The Blind Leading the Bands, 1/3
Recipient: DustyXsp
Title: The Blind Leading the Bands, 1/3
Fandom: My Chemical Romance / Fall Out Boy /The Used (if you squint)
Pairing: Gerard/Patrick, mentions of Gerard/Bert and Pete/Mikey
Rating: R for language
Authors: thejumpcut and in_decisions
Disclaimer: This is pure fiction, pay no attention to the nuts behind the curtain.
Notes: Well, we managed the long part of the prompt, and there’s still more to come. We really, really tried to get the conflict going, but much to our chagrin, it turns out that we’ve got nothing but fluffy, fluffy antics. It’s not our fault the boys are all gossip queens!
Summary: For two boys who aren’t even dating, there’s an awful lot of drama going down.
There was this one perfect, breezy day that summer, somewhere around New Mexico, and for two hours Gerard followed Patrick as he walked around, intent on catching as many acts as he could.
"Pete calls it my noblesse oblige," Patrick says, and Gerard thinks that's really a pretty cool phrase. He wonders if he can write it into a song, something about unwashed masses and a princess - no, a prince, or Frank will pitch a fit about wanting to wear his tiara when they play it. That crazy motherfucker does enough weird shit already, he doesn't want them to suddenly become that band that won't play their set unless three pristine tiaras are set up just so on top of Frank's amp.
Patrick isn't talking any more, and Gerard doesn't know if he was supposed to answer a question or what. Shit. "Uh, sorry?"
Patrick grins; Gerard hears it in his voice even though he can't see Patrick's face. Patrick's walking just ahead. Somehow he leads the way without sunglasses, only squinting a little out from under his hat, whereas Gerard's stumbling around like he's as drunk as he was this time last year.
"I didn't say anything," Patrick says. "I kind of lost you at noblesse oblige, and I didn't know if maybe I should've explained it to you, and then I thought you were probably thinking something about princesses and your band, am I right?"
Gerard makes a noncommittal noise before remembering that there isn't really any such thing when he's talking to Patrick, or rather, when Patrick is listening to him.
"Yeah, that's where I went," said Patrick, "so before Pete got any ideas about putting it in a lyric, I killed it dead. First I told Pete it made him sound like the worst kind of asshole, but that didn't really stick, so I told him that it made *me* sound like the worst kind of asshole, which did stick."
Patrick pauses, but when Gerard chances a look straight into the sunshine at his face, he's smirking a little. "And then what did you do?" Gerard asks warily.
Patrick's grin is a thing of evil beauty. It doesn't just spread across his face, it forms on one side of his mouth and wipes a decided, straight line across his lips, barreling right toward his other ear and stopping dead in its tracks before it distorts the rest of Patrick's face unforgivably. Patrick's perfectly-grinning face comes with a genuine eye-sparkle as he tells Gerard, "I told Andy Pete was constructing a classist mentality in which our fans vie for the privilege of supporting our crass, wasteful lifestyle and we, the ruling class, devote our time to training the next generation of pureblood rulers rather than to effective management of the proletariat's quality of life. Then I stole Pete's headphones and left them alone on the bus."
Gerard laughs, unselfconscious, amazed at the amount he's heard Patrick say this summer, more already than in the entire last year. Also, he wishes he could spontaneously leave his bandmates behind to be ravaged by idealistic vegans when they were giving him trouble, but no way could he do it that stylishly without writing it down beforehand on a cue card. Patrick is grinning sweetly, looking evenly at Gerard as they stall out beside a set of side-stage steps.
The sun is reflecting cruelly off the metal steps behind Patrick's head, and Gerard ducks his head a little and grimaces in the bright clear sun. There's so much unrelenting sunshine on this tour; he wishes he were cleaner, his skin paler and his clothes blacker, so he could present a more stark, chiaroscuro kind of effect, an avenging antihero against the white gravel sand. He wants to be bolder, painted in wider strokes, with less smudging and guesswork. He tries not to think *about* being sober, but it's making him all these nuanced shades of introspective and depressed again. He feels kind of Impressionist this summer, lazily constructed, the idea of Gerard rising hazily, intangibly from a mess of soft monochromatic smudges.
Patrick turns away from the steps of the stage they'd been just about to climb, diverting them both towards a picnic table just behind the chain-link that fences off the buses.
"We can watch from here," he says, and Gerard hears him despite the jarring, crashing intro of the band's opening song, nods and follows Patrick a little further.
Gerard doesn't really understand how Patrick got to be himself so quickly. No false starts, no detours into comics or horror movies or once, forgettably, post-apocalyptic splatterpunk love stories; just Patrick, doing what he does, so young and so focused and so fucking talented.
Patrick stares at Gerard and raises an eyebrow, wanting to know what's keeping Gerard's mouth shut and his mind distant. Gerard curses his mouth and his mind and tells Patrick what he had just been thinking.
Patrick thanks Gerard evenly for the compliment. He doesn't tell Gerard to buck up or to stop being so hard on himself, because Patrick is a friend, but he's not a *girl*, and Gerard likes hanging out with him because when his Moody Frontmanism acts up like that, Patrick does just what he's doing now, which is flicking uselessly at his face from across the table, leaning in, slightly frustrated and a little squinty.
"Your hair is back in your eyes, and you *know* how you get when your hair is in your eyes," Patrick tells him. "Remove it." Gerard flicks his hair back, smiling a little, and Patrick sits back and says, "Now. What in the fuck is a splatterpunk, and what kind of music do they play?"
"No, they - splatterpunk is a literary genre," Gerard says. "Gore, violence, rock and roll, lots of heroin, black leather jackets, graverobbers, guys meeting ironic and unfortunate ends." Patrick looks impressed and a little uneasy.
"Take all that and throw it in a blender," says Gerard, "and then drop some sausage links on top for intestines, amp it up with some bone fragments maybe, and a big splat--" he mimes dropping something soccer-ball-sized and heavy -- "of a brain on top, instead of a cherry."
"Literary, you say. Really." Patrick looks positively green.
"Splatterpunk," says Gerard summarily, like he's just finished a round in a spelling bee. "It was a fucking gross love story, too, let me tell you."
"I won't let you tell me," says Patrick, "I may never eat again."
"Aren't you vegetarian anyway?" wonders Gerard. He's weirded out by the fact that he assumes people are vegetarians until told otherwise, now, and wonders when that part of his life changed without him noticing.
"Yeah, well, now I'm off cherries for the next few weeks too, so why don't you quit while you're ahead, huh?" Patrick isn't as grouchy as the words sound; Gerard can hear the teasing tone underneath, the satisfied slowness in his speech that gives away how fulfilled he is right now, lazy and happy and not wanting for much of anything.
"Oh, come on," says Gerard, "you're not as delicate as you play it, you know."
"How do you know?" says Patrick, mock-affronted.
"Well, for one, you're out here in the sun and the heat and you're not bitching, and you're not all," he waves at his own face, "defensive about it like I am."
"So I can go outside without melting, it doesn't exactly make me a happy camper, Gerard."
"But - I mean, you're not tanning," says Gerard, "and even I have a tan, and I'm like subterranean pale. How do you do that?"
"Sunscreen, genius," Patrick says, "like 100 SPF. It's a lifesaver."
"Huh." Sunscreen. Gerard's lucky if he remembers to brush his teeth, never mind luxuries like sunscreen. Knowing his bus, he'd have to steal it out of any one of his bandmates' bunks before it was put to a truly nefarious purpose. Except Mikey, Gerard thinks frantically, because Mikey is his *brother* and does not get up to nefarious things, ever.
A few fans wander up to the chain-link, and they snap to attention. They're very nice, and Gerard's not at all bothered when they want him to sign some stuff, ask him some questions. Patrick does the same, although with less heartfelt discussion and more severely polite nodding.
After they’ve finished talking to the fans, Gerard wanders off back to his bus, and Patrick gets hijacked by several members of the crew who need him to referee some kind of shredding competition that he in no way understands the rules of. Patrick doesn’t mind - they’ll catch up with each other later, they always do.
---
Their bands are great friends. Really. Witness Pete and Mikey, best "friends" for an entire summer. It's just -- sometimes their aesthetics don't match.
"They think I'm a freak," Gerard says morosely, watching Fall Out Boy's bus closely for any hint of movement in the windows. Of course, it's dark, so nothing much is happening through the blinds except Gerard's pretty sure he can hear Joe bemoaning the lack of suitable food from the kitchenette.
"They do not think you're a freak," Patrick says, sternly but gently, and grabs Gerard's upper arm so that he'll look at Patrick, and not at Joe's fuzzy but unmistakably unimpressed silhouette. "They just, they don't." Patrick flails a little here and Gerard purses his lips and tries not to smile (it doesn't work). "It's just. Sometimes our bands, their aesthetics don't match."
"Well, Pete's wardrobe doesn't match anything, including itself," Gerard says a little huffily, "but he doesn't look at his closet with that kind of suspicion and distaste." He gives up on trying not to smile, but the end result is kind of sad and wistful; he really cares about Fall Out Boy and why they don't like him. He’s sure they don't, and he kind of gets why; it's the same reason he got so much trouble in high school (and ever since he found out that Pete was a high-school soccer player, Gerard has kind of cast him as a teenage bully in his cafeteria drama of a social life). He can almost deal with them not liking him, but he just can't handle the fact that apparently, they don't trust him.
Him! Gerard fucking Way! Who saves lives as a goddamned hobby! If they won't trust him, who can they trust, really?
Not that Gerard trusts Pete as far as he can throw him, especially not with all the disappearing he and Mikey have been doing; but that's Pete Wentz, and Pete Wentz is Not To Be Trusted. Not like Gerard. It's different, he tells himself earnestly.
When he pulls his head back out of his own ass, he realizes that he's made Patrick smile, properly smile.
"He does too," Patrick says. "You've never seen him get ready for a TV spot." Gerard mirrors Patrick's soft, open smile with one of his own dazzling grimaces, the comfortable kind of smile where you don't worry about what might be on your teeth or how strange your contorted face might look, just pure toothy happiness. He likes being around Patrick, he ends up smiling a lot.
"And here I thought you could never lose with basic black," Gerard says, gesturing at his own outfit, trying to keep any depressed notes out of his voice. His conversations with Patrick, though voluminous, are really only half about the words. The other half is about the voice; it makes it handy, gauging each other's mood, answering yes-or-no questions over the phone. They never need to ask how things are going; they know from listening. They can't keep themselves from telling, broadcasting their thoughts and feelings hidden within everyday phrases, like their nerve endings are all hard-wired to their vocal cords. Gerard knows this, and he tries to sound flippant and light-hearted even though he knows he'll fail. Patrick hears it, and it makes him appreciate Gerard and feel bad for him all at the same time, and he does his best to keep from looking Gerard up and down like a piece of meat when his hands wave towards his black-clad torso.
"Oh, man, you know how it is, that's not," Patrick says, but Gerard has gotten over whatever attack of melancholy had grabbed him. When Gerard shakes his trendy, filthy emo hair out of his face, Patrick unconsciously does the same, and both boys laugh quietly in the dim light fuzzing out from Fall Out Boy's bus, the sounds of chaos sharp and spiking from all sides.
"It's okay," Gerard says, "I know, I get it. It's just amazing, you know." He gestures a little more. "So close and yet so far." Gerard waves his hands between his bus and Patrick's like maybe it wasn't clear which two bands were under discussion here.
"Gerard," Patrick says, and catches his eyes before he has to reach out and reorient him, again. "They don't think you're a freak. Seriously. They just don't always get it. You. Your band. Whatever." Patrick can feel a rant coming on, but it's too late, he's all caught up in the moment, and there' s no stopping himself now, and he hopes fervently that he won't say anything too dumb.
"And they're not really interested in learning or, like, going outside their bubble, and it's frustrating," Patrick continues, "because I am, so don't, like, put me in with them, okay? I don't think you're a freak, and I trust you, and I like you, and I think you're generally pretty nifty. Yeah. Nifty," he says when Gerard looks up through a curtain of emo fringe, looking moody and misunderstood. "Get your hair out of your face, you're going to get all melodramatic again." Gerard obediently shakes his head again, and Patrick manages not to do the same.
"Maybe Pete would like me better if I wore, like, a hot pink hairband with big green dollar signs all over it or something."
Patrick looks vaguely ill. "Please don't. Pete's not worth it."
Gerard stops and considers for a moment. "Eugh. You're right." Buried in those last two words, Patrick can hear Gerard's greater concession to the conversation; he knows he hasn't said anything new, but Gerard has maybe let it sink a half inch further into his thick-ass skull. Which counts as a step forward, in Patrick's books.
"Okay," Gerard says, "yeah. Cool. But I'm not going on there," he says, and nods at Fall Out Boy's bus. "Not tonight. Just, you know, send him back whenever he surfaces?" He flicks his eyes towards the back of the bus, close to the bunks, and Patrick can hear how the muscles in his neck tighten a little as Gerard tries not to think about what might be going on with Pete and Mikey.
"Yeah," says Patrick, "course. But you'll come up some night, right? If you come up," Patrick says, grinning conspiratorially, "maybe Pete and Mikey will leave for the night, and then maybe I will get to sleep in my bunk and, uh--" he can actually see Gerard whiten, turning from eggshell to alabaster in less than four seconds -- "not be distracted by what might or might not be happening right below me, you know?"
Gerard nods. He knows. "I wish I didn't."
Patrick smiles, then stops. "But."
It's Gerard's turn to reach out now, a friendly, genial clap to the shoulder. "I'll come. Maybe tomorrow." He takes his hand back, waves a little as he starts away. "...Where the fuck are we tomorrow, again?"
"Depends," says Patrick, and starts towards his bus, grinning back at Gerard. "Where the fuck are we today?"
They laugh and go their separate ways for the night. Patrick thanks the strange gossip machine that is Warped for fixating on Pete and Mikey, spending so much time together everyone on the tour thinks of them as one unit, so that nobody starts whispering about him and Gerard. It isn't like they're spending that kind of time together, or anything; it’s more the part where they so often manage to find each other in the nightly madness, wander off together, usually right to one bus or another, and then say their goodnight and hide out in their respective bunks for a few hours of relative peace. That’s it, nothing furtive about it, but there's something distinctly un-guylike about the routine, and Patrick does his best to keep it to himself, keep it away from the guys. To keep it safe. Patrick wonders if spending all this time with Gerard is making him into a bigger pussy, or whether he was a big pussy all along and they're just figuring it out now.
"We have no Pop-Tarts left," Joe informs him, looking tragic. "How's your freakish boyfriend?"
"He's not my--" Patrick catches Joe's eyes and sees the laughter. "He's great. He's a total freak, Joe, especially in bed, and he's introducing me to the joy of sex with farm animals, okay?"
"Does it count as cheating, if you two are you know, banging other livestock?"
"Gah." Joe takes Patrick's punch to his arm with no noticeable reaction, and shrugs, still smiling. "You're disgusting. And I am not livestock!"
"Sure you are, you're livestock and he's undeadstock, duh." Patrick waves Joe away and walks on to his bunk, sneering at him as best he can, which is to say not well. Still, he thinks he's getting better at it.
"You started it," Joe says, mouth full of some junk-food Pop-Tart substitute. "You two are such a freakish couple."
Patrick knows Joe's just trying to rile him up, but he bets that both their bands would be fucking stunned to find out that he and Gerard aren't together, like that, at all. They haven't even kissed. They're just two guys, hanging out and not having sex with each other, and seriously, how is that so hard to fathom?
Gerard wakes up when he hears the TV in the front lounge go on. He checks his watch; he doesn't usually wake up that easily unless he's slept late, and yep, it's past eleven. Ray tries to wake him up long enough before a show that he's not still all sleepy and dumb and hoarse onstage, for which he is very grateful, and by which he deduces that they're probably not playing until mid-afternoon today. He rolls out of bed and rummages at the foot of his bunk, pushing aside an old NME, an issue of Sandman, and two green felt-tip pens before he locates his jeans and pulls them on. His socks, he finds, are stained with blotches of green ink; he'd fallen asleep with the cap off again, he realizes, chagrined. He tosses the pens in the little garbage bag tacked to the wall and pulls on his newly tie-dyed socks, then stumbles out of the bunk area into the front lounge.
He blinks a few times; it looks like everyone's awake and at the table, which isn't of itself incredibly new, but his bandmates look, well, a little quiet and a little... off. Gerard fills one mug with coffee for him and one mug with water for what he affectionately thinks of as his Rehab Zinnia, and nods hello to the guys. They seem kind of morose, he thinks. As he goes to water the Rehab Zinnia, they seem kind of alarmed, but he doesn't know why. Then he sees that there's some kind of box in the center of their little booth table, and before he realizes that things are not in their usual homes, he's dumped a mug full of water all over the now-empty shelf and the back of the couch.
"Somebody stole my Rehab Zinnia," Gerard mumbles dazedly, then stares at his coffee as though it can provide him with answers and maybe clean up the mess.
Ray gets up, locates a clean towel from his own bunk, and throws it on the spill, mopping it up perfunctorily and throwing the towel in the kitchenette sink.
"Gerard, do you want to sit with us, here?" Ray says, gesturing forward like a maitre d', and Gerard is totally, utterly confused.
"What - what's going on - guys?" He doesn't quite get what he's done, but he's pretty sure he's the odd man out here. Even Mikey is Pete-free and looking serious as ever. "I- did I-"
"Gerard, Frank has something he wants to tell you," says Ray. "It's okay, everything's fine."
"Okay," Gerard says nervously, "because I didn't do anything wrong - I mean," he amends, remembering how he worked out some productive speech techniques with his therapists for moments just like this, "I don't know what I did that made you upset."
Mikey scooches over so he's almost in Bob's lap. Bob looks concerned in that parental way he has, which is never a good sign. He moves over a little to make more room, and Gerard inches into the booth, barely finding his balance before Mikey throws his arms around him, saying "No, Gee, it's okay, it's not you, we're sorry."
"Sorry - I - are you fuckers replacing me or what? I demand answers," Gerard says, not yet halfway through his morning coffee and, as far as he can tell, pretty righteously indignant. "Today's weird enough already. What time are we playing, and is that box a birthday present or Gwyneth Paltrow's head or what, and whose fucking birthday is it in the first place, and I have things to do today anyway, like find out which lousy fucker stole my Rehab Zinnia!" Mikey is still wrapped around him, so he puts an arm around Mikey's skinny, pointy shoulders and lowers his head to rest on top of Mikey's. "Hey, dude, chill, what's going on, man?"
"Frank?" says Ray. Frank, squished into the window seat, looks monumentally embarrassed. Gerard is intrigued; he doesn't actually remember Frankie ever being embarrassed about anything, not even that Polaroid that they took of him curled up naked and asleep inside Bob's kick drum that sat on their fridge for, like, two weeks before someone stole it.
"I, uh, I was horsing around, which I'm not supposed to do in the front lounge, because I could break things, and, uh, I broke your zinnia. I didn't mean it." Gerard recoils a little, and Frank cringes.
"You *broke* her? Frank, she's part of my therapy!"
"I know," says Frank, "Bob told me all about it, Jesus, do I know," and then Gerard feels movement under the table and hears a low thud and Frank goes "OW!" and clutches his shin. Bob gestures at the box. Frank continues. Gerard just sits back and watches, totally gobsmacked.
"Listen," says Frank, glaring at Bob, "I know the flower is your big responsibility, and it's really important you have just the one so you can keep it alive and learn all about human relationships and being responsible or whatever, and I'm really sorry I killed it, seriously, so I got you a new one, because I don't think it counts if someone else kills it, really. I mean, you're supposed to keep it for a year, but I think you can just sub this one in and it'll be fine."
"I -- my zinnia?" Gerard knows he's kind of on a loop. "Dude, it's not a flower, it's my Rehab Zinnia, and I was doing so well with her!"
Frank sinks even further into the seat. "She was looking a little wilty around the edges anyway - and look, I got you a replacement, man, I don't know what else you want!"
Gerard reaches for the box. "It's, uh, you know, no big deal," he lies to Frank. "You know, it's like, things live, things die, right? So don't even worry dude, it's not like you set me back or anything, you know?" He cracks a smile as he opens the flaps of the box and reaches in. "Although she was totally healthy, Frank, don't lie to me."
"She was down to three petals, Gerard, it was euthanasia. Here, lemme do it," says Frank, "it's kind of--" and he reaches straight down into the box, almost standing up at the booth to do it.
"A cactus," says Gerard flatly. Frank nods.
"I just think maybe you'll have a better time of it," Frank says, and Bob gives him a warning look that Gerard can actually feel even though it's pointed at Frank and Mikey is between them. "Uh."
"You guys all got me a cactus?"
"Yep," says Ray, and he seems kind of proud. In fact, everybody but Bob seems kind of happy, and kind of solicitous, like maybe Gerard is a petulant kindergartner and is going to cry or have a fit or something, and they want to stave it off if at all possible.
"But - the whole idea is that I take care of something living for a year. So I can learn responsibility and start building trust in myself. So I won't jump into relationships without being ready, because if I can't keep a plant alive, I'm not ready for a relationship." Gerard is stuck in the loop he learned from his therapists, and he doesn't care. He knows the band has heard it before - there was that whole "Don't fuck with my zinnia" speech when the tour started - and he *knows* his band isn't trying to undermine his progress. He just doesn't understand why they think it's okay to bring him a fucking cactus, of all things.
"We know, Gerard," says Ray, leaning over the table towards him, "We all heard about it, remember? Frank's just trying to make things a little easier on you."
"But - something living, you guys. Living is the key point. A cactus is, like, half a step from a plastic flamingo. It's not hardly alive. Do you really think I'm that useless?"
"Look," Mikey says, "we're trying to make things, like, healthy for you, Gee. But we live on a fucking bus, what do you want from us? We stopped at a fucking bus station, you want us to find you an orchid?"
Gerard's blood runs cold. "Oh, God, never get me an orchid, I won't be able to go on a single date for the rest of my life!"
"You see," says Frank, "a cactus is probably all you can handle right now, what with being on tour and all.”
"I cannot believe you thought it was okay to get me a cactus!" Gerard says, knowing he's being a diva but also feeling like he's right to be offended. "You didn't think it was, I don't know, a little condescending?"
"We just wanted to help you get the year of the plant over with nice and easy," says Ray. "So you could move on."
"Ray," Gerard tries not to point out angrily, "It's not about moving on as fast as you can, okay? It's about being ready to move on."
"Okay, Gee, we get it," says Frank, "and I'm sorry I smashed your ability to move on, okay? I didn't mean to be, uh, mean."
"That's even worse!" Gerard knows he's kind of wailing, and God, he feels like the worst, least appreciative friend ever. "You guys don't even think I can do it."
"The zinnia really wasn't looking so good," Bob says, a little regretfully. "I hate to say it, but I can, because I'm bigger than you."
"That's so comforting," Gerard mutters. "You know, I could have brought her back!"
"Gardening on a bus is kind of inherently doomed," Frank points out. "It's probably just good you didn't get that goldfish."
"I'm still getting a damn hamster, though," Gerard retorts. "Fuck you guys, I'll do it."
"I'm not letting you bring a hamster on this bus," says Frank, "that's animal abuse."
"Gerard," says Ray, leaning over the table again and covering Gerard's hand with his own, "Don't let our stupid mistakes hold you back, okay? We're trying, so we're asking you to try, and we appreciate everything you're doing, and we're really proud of you. Right, guys?"
The chorus of "right" sounds less than convincing, but Gerard knows everyone means it. He tries to let it go, like he's supposed to when he wants to dwell unhealthily on something.
"Okay," says Gerard, "it's okay that you killed my Rehab Zinnia, because it's me in therapy, not any of you, not for this. And you guys are generally awesome and you know it, and quit looking so smug, Frankie, I'm still going to destroy one of your possessions at random." Frank doesn't even get to squawk at him before Ray's hand clamps over his mouth to keep him quiet. Gerard can hear Ray's muttered "Bite me and die, bitch," and tries not to giggle, but he can feel the mood lifting a little. He may be a Moody Frontman, but he can't be mad at his band for that long. They sleep in the same bus, after all, and it's just impractical.
"I'm just saying, guys?" Gerard pokes at the cactus suspiciously and sucks in a breath as, predictably, it stabs him with a spike. "I'm not, like, mad at you or anything. But I fucking hate this cactus."
"Whatever," says Frank, "as long as you love me, right?"
Bob jumps into motion, trying to kick Frank under the table and hit him over the table all at once. "So help me God, you little fucker, if you start singing, if I hear one fucking line of the fucking Backstreet Boys, I will kill your whole family!" Frank begins to groove a little in the booth seat. Clearly, Gerard thinks, he was born without a self-preservation instinct. Tragic, really.
Ray removes himself from the fray. "He's all yours, kids, I did my best." He ruffles Gerard's hair as he stands up from the booth and Gerard shoots him a grateful smile, lets him know that they're cool, that Gerard is glad Ray's in charge. Gerard and Ray have had ample cause and occasion to build a smile shorthand, and when Ray smiles down at him, there's no mistaking the you're nicer than you let on, and you're welcome on his face. Gerard turns his attention back to the imminent bloodbath; Mikey is trying his best to hide under Gerard's arm, so Gerard does his part to block Mikey from stray Bob-limbs for a bit, then abandons his post as Frank breaks into horrific, full-voiced Backstreet Boys. He rescues the wretched cactus even though he hates it, stashing it in the back lounge, and returns to the front lounge just in time to see Bob wrapping the wet towel Ray had used to clean up the couch around Frank's head and upper body while also tickling him. The overall effect, Gerard thinks, is kind of like a garlic bulb doing St. Vitus's dance.
"Hey Mikey," Gerard says, "Don't you think Frank looks like a garlic bulb with St. Vitus's dance?" He manages to get through the whole sentence without laughing, but then he makes the mistake of looking Mikey straight in the eye, and the two of them are off and running, laughing and gasping and hooting on the couch. Frank is somehow still singing underneath the towel, snapping his fingers and dancing as best he can, and Bob is trying not to sing along and also trying to come as close to killing Frank as he is legally allowed (though Brian once said that Bob could kill Frank for up to six seconds, as long as he promised to bring him back, but Gerard doubts that he really meant it). Ray is loudly informing the world from the back lounge that "THE CACTUS AND I ARE GOING TO GET SOME FUCKING WORK DONE NOW THANKS," before slamming the door, and then everything is pretty much back to normal. Of course, Gerard still has revenge to exact on his bandmates, but it looks like Bob's taking pretty efficient care of Frank at the moment, so he sits back and keeps laughing and tries to let it go.
---
When Patrick stumbles out of his bunk, Pete is sitting by himself on the couch, tapping away on his sidekick. Pete glances up and smiles serenely in greeting, even when Patrick just stands there blinking in confusion at the lack of Mikeyway plastered to his side. Once he is sufficiently recovered, he flops down next to Pete, who immediately burrows into his shoulder despite the heat and Patrick’s resistance, which is admittedly somewhat feeble.
“Hey Pete, lose your playmate?” Patrick means it as a joke, but it comes out a little sharper than he intended. Pete raises an eyebrow, but decides to take the question at face value.
“Yeah, he had to get back to his bus. There’s some kind of kerfuffle going down over there, and Bob decided he was the one to sort it out.”
“Uh, okay…somebody’s fighting?” Pete grins, delighted to be passing on gossip Patrick hasn’t already heard.
“Frank and Gerard, maybe. They weren’t fighting exactly, actually I don’t think Gerard had even woken up yet, but Frank…I don’t know, something about a zinnia. Whatever, Frank bought Gerard a cactus, which Bob decided was possibly going to make Gerard flip out, so yeah.”
“Oookay, so Mikey had to go back to his bus in case Frank and Gerard have a fight?” Patrick doesn’t remember hearing anything about Bob being psychic, but it would explain rather a lot about his general awesomeness.
“Exactly! Bob really doesn’t like yelling. He called Mikey and told him to get his ass over there so he can sort it out if there’s some kind of throw-down, or he’d…well, actually, I’m not sure what he threatened, cause Mikey wouldn’t tell me, he just got kinda pale and bolted out of here. So.”
Pete’s sitting there like the story he just relayed made any sense whatsoever, but Patrick’s sure it didn’t. Pretty sure, anyway. He saw Gerard right before bed last night, in as good a mood as his emo would permit, and if he wasn’t even awake yet, why would he freak out at Frank over a cactus? What?
“So. Uh, what?” Pete takes a breath to start re-telling the story, and Patrick waves to cut him off.
“I mean, okay, Frank and Gee might be about to start fighting. What’s this about a cactus?”
“Frank bought Gerard a cactus. Y’know, as one of those relationship things they get you to do in rehab? Like, you can’t have sex unless you have a potted plant, or it’s good for your relationships or whatever? Dude, I don’t know. Anyway, I think it was a replacement, cause Gerard’s other plant was dying, and Frank sort of destroyed it, maybe on purpose? And Bob thinks that Gerard is going to think that Frank thinks that he should have a cactus ‘cause they’re practically impossible to kill and don’t really take any work, which Gerard may or may not view as a judgment about both Gerard’s horticultural and relationship abilities, so. Potential freak-out on the My Chem bus, ahoy.”
Patrick sighs and gives up trying to make sense of Pete’s story. Maybe he’ll ask Andy later - he may be ‘edge, but he’s a hell of a lot better with details than Pete, and the most likely member of his band to be able to make sense of this bizarre collection of facts. He supposes he could always just ask Gerard, but if Bob is now psychically divining his potential freak-outs, maybe it’s better to just leave well enough alone.
---
Gerard is a man of his word, and a few nights after he promises to actually interact with Patrick’s band, he steels himself and approaches the Fall Out Boy bus about half an hour before he and Patrick usually seem to find each other. Mikey had mumbled something about heading out to find sushi and cotton candy with Pete, which Gerard hadn’t even considered asking about, so he figures he is safe. He figures wrong. Luckily, Andy happens to see him as he is approaching the steps, so by the time he gets to the bottom, Patrick is being practically shoved out of the bus, his hat chucked out after him. He is still tangled in his ipod headphones, and Gerard gets an armful of Patrick before he manages to right himself properly.
“Right, um, hi. Uh, we should…your bus. Definitely your bus.” Patrick is waving his hands vaguely, and has turned a fascinating shade of crimson. Gerard opens his mouth to ask, and then closes it abruptly and turns to start walking. He and Mikey are close, closer than most brothers, but still. Yuck.
Which is how he and Patrick end up snugged into the corner of the couch on My Chem’s bus, in a space that would be comfortable for one and a half people, maybe, while Frank makes a show of taking up as much of the couch as his small frame will allow. It is a surprising amount, especially since he seems to think that if he just keeps his limbs moving at all times, he can rightfully lay claim to all of the space they pass through. He sort of looks like he’s practicing some sort of bizarre swim stroke, but Patrick doesn’t seem to mind either the space invasion or the fact that they’re watching Ten Things I Hate About You for the eighty-seventh time, so Gerard is content to stay where he is.
He’s also kind of glad that they’re back on his bus and hanging out with Frank. Frank isn’t one to hold grudges, unless they’re of a pranking nature, but Gerard can admit to himself that he was kind of an asshole, at least now that Mikey has patiently explained it to him several times. He’s still calling the cactus Dr. Doom though, and there’s nothing his band can do about that. He wonders if he has any acrylic paints that’ll stick to the terra cotta of the pot, and starts idly sketching out designs in his mind until the movie draws his attention back to the screen.
Frank eventually chills out and stops flailing, but Patrick is all relaxed against his side, and Gerard doesn’t really want to move over and disturb him. His comfort is severely compromised when he lets out a sigh (a happy sigh! a spending time with Patrick sigh!) at an inopportune moment, and Frank immediately pipes up with a “Gerard thinks Heath Ledger is soooo dreamy.” It’s sort of half-hearted and lazy on Frank’s part, but Patrick laughs so hard he chokes. After that, Gerard has no choice but to retaliate, so he promptly dumps Frank straight off the couch, and goes for Patrick’s hat.
Three minutes later, Frank is still on the floor, only now he’s half under the coffee table and laughing like a hyena. Patrick is smushed over the arm of the couch, one hand firmly planted on his hat and the other batting at Gerard’s hands, which are tickling him mercilessly. Gerard is also shrieking at the top of his lungs that Patrick better say uncle or he’s never letting up, and though Patrick winces at how shrill he’s getting, he keeps his mouth shut and continues to wiggle frantically in an attempt to escape Gerard’s substantial reach.
Frank eventually gets his shit together enough to warn Patrick that Gerard will not, in fact, give up on his own, a habit developed from a lifetime of he and Mikey tickling each other until they puke. Patrick eventually gasps out “alright, you win, I admit defeat.” Gerard desists, and the moment he stops with the tickling, Patrick plants a hand on his forehead and pushes him backwards off the couch, and goes back to cackling breathlessly.
Frank’s “Ooh, Patrick’s got mooooves,” doesn’t help Gerard’s wounded pride, but he can’t help grinning when Patrick comes straight back with a sarcastic “Yep, I learned ‘em from Gee.” After a brief tussle, Patrick consents to let Gerard back on the couch. Frank doesn’t even get all the way to his knees before his puppy-dog eyes are met with a foot on each shoulder, and it’s only through long experience annoying the shit out of his bandmates that he manages to avoid going head-first through the coffee table. So he arranges himself on the floor, curling up a little tighter in almost-sympathy when the asshole jock on screen gets kneed in the balls, and ignores Patrick and Gerard for the rest of the movie.
Gerard, in an attempt to make sure Frank can’t annex the couch, has sort of draped himself over most of it. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but as they settle back into the movie and he gets his breath back, he’s beginning to feel a little awkward. Patrick is still in the corner, but sitting on an angle so Gerard is sort of draped over him as well. Patrick’s thumb is resting against his wrist, and if he moved his head two inches it would be lying on Patrick’s shoulder. Whatever, he tells himself, they’re just two dudes watching a movie, and it’s not like anyone in either of their bands is really fussed about personal space. If Patrick was uncomfortable, he would probably have just pushed Gerard off him anyway, he’s kind of a bitch like that. So Gerard lets his head tip onto Patrick’s shoulder, and Patrick smiles a little without turning his head. When the credits roll and Patrick gently extricates himself and mumbles about heading back to his bus, Gerard just grins sleepily at him and waves goodnight before flopping back onto the still-warm cushion.
Gerard’s state of sleepy good will is abruptly cut short when a suddenly serious Frank deposits himself on Gerard’s legs and starts poking him in the chest. He gets as far as “you” poke “are” poke “fucking” poke “ridiculous” before Gerard manages to grab his finger. Frank rolls his eyes, but continues.
“Seriously, Gee, how old are you? All this beating around the bush, dude, I don’t even know. You’re kind of fucking gross.” Frank sounds totally exasperated, and Gerard is already getting offended, even though he has no idea what’s going on.
“The fuck are you talking about, Frankie?” Frank makes an indelicate snorting noise, and waves his hand in the direction of the bus door.
“Patrick, obviously, and your cutesy grade-school flirting thing. Gee, I know you wanna take it slow and all, not rush into anything, and I totally support that, I really do. But seriously? Sitting around watching you two pulling each others’ pigtails is giving me hives.”
“I, Patrick, pulling…WHAT?” Gerard sputters indignantly, his eyes getting unnaturally wide. Frank stares at him for a long moment, but when all he sees is confusion, he continues.
“Shit, Bob was right…” Frank mumbles half under his breath, and then looks Gerard straight in the eye. “Gee, you know that you have a huge crush on Patrick, right? And that you’re kinda, sorta maybe almost dating him?”
“What? No.”
“Yes.”
“No, but-“
“Yes.”
“No, but I’m not-“
“Yes you are.” Gerard starts to lose what little colour he has in his face, and Frank scoots himself over to rub Gerard’s back and sighs a little. It’s going to be a long night.
---
Part 2 thisaway -->
Part 3 thisaway -->
Title: The Blind Leading the Bands, 1/3
Fandom: My Chemical Romance / Fall Out Boy /The Used (if you squint)
Pairing: Gerard/Patrick, mentions of Gerard/Bert and Pete/Mikey
Rating: R for language
Authors: thejumpcut and in_decisions
Disclaimer: This is pure fiction, pay no attention to the nuts behind the curtain.
Notes: Well, we managed the long part of the prompt, and there’s still more to come. We really, really tried to get the conflict going, but much to our chagrin, it turns out that we’ve got nothing but fluffy, fluffy antics. It’s not our fault the boys are all gossip queens!
Summary: For two boys who aren’t even dating, there’s an awful lot of drama going down.
There was this one perfect, breezy day that summer, somewhere around New Mexico, and for two hours Gerard followed Patrick as he walked around, intent on catching as many acts as he could.
"Pete calls it my noblesse oblige," Patrick says, and Gerard thinks that's really a pretty cool phrase. He wonders if he can write it into a song, something about unwashed masses and a princess - no, a prince, or Frank will pitch a fit about wanting to wear his tiara when they play it. That crazy motherfucker does enough weird shit already, he doesn't want them to suddenly become that band that won't play their set unless three pristine tiaras are set up just so on top of Frank's amp.
Patrick isn't talking any more, and Gerard doesn't know if he was supposed to answer a question or what. Shit. "Uh, sorry?"
Patrick grins; Gerard hears it in his voice even though he can't see Patrick's face. Patrick's walking just ahead. Somehow he leads the way without sunglasses, only squinting a little out from under his hat, whereas Gerard's stumbling around like he's as drunk as he was this time last year.
"I didn't say anything," Patrick says. "I kind of lost you at noblesse oblige, and I didn't know if maybe I should've explained it to you, and then I thought you were probably thinking something about princesses and your band, am I right?"
Gerard makes a noncommittal noise before remembering that there isn't really any such thing when he's talking to Patrick, or rather, when Patrick is listening to him.
"Yeah, that's where I went," said Patrick, "so before Pete got any ideas about putting it in a lyric, I killed it dead. First I told Pete it made him sound like the worst kind of asshole, but that didn't really stick, so I told him that it made *me* sound like the worst kind of asshole, which did stick."
Patrick pauses, but when Gerard chances a look straight into the sunshine at his face, he's smirking a little. "And then what did you do?" Gerard asks warily.
Patrick's grin is a thing of evil beauty. It doesn't just spread across his face, it forms on one side of his mouth and wipes a decided, straight line across his lips, barreling right toward his other ear and stopping dead in its tracks before it distorts the rest of Patrick's face unforgivably. Patrick's perfectly-grinning face comes with a genuine eye-sparkle as he tells Gerard, "I told Andy Pete was constructing a classist mentality in which our fans vie for the privilege of supporting our crass, wasteful lifestyle and we, the ruling class, devote our time to training the next generation of pureblood rulers rather than to effective management of the proletariat's quality of life. Then I stole Pete's headphones and left them alone on the bus."
Gerard laughs, unselfconscious, amazed at the amount he's heard Patrick say this summer, more already than in the entire last year. Also, he wishes he could spontaneously leave his bandmates behind to be ravaged by idealistic vegans when they were giving him trouble, but no way could he do it that stylishly without writing it down beforehand on a cue card. Patrick is grinning sweetly, looking evenly at Gerard as they stall out beside a set of side-stage steps.
The sun is reflecting cruelly off the metal steps behind Patrick's head, and Gerard ducks his head a little and grimaces in the bright clear sun. There's so much unrelenting sunshine on this tour; he wishes he were cleaner, his skin paler and his clothes blacker, so he could present a more stark, chiaroscuro kind of effect, an avenging antihero against the white gravel sand. He wants to be bolder, painted in wider strokes, with less smudging and guesswork. He tries not to think *about* being sober, but it's making him all these nuanced shades of introspective and depressed again. He feels kind of Impressionist this summer, lazily constructed, the idea of Gerard rising hazily, intangibly from a mess of soft monochromatic smudges.
Patrick turns away from the steps of the stage they'd been just about to climb, diverting them both towards a picnic table just behind the chain-link that fences off the buses.
"We can watch from here," he says, and Gerard hears him despite the jarring, crashing intro of the band's opening song, nods and follows Patrick a little further.
Gerard doesn't really understand how Patrick got to be himself so quickly. No false starts, no detours into comics or horror movies or once, forgettably, post-apocalyptic splatterpunk love stories; just Patrick, doing what he does, so young and so focused and so fucking talented.
Patrick stares at Gerard and raises an eyebrow, wanting to know what's keeping Gerard's mouth shut and his mind distant. Gerard curses his mouth and his mind and tells Patrick what he had just been thinking.
Patrick thanks Gerard evenly for the compliment. He doesn't tell Gerard to buck up or to stop being so hard on himself, because Patrick is a friend, but he's not a *girl*, and Gerard likes hanging out with him because when his Moody Frontmanism acts up like that, Patrick does just what he's doing now, which is flicking uselessly at his face from across the table, leaning in, slightly frustrated and a little squinty.
"Your hair is back in your eyes, and you *know* how you get when your hair is in your eyes," Patrick tells him. "Remove it." Gerard flicks his hair back, smiling a little, and Patrick sits back and says, "Now. What in the fuck is a splatterpunk, and what kind of music do they play?"
"No, they - splatterpunk is a literary genre," Gerard says. "Gore, violence, rock and roll, lots of heroin, black leather jackets, graverobbers, guys meeting ironic and unfortunate ends." Patrick looks impressed and a little uneasy.
"Take all that and throw it in a blender," says Gerard, "and then drop some sausage links on top for intestines, amp it up with some bone fragments maybe, and a big splat--" he mimes dropping something soccer-ball-sized and heavy -- "of a brain on top, instead of a cherry."
"Literary, you say. Really." Patrick looks positively green.
"Splatterpunk," says Gerard summarily, like he's just finished a round in a spelling bee. "It was a fucking gross love story, too, let me tell you."
"I won't let you tell me," says Patrick, "I may never eat again."
"Aren't you vegetarian anyway?" wonders Gerard. He's weirded out by the fact that he assumes people are vegetarians until told otherwise, now, and wonders when that part of his life changed without him noticing.
"Yeah, well, now I'm off cherries for the next few weeks too, so why don't you quit while you're ahead, huh?" Patrick isn't as grouchy as the words sound; Gerard can hear the teasing tone underneath, the satisfied slowness in his speech that gives away how fulfilled he is right now, lazy and happy and not wanting for much of anything.
"Oh, come on," says Gerard, "you're not as delicate as you play it, you know."
"How do you know?" says Patrick, mock-affronted.
"Well, for one, you're out here in the sun and the heat and you're not bitching, and you're not all," he waves at his own face, "defensive about it like I am."
"So I can go outside without melting, it doesn't exactly make me a happy camper, Gerard."
"But - I mean, you're not tanning," says Gerard, "and even I have a tan, and I'm like subterranean pale. How do you do that?"
"Sunscreen, genius," Patrick says, "like 100 SPF. It's a lifesaver."
"Huh." Sunscreen. Gerard's lucky if he remembers to brush his teeth, never mind luxuries like sunscreen. Knowing his bus, he'd have to steal it out of any one of his bandmates' bunks before it was put to a truly nefarious purpose. Except Mikey, Gerard thinks frantically, because Mikey is his *brother* and does not get up to nefarious things, ever.
A few fans wander up to the chain-link, and they snap to attention. They're very nice, and Gerard's not at all bothered when they want him to sign some stuff, ask him some questions. Patrick does the same, although with less heartfelt discussion and more severely polite nodding.
After they’ve finished talking to the fans, Gerard wanders off back to his bus, and Patrick gets hijacked by several members of the crew who need him to referee some kind of shredding competition that he in no way understands the rules of. Patrick doesn’t mind - they’ll catch up with each other later, they always do.
---
Their bands are great friends. Really. Witness Pete and Mikey, best "friends" for an entire summer. It's just -- sometimes their aesthetics don't match.
"They think I'm a freak," Gerard says morosely, watching Fall Out Boy's bus closely for any hint of movement in the windows. Of course, it's dark, so nothing much is happening through the blinds except Gerard's pretty sure he can hear Joe bemoaning the lack of suitable food from the kitchenette.
"They do not think you're a freak," Patrick says, sternly but gently, and grabs Gerard's upper arm so that he'll look at Patrick, and not at Joe's fuzzy but unmistakably unimpressed silhouette. "They just, they don't." Patrick flails a little here and Gerard purses his lips and tries not to smile (it doesn't work). "It's just. Sometimes our bands, their aesthetics don't match."
"Well, Pete's wardrobe doesn't match anything, including itself," Gerard says a little huffily, "but he doesn't look at his closet with that kind of suspicion and distaste." He gives up on trying not to smile, but the end result is kind of sad and wistful; he really cares about Fall Out Boy and why they don't like him. He’s sure they don't, and he kind of gets why; it's the same reason he got so much trouble in high school (and ever since he found out that Pete was a high-school soccer player, Gerard has kind of cast him as a teenage bully in his cafeteria drama of a social life). He can almost deal with them not liking him, but he just can't handle the fact that apparently, they don't trust him.
Him! Gerard fucking Way! Who saves lives as a goddamned hobby! If they won't trust him, who can they trust, really?
Not that Gerard trusts Pete as far as he can throw him, especially not with all the disappearing he and Mikey have been doing; but that's Pete Wentz, and Pete Wentz is Not To Be Trusted. Not like Gerard. It's different, he tells himself earnestly.
When he pulls his head back out of his own ass, he realizes that he's made Patrick smile, properly smile.
"He does too," Patrick says. "You've never seen him get ready for a TV spot." Gerard mirrors Patrick's soft, open smile with one of his own dazzling grimaces, the comfortable kind of smile where you don't worry about what might be on your teeth or how strange your contorted face might look, just pure toothy happiness. He likes being around Patrick, he ends up smiling a lot.
"And here I thought you could never lose with basic black," Gerard says, gesturing at his own outfit, trying to keep any depressed notes out of his voice. His conversations with Patrick, though voluminous, are really only half about the words. The other half is about the voice; it makes it handy, gauging each other's mood, answering yes-or-no questions over the phone. They never need to ask how things are going; they know from listening. They can't keep themselves from telling, broadcasting their thoughts and feelings hidden within everyday phrases, like their nerve endings are all hard-wired to their vocal cords. Gerard knows this, and he tries to sound flippant and light-hearted even though he knows he'll fail. Patrick hears it, and it makes him appreciate Gerard and feel bad for him all at the same time, and he does his best to keep from looking Gerard up and down like a piece of meat when his hands wave towards his black-clad torso.
"Oh, man, you know how it is, that's not," Patrick says, but Gerard has gotten over whatever attack of melancholy had grabbed him. When Gerard shakes his trendy, filthy emo hair out of his face, Patrick unconsciously does the same, and both boys laugh quietly in the dim light fuzzing out from Fall Out Boy's bus, the sounds of chaos sharp and spiking from all sides.
"It's okay," Gerard says, "I know, I get it. It's just amazing, you know." He gestures a little more. "So close and yet so far." Gerard waves his hands between his bus and Patrick's like maybe it wasn't clear which two bands were under discussion here.
"Gerard," Patrick says, and catches his eyes before he has to reach out and reorient him, again. "They don't think you're a freak. Seriously. They just don't always get it. You. Your band. Whatever." Patrick can feel a rant coming on, but it's too late, he's all caught up in the moment, and there' s no stopping himself now, and he hopes fervently that he won't say anything too dumb.
"And they're not really interested in learning or, like, going outside their bubble, and it's frustrating," Patrick continues, "because I am, so don't, like, put me in with them, okay? I don't think you're a freak, and I trust you, and I like you, and I think you're generally pretty nifty. Yeah. Nifty," he says when Gerard looks up through a curtain of emo fringe, looking moody and misunderstood. "Get your hair out of your face, you're going to get all melodramatic again." Gerard obediently shakes his head again, and Patrick manages not to do the same.
"Maybe Pete would like me better if I wore, like, a hot pink hairband with big green dollar signs all over it or something."
Patrick looks vaguely ill. "Please don't. Pete's not worth it."
Gerard stops and considers for a moment. "Eugh. You're right." Buried in those last two words, Patrick can hear Gerard's greater concession to the conversation; he knows he hasn't said anything new, but Gerard has maybe let it sink a half inch further into his thick-ass skull. Which counts as a step forward, in Patrick's books.
"Okay," Gerard says, "yeah. Cool. But I'm not going on there," he says, and nods at Fall Out Boy's bus. "Not tonight. Just, you know, send him back whenever he surfaces?" He flicks his eyes towards the back of the bus, close to the bunks, and Patrick can hear how the muscles in his neck tighten a little as Gerard tries not to think about what might be going on with Pete and Mikey.
"Yeah," says Patrick, "course. But you'll come up some night, right? If you come up," Patrick says, grinning conspiratorially, "maybe Pete and Mikey will leave for the night, and then maybe I will get to sleep in my bunk and, uh--" he can actually see Gerard whiten, turning from eggshell to alabaster in less than four seconds -- "not be distracted by what might or might not be happening right below me, you know?"
Gerard nods. He knows. "I wish I didn't."
Patrick smiles, then stops. "But."
It's Gerard's turn to reach out now, a friendly, genial clap to the shoulder. "I'll come. Maybe tomorrow." He takes his hand back, waves a little as he starts away. "...Where the fuck are we tomorrow, again?"
"Depends," says Patrick, and starts towards his bus, grinning back at Gerard. "Where the fuck are we today?"
They laugh and go their separate ways for the night. Patrick thanks the strange gossip machine that is Warped for fixating on Pete and Mikey, spending so much time together everyone on the tour thinks of them as one unit, so that nobody starts whispering about him and Gerard. It isn't like they're spending that kind of time together, or anything; it’s more the part where they so often manage to find each other in the nightly madness, wander off together, usually right to one bus or another, and then say their goodnight and hide out in their respective bunks for a few hours of relative peace. That’s it, nothing furtive about it, but there's something distinctly un-guylike about the routine, and Patrick does his best to keep it to himself, keep it away from the guys. To keep it safe. Patrick wonders if spending all this time with Gerard is making him into a bigger pussy, or whether he was a big pussy all along and they're just figuring it out now.
"We have no Pop-Tarts left," Joe informs him, looking tragic. "How's your freakish boyfriend?"
"He's not my--" Patrick catches Joe's eyes and sees the laughter. "He's great. He's a total freak, Joe, especially in bed, and he's introducing me to the joy of sex with farm animals, okay?"
"Does it count as cheating, if you two are you know, banging other livestock?"
"Gah." Joe takes Patrick's punch to his arm with no noticeable reaction, and shrugs, still smiling. "You're disgusting. And I am not livestock!"
"Sure you are, you're livestock and he's undeadstock, duh." Patrick waves Joe away and walks on to his bunk, sneering at him as best he can, which is to say not well. Still, he thinks he's getting better at it.
"You started it," Joe says, mouth full of some junk-food Pop-Tart substitute. "You two are such a freakish couple."
Patrick knows Joe's just trying to rile him up, but he bets that both their bands would be fucking stunned to find out that he and Gerard aren't together, like that, at all. They haven't even kissed. They're just two guys, hanging out and not having sex with each other, and seriously, how is that so hard to fathom?
Gerard wakes up when he hears the TV in the front lounge go on. He checks his watch; he doesn't usually wake up that easily unless he's slept late, and yep, it's past eleven. Ray tries to wake him up long enough before a show that he's not still all sleepy and dumb and hoarse onstage, for which he is very grateful, and by which he deduces that they're probably not playing until mid-afternoon today. He rolls out of bed and rummages at the foot of his bunk, pushing aside an old NME, an issue of Sandman, and two green felt-tip pens before he locates his jeans and pulls them on. His socks, he finds, are stained with blotches of green ink; he'd fallen asleep with the cap off again, he realizes, chagrined. He tosses the pens in the little garbage bag tacked to the wall and pulls on his newly tie-dyed socks, then stumbles out of the bunk area into the front lounge.
He blinks a few times; it looks like everyone's awake and at the table, which isn't of itself incredibly new, but his bandmates look, well, a little quiet and a little... off. Gerard fills one mug with coffee for him and one mug with water for what he affectionately thinks of as his Rehab Zinnia, and nods hello to the guys. They seem kind of morose, he thinks. As he goes to water the Rehab Zinnia, they seem kind of alarmed, but he doesn't know why. Then he sees that there's some kind of box in the center of their little booth table, and before he realizes that things are not in their usual homes, he's dumped a mug full of water all over the now-empty shelf and the back of the couch.
"Somebody stole my Rehab Zinnia," Gerard mumbles dazedly, then stares at his coffee as though it can provide him with answers and maybe clean up the mess.
Ray gets up, locates a clean towel from his own bunk, and throws it on the spill, mopping it up perfunctorily and throwing the towel in the kitchenette sink.
"Gerard, do you want to sit with us, here?" Ray says, gesturing forward like a maitre d', and Gerard is totally, utterly confused.
"What - what's going on - guys?" He doesn't quite get what he's done, but he's pretty sure he's the odd man out here. Even Mikey is Pete-free and looking serious as ever. "I- did I-"
"Gerard, Frank has something he wants to tell you," says Ray. "It's okay, everything's fine."
"Okay," Gerard says nervously, "because I didn't do anything wrong - I mean," he amends, remembering how he worked out some productive speech techniques with his therapists for moments just like this, "I don't know what I did that made you upset."
Mikey scooches over so he's almost in Bob's lap. Bob looks concerned in that parental way he has, which is never a good sign. He moves over a little to make more room, and Gerard inches into the booth, barely finding his balance before Mikey throws his arms around him, saying "No, Gee, it's okay, it's not you, we're sorry."
"Sorry - I - are you fuckers replacing me or what? I demand answers," Gerard says, not yet halfway through his morning coffee and, as far as he can tell, pretty righteously indignant. "Today's weird enough already. What time are we playing, and is that box a birthday present or Gwyneth Paltrow's head or what, and whose fucking birthday is it in the first place, and I have things to do today anyway, like find out which lousy fucker stole my Rehab Zinnia!" Mikey is still wrapped around him, so he puts an arm around Mikey's skinny, pointy shoulders and lowers his head to rest on top of Mikey's. "Hey, dude, chill, what's going on, man?"
"Frank?" says Ray. Frank, squished into the window seat, looks monumentally embarrassed. Gerard is intrigued; he doesn't actually remember Frankie ever being embarrassed about anything, not even that Polaroid that they took of him curled up naked and asleep inside Bob's kick drum that sat on their fridge for, like, two weeks before someone stole it.
"I, uh, I was horsing around, which I'm not supposed to do in the front lounge, because I could break things, and, uh, I broke your zinnia. I didn't mean it." Gerard recoils a little, and Frank cringes.
"You *broke* her? Frank, she's part of my therapy!"
"I know," says Frank, "Bob told me all about it, Jesus, do I know," and then Gerard feels movement under the table and hears a low thud and Frank goes "OW!" and clutches his shin. Bob gestures at the box. Frank continues. Gerard just sits back and watches, totally gobsmacked.
"Listen," says Frank, glaring at Bob, "I know the flower is your big responsibility, and it's really important you have just the one so you can keep it alive and learn all about human relationships and being responsible or whatever, and I'm really sorry I killed it, seriously, so I got you a new one, because I don't think it counts if someone else kills it, really. I mean, you're supposed to keep it for a year, but I think you can just sub this one in and it'll be fine."
"I -- my zinnia?" Gerard knows he's kind of on a loop. "Dude, it's not a flower, it's my Rehab Zinnia, and I was doing so well with her!"
Frank sinks even further into the seat. "She was looking a little wilty around the edges anyway - and look, I got you a replacement, man, I don't know what else you want!"
Gerard reaches for the box. "It's, uh, you know, no big deal," he lies to Frank. "You know, it's like, things live, things die, right? So don't even worry dude, it's not like you set me back or anything, you know?" He cracks a smile as he opens the flaps of the box and reaches in. "Although she was totally healthy, Frank, don't lie to me."
"She was down to three petals, Gerard, it was euthanasia. Here, lemme do it," says Frank, "it's kind of--" and he reaches straight down into the box, almost standing up at the booth to do it.
"A cactus," says Gerard flatly. Frank nods.
"I just think maybe you'll have a better time of it," Frank says, and Bob gives him a warning look that Gerard can actually feel even though it's pointed at Frank and Mikey is between them. "Uh."
"You guys all got me a cactus?"
"Yep," says Ray, and he seems kind of proud. In fact, everybody but Bob seems kind of happy, and kind of solicitous, like maybe Gerard is a petulant kindergartner and is going to cry or have a fit or something, and they want to stave it off if at all possible.
"But - the whole idea is that I take care of something living for a year. So I can learn responsibility and start building trust in myself. So I won't jump into relationships without being ready, because if I can't keep a plant alive, I'm not ready for a relationship." Gerard is stuck in the loop he learned from his therapists, and he doesn't care. He knows the band has heard it before - there was that whole "Don't fuck with my zinnia" speech when the tour started - and he *knows* his band isn't trying to undermine his progress. He just doesn't understand why they think it's okay to bring him a fucking cactus, of all things.
"We know, Gerard," says Ray, leaning over the table towards him, "We all heard about it, remember? Frank's just trying to make things a little easier on you."
"But - something living, you guys. Living is the key point. A cactus is, like, half a step from a plastic flamingo. It's not hardly alive. Do you really think I'm that useless?"
"Look," Mikey says, "we're trying to make things, like, healthy for you, Gee. But we live on a fucking bus, what do you want from us? We stopped at a fucking bus station, you want us to find you an orchid?"
Gerard's blood runs cold. "Oh, God, never get me an orchid, I won't be able to go on a single date for the rest of my life!"
"You see," says Frank, "a cactus is probably all you can handle right now, what with being on tour and all.”
"I cannot believe you thought it was okay to get me a cactus!" Gerard says, knowing he's being a diva but also feeling like he's right to be offended. "You didn't think it was, I don't know, a little condescending?"
"We just wanted to help you get the year of the plant over with nice and easy," says Ray. "So you could move on."
"Ray," Gerard tries not to point out angrily, "It's not about moving on as fast as you can, okay? It's about being ready to move on."
"Okay, Gee, we get it," says Frank, "and I'm sorry I smashed your ability to move on, okay? I didn't mean to be, uh, mean."
"That's even worse!" Gerard knows he's kind of wailing, and God, he feels like the worst, least appreciative friend ever. "You guys don't even think I can do it."
"The zinnia really wasn't looking so good," Bob says, a little regretfully. "I hate to say it, but I can, because I'm bigger than you."
"That's so comforting," Gerard mutters. "You know, I could have brought her back!"
"Gardening on a bus is kind of inherently doomed," Frank points out. "It's probably just good you didn't get that goldfish."
"I'm still getting a damn hamster, though," Gerard retorts. "Fuck you guys, I'll do it."
"I'm not letting you bring a hamster on this bus," says Frank, "that's animal abuse."
"Gerard," says Ray, leaning over the table again and covering Gerard's hand with his own, "Don't let our stupid mistakes hold you back, okay? We're trying, so we're asking you to try, and we appreciate everything you're doing, and we're really proud of you. Right, guys?"
The chorus of "right" sounds less than convincing, but Gerard knows everyone means it. He tries to let it go, like he's supposed to when he wants to dwell unhealthily on something.
"Okay," says Gerard, "it's okay that you killed my Rehab Zinnia, because it's me in therapy, not any of you, not for this. And you guys are generally awesome and you know it, and quit looking so smug, Frankie, I'm still going to destroy one of your possessions at random." Frank doesn't even get to squawk at him before Ray's hand clamps over his mouth to keep him quiet. Gerard can hear Ray's muttered "Bite me and die, bitch," and tries not to giggle, but he can feel the mood lifting a little. He may be a Moody Frontman, but he can't be mad at his band for that long. They sleep in the same bus, after all, and it's just impractical.
"I'm just saying, guys?" Gerard pokes at the cactus suspiciously and sucks in a breath as, predictably, it stabs him with a spike. "I'm not, like, mad at you or anything. But I fucking hate this cactus."
"Whatever," says Frank, "as long as you love me, right?"
Bob jumps into motion, trying to kick Frank under the table and hit him over the table all at once. "So help me God, you little fucker, if you start singing, if I hear one fucking line of the fucking Backstreet Boys, I will kill your whole family!" Frank begins to groove a little in the booth seat. Clearly, Gerard thinks, he was born without a self-preservation instinct. Tragic, really.
Ray removes himself from the fray. "He's all yours, kids, I did my best." He ruffles Gerard's hair as he stands up from the booth and Gerard shoots him a grateful smile, lets him know that they're cool, that Gerard is glad Ray's in charge. Gerard and Ray have had ample cause and occasion to build a smile shorthand, and when Ray smiles down at him, there's no mistaking the you're nicer than you let on, and you're welcome on his face. Gerard turns his attention back to the imminent bloodbath; Mikey is trying his best to hide under Gerard's arm, so Gerard does his part to block Mikey from stray Bob-limbs for a bit, then abandons his post as Frank breaks into horrific, full-voiced Backstreet Boys. He rescues the wretched cactus even though he hates it, stashing it in the back lounge, and returns to the front lounge just in time to see Bob wrapping the wet towel Ray had used to clean up the couch around Frank's head and upper body while also tickling him. The overall effect, Gerard thinks, is kind of like a garlic bulb doing St. Vitus's dance.
"Hey Mikey," Gerard says, "Don't you think Frank looks like a garlic bulb with St. Vitus's dance?" He manages to get through the whole sentence without laughing, but then he makes the mistake of looking Mikey straight in the eye, and the two of them are off and running, laughing and gasping and hooting on the couch. Frank is somehow still singing underneath the towel, snapping his fingers and dancing as best he can, and Bob is trying not to sing along and also trying to come as close to killing Frank as he is legally allowed (though Brian once said that Bob could kill Frank for up to six seconds, as long as he promised to bring him back, but Gerard doubts that he really meant it). Ray is loudly informing the world from the back lounge that "THE CACTUS AND I ARE GOING TO GET SOME FUCKING WORK DONE NOW THANKS," before slamming the door, and then everything is pretty much back to normal. Of course, Gerard still has revenge to exact on his bandmates, but it looks like Bob's taking pretty efficient care of Frank at the moment, so he sits back and keeps laughing and tries to let it go.
---
When Patrick stumbles out of his bunk, Pete is sitting by himself on the couch, tapping away on his sidekick. Pete glances up and smiles serenely in greeting, even when Patrick just stands there blinking in confusion at the lack of Mikeyway plastered to his side. Once he is sufficiently recovered, he flops down next to Pete, who immediately burrows into his shoulder despite the heat and Patrick’s resistance, which is admittedly somewhat feeble.
“Hey Pete, lose your playmate?” Patrick means it as a joke, but it comes out a little sharper than he intended. Pete raises an eyebrow, but decides to take the question at face value.
“Yeah, he had to get back to his bus. There’s some kind of kerfuffle going down over there, and Bob decided he was the one to sort it out.”
“Uh, okay…somebody’s fighting?” Pete grins, delighted to be passing on gossip Patrick hasn’t already heard.
“Frank and Gerard, maybe. They weren’t fighting exactly, actually I don’t think Gerard had even woken up yet, but Frank…I don’t know, something about a zinnia. Whatever, Frank bought Gerard a cactus, which Bob decided was possibly going to make Gerard flip out, so yeah.”
“Oookay, so Mikey had to go back to his bus in case Frank and Gerard have a fight?” Patrick doesn’t remember hearing anything about Bob being psychic, but it would explain rather a lot about his general awesomeness.
“Exactly! Bob really doesn’t like yelling. He called Mikey and told him to get his ass over there so he can sort it out if there’s some kind of throw-down, or he’d…well, actually, I’m not sure what he threatened, cause Mikey wouldn’t tell me, he just got kinda pale and bolted out of here. So.”
Pete’s sitting there like the story he just relayed made any sense whatsoever, but Patrick’s sure it didn’t. Pretty sure, anyway. He saw Gerard right before bed last night, in as good a mood as his emo would permit, and if he wasn’t even awake yet, why would he freak out at Frank over a cactus? What?
“So. Uh, what?” Pete takes a breath to start re-telling the story, and Patrick waves to cut him off.
“I mean, okay, Frank and Gee might be about to start fighting. What’s this about a cactus?”
“Frank bought Gerard a cactus. Y’know, as one of those relationship things they get you to do in rehab? Like, you can’t have sex unless you have a potted plant, or it’s good for your relationships or whatever? Dude, I don’t know. Anyway, I think it was a replacement, cause Gerard’s other plant was dying, and Frank sort of destroyed it, maybe on purpose? And Bob thinks that Gerard is going to think that Frank thinks that he should have a cactus ‘cause they’re practically impossible to kill and don’t really take any work, which Gerard may or may not view as a judgment about both Gerard’s horticultural and relationship abilities, so. Potential freak-out on the My Chem bus, ahoy.”
Patrick sighs and gives up trying to make sense of Pete’s story. Maybe he’ll ask Andy later - he may be ‘edge, but he’s a hell of a lot better with details than Pete, and the most likely member of his band to be able to make sense of this bizarre collection of facts. He supposes he could always just ask Gerard, but if Bob is now psychically divining his potential freak-outs, maybe it’s better to just leave well enough alone.
---
Gerard is a man of his word, and a few nights after he promises to actually interact with Patrick’s band, he steels himself and approaches the Fall Out Boy bus about half an hour before he and Patrick usually seem to find each other. Mikey had mumbled something about heading out to find sushi and cotton candy with Pete, which Gerard hadn’t even considered asking about, so he figures he is safe. He figures wrong. Luckily, Andy happens to see him as he is approaching the steps, so by the time he gets to the bottom, Patrick is being practically shoved out of the bus, his hat chucked out after him. He is still tangled in his ipod headphones, and Gerard gets an armful of Patrick before he manages to right himself properly.
“Right, um, hi. Uh, we should…your bus. Definitely your bus.” Patrick is waving his hands vaguely, and has turned a fascinating shade of crimson. Gerard opens his mouth to ask, and then closes it abruptly and turns to start walking. He and Mikey are close, closer than most brothers, but still. Yuck.
Which is how he and Patrick end up snugged into the corner of the couch on My Chem’s bus, in a space that would be comfortable for one and a half people, maybe, while Frank makes a show of taking up as much of the couch as his small frame will allow. It is a surprising amount, especially since he seems to think that if he just keeps his limbs moving at all times, he can rightfully lay claim to all of the space they pass through. He sort of looks like he’s practicing some sort of bizarre swim stroke, but Patrick doesn’t seem to mind either the space invasion or the fact that they’re watching Ten Things I Hate About You for the eighty-seventh time, so Gerard is content to stay where he is.
He’s also kind of glad that they’re back on his bus and hanging out with Frank. Frank isn’t one to hold grudges, unless they’re of a pranking nature, but Gerard can admit to himself that he was kind of an asshole, at least now that Mikey has patiently explained it to him several times. He’s still calling the cactus Dr. Doom though, and there’s nothing his band can do about that. He wonders if he has any acrylic paints that’ll stick to the terra cotta of the pot, and starts idly sketching out designs in his mind until the movie draws his attention back to the screen.
Frank eventually chills out and stops flailing, but Patrick is all relaxed against his side, and Gerard doesn’t really want to move over and disturb him. His comfort is severely compromised when he lets out a sigh (a happy sigh! a spending time with Patrick sigh!) at an inopportune moment, and Frank immediately pipes up with a “Gerard thinks Heath Ledger is soooo dreamy.” It’s sort of half-hearted and lazy on Frank’s part, but Patrick laughs so hard he chokes. After that, Gerard has no choice but to retaliate, so he promptly dumps Frank straight off the couch, and goes for Patrick’s hat.
Three minutes later, Frank is still on the floor, only now he’s half under the coffee table and laughing like a hyena. Patrick is smushed over the arm of the couch, one hand firmly planted on his hat and the other batting at Gerard’s hands, which are tickling him mercilessly. Gerard is also shrieking at the top of his lungs that Patrick better say uncle or he’s never letting up, and though Patrick winces at how shrill he’s getting, he keeps his mouth shut and continues to wiggle frantically in an attempt to escape Gerard’s substantial reach.
Frank eventually gets his shit together enough to warn Patrick that Gerard will not, in fact, give up on his own, a habit developed from a lifetime of he and Mikey tickling each other until they puke. Patrick eventually gasps out “alright, you win, I admit defeat.” Gerard desists, and the moment he stops with the tickling, Patrick plants a hand on his forehead and pushes him backwards off the couch, and goes back to cackling breathlessly.
Frank’s “Ooh, Patrick’s got mooooves,” doesn’t help Gerard’s wounded pride, but he can’t help grinning when Patrick comes straight back with a sarcastic “Yep, I learned ‘em from Gee.” After a brief tussle, Patrick consents to let Gerard back on the couch. Frank doesn’t even get all the way to his knees before his puppy-dog eyes are met with a foot on each shoulder, and it’s only through long experience annoying the shit out of his bandmates that he manages to avoid going head-first through the coffee table. So he arranges himself on the floor, curling up a little tighter in almost-sympathy when the asshole jock on screen gets kneed in the balls, and ignores Patrick and Gerard for the rest of the movie.
Gerard, in an attempt to make sure Frank can’t annex the couch, has sort of draped himself over most of it. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but as they settle back into the movie and he gets his breath back, he’s beginning to feel a little awkward. Patrick is still in the corner, but sitting on an angle so Gerard is sort of draped over him as well. Patrick’s thumb is resting against his wrist, and if he moved his head two inches it would be lying on Patrick’s shoulder. Whatever, he tells himself, they’re just two dudes watching a movie, and it’s not like anyone in either of their bands is really fussed about personal space. If Patrick was uncomfortable, he would probably have just pushed Gerard off him anyway, he’s kind of a bitch like that. So Gerard lets his head tip onto Patrick’s shoulder, and Patrick smiles a little without turning his head. When the credits roll and Patrick gently extricates himself and mumbles about heading back to his bus, Gerard just grins sleepily at him and waves goodnight before flopping back onto the still-warm cushion.
Gerard’s state of sleepy good will is abruptly cut short when a suddenly serious Frank deposits himself on Gerard’s legs and starts poking him in the chest. He gets as far as “you” poke “are” poke “fucking” poke “ridiculous” before Gerard manages to grab his finger. Frank rolls his eyes, but continues.
“Seriously, Gee, how old are you? All this beating around the bush, dude, I don’t even know. You’re kind of fucking gross.” Frank sounds totally exasperated, and Gerard is already getting offended, even though he has no idea what’s going on.
“The fuck are you talking about, Frankie?” Frank makes an indelicate snorting noise, and waves his hand in the direction of the bus door.
“Patrick, obviously, and your cutesy grade-school flirting thing. Gee, I know you wanna take it slow and all, not rush into anything, and I totally support that, I really do. But seriously? Sitting around watching you two pulling each others’ pigtails is giving me hives.”
“I, Patrick, pulling…WHAT?” Gerard sputters indignantly, his eyes getting unnaturally wide. Frank stares at him for a long moment, but when all he sees is confusion, he continues.
“Shit, Bob was right…” Frank mumbles half under his breath, and then looks Gerard straight in the eye. “Gee, you know that you have a huge crush on Patrick, right? And that you’re kinda, sorta maybe almost dating him?”
“What? No.”
“Yes.”
“No, but-“
“Yes.”
“No, but I’m not-“
“Yes you are.” Gerard starts to lose what little colour he has in his face, and Frank scoots himself over to rub Gerard’s back and sighs a little. It’s going to be a long night.
---
Part 2 thisaway -->
Part 3 thisaway -->