Folie a Deux

Okay, quite a lot to say here, 16 minutes to type the entire author's note.
First of all: this chapter only reaches about 7 pages total in my word document (other chapters have gone up to about 12-16, I think,) so I'm sorry for the long wait and shortness of this chapter, but my life has basically gone batshitcrazy as of recent.
First up on my list of excuses: I came out to my mom... And she completely flipped shit. She called me disgusting, and an idiot, and basically made me "promise to be straight" (evidently she doesn't know about crossed fingers behind backs...) Basically she grounded me until December and thinks I'm a freak. Ohfuckingwell, her loss, right? Right.

Also, I have two shout outs to make here; one to my brilliant author friend Morgan, the other to my beautiful girlfriend. (I can totally do shout outs, right? Those are allowd?)
Okay, to Morgan: you devioUS BASTARD. BRINGING VIC INTO A FIC TO HELP COMMIT A SERIOUS CRIME. YOU GENIUS. DEAR FUCKING LORD HOW DID I NOT THINK OF THAT FIRST? Anyway! For anyone who has not read Turn Off The Dark (a brilliant, heartbreakingly awesome frerard that Morgan is writing,) I suggest that you go read it, as soon as you get a chance. I cannot for the life of me remember Morgan's Wattpad username (sorry oh my god I have a terrible memory sometimes I have to google what day Christmas is on,) but you should just search the fic, it's absolutly brilliant.
To Kayleigh, my girlfriend: I swear to fucking god Kayleigh your writing is perfect and I don't know how you don't see that. I'm just going to ask everyone to look up Kayl's writing as soon as possible, she has like a few different Mibba accounts and my favorite one is (sorry if you didn't want me to do this sweetheart but too late) Alice LeStrade, so go look up her writing as soon as fucking possible, because Kayleigh is one of the best writers in the whole entire world and I love her and so I know that you all will love her, too. (P.S. my favorite piece of hers on the Alice LeStrade account is called What My Dreams Are Made Of.)

Anyway, I've finished this author's note with just two minutes to spare, so happy reading, everyone!

Enjoy!

---

Henry didn't seem to understand what the problem was.

"Fuck," Frank repeated, his eyes wide. "Oh my god, shit, you- you won't tell my mom, will you-? Oh, god," he looked at me and I just looked back, not knowing how to react. "Oh fuck."

Henry knew.

He saw us. He saw me, he saw Frank, he saw us kiss. He heard us talking.

He knew.

I felt like I was going to pass out.

Henry spoke up, after what felt like an eternity of me wanting to spontaneously burst into flames, frowning, saying, "Hey, hey, Frank, Gerard, it's okay, guys. I won't tell her if you don't want her to know."

Frank and I both looked at him. "Do you promise?" Frank said, sharply and quickly, before I could.

Henry nodded, raising his hands slightly in a sign of what I hoped was a truce. "I promise."

We both relaxed, but only slightly.

Henry frowned more. "She really doesn't know?"

Frank shook his head quickly. "She- she doesn't even know, uh- she doesn't know about either of our's sexuality."

No one spoke for a few minutes, and then Henry asked, slowly; "Why haven't you told her, Frank?"

Frank shrugged, not looking at Henry, or at me. "I'm scared of how she'll react."

I gestured vaguely to Henry with one hand, curling the fingers of my other hand tightly around my Dr. Pepper. "He reacted fine," I said, speaking up. "My mom reacted fine. My little brother, Pete, all your friends at school, they reacted fine, didn't they?"

Frank squirmed a bit, rolling those honey-hazel eyes of his. "That's not the same, Gerard, can we just talk about it later?"

"Why can't we talk about it now?"

He glanced across the room at Henry. "Just- please, Gerard."

"Fine," I said, sighing. "Whatever. We'll talk about it later."

The three of us fell into silence.

Henry stood up and excused himself to the kitchen.

"Mikey and your mom reacted fine because they already knew about your sexuality," Frank said, suddenly, as soon as Henry was out of the room. "Pete was okay with it because he's not straight, anyway, and the other guys at school were okay with it because they all already knew that Pete isn't straight, so there wasn't much new about me."

"But...?"

Frank was looking at his can of Pepsi, staring at it like the page of a book, like it was suddenly the single most interesting object in the whole entire world. "But my mom is one of those people who makes jokes about stuff like that," he told me. "She makes lesbian haircut jokes and she laughs at gay guys like they're a joke, too. It's so stupid. I think she thinks anyone who likes someone of the same gender is instantly an idiot. What if she- well."

"What if she makes jokes about you, too?" I asked, finishing his sentence.

Frank glanced up at me sadly, nodding. "What if she hates me for who I choose to love?"

I sighed at his choice of wording. "Frank, your mom doesn't approve of a lot of things you do and say..."

Frank laughed a dry laugh. "I've noticed."

"Yeah. But, well- why let this be the line at which she breaks you? Why are you letting your sexuality be the point at which what she says finally gets to you?"

He turned his head and I was left staring at the back of his head for what felt like the millionth time.

"Gerard," he said, voice trembling slightly. "She's always gotten to me, about everything. She makes me hate myself; she makes me want to die."

I chewed the inside of my lip for a few seconds. "Why are you sleeping here the next few nights, then? If you don't like her, I mean?"

He paused for a long moment, and I stared at him, at his soft, curly mop of black hair, but he just kept looking away.

"Frank?"

"It's not important," he said, eventually.

We stopped talking after that.

---

I went home alone.

I'd stood with Frank on his front porch- "Your mom can't see us, Frank," I assured him, when he denied kissing me goodnight.

He put his hands on my chest, the tips of his fingers touching my collarbones, and I sighed as he glanced at the window nearest us and said, "We don't know that for sure," and just hugged me instead, his cheek pressing against my neck, mine against his hair.

It was the first time in a long time that I'd entered my own home without either Frank already being there, or Frank trailing close behind me, and Mikey noticed that, too.

My brother didn't say anything when he opened the door, though, holding it open a bit too long in confusion, not understanding when Frank didn't follow me in.

He didn't say anything when I helped him do the laundry and my fingers shook when I tossed Frank's clothes into a sloppy pile next to my bed, where the ever-permanent pile of blankets seems to remain, for those times when we get lazy and fall asleep next to each other on the floor. Mikey didn't say anything when I sat curled up in the hallway, my back against the wall and my knees pulled up to where I could use it as a platform for my sketchbook.

Mikey didn't say a thing when he sat next to me, watching me draw. He didn't speak when he rested his head on my shoulder, studying my pencil as I sketched a rough image of Frank's fingers clutching a can of Pepsi between his knees.

"Where is he?" Mikey asked, quietly, between long, thin lines of my pencil.

"Home."

And then I started crying.

My little brother wrapped his arms around me, the first hug we'd shared in a while.

"Are you okay?"

I shook my head, weakly. "I think I screwed things up, Mikey," I admitted, my voice cracking a bit. "I think I screwed up bad."

He hugged me tighter. "Does this have something to do with what he was yelling at you about earlier today?"

I nodded my head. "Yeah. It does."

He sighed. "He's not going to leave you, Gerard."

I squeezed my eyes shut, tight, so tight they watered and hurt. "How do you know that?"

"Because he loves you," Mikey said simply. "And nobody just abandons someone they love as much as Frank loves you."

I thought about it for a few minutes, and then hugged Mikey back.

"I love you, big bro," he said, surely.

"I love you too, kid."

We both leaned out of the hug and he looked down at my sketchbook on the floor. "You need to get into this stuff professionally," he said, taping the page. He looked up at me and tilted his head slightly. "Hey," he said, when I didn't look at him. "Everything is gonna' be okay, Gerard, I know you guys can work through whatever it is that's happening right now. You two- you guys- you deserve to be happy. You should both be happy."

He faltered for a moment, and I looked over at him, remembering suddenly how I felt when I was his age; I was terrified, and confused, and growing up way too fast...

I wondered suddenly how Mikey's life had been lately. He didn't go to school a normal school, like other kids, and he didn't get out much, but did he have any friends? Did he have crushes, did he have people he didn't like? Did he have friends and enemies and acquaintances?

Who was my little brother, as of recently?

He knew quite a bit about my personal life, but what did I really know about his?

I realized as he smiled, tightly, the look not quite brightening his eyes behind his glasses like I knew it should, that my little brother was growing up, and I hadn't been around much to see it, as of recently. The slight, tired, dark circles beneath his usually happy eyes and his crooked glasses and his not-quite-there encouraging smile, his messy hair and his slowly tiring voice, all told me one thing that I fucking hated to admit.

Mikey was growing up.

He wasn't a kid anymore, I could no longer guess his emotions with one glance... No, he was far more complex than that, suddenly, and I had no idea how to process this startling information.

He'd kept more to himself, recently- or had I just been pushing him away? He didn't come to me for advice like he used to, so he must be learning on his own- or maybe he just didn't care for what I had to say?

I didn't know what to think about him, anymore.

Was he doing okay? Was he happy? Was my little brother the same kid he was yesterday?

I could be related to a stranger and I might not even realize it.

Mikey stood up suddenly, and held out his hand, offering to help pull me to my feet, too, but I shook my head.

"I'm gonna sit here and draw some more," I said, as I decided to sketch Frank while I considered my shockingly grown up little brother.

He nodded, seeming to understand as I lifted the sketchbook to my lap, shooting straight into a new drawing on a new page, my head down and my fingers gripping my pencil tightly.

"You look like you're in for a long night," Mikey said, as he walked towards the kitchen, his sudden maturity finalized by one offer; "Coffee?"

He somehow understood the slight nod I gave, the slight flick of the eraser of my pencil in his direction, and brought me a fresh mug of hot coffee a few minutes later.

He ruffled my hair quietly, walking around me and into his bedroom, and I watched in awe as my not-much-younger brother left his door open, which was something he never did, but he turned off his light, a signal that he was going to bed.

It was like he was just trying to show that he was still here, if I needed him, even though he was asleep.

That, I realized, as I sketched the curve of Frank's left shoulder and the dip of his collarbone for the millionth time, was what true love was, even if it was just as simple as your little brother showing that he was there to comfort the complete wreck he had grown up with.

True love was leaving the door open for someone just in case they need you, even if it could interfere with whatever you'd rather be doing right then. True love was understanding that the flick of a pencil meant "Yes, please, thank you, friend." True love was still caring for someone, even if they hadn't exactly been there for you as often as they should.

True love, I told myself, as I slid my closed sketchbook under my mattress, leaving my bedroom door cracked and Frank's side of the bed empty, was waiting for someone, even if you didn't know if they would come back or not.

---

I woke up to Frank's side of the bed still empty.

I didn't sleep well. (I slept horribly, actually, and I woke up at six in the morning, as always.)

Mikey was still asleep, but his door was closed; I noticed the same thing about mine. I paused, wondering if he'd gotten cold in the middle of the night and closed it, the draft sending mine shut too, but when I heard humming from the kitchen and the gentle swish of a skirt brushing the kitchen floor, I understood.

"Ma?" I said, sleepily, making my way into the kitchen.

She looked up, grinning, her hair pulled back in a messy bun. The skin beneath her eyes was tired, her cheeks too pale for the woman I knew, but her smile made up for it, her red lipstick and warm brown eyes and the pancakes on the stove and the pack of cigarettes on the counter next to her all showed that she was okay.

"Hey, kiddo," she said.

I hugged her- I was in a hugging mood, I suppose; and my mom hugged me back. "Mikey still asleep?" she asked.

"Yeah," I confirmed. "But he's earned it."

"Oh?"

I nodded. "He finished all the schoolwork you left for him a day or two early. That's, like, all he's done this week. Schoolwork."

"Really? What about you, did you finish your work?"

I smiled sheepishly, and she rolled her eyes.

"You're going to run your work into the summer," she scolded, though I knew that she knew that I could get it done.

"How was Aunt Marie?"

"Okay," my mother said, nodding. "Doing better, slowly but surely..." She smiled. "Oh, gosh, she and Lizabeth are quite the pair."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she confirmed. She glanced over my shoulder. "Speaking of pairs, where's Frank? You two were practically attached at the hip when I left."

I faltered. I didn't know what to say or how much to say. "Frank isn't here, uh... He's at home, I mean, he's-" I sighed. "He's not here."

My mother frowned. "Did something happen, is everything okay?"

I faltered. "Well- I don't know, Ma." I focused my eyes on the pancakes she was sliding onto a plate. "I don't know what happened."

I was pulled instantly and fearlessly into another hug.

"Tell me everything," my mother said, pulling out of the hug, turning to the kitchen counter suddenly. She sent me a look. "Sit at the table, dear, I'm fixing coffee. Talk to me."

I sat down and talked to her.

"I don't know exactly what happened," I started, not sure exactly what to tell her. I decided to just start at the beginning. "But, uh, yesterday- well, yesterday, Frank told me that he loves me, right? And, I- I didn't say it back." I paused, and felt ashamed. I felt like I needed to explain myself, like I was a kid who had been caught stealing from a cookie jar. I felt so guilty. "Because I just- I can't, y'know? I'm-" I paused, and then said, a bit firmer: "I can't and won't say it until I'm ready, and I'm not ready, not yet. I don't know how to put the feelings into words yet." I couldn't look at my mom, because I didn't know how she would react to her oldest son talking about his mixed emotions on his and his boyfriend's relationship. "I just can't do something like that," I said, looking down. "Not this soon and not this sudden. I almost said it once, like, the day before yesterday, I think, actually... But I stopped myself, and- I dunno. I think I regret not saying it. But- I think I regret it, but... I don't know, Ma... I just don't know... He's just really upset that I didn't say it back, though, and-"

I pressed my face into my hands.

"Oh, god, he was so fucking upset."

I took a few deep, shuddering breaths, and tried to calm my speeding heart.

I counted my breaths, up to four, down to one. Up to four, down to three, two, one, up to two, three, four, down to three, two one...

I peeled my fingers away from my face. "We had dinner at his mom's house last night," I continued. "Well, his house, whatever. And he stayed there. He said he wanted to sleep there the next few nights, and I don't think he had any intentions of seeing me today." I sighed. "I don't think he wants to see me at all, actually."

My mom was silent for a long moment, and then said, suddenly, "Well? Do you?"

"Do I what, want to see him? Of course I do."

"Well, of course you want to see him, Gerard," she said, and I could practically feel her roll her eyes from across the room. "But do you love him?"

I faltered at that, not sure. And so I told her that, I said, "I'm not sure," and sighed heavily.

"You're not sure, or you're scared to be honest?" she retorted quietly.

I met my mother's eyes, and wondered what she saw when she looked at me. Did she see an honest boy? Or did she see the coward that I know I am?

"I'm scared to be honest," I confessed. I looked at my hands, and felt like throwing up. I hated myself so much. I hated these emotions, the goddamn emotions that made me need him, the hurt and pain and want and need and aching, aching attachment that I felt with Frank, that I had only rarely felt before in my life. And I hated it, because every time I felt these same emotions, I ended up getting hurt somehow. "With myself and with him."

"What are you scared to tell Frank?"

I laughed a dry laugh, one that made my eyes sting, like I was going to cry. "I can't tell you that."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm scared of admitting to Frank what I'm scared of admitting to myself."

"Telling me your fear doesn't mean that you have to face it," she said, softly, and again, I couldn't bring myself to look at the woman who had raised me.

I was crying. And laughing.

I was laughing at my own tears, crying at the stupidity in my own sense of humor. "I'm so stupid," I said, shaking my head. My mom didn't seem to understand. "I'm such a fucking coward." I cracked a real, genuine smile, which made my fingers trembled as I realize that I must look insane, tears staining my cheeks and my lips pulled back in a crooked smile. "Aren't I, Ma? Your baby boy is a coward."

"You're not a coward, Gerard," she said. She sounded concerned, but I stopped listening.

I stopped listening, because the voices in my own head wouldn't shut up.

You're a coward, they said, and I wanted to scream. You're an idiot, Gerard, you're such an ignorant boy. I know, I fucking know I am... Frank loves you, you dumbass, and you love him back, don't you?

I suddenly had the strong urge to jump off of a cliff.

I stood up and excused myself to my room. My mom didn't try to follow.

I didn't know what to do, but I was upset, so naturally, I called Frank.

"Hello?" he answered slowly, voice tired.

"Hi."

He didn't answer for a second, and then, slowly; "Gerard?"

I sat on the edge of my bed and swung my feet back and forth, feeling like a little kid, but with a giant, empty hole in the center of my body, where my heart should be. "Yeah." I took a slow, deep breath of air, and wiped the tears off of my face. "Hey."

I heard him sigh. "Hey. Wh- what's up?"

"Nothing," I said into the too-cold cellphone as I held it closer to my face. I stared at my sock-clad feet as I swung them. My chest felt heavy, like the world was quicksand I was sinking. "I miss you," I confessed, and felt like crying, because I suddenly needed him more than I had needed him in a very long time. I needed his arms around me and his lips on my neck and his hair beneath my fingers, and it hurt, it ached, not having him next to me.

He sighed again, though, oblivious to the pain that was taking over my entire body. "It's been, like- like-" he paused. "Like, less than twelve hours since we last saw each other, I think, Gerard."

"Yeah?" I said, tears pricking at my eyes again. "So?"

It took him two seconds too long to respond. "It's six twenty-nine in the morning, is there a reason you called me?"

I didn't know how to respond, so I just repeated, "I miss you."

His voice was soft when he spoke. "I miss you, too."

"Come over, then?"

It took him forty-three seconds exactly to respond, and I wondered what he was thinking about, and where he was sitting, and if he looked as sleepily adorable as he sounded. "I can't."

"You can't?"

He faltered. "Well, I- I can't. Pete is coming over, and Henry is still here, and-"

"Oh." I closed my eyes for a second the weight in my chest sinking further. "It's okay," I said, struggling to speak. "Pete is coming over. That's okay. Whatever. Never mind."

He sighed. "I'm sorry, Gerard, I just-"

"Don't apologize," I told him, quietly, feeling sorry myself. "Please don't." He made a tired sound and I frowned. "Did I wake you up?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

"Kind of, yeah."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"S'okay... I should- I should go back to bed, though... I'm still tired."

"Oh. Okay."

He paused. "B- bye, Gerard." There was a short silence. "I love you," he said, carefully, timidly.

I closed my eyes and took a slow, painful breath of air. "I know you do, sweetheart. I know..."

He made a soft, sad, lonely sounding noise, and then hung up first.

I turned off my phone and tossed it on the bed, sadly, deciding then to make my way to the bathroom.

Once there, I turned the shower water on hotter than comfortable, stripped myself of clothes, and held my breath, wondering if I could suffocate myself with a towel. (For the record, I tired; my body panicked and would not allow myself to do so, no matter how hard I fought, and I ended up crying into the towel instead of dying.)

I bathed, washing myself, tiredly, washing my hair and my body and then failing at an attempt to scrub all of the bad thoughts away.

Three hours later and my back was sticking to the bottom of the tub with warm water. I'd considered drowning myself, which turned into me laying down with the water spraying my legs, my head sitting lightly against the edge of the tub, as I realized that I didn't want to drown myself while my mom and brother were in the house.

I didn't want either one of them to find me like that.

I couldn't stop thinking about Frank, and it disgusted me.

What happened to keeping myself alive? Did I really need to depend on someone else to decide the requirements and standards of my happiness?

I suppose I did. My standards were too high, now- if I lived life by my own rules, I would've tried to suffocate myself with a towel a long, long time ago.

I held a paperclip in my right hand; I'd been holding it for three hours, since I stepped into the shower. I'd bent it, and then bent it back into shape. I'd pressed it against my skin and considered hurting myself.

In the end, my sorrow and self-loathe won, and I hurt myself.

There was one line, thick and shaking and bloody, on the outside of my right thigh, done with a paperclip, the skin struck over and over again until torn. There was water that was just warmer than what I considered too hot, against my inner right wrist, so steaming that my skin reddened and swelled a bit. Then there was my inner lip, chewed raw by my teeth, and the bottom of my left ear, raw from picking fingers. There was also that mysterious scab on the upper cartilage of my left ear, now bleeding terribly, a towel pressed against the skin that I did not know could produce so much blood. (I considered removing the towel, and tilting my head to the left, and letting all of the blood in my body drain out through my ear, but I then decided that that would be too much of a mess for my mother to clean up.)

I nearly smiled at how considerate I was being, as I removed the towel from my ear, dampening the corner with the running shower water. I sat my paperclip on the edge of the tub, and carefully cleaned the blood from my two open wounds.

If anyone saw me they might have thought I was nothing more than a nervous man, attacked by a small cat with thick claws.

If Frank saw me, I suppose he would cry.

But I didn't want to think of Frank, nor did I want to think of Frank crying because of me, so I picked up the paperclip and tore the skin on my leg in the same spot as before, watched it slice open and bleed all over again

I counted my scars, and then I counted them again. I counted my fingers, and I counted the corners in the room. I counted how many seconds I could hold my breath, and wondered how many seconds it would take for me to pass out.

Mikey knocked on the door, eventually, asking if I was okay.

I told him no, but also assured him that he shouldn't worry about me.

I found myself sitting on the bathroom floor, not sure what to do with myself.

I needed time to think.

Did I love Frank Iero?

To know the answer to that, I needed to define love, first...

Love is strong. It is angry and passionate, and sometimes, it hurts. Love is looking past the scars, the ignorance, the anger, the betrayal, the superficial lust. Love, the romantic kind, boils down to sacrifices, small and big and unimportant and life changing.

I would give anything for Frank, and that I knew for sure.

Would I take time out of my day to spend it with Frank? Of course.

Would I not go to college, if Frank needed me at home? Frank always comes before college.

Would I stay with Frank if he were sick, would I help him get better even if it put me at the risk of getting sick? I wouldn't dream of saying no.

If I had to risk my life to save Frank's, if someone were to ask me to take a bullet for him? It seems like the answer is obvious.

I was madly, impossibly, and painfully in love with Frank Iero, and there was absolutely nothing in the world that could convince me of otherwise.