Fic: Not a Pretty Girl - The New Apartment (Girl!Bob) PG13
Image by Itsy
Title: Not a Pretty Girl - The New Apartment
Fandom: Bandom: MCR
Characters: Girl!Bob, Gerard
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 3096
A/N: Thank you to belladonnalin for the prompt that, er, prompted today's fic.
Summary: Sometimes Gerard doesn't like going directly back home after a tour.
*
Sometimes Gerard doesn't like going directly back home after a tour. Bob's not really sure why, but she thinks it's a combination of wanting to wean himself off of being around everyone and needing to decompress before seeing his family. Gerard will often spend a few days at Frank or Ray's before going to his mom's house and settling in again.
This time he asks to stay with Bob in Chicago, in the shiny new apartment she hasn't even spent the night in yet. "Sure, as long as you realize that we might get to my place, find out none of the furniture has been delivered, and then have to crash with my mom," she says with a shrug.
Gerard's eyes light up. "Maybe she'll make those pancake things."
More like definitely; Bob's mom always spoils her bandmates whenever they're in town and she knows just how much Gerard loves her crepes. "You never know," is all Bob says.
*
They get to Bob's apartment just after midnight. They're so exhausted from not only most recent leg of traveling, but from the cumulative effects of the tour, that they've gone right through the other side of tired to wired and twitchy.
Gerard bounces on his toes on the elevator up to Bob's floor and Bob taps a beat against her thigh in counterpoint.
"Coffee," Gerard says, clearly and with determination, the second they walk through the door.
Bob gestures to the kitchen. "That way. Mom said she got all the appliances set up."
Gerard stumbles off, luggage and outer-clothes trailing in his wake. Bob drops her own bags by the door, gets her boots off and looks around at the living room. Her mom sent her photos once the furniture was delivered and arranged, so it's not a surprise to see the large sofas and extra wide arm chairs. The photos didn't do the color scheme justice, though, and Bob's a lot happier with how the combinations of purple, green and teal look in person. She might not beat her "designer"--a friend of a friend's brother, who did the job for free to plump up his portfolio--with a lamp after all.
Gerard comes out of the kitchen sans shoes but with a mouthful of...something.
"That fucking coffee maker is--" He flaps his hands around. "I can't figure it out."
"What are you eating?" Bob asks, honestly confused. The kitchen should be empty of food; Bob refused to ask her mom to grocery shop for her after everything else she's done in the last two months to get the apartment set up.
Gerard swallows and grins. "You mom left a crepe buffet for us!" He looks around, mouth going slack in surprise. "Wow. It's colorful. I didn't think you'd--wait, you did ask for this, right?"
Bob snorts. "Yes, I asked for this. I think the guy did a good job."
Gerard nods. "Yeah, he did. I just thought you'd go for something more neutral."
Bob lives most of her life on a bus, the rest of it in bland hotel rooms, and sometimes she rents condos that have blinding white walls and beige carpets. If she had to come home to more of any of that, she might lose her mind and go on a killing spree.
"I like colors," Bob says easily.
Gerard toes off his socks and starts heading back to the kitchen. Bob snags a hold of the back of his t-shirt and stops him. "Showers and laundry first. Then food." Gerard cranes his head around to give her a mocking look. Bob twists her lips. "Shut up."
Gerard holds up his hands in surrender, but Bob can clearly see his shoulders shaking with laughter when he turns away again. She pokes him in the back before letting go of his shirt. "No, no, it's fine," Gerard says, too earnestly to be genuine, even for him. "Your place, your obsessive compulsive rules."
"Bite me, bitch, and go pick up the shit you dropped all over the place."
*
After they shower Bob gives Gerard and old pair of sweats and a t-shirt to wear since all of the clothes he has with him are dirty and no way is she letting him sit on things in filthy clothes. Just, no. They throw a load of his clothes into Bob's very own and brand new washing machine, then go into the kitchen to feast on crepes. Bob's mom left a bunch of toppings in various containers in the fridge, as well as a stack of paper plates and napkins.
"My mom totally loves you more than me," Bob says around a mouthful of crepe and strawberries.
Gerard sticks his tongue out at her. It's covered with chewed up food and Bob kicks his shin under the table. "Ow."
"You're so fucking gross."
Bob tries to figure out the coffee maker but fails, and the manual she finds tucked in a drawer isn't any help seeing as how it's written in German. She gives up and decides they can go find some coffee in the morning.
"Hey, I checked the spare room but it looks like the bed still hasn't come in."
"Whatever. Your couch looks comfy." Gerard shrugs and passes her his plate to throw out.
Bob rolls her eyes. "Don't be stupid. You can crash in with me. My bed's fucking huge."
"Roberta!" He presses a hand to his chest and feigns shock; the effect is ruined by his shit-eating grin. "What would your mother say."
"That I should let you have the bed and take the couch for myself, probably." She thinks for a second and adds, "And then she'd, like, make a comment about how if I was going to hook up with one of you, it should be Brian."
Gerard follows her out of the kitchen and flips the lights off behind them. "She's really got a thing about you and Brian. What's the deal with that? I mean, not that Brian's not fucking great and whatever. She's just really...you know?"
Bob detours into the living room to put Gerard's boots in the shoe basket by the door since he missed it by about three feet when he tossed them there earlier. "You can ask her about that. It's too horrifying for me to discuss. Something about babies and--no, see, I can't even say it."
Gerard laughs at her and they go down the hallway to the master bedroom, which isn't much bigger than the other two bedrooms but has an en suite bathroom with a whirlpool tub that almost made Bob come in her pants the first time she saw it.
The bed is king size, set on a raised platform, and takes up a good portion of the room. It's also comfortable as fuck, which Bob finds out when she sits down on it. "Oh my god," she groans. She tips backwards and sprawls where she lands. "This is like heaven. I'm never moving again."
"Can I plug my phone in here?" Gerard asks.
Bob waves a hand. "Yeah, sure. Oh, mine too? Please? I have no idea where the outlets are, though."
Gerard takes her phone from her and finds an outlet by her dresser. "Move up the bed," he says when he comes back over. Bob makes a noise of protest and he smacks her leg. "Up to the pillows."
Bob shakes her head. "I'm incapable of moving. I'm way too comfortable. Work around me."
Gerard pulls the blankets down at the head of the bed, then yanks at Bob's arm until she crawls up to the pillows and gets under the blankets. He slips in on the other side and makes a high-pitched noise. "Oh my god," he says, awed.
If Bob wasn't in what must be bed nirvana, she'd smirk at him. "I told you."
She fumbles a hand at the base of the lamp on the bedside table and manages to hit the switch to turn it off.
Gerard turns on his side, then messes around with his pillows, knocking one of them off the bed entirely and probably doing that thing he does where he folds one in half and tucks an arm under it.
"So, you and Brian have never even, like, fucking thought about it?" he asks once he's settled.
Bob rolls onto her side to face him, even though she can't see him right now in the newly darkened room. "Nope."
"Seriously? Not even once?"
"Not even once," Bob answers without hesitation because things that have been sworn out of existence with a blood oath never happened. "It's...there's nothing there between us. It'd be like you and Mikey hooking up." She can feel Gerard's shudder across the mattress. "Exactly."
"So what's going on tomorrow?"
Bob shrugs and tries to think about the crap she has to get done. "I have a list of stuff that I need to get for the apartment. I don't know if I'll be up for doing it tomorrow."
"You should, it sounds fun. I'll come with you and we can, like, buy plates and--and--egg separators and shit."
"Egg separators? I've never separated an egg in my life, Gee."
"No, just stuff like that. Domestic crap. Maybe a coffeemaker you can actually fucking use. That'd be nice."
Bob makes a mental note not to bring Gerard within a mile of a Bed Bath and Beyond. God only knows what would happen. "Picture frames," she says after thinking about what else she needs. "I've got a box full of photos I want to put up but I didn't like anything the designer sent me to look at."
"Where do you want to put them? That wall in the--"
"--living room, yeah."
"Bob, Bob, we can matte that shit." Gerard slaps her arm in excitement, Bob kicks him in retaliation, and they end up having a tussle that ends with Bob taking an elbow to the nose while tickling Gerard into submission. "No, for real, it's easy," Gerard pants after Bob is declared the victor.
Bob is still trying to catch her breath, too. "What is? Oh, matting?"
"Yeah, there's nothing to it. We just need to hit a craft store and I can get that shit done tomorrow. That'll be my housewarming gift."
Bob's experienced Gerard's idea of "nothing to it" but she really doesn't have the heart to tell him no, not when he sounds so excited and is trying to do something nice for her. "Okay, yeah. But nothing frilly and frou-frou."
"Right, yeah, because I'm so fucking into frilly and frou-frou, Bob. Everyone says that about me. I'm notorious for it."
"Nothing bloody and gory, then," Bob amends. "Just--whatever. Make it fit with everything else. That's all."
"I think I can handle that. I mean it might be hard," he adds sarcastically, "because I don't have, like, an art degree and have never taken classes in fucking color theory or anything like that."
Bob kicks him again. "Asshole."
"Ungrateful bitch."
*
They stumble into the craft store the next day clutching coffee containers and looking hungover. Well, Gerard does, so Bob figures she must, too, since she's wearing her own pair of black oversized sunglasses and also fell asleep with wet hair.
She follows him around like a zombie while he loads a cart with supplies. She vetoes a bunch of different large frames Gerard picks out before agreeing to a simple looking style that she likes and that he says will go with her décor. At the checkout counter, he asks the clerk where the nearest art supply store is.
"Stencils," he tells Bob with a decisive nod. "The frames are really fucking plain, so we'll just--" He makes a squiggle motion in the air with his fingers. "--accent around them."
Bob stares at him. "Gee, I really--"
"We'll use the leftover paint from your baseboards; I saw it in the laundry room when I was getting my clothes. Trust me, come on, let's go."
Bob's not sure when she lost control of this situation, but she's not too pleased about it. Unfortunately, there's no way to stop Gerard when he's like this. The best she can do is go along with him and veto everything until he gives up. "I need more coffee."
*
Back at Bob's apartment Gerard sets up shop in the dining area. Bob sits next to him and watches him use a scrapbooking paper cutter to size the matting to the frames. It's not as easy as Gerard made it seem, in Bob's opinion, but it's not as complicated as she figured it would be. He talks as he goes along, telling Bob what he's doing, and why, and he's really enthusiastic about the fact that Bob will totally be able to do this herself when she wants to add more pictures to the walls.
Bob nods along with him, doesn't mention that the chance she'll be able to do this herself is about nil, and groups photos together for the frames. She also hops online to find English instructions for her coffeemaker so that Gerard doesn't go into a caffeine withdrawal fit.
They break for dinner, which Bob orders in, and eat in the kitchen while Gerard stares at the stencils he talked Bob into getting despite herself. She couldn't help it. They're kind of wicked looking swirly shapes, and once Gerard lined a bunch of them up on the floor around one of the frames they'd gotten, Bob sort of fell in love with the whole idea.
"I know my shit," Gerard said smugly, but his smile was more happy than anything else, and Bob curled an arm around his waist and squeezed tight.
He finishes matting and framing everything late in the evening and while Bob wants nothing more than to curl up on her sofa and watch television, she instead hangs the frames because she's honestly frightened by the idea of Gerard wielding a hammer.
"I can't believe you have a toolbox," he says and pokes through it. "And a drill."
"Doesn't everyone?" Bob asks, confused, and draws a faint line on the wall with a pencil, using a level as a guide.
*
Bob puts her foot down when Gerard goes for the paint. "Oh, fuck no. It's pajamas and couch time."
"But--"
Bob glares at him. "Pajamas. And couch." She points down the hall. "Go change."
Gerard blinks. "Wow, you sound just like your mom. It's fucking creepy." Bob folds her arms under her chest and Gerard rolls his eyes. "Fine, okay."
*
"--seriously, the comic is way better."
Bob is lying on the sofa with her head on Gerard's thigh. They're watching Daredevil, which is so godawful bad that Bob wants to blind herself to stop the pain. Gerard has the remote, though, and won't change the channel even though all he's doing is watching the movie for ninety seconds and then ranting for five minutes about what they got wrong, and how they should have done it.
He's also gesturing a lot while holding his cigarette.
"You're ashing on my face, dude," Bob complains and pinches his side.
Gerard puts his cigarette in the ashtray on the side table and then wipes at her face. "Shit, sorry, sorry. Did I burn you?"
Bob ashes her own cigarette in the ashtray perched on her stomach and shakes her head. "Nah, no embers, just ash."
"You'd like the comic," he goes on to say, his hand still on Bob's cheek while he frowns in thought. "I mean, it's no Superman--" He rolls his eyes and snorts. "--but I think you'd get into it. We should hook you up with some of the trades."
"We can hit a comic store tomorrow. There's that one by my mom's, and I need to go see her before she hunts me down and kills me."
The credits for Daredevil roll and Bob says a silent prayer of gratitude that it's over, but curses two minutes later when Gerard comes across Underworld.
She maybe should have just let him paint.
*
The next day and a half is a flurry of shopping for things like dishware and glasses, visiting Bob's mom, and watching a shitload of movies based on comic books.
Bob glared at her mother when she gave her Blockbuster card to Gerard, but her mother just smiled sweetly and whispered, "You know I love him more than you, Roberta," proving once again that Bob comes by her bitchiness honestly.
Gerard finishes the stenciling and painting the night before he leaves. When the stencils are peeled away from in between the line of frames along the wall in Bob's living room, she and Gerard step back to take a look.
"It's awesome," Bob says immediately. It is. Gerard did a damn near professional job with the matting and framing, and the dark teal stencil patterns stand out from the base green paint but aren't garish or too much. "I love it."
Gerard stares at the wall critically for a while, his head tilted to the side and his upper lip caught between his teeth. "Wait, let me--" He goes to the wall and switches two of the frames. "Okay, perfect."
Bob doesn't see a noticeable difference, but Gerard is beaming so she nods. "Yeah, perfect." She leans her head against his shoulder. "Thanks. It looks great and it's kinda nice, you know? Having...you on my wall."
"It was cool to be able to do this for you," Gerard says and hugs her with one arm. "I mean, you're pretty self-sufficient. Which is great and all, don't get me wrong. It just means you don't need a lot from others, and most of the time it's not stuff I can give, so, you know."
Bob pulls away and looks at him. "Gee, you guys--no, you do a lot for me. You give a lot. Important things. You just don't realize it."
Gerard looks back at her and Bob can see the wheels turning in his head. He's sometimes freakishly smart about things that are complex and ill-defined; it's almost like he can intuitively see the big picture without needing the details. "Yeah? Because it's hard to know with you. I worry about stepping on your toes or backing off when I shouldn't and--"
"Yes," Bob says forcefully. "A motherfucking world of yes."
Gerard grins at her, happy and pleased, and kisses her lips chastely. "Good. I'm glad."
.End
14Valentines Day 12 - Economics and Work. I contributed today's essay to the comm and it's about a topic close to my heart: women in non-traditional occupations.