The Red Ones Make Me Fly

Sure enough, Gerard’s house was as messy as he remembered leaving it the day before when he left for Mikey’s house party. Half-finished sketches, storyboards, paint experiments and pages of scribbled writing were scattered over every flat surface he could see, pouring over onto the floor of his living room. Luckily, the kitchen only had one surface, and because it was always in use it wasn’t covered in art. He turned on the kettle and quickly washed two mugs. “Let me help, man, where’s the coffee?” Frank offered, opening the cabinet above his head before Gerard could stop him. He had spun around too slowly, and saw a puzzled-looking Frank staring into an open cabinet filled entirely of pill bottles and boxes. “Well there’s no coffee in there” Frank laughed nervously, closing the cabinet and opening the one next to it where he indeed found the coffee and sugar.
Gerard crossed his fingers that Frank would forget about it and not bring it up later on.
But, as everything seemed to go in Gerard’s life, the opposite happened.
As soon as they sat down in the space he’d cleared for them in the living-room, and Frank had taken a few long sips of his steaming coffee, the subject came up.
“That’s a lot of pills you’ve got in that cabinet, dude, you a collector? Or are you just saving up for something big?” He laughed, but Gerard just shook his head, and attempted to change the subject. “Sorry about all this mess… I don’t usually get visitors…” It worked.
Frank peered around the room as if noticing his surroundings for the first time since entering the house. “Don’t worry about it! My place is in a similar state, to be honest.”
“I didn’t think you were the arty type!” Gerard said, quite genuinely, causing Frank to giggle in the most adorable fashion.
“I’m really not… I can’t draw to save my life! Nah, I’m a musician and producer, so I have a lot of stuff lying around. My bands like to leave their equipment at my studio and I end up storing them at my house, sometimes for weeks at a time. It’s a complete maze! There’s like a path from my room to the front door and the kitchen, because honestly those are the only rooms I can get into at all.”
They laughed, and the hours seemed to fly by as the talked. Gerard was almost sorry when Frank’s second cup of coffee was finished and he announced that he had to leave.

Habitually, he walked to the kitchen and reached into the cabinet, popping some pills and downing them with the mouthful of coffee he had left in his mug for this very reason. He then dug his phone out of the pocket of his skinny-jeans and returned a missed-call he’d gotten from his younger brother sometime that morning. Mikey sounded agitated, begging Gerard to go over to his house and help him clean up the party aftermath. He made an excuse about having work to do, not really in the mood to clean – as if anybody ever WAS in the mood to clean.
“You know, Gee, it should be you asking ME to help clean YOUR house!” Mikey laughed, “Seriously, it’s getting bad again.”
“Not now, please Mikes. I’m too tired for this and I’ve got work to do, like I said… I’ll call you tomorrow. Bye!” He hung up before his brother could protest.