House of Ways

Gerard’s POV
I pull up into the driveway, along with the moving van, barely parking it before Mikey jumps out to greet a waiting, mopey-looking Frank on the porch steps. I, myself, step out and go around to the back of the truck to open up the back door, getting out a box and heading inside. Passing Mikey and Frank, who are casually standing there and talking. Assholes.

"Yeah. Sure, guys. I don't mind. You don't have to help! I got this!" I say sarcastically as I pass them.

Seriously. Am I the only one with a little sense of responsibility around here? It’s already bad enough having to constantly deal with a very immature Mikey, but now I have to add a… well, a Frank… to the equation. Somehow, it doesn’t seem very fair.

"I thought ladies like doing housework, sweetheart?" Frank smirks, earning a chuckle from Mikey.

I, on the other hand, simply grace him with my raised middle finger. Fuckwit.

"Don't worry too much, dude," Mikey grins. "Gee is on her period again. Came a little late this month, but we all recovered nicely from the scare."

Dick. What pleasure could Mikey possibly get from constantly referring to me as a girl? Maybe he just does it to chill out his own conscience about the whole Pete thing (which he’s still in total denial about). Prick.

"Shut up, Mikey! Anyways, if I'm such a 'girl', why aren't you ‘manly’ men helping a lady out with these very heavy boxes? Afraid of breaking a nail, girls? Or do you enjoy admiring someone stronger than yourselves at work? Is that it, ladies? Like the looks of nice ‘strong’ men?”

The words are simply flooding out of my lips without my actual permission. These two assholes shouldn’t get to me like this, but… Damn! Mikey can get bad enough ridiculing me as it is, but, now that he seems to have found in ally in frank, I’m not so sure how ‘innocent’ it’s all going to be anymore. With those two egging each other on…

"That, coming from someone who gets manicures," Mikey retorts happily, like the horrible younger sibling he is.

Frank snorts, and I detect a little hint of glee in his features. "Seriously?" he chuckles, sounding way too pleased with himself for my comfort.

"I shit you not, man," Mikey confirms, accompanied by a smirk I want to punch from his face.
Fuck those fuckers!

I walk inside, taking the box up to my new room, setting it down on the ground against a wall. I decide to be a bitch and not help with the rest of the unloading. Those pricks could do the rest on their own! I’m not really in the mood for them and their lower level of maturity. Besides, I just want to smash Frank’s pretty face in along with Mikey’s – and we haven’t even lived together for longer than a few minutes.

I can totally move out on my own now. The only reason I didn’t before, was because I felt bad about leaving mom and Mikey alone after dad left. Now she is forming herself a new little family, and I’m free to move out. Maybe I’ll look into that a bit later, when I can find my way around the financial aspect of it.

I need to find something to take up my time, to take my mind off of the worrisome thoughts that creep up on me. Fuck dad for leaving mom, leaving me with all of these worries. And fuck Mikey and Frank for being such douches. Well, while I’m not doing anything particularly productive, I might as well have a little look around this place that’s my new home – for now, at least.

Going out into the hallway, I look around at all the doors, and decide to go snoop in the bathroom cabinets. Well, technically, I need to check for some space for my own shit, but I guess it would probably still be considered snooping. Whatever.

Stepping into the bathroom, I immediately start to rifle around through the drawers, not finding anything terribly interesting. That is, until I reach the bottom one, where there is a huge box of condoms – X-Large! Picking it up, I look inside, and see that, out of the packaged 80, there is only about 10 left. Well someone’s a bit slutty! Unless he just jerks off into them to make less of a mess all over his bed. I still have my money rather firmly on sluttiness, though.

Putting it back in the semi-cluttered drawer, I turn towards the door, ready to turn the handle, when there’s a knock on the door.

"Hurry up, Gerard! We already got all your shit down and up. Come fucking help, already...or do you need a tampon?"

Why, oh why, had I been blessed with a younger brother?

I huff as I hear him and Frank break into obnoxious laughter over something that is, quite frankly not very funny, and quickly losing its charm. Not bothering to respond, I wait until I hear retreating footsteps, and step out into the hall again. This time going into dear little Frankie’s room. Since there’s not all that much space in the bathroom for my shit (I don’t even care about all Mikey’s shit), I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to spot some place in Frank’s room for some of his.

"Fuck, dude," I hear Frank huff, helping Mikey with yet another one of his boxes, "exactly how much clothes do you own, man?"

More than a normal ‘straight’ man should, Frankie, dear.

"Well," Mikey smirks, "about half that box you're carrying right now is filled with porn Pete leaves at my place."

Wow.

"Anything I might find interesting?" Frank smirks back, his whole voice dripping with it – it’s mildly distracting.

"Well...about half of it is gay, dude," Mikey rolls his eyes.

Give me a fucking break. And I’m the one constantly being ridiculed? By a ‘straight’ dude who owns gay porn. I knew he had it. Fucker is pretty crafty at hiding it, though. I’ve never actually caught him out with it. Fucker.

Frank’s eyes widen a little, and I'm pretty sure he’s fucking blushing!

Well, spying on them through Frank’s window is getting a little boring. I wonder if they even realise I could hear everything from inside here. Probably not.

Instead of further wasting my time on those two, I shift my attention onto the plush carpet beneath my feet. It’s really badass. I wonder why my room has a different one. I might like this one better.

Looking around the unfamiliar room, I try to decide what to go through first. The closet! There is bound to be at least some space for Frank’s crap (also some possibly interesting or embarrassing items) in there. I throw open the door to the walk-in closet, and go inside, sticking my hands onto the top shelf, searching blindly for anything remotely interesting (since I confirmed that there is, in fact, enough space for some of his shit from the bathroom cupboards, I might as well just enjoy myself now, right?), coming up with nothing. The fucker is probably too short to put shit up here, anyways! I snort at the thought of Frank practically having to jump up and down to reach the shelf. It’s not an entire un-cute image, not that I’ll ever utter those words aloud.

Emerging from the closet, I go to the next sensible place for Frank to possibly hide something worth my while finding, and put my hand under the mattress of his bed, feeling something like paper beneath my fingers. Pulling it out, I flip it around to see it’s a porn magazine with a picture of two busty women in a quite provocative pose with each other. Fucking pervert. I scoff at the magazine, a bit of jealousy coursing through me, even as I internally rant about how very sexist and exploitative it is. Has he even ever seen lesbian porn? It’s all fake. You can totally tell that most of those women aren’t even really lesbians. It’s mostly designed to make money off of idiots like Frank, who don’t know any better (who also, maybe, tries too hard to protect their heterosexual status).

Throwing it down onto the floor beside me with distaste, I stick my hand under the mattress again, to see if I find anything else. Feeling the smooth, cold feel of plastic, I wrap my fingers around it, and bring it out in the open, I notice that it’s a bottle of Cherry flavoured lube! I try to stifle my laughter with a hand thrown over my mouth. Also putting it on the floor next to the porno, I get on all fours, leaning down on my forearms, to look underneath the bed. I’m still laughing while rooting around under there, when I suddenly hear the door open.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!?!" Frank exclaims, furious – judging by the look in his eyes, I’m in seriously deep shit right now.

"Gee," Mikey eyes me. Even though his voice stays monotone, the authority in his voice is unmistakable.

Well, shit.

"Uhm," I stammer lamely.

"DO YOU MAKE A HABBIT OF SNOOPING IN OTHER PEOPLE'S SHIT?!??" Frank exclaims, looking about ready to skin me alive. There are faint traces of embarrassment beneath the anger, but the fury is enough for me to not even be able to enjoy that little fact.

I realise that I’m still kneeling on my knees, so I stand up, turning around to face Mikey and Frank. I look at Mikey guiltily, my cheeks turning pink from the shame I just brought on my brother. Even though they were totally acting like total immature idiots first, doesn’t really mean that this was called for.

I look down at the floor, trying to stammer out a response, but not finding a good enough excuse that would justify me going through Frank’s stuff. They wouldn’t believe that I was just checking to find more space in here for Frank’s bathroom shit, anyways.

Frank yells at me, which makes me flinch, but then makes me angry, because the only two people allowed to speak to me like that, in this world, are my mom and, occasionally, Mikey (when he is trying to knock some sense into my dumbass – but that’s kind of a mutual understanding between the two of us, as I do the same to him). Even though I know I had no right to really be pissed that he is yelling at me, I try to come up with a snarky comeback, anyways.

"Well, when living with a prick like you, it’s essential to have some blackmail material, just in case," I say with a grin on my face, trying to make it seem like I could really not give a shit that they found me snooping (or are scolding me about it – like I’m a little kid, what the fuck), even though I really don’t feel anywhere nearly as brave as I seem to sound.

"You little bitch," Frank sneers, getting all up in my face, completely disregarding the fact that Mikey is even present in the room.

He backs me up, until my back hits the wall. He can probably see how nervous I am, and I really hope he doesn’t realise that this is kind of a turn on at the same time. Shit. Why, oh, why? Am I being punished for something? Fuck.

"Listen, and listen good," he murmurs, "you keep your faggy hands to yourself. You don't touch me, or my shit. Got it?"

I begin to slightly pant, and the way our breaths mingle in the air between us is distracting. I wonder if he notices. Shit.

He pins my shoulders roughly to the wall, stepping even more into my personal space, our faces now barely an inch apart. I can hardly focus on what he’s saying, as my mind goes fuzzy and my eyes stare into his rich hazel ones, with flecks of gold, that seem to spark with passion. He comes even closer, so close that only air could come between us. I feel myself getting hard. Damn my fucking submissive nature! He puts his hands on my shoulders pushing me further into the wall making my knees weak and I’m so tempted to just get down on my knees for him.

"I said," he grits his teeth, "Got it?"

I nod eagerly, yet nervously, and I'm almost ninety percent sure that he notices that I'm getting turned on. Shit.

"Good," he breathes out, allowing his lips to linger a little, dangerously close to mine, before stepping back completely.

"Get out," he mumbles, picking up the offending articles I had snooped out, searching for a new place to stash it.

I storm out, without any protests, Mikey on my heels. As soon as we are out of ear shot, Mikey takes hold of my wrist and turns me around.

"What the fuck Gerard?! Are you really trying to get him to hate you?!"

My heart is already threatening to explode in my still heaving chest, as it is. I don’t need Mikey making me feel like shit now, to top that off. I especially don’t need that since he and Frank seem to be in some sort of alliance against me.

"Just drop it Mikey!" I only spare a second to feel a little guilty for snapping at him, not that he really deserves my nice side at the moment.

"No! You are not going to ruin this for mom! So you better get your shit together, and stop fucking with him, and play nice!"

I look up at my little brother, and feel another wave of guilt wash over me. This shit is new for him too, and we both actually need to be supporting mom. I’m supposed to be the older, more mature one, anyways.

"Okay, Mikey. I'm sorry. I promise I'll try to be nicer to him – for you, and for mom. Okay?"

His face still remains hard with anger, but softens just a bit with my apology. Instead of saying he forgave me, he says "I'm not the one you should be apologising to. So, before you even think of me forgiving you, I suggest you go see Frank."

He turns and walks away. I stand there looking at Frank’s bedroom door, trying to figure if I should do as Mikey says. If we’re gonna live here together under one roof (at least for a while), it would probably be best if one of us at least attempted to be remotely civilised.

I close my eyes and put my hand on the door knob, taking a deep breath, trying to push aside my pride. With my other hand, I knock timidly on the door, hoping to hear him shout a 'fuck off' or something. Instead, there’s a startled (and rather pissy) 'Yeah?' coming from the other side. I twist the knob slowly, opening the door just enough to peek my head in. I give a shy smile, and ask in a polite voice "May I come in?" He just stares at me for a few moments, contemplating a response.

Finally, after a few tense moments he nods, not meeting my eyes.

I take that as my queue to quietly slink into his room, closing the door behind me carefully. I makes my way over to his bed almost hesitantly, not saying a single word. I sit down gingerly next to him.

Reluctantly, he looks up at me, probably not completely sure what to expect to see here. He’s probably still embarrassed and angry – not that I can blame him, really.

"I'm sorry," I whisper under my breath, feeling my eyes glistening slightly, hoping that he'll accept my pitiful excuse for an apology.

I’m a very prideful person, so apologising isn’t exactly my area of expertise. Still looking into each other’s eyes, I see something flicker in his, as he looks at me intently. Eyes flitting towards my lips quickly, before meeting my own again, as that little spark of emotion, that I couldn't identify, disappears from his. Again, his eyes return to their usual state, as he looks back at me, as I wait for his response.

Instead of responding, though, he captures my lips in a quick kiss, the cold silver of his piercing sending my nerves into overdrive. I stiffen slightly under the rather unexpected action in shock, unable to move, not knowing if I should kiss back, or pull back, but he abruptly pulls away – at least solving my last little dilemma.

"Fuck," he mutters. "Please, just leave." Something like regret seems to be lacing his voice, but I’m not going to push it.

It hurts when he says that, though, and I open my mouth to say something, but, again, he asks me to leave. Before he gets angry, I get up, without another word, and exit his room, looking back at him before I shut the door.

Going to my own room, I sit on my still bare bed, looking up at the ceiling, wondering where he and I stand now.

Notes

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