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Chapter Twenty Six – Things Can’t Get Any Worse


Frank’s POV




I can’t look at him.

I can’t look at him and allow myself the reassurance that he’ll be alright because I don’t deserve to give myself that kind of comfort, not after what I’ve done. I can’t believe that I was so stupid, so selfish, so surreptitiously horrible. It’s bad enough to think that I can be like that towards anyone, kiss them when I have no intention of taking it any further, but the fact that I did it to a kid like Mikey Way, a kid that had just told me that he wanted to die? That makes it so much worse; but not any worse than the way I feel right now.

I feel like I’ve just blown up a planet of angels, like I’ve slaughtered the lives of a thousand innocent children, like I’m the worst kind of human being to ever curse the Earth with his footsteps; the kind of human that’s inexplicably cruel and painfully stupid.

I didn’t mean to be cruel, though; it just sort of happened. The kiss, I mean. I never meant any harm, of course I didn’t; I’d die for the kid, I just let my heart control my head. And even then it wasn’t the part of my heart that I normally listen to, the sensible and serious part that lead me into Gerard’s kiss, but the selfish and curious part that I only knew existed when I met Mikes. I let my longing to taste his cuteness drive me forwards onto the pikes of his tear-wetted lips, and I made him believe that I was offering him something that I wasn’t, something that Gerard has already claimed. I made him stutter so badly that I could barely understand his words.

I didn’t need to; the indescribable empty look in his dead eyes told me everything.

The poor kid will never trust anyone again. He’ll never feel safe or comfortable around others because I stole what little trust he had in people away, used it to gain his friendship and then handed it back to him in the form of everything that he didn’t need, in the form of everything that I shouldn’t have ever even thought of.

I took advantage of him.

There’s no nice way to put it; he was distraught after getting beaten up a million times too many, he was managing to find his comfort in my arms and I pushed it that little bit further whilst he was still too confused to even understand it. Then I pushed him away, tried to do the right thing and end it before his arms tightened around my sweaty neck like the clasp of a diamond necklace around the neck of a gold-digger, I pushed him away and I swore at him, maybe even looked angry amidst my self-scolding.

And then I let him run off. Let him run off with his body shaking like a willow in the wind; with his eyes bleeding like an overflowing puddle in a deserted forest hollow; with his earlier words painted all over his face in a horrific, sorrowful reflection of his thoughts. And that’s what scares me, torments me, putrefies me the most; the fact that I know the truth behind this, as to how he ended up in this horrendously eye-burning state.

This was no accident.

He had told me, had cried to me, screamed at me even, that he wanted to die. That he just wanted it all to stop. That he wanted it to go away. He trusted me to make him feel better, to make him see that his life is worth living; that there is a ray of sunlight flitting through the storm clouds, that it’s just waiting for the bad parts to clear before it shows itself in all of it’s magnificent glory. And I did try to, really I did. But he just… It’s like those bullies have broken something inside of his head, they’ve broken the part of his amazing mind that allows him to believe anything good about him or his future, and now he is incapable of thinking that he is worth anything. So what did I do? I kissed him, tasted him, enjoyed his mouth and then pushed him away. Made him feel used. Made him feel worthless. Made him feel laughed at. Made him feel hopeless.

Hopeless enough to walk out in front of a goddamned bus.

Should I tell Gerard about what happened, about the fact that his baby brother put himself in this comatose, unable to function state; that he’s longing to die just to escape the pain of living?

It’ll destroy him almost as much as it is wrecking me. I think that if I could see my heart right now it would look twenty times worse than poor, broken Mikey Way. Because I did this, I pushed him far enough to make it too far. It wasn’t the bullies nor the bad memories, it wasn’t Gerard nor his constant fear that always lurks in the back of his bruised eyes; it was me.

Me. Frank Anthony Iero. The one person who never set out to hurt him, the one person who wanted to be his best friend and security blanket for no other reason than the fact he’s a genuinely nice kid. The one person that he could hold his stutter back for, though I doubt he’d be able to if he were to wake up and talk right now. The one person who only wanted to help him, the one person who rescued him when no one else would. The one person who he bestowed a little of his fragile trust upon, and I as good as pushed him in front of the bus that he trusted me to save him from throwing himself at. Because that’s really what him coming to me was all about, wasn’t it? He’d been feeling so low, so completely downtrodden and spat on, that he didn’t know how to deal with it, perhaps had even been scared of the thoughts running through his head as he ran to my place; he wanted me to help him through it, to stop him doing exactly what he has.

Instead I practically encouraged him onwards in his quest for eternal peace and quiet.

I’m a terrible person, an even more awful person than Mikes heartbreakingly believes himself to be, and I hope that I go to hell for this; if I don’t I’ll have to cope with this guilt going unpunished for all of eternity.

Oh God, I really did this; I really hurt fragile, precious, cute little Mikey Way.

Not just hurt; killed. Because if he wants to be dead then he’s not really alive, is he? Physically, yes; but inside? Inside he’s about as alive as his relationship with Gerard.

Gerard. Gerard Arthur Way. The man that possesses my heart like a child clutching the string of a kite; he has it, but at the moment I feel like I’m going to escape his clutches at any moment. Why? Because he used to beat Mikes. Not ‘beat up’ like the kids at school, but properly beat. As in child abuse ‘beat’, as in he used to hand it to Mikey just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that makes me absolutely livid, fuming like the Devil being thrown into ice water, but it also breaks my heart; I thought that I’d found someone that I could live with for the rest of my life, my perfectly imperfect soul mate. Not someone that used to beat his own little brother, not someone cruel enough to be my current reflection.

But Mikes said that he can’t remember it, that Gerard had been too out of it to know what he was doing. That means that it wasn’t really Gerard doing it, right? That means that I don’t have to hate him because it wasn’t his fault, it was the drugs and alcohol, not my amazing, sexy Gee.

But that doesn’t make him right. He shouldn’t have been doing that sort of stuff around a kid anyway, even if he was just a kid himself back when it happened; he should have known better than to let himself get so smashed around a kid.

And I think that that’s why Mikes is the way he is. If his own big brother, his protector and best bud, is able to inflict God knows how much pain upon his innocent soul, then why shouldn’t everyone else?

There’s so much more to the Ways than meets the eye, and what meets the eye is bad enough; a pair of orphans with nobody to care for them, one struggling to support the both of them with two jobs, the other a barely visible kid with obvious anxieties and insecurities. It hurts to know all of the deeper things lying beneath the obvious agonies that they both pull each other through, but I’m so glad that I do know them; because now I can help them and know that I’ll have two amazing people by my side for the rest of my life.

Or at least that’s how it would have been before Mikes collapsed against my kiss over eight unfortunately eventful hours ago. Now I’ll be lucky if the kid can even stand to look at me without panicking or getting frightened of me, let alone trust me like he did this morning. And when Gerard finds out I doubt that he’ll be able to look at me either, and I doubt that I’ll be able to walk by the time he’s finished with me. Gerard may love me, but I’d be stupid to think that he’d ever put me before his baby brother and I’m glad of that; Mikey needs to be the top of someone’s list.

When Gerard finds out how I betrayed not just Mikey’s trust but his own blind faith in me, I’ll lose the both of them forever.

That will be painful enough. But to lose them before I’ve managed to help them; lose them knowing about what Gerard used to do to the poor kid? That excruciates me like rolling your hand through a mangle at a purposefully slow pace. Which is why, even though I know full well that I don’t deserve it, when the time comes I will beg for their collective forgiveness as though it’s the cure to some disease they’ve infected me with instead of granting them a respite from my attempts at help.

Help that’s landed Mikes, shy and kind and sweet and innocent and cute Mikes, half-dead in some stiff white sheets in a stuffy hospital room.

I’m sat on the edge of Mikey’s bed and my hand resting gently on his barely rising chest so that I can stroke soft patterns on it, my back to him so that I don’t have to see the atrocities that I caused him to inflict upon his perfect, undeserving, worth-more-than-the-world body. I can’t see him, but I can see Gerard and I think that that might be worse.

He’s clutching Mikey’s hand like he can pull Mikes out of his coma just by pulling his hand closer to him. His eyes are glued to his baby brother’s bandage hidden face like fire to a burning home, his pupils licking at the wounds that are feasting upon his brother’s flesh and the image is infecting his mind with some sort of incurable disease; no, it’s not incurable, all it’ll take to cure him is the fluttering open of Mikey’s eyes.

Eyes that I drained of all liveliness and hope.

Like they had any in the first place.

Gerard sighs, bending over slightly to press his lips to his brother’s hand and I wince inwardly because I know what’s coming next. He’s been doing it every few minutes and each time he does it he just drives the knife that I have impaled myself with in so much deeper.

He’s about to beg his baby brother to awake from a slumber that was intended to be eternal.

“Mikey, I know you’re probably getting sick of hearing my voice by now; but I’m not gonna stop. Not until you’re telling me to shut up yourself.” He tries to smile, as though he thinks that Mikey’s eyes will ping open just because that’s what he desires, but I can see the agony behind those falsely lit eyes and it kills me. “I know that I haven’t been the best big brother ever, but you’ve always been the best little brother ever and when you wake up I’m going to make up for it. I promise. I’ll do whatever you want, say whatever you need me to, listen whenever you want to talk; when you wake up, which I know you will, you’re big brother’s going to be here waiting for you.”

His desperately loving and remorseful tone makes me think that he might just be the younger one, the lost one in need of a hand to hold. So I reach out my spare one and capture his own in it, wincing at how frost-bitingly cold it is; his current guilt and longing forcing me to momentarily forget his actions of the past. When you love someone like I love Gerard, you have to learn to look past the bad things, to look after them no matter what.

That doesn’t mean I condone what he did at all, far from it, and I will be making sure that he does find out when the time is right. When he isn’t shaking and crying over his unconscious little brother’s limp hand.

I can’t believe that I did this to them. How the fuck could I? I should have ran after Mikes, caught up with him and calmed him down enough for him to accept an apology. But I didn’t. I was too stunned to move, too ashamed to face his hate and tears.

“Please wake up.”

Each drawn out, shuddering sound from Gee’s lips feels like a thousand whip lacerations berating my soul for causing them to sound so broken. No. Not whip lacerations; they’re too quick to describe this endless, agonizing punishment that my conscience is dragging every other part of me through.

When Gee receives no reply, just as the past hundred times, more tears slide down his paler than normal face, dripping onto Mikey’s motionless hand just as mine are dripping onto his preciously delicate chest. To try and look supportive amidst my self-absorbed guilt, I stroke my thumb in circles around the area where Mikey’s heart is. Should be. Would be if it wasn’t for all that Fate has thrown at him. Now it’s just an all-consuming darkness waiting to take over the rest of his wonderful personality and soul.

“C’mon, kid, please wake up. We need you.” My voice is raspy and genuine, sincere and sorrowful, yet I can’t help but feel like the worst kind of hypocrite.

I have to tell Gerard what happened; the real reason behind all of this.

No. I should leave it to Mikey. Besides, I could be wrong. This could all be some horrible, evil accident that Mikes fell into like he fell into my arms that night in the alley way. A night that feels so long ago it’s almost just a faded memory in my crowded mind.

Yeah, it could just have been an accident. I just have to give Mikes the chance to tell Gerard everything; about the beatings, how he feels inside, about that horrific urge to make it all stop like my heart did when I got Gerard’s phone call. At first I thought it was going to be him yelling at me for fucking around with his little brother, that Mikes had gone to him and told him what I’d done. I wish that’s what had happened. Instead I’m suspended in this purgatory of anticipation, awaiting to find out if Mikey’s okay, if this really was just an accident.

I know that it wasn’t. I know that this was meant to be a successful suicide. A suicide that I could have prevented. A suicide that I caused just as much as the bullies and the bad memories and Gerard.

Fuck. I made a poor, innocent kid try to kill himself.

What the fuck have I done? What the fuck am I? I’m an absolute fucking disgrace.

There’s a soft, almost meek, knock at the sterile white door and a short nurse steps nervously through, holding something tightly in her left hand.

“Excuse me?” Her voice is soft and sing-song, yet melancholy at the same time.

Gerard turns hastily around, both of us training our eyes on the shy young red-head.

“I… erm, we found this in his jean pocket. It says it’s for Gerard?” She holds her hand out to Gerard’s and drops a small, folded piece of paper into it.

“Thanks,” Gerard smiles weakly up at her, his bemusement painfully obvious in his gorgeous god-like eyes.

The nurse nods and exits silently, leaving me and Gerard crowded around a thick, folded piece of paper with the words ‘For Gerard’ scrawled onto it messily. It looks as though it was written in a panicked hurry.

Oh shit, oh God, oh no, oh fuck.

Please, for the love of everything both good and evil, please don’t let this be what I think it is. Please.

Please.

He unfolds it, hands shaking slightly as he does so.

Please.

He scans it quickly before just letting it drop to the floor; a scarred and ghosted look infesting his teary pupils like the plague.

Please.

I pick up the piece of paper, I have to know what it is for sure.

Please.

Gee,

I’m sorry for all of the shit I’ve put you through. I know that I’ve been a selfish, horrible, childish little shit but you’ve always tried your hardest with me. Even though I only ever throw it back in your face. I really am sorry for being a worthless little freak; I don’t mean to be, I just sort of am.

And everyone hates me for it. Even you do. You don’t have to pretend with me, Gerard, I know that you do. And I love you so much for trying to hide it. But I know you do. It’s alright, I do too. Everyone does and I can’t deal with it anymore.

So I’m going to do everyone a favour and leave everyone alone. For good.

I’m kinda scared, but I know that it’ll be alright because Mom and Dad will look after me so that you can be happy again.

Don’t blame yourself, Gee; this is my stupid fault entirely.

All my love,
Mikey xxxx

P.S. Tell Frank that I’m sorry.


Tell Frank that I’m sorry.

I want to start bawling, crying and yelling but I can’t; Gerard’s doing all of that hysterically already.

Poor guy.

Poorer kid.

I look to Mikey’s wreckage of a face and then look down again, unable to face the broken angel who’s so much better than the two other sinners in this room. If only he could see that.

“C’mon, kid, please wake up. Please, your big brother needs you.” I whisper, once more tracing shaky patterns on his chest.

I hear him sigh and Gerard gasp.

And then I hear a sound that I’m all too familiar with…

Mikey’s silent crying.




A/N: Thank you very much for reading; I hope that it’s alright! I don’t really like the way that this chapter ended, so please let me know what you think so that I can improve the way I write the next chapter. Thank you sooo much to anyone who’s been lovely enough to review so far; you guys are even awesomer than Advent calendar chocolate! Thanks for reading and please review! :)