Chapter Text
Frank stared at the gravestone in front of him. The dark concrete was soaked, obscuring the etching on the face of the stone. He reached out and gently traced the fresh marks, mouthing the words to himself as he tried once again to wrap his head around the fact that his favorite person was gone. The gloomy weather matched Frank’s mood perfectly, making him think briefly of what the corpse six feet below his feet would have said, were they still alive. Something stupid, probably.
The rain had been heavy for a while, but it seemed worse now that they were gone. Gerard had been the love of his life for the past three years, and everything just felt wrong without them. Frank hated it. He felt so out of place, like the universe had turned a blind eye to his pain while his world burned to the ground. The wind picked up and sprayed his face with rain, snapping him out of his misery. He looked around briefly, quickly, a fleeting sense of being watched washing over him. Frank shuddered and hugged his coat closer around his shoulders, trying to keep himself warm as he plucked up the courage to leave. Something stopped him just as he turned to leave, and he realized he hadn’t said goodbye yet. He sighed and turned back towards his boyfriend’s grave, muttering a quick goodbye before finally walking off towards his now-empty two bedroom apartment.
Gerard had been, well, the best thing to ever happen to Frank. Frank loved the bastard, even now, even after taking their own life. He remembered those long nights, the ones when Gerard would come home late at night, piss drunk and with the smell of someone else on their clothes. Frank cursed himself for yelling at Gerard nearly every day, so to make up for it, he’d picked up where Gerard had left off. He even had a nightly ritual. Frank would come home, strip down to nothing but his sweaty boxers, grab a beer from the fridge and turn the TV on. He’d watch TV for maybe an hour before grabbing another beer or three, change the channel to something Gerard would have watched, and then he’d fall asleep on the couch only to have nightmares about the night he found his boyfriend bleeding out on the bathroom floor.
Those nights were over. Frank needed to ‘move on’, as his therapist kept saying. ‘Get a life’, as his friends said. He didn’t think they understood how much it hurt to lose the one person holding you together, the one person you lived every day for. The nightmares never went away, but at least he could sleep sober. As much as he loved Gerard, he didn’t want to become like them, piss drunk at two in the afternoon and throwing up every time they went out. If anyone asked him if he had any regrets, Frank would tell them he only regretted leaving Gerard alone for so long that night. He reached his apartment complex and walked up the stairs, the steps creaking under his weight. When he went to unlock his front door, he realized it was open. Did I forget to lock it again? Frank walked into the apartment carefully, paranoid that someone had broken in and stolen everything he had left of Gerard. He looked around ruefully, expecting everything to be an absolute trainwreck and shit to be broken. What he spotted instead was Mikey, standing in the corner. Mikey held a bottle in one hand and a photo in the other, seemingly deep in thought. Frank stepped on something, resulting in a loud crunch, and Mikey looked up sharply, visibly relaxing when he recognized Frank. Strange…he’s the one breaking into my apartment. Whatever.
“Hey.”
“Hey, Mikey. What, um, what’re you doing here?”
“Oh. Right. I wanted to check on you, y’know? See how you were holding up. I know you guys were,” Mikey made a flailing gesture at the messy apartment, “close,” he finished thickly.
“Yeah…I was actually just at the graveyard. The one by. Um. The church,” Frank said, “The one where he was buried.”
“Oh,” Mikey chuckled nervously. “Well, how is he? Apart from being dead, I mean.”
“You don’t- you don’t talk to him anymore?” Frank said, surprise cutting through the gloom that had settled over his life the past few months. “But I thought- y’know, you’re brothers. I thought you guys would still talk every once in a while.”
“Yeah, well, he stopped responding to me. Radio silence. I can’t even look at pictures of him anymore without feeling rejected,” Mikey spat, the venom in his voice unmistakable.
“Maybe he moved on? I mean, he doesn’t really talk to me anymore either,” Frank lied. He’d never been spoken to by a dead person, and doubted he would be anytime soon. He didn’t really believe in that kind of thing, but he always went with it when his friends were convinced there was some sort of connection between them and someone they loved who’d passed. Especially when Gerard and Mikey’s grandma died.
“He still talks to Mom. He completely ignores me, but he talks to her. I’ve seen it. A stray hair here, an old note there. Tea leaf signs, shit like that. For me, though? Fucking nothing.” Mikey kicked the kitchen island, cursing under his breath when his toes connected with the plywood. Frank looked at the man standing in his kitchen, suddenly fascinated by his uncharacteristic anger.
“Fuck, dude. That sucks. Did you fight or something before he…?”
“No! That’s the worst part. I feel like they hate me for no reason,” Mikey wailed.
“I’m sorry,” Frank started. He paused, wondering if Mikey was drunk. He again noted the empty bottle in Mikey’s hand and tried to discreetly read the label.
“I know what you’re trying to do, y’know.”
Frank looked up at Mikey, startled. He dropped his hands, which had been awkwardly outstretched since finding his door unlocked and looked at Mikey with the most innocent face he could muster in the fucked-up situation. Frank shuffled around the piles of moving boxes and takeout containers to reach Mikey and put his hands on the taller man’s shoulders. It looked ridiculous and he knew that, but calming down his friend was more important than any reputation he'd garnered during his time with his favorite band. Mikey flinched when Frank rested his hands on his shoulders, but didn’t take his eyes off him for a second. Mikey peered at Frank from over his glasses, suspiciously watching Frank’s lips as he talked.
“You’re grieving, Mikey. We all are. Gee- well, he was the most important person in my life. He was your brother. I’m not taking him from you, I promise. Ray misses you. Brian’s worried about you, God knows what he’d do if he found out you’ve been drinking again. Fucking Bob’s worried, and you know damn well he only worries about himself,” he broke off, chuckling a little at the thought of Bob worrying about anything other than his damn hair. “I need you to sober up, grab some coffee if you need. I’ll walk you home. Just- don’t end up like Gee, alright? They- they wouldn’t want to see you doing this to yourself, alright? He loves you,” Frank stopped, wiping his face awkwardly with one arm and hugging Mikey with the other. Mikey looked at him, tears threatening to fall on his cheeks. He hugged back tightly and sobbed into Frank’s shoulder, something he hadn’t done since his grandma died.
Frank shuffled out his front door, Mikey trailing a couple steps behind him. The pair wandered down the stairs, onto the street and into the park, cutting through the other cemetery and finally arriving at Mikey’s house. Mikey stumbled a little at the door, coffee in hand, and Frank had to steady him with one hand while grabbing the precious coffee with the other. Mikey practically collapsed onto his brown leather couch, insisting he was fine and that he’d get on fine alone. Frank didn’t believe him and tried to insist on staying for a little, “Just until you fall asleep,” he’d said, but Mikey was stubborn and wouldn’t let Frank stay. So after making sure Mikey was settled and not going to do anything stupid, Frank decided to go home.
On the way back to his apartment, he thought about what happened. The fact that Mikey was drunk wasn’t that surprising - his fucking brother died, for fuck’s sake - but the fact that he’d broken into Frank’s apartment was. Mikey never did anything that stupid, even when he was blackout drunk. It was a new low, and Mikey wasn’t a dumbass. It made Frank wonder if he’d learned it from Gerard, which he sincerely hoped wasn’t the case. That would be a pretty fucked up thing to learn from an older brother.
He reached the door, still locked - thank fuck - and walked inside his apartment. Frank looked around his dark apartment and sighed, tears stinging his eyes at the smell of Gerard’s stale cigarettes still hanging in the air. He took in the piles of boxes filled with Gerard’s clothes, comics, art, and other random things he collected. Frank tried and failed to not care about it, it never really bothered him until now, but the hot tears wouldn’t stay in his damn eyes and they ended up spilling down his cheeks. He sobbed heavily, memories flooding his mind unbidden and assaulting his senses. He remembered the countless nights spent in their bed, the days taking Gerard to his favorite comic book stores, the dates they had at shitty bars and low end pizza places that gave them both food poisoning more than once. It never occurred to Frank that those days would end so abruptly or so soon. Fuck, it hurts so much.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”