Caraphernelia {Frerard}

c h a p t e r s e v e n t e e n

Caraphernelia

My nerve to easy to break, a brave face is too hard to fake, stressed out and I'm losing the will

Neck Deep - Blank Pages

f r a n k

I didn't reply, I couldn't reply. I didn't take his hand into my own and I didn't attempt to reach for it. I was disgusted with Gerard.

I was completely aware that he didn't want to be with me anymore, I knew that he didn't feel up for us being together, nor wanting to relive anything from our past but how could the man want to be friends? Us, two messed up men with a child's mind, become friends once again when we had been so much more once before. I wouldn't let myself get into anything like that.

I turn away from Gerard and his out stretched hand, going into my pocket to pull out my phone. I unlock it and head to my contacts, tapping Mikey's name. I wait for him to answer, knowing it was unorthodox for me to be calling Mikey when his brother was trying to become my friend right behind me.

"Frank? Where are you, dude? It's been like -- fifteen minutes and you're not even back yet."

A smile graces my lips at the worried tone, the background noise telling me he had left the bar and was on the road side, looking around for me, "I'm down the side of the bar, with uh -- Gerard. Can we... Go home, or... Just leave here?"

"You're with him? Damn, I didn't expect you to try and talk to him so quickly." Mikey chuckles to himself before continuing, "don't worry dude, I'm on my way."

Mikey hangs up on me without saying anything more, leaving me alone with Gerard once again. I heard his footsteps echo throughout the alleyway as he got closer and closer to me, chuckling much like his younger brother had only seconds ago, "damn, you're really reliant on him, aren't you? Since when did you become me? When did Mikey take up your role as the 'protector?'"

"Since you left and I had no one to protect."

"So Mikey came along... Looked after you? I don't understand -- you guys were never close when I was around. What happened when I wasn't there?" I freeze up, praying to anyone above or below that Gerard didn't connect the dots, that it wasn't obvious what had happened to make me so dependant on Mikey twenty-four-seven. That would just be another major bump in the road for all three parties involved here.

I look up at Gerard, his eyes already boring into my flesh as he awaited his explanation that he would be waiting forever for. An arm slips around my waist, taking my attention away from my ex boyfriend and onto his younger brother. I didn't mean for it to happen when a smile instantly lit up my face, Mikey's presence making me so much more comfortable than Gerard's had been for the last ten or so minutes.

It wasn't until Mikey smiles back and wraps his arm around me tighter, pulling me a little closer to him that I start to relax, starting to feel that it wasn't so bad after all, seeing Gerard again.

"... Holy fuck, no way."

Oh, but I was all wrong. I look back at him, watching his eyes dart between me and his younger brother, trying to establish what was supposedly happening, "Mikes... You have ten fucking seconds to explain yourself before I fucking lose it."

I had seen Gerard angry before -- sometimes even angrier than he was now, fucking livid at times -- but never in my life had I thought he was be angry at Mikey and I never knew Gerard had it in him to sound so hostile towards his own little brother.

I worried for the younger Way brother, not exactly knowing what Gerard could do if the wrong words were said or he just lost it, but Mikey didn't feel the same. Instead, he grins, laughing even, as he tries to come up with that ten second explanation. In the end, he just shrugs in a response, "finder's keepers?" Mikey tries, his statement coming out more in the form of a question than anything, yet it certainly was something that Gerard would want to here.