NIGHTMARES

At 7am a clinic team member sticks her head around Frank's door and announces “Morning Checks!” before ducking out again and moving on to make sure the next patient is also in their room. Frank rolls groggily onto his back, still in last night's clothes, and groans as tremors shudder through his aching stomach. He spent half the night in the toilet attached to his room, his guts churning and puking with anxiety while he forced himself to stay awake and watch the sun rise through his tiny window, too afraid to go back to sleep. Gerard is going to die soon. He can feel it in his bones. All those flames and all that pain!

Rubbing his face, Frank sits up shakily and grabs a half-empty soda bottle from the floor, swallowing all the stale sugary liquid. Dawn light trickles through a crack in the curtains and stings his red-rimmed eyes and he sniffles miserably, his ears ringing with dead screams. The room reeks of stale sweat and scorched flesh and he needs to get out. Unfortunately, the moment he steps into the sterile clinic corridor, a nurse in red scrubs appears beside him holding a clipboard. “Good morning, Mr Iero, how are you feeling?” she asks softly, looking him up and down with obvious pity before making a note on her papers. Frank shrugs and tries to push past her but she quickly steps in front of him and blocks his way. “You have an appointment with your therapist in Room C at nine thirty, sir, and, er...perhaps you'd like to take a shower today when you feel ready? We have to keep up good hygiene standards around here. Of course if you don't like the showers then I can send someone to give you a sponge bath in your room...” Frank scowls darkly at her good intentions. “I'll take the shower option thanks,” he mumbles tensely, edging away to the canteen as the corridor blurs and sways in his woozy head.

He needs to eat something but plain dry toast is all his sickly guts can handle this morning. He's sitting alone in a corner munching slowly when someone walks up and taps his shoulder. Turning with a startled squeak, he's surprised to see the kid from the rec-room last night standing over him. Actually “the kid” is probably the wrong phrase because close-up this guy looks a few years older than him and is definitely a couple of inches taller. The pale olive skin of the guy's hands and arms is scarred and tattooed and his black hair has been sheared short but still manages to look scruffy. “Hey,” he mutters tonelessly, his brown eyes dull and dilated with high-strength medication, “You forgot this I think.”
Frank blinks in confusion until he realizes that the dude is holding out his forgotten Gameboy so he grabs it back and nervously hugs it against his chest without speaking.
The guy shrugs, squinting down at Frank's scared face like he's trying to figure something out. “You're welcome,” he mutters softly, “I'm Pete by the way. What's your name?”
Frank shakes his head, not wanting to answer. His throat feels like it's closing up and he can't find his voice. Bolting to his feet so hard the table shakes, he starts backing away as his skin crawls under Pete's weird stare. “I like your ink,” the older man mumbles, sliding his blurry gaze over Frank's exposed neck and wrists. “Th-Thanks,” Frank stammers breathlessly, dashing out of the canteen with drugged brown eyes still burning into him.

Back safe in his room, he slams the door and leans wearily against it with his heart hammering inside his chest. He's so tired he can barely see and all his tortured body wants to do is curl up under the musty bedcovers and block out the world with sleep but he can't stand the thought of watching Gerard die again in his dreams. He has to figure out a way to contact Gee and warn him to stay away from fires and anything flammable and he needs to be awake to do that. Besides, he told that nosey nurse he would take a shower. If he ever wants to leave this fucking clinic he should probably do what he's told. Tossing the Gameboy at his pillows with a sigh, he cautiously sniffs the armpits of his shirt and recoils at his own sour stench. Yeah okay, a little soap and water probably wouldn't hurt.

***
The Men's Ward showers are usually guarded all day by clinic attendants and every crevice and corner of the tiled, metallic maze is brightly lit and scrubbed clean. It's pretty early in the morning so Frank doesn't have to queue when he steps timidly into the large echoing chambers and a fat middle-aged man in gray scrubs nods him towards one of the vacant stalls without a word. There are no curtains or doors anywhere to make sure that none of the patients secretly hurt themselves without somebody knowing. So much for privacy. Taking some deep breaths, Frank hangs his towel up and slowly strips down to his boxer shorts, not daring to look at the ugly map of fat pink scars littering his arms and legs. The terror and pain of his time in Lorna's basement with the killer in black is still fresh in his memory and tears of sadness and self-pity flood his eyes as he turns on the water with a trembling hand. As the hot steady stream gushes over his head and shoulders he stands with his back to the slippery wall and deep-breathes the warm wet air until his racing mind and knotted stomach calm down enough for him to think straight. Perhaps Gerard will come back and visit him this evening like he said he might and then warning him about the fire will be easy. But what if Gee doesn't show up for some reason or what if he's too drunk to even remember his promise to return?
Slowly rubbing soap into his greasy hair, Frank tries to think of a back-up plan. Maybe he could ask to make a phone call at the nurse's desk and then call Gerard and tell him he's in danger. Or maybe he should call Gee's parents instead, or Mikey or even Brian, and then they could keep an eye on Gerard from a distance. Ugh, fuck this shit. If only he could leave this stupid clinic, then he could try and stop the future tragedy himself. He could be useful for a change instead of just being a crazy idiot who gets everyone around him hurt or killed!

His panicky thoughts are suddenly interrupted by a shadow falling across his closed eyelids and for one terrifying moment he thinks Lorna and the other angry dead have come back to haunt him again. But when he opens his eyes he only sees Pete. The older man is standing just inches away from the flowing water, half-naked and looking totally out of it, and Frank jerks back in fright as the cooling shower soaks his shivering skin. He opens his mouth to call for help from the attendant but his voice fails him for the millionth time and only a hoarse gasp emerges from his quaking lips.
“You wanna do something?” Pete rasps, stepping even closer and forcing Frank to shrink back against the wet tiles to avoid being touched by his scarred hands, “We... I could help you. I could make you like me, right?”
Frank shakes his head, water running into his eyes, and curls his fists protectively over his crotch. “W-What the fuck?” he finally stammers in a frightened whisper, “Get out of here, man!”
“You didn't want me to follow you?” Pete whines, blinking in puzzlement and stepping so close his clammy chest touches Frank's bony ribcage and the running water seals their wet skin together. “I can change that, yeah I can. I'll make you like me.”
“No...p-please just go away,” Frank begs, spitting water as it runs into his mouth and eyes, “Leave me alone!”
“Here, lemme show you,” Pete rambles, dropping to his knees in the swirling soapy water and clumsily grabbing the waistband of Frank's shorts, pulling them down around the younger man's skinny thighs and taking him whole into his mouth.
Frank gasps, his lungs screaming for air, and his eyes feel like they're falling out of his skull, “NO!” he yelps, shoving Pete away and yanking his shorts back up, “Get the fuck away from me, you freak!”

“Hey!” the fat shower attendant cries, appearing in the entrance to the cubicle and pulling the two patients apart, “I'm so sorry,” he murmurs to Frank, gently helping Pete to his feet and pushing him towards the door, “He's on a ton of heavy meds right now and he shouldn't have been allowed to wander.”
“Yeah you think?!” Frank yells sarcastically, his breath still coming in tiny frightened gasps as the attendant shuffles away. That's the last time he's taking a shower in this place.

At nine-thirty he goes to his therapy appointment and sits in front of Dr Robertson for almost an hour without saying a word. “Come on now, Frank,” the doctor pleads, “The nurses told me you started speaking again. Don't you want to talk to me?”
Stubbornly biting his lip, Frank curls up in his chair with his hands buried in the sleeves of his baggy hoodie and stares at his scuffed sneakers. The shoelaces were removed when he entered the ward so he couldn't use them to hang himself. Flashes of Gerard's face blistering and burning to ashes flicker and glare at the corners of his eyes as he anxiously runs his tongue over the scar on his mouth.
“I'm going to transfer you to another therapist, Frank. I don't think our sessions are helpful or productive for you and I think you might be more comfortable with somebody else. I wish you all the best for the future...”

***
Lunchtime crawls around but Frank only manages to eat two spoonfuls of mashed potatoes before he starts feeling sick with a shivering creeping dread. Racked with anxiety, he goes to the nurse's station and asks if he has any visitors coming today but no one has asked to see him. Panic slithers into his sore belly and he desperately asks to make a phone call, well aware that a member of clinic staff will be listening to every word he says. With trembling fingers he dials his mom's number and begs her to come and get him out of the clinic for good. “Please, Mom, I hate it here and it's so hard... I can't sleep, I can't eat and everyone here is fucking crazy! I need family around me, please let me come home!”
“Oh Frankie, I'm so glad you're talking again baby, but are you sure you're ready to leave?”
“Yes!”
“I don't want to sign you out and take you away from the doctors if they're helping you...”
“They're NOT helping me! Jesus! NOBODY can help me here! They're just making things worse. I...I miss my friends, Mom, I need to see Gerard...a-and Mikey. I NEED to get out, please!” Tears have soaked into his voice and they trickle down his cheeks in rivers while Linda Iero sighs and worries and argues over her son's request. “Mom... Mommy, please just let me come home. I'm dying in here...” Eventually Linda agrees to come and see him the next day to try to get him released and, emotionally and physically exhausted, he quickly whispers goodbye and hangs up the phone. When he gets back to his room he bursts into tears and can't stop crying for so long that he actually swallows the dose of mood stabilisers and sleeping pills he's given at bedtime just so he can be unconscious. At 2am the roar and sizzle of flames and burning flesh invade his dreams again. Lorna and Anna stand over his bed while he sleeps and watch him toss and turn and whimper through another night of terrors.

Notes

((Sorry this is a filler chapter but writer's block is killing me
and it's all I can come up with right now.
I hope people are still reading this. I will continue it to the end, I promise. xx))