Gerard swore to God that he didn't exist at all for a good moment there, fixating his gaze upon the speaker, with their hand upon Frank's shoulder.
Frank had also turned, Frank had also heard, Frank had also noticed, and from the look on Frank's face, Frank had recognised them too.
Frank, however, had not drifted so far away from reality and into a memory as to not be visible once the figure approached, and Frank had not said that way, but Gerard had.
And Gerard swore he didn't exist at all as his brother looked right through him and towards his gravestone, then to Frank, and all with this somber look in his eyes.
Because to the figure, to Mikey, Gerard indeed did not exist anymore, and the black haired man remained invisible to him: eyes widened, lost in his own mind as he struggled to make sense of it all in his own head, because he couldn't just magically appear, fuck, he couldn't even if he wanted to, and he wasn't quite sure he did want to at all.
Especially, considering the look in Mikey's eyes; the look that came when he pulled his gaze over the letters upon Gerard's grave - that name, and the truth, inescapable in his eyes.
Gerard found himself just sitting there, somewhat lost between two planes of existence, not really in either but sat up high on the fence, so high that no one on either side could see him, and that was indeed what it felt like to really not exist.
Frank glanced in Gerard's direction, appearing to have processed to some extent just what the fuck had happened, however as he laid his gaze upon the nothing where his boyfriend had once been, he let out a sigh, rationalising it - Gerard had disappeared. He glanced back up at Mikey: someone he hadn't seen in so long, and to meet here of all places, fuck.
"M-Mikey..." He struggled with his name, practically failing in an act so simple as pushing it out between his lips.
Mikey didn't seem to notice the imperfections in Frank's tone, or perhaps just overlooked them, because the two hadn't seen each other in almost a decade, and that made just about everything irrelevant in comparison.
"Fuck... I... I didn't know whether I was ever going to see you again- I... fuck..." Mikey choked out, shaking his head and gesturing for Frank to get to his feet, before pulling him into a hug, because no amount of years could take away what they'd been through together. "When did you come back to Jersey? Where have you even been? What's happened all these years, fuck, Frank- you should have... fuck... I'm just glad you're here now, I can barely believe it, I just..." He let out a sigh, stepping away from Frank a little in order to give him some space.
It was then that Frank really had the opportunity to take in Mikey's appearance and how it had changed over the years; wearing his hair away from his face and even growing something in the way of a beard. He was Frank's age now, and somehow that hadn't quite registered, because when Frank had imagined them meeting Mikey again, he'd imagined eighteen year old Mikey Way who still lived in a world with his brother, and the biggest problem they had was Frank and Gerard's relationship.
It wasn't like that anymore.
Frank, of course, had changed too, looking finally perhaps a little less like a fourteen year old for the first time in his life, but physically not so much, mentally and emotionally, of course, he'd become somewhat of a different person, but as had Gerard.
"I've been here a few weeks, maybe close to a month now. I just... it was a middle of the night spur of the moment kind of thing I just had to go back, I... I was in New York and it just wasn't working - I'd been there since I was twenty five but I was unhappy, I was making nothing of myself, and I just left." He paused for a moment, glancing back at the grave behind him: his boyfriend's grave. "Think that was the best thing I ever did. I belong here, and it sounds weird, but I feel like I need to be here."
"For him?" Mikey offered, raising an eyebrow as he followed Frank's gaze to the headstone.
Frank turned back to face him, shrugging a little, "not entirely, but I guess... I guess I did finally get to see his grave... never went to the funeral, I feel like I should have, but he s- I feel like he would say that it doesn't matter. I don't think he'd care all that much for a funeral, I mean, having people say all that stuff about him would definitely fuel his ego, but... for the funeral itself, he wouldn't care in the slightest."
Mikey nodded, unsure as to whether he quite agreed with Frank, but finding no need to voice his thoughts, "our dad came back for the funeral," Mikey continued, his expression making it rather clear that his head was trapped in the memory of that day so fucking long ago, "I'd never really known him, you know, and Gerard knew him, vaguely, but never really liked him, I mean, he just was relevant, he just wasn't relevant all the time Gerard was alive, but the moment he... he fucking- he's dead, my dad's back in the picture, and he didn't leave... he didn't leave this time, this time I wanted him to but he didn't, and mum even got back with him... but... that didn't work out... mum's dead now too... fucking lung cancer - he stayed for that funeral too, then he left. I think Gerard's lucky that he never had to see his mother's funeral, or his father sticking around again."
"Fuck..." Frank trailed off, suddenly becoming increasingly aware of the fact that Gerard could most likely hear this conversation, and then to just how little he knew what to do in regards to that. "I'm sorry. Is it just you now?"
"No," Mikey shook his head, a small smile on his lips, "I've got Pete. Fucker never left me alone, probably the best thing about my life, though, I mean I've spent so much time with him no I think I've gotten used to how much of an idiot he is." Mikey blushed, turning his head away, "we've got kids as well."
"Kids?" Frank exclaimed, his eyes widening, "you and Pete?"
"Yeah," Mikey nodded, biting his lip, "me and Pete. We got married a few years back - wanted to do it whilst mum was still alive, and then we adopted about a year ago. We've got Louis, he's two, and Harry, he's turning one in February."
"I kind of can't believe this," Frank admitted, an awkward smile plastered to his face.
"Well, you could come see them for yourself, if you want?"
And Frank did want that; he wanted it very much in fact.
It seemed to be this last little grasp at normality, because in that moment, Frank's whole world seemed to revolve around the desire to go home with Mikey and see Pete again, and make jokes with the two of them, and gush over how cute their kids were.
Frank wanted that so much that he even found himself forgetting about the figure attached to him - that very important figure: Gerard.
And Gerard was left to follow awkwardly, now preferring to remain unseen to the both of them, because there was evidently something between the two of them that he just didn't feel like he could be a part of - maybe it was an alive people only kind of thing - Gerard could understand that, couldn't he? Or he could at least try to.
He wanted to, for sure, but he was failing, and he found himself feeling less and less real as he continued to follow Mikey and Frank out of the graveyard.
His Mikey, and his Frank.
His Mikey and his Frank who cared seemingly about the entirety of the rest of the world before him all of a sudden, and well, Gerard's ego didn't quite know how to deal with that.
Gerard didn't blame himself, but he wondered if he should have done so, he wondered if he was in the wrong here, and if this was his fault - this whole fucking mess: a world he couldn't see, his mother's death, his brother's marriage, his father, again, his brother's kids... fuck, he was an uncle now, to some degree at least.
It hadn't really quite set in yet, because truth be told, it just didn't feel real: none of it felt real at all - everything besides Frank having been just a blur since those pills, and he thought Frank had been enough, he'd thought love had been enough, but there was much more to the world than that.
And as he continued to follow the two, he wanted to kill himself again for every time he'd insisted that he didn't want to see his family again.
He didn't want to upset Mikey, though; he didn't want to throw him into this mess of him not really being one hundred percent dead, and Frank dating him, because Mikey's face had really lit up when he'd mention Pete and his kids, and Gerard didn't want to take that away from him.
Because he'd been a shitty brother in life at best, and in death, he strived to be decent enough as to refrain from letting him fuck Mikey's life up again, because Gerard knew himself to be some sort of hurricane, a living storm: sucking up everyone around him and wrecking everything they knew just by living along side them, but he couldn't help it - that was just who he was, and indeed, he loved as everybody else did, he'd felt as everybody else had, but he'd always ending up tearing things to shreds.
It was better that Mikey didn't know him anymore.
Mikey seemed to be okay with it by now - Mikey seemed to be okay with himself by now, even with his brother and mother dead, and his father having fucked off again (but who hadn't seen that coming?). He had his own family now, didn't he?
And Gerard wanted nothing less than to fuck that up for him.
And Frank seemed happy too; happy too see his old friends, and Gerard had to trust himself not to fuck that up too, because he felt like he was destined to. Hell, maybe he should just take himself away from everyone, because maybe then no one could get hurt, but Gerard was far too arrogant to consider himself as any form of martyr, and with that realisation he continued to follow the two, just a little way behind them, though.
He couldn't quite trust himself not to butt in once he caught their conversation, and he wanted his boyfriend and his brother to be happy more than he wanted himself to be, and perhaps that was the only selfless act Gerard might commit within the entirety of his life (and death), but still, it was worth it. It was worth it, for sure.
-
"We kept the house." Mikey began as they approached their destination, travelling down a road Frank found himself almost painfully familiar with. "After mum died," he continued, biting his lip, "she wanted us to, and I guess, I guess well, I don't want to leave this place behind."
"God, I haven't been here in forever..." Frank trailed off, biting his lip as Mikey made his way up to the front door, leaving Frank to glance around in a state of disbelief: at the place that seemed to have barely changed in all of ten years: perhaps frozen in time, perhaps frozen in that day that everything had changed - for the better or for the worst, that, Frank couldn't quite figure out yet.
"Yeah," Mikey nodded, putting his key in the lock, "we haven't really changed all that much of it, besides the absolutely putrid living room wall colour, of course... now a white, because fuck that shade of yellow."
Frank laughed a little, his head caught in waking up on that sofa and questioning the sanity of whoever had decided that the walls should be that colour when he was seventeen, after he and Mikey had gotten beaten up, which wasn't particularly one of the highlights of his life, but something that had meant something in the scheme of things, just as much.
Mikey pushed the door open, calling out into the hallway, "Pete? I'm home, I-" However, before he could finish, well, Pete replied.
"Don't you mean? Pete, I'm homo? Because that's what you are Mikeyway, one big fucking gay!" His voice sounded out through the house, increasing in sound as he made his way through the rooms, getting closer.
Frank had stepped inside, Mikey closing the door behind him, however he was pretty fucking sure he'd lost the ability to breathe as he raked his eyes over the walls, over his surroundings, over the stairs, because just like that, it all made sense, and in much the same way, Frank was certain that it made absolutely no sense at all.
Because the hallway before him was the very same hallway that had haunted his dreams for several nights prior, and he didn't know what to make of that at all: how that could be, and why it was so, and whether he was even supposed to do something in regards to it, and of course, whether now his dreams would finally stop, because Frank had grown to actively hate the sensation of dreaming: the sickening sensation of being in a world, in a body, in a life you couldn't control.
"Fuck, is... I-" Pete's voice came to a halt as he did: just a few metres before them, before Mikey, before Frank, and it was with his presence that Frank found himself forced back into the world around him, his gaze forced to meet Pete's, and forced to deal with a friend he hadn't seen for ten years.
"Pete, for god's sake, can you not curse every two words when the kids could hear you?" Mikey let out a sigh, sounding almost unnervingly parental, and even responsible as he did so.
"Frank?" Pete exclaimed, disregarding Mikey's words entirely as he rushed forward to pull Frank into a hug with a cry of, "holy fuck you motherfucker, where the fuck have you been? Is everything okay? Are you okay? How are things?"
Frank pulled away, laughing a little as he did so, "I'm fine," he insisted, brushing his hair from his face. "I was in New York for a while. I just came back here recently... I mean... man, you married Mikey, you and Mikey are married with kids- what the fuck?" Frank took his turn to really take it all in, and to disregard the hallway as just a hallway, the stairs, as just stairs, and the dreams, as just that: dreams.
"Yeah," Mikey raised his voice a little, "kids. Kids that shouldn't hear you two saying the 'f word' every four point five seconds."
"Yeah," Pete nodded, blushing a little, "he's a much better dad than me. Honestly, I'm quite shocked I've haven't got either of them killed yet, shocked I haven't got Mikey killed yet either, you know?"
It was then that there was a cry of, "daddy!" from the kitchen, and no, it wasn't the 5 Seconds of Summer fanbase as Ashton walked into the room, but Mikey and Pete's kids - most likely Louis, due to the fact that Harry wasn't even one yet.
"Somebody wants me!" Pete exclaimed, his eyes lighting up a little as he rushed back into the kitchen, leaving Frank to glance across at Mikey, and to smile, because there was really something beautiful about all of this, and in a way, he was jealous, not that he wanted to have kids with Gerard, because truth be told, Gerard would probably throw one off a cliff to prove a point and accidentally leave the other half way across the world.
"He's such a fucking idiot." Mikey let out a sigh, shaking his head, "I love him, though."
Frank grinned a little, "what happened to not swearing when the kids could hear?"
"Well, Pete isn't here to tell me off for it, is he?" Mikey laughed a little, blushing, "don't tell him, though." He added, before leading the way into the kitchen, where Frank was met with the scene of Pete Wentz bottle-feeding a two year old: Pete Wentz, the weird emo kid from high school, that hadn't grown any taller or any less emo, or even any less childish, truth be told, he'd only gotten rid of the red streak in his hair, and well, that had looked fucking ridiculous, so Frank would have been kid of concerned if he'd kept it for ten fucking years.
Mikey threw his jacket towards the table, and glanced around, "Pete, have you lost Harry?"
"No, actually," Pete looked up, looking all too proud of himself as he did so, "I put him to bed for a nap, he looked really fucking tired - poor lil guy-"
"Pete." Mikey gestured to Louis, "language." He shook his head in disbelief, before turning back to face Frank, "you want a coffee or something?" He asked.
Frank nodded, sitting down at the kitchen table, and trying not to focus too hard upon the mess he'd been in when he'd sat here last, in the mess Gerard had caused, with Mikey and Mrs Way: Mrs Way who'd been all so fucking nice to him, Mrs Way who he'd never see again, although Frank wasn't sure whether he should be quite so certain of that.
With screaming come from upstairs - not like dying person, but hungry baby screaming, Mikey made his way upstairs to deal with it, leaving Pete to finish Frank's coffee and then rush after him as he came to realise that Mikey had taken Louis' bottle up with him, and well, Louis was throwing a rather dramatic fit in response.
And as he sat in the kitchen, that kitchen, alone, coffee before him and all too much in his head, a figure seemed to fade back into reality across from him: sat adjacent, and that figure, of course, Gerard.
And still, despite the fact that he was well aware it could never be anyone else, Frank jumped a little, blushing in response.
"Only me." Gerard added, brushing his hair away from his face, "it's best they don't know about all this shit with me, you know?"
"Yeah," Frank nodded, "I gathered that."
"They're happy, really fucking happy, you look happy too, and I feel like I'm what ruined all of that, and I-"
"Shut the fuck up." Frank insisted, his tone growing stern, "you're what makes me happy, Gee, how could you forget that?"
He shrugged a little, "I just guess sometimes I think that-" He was cut off however by the sound of footsteps upon the stairs, and he faded back away out of view.
And in that moment, Frank didn't give a shit as to what Mikey or Pete could have thought, because all that mattered to him was Gerard and what nonsense he had to say.
-
ayy so I'm dead af basically, this brings a whole new meaning to kid petekey u know lmao I'm trash bye bye vote and comment and i won't kill off pete in this fic get rekt bye lov u bye