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Chapter Seventeen – Enough


Pete’s POV




I just… I don’t know what to do. I really don’t. I feel like I’m drowning.

No, I feel like my Mikey is drowning and I can’t resuscitate him.

Mikey, oh God, my poor little angel.

He hasn’t spoken for three days. He hasn’t spoken, he hasn’t washed, he hasn’t been sleeping, he hasn’t eaten and he’s only been drinking because Frankie and I have been forcing water to his dry, chapped lips. It’s like he’s dead, has just stopped all that was left of himself from shining through. He’s just, it’s like he’s gotten lost, like Gerard’s inexcusably cruel words have thrown him over the edge and into a depression-fuelled black abyss of self-hatred. And I can’t even pull him out of it. I can’t make him smile or even stutter a little bit of his delicate speech like I normally can. Why?

Because three days ago Gerard walked out on him. And that bastard still hasn’t come back.

I myself don’t see Gerard’s lack of presence, a spiteful presence that got my poor little angel into this state to begin with, as a problem; if anything I’m glad that I don’t have to see his disgraceful self after the sickening way he treated my boyfriend. But it’s my boyfriend that’s making me want Gerard to come back because that is what my boyfriend wants. Not so much wants as needs; my poor, innocent Mikey just doesn’t know how to cope with what’s happened, with how Gerard went completely over the line with him and then just left.

He’s just an abused, depressed sixteen-year-old and his mind just doesn’t know how to deal with it; with the crushing weight that finally broke his fragmented little heart.

And it’s really fucking scary; I don’t have a clue as how to make it all go away, how to make everything better like I vowed I always would do for my lovely little boyfriend. After Gerard left three days ago, left his panic-attacking little brother in the most despicable way humanly conceivable, my Mikey just completely lost it; had a full-blown panic attack. If I wasn’t grateful for Frankie’s omnipotent presence before, which I honestly already was, I definitely was at that point. My poor little angel needed his big brother, his real one as opposed to that motherfucker who has completely crippled him, and Frankie was more than willing to fill that role; he seemed to know how to make the attack calm down from convulsing to shaking, from thrashing to cowering, from practically screaming to spluttering sobs.

My frightened little angel hasn’t made a sound since; it’s like those guilt-wracked, fear infested, totally despairing shrieks drained all possible noise from him. When Frankie and I finally managed to get him to calm down as much as possible, which was after around two hours of soothing words and sincerely comforting cuddles, he had just gotten up and walked downstairs into the basement. To the bedroom that belonged to his big brother before that big brother became a big bully. He hasn’t left that room since, apart from to go to the toilet, and has just been hiding underneath Gerard’s old Spiderman covers; huddled under them as though they can conjure up the big brother that they used to encase.

I’ve been down here with him the whole time, just lying next to him and rubbing his back whenever I see it start to shudder like a shack in an earthquake again. I’ve been whispering soft little placations and comforting consolations as though my life depends on it, but nothing has worked. He won’t talk to me and he won’t talk to Frankie either, but the most worrying thing is that he won’t eat. Not at fucking all. He was already emaciated as it was, but three days with absolutely nothing but water is starting to take it’s grim toll on my poor lost little angel. I can hear stomach crying for food every few minutes, I can hear it growling as though it’s trying to consume itself in an attempt to prevent it’s relentless emptiness. But my Mikey just won’t eat anything; it doesn’t make any difference whether it is me or Frankie holding the plate of food, he just doesn’t respond to it at all. Just like he won’t respond to me whenever I talk to him. Apart from it’s not like he’s refusing to talk, it’s like he simply can’t; like Gerard stole away all speech from his beautiful lips three days ago when he left his little brother to this all-consuming black hole of beyond-severe depression.

If this goes on for much longer I think we (Frankie and myself) are going to have to take Mikey to the hospital, it’s gotten to the stage where his behaviour is endangering himself; he can’t just lay here in this bed, letting himself waste away to the nothing that he feels to be without expecting us to do something about it. It’s at the point now where I can actually see all of his tiny little bones under his thin stretch of porcelain skin, to the point where he looks like he could well be dead if it wasn’t for the shallow gasps of oxygen that I can feel him inhale every few seconds and the fact that his eyes are always open. Just open and staring in the most hauntingly haunted way possible at the opposite wall; his beautiful bowls of mahogany, wide and broken, simply staring as though he can’t really see anything other than hurt.

All because of some nineteen-year-old brother who acts more like a six-year-old bully.

I knew that coming here was a risk after all that he went through the night before we came in search of Gerard’s approval, I should have stuck to my guns and refused to bring him; even if that had made him not like me, it would have as least stopped this from happening. This atrocity that has completely killed my poor little boyfriend on the inside. Because he believes every word that fell from Gerard’s lips; lips that I made bleed with my fist, like some sort of violent kiss smudging red lipstick across his worthless face. Maybe I was wrong to punch him in front of my Mikey, punch him like I was wrestling with a ferocious beast, but I can’t say that I regret it at all; that bastard deserved to be punched and I would have given him more of my unbridled fury had I not been able to hear my boyfriend crying like a toddler watching their parents getting abducted by aliens.

I wince as the sunlight of our third morning in this state, me laying with my chest pressed to my Mikey’s back, floods into the room through the open curtains of the tiny little window in the top-left corner of the room. I feel Mikey flinch against me as a harsh glare of sunshine infiltrates the sombre atmosphere of the room, a room that feels more like a crypt because the poor little angel in my arms really has finally died on the inside. And I can’t bring him back to life, after all of those times that I managed to make him smile just a little bit after being teased or laughed at, it makes me realise just how grave this is; his big brother, the one he’s convinced is like the motherfucking messiah, told him that he wanted to beat him. Perhaps if they were normal brothers with no history behind that purposefully cruel statement then it could just be waved off as brothers being brothers, apart from there is a hideously agonizing history behind it; one revolving around Gerard’s ‘want’ being carried out.

I gently nuzzle the back of my Mikey’s neck, right where it meets with his spine, and rub my nose in soothing, slow circles around the bitingly cold skin that I’ve been trying my best to warm up with my own concerned body heat. But it’s like the all-consuming coldness in his heart which should be filled by his big brother is making him outwardly cold too, like the only way to make him warm again is by getting Gerard back.

Apart from none of us know where the fucker is.

I really do feel sorry for Frankie, not just because he is cursed with being a boyfriend to such a short-tempered twat, for lack of a more fitting noun, but because the poor guy is going out of his mind with worry; over Gerard, over Mikey, over how I should probably be in school right now. He told me yesterday to go in, that he’d look after my Mikey until I got back, but Frankie’s barely coping as it is; the least I can do is look after my own boyfriend. Or rather, make sure that he isn’t physically dead. Which he soon will be if he carries on like this.

“Morning, Sugar. You feeling any better today?” I ask quietly as I stretch my legs down the bed; as much as it shames me to admit it, I actually slept last night despite the fact that I knew my Mikey wouldn’t.

I get no reply other than a slightly distressed whimper from my poor little boyfriend, a distressed whimper that tells me all I need to know; he isn’t about to start talking again anytime soon.

And that’s fine; obviously the reason behind it isn’t, but I’m not about to pressure him into speaking to me if he’s still in such a bad place mentally. A place that he got pushed into by the things that his brother yelled at him, his stutter and being partially mute when he gets forced to be being but two of those harsh things. So of course it makes sense that he doesn’t want to talk, or it would do if it wasn’t just a want; it’s like he just can’t. Like Gerard has really sent him mute, like every cruel nip ever taken at his innocent soul have teamed up with the glue of Gerard’s disdainful words to force his mouth shut. A mouth that I haven’t had pressed to my own for practically three days, including today; I know full well that I could kiss him and he’d just accept that it was happening, but I can’t take advantage of him like that no matter how good his lips feel on my own, like gold dust on angel’s wings.

“It’s alright; you talk when you want to and not a minute before, Sugar. I’m not gonna make you do anything that you don’t want to.” I state firmly, but in the same soft tone as I would adopt with a small child; because my Mikey is my baby, the boy who’s mine to hold and love and care for until he gets better again.

But you can’t cure death. Because he really is dead inside, has withdrawn back to worse than he was when I first met him; just like he wants to be nothing but a distant memory floating on the winds of time, going far away from all of the pain that seems to be magnetised towards my undeserving little angel. A little angel who really will be an angel if he doesn’t snap out of this pretty soon. But he’s already snapped, was snapped at one too many times by his malevolent shit of a big brother and then he just snapped. More like completely fucking shattered, his glasslike heart splintering and smashing the second that the angry bricks of Gerard’s word impacted upon it.

It really is killing me almost as much as Gerard killed him, seeing my little boyfriend in such a way. I might be able to cope with seeing him in this state, might be able to get past the initial appalled shock and lamenting sorrow of seeing my most loved person looking even more broken than a spoilt-brat’s tantrum inflicted dollhouse, if I knew how to make it all better. No, I do know how to make it better, it’s just that I can’t. And that’s what is killing me, this overwhelming sense of helplessness; the kind that people like me, people who are rough and ready most of the time, aren’t used to having to cope with. But I have to. For my Mikey. Why can’t I make it better? Because to do that I have to bring Gerard back home again, something that I doubt he would do unless he could see how badly he’s hurting his little brother.

As much as I really fucking hate the bastard for doing this to my Mikey, so much so that it honestly feels like hell would be far too nice for him, I can’t deny that he does love my boyfriend. Although that is nowhere near enough to make me even want to try to understand his despicable behaviour, I know that I have to try to; for my poor little Mikey. Because if I don’t understand, then I can’t help to get my Mikey back to his already introverted former self. And that’s something that easily outweighs my pure hatred for Gerard; my Mikey needs him and therefor I want him back. At least when he comes back, which better be soon for both his and my Mikey’s sakes, he will be able to see what he’s reduced this innocent, naïve little kid to; I’m sure that seeing his ‘baby’ brother in such a non-existent state of being will be more than enough to make up for the punches I managed to refrain from giving to him.

Because he really does love my Mikey, he wouldn’t have gotten so wound up if he didn’t. He just needs to stop acting like some sort of overprotective slave-master over a poor little angel who has been whipped too many times by Fate’s cruel and unforgiving hand.

The thoughtful silence of the room is obliterated by an agonizingly loud and dragged out growl erupting from my Mikey’s beyond empty stomach; he was already half-starved three days ago, now he must be so hungry that it hurts. But he just won’t fucking eat and neither me nor Frankie have the guts to force food down his perfect little mouth through fear of him either throwing it straight back up again or him getting so frightened and panicked by us force-feeding him that he’ll lose the one thing that’s keeping him at least a little bit alive; our care.

But surely, with his tummy moaning like a sick dog, he will start eating soon; today, he has to see sense today or else he never will.

“You want anything to eat, Beautiful?” He whimpers in response, making my heart plummet even further into the hell that seeing my Mikey like this has forced it into; it’s the kind of whimper that I have learnt to associate with a negative reply. “Please, Sugar, please; you’re killing yourself by doing this. I know you’re upset, I totally get that. But you can’t not eat, Beautiful, you’ll die.” My heartfelt plea leaves my throat roar from the sincerity resounding within it, the kind of sincerity that can only be bought on by oncoming tears welling up in my eyes.

He shrugs. Like he really doesn’t care anymore if he lives or if he dies; like none of that matters because Gerard has killed him. Because I’m not enough. But I was enough when he was at least under the impression that Gerard isn’t like the other people out there who are all too willing to be viciously cruel to such a frail soul.

How am I supposed to reply to that? It was the only decent argument I had to make him eat again, the only way I thought I could approach reviving him, the only way I could think of to save him from death. But it won’t fucking work because he just doesn’t care. Really is the suicidal mess that Gerard believes him to be. But it’s all Gerard’s fault that he’s a suicidal mess, not my Mikey’s fault no matter how much Mikey might be willing to take the blame for Gerard’s atrocities, it really isn’t my beautiful boyfriend’s fault. That would be like saying that it’s the fault of a lion that a heartless human decided to lock it up in a cage; ridiculous and unfair. Because that’s what Gerard is; unfair because he took out fuck-knows-what on some honestly innocent kid and ridiculous because he isn’t here trying to clean up the toxic waste that he’s spilt. He’s left that all to me and Frankie.

He’s left and we don’t have a fucking clue where he’s gone. He could be dead in a ditch for all we know, not that we’d ever point that out to Mikey, and I can see that Frank’s having a hard time coping, made even harder by my Mikey’s gentle plod into oblivion. Frank’s been trying desperately to get hold of Gerard, he’s been trying his mobile at least every ten minutes for the past three days, but Gerard never picks up his cell nor he does he reply to any texts. Well, that’s not all true; he replied to Frankie’s tenth text with an oh-so-charming ‘fuck off’. Apart from Frankie had been in the shower at the time, leaving his cell in my care should any developments occur, and I deleted the text; it’s the last thing that Frankie, who I’d now call my good friend, needed to see and so I deleted it. But at least it means that Gerard isn’t dead. Or wasn’t at the time of sending the text.

What if he never comes back? What if he really meant all of the things that he said? Well, in that case my Mikey is definitely better off without him.

No, he isn’t; if Gerard doesn’t come home soon then my Mikey will end up either dead or in hospital. Two things that make me about as happy as being tortured would do. Fuck that; being tortured would be relatively pleasant compared to watching my poor little angel suffer like this, like he doesn’t deserve to not be suffering because he believes what Gerard said, even though I don’t even think that Gerard did. Not really. Not at all. I just wound him up one notch too tight; I failed my perfect little angel.

And I fucking hate myself for it, or rather I would if my immense worry and sorrow at my Mikey’s current situation wasn’t taking up all of my emotional receptors.

“Okay, Sugar, maybe you don’t care; but I sure as fuck do.” I prop myself up on my elbows and gently role Mikey over from being laid on his side to being flat on his back and staring blankly up at me, eyes tearing up and lips trembling. So I wrap an arm under his featherweight shoulders and pull him up to be snuggled into my chest. He needs my comfort right now, but he also needs to start eating. As in right fucking now. “You’re my beautiful little boyfriend and when I call you my boyfriend I’m making a promise; a promise to look after you and not let you fall to things that I can stop you from falling to. If I break that promise then I don’t know how I’ll deal with it. So please, if not for you, then eat something for me. For your boyfriend.”

I purposefully take advantage of my Mikey’s adorable desire to keep me happy, a desire that I would never take advantage of in any other way than this, and use the tears falling from my eyes to emphasise the point; if he dies then I know that I won’t be far behind.

He buries his beautiful, still slightly scratched, face even further into my sweaty old top, doing his little heartbeat thing; something that still makes that which he listens for even more erratic because of his close contact. He’s shuddering against me, his still bandaged arms meekly resting around my waist as though he thinks that Gerard’s critically cruel claims are enough to make me not want him; as fucking if. I could be told that my Mikey is a serial killer and I’d still love him; just as long as he is my Mikey. But right now my Mikey’s upset, too upset to speak and me pestering him isn’t doing anything to help.

“I love you, Beautiful. I just don’t want you getting any skinnier; it’s really dangerous, Mikey, it’s really bad for you, Sugar.” I coo down at him, gently pressing my lips to his ice-tinged nose and smiling a little bit when it paints his cheeks an adorable shade of baby pink. It’s not a happy smile and nor is it a happy blush; they just sort of happened and, if anything, it makes the situation even more pitiful because I know that there is no glowing heart behind that beautiful blush.

Mikey tries to stifle an exhausted yawn, thus drawing my attention to his sleep-smothered eyes; the poor kid needs sleep just as much as he needs substance and I think that sleep might just be something that I can coax him into. He looks far too exhausted for a nightmare; ten times as exhausted as when he stayed over at mine a few days ago. Surely his body will just let him sleep?

It has to; he can’t go on like this.

“Sleep, Sugar. I’ll look after you, I won’t let anything happen to you and I’ll be right here when you wake up. I promise.” He’s too out of it to even whimper a reply; he just flops his head onto the softer platform of my tummy and starts twirling the bottom hem of my t-shirt around his fingers lazily. “That’s it, Sugar, relax. I’m right here with you. Always will be.”

I let my fingers trail gentle patterns of pure schoolboy love over his bony back; the tips of my dusting digits brushing in a featherlike manner over every little bone in his paper-thin back. I start to slowly hum his little tune but I just can’t get it right. It’s like I’m humming the minor version, a melancholy little tune that would be more suited for a funeral rather than the ears of my little love. I carry on though, not caring that he’s snoring softly in my arms, I have a longing to hear this song too; it reminds me of the way my Mikey smiled the first time that I played it for him, like I’d just played him the most spectacular crescendo of affection he’d ever heard rather than a few notes I had thoughtfully strung together just for him. For my Mikey.

I look down to see that he’s out for the count, would look completely fucking dead if it wasn’t for the fact that I can see the shallow rise and fall of his chest, a chest that houses my most precious possession; my Mikey’s barely beating heart.

I only look away from my very own Sleeping Beauty when I hear the door creak open; Frankie.

And his eyes are red. Again. Because he’s been worrying over his dumbass boyfriend, he’s been worrying and I don’t know how to make it better for my friend; someone who I adore almost as much as I adore my Mikey purely because I’m fairly certain that my Mikey would be in an even worse place mentally than he is right now if it wasn’t for Frankie’s brotherly care for him. Two people who I care about are hurting for synonymous reasons and I can’t do anything to make it all better.

I feel so pathetically helpless.

Frankie’s eyes melt into puddles of warm hazel when they fall onto my Mikey; curled up and asleep in my arms like a new-born. He looks to be a cross between heartbroken because of what my little angel is going through and relieved to see that my Mikey is finally getting some rest as opposed to staring blankly into space in an almost eerily unnerving way. His eyes are everything that Gerard should be; caring, concerned, understanding and, above all else, loving. Because, whilst I may be able to tell that Gerard does love my Mikey deep down, Gerard’s love for his little brother is too well hidden by his stupid frustrations.

I press one of my fingers to my lips in a shushing gesture, and motion for him to sit next me on the bed. He walks wearily over and sits down with such a careful delicateness that his landing on the bed is noiseless; he fully understands how vital it is that my Mikey at least catches up on some rest.

“How is he doing?” He whispers, voice smudged with sadness and hand reaching out to brush some of Mikey’s hair out of his eyes in one of the most loving gestures I think that I have ever seen.

“No better than yesterday. It’s like he just isn’t in there anymore; he’s still refusing to eat, Frank, and I honestly don’t know what to do.” I hate sounding so weak, so unworthy of holding my Mikey, in front of Frankie, but I know that he won’t judge me. It’s not like he’s any better. Besides, I can’t let this boil away at me until I end up being like Gerard.

At my words I regretfully see a fraction of Frankie’s inner light extinguish and his hand just keeps smoothing my Mikey’s hair, like to give up physical contact is to give up on his surrogate little brother. I’m just the same, though; I can’t keep my hands off of my Mikey, whether I’m holding him or pawing at him like a little kid does to a fluffy little kitten, I’ve become almost as dependent on my Mikey’s physical contact as I would like to think that he has on mine. Apart from he hasn’t; if he had then he wouldn’t be in this state right now.

“At least you’ve got him to sleep, Pete. And you’re doing a great job with him, I couldn’t have hoped for Mikes to bring home a better a guy.” He pauses, my heart using his touching words to slowly glue itself back together. “What was the last thing he ate?”

“A single slice of unbuttered toast at my house, three days ago. Before that? I have no fucking idea.” I hate to sound so pessimistic but any form of optimism is impossible for me right now; I just can’t think anything happier than reality right now, not when my poor little angel is suffering so much. Too much. “Heard anything from Gerard yet?”

The sullen look in his eyes tells me all that I need to know; that selfish bastard is still neglecting his one responsibility. A responsibility who shouldn’t even be classed as a responsibility because my Mikey is an absolute pleasure to look after, especially when you get the rare reward of one of his sun-dimming, world-stopping smiles.

“No.” It’s just one, squeak of a word but it’s said with such sorrow that it makes my heart bleed for the poor guy sat next to me. “He needs to come back; he needs to fix the mess he’s made.”

“A-fucking-men to that. What the fuck was he even thinking?” I hiss back, my arms tightening around my lost little angel as he lets out a soft moan in his sleep; whether it’s from a dream or not, I want him to know that I’m sticking to my promise and not leaving him.

“Pete, Gerard really isn’t all that bad of a guy.” Ha fucking ha. “Don’t look at me like that; it’s true. He just tries so hard that it makes him frustrated when he doesn’t get it right the first time around.”

Frustrated? Seeing both my boyfriend and his surrogate big brother so upset frustrates me; do I go around like some teen drama queen and tear some poor kid’s heart straight from his chest? Of course I fucking don’t. Because I’m actually a decent human being with a fully functioning conscience.

“Frankie, as much as I hate to say this, Mikey needs Gerard. He needs him to come home and say sorry; it’s the only way he’ll start eating again, I know it. I told him that he’ll die if he doesn’t, but it was like he doesn’t care about dying. Like he wants to die.” I take a shuddering breath and look down to my poor little angel, avoiding the raw agony in Frank’s eyes. I know that I’m sounding childish, but I have no one else to turn to. “Frankie… I don’t want my boyfriend to die.”

And with that I start crying, properly crying, over my boyfriend’s resting body; my tear drops flecking his unnaturally pale skin like diamonds on snow.

“That’s it. I’ve had enough of this.” Frank snarls determinedly in a forceful tone that I would never have put with his face. A gentle face that I associate with benevolence and brotherly love for my Mikey. “I’m sorting this out once and for all.”

He rises from the bed, giving my Mikey’s hair one last ruffle before moving it to squeeze my shoulder, a look of steely reassurance igniting his eyes. He is a man on a mission, a man that I for one would definitely not fuck with because a determined Frank seems to be one of nature’s most threatening forces; God help anyone stupid enough to get in his way.

“What are you going to do?” I ask, almost timidly, my eyes wide and willing him to give me an answer that is exactly what I’m hoping for.

“I, Pete, am going to find my boyfriend, march him back here and sort this mess out. For good. Forever. For you and Mikes.”

And with that he’s running off out of the basement bedroom, leaving nothing but hope behind him.






A/N: Thank you sooo much for reading; I hope that it was alright and didn’t seem too rushed. I really do suck at dialogue, so if anyone’s got any tips they’d be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much for reading and please review! :)