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Five pills. Five bright, colorful, deceivingly harmless-looking pills sat in Frank’s palm, their shiny outer-capsules catching the too-bright light and reflecting it brilliantly. He had half a mind to pop them into his mouth, one by one, just to see if they were as sweet as the children’s candy they resembled.

“Take my advice, comrade,” Gerard drawled from his bed on the other side of the room. The space was large, but it might as well have been just big enough for the two beds that occupied it, seeing as they were all that occupied it. “Save them. You may find they…come in handy on a rainy day.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Frank glanced down at the pills once more before stowing them back away in his pocket, which he had checked for holes more than once, just in case.

“So, how old are--” Gerard’s sentence was cut short by the resounding knock coming from the door.

“Time to take your pills, and then lights-out, boys,” came the voice of the nurse from before. She walked in, heels (Frank was baffled that she was wearing heels; who was she trying to impress?) clicking on the blanched-white tiles.

“What are these?” Frank asked suspiciously as a white paper cup was pushed under his nose.

“Just sedatives,” the nurse answered, going over to give Gerard his pills, which looked far greater in amount than Frank’s. Frank tipped the cup back into his mouth, once more lodging the pills discreetly behind his teeth, unnoticeable when the nurse walked back over to him to check that he had swallowed. She nodded when she didn’t see anything, obviously pleased with herself for being able to make him behave so well. “Maybe,” she continued, taking a key from around her neck and slipping it into a lock on the wall; once she turned the key, the white, blinding lights in the room all shut off, taking it to the other extreme: total darkness. “Tomorrow, you may get a little surprise for being so well-behaved.” Frank could just imagine her winking computationally, as though she was sharing some great gift with him.

“Can’t wait,” Frank muttered, spitting the pills into his hand and letting them join the ones from that afternoon in his pocket. A few moments after Frank heard the lock in the door click, he heard a quick, soft padding noise, and then silence, and then…

“Oomf!”

In one leap, Gerard had landed on top of Frank, simultaneously covering the younger boy’s mouth with his hand, stifling the yell that would have torn into the silence like a dagger through soft flesh.

“Shhh…” Gerard whispered, kneeling down so that his nose was very near touching Frank’s; so close, Frank could feel the soft puff of air evacuation Gerard’s sinuses every few seconds, in a sporadic fashion due to the exertion of the attack. “I’ll take my hand off, but don’t make a fuss,” he hissed, the somewhat manic tone in his voice slinking down to a smooth, velvety purr on the last word. He tentatively slid his hand off Frank’s mouth, easing down his chin and neck to rest on the boy’s chest, lightly feeling his little heart thump, thump, thumping against his steady palm.

“For you, my sweet.” Frank felt a light, thin, papery tube being slid between his lips, at once realizing the familiar rasping feeling of paper against chapped lips. Then, very suddenly and quite close to his face (a little closer than Frank was comfortable with), a bright flame illuminated the air between the two men’s faces, the tiny sparks dancing in the reflection of Gerard’s hazel eyes; they glittered, sparkled, shone brilliantly, and it took Frank’s breath away. He gasped lightly

“This match will stay lit for exactly eight more seconds,” Gerard informed Frank. “A specialty of the hospital. I nicked it just before they confiscated my stash of matches, slipping it behind my ear. I’m giving it to you, sugar.” With that, Gerard lit the cigarette between Frank’s lips, putting out the match by stick the lit end beneath his tongue, the flame going out with a sizzle.

The cigarette lit with a hiss, the aroma of charred paper and the sound of curling paper hitting the air. The end of the butt glowed bright red, like a little ember-gem glittering in the night, casting Gerard’s face into an eerie red glow. He grinned maniacally before his face was gone, and the weight had disappeared from on top of Frank, and the only sound left in the room was what Frank imagined the rolling clouds of smoke to sound like as they evacuated his cigarette and unfurled into the air around them.

“Frank.” Gerard’s voice sounded from across the room, floating just like the puffs of cigarette smoke from Frank’s mouth and nostrils. “How old are you?”

“I’m eighteen,” Frank answered. “Why?” All sarcasm and defensive walls had gone down with the introduction of his first cigarette in…too long. He was so preoccupied with the sweet burn of nicotine on his tongue that he almost didn’t catch Gerard’s reply.

“You killed your parents because they wouldn’t let you go out. I assumed you were very young.”

“Mhmm…The District Attorney had to fight tooth-and-nail to get me charged as an adult. A very excitable little man…Sitting in the courtroom, in that orange jumpsuit, wrists handcuffed in front of me, I’d occasionally wonder what he knew…Had he seen the pictures of my parents?…And the dog…And then, I began to wonder why he was fighting so hard to convict me. Did he think I’d go after his family next? Did he have a family? I imagined a blonde wife, rounded from carrying two perfect, blonde little children for her government-paid husband.

“And then I let my imagination run away with me…What if it was an act? What if he hated his wife, loathed his kids, despised the life that he had created for himself? What if he wanted me angry? What if he was hoping that I’d get off, and try to get my revenge on the man that tried to convict me? I could do his dirty work for him. I’d either kill him, or his family, or both. And, who knows, perhaps I would have.” Frank took a long, drawling drag on the cigarette, blowing out little smoke rings identical to the ones that Gerard had expelled into his face upon their first meeting.

Gerard’s bark of laughter jerked the younger boy out of his reverie. “That scenario might not have been as fictional as you think, my friend.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean,” Frank heard Gerard sit up in his bed, rustling the sheets, the bed sqeaking with the change in the distribution of weight on the mattress. “Is that you and me are crazy, not stupid. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the man was sick of his life, choosing to devote all his time to convicting a little boy of murdering his parents instead of spending time with his wife and children.” Frank heard Gerard’s voice darken, and remembered how he valued family. “But let’s change the subject before my heart breaks all over again. How did you manage an insanity plea?”

Frank thought about this. He really wasn’t sure; his lawyer had just told him that they were pleading insanity, and Frank had agreed. “When I killed my parents, they both screamed…a lot, and very loudly…one of the neighbors called the police, but by the time they arrived, it was already too late. They found me curled up in a puddle of blood, rocking back and forth and crying, holding Russ--the dog. The day of the first trial--about a week after I was arrested--the judge asked me if I had anything to say before we started, and I nodded. I stood up, orange jumpsuit, handcuffs, and all, and asked him if we could recess at one so I could go home for Russ’s funeral. He asked who that was, and I told him it was the dog. He told me to sit. At one, I asked again, and he looked at me funny. He called for an hour-recess, and I went home and buried the dog, and told him I missed him. When I got back, he reset the trial date, and I had to go to prison. They kept me in solitary for a full two months. If I wasn’t crazy when I went in, I was barking mad when I came out.”

Frank felt a presence, another body, very close to his own at this point. He then felt the thin, soft tip of a nose nudge his own and warm, tobacco-scented breath on his face when Gerard spoke.

“Well…we all go a little…mad, sometimes…Don’t we?”


I know this took too long to get up, but in my defense, I have two other active stories (Well...actually, I've got four others, but two are on hiatus at the moment) that also need updating. So please excuse the late uploads and whatnot, I'm doing my best. So what do you think? Good? Please go comment and subscribe if you haven't already, it makes my day. OverAndOutxx