Where There’s Life, There’s Hope.

Mikey was going to get to the bottom of this if it killed him. His brother and Frank had always had problems. In fact, Mikey was fairly sure if Frank had known that Gerard was going to be a part of the band that he was flying across the country for he wouldn’t have gone. Mikey knew he sure wouldn’t have bothered wasting all that money.
It was really time Mikey faced the facts. He and his brother were growing apart. There was no doubt about it. The two were no longer waiting for comic books to come out together, gushing over the previous until dawn over coffee and junk food. Ever since Gerard had left for SVA three years ago they’d been drifting farther and farther from one another. He’d always lock himself up in his basement room blasting music, working on his latest project, letting himself waste away. If Mikey or one of their parents came to the door to speak to him he’d snip at them, shooing them immediately away.
Mikey could tell Gerard didn’t know what to do with himself anymore. The television idea he pitched was shot down, his comic books weren’t good enough for the company he was interning with at SVA, and now he worked designing toys at a typical nine to five job. The only part of the world that could see Gerard’s art was his bedroom walls. It wasn’t what he wanted, and it wasn’t what Mikey wanted for him. The only time any of the family would see Gerard was in the time it took him to make another heaping cup of coffee to return to his basement dwelling with. Heck, if his mother would have let him have the coffee pot they would never see his face.
9/11 had changed Gerard. Mikey couldn’t even imagine what Gerard had seen that morning. It was bad enough he had to hear about it on the news, and see the terrifying, heart wrenching images. Gerard having to watch helplessly from the peir as people’s lives came to an end before his eyes, their bodies falling like raindrops from heaven straight into the fiery bowels of hell. That’s the reason Gerard wanted to try and make music. He wanted to change people’s lives, especially his own, before it was too late. Treating people like he did in high school was not the way Gerard should be coping with the pain from the horrific images he saw on September 11th, 2001. In fact, it was doing the exact opposite.
Mikey made his way into the restaurant without acknowledging the hostess. He wandered back into the dining room surveying the area for his brother, reminiscent of a lion looking for an antelope. His eyes landed on him in a matter of seconds. His boisterous ass sitting there carefree eating pasta from a plate beside Matt. Mikey crossed the room in a few long strides, a aura of anger following close behind him.
“Gerard, can I speak to you outside?” Mikey spoke, without wasting a second.
Gerard glanced up from his plate of half-eaten spaghetti and meatballs with a glare that on a normal day would have sent Mikey fleeing. This time, Mikey stood his ground. His furry was far greater than any death-stare from his brother, especially when his friend needed him.
“Dude, I actually just sat down to finish this.” he exclaimed, his sass lacing each word. He looked up with sad eyes from the pasta, trying his hardest to guilt Mikey into letting him finish.
“Gerard. I don’t care if Jesus himself popped down and said ‘eat this, or the world will explode.’ You need to step outside to speak with me, NOW.”
Gerard groaned, and begrudgingly began to slide out of the booth. Mikey just glared, his arms crossed in front of him, and his lips pursed together to form a tight line.
“Mikey what the hell?!” Matt exclaimed, confused; “What is going on?!”
“Nothing Matt.” Mikey snapped, bringing his fingers up to the bridge of his nose in frustration. Feeling guilty for snapping at Matt he added; “Just a typical Gerard move full of stupidity and selfishness.”
Gerard froze from taking a final bite of his pasta from the plate before getting up. The tomato sauce smothered noodle fell sloppily back down onto the plate with a ‘splat’.
“What did I do, exactly?” Gerard hated when Mikey was angry with him. Most of the time it was because of things he didn’t mean to do, or even realize he did. That’s what made making Mikey so terrifying.
“Can I speak to you outside, please?” Mikey made sure his words were stressed perfectly so his point was crystal clear that he wasn’t going to be taking ‘No’ as an answer under any circumstance.
“Fine.” groaned Gerard like a child. He let out an overdramatic ‘ugh’ noise before actually rising from the booth leaving his pasta under the safe jurisdiction of Matt in case the waitress attempted to steal it away from his unfulfilled-Italian loving-heart. Mikey hurried in a huff out of the seating area of the restaurant and stopped in the little foyer between the hostess area, and the front door.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked, spinning to face Gerard’s stunned expression.
“A lot of things,” Gerard scoffed, “in what respect this time?”
He watched as Mikey groaned and did his signature fingers to the bridge of his nose stress symbol Gerard was way too familiar with.
“Why do you have to harass perfectly food people? We’re not in high school anymore, Gerard. You’re no longer the skinny, redheaded, heart throbbing, asshole you were made out to be back then. This is the real world! You’re a grown up. You have real-world responsibilities, with real-world consequences. You need to treat people the right way, no matter what the past has held. Let alone, what they’re willing to do for you.” Mikey monologued, and without giving Gerard a chance to defend himself he continued, “Frank dropped his life to help you. He left California where he was in school, he dropped out of college to come here to help YOU follow your dreams. That’s a hell of a trip, Gerard. I bet if he knew you were the one he was going to be helping he would have never had come because of how YOU used to treat him. He’s been outside a wreck for almost 20 minutes because of YOU. Afraid things are going right back to the way they used to be.
Mikey was fuming, and Gerard felt a knife theoretically stab him in the chest with every finger point and ‘You’ Mikey spoke.
“He’s outside, upset?” Gerard asked after composing himself, dumbfounded.
“Yeah, pretty much,” he replied opening the door to the parking lot, motioning for Gerard to go outside. “and you’re going to fix it.”
When the two brothers walked outside, Gerard immediately saw Ray and rushed over to talk to him.
“What’s going on.” he asked quietly.
“I was about to ask you the same thing...” Ray trailed off looking towards Frank. Gerard’s stomach dropped into the souls of his shoes. His heart shattering into a hundred jagged pieces attempting to rip their way out of his chest all at once. This was not the way things were supposed to be, he never intended for them to end up this way.
“Can you two give us a minute?” Gerard’s lips spoke before he had enough time to reconsider their consequences.
“Sure. Just, please don’t fuck things up worst.” Mikey replied, retreating with Ray to god-knows where.
Gerard was once again left alone with Frank, but this time...it was going to be different.

Notes

Hope you enjoy the update, it's longer than usual.
Sorry about the wait, college. ugh.