Help Me Tame This Animal I Have Become

Gerard's P.O.V.

“Well, there was a murder around here last night. The police don’t know who did it, so there’s a murderer on the loose. I wanted to come over and warn you guys to be careful around here,” Frank told us, his face twisted with vague worry and the serious expression of one who felt like he had just done his rightful duty.

Mikey and I looked at each other for a brief second, before borderline-literally laughing our asses off at these oh-so-important news Frank had just told us. Of course, it would have been funny for anyone living in our area to hear him freak out about nothing but another murder case in dear old Jersey, but I happened to find it particularly and delightfully ironic.

My laughter, although similar to that of my brother, was also very much an inside-joke kind of laughter, a relieved laughter, a care-free spirited laughter and, at the same time, a somewhat close-to-tears one.

Well, whatever this laughter was, it felt good to emit it again.

Once our chuckles had faded out, Mikey finally replied:

“You came all the way here to tell us that?”

“Well, yeah. Doesn’t it worry you that there’s a murderer on the loose?”

'Oh, honey... If you only knew how much it worries me...' I thought, keeping my lips in a small smile. 'But not now. No, for now I don't have to worry about anything anymore.'

“Frank, didn't you grow up in Jersey?” I asked him, savouring how amazing this grin felt on my mouth.

He nodded, with that same adorable yet annoying serious expression that was starting to spoil the only moment when I could finally stop being so somber and let myself have a good time.

“Then why does it surprise you that someone got killed? People get slayed here all the time,” I told him matter-of-factingly, almost rolling my eyes at his reaction now that I really thought about it. I was well over getting worked up about another death, another slaughter, another brutal fucking murder. I was past that point.

“It doesn't surprise me, it just scares me every time it happens,” he explained, and for a second I felt sorry for him, before realizing he was lucky to still be able to feel scared at what had become, in a way, terrifyingly dull for me.

“Well, you don't have to worry about us,” Mikey said, trying to tame his hair as he noticed its mess in the mirror.
For some reason, I was immensely glad my brother was ending the discussion, as I had a strange feeling that I needed to get away from that subject, soon.

“Yeah, I do,” Frank pressed on, and the vague feeling was growing into a sharp warning, screaming in the back of my mind. “This guy sounds incredibly crazy.”
I probably would have laughed at the... undeniable truth of his statement, if I hadn't been so absorbed by how uncomfortable I was becoming, getting taken over by a feeling of urgency, as if I knew something bad was about to happen, but had no idea how to stop it.

“No, you don’t have to worry. At least not about Gerard. He killed a guy once,” Mikey blurted out, and the sweet bubble that had held my world for only a short time after my dirty deed finally popped, bringing my new-found peace crashing down with it.

I looked at my brother with the same eyes that had terrified him many times before, feeling a tremendous anger slowly filling me up.
Why did he have to ruin everything? I haven't even had one fucking day of rest since I gave in. Does he know how hard it is for me to get even the smallest break from this thing? Does he know how hard it is to take my mind off the fucking kill that changed my life? Does he know what I have to do to stop remembering it, night after night? Does he know who I really am? Or what I've really done?

Of course he doesn't. Because if he did, he would never risk being in the same room as a monster like me.

My anger slowly faded away, and I forced myself to look away from my brother, before he could see the desperate tears trying to sneak their way out of my eyes.

“What?” Frank finally asked, surprised, his glance sliding from me to my brother repeatedly.

“Nothing,” Mikey answered, clearly remorseful. “I wasn't supposed to say that. Forget it.”
Without warning, he jumped to his feet, nails between his teeth, and ran down the hall, locking himself in his room before playing dear ol' Anthrax as loud as his speakers let him.
I lowered my eyes and stared blankly at the coffee table, “A Skeleton in the Closet”'s riffs and lyrics making their way through my brain with an almost arrogant irony. How many skeletons were hidden in my closet?

“What did Mike mean?”
Frank's voice pulled me out of my thoughts, and made me aware of his presence once again, which, it goes to say, wasn't exactly what I wanted to be reminded of at the moment.

What was I supposed to say?

“Nothing you need to know about, Frank,” I tried, my energy getting sucked out of my system with every word I spoke.

He stood up suddenly, his short size changing nothing to how intimidating he looked to me at that very second. “You can't expect me to just ignore the fact that your brother just told me you've killed a man,” Frank said, his voice cracking as he now looked more vulnerable than anything else.

“You don't wanna know.” I told him, and I wish he grasped how much I meant it.

But of course...

“I do.”

I sighed. “Sit.” I waited for him to get comfortable on the couch, something he obviously wasn't able to do considering the circumstances, and at some point I finally started my story. Or at least, the part of it I would tell him.

“It was about four years ago. It was pretty early in the morning, like 3 o’clock. I was waking outside alone and there was this strange figure standing under the streetlight in the distance.”

I let myself remember that fateful night for the thousandth time, seeing and feeling every detail with the usual excruciating precision.

“I disregarded him, because it’s Jersey. There’s plenty of weirdos around here. So I kept walking; I think I was on my way home from the bar, so I was kind of intoxicated. So I walked passed him, and he didn’t do anything so I guessed he was all right. But once I got a couple hundred yards away, I was tackled to the ground. He pulled a knife on me, and almost stabbed me. I don’t know how I did it, being as drunk as I was, but I took the dagger and I stabbed him a bunch of times until he died. It was self-defense. Ever since then, I,” I stopped, realizing I was about to let something important spill past the cage of my mind, where it was safely hidden and I decided should always stay. “Well, things have been different,” I finished.

“What about the cops?” Frank finally spoke, after the shock passed. “Did they come after you? Where'd you leave the body?”

“I left the body where it happened,” I told him, mostly because I couldn't remember what happened in the hours following that murder, but I guessed that's what I must have done. “The cops never noticed, I guess. Maybe no one cared about the bastard.”

My eyes met Frank's again for the first time since my brother let him know one of my darkest secrets, and I was surprised to find absolutely no fear in them.

“Wow,” he simply said, for lack of anything else to add after my confession.

“Yeah,” I replied, having nothing better to come up with to fill the awkward silence that was starting to settle between us. Unfortunately, it only grew after my lame reply, and it is then that I understood how much this changed things between us.
From now on, no matter what I did, I could never erase those words from his memory, and I could never erase this fact from his mind: I KILLED A MAN.
Something washed over me, with the tenderness of fucking acid.
I would never win. I could never win. Not entirely. My whole life was controlled, conditioned, by this... curse, this... monster. And I would never escape its grip, no matter how many people I killed for it.

“But, Frank, remember it was in self-defense.” I felt the need to add, somehow trying to ease the pain, but doing nothing to help. “I don’t want you to think any different of me. I-I’m a good person.”
It felt awful to say that, as if the words I spoke only made me acknowledge their bitter untruthfulness even more. I started hyperventilating, my body wanting to fall in a panic attack as I felt my control over it wanting to let go.

“I know you are, Gerard,” Frank said, hurrying over to my side. “I don't doubt it.”
He laced his fingers through mine, instantly soothing me as he rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb. His cottony skin felt so good against mine, and it was stupefying to be able to let him hold me without any... urges trying to take over.
At last, I could concentrate on the feel of his touch, the shape of his hand, the tattoos that covered it, the tenderness of his grip... This moment was perfect, pure, and I held onto it for as long as I could, before reality caught up with me and I realized he needed to go. Even though he asked me if I wanted to hang out, I could tell he needed some time alone to swallow what he had learned about me, and honestly I could use some too.

“I think you should get home before it gets too dark and you get murdered,” I mocked him, but I could see he understood.

He released my hand, breaking the pleasant contact between us to stand up, and walk to the door.

“Say goodbye to Mikey for me,” he said, before closing the door behind him.

I took a deep breath, and let myself relax into the cushioned loveseat.
What now?