while all the hartness kids have close bonds. none of them quite beat the bond between gray jr and franklin jr. the two eldest, with four years between them. while gray was always seen as a model student, well behaved, polite and kind, charming and popular. the moment he would spot someone picking on his younger brother of speaking ill of him. he turned into some kind of other beast altogether and beat the hell out of those kids. and the thing is that franky never needed protecting, he was arguably even more capable than his elder brother, and boat loads more intelligent. but school settings were not for franky. he was already more intelligent than his teachers by first grade, and he didn't like the other kids, who he saw as stupid compared to himself. so, he never really had any friends other than his brother during that period. but despite all of it, gray never considered not defending his younger sibling. he loved franky too much to not. the sentimentality never needed to be returned either because no one ever messed with gray. he was the golden boy of their school. but franky would have done the same if the occassion came for it.
as they grew into teenagers and then adults, gray never stopped protecting and looking after his brother. even when gray eventually left home in his mid-teens to train for and become part of a pop idol group, the two brothers still talked daily. and when franky started getting into trouble with the law, gray was always there to bail his brother out and take care of him in whatever was necessary for his drug problems. though, it eventually got to a point where gray had to tell their parents about all these issues because he started to fear for franky's life as well as his sanity. this caused a rift between the two which took quite some time to rebuild, and gray was never sorry for doing what he did because in the end, it helped franky lead a healthier life.
on the other hand, franky, by no fault of his own, was never great at helping gray with his problems. mostly because they involved his very dramatic and public love life. gray is a big romantic, franky is not. but one day he'll find a guy to be as obsessed with as his dad is about his husband. :') he's just not the guy you go to for love life advice, that's what jack is for lmao. but he was there for gray when he decided to go more solo from his band, which was a very stressful time in gray's life. he faced backlash from both fans and the industry, and franky shielded his brother from what he could, keeping him distracted and motivated to follow his own wants and desires. unfortunately, gray inherited the trait from jack of putting everyone else before himself, while franky is far more balanced in that area.
basically, they are ride or die siblings.
