Something I Could Hold Onto

Rick didn't leave on Monday.

He didn't leave Tuesday, either, or the Tuesday after that. One month later, the greasy and vile man was still sleeping comfortably in Frank's bed, eating Frank's food, and testing Frank's delicate nerves to the point of tears.

It pained the young man to show his vulnerability to such an undeserving person, and yet with every purposefully broken plate, ripped pillowcase, and violated notebook he felt himself being pushed closer and closer to the edge of surrender.

He finally reached that point of despondency the first Sunday of December.

Snow fell heavily from the gray sky; every former ounce of cerulean pigment melted into the background, and all the brightness manifested itself in tiny white flakes. The result was a black-and-white watercolor painting, with all the joy and personality associated with the color scheme.

Frank looked the same.

Since the arrival of his unexpected and unfriendly house guest, a chronic feeling of melancholy seemed to linger in his sensitive mind every waking hour, and dreaming hour as well. Everything haunted his sleep, he realized as he ran through icy storm. Everything that made him uneasy appeared in the one place he was allowed to relax. Every harsh tone, or cruel word, or sickening animalistic sound; every foreshadowing creak, crude joke, or beautiful face –

Frank stopped dead in his tracks.

Stop thinking about him, you stupid shit.

As much as he wished it untrue, the mere fact remained that any mental pain Rick inflicted paled greatly with the simple hurt of missing Gerard.

And I shouldn't even miss him, Frank reasoned, kicking up small snow drifts with the toe of his shoe. He's a creep who can't hold his liquor.

He focused on that past evening with his whole being, wishing he could believe the accusation his logic kept making, but the truth remained that he still felt genuine affection for his self-portrayed demon. He still awoke in the middle of the night, remember his gentle nature and cocky-façade. He still smiled driving past the local IHOP on his way to work, and he still felt a pang of loneliness when he passed a couple holding hands.

He blatantly missed the so-called monster, and he hated trying to deny it.

Frank sighed with frustration as he clicked the lock on his apartment door, hanging his weathered jacket on the back of a chair. The apartment was dark – pitch black save for the dim street lights infiltrating the windows. He reached to flip the wall switch hesitantly, the now-familiar feeling of angst twisting his innards at the thought of what might lurk in the dark. With a sharp intake of breath, his lingering finger jolted the small piece of plastic with a faint click.

The room was still dark.

He toyed with the switch one, two, three more times until realizing that the action was in vain. With a sigh, Frank dug into his jeans' pocket in search of his cell phone, flipping the lid once protruded and using the dim light to navigate his way to the kitchen.

I think I left some candles in there, he pondered, a sense of casual uncertainty overwhelming the anxiety previously attacking his frayed nerves. He sighed, maneuvering his way through the lightless rooms guided by the small silver phone. Silence echoed across the blank walls and back to his ringing ears, providing a sense of urgency to his seemingly trivial task.

"Don't stop believin'!"

Frank jumped what he guessed to be five feet in the air upon hearing the blaring voice coming from his cell phone. Heart beating frantically in his chest, he flipped the small object over in his hands to read the caller ID.

Gerard Way
862-122-1312

Suddenly, his hands and lips and legs were trembling as shock and confusion overran his system. Why would Gerard be calling him? Should he answer the phone? What would he say? Would –

"What're you doin', faggot?" came the raspy jeer, cutting off all of Frank's disjointed thoughts.

His mind was still cluttered with the sudden rush of emotion, and he struggled to find an appropriate response. "I-I was, uh, j-just looking for… uh…"

"What was that Goddamned music I heard?" Rick said gruffly, puffing on the joint that had, in Frank's opinion, appeared out of thin air.

"N-nothing," said the boy, fear white-washing his face and inspiring him to pray to a God he had never believed before. "Just m-my phone—"

"Yer phone!" he laughed, slapping his knee and coughing on the smoke in his throat. "What ki'nna bast'rd would call a dumb pill'a-biter like you?" The slur in his voice made the words almost unintelligible.

Almost.

The phone had since stopped ringing and now lay dormant in Frank's shaking hand. The screen was alight with the message "1 New Voicemail", and as much as he wanted to hear his antagonist's apologetic tone, his attention at the moment was captured and strangled by the borderline-violent man before him.

At least, "borderline" until this night.

Before he could even utter words to defend himself, be it a cry for help or a whimpered pleading, Frank's throat was caught in an entanglement of fingers and wrists and flexed muscles.

"I said, who was'sit, fag?!"

The terrifying grip lessened slightly, leaving the young man gasping for breath and coughing to regain composure. Just as the air had filled small lungs, a fist landed itself in the root of his stomach and, seconds later, the right side of his face. His small frame crumpled to ground as a searing pain ripped through his torso; Frank's tear-soaked cheeks got him little sympathy from the deranged man leering above him.

Taunts of "homo", "faggot", "queer", and other meaningless slurs met the deaf ears of the sobbing boy; his choked cries echoed in the pitch black kitchen, punctuated by the sound of boots to skin and ribs.

Half an hour passed in the same manner, Rick savagely brutalizing the boy before him and grinning at his audible heartache.

"Too bad yer mama ain't here to see this," he hissed, leaning down to breathe directly into Frank's ear. "I'm sure she'd love to see her son become a real man."

A sound similar to metal on metal replaced Frankie's dull sobs, and with a sudden sense of panic he recognized it as the anthem of a belt buckle. Soon, the scraping of a zipper filled the room.

It was all very clear, now.

Rick's weight appeared on Frank's back, forcing him face-first into the hard linoleum and the elder man dragged his chipped nails across the boy's bruising cheek.

"Is this how'ya like it, fag?" he cooed, the fake sweetness in his voice bringing bile to Frank's esophagus.

A whimper sounded, followed by a scream as two tattooed arms were twisted at odd angles. Rick sneered and chuckled, before standing abruptly and telling the boy to "wait there" while he fetched "supplies".

And yet, even in his tortured and anguished and flat-out terrified condition, some inner voice told him what he had to do.

Run.

The next minutes passed in a blur for the man: a phone and a wallet shoved into a pocket, shaking fingers on doorknobs, feet on steps one-two-one-two, running and snow and cold and crying, turned corners, numbed face –

And then he was alone. Frankie's non-systematic flee had led him to a deserted street with an ache in his body and a semi-permanent lump in his throat. The cold had gotten much worse in the fifteen minutes he had ran, and finally hit him with full force. The temperature was paralyzing; without even attaining opportunity to stop it, Frank found himself falling in slow-motion towards an arbitrary snow drift.

Somewhere in the distance, far from his fragile psyche, the tires of an old Honda screeched on the slippery tar. He vaguely heard a door being slammed, followed by desperate footsteps and… his name?

Frank twisted to support himself, but the effort proved to be too great and he collapsed back onto the snowy sidewalk.

"Frank!" the voice called, shaky and frantic and anything but composed.

His eyes began to close slowly, almost robotically, and he felt as if he were floating. He almost thought he felt arms wrapped delicately around him, almost experienced the rush of chapped lips against his forehead.

But that couldn't have been; who would come to save a dumb pillow-biter like him?

"Frankie, please!"

Someone was shaking him, he thought. His mind must have been playing tricks on him. It was nearly midnight in the lower district of Belleville; no one was around to help him.

No one he wanted help from, at least.

He peeked his eyes open gently, just to justify his hallucinogenic state.

But he wasn't alone.

Above him, a crying figure knelt, their face obscured by the streetlight directly behind. They cried his name out once again, stroking his inflamed skin and briefly kissing his lips.

"Please don't go to sleep," the stranger whispered, leaning his head into the boy's neck.

Adrenaline shot through Frank's system like a bullet from a barrel as he realized who the man was.

"… G-Gerard?"