(no subject)
MASTER POST
Heart On
Frank really had thought that by Taste of Chaos in 2005, the tour legend would die.
A merch kid drops down into the new roadie's lap and fakes leaning in for a kiss, smoothly disarming him of his pint glass instead with a grin on his face.
"Aw, come on," the new roadie complains as the merch kid laughs and takes a swig. "Gay fake-outs? For real? You guys play dirty on this tour."
"Anything gay on this tour," Cortez says, holding his drink up with his eyebrows raised, "can be blamed on MCR." Some of the crew hold their drinks up too.
Frank grins and watches them from where he's leaning against the bar, next to a few of the guys from Story of the Year who are arguing about where to get the biggest hamburger in Jersey. Dewees elbows Frank over to order another drink and Frank hip-checks him back, to little effect.
"Why does everyone say MCR is so gay?" the new roadie asks, eyes darting away when Frank looks at him. "It not like they're the only ones wearing make-up and shit."
Someone goes "Ooh," and it seems to Frank like even more of the tour crowds around as Cortez addresses the bar: "New Roadie doesn't know about MCR's sordid past!"
Frank smiles around the mouth of his beer bottle, taking another pull. He waits.
"Frank and Gerard," Cortez says, holding out the drinks he's double-fisting to quiet the group down. "Frank and Gerard had a very special... relationship when their band first started."
"Gay love affair!" someone corrects from the back, and when it feels like the whole bar sounds their agreement, Frank laughs and blows a raspberry at them. He kind of wishes Gerard had come out with them tonight so Frank wouldn't be left alone rolling his eyes and getting shoved around.
"Yeah, and I was getting more ass than anyone else on tour, too," Frank says, grinning at Cortez.
"When we first started?" Frank hears Ray over the cat-calls. He's sitting at a booth; a few people move aside so he can see the bar. "Nah, it was after Bullets was out, at least a year in," Ray says. "You guys weren't real good at hiding that shit, y'know."
Frank laughs. "I sure as fuck don't remember when it started. It wasn't exactly wine and candlelight with Gerard, man."
"I remember," Ray says, shaking his head down at his beer. A few bar stools scrape the floor as the crew members try to arrange themselves for a better view. "I remember way too fucking well."
---
They're in the van late one night, on tour with Underoath. It's the dead of winter, so they run the engine just to blast the heaters. It seems like everyone is passed out except for Ray, but it's a near thing-he's slipping lower and lower in the driver's seat while they wait. Gerard finally shows up and climbs in, drunk and sighing mournfully, and Ray pulls out of the parking lot.
"It's been six weeks," Gerard says, leaning against the seat in front of him where Mikey is slumped over, sleeping. "There are all these girls, man, fucking-fucking girls, who wanna talk to me and wear, like, Megadeath t-shirts and know who James Jean is, and I can't hook up with them."
"Why not?" Ray asks as they pull onto the highway, glancing at Gerard in the rearview mirror. He's still got his sweaty suit jacket and tie on, hair stuck to his face, and his makeup is a mess. "Anthony and Kat are fucking, Bill and Caroline are together now," Ray racks his brain for any other tour hook-ups, "and Jessie's been with, like, three of Underoath's crew already."
"But I don't believe in it," Gerard moans. He sounds muffled, like he's shoved his face into the back of the seat in front of him. "It's fuckin'... I don't wanna be a sexist asshole, you know?" Ray makes a noise of agreement and Gerard sighs, the vinyl creaking as he drops back in his seat. "Plus, like, when can I even jack off? Every fucking second of the day there are people around. It's torture. Hot chicks-shit, no, wait-beautiful women are fucking all over the fucking place but technically every single one is under this, like, umbrella of "groupie" in some way, so it's not moral." Ray is only kind of paying attention at this point, but nods. "It's a fucking catch twenty-two," Gerard says with a sigh, "touring is such a sausage fest."
There's a silent, beautiful moment during which Gerard may or may not have fallen asleep on Frank's shoulder. More to himself than anyone else, Ray says, "Shit, we should get some sausages for breakfast. Real ones, not that vegetarian sausage crap."
Gerard sucks in a breath. "Oh my god. Oh my god, Ray, you're right." Ray frowns. Gerard doesn't usually get this excited about breakfast, let alone eat it. "I am totally being such a homophobic-no. Ah, fucking, what's the word? What's the word, man?" Ray doesn't have an answer but Gerard continues anyway, "Heterosexist! Just because everyone on tour is a dude, I shouldn't be writing them off! Fuck, I'm such a heterosexist." He moans and smacks the vinyl seal in frustration. "Frankie, Frankie," Gerard whispers loudly.
Ray glances over his shoulder to see what's going on: Frank is so stoned he's just been rubbing his hand over his own face and chest, smiling out the window for the last hour. "Gee, Gee," he echoes.
"Make out with me, dude, come on."
Ray snorts loudly, not turning around, as he hears them wrestling on the bench seat. Gerard pauses for a minute before continuing, "I wanna get laid and I don't wanna be a vegetarian, it's so bigoted of me. Fuck. I don't wanna be a bigot, Frankie, do you?"
"... vegetarian?" Frank asks, and then it gets suspiciously quiet, so Ray looks over his shoulder again.
They're making out.
Gerard is trying to kneel on the bench seat over Frank, pushing him against the side of the van, and Frank's just giggling into his mouth and petting Gerard's face.
Ray makes a noise and tries not to swerve off the road.
"Ah fuck, I keep going for your tits, you don't have tits, sorry," Gerard mutters. Ray doesn't want to see, but somehow can't stop himself from glancing over his shoulder as Gerard bangs his forehead on the van window and swears.
"I don't have tits," Frank agrees, giggling even harder. He misses Gerard's mouth, tongue sliding down his chin.
"Ugh," Mikey says from the seat in front of them, "can you please work out your straight-guilt when we're not trying to sleep?"
---
"Huh," Frank laughs when Ray's done. "Wonder how I could have forgotten such a tender memory."
"Did you guys fuck right there in the van, or what?" Quinn asks, trying to sack Frank with the back of his hand.
Frank cups himself easily and Quinn's hand bounces off his knuckles. "No idea. Ray?"
"Gerard and his brother had an argument about heterosexism." Ray bumps his shoulder against Mikey's. "It was great. Mikey took one for the team so Gerard would be too distracted to put his tongue back in Frank's mouth."
"Don't fucking remind me," Mikey says, face in his hands.
"It was less in my mouth and more around it," Frank says helpfully.
The guys near him groan. "I thought you said you didn't remember," Dewees says as he turns back around from the bar with his drink. His hair flops over his face as he narrows his eyes at Frank.
"Oh, right." Frank grins and takes another pull from his bottle. "I'm probably just remembering all those other times." The guys groan again and it makes Frank laugh-it's just way too fucking easy.
"Shit," New Roadie says, pushing his baseball cap further back on his head and raising his eyebrows. "How many times did you guys make out?"
"Too fucking many!" Mikey moans dramatically. "And that wasn't even the worst time," he starts.
---
They're in the dressing room after a show in early 2003, crew and band members hanging around. Mikey and Ray are talking with Dan from Senses Fail when Frank marches in.
"I need-fuck." He bumps into a table and catches himself. His eyes are kind of glassy and unfocused, tie twisted up and dangling from the side of his neck, smeared with something black. "Amber won't make out with me because I have whiskey breath." Frank opens his mouth wide, showing everyone his tonsils. "Gerard! I need you to check my breath."
The entire room groans.
It doesn't keep Gerard from starting a thorough investigation, though, so instead they all try to ignore the sweaty drunk dudes making out by the rider table and keep talking. A few minutes later, someone notices that Frank has his dick out the front of his jeans and is jacking himself off into Gerard's fake-blood-soaked shirttails.
"Oh, come on," Mikey moans, slapping his hands over his eyes. Everyone starts shouting at them. Someone throws an empty beer can and it hits Frank's ear.
Frank staggers backwards into the table, sweeping three open bottles of Gatorade off of it with a free hand, dick still hanging out, while Gerard sways in place.
"Frank," Brian hollers as he comes in the door, one hand shielding his eyes, "put that shit back in your pants," and then: "Greg, Shaun says we're stuck with the set-up for the next few nights. Otter, your snare ended up in Thrice's van, you can find it in the morning. Guys, van call is in twenty. Get moving."
Gerard leans back heavily on the wall, eyes closed, shoving stringy hair out of his face. "I think your breath tasted nice," he tells Frank.
Frank snorts, finally buttoning up his pants. His belt is still hanging open when he points a finger at Gerard, eyes narrowed. "'Course you did."
---
"Okay," Frank says with his hands out wide, raising his voice over the laughter in the bar, "okay, it wasn't always like that."
"Uh, what about that time when you left a used condom on the backseat of the van?" Mikey says, "or when that guy from Recover sat down at a picnic bench by the food tent and accidentally kicked Gerard in the ass because you guys had rolled down there and started hooking up?"
Frank feels his face heat up and rubs a hand over his cheek. "How do you know the condom was from us?"
"Oh, shit," Quinn butts in, "Jeph, remember when we found them passed out on the floor of our trailer, with their pants around their ankles?"
Jepha shakes his head sadly. "Yeah."
"You guys spent all afternoon checking your gear for crusty bits, you were so freaked out!" Frank laughs.
Frank can hear Ray's voice through the crowd around the bar and Mikey's stuttering stoner-laugh accompanying it. "Bob has a good one, is he here? Bob!"
Someone hauls him over from the dart game happening at the back, and he stumbles into the group of guys around the bar. "What, asswipes? I was winning."
"Tell them about the time Frank and Gerard were fucking in Spain," Ray says. "We're remembering old times."
Bob purses his lips and points an angry finger at Frank. Frank manages an "Oh shit!" before he breaks down into giggles, trying to hide behind Dewees. "I was so fucking trashed, dude, you can't-we didn't-"
"This squirrely motherfucker and his goddamn girlfriend left the bar in Madrid without telling anyone. And I had to find them because I apparently lost my mind and decided to be My Chem's European babysitter for a month, in a shitty van for no fucking pay," Bob begins.
Frank starts to laugh. He remembers this one.
"I spent half an hour walking around downtown Madrid, and was actually at the point of telling a cop that I was looking for dos hombres, muchos cervezas," Bob mimes drinking and then, apparently, Frank's short height, "when we hear this noise. We turn around and there they are, giggling like fucking schoolgirls, stumbling down the street and holding hands... and then they tripped on the curb and fell into a huge-ass puddle."
Frank is laughing so hard he can't breathe, clutching at Dewees' arm.
Bob rolls his hoodie sleeves up, really getting into it. "I walk over to them... and I had no fucking clue if being drunk in public was a criminal fucking offence there and if Brian was going to have my goddamn ass in the morning when his singer and guitarist woke up in a Spanish jail, so I was trying to wave the cop away and talk to Frank and Gerard like everything was perfectly normal, just get them on their feet and back to the van."
He pauses.
"By the time we got to them, Gerard's pants were down and Frank was giving him a handjob. In the motherfucking puddle," the crew starts laughing so hard that Bob has to raise his voice, "in the middle of the street," Frank is actually choking on his beer at this point, "in Spain."
"Holy fucking shit," Quinn says, hugging Bob from behind. "And we thought we had broken you in."
"And then I joined their band," Bob sighs. "I need to see a fucking shrink."
"Someone has to call Gerard," Frank wheezes, looking down when he realizes that he's spilled half his beer down his shirt, "I can't take this alone."
Bob lets Frank give him an apologetic hug and heads back to the dart board, leaving Frank to get harassed with a few more memories and more than one ass-grab. Eventually the conversation shifts and it's just him and Dewees, shooting the shit.
"Hey," New Roadie says, joining them. "Sorry for, like, unleashing the bar on you there, dude."
Frank shakes his head, grinning. He's never minded being the centre of attention, especially not for the stupid crap he's done. "Nah, man. It's cool. I don't regret that shit, y'know?"
The guy looks a bit awkward, avoiding Frank's eyes. "So are you guys, like, dating now?"
Frank and Dewees both snort at the same time and then laugh when they realise it. "Fuck no," Frank says. "Never were."
"So you aren't gay?"
Frank sighs. "Look, dude. I was wasted, he was wasted, we were together every fucking night-it happened sometimes. But for every time we fucked, there was a night that I hung out with a chick I met at a show or from the label, maybe went on a date or whatever, or he would moon over some girl he met and spend the night spankin' it in the bathroom, y'know?"
"And Gerard dated that chick all through the summer that one year, he told me about her-Jenna?" Dewees adds. "Plus he's all starry-eyed over that girl from New York, right now." Frank nods. She drives a Vespa; she's pretty awesome. Dewees frowns, tipping his beer at Frank. "You guys don't still..."
"Hell no," Frank says.
"Why not?"
Frank shrugs. "It kinda-I dunno. Last year things sorta went ass-up." His gaze drifts across the bar as he thinks about how to put it into words; he doesn't have to do it very often. "Gerard was really messed up, like rock bottom, and we were all dealing with it. I was baked from the minute I woke up, Ray and Otter drank a shitload. I didn't really want to... I dunno." Frank rolls his shoulders uncomfortably. He doesn't like talking about Gerard's drinking problems when he's not there. "I guess I did have a line."
Dewees bumps into him sort of companionably and it's quiet for a moment, the classic rock over the speakers and the conversations around them rising and falling.
"Fuck," Frank says, letting out a big breath, "it's not the end of the world! Gerard's sober and happy and I'm..." he looks down at his beer and then laughs as Dewees raises his own in a toast, "drunk and happy. I dunno, we just stopped. I hardly ever think about it."
"Oh," New Roadie says. Frank can't tell if he looks bored or confused by all the history he just walked into.
Frank elbows Dewees and grins up at him when he meets Frank's eyes. "I think this guy's being heterosexist, James."
"Heterosexist!" Dewees repeats, because the word is so Gerard.
"Fuck off," New Roadie laughs, "I just don't know many guys who, like, fuck other guys."
Frank bites his lip and raises his eyebrows. "Well you know what Gerard would tell me to do about someone being heterosexist..."
The new roadie gets his hands up just in time to intercept Frank's waggling tongue. Frank latches on to his side and licks all around his palm, humping him. They stumble into the nearest table, laughing and spilling beer into people's laps.
---
Gerard gets his heart broken by the girl from New York a year later and writes a lot of mournful, then vicious, then eventually resigned love songs. They track a few of them in the studio, and try not to be too cruel with the teasing. Gerard is still learning how to use less obvious metaphors.
"You're heartless," Gerard says to Frank, "but I know it's only because you actually lack a heart and have never known love."
"Fuck you," Frank says. "I knew love twice last night in your guest room." He tries not to sound too grumpy about the fact that he's only seen the palm of his own hand for a pretty fucking long while at this point.
Frank was so used to being blown off by chicks in high school that he'd spent the first few years in the band surprised by the attention he got from girls at shows. It was kind of a mind-fuck, being wanted like that, and sometimes he got caught up in it enough that he couldn't say no. It happened way less than he let on, though, and started to feel a bit empty after a while. Then Revenge got big and Frank really didn't feel good about hooking up with chicks he met backstage or even on crew, because they all seemed to know way more about him than he did about them.
When some of the guys gave him shit for being such a monk, Frank just told them he'd caught something from Gerard when they were fucking: a goddamn morality STD.
---
"They're gonna button all the way up," Gerard explains to them in the bus lounge on the first day of tour, "and all the way down."
"How far down?" Ray asks, wincing.
"Gerard, are you designing marching band costumes or chastity belts?" Frank throws a cheese puff at him. It bounces off his knee.
"It's gonna be killer," Gerard says.
Frank sighs and picks the cheese puff up. He hates when they get in the carpet.
By the next tour, Mikey says, "This time I'm wearing the opposite of a uniform," as they climb onto the new bus. There were kids hanging around outside already; it always surprises Frank, but it's happening more and more these days.
"What does that even mean, the opposite of a uniform?" Ray tosses his bags onto his bunk.
"We're both married now." Mikey's voice comes out muffled from where he's bent over in his own bunk. "We gotta protect the family jewels, man. Gerard's gonna make them rot off if we keep wearing that shit."
"Hey, my bachelor jewels are just as important," Frank says, "I'm letting mine breathe too."
"I like the jacket," Gerard says thoughtfully. "I'm gonna keep wearing it."
It's only a week later that Gerard's jeans split open onstage and Frank has to spin over, landing on his knees, to help cover him up.
"What the fuck was that?" Bob asks as they stumble offstage, sweaty and breathless.
"Protecting Gerard's balls," Frank explains, and thumps Gerard's back. "Better get that chastity belt back out from last tour!"
"Fuck off, my balls answer to no man," Gerard says.
"Spain!" Bob says out of nowhere. When he doesn't get a response, he pokes a drumstick into first Gerard's and then Frank's side. "I am not reliving Spain, assholes."
"Is Bob making any sense to you?" Frank smiles, shaking sweaty hair of his face.
"Nope." Gerard grins right back, eyes crinkling at the corners. "We're not going anywhere near Spain on this tour."
In Florida, Frank humps Gerard's head when he ends up between Frank's legs onstage, and Bob gets all red in the face and punches his arm after the set. Frank giggles. In Ohio, Gerard licks Frank's neck and Frank turns to mouth up at his hairline, breaking away and laughing big and delighted when he sees the look Ray is giving them. He grabs Gerard's ass the next time, and gets his hair pulled the show after that.
"Okay," Cortez says on a Saturday night, sitting Frank and Gerard down on a picnic bench between the buses where some crew and band members are drinking from a keg. "Are you or are you not fucking?"
The guys around them laugh and Frank purses his lips to keep from smiling, looking to Gerard for an answer.
"A lady doesn't kiss and tell," Gerard finally says, making a kissy face. Frank notices that he's still got his sheriff's badge on; Mikey says it makes Gerard approximately 78% more gay.
"Yes she does," Bob says around the rim of his beer, "because her bandmates will make her sleep in the gear trailer if she's been having secret sex with her guitarist on our bus."
"If you can't tell whether we're having secret sex," Frank says, grabbing the beer Ray offers him and settling back against the bench, "then haven't you already proved that it doesn't matter?" He's having way too much fun with this; how had he forgotten what a bulletproof joke this was to pull on tour?
"And that we're ninjas," Gerard adds, nodding.
Cortez starts a betting pool. Frank and Gerard just grin at each other.
---
Two nights later, they're all bumping and laughing and tripping down the narrow venue hallway after the show, heading for the dressing room. Someone up ahead yells, "One slice left!" and Ray takes off.
"Motherfucker!" Mikey elbows Frank out of the way, laughing, as he jogs after Ray.
Bob ducks out the fire escape with Brian for a smoke. Frank stops to look after them for a minute, fingers twitching over the lighter in his back pocket as he considers it, then turns and runs right into Gerard.
"Sorry!" he says, face in Gerard's sweaty neck.
"Sorry!" Gerard says, fingers slipping as he tries to grab Frank's bare shoulders.
"How silly of me," Frank says in a high voice, "I seem to have fallen."
"What big arms you have," Gerard says, and makes a noise when Cortez walks past and smacks him on the ass.
Frank looks up and their noses almost bump. "Yeah, I work out, no big deal," Frank says. He can see that Gerard's eyeliner is smudged, up close like this.
"What?" Gerard says, and then, "Mmmmph," because apparently they're kissing, now. Huh. He pushes Frank back against the wall and Frank giggles, throwing his arms up and around Gerard's neck dramatically while he sucks on his tongue.
"Fuck you," Gerard laughs into his mouth, biting down on Frank's lower lip and canting his hips forward. "What the fuck, Frank?"
"Shit," Frank says, suddenly breathless and turned on, still jittery from the show. "Door. There has to be somewhere here with a door."
Gerard drags him down the hall and around a corner. Frank has just long enough to think what the fuck am I doing and then has Gerard always had such tiny hips or is it just those jeans? before there's a door closing behind him and Gerard is crowding him against it.
"Asshole," Gerard mutters into Frank's sweaty temple. He rakes a hand through Frank's hair and then fists it hard. "Why did you kiss me?"
Frank moans, tipping his head back and working at Gerard's belt, as fast and efficient as he can without looking down. "You kissed me, man."
"Mmm," Gerard says while he sucks what Frank is sure will be a spectacular hickey into his neck.
Frank gasps and drops Gerard's dick, flattening his hands against the wall. "Fucker, you know I'm useless when you do that."
"You're right," Gerard murmurs, licking over the spot. He shoves both hands up under Frank's shirt to smooth across his belly and grab his hips, tight and possessive. "I did know that."
Frank shoves his own jeans down his legs so they can fuck, but his muscles are shit from spinning around onstage for the last hour. His thighs tremble and give out as soon as Gerard hikes him up the door.
"Godammit," Frank swears, dropping back onto his feet. He flips around, eyes shut as he pants heavily into the door. "Just do it like this, then."
"No condoms or lube," Gerard says. Frank hears him spit before he pushes his slippery dick against Frank's ass, bumping his lower back.
"Whatever-fuck-whatever you wanna do. Just c'mon," Frank moans, humping the door with absolutely no shame.
Gerard eventually gets a hand on Frank's cock and Frank lifts up onto the toes of his sneakers to hitch back so Gerard's dick slides along the cleft of his ass. They both moan and swear through a minute of rubbing like that before Gerard comes, warm and tacky, all over Frank's lower back and the hem of his shirt. He bites down hard at that same spot on Frank's neck and jerks him off, until Frank swears and thrashes around and comes all over Gerard's fist.
"Shit," Gerard pants. He's pinning Frank to the door with his weight, chest rising and falling quickly. Frank gets a whiff of how rank they smell, both still in their show clothes.
"I can't breathe," Frank says. He waits until Gerard gives him a bit of space before turning around to plant a kiss on his cheek.
"I believe I have something of yours?" Gerard lifts the hand that's sticky with Frank's come. Frank curls his top lip at it and Gerard rolls his eyes, wiping it off on Frank's jeans.
"Ugh, fuck you," Frank says without any real heat behind it.
They stand there catching their breath until Gerard says, "Here, you need this more than I do, now." He unties the red bandana that was around his neck and knots it around Frank's. His voice gets a bit softer when he says, "I didn't know I was actually into dick, y'know. Thought I was just drunk."
Frank slaps Gerard's hands away to rearrange the bandana the way he likes it. "Really? 'Cause I've been working my way through the tour crew for the last three years." He pokes his tongue into his cheek and moves his fist over his mouth, miming a blow job.
Gerard shoves at him, grinning. "As if. You're such a tit man."
"I am," Frank moans, running his hands down Gerard's chest. "I don't mind your dick, dude, but seriously-why do you have to have such a tiny rack?"
"Fuck you, I don't have any rack!" Gerard giggles, grabbing Frank's wrists to pull his hands away. "Quit it, that tickles." He looks pretty wrecked: his hair is plastered to his forehead, his cheeks flushed pink, and there are sweat stains at his neck and armpits. It's not a look Frank's seen on many ladies he's slept with, but Gerard wears it well.
"We should do this again sometime," Gerard says with a really filthy smile.
Frank grins and sticks both his thumbs up from where Gerard's still holding his wrists steady between them. "Fuck," Frank remembers, "now I owe Cortez fifty bucks."
Gerard smiles even bigger. "Only if anyone finds out."
---
Frank gives Gerard a blowjob in the bus bathroom the next afternoon, just to see if they can.
He stuffs a t-shirt into Gerard's mouth and takes him as deep as he's able to, holding Gerard's hips against the tiny sink and bobbing his head like a pro. He hasn't sucked dick in ages and wants to prove to himself that he's still got it.
Gerard grabs at his own face and neck and stomach and eventually Frank's hair before he comes, high noises muffled around the fabric in his mouth. Frank gasps louder than he'd meant to when he finally pulls off, spluttering for breath as jizz dribbles out the corner of his mouth and he falls back on his ass. He comes as soon as Gerard gets a hand around him.
When they sneak back out, one after the other, all of the bunk curtains are still pulled. Mikey and Bob are still insulting each other's Gameboy skills in the front lounge, and Ray's headphones are still going, tinny-sounding in his bunk.
Frank and Gerard trade a smile.
They hook up a few more times over the next week: hand jobs in the venue's handicapped bathroom, making out in Frank's bunk after everyone's gone to sleep, and rimming in the bus studio in the afternoon with Bob's kick drum braced against the door to keep it closed.
It's pretty awesome; Frank hasn't gotten laid in ages and the fact that they've done this before, without it being a big deal, makes it guilt-free. They're not trying to hold each other's hands or blow kisses across the parking lot or anything. Gerard even turns Frank down a few times, when he's too tired or busy taking "important notes" while he watches horror movies in the lounge.
Frank doesn't really care, as long as he still gets to sit in Gerard's lap every once in a while at the food tent. He licks ranch dressing off Gerard's fingers and flutters his eyelashes until Cortez and the other guys at the table make gagging noises and get up to leave. Frank and Gerard laugh and high-five and Gerard wipes his hand off on Frank's pants when he thinks Frank isn't looking.
---
The next time they stay in a hotel, Gerard trades room keys with Ray.
"Shit," Gerard moans a half hour later, when Frank's finally got his cock in Gerard's ass, Gerard face-down and ass-up on the comforter. "God, Frank, do you have any idea how long it's been?"
"What," Frank says, pounding him as hard as he can, hair swinging into his face as he adjusts his grip on Gerard's hips, "none of those girlfriends ever fucked you?"
"Ungh." Gerard twists his hands up in the fabric and presses his cheek to the bed, eyes squeezed shut as he meets Frank's driving thrusts. Frank's balls slap against his sweat-damp skin. "Nothing's ever been in my ass but your dick," he pants.
"Shit, for real?" Frank says, his voice strained as he tips his head back. That's kind of romantic. His balls draw up and his legs shake and he says, "Ah, fuck, oh god," before he comes, holding himself tight against Gerard's ass. He collapses on top of him and forces Gerard down onto the bed. "Fuck, I needed that."
"Oh, come on," Gerard whines, shuffling out from under Frank to flop onto his back and get his hand around his dick, eyes still shut as he fists himself quickly. "I was just getting into it."
"Not my fucking problem." Frank grins but shimmies down the bed anyway, just enough strength in his arms to hold himself up on one elbow and wrap his lips around the tip of Gerard's dick.
"Ah-ah-" Gerard cries out, knuckles hitting Frank's lips as he hitches his hips up, back arching. Frank sucks while Gerard jerks himself off, and then Gerard starts to make little strangled noises and Frank pulls off just in time to see the stupid, sexy, screwed-up face he makes when he comes.
Frank lets his head rest on Gerard's stomach after, soft and sweaty. Gerard pets at his hair while they catch their breath.
"We're doing that again tonight," Gerard says. "I need more than three fucking minutes of a dick in my ass to make up for four years without it, man."
"Mm-hm?" Frank says.
The next time, he lasts ten.
"Are you sure?" he asks afterwards, running his tongue along his teeth. He'd swallowed this time because he felt kind of bad.
"I looked at the clock," Gerard moans pitifully, rolling onto his stomach and burying his face in the pillow.
"Well fuck, I didn't realise it was a goddamn marathon." Frank kisses the sad curl of Gerard's shoulders and then grabs the soft, pale slope of his ass, making Gerard twitch. "Get a stopwatch and time yourself, I'm sure you're no better after months on tour, jerking it in your bunk."
Gerard lasts a full hour, four positions, and two pieces of furniture that get knocked over as he hauls Frank around the hotel room and arranges him across things.
"Can I touch my dick yet?" Frank asks, voice tight. He spits out a mouthful of his own hair, hand skidding across the desk to send the complimentary hotel pens clattering to the floor.
"No," Gerard says, shoving into Frank so hard the desk skids across the carpet and Frank's vision goes white around the edges. He wonders when Gerard learned all these positions; Frank never got a girl into anything fancier than doggie-style before blowing his load.
"Well then," Frank pants, his breath pushed out of his lungs whenever Gerard drives into him, "I guess-we know-who'll do the fucking-huh?"
---
He doesn't realise what a big deal it is until Mikey bums a cigarette from him outside the bus one night and says, "Do you know what's wrong with Gerard?"
"No," Frank says and then twitches, accidentally ashing on Mikey's hoodie, "shit, sorry." He wipes it away. "I didn't notice there was anything wrong."
This is a lie. Frank tried to grab Gerard's dick on stage last night, grinning over at Bob the whole time, and Gerard dodged him, not even meeting Frank's eyes.
"He's moping." Mikey sags against the bus and blows smoke up at the night sky. "He sat all by himself in the coffee tent today and ignored anyone who tried to talk to him."
Frank takes a drag from his cigarette. It's not like they're dating, but they've always been pretty tight, and Gerard has never had a hard time talking about his feelings. If it was the stamina thing he'd say so, right?
"He was complaining about laundry the other day," Frank tries. "Didn't someone, like, take his clothes to a laundromat without asking him?"
"Yeah," Mikey says, "I guess."
He looks away when Frank glances over at him.
---
The next time they get a hotel room, Gerard says, "Okay," as soon as the door closes behind them, shrugging off his bulky jacket and stepping out of his shoes. "Okay, I've done some research."
"Research?" Frank asks. He puts his shampoo and toothbrush on the bathroom counter and stands at the mirror for a minute, pulling faces. His hair's getting really long.
"About your problem," Gerard says, "and I think I found something we can do."
"Uh, my problem?" Frank frowns at his reflection and tucks his hair behind his ears. Gerard comes into the bathroom and Frank turns the frown in the mirror towards him, crossing his arms over his chest. "You're the one who's been moping all week."
"Because I just want you to fuck me." Gerard looks really put out. Frank sort of wishes he had this on tape, because it would be the best blackmail ever.
"I don't see what the problem is," Frank says, not turning around. "I can get it up in, like, five seconds. This has never been anything but a useful skill on tour." Frank doesn't like how pissy he sounds when he adds, "So go find another dick to sit on if you're gonna be fucking Goldilocks about it."
"Hey," Gerard says softly. He runs his hands down Frank's arms and back up, nosing at his hair. "I appreciate it when we're in a hurry. But I guess back when I was drinking I wasn't-I didn't really know what the fuck I was doing, or what I wanted. And now I'm kinda..." He ducks his face into Frank's hair.
"What," Frank says, eyes narrowed, but he leans back into Gerard's chest just a little bit. "You want me to spread you out on a bed of rose petals and put on some fucking Prince?"
Gerard snorts and grabs at Frank's sides, tickling him and making him jerk away. "No, I just-I like feeling it." Gerard's voice gets kind of dirty at the end as he shuffles up behind Frank and squeezes his half-hard dick through his jeans. "I like feeling all of you. And I like feeling it the next day."
"All ten inches?" Frank says with his biggest grin.
Gerard blows a raspberry into Frank's neck and bites hard at the muscle there.
"Fuck! Okay," Frank laughs, shrugging his shoulder up, "nine."
Gerard growls and walks him out of the bathroom.
"Eight," Frank finally settles on, "a generous eight." He laughs big and happy as Gerard spins and shoves him, hard, onto his back on the bed, bouncing and letting his arms and legs fall open as Gerard works at his belt.
"Get a fucking tape measure," Gerard says. "Later. I've been waiting all day to sit on your dick."
Frank shuts up and gropes above himself for the condoms and lube.
It's not the worst sex they've ever had-the worst, Frank thinks, probably happened in the van and has been thankfully erased from their memories by alcohol and time-but it's pretty fucking close.
Gerard's grand solution is that he'll pull off Frank's dick every time he's about to come, to make him last longer.
After a couple of minutes of watching Gerard ride his cock, flushed pink and jiggling in all the right places, hard and straining in all the other ones, his head thrown back and his mouth open, Frank says, "Shit, dude, I'm gonna-"
Gerard gasps and surges forward onto his hands so Frank's dick slides out of his ass, making Frank groan as he thrusts up into nothing.
When Gerard does it for the third time, Frank swears and twists the sheet hard in both hands.
The fifth time Gerard hops off Frank's dick he whines, "Fuck," and flops onto the mattress, curling both hands over his thigh. "I think I fucking pulled something."
"Star athlete," Frank says. The next time Gerard pulls off, Frank curses and punches the mattress. "Fucking-let me come, motherfucker!"
They give each other handjobs and don't talk about it after.
They go back to letting Gerard do the fucking the next morning.
---
Cortez tries to look up "Pringles pizza" on Gerard's laptop one day and Google helpfully suggests "premature ejaculation" in the search bar when he starts to type. Frank hears the story as soon as Cortez bangs onto their crew bus, where Frank's playing poker with some of the guys. It takes him a minute to realize that must have been Gerard's "research". Frank can't find it in himself to feel slighted by the implication; he just starts to laugh so hard that he knocks half of the chips off the table and gets kicked in the ribs when he folds over and ends up on the floor of the bus.
The next morning Gerard gets called "Quick Draw" by two different roadies. It's not until the merch kid in the coffee line hands him a cock ring-"Someone gave it to me as a joke, but I think you need this more than I do," he says, patting Gerard's shoulder-that he realizes what's happening. Frank feels kind of responsible but can't help laughing anyway, spilling coffee all over his shoes and the grass around them.
"Fuck you," Gerard says, "I hate you so much right now."
Gerard gets ragged on all week, but he can't deny it because it was on his computer. The aftermath has been the most entertaining thing to happen on tour, Frank thinks, but he tries to school his face and make sad, empathetic expressions whenever Gerard glares at him.
It's way less funny when Gerard stops putting out, which Frank thinks is a stupid way to punish him because Gerard is the one who wants to get fucked so bad.
"Maybe you should try dating teenagers," Ray suggests over coffee in the bus kitchen, "y'know, give them something they're familiar with." Gerard totally steps on Frank's toes on purpose when he stands and heads back to his bunk, giving Ray the finger.
By Saturday, it finally starts to blow over-a tech from Linkin Park drinks a bottle of his own piss Friday night and steals the spotlight away from Gerard. He even whispers "Later" instead of "Stop that" into Frank's ear when Frank pokes his tongue into his cheek and raises his eyebrows at him backstage.
They hang out with some of The Bled and their crew that night on My Chem's bus. Eventually everyone leaves for a local bar, the noise and conversation following them out the bus door. Frank and Gerard give each other a look when they realize what they can do with an empty bus for a few hours.
Frank gets up to lock the door and is surprised to see Mike Pedicone, the Bled's drummer, hanging back in the doorway.
"Not really in the mood for the bar," he says, holding up a tightly-rolled joint. "Can I smoke this in here?"
"Only if you share, dude." Frank grins and waves him in. Pedicone follows them to the lounge. Frank figures they'll smoke up, then he'll fake being tired so he and Gerard still get an hour to themselves.
Pedicone's a new friend, but Frank thinks their band is killer, and he's stoked to ask about their set-up. The three of them talk about their favourite tracks on The Bled's latest record and the conversation spirals from there until Frank is having too much fun to remember to keep checking the clock. Pedicone's impression of Mr. T makes him laugh until his sides hurt.
"Diff'rent Strokes, man." Pedicone shakes his head. "That was some good shit. I'm fucking hopeless for B-movies and bad TV." He smiles, rubbing a big hand over his buzzed hair as he passes the joint to Frank. "The guys give me so much shit for it."
"You came to the right bus," Gerard says, "that's pretty much all we talk about."
"That and the ongoing battle between light and dark roast coffee," Frank adds, tucking his feet up under him on the couch. "After biting the head off a bat, there's nothing more rock'n'roll, right?"
"Right," Pedicone laughs, leaning back against the bus window. And then, out of nowhere-although he's just as baked as Frank at this point, so chances are the transition was smoother in his head-Pedicone says, "So I hear you were having some problems." He raises his big dark eyebrows at Gerard. "You know."
Gerard sighs and throws his hands up. Frank bursts out laughing, choking on a poorly-timed toke. He holds the joint out for Pedicone as he curls in on himself and tries not to burn a hole in his jeans like he always does.
"It's a joke," Gerard says, "okay? I can't-why does no one believe me?"
Frank kicks Gerard's foot to get his attention and widens his eyes at him. Frank tries to arrange his face into as serious a look as he can manage when he's high and happens to find Gerard's dejected expression hilarious.
"What?" Gerard asks grumpily. Frank tries to look meaningfully at him for a few more seconds, because Pedicone might actually have some advice for them. "Ugh." Gerard slumps back into the couch. "Fine. Yes. Yes, I am having problems with premature ejaculation," he says into his lap, speaking with the tone of a man who has given up. "Please help me."
Pedicone laughs, shifting forward to brace his elbows on his knees. "Dude, it's not a big deal. I get it. I'm like that when I'm drunk." Frank raises his eyebrows at Gerard, who looks back to Pedicone. "For real! Like, a breeze blows by and I blow my load." He grins.
"Yeah?" Gerard asks.
"Sure," Pedicone says easily. "I try to think about unsexy shit. I dunno, I think about Alien, and this documentary on foot surgery I saw, and like... cold water, y'know?" Gerard nods, like he really, really does.
Frank thinks maybe that could work for him. It's been a few weeks since they last tried, and while he still refuses to apologise for his own dick, it's obviously a big deal for Gerard.
"Or I don't let myself jerk off for a while," Pedicone adds, clasping his fingers between his knees and making the muscles in his forearms shift, "I always go too fast when I do, especially when I'm on tour."
"It's actually me," Frank blurts out, lulled into a sense of security by all of Pedicone's weed and honesty. "I'm the one with the problem."
Gerard stares at him. Pedicone sits back. "Shit, Gerard. You're a saint for taking all the shame for your friend here."
"Well, you could say Gerard is personally invested in my ejaculation," Frank says with a big wink.
"What?" Gerard hisses, eyes huge as he starts slapping Frank's arm. Fuck, he can never keep his mouth shut when he's stoned.
"Shit!" Frank giggles, clapping his hands over his face. "Stop! Ah!" He slaps Gerard's hands away. "I didn't mean to!"
"No way," Pedicone says, laughing.
"Do you understand the concept of a secret, motherfucker?" Gerard asks, but the outrage and violence has started to shift into giggles and tickling at Frank's armpits.
Frank kicks out, sides hurting with laughter. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
"It's cool, dudes," Pedicone says. Gerard finally stops, braced half over Frank with his hands up under his shirt as they look over at him. "I met a guy from Underoath a couple months ago who said that if you passed out anywhere on that tour in '02, you'd wake up with half of My Chem making out on top of you."
"That only happened once," Gerard says defensively, "I think. We weren't very..."
"Discreet?" Pedicone asks.
"Sober," Frank clarifies. He shifts to get his arm out from under Gerard; he kind of likes being able to slip it around his shoulders without worrying about someone noticing. "We haven't... this tour is the first time, since back then."
"Don't tell anyone," Gerard says, "or Frank owes Cortez fifty bucks."
"No worries." Pedicone really does look like he has no worries, smiling at them while he finishes the joint and stubs it out in the ashtray.
"Gerard is bummed out that I have the stamina of a fifteen-year old, because he just wants to spend the whole night with my dick in his ass," Frank explains, giggling when Gerard's fingers twitch warningly near his armpit again. "Stop it, it's true!"
"Frank," Gerard whines, "you're ruining my image."
"What?" Frank asks. "You love my dick. I know you just want to spend more time with it."
"Well, more than ten minutes might be nice," Gerard says.
Frank's got his mouth open to respond when Pedicone says, "I know something," and they both startle, looking up at him. His eyes are red-rimmed and glassy, the sides of his mouth pulling up. "Something that might work."
---
It's awkward in the tiny space of the bus studio. Frank knocks over Bob's recording cymbals and accidentally steps on Gerard's foot twice, giggling. He's been feeling jittery ever since Pedicone made the suggestion.
"It's the muscles," Gerard tells Pedicone with a nod in the general direction of his torso. "Frank always dates chicks that are stronger than him, so it makes sense that he's into dudes who, like, pump iron." Pedicone laughs.
"Fuck you," Frank says, shoving Gerard while Pedicone gets the door shut behind them and drags the little studio table in front of it.
"I'm sorry I can't grow bigger muscles for you, Frankie," Gerard says seriously. "At least you'll always have my tits?"
Pedicone pulls Frank away when he tries to grab at Gerard's chest, arranging him in the middle of the small room. Frank bounces on the soles of his feet, nervous and excited and already turned on even before he feels Pedicone's big warm hands wrap tight around his wrists, crossing one over the other behind Frank's back.
"Settle down," Pedicone says. Frank breaks out in a sweat at the low sound of his voice so close to Frank's ear. "Gerard's gonna blow you real slow, it'll help you build yourself up." Frank can't help moaning out loud when he sees Gerard drop to his knees. He sways back, bumping against the solid warmth of Pedicone's chest. "When you come it's gonna be incredible, I swear."
Frank usually likes to fuck Gerard's throat fast and hard until he comes, Gerard's hands helpfully on Frank's hips to pull him in and out of his mouth, so it's different to see Gerard lick slow lines up his dick, around the head, and back down. Frank should feel weird about the fact that his dick's out and Pedicone's watching, but the guy is just radiating this feel-good, no-worries energy and Frank is getting a blow job out of this, so he's not gonna say no.
"Fuck," Frank breathes. "Fuck, can't you hurry up?" Gerard shakes his head and gives him the sassiest look Frank's ever seen. Frank checks, but he's not even wearing his sherriff's badge.
He's surprised how easy it feels with Pedicone here. He always kind of thought the only dick he was gay for was Gerard's, but as Gerard's mouth works over his cock, he wonders if he could feel Pedicone's if he wasn't holding Frank's hands, wonders how big it would be. He isn't going to make a grab for it, doesn't know where Pedicone-or Gerard-would stand on that, but he wonders.
After a while, Gerard has to snag a couch pillow for his knees. Frank's already panting harshly, pulling at Pedicone's grip, wanting to grab Gerard so he can just hold him in place and fuck that pretty, wet, rubbed-red mouth already. He pushes his hips forward again and Gerard smoothly pulls back out of the way, Frank's spit-slick dick waving side to side between them.
"This is fucking torture," Frank groans. All he can hear is the wet noises of Gerard's mouth and Pedicone breathing near his ear, steady and warm.
Then Gerard starts doing these slow, open-mouthed sucks up the sides of Frank's cock, swirling his tongue on the head and sucking back down the other side. Frank is so turned on and high that he feels like his skin's flying apart, like it's vibrating through every cell of his body from his scalp to his toes.
"Oh my god," he moans, when his knees buckle. Pedicone just pulls him up again and holds him steady. Frank leans back into him a bit, tipping his sweaty hair back to brush Pedicone's chest. "Fuck, you're strong."
Gerard laughs around Frank's dick. "You're such a fucking maiden," he says.
"Shut up-ah-ah," Frank gasps. His mouth's hanging open, eyes closed, as he rubs his head back against Pedicone's chest and whimpers softly. He feels-fuck, he can't get his thoughts together-he feels so fucking good, trapped between solid muscle and a soft, wet mouth.
"You're doing so well," Pedicone says. His voice sounds dry and low in Frank's ear, nose ring pressed against the side of Frank's flushed face. "So good. Gerard, you're a fucking pro at this."
There are a few moments when Frank has to choke out, "Stop, pull off, oh shit-" and he snaps his hips forward into thin air when Gerard sits back, cock deep red and shining as it slaps his belly wetly.
"I don't think I've ever been this hard in my fucking life, holy shit," he moans, looking down at his dick as his hips twitch forward, out of his control. Gerard's sitting on his heels, lips wet and red and eyes fixed on Frank. "Oh fuck," Frank says, "seriously, is this healthy? Look, that vein is sticking out. Are my balls actually blue? "
Gerard just smirks and leans forward to trace the vein with his tongue, making Frank gasp and twist sideways in Pedicone's grip. His open mouth is against Pedicone's t-shirt and he bites hard into his shoulder.
Frank can feel his chest hitch when he does that and wants to make it happen again, so he twists to a different spot and does. "Oh, hey," Pedicone says, his voice kind of high, "you have a tattoo behind your ear."
Frank doesn't know what time it is, how long they've been at it; it feels like fucking hours. He's sweating so hard he thinks he must be making Pedicone's shirt stick to his chest.
"You're doing so good, Frankie," Gerard says, sounding amazed. "Fucking look at how long you've lasted." He moves his lips against the head of Frank's dick as he talks and Frank makes a broken, keening noise. "God, you're so fucking hard, so fucking big."
Pedicone hums into Frank's skull like he's agreeing. It makes Frank moan, rolling his head back against his chest and pulling at his arms again just to feel the resistance. He can't keep his eyes open anymore; he wants to see, but he's just too overwhelmed with how it feels.
Then Gerard spreads his palms wide across Frank's hips and takes his dick all the way into his mouth, until Frank's cock bumps Gerard's throat, and then pulls off fast.
"Oh, shit, oh fuck." Frank swears even louder when Gerard does it again, holding tightly to Frank's hips to keep him from chasing Gerard's mouth down when he pulls off. "You're gonna fucking-fucking-" Frank can't breathe, can't feel his feet, can't tell if he's standing up or lying down or anything, just-"you're gonna kill me, fuck, fucking kill me, oh god."
Frank feels Pedicone's fingers at his mouth a beat later and he sucks them in immediately, moaning hard around them as they bump the back of his throat, heavy on his tongue, bitter from rolling the joint earlier.
"Yeah, like that," Pedicone says in Frank's ear, voice dirty and low. Frank is so turned on at this point that it's moving through him in waves, tensing and relaxing, stomach quivering, legs shaking. He thinks he might be saying something around Pedicone's fingers but has no clue what it is. He keeps slipping down his body, Pedicone hauling him up again every time, one-handed now.
"Gerard?" Pedicone asks. Frank's drooling around his fingers, hands tight in fists at his back. He feels Gerard hum around his dick. "Now," Pedicone says.
Frank barely understands what that means before Gerard's clammy palm is wrapping tight around the base of his dick-holy fuck, holy fuck-and he's sucking hard. Frank shouts himself hoarse around Pedicone's fingers and comes so hard it feels like he's emptied every fucking cell in his body out the end of his dick.
Someone manhandles him onto the studio couch and there are warm palms smoothing down his chest and over his arms and pushing hair out of his face. Frank thinks about opening his eyes-tries to-but his eyelids are too heavy.
"What the fuck," he mumbles, and lifts a hand to pat whoever it is that's braced over him, to show his appreciation, but his hand just flops back down over his chest. "I don't... what. Fuck." Frank shivers when a warm body settles over his own and jeans press against his sensitive dick. "I-ungh."
"Shh," Gerard says from close by, "you were fucking-holy shit, Frankie. Do you have any idea how long you lasted? You're incredible."
Frank smiles blindly up at him, fingers twitching at his sides. "Did you look at your stopwatch?" He's not sure his lips are moving properly, but he hopes Gerard heard him.
Gerard laughs, breath warm across Frank's face. "No, asshole. But the clock in here says it was almost an hour."
"You just blew me for an hour," Frank mumbles. "You're awesome. Fuck, an hour. I'm awesome too."
"Yeah," Gerard pants, "you are. I'm just gonna come all over your stomach now, okay?"
"Mmmm," Frank says.
Gerard does.
---
"So tell me again what happened after I collapsed on the couch?" Frank asks before he takes a bite of his veggie burger the next day, sitting beside Gerard at one of the picnic tables in the food tent.
"He left," Gerard says out of corner of his mouth, chewing on some fries. He swallows. "Just said 'Let me know if you ever need my help' and patted my fucking back before disappearing."
"Wow," Frank says.
"What?" Mikey asks. He's standing in front of them with Frank's gigantic white sunglasses on, two greasy-looking paper plates full of chicken wings in his hands.
"This burger!" Frank covers. "Fucking amazing."
"Gross," Mikey says, folding himself up across the table from them. "They put mayo on everything. I figured this was the only thing I could get without it."
"Did you get a call from mom?" Gerard asks him. Frank opens his burger and squints at it. He can't see any mayo.
"No." Mikey nibbles at a wing gingerly, which Frank thinks is kind of adorable and kind of stupid because his fingers are already covered in sauce. "Maybe. I let it go to voicemail. Why?"
Gerard grins and starts to tell him about the article in the local paper about the band that she clipped out and got framed. She wanted their opinion about where to hang it, so they spend the rest of lunch trying to figure out if there's actually any free wall space in their parents' house.
"What about above the shitter?" Frank contributes, and gets a slap on the arm for his trouble.
He smiles and watches them talk. Mikey gets all defensive about the Jaws-themed wall in his bedroom and Gerard keeps waving his fries around and accidentally flicking ketchup at passing crew members. His knee is touching Frank's under the table. Frank feels warm and happy.
He steals his sunglasses back from Mikey when he says he's going to head out to find Cortez, slipping them on in the shade of the tent.
"Why did you take them back?" Gerard complains. "You have no idea how hard it is to get Mikey to look after himself, let alone apply any form of sun protection."
"Shut up, you're not his mom." Frank grins. "And anyway, I need them so I can do some undercover recon."
Gerard looks confused, so Frank shifts closer on the picnic table until their sides are touching and murmurs, "Two-o'clock."
Gerard laughs when he realizes Frank put on sunglasses in the shade so he could spy on Pedicone, wearing a sleeveless shirt and cut-off jeans as he drinks a beer across the grass with a few guitar techs.
A tech tries to sucker-punch him and Pedicone laughs, putting his beer can down so he can wrap both arms around his back and try to flip him up over his shoulder. The guy fights back but Pedicone stands his ground, struggling, the muscles in his arms shifting and his feet braced solidly on the grass. After a few minutes of wrestling, he steps back, grinning big and happy as he throws his arms up in defeat.
"He's such a man," Gerard says with a little shake of his head.
Frank snorts. "You aren't?"
"I dunno," Gerard says. He flops a soggy french fry in front of Frank's face. Frank takes it, licking the salt off Gerard's fingertips. "I'm like, three-quarters man. Man Lite."
"You're worried I just dipped my toes in the gay swimming pool with you because of your tits and long eyelashes and now I'm gonna dive in after the first set of biceps I see?" Frank grins, bumping Gerard's shoulder. He tries to raise his eyebrows over the sunglasses but Gerard probably can't see; they cover a lot of his face.
"No," Gerard says, a little too quickly. He bumps Frank's shoulder back and stays there, leaning into him. Pedicone waves goodbye to one of the techs and then gives another one a hug. He laughs at something the guy says and picks him up, turning in a circle before setting him on his feet again. Gerard adds, "For the record, I do have biceps."
"That's true," Frank says. "Well, how would you feel about inviting another pair of biceps into our swimming pool once in a while, if our paths cross?" Frank's fingers twitch on the picnic table; he kind of wants to put them on Gerard's thigh.
"Are you still gonna come home to my biceps every night?" Gerard asks. He's still looking out across the grass and Frank can't see his face properly.
Frank thinks about it. He thinks about the crowd milling around them in the heat, the sound of laughter, and the taste of vinegar and salt on Gerard's fingertips a minute ago. He thinks about the VFW halls, the plane rides, the sinking worry and then the flood of relief when they played their first sober show.
Frank thinks about the huge crush of bodies that'll be sweating and screaming and singing at them from beyond the barricade tonight, the look Gerard will give him from centre stage when he catches his eye between songs, and the look Gerard will give him when he asks Frank to fuck him afterwards. Frank thinks about how much it'll piss the band off when he finally gets to make out with Gerard in the front lounge.
He pulls the sunglasses off and slides them carefully onto Gerard's face, tapping the point of his upturned nose. He can't keep himself from smiling.
"Every fucking night," Frank says, and Gerard beams back at him. "I'm gonna need to borrow fifty bucks, though."
---
EPILOGUE
Heart On
Frank really had thought that by Taste of Chaos in 2005, the tour legend would die.
A merch kid drops down into the new roadie's lap and fakes leaning in for a kiss, smoothly disarming him of his pint glass instead with a grin on his face.
"Aw, come on," the new roadie complains as the merch kid laughs and takes a swig. "Gay fake-outs? For real? You guys play dirty on this tour."
"Anything gay on this tour," Cortez says, holding his drink up with his eyebrows raised, "can be blamed on MCR." Some of the crew hold their drinks up too.
Frank grins and watches them from where he's leaning against the bar, next to a few of the guys from Story of the Year who are arguing about where to get the biggest hamburger in Jersey. Dewees elbows Frank over to order another drink and Frank hip-checks him back, to little effect.
"Why does everyone say MCR is so gay?" the new roadie asks, eyes darting away when Frank looks at him. "It not like they're the only ones wearing make-up and shit."
Someone goes "Ooh," and it seems to Frank like even more of the tour crowds around as Cortez addresses the bar: "New Roadie doesn't know about MCR's sordid past!"
Frank smiles around the mouth of his beer bottle, taking another pull. He waits.
"Frank and Gerard," Cortez says, holding out the drinks he's double-fisting to quiet the group down. "Frank and Gerard had a very special... relationship when their band first started."
"Gay love affair!" someone corrects from the back, and when it feels like the whole bar sounds their agreement, Frank laughs and blows a raspberry at them. He kind of wishes Gerard had come out with them tonight so Frank wouldn't be left alone rolling his eyes and getting shoved around.
"Yeah, and I was getting more ass than anyone else on tour, too," Frank says, grinning at Cortez.
"When we first started?" Frank hears Ray over the cat-calls. He's sitting at a booth; a few people move aside so he can see the bar. "Nah, it was after Bullets was out, at least a year in," Ray says. "You guys weren't real good at hiding that shit, y'know."
Frank laughs. "I sure as fuck don't remember when it started. It wasn't exactly wine and candlelight with Gerard, man."
"I remember," Ray says, shaking his head down at his beer. A few bar stools scrape the floor as the crew members try to arrange themselves for a better view. "I remember way too fucking well."
---
They're in the van late one night, on tour with Underoath. It's the dead of winter, so they run the engine just to blast the heaters. It seems like everyone is passed out except for Ray, but it's a near thing-he's slipping lower and lower in the driver's seat while they wait. Gerard finally shows up and climbs in, drunk and sighing mournfully, and Ray pulls out of the parking lot.
"It's been six weeks," Gerard says, leaning against the seat in front of him where Mikey is slumped over, sleeping. "There are all these girls, man, fucking-fucking girls, who wanna talk to me and wear, like, Megadeath t-shirts and know who James Jean is, and I can't hook up with them."
"Why not?" Ray asks as they pull onto the highway, glancing at Gerard in the rearview mirror. He's still got his sweaty suit jacket and tie on, hair stuck to his face, and his makeup is a mess. "Anthony and Kat are fucking, Bill and Caroline are together now," Ray racks his brain for any other tour hook-ups, "and Jessie's been with, like, three of Underoath's crew already."
"But I don't believe in it," Gerard moans. He sounds muffled, like he's shoved his face into the back of the seat in front of him. "It's fuckin'... I don't wanna be a sexist asshole, you know?" Ray makes a noise of agreement and Gerard sighs, the vinyl creaking as he drops back in his seat. "Plus, like, when can I even jack off? Every fucking second of the day there are people around. It's torture. Hot chicks-shit, no, wait-beautiful women are fucking all over the fucking place but technically every single one is under this, like, umbrella of "groupie" in some way, so it's not moral." Ray is only kind of paying attention at this point, but nods. "It's a fucking catch twenty-two," Gerard says with a sigh, "touring is such a sausage fest."
There's a silent, beautiful moment during which Gerard may or may not have fallen asleep on Frank's shoulder. More to himself than anyone else, Ray says, "Shit, we should get some sausages for breakfast. Real ones, not that vegetarian sausage crap."
Gerard sucks in a breath. "Oh my god. Oh my god, Ray, you're right." Ray frowns. Gerard doesn't usually get this excited about breakfast, let alone eat it. "I am totally being such a homophobic-no. Ah, fucking, what's the word? What's the word, man?" Ray doesn't have an answer but Gerard continues anyway, "Heterosexist! Just because everyone on tour is a dude, I shouldn't be writing them off! Fuck, I'm such a heterosexist." He moans and smacks the vinyl seal in frustration. "Frankie, Frankie," Gerard whispers loudly.
Ray glances over his shoulder to see what's going on: Frank is so stoned he's just been rubbing his hand over his own face and chest, smiling out the window for the last hour. "Gee, Gee," he echoes.
"Make out with me, dude, come on."
Ray snorts loudly, not turning around, as he hears them wrestling on the bench seat. Gerard pauses for a minute before continuing, "I wanna get laid and I don't wanna be a vegetarian, it's so bigoted of me. Fuck. I don't wanna be a bigot, Frankie, do you?"
"... vegetarian?" Frank asks, and then it gets suspiciously quiet, so Ray looks over his shoulder again.
They're making out.
Gerard is trying to kneel on the bench seat over Frank, pushing him against the side of the van, and Frank's just giggling into his mouth and petting Gerard's face.
Ray makes a noise and tries not to swerve off the road.
"Ah fuck, I keep going for your tits, you don't have tits, sorry," Gerard mutters. Ray doesn't want to see, but somehow can't stop himself from glancing over his shoulder as Gerard bangs his forehead on the van window and swears.
"I don't have tits," Frank agrees, giggling even harder. He misses Gerard's mouth, tongue sliding down his chin.
"Ugh," Mikey says from the seat in front of them, "can you please work out your straight-guilt when we're not trying to sleep?"
---
"Huh," Frank laughs when Ray's done. "Wonder how I could have forgotten such a tender memory."
"Did you guys fuck right there in the van, or what?" Quinn asks, trying to sack Frank with the back of his hand.
Frank cups himself easily and Quinn's hand bounces off his knuckles. "No idea. Ray?"
"Gerard and his brother had an argument about heterosexism." Ray bumps his shoulder against Mikey's. "It was great. Mikey took one for the team so Gerard would be too distracted to put his tongue back in Frank's mouth."
"Don't fucking remind me," Mikey says, face in his hands.
"It was less in my mouth and more around it," Frank says helpfully.
The guys near him groan. "I thought you said you didn't remember," Dewees says as he turns back around from the bar with his drink. His hair flops over his face as he narrows his eyes at Frank.
"Oh, right." Frank grins and takes another pull from his bottle. "I'm probably just remembering all those other times." The guys groan again and it makes Frank laugh-it's just way too fucking easy.
"Shit," New Roadie says, pushing his baseball cap further back on his head and raising his eyebrows. "How many times did you guys make out?"
"Too fucking many!" Mikey moans dramatically. "And that wasn't even the worst time," he starts.
---
They're in the dressing room after a show in early 2003, crew and band members hanging around. Mikey and Ray are talking with Dan from Senses Fail when Frank marches in.
"I need-fuck." He bumps into a table and catches himself. His eyes are kind of glassy and unfocused, tie twisted up and dangling from the side of his neck, smeared with something black. "Amber won't make out with me because I have whiskey breath." Frank opens his mouth wide, showing everyone his tonsils. "Gerard! I need you to check my breath."
The entire room groans.
It doesn't keep Gerard from starting a thorough investigation, though, so instead they all try to ignore the sweaty drunk dudes making out by the rider table and keep talking. A few minutes later, someone notices that Frank has his dick out the front of his jeans and is jacking himself off into Gerard's fake-blood-soaked shirttails.
"Oh, come on," Mikey moans, slapping his hands over his eyes. Everyone starts shouting at them. Someone throws an empty beer can and it hits Frank's ear.
Frank staggers backwards into the table, sweeping three open bottles of Gatorade off of it with a free hand, dick still hanging out, while Gerard sways in place.
"Frank," Brian hollers as he comes in the door, one hand shielding his eyes, "put that shit back in your pants," and then: "Greg, Shaun says we're stuck with the set-up for the next few nights. Otter, your snare ended up in Thrice's van, you can find it in the morning. Guys, van call is in twenty. Get moving."
Gerard leans back heavily on the wall, eyes closed, shoving stringy hair out of his face. "I think your breath tasted nice," he tells Frank.
Frank snorts, finally buttoning up his pants. His belt is still hanging open when he points a finger at Gerard, eyes narrowed. "'Course you did."
---
"Okay," Frank says with his hands out wide, raising his voice over the laughter in the bar, "okay, it wasn't always like that."
"Uh, what about that time when you left a used condom on the backseat of the van?" Mikey says, "or when that guy from Recover sat down at a picnic bench by the food tent and accidentally kicked Gerard in the ass because you guys had rolled down there and started hooking up?"
Frank feels his face heat up and rubs a hand over his cheek. "How do you know the condom was from us?"
"Oh, shit," Quinn butts in, "Jeph, remember when we found them passed out on the floor of our trailer, with their pants around their ankles?"
Jepha shakes his head sadly. "Yeah."
"You guys spent all afternoon checking your gear for crusty bits, you were so freaked out!" Frank laughs.
Frank can hear Ray's voice through the crowd around the bar and Mikey's stuttering stoner-laugh accompanying it. "Bob has a good one, is he here? Bob!"
Someone hauls him over from the dart game happening at the back, and he stumbles into the group of guys around the bar. "What, asswipes? I was winning."
"Tell them about the time Frank and Gerard were fucking in Spain," Ray says. "We're remembering old times."
Bob purses his lips and points an angry finger at Frank. Frank manages an "Oh shit!" before he breaks down into giggles, trying to hide behind Dewees. "I was so fucking trashed, dude, you can't-we didn't-"
"This squirrely motherfucker and his goddamn girlfriend left the bar in Madrid without telling anyone. And I had to find them because I apparently lost my mind and decided to be My Chem's European babysitter for a month, in a shitty van for no fucking pay," Bob begins.
Frank starts to laugh. He remembers this one.
"I spent half an hour walking around downtown Madrid, and was actually at the point of telling a cop that I was looking for dos hombres, muchos cervezas," Bob mimes drinking and then, apparently, Frank's short height, "when we hear this noise. We turn around and there they are, giggling like fucking schoolgirls, stumbling down the street and holding hands... and then they tripped on the curb and fell into a huge-ass puddle."
Frank is laughing so hard he can't breathe, clutching at Dewees' arm.
Bob rolls his hoodie sleeves up, really getting into it. "I walk over to them... and I had no fucking clue if being drunk in public was a criminal fucking offence there and if Brian was going to have my goddamn ass in the morning when his singer and guitarist woke up in a Spanish jail, so I was trying to wave the cop away and talk to Frank and Gerard like everything was perfectly normal, just get them on their feet and back to the van."
He pauses.
"By the time we got to them, Gerard's pants were down and Frank was giving him a handjob. In the motherfucking puddle," the crew starts laughing so hard that Bob has to raise his voice, "in the middle of the street," Frank is actually choking on his beer at this point, "in Spain."
"Holy fucking shit," Quinn says, hugging Bob from behind. "And we thought we had broken you in."
"And then I joined their band," Bob sighs. "I need to see a fucking shrink."
"Someone has to call Gerard," Frank wheezes, looking down when he realizes that he's spilled half his beer down his shirt, "I can't take this alone."
Bob lets Frank give him an apologetic hug and heads back to the dart board, leaving Frank to get harassed with a few more memories and more than one ass-grab. Eventually the conversation shifts and it's just him and Dewees, shooting the shit.
"Hey," New Roadie says, joining them. "Sorry for, like, unleashing the bar on you there, dude."
Frank shakes his head, grinning. He's never minded being the centre of attention, especially not for the stupid crap he's done. "Nah, man. It's cool. I don't regret that shit, y'know?"
The guy looks a bit awkward, avoiding Frank's eyes. "So are you guys, like, dating now?"
Frank and Dewees both snort at the same time and then laugh when they realise it. "Fuck no," Frank says. "Never were."
"So you aren't gay?"
Frank sighs. "Look, dude. I was wasted, he was wasted, we were together every fucking night-it happened sometimes. But for every time we fucked, there was a night that I hung out with a chick I met at a show or from the label, maybe went on a date or whatever, or he would moon over some girl he met and spend the night spankin' it in the bathroom, y'know?"
"And Gerard dated that chick all through the summer that one year, he told me about her-Jenna?" Dewees adds. "Plus he's all starry-eyed over that girl from New York, right now." Frank nods. She drives a Vespa; she's pretty awesome. Dewees frowns, tipping his beer at Frank. "You guys don't still..."
"Hell no," Frank says.
"Why not?"
Frank shrugs. "It kinda-I dunno. Last year things sorta went ass-up." His gaze drifts across the bar as he thinks about how to put it into words; he doesn't have to do it very often. "Gerard was really messed up, like rock bottom, and we were all dealing with it. I was baked from the minute I woke up, Ray and Otter drank a shitload. I didn't really want to... I dunno." Frank rolls his shoulders uncomfortably. He doesn't like talking about Gerard's drinking problems when he's not there. "I guess I did have a line."
Dewees bumps into him sort of companionably and it's quiet for a moment, the classic rock over the speakers and the conversations around them rising and falling.
"Fuck," Frank says, letting out a big breath, "it's not the end of the world! Gerard's sober and happy and I'm..." he looks down at his beer and then laughs as Dewees raises his own in a toast, "drunk and happy. I dunno, we just stopped. I hardly ever think about it."
"Oh," New Roadie says. Frank can't tell if he looks bored or confused by all the history he just walked into.
Frank elbows Dewees and grins up at him when he meets Frank's eyes. "I think this guy's being heterosexist, James."
"Heterosexist!" Dewees repeats, because the word is so Gerard.
"Fuck off," New Roadie laughs, "I just don't know many guys who, like, fuck other guys."
Frank bites his lip and raises his eyebrows. "Well you know what Gerard would tell me to do about someone being heterosexist..."
The new roadie gets his hands up just in time to intercept Frank's waggling tongue. Frank latches on to his side and licks all around his palm, humping him. They stumble into the nearest table, laughing and spilling beer into people's laps.
---
Gerard gets his heart broken by the girl from New York a year later and writes a lot of mournful, then vicious, then eventually resigned love songs. They track a few of them in the studio, and try not to be too cruel with the teasing. Gerard is still learning how to use less obvious metaphors.
"You're heartless," Gerard says to Frank, "but I know it's only because you actually lack a heart and have never known love."
"Fuck you," Frank says. "I knew love twice last night in your guest room." He tries not to sound too grumpy about the fact that he's only seen the palm of his own hand for a pretty fucking long while at this point.
Frank was so used to being blown off by chicks in high school that he'd spent the first few years in the band surprised by the attention he got from girls at shows. It was kind of a mind-fuck, being wanted like that, and sometimes he got caught up in it enough that he couldn't say no. It happened way less than he let on, though, and started to feel a bit empty after a while. Then Revenge got big and Frank really didn't feel good about hooking up with chicks he met backstage or even on crew, because they all seemed to know way more about him than he did about them.
When some of the guys gave him shit for being such a monk, Frank just told them he'd caught something from Gerard when they were fucking: a goddamn morality STD.
---
"They're gonna button all the way up," Gerard explains to them in the bus lounge on the first day of tour, "and all the way down."
"How far down?" Ray asks, wincing.
"Gerard, are you designing marching band costumes or chastity belts?" Frank throws a cheese puff at him. It bounces off his knee.
"It's gonna be killer," Gerard says.
Frank sighs and picks the cheese puff up. He hates when they get in the carpet.
By the next tour, Mikey says, "This time I'm wearing the opposite of a uniform," as they climb onto the new bus. There were kids hanging around outside already; it always surprises Frank, but it's happening more and more these days.
"What does that even mean, the opposite of a uniform?" Ray tosses his bags onto his bunk.
"We're both married now." Mikey's voice comes out muffled from where he's bent over in his own bunk. "We gotta protect the family jewels, man. Gerard's gonna make them rot off if we keep wearing that shit."
"Hey, my bachelor jewels are just as important," Frank says, "I'm letting mine breathe too."
"I like the jacket," Gerard says thoughtfully. "I'm gonna keep wearing it."
It's only a week later that Gerard's jeans split open onstage and Frank has to spin over, landing on his knees, to help cover him up.
"What the fuck was that?" Bob asks as they stumble offstage, sweaty and breathless.
"Protecting Gerard's balls," Frank explains, and thumps Gerard's back. "Better get that chastity belt back out from last tour!"
"Fuck off, my balls answer to no man," Gerard says.
"Spain!" Bob says out of nowhere. When he doesn't get a response, he pokes a drumstick into first Gerard's and then Frank's side. "I am not reliving Spain, assholes."
"Is Bob making any sense to you?" Frank smiles, shaking sweaty hair of his face.
"Nope." Gerard grins right back, eyes crinkling at the corners. "We're not going anywhere near Spain on this tour."
In Florida, Frank humps Gerard's head when he ends up between Frank's legs onstage, and Bob gets all red in the face and punches his arm after the set. Frank giggles. In Ohio, Gerard licks Frank's neck and Frank turns to mouth up at his hairline, breaking away and laughing big and delighted when he sees the look Ray is giving them. He grabs Gerard's ass the next time, and gets his hair pulled the show after that.
"Okay," Cortez says on a Saturday night, sitting Frank and Gerard down on a picnic bench between the buses where some crew and band members are drinking from a keg. "Are you or are you not fucking?"
The guys around them laugh and Frank purses his lips to keep from smiling, looking to Gerard for an answer.
"A lady doesn't kiss and tell," Gerard finally says, making a kissy face. Frank notices that he's still got his sheriff's badge on; Mikey says it makes Gerard approximately 78% more gay.
"Yes she does," Bob says around the rim of his beer, "because her bandmates will make her sleep in the gear trailer if she's been having secret sex with her guitarist on our bus."
"If you can't tell whether we're having secret sex," Frank says, grabbing the beer Ray offers him and settling back against the bench, "then haven't you already proved that it doesn't matter?" He's having way too much fun with this; how had he forgotten what a bulletproof joke this was to pull on tour?
"And that we're ninjas," Gerard adds, nodding.
Cortez starts a betting pool. Frank and Gerard just grin at each other.
---
Two nights later, they're all bumping and laughing and tripping down the narrow venue hallway after the show, heading for the dressing room. Someone up ahead yells, "One slice left!" and Ray takes off.
"Motherfucker!" Mikey elbows Frank out of the way, laughing, as he jogs after Ray.
Bob ducks out the fire escape with Brian for a smoke. Frank stops to look after them for a minute, fingers twitching over the lighter in his back pocket as he considers it, then turns and runs right into Gerard.
"Sorry!" he says, face in Gerard's sweaty neck.
"Sorry!" Gerard says, fingers slipping as he tries to grab Frank's bare shoulders.
"How silly of me," Frank says in a high voice, "I seem to have fallen."
"What big arms you have," Gerard says, and makes a noise when Cortez walks past and smacks him on the ass.
Frank looks up and their noses almost bump. "Yeah, I work out, no big deal," Frank says. He can see that Gerard's eyeliner is smudged, up close like this.
"What?" Gerard says, and then, "Mmmmph," because apparently they're kissing, now. Huh. He pushes Frank back against the wall and Frank giggles, throwing his arms up and around Gerard's neck dramatically while he sucks on his tongue.
"Fuck you," Gerard laughs into his mouth, biting down on Frank's lower lip and canting his hips forward. "What the fuck, Frank?"
"Shit," Frank says, suddenly breathless and turned on, still jittery from the show. "Door. There has to be somewhere here with a door."
Gerard drags him down the hall and around a corner. Frank has just long enough to think what the fuck am I doing and then has Gerard always had such tiny hips or is it just those jeans? before there's a door closing behind him and Gerard is crowding him against it.
"Asshole," Gerard mutters into Frank's sweaty temple. He rakes a hand through Frank's hair and then fists it hard. "Why did you kiss me?"
Frank moans, tipping his head back and working at Gerard's belt, as fast and efficient as he can without looking down. "You kissed me, man."
"Mmm," Gerard says while he sucks what Frank is sure will be a spectacular hickey into his neck.
Frank gasps and drops Gerard's dick, flattening his hands against the wall. "Fucker, you know I'm useless when you do that."
"You're right," Gerard murmurs, licking over the spot. He shoves both hands up under Frank's shirt to smooth across his belly and grab his hips, tight and possessive. "I did know that."
Frank shoves his own jeans down his legs so they can fuck, but his muscles are shit from spinning around onstage for the last hour. His thighs tremble and give out as soon as Gerard hikes him up the door.
"Godammit," Frank swears, dropping back onto his feet. He flips around, eyes shut as he pants heavily into the door. "Just do it like this, then."
"No condoms or lube," Gerard says. Frank hears him spit before he pushes his slippery dick against Frank's ass, bumping his lower back.
"Whatever-fuck-whatever you wanna do. Just c'mon," Frank moans, humping the door with absolutely no shame.
Gerard eventually gets a hand on Frank's cock and Frank lifts up onto the toes of his sneakers to hitch back so Gerard's dick slides along the cleft of his ass. They both moan and swear through a minute of rubbing like that before Gerard comes, warm and tacky, all over Frank's lower back and the hem of his shirt. He bites down hard at that same spot on Frank's neck and jerks him off, until Frank swears and thrashes around and comes all over Gerard's fist.
"Shit," Gerard pants. He's pinning Frank to the door with his weight, chest rising and falling quickly. Frank gets a whiff of how rank they smell, both still in their show clothes.
"I can't breathe," Frank says. He waits until Gerard gives him a bit of space before turning around to plant a kiss on his cheek.
"I believe I have something of yours?" Gerard lifts the hand that's sticky with Frank's come. Frank curls his top lip at it and Gerard rolls his eyes, wiping it off on Frank's jeans.
"Ugh, fuck you," Frank says without any real heat behind it.
They stand there catching their breath until Gerard says, "Here, you need this more than I do, now." He unties the red bandana that was around his neck and knots it around Frank's. His voice gets a bit softer when he says, "I didn't know I was actually into dick, y'know. Thought I was just drunk."
Frank slaps Gerard's hands away to rearrange the bandana the way he likes it. "Really? 'Cause I've been working my way through the tour crew for the last three years." He pokes his tongue into his cheek and moves his fist over his mouth, miming a blow job.
Gerard shoves at him, grinning. "As if. You're such a tit man."
"I am," Frank moans, running his hands down Gerard's chest. "I don't mind your dick, dude, but seriously-why do you have to have such a tiny rack?"
"Fuck you, I don't have any rack!" Gerard giggles, grabbing Frank's wrists to pull his hands away. "Quit it, that tickles." He looks pretty wrecked: his hair is plastered to his forehead, his cheeks flushed pink, and there are sweat stains at his neck and armpits. It's not a look Frank's seen on many ladies he's slept with, but Gerard wears it well.
"We should do this again sometime," Gerard says with a really filthy smile.
Frank grins and sticks both his thumbs up from where Gerard's still holding his wrists steady between them. "Fuck," Frank remembers, "now I owe Cortez fifty bucks."
Gerard smiles even bigger. "Only if anyone finds out."
---
Frank gives Gerard a blowjob in the bus bathroom the next afternoon, just to see if they can.
He stuffs a t-shirt into Gerard's mouth and takes him as deep as he's able to, holding Gerard's hips against the tiny sink and bobbing his head like a pro. He hasn't sucked dick in ages and wants to prove to himself that he's still got it.
Gerard grabs at his own face and neck and stomach and eventually Frank's hair before he comes, high noises muffled around the fabric in his mouth. Frank gasps louder than he'd meant to when he finally pulls off, spluttering for breath as jizz dribbles out the corner of his mouth and he falls back on his ass. He comes as soon as Gerard gets a hand around him.
When they sneak back out, one after the other, all of the bunk curtains are still pulled. Mikey and Bob are still insulting each other's Gameboy skills in the front lounge, and Ray's headphones are still going, tinny-sounding in his bunk.
Frank and Gerard trade a smile.
They hook up a few more times over the next week: hand jobs in the venue's handicapped bathroom, making out in Frank's bunk after everyone's gone to sleep, and rimming in the bus studio in the afternoon with Bob's kick drum braced against the door to keep it closed.
It's pretty awesome; Frank hasn't gotten laid in ages and the fact that they've done this before, without it being a big deal, makes it guilt-free. They're not trying to hold each other's hands or blow kisses across the parking lot or anything. Gerard even turns Frank down a few times, when he's too tired or busy taking "important notes" while he watches horror movies in the lounge.
Frank doesn't really care, as long as he still gets to sit in Gerard's lap every once in a while at the food tent. He licks ranch dressing off Gerard's fingers and flutters his eyelashes until Cortez and the other guys at the table make gagging noises and get up to leave. Frank and Gerard laugh and high-five and Gerard wipes his hand off on Frank's pants when he thinks Frank isn't looking.
---
The next time they stay in a hotel, Gerard trades room keys with Ray.
"Shit," Gerard moans a half hour later, when Frank's finally got his cock in Gerard's ass, Gerard face-down and ass-up on the comforter. "God, Frank, do you have any idea how long it's been?"
"What," Frank says, pounding him as hard as he can, hair swinging into his face as he adjusts his grip on Gerard's hips, "none of those girlfriends ever fucked you?"
"Ungh." Gerard twists his hands up in the fabric and presses his cheek to the bed, eyes squeezed shut as he meets Frank's driving thrusts. Frank's balls slap against his sweat-damp skin. "Nothing's ever been in my ass but your dick," he pants.
"Shit, for real?" Frank says, his voice strained as he tips his head back. That's kind of romantic. His balls draw up and his legs shake and he says, "Ah, fuck, oh god," before he comes, holding himself tight against Gerard's ass. He collapses on top of him and forces Gerard down onto the bed. "Fuck, I needed that."
"Oh, come on," Gerard whines, shuffling out from under Frank to flop onto his back and get his hand around his dick, eyes still shut as he fists himself quickly. "I was just getting into it."
"Not my fucking problem." Frank grins but shimmies down the bed anyway, just enough strength in his arms to hold himself up on one elbow and wrap his lips around the tip of Gerard's dick.
"Ah-ah-" Gerard cries out, knuckles hitting Frank's lips as he hitches his hips up, back arching. Frank sucks while Gerard jerks himself off, and then Gerard starts to make little strangled noises and Frank pulls off just in time to see the stupid, sexy, screwed-up face he makes when he comes.
Frank lets his head rest on Gerard's stomach after, soft and sweaty. Gerard pets at his hair while they catch their breath.
"We're doing that again tonight," Gerard says. "I need more than three fucking minutes of a dick in my ass to make up for four years without it, man."
"Mm-hm?" Frank says.
The next time, he lasts ten.
"Are you sure?" he asks afterwards, running his tongue along his teeth. He'd swallowed this time because he felt kind of bad.
"I looked at the clock," Gerard moans pitifully, rolling onto his stomach and burying his face in the pillow.
"Well fuck, I didn't realise it was a goddamn marathon." Frank kisses the sad curl of Gerard's shoulders and then grabs the soft, pale slope of his ass, making Gerard twitch. "Get a stopwatch and time yourself, I'm sure you're no better after months on tour, jerking it in your bunk."
Gerard lasts a full hour, four positions, and two pieces of furniture that get knocked over as he hauls Frank around the hotel room and arranges him across things.
"Can I touch my dick yet?" Frank asks, voice tight. He spits out a mouthful of his own hair, hand skidding across the desk to send the complimentary hotel pens clattering to the floor.
"No," Gerard says, shoving into Frank so hard the desk skids across the carpet and Frank's vision goes white around the edges. He wonders when Gerard learned all these positions; Frank never got a girl into anything fancier than doggie-style before blowing his load.
"Well then," Frank pants, his breath pushed out of his lungs whenever Gerard drives into him, "I guess-we know-who'll do the fucking-huh?"
---
He doesn't realise what a big deal it is until Mikey bums a cigarette from him outside the bus one night and says, "Do you know what's wrong with Gerard?"
"No," Frank says and then twitches, accidentally ashing on Mikey's hoodie, "shit, sorry." He wipes it away. "I didn't notice there was anything wrong."
This is a lie. Frank tried to grab Gerard's dick on stage last night, grinning over at Bob the whole time, and Gerard dodged him, not even meeting Frank's eyes.
"He's moping." Mikey sags against the bus and blows smoke up at the night sky. "He sat all by himself in the coffee tent today and ignored anyone who tried to talk to him."
Frank takes a drag from his cigarette. It's not like they're dating, but they've always been pretty tight, and Gerard has never had a hard time talking about his feelings. If it was the stamina thing he'd say so, right?
"He was complaining about laundry the other day," Frank tries. "Didn't someone, like, take his clothes to a laundromat without asking him?"
"Yeah," Mikey says, "I guess."
He looks away when Frank glances over at him.
---
The next time they get a hotel room, Gerard says, "Okay," as soon as the door closes behind them, shrugging off his bulky jacket and stepping out of his shoes. "Okay, I've done some research."
"Research?" Frank asks. He puts his shampoo and toothbrush on the bathroom counter and stands at the mirror for a minute, pulling faces. His hair's getting really long.
"About your problem," Gerard says, "and I think I found something we can do."
"Uh, my problem?" Frank frowns at his reflection and tucks his hair behind his ears. Gerard comes into the bathroom and Frank turns the frown in the mirror towards him, crossing his arms over his chest. "You're the one who's been moping all week."
"Because I just want you to fuck me." Gerard looks really put out. Frank sort of wishes he had this on tape, because it would be the best blackmail ever.
"I don't see what the problem is," Frank says, not turning around. "I can get it up in, like, five seconds. This has never been anything but a useful skill on tour." Frank doesn't like how pissy he sounds when he adds, "So go find another dick to sit on if you're gonna be fucking Goldilocks about it."
"Hey," Gerard says softly. He runs his hands down Frank's arms and back up, nosing at his hair. "I appreciate it when we're in a hurry. But I guess back when I was drinking I wasn't-I didn't really know what the fuck I was doing, or what I wanted. And now I'm kinda..." He ducks his face into Frank's hair.
"What," Frank says, eyes narrowed, but he leans back into Gerard's chest just a little bit. "You want me to spread you out on a bed of rose petals and put on some fucking Prince?"
Gerard snorts and grabs at Frank's sides, tickling him and making him jerk away. "No, I just-I like feeling it." Gerard's voice gets kind of dirty at the end as he shuffles up behind Frank and squeezes his half-hard dick through his jeans. "I like feeling all of you. And I like feeling it the next day."
"All ten inches?" Frank says with his biggest grin.
Gerard blows a raspberry into Frank's neck and bites hard at the muscle there.
"Fuck! Okay," Frank laughs, shrugging his shoulder up, "nine."
Gerard growls and walks him out of the bathroom.
"Eight," Frank finally settles on, "a generous eight." He laughs big and happy as Gerard spins and shoves him, hard, onto his back on the bed, bouncing and letting his arms and legs fall open as Gerard works at his belt.
"Get a fucking tape measure," Gerard says. "Later. I've been waiting all day to sit on your dick."
Frank shuts up and gropes above himself for the condoms and lube.
It's not the worst sex they've ever had-the worst, Frank thinks, probably happened in the van and has been thankfully erased from their memories by alcohol and time-but it's pretty fucking close.
Gerard's grand solution is that he'll pull off Frank's dick every time he's about to come, to make him last longer.
After a couple of minutes of watching Gerard ride his cock, flushed pink and jiggling in all the right places, hard and straining in all the other ones, his head thrown back and his mouth open, Frank says, "Shit, dude, I'm gonna-"
Gerard gasps and surges forward onto his hands so Frank's dick slides out of his ass, making Frank groan as he thrusts up into nothing.
When Gerard does it for the third time, Frank swears and twists the sheet hard in both hands.
The fifth time Gerard hops off Frank's dick he whines, "Fuck," and flops onto the mattress, curling both hands over his thigh. "I think I fucking pulled something."
"Star athlete," Frank says. The next time Gerard pulls off, Frank curses and punches the mattress. "Fucking-let me come, motherfucker!"
They give each other handjobs and don't talk about it after.
They go back to letting Gerard do the fucking the next morning.
---
Cortez tries to look up "Pringles pizza" on Gerard's laptop one day and Google helpfully suggests "premature ejaculation" in the search bar when he starts to type. Frank hears the story as soon as Cortez bangs onto their crew bus, where Frank's playing poker with some of the guys. It takes him a minute to realize that must have been Gerard's "research". Frank can't find it in himself to feel slighted by the implication; he just starts to laugh so hard that he knocks half of the chips off the table and gets kicked in the ribs when he folds over and ends up on the floor of the bus.
The next morning Gerard gets called "Quick Draw" by two different roadies. It's not until the merch kid in the coffee line hands him a cock ring-"Someone gave it to me as a joke, but I think you need this more than I do," he says, patting Gerard's shoulder-that he realizes what's happening. Frank feels kind of responsible but can't help laughing anyway, spilling coffee all over his shoes and the grass around them.
"Fuck you," Gerard says, "I hate you so much right now."
Gerard gets ragged on all week, but he can't deny it because it was on his computer. The aftermath has been the most entertaining thing to happen on tour, Frank thinks, but he tries to school his face and make sad, empathetic expressions whenever Gerard glares at him.
It's way less funny when Gerard stops putting out, which Frank thinks is a stupid way to punish him because Gerard is the one who wants to get fucked so bad.
"Maybe you should try dating teenagers," Ray suggests over coffee in the bus kitchen, "y'know, give them something they're familiar with." Gerard totally steps on Frank's toes on purpose when he stands and heads back to his bunk, giving Ray the finger.
By Saturday, it finally starts to blow over-a tech from Linkin Park drinks a bottle of his own piss Friday night and steals the spotlight away from Gerard. He even whispers "Later" instead of "Stop that" into Frank's ear when Frank pokes his tongue into his cheek and raises his eyebrows at him backstage.
They hang out with some of The Bled and their crew that night on My Chem's bus. Eventually everyone leaves for a local bar, the noise and conversation following them out the bus door. Frank and Gerard give each other a look when they realize what they can do with an empty bus for a few hours.
Frank gets up to lock the door and is surprised to see Mike Pedicone, the Bled's drummer, hanging back in the doorway.
"Not really in the mood for the bar," he says, holding up a tightly-rolled joint. "Can I smoke this in here?"
"Only if you share, dude." Frank grins and waves him in. Pedicone follows them to the lounge. Frank figures they'll smoke up, then he'll fake being tired so he and Gerard still get an hour to themselves.
Pedicone's a new friend, but Frank thinks their band is killer, and he's stoked to ask about their set-up. The three of them talk about their favourite tracks on The Bled's latest record and the conversation spirals from there until Frank is having too much fun to remember to keep checking the clock. Pedicone's impression of Mr. T makes him laugh until his sides hurt.
"Diff'rent Strokes, man." Pedicone shakes his head. "That was some good shit. I'm fucking hopeless for B-movies and bad TV." He smiles, rubbing a big hand over his buzzed hair as he passes the joint to Frank. "The guys give me so much shit for it."
"You came to the right bus," Gerard says, "that's pretty much all we talk about."
"That and the ongoing battle between light and dark roast coffee," Frank adds, tucking his feet up under him on the couch. "After biting the head off a bat, there's nothing more rock'n'roll, right?"
"Right," Pedicone laughs, leaning back against the bus window. And then, out of nowhere-although he's just as baked as Frank at this point, so chances are the transition was smoother in his head-Pedicone says, "So I hear you were having some problems." He raises his big dark eyebrows at Gerard. "You know."
Gerard sighs and throws his hands up. Frank bursts out laughing, choking on a poorly-timed toke. He holds the joint out for Pedicone as he curls in on himself and tries not to burn a hole in his jeans like he always does.
"It's a joke," Gerard says, "okay? I can't-why does no one believe me?"
Frank kicks Gerard's foot to get his attention and widens his eyes at him. Frank tries to arrange his face into as serious a look as he can manage when he's high and happens to find Gerard's dejected expression hilarious.
"What?" Gerard asks grumpily. Frank tries to look meaningfully at him for a few more seconds, because Pedicone might actually have some advice for them. "Ugh." Gerard slumps back into the couch. "Fine. Yes. Yes, I am having problems with premature ejaculation," he says into his lap, speaking with the tone of a man who has given up. "Please help me."
Pedicone laughs, shifting forward to brace his elbows on his knees. "Dude, it's not a big deal. I get it. I'm like that when I'm drunk." Frank raises his eyebrows at Gerard, who looks back to Pedicone. "For real! Like, a breeze blows by and I blow my load." He grins.
"Yeah?" Gerard asks.
"Sure," Pedicone says easily. "I try to think about unsexy shit. I dunno, I think about Alien, and this documentary on foot surgery I saw, and like... cold water, y'know?" Gerard nods, like he really, really does.
Frank thinks maybe that could work for him. It's been a few weeks since they last tried, and while he still refuses to apologise for his own dick, it's obviously a big deal for Gerard.
"Or I don't let myself jerk off for a while," Pedicone adds, clasping his fingers between his knees and making the muscles in his forearms shift, "I always go too fast when I do, especially when I'm on tour."
"It's actually me," Frank blurts out, lulled into a sense of security by all of Pedicone's weed and honesty. "I'm the one with the problem."
Gerard stares at him. Pedicone sits back. "Shit, Gerard. You're a saint for taking all the shame for your friend here."
"Well, you could say Gerard is personally invested in my ejaculation," Frank says with a big wink.
"What?" Gerard hisses, eyes huge as he starts slapping Frank's arm. Fuck, he can never keep his mouth shut when he's stoned.
"Shit!" Frank giggles, clapping his hands over his face. "Stop! Ah!" He slaps Gerard's hands away. "I didn't mean to!"
"No way," Pedicone says, laughing.
"Do you understand the concept of a secret, motherfucker?" Gerard asks, but the outrage and violence has started to shift into giggles and tickling at Frank's armpits.
Frank kicks out, sides hurting with laughter. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
"It's cool, dudes," Pedicone says. Gerard finally stops, braced half over Frank with his hands up under his shirt as they look over at him. "I met a guy from Underoath a couple months ago who said that if you passed out anywhere on that tour in '02, you'd wake up with half of My Chem making out on top of you."
"That only happened once," Gerard says defensively, "I think. We weren't very..."
"Discreet?" Pedicone asks.
"Sober," Frank clarifies. He shifts to get his arm out from under Gerard; he kind of likes being able to slip it around his shoulders without worrying about someone noticing. "We haven't... this tour is the first time, since back then."
"Don't tell anyone," Gerard says, "or Frank owes Cortez fifty bucks."
"No worries." Pedicone really does look like he has no worries, smiling at them while he finishes the joint and stubs it out in the ashtray.
"Gerard is bummed out that I have the stamina of a fifteen-year old, because he just wants to spend the whole night with my dick in his ass," Frank explains, giggling when Gerard's fingers twitch warningly near his armpit again. "Stop it, it's true!"
"Frank," Gerard whines, "you're ruining my image."
"What?" Frank asks. "You love my dick. I know you just want to spend more time with it."
"Well, more than ten minutes might be nice," Gerard says.
Frank's got his mouth open to respond when Pedicone says, "I know something," and they both startle, looking up at him. His eyes are red-rimmed and glassy, the sides of his mouth pulling up. "Something that might work."
---
It's awkward in the tiny space of the bus studio. Frank knocks over Bob's recording cymbals and accidentally steps on Gerard's foot twice, giggling. He's been feeling jittery ever since Pedicone made the suggestion.
"It's the muscles," Gerard tells Pedicone with a nod in the general direction of his torso. "Frank always dates chicks that are stronger than him, so it makes sense that he's into dudes who, like, pump iron." Pedicone laughs.
"Fuck you," Frank says, shoving Gerard while Pedicone gets the door shut behind them and drags the little studio table in front of it.
"I'm sorry I can't grow bigger muscles for you, Frankie," Gerard says seriously. "At least you'll always have my tits?"
Pedicone pulls Frank away when he tries to grab at Gerard's chest, arranging him in the middle of the small room. Frank bounces on the soles of his feet, nervous and excited and already turned on even before he feels Pedicone's big warm hands wrap tight around his wrists, crossing one over the other behind Frank's back.
"Settle down," Pedicone says. Frank breaks out in a sweat at the low sound of his voice so close to Frank's ear. "Gerard's gonna blow you real slow, it'll help you build yourself up." Frank can't help moaning out loud when he sees Gerard drop to his knees. He sways back, bumping against the solid warmth of Pedicone's chest. "When you come it's gonna be incredible, I swear."
Frank usually likes to fuck Gerard's throat fast and hard until he comes, Gerard's hands helpfully on Frank's hips to pull him in and out of his mouth, so it's different to see Gerard lick slow lines up his dick, around the head, and back down. Frank should feel weird about the fact that his dick's out and Pedicone's watching, but the guy is just radiating this feel-good, no-worries energy and Frank is getting a blow job out of this, so he's not gonna say no.
"Fuck," Frank breathes. "Fuck, can't you hurry up?" Gerard shakes his head and gives him the sassiest look Frank's ever seen. Frank checks, but he's not even wearing his sherriff's badge.
He's surprised how easy it feels with Pedicone here. He always kind of thought the only dick he was gay for was Gerard's, but as Gerard's mouth works over his cock, he wonders if he could feel Pedicone's if he wasn't holding Frank's hands, wonders how big it would be. He isn't going to make a grab for it, doesn't know where Pedicone-or Gerard-would stand on that, but he wonders.
After a while, Gerard has to snag a couch pillow for his knees. Frank's already panting harshly, pulling at Pedicone's grip, wanting to grab Gerard so he can just hold him in place and fuck that pretty, wet, rubbed-red mouth already. He pushes his hips forward again and Gerard smoothly pulls back out of the way, Frank's spit-slick dick waving side to side between them.
"This is fucking torture," Frank groans. All he can hear is the wet noises of Gerard's mouth and Pedicone breathing near his ear, steady and warm.
Then Gerard starts doing these slow, open-mouthed sucks up the sides of Frank's cock, swirling his tongue on the head and sucking back down the other side. Frank is so turned on and high that he feels like his skin's flying apart, like it's vibrating through every cell of his body from his scalp to his toes.
"Oh my god," he moans, when his knees buckle. Pedicone just pulls him up again and holds him steady. Frank leans back into him a bit, tipping his sweaty hair back to brush Pedicone's chest. "Fuck, you're strong."
Gerard laughs around Frank's dick. "You're such a fucking maiden," he says.
"Shut up-ah-ah," Frank gasps. His mouth's hanging open, eyes closed, as he rubs his head back against Pedicone's chest and whimpers softly. He feels-fuck, he can't get his thoughts together-he feels so fucking good, trapped between solid muscle and a soft, wet mouth.
"You're doing so well," Pedicone says. His voice sounds dry and low in Frank's ear, nose ring pressed against the side of Frank's flushed face. "So good. Gerard, you're a fucking pro at this."
There are a few moments when Frank has to choke out, "Stop, pull off, oh shit-" and he snaps his hips forward into thin air when Gerard sits back, cock deep red and shining as it slaps his belly wetly.
"I don't think I've ever been this hard in my fucking life, holy shit," he moans, looking down at his dick as his hips twitch forward, out of his control. Gerard's sitting on his heels, lips wet and red and eyes fixed on Frank. "Oh fuck," Frank says, "seriously, is this healthy? Look, that vein is sticking out. Are my balls actually blue? "
Gerard just smirks and leans forward to trace the vein with his tongue, making Frank gasp and twist sideways in Pedicone's grip. His open mouth is against Pedicone's t-shirt and he bites hard into his shoulder.
Frank can feel his chest hitch when he does that and wants to make it happen again, so he twists to a different spot and does. "Oh, hey," Pedicone says, his voice kind of high, "you have a tattoo behind your ear."
Frank doesn't know what time it is, how long they've been at it; it feels like fucking hours. He's sweating so hard he thinks he must be making Pedicone's shirt stick to his chest.
"You're doing so good, Frankie," Gerard says, sounding amazed. "Fucking look at how long you've lasted." He moves his lips against the head of Frank's dick as he talks and Frank makes a broken, keening noise. "God, you're so fucking hard, so fucking big."
Pedicone hums into Frank's skull like he's agreeing. It makes Frank moan, rolling his head back against his chest and pulling at his arms again just to feel the resistance. He can't keep his eyes open anymore; he wants to see, but he's just too overwhelmed with how it feels.
Then Gerard spreads his palms wide across Frank's hips and takes his dick all the way into his mouth, until Frank's cock bumps Gerard's throat, and then pulls off fast.
"Oh, shit, oh fuck." Frank swears even louder when Gerard does it again, holding tightly to Frank's hips to keep him from chasing Gerard's mouth down when he pulls off. "You're gonna fucking-fucking-" Frank can't breathe, can't feel his feet, can't tell if he's standing up or lying down or anything, just-"you're gonna kill me, fuck, fucking kill me, oh god."
Frank feels Pedicone's fingers at his mouth a beat later and he sucks them in immediately, moaning hard around them as they bump the back of his throat, heavy on his tongue, bitter from rolling the joint earlier.
"Yeah, like that," Pedicone says in Frank's ear, voice dirty and low. Frank is so turned on at this point that it's moving through him in waves, tensing and relaxing, stomach quivering, legs shaking. He thinks he might be saying something around Pedicone's fingers but has no clue what it is. He keeps slipping down his body, Pedicone hauling him up again every time, one-handed now.
"Gerard?" Pedicone asks. Frank's drooling around his fingers, hands tight in fists at his back. He feels Gerard hum around his dick. "Now," Pedicone says.
Frank barely understands what that means before Gerard's clammy palm is wrapping tight around the base of his dick-holy fuck, holy fuck-and he's sucking hard. Frank shouts himself hoarse around Pedicone's fingers and comes so hard it feels like he's emptied every fucking cell in his body out the end of his dick.
Someone manhandles him onto the studio couch and there are warm palms smoothing down his chest and over his arms and pushing hair out of his face. Frank thinks about opening his eyes-tries to-but his eyelids are too heavy.
"What the fuck," he mumbles, and lifts a hand to pat whoever it is that's braced over him, to show his appreciation, but his hand just flops back down over his chest. "I don't... what. Fuck." Frank shivers when a warm body settles over his own and jeans press against his sensitive dick. "I-ungh."
"Shh," Gerard says from close by, "you were fucking-holy shit, Frankie. Do you have any idea how long you lasted? You're incredible."
Frank smiles blindly up at him, fingers twitching at his sides. "Did you look at your stopwatch?" He's not sure his lips are moving properly, but he hopes Gerard heard him.
Gerard laughs, breath warm across Frank's face. "No, asshole. But the clock in here says it was almost an hour."
"You just blew me for an hour," Frank mumbles. "You're awesome. Fuck, an hour. I'm awesome too."
"Yeah," Gerard pants, "you are. I'm just gonna come all over your stomach now, okay?"
"Mmmm," Frank says.
Gerard does.
---
"So tell me again what happened after I collapsed on the couch?" Frank asks before he takes a bite of his veggie burger the next day, sitting beside Gerard at one of the picnic tables in the food tent.
"He left," Gerard says out of corner of his mouth, chewing on some fries. He swallows. "Just said 'Let me know if you ever need my help' and patted my fucking back before disappearing."
"Wow," Frank says.
"What?" Mikey asks. He's standing in front of them with Frank's gigantic white sunglasses on, two greasy-looking paper plates full of chicken wings in his hands.
"This burger!" Frank covers. "Fucking amazing."
"Gross," Mikey says, folding himself up across the table from them. "They put mayo on everything. I figured this was the only thing I could get without it."
"Did you get a call from mom?" Gerard asks him. Frank opens his burger and squints at it. He can't see any mayo.
"No." Mikey nibbles at a wing gingerly, which Frank thinks is kind of adorable and kind of stupid because his fingers are already covered in sauce. "Maybe. I let it go to voicemail. Why?"
Gerard grins and starts to tell him about the article in the local paper about the band that she clipped out and got framed. She wanted their opinion about where to hang it, so they spend the rest of lunch trying to figure out if there's actually any free wall space in their parents' house.
"What about above the shitter?" Frank contributes, and gets a slap on the arm for his trouble.
He smiles and watches them talk. Mikey gets all defensive about the Jaws-themed wall in his bedroom and Gerard keeps waving his fries around and accidentally flicking ketchup at passing crew members. His knee is touching Frank's under the table. Frank feels warm and happy.
He steals his sunglasses back from Mikey when he says he's going to head out to find Cortez, slipping them on in the shade of the tent.
"Why did you take them back?" Gerard complains. "You have no idea how hard it is to get Mikey to look after himself, let alone apply any form of sun protection."
"Shut up, you're not his mom." Frank grins. "And anyway, I need them so I can do some undercover recon."
Gerard looks confused, so Frank shifts closer on the picnic table until their sides are touching and murmurs, "Two-o'clock."
Gerard laughs when he realizes Frank put on sunglasses in the shade so he could spy on Pedicone, wearing a sleeveless shirt and cut-off jeans as he drinks a beer across the grass with a few guitar techs.
A tech tries to sucker-punch him and Pedicone laughs, putting his beer can down so he can wrap both arms around his back and try to flip him up over his shoulder. The guy fights back but Pedicone stands his ground, struggling, the muscles in his arms shifting and his feet braced solidly on the grass. After a few minutes of wrestling, he steps back, grinning big and happy as he throws his arms up in defeat.
"He's such a man," Gerard says with a little shake of his head.
Frank snorts. "You aren't?"
"I dunno," Gerard says. He flops a soggy french fry in front of Frank's face. Frank takes it, licking the salt off Gerard's fingertips. "I'm like, three-quarters man. Man Lite."
"You're worried I just dipped my toes in the gay swimming pool with you because of your tits and long eyelashes and now I'm gonna dive in after the first set of biceps I see?" Frank grins, bumping Gerard's shoulder. He tries to raise his eyebrows over the sunglasses but Gerard probably can't see; they cover a lot of his face.
"No," Gerard says, a little too quickly. He bumps Frank's shoulder back and stays there, leaning into him. Pedicone waves goodbye to one of the techs and then gives another one a hug. He laughs at something the guy says and picks him up, turning in a circle before setting him on his feet again. Gerard adds, "For the record, I do have biceps."
"That's true," Frank says. "Well, how would you feel about inviting another pair of biceps into our swimming pool once in a while, if our paths cross?" Frank's fingers twitch on the picnic table; he kind of wants to put them on Gerard's thigh.
"Are you still gonna come home to my biceps every night?" Gerard asks. He's still looking out across the grass and Frank can't see his face properly.
Frank thinks about it. He thinks about the crowd milling around them in the heat, the sound of laughter, and the taste of vinegar and salt on Gerard's fingertips a minute ago. He thinks about the VFW halls, the plane rides, the sinking worry and then the flood of relief when they played their first sober show.
Frank thinks about the huge crush of bodies that'll be sweating and screaming and singing at them from beyond the barricade tonight, the look Gerard will give him from centre stage when he catches his eye between songs, and the look Gerard will give him when he asks Frank to fuck him afterwards. Frank thinks about how much it'll piss the band off when he finally gets to make out with Gerard in the front lounge.
He pulls the sunglasses off and slides them carefully onto Gerard's face, tapping the point of his upturned nose. He can't keep himself from smiling.
"Every fucking night," Frank says, and Gerard beams back at him. "I'm gonna need to borrow fifty bucks, though."
---
EPILOGUE