The Thing About Pain

The words that left Mikey's mouth echoed in my ears. It felt as if the whole room went silent and there was that annoying ringing in my ears, and I could hear my heartbeat. My palms became sweat covered and it seemed the more I tried rubbing the sweat away, the more there would be. My mouth was excessively filled with saliva and I couldn't breathe properly. My breaths were short but quick and I felt myself becoming dizzy.
I tried to focus on Mikey, and how his lips were moving but I wasn't registering anything, my brain wasn't capable of processing words in this particular moment, and I was not okay with that at all. All I managed to read was that Mikey was trying to explain what happened and a question at the end. I couldn't make out what he was saying. I felt sick to my stomach. My whole world was falling apart right in front of me. I don't know what it was about my parents, but it must be bad, I wanted Gerard back, but that wouldn't happen, and I was being raped without anyone realising. How much worse could this possibly get? I began to see spots all over.

"Frank?" Finally Mikey's question registered. "Did you heard anything?" I shook my head, mainly to see if the dark spots would go away but they didn't they stayed in place. Fuck, is this what being on LSD feels like, but with visions? "I'll take that as a huge no. Look, I hate to say this but your parents got into a car crash, and before you think that that's great because they didn't do shit for you, let me tell you this; they're dead." Well, good riddance I guess. However, I still felt dizzy and pretty fucked up. "Which means you're stuck here, and when you get out, if you get out, you have nowhere to go." Those words hit me as if I'd just driven into a brick wall and that's the last thing I remember before the world around me disappeared into a blanket of darkness.
I woke up in the infirmary, the one place I didn't want to fucking go. EVER. It wasn't the light that blinded me, like everyone says it does when they write those books. What blinded me was the sterile white walls, and all else that seemed to be colourless.
It's like when you walk into a bathroom in the middle of the night, and because your eyes are used to the dark, then you turn on the light and it burns your eyes, but it's also like when you wake up in the morning to the sunlight seeping through your window, illuminating your room and making it come alive. In hospital it's a lot worse though, because, yeah, you wake up to artificial lighting and a smell of antiseptic, but not only that, everything is white, so that it reflects the light as well.
I looked over to see that I was hooked up to a heart monitor. Shit. The only thing bringing me to my senses was someone clearing their throat. In the corner of the room stood Mikey, with the most beautiful raven haired enigma I've ever laid my eyes on.

"Frank, are you okay?" Mikey asked me. I swallowed down some of my spit and nodded. I wasn't because, I couldn't talk, even if I wanted to. My throat was dry and I felt as if it had something caught in it, I was slightly dizzy, and Gerard was standing there, debating with himself whether to be pissed off at me or to give me a sympathetic glance. "When was the last time you took your medication?" He asked me. Fuck, if I knew. It was maybe over a month and a half ago.
In this facility, they didn't watch you take your pills, they wanted to built trust between the employees and the patients.
I held two fingers up in hope that maybe he'd understand. "Two days? Frank you have to take it everyday." I shook my head. "No? Two what? Hours?" Again, I shook my head. "Not minutes, weeks?" Again with the shaking my head. "Fuck, Frank two months?" Mikey stared in disbelief. "You're worse than Gerard! Jesus. Frank, please take the pills." I didn't want to. They changed who I was. My personality was taken away. I was an emotionless robot.

"They change me." I whisper sadly. Mikey's eyes grew wide. I haven't talked to him for the past four years and two months, and now I do. Hopefully I didn't give him a heart attack.

"Frank, you-" Disbelief crossed his face many times. I just nodded.

"He does that, Mikes. Talks. Rare though." Gerard tells him, but there's a depressed edge to his voice. It couldn't be more hurt or broken than it is right now.

"He- It's the first time he talks to me in years." Mikey admits sadly. "I have to say GeeBear, I'm jealous that he talked to you the day you met. He doesn't do that." I say Gerard's face flush slightly but he kept his head down. "You two need to sort things out, but please, please do it now. I'll leave you to it. Half an hour okay?" I nod slowly, unsure if it's what I want. Mikey leaves the room, and it's just Gerard and I standing there. Me staring at him, and him staring at the floor. After a minute or so he looks up at me. His eyes red and bloodshot, all puffy, and little eye crusts started to for on the inner corners of his eyes. His nose was tinged red and I saw tear stains that slipped down his pale face. Around his eyes was slightly red, as if he'd put on some red eyeshadow, but it wasn't the case.

"I hate not talking to you, Frank." Gerard admit. I sat there, incapable of moving. I knew what he was saying was raw and true. "I just want to be," He paused before remorsefully spitting out the word "friends". I gestured for him to be able to come closer but he didn't move. "I don't think it's a good idea." He sighed out, and looked back down at his beaten up converse.

"Gee..." I breathed out. His head shot up, and his lip quivered.

"D-don't." He sounded fragile, like he could break if I said anything else to him. I propped myself up properly and looked straight into his eyes. I didn't understand. I mean, I know in our last argument he told me not to if I were to just be an asshole, which I am, but it slipped past my horribly scarred lips and into the atmosphere.

"Gee..." I sighed out once again.

"Frank, p-please stop... You don't know what you're doing." I could feel my eyes watering and I started getting that tingly feeling in my nose when you're trying not to cry. I guess he realised what he had just said, because he then too choked on a sob. "Oh god, I'm sorry, Frank." He just fell onto his knees and started to cry. His tears flowed and they wouldn't stop running down his face. He looked like he hadn't eaten much in the past month and his clothes hung off of him rather than staying on him properly. I too, soon burst into tears. No more containing my pain from the past month. I was crying but I got out of the bed, and dragged the heart monitor over to where Gerard was and I sat beside him.

"May I-" I was cut of by a huge hug from Gerard. At first I flinched away, which caused him to cry even harder but then I eased into it, still being a little afraid of what he'll do, and if he'll do anything. For a while, we sat there just holding each other. Five and a half minutes exact. Then Gerard pulled away. Wiped my tears away first and then his. He then pulled out a tissue from his pocket, handed it to me, and took one for himself. I watched him blow his nose, and the noise it made made me giggle a little. I wondered how he could be so beautiful even when in this state.

"Frank, I thought you'd never want to talk to me again. I was being a jackass about it. I reacted the wrong way. You're not crazy, you're not a psychopath, or a freak. You're," He hesitated. "beautiful, but not the stereotypical beautiful. I mean all around, and all your quirks, your flaws, your depressions and your failures, they make up who you are and I don't want that to change." I smiled at his words, then my smile fell. I'm not beautiful. I'm dirty, I'm ugly, and what Timmy, and Dan do to me prove every morsel of it. "Frank, look at me. I'm serious." I smiled slightly.

"I know it was you." I state plainly. A confused expression crosses his beautiful face. "The drawings and skeleton gloves. It was you." His expression changed to amused, and yet with all the tear stains, he still looks beautiful, and I like that. Him with the bags under his eyes, all the tear stains, red puffy nose, and looking beautiful nonetheless, because it shows he's human. I get a small nod from him, and a large sniff. At that we both begin to laugh.

"I missed you." He whispers.

"I missed you too." I grin for the first time in a fucking month.

"No." Now I'm confused. "I missed you, but in a different way." I was confused but maybe this would unravel soon enough.

"Gee, I need to tell you something. It's important, and it's scaring me." He nods understandingly, and urging me to continue. "For the month, the dreadfully grey month, I was raped and sexually assaulted nearly everyday. I'm so fucking dirty." I looked away. "When I'd shower, they'd be there, waiting for me. They'd ask me if I liked it and all I could do is whimper and moan. I can't do anything for myself. I live and breathe and die alone."

"Oh, Frank-" I cut him off.

"Please don't say, Frankie. That's what they called me."

"But, Frankie-" It slipped out of his mouth with such elegance that I remembered and loved, but thought I'd never hear again. "I wish I knew. I would have helped you. I don't care if I'm pissed off, talk to me about it. I need you more than words could ever say." My heart was beating hard at this point. "I'll help fix you, if you help fix me."

"How, Gee?" I asked. I watched attentively as the older man bit his thin light pink bottom lip and gave a small quiet answer.

"Like this." Was his reply, and before I knew it, his chapped lips were on mine, and his hands were caressing the sides of my face, brushing the pads of his thumbs over my cheekbones. I needed a moment to register what was going on, and when I did, my eyes fluttered shut and kissed him back. His lips where soft, but ripped up as well. He hasn't been drinking enough water, and he's been gnawing at his lip. He pulled his lips away from mine but only about three millimetres, for about a second, so we could both get a bit of air, and then he reapplied his lips to mine, and with the gentleness of a butterflies wings, he temporarily kissed my worries away.

Notes