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Gerard stares at the rows of liquor bottles on the shelves in front of him. The glass glistens in the bright lights, the liquid in them promises him some of that sweet oblivion he has been craving for so long.
He never thought it would be like this. Never thought he would get in a fight with Frank, — three days before Christmas, no less — never thought he would say so many hurtful things to his boyfriend and storm off instead of apologising like an adult. And now he stands in the middle of the liquor store, ready to fall off the wagon, just because of a fight.
I wish I never met you.
They both need some time to calm down, Gerard tries to tell himself. They both need to calm down, spend a few hours apart, and in the morning it's going to be better, and they will be able to talk like proper adults, without any unnecessary drama and fighting. Probably. Hopefully. There is no need for Gerard to contemplate relapsing. But the deed has already been done, he has already said those horrible words — and maybe in the morning it won't feel like he betrayed Frank with just five words, but right now Gerard hates himself with passion.
Gerard gives the bottles one final look and turns away. He buys a bag of potato chips on his way out, because he spent so much time at the store it feels awkward to leave without buying anything, and takes a good look at it only when he gets back to his car. Cheddar and Sour Cream. He doesn't even like this flavour.
For a few moments Gerard contemplates spending the night wandering around town but quickly decides against it; he has already done enough damage, he doesn't want to make Frank worry about him by disappearing.
I wish I never met you, how could he even say that?
But maybe it would have been better if they never met. Maybe if they never met Frank would have had a chance to find someone better, someone who wouldn't hurt him like Gerard does all the time. He deserves better. He deserves to be happy, he deserves someone who cares about him. Gerard is only dragging him down.
Gerard barely suppresses a sob. It’s his stupid head again, trying to make everything about himself again. Stupid, selfish asshole. What he needs to do instead of whining is go to Frank and apologise. So why is it so hard? Why can’t he get a hold of himself for once? What does Frank even see in him?
It takes him a few moments before he can even start the engine. The bag of chips is lying in the front seat, long forgotten, and Gerard feels a pang of guilt in his chest — he’s not going to eat it anyway, and Frank hates chips, so it won’t even work as a spontaneous peace offering. Gerard is so goddamn wasteful.
He needs to stop beating himself up. He needs to go back home and face Frank instead of hiding in his car like a coward he is.
Gerard turns the radio on. Some stupid cheerful Christmas song is playing, and Gerard contemplates changing the channel but eventually decides against it: he is not going to find anything better anyway, and ill-fitting songs are still better than listening to the news. He already feels horrible, he doesn’t want to make it worse.
When he arrives the lights are out in the entire apartment. Gerard stops in the hallway, not daring to take his shoes off, listening into every sound, and only allows himself to relax a bit when he notices Frank’s shoes by the door.
Gerard tiptoes to the living room. Frank must be sleeping, and for some reason Gerard has a feeling that he won't appreciate sharing the bed with his boyfriend tonight, especially after said boyfriend told him that he wished they'd never met. So he settles on the couch for the night and stares at the ceiling, desperately trying to figure out where it all went wrong, whether he was born broken and useless and incapable of being a good boyfriend, until he eventually drifts off to sleep.
***
Gerard is woken up by voices coming from somewhere above his head. At first he thinks that Frank has invited someone over and forgot to wake him up, but then he remembers the events of the past evening: the fight, the way he stormed off and returned late in the night, when Frank was already asleep, and it makes him jolt awake.
Frank wouldn’t have decided to move out just like that, with no warning, would he?
And then Gerard realises that he is not in their shared bedroom anymore.
In fact, he recognises the place where he has woken up: it’s his old room, at his parents’ house, and the last time he spent the night here was last year, when he was taking care of his mother after Grandma died. Gerard tries to remember how he could have possibly ended up here: he is certain he didn’t drink the night before, and he remembers coming back home in the evening, so what the hell is he doing here?
And what’s even worse, it seems like he has been here for quite a while: his dirty clothes are scattered all over the floor, the bedsheets haven’t been changed for at least a month or two, judging by the yellowish shade of his pillowcase, and on the table Gerard notices his sketchbook and watercolours, open but clearly unused for some time, and he still doesn’t remember how he got here.
This is bad. This is really, really bad. Gerard’s first instinct is to call Frank but when he reaches for the nightstand he discovers that his phone is gone. He can’t find it in his bed, on the floor, nowhere, and this can’t be real. This can’t possibly be real. He couldn’t just lose his phone, he would have remembered that. He didn’t drink. He is certain he didn’t drink last night, and he didn’t take anything that could have caused such a severe blackout — and even if he did, Frank would have figured out that something wasn’t right. Frank always knows when something isn’t right.
Gerard crawls out of bed. He’s wearing sweatpants and an old T-shirt, and it seems like he hasn’t changed his clothes for at least a month either. It feels disgusting. It feels like he is back at one of the lowest points in his life, and yet he has no idea what happened. Gerard pinches himself. He is still in the basement, and the pain feels too real to be a dream. A slap on the cheek doesn’t help either, and Gerard has to accept that whatever is happening to him right now is pretty far from a dream.
It takes Gerard a few moments to collect himself. It’s fine, he’s trying to tell himself. He’s at his parents’ house, it’s safe. He might not even need to ask what happened and why it feels like he crawled back to his old basement and slept through several weeks. He can figure it all out on his own.
He can’t figure it out on his own. It becomes clear the moment he shows up in the kitchen and his mother nearly drops the plate she was holding, and his father stares at him like he saw a ghost.
“Morning,” Gerard gives them both a tiny wave. The best strategy, he decides, is to act like everything is normal. “What’s for breakfast?”
His mother barely suppresses a sob.
“You didn't have to get up,” she murmurs. “I was going to bring you breakfast to your room.”
And if there is one thing Gerard knows about his mother, it’s that she would never let him stay in his basement and rot, even during the lowest points, and she definitely would never enable him by bringing him breakfast in bed. In retrospect, Gerard is grateful — she was trying her best not to let him get swallowed by his depression, and even if her methods weren't the best, it was coming from the place of love. So if this time she couldn’t employ her usual strategy of forcing Gerard out of bed in the morning…
What the hell happened to him?
“It's fine,” Gerard mumbles. “I… I wanted to join you. If that's alright.”
His mother is barely holding back tears now. Gerard avoids looking her in the eyes as he takes his place at the table. His father still hasn't said a word, instead watching him with an unreadable expression on his face, and Gerard shivers under his gaze.
They eat in silence. Gerard is doing his best to act normally, and yet it only seems to be making everything worse: his mother is surprised and worried at the same time when he finishes his waffles and gets up to get himself another one, and it seems that Gerard wasn't able to do even such a simple task on his own for a long time. He catches a glimpse of the calendar on the wall and stares at it longer than he probably should.
It’s December 23rd. The day after his fight with Frank. But this can't be possible, not when Gerard seems to have spent plenty of time at his parents’ house, stuck in his basement, depressed, miserable and absolutely disgusting.
“Hey, Mom?” he says, trying to act as calm as possible. “Have you seen my phone?”
His mother frowns.
“You don't have a phone,” she says quietly. “You lost it, remember?”
Gerard is almost sure he would have remembered it if he lost his phone. He still tries to pretend that he expected this answer.
“I need to call Frank,” he says. “I— I didn't warn him, he’s probably worried.”
“Who's Frank, honey?”
Gerard freezes. She must be joking. There is no way she could have forgotten Frank: Gerard introduced them to each other shortly after he started dating Frank, and it took his mother almost a year to come to terms with the fact that her son is dating a man.
“My boyfriend,” Gerard says. “We came over for Thanksgiving together, remember?”
She looks at him like he is going crazy. And Gerard feels like he might be actually losing his mind, because either Frank decided to teach him a lesson and recruited Gerard’s own family for that, or he made up an entirely different life for himself and the past few years have been nothing but a fantasy. Gerard isn't sure which one is worse.
“I don't know anything about a boyfriend,” his mother says with a vary expression on her face. “Gerard, sweetheart, are you sure it wasn't a dream?”
Gerard is almost sure. He would have realised it if it was a dream, right? He would have struggled to remember the details, and his memory should be getting blurry and disjointed as he gets adjusted to the waking world, and this is very much not the case. He vividly remembers the previous night, just like he remembers his life with Frank — the small details, the plans they made for Christmas, everything is too real to be just a dream.
This must be a trick. Gerard has no idea how Frank managed to pull it, but it must be a trick.
“This isn't funny,” Gerard grumbles. “You know you can stop now, right?”
“Stop what?” His mother’s voice trembles. “Gerard, you're not making any sense.”
“I know he set you up for this, Mom, stop pretending!”
His father gives him a stern look.
“Told you we should’ve sent him to a hospital,” he mutters. “Look at him now, he’s completely lost it.”
Gerard pretends it doesn’t hurt to hear his father talk about him like he isn’t even in the room.This isn’t how he remembers him: his father might not be the most affectionate person, but he never allowed himself to treat Gerard like he’s less than a person. And it feels too natural, hits too close to home, and Frank couldn’t possibly be so cruel. His parents couldn’t be so cruel to keep up the ruse when they saw how much it stressed Gerard out.
“Hey.”
Gerard flinches and turns around just in time to see Mikey walk into the kitchen. For a few moments the brothers stare at each other, and then Mikey frowns and almost immediately Gerard realises what he needs to do. He grabs Mikey’s hand and drags him to the basement, ignoring Mikey’s protests.
“Do you know a guy called Frank Iero?” Gerard asks the moment the door behind him closes.
Mikey stares at him with an unreadable look on his face.
“Yeah,” he says. “Why?”
Gerard lets out a relieved breath.
“Have I ever met him?”
Mikey takes a small step back from him, bumps his shoulder against the wardrobe.
“Gerard, what's going on?”
“I have no fucking idea!” Gerard lets out a nervous laugh. “I think I’m going crazy.”
“Fucking looks that way, too,” Mikey grumbles. “What the hell happened?”
“Okay.” Gerard takes a shallow breath. He almost feels like he's floating outside his own body, and it takes too much strength to keep himself grounded. “I need you to listen to me. Just— Mom and Dad won't listen to me, but I really need you to believe me.”
Mikey stares at him with an unreadable expression on his face. Gerard holds his breath. Everything depends on Mikey’s decision now.
“Okay,” Mikey says. “I’m listening.”
Gerard lets out a relieved breath.
“I’ve been dating Frank for the past five years,” he says.
Mikey raises his eyebrows.
“Alright?” he doesn’t look even remotely surprised. “I mean, I had no idea Frank had someone on the side, but good to know.”
Someone on the side?
“I’m not his side gig!” Gerard protests. “Mikey, we live together!”
“Cool,” Mikey mutters under his breath. “But, and I hate to break it to you, you’ve been hiding here,” he points at the floor, “since November. And I’m pretty sure that I would have known much sooner if Frank dumped that asshole and moved in with you.”
“See, that’s the fucking problem!” Gerard huffs. “Yesterday I went to bed in my own fucking apartment, and today I woke up here, and Mom treats me like I’m gonna fall apart, and Dad’s taking about a hospital, and nobody fucking remembers Frank!”
“Because he never was here?” Mikey points out.
Gerard plops on the bed and buries his face in his hands. He has no idea how he got into this mess, has no idea how he gets out of it. Should he try again? Should he keep on living, try to adapt to the life without Frank? Gerard isn’t sure he can make it without him.
Mikey sits on the bed next to him, his hand gently rubs against Gerard’s back.
“What exactly do you remember from yesterday?” he asks quietly.
Gerard sniffles. Only now he realises that his face is wet from tears.
“How’s that gonna help?”
“Gerard, listen,” Mikey starts patiently. “This is the first time you left your room in months. You’ve been clinically depressed for years, and you’ve been single since, like, forever. So either you’ve gone completely crazy, which I doubt, or there’s something else going on.”
Gerard can’t possibly express how grateful he is for Mikey. Of course Mikey would believe him — or, at least, give him a chance and try to listen to what he has to say when nobody else would.
“We had a fight,” he begins. “Frank and I. It was stupid, but we said some bad shit to each other, and I went out to clear my head, and then I came back home and went to bed. That’s pretty much it, there was nothing—”
Gerard stops abruptly, his words stuck in his throat.
He said he wished he had never met Frank.
It was one of those things people sometimes say when they’re overwhelmed with emotions, Gerard didn’t mean it, not in the slightest, but he ended up thinking about it over and over for hours, and could this be—
But this isn’t possible, right? Gerard might prefer to hide in his own fantasies when the world is becoming too overwhelming for him to handle, but he can still tell the difference between reality and imagination. People can’t travel to a different timeline, humanity hasn’t even invented time travel yet, probably won’t invent it in Gerard’s lifetime, he couldn’t have just fallen through the cracks into an alternate universe where he never met Frank and instead turned into a depressed hermit still living in his parents’ basement.
“Gerard?” Mikey shakes his shoulder. “Are you still with me?”
Gerard lets out a short hysterical laugh.
“I told him I wished I never met him,” he whispers. “Mikey, I think I fucked it up.”
“You wished you never met him,” Mikey repeats slowly. “Is it like that one movie?”
“What movie?”
Mikey shrugs. “The old one, you know it. About a guy who wished he was never born, and then there’s some angel dude who takes him to a world where he doesn’t exist to prove a point,” he squints at Gerard. “Have you met any angels lately?”
“Yeah, I think I saw one fucking your Mom last night,” Gerard deadpans.
“She’s your Mom too, asshole.” Mikey bites back. “So basically, you were sent here from another world where you’re not such a massive loser because you had a fight with your boyfriend. And your boyfriend is Frank fucking Iero.”
“You make it sound weird,” Gerard mumbles.
“Because it is weird,” Mikey replies. “Even for you.”
Gerard stares at the floor. He has no idea what to do now, how he can fix this — if this situation can be fixed in the first place. He doesn’t want it to be the end. All he wants is to go back home, to Frank, and pretend this never happened.
“Okay, get dressed,” Mikey commands. “We’re going to Frank’s place.”
Gerard gapes at him. “What?”
“You heard me,” Mikey grumbles. “I mean, if we’re going by the logic of that movie—”
“You do realise that it was all made up, right?”
“If we’re going by the logic of that movie,” Mikey repeats, “you’re supposed to figure out that your life would be worse without Frank, and Frank’s gonna be struggling without you, or whatever. Life lessons and shit.”
“I think I’ve already figured it out.”
“Not enough,” Mikey shrugs. “Come on, we don’t have all day.”
Gerard squints at him. “Are you that fucking movie angel pretending to be my brother?”
“Nope.”
“Because that would’ve been really fucked up, you know. To create an entire world to teach me a fucking lesson and pretend to be my brother.”
“I’m still Mikey,” Mikey replies. His voice almost doesn’t tremble. “And let’s go with the “alternate universe” theory for now, I’m really not in the mood for an existential crisis.”
Gerard takes it as a sign to shut up. He doesn’t want to think about it either; it’s better to believe that this version of the world won’t cease to exist the moment he finds his way back to the reality he is used to.
Mikey waits for him outside while Gerard is looking for something more presentable than his sweatpants and smelly T-shirt. He doesn’t want to show up in front of Frank looking like he crawled out of somewhere dark and smelling of rot — though technically this is exactly the case if Mikey is telling the truth and Gerard really has spent the past few months in his basement. Eventually he settles on a hoodie and a pair of somewhat clean jeans.
He wonders what was the final push that sent him tumbling down. It couldn’t have been just Frank’s absence, the world doesn’t work like that. So there must have been something else, something that turned him into a recluse. Or maybe it was just that: the absence of someone who would support him, no shoulder to lean on — and Gerard lost his footing.
He manages to avoid his parents as he rushes to the bathroom to take a quick shower. Frank would have been teasing him for the next year if he ever found out that Gerard showered willingly, but one, Frank isn't around, and two, Gerard really needs to wash off the smell of depression. He thinks about washing his hair but decides against it: he doesn't have time for that, the longer he stays around the greater are the chances of his parents catching up with him, and this would mean that he would have to answer some extremely uncomfortable questions.
“Ready?” Mikey asks the moment Gerard shows up in the hallway.
Gerard nods.
Mikey is still driving an old Ford sedan. At least some things stay the same no matter what happens to the rest of the world. Mikey also keeps a spare cigarette pack and a lighter in the gloves compartment, and Gerard immediately snatches a cigarette, ignoring Mikey’s judgemental glance. He needs a smoke. Or two. He might need to smoke the entire pack, which means he will have to pay Mikey back, but this, Gerard decides, is going to be the other Gerard’s problem.
Mikey keeps shooting him curious glances as they're driving to Frank’s house. Gerard shivers and does his best to avoid looking him in the eyes. The entire situation is too strange and uncomfortable for him, and he knows he shouldn't be feeling this way — Mikey is his brother, and even in this reality he still trusts Gerard enough to believe his story. So why does it feel so awkward?
Frank lives in the same apartment building, and Gerard's heart clenches. Frank is still living here, without him. It hurts. It hurts so much.
“His boyfriend is an asshole,” Mikey warns him as they're walking up the stairs. “So be prepared.”
“Asshole how?”
“You’ll see,” Mikey simply says, and Gerard wants to smack him for being so mysterious for no reason but before he can do anything Mikey rings the doorbell.
The wait is almost unbearable. Gerard stares at the front door, desperately trying to hear people walking around inside the apartment. Will he be able to recognise Frank’s footsteps now? What else has changed in their lives?
When the door finally opens Gerard can barely suppress a disappointed groan. In front of him stands a man, about Gerard’s age, two times taller than him, and one glance at him is enough to understand that the guy doesn’t just hit the gym five times a week, he is also no stranger to steroids. And the thing is, Gerard knows Frank doesn’t like this kind of people, not enough to get involved with one romantically. Unless Frank in this universe has a completely different type.
It was a mistake to come here.
“Hey, Dallon,” Mikey says. “Is Frank home?”
“it’s Derek,” the man grumbles. “And he’s busy.”
Mikey tilts his head.
“We need to talk to him,” he says.
“I said he’s busy.”
Mikey crosses his arms. “And I said, we need to talk to Frank,” he says, giving Derek a stern look.
Derek groans.
“What the hell d’you even want from him?”
“None of your business.”
This conversation is slowly turning into a battle of willpower, and with a note of pride Gerard notices that Mikey seems to be winning. It also seems to frustrate Derek to no end. He gives Mikey a threatening glance, to which Mikey responds with a raised eyebrow and a completely unreadable expression that can easily be interpreted as “I’m not going anywhere until you give me what I want, so deal with this”, and the tension between them rises almost to the boiling point and is only broken when a voice comes from the kitchen:
“Who is it?”
In the next second Frank appears in the doorway, and Gerard immediately forgets everything that he wanted to say.
Frank’s tattoos are gone. He looks almost naked without them, so different from the Frank Gerard knows. And then his gaze travels lower and Gerard can barely suppress a pained hiss: on Frank’s left arm, right above the elbow, he sees a distinct purple spot.
“Frankie…”
Derek frowns.
“Do you know each other?” he asks suspiciously.
“That’s my brother,” Mikey says as Frank frantically shakes his head. “He wanted to say hi.”
Derek stares at Gerard like he wants to kill him. Gerard gulps.
“You two should leave,” Derek says.
But Gerard can’t. Not after he saw the state Frank is in, not when his boyfriend, the man Gerard loves with all his heart, looks so scared, and hurt, and almost broken.
“Are you happy?” Gerard asks quietly.
Mikey flinches — a fraction of a second when he allows the mask of composure slip.
“What?” Frank shoots Derek a worried look.
“I just wanna know if you’re happy.”
Derek crosses his arms. “Is that some kind of religious bullshit?”
“Let him answer, Dylan,” Mikey interrupts him.
“It’s Derek, and I want you two to get the fuck away from my boyfriend.”
Gerard refuses to move. He can’t leave before he sees Frank’s reaction, something, anything that would show him that Frank is still himself, that Gerard was wrong in his suspicions and Frank really is happy in his relationship with Derek. All he gets is a confused glance and a tiny half-hearted nod.
“Gee, let’s go,” Mikey says quietly. “It’s pointless.”
“You can leave him, you know,” Gerard tells Frank. “He can’t control your life.”
Derek takes a threatening step forward.
“Get the fuck away from my boyfriend,” he growls.
“You can do better than this,” Gerard continues. “You’re amazing, Frank, and you deserve so much more than some asshole that’s gonna treat you like shit because he has no idea how fucking precious you are.”
Frank needs to hear this. Even if Gerard will never get a chance to tell his Frank this, he still needs to let it out. He so desperately needs Frank to know how much he deserves to be loved. He wishes he met Frank sooner in this reality. He wishes he didn’t have to watch all the colour drain from Frank’s face as Derek takes another step forward and swings his arm.
“I told you to get the fuck away from him!”
Mikey makes a warning move but it turns out to be too late: Derek’s fist connects with Gerard’s jaw and sends him flying to the floor. Gerard doesn’t try to defend himself — there is no point anyway. And besides, he deserves it.
Derek kicks him in the ribs, and Gerard instinctively curls into himself. Someone screams as Derek kicks him for the second time. The impact pushes Gerard closer to the metal railing, he barely avoids hitting his head against it.
He wants to go home. He just wants to go home, and he wants to hug Frank and never let him go. If this is the reality where they never met each other, Gerard definitely doesn’t want to exist here anymore.
The third blow never comes. Everything goes quiet. Gerard waits for Derek to kick him again, to do something, but the only thing that comes is Frank’s worried voice.
“Gee?”
Slowly, Gerard opens his eyes. He is still on the floor, his back pressed against something solid, but this time he recognises the sweater he was wearing last night. When he finds the strength to look up, he comes face to face with Frank and realises that he can’t move.
Frank takes a step closer, and Gerard whimpers. It’s his Frank, tattoos and all, and within a few minutes Gerard is dragged back to his living room, and he has no idea how this happened, if it was an overly realistic dream or he hit his head too hard and everything that’s happening around him right now is nothing but a hallucination.
“What happened?”
Frank kneels next to him, his hand rests on Gerard’s shoulder. Gerard leans into the touch before he can stop himself — Frank feels so warm, and soft, and real.
“I’m fine,” he whispers, choking down tears.
Frank’s fingers brush against his cheek.
“Where did you get that?” he asks in a worried tone.
Gerard’s hand flies up to his face. He feels a bruise forming under his fingers, right where Derek punched him, and he is almost sure he wouldn’t have been able to hit his face against the floor with enough strength.
“You’re not gonna believe if I tell you,” he mutters.
“Try me,” Frank replies with a hint of a smile on his lips. “But seriously, whose ass do I need to kick?”
“Mine, I guess,” Gerard shrugs.
Frank flinches at the sound of these words.
“Please don’t tell me you—”
“I didn’t,” Gerard rushes to reassure him. “Just—”
The words get stuck in his throat. He knows he will never be able to explain it, isn’t sure he wants Frank to know about it in the first place. His arms wrap around Frank’s waist and he pulls his boyfriend closer to him, ignoring his surprised muttering.
“I love you,” he whispers. “I know I said some horrible stuff to you, but I love you, and I’m so, so sorry.”
Frank is silent. He runs his fingers through Gerard’s hair, making him shiver at the touch.
“It’s okay,” he says quietly. “I’m not mad. I mean, not anymore,” he lets out a humourless chuckle. “Not the first time, right?”
“I still said all that, Frank, I—”
Frank pulls him closer.
“I know that you didn’t really mean it,” he says. “Gee, seriously, do you really think I’d stay if I thought you meant what you said?”
“But—”
“No. Stop it,” Frank gently presses his finger against Gerard’s lips. “Let’s not take all this shit to the next year with us, okay? You said some shit, I said some shit, and then we both regretted it, so I’d say we’re even now.”
Gerard nods weakly. He doesn’t have the strength to argue anymore. The only thing that matters is that Frank is with him now, and they still have each other, and Frank is okay. And right now, at this moment, Gerard couldn’t possibly wish for more.