FicWad

Every Year



It’s two minutes to midnight on Christmas Eve, but everything is far from quiet for one Frank Anthony Iero Jnr. In fact, things haven’t ever been less quiet in the sleep-scrambled mind of the eight-and-a-half-year-old.

His ears are ringing from the loudness of his Mickey Mouse alarm clock, his heart thudding like a herd of wild horses in his chest, his breathing quick and raspy through a combination of excitement and the cold that he constantly seems to have lugging around with him. His mind is in disarray, tipsy on the high of being up later than the grown-ups and of knowing something that they don’t know.

They don’t know that cute, innocent, little Frankie has a plan. A plan to capture Santa.

Okay, so it’s not as sinister as it sounds. Far from it; Frank is normally a very thoughtful, friendly child, but right now, at one minute to Christmas Day, he is preparing for the most hostile thing a person can do after murder. He is going to kidnap Santa Claus and hold him in the attic until Frankie gets what he wants out of the man in red.

Frankie’s not doing it to be selfish though. He’s not doing it to make sure that he gets the big, shiny electric guitar he saw on sale in the local pawn shop the other week and he’s not doing it so that he can steal all the presents from Santa’s sleigh (which he is certain he heard land on the roof mere seconds ago). He’s doing it for his best friend.

For Mikey Way, the little boy across the street.

The little boy who’s always too kind to say no whenever Frank wants to play with his Star War toys, even his special Yoda figure that his big brother got him for his birthday and he never really wants anyone else ever touching. But Mikey’s too nice for his own good and so, yesterday no less, he let Frankie loose on his beloved Yoda. And Frankie’s overeager, pudgy little hands wound up breaking Yoda’s head off. Leaving Frankie with an utterly miserable best friend.

It was a moment that gave eight-year-old Frankie, in all his profound emotional depth, an epiphany. Sat there, desperately trying to jam Yoda’s head back on using nothing but sheer force of will, he realised that he has the bestest best friend in the whole wide world. And with that came another sudden realisation; for all the nice, thoughtful things that shy little Mikey J does for everyone else, nobody ever does anything nice or thoughtful for him. Not even Frankie, not really.

So Frank decided to do the only sensible thing he could think of and get him Santa Claus; the bringer of gifts, so that Mikey will always whatever toys he wants and Frankie swears down that he won’t ever even make Mikey share them with him.

But Frank knows deep down, down where all the gooey icky feelings are, that Mikey will insist on sharing.

That’s just how Mikey is. Just how Frankie wants him to always be.


***

“Um, Mikey. Look, I’m real sorry but I… I couldn’t afford to get you a present this year.”

Frank, now fifteen, clamps his eyes shut and tenses his body, his thick layers of padding (largely because his mom seems to think he’ll freeze to death in the mildly bitter breeze of the outside world) making the sudden tension hard to detect. Mikey detects it though. Detects it and detests it simultaneously.

They’ve known each other since before forever and, Mikey would hope, that Frank knows him better than thinking that Mikey could ever get mad at him. Sure, Mikey’s prone to strops and bad moods should the wrong thing happen at the wrong time, but an actually angry Michael James Way?

It’s never happened. Not even when Frank dyed the other boy’s hair candyfloss pink the day of their school photographs.

“It’s okay, Frankie. I understand.” Mikey’s voice is soft, like a metaphorical teddy bear to Frank’s icy ears. “I know things are tight for you at the moment. I really don’t mind.”

And Mikey honestly doesn’t. Frank can see that in his best friend’s brown-black eyes when he finally opens his own hazely orbs of vision.

Frank’s been looking into those glass-framed eyes a lot lately, most of the time he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it until Mikey’s cheeks start burning an adorable shade of crimson and he has to force himself to look away before his best friend’s acute self-consciousness sets in.

It’s not that Frank stares, more like gazes, into people’s eyes every time he has a conversation with them. If anything, Frank normally makes an effort not to look people in the eyes. But with Mikey, with his best friend, he can’t not gaze. To do so would be a sin. A sin that Frank Iero would actually give a damn about committing.

Everything about Mikey’s eyes draw him in; their mesmerizing depth, the way gold seems to be flecked through them in a reflection of his worth, his thick black eyelashes and then, of course, the way they light up like fireworks whenever he’s truly happy. Which seems to be a lot when Frankie’s around to make him smile and giggle and put the sun to shame with his inner glow.

“But you should mind!” Frank cries exasperatedly, throwing his arms out to the side to somehow prove his point, quickly pulling his eyes away before Mikey’s shyness can creep into the equation. “You deserve a best friend who can give you a goddamn present at Christmas, Mikes.”

Frank’s eyes are glued to the floor, his frustration getting the better of him and forcing him to fight back the tears that he often finds crawling into his eyes a lot whenever he thinks of Mikey nowadays.

For his part, Mikey’s just shocked. Shocked and saddened that his friend is anything less than his happy self; that his friend isn’t doing that impish smirk that Mikey just can’t seem to ever get out of his head anymore.

“So give me one.”

Mikey smiles softly as his companion’s head bobs back up, a look of hurt confusion gripping his childlike features.

“B-but I-“

Before Frank can finish stuttering any kind of excuse or question, Mikey’s lips are pressed onto his in an act that makes Frank’s heart soar for two very good, very pleasurable reasons. The first being that the brash, unpredictable action means that Mikey really does trust him; he must do for him to feel comfortable enough with Frankie to be able to do this.

And the second being that, holy fuck, Mikey Way is kissing him.

It’s Christmas and it’s not a dream and Mikey is kissing Frankie and everything couldn’t be more perfect.

Apart from this feels an awful lot like another present for Frank from Mikey; not the one Frank owes the taller of the two.

But at this moment in time, neither boy can bring himself to care about anything other than the moment.

***

Frank’s never been more scared in all of his life, and that’s saying something. He’s faced surgery, he’s gone into ‘haunted’ houses alone and he’s been on more rollercoasters than he cares to remember. But never, not in his twenty firecracker years on this Earth, has he ever felt this terrified.

He could run. He knows he could. All it would take would be for him to slip out of bed, get a Greyhound over to the next state and then return on Boxing Day morning. But then that would mean leaving the Sleeping Beauty lying next to him alone in his bed.

It’s times like this that Frank sort of wishes that his boyfriend wasn’t so perfect; at least that way he’d be able to do a runner and not feel guilty. But as it stands, the guilt of doing a runner right now would most likely kill him more than the currently fear is.

Some might consider Frank to be a wimp for acting like this, but in all honesty Frank couldn’t care less what anyone else thinks so long as it doesn’t affect his relationship with his boyfriend of five years tomorrow.

Their five year anniversary being on Christmas Day is something that Frank likes to think is romantic. And the day would have been if it wasn’t for the thing that’s stopping Frankie from getting any form of sleep right now.

His almost-in-laws.

Mr and Mrs Way, along with Gerard (who Frank, thankfully, gets along with extraordinarily well), are coming over for Christmas Dinner at the Way-Iero household.

Frank’s pretty sure that Mrs Way has hated him since the start, way back when Mikey and Frank were just two five-year-olds playing outside in the mud after Frank persuaded Mikey to ruin his expensive new sneakers by playing a vicious game of ‘Attack of the Killer Swamp Monsters’. Mr Way turned against him some way through the tenth grade, mainly because Frank thinks he blames him for ‘turning’ his little prince into a princess.

Frank doesn’t care what they think of him, though. Just so long as they can keep it civil for Mikey’s sake. Which is why he’s dreading tomorrow so much; he knows they can’t and that they won’t. And that Mikey will wind up in tears and won’t speak to anyone other than Gerard, just like the last time the two households got together for a painfully prolonged period of time.

But this time around Frank’s really going to try. He might not be able to stand the love of his life’s parents and he’d much rather be spending Christmas solely with Mikey, maybe with Gerard too at a push, yet he just couldn’t bring himself to say no when Mikey asked if he could have the family over.

He loves Mikey way too much for that.

So Frank will tell himself just to be a man, to carve that turkey perfectly whilst imagining it to be Mr Way’s head and to just get through the day without actually committing a murder.

Yeah, it’s gonna be hard. But ultimately worth it.

For Mikey.

***

“Think he had a good day?”

Frank smiles at his husband, his heart melting like it always does at the sight of Mikey so clearly elated. When Frank grabs the taller man’s bony hand he can’t help but let his heart do backflips when his fingers brush against the two-year-old wedding ring adorning his finger and proclaiming him to be an official part of the Iero family; property of Frank and no one else.

“I know he did.” Frank’s voice, for once, is as calm as the content look swept over the sleeping toddler in front of them, Thomas the Tank Engine covers pulled up tightly to his pale little chin. “The look on his face when Gerard came in dressed as Santa! It was perfect.”

Mikey nods, remembering the way his brother somehow managed to say all the right things and say none of the wrong ones (i.e. fuck, shit or pumpkin pie motherfucker) for once. He reaches out his un-caressed hand and uses it to gently swipe some of the dark brown hair out of the sleeping boy’s face. It may be a sight that he gets to see every night, but Mikey can’t help but think how lucky and privileged he is to have such a beautiful family.

“Yeah.” Mikey mumbles, leaning back to snuggle into Frank as though the two are teenagers again. “Perfect.”

It’s Frank’s turn to admire the beauty of his family now; his husband and his son, adopted of course, both looking like perfect angels on Christmas night.

And this is why if you ask Frank Iero what his favourite holiday is he’ll say Halloween to keep face, but deep down what he’s really thinking is Christmas.

Because Christmas gives Frankie the best gifts he could ever wish for; happy memories.







A/N: Written in response to a request for a Christmas Frikey, hope this is okay! Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think. :)