Chapter Text
It’s just past one o’clock in the morning and Frank‘s entire body is shaking from the adrenaline coursing through his veins as he drives Gerard’s black pickup truck down the darkened interstate highway. As he anxiously chews on his bottom lip, all he can smell is the strong, metallic scent of blood and all he can hear in his head are the deafening echos of gunshots ringing out, making him feel like he’s going insane. Frank is freaking out—he feels incredibly on-edge and his body literally hasn’t stopped shaking since they’d left the crime scene at Redlight. He’d never been so close to death or witnessed a murder until just several hours ago and he’s in complete shock from the trauma of it all. Nothing feels real to him right now, as if he’s living in a waking nightmare.
In the backseat of the truck, Gerard is lying with his body outstretched across the beige leather, drifting in and out of consciousness from the amount of pain he’s in and the large amount of blood that he’s lost from the gunshot wound in his left shoulder. Frank has been constantly looking over his shoulder while he drives, obsessively checking that Gerard is still breathing as he lies there. After five hours of driving, they’re finally out of Washington state and now in Idaho where Frank is planning on stopping at the first motel he sees. Back in Washington he’d been able to slow down Gerard’s bleeding with a tourniquet after stopping at a drugstore where he’d purchased some medical supplies.
“Okay, we’re here,” Frank says as he finally pulls the truck into the parking lot of a motel which is located just off the highway. He puts the vehicle in park and turns off the engine. He then carefully climbs over the drink-holder in-between the two front seats, clutching his aching chest and torso and wincing in pain as he does, and kneels down by the backseat where Gerard is lying.
Gerard’s forehead is damp with perspiration, his complexion is pallid and his breathing is shallow and laboured. The black leather jacket he’s wearing is soaked with blood, as is the black T-shirt he’s wearing underneath it—the metallic smell of it is making Frank’s stomach churn unpleasantly. Gerard hasn’t opened his eyes or responded to Frank’s statement and it’s making the younger man’s heart rate speed up with even more anxiety.
“Gerard?” Frank says worriedly, stroking the man’s cheek in an attempt to rouse him. Gerard then groans and opens his eyes, causing Frank to let out a shaky breath of relief at seeing that he’s still conscious. “Babe, we’re at a motel in Idaho now. Let’s go check in and get you patched up.”
Gerard groans again, not sure how the fuck he’s even going to stand up with the high level of exhaustion and pain he’s feeling right now. “You go in by yourself and pay for the room—there’s some cash inside my jacket. Come get me after,” Gerard manages to say, his voice sounding extremely weak.
“What?” Frank exclaims, his eyes widening as he looks down at Gerard. “I’m not fucking leaving you here,” he says firmly, wondering if the wounded man is thinking clearly right now.
“Well, you’re gonna have to,” says Gerard, wincing as he feels a sudden sharp twinge of pain in his throbbing shoulder. He’s honestly not sure how much more of this he can take without vomiting or passing out. “The people at the front desk might call an ambulance or something if they notice I’ve been shot, and that’s the last fucking thing we need.”
Frank lets out a shaky breath. “Okay,” he says, nodding. He’s nervous as hell about leaving Gerard alone in the truck even for just a few minutes in the unstable condition he’s in, but he knows he doesn’t really have a choice. He leans over and kisses Gerard softly on the mouth. “I love you so much,” he says earnestly.
“I’ll be fine, Frankie,” Gerard says, noticing how worried Frank looks. “I love you, too.”
Frank finds a wad of cash in Gerard’s inside jacket pocket and when he takes it out he’s absolutely stunned when he sees how much money it is. He’s sure he’s never held this much money in his hands all at once before—there’s got to be about five grand there. He removes a couple hundred dollars from the wad before tucking the rest safely away in Gerard’s pocket, and then he gets out of the truck and makes his way into the motel lobby.
Inside, Frank quickly buys them a cheap room for the night and then he immediately returns to the parking lot to get Gerard, who he carefully helps out of the truck and leads inside, up to the single-bed room on the third floor of the motel. Gerard’s muscular body is extremely weak right now and he’s leaning on Frank, who’s struggling to support the weight of the taller man while his own battered body is aching. They eventually manage to make it safely to their room where Frank carefully lies Gerard down on the bed and sets the bag of medical supplies down next to him. Frank then helps Gerard take off the tourniquet above his wound before helping him take off his jacket and T-shirt. The stretching movement of pulling his left arm out of the sleeves of his clothing causes Gerard a considerable amount of pain in his wounded shoulder, and soon a sudden surge of sticky, deep-red blood begins to pour out from the bullet hole.
“Fuck...” Frank says under his breath, his eyes widening as he stands there, frozen in place, stunned by the profuse bleeding he’s observing. He’s never seen so much blood before in his life...
“Wash your hands, put some gloves on and get the gauze,” Gerard instructs, his voice sounding muffled and strained as he clenches his teeth down hard on a piece of his leather jacket, trying to make the pain more bearable as warm blood spills down into his left armpit, soaking the white motel bedsheets beneath him, turning them murder-red. “I need you to put pressure on it again,” he says, trying to keep his voice even while he’s dealing with probably the most pain he’s ever felt in his life.
Frank immediately rushes to the bathroom and washes his hands before getting the gauze out from the bag of medical supplies he’d bought at the drugstore. He puts on a pair of gloves and then takes a bunch of the gauze and presses it firmly against Gerard’s bleeding wound.
“God-fucking-dammit....” Gerard groans through clenched teeth from the intense pain of the sudden pressure on his wound. He squeezes his eyes shut as he bites down hard on the black leather of his jacket, tasting his own blood in the tough material.
Frank can’t help but to feel terrible for causing Gerard even more pain but he knows this is necessary in order to stop him from losing too much blood. “I’m so sorry, babe...” Frank says, his heart pounding as he watches dark-red blood seep out from between his glove-covered fingers.
“Don’t apologize,” Gerard says through gritted teeth. He looks absolutely worn-out and exhausted with beads of sweat forming on his pale forehead.
“I’m hurting you, though...” says Frank, his eyes stinging with hot tears.
“I’m gonna be in pain regardless, baby; it’s not your fault,” Gerard manages to say, looking up at Frank and seeing his tear-filled eyes. “You’re saving my fucking life right now, just remember that,” he says.
Frank feels a tear roll down one of his cheeks and it falls onto Gerard’s chest. “I just hate seeing you in pain like this,” he says.
“I’m fine, baby. You’re doing an amazing job,” Gerard assures him.
“Thanks...” says Frank, though he doesn’t believe for a second that Gerard is “fine.”
“Oh, fuck...” says Gerard suddenly, sighing frustratedly afterwards.
“What?” Frank asks worriedly, thinking he’s done something wrong.
“I just remembered Trevor’s camera. It has our pictures on it and it’s probably still in his hotel room...”
“Oh, shit...” Frank says, biting his lip anxiously. “Maybe I can go back there and get it. You have the keycard for his room, right?”
“Yeah, I have it, but it’s way too risky to go back there—Mason’s guys are probably just waiting for us to come back so they can waste us,” says Gerard. “Besides, it’s a five hour drive each way and I don’t want you out there by yourself for that long,” he says. It’s a half-truth, though, because the main reason he doesn’t want Frank to go back is that he doesn’t think he’d be able to stand being away from him for that long. Gerard is admittedly feeling really strange after the near-death experience they’d gone through today combined with the trauma and hurt of losing his best friend. He just really needs to not be alone right now.
“What if the cops find the camera first though?” Frank asks worriedly.
“I’m sure Mason’s guys will have already swept the room by the time the cops even connect Trevor to that hotel. His crew is sure as hell not gonna let the cops get to us first—they’re definitely gonna be seeking revenge.”
The terrifying thought of Mason’s crew finding them lingers a little too long in Frank’s brain and he starts to feel sick to his stomach. “I fucking hate thinking about the fact that even more people are gonna be wanting us dead now,” says Frank.
“Then don’t think about it,” says Gerard simply, wincing when Frank shifts his hands slightly as he continues to apply firm pressure onto his wound. Everything seems so simple to Gerard right now because he’s not even sure if he’s going to make it through this with the way he’s feeling at this moment. He’s not letting Frank in on that thought, though, because he knows it would absolutely break him to hear it. The only thing Gerard is sure of right now is the fact that he’s in love with Frank—everything else is whatever. There’s no guarantee for anything right now, so in Gerard’s mind there’s no point in worrying about anything.
Frank takes a deep breath and tries to relax, seeing how calm Gerard seems to be even though he’s the one with a gaping, bleeding hole in his shoulder. “Are you doing okay?” he asks, concerned as he looks down at his blood-covered gloves.
Gerard nods reassuringly, wiping perspiration from his forehead with his right hand. “Yeah. It’s not that bad,” he lies. He’s trying to ignore the intense pain and put on a tough face so that Frank won’t be so worried about him. “Wanna check if it’s stopped bleeding now?” he asks.
Frank nods and carefully eases up on the pressure he’s been applying to Gerard’s wound. The gauze in the wound is completely saturated with blood but there’s no new bleeding when Frank takes his hand away. “It stopped,” says Frank.
“Okay, good,” Gerard says. “I’m gonna need you to clean it up for me. Can you do that?” he asks, his heart aching when he sees the persistent look of worry in Frank’s eyes.
“Yeah, of course,” says Frank, nodding without hesitation.
“Okay,” says Gerard. “Can you please grab the saline and the syringe and some more gauze?” he asks. Frank takes the items out of the plastic bag and then Gerard instructs him to fill the syringe with saline and flush out the wound with the cleansing fluid before wiping the blood away from the skin surrounding the wound with saline-moistened gauze.
“Shit—it’s bleeding again,” Frank says, looking concerned when he sees more deep-red blood oozing out from the hole in Gerard’s left shoulder after he cleans it.
Gerard looks down at his wound. “It’s okay; it’s not as much as before,” he says after observing it. “Now, soak some of the gauze with saline, loosely pack it into the wound and then cover it with a dressing.”
Frank looks down at Gerard with a curious expression on his face. “What about the bullet?” he asks.
“What about it?”
“Shouldn’t I, like...take it out?”
Gerard can’t help but smile warmly because the look on Frank’s face says that he’s absolutely terrified of the possibility of having to dig around in Gerard’s shoulder for a lodged bullet—the fact that he’s still concerned about it and willing to do it despite his fear is incredibly endearing to Gerard.
“People live with bullets inside of them all the time, Frankie; the wound will just heal around it,” says Gerard. “It’d do me more harm than good if you were to try to take it out,” he adds.
“For real?” asks Frank, genuinely surprised. He was under the impression that bullets had to be removed in order for the wound to heal—maybe it was just something he’d seen in a movie.
Gerard manages a small laugh at the perplexed look on Frank’s face. “Yeah, for real,” he replies. “It’d get infected for sure if you went digging around in there and that’s really not something I wanna deal with. I’d probably lose a lot more blood, too.”
“Huh,” says Frank thoughtfully. He soon gets to work with dressing the gunshot wound as Gerard walks him through the procedure, seeming to be an expert at this. “Have you done this before?” asks Frank, curious as to where Gerard had learned what he knows about wound care.
“Sort of,” Gerard replies. “Years ago, a friend I was living with got shot in the leg after a bad deal. His girlfriend was a nurse and I used to watch her clean and dress his wound every day. I learned a lot from just watching her.”
“Oh, wow,” Frank says as he covers the wound with a white, absorbent dressing. “Seems like you’ve had so many different experiences in your life...makes me feel like I’ve barely even lived.”
Gerard chuckles. “Well, I am fourteen years older than you, so...it’s kind of expected that I’ve had more life experiences than you have,” he says. He looks down at his patched up shoulder and sees that the dressing looks perfect. “You did a great job. Thank you, Frankie,” he says.
Frank smiles, his heart warming from the praise. “You’re welcome,” he says, pleased with his work as well. “How often does it need to be changed?”
“The wound should be cleansed and the dressing changed twice a day, or whenever it gets saturated with drainage.”
Frank nods. “Okay,” he says, thinking he’ll need to go out and get more supplies in a few days.
Gerard sighs, feeling a strong wave of exhaustion come over him. “Come lay with me now, baby...” he says, reaching his right arm up and pulling at Frank’s T-shirt, feeling needy for his boy’s comforting touch after all of the traumatic shit they’d gone through today.
Frank removes his soiled gloves, clears the medical supplies off the bed and throws the used gauze and the dressing packaging into the trash. He then carefully climbs over Gerard’s body, wincing from the pain in his ribs as he does, and Gerard is suddenly reminded of Frank’s actions earlier that evening.
“You really shouldn’t have spit in Mason’s face,” says Gerard once Frank has snuggled up close to him with his head on his chest.
“He fucking deserved it though,” Frank says without thinking as his mind flashes back to the absolutely vile things Mason had said to him down in the basement of Redlight.
“It doesn’t matter—I gave you specific instructions to not give him any attitude even if he pisses you off; to not give him a reason to hurt you. And then when we got in there you fucking ignored all of that as if I hadn’t said it to you like ten minutes earlier.”
“I was just so goddamn tired of people treating me like shit and just being expected to take it like a little bitch. My entire life I’ve just let people walk all over me, pretending it doesn’t hurt me. I’m sick of it.”
“You need to learn how to control your fucking emotions. If you hadn’t spit in Mason’s face then maybe he wouldn’t have kicked the shit out of you. He always used to tell me, “feelings get you killed,” and I hate to admit it, but he was fucking right.”
Something about Gerard saying that Mason was “right” about something sparks Frank’s temper and he suddenly sits up in bed, looking down at Gerard as he fumes with anger. “So I’m supposed to just stand there and take it when someone’s calling me a “useless junkie” and telling me they were trying to do the world a favour by having me killed? Is that what you want from me, Gerard? To be some kind of unfeeling fucking robot?”
“Listen: I don’t tell you to do what I say to be a controlling asshole; I tell you to do what I say because I’m trying to protect you. I need to know that I can trust you to trust me, otherwise it’s not safe for either of us.”
“Fuck...” Frank says, shaking his head and looking down at his lap. He feels like his life is just happening to him right now and like he has no control whatsoever over anything that’s going on around him. Before he knows it he’s crying with his face in his hands and Gerard is fighting through the pain of moving his left arm to sit up next to Frank and put his right arm around the younger man’s waist.
Gerard sighs. “I’m sorry, baby...” he says gently, feeling lightheaded now that he’s upright. ”What we went through today was fucked up and the last thing you need right now is me getting on your ass about shit. I wasn’t thinking...”
Frank wipes his eyes. “It’s okay,” he says. “You know you can trust me, Gerard. I just haven’t learned to not let certain things get under my skin, especially when someone’s talking shit about me to my face.”
“I do trust you, Frankie. And that’s totally understandable...you’re basically still a kid—it’s not really fair for me to expect you to have the same mentality as I do.”
Frank looks at Gerard and kisses him gently. “You should lie down, babe; get some rest...” he says against Gerard’s lips.
Gerard carefully lies down and so does Frank, wincing as he does. Gerard looks concerned as he watches Frank trying to get comfortable and he remembers the pain he’d felt for him while watching Mason kick him on the ground.
“Let me see, baby...” says Gerard as he carefully lifts up Frank’s T-shirt, exposing the red and dusky-purple bruised skin over his ribs and chest. “Shit...” Gerard says concernedly as he looks at Frank’s painfully discoloured skin.
“Does it look bad?” Frank asks, not really wanting to look down and see the damage that Mason had caused him.
“Yeah, you have some pretty bad bruises,” says Gerard. “Take a deep breath,” he instructs. Frank inhales deeply without questioning. “Did that give you a sharp pain in your chest or anything?” Gerard asks.
Frank lets out the breath he’d been holding in and shakes his head. “No,” he says.
“Good. You probably don’t have any fractures then,” Gerard says. With his one good arm he helps Frank take his T-shirt off fully and then he scoots his body a bit closer and gently presses his lips against the bruised skin over Frank’s ribs.
Frank’s heart just about melts when he feels Gerard’s lips on his skin, pressing the gentlest kisses against his bruises, making him feel so comforted and loved. He finds it so surreal that this is the same man who’d murdered two men by shooting them in the head just hours earlier... It makes him feel a little uneasy to think about the fact that the man he’s in love with had just committed probably the most evil crime there is, but he just tells himself that Gerard had to kill Mason and his bodyguard in order to protect Frank and himself from being killed instead. Gerard is a good person who does bad things for good reasons, and that’s just the way it is, he thinks to himself.
“Can I lay my head on your chest?” Gerard asks, bringing Frank back to the present moment.
“Yeah, go ahead, it’s fine,” Frank replies. “You’re not gonna break me, babe,” he adds with a little smile.
Frank stretches his arm out underneath Gerard’s head and Gerard moves closer to Frank on the bed and carefully lays his head down on the younger man’s chest, sighing contentedly as he does.
“You okay?” asks Frank, kissing the top of Gerard’s head.
“Mhm,” Gerard replies, closing his eyes and tilting his head upwards so he can press a soft, sweet kiss against Frank’s neck. His shoulder is absolutely killing him right now, but just being held by Frank and listening to his heartbeat is seeming to be a pleasant and effective distraction from the pain.
Gerard definitely hasn’t processed the fact that Trevor is dead yet; he just feels completely numb because it’s all too much for him to unpack in his brain right now. He’s sure that all the emotions he’s not feeling right now are going to come crashing in at some point, though, and he’s definitely not looking forward to that. He hopes that Frank is coping okay with everything...
“Are you okay?” asks Gerard, speaking into the crook of Frank’s neck.
“I don’t know,” Frank replies honestly, staring up at the ceiling and feeling like he’s going to cry again.
“You will be,” Gerard assures him. “Imagine one day when this is all over and we’re hosting a dinner party or something and telling our friends all about the crazy adventures we had when we first met...”
Frank smiles and chuckles and affectionately rubs his cheek gently against Gerard’s hair. His heart is absolutely swelling at the fact that Gerard is thinking about their future like this. “A dinner party? I haven’t even been to one before,” he says dreamily.
Gerard chuckles weakly. “Neither have I,” he admits. “I just imagine it’s something that people with normal lives do,” he says.
Frank kisses the top of Gerard’s head again. “I love you,” he says softly.
“I love you, too, baby,” says Gerard. “We’re gonna be okay,” he says, trying to assure himself of that fact just as much as Frank.
“Do you think we should stay here for a few nights or keep moving?” asks Frank after a moment of lying in silence with Gerard.
Gerard is nearly asleep now but he manages to reply, “Let’s talk about it in the morning; I can barely even think right now, falling asleep...”
“Okay,” says Frank, realizing how late it is now and how tired Gerard must be. “Night, babe.”
“G’night, Frankie,” says Gerard sleepily.
Before long, Gerard is snoring lightly with his head resting on top of Frank’s steadily rising and falling chest while Frank, on the other hand, is still wide awake and turning over racing, anxious thoughts in his mind. He’s afraid to close his eyes, afraid of whatever comes next...but, most of all, he’s afraid of losing Gerard...