FicWad

The door burst open with a loud bang making me jump on my seat and regretting the motion a second after as the nurse gave me a murderous look before getting back to working on my hand. I didn't feel a thing, but the constant clinging sound that came from pieces of glass being dropped in the metal bowl beside her had me a little queasy. Also, the weird tugging on my hand as she worked felt so unnatural that I almost regretted saying yes to the painkillers.

"Em!" My head snapped up as I recognized Frank's voice calling out my name. The nurse turned an inch on her saddle chair to glare at my tattooed little friend over her shoulder.

"There are no outsiders allowed here" she informed him tonelessly, as if the words had had to be spoken one too many times tonight.

"I'm an insider" Frank shrugged with a stupid, cheesy grin on his face and the nurse not so much as sighed and looked at us with a pained face. I guessed that she was used to getting that reply and wanted nothing more than to declare the joke old as fuck and poke me with a needle harder than necessary.

I gave Frank a weak smile and went back to trying to appear sober.
Grace had said that if the emergency room declared me shitfaced, or if I appeared even remotely high, they would run a test on me and 'possibly find illegal substances'. I had inquired more information about what exactly she meant by that last bit, but she'd only smiled and told me to make her proud.
So here I was, making her proud, slouching in my seat with a pouty face trying to look merely sleepy.

The truth was, I was high as fuck and my head was a much bigger mess than the ripped wound the nurse was cleaning out.
I don't know where Grace disappeared after she and Ray drove me to the ER, but I was happy she had atleast informed Frank about what had happened. Gerard most likely wouldn't waste his one and only phone call from jail cell to do that for me.

I'd passed out on the alley, blissfully ignorant to the shenanigans around me, but once Ray had woken me up while dumping my limp body on his backseat using less than gentle handling, Grace told me she'd dragged me away in the last minute before the cops came and took Gerard and Nick away. She said I should be eternally grateful to her for saving my ass, and that if the paramedics would've been called, they would've ran the tests for sure and we'd both be fucked. I begged to differ, since it had actually been Grace shoving the last damn pill down my throat, but I had kept my mouth shut.

As long as I would get the freaking glass out of my hand and stop bleeding so much without getting involved with the cops, I was quite satisfied with the outcome.

"Hey you, why so sad?" The nurse's temple looked like it was about to explode as Frank threw himself on the hospital bed behind me.

The powerful stench of sweat and cigarettes nearly made me faint and I realized he must've come here right after they were done playing. I hung my head in shame, I'd been such a goddamned troublemaker. I was already feeling like shit for missing out on the gig I'd sworn I'd see, and adding the fact that two guys were in custody, Grace was having paranoid fits about someone finding out about the drugs in my blood system and I hadn't even had the chance to talk to Mikey which had been pretty much my aim for the night, I felt useless.

And now Frank was here, comforting and sweet as he always was, even though he'd propably been worried sick during the entire show and had to leave early and skip the whole after party madness he so much had looked forward to.

"Just go away" I groaned. "Go have fun"

"Don't be such a martyr, I'm having fun here" He mused while pulling on strands of my messy hair.

"Oh, really?" I rolled my eyes at him, receiving an actual slap on my wrist from the nurse.

"Ow" I whined like the two year old I felt like "What the fuck was that for?"

"Stop twitching, miss" She murmured with a strained voice and I could see Frank's eyes bulging out. Oh please don't laugh now, I begged silently, though I wasn't exactly pleased about being accused of twitching, either.

Stop twitching, I scoffed mentally, well excuse me - I've been sitting here for over an hour with a practically mute stranger who apparently needs an awful lot of time to pick out a couple pathetic glass shreds from my hand. My butt fell asleep thirty minutes ago and I'm about to pee my pants, if I already haven't that is, for I can't fucking feel anything below my waistline. But that's ok, I'll stop fucking twitching and turn to a statue, Miss I chose a job that requires social skills cause I'm such a fucking people-person.
Ugh.
Frank placed his hand on my neck and rubbed it gently as the nurse of the month stitched the wound.

"Ever had stitches before?" He asked with a straight face and I threw my head back hoping it would hit him on the nose or something equally painful. The little dipshit was refering to an incident a couple years ago that resulted in me getting my buttcheek stitched up. Frank had seen the situation humorous as hell, and he still every now and then cracked a joke about my ass getting pierced by a steel fence. I hardly saw the funny side of it - I'd been stuck in bed for over a month, not being able to even sit without feeling like I was giving birth to a huge motherfucking alien baby..

My loyal friend Frank had gotten me through it by spending every minute of the day right there by my side, mocking me and coming up with endless amount of jokes, each tackier than the previous.

He giggled silently behind me and I felt my temper rising up.

"Go get me a coffee or something" I grunted and much to my surpise, Frank disappeared in no time. The nurse let out a loud sigh and tapped my hand twice, propably trying to hurt me. Nice try, but I'm all pumped up with painkillers, bitch.

"There. Don't get it infected. The stitches will dissolve in about three weeks, should be ok by then. Wasn't that deep. Come back if something comes up." She turned to her desk to do the paperwork, I didn't have to file any more papers here, I was a regular. They had all my information on the database and all they did was add another visit to the bottom of the never-ending list.


"Thanks a bunch" I muttered and gave her a hurtful look before hurrying to grab my coat and bag from the bench beside the door.

I found Frank by the corridor abusing the coffee machine and walked by without giving him another look.
It took about two seconds before I heard rapid footsteps behind me.

"Ok grumpy ass, glad to see she didn't kill ya. I've Tim's car and you're coming with me" he announced and grabbed me by the arm.

I'd hoped I'd be able to escape him. The truth was, I was embarrased to death. I'd vowed I'd be there to see the gig and look what happened, poor Em ended up in emergency room five minutes before the opening song. That was just so me, and so disgracingly unsurprising that I could barely look Frank in the eye.

Adding to that I was very keen on the idea of appearing sober, which was pretty much a lost cause. As long as he thought I'd just been drinking, everything was fine. Frank never nagged about my drinking, I don't think he noticed anything unusual about it since all of us drank equally lot. I was just scared shitless at the thought of him detecting the 'illegal substances' in my system..

I could always put in on the quite nice painkillers the doctor gave me before he left me with that bitch of a nurse, but Frank knew Grace and Frank wasn't stupid.
Yeah, that was my biggest problem, really. Frank was definitely not stupid and I had been counting on being able to escape his company, run home, and sleep it off.
I had no idea how he'd react if he knew I'd been taking something.. Something from Grace..

"Tim's car?" I asked in horror as we stepped into the freezing night air. If it didn't have the wheels... I think the thing would've needed careful microscopic studying to be identified as an actual car.
An old Toyota, it was. I couldn't put my finger on the color, and I contemplated between copper and shit-brown before realizing it was rust. Not the color, but actual fucking rust.

"Needs a paint job, definitely" I stated, not really sure whether the moment was appropriate for laughing, or crying.

Frank walked over to the piece of old metal, delivered a swift kick on the passenger side door, making it pop open with a ear-piercing sound. I took an involuntary step back, as he held the door open for me and bowed with a mischievous grin.

"M'Lady"

"Oh shit, Frank. Isn't it enough to almost die once a night?" I searched my bag for a cigarette, this upcoming deathride had my nerves in a knot.

"Since when were you such a pansy?" He giggled and shoved me inside. I yelped in pain as something hard pressed against my bottom at my landing.

"Frank you idiot! You forgot to mention the fucking seat is missing?" There was nothing but the metal underlay the seat had sometime in the past been attached to.

All I got as a response was Frank's famous infectious giggle that had a tone to it that spoke of insanity.

"You almost impaled me!" I cried while trying to find a position I was even remotely comfortable in.

"You're so dramatic. If I wanted to impale you, honey, I'd take you on a ride in my bedroom" He winked, his face glowing with shrill self-satisfaction as the stupid grin kept growing wider.

"You don't even have a bedroom" I muttered in lack of a proper comeback and settled on sitting on the very edge of the metal pipe base, balancing and holding on to the door handle for dear life.

"Shut up and drive" I scoffed as if to save my lame response and the slight embarrasment I suddenly felt and sucked on my cigarette. There was no need to try and open the window. There was none.
This was going to be the most memorable ride of my life, and in the worst imaginable way.


The engine roared to life the third time Frank fumbled with the ignition. I kept my negative remarks to myself, trying to remind me of the fact that I didn't want to ruin my friend's night any further.

"I think we need to catch up a little" He sighed after a moment of silence.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." It didn't take much close analysis to detect the sudden severness in his manners. From the corner of my eye I noticed his grave face shooting looks at me. I dodged them, and kept staring at the dark, vacant road.

"What have you been taking? And just what happened to that hand of yours?"

"Got in to a fight with a window. Lost." I answered bluntly. I really didn't want to get in to it.

The car came to an abrupt stop, and he steered the wheel to the right and parked on the side of the road. He kept the engine running, pretty sure cause he knew it wouldn't start again if he didn't.

"Awesome. Look, I'm glad you obviously know how to throw a punch, but we need to work on the aim. What happened?" He turned to face me and I gave up trying to procrastinate the topic. I examined my hand and tucked it into the pocket of my leather jacket, feeling kind of self conscious with him sitting there staring at the damage.

"Nick is what happened" I muttered.

"Nick?" He obviously hadn't heard the entire story. I wasn't sure whether to thank Grace for keeping her mouth shut or blame her for leaving me to handle the telling Frank part.

"He wanted to talk and I was drunk and annoyed and he wanted me to be sorry for the infamous sleeping with Gerard thing and I kinda lost it and made up this stupid lie about having had an affair with Gerard behing his back the entire time and then he kinda lost it." I grabbed the sun shield in front of me and discovered the mirror was still attached.
A quick glance at my neck showed that I hadn't started bruising yet. I wondered briefly what I could use to cover it up with, I saw myself wearing some stupid scarf around my neck for two weeks and cringed.

"...So he started choking me. I think he tried to kill me. And I just tried to fight him off and ended up getting my fist through a window. Hurt like a bitch." I ended my story quickly.

"You think he tried to kill you?" He repeated slowly, his face expressionless.

I had to take it back a little.
"Well maybe not, I mean, I really don't think he had it all plotted out, like where he would dump my lifeless body or what alibi he would come up with" I smiled a little. Frank didn't seem to appreciate my humorous approach on the matter.

"Can I kill him?" He asked after a while.

"Be my guest" I shrugged.

"And back to my original question.. What have you been taking? And don't give me any bullshit about having only drank booze cause I believe I'm a bit more experienced when it comes to drugs and honey, your eyes gave you away in a heartbeat."

"Ahh" The shame of having taken some unknown pills from someone as fucked up as Grace was kind of a shameful thing to admit, especially to Frank, and the frustration evacuated all words I had thought of speaking to defend myself. "Just.. I don't know. There were these pills, I don't know what they were. Didn't care, either. I don't know.." I squirmed.

"Grace?" He asked knowingly.

I met his eyes with a sheepish look, letting him know he had hit the jackpot. I was thankful though that I didn't have to speak out Grace's name, it would've left me feeling a little like a snitch, even though Frank propably knew more about Grace's drug habits than I ever did.

"Sorry." I amended. "And I'm sorry for missing the gig"

"There'll be lots of gigs to come. In fact, I have a feeling that sometime in the future I will be playing at concerts night after night, in all different states of the great US." He stated dreamingly while abusing the gas pedal. The road ahead became an jet black blurry vision again, almost hypnotizingly vivid in all its colorless simplicity.

"Can I come to each one?" I asked, feeling like a child.

"Sure you can. I'll make you my backstage bitch." His body shook as he let out a laugh, getting his overgrown hair all over his face. I helped him out a little and tucked most of the strands I could reach behind his ear. The wind blowed inside the car thanks to the missing window and trying to get his wild locks to stay in place was pretty much a hopeless mission.

He was so handsome. His eyebrows were a perfect shape, the same shade of dark ebony as his hair. His eyes were a strange mixture of gold and greenish brown and they had a way of twinkling whenever his smile reached his eyes. The colors of nature, of summer. It felt to me like the colors that I saw in Frank were exactly the ones mother nature had intended for a beautiful human being to have. The way everything matched and fit, and glowed in the process, amazed me.

His nose was straight and proportionate and his facial features were soft and pretty yet angular and masculine in a way. I couldn't think of anything more beautiful than his face that reminded me of a deer, with the big, almond shape eyes and that innocent yet sharp look.
I had notcied a while back that he's stopped cutting his hair short like he had done ever since he got rid of the dread locks. The strands of his dark hair reached his jaw now, and I decided I liked the way it started to curl at the ends.

Why Frank couldn't hold a girlfriend, was beyond me.

I had pretended to consider his words as if I was giving the offer of becoming his backtage bitch some serious though.

"Hm.. Sounds kinda kinky, but I like it" I smirked eventually.

I could see his cheeks flush a little in the lightless cabin and turned away, I didn't know how to react. We never blushed around each other. There was no need to. I decided to pretend I didn't see the rosy cheeks and didn't turn back to look at him until I was evidently sure that the blush was all gone.

"I was thinking more about you brooming away my afterparty vomit and bringing me beer and sandwiches, and washing my sweaty god-awful smelly clothes and getting my guitar new strings and all that.. Like a personal slave. I'd like that." He giggled.

"Franklin, I never knew you were into role play!" I joked "Maids, baristas and slaves... Sounds like you're the dominating type"

I glanced at my best friend, hoping to see no traces of the blush that was there before. I was relieved to only see a smirking dude about to shit his pants and we both cracked up, roaring in laughter for several minutes.
The rest of the ride was silent, except for the random giggles and short, quiet laughs coming from both of us every now and then.

When we reached the familiar corner from which you could see the main entrance to my apartment, he gently placed his hand on mine, the one I had had hidden away in my pocket the entire time. He stroked and rubbed my palm with his thumb, as if he could erase the wound and the tickling feeling from the stitches, and then somehow as he did so, I like to think I felt the pressure go down a bit, and nothing hurt as much as it did before.

"Aren't you coming?" I asked slightly unsurely.

"Gotta take the car back. Go sleep it off, Em. I'll call you in the morning" He murmured and drew his hand away.

I stared at him blankly, half because even though the high had worn off some time ago, and my state was mostly caused by lack of sleep, I spaced out a little while thinking about how lucky I was to have a frank as a best friend. But then, there was this tiny thing, this scent or twirl of something unfamiliar in the atmosphere. It was barely noticeable, but it was definitely there. A change in the way his eyes were set, or the rhythm of his breathing.

Something was up, but I didn't want to press the matter, especially when there was nothing I could state as claim, no concrete evidence based on his behavior that indicated something wasn't right.

"Can't you come back?" I put on a pouty smile, receiving a tired sigh in return.

"Uh, yeah.. Sure.. But I gotta take care of something and it might take a while, so I'm not sure there's any point in that"

"There's always a point in keeping me company" I declared with a smile.

"True" He smiled back "Gotta go now. Sleep tight, Em. And next time you need to punch something, choose an item less damaging than glass.."

He stared at me but the smile he attempted never reached his eyes. For a moment, just when he turned back to face the road, his face twisted into something unrecognizable. I leaned in a little to try and catch a glimpse of that expression, to study it further, but it was gone.

As soon as I hopped out of the car, secretly thankful I was still alive and seemingly having got no collateral damage, he kicked the gas pedal and and the car was out of sight, swallowed by the darkness, in less than two seconds.
I tried to shake off the uneasy feeling his last look gave me.

Maybe he was really off to kill Nick. It's not like I had a problem with someone fucking the guy up but I was still quite thankful knowing that he was in custody for the night, alongside with Gerard. I didn't want Frank to get into trouble.

I laughed as I thought about that, I'm glad I hadn't said that out loud because even the thought sounded strange coming from me. It's just that murder was a bit more severe of a crime than stealing a couple beer bottles from the local gas station when we were kids. Or causing random mischief that never really got us into worse trouble that having to pay a few tickets we really couldn't afford.

Murder was prison material, and I knew what they did to guys like Frank in prison.

I shuffled inside and stripped off my clothing even though I could feel the chilly night air taking over my room. I buried myself alive under the multiple layers of blankets and welcomed sleep.

I saw disturbing dreams of prison and Frank, and everything that went with it, and then myself trying desperately to seduce Gerard, persuading and trying to talk him in to getting it on with me. The entire time he was dressed as a lady and looked an awful lot prettier than I did.
Weird fucking dreams.