Kill All Your Friends (Frerard)

I Wanna Do What's Right By You

Frank stood in front of the school doors. The pictures he's been dying to show Gerard was residing in his jacket pocket. He finds, now that he's here, he's really nervous about how Gerard will react. Will he be angry that he went snooping around in his personal life? And about something so emotionally scarring?

"Should I do this?" He whispered to himself.

"Frank? Are you gonna go inside?" He turned and saw the person he was needing to talk to.

"Where's Bob?" Frank asked.

"Oh, he's out sick today. Are you okay? You look really pale. Do you need to sit down?" Ray asked as he put his hand on his elbow. Frank shook his head.

"No, but I need to talk to you, Ray." Ray gave him a look of confusion before nodding for him to continue. Frank took a deep breath, and gripped the pictures tighter in his pocket, making sure they were there despite the fact that he had been holding them his entire time.

"You figured it out, too, didn't you?"

"Um, figured what out?" Frank takes the last picture from the stack out of his pocket, already knowing where it was. He held the picture up to Ray. There was a long pause before he sighed sadly.

"You didn't show Gerard, did you?" He asked. Frank shook his head, causing Ray to sigh in relief.

"No, but I think he should know."

"It would destroy him. He would think it's his fault," Ray explained. Frank hated hearing those words. They held no comfort. Knowing that his father killed himself and he couldn't do anything about it, it already made him feel it was his fault. Even if he knew it wasn't. His dad was battling some demons and, in the end, it's hard to say who really won. Maybe in order to get rid of them, his father had to sacrifice his life and his own family's happiness. Frank was left with nothing but the emptiness his father should have filled with spending time with him and he left Frank's mother with the title of "Wife of the Man Who Killed Himself." Frank shook his thoughts out of the way and focused, once again, on the conversation at hand.

"He already thinks it's his fault. Only this time, he could see that absolutely no one knew! Ray, not even the guy who took these pictures knew what it meant," he explained. This whole time, Frank was thinking that he wanted to be friends with Gerard, but maybe what this feeling inside of him, tearing him up, was only because he wanted to help Gerard realize that it wasn't his fault. Frank didn't want to older male to end up like him. 'After all of this, I'll leave Gerard alone. After I know he's okay... I'll get out of his life. As long as he knows that this really wasn't his fault,' Frank thought to himself.

"Okay, Frank. I understand," Ray said, "But after school. Gerard is actually pretty emotional."

"I know. If he wasn't, then he would be okay about his brother," Frank explained. Ray offered him a sad smile as he held the school door open for Frank.

"Thank you," he responded as he walked inside.

"No problem. I'll see you after school, all right?" Ray waved as he walked away.

"Yeah. See you." Frank said. He felt someone looming behind him, causing him to turn around quickly.

"Hey, Gerard," his voice shook. Gerard glared down at him before looking up at Ray's fading figure in the hallway. 'Had he heard anything?' Frank opened his mouth to ask him if he had, but before he could even make a single sound, Gerard walked around him and away. Frank stared nervously at his back.

Frank wandered around the school grounds until the first bell rang. His heart, once again, pounding in his chest. Had Gerard heard what he and Ray were talking about? If he had, he'd surely comment on it, after all, it was his brother they were talking about.

School passed by in a flash, and before Frank knew it, school had just ended. He took a deep breath as he went looking for Ray.

"Frank, sorry. You'll have to do this without me. I just got a call from my mom, and some serious family things are going on. I'm sorry," Ray told Frank as he ran passed him, pulling his car keys out of his pocket.

"Ray-!" Frank tried, but his voice was gone by the time Ray was out the door. Okay, he thought, he'd be doing this on his own. He took a few deep breaths as he went to the tree he knew Gerard would be at. He took the pictures out of his pocket as he came closer to Gerard. Once he was within range, he called out to the boy.

"G-Gerard!" He called, his voice breaking. The red haired boy looking up from his sketch and toward Frank.

"I need to show you something, okay? Please don't ignore me," Frank said as he came to a complete stop in front of Gerard. He only received a nod in response. Frank pulled the pictures out of his pocket and held them out to Gerard.

"Look at these." Gerard stood, taking hold of the pictures and glancing at them.

"I've already seen these."

"Not all of them. Just look at them, please?" Gerard sighed and flipped through the pictures.

"Look, I don't know what your deal is, but this is too far. Don't get involved in my life or Ray and Bob's. We've all been through enough."

"Look at all of them," Frank said, holding back his tears. He didn't understand why he felt like crying. Probably because he would have loved for someone to do for him what he was doing for Gerard. But he never got that. All he got was everyone's look of pity and empty condolences from people he didn't even know, and it eventually got to the point where every 'sorry' he heard from people meant absolutely nothing. He snapped back to reality as he watched Gerard get closer and closer to the last picture.

"You wouldn't understand how I feel anyways, so just back off." As Gerard said that, something snapped in Frank.

"Oh, I know how you feel, all right?" He said through gritted teeth. He didn't understand people sometimes. Everyone is fighting some type of battle. Some people hurt more, some hurt less, and some people hurt just as much as you. It may not be because of the exact same reasons, but the fact is that something is filling up their heart with hurt and no one else has the right to make it some sort of competition.

"Yeah, okay. You didn't know Mikey like I did."

"Exactly." Frank answered as he Gerard made it to the picture. Gerard froze, letting the other pictures fall to the ground. He clutched onto the picture of his younger brother as tears trailed down his face.

"Oh, God!" He screamed, dropping to his knees. "Oh, Mikey! Why didn't you talk to me?! We told each other everything! Why would you do this to us? What was hurting you so fucking much you had to- Fuck!" He screamed at the ground. The pictures was now completely balled up in Gerard's fist, hiding the look of sadness on his brother's face from him. Suddenly, he felt arms around him.

"It's not your fault, Gerard," Frank whispered in his ear. Gerard's sobs soon turning into hiccups and shaking. He allowed himself to hug Frank back, closing his eyes tight enough to try and imagine it was Mikey. But it didn't work. All he felt was this boy hugging him. The boy who took a beating for him and even though he never said thank you, he still tried to be his friend, never getting offended when he blew him off in the rudest ways.

He supposed he could trust Frank now. After all, he was the first person to try this hard to show him Mikey's death truly wasn't his fault. He sighed in relief, almost. A weight was lifted off his shoulders, but he knew that the grieving process wasn't this easy. But he could make it. If he had at least one friend willing to stay by his side.

After a while, the two stood up and gave each a small smile.

"Thank you, Frank. Really. I'm going to show this picture to my parents tonight," Gerard says, causing Frank to worry how that will go. He wants to ask if he was needed for that, but it wasn't his family and he had intervened enough. As a result, Frank gave Gerard a sad smile and waved as Gerard turned and walked away, leaving Frank to watch his back. Just as Frank was going to turn and walk his own way, he noticed Gerard turn around and give him a smile. Frank smiled back, but more to himself and he turned and walked away.

"Mom, John, let's have a family night!" Frank yelled excitedly as he bursts through the front door of his home. His mom and step dad were in the kitchen talking.

"A family night? What do you want to do, kiddo?" John asked him. Frank smiled more.

"All right, I was thinking we could watch a movie of our choice, play some board games, and eat some junk food, you know? C'mon, you guys! Family is important," Frank said excitedly. His face was hurting because he was smiling too much.

"Frank, are you okay?" His mom asked. He was confused. He just wanted family time. He needed to spend as much time with them as possible because they won't always be here. Don't they understand that?! His mom walked up to him and wiped her finger across his cheek before holding her finger up for him to look at. It was wet. He put his hands on his face and touched his cheeks.

What? I'm crying? Why?

His smile broke and he finally cried on his mom's shoulder. It took him five years to finally cry about his dad being gone. And, he noted, it felt great.

"I know, Frankie. I know. I miss him, too. It's okay. Cry," his mom soothed him. After a few minutes, Frank calmed down and washed his face in the kitchen sink. He felt a hand on his shoulder as he was drying himself off.

"Come on. Let's have that family night," John said as he smiled at him. Frank smiled back and his family spent the rest of their night laughing at silly jokes and movies and even more so when Frank accused John of cheating at Candyland.