Chapter Text
The GTR’s engine growls steadily as Frank guides it over road-less desert in as much of a straight line towards Nevada as he can manage. The guys should be at the truck right now, around two hours northeast of Barstow. He really hopes no one tries to call him while Jamia has his phone and instructions to destroy his SIM card. He wishes he had the walkie talkie from his Camaro, but he didn’t have the time to stop by the rendezvous and grab it. It’s hard enough to secure his body armor over his clothes while he drives half with his knees, avoiding boulders that come up just a little too close for comfort as his headlights slowly become covered with dirt and his visibility lessens the harder he pushes his Nissan through the Mojave Desert.
His police radio scanner crackles to life with incredulous chatter from precincts within range regarding Jamia’s police report. He’s already an hour away from home, and he’s pretty sure he has enough time to get to his friends, given that they’re all still alive.
Frank wonders if his father or the police will reach the scene first. What he can’t believe is that he’s actually kind of banking on the cops arriving before his dad does. At least that way, they’ll all get arrested, and Frank will have the opportunity to barter for his team’s freedom with intel on every operation his father is currently in charge of. He wouldn’t ask for much; just the ability to keep his home, maybe a modest shop near the jersey shore. There wouldn’t even have to be some huge payout— none of them are averse to working, and Frank would happily make an honest living for the rest of his life, if it meant he and his friends could leave all of this behind.
He eventually finds the road the transport should be taking to get to Nevada and he skids out onto the asphalt, overwhelmingly grateful for the traction. He doubles his speed in no time, flicking on his high beams and praying to see movement up ahead soon. He starts to see tire marks burned into the four-lane road every few hundred feet and realizes he’s getting close.
His headlights catch the vague image of a dark, burning mass on the side of the road as he speeds by. When his brain finishes computing, he realizes that it was Gerard’s Subaru, completely wrecked. Every cell in his body is telling him to stop and see if they’re okay, but the hardened and miserable part of his brain tells him the obvious— if Gerard was in a crash that bad, there’s absolutely no way they would have survived. He feels an entirely new kind of sick as he shoves his gearshift into sixth in a desperate attempt to get to the truck even faster. His eyes well up momentarily, and his stomach churns angrily with the implication. He needs to catch up. He needs to. Mikey and Ray could be in serious danger. That’s all that matters now.
It isn’t long until another black figure appears, stopped on the road. He slows this time, since he recognizes it as the unmistakable shape of Mikey’s Honda. The GTR fishtails a little bit trying to come down from such a high speed, and comes to a crooked stop near what appears to be at least one of his teammates alive and healthy.
“Mikey, the fuck’s going on?!” He asks as he scrambles out of his car.
“Thank god you’re here, dude.” Mikey seems like he’s never been more relieved to see anyone in his life, which is a pretty big first for their strenuous relationship up until this point. Frank redirects his attention to the hood of Mikey’s Civic. Ray is laid out on it, bleeding heavily from the side, and all down his arm. He jolts and goes to him, with Mikey following anxiously at his side. “He’s lost a lot of blood. Wha— what do I do?”
Frank immediately tears at the velcro on his plate carrier so he can get his sweater vest off and fold it up to use as an absorbent pad. He hands it to Mikey, instructing him to staunch the bleeding in Ray’s side with heavy pressure so he can deal with Ray's arm. Frank yanks his tie free from his neck and knots it as tight as he can around Ray’s blood-soaked bicep as a makeshift tourniquet, then reaches for Ray’s belt to pull it free from his pants and fastens it around the rapidly soaking sweater vest so that Mikey won’t have to hold it while he drives.
“You gotta get him to the hospital now, Mikes. He’ll make it, but we can’t waste anymore time. Not even a second.” Frank demands, helping Mikey load Ray carefully into the passenger seat. Then, as he tries his best to wipe his bloody hands on his jeans, he finally musters the courage and asks the question that's been nagging at his mind. Up until this point, he’s been too scared to ask, for fear of Mikey giving an answer he really doesn’t want to hear. “Gerard… Where are they…?”
“They were still on the truck. I was getting shot at— I didn’t wanna leave them, but… They forced me.” Mikey answers, sounding about as terrified as Frank feels while he buckles Ray in and shuts the door. Frank doesn’t waste a single moment before bolting back to his car to take off down the road in the direction of the shipment. He can see Mikey’s taillights retreating in the distance and hopes beyond all odds that he can make it to the hospital in Barstow, or somewhere nearby, relatively quickly.
If Ray managed to catch that load of buckshot anywhere that there weren’t vital organs, he’d have a pretty strong chance of making it out alive. Gerard, on the other hand, is still stuck on a shipment with a shotgun wielding maniac, and Frank can only pray that the driver has run out of ammunition by now. He nearly wrecks his car as he guns the Skyline over a small hill at top speed, but he can finally see the little red blips of taillights in the distance. There’s no sign of Gerard’s body scattered across the pavement, and he’s holding onto that fact with everything he has.
Frank sorely misses the nitrous canisters that are installed in his mother’s Silvia. It would be just enough of the boost he needs right now to catch up. Instead, he has to wait with baited breath until he can finally make out the proper shape of the truck; with the faint outline of Gerard hanging off the side exhausts, alive. He nearly starts crying out of sheer relief at the sight.
Frank lays on the pedal to draft up beside the truck’s passenger side and rolls his windows down when he nears Gerard. They meet his eyes, looking harrowed and exhausted. He’s not really sure what they would have done if he hadn’t been able to get there in time, other than hop off at a truck stop and hope they could run faster than the driver could shoot.
It doesn’t matter anymore— Gerard calls out for him, and the rest of the world around Frank goes silent. His eyes lock onto the only thing he’s worried about now, and he realizes he’s in a significantly shittier position to help them than he would’ve been if he were in a car with a driver’s seat on the left side. He leans over to the best of his ability while trying to also keep his car on the road, and does his best to hold back the insistent urge to cry.
“I can’t jump through the window; it’s too small!” Gerard shouts over the wind and the screaming RB26 under the GTR’s hood, and Frank racks his brain for another plan. The only thing he can come up with involves getting close enough to grind his paint off on the side of the rig, but he tries it anyway.
“Try climbing in!” He stretches himself across the center console to the point of pain to offer Gerard his hand through the window.
Gerard shakily makes their way back down the pole, but the truck’s driver has already caught on to the continued rescue attempt and fires at Frank, who brakes expertly enough that the buckshot only damages his hood, instead of blowing his hand and god knows what else to pieces.
“He’s not gonna stop until he runs out of shells!” Gerard cries, and Frank doesn’t want to stick around long enough for either of them to get hurt; it kills him already just to see how scared they are.
“You gotta jump,” Frank pleads, and Gerard’s face softens into a look of acceptance. He’s seen it too many times before— on the faces of the men who had tried to kidnap him, on the faces of people who knew they were on their last mission. He wasn’t about to let that happen. Not to Gerard. Not before he can tell them how he feels.
“Frank, I– Fuck,” Gerard stutters, pushing their hair out of their face and moving to swing their body off the side of the rig. “Okay, ready?”
“I’m ready,” Frank says, holding their horrified gaze and moving the car ever so slightly closer. “I got you.”
Gerard braces themself and takes the leap of faith. Frank holds his arm out over his side mirror as a weak last ditch effort, in case they happen to slide across the hood. They likely only have a few seconds before the driver shoots again.
Gerard lands on the hood and reaches up to grip his hand tight. Frank all but slams on the brakes, slowing the car down so abruptly that the truck rumbles off into the darkness, so that he can manage to stop without risking another round of buckshot coming at them and finally get Gerard inside the GTR.
Frank brings the car to a stop with sweat trickling down his face and heaving breaths wracking his lungs. He pops his door latch as soon as he can yank the parking brake into position, and turns off the engine before running around his open door to help a very shaken Gerard off the hood.
“You made it…” Gerard breathes as Frank checks them over in a worried frenzy. He smooths his hands over their clothes and caresses their wind-burnt face, squinting as he looks for injuries, even though he can barely see in the darkness.
“I did. I’m here. You’re safe,” Frank soothes, pulling their stunned face down to kiss it all over in relief. He pulls away after three extra pecks to the forehead. “Christ, Gee, I saw the XT… I was so fucking scared.”
“Oh, god… Right. I’m sorry.” They apologize sheepishly, letting him frantically rub his warm hands over their own, frozen from the chill of the air out here at night paired with the wind of a vehicle going 80 miles per hour.
“It's fine, Jesus, let’s just… Let’s go find Mikey, okay? Then we’ll head home and get ready to run.”
“Your dad… He’s coming, isn’t he?” Gerard asks, and Frank nods, wide eyes meeting theirs as he goes to turn and pull them over to the passenger’s side of the Nissan.
Then they hear it; amidst the near-dead silence of the desert, a plane growing alarmingly close. Both of them turn to look down the road in the direction the truck left in, and a dark private jet is making a forced emergency landing on the road. The truck driver swerves so violently from the shock that after all he’s fought for the whole night, he puts the rig on its side and runs off the road into yet another fiery crash.
Frank considers it a miracle that he keeps down the urge to vomit. The sight of the jet landing has a sinking feeling brewing in his stomach, the likes of which he has never experienced before.
This is it. He’s not making it out of this one.
His last mission. Acceptance.
It’s been a good run— really, despite everything, it has— but Frank has to be realistic, now. If he ends this here, his father will pin the whole job on him whether he kills Frank or not. Gerard, Mikey and Ray will walk free, and it’ll only cost him his life. Whether that's in or out of prison, Frank doesn't care. He can't; his life became Gerard from the moment they met, and there's no rewriting those pages now. He has to push them away, one last time.
“You have to get out of here. Now.” He digs his keys out of his pocket and shoves them into Gerard’s hand.
“What?!” Gerard seems to finally snap out of their stupor. They nearly drop the keys in their incredulity.
“Trust me,” Frank begs. “Please.”
“No. We’re not doing this again. I’m done letting you push me away like this.” They argue, taking his hand and trying to give the keys back. He doesn’t let them and starts to back away, putting distance between them because he’s pretty sure he needs it if this is how it has to go.
“This isn’t that. It’s just… our last option.” Frank shakes his head, backing up another step. He hears the jet touch down a quarter mile behind him, and the wind picks up from the landing. “You deserve to get out. You all do. I’m sorry you ever got tangled up in all this shit. He’ll make me take the fall, it’ll all be on me. You’ll be safe.”
“Get in the car, Frank. The plan was to run anyway. We can outrun him long enough to get home and get the trailer loaded up. Come on.”
“They’re going to kill me,” Frank’s voice shakes with the fear that they somehow still aren't taking this situation seriously enough, the determined set in his brow fading to something much more haunting. “A-and if you’re still around, they’re gonna kill you, too. They’ll hunt down Mikey. Ray. Fuck, Jamia. Please, I just… I need to know you’re safe, this is how I know. Please.”
Gerard just shakes their head, stuck halfway between closing the distance between them and letting themself collapse to the ground in front of Frank.
“Mikey needs you right now,” Frank continues, hoping that maybe, by some stroke of luck, he’s getting through to them. “And if I— if there’s even the slightest chance I can talk my way out of this, I need you. I’ve always needed you. A-and I always will.”
“I’m not leaving without you.” Gerard’s face changes, and Frank can’t read them now. He lets himself fall into the controlled spiral of trying to figure out the right words, the right expression— whatever it would take to save them. All of them. When Gerard speaks again, Frank can’t fight the tears anymore. “I love you. I meant it then, I mean it now. I’d rather die…”
Gerard doesn’t finish the thought. Frank pushes his hands into his hair and pulls at his scalp, trying to quell the frustration as tears roll down his cheeks, leaving a path through the dust coating his face. The nuclear option would be to choke out another string of hateful lies that Gerard will never believe anyway, but Frank can’t bear the thought of ensuring that their next however many years are sleepless. Begging isn’t working, the end is only getting closer, and he swears he can hear his own death toll in the back of his mind.
He takes a deep breath in.
“Gerard, I—”
“Don’t,” Gerard cuts him off, a venomous frown creeping across their lips, and Frank can only imagine what they’re scared he may say after last time. He can hardly think, or see, through the flashing images of every moment they’ve shared together. Saving their life or not, it feels like he’s throwing it all away. It feels like he’s asking them to do it, too.
“Don’t try to make me hate you, Frank.” They threaten, holding up a hand that looks like it’s trying to reach for him more than stop him. Their knees wobble when Frank shakes his head. What he’s sure must look like giving up, is just another kind of silent acceptance; it’s now or never.
Frank breaks and steps closer, reaching to take their hand, and tugs Gerard against his chest, into his arms. He can’t stop his shoulders from shaking when he speaks.
“I love you,” he sobs, gripping any part of them he can hold. “I loved you when you told me, I loved you at the racetrack, I loved you—”
His sentence is ended abruptly when Gerard’s lips collide with his own so hard that he stumbles backwards, pulling them with him. Even though they’re running out of time, Frank melts into their hold and kisses them back with everything he’s got. Gerard’s hands are warm on his face, and his own are planted on their chest, ready to push them away, but he curls his fingers into the soft material of their shirt instead and tries to imagine that they’re anywhere but here. He feels Gerard smile against his lips and trips over the end of his sentence, their lips brushing with every word. “Before that, even. I loved you when you saved my mom’s Nissan for me.”
Gerard lets out a nasally giggle that’s virtually indistinguishable from another sob, their face wet with tears, and kisses him again.
If he dies tonight, at least he’ll have this— one last happy memory. Best case, he faces his father and makes his pathetic silver tongue work for him for once to get Cheech to forget about all this, to forget how much he wants Frank dead, just for them to go back home knowing that the team won’t steal from the trucks anymore. He can promise to dedicate one-hundred percent of his life to running the family, and he’ll promise his father that if the team ever makes another pass at their stock, he’ll hunt them down. But Frank knows they won’t. He knows the plan. They’ll be safe and out of the country, and he’ll be back to the life he was always supposed to have led. Maybe he can take a few vacations to visit them on the sly.
He can’t justify risking any more time for Gerard to escape, so he breaks away with a great deal of effort after one more press of their lips against his.
“Took you long enough,” Gerard croaks with a wet chuckle as they pull away, hastily clearing away snot and tears with the back of their hand. Frank is sure that they must know what comes next now, but they still can’t seem to stop smiling. “Fucking asshole.”
Frank wipes his face on his sleeve, then swipes his thumbs across their cheeks and knocks their foreheads together with a shaky exhale. He tries to commit the feeling of their tears drying on his skin to memory. If he forgets everything else, he just wants this. He just wants Gerard.
“I would’ve waited forever if it meant you’d walk away from this,” he whispers, subconsciously drifting closer to their lips again, like there’s some invisible magnetic pull. He tugs his bottom lip between his teeth and refocuses with a quick shake of his head, his forehead still pressed to theirs. “But… this is how I make sure you don’t spend the rest of your life running. Take my half of the money. Make sure Ray and Mikey are okay, and… tell Jamia that I’m sorry I lied. Again.”
“Lied about what?” Gerard asks after taking a single agonizing step back.
“I told her I’d get all of us out safe.” Frank sniffs and mirrors them. He’s bound to cave and follow them if he doesn’t turn his back now, so his closing statement is as final as he can muster. “The cops are on their way. I love you, Gerard. Now, go.”
He can’t stand to look at the heartbreak in Gerard’s face as he turns his back on them for what he prays will be the last time. He knows right now that he wouldn’t be able to do it again, because it’s taking everything in him to keep walking toward the jet now, where his father waits with two of his most trusted men. He crosses hardly half of the distance before the trio reaches him first, and he knows that his best chance of getting through this smoothly starts with him at least making it look like he’s remorseful.
His heartbeat is so deafening in his ears that he can’t even hear if Gerard manages to escape. He drops to his knees on the rough asphalt in front of his boss and two of his captains; trigger-happy lunatics that Frank has already outranked for years, who are way too thrilled to be pointing their guns at him as he raises his hands to let one of them take his purposely visible Beretta from his waistband.
“I’m sorry, Boss.” Frank forgoes wasting both of their time by calling him anything other than the title he’d prefer; he’s not appealing to his father, he’s appealing to the husk of a man that he’s watched him become. His grandfather’s murderer. “I tried, I— You knew I’d fail you. I should’ve let you handle it before I got in too deep.”
Cheech shakes his head, disappointment the most defined emotion on his face, and calmly loads his pistol before pointing it at Frank’s head.
“You think I want to hear you kiss ass now?”
Frank looks down, but doesn’t dare break eye contact. If he has any chance of surviving this, or getting away, he has to know exactly what his father is doing at any given point. He replies with a stunted shake of his head.
“If you were sorry, you would have killed these… these faggots, and we’d be drinking scotch out of their skulls.” Cheech is dead serious, and his intimidation is almost working, but the imagery is so over the top that Frank nearly wants to laugh. He also has to quiet the rage that bubbles in his chest at hearing his real family talked about like that; his father would love nothing more than to goad one last act of defiance out of him right now, and Frank won’t give him the satisfaction.
“If you were so sorry…” His dad continues, stepping closer until the barrel of his gun is digging into Frank’s sweaty temple, nudging his head even further down. “I wouldn’t have had to catch you in your office with the staff. Seeing you with that sorry excuse for a hole is probably what put your grandfather in the fuckin’ ground, God rest his soul.”
That statement alone is enough to goad Frank into doing something irreversibly stupid, but he flexes every muscle he can to keep himself from trying to disarm one of these men and pistol-whip his dad until he’s unrecognizable. He bites his tongue as he hears his dad heave in another deep breath to fuel his monologue.
“I’ve worked hard my whole life, Frankie,” Cheech paces, his gun staying laser-focused even as he talks with his hands. “It’s not something I should’ve expected you to understand. Everything you have, everything your mother has, is because of me. The pretty little cars you drive that queer around in, the guns that you think make you a tough guy, the clothes on your fucking back.”
Frank combats the urge to roll his eyes. He got this same speech when he used to sneak out as a teenager. It was a load of shit then, and it still is now. The least he could’ve done was come up with some new material. They both know they were lucky enough to be the Don’s blood, and that is the only reason they weren't gunned down in the streets years ago.
“Your mother… She’d hate to see you like this. What am I s’posed to tell her, Frankie? Huh? Do you think she’s going to understand all of this, with your employee skeezing around your office? She wanted to see you settle down, make something of yourself with a nice woman—”
“What, you mean a nice woman like Joan?” Frank interrupts, and as soon as the words leave his lips, he knows he’s in for it.
Cheech’s hand raises almost cinematically, and comes down to backhand Frank three times harder than either of them are expecting. His ring catches Frank’s cheek, and he can feel the hot rush of blood spill out of the gash it leaves in the ever-thinning scar tissue over his cheekbone. His father is right on top of him when he opens his eyes, and he slams his gun right against the center of Frank’s forehead, forcing him to look up at it and meet his gaze beyond the barrel.
“I bet you wish you could shoot me right now, don’t you?” His father growls.
Frank spits on the ground in front of him, barely missing his father’s shoes, before closing his eyes.
Acceptance, he repeats to himself. Knowing it’s the last mission.
Frank hears the click of his father’s pistol cocking.
Keep Gerard safe— Success.
Then, he hears an ear-shattering pop. Then another one, another one, and the unmistakable sound of bodies dropping, along with the clatter of weapons hitting pavement. Frank is chalking it up to Catholic school hitting the nail on the head; there’s totally an afterlife, and he’s in it.
He’s too afraid to open his eyes, even when he hears the thump of footsteps rapidly approaching him from behind.
Watching Frank trudge down the stretch of road ahead of them feels like their heart is being ratcheted out of their chest by an engine hoist with each apprehensive step he takes.
Gerard creeps around the GTR until they can reach the door, and they’re fairly certain that they’re hidden from view of Frank’s father at this distance. As Frank kneels to repent in front of him, lit by the firelight of the crashed shipment, Gerard thinks this looks too much like a mafia movie that they would not like the end of.
They peek through the window to the inside of the car, briefly considering listening to Frank’s plea and making good on their silent promise to leave. At least that way, they wouldn’t have to watch him get his head blown off for the high crime of falling in love with a stripper. The thought alone makes them shudder, and they rake their eyes over the interior one more time.
Like the deus ex machina they’d just silently prayed for, they notice Frank’s weapon case sitting in the passenger seat and thank their lucky stars that they asked him to teach them how to shoot a few nights ago. They pop the door open with a quiet hiss and kneel in the driver’s seat to flick open the latches on the case and assess the firepower Frank brought with him.
Whatever guardian angel is watching over them is a really good one, because in the middle of the case sits a dark sub-machine gun surrounded by smaller weapons embedded in the foam. They’re glad he grabbed everything because they’re fairly certain that if all he had was his pistols, he’d be as good as dead right now. The only empty slot is one that would usually hold his beloved Beretta, and Gerard can’t resist the overwhelming need to tenderly run their fingers over the hole in the foam. At least he has something on him.
They reach for the automatic weapon and look at all of its mechanisms, and they’re pretty sure they can get it to work. It’s definitely loaded, and all they can do is pray once more that when they pull the trigger, the men threatening the love of their life will no longer be standing.
There is, of course, the possibility that they catch Frank with a stray bullet and it’s all for naught. They’ll just have to bank on luck and the little bit of target training they received from him. He’s still alive for now, thank god, as his father seems dead set on lecturing him to death before making any real attempt to kill him.
They line up the shot and wait. Frank’s dad reels back, telegraphing the most obvious backhand in the world. Frank doesn’t dodge it, even though there’s no way he didn’t know it was coming. He ducks his head even lower in agony and shame, and Gerard can’t watch him do it again. They almost lower the gun, right before they see Frank spit on the ground, and his father starts to squeeze the trigger.
Gerard squeezes their trigger faster and hurriedly says their prayers. Frank’s dad goes down from a bullet to the neck, and Gerard doesn’t have time to celebrate before they redirect their aim to fire at the two henchmen that retaliated by shooting wildly into the darkness. Awful security.
Gerard manages to kill one instantly with another stroke of insane luck in the form of a bullet to the forehead, and has to slip out of the car to the ground as the other one’s ammunition embeds itself in the GTR’s passenger door. Then they make their counterattack, and miraculously gun him down too by filling his chest with lead. Whether he’s dead or not doesn’t matter, because he won’t be able to do much of anything for the foreseeable future.
Frank doesn’t move a muscle as Gerard discards the gun on the seat and runs toward him. By the time they reach him, he’s still on the ground, stunned and shaking with that same dissociated look in his eyes. Gerard has seen it before, and they really hoped they’d never have to see it again. He’s convinced that he just died.
“Frank,” they yell his name louder than planned, all of the air getting expelled from their lungs as they grind their knees into the pavement, pulling Frank into their lap. “I got you. I’m here, you lived, it’s real. I’m real.”
Frank blinks and tries to turn his head, but Gerard holds his face in their hands to stop him.
“No, no,” they shake their head. “Look at me. Keep your eyes on me.”
“How— I thought—” Frank stutters, cupping their hands in his own. “You were supposed to leave. I told you to leave.”
“I couldn’t,” Gerard sniffles, stroking their thumb over the fresh gash in Frank’s cheek. They want nothing more than to hold him here, to know he’s safe and forget about everything else, but the sound of sirens in the distance slices through the dense night air. “We gotta go, baby. They’re coming.”
Frank wrenches Gerard’s hands away from his face and throws himself out of their lap, standing slowly with his eyes glued on his father’s writhing body. Gerard can’t tell if he’s upset, elated, violently empty, or all three. He walks closer, and sucks his tongue as hard as he can to spit on his boss’s face for the first, and last, time. Cheech lies there, wheezing and gasping for breath as blood pours from the gaping wound in his neck. In one final belligerent act of violence, Frank’s father reaches for his gun where he dropped it just out of his grasp.
Frank steps on his hand. He intercepts, picks up his father’s pistol, then cocks the hammer back without saying a word to the man who’s single-handedly ruined his life on more than one occasion.
Silently, calmly, and with none of the usual light behind his eyes, he shoots each of the men in the head for good measure, and dumps the rest of the mag into his father. What little blood pressure remains inside the body causes viscera to spray up and stain some of Frank’s white shirt during the onslaught of bullets. He tosses the smoking, emptied gun onto Cheech’s lifeless body in an almost annoyed motion before bending down to grab his grandfather's Beretta from the road and returning to Gerard’s side.
“Let’s go,” he clips, but when he looks at Gerard, still on the ground and absolutely covered in wind-blasted dirt, he very purposefully softens his demeanor. “I’m sorry— Thank you, Gee.”
They nod and stand, tentatively reaching for Frank’s hand, and he takes it tightly in his own.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
They hastily make their way to the Nissan. Frank catches the keys as they throw them over the hood, and they slam themselves into the seats as fast as they physically can. Gerard stuffs Frank’s weapon case into the cramped back cabin and shuts the door.
Frank turns over the engine and guns it off this god-forsaken stretch of road, into the darkness of the Mojave. Gerard has no idea where they’re going and isn’t even sure if Frank does either, but it doesn’t really matter anymore. The cops likely won’t give chase when they have a much better catch on their hands in the form of a newly appointed mafia boss found dead on the road. If they get lucky, since they're Los Angeles Police, they’ll make up some overblown Hollywood story about how Cheech actually was robbing his own shipments for insurance payouts. Wouldn’t that be just perfect?
They don’t voice their train of thought to Frank as he drives. He probably isn’t aware of it, but Gerard can hear his uneven breathing over the soft sound of the radio weakly picking up the local alternative station. Gerard knows he’s bound to have a panic attack anytime now, but they also know they have to get as far out of the range of the crime scene as possible.
They figure they must be around halfway back to Barstow by the time Frank begins to downshift with shaking hands. It isn’t long until he hits the brakes and starts to slow down to a stop.
Gerard doesn’t even have time to say anything before he’s tearing his seatbelt off and charging out of the door, skidding to his knees in the rough desert sand. They follow him as fast as they physically can, popping their own door as they see him plant his hands in the dirt, unable to overcome the urge to vomit. They go to his side and try to turn him away from the mess as the adrenaline makes the panic worse and he flinches, trying to fight them off briefly before collapsing into their arms, gasping for air.
Their mind reels with a thousand things to say, and any one of them could be wrong, but they spin the wheel and try something; anything to get the two of them moving again. They’re not going to lose him now.
“I’m sorry,” Gerard pulls Frank’s sweaty hair from his face, trying not to overcrowd him at the same time. “I— I don’t know if I meant to kill him. I thought he was going to kill you.”
Frank just shakes his head, his body shivering in Gerard’s lap despite the overwhelming heat in his cheeks. His chest is heaving with sharp, too-short breaths as he tries to speak, but Gerard fills the void with more apologies.
“I know you hated him, but he’s your dad. I just wanted to protect you. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“It’s not that,” Frank gulps at the air, trying desperately to level out. He wipes his mouth on the back of his bloodied sleeve. “He would’ve killed me, you were right. It’s… everything else.”
“What do you mean?” Gerard presses, even though they shouldn’t, but it feels like high time that Frank finally stops with the secrets.
“My dad was never the issue. The Family… I mean, him being gone, it helps. But everything, all of it, is on me now. I thought that he’d get himself killed— I guess he did— but, I always hoped to have my grandfather to help me. He commanded respect, he knew the ins and outs better than my dad liked to pretend, he would know exactly what to do now.” Frank steeled himself and sat up, spitting to try and clear the acrid taste in his mouth. Gerard is all too familiar with the action. “I just don’t.”
“I don’t know much about how the mob works, but I don’t think that was ever going to happen. Unless your dad died first, but even then, do you really think your grandfather would’ve just thrown in the towel? He would’ve become the… Dom, or whatever, and you’d have had to figure it all out anyway.”
Frank manages a chuckle, and it’s the first relief Gerard’s felt all day.
“It’s Don,” he corrects, sporting a sliver of a smirk that quickly fades with his next words. “And you’re not wrong. It was wishful thinking. Part of me must’ve always figured he’d kill me, or get me killed, before I got the chance to worry about any of this. I just didn’t want to do it alone.”
“What about home?” Gerard asks, ignoring the aching urge to correct Frank, and tell him that he’s not alone. He’ll just say that he doesn’t want them involved, and Gerard doesn’t want to hear it right now. “Jersey? …Your mom?”
“I have to tell her that I’ve just been promoted again,” Frank shudders. “And then run a syndicate. Forever. Jersey doesn’t even feel like home anymore. When I look at you, I’m home.”
“Well, when you put it that way…” Gerard sighs, pulling Frank’s hands into their own and running their fingers over the dried, caked blood that they have to assume is Ray’s, since it was there from the moment he tried to reach for them through the car window. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you need to worry about her. I can’t imagine that they’ve maintained a loving marriage, if it even started as one. She probably feels just as trapped as you, yeah?”
Frank nods, and there’s more behind his eyes that Gerard can only hope he’ll share. Their prayers are answered when he sucks in another ragged breath.
“I just didn’t want to have to do this,” Frank shakes his head. “I feel like a little kid, I— As much as I hated him, he had the harder job. It kills me to say that, but at least he won’t get the satisfaction of fucking hearing it. He handled everything because I couldn’t; I can’t. Not by myself, and it’s not like my mom, or any of the guys back home who do like me, can help. I feel so alone, even with you right here.”
“You’re not, though.” Gerard’s brows furrow as they lean in, pulling Frank closer. “I’m here, and I don’t just mean for you. I’m here for all of this; for your mom, for your home, or… what’s left of it. Ray and Mikey, too. And they have me right back. It’s not all on you. I’m capable, Frank. You’ve seen that I am.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right. I just—”
“I mean it, Frank. Like you said; forever,” Gerard interrupts, and they can tell they’ve won before they even finish their sentence. “I’m not letting you bulldoze me anymore. I’m here and I'm staying.”
“Then… we have a lot of work to do. Starting with dismantling a notoriously violent criminal organization from the inside." Frank stands, and reaches for Gerard’s hand. They start to lead him back to the GTR, over to the passenger’s side this time.
“How about we start with getting back in the fucking car, Robin Hood.” Gerard falls into the driver’s seat and has to take a second to look over the dash. They’ve never driven a car with the steering wheel on the right instead of the left, but they’re not about to let that stop them now. The keys are still dangling from the ignition and when Gerard turns it over, the car springs to life, and they’re back on the road. “Now we just have to find the Hospital.”