Good day lovelies,

Forgive me, forgive me for going almost a month without updating. Real life was simply kicking my ass, what can I say? But this story WILL be completed on scheduale, even if I have to double up on my posting to succeed in it.

For those of you who are impatient, I suggest you simply check back on this story in August - which has been the estimated finish date from the beginning.

Also, to those of you who are asking for Franks POV...he's unconscious people.

/ Edited by She Who Throws Stones \\

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I got lucky. Luckier than I deserved to, falling asleep in Frank's room.

Whilst I slept quietly next to Frank, the hospital world still revolved around us. We lay undisturbed in the quiet of the private room, like an oasis of silence. As if we were some twisted version Adam and Eve in our own personal Eden. Except no version of Eden would contain so many beeping machines and lights. And I'm sure the fragrance of the first garden of the world smelt better than the miserable antiseptic hospital stench that still hurt my nose like I was inhaling bleach. And of course we were both male, and there was certainly no God watching over us. Sinners and suicides were featured pretty high on God's shitlist last time I checked. But who was counting that? I was with Frank. That was all I needed.

Fortunately, nobody came to check on Frank until the next morning. Luck must have been on my side because the first two people that walked in that morning were the very two I needed to see. For once, it seemed providence had decided to play nicely. I admit, though, that I wasn't quite as thankful as I ought to have been. Being shaken awake by anyone is an unpleasant experience. Dreamland is one of the rare blissful experiences that doesn't require narcotics, and being wrenched from that transcendence reminds me of the pain of drug withdrawal. But being shaken awake by your own little brother as he's gazing at you in disbelief and asking why you're in the wrong ward, room, and bed is even worse. I nearly fell out of the narrow bed in shock, trying to catch myself on something next to me, before realising that the solid lump under the crisp white sheets was Frank, lying in exactly the same position next to me, still fast asleep. I managed to catch myself before I could jar his shattered leg or the pins holding it together, managing to keep my place beside him. I blinked up at my younger sibling blearily, exhaustion not masking my irritation. He and Alicia looked fresher than any two people ought to be allowed to look after thepast few days, I noticed bitterly. In fact, they looked exactly the same as ever, in matching skinny jeans and too-tight band t-shirts. Alicia even had the gall to wear a brightly coloured scarf, an impropriety that I witnessed with an unreasonable amount of irritation. For some reason I felt that they should look different. After what we had experienced, I felt there should be some visible mark of impact, one that could be viewed by the naked eye; but there was nothing.

"Gerard!" Mikey said, immediately stepping back as I kept my place in the bed and fixed him with a glare, hoping to I could intimidate him into keeping his questions brief.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, quirking an eyebrow curiously.

I shrugged awkwardly as best I could from where I was lying, hoping to stave off the inevitable tide of questions. Without another form of distraction available, I started noticing the little things about my environment, like the increased noise level outside the door, and the pale shaft of light that was piercing through the blinds and falling on the opposite wall. I estimated that it was around five or six AM.

Mikey continued talking somewhat, but I had higher priorities at that moment. I turned to check that Frank was okay; he didn't seem to be any worse than before, but he also didn't seem any closer to consciousness either. At some point I must have dropped his hand in my sleep, since it now lay idly atop the sheets; frail and white. Unfortunately, the light of the morning was enough for me to catalogue in detail precisely the damage that had been doneduring our night on the cliffs.

Frank's face - which was sallow and unhealthy-looking at the best of times - had been rendered almost unrecognisable by that night and the terrible fall. Both his eyes were black and purple with a mottled pattern of bruises, as though overripe blackberries had burst across his face and been smeared down his left cheekbone. A bruise - as I've had reason to learn throughout the course of my life - is also called a contusion or ecchymosis. It is a kind of injury in which the capillaries are damaged, causing blood to seep into the surrounding tissue. When Frank hit the rocky ledge, the blunt impact had caused his blood vessels to burst, resulting in the patches of darkness and lightness across his face. There were bandages wrapped around his head disguising the worst injury, but in the very centre of the sterile white padding I could see a tiny pinprick of blood. Somehow, this suggestion of an open wound was even worse for me to than having to face a real one. I wanted to cringe, but forced myself to continue cataloging the damage. The rest of Frank's face was a mess of scratches and the odd stray bruise. His lip was split like he got in a fight with a heavy weight boxer. However, I reminded myself, nature was far more dangerous an opponent than any human ever could be.

Leaning towards him, I gently brushed a dark lock of his hair away from his face. I gazed at Frank for a long moment, trying to convey through a simple brush of my fingers all the things I wanted to say to him. I wished he would wake up, yet at the same time I feared it, lest he blame me for his unwanted continuance of life. Turning to Mikey, I squared my shoulders wearily. There were questions that needed to be asked.

I began with the simplest one: "What happened when I was asleep?"

Mikey and Alicia didn't seem to respond to the simplicity of the question the way I had hoped though, shuffling their feet and looking awkward. From the conversation with my mother I was aware that the pair of them had lied to the police officers about the entire situation, but I was too tired to even be angry. I was merely confused, and wanting to know why.

The silence stretched on, but I didn't break it. Over the past few weeks with Frank I had developed a specific technique of getting him to open up with me. Humans are naturally uncomfortable with silence, and they move quickly to fill it should it show signs of continuing for too long. If one remains silent, chances are the other person will start talking just to feel less awkward. It worked with Frank, and it worked here. After a long pause, Mikey began to speak.

"We went to get help" He told me, subconsciously moving closer to Alicia.

"We called the police. We told them there was an accident on the cliffs, that some friends had fallen and we thought they were seriously hurt. Then we called Mom and Dad." Alicia took Mikey's hand in a gesture of support that made my own palms itch, and my heart ache in a way that I didn't understand.

I nodded, and let Mikey continue. "Well, mom and dad showed up at the carpark to pick us up and they were absolutely raging," Mikey said, wincing at the memory. "Alicia took her car home, while we drove straight to the hospital. When we got here, they were just arriving with you and Frank. They took Frank straight into surgery, didn't even let us see him. You were a mess, you were unconscious and covered in blood. Mom pitched a fit until dad stepped in and convinced them that the family insurance covered you for a private room."

I nodded again. That made sense; it had seemed strange that someone like me with only a concussion should be granted a private room, while much more needy patients weren't allowed one. But I hadn't learnt everything I needed to know yet.

"Alicia," I said, focusing my gaze on the smaller of the pair. "What I want to know is why nobody seems to have any idea that Dr. Simmons is related to you." I narrowed my eyes, staring her down.

To my surprise, Alicia had the grace to look ashamed. "My father is a deserter, Gerard." She said quietly. "He joined the army before I was born, I grew up barely knowing him. When I was eight they told me he had run away. I already have a father at home; this man might be related to me by blood, but I don't know him at all. They arrested him too, and if he gets sentenced then chances are I'll never see him again anyway. What good would telling the truth do?"

I wasn't close enough to Alicia to argue. Her family and personal life weren't something we had ever discussed, and I was worried I would be overstepping the mark if I tried to make any suggestions, or got angry with her. So instead I privately resolved to gain an audience with Dr. Simmons as soon as I possibly could. I just let Alicia know I thought she was doing what she felt was best, and I had no intention of arguing. She looked relieved, and then she and Mikey began to look awkward again as the conversation dried up.

I glanced out of the window again. Light was beginning to filter through, the darkness of the night giving way to dawn. The city was a stark silhouette against the first rays of the sun, and I shivered. It was time for me to leave now, go and return to my room - pretend I had never seen Frank. Time to face the music with mom and dad.

/

Slipping back through the hospital was easy, and I returned without anyone becoming any the wiser of my brief absence.

Later that day, the doctors pronounced me well enough to leave the hospital. The extensive testing and substantial amount of complaining from my mother made getting let out nothing short of a miracle. But to be honest, there was nothing wrong with me except a mild concussion, and since when had concussions warranted a hospital stay, anyway?

Mom and dad still weren't on speaking terms with me, however. They had taken the news about Frank's eating disorder and self-harming issues very, very badly, which reminded me of all the reasons why I hadn't wanted to tell them in the first place. They entered the room first thing in the morning with barely a cursory hello - although Mom looked regretful, even as she followed my father's lead - and they gave me breakfast without speaking to me except for a little aside about how hospital food made you even more ill. They packed up my things, and managed all my paperwork without talking to me. In fact, it wasn't until we reached the corridor leading to Frank's room that they spoke again.

Before we left, I was granted the opportunity to say goodbye to Frank. Although of course I was assured that I would be welcome to visit him in the intervening time. Nobody could tell me what would happen after that. It was what had been preoccupying me the whole morning, but I was afraid to ask in case I heard what I dreaded most - that they would make him leave. Leave us, and leave me. After coming so close to losing him, and experiencing those awful moments when I thought he was gone, I knew I couldn't continue without him again. When had he begun to mean so damn much to me?

Before Frank came along, my life was like a grey, dull slate. A blank canvas, to use a cliched phrase. Nothing changed, nothing was beautiful. I spent my days failing school, smoking, and drawing. I spent my nights cutting my wrists to ribbons, drinking myself into a stupor, and occasionally reading obscure books on art to learn facts that nobody except me would ever care about. These books were my secret. I kept them under my bed next to my comic book collection, hidden away as like a shameful secret. Some of them I had stolen from school, others I found in second hand bookstores. I started reading them when I was fourteen, and I never looked back.

However, after Frank arrived, I never seemed to have the time to continue reading them. But that didn't mean I didn't think about the things I discovered. And suddenly I just found Frank in everything. He was everywhere in my world, every little thing suddenly reminded me of him. It was in one of these books that I first found the Norwegian painter as Edvard Munch. When his work was first displayed to the art world of Berlin, it caused such shock and outrage that the exhibition was forced to close after only one week due to protest from the public - and as a teenager you can imagine the level on which that kind of controversy appealed to me. The archetypal lifestyle of the tortured alcoholic artist has resounded with me in a way I can't entirely explain, especially since I met Frank. The artist spent his entire life obsessed with one woman: Tulla. Thoughpassionately in love with her, Munch was so terrified to make a commitment that Tulla eventually ended their relationship in a fight so volatile she blasted off her lovers middle finger with a pistol. How could anyone not find that fascinating? But even so, I tried hard not to draw too many connections between Munch and myself - because I just knew that connecting the dots would create a conclusion I wasn't ready to face; not yet. Not until Frank woke up, and maybe not even then.

Edvard Munch reminds me of Frank in more ways than one, though. You see, his work is also,incidentally, the only art exhibition I have ever attended at a major gallery. I was sixteen, and I was a liar and a thief, I admit it. I left home early one summer morning, telling my parents a long string of lies that they didn't believe and that I didn't expect them to. I caught a train, paying for the ticket with money I had 'borrowed' from Mikey, telling myself I owed him whilst simultaneously being aware I would never be able to pay him back. I travelled to New York and reached the centre by midday. After two years away from the city the crowds were startling, but I pushed through, and when I reached the huge glass entrance to MoMA I hesitated only for a moment before I entered.

The white walls of the exhibition seemed to go on forever. It was crowded, full of people who seemed to come from every walk of life. There was no similarity between the young girl in a cherry red woollen coat sketching quietly from the wooden benches down the centre of the room, and, say, the elderly, dark-haired man who studied each painting closely, with his head twisted at such an angle as to peer at the way in which the rich oils had been applied. I was mystified and a little afraid, but also in awe. I had not expected to be affected so strongly, but my heart beat almost painfully in my thin chest as I walked through the rooms. I was almost embarrassed, as though I expected someone to call me out as an impostor, throw me from the gallery for daring to think I could appreciate art in the same way as the students years older than me. But I could not bring myself to leave. I hovered in front of the huge canvasses, gazing in wonder at the rough, barely identifiable figures Munch had pulled out of the mass of paint.

Most of all though, in spite of what my conflicting emotions were saying, I felt safe. I felt like I had come home. I didn't want to leave there. Even after I had spent too long looking at every individual picture, I stayed. I sat on one of the benches where the more artistic people could sit and draw, and I waited. I wasn't waiting for anything or anyone, but there was a certain sense of expectation. Nothing happened, and I still don't quite understand why I waited so long. But I knew that when the end of the day arrived I had to leave that gallery, and the feeling of bereavement hurt. I never wanted to leave.

Entering Frank's hospital room to say goodbye, I was suddenly reminded of that day. I had the same sense of wonder, as I looked at him lying still and silent in the bed, and the same gut-wrenching feeling of pain as I contemplated leaving him. Mom and dad had stopped outside to speak to a doctor, and so I was alone as I walked quietly towards the bed. Frank was lying with his face turned away, and he looked just the way I had left him; they obviously hadn't moved him at all. I wondered if he could hear me, and as I sat down in the chair beside his bed, I leaned forward self consciously, glancing back at the door to make sure my parents weren't going to come in.

His greasy, unwashed hair tickled my cheek as I placed my lips beside his ear and softly whispered, "Frank, it's me. Please don't hate me when you wake up." I hesitated, unsure of what else to say. Leaning forward again, I spoke quietly; "I had to tell them the truth. You're going to get better soon." Was it my imagination, or had Franks hand twitched slightly on the sheets?

"You're going to get better." I repeated, and then took the plunge. "Frankie, when you wake up, and when they let you out of here...we need to talk too." Holding my breath, I leaned across the white pillow, and gently pressed a kiss to his cheek. It took all my willpower not to place one on his lips too. But that was too risky. Even for me.

The door opening again startled me, and I pulled myself back into the chair just in time, as my mother entered. Exhausted, she still smiled at me. I hoped that meant she was starting to forgive me for lying to her.

"Have you said goodbye? She asked me.

When I nodded in the affirmative, she stepped forward to join me as we stared at Frank. Mirroring my earlier actions, she brushed back his hair, and then leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

"Goodbye, Frank," she said softly.

/

Mom and Dad said we would leave right away, but somehow it took the entire day to pack my things, talk to the doctors, get hold of Mikey, and various other things. The whole time, I just sat in a corner on one of the hard blue plastic chairs in the waiting room, and stared into space. I felt like a machine.

It felt wrong to return home without him. Conversation in the car was stilted and dwindled swiftly. After we eventually made it back to the house and Mom and Dad finally stopped checking over me every five minutes and shooting me dirty looks, I wandered slowly down to the basement. I expected to feel relieved to be back home in my cave, amongst my things with my art and my comics and music and nobody to tell me when to eat or sleep, and even to be able to go to the toilet unaccompanied. But it just felt empty, like the colour had gone out of the little room, leaving it bare and grey.

I tried to draw, but I was impatient and irritated and the drawing just wasn't playing out the way I had envisioned it. As the pencil lead snapped, leaving a dark mark on the paper, I let out a growl of irritation and hurled the offending stick of wood across the room. Slumping across my desk I placed my head in my hands slowly, grinding my knuckles into my eyes until I saw stars.

When the tap came on my door I wasn't expecting it, and I quickly pulled myself together before letting it open. "Come in," I called. I was surprised to see that Mikey stood in the doorway, his lanky frame poised awkwardly. "Oh, hi Mikes," I said, wondering what he wanted. Our last confrontation in Frank's room played across my mind. I could see from the look on his face that he was thinking of the same incident.

"I guess..." Mikey said, embarrassed. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You know, with you and Frank and everything."

An irrational anger sprang up inside me like a spitting cobra twisting itself along my spine, and I had a sudden desire to strike Mikey. Shocked at myself and suppressing it shakily, I tried to compose myself. "Thank you, Mikey. I'm okay. I think I'm just going to get some sleep," I stated, hoping he would get the message. Mikey looked like he wanted to say more, but eventually just nodded and left again, closing the door behind him. That had to have been the most pointless conversation in the history of siblinghood, I mused.

I didn't know why I was so uptight and angry tonight. I should have been a sodden mess of relief, knowing Frank was probably going to survive. But I felt like a coiled spring, wound up and ready to snap. Eventually I realised I was angry at Frank. Fury should have been my initial reaction when I realised what he had done, but I had been too busy trying to save him, too busy trying to make sure he was still alive for me to BE angry at. Fury was making a late, and unwelcome appearance. Out of nowhere, I was raging at him. How dare he do that.

I was almost relieved to realise I was angry at him. It made me feel better - and worse - to think about Frank without all the new feelings that had been confusing me. Anger was much more manageable than it's alternative.

Or maybe you're just angry at him because you l-e him.

I wouldn't let myself think about it. Maybe there WAS a way to stop thinking about it. A way I hadn't used in a long time.

I knew I had to do something to make this absolute chaotic swarm of feelings go away. It's just one night, my subconsciously told me slyly. Frank would never have to know...he's not even awake. And he didn't look after himself either, why should you? The voice was getting louder inside me, and more convincing. So just like that, I gave in. I stood up from the desk, and grabbed my leather jacket from the back of the chair. Picking up my wallet as I walked out and up the stairs, I tried to keep my steps slow and even so Mom and Dad wouldn't hear me. I doubted they would stop me from going, but it really wasn't worth the risk.

The front door closed quietly behind me, and as I walked down the driveway I pulled out my mobile phone. It didn't take me long to find the number - the number which I hadn't used in months, since before Frank arrived.

I didn't hesitate. I hit the dial button, and I pressed the phone to my ear, listening to it ring. When the man on the other end of the line picked up, I spoke quickly.

"Bert, I know it's been a while. But what are you doing tonight?"

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*cowers and waits for the storm of abuse*

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Ahem. Hello again. I thought this would be an appropriate moment to mention that yesterday was my 18th birthday, and if you wished to send me just a tiny piece of love, you should definitely review this chapter. You know, just to show you appreciate me spending the evening of my 18th straightening out the finer details of this chapter.

"And do you close your eyes with her? And pretend I'm doing you again? Like only I can? I bet you wish you had me back"

Much love always darlings,

~Hana Belladonna