The room was pitch black as the two perspiring men stumbled through its threshold. Gerard felt for the light switch against the wall with one hand as he supported the young man clinging to him in desperation. As the room was thrown into a harsh light, Gerard nearly dropped Frank in surprise for the state of the small studio apartment: the white couch was overturned, most of the dishes were smashed on the ground next to the contents of the fridge, there were charred and ripped pieces of clothing lining nearly the entire floor, and there was a note taped to the television, which seemed to be the only thing that had been left unscathed.

Gerard gingerly set Frank up against the wall as he turned the couch back to its rightful position, and retrieved the small piece of paper that appeared to have been ripped out of the red-head’s sketchbook.

I hope you know my pain now, Gerard. I’ll see you in hell, you heartless bastard.
“Goddammit, Bob,” Gerard muttered under his breath, crumpling the sheet of paper as if it meant nothing, which it really didn’t, as far as Gerard was concerned. Remembering what was most important, the tenant walked back to the inked man and picked him up from his slouched over position, leading him to the couch, where Way thought he would be more comfortable.

“No,” Iero resisted the offer, “I’ll stain it. I think I’m still bleeding.”

“Oh, you are,” Gerard said, confirming that blood continued to escape the younger’s fragile body. “It’s okay though, if it gets on the couch, we can just splatter paint the fucking thing when you’re strong enough to.”

“Wh- Why would you even think of doing that?” Frank was taken aback by Gerard’s blatant disregard for the state of the expensive furniture.

“Look at this place, Frank.” Frank obeyed, not knowing how to do anything else. The boy’s eyes travelled around the room cautiously; they were drinking in sights that Frank’s mind didn’t know what to think of. The mess confirmed that most things were fragile, but Frank felt as though he was missing the point entirely. Nodding, the tattooed individual looked back to his savior, waiting for a revelation to escape his perfect lips. “Frank, do you understand this scene?” Gerard asked, but soon shook his head. “I wouldn’t expect you to. I suppose it’s far too personal of a message for anyone else to really understand. Either way, what do you think of this mess?”

“Well,” Frank began quietly, as though he was afraid of saying the wrong thing, which he unfortunately was. “From first glance, it was a statement concerning the fragility of things, whether material or not.”

“It is.” Gerard concurred, keeping his voice low, like the knowledge was a secret he didn’t expect to get out.

“Why?” Frank’s eyes continued to stare at Gerard; they watched him light up with impressed delight at Frank’s comprehension, but also as his his head fell slightly in acceptance of what Frank had said, as it was true, and they watched him meet them, for the hundredth time that night, each time having been different, and this time being no exception. There was something in the man’s eyes that Frank couldn’t understand; it looked a lot like pain, but there was no way to be sure. The younger wondered randomly if fragility, not necessarily his own, but just fragility in general, was the root of Gerard’s sleepless wrinkles.

“Let me tell you something about me Frank,” Sighing through his words, the redhead guided Frank and himself onto the couch and proceeded to examine the victim’s wounds. “I am a selfish man. I am a selfish man obsessed with possessions.”

“Lie.” Frank blurted, his hand flying over his mouth instinctively, protectively.

“No lie.” Frank still couldn’t believe Gerard obsessed over things, he wanted to splatter-paint the couch for fuck’s sake. “I am, or was.”

That Frank could believe – it’s not uncommon for people to change.

“OUCH!” Remembering his injuries, Frank yelped as Gerard prodded his ribs. Frank had been so wrapped up in what Gerard was saying, though it hadn’t been much, that he hadn’t noticed he was being examined. He wasn’t even aware that his shirt had been unbuttoned, a fact that made him squirm in discomfort.

“Sorry,” the mock-doctor mumbled as he stood up.

“Where are you g-going?” Frank whimpered, fearing the worst, as he had been conditioned to do. Gerard did a rapid one-eighty at the kid’s voice intonation; he had never meant to make him cry.

“Oh, Frank, I’m just going to get some bandages and some rubbing alcohol, I’ll be back quicker than you can say ‘rubber baby buggy bumpers’, I promise.” Iero let out a large gulp of air that he had been unaware he was holding in – he was only going to get bandages.

He’s a good guy, Frank thought, annoyed with himself for even fearing Gerard for a second. Trying to pass the time, as it had already been a couple of minutes, the waiting man began repeating ‘rubber baby buggy bumpers’ to himself under his breath, finding it harder than he had expected. He didn’t understand how it had simply rolled off Gerard’s tongue – he had made it look so easy!
Filled with personal frustration, Frank didn’t notice Gerard reenter the room, until a laugh emanated from the door that is.

“Not as easy as it looks, it is?” Gerard laughed again before he made his way to the couch once more, avoiding all of the shrapnel of his failed relationship.

“No…” Frank conceded, childishly looking at the ground in embarrassment.

“Lie down for me, Frank,” the older man asked, kneeling down beside the dirtied couch. They were definitely going to need to paint the thing. Frank’s eyes widened at the demand, his heart beating wildly.

“N-n-no!” Frank began to scramble unproductively, while Gerard remained kneeling, unsure of how to help the near stranger.

“Frank! It’s okay!” Gerard exclaimed loudly, putting his hands on Frank’s shoulders in an attempt to calm him down. “Please, let me help you.”

Frank calmed himself and relaxed into the plush, dirtied couch, allowing himself to be taken care of.
The wounds were extensive, that much was obvious, and as many times as Gerard pleaded with Frank to let him take him to the hospital, Frank would refuse the medical help with such vehemence that the older man couldn’t help but wonder what sort of traumatic experience Frank had gone through to make him loath the emergency room so much. Realizing that it wasn’t exactly his place to ask, Gerard simply went back to sloppily mending his lacerations.

“So, Frank,” Gerard piped up while applying super glue to a particularly nasty wound on Frank’s right side, “would you like to tell me how exactly this all happened to you?” The man in question desperately wished then that Gerard would elaborate on his previous confession, but that was too much to ask.

Frank’s cheeks grew hot with embarrassment and shame while his glimmering eyes welled up with the most precarious tears; he couldn’t bring himself to say no to Gerard, since he was tending to his injuries, but he really didn’t want to tell him what had happened either – Frank was ashamed of everything that had been done to him. As he saw it, Frank was tainted, stained even, not unlike the couch that he had melded into; his body and soul had been irrevocably violated in such a way that Frank felt people might find him unlovable, and therefore hate him. In fact, that was one of his biggest fears of his newfound freedom – that he would be so basely different, so altered, so dirtied, that people would be able to pick it out like a traffic cone, and in doing so, veer so widely away from him that there wouldn’t be a person within ten feet of him at all times. Because who would want someone so disgusting? Who could want someone that had been deemed less of a person so much as to justify doing nearly unspeakable things to him? Gerard surely wouldn’t, and thus Frank’s silent predicament.

Becoming aware that he had been silent for some time, the black-haired boy quickly confessed to having been in a terrific street fight which he may have looked like he lost but insisted that Gerard “should see the other guy”. Gerard laughed along, but there was something in the corners of his mouth that led Frank to believe that the older didn’t buy a word he said.

“That’s a good story, but I call bullshit.” Of course, Frank thought, I waited too long before telling him. “Look, I’m not going to force you to tell me, I just think you’re much too beautiful for this sort of damage to be deliberately inflicted on you.”

Gerard looked at the younger with unsure footing, but Frank didn’t mind. Lying on the couch, Frank pondered Gerard’s sexuality, and if the look and the compliment had ant meaning on such an ambiguous topic. Frank wasn’t exactly sure whether he was gay or not either, but he was certainly okay with the butterflies having fluttered their dusty wings inside his stomach when Gerard had called him beautiful.

“Do you really want to know?” Frank searched Gerard, who had abandoned all medical treatment, looking for any sort of sign.

“I do, actually.” The wrinkles in Gerard’s face stayed stagnant on his face in anticipation of the worst, which is exactly what they got.

Frank sucked in a deep breath, preparing himself to reveal what had happened to him in one breath – there was no sense lying about any of it, and he wasn’t sure if he would ever say it at all if he didn’t say it now, if he didn’t admit it. “I was kidnapped - I don’t even know how long ago it was – and beaten and tortured and – and raped every day since. And I escaped, but I couldn’t go too far, because I hurt so much and so I just sprawled out on a sidewalk and watched the stars, not caring whether they happened to find me or not, because I had gotten free, and that was what mattered. And then you found me and here we are.”

Notes

Updates have been hard, but I'm doing my best. I haven't written in a while, so I'm sorry if this is lacking in quality. I'm losing it all guys, and I don't know what else to do. I love you all, and I hope you still love me (if you ever did).

xoBunny