Book Wørm (Frank Iero AU)

Understanding

I open my eyes and stare out the window of the parked car, disoriented from sleeping, squinting with the sun in my eyes, looking at a sign reading:
"Welcome to Illinois
The land of Lincoln"
I keep hearing the steady ticking of the hazard lights flashing. The car is parked slanted on the side of the road, on the grass, a huge green field behind the welcome sign. I turn my head to see the door wide open, but Frank missing.
"Frank??" I sit up, unbuckling quickly.
"Frank?!" I yell.
I open my door and run around the front of the truck, looking for him, finding him lying in the grass, his body almost tucked under the left front tire, curled around it.
"Frank.." I call again, staring at him and falling on my knees. I slowly touch his back and immediately it heaves, breathing rapidly and hiccuping.
"What's happening, Frank!!" I yell, trying to turn him over.
I finally get him on his other side, his cheeks wet with tears and his hair stuck to his face, squinting and stuttering, sobbing hysterically.
"C-chance" he cries, reaching his arms out. I hug him, still confused, just trying to give him a minute. "I..I.." He hiccups again and I wipe his face, pushing his hair back. "I just wanna fucking kill myself..I, I c-can't any. More." He chokes out.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the fuck??" I hold his shoulders.
"It was so hard not to, I kept thinking it, over and over and over and over"
"I had to pull over, I wanted to crash the truck, I fucking fought so hard"
"Frank, Frank this hasn't happened before, I-"
"I'm just a fucking faggot, I don't do shit, I carry the weight of the family on my shoulders but I don't. Fucking. Do. Anything." He pulls his hair as he says the last sentence and I have to stop him from hurting himself any more.
"Frank, you don't ever say that word, because of what your dad used to-"
"My dad! My fucking dad! You know what I did?? I killed that mother fucker, set him on fire, along with his fat fuck of a-" I cut his words short, pushing his face into my shoulder, hugging him.
"Frank.." I try and soothe him.
"Iolite" he sniffles.
"What?"
He repeats himself, wiping tears from his eyes, composing himself slightly.
"Iolite, it's Iolite, not Frank."
I'm speechless for a moment, then touch the side of his face, looking into his eyes.
"What are you doing? You know who I am?"
He nods, "yeah, most do"
I run to the car and grab Frank's phone, dialing Liz with my heart pounding. It starts ringing, hearing Frank mumbling to himself in the back ground. "Just fucking useless..over sensitive, dramatic, ungrateful..stupid.." He pushes his head against his knees, folded near his chest, pushing harder as he mumbles, until he's slamming his own forehead into his knees.
"Frank, stop, please!" I hold his head back from his knees, looking at the red spot on his forehead.
"Frank?" Liz answers.
"No, it's Chance, Liz I need help.. There's something wrong with Frank, like really, really wrong" I talk fast.
"Oh my God, get him on the phone, now."
I try and give him the phone but he pushes me away, mumbling and closing his eyes.
"Frank!!" I yell.
"Take the phone!!"
He bursts into crying again, flinching when I go to touch him.
"No!!" He yells through tears.
"Chance?!" I hear Liz's urgent sounding voice call.
"Did he say Iolite??"
My heart sinks.
"Yeah, yeah, he did but I don't know what he's talking about"
"Address him as that"
"As..as Iolite??"
"Yes!! He's gonna fucking hurt himself! He's triggered!" She yells. 
"I can't..I can't.." He mumbles in the background.
"Iolite" I try and speak softly, looking at him.
"Yeah?" He responds timidly.
"Come here" I open my arms.
"No! You're gonna fucking hurt me..you make me want to do it to myself"
I try and smile though I don't feel like it. "Now, when have I ever hurt you?"
"I..I.." He scowls, thinking.
"Exactly."
He crawls over to me on the grass, hugging me tightly, letting me rock him like a child.
He looks up at me behind his hair, "I'm so confused..do we kiss?"
"Yeah" I grin and kiss him, his lips feeling like they're not his own, moving slowly.
"Liz.. Liz" I try and pull away from his lips, but he keeps pushing.
"Wow, I like you a lot" he looks surprised, holding the sides of my face. "Id hope so, we're married" I answer, then get up to finish up with Liz.
"Is he alright??" She asks.
"I think we're okay now, he doesn't seem right, but he's calmed down"
"Get him to sleep, he's gonna be wiped out, have him call me back later"
•••
I get him into the passenger seat, finding a hotel while he doses off, killing daylight as we settle in, getting him something to eat and letting him sleep some more.
"Frank?"
"Yeah?"
I smile to myself at the fact that he answered to his own name, "you need to call Liz back, okay?"
"Can you hand me the phone, baby?" He reaches out his hand and I hand it to him, he dials the number as he lays in bed.
"Hi Liz" he drags out the pronunciation of her name sleepily, but in a happy tone.
I lie next to him as he listens to her talk, then responds.
"Yeah..its, it's just that..we decided to just do our own thing and get married on our own, ya know? And..Chance was asleep in the car and I just..I kept thinking about weddings and family and shit, and what would have happened if my family were here right now and it just-"
I hear Liz's voice cut him off like she understands,
"Yeah..it just kind of triggered me, I don't really remember a lot I just know I got out of control."
Liz says some more no doubt deeply psychological sentences to him and he just answers,
"Yeah, I know, I know. I feel the same way, I don't want anything to happen to Chance..I..especially if I did it to her and didn't even fucking know?" His voice starts sounding a little upset but Liz calms him down again.
"Alright, yeah, I guess I'll go to bed even though it's 8" he chuckles a little.
"Thanks Liz" I hear the smile in his voice.
"Wait" I reach my hand for the phone.
Frank looks at me, "can I talk to her for a minute?"
"Oh, yeah..Liz, Chance wants to talk to you." He hands over the phone and smirks a little cute smile at me before rolling over sleepily.
"Liz." I simply say, opening the hotel door and slowly strolling down the hall.
"Can you please tell me what's wrong with Frank, I love him with every ounce of my being, but he's just so fucking unpredictable..I..I don't want to be afraid of him, or want the thought of leaving him to ever enter my mind" I wipe a tear off my cheek.
"No. You cannot and I mean cannot leave him, or even let him hear you say that, he will completely lose it, more than he has."
I sniffle and nod my head like she's sitting right in front of me.
"Okay..but..now because of how heavily involved you are with everything, and how you're the only one around to help him, I feel as if I'm liable to tell you his complete diagnosis, I don't like to talk to patients and especially their partners about diagnosis's, they're more for medical reasons, the label drives people crazy, and they act much worse than they need to."
"I feel...I feel Frank..God, okay you need to prepare for this part."
I slide down a wall I was leaning against, sitting on the floor.
"I feel Frank..murdered his family.."
The 'news' isn't news to me, but Liz doesn't know this, but a short "okay" slips out of my lips.
"You knew already?? I mean I'm not going to turn him in, it was years before I could figure it out..as long as he doesn't start up again.."
"No, no, I could figure that part" I say, not admitting that Frank confessed every detail to me, so I could protect him.
"But..alright, his diagnosis."
"I sort of mentioned this before, but..my certainty on this changes a lot, Frank is a special case, which is why I'm so close with him. It started off as antisocial personality disorder, but he doesn't fit every detail, so now it's only acute antisocial, but he definitely..definitely has shown textbook signs of dissociative identity disorder."
"So.." I ask.
"So..it's very hard for him to overcome this, he's definitely trying, but when you take your medication every other day and abuse other drugs with it, you're definitely not helping. People with this disorder have multiple personalities, complex ones, they can be different genders, be nice, mean, scary, anything. They name them all, I don't know where he's pulled these names from. You can have a few to maybe even fifty, but so far Frank just has three, or four, I think."
"That's the whole 'me' thing??"
"Yes! 'Me' is more of who Frank thinks he is, but he's a negative guy, he's rude, unforgiving, violent, and just a fucking asshole, but that isn't who Frank is, he's basically just putting himself down. 'Frankie' just is a cutesy version of the real him, he often goes into this identity directly after 'me', trying to combat the violence and return to 'normal' if you will. He'll be extremely apologetic, probably with good reason of he was just identifying with 'me', 'Frankie' rushes in to stop the more violent personality. He'll have triggers, certain sights, sounds, smells, feelings, or thoughts that'll send him into dissociation. It's your job as his wife to keep him from triggers as well as possible, but don't lose sanity over it, if he dissociates, it happens. You just have to know the identities and do what you can to help him out of them as quickly as possible. You've actually been doing a great job."
"Thank you" I smile a little, taking in the information.
"But for example, he was thinking about his family, thinking about you guys while driving. That, you could never help. He made himself dissociate unintentionally. The thoughts of family brought back the thoughts of his, the abuse he dealt with with his father, he dissociated into 'Iolite', basically the embodiment of his childhood thoughts and fears, haunting him because he can't change the past, or fix the future with his family, in his eyes, he's ruined it, at the time, killing them seemed like the solution, But it just set it in stone further."
"You're so good" I answer, impressed.
She chuckles a little, "that's what all that school was for!"
"But seriously Chance, I know this is a lot to take in, but you're the most equipped person to deal with him, he's a great guy, the man adores you."
"I adore him too" I smile a little.
"Okay, you must be exhausted too, call me any time you have a problem, now go crawl in bed, give him a hug and a kiss, and enjoy your night"
"Alright Liz, you enjoy your night too, I'm sorry if we disturbed you"
"Never do" she answers.
"I'll probably call you sooner rather than later, this whole day was a lot to take in"
"I can imagine, call me any time"

I return to the room, turning off the light and getting under the covers next to Frank, pushing his long hair out of his face and behind his ear as he sleeps, kissing the side of his face, then moving behind him, being the 'big spoon' for once. I move my face on his shoulder and close my eyes, hearing him mumble, "I love you" in the dark before I fall asleep.