"Frank?" Gerard squeaked. He had gone completely still. Frank didn't think he was breathing, even.
"I lied to you," Frank admitted, rubbing his face against Gerard's shirt and letting himself wallow in the relief flooding through his limbs. "Before, when you asked if I was feeling anything else, but I didn't know how to tell you without sounding like a creep, and I know it's weird, okay, but if you could just let me stay here for a few minutes, just for a minute, Gerard, please."
"It's okay, Frank," Gerard said, twisting around a little. Frank moved back as many inches as he could bear to let Gerard sit more comfortably on the bed, then latched back on, burrowing under Gerard's arm to get as close as possible. "Just tell me what's going on."
"It kind of looks like when you touch him it doesn't hurt anymore," Bob observed from the doorway. Frank peeked out at him from under Gerard's elbow. Bob raised his hands. "But that's just a layman's opinion, of course."
"Oh," said Gerard. "Oh! Frank, why didn't you tell me? I wouldn't have left you alone!"
Frank held on tighter, heaving a shivery sigh when one of Gerard's hands settled on the back of his neck and the other squeezed his shoulder. "Because it's weird."
"Seconded," Bob agreed. "I'm making coffee, try not to rupture an artery while I'm gone."
Gerard said, "Thanks, Bob," and put his arm around Frank properly, hugging him close. "You gonna let me look at your feet?"
Frank clung and shook his head. "In a second, just a second."
"Come on," Gerard said, rubbing his neck lightly. "We don't know if you're gonna need stitches, or what. Let me see."
Frank let go reluctantly - it didn't hurt, exactly, because Gerard was careful to stay in contact, but it still sucked. Gerard moved down to the bottom of the bed and unwrapped Frank's feet carefully, balking a little at the blood.
"And it doesn't hurt?" he said, pulling his ever-present camera out of his jeans. He looked up at Frank, big eyes and messy hair and looking for all the world like a normal dude. A really pretty normal dude with magical healing hands. The asshole. "They're not even bleeding anymore, it looks like they're closed. Did it happen the same as before, with your wrists?"
Frank told him quickly how it had happened, and Bob came back in with coffee and bandages, and sat at the bottom of the bed wrapping Frank's feet up while Gerard told them both about the research he'd been doing.
"I looked up those herbs your doctor mentioned, and from what I can gather, some of them are used for, you know, not nice things."
"Like dark magic?" Frank said, cheek pressed against Gerard's shoulder. He felt warm and cared for and like nothing could hurt him at all - which was total bullshit because there were holes in his feet, but whatever. "Like a spell?"
"I don't know yet. I was making notes before-"
"In pencil?" Bob wanted to know.
Gerard frowned. "Yeah. Why?"
Bob shook his head and smiled into his coffee. "No reason."
"Don't be an asshole, Bob." Frank reached up to rub at the smears on Gerard's face, then realized that maybe he shouldn't, and put his hand down again, blushing.
"I was in the middle of reading about it when you called," Gerard went on, oblivious. "But I just got here as fast I could. I brought some of my books, though."
"Oh, is that what those things you threw at me were?" Bob finished with the bandages and squeezed Frank's little toe. "I thought they were lead bricks bound in leather."
Gerard's forehead creased. "How would they help us fight evil?"
"We could throw them," Bob said gravely. "At it."
"Wait a minute." Frank struggled to sit up properly, pulling away from Gerard as much as he could without it hurting, because clinging to the dude was kind of humiliating, as nice as it felt. "Evil? There's evil now? What about Saint Francis?"
"I just think we should explore all possible explanations," Gerard said in a voice that totally failed at soothing or reassuring or any of the things Frank thought he might be going for. "We don't know anything for certain yet."
"If it carries on, what happens?" Bob wanted to know. "People live with stigmata for years, right?"
Gerard nodded. "Yeah, but - they usually only have marks in their palms, or feet. There are no documented cases of someone bearing more than one or two Marks of Christ."
"What else is there?"
"There's - there's only one left. It would be a wound where Jesus was stabbed with a spear," Gerard touched Frank's side lightly, which felt nice but didn't do anything to alleviate the sinking feeling in Frank's stomach, like he'd swallowed a giant rock that said 'DOOM' on it. "Right here."
Bob thought about that for a minute. "Would he survive that?"
"There aren't any documented cases," Gerard repeated. "I don't know."
