Crash Into My ***ing Arms

I didn’t want to let him go. Releasing him meant facing reality; facing the fact that despite how it felt, I barely knew him, and he’d been hurting- had I made things worse? His father; “I’m a fag;” what if the bastard found out?! God, Frankie would get killed, oh shit shit hell no...

I had to let go of him, slowly turning the car ignition on...

“Oh christ.” I couldn’t look at him. It took several swallows before I could say, “Are... are you okay?”

“Gerard... Hell. Was that- Oh shit.’’

I made myself glance sideways at him. Smudged eyeliner trailed down his pale cheeks, mascara framing scared wide eyes. He looked... hell, beautiful, stunning, gorgeous...

“Was that b-bad?” he stammered nervously. “M-my fault-”

“No!” Worrying that I’d been a little too quick to correct him, I slowed down awkwardly. “I mean... it was... y’know...” A breath, I sighed uncomfortably. “B-but not, not... a bad thing; not your f-fault, not like that... I mean... Shit.”

I just reached out for him again, wrapping my arms tightly around his shoulders as our lips met. Gently now, not so panicked or desperate... Well, he still looked desperate, scared and scarred from all that abuse... but not so heartbreakingly alone now. Something had filled up the hole I’d seen before in his haunted eyes. ...Me?

“Gerard, Gerard-” whimpered into my neck...

“Frankie, oh Frank... you okay?”

“I think s-so... t-thank you... you’re f-fucking amazing...”

“Shit, Frankie, I’m not really-”

He put a trembling finger slowly to my lips. “D-don’t. You m-made me feel... lo-”

If he said loved... My heart thudded in my throat. I wasn’t sure I could...

“-like somebody g-gave a shit.”

Had he sensed my fear? God, he was something else...

“N-nobody’s ever made me f-feel like they c-cared. Not in a long, long t-time...”

“God, I... I do, Frankie... I care...” I started to pull gently away, but his fingers tightened on my arm.

“C-can we just stay here... one more m-minute, Gerard... please..? I just... I just wanna p-pretend that it’s all okay... that I d-don’t have to go back home...’’ His eyes were nervous, jumpy, scared. I knew it made him anxious to ask. He seemed so frightened of doing the wrong thing.

“Shh, Frankie; mmkay, it’s okay...” I leaned back into the embrace as he closed his eyes nervously, breathing starting to even out.

We just stayed there for a while, Frankie’s face pressed into my chest, eyes tightly closed as he shut out the rest of the world. I watched him gently, emotions I couldn’t really place surging through my veins. Frank Iero... wow.

After a long time, Frank curled back away, still not taking his gaze off me as though he was afraid I would disappear when he blinked. “T-take me...” He couldn’t even say the word home. “B-back, please?”

“Frankie... Maybe you don’t have to go back right yet..?”

His eyes held a flicker of hope for a moment; it was brief, but I knew I’d seen it. Then “I don’t have anywhere else to g-go, Gerard.”

“You could... you could come to my place... You know Mikey a bit already... It’s not too far away... so...” I swallowed.

He glanced down. “I want to, Gerard, really I do...” he said quietly to his lap. I had to strain to hear him. “B-but I always go home... after. After he... y’know. I always do...”

“Maybe it’s time to change things... to feel better. Frankie?”

He stared hard at me, then tore his eyes away to nod. “Okay.”

I reached down next to the seat, straightening and silently handing Frank the plastic packet of white powder he had dropped. His pale face flushed. His hand was shaking badly as he took the baggie from me, and he was refusing to meet my eyes with his. I thought I heard him murmur “S-shit” uncomfortably under his breath.

“Frankie-”

“Gerard-”

We spoke at the exact same moment, then looked at each other.

‘‘Go ahead,” he murmured quietly.

“No, you Frankie... you go ahead.”

He took a deep breath. “M-maybe the rumours were true. A little... Look, I never meant to get... addicted... Shit. Shit, y’know-”

“Frank... I know. I might as well say it; I drink too much, like passed out every night kind of ‘too much...’ Just ask Mikey... Well... I understand. I do.”

“Thank you,” he whispered, then leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes again.

The drive was silent; we both had too much to think about...

I pulled into the driveway and turned off the car ignition. “Mmkay.”

Frank got out as I did, and our doors closed in unison, making him smile a little. His smile was so shy and sweet... My heart might have missed a beat. Sexy Frankie was also cute Frankie.

He trailed me up the walk, watching nervously as I unlocked and opened the front door.

Mikey came down the stairs, stopping as he saw who was behind me. “Oh. Frank! ...christ-” He looked at me. “-is he alright?”

I just turned to Frank, who nodded and whispered a “Y-yes, thank you.”

“Sit down,” Mikey said, leading him and me towards our living room. “Uh... Should I get beers, or..?”

“Can I use a bathroom, please?” Frank asked politely.

“Last door down the hall,” Mikey said, pointing. As Frank nodded his thanks and went in that direction, my brother turned towards me. The second the bathroom door had swung shut, he pulled me into the living room and fixed me with a stare. “What the hell is going on?”

“He got... lost, he said. He needed help, and he had my number from when we did some project...”

“Oh, that...”

“He called me to pick him up. Well... I found him like that. It was...” I knew Mikey would never open his mouth about it. Keeping my voice low, “His dad does that to him.”

“Holy fucking shit; you aren’t serious...” Mikey looked thoroughly disgusted. “Poor guy... god.”

I nodded.

The bathroom door opened again, and Frank came down the hall, looking better. He’d cleaned up the blood and most of the smeared mascara, though some still shadowed his dark eyes as if he’d kept it to remind himself that what we’d done hadn’t just been a dream. He did look much less of a mess, but there was no hiding the dark indigo bruises coloring his pale skin. “Hey.”

“Sit down,” Mikey offered again.

Frank sat as though it had been a command.

I lowered myself onto the couch beside him, keeping a certain amount of distance between us. My brother was watching him and me carefully from the opposite sofa.

“You okay?” Mikey asked Frank to break the silence. “Oh... want a beer?”

“I’m okay,” he answered softly. “And yeah, thanks.”

Mikey didn’t respond right away, and following his eyes, I realized that he was looking at my fingers, smudged with the same eyeliner and mascara accentuating Frank’s eye sockets, and formerly streaking his cheekbones and slender neck. Shit. Suddenly, Mikey got to his feet. “Okay, yeah. Okay.” He hurried to the kitchen for the beer.

I exchanged an awkward glance with Frank. He bit his chapped bottom lip, obviously frightened.

Mikey came back just in time to see us both look uncomfortably away from each other. “Here.” He set a beer down on the coffee table for Frankie with a thud, opening his own as he sat down.

He hadn’t brought me one. Fucking son of a bitch... Mikey picked on things, like my problem with alcohol, when he was pissed off. I knew he was testing me, waiting to see if I would get pissed in front of Frank, who was watching me too. I didn’t want to, but didn’t want Mikey to suspect things either... Oh shit. I grit my teeth.

There was a clatter; Frank was taking his beer from the table, but had accidentally knocked it over. Well... accidentally? Maybe his hands really were shaking out of nerves, or maybe he was just trying to break the awkward tension between me and my brother.

Frank and I reached for the tipped bottle at the same moment, and our hands touched. The feel of his skin brushing mine sent a sudden shock through me, and he must have felt the same piercing jolt that I did, because we both recoiled at the same time, him grabbing panickedly to right the bottle and me moving back further on the couch with an involuntary shudder.

Mikey’s eyes were following everything. I couldn’t meet them. The silence in the room was the most deafening thing I had ever heard.

Suddenly Frank gave a hiccupy gasp. Head snapping worriedly in his direction, I could see him cup one hand awkwardly under his nose, shuddering. Blood was running down his face again. “S-shit, Gerard, I-”

“Frankie-” I got up and ran for the tissue box to realize that Mikey was already holding it out in my direction, the expression in his eyes unreadable.

“Thanks,” I muttered unsurely, taking the tissues from him and handing a wad to Frank. There was already blood dripping off his fingers, and he stared helplessly at me.

Biting my lip, I gently pressed the Kleenex to Frank’s face, holding it there as he used another tissue to clean his fingers. My stomach churned; I knew Mikey was watching this too.

Frank couldn’t even murmur a thank you as he brought his own hand up next to mine, he was trembling so hard, spitting blood which had gotten in his mouth into the Kleenex. There were tears in his eyes.

I stepped back.

Cocaine whore. Shit.

Frank gave me an almost tortured look and ran for the bathroom again.

I started to follow him. “D’you need-”

Mikey stopped me with a hand on my shoulder, jerking me back to face him. “Well.”

“Well what?” I snapped.

“You’re fucking him.”

“I don’t know what you’re-”

“Don’t give me that shit. It’s fucking obvious; ‘‘Frankie...” Mascara down to his collarbone when he walked in...The way you can’t look him in the eyes. Can’t touch him without jumping.” Mikey’s eyes were locked on mine, daring me to deny it.

“Well... well if I did... what the fuck is it to you anyways?” I spat.

“God, you make me sick,” Mikey told me vehemently.

The look on his face reminded me of the one I’d seen when I told him about Frank’s father. Oh, hell no...

“All that crap about his dad, blah blah blah... Then you went and fucked him. Holy fucking shit, Gerard, god.”

“No! No, holy shit no! I didn’t do that to him; I didn’t fucking hurt him-”

“I’m not saying you did, damnit. Somebody did, though, and then instead of helping him, you went a got in his pants, you selfish son of a bitch! Can’t you think of someone else besides yourself once in your life? Just because he was easy-’’

“You fucking think that I- God, what the h-”

The bathroom door opened again with a click, and I broke off abruptly. I couldn’t believe that Mikey thought I’d taken advantage of Frank... that I didn’t care about him at all. I cared, I really did... Maybe it had been wrong to fuck him; I shouldn’t have made a move... So Mikey was right, in a way. But to say that I didn’t give a shit...

Frank stepped slowly into the living room, eyes burning a hole into the carpet. He wouldn’t look up; not at me, not at Mikey.

I was just relieved that he had even decided to come back. If he knew that Mikey had figured it out, I thought maybe he would hide down the hall until someone went and got him.

He didn’t say a word, just sat quietly down on the couch again. This time, I stayed standing.

Mikey knocked back the rest of his beer. Frank didn’t touch his.I watched the clock. God, I hoped Frank didn’t feel too uncomfortable... Ha. Of course he felt like shit. It was written all over his pale face. He looked exhausted and miserable.

“Can I get anybody anything?” Mikey asked. I could still hear the bitterness in his voice.

Frank shook his head anxiously.

“No,” I said.

“Great,” Mikey muttered.

I shot Frank another sideways glance. He was staring miserably at his wrists. I followed his eyes to the inside of his arms where the cerulean veins ran under semi-translucent skin and my lungs suddenly felt leaden. There were pale white scars up and down both arms, crisscrossing his fragile wrists. Shit.

He caught me looking, and hurriedly turned his arms over, pulling them towards himself and wrapping both around his stomach as though it hurt him. He looked close to tears again.

Mikey got to his feet. “Bathroom,” he said, then went down the hall.

I thought I saw a flicker of nervousness in Frank’s eyes, but in an instant, it was replaced by the hollow look of fear that I recognized uncomfortably. The loneliness was returning to his haunted gaze... Damnit.

“Frankie...” I whispered quietly once the bathroom door was tightly shut.

“S-shit.”

“Frankie.”

“Gerard... he knows. He knows...”

“He’s pissed off at me; he thinks I... whatever. He’s not mad at you, though; you don’t have to worry...” I sat down, but spoke to the air next to him because we still couldn’t let our eyes meet.

“Why is he p-pissed?” His quiet voice was shaky.

“Thinks I... took advantage of you...” I mumbled, flushing.

He froze. “N-no! I mean...”

“I k-know-” He was in my arms again before I even knew how I was going to finish my sentence. So I didn’t finish it at all, just held him more tightly.

His lips were against my skin again. “I d-don’t think you-”

“I didn’t want to; that was n-never what I-”

He fought back tears. “S-shit, it was t-too fast, Gerard, I-”

“God, I’m s-sorry; I’m sorry...” I paused and took some deep breaths. “Frankie, the nosebleeds...”

“I’m a-”

I put a finger to his quivering lips before he could say it. I had heard it enough. “Shh...”

“Gerard, p-please...”

“Frank...”

“I’m a cocaine whore, okay?” he whimpered. “I gotta say it; I gotta-”

“Doesn’t it hurt you to hear?” I asked. It hurt me...

“Y-yes...” he whispered against my neck. “B-but I hope if it hurts enough, I’ll stop...”

“Damn, Frankie, you’re just fucking torturing yourself.” I could hardly stand to hear the pain in his soft voice. God, what was this? I was hardly in control of my own emotions around him. Hell, I was hardly in control at all around him.

‘‘G-gerard...” He swallowed hard. “Gerard.”

“Will it happen again?” I asked, handing him the Kleenex box from the coffee table where Mikey had set it down.

His head snapped up, eyes wide. “...Um... N-not if...”

Wait, no, not sex- The look in his eyes made me realize what he was thinking, stomach dropping. “No, I meant the nosebleeds, Frank, n-not the... not that!”

“Oh.” He took it from me with an uneasy shrug, refusing to look at me again. “...I hope n-not. N-never used to happen at all...”

“I know, Frankie. Hell, I know.” I could feel every knob of his spine straight through his t-shirt, and I ran a hand over it gently.

He sniffled and curled closer to me only to skitter back like a startled kitten at the familiar creak of the last door down the hall.

Mikey came back into the living room and stood silently across from us. I couldn’t tell what the odd look in his eyes meant. “Gerard, I need to talk to you.”

I shot a sharp glance at Frankie. It was as if he had expected it, nodding tiredly at me. So I got up and followed my brother anxiously into the kitchen.

“Your little bitch is a cocaine whore,” Mikey hissed quietly.

Had he guessed just from a couple nosebleeds? “You don’t know that. And goddamnit, he’s not my-”

“Have you seen the bathroom?” he said quietly. “There’s enough fairy dust on those tiles that we could put it in a bag and sell it for 100 bucks.”

I glanced down. “So he’s on drugs. Look, with what his fucking father does to him...”

Mikey nodded. “I’m not judging him, okay? I just wish you’d stop trying to avoid telling the truth about him.”

“Sorry,” I muttered to the floor.

“Gerard, god, I don’t care who you fuck. I do care who you hurt.”

“Look, if you have to fucking know, when I look at him... Shit, seriously... There’s something about him; I just... It’s different. I want him to be okay.” I shifted uncomfortably. I hadn’t been this awkward around my brother in the longest time.

Mikey seemed to be thinking. “Love?” he asked me finally, the bite of sarcasm in his voice, and my heart almost stopped.

“I...”

He looked away. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have said that.”

“I care...” I muttered. “I care about him, a lot... Damnit.”

Mikey nodded. “Alright.”

I trailed him back into the living room with a unsettled feeling in my stomach.

Frankie was gone.

“Oh, shit... shit shit shit...” I bolted for the door.

“Sorry,” Mikey muttered, following, concern for Frank in his eyes.

Pushing the door open, my heartbeat slowed. Frank was sitting on the steps of the porch, head in his hands. He must’ve started to leave, then realized that he had no way to get home on his own.

“Hey...” I said gently, sitting down beside him.

He flinched. “I’m s-sorry...”

“Don’t. Don’t; you don’t have to be sorry. Mikey and I are okay now-”

“He’s right,” a voice said behind me, and both Frankie and I turned to see Mikey standing at the door. “Gerard is right, Frank... I’m sorry. I... I had things wrong.”

“K-kay...” Frank was shaking.

I bit my bottom lip, then slid an arm around his thin shoulders. “Shhh...”

As his lips met mine, I could hear the front door swing closed. Mikey was leaving us alone.

After a long while, Frank stood up. “C-can you drive me home, please?”

I nodded. “I mean, if you want to stay here-”

“Things’ll be worse for me if I don’t show up,” he answered. “B-but thank you anyway...”

“Okay.” I opened the front door. “Mikey? I’m driving Frank home.”

As soon as I heard him call an okay down the stairs, I followed Frank towards my car, unlocking the door and getting in. As he gave me directions, I wished that I didn’t have to bring him back home. I wondered if I would see his father, having to fight against showing the man what I knew.

But when I got to Frank’s house, it was obvious that I wouldn’t be seeing anybody. The windows were dark, and the front window was taped messily with duct tape.

“He pushed my hands through it,” Frank said quietly.

I felt sick. “Fucking-”

“My shit-job fixing it didn’t help things between us.” He laughed bitterly.

I put a gentle hand on his arm, and he gave me a weak smile before getting out of the car.

“Thanks, Gerard...” he said quietly. “Thank you so fucking much...”

“It’s fine... Look, you have my cellphone number...”

He grinned lopsidedly, making my stomach somersault. “Gotta pen?”

I searched the floor of the car for a ballpoint, finally finding one and giving it to him.

He took my hand carefully and quickly scribbled a number on it. “G’bye... Thanks again.”

“Yeah.”

He was gone. I didn’t look at the number until after I got home, late in the evening. When I did, my heart flip-flopped. Scribbled in messy handwriting across the back of my hand were nine digits, followed by ~Frankie and a sloppily drawn heart. I smiled, but bittersweetly. Shit.