FicWad

Chapter Ten – Ally or Enemy?

Gerard’s POV



“Who the fuck are you?”

There, stood on the street-light lit porch of my home, is some short kid with a shock of electrically black hair, wide worry-wrought eyes and a pair of strong, protective arms. Strong, protective arms that are currently around my baby brother, who is standing on baby-gazelle legs and leaning on this other boy for every kind of support. Mikey doesn’t even look afraid of the boy who is giving him more close contact than I can without making him freak out when he’s in the state that some bastards have clearly put him in.

Because his nose is swollen and the same shade of red as the Devil’s brimstone-blood; his face is smothered in kiss-marks from some thoughtless demon’s relentless fist; his lip is torn like tissue paper, dried blood still crusted to it as though it’s a permanent fixture and his eyes are full of agony. Agony that is only paralleled by that which my heart is currently hammering into my constricting chest at seeing my baby brother, my diamond that I have to stop from ever getting smashed, so helpless and hurt. And in the arms of some weird-looking kid who I’ve never seen before and is staring at my baby brother with concerned eyes that are spun with adulation. Which is exactly why I don’t think that I want him hanging onto my brother as though to let go would mean throwing Mikes into the deepest pit that hell has to offer; Mikes is extremely fragile at the moment, like some priceless antique doll, and he’d be very easy to take advantage of if that’s what this boy wanted to do.

I think that he does, I can easily tell that from the way that his eyes are trained dreamily on my baby brother’s hate-tattooed face and is backed up by the way that his arms are giving Mikes more support than I think he needs just because this kid likes the contact that I know would normally be making my brother squirm.

So why the hell isn’t it? Is he simply too weak right now to be struggling? Does he just not care anymore if someone abuses him like too many already have? Have they finally broken him?

Or is this punk-esque emo-kid someone that he actually trusts?

The boy fidgets awkwardly, dropping his eyes from Mikey and to the grimy doorstep, as though nervous about saying anything to me. Sure, I can come across as quite intimidating when it comes to my baby brother, but I don’t think that he needs to be quite as anxious as he is being. Anxious in such a way that makes me want to bundle the two of them inside and into the warm as quickly as is humanly possible just so I can make sure that they’re both truly alright.

He looks back up to me before unwinding one of his arms from being my baby brother’s support-tower and extends it towards me, a gentle grin painting itself onto his face in an obvious attempt to look like the sort of person that he must think I would like Mikes to be hanging around with. Perhaps I would. If only I knew that this boy is good news, that he won’t cause more lacerations on Mikey’s barely-there soul like I know everyone else in the kid’s life have done.

“I’m Frank Iero, most people call me Frankie.” At his words, which are dripping with the pent-up energy of an overactive toddler, I take his hand and shake it in my own yet I keep my eyes fixated firmly on my baby brother.

On my baby brother who’s all busted-up because I was stupidly reckless enough to let him venture through hell’s gate to school in his grief-heightened state of absolute anxiety; I as good as told those motherfuckers to beat my baby brother to the point where he has to lean on some stranger just to be able to stand. Guilt immediately grips my soul and cripples my pulsating heart as I see him wince at an in-breath, a sure sign that his ribs have been targeted by this mindless attack that connotes a wolf feasting on a baby lamb.

He’s just lost his boyfriend, he’s already been through a lifetime’s worth of violence and yet here he is, broken and crumpled against someone I’ve never even seen before. If it were those two pals of his, Bob and Matt, then I would probably understand the way that it looks like he’s almost starving for this short guy’s soft contact but this Frankie guy, whose name Mikes has never even mentioned. I don’t get it; I don’t understand how he seems to be so willing to trust someone other than myself or Ray.

Yet that doesn’t stop me from loving it. Just seeing him looking like he’s got a friend. A friend who I’ve got to make perfectly sure will never hurt him like I vowed to always protect my baby brother from getting hurt. Ha fucking ha.

Mikes groans, a groan so full of complete agony-delivered exhaustion that it makes me shudder and Frank whip his head around to assess where he should place his spare hand. Worry rides the rails of my veins like a runaway train, plummeting down the tracks straight into the carnage that my heart has become at seeing my baby brother looking so excruciated, and I immediately step out of the doorway, gesturing hurriedly for Frank to walk through into the living room.

“Is it him, Gee? Is Mikey home?” Bert calls from the living room, his beautifully choral voice marred by the sickly anticipation dripping off of his concerned words like honey, as Frank helps Mikey down the hallowed halls of our home with me following close behind like a lost little puppy chasing after a steak of the finest beef.

I can’t bring myself to shout back to my boyfriend, a boyfriend who has pulled me through so much with the guiding hands of a parent leading a small child, not least because I don’t want to openly admit out loud that Mikes has gotten hurt. Again. It makes me really fucking furious, actually, the kids at his school must know that Ray’s dead by now and they sure as hell knew that Mikey was further in love with Ray than I’ve ever seen anyone else be with their partner in a long time, so how on this goddamned rock could they think that beating the shit out of a life-beaten kid is the right thing to do? They didn’t think it was the right thing to do, they did it for kicks and that’s what makes it all the more gut-curlingly sickening; they knew that they were obliterating an already decimated kid and they still did it. Still forced my baby brother into the arms of a perfect stranger.

I watch in complete and unbridled sorrow as Mikes limps, still leaning dependently on Frankie, through the open living room door a few steps ahead of me; to be greeted by a loud gasp from Bert.

I knew that he cares! He might have a tendency to be a little self-centred every now and then, but he really does love the kid deep down no matter how hard he might try to act like he doesn’t. I really wish that he wouldn’t though; if he wasn’t like that then Mikey wouldn’t be like he is now, Frank depositing him slowly onto the couch before setting down next to him, he would still be just a grieving mess of a boy as opposed to a battered and grieving shell of a boy.

But he then he wouldn’t have Frankie sat next to him, a boy that’s oozing comfort and trust. A boy that I shouldn’t be letting into my traumatised baby brother’s life so easily yet I can’t bring myself to force him away from Mikes. Because Mikey is actually voluntarily snuggling into the boy’s chest as though they’ve been friends for as long as I’ve been his brother, not as though he’s the terrified wreck that his sniffles are proclaiming him to regrettably be. I could never not like that, the fact that Mikes has found a friend, could never try to force them apart through fear of him hurting my baby brother when he so obviously won’t.

So I slump down next to my boyfriend, who is leaning forward on the couch opposite the one cradling Mikey and Frank, sitting on the very edge so that I can clutch Mikey’s trembling hand in my own whilst his new friend traces soft patterns into his back.

If I didn’t know any better, meaning Mikey’s trust issues as well as other obvious things, I would say that they look almost couple-like. And a cute couple at that, what with the way Frank’s being so gently protective of him. Just like Ray would have been right now could he see the state that Mikes has wound himself up in. Just like Ray. Perhaps that’s why Mikey, as well as myself, is finding it so easy to simply relax into him like the tide onto the shore.

“What the hell happened?” I shoot urgently, turning to Frank with eyes beseeching him to explain because I know that Mikes is too upset right now for me to even think about requesting his forget-me-not speech. “Who did this?”

Frank gives Mikey a questioning stare, as though silently asking him something, before returning my intense gaze. He sighs and I know from his agonizingly apologetic air that I’m not going to like what he’s about to say.

“I was on my way to school this morning when I overheard these two guys beating up Mikey. They left him down an alleyway and by the time I got to him… He was practically passed-out.” Oh, Mikes; you never get anything good, do you? “I took him to my place and we’ve been hanging.” He smiles fondly at my brother, who very nearly looks like he’s thinking about smiling back. Something that makes me squeeze Mikey’s hand ten times tighter in pure, honest-to-God pride because I know how hard he finds being around new people. Apart from, apparently, Frankie. “We’re friends, aren’t we, Sweetie?”

Sweetie? What the actual fuck?

I feel Bert stiffen next to me, the two of us brushing a brief gaze of understanding concern at the way Frank just addressed my baby brother; at any other time it might have been adorable, but right now it fills me with dread just how easily this Frankie of his seems to be willing to give him such an affectionate nickname; it just isn’t quite right, is it? Of course it isn’t.

But the way that Mikey nods proudly, like a cat that’s got a million gallons of cream, in response to Frank in the first act of near-confidence that I’ve seen from him in a very long time, too long, I can’t but think that, just maybe, it is.

“Are you okay, Kiddo?” I smile up at him from across the coffee table, my thumb caressing the side of his hand. He nods once more even though that he knows I can full well that I can see through his selfless lie; we’re brothers, after all. “You don’t have to lie to me, Mikes, you know that. I won’t get cross if you’re not okay.”

I have to say this to him pretty much every time something bad happens. And it breaks my heart to know that he thinks I’m capable of being mad at him for simply not being okay, that I’ll hurt him like our parents did for so much as asking for the help that he so blatantly needs. Needs and is getting. From Frankie’s practically inaudible hushes and caressing hands, from the way that Frank’s doing everything I normally try to do; everything that Ray once did. As much as I know I should be finding joy in the fact that my baby brother’s found someone who really does seem to care enough to be worthy of his friendship, I just can’t shake the feeling of dread that’s gnawing away at my sorrow-bitten heart. Because he’s only known Frankie for one day and yet Frank’s already cuddling him like a teddy; already acting like he owns my Mikey; already treating him as a best friend even though he probably doesn’t know the first thing about my poor baby brother.

“Question; who is he?” Bert pipes up unceremoniously, harsh accusation ringing in his voice in a way that makes me want to kiss him all over again for showing the courage that I should have when it comes to dealing with this sort of thing. “And why the fuck are you petting him like a goddamned puppy?”

At that Frankie’s eyes narrow dangerously, like a gun locking onto it’s target, whilst Mikey just blushes in the most innocently sweet way conceivable, thus renewing my fury at his tormentors for picking on my baby brother.

“I am Frank Iero and I’m not petting Mikey, I’m comforting him. Because he’s my friend.” Frank snarls indignantly, wrapping an arm around my baby brother’s shoulders and pulling him into his flooded chest even tighter, leaving me to just watch how things unfold because I honestly don’t know what the best thing to do in this situation is. “Because someone’s gotta look after him.”

Motherfucker.







A/N: Thank you very much for reading and I apologize for the crappy quality and shortness of this chapter, I just really want to do the next bit in a different point of view so it made sense to stop this chapter here. Thanks for reading and please review! :)