FicWad

A/N: As for Falling, all I can say is... maybe. If not, I guess it's up to your mind's interpretation whether or not he lived or died. I have my own version of course, but isn't it so much more fun being left to the imagination? XD

19. Strappado

The door opened again. Gerard's heart stopped. He knew no matter how much he hated it, there was no way he was going to prevent the horrors he was about to face. His will to fight had left him long ago.

But today was different. There was a commotion going on outside. Gerard could hear a lot of yelling and screaming. It was sounding as though a fight was commencing. Gerard heard bangs and crashes. What sounded like the firing of gunshots.

What was happening?

Then, through the gaping doorway, men ran in. But they weren't the blackbirds --- they were police officers! They held out their guns, inspecting if there was anyone else was in the room.

"He's in here!" one of them yelled.

Frank Iero then came bolting into the room.

"GERARD!" he screamed, rushing to his best friend. "Oh thank god... you're alive..."

Frank panted as he inspected Gerard with a horrified expression on his face. Gerard was close to tears.

"Frankie.." he whimpered, his bottom lip trembling. He didn't even know where to begin.

"It's okay, Gee... no one is going to hurt you now..." Frank comforted him as he pulled him into a loving embrace. Gerard had never felt so safe in his entire life. "Mikey and the others are waiting outside.. they didn't want me to come in but I didn't care... I've been so scared for you Gerard. We all have."

"C'mon, you kids can have your reunion time later. We need to move!" one of the cops urged them.

They broke the shackles at Gerard's ankles. A stretcher was pushed into the room, and they lifted Gerard onto it, Frank yelling at them to be careful with him.

Gerard was then left to stare at the stony ceiling rushing by them as the stretcher was pushed down the hallways of his prison. Frank was trying to keep up with them, bending over the stretcher and offering Gerard soothing sentiments.

Finally, they reached an exit. Gerard's eyes were met with sunlight for the very first time in what must have been over a month.

"He's alive!" Frank yelled at people Gerard could not see. He heard cheering. A familiar, partially blonde haired boy ran over to him.

"Gerard!" yelled an openly crying Mikey as he stroked at Gerard's face. "Oh god Gee, I've missed you so much..."

Lindsey followed carrying a very much alive Bandit in her arms. "I love you so much sweetie." she said as she kissed him on the forehead, "Everything's going to be okay... I won't leave your side for a single minute, I promise."

A paramedic bent over him, and told him that he was going to be taken to a nearby hospital. They would fix him up there. He let him know that most of his injuries were fully treatable, and he should be able to live a perfectly normal life.

Everything was going to go back to normal, at last.

Gerard was awoken by a blackbird seizing him, trying to get him up off the floor. He was confused at first, and it took him a moment to realize that what he had just experienced was merely a dream. He had passed out from exhaustion while trying to clean the vomit.

His heart sinking, he barely paid any mind to the blackbirds who were tying him to ropes designed to hang him by the arms.

They placed weights on the contraption. His arms were hung behind his back. And as the weights pulled on him, slowly and agonizingly dislocation his arms, he was simultaneously being pulled back into reality -- and the fact that he was never going home.

~

Next chapter: "Those feet, pushing and digging into the membrane. To find its comfort or to relieve pressure from one of those stagnant staces, where one of its limbs had gone numb..."