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

chapter twenty-three

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***

When Frank gets home, still feeling dizzy and breathless, his dad is waiting up for him. He's just sitting at the kitchen table with deep shadows under his eyes and this weirdly blank look on his face, and a nasty sinking feeling starts to trickle into Frank's stomach. The last of the jittery buzz is rapidly draining away.

Plausible deniability, he reminds himself. It might not even be about that, and he's fucked if his guilty conscience is going to get him into trouble.

"Night," he half-whispers, as he starts towards the stairs. He's pretty pleased with that. Nicely ambiguous, totally casual. He feels that adding I'm gonna go and be a good, heterosexual Catholic virgin in my room now would have been kind of suspicious. He brutally suppresses a bubble of nervous laughter.

And then his dad looks up at him, and Frank just knows he knows. Frank stops, stands there and waits for the inevitable explosion, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. He feels sick and scared. He wishes he had Gerard there with him. This is it. He's been fucking stupid, too swept up in Gerard to think about what he was doing and now it's come back to bite him, and the worst part is the realization that he wouldn't change a fucking thing.

The explosion never comes.

Instead, his dad just shakes his head, looking sad and tired and wrung-out. "Go to bed, Frankie," he says softly.

Frank so nearly does. He doesn't want to push his luck but – he's pretty thrown, is all. This doesn't make sense, and he doesn't think before blurting, "Please don't tell mom? Please, she'd--"

His dad smiles this little wan, rueful smile. "Your secret's safe, kiddo," he says. "Not a word."

Frank's so relieved he completely forgets his dad was supposed to be in his bad books. He stumbles across the room, his heart still pounding, and throws his arms around his dad, holding on. He's reeling, doesn't know what to think anymore.

"Thanks, Dad," he mumbles, his voice cracks.

"Don't mention it. Go on, bed."

Frank disentangles himself and makes for the stairs again, stopping at the door of the too-bright kitchen. "What about you?" he says. "You're not, like, tired?" You look it, he thinks. You look like shit, go to bed before you pass out on the table.

His dad huffs a quiet laugh and shakes his head again. "Can't sleep. That old couch's pretty uncomfortable."

Frank cringes. Shit, of course. "...Oh. Uh, night?"

"Night, Frank. Go on, get out of here. Get some sleep, kid."

Frank tries. He really does. He changes out of his jeans, sniffs at his t-shirt and decides there's at least another day in it before he throws it over the back of his chair, turns off the light and then crawls into bed. He wriggles until he's comfortable, and stares at the ceiling. There's too much in his head, all of it happening at once the minute he closes his eyes. Sleep, he tells himself sternly, but he doesn't hold out much hope of it working. He sighs, and rolls over. It's going to be a long night.

***

Frank is so busy being relieved that his dad isn't going to tell his mom that he doesn't think any more of it. But Devil's Gap is like a teacup: throw a stone in, no matter how small, and there are going to be ripples.

It isn't until later the next day that the backwash hits and threatens to carry him away.

He stops dead in front of his locker, his heart crawling into his throat and his stomach turning queasily. There it is in black Sharpie, bold, angry capitals.