Knocking Around the Prickly Pear
Gerard wakes up first, and for the blessed, brief time it takes for his frayed neurons to connect, he has no idea why he's lying in a bed that isn't his, with his shirt still on but his pants kicked down around his feet. Then the dart zings to the bulls-eye, two trains collide in the woods, God touches Man's finger, and he thinks, Oh, yeah. Shit.
Getting out of bed takes careful maneuvering: he pinches the fabric of his jeans with two toes and bends his knee to his chest until he can grab the belt. A cursory grope under the covers proves that yes, his boxers are still crumpled inside the jeans. Let it never be said that laziness doesn't have its good points, he thinks, and slides out of bed.
Instantly, he stumbles over his own discarded shoe and has to stagger for balance: his foot thumps loud on the hotel carpet and he freezes, bare-assed, jeans held over his crotch.
The figure on the bed doesn't move. Gerard can just barely see him in the dim light outlining the curtains; he's sprawled on his stomach, tangled hair hiding his face, but from the even, deep sound of his breathing – not quite a snore, just a deep inhale through his throat – Frankie's still out cold.
Disaster evaded (or rather, further disaster evaded), Gerard crouches to run his fingers across the assortment of dark blobs that litter the floor, searching for the ones that belong to him. One shoe, and the other close by – shit, did he wear socks last night? He's pretty sure he didn't.
Fortunately it's still early enough that nobody sees him as he shuffle-runs down the hallway with his shoes in one hand, buttoning his pants up – motherfucking button-fly bullshit cocksuckers – with the other. Ah, the Walk of Shame. Much easier to perform when wasted, especially wasted enough to have backup walkers; Gerard shoves the thought away and focuses on getting inside the safety of his own goddamn room.
Except, he gets to his door and sticks his hand in his pocket, then his back pocket, then switches the shoes from one hand to another and slaps his hips all over, stomach lurching. He freezes with one hand on his ass, having failed to locate the keycard in his other back pocket. Shit. Oh, shit. His jacket – he'd been wearing that denim jacket. For a moment he thinks of commando-crawling his way back into Frankie's room to retrieve it from the floor; but his eyes fall on his door's lock mechanism. It's one of those fucking automatic self-locks, which means he's got no way of getting back into Frankie's room, either.
The front office probably isn't even fucking open yet. He's got no money or ID on him: whenever Gerard knows he's going to be near alcohol, he leaves his wallet behind, and it's safely on the other side of this closed door. He contemplates breaking the door down and just paying the motel back – hey, you know us rock stars – but he doubts he's got the muscle mass to so much as make a dent in the fucking thing.
Gerard leans his head against the door and bounces it there, whimpering in the back of his throat.
He winds up going down to Mikey's door and tapping, then knocking, then pounding. It's far enough from Frankie's that he can risk a little noise and at any moment someone could poke their heads out to catch him with that giant hickey he can feel on his neck, sensitive and sore where it rubs against his T-shirt collar. Shit, that thing must be epic.
"Mikey!" he screams in a whisper. "Wake the fuck up!"
The lock turns and Alicia stands in the doorway, blinking, last night's makeup still in rings around her eyes. "Gee? What – "
"Hey, Alicia." He edges past her into the room and shoulders the door shut on his own heel. "Ow! Um – I locked myself out of my room. Can I come in?"
"Apparently, yes." She steps back to make room for him.
A light switches on and Mikey squints at him from the bed. "Hi, Mikes," Gerard calls softly, waving.
Mikey stills, his half-awake eyes going wide. "You have sex hair!"
Gerard groans and dodges into the bathroom.
-o-
He hadn't meant to sleep with Frank. That hadn't been in his head when he and the others had sat beside Frank while he pounded back shots, or when they had finally taken the shotglass away and he'd volunteered to take Frank back to the hotel, or even when Frank had leaned his cheek against Gerard's shoulder in the elevator, breathing the hot smell of alcohol against his shirt. Despite his own useless fantasies and selfish hopes, sleeping with Frank hadn't been anywhere in Gerard's mind, right then.
Then he'd dragged Frank into the hotel room, and Frank had grabbed Gerard's hair and dragged him down for a kiss.
"Ow," Gerard had said against his lips, eyes watering from the sting in his scalp; Frank had used the opportunity to stick his tongue into Gerard's mouth.
Gerard's hands had reflexively settled on Frank's waist, fingertips resting against his T-shirt. He'd felt his own frantic pulse at each individual point that he touched Frank, blood rushing in his ears while Frank kissed him. When muscle coordination returned, Gerard had pulled away slowly. Frank had gone with him, clutching, his shoulders hunched, mouth reaching even when Gerard put a hand on his chest and pushed his forehead against Frank's, separating their lips. "Frankie."
"Gee," Frankie said. "C'mon, Gee. I need…"
He'd run out of thought or breath to propel the words, and put his lips back on Gerard's to speak for him, stretched up on his tiptoes and staggering a little. Frank had tasted like the memory of tequila and that was more than enough to jolt Gerard back a second time; but Frank had dropped his mouth to Gerard's neck, and then yeah, it was pretty much all over.
-o-
The hotel is fancy enough to have one of those massage-therapy showerheads, and Gerard stands under the spray, rolling his shoulders around and moving from side to side. He doesn't so much as head-fake towards the soap: right now, he wants as little to do with his own body as possible. Motherfucking piece of shit has betrayed him one too many times.
In the mirror, the hickey on his neck looks as bad as he'd imagine, bright purplish-red against his pale skin. Gerard can't resist: he brushes his fingertips against it and his whole piece-of-shit motherfucking bastard body shudders once.
"That was stupid," he tells it sternly. "That was really monumentally fucking stupid. In the history of idiotic things you have done, this reigns supreme."
His mouth looks red, too, swollen around a bite mark on his lower lip. Jesus Christ. Gerard looks away, drops the towel on the floor, and roughly drags his clothes back on.
He opens the door and Mikey, who has been sitting in wait on the bed, asks, "Who'd you have sex with?"
"No one. What time is it?"
"
"No. When do we have to leave?"
"
"No." Mikey's eyes get huge as realization hits, though the rest of his face remains eerily still. Gerard lunges for the phone. "Hello, front desk?"
By the time he hangs up with a very sweet lady who promises to have security come by, Mikey has regained his composure and his normal eye-size, and is watching Gerard like a patient vulture. Gerard makes one last-ditch effort to escape. "Where's Alicia?"
"She's downstairs – continental breakfast. Frank broke up with Jamia a week ago."
Gerard rubs the heel of his hand into his right eye socket until sparks swim in his vision. "Yeah. I know." Out of nowhere, he giggles.
Mikey echoes the sound back automatically, uncertainly. "He was hammered last night, Gee."
Gerard slumps back against the wall, hysterical laughter bubbling up out of his stomach. It kind of hurts. "I know. I was just taking him back to his room and – " He trails off, thinking about the way Frank had looked at him, eyes blurry and red.
"And you thought you'd give him a night cap?" Mikey asks, his voice flat but his eyes huge, and that does it for Gerard: he collapses to the floor, holding his stomach as he titters. After a second, Mikey joins him, though he still looks a little appalled.
"That is so sordid, Gee," he says, then claps a hand over his mouth.
"I know," Gerard gasps from the floor. "I know." He curls up, shaking with laughter, his fist pressed against his mouth. "Oh, God, Mikey."
*****
Frank knows there are things worse than death. Complete paralysis, for example. Losing his ability to play guitar. Everyone he loves dying, and him living on alone. Tequila hangovers.
God, he wishes he'd died last night.
He wakes up with a sour taste in the back of his throat, and claws his way across the bed in time to hurl over the side. It fucking reeks. Nothing stinks like stomach acid and second-round tequila: the smell's bad enough to make him gag harder. His stomach feels like it's going to pop out of his mouth inside-out.
"God," he whispers, and spits. Spits again, and cracks one eye open to check for blood in the puke. Straining that hard to hurl can't be good, there has to be some kinda health risk like a fucking stroke or something –
Fuck. He's thrown up right on a denim jacket that definitely isn't his. "Shit," he croaks, and spits, wipes his mouth on the sheet. "I'm sorry, I – "
There's nobody on the bed next to him. Frank blinks and drops his head to the mattress, eyes squeezed shut against the spin.
He must go back to sleep for a while, because he jerks awake again with another load ready to pop. This one he manages to hold in as far as the bathroom, and even grabs the jacket off the floor as he goes, trailing it after him. He tosses it into the shower and leans over the toilet, heaving.
After a solid half-hour of prayer to the porcelain gods, with a Hail Mary to the hotel maids who (hopefully) gave the toilet seat a good scrubbing before his stay, Frank leans over and cranks the shower on. Water splatters dully against the denim, turning it into a dark, sodden lump.
Frank leans against the toilet and breathes through his mouth, eyes closed. Occasionally he spits into the bowl. His mouth tastes like shit.
After a few more minutes, he realizes two things: one, wherever Gerard has gone, he's not coming back; two, he's fucking freezing. It's September in Jersey, and he's curled up naked on the floor of a hotel bathroom.
Frank flushes and climbs into the shower. The jacket sits at his feet and he kind of nudges it around, rinsing the puke out while he shivers under the water. At first he's tempted to just throw it out, but that's the hangover talking; he winds up twisting it into the plastic garbage bag beside the toilet. He drags on a pair of boxers and his shirt from last night (there's a tear in the seam around his neck that he's pretty sure wasn't there yesterday), and goes down the hallway.
Gerard doesn't answer when Frank knocks on his door. Either he's gone somewhere else, which seems real unlikely at ass o'clock in the morning, or he's asleep.
Frank's head droops on his neck, his eyelids droop on his face, his stomach droops around his knees. The plastic bag of puke-jacket bumps against his thigh, makes him shiver. Gerard's a light sleeper, always has been.
Frank knocks again, then turns and walks back to his room. The jacket goes in with his own stuff, wrapped up in the trash-bag plastic. Frank slips back into bed, curling up in the cold sheets away from the puke side.
The pillow smells like Gerard's hair, musky sweat and unwashed male. There's a dark streak on the white material that might have come from makeup.
Frank closes his dizzy eyes and goes back to sleep.
He wakes up sometime later to buzzing. It's a raw, disorienting noise, full of clashing sounds; he figures out why after he hits the alarm clock and only half the buzz dies. His cell phone continues to hum, somewhere on the floor.
"Shit, shit," he groans, and gropes his way to the pair of pants crumpled beside the bed. He must have kicked them off as he'd dropped down onto the sheets…
Frank flicks the phone open. "Frank."
There's a tiny pause and then Jamia says, "Hey."
Frank leans against the bed, his head swimming from the sudden movement. "Hi."
"Did I wake you up?"
"No." He coughs into his fist, clears his throat. His body's lost the lingering numbness and there's a whole catalogue of unpleasantries being reported to his brain. His knees ache from dropping to the stage last night, the space behind his eyes pounds hard enough to make him cringe, and there's this soreness on the backs of his thighs that takes him a second to identify.
It'll turn into bruises later… with his luck, perfect finger-shaped marks of blue where Gerard had gripped him.
"Is this a bad time?"
Frank realizes he's laughing silently, shaking with soundless humor. "No," he says, unsteady. "It's fine. What is it?"
"You sounded pretty messed up last night. I wanted to… make sure you were okay."
They'd argued; about what, Frank can't remember. Besides the obvious. "I'm fabulous."
"Would you please not be like that? I'm – I worry about you. I still get to worry about you."
It's a repeat conversation, same verse on a different day. Looking back, Frank can't pinpoint exactly when they stopped having anything to say to one another, just that he's been hanging on for what feels like years, and getting more and more resentful that Jamia wasn't trying as hard as he was. Like she loved him less. Then he'd felt guilty, remembering how much he's always asked of her: long times apart, trekking all over the world, him making out onstage with other people.
"I'm okay, JJ," he says. "I'm just." He's got no word to describe the lump of disease in his chest. He shrugs, even though she can't see it.
"Yeah," she says, meaningless noise. "Are you leaving soon?"
"Yeah," Frank says back, just as empty, then asks in a sharp rush of anger, "There's somebody else, isn't there?"
Jamia sighs. "Frank. You asked me that last night."
It's no more an answer than the one she gave him then, either. Frank thinks about the finger-shaped bruises on his hips, and gets up and goes back into the bathroom. H doesn't even bother hanging up, just leaves the phone on the floor. The intense vomiting freaks him out a little less: he knows this feeling. His stomach's seizing up like it used to all the time back in high school, or like when he first started playing with Mikey and Ray in Geoff's basement and felt so desperate for things to work out so he could have a fucking band already.
The cramps haven't been this bad in years. Frank pukes until he's got nothing left in his system, then sticks his finger down his throat just to be sure. No way in hell is he keeping anything down today.
*****
It takes Mikey an hour to convince Gerard to come downstairs for breakfast, and even then the most he consumes is a steady stream of coffee.
It's their last tour date in Jersey for a while: the boys kiss the girls goodbye over cereal and bagels. There's some kind of self-justifying commentary about rolling stones and how moss is bad, but Alicia cries until her makeup is smeared all the way to her jaw and Christa plays with Ray's hair, smiling sadly. Gerard drinks his coffee. Just between you and me, he tells the dark liquid, gathering moss doesn't sound so bad.
He glances sideways at Bob for support and commiseration in their mutual singleness; but Bob is busy texting on his cell phone, probably talking to any number of girls that he hooked up with last night. Bob is something of a stealth ladies' man, quiet and unassuming right up until - -
"Hey, Frank," Ray says beside him. Gerard freezes for a moment, then sips at his coffee again and keeps his head down, peering through damp strings of hair as Frank sits down at the table beside Bob.
His head continues the motion to land gently on the tabletop. Bob frowns and rubs at his shoulder; Ray slides a water bottle over. "Drink this. You need to replenish some fluids."
Frank shakes his head without lifting it. Bob hunches over next to him, elbows propped on the table. "Are your bags packed, man? You want some help getting them down?"
After a moment, Frank's head moves again, in the affirmative this time.
It's the most he communicates all day: Bob goes upstairs and lugs Frank's bags down; Ray finally coaxes Frank into drinking some water, which he immediately throws back up; Mikey circles quietly, offering help to anyone who so much as glances in his direction.
Gerard stands near the bus, shifting from foot to foot underneath the hot sun. It's still too warm in mid-September to be wearing a goddamned scarf. Frank's dry-heaving into the bushes on the other side of the bus while Ray holds him up – from the way he's been puking nonstop, there's a chance, maybe, possibly, that he was drunk enough last night that he doesn't actually remember anything. In which case, he was also drunk enough that what Gerard did was – well.
Gerard's not sure which option he hates worst. He leans his forehead against the bus' hot side and giggles to himself.
"What the hell's up with you?" Bob grunts, with Frank's guitar case cradled in his arms. Gerard waves him off.
Between the hangover and the bus' start-stop movement through the New Jersey highways, Frank spends most of the day curled up on the bathroom floor. Gerard snaps his headphones on and doodles aimlessly, until he draws a bird that kind of looks like the one on Frank's stomach; then he puts the sketchbook in his bag and watches through the windows as New Jersey slips away from them.
-o-
A week goes by and nobody calls Gerard out or punches him. And somebody totally would, if they knew: Gerard's pretty sure that sleeping with one's guitarist while he's drunk and heartbroken and emotionally vulnerable warrants some kind of retaliation.
He does indicate, in spades, that breaking up with Frank Iero should be punishable by, like, community service.
Frank still calls Jamia every day and talks to her for a good fifteen minutes. The difference now is that afterwards, he looks worse instead of better.
Mikey curls up on the couch, hugging a pillow close to his chest. "This is horrible."
"I've seen worse," Bob says, not in an assholey way, just matter-of-fact. "My parents. That was like a title match. In Sumo."
"It's his first, though," Mikey says. "He's been with Jamia since high school, that's like – " He pauses and pokes Ray.
"Eleven years, aaaaand four months or so."
Bob's pale eyebrows flinch together. "Really? Shit. My parents weren't even together that long."
"Right, exactly." Mikey nods. "I mean, Frank and Jamia, they might as well have been married… he hasn't dated anyone else since high school."
Ray folds his arms across his chest. "Jeez, Mikey."
"I'm just saying."
They sit in mutual silence for a moment, and some deranged impulse makes Gerard want to suddenly shriek, I hooked up with Frank while he was drunk! into that pause.
Gerard rubs at his eyes. He should have gotten a hamster. If he had a hamster, right now, he could pet it and talk to it, and share his innermost secrets with a cute furry creature that would not judge him, or punch him in the face. Or if it did, it wouldn't do much damage. He's not even sure hamsters can make fists.
Outside, Frank has gone quiet.
*****
"Possum," Frank says.
"That does not look like a possum," Ray tells him. "Possums have a very distinctive tail."
"Maybe the buzzards carried it away already," Frank says.
"It's a rabbit," Pete says.
"You have no say in this," Frank declares grandly. He feels that he's in the right here. Pete's spent the entire day on their bus, eating their food and playing their Xbox 360.
Pete rolls his eyes and leans against Mikey's side, tucking his head onto his shoulder; Mikey's busily texting Alicia, but he shifts his body to accommodate Pete's cuddliness. Christ, those two. Frank's never understood how they got to be friends; sometimes it seems like it happened overnight. They have nothing in common as far as he can tell (besides Alicia), yet there they are, leaning against the bus together and literally joined at the hip.
"I think it's a mongoose," Bob calls from the side of the road, flicking his cigarette ash into the gravel.
"You didn't even look at it!" Frank complains. "It's not – God, you guys don't know how to play this game at all."
Gerard reappears around the corner of the bus, a crate of Jamba Juice balanced precariously in one hand; One of the merch girls, Bonnie, trots beside him, her arm hovering outstretched. "Yo!" Gerard calls. "Come getcher weekly fruit servings, or whatever."
The others crowd around him, the game forgotten. Frank sighs and picks up his stick again to poke at the fur pancake on the road. "I'm gonna drink yours if you don't get over here," Bob threatens.
"Go ahead." His stomach's still messed up. "Hey, Gee, what do you think this is?"
"What do I think what is?" Gerard pushes his sunglasses up to perch atop his head and does that weird thing with his lips and tongue, pulling in the plastic straw of his drink like some kind of mouth-octopus.
Then he sees the roadkill, and spits the straw back out. "Oh, gross."
Frank grins and pokes harder. There's some definite squishing action.
"Oh, gross! Frankie!" Gerard flings his other hand up in front of his eyes and lurches towards the bus.
Frank cackles, then drops his stick and runs over to kick Bob in the shins. "I'm going to take it home and skin it and make it into a hat."
Mid-slurp on his Chocolate Moo'd, Bob smacks Frank in the back of the head. His aim's improved a lot.
-o-
It takes Frank a while to figure out that he's really single. Part of him keeps expecting to get back with Jamia – Christ knows they've had their rough spots before. "It's just," he tells her one night, "it seems like such a waste. Spend all that time together and then just – have it all be for nothing?"
There's a little pause, and when she finally speaks again, Jamia sounds kind of insulted. "That's your best reason?"
Frank blinks, and suddenly feels a lot better.
He's single now. This is… it's interesting. Frank barely remembers being single back in high school: mostly he remembers worrying about his height and his skin and what he could say to a girl (and the clandestine guy) to get some naked time. He and Jamia weren't 100% exclusive, not with all their time apart, but fuck it, Frank's a rock star. He's never had to work for the casual hookups.
This is a different ballgame, though, and he's out of shape. "I'm single," he says. "Swinging single. I'm so fucked. You guys have to help me."
Gerard giggles, shakes his head, and goes back to his drawing. Bob raises an eyebrow. "Why us?"
"Why you?" Frank sweeps his arms in a dramatic fashion. They're both in their bunks, Gerard on one side and Bob on the other; it's a perfect strategic position, they can't get out without exposing themselves to attack. "Because you guys are the single ones, that's why. I can't ask Mikey for advice. He'd talk about his marriage and commitment and stuff."
"Advice," Bob says heavily.
"Dating tips. Pickup lines. Guys, I'm 10 years behind. I can't go around inviting people to a George Michael concert."
"You could if they're guys," Bob muses. "A certain kind of guy."
Another giggle from Gerard. "What about you?" Frank says to him. "Help me out here, Gee. You've got, you know, experience being single. Teach me, oh guru of singledom."
Gerard throws him a funny look, kind of startled, but rolls onto his side. "I don't know, man. Just be yourself?" He shrugs, apologetic, and rolls back over.
"That's it? That's weak, man! Come on, I'm single here."
Gerard hums quietly, focused on his artwork. It's that comic book project: nothing short of a car crash is going to distract him. Frank sighs and turns back to Bob.
"Invest in hand lotion," Bob tells him, then yelps when Frank dives into his bunk.
Frank gives it a try at the next stop – just a trial run, a warm-up. He smiles at a pretty little red-head behind the convenience counter; she twitches, startled, and then smiles back. Encouraged, Frank makes small talk with Harley, one of the roadies, who's straighter than an arrow but laughs with flattered amusement when Frank flutters his eyelashes.
During the show he locks eyes with various audience members. Gerard makes this face sometimes, this earnest wide-open look that makes people throw their hearts at his feet; Frank tries it out and there's a near-riot in the front rows.
For the whole weekend afterwards, he Indian-dances around the bus, pumping his fist in the air. "Who's still got it? Who's still got it?"
"Apparently, you do," Mikey says, sipping his coffee.
"Bingo!" Frank laughs, delighted and relieved, and runs back into the bunks. Gerard's there, of course, a pencil stuck behind his ear and his mouth hanging open in concentration as he draws. "Gee! I've still got it."
Gerard glances up, his mouth twitching into a grin. "I heard. Fucking congratulations, man."
Frank leans against the edge of Gerard's bunk, arms folded. "We should hit the town. You and me. In drag. Seriously! Okay, maybe not the drag, but we should get out there and conquer the world."
Gerard's grin doesn't waver, but his eyes slide away; he's physically incapable of hiding anything on his face. "I am not picking girls up with you, Frank Iero.
"Well then clearly I need you to come along and save me from the slave traders."
Gerard pretends to consider it, his face screwed up thoughtfully. "It could be a learning experience for you. I'd hate to waste it."
Frank crosses and uncrosses his legs, punches Gerard's shoulder lightly. "You're always cooped up in here, Gee. You gotta get out once in a while or you'll, like, become one with the bus."
A light goes on in Gee's eyes. "That's a good idea.
Frank turns away. "Fine. I'll get Bob to save me from sexual slavery."
He does laundry instead, hauling his bag into one of the public Laundromats in town with a baseball cap pulled low and all his tats covered up. He'd been avoiding it for months – it's something he and Jamia used to do together whenever she came on tour.
That isn't what trips him up, though: it the bottom of his bag there's a crumple of unfamiliar plastic. Frank frowns and drags it out, then realizes and wishes he hadn't. It's been a while, Christ, a couple of months, but it's suddenly had to breathe.
He tries to roll his eyes at himself. Is he actually doing this? Sitting on the smeared floor of a Laundromat, clothes half-shoved into the washing machine at his back, belt buckles clinking against the dryers across from him, and getting choked up about a puke-stained jacket? He should throw it out, he really should.
He throws it in with his own clothes instead, and leans against the machine with his eyes closed. Maybe he'll take it back and leave it folded up nice and neat on Gerard's pillow. With a mint on top. Or he could wear it. It's about two sizes too big for him, but it'd still make one hell of a statement.
Frank thinks about how Gerard's eyes had slid away, and knows he hasn't got the guts.
*****
Life goes on: shows and riding in the bus, eating in cheap diners. It reminds Gerard of when he first got sober, and everyone adjusted their picture of normal to his levels – we'll carry on, we'll carry on. Towards what, they'd never bothered to answer in the song, but that was kind of the point.
During his recovery, Gerard had been quietly miserable, hiding out in his bunk. Frank is… not.
Gerard and Ray are in the back studio laying down a track when Frank sidles back, swaying with the movement of the bus. He grabs Gerard's ass in passing, blurts "Teabag me" into Gerard's mic, then slides behind Ray's chair and leans over his shoulder. "What're you working on?"
Ray leans forward, face only a few inches from the computer screen. "Laying down a melody track."
Frank hums a little to himself, and Gerard counts silently. 1…2…3…4…
Frank stretches out to catch a mouthful of Ray's hair and starts chewing on it. Gerard stares, torn between amusement and grossing out, and Ray sees his face. "What – Frankie!" He catches his hair in both hands as he twists away, struggling to pull its mass to safety.
"It's like cotton candy," Frank says dreamily, sticking his tongue out and leaning after Ray's head.
Ray shoves him away and Frank loses his balance, tumbles into some equipment. He rebounds in Gerard's direction. "You should write a song about necrophilia, Gee."
Ignoring him leads to madness, and encouraging him – yeah, that too. Gerard settles for fixing his gaze on Frankie's right eyebrow. Frankie sighs, put out, and says, "Aren't you going to ask me why?"
"You have symmetrical eyebrows," says Gerard. "That's really rare. I've never noticed it before."
"Thanks!" Frank grins.
The next morning, he's shaved his left eyebrow clean off.
-o-
When Frank's onstage, all the childlike glee drops away and he turns feral, crazy. He plays his guitar like it's challenged him to the death; he kicks over progressively-larger equipment; he screams, he spits, he throws himself against the floor. Which… would be normal, for Frank, except it's always been controlled chaos before.
Gerard looks in his makeup-smeared eyes these days and sees only something animalistic, broken down to basics. "Maybe you should stay away from him up there," Ray says, "until he stops being all mini-Hulk."
It sounds reasonable (of course it does, it's Ray), but from the start there's been something electric between him and Frank onstage, like two magnetized points interacting. They feed off each other, kicking through invisible barriers to some kinda transcendental scream of excitement, where any kind of shit can happen. Gerard's not about to give that up; whatever else was going on in their lives, he's never not followed Frank where that scream takes them, and he doesn't want to be the first one to change the rules.
In Seattle, Frank bites Gerard. They're singing into the same mic, shoulders tipped into each other. As they wrap up the harmonizing bit, Gerard starts to move away; there's a flash of white in the corner of his eye and then Frank's teeth clamp down on the meaty part of his shoulder.
At first he's too hopped up on adrenaline to properly feel it: he flails and hits the back of Frank's head with his hand and Frank lets go reflexively, twists away like a fish in water. For half a second, the lights hit the sweat on his skin at the right angle and he glows in the venue's darkness.
Afterwards, Gerard ducks into a single-occupancy bathroom and peels his shirt down off the shoulder. "Holy shit," he mutters, eyeing the oval of red, swollen dashes.
When he touches the bite, his body shudders again and Gerard stares at himself in the mirror, startled.
He stays away from Frank after that.
-o-
IHOP remains one of the few universal constants: waypost of ultimate comfort food, open 24 hours a day, with multiple locations in every state except Vermont. Gerard has no idea why there's not even one IHOP in Vermont. He keeps meaning to ask Ray about it, there's probably some economic or social reason why the good people of Vermont have abjectly refused to accept the spirit of IHOP into their lives, but he only ever wonders this in the middle of the night, trudging across empty parking lots, when he's stretched too thin over the bones of adrenaline to waste precious energy reserves on anything other than ingesting a huge amount of sugar ASAP.
It's something of a tradition for them to finish up a set of shows and then visit the local IHOP before they move on. Exceptions are made for college towns, where even on weeknights there's one or two groups of party kids with the munchies. Gerard has nothing against them or their lifestyle choices – hey, as long as everyone's having fun and no one's hurting themselves – but dealing with rambling, glassy-eyed fans in the middle of the night when all they want is some fucking pancakes is just, no. Not gonna end well for anyone.
The IHOP in Denver has a special on chocolate chip pancakes, and word spread fast: a couple of other bands have come with them. Frank's ahead of him in the group as they head towards the glowing blue and red sign; he's laughing and jumping on someone – it looks like Bob again (the man either has the patience of fucking Gandhi or a hidden Diary of Rage) – and generally channeling the Energizer Bunny.
"Did you ever talk to him about it?" Mikey says suddenly into his ear, making him jump.
Gerard fixes his eyes on the snow-splattered pavement in front of his boots. "Talk about what?"
Mikey's eye roll is audible.
"There's nothing to talk about." Another weighted pause. "You're going to fuck up your laser surgery."
Mikey gives his eyes a rest, but sighs loudly and hooks his arm through Gerard's elbow. "Whatever."
He's warm. "You're warm," Gerard says, and sticks his hand in the armpit of Mikey's jacket. Mikey, who is the Zen master of tickling, hums at him and leans closer until they're almost doing a three-legged race.
"It's just," Gerard admits quietly, "I don't know what I'd say. '
"None of us ever know what to say, Gee," Mikey says with all the gentle wisdom of a 28-year-old.
It's Gerard's turn to roll his eyes. Fucking Mikey.
Inside, though, he finds himself a corner in the group and watches Frank attack/make fun of/flirt with Bob through the whole meal while Bob communicates irritation only in the tiniest of occasional sighs. Frankie's fucking exhausted – Gerard can see the bruised look around his eyes, the slight unsteadiness in his gestures; but there he is, still chattering and cracking jokes and, midway through the meal, climbing on top of the table to announce very loudly that he has sworn off women.
"Only cock from now on!" he shouts. "Women are evil, evil creatures! Except for you," he adds to their waitress as she walks up with plates laid over her arms. "You pancake-bearing goddess."
Their waitress cocks a tired eyebrow at the rest of them. "You fellahs wanna cut back on this one's sugar?"
"We tried," Ray says apologetically, passing dishes around the table. "If you have an elephant gun, we'll take that."
She scoffs; but by the end of the meal, she's leaning an arm against the booth above Frank's head, the other hand cocked on her hip, and she's listening with a wry twist in her mouth while Frank gestures wildly about something Gerard can't hear. Frankie can make anyone love him.
"You okay?" Ray asks Gerard. "You're like, pulling your hair out at the roots over there."
From the other side, Mikey nudges him. Gerard scowls, takes his bastard traitor hand away from the frayed curl of hair behind his ear. "Need a haircut," he mutters, and shoves a whole pancake in his mouth.
-o-
Most of the time Gerard can look at Frank and just see Frank, annoying and needy and mischievous Frank, with his one eyebrow still growing back in ("It's all pokey," Frank whines, brushing his fingers over it). Frank, who loves playing his guitar, telling terrible jokes about his penis, and, lately, having sex with everything that moves. "Ah, the rebound sex," Ray narrates from the couch beside Gerard. Frank's across the room with his tongue caught in the esophagus of a mohawked guy. "Quick, meaningless substitute for actual love."
Gerard looks away, examines the ice in his empty glass until it melts.
He knows what it's like to kiss Frank (well, okay, he knew that before, but that was different). He knows how Frank tastes, what he sounds like when he's digging his heels into a mattress. It drifts into his head at random moments, like some kind of faulty alien mind control.
Yeah, that's what it is. Aliens. Taking over his brain and making him think these thoughts about Frank. Drunk, heartbroken Frank, who seems to make out with everyone around Gerard. It's like a 360-degree view of his own personal hell.
Gerard stays away from wasted-Frank, and Frank in general. Nobody else bothers to question it, but it's not just the alcohol he's worried about. He hates feeling this way: after that night in Jersey, he just doesn't trust himself not to act dumb and try to make something out of nothing.
He'd had a plan, of course. He'd worked it all out in his bunk at night, after Frank had first croaked "Jamia and me, we broke up" while they were all backstage. Part of him had felt horrible for being happy that two people he cared about weren't in love anymore, but he couldn't help it. After two years (or more – he's not sure if he was in love with Frank in the Wasted Years) of hoarding his secrets, he feels like he's earned this. He's been good. He'd planned to wait, give Frank some time to heal, then… well, he's not sure how he was going to bring the subject up, but he would have thought of something.
Then he went and fucking took advantage of Frank while he was drunk. Fucked up his chance, his one fucking shot, after all this time.
Now, with Frank single and steering onto the male side of the fence, Gerard wishes hopelessly that he'd just find a boyfriend and get it over with. He knows from experience that things will get easier when Frank is unavailable again. Until then, Gerard's just got to ride it out and wait for the time that he can be Frank's friend without these stupid hopes floating around his brain, beamed by motherfucking aliens.
*****
Frank lasts all the way past Christmas before he caves.
They've got a holiday breather in New Jersey before they fly to Australia. Fucking Australia. The first time they went down there, Frank spent the entire time making Bob check under the toilet seats for him. Apparently they've got this super-deadly spider that likes to hide in toilets. Ray tried to read him an article about it, but Frank started hyperventilating and had to lie down, after tearing apart his bunk to make sure nothing was hiding. Bob finally, wearily agreed to go on spider duty, because the only alternative Frank would consider was a small bucket.
And they're in New Jersey. Frank tenses at the Welcome sign. He hates the thought that from now on he's going to associate Jersey with breaking up; he's been just fine for months, but here comes the squeezing pains in his stomach again.
The dead zone after Christmas is the worst. All that skippy-happy holiday spirit trips on the broken toys and plummets headfirst onto frozen pavement. It's a cold year, all kinds of records being broken.
Frank can feel the tires swimming on ice a little bit and grits his teeth. Parking across the street, he calls Gerard's cell phone.
"H'lo?"
"Hey, it's Frank."
"Oh, hey, man! Merry Chrismahannukwanequinox – "
"Stop, stop," Frank laughs.
"I'm just trying to be inclusive."
"Right.
"Oh. Uh, sure." Frank breathes out. "Are you at your place? I'll come pick you up."
"No way are you driving in this. I'm outside your house."
"What! Oh, crap, man, you must be freezing. I'll be right out."
Frank doesn't care any more that Gerard's probably mostly doing this out of concern, and worry. Frank's been drinking too much and sleeping with a lot of strange people. It's not Thai slave traders, but every time he does attempt to conquer the Dating Mountain, he invariably winds up on, like, somebody's floor with a tube in his mouth and a mouth on his cock.
He knows it isn't like this for other people who innocently wander into the singles scene; he thinks it must have something to do with the fact that he's got a scorpion tattoo on his neck. People expect certain things from him, and Frank's never been good at handling expectations.
Everybody's worried. Having that much concern focused in his direction feels both wonderful and awful, and Frank needs it to stop; he doesn't want to become a drunk, any more than he wants to date, or be single. These things just seem to happen.
Gerard comes out in a parka and hoodie, with a scarf wrapped over his mouth and nose. He's got nothing on his legs except pajama bottoms, though, and snowflakes catch in his black hair. "Oh shit it's cold out," he says in a rush as he scrambles inside. "Hey, how was Christmas? You get anything good?"
"Grampa bought me a new guitar."
"Really?" Gerard's face lights up. He knows jack shit about guitars or instruments in general, but he knows what they mean to Frank.
"Yeah." Frank smiles as he pulls out of the parking spot. Grampa had been so pleased with himself. He'd stretched out on the couch with a hand over his smirk as he watched Frank hold the black and red beauty with careful hands. "It's pretty fucking sweet."
-o-
The point of taking Gerard to sushi is never to eat, just to watch. His skill with chopsticks… well, he hasn't got any skill with chopsticks. He stabs the carefully-arranged sushi pieces then eats them off a chopstick like kebabs. He slurps the tiny delicate tofu squares, tilting the bowl to his lips and spilling miso on his scarf. He always misses the plate he wants until it's gone past him on the little conveyor belt, and trots after it yelling, "Come back!"
The sushi chef is as entranced as Frank, though a lot more irritated. Gerard remains oblivious of them both, unselfconsciously chewing on a portion of squid. "Thithis rully shewy."
"We dissected those in sixth grade at our school."
Gerard swallows with an effort and wipes his mouth. "Everybody dissected octopuses in sixth grade."
"Octopi."
The chopstick wavers above a piteous spicy tuna roll. "It's octopuses."
"Octopussy," Frank says in his best Sean Connery voice, then in his own, "It's octopi, moron."
Gerard rolls his eyes and flips Frank off. "Whatever, have it your way. Your wrong way." He stabs the tuna roll and lifts it to his mouth, darting forward to catch it as the seaweed wrap disintegrates and rice tumbles out. He misses. It falls in pieces to the counter around his plate. "Aw, man."
Frank bites his cheek, props his chin on his hand. Gerard finally notices. "You gonna eat anything?"
"Naw." His stomach's a little funny – not the cramps, just a little shaky. "I've lost my appetite for, like, the next five years just watching you."
"Hey!" Gerard yelps, and throws a California roll at Frank's head. Frank flings up a hand and bats a small explosion of rice back at Gerard.
By the time they leave the snow's stopped. There's about half an inch of fresh white flakes on the car. "It's beautiful," Gerard murmurs. They're both quiet, hushed in the snow.
If things were more normal, Frank would scoop up a snowball and chuck it at Gerard's head. Instead he waits until they're inside the car and says, "Look, so, I know you and the guys, you've been worried about me."
Gerard looks over, startled, one hand on the seat belt. He releases it slowly and twists sideways towards Frank, looking closely at his face. "Um. Yeah."
"
Gerard's mouth twitches like he wants to smile, but he only nods. His eyes are wide, serious, and dark.
Frank loses his nerve. "I'm okay. Honestly. I mean, it's been – I kinda don't know what. Y'know. To do."
Gerard nods again, intent. Frank looks away. Godammit why can't you just – can't you come on already. He's not sure who he's thinking the words at. He stepped off the edge before, though, and nothing caught him; he doesn't think he has it in him to leap into the dark again.
"Frankie. Hey." Gerard reaches for Frank's shoulder, and his fingers brush across the skin of Frank's neck. They're cold. Frank shivers when Gerard's thumb lands right on his pulse.
Maybe it's that. Or maybe it's the silence afterward, big and dark as the snowy twilight outside. Most likely, though, it's the way Gerard mumbles, "Get back here, you fucker."
It's quiet, so quiet that Frank barely hears, and he's sure that Gerard isn't even aware he said it out loud. He does that a lot, talks to inanimate objects like the plates in the sushi bar and his pencils that won't stay sharp. Right now his gaze is fixed on his own hand where it's curled in the collar of Frank's jacket. He looks terrified.
It's enough. It's a flicker, and it sends Frank's own hands into motion unbuckling his seat belt. Gerard sees and his eyes get even bigger. "Frankie," he says.
"Yeah," Frank says, sliding and scooting and crawling awkwardly across the front seat. Gerard's head hits the headrest.
Frank winds up in his lap, shoulders curled down under the car's low ceiling. He breathes on Gerard's mouth, kisses one corner. Gerard stares up at him in silence, so close, and it's enough to put another twist in Franke's belly. He forces a grin. "You want to sit this one out or something? You did most of the work last time."
Gerard's mouth pops open. Frank kisses him quickly, slanted sideways. When he pulls back, Gerard says breathlessly, "I didn't think – you remember that?"
"I wasn't that drunk, Gee," Frank murmurs.
Gerard giggles. His eyes are still huge. "You weren't?"
Frank's fingers land on Gerard's scarf, tugging it loose. "The talking portion of this evening is done."
When he licks the pale skin between two clavicles, Gerard lurches and almost throws him off. "Holy shit," Gerard pants, his head thrown back. Frank reaches up and grabs a fistful of hair to hold him still.
They don't even get their clothes off. Which is probably a good thing, considering that it's below fucking freezing outside – "Cold hands, cold hands!" Gerard yelps when Frank shoves them under his shirt – and they're in the empty-but-still public parking lot of the Sushi King. Gerard pulls Frank's knee over his lap and they both groan when Frank settles.
Gerard giggles again, high and breathy. "Frankie. This is messed up."
"Yeah," Frank says, his eyes closed. He buries his face in Gerard's hair, breathes him in as he grinds their hips together.
-o-
It doesn't work.
They both come in their pants like a couple of teenagers, gripping each other. It's dirty and sticky and fantastic and Frank wants to go home, sleep for a day, wake up, do it again.
They're still coming down, though, when he feels Gerard withdraw. He doesn't pull away or flinch when Frank pushes a hand through his hair, but Frank can feel the difference all the same. He tips himself sideways onto the seat, breathing cold air in through his nose and looking at nothing in particular.
Gerard sits next to him, panting. The windows are fogged over. When he gets out and shuts the door, Frank can't see him at all.
Sudden anger blocks his throat. Frank tries to choke it down, because it's no one's fault but his own. It's too much for him, though, and he scrambles for the door.
"What the fuck, Gee!" he shouts as he clings to the open door. His legs won't stay under him.
Gerard stands a few feet away from the car, lit cigarette in one hand. The other hand with its fingerless gloves is shoved in his hair. When he turns, he looks utterly miserable and cold. Frank would have a lot more pity if this wasn't all his fault to begin with.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Frank spits, and Gerard flinches, wraps his arms around himself.
"I'm sorry," he says. "Frankie. I just. I can't do the – " He gestures with his right hand and the cigarette slips free; Gerard doesn't even notice. "The meaningless rebound sex. Not with you."
He's shaking. Frank stares at him for a long moment, then turns and walks away.
"Frankie," Gerard calls after him desperately. His feet crunch in the snow. "Come on, please don't – "
Frank spins around, hand tightening into a fist; but for all the times that Gerard got beat to hell in high school, he's never learned to dodge. His hands are loose and his face is open. Frank pushes him instead, shoves him down into the snow beside the sidewalk.
Gerard lands with a soft "oof." His sweat-damp hair splats around his head like a black starfish in the snow. He stares up at Frank. His eyes are just as huge as before, in the car.
Frank wheels around and walks all the fucking way home.
*****
Gerard drives around the city for three hours, searching, then heads to Frank's house… all at a steady10 miles per hour. He is not getting into a car accident and dying, not now. He is not.
He crouches on the front porch of Frank's dad's house, groping in the filth under the doormat. "Come on," he whispers, "where are you? Where are you?" He really doesn't want to have to wake Mr. Iero up. Mr. Iero's a cool guy, generally, but Gerard's not sure how he'd react to knowing that Gerard is here to seduce his son.
Cold metal brushes his fingers and Gerard gasps, grabs the key. "Oh, thank you thank you thank you." He almost kisses it, before he remembers the filth.
Mama snorts at him as he tiptoes through the kitchen, but doesn't do anything more than that. The dog's so fat, she doesn't rise for anything short of the Apocalypse or food.
Frank's room is dark, and booby-trapped. His dad and his uncle collected all his stuff from the apartment he had with Jamia, but it looks like they didn't unpack anything: the dim light from Frank's window shines on a whole lot of boxes stacked along the walls. Gerard tiptoes through them, but he's always failed at stealthy maneuvers. His foot connects with a box, and the box on top of that one tumbles sideways spilling clothes. Gerard cringes, helpless: his hands are full.
"Mh?"
"
Frank's dark shape sits up straight. "Whozzere?"
Well, no time like the present. Gerard flicks the lighter in his right hand. "Hey. It's me."
Frank's yellow and shadowy in the tiny flame. His hair sticks up in places and his eyes are puffy smudges; he looks like he's been drinking. "Gee? How – "
"Key under the mat. It's always there. I wanted to talk to you and I didn't want to wait until tomorrow, so, sorry for breaking and entering. Even though I didn't actually break anything, so I guess it was just entering. Ow," he adds, and releases the lighter's button.
In the dark, Frank asks, "What're you doing here?"
Gerard bites his lip, shifts his feet. "Um. I had a plan. When you and Jamia broke up, I made a three-month plan. I was going to give you some time and then I was going to. Y'know. Talk to you. About us."
There's a pause and then Frank says slowly, "What about us?"
Gerard sighs and flicks the lighter. "There's no chance that you're going to make this easy on me, is there?"
Frank looks wary and small and Gerard bites his lip. "Okay." He takes a deep breath, braces himself. "I like you. You, um, I think you like me." Heat hits his cold cheeks, prickling painfully; it hits his finger, too. He flicks the lighter off. "I'm pretty sure I messed up, like, badly, but – if we could. Get past it somehow? I would really, really like that."
The lighter's too hot but he turns it on anyway and brings his hands together. The small candle's hard to light and the lighter's seriously starting to burn, but Gerard finally gets it going then tucks the lighter away and holds his breath, moving slowly over to the bed with one hand cupped around the tiny flicker.
Frank is frowning, but he makes room for Gerard to sit down. "Is that – ?"
"It's a cupcake. It's, like, the cupcake. This is the best cupcake in all the land of New Jersey." Well, okay, maybe not, but it's the absolute best cupcake that Gerard could find at any of the 24-hour bakeries in the area. It's a big one, chocolate with white cream cheese topping, a candle stuck in the middle, and sprinkles. The sprinkles are key: Frankie loves them.
Gerard toes off his sneakers and sits down by Frank's knee. He takes a breath and sings softly, "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birth-day dear Frankie. Happy birthday to you."
He flourishes the cupcake and Frank takes it slowly. There's the tiniest hint of a smile around his mouth and Gerard watches it like a hawk. "Thanks," Frank says. "It's… not my birthday, Gee."
Gerard sighs. "Why must you point out the fatal flaw in my otherwise-brilliant plan? It's a cupcake, Frankie. No one can resist cupcakes, not even you."
"You're being adorable," Frank says.
"Trying." Gerard hunches his shoulders and grins the grin he uses on fans, the killer one he knows will get him his way. "Is it working?"
"Give it a minute," Frank says, eyeing the cupcake. The baby smile has slipped away. Gerard bites his lip and hugs his cold knees to his chest, waiting.
After a moment Frank says to the cupcake, "I put myself out there. A lot."
Gerard thinks about what that would have felt like to him, if he'd been the one getting naked and waking up alone. "I'm sorry. I didn't know… that it meant the same thing. Y'know, that it meant to me."
Frank rolls his eyes, looking like himself for a second instead of a guarded, fragile stranger. "Oh, fuck you. I practically fucking spelled it out."
"You – when? You did not."
"I kept flirting with you!"
"When?"
"I don't know, every five minutes."
Gerard thinks of the sideways punches, the biting. "That was flirting?"
Frank looks a little murderous. "I asked you to go out with me."
"I… thought you meant to pick somebody else up. Together."
"I stood on a table and screamed that I wanted cock."
"Okay," Gerard says, tugging at his hair. "Okay. In retrospect. With, like, hindsight and stuff – um, yeah."
Frank rolls his eyes again. "You moron. You don't get any of my cupcake."
They lapse back into silence, but it's an okay kind of silence. Gerard fiddles with his hair and his gloves and the hem of his jacket; Frank contemplates his cupcake.
Then he says, "Okay."
Gerard's heart skips one beat, thuds on another, speeds up. "Okay?"
"Okay," Frank confirms, then pauses. "Wait. Hold on." He leans down and blows out the candle. Gerard can still see the ghost imprint of the flame in his eyes, a bright red flare in the dark. "If you tell me to make a wish, I'm gonna bite you again," Frank's voice says.
Gerard, who had opened his mouth, now closes it. "God, I'm fucking freezing," he says instead. "Can I get under the covers?"
"That'th the wortht pickup line ever," Frank says, and Gerard just knows he's sucking the icing off the bottom of the candle. He suddenly doesn't feel quite so cold.
Frank shifts across the bed, stretching to deposit his cupcake on the nightstand. "You should talk, anyway. I had to fucking walk home. Come on already." His fingers find Gerard's knees in the dark, then his wrists.
"You didn't have to walk home," Gerard points out as he lets himself be pulled forward. "You could have, like, stood there another minute. I would have figured it all out, and come up with a plan of attack."
"Your plans suck," Frank mutters as he kicks the blankets back. "They always involve bad dye jobs or me going down on a mic."
"I believe you mean the world's most awesome plans," Gerard says as they settle side-by-side, and Frank pulls the comforter up to their chins. The space underneath is warm and close, and smells like Frank.
It's kind of his turn, he realizes suddenly, so he takes a breath and reaches for Frank. "Holy fuck your hands are cold!" Frank giggles, kicking wildly at the covers, but he doesn't pull away.
Gerard keeps touching him and touching him until his hands are warmer and Frank has stopped giggling in favor of other noises. His hoodie's damp with melted snowflakes and he struggles out of it. "Fuck. Frankie."
"Moron," Frank whispers, and rolls up onto his side, throwing his other leg over Gerard's hip. It feels familiar, and safe, like they've been doing this for years.
-o-
In London, Gerard finally bites back. Not as hard, and he honestly didn't plan it. Frank's crouched on the edge of the stage, guitar silhouetted against the spot lights and his head bent low over it, exposing the sweat-damp hair at the base of his skull. Two fucking months after the fact, Gerard's brain clicks over with some kind of super-delayed reaction – hey, he's never claimed to be quick on the uptake – and he drops to one knee behind Frank, hooks an arm around his throat, and bites the spot where his shoulder meets his neck.
Frank's startled yell gets drowned out by a roar from the crowd. Everybody loves a vampire: when his brain clicks back out of REVENGE mode, Gerard plays it up. He lets Frank go and gets to his feet, licking his teeth for the crowd.
At his feet, Frank is looking up at him, a huge grin splitting his face.
"You guys are going to give each other an infection," Ray tells him later, but only hands over a bottle of peroxide. Frank peeks over the seat, still grinning wide, and Gerard chucks the bottle at his head.