fic: My Ferry Romance (aka the Ferry AU, Frank/Gerard, R) (1/4)
Title: My Ferry Romance
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating: R
Words: ~20 000
Summary: Socially awkward Gerard meets Frank the Friendly Cafeteria Worker on a ferry one morning. Shenanigans ensue.
Notes: Hey, it's the Ferry AU I've been talking about for months! This one gave me and my beta a lot of trouble, but now it's finally finished! I know this is a bad timing to post fic, everyone must be really busy right now, but if you have time to relax and read some fic, I hope you give this one a chance. :) Happy Holidays! I owe thanks to at least the following: turnyourankle, mxtape and greenjelloforst! It wouldn't be the same without you ♥ Not much research was made about ferries, so just bear with it.
All completely made up and fake.
Now also on AO3!
1/4 / 2/4 / 3/4 / 4/4
It was the kind of morning you wanted to sleep through: cold and early and dark. Thick pea-soup fog was always present in mornings like this, and sea air made fingers prickle from cold.
The clock was ticking somewhere between seven-thirty and the real hour Gerard could have woken up if he'd caved and moved to NYC while his mother was still offering to help with the costs. But Gerard loved New Jersey in a way you might love a ratty-furred, parasite-infested stray dog with a tendency to bite you in the shin with its blunt mauling teeth. Once you took it under your wing, gave it food and shelter, allowed it to sleep in your bed after losing a battle or two and cleaned up its shit, you couldn't really bring yourself to part with it anymore, couldn't turn your back on it even with all the trouble it brought you.
And it was love, unadulterated and strong, and it covered every little detail from the foggy space above sewer covers at night to the bridge he and Mikey weren't supposed to play in at ages of seven and ten, and eight and eleven, but did anyway.
Gerard was standing in line for coffee on his favorite ferry that took him to Manhattan every morning, silently musing to himself while trying to avoid eye contact with the other queuers. The ferry he chose this morning was the same one he had chosen every morning for almost two years now. It was relatively small, and had an air of coziness the other ones lacked. It looked like it had seen its best days sometime in the sixties, but it still somehow continued luring passengers in like it was brand new.
Gerard found it easy to get lost in his thoughts on mornings like this, in the loud hum of the people and the engines and the licking waves against the ferry frames. He didn't particularly mind waiting for the line to move, but it was almost eight already, and creeping into his mind there was a worry that he might not have his coffee by the time the ferry reached the platform.
Hitching his two folders further up his arm, he peeked over a big guy in his mid-thirties that Gerard had nicknamed Stupid Fucking Jackass earlier for cutting in line. The guy brought images of gym membership cards and The Hulk into Gerard's mind, things that he was not particularly fond of. There was a bushy head of hair two people ahead of Gerard blocking his vision. The hair could have belonged to Ray, if Ray had suddenly morphed into a skinny black female.
Eventually, the hair bobbed to one side, and over a row of shoulders Gerard saw something -- someone -- that he was not expecting to see. Good old Edie, with her cinnamon-bun hair and flowery shawls, wasn't behind the counter. Instead, there was a young twentysomething guy with an easy smile and large eyes, hair dyed in a way that made Gerard think of fucked up skunk stripes.
Gerard stared at him bemused, and gnawed on his lip without really even realizing he was doing it.
He was certain he had never seen this guy before, and he was almost positive that he was on the right ferry, too. He looked around, and yes, there was that one table in the corner, its wooden surface blotched with black ink where Gerard's pencils had ganged up on him some months ago. Definitely the right ferry.
Gerard wondered where Edie was. She had always been nice to Gerard, and she knew just how he liked his coffee. This guy though, he didn't even seem to get the line to move faster than a snail's speed, even if he was flailing around like a confused bird. He was relatively short and thin, but he was all over the place, his grin all huge and pretty as if the ferry was the only place he'd ever wanna be in.
Gerard toyed with his scarf ends, and couldn't stop fixing his hair behind his ears and touching his sleeves. He was sweating under layers of clothes, t-shirt and hoodie crammed inside his worn leather jacket. Under his scarves his neck felt red, hot and burning.
When his turn finally came, Gerard was finding it hard to stop staring at the new guy, and he smiled weakly at him, fumbling with his mug.
"Hi, I'm Frank, your friendly cafeteria worker," the guy said with a cheesy grin. He had a Hello My Name Is sticker tacked on his forehead, and a slapdash 'F'N'STEIN' written on it in black ink. "Sorry it took so long, I don't really know what the hell I'm doing." He laughed and it was like glass breaking.
"Uh?" said Gerard, nervously fiddling with his mug. The mug was black and huge, and he had carefully chosen it from the cart earlier before taking the rear end of the line, worried that he wouldn’t get the biggest one otherwise.
"Right, right, coffee, right? I mean, we've got tea, too, but you look like a coffee kind of guy," Frank babbled. His apron was black and there was a white skeleton print of a ribcage, hipbones and a nicely shaped spine on it, spanning the apron from top to bottom. It was really fucking cute on him.
Gerard opened his mouth to answer, but Frank made an 'oh shit' face and said, "Oh, fuck me, I didn't mean - shit, sorry. It's just, I love coffee, right? Couldn't get up in the morning without some, but tea's totally badass, too." He made a move to grab the teapot but Gerard quickly pulled his mug to his chest to protect it from the possibility of getting it filled with tea.
"But I like coffee," he blurted out.
Frank laughed at him.
Then someone yelled, what the fuck, man? Frank put his weight on his hands as he leaned over the counter, just brushing past Gerard, and eyeballed the whole queue. "Patience is, what do you call it?" he looked straight at Gerard.
Gerard wasn't sure if he was supposed to answer. He fumbled with his mug and smiled nervously at the angry customers behind him.
Then this big dude with pale hair and eyes walked in from the kitchen. He slowly blinked at Frank, made some sort of grunt while palming his face, and reached down to swat at Frank's ass hard enough to make a loud slapping sound. "Stop harassing the customers, Frank, and get back to work," he said.
"Wasn't harassing," Frank grumbled. There was a glass jar filled with sugar cubes under Frank's belly that he nearly knocked over while sliding down the counter. It shuddered some, but Frank quickly took a hold of it.
Asking with a sweet smile if Gerard liked some sugar in his coffee, Frank made him hold the mug out for him, and proceeded to measure out the right amount.
When Gerard finally got his coffee, the ferry was almost at the platform, and he walked away in a daze, Frank's loud obnoxious laugh in his ears.
--
From Manhattan Gerard took the commuter rail to work. It had always felt like a pretty shitty deal, the whole journey, and how it ate up his mornings; how he had to clamber out of bed at the crack of dawn just so he wouldn't be late for work, but he couldn't just go and abandon his pup.
So what if it was already late in the evenings when he got back home? It wasn't like he had important things to attend to; he hadn't even gone out with anyone besides Mikey and Ray in almost a year. Not since sobering up.
The train was crowded that morning. Gerard gave his seat to an old lady, and slouched by the window for the rest of his journey, trying to avoid bumping into people, which proved out to be harder than he thought.
The thing was though that Gerard had begun to feel somewhat dispassionate about his job.
When he was hired two years ago, he had been beside himself with joy, overwhelmed with all the possibilities the job could bring him. But when reality had finally kicked in, Gerard had realized that it was just long hours and endless stacks of projects with no end in sight. He had less time to work on his own comic ideas now than he had had before he started.
His days mostly consisted of staying in his cubicle until it was dark outside, whiling away the hours by coloring other people's works, and trying to do as well as he could because the competition was always tough.
As it were, Gerard was bored at work again.
He was tapping his pencil against the drafting table, thinking about Frank. Right now he was supposed to be coloring some Dark Tower strips for Marvel Comics, and it had Mikey and Dad excited as hell, but something was still missing. Gerard didn't feel the passion for his job anymore. The whole thing was starting to leave a bad taste in his mouth. If only he could get his own ideas out there, maybe then things would look up again.
There was always that thought of not being enough, that he was deemed to always just lurk behind the scenes, never making it out to the front of the stage. It nagged at his brain and brought him down, made him crave for things he knew he had to stay away from.
Last year, he had woken up in a puddle of his own vomit after passing out outside the corner bar. Last year he had felt like throwing himself over the balcony railing of his apartment building. Last year he'd made Mikey sick with worry, and knew he had to stop.
He couldn't go down that road again, he knew he had to just hang in there, suck it up and be grateful for what he had. There were people who needed him to be alright.
One of them called quarter to seven and told him to go home.
Gerard had been working overtime again. The thought of drowning in piles of unfinished projects was something that scared him more than he was willing to admit.
"In a minute, Mikey," he said into his work phone while stuffing random sketches into folders, pushing wilted, stringy hair out of his eyes. "Don't worry about me, little brother."
“You make it really hard not to worry, sometimes,” Mikey's voice sounded with a hint of static, and Gerard halted a bit, smiling gently in the dark cubicle.
The building was almost empty already, the only light source coming from the small lamp clipped to the top of his drafting table. He liked it best this way. If he ignored the obnoxious cries of the traffic outside, and the crumble-rumble of the too enthusiastic ventilation system inside the building, it almost felt like being back in his mother's basement, sketching monsters for Mikey and Ray.
"Bye, Mikey. Going now," Gerard said pointedly as he threw his jacket on. It smelled like his cigarettes, and made Gerard fumble for a pack of Marlboro Lights from the hidden pocket inside the jacket. He was suddenly craving for a smoke more than anything in the world. Sometimes he got so distracted with the shape of a nose or the arch of an arm that he didn't even notice his cravings, but the oblivion was only momentary.
Gotta choose your poisons, Mikey had started saying, when he finally felt like it was something he could joke about around Gerard, waving his coffee mugs, and yeah, Gerard certainly had.
Mikey hung up without another word, but Gerard knew he was making faces at his sidekick, or rolling his eyes in his room.
--
Frank was still at work when Gerard got back on the ferry.
It was very quiet already, no customers around to bother Frank, which was probably a good thing considering the zombie-like state he seemed to have fallen in. His easy smile was replaced with hooded eyes and slumped shoulders, and he wasn't bouncing around anymore. He was actually just sitting on a stool behind the counter, toying with a metallic lighter, flickering fire on and off. The Hello My Name Is sticker was gone, and his bangs were sticking to his forehead awkwardly.
Gerard hesitated. He wasn’t really hungry, but he kinda wanted to have a conversation with Frank. The thing that was holding him back was his inability to have conversations with people he didn’t know. He wouldn't even know where to start with Frank. Mikey was the one you sought at parties and everywhere else, Gerard was the awkward dude in the corner you were going to ignore.
He shuffled his feet on the planks for a while, pep talking himself until he felt like he was ready to move.
Behind his counter Frank was biting his lip, completely focused on the tiny flame on top of the lighter. Gerard drew a heavy breath, then started taking slow steps towards him. He was so close already, and he almost made it there, but in the last possible moment he slumped down at the rickety table with the ink blotch, heart thumping in his chest, head swirling.
He stared out the window at the sea for a while, letting the soft rippling of waves relax him. The ferry wasn't so bad in the evenings. It was quieter and friendlier, and it was easier to focus on the rhythmic cries of the seagulls, get lost in them and in his thoughts.
As he stole a quick glance at Frank, Gerard noticed Frank talking to the blond guy from the morning, perked up and laughing again, rocking in his seat.
Gerard was still watching when Frank jumped down from the stool and chased the guy back into the kitchen with a dirty white towel and a loud wail of, "Bob Bryar, you motherfucking ass!" Bob complained and got a half-hearted swat aimed at Frank's hip before he shouldered the door open and disappeared out of sight.
Frank shook his head, snickering to himself as he started wiping the counter. He noticed Gerard blatantly staring after a while of scrubbing, and threw the rag away, then jogged over to him.
"Hey! Did you want to order something?" he asked. He looked tired, but he was still managing a friendly smile for Gerard. "We're a little low on, well, just about everything on the menu. Bob's actually working on a new one, but uh. I could ask him to make you a sandwich? That guy's fucking ace at coming up with these totally random but totally awesome filling combos."
Gerard blinked. His throat felt scratchy like sandpaper. He still wasn’t hungry, but he felt like food was a pretty good conversation starter considering Frank’s job. "I, er. Sandwich is fine?" He flushed, neck burning hot under his scarves.
Frank nodded eagerly, patting himself down for a while until he found a tiny notepad and a ballpoint pen from his jeans' back pocket and fished them out. He scribbled something down, biting his lip, and asked, "Any allergies or dislikes?"
"Er. Not that I can think of?" Gerard croaked, and Frank flashed teeth, grinning from ear to ear.
"Anything to drink?"
"Coffee?"
Frank looked up from his pad. "It's like, half-past eight, dude. You think that's a good idea?" he asked with an air of seriousness.
Gerard blinked hard at him.
Frank kind of had a point, but. Coffee! It was also the first time a waiter had questioned anything Gerard had ordered, even all those times when he was shitfaced drunk and should have been guided out of the bar, no one did anything, not even once.
"Juice?" Gerard asked hesitantly, and bit his crooked lip. Frank seemed satisfied with it and wrote it down on the pad.
"Coming right up. Oh man, you just made Bob's whole day. You're his very first customer. He was worried he'd have to go through his first day at work without anyone ordering anything to eat."
Gerard gave him a weak smile, thinking Frank must only be so nice to him so that this Bob guy wouldn't be disappointed with his first at day work. But it wasn't like Gerard could blame Frank. Gerard was Bob's last hope.
"Awesome," he said with a dull voice, and watched as Frank jogged down into the kitchen just barely dodging tables and chairs.
By the time Frank came back with Gerard's sandwich and a large glass of orange juice, Gerard had smoked two cigarettes and opened and closed his art folders several times before accepting the fact that sketching just wasn't doing it tonight.
Frank put the plate on the table and bowed down on him. He said his own shitty version of bon apetit that mostly just sounded like bonne appetite, and looked very pleased with himself.
"Wow, looks great," Gerard lied.
The sandwich looked somewhat questionable. Sprouts were bursting out of the crust, the white belly of the bread was soggy with yellow mayo, and some kind of deep red sausage inside the layers of wet wheaty toast peeked out crudely. It looked like the sandwich Gerard had eaten once on a car trip to Coney Island with his Mom, Dad and Mikey that had made him sick for hours. They'd had to park the car by a huge roadsign that was informing everyone with self-importance that you had just exited New Jersey, and Please Come Again while Gerard puked all over the plants. Gerard could still remember every detail like it was yesterday. He had gotten an Eak The Geek t-shirt from the gift shop as his mother's way of saying, 'I'm sorry, honey, next time we'll bring our own snacks', and Mikey hadn't said a word about not getting a shirt of his own; that's how pathetic Gerard had been.
He spared a glance at the sandwich on the plate under his chin, and swallowed hard. He would eat it, though. How could he not?
"Awesome! I'll let Bob know," Frank said happily, and, "Just holler if you need anything, okay?" he made Gerard promise before he found his way back to his chair behind the counter.
Gerard was still having a hard time not staring even though he was making some sort of an effort. He eyed his sandwich, then Frank, quickly turned to look at the seagulls and then Frank again. Frank obviously noticed because he laughed and waved, then ran into the kitchen, yelling something to Bob that Gerard couldn't make out of.
He hated himself for being intrigued.
--
During the night that followed, Gerard didn’t get much sleep, and he was forced to wake up a whole hour before the alarm, distracted by his thoughts.
He had been appointed a meeting with The Boss next Monday about the could-be-bright-and-shining-future of Mother War And The Parade Of The Dead that he really couldn't afford to fuck up. If he ever wanted out of his low-paid, hard-working, boring-as-hell coloring job, he needed the meeting to go well. He knew there was something there, that his ideas could one day exist inside hardcovers and paperbacks instead of just the tunnels of his mind, but first he needed to convince The Boss about it, and his papers looked like they could use some serious touching up.
Gerard sat down by his usual table on the ferry, opened one folder. Picking a paper at random, he started fixing up shadows, adding more detail. He occasionally glanced at Frank’s direction with a flutter in his chest. Frank was busy pouring coffee and smiling at people, toying with their breakfast plates.
Gerard stared at his drawing, gnawing on the head of his pencil. He hadn’t gotten very far with it. It wasn’t even that good. The Parade was disappearing in the background while Mother War in her gasmask and brown dress was gazing up at their retreating backs. He needed to add some skeletal gazelles or some shit. Gazelles were fucking awesome.
He stopped pondering for a while and frowned. He had a strange feeling of being watched. He looked up, then made a noise because it was Frank, right there, standing by his table.
"Two sugars, no milk, right?" Frank asked. He was holding a large mug of coffee in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other, thumb pressed nicely on the flat back of a lighter that was resting on top of the pack.
Gerard didn't even remember how to blink.
"Um, that's right? But I didn't order anything."
"Oh, no, this one's on me," Frank said and took a seat opposite to Gerard.
Gerard opened and closed his mouth.
"Last night?" Frank pressed. "It takes some effort to get Bob to show simple feelings like excitement -- guy likes to roll his eyes and grunt a lot -- like his bullshit actually works on anyone -- but last night, oh man. When I told him you liked his sandwich? He couldn't stop grinning like a fucking moron the entire fuckin' night. It was actually a little pathetic," Frank snickered.
And yeah, this cleared things up nicely for Gerard. Frank and Bob were obviously such a steady couple that they lived together -- entire fuckin' night -- and Frank worshiped the ground Bob walked on.
Gerard forced a smile, and swallowed a nasty lump down his throat. He didn't understand this disappointment. He had known Frank for a day, not even that, just the time it took for the ferry to glide to Manhattan and back. Basically nothing. Twenty minutes at the most.
"I'm glad," he said lamely, looking down at his hands.
"Hey," Frank said. He had been in the middle of shaking a cigarette in the cup of his palm, but he stopped abruptly and gave Gerard a concerned look. "I -- are you? I didn't mean to force my company on you or anything, I just. I'm taking a break since it's a pretty quiet morning and there's no customers anymore, and just. Fuck, sorry, I'll just. Go. Like, right now. Sorry."
"I, but," Gerard started. He actually lunged forward and grabbed Frank's wrist before Frank could leave. Gerard wasn't sure what he was doing. He just really wanted Frank to stay.
"You don't have to," he said, even managing an awkward, half-smile that he was kind of proud of. "I, er, I'd like it if you stayed?"
Frank frowned, black bangs in his eyes, thumb still pressing against the lid of the lighter; there was something carved on its metallic surface that looked a lot like a heart and the letters 'NJ'.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I, yeah," Gerard said, and quickly let go of Frank’s wrist.
Frank shrugged and sat back down.
"Okay," he said, looking doubtful. "But only if you're sure."
"I'm sure, like. Really really sure," Gerard said weakly, mentally flailing his arms, and did a bad job at ignoring the funny little flip his stomach made when Frank smiled widely at him.
--
After a week of strange encounters with Frank, Gerard finally gave up and called Mikey for brotherly advice.
"So what else is new," Mikey said in his I'm-so-bored-with-this-subject-already and how-are-you-still-so-fucking-oblivious voice that Gerard had become annoyingly familiar with over the years.
On top of it all, Gerard could hear the distinctive sound of Poptarts being unwrapped on Mikey's side of the line, like this wasn't something Mikey thought needed his full attention.
"Okay," Gerard decided to humor him. Sometimes Mikey made sense. "Care to elaborate?"
Mikey was quiet for a while. Then he said with a thoughtful voice, "No? Not really, dude." He had passed the unwrapping stage and was now munching on his tarts, and the phone call was starting to feel like a bad idea to Gerard.
"Mikey-"
"Okay okay, fine." Mikey clucked his palate and swallowed noisily. Gerard couldn't believe Mikey was the one losing his temper here. "It's like. You do this with everyone new. Do you remember how fucking long it took you to say a full sentence to Ray? And this Frank dude. Let him sell you a fucking coffee if he wants to. It's not like you don't like coffee."
"Yeah, but! He's fuckin' pushy as hell," Gerard defended. Anyone would get weirded out by Frank's forwardness. Anyone. Just yesterday evening Frank had fingered Gerard's Dawn Of The Dead hoodie and asked him what other zombie movies he was into. Then he had suggested some gay zombie film to Gerard because he looked like he'd be into ''fabulous and gay flesh-eating monsters'', not even being able to keep a straight face throughout the conversation.
"So let him be pushy," Mikey said. "Maybe it's his way of showing that he likes you."
Gerard choked on his spit.
"I mean, he'd probably wanna avoid you if he hated you," Mikey quickly reasoned.
"But he's with Bob! The awesomely cool chef dude!" Gerard wailed. The phone conversation was turning out to be one of the more awkward ones he had in a while.
Mikey made an 'eh' noise and Gerard could just tell he was giving him that look. The one where lots of frowning was happening, and what generally made Gerard feel pretty dumb.
"The one who looks like a Viking? You're just assuming again. Like, what do you know? Have you ever actually seen them together, doing something... couple-y?"
Gerard considered this. He had seen Frank trying to climb Bob's back various times before. It could be his way of marking his territory. Gerard went to art school; he had seen people do weirder stuff than that. "He climbed on Bob?" Gerard offered, distractedly pulling at the telephone cord.
Mikey made another noise. This time it was somewhere between a thoughtful hum, and what you got when you had just stuffed your mouth with cakes and then attempted to answer a simple question.
He tried again. This time more successfully. "He's short, right? Maybe he was trying to reach something and didn't have any chairs near him?"
"It's a motherfuckin' café, Mikey! Of course there's chairs!"
"All I'm saying is," Mikey started. In the background Gerard could hear Mikey's doorbell ringing. "It's prob'ly Ray," he said after a while, then hung up.
Gerard blinked at his red batphone replica for at least a full minute. It was his only phone, a Christmas present from Mikey two years back. It had been the highlight of his Christmas. They had spent hours calling it on Mikey's cell phone, taking turns in being Bruce Wayne and Commissioner Gordon.
It was currently making irritable tooting sounds. He pushed the receiver away, feeling lonely and dejected.
>>>
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating: R
Words: ~20 000
Summary: Socially awkward Gerard meets Frank the Friendly Cafeteria Worker on a ferry one morning. Shenanigans ensue.
Notes: Hey, it's the Ferry AU I've been talking about for months! This one gave me and my beta a lot of trouble, but now it's finally finished! I know this is a bad timing to post fic, everyone must be really busy right now, but if you have time to relax and read some fic, I hope you give this one a chance. :) Happy Holidays! I owe thanks to at least the following: turnyourankle, mxtape and greenjelloforst! It wouldn't be the same without you ♥ Not much research was made about ferries, so just bear with it.
All completely made up and fake.
Now also on AO3!
1/4 / 2/4 / 3/4 / 4/4
It was the kind of morning you wanted to sleep through: cold and early and dark. Thick pea-soup fog was always present in mornings like this, and sea air made fingers prickle from cold.
The clock was ticking somewhere between seven-thirty and the real hour Gerard could have woken up if he'd caved and moved to NYC while his mother was still offering to help with the costs. But Gerard loved New Jersey in a way you might love a ratty-furred, parasite-infested stray dog with a tendency to bite you in the shin with its blunt mauling teeth. Once you took it under your wing, gave it food and shelter, allowed it to sleep in your bed after losing a battle or two and cleaned up its shit, you couldn't really bring yourself to part with it anymore, couldn't turn your back on it even with all the trouble it brought you.
And it was love, unadulterated and strong, and it covered every little detail from the foggy space above sewer covers at night to the bridge he and Mikey weren't supposed to play in at ages of seven and ten, and eight and eleven, but did anyway.
Gerard was standing in line for coffee on his favorite ferry that took him to Manhattan every morning, silently musing to himself while trying to avoid eye contact with the other queuers. The ferry he chose this morning was the same one he had chosen every morning for almost two years now. It was relatively small, and had an air of coziness the other ones lacked. It looked like it had seen its best days sometime in the sixties, but it still somehow continued luring passengers in like it was brand new.
Gerard found it easy to get lost in his thoughts on mornings like this, in the loud hum of the people and the engines and the licking waves against the ferry frames. He didn't particularly mind waiting for the line to move, but it was almost eight already, and creeping into his mind there was a worry that he might not have his coffee by the time the ferry reached the platform.
Hitching his two folders further up his arm, he peeked over a big guy in his mid-thirties that Gerard had nicknamed Stupid Fucking Jackass earlier for cutting in line. The guy brought images of gym membership cards and The Hulk into Gerard's mind, things that he was not particularly fond of. There was a bushy head of hair two people ahead of Gerard blocking his vision. The hair could have belonged to Ray, if Ray had suddenly morphed into a skinny black female.
Eventually, the hair bobbed to one side, and over a row of shoulders Gerard saw something -- someone -- that he was not expecting to see. Good old Edie, with her cinnamon-bun hair and flowery shawls, wasn't behind the counter. Instead, there was a young twentysomething guy with an easy smile and large eyes, hair dyed in a way that made Gerard think of fucked up skunk stripes.
Gerard stared at him bemused, and gnawed on his lip without really even realizing he was doing it.
He was certain he had never seen this guy before, and he was almost positive that he was on the right ferry, too. He looked around, and yes, there was that one table in the corner, its wooden surface blotched with black ink where Gerard's pencils had ganged up on him some months ago. Definitely the right ferry.
Gerard wondered where Edie was. She had always been nice to Gerard, and she knew just how he liked his coffee. This guy though, he didn't even seem to get the line to move faster than a snail's speed, even if he was flailing around like a confused bird. He was relatively short and thin, but he was all over the place, his grin all huge and pretty as if the ferry was the only place he'd ever wanna be in.
Gerard toyed with his scarf ends, and couldn't stop fixing his hair behind his ears and touching his sleeves. He was sweating under layers of clothes, t-shirt and hoodie crammed inside his worn leather jacket. Under his scarves his neck felt red, hot and burning.
When his turn finally came, Gerard was finding it hard to stop staring at the new guy, and he smiled weakly at him, fumbling with his mug.
"Hi, I'm Frank, your friendly cafeteria worker," the guy said with a cheesy grin. He had a Hello My Name Is sticker tacked on his forehead, and a slapdash 'F'N'STEIN' written on it in black ink. "Sorry it took so long, I don't really know what the hell I'm doing." He laughed and it was like glass breaking.
"Uh?" said Gerard, nervously fiddling with his mug. The mug was black and huge, and he had carefully chosen it from the cart earlier before taking the rear end of the line, worried that he wouldn’t get the biggest one otherwise.
"Right, right, coffee, right? I mean, we've got tea, too, but you look like a coffee kind of guy," Frank babbled. His apron was black and there was a white skeleton print of a ribcage, hipbones and a nicely shaped spine on it, spanning the apron from top to bottom. It was really fucking cute on him.
Gerard opened his mouth to answer, but Frank made an 'oh shit' face and said, "Oh, fuck me, I didn't mean - shit, sorry. It's just, I love coffee, right? Couldn't get up in the morning without some, but tea's totally badass, too." He made a move to grab the teapot but Gerard quickly pulled his mug to his chest to protect it from the possibility of getting it filled with tea.
"But I like coffee," he blurted out.
Frank laughed at him.
Then someone yelled, what the fuck, man? Frank put his weight on his hands as he leaned over the counter, just brushing past Gerard, and eyeballed the whole queue. "Patience is, what do you call it?" he looked straight at Gerard.
Gerard wasn't sure if he was supposed to answer. He fumbled with his mug and smiled nervously at the angry customers behind him.
Then this big dude with pale hair and eyes walked in from the kitchen. He slowly blinked at Frank, made some sort of grunt while palming his face, and reached down to swat at Frank's ass hard enough to make a loud slapping sound. "Stop harassing the customers, Frank, and get back to work," he said.
"Wasn't harassing," Frank grumbled. There was a glass jar filled with sugar cubes under Frank's belly that he nearly knocked over while sliding down the counter. It shuddered some, but Frank quickly took a hold of it.
Asking with a sweet smile if Gerard liked some sugar in his coffee, Frank made him hold the mug out for him, and proceeded to measure out the right amount.
When Gerard finally got his coffee, the ferry was almost at the platform, and he walked away in a daze, Frank's loud obnoxious laugh in his ears.
--
From Manhattan Gerard took the commuter rail to work. It had always felt like a pretty shitty deal, the whole journey, and how it ate up his mornings; how he had to clamber out of bed at the crack of dawn just so he wouldn't be late for work, but he couldn't just go and abandon his pup.
So what if it was already late in the evenings when he got back home? It wasn't like he had important things to attend to; he hadn't even gone out with anyone besides Mikey and Ray in almost a year. Not since sobering up.
The train was crowded that morning. Gerard gave his seat to an old lady, and slouched by the window for the rest of his journey, trying to avoid bumping into people, which proved out to be harder than he thought.
The thing was though that Gerard had begun to feel somewhat dispassionate about his job.
When he was hired two years ago, he had been beside himself with joy, overwhelmed with all the possibilities the job could bring him. But when reality had finally kicked in, Gerard had realized that it was just long hours and endless stacks of projects with no end in sight. He had less time to work on his own comic ideas now than he had had before he started.
His days mostly consisted of staying in his cubicle until it was dark outside, whiling away the hours by coloring other people's works, and trying to do as well as he could because the competition was always tough.
As it were, Gerard was bored at work again.
He was tapping his pencil against the drafting table, thinking about Frank. Right now he was supposed to be coloring some Dark Tower strips for Marvel Comics, and it had Mikey and Dad excited as hell, but something was still missing. Gerard didn't feel the passion for his job anymore. The whole thing was starting to leave a bad taste in his mouth. If only he could get his own ideas out there, maybe then things would look up again.
There was always that thought of not being enough, that he was deemed to always just lurk behind the scenes, never making it out to the front of the stage. It nagged at his brain and brought him down, made him crave for things he knew he had to stay away from.
Last year, he had woken up in a puddle of his own vomit after passing out outside the corner bar. Last year he had felt like throwing himself over the balcony railing of his apartment building. Last year he'd made Mikey sick with worry, and knew he had to stop.
He couldn't go down that road again, he knew he had to just hang in there, suck it up and be grateful for what he had. There were people who needed him to be alright.
One of them called quarter to seven and told him to go home.
Gerard had been working overtime again. The thought of drowning in piles of unfinished projects was something that scared him more than he was willing to admit.
"In a minute, Mikey," he said into his work phone while stuffing random sketches into folders, pushing wilted, stringy hair out of his eyes. "Don't worry about me, little brother."
“You make it really hard not to worry, sometimes,” Mikey's voice sounded with a hint of static, and Gerard halted a bit, smiling gently in the dark cubicle.
The building was almost empty already, the only light source coming from the small lamp clipped to the top of his drafting table. He liked it best this way. If he ignored the obnoxious cries of the traffic outside, and the crumble-rumble of the too enthusiastic ventilation system inside the building, it almost felt like being back in his mother's basement, sketching monsters for Mikey and Ray.
"Bye, Mikey. Going now," Gerard said pointedly as he threw his jacket on. It smelled like his cigarettes, and made Gerard fumble for a pack of Marlboro Lights from the hidden pocket inside the jacket. He was suddenly craving for a smoke more than anything in the world. Sometimes he got so distracted with the shape of a nose or the arch of an arm that he didn't even notice his cravings, but the oblivion was only momentary.
Gotta choose your poisons, Mikey had started saying, when he finally felt like it was something he could joke about around Gerard, waving his coffee mugs, and yeah, Gerard certainly had.
Mikey hung up without another word, but Gerard knew he was making faces at his sidekick, or rolling his eyes in his room.
--
Frank was still at work when Gerard got back on the ferry.
It was very quiet already, no customers around to bother Frank, which was probably a good thing considering the zombie-like state he seemed to have fallen in. His easy smile was replaced with hooded eyes and slumped shoulders, and he wasn't bouncing around anymore. He was actually just sitting on a stool behind the counter, toying with a metallic lighter, flickering fire on and off. The Hello My Name Is sticker was gone, and his bangs were sticking to his forehead awkwardly.
Gerard hesitated. He wasn’t really hungry, but he kinda wanted to have a conversation with Frank. The thing that was holding him back was his inability to have conversations with people he didn’t know. He wouldn't even know where to start with Frank. Mikey was the one you sought at parties and everywhere else, Gerard was the awkward dude in the corner you were going to ignore.
He shuffled his feet on the planks for a while, pep talking himself until he felt like he was ready to move.
Behind his counter Frank was biting his lip, completely focused on the tiny flame on top of the lighter. Gerard drew a heavy breath, then started taking slow steps towards him. He was so close already, and he almost made it there, but in the last possible moment he slumped down at the rickety table with the ink blotch, heart thumping in his chest, head swirling.
He stared out the window at the sea for a while, letting the soft rippling of waves relax him. The ferry wasn't so bad in the evenings. It was quieter and friendlier, and it was easier to focus on the rhythmic cries of the seagulls, get lost in them and in his thoughts.
As he stole a quick glance at Frank, Gerard noticed Frank talking to the blond guy from the morning, perked up and laughing again, rocking in his seat.
Gerard was still watching when Frank jumped down from the stool and chased the guy back into the kitchen with a dirty white towel and a loud wail of, "Bob Bryar, you motherfucking ass!" Bob complained and got a half-hearted swat aimed at Frank's hip before he shouldered the door open and disappeared out of sight.
Frank shook his head, snickering to himself as he started wiping the counter. He noticed Gerard blatantly staring after a while of scrubbing, and threw the rag away, then jogged over to him.
"Hey! Did you want to order something?" he asked. He looked tired, but he was still managing a friendly smile for Gerard. "We're a little low on, well, just about everything on the menu. Bob's actually working on a new one, but uh. I could ask him to make you a sandwich? That guy's fucking ace at coming up with these totally random but totally awesome filling combos."
Gerard blinked. His throat felt scratchy like sandpaper. He still wasn’t hungry, but he felt like food was a pretty good conversation starter considering Frank’s job. "I, er. Sandwich is fine?" He flushed, neck burning hot under his scarves.
Frank nodded eagerly, patting himself down for a while until he found a tiny notepad and a ballpoint pen from his jeans' back pocket and fished them out. He scribbled something down, biting his lip, and asked, "Any allergies or dislikes?"
"Er. Not that I can think of?" Gerard croaked, and Frank flashed teeth, grinning from ear to ear.
"Anything to drink?"
"Coffee?"
Frank looked up from his pad. "It's like, half-past eight, dude. You think that's a good idea?" he asked with an air of seriousness.
Gerard blinked hard at him.
Frank kind of had a point, but. Coffee! It was also the first time a waiter had questioned anything Gerard had ordered, even all those times when he was shitfaced drunk and should have been guided out of the bar, no one did anything, not even once.
"Juice?" Gerard asked hesitantly, and bit his crooked lip. Frank seemed satisfied with it and wrote it down on the pad.
"Coming right up. Oh man, you just made Bob's whole day. You're his very first customer. He was worried he'd have to go through his first day at work without anyone ordering anything to eat."
Gerard gave him a weak smile, thinking Frank must only be so nice to him so that this Bob guy wouldn't be disappointed with his first at day work. But it wasn't like Gerard could blame Frank. Gerard was Bob's last hope.
"Awesome," he said with a dull voice, and watched as Frank jogged down into the kitchen just barely dodging tables and chairs.
By the time Frank came back with Gerard's sandwich and a large glass of orange juice, Gerard had smoked two cigarettes and opened and closed his art folders several times before accepting the fact that sketching just wasn't doing it tonight.
Frank put the plate on the table and bowed down on him. He said his own shitty version of bon apetit that mostly just sounded like bonne appetite, and looked very pleased with himself.
"Wow, looks great," Gerard lied.
The sandwich looked somewhat questionable. Sprouts were bursting out of the crust, the white belly of the bread was soggy with yellow mayo, and some kind of deep red sausage inside the layers of wet wheaty toast peeked out crudely. It looked like the sandwich Gerard had eaten once on a car trip to Coney Island with his Mom, Dad and Mikey that had made him sick for hours. They'd had to park the car by a huge roadsign that was informing everyone with self-importance that you had just exited New Jersey, and Please Come Again while Gerard puked all over the plants. Gerard could still remember every detail like it was yesterday. He had gotten an Eak The Geek t-shirt from the gift shop as his mother's way of saying, 'I'm sorry, honey, next time we'll bring our own snacks', and Mikey hadn't said a word about not getting a shirt of his own; that's how pathetic Gerard had been.
He spared a glance at the sandwich on the plate under his chin, and swallowed hard. He would eat it, though. How could he not?
"Awesome! I'll let Bob know," Frank said happily, and, "Just holler if you need anything, okay?" he made Gerard promise before he found his way back to his chair behind the counter.
Gerard was still having a hard time not staring even though he was making some sort of an effort. He eyed his sandwich, then Frank, quickly turned to look at the seagulls and then Frank again. Frank obviously noticed because he laughed and waved, then ran into the kitchen, yelling something to Bob that Gerard couldn't make out of.
He hated himself for being intrigued.
--
During the night that followed, Gerard didn’t get much sleep, and he was forced to wake up a whole hour before the alarm, distracted by his thoughts.
He had been appointed a meeting with The Boss next Monday about the could-be-bright-and-shining-future of Mother War And The Parade Of The Dead that he really couldn't afford to fuck up. If he ever wanted out of his low-paid, hard-working, boring-as-hell coloring job, he needed the meeting to go well. He knew there was something there, that his ideas could one day exist inside hardcovers and paperbacks instead of just the tunnels of his mind, but first he needed to convince The Boss about it, and his papers looked like they could use some serious touching up.
Gerard sat down by his usual table on the ferry, opened one folder. Picking a paper at random, he started fixing up shadows, adding more detail. He occasionally glanced at Frank’s direction with a flutter in his chest. Frank was busy pouring coffee and smiling at people, toying with their breakfast plates.
Gerard stared at his drawing, gnawing on the head of his pencil. He hadn’t gotten very far with it. It wasn’t even that good. The Parade was disappearing in the background while Mother War in her gasmask and brown dress was gazing up at their retreating backs. He needed to add some skeletal gazelles or some shit. Gazelles were fucking awesome.
He stopped pondering for a while and frowned. He had a strange feeling of being watched. He looked up, then made a noise because it was Frank, right there, standing by his table.
"Two sugars, no milk, right?" Frank asked. He was holding a large mug of coffee in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other, thumb pressed nicely on the flat back of a lighter that was resting on top of the pack.
Gerard didn't even remember how to blink.
"Um, that's right? But I didn't order anything."
"Oh, no, this one's on me," Frank said and took a seat opposite to Gerard.
Gerard opened and closed his mouth.
"Last night?" Frank pressed. "It takes some effort to get Bob to show simple feelings like excitement -- guy likes to roll his eyes and grunt a lot -- like his bullshit actually works on anyone -- but last night, oh man. When I told him you liked his sandwich? He couldn't stop grinning like a fucking moron the entire fuckin' night. It was actually a little pathetic," Frank snickered.
And yeah, this cleared things up nicely for Gerard. Frank and Bob were obviously such a steady couple that they lived together -- entire fuckin' night -- and Frank worshiped the ground Bob walked on.
Gerard forced a smile, and swallowed a nasty lump down his throat. He didn't understand this disappointment. He had known Frank for a day, not even that, just the time it took for the ferry to glide to Manhattan and back. Basically nothing. Twenty minutes at the most.
"I'm glad," he said lamely, looking down at his hands.
"Hey," Frank said. He had been in the middle of shaking a cigarette in the cup of his palm, but he stopped abruptly and gave Gerard a concerned look. "I -- are you? I didn't mean to force my company on you or anything, I just. I'm taking a break since it's a pretty quiet morning and there's no customers anymore, and just. Fuck, sorry, I'll just. Go. Like, right now. Sorry."
"I, but," Gerard started. He actually lunged forward and grabbed Frank's wrist before Frank could leave. Gerard wasn't sure what he was doing. He just really wanted Frank to stay.
"You don't have to," he said, even managing an awkward, half-smile that he was kind of proud of. "I, er, I'd like it if you stayed?"
Frank frowned, black bangs in his eyes, thumb still pressing against the lid of the lighter; there was something carved on its metallic surface that looked a lot like a heart and the letters 'NJ'.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I, yeah," Gerard said, and quickly let go of Frank’s wrist.
Frank shrugged and sat back down.
"Okay," he said, looking doubtful. "But only if you're sure."
"I'm sure, like. Really really sure," Gerard said weakly, mentally flailing his arms, and did a bad job at ignoring the funny little flip his stomach made when Frank smiled widely at him.
--
After a week of strange encounters with Frank, Gerard finally gave up and called Mikey for brotherly advice.
"So what else is new," Mikey said in his I'm-so-bored-with-this-subject-already and how-are-you-still-so-fucking-oblivious voice that Gerard had become annoyingly familiar with over the years.
On top of it all, Gerard could hear the distinctive sound of Poptarts being unwrapped on Mikey's side of the line, like this wasn't something Mikey thought needed his full attention.
"Okay," Gerard decided to humor him. Sometimes Mikey made sense. "Care to elaborate?"
Mikey was quiet for a while. Then he said with a thoughtful voice, "No? Not really, dude." He had passed the unwrapping stage and was now munching on his tarts, and the phone call was starting to feel like a bad idea to Gerard.
"Mikey-"
"Okay okay, fine." Mikey clucked his palate and swallowed noisily. Gerard couldn't believe Mikey was the one losing his temper here. "It's like. You do this with everyone new. Do you remember how fucking long it took you to say a full sentence to Ray? And this Frank dude. Let him sell you a fucking coffee if he wants to. It's not like you don't like coffee."
"Yeah, but! He's fuckin' pushy as hell," Gerard defended. Anyone would get weirded out by Frank's forwardness. Anyone. Just yesterday evening Frank had fingered Gerard's Dawn Of The Dead hoodie and asked him what other zombie movies he was into. Then he had suggested some gay zombie film to Gerard because he looked like he'd be into ''fabulous and gay flesh-eating monsters'', not even being able to keep a straight face throughout the conversation.
"So let him be pushy," Mikey said. "Maybe it's his way of showing that he likes you."
Gerard choked on his spit.
"I mean, he'd probably wanna avoid you if he hated you," Mikey quickly reasoned.
"But he's with Bob! The awesomely cool chef dude!" Gerard wailed. The phone conversation was turning out to be one of the more awkward ones he had in a while.
Mikey made an 'eh' noise and Gerard could just tell he was giving him that look. The one where lots of frowning was happening, and what generally made Gerard feel pretty dumb.
"The one who looks like a Viking? You're just assuming again. Like, what do you know? Have you ever actually seen them together, doing something... couple-y?"
Gerard considered this. He had seen Frank trying to climb Bob's back various times before. It could be his way of marking his territory. Gerard went to art school; he had seen people do weirder stuff than that. "He climbed on Bob?" Gerard offered, distractedly pulling at the telephone cord.
Mikey made another noise. This time it was somewhere between a thoughtful hum, and what you got when you had just stuffed your mouth with cakes and then attempted to answer a simple question.
He tried again. This time more successfully. "He's short, right? Maybe he was trying to reach something and didn't have any chairs near him?"
"It's a motherfuckin' café, Mikey! Of course there's chairs!"
"All I'm saying is," Mikey started. In the background Gerard could hear Mikey's doorbell ringing. "It's prob'ly Ray," he said after a while, then hung up.
Gerard blinked at his red batphone replica for at least a full minute. It was his only phone, a Christmas present from Mikey two years back. It had been the highlight of his Christmas. They had spent hours calling it on Mikey's cell phone, taking turns in being Bruce Wayne and Commissioner Gordon.
It was currently making irritable tooting sounds. He pushed the receiver away, feeling lonely and dejected.
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