Gerard's attention span was thrown out the window for the rest of the day, he spent the whole time fretting over Frank. By the end of the school day, he'd chewed his fingernails to bone and flunked out on a biology test. The day pretty much couldn't get any worse, or so he thought.
"Hey, pansy!" The all too familiar voice of Johnny Bradshaw called out as Gerard attempted to leave the school grounds in peace. "Looks like your boyfriend took my works seriously this time, now all I need is for you to follow suit and take your gay ass elsewhere." Usually Gerard was capable of ignoring Johnny's bullshit, but he'd already driven him to the end of his nerves by what he'd done to Frank. He stopped and waited for the bully to get closer, fists clenched and practically begging to have a conversation with Johnny's face. "I'll say this one last time, this school is no place for faggots." He repeated what he'd said to Frank before he fucked up his face, but this time it was his face getting fucked up. Gerard didn't hesitate to throw himself at Johnny, vindictively delivering blows to his head, taking him by surprise and sending him staggering backward. Gerard didn't stop until Bradshaw was keeled over in pain, hugging his stomach which had received a few solid kicks. It had not been part of his plan to be attacked by an eyeliner wearing, faggot artist, and such a shock to the system that he didn't get the chance to fight back before he'd already taken enough damage to render him defenseless. "I'm not going anywhere, Bradshaw, and neither is Frank." Gerard sharply, and he meant it, he wasn't going to ignore the violence anymore and he certainly wasn't going to give in to it, he was going to start fighting back. He took a few steps backward to fully admire his work, watching Johnny spit blood onto the grass, he smirked proudly until he heard someone shouting his name. "Gerard Way! I never expected this kind of behaviour from you." It was his art teacher, a look of complete and utter disbelief on her face, "This school has zero tolerance for violence." Gerard laughed sarcastically, "You tell that to him," he jerked his head in Johnny's direction, "he busted Frank's lip today. I don't see him getting in any shit."
"Watch your language, Mr Way. As for Mr Bradshaw, I can't do anything about that, no teachers were on the scene to provide enough evidence to punish him. You, on the other hand, I saw what you did and it's unacceptable. You're serving after school detention with me, right now." She ordered. "But Mrs Solomon -" Gerard began, but she cut him off. "Don't talk back to me, Gerard. You're coming with me." She said sternly. Gerard threw his arms up furiously, "This school is so fucked up." He murmured under his breath so she wouldn't hear. He gave up on trying to argue with her and went back to being satisfied with himself for giving Johnny a taste of his own medicine, he figured an hour in detention was nothing compared to the sweet taste of revenge.
He spent his time in detention doodling vampires ripping out peoples throats, those people secretly being Johnny Bradshaw and his moronic followers. "I really expected better from you." Mrs Solomon muttered in disbelief for the hundredth time. Gerard ignored her once again and kept drawing. Once he'd finished his fourth vampire he turned his attention to something he'd been working on for a while, a portrait of Frank. It wasn't perfect, because he didn't usually draw real people, he was more into comic characters and shit like that, but he thought that all the flaws, like a slightly disproportionate nose and hair that resembled a pile of twigs, were what made it special. He couldn't wait to complete it and give it to Frank. "Hours up." Mrs Solomon interrupted his shading, "You can go, and I hope I don't catch you involved in committing acts of violence again, Gerard, I'm deeply shocked." Gerard rolled his eyes, he may have been her favourite student, but this whole idea she seemed to have in her mind that he was some sort of celestial being was just plain stupid. He quickly gathered his things and left the classroom, finally free to get home and call Frank and make sure he was alright.
"Hey this is Frank. If you're hearing this, it probably means I'm trying to avoid you so don't bother leaving a message, cause nobody likes you."
Gerard groaned and threw his phone against the wall, probably shattering the screen, but that was irrelevant to him at the moment. He'd been trying to reach Frank for an hour to avail, and quite honestly, he was getting sick of hearing that smartass message each time it went through to voicemail. He threw himself on the bed in defeat, burying his face in his pillow and fighting the urge to scream into it. He was going insane worrying about his five foot nothing punk.
"Uh Gerard?" He look up from the pillow to see his younger brother standing in the door way, "You okay dude?" He sounded genuinely concerned. "No but who even cares." He replied apathetically. "Well you're throwing shit around, it must be pretty serious. Wanna talk about it?"
"It's concerning my boyfriend, last I checked, you had no interest in anything regarding him."
"Try me." He offered, entering the room and sitting on the edge of bed. Gerard looked at him uncertainly, Mikey was never this caring. But he started explaining anyway, "Basically this dickhead at school beat him up today, so he left early and now he's not answering any of my calls. Oh and, I got detention cause after school I might have gone all Hulk on his ass." He held up his hands, which were bruised and slightly swollen from the work they'd done. Mikey looked at his purpled phalanges, a slight look of shock on his face, "I didn't think you had it in you, big bro." He nodded his head approvingly, "As for Frank, give him some time. Knowing him, he's probably in his room getting high and ignoring the outside world completely. I'm sure he'll call later."
"Yeah, that does sound like Frankie." Gerard agreed, feeling slightly less anxious, "You're being unusually nice. Something must be up with you too. What is it?" This question cause Mikey to blush and smile bashfully, "Nope nothing. Just helping out my older brother for once, that's what siblings are for right?"
"Siblings are also for digging out their younger brothers secrets, and I can see you're hiding a big one. Michael James Way, you are not leaving this room until you tell me what has got you in such a good mood."
"I really don't think you want to know." He warned, but his brother just widened his eyes and looked at him sternly, insisting he tell him, "Why must you be so fucking stubborn."
"Stop beating around the bush, Mikey." Gerard was getting irritated.
"Fine, jesus. If you must know, Alicia and I... did it." His smug grin was back and he was so fucking pleased with himself you could almost smell the satisfaction. "Woah! Okay! Dude! You were right, I really didn't want to know that." Gerard wished he could take back the last two minutes of his life and never ask Mikey that stupid question. "I did warn you." The younger brother chuckled at his obvious disgust. "And you know what?" He decided to elaborate on the details, he loved watching Gerard squirm, "It was at school." He boasted. "The fuck man? At school?"
"Yep, there's a science lab that never ever gets used. I never thought being surrounded by jars full of dead frogs would be so sexy."
"Right that's it, get the fuck out. I don't want to hear anymore." Gerard thought he might be reunited with his breakfast if he heard another word about his brother's sex life. "Alright alright I'm going." He pushed himself off the mattress and laughed to himself as he left the room, leaving Gerard in peace to deal with the trauma of knowing the details of how and where Mikey lost his virginity.
Usually after school Gerard and Frank would hang around in their underwear, drinking instant coffee and watching shitty zombie movies. Without him, Gerard felt completely lost and didn't know what to do with himself. He smoked a few cigarettes, drew a picture of a frog on a scooter delivering baguettes to hungry customers and finally, gave up on occupying himself and just collapsed on his bed, allowing himself to drift into a deep sleep.
In his dream, he was Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Fighting against the antagonist, played by Johnny Bradshaw, who was holding a whole building full of people hostage, only unlike Die Hard, it wasn't for money, it was purely because he got some sort of sick enjoyment out of hurting people and making their lives miserable. Gerard had to admit, if Frank hadn't been one of the hostages, he probably would have just surrendered to the bad guys and let himself and everyone else die. But he couldn't let that happen to Frank, he wouldn't. He punched, shot and stabbed his way through each of Johnny's henchmen, all leading up to the final battle at the very top of the building. Gerard had used his last bullet in a failed attempt to kill Bradshaw and now he was left with only his bare hands to defend himself with. He was no professional fighter and, with Johnny wielding a knife, he was sure to lose. If this was really Die Hard, the villain would ultimately fall to his death and Gerard and Frank and all the captives would be saved, but this wasn't cinema. After vigorous fight, and Gerard receiving several deep gashes to his arms and upper body, he found himself being the one with his back to the windows of a skyscraper, the firm grip of Johnny Bradshaw pushing him towards it. Despite his admirable effort to resist, Gerard couldn't do anything to prevent his inevitable fall to death. He had failed. Frank would die, because Gerard wasn't strong enough to save him.