"You know what it is," Frank said, watching Luke prep his needle. "What it is, is that God hates me."

"God gave you food poisoning?"

Frank shrugged, and felt the cracked leather of the chair scraping through his shirt. "Why not?"

Luke rolled his stool closer to Frank and shifted his cigarette over to the other side of his mouth without touching it, a weird, practiced little movement that made his grey-stubbled chin ripple. "Maybe he has more important shit to do than curse your guts, you ever think of that?"

"He's got more important shit to do than taking care of my fucking life, that's for damn sure."

The food poisoning, as Frank had already explained to Luke, was just the start of it. If he hadn't had food poisoning, he wouldn't have had to take time off work, and he wouldn't have gotten two messages from Brian talking about how disappointed he was that Frank hadn't taken their discussion about his absenteeism seriously, and he wouldn't have forced himself back into work early, and he wouldn't have had to run off in the middle of piercing Darren Haywood's scrotum to throw up, and Darren Haywood's lawyers wouldn't have sent Brian a nice letter to say they were being slapped with a lawsuit because Darren Haywood's pierced scrotum had ballooned with infection and was apparently leaking pus.

"I mean, I washed my fucking hands," Frank said now, watching Luke wipe alcohol over the back of Frank's hand. "I wasn't piercing the guy's balls with my tongue, you know what I'm saying?"

Luke nodded. Ash dropped onto the floor, some of it getting caught in Luke's raggy long hair. "I hear you, brother."

"Anyway, today I kind of lost my shit at work." Luke turned on the light over the chair and Frank closed his eyes against it. Luke's hand covered his own and rested there for a second, an odd, intimate gesture that felt kind of weird but sort of comforting at the same time. "Brian was on my case again, and I fucking love that place, you know, I put my heart and fucking soul into it, and he thinks I'm faking to get out of work. I mean, the fucker knew I had shitty health when he hired me, I don't know what the fuck he wants me to do."

Luke hummed, and Frank felt the wet nib of a Sharpie start to trace over his knuckles.

"So answer me this," Luke said as he drew. "If you work in the business, what the fuck are you doing out here getting a tattoo from a stranger? Your boys won't be pissed you went looking outside the fold?"

Frank had thought about that, when he found himself standing outside Luke's shop, staring in through the window and already feeling the phantom pain of the needle in his skin. Bob hated it when his clients went elsewhere, Frank knew, and this probably wouldn't do anything to help Frank's Get Bob to Teach me to Tattoo campaign, which was mostly him asking Bob over and over and over to teach him, and Bob putting him off. This was just going to earn him a lecture about not understanding the sanctity of the relationship between artist and client, Frank could tell, but he'd come home from work, still sore from his dressing-down from Brian, and yet another brush-off from Bob, and found his door broken down and his guitar and TV fucking gone, and worst of all, Ella was missing and probably dead under a bus somewhere.

Luke narrowed his eyes. "Ella?"

"My dog," Frank clarified. "So I went looking for her, and I thought I saw her so I left my car on the corner and went looking in this fucking alleyway, you know the kind you see on TV with the dumpsters and the dead end and probably a fucking corpse hidden under all the trash bags?" Frank shifted in the chair.

"Don't move," Luke told him, the Sharpie still moving over Frank's hand.

"Sorry," said Frank. "Anyway there was no dog, I don't know what the fuck I thought I saw, but when I came back my fucking car was getting towed, so I had to fucking walk and I don't know this neighborhood anyway, and I found myself outside this place, and I just thought, I don't know. Tattoos make me feel better."

That wasn't the whole truth. Frank had been trudging down the street with his useless wet collar pulled up tight around his face, his mind a constant loop of Brian's disappointed face and Ella, dead under a variety of vehicles, and the letter he'd gotten from Medicaid explaining why they couldn't help him, again, and his Mom's offer for him to move back home until he got himself back on his feet, and all of a sudden he'd looked up and seen the words, outlined in flickering, buzzing neon like a sleazy sign from above: TATTOO.

And she'd been right there in the window, on a piece of yellowing paper tacked up high in the corner, getting drowned out by all the Celtic symbols and sexy she-devils, her blank face and soft feathers so different from anything Frank had ever seen, and Frank had thought, I know you and felt a tug in his belly, like a fishhook embedded under his navel, a pull towards the surface, and he was stepping through the door before he even knew what he was doing.

He didn't want to tell Luke that, though. He'd already spilled his guts to the guy. It was so weird - Frank was a chatterbox, there was no doubt about it, but he didn't usually go around laying his shitty weeks out for total strangers to see.

And he felt at home in tattoo parlors, he always had. The smell, that sharp, wet scent of ink, and the way the pictures on the wall and ceilings made it seem smaller than it was, a bolt hole, cozy somehow. This old guy, grey and torn-looking like he'd come from a long fight, had ambled out from the back of the shop in a leather fucking vest, of all things, work all up and down his arms and across the sliver of chest Frank could see, and the guy had a weird way of looking at you, like he was seeing something you were trying to keep a secret.

"I want the girl with the wings," Frank said, shifting on his feet, suddenly aware of the wet footprints he was leaving all over the guy's floor. And as if blurting that out wasn't weird enough, he'd then found himself volunteering, "I'm Frank. I don't have an appointment."

There was a silence, during which Frank had time to get hold of his senses a little and start to stutter out something about a mistake and needing directions, but then the guy had just held out his hand, though, and said, "Luke. Come on over, brother, I can see you right."

Back in the present, Frank felt Luke's hand on him again, this time sweeping from his elbow to his wrist. His fingers were rough and his palm was warm, and there was a strange smell in the air, like the smell of dirt under a wet rock, and Frank wanted to open his eyes, he should check the outline Luke had drawn, make sure it was right, but Luke said, "Easy, easy, it'll go better if you're quiet," and that was the last thing Frank knew for a while.

When he woke up - woke up, who the hell fell asleep during a tattoo? Frank was comfortable with the process, but it was still a fucking needle in his flesh - Luke was wiping Frank's throbbing hand off with a rag.

"Shit," Frank said thickly, struggling with his sleep-stupid tongue. "Fuck, man, I'm sorry. That never happened to me before."

Luke laughed, a hoarse creak that didn't sound like it got that many outings. "Don't worry about it. You want to check her out?"

"Yeah, shit." Frank got upright and leaned over his hand. "Oh, dude. She's beautiful."

It was the wings Frank had liked, her tattered wings, one out to each side and two stretched out above her head. Two more twined downwards, like legs - she was like a woman, Frank thought, a woman laying back on a bed before - no, after sex, everything on display except there was no body, just the wings, just the wings and her face, which was sad somehow, despite not actually having any features, sad and beautiful.

She was just as good as she'd looked in the window. Better, because now she was Frank's.

***

"You got a tattoo from a stranger?" Bob was holding Frank's hand and staring at it like the Virgin Mary had just appeared on it or some fucking thing. "What the fuck, Iero, we're not good enough for you anymore?"

Frank rolled his eyes. "Look at her, dude, she's amazing."

"I don't know." Mikey was leaning over Bob's shoulder, peering at Frank's hand where Bob had lifted the wrap. "It's kind of creepy, don't you think?"

"Totally creepy," Ray confirmed over Bob's other shoulder. "Since when are you into chicks, anyway?"

"Fuck you, don't you have hair to cut?" Frank pulled his hand back and cradled it against his chest. He pressed the wrap back down and smoothed it gently over her face. "She's awesome."

"I feel like I've seen that somewhere before," Mikey said, touching his fingertips to Frank's wrist. "Not a tattoo, like…art, or something."

"See," Frank told Ray. "Art."

"What the fuck is that shit you got smeared all over it?" Bob wrinkled his nose. "Smells like my Grandma."

It wasn't the usual goo Frank used - Luke had given it to him in an unmarked jar and said, "Promise me you'll put it on three times a day and you can have it free of charge."

"It's homemade," Frank said to Bob.

Bob stared at him. "It's homemade? Fuck, Iero, that shit could have anything in it, what the fuck."

"It's just herbs and shit, Jesus." Frank was getting pissy, he knew, and he was using the tone of voice most likely to earn him a slap on the back of the head from Bob, but he didn't care. He knew accepting the gunk from Luke was weird, he knew the whole thing was weird. He didn't need people to point it out.

"Why are you even dropping money on new ink when your car's been towed, man?" Ray looked up from his customer's head and pointed his scissors at Frank in the mirror. "You know you have to pay to get it back."

"I can't afford it anyway," Frank replied. Brian was on the phone in the back room, but Frank could see him throwing disapproving glances his way. Frank moved back over to the door to his room in a way he hoped made it look like he was doing some actual work. "You know they charge you like an extra sixty bucks every day your car stays there? Forget it, man, my car's gone. I can just barely afford to eat this month."

"You could ask Brian to front you some cash until payday," Ray suggested. Frank gave him a Look. Ray sighed. "Yeah, I know."

"You ought to sue his ass for discrimination," Bob commented. "It's not your fault you're a wilting lilac."

"Man, shut the fuck up." Frank shook his head, but smiled despite himself. "Whatever, you know? C'est la vie. Hey, are you gonna teach me to use that thing today?"

Bob turned his needle over thoughtfully in his hands. "Maybe tomorrow."

"Tomorrow never comes," Frank sighed, but he tried not to sound too sulky about it because he knew Bob was just hazing him. It had only been a few months - if he kept on asking Bob would have to give in eventually. It was just a matter of time. "It's okay, buddy. I can wait."

Ray stared at him. "Seriously, did you put Ritalin on your cornflakes this morning? What happened to 'If Bob doesn't teach me to tattoo right this minute I will die'?"

"Your two o' clock tongue is here," Mikey said then.

Mikey had this weird thing where he never wrote anything down, but he always knew when any one of them had an appointment. Frank gestured to the nervous-looking girl and her two giggly friends standing by the door. She'd probably look a lot more nervous if she knew Frank was getting sued for infecting a guy's balls.

The girl talked a lot, which would have been fine if Frank hadn't been trying to pierce her talking apparatus, and her friends kept interjecting loudly, and in the end Frank had to send them back out to the main room.

His hand throbbed steadily while he was working, but nothing out of the ordinary, and Frank kept looking down at his new ink and just…feeling pleased, calm, the way he'd felt since he'd walked out of Luke's shop the night before. Things didn't seem so bad all of a sudden - his dog would probably get picked up, he could make some fliers after work, and he didn't ever really have time to play his guitar anyway, and TV was all bullshit, and even Brian's umpteenth hissyfit that morning - this time over Frank getting new ink on his hand, where all the customers could see the bandages - didn't seem so terrible.

The tongue girl didn't seem to care anyway, swinging her feet happily from her perch on the end of the padded bench. She stared up at Frank as he told her to take a deep breath in, and then out as he pushed the needle through. She was good, she didn't cringe or try to pull her tongue back when Frank was screwing the ball on, and she went off with her friends happy.

Later, Frank got lunch with Mikey and they had a seriously enjoyable gossip session about the chick who'd been dancing on a table at the club they were at last weekend with not a stitch of underwear on under her pretence of a skirt, and when Frank got home he felt more or less okay.

He had something of a routine on the nights when Mikey didn't drag him along to the latest this or the newly-opened that. Get home, feed Ella, feed himself, walk Ella, call his Mom, play his guitar/watch TV/jerk off, go to sleep. He didn't have a TV or a guitar or an Ella anymore, though.

He sat on the edge of the bed for a minute, feeling the spaces where she ought to be; her little claws clicking on the tile floor, her wet nose pressing against his hand, her impatient, whuffing commentary on his every move if he dared to take a piss and light a cigarette before feeding her.

He'd only rescued her a couple months ago. His heart hurt.

He decided to be proactive - he made a flier with a picture of her stupid dopey face and the words 'PLEASE COME HOME :(' and his details underneath, and walked the six million blocks to Kinko's to get it copied. On the way back he stuck a flier on every streetlight, tree and empty patch of wall he could find, and by the time he got back his wrists were aching weirdly, probably from the cold outside, from the damp and putting too much pressure on his good hand, holding his newly-inked one strangely to protect it.

Frank didn't really think about it, but when he woke up the next morning they were still sore.

He checked his hand out while he was rubbing his wrists under the hot spray of the shower - the work really was beautiful, he thought, intricate and bold. It wasn't like anything Frank had seen before. He dressed and worked the goo Luke had given him over his hand, spreading it carefully over the slightly raised lines. He had a little more redness than he usually did after getting inked, he thought, but otherwise it looked like it was going to scab up nicely.

The goo seemed to ease the throb in his hand, numb it or cool it or something, and after a minute of deliberation Frank rubbed some into his wrists, too. It helped more than the Advil he'd taken before his shower.

When he got to work, Bob hustled him immediately into the corner and said, "Don't fuck up today, Frank."

"Nice," Frank said, shrugging off his jacket. "Good morning to you too."

"I mean it." Bob looked over his shoulder - Frank didn't know what for, because nobody was around yet except Mikey, and he wasn't listening, he was reading a magazine article over the phone to someone. "Look, I didn't want to say anything, but you've given me no choice, running off to get inked by a fucking stranger like that."

"What do you mean?"

"I want to start training you up by the end of the month," Bob said.

Frank smacked Bob's shoulder. "Don't shit me, motherfucker."

"I'm not," Bob said, rolling his eyes. "But Brian already thinks you're unreliable as fuck, okay, he's watching you."

"You're serious about training me?" Frank grabbed Bob's hand in his good one and squeezed hard. "Dude, that's awesome, oh my God!"

Bob rolled his eyes again, but in the pleased way this time. "Yeah, well. Don't make me look like an idiot, okay; I had to spin all this shit to Brian about your passion and determination, whatever, and fucking, fucking commitment. Don't make me a liar."

"I won't," Frank promised. He waited for Bob to turn away and then latched on immediately to his shoulders, hauling himself up to kiss Bob's ear. "You're the best, Bob Bryar."

Bob grunted and shook him off.

Frank spun in a little circle, and then danced over to Mikey to share the good news.

"Me too," Mikey said, holding one long finger up to Frank. He laughed into the phone and said, "All right, I can't wait to see you. You too. Bye."

He hung up and looked at Frank. "Well," he said. What he meant was, "Well?" but it didn't always come out right, with Mikey.

"Who was that on the phone?" Frank asked, but then decided he didn't care. "Dude, Bob said he's going to start training me!"

"I know," Mikey said, slithering off the counter and making a beeline for the coffee machine.

"You know everything," Frank complained, following him. Mikey futzed with the machine while Frank hopped impatiently behind him. "Come on, don't fucking stonewall me."

Mikey shook his head and turned around, tucking his hands behind him to lean against the counter. "I just know you gotta keep your nose clean, bro. Brian's pretty pissed about all the time off. And this lawsuit thing isn't helping."

Frank threw his hands up. "What the fuck - Mikey, that piercing was a work of fucking art, okay. The fucker barely bled, I disinfected the shit out of everything just like always, there's no way it was my fault."

Mikey nodded slowly. "And you're sure you didn't-"

"I didn't," Frank interrupted him loudly, speaking slowly just to make sure, "I didn't fucking breach. What am I, an amateur here? I've pierced like a hundred ball-bags, I know what I'm fucking doing. I could pierce yours right now with my eyes closed."

Mikey made a face. "Please don't try."

Frank was booked solid all morning - fucking ears after noses after eyebrows after ears, boring as hell, and by lunch his wrists were fucking killing him. He was in the back room downing a handful of Tylenol when Brian walked in.

"Don't," Brian said, looking at the bottle in Frank's hand. "Don't fucking tell me you're sick again."

"No, just a headache," Frank lied. He washed the pills down with orange juice and plastered on a big smile for Brian. "How's your day going, man?"

"It'd be going better if I hadn't spent the morning talking to a lawyer." Brian dumped his stuff onto the table and slumped in the chair behind it. He rubbed his hands over his face and looked up at Frank, his fingers pulling on the skin under his eyes and making him look tired and drawn. "Frank, I gotta ask."

"No, Brian." Frank sat down in the chair opposite. He managed to speak without gritting his teeth, but he couldn't stop his hands from balling into fists inside the picket of his hoodie. "I definitely am not to blame for Darren Haywood's exploding balls. I wasn't to blame the first time you asked, and I'm still not to blame now."

Brian rubbed at his forehead and the bridge of his nose and his chin. His stubble made a raspy sound in the quiet office. "He wants you fired."

Frank didn't say anything. His wrists were throbbing again. He unclenched his fists.

Brian said, "He's claiming you breached the inner scrotum."

Frank uncurled his hands and tried to rub discretely at his wrists. "Oh, for fuck's sake."

"Breaching the inner scrotum carries serious risks, Frank," Brian went on. "Infections can travel into the stomach, the testicles can necrotize-"

"You can end up a fucking eunuch or die," Frank finished for him. "You don't think I know this shit? Brian, I told him. I told him there were risks, I had him sign the disclaimer, I gave him those fucking printed aftercare instructions you love so much and I didn't breach the scrotum."

Brian stared steadily back at Frank from across the table. Frank realized he was leaning forward and probably yelling. He took a deep breath and tried to relax.

Eventually Brian said, "Okay."

Frank raised his eyebrows. "What?"

"Okay," Brian repeated. "I believe you. I'm gonna need you to meet with the lawyers to prepare a statement, me and the other guys will make statements backing you up, and Frank - this is important - you must not have any contact with Darren Haywood, okay?"

"Aw, but we were gonna spend the weekend in Vermont!" Frank rolled his eyes. "Jesus, if I never see that guy or his balls again it'll be too soon."

"I mean it, Frank," Brian cut him off, his voice sharp. "Don't speak to him, don't go looking for him, don't engage him if he comes looking for you, don't even look at him. Are we clear?"

"Guess that nixes my plans to show him what a breached scrotum really feels like," Frank muttered, and then jumped like nine feet in the air when Brian slammed both fists down on the table.

"God dammit, Frank!" he yelled, actually yelled, like Frank was a little kid or something. "This shop is my fucking world, do you understand that? They could take it away! They could shut us down! Do you ever think about that? Do you ever think about anyone else for one fucking second?"

"I-"

"What about me and Ray and Bob? What about Mikey?" Brian railed, clearly getting into the swing of it. "Do you think anyone else is gonna hire him to sit around on his cell phone all day? Do you think anyone else is gonna understand that he's fucking, fucking magic or whatever the fuck it is he does to get people to come through the doors? You wanna see him lose his job too?"

"I'm sorry," Frank said, startled.

"Don't be sorry, be better," Brian insisted. "You got a perfect record, Frank; I've never known you to fuck up with a needle - that better still be the case when this shit gets into court. You come to work every day, you keep your nose clean, you help little old ladies across the street, you keep the noise down in your apartment, you get a fucking crew cut if you need to, you're a model fucking citizen, do you understand me?"

Frank blinked. "Yes, Brian."

"Good." Now he'd got all the yelling out of his system, Brian seemed to deflate a little. "I really have a lot of time for you, Frank. I don't like being this angry boss guy, c'mon."

"I know," said Frank. He did know. He and Brian had been pretty tight before they'd started working together.

"But you make it really hard sometimes," Brian continued.

"I know," Frank repeated. His wrists were going crazy, this weird, throbbing ache that sent little shooting pains up the backs of his hands. He ignored them and said, "I'm really sorry, Brian. I'll be better."

Brian looked at him tiredly. "I yell at you a lot, huh."

Frank shrugged. "I guess I deserve it."

"Fuck." Brian rolled his shoulders and looked up at the ceiling, saying something to himself that Frank couldn't make out. "All right, get back to work."

"Okay," said Frank. He stood up and walked over to the door, then turned back. "Brian - thanks, man. For having my back. It means a lot to me."

Brian made an almost-laugh sound. "Yeah, well. You fuck up again and I'll have your fucking balls, never mind Darren Haywood."

Frank slunk back to his room and sat down on the stool in the corner, trying not to look too dejected and guilt-ridden. Around two nano-seconds went by before Ray was hovering anxiously in the doorway. "What," said Frank.

"He didn't mean it about the crew-cut, right?" Ray said worriedly. He stepped into the room and reached a hand out to smooth over Frank's hair. "Because I really don't think you have the bone structure for it."

Frank laughed and flipped him off. "Fuck you, I have the bone structure of a God."

Ray grinned at him and pulled him up and out into the main room. "C'mon, you need a trim. I got a few minutes before my next customer, right Mikey?"

Mikey turned a page in Cosmo Girl. "Fifteen."

"Awesome." Ray pushed Frank down into the chair and shook out a cape with a snap and a flourish. "Why the fuck does the hair on the back of your head grow so fucking fast, Iero, you wash it in Miracle-Gro?"

It was always soothing, having Ray do his hair. Mikey came in early every morning to be flat-ironed and waxed and primped and pampered, which - seriously, Frank loved Toro, but he loved his sleep more. Ray was actually really good, though, like he could have been working in one of the expensive salons in the city, no problem, but he said he wasn't interested in doing the same three haircuts all day, and anyway, the girls in those salons scared him.

"I mean, why are they orange?" he said now, when Frank reminded him of it. "It's not right. And they make you shill all that crappy designer hair shit, no thanks."

Ray felt about hair products the way Frank felt about food - as few animal products and as much 'shit from the Earth' as possible. He only used his own range of weird homemade hippy potions that were all named after Iron Maiden songs. The kids were crazy for it; Brian was trying to get it all okayed by some Board or another so they could sell it in the shop.

He finished buzzing the back of Frank's neck and stood up, kicking his wheeled stool off to the side. "You still thinking about growing it out?" he asked, pumping the pedal at the base of the chair to raise Frank higher.

"I don't know." Frank looked at his face in the mirror, considering. Behind him he could see Mikey staring out of the window, ignoring the ringing shop phone. He couldn't see Bob, but he could hear his needle buzzing. "Maybe."

"Just as long as those dreads remain a thing of the past," Ray said darkly. He snipped away a little, tilting Frank's head this way and that with the tips of his fingers. "Hey, what's up with your hands, man?"

"What?"

Ray nodded downwards. "Either you're in pain or you're really, really, really not."

Frank looked down at his lap and realized he was rubbing his wrists again, the back and forth motion making the cape covering his arms billow rhythmically in a decidedly sketchy way. "Oh," he said, and giggled. "Yeah, my wrists are fucking sore, I don't even know."

"You want a massage?" said Ray sympathetically. The year before, Brian had made Ray take an Indian Head Massage course and Ray now thought of himself as a master.

Frank shook his head. "No, man, but thanks."

"All right." Ray put his scissors down and rummaged in the bin by the chair. "This is new," he said, displaying a tub of what looked like spackle to Frank. "I'm calling it Charlotte the Harlot."

Frank closed his eyes as Ray worked the Charlotte stuff into his hair. "Fuck, that smells amazing."

"I know, right?" Ray plucked fussily at the short hair by Frank's temples and ran his fingers through Frank's bangs, making them do this twisty thing Frank could never, ever replicate at home even though he did exactly what Ray did. "Better than that shit you're putting on your tattoo. I'm all for avoiding synthetics, Frank, but if you wanted something herbal, you know, you could have come to me."

"I know," Frank said, looking away guiltily. "I just didn't think."

Ray was just taking Frank's cape off when Mikey gave a sudden squawk, launched himself off the counter and ran out of the door.

"The hell," said Bob, looking up.

Mikey returned a minute later, tangled up with a dark-haired dude in a long black coat and like nine scarves. "Motherfucker," he was saying with his mouth mashed up against the dude's cheek. "Don't you ever leave me for that long again."

The dude laughed and hugged Mikey closer. "I missed you too."

They stood there cuddling and giggling for like, a hundred years. Frank raised his eyebrows at Ray in the mirror, but Ray wasn't looking, he was exchanging boggled expressions with Bob. Eventually Brian, who had slipped out of the back room at some point, cleared his throat and said, "Mikey, I like to think of myself as being pretty, uh, relaxed when it comes to your workday schedule, but I really think some things are best confined to the -"

"Oh," Mikey said, disentangling himself finally. "Gee, this is my boss, Brian, and that's Bob, and Ray, and Frank," he pointed to each of them in turn, then slung his arm back around the dude's neck. "Guys, this is my big brother Gerard."

"Hello," said Gerard, waving shyly.

"I don't hang on my brothers like that," Ray murmured to Frank as he got up from the chair.

"For real," Frank agreed, even though he didn't have any brothers. He offered Gerard his best smile and his hand to shake. "Hey, man, good to meet you. Mikey's told us exactly nothing about you."

Gerard smiled back and started to say something, but then stopped and took Frank's hand.

There was a sudden, marked, blessed drop in the pain in Frank's wrists. It was all Frank could do not to yelp out loud, it was so sudden.

Gerard turned Frank's hand over and bent down to inspect the back of it. "Interesting tattoo."

"Thanks!" Frank said, shooting Bob a look that said see?. Brian and Bob both rolled their eyes. "I just got her a couple days ago."

"Do you know what it is?"

"Um," said Frank. Gerard's hands were really warm, and the longer he touched Frank, the less Frank's wrists hurt. It was - it couldn't be real, Frank thought, it must be a brain trick of some kind, serotonin from sexual attraction distracting him or something. Gerard was pretty cute, after all. "An angel?"

"It's a seraph," Gerard said, looking up at Frank from under his bangs. "One of the seraphim, the highest choir of angels."

"I knew I'd seen it somewhere before," Mikey said. "Gee, c'mon, let me show you around."

"Okay," Gerard said. He straightened up, waited for a second, then said, "Uh."

"Oh!" Frank let go of his hand - fucking hell - and stepped back, laughing. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Gerard said, smiling again.

Frank's stomach flipped right over, and the pain flooded back into his wrists.

Mikey dragged his brother off to the other side of the shop, and Ray looked down at Frank's hand, frowning.

"Dude, that's so weird." Ray looked at Bob and said, "Yo, come check this out."

"What?" Frank looked down at his hand, too. "Oh."

"It's healed," Bob said, holding Frank's hand up and inspecting it. "It's - how can it be healed?"

"It can't be," Frank said. "I just got it, like - it can't be. It didn't even scab yet."

Bob ran his palm over the tattoo, frowning. "What the fuck is in that shit you're putting on it, Frank?"

Frank shook his head, trying not to flinch or wince at the pain every time Bob turned his hand over or back again. "I don't know. It wasn't healed this morning."

Bob raised his eyebrows.

"It wasn't!" Frank pulled his hand away and hid it behind his back, like that would make it less weird. "Maybe he used a special needle, I don't know!"

"A special needle," Ray said flatly. Frank gave him the finger with his free hand.

Bob was still frowning. "This is too weird."

"What's weird is a tattoo artist with no ink," Frank shot back. "You're a freak of nature, Bryar, don't go pointing fingers."

He went back to his room, vaguely aware of Mikey saying his brother was leaving. Frank was too busy staring at his hand to say goodbye.

It couldn't be healed already. It couldn't.

But it was.

***

By the next day, the pain was unbearable. Even repeated applications of the stuff Luke gave him weren't touching it, and Frank finally had to admit defeat after his last appointment when a spasm almost caused him to pierce some poor dude's skull during a routine industrial.

"Jesus," Frank groaned, curled up in a chair in the back room, both hands held close to his chest. "Fuck, fuck, what the fuck is it now?"

Brian stood in the corner of the room, watching Frank with his arms folded and his mouth all pinched up like he'd eaten an entire bag of lemons. "You're fucking kidding me, Frank, right?"

Frank opened his mouth to tell Brian to fuck off, but then another wave of pain went shooting through his wrists and all that came out was a moan.

"I don't think he's faking, Brian." Ray was crouched next to the chair, one hand rubbing Frank's knee. "I think he needs a doctor."

Frank banged his head against the back of the chair. "I fucking hate the free clinic, man."

Brian frowned. "Why can't you just-"

"They refused his Medicaid again," Bob said quietly from the corner.

Brian, who Frank knew wanted to offer them benefits but just hadn't figured out a way to afford it yet, let his face shift minutely away from rage and towards guilt. "Oh."

Frank closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing and not throwing up from the pain. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

"I'll drive you," Bob said.

Mikey rode along and Bob dropped them off - he offered to cancel his afternoon appointment but Mikey said, "No, the guy's leaving for Africa next week and you're booked solid."

"You need anything?" he asked, when he'd filled in Frank's forms for him and they were getting settled in amongst the drunks and the bums for the inevitable year-long wait.

"Your brother," Frank said without thinking, and then wanted to bite out his own tongue. What the fuck was he supposed to say next, 'your brother's hands have magical healing qualities and if my wrists don't stop hurting soon I'm going to break down and cry?'

Mikey didn't even look surprised. He just sighed and said, "Dude, there's something you need to know about Gerard. He's-"

"Jesus Christ," said a voice, and Frank looked up to see a familiar face staring down at him with an equally familiar look of exasperation. "Frank, what the fuck, I thought we agreed I wouldn't have to see your face for at least a month?"

Frank smiled weakly. "Hi, Doctor Durning."

Durning rolled his eyes and gestured at Frank. "Come on, asshole, let's make this quick. There are other people in this state need medical care, you know."

"I missed you, what can I say?" Frank waited for Mikey to gather their things, then followed Durning off to one of the treatment rooms on the side.

Durning motioned at Frank to hop up onto the examining table and snapped on a pair of gloves. "What is it this time, the aliens in your sinuses or the cave trolls in your stomach?"

"Uh." Frank shot Mikey a look, but Mikey just looked intrigued. "Neither, actually. It's - my wrists hurt."

Durning rolled his stool over to sit in front of Frank and clicked on the overhead light. "'Jerkoff marathon' hurt or 'nanobots mining you for calcium' hurt?"

"Nanobots with napalm," Frank told him. He gritted his teeth and looked away when Durning took his hands and gently extended his forearms. "It started two days ago."

"Any trauma you know of? Throw yourself off any buildings?"

Frank rolled his eyes, and then hissed when Durning pressed his thumb against his veins. "Motherfucker, that was only one time, okay, you have to let that shit - fuck me that hurts - go."

"He got a new tattoo on his hand," Mikey piped up from the corner, ignoring the glare Frank threw him. "He's been rubbing this weird crap on his skin."

Durning gave Frank a hard look, then turned to Mikey. "You bring it?"

"Yeah." Mikey dug it out of Frank's bag and threw it to Durning. "Also his dog ran away, his apartment was broken into and he might have made a guy's balls turn black and drop off."

"Mikey!" Frank yelped. "I will fuck you up."

Mikey looked unperturbed. "Stress can manifest in strange ways," he said knowingly.

Durning sniffed the ointment and made a face. "Smells like my Grandma."

"That's what Bob said," Mikey told him.

Durning waved the tub at Frank. "Who gave you this?"

"It's just for my tattoo," Frank said, his fingers twitching with the urge to snatch the tub back. "The guy who inked me made it."

"You know the guy?" Durning asked Mikey.

"Nobody does," Mikey shook his head. "Bob was mad."

"Who's Bob?"

"Our tattoo artist." Mikey shot Frank a wounded little look. "We're not supposed to go to anyone else, let alone a stranger."

"Frank." Durning shook his head. "You have the immune system of a blueberry muffin, man, it's bad enough you stick shit under your skin and through your nose and God only knows where else, but now you're slathering on some concoction made by some skank you don't even know?"

"It's just herbs," Frank gritted out.

"You don't know what it is." Durning took a Q-tip and dipped it into the goo, then screwed it into a sterile container. "I'll see if I can swing a favor in the lab, get this tested. Plants can be really dangerous, Frank."

Frank rolled his eyes. "I don't need a botanist, doc, I need some fucking painkillers."

"Your wrists aren't even swollen," Durning said, standing up. He snapped off his gloves. "Try warm or cold compresses, rest and elevation, Tylenol."

"Tylenol don't do shit," Frank said, scrambling off the table. "I need something stronger. Vicodin, whatever, Oxy-"

"OxyContin?" Durning folded his arms. "You think I'm gonna write you a scrip for OxyfuckingContin because you give me the big eyes? I've been working here fourteen years, Frank, I'm not some fucking green intern."

"And I'm not some fucking junkie!" Frank snapped. "I can't work like this, man, come on."

Durning shrugged. "Your friend said you were under stress, why don't you take a few days off, get some rest."

"I'll lose my fucking job!" Frank darted around Durning when he turned to leave, blocking the door. "Man, do you think I would be here in this shithole if I could afford to take time off? You know me, Durning, please!"

His voice cracked on the please and he looked down, hot and embarrassed. The room was silent except for the hum of the fluorescent light. Frank could see Mikey's feet on the floor, toes turned in.

"Two days' worth," Durning said finally. "Vicodin, not Oxy. That's the best I can do."

"Thank you," said Frank resisting the urge to hug Durning. "Thank you."

"Stop putting that crap on your wrists," Durning ordered as he left. "And I don't want to see you for two months this time, got it?"

"Got it," said Frank.

Mikey kept hold of the pills until they were back in Frank's apartment, not letting Frank take one until he was settled in bed. "It would have worn off otherwise.".

Mikey went to the bathroom, then made a phone call in the other room. By the time he came back the Vicodin was starting to work, blurring the edges of the throb under Frank's skin. Frank waited for Mikey to get under the covers, then shifted closer, rolling onto his stomach.

Mikey pushed Frank's hair out of his face, then tucked his skinny arm around Frank's shoulders. "You okay?"

"I don't know," Frank said. Mikey hummed and rubbed Frank's back a little. "Brian's gonna yell."

"He won't yell," Mikey mumbled. "Bob was really worried. Brian won't yell."

"He'll yell," Frank insisted. "He'll yell in front of everyone and it'll be the worst thing ever."

Mikey touched the back of his neck. "You're stoned," he said fondly, drawing his arm back. "Go to sleep."

"Thanks for staying," Frank slurred. "Hey, what did you want to tell me about-"

There was a split second pause between the impact and the pain, like getting hit with something heavy, all the breath knocking out of him and then the air rushed back into his lungs and his back was on fire.

"What the fuck," he choked out, and then he couldn't talk anymore, because he was screaming.

The blows came one after the other, never enough time between them for Frank to get his breath. He could barely breathe anyway - there was something on the back of his head, someone holding him down, he could feel their fingers digging into his scalp, keeping him there, pushing his face deep into the mattress. The pain was like nothing Frank had ever felt before; not coming from inside him but down onto him, heavy and sharp and so big, striking him from shoulders to knees, up and down, again and again and again. He tried to turn over, tried to get enough purchase in the sheets to pull himself away, to get away from it but there was that hand on his head and his wrists were tied, he could feel it now, feel the rope cutting into his flesh whenever he twisted and pulled and tried to get free.

He could hear Mikey, hear him yelling Frank's name and Frank thought, shit, shit, Mikey, get out of here but then another blow fell between his shoulder blades and he felt his skin tear with a bright, wet flash, like being slit open with a knife and peeled.

It didn't stop. It still didn't stop, he was bleeding and they were still beating him, they were going to take off his fucking skin. The pain wasn't like a wave or like anything he'd ever read about, it was just constant, it just went on and on and on, he was drowning in it, it was filling up his nose and ears and mouth and getting inside him, he could feel it everywhere, there was nowhere to go. He tried to call out, tried to beg for them to stop, but his voice was muffled by the mattress and clogged with tears, his throat hoarse from screaming and the noises he could make were lost under these sounds he could hear, these sounds like hundreds of people murmuring to each other.

How can they watch this?, he thought, and then, they hate me, and then a blow fell with a sick, sharp thud right under his ear, and he felt the darkness rushing up to meet him and fell gratefully inside.

When he woke up, it was to Mikey's face, white and tear-stained and striped all down one side with blood.

"Shit," Frank croaked, his throat dry and raw. "Mikey, did they hurt you? Did they hurt you?"

Mikey shook his head. He was holding Frank's hand.

"Are they gone?" Frank managed, carefully not looking at the red sheets under his arm. They were white before.

Mikey shook his head again. His mouth was pressed into a tight, pale line, like he was trying not to throw up or cry out or something.

Frank took a few deep, slow breaths, fighting his own battle not to throw up all over the bed. "Mikey, what is it? Are they still here? Who was it?"

"It wasn't anyone," Mikey said eventually, in a tiny voice Frank could barely hear. "Frankie, it wasn't anyone."

"What do you mean?"

"There was nobody here," Mikey said, his voice cracking. "It was - you were screaming, and you were jerking around everywhere and then, and then you were bleeding, and there was nobody here."

There was silence for a few minutes. The blood in Frank's veins pulsed in time with the hot, sick throb of his back.

"We should call an ambulance," Mikey said, standing up. "We should - shit, Frank, you're going to fucking bleed to death and I'm just fucking sitting here-"

"I'm okay," Frank said. Mikey barked out a laugh. "Really, no, I'm - I think I'm okay."

It was the truth. It hurt, yeah, Frank felt like he'd gone up against a giant cheese grater and lost, but it didn't hurt like - like he thought it should. He moved his arms and legs a little, cautiously, and it pulled at his back but wasn't unbearable or anything. "Can you help me get up?"

"I don't think you should move," Mikey said, but he came to Frank anyway, hooked his hands under Frank's armpits and levered him up onto his hands and knees.

Moving was worse, moving made it feel like his skin was held together by cobwebs or something, like it would all rip away and fall apart if he stretched the wrong way. But they went slow, and Mikey helped him, and eventually Frank managed to stand up by the bed, holding on tight to Mikey's forearms.

"Dude, this is fucking sick," Mikey said. "You're hardcore."

Frank laughed a little, holding on tighter when his knees wobbled under him. Mikey walked him to the bathroom, which took a really long time and was not a journey Frank wanted to repeat. He gripped the sink and tried to catch his breath. "Can you take a look?"

Frank braced himself while Mikey peeled his T-shirt away, lifted it over his head and worked it down his arms, muttering apologies whenever Frank hissed and winced. He pulled the waistband of Frank's sweats out as far as it would go and levered them down too, lifting Frank's feet in turn to get him out of them. Frank got a glimpse of shredded, wet fabric and closed his eyes, swallowing against the acid nausea in his throat. "Well?"

Mikey didn't say anything for a second. Frank felt cool fingertips tracing gently over his shoulders, down his spine, a careful touch on the back of his thigh. Then he said, "You're not bleeding."

"What?" Frank tried to turn his head to look and then changed his mind in a hurry when his skin screamed at him. "Mikey, there's blood everywhere."

"I know," Mikey said shortly, "And you're fucked up, dude, you're a - you're a mess, but you're not bleeding. I mean, anymore."

Frank rested his forehead against the mirrored cabinet over the sink. "This is fucked up."

"That too," said Mikey, with feeling.

Mikey helped him into the shower and climbed in with him, still in his shirt and boxers. Frank clung to his hands and bowed his head under the spray - the water stung like a bitch and he had to push his face against Mikey's bony shoulder and concentrate on breathing.

It was sort of Zen after a while, if he kept his eyes on Mikey's soaking socked feet and not the rust-colored water swirling around them into the drain. Mikey kept the spray cool at first, then slowly let it warm up. "Let me take another look," he said, urging Frank around to rest against the wall.

Frank slumped where Mikey put him, pressing his hot face against the cool, wet tile. "Do I even have any skin left for you to look at?"

"Yeah, dude, it's so bizarre." Mikey pressed the flat of his hand against the back of Frank's neck. "I wouldn't believe this if I hadn't - it's mostly healed already."

"It doesn't fucking feel healed," Frank said incredulously. Then he had a dreadful thought and said, "Oh, fucking hell, are my tattoos all fucked up?"

There was a silence.

"Fuck," said Frank, thunking his forehead off the wall.

"Well, at least you're maintaining your sense of perspective," Mikey said dryly, stepping out of the shower. He stripped off his socks. "Hold still, I'll get a towel."

"Not the yellow one, it pills," Frank called after him. He felt strong enough to move by himself, so he stepped gingerly out onto the floor and went to stand in front of the sink again. "Mikey, can you bring the mirror from the other room?"

Mikey came back with the mirror and two pink towels. "Dude," he said doubtfully when he saw where Frank was standing, "I don't know if you should-"

"I want to see," Frank interrupted him. "Hold it up."

Mikey hesitated for a second, then rolled his eyes and held the mirror up in front of Frank, so Frank could see his back reflected in the bathroom cabinet.

"Oh," said Frank. "Oh, shit."

It wasn't as bad as he'd been expecting - he didn't know what that was, exactly, but it had felt like he was being flayed down to the bone, so he didn't expect the marks to be so slender, the skin knitted roughly back together with long, skinny, livid scabs, each one raised and red around the edges, like someone had thumbed a wide stripe of blush over the top. His 'Keep the Faith' was illegible, the pumpkin looked like someone had gone at it with a hacksaw (with a fucking whip laughed a nasty, hysterical little voice in Frank's mind) and the marks clawed their way down over his ass and thighs, too, the lowest tailing off before the crease of his knees.

But he wasn't bleeding. The wounds weren't open. He really was mostly healed.

"It's like your tattoo," Mikey said softly, putting the mirror down and handing Frank a towel to wrap around his waist. "The tattoo on your hand."

It was only then that Frank realized the pain in his wrists had completely disappeared.

The bedroom was a fucking mess. The sheets were ruined, stained a dirty, deep orange-red, and more blood was smeared over the floor and spattered over the wall.

"How are you not dead?" Mikey said, and then snapped his mouth shut when Frank raised his eyebrows. "I didn't mean - it's just there's so much. It looks like, well…"

"Like somebody bled to death," Frank finished dully. He felt exhausted suddenly, too tired to think about what had happened, about the pain, how it had felt, that awful certainty that he was hated and nobody would help him. "I need to sleep."

"The guy from the apartment across the hall came over before," said Mikey, going to Frank's closet and opening it. "He heard you screaming. I told him we were watching a movie."

Frank dropped his towel on the floor and let Mikey help him into sweats and a soft T-shirt he usually only wore to sleep in. "Some fucking movie."

"Yeah." Mikey moved around, getting more clothes and putting them in Frank's backpack. He dropped his own wet shirt on the floor and put on a pair of Frank's jeans, which were way too big and hilariously short on him, and his own hoodie. "Come on, you can sleep at my place."

***

Work the next day was pretty much hell. Frank's back didn't hurt any worse than, say, a new tattoo would, but there was a reason you didn't get tattooed from your shoulders to your knees all in one go. Frank knew he was moving weirdly, but he just ignored Ray and Bob's questioning glances and kept his head down.

"You shouldn't fucking be here," Mikey said in his ear at one point.

"What was I supposed to say?" Frank snapped on a fresh pair of gloves. "Sorry Brian, I can't make it in today, last night I got held down and whipped by an invisible sadist?"

"I'd back you up," Mikey shrugged.

Frank snorted and shook his head. "I appreciate that, man, but-"

"Frank!" Brian appeared from nowhere and smiled. "You're here!"

Frank avoided Mikey's eyes. "I'm here."

"Your wrists are okay?"

"Yeah, they don't hurt at all," Frank said, which wasn't a lie.

"Awesome, man." Brian beamed at him and slapped his shoulder on his way out of the back room.

Frank bit down so hard on his tongue to keep from crying out that he tasted blood.

"Shit." Mikey ran over and dug in Frank's bag until he found the Vicodin. "Here," he said, shaking out a pill. "Take this, come on."

Frank swallowed it dry and leaned heavily on Mikey for a minute. "Great, now I'm gonna be piercing stoned."

"Better than writhing in agony," Mikey said.

"What the fuck is going on?" Ray whispered, sidling in. "Shit, Frankie, are you okay?"

Frank shook his head. "It's nothing."

"It's not fucking nothing, you're green." Ray folded his arms and looked hard at Mikey. "What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing," Mikey repeated, his eyes darting around shiftily. The phone rang then and Mikey practically raced to answer it.

"Okay," said Ray, watching him. "Now I know something's going on. Mikey hasn't answered the shop phone in two months." Ray turned back to face Frank and wrinkled his forehead anxiously. "What really happened at the clinic?"

"Ray, forget it." Frank walked out in the main room and beckoned to the kid with a mohawk sitting by the door reading Home and Garden. "Hey, man, you wanna come on over?"

Ray stepped back to let the kid through. "You know, most people tell their hairdresser everything."

Frank rolled his eyes.

"We're taking you out after work," Ray said, leaning in the doorway. "Me and Bob and Mikey. To get shitfaced, okay?"

Frank said fervently, "So very, very okay," and got down to business putting a hole through Mohawk Kid's lip.

***

The club they went to was noisy and dark and Frank had drunk enough at the bar beforehand not to care about the fact that his shoes stuck to the floor. It didn't matter. He had the best friends in the world and his back didn't even hurt anymore, and through the haze of booze and loud music it felt like the whole haunted whipping thing had been a really disturbing dream.

"Going out with you is like Goodfellas," he yelled in Mikey's ear after the doorman had given Mikey some complicated handshake and waved them all through free of charge. "You know, the part where Ray Liotta says he's in construction."

"You shouldn't even be here," Mikey yelled back. "What if you start bleeding through your shirt, or the…the thing from last night happens again?"

Frank waved him off. It felt really good to be out, to be dancing and laughing and doing normal stuff, the stuff he should be doing, not worrying about infected scrotums and fucked-up wrists and angry, violent ghosts. Frank danced with a girl who had a flower painted on the side of her face, and a boy with those grafted-on fangs that Frank thought were stupid and kind of hot in equal measure. A few more scary blue drinks and he was on the fucking podium with one of the club's dancing girls making an idiot out of himself, but whatever, he was having a good time.

"Your friend is good dancer," the girl said to Mikey when they were taking a break at the bar. "You don't bring him here before, Mikey, you make me sad."

"You have an accent," Frank giggled, with his head on her shoulder.

The girl patted his face. "You have hangover in morning."

Mikey was looking into Frank's eyes. "Frank, I think you've had enough to drink."

"Noooooo." Frank levered himself upright and fell forward against the bar. "You just want to keep all the fun for yourself, Mikeyway."

"You had all that Vicodin before," Mikey reminded him. "Bob'll kick my ass if I let you drink yourself to death."

Frank waved him off. "Whatever, you're - you're hoarding the fun. You're a fun-vampire. Funpire."

"Funpire," said the dancing girl, and laughed. Mikey had his arm around her waist.

"Hey," said Frank, leaning close to be heard. "Why didn't you bring your brother out tonight?"

"Not really his scene," Mikey said. He looked uncomfortable, Frank thought, but that might be because dancing accent girl was sticking her hand down his pants in front of everybody.

"Your brother's hot," Frank said, tossing back the last of his drink. "Your brother - Mikey, did I tell you how it feels when he touches me?"

Mikey wasn't listening. Mikey was doing a little pants-exploring of his own. Fucking Mikey. The dude had more sex than anybody Frank knew, and he didn't even seem to try.

"I'm going to the bathroom," Frank said to nobody, and stumbled off in what he thought was the right direction.

When he had to close one eye to see straight enough to pee, he thought maybe Mikey was right about the booze. Frank rinsed out a glass someone had left and filled it up with clean water. He drained the whole thing, then twice more, then splashed some water on his face and leaned heavily over the sink, staring at his face in the mirror.

"You're drunk," he told himself. The dude pissing behind him gave him a weird look. Frank ignored it. "You're drunk and you should go home."

Except he couldn't go home, because he didn't have any money for a cab and he didn't know how to get back from here, and also there was the whole bedroom covered in blood issue, the thought of which did more to sober Frank up than any amount of water.

He slipped out of the bathroom and was making his way down the narrow hall back to the main room when a hand shot out and grabbed his shirt, yanking him through a door he hadn't even noticed was there, into the alley outside.

"What the fuck," Frank said. The lamp over his head cast a tight circle of light around his feet - he couldn't see a fucking thing outside of it. "What the fuck is this?"

"You got some nice moves, Iero," a voice Frank didn't recognize said. He could make out shapes moving in the darkness in front of him. "Saw you dancing. Pity you're not so smooth when you're working."

"What?" Frank tried to move away from the wall, but one of the shapes rushed forwards and transformed into a mean-looking skinhead, who slammed Frank back into the wall. Frank cried out - he was only wearing a T-shirt and the sharp brick scraped over the wounds on his back. "Motherfucker, let me go, I will fuck you up."

The skinhead sneered at him. "Like you fucked up my buddy's balls, is that it?"

Frank stared at him, everything slotting into a place that made sense as two more dudes shifted out of the darkness behind him. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

"No joke," said the skinhead, and pulled his fist back behind his head.

Frank was drunk and hurt and kind of shitty at fighting, but he was small and he was fast, and he ducked out just in time to send the skinhead's fist flying directly into the wall. The guy yelled angrily and whirled around - his friends grabbed Frank, an arm each, practically lifting him off the ground.

Good citizen, good citizen, he thought frantically. What the fuck would Brian want him to say?

"Guys, I get that you're pissed off," he said out loud, trying to sound reasonable and confident and not scared out of his mind. "Okay, but hurting me isn't gonna help Darren's case at all."

"We don't care about his case," said one of the dudes holding Frank. "We care about justice."

"Justice? What - ah, fuck!" Frank cried out again when they slammed him back up against the wall, pinning him there. They were so much stronger than him - Frank struggled and struggled but he could barely move, and he had a horrible flashback of the night before, of being pinned and helpless and at the mercy of someone who had none. "Come on, this is stupid, the lawyers-"

The back of the skinhead's hand connected with Frank's face with a noise like a whip cracking, and Frank's head practically spun on his shoulders.

"Shut up, dickbreath," the skinhead said. "The lawyers are gonna take your money," he smiled, the expression bizarrely sweet in his mean-ass face. He slid something out of his pocket - fuck, Frank thought, what is it, a gun, a condom, he's going to fucking rape me oh Jesus Christ - and leaned close to Frank. He whispered, "And we're gonna take your balls."

The thing in his hand was a flick knife.

Fuck being a good citizen. Fuck that.

"I swear to God, if you lay one finger on me I will bite your fucking dick off," Frank spat, writhing and kicking as hard and fast as he could.

"Hold him," the skinhead ordered, and he was reaching for Frank when the entire world went white and Frank's head was filled with blinding pain.

He was dimly aware of his body arching and twisting, of them letting him go, letting him fall heavily to the ground. Mostly the only thing he knew was the pain, though, the sharp points of pain driving themselves into his scalp.

Something heavy hit the back of his head and the needles - they were needles, Frank realized. He knew what it felt like to have sharp things rammed into your flesh - around his head drove in further, making Frank grab at his head and try to pull them away, pull them off, but someone - the guys in the alley, what were they doing to him - grabbed them and held them down and the heavy thing hit him again, and the needles scraped further down inside his skin, against his skull, he could feel them snapping and embedding inside him.

Warmth ran down his face, warmth and wetness - blood, Frank thought dimly, I'm bleeding again - and dripped into his open mouth. There were those sounds again, the murmuring crowd, but this time there was laughter too and someone was calling him names. It wasn't English, he couldn't understand them and he tried to tell them that, tell them he couldn't understand why they were so angry, but whatever it was he was sorry, he just wanted them to stop, and then someone was shaking him and pulling him up, cradling him, and saying his name over and over and over again.

"Frankie, Frankie, come on, wake up!"

Frank opened his eyes blearily, blinking blood away and squinting up into Mikey's face. "What," he said thickly.

Over Mikey's shoulder there was movement, and Frank realized it was Bob and Ray and some guys he didn't recognize, security maybe, and that the guys who'd jumped Frank were pretty much on the floor.

"Don't," he tried, and had to turn his head to the side and cough out a mouthful of blood before he could carry on. "Don't hurt them."

"What?" Bob stared at him crazily. "Frankie, you-"

"Because of the case," Frank said, letting his head fall back again. Mikey hugged him close. "Brian said I gotta keep my nose clean."

"Fuck Brian! Fuck your nose!" Bob had his knee in the middle of the skinhead's back and his arms twisted up behind him. "You look like road kill, Frank, what did they do, try to rip off your face and wear it as a mask?"

"It wasn't us," the skinhead said, and then screamed when Bob did something twisty with his wrists.

"Shut the fuck up," Bob said grimly. "I will pound you into the fucking floor."

"It wasn't us," one of the other guys repeated, a security guy's big hand fisted in his jacket. He looked terrified. "I mean, we were gonna-"

"Shut your fucking mouth!" said the skinhead, and then Bob made him scream again.

"But then he was just screaming and bleeding and shit," the other guy continued, looking at the third guy for confirmation, Frank guessed, but the third guy looked so freaked out he was practically rocking back and forth. "But it wasn't us, I swear to God!"

Ray looked over at Frank. "Frankie? Was it them?"

Frank looked up at one of the security dudes. "You guys got security cameras out here?"

The guy shook his head.

"Yeah," Frank said, spitting more blood out of his mouth. "Yeah, it was them."

"You fucking liar!" the skinhead started yelling, and then everyone was shouting, the security guards were barking into their walkie-talkie things and Ray and Bob were yelling about the police and public safety.

Frank just clung to Mikey's jacket. Mikey touched Frank's sticky forehead and Frank saw his fingers come away wet with blood.

"Was it them?" Mikey asked quietly, wiping his thumb under Frank's eye.

Frank didn't say anything.

"Shit," Mikey said.

***

"I still don't understand why the fuck you aren't pressing charges," Ray said when he was giving Frank a ride back to his place from Mikey's the next morning. "They could have killed you."

"But they didn't," Frank said, looking out of the window. He could see his own pale face in the wing mirror, distorted by the angle and the glass. The marks on his forehead stood out, red and stark - he pushed his hair forward to cover them. "Besides, I think Brian would have a fucking heart attack."

Ray thumped the steering wheel, making Frank jump. "This is so fucked up. You get jumped by three crazy ball-harvesting assholes and you have to let it go because, what, it won't look good in court if you complain about it? No jury on earth is gonna blame you for not being okay with that, dude."

Frank laughed under his breath. "Probably not."

"So then why wouldn't you let the club call the police?" Ray flicked his wipers. "You're just gonna let them get away with it? That's not like you."

"I'm pretty sure Bob broke that guy's arm," Frank reminded him. "And I was drunk, and the whole club saw me on that fucking podium, wasted out of my mind - ah, fuck." Frank's head throbbed suddenly and painfully, his hangover and the cuts in his skin really working together as a team of horrible pain.

"Are you gonna hurl?" Ray leaned over and started winding the window down, his elbow jabbing Frank right in the ribs. "I love you, man, but I just had these seats re-upholstered."

"I'm not gonna hurl on your fucking seats," Frank bit out, pressing both of his hands flat over his forehead. He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw red. "Fuck, I should have saved some fucking Vicodin for this."

Ray made a sympathetic noise. "You didn't think to keep one back in case of forehead-abuse?"

Frank laughed and then moaned when that made it worse. "I always did lack foresight."

Ray pulled over outside Frank's building and waited for Frank to get his stuff from the back seat. "Hey, any news on Ella?"

"What?" Frank was distracted trying to persuade all his crap to not fall out of his unzipped backpack as he levered it over the headrest.

"Ella," Ray repeated. He looked at Frank like he was crazy. "Your dog? The one who went missing? You put fliers up all over town?"

"Oh." Frank blinked at the windscreen. "You know what - I'd forgotten."

"What? You were crazy about that stupid dog, Frank."

"I know." Frank's stomach felt weird, cold and upset somehow, the creeping dreadful feeling sliding out slowly into his limbs, like when you realize you forgot your homework, or someone overheard you talking shit about them. "Fuck. I don't know, man, I guess there's been a lot going on."

"Hmm." Ray looked at him doubtfully, then reached out suddenly and pushed Frank's hair off his forehead, touching his fingertips to Frank's skin. "You know, these don't look like they were made with a knife."

Frank stayed as still as he could, staring down at his bag in his lap. The cuts stung and he felt like if he concentrated enough he'd be able to feel it again, the sharp points driving in, the sick drag of them in his skin and against his skull. He'd pushed his fingers into his own hair in Mikey's bathroom that morning and felt the raised lines scoring his scalp in a jagged, broken circle, all the way around.

Ray sighed and took his hand away. "You need me to come up?"

Frank got a sudden flash of the scene in his apartment, blood everywhere, and swallowed. "No, man. Thanks for the ride."

"Any time," said Ray, leaning over Frank to open the door for him. "I'll see you Monday."

His bedroom was even worse than he remembered. Two days had turned the blood this awful brown color, and the stink when Frank opened the door almost knocked him unconscious for like, the fifteenth time in two days.

Mikey was right. It really did look like someone had bled to death.

Frank dropped his bag, took a deep breath, and got to work. He opened his windows first, because the street outside his house smelled like car fumes and hotdogs, which was infinitely preferable to eau de murder scene. The sheets were a fucking write-off, so he just grabbed the corners with the least blood on them and used them like mittens to bundle everything into a ball, which he wrestled into a trash bag. His pillows went in another one, and he set them both by the door.

Fuck. He didn't think 'soft furnishings soaked in your own life force' was on the list of Suitable Items for the Trash Chute the super had given him the day he'd moved in. He'd have to burn them later, instead. That's what people always did with blood-stained stuff in those crime dramas his Mom liked so much, CSI New Hampshire or whatever.

"What happened to those sheets, I bought you, sweetheart?" he said to himself when he was scrubbing blood off the wall with dishwashing detergent. He dunked his sponge in the bucket of water next to him and squeezed it out. "Oh, yeah, thanks for buying those for me, Mom. I have a ghost who's into sado-masochism or some shit, and I guess he forgot to give me a safe word, and the sheets kind of got caught in the crossfire."

Once the wall was free of bloody aftermath, Frank mopped the floor like ninety-seven times, pouring bucket after bucket of brackish water down the toilet until his knuckles were raw from scrubbing and he couldn't smell anything but Lysol Pine Action.

He was standing by the bed, rubbing his aching head and wondering if he could call his Mom to ask her how the fuck you got a shitload of blood out of a mattress when there was a knock at his door.

"Shit." Frank checked his clothes for blood spatters, shut the bedroom door behind him and went to look through the peephole.

It was Mikey's magical brother. The peephole made him look three feet tall with a gigantic head, but it was definitely him, wearing a leather jacket and even more scarves than last time and peering anxiously at the door, biting his nails.

"Shit," Frank said again, and then Gerard's eyes met his and Frank knew he couldn't see him, he knew that, but he ducked anyway and ran quickly over to - fuck, fuck, his fucking mirror was in the bathroom from the other night. "Just a second!" he called, and raced in there to make sure he didn't have a giant blood smear on his cheek, or anything more mundanely unfortunate like spinach in his teeth.

He pushed his hair down over his forehead again, wiped his hands on his shirt - fuck, he was stinking of cleaning fluid, but there was nothing he could do about that - and went back to the door.

"Okay," he said to himself, and opened it.

"Hi!" said Gerard, pulling his fingers out of his mouth and giving Frank the same shy wave he'd given when they'd met. "Uh, do you remember me? I'm Mikey's brother, we met at your work the other day?"

"Oh, yeah, I think so," Frank lied, leaning against the doorjamb in a way he hoped looked nonchalant. "Gerard, right?"

Gerard beamed at him. "Yes! Man, people never remember that. I always get called Gareth or Jeremy, for some reason."

"You don't look like a Jeremy," Frank told him.

"I know!" Gerard nodded enthusiastically, still smiling. "Anyway, uh, I brought you a mattress."

Frank blinked at him. "A what?"

"A mattress!" Gerard stepped back and Frank followed him out into the hall. Sure enough, there was a mattress leaning against the wall next to Frank's door. "Mikey said something happened to yours? And this one was donated to our lady just yesterday."

"Your lady?" Frank raised his eyebrows. "Who's your lady?"

Gerard laughed and waved his hands. "No, no - Our Lady. Our Lady of Compassion? It's a church a few blocks from here. They have charity drives, you know, clothes, food."

"Mattresses," Frank grinned.

Gerard grinned back. "Yeah. Anyway, I asked if you could have it, and they said nobody else was interested, so I got a friend of mine to give me a hand getting it over here, and, well, here I am," he finished uncertainly, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Is this totally weird"?

"Not compared to most things that have happened to me lately," Frank said, shaking his head. A mattress. Mikey's gorgeous brother brought him a mattress. Maybe things were looking up.

"Nobody died on it or anything," Gerard said anxiously. "I mean, I think it's pretty new."

"It's awesome," Frank said, really meaning it. "Can you help me get it inside?"

Gerard helped Frank push and pull the mattress into his apartment, then followed Frank into the bedroom to get rid of the old one.

"Wow," he said, staring down at the stains. "Bad nosebleed?"

"Don't even ask," Frank said, grabbing the handles on his side. "Okay, over to me and then we'll shove it out into the hall, okay?"

Gerard nodded. "Okay. Oh, wait, let me take my jacket off."

"Put it on the couch," Frank nodded towards his living room. Gerard headed off and Frank called after him, "You know, this is a first for me."

"You don't usually accept bedroom furniture from strangers?" Gerard called back.

"Nobody ever gave me any before." Frank noticed a stray spatter of blood on his nightstand and licked his thumb, rubbing over the mark. "A girl sent me flowers once, but hot guys bringing me beds is new."

"First time for everything," Gerard said, coming back into the room.

Frank rubbed at the mark one last time. "Yeah, some might even say it's a little presumptuous for a-" he looked up and completely forgot what he was going to say. "Priest."

Gerard said, "What?" and then touched the collar around his neck. "Oh! Yeah. Mikey didn't tell you?"

"He did not," Frank said, staring at Gerard's throat. A priest. A priest. And here Frank thought the worst that could happen was that he might be straight. Frank snapped his eyes up to Gerard's face and said, "Oh, God, I called you a hot guy!"

Gerard nodded solemnly. "You did."

"Augh." Frank covered his face, hoping it might all just…go away if he thought hard enough about it, but when he peeped through his fingers, Gerard was still there. "I called you a hot guy," Frank moaned. "You're a priest and I called you a hot guy."

"It's okay," Gerard smiled, rolling one of his sleeves up. "You actually made my day."

Frank stared hopelessly at the ceiling. "Oh, man, my Mom is really angry with me right now and she doesn't even know why."

Gerard laughed - he had the same laugh as Mikey, Frank thought, high-pitched and scratchy and stupid and totally infectious - and rolled up his other sleeve. "Forget it, it's fine. Are we moving this mattress or what?"

Frank didn't think they could leave the mattress out in the hall without someone calling the cops or like, a news crew, so they had to wrestle it down to the alley outside. Gerard was obviously a seriously nice guy if he went around bringing people mattresses and praying for their immortal souls, but the dude couldn't tell left from right when he was going backwards, and more than once Frank thought he was going to have to explain to Mikey why his brother was dead in the stairwell of Frank's building with a broken neck and a mattress on top of him.

Finally they managed to get the mattress down and out in the alley, and between them they managed to lift it into one of the dumpsters.

"Fuck," Gerard panted, wiping his hands on his shirt. "Those things are heavier than they look."

Frank laughed, more out of surprise than anything else. "I don't think I ever heard a priest swear before."

"You ever hear a priest talk outside of a sermon?"

Frank had to think about it. He held the door open for Gerard on the way back into the building. "You know what, I don't think I have."

"Well, that's why." Gerard flashed him a grin.

In the elevator, Frank had to actively work on not staring at Gerard like an idiot. All the priests Frank had ever met had been grey or balding, with wrinkled hands and round, solid stomachs under their robes or plain, staid clothes. Gerard was young. Gerard wore a leather jacket. Gerard was hot. Gerard was, by definition, celibate.

Frank was the unluckiest person in the world, ever.

"You want a coffee?" he asked when they got back to his apartment. "It's the least I can do, man."

"Sure," Gerard's face lit up at the mention of coffee. "Hey, can I smoke in here?"

"Knock yourself out." Frank went into the kitchen and thumped his head deliberately against the cabinet over the sink, which was a mistake because it made all the cuts in his scalp yammer angrily at him.

Gerard was sitting on the couch when Frank carried the mugs into the living room, smoking and looking at a picture of Frank and Mikey that Frank had on his coffee table. "Hey, when was this taken?"

"Like a year ago?" Frank handed Gerard one of the mugs and sat down next to him. "It's so weird he never told me about you."

Gerard took the mug gratefully and closed his eyes to take a sip. "Mmm," he said, then, "I think, you know. Mikey's world and mine - we're really close, but they're just not the same. I think he finds me hard to explain."

"I never met a priest before," Frank said. "I mean, in real life, not at school or whatever."

"I never met anyone who does body modification," Gerard said, with a little wince.

Frank grinned. "You never considered it?"

Gerard shook his head vehemently. "I'm afraid of needles."

"Understandable." Frank nodded and took a slow sip of coffee. "I'm afraid of altar boys."

Gerard cracked up, and this time his laugh was totally different to Mikey's, a big, loud HAHAHA that almost made Frank spill his coffee everywhere. "I don't actually spend that much time giving sermons, though, so my life is pretty light on the altar boys."

"Glad to hear it," Frank said automatically, and then felt like an asshole when Gerard rolled his eyes. "I didn't mean-"

"It's okay."

"No, it's not." Frank rubbed his forehead and sighed. "This is why Mikey doesn't tell people about you, isn't it?"

Gerard kind of shrugged and smiled, and made a little forget it movement with his hand.

Frank drank some more coffee so he couldn't accidentally be a dickhead for at least three seconds, and watched Gerard tapping his cigarette into Frank's yellow ashtray with the smiley face on the bottom.

"You're not gonna tell me you had a bad experience when you were an altar boy, are you?" Gerard said suddenly, turning to look at Frank intently.

"Christ, no." Frank grabbed his own cigarettes and lit up. "My Mom tried, but it was all she could do to get me to go to Mass once in a while, never mind volunteer for a walk-on."

"Yeah, those early Sunday mornings are killer." Gerard's eyes flicked quickly up to Frank's forehead and back down again.

"Not for me. I'm very strict about spending mine in bed."

Gerard looked surprised, for some reason. "You don't go to Church?"

"No," Frank shook his head.

"At all?" said Gerard, his eyes doing the flicking thing again.

"No," Frank repeated, trying not to bristle, and failing, mostly. "What, are you gonna try to save me now, is that it?"

Gerard dragged his eyes back to Frank's and made an unhappy face. "I've offended you."

Frank did the same forget-it wave Gerard had given him earlier. "It's no big deal. I don't go to Church because I don't believe in God."

"Oh," Gerard said. He looked thoughtfully at Frank for a minute, then his eyes went back up to Frank's forehead.

Frank rolled his eyes, irritated. "Take a picture, it'll last longer."

"What?"

"You're staring at my head."

"What?" Gerard made a ridiculous who-me face. "No I'm not."

Frank pointed at him accusingly. "Thou shalt not lie."

"Oh, now you know your Bible," Gerard said, rolling his eyes. Frank stared at him for another second, and Gerard wavered visibly before leaning back in the couch with a sigh. "All right, fine. Fuck. I really gotta work on my stealth."

Frank ashed onto the smiley face. "There a lot of call for stealth in your line of work?"

"Hey, it couldn't hurt." Gerard leaned forward and said seriously, "Okay, let me lay it out. Mikey told me what happened with the mattress."

"Oh." Frank looked down at his lap. He didn't know what would suck more - Gerard thinking he was crazy, or trying to convince him it was a Sign that Frank had pissed off the Almighty with his disbelief. "He did, huh."

"Yeah." Gerard was quiet for a second, and it was a shock when his hand suddenly appeared in front of Frank's face, hovering with his fingers stretched out wide. "He also said - he said you got beat up at a club."

Frank didn't say anything. Gerard wasn't touching him yet, but Frank could feel what it would be like if he did, he could already feel the way the pain just…get better, like turning down the volume or a dimmer switch set too bright.

He leaned forward, just a tiny bit, just an inch, but it was enough and Gerard's fingertips slid over his forehead, pushing his hair out of the way and touching gently around the marks.

Frank had to bite his tongue so he wouldn't moan out loud with relief. It was like spreading lotion on sunburn or sliding between clean sheets after a whole day on his feet. He couldn't help it; he pushed forward a little more and Gerard's palm flattened against the side of his head for a minute, and Frank felt the last of the pain melting away, receding through his arms and hands and dripping off his fingers onto the floor.

"Frank," Gerard said, and Frank realized his eyes were closed only when he had to make the effort to open them. Gerard was staring at him, his forehead wrinkled with concern. "Do you want to tell me what really happened?"

Frank really did, which was stupid - he'd just met the guy, for Christ's sake. Maybe it was some leftover automatic reflex thing from being brought up Catholic, maybe it was Gerard's freaky hand-magic, whatever, but he wanted to…shit, he wanted to fucking confess.

He sat back, his body immediately protesting the disconnect with a new and exciting combination of wrist/head pain, and grabbed for his cigarettes. "Like Mikey said, man, I got beat up."

Gerard dropped his hand. "Are you sure?"

"What, like I imagined it?"

"Those marks don't look like they came from somebody punching you," Gerard said gently. "They look like they were made with something really sharp."

"Like a knife," Frank said, lighting his cigarette. He dragged in a lungful of smoke.

Gerard shrugged slightly. "Or a needle."

Frank held his breath.

Gerard continued casually, "You said you're a body piercer, right?"

Frank coughed on the exhale, his head pounding with every spasm of his lungs. "Fuck you," he choked, blinking against the smoke he'd managed to blow in his own eyes. "You think I fucking did this to myself?"

"I didn't say that."

"Thanks for the mattress," Frank said decisively, standing up. He didn't know why he was so mad - he felt betrayed, or something, like Gerard had just come to tease him with the prospect of something making him feel better, and it was all just an excuse to accuse Frank of fucking up his own face. "You probably have places to be, right, sermons to give."

Gerard's face fell. "I wasn't accusing you, Frank."

"What the fuck were you doing coming here in the first place? You don't know shit about me."

Gerard looked down. "I thought - something Mikey said made me think…" he trailed off.

Frank folded his arms irritably. "You thought what?"

"I was wrong." Gerard started winding his scarves back around his neck. "I'm sorry."

Shit, thought Frank. If he wasn't pretty sure he was damned before, yelling at a priest for being nice to him was probably going to seal the deal. Frank let Gerard get both arms into his jacket before he caved and sat back down. "No, I was an asshole. I'm just fucked up right now. Things are…not great."

Gerard scrunched his mouth up. "I can see that."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Gerard's leg brushed against Frank's knee when he shifted, and there it was again, that instant of relief. Frank was seriously losing his mind if he thought Gerard had healing fucking hands.

Gerard looked at him curiously. "Share the joke?"

"Forget it." Frank shook his head. "So tell me - if you're a priest and you're not giving sermons, what do you do?"

"I'm an investigator for the Vatican," Gerard said, all off-hand like I'm a plumber or whatever. "You know, if people think they saw a miracle."

Frank was actually impressed, but he tried not to show it. "Like statues of Jesus crying blood?"

"More like the Virgin Mary's face appearing on a piece of toast in Maine," Gerard smiled. "I was only ordained five years ago, so my assignments are pretty low-key. Most of the really crazy stuff happens in South America, for some reason."

Frank nodded. "You ever see a real one?"

Gerard grinned. "South American?"

"Miracle," Frank said, rolling his eyes.

Gerard shook his head. "So far," he said wistfully, "It's always just been toast."

***

Gerard left his number for Frank, "Just in case," and Frank spent the rest of the weekend lying in a series of increasingly hot baths, popping painkillers like a junkie and resisting the urge to call Gerard and beg him to come back and let Frank sit next to him for a while.

It was ridiculous. It wasn't until after Gerard left that Frank realized even just having him in the apartment made him feel better; not in the painkilling way that touching him did, but his presence was calming or whatever, fucking therapeutic.

Probably it was all in Frank's mind. Probably this whole fucking thing was in Frank's mind. Probably he had already been locked up in a mental hospital somewhere and this was all a hallucination.

On Sunday he dragged himself out of the apartment for groceries and new shit for his bed - lying on the bare mattress got really old, really fast, and couch pillows were not meant to be slept on for a whole night - and on the way back one of the fliers he'd stuck up about his dog caught his eye.

A bunch of the number strips had been pulled off, which could mean somebody found her, but could also mean someone had been bored waiting for a bus. Frank promised himself he'd remember to check his fucking messages when he got home.

He was so fucking spacey lately, he thought as he waited to cross the street - fuck, he missed his fucking car, and there was another thing he'd forgotten about since he started getting beaten up by the invisible man.

The lights changed and Frank moved with the crowd, shifting his bags in his arms to ease the pressure on his newly-aching wrists. It was so weird how the pain was localized like that. He didn't know what the hell he would do if everything started hurting at once.

He got home and put his groceries away, then managed to get the new sheets on his bed before his wrists gave out completely and he just sat on the floor for a while, holding them close to his chest and trying to breathe through the pain.

Fuck Doctor Durning, he decided suddenly, scrambling up and digging clumsily through his back pack. Two fucking days' worth of Vicodin, that wouldn't even get Frank through a really bad headache. His stupid fingers closed finally on the tub of ointment Luke had given him and he wrenched the lid off with a moan, scooping out way too much and spilling some onto his jeans in his haste to get it on his skin.

"Aaaaah," he hissed, rubbing it in as quickly as he could. It wasn't as good as Gerard, but it was pretty fucking sweet to get any kind of relief, and whether it was the goo or the rubbing, the throb eased off enough he could move his hands properly again without feeling like they were just going to snap right off.

Frank spread the excess ointment over his tattoo. It was healed already, sure, but it couldn't do any harm. She was really beautiful, now she'd settled, she looked like she'd been part of Frank for years, like she was meant to be there all along.

Frank heaved himself up into bed and managed to call his Mom and lie to her for twenty minutes about everything being fine before he passed out into uncomfortable dreams about being followed and watched by someone he couldn't see.

He forgot about checking his messages.

***

On Monday Frank told Brian about everything that happened with the guys at the club, leaving out the parts with the invisible laughing crowd and phantom lights.

"You did the right thing, Frank," Brian said, already getting out his cellphone and filofax and giant stack of papers. Brian was the most organized person Frank had ever met. He was pretty sure the dude could take over the world with a bullet-pointed list and a big enough diary. "This is going to be great for discrediting that asshole, man, this is really awesome."

"Awesome," Frank repeated dully, trying to burn holes in the side of Brian's head with his eyes. "I especially liked the part where they almost scalped me." So it wasn't strictly true, whatever. Brian didn't know that, the dickwad.

"It would be better if you hadn't been drunk, though," Brian said absently, flicking through his filofax.

Frank gritted his teeth. "Yeah, well, I've had kind of a shitty couple weeks, Schechter, excuse me for blowing off a little steam."

Brian looked up, surprised at first and then, when he visibly replayed what he'd said inside his head, guilty. "Shit, Frankie, I didn't mean it like that. I just meant, you know, anything that can protect you-"

Frank cut him off. "I know, man."

Brian looked completely miserable. "This sucks."

"It does," Frank agreed, trying not to laugh hysterically at how much Brian had no fucking idea.

"All right," Brian started shifting papers around briskly. "I'm gonna call the lawyers. You get to work, you have a busy morning."

"Yes, boss." Frank pulled himself to his feet and was almost at the door when Brian called after him,

"You're with Bob this afternoon."

Frank whirled around. "Seriously?"

Brian was already on the phone - he covered it and said, "Do not fuck up," and then shooed Frank away.

Frank had the best afternoon he could remember in a really long fucking time. Bob wouldn't actually let him do anything, of course, he just had to sit still and watch, which would have sucked more if sitting still and not moving his hands wasn't exactly what Frank wanted to do for the rest of his life by that point.

It was still amazing, anyway, getting to watch up close without Bob telling him to get out of his light or whatever, and drinking in every little bit of commentary and wisdom Bob threw his way. Bob might have been an inkless freak but he was a fucking knowledgeable inkless freak, and a meticulous motherfucker to boot.

Frank really fucking loved tattoos, like that wasn't news, obviously, but he loved everything about them - the way ink virgins were always vibrating with excitement and nerves, the way old hands came in a little twitchy and went away look like they just got fucked six ways from Sunday and had the time of their fucking lives. He loved the moment before the needle touched down, when it was still just a drawing, just something that could be washed away, no more permanent than writing your name on a steamed-up window pane, and he loved the first press of the needle to the skin, when everything changed and it became a part of you forever.

It felt like no time at all had passed when Bob started packing up his shit, showing Frank how to clean and put everything away, even though Frank already knew that shit, he wasn't some fucking newbie. He also knew Bob did things his way or no way at all, though, and his way was pretty fucking awesome, so Frank went along with it and only jumped up and down and demanded to know when Bob would let him do something a couple of times.

"You look like you won the fucking lottery," Ray commented when they were sitting around in the closed shop after hours, waiting for Mikey to finish sweeping up hair at a glacial pace. "And then had sex on top of all the money."

Bob smiled out from under his stupid beanie. "Standard procedure after an afternoon with me, right Iero?"

Frank spun in his chair. "Make fun of me all you want, motherfuckers, this is the best thing that's happened to me in weeks."

"So you feel good, right?" said Ray in a strange voice. "Like…happy?"

Frank shrugged. "My life sucks a little less than it did this morning, if that's what you mean."

Mikey came over and perched on the arm of Frank's chair. "So my brother brought you a mattress, huh?"

"Your brother accused me of self-harm," Frank said, shoving at Mikey so he wobbled, but didn't fall off. "Can you believe that shit?"

There was a silence. Looks were exchanged. Frank said, "Oh, hell no."

"It's just that you've been under so much stress," Ray said earnestly, leaning forward. "Sometimes it can manifest itself as-"

"Getting jumped by a skinhead and his fucking prison bitches?" Frank said incredulously, giving Mikey a look that said back me up!

"We're just worried about you," Ray went on. "There are people you can talk to - "

Frank stood up and stalked over to the coat rack. "Fuck you, Toro, I don't need to hear this shit."

Bob said, "Take it easy, Frank, we're just trying to help."

"I don't need your help," Frank said sullenly, pulling on his jacket. All the good feelings from the afternoon were disappearing and the pain was flooding in to take their place. "I don't fucking believe this."

"Frank," said Mikey. "Come on-"

"You were there!" Frank yelled, pointing at him. "You fucking watched me, motherfucker, you saw it, don't try to fucking retcon this!"

"What does he mean?" Ray said, his voice rising in pitch as well as volume. Brian stuck his head out of the back room in time to hear Ray say, "What does he mean you watched him, Mikey? What did you see?"

Mikey folded his arms around himself miserably. "I don't know."

Frank stared at him in disbelief. Mikey avoided his eyes and mumbled something about having taken a lot of caffeine pills that day.

"Thanks," said Frank, grabbing his bag and heading for the door. "Thanks a fucking lot, you guys, this is exactly what I needed."

"Frank," he heard Brian call, but whatever else he was going to say was lost when Frank slammed the door behind him.

***

Mikey sent him a text message five minutes later that said, 'wtf was I suppsd 2 say,' and then another five minutes after that which said, 'dont B mad sry,' and yet another one which said, 'do U want me 2 cm over.'

Frank ignored them all and turned his cell off, even going so far as to unplug the landline in his apartment when he got home.

"Fucking Ray," he said to himself, rattling violently through his kitchen drawers and slamming cabinet doors. His stomach was way too tied up in knots for him to eat anything, but he needed to make noise. "Fucking Bob. Fucking Brian and his precious fucking court case."

He grabbed the bottle of vodka he kept in the freezer and threw himself down on the couch with it, taking a giant swig that made him wince and gasp.

"Fucking Mikey," he muttered before taking another one. "Fucking Judas."

He missed his dog. He missed her stupid dumb face and the snuffling commentary she kept up when she was walking around the apartment. He missed the wet press of her nose to his shin or the side of his hand, and he missed her getting all in his face first thing in the morning and growling at the mop and the noise it made when she tried to jump on the coffee table and missed, ending up in a sprawled, thumping heap on the floor.

He missed his dog and his TV and his car and his guitar, oh God, and he missed being a normal person who didn't get mad at their friends for not saying something Frank had asked Mikey not to say in the first place.

"Fuck," he said thickly, out loud, and took two deep swallows from the bottle. "Fuck."

Then he took another swallow, and another. He stared at the space where his TV used to be, and kept on drinking until he didn't care that it was missing any more, and he didn't care about those motherfuckers who called themselves his friends, and he didn't care about his fucking wrists and his fucking back and his fucking head. Didn't miss anything, didn't care about anything, didn't notice when the bottle slipped from his hand and his eyes closed and the world slipped dizzily away.

***

In the morning, he woke up feeling like shit run over twice. He managed to roll over enough to find his cell and turn it on to check the time, but no sooner had he switched it on than it started ringing at him to tell him he had a voicemail.

Frank didn't need to listen to know that it would be Brian.

Fuck. He was so fucking late, and his head felt like it was going to split open and his wrists were screaming at him, and he couldn't even blink without feeling like he was going to throw up, he was so hungover. He was going to be late, and he was going to be fucking useless all day, and Brian was probably going to fire his ass.

He really wanted a fucking shower, but he couldn't turn the ancient temperature control without tears prickling up in his eyes. It felt like his fucking bones were grinding together, like all the flesh and cartilage had worn away and instead there were sharp edges scraping along each other, splintering from the pressure and pressing sharp points of pain out through his skin.

He managed to get halfway out of last night's clothes, but then had to sit down and hold his head really still in both hands because the room was doing some fucking galloping swing thing, like a GAP dancer on a carousel. In the middle of the ocean. During a storm.

Coffee would help, if he thought he could get to the kitchen. And he couldn't actually remember the last time he ate anything - but his stomach did a horrified, swooping recoil at the thought of food, anyway.

His phone rang, the shrill ring setting off a fresh round of agony in his head, and he opened one eye and leaned over enough to see the display.

Brian. Again. Fuck. And now he was two hours late for work, fuck.

Fuck his wrists. He needed to shower or he was never going to get out of the apartment. He struggled back into the bathroom and managed to turn the shower on using his elbows and a towel, and he was reaching down to push his jeans off when a red, wet drop fell on his hand.

"What?" said Frank. He touched his forehead and looked at his fingertips - they were crimson, and when he straightened up to look in the mirror, he saw that the cuts in his scalp had re-opened and blood was trickling rapidly down his face.

"My head split open," he said dumbly to his reflection. Suddenly his feet were kicked out from under him and he was lying on the bathroom floor, arms splayed out wide, staring up at the ceiling.

"What?" he said again, and then he felt something wide, cold and sharp drive straight through each of his wrists.

He didn't scream. He didn't scream because he couldn't breathe, the pain so massive, so overwhelming, so out of the range of anything Frank had ever had a nightmare about experiencing that it stole his ability to use his lungs or his eyes or do anything but writhe helplessly in place.

He was being nailed down, he was being nailed to the fucking floor, he could feel the nails driving rhythmically through, feel his bones being forced to make room until he though they would burst through his skin on either side.

There were white flashes behind his eyelids, and he was making noise now, ragged animal sounds being dragged from his chest with every heavy, metallic thud against his hands. His body was shutting down already, Frank felt as though he was scrambling up inside his own skin, curling into a ball and leaving his hands to suffer by themselves, far out on the edges of his consciousness. Frank concentrated on that, on the safe, lonely place inside himself where nobody could help but nobody could hurt him anymore, and the noises got further and further away until Frank was enveloped in silence, in darkness.

Frank could feel it already, what it would be like to have this over with, to be away from the noise and the hurt. He was ready for it, he was ready for it to be over. He couldn't win. He felt the air leaking slowly from his lungs, felt his straining muscles start to give in and relax. It was almost over, it was almost done, he was almost, almost there.

I'm going to die, he thought. The image of his mother's face flashed up in front of him, far away and stained with tears, and he felt a wave of grief and regret and sadness so intense it was almost sweet.

He floated in the darkness for a while. He didn't know how long. It would be over soon.

Except that there was something. Some noise, some touch, something tethering him to his body like a balloon on a string. He willed it away - he didn't want to go back there, where it was bright and loud and everything hurt. He wanted to follow this calm, endless darkness wherever it went - but there it was again, a tugging reminder of what it was like to be alive.

"Frank," he heard dimly, as if from miles away. "Frank."

He knew that voice.

"Frank," it said again, louder this time, and then more words, which Frank could barely make out. "Frank…die on me….fucking bring you back…kill you myself."

Frank laughed, and that's what brought him back into himself with a rush, crying out as the air filled up his lungs and the pain took over again.

"Okay, Frank." It was Brian, cradling Frank's head on his knees. "Frank, take it easy, it's me, it's me."

"Brian," Frank tried to say, but it came out as a wet, messy, unintelligible croak.

Brian said, "Shhh," and gathered Frank up a little tighter. "It's okay, it's okay. The ambulance is on its way. Just hold on a few more minutes, okay? Just a few more. Just stay with me."

Frank looked down - Brian was pressing both of Frank's wrists tight between his hands, towels wrapped up around them, darkly red. "Agh," he managed.

"Don't try to talk," Brian said firmly, squeezing harder. He was keeping pressure on the wounds, Frank thought, just like they did on TV. "Just - nod if you can hear me."

Frank nodded, struggling to turn his head up to look at Brian's face.

Brian was frowning like he did when he was organizing staffing rotas or negotiating a renewal on the shop's insurance. His mouth was in a tight line and his face was kind of white, but his voice was steady when he spoke. "You're going to be okay. We'll get you to hospital, and we'll get you stitched up. You'll be fine."

Frank wasn't so sure, and it must have shown on his face because Brian's expression settled into something a little kinder.

"We're going to get you some help." Brian started re-wrapping the towels around Frank's wrists, really obviously checking his watch. "We're going to fix this. You don't have to feel like this anymore. We'll figure something out, meds, a shrink, whatever you need."

Oh. "Brian, I didn't-"

"Don't talk," Brian said again, in a voice that was calm, but brooked no disagreement. He moved Frank so his head was resting against Brian's shoulder, and held him still.

Frank could feel Brian's heart beating frantically, feel his quick, uneven breaths. They stayed there together like that until the ambulance arrived.

***

"I didn't try to kill myself," Frank said for the nineteenth time.

The doctor wasn't listening. "Look at this," she kept saying to the nurse helping her sew Frank up. "Look at this; he's not even bleeding anymore. And he missed the artery by less than a centimeter."

The nurse nodded and leaned over to take a closer look. She looked like she might be pretty under the mask, Frank thought. "And they're both exactly the same shape and size on both sides. I don't know how he did that."

"Stop saying 'he'," Frank gritted. "I told you, I didn't do this."

"What do you do for a living, Frank?" the doctor asked, carefully pushing the little curved needle through the ragged edge of Frank's skin.

"I'm a body piercer."

The doctor's eyes flicked up to meet his. "You must need to know a lot about anatomy for that, right? So you don't hit anything important?"

Frank rolled his eyes. "Where's Doctor Durning?"

"Are you under a lot of stress in your life, Frank?"

"There's not enough stress in the world to make me suicidal, lady. You don't know me."

"So what happened?"

Frank didn't say anything.

The doctor snipped off the end of the thread. "Frank, self-inflicted wounds are usually a sign of - "

"I didn't inflict anything!" Frank shouted, making the doctor jerk back a little. "I can't tell you what happened because I don't know, all right, just sew me the fuck up so I can get the fuck out of here."

"You'll need to stay at least overnight for observation," the doctor said calmly. "And I want you to talk to someone from psych-"

"No," Frank interrupted her again. "I don't need a fucking shrink, all right, I need, I need a fucking exorcism or something."

"Your friends seem to agree," the doctor said, standing up.

Frank said, "What?"

She took off her mask, and so did the nurse. They were both pretty, actually. "I'll be back in a little while, Frank, don't think about making a run for it."

They left, and a few seconds later Brian appeared in the doorway, towing Mikey Way behind him. They stepped into the room, followed by - oh.

"You should have called me," said Gerard, coming straight over to the bed and pulling up a chair. He looked back at Mikey and Brian. "Can you give us few minutes, guys?"

Brian's eyes kind of bugged out of his head. He was used to being the one who knew what to do and what was going on, Frank knew, but who could tell a priest to back off? "I'm not sure-"

"I need to talk to Frank," Gerard insisted.

Mikey exchanged a complicated, wordless series of facial expressions with Gerard - Frank could do that with Mikey too, a little, but this was seriously Olympic standard - and tugged on Brian's sleeve.

"Come on," he said. "Let's call the shop and make sure Bob and Toro are okay."

"I want to stay with him," Brian said obstinately, taking another step towards the bed. "He shouldn't be with a stranger."

Mikey looked at Brian like he was crazy. "It's not a stranger, it's Gerard."

"Yes," said Brian, "And it's awesome that you two are mind-meld buddies, but we don't know him."

"Oh." Mikey turned that over in his head. "Huh. I guess."

"It's okay, Brian," Frank told him

Brian followed Mikey reluctantly out of the room, and Gerard turned back to Frank. "How are you doing?"

"I have fucking holes through my wrists," Frank said. "I've been better."

Gerard finished piling his scarves and jacket on the empty chair, and leaned in to inspect Frank's wounds. "You mind?"

Frank shrugged. "Knock yourself out."

By some miracle he kept his voice casual, but the truth was his toes were curling with the effort of not rolling sideways and just pressing his face into Gerard's shirt. He felt better just being near him, like before in his apartment, but the urge to touch him, to get that blissful relief the contact brought was overwhelming. Gerard's fingers were brushing his skin where he was lifting Frank's bandages and peeking underneath, but it wasn't enough.

"…so strange," Gerard was saying. He took Frank's hand gently and turned it over so he could see the other side. "I've never seen it happen like this before."

"Seen what happen?" Frank's fingers twitched with the urge to slide them over Gerard's palm. "What the fuck is happening to me?"

Gerard let go and fished around in his scarves until he came back with a little camera. "You mind," he said, not a question, and didn't wait for Frank to answer before he started snapping away.

"If this turns out to be some fetish thing…"

"Your sense of humor is still intact, I see." Gerard brushed Frank's hair out of his face and took a few more pictures. "Frank, have you ever heard of stigmata?"

"Sure." Frank didn't nuzzle Gerard's hand or anything, but he might have turned his face towards it very slightly. Whatever, he was only human. "Crazy nuns bleeding from the palms, right? Like…" Oh. Oh, no fucking way. "You have got to be fucking kidding me."

Gerard stayed silent, setting the camera down on the chair.

Frank protested weakly, "I don't believe in God."

"I know!" Gerard burst out, waving his hands around. "That's why this is so weird!"

"Right, the part where an invisible man nailed me to the bathroom floor was totally mundane," Frank replied. "Anyway, I thought stigmata was hands and feet, not wrists and forehead."

Gerard nodded. "People manifest them in all kinds of ways, usually however they imagine it in their own heads, you know?"

"But I don't imagine-"

"I know." Gerard was leaning all the way forward now, both elbows propped on the bed. "Stigmatics are without exception deeply devout people, Frank. They love Jesus so completely, feel such intense sorrow for His pain that it manifests itself physically in their own flesh - atheists don't get the stigmata. They just don't."

"Then you can't help me," Frank said dully, closing his eyes. He opened them again with a start when he felt Gerard's hand cover his own, sweet relief.

"First time for everything, right?" Gerard gave him a tiny smile.

Frank, despite himself, smiled back.

"All right." Gerard pulled out a Dictaphone and set it on top of the blankets covering Frank's leg. "I want you to tell me exactly what's been happening. Don't leave anything out. I don't think you're crazy and I don't think you're a suicide risk, okay?"

"Okay."

"Just give me as much as you can remember." Gerard squeezed his elbow encouragingly, the best painkiller in the world, Frank was sure. "In your own time."

Frank told him everything, starting with the weird pain in his wrists, right through the phantom whipping and the miraculous Wolverine-speed healing, to the bizarre alleyway scalp-needling and finally his experience in the bathroom that morning.

"The worst part isn't even that it hurts," he told Gerard, who was frowning and scribbling away in a little notebook with a unicorn on the cover. "It's that…"

He trailed off, not knowing how to explain the emotions that had gone through him while it was happening.

Gerard kept scribbling for a second, then looked up. "Go on," he said gently. "What's the worst part, Frank?"

Frank looked at the ceiling. "It's this feeling like everybody hates me," he admitted, closing his eyes so he wouldn't have to see whatever expression Gerard was making. "It's like - I don't know. It makes me feel really sad, like I'm totally alone. I've never felt like that. It's horrible. It's like being totally helpless. Or hopeless. Both. I don't know."

Gerard was silent, just the sound of his pencil scratching across the paper, and the muted bustle of people in the hall outside. After a few moments, Frank felt Gerard's hand on his again, and opened his eyes to see Gerard examining his angel tattoo.

"I told you this is a seraph, right?" he said, tracing the angel's blank face with a fingertip. "It was a seraph who appeared to Saint Francis in his vision. You know that story?"

Frank shook his head. "It rings a bell, I guess?"

"Saint Francis of Assisi," Gerard explained. "He was the first person to receive the stigmata."

"Francis," said Frank. "Is this a joke?"

Gerard laughed and shook his head. "No. He was like this crazy party animal, right, a real hedonist, and then when he was twenty-three-"

"I'm twenty-six," Frank interrupted, before Gerard could try to tell him he was a reincarnated saint, for crying out loud.

"- he had a crisis of faith, visions and everything. God was calling him to service."

"And that's when he saw the angel?"

"No, that actually didn't happen until he was in his forties, a couple years before he died." Gerard passed his palm over the angel and Frank dug his toes into the sheets for how good it felt. "He was fasting in the mountains and the seraph appeared to him. Actually some reports say it was a crucified seraph."

"Like this one," said Frank.

Gerard nodded. "Just like this one. And the seraph gifted Saint Francis with the wounds of Christ."

"Some fucking gift."

"Saint Francis was pretty obsessed with the suffering of Christ. He was really into mortification of the flesh as penance, you know, manifesting his repentance physically?" Gerard looked up at Frank. "To receive the wounds of Christ was a huge blessing in his eyes, because it brought him closer to understanding what Christ went through."

Frank turned that over in his head. He didn't have anything against Jesus, but he had no desire to walk in his shoes or whatever, either. "So did he have what I have? Like, the whipping and everything?"

"No," Gerard said thoughtfully. "He only received the Five Wounds - one for each of the nails used to fix Christ to the cross, and one for the spear in his side."

"A spear." Frank looked up at the ceiling. "This is awesome."

Gerard put his notebook aside and gave Frank a weirdly timid look. "Would - could I see your back?"

Frank sat up and turned around so he was sitting sideways on the bed, back to Gerard. He felt Gerard's fingers undoing the ties of the stupid hospital gown, pushing the material aside and leaving Frank exposed.

"Nice tattoos," Gerard said, startlingly close to Frank's ear. The bed dipped slightly as Gerard leaned against it.

"They used to be," Frank sighed, reveling in the relief of Gerard's touch. "Got all fucked up, as you can see."

Gerard touched the back of Frank's neck. "What does this say - 'Keep the Faith'?"

"Bon Jovi," Frank told him. "Not the Bible."

Gerard clicked his tongue. "I know that. You think I listen to hymns in my car?"

Frank grinned down at his lap. "You don't?"

"No." Gerard's hand settled between Frank's shoulder blades. "I listen to eighties hair rock like everyone else. Why the pumpkin?"

"My birthday's Halloween."

"Really?" Gerard sounded ridiculously excited, and when Frank craned his neck to look at him, he was grinning crazily. "That's so cool!"

Frank grinned back, and turned around again. "I guess. So what's with the whipping, anyway?"

"The scourging," Gerard murmured, passing his hands over Frank's skin. Frank bit his lip and dug his fingers into his own thighs, desperately fighting the urge to lean back into that touch, ask Gerard to wrap his arms around him and never let go. "Christ was whipped pretty mercilessly before the guards put the Crown of Thorns on him. I've never heard of anyone manifesting these wounds before."

"I didn't manifest shit," Frank said. "I didn't do this."

"I know, I didn't mean that," Gerard said hurriedly. "I just meant - well, like I said, the wounds usually appear in the way that particular stigmatic imagines the suffering of Christ, I guess. The scourging isn't nearly as iconic a part of the Passion as the marks of the crucifixion."

"I thought Jesus was nailed through the hands and feet," Frank said, tucking his chin into his chest as Gerard's fingers moved across his shoulders. "But it's my wrists that are all fucked up."

"That's inaccurate," Gerard said. He let Frank go and Frank heard the click of him opening his camera back up. "The hands would have torn with the weight of the body. Historians have more or less proved that people were crucified through the wrists, between the bones."

Frank looked down at his own wrists, at the neat, white bandages hiding the blood and spider-black stitching from view. "Oh."

"The thing is, crucifixion wasn't usually a death penalty," Gerard went on. The room flashed brightly and rhythmically with every picture he took. "It was meant as a punishment, like an extreme version of the stocks, right? So part of the problem was, hanging someone by the wrists causes something called, uh, suspension asphyxiation. Nailing the feet to the cross as well supports the body, and lessens the risk of accidental death."

Frank bugged his eyes at a poster of a man with no skin, just bones and muscles, on the other side of the room. "Accidental death? I would have thought nailing a dude to a cross was pretty much throwing the health and safety book out the fucking window."

Gerard hummed. "Like I said, it wasn't usually meant to kill people. Sometimes they even nailed people through the genitals, to support the body even better."

"What?" Frank whirled around, almost knocking Gerard's camera out of his hands. "You're telling me any minute now I could get a nail through my dick?"

Gerard wrinkled his nose. "It's extremely unlikely. I wouldn't worry about it."

"Easy for you to say, you don't use yours!" Frank scrambled back on the bed, pulling the blankets back over his lap like they could protect him from invisible psychopaths with a hammer and an eye on Frank's crotch.

Gerard blinked a couple of times. "There's no record of it happening to Jesus, if that makes you feel better?"

Frank buried his face in his drawn-up knees and moaned. "This is so much worse than I thought."

Gerard made a bizarre noise, and Frank looked up to find the motherfucker was laughing at him. "I'm sorry," he stumbled out when Frank gave him a furious glare. "I'm sorry, it's just - don't you think your penis is the least of your worries?"

"I don't believe you're a priest at all," Frank said in his most murderous voice. "Priests are supposed to be nice."

Gerard laughed again - he was a little pink in the face from the effort of not cracking up all to fuck at Frank's misfortune. It would have been annoying if it weren't so - god, shut up, Frank told himself furiously. Priest!

Gerard had put his camera away and was looking at Frank's angel tattoo again. "You said your back healed right away," he said slowly. "Didn't you tell me you just got this tattoo a couple days before we met for the first time?"

"Yeah." Frank drew his hand up to his chest and held it there. "Why?"

"Well," Gerard tipped his head to the side. "I don't know much about this stuff, but doesn't a tattoo usually take longer than this to heal?"

Frank nodded. "I guess I figured this…weird stuff must have already been happening, or something, so it healed up my tattoo, as well."

Gerard scrunched his mouth up thoughtfully. "And what made you choose that design?"

"I don't know." Frank looked down at her. "I just liked it."

"Hmm," said Gerard. "Do you think-"

Brian and Mikey came back in, then, Brian making an immediate beeline for the bed. "How's he doing, Father?"

For a minute Frank couldn't figure out who Brian was talking to, but then Gerard was nodding and putting a hand on Brian's shoulder. "He's fine. He's lucky you found him, though, I spoke to the doctors before."

Brian scrubbed his hands through his hair, looking miserable. "I was going to fire him."

"You saved his life," Gerard told him. Brian just shook his head and looked at the floor.

"Why are my doctors discussing me with you anyway?" Frank said to break the awkward silence that followed, and totally not because he wanted Gerard's attention back on him. "Doesn't doctor-patient confidentiality count for shit anymore?"

"It's the collar," Mikey piped up. "It's better than an FBI badge for getting people to talk."

"Not that I would ever abuse it," Gerard said earnestly to Brian. "But it does come in useful."

Brian grabbed Gerard's hand and shook it. "Thank you for coming, Father. I'm sorry I was, you know, before. Things are a little fraught."

"It's no problem."

"I'm still here, you know," Frank said, looking between Gerard and Brian, who were demonstrating their 'you-can-trust-me' faces to each other.

Gerard started gathering up his things. "I'm going to do some research," he told Frank, coming around to the other side of the bed. He took Frank's hand in both of his own and squeezed it gently. "You'll call me if anything else happens, right?"

"Yeah. Thanks." Frank squeezed back a little bit, trying to wring out as much good feeling as he could, as if he could store it up somehow.

Gerard smiled at him, and snagged Mikey's arm on the way out of the room, leaning close to talk quietly to him. Frank watched them go, feeling like he was being abandoned or something equally stupid. Why was he so desperate for Gerard to be around him? None of it made any sense.

"Hey," Brian said when the door closed, squeezing Frank's other hand. "Hey, Frankie."

If there was one thing Frank really couldn't stand, it was people feeling guilty at him. Over him. About him, whatever - the point is, if he wasn't making them feel guilty himself by giving them the big eyes and putting on a coughing display worthy of an iron lung, he didn't want to hear it. "Forget it."

Brian did a hilarious full-body writhe of bad feeling. Frank could relate. "Frank-"

"You saved my life," Frank told him, "Gerard just said so. And you're not gonna fire me now, right?"

"Of course not," Brian snapped. "But why didn't you tell me you were feeling so bad, Frank? We could have worked something out."

"Brian," Frank rested back against the pillows, suddenly exhausted. "For the last time, I didn't do this."

"Right, your wrists just spontaneously exploded all by themselves," Brian said, folding his arms. Brian always got mad when he was worried - Frank tried to remember that now, so he wouldn't brain him with a bedpan.

He took a few deep breaths instead, and asked calmly, "Have I ever seemed depressed to you?"

Brian sort of shrugged. "No."

"Have I ever given you any reason to believe I might want to kill myself?"

"No," Brian admitted, "But-"

"If this hadn't happened, and someone had asked you to make a list of the people least likely to ever kill themselves ever, would my name have been at the top of that list?"

"Frank," Brian said heatedly, "This isn't-"

"Did you see a weapon?"

Brian blinked. "What?"

Frank held his wrists out. "Did you see anything I could have used to make these?"

"Well no, but-"

"So what?" Frank said impatiently,