That Dirty Word

He never wanted anyone to know.

He had walked back to the hotel room that he and Mikey shared, gritting his teeth against the pain he felt with every step. He had tried to ignore the disgusting wet substance that soaked his underwear and dripped down his legs. And after sighing with relief when he saw that Mikey was fast asleep, he had showered and changed quickly.

Collapsing onto his bed that night, he had then buried his face into the pillow and let it absorb whatever tears he had left to shed.

No one will ever know, he had told himself. I can’t let them find out.

But try as he might to act normally, Gerard cannot not help but notice that some things have changed in the weeks that followed the incident that-shall-not-be-named.

For one thing, he’s having trouble swallowing down slimy foods. Anything such as mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, most pastas, or even pudding, causes him to gag. The moment it hits the back of his throat, flashbacks happen. A certain white liquid comes to mind, one that he had been forced to lick away and swallow. The first time this occurred, Gerard had not been able to stop himself from spitting out an entire spoonful of food right in front of all his colleagues. He sputtered out a hasty explanation about nausea due to medication, and excused himself to the bathroom.

Another habit he’s inherited is an extreme fondness for showering. Gerard doesn’t even notice this one until Mikey’s pounding at the bathroom door screaming, “C’mon G! This is the third fucking shower today! You haven’t let me have even one!”

Gerard frowns and rinses himself off, taking care to check that every part of himself has been throughly scrubbed. He must admit that his skin is looking rather pink. He finally steps out and wraps a towel around his waist. Once he opens the door, he finds a rather cross little brother sitting on his bed.

“Chill the fuck out.” Gerard tells him as he finds his clothes, “It was just a quick one before the interview.”

“A quick one?!?” Mikey sounds like he wants to laugh, “You were in there for a whole hour!”

As Mikey closes the door behind him, Gerard checks his phone. He reads the time. His eyebrow lifts when he sees that Mikey’s right.

And while he can find explanations that he doesn’t really want to think about for the first two behaviors, he can’t quite understand the third thing.

The third thing being a suddenly very strong attachment to Frank Iero.

Gerard finds himself hanging around Frank an awful lot. Whenever Frank goes off to do some mundane errand, Gerard offers to accompany him. Whenever Gerard is apart from Frank, he finds himself wondering what Frank is up to. And after shows, Gerard finds himself knocking on Frank’s hotel room door.

“G, what are you doing here?”

“Nothing, just wanted to hang out.” Gerard thrusts his hands into his pockets, almost nervously. “Unless you have something else going on, then it’s cool.”

Frank shrugs. “Nope, nothing else happening. Come on in, I guess.”

Gerard is sure Frank notices his increased presence and he waits for him to ask what the deal is. But as the weeks pass, Frank never does. Granted, he does seem a little confused now and then, but he seems to just shrug it off a moment later. Its perhaps the lack of questions that encourages him to hang around even more.

Eventually, Frank even begins to reciprocate Gerard’s eagerness to spend time together.

A month of this goes by. The quick runs for coffee start taking a bit longer. Mikey starts falling asleep alone, with the bed next to his vacant. When the guys show up for soundcheck, they find Frank and Gerard have already been there for an hour or two.

Suddenly, the “stage gay” reappears during shows.

The first time was right after Gerard had sung the lyric, “Kiss me you animal!”. Frank dove in, and Gerard nearly dropped the mic. It was only for a second, but it made the crowd erupt into a frenzy they could have never created with music alone. And its then that everyone, including Gerard himself, knows -- this is a little more than just a rekindled friendship.

But Gerard doesn’t fight it.

Searching his feelings, he realizes he wants this. He supposes something about Frank makes him feel secure. Frank is encouraging, but not nagging. He listens to everything Gerard has to say, and doesn’t pry like Mikey does. He gives good advice, but isn’t bothered if Gerard doesn’t take it. He respects Gerard’s boundaries, and that’s exactly what Gerard needs.

So he lets Frank kiss him.

And later that night, he lets Frank stroke a hand through his hair lovingly, as they watch movies together in Frank’s room.

Although at one point, Frank’s fingers find a knot entwined within the locks of cherry red. He tugs on it a bit hard, and Gerard jumps.

A memory of large hands grabbing fistfuls of his hair overwhelms him, and he feels himself hyperventilate slightly. His hands are shaking. A rush of fear as fast as a heartbeat jolts through him, and for a second he can’t see straight.

“I’m sorry! Are you okay?” Frank asks apologetically. He likely just thinks he pulled on Gerard’s hair too hard. Gerard nods, allowing him to think he would have such a dramatic reaction to such a small amount of pain.

Gerard changes the subject to the film they’re watching, and is happy when Frank ceases the hair stroking, and resolves to simply laying next to Gerard for the rest of the evening.

But then one evening, about a week after that, Frank is feeling energetic.

“You looked so fucking hot tonight.” Frank mumbles into Gerard’s lips before he kisses him again. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

Gerard smiles nervously and kisses him back. Frank is leaning into him while Gerard is on the bed, propped up by only his elbows. He’s torn between pushing Frank off and continuing to make out with him, having a small idea as to where this was going.

While Frank usually liked to exchange quick kisses during their little sleepovers, he knew tonight was different.

He could practically taste the lust on Frank’s lips.

He was finally hungry for more.

It was bound to happen, Gerard knew. Perhaps it was another thing he just didn’t want to think about, locked away inside his brain with the rest of all his secrets and denial. He just isn’t quite sure what he should do, now that the time has come. He cursed himself for not thinking a head. Not wanting to think ahead.

Now, he has to face the music.

You can do this, he thinks to himself. Just don’t think about it.

And he tries. He tries to focus on the fact that it’s Frank. It’s Frank who’s taking off his shirt, throwing it aside, and rubbing his hands all over his torso. He tries to remember that its Frank whos kissing his belly as he unbuttons his jeans, then peeling them off after.

And once he’s completely nude, he tries to remember that it’s Frank whose standing over him, undressing himself while he stares at Gerard with an eager grin on his face.

Still, his breathing is quickly escalating in rapidity.

His hands are shaking again.

Frank frowns at the fact that Gerard isn’t hard, but smirks a moment later.

“Does someone need a little help?”

He gets back onto the bed and uses both his hands to spread Gerard’s legs apart. His entire body tenses just at the sensation of Frank’s hands gripping the back of his thighs. His hearts already about to beat out of his chest.

The wetness and warmth of Frank’s mouth wraps around Gerard’s member, and Gerard lets out the oddest sound. Its something between a moan and a cry of protest. When Frank’s tongue begins to really slather his junk with saliva, Gerard can’t help but feel arousal rearing its head.

It all feels so strange, because Gerard hasn’t felt aroused in the longest time. Not since that night.

Its okay, he continues to tell himself. You’re safe with Frank. Frank would never hurt you. You’re safe.

But eventually Frank tires of pleasuring Gerard, craving pleasure himself. He ceases eating at Gerard’s privates. He probably figures it’s as hard as Gerard’s going to get, and it’s not really like Gerard is the one that needs to be hard for this activity anyway. Frank has always established himself to be “the pitcher”, so to speak.

He flips Gerard around, pressing him down against the mattress.

Gerard hears him fiddling with some things, presumably getting out the lube. After Frank applies some on his own fingers, he feels the cold liquid drop onto his buttocks as Frank lathers them with it.

At least this can’t be triggering, Gerard thinks bitterly, that asshole didn’t even use any fucking lube.

But then Frank inserts a finger in.

And all hell breaks loose.

Gerard screams.

He literally screams as everything he’s tried to forget comes back to him: The pain of that man’s dick inside him. The humiliation of the body he’s always tried to keep so private being exposed and fondled. The disgust of having to suck his cock and swallow his cum. The beatings he took when he tried to fight back, when he tried to run away. The agony he was in with every thrust, and how his body felt as though it was being literally ripped apart.

He screams and starts crying and poor Frank is confused and begging Gerard to tell him whats wrong.

“I’m so sorry!” Gerard sobs. “I can’t do this... I can’t... I’m sorry.”

Frank turns him around so that he’s facing him, but Gerard gets into a fetal position, backing away from Frank. Gerard’s buried his face in both of his hands, which are now shaking violently. Frank looks like he’s about to cry himself, because he doesn’t know what’s happening and probably think’s its something he did again.

“I c-can’t do this...” Gerard wails, shaking his head.

“Its okay!” Frank assures him, “I’m sorry if I made you do anything you didn’t want to, G. You know thats the last thing I ever want to do. Please, whatever I did, I’m really sorry. Please calm down...”

Gerard does his best to focus himself back on the present. It’s incredibly hard. He can still feel hands squeezing at his waist, pressing down with enough force to leave bruises the next morning. He can hear the voice of his assailant, calling him a “little slut”.

But then he takes his hands off his face, and through his teary vision he sees Frank. And Frank is looking at him with such an immense amount of worry and concern and care and love. Gerard actually feels guilty for making him look so sad.

He has to let Frank know that this isn’t his fault.

It scares him, just the idea of talking about it.

Still, Gerard knows that he owes Frank this much.

“I have something to tell you.” Gerard hiccups, trying his hardest to regain his composure. Frank leans in attentively, and puts a hand on one of Gerard’s. Just like always, he can read Gerard too well.

And somehow, he already seems to know that Gerard is about to confide to him something extremely difficult. He waits patiently for Gerard’s sobs to ebb.

Finally, Gerard lets everything spill out.

“Around a month ago,” he says, “after the first show this tour, one of our body guards cornered me backstage. Everyone had already left to go to the after party. He said he wanted to show me something in the wardrobe room. I didn’t think anything of it. I followed him in and then he shut the door behind us. An - and he just started hitting me.”

Gerard’s voice wobbles at this point, and Frank squeezes his hand a bit harder.

“He made me take off my clothes and well... He...”

Gerard can’t seem to find the words past this point. He bows his head.

He doesn’t want to say that word.

He had avoided even mentally saying it all this time. That ugly word that started with an r and ended in d. In his head, he has referred to that evening every other way. The night that “it happened”. The night he was “attacked”. The night that he was “assaulted”. Even the night that was just “horribly, horribly painful”.

“...he raped you?”

Gerard looks up and sees Frank’s large emerald eyes boring into him. They are alight with intense emotions. In them, he can see both tender sympathy, but then a scorching fury. He also notices the tightened grip on his own hand.

With just this gesture and this look, Gerard truly feels his fears backing away.

He feels safe.

And so finally, he nods and repeats, in the meekest of tones:

“He raped me.”

Gerard doesn’t know what to expect. Frank now seems to be the one struggling with emotions. A variety of expressions pass through his face. Gerard knows the angrier ones aren’t directed at him. He uses the hand Frank isn’t holding to caress Frank’s cheek. He comes closer to him, and then touches his forehead against Franks.

“I’m sorry.” Gerard whispers, “I’m sorry I can’t do this with you tonight. I thought I’d gotten over it by now, but I guess I just -- “

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence. Frank embraces Gerard suddenly, practically lunging at him. His muscular arms hold Gerard tightly to his body, his hands gripping his shoulders. Their naked chests are pressed together, but Gerard doesn’t feel uneasy about it like he’d expect. He feels quite the opposite, actually.

He feels protected.

“Don’t you ever, ever apologize for it.” Frank tells him. “I never want to hear you say you’re fucking sorry for what that asshole did to you, do you understand me?”

Gerard feels the urge to argue, but thinks better of it and then nods into Frank’s shoulder.

“I’m the one whose sorry, babe.” Frank says, his voice distraught with emotion, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you got hurt. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you from him. I’m sorry you had to go through that. And I’m so fucking sorry for anything I’ve done to remind you of it.”

Frank pulls away, and now there’s an overwhelming sense of hurt in his expression. It pierces through Gerard like a dagger.

“But for god sakes Gerard, why didn’t you tell anybody?”

He thinks back to the past month. He thinks back on all the flashbacks. All the little panic attacks he tried so hard to hide from the others, and all the nightmares he had woken up from and how he would insist to Mikey that he was perfectly fine. He thinks back on how often he insisted the same thing to himself during shows, when he’d have to make similar noises to the ones he made during the attack.

The rape.

“I don’t know.” Gerard bit his bottom lip, “I guess I didn’t even want to admit it to myself.”

Frank nods.

“If you don’t want to continue seeing me, I understand.”, Gerard says to him, wanting to change the subject even slightly.

Frank raises an eyebrow at that. He lifts a hand and runs it through Gerard’s hair.

“Are you kidding?!?’ Frank replies, but he isn’t laughing, “All of this just tells me that I should have started seeing you sooner. Maybe then... Maybe then it wouldn’t have happened. But I swear to you now, G...I won’t let them get away with this.”

“I don’t want a whole legal battle.” Gerard shakes his head, “That is part of the reason I didn’t say anything. I really didn’t want anyone to know. If we take him to court, it would be really hard hiding it from the press.”

“Who said I wanted to sue him?” Frank says bluntly, and Gerard understands what he means.

“No, no, no. No beating up people, Frankie.”

Frank doesn’t answer that. But he gives Gerard a small smile and then gets off the bed. He hands Gerard his clothes back, and puts back on his own. Gerard dresses with hesitation. Before putting back on his shirt, he realizes he does still feel a small sense of disappointment.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” asks Gerard, “I guess I do feel a little better after talking about it. Maybe we can try -- “

Frank holds up a hand to stop him there. He shakes his head, and fully clothed again, he plops down on the bed next to Gerard.

“I’ll wait for you, G.” he tells him. “You’re worth it.”

He nods, hoping Frank can read all of his unspoken gratitude. He takes a deep breath, and relishes in how good it feels. Its the best breathing has felt all month.

Now, he has finally come to terms with the night he was raped.

And now, he can start to recover.

END.

Notes