WAIT || frerard

0.4

Their days became routine. The mornings were freezing but Frank would get up without fail. Gerard would follow. They would collect eggs from the chickens and muck out the pigs. Around 8am, Mikey would join them and help with the sheep and the cows. Ray would never get up to help, he always stayed in bed.

"It's really irritating," Mikey began. "How he gets to stay in bed however long he likes. Why do we have to muck out the animals while he gets to stay in the warm? It's not fair."

Gerard didn't answer. He was looking at Frank, the expression on the boy's face showed that he was the one going to respond. Gerard watched as small puffs of warm breath flurried for a millisecond in the icy air as Frank exhaled.

"He is having some issues," Frank said. He was choosing his words carefully, tongue shaping the words before the came out. "I overheard Maggie talking to Mrs Hampshire the other day; I don't think he is taking his medication properly. There seems to be too many tablets left in the package than there should be."

The three boys were silent. They all stood watching the window of the bedroom they shared.

Gerard leaned his arm onto the handle of his shovel and sighed. "Let's just leave it, alright? Mrs Johnson is very strict with the fact that everyone should pull their own weight. I doubt she would let him stay in his room if there was no reason to."

"Hmm," came Mikey's response.

-

Gerard was still learning to read. Everyone was very patient with him, they sat and listened helped him when he got stuck on words or phrases and he was gradually making his way through The Hobbit. One day he would finish it, and he would so happy. He had told Frank one afternoon, sitting in front of the fire, that he was going to send the book home to his mother one he had finished it so she could read it and distract herself from the war raging on in the skies above them.

"Do you want me to read a bit?" Frank asked. He was facing the fire, the light staining his skin orange and cheeks flushed from the heat. They were the only two in the room, it was still and relaxing.

"Okay," Gerard said and handed the book to him.

Frank's voice was like heaven to his ears. "The dwarves listened and shook their beards, for they knew that they must soon venture into that forest and that the mountains after it was the worst of the perils they had to pass before they came to the dragon's stronghold."

Gerard wondered if he was supposed to like the sound of another boy's voice.

"When dinner was over they began to tell tales of their own, but Beorn seemed to be growing drowsy and paid little heed to them."

Gerard wondered if he was supposed to like being in the room with Frank and only Frank.

"They spoke most of gold and silver and jewels and the making of things by smith-craft, and Beorn did not appear to care for such things: there were no things of gold and silver in his hall, and few save the knights were made of metal at all."

Gerard wondered what Frank would think if he knew he was wondering all of these things.

When the chapter was over and Frank was tired from reading, they sat together on the sofa. The wireless played quietly in the background. "Thanks for reading," Gerard said. He turned his head to study Frank.

"It's fine."

There was pause; Gerard knew what Frank was thinking about. He always thought about the same thing when there was quiet.

"What do you think it would be like to fight, Gerard? In the war, I mean? To actually do something? Be brave for our country?"

"I don't know. Terrifying would you think? When I lived in London, there was no end of gentlemen coming back home, but they were not the gentlemen that had left. Some of them came back legless or armless. Others were missing ears and no end of them blinded. When there wasn't the physical injuries there was the mental ones. Mr Loaker shot himself four times in the leg just to come home for a few weeks. Mother and I could hear him screaming in the night time, it was horrendous."

"But at least they did something. They did all of that for their country and the people who live in it, the millions of strangers they don't know just so they can have a better life time. Don't you think it is amazing? Don't you think it is heroic?"

"What is it you like about the war?" Gerard asked.

"Nothing," Frank responded. "It's awful."

Slowly, he moved his hand along the fabric of the sofa. The light from the fire had died down a lot and the occasional crack popped loudly through the air. Gerard was so conscious of Frank's fingers sliding along the fabric that he could hardly think to get his words out. "But it's all you think about. Whenever it's quiet or there is time to think you always go back to the war. You say how gallant the soldiers are and heroic they are. And don't get me wrong, I am really grateful for what they're doing; laying down their lives for our country but the way that you speak about it, almost as if you think us cowardly for not being able to fight- you think of yourself this way especially! But you going off to fight, when you know full well the homophobic bastards in your group will cause you more pain than the blasted Nazis will. There is being heroic, Frank and there is being suicidal."

Frank stared long and hard at Gerard's face. He hadn't seen Gerard have an outburst like this before. "You've known me for what, a month now? You don't know what I'm thinking," Frank's response was quiet, calculated and it scared Gerard ever so slightly. "You think I need protecting because I'm ponsy homo, is that what it is? Or is it that you think I'd be wasting government funds trying to suck the dick of every soldier I see?"

Gerard's heart pounded in his chest. "Frank, I didn't-"

"But you did!" Frank pulled his legs up from the sofa and slammed his way from the room. How this relaxed evening could have ended up this way Gerard didn't know.

-

Frank wasn't going to come in for dinner. He'd shouted at Ray when he had gone to fetch him from the garage. Maggie was fuming. "There is no way he is sitting out there like a stroppy five year old, freezing to death so he can sulk." She had stormed out of the kitchen in her slippers and returned two minutes later pulling the short boy by his shoulder into the kitchen.

"Frank, why are you being like this?" Mikey questioned as he helped Maggie clear the plates away from the table once dinner had finished.

"Hmm, why don't you ask your fuck head of a brother?"

There was a loud bang as Mrs Johnson slammed the wooden spoon down onto the counter top. Frank's expression changed from the one of thunderous anger for the first time throughout dinner. His eyes were laced with uncertainty and a little bit of fear upon seeing the sight of their guardian. "Master Iero," Maggie began. "I heard all of the conversation between you and Gerard earlier today that has resulted in you being in this foul mood. You put words in his throat, jumped to conclusions and didn't listen properly to the words of warning he was giving you. Then you have the audacity to refuse sitting at my table for dinner that has been cooked for you, might I add and finally, you use vile language towards another member of this household at the dinner table. Now, I know I take your bad language very lightly most times because usually you cannot help yourself, the words fall out of your mouth before you even have time to think but I do know when that bad language has been used for spite. You will apologise to Gerard for your childish behaviour or you will go to your bedroom until you can behave like the young adult you are supposed to be."

"You can't do that, you're not my mother."

"No, I am not. But I have let you live in my home, free of change, out of the goodness of my heart for the last three and a half months and I would like to think you respect me enough to do this for me."

Frank looked at Gerard and opened his mouth. Gerard heard a small intake of breath as Frank prepared to speak but no words came. Instead, the legs of Frank's chair scraped loudly across the kitchen floor as he stood swiftly up, flicked his gaze across the other three boys at the table and left the room. The sound of his footsteps on the stairs and the landing floor above them thudded, then the bedroom door slammed and the house fell quiet.

;