The hardest part was the realisation, and in turn, the staggered acceptance that he was indeed forgetting.
In much the same way that Frank's head was adapting and wiping New Jersey away for this alleged wonderful new start, that had really taken three years to get started, Frank was forgetting. Not entirely, of course, not in that kind of way - things were just fading away, the distant kind of memories, for when he was a kid.
It had started with the boy he couldn't recognise, and the inability to remember the colour of his bedroom walls, and what his high school looked like, and the name of his best friend in elementary school, and little things like that: awkward, and odd, but overlooked with time, until it seemed the hammer had finally hit the nail on the head.
Because this was the one thing in the whole damn world that Frank was determined not to leave behind; the one thing he was clinging to with all he had, even if it had been twenty or so years since she'd walked this Earth, Frank could never ever forget about his mother, and what she smelled of, and the way her voice sounded.
And it was exactly that - these blanks in his mind, and the mystery as to what had brought them on that left Frank laying awake at night, because he'd developed this horrible habit of his dreams being more of a walk down memory lane than anything else, although it really did feel like it was much less of a gentle stroll, and much more like he was being pushed into oncoming traffic on a highway called memory lane, but that wasn't nearly as catchy.
He couldn't go back inside his own head, not even when everything had seemed to be okay, because he couldn't accept that he was forgetting, because perhaps there were just some parts of Frank's memory that he knew he couldn't live without, and all in all, he was terrified of knowing, and as much as he hated to admit it, right now, ignorance and naivety was bliss... sleep deprivation, however, was not, and of course, there was also the matter of lying to Gerard in regards to what had brought on the eye bags and drained the colour from his face.
Stress.
That's what Frank had said, and would continue to say, and Gerard wouldn't continue to believe him, that was for sure, but it wasn't going to make Frank say anything.
Because, okay, Gerard wasn't exactly the easy person to talk to, and that was a bad sign, and Frank knew it, but he also knew that he really couldn't give less of a fuck if he tried.
He just knew that this had to stop, that he had to fill this mess in his head by some means, but of course, he was stumped as to how he could possibly go about the aforementioned, and at least like this, he had somewhat of a legitimate reason to keep himself up at night. Not that it mattered, of course, because Gerard knew he was awake, and Gerard knew he was lying, and Gerard was probably hidden in the corner of the room, watching Frank's every move that very moment.
Frank just didn't care to know, because perhaps it was better off that way - whatever that meant, because at this point, he really wasn't entirely sure.
But he knew so much about Gerard; he knew too much, like his head was throwing everything else away in favour of the ghost boy with the hair brighter than Frank's future, and Frank just didn't quite know what to make of that at all.
He grabbed himself a glass of water from the kitchen, slamming his hand against the light switch in a desperate and clumsy attempt to illuminate the darkness that three am brought, however, it wasn't like he wasn't accustomed to it with the amount of 'stress' he'd been under recently. He shook his head, glancing over the ignored box of pills at the back of his cupboard: the ones he didn't take anymore, as he grabbed something to eat, anything really, because he needed something to distract himself from reality and the way it seemed to be falling to pieces around him.
"That does sound quite stressful." The silence was slashed in half with a voice all too familiar, and Frank wasn't even startled anymore, just pissed off, not that he should have been, because Gerard was his boyfriend after all, and it wasn't like he was unhappy or ungrateful, it was just perhaps the intriguing notion that Frank liked the idea of Gerard more than he liked him as an actual person.
"What?" Frank snapped, brushing his hair, having grown long over the past month or so, out of his face with shaking fingers. "What the fuck are you talking about, Gerard?" He glanced across at the man making his way over from the hallway to him; he didn't doubt that Gerard had been watching him the whole time, however he didn't find himself with the energy to give all that much of a shit, so perhaps it seemed that at least the lack of sleep was good for something.
"You and staying up late and the 'stress', and all the lying, Frank, and the ghost and your therapist, and it's all.. I'm worried about you- I think it might... I don't know, but something's up with you, and I'm really fucking worried, Frankie, and you're gonna get pissed at me, but I'm your fucking boyfriend, and it's my fucking job to be worried about you." Gerard let out a sigh, taking a seat beside Frank, and grabbing his hand, regardless of whether Frank liked it or not, because this wasn't a romantic thing, not now, this was just Gerard needing to feel real, and Frank could appreciate that, even in this state.
"Yeah, fucking something's up with me." Frank let out a sigh, leaning his head onto Gerard's shoulder, "I'm not sleeping anymore-"
"I've noticed... you're supposed to sleep, you know? Like seriously, Frankie-"
"Yeah, I know, look, I can't sleep, I'm just... it sounds ridiculous but I'm scared, and I don't want to tell you why, because... I don't know... I feel like you're already in my head enough, I just- fuck it, since you're in my head why the fuck don't you just read my mind so you don't have to make me say it."
"It doesn't work like that, Frank." Gerard shook his head, gripping the shorter man's hand more tightly. "I don't see thoughts, you just output emotions, or strong feelings, like vibes, I guess, that's the word, it's a stupid word, but... I don't know why you're not sleeping, I just know that there's something wrong with you."
"I keep forgetting." Frank uttered, shaking a little as he did so, "about my childhood, about who I am, I'm in dreams that are memories and I know they are, but they don't make sense, like patches are missing, like there are holes in my reality, my head, I guess, I just... and it was insignificant things at first... but then... but now, I can't remember what my mum's voice sounds like, and I don't... I don't want to realise what else I've forgotten and what else I've lost and I can't live with not knowing that, but I don't know why this is happening and I don't know how to stop it."
"Maybe it's just your head fucking up because of a lack of sleep - there's no way around not sleeping, Frank, come on, you have to go to sleep, you can cuddle up really close to me, and tell me everything that you dreamed about in the morning, and we'll see how things are then, how about that?"
"I can't do that, Gerard, I really can't-"
"You can do anything, Frankie, don't be ridiculous, you're so-"
"And I thought you were stuck in my head and not in some make believe happily ever after fantasy." Frank snapped, rolling his eyes, but soon growing tired, and letting Gerard grab him by the hand and lead him back to their bedroom, and lay him down on the bed, and pull the cover over them both, and pull Frank into his chest, because Frank trusted Gerard entirely too much.
They both knew that.
"I love you." Gerard whispered into the darkness, "and who says that reality can't have a happily ever after?"
"I never took you for a soppy fucking optimistic." Frank let out a groan, meeting Gerard's eyes, "but I love you too."
-
Gerard was wrong.
So fucking wrong; like he'd always been destined to be wrong, and perhaps that was indeed the case, and perhaps Frank hadn't expected anything more or anything less.
This 'dream', however, was just the one that really did it for him: back home again, with walls tearing down and the shouts and cries of a broken home, and a lock on his bedroom door, shaking as he sat in his bed, unaware of what would become of him, unaware that one day, maybe he would make it out okay.
Frank couldn't help but feel for the thirteen year old boy he'd once been; the one who still feared the world, the one who knew nothing worth fear, but still cried every night, because at that age, he'd deserved nothing of what he'd gotten, but life never played fair.
The door slammed upon, the younger Frank shaking and crying as his father stood in the doorway, looking upon his son with the most hateful, drunken look in his eye: one Frank had known, and would always know too well - it was a cruel kind of justice, in which justice didn't really exist at all: where Frank just waited, just expected, and just let it happen, because thirteen year old Frank Iero couldn't imagine a world without this mess.
At one point, he'd perhaps even gotten the idea into his head that he 'deserved' this, and really twenty eight year old Frank wanted to do something: anything, everything, but he remained frozen and invisible in the corner of the room as the man who'd perhaps once loved him pulled the thirteen year old to his feet and pinned him up against the wall, screaming words that slurred and made no sense at all, and Frank couldn't bare to watch: to relive it all, but he couldn't look away, because he deserved more than that.
And Frank was left: silent and still, as his father stepped away from his son, and the room began to breathe a little easier, until the bedroom door was locked behind them, and the man smiled at his son, leaving Frank distant and confused: unable to place this memory in his head, and with good reason - reason he'd figure out horrifyingly soon.
Because Frank was left to watch, to realise, to remember, the most important thing he'd forgotten, and with good reason, because even such a notion was one Frank wanted to rid his mind of, but he couldn't even breathe, let alone pull his gaze away from the scene before him, as the man he'd spent his whole life running away from told his thirteen year old self to be quiet and stop struggling, and the whole room reeked of alcohol, and of him.
Frank had always known his father to be more of a monster than a man, but not this, never this, but perhaps this dream was the price, the reverse: the thing he could remember when he began to forget the rest of the world, however Frank wasn't sure that he'd wanted to remember, that he'd wanted to know, but it was obvious what actions followed a drunken asshole's cries of 'shut up', and 'don't you dare tell anyone', and of course, 'stop struggling'.
To put it bluntly, to put it simply: to put it with the words that Frank sick to his stomach with pure horror - his father had fucked him that night; the night Frank couldn't remember, the night Frank couldn't bare to remember, and with reason, so much reason.
Tears had clouded his vision to the extent he only noticed the man's exit as the door locked again: this time from the outside, and his thirteen year old self lay on the bed, knocked out, by the looks of it, and in a mess that Frank didn't dare recall: one horrifying, and made even more so by the sickening feeling of deja vu that the situation was surrounded in, because Frank wanted desperately for this to be fake, for this to be just a dream, but he couldn't make himself believe it, no matter how much he wanted to.
It was only then that he could move: a few steps out of the corner and to his younger self still out of it on the bed; he wanted to say something, to say he was sorry, to say it'd all be okay, but the latter was most definitely a lie, and he reckoned the boy would rather have fifteen years of ignorance and naivety, having forgotten the events of this night, and than to grow up and live with it.
It was however twenty eight year old Frank who didn't get quite the same luxury; who was forced into coping, and waking up next to a boyfriend who'd promised him that everything would be okay: a boyfriend who'd affectively lied to him, but boyfriend he couldn't tell, but still a boyfriend that had to know, and by the mess in his head, would know.
"Frank?" He suddenly jolted back into reality, sweating into his sheets to an unimaginable degree. "Fuck, are you okay?" It was a stupid question and Gerard knew it, as did Frank, who didn't warrant it an answer: not out of spite, but panic and confusion, as he struggled to sit up, his whole body shaking as he did so.
"I thought you were gonna die, fuck." Gerard added, a few moments later, "whatever was in that dream... fuck, Frank... you... it's like it didn't go away... your mind... it's still-"
"It's because it's not a dream, Gerard." Frank managed to force the words out, his whole body tensing as he diverted his gaze to meet Gerard's. "It's a fucking memory, and you know what? Maybe I didn't want to remember, maybe this makes me content in forgetting everything else in the whole damn world-"
"What was it, Frankie, please?" Gerard choked out, pulling the twenty eight year old into a hug, "please talk to me, please tell me, please explain."
"I don't know what's happening." Frank admitted, choking on his every breath, "this is all just a mess: everything's a mess, and I'm fucking scared, Gerard, because I don't want to dream, because I... I want my head to stop this... it's... it's this... it's... this here with you, isn't it? I'm all nervous, and my mind's still in Jersey because of you, and it's making my soul sick, and I-... I need it to stop, I-"
"Frank, what are you talking about?"
"We need to go back to Jersey, Gee, please, I just-... I need to set things straight in my head again, I can't, I can't live like this, I-... I don't even know where we'd go, but I... maybe just for one day, maybe just for-"
"My mum will let you stay with her." Gerard said instantly, what was left of his heart heavy in his chest, "she thinks it's her fault: that you ended up like this, and she's all apologies... she still thinks about you, about us, you know?"
"How do you know?" Frank asked, all wide eyes, his tears stopping for a moment.
"She's my mother... I just know."
"And I can't even really remember what my mother looks like..." Frank trailed off, shaking as he did so, "I... I... I need... to visit her grave, to visit those woods, just to be there again... I think maybe it's... I just... it makes sense to me..."
"Frankie, please, just calm down." Gerard let out a sigh, pulling his arms tighter around his boyfriend, "will you tell me what was in your dream? What did you forget?"
"I didn't forget anything." Frank snapped, his words half-muffled against Gerard's neck, "I remembered..." He pulled away, his body still shaking all over: unsure as to how the hell he was supposed to deal with this, and what Jersey could even do for him, but it was his final option, because New York had nothing left besides the man beside him in his apartment.
"Remembered what, come on, Frankie, please-"
"When I was fucking thirteen... I... I... I... my dad... I-" Frank shook his head, stepping away from Gerard a little, "I can't fucking- I can't, I just... I don't have the words: I don't have anything at all, I just-"
"Can I try to read it out of your head?" Gerard asked, somewhat timid in his respect, and perhaps even a little surprised with Frank's nod, but he stepped forward nonetheless, holding Frank's hands tight and closing his eyes.
And just for a brief moment: a few fucking seconds, Gerard was beside Frank in the part of the dream that was on a constant loop, still holding Frank's hands tightly as the two watched on in horror, suddenly everything became so horrifyingly clear.
As the world faded away from Gerard's vision, he stumbled backwards, Frank catching him with his hands, "did you... did y-you-"
"Yeah..." Gerard trailed off, his words sincere, but with little to say for himself. "I'm so fucking sorry, Frankie, I... I... I'll kill him, I swear to god, I-... fuck... why does this make you want to go back to Jersey, though?"
"Because I want to set my head straight: I want to get everything right, my head's like a net now, full of gaps and holes, and I need to fill them, even if I remember things like this, I just... I can't stand the notion of feeling like a stranger in my own head."
And Gerard nodded; he didn't understand, perhaps he could never truly understand, but he knew that for Frank, he would always try the best he could, and perhaps that was the closest to any kind of conventional love the two were ever going to get.
-
hey im sorry lmao this chapter's really sad i feel slightly uncomfortable writing things like this but it's sort of essential for the plot like yeah there's actually plot okay and it's happening now !!! i love you all seriously, and votes and comments would be very nice