Before The Sun Goes Down

Frank's POV.
The hospital is called Montcromary Way Hospital, and it's where people go when they've not really got any sanity left.
Only the really mentally ill come here, and I don't belong here.
It's almost silent, all of the rooms soundproofed so the patients don't wake up other patients when they wake up screaming, or when they manage to break the wooden bed and try to stab themselves with some wood. That's what happened next to me, and I only know that because I've made friends with a a cleaner.
She's the only person I really talk to, and the conversations are only one-worded sentences from me. I don't know her name; I can't remember it.
I don't remember what happened in the past three weeks, either. I can't remember what I did that landed me in here, and I can hardly remember anything else. Only flickers of whiteness and screaming and dreams about Gerard and Craig, even though I can't really remember what happened to Craig, either.
Something bad.
I remember clearly what happened to Gerard, or, well, what didn't happen to Gerard.
He didn't stick around long enough for the ambulance to get to Craig and I, and he didn't tell anyone where he is. He didn't stick around to see if I was dead or not, he didn't love me enough.
But that's okay, because that was my fault. It's all my fault. What happened to Donna is my fault, what happened to Craig is my fault, and what's happening to Mikey is my fault.
But it's okay, because I don't care. I don't care; I don't care.
I only care about how white the walls are, and if I have enough blood to cover them so that they aren't white any more.
I don't care about eating, I don't care about blinking, I don't care about breathing.
Or Gerard.
I can't care about him, he doesn't care about me.
I've tried telling the doctors and orderlies that I know vampires are real, and how I know that Gerard is one. That I saw him drinking the blood of someone, that I can talk to him mentally.
They didn't listen, they just wrote, so I stopped talking about everything.
They listen to my screams at night when I wake up from a dream.
They listen to everything, but they don't help.
All they do is insist I take these pills; but there are so many pills.
Orange ones, red ones, green ones, blue ones. Green and orange ones, blue and red ones, white ones. So many.
I take the pills, but they don't help. They make me worse. They have side-effects, of course they do, and the side-effects are terrible. Like, for one, my hair started to fall out. I don't have to take those any more, though. Those pills were pink and blue, and every time they came near me with them, I screamed until I couldn't talk, and once, my throat bled.
Well, that was more than once, but I can't really remember how many times.
Donna visits me, with Mikey. Donna looks terrible, she's ill, you see.
She won't tell me with what, but it's killing her, and it's my fault. Mikey looks terrible as well, but he isn't ill, he's dead. I killed him, not physically, but mentally.
I made Gerard run away, I made Donna ill, and I made their house be burnt down, just like what happened to Craig. People don't like to know about head-cases in my town, you see. The house got burnt down, and Mikey got burnt. Donna was out, he wasn't.
He'd taken some sleeping pills, so he didn't even know there was a fire until he woke up in the hospital a few days later, burns all over his body and some of his face. He hates me, he blames me. You can see it in his eyes, even though he doesn't really look up at anyone any more.
But, I don't care.
I don't care.
They haven't visited me in a week, but they should be here today, so a doctor has told me. In fact, they should be here now, but they're late. Five minutes and twelve seconds late. Fifteen seconds. Another minute, and they walk into the meeting room.
Mikey has his head down and his hood up, and Donna is thinner and paler. I try to smile, but the tables are that shiny that you can see your reflection, and mine is bad, so I stop.
“Frank.” Donna smiles her thin, sickly smile at me, and Mikey does nothing. Donna nudges him, so he kind of looks up with his hating eyes.
“Hi.” He looks straight back down again, hunching his shoulders over. I look away, looking at the big, round clock on the wall.
“How are you doing, Frank?” I look back to them, shrugging. Donna smiles again, but it's more of a grimace. “We've finished decorating the new house, Frank. But, we've left your room so you can do it when you come home,” She smiles bigger this time, but it's even more fake. I nod absently, my chest rising and dropping deeply in a silent sigh. Mikey snorts, making Donna glare at him.
“He's not getting out of here, mom. Just like how Gerard isn't going to come home.” Donna draws in a sharp breath, her eyes closing.
When she opens them, they're dull.
“Don't listen to him, Frank. You'll be out of here in no time, if you keep on taking the medicine and eating,” Another painfully fake smile, another silent sigh from me. “If you'll excuse me, I need to visit the bathroom.” She stands up, hurrying away.
Leaving me here with Mikey isn't a good move. Remember, he hates me.
We sit in silence, and I start drumming my fingers on the table. Mikey sighs, and I stop for a minute before starting again. Another sigh.
“Frank, fucking stop it!” He slams his hand on the table-top, making me jump and continue tapping, but faster. “Stop it!” Here it is.
The table gets over-turned, and he's in front of me before you can say 'Billy-o!'.
My eyes have widened, and I'm sure I look comical, but he isn't laughing. No siree. Instead, he's choking me, unintentionally, and lifting me from the chair.
Then, he's hitting me, but I can't feel it, not really. All of the pills I'm on make me floaty and unfeeling. The guards get him away from me, they take him to the other side of the room where they try to stop his chest rising and falling quite so rapidly, and the lack of oxygen makes me light-headed and giddy.
Donna rushes back in, looking rapidly between Mikey and I, and she runs over to Mikey. Sure, she might not really blame me, but she does blame me, even just a little. Why wouldn't she?
“Mikey, what are you doing?” I hear her voice quietly scold him, but he doesn't look at her, he just stares at the floor again. “You can't do that, Mikey. You can't.” He doesn't answer her, he just shrugs.
Her and a guard person have a quiet conversation, then she walks over to me, smiling. And it's, once again, acutely fake.
“Frank, we have to leave, okay? I'm sorry, Frankie, but we'll see you again, tomorrow probably.” I nod, still on the floor where I got dropped. She turns away, grabbing Mikey's arm and rushing out, shaking her head.
A doctor walks over to me, frowning already.
“Are you okay?” No answer. “Frank, I need you to talk so I can see if there's any damage,” I just look at him, making him frown more. “Frank, I'm not going to ask again.” I silently sigh, standing up.
“I'm fine, Doctor.” I turn my back on him, walking back to my room.
Once I'm in there, I want to get out. So, I do, and I go outside, into the little monitored garden.
It's December, but there isn't any snow. There's never any snow, not ever. It's cold, though, and I get goosebumps all up my arms. I can't really feel the cold, though, so I don't care.
It's December, and it's just under a year until my next birthday. I missed the other, being in a coma and everything. I didn't really think about it before I was in a coma, so I probably wouldn't have had a birthday anyway, unless it was a surprise thing thrown by Donna or something.
It's fourteen days until Christmas, but I'm not excited. I haven't been excited for Christmas since I was really little, and even then the excitement was over-ridden by the fear I had for my father.
I try not to think of everything that happened, because recently I've been remembering lots of things, so I think that if I think about it, I'll remember more. And then, maybe, they'll put me on more pills, and I'll end up really crazy.
I try not to think of it like I try not to think of Gerard, like I try not to think of painting the walls red with my blood. Because, I know that if I think really hard about, I'll end up doing it. Or I'll end up freaking out again because I've thought about Gerard, and they'll have to sedate me.
I hate being sedated.
I hate being sedated more then I hate the color white. And I really hate the color white.
I sit down, on the floor, and start drumming my fingers on the cement. And then I think about what happened in there, and how my throat hurt when I spoke. Then I get scared, and I start to cry.
Crying is bad, though. Crying gives you headaches and an extra therapy session. But crying is also good because it shows that I can feel something, and that I don't just not care about everything.
But then I get confused because I'm arguing with myself, and by now I've stopped crying, so I stop thinking. Or, well, try to.
I'm shivering, and my teeth are chattering, but I can't go back into the suffocating building just yet, I'd rather die of hypothermia. Instead, I stand up and walk around. I still can't really feel the cold, but my fingers are numb and I think my lips are blue.
I don't really care, though.
All of a sudden, right now, I want Gerard. I want him, and the wanting is a physical ache, the first ache of any kind I've felt in at least three weeks. I don't really remember how long I've been here, so I couldn't say, but I think it's three weeks.
I also want to drink something, and that something isn't water. I'm sick of the fucking water that we have to drink. It's always fucking water, never coffee, never anything but water. Water with breakfast, water with lunch, water with dinner. Water with mid-morning pills and water with mid-afternoon pills. And, if you've had a particularly rough day and they think you won't sleep, water with your sleeping pills, too.
There's a pond, but it's tiny and there's a high fence around it. They haven't said, but I think the fence is there so nobody tries to drown themselves. But, surely if there's that risk, then they shouldn't have bothered putting in the tiny little pond anyway? It's stupid, just like the water they make us drink.
I'm too overwhelmed with my longing for Gerard, that I don't feel the snow start falling. I don't feel the snow until I'm being woken up by a doctor. There's whiteness everywhere, just like how the cold has even spread into my brain.
The doctor keeps talking to me, but I can't hear him over my teeth chattering and how hard my heart is thumping. The thumping is in my ears, and it's unsteady. It's scary, too. Everyone keeps talking, but I'm not listening, I don't want to listen. They sound worried, but I don't care.
The snow even shines in the darkness, as does the doctor's teeth. I can't walk inside without help because I'm shivering that badly, and my lip is bleeding in five different places from me accidentally biting it when my teeth chatter.
I get excited, though, because it's the first time I've properly felt something in ages, and my excitement makes everyone look more worried. I don't care, though. They lie me down, and tell me to wait there a second. A nurse puts a blanket over me, and she pats my head. I feel like biting her, because if I'm treated like a dog, I might as well act like one, but I'm so cold I think I'm frozen.
Then I feel a sting in my arm and I'm falling asleep, cold and shivery.
I wake up in the same room, but it's light outside and I'm not cold any more. I sit up, my head fuzzy, and look around. There's no-one in here, so I'll wait for someone to come in.
Someone does eventually, but it's not a doctor, it's Donna. A worried looking Donna, and no Mikey.
She looks worse, she looks really bad. Her skin isn't just pale, it's grey and transparent. It reminds me of milk for some reason.
“Frankie.” She sound relatively calm, but her voice wavers. I nod at her, twisting my fingers together. “I talked to my doctor,” She pauses, looking at me. Her lower lip trembles, so she presses her lips together. “I don't have very long to go, Frank.” I think I turn pale, and my hands start shaking. But, I don't care. I don't care.
“How long?” I surprise Donna and myself, my voice shaky but strong. What surprises me the most is how much love and sadness I can hear in it, not the fact that I spoke.
“A month at the most.” I swallow, looking down for a second before nodding.
“I love you.” She does a double-take at me, then starts smiling and crying at the same time.
“I love you, too, Frank.” I open my arms to her, and she scurries into them, really crying hard now.
She sits and cries for at least twenty minutes, my t-shirt getting wet from her tears.
“I don't want to die. I can't leave you and Mikey and Gerard by yourselves, I can't.” She sobs out the words to me, and my heart clenches, even though I don't care. Now is the wrong time to start caring, so I don't. Well, I try not to.
Instead, my heart clenches, which makes everything else clench, like my chest, my jaw, my stomach, and soon I'm being sick in the little trash can under my bed. Donna rubs my back as I dry heave, still crying.
When I'm done, I look at her, and she looks at me. I study her dying face, and she studies mine. She tries to smile, and that's what makes me crumble.
“Stop being strong for us, mom.” That's the first time I've called her mom in ages, but it feels right. She feels as much my mom as my real mom is.
It makes her face crumple, and she starts crying again, just like I am.
“I can't, Frankie. Mom's can't not be strong.” I shake my head, my crying becoming hysterical, so she starts looking at me like that, which makes me cry harder and louder.
Eventually, I fall asleep in her arms, and when I wake up, she's gone. I get moved back to my room, and I get no visitors for a while.
When I do get a visitor, it's Donna again. Her eyes are full of worry and sorrow, and for a second I find myself caring. She sits next to me, not speaking, just looking ahead.
“Mikey's in hospital.” Her voice lacks in emotion, which alarms me even more.
“Why?” I clutch her arm, staring at her with wide eyes.
“He got beat half to death with bricks.” Her emotionless voice breaks on the last word, and she closes her eyes tightly. For a minute I can't form any words, so I sit making strange noises.
“What? What? Why?”
“He... A bunch of kids just... attacked him. Someone found him, bleeding in the street. I've only just come back from visiting him.”
“Is he awake? I...I...I... Oh my God.” Shaking my head, I start rocking back and forth.
“No, he's unconscious. He's in surgery, we should go back to the hospital.” She starts to stand up, pulling me up with her.
“We?” She nods.
“Yes. Now, come on.”
We get to the hospital Mikey's in quickly due to Donna's frantic driving. We rush up the stairs, me having to take two at a time to keep up with her.
“Donna, slow... down!” She seems to not hear me, and continues.
We get to his floor and I'm almost dead. I swear I'm going to feel my legs fall off. Donna is just as bad, if not worse, considering she's ill. But she pays no attention to her heavy breathing or shaky legs and walks off down a corridor. I struggle to follow her, my legs literally feeling like jelly.
Mikey isn't in his room when we get there, but a doctor is. Donna goes straight up to the doctor and starts asking him questions. He flounders slightly, looking slightly intimidated by her.
“He'll be out of surgery within the next half an hour, Ms Way. Wait until then to ask questions, because I can't help you. I'm sorry.” He edges past her, and on the way out he gives me an odd look.
“Oh, Frank! Why did this happen? It's not his fault he's-” She cuts herself off, looking at me guiltily.
“He's what?” I narrow my eyes, walking closer to her.
“Nothing! It was just a slip of the tongue!” She starts avoiding my eyes.
“Donna, please tell me.” Sighing, she shrugs.
“They apparently beat him up because of you, okay? The kids didn't like that Mikey has a 'crazy person',” She puts quotation marks around the words crazy and person. “For a friend, a sibling, whatever!” Her words feel like a punch to the gut, and I don't say anything back to her after that. Instead, the guilt starts building up. It makes me shake and for a headache to start. I feel like banging my head up the wall a couple of hundred times. Maybe, after that, a couple more hundred.
When they wheel him in, I'm literally drowning in my own guilt. But, when I see him, I let myself drown.
He's terrible. There are plaster casts on both of his arms, and his right leg. His face is swollen and has bruises and cuts all over it, you can barely recognise his lips. His torso and un-plastered leg are under a sheet, so I can't see the damage done to them.
The doctors and nurses surrounding him all look very grave. They look from one to another, the back down at him.
“What's going on? What's wrong with my son?” Deep creases have appeared in Donna's forehead.
“He's very badly hurt,” He looks between the two of us. “Here, follow me outside, please.”
Once we're outside, Donna once again asks what's wrong with him.
“Donna, let him speak.” I gently shush her, and the doctor sends me a grateful look.
“Okay, so, as you can see, he's broken both of his arms and one leg. But, he's also broken several ribs, fingers, and his jaw. We've done all we can for his jaw, but he'll have problems with it for the rest of his life; pain, trouble biting down, trouble clenching it, things like that,” He pauses, looking at both of us.
“What about everything else that's broken?” She throws her arms out to the side.
“I was just getting to that. The rest of the breaks weren't necessarily clean, but they were easy to fix and they should only give him minor problems when they have healed. We haven't sent him in for a CT scan or anything yet, but there is a small chance he will have swelling on the brain. If there is, we might have to put him in a coma until it goes down, then we'd wake him up and assess the damage.” Throughout the whole conversation, my eyes have been wide and I've felt my my breakfast and lunch rolling around in my stomach. At the doctors final words, I feel my stomach roll one last time and I know I'm going to throw up. So, I sprint down the corridor, looking for the bathrooms.
Unfortunately, I don't make it on time and I end up throwing up on a nurses' white shoes, which makes her angry, and she almost hits me with a pile of washing she's carrying.
“I said I'm fucking sorry, okay?” She tuts at me, shaking her head.
“Tell that to my shoes!” She waves a hand towards them.
“You can buy a fucking new pair! What were they, two dollars or something?” This makes her tut and shake her head again, but this time she glares at me, as well.
She says nothing else as she escorts me back to Mikey's room.
“I just found him running around, and he just threw up on my shoes!” I roll my eyes, huffing at her.
“Martha, leave, please. He's just found out some very distressing news, he doesn't need you barking down at him.” She does a double-take at this, the tips of her ears turning red.
“But... but, my shoes!” Tutting, the doctor looks up from Mikey's vital chart and stares at her.
“Martha, leave.” So she does, and when she does, I start laughing.
“That was brilliant!” I look at the doctor, laughing slightly still. But, then, I catch sight of Mikey, and my laughter turns to tears. “Fuck...” I bang my head on the wall, and I groan when it hurts.
“Frank, it's okay.” I feel a soft hand on my shoulder, and I know instantly that it's Donna.
“No, it isn't!” My voice isn't as strong as I want it to be, and I get pulled into a hug from her. I draw in a sharp breath and pull backwards. “Donna, you're literally skin and bones!”
“I'm dying, Frankie.” She pulls me back in, her warmth comforting me.
They send Mikey in for a scan, and the results come back pretty good. He's only got minor swelling, so he doesn't have to be put in a coma, but he might be forgetful with some things, so he might need some help with that.
He wakes up pretty soon after that, but I've already managed to drink several cups of coffee in the short space of time he was asleep for. He tries to speak, but it sounds like his mouth is full of cotton or something. A nurse helps him, and within fifteen minutes, he can form sentences again without slipping up.
“Mikey, darling, are you feeling okay? Do you want anything, a drink, ice?” He shakes his head, his eyes focused on me.
“What's he doing here?” Donna keeps her smile on her face, although it seems fake now. She looks at me and then back to Mikey.
“What do you mean? He's family, he loves you. Of course he's going to be here.” Mikey starts shaking his head, but he stops, wincing.
“It's his fault I'm here! If it wasn't for him and his craziness, I wouldn't be here!” Donna shushes Mikey, waving her hands in the air gently.
“Don't say that. Frankie isn't crazy, okay? It's not his fault!”
“Yes, it is! He's fucking crazy, you know it and so do I!” Donna starts to say something, but he cuts her off by talking to me. “Hey, Frank, ask your psychiatrist about schizophrenia! And blackouts! Ask them, and you'll see; you're fucking crazy!” I stand there, frozen as everyone looks at me. Then, I start to get angry. My blood starts boiling, my cheeks flush and I start to shake.
“I'm not fucking crazy!” I kick over a table and storm out the room, slamming the door behind me.

The next day, Donna died. It was an abnormal occurrence, it shouldn't have happened, but it did.
And six days after that was her funeral, which I can remember perfectly, even though the week-or longer, I'm not entirely sure- after that is a blur and the six days before it are even blurrier.
The funeral was horrible. They let me out to go, but I had to take two orderlies with me. Even though I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself.
It was worse than Gerard's in some aspect, but I think that's because I can still remember Donna's perfectly and Gerard's is blurry around the edges and everything.
The church was all but empty, there was Mikey and three nurses, two of Donna's friends, and me and the orderlies. Mikey kept coughing, which wasn't his fault, but it was still fucking annoying. I almost hit him, then I looked at his face, and I felt ashamed for even thinking it. He was so bruised- I'm surprised they let him out the hospital- and he still might be, but I haven't seen him since.
The priest's voice echoed, the dreary verses of the Bible being said several times back to us because of it. And it was raining, with thunder and lightning, so we were all wet.
Nobody sung the hymns apart from me, Mikey was too busy crying and his three nurse couldn't care less about Donna, her friends mumbled the words. It was down to me to sing, and sing I did. I sung them out loud and proud, out of tune and hoarsely, but I still did.
I was the only one to say a eulogy, Mikey was, again, too busy crying to even breathe properly, which made the nurses panic, and the two friends didn't even prepare anything.
During the eulogy I cried, but I still managed to say it all, and I said it loudly, just like how I sung. I think the eulogy I prepared was shit, but words couldn't describe how I loved her or what she's actually done for me, so I wrote out a generic one.
The whole thing was over pretty quickly, like the burial, and I was back in the hospital before three PM. And, in the madness of the whole day, I spoke to Gerard- mentally- but I didn't get a reply before I got too hysterical and the nurses had to sedate me and lock me in my room.
I woke up screaming, again, with sweat pouring down everywhere. I couldn't remember the dream, not at all, but over the next hour I had continuous panic attacks. I'd calm myself down, then start back up again, and eventually I passed out.
The door was opened at breakfast time, where I had to eat porridge and drink two glasses of water- one for a drink, and the other for something to wash down my new 'morning pills'. Then I got the option to go out and sit in the garden, or go sit in my room or the recreational area. I chose my room, because I'd have to be in the presence of at least one person for the other two options, and I was grieving.
Still am.
So, right now, I'm sat on my bed again, shaking and crying.
“Gerard, please answer me.” I've been trying to get him to talk to me again for the past hour, to no avail. I get nothing back, and every time that happens, I get worse. Everything gets worse.
I lie down, my hand going under my pillow and the other one clutching my shirt. I curl up, becoming as small as possible. I feel something cold under my pillow, so I grab it. Pain shoots through my hand, making me wince. I pull out my hand, opening my palm. There's a piece of mirror or something, and my palm is cut in three different places, and I'm bleeding.
Without thinking, I press my palm to the wall, making a red, splotchy hand-print. I smile, pressing my palm to another place on the wall.
Finally, I'm painting the walls red.
I clutch the piece of something again, cutting my hand in other places, and make several dozen splotchy hand-prints on the walls.
“Frank.” I jump, dropping the piece of something and looking around. The I realize it's in my head. It's Gerard.
“Gerard?” I wait for an answer back, each second taking a bit of my sanity. I get fidgety, thinking that maybe I am insane and I'm now hearing voices.
I've grabbed the piece of something again and I'm periodically squeezing it, cutting open more places of my hand.
My white clothes and bed sheets have deep red all over them, and the color makes me smile. I stare at the blood dripping from my hand, entranced, so I don't hear his voice the first time he speaks again.
“Frank!” I absent-mindedly answer back, still not entirely convinced it isn't a dream and still caught up by the blood.
“Yes?” There's no answer for a minute.
“Stop it, Frankie.”
“Stop what?” I get flickery mental pictures of me.
What I see shocks me, because I'm doing all of this crazy shit, crazy, crazy shit, and I can't remember doing anything. I can't remember doing that after Donna's funeral, I can't remember punching a doctor in the face when he tried to sedate me, I can't remember screaming, I can't remember head butting the wall several time, I can't remember any of it.
Then he shows me the day when Mikey and Donna visited and Mikey attacked me. It couldn't have happened like the way he showed it, because it shows me attacking Mikey first, just because he's asked me to stop. I gave Mikey a black-eye and a nose bleed, he did choke me and hit me, but he only hit me once, and that was an instinctual reaction and he had nothing else to grab onto after I'd started attacking him.
The guards had to get me off him, and nobody came to help me because I wasn't the one that was worse off, Mikey was. I was fine.
He shows me several other things, all different to how I remember them. By now, I'm screaming at him to stop- to stop showing me those things before I scream! - but I already am screaming, and I start to realize that maybe I am crazy, and maybe Gerard's showing me the truth.
It's too late to realize that, though, because I have angry, red gashes all up my arms and thighs, and I'm passing out. It's also too late for them to sedate me, because I'm bleeding and screaming and crying, and already the first seeds of actual madness have been planted and they're already blooming.

But I don't care, I don't care, I don't fucking care.

Notes

How're you all?xo