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They had a ton of time until bus call after the show, but Frank headed for the bus straight away. It was a hot night and they were all soaked through with sweat halfway into the set. Gerard slid a hand under Frank's shirt at the end of the show, and his hand slipped easy and slick all the way up to his shoulder blades. So it wasn't surprising at all that Frank made a disgusted face as soon as the lights were cut and headed for his stash of dry, clean clothes, and only slightly more surprising that Ray and Bob followed him.
Gerard wasn't sure about Ray and Bob's supply of dry clean clothes, but he knew for sure that he didn't have one, so the bus wasn't that much of a draw. All his shit was still scattered around the dressing room, anyway.
He made his way around the roadies carrying equipment bigger than him, got lost exactly three times, and finally shut the door behind him against the post-concert noise. He never knew if he liked dressing rooms, exactly - they were just about the opposite of audiences, so silent and empty sometimes as to be terrifying. But when he was in the right mood, they were quietly accepting and encouraging, a place to put on his second skin and to secretly take it off again and pretend there was never any other skin at all, that it was just him all along.
This one was pretty awesome, too; the wall with the vanity and the mirror wasn't opposite the door, so the decision to look at himself was all Gerard's and not the room's.
He tugged his shirt down to straighten out the bunching under his vest, then turned to the side and saw Mikey.
"Hey," said Mikey with a little nod. He was sitting on the vanity, back to back with his mirror double, in the middle of all the little tubes and bottles and cases, pencil shavings, crumbs, and stray flecks of loose glitter that had fallen out of Gerard's makeup bags when he'd upended them looking for his Typographic Mac single. "Did you get lost?"
"Fuck," said Gerard. "You scared me. I thought you went with the guys."
Mikey's feet were propped up on a shitty old plastic chair scarred with initials and expletives, his coat tight and buttoned across his chest and his eyeshadow in dark pools and smears like a watercolor around his eyes, the only sign that the stage lights got to him too. He looked only a little bit tired, not exhausted and collapsing like most of the other nights in the past two weeks. His eyes were bright under the vanity lights, and he'd clearly been busy, because all of Gerard's eyeliners and mascaras were lined up neatly by Mikey's thigh, facing the mirror head-on.
"Good show," said Gerard, trying to figure out what was going on.
"Yeah," said Mikey. "I think I sat on your lipstick and broke it. Why do you even have lipstick?"
Gerard shrugged. "I might need it for something. That one's a versatile color."
Mikey stuck a hand under his ass and extracted the lipstick, studying it blankly. "I think only the case cracked."
Gerard leaned his hip against the vanity. "I'll put some duct tape on it."
"Cool," said Mikey. "Bus soon?"
Gerard shrugged and poked Mikey's knee. "We won't go for another few hours."
"You're not going out to sign?"
"Not tonight. I think Frank's on it."
Mikey placed his hand on top of the row of liners and pencils and mascaras, so lightly that his hand trembled trying not to jostle the makeup out of their precise alignment, tiny shivery movements of his fingers. Gerard stared, fascinated, at the shiny-black mottled spot on the heel of Mikey's hand where it had rested in the mess of Gerard's makeup.
Mikey flexed his wrist and rolled the tubes down the counter and back with a harmonious murmur of plastic on plastic, not one of them skidding or veering off the path.
Gerard moved Mikey's feet to the side of the chair and sat down, leaning his forehead against Mikey's knees. "What are you doing here, for real?"
"Stop going all Spanish Inquisition on my ass."
Gerard leaned back in the chair and looked Mikey in the eyes, and Mikey closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the mirror, taking his hand off the pencils and folding his fingers on his stomach.
Gerard rolled his eyes and picked up a nail polish at random, and frowned because he didn't remember seeing it before. It was red, which was confusing. He didn't wear red nail polish. It could've been a forgotten remnant of an old tour, an impulse buy at a Target, something left by an old girlfriend, but when he opened it, the rim of the bottle was transparent, colorless glass with no polish caked on it at all. The red polish dripped easily from the brush, and it smelled fresh and sharp like acetone and daring.
Mikey was pretending really hard like he didn't notice the fumes or care what Gerard was doing, so Gerard narrowed his eyes and dipped the brush into the bottle and then ran it over the nail of his little finger in a slow careful stroke.
Mikey tensed up a little more with each passing minute, but he still didn't say anything or admit that Gerard was doing exactly what Mikey wanted. Gerard spilled a bit of nail polish on his jeans, and his nails didn't look great because he'd laid the polish on thick to cover the black that had been chipping off his nails for two weeks, but it was bright and red, fearless and gorgeous.
"This is never gonna dry," said Gerard loudly to get Mikey's attention.
Mikey cracked his eyes open and looked down at Gerard's hands. "It looks good."
"It's a mess. " Gerard lifted his hands in front of his face and examined his nails, spreading his fingers apart as wide as they would go. "Looks hot, though, right?"
Mikey's lips twitched and he shrugged. "It's nice."
Gerard pursed his lips. "Give me that lipstick."
"Why?"
"Just give it to me."
Mikey set his jaw stubbornly but passed Gerard the lipstick anyway. The cracked top of the case fell off and clattered to the floor.
"It doesn't go with this nail polish," said Gerard, turning the base of the tube and studying the lipstick critically. "Here, hold on."
"What?" Mikey licked his lips and inched back, away from Gerard and closer to the mirror until he was pressed right up to it.
Gerard stood up, sending the chair skittering from under Mikey's feet, making Mikey grip the edge of the counter to keep his balance. "Relax, I just want to try it on you."
"No, don't," said Mikey, his eyes flying wide. He pressed himself even harder into the mirror, but swallowed nervously in a way that completely called his bluff.
"It's just to see." Gerard stepped up close, pinning Mikey's knees to the edge of the counter with his thighs. "Let me try it. It'll look nice."
Mikey closed his eyes for a count of one-two, one-two, his eyelashes trembling on every beat, and nodded. "Fine, whatever."
"Relax your mouth," said Gerard, leaning in.
Up close, Mikey's jaw was clenched tightly, and Gerard ran his fingers over it to get him to relax. Mikey's stubble was rough under his fingers. "Just relax," Gerard said firmly.
Mikey let his mouth fall open with a sigh and went pliant for Gerard, rolling his head to the side to give Gerard more access. "Shit," Gerard muttered and pushed his thighs into Mikey's knees harder. "Yeah, like that, now stay still."
"Yeah," Mikey echoed faintly, and Gerard put his hand on Mikey's cheek, not even trying to be careful of his nails.
Mikey's lips were a little shiny with spit. Gerard hummed and swiped his thumb across them to dry them off, and Mikey's breathing went shallow.
"Stay still," Gerard repeated and touched the lipstick to the bow of Mikey's lips. The heavy perfumed smell spread thickly between them, melted by the warmth of Mikey's mouth. The lipstick glided on easily, trailing shimmery raspberry-pink in its wake. Gerard drew the bow out first, one and two arches, and Gerard dug his fingers into Mikey's jaw to open Mikey's mouth wider and get the corners neat.
"Halfway there," Gerard told Mikey quietly, tilting his head back and swiping a slow line of mauve along his bottom lip.
Mikey's eyes slitted open, dark and framed in liner and smoky eyeshadow, and Gerard paused. Mikey looked at him silently, staying still just like Gerard asked, and Gerard shook it off and patted his pockets for a tissue. "Here, blot."
Mikey closed his mouth on and spat the tissue out. "Can you put more on?" He sounded hoarse.
"Yeah," murmured Gerard and put his fingers back on Mikey's jaw to steady his hand. "It'll look so fucking pretty."
Mikey made a tiny noise in the back of his throat and Gerard looked into his eyes sharply before dropping his attention back to Mikey's mouth. "There. Pouty like a fuckin' movie star, baby."
He only had a second or two to take in Mikey's neat bright mouth and the way it was framed by his hand with smeared red nails and blotches of marker on his skin before Mikey shoved him away, more gently than he might've, and hopped off the counter to look at himself in the mirror.
"What do you think?" Gerard asked. He put the lipstick down and set his chin on Mikey's shoulder, watching him watch himself in the mirror. Dark eyes, sharp jaw, full candy-colored mouth, uncertainty in all his features.
Mikey turned his head one way and then another. "I don't know."
Gerard ran his hand through Mikey's hair, smoothing it out and arranging it around his face. "Better?"
Mikey's mouth twitched like he wanted to bite his lip but didn't want to ruin his lipstick, and Gerard's stomach flooded with such fondness that he nearly swayed on his feet. "Yeah, you're learning," Gerard said. "You look pretty."
Mikey touched his finger to his bottom lip, then slid his hand through his hair, then raised his chin and looked himself straight in the eyes. "Thank you."
"I'll ask Brian if we can stop at Target tomorrow," said Gerard. "I want to do a red lip on you. Since we already have the polish."
"I don't know if I can pull off vamp, Gee."
Gerard wrapped his arms around Mikey's waist. "It'll look pretty," he drawled.
Mikey wrinkled his nose, annoyed. "Don't think you found a secret weapon."
"I don't need weapons against you. What the fuck?"
Mikey shrugged and stuck out the tip of his tongue, licking at the lipstick experimentally. "It feels weird."
"But it's pretty."
"Gerard!"
Gerard grinned at Mikey's annoyed expression until Mikey's lips quirked up into a smile.
"See?" said Gerard. "Just telling like it is."
"Being true to your art," Mikey said dryly.
Gerard stuck his tongue out and started shoving the makeup haphazardly into bags. "Come on, Mona Lisa. If you're gonna use my shit, you gotta do your part."
Mikey sighed and brushed some pencil shavings onto the floor, but he was still smiling, and Gerard knew what to get him for Christmas. It didn't get much better than that.