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"Hey, man, you okay?"
Ray jumps a little, because he hadn't even noticed Frank until he'd plopped down next to him on the tiled floor.
Frank's question finally registers. "What?" Ray panics for a moment, worried that everything he's feeling is showing on his face.
It's entirely possible; he's never been good at poker.
"You okay?" Frank repeats. "You look...upset." He leans in a little, bumps shoulders.
Ray wants a cigarette, wants something to occupy his hands, because there's a tremor running through them. He flexes his fingers and takes a deep breath.
Frank is looking at him, curious, and Ray doesn't know what to say. He is most definitely not okay. He shrugs. "Just realized something."
"Something bad? Or something good?"
Ray sighs heavily. "I have no fucking idea."
Frank laughs and looks over to where Gerard and Paul are clearly discussing the next scene, the one where Mikey dies.
It's the last scene, and it's been a really long day.
Mikey stands near his mark, and just looks bored as he scrolls through his phone, unbothered by his imminent death.
Gerard's red hair is like a beacon under the lights, and it draws Ray's eye. Something inside his chest tightens, making it hard to breathe. He wonders if this is what a panic attack feels like.
Frank stands back up, and looks at him. "It's gonna be a while. Especially if Mikey keeps missing his marks. Wanna sneak outside for a smoke?"
"Fuck yes," Ray says, taking the hand Frank offers and letting him pull him to his feet.
It's late, and the streets are eerily empty. But L.A., like New York, never sleeps, and the sound of nearby traffic is loud.
"The video is going to be so rad once it's done," Frank says, lighting another cigarette off of the previous one. "Our intrepid band of rock 'n' roll misfits, heroically dying to save the Girl."
"I'll tell you all how the story ends, where the good guys die and the bad guys win."
Frank exhales a stream of smoke. "Fucking killer line."
Ray agrees. Gerard's lyrics have always been brilliant in a way that almost seems magical.
"That's the look you had earlier," Frank says. "Like you just realized you were drowning."
Gerard isn't the only one that has a way with words. "You're not wrong," he says.
Frank's eyebrow arches up. "Yeah? You need me to throw you a rope, Toro?"
He finishes his cigarette and drops the butt into the coffee can that the crew brought along just for that purpose.
"I think it's too late for that," he says, and goes back into the building.
Gerard and Paul are still talking; Gerard's making broad gestures with his arms and Paul's nodding along. The rest of the crew is arrayed in a rough semi-circle in the lobby, resetting the scene so Mikey can die. Again. And again, if necessary.
Gerard can be such a perfectionist at times. Not that Ray understands the drive for perfection or anything.
Both Gerard and Paul have a pretty clear idea of how the scenes should look in the end. Now it's just a matter of getting the actors to replicate what's inside their heads.
This final, climatic fight scene is more about choreography than acting, and in spite of the fact that they perform on stage for a living, it's not the same.
Mikey's scene has some of the more complex sequences, and he's having a hard time hitting his marks.
They all had struggled with their individual scenes, except for Frank, who had some kind of weird connection with his character. He'd gotten his scene done in four takes.
Ray is pretty sure he's going to have some spectacular bruises on his shoulder and hip from flopping against the metal body of the car, repeatedly.
He'd lost count of the number of times he'd died before Paul, and more importantly, Gerard, had been satisfied. The smile Gerard had aimed at him afterwards had made Ray's frustration with himself evaporate.
"So, what's going on, Toro?"
Frank's worse than a dog with a bone, and he doesn't know when to leave things alone.
It's easier just to give in, a little. "Just—" Ray waves his hand.
"Words, Ray. Use your words, because I don't know what this—" Frank copies Ray's hand motion, "—means."
Ray takes a deep breath. "Watching Gerard's scene with Grant…" He trails off, because saying it out loud makes him feel ridiculous. This whole thing is ridiculous. "It upset me."
It's true, but maybe not the whole truth. Ray's not sure he's ready to admit to anything more than that.
Frank looks at him for a really long time, eyes sharp and knowing, and it's like he can see everything that's going on inside of Ray's head. His glance flicks to Gerard, who is watching Mikey run through his scene again, and then back to Ray. "Oh, dude."
"What?" Ray's starting to freak out a little, because there was so much sympathy in Frank's voice. And there was no way Frank could guess what Ray was feeling, because he'd just barely figured it out a few hours ago.
Watching Gerard and Grant acting out their scene, over and over, had been…upsetting. There weren't any special effects, no post, just Gerard up against a wall with a fake raygun pressed to his jaw.
And Grant pulling the trigger.
When Gerard had slumped to the ground, the grief had hit Ray like a punch to the gut, stealing his breath away and making his eyes sting with tears.
He hadn't understood, because watching Frank act out his scene hadn't been anywhere near as emotionally traumatic, and Frank's death had been the most heroic of them all.
But it was Gerard's scene that had made Ray feel devastated, and he'd only watched a couple of takes before he couldn't take anymore, and he'd escaped down the corridor to a bathroom.
He'd holed up there for a while, soaking a handful of paper towels with cold water and pressing them to his face, carefully not meeting his own eyes in the mirror.
Eventually, an assistant had found him and chivvied him back to the set for the next scene.
"Oh, dude," Frank says again.
"What?" Ray tries not to sound defensive, but he's pretty sure it's a lost cause.
"Ray, you're my friend, my brother, but you are the most emotionally fucking constipated person I have ever met."
"No—"
"Yes," Frank insists. "You've been in love with him for a long fucking time, and you've just absolutely refused to look at your own feelings—"
"I'm not!" Ray interrupts. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Pfft." Frank pushes his hair out of his face. "I know exactly what I'm talking about. You are not as stealth as you think you are."
Ray feels naked, exposed. "How could I not know this about myself?" he asks plaintively. He knows the answer: he didn't want to know. It's easier to ignore something if you pretend it doesn't exist.
"Love is scary," Frank says, and Ray wants to scoff, because Frank's been with Jamia since the dawn of time. What does he know about scary?
"Fuck you." He doesn't know what else to say, except, "What do I do now?"
Frank has the gall to fucking laugh at him. "You talk to him. Like an adult would."
"Fuck you," Ray says again, because he hates the smug smile on Frank's face.
Hours later, when the shooting is done for the night, and everyone is dispersing for a few hours of sleep, Ray sees Gerard climb into the little trailer they've been using as a dressing room.
Ray's so exhausted he's flipped over into a wired and punchy state of mind, and he convinces himself that this is a good time to talk to Gerard. He knocks, and while he waits for Gerard to answer, his brain hits the brakes and frantically tries to go in reverse. This is a terrible idea, there's no reason to bother Gerard with his misplaced feelings, Ray should just go away and drink some liquor until he can't feel anything and—
"Ray!" Gerard is out of his costume, and he's smiling even through his obvious tiredness. That smile is the one that makes Ray's heart beat faster. It's the smile that convinced him to join Gerard's band, the smile that made him believe in what they were doing. "What's up?"
Ray takes a deep breath and swallows against the dryness of his throat. "Can we talk?" He isn't sure what he is going to say, and he doesn't know what is going to happen, but Gerard's smile makes him want to find out.