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throw a little sparkle all over it (3/3)
Part One
Part Two
"Come on, Carl," Frank says, knowing he's begging and not caring. "Come on, you've got to stop for gas soon anyways, right?" Carl glances significantly at the gas gauge, which is sitting solidly at the halfway point. "See," Frank says, "see, you're half empty!"
"I prefer to think of it as half-full," Carl says, the smug bastard. "Why don't you just crack a window and smoke outside like everybody else does, Frankie?"
"Come on, Carl," Frank says, "you know that never works." All he wants in life is to stand in a parking lot and smoke a cigarette or three, and Carl's being a pissy little bitch about it. "Carl," he says, "Carl, come on."
"No can do, buddy," Carl says. "You're just going to have to tough it out like the rest of us." Frank sighs and goes back to the lounge. There's not even anything good on TV, this late at night; it's the weird in-between time after the late-night specials are all done and before the early morning news has started. The only half-decent thing is Law & Order, and it's an episode Frank's seen before.
"It's the wife," he says, "her and the super," but nobody's awake to care, and he winds up watching anyways.
Half an hour later, though, the bus starts slowing down, turns a corner and then another corner, and comes shakily to a halt. Frank peeks out the blinds and sees a BP sign, lets out a yelp, and goes running for the front of the bus. Carl's leaning against the side, smoking, and he laughs when Frank comes tumbling out.
"Here," he says, offering Frank a light. "You know we were planning to stop anyway, right?" He takes a drag, grins at Frank, lets it out slow and smug. "We stagger the gas, so that if one of us runs too low, the other one can keep going."
"Thank you," Frank says, taking a drag. "Thank you, I did not know that. Also, fuck you, you fucking asshole." Carl doubles over laughing, and Frank heads over across the parking lot, where he can watch the buses and smoke in peace and quiet.
When he's halfway through his third cigarette, the door to the Baby Bus opens, and Gerard staggers out, looking bleary and exhausted. Frank waves at him, but he just stares around blankly.
"Gerard," Frank calls, waving again. "Hey, fuckhead, over here!" The swearing seems to get Gerard's attention: he waves back, then starts trudging across the parking lot to Frank.
"The fuck happened?" Gerard says, sleep-dull and blinking owlishly at Frank.
Frank shrugs, takes another drag. "Stopped for gas," he says. "I decided I wanted a smoke." Belatedly, Gerard notices the cigarette Frank's holding. He's staring at it like it's got the answer to life, the universe, and everything in there somewhere. Frank offers him the pack, but he shakes his head.
"I shouldn't," he says. "I mean, I've been meaning to quit for fucking forever, you know? And now, with Katie—" he trails off, shrugging. "I'm gonna try to stick to it, you know?" He's still staring at Frank's cigarette, though. "It smells amazing, though."
Frank offers it to him again, but he shakes his head. "No, just—here, let me." He steps forward, pressing himself against Frank, burying his nose in Frank's hair. His arms are around Frank's shoulders, and he drums out a rhythm on the back of Frank's neck while he takes a deep breath.
"God," he says, "fuck, this is so fucking gross, but it also smells so good, you know?"
"Secondhand smoke," Frank says, and Gerard sighs happily. "You're disgusting," Frank says, conversationally, and feels Gerard grin against his neck.
"You love it, motherfucker," Gerard says, and, well. That's kind of true, is the thing.
"Five minutes, assholes," Carl yells, climbing back onto the bus. They stay there for four minutes and thirty seconds, and have to run across the parking lot to make it. They're both wheezing by the time they hit the stairs, and Carl's rolling his eyes at them, and it's stupid and uncomfortable and kind of ridiculously perfect.
*
"Frank," Ray says. "I love you like a brother, but if your daughter doesn't stop screaming sometime soon, I am not going the be held responsible for my actions."
"Me either," Mikey says. Bob's got his noise-canceling headphones on, which pretty much gives his opinion on the matter. Frank shifts Katie onto his other shoulder and flips them all off, but they don't seem to notice.
"You know, you guys could ride on the other bus for a few days," Gerard says. "It wouldn't kill you."
"I thought she was done being pissy," Mikey says. "She seemed good this morning."
"She was eating, Mikey," Frank says. "What did you expect?" Mikey just shrugs and goes back to his sidekick, though, and Frank goes back to walking a screaming Katie back and forth around the bus. She's little, so she still can't get that much volume, but she can apparently go for several hours without needing to stop or even breathe. Frank is a little bit impressed, and also going deaf in one ear.
Frank walks down the row of bunks, makes a quick tour of the back lounge, switches Katie to his other arm, walks back out, and smacks straight into Gerard.
"Here," Gerard says, his hand on Frank's shoulder. "Here, I'll take her for a bit." Frank doesn't hesitate, just hands her over; Gerard settles her in his arms. Katie doesn't miss a beat, keeps wailing up a storm.
"I'm gonna go call my mom," Frank says, reaching up into his bunk and feeling around for his phone. "Maybe she'll know what to do." Anyways, he swore up and down that he'd call her once a week until Katie was five, and it's been six days. Gerard nods and heads back toward the lounge, bouncing Katie gently in his arms.
"Frankie!" she says, "How are you? How's your little girl?"
"Loud," he says. "Loud as fuck." He can hear her from in here, still, yelling her head off while Gerard sings something to her.
"Frank!"
"She's not here, ma," he says, sitting down on the edge of Gerard's bunk. "She's in the other room, with Gerard."
His mom hmmms down the phone line at him, and he rolls his eyes. Some things never change, and his mom's disapproving noises definitely fall in that category. "Well, why is she being noisy, then?"
Frank sighs, leaning backward and rolling his shoulders around. "No idea. She's clean and dry, doesn't want any food—"
"Did you burp her?"
"Mikey did, yeah." They'd remembered to put a towel on his shoulder, for a change, but she'd gotten his hair anyways; Mikey had raised his eyebrows and stared at her, and Gerard had laughed until he fell off the couch. "I don't know, ma. She just seems to be freaked out, you know?"
"Well, it's a little early for teething," his ma says, "but that could be it, I suppose."
"Yeah?" Frank gives up and settles all the way into Gerard's bunk, twisting around until he's on one side, with the phone propped against his ear. Gerard's pillow smells a lot like he does, sweaty and a little dirty; it's vaguely soothing. "Huh. Would that make her scream this much, though?"
"Oh, yes," she says, laughing down the phone line at him. "You screamed for three months straight, I swear."
"Yeah, well," Frank says. "She's not mine, though, ma."
Another disapproving noise, and she's rolling her eyes at him, Frank's sure of it. "Biologically, maybe not, but she's yours in every way that counts, Frankie." Frank rolls over; Gerard's mattress is weirdly lumpy. "Anyway," his mom says. "Give her the pacifier Donna sent you—you can pop it in the fridge for a bit first if you want, but don't let it get frozen."
"Thanks, ma," Frank says. "We'll give that a try. How are you all?" She gives him the run down on the neighbors and cousins and friends of the family, who's divorced, who's remarried, who's painting their house lime green. It's a long list—apparently the rest of the world is just as crazy as Frank's band, which is almost soothing—and by the time she's done, the noises from the other room have quieted down some.
"Listen, mom," he says. "I think she's calmed down a little, so I'm gonna go check on them all—I'll call you back in a few days?"
"You'd better," she says. "Let me know if it does turn out to be teeth; I'll send you some more things." No use telling her that they can stop at stores themselves; between the four of them, the moms of My Chem have already sent half a dozen boxes of Useful Baby Stuff. He says goodbye, tells her he loves her, and closes the phone, staring up at the bunk above Gerard's.
"Hey, Frank," Gerard says, sticking his head in the curtains and freaking Frank the fuck out. "Sorry, just—you know that she's yours too, right?" Frank glares at him, trying to get his breathing back to normal. Gerard picks the weirdest fucking times to actually be stealthy—most of the time, Frank can hear him coming a mile away.
"The fuck, motherfucker," Frank says, sitting up. "There's a rule against that shit." Rule number 4 on the list they made when they first started touring in actual buses: Knock First, Even For Bunks. There's only so many times you can deal with being interrupted while you're jerking off, after all.
"You were on the phone with your mom, asshole," Gerard says, rolling his eyes. "Also, this is my bunk, so the rules totally don't apply." He helps Frank sit back up, but stays standing where he is, leaning into the bunk, into Frank's space. "I mean it, though, really," he says, frowning just a little. "I heard you, when I was walking out—she's your kid, too, Frank," he says.
"Yeah, I know," Frank says. His throat feels a little tight. "Two-parent families are more stable, more likely to get approved by CPS—"
"Bullshit," Gerard says. "Or, I mean, it's not, but that's not what I'm talking about." He rests his hand on Frank's shoulder. "You're her parent, too, Frank."
Frank rolls his eyes, swings his legs around to get out of the bed. Gerard doesn't move, though, even when Frank squirms around and sticks his legs out into the aisle. He leans in, bracing his hands on the bunk above, and glares at Frank.
"I mean it, asshole," he says. "What, you think you just look good on paper?" Frank shrugs—put it like that, and he sounds like a whiney brat, but at the same time he's not Katie's dad, not the way Gerard is. "Well, you're wrong," Gerard says. "Besides, you don't look that good on paper."
Frank kicks Gerard in the knee, but not very hard. "Shut up, fucker," he says. "I'm gorgeous." Gerard takes a deep breath, opens his mouth—then snaps it shut and backs away. Frank drops out of the bunk, then stumbles against Gerard when the bus hits a bad stretch of road. Gerard leans against him, heavy and exhausted; it's been a long couple of days.
"What did your mom say?" Gerard asks, his face against Frank's hair. "About Katie and stuff?"
Frank has to swallow a few times before he can answer; bus air is always weirdly dry. "She said she might be teething."
Gerard nods. "That could be it, yeah." He yawns. "She screamed herself out, I think—just passed out in my arms, it was hilarious. Poor kid, though." He shakes his head slowly, resting his pointy chin on Frank's shoulder. "That's gotta suck."
"Yeah," Frank says. "But your mom sent us that stuff, remember? Apparently we can stick it in the fridge, and it'll help." Gerard nods again, but doesn't make any effort to move. He's probably exhausted—they all are, after two straight days of fussy baby.
"Gee," he says eventually. "Gerard, come on, if we stay here we'll just wind up falling over the next time we hit a pothole." Gerard takes a deep breath, then straightens up. From the other room, they hear Katie starting to cry again. "Come on," Frank says again. "Let's go check on your daughter's teeth."
"Our daughter," Gerard says, and pushes Frank ahead of him, his hand warm on Frank's shoulder.
*
Forty-five minutes until they're onstage in Detroit, and of course Katie's having a hissy fit like none other. She's been fed and burped—today, Ray gets to be the one with baby spit on his neck—and her diaper's clean, for the moment. It's slightly less stressful now that they can see the tiny white tooth poking out of her gum, but that doesn't mean it isn't loud.
"Fuck," Bob says. "Where's her little chew toy?" Mikey digs one out of the pocket of the bag, but Frank snatches it away from him before he can stick it in her mouth. There's a crowd of venue staff outside the door, whispering to each other and trying to pretend that they're not listening at the door.
"Can one of you guys wash this off, please?" They go from staring past him to staring at him, and then a guy with a bright green fauxhawk reaches out and takes the pacifier from Frank.
"Sure thing," he says. "Just be a second." He disappears around the corner.
"Thanks," Frank says, and shuts the door behind him. The hallway is suddenly, eerily silent, and Frank stares at the crowd of gawkers until one by one they remember stuff that they're supposed to be doing and wander off. The guy with the green hair—"Jake", he says when Frank asks—comes back with a clean pacifier and a cup of ice, and Frank thanks him before ducking back into the room.
"Here," he says, "one baby chew toy, clean enough for human consumption again." Katie quiets down for a minute when she first gets it, but then spits it back out into Brian's hands, and oh, god, it's going to be a long evening.
Brian tries, and so does everybody else, but nothing seems to work; she calms down when Frank takes her, but only a little bit. Gerard's in the other room, warming up, but Katie's screaming her head off, still, so Frank goes over to the door. There's a sign taped to the door—WARMING UP DON'T DISTURB THIS MEANS YOU—but Frank ignores it and bangs on the door until Gerard pokes his head out, disheveled and confused.
"Can you warm up with her?" Frank asks, holding Katie out. Gerard takes her automatically, supporting her neck and cradling her against his chest. "Sorry, just—she's been going for a while, and Bob's starting to get the crazy eyes again."
Gerard sighs. "Sure, yeah," he says. "We'll go out back, maybe walk around a little—with security, Christ, do I look like a fucking idiot?" He shifts her onto his shoulder, patting her back soothingly, and grins at Frank—tired, frustrated, but still glad.
"I'm not going to answer that," Frank says, and steps back when Gerard tries to kick him. "Twenty minutes, okay?"
"Half an hour, fucker," Gerard says, heading off down the hallway, and then, "Now, Katie, that's not a word to repeat, okay?"
Frank watches him go, grinning, and then ducks into the room he'd been using to warm up. Gerard's going to wander around out back with Katie, singing her their songs and getting stared at by venue security, and then he's going to have to rush back in when Katie's diaper needs changing, and he's not going to know where anything is. Better to set all the stuff out now, so they can get her changed, hand her back to Schechter, and still have time to wash his hands before they have to go onstage.
He's just trying to figure out where Gerard has stashed the baby wipes—they're not in the pocket where they usually are, so he's reduced to sorting through the main compartment, where they're probably buried under action figures and water bottles and other shit that has absolutely fuck all to do with changing a baby—when Gerard's phone rings.
"What the hell is the point of having a goddamn phone if you never—" Frank says, digging it out of the bag and looking at the display. CHERYL (CPS), it blinks, and he stares at it, the sounds of Somewhere Over the Rainbow echoing in his ears, before he flips it open. "Hello?"
"Gerard? It's Cheryl," she says, "and I know this is a bad time, but—"
"It's Frank, actually," he says. "Gerard's with Katie, trying to get her to calm down. If you want, though, I can try to figure out—"
"No, no," she says, "It's fine, I can tell you." She makes a funny little noise, like she's having trouble breathing, and Frank holds the phone tighter, waiting for it, bracing for impact. "The evaluation just came back, and you're approved—if you want Katie, still, you can keep her."
"Okay, I'll—really?" he asks, the reality of it sinking in. "Wait, fuck, really?"
"Yes, really," she says, and now that Frank knows, he feels like he can hear her smiling. "I mean, you'll still have to check in with us a couple times a month, just so we can make sure—but I don't think we're going to have any problems on that front."
"No," Frank says, not even really hearing her, listening to the blood rushing in his ears. "No, yeah, I mean—can I call you back?" he asks, suddenly. "Or, like—I just have to go find Gee, now," he says.
"I understand, Frank," Cheryl says. "Have him call me when you guys get the chance, okay?"
"Yeah, sure," he says, and then, remembering, "hey, listen, thank you so much. Seriously—"
"Congratulations, Frank," she says, and then the line goes dead.
For a second, Frank just stands there, looking at the small mountain of baby stuff on the counter, under the row of lights from the makeup mirror. Their baby stuff, for their kid—for Katie. He blinks at it, grins, then stuffs the phone in his pocket and runs back into the other room.
"Which way did they go?" he asks. Everybody stares at him, and he thinks for a second about explaining, but no, he can't—he has to tell Gerard first.
"Outside, I think," Mikey says finally, shrugging.
"Down the hall, second left, and then right at the poster of the Who," Brian says, more helpfully. "Is this something I should know about?"
"Later," Frank promises, already out the door. The hallways are busy, but Frank's small and fast, and he gets outside in record time, exploding out the doors and smacking straight into security. Fortunately, the guy—his nametag says RALPH, and he's built like an honest-to-God brick shithouse—just turns around and raises an eyebrow.
"Gerard Way," Frank says quickly, "the dude with the baby and the fucked up hair. Which way did he go?"
Ralph glances over at his partner, who shrugs. "Back inside, I think," he says. "He was saying something about food?"
"Fuck, okay," Frank says, turning back around. "Which door?" Ralph points him to the other door, over stage right, and Frank takes off running, dodging around the clusters of people standing here and there. Ralph must call ahead on the walkie-talkie, because Frank sees a whole bunch of security but they just wave him past, and one of them even opens the door for him.
Inside, he pauses and checks his watch—fifteen minutes, fuck—then grabs the nearest person who looks like he knows what's going on.
"Dude with a baby," he says. "Probably singing, maybe looking for waffles."
"Straight ahead, hang a left before the stairwell, and then it's the third door on your right," the guy says, not even looking up from his phone. God bless the music industry, seriously, Frank thinks, and God bless their ridiculous rockstar lifestyle, where so long as nothing's broken or bleeding, nobody really cares.
The third room on the right, though, while it does have waffles, is depressingly empty of both babies and rockstars. Frank sighs, then turns around and walks straight into Gerard.
"Frank, hey," Gerard says, "I thought I saw you running by." Katie's propped up on his shoulder, chewing peacefully on his hair; Frank doesn't even think, just steps forward and wraps his arms around both of them. Gerard rolls with it, shifting his grip on Katie until he can put an arm around Frank's shoulders, too.
"You okay?" Gerard asks. "Do you want us to—we can stall for a little, if you need some time." Frank looks up at him, grinning as hard as he can, feeling like he's going to start fucking levitating any second now. He wants to play the show right now, wants to play ten shows, wants to fling himself around the stage and climb the walls from sheer fucking glee. At the same time, though, he wants to stay right where he is, with Gerard and Katie, holding them together and never moving again. "Frank?"
"We get to keep her, Gee," he says, because Gerard's actually starting to look a little worried. "Gee, she's ours." Gerard blinks a few times, frowning, mouthing Frank's words back at him like they're in French or fucking Swahili, like he's trying to get the sounds to make sense.
"Ours?" he says, and then he starts grinning, looking between Frank and Katie. "Frankie, how—"
"Cheryl called," Frank says, digging the phone out of his pocket. "She says that if we want her—and I figured that—" Gerard is nodding frantically, snatching the phone out of Frank's hand and dialing with his thumb.
"Cheryl, hey," he says, "Frank just found me—is it true?" He listens, nodding, and his grin somehow gets even bigger. Frank catches his eye and beams back, bouncing on his heels a little. "That's great, yeah," Gerard says. Behind Frank, the door opens: when he turns around, it's Bob and Ray and Mikey, looking confused and concerned and, in Mikey's case, more than a little smug. Behind them, Brian is holding up his watch and pointing, eyebrows raised.
Gerard nods again, gives Brian the thumbs-up. "Listen, Cheryl, we need to go play the show now, so—yeah, great, sure." She says something else, and Gerard grins, looking at Frank. "I know, man," he says. "Yeah, you too. M-hmm. Great, bye." He turns off the phone, tosses it onto the table, resettles Katie in his arms.
"Well?" Bob says. "And? What?" Gerard takes a deep breath, then hesitates, biting his lip. And dramatic moments are great, and all, but on the other hand they have to be on stage in about two minutes. Frank rolls his eyes.
"We're keeping her," he says, ignoring Gerard's squawk of outrage. "That was Cheryl, we've got the okay—" and then he can't breathe anymore, caught up in a laughing, giddy group-hug, all five of them wrapped together around Katie, talking over each other.
"Congratulations, motherfuckers," Brian says, leaning against the doorframe, "now give me your daughter and go make some music." He's smiling, though, and he takes Katie carefully, like she's something infinitely fucking precious, which she goddamn fucking is.
They make it to the stage with about a minute to spare, and wait for the last adjustments, lights and mikes and cables. Gerard's and Mikey talk quietly while they get their earpieces and everything; ahead of them, Ray and Bob are having a pow-wow, hair weaving together. Frank stands as still as he can, but his fingers are twitching and he keeps bouncing up and down without meaning too, energy fizzing.
"Frank," Gerard says, grabbing his arm, "Frank, hey." He pulls them into a corner, and for a second they just stand there, grinning at each other like idiots.
"Sorry," Frank says, "for, you know, stealing your thunder."
Gerard shrugs. "I've got lots of thunder," he says. "You can have as much as you want." Frank grins, and Gerard smiles back—and then, without any kind of warning, he's pushing Frank against a pillar, kissing him, sudden and messy and unexpected and perfect. Frank kisses him back, grabbing onto Gerard's shoulders and pulling them together, biting Gerard's lower lip and laughing into his mouth.
It only lasts a second or two, and then Ray's pulling them apart. He's rolling his eyes at them, but he's got it, too, that same crazy energy that makes it impossible to do anything but grin. His hair looks more excited than usual, even.
"Guys," he says, "guys, me and Bob were thinking—what if we open with Best Day Ever?"
"Dude," Frank says, "fuck, that's a fucked up song." It makes a weird kind of sense, though—like a secret, like a celebration only they know about. "I'm in," he says.
Beside him, Gerard nods, and then the lights are going down and it's fucking showtime.
*
They blow through the song, faster than ever, all of them beaming at each other, too happy to even know what to do with it. The kids are all blown away—none of them were expecting it, but they go fucking insane, dancing and laughing and screaming along. At the end, Gerard stands up on an amp, waving his arms around until they settle down.
"Thank you very fucking much, everybody," he says. "That's a very special song, and this is a very special night for us, and it all goes out to a very special lady—Miss Katherine Elizabeth, who can youtube it when she's older." None of them know what the hell he's talking about it, but they scream anyways, and when Gerard asks them to say, "Hi, Katie!", they count off with him and shout as loud as they can. Bob crashes his cymbals and counts off, and then they're going again, song after song, flying forward.
Frank always loves the crowds they get, loves the way the kids love the music, loves looking out into the crowd and seeing a sea of motion. Tonight, though, is even better, somehow. The crowd may not know what's going on, but they're sure as hell picking up on something; they're on fire, laughing and crying and waving frantically. Everywhere Frank looks, he sees people grinning, fucking beaming, and it just makes him play better, harder, wilder. Gerard sees it, too—he keeps asking them to bring the lights up so he can see, "all your beautiful fucking faces, come on you guys, let me see how you're doing."
A few songs in, Gerard comes swaggering over to Frank's side of the stage and pulls him in for a kiss, hard and fast and deep. It's not that out of the ordinary, for their version of ordinary: the crowd screams, Frank grins, and Mikey pretends he doesn't know any of them.
This time, though, Gerard stays put. No sauntering back over to the other side to do something inappropriate to Ray's hair, no poking Mikey in the side: he stays draped over Frank's shoulders for two verses and a chorus, singing into Frank's ears. Frank leans back against him, closes his eyes, keeps on playing, feeling like he's going to split out of his skin and start fucking floating any second now.
When they finish, Gerard squeezes Frank tight, shouting something about the future into the mike. Before he goes back center stage, he kisses the side of Frank's neck—nothing dirty, just the brush of lips on sweaty skin, but it feels pornographic, and all of a sudden Frank's guitar is the only thing keeping him from being hugely inappropriate in front of several thousand teenagers.
The rest of the show is the same way. They're all on fire, electric and insane, feeding off each other's energy and going higher, harder, faster. Gerard spends even more time than usual on Frank's side, wrapped around Frank like a big smelly blanket every chance he gets. His hands in Frank's hair, on Frank's hips, brushing his fingertips along the insides of Frank's elbows. Frank leans into it, goes along with it, bites Gerard's neck when he gets the chance and feels Gerard shake against him, hears his voice crack and stutter. It's nothing different from anything they've done before—the same actions, the same reactions—but it all feels new, uncertain and dangerous and hot.
As soon as they get offstage, Gerard is plastering Frank up against the wall, pressed close enough that Frank can feel him breathing, can feel his heartbeat, hot and frantic. Gerard doesn't try to kiss him, though, which Frank kind of expects. Instead, Gerard seems happy to just get as close as he can, breathing Frank in, counting on the wall to hold them both up. His hands are on Frank's back, under the hem of his shirt, pushing it up so that Frank's feeling cold concrete under his skin, and, seriously, what the fuck is Gerard waiting for?
Gerard takes a deep breath and pulls back, and he's got stars in his eyes—actual motherfucking stars, Frank would swear. He can't look away.
"Frank," he says, "Frank, we get to keep her."
Frank's throat is weirdly tight, and he doesn't think it's from screaming along through nearly every song. "Yeah," he says. "We do." He swallows. "Do you want to go talk to the guys?"
Gerard drops his head back onto Frank's shoulder and says something that sounds a lot like "no," and Frank sighs. On the one hand, it's not like he's not enjoying this whole human blanket thing Gerard's got going on, but on the other hand, he'd really appreciate some clue as to what the fuck is going on. He grabs Gerard by his hair and hauls his head back, lifting him up until he's not trying to talk through skin anymore, and asks him to repeat himself.
Gerard rolls his eyes. "No, Frank," he says. "I want to go back to the bus, and I want to see our daughter," and damn if that word doesn't make Frank's heart skip, just a little, "and then I want to go into the back lounge with you and not come out until fucking Utah."
"Um," Frank stares at him.
"Frank," Gerard says, "Frank, seriously. We're raising a kid together, and we make out at a drop of a hat, and I trust you more than anyone on the planet except maybe Mikey. And Ray," he adds, "and, I mean, probably also Brian and Bob and, like, my mom—um." Frank raises an eyebrow, hoping against hope that Gerard will start making sense sometime soon. "Also," Gerard says, pressing his hips forward, not much but enough, "also, I want to blow you."
"That's beautiful, Gee," Frank says. "But don't you think maybe you're forgetting something?"
Gerard stares at him for a second, then rolls his eyes. "Of course I love you, fucker," he says, leaning in again to press his lips against Frank's neck. "What, you didn't know that already? I tell you that all the fucking time."
"Yeah, but—"
"But nothing, dumbass. Now, come on." Gerard pulls back, tugs Frank away from the wall and back onto his feet. "I have to call Cheryl, and we have to celebrate, and then I really want to get naked with you." He's pulling his phone out even while he walks away, giving one-armed hugs to Mikey and Ray and letting Bob pick him up and spin him around.
It's a pretty compelling argument, really. Frank grins and follows him.
*
It's not that easy, of course. By the time they get outside, there's already a line of kids stretching along the side of the venue, clutching their CDs and their ticket stubs, waving past the security guys. Frank stares after Gerard, heading back to the bus, then sighs and goes over to them.
Normally, he loves this stuff—seeing the kids, talking to them, being an actual person instead of some dude rocking out onstage. And the kids are just the same, really, nervous and excited and giggling and Frank fucking loves his job, seriously, but right now—
"BOB BRYAR," a girl down the line screams, and sure enough, Bob's standing next to Frank, one hand on his shoulder, trying not to glare at the flashing cameras. Frank turns to him, trying to figure out what's wrong; Bob basically never comes out on the line.
"Katie's freaking out," Bob says, "and Gerard's too busy calling everyone he knows to deal with her." He takes Frank by the shoulder and spins him around, pointing him back towards the bus. "I'll take over here."
"Bob," Frank says, grabbing Bob's shoulder and squeezing, "Bob Bryar, you're a motherfucking rock star."
Bob rolls his eyes. "No shit, Iero," he says. "Now get the fuck back to the bus." He's grumbling, but his eyes are shining, and he lets Frank hug him before shoving him away.
"Who's Katie?" somebody shouts, as Frank's walking away, and the question gets picked up by the rest of them, people shouting up and down the line.
"Katie," Bob says, loud enough that Frank can hear him, "is a very special little lady." Frank grins, and walks a little faster.
Ray and Mikey are heading towards him; Frank grabs them both and hugs them as hard as he can, first Ray and then Mikey.
"We're going to rescue Bob," Ray says.
"By which we actually mean we're going to rescue the cameras from Bob," Mikey adds. Frank nods.
"Come back when you can," he says, and keeps going towards the bus.
Gerard's there, and so is Brian, the two of them handing the phone back and forth, looking over a stack of papers at the table.
"Yeah, Cheryl," Gerard says, "no, that makes sense." He gestures at Katie, grumbling in her carseat. She whacks Frank on the nose with her pacifier when he picks her up, but he doesn't mind. She's theirs, now—she can spit on him all she wants.
"Hey, kiddo," he says. "Want something to eat?"
By the time she's fed and cleaned back up, the guys have come back, and Gerard and Brian have finished with the paperwork, so it's time for celebrating. Katie gets passed around the room a dozen times, and takes it pretty well, but when she starts grizzling, Gerard takes her back. He's sitting on Frank, now, the two of them squashed together in an armchair with Katie on top. Frank can't really breathe, but it's definitely worth it.
Naturally, Mikey gets Mrs. Way on the phone just as Katie's drifting off. Gerard tries to juggle the phone and his daughter at the same time, but it doesn't really work.
"Here," Frank says, "Gee, let me." Gerard smiles at him and hands Katie over, and Frank holds her while Gerard talks to his mother, telling her about the adoption and the show and everything. Frank tries to look at something else, anything else, but it's a lost cause—he can stare at Gerard, or he can stare at Katie, but that's basically it.
Gerard hangs up the phone, drops it onto the table, looks at Frank. Frank looks back, and suddenly it's just like the green room all over again: sudden tension, sharp and indefinable, making Frank bite his lip and Gerard fidget. His knees are draped across Frank's lap, and he kicks his feet a little, bouncing his heels against Frank's shins.
"Katie's asleep," he says, finally, and when Frank looks down to check, he finds her passed out on his arms, frowning a little in her sleep.
"Huh," Frank says. "We should probably put her down for the night," he says, watching her face. "I mean, the guys will probably be up for a while, and we don't want them to wake her up." Gerard nods, then takes Katie back carefully and stands up.
"We're going to go put her to bed, guys," Gerard says. His ears are turning pink, and he's not making eye contact. Bob and Mikey are hiding smiles, and Ray is out-and-out grinning. Brian rolls his eyes, but waves them away, and Frank grabs the car seat and follows Gerard.
Katie makes a little noise when Gerard sets her down in the crib, and Frank peers over the edge, watching her fuss at the blankets without actually waking up. It hits him, all over again, that she's theirs, now—she's his daughter, his and Gerard's, for the rest of their lives.
"It's fucking amazing, isn't it?" Frank turns around, planning to tell Gerard that, yes, it is—but Gerard is standing right there, closer than Frank was expecting, and he takes all of Frank's momentum and uses it to reverse their positions, spinning Frank around and walking him backwards. They hit the door with a thump, and it rattles in its hinges; Frank thinks he hears some catcalling from the front room, but then Gerard's kissing him, and he's not really listening to anything that far away.
The kiss is oddly chaste: they're just barely leaning into each other, touching at the lips and the knees. Gerard puts his hands on Frank's face, folding his arms awkwardly between their bodies. He's kind of elbowing Frank in the chest, but he's also licking slow and careful at the corner of Frank's mouth, like it's the single most important thing he'll ever do. He shivers when Frank touches his arm, and sucks in a breath when Frank scrapes his fingernails gently down his back.
They kiss and they kiss and they kiss, hesitant and awkward and aching, and then Bob bangs on the other side of the door hard enough that Frank whacks his head on it.
"There's a bed back there, fuckers," Bob says. "Use it, or I will end you." Gerard cups his hand around the back of Frank's neck, rubbing gently, and tips his head down against Frank's shoulder.
"Fuck you, asshole," Frank says, leaning back into Gerard's grip. "Katie's back here! What kind of perverts do you think we are?"
"Use the bed," Bob says, implacable. "You're traumatizing Mikey." There's an indistinct shout from the other room, and Bob laughs a little. "Ray, too," he adds. "Seriously."
Gerard doesn't step back at all: he's staring at Frank's mouth from about three inches away, close enough that every time Gerard breathes out, Frank gets goosebumps down his neck. He's got his arms braced on the door, crossed behind Frank's head, and he's pressing his hips towards Frank, slow and insistent, and, huh. Maybe they are going to fuck in here, actually.
"I mean," Gerard says, soft and dark, "it's not like she's going to remember it, right?"
Frank swallows hard. "Yeah, exactly." Outside, he hears Bob walking back down the bus, hears the music in the main room get that much louder. "Plus, she's asleep." He pushes off from the door—it rattles again, and he hears the guys yelling at them again, but oh well—and steers Gerard over to the bed, one slow step at a time until he's sitting down. Frank pushes his knees apart and stands between them, leaning down to kiss Gerard again and then again, sliding his hand just under the collar of Gerard's shirt. They tilt gradually backwards, still kissing, until Gerard is flat on his back on the bed and Frank is braced over him, hips pressed together and feet still on the floor.
"Wait," Gerard says, when they pull apart for a second, "wait, hang on, I'm about to fall on my fucking ass, here." He somehow manages to wriggle back onto the bed—rubbing every inch of his body up against Frank along the way—and sprawls there, propped up on his elbows and staring at Frank. "Well?"
Frank launches himself forward, knee-walking awkwardly up the bed so he can straddle Gerard and lean down and kiss him again, biting at Gerard's lips, pressing their hips together again and feeling Gerard hard against him. He hasn't felt this ridiculously desperate since sometime in the eleventh grade, but Gerard is just as bad, shoving his hands up Frank's shirt and gasping into Frank's ear every time Frank grinds down against him.
It's awkward as hell, really. Both of them are trying to be quiet, for Katie and in the vain hope that the guys won't hear every single detail, and the bed is not really that big or that comfortable, no matter what the rental place said. Frank's shaking, literally fucking trembling with how much he wants this, and Gerard keeps blinking and taking shallow unsteady breaths. They can't manage to stop kissing, not even for a second, and somehow four hands makes taking Frank's pants off harder than usual, not easier.
Suddenly, Gerard's eyes go wide, and he's shoving Frank backward, sitting up. Frank looks over toward the crib, trying to listen and hear what's going on. There's nothing, though, unless Gerard's freaky bat hearing is picking up something—but then Gerard yanks Frank's shirt over his head and shoves his hands down Frank's pants.
"Move, fucker," he says, when Frank stares at him. "Blowjobs, remember?" He tugs at Frank's jeans, frowning, then reaches up and pushes until Frank's flat on his back on the bed. "Work with me here, come on," he says, drumming his fingers on the bare skin at Frank's hip. As soon as Frank lifts hips up, Gerard is there, hooking his fingers under pants and boxers together and pulling them down. Frank doesn't even have time to kick his feet free before Gerard is right there, pressing Frank's hips into the bed and sucking his cock.
Gerard is sloppy and enthusiastic, like he maybe hasn't done this in a while, but he's been thinking about it a whole lot. There's that same sort of gap between theory and practice that Frank remembers from his own blowjob-hiatuses: knowing what to do, but not quite having the muscle memory to accomplish it. Gerard licks his way up one side of Frank's cock and down the other, his fingernails digging into Frank's thighs, making little noises to himself every so often. Frank slides his fingers into Gerard's hair, tugging just a little, and he gets a bite to the hip for that one, but he also gets Gerard's mouth on his dick.
Gerard sucks hard on the tip of Frank's cock and then slides his mouth down, pausing every so often, breathing in through his nose, like he's trying to remember how to coordinate everything. It's awkward, sure, but it's also really hot, and it's also been kind of a while, and Frank just played a concert with Gerard basically dry-humping him every second chorus. It's really no surprise that he gets close fast, digging his heels into the sheets and biting his own wrist to keep mostly quiet. When it's too much, he tugs on Gerard's hair again, pulling him back, trying to be polite for a whole ten seconds of his adult life. Gerard lets himself be pulled back, but grabs Frank's wrist when he goes to jerk himself off, pinning it to the bed and glaring up at Frank.
"Fuck you," Gerard says. "Save that for when my voice is cracking." He drags his thumb along the inside of Frank's thigh and grins when Frank shivers. "We don't have a show until Tuesday," he says, licking his lips. "So if it's all the same to you, I'd really rather swallow."
He doesn't wait for Frank to answer, just slides his mouth back down, sucking and then swallowing, hot and wet and tight and amazing. Frank's hips jerk, and he twists his fingers tighter in Gerard's hair, giving up on politeness in favor of coming in Gerard's mouth.
Gerard chokes, just a little, which Frank could have predicted—swallowing is one of those things that's great in theory but usually fairly messy in practice—but he crawls up the bed and flops down on his side next to Frank, wiping his face on his shirt and grinning.
"Um," Frank says. "Um, wow." Gerard's grabbed the bottle of water from the headboard and is swishing it around in his mouth, cheeks pushed out; he kicks Frank in the shins, rolls his eyes, and swallows.
"Don't sound so impressed, fucker," he says. "I mean, there's totally room for improvement, but that doesn't mean you have to be a dick about it."
"Speaking of dicks," Frank says, sliding his hand down Gerard's side. Gerard groans at the pun, covering his face with his hand, but he lifts his hips up, pushing into Frank's hand.
"Fuck you," Gerard says. "You're going to condemn our daughter to a lifetime of puns and social isolation and—oh, oh fuck." Frank grins, sliding his hand back down Gerard's dick, twisting just a little. Gerard arches his back, thrusting up, fucking Frank's hand, and he keeps making all these tiny choked-off noises that are both completely ridiculous and extremely fucking hot. He's hard and desperate, twisting and shivering while Frank jacks him off, twisting his fingers in the sheets. Frank presses his fingers just a little lower, cupping Gerard's balls, and Gerard fucking moans, low and dirty and way too loud.
"Shut the fuck up," Frank says, leaning in to kiss him. "Jesus, and I'm going to traumatize her?" He bites Gerard's lip, then licks it, not waiting to hear the answer. Gerard still groans, but it's at least muffled, some. Frank keeps kissing him, slow and wet, his hand steady on Gerard's dick, twisting and squeezing until Gerard jerks his head away, panting, hissing through his teeth.
"Fuck," he says, "fucking—Frank, fuck—" and then he shakes his hand, pulls his hand free of the tangle of their bodies and bites down on the heel of his palm, hard enough that Frank can see the skin around his teeth going white from pressure.
"You okay?" he asks, but doesn't stop moving his hand; Gerard nods his head jerkily, still chewing on his own hand, eyes closed. Frank leans in, kissing the angle of Gerard's jaw, the smooth sweep of his neck, scraping his teeth against Gerard's skin just enough to win a full-body shiver. He bites down just below Gerard's ear, licks carefully over the spot, bites down again and sucks hard, holding the skin between his teeth. Gerard shivers, his hips stuttering; Frank grins against his pulse, moves down a quarter of an inch, and does it all again.
It's been a long, day—Frank hasn't had to wait this long since sophomore year of high school, and maybe not even then—and Gerard spent the entire show grinding on Frank. It's no surprise that Gerard lasts a whole five minutes before he's coming all over Frank's fist and his own stomach. Frank grins and strokes him through it, his hand slick and wet, Gerard shaking occasionally as he relaxes into the bed.
"Okay," he says finally, opening his eyes again, "okay, fine, that was awesome." He's sweaty and covered in spunk; his hair is greasy and mussed; he's got a row of tooth-shaped dents across the ball of his hand and the beginnings of a pretty ridiculous hickey starting behind his left ear.
Frank curls up beside him, wiping his hand on Gerard's shirt and flinging one leg across Gerard's knees. They breathe together, cooling back down, skin sticking and pulling just a little when Gerard shifts his weight.
Frank's halfway hard again, just from watching Gerard get off, from touching him and kissing him and feeling him. He grinds against Gerard's hip a little, experimentally; not quite yet, but maybe in a little while. Gerard makes an interested noise and pulls Frank a little closer, and that's when Katie starts crying. Frank looks up immediately, whacking his forehead against Gerard's chin.
For a second they stare at each other, hesitant and carnal—and then Frank rolls away, hunting for his boxers, handing Gerard's over when he finds them first. His, for whatever reason, are on the night table, halfway inside the open drawer. He grabs them, turns them right side out, pulls them on, and knee-walks across the bed to join Gerard at the crib.
"Shhh," Gerard says, "shhh, don't cry, we're right here." He holds Katie against his shoulder, rubbing her back in slow, careful circles. "We've gonna take care of you, don't worry."
And they will. If Frank's sure of anything, he's sure of that.
Part Two
"Come on, Carl," Frank says, knowing he's begging and not caring. "Come on, you've got to stop for gas soon anyways, right?" Carl glances significantly at the gas gauge, which is sitting solidly at the halfway point. "See," Frank says, "see, you're half empty!"
"I prefer to think of it as half-full," Carl says, the smug bastard. "Why don't you just crack a window and smoke outside like everybody else does, Frankie?"
"Come on, Carl," Frank says, "you know that never works." All he wants in life is to stand in a parking lot and smoke a cigarette or three, and Carl's being a pissy little bitch about it. "Carl," he says, "Carl, come on."
"No can do, buddy," Carl says. "You're just going to have to tough it out like the rest of us." Frank sighs and goes back to the lounge. There's not even anything good on TV, this late at night; it's the weird in-between time after the late-night specials are all done and before the early morning news has started. The only half-decent thing is Law & Order, and it's an episode Frank's seen before.
"It's the wife," he says, "her and the super," but nobody's awake to care, and he winds up watching anyways.
Half an hour later, though, the bus starts slowing down, turns a corner and then another corner, and comes shakily to a halt. Frank peeks out the blinds and sees a BP sign, lets out a yelp, and goes running for the front of the bus. Carl's leaning against the side, smoking, and he laughs when Frank comes tumbling out.
"Here," he says, offering Frank a light. "You know we were planning to stop anyway, right?" He takes a drag, grins at Frank, lets it out slow and smug. "We stagger the gas, so that if one of us runs too low, the other one can keep going."
"Thank you," Frank says, taking a drag. "Thank you, I did not know that. Also, fuck you, you fucking asshole." Carl doubles over laughing, and Frank heads over across the parking lot, where he can watch the buses and smoke in peace and quiet.
When he's halfway through his third cigarette, the door to the Baby Bus opens, and Gerard staggers out, looking bleary and exhausted. Frank waves at him, but he just stares around blankly.
"Gerard," Frank calls, waving again. "Hey, fuckhead, over here!" The swearing seems to get Gerard's attention: he waves back, then starts trudging across the parking lot to Frank.
"The fuck happened?" Gerard says, sleep-dull and blinking owlishly at Frank.
Frank shrugs, takes another drag. "Stopped for gas," he says. "I decided I wanted a smoke." Belatedly, Gerard notices the cigarette Frank's holding. He's staring at it like it's got the answer to life, the universe, and everything in there somewhere. Frank offers him the pack, but he shakes his head.
"I shouldn't," he says. "I mean, I've been meaning to quit for fucking forever, you know? And now, with Katie—" he trails off, shrugging. "I'm gonna try to stick to it, you know?" He's still staring at Frank's cigarette, though. "It smells amazing, though."
Frank offers it to him again, but he shakes his head. "No, just—here, let me." He steps forward, pressing himself against Frank, burying his nose in Frank's hair. His arms are around Frank's shoulders, and he drums out a rhythm on the back of Frank's neck while he takes a deep breath.
"God," he says, "fuck, this is so fucking gross, but it also smells so good, you know?"
"Secondhand smoke," Frank says, and Gerard sighs happily. "You're disgusting," Frank says, conversationally, and feels Gerard grin against his neck.
"You love it, motherfucker," Gerard says, and, well. That's kind of true, is the thing.
"Five minutes, assholes," Carl yells, climbing back onto the bus. They stay there for four minutes and thirty seconds, and have to run across the parking lot to make it. They're both wheezing by the time they hit the stairs, and Carl's rolling his eyes at them, and it's stupid and uncomfortable and kind of ridiculously perfect.
*
"Frank," Ray says. "I love you like a brother, but if your daughter doesn't stop screaming sometime soon, I am not going the be held responsible for my actions."
"Me either," Mikey says. Bob's got his noise-canceling headphones on, which pretty much gives his opinion on the matter. Frank shifts Katie onto his other shoulder and flips them all off, but they don't seem to notice.
"You know, you guys could ride on the other bus for a few days," Gerard says. "It wouldn't kill you."
"I thought she was done being pissy," Mikey says. "She seemed good this morning."
"She was eating, Mikey," Frank says. "What did you expect?" Mikey just shrugs and goes back to his sidekick, though, and Frank goes back to walking a screaming Katie back and forth around the bus. She's little, so she still can't get that much volume, but she can apparently go for several hours without needing to stop or even breathe. Frank is a little bit impressed, and also going deaf in one ear.
Frank walks down the row of bunks, makes a quick tour of the back lounge, switches Katie to his other arm, walks back out, and smacks straight into Gerard.
"Here," Gerard says, his hand on Frank's shoulder. "Here, I'll take her for a bit." Frank doesn't hesitate, just hands her over; Gerard settles her in his arms. Katie doesn't miss a beat, keeps wailing up a storm.
"I'm gonna go call my mom," Frank says, reaching up into his bunk and feeling around for his phone. "Maybe she'll know what to do." Anyways, he swore up and down that he'd call her once a week until Katie was five, and it's been six days. Gerard nods and heads back toward the lounge, bouncing Katie gently in his arms.
"Frankie!" she says, "How are you? How's your little girl?"
"Loud," he says. "Loud as fuck." He can hear her from in here, still, yelling her head off while Gerard sings something to her.
"Frank!"
"She's not here, ma," he says, sitting down on the edge of Gerard's bunk. "She's in the other room, with Gerard."
His mom hmmms down the phone line at him, and he rolls his eyes. Some things never change, and his mom's disapproving noises definitely fall in that category. "Well, why is she being noisy, then?"
Frank sighs, leaning backward and rolling his shoulders around. "No idea. She's clean and dry, doesn't want any food—"
"Did you burp her?"
"Mikey did, yeah." They'd remembered to put a towel on his shoulder, for a change, but she'd gotten his hair anyways; Mikey had raised his eyebrows and stared at her, and Gerard had laughed until he fell off the couch. "I don't know, ma. She just seems to be freaked out, you know?"
"Well, it's a little early for teething," his ma says, "but that could be it, I suppose."
"Yeah?" Frank gives up and settles all the way into Gerard's bunk, twisting around until he's on one side, with the phone propped against his ear. Gerard's pillow smells a lot like he does, sweaty and a little dirty; it's vaguely soothing. "Huh. Would that make her scream this much, though?"
"Oh, yes," she says, laughing down the phone line at him. "You screamed for three months straight, I swear."
"Yeah, well," Frank says. "She's not mine, though, ma."
Another disapproving noise, and she's rolling her eyes at him, Frank's sure of it. "Biologically, maybe not, but she's yours in every way that counts, Frankie." Frank rolls over; Gerard's mattress is weirdly lumpy. "Anyway," his mom says. "Give her the pacifier Donna sent you—you can pop it in the fridge for a bit first if you want, but don't let it get frozen."
"Thanks, ma," Frank says. "We'll give that a try. How are you all?" She gives him the run down on the neighbors and cousins and friends of the family, who's divorced, who's remarried, who's painting their house lime green. It's a long list—apparently the rest of the world is just as crazy as Frank's band, which is almost soothing—and by the time she's done, the noises from the other room have quieted down some.
"Listen, mom," he says. "I think she's calmed down a little, so I'm gonna go check on them all—I'll call you back in a few days?"
"You'd better," she says. "Let me know if it does turn out to be teeth; I'll send you some more things." No use telling her that they can stop at stores themselves; between the four of them, the moms of My Chem have already sent half a dozen boxes of Useful Baby Stuff. He says goodbye, tells her he loves her, and closes the phone, staring up at the bunk above Gerard's.
"Hey, Frank," Gerard says, sticking his head in the curtains and freaking Frank the fuck out. "Sorry, just—you know that she's yours too, right?" Frank glares at him, trying to get his breathing back to normal. Gerard picks the weirdest fucking times to actually be stealthy—most of the time, Frank can hear him coming a mile away.
"The fuck, motherfucker," Frank says, sitting up. "There's a rule against that shit." Rule number 4 on the list they made when they first started touring in actual buses: Knock First, Even For Bunks. There's only so many times you can deal with being interrupted while you're jerking off, after all.
"You were on the phone with your mom, asshole," Gerard says, rolling his eyes. "Also, this is my bunk, so the rules totally don't apply." He helps Frank sit back up, but stays standing where he is, leaning into the bunk, into Frank's space. "I mean it, though, really," he says, frowning just a little. "I heard you, when I was walking out—she's your kid, too, Frank," he says.
"Yeah, I know," Frank says. His throat feels a little tight. "Two-parent families are more stable, more likely to get approved by CPS—"
"Bullshit," Gerard says. "Or, I mean, it's not, but that's not what I'm talking about." He rests his hand on Frank's shoulder. "You're her parent, too, Frank."
Frank rolls his eyes, swings his legs around to get out of the bed. Gerard doesn't move, though, even when Frank squirms around and sticks his legs out into the aisle. He leans in, bracing his hands on the bunk above, and glares at Frank.
"I mean it, asshole," he says. "What, you think you just look good on paper?" Frank shrugs—put it like that, and he sounds like a whiney brat, but at the same time he's not Katie's dad, not the way Gerard is. "Well, you're wrong," Gerard says. "Besides, you don't look that good on paper."
Frank kicks Gerard in the knee, but not very hard. "Shut up, fucker," he says. "I'm gorgeous." Gerard takes a deep breath, opens his mouth—then snaps it shut and backs away. Frank drops out of the bunk, then stumbles against Gerard when the bus hits a bad stretch of road. Gerard leans against him, heavy and exhausted; it's been a long couple of days.
"What did your mom say?" Gerard asks, his face against Frank's hair. "About Katie and stuff?"
Frank has to swallow a few times before he can answer; bus air is always weirdly dry. "She said she might be teething."
Gerard nods. "That could be it, yeah." He yawns. "She screamed herself out, I think—just passed out in my arms, it was hilarious. Poor kid, though." He shakes his head slowly, resting his pointy chin on Frank's shoulder. "That's gotta suck."
"Yeah," Frank says. "But your mom sent us that stuff, remember? Apparently we can stick it in the fridge, and it'll help." Gerard nods again, but doesn't make any effort to move. He's probably exhausted—they all are, after two straight days of fussy baby.
"Gee," he says eventually. "Gerard, come on, if we stay here we'll just wind up falling over the next time we hit a pothole." Gerard takes a deep breath, then straightens up. From the other room, they hear Katie starting to cry again. "Come on," Frank says again. "Let's go check on your daughter's teeth."
"Our daughter," Gerard says, and pushes Frank ahead of him, his hand warm on Frank's shoulder.
*
Forty-five minutes until they're onstage in Detroit, and of course Katie's having a hissy fit like none other. She's been fed and burped—today, Ray gets to be the one with baby spit on his neck—and her diaper's clean, for the moment. It's slightly less stressful now that they can see the tiny white tooth poking out of her gum, but that doesn't mean it isn't loud.
"Fuck," Bob says. "Where's her little chew toy?" Mikey digs one out of the pocket of the bag, but Frank snatches it away from him before he can stick it in her mouth. There's a crowd of venue staff outside the door, whispering to each other and trying to pretend that they're not listening at the door.
"Can one of you guys wash this off, please?" They go from staring past him to staring at him, and then a guy with a bright green fauxhawk reaches out and takes the pacifier from Frank.
"Sure thing," he says. "Just be a second." He disappears around the corner.
"Thanks," Frank says, and shuts the door behind him. The hallway is suddenly, eerily silent, and Frank stares at the crowd of gawkers until one by one they remember stuff that they're supposed to be doing and wander off. The guy with the green hair—"Jake", he says when Frank asks—comes back with a clean pacifier and a cup of ice, and Frank thanks him before ducking back into the room.
"Here," he says, "one baby chew toy, clean enough for human consumption again." Katie quiets down for a minute when she first gets it, but then spits it back out into Brian's hands, and oh, god, it's going to be a long evening.
Brian tries, and so does everybody else, but nothing seems to work; she calms down when Frank takes her, but only a little bit. Gerard's in the other room, warming up, but Katie's screaming her head off, still, so Frank goes over to the door. There's a sign taped to the door—WARMING UP DON'T DISTURB THIS MEANS YOU—but Frank ignores it and bangs on the door until Gerard pokes his head out, disheveled and confused.
"Can you warm up with her?" Frank asks, holding Katie out. Gerard takes her automatically, supporting her neck and cradling her against his chest. "Sorry, just—she's been going for a while, and Bob's starting to get the crazy eyes again."
Gerard sighs. "Sure, yeah," he says. "We'll go out back, maybe walk around a little—with security, Christ, do I look like a fucking idiot?" He shifts her onto his shoulder, patting her back soothingly, and grins at Frank—tired, frustrated, but still glad.
"I'm not going to answer that," Frank says, and steps back when Gerard tries to kick him. "Twenty minutes, okay?"
"Half an hour, fucker," Gerard says, heading off down the hallway, and then, "Now, Katie, that's not a word to repeat, okay?"
Frank watches him go, grinning, and then ducks into the room he'd been using to warm up. Gerard's going to wander around out back with Katie, singing her their songs and getting stared at by venue security, and then he's going to have to rush back in when Katie's diaper needs changing, and he's not going to know where anything is. Better to set all the stuff out now, so they can get her changed, hand her back to Schechter, and still have time to wash his hands before they have to go onstage.
He's just trying to figure out where Gerard has stashed the baby wipes—they're not in the pocket where they usually are, so he's reduced to sorting through the main compartment, where they're probably buried under action figures and water bottles and other shit that has absolutely fuck all to do with changing a baby—when Gerard's phone rings.
"What the hell is the point of having a goddamn phone if you never—" Frank says, digging it out of the bag and looking at the display. CHERYL (CPS), it blinks, and he stares at it, the sounds of Somewhere Over the Rainbow echoing in his ears, before he flips it open. "Hello?"
"Gerard? It's Cheryl," she says, "and I know this is a bad time, but—"
"It's Frank, actually," he says. "Gerard's with Katie, trying to get her to calm down. If you want, though, I can try to figure out—"
"No, no," she says, "It's fine, I can tell you." She makes a funny little noise, like she's having trouble breathing, and Frank holds the phone tighter, waiting for it, bracing for impact. "The evaluation just came back, and you're approved—if you want Katie, still, you can keep her."
"Okay, I'll—really?" he asks, the reality of it sinking in. "Wait, fuck, really?"
"Yes, really," she says, and now that Frank knows, he feels like he can hear her smiling. "I mean, you'll still have to check in with us a couple times a month, just so we can make sure—but I don't think we're going to have any problems on that front."
"No," Frank says, not even really hearing her, listening to the blood rushing in his ears. "No, yeah, I mean—can I call you back?" he asks, suddenly. "Or, like—I just have to go find Gee, now," he says.
"I understand, Frank," Cheryl says. "Have him call me when you guys get the chance, okay?"
"Yeah, sure," he says, and then, remembering, "hey, listen, thank you so much. Seriously—"
"Congratulations, Frank," she says, and then the line goes dead.
For a second, Frank just stands there, looking at the small mountain of baby stuff on the counter, under the row of lights from the makeup mirror. Their baby stuff, for their kid—for Katie. He blinks at it, grins, then stuffs the phone in his pocket and runs back into the other room.
"Which way did they go?" he asks. Everybody stares at him, and he thinks for a second about explaining, but no, he can't—he has to tell Gerard first.
"Outside, I think," Mikey says finally, shrugging.
"Down the hall, second left, and then right at the poster of the Who," Brian says, more helpfully. "Is this something I should know about?"
"Later," Frank promises, already out the door. The hallways are busy, but Frank's small and fast, and he gets outside in record time, exploding out the doors and smacking straight into security. Fortunately, the guy—his nametag says RALPH, and he's built like an honest-to-God brick shithouse—just turns around and raises an eyebrow.
"Gerard Way," Frank says quickly, "the dude with the baby and the fucked up hair. Which way did he go?"
Ralph glances over at his partner, who shrugs. "Back inside, I think," he says. "He was saying something about food?"
"Fuck, okay," Frank says, turning back around. "Which door?" Ralph points him to the other door, over stage right, and Frank takes off running, dodging around the clusters of people standing here and there. Ralph must call ahead on the walkie-talkie, because Frank sees a whole bunch of security but they just wave him past, and one of them even opens the door for him.
Inside, he pauses and checks his watch—fifteen minutes, fuck—then grabs the nearest person who looks like he knows what's going on.
"Dude with a baby," he says. "Probably singing, maybe looking for waffles."
"Straight ahead, hang a left before the stairwell, and then it's the third door on your right," the guy says, not even looking up from his phone. God bless the music industry, seriously, Frank thinks, and God bless their ridiculous rockstar lifestyle, where so long as nothing's broken or bleeding, nobody really cares.
The third room on the right, though, while it does have waffles, is depressingly empty of both babies and rockstars. Frank sighs, then turns around and walks straight into Gerard.
"Frank, hey," Gerard says, "I thought I saw you running by." Katie's propped up on his shoulder, chewing peacefully on his hair; Frank doesn't even think, just steps forward and wraps his arms around both of them. Gerard rolls with it, shifting his grip on Katie until he can put an arm around Frank's shoulders, too.
"You okay?" Gerard asks. "Do you want us to—we can stall for a little, if you need some time." Frank looks up at him, grinning as hard as he can, feeling like he's going to start fucking levitating any second now. He wants to play the show right now, wants to play ten shows, wants to fling himself around the stage and climb the walls from sheer fucking glee. At the same time, though, he wants to stay right where he is, with Gerard and Katie, holding them together and never moving again. "Frank?"
"We get to keep her, Gee," he says, because Gerard's actually starting to look a little worried. "Gee, she's ours." Gerard blinks a few times, frowning, mouthing Frank's words back at him like they're in French or fucking Swahili, like he's trying to get the sounds to make sense.
"Ours?" he says, and then he starts grinning, looking between Frank and Katie. "Frankie, how—"
"Cheryl called," Frank says, digging the phone out of his pocket. "She says that if we want her—and I figured that—" Gerard is nodding frantically, snatching the phone out of Frank's hand and dialing with his thumb.
"Cheryl, hey," he says, "Frank just found me—is it true?" He listens, nodding, and his grin somehow gets even bigger. Frank catches his eye and beams back, bouncing on his heels a little. "That's great, yeah," Gerard says. Behind Frank, the door opens: when he turns around, it's Bob and Ray and Mikey, looking confused and concerned and, in Mikey's case, more than a little smug. Behind them, Brian is holding up his watch and pointing, eyebrows raised.
Gerard nods again, gives Brian the thumbs-up. "Listen, Cheryl, we need to go play the show now, so—yeah, great, sure." She says something else, and Gerard grins, looking at Frank. "I know, man," he says. "Yeah, you too. M-hmm. Great, bye." He turns off the phone, tosses it onto the table, resettles Katie in his arms.
"Well?" Bob says. "And? What?" Gerard takes a deep breath, then hesitates, biting his lip. And dramatic moments are great, and all, but on the other hand they have to be on stage in about two minutes. Frank rolls his eyes.
"We're keeping her," he says, ignoring Gerard's squawk of outrage. "That was Cheryl, we've got the okay—" and then he can't breathe anymore, caught up in a laughing, giddy group-hug, all five of them wrapped together around Katie, talking over each other.
"Congratulations, motherfuckers," Brian says, leaning against the doorframe, "now give me your daughter and go make some music." He's smiling, though, and he takes Katie carefully, like she's something infinitely fucking precious, which she goddamn fucking is.
They make it to the stage with about a minute to spare, and wait for the last adjustments, lights and mikes and cables. Gerard's and Mikey talk quietly while they get their earpieces and everything; ahead of them, Ray and Bob are having a pow-wow, hair weaving together. Frank stands as still as he can, but his fingers are twitching and he keeps bouncing up and down without meaning too, energy fizzing.
"Frank," Gerard says, grabbing his arm, "Frank, hey." He pulls them into a corner, and for a second they just stand there, grinning at each other like idiots.
"Sorry," Frank says, "for, you know, stealing your thunder."
Gerard shrugs. "I've got lots of thunder," he says. "You can have as much as you want." Frank grins, and Gerard smiles back—and then, without any kind of warning, he's pushing Frank against a pillar, kissing him, sudden and messy and unexpected and perfect. Frank kisses him back, grabbing onto Gerard's shoulders and pulling them together, biting Gerard's lower lip and laughing into his mouth.
It only lasts a second or two, and then Ray's pulling them apart. He's rolling his eyes at them, but he's got it, too, that same crazy energy that makes it impossible to do anything but grin. His hair looks more excited than usual, even.
"Guys," he says, "guys, me and Bob were thinking—what if we open with Best Day Ever?"
"Dude," Frank says, "fuck, that's a fucked up song." It makes a weird kind of sense, though—like a secret, like a celebration only they know about. "I'm in," he says.
Beside him, Gerard nods, and then the lights are going down and it's fucking showtime.
*
They blow through the song, faster than ever, all of them beaming at each other, too happy to even know what to do with it. The kids are all blown away—none of them were expecting it, but they go fucking insane, dancing and laughing and screaming along. At the end, Gerard stands up on an amp, waving his arms around until they settle down.
"Thank you very fucking much, everybody," he says. "That's a very special song, and this is a very special night for us, and it all goes out to a very special lady—Miss Katherine Elizabeth, who can youtube it when she's older." None of them know what the hell he's talking about it, but they scream anyways, and when Gerard asks them to say, "Hi, Katie!", they count off with him and shout as loud as they can. Bob crashes his cymbals and counts off, and then they're going again, song after song, flying forward.
Frank always loves the crowds they get, loves the way the kids love the music, loves looking out into the crowd and seeing a sea of motion. Tonight, though, is even better, somehow. The crowd may not know what's going on, but they're sure as hell picking up on something; they're on fire, laughing and crying and waving frantically. Everywhere Frank looks, he sees people grinning, fucking beaming, and it just makes him play better, harder, wilder. Gerard sees it, too—he keeps asking them to bring the lights up so he can see, "all your beautiful fucking faces, come on you guys, let me see how you're doing."
A few songs in, Gerard comes swaggering over to Frank's side of the stage and pulls him in for a kiss, hard and fast and deep. It's not that out of the ordinary, for their version of ordinary: the crowd screams, Frank grins, and Mikey pretends he doesn't know any of them.
This time, though, Gerard stays put. No sauntering back over to the other side to do something inappropriate to Ray's hair, no poking Mikey in the side: he stays draped over Frank's shoulders for two verses and a chorus, singing into Frank's ears. Frank leans back against him, closes his eyes, keeps on playing, feeling like he's going to split out of his skin and start fucking floating any second now.
When they finish, Gerard squeezes Frank tight, shouting something about the future into the mike. Before he goes back center stage, he kisses the side of Frank's neck—nothing dirty, just the brush of lips on sweaty skin, but it feels pornographic, and all of a sudden Frank's guitar is the only thing keeping him from being hugely inappropriate in front of several thousand teenagers.
The rest of the show is the same way. They're all on fire, electric and insane, feeding off each other's energy and going higher, harder, faster. Gerard spends even more time than usual on Frank's side, wrapped around Frank like a big smelly blanket every chance he gets. His hands in Frank's hair, on Frank's hips, brushing his fingertips along the insides of Frank's elbows. Frank leans into it, goes along with it, bites Gerard's neck when he gets the chance and feels Gerard shake against him, hears his voice crack and stutter. It's nothing different from anything they've done before—the same actions, the same reactions—but it all feels new, uncertain and dangerous and hot.
As soon as they get offstage, Gerard is plastering Frank up against the wall, pressed close enough that Frank can feel him breathing, can feel his heartbeat, hot and frantic. Gerard doesn't try to kiss him, though, which Frank kind of expects. Instead, Gerard seems happy to just get as close as he can, breathing Frank in, counting on the wall to hold them both up. His hands are on Frank's back, under the hem of his shirt, pushing it up so that Frank's feeling cold concrete under his skin, and, seriously, what the fuck is Gerard waiting for?
Gerard takes a deep breath and pulls back, and he's got stars in his eyes—actual motherfucking stars, Frank would swear. He can't look away.
"Frank," he says, "Frank, we get to keep her."
Frank's throat is weirdly tight, and he doesn't think it's from screaming along through nearly every song. "Yeah," he says. "We do." He swallows. "Do you want to go talk to the guys?"
Gerard drops his head back onto Frank's shoulder and says something that sounds a lot like "no," and Frank sighs. On the one hand, it's not like he's not enjoying this whole human blanket thing Gerard's got going on, but on the other hand, he'd really appreciate some clue as to what the fuck is going on. He grabs Gerard by his hair and hauls his head back, lifting him up until he's not trying to talk through skin anymore, and asks him to repeat himself.
Gerard rolls his eyes. "No, Frank," he says. "I want to go back to the bus, and I want to see our daughter," and damn if that word doesn't make Frank's heart skip, just a little, "and then I want to go into the back lounge with you and not come out until fucking Utah."
"Um," Frank stares at him.
"Frank," Gerard says, "Frank, seriously. We're raising a kid together, and we make out at a drop of a hat, and I trust you more than anyone on the planet except maybe Mikey. And Ray," he adds, "and, I mean, probably also Brian and Bob and, like, my mom—um." Frank raises an eyebrow, hoping against hope that Gerard will start making sense sometime soon. "Also," Gerard says, pressing his hips forward, not much but enough, "also, I want to blow you."
"That's beautiful, Gee," Frank says. "But don't you think maybe you're forgetting something?"
Gerard stares at him for a second, then rolls his eyes. "Of course I love you, fucker," he says, leaning in again to press his lips against Frank's neck. "What, you didn't know that already? I tell you that all the fucking time."
"Yeah, but—"
"But nothing, dumbass. Now, come on." Gerard pulls back, tugs Frank away from the wall and back onto his feet. "I have to call Cheryl, and we have to celebrate, and then I really want to get naked with you." He's pulling his phone out even while he walks away, giving one-armed hugs to Mikey and Ray and letting Bob pick him up and spin him around.
It's a pretty compelling argument, really. Frank grins and follows him.
*
It's not that easy, of course. By the time they get outside, there's already a line of kids stretching along the side of the venue, clutching their CDs and their ticket stubs, waving past the security guys. Frank stares after Gerard, heading back to the bus, then sighs and goes over to them.
Normally, he loves this stuff—seeing the kids, talking to them, being an actual person instead of some dude rocking out onstage. And the kids are just the same, really, nervous and excited and giggling and Frank fucking loves his job, seriously, but right now—
"BOB BRYAR," a girl down the line screams, and sure enough, Bob's standing next to Frank, one hand on his shoulder, trying not to glare at the flashing cameras. Frank turns to him, trying to figure out what's wrong; Bob basically never comes out on the line.
"Katie's freaking out," Bob says, "and Gerard's too busy calling everyone he knows to deal with her." He takes Frank by the shoulder and spins him around, pointing him back towards the bus. "I'll take over here."
"Bob," Frank says, grabbing Bob's shoulder and squeezing, "Bob Bryar, you're a motherfucking rock star."
Bob rolls his eyes. "No shit, Iero," he says. "Now get the fuck back to the bus." He's grumbling, but his eyes are shining, and he lets Frank hug him before shoving him away.
"Who's Katie?" somebody shouts, as Frank's walking away, and the question gets picked up by the rest of them, people shouting up and down the line.
"Katie," Bob says, loud enough that Frank can hear him, "is a very special little lady." Frank grins, and walks a little faster.
Ray and Mikey are heading towards him; Frank grabs them both and hugs them as hard as he can, first Ray and then Mikey.
"We're going to rescue Bob," Ray says.
"By which we actually mean we're going to rescue the cameras from Bob," Mikey adds. Frank nods.
"Come back when you can," he says, and keeps going towards the bus.
Gerard's there, and so is Brian, the two of them handing the phone back and forth, looking over a stack of papers at the table.
"Yeah, Cheryl," Gerard says, "no, that makes sense." He gestures at Katie, grumbling in her carseat. She whacks Frank on the nose with her pacifier when he picks her up, but he doesn't mind. She's theirs, now—she can spit on him all she wants.
"Hey, kiddo," he says. "Want something to eat?"
By the time she's fed and cleaned back up, the guys have come back, and Gerard and Brian have finished with the paperwork, so it's time for celebrating. Katie gets passed around the room a dozen times, and takes it pretty well, but when she starts grizzling, Gerard takes her back. He's sitting on Frank, now, the two of them squashed together in an armchair with Katie on top. Frank can't really breathe, but it's definitely worth it.
Naturally, Mikey gets Mrs. Way on the phone just as Katie's drifting off. Gerard tries to juggle the phone and his daughter at the same time, but it doesn't really work.
"Here," Frank says, "Gee, let me." Gerard smiles at him and hands Katie over, and Frank holds her while Gerard talks to his mother, telling her about the adoption and the show and everything. Frank tries to look at something else, anything else, but it's a lost cause—he can stare at Gerard, or he can stare at Katie, but that's basically it.
Gerard hangs up the phone, drops it onto the table, looks at Frank. Frank looks back, and suddenly it's just like the green room all over again: sudden tension, sharp and indefinable, making Frank bite his lip and Gerard fidget. His knees are draped across Frank's lap, and he kicks his feet a little, bouncing his heels against Frank's shins.
"Katie's asleep," he says, finally, and when Frank looks down to check, he finds her passed out on his arms, frowning a little in her sleep.
"Huh," Frank says. "We should probably put her down for the night," he says, watching her face. "I mean, the guys will probably be up for a while, and we don't want them to wake her up." Gerard nods, then takes Katie back carefully and stands up.
"We're going to go put her to bed, guys," Gerard says. His ears are turning pink, and he's not making eye contact. Bob and Mikey are hiding smiles, and Ray is out-and-out grinning. Brian rolls his eyes, but waves them away, and Frank grabs the car seat and follows Gerard.
Katie makes a little noise when Gerard sets her down in the crib, and Frank peers over the edge, watching her fuss at the blankets without actually waking up. It hits him, all over again, that she's theirs, now—she's his daughter, his and Gerard's, for the rest of their lives.
"It's fucking amazing, isn't it?" Frank turns around, planning to tell Gerard that, yes, it is—but Gerard is standing right there, closer than Frank was expecting, and he takes all of Frank's momentum and uses it to reverse their positions, spinning Frank around and walking him backwards. They hit the door with a thump, and it rattles in its hinges; Frank thinks he hears some catcalling from the front room, but then Gerard's kissing him, and he's not really listening to anything that far away.
The kiss is oddly chaste: they're just barely leaning into each other, touching at the lips and the knees. Gerard puts his hands on Frank's face, folding his arms awkwardly between their bodies. He's kind of elbowing Frank in the chest, but he's also licking slow and careful at the corner of Frank's mouth, like it's the single most important thing he'll ever do. He shivers when Frank touches his arm, and sucks in a breath when Frank scrapes his fingernails gently down his back.
They kiss and they kiss and they kiss, hesitant and awkward and aching, and then Bob bangs on the other side of the door hard enough that Frank whacks his head on it.
"There's a bed back there, fuckers," Bob says. "Use it, or I will end you." Gerard cups his hand around the back of Frank's neck, rubbing gently, and tips his head down against Frank's shoulder.
"Fuck you, asshole," Frank says, leaning back into Gerard's grip. "Katie's back here! What kind of perverts do you think we are?"
"Use the bed," Bob says, implacable. "You're traumatizing Mikey." There's an indistinct shout from the other room, and Bob laughs a little. "Ray, too," he adds. "Seriously."
Gerard doesn't step back at all: he's staring at Frank's mouth from about three inches away, close enough that every time Gerard breathes out, Frank gets goosebumps down his neck. He's got his arms braced on the door, crossed behind Frank's head, and he's pressing his hips towards Frank, slow and insistent, and, huh. Maybe they are going to fuck in here, actually.
"I mean," Gerard says, soft and dark, "it's not like she's going to remember it, right?"
Frank swallows hard. "Yeah, exactly." Outside, he hears Bob walking back down the bus, hears the music in the main room get that much louder. "Plus, she's asleep." He pushes off from the door—it rattles again, and he hears the guys yelling at them again, but oh well—and steers Gerard over to the bed, one slow step at a time until he's sitting down. Frank pushes his knees apart and stands between them, leaning down to kiss Gerard again and then again, sliding his hand just under the collar of Gerard's shirt. They tilt gradually backwards, still kissing, until Gerard is flat on his back on the bed and Frank is braced over him, hips pressed together and feet still on the floor.
"Wait," Gerard says, when they pull apart for a second, "wait, hang on, I'm about to fall on my fucking ass, here." He somehow manages to wriggle back onto the bed—rubbing every inch of his body up against Frank along the way—and sprawls there, propped up on his elbows and staring at Frank. "Well?"
Frank launches himself forward, knee-walking awkwardly up the bed so he can straddle Gerard and lean down and kiss him again, biting at Gerard's lips, pressing their hips together again and feeling Gerard hard against him. He hasn't felt this ridiculously desperate since sometime in the eleventh grade, but Gerard is just as bad, shoving his hands up Frank's shirt and gasping into Frank's ear every time Frank grinds down against him.
It's awkward as hell, really. Both of them are trying to be quiet, for Katie and in the vain hope that the guys won't hear every single detail, and the bed is not really that big or that comfortable, no matter what the rental place said. Frank's shaking, literally fucking trembling with how much he wants this, and Gerard keeps blinking and taking shallow unsteady breaths. They can't manage to stop kissing, not even for a second, and somehow four hands makes taking Frank's pants off harder than usual, not easier.
Suddenly, Gerard's eyes go wide, and he's shoving Frank backward, sitting up. Frank looks over toward the crib, trying to listen and hear what's going on. There's nothing, though, unless Gerard's freaky bat hearing is picking up something—but then Gerard yanks Frank's shirt over his head and shoves his hands down Frank's pants.
"Move, fucker," he says, when Frank stares at him. "Blowjobs, remember?" He tugs at Frank's jeans, frowning, then reaches up and pushes until Frank's flat on his back on the bed. "Work with me here, come on," he says, drumming his fingers on the bare skin at Frank's hip. As soon as Frank lifts hips up, Gerard is there, hooking his fingers under pants and boxers together and pulling them down. Frank doesn't even have time to kick his feet free before Gerard is right there, pressing Frank's hips into the bed and sucking his cock.
Gerard is sloppy and enthusiastic, like he maybe hasn't done this in a while, but he's been thinking about it a whole lot. There's that same sort of gap between theory and practice that Frank remembers from his own blowjob-hiatuses: knowing what to do, but not quite having the muscle memory to accomplish it. Gerard licks his way up one side of Frank's cock and down the other, his fingernails digging into Frank's thighs, making little noises to himself every so often. Frank slides his fingers into Gerard's hair, tugging just a little, and he gets a bite to the hip for that one, but he also gets Gerard's mouth on his dick.
Gerard sucks hard on the tip of Frank's cock and then slides his mouth down, pausing every so often, breathing in through his nose, like he's trying to remember how to coordinate everything. It's awkward, sure, but it's also really hot, and it's also been kind of a while, and Frank just played a concert with Gerard basically dry-humping him every second chorus. It's really no surprise that he gets close fast, digging his heels into the sheets and biting his own wrist to keep mostly quiet. When it's too much, he tugs on Gerard's hair again, pulling him back, trying to be polite for a whole ten seconds of his adult life. Gerard lets himself be pulled back, but grabs Frank's wrist when he goes to jerk himself off, pinning it to the bed and glaring up at Frank.
"Fuck you," Gerard says. "Save that for when my voice is cracking." He drags his thumb along the inside of Frank's thigh and grins when Frank shivers. "We don't have a show until Tuesday," he says, licking his lips. "So if it's all the same to you, I'd really rather swallow."
He doesn't wait for Frank to answer, just slides his mouth back down, sucking and then swallowing, hot and wet and tight and amazing. Frank's hips jerk, and he twists his fingers tighter in Gerard's hair, giving up on politeness in favor of coming in Gerard's mouth.
Gerard chokes, just a little, which Frank could have predicted—swallowing is one of those things that's great in theory but usually fairly messy in practice—but he crawls up the bed and flops down on his side next to Frank, wiping his face on his shirt and grinning.
"Um," Frank says. "Um, wow." Gerard's grabbed the bottle of water from the headboard and is swishing it around in his mouth, cheeks pushed out; he kicks Frank in the shins, rolls his eyes, and swallows.
"Don't sound so impressed, fucker," he says. "I mean, there's totally room for improvement, but that doesn't mean you have to be a dick about it."
"Speaking of dicks," Frank says, sliding his hand down Gerard's side. Gerard groans at the pun, covering his face with his hand, but he lifts his hips up, pushing into Frank's hand.
"Fuck you," Gerard says. "You're going to condemn our daughter to a lifetime of puns and social isolation and—oh, oh fuck." Frank grins, sliding his hand back down Gerard's dick, twisting just a little. Gerard arches his back, thrusting up, fucking Frank's hand, and he keeps making all these tiny choked-off noises that are both completely ridiculous and extremely fucking hot. He's hard and desperate, twisting and shivering while Frank jacks him off, twisting his fingers in the sheets. Frank presses his fingers just a little lower, cupping Gerard's balls, and Gerard fucking moans, low and dirty and way too loud.
"Shut the fuck up," Frank says, leaning in to kiss him. "Jesus, and I'm going to traumatize her?" He bites Gerard's lip, then licks it, not waiting to hear the answer. Gerard still groans, but it's at least muffled, some. Frank keeps kissing him, slow and wet, his hand steady on Gerard's dick, twisting and squeezing until Gerard jerks his head away, panting, hissing through his teeth.
"Fuck," he says, "fucking—Frank, fuck—" and then he shakes his hand, pulls his hand free of the tangle of their bodies and bites down on the heel of his palm, hard enough that Frank can see the skin around his teeth going white from pressure.
"You okay?" he asks, but doesn't stop moving his hand; Gerard nods his head jerkily, still chewing on his own hand, eyes closed. Frank leans in, kissing the angle of Gerard's jaw, the smooth sweep of his neck, scraping his teeth against Gerard's skin just enough to win a full-body shiver. He bites down just below Gerard's ear, licks carefully over the spot, bites down again and sucks hard, holding the skin between his teeth. Gerard shivers, his hips stuttering; Frank grins against his pulse, moves down a quarter of an inch, and does it all again.
It's been a long, day—Frank hasn't had to wait this long since sophomore year of high school, and maybe not even then—and Gerard spent the entire show grinding on Frank. It's no surprise that Gerard lasts a whole five minutes before he's coming all over Frank's fist and his own stomach. Frank grins and strokes him through it, his hand slick and wet, Gerard shaking occasionally as he relaxes into the bed.
"Okay," he says finally, opening his eyes again, "okay, fine, that was awesome." He's sweaty and covered in spunk; his hair is greasy and mussed; he's got a row of tooth-shaped dents across the ball of his hand and the beginnings of a pretty ridiculous hickey starting behind his left ear.
Frank curls up beside him, wiping his hand on Gerard's shirt and flinging one leg across Gerard's knees. They breathe together, cooling back down, skin sticking and pulling just a little when Gerard shifts his weight.
Frank's halfway hard again, just from watching Gerard get off, from touching him and kissing him and feeling him. He grinds against Gerard's hip a little, experimentally; not quite yet, but maybe in a little while. Gerard makes an interested noise and pulls Frank a little closer, and that's when Katie starts crying. Frank looks up immediately, whacking his forehead against Gerard's chin.
For a second they stare at each other, hesitant and carnal—and then Frank rolls away, hunting for his boxers, handing Gerard's over when he finds them first. His, for whatever reason, are on the night table, halfway inside the open drawer. He grabs them, turns them right side out, pulls them on, and knee-walks across the bed to join Gerard at the crib.
"Shhh," Gerard says, "shhh, don't cry, we're right here." He holds Katie against his shoulder, rubbing her back in slow, careful circles. "We've gonna take care of you, don't worry."
And they will. If Frank's sure of anything, he's sure of that.