FicWad

Chapter Three – Snowmen and Cells

Gerard's POV

I was sat alone in my dark and dingy bedroom, feeling like a damned soul waiting in purgatory but already half-knowing of my fate. I understood properly then, for the first time, how someone could be driven to cutting themselves. A vile cocktail of worry, fear and guilt flooded my ugly mind, the snide words that I had yelled at my undeserving, innocent baby brother on a relentless, endless loop in my ringing ears. I grabbed my cell and tried Mikey’s number for the millionth (and that’s an understatement) time in the past torturous hour, just to be met with his inappropriately cheery voicemail once more.

“Hey! This is Mikey Way’s cell; he’s currently out chasing unicorns at the moment, so please leave a message!” Frank’s voice mocked playfully down the phone, nearly teasing a smile from my sullen face.

“Frankie, what’re you doing with my cell?” Mikey’s precious voice enquired unknowingly in the background, making another tear roll down my, already sodden, face for my depressed little brother. How could he go from being alright to being a complete wreck? I knew the answer full well but didn’t want to admit it; because of my stupid and thoughtless actions.

“Nothing, Mikes!” Frank shouted back innocently, in a tone so convincing that it deserved an Oscar. “Leave a message after the tone!”

And once again I left a message. How could I not?

“Hiya, Mikes. Look, I’m really sorry buddy. Just, just please come home. I love you, please come home. I’m so sorry, really I am.” I sobbed down the phone, the numerous tears refusing to stay locked up in the cold prison of my eyes.

In a moment of genius (or realising the obvious, take your pick), I punched in Frank’s number viciously, suddenly remembering that he had ran after Mikey and, knowing that Frank was easily the fastest kid in the school, perhaps even the town, I realised that Mikes was probably perfectly safe at Frank’s house. He had to be. I didn’t know what I’d do if he wasn’t.

“Good day. You have reached the Fuck God’s hotline. I’m busy doing stuff that you can only dream of, but if you leave your name and number, I could be doing you.” Frankie’s pre-recorded voice growled down the phone in tones of mock arrogance. My heart sank due to being weighed down with my perfectly understandable worry and contriteness.

If anything happened to my baby brother or, sickeningly worse still, if he did something to himself because of my sheer stupidity and nastiness, I would never forgive myself; neither would Frank by the looks of things. Us three were extremely close, always had been, but recently Frank and Mikey had been particularly inseparable, always asking after each other and constantly texting one another. It was kind of cute, actually. If it were anyone else, I’d probably go into overprotective-big-brother mode and tell them I’d kill them if they tried anything with my brother. But not Frank. I liked that Mikes had someone else to depend on other than me, and the fact that that someone was Frank was even better; I trusted Frank, I knew that he cared about my little brother almost as much as I did and he’d never do anything stupid or something that could hurt my beloved baby bro.

“Frankie-baby, dinner’s ready!” Mrs Iero’s voice buzzed merrily into the recording, releasing a small smirk from my, previously frowning, mouth.

“Yes, Ma!” Frank yelled back, as though it were a perfectly normally thing to have in a voicemail recording. “Leave a message!”

The tone sounded, plucking me from my thoughts.

“Frankie, it’s Gee. Is Mikey with you? Please call me back ASAP!” I pleaded desperately down the phone, my last hopeless hope igniting the murderous silence of my poster-covered basement bedroom that was fast seeming to turn into my own personal Hell.

My teary eyes fell restlessly on an old photo of me and Mikes hanging on my ebony wall, opposite from my bed so that I could see it the split second I woke up every morning and before I went to sleep every night. It was my favourite picture in the whole world. I was nine and Mikey had been six, it was his first ever school snow day. I had taken it upon myself to teach my adoring little brother, who just so happened to quite possibly be the clumsiest kid on the planet, how to build his first snowman. After hours of practice, a surprising amount of patience from my nine-year-old self and a few frustrated tears from Mikey, he had done it; a haphazard lump of snow with two uneven twigs sticking out of it grinned up at me. I hadn’t had the heart to tell him that it was all wrong; that the body was meant to be rounded; that it needed recognizable facial features; that the arms needed to be in line with one another. Instead I found that his goofy smile melted my heart, like the sun had already started to do to his little snowman, making me fling my arms around him and tell him that it was the greatest snowman I had ever seen. It was a compliment that meant the world to his naïve little heart and he beamed up at me proudly. That’s when the picture had been taken; me holding a grinning Mikey a foot or so off of the snow-covered ground with his cute snowman attempt poking into the photo from the left.

“Mikes…”

Why couldn’t it have stayed like that forever? Him letting me take of him, never hiding anything from me, always willing to let me in. Now it was like I didn’t even know him.

Why did he have to lose his relentless optimism that I loved him for? Him always seeing the best in everyone, seeing even the most impossible solutions to unfixable problems, always knowing that good things can happen. Now it was like he knew that, no matter what, the outcome of every situation would be negative.

Why did have to shy away from the world in fear? Why did have to get his soul crushed by bullies? Why had he let life destroy him? Why him? Why my baby brother? Why?

As a billion horrid questions moshed my spinning head and twenty sorrowful tears fell for each, I heard the doorbell ring urgently. My torn heart skipped a beat in blessed relief, refusing to even consider the fact that the ringer may not be Mikey.

I sprinted up the stairs like a sinner from Satan and ripped the door open to see a far from welcome sight; Frank Iero’s fist propelling mercilessly towards my unsuspecting face. As it made contact I made no attempt to lessen the follow-through of his fierce punch by stepping backwards; I was fully aware that I completely deserved it. That didn’t stop the stinging pain from both the strong impact and the fact that it was best friend that had delivered the blow.

“Is Mikey here?” Frank snapped seriously, causing my fiery response to my less-than-polite greeting to flounder in distress.

I pulled my hand away from the fist’s point of contact, my gaze matching his in terms of guilt and worry. Wait. Guilt? What had Frankie done, other than give me what I had coming (which was obviously something he wasn’t too fussed about)?

“No. I thought he was with you!” I retaliated, my shock and killer concern making me forceful.

“Fuck! We’ve got to find him!” He stated, looking up at the sky hopelessly before turning to run out of the door way and back out into the slicing rain.

“Frankie! Wait up, I’m coming with you!”






A/N: Please, please, please review! Thanks for reading! :)