Gerard stood frozen upon the spot for entirely far too long: unable to even think, let alone breathe, let alone move, and goddamn, he was certain of the fact that there was absolutely nothing he could to save himself at this point.
He was fucked: most utterly fucked, and it was most definitely his fault; Gerard wasn't even sure why or what he could have possibly have done to deserve this fate, but part of him deep down just knew that he did, and that that was that.
Ray smiled at him from across the room: a genuine kind of welcoming smile that fucked with Gerard's head and made him even want to trust the guy he'd been running from- but technically Bert had kidnapped him, and- fuck, Gerard didn't know who he could trust anymore at all, and that really wasn't helping matters.
And with a head as fucked up as his, he wasn't even sure if he could trust himself at this point, and that was the biggest mess of all.
"It was so horrible of him to steal you away from me like that." Ray stepped forward, reaching his hand out for Gerard to take, but the artist remained frozen, and unable to respond, even if he had wanted to. "But I've got you back now, and we're good now, so that's okay. I'm not mad at you, I promise, baby."
Gerard nodded, his words drying up in his throat as he struggled to force them through his lips, and it was all a trap, and if Gerard knew anything, he knew that he wasn't going to make it out of this mess with even a drop of sanity remaining.
"Gerard?" Ray continued, stepping closer to him: curious as to why Gerard hadn't shown any emotion or well, anything at all. "Are you okay?"
Gerard shook his head before he could think about anything, and Ray was stepping forward and pulling him into a hug within seconds.
"Tell me what's wrong, come on, I'll make it better." Gerard shook his head, finally regaining control of his movements, or at least as much as he could, and pulling away from Ray, his whole body trembling as he did so.
"No-no... no... please... no..." Gerard continued to shake his head, stepping away from Ray and eventually backing into the opposite wall of the room.
"Gerard? What's wrong?" Ray exclaimed, looking him up and down with a kind of genuine concern that unsettled Gerard completely. "Just, please, I won't hug you if you don't want, okay? But I need to know: I can't help you if I don't."
"What if I don't want you to help me?" Gerard spoke after a moment: his voice small and somewhat unexpected by the both of them. "I don't." He added with his sudden gained confidence. "Don't help me, Ray, leave me alone."
"What? With the guy who kidnapped you?" Ray spoke as if the notion was absolutely ridiculous, and well, in his mind, it kind of was. "No chance, Gerard: I care about you, I'm going to look after you. You know that, don't you?"
"What if I don't want you to?" Gerard continued, his confidence growing with every word, and well, Ray wasn't exactly a fan of this.
"You've got to let me help you, Gerard, otherwise you'll never get better-"
"Get better?" Gerard's eyes widened, Ray's words catching him by surprise. "I'm not sick, I-"
"You're not sick, but you're broken: you trust people too easily - Bert, Frank, everyone, and you're going to hurt yourself in a world like this, and it hurts me to see you mess up like this, and believe me, Gerard, I just want to help you, and you pushing me away breaks my heart."
Gerard paused for a moment, his gaze hitting the floor: utterly clueless as to what to believe at this point. "Bert said that you're a bad person." He paused for a moment, looking up to meet Ray's gaze before continuing. "He said that I deserve better than you-"
"You deserve the world, Gerard, of course you do. No one could argue with that, and if they even tried to, then I promise you that they're, well, a fucking idiot." Ray broke into a smile at that, but Gerard remained unsure.
"Why did you delete Frank's texts and calls from my phone?" He asked it bluntly, because fuck, if he was still fussed with being polite at this point, then he really was the biggest idiot in the whole goddamn world.
"Because it's Frank, and he's the most manipulative person in the whole goddamn world- look, he... he'd convince you that you should go back to him, and you would, you fucking would, because you're Gerard and you're nice and you trust people too easily." Ray let out a sigh, glancing at the time before continuing. "Look, Gerard, let's just go home, okay? Bert's going to be back soon, and he's going to put up a fight for you, because you're beautiful, and who wouldn't?"
Gerard blushed, because he was Gerard and that was just what he did.
And Ray smiled, but Gerard shook his head, backing further against the wall in something like defiance.
"He just wants to fuck you, Gerard, come on, I hate to put it so bluntly, but he's just using you like some cheap whore, or at least he wants to, and I know you're better than that- look, I'm sorry, but with a pretty face like yours, people are going to use like that, and there's very little you can do about that, and I really am sorry."
"But not you?" Gerard raised an eyebrow, meeting Ray's gaze as he did so. "You don't look at me like that?"
"No, I see how beautiful you are, and what you're really capable of: I care for you- look, I wouldn't have come after you if I really didn't care about you, come on, it's obvious that I care, and I get that you're struggling to see the truth with the mess that these people have left you in, but-"
Ray fell to the floor with a strong kick to his shins.
Behind him stood Bert McCracken, glaring down at the asshole who'd walked the fuck into his home and lied to the most beautiful boy in the universe, who was of course, Gerard Way.
Bert landed a kick to Ray's face, leaving Gerard to wince as his nose cracked in an unnatural fashion. "Get the fuck out of my house, you hear me? Leave Gerard the fuck alone, you hear me?" Bert didn't even have the patience to wait for a response, before he was pulling Ray up by the collar and throwing him out of the front door and onto the driveway.
Bert locked the front door behind him, checking it twice, before turning to Gerard, who was still stood pinned against the back wall of the living room in shock. "You okay?"
"I... I... uhh... yeah..." Gerard nodded, but it was overall unconvincing, and well, what else could Bert expect with what he'd just witnessed.
"No seriously, he didn't like try anything or whatever?" Gerard shook his head. "Good, I'm sorry he got in, I'm sure, I locked the door, but I think his broken face might have gotten the message by now, but to keep you safe for sure, you are going to have to move."
"Not Frank's place?" Bert shook his head. "My friend Pete has a house, like he doesn't care, I think Lindsey practically lives there anyway: I could go there."
"Yeah, okay." Bert smiled at him, watching as Gerard pulled himself away from the wall. "We'll go tomorrow, okay? It's getting late now, and I don't like driving in the dark."
"You did when you were driving me away from that party."
"That's different: that was you, that was important. I needed to." Bert stressed his point, gesturing for Gerard to follow him into the kitchen as he did so.
"I'm not important, Bert, I'm just Gerard- I-"
"You stop right there, okay, because that's nonsense and you know it." Bert's tone was stern, and well, Gerard reckoned he couldn't argue with it anymore, and resorted to simply watching as Bert made them coffee. "Did Ray tell you that you weren't important?" He asked after a minute or so of silence.
"No." Gerard shook his head, biting his lip as he did so. "He said I was beautiful and important... and stuff... I- he said you and Frank were just using me because I'm pretty and a whore."
"You're not a whore." Bert responded almost instantly in a way that caught Frank just a little by surprise.
"I-I-I... I sleep with people... I-"
"The whole world sleeps with people, and what some asshole has to say shouldn't have any effect on who you are as a person at all." Bert poured milk into the cups like they were smooth cheeks of Ryan Ross' ass.
"I guess." Gerard shrugged, his gaze falling to the floor. "You kind of cant help it, though, like... words mean more than we mean them to: always. Words... they stick, they stay forever, and they're permanent, in a weird kind of way."
"Yeah." Bert nodded, handing Gerard his coffee as the two took a seat at the table. "That doesn't mean they should be, though. You're not a whore, Gerard. You most certainly are pretty, but you're many things before that: your looks and who you fuck aren't the things that define you most as a person."
Gerard remained quiet for a moment, deep in thought. "I'm an artist. I paint, I'm good- well, Frank says I'm good... I struggle when it comes to appreciating my own work, but I guess we all do, anyway, I'm an artist, but when I was sketching, Ray didn't even seem to care."
"And that's the proof that he's a bad person: he appreciates you as an object, as beauty, as a painting in a frame, and not a living person, and you've got to understand that, Gerard." Bert stressed his words, meeting Gerard's gaze as he did so. "You're too quick to trust people, you know that, don't you?"
"Yeah." He exhaled, nodding a little as he did so. "I just need people, and I'm needy, and- I don't know... I just... I need attention."
"We're people: we all do."
"You're kind of different, though- you're like, you don't give a fuck, you're strong and you know what you're talking about... maybe you're the kind of person worth trusting."
"Gerard, I promise you, I'm really not." Bert responded with laughter, placing his coffee cup down on the table. "I'm just a pathetic addict who's too stoned to give a fuck most of the time. I'm sober right now, but that's because you're here, and making sure you're safe is more important than any kind of pill in the whole goddamn world."
"You really seem to think I'm something, don't you?" Gerard cracked a smile, just a little amused by how much enthusiasm Bert put into ensuring that Gerard knew just how much he meant to him.
"I'm not wrong though, am I?"
And Gerard shrugged, because he was biased: maybe he was, maybe he wasn't.
"I guess you're not."
"Here we go!" Bert exclaimed with the biggest fucking smile in the whole world. "Progress, acceptance: we're getting there, Gerard Way, we really are." Gerard nodded, smiling in return. "Seriously, you're the last good thing about this part of town, and I mean that."
"So, you really think I'm like... genuinely beautiful?" Gerard added a few minutes later: having spent those aforementioned minutes deep in thought.
Bert nodded, turning to face Gerard before expanding verbally. "I really do, and it's not even just my opinion at this point, you are just genuinely beautiful, Gerard. You have this cute smile, and an even cuter laugh, and quite possibly the most mesmerising eyes I've ever seen, and-"
And...
Before Gerard knew what he was doing, he was kissing Bert, and simultaneously, his heart was stopping, and starting again as Bert reciprocated, and then promptly failing altogether as Bert pulled his lips away, but left his forehead pressed up against Gerard's.
"Frank..." Bert uttered, biting his lip, and glancing down, fucking anywhere but Gerard. "You shouldn't have done that."
"If you don't want me to kiss you, then you should stop telling me how beautiful and wonderful I am."
"Frank doesn't tell you this?"
Gerard shook his head gently. "Not nearly in as much detail. Just that I'm pretty, and well, I can't dispute the fact that you mean it, and the fact that you care, and me and Frank are technically on a break, and I... I... I need you."
"You're saying that because I'm the only one here."
"No, I'd say the exact same thing with the whole world watching, I promise."
"You don't mean that, Gerard."
"Let me prove it to you."
Bert's breath hitched, every part of his head screaming 'no', but every part of his body yelling the opposite, and it was heart over head in the end, with a quick and simple, "okay", before his lips were pressed back against Gerard's, and Frank Iero was nothing but a distance kind of memory.
-
Alicia made her way home in the early hours of the morning, reciting excuses in her head over and over as she traversed the street leading to her home, and really, she didn't have a clue as to what she could possibly be just about to walk in on.
She wasn't expecting anything really, after all, Alicia just didn't reckon that Mikey had it in him to actually even consider infidelity, but then again, she didn't put herself down as that kind of person either, but the amount of time she wasted away with her eyes locked onto Lindsey Ballato's tits begged the contrary.
It was a mess, but still she never deserved this mess, and despite having killed a man once, Alicia Simmons was just about the nicest person in this whole damn town, because, let's face it, this wasn't exactly a buzzing, caring community, was it?
But still, her heart fell still and silent in her chest as she unlocked the front door, and let her gaze fall upon the scene before her, and, fuck, perhaps 'scene' was even an understatement, because the girl who'd killed a man was utterly speechless as she made her way home to see her boyfriend up against the wall, and another man on his knees before him.
Time seemed to tick by in slow motion until she finally stomached slamming the door behind her, which was nothing but wildly successful in alerting the two men to her presence.
"Fuck-" Mikey exclaimed, his eyes widening as they fell upon his girlfriends; Alicia was more so astounded as opposed to disappointed, and really, neither of three people in the room had been expecting that. "Oh my god... I..."
The man on his knees stumbled to his feet, nearly falling onto Mikey as he did so, but what could really be expected of him in such a state? Very little, exactly, and the impression he painted wasn't exactly stellar, but Alicia was far more occupied with the fear in her boyfriend's eyes than the bruises on the knees of the man beside him.
"You can start with putting your cock away." Alicia finally managed to verbalise her feelings, and of course only managed to do so with a kind apathetic, cut throat sarcasm, because this was falling, this was lying, this was cheating, and Alicia was crumbling into nothingness, but still, she couldn't quite help but feel as if she didn't exactly care as much as she should.
Mikey blushed an unflattering shade of pink as he hastily shoved his cock back inside his boxers, and pulled his jeans back up to his waist, and zipping his jeans up before turning to face his perhaps ex-girlfriend.
And only in Mikey's lack of speech, had Alicia's attention diverted and fallen upon the shorter man beside him, and in that exact moment, her heart plunged right out of her chest, as her gaze fell upon the awkward apologetic smile of Pete motherfucking Wentz.
"Are you kidding me?" She scoffed, her eyebrows raised high: not entirely sure what the fuck she was supposed to think at this point, because this had quite easily been the last thing she was expecting here.
"I didn't know he was your boyfriend, Alicia." Pete shrugged it off, leaving Mikey to glance between the two with widened eyes.
"You two know each other?" The question practically asked itself; Mikey's lips remaining parted and slightly dopey in expression.
"Mutual friend." Alicia spoke first, and perhaps just to ensure that Pete didn't start blurting out a certain little anecdote involving an alleyway and a shotgun that Mikey couldn't possibly ever know about. "Lindsey Ballato."
"Oh..." Mikey trailed off, blushing a little as he settled into the realisation that everything had just become a whole lot worse. "I'm sorry?"
"Okay then." Alicia took off her jacket and hung it up, before turning to face the two again. "I'm looking for some sort of explanation here, because literally, I just can't wrap my head around this. Honestly, Mikey, you just don't strike me as the type."
"What type? To cheat on you? Or for it to be a guy?" Mikey snapped, suddenly reckoning he had the nerve to get all defensive about this.
"The former. You wear girls jeans - that was kind of a dead giveaway, if I'm honest." She took a seat on the sofa, and gestured the two over to here. "Now, Pete Wentz, how the fuck did you end up in my house, and then how the fuck did you end up on your knees for my boyfriend?"
"Look, it was just a misunderstanding-" Mikey began, his cheeks flushing red in sheer terror relating to Pete even mentioning his slight coke addiction.
"How did you two even meet?" Alicia exclaimed, glancing between the two men with continued astonishment.
"Mikey, just fucking let me talk, okay?" Pete snapped, causing the two to jump a little, and Alicia's gaze to fall upon her boyfriend, who was firmly shaking his head at everyone's favourite emo gangleader. "Mikey has a little addiction... to cocaine..."
"What?"
And Mikey could punch both of them right there. "It's nothing, it's fucking nothing, and it's not like he's any better-"
"Look, we're friends, I'm trying to help him: he's not the type, he's really not, and then, things happened, because I was a little drunk last night-"
"You stayed over?" Alicia exclaimed, shaking her head more and more with every word.
"I don't just go over and see people this early in the morning. Do you know me at all, Alicia Simmons?"
"I reckoned for blowjobs it was different." She raised her eyebrows, leaving Mikey sat beside her, trying his best not to have a fucking panic attack, and of course, failing spectacularly, because they weren't exactly something you could control.
"I'm not Frank, okay, I'm not the whore in this situation, believe it or not!" Pete raised his voice as he got to his feet.
"Really? Fucking really?" Alicia was utterly convinced, and got to her feet in order to match Pete, however the two found themselves utterly neglecting the boy still sat pale faced, and short of breath, on the sofa.
"Fucking yeah, and it's not like you and Lindsey-"
"Don't fucking start. It's not like I've been eating her out, is it? Okay, maybe there was some mild flirting, but I never actually- this is just different-"
"It's still being unfaithful, though, isn't it?"
"Not really-"
"Fucking admit it, I fucking dare you!"
"Fucking go ahead."
"I will-"
However, Pete Wentz never quite got to, as Mikey fell to the floor with a resonating thud: out cold and with a nasty gash in the side of his head where he'd hit it against the corner of the coffee table.
And enough blood trickling from his head onto the living room floor, enough blood perhaps to ensure that as he closed his eyes, he'd never open them again.
-
hey guys lmao i dont even know what happened there with mikey, the opportunity just presented itself, and well, it's not as if i'm in the position to be denying any form of plot here ok lmao. vote and comment and maybe i'll think of some plot one day pls i love you all more than i love frank iero's ass<3