.asylum.
//TW - suicide & depression mentions\\
"-I mean, you've got me." Frank's voice speaks up, breaking through my train of thought. I knew he had been speaking before that, but I was too worried about my own safety and security to actually care about Frank's ramblings. I still seemed to perk up at that hopeful statement that left his lips, my heart metaphorically skipping a beat at how Frank believed that, although all other hopes were seen to be lost, the feeling of us being together was enough. That he was something for me to hold on for, for me to cling onto before I gave up and took an easier way out of being stuck.
"As long as we have each other, Gee. That's what it takes. You can always survive when you have someone, y'know?" Frank's voice slowed, filled with childlike wonder. I begin to smile, only being able to wish to experience the way Frank seemed to look upon the world. Of course he was a psychopathic moron that flirted with anything that moved and was male, but, I guess, he had a different way of thinking.
As if life was a fairy tale for him, despite the horrors he had to go through in the past for his happy ending now.
I then let myself smile, not wanting to hold back. I laugh quietly to myself, only moments later letting out a sigh, dropping my head backwards, leaning it up against the wall. "Is this the part where I tell you that I am in love you, Frankie?"
Frank was silent for a moment, not seeming to move as he contemplated what it was that he wanted to say, that was suitable for what I had forced upon him. It wasn't as if we had much space to move, Michael having taken us -- me -- to a separate quarters to live within for the period of time between getting me to speak and the court date which miraculously seemed to be brought forwards to decide my impending doom after all. The only reason Frank was in here with me was because he seemed to have acquired the skill of sneaking off and around the asylum, not getting caught, even when it was during the night when we were supposed to be trying to grasp unconsciousness.
"You -- only say it if you mean it, Gerard. You can't force something that may not even be there."
Without missing a beat, my mouth opened up and spoke those words, clear as day -- or whatever I remember it to be, having not been out in so long, lacking vitamin D, lacking the warmth from the sun which I so dearly hated -- with no room in the cramped space for either of us to actually pretend it never had been spoken, for either of us to play it off as a joke, "I love you, Frank."
"You're -- you're just saying that, you don't --"
I cut over him, knowing it was just pointless for me to try and go along with it just being a joke, when, all along, it wasn't, the idea of ignoring and avoiding the boy only failed because the whole process of me falling in love with him had been set in the motion and only now did we -- I -- realise it was destined to explode, "I love you, Frank."
Even if it came to the point where I had to pull myself out of the wreckage because that seemed to be something that was a reoccurring scene for anyone that went near Frank Iero, "I really like you." Frank's small, soft voice came out, uncertain and insecure, not wanting to just jump the whole mile and give me the other 'L' word, "like, really, really like you. I wouldn't have -- you know -- I just -- "
As Frank begins stuttering and cursing and pausing in each sentence, it dawns on me that I shouldn't have brought this up so suddenly, I shouldn't have forced him into such an awkward position, even if it did seem like a huge sigh of relief, a weight being removed from my shoulders. I should've thought about Frank before I thought about myself.
"Frank, you don't have to explain yourself to me. You don't have to make any excuses, don't have to think of something good to say. Just... Stop abandoning me." I didn't look up as I heard moving, Frank coming closer to me, lifting my arm up and curling up beneath it, cuddling into my side. Frank doesn't say anything for a long time, neither of us actually knowing what the right thing to say was, so we left it to silence.
