17: Mending and Renewing

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Frank settled into a more comfortable position on the only chair in Mikey's room, leaving Gerard and his brother to occupy the bed, trying to hide his wide grin from the two as they chattered away, catching up on all of the things they had missed while they had been separated.

Mikey had pulled himself from Gerard's hug to give Frank one of his own earlier, but after greeting him, he had quickly returned his attention to Gerard, and Frank was more than content to observe this reunion from the sidelines, so he let them talk, their words flowing over him as the corners of his mouth stretched upward without his consent.

Frank tried to keep up with their conversation, but they bounced from one topic to the next with no warning, some connection they shared allowing the brothers to keep pace with each other easily, but Frank didn't possess the necessary gene needed to follow their rapidly expunged sentences, so he quickly found himself very confused, even though he had been there for most of what Gerard was speaking about.

Frank settled for watching instead, keeping himself entertained by examining the way both of the men used elaborate hand gestures to punctuate their stories, sometimes ending their point with knowing looks that Frank assumed must be another layer to the brotherly language they had created.

Frank had almost forgotten what it was like to see the two of them interact, but now he found himself recalling the days when they had lived together in that small lodge in the mountains, and even though Mikey had been sick for a large majority of their stay there, those had still been some of the happiest moments of Frank's combined lives.

The siblings avoided the darker topics that inundated the air around them, choosing to highlight the happiness they had both experienced instead. Gerard told Mikey about how much better his second time being a human was, crediting Frank for most of that, which of course caused Frank to blush profusely when Mikey's gaze turned to him for a brief moment, a thankful look gracing his thin face before he looked away once more.

Frank had always wondered what Gerard had been like during his first life; they had never spoken of it much before, but Frank knew that Gerard had ended up killing himself, so he could only assume he had suffered through a miserable existence, and as curious as Frank was now that his brain had stumbled onto the topic, he wouldn't pry, because if Gerard didn't want to speak of it, then Frank was fine with not knowing, it didn't matter now anyway, and he would hate to cause Gerard any needless pain by bringing it up.

Mikey was less keen to talk about his time away from Gerard, even though Gerard refused to let him get away with short answers, finally making Mikey explain in great detail how he got transformed into an angel and what it had felt like, even getting Mikey to spill a bit about his on again, off again relationship with Ray, although Mikey looked hilariously uncomfortable discussing his love life with his older brother.

Eventually, they were interrupted by a soft knocking on the door, and when Frank pulled it open, he found Brendon and Billie Joe standing behind it, both of them pulling Frank into a quick embrace before entering the rapidly crowding room.

"I thought we would find you here," Brendon smirked knowingly, sending Gerard and Mikey a kind look before continuing, "Billie started freaking out when you weren't in your room, he thought you had run away or something else ridiculous like that."

"I was not 'freaking out'," Billie huffed in an affronted manner, "I was simply worried, that was all. God informed me that they would be in their quarters, and when they weren't, I could only assume that something bad had happened."

"Well Mr. Smarty pants, you should have figured out that Mikey would run to Gerard as soon as you took your eyes off of him, you have been the one keeping him contained this whole time," Brendon fired back, causing Mikey to blush a startling shade of red while mumbling something about 'being just fine without a babysitter thank you very much'.

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