Desolation Row

2

After leaving, Gerard had contemplated what had just happened. Did Frank really want to see him again? Was Frank even real? Why wasn't he afraid like everyone else? Gerard didn't know, but that was okay; he was going to find out eventually. Gerard was on a mission to completely decipher the ways of this twisted world, and Frank Iero was just a small part of it.

He had returned home to find his brother Mikey on the phone, frantically typing a message to who Gerard assumed was either their mother, considering how he had ran off earlier, or one of his pot-dealers, because that was just how Mikeu was. He cleared his throat, calling attention to himself. Mikey's head instantly snapped to his direction, slipping his phone back into his pocket.

"Gerard, where the hell did you go?" He sighed. "Jesus Christ, what happened to your hand? Your a mess."

"I just went for a walk," Gerard lied. "I tripped and scratched my hand, but I'm fine." Mikey never believed him about the Dracs, and he'd feel like a fool admitting that they weren't after him this time. Unless Frank was one of them...

"Okay, whatever. I'm going over to Ray's house, Mom will be home in an hour or something."

"Okay. Have fun, Mikey," Gerard replied, feeling relieved to have some time alone to think. Mikey just nodded his head and walked out, not giving two shits about his mentally-unstable brother.

Sure, the Way brothers were close, and Michael hated when Gerard was hallucinating, but sometimes it was just too much, so he would just go to Ray's house and get so stoned and wasted that he'd forget all about it for a few hours.

That was okay. Gerard needed a few hours to figure out the mysteries of Frank Iero anyway.

Later, Frank had finally decided to leave the prison and return home. It was still hours away from when school would be done, but it didn't matter because the school probably called Mrs. Iero the second Frank didn't enter math class. As he approached his home, he could already see his mother standing on the front steps. He couldn't tell if she was furious or worried so he just continued making his way toward her.

He was standing on the first step and calmly waiting for her reaction. But all she did was look over Frank and sigh, collapsing into the rickety porch swing. Frank crossed his legs like a five-year old in front of her. Waiting.

Mrs. Iero sighed again. "School called, Frank. Why did you ditch class again? You used to be a straight-A student and now... Why?"

Frank shrugged. "I was chased. They were going to beat me up, so I ran." He replied in a bored voice. She gasped, like every other time. Why didn't she get it? Why was she always surprised? Frank hated school as much as the next kid, but he wouldn't just ditch. The school was fucking 5 miles away from where he lived. Why the hell would he want to walk that?

However, he took the gasp as a dismissal and ran up to his room. Luckily it was Thursday, only one more day until he was free from that hell-hole and could do whatever he wanted. Maybe he'd ask Gerard to meet him again this weekend... That's one thing that kept popping into Franks head; Gerard. The madman that Frank had recently found infatuating, and was lucky enough to get to see him the next day at 4pm tomorrow. Frank shook the thought straight out of his head. It couldn't be normal to think about someone you just met that often, right?

So instead he turned on his radio and absolutely blasted Smashing Pumpkins as loud as he possibly could, like holy fuck goodbye eardrums loud. The music sure as hell didn't get rid of the questions Frank so desperately needed the answers to, but that was perfectly fine when he thought about it. Gerard certainly wasn't a bad thing to think about. The madman inside him just made him the way that he was, and by the end of the night, Frank had come to the conclusion that there were psychotic features in of all of us.

Maybe that's what Gerard was running from; a world full of madmen.