in a minute, we just need to make sure you're alright."

"What are you talking about?" Frank stuttered. "Of course I'm alright, I-"

"Son, we found both of you kids unconscious. You'd fainted and your friend had been knocked out cold."

"Oh...Can I see him now?"

"If you can stand."

"Of course I can stand." As soon as Frank got on his feet he began to sway and sat back down. "I guess not."

The doctor left the room and came back with a wheelchair. He put Frank in it and wheeled him over to the room next door. He deposited Frank in the chair beside Gerard's bed. 

"Is he ok?"

"Well, he hit his head pretty hard but thankfully nothing was broken. It was just his scalp that tore open. We've patched it up and he should be fine."

"Is he awake?"

The doctor shook his head. "You can wait here until he does." he said and left the room. 

Frank watched him walk out the door and then turned his gaze to Gerard. His face was pale as the sheets he lay on; the only color was from the bruises on his nose and eye. Frank sniffled and reached out to take Gerard's cold hand. His breath caught in his throat when his eyelids fluttered open. 

"Gerard?"

Gerard squinted and looked around. "Frank?"

"Yeah."

"Am I in the hospital?"

"Yes."

"What happened?"

"You, um, you got in a fight with this kid and you er, hit your head."

Gerard let out a long breath and closed his eyes. "It must be great for you...having a friend that's always getting into shit."

Frank gave him a sad smile. "But you were standing up for me. There's nothing wrong with that."

"I could've just ignored him."

"So why didn't you?"

"Because you're my friend, Frankie. I couldn't let some son of a bitch get away with hurting you."

Frank remained silent. 

"You know I love you just as much as Mikey. And Ray, too."


Only in the end would Gerard finally realize that those words would eventually tear Frank up inside, bit by bit.



A/N
I just realized today that I have the same birthday as Synyster Gates. EPIC WIN.