Gerard sighed, tossing his phone to the side, rubbing his face tiredly.

“Who was that?”

Gerard’s head snapped up, turning round slowly to face Frank who was currently curled up tightly in the uncomfortable looking chair next to the grimy window of the motel room.

“No one,” Gerard answered walking over to Frank.

Frank swallowed loudly, his eyes growing wider. “What did they say?”

Gerard glared at him. “That you were on the TV, reported missing.”

Frank’s heart leapt with joy. If he’d been on the news and everyone knew he was missing, someone was bound to find him soon, weren’t they?

“But that’s not very good is it Frank,” Gerard said quietly, not meeting Frank’s eyes. “What if someone finds you?”

“I hope they do,” Frank replied boldly. “And somebody will. I know they will.”

The crack of skin against skin echoed in the room, the slap coming from nowhere, knocking Frank off the chair and to the floor with a startled gasp.

“Is that right?” Gerard hissed, crouching down next to Frank on the floor, seizing a fistful of hair, dragging his face close to his.

Frank was shitting himself, but somewhere inside of him that rebellious punk kid stirred and he spat in Gerard’s face, glowering at him. He was Frank Iero for fuck’s sake.Nobody pushed him around.

Gerard’s eyes had closed and his jaw locked stiffly, an irritated sigh whistling past his clenched teeth. “Feeling a little brave are we?”

“Fuck you,” Frank snarled. “You can’t just do this to me!”

Gerard burst out laughing, screeching that manic, hysteric chortle that sent shivers down Frank’s spine.

“You’re real fucking funny kid,” Gerard smirked. “Maybe I didn’t make it clear enough before. Maybe it didn’t quite get through your thick skull who’s in charge here.”

“Get the hell off of me you sicko,” Frank snarled, lurching up beneath Gerard, managing to knock him off.

Frank didn’t waste his time. He scrambled up and ran as fast as he could towards the door, his heart in his throat. Just as his hand clasped around the door handle, Gerard grabbed a fistful of his shirt and yanked him backwards, Frank splaying out on the floor again. The ceiling span above him and dots appeared in front of his eyes, his head beginning to throb from the harsh impact of the floor.
A heavy knee crushed down against Frank’s chest, pinning him to the ground. Gerard’s face cut in to
Frank’s line of view, a sick, twisted smile plastered on to his mouth, his eyes glowing with some sort of wild, manic light.

“You need to learn some manners,” Gerard told him, his face inching closer to Frank’s his eyes flickering over Frank smugly.

“You can’t do this,” Frank insisted, struggling frantically.

Gerard chuckled darkly to himself. “You know, it’s funny, you keep saying that, but nothing’s stopped me from doing what I want. So if you know what’s good for you then you’ll keep that pretty mouth of yours shut.”

Frank stilled, staring up at Gerard with big, scared eyes. “Please Gerard, don’t-”

He was cut off by Gerard’s lips catching his own in a raw, open mouthed kiss, Gerard’s lips working against his forcefully, his tongue licking in to Frank’s mouth, his teeth nipping his lips. Gerard pulled back, a long line of spit between them. Gerard giggled, cutting his finger through the stringy line of saliva, staring at it in wonder.

“Gerard, please, just-”

Another sharp, stinging slap in the face sent Frank in to silence. Gerard ‘s fingers curled around the back of Frank’s neck, the smile now gone from his face, replaced with heartless eyes and an emotionless face.

“I don’t want to have to do this Frank,” Gerard said flatly. “But I can’t just have you going round thinking you can do whatever you want, it doesn’t work like that. And so far you’ve done nothing but disappoint me, especially the whole thing with being on TV. I can’t let that happen again.”

Before Frank could respond, Gerard’s fist had connected with his face and his vision went blurry again and he could taste blood in his mouth. And again, Gerard punched him square in the face, dizzying pain flooding through Frank’s senses.

It carried on like that, Gerard’s fists pounding against every inch of Frank’s body, blow after blow, sending crushing agony through Frank’s battered body. He tried to escape and screamed at the top of his lungs, but it didn’t work. In the end Frank just gave up, curling up and trying to protect himself as best as he possibly could. Gerard rose to his feet and Frank thought it had ended, but no. Gerard carried on, using his feet this time to kick Frank all over, his ribs throbbing with pain.

Frank was reduced to nothing more than a sobbing, bloody mess on the floor.

Gerard stood over him, his chest heaving and his eyes wild and big, his veins flowing with pure adrenalin, his hands still curled in to fists by his side.

But, as soon as his rush had hit its peak, it ended and he saw what he’d done.

Frank was unrecognisable and seemed to be on the edge of unconsciousness, his eyes rolling in his head and his body completely limp and lifeless, pained, sharp gasps escaping Frank’s mouth as he breathed, wincing every time. He was covered in blood and his clothes were ripped in some places.

“Frank?” Gerard asked quietly. “Stop it. Stop...stop messing round, I know you’re not really hurt.”

Frank didn’t move.

“Frank!” Gerard snarled. “Get the fuck up, I’m not in the mood for this!”

Gerard panicked when Frank didn’t respond. What if he’d killed him?! How could he have done that to him?! He loved Frank, he loved him so much he couldn’t even comprehend it! And Frank loved him too, he’d said so himself! They loved each other and you didn’t do this to the people you cared about.

Only, Gerard had. But he wouldn’t have had to do this if Frank hadn’t made him so angry!

“Fuck you Frank! Fuck you!” Gerard yelled, sending another vicious kick to the body on the floor. “Why did you have to make me do this?! I told you not to make me angry, you stupid piece of shit!”

Gerard gave a frustrated shriek before whirling around and bolting for the door, desperate to get out of the stuffy little motel room as quickly as possible.

His meds were wearing off. He could feel it, feel it in the way he was losing his control over everything, his emotions and his head. He felt calmer and able to function when he took his pills, just like the doctors had promised he would. But sometimes Gerard forgot, OK? It wasn’t his fault anyway, the stupid things were so easy to forget about. Gerard didn’t even forget about them that often, it was just that he’d been a little busy recently. And who could blame him?

Planning out your life with the guy you loved and making everything finally happen was pretty stressful. Much harder than Gerard had thought it would in the first place.

But it didn’t matter. He just had to walk around a bit, cool down and get his head together, maybe take some more pills, buy some coffee and then head back to the motel, back to Frank. Frank would be fine anyway. He was just messing with Gerard, he could tell. Frank wouldn’t just do that to him, he wouldn’t do such a mean thing and scare him that badly. No. Of course he wouldn’t.

**********************************************************************************

Frank wasn’t sure where he was or what time it was.

He just knew he was in far too much pain for one guy like himself to handle. He hadn’t thought it was actually possible to hurt this much.

The thought of pain made Jamia flash up in his mind.

He felt some sort horror sweep over him and he felt sick to his stomach. He forced himself to get up, stumble to the bathroom and collapse through the door, narrowly missing his head on the grubby sink and falling flat on his face against the slimy, dirt layered tiles of the floor, the bright light above him sending his head spinning round in a carousel of bloody memories.

Jamia’s dead, blinded, mutated eyes as her head had lolled to the side, her slashed, bleeding throat.
The dripping, grisly stumps at the end of her wrists where he hands had been. Her beautiful face, missing her perfect, full coral coloured lips, those pieces of flesh that used to be part of her face, tossed aside so carelessly.

And the blood. Fuck.

So much fucking red. Frank curled up, whimpering, sobbing not from his pain, but the torment playing inside of his head. The way it had splattered across the room, across Gerard’s delighted, manic face and across Frank’s distraught, petrified face. The homey warm kitchen Frank had spent countless times in, flooded with blood.

He could still feel it. Feel it dribbling down his face, over mauled, wrecked pale flesh, all over the gleaming tiles of Mrs. Nestor’s kitchen floor.

He could feel it matted in his hair, crusting and flaking against his body, drowning him with thick scarlet, the taste fresh in his mouth, choking him, filling his mouth with that rusty, metallic salty taste of blood, of what was Jamia’s life.

He felt disgusting and his skin was crawling, his body convulsing, his head whirling around and around, the same images burning in to his mind. He dragged himself up, his hand clawing at the shower, switching it on and tripping in to it.

He braced himself against the tiles, sobbing beyond grief, beyond pain. He didn’t know what this was. He didn’t know. He just scraped his nails up and down his arms, leaving long pink welts in their trail, not caring about the pain throbbing through his body from Gerard’s assault earlier.

Just get rid of the blood. Make it go away. Wash it off.

Frank hysterically scrubbed at his skin, through his hair, frantically tearing away his soaking clothes and hurling them out of the shower until there was nothing left. He wanted to tear his skin off, peel away everything, just to rid himself of whatever feeling he was wrapped up in.

**********************************************************************************

When Gerard got back to the motel, he was much calmer and felt better. He held a cup of Star Bucks in one hand, humming happily to himself. He’d wandered around for longer than he’d thought he would, but he needed to think. And now he’d sorted it all out and taken his pills, he felt better, more sedate.

After he’d ascended the dingy stairs to the floor the room was on, he’d drained the last of his coffee and sighed when he thought of Frank, the state he’d left him in. He felt bad for it, but it was OK, because Frank wasn’t really hurt and they’d talk and sort it out.

Gerard believed there was nothing they couldn’t get through together.

When he entered the motel room, it was completely silent apart from the sound of the shower running in the bathroom. Gerard shut the door behind him and placed his empty coffee cup on the table, shrugging out of his jacket and sitting down on the edge of the lumpy mattress to untie the tired, fraying laces of his battered old Converse.

He lay back on the bed, listening to the sound of the shower, waiting for Frank to come out. There was no other noise other than the running water from the shower in the bathroom, but Gerard just kept waiting.

After twenty minutes, Gerard was tired of waiting and decided to venture in to the bathroom. He stopped at the door, his long, pale fingers resting on the door handle.

“Frank?” Gerard called through the door.

There was answer, so Gerard opened the door. On the floor there were smears of Frank’s blood from the cuts Gerard had caused from before along with a small puddle of water, in which lay Frank’s soaking wet clothes.

Gerard slowly turned his head to find Frank’s small, fragile body in a collapsed heap lying in the tub, the shower still violently raining down jets of cold water on him, running over his bruised, beaten white skin.

“Frank?” Gerard asked, panicking, rushing over to the tub and switching the water off.

He gently turned Frank over so he could see his face. His eyes were shut and his face was a mess. His lips were split and swollen, his cheek bones bruised and his nose covered in dried blood where the water hadn’t washed it away properly. His eyes were puffy and turning a nasty shade of purple and blue. The rest of his body was starting to flower dark splotches everywhere, some parts of his skin bearing crimson gashes and raw, red looking scrapes.

“Frankie, wake up,” Gerard urged, nudging Frank’s shoulder gently. “Come on, you’ve got to get up now.”

A small, pained breath fluttered past Frank’s lips and his eyelids twitched slightly, his perfect, arching eyebrows slowly sinking down in to a frown. Gerard shook his shoulder a little harder this time and Frank’s eyes flickered open half way, completely swollen and bleary. His eyes looked around in confusion, growing wide when they landed on Gerard.

He whimpered and tried to move away, but it was impossible due to the pain that flared through him when he moved. Gerard’s eyes turned sad at this and he gently stroked Frank’s drenched hair out of his face.

“Hey, it’s OK,” Gerard whispered. “I’m not mad anymore Frankie, it’s alright.”

Frank just stared at Gerard with the same fearful eyes. Gerard sighed and moved away from the tub to reach for a towel, placing it over Frank and slowly lifting the boy’s lifeless, bruised body from the tub. Frank grasped the edge of the sink for support whilst Gerard towelled him off, apologising every time Frank winced in pain and placing small, tender kisses over wherever he’d hurt him.

When he was dry Gerard helped back in to the room and sat him down on the bed and dug through his bag for clean boxers and a pair of ratty old track suit bottoms and his favourite over sized Iron Maiden t-shirt that completely swamped Frank.

Once he’d helped Frank get dressed, the two of them just lay together on the bed.

Frank was too exhausted and in too much pain, mentally and psychically to do anything other than let Gerard hold him. Gerard was simply thrilled that he finally had Frank lying in his arms, stroking his hair and kissing the boy’s forehead until he fell asleep.