An Inexplicable Occurrence of Angels

Part the second: Birth of a Five-Legged Beast

 

Gerard heaves the door to Ray's condo and holds it open with his hip. "I'm here! I'm here, Mikey!"

 

There's no answer. Mikey had called him six times on the subway until Gerard lost signal; when he'd come out the other side of the tunnel, four new ones had popped up. There's this event at work; he's been talking about it all week, ducking back home to get his A+ belt and assembling outfits on Ray's couch and then blankly contemplating them for five minutes before wandering away and leaving the clothes there. It looks like multiple people dissolved while sitting on the couch, leaving only their clothes behind.

 

Ray hasn't said anything yet, but Gerard's sure that some unpleasant conversation will happen soon: they've been pretty much living at his place for a month. Sure, they contribute to rent and they're hardly ever all home at the same time – Gerard has a night shift – but still. The place is bursting at the seams.

 

So far, Gerard hasn't been able to think of an alternative. He and Mikey don't make enough money to find a safe place of their own, and they need all three of them around to watch Frank. He's been… antsy, lately. Cabin feverish, always wanting to go out and pouting when they tell him he can't. Gerard takes him for walks in the park whenever he's home, but it seems like those brief glimpses of the outside world only work Frank up more. The others do the same when they have the energy; after a full day (or night) of work, though, none of them have the energy to chase birds and make sure that Frank's wings aren't popping free of their restraints (which he also hates – they chafe).

 

They've been limping by, though – until today. Today, Gerard got pulled into a meeting with his boss and told that he lacks focus; Gerard told him to get fucked, and got escorted from the building. With his luck, it'll show up on the news radar: 'Former MCR frontman can't even stock paper.'

 

Then a couple scene kids – two guys and a girl – had spotted him on the subway and gushed at him for the full train ride about how Three Cheers was so fucking cool and that cover and why didn't they have any shows? They had all this great music, and they weren't doing live shows, that sucked, why not? There had been no escape as they hurtled through the underground tunnels, and Gerard's face aches with the twitching smile he'd forced onto his cheeks.

 

They'd been disappointed in him, he could tell. It wasn't anything overt, but as he'd slid out the door with a quick apology about fish and warm temperatures that even he hadn't understood, Gerard had caught a flicker in the girl's eyes. Just a little moment of Oh, that's how he really is.

 

He'd gotten lost on the walk home after that, feet wandering with his brain about monasteries or isolated tree farms where he could make his new home. By the time he gets to Ray's condo, he's about a half hour late and Mikey's long gone.

 

They try to avoid leaving Frank alone for long – warnings about police or mobs don't scare him, and he's not listening to Gerard as much as he used to. He always wants to know why, why can't he go out, why can't he talk to the neighbors, why can't he learn how to throw knives. Steven Seagal throws knives. Steven Seagal is cool. (Ray had actually cursed Gerard out for letting him watch that one.)

 

Gerard sighs, dumping a pencil sharpener that he stole from the office on top of some old pizza boxes. "Yeah, that'll show 'em," he mutters, and pokes at the dishes in the sink. Ray has made a little polite noise at their number and supreme filthiness; Gerard's been meaning to clean them, really, but every morning he comes home so brain-numbed that he mostly just sits in front of the TV with Frank, answering his endless questions with grunts. He could never make it as a vampire, man, the hours suck too hard; he usually winds up sleeping through most of the day curled up on the couch beside Frank.

 

Christ, this is his life. Gerard leans against the fridge and rubs a hand over his face. He's going to have to find a new job. The paper company had at least kept him in the back room, at night, where he wouldn't have to face any real people. Apparently the job market sucks for regular people, which is exactly what he is now. Shit. Mom's basement was better than this.

 

As soon as he thinks it, Gerard feels guilty. Without them, Frank would starve or get locked up in an experimental facility; and despite his exhausting enthusiasm, Frank is a joy to have. A strange, hyperactive joy, with smiles that – God, it sounds corny inside his own head – are pretty much the highlight of Gerard's day.

 

Gerard pushes away from the sink. "Frank? Frankie, where you at, dude?" He cringes, thinking about how Ray has been trying to teach Frank some actual fucking grammar; it's been an uphill battle, considering that his starter kit was Mikey and Gerard.

 

Frank's parked in front of the TV, big surprise – he's kind of addicted to daytime soaps. Ray worries endlessly about what it'll do to his sense of right and wrong, even went so far as to bar Frank from the TV between the hours of 11 and 4. That was one of the first direct commands that Frank disobeys; Gerard counts it as the moment things started to go awry. "Hey," he greets.

 

Frank twists around and pokes his nose over the top of the couch. "Hey. You're really fucking late. Mikey was blowing a shit."

 

"Taking a shit. Or blowing a gasket." Gerard nudges one of Frank's wings aside and squeezes onto the sofa's arm. "If he was blowing a shit then he'd probably have, like cholera or something."

 

"Whatever," Frank mumbles. Crumbs litter his shirt, and the telltale scent of peanut butter wafts in the air around him. The sideways glance that he sends to Gerard is familiar, too: Frank reads their moods wrong most of the time, but it isn't from lack of trying. It just doesn't come naturally to him the same way that he can talk or operate Ray's complex collection of remote controls or, to the horror of Ray and his furniture, throw knives. "You okay?"

 

"I'm good," Gerard says automatically; but that's just fucking counter-productive. Frank will never get better if they go around lying to him all the time. "I'm not good," he admits after a moment. "I got fired."

 

Frank sits up. "You got fired? Where?"

 

"At – oh, no, Frank," he catches Frank's grasping hands, "not fire-fire. I lost my job."

 

Frank frowns, his hands still caught in Gerard's; he twists the grip around to hold Gerard's fingers. "At the shitty paper warehouse?"

 

"Yup." Gerard squeezes Frank's hand and lets go.

 

"Good!" Frank chirps, a smile climbing onto his face. He sees Gerard's expression and the smile tips straight off the other side. "Not good. I – you don't like the shitty paper warehouse."

 

"No, but I like money. I like food, and so do you, fatso." There's a little softness growing around Frank's stomach and Gerard pokes it. Frank squeals in delight then claps a hand over his mouth; his own sharp, loud giggle always startles the hell out of him.

 

Of course that devolves into a tickling match across the couch and the floor. Mikey, the bastard traitor, has taught Frank about the pressure points on Gerard's knees: he goes for them right away and Gerard shrieks, kicking.

 

They reach a panting stalemate on the floor with Gerard kind of curled up and Frank balanced above him on Gerard's bent legs. He wiggles his toes a little, pinching Frank's shirt threateningly close to his stomach; Frank responds by curling a hand over Gerard's knee and grinning. "Mutual assured deconstruction."

 

"DES-truction, Frankie. Truce?"

 

"Truce." Frank releases Gerard's knee and braces his arms on the floor on either side. "Could I get a job at the shitty paper warehouse?"

 

Gerard stares up at the ceiling and straightens his legs, lifting Frank up and away with his feet. It used to be so much easier to distract him. "No."

 

"Why not?"

 

"Wings, Frankie."

 

Frank's shoulders, and wings, hitch up a bit. "That's what you always say," he grumps, like it's somehow Gerard's fault that the world at large would freak way the hell out if an angel popped up working retail in New Jersey.

 

"It's always true." Gerard rolls up to his knees and shuffles back over to the couch to settle among Frank's bread crumbs. "Don't worry, okay? I'll find another job."

 

Frank doesn't follow; he crosses his arms. "What about me? What can I do?"

 

"You can watch TV? They've got, um – oh, fucking sweet, they've got a Future is Wild marathon! I love those squibbon things!"

 

"I always watch TV, Gee." Frank throws his arms up and Gerard cringes momentarily in fear for Ray's nearby floor lamp; but Frank's gotten a lot better at keeping the wing gestures to a minimum. "I wanna do something else."

 

That doesn't make them any less noticeable, or the world any less terrifying. Most of Gerard's nightmares have to do with someone finding out and dragging Frank away in, like, black helicopters. Or coming home from work to find him dissected right there in the living room.

 

Gerard curls up around the hard pang in his stomach. "I know you do, Frankie. We all do."

 

-o-

 

He falls asleep with his head tilted back against the couch and wakes up with a crick in his neck and the soft murmur of voices in his ears. Ray perches the other couch arm, a carton of chow mien cupped in his hand and his shoulders bent forward. Mikey's there, too, having moved the coffee table aside to sit on the floor by Frank's feet.

 

" – and we got handed this bear suit," Ray says, the corners of his mouth twitching, "and we had to decide which one of us was actually going to wear it. So, Gee had this, like, die. A Dungeons and Dragons die, you know?"

 

"No," Frank says, rapt.

 

Gerard rolls his neck surreptitiously while Ray explains and sucks his lip in between his teeth. Eyes are not necessary for him to know that Mikey is looking in his direction; by the time he looks back, though, Mikey has gone back to his own carton of sweet and sour.

 

His lip stings when Gerard bites harder. He inches his foot across the carpet to poke his brother's leg. He's so, so tired of disappointing people; Mikey's still the hardest to take, because he's so careful not to show it and the kindness hurts like nothing else. Not after all the shit that Gerard has put Mikey through.

 

Mikey looks up, curling his mouth into an O around a hot bite of food. It makes Gerard smile a little and Mikey automatically smiles back a little; it's been a while since they've hung out, Gerard realizes, they've both been so busy acting like grownups (or failing at it, in Gerard's case).

 

Years of shared rooms and stages lie between them, when they were too lazy or drowned out by a crowd to communicate aloud. Gerard silently asks with his eyebrows if work was okay and Mikey thinks then shrugs and goes back to his food. Which means that it wasn't, really, but he doesn't want to make Gerard feel bad.

 

It doesn't work. After a few more moments Gerard gets up and goes into the kitchen to lean against the sink.

 

It's Ray who finally follows him. Gerard guiltily switches on the faucet and tries to figure out an angle of attack on all those dirty dishes. Ray doesn't say anything for a moment, which gives Gerard's brain time to come up with even more horrible ways this conversation can go, moving from So you lost your menial no-brainer job? to Mikey might lose his job now, too, thanks to Me and my new band just got signed.

 

What Ray says is, "Hey, um…did Frank's tattoos come like that?"

 

Gerard pauses with a plate hovering under the faucet; it catches water, pooling, until heat runs across his knuckles and he drops it with a hiss. "No. I mean. Yes. I think so. I looked."

 

Ray does that thing where he glances at Gerard like he knows he's lying, but lets it slide; he always let Gerard get by with so much, until he didn't anymore. It's a good thing that he and Ray don't have time to hang out all that much, they'd probably slip right back into old patterns and then where would they be?

 

"I was just wondering," Ray says, bringing Gerard's wandering mind back around, "because that seems really significant, you know? More than just him showing up in your kitchen. The tattoos, they're like… a marker, you know?" He edges around Gerard and pulls a 7-up from the fridge, pops the top with a hiss. "Like it wasn't an accident – like he was meant for you, specifically."

 

Hot water rolls over the plates, steaming; Gerard's fingers are lobster-pink. "Okay," Gerard says, hesitant. That seems pretty obvious, but Ray has a tendency to lay his entire mental process out precisely in the order he thought it. Unlike Mikey, who will finish a conversation he started yesterday or Gerard, who will forget the conversation he's having now. Matt had nearly lost his mind with the two of them; Ray had found ways to cope. That, Gerard guesses, is the difference between him never seeing Otter and standing in Ray's apartment washing dishes.

 

Sure enough, the next thing out of Ray's mouth is, "They're your lyrics, right? The stuff on Frank?"

 

Gerard shuts off the water. "No."

 

"Gee." There's the end of his leash: Ray will let him get by with so much until he doesn't anymore. "Come on. I know your stuff when I see it. And the pictures, they're definitely yours. So."

 

"So?" Gerard wipes his hands on his shirt and doesn't turn around.

 

"So…" Ray trails off lamely. He can call Gerard on his shit, but he can't fix it.

 

When the silence stretches out, Gerard says, "I need to find a new job."

 

Ray sighs. "Yeah."

 

He starts to leave, but the shuffle of his feet makes Gerard finally turn. "Thanks for letting us stay here, Ray. I know – I mean, yeah. It must suck."

 

Ray stops and blinks at him. "It doesn't. Why would it suck?"

 

Gerard gestures around them, taking in the dishes and the empty pizza boxes, the scarred-up furniture that has fallen victim to their knife-throwing angel. "We've kinda torn the place apart."

 

Ray glances around and shrugs. "We lived in a van for three years, man. This is – it's kind of nice, you know? Like old times."

 

He glances at Gerard and leaves quickly after saying that, and for good reason. "Like old times," Gerard whispers quietly, bitterly, to the kitchen. Why won't everyone just let it go?

 

But then he wanders out to stand in the doorway and he can see Mikey and Frank in the living room, and Ray rejoining them. Frank has obviously picked up on Mikey's unhappiness – for some weird reason he's better at deciphering Mikey's moods than anyone else's, which is only weird in that it's Mikey for Chrissake – and is trying to cheer him up by sticking a chopstick up Mikey's nose. Ray is laughing so hard that he sways on his feet while Mikey twists from side to side, his face pinched with exasperation and amusement.

 

It's too strange and wonderful for Gerard to turn away, despite the cold lump of unease in his stomach; he watches the three of them, Ray and Mikey and their Frank their Inexplicable Angel.

 

-o-

 

July rolls into August. A happy side effect of the heat wave is that Frank stops asking to go outside quite so much. That means, though, that he's bouncing off the walls instead.

 

"He has so much energy," Ray complains one night after Gerard staggers home looking like the loser in a water fight. Or a sweat fight, to be more accurate.

 

They start taking him out at night – not often, of course, this is fucking Jersey, but Ray's in a pretty good neighborhood. Sometimes Gerard will come home from job scrounging to find Mikey and Frank taking a walk around the block, Frank running over to poke at plants and telephone poles then hurrying back to Mikey's side.

 

That doesn't worry him; what does is that Ray starts finding indoor activities for Frank and, this being Ray, they all involve the guitar.

 

The first time Gerard walks in to find Frank hunched over a guitar, he might as well be a husband arriving home early to find his wife in bed with the entire Dallas Cowboys defensive line. That's how it feels to him, standing in the doorway and seeing Frank perched on the edge of the couch with his wings stretched over the side and a nice-looking Gibson cradled in his lap.

 

Ray has the good grace to look a little nervous; Mikey doesn't even glance up, just reaches out to nudge Frank's fingers on the fret. "Like that. Okay, now take the pick and pull it down over the strings like this…"

 

An A minor chord plinks out of the guitar one note at a time, and Frank's face changes, wonder spilling out of every pore. "Cool."

 

Gerard goes out onto Ray's balcony. It's just a little nook, really, but it's got a neat view of all the houses on the hillside. It makes him think of some Italian villa or something, with the homes all open to the air; he lights up a cigarette and thinks about all the places he's seen around the world. The people he's known.

 

The door behind him hisses in its runner and Gerard can't stop himself. "Why can't you just let it go?"

 

He pinches his eyes shut immediately. Mikey doesn't say anything back but the negative space where he says nothing feels cold against Gerard's back. He never has to say his part of an argument aloud; Gerard knows him well enough to fill in the silence and guess Mikey's unspoken responses. That's the real shitty part about arguing with Mikey.

 

For once, though, Mikey answers out loud: "Why can't you?"

 

Behind them, a C chord drifts out the door behind them. Mikey waits for a while, but when Gerard doesn't answer, he goes back inside.

 

Cigarette smoke drifts like malaise, clogging the back of Gerard's throat; he stubs it out viciously and hisses in pain. He can never get a full breath these days.

 

By the next day, though, with a full night's sleep, he has a different outlook: if they're going to do this, goddammit, they're going to do this right. Gerard might be unemployed and washed up, but his angel is going to have the best fucking musical taste of any angel, ever, period.

 

He makes a trip home – startling a bit when he realizes it's been months since he was last there – to forage for supplies and returns with a mighty harvest; it's probably overkill but Gerard's not taking any chances. Add in Ray's expansive collection of thrash metal and that's a good start; he also spends most of his first and last paycheck from data-entry hell on chips and soda (non-caffeinated, they've had a few bad experiences), and some cupcakes. Cupcakes are key.

 

Mikey's on his way out when Gerard walks in; he sees the spread and blinks in recognition. "Um."

 

Plastic crinkles under Gerard's fingers; he's got his chin hooked over a CD and he can only hope that it's not Mellon Collie because it's slipping and that'd be his last copy. "He's bound to discover MTV soon."

 

The CD under his chin slips free and Mikey reaches out to catch it; he misses and the case shatters open on Ray's hardwood floor, its CD rolling out. Gerard squints at the spinning blur of colors. "Madonna. I think?"

 

Mikey shrugs. "I've got a bunch, if it's scratched."

 

"You besmirch my fucking honor. I have my own backups."

 

Mikey's mouth deepens on each corner; he's probably thinking about that time they got high and danced around the basement to Vogue. "Shut up," Gerard says, but he's laughing.

 

"I didn't say a-nything," Mikey singsongs and slips out the door past Gerard. "Good luck with your preemptive strike. Shock and awe him."

 

Gerard leans out the door to shout after him. "Think what could have happened if I hadn't done this for you! You could have liked post-rock, Mikey! POST-ROCK."

 

Mikey doesn't turn back, but Gerard can tell by the duck of his head that he'd grinning as he walks away. It leaves Gerard hanging in the doorway for a moment, staring after him.

 

Frank wanders out of the bedroom in a pair of pajama bottoms; when he spots Gerard, he stops and grins hugely. "What?" Gerard asks.

 

"What?" Frank asks back.

 

"You're smiling." He's too happy to feel very self-conscious, but the way Frank is staring at him, bright-eyed and showing all of his perfect white teeth, would make anyone… not uneasy, but maybe a bit nervous.

 

"You're smiling," Frank replies, his eyes turning sly.

 

Gerard attempts to flip him off and almost drops another CD. "No more repeating, now, I mean it."

 

"Anybody want a peanut?" Frank yells, and runs into the other room giggling.

 

He comes back in a little while, presumably after he realizes that Gerard isn't chasing him. By then Gerard has most of his brilliant trap laid out; Frank falls straight into the snare. "Cupcakes!"

 

"Yep," Gerard says, loading Journey into Ray's stereo.

 

Steve Perry's warbling tenor sifts out from the speakers, curling in the air like a cat. Frank pauses mid-bite; a dab of pink frosting decorates the tip of his nose. "Whassa?"

 

Gerard takes a deep breath and starts his monologue. "The beginning of your journey." It's a terrible pun, but Frank doesn't have to know that

 

It's been a while; a few unfortunate gaps in his music library gives Gerard pause, but he perseveres. He steers them from the hallowed grounds of Zeppelin and Queen to second wave Brit invasion, touching quickly on Sid Vicious – just to give Frank the option, you know, because some people dig the whole nihilistic self-destruction thing as an aesthetic – before diving into The Clash, Sex Pistols and the Ramones – a bullseye there, Frank doesn't even need to be taught how to headbang – and drifting leisurely on into the Smiths. Gerard gets a little sidetracked there, watching Frank's slack, mesmerized face and reliving the first time he ever heard The Queen is Dead. They wind up listening to the whole album sitting on the floor, Gerard slipping in bursts of narration about ideological stances and acoustic rhythms.

 

When he lurches back to the wheel it's for a triple-combo-knockout punch of The Wall, Machina/The Machines of God, and Back in Black.

 

At some point, probably around when Brian Johnson starts squealing about rolling thunder, Frank bodily drags Gerard up by his arm. Frank's already sweaty: he'd started kind of jumping around during "My Sharona" and hasn't really stopped

 

"Ray won't need the tethers tonight!" Gerard yells over the music. It's a goddamned good thing Ray doesn't live in an apartment.

 

"What?" Frank yells.

 

Gerard puts his hands on both sides of Frank's neck, pulls him in. "You'll be tired tonight," he says triumphantly into Frank's ear.

 

Frank's head turns a little; his lips press against the side of Gerard's mouth, quick and perfunctory. "Show me how to dance!"

 

Gerard laughs. "Oh, shit, man. If I'm teaching, you're screwed."

 

Of course, it's not like he can do much damage: Frank's current idea of dancing entails some pretty wild flailing and falling over a lot… he's never really found the right balance with his wings. Nor does he seem that concerned with actually taking Gerard's advice or adopting what few moves he can pass on. It's okay, though: the sun's stretched out across the floor and no one's watching but the two of them. Gerard doesn't even feel awkward about jumping up on the couch to strike a pose, hand fisted in front of his mouth around an invisible microphone.

 

When Back in Black winds down, Gerard starts them in on contemporary artists: he pops in Thursday and tries not to think about the last time he saw Geoff.

 

Frank's finger jabs him in the side, sudden enough to make Gerard jump. "Jesus, Frankie – "

 

This kiss lasts long enough to actually register – it's more of a mash, really. Frank pushes their mouths together and holds them there with an arm hooked around Gerard's neck. When motor skills return, Gerard squirms away carefully, one limb and lip at a time. "Frankie. What. Are you. Um, doing?"

 

"Kissing," Frank murmurs. "Come back."

 

Gerard tilts his head back and Frank's lips graze his chin. "Wait. Um. Frankie."

 

Frank leans back, too, confusion settling on his sharp features. "Am I doing it wrong?"

 

"How do you – you can't know this, how are…" Gerard's capacity of speech stumbles off to curl up in the corner whimpering.

 

Without letting go of Gerard's neck, Frank leans back a little further and peers down at their bodies. "It's right, isn't it? This is what Noah did to Luke, and he kissed back." He leans back in and frowns up at Gerard. "Get with the fucking program, Gee."

 

Gerard's speech capacity twitches feebly. "No-ah…?"

 

"Noah Mayer. He's on As The World Turns." Frank's eyes light up and under Gerard's palm (which has somehow settled against Frank's side), his ribcage expands with a huge indrawn breath. "Luke was working at the TV station, and Noah showed up to intern. Luke's gay, and so's Noah, but he didn't know it when they met so Noah hooked up with Luke's best friend Maddie, but Luke liked him too, so when he walked in on them fucking, he got all upset, and Noah tried to say sorry because he thought Luke was jealous over Maddie, but Luke told him that he liked him, instead. And then there was this thing with a tie and Noah's dad who's a colonel of something and a serious dick, and Noah wound up kissing him. Luke, I mean. Not the dad." Frank wrinkles his nose. "That'd be gross."

 

"Uh," Gerard says.

 

Frank waits, but when the sun-filled silence rolls on, his eyebrows draw slowly together. "Are you – you're not confused about your sexuality, are you? Because that would suck. Noah was all sad, and so was Luke."

 

"No," Gerard manages. "Bi."

 

"Cool!" Frank chirps and goes for Gerard's mouth again.

 

Speech remains a distant impossibility. Gerard summons up evasive maneuvers that he hasn't used since that time in Philadelphia when he and Ray actually had to run from a crowd of fans. "Gee?" Frank asks, his hands wobbling uncertainly in midair.

 

"That's not – " Gerard puts some space between them; his lips tingle and he's just off-balance enough to wonder whether Frank's spit has, like, magical properties or something. He feels hot, flushed, obvious.

 

"Are you okay? You look kinda…" Frank waggles his fingers.

 

Okay. Okay. He's been half-expecting something like this would happen. Well, maybe not exactly like this, not the part where Frank kissed him, Jesus, but he'd found Frank watching Body Heat last week with his face, like, five inches from the screen. "Alright. Um. Frank."

 

"Yeah?" Frank's voice comes from too close; he's somehow moved across the room without Gerard hearing him. Gerard edges around the couch, out of reach.

 

"I don't think – I mean. You… can't just do everything you see on TV, okay? There're some things in the great magic box you shouldn't do."

 

"Dude, duh. I know that. I'm not killing people just because I saw seventy-two billion Law & Order episodes on TNT." Frank pauses, then goes on in a sharp tone. "And if you're thinking that it's wrong or some bullshit – "

 

"No! Shit, I don't mean – "

 

" – because I would know, Gee. Don't you think I would fucking know?"

 

Gerard throws him a startled look and freezes.

 

It's like someone cast a marble statue of Frank and threw it down in the living room. The lines of him look suddenly so hard, as though light waves fear to touch him and have left his edges stark in the summer afternoon. He's got his feet planted, hands tense at his sides, a straight line from his shoulders to the heels of his feet. Over his shoulders, his wings loom half-extended.

 

The words and air in Gerard's lungs leaves him in one hard exhale, as if he's been slapped in the ribcage. They don't talk about it, ever; Gerard knows that Ray still questions Frank sometimes, looking for big answers to life, the universe and everything, but Gerard gave up on that back at the beginning, when Frank had sat with him in a grove of trees. There's just – too much to think about. God and ineffable plans and tattooed messages and how very tiny all of that makes Gerard feel.

 

All of it's staring him at him right now.

 

In the silence that follows, the fierceness shrinks out of Frank's body bit by bit, leaving just Frank, Frankie, their Inexplicable Angel, who examines Gerard. "Do you – not want to? I mean, like, genuinely not want to, not like Noah. 'Cause it's okay, if you don't, I just don't want you to not want to for some stupid, shitty-ass reason."

 

Gerard shakes his head; he doesn't mean it as an answer, it's just that his ears are ringing a little. It's possible that a few electrons in the air around Frank just went haywire or something.

 

"Oh, good." Frank's wings drop down around his shoulders, which shrug easily. "That's cool. It looked like a lot more fun when Luke and Noah were doing it anyway. Hey, maybe Ray or Mikey would want to – "

 

"No!" Gerard yelps. "I mean. They're straight."

 

Frank raises his eyebrows. "Like, genuinely straight, or Noah-straight?"

 

"Um. Genuinely."

 

"Oh." Frank pouts. "I don't know anyone else."

 

Thank God, Gerard thinks. He pulls himself together to say, "Well, that's too bad. You, um. Wanna get some pizza?"

 

That perks Frank right up. "Sure! I'll go hide in the bathroom." He bounds off.

 

"They won't be here until after we order it," Gerard calls after him, but not loud enough for Frank to actually hear.

 

-o-

 

A week later, he's in the middle of a shift at his new job – data entry, because he just can't go back into art, okay, he'll fucking work as a garbage man if he has to – when his phone rings.

 

"He's gone," Ray says, his already-reedy voice pitched all on one level and strung tight.

 

Another job down the tubes: Gerard runs right out the front door, doesn't even say goodbye. "Where, when, what?" he gasps as he jogs.

 

It sounds like Ray's doing the same. "Mikey just left, like, twenty minutes ago, and then – I swear, I was just in the bathroom and when I got out of the shower he was gone. I lost our angel, Gee!"

 

"Okay," Gerard says, desperately trying to flag down a cab without, like, getting hit by one. "Okay, twenty minutes. He can't have gotten far, right? I mean, he can't drive…"

 

Ray chokes. "Can he fly?"

 

Gerard freezes, his hand helplessly flapping in midair. "I don't know. I mean, we never tried. Maybe?"

 

He hangs up when he gets inside the cab and shoves a fistful of money at the driver to go as fast as he can; in New Jersey traffic, that's not saying much.

 

Halfway back, a different and no less horrifying thought occurs to him: maybe, wherever Frank came from, he's gone back now. He'd just… appeared in their kitchen, no explanation, no warning. There's no reason to believe that he couldn't just as easily disappear. After all, it's not like they're saving the world or doing anything useful or even all that entertaining – and oh, God, Gerard hadn't kissed him back. He'd wanted to, and he hadn't because he'd thought it was wrong or something, but what if it was right and he fucked up this minor kinda-sorta-miracle for all of them. For Mikey. Oh, God, Mikey.

 

His cell phone rings. "Mikey!"

 

"Hey," Mikey says. There's music playing in the background, sounds like grunge. "Ray called me. He told me to call you."

 

"We've lost Frank," Gerard says. Their weirdo, bright-eyed miracle that makes Mikey laugh, and he's lost him.

 

"I've got Frank," Mikey says. "He followed me."

 

Gerard grips the phone. "What?"

 

"When I left the house, he followed me. We're at – " There's some shifting around and the music gets louder momentarily before Mikey's voice comes back. " – at the City Gardens."

 

Gerard recognizes the name from Mikey's halcyon days of ruling as the crown scene queen. "Has anyone seen him?" he gasps, snapping his fingers at the cab driver. "Can you go to the City Gardens?"

 

"He strapped himself up," Mikey says in his ear at the same time the driver says, "You didn't give me enough money."

 

"Not all that well," Mikey adds. "But I got him in the bathroom and fixed him up."

 

"Wait, what?" Gerard says as he paws through his wallet and comes up with a tired-looking dollar bill. "You're still in the club?"

 

The driver takes the bill and makes a face. "Still only halfway."

 

Gerard groans, "Oh, come on," at the same time Mikey says, "Yes, we're still here. I can't just leave."

 

"Mikey, if somebody sees him…"

 

"I can't leave, Gee," Mikey repeats. "Look, the band's about to start, I've got to go. Ray's on his way."

 

"Mikey – "

 

"He's fine. He's – " Mikey laughs suddenly. Laughs, out loud. It's practically a hoot. "He's having fun. He'll be fine 'til you get here."

 

"Mikey – "

 

The phone cuts out in a burst of snare drums. Gerard swears and shoves his credit card across through the little window into the front seat. "Just fuckin' get me there, okay?"

 

By the time they pull up outside, the cabbie is Gerard's mortal enemy and the band's in full swing. He can hear the dull boom of a bass drum through the walls and open door, and for a moment he freezes on the sidewalk, heart spinning a new tempo. The sound of it takes him back to full parking lots and festivals where he could hear the other bands beating along on their own stages, different organs pulsing to a whole body.

 

There isn't even a proper hoodie to pull across his face. Shit. Someone's going to recognize him. Only the thought of Frank, Frank being found out, Frank being dissected with his wings pinned out on either side, propels him forward through the narrow door.

 

Mikey must have put his name down on the list, or maybe someone recognizes him after all, because Gerard slips easily through the crowd around the front door. Inside, the bass kicks up to that certain level hovering between exclamation and pain; it's a bit too much on the latter side for Gerard, but then again, it's been a long time.

 

Christ, it's been a long time.

 

He doesn't even look for a few seconds, just keeps his head down and sways along to the drumbeat. Imagines that when the opening riff ends, his voice will be the one that people hear; he even opens his mouth, forms the first soundless word.

 

Then someone else's voice scratches on the mic.

 

He doesn't know the band. Well, doesn't know all the band: a double-take confirms that yeah, that's Bob fucking Bryar on drums. Bob Bryar of the Used crew and oh, man, Gerard really needs to find Frank just as fast as fucking possible and get the fuck out of Dodge, because that's a few degrees too close for Gerard. Bob knows Bert, who knows all about the Gerard that he used to be… the Gerard that he still is, beneath the surface, just covered over with nice pretty AA stitches.

 

Gerard hugs himself as he scans the crowd. Once upon a time he'd been able to pick out bloodied fans from the writhing mass of limbs, stop the whole set to yell for their rescue, then belt out the next song with a bubble of triumph pumping his lungs. He'd loved that feeling, loved showing them hey, see, we don't all have to be jackass rock stars, I can be something more if you give me the chance. Only, they had, and he hadn't.

 

Now it takes him a little longer, but he finds Mikey by the side of the stage; looks like he's doing tech crew, face focused on the stage, listening to the instruments play. When Gerard messages him, though, Mikey's head immediately ducks toward his Sidekick, then lifts to do the same search. That can only end in tears: if Mikey gets separated from the group, it usually takes several hours to reunite because he'll just stand there, arms at his sides, and blink vaguely in all directions.

 

Gerard messages him again: point 2 Frank.

 

Onstage, Mikey's arm lifts in a straight line.

 

At the back of the room, Frank stands on a chair, his arms wrapped tight around Ray's shoulders. Ray stands on the floor in front of him, hands resting gently on Frank's folded forearms; as Gerard watches, the band hits the bridge with a pretty decent hook and Frank reacts by bouncing on the chair, steadied by Ray's grip.

 

Getting to them takes some work. Gerard was never much of a mosher, but this is definitely a mosh-worthy band, all hard hits and riffs. Not complex but enjoyable, the punk-rock equivalent of a TV procedural show: well-executed, contained, pretty forgettable. He pauses in the middle of the crowd and takes an elbow to the stomach when he realizes that some part of his brain has been critiquing them from the moment he walked in.

 

As he gets closer, he can see that a huge grin tips Ray's mouth upward and Frank – Frank looks like he's having some kind of religious epiphany. His wide eyes are locked on the stage, lips parted, utterly focused; he looks like he's trying to astrally project himself up onto the stage.

 

The second song launches right on the dying throes of the first and Frank bounces in place again, the chair squeaking across the floor.

 

Ray's pretty fixated, too, enough that he jumps in surprise when Gerard grabs his arm. Frank sees him at the same time and shouts, "Gee!" then dives off the chair. Suddenly Gerard has a body full of Frank, arms wrapped tight around his neck, chest plastered against his. Frank smells like sweat; Ray's coat is light, but some people in here are already shirtless.

 

He grips Frank close for a minute, relief rocketing through his veins. "Hey, Frankie," he croaks.

 

"This is so cool," Frank babbles, twisting back to look at the stage without letting go of Gerard's neck – and Gerard's fucking brain immediately thinks about Frank kissing him, replays that moment for posterity. "Ray says that the drummer is this guy, Bob, that he's been playing with. They're gonna make their own band, and they're gonna do this, too!"

 

Over Frank's shoulder, Ray flinches. Gerard doesn't look at him, keeps his eyes on Frank's smiling face so close to his own. "Frank, what the fuck?" Once his panic crumbles, anger floods in his place and he grips Frank's coat, shakes him.

 

Frank's eyes snap to Gerard's, his smile freezing in place. "What?"

 

A drum solo hits. Even through the haze of rage growing like bacteria in his brain, Gerard thinks wow, Bob is pretty good. He still shouts over it, "How many times? How many times have we told you not to leave the fucking house, Frankie."

 

All the delight crumbles off Frank's face, replaced by a wavering bridge of defiance. "I sit inside all the time," he yells back. "I sit around and watch TV and I don't do anything. Mikey was talking about this show and I just – I wanted to see it!"

 

Words fail Gerard – they always do, shit, they always leave when he needs them the most – and in their absence he shakes Frank again.

 

That jolts Ray into motion, his big hands settling on Gerard's forearm. "Gee – "

 

"Why the fuck haven't you taken him home, yet?" Gerard shouts.

 

"Would you keep your voice down?" Ray says. He has that look on his face again, the too-adult expression that hurts along the edges, like a mask that pinches. "You're drawing more attention than Frank. He's strapped up, he's fine, no one's looked at him twice. Everything's fine, Gerard."

 

It's not fucking fine, Gerard thinks. He remembers Mikey on the phone, the way he'd laughed – actually fucking laughed – at whatever Frank had been doing.

 

"What the fuck is the matter with you," he says to Frank, voice cracking, and suddenly he's crying. Frank stares at him, his eyes huge, and then his face crumples up, too, surprised and uncomprehending.

 

One of Ray's hands jumps to Gerard's shoulder, holding him up. "Gee. Hey. What's – "

 

"I'm okay," Gerard says automatically, letting go of Frank and wiping his own face.

 

Frank's fingers hesitantly touch the front of Gerard's shirt. "I'm sorry. Gee. Gee."

 

"It's okay," Gerard tells him without looking. A second round of the chorus draws his attention to the stage and he says a little desperately, "They're pretty good."

 

Ray's looking at him, too, pinched in concern; but he plays along. "Yeah. The lyrics kinda suck, though."

 

Frank searches both their faces then relaxes a bit. "I like the drums."

 

"Yeah?" Gerard lets Frank catch one of his hands, even manages to squeeze a little in return. "You wanna be a drummer when you grow up, Frankie?"

 

Frank rolls his eyes. "Shut up, dumbass, I'm not a kid." But he peers at Gerard's face. "Can – is it really okay if we stay? We can leave if you want."

 

"'Course not," Gerard says with a cheeriness that shakes at the edges. "We can stay. You wanna get back up on your chair?"

 

Frank keeps hold of his hand, pulling Gerard to stand beside him while he clambers back up into the chair. Pretty soon he gets lost in the music all over again, jumping around in excitement so much that Gerard wraps an instinctive arm around his hips to keep him from toppling over.

 

The band – Hollow Boys, Ray shouts – plays for about another half hour and by then the sound of it has poured into Gerard's ear. Poison for King Hamlet, he thinks and oh, that'd make a good lyric. He grips Frank's waist.

 

Beside him Ray moves his head along to the music; but he immediately leans forward and tilts his ear when Gerard turns in his direction.

 

"You and Bob?" he says. It's impossible to sound casual when shouting.

 

The stage lights reflect in Ray's pupils. "Yeah. We're just talking about it – he's filling in for the studio, too, obviously – " He jerks his chin to the stage. " – but then, yeah. Maybe."

 

"That's cool," Gerard manages. From what little he remembers about Bob, Gerard thinks he's a pretty good guy. There are a lot worse people that Ray could hitch his wagon to.

 

The band winds up. That familiar post-show lull hits the club as the performers slouch off the stage and the clubbers mill in uncertain groups, both winding down from their adrenaline highs. Frank apparently has no such problem; he leaps from atop his chair. "I wanna meet Bob."

 

Ray glances quickly at Gerard. "Mikey said we could come back afterwards…"

 

"Sure," Gerard says and lets Frank tug him along by the hand. He feels hollowed-out, breakable.

 

Mikey's at the side of the stage, a limp clump of input cables in his hands; he looks lost. When he sees them walking up he ducks his head, starts re-winding the cables.

 

"Hi, Mikey! That was awesome." Frank swoops right down onto Mikey's back, arms wrapping around his neck. Mikey almost topples over but still smiles and reaches back to grab one of Frank's legs. "Whatcha doing?"

 

"Wrapping cables."

 

"Well, can we meet the band now? Please? You can wrap cables later, take me to Bob!"

 

"Oh, God," Ray says, his eyebrows drawing together in a jumble of amusement and genuine alarm, "he's like every worst groupie."

 

"Are you gonna let me up?" Mikey says, but his mouth is all twitchy again.

 

"Are you gonna take me to Bob?"

 

"You guys go ahead," Gerard tells them. "Ray and I've gotta... We'll catch up."

 

Mikey's eyes slide up to his and away again. "C'mon, Frankie."

 

As they sidle through a mass of bodies down the back hall – and Gerard reserves one last burst of anxiety for Frank's hidden wings as a roadie jostles into him – Ray murmurs, "Look, you're probably mad at Mikey, but the two of you fighting is creepy. It's the silent duel of twitching eyebrows."

 

Gerard pulls Ray by one elbow into a corner and tucks his chin against Ray's collarbone. "Mikey," he says hoarsely. The next band has started up, a whine of deliberate, stylized feedback bursting on the speakers. Gerard cringes and hunches further into Ray. Ray fixes things. "We can't lose Frank again. Ray – he almost killed himself."

 

Ray goes still underneath the microphone buzz, doesn't speak until the muffled opening verse. "Mikey?"

 

Gerard nods, his chin bouncing painfully over Ray's clavicle.

 

"When?"

 

"A few months ago. He – "

 

(He'd crawled into Gerard's bed in the middle of the night and poked Gerard awake. They'd lain there for hours whispering back and forth, and Gerard had drawn it out of him bit by bit: how Mikey had just spent a few hours seriously trying to come up with a non-messy way of offing himself. He'd gone back to sleep right there lying next to him, and Gerard had thought viciously at the ceiling, No you don't, you motherfucker. Not this. Gamma, the band, the music, but you don't fucking get this.)

 

" – didn't do anything. Not really. But he was thinking about it. He told me so."

 

"Did he – did you get him…"

 

Gerard nods again, his teeth knocking together painfully. "He stayed at a hospital. Just for a week, and then they did outpatient stuff. He's still going."

 

Ray's hands settle on his back, pulling him in tighter. It's an instant comfort and Gerard clutches at it. "Why didn't you call me?"

 

Gerard had thought about it, more than once, lying awake and afraid in his basement with an empty room next door, imagining how it would feel if this was permanent. Ray Toro fixes things but Gerard hadn't felt like he'd had the right anymore; plus, Ray had been the only one left standing after everything had gone off the rails. Otter was gone, Gerard was a drunk, and then Mikey… there hadn't been anyone else, just Ray.

 

One-legged chairs are hell to balance on, and always break sooner or later. Just as deep as his terror for Mikey, Gerard had wanted one of them to walk away clean.

 

"We just can't lose Frank," Gerard says aloud.

 

"Okay."

 

Gerard closes his eyes, not wanting to put his shit on Ray, ashamed of his own desperation. Still, he can't help but say, "I keep losing shit."

 

"Okay," Ray murmurs, rubbing a palm over the muscles around Gerard's spine. Gerard unwinds in a way he hasn't for a fucking year, and he clings to Ray for dear life.

 

When Gerard pulls himself together they go out through the back of the club, past the sweat-musk-filled green room and the narrow bathroom where a whole punk band is preening their Mohawks, and pass underneath the flickering red exit sign. Out in the summer night, cicadas shriek like Mother Nature's version of feedback.

 

A cherry burn in the dark leads them on and Gerard thinks of will o' the wisps luring unwary travelers to drown; but only the voice of Bob Bryar waits for them. "Gerard motherfucking Way, how y'been?"

 

On Bob's other side, Frank is a jittery shadow. "Gee, Ray, I wanna get a lip ring. Bob has a lip ring."

 

Ray groans and Gerard reaches out to the third person in the circle. Mikey turns into the touch automatically, eyes squinting in the dark; Gerard slides an arm around his shoulders and leans his chin against Mikey's arm. He's pretty sure that Mikey can sense some of what just happened, because after a moment he reaches up to curl his fingers in the worn collar of Gerard's denim jacket.

 

Tension pours out of Gerard in increments, eased by the grip of Mikey's fingers and the interplay between Frank and Bob, who's obviously already got Frank's number figured out (though hopefully not his species).

 

"When we were on tour in Amsterdam," Bob is saying, "there were these hooker – they got good hookers over there, man."

 

"Yeah?" Frank says, cool as you please, like he discusses the merits of hookers every day.

 

"Yup," Bob grunts. "They import 'em. Train 'em in European hooker school. They get graded on, like, strutting and shit."

 

"Yeah?" Frank says again, less certain but still trying to bluff. Gerard turns his face into Mikey's hair, his mouth open and frozen on a silent giggle.

 

"And when we drove around," shit, Bob's close to losing it, his voice has that forced sound of slipping around the press of laughter, "y'know, looking for a hooker, they all had cold beer and food with 'em on the street. Remember, Ray?"

 

"Cheese platters," Ray wheezes. That does it for them both: Ray busts up and Bob's shoulders shake with his totally-silent laughter.

 

Lit only by the distant glow of neon, Frank's head darts between them. "You – you're lying. You're a lying liar who lies!" He jumps at Bob; Gerard, Ray, and Mikey all twitch with alarm.

 

Bob, though, just stands still. There's enough of a size differential that he stays steady as a rock even while Frank literally climbs up his side and settles with his arms wrapped around Bob's neck and his legs around his waist, hollering. "Motherfucker! Filthy rotten dirtbag scoundrel! Arrogant one-testicled cur of – hey, you're kinda big, dude."

 

"That's what she said," Bob reports, and takes another drag of his cigarette.