A Bullet Through A Flock Of Doves

Thirty Five - The Damage You've Inflicted

Frank woke up with a mouthful of hair and squirmed away, spitting and rubbing his eyes. Gerard stirred from where Frank had left his back - huh. Apparently at some point in the night, they'd moved so that they were spooning, but Frank, for once, hadn't ended up being the little spoon. Gerard yawned and blinked at him sleepily.

"I'm hungry," Frank huffed, nudging the other with his foot. Gerard groaned and buried his face in the pillows. "Fuckin' starving, c'mon, get up."

"Tired," Gerard whined, collapsing on his stomach and hugging the pillow. "I wanna sleep."

"But-"

"Shut the fuck up and get some food from room service or whatever," he grumbled, and when Frank opened his mouth to reply, he realized that Gerard was already asleep again.

"Old man," he muttered. "That's what you get for refusing me sex for a week."

Then Frank remembered something else and shoved at Gerard's shoulder. He growled, not raising his head. "Where's the drawing?"

Gerard made a flailing gesture towards the nightstand and then pulled the sheets up and over his head, blocking out light. Frank rolled his eyes and scrambled out of the bed, digging through the suitcase for a clean pair of boxers and jeans, and one of Gerard's band shirts. As he picked up a satisfactory shirt, he noticed something shiny amid the fabric and picked it up - Gerard's cellphone. Huh. He glanced over at the bed, where Gerard was still practically passed out, and then snatched up the metal rectangle and went into the bathroom, perching on the toilet seat and staring at it.

Should he?

No.

Would he?

Fuck yeah.

Frank hit the home button and was, of course, confronted with a passcode screen. He chewed his lip and typed in KNIGHT. The screen flickered and warned him he only had four more tries before it locked. Unswayed, he tried again and typed TEMPLAR. Nope. Frustrated, Frank wracked his brain for any other obvious thing it could be, and then paused, before punching in DOVES. The phone chirped at him and went to the home screen, and Frank snorted. It was asafeword, not a password, for fuck's sake.

He took a deep breath and went to "Messages," finding surprisingly few there. A few random ones to Mikey, one or two to Alicia about Mikey, and one to Hayley and several unknown numbers. Frank wasn't going to get anything from here...but what about call history? He went back to home and then to the "History" button, scrolling through and blinking. All of the recent ones were to Hayley....and then there was one call from around the time Frank had witnessed Gerard make a killing in the barn. The call was from an unknown number with a California area code, and Frank paused. His finger hovered over the number - for some reason, it made him uneasy. He stared at it until the digits got blurry, and then he summoned up all his courage and pressed "call."

Frank raised the phone to his ear and chewed his lip until it bled as the phone on the other end rang. His heart almost stopped when someone picked up.

"Gerard? Hello, pleasure to finally hear from you."

Frank frowned. It was a man's voice, and the man didn't sound very happy. "Uh...who is this?"

"It's Jared, of course...who am I speaking with?"

Frank's throat caught. "Uh, it's...not really important?"

There was a pause. Then the man said, almost dangerously, "Is this Frank Iero?"

"No?"

The man cursed. "You're....he was supposed to....that little fucker!" The man, "Jared," sounded furious - furious at Gerard.

"Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about but uh, I think I have the wrong number? So um. I'll just hang up now." Frank spoke in a rush and pressed "end call," with shaking fingers. Oh god. What had he done?

Swallowing heavily, he quickly locked the phone again and got out of the bathroom, tossing it into the suitcase and sparing a glance for Gerard on the bed, before pulling on socks and shoes and hurrying out of the room.

xoxoxo

Frank came back laden with scones and coffee, only to find Gerard very awake, alert, and grim-faced.

His stomach sank, but he he set the food down and asked bravely, "Gerard? What's...what's wrong?"

Gerard looked up from where he was piling all of their clothes and belongings into his bag and the suitcase. He was pale and thin-lipped and his expression matched the emotions of the voice on the phone.

"Well," Gerard said tightly, "I just got a call from Hayley that the kn- that the government is on our trail again, becausesomebody actually called the agent in charge of the mission from my phone and revealed their identity and in the process, mine. And what do you know - when I checked my phone history, I found her information to be exactly right."

"I-"

"No!" Gerard shouted, straightening up and stalking towards him, body held rigid. "You idiot. If I didn't have Hayley as an agent on the inside, we could be dead right now because of you! What the fuck were you thinking?!"

Frank gulped and shook his head, shrugging helplessly. "I'm sorry, I didn't know-"

"And snooping around through my stuff?!" Gerard yelled, and now he had him cornered up against the wall. "Fucking low, Frank! I thought you actually trusted me to some extent, but no - going through my fucking phone history and calling the first unknown number that showed up? Seriously?!"

Frank stared at him, terrified by the rage on the other's face and in his words. "I'm so sorry, Gerard, really, I just-"

"I should just get rid of you," Gerard snapped, and Frank blanched. "It'd be so fucking easy, and nobody would know." Frank shook his head frantically and tried to escape, but Gerard was already all in his space and blocking every way out, pinning him against the wall. "You've fucked me up, Frank," Gerard said, his voice still livid. "I don't know how you do it, but you..." He trailed off. "No more."

Frank lashed out when Gerard's hand closed over his throat and squeezed, but he already knew it wasn't going to do anything, even as his nails scratched across Gerard's cheek and left red lines behind. "Gerard!" he choked, head jerking back and hands closing in on Gerard's shoulders, trying to push him away. "Stop, stop, please, I'm sorry," Frank begged, twisting and gasping when Gerard's fingers dug harder, crushing against his windpipe.

He was trying to draw in huge lungfuls of air but none of it was getting in - it just burned and his mouth felt too dry, his vision swimming with spots. His head felt too light. Gerard was really...Gerard was really going to kill him. Frank squeezed his eyes shut and said in a desperate voice which was more of a forced rasp than anything, "Doves, please," and then he was falling back against the wall and going limp, Gerard's hands gone from his throat.

Frank was in a broken little pile on the floor, coughing and wheezing, and his eyes were still blurry and full of black dots around the edges. Gerard's shadow was still cast over him, and Frank wondered if maybe he'd chosen another way to kill him. He looked up dazedly, waiting for the killing blow.

But instead, he saw Gerard's anguished face and his stumble backwards. "No," he gasped, shaking his head, "I'm not....I'm not him, no." Frank didn't know who "him" was, but he had a feeling that he wasn't going to die today - at least not by Gerard's hand.

"Gerard?" he whispered, and his voice was completely wrecked and cracked when he spoke. Gerard was still shaking his head, and he turned heel and went into the bathroom, leaving Frank disoriented and in pain on the floor. But he returned a few seconds later with a cup of water, and knelt down next to Frank, who took the cup with shaking hands and drank the water slowly, steadied by Gerard's trembling touch. When he was done, he reached up without really knowing what he was trying to get, and he got Gerard, arms quivering around him and, astonishingly enough, face wet.

Frank didn't know what to do, how to react, so he just said quietly, "I'm sorry," and Gerard hugged him a bit tighter in response before helping him to his feet, where they stood and stared at each other. They both said, "I shouldn't have-" at the same time, and Gerard barked out a short, fake laugh before turning away and hefting the suitcase and bag up and off the hotel carpet.

"We need to go before they track us down from the signal," he said, and Frank nodded mutely, almost following him out when he saw the sketchbook abandoned on the nightstand. Frank picked it up and Gerard saw him, but didn't comment, continuing on to the door and holding it open for Frank.

xoxoxo

Frank didn't get a chance to actually look at the picture until they were in a car - whose car, he didn't know, possibly their rental but just as easily stolen off the street. He was slumped in the passenger seat, eyes darting over towards Gerard every now and then, though the other's gaze was always fixed firmly on the road, knuckles white on the steering wheel.

Frank finally opened the small leather book and flipped to the page Gerard had been working on last night....and his breath caught in his throat.

It was him, alright....it was definitely him, with his body and tattoos bared and on display in a way which made his face heat up. But something about it - maybe the smudged charcoal or the soft curves or his sleepy but fully visible face - made him seem so different from the other sketches. Like he wasn't just a one night stand. And he wasn't - he and Gerard had been together for many nights now, for months, even (it was already the first of September). But it wasn't....it wasn't romantic. It was just good, rough sex. That's what he told himself, anyway.

Still - what they'd told each other in the barn. The fight that they'd had in the rain and what had happened afterwards. The incident with Billie. The way Gerard had treated him in the following week. What Frank had said at the bar and the fact that Gerard drew him - not like the others, not like the angry man - but like this. None of those were typical of a "just sex" relationship. The fact that Gerard had almost killed Frank about an hour ago and started crying wasn't typical either - not of that kind of relationship, and not of him.

Maybe he was stupid for staying with Gerard, and maybe people would think he was in an abusive relationship. But it wasn't, not really. He did trust Gerard - he did. Frank knew he shouldn't, especially since this man had almost strangled him, but what counted was that Gerard hadn't. The look on his face when Frank had said the safeword (even though it wouldn't apply to the situation) and the fact that he'd even brought him water and held him afterwards...those were the things which really mattered to Frank. Because...he'd been hurt in the past, on so many occasions, but never had that violence been followed by kindness, comfort, or...whatever Gerard gave him.

"You have bruises," Gerard said, startling Frank so badly that he banged his head on the car roof.

"What? Oh," he replied, understanding and touching his neck. "Yes. Apparently."

"I'm sorry," Gerard said, taking him off-guard. "I was angry and I kind of lost it."

"You've already lost it," Frank informed him, but he was strangely warmed by Gerard's rare apology.

"Why are you smiling?" Gerard asked, and he actually sounded fairly concerned.

Frank shook his head and grinned out the window. "I have no idea."

Gerard blinked bemusedly and turned back to the steering wheel, shaking his head. "Both of us are utterly insane, that's what I think."

"Utterly," Frank agreed giddily, glancing down at the portrait of him and then closing the book, though the image stayed in his mind.