FicWad

Chapter Twelve – Just a Baby


Gerard’s POV





It’s three in the morning and the darkness of my complete, unforgiveable failure is consuming my mind just like the sinister blackness of the night is consuming the bedroom.

A bedroom that’s far too empty for my liking. I never really realised how cold my parents’ old double bed is with only one person in it, or rather one person and an obese Jack Russell, but I suppose that’s because I’ve never slept in it without my Frankie curled around me. Before Frank moved in I was still sleeping in my basement bedroom, but that was too small to sport a double bed and that was kind of the whole point of him moving in. Not the sex, although that’s definitely not something to complain about, but being close to him and being able to hold him like he’s the one thing I haven’t fucked up with yet. Because he wasn’t, I’ve never messed up with Frankie and I hoped to God that I never would.

But I have and now I’m sleeping alone, for once not caring that Misfit insists on sharing our bed because without that dog, which smells faintly of the one I should be cuddling, I would be even colder, even more alone. I did fuck up with him, in an indirect sort of way, and now I am sleeping alone in a bed that was made for two. A bed with a Frankie-shaped imprint on the mattress from where he’s laid there so many nights previously. But not tonight. Tonight I get to feel as lonely as Mikes seems to every waking minute.

Mikes…

My precious little baby brother. My precious little baby brother who wasn’t in a very babyish position at all with that muscular, tanned douche bag too cocky and arrogant to realise that he was trying to get into the pants of a seriously depress kid, a seriously depressed kid who can’t take being used like that. But self-absorbed shits like that Pete guy, I doubt that’s even his real name, don’t care about hurting other people, just as long as they get what they want. And he was eighteen as well! Two years older than my little brother and old enough to know better, old enough to know that he shouldn’t be fucking around on top of a kid like Mikes.

But Mikey looked… he looked happy when he was underneath that forceful, strong kid. Like he was enjoying being pinned to his bed by hands too excited to remain in one place at a time. Mikey actually didn’t look sad, actually looked like this guy’s antics were enough to make him forget that it’s his mom’s birthday.

The way he moaned from behind his closed bedroom door, I don’t think that I’ve ever heard anything so exalted and not-miserable in my life; which should be a lie because I should have heard better from my Frankie, I should be able to make him moan like I’ve just saved his life. Don’t get me wrong, I sure as fuck know how to make Frank moan but never in the purely blissed-out way that Pete made my baby brother moan. He made my baby brother not-sad on a day that had been set to be horrendous for the poor kid, on a day when he had woken up with hollow eyes and with that air he has about him whenever he knows that he’s going to end up as a shaking mess before he goes to sleep at night. My baby brother should have been a shaking mess, should have been sobbing and hyperventilating when I got in from work because I hadn’t been a good big brother in the morning, but instead he was making out on his bed with some dick who I’ve never even seen before.

Some dick who made him happier than I can.

Yet he still ended up sobbing and hyperventilating, a shaking mess if you will. Because, me being the utter fucktard that I am, got angry in front of him; I physically hurt his ‘boyfriend’ in front of him, actually drew blood from Pete’s nose, a nose that had been rubbing against my baby brother’s own prior to me bloodying it. I made my little brother frightened by acting like I apparently used to with him. Fuck, I messed up. I didn’t just make him frightened though, I made him angry too. My little brother, the introverted kid who barely ever speaks if he can avoid it, actually yelled at me for hurting the guy who was eating his face. The guy who he tried to defend. Fuck, he was trying to talk to me, to tell me who he thinks Pete is and I just shook him off like a horse shaking off it’s jockey; he was going to tell me something important to him and I told him that I was busy. Busy breaking his heart all over again.

I’m a terrible big brother and I know it. I just… that guy was all over him, being all wandering hands and lusty gasps. I know that Mikey’s sixteen, that he’s a teenager and boys will be boys, but that doesn’t change the fact that my little brother is so breakable; so hurtable; so useable. Especially useable to someone like Pete, a guy who obviously knows full well what he’s doing and how he shouldn’t be playing that sort of game with a kid like my baby brother, a guy who’s probably screwed more things than a screwdriver. To him my brother’s probably just another kid too stupid to know any better, just another sucker with no friends who’ll fall for anyone who takes the time to show him any sort of affection. And that’s why I punched him, made his nose crack and bleed like he could very well end up making Mikey’s do; to show him that he can’t fuck with/fuck my baby brother, not if he wants to be able to fuck anyone else afterwards.

I don’t regret punching that bastard, the bastard who told me that I shouldn’t be looking after my own baby brother, but I do however regret that it made Mikes cry. I do regret using his attempted suicide against him. I never meant to and, after all, that bastard deserved to know just how damaged the kid he was cruel enough to be using already is. It’s just that it kind of came out before I could stop it, like water out of a broken dam and it completely drowned my baby brother. I know that it’s something that he’s very, maybe even overly, sensitive about, that it’s something that makes him shake whenever anyone so much as mentions buses or hospitals and I always try my hardest not to bring it up but yet I still yelled about it; I still spilled his most shameful secret to a little fucker that could easily spread it around his school. The last thing I need is having to deal with Mikey getting made fun of for the origin of his scar, a scar that looks like a permanent line of dried tears on the left side of his hollow face, the last thing all three members of my little mishmash family needs is having an even more depressed Mikey moping around.

Fuck it, I don’t give a shit if he’s depressed or mopey or miserable or suicidal or if he ruins everything. He’s my little brother; I can never stop loving him and caring about him and worrying about him whenever he isn’t in my exact line of sight.

Like right now. It’s three o’clock in the fucking morning and he isn’t tucked up in bed like he should be. Like he would be if I hadn’t been a total motherfucking, insensitive bastard with him. I got frustrated with him. No, not with him; with myself for not being good enough for him. Either way, I still used the outlet that I know I should never fall to; I took it all out on him, every feeling of hurt and desperation that I feel because of him, although through no fault of his own, I just let it out by taking it out on him. On someone who I’d only walked in on making out with some user because I had intended to comfort him through missing Mom, not cause him to need even more comfort. Not cause my Frankie to slap me. Admittedly the slap was far from hard but it was more the shock than anything; the horrible shock of having the over half of myself, the stunningly good and beautiful half, actually be furious enough to strike me almost made me cry. But I couldn’t cry. Because Frank, the one person who my brother seems to feel safe with, acted more like me than himself and it made my brother feel even more threatened. It was only then that I fully realised the extent of the damage that I had caused, that I had made him actually hide under his covers like an ant under a stone.

It was only then that vengeful remorse kicked in and made me realise how unfair I’d been.

How honest I’d been. The things that I used against him, with possibly the exception of calling him selfish, were all true. Frankie and I can’t go out in the evenings like most couples can because we both refuse to leave him alone through Frank’s fear of making him feel alone or unloved and through my, far more rational fear, of coming home to find him dead by his own hand. We could always hire a babysitter, something which I did suggest to Frankie once, but Mikes can barely look me in the eye let alone cope with staying in the house with a complete stranger. Besides, babysitters generally don’t deal with depressed sixteen-year-olds with slightly suicidal tendencies. When I snarled at him about not being able to take him to crowded places, places that I might want to go to with my family, I meant every little bit of frustration and annoyance in my voice; we just can’t take him anywhere without him getting all panicky at the prospect of people staring at him, laughing at him, teasing him. Not that Frankie and I would ever let any of that happen to him in our presence. When I yelled at him that he’s a slut I didn’t mean it in the respect that pissy cheerleaders do, I meant it in the respect that the past two guys who’ve been nice to him (my Frankie included) have both ended up on his lips.

Apart from this Pete guy wasn’t just on his lips, he was actually on him. On my weak, fragile baby brother. A baby brother too blinded by the dizzy excitement of having someone want to be on top of him to see that this cocky eighteen-year-old probably is just some pathetic user. Why? Because, and this will sound heartlessly honest, guys that look like Pete, all toned and tanned and entirely fuckable, just don’t fall for the quiet, weak, scarred little kid purely because kids like Pete know that they can do better than an introverted wisp of a boy. I know that sounded cold, but it is true. Internally, Mikes may be the most loving and loveable kid possible but on the outside he is still that lonely little kid with the scarred face.

No, Pete was only taking advantage of him on a day that had further weakened my baby brother. And that, quite understandably, made me completely fucking furious.

But the fact that Mikes tried to defend him, couldn’t see how he was being played like some unwanted ragdoll in a toddler’s careless hands? That just made flat out fuming. Fuming, frustrated and loaded with things that I should never have said.

And as a result I’m lying in a bed, hugging onto my Frankie’s pillow, without the warmth of my lover.

A lover who I myself am pissed off with, angry with because he made me let my baby brother go out into the underworld that killed him in the first place. Let me let my little brother, the kid that I’ve got to protect no matter what, go running from his home and into the dangerous streets of night-time Belleville. I know that he’s got his cell turned on, Frankie told him to have his cell reachable and I know that he’d never go against Frankie’s requests, but I just can’t bring myself to call him. I know it sounds even more cowardly than taking out my pent-up aggression on my naïve baby brother, but I just can’t face him yet.

Not after what we said to one another.

Who the fuck am I kidding; this is my fault entirely. I can’t face him yet because of what I’ve said to him, to a kid who wants nothing more than my praise and affection and for me to be a good guardian. I can’t face him because I’ve got nothing left to say to him right now, no words that can remedy what I’ve done to his already dead self-esteem. I’ve got no soothing consolations let within me to take away from the hurt I’ve forced upon him, no calm placations to make him feel less alone than I have made him feel because without me that poor kid is nothing.

A slither of moonlight, something akin to the pale line that stains my brother’s innocent face, filters into the bedroom through the haphazardly drawn curtains and illuminates the overweight dog who’s currently lying on my stomach. Normally, I really can’t stand Misfit and if it wasn’t for the fact that both of my everythings adore her she would not be allowed in my house, but right now I’m glad to have her here with me, relying on me to keep her warm and happy. Like I should be keeping Frankie warm and like I should be making my little brother happy.

A soft, cautious knock on the ajar bedroom door rouses me from my thoughts and I look up to see Frankie stood nervously in the door way, head down and hands wringing.

“Gee, are you alright?” I’m about to ask him what he means when I realise that my face is sodden, completely fucking drenched in tears that I’d been too wrapped up in my guilt to notice. “I could hear you crying from downstairs and… well, I’m really sorry that I slapped you and I shouldn’t have slept on the couch. I’m sorry.”

Okay, it’s official; Frankie is a total fucking saint when I’m not bringing out his inner sinner.

He really is amazing, my little love, who can forget all of my flaws and all of the horrible things that I have done just because he heard me crying. Crying even though I didn’t even realise it. But now that I am realising it I don’t feel all embarrassed like I once would have done over not looking strong in front of my rock of a boyfriend; I feel like I can pour it all out to him because this time I’m not the only one in the wrong. Pete is for taking advantage of my depressed little brother. Mikey is for keeping too many secrets and yelling at me like I yelled at him. Frank is for losing it and slapping me in front of an already terrified child.

I shuffle to sit up, Misfit sensing my movement and jumping off of me with surprising agility, and hold my arms out to Frankie like a grumpy toddler begging his mom to pick him up. He can’t help but smirk as I jut out my bottom lip, I know now might not be the best time for playing around but if it makes us feel better then what harm can it do?

“Am I forgiven, then?” He whispers sweetly, although he’s already climbing into bed next to me, baggy Batman boxers making the muscles in his legs stand out even more in the moonlight. He snuggles into my side and I kiss his forehead, it’s what we do every night before we go to sleep; no matter what.

“Always.”

“I really am sorry that I slapped you, Babe. I just, you-“

I silence him with my lips pressing on top of his own to act like some sort of cork stopping me from hearing what I already know but don’t want to accept. It’s really nothing more than a peck, but it’s more than enough to make my Frankie blush like he always does whenever I kiss him, just like I’m a king lowering myself to the level of a lowly servant and he can’t quite believe his luck.

“I know I fucked up. I know that Mikey probably hates me right now.” I sigh, looking down to his heavenly hazel orbs of pure affectionate care. The kind of care that my baby brother needs way more than I do. “I’ve been playing it back in my head and, Frankie, was I really that bad?”

“Gerard, you know what you said and you know full well how it made him feel. All he did was bring a boy home.” He’s gone from being all comfort to being stern with me, and I don’t like it. I want him to tell me that I’ve done nothing wrong, that I was just doing the right thing and it simply spiralled out of control; not tell me what my mind is screaming at me to be true. “Gee, he probably wanted you to give his first boyfriend your approval; y’know, give them your blessing or whatever.”

“Frankie, I don’t think they’re even properly going out! Pete, or whatever his name was, was on top of him and he had no top on. He was trying to get into my baby brother’s underwear; he was taking advantage of him! Oh, did I mention that he’s eighteen?” I would flinch at how much like an old man I sound, but it’s true. I’m just being honest.

“It’s just two years, Gee. He’s hardly a paedophile, is he?” He looks up at me with firm, incredulous eyes and a half-smirk at what he is receiving as an overreaction.

But he’s right. Two years. One hundred and four weeks. Seven hundred and thirty days. It’s hardly a lifetime, hardly like he’s some middle-aged weirdo hitting on a little kid. It’s just that he seemed so much bigger than my baby boy, like he could crush him if he so wished. Or am I just looking for excuses? Searching for reasons to hate my little brother’s first boyfriend. I must admit that I’d had ideas about Mikey getting his first boyfriend and none of them revolved around finding him under a sweaty teenager who could quite obviously have his pick of anyone. None of them revolved around that boyfriend being a cocky little shit who felt that he has the right to tell me about my baby brother and what he needs.

“He was just… I know it sounds like a lame excuse, but he just looked like the sort of kid who’ll end up breaking Mikey’s heart. I don’t want that to happen.” My eyes are brimming once more and Frankie reaches up his thumb to smudge away a stray tear. “Why can’t Mikey see that just because someone acts nice it doesn’t mean that he has to fall in love with them? It’s obvious that Pete is nothing but trouble.”

“Gee, Babe, you kind of have to say that though, don’t you?” I raise my eyebrows in bemusement, waiting for him to expand on that. “Well, you still see Mikey as a baby when that just isn’t the case anymore, is it? I mean, it obviously isn’t if he’s making out with a boyfriend. Which Pete must be because, let’s face it, Mikey doesn’t just bring people home with him and give them the opportunity to kiss him unless he really trusts them. And I saw that guy, Gee, he looked genuinely worried about Mikes. So what if Mikey’s got himself a guy? He really isn’t a baby anymore, Babe, no matter how much you might like to think that he is.”

And that is why, amongst other things, I love my Frankie. He always knows exactly what to say to make me understand where I’ve gone wrong.

But have I gone wrong? Mikey is still my little baby brother, is still under my care and is still just as fragile as he’s always been. Frank definitely has a point about the whole trust thing, though. There really is no way that Pete would have just been able to ask Mikes if he could come in, no; he would have had to earned my little brother’s rare trust in order to be granted such a privilege. How the fuck has he managed to earn my little brother’s trust when all I ever manage to do it betray it; how has he managed to make my brother love him when all I ever do is make him frightened? Pete hasn’t. He can’t have, not when Mikey doesn’t even trust me anymore; Pete must just be a really good user.

No. I know what I’m trying to do and just no. Just because I’m a failure it doesn’t mean that everyone else has to be. Just because someone else managed to make Mikes happy on a day when he should have been miserable, it doesn’t mean that it is necessarily too good to be true. Just because my little brother loves someone more than he loves me it doesn’t mean that it can’t be real love.

Perhaps it is real love. That’s what my brother deserves and what I really want for him, but I just can’t get rid of the image of Pete lying on top of him in such a predatory way; in a way that I don’t want to see my brother being handled. Because he is just a little baby. My little, weak, defenceless baby brother.

No. He isn’t. Frank’s right; he’s no more a baby than I am. If he’s capable of making out like he was with someone like Pete, then he quite clearly isn’t a baby anymore, no matter how much I want to think that he is. Which is a key reason as to why I flipped out in such a drastic way; to me he is still a baby and I don’t want that to change. Because if he’s still a little baby then he can’t hate me, if he’s a baby then I can still protect him like I want to protect him.

“Frankie, what if he’s lost? What if he’s all bruised and bloody again? What if he’s hurting and nobody’s helping?” I start sobbing again, fully appreciative of having my Frankie to hold me close like Mikes deserves to be held close, like he was being held close until I tore that away from him. “What if he’s dead, Frankie? What if I’ve killed him?”

I’m almost hysterical by now, but I’m beyond the point of caring; what’s the point to life when I can’t even protect my little brother? There is no point to my life if I can’t at least try to patch things up with Mikes.

“Babe, it’s alright, Mikey will be fine. He’s probably gone to Pete’s to make sure that he’s alright after you punched him.” For some reason the thought of my little brother spending the night at his boyfriend’s, who seems to be predatory and more than a little lusty not to mention has an apparent allergy to clothes, does not fill me with the joy that Frankie was obviously hoping it would. “He’s got his cell on him, Gee. Why don’t you phone him?”

“What if he hates me, Frankie? What if he doesn’t want to talk to me?”

He should hate me for saying those things to him, for making him believe that he’s as bad as he thinks he is.

I can remember once, six days after our parents died, he asked me why I wasn’t drinking anymore. I’d simply explained to him that I wanted to be his legal guardian and to do that I had to get my act together. I’d hoped that it would make the grieving fifteen-year-old smile or at least lean into the hug that I was giving him. It hadn’t. It made his eyes go all glazed over, made him tremble against me and made me almost clutch him tight enough to snap his ribs. Ribs which were black and blue underneath his top. Black and blue because I’d beaten him half to death the night before our parents died, he’d told me it was just bullies at school but I know better than that now. Then he asked me why I wanted to be his legal guardian, asked it as though it was the most ridiculously kind thing he’d ever heard.

”I want to be your legal guardian, Mikes, because I’m your big brother.” He looks up at me with lost, confused eyes. Eyes that hurt me just to look at because me wanting to take care of him shouldn’t confuse him. Not at all. “You’re a great kid, Mikes, and you deserve better than me for your big brother, so I’m not gonna drink anymore and I’m going to be a proper brother. And as your brother, it’s my job to look after you.” I beam down at his tear-stained face. A face that those bastard’s at his school have smudged with week-old bruises. Bruises that make him cry out and jump away whenever I try to soothingly caress them with my thumb. “What kind of brother would I be if I didn’t look after you?”

He just cries harder and starts to struggle against my arms. Really, properly struggling as though he thinks I’m dangerous, as though he’s scared of me and what I can say to him. Just what the fuck has happened to my baby brother to make him so frightened of everything lately? Obviously seeing our mom’s dead body, all mangled and disfigured, didn’t help but it’s like there’s so much more than that. So much more that I would’ve noticed if I hadn’t been spending the past three years of my pathetic excuse for a life drunk and/or high.

And then I realise, I just don’t know. I know that he gets the shit beaten out of him at school every day and how badly he gets treated by just about everyone other than me, but other than that I know nothing. I don’t know who my little brother is anymore.

And it’s all my fault.

So I unwrap my arms from his shuddering body and let him go. Let him run up to his room, plug in his amp and blast out his bass. Apart from every other note is wrong when his playing is usually flawless, and I think that it may have something to do with the fact that I can hear him crying his heart out even over the steady pulse of his blessed instrument.

And I don’t know how to make him better. But I have to. I’m all that poor kid has now; I’m the only parental figure around to guide him. Because me being a brother, a shitty one at that, just isn’t enough for him anymore.

The morning after that Mikey couldn’t even look me in the eyes, just acted like he wasn’t even worthy of my presence. I kind of get why now, but back then it didn’t make any sort of sense to me and that’s when we started to fall apart like the pages of some worn-out book. I made him feel bad then and I still make him feel bad now, bad because years of abuse convinced him that he’s no better than some punching bag in need of punishment for every irregular breath that he takes.

So that’s why he should hate me, not just because of what I said to him yesterday afternoon, but because I managed to convince him, through the veil of thoughtless intoxication, that he’s only good enough for being slammed about.

Which is why I can’t call him, it’s been one failure too many and hearing him refuse to forgive me as he should refuse to is something that I just can’t bear to hear.

But what if he’s hurt? If I don’t call him then he could die. I know I acted like a prick towards a poor kid who just wanted to show me his boyfriend and get my approval, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love the boy like Fate loves pissing on me. The thought of anything bad happening to him makes me feel physically sick, like seeing him hurt makes me want to hurt twice as bad just so there is at least one person out there feeling worse than he does.

“Frankie, what if he really does hate me?” I squeak out, feeling very much like Mikey looked the last time I saw him.

“Then it’s your job to make him not hate you, Gee. He’s your little brother and he really does love you, you just need to show him that you love him too, that you’re sorry for saying all of those horrible things to him and, more importantly, that you’re sorry for punching Pete and that you will give the guy a chance.” Frank’s gone into full on teacher-mode and I know that there’s no arguing with him when he gets like this. “I don’t care if you like Pete or not, Gerard, but you’ve got to at least try. For Mikey.”

He’s right. He’s so right that it hurts me to know that I couldn’t see it for myself. How is it that Frank always knows how to help my baby brother when all I ever do is make things worse? Sometimes I can’t help but resent the pair of them for the connection that they have, the connection that seems so much stronger than what I have with my brother and maybe even more meaningful than that which I have with Frankie. It shouldn’t be like that. Not at all. It should be the other way around.

But I can’t think like that, not now. Not at three in the morning when my little brother could be out there all alone and hurt. I’ll never forgive myself if that is the case. God, the amount of times I’ve said that; one time was too many because it meant that I’d endangered my little brother, but the millionth time? I feel worse than an angel being stripped of it’s wings and getting thrown down into the deepest pits of hell without even fully understanding why.

Frankie leans across me to the bedside table, grabs my cell and hands it to me.

“I know you can do it, Gee.”

I nod as he pecks my cheek and gets up to give me some privacy; he knows that I hate looking weak in front of him and that this is a phone call that will probably have me crying in remorse.

I dial, it rings, I wait.

It stops ringing and my ears are burning with static of a picked-up call.

“Mikes! Thank God you’re alright, you are alright, right?” No answer, just heavily frustrated breathes. He really does hate me. “Fuck, I’m so sorry for every-“

“Gerard, I’m not Mikey. I’m his boyfriend. The one with him currently asleep in my bed.”







A/N: Thank you very much for reading; I hope it was alright! I was hoping that you guys could help me out with this; I’ve got two options as to how this story could turn out and I don’t know which one to use.

Option No. 1: Happily-ever-after ending, all is good with the world and probably about four to six chapters left to go. Everyone comes out of it better off.
Option No. 2: Ultimately happy-ish ending, but the journey to that conclusion will make the prequel to this look like a merry song and dance. In this option there will be a severe twist, but it will ultimately have a happy-ish ending. Probably quite a few more chapters to go (probably around twelve or so). But it will be depressing as hell.

So please let me know which option to take, either is fine with me but I’m kinda leaning towards option two at the moment. It won’t start to matter until around two chapters time, but it would be cool if I could know now so I can plan ahead better. Sorry to be annoying. Anyway, thank you very much for reading and please review! :)