I Was Your Silver Lining 3/6
Part 2
They're really good pancakes. Frank would normally be embarrassed by how many he is taking in, but they're really good and he's really starving and it's been a really really weird night. He doesn't even notice that Gerard is hardly touching his food, mostly just moving it around on his plate with his fork.
"What's the matter?" Frank asks inbetween bites. "I thought you liked pancakes?"
Gerard just pushes the pancake around on his plate and makes little swirl designs in the syrup. "Why haven't you left?" he says, and then immediately freezes, like he's worried suggesting it will make Frank bolt.
Frank pauses to swallow. "Do you want me to leave?" Maybe he's asking too many questions. And he remembers last night, the way Gerard gripped onto his neck with his jaws. If Gerard wanted him to leave, he'd leave.
"No. No, I don't want you to leave. I just. You know. Most people would leave."
"Well, I'm not most people."
"No, you're certainly not." Gerard smiles sort of forlornly at the pancake on his plate. Frank swirls his finger in the syrup and then sucks it into his mouth and tries not to notice how Gerard's eyes dart up at the noise.
"I want to show you something." There's a determination in Gerard's face, now. Frank doesn't know what he wants to show him, but he knows that whatever it is, it's important, and it's a test. They've been skirting around things all night, and Frank knows they're finally getting to the main issue. The thing that's going to break this tentative thing they've got here.
Gerard gets up from the table and leaves the room. Frank isn't sure if he's meant to follow, and he feels kind of weird going into other parts of Gerard's house, but he gets up and follows him out of the room and down a long hallway. Gerard goes into a room that looks like it would have been an old study. There's an old engraved desk covered in papers (and a wicked bat paperweight, woah) that looks as though it cost more than all of the furniture in his house put together sitting right next to a leopard print dog pillow. Gerard, however, is rifling through some sort of chest that he's pulled out from underneath the desk and placed on the surface.
Frank gets close enough to Gerard to peer over his shoulder. It looks like a really poorly organized memory chest, of some sort. Frank sees an old watch and several news clippings and old photographs, the kind where everyone is sitting still and looks unhappy to be there. Gerard finally pulls out two photographs and a news clipping, and they look so frail in his hands that they could just disintegrate at the touch.
Gerard flips the photographs around. The first is of Gerard, and it's so obviously Gerard that Frank is stunned. He's standing next to a young man who looks sort of like him, but younger and sharper, his face mostly masked by large, thick glasses. Gerard doesn't look as tired, either. He even manages to have that same little smile at the corners of his mouth that Frank saw just a few minutes ago while he was making pancakes. The dress in the photograph is dated, the collars sharp, the vests well-tailored.
"That's Mikey," Gerard says, pointing to the man standing next to him, "and that's me." Frank can see the little date written in the corner, too. 1912. Jesus.
"And that's you." He points to the second photograph and Frank can't breathe. It's him, wearing those stiff clothes and looking stoic in the middle of a group of people he doesn't recognize. Gerard and Mikey aren't in the picture at all.
"That's your family. They lived in the same town as us. It was a really big family, even though you didn't have any brothers or sisters. You always really wanted a big family. I'm afraid they didn't really like me very much. I think they were glad you were friends with Mikey, though." Frank can barely hear him, although if it's because Gerard's speaking low or just that his brain is fogging over, he can't really tell.
Gerard turns over the scrap of newspaper, and Frank can see it's an obituary, dated April 18, 1914 and his name, his fucking name is at the top. He can vaguely hear Gerard talking about it, in gentle, soothing tones, as if that'll make it any less weird that he's a fucking werewolf and he's in a house with a werewolf who has apparently lived for over a hundred fucking years and he has pictures of a guy who looks just like him and a fucking obituary, and --
"I don't have any pictures of us together, I'm afraid. It was far too expensive and we didn't have a good enough lie to explain for just the two of us to have a picture. It would have raised too much suspicion. Although that obviously didn't matter enough in the end. They found out anyway -"
"No," Frank says, and takes a huge step back. He can feel the calm he's had since he woke up this morning cracking, splitting his skin. What is this? What is his life? What the shit is this? He needs some time away from this house and these old photographs and Gerard's face and eyes, and the way Gerard looks at him like Frank can save him. For fuck's sake, he's just turned seventeen, he can't do anything, he can't save anyone, why the fuck is this happening to him.
He doesn't realize he's shaking and panting until Gerard's strong hands wrap around his biceps and hold him tight. Frank's not sure he could run if he wanted to. It's the first time they've actually touched since last night and right now Frank wants Gerard to hold him together like he did when he was writhing in agony on the floor. Gerard makes soothing noises and slowly pulls him close until he's panting into Gerard's shoulder and eventually just letting out occasional deep, gasping breaths. Gerard runs his fingers up the back of Frank's neck and through the hair on the nape of his neck up to the crown and back again. It's a little like petting, but the ridges of Gerard's fingernails are soothing and calming and Frank just breaths and pulls himself back together.
"Is this normal-" of course not, they're goddamn werewolves, "-the waiting. I mean." Frank doesn't bother lifting his head from Gerard's shoulder, and Gerard doesn't stop petting him, but his hands do freeze for a moment.
"Not exactly. I was pretty broken up after what happened to you." Frank is more than a little certain that that is an understatement, but it's Gerard's story. He can't yet wrap his mind around the fact that they've had a story together before Frank's great-grandma was even born. "I probably would have done something drastic if it hadn't been for Mikey. I drank- a lot - Prohibition was rough.
"But in '24 I took my niece and nephew to the circus that was coming through town, and there was a Gypsy there. She was the real deal and, I don't know, I guess my misery impressed her. She said I'd been waiting a long time, but if I was patient, you'd come back."
Gerard chuckled. "I never thought I'd have to wait this long, but that doesn't matter anymore."
Frank leans into Gerard's neck, fighting the guilt that's building inside of him. He hates to think of Gerard alone for so long. He should have been born sooner. Or something. He shouldn't have done whatever got him killed in the first place. He should have been nicer to him. "I'm sorry," he says.
Gerard squeezes Frank's neck. "For what?"
"That I made you wait so long, that I was a total jackass to you. I should've known-"
"That you were the reincarnation of my werewolf mate from 1914? Frankie, this is some weird shit, it's not your fault. And if you had come back sooner, who's to say it wouldn't have happened all over again? Times had to change. I would have waited longer if I had to."
Gerard whispers that last part but they're so close Frank hears it anyway.
"Gerard, I-" Frank's phone starts buzzing from where he dropped his pants out in the hall and they both jump. "That's probably my mom."
Frank pulls away to go answer it and he feels colder immediately. He feels weird just leaving Gerard in the other room, where he can probably overhear the snippets of his conversation ("No, mom, I was at Ray's, no, I didn't skip, I was sick" and "no, I'm really sorry, I'm sorry, yes, okay" and "I'm on the way home right now") but at least only he has to hear her worried tone.
When Frank returns to the kitchen Gerard is already running warm water over the remains of their breakfast. He doesn't turn around when the floorboards creak underneath his feet, and he can't help but fidget in the doorway. He still feels cold.
"I have to go," he says. He squeezes his phone between his palms but it doesn't alleviate any of the pressure. Gerard is silent.
"But. Uhm. I'll come back. I think I'm pretty much grounded for a while, or I've gotta be a good son for a bit, she was kind of suspicious, but, yeah. I'll come back soon. Is...Is that okay?" Frank asks. He really hopes it's okay.
"Of course. I'll be here." Waiting.
There's a bit of an awkward pause. Gerard's hands are soapy and wet and his back is still turned, and Frank doesn't know what's an appropriate way to say good-bye. He might be the reincarnated werewolf lover Gerard lost almost a hundred years ago but he's also seventeen and he's awkward and right now, with this Gerard and this Frank, they are nothing yet.
He mutters a quiet, "Bye, Gerard," before he quietly pads out of the room towards the front of the house. Gerard keeps his back turned the whole time and doesn't watch him leave.
***
Frank is most definitely in trouble. His mom is not happy.
The only thing that really keeps her from coming down hard is that Frank did technically leave a note and doesn't smell like alcohol or weed and isn't hungover. If he were hungover she'd probably have him clean every room in the house. He's just exhausted. She fusses at him a lot and sends him to his room without even taking his phone away, so he types out a quick text to Ray. If my mom calls i was w/ u last night
Where were u, Ray replies quickly. she DID call. i covered for u.
thanks, man. ill tell u later. Frank has to think of something to tell Ray that doesn't involve werewolves or reincarnation.
He sleeps away most of Saturday and spends Sunday doing homework to appease his mom.
After he’s done researching some articles for a paper he’s got due in a couple of weeks, though, he can’t help but pause and tap his finger against the side of the mouse as he thinks.
Surely if werewolves are real there’s something out there, right? He takes a deep breath and sits forward in his chair, clicking over to the search engine. Werewolves. And go.
There are a lot of terrible homemade web pages in sparkly comic sans font and furry porn (oh, god, no, that’s still not okay) but he does manage to find some shit that might be helpful. Myths, mostly, and a lot of legends he’s picked up from a surprisingly helpful addiction to horror movies.
He gets caught up reading a bunch of pages about the old werewolf legends (apparently some of them could actually change into wolves at will, how cool would that shit be) when he pauses on a list of the rumored weaknesses. Huh.
Silver. It's so obvious, but Frank hadn't really thought about it, because usually it's silver bullets and he already does his best to avoid bullets no matter what metal they're made of. But maybe now he only needs to avoid the silver ones? And who even has those anymore? Frank highly doubts that there is anyone that would help him test the bullet invulnerability, but silver. His mom must have tons of silver jewelry and some of it's got to be real, right?
He pokes his head out of his room, checking to see what his mom is up to before he goes slinking into her bathroom to go through her jewelry. She caught him playing with her make up once, but that was two years ago and she wasn't already kind of pissed at him, so he'd prefer to avoid confrontation altogether.
There’s a necklace he knows his grandma gave her years ago that’s gotta be silver lying on the counter next to some of her earrings. He picks it up, testing it, and - it burns. Not horribly, but an itching, irritating sensation across his palm where the chain falls. He drops it back to the counter and runs his finger over the mark it left. It looks like a rash, or something, but doesn't feel any better if he scratches at it. Huh.
He wakes up the next morning and the mark is still there. It doesn't itch that bad but it doesn't stop him from freaking out a little that it's going to be permanent. School that whole week is...interesting, everything just seems a whole lot less attention-worthy when compared to being a werewolf. He can't stop flipping his palm over in class to look at the mark and gauge the color.
When his history class goes to the library to work on a project, he uses the computer to check when the next full moon is. Coach Cradinsky looks at him like he's grown a second head when he finishes running the mile in PE without having to stop once to prevent death by asthma and while lapping a couple of members of the cross-country team. Frank wonders if that's a werewolf thing, and makes a note to ask Gerard next time he can. He has a lot of things to ask Gerard the next time he can.
Jenny's not too pleased when she finds out he's sort of grounded indefinitely. It definitely puts a damper on the dating thing. Of course, then Ray asks what the two of them got up to on Friday night. It makes sense - most dudes would need to cover for staying out all night with their girlfriends, but Frank wasn't with her, and he still hasn't thought of a good lie, so when she asks, he just has to shrug.
"Uh, out. I just didn't make it home," he says, and it's kind of true.
"Were you with another girl?" she asks, angry and upset.
"No! I swear I was just..." He can't tell the truth, and he feels guilty about how much time he's spent thinking about Gerard and what it would have been like with Gerard in his first life. He's not sure when he started believing all the past lives stuff, but it's easier to go with it than try to fight all the proof Gerard showed him. He just doesn't know what to say.
Jenny looks at his face and comes to her own conclusions, throwing him the dirtiest look in the fucking world before turning and leaving Frank staring at his sandwich as Ray and Bob give him weird looks. "Dude, I think your girlfriend just broke up with you," Bob observes.
Frank's shoulders slump. "Yeah."
"Frank...are you in any trouble? Like, if it's drugs, or something, we can get you help. No judgment," Ray says, hair bobbing earnestly.
"Thanks man, but I'm good. Just, life and shit." Frank wishes he could tell them, but he's pretty sure that'd be against the rules. Or at least he should check with Gerard first. Plus he doesn't want to tell Ray how Frank could've killed him and eaten every earnest hair on his head Friday night. The thought makes his lunch turns to stone in his stomach and he stabs a cold french fry against the tray until it turns to mush.
*
After two weeks of only waving at Gerard through the window, Frank gets creative. On his way home from school he walks on Gerard's side of the street and opens his mailbox, quickly grabbing something from inside. When he gets back to his place, he brings in his own mail, and drops it on the counter and waits til his mom gets home.
Frank tries not to twitch too much through dinner, and after he puts his dishes in the wash he casually flips through the mail. "Oh hey, mom, they gave us a piece of Mr. Way's mail. Should I bring it over to him?"
"Sure, Frankie."
He almost says "thanks" when he goes for his hoodie, and ends up saying, "I'll be back in a bit," before bounding out the door.
Frank doesn't run to Gerard's house, but he walks quickly, his heart pounding in his chest. Gerard doesn't answer the door immediately, and Frank realizes he doesn't even know if Gerard is home. That would ruin his whole plan, and like, his night.
Gerard answers the door about five seconds before Frank is ready to give up. He's got a smear of paint on his forehead above his eyebrow, and his face splits into a huge smile when he sees Frank.
"Hey," Frank says. "I stole some of your mail."
Gerard doesn't say anything, just opens the door wider and ushers Frank inside. He starts to walk back towards the kitchen, but Frank feels frozen by the door, still clasping the letter in his hand. His mom is going to notice if he's not back in a few minutes, but god he does not want to leave. The events of that night seem so completely surreal when he's standing in the front foyer and he can hear Gerard's coffee machine percolating away in the kitchen and there are no full moons or his own obituaries or neck-biting. He flexes his fingers around the letter still clasped in his hand.
Gerard opens his mouth to say something, maybe invite him back to the kitchen for coffee or for more freaky past life nostalgia fests, but before he can say anything Frank blurts out, "I can't stay really long or my mom will notice but I wanted to, uhm. I wanted to see you."
"You always were good at sneaking out," Gerard says. Frank winces a little. He knows Gerard can't help it, but Frank just doesn't know how to respond to things like that. He's not the Frank (or the Franklin, as spelled in the faded newspaper) from Before. Gerard says they're the same, but Frank just doesn't remember. And it's starting to scare him just how much he wishes he did.
Gerard seems to sense that he's a little flustered. "I have something for you," he says, with almost a pained half-smile. He leads Frank back toward the rear of the house with a gentle hand on the small of his back. Frank starts to protest, but Gerard silences him with an assurance that it will only take a moment. Frank's stomach stays in knots.
He takes him into a room Frank hasn't seen yet, back through the brightly lit kitchen and up a weirdly spaced set of stairs to what looks like a small storage loft. There are blank canvases lined up against the wall, and a paint covered linen tarp covers the floor. There's a well-sized round window at the far wall, and through it Frank can just see the branches of the large oak tree outside.
Gerard plucks the envelope out of Frank's hand but then pauses when he sees Frank's palm. He grabs it, but gently, and turns it so he can get a better look. "What did you do to yourself, Frankie?"
"Uh." Gerard's hand is a lot rougher than Frank would've expected. "I was looking up werewolf stuff online, and you know silver, and my mom had this necklace. It's not permanent, is it?"
Gerard runs his thumb over the red line and goosebumps pop up along Frank's arm. "You didn't hold it there for very long, did you?"
"No, I picked it up and it sort of slid, and yeah."
"Then it should fade by the next moon," Gerard says, squeezing Frank's hand before dropping it and finally looking at the letter in his hand. "I'm glad you brought this over," he says. "I was hoping it would get here soon." He digs his fingernail into the crease of the paper and slits it open.
Frank can't help but be nosy. "What is it?"
"A check. I sold another painting."
"For how much?"
"Enough." Gerard glances over the contents and then creases it in half and sticks it in his back pocket. Frank can see a smudge of blue already on the corner. It is the little blue smudge that is so fascinating to stare at when Gerard bends over. Oh god, he is a pervert, but can you blame him those are some really low jeans Gerard apparently likes to wear while painting and he is pretty sure the crotch is so worn it is about to dissolve out, what the hell -
"Uh, so-" he coughs out, diverting his eyes to look at some of the drawings tacked to the bare walls. “Can I ask you some more questions?”
“Of course,” Gerard says, still rifling through the pile of artwork in the corner and not standing back up. The ceiling in here is great. Frank decides to stare at it some more. And definitely not at Gerard.
“So, uhm. Am I immortal like you, now?” he asks.
Gerard hesitates for a second, uneasy. “No. I’m not immortal either, I don’t think. We…well, werewolves usually live longer than humans anyway, and the aging is slower, but I’m just - I’m just waiting. Paused, I guess.”
“So now that I’m back you’ll get older?”
Gerard doesn’t hesitate this time, but he’s quiet. “I don’t know. It feels like it.”
His nerves feel like they're rattling against the skin with the weight of all this. Frank scuffs his toe through some dust pressed into the cracks of the hardwood floor. “What about, uhm, in gym class today, I could actually run without dying of an asthma attack. That’s weird, right?”
Gerard nods and moves to rifle through a new stack of paper. “Not for us.”
Awesome. “Am I going to get all hairy and shit? Pull a Lon Chaney?”
Gerard lets out a honking sort of giggle. "I wish. I can't even get decent sideburns going. Oh, good, here it is." He stands back up (oh, he was rustling through a stack of papers on the chair over by the window for a reason, right, he had something for him) and walks back over to Frank with something in his hand, some sort of paper.
Frank barely outstretches his hand to take it from Gerard when he hears his cell phone ring. Shit shit shit he knows it's his mom, shit shit. He checks the caller ID hastily before flipping it open and blurting out, "Sorry sorry, yeah, mom, I'm coming, he wasn't home but uhm I put it in his mailbox and I just thought I heard a kitten in the storm drain so I got distracted. Nah, it was probably just the wind or something, I'll be right back," and hangs up. He's lucky he's a punk kid with a well-known affinity for tiny animals because it's a bullshit story his mom will totally buy.
"I gotta -" he starts, but Gerard is already leading him quickly out of the house. He slips the piece of paper into Frank's hoodie pocket and opens the front door for him, but before Frank can slip back outside he grasps his hand and looks straight into his eyes.
"The full moon's on a Sunday this month," he says. "You need to be here. It's not safe on your own. Try to get one of your friends to cover for you that night. I can get you to school the next day. Just bring a change of clothes."
Frank is scared by the little thrill that runs up his spine at the words. Gerard runs a thumb over Frank's cheek quickly, so light Frank can hardly feel it, and then in another blink Frank is on the front porch and the door is shut. Oh, right, home.
His mom doesn't question him too much when he gets home, just sends him upstairs to do homework, and it isn't until he's safely in his room with the door locked that he can pull the piece of paper out of his pocket and examine it by the light from his small desk lamp. He's half-terrified it will be another photograph of someone he should know but doesn't, but instead it's a small and worn looking ink painting. Frank runs his fingers over the thick textured paper.
It's a simple landscape of a roaming hillside and woods under a huge, almost staggering full moon. There are no wolves or people in the picture, just the open land and sky, and something in Frank's heart is desperate for it.
His dreams are dreams of running, and it's wonderful, but then the four legs are gone and it's a dream of running from someone, from something, and it's terrible and clumsy and he is never going to make it out of these woods alive oh god, oh god, they know, they're going to find him, and there's blood and it's making it hard to see but he has to keep going -- and he wakes up gasping in a cold sweat. He could have sworn he felt the mud around his ankles, the branches whipping at his face, the way his cold human fingers tried so desperately to find a way out.
He doesn't sleep for the rest of the night.
His mom comes in to wake him up in the morning and finds him staring at the ceiling, pale and clammy. "I'll call the school," she says, and returns two minutes later with a giant bottle of Gatorade in one hand and the phone in the other. "I want you to drink all of this by the time I get home. There's soup in the fridge and crackers in the cupboard."
She pushes back the hair that sticks to Frank's forehead. "Do you want help downstairs now? We can get the couch all set up."
Frank feels guilty about using his immune system's track record like this, but he isn't sure how he'd do in school today. "I think I can do it. Thanks, mom." He clings to her hand for a minute, half wishing he was still young enough for her to take the day off and spend it with him on the couch watching 101 Dalmatians.
She squeezes his hand and leans down to press a kiss to his forehead. "Okay, sweetie, call me if you need anything."
Sleep still won't come even though the sun is up, erasing all the midnight shadows so he quits trying and moves to the living room to watch some trashy soap operas. They haven't even introduced the hot new gardener (who is totally going to knock up the stepmom, okay, Frank knows these things) before there is a knock at the door. Frank is more than a little confused, but he wraps the worn blanket around his shoulders, shuffles to the door, and peers through the peephole.
Gerard's nose and tiny teeth look even weirder through the fisheyed glass, but Frank is glad to see them. The muscles in his shoulders relax a little as he opens the door.
"You didn't go to school today," Gerard says in a rush, eyes taking an inventory of Frank.
"No, I-" Frank doesn't want to worry Gerard. It was just a stupid dream. "I wasn't feeling well when I woke up." And that's the truth. Frank just woke up hours before he normally would have.
"Oh," Gerard says. "Um."
"Do you want to come in?" Frank asks, stepping back. "My mom won't be home for hours, we could just...hang out."
Gerard smiles, and the knot in Frank's gut dissolves. "Sure."
Gerard seems so out of place in Frank's house, standing next to the flowers his mom put in the hall yesterday, his reflection in the glass that covers the cabinet the CD player is in. "I was just watching TV," Frank says, pointing at the TV where some lady with huge hair is currently weeping a single, sad tear. "Have you ever seen this? I mean, we can change it."
"You kidding? I love As the World Turns," Gerard says, settling down on the couch. "I haven't seen this in a while, though. I used to have the biggest crush on Andy Dixon. He had the best hair."
What Frank wants to do is curl up on top of him and get Gerard to tell him that his dream was just a weird dream and that it's safe to go back to sleep. Instead, he sits down at the other end of the couch and listens to him breathe and stares at the screen.
Gerard seems pretty fascinated by the show (and the lady's single solitary tear). "Who's that girl?" He asks when one of the newer characters wanders onto the screen. Frank smiles as he fills Gerard in with the bits he remembers about the characters from the show. He's actually embarrassed by how much he knows about these fictional people, but hey, what can you do, he's spent a fair amount of his sick days on the downstairs couch watching trashy television.
Gerard's laughing at Frank's commentary, and Frank's trying not to smile too hard when Gerard's voice is suddenly silent. Luke and Noah are kissing on the screen.
"Who are they?" Gerard asks, almost hushed. He seems stunned in place.
"Luke and Noah," Frank says. "They're a little nuts but they finally got married earlier this year. I can't believe you weren't around for the Luke and Noah saga, man, you missed so much."
"I did," he says quietly.
Frank rolls his head on the back of the couch a little to look at him, but Gerard doesn't look back. "Where did you go? Ray said you disappear sometimes for a long time."
Gerard's eyes follow Noah on the screen, and he swallows before he speaks. "When I couldn't stand to wait anymore, I'd - I'd go looking."
For you. Frank's mouth feels dry.
"You went a lot of places?" he asks. His voice sounds high.
"All over, really. I didn't know where to look so I just went everywhere. I didn't really know what else to do."
Frank's silent. What the fuck is he supposed to say?
Gerard turns his head to look at Frank, but this time Frank keeps his eyes focused on the screen. "Is Guiding Light still on after this?" Gerard asks. "That was always my favorite. You should have heard it when it was still on the radio, it was amazing."
Frank exhales. "I've got some bad news for you, man."
Gerard's eyes widen. "No," he says.
Frank nods and makes sure to look especially concerned. "Yes."
"I hate missing important shit. I can't believe it's gone," Gerard says, sounding especially morose. Frank laughs and makes a mental note to teach him the wonders of a DVR player. He'll never miss a precisely lit single solitary tear again.
After a while he falls silent, his eyelids heavy and his concentration wavering. He manages to make it until the big confrontation in the South American prison at the end, but when Frank opens his eyes again he's alone in the living room. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes and sits up. There's a pillow under his head (and a little bit of drool on it, ugh) and a blanket tucked up to his chin, but Gerard is nowhere to be seen.
Frank picks up the lukewarm Gatorade bottle from the coffee table and sticks it back in the fridge. He might as well go upstairs to try and sleep if Gerard's gone. He must have been pretty bored. Frank's not surprised he slipped out when Frank passed out on the couch. Ugh, lame.
He doesn't even have the door to his room all the way open before Gerard scares the crap out of him.
"Who are these guys?" Gerard asks, standing up close to one of the music posters on his wall.
"Ahh, Jesus," Frank says, startled. "I thought you'd left."
Gerard looks flabbergasted. "Why would I leave?"
"Uhm, well. I'm sure you're busy. And I just sort of fell asleep, sorry about that."
"You looked tired. I didn't want to bother you." His eyes go back to the posters and pictures lining the walls of Frank's bedroom. Frank can see his glance stay on some photographs of Frank and his school friends, goofing off in their uniforms with slackened ties and shit-eating grins, and a framed one of him and his mom when he was about eleven and holding his first guitar. Frank knows they couldn't afford that guitar in the slightest, but he still got one, probably his mom's desperate way to make up for a year that had seen him mostly in and out of hospitals.
"Did I have the same mom?" Frank asks. "Before. Was she the same?" He hates that he wants to know, but. If he got to come back, it'd make sense that he'd have to come from the same person, right? He doesn't really like to think of himself without her.
"No, your mother was different," Gerard says. Something is pinched in his tone. "Does your mother now...does she approve?"
"Approve of what?" Frank takes a step closer to Gerard to look at the framed picture with him.
His mother is younger in the picture, but more tired. Frank knows it was a bad year. His parents divorced the year before that Christmas, and she was alone for the first time in over fifteen years with a son who was always either in the principal's office or in the hospital. But the smile on her face, looking at Frank, is beautiful.
"Of you." Gerard turns to look at him.
"Of course."
Gerard turns back to the photograph, the tightness in his mouth lessening. "That's good. Your mother Before...well. She was different."
Frank doesn't want to know more about that mother. She doesn't seem to belong to him, and he doesn't want to think about him existing and growing up without his mother now. It seems that they weren't fated like that. He doesn't want to think about it.
Gerard glances around his room again, like he's looking for something in particular. “So you and Jenny...”
“Um, yeah, that didn't really work out. Just a high school thing, you know?” Frank tries to say it as casually as he can while also managing to not invite anymore questions.
“Oh,” Gerard says, and that's it. Frank's not sure what he expected, not like, a ticker tape parade for his break up, but something more than just “oh”.
"I'm kind of tired," Frank says, which isn't a lie. He makes a side-eyed glance towards the bed which he knows Gerard sees.
"Oh, right, of course you are." Gerard takes a step towards the door with his hands clasped behind his back. Frank knows he should be a good host and show Gerard the way out and thank him for coming, but right now he can barely think past crawling into the bed and pressing his face against the cool pillowcase. He waits to hear the door of the bedroom shut behind Gerard but instead there is pause and then the mattress dips next to him.
Frank knows that Gerard is testing the limits of how close Frank will let him. He's always testing, with the way he touches Frank and the way he talks about Before. But right now, Frank is so glad for that weight on the mattress next to him that he doesn't care. Instead he closes his eyes and listens to Gerard's steady breaths next to him and is out immediately.
He wakes up when his mother comes home from work and brings him his bottle of chilled Gatorade. The bed beside him is empty, but the spot is still warm and when his mother asks if he's feeling better he says yes. It isn't a lie.
His mom lifts the whole "sort-of-grounded" thing a couple of days later, probably just glad Frank doesn't have pneumonia again. Christmas would be a real downer if he spent it in the hospital again.
Sleeping doesn't get a whole lot easier. It's not always the same feeling of being chased; sometimes it's just vague impressions of places he's never seen before, and the emotions he associated with them in another life. Frank wraps the scarf Gerard left him months ago (he should have known it was from Gerard, it's so obvious) around his wrist and it helps.
It's almost finals, so he has plenty of studying to do while he's not sleeping, and even though he's exhausted when he actually has to take the tests, he still knows enough that he doesn't think he'll have to hide his report card when it comes.
And then it's finally winter break, and like, usually it's pretty boring, since Bob goes back to Chicago and Ray always goes down to Florida for family stuff and Frank is stuck in Jersey, but now he can go bug Gerard.
Not that Gerard, minds, of course. “Frank!” he says, opening the door to him again, like he can’t believe Frank’s there. Again. Even though Frank’s been going over there about every day for a week.
Frank just smiles and tries not to roll his eyes fondly. “You ready to go?”
Gerard shifts a little in the doorway. “Uhm. I think so. Let me grab my coat.”
Frank slips inside and closes the door behind him while Gerard pulls on his huge peacoat. It’s this really amazing, military cut coat with thick brass buttons and real embroidery, not like one of those knock-offs he sees kids at school trying to pull off sometimes. Gerard wraps his long, thick scarf around his face and Frank grins into the old scarf he’s already got tucked around his face and into his jacket.
“You’re sure your mom doesn’t mind us taking her car?” He asks hesitantly as he steps out and locks the door behind him.
“Nah, I asked her yesterday. It’s totally cool.”
Gerard doesn’t seem too convinced, but he follows him back over to the street and into his mom’s car, sitting almost delicately in the passenger seat, like he’s afraid it’s going to break if he leans back against it.
“You nervous, Gee?”
“Oh, uhm,” he starts, so yes, yes he is. “No. Not at all.”
"It might be kind of crowded, since it's almost Christmas," Frank warns him as he pulls out into traffic. "But it'll be cool. Have you ever been to a Best Buy before?"
Gerard shakes his head, and he's acting like a skittish animal being taken to the vet, so Frank reaches over and pats his shoulder. "It's gonna be awesome."
And Frank was right; It's totally awesome and totally packed. He almost reaches for Gerard's hand to lead him through the crowd, but ends up just nodding his head. "Come on, I want to grab mom's movies before we really start looking around."
Gerard stays close behind him as he navigates through the crowd. He’s pale and staring at everybody and everything that they pass, but he seems more fascinated than scared.
“What’s that?” he asks, pointing towards the electronics department.
Frank peers around him to see where he’s pointing. “Those are the cameras.”
Gerard looks at him like he’s crazy. “They’re so small!”
“Yeah, they make them pretty small nowadays.” When he glances back Gerard’s still staring at them. “Look, why don’t you go over there and poke around, and I’ll be there in a sec.”
Gerard shakes his head. “Oh, no, I don’t -“
Frank smiles and pushes him gently in that direction. “I’ll be right behind you.”
When he finally grabs the last of his mom’s movies and makes it over there, Gerard’s just standing at the display and staring at all of the tiny little digital cameras. He seems really relieved when Frank shows up, pressing a gentle hand against his back.
"See anything you like?" Frank asks.
Gerard just sort of blinks at them. "You don't even need film. It's just there. It's just - they're all so..."
"Yeah," Frank agrees. "Come on, let's go look at the video games."
"Okay," Gerard says, falling in step behind him.
Frank knows Gerard doesn't have an X-box or anything, and he's sure he would've noticed even like a Nintendo 64 or a Gamecube, but that doesn't stop Gerard from picking up the different games on the shelves and looking at the pictures on the boxes.
"They look so real," Gerard says, slightly awed.
"Yeah, the graphics on that one are pretty sweet. Have you ever played...anything?" he asks.
"Mikey really liked Pong," Gerard says, putting the box back on the shelf. "But after....I think I put the Atari up in the attic."
Later Frank’s sprawled on Gerard’s living room floor with Best Buy bags strewn across the carpet and the instructions for the DVR unfolded in his lap and the contents of the box laid out around him. Gerard comes in from the kitchen with two mugs of coffee and sits down next to him.
"Making any sense?" he asks, pushing one of the mugs closer to Frank’s knee. Frank takes a sip from it distractedly as he keeps reading the tiny text.
“I think so. Eventually. Why’d you never switch over from VHS before this?” he asks, frowning at a passage about cables.
Gerard shrugged. “I totally got screwed over on the whole Betamax debacle a while back. I like to wait until new technology settles a bit.”
“Well, you’re going to love this. You’ll even be able to pause your soaps to take a coffee break.”
Gerard speaks with a hushed reverence, “Amazing.”
"And you won't have to miss Survivor or anything because of the moon, you can just record it and watch it in the morning."
Gerard eyes the remote and the new box under his TV like they're both made of solid gold. Frank's actually a little jealous for a second, but then Gerard turns to him and just smiles at him. "Thank you, Frankie."
Frank can feel his cheeks starting to heat up, which is totally stupid, but he can't do anything about it except hope that Gerard doesn't notice. "No problem. Like, Merry Christmas, you know?" Not that it's much of a gift, since Gerard bought it, but he only did because Frank promised to set it up for him.
"Oh! Right, um. Wait here for just one second?" Gerard says, already half out of the room.
When he comes back in the room he has this large, thin white square in his hands. He sits back down next to Frank and hands it over. “Here. Merry Christmas.”
Frank kind of stares at him because why is he giving him a big sheet of paper but then, oh - it’s a record. But not in a regular printed sleeve. He tips the sleeve until the record slides out into his palm, and then he’s pretty sure he stops breathing there for a second.
“Gerard, what the shit, are you - are you serious?” he manages. It’s a fucking label press test edition of the Ramones’ first album. A piece of paper falls out of the sleeve as well, and he can see the date April 5, 1976 scrawled in the top corner. It’s a setlist. Fucking original album setlist.
Gerard nods and rubs at the back of his neck. “Yeah, uhm. I worked in London for a while, at this record company, just, you know, little stuff. I was friends with some of the guys who worked there and when I left they gave me one. I thought you might like it.”
Frank runs his fingers over the words Joni is a punk etched in dead wax on the B-Side. “Gerard, this is incredible. I don’t - I. Just. Wow, thank you.”
Gerard smiles like it’s nothing. “You’re welcome.”
"I made you buy your present," Frank says guiltily.
"But you set it up for me, and you'll come over and watch it with me, right?" Gerard asks.
"Well, yeah, if you want."
And then Gerard's beaming at him, like Frank coming over to mooch on his DVR is the best present ever, and Frank's stomach does this weird swoopy thing and he has to look away.
*
He goes out with Ray and Bob on Saturday after New Year's, but keeps it pretty low key. He only takes a few hits off the bong being passed around. Ray is still giving him worried looks, and doesn't need weird high dreams on top of everything else.
"Hey, Bobert," he says, while Ray's going to get another beer. "I got a thing tomorrow. Is it cool if I tell my ma I'm staying with you?"
"You're not gonna get yourself killed?" Bob asks.
"No, I'm not going to get killed. You're worse than Toro."
"I don't want your mom to get mad at me." Bob shrugs.
"She won't, I'll be at school Monday, I promise."
"You better. You know they get pissed if you miss the first day back after the break."
Frank practically starts counting the hours. He wants to go over to Gerard's before the full moon, especially when the itchy feeling under his skin starts up again on Friday, but he actually is busy with over-the-holiday-homework stuff, and his friends want to hang out now that he isn't semi-grounded anymore.
He lasts all the way until three o'clock on Sunday afternoon. The paper said the sun wouldn't set until around six, but he doesn't think Gerard will mind if he gets there a little early. "I'll text you when I get to school tomorrow," he says, kissing his mom on the cheek and grabbing his backpack.
"Okay, Frankie, tell Mrs. Bryar hi for me."
Frank cringes. He hates lying to her. "Bye mom!"
When he gets to Gerard's, he doesn't even have to knock on the door before it's open. Gerard is just wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants and Frank's mouth goes dry. "Hey, I know I'm early but-"
"No, it's fine. I never get much done on the day of the moon anyway," Gerard says, closing the door behind Frank.
"Do you get uh," turned on by everything, "that itchy feeling, too? Or is it just cause I'm new?" Frank drops his bag in the living room and looks around.
"It never really goes away, but I've gone through a lot of moons and it's mostly manageable."
"Cool," Frank says, scratching at the back of his neck. "...I don't suppose I get to go outside tonight?"
Gerard laughs at that, and it must be the first time Frank's heard it, because it's his new favorite sound. "No, not for a while yet. Maybe by the fall."
Frank's a little disappointed, but when he remembers his dreams, he's comforted by the thought of Gerard's basement.
It's not a comfortable afternoon. Frank isn't sure how Gerard can seem to keep it together. Only a little while to go and Frank can't sit still for more than a few seconds. It's taking most of his concentration not to rub up all over everything in the house, let alone Gerard. God, those stupid sweatpants with that stupid low waistband and --
"Frank?" Gerard asks, snapping Frank out of his staring fit. "You want to head on downstairs?" He's still sipping at his coffee in the old cracked mug, and Frank watches his lips on the rim.
"Uhm, yeah. Sure. Yeah," he mumbles. Frank grabs his backpack and follows Gerard down the stairs to the basement.
"You nervous?" Gerard asks casually as he pulls the huge lock on the door into place. As soon as the cogs lock down Frank can feel the wolf inside him riling up in anger. He hates being locked up, he's not supposed to be locked up, this is wrong, he needs to get out now -- and before he knows it Gerard's hand is on his chest holding him back against the wall. He's pretty sure his teeth are bared.
"Frank," Gerard says, his eyebrows furrowing and his fingertips pressed firmly against Frank's twitching chest. It's authoritative and unlike his usual gentle tone, and it makes Frank want to back down and let him do whatever he wants to him, right now, and it makes him want to push back against him just to see what he'll do to make him stop.
He's about to push forward again make me stop make me stop when Gerard shifts his hand around to the back of the neck and half-pulls him down the stairs. The moon's almost up, and Frank can already feel his insides pulling against one another. Things are starting to blur, and there's an echo of a cramp in his muscles that grows more painful with every heartbeat.
"Hold still, Frankie, just one second," Gerard says soothingly, and in a flash he's pulling Frank's shirt over his head. His hands are at the waist of Frank's jeans before Frank realizes what he's doing. Gnah. He can't even help it when he bucks into Gerard's hands, and Gerard's not even touching him.
"Don't want you to ruin another pair of clothes, Frankie, hold on just a little bit longer, don't freak out, just ignore the window and focus on me, okay?" he says as his fingers work at the buttons on his fly. By this time Frank's got his face pressed up against the crook of Gerard's neck and shoulder, and he can tell that Gerard is breathing heavily and sweating.
The moon is down and Frank's knees go out. God, it hurts so fucking bad. He just moans as Gerard helps him to the ground. He's pretty sure that his pants are gone too, but he can't even care because his back is arching and everything is throbbing and the only thing he can focus on as the change comes is that Gerard's hand is still on the side of his face, wiping away the hair and the sweat (and maybe a few tears, although he's pretty sure he won't admit to that later).
And then it's over and it's another full moon and there are two wolves in the basement.
***
Frank the wolf is angry again, but more at the door than at Gerard, either because he knows Gerard now or remembers last month, knows Gerard is more dominant. So he snarls and throws himself against the door once, twice, but it holds firm.
Gerard waits at the bottom of the stairs. He could force Frank back down, but the footing would be unsteady, and he doesn't want to have to assert himself unless he has to. It doesn't matter, in the end, because Frank comes plodding back down the stairs, hackles raised, but he avoids Gerard's eyes.
Gerard butts his head against Frank's side, attempting to prompt some play to burn off Frank's energy and distract him. Frank turns his head back then, wary, but he does look Gerard in the eye then, and his stance relaxes. Gerard's tail begins wagging, and he butts Frank again, but this time, Frank pushes back.
His concept of time while he's a wolf is vague at best, but their play lasts for a long while, Frank's anxious energy versus Gerard's glee at someone to play with again. At playing with Frank again. Eventually though, they curl up together on the torn cushions, and Gerard's tail thumps against the fabric until he finally falls asleep.
He's awakened just before sunrise by Frank's whines and whimpers. He's still next to Gerard, but he can feel the change coming. Gerard inches closer, trying to soothe him. If he had words, he'd tell Frank not to fight it, to just let it happen, but he can't.
Soon enough, though, he's whispering comforting words in Frank's ear as he rubs his hand up and down Frank's arm. Frank's still twitching it out, his human eyes bleary and sweat covering his temples and slicking his hair. When it looks like he's finally past the worst of it, Gerard stands up and heads over to the linen closet where Frank's backpack is stashed. He grabs his discarded pair of jeans off of the floor (some errant play slashed up one of the legs pretty bad, but they're still wearable for now) and pulls them up over his hips. When he turns around from the linen closet, Frank is staring. Like really staring. Not even attempting to mask it. He's probably too tired to pretend.
Gerard's hand clenches a little bit tighter around the strap of the backpack.
He kneels next to Frank and starts pulling out the parts to his uniform -- pants, dress shoes, socks, boxers, undershirt, shirt, tie, blazer, jeez, he does not miss having to dress in so many layers, and at least now Frank only has to wear this stuff for school. Before they had to wear about double this stuff all the freakin' time -- while Frank sort of languidly scratches his fingers through his hair and against his scalp. And stares.
"Here, you take these. You want a shower?" he asks Frank, moving the neat little pile of clothing closer to him and making sure to focus on his face and nothing else. Frank sort of half-nods and hums a little bit so Gerard will take this as a yes.
"Okay, you take these, I'll go turn the shower on for you. I'll get breakfast started so you won't be late for school, okay?" God, he feels like a mother, but he's pretty sure if he just left Frank here to his own devices, he'd curl up in the pile of cushions in the corner and sleep away the day. And Gerard is not going to get Frank in trouble again over this. Him being grounded once before sucked enough to last him a good while.
He grabs Frank's wrist, pulls him to his feet, and presses the clothes against his chest until Frank raises his arms to carry them.
The shower in the house is old but sort of neat. There are claw feet on the tub and a big brass looking ring around the top for the shower curtain. The faucet is one of those old time head showers with the curved ceramic bits. It's nicer than any tub Gerard had Before and it still works fine, so he doesn't mind how long it takes to warm up or how loud it can be sometimes when the pipes are cold.
He sort of hated leaving Frank in there alone, but he is pretty sure staying and hanging out while Frank stood under the hot water and got the soreness from last night out of his bones would put him pretty high on the creepy meter, and he's been trying harder lately to avoid that.
It's eggs this morning, with lots of pepper, and he's just got them plated up with some nice toast and butter when he can hear the shower shut off in the other room. It's only a few minutes later when Frank comes into the kitchen, still barefoot but dressed in his uniform, hair mussed and wet and tie slack around his neck. Gerard wants to press him against the counter right there, maybe run his finger right past the bit of skin he can see showing at the hem of his pants and rucked up shirt, but instead he smiles and passes Frank a plate.
"I can make more," Gerard says, as Frank falls on the plate. "I've got some bacon in the fridge, too."
"'M vgtrin," Frank says around his fork, still focused on the food.
"...huh?" Gerard asks, working on his own plate at a steady, if slower, pace.
Frank swallows down and reaches for his glass of juice. "I'm a vegetarian. No pig bacon for me."
Gerard stares. "...Is there another kind of bacon?" He's seen a lot of weird shit over the past century, but bacon has always been bacon.
"They make some out of soy, it's good."
Whatever face Gerard makes at that makes Frank laugh, high and fast and then he's just smiling at Gerard. He gets that weird swooping feeling in his chest. He just wants to reach out and hold Frank's hand across the table. It's cheesy but Gerard just wants to touch him. He doesn't think Frank would mind if he did, not with the way he was looking at Gerard earlier, but now is just not the time.
He wants it to be though.
"Do you want more?" Gerard asks, nodding to Frank's empty plate.
Frank's eyes shoot to the clock. "I should get going soon, but could I get some toast for the road?"
"Of course." Gerard stands quickly, trying to keep his hands and mind busy as Frank pulls on his shoes and grabs his backpack.
"Do you have everything?" Gerard asks, wrapping the toast up in a paper towel.
"Yeah." Frank nods, slinging the pack over his shoulder. "So, uh, I'll see you later?"
Gerard smiles. "Yeah, I'll be here. Try to stay out of trouble."
Frank shifts on his feet, his fingers twitching at his side. "I'll try."
"Okay. Um, have fun at school," Gerard says, holding out the toast, but Frank doesn't take it. Instead, he steps forward and presses his lips against Gerard's, quick and dry. Gerard doesn't have a chance to react before Frank pulls back, takes the toast and is out the door.
He's pretty sure he heard a "thanksbye" but it could have just been the sound of the door slamming shut behind him.
He pauses and waits as the silence of the house settles back around him, almost like Frank was never there. But he was there. And he came back. And he kissed him. Gerard raises his fingers to his lips and presses gently against the skin.
He finishes cleaning up the kitchen and then heads into the bathroom to take a shower. It's still damp from when Frank was in there earlier and condensation drips down the small, inset window and over the pipes. It smells like Gerard's shampoo and soap and, if he breathes deeply enough, it smells like Frank, and Gerard lasts only a couple of minutes standing under the hot water before he’s got his hand on his dick. Fuck, Frank. He came back.
Part 4
They're really good pancakes. Frank would normally be embarrassed by how many he is taking in, but they're really good and he's really starving and it's been a really really weird night. He doesn't even notice that Gerard is hardly touching his food, mostly just moving it around on his plate with his fork.
"What's the matter?" Frank asks inbetween bites. "I thought you liked pancakes?"
Gerard just pushes the pancake around on his plate and makes little swirl designs in the syrup. "Why haven't you left?" he says, and then immediately freezes, like he's worried suggesting it will make Frank bolt.
Frank pauses to swallow. "Do you want me to leave?" Maybe he's asking too many questions. And he remembers last night, the way Gerard gripped onto his neck with his jaws. If Gerard wanted him to leave, he'd leave.
"No. No, I don't want you to leave. I just. You know. Most people would leave."
"Well, I'm not most people."
"No, you're certainly not." Gerard smiles sort of forlornly at the pancake on his plate. Frank swirls his finger in the syrup and then sucks it into his mouth and tries not to notice how Gerard's eyes dart up at the noise.
"I want to show you something." There's a determination in Gerard's face, now. Frank doesn't know what he wants to show him, but he knows that whatever it is, it's important, and it's a test. They've been skirting around things all night, and Frank knows they're finally getting to the main issue. The thing that's going to break this tentative thing they've got here.
Gerard gets up from the table and leaves the room. Frank isn't sure if he's meant to follow, and he feels kind of weird going into other parts of Gerard's house, but he gets up and follows him out of the room and down a long hallway. Gerard goes into a room that looks like it would have been an old study. There's an old engraved desk covered in papers (and a wicked bat paperweight, woah) that looks as though it cost more than all of the furniture in his house put together sitting right next to a leopard print dog pillow. Gerard, however, is rifling through some sort of chest that he's pulled out from underneath the desk and placed on the surface.
Frank gets close enough to Gerard to peer over his shoulder. It looks like a really poorly organized memory chest, of some sort. Frank sees an old watch and several news clippings and old photographs, the kind where everyone is sitting still and looks unhappy to be there. Gerard finally pulls out two photographs and a news clipping, and they look so frail in his hands that they could just disintegrate at the touch.
Gerard flips the photographs around. The first is of Gerard, and it's so obviously Gerard that Frank is stunned. He's standing next to a young man who looks sort of like him, but younger and sharper, his face mostly masked by large, thick glasses. Gerard doesn't look as tired, either. He even manages to have that same little smile at the corners of his mouth that Frank saw just a few minutes ago while he was making pancakes. The dress in the photograph is dated, the collars sharp, the vests well-tailored.
"That's Mikey," Gerard says, pointing to the man standing next to him, "and that's me." Frank can see the little date written in the corner, too. 1912. Jesus.
"And that's you." He points to the second photograph and Frank can't breathe. It's him, wearing those stiff clothes and looking stoic in the middle of a group of people he doesn't recognize. Gerard and Mikey aren't in the picture at all.
"That's your family. They lived in the same town as us. It was a really big family, even though you didn't have any brothers or sisters. You always really wanted a big family. I'm afraid they didn't really like me very much. I think they were glad you were friends with Mikey, though." Frank can barely hear him, although if it's because Gerard's speaking low or just that his brain is fogging over, he can't really tell.
Gerard turns over the scrap of newspaper, and Frank can see it's an obituary, dated April 18, 1914 and his name, his fucking name is at the top. He can vaguely hear Gerard talking about it, in gentle, soothing tones, as if that'll make it any less weird that he's a fucking werewolf and he's in a house with a werewolf who has apparently lived for over a hundred fucking years and he has pictures of a guy who looks just like him and a fucking obituary, and --
"I don't have any pictures of us together, I'm afraid. It was far too expensive and we didn't have a good enough lie to explain for just the two of us to have a picture. It would have raised too much suspicion. Although that obviously didn't matter enough in the end. They found out anyway -"
"No," Frank says, and takes a huge step back. He can feel the calm he's had since he woke up this morning cracking, splitting his skin. What is this? What is his life? What the shit is this? He needs some time away from this house and these old photographs and Gerard's face and eyes, and the way Gerard looks at him like Frank can save him. For fuck's sake, he's just turned seventeen, he can't do anything, he can't save anyone, why the fuck is this happening to him.
He doesn't realize he's shaking and panting until Gerard's strong hands wrap around his biceps and hold him tight. Frank's not sure he could run if he wanted to. It's the first time they've actually touched since last night and right now Frank wants Gerard to hold him together like he did when he was writhing in agony on the floor. Gerard makes soothing noises and slowly pulls him close until he's panting into Gerard's shoulder and eventually just letting out occasional deep, gasping breaths. Gerard runs his fingers up the back of Frank's neck and through the hair on the nape of his neck up to the crown and back again. It's a little like petting, but the ridges of Gerard's fingernails are soothing and calming and Frank just breaths and pulls himself back together.
"Is this normal-" of course not, they're goddamn werewolves, "-the waiting. I mean." Frank doesn't bother lifting his head from Gerard's shoulder, and Gerard doesn't stop petting him, but his hands do freeze for a moment.
"Not exactly. I was pretty broken up after what happened to you." Frank is more than a little certain that that is an understatement, but it's Gerard's story. He can't yet wrap his mind around the fact that they've had a story together before Frank's great-grandma was even born. "I probably would have done something drastic if it hadn't been for Mikey. I drank- a lot - Prohibition was rough.
"But in '24 I took my niece and nephew to the circus that was coming through town, and there was a Gypsy there. She was the real deal and, I don't know, I guess my misery impressed her. She said I'd been waiting a long time, but if I was patient, you'd come back."
Gerard chuckled. "I never thought I'd have to wait this long, but that doesn't matter anymore."
Frank leans into Gerard's neck, fighting the guilt that's building inside of him. He hates to think of Gerard alone for so long. He should have been born sooner. Or something. He shouldn't have done whatever got him killed in the first place. He should have been nicer to him. "I'm sorry," he says.
Gerard squeezes Frank's neck. "For what?"
"That I made you wait so long, that I was a total jackass to you. I should've known-"
"That you were the reincarnation of my werewolf mate from 1914? Frankie, this is some weird shit, it's not your fault. And if you had come back sooner, who's to say it wouldn't have happened all over again? Times had to change. I would have waited longer if I had to."
Gerard whispers that last part but they're so close Frank hears it anyway.
"Gerard, I-" Frank's phone starts buzzing from where he dropped his pants out in the hall and they both jump. "That's probably my mom."
Frank pulls away to go answer it and he feels colder immediately. He feels weird just leaving Gerard in the other room, where he can probably overhear the snippets of his conversation ("No, mom, I was at Ray's, no, I didn't skip, I was sick" and "no, I'm really sorry, I'm sorry, yes, okay" and "I'm on the way home right now") but at least only he has to hear her worried tone.
When Frank returns to the kitchen Gerard is already running warm water over the remains of their breakfast. He doesn't turn around when the floorboards creak underneath his feet, and he can't help but fidget in the doorway. He still feels cold.
"I have to go," he says. He squeezes his phone between his palms but it doesn't alleviate any of the pressure. Gerard is silent.
"But. Uhm. I'll come back. I think I'm pretty much grounded for a while, or I've gotta be a good son for a bit, she was kind of suspicious, but, yeah. I'll come back soon. Is...Is that okay?" Frank asks. He really hopes it's okay.
"Of course. I'll be here." Waiting.
There's a bit of an awkward pause. Gerard's hands are soapy and wet and his back is still turned, and Frank doesn't know what's an appropriate way to say good-bye. He might be the reincarnated werewolf lover Gerard lost almost a hundred years ago but he's also seventeen and he's awkward and right now, with this Gerard and this Frank, they are nothing yet.
He mutters a quiet, "Bye, Gerard," before he quietly pads out of the room towards the front of the house. Gerard keeps his back turned the whole time and doesn't watch him leave.
***
Frank is most definitely in trouble. His mom is not happy.
The only thing that really keeps her from coming down hard is that Frank did technically leave a note and doesn't smell like alcohol or weed and isn't hungover. If he were hungover she'd probably have him clean every room in the house. He's just exhausted. She fusses at him a lot and sends him to his room without even taking his phone away, so he types out a quick text to Ray. If my mom calls i was w/ u last night
Where were u, Ray replies quickly. she DID call. i covered for u.
thanks, man. ill tell u later. Frank has to think of something to tell Ray that doesn't involve werewolves or reincarnation.
He sleeps away most of Saturday and spends Sunday doing homework to appease his mom.
After he’s done researching some articles for a paper he’s got due in a couple of weeks, though, he can’t help but pause and tap his finger against the side of the mouse as he thinks.
Surely if werewolves are real there’s something out there, right? He takes a deep breath and sits forward in his chair, clicking over to the search engine. Werewolves. And go.
There are a lot of terrible homemade web pages in sparkly comic sans font and furry porn (oh, god, no, that’s still not okay) but he does manage to find some shit that might be helpful. Myths, mostly, and a lot of legends he’s picked up from a surprisingly helpful addiction to horror movies.
He gets caught up reading a bunch of pages about the old werewolf legends (apparently some of them could actually change into wolves at will, how cool would that shit be) when he pauses on a list of the rumored weaknesses. Huh.
Silver. It's so obvious, but Frank hadn't really thought about it, because usually it's silver bullets and he already does his best to avoid bullets no matter what metal they're made of. But maybe now he only needs to avoid the silver ones? And who even has those anymore? Frank highly doubts that there is anyone that would help him test the bullet invulnerability, but silver. His mom must have tons of silver jewelry and some of it's got to be real, right?
He pokes his head out of his room, checking to see what his mom is up to before he goes slinking into her bathroom to go through her jewelry. She caught him playing with her make up once, but that was two years ago and she wasn't already kind of pissed at him, so he'd prefer to avoid confrontation altogether.
There’s a necklace he knows his grandma gave her years ago that’s gotta be silver lying on the counter next to some of her earrings. He picks it up, testing it, and - it burns. Not horribly, but an itching, irritating sensation across his palm where the chain falls. He drops it back to the counter and runs his finger over the mark it left. It looks like a rash, or something, but doesn't feel any better if he scratches at it. Huh.
He wakes up the next morning and the mark is still there. It doesn't itch that bad but it doesn't stop him from freaking out a little that it's going to be permanent. School that whole week is...interesting, everything just seems a whole lot less attention-worthy when compared to being a werewolf. He can't stop flipping his palm over in class to look at the mark and gauge the color.
When his history class goes to the library to work on a project, he uses the computer to check when the next full moon is. Coach Cradinsky looks at him like he's grown a second head when he finishes running the mile in PE without having to stop once to prevent death by asthma and while lapping a couple of members of the cross-country team. Frank wonders if that's a werewolf thing, and makes a note to ask Gerard next time he can. He has a lot of things to ask Gerard the next time he can.
Jenny's not too pleased when she finds out he's sort of grounded indefinitely. It definitely puts a damper on the dating thing. Of course, then Ray asks what the two of them got up to on Friday night. It makes sense - most dudes would need to cover for staying out all night with their girlfriends, but Frank wasn't with her, and he still hasn't thought of a good lie, so when she asks, he just has to shrug.
"Uh, out. I just didn't make it home," he says, and it's kind of true.
"Were you with another girl?" she asks, angry and upset.
"No! I swear I was just..." He can't tell the truth, and he feels guilty about how much time he's spent thinking about Gerard and what it would have been like with Gerard in his first life. He's not sure when he started believing all the past lives stuff, but it's easier to go with it than try to fight all the proof Gerard showed him. He just doesn't know what to say.
Jenny looks at his face and comes to her own conclusions, throwing him the dirtiest look in the fucking world before turning and leaving Frank staring at his sandwich as Ray and Bob give him weird looks. "Dude, I think your girlfriend just broke up with you," Bob observes.
Frank's shoulders slump. "Yeah."
"Frank...are you in any trouble? Like, if it's drugs, or something, we can get you help. No judgment," Ray says, hair bobbing earnestly.
"Thanks man, but I'm good. Just, life and shit." Frank wishes he could tell them, but he's pretty sure that'd be against the rules. Or at least he should check with Gerard first. Plus he doesn't want to tell Ray how Frank could've killed him and eaten every earnest hair on his head Friday night. The thought makes his lunch turns to stone in his stomach and he stabs a cold french fry against the tray until it turns to mush.
*
After two weeks of only waving at Gerard through the window, Frank gets creative. On his way home from school he walks on Gerard's side of the street and opens his mailbox, quickly grabbing something from inside. When he gets back to his place, he brings in his own mail, and drops it on the counter and waits til his mom gets home.
Frank tries not to twitch too much through dinner, and after he puts his dishes in the wash he casually flips through the mail. "Oh hey, mom, they gave us a piece of Mr. Way's mail. Should I bring it over to him?"
"Sure, Frankie."
He almost says "thanks" when he goes for his hoodie, and ends up saying, "I'll be back in a bit," before bounding out the door.
Frank doesn't run to Gerard's house, but he walks quickly, his heart pounding in his chest. Gerard doesn't answer the door immediately, and Frank realizes he doesn't even know if Gerard is home. That would ruin his whole plan, and like, his night.
Gerard answers the door about five seconds before Frank is ready to give up. He's got a smear of paint on his forehead above his eyebrow, and his face splits into a huge smile when he sees Frank.
"Hey," Frank says. "I stole some of your mail."
Gerard doesn't say anything, just opens the door wider and ushers Frank inside. He starts to walk back towards the kitchen, but Frank feels frozen by the door, still clasping the letter in his hand. His mom is going to notice if he's not back in a few minutes, but god he does not want to leave. The events of that night seem so completely surreal when he's standing in the front foyer and he can hear Gerard's coffee machine percolating away in the kitchen and there are no full moons or his own obituaries or neck-biting. He flexes his fingers around the letter still clasped in his hand.
Gerard opens his mouth to say something, maybe invite him back to the kitchen for coffee or for more freaky past life nostalgia fests, but before he can say anything Frank blurts out, "I can't stay really long or my mom will notice but I wanted to, uhm. I wanted to see you."
"You always were good at sneaking out," Gerard says. Frank winces a little. He knows Gerard can't help it, but Frank just doesn't know how to respond to things like that. He's not the Frank (or the Franklin, as spelled in the faded newspaper) from Before. Gerard says they're the same, but Frank just doesn't remember. And it's starting to scare him just how much he wishes he did.
Gerard seems to sense that he's a little flustered. "I have something for you," he says, with almost a pained half-smile. He leads Frank back toward the rear of the house with a gentle hand on the small of his back. Frank starts to protest, but Gerard silences him with an assurance that it will only take a moment. Frank's stomach stays in knots.
He takes him into a room Frank hasn't seen yet, back through the brightly lit kitchen and up a weirdly spaced set of stairs to what looks like a small storage loft. There are blank canvases lined up against the wall, and a paint covered linen tarp covers the floor. There's a well-sized round window at the far wall, and through it Frank can just see the branches of the large oak tree outside.
Gerard plucks the envelope out of Frank's hand but then pauses when he sees Frank's palm. He grabs it, but gently, and turns it so he can get a better look. "What did you do to yourself, Frankie?"
"Uh." Gerard's hand is a lot rougher than Frank would've expected. "I was looking up werewolf stuff online, and you know silver, and my mom had this necklace. It's not permanent, is it?"
Gerard runs his thumb over the red line and goosebumps pop up along Frank's arm. "You didn't hold it there for very long, did you?"
"No, I picked it up and it sort of slid, and yeah."
"Then it should fade by the next moon," Gerard says, squeezing Frank's hand before dropping it and finally looking at the letter in his hand. "I'm glad you brought this over," he says. "I was hoping it would get here soon." He digs his fingernail into the crease of the paper and slits it open.
Frank can't help but be nosy. "What is it?"
"A check. I sold another painting."
"For how much?"
"Enough." Gerard glances over the contents and then creases it in half and sticks it in his back pocket. Frank can see a smudge of blue already on the corner. It is the little blue smudge that is so fascinating to stare at when Gerard bends over. Oh god, he is a pervert, but can you blame him those are some really low jeans Gerard apparently likes to wear while painting and he is pretty sure the crotch is so worn it is about to dissolve out, what the hell -
"Uh, so-" he coughs out, diverting his eyes to look at some of the drawings tacked to the bare walls. “Can I ask you some more questions?”
“Of course,” Gerard says, still rifling through the pile of artwork in the corner and not standing back up. The ceiling in here is great. Frank decides to stare at it some more. And definitely not at Gerard.
“So, uhm. Am I immortal like you, now?” he asks.
Gerard hesitates for a second, uneasy. “No. I’m not immortal either, I don’t think. We…well, werewolves usually live longer than humans anyway, and the aging is slower, but I’m just - I’m just waiting. Paused, I guess.”
“So now that I’m back you’ll get older?”
Gerard doesn’t hesitate this time, but he’s quiet. “I don’t know. It feels like it.”
His nerves feel like they're rattling against the skin with the weight of all this. Frank scuffs his toe through some dust pressed into the cracks of the hardwood floor. “What about, uhm, in gym class today, I could actually run without dying of an asthma attack. That’s weird, right?”
Gerard nods and moves to rifle through a new stack of paper. “Not for us.”
Awesome. “Am I going to get all hairy and shit? Pull a Lon Chaney?”
Gerard lets out a honking sort of giggle. "I wish. I can't even get decent sideburns going. Oh, good, here it is." He stands back up (oh, he was rustling through a stack of papers on the chair over by the window for a reason, right, he had something for him) and walks back over to Frank with something in his hand, some sort of paper.
Frank barely outstretches his hand to take it from Gerard when he hears his cell phone ring. Shit shit shit he knows it's his mom, shit shit. He checks the caller ID hastily before flipping it open and blurting out, "Sorry sorry, yeah, mom, I'm coming, he wasn't home but uhm I put it in his mailbox and I just thought I heard a kitten in the storm drain so I got distracted. Nah, it was probably just the wind or something, I'll be right back," and hangs up. He's lucky he's a punk kid with a well-known affinity for tiny animals because it's a bullshit story his mom will totally buy.
"I gotta -" he starts, but Gerard is already leading him quickly out of the house. He slips the piece of paper into Frank's hoodie pocket and opens the front door for him, but before Frank can slip back outside he grasps his hand and looks straight into his eyes.
"The full moon's on a Sunday this month," he says. "You need to be here. It's not safe on your own. Try to get one of your friends to cover for you that night. I can get you to school the next day. Just bring a change of clothes."
Frank is scared by the little thrill that runs up his spine at the words. Gerard runs a thumb over Frank's cheek quickly, so light Frank can hardly feel it, and then in another blink Frank is on the front porch and the door is shut. Oh, right, home.
His mom doesn't question him too much when he gets home, just sends him upstairs to do homework, and it isn't until he's safely in his room with the door locked that he can pull the piece of paper out of his pocket and examine it by the light from his small desk lamp. He's half-terrified it will be another photograph of someone he should know but doesn't, but instead it's a small and worn looking ink painting. Frank runs his fingers over the thick textured paper.
It's a simple landscape of a roaming hillside and woods under a huge, almost staggering full moon. There are no wolves or people in the picture, just the open land and sky, and something in Frank's heart is desperate for it.
His dreams are dreams of running, and it's wonderful, but then the four legs are gone and it's a dream of running from someone, from something, and it's terrible and clumsy and he is never going to make it out of these woods alive oh god, oh god, they know, they're going to find him, and there's blood and it's making it hard to see but he has to keep going -- and he wakes up gasping in a cold sweat. He could have sworn he felt the mud around his ankles, the branches whipping at his face, the way his cold human fingers tried so desperately to find a way out.
He doesn't sleep for the rest of the night.
His mom comes in to wake him up in the morning and finds him staring at the ceiling, pale and clammy. "I'll call the school," she says, and returns two minutes later with a giant bottle of Gatorade in one hand and the phone in the other. "I want you to drink all of this by the time I get home. There's soup in the fridge and crackers in the cupboard."
She pushes back the hair that sticks to Frank's forehead. "Do you want help downstairs now? We can get the couch all set up."
Frank feels guilty about using his immune system's track record like this, but he isn't sure how he'd do in school today. "I think I can do it. Thanks, mom." He clings to her hand for a minute, half wishing he was still young enough for her to take the day off and spend it with him on the couch watching 101 Dalmatians.
She squeezes his hand and leans down to press a kiss to his forehead. "Okay, sweetie, call me if you need anything."
Sleep still won't come even though the sun is up, erasing all the midnight shadows so he quits trying and moves to the living room to watch some trashy soap operas. They haven't even introduced the hot new gardener (who is totally going to knock up the stepmom, okay, Frank knows these things) before there is a knock at the door. Frank is more than a little confused, but he wraps the worn blanket around his shoulders, shuffles to the door, and peers through the peephole.
Gerard's nose and tiny teeth look even weirder through the fisheyed glass, but Frank is glad to see them. The muscles in his shoulders relax a little as he opens the door.
"You didn't go to school today," Gerard says in a rush, eyes taking an inventory of Frank.
"No, I-" Frank doesn't want to worry Gerard. It was just a stupid dream. "I wasn't feeling well when I woke up." And that's the truth. Frank just woke up hours before he normally would have.
"Oh," Gerard says. "Um."
"Do you want to come in?" Frank asks, stepping back. "My mom won't be home for hours, we could just...hang out."
Gerard smiles, and the knot in Frank's gut dissolves. "Sure."
Gerard seems so out of place in Frank's house, standing next to the flowers his mom put in the hall yesterday, his reflection in the glass that covers the cabinet the CD player is in. "I was just watching TV," Frank says, pointing at the TV where some lady with huge hair is currently weeping a single, sad tear. "Have you ever seen this? I mean, we can change it."
"You kidding? I love As the World Turns," Gerard says, settling down on the couch. "I haven't seen this in a while, though. I used to have the biggest crush on Andy Dixon. He had the best hair."
What Frank wants to do is curl up on top of him and get Gerard to tell him that his dream was just a weird dream and that it's safe to go back to sleep. Instead, he sits down at the other end of the couch and listens to him breathe and stares at the screen.
Gerard seems pretty fascinated by the show (and the lady's single solitary tear). "Who's that girl?" He asks when one of the newer characters wanders onto the screen. Frank smiles as he fills Gerard in with the bits he remembers about the characters from the show. He's actually embarrassed by how much he knows about these fictional people, but hey, what can you do, he's spent a fair amount of his sick days on the downstairs couch watching trashy television.
Gerard's laughing at Frank's commentary, and Frank's trying not to smile too hard when Gerard's voice is suddenly silent. Luke and Noah are kissing on the screen.
"Who are they?" Gerard asks, almost hushed. He seems stunned in place.
"Luke and Noah," Frank says. "They're a little nuts but they finally got married earlier this year. I can't believe you weren't around for the Luke and Noah saga, man, you missed so much."
"I did," he says quietly.
Frank rolls his head on the back of the couch a little to look at him, but Gerard doesn't look back. "Where did you go? Ray said you disappear sometimes for a long time."
Gerard's eyes follow Noah on the screen, and he swallows before he speaks. "When I couldn't stand to wait anymore, I'd - I'd go looking."
For you. Frank's mouth feels dry.
"You went a lot of places?" he asks. His voice sounds high.
"All over, really. I didn't know where to look so I just went everywhere. I didn't really know what else to do."
Frank's silent. What the fuck is he supposed to say?
Gerard turns his head to look at Frank, but this time Frank keeps his eyes focused on the screen. "Is Guiding Light still on after this?" Gerard asks. "That was always my favorite. You should have heard it when it was still on the radio, it was amazing."
Frank exhales. "I've got some bad news for you, man."
Gerard's eyes widen. "No," he says.
Frank nods and makes sure to look especially concerned. "Yes."
"I hate missing important shit. I can't believe it's gone," Gerard says, sounding especially morose. Frank laughs and makes a mental note to teach him the wonders of a DVR player. He'll never miss a precisely lit single solitary tear again.
After a while he falls silent, his eyelids heavy and his concentration wavering. He manages to make it until the big confrontation in the South American prison at the end, but when Frank opens his eyes again he's alone in the living room. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes and sits up. There's a pillow under his head (and a little bit of drool on it, ugh) and a blanket tucked up to his chin, but Gerard is nowhere to be seen.
Frank picks up the lukewarm Gatorade bottle from the coffee table and sticks it back in the fridge. He might as well go upstairs to try and sleep if Gerard's gone. He must have been pretty bored. Frank's not surprised he slipped out when Frank passed out on the couch. Ugh, lame.
He doesn't even have the door to his room all the way open before Gerard scares the crap out of him.
"Who are these guys?" Gerard asks, standing up close to one of the music posters on his wall.
"Ahh, Jesus," Frank says, startled. "I thought you'd left."
Gerard looks flabbergasted. "Why would I leave?"
"Uhm, well. I'm sure you're busy. And I just sort of fell asleep, sorry about that."
"You looked tired. I didn't want to bother you." His eyes go back to the posters and pictures lining the walls of Frank's bedroom. Frank can see his glance stay on some photographs of Frank and his school friends, goofing off in their uniforms with slackened ties and shit-eating grins, and a framed one of him and his mom when he was about eleven and holding his first guitar. Frank knows they couldn't afford that guitar in the slightest, but he still got one, probably his mom's desperate way to make up for a year that had seen him mostly in and out of hospitals.
"Did I have the same mom?" Frank asks. "Before. Was she the same?" He hates that he wants to know, but. If he got to come back, it'd make sense that he'd have to come from the same person, right? He doesn't really like to think of himself without her.
"No, your mother was different," Gerard says. Something is pinched in his tone. "Does your mother now...does she approve?"
"Approve of what?" Frank takes a step closer to Gerard to look at the framed picture with him.
His mother is younger in the picture, but more tired. Frank knows it was a bad year. His parents divorced the year before that Christmas, and she was alone for the first time in over fifteen years with a son who was always either in the principal's office or in the hospital. But the smile on her face, looking at Frank, is beautiful.
"Of you." Gerard turns to look at him.
"Of course."
Gerard turns back to the photograph, the tightness in his mouth lessening. "That's good. Your mother Before...well. She was different."
Frank doesn't want to know more about that mother. She doesn't seem to belong to him, and he doesn't want to think about him existing and growing up without his mother now. It seems that they weren't fated like that. He doesn't want to think about it.
Gerard glances around his room again, like he's looking for something in particular. “So you and Jenny...”
“Um, yeah, that didn't really work out. Just a high school thing, you know?” Frank tries to say it as casually as he can while also managing to not invite anymore questions.
“Oh,” Gerard says, and that's it. Frank's not sure what he expected, not like, a ticker tape parade for his break up, but something more than just “oh”.
"I'm kind of tired," Frank says, which isn't a lie. He makes a side-eyed glance towards the bed which he knows Gerard sees.
"Oh, right, of course you are." Gerard takes a step towards the door with his hands clasped behind his back. Frank knows he should be a good host and show Gerard the way out and thank him for coming, but right now he can barely think past crawling into the bed and pressing his face against the cool pillowcase. He waits to hear the door of the bedroom shut behind Gerard but instead there is pause and then the mattress dips next to him.
Frank knows that Gerard is testing the limits of how close Frank will let him. He's always testing, with the way he touches Frank and the way he talks about Before. But right now, Frank is so glad for that weight on the mattress next to him that he doesn't care. Instead he closes his eyes and listens to Gerard's steady breaths next to him and is out immediately.
He wakes up when his mother comes home from work and brings him his bottle of chilled Gatorade. The bed beside him is empty, but the spot is still warm and when his mother asks if he's feeling better he says yes. It isn't a lie.
His mom lifts the whole "sort-of-grounded" thing a couple of days later, probably just glad Frank doesn't have pneumonia again. Christmas would be a real downer if he spent it in the hospital again.
Sleeping doesn't get a whole lot easier. It's not always the same feeling of being chased; sometimes it's just vague impressions of places he's never seen before, and the emotions he associated with them in another life. Frank wraps the scarf Gerard left him months ago (he should have known it was from Gerard, it's so obvious) around his wrist and it helps.
It's almost finals, so he has plenty of studying to do while he's not sleeping, and even though he's exhausted when he actually has to take the tests, he still knows enough that he doesn't think he'll have to hide his report card when it comes.
And then it's finally winter break, and like, usually it's pretty boring, since Bob goes back to Chicago and Ray always goes down to Florida for family stuff and Frank is stuck in Jersey, but now he can go bug Gerard.
Not that Gerard, minds, of course. “Frank!” he says, opening the door to him again, like he can’t believe Frank’s there. Again. Even though Frank’s been going over there about every day for a week.
Frank just smiles and tries not to roll his eyes fondly. “You ready to go?”
Gerard shifts a little in the doorway. “Uhm. I think so. Let me grab my coat.”
Frank slips inside and closes the door behind him while Gerard pulls on his huge peacoat. It’s this really amazing, military cut coat with thick brass buttons and real embroidery, not like one of those knock-offs he sees kids at school trying to pull off sometimes. Gerard wraps his long, thick scarf around his face and Frank grins into the old scarf he’s already got tucked around his face and into his jacket.
“You’re sure your mom doesn’t mind us taking her car?” He asks hesitantly as he steps out and locks the door behind him.
“Nah, I asked her yesterday. It’s totally cool.”
Gerard doesn’t seem too convinced, but he follows him back over to the street and into his mom’s car, sitting almost delicately in the passenger seat, like he’s afraid it’s going to break if he leans back against it.
“You nervous, Gee?”
“Oh, uhm,” he starts, so yes, yes he is. “No. Not at all.”
"It might be kind of crowded, since it's almost Christmas," Frank warns him as he pulls out into traffic. "But it'll be cool. Have you ever been to a Best Buy before?"
Gerard shakes his head, and he's acting like a skittish animal being taken to the vet, so Frank reaches over and pats his shoulder. "It's gonna be awesome."
And Frank was right; It's totally awesome and totally packed. He almost reaches for Gerard's hand to lead him through the crowd, but ends up just nodding his head. "Come on, I want to grab mom's movies before we really start looking around."
Gerard stays close behind him as he navigates through the crowd. He’s pale and staring at everybody and everything that they pass, but he seems more fascinated than scared.
“What’s that?” he asks, pointing towards the electronics department.
Frank peers around him to see where he’s pointing. “Those are the cameras.”
Gerard looks at him like he’s crazy. “They’re so small!”
“Yeah, they make them pretty small nowadays.” When he glances back Gerard’s still staring at them. “Look, why don’t you go over there and poke around, and I’ll be there in a sec.”
Gerard shakes his head. “Oh, no, I don’t -“
Frank smiles and pushes him gently in that direction. “I’ll be right behind you.”
When he finally grabs the last of his mom’s movies and makes it over there, Gerard’s just standing at the display and staring at all of the tiny little digital cameras. He seems really relieved when Frank shows up, pressing a gentle hand against his back.
"See anything you like?" Frank asks.
Gerard just sort of blinks at them. "You don't even need film. It's just there. It's just - they're all so..."
"Yeah," Frank agrees. "Come on, let's go look at the video games."
"Okay," Gerard says, falling in step behind him.
Frank knows Gerard doesn't have an X-box or anything, and he's sure he would've noticed even like a Nintendo 64 or a Gamecube, but that doesn't stop Gerard from picking up the different games on the shelves and looking at the pictures on the boxes.
"They look so real," Gerard says, slightly awed.
"Yeah, the graphics on that one are pretty sweet. Have you ever played...anything?" he asks.
"Mikey really liked Pong," Gerard says, putting the box back on the shelf. "But after....I think I put the Atari up in the attic."
Later Frank’s sprawled on Gerard’s living room floor with Best Buy bags strewn across the carpet and the instructions for the DVR unfolded in his lap and the contents of the box laid out around him. Gerard comes in from the kitchen with two mugs of coffee and sits down next to him.
"Making any sense?" he asks, pushing one of the mugs closer to Frank’s knee. Frank takes a sip from it distractedly as he keeps reading the tiny text.
“I think so. Eventually. Why’d you never switch over from VHS before this?” he asks, frowning at a passage about cables.
Gerard shrugged. “I totally got screwed over on the whole Betamax debacle a while back. I like to wait until new technology settles a bit.”
“Well, you’re going to love this. You’ll even be able to pause your soaps to take a coffee break.”
Gerard speaks with a hushed reverence, “Amazing.”
"And you won't have to miss Survivor or anything because of the moon, you can just record it and watch it in the morning."
Gerard eyes the remote and the new box under his TV like they're both made of solid gold. Frank's actually a little jealous for a second, but then Gerard turns to him and just smiles at him. "Thank you, Frankie."
Frank can feel his cheeks starting to heat up, which is totally stupid, but he can't do anything about it except hope that Gerard doesn't notice. "No problem. Like, Merry Christmas, you know?" Not that it's much of a gift, since Gerard bought it, but he only did because Frank promised to set it up for him.
"Oh! Right, um. Wait here for just one second?" Gerard says, already half out of the room.
When he comes back in the room he has this large, thin white square in his hands. He sits back down next to Frank and hands it over. “Here. Merry Christmas.”
Frank kind of stares at him because why is he giving him a big sheet of paper but then, oh - it’s a record. But not in a regular printed sleeve. He tips the sleeve until the record slides out into his palm, and then he’s pretty sure he stops breathing there for a second.
“Gerard, what the shit, are you - are you serious?” he manages. It’s a fucking label press test edition of the Ramones’ first album. A piece of paper falls out of the sleeve as well, and he can see the date April 5, 1976 scrawled in the top corner. It’s a setlist. Fucking original album setlist.
Gerard nods and rubs at the back of his neck. “Yeah, uhm. I worked in London for a while, at this record company, just, you know, little stuff. I was friends with some of the guys who worked there and when I left they gave me one. I thought you might like it.”
Frank runs his fingers over the words Joni is a punk etched in dead wax on the B-Side. “Gerard, this is incredible. I don’t - I. Just. Wow, thank you.”
Gerard smiles like it’s nothing. “You’re welcome.”
"I made you buy your present," Frank says guiltily.
"But you set it up for me, and you'll come over and watch it with me, right?" Gerard asks.
"Well, yeah, if you want."
And then Gerard's beaming at him, like Frank coming over to mooch on his DVR is the best present ever, and Frank's stomach does this weird swoopy thing and he has to look away.
*
He goes out with Ray and Bob on Saturday after New Year's, but keeps it pretty low key. He only takes a few hits off the bong being passed around. Ray is still giving him worried looks, and doesn't need weird high dreams on top of everything else.
"Hey, Bobert," he says, while Ray's going to get another beer. "I got a thing tomorrow. Is it cool if I tell my ma I'm staying with you?"
"You're not gonna get yourself killed?" Bob asks.
"No, I'm not going to get killed. You're worse than Toro."
"I don't want your mom to get mad at me." Bob shrugs.
"She won't, I'll be at school Monday, I promise."
"You better. You know they get pissed if you miss the first day back after the break."
Frank practically starts counting the hours. He wants to go over to Gerard's before the full moon, especially when the itchy feeling under his skin starts up again on Friday, but he actually is busy with over-the-holiday-homework stuff, and his friends want to hang out now that he isn't semi-grounded anymore.
He lasts all the way until three o'clock on Sunday afternoon. The paper said the sun wouldn't set until around six, but he doesn't think Gerard will mind if he gets there a little early. "I'll text you when I get to school tomorrow," he says, kissing his mom on the cheek and grabbing his backpack.
"Okay, Frankie, tell Mrs. Bryar hi for me."
Frank cringes. He hates lying to her. "Bye mom!"
When he gets to Gerard's, he doesn't even have to knock on the door before it's open. Gerard is just wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants and Frank's mouth goes dry. "Hey, I know I'm early but-"
"No, it's fine. I never get much done on the day of the moon anyway," Gerard says, closing the door behind Frank.
"Do you get uh," turned on by everything, "that itchy feeling, too? Or is it just cause I'm new?" Frank drops his bag in the living room and looks around.
"It never really goes away, but I've gone through a lot of moons and it's mostly manageable."
"Cool," Frank says, scratching at the back of his neck. "...I don't suppose I get to go outside tonight?"
Gerard laughs at that, and it must be the first time Frank's heard it, because it's his new favorite sound. "No, not for a while yet. Maybe by the fall."
Frank's a little disappointed, but when he remembers his dreams, he's comforted by the thought of Gerard's basement.
It's not a comfortable afternoon. Frank isn't sure how Gerard can seem to keep it together. Only a little while to go and Frank can't sit still for more than a few seconds. It's taking most of his concentration not to rub up all over everything in the house, let alone Gerard. God, those stupid sweatpants with that stupid low waistband and --
"Frank?" Gerard asks, snapping Frank out of his staring fit. "You want to head on downstairs?" He's still sipping at his coffee in the old cracked mug, and Frank watches his lips on the rim.
"Uhm, yeah. Sure. Yeah," he mumbles. Frank grabs his backpack and follows Gerard down the stairs to the basement.
"You nervous?" Gerard asks casually as he pulls the huge lock on the door into place. As soon as the cogs lock down Frank can feel the wolf inside him riling up in anger. He hates being locked up, he's not supposed to be locked up, this is wrong, he needs to get out now -- and before he knows it Gerard's hand is on his chest holding him back against the wall. He's pretty sure his teeth are bared.
"Frank," Gerard says, his eyebrows furrowing and his fingertips pressed firmly against Frank's twitching chest. It's authoritative and unlike his usual gentle tone, and it makes Frank want to back down and let him do whatever he wants to him, right now, and it makes him want to push back against him just to see what he'll do to make him stop.
He's about to push forward again make me stop make me stop when Gerard shifts his hand around to the back of the neck and half-pulls him down the stairs. The moon's almost up, and Frank can already feel his insides pulling against one another. Things are starting to blur, and there's an echo of a cramp in his muscles that grows more painful with every heartbeat.
"Hold still, Frankie, just one second," Gerard says soothingly, and in a flash he's pulling Frank's shirt over his head. His hands are at the waist of Frank's jeans before Frank realizes what he's doing. Gnah. He can't even help it when he bucks into Gerard's hands, and Gerard's not even touching him.
"Don't want you to ruin another pair of clothes, Frankie, hold on just a little bit longer, don't freak out, just ignore the window and focus on me, okay?" he says as his fingers work at the buttons on his fly. By this time Frank's got his face pressed up against the crook of Gerard's neck and shoulder, and he can tell that Gerard is breathing heavily and sweating.
The moon is down and Frank's knees go out. God, it hurts so fucking bad. He just moans as Gerard helps him to the ground. He's pretty sure that his pants are gone too, but he can't even care because his back is arching and everything is throbbing and the only thing he can focus on as the change comes is that Gerard's hand is still on the side of his face, wiping away the hair and the sweat (and maybe a few tears, although he's pretty sure he won't admit to that later).
And then it's over and it's another full moon and there are two wolves in the basement.
***
Frank the wolf is angry again, but more at the door than at Gerard, either because he knows Gerard now or remembers last month, knows Gerard is more dominant. So he snarls and throws himself against the door once, twice, but it holds firm.
Gerard waits at the bottom of the stairs. He could force Frank back down, but the footing would be unsteady, and he doesn't want to have to assert himself unless he has to. It doesn't matter, in the end, because Frank comes plodding back down the stairs, hackles raised, but he avoids Gerard's eyes.
Gerard butts his head against Frank's side, attempting to prompt some play to burn off Frank's energy and distract him. Frank turns his head back then, wary, but he does look Gerard in the eye then, and his stance relaxes. Gerard's tail begins wagging, and he butts Frank again, but this time, Frank pushes back.
His concept of time while he's a wolf is vague at best, but their play lasts for a long while, Frank's anxious energy versus Gerard's glee at someone to play with again. At playing with Frank again. Eventually though, they curl up together on the torn cushions, and Gerard's tail thumps against the fabric until he finally falls asleep.
He's awakened just before sunrise by Frank's whines and whimpers. He's still next to Gerard, but he can feel the change coming. Gerard inches closer, trying to soothe him. If he had words, he'd tell Frank not to fight it, to just let it happen, but he can't.
Soon enough, though, he's whispering comforting words in Frank's ear as he rubs his hand up and down Frank's arm. Frank's still twitching it out, his human eyes bleary and sweat covering his temples and slicking his hair. When it looks like he's finally past the worst of it, Gerard stands up and heads over to the linen closet where Frank's backpack is stashed. He grabs his discarded pair of jeans off of the floor (some errant play slashed up one of the legs pretty bad, but they're still wearable for now) and pulls them up over his hips. When he turns around from the linen closet, Frank is staring. Like really staring. Not even attempting to mask it. He's probably too tired to pretend.
Gerard's hand clenches a little bit tighter around the strap of the backpack.
He kneels next to Frank and starts pulling out the parts to his uniform -- pants, dress shoes, socks, boxers, undershirt, shirt, tie, blazer, jeez, he does not miss having to dress in so many layers, and at least now Frank only has to wear this stuff for school. Before they had to wear about double this stuff all the freakin' time -- while Frank sort of languidly scratches his fingers through his hair and against his scalp. And stares.
"Here, you take these. You want a shower?" he asks Frank, moving the neat little pile of clothing closer to him and making sure to focus on his face and nothing else. Frank sort of half-nods and hums a little bit so Gerard will take this as a yes.
"Okay, you take these, I'll go turn the shower on for you. I'll get breakfast started so you won't be late for school, okay?" God, he feels like a mother, but he's pretty sure if he just left Frank here to his own devices, he'd curl up in the pile of cushions in the corner and sleep away the day. And Gerard is not going to get Frank in trouble again over this. Him being grounded once before sucked enough to last him a good while.
He grabs Frank's wrist, pulls him to his feet, and presses the clothes against his chest until Frank raises his arms to carry them.
The shower in the house is old but sort of neat. There are claw feet on the tub and a big brass looking ring around the top for the shower curtain. The faucet is one of those old time head showers with the curved ceramic bits. It's nicer than any tub Gerard had Before and it still works fine, so he doesn't mind how long it takes to warm up or how loud it can be sometimes when the pipes are cold.
He sort of hated leaving Frank in there alone, but he is pretty sure staying and hanging out while Frank stood under the hot water and got the soreness from last night out of his bones would put him pretty high on the creepy meter, and he's been trying harder lately to avoid that.
It's eggs this morning, with lots of pepper, and he's just got them plated up with some nice toast and butter when he can hear the shower shut off in the other room. It's only a few minutes later when Frank comes into the kitchen, still barefoot but dressed in his uniform, hair mussed and wet and tie slack around his neck. Gerard wants to press him against the counter right there, maybe run his finger right past the bit of skin he can see showing at the hem of his pants and rucked up shirt, but instead he smiles and passes Frank a plate.
"I can make more," Gerard says, as Frank falls on the plate. "I've got some bacon in the fridge, too."
"'M vgtrin," Frank says around his fork, still focused on the food.
"...huh?" Gerard asks, working on his own plate at a steady, if slower, pace.
Frank swallows down and reaches for his glass of juice. "I'm a vegetarian. No pig bacon for me."
Gerard stares. "...Is there another kind of bacon?" He's seen a lot of weird shit over the past century, but bacon has always been bacon.
"They make some out of soy, it's good."
Whatever face Gerard makes at that makes Frank laugh, high and fast and then he's just smiling at Gerard. He gets that weird swooping feeling in his chest. He just wants to reach out and hold Frank's hand across the table. It's cheesy but Gerard just wants to touch him. He doesn't think Frank would mind if he did, not with the way he was looking at Gerard earlier, but now is just not the time.
He wants it to be though.
"Do you want more?" Gerard asks, nodding to Frank's empty plate.
Frank's eyes shoot to the clock. "I should get going soon, but could I get some toast for the road?"
"Of course." Gerard stands quickly, trying to keep his hands and mind busy as Frank pulls on his shoes and grabs his backpack.
"Do you have everything?" Gerard asks, wrapping the toast up in a paper towel.
"Yeah." Frank nods, slinging the pack over his shoulder. "So, uh, I'll see you later?"
Gerard smiles. "Yeah, I'll be here. Try to stay out of trouble."
Frank shifts on his feet, his fingers twitching at his side. "I'll try."
"Okay. Um, have fun at school," Gerard says, holding out the toast, but Frank doesn't take it. Instead, he steps forward and presses his lips against Gerard's, quick and dry. Gerard doesn't have a chance to react before Frank pulls back, takes the toast and is out the door.
He's pretty sure he heard a "thanksbye" but it could have just been the sound of the door slamming shut behind him.
He pauses and waits as the silence of the house settles back around him, almost like Frank was never there. But he was there. And he came back. And he kissed him. Gerard raises his fingers to his lips and presses gently against the skin.
He finishes cleaning up the kitchen and then heads into the bathroom to take a shower. It's still damp from when Frank was in there earlier and condensation drips down the small, inset window and over the pipes. It smells like Gerard's shampoo and soap and, if he breathes deeply enough, it smells like Frank, and Gerard lasts only a couple of minutes standing under the hot water before he’s got his hand on his dick. Fuck, Frank. He came back.
Part 4