FicWad

The ‘house’ in general was overall unsettling. When Gerard stepped outside the room he’d awoken in, he was met with a long stretch of hallway to his left and to his right; entirely lined with doors. The floor was lined in the same boring blue carpet, and the ceiling covered in the same basic tiles with a light spaced every couple of doors.

Gerard bit the corner of his lip in thought, deciding which way, exactly, he should go. All he could see were doors, and his time was rather limited. To his left, however, Gerard thought he could just make out a dip in the floor that resembled stairs leading to a bottom level. Or levels. He wasn’t really sure.

But Gerard wouldn’t have been placed in the center of all those rooms without someone else being up there too, right?

Maybe fifty percent confident that they were indeed stairs off to his left, Gerard pivoted slightly to the right to begin down that hallway; wincing at the sound of the floorboards creaking beneath him. The noises the house gave made him think that the floor was going to give out, sending him crashing down. Though that seemed highly unlikely.

When Gerard came upon the first of many doors, he momentarily paused with hesitation, nervous and afraid of what, or who, may be on the other side. Part of him wanted to turn and run, to save himself from any potential horrors; but the more rational one knew that he needed to find the others. His rational side knew that there probably was no escape regardless of his actions, because whoever was behind this was certainly disturbed, and that Gerard would rather die with all his friends, his family, than give up and go out on his own.

Drawing in a deep breath, Gerard held it and twisted the cold knob until he heard a soft ‘click’, trying to keep his eyes open as he shoved it back.

What Gerard found inside was definitely not what he expected. He really didn’t expect anything, because he felt like a blind man, but what he was faced with was beyond any guesses or expectations he could have begun to think of.

Inside the first room was nothing more than a normal bedroom setting. A bed, dresser, undecipherable posters, a desk, and so on. It looked vaguely familiar to Gerard, but his mind was too clouded with a million different things to actually concentrate on that subtle gnawing on his memory. Other than a large digital clock counting down his two hours on the far wall, the room seemed normal, and Gerard moved on.

The following few rooms were nearly the same. Vaguely familiar looking bedrooms, large digital countdowns, and absolutely no luck. Gerard was frustrated and annoyed, wanting the entire nightmare to be over. He wanted to open his eyes and be back on the couch or in his bunk on the tour bus, waving it all aside as just another delusional creation of his overly caffeinated, sleep-deprived brain.

Gerard knew deep down that this was all-too-real, however.

About halfway down the hallway, and something like ten doors opened with nothing of interest behind them, Gerard was about ready to scream. He wanted to yell at whoever was doing this to quit messing around and release them or he’d break his no violence and kick their ass for even attempting murder. It wouldn’t work, and probably only result in Gerard baking himself alive, so he reluctantly bit back his rage and started moving at a more rushed pace.

It was almost at the end of the hall that Gerard’s ‘luck’ finally changed; and his stomach felt like it dropped from his body entirely. Rage and fear flooded his body, and he momentarily couldn’t bring himself to move for what felt like an eternity. When he could think mildly straight again, Gerard decided that when it was all over, he was going to hunt down the mysterious bastard and personally rip them limb from limb.

The room facing Gerard now was very different from those preceding it. There was no bed or dresser or posters or anything. The only piece of ‘furniture’ was a blood-stained metal table, almost surgical in appearance, in the center beneath a vastly bright light. On the floor were at least a hundred different dolls, the type children play with, all naked and dirty. Some were missing limbs, other had band-aids randomly stuck to them, and a few even had bandaging wraps.

The thing that made Gerard sick was the fact that lying still on the metal table was Frank; the younger man’s eyes closed and chest barely moving. It was obvious the blood on the table was his, because it was all dried onto his skin in various places, and his clothes were ripped nearly to shreds.

Gerard didn’t realize he wasn’t breathing until his lungs began to burn, forcing him to sharply inhale, detecting a bitter smell that sent chills through his entire body. He couldn’t bring himself to think about the source of the foul odor, and his eyes started to cloud with tears as it set in that it was Frank.

He was the one person that Gerard never had walls towards; the one person that could get almost anything out of Gerard, often by simply smiling. Frank was the only person that Gerard fully trusted (beyond Mikey, of course) with each and every one of his troubling secrets, because Frank never judged him. No matter how messed up or dark they were.

Frank was the only person that Gerard let into his heart, because he knew that Frank would never intentionally do anything to hurt him. He was Gerard’s best friend, bandmate, and in a broad sense, his boyfriend.

Suddenly, as though someone had physically pushed him, Gerard began to kick his way through the dolls and towards Frank; heart racing so quickly, a thin sheen of sweat coating his skin. All that mattered at that moment was reaching Frank and making sure that, despite seeing the tiny movements of his chest, he was still alive.

It was ridiculously warm beneath the light, Gerard subconsciously noted, causing Frank’s body to sweat to try and compensate. When Gerard’s hand touched Frank’s arm, he nearly burned himself and had to withdraw it immediately. Gerard had seen Frank pretty sick -the guitarist attracted illness like flies to garbage, but never had Gerard seen him this bad.

“Frank?” Gerard’s weak voice barely came out. “Frankie?” he whispered with desperation, bending down some over Frank and brushing his hair back. “Hey Frankie,” Gerard gave a tiny smile, “Wake up.” His hair fell down around his face, limiting his view of the room. “Please wake out.” The words came out with a begging tone.

Getting no reply, Gerard held back tears and stood up, tucking his hair back, and continued to pet his boyfriend. After staying that way for a few moments, a small piece of paper caught Gerard’s attention. It was taped to the wall, his name written in a neat cursive across it.

“I’ll be right back,” Gerard told Frank before walking around the table and towards the wall. He yanked the paper off, the tape taking some paint with it, and unfolded it to discover a message written inside.

You, Gerard, have helped thousands of people all around the world, and are highly regarded as an inspirational ‘role model’. People claim you have saved their lives, and without you, they wouldn’t be alive.

On the table behind you lies one of my favorite dolls; raggedy Frankie. He’s sick – very sick – and doesn’t have much longer to live.

Gerard’s heart dropped to his stomach, which in turn nearly came out his mouth.

Some of our best doctors have tried to fix him, only to have made things worse.

It’s up to you now, Gerard, to save poor Frankie’s life. You managed to figure out which incredibly toxic venom is coursing through his body, but you foolishly misplaced the antidote somewhere in this room.

Gerard’s heart raced now.

Hurry up before your patient flat-lines.
tick tock. tick tock.

Gerard stared at the note, reading it over hastily again before crumpling it into a ball with frustration and throwing it. He had no idea where any 'antidote' was, there were dolls everywhere, but Gerard could tell that Frank’s time was quickly running out.

Rubbing his eyes with his palms, Gerard returned to Frank, getting hit almost instantly with the heat. He knew he had to get Frank away from the warmth before it did permanent damage, if it hadn’t already; so he grabbed onto the torn cloth and started tugging him sideways until he could get his arms beneath Frank’s shoulders enough to slide him from the table.

Frank was pretty solid, making him heavier than he looked, and Gerard stumbled a little in his attempt to get the younger man onto the ground where the light was dimmer and therefore cooler. Gerard laid Frank down, kicking dolls out of the way to clear a space, sliding his hands into the holes of Frank’s shirt and yanking the cloth even farther apart to make larger holes for heat to escape.

Seeing Frank’s beautiful tattoos all destroyed with cuts, stitches, bruises, and even square pieces of fabric that were sewn against his skin, broke Gerard’s heart more. Frank was so proud of each and every one of his tattoos – each was special and told a story – and he would be devastated when he woke up.

Gerard had busied himself with trying to cool Frank off, mourning his tattoos, that he didn’t notice the slow flickering of Frank’s eyelids. It wasn’t until the man very weakly mumbled, “G’ard,” that Gerard even realized he was awake.

“Frankie;” Gerard breathed out relief, shuffling on his knees so that he was hovering over Frank’s face. “Hey babe,” he softly spoke, stroking Frank’s warm face. Frank blinked slowly at him; eyes never opening more than halfway. He looked weaker than Gerard had ever seen him, and it frightened him how little light was in Frank’s normally beaming eyes.

“Don’t feel good,” Frank eventually got out, eyes closing entirely.

“I know,” Gerard answered quietly. “I’m going to make you feel better though, okay?” He continued stroking his boyfriend’s face; Frank leaning into the touch. It was probably because Gerard’s abnormally cold hands felt nice against his current burning skin.

“’kay,” Frank said a few moments later; the delay of response alerting Gerard that Frank was losing consciousness.

“I need you to stay awake, okay?” Gerard feared that if Frank lost consciousness again, he wouldn’t get it back. “I know you want to sleep, but you can’t. Not yet.”

Gerard waited for a reply, but when he got none, he got anxious and asked, “Frankie?” He brushed his hand along Frank’s face gently. “Frankie, you still awake?”

Frank made a noise, something between a groan and a whine, relieving Gerard to a certain degree. “I have to go look for something, but I won’t leave the room.” Gerard pushed the man’s growing hair aside. “You have to stay awake. If you feel like you’re falling asleep, just talk to me.” A similar noise came from Frank, and Gerard figured that was the best he was going to get. He didn’t have the time to spare.

As long as Frank was still breathing, and preferably conscious, he would be alright.

Drawing in a deep breath, Gerard leaned down to press a soft kiss to Frank’s warm head, lingering for a moment, then forced himself away to stand up and begin searching for whatever was going to cure the other man. All he saw were dolls, though. And the likelihood of a bunch of plastic, broken and bandaged toys helping Frank seemed pretty low.

Taking a step, Gerard felt a doll beneath his foot and he bent down to grab it with his hand. It stared at him with painted, empty eyes; face dirty and hair half gone. “Fuckin’ thing,” he mumbled, throwing the doll at the wall towards the side to move on.

Upon colliding with the wall, the doll broke into pieces, falling to the floor a moment later. Something registered in Gerard’s brain as he watched the toy split, causing him to grab the next one and rip its head off himself. It made a ‘pop’ noise, revealing an entirely hollow body large enough to store a variety of options.

Such as an antidote.

“Frankie,” Gerard spoke a little loudly, tossing the plastic aside to move on to yet another doll, “You still awake?” He held onto the doll’s body with one hand and wrapped the synthetic hair around his fingers of the other, pulling his arms apart until the toy gave and separated with another ‘pop’.

“Frank?” Gerard’s tone became a bit firmer, similar to a parent warning a child, while flipping the headless toy in his hand and shaking it a little to see if anything was inside.

“Yeah;” Frank half sighed and half groaned a moment later. That was satisfactory enough for Gerard and he continued on a bit farther away into the ocean of dolls, making a path for himself and listening closely for any sounds indicating rattling of an object inside a doll.

“Hurts…” he heard Frank whine a moment later and Gerard stopped to look, noting Frank had managed to turn himself onto his side, curled up some, clutching at his stomach. He frowned with worry because if Frank was complaining about his pain, then it was really bad. Normally he would just avoid doing things to cause him extra pain and busy himself with activities like absently strumming his guitar.

“Think about something else,” Gerard offered, doing his best to keep himself from running back over to the man. Instead he quickened his pace in ripping apart the dolls and shaking their bodies in hope.

“Can’t,” Frank practically cried out. It was another huge sign to just how much pain he was in.

Gerard’s chest tightened but he kept pressing on, dropping to his knees to save himself the constant strain of bending every few seconds; even more desperate to find the antidote now. “Think about going home,” Gerard said, trying to provide a distraction for him. “About sleeping in a warm bed instead of a cramped bunk. And…uh…think about all the warm showers you can take every day instead of hoping and hunting at venues.” Gerard knew what made Frank happy, of course -he’d be a really shitty best friend, and an even shittier boyfriend if he didn’t, and hoped it would be enough to help.

“Still hurts,” came the honestly pathetic reply.

“Just a little longer,” Gerard said, but it was more like a plea, because he knew Frank wasn’t going to hang on much longer if he was to the point of crying. He resorted to giving the plastic dolls a firm shake before tossing them aside to grab another. Maybe a fourth of the dolls had been beheaded, and Gerard was getting absolutely nowhere, making him anxious, nervous, and incredibly angry.

Glancing over his shoulder, Gerard saw Frank curled even more on himself; face turned towards the floor, breathing fairly labored. Gerard bit his lip hard enough to tear the skin and cause it to bleed.

“Please,” he could just barely hear Frank whimper, “make it stop…”

“Just hold on, Frankie,” Gerard replied, feeling tears come to his eyes. He frantically moved through the room, the fabric of his jeans tearing at his skin from the friction as he moved, so incredibly frustrated that ripping the dolls apart was almost therapeutic. He couldn’t lose Frank; he just couldn’t. Out of all the shit that Gerard had been through in his life, nothing terrified him more than his current situation.

Either from paranoia or actual cause, the sound of steady ticking flooded Gerard’s ears; nearly singing, ‘tick-tock-tick-tock’ in what Gerard perceived as a cynically happy mocking tone. Like children chanting some sort of nonsense as they played in the schoolyard.

“Fuck!” Gerard half yelled after his hundredth or so failure; throwing the doll in his hand so hard at the wall nearest him that it practically exploded into a pile of plastic pieces. Gerard began simply grabbing the dolls and shaking them without bothering to dismantle them unless he heard some kind of noise. If he didn’t hear or feel anything in the body, he saw no point taking the time to actually pull it apart.

What seemed like hours later, when in reality it was no more than three, five minutes tops, Gerard got lucky and could hear an echoing rattle inside the doll in his trembling hands. He wasted no time ripping the head away, flipping the body to see an object fall from the hole to the ground before him.

The relief Gerard felt had morphed quickly into fear as he looked at what the doll had been encasing. It was certainly the antidote, or at least it resembled what the movies and comics had always used, but Gerard was frozen by the fact that it was a needle. Syringe, to be exact.

Belonephobia had been a problem of Gerard’s for as long as anyone could remember. The thought, the sight of a needle made him squirm and basically hyperventilate if it got bad enough. It’s why he despised hospitals so much, and why whenever Frank dragged him along when he wanted a new tattoo, Gerard would stand outside and smoke or something.

The syringe practically laughed up at Gerard, shining in the light cast down from the lamp overhead. Just looking at it made Gerard sweat, mentally battling himself to death over what to do. But when he looked back to his boyfriend, who no longer seemed to be moving at all, Gerard’s mind was made up. Without another moment’s hesitation, Gerard grabbed the syringe and jumped to his feet, racing to Frank and dropping back to his knees.

“Frankie,” he said, using his free hand to give a little shake to Frank’s shoulder. The movement caused Frank’s arm to slide from his body and lie limply on the floor. “Come on, Frankie.” Gerard’s heart was racing; so quickly that he could feel it and hear it echo around him.

Moving his hair back, Gerard could see a pool of blood on the ground which was dripping from Frank’s partially opened mouth; too much to have come from biting his lip or the inside of his mouth. “No,” Gerard choked out. “No, no, no, no.” He chanted in a panicked whisper.

He gave a little push to Frank’s shoulder to make him roll onto his back, using his teeth to remove the cap from the syringe then shoving it into the side of Frank’s bloodied and bruised stomach, using his thumb to push the plastic down until every drop of the substance in the tube was gone. Gerard threw the empty syringe as far from him as he could then pulled Frank half into his lap; using one arm to hold him close and the other to rub his shoulder.

“Come on, Frankie,” Gerard whispered, watching a little trail of blood grow from the corner of Frank’s mouth and run down his face. “You’re stronger than this,” he said, blinking back tears. The younger man remained motionless against him. “You can’t leave me. We were supposed to spend our whole long, fucked up lives together…”

Faintly, Gerard swore he heard laughter. A dry, pleased cackle. But he ignored it in his denial of accepting that Frank was actually gone. He hated himself for not being quicker. For even thinking about not grabbing that syringe as soon as it fell out just because of his obsessive fear. If he had just managed to protect Frank from the beginning…

“I’m sorry,” Gerard eventually spoke; voice cracked. Heavy, warm tears started to slide down his cheeks, dripping onto the tattered material of Frank’s clothes. He knew that he still had to find the other three, he had maybe an hour and a half left to do so and save them from the same crude ending. But he couldn’t bring himself to let go.

Not yet.

Someone upstairs, if you believe in such a thing, must have had sympathy for Gerard, or maybe they just weren’t ready for the overly hyper spirit of Frank Iero. Either way, Frank jerked a little, startling Gerard, and began choking. Gerard helped him sit up to try and ease it, releasing Frank when the younger man pulled away to crawl a few feet to the side where he threw up a deep reddish-black substance that Gerard really didn’t want to know what of. He watched Frank empty himself two, three times, before sitting back on his heels with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily and shaking.

Gerard used his own hands to quickly wipe away his tears then hesitantly called, “Frankie?” in a gentle voice, trying not to scare the man too much. For a moment Gerard thought Frank didn’t hear him, but eventually he turned his head and blinked slowly at Gerard with worn eyes. Gerard managed a weak smile, wiping at his eyes some more.

Frank stared at him almost as though he didn’t even know who he was, then with what appeared to Gerard as a tremendous amount of effort, he crawled back and collapsed half on top of him. Gerard could feel Frank’s pounding heart against his leg where Frank’s chest was pressing. Frank’s breathing was stressed and highly irregular, but he was alive, and that’s all Gerard could really focus on.

“We have to go, Frankie,” Gerard said softly, rubbing harshly at Frank’s back to wake him up; noticing Frank was drifting off.

Frank moved a fraction of an inch, muttering, “tired,” almost inaudibly.

Sighing, Gerard answered, “I know,” moving his fingers through Frank’s matted hair. “But we can’t stay here. We have to find Mikey and Ray and Bob so we can go home to sleep.” The actuality of him sleeping any time soon, however, was very doubtful. Not to mention Frank needed serious medical help.

“Let’s go,” he said, not wanting to waste more time. Frank whined in protest as Gerard pushed him from his lap, getting annoyed to sit up, and weakly glared at Gerard with half lidded eyes. Gerard stood all the way up, reaching down to assist Frank, ultimately pulling him all the way up. Frank was incredibly unsteady though, forcing Gerard to keep a tight clasp on his arm to prevent him from falling down.

“Gotta put some effort into this,” Gerard grunted some, trying not to topple over. Frank ignored him and remained leaning against him; smirking, if you looked close enough. Gerard rolled his eyes and looked around the room once more, heart skipping a beat as he thought about what else could be waiting in this place.

He sighed, pulling as much of Frank’s weight against him as he could without falling, and started leading them towards the door. Frank dragged his feet more than he actually walked, making it difficult on Gerard’s part, yet managed to make it to the hallway without stopping in the end.

As Gerard inhaled and shifted Frank’s weight one more time, he tried to block out the cynical cackle still ringing in his ears.