Home Alone

Before Frank knows it, it's his fifth day home alone. No one came to check on him the day before, which means he hasn't seen Gerard in two days. He tells himself the sinking feeling in his stomach was concern for Mrs. Way. Disappointment had nothing to do with it.

He spent the day writing, drawing, and playing his guitar. Sometimes he has these days of creativity, where all he does all day is create things. He will write poetry or stories, draw cartoons or just doodle, and play along with music. Now it's four o'clock, and Frank is sitting on the couch watching Tom & Jerry. It's not on very often, so Frank makes sure to cherish it when it is. He's giggling about Tom's tail being burnt with an iron when the doorbell rings. Before he can ever get off the couch, Gerard is walking into the living room.

"I thought I told you to lock your door," he says, putting his hands on his hips.

Frank looks at him with no expression on his face, then says, "Sure Gerard, come on in. And who are you, my mom? I'll lock my door when I please."

"Whatever. Don't come crying to me when someone walks right through your front door and brutally murders you."

"Well that would be kind of hard to do, Gerard, on account of I'd be dead! Last time I checked, corpses can't cry!" Frank exclaims, jumping up from the couch.

"Jeeze. Take everything so literal," Gerard says, brushing off Frank and turning towards the TV. "Oh nice. I love this show."

Frank grunts and sits back on the couch. "Well you let yourself in without my permission, do you really need me to tell you that you can sit down?"

Gerard rolls his eyes and runs his hand through his hair. "My mom told me to come over here and ask you to eat at our house tonight. For dinner. As an apology, I think, for no one coming over yesterday. There was a family emergency, so, yeah. You comin'?

"Is everyone alright?" Frank asks, his face covered in concern.

"Yeah, everything's fine," Gerard says quickly, before turning off the TV and saying, "Let's go. I'm not supposed to accept 'no' as an answer, anyway."

Frank follows Gerard out of the house, clearly leaving his door unlocked, just to piss off Gerard, and they head over to the Way household.

****

Mrs. Way pulls Frank into a hug the second he's through the door. She apologizes profusely for no one going over to check up on him the day before, and Frank insists it's fine. At least seven times. Mrs. Way insists Gerard takes Frank to his room, to "invite your brother, too. Don't leave him out, ya hear?" So that's what they do. Gerard knocks on a white door in the hallway, while still walking, and a skinny boy walks out, following them downstairs into the basement.

"This is your room?" Frank asks, looking around. He doesn't want Gerard to know he's impressed.

"Uh, yeah," Gerard mumbles, a little shy. "It's kind of lame, but ya know. Yeah."

"No, no," Frank says, "I like it. It.. suits you."

Gerard tilts his head real quick, probably wondering if that's a compliment or an insult, but decides to let it go and says, "This is my brother, Mikey."

"Hi," is all Mikey says, lifting a hand in the form of a wave towards Frank.

"Ah, the karate kid," Frank says, inspecting a poster that's taped to the wall. There's no response, and when he looks over at the brothers, Mikey is rolling his eyes while Gerard looks down at the ground.

"Yeah, that's me all right," Mikey says, looking at Gerard again. "Karate."

"That's cool I guess." Frank's really trying to make conversation, really. Because he doesn't like awkward silences. But really, he doesn't think he's ever met anyone who does.

"You, uh. You wanna play video games or something?" Gerard asks, looking at his TV instead of Frank.

"Sure!" Frank loves video games, but he can't really afford game systems, so he still has a PS2. Sure, he loves his PS2, there's nothing wrong with it, but it would be nice to play a different system for once. "What system do you have? And what game?"

"I've got a 360," Gerard says, walking over to the TV and pulling said XBOX 360 from behind it.

He starts setting it up while Mikey asks, "Can we play Halo, man? I'll just watch, but. You guys, will you play Halo?"

"You just wanna watch?" Frank asks, picking up the controller Gerard threw to him. Not at him, to him. Frank notes this.

"Yeah, he's weird like that. He just likes to watch other people play." Gerard sits down on his bed, looking at Frank expectantly.

"Oh!" Frank says, rushing over to sit down next to him. Gerard stares at him hard for about ten seconds until Frank asks, "What?"

"I didn't say you can sit on my bed, idiot." Gerard's still staring at him with that face, like he can not even begin to believe Frank actually sat on the edge of his bed next to him.

"Sorry," Frank says, sliding onto the floor. "Jeeze."

Gerard starts setting everything up, and Frank looks at the controller like it's going to come alive. He looks up at Gerard and says, "I don't know how to play. I mean, yeah, I've never even played a 360."

Gerard rolls his eyes, but he really doesn't look that annoyed. "Okay," he says, and precedes to explain every button on the controller and what it does.

Just as he's finished explaining and is about to start the game, Mrs. Way calls down that dinner is ready.

"Awesome. Didn't even get to play. Way to go, Frank," he mumbles, walking up the stairs.

Frank stares after him, not sure if he should really feel sorry or not. He looks at Mikey, and the kid just shrugs, following Frank back upstairs into the kitchen.

****

When Frank walks through his front door, it's dark outside. He turns on the lights, and walks into the kitchen, leaving the cup Gerard took the other day in the sink and the flashlight he borrowed on the counter top.

Dinner went surprisingly well. It wasn't nearly as awkward as Frank thought it would be. Plus, Gerard almost wasn't even mean to him. He even passed Frank the salt, which Frank considers a positive thing.

But now it's ten o'clock, and Frank is actually pretty tired. He heads up to his room, still clutching the three comic books in his hand. He had stayed over at the Way's after dinner; they got to play Halo after all. Frank sucked at it, but he swears he heard Gerard chuckle at his attempts least once. When they were done, Frank snooped around Gerard's room a little more while Mikey went to go find him a flashlight for his journey home. He found Gerard's collection of comic books, and almost shit himself from excitement.

"Dude!" He had exclaimed, eyes lighting up. "You have so many comics!"

"You can borrow some if you want," Gerard said, barely above a whisper, while moving things around on his desk.

"For real? Oh, thanks man," Frank had said, picking out three comics he had been meaning to read.

When Mikey called down to Frank that he found a flashlight, Frank and Gerard walked back upstairs, Frank clutching the comics close to his body.

"Here's the flashlight, dude. Woah! He let you borrow some comics?!" Mikey asked, clearly amazed. "He never-" But then he stopped, looking behind Frank at Gerard, then back at the comics. "Uh, ya know what? I'm gonna go get that glass Gerard stole from you." And then he's gone.

Frank was confused, but he let it go. He was too tired to worry about it. When Mikey returned with the glass, Gerard walked Frank to the door and opened it for him.

"See? We lock our door. Because we're not idiots," he said, stepping outside with Frank.

Frank just nodded, letting it go. He had looked over to his house, shining the flashlight over the path to get there.

"What's the matter? You scared?" Gerard had teased, pushing Frank a little.

"No, I just. Like you said, there's crazy people around here," he trailed off, looking at his front door. "Could you just, like, wait 'till I get there? Before you go inside. Just, to make sure? Ya know?"

Gerard sighed and said, "What ever, loser. Just go."

Frank thought for sure Gerard would just walk inside and leave Frank on his own, but when he looked back at the Way's, right before he went inside, Gerard was still there, leaning against his door.

Frank smiles a little at the memory that happened not even ten minutes ago, and sets the comics on his desk. He slides out of his jeans and hops into bed, falling asleep almost instantly.