Chapter Text
The old man above Gerard breathes drearily all over his neck. If he pays close attention, he can hear a few occasional wheezes to accompany the sound of their skins smacking together in a failed harmony, and in the distance, the bed might be creaking, but Gerard is too drunk to tell.
Above it all, he feels like he's being torn into two parts; two separate identities split into him with the progressing pain. He can barely hear through the ringing in his ears, but this unfamiliar face is so close - slobbering, smooching, moaning - Gerard can't ignore it. He feels disgusting, but a swirl in his stomach reminds him of one thing and one thing alone: he's being wanted. He's being desired. He's being pursued in some kind of sick way, and when that self-reminder is what gets a moan out of him, it gets a kick out of the old man, who proceeds to pull out entirely and flip Gerard onto his stomach.
He then uses his clammy, unwashed fingers to tear into Gerard's underwear, which had been previously nudged to the side.
--
When Gerard gets out of there, the first thing he does is throw up in the nearest alleyway he can find, clutching both $200 and his torn underwear in one hand. He gets bile strung into his hair and hanging off his chin, and his throat burns with the memory of the old man's cock attempting to bruise it (a thought that only makes him wail and hack out more vomit). At first, he can barely comprehend the situation. He doesn't want to think about what just happened, or the fact that he's stumbling, or the fact that he lost his faux-virginity to a married man whose name he had barely known. He didn't want to think about what had happened moments before, in which the old man was threatening to spill on his dress with a series of snarls. Although he's too drunk to think straight, reminding himself of this day puts him through a minor hangover - with the headache and everything - of pure and unbridled pain.
He manages to walk home mostly unscathed, apart from the occasional and sharp stings of pain up his ass that make him suck in air through his teeth and whimper. He feels unsafe where he is, with his torn underwear clutched in one hand and his money barely hanging on with the other. Everything is empty at this time of night, but the orange streetlights above sizzle into the ground and make things seem a little less lonely; dark, perhaps.
He makes a promise to himself before reaching the front porch: he will not look at Mikey whatsoever. He will not talk to his younger brother, and won't dare tell him about what happened - maybe he can just slip in without a moment's thought. Maybe if he enters, Mikey won't notice anything, and they can continue on their days without anybody really knowing what happened, let alone caring to begin with.
When he knocks on the door, he has to wait for ten seconds before Frank comes answering the door, and maybe he looks worse than he realized based on the other's mortified expression. It's completely dark behind the brunette, so Gerard assumes they're watching a movie where he can't see, and looks down to the ground.
"What the fuck, Gerard?" Frank mutters, and when those words come passing his lips, it hits Gerard's heart, and he finds himself bursting into the most ugly sobs he's ever let out. He nearly stumbles onto his knees, but Frank catches him before he can and gently guides him back inside. The light from the T.V beside them is a lot brighter now, and there he sees two people from the corner of his eye: Ray and Mikey. They both turn around to face the scene, and Gerard partially dies at the way Mikey freezes up with horror. He feels like he's dying. He truly feels like he's fading.
"What happened?" Frank tries to ask (his voice breaking, his hands shaking), Come on, Gerard, what happened?"
To these questions, Gerard only shakes his head with a squeal-like cry. When Frank gets the hint, he immediately gives up and leads Gerard upstairs, while Gerard basks in how watched he feels. He feels like the old man may be beside him, leading him into the bedroom once again, ready to have his way once again. When Gerard thinks about it, he silently sobs, keeping his hands clutched tightly onto his forearms. He doesn't know what he's protecting himself from anymore.
When they do make it upstairs, they eventually pass into Gerard's room, which has remnants of himself before tonight: comic books sprawled against the floor, drawings pattered over his once-cleaned desk and bedsheets that haven't been cleaned in a long time. The other three would complain about these little things, but Gerard missed his room more than anything.
Locking the door, Frank leads him over to bed, sitting him down with a grace Gerard had been denied of earlier. The grace is still contradicted by the pain that shoots up Gerard's ass, and when it's harsh enough to make him cry out in pain, Frank hushes him gently and instead opts to lay him down on his bruised side. Gerard whimpers, but he doesn't say anything.
"Gerard, c'mon - can you speak? Can you speak, Gerard?"
Gerard nods softly. He can speak alright; he was about to scream earlier.
"Can you tell me what happened?" Then, glancing down at Gerard's trembling hands, he asks: "And where did you get the money from?"
Gerard cringes at both himself and the question. He isn't sure what to do; Frank wouldn't understand why he needs this money. Really, nobody could possibly understand why he needed this money, whether it be for alcohol or to save up (although he has nothing to save up for), he knew nobody would understand. He knew Frank would tear him a new one if he knew; if he could see through it all.
Even then, Gerard knows he's always been an awful liar and an even worse friend. He owes this to Frank, the only one who's stayed with him through every trouble he's faced.
"I did something stupid," Gerard slurs out, hiccupping on every other word, "I did something fucking awful, Frank."
He sounds like he might throw up again, so Frank reaches for the trashcan (while never taking his eyes off him), but Gerard merely shakes his head, instead attempting to find his words.
"I fucked someone," he grunts out through gritted teeth, "I got drunk, and - I fucked someone, Frank! I fucking did it! I let someone kiss me and - get their fucking spit all over me - for two hundred fucking dollars! I did it, Frank! I fucking did that!"
He isn't sure why he's yelling, nor is he sure if the words are getting through to the other, but when Gerard truly decides to face him, he looks shattered. Frank doesn't look like the same person who had been comforting him only seconds ago; instead, he looks like a shaken boy who had just received the worst possible news. Gerard can't begin to play him, not with the regret that makes his stomach sink, not with the sudden fear that overcomes him.
"It was an older guy," Gerard sniffles, his voice suddenly having died down into a pathetic mess, "just about fifty, I guess. I don't want to think about him, let alone his age, but - he wasn't the kind of person you take to bed - he looked old. He may have been married, I don't know."
The feeling that he might truly be dying doesn't subside any time soon. He feels it in the air; it keeps him from shuffling over to Frank and giving him the biggest hug he could manage in that moment. The fear of death didn't just manifest in the form of a blockade, though; it actively manifests in the form of a staggering pain in his body paired with the heartbreak in Frank's eyes. That is what has his tears rolling once again.
And before he knows it, he's sobbing raggedly into his free hand.
"You're not -" Frank is about to say, but as soon as he sees Gerard crying, he feels like he knows better. He simply decides to close the blockade between them through a hand to his hair; stroking it as if it wasn't sweat-infested and downright disgusting. Even then, Gerard finds the gesture comforting. He wishes he could shower. He wishes he didn't feel so dirty in front of the purest man he's ever known.
"It's okay," Frank whispers, brushing a small, pearly tear off the corner of Gerard's eye, "stop crying. Please stop crying, Gerard. It's okay. It's going to be okay."
"Shut up." Gerard snaps. The comforting motions come to an immediate halt.
"What?" Frank breathes out in disbelief.
"Stop saying that it's going to get better," Gerard starts raggedly, struggling to get the words out, "because this couldn't possibly get better. I need to cry it out, or else I don't know what I'll do with myself once it all begins to settle in. Once I realize how fucking awful I really am."
Frank simply retracts his hand and nods, as if a sudden realization has hit him in the head.
"Yeah; I hope you do." Frank mutters, and before Gerard can respond to the unhidden venom laced in those words, Frank gets up to leave the room momentarily (and slams the door shut on his way).
In the distance, Gerard can hear him crying. He can also hear Ray's muffled voice asking about what happened, but he can barely hear Mikey (if that boy is even around). Ray's voice always holds a pitchy edge that makes it easy to distinguish him amongst the others; in fact, Gerard could probably recognize his voice from a mile away. He just didn't want to when Ray was suddenly being told a lie of what had happened, and was therefore comforting Frank through his breakdown.
The truth is, Gerard didn't do this for anyone but himself. He wanted those two hundred dollars so that he could spend it on filth and memory loss. He wanted those two hundred dollars so that he could add to his evergrowing stash of coke, and he got the two hundred dollars because he needed to spend his days ignoring the fact that each day was just another opportunity to get hurt. Every part of him regretted it, apart from the little ulcer in his stomach that was dragging him across the bed. It didn't take long for him to take the tin box out of his bed, and as he flicks it open, he is suddenly met to the stash of coke he'd been waiting for since he met up with that old man. Cocaine usually drowns out the world around him better than any of his late-night screams could.