Like Ghosts in the Snow ▹ ▶︎ Gerard Way

▶︎ Still Ill.

▶︎ Cherilynn.

"So, you're probably wondering why we're here-"

"You guys gonna murder me?"

Eating nothing but cheap take-out- if I even got the chance to eat anything at all- for the last few days had finally taken a toll on me.

I'd had my head in the fucking toilet bowl since two or three in the morning. And after, like, six hours of me agonizing on the bathroom floor, Gee realized it would probably be a good idea to make a run to the pharmacy and get me some damn medicine. I was pretty thankful for that, because even Mikey, who was staying in the room in front of ours, had heard my retching.

But on the other hand, I wished Gerard hadn't left because Frank and Val took his absence as a chance to pretty much hold me hostage in my room. So now, I was sitting with my back against the toilet bowl while Val sat on the vanity top, and Frank stood menacingly by the doorway.

Frank and Valentine had a complicated relationship. What had started as playful, harmless banter over which of the two was my best best friend had turned into them straight-up bullying the hell out of each other. And it wasn't, like, friendly bullying or anything since, most of the time, they ended up at each other's throats.

So having them put their differences aside just to be worryingly creepy and go and talk to me while I was alone really scared the living shit out of me.

"No, no... uh," Frank awkwardly started, averting his gaze to Valentine as if asking her, "the fuck are we doing here?" "We just wanted to, well, ask you something... I guess?"

"Cut to the chase, Iero," the way Valentine glared at poor Frank as she spoke almost made me want to laugh since he promptly mirrored her bitchy stare. "We heard you and Gerard are gonna move in together once the tour ends."

The fuck?

I knew gossip traveled fast when you spent about 90% of your time with the same people, but I really didn't expect it to travel this fast.

"Dude, how'd you two even find out? That's creepy as hell."

"Gerard told Mikey, Mikey told me, and this asshole barged into our room and heard-"

"Oh my fucking God, I didn't barge in there! I knocked, like, four times, and you didn't answer."

"Well, maybe just don't walk into a damn room if no one answers the door!"

"Maybe tell your man to stop stealing my damn picks then!"

I silently watch them argue, flipping each other off every five seconds like middle school kids- it was pretty damn entertaining. It really wouldn't surprise me if, one day, they just had a smackdown, WWE-style. If that ever were to happen, my bets were definitely on Val. That girl had so much pent-up anger she could probably take Rocky into a fight.

And she was, like, 4 inches taller than Frank.

"Sorry to interrupt your little fight," I spoke up once their bickering became repetitive rather than funny. "But what does Frank being a pasta-eating little shit- I gotta remind you, Valentine, you're Italian too- or you being a bitch-ass lighting pole have to do with me moving in with Gerard?"

"Oh, right," Val flipped Frank off one last time and then turned to me. "So Thumbelina over there and I were, y'know, discussing earlier today, and we came to the conclusion that you probably didn't think that through well enough."

"Fuck you, Legolas," Frank mumbled under his breath, momentarily making me forget the anger boiling at the bottom of my stomach as I laughed at the stupid nickname. "But, yeah. We just... I don't know. We don't think you were thinking straight when you agreed to move in with him."