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Chapter Nine – Help Only Hurts


Frank’s POV



I’ve seen a lot of terrible things in my nineteen years, the list is endless really. Just like anyone else who bothers to keep count; wars, terrorist attacks, homeless tramps with nowhere to go but hell, mindless dictators slaughtering their own innocent people and uncountable reels of other atrocities that have won a battle with Fate’s flimsy mercy to make it to the poor people of this world. All of those are awful, but none have affected me and torn at me as much as my top three terrible things. All three of which have happened today. Or tonight, to be more precise. And all of the top three revolve around one, innocent, lost kid; a kid in need of a friend; a kid with an adorable stutter that only makes me cringe because of how ashamed he sounds when he voices it; a kid called Mikey Way.

Number one; seeing Mikey getting attacked back in that crypt of an alley. Seeing some heartless, no not heartless, black hearted sinner kicking into him like he’s a worthless sack of potatoes; seeing him get slammed against the wall like he was the broken plaything of a frustrated toddler; seeing him being called a ‘submissive little bitch’ like he’s some insignificant weakling that’s good for nothing other than being used; seeing his outside becoming as damaged as his inside. I still can’t even begin to pretend that I can understand how someone could be so evil as to treat a kid in such a horrendous way, like they’re a pathetic demon made only for his amusement and not a fragile, very breakable child. A child with too much pain to carry already.

Number two; hearing Mikey cry for his mom. He’d sounded so alone, so hopeless, so unlike a kid should sound. I would have given anything to trade places with his mom so that she could have cradled him to sleep in her loving arms; sing him those little tunes that only mothers can make up for their children; tend to his wounds better than my caring hands can; make him smile because if she were here then he would have no reason to not smile. Gerard told me that he was sixteen, something which I expected but was surprised by, kind of like when you tell criminal that has been on Death Row for twenty years that his number’s finally up. Sixteen and there’s already so much pain behind those blameless, soulful eyes. Eyes that should never be infected with a virus of tears because he’s just a kid. A kid that’s been through hell. No; hell would be a release for him judging by what knowledge I’ve scraped together from both Way brothers and my own assumptions. He’s an orphan; he misses his parents like a baby misses it’s teddy; he has a stutter, bought on by a constant fear stalking just below the surface, a stutter that he’s ashamed of; he gets bullied, something which Gerard confirmed in our little catch-up session, and as a result finds that trust eludes him like wings elude a sinner; he wants his brother back instead of the parental figure that even I can tell Gerard is trying to be; he feels even more alone than a buried corpse; he has less hope than a pessimist in a hostage situation; he has less life lighting up his soul than a maggot-infested carcass; he is less like a sixteen-year-old should be than Gerard is like a normal nineteen-year-old. But still I think that there is more to Mikey Way than meets the eye; more bad memories that need to surface that I’m not sure if even Gerard knows about. It’s just the way that he constantly looks frightened, the way that he’s so unwilling to believe that someone isn’t going to hurt him; there has to be more than what I know. And I’m going to find out. No matter what. Because he doesn’t deserve to suffer. He’s just a kid. Not ‘just’. He’s a kid that should be a kid, not a hollow shell of a broken old man. And he’s my friend, too. I always help a friend in need.


Number three; that scream. The scream that pulled Gerard off of me, snatched his hands from my hips and his luscious lips from my own blessed ones. It’s not in the top three just because it ruined the most loving, most beautifully burning moment of my life. No. This is on the list for an entirely different reason. I would prefer it to be for the aforementioned one, but it heartbreakingly isn’t. I heard Mikey Way scream earlier in the alley, that was bad enough, but what’s just been drilled into memory is so unbearably worse. It’s the kind of scream that sounds as though it’s tormented creator doesn’t expect anyone to care about and even if someone did care, it’d be for the wrong reasons. It’s the kind of scream that rewrites everything that I thought I knew about suffering and what suffering can be. My idea of suffering before meeting Mikey Way was delightfully pleasant compared to what it is now. But that scream. I just… it makes me feel as scared as the one who was cursed with it that such a horrific sound could come from any living thing, let alone a helpless kid. And it was conjured by a nightmare; something from within his own mind; something that will never leave him, like a bully never leaves it’s woebegone victim. Even when the bully isn’t there, the insults still are. I wonder if that’s what Mikey feels like; like the bullies won’t ever leave him because their bite marks are still plain for all to see. No, I know that’s not how Mikey feels. It’s gone beyond that with him. It’s gotten to the point where he believes that everyone will turn into those vindictive demons. Or at least, that’s how I’m interpreting his actions as a sign of. And judging from what I’ve been told by a venting Gerard, I’m right. But it’s like it’s more than that; the way he behaved earlier is like that what he fears to happen, a friend turning into the monster that he expects, already has and it has caused him to withdraw all trust. Surely Gerard’s spiteful words weren’t received like that? I don’t think so. Whatever it is, I’m going to find out and murder the person responsible. Perhaps ‘mercy-kill’ would be a more appropriate term, because if Gerard finds out who betrayed his brother so severely as to push him to the person he is now he won’t just murder that person; he’ll tear off each individual hair, then slowly gouge out their eyes, then saw off each limb and then let them bleed to death. Actually, I don’t think I would kill that person; I wouldn’t want to rob Gerard of the pleasure of handing the little shit what it deserves.

That’s another thing that has changed my perspective on a lot of, what I viewed before tonight as insignificant, things; Gerard’s protectiveness and love for his little brother. If only he could understand that Mikey was perfectly licensed to be mad at him about trying to be his father, because he is and although I haven’t had the equivalent of a proper conversation with Mikes yet, I know that it’s killing him. It has to be. How would you feel if you lost your parents and then slowly lost your only remaining family member too, but through perfectly preventable and needless means? I know that it would slaughter me. And Gerard can see that it’s devouring Mikey from the inside like some sort of lethal bacteria, he’s just too blind to fully realise that what he’s doing to help is only making a ghastly situation even worse.

When we were lab partners together he used to talk about Mikey all the time. About how cool he was to have for a little brother; about how bad he felt when Mikey was too scared to sleep alone after Gerard let him watch one of his horror movies; about how inseparable they were. I refuse to believe that the death of their parents, although undeniably tragic, caused such a huge behemouth of a rift to appear.

There’s something else too, something that I’m not entirely sure I want to find out. I don’t want to lose the admiration and adoration I have in Gerard just after we’ve found each other, just after we’ve been stung by loves pin-prick poison-like cocktail of awesomeness. But I have to find out. I vowed to help the desolate, hopeless kid that I found having the life kicked from him in an alley somewhat akin to the bad part of hell, the part that all of the respectable demons avoid, and to do that I have to help him get his big brother back (amongst many other things). In order to find something, you have to remember where and how you lost it.

Perhaps I should have gone to wake Mikey with Gerard. No. Gerard has to do this himself, has to start rebuilding the bridges that he’s managed to reduce to rubble without fully realising it. Not until they crumbled from underneath him.

I want to be in there with the Way’s. Want it as badly as a day-loving vampire longs for a solar eclipse. But I must refrain; I have to let them heal the wounds that only brothers are capable of healing.

But what if Gerard fucks up? Again?

He won’t. I trust him. That’s what a kiss means, right? Complete trust and love and faith in the person you’re kissing. Because that’s what my kiss meant. But maybe I should be in there to make sure that he doesn’t mess up. I don’t think that Mikey will be able to take it if he does.

How stupid does that sound?

Mikey couldn’t take losing his parents. Guess what? It still happened. Mikey couldn’t take having that nasty row with Gerard. Surprise, surprise. It still happened. Mikey couldn’t take the savage attack that some bastard decided to hand out. Did Fate still let it happen? Of course it fucking did. Because Fate is a sadistic, evil force that’s only truly content when someone good and pure, someone like Mikey Way, is suffering at it’s relentless hand.

Wow, I sound pessimistic. But I’m not being a pessimist and that’s the worst part. All of the above is true. It shouldn’t be. It should just be some scary story hidden away in some worthless, dusty tome; but it is as real as I am.

Screw this; I’m going in.

I sprint from the couch and through the open bedroom door, with all of the concerned eagerness of a bird flying back to it’s nest after observing a bird of prey dancing mockingly around it. I skid to an alarmed halt by the occupied bed that Gerard is already perched on. Perched on and leaning over his brother. I strain onto my tiptoes to see that the vicious veil of sleep is still smothering Mikey.

Fuck. He looks so profusely panicked by what his respite of sleep has become that I can’t help but let out a deafeningly silent gasp; the kind of gasp that lusts to be an outraged expletive getting screamed right into Fate’s hideous face.

I can make out his eyes moving around behind his paper-like lids, fleeing from one side to the other like a small child trapped in a room full of machinegun fire. He’s biting his, already gashed, lip so hard that a thin line of liquid fear is weeping from it. His hands are gripping at the duvet with all of the strength of Misfit fighting me for the newspaper, despite the fact that his hands are pretty torn up from his trips to the ground and alley wall. The pain from agitating his wounded hands should wake him, but it hasn’t. Because that’s how trapped by his horrifically unfair nightmare he is; so much so that real, physical pain doesn’t outweigh that of the situation his own mind is dragging him through.

And Gerard’s shaking him. Shaking him to the point where it’s almost violent. Only because he wants to guide Mikey out of the dark, but it still looks pretty fierce.

What’s the last thing Mikey remembers Gerard being? Angry. Angry with him. To the point of picking on his stutter. Now I’m no psychology expert but surely, especially given the current situation, a kid like Mikey isn’t going to react well to waking up from his personal hell to this, is he?

But I say nothing. Gerard knows his brother better than I do, he knows what he’s doing. Perhaps these nightmares are a regular occurrence. The look in Gerard’s frenzied eyes tells me differently. Maybe I should do something?

Just as words of warning decide to form in my dry mouth, Gerard falls from the bed with the kind of thud that an angel falling from heaven to hell would create upon impact.

Mikey's sat bolt-upright, far from asleep and staring in wide-eyed fearful shock at the brother he’s just kicked off the bed. He's trembling, his raw terror sending shockwaves mercilessly through his delicate body, and looks very much as though he’s about to either implode upon himself by means of passing out or explode by the way of sobs. I want so badly to take over the situation, to slowly approach him and calm him down before hugging the anxieties out of him. But I can’t, I have to let his big brother fix this. Fix him. I’m sure Gerard knows exactly how to soothe his little brother at a time like this.

“Mikey!” He yells, springing to his feet like a gothic jack-in-the-box. Not one of those nice, humorous-looking ones; but one of the heart-stoppingly chilling variety. He reaches out like a lost soul to grab his brother in a vehement hug. A hug that is so strong and swift that poor Mikey doesn’t even have enough time to get his head around being awake.

So he yells. And he cries. And he tries with all of his distress-fuelled mite to free himself of the arms that, in his scattered mind, could be out to hurt him.

“Hey, Mikes, snap out of it!”

Really, Gerard? Are you being serious? I know that I should let him handle it, but can I really let him lose his brother even more? No. I want to help both of them and letting this continue is only darkening matters for all concerned.

“Gerard!”

He looks up at me from trying to control Mikey’s frenzied struggle with eyes that reflect such pure agony at seeing his brother like this that I almost regret my stern bark. Almost. Mikey’s helpless, honest gasps and cries make me glad that I’m finally taking over.

“Let him go, Gerard. You’re frightening him.” My voice is softer this time, all concern and longing to help but it still gets the point across.

His arms fall from Mikey as though they’re on fire and he fears his brother getting burnt by his need to comfort him. He takes one look at Mikey’s face, stands up and storms out of the room; guilt and fury masking the pain that only I can see. He storms out of the room like his feet are dead-weights; noisily and somewhat intimidatingly. As though he is genuinely furious.

And, to Mikey, what’s the only thing that Gerard could possibly furious with? His little brother. A fact that makes him curl further into himself, cry louder, shake more shockingly and the last light to be extinguished from his eyes.

If the situation was bad before, it’s now positively catastrophic. If my chances of him letting me in were slim before, they’re now practically non-existent.

But I’m still going to give it my all.



A/N: Thank you sooo much for reading; I hope that you liked it! Please be super-duper amazingly fantastic and review! Thanks again for reading, I hope that it wasn’t too bad. :)