You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison

**Frank POV**

“What the hell was that all about.” I muttered.

Mikey and I sat alone in our cell once again. They had dragged Gerard away, kicking and screaming. I don’t know where they’d taken him, but I’d seen enough crime drama TV that I figured it was to some sort of secluded room, like solitary. We had been quickly rushed back to our cells by Ray after Mikey’s meltdown. Mikey was silent the whole walk there, and the second our cell door was unlocked he pushed past me, climbing on his bunk under Gerard’s and sat with his knees tucked under his chin.

“Don’t talk to me.” He hissed between his teeth.

“Geez, what the hell did I do?” I retorted sarcastically, taking a few steps towards the back of the cell. I looked behind the Way’s bunk, noticing a messy pile of items starting behind it. Being the nosey motherfucker that I am, I decided to start rummaging through Gerard’s things.

“Hey.. Hey! Those are Gerard’s!” Mikey looked at me in annoyance, a scowl on his face.

“Well he’s not using them, now is he?” Mikey scowled at me, then continued to wallow in his own self-pity.

There wasn’t much to go through; a few comic books, porn magazine, some loose yellow papers from a notepad with words scribbled on them. I sifted through the lot, my hand bumping into a deck of cards that sat unopened at the bottom. Score!

I snatched the small box and sat my fabulous little booty on the floor, tearing open the plastic. The cards were crisp and brand new, this was perfect. I dumped out the red and white cards into my hand, throwing the two joker cards back in the box. I shuffled the cards swiftly and began to lay them out in a familiar setting.

“What are you doing?” Mikey looked up, a curious look plastered on his face. He shuffled out of his bed, kneeling behind the set of cards, which now laid out in 7 increasing rows. I kept quiet as I began my game.

Mikey raised his eyebrows at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh. He asked me again what I was doing.

“I’m sorry, I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

“You did earlier though.” He retorted. I bit my tongue. Touché.

“Whatever, I’m playing solitaire. Something to pass the time.” I flipped over the first three cards, the top one being a red 7. I put it over a black 8 that sat in the fifth row.

“Cool. Hey, maybe when Gerard gets back, we can play this game called ‘Garbage’. My friend showed me a few years ago, and I used to play it with Gerard before..” His voice trailed off. I placed the Ace of Diamonds in my hand in its normal spot, then stopped.

“Before what?” I questioned, hoping for more information.

“Just… before we grew out of it, that’s all.” He gave a weak smile, then motioned at me to continue my game.

“You’re a terrible liar, now tell me.”

“No.”

“Look, Mikey. We’re gonna be sharing this cell for God knows how long, now either tell me why you freaked out at breakfast or tell me why you stopped playing ‘Trashcan’ or whatever game it was. Michael, your sixteen for crying out loud, why are you here?!”

“Stop! Just please. Stop.” Mikey whispered, biting his nails past the point of no return. I could see his pointer finger was bleeding.

We sat there in silence for what seemed like forever. My gaze never left Mikey, while his was glued to the cards. He quickly gathered them together, interrupting my game. I didn’t have any moves left, so it’s not like it mattered anyways. He gave me ten cards face down, than laid another ten in front of himself, sorting them into two rows of five. I looked at his rows and followed suit. He put the deck in between us and took a deep breath.

“The rules are simple. Pick a card from the pile. If you get an ace, replace the first card with it, a two in the two spot, three in the three, etcetera. Kings are wild. Got it?” I simply nodded my head.

He picked up a card, flipping it over to reveal a three. He put it in its place, picking up the card that was originally there, a seven. He put the seven in the seven spot and flipped that one over, a queen. He put the queen in the discard pile. I followed his lead, and ended up flipping all my cards over before he could. Mikey shuffled the deck.

“Now you get nine cards, and I still have ten.”

We continued this game until he had only five cards and I had eight. He continued his turn when he closed his eyes and began to speak.

“I shouldn’t be here.” I picked my head up at his voice, and nodded my head, encouraging him to say more. He relaxed his shoulders and leaned against the metal bars that locked us in our small space.

“Gerard was a drug addict, an alcoholic. I’m surprised he’s even alive, being holed up in here away from it all. Everyday, it seemed he had something new in his system. I had to raise us both, get a job, keep the rent up so the landlord wouldn’t kick us out.” He bit at his nails again, his right foot shaking a bit.

“I um.. I thought it’d be good, you know, for us to spend a day together. We hadn’t talked in forever, and school had just ended so I wasn’t buried in homework for once. There was a convention in town, I can’t remember for what though..” His voice trailed again, but I just stayed quiet. This was his story, and as much as it killed me, I had to be patient.

“Anyways, we were driving there, and I got hungry. I asked Gerard if we could stop for something to eat, and he said-he said he’d go get some money from his account, so we pulled into a bank.” I could tell he was fighting back tears.

“But when Gerard came back, it was different. Cops started chasing us, but he wouldn’t talk to me. In the back of my mind, I guess I knew this was going to happen, but I just kept yelling at him to stop and he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t..” He started lightly sobbing. I crawled onto the empty bunk beside me, and Mikey followed. I wrapped the kid in a hug, trying to comfort him.

“They caught us, and they arrested both of us. No one believed me when I said I didn’t do anything. No one cared to ask me about my side of the story, except my l-lawyer. She didn’t even believe me. They said ‘Just sign this paper and you can go home.’ So I did. But they lied. They didn’t bring me home. The judge-she took one look at Gerard’s picture and believed I was just like him. The other lawyer kept saying bad things about him, and then about me, but they weren’t true! I swear they weren’t but she didn’t care! She didn’t even care that I wasn’t eighteen, and now..” He continued to cry into my shoulder.

To be honest, I felt like crying with him. Poor kid, I mean come on! It just seemed like the whole system was out to get him. They literally took one look at his brother, and threw him in with all the rapists and murderers. If that’s not cold, I don’t know what is.

After maybe ten minutes of comforting him, he sat up and started wiping his face with his orange sleeves until there were at least three shades darker than the rest of his uniform.

“So… what did you do?” He asked quietly.

“You really wanna know?” I smirked, and started to laugh at my story before I’d even begun to speak it. He’s gonna get a kick out of this, for sure.

Notes

Alright, chapter six! I know it's not exactly written like I do most my chapters, We were really tempted to do it in Mikey's POV, but made a last minute decision to do Frank's again. We tried to make it like how a traumatized sixteen year old would talk and/or react, instead of what I normally do.... Kinda, I guess. Yeah. Ok. We're so glad you guys love the story, we never thought it'd take off this fast.
And have you guys heard 'Falling in Love Will Kill You?' It's fab! Gonna save it for my wedding, its just that perfect.

Comment, Rate, Subscribe, Criticize. You know what to do~

Xoxo
-Hazel