Barbed Wire Love

Frank came downstairs just as Gerard put dinner on the table.

Gerard looked him up and down. He was still in his underwear. "You should put something on before you get cold again"

Frank mumbled something and looked down. Gerard sighed and went into the coat closet, pulled out a large black jacket and draped it over his shaking shoulders. Frank looked up to meet his eyes and slowly slid his arms through the sleeve.

Gerard took a seat across from him, threading his fingers together and staring at Frank.

"I'm sorry Frank" he said softly. Frank didn't look up, twisting his tagliatelle around his fork but never lifting it to actually eat it.

Gerard took a deep breath and continued. "For shooting you. And um- hitting and kicking you... And chaining you to a boiler"

This was not going well. Frank's eyes were filling with tears again despite biting down hard on his bottom lip to stop himself.

Gerard swallowed hard, stabbing pains of guilt aching in his stomach.

"I didn't mean it. I just can't control it sometimes..."

"It's okay, Gerard" Frank mumbled rather tiredly, setting the fork down onto the plate with a light clatter.

"It's not" Gerard said quickly. "I lose my temper a lot. But I had been okay when you were around, mostly. You made me calmer- I guess I just wasn't expecting you to... y'know, leave"

"I'm sorry too"

Gerard raised an eyebrow, taken aback "What are YOU apologising for?"

"I ran away" he said in a small voice. "I tricked you into trusting me. You were right to be angry"

Gerard bit his lip. "It... It still doesn't compare. Okay, so you pretended to like me, but I... fucking shot you"

Frank gave a small nervous chuckle. "I- I wasn't pretending to like you. I do like you Gerard I just... I just wanted to go home. I'm sorry"

Gerard felt the smallest pang of hope under the crushing weight of guilt.

"Thank you for that Frank. And I know you want to go home. We're working on that now. In fact, I should give him a call..." he continued, half speaking to himself.

Frank watched him hopefully.

Gerard crossed the room and picked up the phone, dialing quickly and holding it to his ear, his eyes on Frank. "Hello Ray"

Frank looked away, Gerard's eyes burning like fire into him.

"Mikey rang you last night? Yeah. Yeah, I want you to do it. Yes. No, not right now, tomorrow. Don't be a little bitch, just do it"

"So what was that?" Frank asked timidly as Gerard put down the phone with a slight roll of his eyes.

"Ray is going to your mother's house. He's not going to do anything to her" he added quickly, seeing Frank visibly whiten. "It's just to ensure the cops aren't listening in... well, I was thinking you'd want to talk to her, so y'know..."

"Really? Oh thank you" he sighed.

Gerard nodded slowly. This was pushing it, but as long as Frank doesn't let anything slip and Ray keeps a good eye on the mother, everything should be fine.

"You don't want that?"

Frank looked down at his untouched plate of food. "Yeah, I do now, I guess"

"I'll reheat it for you, you go into the living room. I have a few conditions to go through"

"Okay" Frank agreed, sliding off the chair and walking slowly into the next room, Gerard's jacket hanging limply around him.

Gerard put the plate into the microwave for a couple of minutes and stood beside it, rubbing his hand tiredly over his face and through his hair.

Gerard followed pursuit into the room a few minutes later with the meal. He found Frank curled up into the corner of the sofa, Gerard's jacket pressed against his face, eyes lightly closed.

Gerard watched him for a few seconds with a small smile before clearing his throat. Frank started and promptly dropped the jacket onto his lap.

"Here you go" he sat down beside him, resting his elbow on the back of the sofa and smiling at Frank, who was rather red in the face as he accepted the hot plate of food. "Were you smelling my jacket?"

"Huh, what? No, of course not" Frank murmured, stuffing his mouth with tagliatelle to stop himself from babbling.

"Why were you smelling my jacket? I couldn't imagine it smells good" he chuckled.

Frank supposed it didn't smell that good, generally speaking, with its odd mix of smoke, alcohol and pine forest scent, but it smelt like Gerard. It smelt like Gerard's clothes, bedsheets, even the house. Frank was addicted to it, and it had quickly became his favourite scent over the past few months.

"It's bearable" Frank said with a small smile. Gerard beamed, relieved to see Frank's smile back.

"So about the call" Gerard said, shaking himself out of his thoughts. "You can't mention our real names, you can't describe the house... or the surroundings. Please" he added.

"Okay" Frank nodded. "Thank you again. It would be... amazing to hear her voice"

"Good. Ray's going down there at 12 tomorrow, so we'll call then"

-

They barely moved for the rest of the day, watching movie after movie. Frank had always made himself comfortable on Gerard's lap within the first 15 minutes of the film, unable to keep himself away from him. But tonight he's kept to himself, subconsciously wary.

Gerard picked up on this, and he'd be lying if he said it didn't hurt. But was hurt more was seeing the bruises on Frank's face illuminated by the TV light, knowing that he had put them there.

Frank glanced sideways and gave him an unsure smile which he quickly dropped as he saw Gerard's frown.

"Look what I did to you" he sighed, reaching out to touch Frank's face, then stopped himself, thinking that's maybe not the best idea.

Frank gulped. "It's okay Gerard. I forgive you, we've been through this. Don't beat yourself up about it"

Gerard scoffed loudly. "Yeah, I've already beaten you up about it, haven't I?"

Frank looked down to Gerard's clenched fists, but didn't believe he was going to hit him again. Although, he was wrong about that the last time, so he really couldn't trust his own judgement.

"What do I do, Frank. What do I do to make it better?" He asked, his eyes desperate.

Frank certainly knew what he'd ask for if none of this had happened, but seeing as it had he can't help but feel that he'd be putting himself in a too vulnerable position.

"I-I dunno. It- nothing. You don't need to do anything. I'm fine Gerard, see?"

"No, I don't see. You're keeping your distance and I know you want to keep your distance and I know it's because you don't trust me and you don't want to get hurt again and I completely respect that but-"

"-Calm down, Gerard, calm down" Frank laughed nervously. "Here"

He slid across the couch, close enough so his shoulder was touching Gerard's. "I'm here, see? No problem with distance"

Gerard sighed. "But I want you to want to be close to me, not be close to me because I want you to. Does that even make sense?"

"... Yeah, it does. I do want to, I think" Frank slowly lay down, placing his head on Gerard's lap like he usually does and looked up at him. Gerard remained still, as if trying not to scare him away.

They watched each other for a while in a peaceful silence. Frank finally turned his attention back to the screen, his chest rising and falling slowly.

Gerard looked to Frank's soft hair, splayed out over his lap. Gerard would always have tangled his fingers in his hair, the texture as soft as silk. There had also been a few heated moments where he would have gripped and pulled at it as he knew Frank was into it.

Would it be too far? Gerard bit his lip and ran his hand up Frank's arm and into his hair, massaging his scalp lightly.

He felt Frank relax a little more and let out a long contented sigh and Gerard smiled, continuing his action a little more confidently.

For the moment, all was okay.

Notes

Hello! Apologies, this took far too long to update. Other news, I'm going to America tomorrow which I'm so darn excited about :D

I got instagram yesterday (no clue how to use it bc I can't Internet) I don't think I've put up my social media accounts here before. Here's my usernames, I'll follow you guys back and we can chat!

Twitter: @themapmarauder

Snapchat: kathryn780

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