I Believe We're The Enemy

Frank’s P.O.V.

Around three A.M., I wake to the sound of restlessness. I can’t tell where it’s coming from, but somebody is definitely having nightmares. Next to me, my dreary eyes quickly make out Inferno’s body tucked firmly under Gerard’s possessive arm. I smirk humorously at the adorable pair and sit up, gazing cautiously around the room.

Whatsername immediately catches my attention. Her eyes, though closed, are flicking feverishly around the room, and she keeps clawing at her throat as if someone is strangling her. Her feet twitch and her breathing is psychotic, but she seems frozen in slumber, unable to force herself awake.

Watching Whatsername’s dream-struck form carefully, I roll out of bed and shuffle across the room to where she lays, placing a hand on the side of her face. “Whatsername,” I whisper, trying to keep my awakening touch as gentle as possible. “Wake up, hun.”

She gives a shuddering gasp and her eyes fly open, shining around the room like brilliant blue beacons. Panic overtakes her, and she grips the sofa tightly with her slender fingers as her chest heaves with terrified breaths. Cautiously, I reach out and take her face in my hands, running my thumbs over her cheeks. She grabs my wrists and, to my surprise, pulls me closer to her, mouthing my name as I lay down on the sofa next to her and wrap my arms around her slender form.

“What was that?” I ask with a soft laugh, gazing down as her in curiosity. She simply shakes her head before grabbing the pad of paper Gerard gave her earlier this week.

Terror.

“L-like night terrors? Gee has those sometimes...” She nods, and as I watch she begins to write again.

Ever since my voice got messed up, I’ve had these horrible... dreams... where I’m frozen, and I feel like I’m being strangled, and I’m always terrified. They’re usually about dracs, or Korse, or my old boyfriend, Jimmy.

“Is he-”

Yes. He destroyed throat because he got me out of prison--he was a S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W--but I was still a rebel, and I refused to keep from being his happy little zombie lover. He would’ve hurt me more if Inferno hadn’t shot him.

I sense her angst, and my arms tighten around her automatically. “He wasn’t a great boyfriend, was he?”

Whatsername sighs. He was beyond addicted to the pills, and he drank a lot. He came from a Killjoy family, but he didn’t fit in, so he left to work for BL/ind. He did whatever the fuck he wanted, and if he wanted something, he got it. Always.

I feel her body shuddering powerfully, and a strange protective instinct causes me to glance around the room as if searching for potential harm to my relatively new friend. “You mean sex, don’t you?” She nods, biting her lip anxiously. Suddenly, I’m no longer shocked by her constant fury; between abuse, rape, and attempted murder, this Jimmy character has certainly destroyed her spirit. Rage flows through my veins, and my knuckles turn white as I hug her with all the strength I have.

He called me his extraordinary girl. He said I deserved a heaven, not this divided world. Every time he said that, I knew what he was after, and sometimes I tried to leave, but I could never get away. He said he needed someone to love, someone to love him, and I was his only option. Then

“Do I want to know?” She shakes her head hesitantly. “Let me guess, the bastard fucked you ‘til you couldn’t even move. Of course, then you’d be trapped in his lair, open to use for his every dirty little whim...” She nods, and anger shoots down my spine. This beautiful, once-innocent girl didn’t deserve to lose her naivete to such a monster, especially in the name of love. Whatsername squirms awkwardly in my grim.

Frankie, please let go of me, you’re hurting me, she writes. It’s then that I realize that I’m hugging her hard enough to strangle her.

“Sorry,” I mumble, relaxing my arms so that they wall to her waist. Her shirt rides up a bit to reveal the word REBEL tattooed onto her hip, and my mouth twists into a smirk as my fingers trace the delicate letters. Whatsername tenses at my intimate touch, but I bury my face in her black-streaked hair and hold her close to my body until she relaxes, gripping my shirt with her needy fingers.

“You need love,” I whisper, stroking her tattoo gently. “You’ve never felt true love, just sex and abuse, and that’s why you’re afraid to be loved. You need happiness.”

She shakes her head violently. Green-eyes, I might trust you, but I’m not in love with you and I don’t want to be. Please, don’t (she pauses) make this hard for me.

A blush makes its malevolent way across my face. “Are you saying you like me?”

She writes something, scribbles it out, and starts again. You’re a pretty attractive guy, and I can tell that you think the same of me, but I refuse to actually admit to liking you. I will not love again.

“Right. Okay. Good.”

You’re just scared of having a Ginny situation all over again.

I heave a soft sigh. “Not necessarily... I just don’t want to be in love with somebody who doesn’t feel the same.”

It sucks.

I fall asleep before Whatsername, my hand sprawled haphazardly across that beautiful word inked onto her hip. I like that tattoo; it reminds me of how I got HALLOWEEN written across my fingers, because that’s my birthday. When we awaked the next morning, she doesn’t seem embarrassed to have been caught sleeping with me, and I quickly ward off Gerard’s skeptical looks by mouthing night terrors. He understands instantly.

“Plus, Gee,” I add teasingly, “at least we weren’t actually in a bed like you and Inferno.”

“Shut up,” he hisses, but I don’t miss the unusual gleam in his eyes when I mention the girl he so obviously has a crush on.

As the day wears on in boredom, Mikey trots out to the car to retrieve our old radio, which we then proceed to blast loud, obscene music from until we can barely hear ourselves think. Every once in a while, Dr. D, who runs the best Killjoy radio station out there, plays one of our songs, and I can see my own pride reflected on the rest of the boys’ faces. Last Inferno grins a million miles wide when she recognizes Gerard’s voice in Planetary (GO!). “Looks like we’ve got quite the pair of budding lovebirds,” I murmur to Grace when Gerard and Inferno are out of earshot. My ten-year-old friend giggles.

”Now, how about a number from some of our long-deceased leaders,” Dr. D crackles over the radio. ”This is Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool, and Mike Dirnt of Green Day, with Christian’s Inferno!”

A loud, crashing cymbal beat rings out across the room, and then the guitar starts, dark and echoey. Next to me, Whatsername tenses up, her breathing reaching hyper speed. As the vocals start, sending Billie Joe’s deep, familiar voice into the dust-clogged air, my icy-eyed friend starts to wheeze and soon goes into a coughing fit, her chest heaving as she claws at the air in desperation, trying to breathe through her mutilated throat. “Whatsername?” I ask cautiously, catching her as she starts to fall off the sofa.

“Turn the radio off,” Inferno shouts, rising to her feet.

“Wha-”

”Now!” she commands, interrupting Gerard. The radio stops, and I rub Whatsername’s back gently, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to support her.

“What was that all about?” Ginny asks in confusion, abandoning Ray and Rose to approach Whatsername and I.

“That’s her favorite song,” Inferno explains. “She still tries to sing along to the songs she really likes, even though she knows it’ll just hurt her throat even worse. She never got over Green Day being dead... Billie Joe was kinda her idol.”

“I didn’t know they were dead,” Mikey mumbles.

Inferno lets out a soft sigh. “If you were trying to create a world of mindless, civilized zombies, you’d kill them too.” Whatsername coughs angrily, and I pat her back with a gentle hand until her breathing sounds normal again. However, I can’t miss the tears rolling down her furious features, reddening her pale skin.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, keeping my voice at a whisper. She pulls her notepad onto her lap and begins to scribble away, her usual handwriting twisted and sloppy.

I miss my voice. I wanna be able to sing like Gerard. I feel too full of... myself. All I want is to be able to get it all out, to be a new person, innocent and naive and clean. It’s not fair that all I have is this damn paper. Why can’t I scream?

“Whatsername...” My voice comes out as a whisper as I wrap my arms around her skinny shoulder and hug her tightly. “Just because you lost your voice doesn’t mean you have nothing. There are other ways to fight back.”

Fuck you, Frank.

I sigh. “I know how you feel, but pining after lost things won’t get you anywhere. You have to move on.”

Her gaze meets mine, no longer furious but just blank. Then, without any warning, her fist comes into contact with my cheekbone, letting out a loud crack. “Whatsername, what the-” She cuts me off with another punch, and her hand is so solid and full of lies that I stay silent as she struts off into the hallway, where she can be alone. Inferno, concerned, follows her.

Something in my mind, some tiny, nagging doubt, won’t leave me alone about this; something is wrong. The look in Whatsername’s eyes right before she hit me was off. She looked terrified, startled, but almost affectionate, as if she didn’t mind staring at me like that. Finally, it clicks together--underneath her fury and friendship, she’s afraid of me. Of what I might become. The unreality of everything flows over me in a suffocating wave, and I push my musings aside. This is all impossible, and I know it.