Gerard woke with a start. His eyes darted around the dimly lit room fast as they could talking in his surroundings. Mikey was asleep on the couch next to him, sprawled so his legs curled up on top of Gerard. He stared up at Frank asleep in his hospital bed, the heart monitor ticking away with every beat. The fact that Mikey and Gerard were even allowed in was a miracle.
Gerard’s grandmother had probably pulled some strings, she new a lot of the nurses from volunteering around Christmas time to read stories in the Children’s wing. Gerard was sweating bullets, he wiped his hand across his forehead, the sweat still pouring down his ice cold body.

It was only a dream. He wasn’t going to be arrested, the cops weren’t going to arrest him. He wasn’t dead. He was okay. Gerard’s heart was beating like a triphammer as he slowly slid from underneath Mikey’s scrawny legs and stood up stretching in the dark hospital room. He glanced at the clock next to Frank’s bed. 2AM. Wow, he’d been asleep for 5 hours.

His eyes fell upon Frankie again, looking all but pleasant with tubes coming out of his nose pumping oxygen in and the IV’s pumping blood and saline fluid into his body. His dinner lay un-touched and cold on the little roll around table next to his bed. He hadn’t woken.

Gerard made his way over to it in search of water. Surveying the food, he settled for the little container of apple juice gulping it down.

Subconsciously he moved his pale fingers to open the covered container on the tray. Meatloaf from the looks of things, peas and potatoes? At least, he hoped the white mush on the tray was potatoes. With a sigh, he hurried over to Mikey’s book bag sitting lonely by the side of the couch.

His hand’s felt through the bag for a sheet of looseleaf and a pen, having found them he continued back over to the table and wrote a quick note to the nurses.

Dear Nurses,
Frankie here, is a vegetarian. If you want him to get his strength up, please provide him with something besides meatloaf. It would mean a lot.
Thank you.
-Gerard Way.

Hoping that made up for god know’s what he was responsible for the night before the incident, Gerard wandered back to the couch and sat with Mikey again. He stared off into space. God, he really needed a cigarette. A Fucking HUGE cigarette.

All his life, he’d been afraid to ever stay the night in a hospital, but here is was spending a third. Hospitals were a death trap, it’s where people went to keel over or have their blood stolen from vampires.
Sure, they claimed to save people, but they never did. They just stole their blood, their organs, and then sent them to the morgue. He refused to leave because he needed to protect Frankie. He wasn’t about to let them steal his blood, or kill him.

So, here he was. Decaffeinated, Over-tired, Under-nicotined, and cranky. Not to mention in desperate need for a shower and a nice warm meal. There were only so many times you could eat vending-machine food.

Staring at Frank the way he was now, he’d never felt more scared. Gerard was very sheltered in the aspect of never having to see anyone this way. The last time he was in a hospital was when Mikey was born. He was so little, and wouldn’t be able to re-call a single second of it. He’d never seen anyone so sick or hurt before. He should have brought Frank here the minute he saw him with his arm sliced up. He shouldn’t have been so stupid, but, Frank wasn’t complaining about pain. So, how could he have known?

He fucking should have. It was all his fault. Frankie wouldn’t be on his deathbed if Gerard had just fucking brought him to the hospital to get stitched up the minute the whole ordeal happened. Frankie wouldn’t have been so keen to keep slicing the wound that night if it were stitched up. Or, at least Gerard thought he wouldn’t have been.

Why did he get drunk? Why did he allow himself to do that when he saw how upset Frank was? He was an asshole. He still couldn’t remember what he did to set Frank off but, he was sure he’d done something in his drunken, mentally incapacitated stupor. If Mikey knew the whole story, Gerard wouldn’t have been allowed to stay in the room with Frank. This being known, Gerard kept quite about the whole ordeal wracking his brain for answers himself. He didn’t want Frank to get worked up when he woke up and saw Gerard there but he couldn’t remember a single thing.

That was the downfall of Gerard’s drinking. He could never remember anything afterwards. Ever.

Mikey Stirred next to him and sat up to glance around.

“ ise upyet?” he murmerd, slurring his speech still half asleep.

“No, Mikers. He’s still asleep. Hasn’t been up at all. Go back to sleep.” Gerard whispered.

“Okay.” Mikey muttered, cuddling backdown into the couch muttering ‘mmm’.

“Sleep tight Mikey. Sweet dreams.” Gerard cooed. Focusing back on Frank.

Staring at the frail looking boy in his bed, for the first time in his life, Gerard prayed. He prayed his little black heart out.