Infatuated

I quietly crept down the staircase, my feet clad in thick woolly socks. I skidded into the kitchen and yanked open the fridge, quickly pulling out all the ingredients needed to make chocolate mousse. That was the last thing Ray had taught me to cook before I fell ill.

I spent the next twenty minutes stumbling my way through the recipe, not even bothering to let it cool in the fridge for two hours before I dug a large culinary spoon into the brown gooey mass and shovelled a large portion into my mouth. I swallowed it with great difficulty and jumped up onto the kitchen counter and looked out the window at the moon and stars dotting the velvet black sky. I absentmindedly scooped small amount of the chocolaty goodness out of the large stainless steel bowl with my index finger and deposited it into my mouth.

“Tessy!” I heard a cheery voice sound from behind me. “You’re awake!”

I turned around to find Frank and I gave him a small smile whilst I scooped more mousse into my gaping mouth. Frank’s mouth turned downwards into a grimace. “What are you eating?” He crinkled his nose and jumped up onto the counter beside me.

“Chocolate mousse.” I slurred, my mouth full, “Just made it, want some?” I waved the bowl under his nose. He hesitantly stuck his finger into the mass of chocolate and brought it to his mouth slowly. After a second he mumbled something and snatched the bowl from me, quickly eating the rest of my mousse.

“Hey!” I exclaimed, gaping in surprise at the empty bowl scraped clean. “I made that for myself! I haven’t eaten since before I got sick man! I’m starving!”

“Oh yeah.” Frank smirked at me, “How are you feeling? Gerard said we couldn’t bug you cause you lost a lot of blood and you needed a nap. You’ve been out for 35 hours, some nap.” He scoffed and hopped off the counter and began digging around in the fridge. He pulled out some eggs and cheese and cracked them over a large skillet.

“Yeah, well I’m a little beat.” I yawned as if to prove my point and leaned back against the white tiled backsplash.

“Yeah,” Frank shot me a sunny smile and stirred the runny eggs around the pan. “Now you’re better I can make fun of you Tess. You looked so green!” He giggled manically. “I mean, first you looked so repulsed to even have Gerard touching you but when Rache said he had to bite you-” His small bit of remaining composure broke and he leant up against the counter for support as laughter shook his body. “You should have seen your face!” He contorted his features into some sort of grimace, his right eye twitching spastically. “It was like that!”

“You’re so mean.” I chuckled lowly as he placed a steaming plate of eggs in front of me.

“That’s making up for me eating your chocolate stuff before.” He gestured towards the food vaguely.

“Thanks Frank.” I smiled at him and dug in, scraping enormous portions of the food into my mouth. We sat in silence for a while, Frank occasionally shooting me glances with a smug smirk painted on his face.

“What?” I questioned, tossing my now empty plate into the sink.

“I like you like this.” Frank shrugged his shoulders aimlessly and stuffed his hands into his baggy jeans pocket.

“Like what?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Happy.” He gave me a toothy grin, and for once the appearance of the oversized canine teeth didn’t repulse me. Actually, they looked sort of endearing in an odd way. They suited Frank.

“Pssh.” I scoffed, “You’re crazy little man.”

“Firstly,” Frank started, his warm hazel eyes narrowed in annoyance, “I am completely average height. And you can’t be talking; you’re like what, 5’3 at the most?”

“5’3 and a half,” I muttered indignantly but Frank ignored me, continuing on.

“And secondly, I’m not crazy. Ever since you and Gerard stopped your stupid fighting you’ve been smiling. A lot. Like 2 times in the past 10 minutes. Did you know that those times were the first times I had ever seen you smile? Like ever ever.”

“How’d you know we stopped?” I asked in surprise. “You were out getting Rache or something when we made up.”

“We were at the end of the drive by that point.” Frank said, “Super human hearing. We heard the entire thing. It was kind of cute actually.”

A scarlet blush rushed up my neck. “Did you now?” My voice was strained. If he could hear the entire conversation Gerard and I had from the end of the driveway, then what did he hear when Gerard was, uh, fixing me... I certainly did not want any of the guys knowing about my little *ahem* moment of weakness. It was bad enough that Gerard had been the one to cause it...

“Tessy you’re as white as a ghost!” Frank giggled. “Are you worried?”

“Worried about what?” My voice warbled. An evil smirk slipped onto his face.

“When I say we heard everything, I mean everything.” He grinned at me and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Ohhh Gerard!” He squealed. “I looovvveeee yoouuu soooo muuccchh!”

“Is that supposed to be me?” I raised one eyebrow and tried my best to squelch the blush that was creeping swiftly up my neck.

“Psh, we all know he had to bite you girlie.” Frank smirked. “And no human can resist Gerard, we all know that.”

“Shut it.” I growled just as Mikey waltzed into the kitchen.

“Hey, you’re up!” He skipped over to me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders, “I’m so happy you’re okay!”

I pulled away from our awkward embrace and gave him a crooked grin. He answered it with a dazzling smile of his own, “You should smile more often.” He winked at me, “Makes your face look pretty.” I let the smile die and glared at him.

“Whoa,” He held his hand up in surrender, “I just gave you a compliment, no need to glare.”

Just then I noticed that Mikey was dressed up; he was wearing a white dress shirt and a tie and had managed to tame is hair a little. “What’s the occasion Mikey?” I gestured to his clothing, “Got a hot date?”

“No,” He scowled, “I’m just popping by the hospital to pay a visit to Silver.”

“Silver?” I questioned.

“Yeah,” Mikey looked uncomfortable, “The girl I told you about before... the one I put in a coma.” His voice had dropped so low I could barely hear it.

“Oh.” I said, trying to be subtle, “Do you, um, want some company?”

Mikey shifted from foot to foot for a second, then gave me a weak smile, “Sure.” He finally said, “Why not?”

“Great!” I enthused, shrugging on a sweater (which clearly was not mine; it probably was Bob’s judging by the sheer size of it) that was thrown carelessly on the table. “Let’s go.”

“Wait just a second Tess.” Mikey pulled me back as I bounced towards the door. “We need to get Gee in here first.”

“Why?” I cocked an eyebrow. Mikey flipped my wrists over so the small keyhole like tattoo’s here glimmering dimly in the bright light. “Riighhhttt,” I hummed, “I’m still grounded. Can’t go off the property.” I rolled my eyes.

“Gee!” Mikey called, and Gerard zoomed into the kitchen, stopping three inches before he crashed into me. I stepped backwards a small distance and shook my head slowly muttering ‘Show off’. He chuckled and turned towards his brother. “Yes?” He asked.

“We’re going to go out, can you take off the lockdown thingie.” Mikey pointed vaguely to the restricting marks on my wrist while tightening his tie nervously.

Gerard smiled sheepishly “It’s actually been void for the past couple days, it took too much energy to keep it up and going.”

“What?” I seethed, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Um,” He scratched the back of his neck nervously. “Well, I was scared that you’d leave us.”

“Damn straight I’d leave!” I poked his chest sharply, “I have a life. And a home. And a job.”

“Tess,” Mikey sounded disappointed, but he tried to mask the fact by placing a large fake smile on his face. “We can talk about this later, I need to get to the hospital before visiting hours are over.” He tugged on the loose sleeve of the too-big sweater, pulling me towards the front door.

“Fine.” I snapped, willingly following Mikey out of the kitchen. “But I’m still angry at you!” I called back to Gerard who was standing in the doorway with his hands crossed over his chest and an sexy annoying, pompous smirk teasing the corners of his lips.

“See you later Tess!” I heard Gerard call back as I slammed the door forcefully behind me and stepped into the cool interior of Mikey’s black sedan. He turned the keys in the ignition and started off down the long drive, a small smile playing at his mouth.

“You and Gerard should get together sometime.” Mikey said quietly after a while of silence, flicking on the radio and settling on the classic rock channel.

I scoffed, “Yeah right Mikey. When Hell freezes over.”

“Just saying.” Mikey pulled into a dark hospital parking lot and turned off the rumbling engine. I turned to unlock the door but Mikey caught my shoulder and pulled me into a bone-crushing hug. I awkwardly placed my arms around him and patted his back lightly.

“Oh, we’re hugging now, are we?” I asked, my voice muffled in the thick fabric of Mikey’s winter coat. Mikey pulled back and re-adjusted his glasses which had been knocked slightly out of place by my hair; which was being oddly misbehaved today, it was sticking out at all odd angles from my head.

“Thank you.” Mikey blushed a bit, “For coming with me. I always get really depressed when I come, but maybe this time it’ll be different.”

“No problem Mikes.” I said, hopping out of the car and heading towards the illuminated hospital entrance. “What are friends for.” My heart leaped at the words that just spilled out of my mouth. I just called Mikey my friend. I hadn’t trusted anyone enough in a long time to consider someone my friend.

“Yeah.” Mikey sighed, throwing his arm over my shoulder. “Friends. I like that.” He led me into the warm lobby stopped. “You sure you’re ready for this?” He asked me, “I put this woman in a coma. I’m a monster, and you’re about to see proof of that.”

“I won’t think any different of you.” I led him to the elevator, “I promise.”

He heaved a deep sighed and punched in the number 7 into the elevator. I couldn’t help the nervous twinge surfacing in my stomach; I had always viewed Mikey as the harmless little brother who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Was I really going to be okay with this? Could I deal with the fact that my new found friend had almost killed some poor innocent woman?

I’m about to find out. I thought as we stopped outside a door labelled room 731. I took a deep breath and grabbed Mikey’s hand tightly.

Here we go.