I'm the Last One That You'll Ever Remember

Deranged?

Pastel wasn’t deranged!

How dare Poison brand her as deranged!?

“I AM NOT DERANGED!” Pastel refuted intensely, internally horrified that he’d accuse her of being deranged while also trying to work up the grit to match his disdain towards her. Having finally been released from his chokehold, she pushed off from the side of his house to face him with a powerless glare as she massaged the ache from her throat. “DON’T CALL ME DERANGED!”

“Lower your fucking voice!” Poisoned hissed down at her, scaring her back against the wall again without closing in on her. His light brown eyes were almost black with barely detained violence as he glared down at her with his hands curled into lethal fists at his side. She was so lucky the neighbors hadn’t heard her or else he’d have to physically silence her. “Or I’ll crush your fucking throat under my boot!”

Using a vast amount of her strength and courage to straighten her spine and lift her chin fearlessly, Pastel once again pushed back from the house siding to stand firmly on her own two feet. She wasn’t about to let him oppress her into silence. She’d played that game long enough! Now was finally the time for action! “I WON’T LOWER MY VOIC-!”

Before Pastel could finish, the cry of a newborn pierced through the walls of the Iero-Way household sliced through their showdown, thwarting it. Simultaneously, Poison and Pastel’s eyes snapped to the front door of the home.

Locked in silence, Poison prayed Pastel hadn’t heard one of his twin daughters cry out for him.

Pastel had heard the cry of the child, but she had to overlook it. The reason she came here today was to speak face to face with Frank Iero, an obsession of her baby daddy that has been allowed to fester for much too long.

Pastel was pregnant with Poison’s baby, and yet the man couldn’t seem to understand that he was about to be a daddy to this child!

No, it was because he was much too wrapped up in an old flame that should’ve been eradicated a long time ago. While she’d been under Poison this whole time, he’d been pining after a kid he had kidnapped before she’d ever enlisted into the Killjoy, and is now living with the guy!?

With a shake of her head to dissipate that baby’s cry, Pastel turned her attention to the front door and began to close the distance between her and it. “Fine! If you don't give a damn about our baby then perhaps your precious Frank will when he hears about this!”

Stepping into her path with the agility of a ghost before she could reach the door, Poison snarled down in her face. He wasn’t about to let her anywhere closer to his home than she’s already helped herself to, especially with his children presently inside, none the wiser. “Don’t even think about it!”

“I-” Pastel attempted to squabble but was cut off like a hot knife slicing through a person’s tongue.

“If I catch you even THINKING of approaching him…” Poison began, not holding back as he once again walked towards her with a malicious presence that drove her to cower back with each step. “I swear to you you’ll end up in a ditch somewhere with your own umbilical cord wrapped around your cold neck, and that’s exactly how they’ll find you too!”

Placing a protective hand on the barely noticeable belly underneath her oversized dark coat, Pastel trembled under his loathing glare, her shaking knees threatening to fold under his vicious threat. A large part of her wanted to run for the hills to protect not only herself, but her child’s welfare too while she still had the chance. Except there was another part of her that came from having observed her own family history unfurl with single mothers after single mothers raising their children alone. That alone why she refused to back down from her baby’s father’s threat. She was adamant about not raising her child on her own, and so she expected Poison to do his part and raise this baby with her.

Only Poison wouldn’t take ownership of the child within her. He wouldn’t even welcome its existence in his new life. He had two other kids of his own that he was raising, yet and still he wouldn’t even blink at theirs.

Swallowing past the fearful lump in her throat, Pastel tilted her head up higher to look Poison straight in his eyes. Not backing down, she demanded Frank Iero. “No! I want to speak with Frank, and I mean right this minute, Poison!”

Over Poison’s dead body. He’d move heaven in hell within his very soul to mutate into the ideal husband and father. He wasn’t about to let his past exterminate all he’s accomplished and take away the only thing he’s ever wanted in life, Frank Iero.

“I won’t let you get two feet from him!” Poison cautioned her with a menacing grin that was a sign of the atrocity he’s renowned for in the Killjoy. Jabbing a finger over her shoulder in the direction she had come when she decided to drop by unannounced, he growled. “So get the fuck out of here, Lindsey, and never come back again if you know what’s good for you!”

Once again struggling on wobbly knees to face Poison’s wrath, Pastel suddenly began to feel a bit dizzy from the stress of being the target of his hostility. Beginning to feel like she might be beating a dead horse here, her brown eyes suddenly flitted past his shoulder to stare at the front door. It was still shut, but behind it was the whole reason she’d come.

Pastel had sent letters after letters, emails, and text messages to Frank. She’s done everything she could to reach the young man, but to no avail. Not once had he responded to her and that’s why she had to see him face to face, to snitch on Poison. Frank had to know the truth! When he does, he’ll know to back off of Poison and let him return to her. If not, well, she’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t set eyes on her baby daddy ever again then.

With her eyes still on the front door, Pastel mentally pondered if she had the velocity to dart past him and then force the door open to scream to Frank everything that had gone on between her and Poison.

As if reading her mind like a book, Poison spat out another threat to her life if she so much as tried his patience. “I will rip your jawbone right out of your skull with my bare hands before you can even touch that front door!”

Suddenly becoming hurt by Poison’s barrage of genuine hatred for her, Pastel felt her eyes fill with tears as she returned them to his face to plead instead. “Gerard, please…y-you have to be there for your child. Don’t you see? I’m only trying to help you! With him out of the way, you can come back to us again.”

Not willing to entertain such a fantasy from a delusional woman, Poison told her coldly. “Why don’t you do us both a favor, Lindsey, and swallow a gallon of bleach instead so we can call this whole charade a fucking day already?”

Struck speechless, Pastel gaped at him in horror that those words even came out of his mouth and were directed to both her AND their baby.

What monster would say such a thing about his own offspring?

Pastel could only stand and watch as Poison turned around and headed back into his home, slamming the door in finality. She was forsaken in a mess of emotions, one of them being frustration so deep it made her shake in her boots from it.

Poison had asked her to call it a day…to give their relationship and this never-ending quest to get him to be a father to his kid a rest.

No, no Pastel couldn’t do it. No matter how much he wanted her to, no matter how often the little voice in her head warned her to, she couldn’t throw in the towel. Not until Frank knew the whole truth! After observing how Poison rapidly reacted when she mentioned speaking to the young man herself, she knew it was the right move to make. The only move to make. Naturally of course, Pastel knew she couldn’t simply walk up to Frank in a public setting out of the blue because now Poison was ready. She knew him well enough to know he’d go out of his way to be at Frank’s side wherever he went in order to prohibit her from reaching him. If she wanted to get to Frank, she’d have to come up with another plan!

Stomping her foot in irritation, Pastel marched off the property to call a cab a few blocks away.