“Frank! It’s been over a week! You need to leave your apartment!” Stacey yelled, banging on the door. Her face had half-healed stitches lining the sides, making a grotesque line from mouth to ear. The door opened and she stepped inside, taking off her coat. “Frank, come on…”
Frank sat on his couch, in grey sweat pants and no shirt. He stared lifelessly at the blank TV, Gerard’s sketchbook in his lap. “He wrote me a song,” he whispered. “Quite a few, actually.”
Stacey sat down next to Frank and studied him closely. There were bags under his eyes and he was noticeably skinnier. “You haven’t been eating have you?” Stacey murmured, picking up one of Frank’s slim wrists. “Frankie…”
“Haven’t slept either. I can’t…” Frank mumbled, pulling his wrist back. It came to rest on the cover of the sketchbook in his lap. “It’s my fault what happened.”
Stacey sighed and shook her head. “No, Frankie, it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know that was Gerard in the bar fight.”
“He was coming to see me, Stacey,” Frank said, sudden ferocity in his voice. “He escaped because I didn’t fucking visit him. If I’d just visited more often…” he trailed off, his voice small. “If I’d just visited…”
Frank opened the sketchbook and flicked through quickly, eventually stopping on one page. “He wrote a lot of songs. Some I’m not sure what they’re about but I can tell which ones are for me.” He placed his finger on one song. “This one is addressed to me. See here? To Frank.”
Stacey leant over and began reading the lyrics scrawled across the page. Frank smiled softly as the words formed in his head. “I love this one. You can almost tell he’s talking about being in love with a boy…with me…”
Stacey smiled as well as she read the line Frank pointed out. They always told me that you’d never get to heaven with a love like yours. “Stupid homophobes,” Stacey laughed, a tear escaping her eye. “Kissed all the boys in the city lights?”
Frank shrugged. “I suppose he had other boyfriends before me.” he reasoned.
Stacey caught sight of one line and ran her finger along it, more tears falling. “I lost my way in your city lights…” she whispered.
Frank nodded. “Yeah…” he mumbled, tears of his own threatening. He sniffed and quickly flicked to a different page. “This one is one of my favourites.” He smiled. He cleared his throat before singing the words out loud.
Well they encourage your complete cooperation
Send you roses when they think you need to smile
I can’t control myself because I don’t know how
And they love me, oh well honestly; I’ll be here for a while
So give them blood, blood, galleons of the stuff
Give them all that they can drink and it will never be enough
YOU ARE READING
The Institute (Frerard)
FanfictionFrank Iero has just started work at Glenside Mental Institute, New Jersey. All seems easy enough, until he's assigned to the new patient, Gerard Way. [only read if you canstand chapters shorter than frank himself]
