nobody will love you like the devil will//frerard/ferard

chapter eleven

Frank's running until he's slammed his bedroom door shut behind him. He can't breathe, and there are tears streaming down his cheeks. He's still feeling that kiss, still feeling Gerard's mouth on his. He grabs the rosary off his bedside table with a shaking hand, and then collapses on the floor. He's in no state to pray, but the beads feel comfortingly familiar twisted around his fingers.

He closes his eyes and takes a long, shuddering breath. The mess of guilt and shame is rising to fever pitch, shrieking and clawing in his head and thumping sickeningly in his veins. This is tearing him six ways from Sunday, he just doesn't know what to do. He wants to undo his stupid fucking mistake, he wants to forget how fucking good it was. He wants to forget it happened at all, but the sticky mess in his pants reminds him every time he moves. What the fuck was he thinking? This is the kind of thing that doesn't wash out of an immortal soul, Gerard's a dude. Frank isn't gay. Gerard is a fucking guy and they--

Frank can't even think it. He drags another ragged, gulping breath and wishes he could just disappear. He wants to run all the way back and crawl under Gerard's skin, dig himself so deep in that no one will ever be able to pry him free.

He doesn't know how long he spends like that, crying like a baby on his bedroom floor, but eventually the tears stop coming and his breathing starts to even out again. It seems kind of distant already, like a dream he had once or a third-hand story someone told him. Gradually, the panic starts to wear away. It wasn't sex, not really. All Frank did was rub off against Gerard, and he doesn't think it counts if you could easily do pretty much the same thing by yourself. Frank was twitchy and frustrated and Gerard just happened to be there, with his stupid girly face and his ridiculously long eyelashes and his non-haircut. Of fucking course Frank got confused.

He gets off the floor and heads for the shower, cringing at how unbelievably gross his pants feel. He's pretty sure he's still sinned, and he's definitely doing some hardcore penance for it later, but he doesn't think he's going to hell. He's going to be okay.

***

That night, he dreams he's wrapped in living shadows, the stench of charnel and rotting things making his head swim. He's down on his knees, choking and coughing up black blood, slick and heavy on his lips and running down his chin. When he thinks he can stand again, he gets to his feet, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and walks forward into the darkness. He can see the outlines of horrible, bloated things lurching unsteadily around on mismatched legs, and – Gerard. Gerard, walking among them like a general walking a battlefield. Frank stumbles towards him mindlessly, unthinkingly. He needs to get to Gerard, then he'll be safe. It's difficult, though, every time he gets close Gerard dissolves like smoke, like an optical illusion that's never quite as close or as tangible as it seems.

Frank trips and falls to his knees, reaching out into the dark, and Gerard slips away from him again. He gets back up, sticky strands of shadow tangling around his ankles, and starts forward again. He can't see Gerard at all now, there's nothing but the dark and the decaying, shambling things lurking in it. Frank claws his way through it blindly, stumbling when hidden things trip him up.

And then Gerard's there, right there, just a breath away, shockingly pale with liquid shadows pooling in his eye sockets and something dark smeared across his mouth. Frank grabs at him, clutching desperately at his arm, but as soon as he does the darkness starts to run in streaks like ink. Gerard is slipping away into the thick darkness, and Frank digs his fingers in and holds on. Light starts to bleed in through the places where the dark is thinnest, just enough to see by, and Gerard runs through Frank's fingers like syrup. When he crystallizes again he's sprawled out on his back, eyes dark and mouth slack as he touches himself.

Frank keeps his eyes on Gerard's face, stepping back once, twice, his cheeks glowing with hot, bright blood.

You shouldn't do that, Frank tells him. It's – wrong. Sinful.

Gerard's mouth curls into a lazy, nasty smile, full of sharp things. You do it, though, don't you?

Frank doesn't have an answer to that. I'm always sorry, he says wretchedly. Always.

Gerard laughs, his hand moving faster, then breaks off with a throaty moan as pretty as sin itself. Frank takes another step backwards, because if he doesn't he'll step forward instead. He can't do that.

I'll pray for you. His voice shakes.

Gerard looks him dead in the eye. Save your prayers, he says, and arches up with a rough gasp, his hand finally slowing. Slowly – so slowly – he lifts it to his mouth, running his tongue over his slick, bone-white fingers. Frank stands rooted to the ground, something thick and sweet in the air slowing him down, and Gerard beckons. Frank takes an unsteady step forward, like a mouse hypnotized by a snake. He can feel the substance of his fingertips spiraling away like thread and he's unraveling, fracturing, melting into Gerard. He wants oblivion, he wants to throw off everything he is and disappear under Gerard's skin so Gerard can never leave him. He lets himself fall and Gerard opens his mouth wide, wide, wide, a black abyss full of broken teeth--

up with the teeth of the dream buried in his throat, his heart pounding like a war drum and another sticky mess in his pants.

He quickly strips the sheets off his bed and carries them downstairs in his arms, making as little noise as possible as he crams them into the washing machine. The shame feels like it's burning a hole right through his chest. He wonders if it's as obvious on his face as it feels, the flush in his cheeks and the damning too-brightness in his eyes. Maybe they'll be able to hear him thinking it. He wrestles with the clean sheets in the dark. Maybe
they'll just look at him and hear it, that rising chant of wrong, wrong, wrong, sour and sickening.