I'm the Last One That You'll Ever Remember

“When I was 12 years old, I...blacked out sometime after dinner.” Gerard shook his head and glanced down at his feet with shame. This was a part of his past that he didn't wish to share with Frankie for if nothing else changed his opinion about Gerard this one certainly would. “And I did something...horrible.”

How does one gain forgiveness for committing such a heinous crime?

Who could forgive a monster's first violent act in a series of many to follow?

With a loud irritable sigh, Gerard ran his hands over his face in self-loathing. It was difficult to speak of this particular time in his life. Of all the secrets he could wish to keep from his one and only love, this was one of them for sure, but he has already put Frank through enough and...well, he deserved to know nothing but the truth. “I don't remember details or reasons why on that night, but...during my blackout I...committed my first murder. The victims were my parents.”

Frank let out a gasp from where he sat across the couch of the furniture set his parents bought for his patio. Inside the house in the living room, his children could be heard playing with their toys, completely unaware of what was going on outside between their parents. The weather that day was gorgeous but it didn't fit with the dark secrets that were now spilling forth from his baby daddy...and the love of his life.

Placing his hands over his mouth, Frank stared in horror at the man by his side, his already bloodshot eyes refilling with renewed tears. How could he love this...monster with every ounce of his being? “N-No...”

“I woke up by their beside covered in their blood and...holding a knife.” Gerard detailed, his voice sounding distant as he stared at the grand patio's frosted glass table. “My little brother, Michael, was only 9 years old at the time, but he was very mature for his age, he had no choice but to be with me as his brother. He was smart as hell, too and in that moment when he found me there he knew exactly what to do. He scrambled all over their bedroom cleaning away any evidence that would indicate me as the murderer before calling the cops.”

Gerard frowned deeply to himself before looking to Frank with a perplexed expression on his stunning face. “Now that I think about it, Michael never cried when he found out what I did to our parents. In fact, he didn't react in anger either just...panic...but that panic was over the idea of losing me instead, not our parents. I...I never thought to ever ask him why that was so until a few years ago.”

Getting back to his story, Gerard returned his gaze to the patio table. “Thanks to my little brother, the cops never deduced that I was the reason behind our parents murder. But according to Michael, what the police did discover was that our parents were becoming more heavily involved with human trafficking at the time. This belief was proven true by my mother's diary they unearthed from beneath the floorboards in their closet during the investigation. Our parents had become bored with their everyday lives. They thought having me would provide them the excitement they were yearning for but that was only temporarily satisfied. Michael's birth didn't help much either. It took dad meeting the wrong person at a bar, exchanging contact information, convincing mom, and quitting their jobs to commit their lives to becoming members of the human trafficking trade business to finally reach the level of fulfillment their lives had been missing all this time.”

Frank didn't think his hazel eyes could widen any further. His children's grandparents were not only murdered by the hands of their oldest son, but were also involved as something as atrocious and gruesome as the human trafficking trade!?

This was too insane to believe! This was too impossible to be real! No way could the man he love come from such a terrible upbringing...then again he turned out to be a pretty terrible himself as an adult himself so maybe the idea wasn't so farfetched after all.

“I never would have suspected my parents were involved with that trade, not that I cared to look at the time. We had a decent upbringing, no reasons to be suspicious of ending up the way we did. They loved us just like all parents should love their children and we loved them too...at least I think I once did. I can't explain the urge I must have felt in order to take their lives from them that night because I have no recollection of the murder taking place but in the end, as a Killjoy, I believe I did what had to be done. I severed a tie the human traffickers had in New Jersey that night and all those innocent people that had walked in and out of my house all those years ago were the last to ever suffer from the hands of my parents.” Gerard concluded the hardest part of his tale.

As much as he wanted to, he couldn't bring himself to look at Frank and face the horror he had come to be in his beautiful hazel eyes. Gerard was too much of a coward to, and so he continued on with his story. “Michael and I were sent to live with our grandmother Elena soon after. We were both happy there and lived a pretty normal life despite the tragedy that had befallen our parents. I was...still murdering animals back then but it never escalated from there. No one but Michael knew that I was different from the rest of the world and I think he felt it was his job to look out for me and protect me from being discovered. Unfortunately, the monster in me wasn't meant to stay locked away forever.” Gerard turned his light brown eyes to Frank's who was still crying silently behind his hand. “On her way home from the grocery store near our house, my grandmother was attacked by a group of teenage thieves in our neighborhood and was accidentally killed as a result of it when they knocked her down and broke her neck. Those kids all scattered, running for their lives before anyone could get to them. My brother and I were in school at the time when we got word of what happened. The cops were questioning witness when we arrived at the scene.”

Frank couldn't help but gasp again. The man he loved finally had a sense of normalcy and it was taken away by a group of hoodlums!? He knew he probably shouldn't have felt bad for him in that time, but he couldn't help it. He had a soft spots for grandparents for he had loving ones.

“Michael had done his own interrogations from the information the witnesses gave him, and for the first time ever, he came to me asking for my help...or I guess you can say the monster within me. He wanted me to hunt those damn kids down and make them pay for what they did to our grandmother. I couldn't believe it at first. Here was Michael, the only person who knew about the monster within me that I fought daily to keep dormant and my hands clean of innocence blood, who made sure I stayed off of law enforcement's radar and was my shoulder to lean on through everything was now aiding me in slaughtering those murdering little shits in their hideout spot at the abandoned crack houses downtown. It was like a dramatic twist in a movie.”

Gerard turned in his seat to face his beloved Frank. “After we committed our first murder, Michael began to realize something. He knew I've always had issues with the need to kill all the time growing up, but as I got older it became more difficult for me to fight the urge to hurt people. As a result, I had developed an even SHORTER bad temper. After tasting that amount of blood, and taking those many lives all at once that night, Michael was unable to control me anymore and so instead of working against me like he had all these years, he chose to work with me. He figured out a way to allow me to commit murders without killing innocents and getting caught.”

“The Killjoys.” Frank murmured behind his hand, his eyes locked on Gerard's harmless face.

With a short smirk, Gerard nodded. “It turns out I'm not the only one out there like me. Michael and I met dozen others and recruited them to join us in a family that could kill freely without ever facing the consequences by the government. We were a dysfunctional sort of group that raped, murdered and tortured people, but Michael always made sure they were the people that deserved death, the ones that preyed on the innocent and manage to get off unpunished.”

Anxious, Gerard paused once he was done with his life story. Cautiously, he blindly reached out a hand and laid it across Frank's tiny red converse. He wasn't surprised when Frank flinched beneath his touch and lifted his light brown eyes to his bloodshot hazels. It was now time to put his heart on the table. “Frank Iero, you were the first person I have ever kidnapped that was truly an innocent person through and through. I didn't take you because you deserved it, or committed a crime and was in need of harsh punishments. No, I picked you up simply and only because I...I wanted you above anything else I've ever encountered on this earth since I've been born. Now, please don't get me wrong. I didn't want you in the same way a rapist wants to dominate a helpless victim. I wanted you in the same way an ordinary person wants their lover...”

At that admission, Gerard glanced away because his cheeks were flushed with pink. He went on with eyes downcast for awhile more. “I can't apologize enough for how things turned out in the end and how I completely fucked up your childhood growing up these past few years. I can't take any of it back even though I want to. My intention was never to come back into your life the way I did after I let you go the first time. I swear I truly meant to stay as far away from you as I could so many goddamn times since we met.”

Unprepared for this apology, Frank merely sat there staring in awe at this man trying to make amends with him. But it couldn't ever be accept, right? After all he's been through an apology couldn't work. Gerard couldn't erase the years he's been put through this ordeal. It couldn't be done so effortlessly.

And yet why did Frank feel like Gerard was being honest with him? Why he did he feel like the man was telling him the cold hard truth? Why did he want to forgive him so easily despite everything? Frank couldn't allow that to happen! He couldn't forgive! He just couldn't!

Gerard stared at Frank for awhile, watching the wheels turned behind those perfect hazel eyes he's come to idolize. The young man was thinking, and was thinking hard, but about what? Gerard didn't know, but he didn't try to stop him. For too long he's been the one controlling the situation, controlling the decisions made. Now, as unsettling as it felt in his gut, it was time for Frank to decide on what happens next. If Gerard has his way he'd still be the one to make that decision despite opening his heart to Frank and leaving himself exposed. He wanted to be with Frank, plain and simple. He didn't want the past they shared to come between them, but since he's putting his life in his lover's hand he was no longer in control. Frank will decide what will happen next.