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They've just finished load-out. The venue was dark and mostly empty, though you could still smell the crowd with the distinctive funk of young adulthood and cheap beer, the stage was slowly being dismantled piece by piece by the roadies, cables everywhere.
Just outside the venue, the parking lot had that gross sodium-orange lighting. Gerard was outside making sure they had loaded everything in the right compartments on the lower storages of the bus, Frank was by the door discussing god knows what with the driver.
He could hear Frank laughing, then slowly inching closer and closer.
"Everything okay?" Frank groaned, voice still raspy from screaming his lungs out during the show and the awful cold that he was still recovering from.
He took a minute to answer, watching the door to the luggage compartment hiss on its way down. "Yeah, all good."
Frank reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a crumpled box of Camels, holding it aloft like a trophy. "Do you ever sleep?" he asked. "Or just–" Frank gestured at Gerard’s sharp face, tracing invisible rings under his eyes with a blunt finger "–haunt the load-out, scaring the children?"
"That’s my thing. I hunt them for sport." Gerard shut the compartment with a dull whump, pressing a palm down on the metal to make sure it was really closed. "You got another one of those?" He motioned vaguely at the cigarettes.
Frank gave Gerard an incredulous look, all skepticism and mock patience, as he rolled the battered pack between his fingers. The familiar cellophane crinkled. "For you? Please. Any price but money"
He held the pack out at arm’s length, ceremonially, like he was presenting a holy relic, Gerard reached for it as if called by instinct. Inside, a single, bent cigarette cowered against the cardboard, filter mashed in, paper creased like a broken limb.
"Last one," he announced, stretching the words just to make them hurt.
Frank’s reaction was unnecessary and very dramatic, a full-body groan like he’d been denied not just a cigarette but the very concept of hope itself. "You’re fucking joking"
The pack shook violently on Frank’s hand, like when you hope opening the fridge over and over might magically put some goddamned food in there.
"Last one," he repeated, holding it between two fingers.
"I heard you the first time," Frank said, but there was a tilt to his voice, some undercurrent that made Gerard pause.
He placed the filter in between his lips, shuffling it slightly to the side to keep talking as he squinted at Frank. "Then why are you looking at me like that?"
Frank sighed so dramatically it might as well have been his audition tape for desperate housewives. If anyone was watching from the bus windows, Gerard thought, they’d think these two were about to murder each other or maybe kiss. Anyone’s guess at this point on the tour.
"Because I want it," Frank said leaned closer, breath fogging in the cold. "You know I fucking want it. Don’t pretend you don’t."
Gerard yanked the cigarette from his lips, holding it like a prize between two fingers. "You smoked one right before we started tearing down."
"That was before."
"It was twenty fucking minutes ago."
"Exactly. I'm due."
Gerard stared at him. "Due?"
"Yeah."
"Like a damn library book with late fees piling up?"
Frank lunged, not for the cigarette but for Gerard’s wrist, fingers scrabbling against cold skin as Gerard jerked his arm back, holding the Camel just out of reach. "Like a fucking addict, you idiot! You know how this works!"
A sharp, breathy laugh escaped Gerard, even if he himself was feeling a bit jittery already for nicotine. "That's not a thing."
"It is now."
Gerard rolled the cigarette between his fingers, watching the paper catch the orange light. He tapped it once against his thumbnail. "Yeah, well, I need it more."
Frank’s eyebrows shot up. He leaned in, crowding Gerard’s space until the cold air between them thinned. "Oh, do you?"
He grinned at Frank's closeness, mostly because Frank looked funny in that angle, then stepped back. "Yeah."
"Why?" Frank’s voice dropped, a challenge.
Gerard placed the cigarette back between his lips, one hand patting roughly at the front pockets of his jeans, then the back, hunting for his lighter. "Because I’m tired," he said, words muffled around the filter.
Frank barked out a laugh, sharp and disbelieving. "I’m tired too!"
"I have to sing tomorrow!"
"I have to play tomorrow!" Frank gestured wildly toward the dark venue. "I’m carrying this band."
"With what?" He barked, watching Frank come close again before he ducked, barely avoiding Frank’s hand from snatching the cig right from his lips. "your lungs?"
"Yes."
"And yet you’re still trying to steal my cigarette."
"It’s mine! You don’t even like Camels!"
"Well I do now" He said, finally getting the lighter out, a cheap BIC orange one that took at least three tries or more to even get a small flame. "Goddamn"
"See? You’re struggling already." Frank stepped back into his personal space, eyes tracking the damn cigarette by the millimeter. He could tell Frank was waiting for the exact second he dropped his guard.
Gerard tensed back up, shoulders and hands shielding the cigarette. "With the lighter."
"Same thing."
"I helped tear down the amps." The lighter scraped again, throwing a weak spark that died in the cold air.
Frank blinked. "So?"
"So I deserve it."
"I worked merch for an hour!" Frank’s voice went up a full register, and his hand shot out in the air for the cigarette.
Gerard got his arm up in time, laughing. "You were sitting down, drama queen."
"I was standing!"
"You were sitting. I watched you do it!"
"I was sitting because nobody bought anything!" Frank’s hand snapped up and clawed around his wrist.
The grip was tighter than it had any right to be, Frank’s thumb pressing into the thin skin of his inner wrist where the pulse ran close to the surface. Gerard had a brief, stupid thought about whether Frank could feel it jumping. "Exactly," he said. "Useless."
Frank’s palm hit his shoulder, hard enough to send him a full step sideways. Gerard caught himself laughing and shoved back with his free hand, the cold metal of the bus at his back for just a moment before he twisted away and got a hand into Frank’s ribs on the way back. "I carried the fucking cabinets!"
"You helped carry one!"
"It was heavy!" Frank dove again for the cigarette, fingers closing on nothing.
Gerard could already feel his breath coming shorter, the cold working into his lungs. He hoisted the Camel over his head. "Nope."
"Give it!"
"I’ve earned this."
Frank got two fingers into his jacket hem and wrenched sideways. The fabric pulled taut across Gerard’s chest, spinning him half-around. "You sound like a dying engine!"
"And you sound like you’re trying to mug me!"
"Because you’re hogging it!"
"Because I need it!" Gerard stepped back and the side of the bus caught him square between the shoulder blades with a low metallic boom.
Frank followed without thinking, finally catching Gerard’s wrist, then the other slamming them both down on the cold surface of the bus, the surface of it giving in a little with a metallic groan. "Got you."
Gerard’s laugh came out wrong, too breathless, too close to something else. "You fucking cheater."
"It’s my cigarette!" Frank laughed too, letting his eyes fall for a moment into Gerard’s. He took advantage of the moment and got one wrist an inch off the metal before Frank drove it back down. Their breath came out in the same cloud. "Give it."
"No."
"Gerard."
"Frank."
The scuffle died. All that was left was the sound of their own ragged breathing, sharp in the cold air, and the twin clouds of their breath mingling between them.
Frank’s face was right there, close enough that Gerard could see the faint sheen of sweat on his temple despite the chill, and the way his lower lip was caught slightly between his teeth. Frank’s grip on his wrists hadn’t loosened, he could feel the press of each individual finger against the thin skin of his inner arms, the weight of Frank’s body keeping him pinned in place.
The unlit cigarette dangled from Gerard’s fingers, a sad little stick of forgotten tobacco. They had fought themselves into a corner with no fucking exit.
He wasn’t sure what to say, what to do, where to move. His body, always unreliable in a crisis, defaulted to some animal logic: just breathe, just try to oxygenate, just hold still and wait while the words buffer behind your teeth. He could feel his ribs thudding against Frank’s arm, the heat coming from Frank’s grip, the distant, greasy aftertaste of adrenaline curdling on his tongue.
His mouth was already opening, the start of some cutting or clever thing dying in his throat, when they heard footsteps approaching from behind the bus. A lone roadie rounded the corner, hunched under the weight of a massive coil of cable.
The roadie stopped about six paces away. He did not move, did not clear his throat, did not even attempt to disguise the fact that he was now taking in every detail with a kind of polite, very professional interest. Maybe he was used to this sort of thing. Maybe he saw it every night, in every parking lot in America, two idiots wrestling out their feelings in front of a bus instead of just fucking or fighting like normal people. Or maybe not.
Maybe he was genuinely at a loss, because he looked at Frank, looked at Gerard, looked back at Frank’s hands pinning Gerard’s wrists, and then at the cigarette, then at the two of them again.
"...Oh."
Frank’s mouth opened. "It’s not what–"
The roadie’s boots were already scuffing away into the dark, mumbling a little "Sorry" as he rounded back the same corner he came from.
It took Gerard a long moment to look at Frank. Frank was already looking at him, the way you look at someone when you’re trying to figure out if they saw what you saw.
"...Did he think we were–"
"Yep."
"Oh my God."
"Yep."
Frank’s hands opened like he’d touched something hot. Gerard’s arms dropped like two sacks of wet laundry, smacking the side of the bus.
"Fuck it," Frank said, voice tight. "Fine. You win. It’s yours."
Gerard let out a breath that was half laugh, half wheeze, and stared at the sad, slightly bent cigarette still pinched between his fingers. "The cigarette?"
"Yes, the fucking cigarette. What else were we fighting over, a timeshare?"
"Why?"
Frank sighed like a man who’d just remembered all his taxes were due. He jammed both hands deep into his pockets like they had committed a crime. He scuffed the toe of his boot against a loose piece of asphalt. "Because you’re a crybaby, that’s why."
"All mine then" Gerard said, slotting it triumphantly between his lips. His other hand was already fumbling in his jacket like he was trying to perform amateur surgery on himself.
Frank just watched him, arms crossed.
Gerard glanced up, lighter clicking uselessly in his cold-numbed grip. He took a deep breath in, knowing what was coming. "…Can I borrow your lighter?"
Frank's expression collapsed, eyebrows deeply furrowed in disbelief. "You son of a bitch!!!"
"Please!" Gerard’s lighter clicked again, uselessly.
"No! Go ask the driver for matches or something!"
"Mine is broken, Frank, come on!" He held it up as evidence, clicking it twice more into the cold air.
"You’re the one smoking!"
"I would if I fucking could!" Gerard gestured at the unlit cigarette still dangling from his lip. "Give it!"
Frank stared at him for a long, suffering second. "God, you're a nightmare!"
"Please."
"I gave you the cigarette!"
"Yeah, and you almost broke my wrist over it."
Frank rolled his eyes so hard Gerard could practically hear it. He dug into the front pocket of his hoodie, muttering something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like fucking idiot, and finally produced a battered black lighter. He watched Frank turning the flint once, making a small flame appear.
Gerard’s mouth curved up, extending a hand. "See, I knew you–"
"Shut up." Frank was already cupping the flame, which hovered at the same height in between them as his chin did, not looking at Gerard at all. "Get over here."
Gerard looked at the lighter. Looked at Frank. "I can do it myself."
Frank’s eyes came up slow, through his eyebrows, a true Kubrick stare if he had ever seen one.
"I just need to–" He clicked his own lighter twice into the cold air. Nothing.
Frank waited.
"Fine." He closed the distance. Frank’s palm came up around the flame, and suddenly the only warm thing in the whole parking lot was that small cupped light between them, and Gerard was leaning into it, and Frank was very close, and neither of them was talking anymore.
"Hold still."
"I’m–"
Frank’s hand found the back of his neck.
His mouth tightened around the filter, choking back a small sound.
It wasn't rough at all, just the press of fingers into the short hair there, the heel of Frank’s palm warm against his skin. There had been a sentence forming somewhere in Gerard’s chest, something with the word actually in it, and it simply ceased to exist. His body just followed the hand’s directions.
He could feel Frank’s firm fingers curling into the back of his neck, guiding him down until the tip of the cigarette hovered over the little orange flame.
Frank wasn’t looking at him. He was watching the lighter, thumb making a small adjustment, the flame ducking and recovering in the cold air between them. He gave a slight tug at Gerard’s hair, steering it to the left. "Hold still"
"I am."
"You're moving."
"You're holding my head."
"Because you're moving."
The flame trembled. Or maybe he did. He couldn’t tell anymore which one of them was the problem.
The cigarette finally caught, the first little ribbons of smoke emerging from the tip. He inhaled, letting the first puff go down to his lungs. Frank immediately pulled the lighter away and let go of his neck.
He stayed where he was, tipped back, staring up at the sharp line of Frank’s jaw from this new and terrifying angle. A cold prickle went down Gerard’s spine. He straightened up too fast, smoke rushing out of him in a thick, sudden cloud that hung between their faces like a veil. "...Thanks."
Frank jammed the lighter into his pocket like he was trying to bury it. "Yeah."
Silence. Thick, awkward, humming with everything they weren’t saying. Gerard could feel it, the exact shape of the moment, how it would look: two men standing too close in the dark, one still breathing out smoke, the other staring like he’d been punched in the throat. Somewhere in the distance, a car door slammed. Neither of them moved.
"What?" Frank’s voice was low, tight.
"Nothing."
"Then stop looking at me."
"I’m not."
"You are." Frank’s eyes didn’t waver.
Gerard took another drag, deeper this time, feeling the burn low in his chest. He let the corner of his mouth twitch. "You’re the one who grabbed me."
"Hell yeah I did, gimme." Frank’s voice was too casual for what had just happened, the words clipped and airy like a cartoon villain ordering the end of the world. He put out his hand, fingers arranged with a surgeon’s precision: index and middle perfectly straight, the tips barely apart.
"...You want the cigarette?"
Frank’s mouth quivered, a twitch he immediately smoothed into a sneer. "What else would I want?"
He pretended to think, looking up at the sky. "I don't know. You were just holding my neck."
"To light your cigarette." Frank didn’t even blink.
"Right." Gerard rolled the unlit tip between his fingers, watching the remnant of the flame flicker along the edge. "That’s all?"
"Yeah, pass it."
Gerard slowly took the cigarette from his mouth, he let the smoke out slow, watching Frank’s brow knit tighter with each second. The cold was making Frank’s nose red. There was probably a joke there, but his brain was too busy trying to keep the world from spinning.
Frank's eyes narrowed. His hand was still hovering between them, fingers twitching, and his other hand was crammed in his pocket. "Don't."
"Don't what?" Gerard gave him the world’s shittiest innocent look, all black eyelashes and parted lips.
"Whatever game you’re playing."
He shrugged, not dropping the act. "I’m not playing anything."
Frank shot out his hand, faster than Gerard expected, and he let the cigarette dangle there for another half-second, just so he could feel the roughness of Frank’s fingers brushing against his own, just so he could watch the way Frank’s mouth twitched in frustration.
He finally put the cigarette between Frank’s waiting fingers, letting their hands touch a moment longer than strictly necessary, and jerked his own hand back like a kid caught stealing.
He couldn’t look away from Frank, his gaze locked on the way Frank’s throat worked when he swallowed, the faint sheen of sweat at his temples despite the cold. He told himself it was just concern, because Frank was still recovering from a cold, and because he shouldn’t be smoking at all, that was all this was.
Frank’s eyes snapped up, catching him. "Seriously?"
"What?"
"You're still looking."
"It’s my cigarette."
Frank glanced down at it like he’d forgotten it was there. "Your cigarette?"
"You gave it to me."
Frank exhaled smoke through his nose in two sharp jets. "You’re impossible, did you know that?"
The silence stretched, thick and electric and so, so brittle.
Frank finally broke it, taking a drag so deep the ember flared bright enough to illuminate the tension in his jaw. He held the cigarette like he was deciding whether to crush it or smoke it down to the filter. "You want it back?"
Gerard’s breath hitched. "What?"
"The cig."
"Oh." He jammed his hands deep into his pockets, fingers curling into fists. "No. Finish it."
Frank’s eyebrow lifted, a slow, deliberate challenge. "Generous."
"I’m conserving my energy."
"Bullshit."
"I’m tired."
"Bull-shit."
He let out a breath that had been marinating on his lungs five lines ago. "Fine then, sure"
Frank took another drag and held it out without looking at him. Gerard took it. Neither of them mentioned the fact that their fingers touched again.
They stood there until the cigarette burned down almost to the filter, passing it back and forth in increasingly comfortable silence, at some point the argument about it had stopped mattering. He was aware of every single time Frank’s fingers were and weren’t touching his, and the cold had gone from uncomfortable to genuinely brutal.
"We’re so fucking pathetic" Frank said finally, the words meant for neither of them and both of them at once.
Gerard exhaled smoke into the cold night, watching it dissolve into the dark, then nodded, a useless, sloppy gesture. "Yeah"
He could see Frank shivering on the corner of his eye, Frank stared at him right back, jaw set, then looked up past the sodium-yellow streetlights at the endless, miserable sky. "Go to sleep," he said, with a sigh so dry it could have been a cough. "You have to sing tomorrow."
"You go to sleep," He answered, shoving both hands deeper into his pockets, he could feel the ghost of Frank’s grip still lingering on the back of his neck.
"I was here first," Frank said, as if that was the kind of thing that mattered to anyone but them.
"This isn’t a bedroom."
Frank laughed, way too quietly. "…Could be." he said, and the phrase hung in the air, heavier than everything else.
He turned back, but Frank was already heading for the bus, hands jammed in his hoodie, head down like he had somewhere urgent to be that wasn’t here.
"Goodnight, asshole," Gerard called, and Frank just raised a hand over his shoulder, a wave or a fuck-off depending on how you wanted to interpret it. The parking lot felt even emptier now, Frank’s absence felt like a new, fresh layer of cold.
He looked down at the cigarette in his hand, realized it had gone out, and flicked the useless stub into the puddle by his foot.
He realized his hands were shaking and pressed them together, knuckles pale, and tried to force the tremor out, but it was like trying to squeeze water from a stone. He wanted to go after Frank, to keep the argument going just a little longer, to drag out the feeling of heat and static and possibility. Yet, his feet stayed planted right where he was, letting the urge pass.
"...Dickhead" He said, making his way back into the bus, smiling like an idiot.