Wintertime (Frerard, Sequel to Summertime)

26: i've been excited to write this bit since the start of this fic end my life

Gerard swore to God that he didn't exist at all for a good moment there, fixating his gaze upon the speaker, with their hand upon Frank's shoulder.

Frank had also turned, Frank had also heard, Frank had also noticed, and from the look on Frank's face, Frank had recognised them too.

Frank, however, had not drifted so far away from reality and into a memory as to not be visible once the figure approached, and Frank had not said that way, but Gerard had.

And Gerard swore he didn't exist at all as his brother looked right through him and towards his gravestone, then to Frank, and all with this somber look in his eyes.

Because to the figure, to Mikey, Gerard indeed did not exist anymore, and the black haired man remained invisible to him: eyes widened, lost in his own mind as he struggled to make sense of it all in his own head, because he couldn't just magically appear, fuck, he couldn't even if he wanted to, and he wasn't quite sure he did want to at all.

Especially, considering the look in Mikey's eyes; the look that came when he pulled his gaze over the letters upon Gerard's grave - that name, and the truth, inescapable in his eyes.

Gerard found himself just sitting there, somewhat lost between two planes of existence, not really in either but sat up high on the fence, so high that no one on either side could see him, and that was indeed what it felt like to really not exist.

Frank glanced in Gerard's direction, appearing to have processed to some extent just what the fuck had happened, however as he laid his gaze upon the nothing where his boyfriend had once been, he let out a sigh, rationalising it - Gerard had disappeared. He glanced back up at Mikey: someone he hadn't seen in so long, and to meet here of all places, fuck.

"M-Mikey..." He struggled with his name, practically failing in an act so simple as pushing it out between his lips.

Mikey didn't seem to notice the imperfections in Frank's tone, or perhaps just overlooked them, because the two hadn't seen each other in almost a decade, and that made just about everything irrelevant in comparison.

"Fuck... I... I didn't know whether I was ever going to see you again- I... fuck..." Mikey choked out, shaking his head and gesturing for Frank to get to his feet, before pulling him into a hug, because no amount of years could take away what they'd been through together. "When did you come back to Jersey? Where have you even been? What's happened all these years, fuck, Frank- you should have... fuck... I'm just glad you're here now, I can barely believe it, I just..." He let out a sigh, stepping away from Frank a little in order to give him some space.

It was then that Frank really had the opportunity to take in Mikey's appearance and how it had changed over the years; wearing his hair away from his face and even growing something in the way of a beard. He was Frank's age now, and somehow that hadn't quite registered, because when Frank had imagined them meeting Mikey again, he'd imagined eighteen year old Mikey Way who still lived in a world with his brother, and the biggest problem they had was Frank and Gerard's relationship.

It wasn't like that anymore.

Frank, of course, had changed too, looking finally perhaps a little less like a fourteen year old for the first time in his life, but physically not so much, mentally and emotionally, of course, he'd become somewhat of a different person, but as had Gerard.

"I've been here a few weeks, maybe close to a month now. I just... it was a middle of the night spur of the moment kind of thing I just had to go back, I... I was in New York and it just wasn't working - I'd been there since I was twenty five but I was unhappy, I was making nothing of myself, and I just left." He paused for a moment, glancing back at the grave behind him: his boyfriend's grave. "Think that was the best thing I ever did. I belong here, and it sounds weird, but I feel like I need to be here."