Chapter Text
The afterlife wasn’t anything like Frank expected.
It wasn't blindingly white and warm. He wasn't greeted by Jesus, guided by the grim reaper, or pulled down to the seventh circle by a demon's claw. His soul didn't ascend, his body wasn't abandoned, no cherubim strummed harps, and no clouds parted to reveal a gleaming, golden gate.
Instead, he woke encompassed in darkness, submerged head to toe in icy water. He pulled himself to the surface and found that he didn't need to breathe; the air he sucked in offered no relief to the burning in his lungs. A grey circle of light was directly above him, obstructed by a bucket suspended by a rope, connected to a tin roof.
Frank called out, hoping against hope that there was somebody there to save him. He attempted to bang against the stone walls of the well, expecting his palms to be scraped by how much force he was putting into each hit, but they came back unmarked. Nobody heard him. His screams reverberated off the walls and echoed into his own ears, a cruel mockery of his suffering. Once he gave up, the only sounds came from the drip-drip-drip of the bucket above him, water droplets sometimes landing on his nose; it felt like Chinese water torture.
Frank spent seven days trapped in the well.
He only realized he was no longer human after the third day when he found he wasn't hungry, he wasn't thirsty, and he wasn't hypothermic.
The northeastern winters were cruel and severe. Several times the surface of the water froze over. It stung like Hell. Every few hours Frank agitated the water to keep it from completely solidifying or turning into a slush.
The strangest part of being trapped, and by far the hardest, was the fact that he felt everything, whether emotional or physical, but it didn't leave any aftermath. He'd bit his hand with all his might: no teeth marks. Hit his head on the jagged stones over and over: no bleeding, no injury, but a migraine. Holed up in a half-frozen ice bath, shivering and numb and exhausted: still conscious with perfectly healthy, unpruned skin.
He lost count of the amount of times he tried to end his life, to put his suffering to an end, to climb out of the algae-slick walls.
At the end of seven days, a woman came to the well. Apparently, it was functional, because she dunked the bucked into the water and it phased right through Frank, but brought up foul-smelling, nauseating, filthy water. A sweet rot unlike anything she'd ever smelled.
It also brought up Frank's toe.
The well was drained and Frank's body was excavated.
Once his body was brought up, as was Frank's soul.
The sun shines brilliantly, harsh against his pupils that had grown used to the dark. Frank heard a police car and watched detectives collect evidence, shivering while he got used to being dry again.
Surprisingly, Frank wasn't upset seeing himself mangled in such a way. He'd assumed, before he became delirious from exhaustion and the bite of ice against his skin, that his body had been dumped in the well, either in a chest or a plastic bag.
He was close. He'd been in a burlap sack. Its fibers had broken, releasing him. Or, more accurately, his corpse.
"Showing no signs of decomposition," a young detective mutters to herself, pen cap in her teeth. She couldn’t have much experience given her youth.
Frank looked up at her, desperate for human touch; desperate to be coddled and taken care of.
But she didn't see him. She passed right by him.
After Frank was identified by his father, his parents began planning for the funeral. For the first few days, Frank tended to stick near his remains in the morgue, especially after seeing his father's forlorn face, then hearing him talk to his mom on the phone, her voice strained and sorrowful through the receiver.
Guilt was his most apparent emotion in the first moments postmortem. All those times he'd thought about taking his own life, every time he thought he'd be better off dead— he wished he could take them back.
Nothing in the world would be worth seeing the life drained from his mother's eyes, but it’s what he saw now, sitting near her in the armchair by her bed.
Her vacant eyes, her frail, shaky hands. Her grey hairs, the crease in her brow, the sag of her shoulders. He could feel the tears she shed at night like a river eroding a withered valley, could hear her stifled sobs like an ambulance siren wailing, could smell the bile she spit up like putrid chemicals, could feel the shakes of each like the earth was splitting in half.
And he couldn't move. He watched over her and spoke words that she would never hear. He laid in bed with her, wishing for her warmth but finding her body as cold as the well had been. She didn't notice him. He could do nothing, trapped between the world of the dead and the living. A gnat in a jar of jam.
Frank sat on the arm of the couch three days after the news was broken to his parents. His mom sat on the couch very near to him, and his father handed her a cup of coffee.
"Thank you," his mom mumbled without looking up, staring into the depth of her cup. She blew on the surface while his father sat at her side. "They want to know what —," she broke off when her voice fell away. "They need us to pick out a casket."
"We don't want anything fancy," Frank Sr. said. "Do what you'd want for yourself.”
She was silent for a moment. "Yes. Of course, just... Simple."
"We'll worry about it tomorrow."
"We haven't —," Linda cut herself off.
"We have time."
"Only because he's evidence!" She bit back.
Frank Sr. sat silently staring at his ex-wife. Memories floated up of them and their arguments. They always clashed. He always said the wrong thing. And countless times, Frank had hid himself away in his room while they fought over dinner, bills, chores, work. Anything and everything. Even Frank's absence couldn't settle their differences.
The doorbell rang and Frank almost considered fleeing upstairs to his childhood bedroom before he realized whoever was on the other side of the door would see right past him.
Linda hopped off of her feet in an uncharacteristic burst of energy. She smoothed her hair and the grey t-shirt she wore (stained, four days unwashed), and twisted the knob.
"Oh. Hello."
Frank hopped off the ledge and stood behind his mother's shoulder. Mikey Way stood on the porch, a bouquet of pink and red carnations clenched in his bony hand. His nose was red and shiny, and his eyes were swollen with tears. Gerard stood behind him, though his head was ducked and his hair hid any expression.
"I'm sorry," Mikey said with a sniff. He handed her the flowers, which she hugged to her chest.
"I'm sorry, too."
"We have some of his things," Mikey said. "Um. If you want to keep them."
Gerard started digging through his backpack as if on cue, but Linda's fingers darted out to stop his wrist. Gerard looked at her, worse for wear. His hair hung in strings over his still-wet eyes.
"It's alright, honey. I'm sure whatever he left with you boys, he'd want you to keep."
"Oh," Gerard said through a mouthful of slick phlegm; the effect of recent tears. He slung his bag over his shoulders and swallowed. "Okay."
"Ray and Mrs. Toro said they'll be here with some muffins soon." Mikey said, for lack of anything to say.
Gerard lifted his head then and looked at Mrs. Iero, then over her shoulder, where Frank stood. His eyes were glassy; they didn't lock on any one thing, just swept the room behind the wall— though for a moment Frank thought he might've seen recognition cross his face. Blind hope, he guessed.
"Would you boys like to come in?"
"We don't want to intrude —," Mikey says, while Gerard at the same time says, "That would be really nice —."
They side eye each other, tensely. It's the first thing to make Frank crack a smile in days.
His mother smiles too — the first he's seen since he found her again. "Come in, please."
Mikey walked in first, stepping off his shoes, Gerard following his actions. Linda led them into the dining room. Frank followed in tow the entire time, watching them intently.
"No f*cking good food in this house," Linda mumbled as she rummaged in a kitchen cabinet. She called out, "Are you kids hungry at all?"
"No, thank you though." Mikey pulled out a chair and so did Gerard. "We're okay."
"Coffees all around, then!" She set the coffee brewing.
Gerard bit his nails and glanced around the room. Mikey took off his glasses and rubbed his sore eyes. The wall clock chimed the hour with its little birdsong.
"I really like that picture," Gerard said, pointing to Frank's senior portrait hung on the wall behind Mikey.
"Me too,” Mikey snorted.
Gerard grinned and shook his head before it quickly turned to a frown. "I want to go home."
Mikey and Frank wore matching expressions of sympathy as they watched Gerard's face, his trembling lip. His tone was so full of innocence; it was the kind of thing only a kid would say: I want to go home.
But home wasn't a place anymore. Home becomes a feeling when put into this context, and no matter how many times a mother corrects her child (but you are home!) the feeling doesn't subside. Nor does it lessen.
"You're no happier at home," says Mikey. "We need to be here. For his family."
"They wouldn't want anyone here so soon, anyway. It was a stupid mistake to come in the first place," Gerard grumbled at the same time that Frank's dad appeared in the doorway, a vase in hand.
"Boys," he said simply, setting the vase on the table, leaning over Gerard and resting a hand on his shoulder. "It's so nice to see you."
It was a rare show of affection from Mr. Iero. He was hardly ever touchy with his own son. Gerard didn’t care. He was more concerned with being heard, embarrassment evident on his reddened face.
Frank Sr. disappeared downstairs after setting up the flowers. Linda set their coffees on the table and pulled out a chair.
"Thank you," the brothers said in unison. They sipped stale coffee in tense silence for a while — a kind of silence where everyone was thinking the same thing, though nobody had the nerve to say something.
"It's been lonely," Linda admits after a while. "I overheard you in the kitchen. I don't mind you being here. Honest." She crossed her heart on the last word.
Gerard glanced up at her with his notorious doe eyes, caught in the headlights.
"If my baby were here, all I'd want is to take care of him. I like to see you boys taken care of. You are taking care of yourselves aren’t you?” Her gaze was directed at Gerard.
Gerard turned his head down again and wiped his eyes with his hands. Mikey said something that Gerard, nor Frank, paid any mind to, but it took the attention of Frank’s mother off of Gerard. Mikey was gracious like that, always so in tune with his brother.
Frank moved to stand behind Gerard and placed a hand on his shoulder. Gerard's icy fingers came up to grip the same spot, holding onto his shoulder with a claw-like grip.
"Frank," Gerard said under his breath, only audible to Frank and himself.
"I'm right here," Frank whispered.
After he finished his coffee, Gerard had worked up the nerve to ask the one thing he'd been wanting to ask since he stepped foot in the Iero house: “Can we go see his room?”
Mrs. Iero, ever a gracious host, allowed him to, but warned him not to displace anything. She hadn't yet been up herself.
She retired to her room while Mikey and Gerard climbed the stairs. Normally, Frank would want to be near her, but he followed the Ways instead.
"I feel wrong doing this," Mikey said while Gerard pushed the door of Frank's room open.
"I think it's okay. His mom said it's okay, so it's okay, right?"
"You don't sound convinced."
Gerard ignored Mikey, who huffed. Their bickering was Frank's favorite part about being around them, with how entertained they always kept him, fighting over the most menial thing. It disheartened Frank to see Gerard so eerily quiet around the person he trusts most in the world.
They both were silent while they stepped around the room, looking but not touching. His CDs strewn about the bureau, books in piles on the floor, figurines on his bookshelf covered in dust, clothes heaped together on his desk chair. Exactly how he left it when he moved out into his and Mikey's apartment four months ago.
Mikey brushed his fingertips over Arachnophobia. "We were gonna watch this for our movie night last Saturday."
Gerard looked at the DVD case but said nothing and continued combing through Frank's room. Frank's journal from the previous year (labeled in sharpie, bold and chickenscratch: 2004). Gerard let his fingers brush over it but didn't open it..
"Gerard," Frank spoke aloud, just rolling the name on his tongue. It had been so long since he thought about his friend, or anyone but his parents for that matter.
"What?" Gerard asked.
"Huh?" Mikey answered.
"You said my name."
“No I didn't."
"Oh."
Frank blinked at the interaction. Had Gerard heard him? Or had he sensed him? Maybe it was a poorly timed coincidence, bringing Frank’s hopes up just to shatter them again.
Gerard fiddled with the pack of cigarettes in his pocket. His eyes landed on Frank's guitar, an old acoustic one that he almost never touched. He shuffled over to it and picked it up by the headstock, making Frank cringe.
"She said not to touch anything," Mikey hissed, trying to take the guitar from Gerard, but he tugged it back and banged the back of it against his knee, causing it to reverberate loudly in the near-silent room. It wasn't damaged. Frank knew it wasn't damaged before Gerard turned it around to inspect it. The thing was pretty much indestructible.
"I'll put it back," Gerard said and sat on the edge of Frank's bed, resting the guitar over his knee, and plucked a sweet sounding finger-pattern. He stopped before the melody got too complicated.
"You play better than you used to," Mikey commented. Frank agreed silently. Gerard continued on with another, sadder song. Frank sat near him, criss-crossed on the floor.
He tried to play a riff for one of their own songs, but it turned out janky and off rhythm. He sighed and set the guitar down while Frank giggled and nuzzled his head against Gerard's knee. One of the only good things about still being able to feel was the warmth of Gerard's skin through the denim.
"You never told me what was in your bag," Mikey said after a moment.
"It's only clothes."
"Why so secretive?" Mikey asked earnestly, sitting down by Gerard and bumping Frank's head with his knee. Frank scooted away.
"I don't want you wondering why I have his clothes," Gerard explained, cheeks darkening. "Why I kept them, at least."
Mikey shrugged. "I'm not dumb, man. I know how it was."
Frank, on the other hand, felt suddenly very dumb. Frank didn't — doesn't — know how it was. How what was? Frank punched Mikey's shin and he kicked his leg out, straight into Frank's stomach.
"You good?"
"Yeah. I think there's a bug in here or something."
Frank scoffed. A bug. Him? A bug? Two weeks ago Frank could have Mikey in a headlock begging for mercy, and now his hits were as light as a mosquito bumping into his leg.
It dawned on him, though, that Mikey had felt what he'd done. He punched him again, just to be sure, and Mikey bounced his knee a few times to dislodge him. Not great, but it was a start.
The boys continued to sit on Frank's bed, not talking and just taking in the stale smelling bedroom. Mikey made the move to open the window and let the cold draft penetrate through to Frank's very bones.
Gerard lay back after a few minutes and nuzzled his cheek into the dark blue duvet. When was the last time Frank washed his sheets? Certainly not for months since he moved out, and even before that they'd been kind of rank. Gerard took a deep breath, inhaling his scent, which was mostly must and old boy-sweat; the look on his face didn't show disgust, but rather fondness.
"We'd better go," Mikey said. "It's close to curfew."
"Curfew?" Frank wondered aloud. Gerard and Mikey never had a curfew before — they lived on their own, for pete's sake.
"We're not going to get slashed by the boogieman."
"Frank did."
Gerard avoided Mikey's gaze, bending his head down again. He bit his lip hard enough to break skin, leaned on his elbows and pressed the palms of his hands into his eye sockets until he was seeing kaleidoscopes of green and red and white, until his head ached from the tension. His fingernails dig into his forehead directly under his hairline, leaving little half-moon impressions in their wake.
“Dude,” Mikey said. “I didn’t… I was just joking. Are you crying?”
“No.” Gerard sat up straight "I want to leave. Can you go start the car while I say goodbye to Mrs. Iero?"
Mikey did what Gerard asked without question, heading down the stairs on tiptoes. Gerard didn't move off the bed until he heard the engine start.
Gerard didn't show up to Frank's funeral; Frank didn't either.
The service was on a Thursday, six weeks before Christmas, in the church he and his mother had attended since he was an infant. Hail was in the forecast, and the entire city was a grey-brown slush.
Frank left his house early in the morning. He hadn't intended to leave, and had no desire to until he found his mother the night before, tucking the rosary gifted to him at his confirmation (St. Francis on the pendant, go figure) into the pocket of her black funeral dress before hanging it up.
Her small pale fingers shook with dedication as they smoothed over the ivory beads, cloudy quartz strung together like a pearl necklace.
Frank couldn’t bear to see it, so he went where he knew nobody would be; he went home, to Mikey's apartment.
When he arrived, the car was gone and so was Mikey. He phased through the door — a weird ghost ability he had to teach himself to do. He could touch things or go through things, and the latter took a certain amount of focus. It depleted him of energy.
Mikey wasn't in the house but the T.V. played on low. All the curtains were drawn, and only a few lamps lit the living room. He ventured into the dining room-kitchen hybrid. On the back of a dining chair was a pressed suit jacket and matching trousers. The countertops were messy like a hoarder’s house, bowls and plates piled on top of each other, caked in ramen and instant oats and whatever other crap Mikey considered food. A trail of ants came in through a crack in the window above the sink.
Frank wandered into his own room. It was untouched since he last saw it.
Then, he went into Mikey's room through the cracked door. He didn't see Gerard at first, not until his eyes adjusted to the pitch-black darkness of the room. He laid on his back and stared wide-eyed at the spinning ceiling fan. His breaths came deep and even but noisy.
"Gerard," Frank called out and sat on the foot of the bed. Gerard sat up and leaned over the nightstand for a sip of flat co*ke before flopping back down again. Frank slid up the bed and curled up in a ball by Gerard's side. Neither of them slept. Gerard shivered constantly, even under the mountain of blankets.
At first Gerard watched Seinfeld. It was the first channel he clicked to after the news. He sat on the couch in the living room and watched Seinfeld for hours, and didn't get up to piss until the marathon was over. When he came back, he sat exactly in the same spot. Then he changed the channel when it stopped playing. A recent rerun of Grey's Anatomy came on, and he watched it, expressionless; a handful of other episodes played in random order, and by the time Mikey cracked the door open, Frank himself had developed an emotional attachment to Cristina Yang.
The door clicked open. Light filtered in like a tractor beam, blinding white against Gerard's sallow skin. Mikey was silhouetted in his long black peacoat and neatly combed hair.
"Close the door," Gerard said without looking at his brother. Mikey did, then tossed him the program for Frank's funeral, and left to his bedroom wordlessly, slamming the door.
Gerard didn't reach for the pamphlet. He followed Mikey into his bedroom.
"Was it an open casket?" Gerard asked from the doorway while Mikey twisted out of his shirt.
"No," Mikey said.
"So they cremated him?"
"No, they didn't. Closed casket."
"How are we sure it's him?"
"I don't know, Gee," Mikey groaned. "Why don't you go ask a mortician or something."
"It’s just that it still feels like he's alive. I have this feeling that I'll see him again. Like he'll walk through the door any moment." Gerard took a deep, shuddering breath. "How're we gonna tour without him?"
"Don't worry about the band right now."
"But —“
"Stop. We're supposed to be taking a break anyway." Mikey shook his head resolutely.
"What are we supposed to do?" Gerard asked, though he didn't expect an answer from Mikey. He didn't get one either, as Mikey ignored him and smoothed out his clothes.
Gerard wandered back into the living room. His eyes bore into the front of the pamphlet, the simplistic drawing of a white dove on the front. In Loving Memory, Frank Anthony Iero Jr. Gerard scoffed and scooped the program up. He opened it to the first page, where Frank was pictured, a few years younger, smiling easily. Gerard traced his lips with a shaky finger.
Frank left after Gerard started crying: silently, the way he would when everyone else in the band was sleeping.
He didn't particularly want to see his mom. Seeing his friends would be much the same. Over the weeks, he'd gotten used to the idea of not being seen or heard, and was happy to be around those he loved even without being acknowledged. But, when they were angry or fretful or depressed, Frank felt trapped and guilty, and skittered away like a frightened animal.
He had virtually nowhere to go, and yet everywhere all at once. He could wander New Jersey without fear of muggings and murders, (the good thing about death is that it only comes once!), rape and abduction — at least, to him anyway. Fear, for his own person, was a thing of the past. The most torture he could endure was that with his eyes and ears.
Said torture took place in his childhood bedroom, in his apartment with Mikey, near his mom, near his dad — near anyone who cared that he's gone.
As he wandered the streets aimlessly, Frank came to the conclusion that New Jersey isn't very ghost-friendly. It isn't as if people build cities with the foresight that souls will get trapped in them, but seriously, why wasn't he somewhere else? This place was too full of life, too full of real people, too full of memories, too full of modernity.
Maybe he ought to move up somewhere with history, like Pennsylvania or Delaware. Or the White House. Maybe he could go squat at Mount Vernon or Ford Theatre and become an object of paranormal investigation — an anomaly — larking about with other spirits.
He already felt like an anomaly in his everyday life. Now, he felt it sevenfold. He didn't belong here. He didn't belong anywhere he thought ghosts and spirits belonged — because, really, who was he to be a spirit? Humans were supposed to be blessed with a way out, a paradise to flee to after their troubled lives, a pencil dive into the abyss of darkness, a state of nothingness where all awareness ceased; the epitome of peace. But apparently the universe would rather use her gigantic Judge mallet and send those she deemed deserving into a non-corporeal state of being. The reason Frank was chosen, he could never understand. He had no qualms with his life. He’d had no issues in his life. He was one of those people who accepted death at an early age. What had he done to deserve this? He was a baptized Catholic: guaranteed a spot at those bright pearly gates.
Yet he didn't believe in Heaven and Hell. Was this his afterlife? Was this Hell? It didn't feel like Hell, but eternity, in and of itself, was a concentrated form of Hell. What could he do now but observe? And could he do that until the end of time without being driven insane? What would he do to end his suffering? What could be done when there was no way out? No guns, no knives, no pills, no ropes, no mother-f*cking sledge hammers to sling into his skull until it cracked and exploded in a gruesome, gory splat.
And that got him wondering even further, what would happen if he jumped off a building? Would his ghostly form (he wasn't sure what he was at all. Plasm, maybe?) crack open? Or would it defy the laws of gravity and save itself? There was one way to find out, but Frank cowered at the idea of it. How curious it is that even in his death, Frank is still afraid to die.
Frank stopped walking at the intersection to wait for cars to pass. He wondered, would they hit him? He felt Mikey's kick, felt the warmth radiating off of Gerard, felt his mothers icy fingertips, so he’d surely feel a huge hunk of metal. The force and sensation likely wouldn’t be the same as when he was alive, but it was still significant. Frank, scientifically, was matter. He felt. He physically felt other objects. But did they feel him?
He had no clue if his composition actually constituted as matter — the only thing he did in any science class was sniff chemicals — but it felt right. He wasn't completely gone.
A kid and his mother settled in beside Frank while they waited for the light to change. Subconsciously, he smiled and waved at the boy. He didn't get a chance to feel stupid before the kid was waving back, smiling so hard that his tongue stuck out between his missing teeth.
Frank glanced around. There wasn't much else on the street. It was late in the day, and aside from a few cars, very few people were about.
The boy's mom chuckled, warmth lighting up her deep brown eyes — they creased just like Frank’s mother’s used to. She asked, “Who're you waving at?"
"My friend."
"I don't see a friend." She set her hands on her hips and pretended to look for her son's friend.
"He's invisible," the kid whispered.
"If he's invisible, then how do you know he's there?" The mom whispered back, as if they were conspirators. "Can you see him?"
"Yes. He's got brown hair, down to here." The kid gestured. "And tattoos!"
Frank took a few steps back, breath catching in his throat.
"Oh, he sounds very interesting… what’s his name?"
The kid glanced in Frank's general direction, but it seemed he couldn't find Frank's eyes. Maybe he couldn't see him. Maybe this, too, was just a coincidence. But could he feel him? Could he hear him? Frank took a deep breath and said his own name, loud and clear.
"He's called... Fred."
"Hello, Invisible Fred," the mother said and waved in Frank's direction. He hadn't yet gotten used to being seen through. Her unfocused stare irked him.
Well, sh*t. Experiment failed.
Still, 'Fred' was half his name. Maybe the kid could hear him. There had to be some kind of block, some supernatural wall to break through. If this works, if Frank could just communicate one word, maybe he could communicate more. He might even be able to have conversations with people. He could try again, he could see if this is —
The intersection finally cleared, and the child and his mom crossed one way while he crossed another.
Coincidence. It had to be. What else? Ghosts don't talk to people. They haunt them.
But what constitutes a 'haunting'? Frank didn't want to haunt anyone. Is being around his friends and family haunting them?
It was times like these that Frank wished he had access to physical objects. He could get on a computer, or go to the library, or even pop in a scary movie and figure out what he was. Poltergeist had to have at least part of the answer.
Another problem was, he didn't want to stop being a ghost, because that usually meant death — whether that be Heaven, Hell, Nirvana, or nothing. He wanted to continue living. He should've lived. He'd do anything to have never died.
There was nothing here for him.
He'd subconsciously resigned to continue living in this strange spirit realm, if just to be close to life for as long as he could. He clung to life like a child at his mother's knee, knowing she would vanish one day and sobbing for hours over it, obsessing over death until it made him sick with sorrow. Forever, forever — mom please live forever and let me live forever too, with you.
He felt hollow in the very same way as he did when he first discovered death. He didn't heave and sob like before, but these emotions were a broken mirror of that.
It brought to mind what Gerard said when he visited Frank's mom: “I want to go home.”
Weeks ago it would be a simple request. But it was impossible to go home now, stretched between material and myth.
It was cold out, early spring slush. Frank shivered with it. He couldn't change his clothes, but thankfully he wore a long-sleeve shirt, though it was fairly thin, and didn't stop much from rattling his bones.
Self destruction is often seen as beautifully tragic to those who have no part in it. On television, in books and music, it's something remarkable, that viewers are attracted to, and in some ways everybody participates in it. Everybody relates. Alcoholism, drug abuse, manic depression, self-harm — it's all its own tragic little beauty; a dying rose.
In real life, unlike all the shows and movies and books and music, it's nonsensical. It's destructive. In reality, nobody truly grasps these behaviors. Why can't my uncle just kick his opioid habit? Why does my dad drink so much he blacks out nightly? Why doesn't that homeless meth-head down the street clean up his act and get a job? They've dug themselves into rabbit holes! It's their responsibility to hop on out!
Easier said than done.
Gerard had a habit of seeing beauty in any old, awful thing: in death; in assault; in murder; in rotten food; in decaying corpses; mental illness; crawling and creeping insects; instruments of torture — the list goes on for pages. So when Frank died, an opportunity to indulge arose.
It was unnoticeable at first, even to Mikey.
Gerard would keep himself awake and on his knees all night in silent prayer. He couldn't sleep, so praying maybe calmed him. It made sense. Rote phrases falling between rose-petal lips while he thumbed his relic of a rosary: Hail Mary, O My Jesus, O Blood and Water, Eternal Father. On and on he went until his legs went numb. He'd shake himself awake. He refused to sleep, no matter how much his body begged for it.
Particularly strange was his change in eating habits. Before, when he was depressed, he’d lean into food for comfort. It didn’t make him feel better about himself, it was as much self-flagellation as well… flogging himself — an irreversible damage to his body that he believed he deserved. Back then he’d been bloated from drinking too much, sick all the time; sick of himself.
Years passed. He’d changed. And with that change, his coping mechanisms changed too. He starved and stayed awake, instead of gorging himself on food and sleeping pills. It wasn’t much better.
He walked like the dead, spoke only when spoken to, and breathed deep and slow and ragged. He seemed as alive as Frank's rotting corpse, stowed away in a sealed box.
Even still, nobody seemed to notice his hurt. It wasn't until he went to the doctor and came back with a prescription for his anxiety (anxiety, he told them; anxiety and insomnia, not grief) that anybody, aside from Frank (who'd been ceaselessly watching him when he wasn't at home), noticed.
"What's that?" Mikey asked, reaching for the white pharmacy bag on Gerard's nightstand. He'd been spending more and more time in his basem*nt bedroom, having only been at Mikey's apartment for the day after Frank's funeral. It'd been five days since.
"Just —"
Mikey pushed his glasses down his nose to read the label. "Lorazepam."
Gerard defensively snagged the bag out of Mikey's hands and held it tightly, as if Mikey would try to pry it from him. For a moment Frank thought he might, but instead he sighed, heavy and tired.
"You just kicked the stuff."
"This is differ—"
"Not really," Mikey cut him off. "Same drug class. Same thing. You shouldn't even be on benzos."
"I need them. You don't understand, I can't even," Gerard heaved a breath. "I can't."
Mikey gave another indignant sigh. Frank felt as though he was intruding — and he was — but couldn't bring himself to leave. He would've done the same in this situation. If it had been Gerard who died, and not himself, he'd have done anything to numb the loss, to hastily glue that gaping hole in his life. He wouldn't be so lucky as to have a brother like Mikey, though. Nobody would be so attentive — it didn't surprise Frank to see Mikey be the strong one, the one who kept it together; it was in his nature to push his feelings away for the sake of Gerard's well-being.
"I can't stop you from doing anything. I know if you really want to, you'll find a way." Mikey said at last. Gerard stared into his own lap. Guilty. "The band and I were texting. We want to bring him flowers tomorrow."
"You talked to them without me?"
"You're in the groupchat."
"Oh."
"Anyway. Do you want to come? Maybe you could leave a drawing or a letter, or something. I think he'd like that."
"He wouldn't know."
Frank scoffed. He would so.
"He would so.” Mikey encouraged, though he lacked proper enthusiasm. "You know he'd want that."
It cracked a small, sad smile out of Gerard, but a smile nonetheless.
"Okay."
Ray stopped by the Iero household early the next morning, looking sharp and handsome in a white button down, brown trousers, and a big woolen coat. He wasn't there for long, polite as ever with Frank's parents. Frank watched the entire full exchange. He hated the way they beat around the bush, the formality of it, the sterility that came with mourning. “I'm sorry for your loss” — much harsher than saying the much truer phrase: "I'm sorry your baby's dead.” Then, the dreaded “He's in a better place now”, even when Ray doesn’t believe in Heaven. Worst of all, “He passed too soon”, but he didn't pass at all! He was brutally murdered and thrown into a wishing well on some poor sucker's farm. Is that still passing away?
It was all bull sh*t. The worst part was nobody dared to say Frank's name. It was all he, him, his. Not Frank's. Just his. Like he was some kind of unknown, mythical being, who'd be summoned by his name being spoken more than once a day. Beetlejuice, Bloody Mary, and Frank I-f*cking-ero.
On a sweeter (literally) note, Ray left them with a variety of desserts, so much so that they didn't fit in the overstocked fridge, squeezing in by the week-old casseroles Frank's mom has been living off of. Frank would've resurrected himself to get a taste of that tres leches, but alas, he’d have to do with looking at it.
Frank's mom cried when she hugged Ray goodbye. She even planted a chaste kiss on his shoulder, the same way she would in Frank's hair before he left for school, before he grew out of it.
That nearly brought tears to his own eyes. Her brokenness like porcelain. Someday, the crack down her frame which spills out lifeblood will be covered by gold, obvious and beautiful. Or she'd stay cracked and hollow like a china doll, eternally staring into space. Beautiful and scarred.
Frank followed Ray into his car. They went to get Bob, then Mikey.
"Gee says to give him a few minutes," Mikey explained, buckling himself in. "I think he's writing something."
Frank perked up. Gerard, writing about him? A eulogy, maybe? No, those are only done at funerals. But maybe to make up for missing it — or a song? That would be kick-ass.
"What's he writing?" Ray asked.
"I think, a letter."
"Who's going to read it?"
Frank rolled his eyes. He wished he could shake his friends and yell in their stupid f*cking faces, because he's right here! He can read! He can hear!
"I don't think it matters," Bob said, solemn as ever.
Gerard appeared seemingly out of nowhere and hopped wordlessly into the car. Mikey sent him a reassuring smile from across Frank, and they set off. Gerard fumbled with the paper in his hand, smoothing out divots and creases, caused by his own sweaty palms. The car ride was silent. Frank leaned his head on Gerard's shoulder, his knee against Mikey's knee, and allowed himself more rest than he'd gotten in weeks — just from a measly twenty minute drive.
It's really quite grim to see one's own resting place. It's dehumanizing, but Frank isn't a human anyway, so it makes sense in some convoluted way. Here lies Frank. Encased in an airtight wooden box, secured in concrete, locked away forever in a small stone building, to rot away with his fellow dead family members until the earth inevitably explodes. Or something equally terrible and tragic happens, like a nuke getting dropped right on his family's crypt.
The boys set their gifts down against the ridges of the small mausoleum: a bouquet of red roses, Gerard's note, a tiny white pumpkin, and a single lily.
Ray held a small basket on his arm, with a blanket in it. He spread it on the floor with Mikey's help, and then they situated themselves on top, sitting crisscross in a semicircle. Frank sat at the forefront of it, curious as to what they were doing.
Ray handed out sandwiches wrapped in
parchment paper.
"Oh," Frank said aloud. Ray pulled out a fifth sandwich and set it... on Frank's lap. It stayed suspended on his knee for a moment before flopping onto the ground in front of him.
"What the f*ck?" Mikey started.
"That..." Gerard started. "Did that sandwich float?"
Ray and Bob looked at them confused. "What do you mean?"
"No, actually, it was like, suspended in air and then it fell," Mikey said, picking it up and tossing it in the general direction of Frank's lap. Frank drew his knees up and it landed between his knees with a resonant splat. "Oh."
Gerard slowly and carefully sat up on his knees to retrieve the sandwich — and those were Gerard's fingertips grazing Frank's ass, weird — and held it up. He held it above where Frank's legs were before, then dropped it gently. It caught on his calf on the way down.
"See!"
"No, it's gotta be wrapped in one of our hairs or something," Ray said. "Mine or Gerard's."
Gerard waved his hand in the general direction of Frank. His hands grazed Frank's knees and shins.
"No, feel," Gerard insisted. "It feels like when you put two magnets against each other... some kind of energy force field, maybe?"
"Bullsh*t," Mikey said, but he did so anyway, jabbing a pointy finger right at Frank's chest. Frank let him; let them inspect him like a specimen, prod him like they did to dead rats in AP Bio.
"Whoa," Mikey whispers when he withdraws his hand. Ray and Bob touch Frank in similar ways, with similar reactions, leaving Frank rolling and giggling in the grass — that sh*t tickles like a motherf*cker.
They all sat, staring in awe of Frank, and it was relieving as much as it was concerning. What would they make of this? Of him? He was just some hoax, some glitch of nature to them, because who, seriously, jumps to the conclusion that their best friend is a ghost? That he's sitting right alongside them, always with them, a weird semi-magnetic warp in the atmosphere?
— and just as Frank thinks it, Ray makes the same suggestion.
"Maybe it's an atmospheric thing," he said with a shrug. "A blip."
"A blip? In the earth? This isn't the f*cking matrix." Gerard spoke.
"And it's not America's Most Haunted, either." Bob quipped.
"Either way it's supernatural," said Mikey.
"You don't know that. Maybe there's a geological explanation," Ray countered. "Like, maybe something disrupting the magnetic field.”
A contemplative silence.
"Maybe the 'something' is Frank," Bob said, a barely perceivable smirk on his face — an obvious joke. His smile fell when the group didn't laugh.
"Do ghosts disrupt magnetic fields?"
"Gee —"
"No, do they? I thought ghosts didn't have any effect on earth."
Mikey blinked. Gerard had never given an indication of believing in ghosts, and Frank's certain that if he were alive, if he weren't an actual ghost, he'd have burst out laughing. It was that ridiculous. What near-thirty year old man seriously believes in ghosts?
Where Frank would take the piss out on him, the rest of the guys look at him with uncomfortable pity. Gerard's eyes were ever-wild, a challenge as he looked at each of them in turn, as if to say ‘I dare you to mock me.’
It was a quality Frank admired about Gerard, the way he so vehemently stands his ground, doesn't allow himself to be made a joke — it's why he's such a good frontman, such an incredible artist.
Mikey dug into his sandwich first, and from then on there wasn't much talking. Light chatter, mostly reminiscent, and never about Frank, was the only topic. They stayed until the sun started to go down — around four in the afternoon, God curse daylight savings time.
It got too cold, the grass too dewy, so they packed up.
"You coming with me, or do you want to go back home?" Mikey asked, helping Gerard to his feet.
"I might walk, I think. It's not too far."
"It's dangerous, Gee."
"They haven't caught him yet," Ray whispered.
Him. Frank's killer. It made his stomach feel sick. He hadn't considered that he was murdered, too caught up in the grief of his family and friends and his state of being to think about it. He was killed. Who in his life had the motive to kill him? Nobody that he could think of, but Frank was never the most observant fellow.
But more importantly, why couldn't Frank remember who killed him... surely he would know, but he couldn't picture his last moments, he couldn't even conjure up his last day alive. How did he die? All he knew was he was trapped in a well, with one missing foot. Did they stab him? Strangle him? Beat him? What ruins were his remains in? He'd only seen his body being transferred under a sheath, he hadn't seen it examined, though he seemed mostly whole beneath it.
"I'll be okay, I have my dagger," Gerard shrugged. "Nobody's gonna get me."
"Okay. Call me when you get home."
"Okay," Gerard hugged Mikey goodbye, then slumped back onto the wet, mushy grass, watching his friends slog away.
Frank sat down next to Gerard, pressing his arm against his. Gerard froze up.
"Oh." He said to himself. He leaned into the feeling — being Frank's arm — and forced Frank to slide to the side after a moment; it seemed physics wanted to keep some sort of law, because Frank would never voluntarily move away from Gerard — he just had the itchy feeling that he had to.
"Like Jell-o," Gerard muttered. Strangely, Frank was thinking the exact same thing. Gerard had always had a knack at reading others, always knowing what someone was thinking — a strange, mystic intuition. Even for invisible, dubiously-fictitious beings, he had that connection. It was —
"Totally weird."
Bingo. Right on the nose. Totally weird.
"Are you Frank?" Gerard asked, looking somewhere slightly above Frank's head.
Frank snorted. Gerard wouldn't be able to hear his answer, but he gave it anyway.
He was proven right when Gerard slumped down in dejection. "Are you a ghost?"
"I don’t know,” Frank answered, despondent.
"What are ghosts made out of?" Gerard spoke, more to himself. He sometimes did that; monologued when he thought nobody would hear him. He tended to sleep talk too. Frank fondly remembers that night in the van when he burst awake after dream-talking about alien spiders abducting and probing the whole band (pretty unoriginal for Gerard's vast imagination).
"Is it plasma? Mist?"
Frank wasn't either of those things. He frowned.
"No, plasma is goopier," Gerard sighed. He slumped down further onto the grass. It had to be uncomfortably cold, but he didn't mind. "At least I think it is. And you feel like... nothing."
"A negative charge," Frank deadpanned.
"Resistance." Gerard nodded to himself. He seemed content with his conclusion, and then the tears came, streaming out noiselessly without his consent.
Any time Gerard had cried in front of Frank, which wasn't too often, he hadn't been so quiet about it. He'd sniffle and sob and whimper, or he'd cling to someone, or he'd wipe his eyes incessantly until he was done — but here he was stone-faced and cold. If it was darker, nobody would be the wiser. He opened his mouth to take in deeper breaths, salt streaming in rivulets to the corners of his lips, hanging there before dripping down his chin, down his neck, absorbed into the collar of his shirt.
Frank couldn't do much else than watch and wait for Gerard to stop. He sat up and hucked a glob of spit onto the dirt, then blew his nose on the bottom of his t-shirt, soiling it.
"It should've been me," he whispered, eyes staring straight into the cloudy night, neck craned almost painfully.
Frank wrapped his arm around Gerard's shoulder and tried to pull him close — not succeeding. His arm lay on his body, but he couldn't force Gerard closer, couldn't cradle his head into his chest like he so desperately wanted.
"I can feel you," Gerard whispered again, to his knees. "I don't know if it's real."
"It is," Frank responded. He couldn't let Gerard talk to himself, even though he knew he wouldn't be heard.
"It feels real. You wouldn't just leave us like that. You had so much more to do."
A rock branch fell off of a nearby tree, rotten wood hitting the ground with a fwop.
"I've felt it before, too. I didn't want to tell the guys because they wouldn't understand — I can feel you, and it's not even a tactile thing. It's like my nerve endings are being tickled, or something. It sounds dumb, and it is, but I can. When I was in bed, after the first week, I felt you against my side."
Gerard lit up a cigarette and took a drag, held it for a moment, then exhaled through the corner of his mouth. "I didn't know it was you. I guess I still don't. But it feels like nothing else."
Gerard sniffed.
"I rolled over expecting to see your face, like you were meant to be there. But we never even shared a bed, except once."
Once. On their first tour, when they stopped in motels and got a single room with two double beds, Mikey made Frank switch with him because Gerard kept tossing and turning. He got in bed happily and got out sleep deprived with scrapes on his calf from Gerard's eagle-like talons he calls toe nails.
"The point is, it's not like you, so it probably wasn't you." Gerard took another drag and the cherry of his cigarette glowed like embers. "I hope it was, though. I never — I'd never full out admit it, but I really liked being physically close to you. I liked it when you'd tackle me and hug me and put me in a headlock — I bitched about it, but I loved it all. I liked to have your attention on me, and I know you'd call me an attention whor* if you were alive, but it wasn't about attention with you; I wanted your attention because I loved you."
Gerard sat in silence next to Frank for forty more minutes before he stood up on shaky legs. He looked resolutely at the ground for the entire walk home.
"Gerard Arthur," Mrs. Way tutted, picking up shirt after shirt off of Gerard's floor and flinging them into the laundry basket she held against her hip. "You have a laundry basket for a reason."
"It's full," Gerard said.
"There's this thing called a washing machine, you know. It washes clothes."
"Okay. Tomorrow."
"You always say that," Donna moaned.
"I don't want to fight mom, please," Gerard all but whined. "I'm just not doing great."
"I know you're not, but you still have to live, honey. You need to figure out what you're going to do with your life now."
"What do you mean?" Gerard sits up in bed, attention piqued.
"You're not continuing the band, right? How are you going to make a living now? I knew it from the start, I told all you boys, it wouldn't work — and look, it didn't. Grandma was an optimist, and she loved you too much to see through how impulsive you could be, that's why she thought you'd be good without a real job."
Gerard set his jaw and glared at the big box T.V. straight across from his bed. His mom took a seat at the foot of it.
"You're the one who said Frank was the soul of the band. I don't think you could do it without him. I don't think you want to, either."
"What else am I supposed to do?" Gerard cried out. "My degree is f*cking useless, I'd rather die than play shows without Frank, and I don't like anything else."
"Well, I told you not to get an illustration degree. I told you not to quit your life and start a band, too. Gerard, everything you've worked for, was never tangible to begin with, you need to —"
"What, so it's my fault my f*cking friend died? I should've known this would happen? I should've assumed the one thing keeping me happy would fail because one of the members was murdered?"
"I never said that, Gee,"
"f*ck you."
"Gerard!"
"Just get the f*ck out of my room," Gerard whined petulantly, even going so far as to push her thigh with his foot. "I don't want to talk to you."
His mom hopped off the bed and swatted at his feet indignantly.
"You're an ungrateful, entitled little brat, you know. Your brother is keeping his sh*t together just fine — he doesn't need his mom to take care of him! He loved Frank just as much as you do, so get over it already, Gerard, you're useless like this, and you somehow think it's okay to talk to your parents the way you do."
"Leave me alone."
"Fine. Fine. Sleep your sorrows away, like always. Sorry for trying to help you."
She left with her armful of trash, forgetting the laundry basket altogether.
Gerard carded his hands through his hair and tugged, red hot tears falling down his face in quick succession, his brow furrowed in anger, teeth clenched so hard his jaw was quivering, nostrils flaring. He was quicker to anger while bereft. Frank had noticed his irritability on the rise in recent weeks.
After a few moments, Gerard's breathing became steadier. Frank sidled up beside him, careful not to touch him lest he notice and feel self-conscious (he felt a bit like a voyeur, but he doesn't want to leave Gerard. He never does).
Footsteps sound from the top of the stairs. Frank expects Mikey, but it turns out to be Ray, carrying a small messenger bag. Everything about him is tentative, from his light steps to the ginger way he sits on Gerard's bed.
"What are you doing here?" Gerard snapped. Frank internally flinched; Ray didn't deserve that.
"I wanted to see if you're okay."
"Why wouldn't I be? I'm fine."
"Okay." Ray scooted up the bed, where Frank sat. He moved to make room for him (and to keep from intruding, like a huge creep). "I'm not."
Gerard glanced at him from under wet eyelashes. "Really?"
"Yeah, really," Ray sighed. He leaned his head against the headboard. "It's hard to get up most mornings."
"It's always been like that for me," Gerard
comments. "In general."
"Not like that."
"Like you'd rather die than wake up. I've been feeling that too."
"I don't understand how I feel at all, honestly."
"I feel sick."
Ray looked Gerard in the eye with a blank, serious expression. "Me too."
Gerard laughed dryly, his gaze dropping to Ray's hand on the bed. Their fingers were close together, and Gerard inched them so they fully overlapped. Ray interlinked them fully.
Frank doesn't know what to do, but it feels like the wind has been knocked out of him. He watches Gerard's face for a long time, sees that he's at some level of peace and curses himself for not getting to feel Gerard like that. Make Gerard feel like that.
One of Gerard's action figures falls off a shelf.
"My grandma has a ouija board," Ray blurted. It cracked a smile out of Gerard.
"Do you think Frank just knocked that over?"
"No!” Ray exclaimed, shaking his head. “I mean, since you seemed kind of skeptical, maybe we could try it."
"What if the thing wasn't Frank?" Gerard waved his hand around nonsensically. "What if it was like, air or whatever. Whatever you said."
"Then nothing." Ray shrugged. "It was in a cemetery. In front of his mausoleum. Chances are it was a ghost."
"Ghosts don't sit with their friends, they haunt people. And maybe it was Frank's great aunt or something. Shared plot."
"Maybe. Maybe not."
"Do you believe in ghosts?" Gerard let go of Rays hand to pick at a loose thread on the collar of his t-shirt.
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you defend me the other day?"
"'Cause I wasn't sure, but then I thought about it, and now I feel like it's the only reasonable explanation — unless something funky is going on at the earth's core, what else could it be? I did some research and came up blank."
"What kind of research?"
"Geological. Then I found some supernatural books at the library, y'know the kind weird kids at school would buy."
Gerard side-eyed his bookshelf. There was a book on occult practices, thick and obviously on display. Ray noticed and grinned.
"I meant the super cool kids.”
Gerard smiled. "Want to look through that?"
"No. Those books are all on malicious ghosts and monsters. We don't want to expel Frank, we want to communicate with him."
"...why?"
"Why not?"
Gerard, nor Frank, could argue with that. He was very happy to attempt communicating with them. He just hope the ouija board would work. He had no idea how else he could communicate, anyway.
"Okay. Let's do it, then."
"Okay."
Gerard was at CVS waiting to pick up his prescription. His head had been pounding all morning, and his throat burned as if he was coming down with a nasty cold. He picked up some extra strength cold medicine, hoping to kick the sickness before it could get to him.
He hadn't been out in a while. The luminescent lights above him buzzed steadily. The tile was dingy, the doormats even more beat up. There was a certain smell about pharmacies; a strange liminal sensation, too. He browsed the aisles, looking for nothing in particular. He pulled out a few greeting cards and read them. He let himself wander and not think.
The whole while, Frank watched from not too far behind. He'd jumped at the chance of following Gerard once he'd finally hauled himself out of bed.
After fifteen minutes of aimlessly walking and waiting for his name to be called over the intercom, Gerard stepped into the bathroom. Frank hesitated just outside the door, knowing that following him in would be overstepping. But then again, it is a public bathroom. They'd gone to the bathroom together before — although that was out of necessity. And maybe Frank's gaze wandered a bit when he was standing a urinal away from his chums, but who could blame him? He's naturally curious. But he's not going to go into a public bathroom just to watch one of his best friend piss.
He took a deep breath and followed Gerard in, standing a few paces away, directly behind him, and, most importantly, not with a view of Gerard's penis.
Gerard zips up and makes his way to the sink. Frank just kind of stands there. It reminds him of when he was a kid, waiting in the women's restroom for his mom because he couldn't be left alone.
Gerard glanced into the mirror and jumped back, hand to his chest like he was clutching pearls. Sure, his reflection was a sight for sore eyes, but that was a tad dramatic.
"Frank," Gerard said and whipped around to face him. Frank stepped closer, and saw movement in the periphery of the mirror. He could see himself.
Gerard glanced back behind himself. It was obvious by his wandering eyes that Frank was only visible through the mirror. He turned back around and approached the mirror. Frank was still completely visible. Gerard blinked hard. Frank was still there in the mirror when he opened his eyes again.
They stared at each other, and then Gerard fled from the bathroom. He sped to his car, not bothering to grab his prescription, the sole reason he came in the first place.
Frank was hot on his tail, scarcely making it into the car, squeezing in and crawling to the passenger seat the second Gerard opened the driver's side. He went, luckily, unnoticed, as Gerard sped home.
Frank's mom sat in bed staring at the television, a cup of yesterday's tea - completely full - on the nightstand. She had the curtains drawn, and whatever was playing was in a different language, some kind of Turkish soap opera. She worried her thumbs in her lap but was otherwise motionless — exactly as she was when Frank saw her the morning before.
The landline rang, and she made no move to get up. It rang again. And again. And again. The fifth time, she got up out of pure aggravation, answering with a snappy, overtired greeting.
Frank stayed in the bedroom, perched at the end of the bed and absently listening in.
"No," she shook her head frantically. "No, that's not — no. No."
She paused for the other person to speak, sticking her thumbnail in her mouth. "I don't believe you. That's not... that's not possible... I don't understand... killed himself?"
Frank perked up and walked into the kitchen where she was speaking to better understand. Frank hadn't killed himself — he knew, because even in his worst times he'd never go through with it; and the day he died was far from the worst time. They couldn't pin it on suicide, could they?
"Hold on a minute, there's another?"
The person on the phone babbled for a long time. Linda cut them off after a minute, impatient and shrill. "Michael Way? Mikey? He wouldn't have done anything to anyone, why are you scaring me like this!... what kind of substances? Sperm?"
Frank's mouth fell open in a gape. What on earth would Mikey Way's sperm have to do with this cryptic phone call?
"Saliva." Linda repeats the words on the other line. Frank breathes a sigh of relief. "On his jeans? You're not going to interrogate Mikey, are you? He's such a sweetheart, he'd never hurt my baby..."
Linda glanced towards the doorway that Frank stood on. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
"But you said they found him, why do you need to cause us even more distress?... no, but you implied it!"
The person in the other line talked on, and after about ten seconds, Linda hung up with a slam. "f*ck!"
"f*ck," Frank whispered, watching his mother pace. She slammed her hand down on the kitchen table as hard as she could, rattling the vase with the dead flowers Mikey brought. She picked the vase up and inspected it, then threw it on the tile with all her might, splattering moldy water and dead leaves all along the dining room floor, glass shards flying high.
She took a deep breath, picked a few pieces of glass out of her bare calves, and stepped carefully into the living room. Thin trails of blood ran down her wet legs.
Ray studied Latin all through High School and two years of community college. He wasn't an expert by any means, but his interest in linguistics came in handy at times — like that time they got lost in Russia, or when Gerard couldn't read the menu in Japan and almost ordered raw eel. People assume once you know Latin, you know half of all world languages. It's certainly not true.
Latin came in most handy in times like these, times where Gerard sends nonsensical emails longer than PhD dissertations, filled with sketchy links to websites that hadn't been updated since the internet first arose.
The link to the first website was entirely in Latin, and some kind of biblical text. The next, Greek, and the next, Aramaic — neither of which Ray understood even the slightest bit. The last link wasn't in a language at all, but contained portrayals of burnt and drowned victims, and a hieroglyphic typography.
Ray tugged his phone out of his pocket and dialed Gerard's number. To Frank's convenience, he turned it on speaker while he skimmed the rest of
the email.
"Ray?”
“Yeah. What is all this sh*t?"
"Research.” Gerard’s shrug was practically audible through the phone. “I’m just… scraping together what we can, since the ouija thing didn’t work.”
Fate would have it that they’d done it without him! If Frank had known, he might’ve showed up to participate in the séance. Only God knows if he would’ve been able to guide the planchette.
“Can you elaborate? Because this doesn’t make any sense without context.”
“I put context.”
“There’s not a singular punctuation mark in this entire essay, Gerard. Come over so we can decode this together, okay?”
“Mm’kay. Be there soon.”
Ray hung up with a sigh. A smile played at the corner of his lips as he got his already-clean room in order for Gerard’s visit.
Frank watched, because what else was he supposed to do? Only recently he’d rediscovered the art of sleeping (he’d been too wigged out to sleep for the first few weeks postmortem), but unfortunately, he couldn’t control his tiredness. It turned out, being dead was the same as being alive, except he couldn’t even click the TV on to satiate his restless mood. His only form of entertainment was people watching. Or, well, haunting.
He was bored beyond belief, and if Gerard and Ray could even give him one second of entertainment, he would be at peace.
Frank had grown tired of sitting in his apartment because Mikey was hardly ever home, and when he was home, he didn’t talk aloud to himself.
But when Gerard was home alone, he often muttered to himself, though much of what he said was too grim or nonsensical for even Frank to bear. Of course he wanted to listen to Gerard, but he didn’t want to listen to him suffer.
Ray was an okay middle ground. He mumbled to himself occasionally and stayed home more than Mikey, but Frank’s favorite thing about haunting Ray was hearing him play music. He had a small drum kit and a few guitars nicer than Frank’s parents house, and he would play for at least half an hour every day. Sometimes Frank caught him practicing, sometimes he wasn’t so lucky, but he stuck around anyway, because Ray was good company, and always had been.
Gerard was over within minutes, bright eyed and frantic as he pushed his way into Ray’s bedroom and flopped onto his bed, settling his overstuffed messenger bag on his lap.
“So?” Ray leaned against the doorway. “What have we got?”
“I saw Frank.”
Ray’s eyebrows nearly flew off his face with how quickly he raised them.
Gerard continued, “He was in the mirror in the pharmacy bathroom. He saw me too, I swear, he looked too real to be a hallucination. Aren’t hallucinations supposed to be immune to mirrors? They don’t show up in mirrors, right?”
“This happened at the pharmacy where you went to pick up antipsychotics, right?”
“Fine,” Gerard huffed, “if you don’t believe me, I’ll just do this myself.”
“You understand how strange that sounds, Gerard?” Ray sat on the bed and gripped Gerard’s hands, which were picking at a scab on his elbow. “It’s not because I think you’re tricking me, I just don’t know if it’s as real as you think.”
“You think I’m crazy.”
“No, I think… I think maybe all those freaks online are crazy, y’know? Just because it’s written in a different language doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“So why’d you invite me over? You don’t want to help me?”
“Help you do what, man? I know something supernatural is going on. I believe that maybe you did see Frank, but what are we going to do, bottle him up? Release his spirit from f*cking purgatory?”
“We’re supposed to be communicating with him.”
“What do you want to hear from him?”
“I don’t f*cking know. Anything.”
“Could it be that you’re in denial?”
Gerard clenched his jaw. “No. Something is off about this, and I can’t not investigate.”
“Fine, show me what you got, Sherlock.” Ray grinned.
Three hours passed. At one point, Frank became tired of listening. Everything either of the boys said was totally foreign to his untrained ears; it sounded like they were playing one of those weird, niche tabletop RPGs that Gerard was so fond of, not sh*t like Dungeons and Dragons or Vampire The Masquerade or Magic The Gathering — no, the kind of language that only people in the deep, dark crevices of Sci-Fi and Fantasy forums could invent or understand.
Gerard had emptied his bag of an abundance of notebooks and spread them onto the mattress, mixed about with pens and pencils, drawings of sigils and maps, chicken-scratch sticky-notes.
“That was a waste of time,” Gerard groaned and flopped back onto the pillows, his hair spreading against the pillows in a dark halo. “It’s stupid isn’t it?”
“It’s not,” Frank whispered. Ray said so too.
“It is, though,” Gerard blew a piece of hair off of his own face. “It’s in my head, but it feels so… real, y’know?”
“I don’t know. We’ve only read up on religious articles, there’s so many things it could be. There’s, like, that Wiccan stuff.”
Gerard smiled. “That Wiccan stuff?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we could try a blood ritual or something?” He joked.
Gerard didn’t laugh. “Do you think…?”
“No.”
“Yeah, probably not.” Gerard closed his eyes. He rested his hand on his stomach where his shirt had ridden up, absently tracing the elastic waistband of his pants.
“I know you’re thinking about it,” Ray said as he laid down on the other side of the bed, facing Gerard, who faced the ceiling.
Gerard turned his head to look at him. The bedside lamp cast shadows on his face, his eyelashes reaching out like butterfly wings, the corners of his mouth deep like a valley. Frank stared in awe as he sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed. How had he never noticed how beautiful Gerard could be? Of course, he always found him attractive, but never like this, not to the point where it made his stomach toil.
Ray reached a hand up and rubbed Gerard’s forearm in a comforting gesture. Frank nearly shook with jealousy, he wanted to smack Ray’s hand away, he wanted to lay next to Gerard, he wanted to ramble with him for hours upon hours.
Gerard’s tongue swiped over his lips as he looked Ray in the eyes, half lidded and seductive. Frank was sick with it. Gerard leaned forward, but Ray backed away and rolled onto his back.
“Sorry,” Gerard murmured. “I - yeah. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Ray said, blinking hard. “I — girlfriend, y’know?”
“Yeah.”
Gerard's face was impossibly red. He sat up abruptly and started to silently pack his bag while Ray watched, eyes tired and glassy. His hand trembled to stop Gerard’s movements, but it remained in his lap, tight in a fist. Gerard grabbed his bag and made to leave, but turned once he reached the doorway.
“I’ve felt really alone,” Gerard admitted. “Mikey won’t give me the time of day, my parents don’t talk to me, and all my other friends — they didn’t care about Frank like you do, y’know? And even if we can’t talk to Frank or conjure him or whatever, I want to keep trying.”
Ray waited for him to go on. Gerard didn’t hesitate to keep running his mouth.
“That’s why I…” Gerard closed his eyes and shook his head. His cheeks warmed as he spoke. “I guess I felt a closeness and I haven’t felt like that in a while, and I acted stupid.”
“I get it, it’s cool.”
“I had a good time today.”
“Yeah. Me too,” Ray struggled to keep an even voice. “Look —“
“I have to get home, I didn’t tell anyone I’d be gone, they probably already called the cops or something.”
“I’ll drive you.”
The news was on in Mikey and Frank's apartment. It seemed to always be playing, though Mikey was rarely in the living room. He'd confided in Frank one night last summer that having the T.V. playing made him feel less afraid of being alone. Frank understood. It was like a night light, a security blanket of sorts. He probably needed it now.
Frank had been around when Mikey got a phone call from Donna, imploring that he move back in for a while. She said he ought not to be alone, that he could come back and they could be a family again. Mikey was stern in his decision to not move back, yet he inhabited the apartment like he was just a fly on the wall. He made no use of it but to sleep and eat, and was otherwise gone. Frank had no clue where he went. He didn't feel right following him, as Mikey had always been protective of his privacy. He didn't want to intrude, simply for Mikey's sake.
Whereas Gerard seemed to beckon Frank's company, Mikey seemed to expel it. He didn't want to be plagued and haunted like his brother; he wanted peace and freedom. Nobody gets that from talking to dead-people.
Mikey was home, presently, but he was getting ready to go out. His peacoat, in desperate need of a wash, was tucked beneath his arm while he stood in the center of the living room, blocking Frank's view of the television.
It switched topics from a wildfire, to Frank's case. It was surreal to see a picture of his own face on the T.V. He hadn't heard what the news anchor was saying, until his photo switched to that of an unfamiliar man, skinny and bearded and drug-addled. It didn't take long for it to register that he was the man who murdered Frank.
Mikey didn't seem to share Frank's shock, but he stared at the screen with undivided attention. Frank couldn't pay attention to the anchor over the ringing in his ears.
Memories flooded back to him of that last night, walking home from Shaun's and deciding — stupidly — on a shortcut through some backroads. Inopportune and idiotic, half-drunk and happy, he found his way into the hands of a man, who was only backlit silhouette in the night. He stuck out his foot, walking by too close to Frank, and Frank face-planted — and then... nothing.
He must've killed him right there, within seconds. He'd knocked his head in with a rock or mallet.
f*ck's sake. This guy. This guy? He was practically skin and bones. He could never have dragged Frank from the street. Frank wasn't exactly a big guy, but he had muscle to him; he had weight. This guy was motherf*cking Flat Stanley. A gust of wind and he'd knock over, yet he's the guy who murdered Frank? He'd rather someone he knew killed him. Like Bob.
That is how it usually went — killed by a loved one — if watching copious amounts of Forensic Files was anything to go by. Frank had never met this man before, unless he was a guy at a show he couldn't remember, which he doubted. He had no vendetta against Frank. Frank just happened to be passing by.
But he's dead now, according to the news. He shot himself hardly a week after Frank was killed, and they just found him two days ago, rotting inside his garage with a suicide note (including a brief confession) taped to the windshield of his beat up Toyota Camry.
At least he was dead. It wasn't as climactic as Frank hoped, but he was gone. He wouldn't hurt anybody else, he wouldn't stalk people in the night — but no doubt there were thousands out there exactly like him, probably worse. Undoubtedly worse.
Frank shook himself out of his thoughts just as the new lady said "New, potentially incriminating evidence involving a close friend, could bring this case to the courtroom.”
God damn it. Could anything ever be straight forward?
"f*ck's sake," Mikey cried, nibbling on his thumbnail. He looked uncannily like his brother. He tapped his foot nervously.
“You’re telling me,” Frank said, sinking further into the couch. His fingers itched for a cigarette
Shortly thereafter, the band went through a period of isolation, never talking to each other at length. Mikey and Gerard, of course, saw each other sometimes, though never for longer than ten minutes at once. Ray and Gerard avoided each other, and Bob had gone home to Chicago.
Nobody was as busy as they let on. Gerard began writing, and had signed up for grief therapy group that he attended Wednesdays, while Mikey worked full time at the Qwik-Mart down the road, and Ray helped his mother’s small business upstate. There was no excuse for them not to see each other. They all so obviously needed company.
In the meantime, Frank had taken to new hobbies, which consisted of: going to the park to people-watch, sneaking into movie theaters and concerts, and masturbating.
He didn’t even consider masturbating until he got bored enough to try it, and although he couldn’t touch other people (not fully, anyway), he could very well touch himself. And it felt good! Normal, even. He may be a phantom feeling for others, but his body was completely human to himself, and that rocked. It was one of the only pleasures in his life that wasn’t limited, and didn’t depend on other people.
Until it did, of course.
Now, Frank had grown accustomed to haunting his friends, and though their lives were drab and lackluster without him (is that an egotistical thing to think?), he stuck around them anyway, because nothing was worse than being bored and lonely. He spent most of his in-between time haunting Gerard, and after a few days of sleepovers, Gerard became well acquainted with his own hand.
The first time it happened, Frank left the house completely. And the second, third, and so on and so forth. Frank had lost count of the amount of times Gerard had inadvertently kicked Frank out by doing something that was wildly inappropriate between two friends.
Something was peculiar about his behavior, though. Gerard never watched p*rn to get himself in the mood, and oftentimes when he stuck his hand in his loose pajama pants (sometimes skin-tight jeans), he wasn’t even hard. He seemed to be doing it out of boredom (kind of like Frank!), a blank expression and blatant lack of interest (not like Frank!). It was strange, he looked almost bummed to be doing it.
So around the umpteenth time, Frank decided to stay. He wouldn’t actively watch, he wasn’t that much of a creep. Stalker, haunter, voyeur — same difference.
Frank decided it would be best to get off the bed, so he sat on the floor on a heap of laundry and closed his eyes, blocking out the sounds of Gerard’s panting, the rustle of dry skin against dry skin. He had to open them when he heard a cap flip open, and immediately closed them when he saw Gerard, bare and half hard in his hand. Jesus, he should’ve just wenf home. Some feeling — not arousal — stirred in his gut, a mixture of anxiety and guilt.
Gerard made a frustrated grunt and Frank’s eyes flicked open once more. He averted his gaze from his friends lower half, looking instead at his face. His eyes were closed and his eyebrows twitched minutely, his lower lip between his teeth as he worked over himself with a lubed-up hand, shoulder moving quick and impatient.
“Why are you so tense?” Frank asked, purely because he knew Gerard wouldn’t hear him.
Gerard’s shoulder stopped its motion and he looked at the bedside lamp, just to the right of Frank, before closing his eyes once more. He kept his head turned towards Frank as he began stroking himself again, this time slower, more lax.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Frank whispered, eyes trained intently on Gerard’s face. “Feels good?”
Gerard made a noise halfway between a whine and a moan as he sped his hand up, slick noise filling the room. Frank felt all the blood rush to his cheeks, high on the thought that Gerard might be hearing him, sensing him, putting on a show for his eyes only.
“Stop,” Frank demanded. Gerard took his hand off his co*ck and laid it on the mattress beside him. Frank glanced down, eyes drinking in the exposed skin of Gerard’s thighs, plush and milk-white, blue veins visible beneath them, his dick standing stark, wet, and hard against his bare stomach. Spidery, pale marks crawled from the tops of his thighs over the swell of his hips, stretching out near his waist.
Frank hadn’t ever gotten the chance to see so much of Gerard’s skin at once, hadn’t even thought about it until a few weeks ago. He wanted to touch, but he knew he couldn’t — knew that Gerard could feel the ghost of his fingers, knew that he’d feel guilty over it for the rest of eternity, as if he isn’t already guilty enough.
“Start again, slow,” Frank said softly. Gerard did. He didn’t seem to hear Frank, but maybe he could sense him, subconsciously drinking in the words he was saying. He had attempted this kind of manipulation on his mother (telling her to close her eyes to sleep, or to make herself dinner) but she never heard or felt him to the extent that Gerard did. He seemed to get his message loud and clear.
Frank thought of the kid and his mother — not something particularly appropriate given the circ*mstances, but it is relevant — and how he could sense Frank, but the mom couldn’t. It had to have something to do with the person sensing him.
Gerard moaned, pulling Frank from his thoughts. His co*ck twitched, precum dripping from the head.
“Close?” Frank cooed, his fingers coming up to touch Gerard’s collar bone. Gerard bared his neck, and as Frank’s fingers ghosted to the crooked of his ear and his jaw, goosebumps rose on his skin, hair standing on end as he pulsed, white stringing onto his black t-shirt, hitting right under his pecs, followed by feeble twitching.
“Frankie,” Gerard panted out. He hid his face under the forearm of his left hand. The motion pulled his shirt up over his stomach the slightest pit, showing the bottoms of his ribs.
“Here, Gee,” Frank said, grabbing his hand tightly, squeezing with all his might.
“I can feel you,” Gerard whispered. “Is it you?”
“It’s me.” Frank whispered back, tender. He wanted Gerard to hear him again, but if feeling him was all he could do, he would settle. He would spend eternity here, communicating with Gerard the only way he could — phantom touches, little butterfly kisses.
