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mysterious ways (MCR)
So once upon a time, I had the following conversation:
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etben: you know, somehow i'd never really thought about the fact that mikey is dating pete and alicia, and gerard is dating frank and lyn-z
etben: like - what is UP with those WAYS?
lordessrenegade: heeeeee oh man. this is true!
etben: what is going on with them, that they have to have ONE OF EACH?
etben: MATCHING SETS
lordessrenegade: clearly the way brothers are too much man for one person to handle.
etben: CLEARLY
etben: they need to have one of each!
etben: to prevent a nuclear meltdown
lordessrenegade: *nods* THEY ARE NOT EASILY SATISFIED.
lordessrenegade: ......i kinda want that story. where there's some kind of genetic thing that means that they'll explode things if they aren't getting sexed by a boy and a girl.
etben: ...man, what if they're robots? or freaky sex aliens?
etben: or, like, the ULTIMATE BISEXUALS
etben: YES
etben: THAT
lordessrenegade: *glee* they are!
lordessrenegade: and of course, pete would be all "look, dude. i'm all for sexing you and a girl. you don't have to, like....make up stories to get me to do it. bring on the girls!"
etben: ahahahahah
lordessrenegade: and omg. like...they need to be practically the same person in boy/girl form too. not just a guy and a girl, but....the same guy/girl, basically.
etben: right
etben: MAYBE
etben: OH GOD
etben: maybe on their home planet, people switch genders all the time!
etben: which, a) explains why they want MATCHED BOY/GIRL SETS
etben: and, b) EXPLAINS WHY THEY ARE SOMETIMES PRETTY LADIES
lordessrenegade: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee yes.
lordessrenegade: omg. way brothers = genderbending aliens.
lordessrenegade: it explains everything.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it did, in fact, explain everything. Even, hopefully, this story.
Mysterious Ways
MCR; Frank/Gerard/Lyn-Z, Pete/Mikey/Alicia; rated R
note: genderswap, threesomes, aliens, crack. not real, never happened, don't google yourself or your friends. Read-through bycool_rain_kiss and pearl_o; handholding by angelsaves and shoemaster; inspired by lordessrenegade.
"So, okay." Ray takes a deep breath, lets it out slow and careful. "You're saying that you two are, what, hermaphrodites?"
"Not hermaphrodites," Gerard says. "Just - sometimes we're guys, and sometimes we're girls, you know?"
Ray stares at him. "No, Gee," he says. "We really, really don't."
It does kind of explain a few things, though.
*
Gerard figured it out in ninth grade, in the middle of a math test. One minute he was trying to solve for x, chewing on his pencil - and then the world shivered, zooming in and out of focus, and everything was different, blurry and strange and not-quite-right, and his pants didn't fit no matter which way he sat.
Mrs. Perkins gave him a weird look when he asked for a bathroom pass, but she signed it and let him go. He rushed the whole way, tripping over his feet, feeling like his whole body had been taken back and put together differently, muscles and bones in the wrong places.
His dick was gone, but that was pretty much the only change - he didn't really have breasts, which made the whole thing kind of lame, as far as he was concerned. After poking at everything for a few minutes, he shrugged, zipped up his pants, and went back to class.
x was 3/7, and he turned back in the hallway, afterwards, shuddering and falling against the lockers.
*
Bob is confused.
"Bob, you okay?" Mikey's shifting in his seat, turning around to face him. "I mean, I know you're probably surprised - "
"No, not really," Bob says. "Or, like - was I not supposed to know, or something?" Gerard's head snaps around and he stares, and Bob shrugs. "It was the only explanation that worked, really." Not the only one, actually - but it made more sense than them both having secret girl twins who wore all of the same clothes and liked all of the same things and were never around at the same time.
"But you're - you're okay with it, right?" Gerard's not exactly wringing his hands, but it's a near thing.
Bob nods. "Sure, why not?"
It's not like it's the weirdest thing about being in this band.
*
They weren't sure if it was going to happen to Mikey or not - he was later than Gerard, halfway through the summer after 9th grade. Nothing special happened, not that he could ever remember - he just woke up one morning and didn't have a dick anymore.
"Huh," he said, and then, "Gerard!"
Gerard, predictably, thought it was really fucking cool.
"Not, like - I mean, it's probably going to suck for you, some, because it's kind of a sucky thing - but on the other hand, dude." He waved his hands around, excited and grimy, hair in his eyes. His face, when Mikey watched closely, was wavering, back and forth, the shape of his jaw flipping back and forth. It was neat, in a freaky sort of way.
"It's like we're superheroes," Gee was saying. "You can be my sidekick!"
"I don't want to have the same powers as you, that's lame," Mikey said. "Also, since when is being able to change into a girl a superpower?" He sighed. "We're not even hot girls." They weren't ugly, exactly, but they were skinny and pale and flat-chested, gangly and awkward in the parts they only sometimes had.
Gerard thought about that for a while, and then nodded sadly.
"You're right," he said. "With the same power, we're more likely to be archenemies," which was kind of the point, but also kind of not.
*
"But you have balls," Frank says, shaking his head. "I kicked you in them, remember?"
"Thanks for reminding me, Frank," Gee says, rolls his eyes. "I'd almost managed to forget that special moment we had." He shifts in his seat, making a face. "I mean, mostly I'm, you know. A guy. Just - sometimes I'm not." He shrugs, grinning a little. "It made kickball easier, at least. Kickball and drag."
It's kind of a hard thing to wrap his mind around, but - like Ray says - it does explain a hell of a lot.
"I mean, for one thing, Mikey's love life makes a lot more sense now," he adds. "Is that, like - is that some kind of thing, for you guys? Like, a - " he shrugs, frowns. "A biological imperative or whatever?"
Mikey shrugs. "I mean, not really? Like, obviously I don't have to - but, yeah." He tilts his head, considering. "It feels - better, with them. More natural."
"Can we talk about something else, please?" Gerard looks pained, which is pretty standard for a conversation about Mikey's sex life - but he's also turning steadily pinker, staring at the carpet like the meaning of life is somewhere in there.
Frank doesn't get it, and he doesn't get it, and he still doesn't get it - and then he thinks about it some more, thinks about all of those times when he couldn't tell whether it was Pete or Alicia draped over Mikey's back, and he gets it.
"I'm going to - I'll see you later," he says, and is out of the bus before any of them can respond.
*
Mikey had been dating Pete for about a month and a half, for values of "dating" that meant "hanging out with and occasionally making out with." Things were good - not great, not world-shattering mindblowingly awesome, but lazy and sweet and fun, which suited Mikey just fine. World-shattering was really more Gerard's thing, anyways.
He was avoiding a party one night, at the house of a friend of a friend of somebody on the crew, wandering through empty rooms, feeling the throb of bad techno rumbling up from the first floor, fighting a headache.
She was curled up on a couch, all dark hair and dark eyeliner, poking intently at her sidekick and frowning. Mikey stopped, startled, and stared at her until she glanced up.
"What're you staring at, Mikeyway?"
"Nothing," he said eventually, stepping forward to sit next to her on the couch. "I just didn't think that you were - " He shrugged. "Clearly you are, though."
"I am indeed," she said, scratching the back of his neck with longer nails - which was neat; Mikey's nails were pretty much always the same length. "That a good thing or a bad thing?"
"Very good." He pressed back against her hand, let her tip him over and pull him down to lie against her, breathing against her collarbone. The perfume was a nice touch, too. "Tell me a story?"
The story had unicorns and tentacle-y monsters and was totally fucking badass, and Mikey fell asleep with her fingers in his hair. He woke up alone, an hour or so later, his sidekick buzzing.
sweet dreams, prince mikey, it said, and Mikey grinned.
Mikey draped himself over Pete's back, the next day, and kissed him just under the ear; Pete leaned back against him.
"Thanks for last night," Mikey said, and watched one side of Pete's grin.
- he figured it out a week later, when he found Pete and Alicia making out behind the Fall Out Boy bus - but, really, it wasn't a big deal.
*
He's told his guys - although apparently only Ray and Frank actually needed telling - and they've still got a couple of hours before they have to do anything, so Gerard drinks his coffee and takes a deep breath and goes to find Lyn.
She listens to the whole story, not saying anything, just sitting across from him on the couch and watching him, her eyes dark and steady.
"And I - I just thought you should know, you know?" He shrugs, fidgeting. "I told the guys this morning, and you - I mean, you know. I thought you should know."
"You said that already," she points out, not moving. "Thanks for telling me, Gee. I'm - " she pauses, her tongue poking out and resting on her upper lip while she thinks. "I'm not really sure what to make of it, I guess," she says, finally. "But we're cool, don't worry." She leans forward and kisses him on the cheek, quick and friendly, and he takes his cue and leaves.
Frankie's outside, right on the steps to the bus, one hand raised to knock - or maybe to punch Gerard in the face; it's not entirely clear.
"What I want to know," he says, "what I want to know is, were you always just, like, looking for the matched set? Or is this just some lucky coincidence, for you?"
Gerard blinks, dry-mouthed. "Frank," he says, "Frankie, that's not - it's not - you're not - "
"Yeah, Gee." Frank laughs, short and harsh. "I know."
*
Gerard hadn't really heard anything from Lyn since their last tour together - stories through friends of friends, the odd chance meeting when they were in the same place at the same time. He'd known they'd be touring together again - was psyched to be touring together again - but all the same, when he saw the girl with the short dark hair and the tattoos leaning up against one of the vans, his first thought was Frank.
His second thought was that fucking asshole.
He'd spent the rest of the day cranky and off-beat, snapping at everyone who came near and being, in Mikey's words, "a pissy little bitch." And so what if he was? Frankie had been, all these years - and he hadn't told him, hadn't said anything when it was clear, when it was obvious -
When Frankie - a guy again, which was probably a good thing, given his habits - leaned in for a kiss, right before they went onstage, Gerard walked right past him and went onstage practically shaking with anger.
The set - well, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't quite right, either. Frank stayed on his side of the stage, for a change, thrashing and flailing like a tiny, Frank-shaped ball of frustration. Gerard rubbed up against Ray a lot, and even against Mikey once or twice; it didn't help.
Afterwards, Gerard went off on his own, looking for MSI; he'd missed their set, before, and it'd be nice to see Lyn and Jimmy again. When he caught up to them, when he saw Lyn - and it was definitely her, even from a distance, no question - his stomach started to twist.
When he saw Frank over by the buses - watching, listening, pretending not to be avoiding Gerard - he felt like he was going to puke. He gave them all hugs, then pretended to be tired and left, feeling like a heel.
He talked to Mikey that night, the two of them out next to one of the fences on the empty lot, talking and talking.
"I'm cool with it, yeah," Mikey said. "I mean, it's about time they knew, you know?"
"Yeah," Gerard said. "Yeah, you're right."
The next day, he called a band meeting.
*
On the one hand, it's a weird story - but it's not the weirdest story, not by a long shot.
On the other hand, Lyn has never in her life taken anything on faith alone, and she's not about to start today, not even for Gerard Way's earnest little face.
"I want proof," she says, poking her head into his bunk. The rest of My Chem are off doing their own things, practicing or chilling or harassing the openers. She's not really interested; she's got Mikey's guarantee that they'll all be off the bus for at least another hour, and that's what's important.
"Proof, Gerard," she says, sticking her fingers into the tender skin under his ribs. "Come on, get up and make me believe you."
"Gnuh," Gerard says, but he sits up, scratching his head. "Wait, what?" He pulls the curtains aside, looks around, frowns.
"They're all busy," she says. "Seriously, if you don't prove it, I'm going to think you're fucking with me, and then - " she leans in, to be sure he hears her, "- then, I'm going to kick you in the face."
She can do it, too, and he knows it.
"I - okay," he says, "okay, give me a second." He straightens up a bit and stretches, then closes his eyes and sits, frowning, for a long moment. She's about to poke him - or maybe slap him, depending - but then there's a weird little moment where the air seems to shake, and Gerard opens his eyes, and wow.
"Wow," she says again, reaching out to touch his - her - jaw. It's not that different, not enough that she'd notice if she hadn't been looking - but she had been looking, and she is looking, and it's really kind of amazing.
"Yeah," Gerard says. "Weird, I know." He meets her eyes and smiles just a little. "Happy now?"
"Fuck no," she says, reaching for the edge of his shirt and tugging up. She's convinced that something happened, but the truth of Gerard's ridiculous little story remains to be seen.
He fights, but she's stronger and meaner, and soon she's got him down to his shorts and a glare, flat on his back in his bunk. He's pretty flat-chested, but still recognizably female: high, tight breasts, rosy nipples, narrower waist and slightly broader hips. He clings to his shorts when she goes for those - his fingers are narrower, too - so she touches him through them instead, feeling curves where there used to be a bulge.
"Okay," she says, "okay, I'm convinced." She pauses, leaving her hand where it is, pretending not to realize that Gerard's lifting his hips against her. "Unless you were just a really convincing crossdresser, before?" She curls her fingers, pressing slightly harder, and leans in to kiss the gasp out of Gerard's mouth, but he pulls his head away, breathing hard.
"I can't, Lyn," she says. "I just can't, okay? Not you, not Frank - "
"Frank?" She presses again, shifting closer, leaning over him. "You don't want to fuck Frank?" Gerard's hips shift, forward and then back, like he's not sure whether he wants her to stop or to keep going. "You don't want him to fuck you?" She pushes Gerard's legs just a little wider, crooks her wrist, slides her thumb -
- and Gerard jerks away, sitting up and crossing his arms over his chest, curling around his knees. She waits, watching, until he sighs and looks over his crossed wrists at her.
"I mean - it's not fair - not to you, and not to him."
"Come again?"
He sighs, biting his lip. "I just - look, I'd have all of these expectations, you know? I'd want you both to live up to each other, and you never would, and I love you both too much to do that to you." He laughs, low and a little sad. "I already did it to Frank, and I didn't even mean to."
He's being an idiot, and she tells him as much. "You're not the only one who gets to make decisions, Gee," she says. "And did you actually explain any of this to Iero, or did he just jump to conclusions?" He doesn't need to answer; she already knows. "I'll give you a pass this time, but you should go and talk to him, really."
He frowns again, but he nods; she kisses him on the forehead and goes back outside. At the door, she hesitates, then turns back.
"For the record, Gerard Way," she says, "I've always been a fan of threesomes."
*
By the time he graduated, Gerard had pretty much gotten the hang of the whole thing. It was simple, really: when he freaked out, he switched.
They were long past the point of training to be superheros, by then - and Gerard had finally admitted that "turns into a girl when startled" was a pretty crappy superpower - but that didn't mean that he couldn't keep training. It was an ability, just like drawing or singing, and it wasn't any good unless he could control it.
He couldn't exactly learn not to freak out - but he could learn to control his reactions, at least, and to cover up when he switched anyways. He wasn't as good as Mikey, who spent all of 10th grade switched without anybody noticing, but he got pretty good, in the end.
Mikey was different anyways, though - he switched back and forth without any real reason that either of them could figure out. With him, the big challenge was always making it happen at all - if Gerard hadn't seen it, that first time, he might not even have believed Mikey.
So it was mostly a joke, the training: something they did in their free time, or as a joke, or to procrastinate on their homework. If their mom ever noticed, she didn't say anything.
His second year at SVA, though, the training finally paid off. Gerard was sitting at his desk, kicked up on the back two legs of his chair, focusing on what it felt like to be a girl, on breasts and other girl-things and the way his ears always looked different - the rest of his face, too, but especially his ears. He was focusing so hard that he didn't notice the tell-tale shift in his vision, or the way his elbows always twanged funny, afterwards.
When he realized, he flipped his chair over backwards, whacked his head, and changed back, which was kind of a let-down, on the whole.
The next time, though, he tried it in his bed, flat on his back, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the way he walked, as a girl, the way his hips moved, the way his back bent. He had to grope himself to check, for the first time in ages - breasts, hips, total lack of dick - and sat up, tentative and careful, grinning at an empty room.
He still had Maureen's dress, which she'd left with him after he spilled blue paint on it; it didn't quite fit, but it was a start.
The makeup was all his, though.
*
Frank's hanging out behind one of the buses, smoking and chilling and just generally taking a moment for himself, when all of a sudden Lyn-Z is there, leaning up against the metal next to him and frowning.
"Gerard's an idiot," she says, with no preamble at all, and Frank snorts, because, yeah, he's with her there. She doesn't say anything else, though, just stares at him, cool and measuring. Frank blows a smoke ring and frowns.
"Was there anything else? Because if not, don't let me keep you - I'd hate to interfere with your busy schedule of fucking my lead singer."
She rolls her eyes, plucks the cigarette out of his hand, takes a drag, hands it back; Frank stares at it, then stubs it out against the side of the bus.
"We didn't fuck," she says. "We talked." Frank glances at her out of the corner of his eye, and she meets him stare for stare, steady as a rock. "He doesn't want to fuck me because he was afraid of comparing me to you, and he doesn't want to fuck you because he's afraid of comparing you to me." She sighs. "Like I said, he's a fucking idiot."
"Yeah, well." Frank rolls up on one shoulder, facing her full-on. "Let's just wait and see which one of those lasts, hmm?"
Before he can decide whether maybe he wants another cigarette, she's on him, in his space, slamming him back against the bus.
"Do you know what we talked about, Frankie?" she says, low and deceptively sweet. Frank shakes his head - he doesn't know, and he doesn't want to know, because if he knows -
"We talked about you, among other things." She's pressed up against him, breasts to his chest, feet between his. One of her hands is on his shoulder, holding him in place; the other one is tracing patterns down the side of his neck. "We talked about how much he wants to fuck you, and about how much more he wants you to fuck him." Somehow, she keeps getting closer, rubbing up against him more and more as she talks.
"Lyn," he says, but she cuts him off.
"He changed for me," she says. "Have you ever seen him, during?" When he doesn't answer, she squeezes his throat - not much, not enough to do any real damage, but he shakes his head and gasps all the same.
"You'd think it would be gross," she says, right in his ear, "but it's not - it's amazing, all pale and smooth and perfect."
He shouldn't be hearing this - she shouldn't be telling him this. When he tries to stop her, though, she just grins and rocks against him, hard and deliberate.
"He wants you to know, though," she says. "He wants you to know what it's like to fuck him, what it's like to eat him out, when he's like that, what it's like to see him switch back and forth - he wants you to fuck him both ways, any way - "
"Fuck," Frank says, squeezing his eyes shut. "Fuck, Lyn - " He tries not to bite her shoulder when he comes, but it doesn't really work. Afterwards, she just pokes at the marks with her fingertips and grins.
"Go talk to him," she says. "And also, you owe me one."
*
They had to take gym - there was no way around it, not without faking medical problems that neither of them knew enough about.
"Plus," Gerard pointed out, "they might want to examine you, which wouldn't be good." He wrinkled his nose, thinking. "You might want to get a bra, though."
"A bra?" Mikey couldn't raise only one eyebrow, not quite, but he tried as hard as he could. Gerard had given him a lot of advice, since he started switching back and forth, and most of it had been pretty good, but he wasn't sure about this bra business. "Gee, if I start actually looking like a girl, Mom's going to freak out." Mom, and the kids at school, and the teachers at school -
"Just for gym!" Gee was blushing, crossing his arms over the chest that was suddenly, subtly there. "You haven't had to run, yet - trust me, it fucking hurts."
"Okay, fine," Mikey said, finally. "But you have to explain if we get caught."
It wasn't that hard to get it, actually - Gee drove them to the mall and they went to JC Penney's, where the salesladies glared at him and cooed over Mikey. The fitting part was a little weird, but they didn't seem surprised when he was awkward and confused and really bad at hooking the tiny hooks together.
"You get used to it, dear," one of them said.
And the thing was, he did, after a couple of weeks. Gee had one too, "for emergencies" - but Gerard changed back and forth all the time, without any warning. Mikey, despite his best efforts, stayed a girl no matter how hard he focused or meditated, no matter how many times Gee snuck up behind him with a mask or a water balloon or a bucket of water.
And being a girl was a lot more comfortable if you had a bra on, it turned out.
Being a girl also made kickball a lot more fun, especially when the Jake Barnard tried to knee him in the balls he didn't have. His team won 12-7, for the first (and last) time all season; Mikey was kind of proud.
And Jake left him alone for the rest of the year, which was even better.
*
Gerard takes a nap and wakes up in the middle of the lounge, tied to a folding chair.
"Um," he says. "Um, what?"
"You're an idiot," Lyn says, finishing up the knots on Frank's chair. Gerard smiles at Frank, who fidgets and blushes but still grins back.
"Right, okay," Gerard says. "You want to be more specific, maybe?"
Lyn stands up, hands on her hips, glaring at both of them. "I told you talk to each other - I told you both," she says, rolling her eyes. "And neither of you managed it." She pauses, then adds, "because you're idiots," in case they didn't get it.
"And so you decided to tie us up?" Frank frowns.
"Were you going to talk to each other at all otherwise?" Gerard certainly wasn't; he's spent the past day and a half being everywhere and anywhere he thought Frank wouldn't be, up to and including the field behind the porta-johns.
From the look on Frank's face, he's been doing something similar, which shouldn't be reassuring, but kind of is.
"Besides," Lyn adds, "ropes are fun, and it's not like you're not both enjoying it." She glares at Gerard and kicks the leg of his chair. "Now talk, Gerard."
She's staring at him, and Frank's not - and at some point the rest of the guys are going to come back. Gerard would really like not to be tied to a folding chair by the time that happens, so he talks. He explains it all - the shifting, figuring it out, growing up six of one and half a dozen of the other, not knowing when it would happen or how to make things go back to normal.
He tells them about the rest of it, too, even though they already know - seeing Lyn, seeing Frank, seeing the two of them at once and thinking, yes, that, for me.
When he's done, his mouth is dry and scratchy; Lyn brings him a glass of water when he asks, and holds it up so that he can drink it, tilting it just so.
"Okay," she says, setting the cup on the table. "So, Frankie, I'm going to untie you now. You can go if you want - " she gestures toward the door "- but I think we'd both rather you stayed." She tugs on a loop of rope and the knots fall apart, coils of rope across the metal of the chair; Frank stands up, rubbing his wrists, silent, doing some sort of freaky body-double mindmeld thing with Lyn.
"I vote we show him the benefits of being normal," he says, grinning.
Lyn nods. "Good decision." Then they're kissing, right there in front of him, easy and familiar and really fucking hot, and Gerard doesn't see how this qualifies as a benefit, exactly - but then they're dropping to their knees in front of him and helping each other get his pants open, and it all makes a lot more sense.
They don't suck cock the same way - which makes sense, given that they are in fact completely separate people - but they're both smart and perceptive and dirty, and they pick up on everything he reacts to, every sequence of touches and every change in pressure, passing ideas back and forth until Gerard is straining against the ropes, fucking into Frank's mouth while Lyn kisses his hip, his inner thigh, the side of Frank's face.
When he comes, the room goes fuzzy, blurry; it takes him a few seconds to realize that it's more than normal post-sex fuzziness. He hasn't changed accidentally in years - but he's never been in a situation quite like this before, either.
"Fuck, Gee," Frank says, and he sounds - stunned and impressed and really fucking turned on. Gerard looks down, and almost swallows his tongue; Lyn has her hand around Frank's dick, and he's fucking her hand in tiny unconscious hitches.
"You know," Lyn says, thoughtfully, "this brings a whole new meaning to "multiple orgasms." Frank looks at her and grins, and they lean forward together.
"Oh," Gerard says, "oh."
*
"So, okay," Ray says, taking a deep breath. "Let me get this straight. You're not only polyamorous transsexuals - " Gerard makes a face at the word, but Ray ignores him. "You're polyamorous transsexual aliens?"
"That, I didn't know," Bob says. He looks slightly impressed.
Mikey sighs. "You have no idea," he says, and, no. They really, really don't.
etben: you know, somehow i'd never really thought about the fact that mikey is dating pete and alicia, and gerard is dating frank and lyn-zetben: like - what is UP with those WAYS?lordessrenegade: heeeeee oh man. this is true!etben: what is going on with them, that they have to have ONE OF EACH?etben: MATCHING SETSlordessrenegade: clearly the way brothers are too much man for one person to handle.etben: CLEARLYetben: they need to have one of each!etben: to prevent a nuclear meltdownlordessrenegade: *nods* THEY ARE NOT EASILY SATISFIED.lordessrenegade: ......i kinda want that story. where there's some kind of genetic thing that means that they'll explode things if they aren't getting sexed by a boy and a girl.etben: ...man, what if they're robots? or freaky sex aliens?etben: or, like, the ULTIMATE BISEXUALSetben: YESetben: THATlordessrenegade: *glee* they are!lordessrenegade: and of course, pete would be all "look, dude. i'm all for sexing you and a girl. you don't have to, like....make up stories to get me to do it. bring on the girls!"etben: ahahahahahlordessrenegade: and omg. like...they need to be practically the same person in boy/girl form too. not just a guy and a girl, but....the same guy/girl, basically.etben: rightetben: MAYBEetben: OH GODetben: maybe on their home planet, people switch genders all the time!etben: which, a) explains why they want MATCHED BOY/GIRL SETSetben: and, b) EXPLAINS WHY THEY ARE SOMETIMES PRETTY LADIESlordessrenegade: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee yes.lordessrenegade: omg. way brothers = genderbending aliens.lordessrenegade: it explains everything.And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it did, in fact, explain everything. Even, hopefully, this story.
Mysterious Ways
MCR; Frank/Gerard/Lyn-Z, Pete/Mikey/Alicia; rated R
note: genderswap, threesomes, aliens, crack. not real, never happened, don't google yourself or your friends. Read-through by
cool_rain_kiss and pearl_o; handholding by angelsaves and shoemaster; inspired by lordessrenegade."So, okay." Ray takes a deep breath, lets it out slow and careful. "You're saying that you two are, what, hermaphrodites?"
"Not hermaphrodites," Gerard says. "Just - sometimes we're guys, and sometimes we're girls, you know?"
Ray stares at him. "No, Gee," he says. "We really, really don't."
It does kind of explain a few things, though.
*
Gerard figured it out in ninth grade, in the middle of a math test. One minute he was trying to solve for x, chewing on his pencil - and then the world shivered, zooming in and out of focus, and everything was different, blurry and strange and not-quite-right, and his pants didn't fit no matter which way he sat.
Mrs. Perkins gave him a weird look when he asked for a bathroom pass, but she signed it and let him go. He rushed the whole way, tripping over his feet, feeling like his whole body had been taken back and put together differently, muscles and bones in the wrong places.
His dick was gone, but that was pretty much the only change - he didn't really have breasts, which made the whole thing kind of lame, as far as he was concerned. After poking at everything for a few minutes, he shrugged, zipped up his pants, and went back to class.
x was 3/7, and he turned back in the hallway, afterwards, shuddering and falling against the lockers.
*
Bob is confused.
"Bob, you okay?" Mikey's shifting in his seat, turning around to face him. "I mean, I know you're probably surprised - "
"No, not really," Bob says. "Or, like - was I not supposed to know, or something?" Gerard's head snaps around and he stares, and Bob shrugs. "It was the only explanation that worked, really." Not the only one, actually - but it made more sense than them both having secret girl twins who wore all of the same clothes and liked all of the same things and were never around at the same time.
"But you're - you're okay with it, right?" Gerard's not exactly wringing his hands, but it's a near thing.
Bob nods. "Sure, why not?"
It's not like it's the weirdest thing about being in this band.
*
They weren't sure if it was going to happen to Mikey or not - he was later than Gerard, halfway through the summer after 9th grade. Nothing special happened, not that he could ever remember - he just woke up one morning and didn't have a dick anymore.
"Huh," he said, and then, "Gerard!"
Gerard, predictably, thought it was really fucking cool.
"Not, like - I mean, it's probably going to suck for you, some, because it's kind of a sucky thing - but on the other hand, dude." He waved his hands around, excited and grimy, hair in his eyes. His face, when Mikey watched closely, was wavering, back and forth, the shape of his jaw flipping back and forth. It was neat, in a freaky sort of way.
"It's like we're superheroes," Gee was saying. "You can be my sidekick!"
"I don't want to have the same powers as you, that's lame," Mikey said. "Also, since when is being able to change into a girl a superpower?" He sighed. "We're not even hot girls." They weren't ugly, exactly, but they were skinny and pale and flat-chested, gangly and awkward in the parts they only sometimes had.
Gerard thought about that for a while, and then nodded sadly.
"You're right," he said. "With the same power, we're more likely to be archenemies," which was kind of the point, but also kind of not.
*
"But you have balls," Frank says, shaking his head. "I kicked you in them, remember?"
"Thanks for reminding me, Frank," Gee says, rolls his eyes. "I'd almost managed to forget that special moment we had." He shifts in his seat, making a face. "I mean, mostly I'm, you know. A guy. Just - sometimes I'm not." He shrugs, grinning a little. "It made kickball easier, at least. Kickball and drag."
It's kind of a hard thing to wrap his mind around, but - like Ray says - it does explain a hell of a lot.
"I mean, for one thing, Mikey's love life makes a lot more sense now," he adds. "Is that, like - is that some kind of thing, for you guys? Like, a - " he shrugs, frowns. "A biological imperative or whatever?"
Mikey shrugs. "I mean, not really? Like, obviously I don't have to - but, yeah." He tilts his head, considering. "It feels - better, with them. More natural."
"Can we talk about something else, please?" Gerard looks pained, which is pretty standard for a conversation about Mikey's sex life - but he's also turning steadily pinker, staring at the carpet like the meaning of life is somewhere in there.
Frank doesn't get it, and he doesn't get it, and he still doesn't get it - and then he thinks about it some more, thinks about all of those times when he couldn't tell whether it was Pete or Alicia draped over Mikey's back, and he gets it.
"I'm going to - I'll see you later," he says, and is out of the bus before any of them can respond.
*
Mikey had been dating Pete for about a month and a half, for values of "dating" that meant "hanging out with and occasionally making out with." Things were good - not great, not world-shattering mindblowingly awesome, but lazy and sweet and fun, which suited Mikey just fine. World-shattering was really more Gerard's thing, anyways.
He was avoiding a party one night, at the house of a friend of a friend of somebody on the crew, wandering through empty rooms, feeling the throb of bad techno rumbling up from the first floor, fighting a headache.
She was curled up on a couch, all dark hair and dark eyeliner, poking intently at her sidekick and frowning. Mikey stopped, startled, and stared at her until she glanced up.
"What're you staring at, Mikeyway?"
"Nothing," he said eventually, stepping forward to sit next to her on the couch. "I just didn't think that you were - " He shrugged. "Clearly you are, though."
"I am indeed," she said, scratching the back of his neck with longer nails - which was neat; Mikey's nails were pretty much always the same length. "That a good thing or a bad thing?"
"Very good." He pressed back against her hand, let her tip him over and pull him down to lie against her, breathing against her collarbone. The perfume was a nice touch, too. "Tell me a story?"
The story had unicorns and tentacle-y monsters and was totally fucking badass, and Mikey fell asleep with her fingers in his hair. He woke up alone, an hour or so later, his sidekick buzzing.
sweet dreams, prince mikey, it said, and Mikey grinned.
Mikey draped himself over Pete's back, the next day, and kissed him just under the ear; Pete leaned back against him.
"Thanks for last night," Mikey said, and watched one side of Pete's grin.
- he figured it out a week later, when he found Pete and Alicia making out behind the Fall Out Boy bus - but, really, it wasn't a big deal.
*
He's told his guys - although apparently only Ray and Frank actually needed telling - and they've still got a couple of hours before they have to do anything, so Gerard drinks his coffee and takes a deep breath and goes to find Lyn.
She listens to the whole story, not saying anything, just sitting across from him on the couch and watching him, her eyes dark and steady.
"And I - I just thought you should know, you know?" He shrugs, fidgeting. "I told the guys this morning, and you - I mean, you know. I thought you should know."
"You said that already," she points out, not moving. "Thanks for telling me, Gee. I'm - " she pauses, her tongue poking out and resting on her upper lip while she thinks. "I'm not really sure what to make of it, I guess," she says, finally. "But we're cool, don't worry." She leans forward and kisses him on the cheek, quick and friendly, and he takes his cue and leaves.
Frankie's outside, right on the steps to the bus, one hand raised to knock - or maybe to punch Gerard in the face; it's not entirely clear.
"What I want to know," he says, "what I want to know is, were you always just, like, looking for the matched set? Or is this just some lucky coincidence, for you?"
Gerard blinks, dry-mouthed. "Frank," he says, "Frankie, that's not - it's not - you're not - "
"Yeah, Gee." Frank laughs, short and harsh. "I know."
*
Gerard hadn't really heard anything from Lyn since their last tour together - stories through friends of friends, the odd chance meeting when they were in the same place at the same time. He'd known they'd be touring together again - was psyched to be touring together again - but all the same, when he saw the girl with the short dark hair and the tattoos leaning up against one of the vans, his first thought was Frank.
His second thought was that fucking asshole.
He'd spent the rest of the day cranky and off-beat, snapping at everyone who came near and being, in Mikey's words, "a pissy little bitch." And so what if he was? Frankie had been, all these years - and he hadn't told him, hadn't said anything when it was clear, when it was obvious -
When Frankie - a guy again, which was probably a good thing, given his habits - leaned in for a kiss, right before they went onstage, Gerard walked right past him and went onstage practically shaking with anger.
The set - well, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't quite right, either. Frank stayed on his side of the stage, for a change, thrashing and flailing like a tiny, Frank-shaped ball of frustration. Gerard rubbed up against Ray a lot, and even against Mikey once or twice; it didn't help.
Afterwards, Gerard went off on his own, looking for MSI; he'd missed their set, before, and it'd be nice to see Lyn and Jimmy again. When he caught up to them, when he saw Lyn - and it was definitely her, even from a distance, no question - his stomach started to twist.
When he saw Frank over by the buses - watching, listening, pretending not to be avoiding Gerard - he felt like he was going to puke. He gave them all hugs, then pretended to be tired and left, feeling like a heel.
He talked to Mikey that night, the two of them out next to one of the fences on the empty lot, talking and talking.
"I'm cool with it, yeah," Mikey said. "I mean, it's about time they knew, you know?"
"Yeah," Gerard said. "Yeah, you're right."
The next day, he called a band meeting.
*
On the one hand, it's a weird story - but it's not the weirdest story, not by a long shot.
On the other hand, Lyn has never in her life taken anything on faith alone, and she's not about to start today, not even for Gerard Way's earnest little face.
"I want proof," she says, poking her head into his bunk. The rest of My Chem are off doing their own things, practicing or chilling or harassing the openers. She's not really interested; she's got Mikey's guarantee that they'll all be off the bus for at least another hour, and that's what's important.
"Proof, Gerard," she says, sticking her fingers into the tender skin under his ribs. "Come on, get up and make me believe you."
"Gnuh," Gerard says, but he sits up, scratching his head. "Wait, what?" He pulls the curtains aside, looks around, frowns.
"They're all busy," she says. "Seriously, if you don't prove it, I'm going to think you're fucking with me, and then - " she leans in, to be sure he hears her, "- then, I'm going to kick you in the face."
She can do it, too, and he knows it.
"I - okay," he says, "okay, give me a second." He straightens up a bit and stretches, then closes his eyes and sits, frowning, for a long moment. She's about to poke him - or maybe slap him, depending - but then there's a weird little moment where the air seems to shake, and Gerard opens his eyes, and wow.
"Wow," she says again, reaching out to touch his - her - jaw. It's not that different, not enough that she'd notice if she hadn't been looking - but she had been looking, and she is looking, and it's really kind of amazing.
"Yeah," Gerard says. "Weird, I know." He meets her eyes and smiles just a little. "Happy now?"
"Fuck no," she says, reaching for the edge of his shirt and tugging up. She's convinced that something happened, but the truth of Gerard's ridiculous little story remains to be seen.
He fights, but she's stronger and meaner, and soon she's got him down to his shorts and a glare, flat on his back in his bunk. He's pretty flat-chested, but still recognizably female: high, tight breasts, rosy nipples, narrower waist and slightly broader hips. He clings to his shorts when she goes for those - his fingers are narrower, too - so she touches him through them instead, feeling curves where there used to be a bulge.
"Okay," she says, "okay, I'm convinced." She pauses, leaving her hand where it is, pretending not to realize that Gerard's lifting his hips against her. "Unless you were just a really convincing crossdresser, before?" She curls her fingers, pressing slightly harder, and leans in to kiss the gasp out of Gerard's mouth, but he pulls his head away, breathing hard.
"I can't, Lyn," she says. "I just can't, okay? Not you, not Frank - "
"Frank?" She presses again, shifting closer, leaning over him. "You don't want to fuck Frank?" Gerard's hips shift, forward and then back, like he's not sure whether he wants her to stop or to keep going. "You don't want him to fuck you?" She pushes Gerard's legs just a little wider, crooks her wrist, slides her thumb -
- and Gerard jerks away, sitting up and crossing his arms over his chest, curling around his knees. She waits, watching, until he sighs and looks over his crossed wrists at her.
"I mean - it's not fair - not to you, and not to him."
"Come again?"
He sighs, biting his lip. "I just - look, I'd have all of these expectations, you know? I'd want you both to live up to each other, and you never would, and I love you both too much to do that to you." He laughs, low and a little sad. "I already did it to Frank, and I didn't even mean to."
He's being an idiot, and she tells him as much. "You're not the only one who gets to make decisions, Gee," she says. "And did you actually explain any of this to Iero, or did he just jump to conclusions?" He doesn't need to answer; she already knows. "I'll give you a pass this time, but you should go and talk to him, really."
He frowns again, but he nods; she kisses him on the forehead and goes back outside. At the door, she hesitates, then turns back.
"For the record, Gerard Way," she says, "I've always been a fan of threesomes."
*
By the time he graduated, Gerard had pretty much gotten the hang of the whole thing. It was simple, really: when he freaked out, he switched.
They were long past the point of training to be superheros, by then - and Gerard had finally admitted that "turns into a girl when startled" was a pretty crappy superpower - but that didn't mean that he couldn't keep training. It was an ability, just like drawing or singing, and it wasn't any good unless he could control it.
He couldn't exactly learn not to freak out - but he could learn to control his reactions, at least, and to cover up when he switched anyways. He wasn't as good as Mikey, who spent all of 10th grade switched without anybody noticing, but he got pretty good, in the end.
Mikey was different anyways, though - he switched back and forth without any real reason that either of them could figure out. With him, the big challenge was always making it happen at all - if Gerard hadn't seen it, that first time, he might not even have believed Mikey.
So it was mostly a joke, the training: something they did in their free time, or as a joke, or to procrastinate on their homework. If their mom ever noticed, she didn't say anything.
His second year at SVA, though, the training finally paid off. Gerard was sitting at his desk, kicked up on the back two legs of his chair, focusing on what it felt like to be a girl, on breasts and other girl-things and the way his ears always looked different - the rest of his face, too, but especially his ears. He was focusing so hard that he didn't notice the tell-tale shift in his vision, or the way his elbows always twanged funny, afterwards.
When he realized, he flipped his chair over backwards, whacked his head, and changed back, which was kind of a let-down, on the whole.
The next time, though, he tried it in his bed, flat on his back, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the way he walked, as a girl, the way his hips moved, the way his back bent. He had to grope himself to check, for the first time in ages - breasts, hips, total lack of dick - and sat up, tentative and careful, grinning at an empty room.
He still had Maureen's dress, which she'd left with him after he spilled blue paint on it; it didn't quite fit, but it was a start.
The makeup was all his, though.
*
Frank's hanging out behind one of the buses, smoking and chilling and just generally taking a moment for himself, when all of a sudden Lyn-Z is there, leaning up against the metal next to him and frowning.
"Gerard's an idiot," she says, with no preamble at all, and Frank snorts, because, yeah, he's with her there. She doesn't say anything else, though, just stares at him, cool and measuring. Frank blows a smoke ring and frowns.
"Was there anything else? Because if not, don't let me keep you - I'd hate to interfere with your busy schedule of fucking my lead singer."
She rolls her eyes, plucks the cigarette out of his hand, takes a drag, hands it back; Frank stares at it, then stubs it out against the side of the bus.
"We didn't fuck," she says. "We talked." Frank glances at her out of the corner of his eye, and she meets him stare for stare, steady as a rock. "He doesn't want to fuck me because he was afraid of comparing me to you, and he doesn't want to fuck you because he's afraid of comparing you to me." She sighs. "Like I said, he's a fucking idiot."
"Yeah, well." Frank rolls up on one shoulder, facing her full-on. "Let's just wait and see which one of those lasts, hmm?"
Before he can decide whether maybe he wants another cigarette, she's on him, in his space, slamming him back against the bus.
"Do you know what we talked about, Frankie?" she says, low and deceptively sweet. Frank shakes his head - he doesn't know, and he doesn't want to know, because if he knows -
"We talked about you, among other things." She's pressed up against him, breasts to his chest, feet between his. One of her hands is on his shoulder, holding him in place; the other one is tracing patterns down the side of his neck. "We talked about how much he wants to fuck you, and about how much more he wants you to fuck him." Somehow, she keeps getting closer, rubbing up against him more and more as she talks.
"Lyn," he says, but she cuts him off.
"He changed for me," she says. "Have you ever seen him, during?" When he doesn't answer, she squeezes his throat - not much, not enough to do any real damage, but he shakes his head and gasps all the same.
"You'd think it would be gross," she says, right in his ear, "but it's not - it's amazing, all pale and smooth and perfect."
He shouldn't be hearing this - she shouldn't be telling him this. When he tries to stop her, though, she just grins and rocks against him, hard and deliberate.
"He wants you to know, though," she says. "He wants you to know what it's like to fuck him, what it's like to eat him out, when he's like that, what it's like to see him switch back and forth - he wants you to fuck him both ways, any way - "
"Fuck," Frank says, squeezing his eyes shut. "Fuck, Lyn - " He tries not to bite her shoulder when he comes, but it doesn't really work. Afterwards, she just pokes at the marks with her fingertips and grins.
"Go talk to him," she says. "And also, you owe me one."
*
They had to take gym - there was no way around it, not without faking medical problems that neither of them knew enough about.
"Plus," Gerard pointed out, "they might want to examine you, which wouldn't be good." He wrinkled his nose, thinking. "You might want to get a bra, though."
"A bra?" Mikey couldn't raise only one eyebrow, not quite, but he tried as hard as he could. Gerard had given him a lot of advice, since he started switching back and forth, and most of it had been pretty good, but he wasn't sure about this bra business. "Gee, if I start actually looking like a girl, Mom's going to freak out." Mom, and the kids at school, and the teachers at school -
"Just for gym!" Gee was blushing, crossing his arms over the chest that was suddenly, subtly there. "You haven't had to run, yet - trust me, it fucking hurts."
"Okay, fine," Mikey said, finally. "But you have to explain if we get caught."
It wasn't that hard to get it, actually - Gee drove them to the mall and they went to JC Penney's, where the salesladies glared at him and cooed over Mikey. The fitting part was a little weird, but they didn't seem surprised when he was awkward and confused and really bad at hooking the tiny hooks together.
"You get used to it, dear," one of them said.
And the thing was, he did, after a couple of weeks. Gee had one too, "for emergencies" - but Gerard changed back and forth all the time, without any warning. Mikey, despite his best efforts, stayed a girl no matter how hard he focused or meditated, no matter how many times Gee snuck up behind him with a mask or a water balloon or a bucket of water.
And being a girl was a lot more comfortable if you had a bra on, it turned out.
Being a girl also made kickball a lot more fun, especially when the Jake Barnard tried to knee him in the balls he didn't have. His team won 12-7, for the first (and last) time all season; Mikey was kind of proud.
And Jake left him alone for the rest of the year, which was even better.
*
Gerard takes a nap and wakes up in the middle of the lounge, tied to a folding chair.
"Um," he says. "Um, what?"
"You're an idiot," Lyn says, finishing up the knots on Frank's chair. Gerard smiles at Frank, who fidgets and blushes but still grins back.
"Right, okay," Gerard says. "You want to be more specific, maybe?"
Lyn stands up, hands on her hips, glaring at both of them. "I told you talk to each other - I told you both," she says, rolling her eyes. "And neither of you managed it." She pauses, then adds, "because you're idiots," in case they didn't get it.
"And so you decided to tie us up?" Frank frowns.
"Were you going to talk to each other at all otherwise?" Gerard certainly wasn't; he's spent the past day and a half being everywhere and anywhere he thought Frank wouldn't be, up to and including the field behind the porta-johns.
From the look on Frank's face, he's been doing something similar, which shouldn't be reassuring, but kind of is.
"Besides," Lyn adds, "ropes are fun, and it's not like you're not both enjoying it." She glares at Gerard and kicks the leg of his chair. "Now talk, Gerard."
She's staring at him, and Frank's not - and at some point the rest of the guys are going to come back. Gerard would really like not to be tied to a folding chair by the time that happens, so he talks. He explains it all - the shifting, figuring it out, growing up six of one and half a dozen of the other, not knowing when it would happen or how to make things go back to normal.
He tells them about the rest of it, too, even though they already know - seeing Lyn, seeing Frank, seeing the two of them at once and thinking, yes, that, for me.
When he's done, his mouth is dry and scratchy; Lyn brings him a glass of water when he asks, and holds it up so that he can drink it, tilting it just so.
"Okay," she says, setting the cup on the table. "So, Frankie, I'm going to untie you now. You can go if you want - " she gestures toward the door "- but I think we'd both rather you stayed." She tugs on a loop of rope and the knots fall apart, coils of rope across the metal of the chair; Frank stands up, rubbing his wrists, silent, doing some sort of freaky body-double mindmeld thing with Lyn.
"I vote we show him the benefits of being normal," he says, grinning.
Lyn nods. "Good decision." Then they're kissing, right there in front of him, easy and familiar and really fucking hot, and Gerard doesn't see how this qualifies as a benefit, exactly - but then they're dropping to their knees in front of him and helping each other get his pants open, and it all makes a lot more sense.
They don't suck cock the same way - which makes sense, given that they are in fact completely separate people - but they're both smart and perceptive and dirty, and they pick up on everything he reacts to, every sequence of touches and every change in pressure, passing ideas back and forth until Gerard is straining against the ropes, fucking into Frank's mouth while Lyn kisses his hip, his inner thigh, the side of Frank's face.
When he comes, the room goes fuzzy, blurry; it takes him a few seconds to realize that it's more than normal post-sex fuzziness. He hasn't changed accidentally in years - but he's never been in a situation quite like this before, either.
"Fuck, Gee," Frank says, and he sounds - stunned and impressed and really fucking turned on. Gerard looks down, and almost swallows his tongue; Lyn has her hand around Frank's dick, and he's fucking her hand in tiny unconscious hitches.
"You know," Lyn says, thoughtfully, "this brings a whole new meaning to "multiple orgasms." Frank looks at her and grins, and they lean forward together.
"Oh," Gerard says, "oh."
*
"So, okay," Ray says, taking a deep breath. "Let me get this straight. You're not only polyamorous transsexuals - " Gerard makes a face at the word, but Ray ignores him. "You're polyamorous transsexual aliens?"
"That, I didn't know," Bob says. He looks slightly impressed.
Mikey sighs. "You have no idea," he says, and, no. They really, really don't.
ultimate bisexual aliens? Fuck YEAH!
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ALL THE LOVE,
Me.
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