Chapter Text
Frank had really been expecting the parking lot to be desolate and eerie, but it was filled with lively chatter and all sorts of vehicles -- trucks, Toyotas, motorcycles, that were slowly decreasing in number as they drove off onto the abyss of the concrete road. Frank slicked his sweaty ass mohawk off his face, clothes sticking uncomfortably to his sweaty ass body, cause apparently he comes from a sweaty ass band. He had been walking around for around 10 minutes by now, and their show was finished like 30 minutes ago by now. Frank saw Gerard backstage, saw him yapping to Brian about how good the show went. He must’ve just blankly assumed that he returned to the bus, because when he flipped the entire place upside down in there looking for him, he wasn’t there. By the 6th time Frank circled the parking lot, he officially declared in his mind that Gerard has gone missing.
Suddenly, a muffled Nokia ringtone rang from his pocket, vibrating a tune against his thigh.
When Frank shoveled his phone from his pocket, he saw a familiar name on the front screen, written in ugly gray pixels.
Thank the lord, Gerard is calling him.
He flipped his phone open and stuck the screen to his ear.
“Sup, Gee. Where are you? I can’t find you in the parking lot,” said Frank, who scanned around the parking lot one more time and ended up rotating in a circle.
“Frank- I..” Gerard’s voice was small and frail through the speaker of his Nokia, catching slight intelligible shuffling sounds.
Frank knew Gerard too well to be able to tell with his tiny, barely audible voice that something was terribly wrong.
“Are you okay? Hello? Gerard? Can you hear me? Where are you?” His voice raised by an octave in anxiety as he begun to pace around the area with no sense of direction.
“Uh- am I on speaker?”
Frank quickly speed-walked away from the group of emo teenagers ahead of him to turn towards a more emptier area before continuing.
“No, what’s going on? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“No… I-“ sigh “How do I say this…”
There was a concerningly long pause before anything was heard over the phone again.
“Frank?”
An even longer pause.
“…Frank, can you help me hide a body?”
...
“…What?”
Wait, wait, wait, there’s no way he heard that correctly.
“There- There were these guys… I- I got jumped, Frankie, I almost died, I had to! I didn’t- oh fuck…” Frank could hear Gerard begin to sob, the audio peaking as he inhaled sharp breaths of air between his words.
Oh shit, he did hear that correctly.
“Wait, wait, wait, you’re okay right?” Getting his priorities straight, Frank tried to focus on Gerard’s wellbeing after he got jumped and attempted to forget about potential murder to be able to form a coherent though that was just straight panic.
“Yes, but- that’s not the point here! Frank- oh my fucking god- what do I do?! I- I-“
Oh, thank God Gerard’s okay. Right, back to murder...
Wait, murder?
“Wait, when you say body, do you mean-“
“Shit, they’re fucking dead, Frank!”
“…‘they’re’?”
“Four of them…”
...There’s no way this is real.
“Gerard, you’re kidding right?”
Silence.
“GERARD!”
“…Are you gonna call the cops on me?”
Frank could audibly hear Gerard full on sobbing now. There was a shared moment of silent, occasionally interrupted by Gerard's sharp inhales of breath, as they both pondered the reality of the situation. A haunting image, like a movie scene, played in Frank's head, of them getting arrested, thrown in jail for homicide. Fuck. The word echoed in his head like an ill reminder.
Homicide.
…
“I’m in the dark alleyway next to the Walmart.”
“Wait- Gerard!”
Beep beep!