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

chapter fourteen

Gerard says, when he's pulled up on Frank's street and Frank's reaching for the car door handle. Frank stops, looking back at him. Gerard pulls him in for a quick, dirty kiss that goes straight to Frank's dick, fucking fuck, then pulls back, grins, waves as Frank stumbles out of the car and drives away.

Feeling vaguely confused and disoriented, Frank makes his way to his front door and fishes his keys out of his pocket. He kind of just wants to make it to his room without having to deal with his parents, he's already got too much shit to think about right now. As long as he can--

Fuck.

His mom and dad are both sitting at the kitchen table, silent and frowning, and Frank tenses. He's bracing himself for whatever's coming, and he knows it can't be good.

"Franklin," says his dad heavily. "We need to talk about your behavior."

Frank's first instinct is to laugh, but then the sheer fucking hypocrisy hits him in the gut and suddenly laughing is the last thing he wants to do.

"What the fuck," he says flatly. "What the fuck."

"You'll watch your mouth when you're in my house," says his dad sharply, and Frank just snaps.

"I'll watch my mouth? Wow, thanks for that, dad. You're the one who can't keep it in his fucking pants! So fucking around is fine as long as you're careful not to curse? Thanks a lot, I'm glad we've got that straightened out."

pale, his mouth pressed into a thin line, dead still but for his shaking hands. His mom is looking between them, torn, with tears sparkling in her eyelashes, but Frank isn't done yet.

"You're so fucking – holier-than-thou, telling me to watch my mouth when you've been screwing someone else. You motherfucking hypocrite, I can't fucking believe you're giving me the goddamn third degree about this. Is this a new thing, or have you been doing this all my fucking life, huh? Different rules? Telling me I've fucked up when I forget to pray and lying and sneaking off so you can fuck around?"

There's a heavy, pregnant silence, like a bomb's just fallen but it's too soon to be sure of the casualties. Frank stares at him for a long moment, breathing hard like he's been running and feeling sick to his stomach.

"Fuck you," he says quietly, finally, and walks out of the kitchen and up the stairs like there's a millstone around his neck.

As soon as he gets into his room, he slams the door shut behind him and wedges his chair under the handle. He fumbles his cell phone out of his pocket, curls up as small as he can on his bed and calls Gerard. Between his parents pulling the rug out from under his feet like that and Gerard shaking the foundations of everything he believed in, he's shit scared. He can't do this on his own, even if the only person he's got with him is a tinny voice in a cell phone speaker. Praying hasn't helped since the day Gerard fucked him, he's never felt lost like this before. It feels just like being a kid again, all of three foot six and stumbling through a forest of people, looking for his mom. Frank wants to disappear into Gerard where no one will ever find him and he'll never have to be himself again. He's fucking drowning in the guilt and the uncertainty, Gerard is all he needs right now.

on the second ring. "Frank? You okay?"

"No," Frank says inarticulately, curling his free hand into a fist, his blunt nails digging into his palm and his knuckles going pale. "Just – fucking parents. I needed... yeah. Sorry."

"Don't be." Gerard's voice is sure and steady, like an anchor, and Frank presses the phone to his ear like he's trying to drink in as much of Gerard as he can. "What happened?"

Frank exhales slowly. "They're treating me like I'm the fucking antichrist, like they don't even know me anymore, and they don't even know what we--"

It sticks in his throat. He pushes himself up off the bed, wedges the phone between his ear and his shoulder and opens his closet. He rummages around in the accumulated detritus in the bottom until his fingertips brush the side of Gerard's flask, and he pulls it out before closing the door again. "And, like," he says, turning it over in his hand. It feels reassuringly heavy and solid, even though it's empty. He flops back down on his bed and tucks the flask into the narrow gap between the wall and the mattress. It's mostly just because he doesn't have the willpower to drag his lazy ass back over to the closet, but he kind of likes the idea of having it close by. "They're just as bad as everyone else in this fucking place," he says quietly. "All the lying and the fucking double standards." By the time he's done, his eyes are stinging.

"Frank? Look, you gotta believe me," Gerard says, and Frank knows he will. He's running out of people he can trust. "You're not a sinner, you're not the fucking antichrist. You've got to stop just listening to what you're told and start thinking about it. Start asking questions, stop settling for because that's how it is."

Doubt. Gerard is asking him to Doubt, and the more Frank thinks about it, the more sense it makes. He lies there in silence for a while, curled around his cell phone, just thinking about what Gerard said earlier. Frank doesn't believe it – yet – but he thinks about it. He wonders if it's possible that maybe Gerard was right, that maybe he's the one who's been wrong all these years. He's got nowhere to look for guidance anymore, no way of being sure. He's never been so lost. Gerard has picked the first hole in his convictions and it grows every time he pulls at it, like a run in a pair of tights.

There's a faint, hesitant knock at the door. It can only be his mom. His dad always knocks like the door was talking shit about his mother.

"I've gotta go," Frank says to Gerard. "I – thanks."

"Don't thank me, just fucking do what I tell you and be okay," Gerard retorts, but there's a smile in his voice. "I'll text you tomorrow, yeah?"

Frank manages a slightly choked "Yeah, please," but Gerard's already hung up. "Come in," he says, a little louder, getting up to move the chair. His mom pushes the door open tentatively, like it's only a matter of time before he goes off again. Frank feels a familiar throb of guilt. He doesn't think he could do it all over again even if he wanted to. He feels drained, like the venom's been sucked out of him and left a gaping hole where his insides used to be.

She say a word, just sits down next to him on the bed, her shoulders slumped and shaking. Her eyes are red and puffy, and she looks so fucking tired. It's – Frank's got no better word than heart-wrenching, it feels like something in his chest is tearing, caught in some internal tug of war. He edges closer to her, and she wraps an arm around him and pulls him in, holding on fiercely. She's crying for real now, tears silvering her cheeks, and that sets Frank off too. Before he even knows what's happening he's sobbing, heaving with it and clinging to her for dear life. He wants to tell her why he's been so weird lately, he knows she's been worried and she doesn't deserve that. Fuck, she doesn't deserve any of this. He wants to tell her what he's been doing and have her tell him it's okay and she'll always love him anyway, no matter what, but he doesn't. She looks so thin and fragile and he just can't, not today.

Instead, he wriggles closer, clinging like that's going to hold them both together, and they stay like that for a while, both crying like babies. It's – it's not good, but it feels better than pretending everything's fine.

Finally, when he's all out of tears and his head is pounding, he mumbles something like, "We'll be okay," and hugs her. It feels like wishing on a star, he thinks dimly. She manages a brave little smile, and kisses the top of his head.

"I hope so, baby," she says, then takes a deep breath and stands. Frank watches her square her shoulders, wipe her eyes, set her jaw, smooth down the creases in her skirt. His mom is totally hardcore, in a church-on-Sundays, shut-up-and-eat-your-greens-Franklin kind of way. It's one of those things he knows because he's seen it time and time again, but it still creeps up on him and takes him by surprise now and then.

"What happened to rejoicing in our suffering, huh?" she says wryly, and touches his cheek before she leaves.

We'll be okay, he thinks. He fucking hopes so.