A Bullet Through A Flock Of Doves

Thirty Six - But Does Anyone Notice?/But Does Anyone Care?

  "Where are we going?"

"I don't know."

"Come on, it's been like five hours -"

"I said I don't know, Frank." Gerard sighed, running a hand through his hair.

Frank fell silent and looked down, hands folding in his lap.

They had been driving for about five hours, and were currently in the middle of the desert. The occasional signs on the side of the road informed them that they were in Utah, which was good, but not far enough away from Vegas.

Gerard was conflicted. He was angry at Frank for going through his phone; for calling Leto and causing them to flee Vegas. Now Leto knew he had defied direct orders and they were in much more danger than before. But on the other hand, he'd overreacted. The old him wouldn't have thought so - the old him wouldn't have any attachment to Frank and wouldn't have gotten into this situation in the first place. But he really couldn't kill Frank, and that scared him more than anything. Emotions were bad; they got people into trouble. That's why he couldn't afford to have them.

But, then came Frank, and Gerard had made the mistake of getting close to him. But was it really a mistake?

"Gerard, stop!" Frank shouted, and Gerard slammed on the brakes, the tires squealing.

"What?! What is it?" There were no other cars on the road they were on, nobody in sight, really.

"You almost hit a rabbit," Frank said, pointing to a frightened cottontail bounding away through the sagebrush, ears pinned back.

Gerard stared at him. "Seriously?"

"What?" Frank snapped, folding his arms. "Life is important. That bunny didn't deserve death."

Gerard paled and turned back to the road, stepping on the gas. Did Frank deserve death? More importantly....did hedeserve death?

Frank didn't seem to notice, preferring instead to fiddle with the radio.

xoxoxo

It was another five hours before Gerard was forced to admit defeat - he could barely keep his eyes open and the car kept veering into the next lane. They'd crossed all of Utah and were now in Aspen, Colorado, a remote town nestled in the Rocky Mountains. It was quiet here, Gerard thought, quiet and so different from Las Vegas. The buildings were small and quaint - it was a ski village, although in the autumnal September air, there was no snow to be seen yet.

Gerard parked the car outside the first hotel he saw - the Limelight Hotel, a boxy, not very tall or conspicuous building. He checked his wallet - he still had money from gambling, enough for a little while, but eventually he'd have to withdraw from his Knights account...and at the time, that was hardly safe.

Frank was tired, too, and when they walked into the warm, brightly lit lobby, his expression was blissful. The receptionist smiled as she greeted them, her strawberry blonde hair tied up in a messy bun. Her name tag read, "Rebecca," and Gerard wished her a good night as she handed them their room key and he handed over the cash. She replied in kind and he and Frank stepped into the elevator.

It wasn't the Flamingo, but it was nice and Gerard was exhausted. As soon as the elevator doors shut, Frank burrowed against his side, and Gerard absentmindedly wrapped a hand around his waist. The elevator beeped, they stepped out, and just as Rebecca had told him - room 211 was second on the left.

He and Frank took a shower together, but didn't actually do anything - neither of them really had the endurance for anything but sleep and leaning on each other so their cramped legs wouldn't give out. They just kissed lazily, the water making their skin smooth against the glass walls and their hair drip down their faces in inky lines. When they were done, they dried off in the fluffy white towels and all but collapsed into the bed. Gerard was only able to peck Frank's lips a few times before he was sinking into sleep, nestling his head under Frank's jaw.

xoxoxo

"The room service is really good here."

Gerard yawned and awoke, blinking drowsily at Frank, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed, wearing boxers and eating something which smelled amazing. Upon closer examination, it seemed to be a doughnut. He wrinkled his nose and huffed into the pillow, "You're gonna get fat."

"Fat and happy," Frank told him, crumbs spraying from his mouth.

"That's gross," Gerard muttered in response to the food on the sheets, trying to dust them off half-heartedly.

Frank laughed. "I don't think I was ever fat, actually. Never had enough food in the first place."

Gerard stared very hard at the end of the bed. There was a little stain on the quilt there. He wondered what it was from.

"Gerard?" Frank paused. "Were you ever fat?"

Gerard avoided eye contact. "No."

"You were!" Frank exclaimed, looking a little delighted and also a little shocked.

"No!" Gerard denied, though it wasn't very convincing.

"Yes, see, look here, I'd noticed them before, but here on your belly and near your arms - stretch marks!" Frank grabbed a small handful of the looser flesh at Gerard's hips, and he jerked away, glaring at him.

"Those aren't-"

"High school?" Frank guessed, and Gerard looked at him for a good thirty seconds before dropping his head and slumping his shoulders. Frank crowed with victory, and Gerard wanted to slap him. He kind of always wanted to slap Frank...but at the same time he wanted to kiss him. It was a strange feeling.

"Anyway, I wasn't fat," Gerard told him primly, although really he had been. Just. Nobody needed to know that.

Frank gave him a knowing look, and then set the doughnut down and snuggled up to his side, pinching the stretch marks. "I probably still would've slept with you. You probably weren't such a dick back then, either."

Gerard groaned and rolled away from him. "Can we not talk about this?"

"Why?" Frank batted his eyelashes. "I've told you plenty about myself, why don't I know anything about your life?"

A switch flipped in Gerard's head, and he turned to Frank, eyes narrowed. "Because it's a fucking horrible story! It doesn't start well, it doesn't progress well, and it sure as hell won't end well."

Frank blinked at him. "You don't know that," he said in a softer voice. "It hasn't ended yet. You still have more than half a life left."

Gerard snorted. "Really? I won't last that long. Thirty years old and I've already been forced into a secret organization, killed a hundred or so people, gone to prison with a death sentence, and then escaped with another inmate sentenced to die, while being chased by the government." He shook his head. "Unfortunate plots have unfortunate endings."

"No," Frank said, and Gerard looked at him, taken aback. "You don't know that. Okay? Maybe it'll end badly - maybe it won't. I hope it won't."

"How can you say that?" Gerard questioned, tipping his head to the side. "How can you wish me a peaceful ending when you know all the things I've done? And some of them, I've done to you."

"Because I know that that's not you. I just...sometimes, I think I see somebody else. Somewhere in that arrogant head of yours...there's another man who I think you've forgotten about, and I wish you hadn't, because I like him a lot, and I think you'd like him too if you ever took the time."

Gerard narrowed his eyes. "What are you talking about? There's not like...another person in my head, what the fuck?" But his heart was beating faster and his hands were clammy and he knew exactly what Frank was talking about - thoughFrank shouldn't know, not at all. Nobody should know.

"No, it's..." Frank sighed and shifted closer to him, oblivious to the tenseness in Gerard's body. "I'm shit at metaphors, but it's like, if you had um...an onion, right, so you're peeling away the layers of the onion to get to the center. And you're crying the whole time because it's an onion and onion's are tough and bitter and sharp. But then you get to the center and instead of just another layer or like...an onion pit or whatever, you find a pearl."

"Why the fuck would there be a pearl in an onion?"

"I don't know, but that isn't my point. My point is that the pearl is you - really you - and all the other layers are what you hide yourself in, probably so that you're able to do what you do."

Gerard considered that. "Hm," he said. "Yeah, I don't think so." He laughed uncomfortably. "Sorry to disappoint, Frank, but there's only onion layers here." Frank frowned, but Gerard grinned. "The good news is that that means I'm all edible!"

Frank's brow lowered. "You're not fooling me, you know."

Gerard glanced at him. "I'm not fooling you. It's true. You're not gonna find anything else in me than what you have already - you can peel as much as you want."

"Hm," Frank hummed, "we'll see about that." He pressed his nose against Gerard's neck, nuzzling and inhaling, and Gerard willed the stiffness to go from his muscles. That plan failed, though, because the next moment Frank was mouthing at the tendon on his neck, dragging his lips across it and grazing his teeth a little. Gerard was silent, save for an unsteady exhale. His hand came up to rest against the back of Frank's neck, holding him there loosely.

In response, Frank nibbled sharply, and Gerard twisted a little under him, stretching his neck out and squeezing Frank from where his hand was clamped down, inches from the other's throat. There was a ring of bruises on it - small, smoke colored ovals - and Gerard felt a rush of guilt, sudden and unfamiliar.

It was gone the next moment, though, when Frank bit down, sending a surprising rush of pain and pleasure to Gerard's brain and making him moan aloud.

"Vampires, huh?" Frank breathed, breath hot on Gerard's skin.

His eyes flicked to Frank's face, wide and confused. "I...what?"

"You've got like, a vampire kink. I figured you might, since you drew them so much in your sketchbook. And they were all biting something, y'know, usually a person. And you like to bite, so." Frank laughed and fastened his teeth to Gerard's collarbone; his hips kicked up in response and his cheeks flushed. What, was all he could think. It was too damn early for this, and he wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders.

"And that's why you bite my collar all the time, huh?" Frank whispered, licking and nipping at Gerard's chest, now. Gerard should really do something about this; he should take control here...but he found himself preferring to be pinned by Frank's soft words and wandering mouth...because he trusted Frank not to take advantage of his position. He didn't knowwhy - hell, for all he knew, Frank was going to cut his dick off - he'd done it before. Yet, the way Frank looked at him - eyes warm and wanting and weirdly tender - was not synonymous with desire for murder, or rather, dismemberment. Nobody had ever looked at Gerard like that before - like they actually cared - and so he was quiet and compliant.

Frank was nosing around his stomach, biting at the places where Gerard had a little more flesh than he would've liked - the thicker skin around his hips and the small pudge of his belly. Gerard didn't know what to think of that - anyone he'd ever slept with had avoided those places, and then there was Frank, rubbing his face against Gerard's stomach and sucking around his hipbones like he couldn't get enough.

"You're so weird," he gasped, breath stolen when Frank dragged his canines over Gerard's thigh.

"You're so beautiful," Frank told him solemnly, and then he was sucking in Gerard's cock with a ridiculously loud slurping noise. Gerard had no complaint, though, moaning and letting his hips push forwards, against Frank's throat. He wondered a bit belatedly if Frank's throat was sore from the choking incident, but the other didn't seem to have any qualms about continuing what he'd started. Gerard was glad - apparently he'd been hard since Frank had bit his neck, though he'd been too lost in thought to really address it.

Now, he couldn't focus on anything else, his gaze fixed on Frank's spit-slick lips and fluttering eyelids, revealing green eyes which locked with Gerard's, making him groan and tip his head back. Too much, too much. Gerard's cock agreed, twitching and swelling against Frank's cheeks when he hollowed them. He pulled off a little, wrapping a hand around it and sucking hard on the tip - even nipping it once or twice - humming and stroking Gerard's belly. Gerard tensed and cried out when he came, and he felt Frank's soothing palms on his skin, calming Gerard as he swallowed and slipped his mouth off, wiping away spit. Frank was half-hard, but it seemed like this morning was more about Gerard than him so far.

When he came back to the world, Frank was back to exploring his lower body, rubbing his thumbs against seemingly random places on Gerard's legs and sides. "What're you doing?" Gerard asked, peering down at him.

"Scars," Frank said, blinking and looking up at him. "You have a lot of scars."

"I. Uh."

"I didn't notice them before, because they're so old but...shit, Gerard, who did this to you?"

"It's not important now," Gerard sighed, looking away and closing his eyes. "It was a long time ago."

"How...how old were you?"

Gerard didn't want to give him an exact number; he knew that would only evoke more questions. "Younger than you," he said.

"How...how much younger than me?"

"A lot. I guess."

"Gerard," Frank murmured, and he looked at him almost sadly, hair falling into his eyes as he leaned down and kissed a scar. Gerard jerked a little in surprise. Frank just kept kissing. Gerard knew there were a lot of them - small and faded as they were - but he didn't realize exactly how many until now. Frank just kept finding more and more, making soft sounds and kissing and stroking. The scars extended down his legs, here and there, and Frank nudged him over onto his stomach, so that he could find a new collection on his back. There were only a few there, but they were long and more visible. Gerard remembered seeing them when they'd first formed - turning and staring at his bare back and ass in a mirror, biting his lip and trying not to cry when he saw the angry red lines and recalled what had caused them. Who had caused them.

Frank was quiet, and Gerard knew he was staring at the marks. He wouldn't have to guess hard to know what had caused them, especially considering that Gerard had used something similar on him - though nowhere near as harshly. "Gerard," he finally said, "were you...were you w-"

"Don't say it," Gerard said harshly, rolling onto his back so that they were hidden again.

"But-"

"Don't. It was a long time ago, I told you that. Okay?" Gerard looked at him, wanting, needing for him to understand that Gerard didn't want to talk about this, not ever.

Finally, Frank nodded. "Okay. I...okay, Gerard." He looked a little crestfallen, but he understood...he did. Gerard knew he would.

"Spare a kiss?" Gerard asked, raising an eyebrow and making grabby hands, and Frank laughed a little and complied, meeting him halfway with a collision of smooth lips and mouths. A few more minutes of that and Gerard could definitely feel Frank fully hard and rutting against his hip with increasing insistence. "Your turn?" Gerard suggested, and Frank whined, nodding and bucking enthusiastically when Gerard started jerking him off, slowly and then faster. It was different than it usually was, with Frank squirming on top of him instead of underneath, but Gerard didn't mind.

As long as he had Frank, he really didn't mind at all.