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It starts during one of their shows; their first show of the tour to be exact.
Gerard stalks up and down the stage, yelling into his mic about love and support. It’s a nice sentiment but Frank’s fingers are itching to play. It's been too long since his last show; too long pent up in their tour bus. Frank’s entire body is ready to get lost in a song and come out the other side changed, never to be the same again.
Gerard is having a fucking field day talking though. He’s gesturing now, wholeheartedly lamenting about something that Frank’s not even listening to. Frank, as a way to tell him to hurry the fuck up, kicks him a little as he goes by. He barely touches Gerard - there is almost no impact. The problem is, and somehow Frank forgot, Gerard is kind of a massive klutz. He falls hard, manages to get a fist in Frank’s shirt and drags him down too.
Frank, falling atop Gerard, at least gets a soft landing. There’s something hard digging into his thigh, revealing itself to be Gerard’s fucking bat belt buckle when Frank pulls back to investigate.
Gerard doesn’t seem too mad about Frank tripping him, if the little grin is anything to go by. He simply arches an eyebrow and Frank remembers abruptly that he is on top of Gerard, their frontman, in the middle of the stage. The fans are screaming louder than when Gerard was giving his speech. Frank scrambles to get off Gerard, almost picking himself up when he hits the mic stand behind him and falls back down.
This time he lands directly on Gerard’s crotch, wincing as he does and whispering out an apology because shit that had to hurt. Gerard doesn’t appear to be listening to him though; his breathing has taken on a heavy note and his pupils are super dilated.
Pain, Frank thinks, or maybe a concussion. Oh God, what if Gee has a concussion?
Frank slides off to the side, sitting half propped up on his knees and ready to tend to Gerard’s injuries. Gerard gets up though, grins at the audience and turns back to regard Frank with this look that Frank has never seen Gerard’s face make before. It looks kind of predatory, and kind of like Gerard wants to slide back down onto Frank’s lap and do naughty terrible things to him. His mouth is quirked, but his eyes are almost black. Frank thinks he looks possessed.
Frank, half caught up in terror at the idea of real actual demons, takes a second to spring back to his feet and remember they’re meant to be performing. He clutches his guitar close to his body, looking back up to find the human vessel that used to be his bandmate.
Gerard the Demon is no longer looking at him. He’s back to riling up the audience and talking about un-demony things like accepting yourself. Frank blinks at him and then back at the others to see if they noticed. Mikey notices him looking and pulls a stupid face, but otherwise they seem clueless to the abrupt transformation that Gerard just went through.
Frank must’ve been seeing things, he decides. Gerard didn’t actually become someone else, an evil, demented creature, he just… he just… Frank just saw something that wasn’t there. Oh God.
Frank quickly starts playing, because they’re starting a song apparently. His fingers fly over the chords, but his mind is stuck on the seeing things idea. What if Frank’s having hallucinations? That’s kind of like bad . He shakes his hair over his face.
No, he thinks, no it’s not a hallucination. A hallucination is seeing something that isn’t there, and Gerard is definitely there - strutting around the stage in his too tight jeans - so it’s something else. An illusion, seeing something that does exist, just distorted.
Frank nods to himself. That’s okay. Frank’s not having hallucinations, just illusions. Much better.
“I’m crazy,” he mutters to himself, surprised when the sound is carried around the venue. He forgot about his mic. It’s a good thing his realisation is in theme with their entire album.
He’s a little glum for the rest of the song. He thinks a little glumness should be expected when one discovers they’re bona fide crazy. The next song starts. Automatically his fingers play the chords, recognising the set list before his brain even registers what the song is. Prison, he thinks, You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison. Probably the same thing they do to guys like him in a mental hospital.
Frank frowns at his thoughts and plays a little harder as a way to combat his dumb brain thinking dumb things. It’s not working too well and Frank groans loudly into the mic, feels the sound reverberate through his bones and throws his head back to get his hair out of his eyes.
With his hair plastered against his scalp instead of his forehead, he can see again. He flinches at the sight of Gerard, right the fuck in front of him. The sneaky bugger must have snuck up on him. Frank lifts his gaze to Gerard’s, expecting a sheepish smile or silly little grin.
He swallows heavily, fingers numb over the guitar strings. Gerard’s looking at him like he was before, dark and dangerous and fucking possessed. Frank’s scared for a brief moment and then fucking relieved.
He’s not crazy. Gerard is possessed. Yes!
Of course then the idea of Gerard actually being possessed drips into his mind and his relief falls from the air like a soggy gumboot. He grimaces and Gerard blinks at him, blinking away the dark arousal and emerging as Gerard once more. He grins shakily, flicks his hair out of his eyes, wanders back to the middle of the stage. What the fuck?
They finish the set without any more incidents and Frank breathes a tremulous sigh. He’s sure it’ll be fine now. It’ll all be fine; he’s not crazy and Gerard isn’t possessed. He’ll never have to see that look ever again.
A week later, Gerard turns up beside him when Frank’s on his knees in the middle of I’m Not Okay and there’s that look again.
It happens again and again and Frank is freaking the fuck out.
He isn’t sure what it is possessing Gerard. He gathers it’s likely some kind of demon or maybe, who knows, Satan himself. But Frank’s fairly sure there has to be something controlling Gerard from the inside, some kind of supernatural force, because otherwise he’d have to suspect something even more sinister like bipolar disorder or a secret evil twin.
He tells Patrick about his possession theory when he’s drunk and Patrick really isn’t. Patrick tries to be supportive but Pete, who happens to be sitting nearby, keeps laughing at him.
“I really don’t think Gerard’s possessed,” Patrick tells him, one hand placed comfortingly near Frank’s leg.
“But Gerard can’t be Gerard and a sex demon,” Frank mumbles around his mostly empty bottle of beer. Pete laughs even harder at this and Frank isn’t sure why. His theory is totally justified.
Most of the time Gerard is Gerard and that involves a lot of sass, tripping over and long-winded, one-sided conversations about being yourself but also being good - oh but also ‘Frank have you heard the theory where it wasn't Stormtroopers that killed Luke's uncle and aunt, but actually Boba Fett? Here. No, seriously come here Frank. I have diagrams and like a timeline.’
Normally Gerard is just this comic book nerd lost in his own world.
And sometimes Gerard is singing and it’s a little different but it’s still inherently Gerard. He struts and sings and dances and while Frank always has this insane urge to kiss Gerard, when Gerard’s on stage and Frank’s so so so lost in performance adrenalin, he really thinks about doing it. He really thinks about grabbing his stupid jacket and hauling Gerard in until they’re pressed together - mouths, bodies, souls, whatever… all of it.
But then there are moments when they’re playing and Frank’s just having a good time - playing, jumping, surreptitiously eye fucking Gerard - and he notices Gerard looking at him. Then he knows Gerard must be possessed, because his Gerard (or rather- you know- not his Gerard but like normal Gerard) would never look at him like that; like he wants Frank down on the floor... on his knees… mouth open and waiting and ready.
Gerard and sex-eyes demon Gerard just can’t be the same people.
He tries to express this to Pete, who is still laughing, but only manages, “sometimes he’s all Star Wars and sometimes I want to press our souls together and sometimes… sometimes he really wants to tear me apart.”
Patrick blinks at him, a little crease between his eyebrows as he tries to decipher the exposition Frank just simplified. Pete, on the other hand, bursts out laughing again.
“Fucking what?” he crows, beating his fist into the couch cushion below him, “Fucking what? ”
Frank glares at him and so does Patrick. This is why Patrick is the best person Frank’s ever known.
“So… you think Gerard is possessed,” Patrick starts, “because he wants to have sex with you?”
“Looks like he wants to,” Frank corrects, “sometimes. In an evil way.”
“I think Gerard always looks a little evil onstage,” Patrick tries. It’s kind of a good point but it also makes it sound like Gerard isn’t possessed and actually just wants to do Frank and that’s ridiculous.
“No he doesn’t,” Frank mumbles, “he looks like a huge fucking nerd onstage.”
“Well it sounds to me like Gerard’s been giving you bedroom eyes. I’m not sure how you’ve managed to get that he’s possessed out of that-”
“Gerard doesn’t bedroom eyes anything,” Frank interrupts, “ever. If that’s not proof he’s possessed, I don’t know what is.”
Patrick sighs, but only does so because he doesn’t realise how right Frank is. Gerard doesn’t use bedroom eyes on anything. He goes to great lengths to keep Frank - and everyone else out of his bunk. In the entire time they’ve been on tour, Gerard hasn’t had a single girl (or guy) in his bunk.
Actually, Frank thinks, in the entire time he’s known Gerard there hasn’t been a hint of the man having sex at all. The most sex Gerard seems to get is when he’s fucking himself on stage, challenged only by the concept of masturbation. And concept is all it is. Frank thinks sometimes he hears something - a little moan or gasp - and sometimes he thinks he hears nothing and that’s actually the sign Gerard is having a bit of private time, but then Gerard starts chatting to Mikey about the newest edition of Doom Patrol.
The point is, aside from the stage persona, Gerard is pretty much a sexless zone. He never has sex, he never looks at someone like he wants to have sex, never talks about sex. But then he gets fucking possessed or something in the middle of Prison, right when Frank’s on his knees, and he looks at Frank like he wants to rip his clothing to shreds and crawl inside him.
“Gerard isn’t possessed,” Patrick says, talking over Pete who’s laughing still, both at Frank and at Patrick for trying to take it all seriously.
“So what’s your explanation then?” Frank asks sharply, “that he actually wants to fuck me? As if.”
Patrick opens his mouth but no sound comes and he snaps it back shut. He looks a little distressed, likely because A; Frank was mean to him, and B; he’s a puddle of wholesomeness and can’t think of a way to fix Frank’s problem.
It’s at this point that Pete stops laughing. He fixes Frank with a steel glare and wags a finger in his direction. “Don’t take out your made-up problems on Patrick. Go and fucking fix them yourself.” With that, Pete gathers his stuff and drags Patrick away from the couches at the back end of the party.
“He’s not possessed,” Patrick calls over as they go. A couple of people glance up at that, shooting weird looks in Frank’s direction. One of these people is Mikey who’s wearing a huge parka and has been trying to hide from Pete all night. He nods at the people around him and ambles over to drop down beside Frank.
“Who’s possessed?” he asks.
“No one,” Frank mumbles, realising for the first time that maybe it’s true. He has no idea what to do about it though.
“You sure?” Mikey asks. He doesn’t look worried, nor interested but Mikey never looks anything.
“Yeah.”
Gerard saw a couch on the side of the road. He liked it. They drove past. Or rather, they should have. Instead they loaded the fucking ratty thing into the bus while Gerard watched excitedly from the sidelines, clapping in glee. When they pulled over, they unloaded it. Gerard, once more, did not help.
Now Frank’s sitting on the stupid thing, kind of grateful for it’s existence. Ray’s found a log or whatever and is perched on it, tending both to the campfire he set up and to Mikey’s hair. Apparently Ray is ‘Hair God’ according to Mikey, but Frank just thinks it’s Mikey’s excuse to lean against Ray’s legs instead of the veritable whole bacteria the couch is becoming. It's pretty disgusting. Frank thinks he's tingling at all of the points where he and the couch are touching and tries to limit these points to areas covered in clothing and like, maybe his elbow - if he has to .
Gerard, on the other hand, is snuggled into the thing like a teddy bear. His feet are buried uncomfortably in Frank’s thigh and every now and then he reaches over to boop Frank on the nose and giggle.
He can see Gerard’s fingers twitch and knows he’s about to get a boop. He doesn’t mind. That isn’t why he says it. He doesn’t know what exactly does prompt him to exclaim, “Gerard, why don’t you have sex?” to the campfire at large, but his mouth makes the sounds and he finds himself looking into Gerard’s wide eyes.
“What?” Ray says, laughing. Mikey grimaces at the movement of legs against his back but otherwise gives no indication of hearing.
“I - what? I do,” Gerard defends.
“No you don’t,” Frank disagrees, willing himself to shut the fuck up. “You never bring girls onto the bus… boys too.”
Gerard closes his eyes and Frank can practically see the exact moment where he thinks about how nice it would be if he were still drinking.
“Who am I meant to be bringing onto the bus?” Gerard asks in this small voice, like he doesn’t think there’s anyone out there who would even want to follow him onto the bus, slip their hands under his clothing and rut against him until he’s a babbling red-faced mess. Which is ridiculous, considering there is someone who wants to do exactly that sitting beside him on the fucking couch.
Frank shifts and realises Gerard’s pointy feet are no longer trying to burrow into his thigh. Gerard’s sitting up again, facing Frank and looking smaller by the second. Frank takes a moment to wonder why and it hits him that he hasn’t answered Gerard’s question and it probably seems like he can’t actually think of anyone who’d want to sleep with Gerard.
“Anyone. I don’t know. Mikey gets girls and you’re way more attractive than him.”
It’s supposed to be banter. It’s supposed to be an ice breaker. Instead Gerard looks hurt, like he thinks Frank’s making fun of him. Frank’s halfway to a ‘that’s not what I meant’ when Gerard’s eyes narrow and his expression hardens.
“ You don’t bring people onto the bus,” Gerard accuses. Frank laughs because that’s ridiculous, but then it occurs to him that he really hasn’t. He hasn’t in months. He stopped after this guy - Nathan or Nick or something - who had been nice, but he was too thin and too quiet and his teeth were too big. Frank hadn’t even realised .
“I - holy shit, I haven’t.”
“No,” Ray says, “you haven’t. Did you not… notice?”
“I-” Frank starts but he’s not sure what to say next. He’s been distracted from sex by the band and their late night hangouts; the way Mikey lets them watch while he painstakingly cuts his own hair, the times Ray jams with him, the conversations Gerard drags him into about comics or human rights or the state of the world or the concept of an afterlife or the concept of concepts that last well into the morning, the way Gerard’s eyes dart about when he’s explaining something, how his hands move with his words, the tangible excitement he exudes, those moments when they’re having a whispered conversation and Gee’s leaning in and Frank’s leaning in and it feels like a huge secret just between them.
“I’ve been distracted,” Frank finally says, quietly because he’s on the verge of figuring something out; something along the lines of ‘Gerard is the reason I breathe’. They’re all staring at him, especially Gerard who’s doing that wide-eyed thing again that makes Frank feel all jiggly on the inside and- and how did he not realise.
“I’m tired,” he manages, staring back into Gerard’s eyes, “I’m gonna…” He jerks his head towards the bus and tries not to fucking sprint the short distance.
He has no idea what just happened, not really. He knows he asked something really inappropriate about Gerard’s love life and fucking somehow that led to a whole lot of realisations about himself and absolutely no usable information on Gerard. He really isn’t sure how that happened.
All he thinks of as he tries to go to bed that night is ‘maybe I sort of have feelings for a possessed person.’
When he texts Patrick this, he gets an answer from Pete before he even gets one from Patrick.
‘HAHAHAHAHAAHA,’ is all it says.
He wakes up on one of their show days with no blanket and a crick in his neck. The latter he can understand; they sleep in fucking bunks. Weird aches and pains have kind of become second nature. At least they aren’t in the van anymore.
The former though… Frank searches around his bunk and thinks his blanket should be really obvious yet he can’t find it. He yawns, swings himself out of his bunk and searches the ground around Gerard’s bunk. It’s not there either.
Frank raises an eyebrow at Gerard’s closed curtain, trying to mental arithmetic the chances of his blanket actually having fell to the bunk below. It doesn’t seem very likely, but he swishes Gerard’s curtain open anyway.
Gerard yelps at him, cradling his sketchbook to his chest as he simultaneously tries to wrench his blanket over himself. Frank isn’t sure why, Gerard sleeps wearing a t-shirt - possibly two - and the cutest pajamas anyone will ever own. Batman themed, because of course they are.
“Don’t mind me,” Frank says happily and climbs on in. Gerard yelps even louder at this, shuffling away while still holding his sketchbook and blanket to his chest.
“Frank- what the hell are you doin-”
“Have you seen my blanket,” Frank asks, rifling around the side of Gerard’s bunk - trying to get his fingers in all the nooks and crannies while still bent over Gerard.
Gerard blinks at him. “What?”
“I’m missing my blanket,” Frank explains, searching around Gerard’s feet which is such a ghastly idea. “God you need to shower more,” he mumbles, quickly entrapping Gerard’s feet within the blankets again.
“I didn’t steal your blanket,” Gerard protests.
Frank leans over to check above Gerard’s head, knees caught either side of Gee’s hips, arms stretched above. “I never said you did.”
Their faces are so close Frank can feel Gerard’s shallow breaths on his chin. Gerard’s eyes dart from Frank’s own eyes to his mouth and dilate considerably.
‘Ha!’ Frank thinks, vindicated, ‘this is what Gerard looks like when he’s turned on. Suck it Patrick!’
“I guess it’s not here,” Frank says lowly, pressing a quick kiss to Gerard’s cheek before he rolls back out of the bunk. He grins at Gerard’s expression and shuts the curtain again.
He’s feeling quite good about himself, only disparaged by the fact his blanket is still missing.
Gerard thought about kissing him, Frank thinks as he wanders into the kitchen. He takes in the scene and any thought of Gerard thinking anything is wiped from his mind by what Gerard’s brother appears to be doing.
“What the fuck Mikey?” he asks and the skinny boy jumps. He doesn’t look guilty, which he should. In his hand is a digital camera and on the bench in front of him is Frank’s blanket. It’s sitting alongside two of Gerard’s Star Wars action figures, a pair of drumsticks that were probably Bob’s before he left, Ray’s AC/DC t-shirt and Frank’s orange beanie that he lost months ago.
“Hey Frank...” he responds then quickly starts scraping everything back into a huge plastic bag.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Frank yells, grabbing the edge of his blanket and trying to pry it from Mikey’s boney fingers.
Ray appears at the commotion, eyebrows furrowing as he takes in the two of them.
“Let it go Frank,” Mikey says, somehow pulling harder despite his lack of muscle mass… mass in general really.
“Is that,” Ray starts quietly, “is that my AC/DC shirt?”
“No,” Mikey responds at the same time as Frank says, “yes!”
Frank tears his blanket away and holds it triumphantly in the air.
“Now Mikeyway, care to fucking explain?”
Mikey grimaces at him and crosses his arms over his chest. “I was selling your stuff online.”
“What?” Ray asks, “why?”
“I can get like ten-thousand dollars for Frank’s blanket,” Mikey deadpans, “and he’ll be provided a new one.”
Frank raises an eyebrow and Mikey hunches in on himself even further like he thinks he’s gonna be told off. Ray looks down at himself and promptly shucks off his own t-shirt, throwing it at Mikey who fucking blushes and wrangles the thing off his face.
“What?” he asks.
“I’ll grab all the t-shirts I don’t want,” Ray says, nodding with enthusiasm. His hair wobbles and then he’s gone, out the door back towards the bunks.
“I’ll get the blankets,” Frank says, dropping his. “But i’m keeping my beanie.” he takes the orange hat in hand and takes off out the door with Ray. He grabs Ray’s blanket, leaves Mikey’s cause he’s pretty sure it’s hypo-allergenic and expensive and swings the curtain to Gerard’s bunk back open.
He’d been surprised Gerard hadn’t arrived in the kitchen to check out the yelling like Ray had but seeing Gerard now he kind of understands. The older is staring at him, flushed and wide-eyed. The concept of Gerard and masturbation has been confirmed. Gerard pants a little, scrabbling for something to say. He doesn’t manage words before Frank is yanking the blanket off of him and running back to the kitchen, heartbeat pounding rapidly in his ears.
“I got them,” he yells, settling down beside Mikey. He hears Ray start talking loudly about other things they could sell, then a yelp, silence and Ray walks in blushing furiously.
“What happened?” Mikey asks. Frank ducks his head because he has a pretty good idea.
“Gerard uh- decided to have some private time with the curtain open.”
“I didn’t decide anything,” Gerard protests high-pitched from his bunk, “Frank left it open.”
Mikey regards Frank strangely.
“Oops,” he offers.
They spend the whole day running around finding things for Mikey to sell while Gerard looks on from the corner, pouting and grabbing anything back from them that looks remotely like it belongs to him. The reclaimed stuff piles up around him as the day drags on, up and up until it encompasses him entirely.
As soon as they’re on stage, Gerard seems to forget about how earlier in the day Mikey was attempting to sell his favourite Star Wars figures. He’s squawking into his microphone as they set up, grinning at the audience.
As much as Frank is pretending to set up, he’s mostly just fumbling with his mic stand and trying not to stare. He totally is though, which is why he notices when Gerard’s eyes flick over to him. It’s barely for a second, but Frank’s heart tightens. His organs all act a bit weird around Gerard, his heart tightens, his stomach aches, his lungs stop working. If Gerard keeps existing like the inconsiderate bastard he is, Frank may fucking die from it all.
Gerard isn’t even dripping with sweat and touching himself yet. Frank has no reason to feel this way and yet…
He reasons it’s because Gerard looks at him like he’s something precious, like Gerard loves him. The issue with Gerard though is that he sort of looks at everyone like he loves them. It’s not like it’s his fault. Gerard can’t help it; he does love everyone. It makes Frank want to love everyone too. He can’t - he’s not that naive - but he wants to. Unfortunately the only person Frank really loves, whether he wants to or not, is apparently Gerard.
After the campfire situation, it had become abundantly clear. It’s so crystal clear, but all he can do is sit on the fucking sidelines and watch. Frank wants Gerard. He thinks maybe he needs Gerard too. But it’s not like he’ll ever be what Gerard wants. He just can’t fucking risk telling him.
Which is why in the middle of the set (Prison, because of course it is), when Frank’s playing lying on the floor and Gerard steps over him, he doesn’t lift his hips to press against the man above him... Except he does.
Gerard grins, he moves the microphone to Frank’s mouth and his eyes do that thing; that possessed sex stare. Frank sings like he’s meant to, eyes locked on Gerard’s. His whole body is thrumming with the music and also something else, something better, something that curls his legs up until his knees are touching Gerard instead.
He’s dizzy. He’s hard. He thinks if the song doesn’t end, he may come in his pants like a fucking teenager. The song ends, Gee steps away. He stays on the floor and tries to breathe.
Somehow Frank being terrifyingly in love with him is some sort of cue for Gerard, without even knowing about the whole love thing, to touch him on stage. They’ve always sort of touched, but now it’s a lot of ass slaps and face touching and sometimes Gerard comes up to him, corners him away from his mic and holds his own up like they can share.
They can share. They do share. Frank just thinks if he had his own microphone he’d be at less risk of a heart attack.
After a while, Gerard’s attempts to murder him get a little annoying and Frank wants some goddamn payback. Gerard’s teasing face is haunting his fucking dreams and he can’t keep waking up in his bunk rock hard with the cause literally less than two metres below him. If Gerard’s gonna seduce him, he’s gonna seduce him right back.
Thing is, Frank isn’t the most subtle person out there and he’s not patient at all. This combination leads to a set where he touches Gerard’s thighs a lot - only partially because they’re super nice - and promptly gets down on his knees, still playing, to nuzzle against Gerard’s crotch. Subtlety; never his strong suit.
Gerard, to his credit, doesn’t stop singing. But his possessed sex eyes exist beyond the stage that night, until Frank’s sitting on the edge of his bunk. Gerard has been watching him more than usual. But now, his eyes keep flicking from Frank down to his bed and back again. It’s really obvious too, like he wants Frank to see him doing so.
“Are my legs in the way?” Frank asks because it’s the only explanation that would make sense, “I can move them… If you want to go to bed?” Not that there’s blankets, his mind supplies and shit, he probably should’ve thought about that.
Gerard blinks at him. “Uh - yeah. Sure.” He half closes the comic book on his lap that he hasn’t been reading and crawls into his bunk. “Coming?”
“Where?” Frank wonders. He thought they were going to bed. It’s late and Gerard’s secretly an old man. He wouldn’t want to go anywhere now.
“Nowhere,” Gerard answers after a pause, “never mind.”
Frank shrugs it off and next performance rubs his face against Gerard’s shoulder and when that isn’t obvious enough, licks his face. He tastes like sweat which is gross, but he does get to lick Gerard so it’s totally worth it. Gerard leans back into Frank, leaving Frank to push him away and continue into the song.
Frank’s so wrapped up in what Gerard’s doing, he hardly notices that Mikey’s staring at him too until the stringbean corners him against his bunk.
“What are you doing with Gerard?”
“What? Nothing.”
“You licked him yesterday.”
“I was in the moment,” Frank excuses.
Mikey sniffs and shuffles off but he doesn’t stop watching Frank with those cold, murderous eyes.
After Mikey’s unspoken warnings, Frank resolutely does nothing with Gerard at the next performance. He plays his guitar. He rocks. He kicks ass. He doesn’t even look at Gerard. Apparently Gerard doesn’t like to be ignored.
Gerard’s coming his way so, out of fear of Mikey, Frank walks away. It’s a stage though, there’s only so far he can run. Gerard comes up beside him, singing, spinning, pressing their faces together. Then he walks to the middle of the stage and Frank breathes out a sigh of relief and concentrates on his guitar instead of what it felt like to have Gerard pressed against him.
He’s so determined not to think about Gerard, he totally misses Gerard looking back at him and walking his way. Suddenly Gerard’s in front of him, way too close. Frank barely realises his presence until Gerard’s fingers are buried in his hair, pressing it back as he fits their mouths together and Frank forgets how to play guitar. He wraps an arm around Gerard’s neck instead, pulling him in and enjoying the feeling of warmth and lips and the sweet slide of tongue until Gerard’s walking off, just as abruptly. Frank fumbles his fingers on his guitar for the rest of the song and tries to comprehend what happened.
Later, in an interview, Gerard says the kiss was payback and oh. Gerard didn’t kiss Frank because he loved him back and wanted to share that with the world. It was fucking payback.
Frank is so irrationally upset about it the next time they perform he kicks Gerard in the balls.
Gerard responds by putting his hand down Frank’s shirt.
Brian is mad at them about the blankets, which honestly Frank probably should’ve expected. Mikey apparently did expect it because he has an envelope of money that he hands Brian with a smug smile on his face.
“Keep the rest for yourself,” Mikey smirks and there’s no more complaints. Frank finally gets a fucking blanket, alongside Gerard and Ray. Ray seems pretty pleased and Gerard doesn’t really care. Or rather, Frank doesn’t care if Gerard cares about the blankets because Gerard’s got him in a state of near constant arousal and he’s mad about it.
Gerard still draws him into their late night conversations and sometimes he leans into Frank’s bunk at some ridiculous hour to ask if Frank wants to watch Jaws with him. It’s nice. It’s really nice and Frank feels like screaming.
Now whenever he texts Patrick about his problems, he gets answers from Pete on Patrick’s phone which are always some version of, ‘how thick are you?’ and then a video of them kissing on stage. He has no idea how Pete got so many angles on them, nor how being shown the videos is meant to help. All he really gathers from it is that he should man up and kiss Gerard - except Gerard’s already done that and it changed nothing and apparently it meant nothing. It’s all just fucking payback.
Gerard sucks a hard bruise over the scorpion inked into Frank's neck. It lingers after the show, the first actual proof of what they're doing, and Frank tries really hard not to think at all when he jerks off that night - fingers pressed hard over the abused skin.
He gets Gerard back at their next show, whirling over him as he's splayed out over the floor and, after a considering pause, settles down atop him. He plays there for way too long, shifting his hips subtlety against the coarse denim.
Payback. Means nothing.
Mikey pulls him aside again after that one. “Seriously what the fuck are you and my brother doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you fucking? Because I thought he would tell me but he hasn’t and aside from onstage-”
“We aren’t doing anything. Stage gay, whatever,” Frank says, flapping his hand.
Mikey’s eyes widen and he lets out a quiet, “oh.” He looks like he knows something more than Frank does. He looks like he knows Frank’s in love with Gerard and is becoming steadily more and more depressed about how Gerard doesn’t actually like him back. Jokes on Mikey though, Frank knows all that too.
Gerard kisses him again, longer this time. It feels real. It feels like it matters. It makes Frank cry back on the bus when the others have left for a party. He hasn’t cried in years.
As payback, Frank stands over Gerard as the singer crouches on the stage. That’s all he means to do, just stand a bit too close. Gerard’s hand sneaks between his legs, comes up over his ass for support. Frank keeps playing, sweat sliding all the way down his back and thinks ‘fuck it’. He loves Gerard so much he’s started to hate himself.
He’s been hard all performance - is most performances - so when he drops his guitar to hang from its strap and presses Gerard’s head against his crotch, he knows the older can feel it. He means to do it once, he actually thrusts forward three times before stopping himself, tearing away and pulling his fingers free from Gerard’s hair as he does.
No surprises, Gerard doesn’t stop singing. Gerard doesn’t even react.
Later that same night, he’s about to hop up into his bunk when Gerard catches him by the back of his belt and pulls him down. It's an amazing show of dexterity coming from the man who can literally trip over his own feet three times in a row.
“Frank…” he starts hesitantly, which sounds like the start of a break up except they aren’t even dating.
“Yeah?” he responds sullenly, crossing his arms over his chest and telling himself it doesn’t look defensive - it doesn’t!
“Are- can we talk about what happened today?”
“What about it?” Frank knows he looks petulant. He knows he looks fucking immature. But all he can think about is how he’d practically declared his feelings for Gerard on stage via hard on to the fucking brain and Gerard either hadn’t got it or, as is looking more likely with this conversation, he did get it and doesn’t feel the same way. He’s probably been practicing a quick let down speech in his head ever since the show ended. It possible he’d been both singing and coming up with one. Gerard’s great at multitasking like that.
“You humped my head,” Gerard says, splaying out his fingers towards Frank like he’s meant to contribute something insightful.
“Uh,” he says and can’t think of where to go from there.
“Frank I just, I know it was probably an adrenalin thing or whatever but… you were hard. I need to know, I need you to tell me whether it was an adrenalin thing or was it me .” Gerard looks wrung out, he’s pale and his lip has been bitten red with nerves. His hair is even more of a mess than usual, as if he’s been scraping his hands through it like he does when he and Mikey are having a fight and he knows he needs to apologise.
Frank looks him up and down, from the top of his inky dyed hair to the bottom of scuffed converse. Frank knows he’ll probably have to find a new band after this but ‘fucking fuck it’.
“It was you,” he says.
Gerard’s eyes somehow get even wider and he breathes out a quiet, “oh.” Then, “so we have been flirting then?”
“Flirting?” Frank echoes. He had been expecting Gerard to be weird, because Gerard is always weird but…
“Well, I know I’ve been trying to flirt with you. I mean, I kissed you onstage . But I wasn’t sure if you were-” his fingers trace the air in front of Frank’s chest - “trying to flirt back or just…”
“Stage gay?” Frank guesses and Gerard nods. “You were the one who said it was payback.”
Gerard shrugs. “I couldn’t exactly tell the world how I felt if you didn’t feel the same way.”
“I - uh - I feel the same way,” Frank offers and before Gerard can say anything else, he leans in and presses his lips to Gerard’s chin. It’s all he can really reach and it gives Gerard plenty of time to decide he doesn’t actually want what Frank’s offering. Instead Gerard makes a small sound against his nose and leans down to move their mouths together.
They’ve done this before, usually with more tongue and a lot more screaming fans. But now it’s quiet and Frank can hear Gerard mumbling into the kiss. He doesn’t try to pull away and say anything substantial so Frank assumes Gerard normally mumbles into his kisses and it’s just another of those quirky ‘Gerard’ things.
The best part of their kiss being off stage for once is the lack of requirement to pull away. They can kiss for however long they like without needing to sing or take into consideration what is appropriate to do in front of other people. Frank particularly loves the lack of appropriateness when he rucks up Gerard’s shirt to feel his skin and licks his tongue across Gerard’s plush lower lip.
“Can we still kiss on stage?” he gasps between breath stealing kisses. He never expected Gerard would kiss this way, even with the previous stage kisses. With Gerard never having sex and all, he’d assumed the older man would be kind of rubbish at the whole thing. He has never been so wrong about something in his entire life.
Gerard chuckles against his lips - which is hot as fucking hell, when did Gerard start laughing like that? Thoughts of possession spring to Frank’s mind and he quickly bats them away. Gerard is Gerard, not a demon and Frank is not crazy.
“Yeah Frankie. Whatever you want - kiss you whenever you want.”