The Healing Powers of Loud Music and Frank

[A/N- Un-betad. Probably has loads of mistake. I don't owe people. A bit of fluff, a bit of angst. Comments make me want to write faster. You get the hint.]

~

Frank Iero has been working hard. Real hard, and far too long too, to not be able to have any sort of recompense and physical manifestation of what he'd done.

He's close, though. And that's the only thought that pushes him up and onwards on his walk to work and on the way back. He's so close that he could practically taste it. It's just within arm's reach. A few more weeks and he could quit his job.

He presses up and onward.

The truth was that his old guitar didn't exactly cut it for him anymore. It was a beautiful old thing; scratched and dropped and played and loved. But it did not cut it.

He was playing in bands now. Playing with guys that oozed talent through their pores, and although Frank knew he was good, there was simply no way to catch up with them at the hands of an old rusted ten year guitar who creaked and shouted when played.

No, he needed one that moaned and cried, one that filled the air loudly and softly all at once. One that was filled listeners with wonder, with admiration and opened their eyes, made them scratch their head in amazement and tap their feet in delight.

His old guitar didn't deliver.

~

Gerard Way had flunked art school. Better said, he had let art school flunk him. Never showing up to class and never turning in projects, he was found buying beer in the morning and was found drunk all day, only to crash at night. And begin the cycle the next day.

He was never really found though, not in the metaphorical sense. He was disoriented, lost and blind. His eyes were there, but they really didn't see anything other than hopelessness and despair and death and calamities. Getting drunk shut them off; sold them off as he focused on mundane things, like, pigeons and what colour Gatorade looked more appealing ("The blue," he had said one time; only to find the fruit punch appealing come the next time.).

Getting drunk was all that mattered, he realised. It wasn't an epiphany. It didn't crash into him and made him want to change his ways and find God or anything of the sort. If anything, it made him want to get even more drunk.

Which was fine, it solidified his habit and made him temporarily happy.

The only shit thing about flunking pretentious art school was that he had no where to go to. He did, originally. But narrowed down his choices to nothing.

When he had called Donna (his mother, who he had taken to habit to call her by her first name after he moved out), his words slurred and hushed, Donna opened up her arms and gave him refuge against the perils of the dog-eat-dog world.

He was meant to move back to the basement. Back to his childhood home, back to Mikey and his friends, Ray and Bob.

He hadn't met Frank, yet.