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throw a little sparkle all over it (1/3)
throw a little sparkle all over it
Band(s): MCR
Pairing(s): Frank/Gerard
Word Count: 26,000
Rating/Warnings: R, but only barely
Author Notes: Babies and associated ridiculousness. NOT REAL. NEVER HAPPENED.
This story would absolutely not exist with out the handholding, encouragement, badgering, and all-around awesomeness of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shoemaster, so you should feel free to blame her for everything. Thanks also to angelsaves, lordessrenegade, pearl_o and strobelighted, who all let me flail at them about this story and send them bits and pieces to squeak about. Finally, thanks to bexless, who somehow got conned into beta-ing this monstrosity, and pointed out countless stupid errors.
You are my very very favorites, dears. FAVORITES.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Fanmix
"Hey, Ma," Mikey says. "No, everything's fine—well, I mean, Gerard accidentally adopted a baby—no, he's changing her now, he can't talk." Gerard flips him off, but Mikey just settles further into the couch. Gerard pouts, then looks up at Frank.
"Frankie," he says, and Frank shakes his head.
"Sorry, man," he says. "But as the one sane person on this entire bus, I'm pretty sure my official job is to watch and laugh."
*
shoemaster: I love that you asked for a prompt that wasn't hyperindulgent. this is only regular indulgent then?
*
*
Normally, Frank wakes up when they're already on the road, climbing back into consciousness with the rumble of the bus around and under him, steady and soothing and constant. Mikey swears it sounds different in each state, and probably it does, but it's always the same, to Frank—always the road, the bus, morning—or, well, midafternoon—and home.
In Minnesota, though, he wakes up to shouting and an unnerving stillness. He's still groggy and exhausted, like he can't have been asleep for more than three minutes.
"The fucking fuck?" Bob sounds even more annoyed than he usually is in the mornings, and Bob is not a morning person by any stretch of anyone's imagination. "It's fucking eight in the fucking morning, you assholes," he says, which just confirms what Frank's half-open eyes are telling him.
"Gerard?" It's one of the techs—Andrew, he thinks—and he sounds sincerely freaked. Frank rolls out of his bunk, stands up, lets himself tip over until he's leaning against the other side of the tiny aisle.
"Gee," he says, poking the foot that's sticking out between the curtains. "Gee, come on, crisis." After a few seconds, Gerard's sitting up, swatting at Frank's hand and glaring, scrubbing a hand through his hair.
"The fuck?" he says, and Frank grabs his wrist and hauls him bodily out of bed, aiming them at the main room.
Andrew hands Gerard the note as soon as they're through the door, sticking it right under his nose; Frank peers over Gerard's shoulder to read.
you saved my life, it says. please help me save hers.
"She was on the steps this morning," Andrew says, which is when Frank realizes that he's holding a baby.
The door slams open, then, and Brian comes charging in. He looks at Gerard, then at Frank, then at the baby. His eyes go wide, and his face goes the color of dirty socks.
"Oh, fuck," he says, which pretty much sums it up.
*
Half an hour and a whole lot of questions and swearing later, Frank knows the following things:
- The baby turned up between 7:30 and 8 AM.
- Nobody on the crew saw anything.
- The baby is 24 inches long, weighs 13 and a half pounds, and smells like baby powder.
- The baby has a stuffed hedgehog, which it likes to chew on.
- The baby also likes to chew on Ray's hair.
- Gerard loves her.
The thing is, that's not actually a surprise. Gerard talks a lot about how he doesn't want kids—how the world is too fucked up to want to bring another life into it, how he's not cut out for fatherhood, how he'd probably just screw the kid up anyways—but Frank knows better. Gerard won't be the world's most traditional parent, sure, but he'll do a good job. He cares about kids, about helping them grow up self-aware and strong and happy; it's one of the more stupidly endearing things about him. It sometimes comes off as hokey or insincere, but Frank's had enough late-night conversations with Gerard, has seen him interact with fans and relatives, and he knows that it's all real.
About a year ago, when they had a half-day in New Mexico, Frank bought him a cactus.
"...a cactus?" Gerard looked a little underwhelmed, holding the pot and staring down at it.
Frank had shrugged. "I figure, start small, portable, and hardy." Really, he'd figured that Gerard could use something to take care of, something that wasn't himself or the band to focus on, and cacti were about as indestructible as you could get.
Gerard had rolled his eyes and acted all offended, but he'd taken really good care of the cactus—named it Gladys, watered it once every two weeks with no small amount of pride, moved it around the bus to make sure it had the best possible light. It had survived the rest of that tour, to everybody's shock—Frank's pretty sure that it's in the Way family kitchen, these days.
Which is great for the cactus, but a baby—that's something else altogether. Babies are Serious Business, as far as Frank's concerned.
Gee seems to think otherwise, though: he's got the baby all cuddled in his arms, looking down at it with the world's stupidest expression on his face, and he's fucking cooing. The rest of the guys aren't any better: even Ray, who's sitting back out of range to protect his hair, starts grinning like an idiot when the baby twitches or rolls over or burps or whatever. Mikey's sitting next to Gee, playing with the baby's feet; his hands look even more enormous than usual, in comparison.
Only Bob seems to properly understand this situation: he keeps staring blankly at the baby, leaving the bus, then coming back to stare some more. Bob is Frank's favorite person ever; the third time Bob goes outside, Frank follows him.
"Fuck!" Bob says, as soon as they're off the bus, "fuck, fuck, fucking fuckers of fuck." He takes a deep breath, then turns around, smacking straight into Frank. "Oh, hey," he says, grinning a little. "Sorry, just—I didn't want to swear in front of the kid, you know?"
Frank stares at him. Bob stares back. "I don't want to give her bad habits, Frank," he says. "Fuck, we should probably get a swear jar, right?"
Bob is no longer Frank's favorite. When he goes back in, Frank stays outside, watching the sky get lighter, kicking rocks along the sandy desolation of the parking lot.
Eventually, Brian comes walking up, tossing his cell phone from hand to hand.
"Frank, hey," he says. "So I just got off the phone with Child Protective Services." He sighs. "They can't get anyone over here until late this afternoon, probably, but they can have someone at the venue in Saint Paul by six." He shrugs, rubs the back of his neck with one hand, rolls his eyes. "It's not the best plan ever, but at least we don't have to cancel the show, this way."
"Yeah," Frank says. "Yeah, that should work." They stand there for a second more, just for a moment more, and then Brian shakes his head.
"Yeah," he says, smiling a little. "I mean—just, fuck." He takes a deep breath, then steps past Frank, on to the steps of the bus, pulling the door open.
Gerard is there in a flash, beaming down at them like a demented clown.
"Guys, her name is Katie," he says, and oh, they are so very screwed.
*
The name on the birth certificate is Katherine Elizabeth Way, born June 14th, 2004.
"She's gonna be four months old next week," Gerard says. "Isn't that neat, Frank?" He's holding her against his chest, supporting her head and neck carefully, naturally.
"She's also your daughter, Gee," Frank snaps. "Which, can I just say what the fuck?, here?"
Gerard frowns at him, cuddling the baby a little closer. "Frank," he says. "Seriously, Bob's right: we need a fucking swear jar." He blinks, glancing down at the baby, who yawns back. "Sorry, Katie," he says, and oh, for fuck's sake.
"Gerard!" He's playing with Katie's tiny fingers; Frank pokes his shoulder until he looks up. "Gee, how the hell did this happen?"
"Well, Frank," Ray says, smiling a little, "when a man and a woman love each other very much—"
"Shut the fuck up," Brian says, and thank God for Brian. "It's a legitimate question. Gee, we were in Europe last September, and on the west coast for the entire month before that, and as your manager and your friend, I'd really like to know what the hell is going on here."
Gerard shrugs. He's looking down at Katie, not meeting any of their eyes, carefully focused on her hand and the way it wraps loosely around his thumb. "I don't really know, guys."
Brian rolls his eyes—Frank's not even looking at him, but he can tell. "Well, Gee, your name's on the birth certificate, which would tend to suggest that you know something." After a long moment, where Gerard stares at Katie's fingernails and none of the rest of them say anything, Brian sighs.
"I got in touch with CPS—they'll have someone at the venue tonight when we get there." Katie makes a little whimpering noise, and Gerard hushes her, bouncing her in his arms.
It should look awkward: Gerard Way, rockstar, holding a baby dressed in duckling-print jammies. Should, but doesn't—Gerard holds her naturally, easily, like he's spent his whole life preparing for this instead of screaming to crowds and strutting around onstage doing inappropriate things to feather boas and his bandmates.
"That's cool, I guess," Mikey says, when it's clear that Gerard's not going to say anything. "I mean, maybe she can get us, like, a crib or something."
"A crib would be awesome," Gerard says, and Frank rolls his eyes, heads for the bunks. It's probably too much to hope to catch up on lost sleep, but Frank's a hopeful guy.
*
Frank falls asleep within moments, and wakes up just past noon. For a while, he can't quite figure out why he's awake—the bus is still moving, rumbling across some lousy road in north wherever, and he's still completely fucking exhausted. He stares at the bottom of Bob's bunk for a while, trying to find something interesting about the smooth, featureless plastic. After a minute, though, he rolls out into the aisle, catches his hip on the ladder, swears, staggers out to the front lounge.
"Frankie!" Gerard glances over the back of the couch, beams at him. "Hey, you're awake!" Mikey's sprawled at the other end of the couch, out of Frank's line of sight, but he flaps one lazy hand over the edge at Frank. Ray's got his headphones in and is scribbling something on a notepad, his fro bobbing; he doesn't look up.
"The bus smells like baby shit," Frank says. "Baby shit, Gee." He walks around the couch to sit in a free chair, pull his feet up, and stare at them all.
Gerard sniffs, then sniffs again, then stares down at the baby in his lap, looking vaguely impressed. "Dude, Katie," he says, "That's fucking gross."
"Swear jar," Mikey says. "Also, hey, should I call mom?" He doesn't even wait for an answer, just digs out his sidekick and dials.
"No way, Gee," Ray says, still not looking up. "I bought the diapers at the last stop, when you were showing her off to the techs and the drivers and that chick from Oregon. My job is done."
"Hey, Ma," Mikey says. "No, everything's fine—well, I mean, Gerard accidentally adopted a baby—no, he's changing her now, he can't talk." Gerard flips him off, but Mikey just settles further into the couch. Gerard pouts, then looks up at Frank.
"Frankie," he says, and Frank shakes his head.
"Sorry, man," he says. "But as the one sane person on this entire bus, I'm pretty sure my official job is to watch and laugh."
Gerard sighs, staring down at the kid, then stands up. "Fine, then," he says. "I mean, people change diapers every day. It can't possibly be as hard as, say, coming to terms with the fact that my entire band has deserted me." He pauses again, but they've all known him way too long to fall for that, so in the end he winds up just grabbing the bag of diapers and laying the kid out on the carpet.
Frank scoots the chair a little closer. It's hard to watch and mock if he can't actually see what's going on, after all.
Gerard gets her pajamas off without too much trouble, then spends a few minutes scrabbling helplessly at the diaper itself before Frank sighs and hands him the scissors from the table.
"It's not Fort Knox, Gee," he says.
"Fu—screw you, Frankie," he says, glancing over at Mikey. "It's not as easy as you'd think, okay—oh, gross." Frank looks away, but he can still smell it; on some level, he's actually kind of impressed that something so small can stink that much.
Gerard seems to agree. "Dude, seriously," he says, "how is that even possible? You're freaking tiny. Oh, hey, no," he adds, "hey, no, come on, don't kick—"
Frank sighs, scooting out of the chair and onto the floor, grabbing the kid's feet before she can get Gerard in the face again.
"Thanks, Frankie," he says, looking entirely too self-satisfied for a man holding a dirty diaper. "You're the best."
"My involvement ends here, okay?" Frank wants them to be very clear on that point. "There is a gross job, and there is a not-so-gross job, and I am doing the one that probably won't get me covered in baby crap."
"Whatever," Gerard says. "Hand me the wipes?"
The rest of the changing process goes pretty smoothly, and soon baby Katie is back in her pajamas, looking a little confused but mostly okay about the whole thing. Gerard looks down at her, half-pleased and half-annoyed, and then looks down at his hands and makes a face.
"Okay," he says, "okay, so, I'm going to go and wash my hands a whole lot." That's a good plan—that's a really good plan, Frank thinks. Gerard gets up, being careful not to touch anything, and heads for the kitchenette. "Keep an eye on her, will you?"
Frank can think of about a million and three things he'd rather be doing, actually. He doesn't want to like this baby, doesn't have the same idiotic fascination with her that Gee and Mikey and Ray and even Bob have—not to mention most of the crew. She's small and soft and helpless and, yeah, okay, pretty fucking cute, all unfocused blue eyes and fuzzy dark hair and chubby, uncoordinated limbs—but she's not theirs, and they don't get to keep her, and he wishes to fuck that everybody else would fucking remember that for more than three minutes at a time.
He leans over her, looking closer, and she flails at him, cooing, smacking him on the cheek with one tiny hand. When he doesn't pull away fast enough, she grabs onto his hair and yanks; he's had worse, but it still hurts.
"Ow," he says, "fuck, fuck, ow." Pulling away just makes her grip harder and hurts like hell; he has to detach her from the chunk of hair she's grabbed gradually, one finger at a time, until she's clinging to his pinky instead. That's about as good as it's going to get, he figures, sitting back and shaking his hair out of his face. "I deserved that, I guess," he says, mostly to himself. "Waving it in your face like that—you're a baby, babies grab shit, right?" She looks up at him, calm as anything, and gurgles.
"Having fun?" Gerard's got a cup of coffee, the asshole, and he's standing in the doorway and fucking beaming at Frank, like this is all some big game, like it's a wonderful new adventure instead of a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
"I'm gonna take another nap," Frank says, standing up; "gonna try to catch up on the rest of my sleep." Gee frowns, but he lets Frank go, which is the important thing.
*
The next time he wakes up, the bus has slowed down, turning rumbling corners every now and then; it's just after 3, which means they're probably pulling into the venue. Frank stays where he is for a moment, just breathing, then sighs and rolls out of his bunk. Predictably, the bus slows to a stop just as he's opening the door to the lounge, and he's knocked off balance, grabbing at the doorframe to keep himself from falling over.
"Frank," Gerard says. "Hey, glad you're up." His voice sounds weird and strangled, and when Frank looks over, he's wearing his designated clean t-shirt, the one he keeps in case of emergencies requiring them to impersonate responsible adults. They've all got one, stashed in a bag on top of the fridge; Frank's has an American flag on it. He rubs his eyes, scratches his hip, stares sleepily around the bus, trying to figure out what's going on and whether or not he needs to go back and put on some pants.
There's a woman sitting at the table, he realizes—brown hair, brown eyes, tanned skin, lots of teeth. He stares at her, and she smiles at him; he glances away, towards Gerard and Brian, raising his eyebrows and trying to blink himself awake.
"This is Cheryl," Brian says, leaning back in his seat. "She's with Child Protective Services."
"Child Protective—" Frank says, and then, "what the f—" and then, because even if he thinks that this whole baby-adoption plan is ridiculous and impossible, it's probably still bad manners to swear at someone who rescues kids for a living, "sorry, I mean—um."
She grins again, and seriously, this woman has way too many teeth. Probably freaks kids the fuck out, Frank thinks—but then again, Katie's been up close and personal with Gerard for several hours without any screaming, so maybe not. Kids are fucking resilient, anyways.
"So, as I was saying," Cheryl says, "our preliminary search for the mother hasn't turned up any results, but that's not exactly uncommon in these kinds of situations."
"What is common, then?" Mikey asks. Frank hesitates, then sits down on the arm of the couch next to Gerard, propping his arm on Gerard's head; Gerard grumbles, but doesn't pull away.
"It's a mixed bag, really," Cheryl says. "Most of the time, though, we're looking at a young woman who doesn't feel prepared to raise a baby alone—and in a lot of cases, they're right." She glances down at her stack of papers and sighs, looking older all of the sudden. "If we can't find the father, we're looking at foster care, ideally adoption—she's young, so if her health is good she's got a pretty good chance of getting out of the system."
"And if you could find the father?" Gerard's tone is relaxed, but his shoulders are tense against Frank's side, and oh, fuck. Frank shifts his hand down, resting it against Gerard's shoulder and digging his fingers in hard. Gerard's good, though, and doesn't so much as twitch, even though it's got to be hurting like a mother.
Cheryl frowns. "If we can find him, and he looks like a good bet for custody, then usually we'd give her over to him, at least on a probationary basis. Usually, though, there's a good reason—" she breaks off, glancing first at Gerard, then at Brian. "I was under the impression, though, that you weren't—that is, that the birth certificate was a fake."
There's a long pause, then. Ray goes still, Bob stops tapping his fingers on the table, and Mikey's eyes widen just slightly. Cheryl doesn't seem to notice, though; she keeps glancing from Gerard to Brian and back again, biting her lip, uncertain.
"I mean," Gerard says. "I mean, I—I said that she wasn't, you know, mine, but—" he pulls in on himself a little, and Frank leans forward to keep his balance. "I mean, I don't know," Gerard says finally. "I don't think so, but I can't say for sure. I had—" he shrugs, "—I mean, I've cleaned up, since then, but for a while—" He looks up, the back of his head brushing Frank's arm; his hair is clean, soft and strange and flyaway.
"She could be," he says finally. "She could be mine." There's a noise from the car seat—and when the fuck they got a car seat, Frank really doesn't want to know—and Gerard stands up like he's been sitting on a pin this whole time and didn't realize it, going over to kneel by Katie. Frank slides down into his empty seat, rubbing cramps out of his fingers.
"Well," Cheryl says, watching Gerard, smiling just a little. "That changes things a little, I guess."
The conversation goes on, but Frank doesn't really follow it; he's too busy staring at Gerard while pretending not to be staring at Gerard, trying to decide whether or not to stand up and say what everybody except for Cheryl is thinking.
Gerard's lying; he has to be. He's been clean for over a year, now, staying in and drawing vampires and zombies and kittens instead of going out drinking with the techs. And even before, even during the worst of it, Gerard was never that kind of guy. He's always been weirdly old-fashioned about relationships, as long as Frank's known him—no sketchy sex with groupies, no anonymous bar hookups, no nothing, mostly.
If he hadn't heard Gerard jerk off so much, Frank would be a little freaked—but as awkward as it is to hear someone rubbing one out in their bunk, it's vaguely reassuring, when it's Gerard. At least it proves that he has a sex drive, that he's not some weird lead singer robot.
Plus, it's not like Gerard's loud, or even any messier than you'd expect, although it's possible that Frank is biased. Cortez is loud; Mikeyway is messy. Gerard is somewhere in between, and after a while it all blends together.
"And you're going to grow up and do whatever the fuck you want, you know that, right?" Gerard leans in and brushes his nose against Katie's. "If you want to be an astronaut or a professor or a professional chef or a deep-sea diver, you're going to make it happen." He glances up, catches Frank's eye, shrugs. "I mean, I want her to be happy, you know?" he says. "And being a rockstar isn't for everyone, after all." It should be ridiculous, or even sickening; instead, like so much of what Gerard does, it's heartfelt and earnest and makes Frank's fucking stomach flip over. They look natural and right together, like a family.
"You know, Gee," Mikey says, poking his toes under Frank's leg, "before you teach her how to save the world, you might want to consider getting her another pair of pants." Frank glances over, and, yeah, her pants are a little stained—just baby food, it looks like, but it's not as though they have a washer on the bus. "Baby food, too, probably," Mikey adds. "The stuff we've got isn't going to last her very long." He brushes his hair out of his face, fidgets with his glasses, scratches the bridge of his nose—
"Oh, fuck you," Frank says, "Nose Goes is not an appropriate way to determine baby-shopping duties."
"Says the man with a finger on his nose," Gerard puts in, which, seriously, fuck Gerard, too. Just because it's a stupid system doesn't mean he's not going to play.
Ray and Bob stare at him, their hands conspicuously in their laps, and Frank raises his eyebrows at them.
"I bought diapers, man," Ray says, going back to his magazine. "I'm exempt."
"Fucking—fine, okay," Frank says, because they seriously did need diapers there. "That's got to fucking run out sometime soon, though, right?" Ray just shrugs, gives them all a shit-eating grin, and goes back to whatever he was reading. "Bob?"
Bob shrugs. "I want to get some peanut butter," he says.
"What, and you can't wrangle Gerard at the same time?"
"I'm getting peanut butter," Bob says again, as though that's the end of the discussion. Which, given Bob, it really kind of is. Frank glances over at Brian, but he's still busy with Cheryl, throwing out words like "regular visits" and "coordinate schedules" and "fax". Plus, it probably wouldn't really help Gerard's case if Frank went over and asked Brian to arbitrate a game of Nose Goes—not that he wants to help Gerard's stupid fucking ridiculous baby-stealing plan, but on a matter of general principle he doesn't want to look like an idiot in front of a social worker.
"Fine," he says, "fucking fine. Tomorrow, we'll go buy baby shit. Somebody has to be reasonable around here, after all," he adds, looking over at Gerard and Katie.
Gerard just fucking beams, though. "Hear that, Katie?" he says. "Frank likes you!"
Frank rolls his eyes—because, well, yes, but that's not really the point. He likes babies just fine, wants some of his own someday even, but that doesn't mean he thinks that stealing one is a good plan. He's trying to figure out a way to pinch Gerard in the side without making him drop Katie when Brian and Cheryl stand up.
"All right, well," she says, smiling at them all. "I don't want to keep you guys." She shakes Brian's hand, and Gerard's, and then Frank's; as she's heading out the front, Cortez pokes his head in, giving them the high-sign.
"Soundcheck," Gerard says, standing up. "Um." He's staring down at Katie, holding her against his chest, and he keeps glancing between her, Brian, and Frank.
Brian sighs. "I'll take her, don't worry," he says. "Go on." Gerard hands her over carefully, and looks back at her three times before he makes it out the front door.
The show is high-energy but kind of weird; Frank feels twitchy and off-balance, like his skin is a size smaller than usual. Gerard keeps going on about change and choice and taking responsibility for your actions, and he can't seem to stop hugging them all. Ray rolls with it, and Mikey just looks longsuffering. Behind his kit, Bob grins and flips them off, then yelps and swears when Gerard ducks around the high-hat and buries his face in Bob's hair.
Gerard plasters himself to Frank's side, gasping into his ear while the crowd screams the words back at them. It's more than a little gross—Frank's pretty sure Gerard hasn't showered since they were in New England—but it's hard to get too angry at Gerard when he's this excited about something, full up with manic energy and glee. Frank leans back enough to bite Gerard's neck, but not very hard, just barely enough to even bruise. Gerard shivers and pulls away, anyway, which was the whole point.
Frank drops to his knees and plays the chorus, eyes closed.
*
"Get up, Frank," Gerard says. "We're going grocery shopping!"
"Motherfuck." Frank kicks out into the aisle, hoping to catch Gerard before he escapes, but all he gets is empty air and Gerard cackling at him from the main room. He thinks about staying in bed and ignoring it, but ignoring Gerard is not, historically, a tactic that works very well. Besides, Frank wants bananas.
They make a list, of course. Lists are Frank's first impulse, faced with grocery shopping and Gerard simultaneously; otherwise, they're running the risk of repeating the great broccoli-and-jellybeans debacle of 2003. It's written on the back of a take-out menu from Omaha, and it looks something like this:
- baby clothes (GENDER NEUTRAL)
- baby food (vegan? BABIES AREN'T VEGAN FRANK shut up!)
- more diapers (YES)
- other stuff (COFFEE yes duh coffee)
It's not a very complicated list, but it takes them half an hour to actually make it, and Gerard gets an elbow to the face in the process. An accident, of course.
Around midday, they pull into Stevens Point, Wisconsin, which—according to Steve the Bus Dude—has a Target. Immediately, Gerard lifts Katie out of the car seat, where she's been chilling, and starts wrapping her in a blanket. Frank watches. He's not going to say anything, he's not going to say anything, he's not going to—
"Gee," Ray says, "Gee, what the fuck are you doing?" Thank God for Ray, even if he does immediately look guilty for swearing in front of the kid.
Gerard doesn't look up. "I'm not going to take her outside like this, Ray," he says, tugging on her fleecy pajamas. There was another set tucked into the car seat, and this one is blue, with tiny gold stars all over. "I mean, it's not that cold for you or me," which is a lie, because Gerard totally spend half an hour complaining about how cold Massachusetts was, last week, when he was only outside for maybe half an hour at most, "but babies are, like, delicate and shi—and stuff, you know?" He frowns, shakes the blanket out, and starts tucking it around her again. "We need to keep her warm."
Ray takes a deep breath, glances at Frank, and lets it out in a huff, shaking his head. "Gee," he says again. "Gerard. Think about this." He waits, drumming his fingers on his knees, until eventually Gerard stops worrying about how the blanket is draping and looks up at them.
"Look, Gee," Ray says, slowly and carefully. "I support you in this, um—with Katie, and all." Gerard nods, but he's starting to look suspicious. "But, I mean—dude, you know you can't take her to Target, right?"
Gerard just stares at him. He really doesn't get it, Frank realizes. Gerard honestly doesn't understand why taking a baby to a Target might be problematic, especially a baby who isn't theirs.
Gerard Fucking Way. Seriously.
"I mean," Ray says, "you're—you're pretty noticeable, dude, you know? And, like. Like, what if some asshole with a camera saw you guys, and took pictures?"
Gerard scowls, holding Katie a little closer; she shifts a little but otherwise seems okay with her potential adoptive father being a complete freak of nature. Which is good, honestly, since it's not like that's ever going to change.
"I'm not going to change my life just because some fucker with a camera wants to be famous," Gerard says, staring down at Katie. "That's no fucking way to raise a kid."
"Yeah, but," Mikey says. "Gee, what if it makes things harder with, like, Cheryl and shit? Like," he shrugs. "What if they think you're being a bad parent, by exposing her to that kind of shit at a really young age?" Gee wavers—Frank can see it, can see him weighing the desire to be a good parent against the desire to never let Katie out of his sight again.
"Yeah," he says, finally, "yeah, okay." He stares at Mikey, then at Ray. "Take care of her, motherfuckers, or I'll—"
"Of course," Ray says, "dude, of course, Gee." Mikey just rolls his eyes, like of course he's going to take perfectly good care of Gerard's accidental baby.
"And you," Gerard says, looking down at Katie, "you behave yourself for Mikey and Ray, okay?"
Katie looks up at them all, then blows a spit bubble right in Gerard's face. Maybe, just maybe, this kid thing isn't all bad.
*
They pull into the Target parking lot and park on the far left side, taking up most of an empty row. Gerard hands the kid over to Mikey—
("Uncle Mikey," Mikey insists. Gee thinks about it, then nods.
"Uncle Mikey, yeah," he says, like it even matters, and can they fucking go yet?
"Family is important, Frank," Ray says, and he sounds serious but he's totally laughing at them all behind his hair. Frank has known Ray Toro for a long fucking time, at this point; he can tell.)
- and lets Bob and Frank drag him off the bus and into the store.
Target is the one piece of the real world they see on a regular basis, and it's kind of weird. At this point in the tour, Frank's used to the dark and bustle of backstage, the adrenaline of a show, the disorganization and general grime of the bus after four weeks on the road. Target is the complete opposite: large and colorful, bright and glossy and bafflingly well-organized. Venues have personality, quirks of the sound system and weird staircases and specific graffiti, but all Targets are the same, no matter where they are.
Gerard feels it too, Frank knows, and it freaks him out—makes him feel like he's living in a cartoon, and not in a cool way. Frank bumps their shoulders together, and they stand in the entryway for a minute, just staring and readjusting.
"Christ," Bob says, pushing past them. "The two of you, I don't even know." He walks past the carts and hangs a left, heading towards the food aisles; Gerard grabs Frank's wrist and starts towing him forward, towards the huge hanging pictures of women with improbably fat babies. Frank follows—he doesn't want Gerard to get lost in a Target, even if it kind of would serve him right—and of course smacks straight into Gerard's back when he stops dead in the middle of an aisle.
"Fuck, Frank," he says, and he sounds upset enough that Frank actually feels bad for him. "Fuck, look at this bullshit."
Frank looks. It's all little jumpsuits with snaps up the belly, most of them with feet and a few with hoods, too. Half of them are blue or red, with trucks or dinosaurs on them; the other half are pink and ruffly. It's about what Frank had been expecting, but Gerard is already ranting about internalized misogyny and societal expectations and how no daughter of his is going to play into that kind of patriarchal bullshit, seriously, Frank, what kind of babies need ruffles?
"But what if she likes ruffles, Gee?" he asks, only half-listening. Gerard's ranting has a rhythm to it, and after a few tirades it's pretty easy to know what to say to keep him going, without actually having to listen to more than a quarter of what he says.
(Frank's record is four hours and twenty-eight minutes, but Ray's gotten all the way to five hours and nine minutes. Mikey's not allowed to compete, because he and Gerard have some kind of freaky fraternal mind-meld. Mikey can raise an eyebrow and get a two-hour rant out of Gerard; the last time he actually tried, Gerard wouldn't shut up for three days. Impressive, sure, but Frank would really rather be sleeping.)
"That's not the point, Frank," Gerard says, picking up something green and fuzzy and dropping it into the cart. "It's not about personal preference—it's about the institutions in place that only sell pink shit to little girls, and—"
"Gee," Frank says, "Gerard, shut up and come here." He doesn't turn away from the wall, and eventually Gerard comes up behind him and rests his head on Frank's shoulder.
"I mean, I hate to play into the whole image," he says eventually. "Like, I don't want to get locked into a single aesthetic, you know?"
"Shut up, Gerard," Frank says. "They're fucking awesome and you know it." He picks one up to look closer: it's black, with little black wings—bat wings—between the arms and the body, and a hood with tiny black ears on it. Down to the right, there are some with bones on them, like a skeleton; the sign over Frank's head says that they glow in the dark. It's completely fucking badass.
Gerard grabs the tag and flips it over, checking the size. "Six months," he says, "so, okay, four months would be—"
"Get it anyway," Frank says, reaching around Gerard and grabbing a few more (4mo, 8mo, 10 mo, 12 mo, 14 mo). "I mean, she's going to grow out of it, and then it's just going to be turkeys and snowmen and shit." Gerard stares at him, but doesn't say anything. Frank's glad: he'd hate to have to punch Gerard in the face in public. They've got pumpkin costumes, too, which aren't totally stupid; Frank grabs a few, and also some of the less ridiculous regular-colored ones.
When he comes back, there's definitely something pink and ruffly in the basket, hidden under a teddy bear with fangs and a red blanket, but whatever.
"Hey," Bob says, wheeling his cart down the aisle to join them, "this isn't too bad." He picks up another tiny outfit—white, but with multicolored splatters of fake paint all over it—and drops it into their cart.
Bob's cart seems fuller than usual for a mid-week spur-of-the-moment grocery run. Frank peeks in, and sees that in addition to peanut butter, whole-wheat bread, and pickles, Bob's got actual baby food, tiny jars with chubby-cheeked infants on the labels.
"I got more formula, too," Bob says. "But we're probably going to want to start food soon, at least the mushy stuff." Frank stares at him, and he shrugs. "I called my mom, motherfucker. Also, we should probably get more diapers."
Diapers are just around the corner; they get a special trash can for them, too, even though Gerard rolls his eyes, because Frank is not spending any more time than absolutely necessary smelling baby shit in his living space. Bob calls his mom again, and she directs them to get baby wipes, Vaseline, and a bag to stick it all in.
"Babies are expensive, Robert," she says, loud enough that Frank can hear her. "Although, really, I thought better of you than—"
"It's not me, Ma," Bob says. "It's Gerard." Gerard flips him off, and Bob rolls his eyes. "No, ma—it's complicated, okay? Trust me, I don't really get it either." She says something else, too soft for Frank to hear anything but the rise and fall of her voice; Bob nods and turns to Gerard, holding the phone away from his ear. "She says she expected better of you, too," he says, "and also that she considers Katie an honorary grandchild."
Gerard, comparing two different diaper bags—diaper bags, seriously, what the fuck—nods. "Tell her we'll stop by when we're in Chicago." They would have done that anyway, really: Chicago is Bob's home, which makes it their home too, in a way, like an extension of Jersey even though it's totally not. Plus, Bob's mom makes a mean vegetarian casserole. Still, it seems to make Bob's mom happy, if the squeaking on the phone is anything to go by; Bob shakes his head when he hangs up, like his ears are ringing.
"You know she's going to start knitting, right?" he asks. "Like, epic knitting."
Gerard throws one of the bags in the cart and stands up, shaking his shoulders out. "Yeah, so? What's wrong with knitting, Bob?"
Bob shrugs. "Nothing, really," he says. "But if any reindeer sweaters come of this, I am not the one who's going to wear them, okay? Just so we're clear."
"Me either," Frank says, and Gerard rolls his eyes.
"Fine, whatever," he says. "Are we set?"
"Yes," Frank says, even though 'set' is probably the exact opposite of what they are. They've got enough for the time being, is the important thing, and now it is time to get the fuck out of middle America and back to the bus.
Frank's a little worried about the check out—they haven't been recognized so far, but they're also not the luckiest band in the whole world—but nobody seems to realize that three-fifths of My Chemical Romance just came in to buy out their baby supply section. The girl a few rows down gives them a weird look, then shakes herself a little, like they can't possibly be who she thinks they are; Frank pulls his hood up a little more and starts loading stuff onto the conveyor belt.
"Oh, my," says the clerk in their aisle, ringing up their purchases. "Looks like somebody's got a brand new bundle of joy!" Her name is Doris, and she looks about eighty million years old.
Gerard nods, shifting his weight. "Yeah, we're—well, we spend a lot of time on the road, so we're stocking up." Doris doesn't seem to think very much of that, and she gives Frank and Bob a stern look, managing somehow to become even wrinklier in the process.
"Well," she says finally, "I hope these boys are taking care of you, young lady." It takes them all a second to realize that she's talking to Gerard, and then Bob doubles over in a coughing fit and Gerard's cheeks turn pink. Frank bites the inside of his cheek and looks at the tabloids, ignoring Gerard's glare; the abominable snowman has apparently married a mermaid in a Vegas wedding.
"Yeah," Gerard says, eventually, "Don't worry, they're being very helpful."
Doris nods, her hair wobbling precariously. "And you've got your brother, too—that's good, you should have your family around at a trying time like this." Frank turns and stares at her for a second, trying to figure out how she knew Mikey was with them—maybe she's a fan? or maybe her granddaughter, more likely—before realizing that she means him, that she thinks he and Gerard are siblings, not just friends and bandmates. It kind of makes him want to scowl, but then she leans over and pats Gerard's cheek and calls him "missy" again, and he's back to chewing on his lip and trying not to giggle.
He makes it all the way outside, but only barely, and winds up clinging to Bob as they wheel the carts across the parking lot, both of them laughing too hard to breathe, much less hold themselves upright. Gerard, wheeling the other cart, is sulking.
"Did you see her glasses?" he asks. "She's got to be, like, blind, seriously."
Bob nods seriously. "Whatever you say, Miss Way." That sets Frank off again, which sets Bob off again, and they laugh all the way back to the bus.
The front lounge is quiet and empty, except for Mikey, stretched out on the couch with his headphones on, so they drop their purchase on his feet and ask where everybody is. He wakes up enough to wave vaguely toward the back of the bus, then rolls over onto a jar of peas and falls back asleep.
Gerard eases the door to the back studio open, then looks back and pulls Frank forward so that he can see. Katie's on the floor in her car seat, wrapped up in a nest of blankets, drooling a little but otherwise looking pretty alert for somebody who's basically just a digestive system. Ray's staring at her with this stupid little smile on his face, playing something soft and slow on his acoustic.
"And that," he says, "that's a diminished seventh, see—" he plays one, note by note and then all together, "- see how that sounds?" Katie burbles and coos, and Ray beams at her. "Yeah," he says, "yeah, and -"
"Ray," Frank says, "Ray, seriously, she's three months old." Ray looks up at him, startled, his fingers flattening on the neck of the guitar. Frank feels like an asshole, a little, but it's not like that's anything new. For the first time, he wishes his goddamn band would dream a little smaller; grand plans are awesome, but there's such a thing as having a little bit of fucking perspective.
"Um," Ray says. "Hey, you're back."
"Yeah," Frank says, turning around. "I'm going to catch some more sleep before tonight."
"Can't babies hear, like, in the womb or some shit?" Bob asks, but Frank doesn't wait around to hear the response; he climbs into his bunk and pulls the pillow over his head and sacks out.
*
Frank wakes up just in time for soundcheck, that night; he doesn't even feel it when they pull into the venue. Things go pretty much as usual: Gerard entrusts Katie to Brian, and if he maybe spends more of the show looking off stage left than usual, well, the crowd is too into it to really notice. It's not their best show ever, but it's a good show, energetic and positive; Gerard licks Frank's ear twice, and does something with Ray that has the whole pit shrieking and pointing, texting their friends.
Frank grins at them, drops to his knees, throws himself into the chorus.
Outside, on the line, it's just like usual, for a while—signing and smiling and saying hi, the kids somewhere between excited and exhausted, propped up on each other and beaming. Frank's good through all of that, sweat drying on his forehead, feeling the evening catching up to him in all of the right ways—
—and then he gets back on the bus. Gee's got Katie dressed up in one of the bat costumes from earlier, and he's holding her against his chest and helping her wave at Mikey's sidekick. He's still sweaty from the show, still in his onstage pants and shirt; he probably smells disgusting. Katie just giggles, though, flopping her arms around awkwardly, leaning back against Gerard.
"Frankie, hey," Gerard says, but Frank just waves and keeps on going, back to the bunks, curling up with his face to the wall. He thinks he hears Ray outside his bunk, at one point, but he doesn't move and whoever it is goes away after a while.
The next morning, Gerard looks like shit, like he used to get after a week-long bender, sprawled out with his legs over one arm of the couch and his head in the middle, eyes closed.
"Fuck, Gee," Frank says, dropping down next to him. "What the hell happened to you?" Gerard blinks his eyes open, bleary and exhausted, and stares up at him.
"Katie," he says, which doesn't make much sense, unless Katie is secretly a baby-shaped robot monster and she and Gerard got into a battle to the death last night. In which case Frank is actually kind of impressed; he wouldn't have thought that Gerard could fight off any kind of robot monster, even one less than a foot tall.
Gerard sighs. "She didn't want to go to sleep last night—I think we, like, overstimulated her or something." He rolls his shoulders and neck, edging his way up into Frank's lap; Frank takes the hint and turns sideways, rubbing Gerard's temples. "She didn't get to sleep until, like," Gerard yawns, "fuck, seven thirty, maybe?" Frank glances at the clock: it's ten twenty-four, so Gerard's been out for less than three hours. Katie, of course, is curled up in her little carry-case, snug and smug.
"You want to go back to bed, maybe catch a few more hours of sleep?" Frank asks, but Gerard's already out cold, his head heavy in Frank's hands. Frank sighs, and works on wriggling his left hand free enough to snag the copy of AP that's sitting on the floor a few feet away. Katie stays asleep for the next couple of hours, and by the time she's waking up again, Mikey and Bob are both up, stumbling vaguely around the kitchen and banging pots and pans together.
"Shut the fuck up and come feed the baby, assholes," he says. "Gerard's fucking sleeping." He's not, actually, as Frank discovers when he looks back down, but Gerard seems content to tip himself back up into a sitting position and watch while Mikey and Bob work on getting baby Katie some nutrition. She handles the bottle pretty well, but doesn't seem very impressed by the jars of baby food.
"No, see," Mikey says, "see, it's like an airplane—"
"Has she seen an airplane, though?" Bob asks, frowning. "Like, I don't know how that's a useful simile, here."
Mikey stares at him, then at Katie, then at the spoon. "Huh," he says. "Good point." He thinks about it for a while, staring off into the middle distance, then scoops up another spoonful of mushy carrots. "Okay, so," he says, "it's like a whole big crowd of people, and they're all going into the venue, right?"
"Dude," Frank says, "you realize that makes her a cannibal, right?" Next to him, Gerard giggles, leaning against Frank's shoulder. "Not that that's not kind of appropriate, under the circumstances."
"Yeah," Gerard says, nodding. "I'm just glad we aren't doing all those blood photoshoots anymore, you know? I wouldn't want her to, like, get a fixation or some shit."
"Swear jar!" Mikey says, spinning around to point at them and sending orange glop flying. Frank raises his eyebrow, but there's actually a jar on the table, labeled with all sorts of cartoon-style swears, asterisks and dollar signs and little angry clouds of dust.
"We made it while you guys were out," Mikey says. "Fifty cents a word."
Frank rolls his eyes, but Gerard nods again, leaning down to snag his jacket. "That's fair," he says. "Enough that people will take it seriously, but not so much that, like, nobody can pay it." He digs a crumpled ten out of his pocket, shrugs, and drops it in. "I'm sure I'll use it up." That kind of defeats the purpose of a swear jar, in Frank's opinion, but at least this way Katie's college education will be covered. If they keep her that long. Which they aren't.
"Sure thing, Gerard," Bob says, bouncing Katie a little on his lap. "Although, hey, does onstage stuff—motherfuck!" Katie's got one little hand in his beard, pulling as hard as she can and giggling like a lunatic; Bob is trying to get free without knocking her off his lap or cursing a blue streak, and kind of failing. Mikey and Gerard are both laughing too hard to be useful, and Ray is off somewhere else, where the laws of nature are still in effect.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Frank says, standing up and stomping over. He lifts Katie off of Bob's lap, then tickles her gently until she lets go of Bob's beard. "That's better, hmm?" She makes a face and kicks her legs, so he boosts her up onto his shoulder and pats her back.
"You're good at that," Gerard says, and Frank turns around to face him.
"I've got cousins, you know?" he says. "I could either learn this shit or have my mom shun me for the rest of my life. Yeah, yeah, I know," he says, when Katie whines a little. "They're all a bunch of fucking idiots." Katie hiccups, then burps, and Frank feels something warm and wet starting to soak through his t-shirt.
Behind him, Gerard squeaks, then gasps, and then falls off the couch laughing; Bob and Mikey aren't any better.
"That's my girl!" Gerard crows, every inch the proud father, and Frank sighs, suddenly exhausted.
"Whoa, hey, Frank," Ray says, coming out from the bunks and rubbing his eyes. "You've got something on your shoulder, man."
"Here," Frank says, handing Katie over, tugging at Ray's arms until he's supporting her correctly. "You take her, I'm going back to bed."
He leaves his shirt in Gerard's bunk; it seems fair.
*
Frank stays in his bunk for most of the rest of the day, listening to music or reading his way through Gerard's box of Absolutely Essential comics. Cheryl comes by again, and she and Brian walk back to the studio to talk; Brian taps against the frame of Frank's bunk, but doesn't say anything.
Eventually, they hit the venue, and Frank rolls out of bed and wanders into the lounge. Gerard's handing Katie to Brian, again, reminding him of all the things Gerard's learned over the past two days as though he's known them forever, as though Brian probably isn't better suited to take care of Katie than any of them. Brian rolls his eyes at Frank, but Frank looks away; he needs some fucking coffee before the show.
As a general rule, Frank doesn't have anything against Iowa—it's not his favorite place, but it's not the worst of all possible places, either. And the show's amazing, like Iowa's making up for something, the crowd electric and Gerard strutting across the stage, capturing their responses with the tilt of his hips, the angle of his head. They all catch the same energy, just like always—Ray's insane, a blur of hair and fingers, and Bob's his own little vortex of rhythm and awesome. Mikey's quiet—but Mikey's always quiet, and his playing is right on.
Frank throws himself into it, stretching, jumping off of anything that will hold his weight, pressing up against Gerard and Mikey and Gerard and Ray and Gerard and Gerard, playing on his knees and his back and in midair, letting it all wash over and through him, screaming and brilliant and exactly the way it should always, always be. Gerard presses back, too, and his face is sweaty and perfect against Frank's neck, his voice buzzing on Frank's skin.
It takes Frank a while to come down, after, and he winds up sitting on the steps of the bus, smoking and staring at the sky. They're pretty close to a city—he doesn't remember where, and it's not like he knows the names of cities in Iowa anyways—and the sky off to his left glows orange, but even with the venue lights, he can see the stars if he tips his head straight back.
The stars, and also Gerard, leaning in the doorway and twitching a cigarette between his fingers. Frank offers him a light, but he shakes his head.
"I'm probably going to have to quit," he says, "I mean, because of Katie." He sits down on the top step, his knees just brushing against Frank's shoulderblades.
"Weird," Frank says, leaning back a little. They've both been trying to quit for a while, here and there, going weeks, sometimes months jittery and clean before giving up, sliding back. It's comforting, at this point, the rise and fall, the rhythm of it, the back and forth. Without it—"weird," he says again, and watches the smoke curl up and dissipate in the air.
"Yeah," Gerard says. Frank glances over his shoulder, tipping his head back to rest against Gerard's knees. Gerard's staring up at the stars, too. "Worth it, though," he says, tucking the unlit cigarette into his pocket.
They sit like that for a while, silent and easy, and then Gerard stands up to go inside, brushing his hands over Frank's hair as he goes.
Frank stays out for a while, staring at the sky, then sighs and stubs out his half-smoked cigarette on the steps. Maybe he'll try quitting again, sometime soon—he and Gerard always last longer when they can back each other up.
part two
Band(s): MCR
Pairing(s): Frank/Gerard
Word Count: 26,000
Rating/Warnings: R, but only barely
Author Notes: Babies and associated ridiculousness. NOT REAL. NEVER HAPPENED.
This story would absolutely not exist with out the handholding, encouragement, badgering, and all-around awesomeness of
shoemaster, so you should feel free to blame her for everything. Thanks also to angelsaves, lordessrenegade, pearl_o and strobelighted, who all let me flail at them about this story and send them bits and pieces to squeak about. Finally, thanks to bexless, who somehow got conned into beta-ing this monstrosity, and pointed out countless stupid errors.You are my very very favorites, dears. FAVORITES.
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Fanmix
"Hey, Ma," Mikey says. "No, everything's fine—well, I mean, Gerard accidentally adopted a baby—no, he's changing her now, he can't talk." Gerard flips him off, but Mikey just settles further into the couch. Gerard pouts, then looks up at Frank.
"Frankie," he says, and Frank shakes his head.
"Sorry, man," he says. "But as the one sane person on this entire bus, I'm pretty sure my official job is to watch and laugh."
*
shoemaster: I love that you asked for a prompt that wasn't hyperindulgent. this is only regular indulgent then?*
*
Normally, Frank wakes up when they're already on the road, climbing back into consciousness with the rumble of the bus around and under him, steady and soothing and constant. Mikey swears it sounds different in each state, and probably it does, but it's always the same, to Frank—always the road, the bus, morning—or, well, midafternoon—and home.
In Minnesota, though, he wakes up to shouting and an unnerving stillness. He's still groggy and exhausted, like he can't have been asleep for more than three minutes.
"The fucking fuck?" Bob sounds even more annoyed than he usually is in the mornings, and Bob is not a morning person by any stretch of anyone's imagination. "It's fucking eight in the fucking morning, you assholes," he says, which just confirms what Frank's half-open eyes are telling him.
"Gerard?" It's one of the techs—Andrew, he thinks—and he sounds sincerely freaked. Frank rolls out of his bunk, stands up, lets himself tip over until he's leaning against the other side of the tiny aisle.
"Gee," he says, poking the foot that's sticking out between the curtains. "Gee, come on, crisis." After a few seconds, Gerard's sitting up, swatting at Frank's hand and glaring, scrubbing a hand through his hair.
"The fuck?" he says, and Frank grabs his wrist and hauls him bodily out of bed, aiming them at the main room.
Andrew hands Gerard the note as soon as they're through the door, sticking it right under his nose; Frank peers over Gerard's shoulder to read.
you saved my life, it says. please help me save hers.
"She was on the steps this morning," Andrew says, which is when Frank realizes that he's holding a baby.
The door slams open, then, and Brian comes charging in. He looks at Gerard, then at Frank, then at the baby. His eyes go wide, and his face goes the color of dirty socks.
"Oh, fuck," he says, which pretty much sums it up.
*
Half an hour and a whole lot of questions and swearing later, Frank knows the following things:
- The baby turned up between 7:30 and 8 AM.
- Nobody on the crew saw anything.
- The baby is 24 inches long, weighs 13 and a half pounds, and smells like baby powder.
- The baby has a stuffed hedgehog, which it likes to chew on.
- The baby also likes to chew on Ray's hair.
- Gerard loves her.
The thing is, that's not actually a surprise. Gerard talks a lot about how he doesn't want kids—how the world is too fucked up to want to bring another life into it, how he's not cut out for fatherhood, how he'd probably just screw the kid up anyways—but Frank knows better. Gerard won't be the world's most traditional parent, sure, but he'll do a good job. He cares about kids, about helping them grow up self-aware and strong and happy; it's one of the more stupidly endearing things about him. It sometimes comes off as hokey or insincere, but Frank's had enough late-night conversations with Gerard, has seen him interact with fans and relatives, and he knows that it's all real.
About a year ago, when they had a half-day in New Mexico, Frank bought him a cactus.
"...a cactus?" Gerard looked a little underwhelmed, holding the pot and staring down at it.
Frank had shrugged. "I figure, start small, portable, and hardy." Really, he'd figured that Gerard could use something to take care of, something that wasn't himself or the band to focus on, and cacti were about as indestructible as you could get.
Gerard had rolled his eyes and acted all offended, but he'd taken really good care of the cactus—named it Gladys, watered it once every two weeks with no small amount of pride, moved it around the bus to make sure it had the best possible light. It had survived the rest of that tour, to everybody's shock—Frank's pretty sure that it's in the Way family kitchen, these days.
Which is great for the cactus, but a baby—that's something else altogether. Babies are Serious Business, as far as Frank's concerned.
Gee seems to think otherwise, though: he's got the baby all cuddled in his arms, looking down at it with the world's stupidest expression on his face, and he's fucking cooing. The rest of the guys aren't any better: even Ray, who's sitting back out of range to protect his hair, starts grinning like an idiot when the baby twitches or rolls over or burps or whatever. Mikey's sitting next to Gee, playing with the baby's feet; his hands look even more enormous than usual, in comparison.
Only Bob seems to properly understand this situation: he keeps staring blankly at the baby, leaving the bus, then coming back to stare some more. Bob is Frank's favorite person ever; the third time Bob goes outside, Frank follows him.
"Fuck!" Bob says, as soon as they're off the bus, "fuck, fuck, fucking fuckers of fuck." He takes a deep breath, then turns around, smacking straight into Frank. "Oh, hey," he says, grinning a little. "Sorry, just—I didn't want to swear in front of the kid, you know?"
Frank stares at him. Bob stares back. "I don't want to give her bad habits, Frank," he says. "Fuck, we should probably get a swear jar, right?"
Bob is no longer Frank's favorite. When he goes back in, Frank stays outside, watching the sky get lighter, kicking rocks along the sandy desolation of the parking lot.
Eventually, Brian comes walking up, tossing his cell phone from hand to hand.
"Frank, hey," he says. "So I just got off the phone with Child Protective Services." He sighs. "They can't get anyone over here until late this afternoon, probably, but they can have someone at the venue in Saint Paul by six." He shrugs, rubs the back of his neck with one hand, rolls his eyes. "It's not the best plan ever, but at least we don't have to cancel the show, this way."
"Yeah," Frank says. "Yeah, that should work." They stand there for a second more, just for a moment more, and then Brian shakes his head.
"Yeah," he says, smiling a little. "I mean—just, fuck." He takes a deep breath, then steps past Frank, on to the steps of the bus, pulling the door open.
Gerard is there in a flash, beaming down at them like a demented clown.
"Guys, her name is Katie," he says, and oh, they are so very screwed.
*
The name on the birth certificate is Katherine Elizabeth Way, born June 14th, 2004.
"She's gonna be four months old next week," Gerard says. "Isn't that neat, Frank?" He's holding her against his chest, supporting her head and neck carefully, naturally.
"She's also your daughter, Gee," Frank snaps. "Which, can I just say what the fuck?, here?"
Gerard frowns at him, cuddling the baby a little closer. "Frank," he says. "Seriously, Bob's right: we need a fucking swear jar." He blinks, glancing down at the baby, who yawns back. "Sorry, Katie," he says, and oh, for fuck's sake.
"Gerard!" He's playing with Katie's tiny fingers; Frank pokes his shoulder until he looks up. "Gee, how the hell did this happen?"
"Well, Frank," Ray says, smiling a little, "when a man and a woman love each other very much—"
"Shut the fuck up," Brian says, and thank God for Brian. "It's a legitimate question. Gee, we were in Europe last September, and on the west coast for the entire month before that, and as your manager and your friend, I'd really like to know what the hell is going on here."
Gerard shrugs. He's looking down at Katie, not meeting any of their eyes, carefully focused on her hand and the way it wraps loosely around his thumb. "I don't really know, guys."
Brian rolls his eyes—Frank's not even looking at him, but he can tell. "Well, Gee, your name's on the birth certificate, which would tend to suggest that you know something." After a long moment, where Gerard stares at Katie's fingernails and none of the rest of them say anything, Brian sighs.
"I got in touch with CPS—they'll have someone at the venue tonight when we get there." Katie makes a little whimpering noise, and Gerard hushes her, bouncing her in his arms.
It should look awkward: Gerard Way, rockstar, holding a baby dressed in duckling-print jammies. Should, but doesn't—Gerard holds her naturally, easily, like he's spent his whole life preparing for this instead of screaming to crowds and strutting around onstage doing inappropriate things to feather boas and his bandmates.
"That's cool, I guess," Mikey says, when it's clear that Gerard's not going to say anything. "I mean, maybe she can get us, like, a crib or something."
"A crib would be awesome," Gerard says, and Frank rolls his eyes, heads for the bunks. It's probably too much to hope to catch up on lost sleep, but Frank's a hopeful guy.
*
Frank falls asleep within moments, and wakes up just past noon. For a while, he can't quite figure out why he's awake—the bus is still moving, rumbling across some lousy road in north wherever, and he's still completely fucking exhausted. He stares at the bottom of Bob's bunk for a while, trying to find something interesting about the smooth, featureless plastic. After a minute, though, he rolls out into the aisle, catches his hip on the ladder, swears, staggers out to the front lounge.
"Frankie!" Gerard glances over the back of the couch, beams at him. "Hey, you're awake!" Mikey's sprawled at the other end of the couch, out of Frank's line of sight, but he flaps one lazy hand over the edge at Frank. Ray's got his headphones in and is scribbling something on a notepad, his fro bobbing; he doesn't look up.
"The bus smells like baby shit," Frank says. "Baby shit, Gee." He walks around the couch to sit in a free chair, pull his feet up, and stare at them all.
Gerard sniffs, then sniffs again, then stares down at the baby in his lap, looking vaguely impressed. "Dude, Katie," he says, "That's fucking gross."
"Swear jar," Mikey says. "Also, hey, should I call mom?" He doesn't even wait for an answer, just digs out his sidekick and dials.
"No way, Gee," Ray says, still not looking up. "I bought the diapers at the last stop, when you were showing her off to the techs and the drivers and that chick from Oregon. My job is done."
"Hey, Ma," Mikey says. "No, everything's fine—well, I mean, Gerard accidentally adopted a baby—no, he's changing her now, he can't talk." Gerard flips him off, but Mikey just settles further into the couch. Gerard pouts, then looks up at Frank.
"Frankie," he says, and Frank shakes his head.
"Sorry, man," he says. "But as the one sane person on this entire bus, I'm pretty sure my official job is to watch and laugh."
Gerard sighs, staring down at the kid, then stands up. "Fine, then," he says. "I mean, people change diapers every day. It can't possibly be as hard as, say, coming to terms with the fact that my entire band has deserted me." He pauses again, but they've all known him way too long to fall for that, so in the end he winds up just grabbing the bag of diapers and laying the kid out on the carpet.
Frank scoots the chair a little closer. It's hard to watch and mock if he can't actually see what's going on, after all.
Gerard gets her pajamas off without too much trouble, then spends a few minutes scrabbling helplessly at the diaper itself before Frank sighs and hands him the scissors from the table.
"It's not Fort Knox, Gee," he says.
"Fu—screw you, Frankie," he says, glancing over at Mikey. "It's not as easy as you'd think, okay—oh, gross." Frank looks away, but he can still smell it; on some level, he's actually kind of impressed that something so small can stink that much.
Gerard seems to agree. "Dude, seriously," he says, "how is that even possible? You're freaking tiny. Oh, hey, no," he adds, "hey, no, come on, don't kick—"
Frank sighs, scooting out of the chair and onto the floor, grabbing the kid's feet before she can get Gerard in the face again.
"Thanks, Frankie," he says, looking entirely too self-satisfied for a man holding a dirty diaper. "You're the best."
"My involvement ends here, okay?" Frank wants them to be very clear on that point. "There is a gross job, and there is a not-so-gross job, and I am doing the one that probably won't get me covered in baby crap."
"Whatever," Gerard says. "Hand me the wipes?"
The rest of the changing process goes pretty smoothly, and soon baby Katie is back in her pajamas, looking a little confused but mostly okay about the whole thing. Gerard looks down at her, half-pleased and half-annoyed, and then looks down at his hands and makes a face.
"Okay," he says, "okay, so, I'm going to go and wash my hands a whole lot." That's a good plan—that's a really good plan, Frank thinks. Gerard gets up, being careful not to touch anything, and heads for the kitchenette. "Keep an eye on her, will you?"
Frank can think of about a million and three things he'd rather be doing, actually. He doesn't want to like this baby, doesn't have the same idiotic fascination with her that Gee and Mikey and Ray and even Bob have—not to mention most of the crew. She's small and soft and helpless and, yeah, okay, pretty fucking cute, all unfocused blue eyes and fuzzy dark hair and chubby, uncoordinated limbs—but she's not theirs, and they don't get to keep her, and he wishes to fuck that everybody else would fucking remember that for more than three minutes at a time.
He leans over her, looking closer, and she flails at him, cooing, smacking him on the cheek with one tiny hand. When he doesn't pull away fast enough, she grabs onto his hair and yanks; he's had worse, but it still hurts.
"Ow," he says, "fuck, fuck, ow." Pulling away just makes her grip harder and hurts like hell; he has to detach her from the chunk of hair she's grabbed gradually, one finger at a time, until she's clinging to his pinky instead. That's about as good as it's going to get, he figures, sitting back and shaking his hair out of his face. "I deserved that, I guess," he says, mostly to himself. "Waving it in your face like that—you're a baby, babies grab shit, right?" She looks up at him, calm as anything, and gurgles.
"Having fun?" Gerard's got a cup of coffee, the asshole, and he's standing in the doorway and fucking beaming at Frank, like this is all some big game, like it's a wonderful new adventure instead of a clusterfuck of epic proportions.
"I'm gonna take another nap," Frank says, standing up; "gonna try to catch up on the rest of my sleep." Gee frowns, but he lets Frank go, which is the important thing.
*
The next time he wakes up, the bus has slowed down, turning rumbling corners every now and then; it's just after 3, which means they're probably pulling into the venue. Frank stays where he is for a moment, just breathing, then sighs and rolls out of his bunk. Predictably, the bus slows to a stop just as he's opening the door to the lounge, and he's knocked off balance, grabbing at the doorframe to keep himself from falling over.
"Frank," Gerard says. "Hey, glad you're up." His voice sounds weird and strangled, and when Frank looks over, he's wearing his designated clean t-shirt, the one he keeps in case of emergencies requiring them to impersonate responsible adults. They've all got one, stashed in a bag on top of the fridge; Frank's has an American flag on it. He rubs his eyes, scratches his hip, stares sleepily around the bus, trying to figure out what's going on and whether or not he needs to go back and put on some pants.
There's a woman sitting at the table, he realizes—brown hair, brown eyes, tanned skin, lots of teeth. He stares at her, and she smiles at him; he glances away, towards Gerard and Brian, raising his eyebrows and trying to blink himself awake.
"This is Cheryl," Brian says, leaning back in his seat. "She's with Child Protective Services."
"Child Protective—" Frank says, and then, "what the f—" and then, because even if he thinks that this whole baby-adoption plan is ridiculous and impossible, it's probably still bad manners to swear at someone who rescues kids for a living, "sorry, I mean—um."
She grins again, and seriously, this woman has way too many teeth. Probably freaks kids the fuck out, Frank thinks—but then again, Katie's been up close and personal with Gerard for several hours without any screaming, so maybe not. Kids are fucking resilient, anyways.
"So, as I was saying," Cheryl says, "our preliminary search for the mother hasn't turned up any results, but that's not exactly uncommon in these kinds of situations."
"What is common, then?" Mikey asks. Frank hesitates, then sits down on the arm of the couch next to Gerard, propping his arm on Gerard's head; Gerard grumbles, but doesn't pull away.
"It's a mixed bag, really," Cheryl says. "Most of the time, though, we're looking at a young woman who doesn't feel prepared to raise a baby alone—and in a lot of cases, they're right." She glances down at her stack of papers and sighs, looking older all of the sudden. "If we can't find the father, we're looking at foster care, ideally adoption—she's young, so if her health is good she's got a pretty good chance of getting out of the system."
"And if you could find the father?" Gerard's tone is relaxed, but his shoulders are tense against Frank's side, and oh, fuck. Frank shifts his hand down, resting it against Gerard's shoulder and digging his fingers in hard. Gerard's good, though, and doesn't so much as twitch, even though it's got to be hurting like a mother.
Cheryl frowns. "If we can find him, and he looks like a good bet for custody, then usually we'd give her over to him, at least on a probationary basis. Usually, though, there's a good reason—" she breaks off, glancing first at Gerard, then at Brian. "I was under the impression, though, that you weren't—that is, that the birth certificate was a fake."
There's a long pause, then. Ray goes still, Bob stops tapping his fingers on the table, and Mikey's eyes widen just slightly. Cheryl doesn't seem to notice, though; she keeps glancing from Gerard to Brian and back again, biting her lip, uncertain.
"I mean," Gerard says. "I mean, I—I said that she wasn't, you know, mine, but—" he pulls in on himself a little, and Frank leans forward to keep his balance. "I mean, I don't know," Gerard says finally. "I don't think so, but I can't say for sure. I had—" he shrugs, "—I mean, I've cleaned up, since then, but for a while—" He looks up, the back of his head brushing Frank's arm; his hair is clean, soft and strange and flyaway.
"She could be," he says finally. "She could be mine." There's a noise from the car seat—and when the fuck they got a car seat, Frank really doesn't want to know—and Gerard stands up like he's been sitting on a pin this whole time and didn't realize it, going over to kneel by Katie. Frank slides down into his empty seat, rubbing cramps out of his fingers.
"Well," Cheryl says, watching Gerard, smiling just a little. "That changes things a little, I guess."
The conversation goes on, but Frank doesn't really follow it; he's too busy staring at Gerard while pretending not to be staring at Gerard, trying to decide whether or not to stand up and say what everybody except for Cheryl is thinking.
Gerard's lying; he has to be. He's been clean for over a year, now, staying in and drawing vampires and zombies and kittens instead of going out drinking with the techs. And even before, even during the worst of it, Gerard was never that kind of guy. He's always been weirdly old-fashioned about relationships, as long as Frank's known him—no sketchy sex with groupies, no anonymous bar hookups, no nothing, mostly.
If he hadn't heard Gerard jerk off so much, Frank would be a little freaked—but as awkward as it is to hear someone rubbing one out in their bunk, it's vaguely reassuring, when it's Gerard. At least it proves that he has a sex drive, that he's not some weird lead singer robot.
Plus, it's not like Gerard's loud, or even any messier than you'd expect, although it's possible that Frank is biased. Cortez is loud; Mikeyway is messy. Gerard is somewhere in between, and after a while it all blends together.
"And you're going to grow up and do whatever the fuck you want, you know that, right?" Gerard leans in and brushes his nose against Katie's. "If you want to be an astronaut or a professor or a professional chef or a deep-sea diver, you're going to make it happen." He glances up, catches Frank's eye, shrugs. "I mean, I want her to be happy, you know?" he says. "And being a rockstar isn't for everyone, after all." It should be ridiculous, or even sickening; instead, like so much of what Gerard does, it's heartfelt and earnest and makes Frank's fucking stomach flip over. They look natural and right together, like a family.
"You know, Gee," Mikey says, poking his toes under Frank's leg, "before you teach her how to save the world, you might want to consider getting her another pair of pants." Frank glances over, and, yeah, her pants are a little stained—just baby food, it looks like, but it's not as though they have a washer on the bus. "Baby food, too, probably," Mikey adds. "The stuff we've got isn't going to last her very long." He brushes his hair out of his face, fidgets with his glasses, scratches the bridge of his nose—
"Oh, fuck you," Frank says, "Nose Goes is not an appropriate way to determine baby-shopping duties."
"Says the man with a finger on his nose," Gerard puts in, which, seriously, fuck Gerard, too. Just because it's a stupid system doesn't mean he's not going to play.
Ray and Bob stare at him, their hands conspicuously in their laps, and Frank raises his eyebrows at them.
"I bought diapers, man," Ray says, going back to his magazine. "I'm exempt."
"Fucking—fine, okay," Frank says, because they seriously did need diapers there. "That's got to fucking run out sometime soon, though, right?" Ray just shrugs, gives them all a shit-eating grin, and goes back to whatever he was reading. "Bob?"
Bob shrugs. "I want to get some peanut butter," he says.
"What, and you can't wrangle Gerard at the same time?"
"I'm getting peanut butter," Bob says again, as though that's the end of the discussion. Which, given Bob, it really kind of is. Frank glances over at Brian, but he's still busy with Cheryl, throwing out words like "regular visits" and "coordinate schedules" and "fax". Plus, it probably wouldn't really help Gerard's case if Frank went over and asked Brian to arbitrate a game of Nose Goes—not that he wants to help Gerard's stupid fucking ridiculous baby-stealing plan, but on a matter of general principle he doesn't want to look like an idiot in front of a social worker.
"Fine," he says, "fucking fine. Tomorrow, we'll go buy baby shit. Somebody has to be reasonable around here, after all," he adds, looking over at Gerard and Katie.
Gerard just fucking beams, though. "Hear that, Katie?" he says. "Frank likes you!"
Frank rolls his eyes—because, well, yes, but that's not really the point. He likes babies just fine, wants some of his own someday even, but that doesn't mean he thinks that stealing one is a good plan. He's trying to figure out a way to pinch Gerard in the side without making him drop Katie when Brian and Cheryl stand up.
"All right, well," she says, smiling at them all. "I don't want to keep you guys." She shakes Brian's hand, and Gerard's, and then Frank's; as she's heading out the front, Cortez pokes his head in, giving them the high-sign.
"Soundcheck," Gerard says, standing up. "Um." He's staring down at Katie, holding her against his chest, and he keeps glancing between her, Brian, and Frank.
Brian sighs. "I'll take her, don't worry," he says. "Go on." Gerard hands her over carefully, and looks back at her three times before he makes it out the front door.
The show is high-energy but kind of weird; Frank feels twitchy and off-balance, like his skin is a size smaller than usual. Gerard keeps going on about change and choice and taking responsibility for your actions, and he can't seem to stop hugging them all. Ray rolls with it, and Mikey just looks longsuffering. Behind his kit, Bob grins and flips them off, then yelps and swears when Gerard ducks around the high-hat and buries his face in Bob's hair.
Gerard plasters himself to Frank's side, gasping into his ear while the crowd screams the words back at them. It's more than a little gross—Frank's pretty sure Gerard hasn't showered since they were in New England—but it's hard to get too angry at Gerard when he's this excited about something, full up with manic energy and glee. Frank leans back enough to bite Gerard's neck, but not very hard, just barely enough to even bruise. Gerard shivers and pulls away, anyway, which was the whole point.
Frank drops to his knees and plays the chorus, eyes closed.
*
"Get up, Frank," Gerard says. "We're going grocery shopping!"
"Motherfuck." Frank kicks out into the aisle, hoping to catch Gerard before he escapes, but all he gets is empty air and Gerard cackling at him from the main room. He thinks about staying in bed and ignoring it, but ignoring Gerard is not, historically, a tactic that works very well. Besides, Frank wants bananas.
They make a list, of course. Lists are Frank's first impulse, faced with grocery shopping and Gerard simultaneously; otherwise, they're running the risk of repeating the great broccoli-and-jellybeans debacle of 2003. It's written on the back of a take-out menu from Omaha, and it looks something like this:
- baby clothes (GENDER NEUTRAL)
- baby food (vegan? BABIES AREN'T VEGAN FRANK shut up!)
- more diapers (YES)
- other stuff (COFFEE yes duh coffee)
It's not a very complicated list, but it takes them half an hour to actually make it, and Gerard gets an elbow to the face in the process. An accident, of course.
Around midday, they pull into Stevens Point, Wisconsin, which—according to Steve the Bus Dude—has a Target. Immediately, Gerard lifts Katie out of the car seat, where she's been chilling, and starts wrapping her in a blanket. Frank watches. He's not going to say anything, he's not going to say anything, he's not going to—
"Gee," Ray says, "Gee, what the fuck are you doing?" Thank God for Ray, even if he does immediately look guilty for swearing in front of the kid.
Gerard doesn't look up. "I'm not going to take her outside like this, Ray," he says, tugging on her fleecy pajamas. There was another set tucked into the car seat, and this one is blue, with tiny gold stars all over. "I mean, it's not that cold for you or me," which is a lie, because Gerard totally spend half an hour complaining about how cold Massachusetts was, last week, when he was only outside for maybe half an hour at most, "but babies are, like, delicate and shi—and stuff, you know?" He frowns, shakes the blanket out, and starts tucking it around her again. "We need to keep her warm."
Ray takes a deep breath, glances at Frank, and lets it out in a huff, shaking his head. "Gee," he says again. "Gerard. Think about this." He waits, drumming his fingers on his knees, until eventually Gerard stops worrying about how the blanket is draping and looks up at them.
"Look, Gee," Ray says, slowly and carefully. "I support you in this, um—with Katie, and all." Gerard nods, but he's starting to look suspicious. "But, I mean—dude, you know you can't take her to Target, right?"
Gerard just stares at him. He really doesn't get it, Frank realizes. Gerard honestly doesn't understand why taking a baby to a Target might be problematic, especially a baby who isn't theirs.
Gerard Fucking Way. Seriously.
"I mean," Ray says, "you're—you're pretty noticeable, dude, you know? And, like. Like, what if some asshole with a camera saw you guys, and took pictures?"
Gerard scowls, holding Katie a little closer; she shifts a little but otherwise seems okay with her potential adoptive father being a complete freak of nature. Which is good, honestly, since it's not like that's ever going to change.
"I'm not going to change my life just because some fucker with a camera wants to be famous," Gerard says, staring down at Katie. "That's no fucking way to raise a kid."
"Yeah, but," Mikey says. "Gee, what if it makes things harder with, like, Cheryl and shit? Like," he shrugs. "What if they think you're being a bad parent, by exposing her to that kind of shit at a really young age?" Gee wavers—Frank can see it, can see him weighing the desire to be a good parent against the desire to never let Katie out of his sight again.
"Yeah," he says, finally, "yeah, okay." He stares at Mikey, then at Ray. "Take care of her, motherfuckers, or I'll—"
"Of course," Ray says, "dude, of course, Gee." Mikey just rolls his eyes, like of course he's going to take perfectly good care of Gerard's accidental baby.
"And you," Gerard says, looking down at Katie, "you behave yourself for Mikey and Ray, okay?"
Katie looks up at them all, then blows a spit bubble right in Gerard's face. Maybe, just maybe, this kid thing isn't all bad.
*
They pull into the Target parking lot and park on the far left side, taking up most of an empty row. Gerard hands the kid over to Mikey—
("Uncle Mikey," Mikey insists. Gee thinks about it, then nods.
"Uncle Mikey, yeah," he says, like it even matters, and can they fucking go yet?
"Family is important, Frank," Ray says, and he sounds serious but he's totally laughing at them all behind his hair. Frank has known Ray Toro for a long fucking time, at this point; he can tell.)
- and lets Bob and Frank drag him off the bus and into the store.
Target is the one piece of the real world they see on a regular basis, and it's kind of weird. At this point in the tour, Frank's used to the dark and bustle of backstage, the adrenaline of a show, the disorganization and general grime of the bus after four weeks on the road. Target is the complete opposite: large and colorful, bright and glossy and bafflingly well-organized. Venues have personality, quirks of the sound system and weird staircases and specific graffiti, but all Targets are the same, no matter where they are.
Gerard feels it too, Frank knows, and it freaks him out—makes him feel like he's living in a cartoon, and not in a cool way. Frank bumps their shoulders together, and they stand in the entryway for a minute, just staring and readjusting.
"Christ," Bob says, pushing past them. "The two of you, I don't even know." He walks past the carts and hangs a left, heading towards the food aisles; Gerard grabs Frank's wrist and starts towing him forward, towards the huge hanging pictures of women with improbably fat babies. Frank follows—he doesn't want Gerard to get lost in a Target, even if it kind of would serve him right—and of course smacks straight into Gerard's back when he stops dead in the middle of an aisle.
"Fuck, Frank," he says, and he sounds upset enough that Frank actually feels bad for him. "Fuck, look at this bullshit."
Frank looks. It's all little jumpsuits with snaps up the belly, most of them with feet and a few with hoods, too. Half of them are blue or red, with trucks or dinosaurs on them; the other half are pink and ruffly. It's about what Frank had been expecting, but Gerard is already ranting about internalized misogyny and societal expectations and how no daughter of his is going to play into that kind of patriarchal bullshit, seriously, Frank, what kind of babies need ruffles?
"But what if she likes ruffles, Gee?" he asks, only half-listening. Gerard's ranting has a rhythm to it, and after a few tirades it's pretty easy to know what to say to keep him going, without actually having to listen to more than a quarter of what he says.
(Frank's record is four hours and twenty-eight minutes, but Ray's gotten all the way to five hours and nine minutes. Mikey's not allowed to compete, because he and Gerard have some kind of freaky fraternal mind-meld. Mikey can raise an eyebrow and get a two-hour rant out of Gerard; the last time he actually tried, Gerard wouldn't shut up for three days. Impressive, sure, but Frank would really rather be sleeping.)
"That's not the point, Frank," Gerard says, picking up something green and fuzzy and dropping it into the cart. "It's not about personal preference—it's about the institutions in place that only sell pink shit to little girls, and—"
"Gee," Frank says, "Gerard, shut up and come here." He doesn't turn away from the wall, and eventually Gerard comes up behind him and rests his head on Frank's shoulder.
"I mean, I hate to play into the whole image," he says eventually. "Like, I don't want to get locked into a single aesthetic, you know?"
"Shut up, Gerard," Frank says. "They're fucking awesome and you know it." He picks one up to look closer: it's black, with little black wings—bat wings—between the arms and the body, and a hood with tiny black ears on it. Down to the right, there are some with bones on them, like a skeleton; the sign over Frank's head says that they glow in the dark. It's completely fucking badass.
Gerard grabs the tag and flips it over, checking the size. "Six months," he says, "so, okay, four months would be—"
"Get it anyway," Frank says, reaching around Gerard and grabbing a few more (4mo, 8mo, 10 mo, 12 mo, 14 mo). "I mean, she's going to grow out of it, and then it's just going to be turkeys and snowmen and shit." Gerard stares at him, but doesn't say anything. Frank's glad: he'd hate to have to punch Gerard in the face in public. They've got pumpkin costumes, too, which aren't totally stupid; Frank grabs a few, and also some of the less ridiculous regular-colored ones.
When he comes back, there's definitely something pink and ruffly in the basket, hidden under a teddy bear with fangs and a red blanket, but whatever.
"Hey," Bob says, wheeling his cart down the aisle to join them, "this isn't too bad." He picks up another tiny outfit—white, but with multicolored splatters of fake paint all over it—and drops it into their cart.
Bob's cart seems fuller than usual for a mid-week spur-of-the-moment grocery run. Frank peeks in, and sees that in addition to peanut butter, whole-wheat bread, and pickles, Bob's got actual baby food, tiny jars with chubby-cheeked infants on the labels.
"I got more formula, too," Bob says. "But we're probably going to want to start food soon, at least the mushy stuff." Frank stares at him, and he shrugs. "I called my mom, motherfucker. Also, we should probably get more diapers."
Diapers are just around the corner; they get a special trash can for them, too, even though Gerard rolls his eyes, because Frank is not spending any more time than absolutely necessary smelling baby shit in his living space. Bob calls his mom again, and she directs them to get baby wipes, Vaseline, and a bag to stick it all in.
"Babies are expensive, Robert," she says, loud enough that Frank can hear her. "Although, really, I thought better of you than—"
"It's not me, Ma," Bob says. "It's Gerard." Gerard flips him off, and Bob rolls his eyes. "No, ma—it's complicated, okay? Trust me, I don't really get it either." She says something else, too soft for Frank to hear anything but the rise and fall of her voice; Bob nods and turns to Gerard, holding the phone away from his ear. "She says she expected better of you, too," he says, "and also that she considers Katie an honorary grandchild."
Gerard, comparing two different diaper bags—diaper bags, seriously, what the fuck—nods. "Tell her we'll stop by when we're in Chicago." They would have done that anyway, really: Chicago is Bob's home, which makes it their home too, in a way, like an extension of Jersey even though it's totally not. Plus, Bob's mom makes a mean vegetarian casserole. Still, it seems to make Bob's mom happy, if the squeaking on the phone is anything to go by; Bob shakes his head when he hangs up, like his ears are ringing.
"You know she's going to start knitting, right?" he asks. "Like, epic knitting."
Gerard throws one of the bags in the cart and stands up, shaking his shoulders out. "Yeah, so? What's wrong with knitting, Bob?"
Bob shrugs. "Nothing, really," he says. "But if any reindeer sweaters come of this, I am not the one who's going to wear them, okay? Just so we're clear."
"Me either," Frank says, and Gerard rolls his eyes.
"Fine, whatever," he says. "Are we set?"
"Yes," Frank says, even though 'set' is probably the exact opposite of what they are. They've got enough for the time being, is the important thing, and now it is time to get the fuck out of middle America and back to the bus.
Frank's a little worried about the check out—they haven't been recognized so far, but they're also not the luckiest band in the whole world—but nobody seems to realize that three-fifths of My Chemical Romance just came in to buy out their baby supply section. The girl a few rows down gives them a weird look, then shakes herself a little, like they can't possibly be who she thinks they are; Frank pulls his hood up a little more and starts loading stuff onto the conveyor belt.
"Oh, my," says the clerk in their aisle, ringing up their purchases. "Looks like somebody's got a brand new bundle of joy!" Her name is Doris, and she looks about eighty million years old.
Gerard nods, shifting his weight. "Yeah, we're—well, we spend a lot of time on the road, so we're stocking up." Doris doesn't seem to think very much of that, and she gives Frank and Bob a stern look, managing somehow to become even wrinklier in the process.
"Well," she says finally, "I hope these boys are taking care of you, young lady." It takes them all a second to realize that she's talking to Gerard, and then Bob doubles over in a coughing fit and Gerard's cheeks turn pink. Frank bites the inside of his cheek and looks at the tabloids, ignoring Gerard's glare; the abominable snowman has apparently married a mermaid in a Vegas wedding.
"Yeah," Gerard says, eventually, "Don't worry, they're being very helpful."
Doris nods, her hair wobbling precariously. "And you've got your brother, too—that's good, you should have your family around at a trying time like this." Frank turns and stares at her for a second, trying to figure out how she knew Mikey was with them—maybe she's a fan? or maybe her granddaughter, more likely—before realizing that she means him, that she thinks he and Gerard are siblings, not just friends and bandmates. It kind of makes him want to scowl, but then she leans over and pats Gerard's cheek and calls him "missy" again, and he's back to chewing on his lip and trying not to giggle.
He makes it all the way outside, but only barely, and winds up clinging to Bob as they wheel the carts across the parking lot, both of them laughing too hard to breathe, much less hold themselves upright. Gerard, wheeling the other cart, is sulking.
"Did you see her glasses?" he asks. "She's got to be, like, blind, seriously."
Bob nods seriously. "Whatever you say, Miss Way." That sets Frank off again, which sets Bob off again, and they laugh all the way back to the bus.
The front lounge is quiet and empty, except for Mikey, stretched out on the couch with his headphones on, so they drop their purchase on his feet and ask where everybody is. He wakes up enough to wave vaguely toward the back of the bus, then rolls over onto a jar of peas and falls back asleep.
Gerard eases the door to the back studio open, then looks back and pulls Frank forward so that he can see. Katie's on the floor in her car seat, wrapped up in a nest of blankets, drooling a little but otherwise looking pretty alert for somebody who's basically just a digestive system. Ray's staring at her with this stupid little smile on his face, playing something soft and slow on his acoustic.
"And that," he says, "that's a diminished seventh, see—" he plays one, note by note and then all together, "- see how that sounds?" Katie burbles and coos, and Ray beams at her. "Yeah," he says, "yeah, and -"
"Ray," Frank says, "Ray, seriously, she's three months old." Ray looks up at him, startled, his fingers flattening on the neck of the guitar. Frank feels like an asshole, a little, but it's not like that's anything new. For the first time, he wishes his goddamn band would dream a little smaller; grand plans are awesome, but there's such a thing as having a little bit of fucking perspective.
"Um," Ray says. "Hey, you're back."
"Yeah," Frank says, turning around. "I'm going to catch some more sleep before tonight."
"Can't babies hear, like, in the womb or some shit?" Bob asks, but Frank doesn't wait around to hear the response; he climbs into his bunk and pulls the pillow over his head and sacks out.
*
Frank wakes up just in time for soundcheck, that night; he doesn't even feel it when they pull into the venue. Things go pretty much as usual: Gerard entrusts Katie to Brian, and if he maybe spends more of the show looking off stage left than usual, well, the crowd is too into it to really notice. It's not their best show ever, but it's a good show, energetic and positive; Gerard licks Frank's ear twice, and does something with Ray that has the whole pit shrieking and pointing, texting their friends.
Frank grins at them, drops to his knees, throws himself into the chorus.
Outside, on the line, it's just like usual, for a while—signing and smiling and saying hi, the kids somewhere between excited and exhausted, propped up on each other and beaming. Frank's good through all of that, sweat drying on his forehead, feeling the evening catching up to him in all of the right ways—
—and then he gets back on the bus. Gee's got Katie dressed up in one of the bat costumes from earlier, and he's holding her against his chest and helping her wave at Mikey's sidekick. He's still sweaty from the show, still in his onstage pants and shirt; he probably smells disgusting. Katie just giggles, though, flopping her arms around awkwardly, leaning back against Gerard.
"Frankie, hey," Gerard says, but Frank just waves and keeps on going, back to the bunks, curling up with his face to the wall. He thinks he hears Ray outside his bunk, at one point, but he doesn't move and whoever it is goes away after a while.
The next morning, Gerard looks like shit, like he used to get after a week-long bender, sprawled out with his legs over one arm of the couch and his head in the middle, eyes closed.
"Fuck, Gee," Frank says, dropping down next to him. "What the hell happened to you?" Gerard blinks his eyes open, bleary and exhausted, and stares up at him.
"Katie," he says, which doesn't make much sense, unless Katie is secretly a baby-shaped robot monster and she and Gerard got into a battle to the death last night. In which case Frank is actually kind of impressed; he wouldn't have thought that Gerard could fight off any kind of robot monster, even one less than a foot tall.
Gerard sighs. "She didn't want to go to sleep last night—I think we, like, overstimulated her or something." He rolls his shoulders and neck, edging his way up into Frank's lap; Frank takes the hint and turns sideways, rubbing Gerard's temples. "She didn't get to sleep until, like," Gerard yawns, "fuck, seven thirty, maybe?" Frank glances at the clock: it's ten twenty-four, so Gerard's been out for less than three hours. Katie, of course, is curled up in her little carry-case, snug and smug.
"You want to go back to bed, maybe catch a few more hours of sleep?" Frank asks, but Gerard's already out cold, his head heavy in Frank's hands. Frank sighs, and works on wriggling his left hand free enough to snag the copy of AP that's sitting on the floor a few feet away. Katie stays asleep for the next couple of hours, and by the time she's waking up again, Mikey and Bob are both up, stumbling vaguely around the kitchen and banging pots and pans together.
"Shut the fuck up and come feed the baby, assholes," he says. "Gerard's fucking sleeping." He's not, actually, as Frank discovers when he looks back down, but Gerard seems content to tip himself back up into a sitting position and watch while Mikey and Bob work on getting baby Katie some nutrition. She handles the bottle pretty well, but doesn't seem very impressed by the jars of baby food.
"No, see," Mikey says, "see, it's like an airplane—"
"Has she seen an airplane, though?" Bob asks, frowning. "Like, I don't know how that's a useful simile, here."
Mikey stares at him, then at Katie, then at the spoon. "Huh," he says. "Good point." He thinks about it for a while, staring off into the middle distance, then scoops up another spoonful of mushy carrots. "Okay, so," he says, "it's like a whole big crowd of people, and they're all going into the venue, right?"
"Dude," Frank says, "you realize that makes her a cannibal, right?" Next to him, Gerard giggles, leaning against Frank's shoulder. "Not that that's not kind of appropriate, under the circumstances."
"Yeah," Gerard says, nodding. "I'm just glad we aren't doing all those blood photoshoots anymore, you know? I wouldn't want her to, like, get a fixation or some shit."
"Swear jar!" Mikey says, spinning around to point at them and sending orange glop flying. Frank raises his eyebrow, but there's actually a jar on the table, labeled with all sorts of cartoon-style swears, asterisks and dollar signs and little angry clouds of dust.
"We made it while you guys were out," Mikey says. "Fifty cents a word."
Frank rolls his eyes, but Gerard nods again, leaning down to snag his jacket. "That's fair," he says. "Enough that people will take it seriously, but not so much that, like, nobody can pay it." He digs a crumpled ten out of his pocket, shrugs, and drops it in. "I'm sure I'll use it up." That kind of defeats the purpose of a swear jar, in Frank's opinion, but at least this way Katie's college education will be covered. If they keep her that long. Which they aren't.
"Sure thing, Gerard," Bob says, bouncing Katie a little on his lap. "Although, hey, does onstage stuff—motherfuck!" Katie's got one little hand in his beard, pulling as hard as she can and giggling like a lunatic; Bob is trying to get free without knocking her off his lap or cursing a blue streak, and kind of failing. Mikey and Gerard are both laughing too hard to be useful, and Ray is off somewhere else, where the laws of nature are still in effect.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Frank says, standing up and stomping over. He lifts Katie off of Bob's lap, then tickles her gently until she lets go of Bob's beard. "That's better, hmm?" She makes a face and kicks her legs, so he boosts her up onto his shoulder and pats her back.
"You're good at that," Gerard says, and Frank turns around to face him.
"I've got cousins, you know?" he says. "I could either learn this shit or have my mom shun me for the rest of my life. Yeah, yeah, I know," he says, when Katie whines a little. "They're all a bunch of fucking idiots." Katie hiccups, then burps, and Frank feels something warm and wet starting to soak through his t-shirt.
Behind him, Gerard squeaks, then gasps, and then falls off the couch laughing; Bob and Mikey aren't any better.
"That's my girl!" Gerard crows, every inch the proud father, and Frank sighs, suddenly exhausted.
"Whoa, hey, Frank," Ray says, coming out from the bunks and rubbing his eyes. "You've got something on your shoulder, man."
"Here," Frank says, handing Katie over, tugging at Ray's arms until he's supporting her correctly. "You take her, I'm going back to bed."
He leaves his shirt in Gerard's bunk; it seems fair.
*
Frank stays in his bunk for most of the rest of the day, listening to music or reading his way through Gerard's box of Absolutely Essential comics. Cheryl comes by again, and she and Brian walk back to the studio to talk; Brian taps against the frame of Frank's bunk, but doesn't say anything.
Eventually, they hit the venue, and Frank rolls out of bed and wanders into the lounge. Gerard's handing Katie to Brian, again, reminding him of all the things Gerard's learned over the past two days as though he's known them forever, as though Brian probably isn't better suited to take care of Katie than any of them. Brian rolls his eyes at Frank, but Frank looks away; he needs some fucking coffee before the show.
As a general rule, Frank doesn't have anything against Iowa—it's not his favorite place, but it's not the worst of all possible places, either. And the show's amazing, like Iowa's making up for something, the crowd electric and Gerard strutting across the stage, capturing their responses with the tilt of his hips, the angle of his head. They all catch the same energy, just like always—Ray's insane, a blur of hair and fingers, and Bob's his own little vortex of rhythm and awesome. Mikey's quiet—but Mikey's always quiet, and his playing is right on.
Frank throws himself into it, stretching, jumping off of anything that will hold his weight, pressing up against Gerard and Mikey and Gerard and Ray and Gerard and Gerard, playing on his knees and his back and in midair, letting it all wash over and through him, screaming and brilliant and exactly the way it should always, always be. Gerard presses back, too, and his face is sweaty and perfect against Frank's neck, his voice buzzing on Frank's skin.
It takes Frank a while to come down, after, and he winds up sitting on the steps of the bus, smoking and staring at the sky. They're pretty close to a city—he doesn't remember where, and it's not like he knows the names of cities in Iowa anyways—and the sky off to his left glows orange, but even with the venue lights, he can see the stars if he tips his head straight back.
The stars, and also Gerard, leaning in the doorway and twitching a cigarette between his fingers. Frank offers him a light, but he shakes his head.
"I'm probably going to have to quit," he says, "I mean, because of Katie." He sits down on the top step, his knees just brushing against Frank's shoulderblades.
"Weird," Frank says, leaning back a little. They've both been trying to quit for a while, here and there, going weeks, sometimes months jittery and clean before giving up, sliding back. It's comforting, at this point, the rise and fall, the rhythm of it, the back and forth. Without it—"weird," he says again, and watches the smoke curl up and dissipate in the air.
"Yeah," Gerard says. Frank glances over his shoulder, tipping his head back to rest against Gerard's knees. Gerard's staring up at the stars, too. "Worth it, though," he says, tucking the unlit cigarette into his pocket.
They sit like that for a while, silent and easy, and then Gerard stands up to go inside, brushing his hands over Frank's hair as he goes.
Frank stays out for a while, staring at the sky, then sighs and stubs out his half-smoked cigarette on the steps. Maybe he'll try quitting again, sometime soon—he and Gerard always last longer when they can back each other up.
part two