Chapter Text
February 18th, 1973
"Gerard? Where are you calling from? I can barely hear you" Frank spoke clearly and directly down the phone, though hushed, puzzled, looking up at the clock in his parent's front room, it being the early hours of the morning.
There was a long pause. He could hear movement, or maybe it was static, but it certainly didn't sound like Gerard was indoors.
"Gerard?" he said again, concern lacing his voice. There was another long pause, then Gerard cleared his throat. "I'm... I'm at the gas station" he was raspy as he spoke, sniffling as if he'd been crying. "Why are you at the gas station? What's happening?" Frank replied.
This wasn't like Gerard at all. He had heard him upset, devastated, but not like this. He had a sort of darkness to his voice that Frank had only heard on a handful of occasions. Occasions which made Frank sick to remember. Gerard didn't say anything. Frank could hear the faint sound of traffic, he assumed Gerard was in a phone booth. "Gerard? What's wrong?" his confusion was quickly being replaced with panic; this was all so out of character.
At that moment, Frank's mother came shuffling into the room, fastening her dressing gown as she entered. She frowned at her son, mouthing "who is it?". "Gerard" Frank whispered back, his expression of concern running through her as well. She stayed quiet, seeing Frank trying to hear the man on the other end of the phone. Linda felt her blood run cold.
"Gerard, are you there?" Frank couldn't tell if the other was speaking or if the connection had been lost, the static was terrible. Silence still. "What's wrong?" his mother whispered, standing beside Frank with a furrowed brow. "I don't know" Frank hushed back. "Gerard, tell me where you are, I'll come get you" Frank finally talked. Gerard cleared his throat.
"Yeah... Yeah um, meet me at my place" his voice was so strained Frank barely heard him. "No, no - Gee, tell me where you are, you shouldn't be out this late on your own. Why aren’t you at the restaurant?” his reply went unanswered as the phone was hung up.
Frank put the phone down and stepped back, examining the exchange in his head, taking a breath before turning to his mum. "Frank, honey, is he okay?" she said, feeling the weight of Frank's concern. "I um... I don't know. He said he was at a gas station" he mouthed, body unmoving, face contorted in worry. "Why is he still out?" she asked.
Frank shook his head. "I don’t know, he told me to go to his parents house, that's all he said" he replied. She nodded absently, keeping her gaze on her son.
His home life was nothing short of a nightmare. Frank's home had been his own for some time and it wasn’t likely to change any time soon. Frank had begged him to stay this time, crying as he did.
"I'm gonna have to go, ma. He didn't sound right, this isn't like him" Frank said, pacing quickly into the kitchen to collect his shoes and car keys. "Wait, let me get your dad, we can drive you, you shouldn't be going out in the car feeling like this" she gently grabbed his arm and kept eye contact with him.
Frank smiled and sighed, she was adorable, a mother's work really is never over. "It's okay ma, he's not gonna want the cavalry showing up if he's upset, especially if it's to do with his dad" he said softly, earning a sympathetic smile from his mother. "Okay, well, get back soon. I don’t want him a moment longer in that house. If anything happens, please call, I don't care what time it is" she said.
Frank smiled again. "No problem ma" with that, he left, walking quickly down the steps of the front garden to his car. As he pulled out the driveway, he was tempted to speed up, get to his partner as quickly as he could. It was only a ten-minute drive if that, but he felt like every second counted.
In no time at all, he was there. His mind was racing as he drove down the street, he couldn't fathom what had happened or why Gerard was there. Last thing Gerard had told him is that he was meeting up with Mikey. The idea alone of Gerard being in those four walks made him feel sick.
Why he had called Frank from a gas station when he didn't even have a car was perplexing, he wondered if they’d been an altercation, the house phone broken. He felt panic creeping in.
Frank pulled into the Way's drive and immediately noticed the family car gone. He frowned. Had they taken off somewhere and not told him? Is that why he was there? Looking for Mikey?
Frank parked and got out of the car, jogging to the door and knocking loudly. He stood back and let out a long exhale, bouncing on his heels, trying to calm himself down. To his surprise, no one answered. He paused and sighed again, knocking louder.
He thought about calling through a window or something, but with the lateness of the hour, he didn't want to alert the surrounding houses. He tried the door, and mercifully, it opened.
He stepped in, and shut it quietly behind him. He wouldn't normally do such a thing, as the wrath of Gerard's parents seeing him anywhere near the house not worth it at all, but he figured the circumstance called for it. "Gee?" he called out, walking down the dark corridor towards the living room. Before he could reach it, Gerard hurried out, approaching him and burying himself in Frank's chest.
"Gee!" Frank jumped at Gerard's sudden appearance, though reciprocating the embrace regardless. He noticed quickly that Gerard was crying. "Hey, hey... Baby, what's wrong? What's going on?" he spoke into Gerard's hair. Gerard didn't speak and they stayed like that for a moment. Frank noticed that Gerard's hair was damp.
He separated them slightly so he could wipe his face. Looking down at Gerard's head, he realised it was saturated, dirty, and when he went to comb a hand through it, he noticed that it was blood.
Frank gasped and stepped back, wiping his face with the back of his hand and staring down at the red smear that now coated it. He looked back at Gerard, who was now staring back with wide, panicking eyes.
"Gee, what's going on?" Frank murmured, he looked over the other for any other signs of injury. He felt his blood boil at the thought of his father hurting him so bad he had blood pouring out of his head.
He saw nothing on the other boy's face, though in the dim light he could see bruises on his neck and scratches littering his arms and hands. It was then, finally, that he saw it. In Gerard's pale, skinny fingers, he was loosely holding a hammer. It shook from side to side with Gerard's hand and was saturated in blood.
"Gee..." Frank stayed back, looking over Gerard, fear building heavy in his chest. Tears were streaming down Gerard's face silently as he stared back at Frank. "Gerard!" he yelled, surprising even himself, begging the other to speak.
Still, he said nothing, and they stood in a stalemate for an unnerving amount of time. "Where's your mum, where's Mikey?" Frank broke the silence. Gerard came to for a moment, letting out a shaky breath before responding.
"They... they went to Grandma's, for the night. Dad was... They um, they said they had to leave" he talked slowly, zoned out, eyes darting everywhere except at Frank.
Frank gulped. "Where's your dad?" he dared to ask, he felt sick. Gerard looked him in the eye, broken-hearted, and stepped closer to his lover. Frank didn't move, frozen on the spot. "Please..." Gerard whispered, his face grief stricken and green.
"Gerard... Where is your dad?" he spoke slowly through gritted teeth. Gerard seemed to panic at Frank's change of tone, stumbling back, the hammer falling from his hand and banging loudly on the floor.
"He... He started as soon as they left. Everyone was, they were arguing all day, he didn’t want to me move out... they, they... Mikey said no, mum was... Dad slapped her" he was talking to the floor, staring down at the bloodied weapon laying there. There was a short pause. "She said she had to go; Mikey went with her... I said I didn't wanna... I didn't wanna stay! She said it was all my fault! But they left..." he stopped again to gather himself.
Frank was paralysed with fear. He had never, ever, in the nearly two decades he'd known this man, seen him talk like this. And he’d seen Gerard, bad. He didn't want to put two and two together unit Gerard said it. Gerard, his Gerard, couldn't be capable of something like this. "Dad wouldn't... He wouldn't stop!" He began sobbing, his despondent tone dissipating into a breathy, frantic voice.
"He came at me, said I had destroyed the family, he shoved me and I hit my head on the wall..." he took a moment to look at Frank, though his eyes quickly settled on the ground again. "He said he was gonna... he wanted me gone".
Frank took a moment to compose himself, finally taking a step forward towards the other. "Gee, you have to calm down" he threaded his hand into the other's, not allowing himself to register that it was tacky with blood.
"Where is your dad?" he repeated with a calmer voice, using his other hand to lift the trembling boy's chin to look him in the face. Gerard's frantic eyes darted over Frank's face, as if scanning it to find some sympathy or comfort, he visibly relaxed, as if he'd found it.
"He's in the living room" Gerard all but whispered. Frank held his face there a moment longer, trying to read him. He already knew his answer.
His legs felt like jelly, but he managed to walk around Gerard and make for the room. "Don't" Gerard said, but made no effort to stop him. Frank ignored him, and despite everything in his body telling him to get the hell out of there, he made his way into the living room.
It was exactly as he feared.
There, in the middle of the room, partially draped over his own arm chair, was Gerard's father. Face down, arms and legs splayed, blood pouring from his head, unmoving. Frank stared at the man's head. It was bugeoned, caved, practically gone, matted with blood and hair and Lord knows what else.
He stared for a long time, hand's clammy, breath held, fighting the urge to scream, or throw up, or run.
Gerard shuffled in behind him and some point, moving past him and standing close to his father. Frank's eyes darted to him, a welcome distraction from the scene. After a while, Gerard turned to him. "I couldn't take it anymore Frank" he whispered, holding back another wave of tears.
Frank couldn't fathom any of it. Gerard was a calm, meek, mild-mannered person, who'd panic at the thought of upsetting another let alone harming them. He was on his medication, this was impossible.
"Frank, I..." he welled up. "What do I do?" he sounded like a lost child, completely hopeless. Frank began to cry too, the tragedy of it all finally setting in. Gerard descended into Frank's arms once more, and they held each other tightly, with a desperate force they didn't know they were capable of.
Frank didn't have an answer. He swore to protect this man at all costs, but this was so widely far from their reality he couldn't even come up with comforting words let lone action.
"We have to... we have to call the police" Gerard finally spoke into Frank's shirt. Frank felt like his heart had stopped, it was breaking for Gerard. He could have gone through every possible outcome in his head to make this all go away, but Gerard was right, there was no other solution.
"Oh, Gee..." Frank let loud a loud sob, clinging to the other, knowing things would never be the same again. "Why did you do this? Why didn't you just come home?" Frank wept, he almost sounded angry. "I couldn't take it anymore..." Gerard wept. Frank nodded into his hair.
After a long, long time, they let go of each other, and Frank's eyes glanced over Gerard's shoulder towards the phone on the wall. It too, had blood on it. Gerard shuffled over to it. “Don’t” Frank said in barely a whisper.