The Only Hope For Me Is You
Fandom: My Chemical Romance
Pairing: Frerard
Chapter: I'm Not Okay (I Promise) - 1/?
Rating: PG?
Story summary: Gerard has loved Frank since he was twenty four years old and it's tearing him apart...
Warnings: Contains slash! Obviously.
Disclaimer: Obviously this never happened. But hopefully it still might.
I bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time, my heavy bag swinging against my leg every few steps making it difficult to go as quickly as I was trying to. I almost tripped on the loose rug a couple of times and had to grasp hold of the banister to stop myself from falling.
‘Fucking stupid carpet!’, I thought, ‘Why he insists on keeping it I’ll never know - It’s a fucking safety hazard!’.
Reaching the top of the stairs I turned left and, without giving him any warning, burst into Mikey’s bedroom. He was sitting on his bed, his head down; long fingers grasped his most prized possession - the bright red bass guitar our mother had bought him for his fifteenth birthday. His fingers moved quickly and I marvelled at his immense talent; I’d always wished to be able to play an instrument.
“Mikey!” I shouted, as I slid to a halt just inside his door. “I'm home!” He jumped in surprise, wobbled slightly and fell off the corner of the bed he was sitting on, his bass landed on top of him with a muffled thump.
“Ouch.” He muttered, looking at up me, his eyes narrowing as he swept his long blonde fringe out of his face and picked himself up. He carefully checked his precious bass over - swearing under his breath that he would kill me if anything had happened to it - and lay it down on his bed. He paused to take in my appearance; my long, unwashed black hair hung in front of my bloodshot eyes, my shirt buttons were done up wrong, my dirty blue hoodie was inside out and a big black sports bag hung from my left shoulder. It was clear to anyone who looked at me that I had left LA in a hurry, with no intention of returning any time soon. “Gerard, what the fuck are you doing here?” Mikey snapped as his eyes fell on my bag. “You’re supposed to be in LA!” He looked angry but I could hear the worry in his voice, see it in his eyes.
“I can’t do this anymore, Mikey.” I mumbled, dropping the bag to the floor and moving towards him, my arms outstretched. “I can’t keep pretending.”
“Oh, fuck! Gerard.” Mikey hissed, turning away from me and holding a hand to his head. “We’ve discussed this.” He looked at me again and ran his hand through his hair. “I knew this would happen, I fucking knew it.” He pointed angrily at me, “You just can’t stay away, can you?!”
“No.” I whispered, as he sat down on his bed. “No, I can’t... And you know why, Mikey - surely you understand! You’ve been in love. You are in love! Imagine if someone asked you to give up Alicia!”
Mikey looked at me, patting the space on the bed next to him. I could tell from his eyes that he understood what I meant, but his words contradicted them. “It’s not the same, Gee.” He muttered as I sat down next to him, “I'm sorry, but you know it’s not the same. Me and Alicia - we’re together, that’s fine. It’s okay ‘cause we both love eachother, y’know...” He rubbed his neck and looked at his feet, searching for the right words to say next, “You and Frank, it’s... it’s just different, okay?” I could tell I was making Mikey uncomfortable; he obviously didn’t want to continue with what he was saying, but I pushed him to anyway, even though I knew it could only cause me further pain.
“How so?” I murmured, leaning my head on Mikey’s shoulder and shutting my eyes so he couldn’t see the hurt they would so clearly be displaying at this moment; hurt because I knew he was right.
“Look, Gee.” He began cautiously, “I don’t want to upset you, I know how much you’ve been through recently; I know how much this is hurting you! But he doesn’t love you. You have to accept it and move on. You’re not giving him up because you never had him in the first place.”
“You sound like mom. You know fuck all of what I’ve been through!” I spat, standing up and moving to the window, gazing out at the glistening white snow covering the New Jersey landscape. I sighed, running the index finger of my left hand along the window sill; Mikey hadn’t dusted for a while. “Does it matter if he doesn’t love me?” I asked, my voice softening as I fought to contain the tears I had hidden from Mikey for so long “Surely I shouldn’t have to stay in a marriage I'm not happy in.”
“Gerard!” Mikey cried, moving to stand beside me, “I know you’re upset, I know you’re unhappy in this marriage but can’t you just stop and have a think about this? Even if you don’t care about Lindsey - if you don’t care about the pain and suffering you will put that amazing woman through by doing this shit to her - think of mom and dad! What would it do to them...? They’d be devastated! And if they’re still not enough, think of Bandit! Your baby! You can’t just abandon your child.”
‘Stop and have a think about this’? Mikey didn’t know how much thought I had put into this. Mikey had no idea how much I’d been thinking about Bandit! She was the only thing in the world that’d given me any happiness over the past year - Lindsey certainly hadn’t. Bandit was the only thing stopping me from leaving Lindsey and never seeing her, never speaking to her ever again. I wasn’t about to abandon my baby, but neither was I going to stay with Lindsey for the rest of my miserable, Frank-deprived life.
“I can still look after her. I can still see her.” I insisted to Mikey, my left hand now rested on the window sill, my fingers tapping lightly on the plastic edge. “Leaving Lindsey doesn’t mean leaving Bandit.”
Mikey looked shocked. “Are you crazy, Gerard?! Do you know how messed up kids get if their parents leave them? And that’s normal kids! Bandit’s the baby of two fucking rockstars! It’ll be in fucking magazines all over the world! She’ll be bullied at school for years! Everyone said this marriage wouldn’t last, do you want to prove them right?!”
“Yes.” Was my simple reply “I’ve sorted it out, it’ll be fine.” I looked down at the window sill, at my pale hand, and Mikey followed my gaze. He froze; on his face was a look of pure horror as he stared down at my left hand, my fingers still slightly tapping the sill.
“You didn’t...” He said in low voice, his shock and fear becoming more apparent by the second, “Gerard. Please tell me you didn’t?” His eyes were full of panic as he looked up at me. “Gerard?” He repeated “Where the fuck is your wedding ring?”
“It’s over.”
“What do you mean ‘it's over’? What the fuck are you talking about, Gerard?!” Mikey’s voice was slowly growing louder and louder and the expression on his face was growing more and more panicked.
“Jesus, Mikey, calm down... You’re taking this worse than she did!” I muttered shakily, staring at my feet; I hadn’t meant to upset him as well.
“What did you do?! What did you say?! Please tell me you didn’t tell her you wanna fuck Frank, or some other dumbass thing like that?!” Mikey cried, beginning to pace back and forth in his large room.
“Mikey!” I gasped, spinning round to face him, my eyes widening in shock at his crass remark. “Don’t be such a dick!” I paused for a second before continuing. “After the initial anger and, erm, violence... She was okay. Sort of - she’s always been a pretty reasonable person, I suppose...” I cleared my throat before continuing quickly. “She said if I didn’t love her there was nothing she could do about it, but she was fucking pissed off... In between throwing stuff at me she said she needed some time to cool down but that she’d like us to remain good friends for the sake of Bandit and I agreed with her... She said she didn’t want any sort of press knowing we’d split up, for the moment... Errm, she asked me if there was someone else... I... Err, I told her there wasn’t anyone I was interested in who was interested in me too... She screamed at me a bit more; I think she may have been the one to mention Frank, actually... Er, yeah, and then she, er, shouted some more and told me to leave.”
Mikey stopped pacing to stare at me, his eyes were still wide and all of a sudden I felt ashamed; not ashamed that I’d left Lindsey (and my beautiful child) because I was in love with a man - ashamed that I was the cause of the look now spreading across Mikey’s pale features. It was a look of anger, hurt and absolute disappointment. He marched up to me and jabbed me in the chest with his finger accusingly. “How can you be so laid back about this?” He screamed “How can you be so fucking heartless?! You’ve just left your wife and child for fuck’s sake, and you’re acting like this is a normal, everyday thing!” He turned his back to me to stare out the window again.
“It is a normal thing!” I replied adamantly, “People leave their partners every day, Mikey. It’s a normal occurrence.” I said calmly, trying not to let my guilt show through my cool expression. “Me and Lindsey, we were never gonna be together forever. It never would have worked-”
“Fucking hell, Gerard!” Mikey interrupted loudly, swooping round to face me “Are you not fucking listening to me? I know you live in your stupid, childish little fantasy world where you’re still sixteen years old and don’t have any commitments or worries, where it doesn’t matter if you’re in love with a guy or if you leave your wife... But this is the real world - there are consequences here! You’re trying to pretend that everything’s gonna be alright, when it fucking isn’t! Frank doesn’t love you! Breaking up with Lindsey won’t change that! WAKE UP! He’s never loved you and he never fucking will, you dumbass!”
Ouch. That was unexpected. Mikey had never lost his temper with me before, not this bad; I could feel tears stinging my eyes, threatening to fall, but I wouldn’t let them. I wouldn’t let him see me cry. I felt ashamed and stupid and upset, I felt unwanted and unloved and downright guilty. I felt like everything I’d ever hated... But most of all I felt deeply, deeply hurt; I had known there was no chance of me ever being with Frank, never in a million years, but when put in such an insensitive, tactless - and brutally true - way... I was fucking heartbroken. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t breathe. I felt dizzy and sick and hot and cold all at once and the room was closing in around me, and my vision was blurred and I was shaking so much, and I wouldn’t give Mikey the satisfaction of seeing me cry! But all of a sudden I was crying, I was sobbing so fucking hard, so fucking loud, bawling my fucking eyes out. And I wanted to rip my heart out to stop it from hurting so much; I wanted all the pain to go away... And I just couldn’t take it anymore! I wobbled violently and reached out to grasp the window sill to try and regain my balance, but it was too late; I fell to my knees on the soft blue carpet and broke down in front of my baby brother.
Pairing: Frerard
Chapter: I'm Not Okay (I Promise) - 1/?
Rating: PG?
Story summary: Gerard has loved Frank since he was twenty four years old and it's tearing him apart...
Warnings: Contains slash! Obviously.
Disclaimer: Obviously this never happened. But hopefully it still might.
I bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time, my heavy bag swinging against my leg every few steps making it difficult to go as quickly as I was trying to. I almost tripped on the loose rug a couple of times and had to grasp hold of the banister to stop myself from falling.
‘Fucking stupid carpet!’, I thought, ‘Why he insists on keeping it I’ll never know - It’s a fucking safety hazard!’.
Reaching the top of the stairs I turned left and, without giving him any warning, burst into Mikey’s bedroom. He was sitting on his bed, his head down; long fingers grasped his most prized possession - the bright red bass guitar our mother had bought him for his fifteenth birthday. His fingers moved quickly and I marvelled at his immense talent; I’d always wished to be able to play an instrument.
“Mikey!” I shouted, as I slid to a halt just inside his door. “I'm home!” He jumped in surprise, wobbled slightly and fell off the corner of the bed he was sitting on, his bass landed on top of him with a muffled thump.
“Ouch.” He muttered, looking at up me, his eyes narrowing as he swept his long blonde fringe out of his face and picked himself up. He carefully checked his precious bass over - swearing under his breath that he would kill me if anything had happened to it - and lay it down on his bed. He paused to take in my appearance; my long, unwashed black hair hung in front of my bloodshot eyes, my shirt buttons were done up wrong, my dirty blue hoodie was inside out and a big black sports bag hung from my left shoulder. It was clear to anyone who looked at me that I had left LA in a hurry, with no intention of returning any time soon. “Gerard, what the fuck are you doing here?” Mikey snapped as his eyes fell on my bag. “You’re supposed to be in LA!” He looked angry but I could hear the worry in his voice, see it in his eyes.
“I can’t do this anymore, Mikey.” I mumbled, dropping the bag to the floor and moving towards him, my arms outstretched. “I can’t keep pretending.”
“Oh, fuck! Gerard.” Mikey hissed, turning away from me and holding a hand to his head. “We’ve discussed this.” He looked at me again and ran his hand through his hair. “I knew this would happen, I fucking knew it.” He pointed angrily at me, “You just can’t stay away, can you?!”
“No.” I whispered, as he sat down on his bed. “No, I can’t... And you know why, Mikey - surely you understand! You’ve been in love. You are in love! Imagine if someone asked you to give up Alicia!”
Mikey looked at me, patting the space on the bed next to him. I could tell from his eyes that he understood what I meant, but his words contradicted them. “It’s not the same, Gee.” He muttered as I sat down next to him, “I'm sorry, but you know it’s not the same. Me and Alicia - we’re together, that’s fine. It’s okay ‘cause we both love eachother, y’know...” He rubbed his neck and looked at his feet, searching for the right words to say next, “You and Frank, it’s... it’s just different, okay?” I could tell I was making Mikey uncomfortable; he obviously didn’t want to continue with what he was saying, but I pushed him to anyway, even though I knew it could only cause me further pain.
“How so?” I murmured, leaning my head on Mikey’s shoulder and shutting my eyes so he couldn’t see the hurt they would so clearly be displaying at this moment; hurt because I knew he was right.
“Look, Gee.” He began cautiously, “I don’t want to upset you, I know how much you’ve been through recently; I know how much this is hurting you! But he doesn’t love you. You have to accept it and move on. You’re not giving him up because you never had him in the first place.”
“You sound like mom. You know fuck all of what I’ve been through!” I spat, standing up and moving to the window, gazing out at the glistening white snow covering the New Jersey landscape. I sighed, running the index finger of my left hand along the window sill; Mikey hadn’t dusted for a while. “Does it matter if he doesn’t love me?” I asked, my voice softening as I fought to contain the tears I had hidden from Mikey for so long “Surely I shouldn’t have to stay in a marriage I'm not happy in.”
“Gerard!” Mikey cried, moving to stand beside me, “I know you’re upset, I know you’re unhappy in this marriage but can’t you just stop and have a think about this? Even if you don’t care about Lindsey - if you don’t care about the pain and suffering you will put that amazing woman through by doing this shit to her - think of mom and dad! What would it do to them...? They’d be devastated! And if they’re still not enough, think of Bandit! Your baby! You can’t just abandon your child.”
‘Stop and have a think about this’? Mikey didn’t know how much thought I had put into this. Mikey had no idea how much I’d been thinking about Bandit! She was the only thing in the world that’d given me any happiness over the past year - Lindsey certainly hadn’t. Bandit was the only thing stopping me from leaving Lindsey and never seeing her, never speaking to her ever again. I wasn’t about to abandon my baby, but neither was I going to stay with Lindsey for the rest of my miserable, Frank-deprived life.
“I can still look after her. I can still see her.” I insisted to Mikey, my left hand now rested on the window sill, my fingers tapping lightly on the plastic edge. “Leaving Lindsey doesn’t mean leaving Bandit.”
Mikey looked shocked. “Are you crazy, Gerard?! Do you know how messed up kids get if their parents leave them? And that’s normal kids! Bandit’s the baby of two fucking rockstars! It’ll be in fucking magazines all over the world! She’ll be bullied at school for years! Everyone said this marriage wouldn’t last, do you want to prove them right?!”
“Yes.” Was my simple reply “I’ve sorted it out, it’ll be fine.” I looked down at the window sill, at my pale hand, and Mikey followed my gaze. He froze; on his face was a look of pure horror as he stared down at my left hand, my fingers still slightly tapping the sill.
“You didn’t...” He said in low voice, his shock and fear becoming more apparent by the second, “Gerard. Please tell me you didn’t?” His eyes were full of panic as he looked up at me. “Gerard?” He repeated “Where the fuck is your wedding ring?”
“It’s over.”
“What do you mean ‘it's over’? What the fuck are you talking about, Gerard?!” Mikey’s voice was slowly growing louder and louder and the expression on his face was growing more and more panicked.
“Jesus, Mikey, calm down... You’re taking this worse than she did!” I muttered shakily, staring at my feet; I hadn’t meant to upset him as well.
“What did you do?! What did you say?! Please tell me you didn’t tell her you wanna fuck Frank, or some other dumbass thing like that?!” Mikey cried, beginning to pace back and forth in his large room.
“Mikey!” I gasped, spinning round to face him, my eyes widening in shock at his crass remark. “Don’t be such a dick!” I paused for a second before continuing. “After the initial anger and, erm, violence... She was okay. Sort of - she’s always been a pretty reasonable person, I suppose...” I cleared my throat before continuing quickly. “She said if I didn’t love her there was nothing she could do about it, but she was fucking pissed off... In between throwing stuff at me she said she needed some time to cool down but that she’d like us to remain good friends for the sake of Bandit and I agreed with her... She said she didn’t want any sort of press knowing we’d split up, for the moment... Errm, she asked me if there was someone else... I... Err, I told her there wasn’t anyone I was interested in who was interested in me too... She screamed at me a bit more; I think she may have been the one to mention Frank, actually... Er, yeah, and then she, er, shouted some more and told me to leave.”
Mikey stopped pacing to stare at me, his eyes were still wide and all of a sudden I felt ashamed; not ashamed that I’d left Lindsey (and my beautiful child) because I was in love with a man - ashamed that I was the cause of the look now spreading across Mikey’s pale features. It was a look of anger, hurt and absolute disappointment. He marched up to me and jabbed me in the chest with his finger accusingly. “How can you be so laid back about this?” He screamed “How can you be so fucking heartless?! You’ve just left your wife and child for fuck’s sake, and you’re acting like this is a normal, everyday thing!” He turned his back to me to stare out the window again.
“It is a normal thing!” I replied adamantly, “People leave their partners every day, Mikey. It’s a normal occurrence.” I said calmly, trying not to let my guilt show through my cool expression. “Me and Lindsey, we were never gonna be together forever. It never would have worked-”
“Fucking hell, Gerard!” Mikey interrupted loudly, swooping round to face me “Are you not fucking listening to me? I know you live in your stupid, childish little fantasy world where you’re still sixteen years old and don’t have any commitments or worries, where it doesn’t matter if you’re in love with a guy or if you leave your wife... But this is the real world - there are consequences here! You’re trying to pretend that everything’s gonna be alright, when it fucking isn’t! Frank doesn’t love you! Breaking up with Lindsey won’t change that! WAKE UP! He’s never loved you and he never fucking will, you dumbass!”
Ouch. That was unexpected. Mikey had never lost his temper with me before, not this bad; I could feel tears stinging my eyes, threatening to fall, but I wouldn’t let them. I wouldn’t let him see me cry. I felt ashamed and stupid and upset, I felt unwanted and unloved and downright guilty. I felt like everything I’d ever hated... But most of all I felt deeply, deeply hurt; I had known there was no chance of me ever being with Frank, never in a million years, but when put in such an insensitive, tactless - and brutally true - way... I was fucking heartbroken. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t breathe. I felt dizzy and sick and hot and cold all at once and the room was closing in around me, and my vision was blurred and I was shaking so much, and I wouldn’t give Mikey the satisfaction of seeing me cry! But all of a sudden I was crying, I was sobbing so fucking hard, so fucking loud, bawling my fucking eyes out. And I wanted to rip my heart out to stop it from hurting so much; I wanted all the pain to go away... And I just couldn’t take it anymore! I wobbled violently and reached out to grasp the window sill to try and regain my balance, but it was too late; I fell to my knees on the soft blue carpet and broke down in front of my baby brother.