Last Chance

“No, Mikey. I didn’t get his last name!” Gerard practically squealed. “He was underage, and I was so stupid, I kept buying him drinks. Then he just ran out this morning!”

“You really should get over your habit of bringing the wrong people home at night, Gee. Not everyone at the bars are who they say they are,” Mikey said, amusement an undercurrent in his voice.

“I know. I just hope he’s okay. He was really sick last night, it’s honestly a surprise he could even move this morning.”

Gerard was in the bathroom of his apartment. He was shoving his hands through his hair, and watching his skin pale in the mirror. The entire morning, he’d paced back and forth in the small flat. Finally, his stress levels got so brain-numbingly high that Gerard had been forced to call Mikey. Mikey was probably at his job, or managing the new comers, but Gerard couldn’t resist.

Mikey had already convinced Gerard not to go out in search of Frank. He said New York was too big for that kind of stupid heroics, and Gerard eventually agreed. The kid was long gone, but Gerard could still feel his presence residing next to to his own guilt.

Mikey had paused for a moment, and Gerard pulled out of his thoughts long enough to become impatient.

“Mikey, how am I supposed to know if he got home okay? It’s like my job to take care of teens, and I’ve failed so horribly. I didn’t even run to catch him, I was too tired. Ah, fuck me,” Gerard babbled until Mikey finally spoke.

“Gerard, what did he look like again?” The tone in Mikey’s voice had Gerard’s mouth snapping shut with a clink.

“Um. Frank? Well, he was short. And he had a couple piercings, I don’t remember where. He was wearing a jacket, and um- he had like a bruise or something on his face.”

Gerard wanted desperately to keep talking, but Mikey’s silence was more weighted than Gerard was used to from his little brother. The seconds slugged on, and Gerard’s panic became that dark, sinking feeling of dread.

“What is it, Mikey?”

“I need to go,” Mikey suddenly said, voice already sounding faraway. Then Gerard’s ear was filled with the tinny buzz that meant Mikey had hung up.

“Fuck,” Gerard said, dropping the phone by the sink. He picked up his pacing again, passing through the few rooms of the apartment. As he went, he pulled various items of clothing from where they’d been discarded ages ago. He tugged on mismatched socks, and found one of his scarves, then suddenly realized he was pantless, so none of that mattered.

When he finally had a pair of jeans on, he grabbed his jacket and phoned Mikey from his cell. He got a busy signal, then sighed and left a voicemail.

“Mikes, I’m going down to headquarters because I can’t stand spending my weekend cooped up and worrying. Call me back when you can. You sounded upset.”

Gerard let out another sigh, and he was surprised by how adult he’d become in the last four years. I mean, he was fucking sighing all the time, and paying bills, and irreparably fucking up. Definitely adult.

Gerard wondered if his eighteen year old self would be happy with the life he had now. Or if he’d see it and regret leaving home so early, trading the fog of suburbia for city lights. Gerard thought about it while he walked out of the building complex and started heading north down the street. The cold didn’t even stop the smile from slipping across his when he realized that his teen self would’ve loved this life. He was saving people, making the world better, and being adult honestly wasn't that bad.

He took back alleys and obscure streets to get to headquarters. It was located on the outskirts of the city, where the skyscrapers melded into warehouses and more spacious living quarters. It was a perfect place, quiet, and with little disturbances, besides from the occasional bumper benders and such.

The warehouse Gerard was heading for was the rusty red of brick. Compared to the warehouses flanking it, it was on the smaller side, with only three stories. Still, it took a large cut of everyone’s pay check each month to pay for its expenses.

It had three sets of three windows, but most had been covered. The lip to the roof was embroidered with simple crowning, and the front door looked like it hadn’t been opened in decades. Well, at least for the last four years.

When Gerard finally got to it, his pointed nose was bitten red and his lips were thoroughly chapped. Worse, Mikey still hadn’t called him back. He sighed and took a moment to collect himself before he went around the back and let himself in using one of the garage doors that lined the far exterior wall.

He entered a closed off storage area. It took up half of the first floor, but the only thing it held were two cars. One was Ray’s and the other was for the ‘community’. Gerard skirted around them to the second door, which led him out into the warehouse’s main floor.

The only things in this half were some boxes and a set of stairs. Weak light filtered in from the street-facing window and the goldish air was filled with dust motes and the cement walls. From above, Gerard could hear swells of conversations, so he headed straight for the stairs.

The third floor had been made into a living space for the new comers, and it included bunks, bathrooms, and a kitchen.

On the other hand, the open second floor had been converted into a makeshift office. When the organization had gotten big, desks had been added to line the walls, along with filing cabinets and printers. They even had a fucking water-cooler, and Gerard liked to pride himself on that.

The desks were organized into three sections: I.D.s, jobs and housing, and pickups. Then there was Gerard’s desk, next to the safe and the break area (which was basically just a couch and a couple of chairs shoved into a corner).

He was heading over to his desk when he suddenly caught sight of Mikey. The boy was talking wildly to Ray, and Gerard rushed over.

“Mikey!” Gerard called, then took his brother’s pokey shoulders when he reached them. “What the hell’s going on?” He waved at Ray distractedly then turned back to his brother. “Now tell me!”

Gerard realized then that he must’ve interrupted something serious, because the air felt heavy and Mikey looked flustered.

“Mikey?” Gerard asked again, his voice a trickle of sound.

Finally, Mikey came to life, his face becoming more animated (as much as Mikey’s expression could ever be), and he adjusted his glasses before speaking.

“Sorry I never called back, Gee. I just had to talk to Ray first to confirm.”

Gerard opened his mouth to express his confusion, but Mikey went on.

“Gerard, the Frank you met last night- that’s <i> my </i> Frank. That’s my best friend.”

His words were very precise, and Mikey placed emphasis in each syllable, as if that was the only way to make Gerard understand. And maybe it was.

For a moment, Gerard’s brain remained just as jumbled as before, then everything fell into place. He could suddenly recall all of the hundreds of times Mikey had talked about his friend from New Jersey, especially during his first few months of living in NYC. Gerard had never met Frank before, seeing as he’d been gone by the time the two had become friends. He’d never even worked up a mental image of the boy. All he had were stories and Mikey’s obvious love for the boy. Fuck, he should’ve known. How many punk kids were named Frank anyways?

“Are you sure?” Gerard eventually stuttered out.

“Show him, Ray,” Mikey said then, and Ray turned away from them and started clicking away at his laptop. Finally, he pulled up a fuzzy yearbook picture and turned the screen toward Gerard.

“Is that him?” Ray asked, with his abnormally high voice and wide eyes.

Gerard gulped. It was. There was no doubt. The boy in the photo had the same small smirk and quirked eyebrows, despite the fact that the photo must’ve been a couple years old. Gerard could find no words for his astonishment, so he just nodded.

Mikey ran his hands wildly through his tawny hair, and sighed, too deep and too stressed for the boy's small frame. Even though he was almost nineteen, Mikey seemed more adult than Gerard at times like this.

“Gerard, that’s not all.” Gerard looked up from the computer, and Mikey continued, voice weak and worried. “He’s been scheduled for a pickup.”

Suddenly, Gerard brain seemed to short-wire, and frustrated anger raged up his throat and out of his mouth before Gerard could help it. “What the fuck, you guys? How could I fucking not have been told about this? Mikey, he’s your best friend! The police are going to know that, and they’re going to search for him ten times harder when he goes missing because of it!" Mikey's face was stoic, a sure sign that Gerard was hurting him, but he continued anyways. "We can’t just go picking up all the pieces of your old life like that!”

Gerard whistled in a breath through his teeth, then let his pulse calm down. Mikey's shoulders had hunched forward a bit, and his brother's expression helped Gerard get himself under control. He didn’t want to upset his brother any more than he already was. Still, whatever good mood he’d been building up was smashed.

“Ray,” Gerard said finally, “I need you to get me the list of all the pickups for this month. It’s apparent that I need to look over them all.”

Ray looked floored. His mouth moved in silence for a moment, then he nodded. As the organization had grown and grown, Gerard had learned to trust the workers. He rarely ever had to double-check work, or ask for anything other than a progress report, but Gerard could see now that that had been a failure on his part. He obviously needed to watch this ship to keep it afloat, and just keeping the cops away wasn’t enough.

When Ray got over the hurt of Gerard’s mistrust, he began penning down a list of names. He also collected numerous files from his file cabinet, and shuffled through them for bios and addresses.

While Gerard waited, he purposely ignored Mikey, who was in turn purposely ignoring him. One of them had to break and give in, but it wouldn’t be happening soon. Gerard didn’t want it to happen at all. So that’s why, when he had the list of pickups in his hand, he took Ray’s pen and pointedly scratched Frank’s name off the list.

Mikey wailed, and grabbed the pen from Gerard’s hand, anger making his gawky body more awkward. “You can’t do that!” he yelled, but Gerard just shrugged. "What happened to you being worried about him? Wanting to find him?"

Gerard ignored what Mikey said. Truth was, he was still worried, but it was a numbed feeling compared to the panic that bubbled in his chest when he thought of having the police hot on the organization's heels. Which was what would happen if they took Frank into the system.

“He’s not being picked up. It’s too dangerous for him, and especially for everything that we’ve worked for. I’m not taking some kid from his normal life just because you, Mikeyway, want to have him at you disposal.”

Gerard was about to add the <i> ‘you can’t always get what you want’ </i> phrase when he took in Mikey’s shocked face, and something made the well of words dry up. “What?” Gerard snapped.

“Gee, Frank’s not some normal friend I just want to drag into my fucked up life. He’s the one who’s been calling me. And I haven’t answered because you said I needed to leave stuff behind!" The accusing tone of the words made Gerard's chest feel like it was shrinking. "But, Gerard, he needs this as much as any of the other kids we help. I’m not stupid, and Frank’s not okay where he is.” Mikey paused. “Gee, we need to save him. We need to help him run away.”

Gerard stood very still. The words hung in the air, and suddenly his brain began to fill with images from the night before. Frank on the escalator, long before Gerard even knew his name. How the boy had stood alone, but his wicked smile made it seem like he was used to it. Then there was Frank, so small and alone at the bar. Then Frank later that night, disheveled, sick and burdened. His armor had been up even then, and hindsight made everything seem so much more obvious. He was just a kid, really.

And it wasn’t just the boy’s age or looks that had Gerard’s stomach twisting. A lot of it was his own guilt, and his constant need to help the helpless. He’d been born with an empathy as deep as the sea, and it was a constant ocean of nagging and emotional waves. Now, that same empathy was turning the thought of Frank from an almost-hookup- a guilty mistake- into one of Gerard’s other runaways. Just a kid with nowhere to go, and potential just beneath their dirt-dusted skin.

The memory of Frank’s purple marbled cheek flashed through Gerard’s head again, and his choice was made.