Call Me Zero (Frerard)

24: Do you miss me? 'Cause I miss you.

A/N: this chapter hurt too. super short though at least.

tw for vague alcoholism, and almost-drug-use. also mention of needles if that bothers you. and super super super vague thoughts of suicide.

again, just dm me if you cant read it. i'll summarize.

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It was never really clear to Frank just how dull and empty his life had been before he met Zero.

A pizza delivery boy from New Jersey, an aspiring rock star and wannabe punk, who's most exciting days were spent in the clubs drinking with his friends and playing cheap gigs. He was a nobody.

And then, one fateful night, a fucking spaceship just happened to crash right in his backyard, and suddenly he became a somebody. Not to the world, he wasn't famous, or well-known at all, no - but to Zero. He was a somebody to Zero. They were the first thing that ever truly mattered to him. Frank was so painfully aware of that fact that it physically hurt. And no matter how hard he tried, nothing could numb that pain.

He had spent days in that fucking place - whatever the fuck it was, he couldn't even say - drowning in numbness and complete lack of feeling anything whatsoever. But now, his mental state had done a complete one-eighty, and he was feeling everything at once. Too much. At times it felt like his head was about to fucking explode.

Frank wished it would.

After all, it wasn't he was ever going to see Zero again. What did he have left? It wasn't so easy to just go back to being a nobody, especially after having a person who treated you like you were the only somebody that even existed.

In his first attempts to numb the pain, Frank resorted to drinking. An entire case of beer a day sometimes, and at first it actually worked. He lived in permanent state of smelling like vomit and the minutes and hours all blurred together into nothing - but it gave Frank what he needed. He just wanted to feel nothing.

At some point he actually ended up calling Ray, telling him that he was home. Frank dimly remembered hanging up right after that, before he could say anything stupid in his drunken state. Ray had burst into the house with a smile. He was ready to welcome Frank and Zero home. He had no idea - and then he saw Frank. His best friend, passed out on the couch, half his body draped onto the floor, and shirt stained with his own vomit. Ray felt sick. He never left Frank's side after that moment.

Days and nights passed and Ray never set foot out of that house, and Frank didn't either.

Until around the middle of the second week.

Ray was asleep, Frank made sure of that before he snuck out. He knew what he needed, and he knew where to find it.

The alcohol wasn't enough anymore. He was starting to feel again.

Frank couldn't have that.

It was either January or February, he knew that much, but he couldn't be exact. The New Jersey air was cold and biting, and the numbness it brought to his skin felt sickeningly comforting to Frank.

He found what he needed as fast as possible, and made his way back home right away.

Needles and syringes weren't familiar equipment to Frank. He'd only shot up once before, and that was with the aid of some gutter-punk kid he'd known a few years back.

Pushing away his uncertainty, Frank popped the lighter out of his pocket and held the spoon out in front of him with a shaky hand. There was one thing he was certain of at least - this would numb him up for sure. And if not, he would just fall asleep. Sleep was numb too. It was peaceful. He wouldn't have to feel anymore. He wouldn't think or dream of... them anymore.

Somehow he managed to fill the syringe with the brown liquid, and thought, at least, that he had found the vein in his arm. Frank positioned the needle carefully over the spot and was about to push in, when-

"Frank what the fuck!"

Ray screamed the sentence at the top of his lungs, the door slamming open and startling Frank so suddenly that the syringe flew out of his hand and shattered on the tile floor of the bathroom. He was shaking worse than he had been all night, and he stuttered helplessly as he tried to form a complete sentence.

"Are you fucking crazy?"

Ray's voice was filled with more fury than Frank had ever heard in his life.

"Give me that shit. I can't believe you would - Jesus fuck Frank have you lost your god damn mind? What the fuck!"

Ray continued to spout obscenities as he cleaned up the broken glass and liquid from the floor. He snatched up the plastic baggy with the brown powder that was sitting next to Frank, and proceeded to dump the contents into the toilet, flushing it and slamming the porcelain lid shut.

"Get the fuck up," he commanded Frank.

Ray's voice was cracking a little. Frank realized he was crying.

"I can't believe you'd do something like this Frank. If you - if you'd-"

He choked out a sob and turned to wipe nose. Then, he leaned down, gripping Frank under the arms and lifting his limp body of the floor. Frank let him do so. Ray carried him back out to the couch, where he laid him down, and then stepped into the kitchen - as fast as Frank had ever seen him move - and came back with a glass of cold water.

"Drink this," Ray ordered.

His voice still sounded raw from crying. Frank knew better than to do anything other than what Ray had asked of him. He drank. And the refreshing liquid helped to clear his mind. Oh god.

The reality of what he had tried to do finally hit him, and Frank felt like he was going to be sick all over again.

"Oh god - oh god Ray, what did I do? What was I about to do?"

It was a rhetorical question of course, and the two of them just sat in silence.

"All I know," Ray breathed, "Is that you need to get your shit together, man. Or it's gonna fucking kill you."

~

A/N:  still writing...