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Frank lifts the sketchbook and stares at the spread, more than three quarters through the book at this point. The cover is scraped up at the edges, cluttered by stickers and marker doodles. He doesn’t need to flip through it to know that he lives on dozens of the pages in it. There’s no possibility of him to denying it when Gerard holds his pen and looks at Frank in that way he does during his most obsessive moments, his most quiet ones, as if they ebb in tandem. At times, Frank feels a bit like a muse. Gerard’s never used that word for him.
He doesn’t know who he’s looking at now, though. In theory—sure. That’s him. It has to be, because twenty minutes earlier Gerard had tangled their legs together on the shoddy sofa of the tour bus and drawn as Frank put his earbuds in and watched him. There was an itch in him, lingering adrenaline from yesterday’s show, the buildup of new anticipation. He tries to settle in and relax, but he never manages to completely settle down.
“It’s fine, you can move,” Gerard tells him.
There’s a furrow in his brow that stirs confusion. Strangely, his frown is louder than usual with how one corner of his mouth is more tense than the other, droops a little lower.
Frank nudges his heel against Gerard’s shin, squirming around until his head is propped on the armrest. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” Gerard says, lying. He’s the worst liar Frank’s ever met, and he’s been around so fucking many at this point. Today he doesn’t chase it and instead lets Gerard be in his bubble. Whenever he’s figured it out they can talk about it. This is the rhythm. “Are you wearing mascara?”
Frank raises his brows and then rubs his eyes viciously. Not so much as a speck of it on there. He can’t remember putting any on, either, but it’s not like things don’t slip out of mind constantly. “No?”
“Okay.” Gerard goes quiet for a moment, then repeats, “Okay,” perhaps more for himself.
So this is him, undeniably. It’s not him, though. Gerard has vanished into the back of the bus and there’s only Frank and this endless fucking collection of drawings that someone might call by his name if they’d never met him. But that’s not the shape of his eyes the way he remembers from the mirror this morning, and he doesn’t think his nose has ever been that sharp. He’s not smiling in this sketch, but his lips curl upwards anyways, as if Gerard has attempted to transplant one onto him. Maybe he was looking too bitchy and Gerard wasn’t enjoying his attitude.
He keeps his gaze on the drawing for a while longer. Reaching up to touch his nose, he follows the curve from the bridge to his eyesocket, scratching at the corner of his eye. His fingertips glide over his lips, testing the shape, but it’s not as if he is intimately familiar with it, even if it is his. Maybe this is him. How the hell would he remember? He’ll only ever know the sight of himself through lenses, mirrors, glass, and testing out the sensation of himself isn’t going to change that. If tomorrow his muscles were a little different, he’s not sure he would ever notice unless someone told him they had.
Frank drops the sketchbook onto the couch. There is a mirror with makeup-dirty edges, secured with command strips, on the wall leading to the back. He meets himself there for a moment before nausea scratches his throat and he ducks into his bunk. It’s dark when he pulls the curtain shut. Gerard’s nowhere to be found, and Frank’s not going to bother searching.
“You’ve got gorgeous eyes, Frankie.” It’s too sunny to see anything, but Gerard’s close to him, maybe in an attempt to keep his sights on Frank, anyway, so unyielding in hopes he might find something nasty and shameful beneath all of that flesh. Frank doesn’t particularly mind if Gerard sees him ugly. It always takes him a second, though, to warm up to the idea of someone seeing him. Then, without any anxiousness about it, “I’ve loved you for a long time, I think. Not always like this, but in some form from the beginning. I’m not quite sure what it means now, but it’s the kind where I have to let you know or I’ll go crazy about it, you know?”
Frank does. He’s been living in it for months. “Irresistable,” he suggests. The sunshine isn’t keeping him from staring at Gerard’s lips. Frank meets his eyes.
Gerard doesn’t turn away. His hairline is a bit wonky from coloring his hair with water bottles and box dye last night in the parking lot. Frank had rubbed his one towel so vigorously over Gerard’s soaking wet hair that the yellow towel might as well have been grey. Some of it stained his fingertips.
“Inevitable,” Gerard says.
The concept of it isn’t too far off. Love’s never been anything but inescapable for Frank. This is just another affliction as he’s familiarized with another person meant to be desired. And God is Gerard meant to be desired. Frank doesn’t light his own cigarette, but he takes the smoke of Gerard’s into his lungs and thinks of it: inevitable, inevitable, inevitable. He leans his head on Gerard’s shoulder and closes his eyes. Gerard’s chin presses against his temple, soft breaths moving against his hair.
Even if fate’s not real, Frank thinks he’s gotten pretty close.
“You’re gorgeous, Frankie,” Gerard repeats. This time it’s for the both of them, another universal truth.
And Frank believes him.
“Scouting for pimples?” Ray is walking by the tiny bathroom, catching Frank in the act of disassembling his face in the mirror there. It’s the third time today. “You’re good, Frankie. Very fresh!”
“Thought I got something in my eye,” Frank tells him. He leans in, tilting his chin a bit to the side before rubbing his thumb underneath his eyes. Leftover red eyeshadow smears with it. “It’s nothing.”
Smoothing his hands up and down the edge of the tiny sink, he tries not to clamp his fingers down so hard. They’re so tense that a dull ache is beginning to throb.
He can’t name the fucking color.
“Frank?” Ray repeats. “You feeling alright?”
“Fucking perfect,” Frank tells him as the pulse in his head rises, eating away at all other noise. He’s gotta stop looking. Turn away, stupid motherfucker, turn away. Go to bed. Take a long rest and put some eyedrops in and go shred, come back into his skin. You’re sick. This is being sick. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right out.”
Soundcheck hits and there’s an underlying relief to find that his hands are his own and they move the way he demands. Gerard’s body angles in his direction for a moment, but he doesn’t walk over. It’s as if Frank’s a mile away and the distance is too long to bother with. An alarming, uncomfortable sensation sits right between his lungs, where the pain and the uneasiness and the cold chill of rejection always take him. Frank spits on the floor beneath him, takes a long sip of water to clear his raspy throat, and tries to own his body, again, even when the man who wants it suddenly forgets it exists.
Mine, me, he says to himself, in the end, I have to be about myself.
But he’s all about other people, all the time, so fucking much and bad and needlessly.
Gerard’s holding him in the dark. They’re in the van and they’re halfway through their first makeshift tour, bodies pushed together on the nasty floor, and somewhere out there are the rest of the guys fetching cigarettes, a couple of beers, whatever their last fifteen can get them after gas killed the finances. Sometimes a man needs a drink.
He touches Frank with reverence, and it’s the kindest act anyone’s ever performed on him. For him. Frank’s been loved before, sure, but Gerard takes him in slowly, without any fear. He’s got to be terribly confident that Frank’s not going anywhere. Where the hell could he go that’s better than here? And Gerard kisses him, soft but wet, a bit stilted even now. That’s fine—Frank cups his face and shows him how he likes it, tastes him. Gerard’s hands travel from his cheekbones to his jaw, his neck, linger over the scorpion tattoo, the slightly raised skin where the needle went too deep. He breathes and Frank breathes and they’re nothing but bodies with a single pulse.
“In love with you,” Frank says. “That’s what this is. I’m in love with you.”
He’s known for a while. It’s all about timing, is the thing. This is the moment that Gerard has been working up to, and that Frank has been waiting for. Gerard squeezes his hips, inches Frank’s low-set jeans down a bit further down and splays his fingers over Frank’s soft stomach, his waist and back down to the trail of hair leading down into his pants. But no further.
“Frankie,” Gerard pushes their lips together, “I don’t think you have any fucking idea what you do to me.”
Frank’s giggle sticks in his throat, breaking into a gasp before he’s halfway through. He peers back at Gerard, smiling broadly because he can’t not grin stupidly when all that’s in him right now is warmth and the sensation of freefalling. He wiggles the leg that’s stuck between Gerard’s. “I think I have an idea.”
Gerard laughs, too. Outside there are voices busting through the van’s metal.
“I’ll love you,” Gerard promises. “You deserve it so fucking much. I’ll love you, really. I’ll love you until you’re sick of me.”
“Good fucking luck,” Frank says sincerely.
Frank’s never been art, but Gerard’s an artist before all else. So whether it be with the guitar, lifting Gerard’s voice through the deafening noise, or allowing Gerard to put down his likeness in pencil over and over, Frank lets himself be moved. For the first time in forever it’s not completely to his own tune. Gerard taps at his chest, testing how much it caves in, how stubborn his heartbeat is. He draws Frank and Frank understands why he’ll say, again, You’re fucking beautiful, Frankie. Look at you. See what I see? How can I not love you? How could anyone not love you? He takes Frank’s face in his hands, not like he’s made of glass, but like Frank’s the only one strong enough to withstand him. And he memorizes Frank’s soft jaw closest to his ears, the depth of his eyes, the colors, the colors, says, I love this about you, Frankie, do you see? I never really get the shade right. Frank can think of himself with his eyes closed in the shape of every sliver of skin Gerard has put his lips on. His face is made of love. His ribs shift in an attempt to make room for his swelling heart.
Gerard climbs into his bed and they share it. Frank pulls his shirt off to feel Gerard’s unnaturally warm body against his own. It’s not about comfort, Frank can get comfort as long as he asks. It’s about being there, taking shape. Gerard tucks his chin into the crook of Frank’s neck. He has to stay. They’ve gotta hold on to this.
“Gee.”
Gerard shifts where he stands. Frank holds the coffee cup out. “Let’s talk?”
They’re the worst words ever spoken. The blandest. Frank wishes he could give them both a right hook and pretend everything’s okay. But everything isn’t. The inside of his cheek is chewed raw. If Gerard was less of a pacifist, then Frank would have a much easier time getting angry at him. It’s got nothing to do with having something taken away abruptly, and everything to do with the silence. Talk shit out! Frank’s let one too many nasty wounds fester. He can’t do that with Gerard, too. There are other people they’d infect alongside themselves.
“I’m sorry,” Gerard says softly, because he’s already aware of why Frank has cornered him and what he is about to say. “I’m sorry, okay?”
Frank nudges his foot between Gerard’s to step in real close and force him to look down. Just—just to look. “No, Gee. Not fucking okay. Are you going to tell me what the hell is up, or am I going to beg, or some shit? I’ve got dignity. I do, okay? But if that’s what you need to sort your brain out, sure, whatever, I’ll do that for you.”
“I don’t need you to beg, don’t put words in my mouth.” Gerard’s hand pushes back against Frank’s chest. “I don’t know yet, alright? I know that’s not fair, but I don’t.”
“We bunk bed in a bus, Gee, you’ve got to at least meet my eyes when I get you breakfast.” Frank’s voice isn’t breaking. He tunes out the sound of himself. “I think I deserve that much.”
“You do,” Gerard agrees, almost desperate now. He tugs on his own hair too hard and Frank has half a thought to grab his hands to stop him from continuing, but a cruel part of him is satisfied to see Gerard as stressed as he is. “And I’ll love you, Frankie, I really will, always. But I don’t know what this is. I don’t know how to describe it, and I don’t want it to fuck things up. We’re bigger than us. This is bigger than us. When we—”
A van passes them by in the parking lot. In fifteen minutes, Brian is going to come hunt them down for taking too long. They take too long every time.
“Should we be doing this? How do we—how does this end? At what point do we stop making music for other people because we’re too busy making music for each other? Is that fair? Have we earned that? I close my eyes and I see your face and Frankie, you’ve gotta believe me, I’ve never wanted anything the way I want you. I don’t know how to live with it. I don’t know how to have that and have everything else.”
Frank swirls the coffee cup in his hand. Gerard hasn’t taken it yet, so he lifts it to his mouth and takes a sip. It’s disgustingly sweet, but he takes another mouthful and holds it there, lets it burn his tongue and stop a lot of nonsense from coming out of him. “I have always written music for you,” he admits. “That doesn’t mean it’s not for other people.”
He had hoped Gerard would tell him he’s not in love with him. Instead he’s got all of Gerard’s attention, forced to see him making a face that Frank imagines comes from having one foot on the sidewalk and the other in incoming traffic but can only think about the fact he’s never been there before. Like Frank is unfamiliar territory. A new road in an old neighborhood; you should’ve taken a right turn there, but you’ve never seen that sign before.
“I’m in love with you,” Gerard says, convincing himself. Frank should’ve just gotten a latte because someone burnt the beans this morning for sure and now he’s stuck with weird-tasting, lukewarm coffee and some guy he’s always believed more than anyone else. That’s a sour taste, too, recognizing the opposite.
Gerard makes an offhanded comment about his green eyes the day after, and he’s not wrong. Slightly off. Green. He’s never opted for green before. Frank sits still when Gerard lines his eyes with black, his face neutral for now. He kisses Frank without blinking, and he says, “I think maybe magenta would work better with, like, the blue.”
Frank’s on stage an hour later. Every single person in front of him reaches out, and he’d try to meet them halfway if he could. No one looks in any other direction; every single suffocating stare is another layer of an itch he can’t get rid of. But it’s better than whatever the hell Gerard is doing when he wraps his arm around Frank’s waist, pulling him in while facing only the crowd. When they exit, Frank stoves his guitar away and grabs the nearest bottle of Coke Zero, and he makes sure every last drop spills over Gerard when he tips the can over his head. Gerard is sticky and shocked and seemingly incapable of saying anything back when Frank chucks the can on the floor.
And then he takes off.
“That’s quite the stubble you’ve got going on.” Ray waves at his own face. Frank continues digging his plastic spoon into one of those lactose-free yogurts Brian had stocked the bus mini fridge with. They’re not too bad. “I don’t hate it.”
“Ran out of shaving cream,” Frank explains, as if he didn’t use soap back when they were in the van and would absolutely get those 3-in-1 bottles at the gas station. He’s got an unopened shaving cream in the bag tucked into the corner of his bunk bed.
“You can borrow mine?”
“Nah.” Frank tosses the empty yogurt cup into the trash and licks the spoon clean. “Think I’ll stick to this for a bit.”
Gerard ducks in through the door with Mikey in tow not too long after. Ray’s already deep into his afternoon nap, and Frank’s flipping through a magazine someone dumped on the small table, sothere’s no immediate party. He puts his feet up on the seat next to him. Mikey waves a bit, then trails off to the bunks, too, but Gerard stays. He sits across from Frank without saying a word, and then hesitantly gets his sketchpad out, clutching the pencil in his hand tight enough that Frank thinks it might break.
“Hey,” Frank says, freefalling again. “How would you describe me to someone who’d never seen me before? Like, if I was handing off a tape for you or something because you couldn’t go yourself, but this guy has no idea what I look like.” He pauses and then pulls his legs in closer to his chest, not meeting Gerard’s eyes when he puts the magazine down on the table again, studying the spread. He sounds anything but casual.
I can’t name this, either. He doesn’t even know what to ask. I don’t know what’s wrong.
When he glances at Gerard’s page, it’s half-drawn lines, segments, pieces of a face, and sure, Frank sees himself in some of them. He lifts his chin, finds Gerard staring at them, too, the fractures.
“You’re gorgeous,” Gerard repeats steadily, as if that means anything anymore. “I’d tell them to look for the most beautiful man in the crowd. He’s probably got rips in his jeans. A lip ring. He might spit on you if you don’t act right.”
“Don’t do that.” Frank tries to convince himself he’s not begging. He clenches his fists and once they’re tense he can’t relax, anymore. He’s got a jitter in every bone in his body, it’s dizzying and he’s sure he’s going to throw up. “You know what the hell I’m asking you, Gee. Tell me I’m not going fucking crazy before I really do.”
“Does it make sense, then?” Gerard presses, growing agitated. “If you know what it sounds like, why are you asking me? Do you think I’ve got a better answer?”
“What about me has got you so fucking sick, now, that you can’t look at me straight? ‘You’re gorgeous, Frankie. I’ll love you, Frankie.’ You don’t do this to people you love, Gee. You don’t.” Frank leans over the table with his weight on one arm, feeling red, feeling blue, wondering if he’s got any of that hazel left in him, or if Gerard’s can’t tell what that the color of his eyes are despite when staring right into them. “You don’t have to love me, but you’ve got to tell me when you stop. You think this hurts less?”
If Gerard had kissed him then, Frank would’ve forgiven him. He might’ve even forgotten.
“I don’t know how to describe you,” Gerard says. Frank thinks it comes out a bit pathetically. “Everything feels all wrong. I love you, Frankie, I do. Maybe I’m not doing it right, this thing. I thought wanting to have you would be enough, but I don’t think it is. I don’t think I’m loving you the way you should be loved.”
“Okay,” Frank replies. He’s got nothing else in him, at this point. He’s not going to roll over, insist that it’s part of the act, the finding out and determining love together, not alone. He’s not about to pick up a habit of lying to someone’s face. “Okay. But you’ve got to look at me, Gerard. I feel like I’m not fucking here, sometimes. Do you have any idea? Hundreds of people with their eyes my way, and it runs right off me.”
For the first time in weeks Gerard takes Frank’s hands in his face. He sweeps his thumbs underneath Frank’s eyes, pushes a bit harder into his cheeks and pushes at Frank’s dark bangs to get them out of his eyes. There’s a haziness to it, and despite his tight grip, Frank might as well be experiencing it through a layer of shrinkwrap.
“Kiss me?” he asks.
Gerard kisses him, eyes closed. Frank wants to demand he tells him if Gerard’s busy replicating the idea of him in his head, that the real thing doesn’t cut it anymore, that he’s off, slightly skewed, ajar, the open door Gerard is hovering halfway through.
Gerard puts their foreheads together. “I love the sound of you. You’re beautiful, believe it. I like you until it hurts, I do.”
A consolation prize. Frank’s ego is taking the worst bruising it has in a while. I love the sound of you. But he pities Gerard too much in that moment, and he hates himself too much, too, and he doesn’t make Gerard answer him. Doesn’t demand he tells Frank what his face is like, if he’s got deepset eyes or not, if his bottom lip is plumper than the top, where on his jaw there’s a patch of skin that won’t grow a beard as well as the rest.
He compromises. He shaves his face without a mirror, managing to only nick himself twice and without deadly blood loss. Afterwards, he curls his fingers over his chin to see if it feels any different, and expectedly finds it the same as he can remember. That’s the problem. He can’t remember. Has he ever been able to picture himself? Who the fuck is he? If Gerard keeps spiraling, if they’re—if this is him, them, the inevitable ‘us’ he insisted upon, then Frank is one I’ll love you away from becoming a face on a polaroid in motion, blurred. I remember what his name is, sure. What did he look like? It’s as if I saw him years ago, I can’t really recall, sorry.
When Gerard tumbles into his bed, reeking of sweat and cigarettes, Frank makes comfort out of the scent. Gerard breathes quietly into his shoulder, calls his name a few times over, and yeah, of course he loves Frank. There’s not a single, resistant bit of sanity in him that doesn’t believe Gerard is in love with him.
Frank pretends he’s noise. He smokes three extra a day because Gerard puts his nose against Frank’s neck whenever he’s got one lit and he’s real and there, pressed against Frank’s body, acknowledging him. He grabs Gerard’s mic and Gerard lets him. Frank shoves himself at him and implodes. His marks are everywhere; the conspicuous bruise on Gerard’s collarbone, red eyeshadow and smeared liner, relentless between-song talks about the intrinsic, unnameable nature of love, whatever love is. About selfishness.
He gets another tattoo. Gerard derails into the beauty of letting go. He dyes his hair. Gerard grabs it during You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us in Prison and Frank’s scalp fucking aches from the way he twists it, dragging Frank in. And if someone were to ask him what Gerard looks like, Frank would write them an essay, and then he’d sit down and write a song, and then a poem, and he’d set it all on fire, and all of that heat and warmth wouldn’t hold a candle to the way Gerard makes him hurt.
Three days before the next show, Mikey sits next to him by the table while Gerard and Ray head out to pick up takeout.
“When you think of Gee, what’s the first that pops into your head?” Mikey asks.
Basement show. Gerard’s lips against his ear, I’m going to start a band, clutching Frank’s hand. Like nothing you’ve ever seen. His voice replayed in the recording studio. Why shouldn’t we write about vampires? How fucking cool is that? Frank would’ve ate up anything he said. There’s really only one person we’ve considered. Sitting on a couch, so high off his last spliff that the looming, impending realization coming at him from above even though all he can see is a white popcorn ceiling. But they want him. His vocals slot alongside Gerard’s, and they sound good together. I need you to write this, Frank, can you do that? For you? Fucking anything. He screams his lungs raw Gerard tells him, much later, that he got goosebumps.
“If this all fell apart tomorrow, who do you think you’d be?”
Frank doesn’t like daydrinking, but there’s no show tonight and for once the beer in the mini fridge is cold. He turns his back on Mikey, rummaging for a can. It’s slick against his fingertip, immediately covered in a sheen layer of condensation now that it’s in the warm air inside the bus.
“I don’t know,” he admits.
“Yeah,” Mikey says. “Do you think you’re here only because of him?”
No. Frank wouldn’t have made it half this far if he wasn’t stubborn to a fault, and unless he loved Mikey and Ray, love what they make together. He’s in their sound, he’s the undercurrent. He carries them as much as they lift him up.
Frank imagines Gerard turning to someone else that night. There’s one thousand kids out there with bands he could’ve asked for advice, and most of them probably know how to play the guitar. Can write a riff. His fingers twitch at the thought but he’s out of cigarettes and Brian would kill him if he smoked inside the bus. He pushes his cuticles in with his index finger nail as he tilts his head back against the wall. Eyes on the smooth, grey ceiling.
“Sometimes I think that this is it.” He pulls in a deep breath and lets it sit in his lungs until it hurts. “The best possible outcome, or whatever, I don’t care about fate or any of that shit but, like, I’m on this earth to make music. And it’s corny, maybe, to call it my first love. I guess he’s—I guess he became an extension of that, somehow. This is ours, all of us, but, fuck, when we’re up there… I don’t know, where the hell else am I supposed to go? Look? I’m not expecting him to reciprocate to that extent. I can be a lot and I know that, I fucking do. But I can’t just chop it off. I just live with it.” He pauses, then finally turns back to Mikey. “I don’t know what the rules are when it comes to talking to someone about being in love with their brother, feel free to sock me real hard when you need a break.”
“It’s cool.” Mikey shrugs. “I wouldn’t have asked if I couldn’t take it.”
“So, did you get to hear what you wanted to?” Frank stops picking at his nails.
“I don’t know.” Mikey reaches into his pocket to get his phone, typing something out and then tucking it away again. He pulls one of the magazines from the growing pile to his side of the table and cozies up in his seat next to Frank. “I didn’t come here hoping for anything, I just know you talk a lot once someone gets you going. I hear you at night, you know? From the beds. Always talking, and you’re pretty loud, too. The both of you.”
“Oh.” Shit. “Talking?”
“Let’s drop it there.” Taking a gum pack out of the tiny pocket on his jeans, Mikey extends it for Frank to take a strip. “Bubblegum.”
“Good taste.”
“I know,” Mikey says, already distracted by one of the articles with a big, flashy image of a band in front of a yellow background. “Pink’s your color. Goes well with the hair. You should let it be for a bit.”
Frank chews slowly, blowing a bubble, and reaches up to fiddle with his bangs. The ends of his hair have started to curl and brush his neck and shoulders.
It’s a fan that brings it up first. They’ve caught him in between the tour bus and the convenience store and he’s wearing the same t-shirt he did yesterday.
“I don’t want to be weird, it’s just, the color of your eyes is so nice. All hazel.”
Frank pauses, sharpie in one hand and her album in the other. “You think so?”
“Yeah! Yeah, of course.” She’s tripping over the words and her hands shake a bit when he passes the album back to her. “Sorry. I hope that’s not weird.”
“It’s not,” Frank promises, and he says it with every fiber in him. “Thank you. That’s really nice of you.”
She leaves him be and gets the sweetest, most horrid combination of slushie flavors he can, making sure it’s freezing cold in his grip. There are sweat stains in his pits and he’s about to have bright red sunburn on his neck, and he’ll look ridiculous. He stops in front of a shop window with the lights off inside, catching the suggestion of his reflection on the glass. Passing another one, he stops again.
Yeah, he thinks. Hazel. Motherfucking hazel.
Frank climbs into Gerard’s bunk and drags the curtain shut. For a few minutes, Gerard pretends to be asleep, but when Frank doesn’t leave nor knock out, he rouses. It’s so dark that Frank can barely make out the shape of him despite squinting.
“I’ve got you,” Frank tells him. “If you’ve got me, I’ve got you. We’re ourselves, okay? We don’t have to justify anything. We don’t even have to be in love. But I want to be by you, alright? As me, and you as you. I know what I want, and what that means for me.” He goes quiet, then puts an arm over Gerard’s chest before he can be convinced to go back to his own bunk. “Night. Sleep well.”
Gerard doesn’t reply, but he cards his fingers through Frank’s hair, over and over again, and eventually he falls asleep for real. Frank listens to his soft breaths, the occasional hiccup, his heartbeat, and holds on tight. The dark doesn’t comfort him, but it’s not too different from the last few weeks. He shuts his eyes.
“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” Frank says, stopping in front of Gerard.
Gerard’s waiting outside of the gas station as they stop the drive for the night. The rain had worsened with every passing hour and the roads were too clogged up to get anywhere effectively, leaving them stuck overnight in a parking lot a one minute trip from a McDonalds. Frank could really go for some oversalted fries, but he’s opted for the fifty cent convenience store coffee. He bumps his side into Gerard’s, offering the cup for a quick sip, and Gerard takes it. The roof overhead keeps them from getting drenched, but they’re going to have to run back to the bus, anyways. He hopes he’s got some clean laundry.
Gerard leans against him. He passes the coffee back after a minute. “I don’t mind.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind meeting a deathly handsome guy on the daily, either. You’re real lucky, Gee.”
“I am,” Gerard agrees without hesitation. It has Frank’s heart doing a crazy, uncalled for loop, and then it doesn’t stop. His heart could probably shake down a building if they connected it to a speaker. “What the hell are we doing, Frankie?”
And there’s no need for specifics when there’s only one thing on their mind, so Frank replies, “Trying, I guess. Just trying to set this right. I am, at least. I don’t think it’s bad, loving you like this, but I’ve been wrong before. I don’t want to be wrong about this, Gee. I believe you, you know? All of those things you tell me, they’re going to stick with me until I die.”
“Sorry,” Gerard murmurs weakly. “That’s some fucking baggage to take with you for that long.”
“It’s okay,” Frank promises. “My ego doesn’t care.”
The light that breaches the large windows from the gas station glares onto their backs, highlighting Gerard’s face only at the edges and the highest planes. Frank rests his chin on Gerard’s shoulder before he blows at the scruffy sidebangs, making them whirl against Gerard’s cheeks. Gerard blinks rapidly, head jerking instinctively, but he doesn’t move away. He shifts and turns to Frank, their faces even closer now that Frank can take a good look at him. It feels like it’s been years, but Gerard’s Gerard. Frank knows the softness of his lips, the taste of his raspberry chapstick, has spent too long trying to count his eyelashes only to fall off when Gerard blinks to peer back at him, there’s nothing but utter comfort in the darkening circles under his eyes because Frank was right next to him, losing sleep.
Gerard stares. Frank stays where he is and listens to the rain beat down.
“Frank,” Gerard says, but it’s breathless and more a sigh than anything else. “God, Frank, Frank.”
“That’s my name, yeah.” Frank’s fingertips burn through the papercup from the scalding hot coffee. “It’ll sound the same next time, too.”
But Gerard doesn’t say anything else after that. He lifts his hand and pushes Frank’s hair back, twisting his brown hair around a finger and then slides his hand down, carding through the curls until he can cup his palm over Frank’s neck. Then his nose presses against Frank’s, eyes soaking in Frank’s gaze, looking like he could crawl into Frank and stay there. He massages the knobs along Franks spine, then rests it over Frank’s jaw and strokes his thumb over Frank’s cheek.
Everything is so loud and so much and Frank hasn’t lived for weeks. Someone sees him. Gerard looks at him as if there’s nothing else in the world. How hungry of an expression is he himself making, right now? There’s no way Gerard can’t spot it in the tremble of his bottom lip, his unsteady hand on the coffee cup. Frank angles his body towards Gerard. He’s got only one direction he’s ever thought of going in, and the road ahead is clear.
“You stopped dyeing your hair,” Gerard says, awed.
“A while ago,” Frank tells him. Greedily, he asks, “What else?”
For what must be the thousand time and hopefully not close to a fraction of how many times he’ll hear it, Gerard says, “You’re gorgeous.”
“Okay.” Frank doesn’t shake, he doesn’t. “And?”
“Let’s…” Gerard tilts his head, an open invitation.
Frank wants to, so so badly, but he doesn’t. He gazes at Gerard until his eyes sting, and Gerard doesn’t push it. Voice a bit stronger now, Frank says, “Let’s stay here for a bit. Just.. like this.”
Gerard nods twice and puts his head on Frank’s shoulder. His hand continues to move as he traces the bridge of Frank’s nose with an index finger, follows it all the way up to his brow, stopping for a moment by a pale scar. “I’m sorry for running.”
“I don’t need to hear that.” When Gerard’s fingers pass over his lips, Frank pushes his tongue out with a grin. Gerard giggles, the lightest sound in all of that rain. “Sorry for standing still.”
“I don’t need to hear that,” Gerard mimics. He kisses the space between Frank’s brows. “I think… maybe we’re allowed to have this, even when I doubt. This and more. I used to think I had to earn it, you know? I had to be worthy of other people. But I’d never expect that from anyone else. Why would they have to try for me? But I look at you and I can’t see anything else. I’m not that blind.” He stops and steals the coffee cup back from Frank, drinking in silence. The steam fogs his features. “I can’t think of something better than being with you. If that ends up only ever being in a studio, making music, or on a stage, or crashing in your bunk bed, I don’t mind. I can love you like that. I just think that if I try to close my eyes to this I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. And I want to do something good for myself, for once. I just want to love you.”
Frank swallows with a clump in his throat. He wishes the rain would beat the ache out of him, but it doesn’t even do him the favor of drowning out the deafening pulse in his ears. “I like the way you love me, Gee. Any way you’ll have me.”
Gerard gives him a lopsided, closed-mouthed smile. “We’re very bad at this.”
“I haven’t had much practice,” Frank says. “Wanna give it another go?”
This time he allows Gerard to inch close enough for their lips to brush. It’s simple. Gerard kisses him once, tasting only of the coffee and the cigarette he must’ve put out right before Frank found him. “I think you already know, but I love you. I want to love you.”
“You’re right, I do know.” Frank doesn’t pull back, his mouth right by Gerard’s as when he speaks. “I think you know I sort of love you, too.”
“Yeah,” Gerard says. “I can see that.”
“Good.” When Gerard’s hand slips beneath his sweater and touches his waist, rubbing steady circles on Frank’s skin with his thumb, Frank loses all sense of temperature. He’s hot all over. With a wide grin he cocks his hip and wraps an arm around Gerard’s neck. “Keep looking.”
“Don’t worry.” Gerard’s eyes keep flicking down to his lips. Frank wants to ask him what color they are to him, now, if it’s the same one that has his cheeks burning hot. If Gerard sees the same eyes that Frank caught sight of in those glass windows. “I’m here.”
He is. They squeeze together and the cold, pale light from the gas station isn’t too much, anymore, it’s romantic. It captures Gerard perfectly. Gerard scratches his finger over Frank’s stubble and Frank files it away as a reminder for tomorrow to shave before the bus starts moving. He’s pretty sure he still has that can of shaving cream in his bag. Surely by now Brian has sent some poor fucker out of the comfort of the bus to track them down, but Frank couldn’t care less. He’s got a moment and right now he’ll happily steal more time at someone else’s expense without a lick guilt. He feels so fucking real.
“I thought that if I looked away, you’d stay the same,” Gerard admits. “I didn’t get it. I woke up, scared shitless that you’d be someone else, one day, and that everything would change along with you. But I thought of you all the time, always. Tried writing you down, making sense of you. I thought I was doing something horrible to you because I wasn’t certain.”
“That’s enough,” Frank says, and he means it. “Just be here, now. See? You’ve got me right here, and I’m too stupid to go anywhere else. But I don’t want to. We don’t have to make sense.”
Gerard stops talking. A distant voice calls their name as a figure appears through the pouring rain, partly obscured by an umbrella. Frank dumps the mug into the trashcan behind them.
“Let’s run.” He tugs on Gerard’s hand.
The rain is hard on his skin, Gerard’s fingers soft and entwined with his, and it’s the best he’s felt in forever.