"You just have to hold on," Gerard was saying. "Bob's gonna be back soon, just hold on a little longer, Frank."
"I'm such an idiot," Frank said, hand over his eyes. He pressed until he saw red sparkles inside his eyelids. "Such a fucking idiot. I can't believe I did this to my fucking self."
"You didn't do anything to yourself, Frank, nobody's to blame but this Luke asshole, okay." Ray sat opposite, his hands on Frank's knees.
"I still say we call the police," Brian said.
Frank took his hand away and rolled his eyes. "And tell them what, Brian, oh, Officer, this guy gave our friend a cursed tattoo, can you arrest him for invoking the Holy Ghost?"
Brian sighed. "There has to be something we can do."
"I'm back," Bob called. He came into the room and dumped his bag down by Frank. "Okay, what do you want me to do, just cover it up with solid black, or what?"
"I don't know," Frank considered his hand. It was weird - he knew it was an evil angel, now, obviously, but she still looked beautiful to him. He felt the same instant draw he'd felt in Luke's shop, the first time he saw her. "Isn't there some way we can just modify it? I don't like the idea of a giant black circle on my hand."
Bob was pulling his supplies out from the bag. "Maybe I can add detail around the edges later, work it into your sleeve?"
Frank sighed. "This is gonna throw the whole balance off."
"Jesus, Frank, priorities!" Brian snapped. "How important is that gonna be if you're bleeding from the eyes?"
"There's nothing in the Bible about Jesus doing that," Gerard interjected, then hurried to add, "But I agree, in theory," when Brian glared at him.
"Frank," Mikey said quietly. "She's hurting you."
Frank looked down at her again. "Yeah," he admitted. "I know."
"All right," Bob said, pulling out his needles. "Solid black it is."
"Oh," said Gerard faintly. When Frank turned to look at his face, he'd turned distinctly green. "Oh, that - that's a needle, all right."
"You gonna be okay?" Frank asked him, then startled when Gerard scrambled away. "Where are you going?"
"I can't," Gerard said stiffly, wringing his hands. "I can't - I'm sorry, Frank, it's just, I can't deal with needles, I can't, I can't."
"He's dealing with a lot worse than a fucking needle, Gerard!" Mikey said incredulously. "God, don't be such a pussy!"
"It's okay," Frank tried to say, but it came out as a moan and he folded forward, resting his forehead on his knees. The pain lurked sullenly at the edges of Frank's consciousness, making its presence known with the occasional brutal stab to the nervous system. Frank closed his eyes and tried not to throw up. "Fuck."
"For fuck's sake, Gerard," Mikey said, sliding in behind Frank and putting his arms around him. It was nice, it was comforting, but it didn't dull the pain.
Frank leaned back into him anyway, turning his face into Mikey's shoulder. "Bob, man, whenever you're ready."
"Going as quick as I can," Bob confirmed, snapping on gloves and grabbing the alcohol to wipe Frank's hand down. "Don't get your panties in a bunch."
Frank felt Bob taking his hand, then pain sliced brightly through his skull and he jerked upright, his head snapping back involuntarily. "Fuck."
"You gotta hold still, Frankie," Bob warned, and Frank heard the buzzing of the needle start.
"I'm trying," Frank told him through gritted teeth, and then the pain rolled right down his spine and bloomed in his lower back and he spasmed again, this time lurching forward.
He heard Ray's voice, and Brian's, and Bob saying, "I can't do it like this, he's just gonna be criss-crossed all to fuck," and then Mikey snapping, "Gerard, would you get the fuck over here right the fuck now, he needs you," and then there was more pain, this time in a sharp splash behind his eyes, echoed by tiny bursts in his wrists, and then he felt Mikey moving away.
He was alone for a long, terrifying second, and then two arms came around to hold him and Frank cried out again but in relief this time, pressing blindly back into Gerard as much as he could, into the warmth of his touch and away from the pain.
"I'm going to do my very best not to pass out or throw up," Gerard said grimly into his ear. "And you're gonna hold still for Bob. Deal?"
"Deal," Frank gasped, and he felt Gerard turning his head, resting his temple against the back of Frank's neck. "Just don't look."
"I'm not," Gerard said, muffled. "I'm not even here. I am far away in a place with no needles."
Mikey rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Gee, this whole thing must be such a nightmare for you."
Bob took Frank's hand again and set the needle firmly against the back of it, right in the center of the angel's face. "Ready?"
"Ready," Gerard whimpered, arms tightening around Frank's waist.
Frank shared a look with Mikey, and nodded. "Ready."
Bob nodded back. "Rock and roll."
It hurt, of course, but the pain was so reasonable, so muted and understood and normal that Frank wanted to cry. He followed the line of the needle eagerly, leaning forward when Bob wiped his hand off for the first time, wanting to see...nothing.
There was nothing there.
"It didn't work," Ray said, leaning over Bob's shoulder. "Bob, why isn't it working?"
"I don't know." Bob tried again, and it was working, Frank could feel the sting, he'd gotten inked hundreds of times, he knew what it fucking felt like, but again, when Bob wiped him off - there was nothing. The angel stared up at him unblemished, just the same as before.
"What's going on?" Gerard wanted to know, still hiding behind Frank.
"See for yourself." Bob held up Frank's hand and Frank felt Gerard sit up. "Our boy's a man of steel all of a sudden."
"This is really bad," Brian observed to nobody in particular. "This is really bad, right?"
"I know," Frank said. "What if I can never get another tattoo again?"
"Jesus, Frank," Brian sighed. "How many tattoos do you think you're gonna be able to get when you're dead, anyway?"
"I'm not dying," argued Frank.
"That's not how it looks from here!" Brian shot back. His voice cracked on the last word and he looked away, folding his arms around himself and hunching his shoulders. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."
"Yeah, you did," Frank said, closing his eyes. Gerard rocked him back and forth a little bit.
The silence stretched out, heavy and hopeless, until Ray offered timidly, "Frank...do you think it's Gerard?"
Frank looked up. "What?"
"You said it doesn't hurt when he touches you, right?" Frank nodded, and Ray went on, "And that day in the shop, when you guys met - you shook hands, and then your tattoo was healed all of a sudden, remember?"
Frank swallowed. "Yeah. I remember."
"It wasn't healed before that?" Gerard asked quietly.
Frank shook his head. "I cleaned it just that morning, and it hadn't even scabbed."
"Oh," said Gerard. "Oh."
"So the needle can't penetrate his skin," Brian said slowly. "Because Gerard's holding him. But if he lets go..."
"Don't," Frank folded his arms over Gerard's, holding them to him. "Please fucking don't."
"I won't," Gerard promised him. "But this sounds a little, like, we're just speculating. What if it's the tattoo itself? What if it's just on your hand?"
"Can't ink over it," Bob said urgently. "No time for removal - shit, what the fuck are we supposed to do?"
Frank could feel the answer all the way down in his stomach, he could feel it make its way up through his lungs, into his throat, forcing his mouth open and he tried not to say it even as the words were tumbling out hurriedly from between his lips, because of all the stupid ideas Frank had ever had in his life, this was the worst. And still he found himself saying, "Let's cut it off."
"Are you out of your goddam mind?" Brian said dismissively. "We're not going to cut off your fucking hand, Frank."
"Why not? If we get rid of the tattoo, the spell or whatever'll be broken, right? Mikey, there's a cleaver in the second drawer in the kitchen."
"Why do you even have a cleaver? You're vegetarian - Mikey, don't do as he says!" Brian said exasperatedly as Mikey turned to go get it. "Frank, you can't be serious!"
"Serious about not dying and getting my blood drunk by a religious nutjob?" Frank raised his eyebrows at Brian. "Yeah, I'm pretty serious."
"But it's your hand."
"You were the one talking about priorities," Frank reminded him, nodding at Mikey when he came back holding the cleaver. "Well, I'd rather learn to live with one hand than learn to be dead with two."
Ray was staring back and forth between them with his mouth hanging open. "Frank, I really don't think this is such a good idea."
Frank ignored him and moved around to lay his arm, palm-side up, on the table. Now he'd thought of it, he couldn't fucking wait to get rid of it, it was like he could feel the bad magic moving up his veins like poison, traveling from his hand all the way to his heart. "All due respect, guys, I'm not taking advice from anyone who doesn't also have a cursed hand, right now."
"Mikey, you can't do this," Gerard warned over Frank's shoulder. "If something goes wrong, you'll never forgive yourself."
"Nothing's going to go wrong," Frank said firmly, meeting Mikey's eyes as steadily as he could. Inside his heart was banging frantically against his ribcage and his stomach was in uproar, a mess of anxious twists and acid. "Mikey, I trust you."
Mikey took a few uncertain steps forward and raised the cleaver slightly.
"You're not actually going to cut off his hand," Bob said disbelievingly. "Mikey, you can't. He could die from blood loss!"
"Doesn't matter," Mikey said tightly. "Gerard's here. He can heal him."
"We don't know that!" Gerard said urgently. "Mikey - Frank, tell him not to!"
"I don't feel any pain if you're here," Frank said over his shoulder. "I'll be fine. You can just let go for a second while he - while he does it, and then grab me again and do your healing thing." Frank looked up at Mikey. "On three."
"Oh, Jesus," Ray moaned, covering his eyes.
"One," said Frank, curling his other hand into a fist and shoving it into his mouth to give himself something to bite down on.
Bob shoved his chair away and backed up, shaking his head. "This is a really fucking bad idea."
"Two," Frank said around his knuckles.
"Frank, no," Gerard said desperately.
Frank took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Three."
"PUT THE FUCKING CLEAVER DOWN RIGHT THE FUCK NOW."
Frank opened his eyes. He still had two hands. Brian was standing between Mikey and Frank.
The cleaver fell to the floor with a harsh clatter. Mikey took two stumbling steps backwards and collided with Ray, who caught him and held on.
"Everybody sit the fuck down!" Brian shouted.
Everybody did.
"You are," Brian seethed, "The stupidest motherfuckers I have ever come across in my whole goddam life, do you know that? I don't know how the fuck I managed to work with you assholes in a place where we're surrounded by sharp objects and not lose a limb every other week, you crazy bastards, you are all motherfucking certifiable and I swear to God the next person to suggest something so fucking insane it could land us all a fucking Darwin Award is going to feel my wrath, never mind The Almighty's!"
"I agree with Brian," Gerard began, but was cut off by Brian whirling around and pointing a finger right in his face.
"You're a priest! You of all people should fucking know better, but no, you're the worst of all! It's not enough that you show up in our lives and suddenly we're fighting God or the Devil or some crazy renegade tattoo artist who thinks he's the Devil, but now you've got my staff pointing knives at each other? I don't know how you roll in the Vatican, Father, but this is not how we live our lives!"
Gerard opened his mouth. Frank shook his head furiously. Gerard closed it again.
"This is totally out of our league!" Brian yelled, whirling his arms everywhere. He was bright red in the face. "Ray is a hairdresser!"
Frank started to laugh. Just a little at first, the stupid inappropriate giggle that always fought to escape him when someone was yelling, or he was hurt, or something terrible was happening, but then another followed, and another, and then he caught Bob's eye and Bob was pressing his mouth together in the way that meant he was about two seconds from cracking up and Frank was just gone, laughing so hard it hurt and he had to struggle to breathe, drawing in choked gasps of breath and making a stupid noise and laughing even harder, and then Ray was laughing too, and Mikey, and even Gerard, although he was trying to hide it in Frank's shoulder.
"I'm a hairdresser!" Ray wailed, collapsing against Mikey, and then even Brian's mouth twitched at the corner and he sat down heavily, dropping his head into his hands.
"I hate you all," he moaned, making Frank wheeze and clutch at Gerard's arm because Gerard was squeezing him so tight he really couldn't breathe at all. "I should just let you all stab each other to death and have done with it."
When they'd calmed down a little, Mikey admitted, "Okay, maybe that was kind of a dumb idea. But we still don't know if Frank can get hurt when he's with Gerard, or if it's just his hand."
Brian rolled his eyes. "May I draw your attention to the bag full of needles at Bob's feet?"
Bob looked down at it. "I'd totally forgotten that was there."
Gerard started giggling again, but he shut up pretty fucking fast when Bob pressed one of the needles to the inside of Frank's arm. "Aargh."
"Aargh yourself," Frank told him, and looked down at his arm. "Oh."
The needle was penetrating his skin, just like normal. He couldn't feel it, but it was definitely there.
"I don't get it," frowned Bob. "But I guess it's not Gerard after all."
"Guess not," Frank agreed. He didn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed, so he tried to keep his voice straight down the middle of the road.
They went back to the books after that. Brian suggested they look online, but Gerard vetoed that idea.
"All you'll find is ten million Geocities pages with sparkly purple font at the top," he sighed. "Trust me."
So there was more research, and more coffee, and Brian trying to narrow down the location of Luke's shop based on Frank's description of, "It was on a street? And...I think it was raining."
"Can I just say that I don't really want to go looking for Luke?" Frank pointed out. "I'm all for facing my fears, guys, but seeking out the crazy person who wants to use me as a human sacrifice isn't exactly on my list of fun stuff to do."
"What I don't get," Gerard said suddenly, gazing over at the notes on the wall. "Is why there's all these protective herbs in the ointment he gave you. That doesn't make any sense."
"But it does!" Ray piped up excitedly. "I mean, that ointment's for your tattoo, right? Isn't it possible that it could be doing two things at once?"
"What do you mean?" Frank frowned.
"Like, okay. Sometimes I want one of my products to do two things that might seem to work against each other, like I want to give the roots body and smooth down flyaway ends."
Mikey nodded seriously. "Like that Moonchild stuff you made for me."
"Exactly!" Ray bounced anxiously in place. "It's just about finding the right balance. So like, maybe the evil herbs are there to boost the spell mojo or whatever, but the protective herbs are there to stop anything happening to your tattoo, and that's why Bob couldn't tattoo over it. It's the ointment. It's working like a shield."
Brian stared crazily at Ray. "And you couldn't have mentioned this when Frank was trying to convince us to cut off his hand?"
"I only just thought of it," Ray muttered, looking down. "It's probably stupid."
"No, no." Gerard was nodding enthusiastically. "Ray, that totally makes sense. I think you're right."
Frank rubbed his eyes. "Actually, you know what, fuck it. I changed my mind. I wanna find this son of a bitch and I wanna knock him the fuck right out."
"Fuck yeah," Bob agreed.
Gerard was biting his nails, looking troubled. "I know we have to stop this guy," he said worriedly, "But I can't condone violence, you guys, what are we gonna do, kill him? I can't be part of that."
"How else can we stop him?" Mikey asked, pushing his glasses up his nose with one long finger. "What can we do, Gee?"
"I don't know." Gerard stood up and started pacing around. Frank had noticed that if Gerard broke contact but stayed relatively near, and Frank wasn't freaking out, the pain wasn't too bad. "There's gotta be a way to break the spell."
"The problem is, Father, even if we figure that out, we still have to deal with him afterwards," Brian explained. "The police aren't going to be able to help. We don't have many options, here."
"I know. I know. But we can't go in there and - " Gerard stopped, visibly frustrated, and turned to face the notes on the wall. He laced both hands behind his head and stood in silence for a few moments, finally announcing, "If we can find a way to break his power over Frank, we can turn him over to the Vatican."
"The same Vatican who refused to help Frank in the first place?" Mikey didn't look convinced. "What the fuck are they gonna do, Gerard, pray about it?"
Gerard gave Mikey the finger without moving his hands off his head. Ray and Frank exchanged a dorky, excited glance - a priest! Flipping the bird! Frank would never get used to it. "There's a faction of the Vatican that deals with this kind of thing."
"But I thought that's what you did," Frank said, leaning forward. "The congregation of the...thing."
"Causes of the Saints," Bob filled in, then rolled his eyes when Frank stared at him. "Oh come on, don't tell me you haven't seen that movie."
"What I do is investigate miracles," Gerard turned around to face them, folding his arms. "This is...something else. Darker. I'm not really supposed to know about it, but I met this guy, Father Crealy, and he's a drinker, right, and I guess he let it slip one night when we were both in Rome - oh, by the way, did I tell you guys about this dude I saw fishing pennies out of the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi?"
They all looked at him blankly.
"The Four Rivers Fountain," Gerard explained. "It's a really famous fountain? In the Piazza Navona? By Bernini?"
"Gee," Mikey cut in. "Stop being a tool and focus."
Gerard blinked. "Oh! Right. Well, that's really all I know. Stuff goes on that the Church needs to deal with, but doesn't want all over the headlines because it's bad press, or whatever. There's a Cardinal I speak to a lot, I can probably get him on our side."
"How do we know Frank's not going to - I mean, you know." Ray made a hand movement that could have been Frank's side exploding, or an aborted attempt at the Macarena. "How do we know he's safe?"
"I'm okay as long as Gerard's here," Frank reassured him.
Gerard looked at him, surprised. "Do you know that for sure?"
"I just - I can feel it." Frank bit his lip, and tried his very hardest not to feel as lame as he thought he might sound. "I can't explain it, I just know."
Gerard nodded awkwardly and looked away.
"So let me get this straight," Brian said, spreading his hands. "Either we need to find this Luke guy, get him to stop torturing Frank, and turn him over to the Vatican, or...one of you needs to make a serious lifestyle adjustment."
"Pretty much sums it up," Gerard agreed. "I can call the Cardinal in a few hours, but he won't be in his office yet."
Bob cleared his throat. "You don't think this is worth waking him up?"
"He's not asleep," Gerard said tiredly. "He's at Mass."
"It's fine," Frank said, "Like I said, I'm okay for now. And to be honest, guys, I'm pretty fucking beat."
He was lying. He wasn't tired, he was exhausted. Frank had been sick so often for so many years that by now the worst part wasn't finding out something was wrong with him, it was waiting to discover exactly what it was. Knowing what the deal was made him feel - okay, sucky, because cursed tattoos weren't exactly at the top of his Christmas gift list or anything, but not worse. The adrenaline that had been running through his veins for the last few days had suddenly gotten tired of keeping him in fight-or-flight mode, and all he felt was heavy and headachy and in desperate need of some sleep.
Brian wasn't keen, though. "I think we should all stay together tonight."
"Yeah, we can protect you," Mikey said. "We can...burn some sage, or something."
"That's paganism," Gerard said.
Mikey frowned. "Well then, so are the herbs in Luke's spell, dumbass."
"We can make a salt circle around the bed!" Ray said. "I saw that in a movie."
"You saw that on Supernatural," Bob corrected him.
Ray flipped him off. "Whatever, man, they have AC/DC on the soundtrack, that show's awesome."
"I don't know, it's not very accurate," Gerard said, wrinkling his nose.
"You didn't care that Buffy was inaccurate," Mikey reminded him.
"Well, duh." Gerard rolled his eyes. "Buffy was good."
Ray gasped, like, actually a gasp, and stared at Gerard. "I can't believe you would say that!"
"Oh, please, their theology alone is completely-"
"I'm going to stop this before it starts," Brian said decisively, standing up. "And focus on figuring out where we're all going to sleep."
"Shotgun," said Mikey immediately.
"What do you mean, shotgun?" Bob frowned. "We're not in a car."
Mikey rolled his eyes. "In an apartment situation, the bed is the driver's seat and the couch is shotgun. Everybody knows that."
"No, the driver is whoever owns the bed. Shotgun is who gets to sleep in the bed with them," Ray argued. "The couch is like, deputy shotgun."
"You're wrong," Mikey told him, "But okay. Deputy shotgun!"
Ray groaned. "Fine. You're so goddam skinny, you'd probably wear holes in Frank's floor anyway."
"Wait a minute, so nobody's actually calling shotgun?" Frank wondered. "I don't think it's catching, guys."
Brian said, "Well, Gerard's gonna need to sleep with you, right?"
Frank blinked. He looked at Gerard. Gerard was looking determinedly at the wall. "Oh." Frank hadn't thought about that. "I hadn't thought about that."
Gerard left the wall alone and started staring at the floor, instead.
"I'm sure I'll be fine," Frank said, and really wished everyone would stop staring at him, God. "I'm okay now and we're not touching, right? You can sleep in the living room with Mikey and I'll, I'll call you if anything happens. I got a little warning this time, right, Bob?"
Bob nodded, but Gerard was wringing his hands.
"If anything happened to you because I wasn't here," he started, then stared at the ceiling, because...he didn't want it to feel left out, how the fuck should Frank know. "It's fine. It's fine. I need to stay up for a couple hours until I can call the Cardinal anyway. I'll just hang out here."
Mikey said, "Gee," but Gerard cut him off.
"It's fine, Mikey. Stop worrying."
Mikey rolled his eyes. "Never gonna happen," he drawled, making Gerard smile and look away. "Frank, you need to go to the bathroom."
"What?" Frank actually did, but he was used to announcing it to Mikey, not the other way around. Mikey made his eyebrows move in the way that meant, 'private conversation right now!' though, so Frank said, "Oh, uh, yeah, I totally do," and started squirming towards the edge of the bed.
It didn't hurt nearly as much as it should have done to walk on feet with holes in them. Mikey had to help him stay upright while he was pissing and brushing his teeth, which was sort of embarrassing but nothing they hadn't done for each other before on any given Friday night.
He helped Frank change into fresh sweats and a clean T-shirt, and then folded his arms and fixed him with a serious look.
"What?" Frank said, trying not to look nervous. It was just Mikey, for God's sake.
"Dude," Mikey started, and then he stopped for a really long time and just looked at Frank really seriously.
"What?" Frank asked again.
Mikey sighed. "Look...dude, you and my brother." Frank opened his mouth, but Mikey made a frustrated gesture and went on, "He's not. I mean, you can't. I don't want...you know?"
"I really don't." Frank shook his head.
Mikey made some more gestures, and rolled his head on his neck a little bit, and sighed some more. Frank just waited. Eventually Mikey would get to the point, it was just sometimes you had to suffer through some nervous calisthenics first.
"He's been thinking about leaving the priesthood," Mikey admitted finally, in a low voice.
"Oh my God," Frank whispered back. "Why?"
Mikey shook his head. "A lot of stuff. Mostly he doesn't feel like he's helping anyone, and there's...like, political stuff. He's progressive, or whatever. I don't know."
Frank eyed him. "You do know."
"All right, I do know," Mikey smiled a tiny bit. "But I'm not telling you. The point is, he's really confused right now. And he's...he's lonely, Frank, and..."
"And?"
"And you're," Mikey waved his hands at Frank's general being. Frank raised an eyebrow and Mikey sighed. "You're persistent."
"I'm - Mikey, Jesus!" Frank hissed, shoving at him as best he could without falling over himself. "I'm not gonna try to get in his pants, for fuck's sake, who do you think I am?"
"I know you!" Mikey hissed back. "I know what you look like when you're really into someone, Frank, I'm not an idiot!"
"And I'm not a," Frank couldn't think of a word for someone who would try to seduce a priest. Even if that priest was totally hot and had magical hands. "A harlot," he finished finally.
Mikey's eyes almost fell out of his head, they rolled so hard. "A harlot, seriously?"
Frank clicked his tongue irritably. "Look, Mikey, your brother's an awesome dude, and - okay," he said quickly, holding his hands out to placate Mikey, who was practically grinding his teeth. "If things were different...but they aren't. Christ, Mikey, I think I should be offended, here! What am I, faking all of this just because I've got designs on your brother's virtue?"
"I'm not just worried about him," Mikey said carefully, searching Frank's face with his eyes. "You're all needy and shit."
"Oh, well." Frank folded his arms. "Thank you, Doctor Phil."
Mikey made a face. "All right, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to look out for you, fuck."
"Whatever." Frank leaned against the door, rolling his forehead against the grain. He needed to get back; the pain was starting to lap at the edges of his consciousness like a really horrible wave. "It hurts, Mikey. It hurts, and he helps. That's it. I promise."
"You promise," Mikey said, but not in his doubtful voice. He touched Frank's shoulder. "Okay."
Gerard went off to the bathroom after Frank came back - whether or not he was getting his own version of The Talk from Mikey, Frank didn't know, because he was too busy listening to Ray, Bob and Brian argue about who got to share the couch with Mikey.
"I'm short," Brian kept saying, "And I'm your boss."
When Gerard came back in, Frank had already turned off the lights and burrowed down under the covers.
"Hey," Gerard said quietly, inching onto the mattress. He sat back stiffly, as far away from Frank as possible, and Frank felt bad for putting the dude in this position, really he did, but not as bad as he felt about maybe getting stabbed, so he reached out and curled his hand over Gerard's wrist. Gerard jumped a little bit, even though he could clearly see Frank's hand coming towards him, what the fuck, and cleared his throat. "Um."
"Um," Frank agreed, rolling forward to rest his forehead against Gerard's forearm. He kept the rest of his body away from Gerard's and sighed, closing his eyes and enjoying the respite from pain. "Is this okay? Not too weird? We can maybe work out some kind of thing with the chair, and...I don't know, we can hook feet or something."
Gerard made a funny noise that might have been a laugh or a strangled cough, and patted Frank's head clumsily. "It's fine. I'm going to call the Cardinal in a little while, okay?"
"Mmph," Frank told him, completely unwilling and unable to form words. He was already mostly asleep - he was vaguely aware of Gerard getting something out of his pocket, and then he was asleep.