Catch Me If You Can - Part 12
Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten / Part Eleven
Gerard woke with a start. Bert whimpered against his side.
“Sorry, Bertie...” he said sleepily. The storm was still raging on outside. “What was that?”
A split-second after finishing that sentence, the noise which had startled him awake repeated itself.
BANG BANG BANG
Someone was pounding on the door very loudly to be heard over the pouring rain and whistling wind.
“Sirs! Sirs! Please! You need to get up now!” came the yell from the direction of the door.
“Stay here, Bert,” Gerard told the shaking younger man. Bert only whined in response and tried desperately to cling onto him. Gerard shook him off gently and went to the door. He opened it to find the man from reception. “Yes?”
“Sir, there’s been a warning issued for this area. If you could, please get your partner and head down to the storm cellar,” the man instructed.
“Oh, he’s not my...” But the man was already down the hall, pounding on another door. He ran back into the room. “Bertie? Bertie, I need you to get up. We’ve gotta go down to the storm cellar.” Bert’s only response was to curl in on himself. “Oh, Bert, please...” He walked over and tried to pull him up. He instead only succeeded in making Bert topple to the floor. “Oh god....” Without another moment’s hesitation, he quickly snatched up the room key and stuffed it in his pocket before he bent down and scooped Bert up and carried him bridal-style out of the room. Just as he was turning to try to shut the door, a young woman ducked in front of him and shut it for him. “Thank you,” he said. She smiled before rushing off ahead to the side of another young woman and two children, disappearing down the stairs with them.
As carefully and as quickly as he could, Gerard moved across the outdoor hallway and down the wet stairs, wishing, not for the first time that night, that Bert wasn’t petrified of storms. As soon as he hit the ground floor he rushed for the reception building. The man who’d woken them up was ushering a large family in. He gestured for them to move quicker. Gerard sped up as much as he could, darting into the building. The man came in and shut the door behind himself and ushered them down a hall marked with printed arrows that read ‘storm cellar’.
“Quickly! Quickly! I don’t know how long we’ve got until it passes by!” the man was yelling as Gerard rounded the corner to the doorway.
He was almost to the bottom of the staircase when his wet feet caused him to slip on the cement steps. He felt Bert fly out of his arms as he went down. He toppled down the final few stairs and felt his head bounce off the concrete. The floor beneath him spun for several moments until it all went still and dark.
----
Bert hit the floor and rolled several times before coming to a halt. He blinked up at the ceiling in shock. He had no clue what had happened. One second Gerard was carrying him down a flight of stairs into a storm cellar and the next he was thrown to the floor. Why would Gerard do that?
‘He wouldn’t...’Bert thought ‘Not on purpose...’
He sat up abruptly and looked around the room. There were two women with two young children, a man with a laptop and a family consisting of a man, a woman and six little girls of varying ages. Of course, to him, none of them were of any consequence. He kept skimming around the room until he saw him.
He was a black, unmoving lump at the bottom of the stairs.
“Gerard?” he called, trying to ignore the panic in his gut. “Gerard?” He crawled over to him, disregarding the man who he very vaguely recognized as the receptionist. “G-Gerard? Gee, are you okay? Gee!” He put a hand on Gerard’s side - he was absolutely soaking wet. But then again, Bert thought, so was he.
The thunder suddenly boomed so loud that it could be felt in the ground. Bert squealed and folded in against Gerard’s side.
He spent the rest of the time in the cellar - where he was as best protected as he could be from the threat of a tornado passing by - tucked tightly up against his best friend, ignoring the receptionist promising that as soon as the storm had passed, he was going to call for help.
But as long as he could hearseefeel Gerard breathing and his heart beating, he really couldn’t care less what the man had to say.
The arm across his back may have also helped.
-----Day 21----
When Gerard woke up, his head throbbing, he found himself curled on his side facing Bert who was sitting on a chair next to the bed, gently nudging him.
Wait.... he thought. There was something wrong with that picture.
“Bertie?” he called softly.
“Yeah?” came the equally soft reply.
“What did I do last night? Assuming, of course, that it’s morning...”
“You... decided it’d be fun to throw me down a set of stairs and to hurtle yourself down after me. And yes, it is morning.”
“What?! Okay, I may not exactly be able to remember what happened last night, but I’m pretty damn sure that isn’t what happened.”
Bert giggled. “No, it’s not. You...” Bert winced.
“Bert?”
“You were carrying me into a storm cellar for safety and... you slipped on the last few stairs.”
“Oh, great!” Gerard rolled onto his back. Bert looked at him, perplexed. “I’m a statistic in a stereotype.”
“You already said that.”
“Wha...? When?” he asked as he turned his head to look at Bert.
“When you first woke up last night while we were still in the cellar.” It was Gerard’s turn to look confused. “Do you not remember waking up last night?”
“No... not really... I can remember some of the ambulance ride and waking up a couple of other times, now that I think about it, but not much before that.”
“What’s the last thing you remember from before the ambulance?”
“The arrows on the walls that- actually... slipping is the last thing I remember,” Gerard answered “Then it all gets pretty hazy. I can... kinda remember, I think... slipping an arm around you while we were still on the floor?”
“Yeah...” Bert nodded, smiling “Yeah, you did.”
Gerard was just opening his mouth to say something when a doctor entered the curtained-off ‘room’ they were in.
“Mister Way, it would seem you’re a bit of a wanted man.”
“What?”
“One of the nurses is a friend of one of your friends, apparently, and she recognized your name and, well, you, and mentioned that you are - both of you - in a sense, missing persons.”
“You didn’t...”
“She found me the number and I called your family. I got put on to a man called Brian.”
“We’re dead,” Bert muttered.
“He said they’ll be here later today.”
“No,” Gerard said, flinging back his sheets and standing. “No. I’m not gonna sit here and wait for them. They’re not gonna catch me yet. I’m not going home yet. I’m not legally a missing person, so,” Bert stared at him in shock. “I demand you discharge me.”
“Sir, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You have no medical grounds on which to hold me-”
“Sir, you were knocked unconscious and can’t remember what happened-”
“Yes, I actually can. And there’s nothing to suggest I’m not in my right mind. Now, dis-fucking-charge me.”
----
“My god,” Bert said “You’d think sending them a postcard from every state would be enough to keep them off our backs, but nooooo.”
“What?” Gerard growled, turning a glare on Bert.
Bert happened to think that it was a very good thing that they were in a cab. “Hmm... maybe that wasn’t the best thing to tell you while you’re still all pissy....”
“Ya think! Now tell me what you’ve done.”
“Heh heh... I um... send two postcards from every state we go through - one to your house and one to my... well, one to Branden. I write the same thing on each one. ‘We were here. But now we’re gone.’ I did it out of hope that doing that would be enough to keep them sated... but I guess not...heheh....”
Gerard sighed and looped an arm loosely around Bert’s shoulders. “No, it was a good idea. One we’ll keep using, ‘cause it’s kept us off the official missing persons list....” He was silent for a moment, then laughed randomly.
“I’m starting to wonder if letting you discharge yourself from that hospital was a good idea.”
Gerard frowned at him. “Nah, I’m fine. I was just thinking that I would love to see Mikey’s face when he gets to the hospital and finds out we’re gone... hmm, actually... maybe not... oh! Hey, Bert?”
“Yeah?”
“Was there actually a tornado?”
“Yeah, there was, but it passed a fair ways south of here.”
“Good...” the older man sighed, sinking back into the seat a little. “Let’s go, get our stuff, get the car and get the fuck out of Kansas!”
----
Mikey all but ran into the hospital, his mother, father and Brian right behind him. He went straight to the nurse at the desk.
“Hi, I’m here to see Gerard Way. I’m his brother,” he told the lady.
“Uhh, yes, sir. Just a moment,” she said with an edge of fear in her voice. She then got up and walked away. A few minutes later, a doctor walked through the E.R. room doors.
“Would you be the younger brother of one Gerard Way?” he asked Mikey.
“Yes, and these are our mom and dad.” The man stared at the fuming Brian for a moment. “And that’s our manager, but he’s not important. Where’s my brother?”
“He uhm... checked himself out of the hospital several hours ago.”
“And you let him go?”
“We had no choice, sir. We had no legal or medical grounds to keep him here under. He demanded to be discharged and signed the papers. We couldn’t hold him.”
“I’m gonna kill him. And Bert,” Mikey declared, unintentionally, to the entire waiting room.
Brian added, “But not before I get to skin ‘em.”
----
“Branden, I think I'm starting to really understand what you meant,” Mikey said to the older man several hours later in one of the airport’s dining areas.
“Remind me, what did I say?”
----
They were driving along the highway, zipping past scenery they couldn’t and weren’t really paying attention to.
----
“You said, ‘I think they’re running from something that isn’t chasing them. That it’s riding along with them. That-”
“Yeah... I remember.”
----
Bert looked over to Gerard, who was driving and puffing away on a cigarette. Gerard looked over at him.
“Hmm?”
Bert smiled. “I’m glad you’re okay.” Gerard cocked his head. “I was so worried about you.”
Gerard’s cheeks turned a soft pink hue as he smiled sweetly.
----
“I think... I’m starting to understand the last part of what you said.”
“I thought you understood then.”
“Yeah, but...”
----
It was the sweetest and most genuine smile Bert had seen on him in long time. He couldn’t help but smile back.
----
“....I don’t think I wanted to believe it.”
“I... tried to ignore it at first too... but, when you look at them... It’s always there and it always has been... nothing we could do - and nothing they could do - could get rid of it. And I think...”
----
“Y’know, I’m glad you’re alright too, Bert,” Gerard said, looking back to the road “I’m glad I didn’t hurt you too bad when I dropped you.” He looked back over. Bert rubbed his hip and pouted, looking up at him.
-----
“I think we just have to let them figure that out for themselves....” Branden trailed off.
“Hmm...” Mikey looked down in thought. “So... what do we do while we’re waiting for the idiots to make their realization and come home?”
----
“Bert,” he laughed “I’m serious! I’m really glad you’re okay!”
Bert smiled. “I know.”
----
Branden looked him straight in the eye. “We do what we can to save them from their own damage for when they do come back.”
Mikey nodded. “I know they’ll figure it out eventually... but will it be soon enough?”
They gave each other a half-smile before turning and staring out the window sadly.
“You think they’re running from something?”
“I think.... I think they’re running from something they’re not aware isn’t chasing them. It’s riding right along with them.....” Mikey heard Branden pause.
Then,
“It’s sitting right beside them in the guise of one another.”
Part Thirteen
Gerard woke with a start. Bert whimpered against his side.
“Sorry, Bertie...” he said sleepily. The storm was still raging on outside. “What was that?”
A split-second after finishing that sentence, the noise which had startled him awake repeated itself.
BANG BANG BANG
Someone was pounding on the door very loudly to be heard over the pouring rain and whistling wind.
“Sirs! Sirs! Please! You need to get up now!” came the yell from the direction of the door.
“Stay here, Bert,” Gerard told the shaking younger man. Bert only whined in response and tried desperately to cling onto him. Gerard shook him off gently and went to the door. He opened it to find the man from reception. “Yes?”
“Sir, there’s been a warning issued for this area. If you could, please get your partner and head down to the storm cellar,” the man instructed.
“Oh, he’s not my...” But the man was already down the hall, pounding on another door. He ran back into the room. “Bertie? Bertie, I need you to get up. We’ve gotta go down to the storm cellar.” Bert’s only response was to curl in on himself. “Oh, Bert, please...” He walked over and tried to pull him up. He instead only succeeded in making Bert topple to the floor. “Oh god....” Without another moment’s hesitation, he quickly snatched up the room key and stuffed it in his pocket before he bent down and scooped Bert up and carried him bridal-style out of the room. Just as he was turning to try to shut the door, a young woman ducked in front of him and shut it for him. “Thank you,” he said. She smiled before rushing off ahead to the side of another young woman and two children, disappearing down the stairs with them.
As carefully and as quickly as he could, Gerard moved across the outdoor hallway and down the wet stairs, wishing, not for the first time that night, that Bert wasn’t petrified of storms. As soon as he hit the ground floor he rushed for the reception building. The man who’d woken them up was ushering a large family in. He gestured for them to move quicker. Gerard sped up as much as he could, darting into the building. The man came in and shut the door behind himself and ushered them down a hall marked with printed arrows that read ‘storm cellar’.
“Quickly! Quickly! I don’t know how long we’ve got until it passes by!” the man was yelling as Gerard rounded the corner to the doorway.
He was almost to the bottom of the staircase when his wet feet caused him to slip on the cement steps. He felt Bert fly out of his arms as he went down. He toppled down the final few stairs and felt his head bounce off the concrete. The floor beneath him spun for several moments until it all went still and dark.
----
Bert hit the floor and rolled several times before coming to a halt. He blinked up at the ceiling in shock. He had no clue what had happened. One second Gerard was carrying him down a flight of stairs into a storm cellar and the next he was thrown to the floor. Why would Gerard do that?
‘He wouldn’t...’Bert thought ‘Not on purpose...’
He sat up abruptly and looked around the room. There were two women with two young children, a man with a laptop and a family consisting of a man, a woman and six little girls of varying ages. Of course, to him, none of them were of any consequence. He kept skimming around the room until he saw him.
He was a black, unmoving lump at the bottom of the stairs.
“Gerard?” he called, trying to ignore the panic in his gut. “Gerard?” He crawled over to him, disregarding the man who he very vaguely recognized as the receptionist. “G-Gerard? Gee, are you okay? Gee!” He put a hand on Gerard’s side - he was absolutely soaking wet. But then again, Bert thought, so was he.
The thunder suddenly boomed so loud that it could be felt in the ground. Bert squealed and folded in against Gerard’s side.
He spent the rest of the time in the cellar - where he was as best protected as he could be from the threat of a tornado passing by - tucked tightly up against his best friend, ignoring the receptionist promising that as soon as the storm had passed, he was going to call for help.
But as long as he could hearseefeel Gerard breathing and his heart beating, he really couldn’t care less what the man had to say.
The arm across his back may have also helped.
-----Day 21----
When Gerard woke up, his head throbbing, he found himself curled on his side facing Bert who was sitting on a chair next to the bed, gently nudging him.
Wait.... he thought. There was something wrong with that picture.
“Bertie?” he called softly.
“Yeah?” came the equally soft reply.
“What did I do last night? Assuming, of course, that it’s morning...”
“You... decided it’d be fun to throw me down a set of stairs and to hurtle yourself down after me. And yes, it is morning.”
“What?! Okay, I may not exactly be able to remember what happened last night, but I’m pretty damn sure that isn’t what happened.”
Bert giggled. “No, it’s not. You...” Bert winced.
“Bert?”
“You were carrying me into a storm cellar for safety and... you slipped on the last few stairs.”
“Oh, great!” Gerard rolled onto his back. Bert looked at him, perplexed. “I’m a statistic in a stereotype.”
“You already said that.”
“Wha...? When?” he asked as he turned his head to look at Bert.
“When you first woke up last night while we were still in the cellar.” It was Gerard’s turn to look confused. “Do you not remember waking up last night?”
“No... not really... I can remember some of the ambulance ride and waking up a couple of other times, now that I think about it, but not much before that.”
“What’s the last thing you remember from before the ambulance?”
“The arrows on the walls that- actually... slipping is the last thing I remember,” Gerard answered “Then it all gets pretty hazy. I can... kinda remember, I think... slipping an arm around you while we were still on the floor?”
“Yeah...” Bert nodded, smiling “Yeah, you did.”
Gerard was just opening his mouth to say something when a doctor entered the curtained-off ‘room’ they were in.
“Mister Way, it would seem you’re a bit of a wanted man.”
“What?”
“One of the nurses is a friend of one of your friends, apparently, and she recognized your name and, well, you, and mentioned that you are - both of you - in a sense, missing persons.”
“You didn’t...”
“She found me the number and I called your family. I got put on to a man called Brian.”
“We’re dead,” Bert muttered.
“He said they’ll be here later today.”
“No,” Gerard said, flinging back his sheets and standing. “No. I’m not gonna sit here and wait for them. They’re not gonna catch me yet. I’m not going home yet. I’m not legally a missing person, so,” Bert stared at him in shock. “I demand you discharge me.”
“Sir, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You have no medical grounds on which to hold me-”
“Sir, you were knocked unconscious and can’t remember what happened-”
“Yes, I actually can. And there’s nothing to suggest I’m not in my right mind. Now, dis-fucking-charge me.”
----
“My god,” Bert said “You’d think sending them a postcard from every state would be enough to keep them off our backs, but nooooo.”
“What?” Gerard growled, turning a glare on Bert.
Bert happened to think that it was a very good thing that they were in a cab. “Hmm... maybe that wasn’t the best thing to tell you while you’re still all pissy....”
“Ya think! Now tell me what you’ve done.”
“Heh heh... I um... send two postcards from every state we go through - one to your house and one to my... well, one to Branden. I write the same thing on each one. ‘We were here. But now we’re gone.’ I did it out of hope that doing that would be enough to keep them sated... but I guess not...heheh....”
Gerard sighed and looped an arm loosely around Bert’s shoulders. “No, it was a good idea. One we’ll keep using, ‘cause it’s kept us off the official missing persons list....” He was silent for a moment, then laughed randomly.
“I’m starting to wonder if letting you discharge yourself from that hospital was a good idea.”
Gerard frowned at him. “Nah, I’m fine. I was just thinking that I would love to see Mikey’s face when he gets to the hospital and finds out we’re gone... hmm, actually... maybe not... oh! Hey, Bert?”
“Yeah?”
“Was there actually a tornado?”
“Yeah, there was, but it passed a fair ways south of here.”
“Good...” the older man sighed, sinking back into the seat a little. “Let’s go, get our stuff, get the car and get the fuck out of Kansas!”
----
Mikey all but ran into the hospital, his mother, father and Brian right behind him. He went straight to the nurse at the desk.
“Hi, I’m here to see Gerard Way. I’m his brother,” he told the lady.
“Uhh, yes, sir. Just a moment,” she said with an edge of fear in her voice. She then got up and walked away. A few minutes later, a doctor walked through the E.R. room doors.
“Would you be the younger brother of one Gerard Way?” he asked Mikey.
“Yes, and these are our mom and dad.” The man stared at the fuming Brian for a moment. “And that’s our manager, but he’s not important. Where’s my brother?”
“He uhm... checked himself out of the hospital several hours ago.”
“And you let him go?”
“We had no choice, sir. We had no legal or medical grounds to keep him here under. He demanded to be discharged and signed the papers. We couldn’t hold him.”
“I’m gonna kill him. And Bert,” Mikey declared, unintentionally, to the entire waiting room.
Brian added, “But not before I get to skin ‘em.”
----
“Branden, I think I'm starting to really understand what you meant,” Mikey said to the older man several hours later in one of the airport’s dining areas.
“Remind me, what did I say?”
----
They were driving along the highway, zipping past scenery they couldn’t and weren’t really paying attention to.
----
“You said, ‘I think they’re running from something that isn’t chasing them. That it’s riding along with them. That-”
“Yeah... I remember.”
----
Bert looked over to Gerard, who was driving and puffing away on a cigarette. Gerard looked over at him.
“Hmm?”
Bert smiled. “I’m glad you’re okay.” Gerard cocked his head. “I was so worried about you.”
Gerard’s cheeks turned a soft pink hue as he smiled sweetly.
----
“I think... I’m starting to understand the last part of what you said.”
“I thought you understood then.”
“Yeah, but...”
----
It was the sweetest and most genuine smile Bert had seen on him in long time. He couldn’t help but smile back.
----
“....I don’t think I wanted to believe it.”
“I... tried to ignore it at first too... but, when you look at them... It’s always there and it always has been... nothing we could do - and nothing they could do - could get rid of it. And I think...”
----
“Y’know, I’m glad you’re alright too, Bert,” Gerard said, looking back to the road “I’m glad I didn’t hurt you too bad when I dropped you.” He looked back over. Bert rubbed his hip and pouted, looking up at him.
-----
“I think we just have to let them figure that out for themselves....” Branden trailed off.
“Hmm...” Mikey looked down in thought. “So... what do we do while we’re waiting for the idiots to make their realization and come home?”
----
“Bert,” he laughed “I’m serious! I’m really glad you’re okay!”
Bert smiled. “I know.”
----
Branden looked him straight in the eye. “We do what we can to save them from their own damage for when they do come back.”
Mikey nodded. “I know they’ll figure it out eventually... but will it be soon enough?”
They gave each other a half-smile before turning and staring out the window sadly.
“You think they’re running from something?”
“I think.... I think they’re running from something they’re not aware isn’t chasing them. It’s riding right along with them.....” Mikey heard Branden pause.
Then,
“It’s sitting right beside them in the guise of one another.”
Part Thirteen