Fic: Mind the Gap Between the Train and the Platform 1/1 (My Chemical Romance, NC-17, Gerard/Frank)
Title: Mind the Gap Between the Train and the Platform
Status: Complete
Fandom: My Chemical Romance
Word Count: roughly 8,000
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone in or related to My Chemical Romance. They're real people for god's sake and this so very much not-real.
Pairing: Gerard/Frank
Rating: NC-17
Betas and helpers: snarkyrainbows and allyndra for the beta and maryangel200 and ariadne83 for the crazy/support.
Authors Notes:This is my first Frank/Gerard and the universe it takes place in is my reaction to yet another marriage injustice out in the real world. So, I decided to write fic about a love that succeeds. Also, descriptions of London transit come from my memories and http://wwwltfl.co.uk - if I messed it up, call it creative license ;-)
Warnings:Graphic sex. AU.
Summary: A couple weeks before the start of Projekt Revolution, the My Chemical Romance boys get a much needed day off. Frank and Gerard use the time to explore. // 1st of 2 stories in a close-to-canon!AU of 2007/Projekt Revolution but is complete and stands alone.
July 13th, 2007
The Tower of London is fucking awesome and fucking haunted. Gerard buys a t-shirt from the gift shop to commemorate the visit. Or maybe two, but one of them is going to be for Mikey. Eventually. When he gets tired of wearing it. It’s just so fucking cool, and has this blunt, blood-drenched axe on it, like the one from the failed execution of that old lady who got hacked to pieces in place of her son. Also, they’re clean. The shirts? They’re fresh out of the plastic and still smell good and everything. That’s going to be valuable later.
But now they’re standing outside on the side of the road watching cars go the wrong way and talking about where to go next. Bob wants to go to a pub, Ye Old Cheshire Cheese in particular, and although Gerard can think of worse things than sitting in a cool kitschy bar steeped in literary history (It’s a bar, did he mention that? They serve food, but it’s still a bar.), it’s not how Gerard wants to blow their only truly free day in London.
They have press tomorrow, and Brian’s booked him in to make an appearance at a Blackwell’s on Charing Cross Road to do a sneak peak of Umbrella Academy and signing on Sunday, then Monday’s prepping for Tuesday’s concert at Wembley fucking Arena. Today only, there’s no schedule to follow, no requirements to live up to, no fucking bus to sleep on. He has today, and he wants to take it.
“So you guys go hit the Cheese,” Frank says. “And Gee and I’ll explore.” He holds up his cell phone, one of those Orange pay-as-you-go numbers that costs more in a week than a month’s worth of gas for Gerard’s car. “Call us if you get on the wrong side of Scotland Yard.”
And that settles that. Ray makes a joke about cheese, and Frank drapes his arm around Gerard’s shoulders and steers him toward the Tower Hill Tube station. They’re famous enough that probably they should just take a black cab. Worm’s not going to be happy they split up, Brian even less, but while Gerard loves his life - fiercely - sometimes he wants to feel normal. And trudging down a seemingly endless flight of stairs into beige-tiled tunnels with Frank feels normal and exciting all at once.
“So what do you think?” Frank asks as they stand in front of the ticket machine, debating the merits of a single trip ticket versus an Oyster card.
“I think it depends where we wanna go.”
“Okay, and where’s that?”
Gerard grins and knocks his head gently against Frank’s. “Anywhere.”
“Okay. Oyster it is.”Frank laughs and digs in Gerard’s jacket for a credit card. All Frank’s got on him is cash, and the record company’ll pay them travel expenses back, or they get it off on their taxes or something. Gerard’s not sure, but they need a record, so his Visa gladly sacrifices itself for the greater good.
The cards are blue, and they load a probably unnecessary and unspendable twenty pounds onto each, but waving them at the station entrance and watching it open for them feels like a Jedi mindtrick. They take off down the stairs at a run, laughing and drawing stares from Londoners on the move who just want to get from point A to point B in peace.
The light is different underground, yellow and alien, like being in another world in a way that is gentler than New York. A little cleaner and a lot classier. They decide to head to Covent Garden, and chase each other through the twisting tunnels onto the platform. A remote voice over the PA chirps out a warning to “please exercise caution on the platform” that is clearly directed at them, and they fall against the wall, hands pressed to the tile, snickering like they just got caught passing notes in home room.
It was almost five when they left the Tower but by the time they reach Embankment, Friday rush hour is in full force. They have to shift to the Piccadilly line, and two trains pass, full to capacity, before Gerard and Frank can squeeze themselves into a car.
When they do get on, there’s hardly room to breathe, let alone sit. People stand reading purple issues of the London Paper, packed together like cattle. They manage to find space to stand together in front of a fifty-something black man in a business suit and a pretty girl in a teal floor length skirt and a long sleeved blouse under a Taking Back Sunday t-shirt that is a little at odds with the bright green hijab that frames her round face.
Gerard smiles brightly at them both. The man rolls his eyes and goes back to his paper, but the girl stares him, eyes wide, lips curled upwards and her mouth trembling, like she’s trying to talk and can’t. Gerard bumps Frank’s hip with his to get his attention, and she makes a squeaking noise.
“Oh, hey, you’re a fan of Adam’s,” Frank says over the rocking of the train over the rails, nodding at her shirt. She nods like a bobble head doll, and it’s clear that Adam not the only person she’s a fan of. Gerard thinks it’s kind of adorable as she blushes and fumbles in the folds of her skirt for her phone.
She holds it up, camera lens facing them, and asks, her voice shaking, “Could I-? That is, would you mind- My mate Amiira’ll, she’ll never believe me!”
Gerard doesn’t even need to look at Frank to know he’s nodding. This is why they do what they do, moments just like this for kids just like her, and if she wants a picture, he can’t say no. She flips her phone open and there’s a familiar not-camera sound, and then her fingers are beating away on the keypad, her attention neatly split between them and her texting.
Gerard turns away from her, about to comment on how maybe they should text Mikey about this, and finds himself staring down at Frank. He’s grinning up at Gerard, mouth loose, eyes bright, thick black hair hanging in his face. Gerard wants to reach out and brush it back because fucking hell, as the Brits say, he is beautiful.
He’s known that in an academic sort of way since forever. He has eyes. But in that moment, it hits him viscerally, pushing the air from his lungs. “Next station, Piccadilly Circus,” the electronic voice announces as his heart stops beating and the train comes to an abrupt halt.
Gerard doesn’t see Frank’s hand slip. He’s not looking at Frank’s hands in their ridiculous gloves (even though it’s the middle of fucking July and hot as hell), but that doesn’t stop them from losing purchase at the sudden stop, nor Frank from stumbling forward. Gerard doesn’t think about wrapping his arm around Frank to stop him falling. They’re chest to chest, and the mix of surprise and relief and utter fucking trust on Frank’s face is world destroying.
“Please stand clear of the closing doors,” the driver calls, robotic over the bad PA system. There’s a lurch that sends them both tripping a little more. Gerard’s the one to fall forward this time, further into Frank, and then the train’s moving again and his world is reduced to Frank’s body in his hold, Frank’s arm that has somehow wound its way around Gerard’s back, the blood racing in his ears, and the rocking noise of the train tearing over the track.
He feels like if they kept traveling down the line, they’d eventually end up in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. Only he wants to end up in another version, where instead of the Marquis De Carabas and the Huntress showing him magic, a different kind of “anything” would be possible, and he could just lean forward and kiss Frank. Right here. In public. On the fucking train underneath London.
“Covent Garden,” the driver announces, and before the train stops, Frank surges forward, pressing his mouth to Gerard’s and god, this. This, this, fucking Jesus Christ, this is fucking it. This is the best thing, the best day ever, and Frank tastes like chips and vinegar still from lunch and cigarettes and Frank. He tastes like Frank, and Gerard lets go of his waist so that he can fist his hand in all that thick hair and see his own pale skin disappear into the darkness.
“Ah-hem.” The sharp sound of a throat clearing pulls Gerard out of his daze. He plants his forehead against Frank’s so he can feel Frank’s panting breath, and turns his head. It’s the man in the business suit. The girl in the hijab is gone, replaced with an Indian guy in a polo shirt whose attention is fixed on his iPod, but the business man is glaring at them. He lifts an eyebrow at Gerard, a silent warning that excuse you, gents, this is a public space with children present, then goes back to his paper.
“I think this is our stop,” Frank breathes. Gerard nods, but doesn’t let go of his grip on Frank’s hair. It’s soft and clean and warm against his fingers, and he wants to keep it. Like a pet.
“What’s so great about Covent Garden again?” Gerard asks, trying to remember how anywhere could be as good as standing here, kissing Frank.
“I don’t know. Let’s find out.” Both of Frank’s hands are on Gerard’s hips, hooked in the belt loops of his jeans.
“Please stand clear of the closing doors.”
Frank pulls him out of the car and onto the platform as the doors shut behind them. He drags Gerard forward until Frank’s back hits tile and Gerard has him pressed into the curving wall. Gerard is taller and he’s not the one pinned, but he feels captive.
“Frank.”
Frank grins at him, wild and lopsided and totally present. He jerks his head at the exit. “We should go.”
“Fuck Covent Garden,” Gerard mumbles, trying to pull Frank into him, to crawl inside and become one of `those dualistic whole beings' the Greeks talked about. “Fucking fuck it, Frank. We should just go grab a cab.”
Frank shakes his head, his grin somehow gets bigger. Gerard wants to lick it. “This is our only free day. You’ve been talking about today for two months.”
“Yeah, we should use it. We’ve got a hotel, Frank.” Gerard isn't sure when exactly getting Frank naked and under him (or over him or inside him or anything, seriously fucking anything) became the center of his universe. But there it is. The universe revolves around him getting his fingers on Frank.
“C’mon,” Frank says, leaning forward to nip at Gerard’s lower lip, and Gerard is ready to come when and wherever Frank wants him to. “How often do we get to be tourists? You’ll thank me.”
“I won’t,” Gerard moans, pressing his mouth to Frank’s temple. “I hate you.”
“No, man,” Frank sighs, going up on his toes a little. He presses his mouth to Gerard’s cheek, smiling into the kiss. “You love me.”
Gerard’s breath catches, and he finds himself nodding in spite of himself. Frank drags him up the stairs, and by the time they wave themselves out with their Oyster cards (which will probably never stop being cool, at least not in 72 hours), it’s like they’re back to where they were before Embankment, giddy and playful, but different.
They wander through the shops in Covent Garden, dragging each other over to this thing and that and not letting go once they’ve shown the other, fingers tangled together, occasionally sliding back into loose embraces or to leave brief kisses on bare skin.
Everything’s different. Everything’s all of a sudden completely fucking different, and yet nothing’s changed. Gerard still falls face first into the street art, and Frank is like the Energizer bunny on acid, and it is totally normal. They laugh and talk and bicker, and it's status goddamn quo except for the kissing and the way Gerard wants to fuck him so hard that neither of them can walk straight for a week and will be forced to explain to the Muse guys why they have to do their show from lounge chairs.
Gerard wishes he were less surprised. He’s always been an epiphany sort of guy - the band, his sobriety, the concept for pretty much every album they’ve done. He’s used to revelations hitting him like a bolt from the blue and then having to map shit from there. It’s old news, and he shouldn’t be so stunned by The Frank Epiphany.
He can’t get his balance back, though - in the best possible way, because Frank just fucking fits. His fingers tangle neatly with Gerard’s and their pace is different but matched, and it fucking feels like it could honestly work. There’s a giddy fear that follows on the heels of that thought, with curiosity over if that workability is going to carry through after today.
Gerard likes to think that he doesn’t care, that one perfect day is better than none. Carpe fucking diem. He doesn’t know if he believes this, but he watches Frank harass a living statue and decides thinking’s enough.
They wander until they land in front of another Tube station. Frank digs out the cards. He taps them against Gerard’s lower lip and asks “So which anywhere to now?”
“Uh, the London Eye?” It’s mostly dark outside, and he bets the view at night is fucking insane.
Frank laughs and thwaps him on the chin with the cards. “Lame. You’re such a fucking tourist.”
Gerard flushes a little. “Just an idea.”
“You’re a complete fucking lame-o,” Frank declares. “We can get there on this line, right? I don’t have a Tube map on me.”
Gerard blinks at Frank, who has moved to study the directory on the wall. That doesn’t compute. “You wanna go?”
Frank gives him a look. The look would be rated TV-MA if it were vocalized. “We gotta grab the Northern Line out of here though, unless you wanna walk it.”
“No, Tube’s good.”
“Awesome.”
The foot traffic is still high, but it’s nowhere near where it was. They find seats across from each other on the train to Waterloo, and the space gives Gerard time to catch his breath and his thoughts.
Too much, too fast, like riding a roller coaster blind, or sliding downhill in the midst of a bender. It’s scary and obviously stupid, and he feels fucking alive. He feels alive like he only ever does on stage in the middle of a truly exceptional show.
Whatever the fuck it is - it’s too much. Gerard takes his slightly shaking hands and buries them in his pockets and just breathes. His fingers curl between the Sharpie and lighter in his right pocket, and he jerks and grabs one when something bumps his shoulder.
His eyes fly open, and Frank isn’t across from him anymore. “Deep thoughts?” comes the accentless question from beside him as Frank bumps his shoulder again.
“Fathomless.” Gerard sighs, pulling his hand out of his pocket to rub his forehead, only to find that his fist is still clenched around what turns out to be the Sharpie. Frank pulls the marker from his hand, which frees Gerard to rub his brows with his fingers.
“What’re you doing over here?”
“Random British guy number six million four hundred eighty three thousand and two just got off,” Frank says. “I didn’t see any pregnant ladies or old people so …”
Gerard gives him what he hopes is a warm smile but what feels like a Joker grin. “Well, this side of the train welcomes you.”
Frank just smiles and bumps their shoulders again. The gesture is a prelude to Frank pulling the cap off the Sharpie with his teeth. He grins around the cap and grabs the side of Gerard’s face.
“Frank what-“
“Hold still,” he says around the cap. Gerard does, because seriously, what the fuck else is he supposed to do? He feels the wet brush of felt on his neck as Frank makes careful strokes to compensate for the shaking of the car.
There actually is a little old lady in the car, but she’s sitting in the spot Frank vacated, staring at him. She’s wearing one of those flower blouses, and she looks like the she belongs in a garden in the Midlands, sipping tea and gardening with a furious passion. But no, she’s here on the train reminding him of Elena in none of the good ways, and he gives her what he hopes is a reassuring smile.
“We can’t help it,” he says by way of apology, even though to speak to another patron is a clear breach of Underground etiquette. But his blush is fucking burning and he has to say something. “We’re Americans,” he explains.
“Yes, I can see that,” she says, lifting a single brow and surprising him with a thick Scottish burr cutting through her high voice. He was seriously expecting a less glittery Queen Elizabeth II type voice.
“Done,” Frank says. “Show the nice woman you’re harassing the finished product, Gee.” His arm slides around behind Gerard’s back to pull his face to the other side, which is fucking hot. He hasn’t been manhandled since Bert, and Frank is a lot gentler.
“Lovely,” she says, half wry amusement and half sincerity. Gerard smiles at her and wants to ask her what her name is and where she’s from and if she’s got any grandkids their age. But the car rattles towards a stop and the PA’s announcement of their arrival at Waterloo station stops him.
“That’s us,” Gerard says, like she cares and Frank doesn’t already know.
“Please mind the gap between the train and the platform,” the voice warns them as they rise to their feet. Frank hands back his Sharpie, and their witness smiles at them.
“Have fun, lads. Don’t get yourselves into too much trouble.” She winks at him. He’s going to remember her and her face. When he has paper, he’s going to draw her and save her because she’s fucking precious in the most literal sense of the world.
The station is huge and marbled like a church. The walk to the Eye is quiet. The night air is cooling and the breeze of the Thames is gentle. Big Ben and Parliament are across the river, and Frank’s pressed against his right side, his left hand in Gerard’s left back pocket.
Gerard wants to ask what Frank wrote. He wants to know what his skin’s proclaiming to anyone they walk past. But instead he asks, “Do you think we’re crazy?”
“In general or for something in particular?” Frank retorts.
“This,” Gerard says, stopping on the sidewalk to take Frank’s free hand. “This. Do you think we’re crazy? I mean, shit, Frank. You know? Jesus.”
Maybe it’s the fresh air. Maybe it’s the fumes from the marker. Maybe it’s just that now that they’re not moving so fast, Gerard can feel all six years of friendship - five as bandmates living on top of each other as family - dragging along behind them.
Sex and messy, complicated feelings could fuck shit up in a real way. He’s seen it happen to other people. It happened to him with Bert. If he fucked up things with Frank, Gerard flat out wouldn’t recover. Frank’s part of My Chem, and the complete unit is what keeps Gerard whole, and that would stop working with a piece missing.
He sighs and finds himself leaning bodily against Frank’s smaller frame. It’s strong enough to hold him up as he mumbles, “What the fuck are we doing?”
“I, Christ, Gee, I don’t know. I mean obviously,” Frank says, rolling his eyes up and interlocking their fingers. “But I don’t know. It feels like it’s right though. Doesn’t this feel fucking right to you? Like-”
Frank brings their tangled hands up between them so that even in the relative dark, Gerard can see them. He squeezes once and Gerard squeezes back.
“It feels like something clicked,” Frank says, and it sounds like an admission of a secret. “It feels like all this shit’s just clicked, and it’s like fucking finally.”
He shrugs and goes to drop their hands. Gerard doesn’t follow his arm down. He tugs Frank’s hand to his mouth and presses his lips to the O and double L on his fingers. “Frank,” he murmurs against the inked skin.
“That’s what’s on your neck,” Frank says with a jerk of his head downwards in the general direction of Gerard’s collar. “Finally. I don’t know. Stupid.”
“No, it's not,” Gerard says, and he can feel it, too, the last little clicks that sigh into place. It’s like finding a square peg’s square hole after trying to shove it into a round or triangular or trapezoidal one for years. “Frankie, Jesus. It’s not stupid.”
Frank’s smile is a little tentative this time, and that’s rare. Frank usually doesn’t wait for anything, let alone his own expressions. “Do you still wanna ride the Eye?” he asks, and it's not the question that Gerard was expecting but somehow it’s the right one.
Gerard grins. “With you? Fucking absolutely.”
They’re tangled together in transit for the rest of the night. Frank plants his chin on Gerard’s shoulder as they ride the glass bubble of the Godzilla-sized Ferris wheel through the London night. The Tube ride back to the hotel is mostly empty aside from a sleeping man, and Frank straddles Gerard’s lap and kisses him breathless until they slide to their stop. Their fingers slide under shirts as they walk down the street and into the lobby, and once they hit the elevator, Gerard grabs Frank by all that fucking hair and pulls their mouths hard together.
It’s the last ride of the day, and Gerard wants to make it the best. He pushes Frank until his back hits the wall and he drops the bag he’s been dragging with him all day. His hands need to touch skin and his mouth needs to taste Frank, and he wants to do it here, moving, still moving, always moving. He’s kind of afraid that if the movement stops, everything will stop.
“Want you,” Gerard breathes into the patch of skin just beneath Frank’s ear. There’s a dip under the skin and if he presses it with his tongue, Frank’s breath stutters. It’s like hitting the X button on a console controller, only fucking sexy as hell. “Want you so fucking much.”
He licks down, over the scorpion, and Frank moans. Gerard can feel it blow through his hair and he adds suction to get another one. But Frank pulls on his hair until he has to let go and pull back, blinking and dazed.
“Bed,” Frank pants before taking Gerard’s mouth in a quick brutal kiss. “We have access to a fucking bed.” He bites Gerard’s jaw, sucking hard enough to bruise, and Gerard chokes and grabs at Frank’s shoulders, his fingers digging into fabric.
He’s hard enough to cut fucking glass and he can’t think. Frank is talking and Jesus, his voice sounds amazing. But absolutely no content is reaching Gerard’s brain. It’s too busy traveling straight to his cock.
The elevator dings on the sixth floor, at fucking last and too soon all at once, and opens onto their floor. It’s still relatively early for a Friday night and the hallway is empty. It doesn’t occur to him to move, but Frank says, “We should use it.”
“Huh?”
“The bed, idiot. The fucking bed. Fucking in a bed.” Frank’s hands slide between Gerard’s back and the wall to grab his ass and pull them together. “We could be right now.”
Oh. Right. Gerard’s brain goes from pause to fast forward as they jostle each other out of the elevator and down to Gerard's room. They trip over each other down the hall to Room 605 and then Frank is pressed up behind him, rifling through Gerard’s pockets, hindering the search for the key.
His room has a double bed. Frank’s in one of the ones with two twins (which would never fly in the US) with Cortez . While Frank and Cortez’s luggage probably has things Gerard's doesn’t (extra condoms for example, beyond the two “just in case” ones Gerard has stashed in his wallet and carry on), Gerard doesn’t want to get interrupted. And Frank isn’t interested in fucking on a twin bed.
“Can’t spread you out on one those,” he breathes into Gerard’s ear as Gerard fumbles with the key card. “I wanna fucking see you, Gee. Wanna have to buy the hotel replacement sheets.”
“Frankie, fuck,” Gerard curses as the card refuses to work while his hands slip. He finally gets it unlocked, and they fall inside. He’s in love with Frank’s fucking hair, and he pushes his hands back into it to pull Frank across the room. He pulls a little too hard, and Frank makes a sound in the back of his throat that’s almost a growl.
Frank pushes him back, and Gerard lets himself fall, hoping to fuck that Frank didn’t shove him to the floor. But Gerard lands on his back on the bed and laughs as Frank grins down at him like he’s fucking proud of himself.
Gerard bounces once and barely has a chance to pull himself up and get his feet off the floor before Frank’s on top of him. He straddles Gerard’s waist with his knees on either side and leans over so that their chests press together and they can pick up their sloppy kissing. The change of angle shifts everything, which makes Gerard groan because it brings them together just fucking right.
They’re wearing too many clothes. Gerard’s all about fucking layers and doesn’t like being naked, but fucking Frank’s skin is right there. It’s right there if he can just get at it. But his fingers aren’t working right, and every time he tries to tug Frank’s shirt off he keeps getting distracted by the skin underneath.
Gerard makes a small frustrated noise into Frank’s mouth, and Frank rears back. Gerard shakes his head and his grip on Frank’s hips digs in a little harder than he intended. “No, hey, come back.”
“Fuck, this isn’t working,” Frank mutters, and Gerard has a split second of cold panic that he’s going to get up and leave. But instead Frank grabs the hem of his shirt and pulls it off over his head so that Gerard can see all that living art.
He throws it onto the floor before lifting up on his knees so that he hovers over Gerard. Gerard wants to say something, but Frank’s pulling on his shirt. He tugs, hard. Gerard feels his shirt rip a little before he pushes himself up to sit so that Frank can pull his shirt off, too.
The air in the room is cold from the air conditioning, but Frank’s hands are warm as they skate over his shoulder, down his chest and over his stomach. Frank’s movements are fast, but his fingertips are gentle right up until the moment his hand hits denim.
There are a dozen ways Frank could touch him right now. All of them flash through his head as Frank looks down at him, intense and almost contemplative. He holds his breath, waiting to see which way Frank is going to go, until Frank’s nimble fingers undo his fly and hook in his jeans and boxers.
Frank climbs all the way off of him, which sucks, but he pulls down Gerard’s pants and stops to undo his own. Gerard laughs as Frank kicks out of his own ratty jeans until they are flung off his legs and hit a lamp.
The lamp hits the ground, and there’s a definite crashing sound. Frank’s face twitches into a fucking comical “oh shit” expression, and Gerard laughs so hard he can’t breathe. He mumbles something that gets caught on his giggles and Frank’s back on top of him, stretched over him skin to fucking hot, soft skin.
“What?” Frank demands, pressing him into the mattress with his whole weight. He’s grinning and fucking hard so it’s hard to take anything but the way his boxer-covered hard on feels against Gerard’s cock seriously. “Come on, Gee what’d you say?”
“I said,” Gerard snickers then stops, taking a deep breath. He feels like his insides are full of champagne bubbles, and he has to force himself into the closest thing to control he can manage with Frank on top of him, fucking naked. “Wrecking hotel rooms makes us officially rock stars.”
Frank stares at him then laughs. “We weren’t before?” It shakes his whole body, which makes their bodies slide together, and Gerard brings his knees up on either side of him, creating something like train rails for Frank to move between.
“Not-“ Frank rocks forward, and Gerard’s voice catches. “Not like Led Zepplin, Rolling Stones rock gods.”
Frank chuckles and lowers his mouth to kiss him. He kisses the breath out of Gerard’s lungs and the sense out of his brain. Frank fucks his mouth with his tongue until Gerard’s wrapping his legs around Frank’s back and his fingernails are digging indentations into the inked skin on his arms.
Then he pulls back and Gerard follows him up a little, lips already tingling and bereft. Frank appeases him with a quick bite to his lower lip then says, “I heard Bowie and Jagger used to fuck. If you fuck me, does that seal the rock god status?”
Gerard’s brain short circuits. He’s surprised that sparks from his brain’s complete system meltdown don't light the comforter on fire. He chokes on his tongue a little but manages to come off mostly understandable. “Yeah, probably. It’s, uh, it’s worth a shot.”
Frank grins and kisses him again, fast and wet. Then he rears back, all the way off Gerard, leaving him cold again. “You got anything?”
Gerard racks his brain. It’s like tests back in high school - when he’d slept late and missed the bus and was trying to remember everything he’d learned with half the time as everyone else. He’s got to have something somewhere, right? Once upon a time, he used to have sex fairly regularly, after all. Well. Often enough.
“Uh, bathroom maybe? Try the cosmetics bag.”
Frank nods and hops up. “Stay,” he commands, pointing his finger at Gerard, like he’s one of Frank’s dogs. It makes him laugh as Frank scrambles into the bathroom.
He has no idea if Frank’s going to find anything. Aside from his deodorant and toothbrush, he doesn’t use his cosmetics bag that often, especially on tour.
In hotels, like this one for instance, he’ll just use those little mini soaps and shampoos, because the presence of the shower’s a lot more important than what gets used in it. Sometimes he’ll store extra makeup or something in there. He’s pretty sure there’s bath gel for the very rare days when he needs to wash so badly he’ll settle for a truckstop bathroom, but anything else is a toss-up of leftovers.
Bottom line, he’s got no idea what else is in there. It’s like Dr. Killinger’s Magic Murder bag - anything on earth could be in the bottom of it. What he knows for sure is here, in the room, is the condom in his wallet. While Frank ransacks the bathroom, Gerard takes the time to lean over the side of the bed and grab for his jacket.
Frank’s fingers land on the base of Gerard’s neck as he hangs over the side. His hand trails upwards to the base of Gerard’s spine and strokes over the curve of his ass. “You are so fucking gorgeous. Christ.”
Gerard twists back to look at him a little too fast and almost falls off the bed completely. Frank grabs his shoulder and then tosses something on the bed so he can grab Gerard’s wrist with his other hand.
Frank gives him a tug until he’s back on the mattress and smiles at him. “Good thing, too, cause you’re about as awkward as a fucking penguin on land.”
Gerard tries for affronted, but Frank is stepping out of his boxers, so it mostly comes out turned on. “I’d make a great penguin.”
“I don’t think a penguin’d be glad I found half a tube of KY in the bottom of your bag.”
Gerard’s eyes go big. No way does the universe like him this much. Karma doesn’t work that way. Not in real life. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Frank says, dropping onto the bed next to Gerard and picking up the tube. It’s battered and looks like it’s seen better days. Frank wags it in his face as he scoots so that they’re lying on their sides, an inch between their faces, their legs tangling together.
“Here’s hoping it’s not fucking expired.” Gerard says, then stops. “Can lube expire?”
“I don’t care,” Frank sighs, popping the cap in triumph. “If it’ll get you inside me, it can be from the fucking stone age.” His grin splits his whole face, and Gerard can’t not kiss him.
“I found a condom.”
“Good for you,” Frank chides. He chuckles and flicks his tongue over Gerard’s. “You are such a loser.”
“Mhm. Loser who’s about to fuck you.”
“You should get on that.”
It’s been a while since Gerard did this. At least a year. More since he topped. He and Bert used to do this all the time, but Gerard bottomed, and they tended towards fucking with Gerard face down in the mattress or pressed into a wall backstage at a venue, with Bert behind him.
That isn’t how he wants this to be. That was drunk, Bert sex. This is sober, Frank sex, and this first time should be better than that. First, though, fuck. The very idea that this is the first of many makes him claw at Frank.
Gerard’s fingers start to ache a little and he takes a deep breath and makes himself relax. He inhales deep, breathing the sweat-clean smell of Frank’s skin and hair, and the answer is suddenly obvious. “How do you wanna do this?”
The question takes Frank aback. Gerard watches his dark eyes blink and his mouth form a small O shape. Clearly, neither of them thought enough about this part before they got here. The “want” and “need” and “touch” and “now” had all been too loud.
Gerard brings his thumb up to stroke over the skeleton crew tattoo under his ear, tracing over the clean lines as Frank considers. If it were Gerard’s choice, he’d be writing lists in his head and drawing up mental diagrams of positions. He doesn’t know how Frank’s choosing, he just knows from the look in his eyes when he’s decided.
“You stay like that,” Frank says. “I’m gonna roll onto my other side. That work?”
Gerard’s done that maybe once. Maybe. He’s not sure. He was drunk at the time, and he was the small spoon. He does remember feeling almost too close to the guy he’d been fucking. It’s fucking intimate as hell and not the kind of positioning that makes for a fast and furious fuck. But he finds himself nodding against the pillow.
Frank shifts in his arms until they’re both lying on their left sides, pressed back to front and it’s kind of fucking scary. Frank fucking fits like this, lined up together. Gerard’s face is in Frank’s hair, and if he dips his head, he can lick the skin of Frank’s neck or shoulder, and wrapping an arm around his chest, or reaching down for Frank’s cock would be a small, easy movement.
He rips the condom packet open with his teeth and covers himself before he touches Frank with intent again. If he doesn’t do it now, who fucking knows when he’ll be willing to slow down? But once it’s on, he presses himself tight against Frank and lets his hands pick back up their exploration.
He bites at Frank’s neck as he drifts over the tattoos on his chest, the flame over his heart, dipping into his navel before tracing the birds on his stomach. With the arm that’s half-pinned under Frank, Gerard tips Frank’s face back to him so that he can suck on Frank’s lower lip as he wraps his fist around Frank.
Frank sighs into his mouth as Gerard strokes him, reaching back to grab Gerard’s hair. Gerard can feel every muscle in Frank’s back and legs moving as he rocks into his hand. Forget what Gerard saw in him earlier, this is fucking gorgeous.
Gerard keeps a steady pace until Frank’s breathy moans shift into something closer to a whimper. Then he fumbles for the lube. He misses, and Frank presses it into his hand hard enough that his fingernails leave marks.
“Gee,” he breathes. It sounds like a plea. Gerard can’t say no.
His finger slides in easily. Frank’s voice catches on a word that Gerard is pretty sure is meant to be either his name or “goddamnit,” and he smiles against the hair at the back of Frank’s head. No way to tell.
Frank’s done this before. Enough that the second finger joins the first without too much resistance or, from the noises Frank is making, any pain. Gerard doesn’t think about with whom. He thinks about the way Frank feels around his scissoring fingers.
Frank’s twisted his arms back behind him, and his hand digs into Gerard’s shoulder in an imitation of raptor claw. “Now,” Frank grits out between clenched teeth. “Fucking fuck me.”
Training tells Gerard that Frank needs more. He usually did before he got fucked but then, he was often fucked up and almost always on edge so maybe the experience he’s had isn’t that reliable. Instinct, on the other hand, is screaming that he should listen to Frank, that he can trust him. His instincts aren’t usually wrong.
He pulls his hand out, and Frank lets go of his shoulder. It’d be a wonder if he didn’t break the skin, Gerard thinks. Then Frank’s hand is on his cock, holding it still, and he’s not thinking about anything except Frank, Frank, Frank.
Frank strokes him through the condom and pushes back even as Gerard’s hips thrust forward. There’s a moment of rushing in his ears, an almost unbearable pressure and pleasure, and then it hits him like an ACME anvil that he’s in Frank. He’s fucking inside of him.
“God, Frankie. Oh God,” Gerard groans and drops his forehead onto to Frank’s shoulder, even as he rocks into him, slow tempo like a ballad. “How did we get here?” he murmurs, his eyes squeezed shut against the tightness that surrounds him and the rhythm that threatens to overwhelm him, even as mild as it is.
“Fucking the long way,” Frank says. “Literally.” Then he laughs a little and Gerard can fucking feel it from the inside.
It’s too much, too tight, and Gerard bucks and suddenly it’s a different song, not quite staccato because the angle isn’t right for it. But he reaches down and pulls Frank’s top leg up and back a little. Frank can do back-bends on stage while playing guitar, so Gerard knows he can take this and doesn’t hesitate.
The change in position makes it so he can thrust deeper and faster. It takes a second. Frank squirms against him, impatient and needy, but when Gerard figures out the logistics, he has Frank moaning, guttural and out of control. It’s a stereophonic version of the muffled noises Gerard’s been hearing through the bunk curtains for years, and it is so much fucking better up close.
He plants open mouth kisses on all the skin he can reach. He sucks and bites purple-red bruises over peach skin and black ink. He wants to add his own color to the pictures as much as he wants to bury himself in Frank and never come out.
“Touch me,” Frank pants, reaching back for Gerard’s hand, threading their fingers. “Touch me, fuck, please.” Frank drags their joined hands together and fucks into the space their palms make between them.
By some miracle, Gerard manages not to come first. He recites the Twelve Steps a few times and imagines Ray’s grandma in a bathing suit, but that only helps so much with Frank slick and tight around him and hard and pulsing against his hand. But Frank goes first, twisting himself so they can meld their mouths together again.
“Harder,” he demands a split second after Gerard hits his prostate just right, and he breaks the kiss to cry out. His left hand grips Gerard’s short hair and tugs him down and closer even as Frank’s body pushes back sharply against Gerard’s thrusts. “Need you, need you fucking harder. Give it. Fucking give it to me. Please. ” The word cracks on a groan as Gerard finds his mark again.
“I am,” Gerard promises, his left hand stroking over Frank’s chest in what he hopes is soothing in contrast to his fucking. “You can have anything, Frankie.”
“You,” Frank gasps, and their joined grip on Frank’s cock tightens as his fingers clench. “Just fucking need you.”
Gerard kisses him again, has to, then it's five thrusts of Gerard’s hips and six flicks of their touching wrists, and Frank comes. He screams his orgasm into Gerard’s mouth, and Gerard likes to think that he can taste it, that it pours down his throat like some sort of magic food- ambrosia or the alligator tongues from James and the Giant Peach - that will change him from the inside.
He wraps his left arm tight around Frank’s chest, holding him tight against Gerard’s body as he fucks him through the spasms. Frank goes from screaming to low grunts in the back of his throat as he twitches and then finally sags into Gerard’s embrace.
Gerard takes a deep breath and tries to pull out, but Frank’s hand catches his hip. He holds him so tight there are going to be bruises. Gerard can’t fucking wait to see them.
“Don’t. We’re not done yet.”
Gerard shakes his head. “Frank-“
He gives Gerard a lazy, almost-sleepy smile. His lips are bright red and Gerard did that, turned his mouth that color. “Don’t be a bitch about this, Gee. Just fuck me,” Frank says on a sigh that’s about half a step from a yawn. Then he licks his lips, and Gerard knows he’s doing that on goddamn purpose.
“You’re fucking bossy.”
“You like it.”
He does like it. He likes pretty much everything about Frank, always has, but he likes it all a lot more from balls deep inside him.
“Move, Gee,” Frank says, watching him with heavy-lidded eyes. Then he lifts his hand and slaps Gerard’s hip. Hard. The shock makes him slam forward, and Frank half-laughs half-gasps.
“Fuck,” Gerard groans, settling into a jerky new rhythm, his skin still stinging. Okay, that’s a fun new thing to add to the list of fun new things Gerard’s learned today. He’s not sure how he got this far in life without anyone doing that to him before. He won’t make that mistake again.
“That’s the idea,” Frank laughs and grinds back hard at the same time, which does things to Gerard that make it so he can’t think.
He can’t do anything but fuck and grab at Frank’s hips and stomach. He licks the drying sweat off Frank’s skin,and when Frank pulls his head down, Gerard digs his teeth into the curve his shoulder, using the connection to anchor him as he slams home. He hopes - in the tiny still-working back corner of his brain - that he’s not hurting Frank, because he’s about to lose it, and he’s not sure he could stop if he is.
“Come for me,” Frank murmurs. “Want to feel you come for me, Gee. Come on. I got you.”
Gerard does, because he wants to give Frank everything, anything he asks for, and this one thing is just so easy. And so un-fucking-stoppable. He’s burning from the inside out, his world shrinking to sensation and Frank, and he’d like to live here. Stop touring and just live right here in Frank.
He feels almost empty when it’s over and he pulls out. That’s stupid because he wasn’t the one getting fucked, but once he drops the condom in the trash he curls back close around Frank anyway.
Frank’s smiling and half asleep, and they’re going to be disgusting if they don’t shower. But Gerard doesn’t want to move. He’s pretty sure his spine’s melted, so he lets himself drift off. They’re used to disgusting anyway.
The next morning they shower together to save water and time. It doesn’t actually save either, because blowjobs are still jobs and Gerard’s a big believer that any job worth doing is worth doing well. Frank pulls on one of Gerard’s shirts and a pair of his sweatpants, and Gerard does his best not to jump him again so they can get downstairs.
The rest of the guys are already in the hotel restaurant having breakfast. Cortez is half asleep on his folded arms, Ray’s poking at a crumpet, Bob is face down in his coffee, and Brian’s whole focus is directed into his Blackberry as he breaks down the day. They all look up when Frank and Gerard drop into chairs at the table.
“Morning,” Cortez mumbles before putting his forehead back on his arms. Bob grunts something similar and reinvests himself in his coffee, inhaling it like the fumes are aroma therapy. Gerard can relate and reaches for the pot in the middle of the table himself.
“You’ve got something on your neck,” Ray says, waving his crumpet at Gerard.
Gerard shrugs and sets down the coffee pot in front of Frank. He wraps his fingers around the mug and takes a sip (it's not the best but then England isn’t known for its coffee, unlike Brazil, which, Jesus fuck, he likes touring there if just for the coffee) before he answers. “It’s Sharpie.”
Frank reaches over and snatches a piece of toast that wasn’t touching bacon off Brian’s plate. “Hey do they have porridge here? I always wanted to try that shit.”
Brian smacks Frank’s hand hard, making him drop the toast and yelp. He’s glaring at them. Gerard affects what he hopes are innocent eyes. He’s not the best performer off stage. “What’s up, Brian?”
If looks could kill, he and Frank would both be lying face down dead on the pretty white tablecloth. “You both look like you lost a cage fight with a fucking vacuum cleaner.”
Frank shrugs. “They’re ferocious, vacuums. Sometimes they attack in packs like velociraptors.”
Gerard bites his lower lip, and Ray doesn’t hold back a chuckle. Brian’s still frowning.
“Frank, there’s one right here,” he touches the side of his neck just over his own tattoo, “That has fucking teeth marks in it. There’s going to be fucking photographers at the press thing today.”
Frank just shrugs and grins, his knee bumping Gerard’s under the table. “Sorry Brian,” he says, totally unrepentant.
Gerard nods and moves his leg so that it brushes against Frank’s. It’s a totally different kind of fun. He tries really hard not to smile when he says, “Yeah. Sorry Brian.” But he fails, because he doesn’t feel sorry either.
Brian stares at them both for a long minute, then groans, rubbing his forehead with the edge of his Blackberry. “Neither of you are gonna make this easy for me, are you?”
“Oh, come on, Brian,” Ray chides, but he’s grinning, although not at Frank and Gerard. He’s finally triumphed over the crumpet, cracking it in half and smearing that clotted cream stuff all over the fluffy inside. “You know it wouldn’t be any fun if they did.”
“Yeah, Brian,” Frank agrees, “You picked us. You don’t like doing things the easy way.”
“Neither do you,” Brian sighs, but he’s smiling a little.
Gerard can’t help but think that Brian’s more than right on this one. But Frank slings his arm over Gerard’s shoulders, just like he did before he dragged him down into the Tower Hill Tube station, and Gerard thinks that the hard way’ll probably be worth a try.
Status: Complete
Fandom: My Chemical Romance
Word Count: roughly 8,000
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone in or related to My Chemical Romance. They're real people for god's sake and this so very much not-real.
Pairing: Gerard/Frank
Rating: NC-17
Betas and helpers: snarkyrainbows and allyndra for the beta and maryangel200 and ariadne83 for the crazy/support.
Authors Notes:This is my first Frank/Gerard and the universe it takes place in is my reaction to yet another marriage injustice out in the real world. So, I decided to write fic about a love that succeeds. Also, descriptions of London transit come from my memories and http://wwwltfl.co.uk - if I messed it up, call it creative license ;-)
Warnings:Graphic sex. AU.
Summary: A couple weeks before the start of Projekt Revolution, the My Chemical Romance boys get a much needed day off. Frank and Gerard use the time to explore. // 1st of 2 stories in a close-to-canon!AU of 2007/Projekt Revolution but is complete and stands alone.
July 13th, 2007
The Tower of London is fucking awesome and fucking haunted. Gerard buys a t-shirt from the gift shop to commemorate the visit. Or maybe two, but one of them is going to be for Mikey. Eventually. When he gets tired of wearing it. It’s just so fucking cool, and has this blunt, blood-drenched axe on it, like the one from the failed execution of that old lady who got hacked to pieces in place of her son. Also, they’re clean. The shirts? They’re fresh out of the plastic and still smell good and everything. That’s going to be valuable later.
But now they’re standing outside on the side of the road watching cars go the wrong way and talking about where to go next. Bob wants to go to a pub, Ye Old Cheshire Cheese in particular, and although Gerard can think of worse things than sitting in a cool kitschy bar steeped in literary history (It’s a bar, did he mention that? They serve food, but it’s still a bar.), it’s not how Gerard wants to blow their only truly free day in London.
They have press tomorrow, and Brian’s booked him in to make an appearance at a Blackwell’s on Charing Cross Road to do a sneak peak of Umbrella Academy and signing on Sunday, then Monday’s prepping for Tuesday’s concert at Wembley fucking Arena. Today only, there’s no schedule to follow, no requirements to live up to, no fucking bus to sleep on. He has today, and he wants to take it.
“So you guys go hit the Cheese,” Frank says. “And Gee and I’ll explore.” He holds up his cell phone, one of those Orange pay-as-you-go numbers that costs more in a week than a month’s worth of gas for Gerard’s car. “Call us if you get on the wrong side of Scotland Yard.”
And that settles that. Ray makes a joke about cheese, and Frank drapes his arm around Gerard’s shoulders and steers him toward the Tower Hill Tube station. They’re famous enough that probably they should just take a black cab. Worm’s not going to be happy they split up, Brian even less, but while Gerard loves his life - fiercely - sometimes he wants to feel normal. And trudging down a seemingly endless flight of stairs into beige-tiled tunnels with Frank feels normal and exciting all at once.
“So what do you think?” Frank asks as they stand in front of the ticket machine, debating the merits of a single trip ticket versus an Oyster card.
“I think it depends where we wanna go.”
“Okay, and where’s that?”
Gerard grins and knocks his head gently against Frank’s. “Anywhere.”
“Okay. Oyster it is.”Frank laughs and digs in Gerard’s jacket for a credit card. All Frank’s got on him is cash, and the record company’ll pay them travel expenses back, or they get it off on their taxes or something. Gerard’s not sure, but they need a record, so his Visa gladly sacrifices itself for the greater good.
The cards are blue, and they load a probably unnecessary and unspendable twenty pounds onto each, but waving them at the station entrance and watching it open for them feels like a Jedi mindtrick. They take off down the stairs at a run, laughing and drawing stares from Londoners on the move who just want to get from point A to point B in peace.
The light is different underground, yellow and alien, like being in another world in a way that is gentler than New York. A little cleaner and a lot classier. They decide to head to Covent Garden, and chase each other through the twisting tunnels onto the platform. A remote voice over the PA chirps out a warning to “please exercise caution on the platform” that is clearly directed at them, and they fall against the wall, hands pressed to the tile, snickering like they just got caught passing notes in home room.
It was almost five when they left the Tower but by the time they reach Embankment, Friday rush hour is in full force. They have to shift to the Piccadilly line, and two trains pass, full to capacity, before Gerard and Frank can squeeze themselves into a car.
When they do get on, there’s hardly room to breathe, let alone sit. People stand reading purple issues of the London Paper, packed together like cattle. They manage to find space to stand together in front of a fifty-something black man in a business suit and a pretty girl in a teal floor length skirt and a long sleeved blouse under a Taking Back Sunday t-shirt that is a little at odds with the bright green hijab that frames her round face.
Gerard smiles brightly at them both. The man rolls his eyes and goes back to his paper, but the girl stares him, eyes wide, lips curled upwards and her mouth trembling, like she’s trying to talk and can’t. Gerard bumps Frank’s hip with his to get his attention, and she makes a squeaking noise.
“Oh, hey, you’re a fan of Adam’s,” Frank says over the rocking of the train over the rails, nodding at her shirt. She nods like a bobble head doll, and it’s clear that Adam not the only person she’s a fan of. Gerard thinks it’s kind of adorable as she blushes and fumbles in the folds of her skirt for her phone.
She holds it up, camera lens facing them, and asks, her voice shaking, “Could I-? That is, would you mind- My mate Amiira’ll, she’ll never believe me!”
Gerard doesn’t even need to look at Frank to know he’s nodding. This is why they do what they do, moments just like this for kids just like her, and if she wants a picture, he can’t say no. She flips her phone open and there’s a familiar not-camera sound, and then her fingers are beating away on the keypad, her attention neatly split between them and her texting.
Gerard turns away from her, about to comment on how maybe they should text Mikey about this, and finds himself staring down at Frank. He’s grinning up at Gerard, mouth loose, eyes bright, thick black hair hanging in his face. Gerard wants to reach out and brush it back because fucking hell, as the Brits say, he is beautiful.
He’s known that in an academic sort of way since forever. He has eyes. But in that moment, it hits him viscerally, pushing the air from his lungs. “Next station, Piccadilly Circus,” the electronic voice announces as his heart stops beating and the train comes to an abrupt halt.
Gerard doesn’t see Frank’s hand slip. He’s not looking at Frank’s hands in their ridiculous gloves (even though it’s the middle of fucking July and hot as hell), but that doesn’t stop them from losing purchase at the sudden stop, nor Frank from stumbling forward. Gerard doesn’t think about wrapping his arm around Frank to stop him falling. They’re chest to chest, and the mix of surprise and relief and utter fucking trust on Frank’s face is world destroying.
“Please stand clear of the closing doors,” the driver calls, robotic over the bad PA system. There’s a lurch that sends them both tripping a little more. Gerard’s the one to fall forward this time, further into Frank, and then the train’s moving again and his world is reduced to Frank’s body in his hold, Frank’s arm that has somehow wound its way around Gerard’s back, the blood racing in his ears, and the rocking noise of the train tearing over the track.
He feels like if they kept traveling down the line, they’d eventually end up in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. Only he wants to end up in another version, where instead of the Marquis De Carabas and the Huntress showing him magic, a different kind of “anything” would be possible, and he could just lean forward and kiss Frank. Right here. In public. On the fucking train underneath London.
“Covent Garden,” the driver announces, and before the train stops, Frank surges forward, pressing his mouth to Gerard’s and god, this. This, this, fucking Jesus Christ, this is fucking it. This is the best thing, the best day ever, and Frank tastes like chips and vinegar still from lunch and cigarettes and Frank. He tastes like Frank, and Gerard lets go of his waist so that he can fist his hand in all that thick hair and see his own pale skin disappear into the darkness.
“Ah-hem.” The sharp sound of a throat clearing pulls Gerard out of his daze. He plants his forehead against Frank’s so he can feel Frank’s panting breath, and turns his head. It’s the man in the business suit. The girl in the hijab is gone, replaced with an Indian guy in a polo shirt whose attention is fixed on his iPod, but the business man is glaring at them. He lifts an eyebrow at Gerard, a silent warning that excuse you, gents, this is a public space with children present, then goes back to his paper.
“I think this is our stop,” Frank breathes. Gerard nods, but doesn’t let go of his grip on Frank’s hair. It’s soft and clean and warm against his fingers, and he wants to keep it. Like a pet.
“What’s so great about Covent Garden again?” Gerard asks, trying to remember how anywhere could be as good as standing here, kissing Frank.
“I don’t know. Let’s find out.” Both of Frank’s hands are on Gerard’s hips, hooked in the belt loops of his jeans.
“Please stand clear of the closing doors.”
Frank pulls him out of the car and onto the platform as the doors shut behind them. He drags Gerard forward until Frank’s back hits tile and Gerard has him pressed into the curving wall. Gerard is taller and he’s not the one pinned, but he feels captive.
“Frank.”
Frank grins at him, wild and lopsided and totally present. He jerks his head at the exit. “We should go.”
“Fuck Covent Garden,” Gerard mumbles, trying to pull Frank into him, to crawl inside and become one of `those dualistic whole beings' the Greeks talked about. “Fucking fuck it, Frank. We should just go grab a cab.”
Frank shakes his head, his grin somehow gets bigger. Gerard wants to lick it. “This is our only free day. You’ve been talking about today for two months.”
“Yeah, we should use it. We’ve got a hotel, Frank.” Gerard isn't sure when exactly getting Frank naked and under him (or over him or inside him or anything, seriously fucking anything) became the center of his universe. But there it is. The universe revolves around him getting his fingers on Frank.
“C’mon,” Frank says, leaning forward to nip at Gerard’s lower lip, and Gerard is ready to come when and wherever Frank wants him to. “How often do we get to be tourists? You’ll thank me.”
“I won’t,” Gerard moans, pressing his mouth to Frank’s temple. “I hate you.”
“No, man,” Frank sighs, going up on his toes a little. He presses his mouth to Gerard’s cheek, smiling into the kiss. “You love me.”
Gerard’s breath catches, and he finds himself nodding in spite of himself. Frank drags him up the stairs, and by the time they wave themselves out with their Oyster cards (which will probably never stop being cool, at least not in 72 hours), it’s like they’re back to where they were before Embankment, giddy and playful, but different.
They wander through the shops in Covent Garden, dragging each other over to this thing and that and not letting go once they’ve shown the other, fingers tangled together, occasionally sliding back into loose embraces or to leave brief kisses on bare skin.
Everything’s different. Everything’s all of a sudden completely fucking different, and yet nothing’s changed. Gerard still falls face first into the street art, and Frank is like the Energizer bunny on acid, and it is totally normal. They laugh and talk and bicker, and it's status goddamn quo except for the kissing and the way Gerard wants to fuck him so hard that neither of them can walk straight for a week and will be forced to explain to the Muse guys why they have to do their show from lounge chairs.
Gerard wishes he were less surprised. He’s always been an epiphany sort of guy - the band, his sobriety, the concept for pretty much every album they’ve done. He’s used to revelations hitting him like a bolt from the blue and then having to map shit from there. It’s old news, and he shouldn’t be so stunned by The Frank Epiphany.
He can’t get his balance back, though - in the best possible way, because Frank just fucking fits. His fingers tangle neatly with Gerard’s and their pace is different but matched, and it fucking feels like it could honestly work. There’s a giddy fear that follows on the heels of that thought, with curiosity over if that workability is going to carry through after today.
Gerard likes to think that he doesn’t care, that one perfect day is better than none. Carpe fucking diem. He doesn’t know if he believes this, but he watches Frank harass a living statue and decides thinking’s enough.
They wander until they land in front of another Tube station. Frank digs out the cards. He taps them against Gerard’s lower lip and asks “So which anywhere to now?”
“Uh, the London Eye?” It’s mostly dark outside, and he bets the view at night is fucking insane.
Frank laughs and thwaps him on the chin with the cards. “Lame. You’re such a fucking tourist.”
Gerard flushes a little. “Just an idea.”
“You’re a complete fucking lame-o,” Frank declares. “We can get there on this line, right? I don’t have a Tube map on me.”
Gerard blinks at Frank, who has moved to study the directory on the wall. That doesn’t compute. “You wanna go?”
Frank gives him a look. The look would be rated TV-MA if it were vocalized. “We gotta grab the Northern Line out of here though, unless you wanna walk it.”
“No, Tube’s good.”
“Awesome.”
The foot traffic is still high, but it’s nowhere near where it was. They find seats across from each other on the train to Waterloo, and the space gives Gerard time to catch his breath and his thoughts.
Too much, too fast, like riding a roller coaster blind, or sliding downhill in the midst of a bender. It’s scary and obviously stupid, and he feels fucking alive. He feels alive like he only ever does on stage in the middle of a truly exceptional show.
Whatever the fuck it is - it’s too much. Gerard takes his slightly shaking hands and buries them in his pockets and just breathes. His fingers curl between the Sharpie and lighter in his right pocket, and he jerks and grabs one when something bumps his shoulder.
His eyes fly open, and Frank isn’t across from him anymore. “Deep thoughts?” comes the accentless question from beside him as Frank bumps his shoulder again.
“Fathomless.” Gerard sighs, pulling his hand out of his pocket to rub his forehead, only to find that his fist is still clenched around what turns out to be the Sharpie. Frank pulls the marker from his hand, which frees Gerard to rub his brows with his fingers.
“What’re you doing over here?”
“Random British guy number six million four hundred eighty three thousand and two just got off,” Frank says. “I didn’t see any pregnant ladies or old people so …”
Gerard gives him what he hopes is a warm smile but what feels like a Joker grin. “Well, this side of the train welcomes you.”
Frank just smiles and bumps their shoulders again. The gesture is a prelude to Frank pulling the cap off the Sharpie with his teeth. He grins around the cap and grabs the side of Gerard’s face.
“Frank what-“
“Hold still,” he says around the cap. Gerard does, because seriously, what the fuck else is he supposed to do? He feels the wet brush of felt on his neck as Frank makes careful strokes to compensate for the shaking of the car.
There actually is a little old lady in the car, but she’s sitting in the spot Frank vacated, staring at him. She’s wearing one of those flower blouses, and she looks like the she belongs in a garden in the Midlands, sipping tea and gardening with a furious passion. But no, she’s here on the train reminding him of Elena in none of the good ways, and he gives her what he hopes is a reassuring smile.
“We can’t help it,” he says by way of apology, even though to speak to another patron is a clear breach of Underground etiquette. But his blush is fucking burning and he has to say something. “We’re Americans,” he explains.
“Yes, I can see that,” she says, lifting a single brow and surprising him with a thick Scottish burr cutting through her high voice. He was seriously expecting a less glittery Queen Elizabeth II type voice.
“Done,” Frank says. “Show the nice woman you’re harassing the finished product, Gee.” His arm slides around behind Gerard’s back to pull his face to the other side, which is fucking hot. He hasn’t been manhandled since Bert, and Frank is a lot gentler.
“Lovely,” she says, half wry amusement and half sincerity. Gerard smiles at her and wants to ask her what her name is and where she’s from and if she’s got any grandkids their age. But the car rattles towards a stop and the PA’s announcement of their arrival at Waterloo station stops him.
“That’s us,” Gerard says, like she cares and Frank doesn’t already know.
“Please mind the gap between the train and the platform,” the voice warns them as they rise to their feet. Frank hands back his Sharpie, and their witness smiles at them.
“Have fun, lads. Don’t get yourselves into too much trouble.” She winks at him. He’s going to remember her and her face. When he has paper, he’s going to draw her and save her because she’s fucking precious in the most literal sense of the world.
The station is huge and marbled like a church. The walk to the Eye is quiet. The night air is cooling and the breeze of the Thames is gentle. Big Ben and Parliament are across the river, and Frank’s pressed against his right side, his left hand in Gerard’s left back pocket.
Gerard wants to ask what Frank wrote. He wants to know what his skin’s proclaiming to anyone they walk past. But instead he asks, “Do you think we’re crazy?”
“In general or for something in particular?” Frank retorts.
“This,” Gerard says, stopping on the sidewalk to take Frank’s free hand. “This. Do you think we’re crazy? I mean, shit, Frank. You know? Jesus.”
Maybe it’s the fresh air. Maybe it’s the fumes from the marker. Maybe it’s just that now that they’re not moving so fast, Gerard can feel all six years of friendship - five as bandmates living on top of each other as family - dragging along behind them.
Sex and messy, complicated feelings could fuck shit up in a real way. He’s seen it happen to other people. It happened to him with Bert. If he fucked up things with Frank, Gerard flat out wouldn’t recover. Frank’s part of My Chem, and the complete unit is what keeps Gerard whole, and that would stop working with a piece missing.
He sighs and finds himself leaning bodily against Frank’s smaller frame. It’s strong enough to hold him up as he mumbles, “What the fuck are we doing?”
“I, Christ, Gee, I don’t know. I mean obviously,” Frank says, rolling his eyes up and interlocking their fingers. “But I don’t know. It feels like it’s right though. Doesn’t this feel fucking right to you? Like-”
Frank brings their tangled hands up between them so that even in the relative dark, Gerard can see them. He squeezes once and Gerard squeezes back.
“It feels like something clicked,” Frank says, and it sounds like an admission of a secret. “It feels like all this shit’s just clicked, and it’s like fucking finally.”
He shrugs and goes to drop their hands. Gerard doesn’t follow his arm down. He tugs Frank’s hand to his mouth and presses his lips to the O and double L on his fingers. “Frank,” he murmurs against the inked skin.
“That’s what’s on your neck,” Frank says with a jerk of his head downwards in the general direction of Gerard’s collar. “Finally. I don’t know. Stupid.”
“No, it's not,” Gerard says, and he can feel it, too, the last little clicks that sigh into place. It’s like finding a square peg’s square hole after trying to shove it into a round or triangular or trapezoidal one for years. “Frankie, Jesus. It’s not stupid.”
Frank’s smile is a little tentative this time, and that’s rare. Frank usually doesn’t wait for anything, let alone his own expressions. “Do you still wanna ride the Eye?” he asks, and it's not the question that Gerard was expecting but somehow it’s the right one.
Gerard grins. “With you? Fucking absolutely.”
They’re tangled together in transit for the rest of the night. Frank plants his chin on Gerard’s shoulder as they ride the glass bubble of the Godzilla-sized Ferris wheel through the London night. The Tube ride back to the hotel is mostly empty aside from a sleeping man, and Frank straddles Gerard’s lap and kisses him breathless until they slide to their stop. Their fingers slide under shirts as they walk down the street and into the lobby, and once they hit the elevator, Gerard grabs Frank by all that fucking hair and pulls their mouths hard together.
It’s the last ride of the day, and Gerard wants to make it the best. He pushes Frank until his back hits the wall and he drops the bag he’s been dragging with him all day. His hands need to touch skin and his mouth needs to taste Frank, and he wants to do it here, moving, still moving, always moving. He’s kind of afraid that if the movement stops, everything will stop.
“Want you,” Gerard breathes into the patch of skin just beneath Frank’s ear. There’s a dip under the skin and if he presses it with his tongue, Frank’s breath stutters. It’s like hitting the X button on a console controller, only fucking sexy as hell. “Want you so fucking much.”
He licks down, over the scorpion, and Frank moans. Gerard can feel it blow through his hair and he adds suction to get another one. But Frank pulls on his hair until he has to let go and pull back, blinking and dazed.
“Bed,” Frank pants before taking Gerard’s mouth in a quick brutal kiss. “We have access to a fucking bed.” He bites Gerard’s jaw, sucking hard enough to bruise, and Gerard chokes and grabs at Frank’s shoulders, his fingers digging into fabric.
He’s hard enough to cut fucking glass and he can’t think. Frank is talking and Jesus, his voice sounds amazing. But absolutely no content is reaching Gerard’s brain. It’s too busy traveling straight to his cock.
The elevator dings on the sixth floor, at fucking last and too soon all at once, and opens onto their floor. It’s still relatively early for a Friday night and the hallway is empty. It doesn’t occur to him to move, but Frank says, “We should use it.”
“Huh?”
“The bed, idiot. The fucking bed. Fucking in a bed.” Frank’s hands slide between Gerard’s back and the wall to grab his ass and pull them together. “We could be right now.”
Oh. Right. Gerard’s brain goes from pause to fast forward as they jostle each other out of the elevator and down to Gerard's room. They trip over each other down the hall to Room 605 and then Frank is pressed up behind him, rifling through Gerard’s pockets, hindering the search for the key.
His room has a double bed. Frank’s in one of the ones with two twins (which would never fly in the US) with Cortez . While Frank and Cortez’s luggage probably has things Gerard's doesn’t (extra condoms for example, beyond the two “just in case” ones Gerard has stashed in his wallet and carry on), Gerard doesn’t want to get interrupted. And Frank isn’t interested in fucking on a twin bed.
“Can’t spread you out on one those,” he breathes into Gerard’s ear as Gerard fumbles with the key card. “I wanna fucking see you, Gee. Wanna have to buy the hotel replacement sheets.”
“Frankie, fuck,” Gerard curses as the card refuses to work while his hands slip. He finally gets it unlocked, and they fall inside. He’s in love with Frank’s fucking hair, and he pushes his hands back into it to pull Frank across the room. He pulls a little too hard, and Frank makes a sound in the back of his throat that’s almost a growl.
Frank pushes him back, and Gerard lets himself fall, hoping to fuck that Frank didn’t shove him to the floor. But Gerard lands on his back on the bed and laughs as Frank grins down at him like he’s fucking proud of himself.
Gerard bounces once and barely has a chance to pull himself up and get his feet off the floor before Frank’s on top of him. He straddles Gerard’s waist with his knees on either side and leans over so that their chests press together and they can pick up their sloppy kissing. The change of angle shifts everything, which makes Gerard groan because it brings them together just fucking right.
They’re wearing too many clothes. Gerard’s all about fucking layers and doesn’t like being naked, but fucking Frank’s skin is right there. It’s right there if he can just get at it. But his fingers aren’t working right, and every time he tries to tug Frank’s shirt off he keeps getting distracted by the skin underneath.
Gerard makes a small frustrated noise into Frank’s mouth, and Frank rears back. Gerard shakes his head and his grip on Frank’s hips digs in a little harder than he intended. “No, hey, come back.”
“Fuck, this isn’t working,” Frank mutters, and Gerard has a split second of cold panic that he’s going to get up and leave. But instead Frank grabs the hem of his shirt and pulls it off over his head so that Gerard can see all that living art.
He throws it onto the floor before lifting up on his knees so that he hovers over Gerard. Gerard wants to say something, but Frank’s pulling on his shirt. He tugs, hard. Gerard feels his shirt rip a little before he pushes himself up to sit so that Frank can pull his shirt off, too.
The air in the room is cold from the air conditioning, but Frank’s hands are warm as they skate over his shoulder, down his chest and over his stomach. Frank’s movements are fast, but his fingertips are gentle right up until the moment his hand hits denim.
There are a dozen ways Frank could touch him right now. All of them flash through his head as Frank looks down at him, intense and almost contemplative. He holds his breath, waiting to see which way Frank is going to go, until Frank’s nimble fingers undo his fly and hook in his jeans and boxers.
Frank climbs all the way off of him, which sucks, but he pulls down Gerard’s pants and stops to undo his own. Gerard laughs as Frank kicks out of his own ratty jeans until they are flung off his legs and hit a lamp.
The lamp hits the ground, and there’s a definite crashing sound. Frank’s face twitches into a fucking comical “oh shit” expression, and Gerard laughs so hard he can’t breathe. He mumbles something that gets caught on his giggles and Frank’s back on top of him, stretched over him skin to fucking hot, soft skin.
“What?” Frank demands, pressing him into the mattress with his whole weight. He’s grinning and fucking hard so it’s hard to take anything but the way his boxer-covered hard on feels against Gerard’s cock seriously. “Come on, Gee what’d you say?”
“I said,” Gerard snickers then stops, taking a deep breath. He feels like his insides are full of champagne bubbles, and he has to force himself into the closest thing to control he can manage with Frank on top of him, fucking naked. “Wrecking hotel rooms makes us officially rock stars.”
Frank stares at him then laughs. “We weren’t before?” It shakes his whole body, which makes their bodies slide together, and Gerard brings his knees up on either side of him, creating something like train rails for Frank to move between.
“Not-“ Frank rocks forward, and Gerard’s voice catches. “Not like Led Zepplin, Rolling Stones rock gods.”
Frank chuckles and lowers his mouth to kiss him. He kisses the breath out of Gerard’s lungs and the sense out of his brain. Frank fucks his mouth with his tongue until Gerard’s wrapping his legs around Frank’s back and his fingernails are digging indentations into the inked skin on his arms.
Then he pulls back and Gerard follows him up a little, lips already tingling and bereft. Frank appeases him with a quick bite to his lower lip then says, “I heard Bowie and Jagger used to fuck. If you fuck me, does that seal the rock god status?”
Gerard’s brain short circuits. He’s surprised that sparks from his brain’s complete system meltdown don't light the comforter on fire. He chokes on his tongue a little but manages to come off mostly understandable. “Yeah, probably. It’s, uh, it’s worth a shot.”
Frank grins and kisses him again, fast and wet. Then he rears back, all the way off Gerard, leaving him cold again. “You got anything?”
Gerard racks his brain. It’s like tests back in high school - when he’d slept late and missed the bus and was trying to remember everything he’d learned with half the time as everyone else. He’s got to have something somewhere, right? Once upon a time, he used to have sex fairly regularly, after all. Well. Often enough.
“Uh, bathroom maybe? Try the cosmetics bag.”
Frank nods and hops up. “Stay,” he commands, pointing his finger at Gerard, like he’s one of Frank’s dogs. It makes him laugh as Frank scrambles into the bathroom.
He has no idea if Frank’s going to find anything. Aside from his deodorant and toothbrush, he doesn’t use his cosmetics bag that often, especially on tour.
In hotels, like this one for instance, he’ll just use those little mini soaps and shampoos, because the presence of the shower’s a lot more important than what gets used in it. Sometimes he’ll store extra makeup or something in there. He’s pretty sure there’s bath gel for the very rare days when he needs to wash so badly he’ll settle for a truckstop bathroom, but anything else is a toss-up of leftovers.
Bottom line, he’s got no idea what else is in there. It’s like Dr. Killinger’s Magic Murder bag - anything on earth could be in the bottom of it. What he knows for sure is here, in the room, is the condom in his wallet. While Frank ransacks the bathroom, Gerard takes the time to lean over the side of the bed and grab for his jacket.
Frank’s fingers land on the base of Gerard’s neck as he hangs over the side. His hand trails upwards to the base of Gerard’s spine and strokes over the curve of his ass. “You are so fucking gorgeous. Christ.”
Gerard twists back to look at him a little too fast and almost falls off the bed completely. Frank grabs his shoulder and then tosses something on the bed so he can grab Gerard’s wrist with his other hand.
Frank gives him a tug until he’s back on the mattress and smiles at him. “Good thing, too, cause you’re about as awkward as a fucking penguin on land.”
Gerard tries for affronted, but Frank is stepping out of his boxers, so it mostly comes out turned on. “I’d make a great penguin.”
“I don’t think a penguin’d be glad I found half a tube of KY in the bottom of your bag.”
Gerard’s eyes go big. No way does the universe like him this much. Karma doesn’t work that way. Not in real life. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Frank says, dropping onto the bed next to Gerard and picking up the tube. It’s battered and looks like it’s seen better days. Frank wags it in his face as he scoots so that they’re lying on their sides, an inch between their faces, their legs tangling together.
“Here’s hoping it’s not fucking expired.” Gerard says, then stops. “Can lube expire?”
“I don’t care,” Frank sighs, popping the cap in triumph. “If it’ll get you inside me, it can be from the fucking stone age.” His grin splits his whole face, and Gerard can’t not kiss him.
“I found a condom.”
“Good for you,” Frank chides. He chuckles and flicks his tongue over Gerard’s. “You are such a loser.”
“Mhm. Loser who’s about to fuck you.”
“You should get on that.”
It’s been a while since Gerard did this. At least a year. More since he topped. He and Bert used to do this all the time, but Gerard bottomed, and they tended towards fucking with Gerard face down in the mattress or pressed into a wall backstage at a venue, with Bert behind him.
That isn’t how he wants this to be. That was drunk, Bert sex. This is sober, Frank sex, and this first time should be better than that. First, though, fuck. The very idea that this is the first of many makes him claw at Frank.
Gerard’s fingers start to ache a little and he takes a deep breath and makes himself relax. He inhales deep, breathing the sweat-clean smell of Frank’s skin and hair, and the answer is suddenly obvious. “How do you wanna do this?”
The question takes Frank aback. Gerard watches his dark eyes blink and his mouth form a small O shape. Clearly, neither of them thought enough about this part before they got here. The “want” and “need” and “touch” and “now” had all been too loud.
Gerard brings his thumb up to stroke over the skeleton crew tattoo under his ear, tracing over the clean lines as Frank considers. If it were Gerard’s choice, he’d be writing lists in his head and drawing up mental diagrams of positions. He doesn’t know how Frank’s choosing, he just knows from the look in his eyes when he’s decided.
“You stay like that,” Frank says. “I’m gonna roll onto my other side. That work?”
Gerard’s done that maybe once. Maybe. He’s not sure. He was drunk at the time, and he was the small spoon. He does remember feeling almost too close to the guy he’d been fucking. It’s fucking intimate as hell and not the kind of positioning that makes for a fast and furious fuck. But he finds himself nodding against the pillow.
Frank shifts in his arms until they’re both lying on their left sides, pressed back to front and it’s kind of fucking scary. Frank fucking fits like this, lined up together. Gerard’s face is in Frank’s hair, and if he dips his head, he can lick the skin of Frank’s neck or shoulder, and wrapping an arm around his chest, or reaching down for Frank’s cock would be a small, easy movement.
He rips the condom packet open with his teeth and covers himself before he touches Frank with intent again. If he doesn’t do it now, who fucking knows when he’ll be willing to slow down? But once it’s on, he presses himself tight against Frank and lets his hands pick back up their exploration.
He bites at Frank’s neck as he drifts over the tattoos on his chest, the flame over his heart, dipping into his navel before tracing the birds on his stomach. With the arm that’s half-pinned under Frank, Gerard tips Frank’s face back to him so that he can suck on Frank’s lower lip as he wraps his fist around Frank.
Frank sighs into his mouth as Gerard strokes him, reaching back to grab Gerard’s hair. Gerard can feel every muscle in Frank’s back and legs moving as he rocks into his hand. Forget what Gerard saw in him earlier, this is fucking gorgeous.
Gerard keeps a steady pace until Frank’s breathy moans shift into something closer to a whimper. Then he fumbles for the lube. He misses, and Frank presses it into his hand hard enough that his fingernails leave marks.
“Gee,” he breathes. It sounds like a plea. Gerard can’t say no.
His finger slides in easily. Frank’s voice catches on a word that Gerard is pretty sure is meant to be either his name or “goddamnit,” and he smiles against the hair at the back of Frank’s head. No way to tell.
Frank’s done this before. Enough that the second finger joins the first without too much resistance or, from the noises Frank is making, any pain. Gerard doesn’t think about with whom. He thinks about the way Frank feels around his scissoring fingers.
Frank’s twisted his arms back behind him, and his hand digs into Gerard’s shoulder in an imitation of raptor claw. “Now,” Frank grits out between clenched teeth. “Fucking fuck me.”
Training tells Gerard that Frank needs more. He usually did before he got fucked but then, he was often fucked up and almost always on edge so maybe the experience he’s had isn’t that reliable. Instinct, on the other hand, is screaming that he should listen to Frank, that he can trust him. His instincts aren’t usually wrong.
He pulls his hand out, and Frank lets go of his shoulder. It’d be a wonder if he didn’t break the skin, Gerard thinks. Then Frank’s hand is on his cock, holding it still, and he’s not thinking about anything except Frank, Frank, Frank.
Frank strokes him through the condom and pushes back even as Gerard’s hips thrust forward. There’s a moment of rushing in his ears, an almost unbearable pressure and pleasure, and then it hits him like an ACME anvil that he’s in Frank. He’s fucking inside of him.
“God, Frankie. Oh God,” Gerard groans and drops his forehead onto to Frank’s shoulder, even as he rocks into him, slow tempo like a ballad. “How did we get here?” he murmurs, his eyes squeezed shut against the tightness that surrounds him and the rhythm that threatens to overwhelm him, even as mild as it is.
“Fucking the long way,” Frank says. “Literally.” Then he laughs a little and Gerard can fucking feel it from the inside.
It’s too much, too tight, and Gerard bucks and suddenly it’s a different song, not quite staccato because the angle isn’t right for it. But he reaches down and pulls Frank’s top leg up and back a little. Frank can do back-bends on stage while playing guitar, so Gerard knows he can take this and doesn’t hesitate.
The change in position makes it so he can thrust deeper and faster. It takes a second. Frank squirms against him, impatient and needy, but when Gerard figures out the logistics, he has Frank moaning, guttural and out of control. It’s a stereophonic version of the muffled noises Gerard’s been hearing through the bunk curtains for years, and it is so much fucking better up close.
He plants open mouth kisses on all the skin he can reach. He sucks and bites purple-red bruises over peach skin and black ink. He wants to add his own color to the pictures as much as he wants to bury himself in Frank and never come out.
“Touch me,” Frank pants, reaching back for Gerard’s hand, threading their fingers. “Touch me, fuck, please.” Frank drags their joined hands together and fucks into the space their palms make between them.
By some miracle, Gerard manages not to come first. He recites the Twelve Steps a few times and imagines Ray’s grandma in a bathing suit, but that only helps so much with Frank slick and tight around him and hard and pulsing against his hand. But Frank goes first, twisting himself so they can meld their mouths together again.
“Harder,” he demands a split second after Gerard hits his prostate just right, and he breaks the kiss to cry out. His left hand grips Gerard’s short hair and tugs him down and closer even as Frank’s body pushes back sharply against Gerard’s thrusts. “Need you, need you fucking harder. Give it. Fucking give it to me. Please. ” The word cracks on a groan as Gerard finds his mark again.
“I am,” Gerard promises, his left hand stroking over Frank’s chest in what he hopes is soothing in contrast to his fucking. “You can have anything, Frankie.”
“You,” Frank gasps, and their joined grip on Frank’s cock tightens as his fingers clench. “Just fucking need you.”
Gerard kisses him again, has to, then it's five thrusts of Gerard’s hips and six flicks of their touching wrists, and Frank comes. He screams his orgasm into Gerard’s mouth, and Gerard likes to think that he can taste it, that it pours down his throat like some sort of magic food- ambrosia or the alligator tongues from James and the Giant Peach - that will change him from the inside.
He wraps his left arm tight around Frank’s chest, holding him tight against Gerard’s body as he fucks him through the spasms. Frank goes from screaming to low grunts in the back of his throat as he twitches and then finally sags into Gerard’s embrace.
Gerard takes a deep breath and tries to pull out, but Frank’s hand catches his hip. He holds him so tight there are going to be bruises. Gerard can’t fucking wait to see them.
“Don’t. We’re not done yet.”
Gerard shakes his head. “Frank-“
He gives Gerard a lazy, almost-sleepy smile. His lips are bright red and Gerard did that, turned his mouth that color. “Don’t be a bitch about this, Gee. Just fuck me,” Frank says on a sigh that’s about half a step from a yawn. Then he licks his lips, and Gerard knows he’s doing that on goddamn purpose.
“You’re fucking bossy.”
“You like it.”
He does like it. He likes pretty much everything about Frank, always has, but he likes it all a lot more from balls deep inside him.
“Move, Gee,” Frank says, watching him with heavy-lidded eyes. Then he lifts his hand and slaps Gerard’s hip. Hard. The shock makes him slam forward, and Frank half-laughs half-gasps.
“Fuck,” Gerard groans, settling into a jerky new rhythm, his skin still stinging. Okay, that’s a fun new thing to add to the list of fun new things Gerard’s learned today. He’s not sure how he got this far in life without anyone doing that to him before. He won’t make that mistake again.
“That’s the idea,” Frank laughs and grinds back hard at the same time, which does things to Gerard that make it so he can’t think.
He can’t do anything but fuck and grab at Frank’s hips and stomach. He licks the drying sweat off Frank’s skin,and when Frank pulls his head down, Gerard digs his teeth into the curve his shoulder, using the connection to anchor him as he slams home. He hopes - in the tiny still-working back corner of his brain - that he’s not hurting Frank, because he’s about to lose it, and he’s not sure he could stop if he is.
“Come for me,” Frank murmurs. “Want to feel you come for me, Gee. Come on. I got you.”
Gerard does, because he wants to give Frank everything, anything he asks for, and this one thing is just so easy. And so un-fucking-stoppable. He’s burning from the inside out, his world shrinking to sensation and Frank, and he’d like to live here. Stop touring and just live right here in Frank.
He feels almost empty when it’s over and he pulls out. That’s stupid because he wasn’t the one getting fucked, but once he drops the condom in the trash he curls back close around Frank anyway.
Frank’s smiling and half asleep, and they’re going to be disgusting if they don’t shower. But Gerard doesn’t want to move. He’s pretty sure his spine’s melted, so he lets himself drift off. They’re used to disgusting anyway.
The next morning they shower together to save water and time. It doesn’t actually save either, because blowjobs are still jobs and Gerard’s a big believer that any job worth doing is worth doing well. Frank pulls on one of Gerard’s shirts and a pair of his sweatpants, and Gerard does his best not to jump him again so they can get downstairs.
The rest of the guys are already in the hotel restaurant having breakfast. Cortez is half asleep on his folded arms, Ray’s poking at a crumpet, Bob is face down in his coffee, and Brian’s whole focus is directed into his Blackberry as he breaks down the day. They all look up when Frank and Gerard drop into chairs at the table.
“Morning,” Cortez mumbles before putting his forehead back on his arms. Bob grunts something similar and reinvests himself in his coffee, inhaling it like the fumes are aroma therapy. Gerard can relate and reaches for the pot in the middle of the table himself.
“You’ve got something on your neck,” Ray says, waving his crumpet at Gerard.
Gerard shrugs and sets down the coffee pot in front of Frank. He wraps his fingers around the mug and takes a sip (it's not the best but then England isn’t known for its coffee, unlike Brazil, which, Jesus fuck, he likes touring there if just for the coffee) before he answers. “It’s Sharpie.”
Frank reaches over and snatches a piece of toast that wasn’t touching bacon off Brian’s plate. “Hey do they have porridge here? I always wanted to try that shit.”
Brian smacks Frank’s hand hard, making him drop the toast and yelp. He’s glaring at them. Gerard affects what he hopes are innocent eyes. He’s not the best performer off stage. “What’s up, Brian?”
If looks could kill, he and Frank would both be lying face down dead on the pretty white tablecloth. “You both look like you lost a cage fight with a fucking vacuum cleaner.”
Frank shrugs. “They’re ferocious, vacuums. Sometimes they attack in packs like velociraptors.”
Gerard bites his lower lip, and Ray doesn’t hold back a chuckle. Brian’s still frowning.
“Frank, there’s one right here,” he touches the side of his neck just over his own tattoo, “That has fucking teeth marks in it. There’s going to be fucking photographers at the press thing today.”
Frank just shrugs and grins, his knee bumping Gerard’s under the table. “Sorry Brian,” he says, totally unrepentant.
Gerard nods and moves his leg so that it brushes against Frank’s. It’s a totally different kind of fun. He tries really hard not to smile when he says, “Yeah. Sorry Brian.” But he fails, because he doesn’t feel sorry either.
Brian stares at them both for a long minute, then groans, rubbing his forehead with the edge of his Blackberry. “Neither of you are gonna make this easy for me, are you?”
“Oh, come on, Brian,” Ray chides, but he’s grinning, although not at Frank and Gerard. He’s finally triumphed over the crumpet, cracking it in half and smearing that clotted cream stuff all over the fluffy inside. “You know it wouldn’t be any fun if they did.”
“Yeah, Brian,” Frank agrees, “You picked us. You don’t like doing things the easy way.”
“Neither do you,” Brian sighs, but he’s smiling a little.
Gerard can’t help but think that Brian’s more than right on this one. But Frank slings his arm over Gerard’s shoulders, just like he did before he dragged him down into the Tower Hill Tube station, and Gerard thinks that the hard way’ll probably be worth a try.