FicWad

A/N: I'm in the middle of rural France with basically no internet!
There are only 2 more after this! Also there will be an epilogue, but it won't be the usual length of a chapter. Everything should be up in a fortnight! I would super appreciate reviews and ratings!

The moment Gerard heard Frank's racking sobs he knew something was different, developed. Gerard had been waiting for a click like this in Frank's mind for so long now that it seemed he could sense it. He only prayed that this change in the way Frank cried would result in being as useful as he hoped it might.
Bob, however, seemed to think Frank's upset might just be the dawning of another migraine or seizure. He sighed sympathetically, looking up at the rearview mirror to watch Frank's face deteriorate. He frowned. “What's up Frankie? Head again?”
If anything, Bob's speaking appeared to be yet another jerk in Frank's wellbeing. He screamed as he bawled, completely delved in hysterics now. Although his frail hands were gripped to his head as they usually were in his state of a seizure, his crying out didn't sound painful. In fact, he sounded as if he were in mourning.
Gerard swivelled in his seat, not restricted by a seatbelt. A serial killer tended to throw caution to the wind to suit their lifestyle, it seemed. He watched Frank, both curiosity and concern etched equally on his face. “Frank,” he spoke softly, reaching a tentative hand through the gap between Bob's seat and his own toward Frank. “Speak to me, lovely.”
It was a simple word. A single, simple word. But the affection that dripped out of Gerard's mouth along with the pet name was so jarring that it forced Frank's eyes open. His small, hazel orbs glowed with such an extrovert sadness that Gerard's chest felt as if it was going to tear in two. “I think... I think I – I remember,” Frank croaked.
Gerard shot Bob a look that said everything so that his mouth didn't need to. Pull over, now. This is important.

Bob did so a few further thousand yards down the highway at the last service station before they entered the outskirts of New York. The corner's of Bob's mouth tugged downwards as he looked about the station, the awful sound of Frank's crying ringing at the back of his head. This was a much better kept gas stop than all the others they had visited. Better devices meant better security, and better security meant cameras, everywhere. As he pulled in a small layby to the side of the gas pumps, he noted down at least seven as soon as he brought the vehicle to a stop. This was dangerous. Gerard could not think this logical. He was one of America's most wanted criminals, and he was willing to stop at a place where they sold newspapers with pictures of his own face beneath a printed red warning sign. Bob looked at Frank through the reflection of the mirror as Gerard exited the car and opened Frank's door. The expression on his best friend's face was one of complete adoration and such utter feeling that Bob couldn't bear to look at it. He turned away as Gerard held the sobbing boy's head into his chest. That kid will be the death of him, Bob thought empathetically. And me.
Bob had always known Gerard was gay. Maybe not when they were kids, but when they were reunited five years ago at the age of twenty-three after being separated at twelve, he definitely saw the difference. It was difficult to explain, but he knew. Whether it was from the way that he stood, spoke, or watched other men, his sexuality was always apparent to Bob, if not his brother Michael. And like his sexuality, Gerard's obscure romantic affection for Frank was blindingly obvious too.

Frank was so sick of crying. He was tired of having a sore throat and a headache and a cracked upper lip from his dribbling nostrils. He was bored of being so forlorn and helpless all the time. It was exhausting, and the only release he received from it was his contact with Gerard. Although he knew it was ridiculous and irrational and the it was the last thing that should be on his mind in his current situation, Frank's chest ached in such a pleasurable way when he laid eyes upon Gerard. He was so beautiful and stupidly caring and kind, and regardless of the fact that he was a heartless killer, Frank's heart beat unashamedly for him.
So when Gerard threw the door open and looked at him with such kindness and care, the terrors of his nightmare disappeared momentarily. Gerard took his aching head against his chest in a soothing embrace, and Frank listened defeatedly to the rapid thrum of his heart. “What is it, Frankie?” Gerard cooed. “What's changed?”
Frank broke away from the man's muscular but bony chest and looked up at him, and suddenly his face crumpled again with crying. As Gerard tried to pull him closer he simply shook his head and tried to sit up, only to fall back down again.
He felt so pathetic, more pathetic than he had in that hospital gown, or when he had fallen off his chair in reaction to Jaxon the dog. He was like a child, crying about a nightmare. But that wasn't it, was it? That had been a memory, and all the stored, unawakened pain that was associated with that memory had been pushed down and down so that he had not felt it. However now, those years of repressed pain had exploded inside of him, leaving him withered as a winter leaf.
“What is it, Frankie?” Gerard repeated, desperation naked in his words. He seemed almost hurt that Frank had pulled away, but he pushed that away now, and put all his focus of Frank. “What's so different?”
Frank stopped crying. Just like that. An eerie silence was left in the noise's wake. He looked calculatingly up at Gerard. “How do you always know?” He bleated through sore, fissured lips.
Gerard seemed to exhale softly, and continued looking at Frank with such raw feeling. After a few moments, he seemed to gather up five, simple words, that were to be so, so meaningful to their recipient. “Because I know you, Frank.”
And as if that explained it all, Frank fell back into his state of crying, and nuzzled himself back into the crook of Gerard's shoulder. Just when Gerard was about to accept that Frank would say nothing more, the small frame huddled against him whispered. “They hurt me so bad.” The sorrow of the boy was so hard to hear that for the first time since he could remember, Gerard's vision began to blur.

Bob had got out of the car as soon as it became clear that something very relevant was about to be discussed. Apprehensively, he acquired a five litre petrol can and walked over to a pump, biting habitually at the insides of his mouth as he went.
This was such a stupid idea. They were bound to be caught on a camera and tracked, and that was the end to this mysterious journey of revelation that Gerard had Bob on. Sighing, frustrated, he began to fill up the can with petrol. He thought about how he had ended up here, hell, how he had ended up being close to a murderer in the first place. He also wondered about how little self-awareness Gerard must have if he thought that whatever was going on with Frank was more important than the secrecy of his own location and vehicle number. The jet stream of the petrol sloshed loudly against the bottom of the red plastic container as Bob began to hum. It's okay, Bob sighed inwardly. We'll fill the tank up, calm the kid down, and be on our way, as we always do.
That thought, however, came before the sight of a blue flashing light appeared in the corner of his eye, and the feeling came of a very firm tapping on his shoulder.

Although Gerard had weaned no more information from Frank about whatever was going on in his head, he had in fact managed to stop him crying quite so heavily. Gently, he had thrown a much too large coat across his slight shoulders, and rested his pounding head against an old rolled up shirt. Whilst he waited for Bob to return to the car, Gerard had fallen into stroking Frank's right temple with a callused thumb. After what seemed like an age, there was finally a comfortable quiet.
However, there was always a calm before a storm.

Bob turned about to face his pursuer, his whole body arrested in panic. Trying to express himself in a state of collectivity, he gazed up at the tall cop, running a milky hand back through his soft, baby-like ginger hair. “Sir?” He addressed, unfortunately hearing his voice crack a little.
“Good day, sir. May I presume that as you are filling up a can of petrol, your car is the blue Ford behind me currently?” The man was in his early forties, and had a number two head of dark chestnut hair. He stood as most policemen are trained to hold themselves; chest thrown forward, hands on broad hips, and pulling a stern face.
Bob looked helplessly between the cop's face and the car in which Gerard sat oblivious to their dire situation, leaning in to comfort Frank. Frank's supposed nightmare was nothing in comparison to Bob's current reality. “I, uh...” Bob searched his head frantically for the right thing to say. “And... and what would you do if I said yes?” He regretted his words as soon as he'd said them.
The cop's face changed, as if something in the way Bob spoke had decided his fate for him.
Out of Bob's right-hand peripheral sight, he saw two more policemen stride towards Gerard.
“Sir, I'm going to ask you to put down the can and put your hands behind your back, and I'm going to ask you to do so without struggle.” He spoke with that unnerving calm that you only hear from those that work for the police force.
Bob stood very still, and then everything happened at once.
He threw the can away from him, causing the pump to spurt a strong jet of yellowish liquid about at his feet, spraying up his legs. Bob made to run for Gerard and screamed at him to move. However, before Bob could do anything more, the cop caught him in headlock, and he could not move a single limb in his body to save anybody. The one thing he could do, was shout.

“Get, the fuck, out of here!”
Gerard was instantly in motion.
He released his contact with Frank and slammed the door shut, pulling out his gun from his hip. He whipped himself about, instantaneously assessing his situation. He sent a blind shot into the air to make it clear that his arms were legitimate. He saw frozen pedestrians, two advancing cops, and Bob. Oh God, Bob. His best friend was bent over, screaming at him to both help Frank and himself at the same time. They made precarious eye contact across the scene. And for the first time in Gerard's life, he didn't know what Bob was trying to say to him.
Smooth as anything, Gerard slunk into the driver's seat, started the car one handed, and kept his gun pointed out the open window. Skillfully, he three-point-turned the car about to face the exit. Despite everything, he was excited to be in the driver's seat again.
“STAY WHERE YOU ARE! DO NOT MOVE! FEET OFF THE PEDAL, WAY!”
The shouts rung from all three cops at the same time, but they did nothing to slow Gerard down. He swung the car about and screeched to a halt so that the passenger most side of the car was facing the station. He sat silently and watchfully, waiting for them to make the next move.
From there on, it all happened too fast.
The man holding Bob turned about so quickly Gerard did not even know it was humanly possible to do so. He brought Bob's body in front of him with an incomprehensible force and brought the gun up to his fair haired head so fast you could barely see it.
Gerard's previously focused face fell with realisation. No, he moaned mentally. God, don't make me fucking do this.
He knew what the cop's words would be before they left his mouth. “Drop the gun and exit the car, or we shoot your friend.” Police brutality was not an uncommon or foreign thing in America. Gerard knew full well that the cop meant what he said.
Gerard didn't even have to make the decision. It was already made. He had not come all this way for nothing.
Bob's eyes were so blue and desperate. They were the same eyes, Gerard thought, that he had seen on his first day of kindergarten. Bob had been pushed off a slide, and Gerard had pushed over the kid who did it and slapped him silly. Afterwards, he approached the poor ginger boy and spoke to him as if they had known each other for years.
Bob's hurt face from a scraped knee was not so different from his expression in the face of death. Breaking eye contact was the hardest part, and after that, Gerard could almost pretend he had never done what he knew had had to do.
Tearing his eyes away from Bob, he revved the car menacingly and it burst into speed, roaring away from the station. Glass shattered all about him and Frank cried out weakly behind him; the cops had shot at the windows. Gerard drove violently, barely dodging the screaming pedestrians. Before he knew it, the car lurched haphazardly back onto the road, and Gerard and Frank were back on track.
Without Bob.
The stain of Bob's expression was burned in Gerard's head and his chest ached so, so, so badly.
They heard the gunshot.
Only as Gerard swerved off onto a side road, overgrown with nettles in the veranda brush, did he allow himself to cry silently.