The World is Ugly (Frerard)

43: Everyone

And yet I still ignore the dark red blood stains on the floor
And I'm back in front of you, Lord, with the blood on the floor
Is the blood mine or yours? Don't wanna do this anymore

Frank's POV

Three boxes.

Three whole boxes of lit cigarettes pressed up against my chest was all it took to make me pass out. Well, that added to the intense bleeding once my flesh returned to its normal temperature, and the stinging pain of alcohol after he dumped an entire bottle of the thing all over my body. Where was this all going?

By then, I wasn't so sure of what I'd thought I had figured out earlier. The cuts had been opening too much and the ashes of the cigarettes threatening to fall in and infect the already worrying cuts that were doing anything but healing, and I had got to the point where I wondered if they had changed their plan and suddenly decided they'd had enough of my suffering, but no.

Then I was taken out of my sleep by an uneasy feeling and yet another splash of water to my face.

-

I open my eyes to find Mike staring back at me with a curious look.

"He's awake, Vic" he announces, evidently as excited as his brother to keep this going.

Vic turns to me and nods vaguely in my direction, muttering something along the lines of "hi" or "oh", though I can't really tell.

I blink several times, adjusting my eyes to the light. They feel really dry, and the line on my cheek stings with every movement I make. I look around, expecting to find more torture tools and mechanisms that require Mike's help to function, but there's nothing. It's just my table, Vic, Mike and... Gerard?

I feel my heart accelerate and make little backflips of joy in my chest.

"Gee!" I exclaim, causing my chest to move quite a lot and leave me agonizing as the cuts remind me they are very much there and also quite open and bleeding. Of course the bleeding has slowed down and even finally stopped in the more shallow wounds, but movements like that make the pain make it seem like I'm being torn apart, burnt and beaten all at the same time. Still, I don't want Gee to worry, so I smile again, this time wider than all the others, because I can finally see him as I do it.

"Hey Frankie" he says with a low voice and a small, almost forced smile, as if he was also having a hard time smiling at me.

Of course, he has seen what they've been doing to me for hours now, I'm sure I would also be emotionally tired if it was him they were torturing instead.

He is not tied up as I am, but sitting on a chair and being closely watched by a particularly angsty Vic who also happens to be wielding a knife, so he sits still. Despite that, I stretch my fingers in a pathetic attempt to make contact with him, with his skin, as much as I can get. He seems to get what I'm trying to do, so when he feels Vic is slightly distracted watching something next to his brother, Gerard quickly moves his arm and stretches his fingers as far as he can, managing to get our fingertips, even if only that, to touch.

I smile at the contact, and it's almost as if all of my energies have been renewed and all the pain became irrelevant. A warm feeling spreads across my fingers, hand and arm, and I know it has nothing to do with his body temperature, because for once mine is as cold as his. This all lasts for a couple seconds, perhaps even less, until Mike notices what we're doing and alerts his little brother, who is quick to forcefully lower Gee's arm and press the infamous knife against his throat.