We Can Run, Or We Can Die [Frerard]

Nine|Zombies, Vampires, Werewolves, and...Dragons

"Mikey." Gerard mumbled, twitching and trembling as though he were having a seizure. "Muh-Muh-Mikey. Mikey. Where's Mikey." His speech was slurred and his limbs thrashed, as his voice rose. "Mikey! Mikey!" He screamed, going into a full-blown fit, and Frank was the first to react.

He jumped onto Gerard, pinning his wrists down with his hands and his legs down with his feet. He was small, he was agile, he wasn't quite strong enough to hold him down but he put up a good fight.

"Gee, Gee it's me, calm down." He said softly, his lips close to Gerard's forehead, but the elder only continued to shriek, his brother's name the only thing his tongue allowed him to speak.

"What happened?" Ray asked in a daze, looking between Bert and Gerard and trying to decide who was bloodier.

"Just...don't." Bert said, sounding - and feeling - like his tongue was too big for his mouth. He winced as Gerard writhed, and he grabbed the younger's hands as Frank whispered to him, trying to get him to calm down. His head hurt, pounding, even, and he screwed his eyes shut. "It doesn't matter."

Ray knew not to press, no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much the sight of Bert carrying a shaking Gerard scared him. They'd gotten the gas; the cans were by the front door, haphazard and hopefully full. He picked them up, taking them into the kitchen, throwing one last glance towards the other three before setting the cans on the counter.

By the time he returned, Gerard was still shaking, but he was no longer screaming, and Bert had let go of his hands. Gerard was holding Frank close, and Frank was holding him too, faces in necks and arms holding waists. Bert sank into one of the chairs, his head in his hands, blood dried into his fingernails.

Ray sat on the arm of the chair, beside Bert, placing a gentle hand on his back and rubbing soothing circles. "Was it a zombie?" He asked.

Bert glanced towards Gerard. "No. I don't know what it was. It was...something different. Something I've never seen before."

~

The sun was high in the sky when they set off in the car. Gerard quickly fell asleep in the backseat, his head on Frank's shoulder, while Ray joined Bert in the front. It felt strange to be in an actual moving vehicle, something that was so much quicker and safer than two feet. There was nothing else on the roads, besides one overturned car and the carcass of what looked like a dog.

Bert and Ray were talking quietly, and Frank was pretending to sleep, when in fact he was listening to what they were saying. Obviously.

"So was it human?"

"Not quite."

"But not a zombie?"

"Not at all." Pause. "It did feel, y'know...genetically modified. But not like zombies. Worse than zombies." Another pause. "I want to say -" a glance towards the backseat, towards Gerard. The next word uttered as a whisper. "- vampire, but -"

"They don't exist."

"Precisely." Another pause, longer this time. "They're stronger. Their skin is harder. Y'know how zombies are...pliable?"

"Pliable."

"Yeah, like...their skin...you can squish it." A snort. Probably Ray. "Shut up. Zombies decay, asshat. Haven't you ever touched one before?

"No! What kind of idiot would do that?"

Frank rolled his eyes behind his lids. Fool.

"You can literally rip off a zombie's arm. You can rip it off and wave it around and hit it on the head with it, but that doesn't make it any less dangerous."

"What's that got to do with vampires?"

"Nothing - just - look, it was physically impossible to rip the arm off that thing that attacked us, because it was stronger, its skin was harder, and most importantly, it wasn't decaying."

"So how come you're covered in blood if it was supposed to kill you?"

"Because I did the only logical thing and staked it."

There was a pause, and then someone, presumably Ray, burst out laughing. Frank had to admit that staking it was quite amusing, or at least the idea of it. Ideas were amusing, so long as they didn't harm anyone, especially ones that lasted twelve years. The idea of a zombie apocalypse was once laughable, until, of course, it became a horrible, murderous reality.

Gerard stirred in his sleep, shuffling around and almost elbowing Frank in the ribs, and conversation ceased momentarily as the speakers made sure that the fragile young man was still sleeping. Frank, who was getting ever so good at pretending, let Gerard snuggle further into him in the cramped space, and he tuned out Bert and Ray's voices, finding himself beginning to fall asleep too.

"Vampires don't exist, Bert." Ray protested. "They can't."

"I'm just gonna call 'em that for now. It's the only thing I can think of."

"But - but what if it's something else?"

"I didn't exactly have time to examine it, Ray."

There was silence on Ray's part as he thought it over, and then he whispered, "Do you think they're a new type of...species?"

Bert only shrugged. "I don't know. It's not impossible. I mean, if they've made zombies, who's to say they won't make vampires? Werewolves? Dragons?"

"Dragons?!"

"Maybe."

"Dragons."

"Shut up, Ray."

~

There was a body on the floor. Clearly dead, covered in blood, left arm somewhere three feet away. It looked mauled, as if wild dogs had attacked it, but that wasn't the case. Of course it wasn't.

And the body's brother couldn't stop screaming, his voice hoarse and his throat raw. He shook the body, crying out its name over and over again, ignoring the blood on his hands and knees. His heart felt like it was being cleaved in two. His worst nightmare had come true and now there was literally nothing left.

He turned to the figure stood behind him, tears rolling down his face, and he screamed some more, because his throat wasn't raw enough.

"This is your fault!" He yelled. "You just left him to die! You killed him!"

The figure stayed silent, unaware of the extent of the pain he'd caused, and the brother was unaware of the guilty fire in the figure's stomach. There was sobbing, harsh, wracking sobbing, and the figure turned away. Apparently that was the wrong thing to do.

"No! No don't you dare turn away from me!"

The figure didn't turn.

"Look at me! Look at what you've done!"

The figure didn't turn.

"Frank Iero, fucking look at me!"

~

"Bert!"

There was a sudden screech of tyres on the road, and a yell, cursing, and Frank's eyes shot open. The car had stopped, and Ray and Bert jumped out, and Frank looked around wildly as Gerard's eyes opened.

"What's happened?" He asked, but Frank shook his head.

Bert looked into the car, a frown on his face. "There's a guy sat in the middle of the road, and I almost ran him over."

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