Fic: "Gathered Here to Witness" (Frank/Gerard, NC-17)
Title: Gathered Here to Witness
Fandom: MCR
Pairing: Frank/Gerard, Mikey/Alicia
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Gerard flies in from France in time for Mikey and Alicia to walk down the aisle, and to meet Frank at smoker's lane. (~13,300 words)
Notes: Written for no_tags, based on shoemaster's prompt of WEDDINGS. With huge, HUGE thanks to brooklinegirl for being an awesome fucking beta, and to aneli8 for cheerleading even over my crazy. ♥ (Reposted.)
(The line Gerard bastardizes at the end is, of course, from At Swim, Two Boys, which was something I couldn't put in the notes anonymously without giving myself away HORRIBLY.)
(Now with a sequel: In The Springtime, NC-17, 30,000 words)
Part I.
"What, no suit?" Mikey doesn't sound like he cares, he seems mostly concerned for his own fucked-up tie. Gerard slaps his hands away as soon as he reaches him, and fixes it with a couple of neat tugs. When he pulls back, Mikey's raised an expressive eyebrow at him. "They teach you that in French art camp?"
Gerard rolls his eyes and steps back. "It isn't art camp. And you're a dick."
"It's my wedding day. I'm allowed to be a dick." He turns away and surveys his reflection in the mirror. Gerard turns enough to do it with him.
Mikey looks good. Alicia was right on insisting they kick it a little bit old school. The short-sleeved dress shirt would look strange in any other outfit, but the sharp vest, sharp slacks, and a bold-patterned tie all complete the look. Gerard is just man enough to admit that the fag in him is pleased. He hasn't been back long enough to know what Alicia is wearing, but he knows to count on her for a damn good show.
"Okay, checklist," Mikey says, sounding a hell of a lot like Mom. Gerard is a little freaked out, but possibly not as freaked out as Mikey.
"Yes," he says, because that is what you're supposed to say to a groom an hour before his nuptials.
"Rings."
"Got 'em." Gerard slips his hand in his jeans pocket just in case. The rings are snug and present. He looks back into the mirror to find Mikey's gaze tracking his every move.
"Okay," Mikey says, then blanches. "Shoes."
"On your feet." It isn't Gerard's duty this time to make sure Mikey has his shoes on, but he's happy to help, anyway.
"Right. Good." Mikey's eyes are a lot bigger than they've ever been. Gerard would laugh, but he's an older brother for a reason.
"Mikey."
"Yes."
"You will be okay," Gerard assures him, still watching their reflections in the mirror. "Got the vows?"
Mikey pats the front pocket of his vest and it makes a crinkling noise in answer.
"Good. Got a bride?"
Mikey's gaze softens the tiniest bit. "I'm pretty sure she's across the hall. If you wanted to check, that'd be cool."
Gerard watches him for signs of irony or mocking. He gives up after a few seconds, and obediently leaves the room, stepping out into the quiet hallway like he's waiting for the storm to arrive.
It's eerily quiet. He isn't sure what kind of hustle and bustle he was expecting, but there is no noise coming from downstairs at all. He doesn't even know the size of the wedding, that's how out of it he's been. He feels bad, but then again, they shouldn't have planned a wedding in four months. He could have helped, if they'd waited longer.
When he knocks on the bridal party's door, it opens to something akin to a vaudeville dressing room. Ah. So, that's where the insanity is.
Between Alicia's mother, Alicia's brothers, Alicia's maid of honor, three random children Gerard doesn't know, and his own mother, hovering and barking out instructions, he doesn't see Alicia until he's halfway into the room. When she turns around and spots him, it's like the skies parting. She looks stunning.
Her hair is up in a kind of side French braid, wrapped all around her head like a black halo, and tucked into the side is a blue daisy. Her face is open and bright, beaming. The yellow dress has a wide poufy skirt down to below her knees; her shoes match the blue of the daisy. The ink on her chest is like an elaborate necklace, her only accessory besides the flower. It spreads all down her arms, weaves around her skin.
"Gee!" She elbows her way past the clucking hens and runs up to him like it's been forever. He hugs her, smelling the faint jasmine of her perfume, closes his eyes. He thinks, sister.
"Hey, beautiful," he whispers. He pictures Mikey fretting in the room across the hall and wonders if he knows how lucky he is. Then he thinks, he doesn't need to wonder. Mikey knows.
"You took long enough to get here, huh?" She lets him go and punches him on the shoulder. He rubs at it, 'cause she's a bruiser. She's bouncing on her toes; it's like her face has forgotten how not to smile. Gerard can't stop smiling back. "He okay?"
Gerard makes an a-okay sign with his hand. "Freaking out, obviously, but he's fine."
"Shoes?"
"On."
"Good." She bites her lip, and keeps on grinning. "You look awesome."
"Not the word I would use," he hears Mom's voice and there she is, watching him with that special Mom look, the kind that tells him she still hasn't forgotten that time he decided to entertain her friends by stepping out in her heels and lipstick. You were seven! Oh, I should have known. Afterwards, she and Helena bought him tiny pink slippers and told him that when he grew up a little bit, they would teach him the correct ways of applying lipstick. Just like painting, honey. Stay inside the lines.
"Mom." His voice is muffled by the scratchy lace over her shoulder. "Sorry I didn't call. The plane was delayed."
"I knew you'd show," she tells him, then pushes him away and squints. "Have you showered?"
Gerard rolls his eyes. "Mom, I barely got here as it is."
"You smell like airport and somebody else's ass, Gee. Take a goddamn shower. Don't you have any better clothes? Your brother's getting married, for Christ's sake."
He can still hear Alicia's giggle as he leaves the room, towel and bar of soap in hand. He has no idea how women get all this stuff. Then again, it's helpful that they're at an inn, he supposes.
"So?" Mikey's eyes have grown even bigger in the time Gerard's been gone and he hasn't moved away from the mirror.
"You have a gorgeous bride and a really annoying mother. I've been ordered to shower."
Mikey wrinkles his nose and laughs. "Not a bad call. But you can keep the outfit."
"You're the soul of generosity," Gerard intones and goes in search of a bathroom.
*
Alicia walks down the aisle to "Here Comes the Sun" and everybody cries. The daisy tucked behind her ear looks like it could flutter away at any moment. When Gerard turns to Mikey, he looks much the same. The entire garden is a burst of color, green bushes, yellow and red and blue flowers, pastel-colored guests.
The vows are simple and make his mother sob so hard, the JP has to grant her a delicate pause to pull herself together. There is the tiniest of giggles from the audience. Mikey rolls his eyes.
The rings are platinum bands, which Gerard has kept warm and safe. His heart pounds when he hands them over, then abruptly lightens. First duty done and over with. He smiles for the rest of the ceremony.
The photographer gets down on the ground and Gerard knows there will be a picture of Alicia's foot going up when her husband kisses her for the first time. He's already planning the kind of frame to make them for it.
They walk back down the aisle clutching hands, and Gerard doesn't realize he's leaking until he's wiping it away and blushing. He catches someone's eye and laughs through the embarrassment. His kid brother, man.
*
There is no head table, but there are place cards. He is seated next to Ray, whom he knows, and an intimidating-looking blond guy named Bob, whom he doesn't. Also, an intimidating-looking redhead named Chantal, and Alicia's younger brother, who will never be intimidating. There is another place card at the table, but the guest must not have shown, and that means more for the rest of them.
He realizes only after five minutes that it's the best table he could have gotten. Bob is quiet, and works with Mikey at Skeleton. Every now and then he pipes up with a comment that comes out of nowhere, and makes Gerard double over with laughter.
Chantal is an honest to God burlesque performer. Gerard pictures her in a corset, handling a riding crop, and his dick gets oddly happy about the image. He briefly wonders if they need to have a talk about proper reactions to late-onset heterosexuality, or if Chantal just translates across the board. Her tits imply that she is an any-and-all -orientations kind of gal.
After Mikey and Alicia had their first dance, and Mom cried into her second hankie, each table received a bottle of red, a bottle of white, and a bottle of "let's pretend this is for the children and not any recovering alcoholics who might be in attendance today" sparkling cider. Gerard appreciates the gesture, as well as the fact that they didn't cheap out on either kind.
"So, Gerard," Chantal says, turning her impressive cleavage on him. Gerard can see Peter zoning in on those puppies like they're dinner and elbows him discreetly in the ribs. He's never been happier to be gay and no longer a teenager in his life.
"Yes?"
"Why have we never met?" Her voice is husky like a porn star's. Gerard gets momentarily mesmerized by it.
"I've been away." He sips his cider in order to cover up this slight identity crisis.
"French art camp?"
"Oh for - it's not camp," he sighs and gives Mikey a mental noogie. "It's a retreat. For artists."
"Like a camp for adults," she clarifies for him, eyes serious.
"Well, there were grants involved, and my work is a bit too large to fit on a fridge door, but fine. A camp for adults," he capitulates. Mikey has always been amazing at wearing Gerard down even across miles and oceans.
"What's your work like?" she asks him next, and he seeks escape. His work is just too difficult to sum up off-handedly like this, it could take hours.
"Crazy," Peter supplies.
"He draws a lot of dick," Mikey's voice pops out of nowhere and Gerard groans and buries his head in his hands.
"I hate you."
"You can't hate me. I'm a married man!" The glee in Mikey's voice is nearly audible over Chantal’s hooting laughter.
"That doesn't make any sense," Gerard reminds him, but looks up and smiles, anyway. "Jesus, married."
"Fuck, I know, right?" Mikey makes huge eyes at him and damn, it is so weird. He was a skinny-ass kid with glasses only five minutes ago. Gerard is old.
*
He goes for his first smoke after salad is served. He considers this to be a feat of gigantic proportions. Mom made him promise that he wouldn't smell like smoke for at least half an hour. Her lending him her lighter, his own having been taken away by CDG security, was a present for his brother getting married.
"Oh my God, do you have another one?"
The unfamiliar voice cuts through the smoky happiness of Gerard's brain and he turns to see a guy watching him with - wow, really pretty eyes. Colorful tattoos spill out of his rolled-up sleeves and there's even a splash over the collar of his button-down. Gerard's extending his pack before his brain has managed to process the fact that he's wasting French smokes on someone he's never met.
"I'm Gerard." Apparently his brain is determined on fixing the problem.
"Frank," the guy says and looks at Gerard like he’s Christ reincarnated. It’s oddly compelling. "I got held up between the ceremony and the reception, and now I feel like an idiot. Thus, smoke break," Frank says.
"There was a whole hour of cocktails in between," Gerard reminds him, wondering what could possibly have held him up. "Did you fall in the fountain or something?"
Frank actually blushes. Gerard can't believe it; it's too unreal.
"If I said yes, would you believe me?"
"No."
"Well, it happened."
Gerard blinks. "No fucking way."
"Way," Frank confirms with a sigh. Now that he's looking for it, Gerard can make out the wit tips of his dark hair curling over his neck. He’s wearing no tie, and a sheepish expression.
"You fell in? How?"
Frank lights the cigarette and takes a drag before shaking his head and laughing. He's got a high-pitched giggle Gerard thinks he could draw in baby blue. "I wanted to be able to see the first kiss."
Gerard lifts a thumb and squints as he first measures up Frank's height, then turns his thumb on the fountain in question, splashing innocently in the garden. "I can see how you might have had a problem there," he says.
"What the hell was that?" Frank demands, looking at Gerard like he grew several heads and chopped them all off right in front of him.
Now it's Gerard's turn to blush. "Sorry. I'm an artist. Measuring distances and proportions is kind of second nature at this point."
Frank's face clears and he cackles and slaps his hand on the wall. "You're Gerard."
"Oh God."
"Mikey's brother."
"Yes. What has he been saying about me." Sometimes it is really difficult having a kid brother who knows everyone while you escape to hermitic retreats several bodies of water away.
Frank just shrugs, still smiling. His skin has a tinge to it, drawing out something Italian in the tan, maybe. Gerard pictures cypress trees and olives in white dishes. "That you're an artist and you went to France to prance among your natives."
Gerard stares.
"Mikey's words, not mine," Frank allows. "What does that mean, anyway? Mikey's Jersey through and through."
Gerard sighs the sigh of the long put-upon, wonders how it is that a human being who's been on this Earth a significantly shorter amount of time than himself can make him feel like the biggest dork on the planet, and replies, "I received a large grant to work at an artist's retreat outside of Grenoble."
Frank whistles. "Wow. That's a lot heavier than the way Mikey described it."
Gerard nods, mollified for the time being. "It wasn't camp."
"Of course not." Frank's eyes crinkle at the corners. "So, what do you do?"
"Hmm?"
"Your art, what do you do?" Frank gestures with his cigarette, drawing questions with the curves of his smoke.
"My work is - abstract," Gerard starts, then thinks screw it, and sags against the wall. "I mostly focus on the human form, anatomy, stuff like that."
"What does that mean?" Frank demands. Apparently, his previous embarrassment is all but forgotten. Gerard has a perverse desire to throw him back in the fountain.
"I draw a lot of dick," he says instead and watches Frank sputter. It's incredibly satisfying.
After Frank stops bugging his eyes out at him, he squints and lifts his chin. "How is that working out for you?"
Gerard grins and licks his lips. "Pretty well, actually. I literally get paid for it."
"For drawing dick." Frank shakes his head. "Man, if my life were that easy."
Gerard would normally bristle at the implication, but he thinks he might want to draw Frank. Maybe not even nude. He just wants to capture the sun on his face, the smile that travels all across his face, not knowing where to land. He thinks of Alicia and her grin, of Mikey and his soft eyes.
"My life is pretty great," he finally admits and takes another drag. "What do you do?"
He can see Frank pursing his lips like he just held something back. Gerard calls him on it. "Hey, now. I told you mine, you tell me yours. And quickly, or we'll miss the cake. I have a toast to make."
Frank laughs and ducks his head. Gerard just smiles at him. It's irresistible. "I work with Mikey."
"You work for Skeleton?"
"In a way," Frank smiles. It's an adorable smile and maybe that's why it takes Gerard a moment.
"Oh," he says. "You're Frank." As in, Iero. As in, owner of Skeleton Records.
“Yep, I am. What’s he said about me?” Frank squints against in the setting sun.
Gerard is about to open his mouth and tell him that it’s possible Mikey has described Frank as a "midget freak with too much energy and time on his hands," but he gets interrupted before he can even start.
"Gerard Arthur Way, I am going to kill you!"
Gerard drops his cigarette. Frank whips around and there's Mom behind him, bearing down on Gerard like she'd just caught him drinking on school property. He has to remind himself that he is thirty two and not fifteen. It doesn't help.
"Hi, Mom!" He goes for innocent, and hits just this side of guilty.
"You're supposed to be giving your toast and you're out here, smoking? Oh, hi, Frankie, how are you, dear?" Her words are a torrent of rage and familiarity all at once. Gerard blinks.
"Hi, Mrs. Way!" Frank waves and cocks his head in a smile. Gerard rushes up to his mom, ignores Frank smirking at him out of the corner of his eye, and kisses her on the cheek.
"I lost track of time, I'm sorry."
She shakes her head and pushes him towards the door. He hears her muttering to Frank behind him. "Honestly, showing up in jeans and a t-shirt, wearing Chucks, for Christ's sake."
Right before Gerard rounds the corner, he hears Frank answer, "Well, he's an artist, they never conform. Trust me, I work with ones a lot worse. Plus, that's a pretty nice jacket."
*
The mic is already on when he goes to switch it on, so of course that means it gives a feedback loop so loud every single guest in the place winces. Gerard looks out at his own table and Frank is there parked by Gerard's empty seat, smirking.
Gerard looks away and coughs like a loser. He's an artist. He's not a performer, for crying out loud. The things he does for Mikey.
Who's also smirking at him, but Alicia is giving Gerard a huge earnest stare of encouragement, so he goes with it.
"Hi, everyone." He doesn't look anywhere but down as he starts. He would try to picture the audience naked, but that way lies porn-ridden napkins and scandal. Instead, he looks at his Mom-reviled Chucks, clutches the mic, and begins. "As best man, I am forced to say good things about the groom. I'm not sure there's a whole speech in there."
He hears a smattering of laughter, and it perks him up. He quirks his mouth at Mikey, and continues the speech watching both him and Alicia. He pretends there's nobody else there.
"But I guess I can try. Actually, I want to talk about them both, and not just because Alicia is amazing and Mikey doesn't deserve her. It's because I've never met two people better suited for each other. If I had to hand-pick my brother a life partner, Alicia is exactly who I would choose, time and time again."
He watches her face for signs of embarrassment and she watches him back and bites her smiling lips. He turns to the audience for the first time, eyes up, his voice gaining.
"She is kind and beautiful. Laid back but tough when she needs to be. She is also willing to spend the rest of her life getting Mikey to stop electrocuting himself in bath tubs." More laughter skitters across the crowd. "She is basically everything he could have hoped for. I’m so -" he pauses and feels the stupid bubbling in his chest, watches Mikey's eyes. The audience is now silent. "I'm so touched and proud to be able to call her a sister."
Here he takes a breath and tangles the mic cord between his fingers.
"Growing up, I knew that long-term love existed, of course. Our parents have been married for longer than even I’d like to admit."
Another smattering of laughter and he catches Frank's eye by accident. His face is open and curious and Gerard - Gerard likes it. His eyes stay on Frank as he continues.
"But it was different, you know? Their love was for old people; I didn't think our generation could have it." Frank's dark eyebrow twitches. Gerard isn't sure how he even notices. "But seeing Mikey with Alicia by his side, well. I only wish our grandma was alive to see him."
He finally breaks Frank's unwavering gaze and turns back to Mikey and Alicia. "I love you both so very much. Please have lots of babies so they, too, can believe in old-people love."
Mikey flips him off as he's laughing and Alicia sticks out her tongue. Gerard grins and turns back to the audience.
"Please lift your glasses to the beautiful couple!"
He lifts his mic in lieu of the glass as the guests toast, drink, and clamor for Mikey and Alicia to give them a tiny preview of the wedding night. Gerard stays there as long as he can, and finally beats a hasty retreat to his table after Mikey's retrieved his tongue back from Alicia's throat, and squeezed Gerard's hand in passing.
He wishes that the sparkling cider had the same calming effect that beer used to, but then again, the bubbles feel nice, and he knows the lack of aftereffects will be even nicer. He settles for gulping the entire glass when Frank tilts his head and just squints at him. Gerard has no idea what he's doing. When Frank doesn't stop staring after Gerard's glass is empty, he sets it down and asks, "What? Do I have something on my face?"
Frank shakes his head and shrugs. "You and Mikey look different."
Gerard looks around the table to see if anybody else is hearing this. Nobody else seems to care - Bob and Ray involved in some quiet discussion about bats, he thinks, Peter watching Chantal chatting to Dad across the room with wistful lusty eyes.
"Yes," Gerard finally confirms for Frank. "We do."
"But not. Like. You have similar eyes, but yours pop more."
Gerard blinks. "Pop?" The images conjuring in his mind are pretty unpleasant.
Frank waves his hand around. His tattoos shift in the light. "You know, they're, like, out there. Mikey hides his."
Gerard's brain has no idea which way to spin - flattered that Frank has noticed his poppy eyes, or upset that he seems to have given Mikey's the same consideration. Either way, it sends his stomach churning. Watching Frank, he feels like a kid; he feels like Peter.
"Huh," is what he says, and goes to refill his glass with the fake bubbly. "I guess Mikey's more reserved than me."
When he looks at Frank over his glass, Frank has one hand slung over the back of the chair, and he's sprawled, relaxed. Gerard has a ridiculously hard time not letting his eyes stray where Frank is most, well, inviting. His black pants are too tight for that kind of sprawl; this wedding isn't supposed to be R-rated. What Frank says, holding Gerard's gaze and pouring himself a glass from Gerard’s bottle, is, "Maybe it's the eyes, then."
Gerard has to track back to the last thing he said. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe."
"Hey, Gee, Gerard, sorry, I need your help," Peter interrupts and tugs on his sleeve and Gerard is almost grateful for it, because Peter's easy, Peter is small potatoes compared to the stare of this guy who appeared in Gerard's life only half an hour ago.
Gerard spends the next twenty minutes talking Peter through his emotional turmoil which revolves around Chantal's chest and Peter's virgin dick, and that's comforting and familiar territory. Reserved Mikey used to sprawl on Gerard's floor and weep openly about girls who wouldn't give him the time of the day.
Then he hit puberty and never looked back. All the awkward adolescence was settled onto Gerard's then-hefty shoulders. He bore it only marginally well.
*
Dinner is delicious. Gerard smells more of it than he eats, weirdly not hungry, but he is craving another cigarette. The guests have all begun to mingle more and more, and he knows the dancing portion will begin soon, and he needs to fortify himself. The sky outside is fading blue being overtaken by pink. It probably smells gorgeous. He excuses himself to no one, as he's the only one left at the table, and shuffles outside. It's still warm, but the air has a slight bite to it. He breathes it in, allows it to stir the hair on his forehead. He watches a few others partake of the nicotine all down the smokers' lane.
He's not surprised to see Mom join him a minute later and greets her with a smoke and a smile.
"Hey, baby," she says quietly. All her duty has been done, too, he thinks. She got Mikey here. She got him through it. Now she stands here, smoking and quiet.
"Hey, Mom," he answers and props his shoulder against the wall to face her better.
She's older than she was a year ago. He saw her on Christmas, but it was such a whirlwind of gifts and parties; they barely got a chance to talk to each other. The grooves on her cheeks and under her eyes remind him of tree bark, the most obvious metaphor for the years' passing.
"How's tricks?" she asks and her gravelly voice makes him feel like he's back in their kitchen, catching up over cereal and coffee.
"Tricks is good." He takes a drag, and thinks, should I? "Tricks is having a showing soon, actually." He exhales and squints against the smoke.
"Oh, yeah? In France?"
"Paris, yeah." He hasn't told anyone, it's felt too huge. "Nothing - I mean, it's just a smallish gallery." In Paris.
"In Paris," she echoes and watches him like only Mom can, the kind of pride that makes his heart pinch. "Helena's up there very happy right now," she notes and his laugh almost comes off as a sob. What a weird day, he thinks a little wildly.
"I know," he says after a beat and his voice catches. "I feel her when I'm over there."
"She's with you," Mom agrees and reaches out a dry hand to pat his own. Their cigarettes spark together. "You okay?" she asks, Mom through and through, matter-of-fact, but still totally prying.
He nods the truth. "I'm great. I missed you."
She smiles and nods. "Of course you did, I'm your mother. But a week'll be plenty, you'll see."
She's probably right, but right now, he's so happy to have this week stretching ahead of him, filled with no expectations, just the people he needs, and home.
"Still seeing Paul?" she asks next and he scrunches up his face in answer. "So, it didn't work out," she intones. "Well, the next one will."
"Mikey's happy," Gerard evades and she smiles.
"He is." She takes one last drag and crushes the cigarette with her heel. "All right, kid, going back in. Your father is already kind of sloshed. You go say hi to him sometime tonight, all right? He's barely gotten to see you."
Gerard vows to say hi to Dad, and watches her walk away. He's down to the filter, too, which means it's time to go back, so he follows her in.
*
Music blares out of the speakers and about half the room is crammed onto the slippery dance floor. The DJ looks like he probably works at Skeleton, kind of familiar, and Gerard spots Ray's hair by the speakers. It bobs seriously to the beat.
He slouches against the wall. The tiny white lights lining the walls and ceiling make everything look warm and clean. It's a beautiful place, out of the way and comforting. They probably couldn't have found a better one if they had a year to plan.
"You dance?"
Frank is right beside him. How does he do that? Gerard smiles despite himself. "Nah, I just watch."
"Like a creep." Frank sounds like he's confirming something he already knows.
Gerard rolls his eyes. "Not a creep, an observer. I'm an -"
"Artist, I know. You watch for artistic value. I dig it," Frank says and he's grinning and beautiful. Gerard can really appreciate his face, the small neat nose, the square cut of his jaw, the dark hair framing his face. Gerard's an artist. He appreciates beautiful things.
"Exactly," he nods. "Plus, it's fun." It's true. He enjoys being a creep sometimes. He is a creep with boundaries.
Frank, apparently, agrees. "It is fun." His grinning eyes catch the light and shimmer. What a girly thought. "But dancing is also fun. You should try it."
"I'm not really that great at it," Gerard admits, even though that's kind of a lie. He just doesn't like other people being present when he's shaking his groove thing.
"What, you don't do the white man's sway?" Frank asks, and demonstrates. His lips stretch into a devious expression.
"Why?" Gerard knows the answer, because the music has turned slow and terribly romantic. What he doesn't know is why he's kind of resisting.
"'Cause I want to dance. Dance with me?" Frank asks, and he's suddenly closer and his hand is brushing against Gerard, like a little kid asking for permission for a treat.
Gerard can't say no. He opens up his fingers and curls them around Frank's and nods slowly in answer.
They do the white man's sway. Gerard can't resist a crack about Frank doing the girl part because he's so short. Frank notes that Gerard can't lead for shit.
"It's true," Gerard agrees. "We're both pretty pathetic at this."
"Hey, at least we're pretty good with the swaying."
They are. Frank is shuffling along, sometimes leading, sometimes letting Gerard fumble it all on his own. Their feet don't get in each other's way only because they're mostly revolving in one spot. Still, his hands prickle where he's holding Frank's waist, warm through the fabric, and soft. All his nerves seem to be concentrated in his fingers and around the back of his neck, where Frank's bare forearms are wrapped in a loose hold.
Frank looks him in the eye and Gerard thinks, what is this? He feels overheated and a little bit shaky and he can't resist bringing Frank just a little bit nearer. It's like he wants to leech off his heat, but he has plenty of heat on his own, and together they're like a furnace.
Then Frank turns him a little to the left, and Gerard almost swallows his tongue. Peter is hanging on Chantal's neck, his face practically smooshed into her chest, and judging by the carefully stiff way she's holding herself, she's trying to be a good sport about the boner he's so obviously popped in his dress pants.
Gerard giggles and Frank immediately demands to know what he's laughing about. Gerard just nods his head in Peter's direction and Frank hides his face against Gerard's shoulder and shakes with laughter. Gerard breathes through it and tries to hold them both up steady.
After the dance is done, they break apart slowly. Gerard feels like he's grown an extra set of limbs. It takes him a while to figure out which way to turn his feet, where to put his hands. They're itching to be back around Frank.
Instead, he goes for another smoke. Frank follows.
*
"So, how did you get started with Skeleton?"
Gerard makes them stand a ways away from the people smoking in clusters around the shrubbery, because he doesn't feel like engaging anybody else in conversation.
"Hell if I remember." Frank is fumbling with the lighter, his thumb missing the clicker. Gerard steps in to help before he can think about it. His fingers brush over Frank's knuckles and he pulls them away and feels like an idiot. Frank mumbles a thanks, then inhales. Gerard takes another step back, settles against the wall.
He gathers some control over his thoughts and says, "Well, you wound up owning a record company. There must have been steps that you took that led you there."
Frank sighs dramatically, then spoils the effect by laughing. "All right, well. I dropped out of college because I loved my shitty-ass interning position at Eyeball much better than my Theory of Personality psych classes."
Gerard nods. He was around the scene long enough to know Eyeball was important shit.
"My mom loved that, by the way," Frank mumbles around his cigarette and puffs. Gerard laughs. "Right, so I begged the guys over there to give me a full time gig, which they did."
"She must have loved that, as well," Gerard notes.
"You bet." Frank lifts his chin and looks like nothing more than a punk kid from Jersey. "And that's how I got started in the business," he explains.
"Right." Gerard is pretty sure there's more to the story. "Now to the part where you own your record company at, what, twelve?"
"Seriously, how many short jokes you got under those sleeves?" Frank complains, but he's still grinning. Gerard just watches him and knows that he's grinning back.
After a moment of thoughtful silence, Frank looks away into the fast receding line of the sunset and furrows his brow, like he's trying to remember. "I wanted to do my own thing, build up a whole different kind of company, you know?" He scratches the back of his neck and Gerard watches the cherry of his cigarette and tries not to picture Frank setting his hair on fire. "It started in my mom's basement with, like, spray paint and Hanes t-shirts," Frank says, finally dropping his hand.
"Spray paint? That give you a lot of start-up?" Gerard quirks an eyebrow.
Frank imitates him and ashes on the ground. "I had ambition. Also, I'm a pretty smart guy, I don't know if Mikey's mentioned that." He looks dead serious, but there's a tell-tale twitching happening around the lips. Gerard rolls with it.
"He might have mentioned it," he allows. "But he's really mostly mentioned the short thing."
Frank gives another dramatic sigh and slouches against the wall in a mirror image. "I guess we're even, Mister French Art Camp."
Gerard is surprised by his own laugh. "True." Mikey's way of showing affection is different from other people's.
Then Frank tilts his head again, like it makes him see things better. "What about you, with the art? How did that happen, the big grant in Grenoble?"
"Went to art school, graduated, moved back with my parents." Gerard rattles off, then thinks about it. "Made a studio in the attic and just - I don't know. Made art," he encompasses with a sweep of his hand. "I guess I sold enough to build myself a reputation."
He'd applied for the grant because he'd never been outside of Jersey. Because he needed to get away. Because he was sober; because Bert.
"So you always wanted to do art?"
"Mmm, yes. Except for the couple of years I wanted to be in a band," he admits sheepishly.
Frank's eyebrows shoot up in an endearing sort of arc. "Seriously? What happened?"
"Didn't take," Gerard says. "I mean, I could sing. You know. Can sing. But the other guys were lacking." He realizes how that sounds a beat after it leaves his mouth. Oops.
Frank is quick. "Wow, no ego problems, or anything," he grins.
"Sorry, I know." Gerard huffs a breath. "No, but seriously. It just. Maybe it wasn't the right time or some shit."
Frank hums in agreement. "Yeah, ditto."
"Ditto?"
"Yeah, I did the whole band thing the five minutes I was in school," Frank replies and tosses his butt away. His hands find their way into his pockets like they don't know where else to settle. He looks a bit awkward without the cigarette, a bit tilted and off-balance. Gerard wishes he could follow the hunch of his shoulders with a pencil.
"So, what happened?"
"Oh, you know, couple of punk bands, nothing too serious, I guess. I loved making music, I still play and shit -"
"Oh yeah? Let me guess." Gerard pretends to think hard. "Guitar. Right? Unless it's the kazoo." He pauses. "It's totally the kazoo, isn't it?"
Frank looks mildly offended for a split second, then shrugs it off with an easy grin. "Can't live without the kazoo."
Gerard laughs. Then, "No, but - guitar, right?" Suddenly, he wants to see Frank with a strap around his neck, fingers on the frets, lost in it.
"Yeah, guitar," Frank shrugs." And bass. Some drums. I don't know, stuff here and there." Frank plays it off like it's no biggie. Jesus, how is this guy real. Gerard is not above admitting a total thing for musicians. Versatile musicians are just a bonus.
"Wow. So, you still play?" Gerard is now picturing Frank on stage. Is he the strong-and-steady, all about the playing kind of guy, or is he wild and crazy? He hopes he's wild and crazy. Then he realizes he's being kind of wild and crazy himself.
Frank smiles at him like he knows. "Yeah, I still play. I fill in for a couple of bands, sometimes tour with them. It's a blast, but…" He peters out, watching his own foot make patterns in the gravel.
"Yeah?"
Frank slides a hand out of his pocket long enough to scratch at the back of his neck. "I love Skeleton, so that's where my head is at most of the time."
Gerard nods. "Mikey's crazy about his job," he says. "Seriously. Like, nuts over it."
"Well, we're nuts about Mikey." Frank grins and shakes his head. "Man, France."
Gerard's brain doesn't catch up quickly enough. "Hmm?"
"I just. France. How long you in France for?" Frank asks and for the first time sounds almost unsure of himself.
Gerard feels a weird kick in his gut, but ignores it. He answers honestly. "Until I run out of money or Grenoble runs out of coffee and paints, I guess." Although. "Soon, I guess. I've been feeling pretty homesick recently," he admits.
Frank nods. His lips lift up the tiniest bit. Gerard's fingers itch for a pencil again. "What's it like?"
"Grenoble?"
Frank nods.
"Hmm." Gerard has no idea how to put it, so he goes for simple. "Old. Beautiful. Foreign, but that sounds stupid, doesn't it?"
Frank shakes his head. "Nah. When I was a kid, my parents took me to see where my grandparents came from in Sicily. It was beautiful and old, too. I get that."
Gerard laughs and takes his last drag, lingering. "Ever been to France?"
Frank's response is immediate. "The French are snooty."
"Maybe," Gerard hedges. "But the language is beautiful. You can, I don't know, lose yourself in the flow. And the countryside, too." He looks out at the fading garden, and thinks about riding the train down to the Côte d'Azur. The sizzling sun outside the window, green grass, golden stones along the coast.
"Mmm."
Frank's voice shakes Gerard out of it and he smiles apologetically. "Guess I like it over there. But I miss home, I really do."
"Well, you're here for now," Frank says, sounding all mysterious and when Gerard looks at him, Frank's eyes are almost gone in the smile. Gerard grins back. He's not sure it's possible not to grin when looking at Frank.
"I am," he admits.
*
He finds Dad kind of late, but he's been running on frozen time. The entire day seems like one long hour, or a year.
Despite being just this careful side of tipsy, Dad hugs him like Gerard is twelve again and sniffs a little into his shoulder. "Gee."
"Dad," Gerard echoes and gets stupidly choked up. He misses Mom like a background ache all the time; Dad is a constant presence in his mind, so he doesn't realize he's missed him until they're hugging. Weddings, he thinks squishing into Dad's belly, are ridiculous.
He's quizzed on every artist he's worked with/for/under for about twenty minutes, because the only person more interested in Gerard's art than Helena is Dad.
"You still on your abstract period, or has impressionism taken over?"
Gerard rolls his eyes and steals a stale roll off of Dad's plate. "Impressionism, what the fuck."
"Don't you knock Monet, kid, I'll teach you what's what."
Gerard gives him an indulgent look and makes a point of not rolling his eyes. "I appreciate Monet as much as the next art geek, I'm just not into dots."
"That's pointillism, you philistine."
Gerard loves Dad so much. He chews on the roll, which turns out to be the very opposite of stale and melts on his tongue - maybe he should have had more than just some scraps of lettuce, he wonders vaguely - and informs Dad that he is now rolling with his own, as-of-yet unnamed style of putting different shit on canvas and seeing what sticks.
"So, gallery showing in Paris, huh?" Dad asks after Gerard has devoured the rolls off Mom's plate. Gerard nods, mouth still full, and takes a sip of someone else's coffee. Dad shakes his head, the big softie. "You're doing good, kid," he tells Gerard and Gerard nudges their feet together.
"Thanks, Dad."
Dad gets a little red at the tips of his ears and looks across the room at the laughter and the lights. They both watch Mikey and Alicia's attempts at slow-dancing to the Misfits for a while. It's a bit of a classic moment. Gerard's gaze wanders until he's found Frank, slouching in a chair, elbows on the table, in what looks like a pretty one-sided conversation with Alicia's bridesmaid. Julie? Julia? She's cute as hell, whatever he name is, and chatty, from the looks of it, and Gerard's stomach kind of squeezes around the rolls and he wants to punch himself in the face.
"So, Paul didn't work out, huh?" Dad breaks into his self-loathing reverie and Gerard jerks around.
"Hmm?"
"Your mother said you and Paul didn't, you know -"
Gerard screws up his face again and shakes his head. Paul was never - he was never it, and Gerard never let himself believe otherwise. Now, he can't find anywhere safe to look - on the one hand, embarrassingly concerned for his love life Dad; on the other, a dude he barely knows being flirty with a cute girl. He settles on his shoes again and sighs. "No, we didn't."
Gerard can practically feel Dad's sympathetic stare on him, which is both sweet and exasperating. When he finally looks up, he's twisted enough away from Dad to be kind of conveniently facing Frank's table. And as he drags his gaze upwards, it takes him a split second to figure out that Frank is glancing over in his direction. As soon as their eyes meet, Frank quirks his lips and looks away and - Gerard can totally tell that Frank's a big faker and isn't actually as interested in what the poor girl is saying as he's pretending to be.
Gerard's skin feels a bit fluttery, and his brain feels a bit stupid, and his heart feels like it's going to thud right out of its confines. He turns to Dad, because he's a jerk.
"Sorry, I just kind of. I don't know." He doesn't not want to talk about it. There's just nothing to say.
"Well, I'm sorry that it didn't work out," Dad allows and Gerard smiles his thanks at him. He stands up and is about to go do something stupid, maybe, like ask Frank for another dance, because things are maybe getting just a little bit tight in his chest and dry in his mouth, when Dad puts his hand over Gerard's. "Oh, and Gee?"
"Yeah, Dad?"
"Wouldn't have killed you to find a suit. All I'm saying."
Gerard groans and frees his hand so he can flap it about. "Okay, fine, fine. Tell mom next time Mikey gets married, I'm renting a tux."
( Part II)
Fandom: MCR
Pairing: Frank/Gerard, Mikey/Alicia
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Gerard flies in from France in time for Mikey and Alicia to walk down the aisle, and to meet Frank at smoker's lane. (~13,300 words)
Notes: Written for no_tags, based on shoemaster's prompt of WEDDINGS. With huge, HUGE thanks to brooklinegirl for being an awesome fucking beta, and to aneli8 for cheerleading even over my crazy. ♥ (Reposted.)
(The line Gerard bastardizes at the end is, of course, from At Swim, Two Boys, which was something I couldn't put in the notes anonymously without giving myself away HORRIBLY.)
(Now with a sequel: In The Springtime, NC-17, 30,000 words)
Part I.
"What, no suit?" Mikey doesn't sound like he cares, he seems mostly concerned for his own fucked-up tie. Gerard slaps his hands away as soon as he reaches him, and fixes it with a couple of neat tugs. When he pulls back, Mikey's raised an expressive eyebrow at him. "They teach you that in French art camp?"
Gerard rolls his eyes and steps back. "It isn't art camp. And you're a dick."
"It's my wedding day. I'm allowed to be a dick." He turns away and surveys his reflection in the mirror. Gerard turns enough to do it with him.
Mikey looks good. Alicia was right on insisting they kick it a little bit old school. The short-sleeved dress shirt would look strange in any other outfit, but the sharp vest, sharp slacks, and a bold-patterned tie all complete the look. Gerard is just man enough to admit that the fag in him is pleased. He hasn't been back long enough to know what Alicia is wearing, but he knows to count on her for a damn good show.
"Okay, checklist," Mikey says, sounding a hell of a lot like Mom. Gerard is a little freaked out, but possibly not as freaked out as Mikey.
"Yes," he says, because that is what you're supposed to say to a groom an hour before his nuptials.
"Rings."
"Got 'em." Gerard slips his hand in his jeans pocket just in case. The rings are snug and present. He looks back into the mirror to find Mikey's gaze tracking his every move.
"Okay," Mikey says, then blanches. "Shoes."
"On your feet." It isn't Gerard's duty this time to make sure Mikey has his shoes on, but he's happy to help, anyway.
"Right. Good." Mikey's eyes are a lot bigger than they've ever been. Gerard would laugh, but he's an older brother for a reason.
"Mikey."
"Yes."
"You will be okay," Gerard assures him, still watching their reflections in the mirror. "Got the vows?"
Mikey pats the front pocket of his vest and it makes a crinkling noise in answer.
"Good. Got a bride?"
Mikey's gaze softens the tiniest bit. "I'm pretty sure she's across the hall. If you wanted to check, that'd be cool."
Gerard watches him for signs of irony or mocking. He gives up after a few seconds, and obediently leaves the room, stepping out into the quiet hallway like he's waiting for the storm to arrive.
It's eerily quiet. He isn't sure what kind of hustle and bustle he was expecting, but there is no noise coming from downstairs at all. He doesn't even know the size of the wedding, that's how out of it he's been. He feels bad, but then again, they shouldn't have planned a wedding in four months. He could have helped, if they'd waited longer.
When he knocks on the bridal party's door, it opens to something akin to a vaudeville dressing room. Ah. So, that's where the insanity is.
Between Alicia's mother, Alicia's brothers, Alicia's maid of honor, three random children Gerard doesn't know, and his own mother, hovering and barking out instructions, he doesn't see Alicia until he's halfway into the room. When she turns around and spots him, it's like the skies parting. She looks stunning.
Her hair is up in a kind of side French braid, wrapped all around her head like a black halo, and tucked into the side is a blue daisy. Her face is open and bright, beaming. The yellow dress has a wide poufy skirt down to below her knees; her shoes match the blue of the daisy. The ink on her chest is like an elaborate necklace, her only accessory besides the flower. It spreads all down her arms, weaves around her skin.
"Gee!" She elbows her way past the clucking hens and runs up to him like it's been forever. He hugs her, smelling the faint jasmine of her perfume, closes his eyes. He thinks, sister.
"Hey, beautiful," he whispers. He pictures Mikey fretting in the room across the hall and wonders if he knows how lucky he is. Then he thinks, he doesn't need to wonder. Mikey knows.
"You took long enough to get here, huh?" She lets him go and punches him on the shoulder. He rubs at it, 'cause she's a bruiser. She's bouncing on her toes; it's like her face has forgotten how not to smile. Gerard can't stop smiling back. "He okay?"
Gerard makes an a-okay sign with his hand. "Freaking out, obviously, but he's fine."
"Shoes?"
"On."
"Good." She bites her lip, and keeps on grinning. "You look awesome."
"Not the word I would use," he hears Mom's voice and there she is, watching him with that special Mom look, the kind that tells him she still hasn't forgotten that time he decided to entertain her friends by stepping out in her heels and lipstick. You were seven! Oh, I should have known. Afterwards, she and Helena bought him tiny pink slippers and told him that when he grew up a little bit, they would teach him the correct ways of applying lipstick. Just like painting, honey. Stay inside the lines.
"Mom." His voice is muffled by the scratchy lace over her shoulder. "Sorry I didn't call. The plane was delayed."
"I knew you'd show," she tells him, then pushes him away and squints. "Have you showered?"
Gerard rolls his eyes. "Mom, I barely got here as it is."
"You smell like airport and somebody else's ass, Gee. Take a goddamn shower. Don't you have any better clothes? Your brother's getting married, for Christ's sake."
He can still hear Alicia's giggle as he leaves the room, towel and bar of soap in hand. He has no idea how women get all this stuff. Then again, it's helpful that they're at an inn, he supposes.
"So?" Mikey's eyes have grown even bigger in the time Gerard's been gone and he hasn't moved away from the mirror.
"You have a gorgeous bride and a really annoying mother. I've been ordered to shower."
Mikey wrinkles his nose and laughs. "Not a bad call. But you can keep the outfit."
"You're the soul of generosity," Gerard intones and goes in search of a bathroom.
*
Alicia walks down the aisle to "Here Comes the Sun" and everybody cries. The daisy tucked behind her ear looks like it could flutter away at any moment. When Gerard turns to Mikey, he looks much the same. The entire garden is a burst of color, green bushes, yellow and red and blue flowers, pastel-colored guests.
The vows are simple and make his mother sob so hard, the JP has to grant her a delicate pause to pull herself together. There is the tiniest of giggles from the audience. Mikey rolls his eyes.
The rings are platinum bands, which Gerard has kept warm and safe. His heart pounds when he hands them over, then abruptly lightens. First duty done and over with. He smiles for the rest of the ceremony.
The photographer gets down on the ground and Gerard knows there will be a picture of Alicia's foot going up when her husband kisses her for the first time. He's already planning the kind of frame to make them for it.
They walk back down the aisle clutching hands, and Gerard doesn't realize he's leaking until he's wiping it away and blushing. He catches someone's eye and laughs through the embarrassment. His kid brother, man.
*
There is no head table, but there are place cards. He is seated next to Ray, whom he knows, and an intimidating-looking blond guy named Bob, whom he doesn't. Also, an intimidating-looking redhead named Chantal, and Alicia's younger brother, who will never be intimidating. There is another place card at the table, but the guest must not have shown, and that means more for the rest of them.
He realizes only after five minutes that it's the best table he could have gotten. Bob is quiet, and works with Mikey at Skeleton. Every now and then he pipes up with a comment that comes out of nowhere, and makes Gerard double over with laughter.
Chantal is an honest to God burlesque performer. Gerard pictures her in a corset, handling a riding crop, and his dick gets oddly happy about the image. He briefly wonders if they need to have a talk about proper reactions to late-onset heterosexuality, or if Chantal just translates across the board. Her tits imply that she is an any-and-all -orientations kind of gal.
After Mikey and Alicia had their first dance, and Mom cried into her second hankie, each table received a bottle of red, a bottle of white, and a bottle of "let's pretend this is for the children and not any recovering alcoholics who might be in attendance today" sparkling cider. Gerard appreciates the gesture, as well as the fact that they didn't cheap out on either kind.
"So, Gerard," Chantal says, turning her impressive cleavage on him. Gerard can see Peter zoning in on those puppies like they're dinner and elbows him discreetly in the ribs. He's never been happier to be gay and no longer a teenager in his life.
"Yes?"
"Why have we never met?" Her voice is husky like a porn star's. Gerard gets momentarily mesmerized by it.
"I've been away." He sips his cider in order to cover up this slight identity crisis.
"French art camp?"
"Oh for - it's not camp," he sighs and gives Mikey a mental noogie. "It's a retreat. For artists."
"Like a camp for adults," she clarifies for him, eyes serious.
"Well, there were grants involved, and my work is a bit too large to fit on a fridge door, but fine. A camp for adults," he capitulates. Mikey has always been amazing at wearing Gerard down even across miles and oceans.
"What's your work like?" she asks him next, and he seeks escape. His work is just too difficult to sum up off-handedly like this, it could take hours.
"Crazy," Peter supplies.
"He draws a lot of dick," Mikey's voice pops out of nowhere and Gerard groans and buries his head in his hands.
"I hate you."
"You can't hate me. I'm a married man!" The glee in Mikey's voice is nearly audible over Chantal’s hooting laughter.
"That doesn't make any sense," Gerard reminds him, but looks up and smiles, anyway. "Jesus, married."
"Fuck, I know, right?" Mikey makes huge eyes at him and damn, it is so weird. He was a skinny-ass kid with glasses only five minutes ago. Gerard is old.
*
He goes for his first smoke after salad is served. He considers this to be a feat of gigantic proportions. Mom made him promise that he wouldn't smell like smoke for at least half an hour. Her lending him her lighter, his own having been taken away by CDG security, was a present for his brother getting married.
"Oh my God, do you have another one?"
The unfamiliar voice cuts through the smoky happiness of Gerard's brain and he turns to see a guy watching him with - wow, really pretty eyes. Colorful tattoos spill out of his rolled-up sleeves and there's even a splash over the collar of his button-down. Gerard's extending his pack before his brain has managed to process the fact that he's wasting French smokes on someone he's never met.
"I'm Gerard." Apparently his brain is determined on fixing the problem.
"Frank," the guy says and looks at Gerard like he’s Christ reincarnated. It’s oddly compelling. "I got held up between the ceremony and the reception, and now I feel like an idiot. Thus, smoke break," Frank says.
"There was a whole hour of cocktails in between," Gerard reminds him, wondering what could possibly have held him up. "Did you fall in the fountain or something?"
Frank actually blushes. Gerard can't believe it; it's too unreal.
"If I said yes, would you believe me?"
"No."
"Well, it happened."
Gerard blinks. "No fucking way."
"Way," Frank confirms with a sigh. Now that he's looking for it, Gerard can make out the wit tips of his dark hair curling over his neck. He’s wearing no tie, and a sheepish expression.
"You fell in? How?"
Frank lights the cigarette and takes a drag before shaking his head and laughing. He's got a high-pitched giggle Gerard thinks he could draw in baby blue. "I wanted to be able to see the first kiss."
Gerard lifts a thumb and squints as he first measures up Frank's height, then turns his thumb on the fountain in question, splashing innocently in the garden. "I can see how you might have had a problem there," he says.
"What the hell was that?" Frank demands, looking at Gerard like he grew several heads and chopped them all off right in front of him.
Now it's Gerard's turn to blush. "Sorry. I'm an artist. Measuring distances and proportions is kind of second nature at this point."
Frank's face clears and he cackles and slaps his hand on the wall. "You're Gerard."
"Oh God."
"Mikey's brother."
"Yes. What has he been saying about me." Sometimes it is really difficult having a kid brother who knows everyone while you escape to hermitic retreats several bodies of water away.
Frank just shrugs, still smiling. His skin has a tinge to it, drawing out something Italian in the tan, maybe. Gerard pictures cypress trees and olives in white dishes. "That you're an artist and you went to France to prance among your natives."
Gerard stares.
"Mikey's words, not mine," Frank allows. "What does that mean, anyway? Mikey's Jersey through and through."
Gerard sighs the sigh of the long put-upon, wonders how it is that a human being who's been on this Earth a significantly shorter amount of time than himself can make him feel like the biggest dork on the planet, and replies, "I received a large grant to work at an artist's retreat outside of Grenoble."
Frank whistles. "Wow. That's a lot heavier than the way Mikey described it."
Gerard nods, mollified for the time being. "It wasn't camp."
"Of course not." Frank's eyes crinkle at the corners. "So, what do you do?"
"Hmm?"
"Your art, what do you do?" Frank gestures with his cigarette, drawing questions with the curves of his smoke.
"My work is - abstract," Gerard starts, then thinks screw it, and sags against the wall. "I mostly focus on the human form, anatomy, stuff like that."
"What does that mean?" Frank demands. Apparently, his previous embarrassment is all but forgotten. Gerard has a perverse desire to throw him back in the fountain.
"I draw a lot of dick," he says instead and watches Frank sputter. It's incredibly satisfying.
After Frank stops bugging his eyes out at him, he squints and lifts his chin. "How is that working out for you?"
Gerard grins and licks his lips. "Pretty well, actually. I literally get paid for it."
"For drawing dick." Frank shakes his head. "Man, if my life were that easy."
Gerard would normally bristle at the implication, but he thinks he might want to draw Frank. Maybe not even nude. He just wants to capture the sun on his face, the smile that travels all across his face, not knowing where to land. He thinks of Alicia and her grin, of Mikey and his soft eyes.
"My life is pretty great," he finally admits and takes another drag. "What do you do?"
He can see Frank pursing his lips like he just held something back. Gerard calls him on it. "Hey, now. I told you mine, you tell me yours. And quickly, or we'll miss the cake. I have a toast to make."
Frank laughs and ducks his head. Gerard just smiles at him. It's irresistible. "I work with Mikey."
"You work for Skeleton?"
"In a way," Frank smiles. It's an adorable smile and maybe that's why it takes Gerard a moment.
"Oh," he says. "You're Frank." As in, Iero. As in, owner of Skeleton Records.
“Yep, I am. What’s he said about me?” Frank squints against in the setting sun.
Gerard is about to open his mouth and tell him that it’s possible Mikey has described Frank as a "midget freak with too much energy and time on his hands," but he gets interrupted before he can even start.
"Gerard Arthur Way, I am going to kill you!"
Gerard drops his cigarette. Frank whips around and there's Mom behind him, bearing down on Gerard like she'd just caught him drinking on school property. He has to remind himself that he is thirty two and not fifteen. It doesn't help.
"Hi, Mom!" He goes for innocent, and hits just this side of guilty.
"You're supposed to be giving your toast and you're out here, smoking? Oh, hi, Frankie, how are you, dear?" Her words are a torrent of rage and familiarity all at once. Gerard blinks.
"Hi, Mrs. Way!" Frank waves and cocks his head in a smile. Gerard rushes up to his mom, ignores Frank smirking at him out of the corner of his eye, and kisses her on the cheek.
"I lost track of time, I'm sorry."
She shakes her head and pushes him towards the door. He hears her muttering to Frank behind him. "Honestly, showing up in jeans and a t-shirt, wearing Chucks, for Christ's sake."
Right before Gerard rounds the corner, he hears Frank answer, "Well, he's an artist, they never conform. Trust me, I work with ones a lot worse. Plus, that's a pretty nice jacket."
*
The mic is already on when he goes to switch it on, so of course that means it gives a feedback loop so loud every single guest in the place winces. Gerard looks out at his own table and Frank is there parked by Gerard's empty seat, smirking.
Gerard looks away and coughs like a loser. He's an artist. He's not a performer, for crying out loud. The things he does for Mikey.
Who's also smirking at him, but Alicia is giving Gerard a huge earnest stare of encouragement, so he goes with it.
"Hi, everyone." He doesn't look anywhere but down as he starts. He would try to picture the audience naked, but that way lies porn-ridden napkins and scandal. Instead, he looks at his Mom-reviled Chucks, clutches the mic, and begins. "As best man, I am forced to say good things about the groom. I'm not sure there's a whole speech in there."
He hears a smattering of laughter, and it perks him up. He quirks his mouth at Mikey, and continues the speech watching both him and Alicia. He pretends there's nobody else there.
"But I guess I can try. Actually, I want to talk about them both, and not just because Alicia is amazing and Mikey doesn't deserve her. It's because I've never met two people better suited for each other. If I had to hand-pick my brother a life partner, Alicia is exactly who I would choose, time and time again."
He watches her face for signs of embarrassment and she watches him back and bites her smiling lips. He turns to the audience for the first time, eyes up, his voice gaining.
"She is kind and beautiful. Laid back but tough when she needs to be. She is also willing to spend the rest of her life getting Mikey to stop electrocuting himself in bath tubs." More laughter skitters across the crowd. "She is basically everything he could have hoped for. I’m so -" he pauses and feels the stupid bubbling in his chest, watches Mikey's eyes. The audience is now silent. "I'm so touched and proud to be able to call her a sister."
Here he takes a breath and tangles the mic cord between his fingers.
"Growing up, I knew that long-term love existed, of course. Our parents have been married for longer than even I’d like to admit."
Another smattering of laughter and he catches Frank's eye by accident. His face is open and curious and Gerard - Gerard likes it. His eyes stay on Frank as he continues.
"But it was different, you know? Their love was for old people; I didn't think our generation could have it." Frank's dark eyebrow twitches. Gerard isn't sure how he even notices. "But seeing Mikey with Alicia by his side, well. I only wish our grandma was alive to see him."
He finally breaks Frank's unwavering gaze and turns back to Mikey and Alicia. "I love you both so very much. Please have lots of babies so they, too, can believe in old-people love."
Mikey flips him off as he's laughing and Alicia sticks out her tongue. Gerard grins and turns back to the audience.
"Please lift your glasses to the beautiful couple!"
He lifts his mic in lieu of the glass as the guests toast, drink, and clamor for Mikey and Alicia to give them a tiny preview of the wedding night. Gerard stays there as long as he can, and finally beats a hasty retreat to his table after Mikey's retrieved his tongue back from Alicia's throat, and squeezed Gerard's hand in passing.
He wishes that the sparkling cider had the same calming effect that beer used to, but then again, the bubbles feel nice, and he knows the lack of aftereffects will be even nicer. He settles for gulping the entire glass when Frank tilts his head and just squints at him. Gerard has no idea what he's doing. When Frank doesn't stop staring after Gerard's glass is empty, he sets it down and asks, "What? Do I have something on my face?"
Frank shakes his head and shrugs. "You and Mikey look different."
Gerard looks around the table to see if anybody else is hearing this. Nobody else seems to care - Bob and Ray involved in some quiet discussion about bats, he thinks, Peter watching Chantal chatting to Dad across the room with wistful lusty eyes.
"Yes," Gerard finally confirms for Frank. "We do."
"But not. Like. You have similar eyes, but yours pop more."
Gerard blinks. "Pop?" The images conjuring in his mind are pretty unpleasant.
Frank waves his hand around. His tattoos shift in the light. "You know, they're, like, out there. Mikey hides his."
Gerard's brain has no idea which way to spin - flattered that Frank has noticed his poppy eyes, or upset that he seems to have given Mikey's the same consideration. Either way, it sends his stomach churning. Watching Frank, he feels like a kid; he feels like Peter.
"Huh," is what he says, and goes to refill his glass with the fake bubbly. "I guess Mikey's more reserved than me."
When he looks at Frank over his glass, Frank has one hand slung over the back of the chair, and he's sprawled, relaxed. Gerard has a ridiculously hard time not letting his eyes stray where Frank is most, well, inviting. His black pants are too tight for that kind of sprawl; this wedding isn't supposed to be R-rated. What Frank says, holding Gerard's gaze and pouring himself a glass from Gerard’s bottle, is, "Maybe it's the eyes, then."
Gerard has to track back to the last thing he said. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe."
"Hey, Gee, Gerard, sorry, I need your help," Peter interrupts and tugs on his sleeve and Gerard is almost grateful for it, because Peter's easy, Peter is small potatoes compared to the stare of this guy who appeared in Gerard's life only half an hour ago.
Gerard spends the next twenty minutes talking Peter through his emotional turmoil which revolves around Chantal's chest and Peter's virgin dick, and that's comforting and familiar territory. Reserved Mikey used to sprawl on Gerard's floor and weep openly about girls who wouldn't give him the time of the day.
Then he hit puberty and never looked back. All the awkward adolescence was settled onto Gerard's then-hefty shoulders. He bore it only marginally well.
*
Dinner is delicious. Gerard smells more of it than he eats, weirdly not hungry, but he is craving another cigarette. The guests have all begun to mingle more and more, and he knows the dancing portion will begin soon, and he needs to fortify himself. The sky outside is fading blue being overtaken by pink. It probably smells gorgeous. He excuses himself to no one, as he's the only one left at the table, and shuffles outside. It's still warm, but the air has a slight bite to it. He breathes it in, allows it to stir the hair on his forehead. He watches a few others partake of the nicotine all down the smokers' lane.
He's not surprised to see Mom join him a minute later and greets her with a smoke and a smile.
"Hey, baby," she says quietly. All her duty has been done, too, he thinks. She got Mikey here. She got him through it. Now she stands here, smoking and quiet.
"Hey, Mom," he answers and props his shoulder against the wall to face her better.
She's older than she was a year ago. He saw her on Christmas, but it was such a whirlwind of gifts and parties; they barely got a chance to talk to each other. The grooves on her cheeks and under her eyes remind him of tree bark, the most obvious metaphor for the years' passing.
"How's tricks?" she asks and her gravelly voice makes him feel like he's back in their kitchen, catching up over cereal and coffee.
"Tricks is good." He takes a drag, and thinks, should I? "Tricks is having a showing soon, actually." He exhales and squints against the smoke.
"Oh, yeah? In France?"
"Paris, yeah." He hasn't told anyone, it's felt too huge. "Nothing - I mean, it's just a smallish gallery." In Paris.
"In Paris," she echoes and watches him like only Mom can, the kind of pride that makes his heart pinch. "Helena's up there very happy right now," she notes and his laugh almost comes off as a sob. What a weird day, he thinks a little wildly.
"I know," he says after a beat and his voice catches. "I feel her when I'm over there."
"She's with you," Mom agrees and reaches out a dry hand to pat his own. Their cigarettes spark together. "You okay?" she asks, Mom through and through, matter-of-fact, but still totally prying.
He nods the truth. "I'm great. I missed you."
She smiles and nods. "Of course you did, I'm your mother. But a week'll be plenty, you'll see."
She's probably right, but right now, he's so happy to have this week stretching ahead of him, filled with no expectations, just the people he needs, and home.
"Still seeing Paul?" she asks next and he scrunches up his face in answer. "So, it didn't work out," she intones. "Well, the next one will."
"Mikey's happy," Gerard evades and she smiles.
"He is." She takes one last drag and crushes the cigarette with her heel. "All right, kid, going back in. Your father is already kind of sloshed. You go say hi to him sometime tonight, all right? He's barely gotten to see you."
Gerard vows to say hi to Dad, and watches her walk away. He's down to the filter, too, which means it's time to go back, so he follows her in.
*
Music blares out of the speakers and about half the room is crammed onto the slippery dance floor. The DJ looks like he probably works at Skeleton, kind of familiar, and Gerard spots Ray's hair by the speakers. It bobs seriously to the beat.
He slouches against the wall. The tiny white lights lining the walls and ceiling make everything look warm and clean. It's a beautiful place, out of the way and comforting. They probably couldn't have found a better one if they had a year to plan.
"You dance?"
Frank is right beside him. How does he do that? Gerard smiles despite himself. "Nah, I just watch."
"Like a creep." Frank sounds like he's confirming something he already knows.
Gerard rolls his eyes. "Not a creep, an observer. I'm an -"
"Artist, I know. You watch for artistic value. I dig it," Frank says and he's grinning and beautiful. Gerard can really appreciate his face, the small neat nose, the square cut of his jaw, the dark hair framing his face. Gerard's an artist. He appreciates beautiful things.
"Exactly," he nods. "Plus, it's fun." It's true. He enjoys being a creep sometimes. He is a creep with boundaries.
Frank, apparently, agrees. "It is fun." His grinning eyes catch the light and shimmer. What a girly thought. "But dancing is also fun. You should try it."
"I'm not really that great at it," Gerard admits, even though that's kind of a lie. He just doesn't like other people being present when he's shaking his groove thing.
"What, you don't do the white man's sway?" Frank asks, and demonstrates. His lips stretch into a devious expression.
"Why?" Gerard knows the answer, because the music has turned slow and terribly romantic. What he doesn't know is why he's kind of resisting.
"'Cause I want to dance. Dance with me?" Frank asks, and he's suddenly closer and his hand is brushing against Gerard, like a little kid asking for permission for a treat.
Gerard can't say no. He opens up his fingers and curls them around Frank's and nods slowly in answer.
They do the white man's sway. Gerard can't resist a crack about Frank doing the girl part because he's so short. Frank notes that Gerard can't lead for shit.
"It's true," Gerard agrees. "We're both pretty pathetic at this."
"Hey, at least we're pretty good with the swaying."
They are. Frank is shuffling along, sometimes leading, sometimes letting Gerard fumble it all on his own. Their feet don't get in each other's way only because they're mostly revolving in one spot. Still, his hands prickle where he's holding Frank's waist, warm through the fabric, and soft. All his nerves seem to be concentrated in his fingers and around the back of his neck, where Frank's bare forearms are wrapped in a loose hold.
Frank looks him in the eye and Gerard thinks, what is this? He feels overheated and a little bit shaky and he can't resist bringing Frank just a little bit nearer. It's like he wants to leech off his heat, but he has plenty of heat on his own, and together they're like a furnace.
Then Frank turns him a little to the left, and Gerard almost swallows his tongue. Peter is hanging on Chantal's neck, his face practically smooshed into her chest, and judging by the carefully stiff way she's holding herself, she's trying to be a good sport about the boner he's so obviously popped in his dress pants.
Gerard giggles and Frank immediately demands to know what he's laughing about. Gerard just nods his head in Peter's direction and Frank hides his face against Gerard's shoulder and shakes with laughter. Gerard breathes through it and tries to hold them both up steady.
After the dance is done, they break apart slowly. Gerard feels like he's grown an extra set of limbs. It takes him a while to figure out which way to turn his feet, where to put his hands. They're itching to be back around Frank.
Instead, he goes for another smoke. Frank follows.
*
"So, how did you get started with Skeleton?"
Gerard makes them stand a ways away from the people smoking in clusters around the shrubbery, because he doesn't feel like engaging anybody else in conversation.
"Hell if I remember." Frank is fumbling with the lighter, his thumb missing the clicker. Gerard steps in to help before he can think about it. His fingers brush over Frank's knuckles and he pulls them away and feels like an idiot. Frank mumbles a thanks, then inhales. Gerard takes another step back, settles against the wall.
He gathers some control over his thoughts and says, "Well, you wound up owning a record company. There must have been steps that you took that led you there."
Frank sighs dramatically, then spoils the effect by laughing. "All right, well. I dropped out of college because I loved my shitty-ass interning position at Eyeball much better than my Theory of Personality psych classes."
Gerard nods. He was around the scene long enough to know Eyeball was important shit.
"My mom loved that, by the way," Frank mumbles around his cigarette and puffs. Gerard laughs. "Right, so I begged the guys over there to give me a full time gig, which they did."
"She must have loved that, as well," Gerard notes.
"You bet." Frank lifts his chin and looks like nothing more than a punk kid from Jersey. "And that's how I got started in the business," he explains.
"Right." Gerard is pretty sure there's more to the story. "Now to the part where you own your record company at, what, twelve?"
"Seriously, how many short jokes you got under those sleeves?" Frank complains, but he's still grinning. Gerard just watches him and knows that he's grinning back.
After a moment of thoughtful silence, Frank looks away into the fast receding line of the sunset and furrows his brow, like he's trying to remember. "I wanted to do my own thing, build up a whole different kind of company, you know?" He scratches the back of his neck and Gerard watches the cherry of his cigarette and tries not to picture Frank setting his hair on fire. "It started in my mom's basement with, like, spray paint and Hanes t-shirts," Frank says, finally dropping his hand.
"Spray paint? That give you a lot of start-up?" Gerard quirks an eyebrow.
Frank imitates him and ashes on the ground. "I had ambition. Also, I'm a pretty smart guy, I don't know if Mikey's mentioned that." He looks dead serious, but there's a tell-tale twitching happening around the lips. Gerard rolls with it.
"He might have mentioned it," he allows. "But he's really mostly mentioned the short thing."
Frank gives another dramatic sigh and slouches against the wall in a mirror image. "I guess we're even, Mister French Art Camp."
Gerard is surprised by his own laugh. "True." Mikey's way of showing affection is different from other people's.
Then Frank tilts his head again, like it makes him see things better. "What about you, with the art? How did that happen, the big grant in Grenoble?"
"Went to art school, graduated, moved back with my parents." Gerard rattles off, then thinks about it. "Made a studio in the attic and just - I don't know. Made art," he encompasses with a sweep of his hand. "I guess I sold enough to build myself a reputation."
He'd applied for the grant because he'd never been outside of Jersey. Because he needed to get away. Because he was sober; because Bert.
"So you always wanted to do art?"
"Mmm, yes. Except for the couple of years I wanted to be in a band," he admits sheepishly.
Frank's eyebrows shoot up in an endearing sort of arc. "Seriously? What happened?"
"Didn't take," Gerard says. "I mean, I could sing. You know. Can sing. But the other guys were lacking." He realizes how that sounds a beat after it leaves his mouth. Oops.
Frank is quick. "Wow, no ego problems, or anything," he grins.
"Sorry, I know." Gerard huffs a breath. "No, but seriously. It just. Maybe it wasn't the right time or some shit."
Frank hums in agreement. "Yeah, ditto."
"Ditto?"
"Yeah, I did the whole band thing the five minutes I was in school," Frank replies and tosses his butt away. His hands find their way into his pockets like they don't know where else to settle. He looks a bit awkward without the cigarette, a bit tilted and off-balance. Gerard wishes he could follow the hunch of his shoulders with a pencil.
"So, what happened?"
"Oh, you know, couple of punk bands, nothing too serious, I guess. I loved making music, I still play and shit -"
"Oh yeah? Let me guess." Gerard pretends to think hard. "Guitar. Right? Unless it's the kazoo." He pauses. "It's totally the kazoo, isn't it?"
Frank looks mildly offended for a split second, then shrugs it off with an easy grin. "Can't live without the kazoo."
Gerard laughs. Then, "No, but - guitar, right?" Suddenly, he wants to see Frank with a strap around his neck, fingers on the frets, lost in it.
"Yeah, guitar," Frank shrugs." And bass. Some drums. I don't know, stuff here and there." Frank plays it off like it's no biggie. Jesus, how is this guy real. Gerard is not above admitting a total thing for musicians. Versatile musicians are just a bonus.
"Wow. So, you still play?" Gerard is now picturing Frank on stage. Is he the strong-and-steady, all about the playing kind of guy, or is he wild and crazy? He hopes he's wild and crazy. Then he realizes he's being kind of wild and crazy himself.
Frank smiles at him like he knows. "Yeah, I still play. I fill in for a couple of bands, sometimes tour with them. It's a blast, but…" He peters out, watching his own foot make patterns in the gravel.
"Yeah?"
Frank slides a hand out of his pocket long enough to scratch at the back of his neck. "I love Skeleton, so that's where my head is at most of the time."
Gerard nods. "Mikey's crazy about his job," he says. "Seriously. Like, nuts over it."
"Well, we're nuts about Mikey." Frank grins and shakes his head. "Man, France."
Gerard's brain doesn't catch up quickly enough. "Hmm?"
"I just. France. How long you in France for?" Frank asks and for the first time sounds almost unsure of himself.
Gerard feels a weird kick in his gut, but ignores it. He answers honestly. "Until I run out of money or Grenoble runs out of coffee and paints, I guess." Although. "Soon, I guess. I've been feeling pretty homesick recently," he admits.
Frank nods. His lips lift up the tiniest bit. Gerard's fingers itch for a pencil again. "What's it like?"
"Grenoble?"
Frank nods.
"Hmm." Gerard has no idea how to put it, so he goes for simple. "Old. Beautiful. Foreign, but that sounds stupid, doesn't it?"
Frank shakes his head. "Nah. When I was a kid, my parents took me to see where my grandparents came from in Sicily. It was beautiful and old, too. I get that."
Gerard laughs and takes his last drag, lingering. "Ever been to France?"
Frank's response is immediate. "The French are snooty."
"Maybe," Gerard hedges. "But the language is beautiful. You can, I don't know, lose yourself in the flow. And the countryside, too." He looks out at the fading garden, and thinks about riding the train down to the Côte d'Azur. The sizzling sun outside the window, green grass, golden stones along the coast.
"Mmm."
Frank's voice shakes Gerard out of it and he smiles apologetically. "Guess I like it over there. But I miss home, I really do."
"Well, you're here for now," Frank says, sounding all mysterious and when Gerard looks at him, Frank's eyes are almost gone in the smile. Gerard grins back. He's not sure it's possible not to grin when looking at Frank.
"I am," he admits.
*
He finds Dad kind of late, but he's been running on frozen time. The entire day seems like one long hour, or a year.
Despite being just this careful side of tipsy, Dad hugs him like Gerard is twelve again and sniffs a little into his shoulder. "Gee."
"Dad," Gerard echoes and gets stupidly choked up. He misses Mom like a background ache all the time; Dad is a constant presence in his mind, so he doesn't realize he's missed him until they're hugging. Weddings, he thinks squishing into Dad's belly, are ridiculous.
He's quizzed on every artist he's worked with/for/under for about twenty minutes, because the only person more interested in Gerard's art than Helena is Dad.
"You still on your abstract period, or has impressionism taken over?"
Gerard rolls his eyes and steals a stale roll off of Dad's plate. "Impressionism, what the fuck."
"Don't you knock Monet, kid, I'll teach you what's what."
Gerard gives him an indulgent look and makes a point of not rolling his eyes. "I appreciate Monet as much as the next art geek, I'm just not into dots."
"That's pointillism, you philistine."
Gerard loves Dad so much. He chews on the roll, which turns out to be the very opposite of stale and melts on his tongue - maybe he should have had more than just some scraps of lettuce, he wonders vaguely - and informs Dad that he is now rolling with his own, as-of-yet unnamed style of putting different shit on canvas and seeing what sticks.
"So, gallery showing in Paris, huh?" Dad asks after Gerard has devoured the rolls off Mom's plate. Gerard nods, mouth still full, and takes a sip of someone else's coffee. Dad shakes his head, the big softie. "You're doing good, kid," he tells Gerard and Gerard nudges their feet together.
"Thanks, Dad."
Dad gets a little red at the tips of his ears and looks across the room at the laughter and the lights. They both watch Mikey and Alicia's attempts at slow-dancing to the Misfits for a while. It's a bit of a classic moment. Gerard's gaze wanders until he's found Frank, slouching in a chair, elbows on the table, in what looks like a pretty one-sided conversation with Alicia's bridesmaid. Julie? Julia? She's cute as hell, whatever he name is, and chatty, from the looks of it, and Gerard's stomach kind of squeezes around the rolls and he wants to punch himself in the face.
"So, Paul didn't work out, huh?" Dad breaks into his self-loathing reverie and Gerard jerks around.
"Hmm?"
"Your mother said you and Paul didn't, you know -"
Gerard screws up his face again and shakes his head. Paul was never - he was never it, and Gerard never let himself believe otherwise. Now, he can't find anywhere safe to look - on the one hand, embarrassingly concerned for his love life Dad; on the other, a dude he barely knows being flirty with a cute girl. He settles on his shoes again and sighs. "No, we didn't."
Gerard can practically feel Dad's sympathetic stare on him, which is both sweet and exasperating. When he finally looks up, he's twisted enough away from Dad to be kind of conveniently facing Frank's table. And as he drags his gaze upwards, it takes him a split second to figure out that Frank is glancing over in his direction. As soon as their eyes meet, Frank quirks his lips and looks away and - Gerard can totally tell that Frank's a big faker and isn't actually as interested in what the poor girl is saying as he's pretending to be.
Gerard's skin feels a bit fluttery, and his brain feels a bit stupid, and his heart feels like it's going to thud right out of its confines. He turns to Dad, because he's a jerk.
"Sorry, I just kind of. I don't know." He doesn't not want to talk about it. There's just nothing to say.
"Well, I'm sorry that it didn't work out," Dad allows and Gerard smiles his thanks at him. He stands up and is about to go do something stupid, maybe, like ask Frank for another dance, because things are maybe getting just a little bit tight in his chest and dry in his mouth, when Dad puts his hand over Gerard's. "Oh, and Gee?"
"Yeah, Dad?"
"Wouldn't have killed you to find a suit. All I'm saying."
Gerard groans and frees his hand so he can flap it about. "Okay, fine, fine. Tell mom next time Mikey gets married, I'm renting a tux."
( Part II)