Ray wasn't half as irritable or annoying as Gerard expected him to be, but there was something about him that Frank didn't trust, that much was clear.

Frank himself was in front, nose buried in the map, trying to figure out just where the fuck they were. He had no clue, and figuring it out was just as hard as he thought it would be.

He sighed heavily, coming to a stop and turning around. "I can't fucking -" he frowned when he saw Gerard and Ray further away than he thought, whispering closely together and glancing at him. "Find where we are." He muttered uselessly to himself, sitting down on a nearby rock and cursing when he sat so hard the rock jammed into his ass cheek.

His eye - or what was left of it - itched behind the eyepatch, and the scarring hidden behind the messy outgrown hedge that he called hair was irritating him also. He rubbed it with the heel of his hand, a headache starting at his temples, and he cursed quietly to himself. Ray and Gerard weren't exactly getting any closer, so he took the chance and lifted the eyepatch.

He winced as he felt the mess, the scarring and burnt skin, and it did nothing to help the itch. It was as if it were his eyelids - maybe even the useless eyeball itself - were itching, and he cursed again, a little louder, because it wasn't as if he could get to the itch and scratch it.

He dreaded to think what it looked like, even after the healing process had near-enough completed. Probably gross. Probably disgusting. He didn't care. He was an ugly little fucker, and he was only going to get uglier.

"Why have you stopped?"

Frank's head snapped up at the sound of Gerard's voice, and he quickly snapped the patch back into place. "I was waiting for you to catch up." Bitterness seeped into his voice, intentional or otherwise, and Gerard's eyebrows rose. "I can't find where we are."

"Somewhere in New York, I know that much." Ray piped up, and Frank glared before holding out his hand.

"Do either of you have a compass?"

Ray rummaged in his bag and pulled one out, handing it to Frank as he turned to Gerard. The two moved off once more, away from the sidewalk and towards the field, muttering something about setting up camp. Frank glanced up towards the sky, noticing that the sun was beginning to set, and he sighed before frowning. He refused to let himself be jealous. He couldn't.

~

Frank couldn't sleep.

He'd taken it upon himself to sit outside the tent that Ray had oh-so-graciously brought along, as an unofficial guard. The tent was another reason that Gerard thought Ray was a fucking Saint, and Frank hated it.

He hated the whole apocalypse, and he hated being alone, and he hated lying to everyone. But most of all, he hated being scared.

And the truth was, Frank was too scared to sleep. Inside the tent, Gerard and Ray were sleeping (too close together for it to be purely innocent, which Frank also hated), and they were both oblivious to the thoughts swarming around Frank's head.

He was scared of Lindsey, too, and didn't know why they were going to where she was. But Mikey was there too, and he was the priority, only...

Frank shook his head, pulling his knees closer to his chest. He'd been allowed a night or two off from the nightmares, but he reckoned they would come back tonight - if he allowed himself to sleep.

He was tired, but he couldn't sleep. He couldn't.

The headache that had started at his temples had reached a crescendo in his head, and it felt like his skull was throbbing. He contemplated shooting himself in the head, just to get rid of it, but that would make matters worse - and messier.

A rustling in the bushes, the ones twenty feet in front of him, caught his attention, and he shot to his feet, his knife out in seconds. He could feel his heart beating fast, but he edged forward anyway, towards the bushes. A low groan sounded from the greenery, and Frank gasped, freezing on the spot. And from the bush rose a zombie, five and a half feet tall and rotting away from the hairline downwards.

Frank hadn't seen one in ages. He hadn't dared to believe that they'd gone, of course, but still. It was there, in front of him. A lesser man - someone like Gerard - would've panicked, maybe run. But while Frank was scared of sleeping, of what lay in his own head, he wasn't scared of zombies.

It growled at him as he stepped closer, the foul stench hitting him and making him gag. There was no smell worse than death.

It stumbled towards him, reaching out, smelling the human that was so stupidly getting closer to him, but Frank sidestepped it and stabbed it in the back. It whined and tried to get at him, but Frank pulled the knife out and dodged its flailing arms, spinning and lodging the knife in the zombie's throat.

One of its arms caught him in the face, splitting his lip, and he cursed quietly to himself as he twisted and yanked the knife from the creature's throat.

Remove the head. Remove the fucking head, Iero.

The blood running down his chin made it hard to concentrate, and he felt like he was about to pass out. He darted behind the creature, its foul odor making bile - and the little food he'd eaten that day - rise in his throat. God, it was - it was fucking awful. He grabbed the zombie's hand, the flesh caving in beneath his fingertips, and he pinned its arm behind its back. He was going to smell like shit and gross and decay for days, oh fuck - the skin split and there was blood on his hands and Jesus he wanted to throw up -

There was some sort of muffled crack as the zombie's arm broke, and he stepped away as the skin split and the arm fell off at the elbow. He wanted to make some sort of stupid pun about its lack of arm but he was way too nauseous and just wanted it gone. Even for someone who liked gore as much as he, that was too much. The zombie was too decayed, so much that it really wasn't amusing anymore. So with more strength than he thought he had, he grabbed its head and snapped its neck, letting it drop to the floor.

Frank stepped back, breathing heavily, and he swiped at his chin, grimacing at the sting. He wiped the bloody knife on his jeans and put it away, his shoulders slumping. That was more than a little bit terrifying, he had to admit.

And Ray and Gerard were still asleep. Maybe that was a good thing.

He fell to his knees a few feet away from the dead (double dead? Triple dead? Quadruple donkey double black dead?) creature, his head hung low between his shoulders as his heartbeat slowed, and sleep would be just perfect right now, but...the nightmares...

He checked inside the tent and found that Ray had slung his arm over Gerard's waist, and he let out a heavy sigh, going back to sitting outside.

And he began to cry.

The hot, salty tears burned his eyes and tickled his skin, rolling down to his lips and over his chin. His lower lip was no longer bleeding, but it was sore, and as much as he wanted to stop crying, he couldn't. He hadn't cried in a long time, hadn't known he was capable of crying anymore. Evidently he was, if his sobs were anything to go by.

He pushed up his eyepatch and buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking. He didn't want to cry; it made him feel weak, and weakness was a killer these days. You had to be strong, you had to lead, but Frank couldn't do that. Frank wasn't a leader.

He was just another tortured soul in a tortured world, and he hated himself.

~

He was exhausted, and he didn't want to go anywhere, but they were looking for Mikey Way, Gerard was desperate, so he had to.

He shuffled along behind Gerard and Ray, who were well-rested and feeling positive, despite the rain beating down on them. Their clothes were soaked through and all three were shivering, but not even the sudden freezing temperature could shake Frank from his fatigue.

His joints ached from the uncomfortable position he'd fallen asleep in against the tent, and the dark fuzz didn't leave his thoughts, only clouded them further, made him bitter and jealous. He was angry, for what reason he didn't know, but he was angry, and tired, and everything that had happened in the past four years had snowballed and crashed into him, leaving him desperate and done.

He wanted to just leave and tell Gerard the truth, but he'd promised the guy he'd help him, and besides, the truth would destroy him. Gerard was sweet, and he liked him. He couldn't do that.

But Gerard and Ray were whispering together again, and Frank wanted to join them, but he was awkward, and wasn't good with conversation. He didn't particularly like Ray anyway, so it didn't matter.

"Guys?" He called out, his voice choked, and he was going to pass out, he knew it, it was just a matter of when.

And then the ground came rushing up to meet him, and everything decided it was going to turn black.

~

Gerard picked him up and threw him over his shoulder (not for the first time) and together, he and Ray managed to find a house that was just about intact.

They rushed in and laid Frank on the couch, and as Ray went to see if there was any form of water, Gerard sat beside the unconscious teenager and brushed his hair back from his face. The untidy black strands had masked the full extent of his facial injuries, and Gerard gasped, running his fingers over the scarring.

But he didn't have much time to wonder what had happened, because there were footsteps, and someone was speaking, someone that definitely wasn't Ray.

"Gee?"

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