Title: Trompe l'oeil
Fandom: My Chemical Romance
Characters: Frank Iero, Gerard Way, Mikey Way
Rating: Mature
Length: 3,300 words
Content notes: Contains swearwords, character self injury linked to panic attack, claustraphobia, supernatural/horror elements
Author notes: This...went weird on me. I have no excuse; I blame life? The title refers to an artistic style that uses realistic imagery to create the illusion of three dimensional objects.
Summary: It shouldn't be weird that Gerard is painting a door, but it is. It really really is.

“Um,” Frank says, coming to a sharp stop at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes widening as he takes in the scene in front of him. “The fuck?”

Gerard’s basement is a complete mess, but not in the way that Frank’s used to. Instead, his bed has been shoved down into the far corner, up against the desk, freeing up a big swathe of wall. As far as Frank can tell, every single piece of crap that usually clutters Gerard’s floor has been hastily dumped on top of it, burying both bed and desk under a teetering heap of dirty clothes and sticky cans, crumpled comics and empty snack packets, tattered sketchbooks and loose charcoals, like everything that makes up Gerard has been unceremoniously shoved off to one side. It’s weird, and not in the usual Way way.

Gerard’s on the floor by the wall in the empty space that he’s freed up, feverishly painting onto the bared wall, although it’s not as bare as it used to be. Now it’s covered with a to-scale (and very lifelike, Frank’s brain helpfully supplies) painting of a door. And that’s just freaky. Frank’s seen a lot of Gerard’s work, usually when they’ve been half-baked and Gerard has gotten past the stupid, unwarranted hang-ups he has about his art. Frank’s seen sketches and paintings and sculptures, always accompanied by Gerard giving some really earnest and rambling explanation of the artistic merit or something, and it’s almost always involved blood, or werewolves, or vampires, or, or, fucking vampire-wolves. Whatever, Frank doesn’t usually give a shit, because Gerard’s art is always awesome, no matter how dark it gets, and he’ll fight any fucker that says otherwise, but this is different. If he’d wanted to guess what type of door Gerard would paint onto his wall, he’d have said something gothic, high arched and covered with intricate swirling patterns – the kind of thing that would look badass in one of those old European cathedrals, or something, but what Gerard’s painted is nothing like that. It’s just a door; plain wood, three panels that look untreated, banded together by two horizontal bars, in a worn, white wooden frame. He’s even painted exposed brickwork crumbling away on the left-hand edge of the frame, and a warped, inverted cross in blodgy white paint onto the bottom of the leftmost panel. Above that is another splodge, mostly formless, but if Frank tips his head to one side and squints, there’s the suggestion of a person. He doesn’t get it; it’s just a mundane, battered old door. It’s fucking pedestrian.

And looking at it is making his head throb sickeningly, like he gets when at he’s at his sickest, and that’s not right. He curls his fingers up inside the sleeves of his hoodie, trepidation churning in his stomach, and looks back at Mikey, his eyebrow raised questioningly. “Mikes?”

Mikey meets his look with a flatly unimpressed stare. “Fuckin’ told you,” is all he says, before he shoves past, his bony elbow digging sharp into Frank’s ribs as he squeezes into the room. He takes a couple of hesitant steps forward, toward where Gerard is crouched, all fierce intent and concentration as his brush sweeps across the plaster. “Gee?” he says. “We’re back.”

Gerard ignores him. Gerard ignores him, and Frank hesitates, his breath coming out in a loud rush as he drops one shoulder to lean heavily against the wall as an alternative to staggering backward because Jesus. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen that happen before; in all the time he’s known them, Gerard’s always been hyper aware of Mikey. Gerard’s the one who spots when Mikey’s gone quiet, when he’s got something to say, when he’s about to bail and when he’s pissed, although Frank still maintains that’s bullshit. No-one gets pissed that quietly. Mikey’s just zen. But, anyway. The point is that Gerard doesn’t ignore Mikey, ever.

Except that he is; Frank can see how his focus has narrowed down to the sharp, precise strokes of his brush, shutting out the rest of the world like it doesn’t exist, like everything that Gerard is can be distilled down into the sweep of paint onto plaster. Mikey glances back over his shoulder. “He hadn’t done this much when I left,” he says, low and quiet, and if Frank didn’t know better, he’d think Mikey wasn’t bothered. But he does, and Mikey’s wide eyes and hunched shoulders are telling Frank everything his words aren’t.

Frank’s throat tightens, and he swallows uselessly. This is really fucking wrong. “Keep trying,” he whispers, and Mikey bites uncertainly on his bottom lip, glancing back at Gerard.

“Gee,” he tries again. “C’mon, I brought Frank.”

Gerard’s head snaps up, and he looks round, his eyes feverishly bright and his movements jittery. “Frankie?”

“Right here, man.” Frank says lightly as he can, rocking onto his heels with a wiggle of his fingers. Gerard’s focus snaps in on him like a magnet as Mikey shifts unobtrusively to the side.

“Frankie,” Gerard says, his tone heavy with a thick satisfaction that makes Frank squirm uncomfortably, although he doesn’t know why. “Good. I’m almost done.”

Mikey’s making desperate keep going motions with his hands behind Gerard’s head, and Frank casts around desperately for something, anything to say. “Done with what?”

Gerard blinks, his forehead furrowing into a confused frown, and he tilts his head to one side questioningly. “The door,” he says, “Obviously.”

“Right,” Frank says, “Obviously. Want to explain the door to me, Gee?” Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Mikey rummaging for something in the stack of supplies Gerard seems to have stacked up to work with, but he daren’t look too hard in case Gerard notices too.

Gerard smiles, bright and off-centre, a little stretched and a little crazed, and something cold and ominous slithers uncomfortably down Frank’s spine. “Nope,” he says, with an obnoxious popping sound. “That would ruin the surprise, you don’t want to ruin the surprise, right? I’m going to show you, Frankie, and it is going to blow your fucking mind.”

Looking at Gerard’s too bright eyes and too sharp smile, Frank’s not sure he disagrees. He’s much less sure that that would be a good thing though, and that cold dread coils around his spine to settle low and sour in his belly.

He was right. Something is very fucking wrong.

“Like my mind how it is, you freak,” he says, keeping his voice deliberately light, because Mikey’s still looking for something behind Gerard, and Frank has this feeling that if he lets Gerard turn around, it’s going to end badly. “You want to take a break? We could go grab coffee?”

“We can’t go yet,” Gerard says, earnestly, and fuck, fuck, he’s already turning back to the painting. “The door isn’t ready.”

“Pretty sure the normal door is the one we want,” Frank says, quickly, and he pushes away from the wall, bouncing over to Gerard with two quick steps and slinging an arm around his shoulders. “Come on, Gee. Coffee. I’m buying.”

“Oh, we can’t do that either,” Gerard says, offhandedly, half his attention already back on the wall, and Frank’s stomach lurches uncomfortably. “That door’s gone.”

Mikey freezes, hand still outstretched as he shoots Frank a wide-eyed look, but Frank’s already moving. He takes the stairs two at a time, his heart thundering in his chest, but from less than halfway up he can already see that Gerard’s telling the truth. The stairs end at a wall of seamless, blank plaster, with no hint that there had ever been anything else in its place, and Frank’s pulse spikes to a dizzying speed. He hits the top step at speed, slamming his palms against the plaster, and it’s cool and slightly rough to the touch. It’s also entirely solid.

“No,” Frank whispers, “Nonononononono.” His hand curls into a fist involuntarily, and he draws back and takes his best swing at the wall. His knuckles crunch on the impact, sending a blaze of pain spiralling up his forearm and dusty flakes drifting down from the wall, but it holds. Just like it would if it was real, and he pulls back and hits it again. Again and again, over and over until every blow is leaving red smears across the plaster and his wrist, forearm and shoulder are burning. “No, fucking, no.”

“Frankie,” Gerard says from behind him, low and urgent, and then he’s there, a line of heat against Frank’s spine. “Frankie, stop, it’s okay.”

“No,” Frank forces out, and he draws his hand back for another strike, but Gerard’s fast. Faster than he should be, and he wraps his paint-stained fingers around Frank’s wrists, one arm either side of his chest, caging him in, and Frank’s next breath whines out of his throat, high and desperate.

“Stop,” Gerard says again, his breath hot and choppy against Frank’s ear. “You’re okay, Frankie, it’s okay. We can get out, I swear; I just need to finish the door.”

He sounds so calm, so sure, and Frank’s going to fucking punch him.

“Get off me,” he grits out. Gerard’s fingers flex against his wrists without letting go, and Frank jerks sharply against his hold. “I mean it, motherfucker, get off me.”

“Um,” Mikey’s voice floats up from the bottom of the stairs. “Guys? You might want to get back down here.”

Gerard inhales sharply in Frank’s ear, and then he’s gone, a cold space at Frank’s back even as the memory of his fingers echo warmth around Frank’s wrists. Frank can hear him trip-stumbling back down the stairs and he turns on his heel, leaning back for a brief second against where there shouldn’t be a fucking wall, and tries to get his breathing back under control, but it’s too fucking weird. It should be a fucking door, it had been a fucking door, Jesus.

Frank’s breath hitches again, too loud in his ears, and he reaches up to scrub his hand through his hair, tugging at the strands until he feels the sting. It helps, a bit, and he draws air in shakily, letting go of his hair and tucking his hands up inside the sleeves of his hoodie before he pushes away from the wall. He needs to move. He doesn’t want to lurk up here at the top of a stairway to nowhere.

And he sure as hell doesn’t want to leave Mikey alone down there with a possibly crazy Gerard and that painting. Frank is not that kind of asshole.

He squares his shoulders, and heads back down.

By the time he hits the bottom of the stairs, Gerard is already standing in front of the painted door, running his fingers lightly across the edges. Mikey’s off to one side, a tin in one hand and a brush in the other, thick drops of gloopy black paint dripping from it to stain Gerard’s already wrecked carpet. Mikey catches his eye and shrugs, an unspoken I tried, and Frank makes himself look over at the door. There’s black paint splashed onto the wall either side of Gerard’s work, almost like Miky had tried to paint across it and… missed? Frank frowns, tilting his head to one side, but it doesn’t change shit. Despite the mess on either side, the door itself still looks pristine

It also looks… illuminated. Frank blinks, bringing his uninjured hand up to rub across his eyes, but when he looks again, nothing’s changed. The door looks like it’s been backlit, except there’s no light source he can see, and he throws Mikey a confused look.

“It’s glowing,” Mikey says, unnecessarily, and Gerard beams, fever bright and careless.

“Because it’s almost ready. We’ll be out of here in no time,” he says, certainty and barely contained excitement threading through his tone, and he drops to his knees by the unfinished corner of the door, snatching up his paintbrush as he goes. “You don’t need to help, Mikes,” he adds, unnecessarily, and Mikey rolls his eyes.

“Gerard,” Frank says, and he can’t stop himself from bouncing on the balls of his feet, his hands curling unasked into fists that send a twinge running up his arm. “What. The. Fuck?”

Gerard hums, his focus already back on the painting as he starts to work in the remaining details. “Don’t worry, Frankie,” he says, distractedly, “It’s-“

“If you tell me it’s okay again, I’m going to kick you in the balls,” Frank warns, and Gerard looks up at him, with a start, his eyes widening impossibly.

“But it is,” he says, insistently. “Frankie, don’t you trust me?”

“Normally?” Frank says, “Fuck no. Right now? Fuck no. You look like you’re tripping on paint fumes. Also, the fucking door disappeared.”

Mikey blinks. “Really?” he asks, looking to Frank for confirmation. Frank nods, and Mikey hums thoughtfully, before he looks back at Gerard with a shrug. “I trust you anyway,” he offers, and it’s Frank’s turn to roll his eyes.

“Not as reassuring as you think, Mikes,” he mutters out the side of his mouth. Then, more loudly, he says, “Gee, man, come on. You’ve got to see this is some freaky shit even for us, right?”

“Maybe we’re all tripping,” Gerard says, consideringly. “Maybe the door is right there, where it always was, but, like, the paint fumes have altered our perception so fundamentally that it’s made us open to suggestion. Like with shrooms, you know? Maybe you have an elevated level of susceptibility, so when I suggested that that the door had gone, just the idea was enough to make your brain fill in the blanks, and your reaction was enough for mine to accept the shared reality that you were proposing.”

He sounds so sure again, and Frank hesitates, turning the idea over in his head and trying it on for size, because, well. It isn’t beyond the realms of possibility, and god knows he wants it to be true. Frank’s seen some pretty fucked up shit when he’s been high.

He really wants it to be true. He just can’t quite bring himself to believe it is.

“…you actually think so?” he asks eventually, just in case, and Gerard grins, sudden and a little too sharp, leaning back on his heels to look up at Frank.

“No,” he admits, “I just wanted you to shut up long enough for me to finish.”

Frank punches him in the shoulder unthinkingly, hard and fast, and the fire that shoots up his arm makes his shoulder spasm excruciatingly. He bites down on a pained shout, even as he gives himself a mental kick for being a goddamn idiot. “Motherfucker,” he hisses out.

“Desperate times, Frankie,” Gerard says, unrepentantly, and Frank briefly considers kicking him instead. It’s a pretty satisfying idea.

“Shit,” Mikey breathes out from behind him, interrupting Frank’s train of thought, and Frank cuts him a look. Mikey’s not paying attention though; he’s staring past Frank, toward the wall. Toward Gerard’s door, and the expression on his face…

Frank turns around, and promptly forgets everything he’d been thinking, because the door is open.

The painting of a door, which Gerard had painted as closed, is open.

“Fuck,” he whispers, and he wants to rub his eyes, but he already knows there’s no point. Nothing’s going to change. Somehow, he’s taken a left turn straight into the Twilight Zone, and he’s clearly left rational, sane and logical so far behind that they’re not even on the same map. Because this shit is both not possible and also, clearly, happening, and he feels the second that it hits him and his legs go shaky.

It’s second nature to reach out and steady himself on Gerard’s shoulder.

“See,” Gerard says, with a beatific smile, “I told you we could get out.”

“Yeah,” Mikey says, eyeing the door dubiously. “I still trust you, Gee, but that is some weird shit. How do you know it’s safe?”

“I’ll prove it,” Gerard says, and he surges to his feet, dislodging Frank’s hand in the process. He whirls on his heel to face them both, his back to the door. There’s a manic edge to his expression, his eyes too bright and his smile too wide again, and Frank reaches out for him again, unthinkingly. “I’ll go first!”

Mikey narrows his eyes, “That just proves you think it’s safe,” he points out.

“And you’re insane,” Frank adds helpfully, because he still feels shaky as shit, but some things just need to be said.

“Trust is the bedrock of every healthy relationship,” Gerard says, loftily, and he takes a step backward. “And I just know.”

“Gee,” Mikey says, warningly, and Gerard’s eyes flash.

“If you don’t believe me,” he asks, with another step away. “Will you still come and save me?”

Frank’s darting forward before he’s finished, but Gerard’s quicker, and that is bullshit, because Gerard hasn’t been quicker than Frank in ever, but, somehow, he dodges Frank’s grasp. Frank almost manages to snag a hold on his shirt, just a brief tangle of fingers in cotton before Gerard twists free. Frank catches a flash of Gerard’s smile, quicksilver bright and teasing, and then, in the space between heartbeats, he’s just… gone.

Frank’s left frozen to the spot, one hand still outstretched into the space where Gerard had been, and he should probably move, do something but he can’t… Gerard’s gone. In his peripheral vision, he can see Mikey look across at him.

“That… happened,” Mikey says, slowly, and Frank nods.

“I know,” he says, and he can feel Mikey watching him, silent but not judgemental, but he can’t quite bring himself to turn his head.

Mikey shifts, edging forward more into Frank’s line of sight, and he glances between Frank and the door a couple of times. “We have to…” he says eventually, before he trails off, and Frank grinds his teeth.

“I know,” he bites out. Mikey reaches out and gives him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

“You can kick his ass when we find him,” he offers, and Frank surprises himself when he barks out a laugh in response, freeing his chest from a vicelike tightness he hadn’t realised was there.

“Yeah,” he says, taking a deep breath and finally dropping his hand back to his side, ignoring the twinge as his shoulder complains about the weird angle he’d been holding it at. “Your brother’s an asshole.”

“Well,” Mikey says, “Yeah.”

Frank sighs. This still feels fucking wrong, and he eyes the painted door mistrustfully. That same nasty ache throbs behind his eyes, but the lighting, at least, has gone. And okay, fine, Frank doesn’t want to go anywhere near the fucking thing, but he’s short one Way brother, and that shit is not okay, as far as Frank’s concerned. Which means there’s only one thing for it. He reaches out blindly to the side, grasping until he finds Mikey’s hand and grabbing on tight. Mikey’s fingers are warm against and he fixes the door with a dirty look, squaring his shoulders. “Okay,” he says, “Let’s do this shit.”

“Door buddies?” Mikey asks, lifting their tangled hands and Frank nods firmly, his eyes still fixed on the door, just in case it gets any funny ideas. He’s not sure if doors can get ideas, but he’s not giving it any chances.

“Door buddies” he says emphatically, and his fingers squeeze tighter around Mikey’s without him meaning them to. He knows Mikey gets it when he squeezes back.

“Okay,” Mikey says, “Let’s go save Gerard, or the day, or something.”

Frank watches as the door impossibly swings open a little wider, almost like it can hear them, and he tugs Mikey closer. “Yeah,” he says, “Let’s do that.”

He doesn’t let go of Mikey’s hand.