Crash Into My ***ing Arms

About twenty minutes and one very spent cigarette later, I took a deep breath of the nighttime air and turned for the door to our room, rubbing my cold hands together. As I shut and locked it behind me, I realized that Frankie was curled up asleep on the bed, fingers clutching the pillow as though he was afraid someone would take it away. His breathing was deep... awfully deep. I couldn’t remember Frankie ever being so entirely unconscious while he slept.

Acting on instinct, I crossed to the bathroom and pushed the door open, flicking on the light. Resting on the counter was a bottle of sleeping pills. The stupid little shit- I hoped he hadn’t taken more than the label recommended, or mixed in cocaine. Him getting sick all over himself-again- was the last thing I wanted to deal with.

I stood and watched him sleep for a moment. Frankie had curled up tightly and left enough room- and then some- for me to comfortably lie beside him without having to worry about getting too close. Still, it seemed awkward, and I eventually decided not to sleep. There was a chair by the dirty window, and I sat down heavily with another sigh.

I wasn’t sure how much of the night had passed when Frank started whimpering in his sleep, clutching the pillow all the tighter with white-knuckled fingers. The drugs had obviously worn off, since he seemed to be dreaming. Or rather, having a nightmare.

His shoulders were shaking, lips moving unconsciously. “No, n-no, Gerard, no please!”

I stared, a sinking feeling in my stomach.

“N-no...” he moaned pleadingly, rolling over, pulling the comforter to his chest, eyes still shut tightly in semi-interrupted sleep. His pale face was wet with tears. “G-gee, no...”

Shit. Oh shit. Frank’s nightmare was about me... How the hell could I have thought that we were past what I had done to him? I had been trying to pretend to both of us that it had never happened; I had thought that in some sick way, I’d had him convinced. But even if the bruises had faded, Frankie wasn’t okay... Frankie was fucking broken, and I had broken him.

God, I hated him. I hated him for letting his father hurt him... I hated him more for letting me hurt him.

Frankie gave a sudden shuddering gasp and bolted upright, tear-filled eyes locking instantly on mine. Fuck. He knew that I’d been watching him suffer, and hadn’t done a single thing. He stared at me for a minute, confusion and hurt on his face. He swallowed painfully and looked down at his lap before standing and wiping the tears away almost angrily. “S-smoke,” he muttered unsteadily, passing me on his way outside onto the balcony.

Shit. Shit shit shit. I should’ve said something, asked him if he was okay, or at least apologized again... Actually, I should’ve gone over there and woken him up, told him it was okay and it was only a bad dream... But instead I had just watched him hurting. What if my shithead brother, of all people, was right? What if I didn’t love Frank? What if he didn’t love me? What the hell were we doing here anyways?

I got to my feet as the need to do something, anything at all, overwhelmed me. Moving the chair and pushing the blinds out of the way of the small window, I blocked out the reflection with my hand so that I could see Frankie outside, leaning on the railing just as I had been doing before. His silhouette was flawless. The burning tip of a cigarette glittered in the dark next to him, casting just the slightest glow of red on his face and highlighting his cheekbones, some tears still clinging to his skin. He was beautiful outwardly; if it wasn’t for the hollow look in his eyes, you never could’ve guessed that I had ruined him.

My stomach burned. I hated him. I hated him for being so gorgeous, for tempting me to hurt him in the first place. He had seen that my eyes had been completely devoid of any love, actually anything but lust... Well why the hell hadn’t he stopped me right then?!

I shoved my way past the chair and into the bathroom, picking up the bottle of sleeping pills and holding it up as though to read the dosage. Instead, I just slammed it angrily back down onto the countertop with a loud rattling sound as the pills shook. I could see my face in the mirror in front of me, and I realized that I hated it almost as much as I hated Frank. My fucking face. My fucking face- Without thinking, I lifted a fist and slammed it into the mirror, driving my knuckles through the shattering glass. Blood spattered across the counter and the tile floor and my face, and I could only stare at the mess I had made. Oh fucking god, I was doing it again, losing myself... Shit.

My knuckles were bleeding badly, full of lacerations from the fragments of the mirror. I turned the water on and watched as the water going down the drain turned a sickening shade of too-bright tempera red. Could I stop fucking up for five straight minutes, maybe?

I pressed a wad of tissues to my hand, waiting for the bleeding to stop. The cuts were to the bone, but that wasn’t saying much, considering most of them were over my knuckles, and after a while, the blood began to congeal and turn dark. I threw out the tissues and tried to pick up as many of the glass shards off the counter and floor as I could before walking back over to the window.

Frankie was still smoking, sitting on the concrete now and hugging both knees tightly to his chest. I thought I could see his breath, even excluding the cigarette smoke, and wondered if he was cold. He pulled his arms even closer to him, shivering, and I felt a pang of guilt. Of course he was cold. I should go let him know that it was okay to come inside if he wanted.

I opened the motel door. “...Frank?”

He looked up. “Huh?”

“If you’re cold...”

He got unsteadily upright and followed me back inside. As I turned around to face him, he spoke. “Why do you hate me?”

My brain stalled. “I don’t hate you, I-”

“Why do you hate me, Gerard?!” His voice got more pleading. He wasn’t going to let it go.

“I don’t! I-”

“Gerard!” His neck muscles were taut; he must’ve had his teeth clenched. Both eyes were locked on mine, so innocent, so insistent, so full of pain and pleading.

I didn’t say anything, and his face darkened further.

“I wanna know why! Is it Mikey? Is it something I do wrong? Because I…” He seemed to force the words out. “…c-can’t fuck? I swear to god, I can change whatever it is, or at least try!”

This was not what I wanted to hear. If I was being an asshole, the least he could do was to get pissed off in return, not... this. “That’s not it, that’s not- Can’t you just fuck off?!”

“Just tell me, please, then I’ll leave you alone, Gerard! I just want to know what I did wrong!”

“You let me do it, you son of a bitch!” I yelled hysterically, snapping completely. I noticed that my hands were shaking, which pissed me off worse. “You let me hurt you just like you let your fucking father hurt you, and I hate you for it; I fucking hate you for it!”

Frankie’s face went still, like he was trying not to cry. His voice came out quiet and unnaturally shaky. “You hate... m-me? You hate m-me because I let you h-hurt me?”

Even I could hear how sickeningly selfish that logic sounded. But I nodded, not trusting my vocal chords.

Frank was crumpling, but he managed to pull his face into a taut mask before he spoke. “I... d-don’t get it. G-gee, I d-don’t get it!”

What the fuck did he want me to say to him?

“But what did I do?” he whimpered, eyes silently begging me for an answer.

“You fucking let me!” I screamed, unable to take the incomprehension and pain on his perfect face.

“What did you want me to do? What did you want me to do? S-shove a knife between your f-fucking eyes?”

“Anything, you son of a bitch- You let your dad walk all over you, you let me hurt you-”

“I thought if I just waited for it t-to be over...” Tears spilled down Frankie’s face.

“No, no, you had to stop me, goddamn you, I fucking hate you!” I couldn’t stop yelling, even though he wasn’t screaming back.

He flinched. “You w-want me to be something I c-can’t be, I c-could never have stopped you; even if you wanted to do it again right now I still couldn’t s-stop you...” His voice broke. “I’m n-not good enough for you.”

Why did he have to keep crying like that? Why did he have to keep agreeing with me? Why was he making this so hard? I rubbed my eyes tiredly. Why couldn’t he just yell back?

Frankie’s eyes were focused on the lacerated knuckles of the hand I had just used to rub my eyes. “What the f-fuck did you do?”

I glanced down. Shit. “Broke the mirror. I’m fine.”

He lifted his own trembling hand, a long cut, barely visible now, across the fingers. I recognized it from when he had cut himself on the glass window in his living room. The day he’d told me he loved me... The same day that I had fucked up everything. “Please. Don’t. Break. My. Heart,” he whimpered slowly, emphasis on every word.

I couldn’t say anything. It was a cliché, but the effect it was having on me... I couldn’t find the right words to express all the thoughts running through my mind. All the memories; Frankie, Frankie, Frankie...

“I love you,” Frankie murmured, very quietly. “I love you for everything you are, Gerard, I mean it. I don’t care if you hurt me, I want you, I love you, I’d live through it again if I c-could just-” He choked on tears and abandoned the rest of the words, sobbing.

I pulled him towards me in a crushing hug, almost like a crash, two cars colliding on the fucking highway, forcing his head against my chest and holding him there to keep him from slipping away again. “S-shit shit s-shit...”

His fingers found mine and twined together tightly. “After all the things we put each other through...”

“I love you, Frankie. I. Love. You.”

“I’m s-sorry, Gee, I am; I shouldn’ta let you, I shoulda s-stopped you, somehow... I’m s-”

“Frankie, don’t.”

“Gee-”

“Don’t say anything.” I just wanted to stand there with my face buried in his hair and pretend that we were the only two people in the whole world. I wanted him, I loved him, I just wanted to hold him.

I smoked, and the smell of cigarettes had never turned me on, but somehow with Frankie, it became the most seductive scent I could imagine. I breathed him in with my eyes closed, loving him; every fucking thing about him, I loved it.

“Gerard... Gerard.” Frankie looked up into my eyes and a smile stretched across his face. “You make me so happy.”

“I want to, Frankie... And I never wanted to hurt you, b-but I know I did, and I can’t make up for it; I-”

Quietly, he put one finger to my lips. “You don’t have to make up for anything,” he murmured. “I just want to be with you... okay?”

I held him close tightly, whispering “Okay” into his hair.

“What... what was Mikey saying?” Frank asked tentatively.

“Thinks I’m gonna fucking hurt you again.”

“He doesn’t know you that well, does he..?” Frankie sounded nervous, as though he hoped that was the case.

I shrugged uneasily. “I thought he did...” I pulled away to sit down heavily on the edge of the bed. “Look... I’m scared, Frankie.” My emotions started to rise. “I don’t want to hurt you, ever... I swear to god, I don’t! But... but what if he sees something I don’t? What if I do hurt you again?!”

Frank came over and put a gentle hand on my shoulder, teeth catching his bottom lip again. “I don’t know, Gee...” he said unsurely. “I love you and I don’t think you’d ever, ever do that again... but I don’t know why Mikey thinks so, then... Maybe you just scared him when he found out what you’d... what you’d done. Maybe..?”

I put my head in my hands. “Damnit, Frankie...”

“If you ever did, Gee... If you ever did hurt m-me, I’d... still love you. Forever.”

I shook my head frantically. “No; no, don’t say that! Don’t! You’re just f-fucking inviting me to do it again; don’t fucking say that!”

His eyes hardened. “You wanna be fucking invited?” Frankie stretched out his arms. “Okay, go on, take me. Take me, Gerard. Hurt me. Fucking hurt me.”

“What the f-fuck are you doing, Frankie?” I spat, throat closing up.

“Hurt me, go on.”

“Shut up. Just shut up.”

Instead, Frankie wrapped his arms tightly around me, burying his face in my neck unexpectedly. “You didn’t do it, Gee. You didn’t; you didn’t hurt me. It’s okay now.”

Did that really reassure him? He had asked for it; of course I wasn’t going to hurt him on command. If I did, it would be unexpected... and much more brutal. “Goddamnit.”

“Don’t be mad; please don’t. I just don’t want you to be scared, Gerard. I don’t want you to have to worry about hurting me.” He took a shaky breath. “Can’t you just love me? That’s all I want...”

“I know. I know it. Oh Frankie...”

“Mikey’s wrong. You’re perfect. You’re beautiful. I love you like crazy.” His eyes started to sparkle as he finished the sentence.

I had to smile. Frankie’s wide grin was contagious.

“Can I talk to your brother, maybe?”

I frowned. “Uh...”

“I’m a people person. It’s okay.” He smirked.

“I guess.” I speed-dialed, then handed him my cellphone. “Just hang up if he... y’know...”

Frankie nodded, phone to his ear. “Hello? -- It’s Frank. I’m in love with your big brother... -- Yeah, but why do you think he’s gonna hurt me?”

There was a long pause while Frank listened to Mikey’s answer. I was trying to read the expression on his face, but even his wide eyes made it impossible to guess the emotion.

Finally, Frank spoke again, but hesitantly. “...I know he’s not like my f-father, though. He won’t do it again. He won’t. -- What? -- Nuh-uh, listen to me... I know he’s not perfect fucking plastic, Mikey. But I love him for everything, even the faults. To me, he is perfect. That’s what matters.”

My chest felt tight. Frankie was... god, he was amazing. Did I even deserve him?

“-he hurt you... n-not like that, but if he hurt you somehow, wouldn’t you forgive him?” he was asking my brother.

“Frankie, just forget it-” I started, but he shook his head.

“It’s not any different, Mikey; you know it isn’t. I’m not that... experienced, or whatever, b-but I know I’m in love, and I’d do anything for Gee.” Mikey said something, and Frankie laughed slightly. “Yeah, I said Gee. I love him.”

I smiled.

“Just tell me you wouldn’t forgive him, Mikey. -- See? That’s what I did... He’s not gonna hurt me. He loves me...” Frankie’s serious face suddenly melted into a smile as Mikey responded. “Okay. I’ll let you talk to him... Thank you for caring, though, about me and Gerard... and thank you for listening. -- Mmkay, bye.” He handed the phone to me.

“Hello?”

“Gerard? Keep the kid safe, okay?”

“I know you’re worried, but I swear to god, I won’t let anything happen to him, Mikey.”

“He trusts you, I guess that’s good enough. I love you, Gerard. I do, and I do think you’re better than that. Frankie deserves you.”

“Thanks, Mikey. Um... I’ll be back tomorrow, sometime.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then. But Gerard-”

“What?”

He sighed. “I think you made him grow up a little too fast.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. Mikey’s words held some truth; even I could see that... But my thoughts told me that I would rather keep pretending that nothing had changed, and that Frankie and I could get back to where we’d been before.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Mikey said finally.

“I... I love you too, Mikey.”

“Go pay some attention to your boyfriend,” he said, laughter in his voice, and I had to laugh too.

“Alright.” I closed the phone and looked at Frankie. “You are fucking amazing.”

He shrugged, smiling at me. “He’s nice. I think you just scared him, coming home-”

“-covered in blood?” I finished darkly.

A shadow passed quickly over Frankie’s face, but he seemed to shake it off, and nodded. “He’s okay now, though.”

I ran a hand down the curve of Frankie’s cheekbone gently, then kissed him carefully.

He sat down next to me and cuddled close with a comfortable whimper. “I heart you.”

“What?”

“I heart you,” he repeated.

I grinned, one arm around his shoulders, then yawned.

“You should sleep,” Frankie told me, looking concerned.

I tried to shrug it off, but I was tired, and eventually flopped back onto the mattress, letting Frank curl up next to me even though he had already gotten some sleep and looked very much awake.

We lay there in comfortable silence in the dim room for a while, until I was drifting gently into sleep behind flickering eyelids.

“Now we gotta go to San Francisco,” Frankie muttered lazily at one point, and I opened my mouth to ask what the hell he was talking about, but before the words could surface, I heard his soft laughter, and then I was fast asleep.