TALK TO ME ¯ᶠʳᵉʳᵃʳᵈ

-ˏˋｆｏｒｔｙ ｓｅｖｅｎ：ｔｈｅ ｒｅａｌ ｈｅａｖｅｎˊˎ-

Mikey sat hunched over the side of my bed for a while. He finally lifted his head up and wiped his face clear of tears.

"Ok," he sighed, rubbing his eyes, "I think I'm good now."

He picked up his glasses and slid them back on to his nose.

"I'm really fucking glad you're ok, though," he said. "You're my best friend and even if you can be an annoying little shit, my life wouldn't have been the same without you."

A huge grin was on my face and I moved my arm from his back so that I could squeeze his hand. Mikey and I had a silent moment to allow everything to sink in. We allowed ourselves to believe that we were both ok; that everything was ok.

I looked from Mikey to Gerard. Gerard had been silent the entire time while everyone cried over me and kissed and hugged me. All I wanted, though, was him by my side. He had his eyes on me like he was still in disbelief. Mikey saw that my eyes were on his brother, so he smiled at me and scooted away from the bed. He stood up, walked over to Gerard and pushed him to the side of the bed. Then Mikey took his place at the end, leaning against the railing.

Gerard just stood at the side of my bed, his arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. Things weren't supposed to be awkward between us; they hardly ever were.

"Y-you want water?" he asked, reaching over to a table that the nurses had left behind with a bucket of ice, a cup filled with water, and a straw. "You're probably really thirsty."

I just smiled and nodded, not really wanting anything, but just glad that he had decided to speak to me. He put the straw in the cup and then looked around the room for a chair, which he slid over to the bed and sat on, scooting it as close as he could. He held out the cup with one hand and adjusted the straw with the other, bringing it to my lips.

I could have done it on my own, really, but I wasn't going to reject his caring gesture. I had to lean my head forward just a bit to reach the straw, my lips just slightly brushing over his fingers that were holding the straw up for me. Once the water actually touched my lips and poured into my mouth, I realized how thirsty I was. I drank almost the entire cup, the water quenching my dry throat.

I pulled my lips away from the straw when I was done and Gerard looked at the almost empty cup and smiled at me, setting it back down on the table.

He reached over and caressed the side of my face with the back of his fingers gently and my eyes fluttered shut at the comforting touch. He cupped my face and stroked his thumb over my cheek. I leaned my face into his hand, having missed his touch even though I didn't even know how long I was gone. I brought my bandaged hand up to his and held it against my face, breathing in and easily smelling the imprinted scent of nicotine on his hands.

"I'm so sorry, Frankie," Gerard whispered, pulling his hand away. He held my other hand now and pressed his lips to it. "I'm so fucking sorry."

"Oh, here we go," Mikey groaned and I glanced at him before looking back at Gerard.

"I'm so scared to hurt you again," he mumbled, his lips moving against the skin on my hand. "I wanna make sure I protect you this time and never let anything harm you in any way. I'm so sorry for allowing all that shit to happen."

"Gerard, I told you a million times it isn't your fault," Mikey sighed. I looked up at Mikey with a pleading smile, hoping he would be able to stop Gerard from apologizing. Nothing was his fault. "He's been apologizing to you every single night, Frankie, I don't know how to make him stop."

"I won't," Gerard said firmly, lifting his lips from my hand so that he could look into my eyes. "I don't think I can ever stop apologizing until I see you up and walking and back to normal. So I'm sorry, Frankie, I'm sorry for being an ass hole and not listening to you. I'm sorry for going to Shane when I should have just gone to you. I'm sorry that I couldn't keep him from hurting you."