The record store was empty and almost alien in nature: Mikey never went there anymore and Frank almost felt like that he was trespassing by just standing at the entrance.
He didn't want to be here and he didn't deserve to be here - the place felt haunted and there was just no hope of closure, especially with the absolute abundance of knowledge as to how Ray did actually die. The only thing they had was Bert's prediction and the knowledge that despite how preposterous it seems and despite how much you'd hate it to be true, Bert McCracken is always right.
But perhaps Mikey's situation was worse, perhaps sitting alone with nothing but his guilt and entirely apathic brother was worse, but Frank didn't know and Frank could never know; the nineteen year old could only onlook the empty record store and try and piece his heart back together.
Ray had been the first person to be nice to him when he'd first arrived here, and the guy actually gave him hope that this wasn't a fucking cesspit of a town, and although it had indeed turned out to be, Ray was still his fucking best friend.
Frank wanted his old best friend back, he wanted fucking Alex back, and he wanted to go back to New York and pretend none of this ever existed but now with Ray's death he was fucking stuck here - he was tied down in guilt and remorse, and he was fucking stuck. Perhaps this was what the town had wanted after all - to trap everyone that entered inside - maybe Frank didn't entirely want to leave, even if just for Gerard's sake.
Even if his fucking asshole vampire boyfriend was the only hope he had right now, he was still going to hold onto that as tight as ever and not even dream of letting go of what he had; he'd lost too many people, and he was almost enroute to losing everyone, and he hadn't spoken to Alex in weeks now and he needed to call.
He wondered if even Alex had forgotten about him too by now; he wondered if anyone back in New York even cared about poor old, fucked up, Frank Iero anymore. He doubted it, and he tried his best not to care, but that only resulted in a swift exit of the record store - he couldn't face the place, nobody could.
Not even Bob.
And when Bob gave up, everyone was basically fucked: there was nothing quite as comforting as that fact, of course.
As Frank made his way out, he lit a cigarette, far past caring about his grandparents and people they knew and he wouldn't let them treat him like a fucking fifteen year old anymore, because he'd lost everything, let alone his fucking innocence - although, it was quite clear that cocksucking Frank Iero had lost that far too long ago.
He didn't want to have to call Alex and he made a list in his head of reasons why he should never ever speak to Alex again and he tried deleting the contact from his phone but he knew the number off by heart, and Frank couldn't lie to himself anymore - he needed to call Alex, and he didn't fuck care about the repercussions.
The dial tones ate away at him with every unanswered, empty second, and Frank found himself staring off into the shadows, almost too fixated upon a certain point of darkness: just a little bit darker than the rest of the shadows - unnerving, but not necessarily important, and Frank was so transfixed upon the darkness, he almost didn't noticed when Alex actually picked up, and maybe he wouldn't have if it wasn't for his voice: the voice that fucking changed everything and sent his mind into overdrive.
"Frank?" He was confused, almost as if he never even expected Frank to ever call again, and the nineteen year old didn't quite know what to think or how to feel about that. "Frank?" He repeated into the silence.
And at that, the nineteen year old seemed to jump back into life, almost like he'd been momentarily paused for some godforsaken reason. "Alex." Saying his fucking name was enough to fuck Frank over, because there was too much history between them and Alex was his best fucking friend and simultaneously his worst enemy, he was the best person he'd ever met and simultaneously the worst - he'd fucked Frank and he'd fucked him over completely.
"You ever coming back to New York, Frankie? Miss you, you know? Fucking want you - you fucking want me too, don't you-" Frank finally managed to react, having been almost distant, his head being in a separate universe altogether just a few moments ago.
"Alex, my best friend died. He fucking died and I don't know what to do." That shut Alex up, momentarily at the very least, but this time, Frank needed answers and that was what Alex was good at - he always had an opinion, and he always had too much of it. He always had an idea of how he thought thing should go, and what he wanted you to do - there was no question of anybody else, and he was just too good with words and too goddamn good-looking to ever let people let on to that.
Frank knew him too well, though, and still, even after completely getting away from him, here he found himself calling that same fucking number again.
"I thought I was your best friend." Alex finally responded and Frank could fucking sense the smirk.
"You are, I mean, he's fucking dead now anyway, I-" Alex cut him off before he could quite break down into tears.
"How did he die? What happened?" Alex was just too nonchalant about this, and well, about everything and maybe, especially in times like these, that was a cause for concern, but right now, Frank just needed someone to fucking tell him what to do.
"I don't know, he just-" Frank stopped, soon realising that he could never tell Alex about Bert and his predictions and about Gerard, his vampire boyfriend, and about Bob who just dealt with shit, because his life right now almost seemed to be in a fucking parallel universe to the one back with Alex in New York where vampires and hallucinations only existed as side effects of self-medication. "He was fine and then Mikey's fucking screaming at me that he's just dead on the floor - fucking dead, no fucking sign of what killed him at all, he's just dead."
"Who's Mikey?" It seemed so fucking irrelevant and Frank didn't think it mattered at all, but he answered regardless, because he trusted Alex right now - he needed to, and he hated that.
"Ray's boyfriend, well, he was- I... just-"
"You sure Mikey didn't kill him?" Alex asked and Frank seemed to physically recoil at even the possibility, because Mikey fucking loved Ray, sure he kissed Pete, but- he kissed Pete.
"No, he wouldn't, but, we- me and Bert we caught him cheating on Ray the other day - he was kissing this other guy called Pete, and he said it was a mistake, like a one time thing and that he was fucking sorry, but I don't know. Ray fucking loved Mikey, and Ray was like my best friend, I-"
"I'm your best friend, Frank. Don't fucking forget that, okay?"
"I know, Alex." Frank sighed out, taking a drag of his cigarette. "I fucking know."
"Good." Alex paused and Frank really just couldn't help but be nervous. "Come back to New York, will you? Sometime soon anyway, I mean, you'll have a funeral to attend and shit, but come back. You went there to get away from your parents' death, didn't you? Now come here to get away from Ray's, what do you say?"
"I don't know, Alex, I just don't know." Frank sighed out; his head a fucking clusterfuck and this was nothing more than a regular side effect of having any kind of conversation with Alex. "I need to be here for Mikey and shit, and Gerard, and-"
"Who's Gerard?" Alex stressed, and Frank fucking hated to answer him, and fuck, Alex always knew when he was lying.
"Gerard's my boyfriend."
"You didn't tell me you had a boyfriend." Alex's answer was almost immediate and his tone made his disapproval rather evident.
"We haven't spoken in a few weeks, I would have told you otherwise-"
"Tell me about this 'Gerard'. What's he like?" Alex fucking cared far too much, but really, there was nothing Frank could do but answer, and it was taking his mind off Ray, at the very least.
"He's got black hair, and he smokes, and he a bit of an asshole, but he's really, really hot, I-"
"Yeah, whatever, lovey dovey fucking bullshit - I don't care. Tell me how he fucks you, Frankie. Tell me, is he better than me? Does he make you come so hard you forget your own name and you forget all about me, does he, Frankie? Does he fuck you until you're begging him to stop? Does he fucking use you like the little fucking whore you are? Are you his whore, Frankie? Are you?"
Frank exhaled loudly, his breath catching in his throat as Alex seemed to explode in rage, and god, he didn't fucking like the idea of Gerard one bit, but Alex couldn't fucking control Frank - they didn't even live near each other anymore, and that brief realisation gave Frank the balls to mutter his final comment before hanging up, and making a mental note never to call Alex again.
"Yes."
-
"They'll just fucking burn the body without a word or a care, Pete - we can't fucking just hand him and let the church deal with what's left of him. They maybe be stupid, but they're not actually stupid enough to actually go into the graveyard." Frank couldn't help but blush a little at that, and he swore, that someone, probably Mikey, tossed him a look at that.
Gerard was absent from their little makeshift funeral, and although Mikey was the only one who fully knew why, just about everyone else could make an educated guess in the direction of apathy. Frank couldn't help but miss him, though, especially when his head was nervous and cluttered as a result of his earlier conversation with Alex - he knew it was nothing, but Frank just couldn't help the way his stomach was tying itself up in knots.
"I feel kind of uncomfortable around dead bodies." Pete admitted, his tone kind of anxious and he was going an unnerving shade of red, and still, of course, Bob couldn't help but snort in response: the memory of Pete wanting to be a fucking vampire slayer in his mind.
"Then fucking go. He didn't fucking know you." And perhaps, perhaps those words would have been okay, and perhaps no one would have even batted an eyelash at those, if Bob had been the one to say them, but in reality, it was Mikey's lips from which they were thrown.
And everything fell to shit, because by now, everybody knew, fucking everybody knew about Mikey and Pete and what had happened, and it was from then on that people began to speculate regarding Ray's death, but Frank was certain in the fact that he would never go as far as suspecting either Pete or Mikey to be at all capable of his best friend's demise.
"Fucking don't, Mikey." Pete sighed out, stepping away from Mikey and ending up awkwardly close to Bert, who close only send a look in Frank's direction, to which the nineteen year old found himself only mildly amused by. "I'm staying. I care about him, okay."
"If you care about him you wouldn't have kissed his fucking boyfriend." Bob rolled his eyes, leaving both Pete and Mikey blushing and wide eyed as he as he approached the coffin, and really, this was a shitty fucking field to bury him in and Bob Bryar was a shitty fucking vicar, but it had to do - it was better than whatever alternative the fucking church would 'offer'.
"Anybody want to say anything of value?" Bob sighed out, stressing the last word just a little too much, and Frank felt awkwardly obliged to step up in the silence and say something, anything about fucking Ray Toro that hadn't been strung out of jealousy, cheating, and lies. Mikey should just fucking learn that apology isn't a synonym for eulogy.
"We're going to miss him and he didn't deserve to die like this, but I guess, at least we know now to trust whatever Bert sees..." Frank sighed out, having spoken all too fast and now entirely run out of things to say. "He was best fucking friend I'd ever had, I mean, he was nice to me, well after a moment, when I first arrived here, and I owe him that, because I was so fucking alone and so fucking lost after coming from New York with dead parents- I... I just... he was my best fucking friend and I think he still is, really. He doesn't deserve this and he doesn't deserve what happened to him, and he doesn't deserve people lying to him, right to his fucking grave-"
Mikey didn't let Frank finish, and really, just perhaps the nineteen year old had gone just a little too far with that, but he didn't care - he wanted this to mean something, and for once, even if it was just once, it did.
"He fucking found out in the end, okay, and he fucking hated me for it. I hope you're fucking happy with your fucking asshole of a boyfriend that fucking 'loves' you - I bet being able to lie to yourself like that, feels good, doesn't it?" And once Frank had taken it just one step too far, there was no stopping Mikey.
"Fuck you, fucking fuck you, Mikey - you don't fucking know anything, you know that-"
"What was this fucking speech five seconds ago about respecting Ray?" Bob snorted, rolling his eyes: fucking tired of this bullshit, especially the bullshit that involved Mikey Way, because really, that seemed to be the large majority of it. And it was just a belief like that, which allowed Bob to keep his firm belief that there were never any good vampires.
"Mikey's the one fucking everything up here, though, fucking come on." Frank didn't even care that he was being immature anymore, and only about fucking Mikey Way and what he'd said about Gerard that just stuck with Frank to the point that it made him uncomfortable.
"Frank..." Bert sighed out, shaking his head. "Just fucking leave it - let's get this over with-"
"You what? Fuck this, fucking fuck you all. This is a shitty ass funeral anyway - this isn't about Ray, it's all about fucking Mikey, and it always is." And with the silence he'd stunned his 'friends' into, Frank stormed off, making his way down the hill and to a certain house on the outskirts of town where he knew he'd find that 'fucking asshole of a boyfriend' of his.
Gerard could make it better, Frank assured himself of that, and even if he couldn't, then Frank was just beyond certain that Gerard could fuck him hard enough to ensure he completely forgot all about this mess, and especially all about Alex, and the fucking mistake he'd made by calling that asshole earlier today.
Because that final 'yes' Frank had uttered, just didn't leave the nineteen year old's mind, because really, he meant it more than he could ever know.
-
"Took you that long, really?" Gerard snorted a little as Frank let himself in through the unlocked front door, leaving the nineteen year old to stare at his asshole of a boyfriend with a great deal of confusion. "That's hardly a fucking funeral, Frankie, honey. You were the only guest that hasn't fucked him over big time, you know? Mikey did a lot more than cheat on him."
And with that, Gerard made his way upstairs, leaving Frank to follow with a million questions and unspoken promises on his mind.
"What do you mean about Mikey? What did he do?" Frank asked, making his way into the bedroom behind Gerard, who really made his intentions anything but discreet in the beeline he made to the drawer - that fucking drawer that picked up Frank's heartbeat to almost double its usual speed.
"Tell me about you first, Frank. Tell me what you haven't told me." Gerard's tone was casual, if not a little agitated, and Frank couldn't help but feel a little nervous as he made his way over to the bed and sat down, leaving Gerard to rummage around in the drawer, ensuring that Frank remained just so fucking on edge that he had a certain difficulty breathing steadily.
"Uhh... I..." Frank stuttered out, his eyes wide as he struggled to recall anything worth mentioning at all. "Bert had a vision that Ray died before he did, but-"
"You visited the record store this morning, and I was there - well outside at the very least, in the shadows. Tell me about that phone call, Frankie." And just like that, Gerard cut right to the chase, and Frank practically fell apart as his head was suddenly filled with nothing but thoughts of fucking Alex.
"I was talking to Alex - he's my friend from New York, and he always knows what to do. I needed some advice about Ray-" Much like Alex, Gerard didn't bother to let Frank finish his sentence.
"More like an ex-boyfriend, huh?" Gerard snorted, turning around with a pair of handcuffs, and Frank didn't even answer, only got up and stripped naked, leaving Gerard to smirk and let out a little chuckle. "You're too good to me, you know. Come on, are you going to let me tie you up and fuck you hard?"
"Yes, master." Frank's response was immediate and far too eager indeed.
"I want you to forget all about this Alex, I'm your fucking master. You got that, Iero?" Gerard snapped, pulling off his shirt as Frank nodded and got on his knees.
"Yes master." Frank nodded, looking up at Gerard in a manner reminiscent of porn, and really, Gerard had to do something about that little slut of his.
"You're fucking beautiful. Fucking perfect. Fucking obedient. And fucking mine." Gerard smirked, cuffing Frank's wrists together. "You want to prove that to me?"
Frank paused for a moment this time, looking up at Gerard with the most lustful gaze the vampire had ever seen, before uttering another, almost innocently strung. "Yes master."
-
Hey guys:) The chapter title is so true I'm not even sorry, anyway, votes and comments are hella appreciated as always, and I love you all<3