Just Sleep

Frank awakes with a groan the next day to a loud buzz, buzz, buzzing noise. Staring blearily at the ceiling through puffy eyes and a pounding headache he wonders for a moment how the hell a swarm of bees could have got into his hotel room. Then he realizes it's his cell phone vibrating. Sitting bolt upright on the dishevelled sheets, he clumsily digs it out of his jeans pocket – ugh, he fell asleep in his goddamn clothes – and hits the answer button, holding it to his ear in a white-knuckled grip. “H-Hello?”
“Hello Frank. It's Don Way.”
“Ohmygod, did something happen with Gee...Gerard?! Is he alright?”
“He's fine, kid. Our boy woke up today and he's going to be okay... all things considered.”
“Ohgod, thank fuck!” Frank gasps, weak with relief, “I'll be right there!”
“Wait, Frank...” Don's voice changes from happy to nervous in an instant and Frank's heart sinks, knowing what the older man is about to say. “My wife doesn't want you here, kid, I'm sorry. I've told Gerard that you're around and you want to see him and he can overrule her if he wants, but it's his choice.”
“Oh...okay, y-yeah,” Frank mumbles, his eyes wet and swimming as he screws them shut and shudders at the warm droplets running down his cheeks, “I get it.”
“I'm sorry,” Don says stiffly, “I'll keep you posted.”
Gerard's father hangs up and Frank's shaking hand drops the silent phone on the wrinkled sheets. He isn't sure what to feel for a while so he just stares at the wall, breathing roughly and curling his trembling fingers into his hair, tugging painfully at the roots until the sting in his scalp brings him back to earth.

Cursing under his breath, he wipes his eyes and stumbles off the bed and into the bathroom where Gerard almost died four days ago. Turning the cold tap on full blast, he splashes his face and hands with the freezing water and slurps it down in huge mouthfuls until his throat and stomach are chilled through and he's almost shivering.
Staring at his wide-eyed face in the mirror, he snorts back the snot streaming from his wet nose and spits into the plughole, frowning at the dark circles around his swollen eyes. He looks like hell. Lifting a dripping hand to his mouth he picks viciously at the scab around his lipring until it starts to bleed again and sucks on the wound, grimacing in disgust and defeat. He's a goddamn mess right now and Gerard doesn't need that in his already damaged life. Shit, they're not even dating anymore! They haven't been for months. If Gee really wanted to see him then he would've already asked Don. Nobody needs his sorry ass. Shuffling miserably back to the bed, Frank rubs his face dry on the dirty sheets and grabs the knapsack with his few belongings in it. He came here to save Gerard and he did. Now it's time to fuck off home.

He's sitting on a Greyhound bus bound for New Jersey, curled up in his seat listening to Black Flag and drinking hidden vodka out of a soda bottle, when his phone rings again. It isn't Don's number calling so he almost doesn't answer it. “Yeah, hello?”
“Frankie? What's up man, it's Ray. Did you find Gerard?”
“Yeah... For all the good it did me.”
“Is he alright?”
“Probably. His bitch momwill make sure he's safe, no doubt.”
“Right. Um, Frankie, you don't sound so good. Are you okay?”
Frank grunts with bitter laughter, watching streetlights zoom past the bus windows as his eyes blur with the memory of Gerard's blood staining everything around them the color of violence, “Nope, not really.”
“Well do you wanna come over to my place for a drink when you get back? Maybe talk about it?”
“Sure. Catch you later.”

One week and a fuckload of angry under-aged drinking later, Frank is lying wasted on his beer-stained bedroom floor smoking a cigarette while his mom bangs on the locked door and screams at him to get up and go to school. The waste paper basket near his sprawled body is half-filled with congealing liquor puke and his right shoulder is throbbing and bleeding from a deep cut he carved there with an old army knife. He just wanted to see what it felt like, to feel what Gerard felt that night, but it wasn't as easy or freeing or beautifully tragic as the dumb poets on the internet say. Slicing his pale weak flesh to ribbons only gave him pain and white noise and blood rushing to his head for a few giddy moments of wonder before sickly drunken bile shot up his throat and he threw up again. He used an old photograph of him and Gee to wipe his mouth and burned it up with another cigarette.

After his mom finally gives up and goes to work, slamming the front door behind her in annoyance, he falls asleep on the floor drooling into the carpet, and he's still there four hours later when Gerard Fucking Way walks up his driveway and starts throwing tiny pebbles at his window.

Notes

(Yo readers, you beautiful people.
You liking this? Please comment, it really does help me write.
I'll probably switch to Gerard's POV next chapter xxx)