I Can Transform You

Fix

POV: Gerard

It was only two o’clock in the afternoon, but it had been an exhausting day so far, and Frank and I ended up taking a quick nap on his bed. It would have been longer - I mean, we were all nice and cosy, cuddled up together - but then Mikey arrived home. He walked into the room, took one look at us lying motionless on the bed, and then the gun on the floor, and just BURST INTO TEARS.

“Why – why d-did you do this?” he wailed, and both Frank and I vigorously jerked awake, snapping our eyes open to find him on his knees, doubled over with his head in his hands.

We exchanged alarmed glances.

“Y-you had your whole lives ahead of you!” he spluttered uncontrollably.

Frank jumped to his feet beside me, but I threw my hand out in front of him to stop him running over to Mikey. He frowned deeply at me and I just held my finger up to say ‘give it a minute’. I wanted to see what Mikey would say next. I was getting my sick kicks hearing him talking to what he thought were our corpses. I’d always had a strange obsession about death and how people would react if I were to die.

“I loved you both,” he cried, his voice getting weaker. Frank looked at me pleadingly, really wanting to put an end to Mikey’s misery, but I shook my head vigorously. “Please – please come back...” Mikey suddenly looked up, gasping for air so he didn’t drown in his own tears, and his devastated eyes locked on me and Frank, catching us just staring at him with furrowed eyebrows.

“You’re alive,” he noted, the pain in his eyes disappearing immediately, being replaced by blankness. Then, he clenched his jaw and leapt to his feet, hissing, “I’m going to fucking kill you! Give me a fucking heart attack, why don’t you?” He was clutching his heart very protectively now, glaring at us both furiously.

“Mikey, I’m so sor-”

“We were napping!” I cut Frank off defensively, interrupting his heartfelt apology. He didn’t need any more guilt to contend with right now – especially when he didn’t even do anything wrong. “It’s not our fault you jumped the gun!”

The incredulous look on Mikey’s face and the way Frank’s entire body stiffened beside me told me I probably could have worded that in a better way… God damn my lack of brain-to-mouth filter.

“Well, yeah, when there’s a fucking gun on the floor, of course I’m going to jump it!” Mikey retorted dramatically, gesturing toward the abandoned gun. “Jesus Christ, I fucking thought you had – and you were napping!” he cried, shaking his head and pulling at his hair in distress. “God, I hate you both! Now get the fuck over here and let me hug you assholes.” He beckoned us over desperately and we both obeyed, hurrying over to throw our arms around him in a three-way hug.

We stayed like that, in a close embrace, for at least a minute; all of us just holding on for dear life, savouring the fact that we were still alive. I think we were all too choked up to speak, our emotions raw and overwhelming, and so we just let our hearts do the talking. Then, slowly, we all started to pull back, until we were stood in a circle facing eachother.

“Who’s up for a few beers?” Mikey suggested, hastily rubbing away the tears in his eyes with the back of his hand. “I think there’s a crate in the garage.”

I suppose it would be nice to kick back and relax a little with a cold beer right about now. It might even ease some of the pain inside us all… Yeah, I think we could do with a distraction from it all.

“Sounds good…” Frank nodded sombrely beside me, glancing at me questioningly, as if asking for me permission or something.

I nodded too.

“Sure.”

Mikey exhaled in relief and nodded back at us. “I’ll go and grab them then.”

And then, he disappeared downstairs, leaving Frank and I alone for a moment. I turned to him, but he just turned to his school bag and bent down to pick it up.

“What are you doing?” I asked curiously, frowning as he started searching through it for something.

“Looking for my pot,” he replied openly, catching me off-guard with that response.

“Your - wait, you – you smoke pot?”

Okay, I knew he hung around with all the stoner kids in school, but I’d never actually seen him smoke anything before, so I kind of assumed he was just in with the wrong crowd.

“Uh, yeah. Like you didn’t know that about me,” he scoffed, glancing over his shoulder and frowning at me.

I shrugged awkwardly.

“Well, uh – do you really think – I mean, is it really a good idea for you to get high right now?” I struggled to put my anxiety on the matter into a well-phrased, inoffensive question.

I’d never been the biggest fan of drugs. I was very illiberal in my views when it came to things like drugs. Like father, like son, I guess.

“It’s a great time,” he declared flatly, pulling a small bag of weed and some rolling paper out of his backpack.

He was either oblivious to my discomfort or ignoring it completely, as he sat down cross-legged on his bed and concentrated on rolling his joint. I remained where I was stood, fighting the impulse to go over and snatch it off of him.

“Frank, I – I don’t think you should,” I dared to voice my strong feelings, despite knowing it would probably cause an argument. “You’re too sensitive right now… You shouldn’t mess with your brain like this.”

If he gets high now, he’s just going to crash and burn even harder when the effects wear off. He needs to be stable in his right mind before he goes tainting his thoughts and emotions with this shit.

“Gerard, have you ever smoked pot before?” he replied indifferently, stopping what he was doing and looking up at me. His expression was unreadable. I couldn’t tell if he was angry with me, upset, annoyed, anything

“Um, no… and I never will,” I responded truthfully, furrowing my eyebrows in thought. I failed to see what my (lack of) use of the drug had to do with his use of it.

“Well, I have, and I know what I’m doing, okay?” he raised his eyebrows at me, and I could tell he didn’t appreciate my interfering.

Problem was, I couldn’t butt out of this.

“But your head’s already all over the place right now… You don’t need to fuck it up more than it already is!” I protested, heading over to sit down apprehensively opposite him on the bed.

This time he didn’t ever bother to look up from his joint when he replied.

“Yes, thank you, Gerard, I am well aware my head is fucked up,” he muttered sarcastically, “But seriously, it’s no big deal – I always get high when I’m feeling fucking low. It helps relieve all the goddamn stress and pain, which right now, I have too much of.” He paused to lick the rolling paper, and I just watched him helplessly. “So, quit acting like my mom and let me smoke.”

I was having a serious internal battle now. I wanted to back off and just let Frank make his own decisions – but then, he hadn’t exactly been making the best decisions for himself in life so far. Especially today when he tried to kill himself...

He was being stubborn right now, but I knew what was best for him in the long-run, and it wasn’t this, so I was being stubborn right back.

“How about… instead of mindlessly feeding your addiction to pot… you find yourself a new addiction?” I suggested slowly, trying to be tactful with my words. “Something less damaging to your mind… and better for your mentality in the long-run?”

Yes, I was going somewhere with this… And Frank looked puzzled and begrudgingly intrigued to find out where.

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

He studied my face closely, trying to read me. I stared back with honest and open eyes.

Me.

His eyebrows dipped and he lowered his joint, still holding eye contact.

“Huh?”

Okay, I knew how weird it sounded, but it made perfect sense in my head. And I was more than willing to fight my corner with it…

“I said I was going to help you, Frankie… and that starts right here, right now,” I began to explain, shuffling closer to him on the bed. He glanced down at his stuff on the bed and his hand hovered over it protectively, as his eyes flickered back to mine, warning me not to take any of it away. I sighed and reached out to rest my hand on his leg instead, ignoring the pot for a second.

“I know you’re used to doing drugs to take your mind off the pain… but you don’t need to rely on that stuff anymore, okay? You have me now,” I pointed out, just in case he had forgotten he had a real best friend now. One that was actually going to look out for him. “I’m here for you, whenever you want to talk, or let off steam, like, whatever… Use me instead.” His eyes widened slightly at my words and the fact I was telling him to use me, which okay, was kind of demeaning to myself, but I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I tried to make light of the comment by adding, “I have positive, longer-lasting effects and no brutal comedown.”

He considered my words for a moment, seeming to really think hard about my proposal, before he slowly put his joint down on the bed, and looked deep into my eyes.

“So… it’s okay if I, uh… get my fix on you instead?” he enquired shyly, confusing me with his words. I wasn’t too sure what a ‘fix on me’ would be, but I couldn’t exactly deny him it after that long speech I just gave.

“Well, uh, yeah,” I accepted, frowning and smiling in uncertainty.

Next thing I knew, he was taking my face in his hands and kissing me hard on the lips, and whoa, okay, that caught me off-guard. But despite my shock, my lips were cooperating readily, moving against his and parting slowly, letting our tongues get reacquainted, and God, yeah, this was so okay with me.

We were so caught up in the kiss that we didn’t even notice Mikey’s footsteps growing closer, and then the bedroom door swinging open.

“Okay, I found the…” he trailed off awkwardly, and Frank and I reluctantly pulled away from eachother to look at him. “Sorry. C-carry on. As you were. I’ll just – go somewhere,” he rambled, practically running out of the room.

Frank and I exchanged glances and I knew were both thinking the same thing.

“Mikey!” I called after him, giggling slightly at his awkwardness. “Get back here!”

As tempting as it was to slam the bedroom door in my brother’s face right now, it was probably for the best that he be here to prevent Frank and I getting too caught up in the moment, which come on, was more than likely to happen. We were already too lost in eachother with that kiss.

Mikey appeared in the doorway again, looking extremely hesitant and uncomfortable.

“It’s fine, honestly,” Frank assured him, “Now, get your ass down next to Gerard and share out the beers.”

I repositioned myself on the bed, with my back against the wall and my legs stretched out in front of me, and patted the empty space on my left for Mikey to come and sit down.

“Ooookay then,” he frowned, doing as he was told, even though he didn’t understand why we were cool with the interruption.

He didn’t understand how complicated things were with me and Frank just yet. He was kind of doing us a favour in hanging out now, because if we were alone, I’m thinking we’d probably be rushing into something we shouldn’t be.

He handed us both a cold can of beer and sat on the corner of the bed just staring at us, but then, Frank’s joint caught his eye.

“Are you guys getting high?” he enquired, sitting up a little straighter in obvious interest.

“Nah, I’m not in the mood anymore,” Frank replied, and I breathed a sigh of relief, whilst also mentally high-fiving myself. “You want it?” I snapped my head in Frank’s direction, just as he picked up the joint and offered it to my brother.

“No, he does not want it,” I answered for Mikey in a sharp, firm tone.

“Uh, yeah I do,” Mikey disagreed candidly, and I snapped my head in his direction this time.

“Since when do you smoke pot?” I demanded in disbelief, staring at my brother in a whole new light.

Seriously, how did I not know I lived under the same roof as two stoners?

“Alicia’s brother got me into it,” he shrugged nonchalantly, blind to my look of outrage. “I don’t do it all the time or anything. Just the occasional spliff, when I feel like it.” He suddenly noticed the expression on my face and laughed. “You look disgusted by my existence.”

Frank giggled at that, and I shot him another look.

“Yeah, no, Gerard doesn’t appreciate the weed,” he explained to Mikey, yet he was still holding out his spliff to him.

“Yeah, I don’t,” I agreed, slapping it out of his hand, onto the floor. “I’m not even sorry.”

Frank rolled his eyes and Mikey grumbled under his breath, something about me depriving him of good things, and then everything fell silent amongst us and we all just sipped our beers casually.

I could feel the atmosphere getting tenser by the second, a heavy weight weighing on all of our shoulders, eating away at the core of all of us, until Frank finally addressed it and we were forced to stop ignoring it.

“Did the whole school see my video?”

The dreaded question. Or should I say, the dreaded answer…

Mikey hesitated, his eyes staring down at the bed for a long time, before he closed them and slowly looked up to meet Frank’s gaze.

“Yes,” he whispered, and my heart dropped into my stomach, making me feel very nauseous suddenly. “I’m sorry, I tried to stop it, but - Matty got hold of it and – and –”

“Oh God,” Frank groaned, putting his head in his hands.

“I’m so sorry,” Mikey apologised again, hanging his head in shame.

I wanted to ask what happened when Matty got hold of it, but then, I didn’t want to push Frank any further. He had already heard enough. His worst fear had officially come true. Everybody had seen his suicide video, and because he hadn’t gone through with ending his life, he had to stick around now and endure their harsh judgement. If Frank ever had to face these people again, it was going to be like fucking judgement day for him.

“Kill me,” he cried shakily, his voice muffled by his hands.
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Thanks for commenting:
MCR4ever174
Sweet Pandemonium.
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JustUnRemember
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Frankie Ro. (I'll update WL&HC soon-ish, I'm still RAGING about the last two chapters I posted getting deleted by Mibba, because I didn't have the final drafts saved and UGHHH so annoying.)
Just.a.Kid
teletalk101
Strider
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murderscene
mcr_lover
KaleidoscopeKiller (haha no, it wasn't a sly dig to him, I just know there's a school in New Jersey called John Walker middle school, so I decided to make it into a high school, because I'm lame at thinking of my own school names!)
stallion duck.

<3