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Chapter Thirty One – Rock Bottom



Frank’s POV






I didn’t think he was watching. I thought he was asleep. I thought he was taking refuge from all of the hurt, the majority of which was caused be myself and his brother in the first place, in a blinding blanket of sleep; not watching me kissing his big brother the way I kissed him. The way I kissed him apart from much more passionately, much more in the way that Mikey’s stamped-out eyes tell me he wanted me to kiss him.

Stamped-out eyes that are currently squeezed shut, refusing to open even for Gerard’s semi-strangled pleas of misunderstanding. Stamped-out eyes that are leaking tears like a scabbed wound leaks blood if you pick at it enough. Stamped-out eyes that looked stamped out because both the owner wishes for them to just fade out of view and in the respect that they’re horribly blackened by his suicide attempt.

A suicide attempt that I caused; that I could have prevented; that I should have seen coming like he saw the bus propelling towards him. A suicide attempt that he really truly wishes wasn’t being referred to as an ‘attempt’, simply as a ‘suicide’. And now I’ve amplified that terrifying lust for death that seems to stalk the deserted tundra of his broken soul, amplified it to the point that he can’t even bear to look at anyone; can’t even bear to acknowledge the fact that he exists because he much rather wouldn’t.

Five minutes ago everything was, for lack of a more fitting and truer word, shit. My best friend actually tried to kill himself pretty much because of my heartless carelessness; said best friend had seemed to introvert back into the skeleton of a person that I long to flesh out with hope and heart; Gee, my beautiful baby, was mercilessly beating himself up over something that wasn’t even his entire fault, a lot of it was down to him but I was the final push and I was being too selfish to let him know that; everything was bleaker than the murky skies that lurked above New Jersey that faithful night when I came into Fate’s plans for the Way brothers.

Now though, everything has gone beyond the point of being hopelessly shit, it’s gone past the point of being hopeless, it’s gone past the point of being the worse day of my pitiful existence; in fact I’m fairly sure that the rapture would be more pleasant to endure than this living hell. And the fact that I know this is all a billion times worse for Mikes is what makes it all the more agonizing for myself; he just doesn’t deserve to suffer. At all. In any way.

But my idiocy and pure, unintended and rampantly regretful, cruelty has inflicted even more of that which I despise onto the poor kid who deserves nothing but the polar opposite of what me and his big brother have given him. So now I’m just sat like a damned soul in the Devil’s waiting room, staring at Gerard and Mikey.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as horrifically hopelessly desolate and guilt-striking in my life, even including that night poor Mikes threw up his own blood down me like his blood saw how bad things would get and wanted out before Fate could drag it down too.

After that tightrope silence in which Mikey’s lack of sleep became apparent to us like a grenade becoming apparent to a platoon of untrained soldiers was detonated by my squeak of a cuss, everything just kind of went dead; just dropped faster than Mikey heartbreakingly wants his heart monitor to. He started crying, and then just stopped with the abruptness of a car slamming into a brick wall. Just went completely silent, even his breathing seemed to cease any real noise despite the fact that his condition should force it to be laboured, and all movement stopped too. His eyes clamped tighter than his lips and it’s like he’s just gone into lockdown; just too scared of what could possibly happen next to allow for anything to happen

To happen and be his fault.

And that, I know I’ve said it many times before, really does kill me. On top of all the other things that Fate’s swift slap of cruelty has dealt him, he has to cope with the constant fear that he shouldn’t even consider feeling when around his best friend and his big brother. Apart from he’s not coping, he wouldn’t be here if he was, and I highly doubt that I’m his best friend. I lost that right the second I decided to play with his lips like a child plays with it’s friend’s favourite toy; thoughtlessly and unaware of just how much hurt may be caused if that toy ends up broken.

But Mikes isn’t a toy; he never was and never will be.

And I’ll kill anyone who dares to treat such an innocently kind, naïve kid the way that I have.

“Mikes, c’mon kiddo. Say something, please say something. Frank and I… doesn’t mean that he isn’t still your friend.” Gerard’s softly soothing voice breaks my heart all over again with it’s beautiful obliviousness that causes a tirade of guilt to pelt my shameful conscience once more. “And it doesn’t change anything between the two of us, okay? We’re all still best friends, right Frankie?”

Gerard’s smiling, even though Mikey’s eyes are frozen shut with the coldness that I have acted out towards his warm soul, and gently rubbing his little brother’s silently shuddering back. A back that is lucky not to be paralyzed. Paralysed by his own, fractured hand. But it’s not really by his hand is it? More like the hand of anyone who’s ever hurt the poor kid.

Including myself.

Including Gerard.

I have to reply to Gee’s reassuring semi-rhetorical question. I should just say yes, just carry on with covering the tracks of my deadly sinful lips worthy of neither Way brother’s own, just say yes and please Gerard, yet break Mikey down even more inside. At least that way I could try to trick myself into thinking that I’ve done the right thing; said the right things to his too-open ears that often act as a funnel to drink in all of the hate that life has taught him he deserves.

No.

I have to be honest. I have to do what I need Mikey to do with Gerard; make it glaringly apparent that bad stuff happened, stuff that was the difference between a wonderful life and a sorrowful death (or maybe the other way around, depending on who you ask).

I take a deep breath, readying myself to take the plunge into a pointless existence void of the presence of the two people that I have learnt to treasure and care about above all else within the space of the past few days, and reach out to take Gerard’s free hand, the one that was caressing my face all of a few minutes ago.

This is going to hurt, hurt like having open-heart-surgery without anaesthetic, but I know that if I continue to hide it then it will continue to hurt Mikes so much more. I at least owe him this release.

“I’m always willing to be your friend, Mikes. Know that now and never forget it.”

Gerard’s soul-wreckingly adorable smile expands in approval of my heartfelt promise. A promise that I know I will never violate for that would mean letting them both down again. I refuse to let that happen; it’ll kill me twice as much as I’ve managed to kill Mikes. Twice as much as Gerard will kill me when he finds out how badly I’ve hurt his baby brother.

Perhaps I should just leave it at that, just let those words settle the storm and not lose anything else. No. There are too many secrets haunting the Ways, the last thing they need is for me to pile another deadweight onto their already collapsed shoulders.

“But we need to talk about what happened earlier. Back at my apartment.” I divert my eyes from Gerard’s innocently confused expression like a train altering it’s course to avoid a head-on collision; his vocal response it going to be bad enough. “Back at my apartment when we… When I kissed you.”

His eyes are open now; open and panic stricken, fear stricken, pain stricken, sorrow stricken, misery stricken. Everything that I am feeling is wrestling within those watery, perfect pupils with everything positive that has ever graced those shattered windows of lost brokenness. I’m looking into his eyes, searching for some form of forgiveness only to find something much more disgusting than any lack of forgiveness; I see that he is the one feeling apologetic, that he believes he messed this up.

And that makes my own tears start to blur my view of the broken little angel whose wings I’ve torn from his bruise-painted back.

“You what?” Gerard snarls, his hand snatching out from underneath my own, and shoots up from the bed to take on an almost threatening stance.

Not almost; extremely threatening stance.

I look back to Mikes to see that he’s shut himself off again, apart from movement is very much present this time; he’s shaking so violently that I’m half tempted to get a doctor to see if it’s normal for a kid to shake that much in fear. In sadness. In anguish. In distress.

Poor kid, this must be like his worst nightmare. No. Worst memories; an angry Gerard geared up to cause some pain to rid himself of his own frustrations. I can’t let this get any more frightening for Mikey’s sake; it just wouldn’t be fair on him to make him go through that which he fears the most for something that is my fault entirely.

Maybe I shouldn’t have come clean to Gerard in front of Mikes; I should’ve known that this could end badly.

Well, it was hardly ever going to end well, was it?

“I kissed Mikey.” I whisper, slowly standing to be level with Gerard, my voice shaking almost as much as Mikey’s abused body is. “And I’m sorry, Gerard. I’m sorry, Mikey but Gerard and I are kind of…” I let it trail off for Gerard to answer.

I look up to see that he, too, is shaking. Shaking from the hurt that I’ve inflicted into him, into the person that I long to spend the rest of my life with. Hurt that’s quickly being overtaken with pure, fiery anger that I really don’t want to see get thrown up all over Mikes.

“We were going somewhere. But now it’s done, Frank.”

His bitter, yet fully expected, words get caught in the throat of my ears and chokes all good things to ever worm their way into my existence from my mind.

“What the fuck were you playing at? What, did you have some sort of little thing going on in your head; a little game to get both Ways? Huh, Frank, was this some sort of game to you? Or just some sick obsession? Was that it? Just wanted to use my brother fo-“

“I never wanted to use Mikey!” I cut in over his furious shouts and Mikey’s silent screams.

“Well, you have.” He turns to his brother and the dread filling the now wide eyes of the younger Way is paralleled only by my own. “And you; wasn’t it obvious that I like him? Or are you really just that stupid?”

Mikey blinks up at him, each frantic blink representing a crack in his obliterated heart. No, obliterated is what it was before I confessed. Now it’s nothing but an ashy dust of nothingness.

I want it back. I want his heart and rare little smiles back. But I took it away, locked it up in his nightmares and now Gerard is about to throw away the key.

“What’s wrong, little brother, cat got your tongue? Oh no, sorry, I forgot; you’re a fucking little freak. Fucking little ungrateful mute. I only ever try to help you and what do you do; ruin every-fucking-thing good that I’ve got! Why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone for once?” No, Gerard, please no. Be angry with me, but please, please just leave the kid alone. He can’t take it. Please, just stop and say you’re sorry. Please. “Oh yeah, because you’ve got no-one else to run to; fucking loner emo kid. You know what? I wish that you were dead. You’re dead to me. The pair of you.”

I want to apologize, want to make up for the pain that Gerard’s words tell me I’ve berated his soul with.

I want to kill Gerard for being so heartless, even though I know that it’s just his way of dealing with things; trying to shout them away like he can control it all. But he’ll feel bad about it soon enough.

Judging by the look on his face, he already does.

Judging by the look on Mikey’s grief-distorted face, Gerard really has gone several steps too far.

And it’s Mikey’s cries that touch me more than Gerard’s ashamed, contrite eyes because, at the end of the day, the only actual innocent party in this whole mess is Mikey.

“Gerard, I think you should go.” He looks like he’s about to say something, but I put my hand to his shoulder as a warning gesture saying that I’ll forcibly remove him if I have to. “Look at him, look at him and then see if you can say whatever rubbish you’re going to.”

He looks. He pales. He turns to leave. He stops to give me one final growl of, admittedly and painfully deserved, hatred.

“At least I never used him.”

And to that, my cagey and hurt mind can only come up with one stupid, thoughtless response.

“At least I never beat him.”





A/N: Thank you very much for reading; I hope that it wasn’t too bad. I’m kinda worried that this comes across as rushed, so please tell me how to improve on my writing so that I can make the next chapter better. Thank you sooooo much to anyone who has reviewed and rated so far, it means so unaccountably and indescribably much! Thanks for reading and please review! :)