Untitled Frank/Mikey commentfic
I wrote this for turps33 over at her dreamwidth, and she's totally peer-pressured me into posting this properly. So. Have some untitled Frank/Mikey domestic roommates commentfic! (PG for swears)
Frankie and Mikey met whilst undergraduates, and by the time they're in grad school they're best of friends, so, y'know, it's only natural that they move in together, right? They rent a cheap (read: falling down around their ears) house near campus, and Frankie collects strays from the pound whilst reading endlessly for his doctoral thesis in American lit, and Mikey uses his giant business textbooks to make little houses for Bunny to hide in. And in the winter they huddle up on the crappy couch that came with the house that they've never bothered to replace under a half-dozen crochet'd blankets they've collected from various thrift stores because it's not like they could afford a place with heat, Frank's various strays acting as hot water bottles as Mikey snuggles into the graduate school twenty Frank packed on after the freshman fifteen.
Sometimes they date - Mikey had a thing over the summer break with this tiny guy in eyeliner from his international business seminar, and Frank had had an on-again, off-again thing with Jamia since High School that had moved into the off-again stage definitely, right around about the time she discovered how much she liked going down on chicks - but mostly they just hang out at the house, or in Mikey's brother Gee's 'studio' (which, in reality, is just his basement), or at the record store Bob and Brian co-own, and it's good. Who needs grand sweeping romance (or even orgasms - ok, so Frank will admit that an orgasm from anyone's hand but his own would be nice) anyway, and it's not like he goes home to an empty house like Bob or Brian do (although, Frank has his suspicions about that. Their car pooling excuse stopped working sometime after Bob moved to a new apartment twenty minutes in the opposite direction.)
Still, the point is, Frank and Mikey are tight. Mikey remembers to buy fake bacon at the grocery store, and Frank makes sure the dogs don't torture Bunny too much. They take turns using the crappy washers down at the laundrette and, together, they forget to do the dishes. Everything is fucking hunky-dory at Casa del Way-Iero.
'Til a girl goes and ruins the status quo, that is.
"Dude. Dude. I thought your brother was, like, asexual or something?"
Mikey shrugs. "Gee's Gee," he replies uselessly. Across the store the Gee in question is stammering at Hot Art Chick. He's been stammering at her for about a month now, and she's yet to run for cover. Frank should probably learn her name.
"He does realise that he's going to have to, you know, leave the basement every once in a while if he's going to actually date her, right?"
"Does this look like the basement?"
Frank looked about the store. It was a little dark for an art supplies store, possibly because of the giant canvas' stacked against every flat surface, but probably because the front window had been painted over with blackboard paint, and two of the three overhead fluorescents had blown in a power surge. Hot Art Chick had been up on a ladder replacing all three when Frank, Mikey and Gerard had stopped by on Tuesday, and the combination of short tartan skirt and ripped fishnets suddenly being at face-height had made Gerard flail and trip and fall right into the table the other new tubes were leaning against. It's now Saturday, and apparently they still hadn't been replaced, lending the store a certain dank ambience Gerard probably felt right at home in. "I really don't think this place counts."
Over the other side of the store, Hot Art Chick smiled encouragingly whilst Gerard stammered something at her, and then, unbelievably, she reached out and touched his arm. "Unbelievable," Frank muttered. "He's practically a hermit, except for when he's here stalking her, and yet he still gets the arm-touch."
"She laughed at his joke on Thursday," Mikey added. "It was a really shitty joke, too."
"Unbelievable," Frank repeated. "I need a cigarette. You coming?"
He turned to offer Mikey one from his pack, but Mikey's attention had been grabbed by what looked like a unicorn-themed colour-by-numbers kit. Shrugging, Frank crammed the pack back into his cardigan pocket and made his way through the store towards the exit.
"It's not a big thing," he overheard Hot Art Chick (Lindsey! That's right, her name was Lindsey) say to Gerard as he passed them. "Just a few of us from school, we thought we'd put on our own exhibit, you know, really DIY. Probably nobody's even going to show up. But I thought maybe we could do dinner after?"
Gerard was simultaneously nodding, blushing, and making fairly nonsensical vowel sounds, and Frank slowed down as to better gawk at the trainwreck (although, since Gerard's 'unintelligible idiot' routine actually seemed to be working, Frank really couldn't class this, whatever this was, as a trainwreck. It was completely unfair.) "He'd love to," Frank interjected after roughly a millennium. Seriously, completely unfair.
Gerard nodded his agreement before finally finding some consonants to go with his vowels. "I mean, yes! Of course!" He flapped his hands a bit, his eyes as wide as saucers.
Lindsey smiled, and wow, ok, how did Gerard do it? "Great! That's so great. Oh, of course you and Mikey are invited too, Frank," she added. "It could be like a double date!"
Frank blinked. "Wait, what?"
*
"Wait, what?"
"You mean you and Mikey aren't dating?" Ray squeaked on Monday when Frank got to the office. He looked a little like Gerard had when they'd finally managed to wrestle him from the store. "But you - and he - and you -"
"Mikey and I just live together, Ray." Frank was a little confused. He'd been a little confused all weekend. "We're friends."
"You're wearing the Joy Division t-shirt I gave him last Christmas," Ray pointed out.
Frank looked down at his chest. "Gerard spilled ink down mine, I just grabbed this from the hamper." He put his bag down on his half of their shared office's one desk and then sniffed tentatively at his armpit. Yeah, no, it was totally ok for his seminar. He looked back up at Ray. "Besides, you bought it, like, three sizes too large, man."
"It's vintage," Ray explained, "And that's not my point. You and Mikey do everything together. You eat breakfast together every morning, then walk together to campus. You eat lunch together every day in the university cafeteria even though it's a billion miles from our office. You spend every afternoon emailing each other each and every little thing that pops into your heads, and then -" Ray was really on a roll now, his arms waving expansively, "- and then you eat dinner together every night. Hell, you even sleep with each other!"
"In front of the tv! Man, you know the lounge is the warmest room in our house."
Ray swept a half-dozen books he'd had perched on his side of the desk onto the floor. "Only because you, you spoon together like high school sweethearts!"
"Fuck you, Toro." Ray was so, so wrong.
"You have a chore roster!" Ray shrieked, waving his arms about again.
Frank contemplated this whilst Ray sheepishly dug out the dustpan and started sweeping up the remains of the Walt Whitman bust they'd inherited from the office's previous occupant.
Huh. They did have a chore roster. It was next to the fridge, under the Chihuahuas & Kittens calendar Frank's mom had bought them for Christmas.
*
"Bob, hey, hey, Bob!" Frank yelled, throwing himself at Bob's back and clinging like a monkey. Mikey and Frank had had a bet once to see just how long Frank could hold on like this before Bob threw him off, and whilst Mikey had won that round, Frank was totally going to last the full minute, thirty-nine seconds one day.
Just not, you know, today. Frank blinked up at Bob from his place on the floor. "Bob, do you think Mikey and I are dating?"
"What the sweet fuck, Iero?" Bob muttered, scrubbing a hand through his messy blond hair with frustration. "The fuck am I answering that. Brian!"
That last he directed through the beaded curtain that separated the shop floor from the office and, past it, the room with all the inventory. Mikey and Frank were not allowed in the inventory room; it was feared they would inadvertently start a fire that would melt all of Bob's hard-scavenged, rare-as-fuck vinyl. "That had better not be another fucking shoplifter," Brian replied, pushing apart the beads and peering out with a grimace.
"Nope, just Frankie. Brian, you deal with this idiot. I have customers."
There was one guy lurking over by the Norwegian Black Metal section. He looked like he was trying to hide behind the Satyricon cd he was holding.
"Fine," Brian sighed, before narrowing his eyes and cocking a finger in Frank's direction. "You, with me."
Frank bounced up and followed him through the curtain. "Do you think Mikey and I are dating?"
"Explain." Brian was wearing his 'Why am I the only adult here oh my god' face. Frank was relatively familiar with it.
"It's just, Hot Art Chick - Lindsey, shit, I really have to start remembering that - asked Gerard out to see her art exhibition and get dinner and shit and she totally invited me and Mikey too, except she said it could be a double date, because she thought we were dating, and then I told Toro and he thought that Mikey and I were dating as well, and now apparently the entire universe has gone insane since I can totally tell from your expression that you thought Mikey and I were dating as well. Fuck." Frank blinked at Brian in shock. "You totally thought me and Mikey were dating! Shit, what's up with you people today? Aren't friends meant to be all observant and shit?"
Brian looked at Frank like he was, quite possibly, the dumbest creature Brian had ever encountered. "Remember our last movie night?"
Frank frowned. "Was that Chainsaw? Or Evil Dead?"
"Fuck, I can't remember. Either. It doesn't matter, since Mikey was nuzzling your beard during both of them. I think the only person confused about your dating status is yourself, Iero," Brian smirked.
"But -"
"Frank."
"But -"
"Frank."
"Everyone is fucking mad," Frank muttered, before high-tailing it out of there.
*
"Gerard, you know Mikey and I aren't dating, right?"
Gerard barely looked up from his sketchpad. "Hmmn?"
"Gerard. Me? Your brother? Not dating? Comprende?"
"Oh, yeah, totally," Gerard muttered. "Which black do you think I should use for her hair?"
Frank rolled his eyes and made for the door, picking his way over the heaped piles of dirty laundry, empty watercolour tubes, comics and moldy coffee cups that littered the basement floor. Why he thought he'd get any sense out of Gerard, of all people, he didn't know.
"Just," Frank heard then, and he turned before opening the door. Gerard had put down the sketchpad and was gazing at him earnestly. "Just, I kinda have to wonder. Why aren't you and Mikey dating?"
Frank frowned. "I - I don't actually know," he realised, startled. Logically, it would be because they weren't interested in each other that way, but that didn't feel right. Mikey was the most interesting person Frank knew.
Gerard and Frank stared at each other for a moment.
"Oh," Frank said, finally.
"You hurt him, and I'll rip out your heart," Gerard threatened. His smile kinda ruined it, though.
*
Mikey wasn't home yet - he had a late workshop on Monday nights, the chore roster said it was Frank's turn to order takeout - so Frank paced between the kitchen and the lounge, chainsmoking. Bunny watched his progress dispassionately from the top of the couch, whilst three of the dogs dashed after his trailing shoelace. He smoked half a pack, ashing out the open kitchen window (technically they weren't supposed to smoke inside the house, but since it covered up the general smell of moldering carpet Frank was pretty sure they'd get away with it.)
Mikey got home just after eight, and blinked a bit, eyes obviously watering from the smoke. Maybe it'd been more like an entire pack. Frank was stupidly glad to see his face.
"Why aren't we dating?" Frank suddenly asked, blushing. He'd maybe meant to work up to that question.
"Why do you ask?" Mikey said quietly, carefully. He dropped his messenger bag down on the table then looked back at Frank, expectantly.
"I - It just - It just occurred to me that, you and I, well -" Frank trailed off, frustrated. This was so much harder than he thought it would be. It was Mikey, for fucks sake. He took another drag of his cigarette.
"Frank?"
Mikey was kinda holding himself now, his arms folded up defensively, and the look on his face - fuck. Frank was such an idiot. How had he been so blind?
Frank flicked the cigarette into the sink and then strode forward, settling one hand on Mikey's hip and fisting the other up in Mikey's hair. "Seriously, Mikey Way, you are meant to tell me these things. You know I suck at this domestic crap."
"You know I'm not any better at it than you are," Mikey replied, a smile lurking at the corner of his mouth.
Frank leaned in to chase it. "We'll have to put it on the chore roster."
Frankie and Mikey met whilst undergraduates, and by the time they're in grad school they're best of friends, so, y'know, it's only natural that they move in together, right? They rent a cheap (read: falling down around their ears) house near campus, and Frankie collects strays from the pound whilst reading endlessly for his doctoral thesis in American lit, and Mikey uses his giant business textbooks to make little houses for Bunny to hide in. And in the winter they huddle up on the crappy couch that came with the house that they've never bothered to replace under a half-dozen crochet'd blankets they've collected from various thrift stores because it's not like they could afford a place with heat, Frank's various strays acting as hot water bottles as Mikey snuggles into the graduate school twenty Frank packed on after the freshman fifteen.
Sometimes they date - Mikey had a thing over the summer break with this tiny guy in eyeliner from his international business seminar, and Frank had had an on-again, off-again thing with Jamia since High School that had moved into the off-again stage definitely, right around about the time she discovered how much she liked going down on chicks - but mostly they just hang out at the house, or in Mikey's brother Gee's 'studio' (which, in reality, is just his basement), or at the record store Bob and Brian co-own, and it's good. Who needs grand sweeping romance (or even orgasms - ok, so Frank will admit that an orgasm from anyone's hand but his own would be nice) anyway, and it's not like he goes home to an empty house like Bob or Brian do (although, Frank has his suspicions about that. Their car pooling excuse stopped working sometime after Bob moved to a new apartment twenty minutes in the opposite direction.)
Still, the point is, Frank and Mikey are tight. Mikey remembers to buy fake bacon at the grocery store, and Frank makes sure the dogs don't torture Bunny too much. They take turns using the crappy washers down at the laundrette and, together, they forget to do the dishes. Everything is fucking hunky-dory at Casa del Way-Iero.
'Til a girl goes and ruins the status quo, that is.
"Dude. Dude. I thought your brother was, like, asexual or something?"
Mikey shrugs. "Gee's Gee," he replies uselessly. Across the store the Gee in question is stammering at Hot Art Chick. He's been stammering at her for about a month now, and she's yet to run for cover. Frank should probably learn her name.
"He does realise that he's going to have to, you know, leave the basement every once in a while if he's going to actually date her, right?"
"Does this look like the basement?"
Frank looked about the store. It was a little dark for an art supplies store, possibly because of the giant canvas' stacked against every flat surface, but probably because the front window had been painted over with blackboard paint, and two of the three overhead fluorescents had blown in a power surge. Hot Art Chick had been up on a ladder replacing all three when Frank, Mikey and Gerard had stopped by on Tuesday, and the combination of short tartan skirt and ripped fishnets suddenly being at face-height had made Gerard flail and trip and fall right into the table the other new tubes were leaning against. It's now Saturday, and apparently they still hadn't been replaced, lending the store a certain dank ambience Gerard probably felt right at home in. "I really don't think this place counts."
Over the other side of the store, Hot Art Chick smiled encouragingly whilst Gerard stammered something at her, and then, unbelievably, she reached out and touched his arm. "Unbelievable," Frank muttered. "He's practically a hermit, except for when he's here stalking her, and yet he still gets the arm-touch."
"She laughed at his joke on Thursday," Mikey added. "It was a really shitty joke, too."
"Unbelievable," Frank repeated. "I need a cigarette. You coming?"
He turned to offer Mikey one from his pack, but Mikey's attention had been grabbed by what looked like a unicorn-themed colour-by-numbers kit. Shrugging, Frank crammed the pack back into his cardigan pocket and made his way through the store towards the exit.
"It's not a big thing," he overheard Hot Art Chick (Lindsey! That's right, her name was Lindsey) say to Gerard as he passed them. "Just a few of us from school, we thought we'd put on our own exhibit, you know, really DIY. Probably nobody's even going to show up. But I thought maybe we could do dinner after?"
Gerard was simultaneously nodding, blushing, and making fairly nonsensical vowel sounds, and Frank slowed down as to better gawk at the trainwreck (although, since Gerard's 'unintelligible idiot' routine actually seemed to be working, Frank really couldn't class this, whatever this was, as a trainwreck. It was completely unfair.) "He'd love to," Frank interjected after roughly a millennium. Seriously, completely unfair.
Gerard nodded his agreement before finally finding some consonants to go with his vowels. "I mean, yes! Of course!" He flapped his hands a bit, his eyes as wide as saucers.
Lindsey smiled, and wow, ok, how did Gerard do it? "Great! That's so great. Oh, of course you and Mikey are invited too, Frank," she added. "It could be like a double date!"
Frank blinked. "Wait, what?"
*
"Wait, what?"
"You mean you and Mikey aren't dating?" Ray squeaked on Monday when Frank got to the office. He looked a little like Gerard had when they'd finally managed to wrestle him from the store. "But you - and he - and you -"
"Mikey and I just live together, Ray." Frank was a little confused. He'd been a little confused all weekend. "We're friends."
"You're wearing the Joy Division t-shirt I gave him last Christmas," Ray pointed out.
Frank looked down at his chest. "Gerard spilled ink down mine, I just grabbed this from the hamper." He put his bag down on his half of their shared office's one desk and then sniffed tentatively at his armpit. Yeah, no, it was totally ok for his seminar. He looked back up at Ray. "Besides, you bought it, like, three sizes too large, man."
"It's vintage," Ray explained, "And that's not my point. You and Mikey do everything together. You eat breakfast together every morning, then walk together to campus. You eat lunch together every day in the university cafeteria even though it's a billion miles from our office. You spend every afternoon emailing each other each and every little thing that pops into your heads, and then -" Ray was really on a roll now, his arms waving expansively, "- and then you eat dinner together every night. Hell, you even sleep with each other!"
"In front of the tv! Man, you know the lounge is the warmest room in our house."
Ray swept a half-dozen books he'd had perched on his side of the desk onto the floor. "Only because you, you spoon together like high school sweethearts!"
"Fuck you, Toro." Ray was so, so wrong.
"You have a chore roster!" Ray shrieked, waving his arms about again.
Frank contemplated this whilst Ray sheepishly dug out the dustpan and started sweeping up the remains of the Walt Whitman bust they'd inherited from the office's previous occupant.
Huh. They did have a chore roster. It was next to the fridge, under the Chihuahuas & Kittens calendar Frank's mom had bought them for Christmas.
*
"Bob, hey, hey, Bob!" Frank yelled, throwing himself at Bob's back and clinging like a monkey. Mikey and Frank had had a bet once to see just how long Frank could hold on like this before Bob threw him off, and whilst Mikey had won that round, Frank was totally going to last the full minute, thirty-nine seconds one day.
Just not, you know, today. Frank blinked up at Bob from his place on the floor. "Bob, do you think Mikey and I are dating?"
"What the sweet fuck, Iero?" Bob muttered, scrubbing a hand through his messy blond hair with frustration. "The fuck am I answering that. Brian!"
That last he directed through the beaded curtain that separated the shop floor from the office and, past it, the room with all the inventory. Mikey and Frank were not allowed in the inventory room; it was feared they would inadvertently start a fire that would melt all of Bob's hard-scavenged, rare-as-fuck vinyl. "That had better not be another fucking shoplifter," Brian replied, pushing apart the beads and peering out with a grimace.
"Nope, just Frankie. Brian, you deal with this idiot. I have customers."
There was one guy lurking over by the Norwegian Black Metal section. He looked like he was trying to hide behind the Satyricon cd he was holding.
"Fine," Brian sighed, before narrowing his eyes and cocking a finger in Frank's direction. "You, with me."
Frank bounced up and followed him through the curtain. "Do you think Mikey and I are dating?"
"Explain." Brian was wearing his 'Why am I the only adult here oh my god' face. Frank was relatively familiar with it.
"It's just, Hot Art Chick - Lindsey, shit, I really have to start remembering that - asked Gerard out to see her art exhibition and get dinner and shit and she totally invited me and Mikey too, except she said it could be a double date, because she thought we were dating, and then I told Toro and he thought that Mikey and I were dating as well, and now apparently the entire universe has gone insane since I can totally tell from your expression that you thought Mikey and I were dating as well. Fuck." Frank blinked at Brian in shock. "You totally thought me and Mikey were dating! Shit, what's up with you people today? Aren't friends meant to be all observant and shit?"
Brian looked at Frank like he was, quite possibly, the dumbest creature Brian had ever encountered. "Remember our last movie night?"
Frank frowned. "Was that Chainsaw? Or Evil Dead?"
"Fuck, I can't remember. Either. It doesn't matter, since Mikey was nuzzling your beard during both of them. I think the only person confused about your dating status is yourself, Iero," Brian smirked.
"But -"
"Frank."
"But -"
"Frank."
"Everyone is fucking mad," Frank muttered, before high-tailing it out of there.
*
"Gerard, you know Mikey and I aren't dating, right?"
Gerard barely looked up from his sketchpad. "Hmmn?"
"Gerard. Me? Your brother? Not dating? Comprende?"
"Oh, yeah, totally," Gerard muttered. "Which black do you think I should use for her hair?"
Frank rolled his eyes and made for the door, picking his way over the heaped piles of dirty laundry, empty watercolour tubes, comics and moldy coffee cups that littered the basement floor. Why he thought he'd get any sense out of Gerard, of all people, he didn't know.
"Just," Frank heard then, and he turned before opening the door. Gerard had put down the sketchpad and was gazing at him earnestly. "Just, I kinda have to wonder. Why aren't you and Mikey dating?"
Frank frowned. "I - I don't actually know," he realised, startled. Logically, it would be because they weren't interested in each other that way, but that didn't feel right. Mikey was the most interesting person Frank knew.
Gerard and Frank stared at each other for a moment.
"Oh," Frank said, finally.
"You hurt him, and I'll rip out your heart," Gerard threatened. His smile kinda ruined it, though.
*
Mikey wasn't home yet - he had a late workshop on Monday nights, the chore roster said it was Frank's turn to order takeout - so Frank paced between the kitchen and the lounge, chainsmoking. Bunny watched his progress dispassionately from the top of the couch, whilst three of the dogs dashed after his trailing shoelace. He smoked half a pack, ashing out the open kitchen window (technically they weren't supposed to smoke inside the house, but since it covered up the general smell of moldering carpet Frank was pretty sure they'd get away with it.)
Mikey got home just after eight, and blinked a bit, eyes obviously watering from the smoke. Maybe it'd been more like an entire pack. Frank was stupidly glad to see his face.
"Why aren't we dating?" Frank suddenly asked, blushing. He'd maybe meant to work up to that question.
"Why do you ask?" Mikey said quietly, carefully. He dropped his messenger bag down on the table then looked back at Frank, expectantly.
"I - It just - It just occurred to me that, you and I, well -" Frank trailed off, frustrated. This was so much harder than he thought it would be. It was Mikey, for fucks sake. He took another drag of his cigarette.
"Frank?"
Mikey was kinda holding himself now, his arms folded up defensively, and the look on his face - fuck. Frank was such an idiot. How had he been so blind?
Frank flicked the cigarette into the sink and then strode forward, settling one hand on Mikey's hip and fisting the other up in Mikey's hair. "Seriously, Mikey Way, you are meant to tell me these things. You know I suck at this domestic crap."
"You know I'm not any better at it than you are," Mikey replied, a smile lurking at the corner of his mouth.
Frank leaned in to chase it. "We'll have to put it on the chore roster."