(Frank's POV)
"Don't worry Frankie, they'll love you." Gerard smiles wide as we grabbed our luggages from the trunk of his car. "Plus, Mikey's here with his boyfriend too. So I know the next week won't be so bad." His voice was reassuring and soft. Almost as if he were talking to a child on his very first day of school. "Trust me, you'll be fine."
"It's not like you gave me a choice anyway, Geeturd." I smirk at him, trying to seem like I didn't want to get back in the car and speed off back to our home in Florida. Jersey never seemed to feel like home to me, despite the fact that I was conceived and born here. My mom didn't even let me take my first steps on Jersey soil before moving to Florida. All I know is, I want to go back home.
Gerard opens the front door of the large two story home. Not giving me a single second to compose myself. What an ass. If it weren't for the fact that he was my adorable geeky fiance, he'd be soo dead right now. "Hi everyone!" He says as he closed the door behind him and waving to the small crowd of people sitting in the cozy living room.
Almost everyone in the room stands to greet Gerard, with wide smiles and a warm hug all while I stood behind him. It wasn't until Mikey stood up that he noticed something. "Hey, where's Frank? He didn't want to come?" Mikey frowns for a moment until Gerard steps aside revealing me, standing awkwardly behind him. I can feel my cheeks flourish to a bright red and Mikey immediately laughs, with Ray not too far behind. Fuck my life..
"Wow Frank, aren't you a little old to be hiding behind the big kids?" Mikey teases as he greeted me with a hug.
"Shut it, Michael." The woman next to Gerard commands. "Finally nice to meet the famous Frank, that Gerard never shuts up about." She smiles at me and engulfs me into a tight embrace. "Call me, Donna." The man next to her, who I already assume is Gerard's dad puts out his hand and I shake it. "Donald."
After awkwardly greeting the rest of Gerard's family, he led me downstairs to his old room. Which was decently sized but crowded with all of his childhood things, even more from his adolescence. Comic books, action figures, and CDs were piled and scattered everywhere, especially on the floor. Sketches and large band posters covered most of the walls. It was almost as if Gerard had never left. "Jeez, I was a slob. I didn't think it would be this bad." Gerard meekishly smiles at me. "I'll clean it up before we go to bed." Now that I think about it, Gerard hasn't changed much from his younger years. Aside from the fact that he was a bit more organized, except for when he goes on a 'zine craze'. That's when the somewhat organized area of his room becomes a catastrophe of balled up pieces of paper.
"Don't worry about it." I chuckle. "I'm fine with your extreme slobbiness."
Gerard rolls his eyes just before throwing himself on the queen sized bed in the corner of the room. "I'm fucking exhausted." He states before hugging the peculiar pink pillow at the head of the bed.

"You always are." I say as I continue to figure out where to put my bags. Now that I think about it, he hasn't slept much in the past couple of days. He's been busy with alot lately and most of the time he refuses to tell me about whatever it is that he's doing. Nonetheless, I've seen him in worse situations with a much better outcome. Even when I beg him to go see some kind of doctor, he never listens. "The flight was only two and a half hours. Don't be such a pansy." Gerard laughs but remains silent. The room quickly gets awkward as soon as Gerard falls asleep. So instead of standing there, I make myself useful and begin to organize the room. To be honest, I don't think I'll be able to stand being out there with his family without Gerard... Despite the fact that they were the nicest people ever, I wouldn't even know what to say to them.
It takes about an hour and a half to finish cleaning Gerard's room. I didn't really throw anything away, since I knew nothing about all the history that was behind every single item in this room. Especially all of the piles of balled up pieces of sketching paper, that I may or may not have opened up to see what might have been going through his mind in the midst of every considered mistake. Most of which held sketches and ideas for one of his oldest works, On Raven's Wings. I remember he mentioned something about it a year ago or so, but he never went into full detail. Every other piece of paper seemed to contain a mindless sketch. By the time I'm done, Gerard wakes up drowsy and confused as I placed the last box of notebooks inside his closet. "What happened to my room?" He asks, running both of his hands through his choppy light brown hair.
"I got bored, so I cleaned it." I smile at him, secretly proud that I was finally able to surprise him with a nice gesture. "I'm pretty sure you should've been on that hoarders show as a teen."
"Are you going to keep criticising me about my past? Or do I have to remind you about your side of the closet back home?" He grins.
"Yeah, whatever. Jacket slut." We both laugh, as I sat next to him on the bed.
A couple of days later, Gerard and I are in the kitchen with his family helping out with tomorrow's feast. Tomorrow was christmas, afterall. The whole experience still seemed new to me. Having a family to spend the holidays with, everyone being happy and joyful around each other. Aside from the usual frustrations of having most of the family cooking in a moderately sized kitchen. It all seemed too weird for me. Though Gerard reassured me that I was apart of his family now, and that I shouldn't worry about holding back my usual self. Nonetheless, I still liked watching him and his family acting like, well family. It all looked as if it were a TV show, but it wasn't. All of it was real, genuine family experiences. Something my mother never let me have growing up. Being the only son of a nomadic lone wolf lawyer never allows such memories. That's what I hated most about her.
Every so often, when Gerard's mother would glance in my direction, I would see a whole lot of pride and joy, like I've ever seen before. Aside from the tiny spark of pity that made me feel abit like shit but that's not her fault. I couldn't tell why she looked at me that way, and asking would sound rude. So i'd rather keep that to myself.
"Gerard told me you were vegetarian, so I made you some barbeque soy chicken and vegan mashed potatoes. I didn't have time to make anything more, Sorry." Donna states with an apologetic smile once we all had finished cleaning up from all the cooking.
All i'm able to say is a very grateful "Thank you." before she returns to fitting all the food into the fridge.
Later that night, everyone was fast asleep and the house was unsettlingly quiet. It was well past midnight and sleeping is impossible at this point. Gerard knocked out as soon as his pretty little head hit the pillow, after doing some really late Christmas shopping with Mikey, Ray and his dad. I stayed here mostly because he had forcefully insisted that I stay by locking me in his room before storming out of the house. (Damn reverse locks.) Which reminded me to never let him hang out with Pete again. Pete is teaching him too much. Thankfully his mom let me out 20 minutes after they'd left. They didn't return until 9 PM though.
Nonetheless, I'm stuck here awake with my thoughts until morning with nothing to do. Would it be rude to walk around the house at this time of night? I hope not. Because, thats what I end up doing. Using my phone as a makeshift flashlight to walk up the stairs of what used to be their basement turned into a bedroom for Gerard.
The whole house looked different in the dark. It was eerie and unfamiliar. Though the photos on the wall never changed and the house was dead silent, there wasn't anything that seemed bad. It was just the night trying to scare the shit out of me. Despite my feeling of going back to the room with Gerard, I keep walking through the house, opening doors and closing them once I see that they're just filled with old hardly worn jackets or sleeping family members. Once I finish my journey downstairs, I make my way to the second floor of the house. Continuing my instinct to check what lies behind closed doors, I find myself opening a small closet containing a single box filled with old VHS tapes. Most of them were labeled, but the rest were blank and most likely never used.
Curious and intrigued, I pick up the box and take it downstairs to the living room. After turning on the dim lamp in the corner of the room, I sit on the floor and go though the box. Seeing that the titles of the tapes only varied between the names of Mikey and Gerard, made me eager to watch all of them. It was obvious that these were from their childhood, up until god knows when. If he had just told me about all of it then maybe I wouldn't be so curious. Maybe. But come on, who wouldn't want to see the cutest man on earth live and in action as his youth is being fossilized?
Once I organised the box of tapes, I found a VHS player at the bottom and connected it into the TV and began my way through the small piles of tapes containing both of the Way brother's names.
2 hours pass and I'm on the third to the last tape of the box. It was almost 3 AM and I was beginning to grow tired but it wasn't enough to make me go back to bed. I'm way too interested in seeing young Gee playing the infamous Peter Pan. I didn't know who to thank first, whoever filmed this or the person who made this happen in the first place. By the time I hit the middle mark of the video, my cheeks hurt from smiling so much and my ass is basically numb from sitting on the floor way too long. Right when 'Peter' starts singing again, I feel a hand rest on my shoulder and it makes me jump a little too high for my liking.
"What are you doing?" The soft groggy tone of Gerard's voice fills my ears, and I turn to see him standing over the piles of tapes I've already watched.
"You were adorable as kid, you know that?" I laugh, pressing the pause button on the old remote of the VHS player.
Gerard just stands there, mentally taking it all in. Ridding himself of the sleep induced grogginess. Seconds after realizing what I was doing, his eyes go wide. "Where'd you get those?" He said as he started picking through the box.
"Upstairs closet. I couldn't sleep, so I went snooping around the house and found these." I state sheepishly, wishing he wouldn't lecture me about going through things that aren't mine. Though I know he isn't the lecturing type, he would still say something about looking around the house this late at night. "How come you never told me about all of these? They're amazing."
He takes a small deep breath and sits next to me on the floor. "Because they're embarrassing and weird. I didn't think you'd like them." He grabs the remote from my hands and proceeds to look through the buttons for what I presume to be the power button. "Plus some of them are in really shitty quality."
Just before he finds the power button, I grab the remote back from his hands and press play again on the video. Allowing Gerard's young voice to fill the silence of the room once again. "Well, I love them. and hardly any of them look bad. You're just being a hater." I laugh.
Gerard smirks in the way he always did before trying to argue with me. Though half the times I let him win due to the fact that he uses his astonishingly sexy looks to change the subject and distract me. What an asshole. "I don't think I'm a hater to my own self, Frankie." He laughs too, sneaking his hand near the remote, as if I couldn't notice him trying to grab it.
"You are! If you weren't, you would come on stage with me more often." I wink at him. Hinting at the fact that he's only ever been on stage with me a few times in the last 3 years and that he should do it more often. Not only do the fans love it, I do too. He brings soo much energy to the stage and I love the way he manages to overcome his stage fright and making a complete weirdo of himself by dancing and moaning on stage. It's truly amazing to watch him be himself.
I manage to swipe away the remote right before Gerard grabs it, and he ends up grabbing my thigh instead. "I like to keep that occurrence rare. If I did go on stage more often, it wouldn't be special anymore, would it?" He smirks again, only this time it's obvious he's getting competitive. And I would be lying if I said it didn't turn me on at least a little bit.
"It wouldn't matter to me." I smile wide, enjoying Gerard's playful side.
He grabs a hold of my wrist that held the remote and pulls it towards him. He chuckles once he finally has the remote again and hides it behind his back."Yes it would." It doesn't take long for him to stand up and hover over me and bask in his small victory. "Oh, Sugar, didn't your mother teach you to appreciate all the small things in life, aside from your penis?"
My mouth drops open and I full on tackle him, with every intent on getting that remote and my revenge. Though I know it's all just banter, I take him on like a challenge. My swiftness helps only a little when wrestling him for the remote. But when he puts the remote in his pants, I instantly freeze.
He smiles wide, thinking I won't shove my hand in there and get it myself. He's got another thing coming if he thinks I won't. "Looks like I win." He chuckles while gently shaking his hips without letting the remote slide out of the boxer briefs under his Star Wars pajama pants.
It's at that moment that I hear the sound of muffled laughter behind us, and turn to see Mikey holding his phone up, videotaping Gerard and I. Before I have a chance to say anything, Mikey bolts out of sight with his laughter becoming a little more clear. "Fucking Mikey." I state, rolling my eyes and standing up.
"I'm pretty sure Ray has that covered." Gerard laughs, and pulls me into his arms. "Don't worry about him. You know he doesn't mean any harm."
I nod, fully agreeing with him. But when Mikey comes back in the room, he smiles wide. "You're wrong. I posted it to Redtube."
I laugh, for the first time not knowing what to say back. It wasn't out of surprise or offence, but out of the sheer realization that this was what Gerard was talking about when he said I was already apart of his family. Whether or not if this is what normal family members do to each other, it felt incredibly comforting to feel like I'm finally not alone. Not that I always have been, but when it came to family, I always was.
"You have an account? Because I'm pretty sure you have to have an account to upload shit on their site." Gerard laughs and the whole room lights up when Donna comes down the stairs, after turning on the living room light.
"Stop making soo much noise. Don't you boys realize how early in the morning it is?" She says in an annoyed tone.
We all apologize and she goes back upstairs, turning the light back off behind her. Mikey's face flushes with red and Gerard smirks. "Of course, you'd know about that." Mikey whispers in a smug tone.
"Yeah, but I didn't bring it up." Gerard takes the remote out from his underwear and lightly throws it on the couch. Being the drama queen that he is, he doesn't bother trying to clean what possible bacteria that remote now contains. Leaving for the next person to touch it, unknowing of where its just been. Poor bastards.
"Shut up Gary." Mikey adds right before heading back upstairs to his room, giving up on his little sass contest with his surprisingly over confident older brother. Though I have no idea of where the name 'Gary' came from, I leave it alone for now and follow Gerard back to his room.
When morning officially comes, the doorbell starts ringing like crazy, reminding me of what day it was and that the rest of Gerard's family is coming for the holiday festivities. It would be useless to try and go back to sleep again so I force myself to get up, cursing myself for staying up soo late. Gerard is still asleep as I made my way out of his room and into the kitchen to make us some coffee. Though the bombardment of new family members take me by surprise. Especially the old woman who introduced herself as Elena. As old as she looked, she had the most energy about her. And it was amazing to see how much love this family contains for each other. It was almost overwhelming.
An hour and a half passes when Gerard finally comes to meet us all for breakfast, it was just past 10 AM after all. His eyes immediately light up once he sees the old woman at the end of the dining table. "Grandma!" He exclaims as he goes to hug her. Only an idiot would think she was anything else but their grandmother. The biggest clue being she was the oldest person in the house.
As the hours passed, more family members came. I greeted and got to know them all. As creepy as it sounds, I loved watching everyone act themselves. Treating each other like family, the way they should be. Ray had been comfortable with everyone already so it didn't take long for him to act the same way they did with each other. Seeing as they've met on more occasions than this one and he had met them long before Gerard and I got engaged. Which would put him a couple years ahead of me, but none the less he was apart of this just as much as I am.
By the end of the night, I had an overwhelming sense of warmth and love filled within me. It was hard to handle at first, being that being apart of a family isn't really my forte but I eventually got used to it. And it was amazing. Normally christmas was the worst holiday for me, nonexistent family members gave me a good reason to hate it my whole life. But now, how could I? Being with Gerard gave me more than I have ever wanted. And I wouldn't ever ask for more.

Knowing this is how it feels to have loved ones, I can't wait to have my own family with him someday. And I'll be a better parent than my mom ever was. I can guarantee that for sure. Always.

Notes