Phobia | Frerard

Sociophobia

Socio•pho•bia

Noun

An extreme or irrational fear of interacting with another person, usually a stranger of new interest.

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"You're not supposed to be doing that." Mikey told his older brother gently as he watched him draw on the paper napkin placed next to his breakfast plate.

Gerard ignored his pesky little brother and continued to doodle the butterfly on his ketchup stained napkin, grumbling, "Go play in the meadow with Pete or something, he was asking for you earlier."

"I'm just trying to look out for you." Mikey replied taking the fork off of his plate and poking around at his scrambled eggs, ignoring everything Gerard had said. He pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose with his opposite hand, never turning his gaze from his white haired sibling, "What are you even drawing, Gee?"

Gerard paused and twiddled his pen between his fingers, "Butterfly."

Mikey dipped his head in a tiny nod. He didn't say anything further. He didn't understand his brother, he was only eleven after all. There was a great age difference between them which sometimes made it hard for the two to become close with each other. Mikey still tried his hardest though, no matter how much his brother didn't want to be around him. It was ironic enough, Gerard was actually a 'people person.' He would talk to any stranger if he had to, ask them how they were and give them a kind smile. But for some reason, when it came to family, Gerard acted like he'd never seen another human in his life.

"Do you know where mom is?" Gerard asked the younger boy too suddenly and crumpled the napkin into the pocket of his jeans.

"Market. She'll be back before I go to school." Mikey told him, staring down at his half empty plate.

Gerard said nothing else and excused himself from the kitchen table, leaving Mikey there by himself. He hated talking to Mikey, mostly because he didn't know how to respond or carry an actual conversation with him without stuttering or saying something completely irrelevant. Gerard couldn't help it. He was interested in things that his brother would never understand, matter of fact, Mikey wasn't allowed to be interested in the same things as Gerard. If their father caught Mikey even looking at a flower for longer than two seconds, he was yelled at and sent to his room.

Gerard brushed his thoughts aside and strode through the empty hallways of his home, listening only slightly to the sound of his beat up Vans squeak on the hardwood flooring as he went along. He was on a mission now, a mission to complete his routine which he maintained every morning. He was going straight to the frontporch to sit next to the potted flowers so he could watch the bees, then he'd watch the sun come up and keep watching until all the Sames started walking to school.

Gerard didn't miss going to school at all. He didn't miss being told what to do every second of everyday or being bullied for the dumbest things. He could recall in his second year when he was beat to the ground by a boy named Brendon just because he didn't like the way Gerard was looking at him. Of course Gerard didn't do anything back to Brendon because in all honesty, seven year old Gerard didn't know that getting the shit beat out of him was such a bad thing and he probably thought he was making friends from letting people punch the wind out of him.

Almost reaching the front door of his house, Gerard was unfortunately stopped dead in his tracks by the booming voice of his father catching his attention. Fantastic, Gerard thought.

"Gerard? Is that you moving around?" Donald Way asked almost timidly, still keeping upmost pride in his deep voice.

Gerard cringed and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, hesitating to speak. "Yes, father."