I Wasn't Asking for the World

Gerard quietly pulled the door shut until it clicked, and walked down the hall into his own room. Mikey had finally fallen asleep, without a word and after a lot of crying. Gerard had never seen Mikey in this way before and it made him anxious and slightly scared.

He didn't know what to do. He couldn't understand sign language and he knew they wouldn't be able to carry on writing things down. It just wasn't convenient enough. He wanted to phone Frank but he didn't want to complicate things even more than was necessary. He was going to have to phone someone though, and get some help.

Gerard sat himself down on his unmade bed, tucking his feet underneath him and grabbing his cell phone from his bedside cabinet and flipping through his contacts. Once he found the one he was looking for, he pressed select and waited for them to pick up.

"Hello?" Peter's recognisable voice said, groggily on the other end. Gerard looked over at the clock and cringed as he noticed it was nearly one o'clock in the morning.

"Oh, Peter. Sorry. I didn't realise it was so late. I'll call back tomorrow," he said quickly.

"Gerard? No it's okay. I was awake anyway finishing some things. What's wrong? Is Mikey okay?" Peter asked, clearing his throat.

"Yeah he's okay, well actually maybe he's not." Gerard said frowning at himself as he stumbled over his words.

"What's wrong?" Peter asked again.

"He's stopped talking. He's using sign language again and I don't know what to do about it. I can't understand him and it's just not sensible to be writing things down all the time. What do I do?" Gerard asked.

"Wait a minute, why is he not talking again? What happened?"

Gerard swallowed hard and scratched the back of his neck, guiltily "Frank broke up with him," he mumbled.

"What?! Why?"

"I don't know. He just sent Mikey a letter saying that things weren't working out. Mikey's dropped out of university." Gerard explained.

Peter was silent for a moment and all Gerard could hear was his heavy breathing. "That ass hole." He finally mumbled.

"What do I do about Mikey though?" Gerard asked, trying to sway the conversation away, slightly.

"Uhm okay. Just be there for him just now. It's too late at night to think of anything reasonable to say. I'll come round tomorrow and talk to him." Peter said.

"He wont talk back," Gerard said, thinking that Peter didn't understand the extent of the problem.

"I know but I can understand sign. You didn't seriously think that I had him in my care for eight years and didn't communicate with him at all did you?" Peter said.

Gerard blushed, feeling foolish, even though Peter couldn't see him. "Right. Of course. Well I'll see you tomorrow then?" Gerard said.

"Yeah. Don't worry about it Gerard. He'll get over it eventually. We just need to be there for him." Peter said.

"Yeah I know, I'll see you later. Goodnight Peter," Gerard said. Peter said goodnight and they hung up on one another. Gerard sat on his bed and stared at the floor for a couple of moments, still thinking about what he could possibly do about Mikey.

Even though he had known that Mikey had gone through this before and turned out perfectly fine, Gerard had never been around to witness it. He found it more difficult than he thought he would. He thought that Mikey was past that part of his life since Gerard had re-entered it but obviously it was still part of him and probably always will be. Gerard would either just have to adjust to it, or get Mikey to start talking again. Either way it wasn't going to be easy.