Frank Iero: P.A.

The room is pitch-black when I wake. Despite where I am, and all that happened last night, I feel strangely relaxed. I make an attempt to roll over and get in a few more hours of sleep, but there is something restricting my movements. The light is too far away for me to reach. I shuffle about in bed, but whatever it is keeps me firmly in place; I’m probably tangled in the sheets. I plunge my hands beneath the covers, but all I’m feeling is bare skin. Weird. Going down further, my hands come into contact with skin other than my own... on top of my stomach.

“Mmm...”

Gerard is moaning!

And his arm is across my stomach!

“Uh... Gerard?” I stammer, hoping he’s awake. He doesn’t respond; I try again, wriggling again. “Gerard?”

Once again, he doesn’t say anything, but his arm tightens around me. Fuck... I need to get out of his grasp! Each time I move he hugs me to him tighter. There is no way he’s letting me go. I should wake him up, but I know how stressed out he’s been lately – he needs as much rest as he can get. Seriously, the sacrifices I make for that man.

I attempt to get back to sleep, and strangely it’s not that difficult. Should I be concerned by that?



The bed shifts under a moving weight, rousing me from my sleep. I open my eyes slightly, but remain still. Gerard’s warm breath caresses my neck, making my heart beat faster out of nervousness over what will happen next. His face nuzzles my neck... oh, God. As if slapped across the face, he abruptly stops, pulling his arm away from my stomach where it has been resting for hours.

“Shit...” he mutters.

The bed shifts again as the warmth of his body leaves me. He rolls away from me and gets out of bed. I listen as he pads across the carpeted floor toward the door. I risk opening my eyes further to watch him; his clothes are clutched to his chest in his arms, his body still only covered by his underwear. The bedroom door is tugged open quietly, casting a soft yellow glow into the room from the hallway light. I quickly snap my eyes shut again as his head starts to turn toward me – I don’t need Gerard to know I’m awake. A few seconds later I hear him move again before the door clicks shut softly.

I want to get out of bed, but coming out so soon after Gerard leaving will be a clear indication that I’m aware of what went on under the cover of darkness. I know it was an accident, most likely Gerard’s mind imagining me to be Toby, but it doesn’t stop me questioning how something like that happened for so long.

To cover myself, I don’t get out of bed for another half hour. I dress in the clothes I wore yesterday, make the bed as neatly as I can, make a quick pit stop in the bathroom to relieve myself, and take myself into the kitchen. Gerard’s already in there, cooking something over the stove that smells absolutely delicious.

“Morning,” I say, trying to keep my voice as even as I can.

He nods curtly; things are awkward between us already. I’ve got to say something that’ll ease his mind, because, quite frankly, I can’t put up with his silent treatment right now.

“I don’t know about you Gerard, but I had the best night’s sleep; I didn’t wake once,” I lie. I notice he looks a little calmer following that statement. I add, “I really need to ask Alicia where she got that mattress, seriously, I’ve never slept better in my life.”

He nods again. All his attention seems to be focussed on the breakfast he’s cooking; he’s really in his element right now.

“You’re really at home in a kitchen, aren’t you?” I ask Gerard.

“It’s the only talent I have that, no matter what shit life throws at me, I’m always going to need to do – I have to eat,” he replies, not looking up from the frying pan. “Art’s different – I can’t always bring myself to do it; painting a picture won’t cure Mikey’s cancer, but cooking for him will keep him alive just a little bit longer.”

That’s a very candid confession from him, and it shocks me that he admitted it so openly with no real provocation from me.

“That was very honest,” I say.

He, for the first time this morning, looks at me, the spatula he’s holding paused over the steaming frying pan. “After our conversation yesterday, I was under the impression that you wanted me to tell you things now; I’m trying to honour that.”

Gerard Way is trying to be honest with me? Gerard Way is actually opening up to me? He’s doing all this willingly. I think I’m about to faint!

“Uh, thanks for trusting me,” I reply.

He trains his eyes on mine; I’d be completely unnerved if his eyes didn’t look so kind. “Thank you for giving me someone to trust.”

We hold eye contact for much longer than we should, making me wonder if what happened in bed last was really an accident. But of course it was an accident! He thought I was Toby, that’s got to be it. I should look away, but it’s impossible.

“Good morning you two!”

That snapped me out of it.

Gerard averts his eyes from mine immediately. “Morning, Alicia. You feeling better today?”

“A little,” she says, rubbing her swollen stomach. “This one’s going to be a liability in the mosh pit, though, let me tell you; stomping away in there as if they’re at Metallica.”

I can’t help but smile at her analogy for the baby kicking. “Most people would say that their baby was going to be a soccer player.”

She waves her hand dismissively. “Screw soccer, rock concerts are where it’s at.”

The three of us laugh and nod knowingly. The light heartedness would last if it weren’t for the ghastly coughing coming from the living room. I’d almost forgotten about Mikey... almost.

“I’ll go,” Alicia says, noticing the frying pan Gerard was still holding.

I watch her waddle from the room, noticing the tension in her muscles as she moves. When she’s out of sight I return my attention to Gerard. He’s carefully extracting a monster sized omelette from the base of the pan to a wooden cutting board. Leaving the pan on the stove, he opens the overhead cabinet and gets out a small stack of plates, lining them up side by side on the bench top next to the stove. Taking a knife, he cuts the circular omelette into quarters, then places one on the centre of each plate. He opens the oven door and takes out a steaming plate of bacon. As he dishes out the bacon I start to feel a little uneasy.

“Uh, Gerard,” I say as he’s working on the third plate. “I really appreciate this, but I’m a vegetarian...”

“I know,” he says matter-of-factly. The oven door is opened again and he extracts another plate. “Steamed asparagus,” he replies with the hint of a smile on his lips, “cooked just for you.”

I’m surprised that Gerard remembered, or even knew, that about me. And even with the knowledge, most people would just ignore it and plate me up the non-vegetarian options.

I attempt to thank him, but he holds up his hand to silence me.

“There’s no need, this is just common courtesy.” He gathers up two of the plates and nods at the other two. “Bring them out, will you?”

I do as he says, but as I follow him through to the living room I can’t help but think about how important this vegetarian food is to our overall friendship. Gerard only takes notice of people’s little idiosyncrasies if they have some kind of importance in his life, that’s why he treats Mikey, Alicia, Ellie, and Toby so well in comparison to, well, everyone else in the world. If he knows I’m a vegetarian, and goes out of his way to cook food especially for me, then that must mean I have some kind of place in his life above the rest of the world.

In the living room, Alicia is delicately propping Mikey up on the couch with a pillow. While she’s doing this, Mikey rubs her belly; he is visibly exhausted, but in his eyes you can see a calm contentment. He gives Alicia a lazy smile when she’s done, and she lowers herself down to kiss his lips.

I turn my attention back to Gerard; from somewhere, who knows where, he’s found a tray and is prepping it for Mikey. Along with the beautiful breakfast he’s cooked, there is a small medicine cup beside the plate that Gerard is placing tablets into. There are so many; Mikey must be in a lot of pain to need all these.

“What are they?” I ask Gerard.

He upends the medicine cup onto his hand and tells me the names of each tablet as he places them back in the cup one by one. “Actiq, for the pain, Anzemet, to help prevent nausea and vomiting, Busulflex, specifically for Leukaemia, Neutroval, to help reduce his neutropenia, and Anexsia, chronic pain medication.”

What do I say to that? I look from the now full medicine cup to where Mikey is on the couch, and then back to the cup. It is ridiculous – someone so young shouldn’t need all this medication.

Gerard touches my arm gently. “I know,” he says softly.

He picks up the tray and carries it over to Mikey, placing it gently on his lap. While he does this, Alicia takes a seat at the table, choosing the chair that faces the sofa. Gerard rejoins us and we sit on either side of her so no one has their back to Mikey. There is some conversation, but the majority of it is shared memories between the three of them; something I, for obvious reasons, am unable to participate in. I listen to what they say, but I’m mainly watching their body language. Their eyes constantly flick toward Mikey, as if they need verification that he is still breathing. I guess you can’t blame them, but it must be unnerving for him.

We stay at the apartment until nine o’clock, when Gerard announces that we should be getting back to the office before Ellie disconnects the phone for ringing too much. Alicia looks disappointed, but she covers it well with a broad smile. Gerard hugs Alicia, kisses her cheek, then embraces Mikey much like he had when he greeted him yesterday – as if it’s the last time they’ll ever see each other. I guess with the amount of drugs Mikey has to take, it very well could be. I hug Alicia goodbye, and to my surprise, Mikey instructs me to hug him, too.

“Just don’t make it gay,” he says jokingly.

I laugh awkwardly, unfortunately recalling what happened with Gerard during the night, and hug him as masculinely as I can. He smiles at me when I step back and weakly waves goodbye.

Once outside the apartment door, Gerard and I take the elevator down to the ground floor and head over to his car. There’s a parking ticket under his wiper blades, which he ignores. Inside the car, he turns the key in the ignition and immediately flicks on the windscreen wipers, slashing the ticket in half and sending it flying off in the distance as he pulls away from the curb.

I glare at him; he shrugs his shoulders. “If they really want to fine me, they’ll send the ticket to me in the mail.”

I turn away from him and cross my arms over my chest. The rest of the drive is spent in conversational silence, a heavy rock ballad filling the car instead.



It’s just after nine o’clock. I’ve been in my room all evening after a long day spent in that damn office working my butt off. Ellie left food for us in the oven, but I just wasn’t that hungry, so I retired to my room to work more on that song I’ve been writing for the past couple of weeks. But now I’m hungry, so I’m headed down stairs.

As I touch my bare feet to the bottom step I hear a loud banging noise. It’s coming from the office.

What the fuck?

I pause, contemplating whether I should call the police or not. Gerard didn’t come upstairs this evening; he would have heard if someone had have broken in. That means... it has to be Gerard?

The noise gets louder as I move closer to the office door. I poke my head around the door; my office is clear, but the noise is louder. I take a few tentative steps inside, then look toward Gerard’s office. The double doors are wide open and the couch has been overturned. Not thinking of the consequences, I run toward his office.

“What the...”

The office has been ransacked, and Gerard is the one who has done it! And he’s not finished either.

I step back into the corner as my boss flings around anything and everything he can find. He tears the artwork from the walls and jams his foot through each of the canvas. Pens, staplers, sheets of paper, and magazines fly everywhere, landing on the upturned furniture, on the floor, slamming into walls. I have to admit, I’m frightened by this sudden rage Gerard is in, but I’ve got to stop him.

“Gerard!” I shout. “Stop! Just stop!”

His head snaps in my direction, hazel eyes on fire, teeth gritted together, his fists clenched tightly. He runs toward me and slams me against the wall.

I latch onto his shoulders and stare hard, desperately, into his eyes. “Gerard!” I roar. “What’s wrong?!”

He, if it at all possible, drives me into the wall harder. “Everything!” I stare deeper into his eyes, squeeze his shoulders tighter, hoping he’ll tell me more. As if a switch was flicked in his head, his eyes soften, looking regretful. He loosens his grip and drops his head onto my shoulder. “Everything,” he says softly.

Without a second thought, I wrap my arms around him in a hug. He’s breathing heavily on my shoulders, balling my shirt up between his fingers. After a minute, I push him away from me gently and indicate for him to follow me out into the living room. He walks ahead of me and slumps down onto the couch. I give him a couple of minutes to collect his thoughts before I ask him again what’s wrong.

“So,” I say quietly, “what made you so angry that you felt you had to destroy your office?”

He takes in a breath, then raises his head to meet my eyes. “He’s been cheating on me.”

Toby has been cheating on Gerard Fucking Way? Oh my fucking God!

“You’re kidding,” I say, although I know he’s not.

He shakes his head. “Alicia called me,” he mumbles. “She saw him in the parking lot at Wal-Mart, kissing and feeling up some guy; he didn’t even care that she had seen him.”

“Have you spoken to him?” I ask.

“I called him straight away,” he replies, “he didn’t even bother trying to deny; he said it was my own fault.”

What a load of shit. “Fuck him! It’s his loss.”

“No it’s not,” he replies, “I’m an asshole – you’ve said it yourself. Why wouldn’t he want someone else?”

I touch my hand to his knee. “Yeah, you are an asshole, Gerard, but you’re also kind, and selfless, and dedicated – he’ll never find anyone better than that.”

Why am I praising Gerard so highly? I don’t know. But, honestly, I don’t feel like I’m lying. Toby is the one that’s lost out here, not Gerard. There’s someone so much better out there for him, I know it.

“Stop lying,” he says, sounding defeated.

I sigh heavily, removing my hand from his knee and standing up.

“Gerard, if you ask me, you need to take some time out from all this drama,” I say, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

I leave Gerard alone in the living room with his thoughts. There’s not much else I can say to him that he’ll believe right now while he’s still devastated about Toby. As I head upstairs to bed, I can’t help smiling to myself; Toby is most definitely out of the picture now, and I couldn’t be happier. The man was insufferable – an annoying, whiny, little arrogant pig of a man. Gerard is better off without him, and as a result of Gerard becoming a singleton, I get some much desired peace and quiet. So really, this is a happy ending for everyone. I will definitely fall asleep smiling tonight.



Fuck!

I wake with a start – and a fast forming bruise.

“What the hell?” I demand.

Gerard is standing at the foot of my bed with an impatient expression on his face. I, with only my Simpsons sleep pants on, am lying under the covers and for some reason now have a large gym bag on my chest.

“Pack what you need for three days,” he says, then turns around and heads for the door.

“Um, excuse me, asshole, can I have an explanation please?” Fuck being polite – it’s too early for this shit.

He looks at me as if it were obvious; I glare back at him to let him know that is most certainly isn’t. He shrugs. “I’m taking your advice; I’m getting away from all the drama in my life.”

I glance at the bag on my chest and back to him. “And this factors in... how?”

“You’re coming with me.”

Apparently, I don’t get a say in this, because he’s already out of my room before I even have a chance to open my mouth.

Time to pack, I guess.