We're All Full Of Lies

Moments later, Gerard pulled the door open and reappeared, shirt back on and hair fixed. He avoided my gaze taking off down the hallway and disappearing down the stairs. I pushed myself off from leaning against the wall and walked into what I now knew as Gerard’s bedroom. Frank was sat on the end of the bed, shirt on, hair a mess and awkwardly picking at a fraying strand on his jeans. His hair managed to cover most of his face but the bright red that painted his cheeks couldn’t be hidden nor missed. I decided not to make the situation worse by pointing out that I had just walked in on my best friend and teacher making out.

“Hey Frank” I smiled and sat next to him, the bed sinking a little under my weight, “Uh, look I’m really not good with these types of things, but you don’t need to be so embarrassed, I mean it could have been worse right?”, I wrapped an arm around his shoulder, as a form of comfort but I don’t think it did much.
He laughed a little, “True, I don’t want to think what you might have seen if you walked in 10 minutes later”, he winked at me.
“Oh, okay, gross, too much information” I removed my arm and shuffled away a little.
“Don’t tell Mikey, he probably doesn’t want to hear that his best friend and big brother were making out half naked, in his house”
“Trust me, there’s no way in hell I’m repeating what I saw, ever.”
Frank giggled and his cheeks had now returned to a normal colour “Sorry, we probably should have put like a tie or the doorknob or something”.
“No, no don’t do that, then I’ll know exactly what you two are doing and the mental images are far too traumatising, just wait until you guys are home alone or something, for everyone’s sake”
“Shut up!” Frank smiled and threw a teddy bear at me, which managed to hit me square in the face.
I stumbled back a little catching the bear before it fell to the floor, “Now Mr Iero that behaviour is completely unnecessary!”, I smiled and threw the bear back, aiming for his face. He ducked just in time to dodge being hit.
“I declare war!” Frank half shouted grabbing a pillow as a shield and holding the teddy bear above his head, ready to attack.

We continued darting around the room using pillows as shields and teddy bears as weapons. Until somehow the pair of us ended up running straight for each other, pillows held out in front. We collided in the centre of the room and fell down on top of one another, limbs tangled and stomachs aching from laughter.

I let a yawn escape my lips once the laughter had subsided, “I could fall asleep here, it’s comfy enough” I smiled and snuggled into a pillow, closing my eyes.
“You can’t just sleep on Gee’s floor” Frank grinned using his fingers to force open my eyelids, “Speaking of Gee, what’s taking him and Mikey so long?”.
Letting go of the pillow I sat up, “I don’t know, I haven’t even heard a noise the whole time they’ve been downstairs”.
Frank stood and fixed up his crumpled jeans and shirt before holding out a hand to assist me in standing, “Come on, we’d better check they’re okay, something just doesn’t feel right”.
I grabbed hold of his hand and hoisted myself up from the ground and patted down the mattered mess of hair that fell over my eyes obstructing my vision.

Frank took the lead making his way out of the room, “Hold on a minute, maybe we should get baseball bats or something”
“What? Why?” Frank stopped and looked at me utterly confused.
“Uhm maybe because of the death threat that came flying through the window on a brick? And someone could be down there and have Mikey and Gerard, there’s not point going downstairs unarmed and then finding ourselves in some serious shit and not being able to protect ourselves”
“I suppose that’s true, well I don’t know about baseball bats, but Mikey has tennis rackets”
“Mikey plays tennis?”
“He tried, once”
I grinned at the thought of Mikey playing tennis, he seemed to be more a kickball kind of guy rather than tennis. Frank disappeared out of the room only to return moments later with two red and black tennis rackets. He handed me one, I inspected the strings and hit it against the palm of my hand to test the strength.

I nodded at Frank, and he began to tip toe down the hallway. He tensed up every time he hit a creaky floorboard, stopping completely and raising his racket a little, only to continue on forward when I nudged him with the end of my racket. We made our way down the stairs and crept into the living room. My eyes went directly to the window that was still broken and the hammer and wooden boards that were sat next to it.
“Why are the boards just sitting there? Where are Gee and Mikey?” Frank questioned walking towards the window, he only made it a few steps before letting a tortured yelp to escape his lips.
“What? Frank what is it?” I asked moving forward trying to see what the couch was obstructing from my view.

Gerard’s body was slumped over in a pool of blood. His skin was covered in cuts and bruises, like someone had gone over his body with a cheese grater. Blood continued to pump and bubble out of the deeper wounds adding to the already sizable puddle on the floor.
“Gee! Oh god Gee! Wake up!”, tears cascaded down Frank’s cheeks as he fell into hysterics by Gerard’s body.

My body froze and tensed up as I took in what was before me. Frank had latched himself on Gerard, getting covered in blood in the process, bawling as he begged for Gerard to wake up. I watched the scene intently, not shifting my gaze. That’s when I saw it. It was small, nearly unnoticeable but it was there, the slow but steady rising of Gerard’s chest. He was alive, but only just.

I ran forward and ripped Frank’s trembling body away from Gerard, “Wh-what are y-you doing!?”
“Go to the bathroom and get some gauze and antiseptic from the medicine cabinet, he’s still alive but he won’t be for much longer if we don’t stop the bleeding” I half yelled at Frank, he didn’t move. “Frank! Go, now!”, with the last bit of shouting his body seemed to kick into gear and he sprinted from the room. I placed my hands on the largest wound that was pumping out the crimson liquid at an alarming rate and applied pressure, trying to ignore the feeling of ripped flesh on the palms of my hands.

Frank appeared moments later at my side with and armful of gauze and a large bottle of antiseptic, “Is h-he gonna be okay?” Frank sniffled as he forced out the words.
I quickly began dabbing the liquid over the wounds, internally thankful Gerard had passed out as the pain would have been unimaginable, and then applied the gauze to try and slow the blood flow.

“Mira? Is he gonna be o-“
“I think so, we just need to stop the bleeding”
“Shouldn’t we ring the ambulance or something?”
“They’ll ask questions Frank, questions we can’t answer, if the police get involved the first thing they’ll do is search, search our houses, search Gerard’s art room, and if they find the paintings Gerard is screwed”

Frank began to shake and cry again, I may have been a bit harsh, but I was tired, confused, angry and scared. The fact that Gerard was nearly killed whilst we were just upstairs really made it sink in how much danger we were actually in. Next time we mightn't be so lucky, it could be anyone of us, me, Frank, Mikey- Mikey!
“Oh no”
“What?, what is it?”
My eyes widened and tears began to burn my cold cheeks as they fell, “Mikey, where is Mikey!?”.

Notes

helloo! thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! things are starting to intensify (well I hope they are at least....) anyways please do comment and tell me what you think of the story so far!
who do you think could be behind all these strange happenings!? ;)
sorry for any errors!
xx