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Frank was still angry.
He’d been stewing so long Gerard could practically see the heat radiating off him. Frank’s jaw was clenched so tight a little muscle kept twitching along his cheek, and his hands wrapped around the neck of his guitar so hard they had gone pale. It looked like was about to snap the damn thing in half.
They weren’t even on yet, but Frank stood a few feet away from Gerard in the humid, buzzing backstage corridor, radiating the sort of energy that made everyone else unconsciously back away, like a dog about to bite.
He was somewhere else, picking at the scab of last night. Some assholes had booed them yesterday.
Not just a handful, either, but a rolling wave that started with a few drunk meatheads near the barricade and caught on, people were either bored or spiteful or just looking for something to do. Gerard had stood at the front of the stage and did his thing, flicked two middle fingers into the darkness and tried to carry on with the set, but Frank was fuming. Going on before that fucking abysmal nu-metal band was a suicide mission with this crowd.
Last night Frank had nearly launched his guitar into the crowd when someone hacked a cup of beer at him, soaking him in Bud Light. And the worst part was that even that was a luxury, sometimes people got too fucking brave and filled the cups with actual piss. For a second Gerard thought he’d have to tackle Frank right there onstage to keep him from hurling himself after the culprit. Instead, Frank spit on the floor, wiped his face with the hem of his shirt, and finished the set while screaming every curse he knew.
Still, it was another day and another show, tour life didn't stop for anyone. So they got up on stage.
The first half was coming along nicely. Almost.
Frank was playing harder than usual. Jumping more. Throwing himself around. Nothing that would normally register as unusual for him, except Gerard knew him well enough to see the difference between Frank having fun and him trying to beat the anger out of his own body.
He could feel the band starting to falter around it, too. Ray tried to fill every pause with the kind of show-offy licks he pulled out when he was nervous, and Bob overcompensated with fills until the whole set sounded like a brawl instead of a song.
By the fifth song, Gerard kept a running tally of Frank’s movements without even meaning to, watching him prowl on the stage, shoulders sagging, sweat shimmering on his collarbones. Twice, Frank tripped over a cord and barely caught himself. During Ray’s solo he dropped to his knees at the edge of the riser and screamed backup vocals straight into the faces of the kids in front, so close the security guards tensed like they might need to break up a fight. Each time Frank got back up on his feet, it was slower, shakier.
They were almost to the end of the set when it happened.
Frank’s boots hovered for a split second at the peak of the monitor, the platform trembling beneath. For a moment Gerard thought maybe Frank would just stand there, bright and feral and grinning down at the crowd. That would have been the smart move; a victory lap, a fuck-you to the assholes in the cheap seats, a way to bleed off the aggression without anyone getting hurt.
But Frank wasn’t made for smart moves. Gerard saw what was coming half a bar before it happened.
Frank jumped. Not just a hop, but a full, reckless leap, aimed at nowhere in particular. He had watched him do this a hundred times, but always with the safety of a practiced landing. This time, Frank overshot. Hard.
He had to look away.
A hollow crack! echoed as Frank hit the deck face-first, guitar shrieking feedback like a wounded animal. He watched, helpless, as Frank’s shoulder wrenched backward and his body curled in on itself, tucking protectively around the guitar. He waited, no, pleaded, for Frank to stay down, to finally let it be enough, to crawl off to the side and let the set end with at least a shred of dignity.
Then the fucker was back up. Blood streamed down from a new gash above his eyebrow, welling and dripping almost immediately. Gerard wanted to strangle him, because, horrifyingly so, Frank kept playing.
He lost the next three songs. Not literally. His body still knew what it was doing, his mouth still found the lyrics, and somehow the rest of the band kept moving forward. But his attention was placed somewhere else: Frank. The blood kept slipping down the side of his face, catching in his eyebrow and disappearing into the sweat along his cheek. Every few seconds he wiped at it with the back of his wrist, leaving another red smear across his skin.
Of course, he was still fucking playing, Gerard wanted to scream, and instead he sang until the set was over.
He didn’t wait for the lights to die. His fingers knotted in the back of Frank’s shirt, hauling him backward into the wings and shoving aside anyone and everyone that stood in his path to the backdoor. Frank fought every step, a tossing weight against him, but Gerard barely registered the elbows digging into his ribs or the choked curses spat over his shoulder.
He spotted a folding chair leaning against a concrete wall near the greenroom door and slammed Frank down into it hard enough to make the metal shriek. "What the fuck was that?!"
Frank was already pushing up, his back hitting the wall with a dull thud. Blood had started to dry in tacky rivers down his temple. "What?"
"Don’t fucking ‘what’ me!" Gerard’s voice tore raw from his throat.
"I’m fine."
He landed both hands on Frank’s shoulders, driving him back into the seat. His breath came in ragged bursts as he stared at the split skin above Frank’s eye. "You could’ve broken your fucking neck."
"Maybe I wanted to," Frank muttered, arms folding tight across his chest.
Everything in Gerard went still. "Don’t say that shit."
"Why not? It’s true."
That broke whatever was left of his control. He drove his weight into Frank’s shoulder, pinning him to the chair, his other hand seizing Frank’s jaw, forcing his face up into the harsh light. "No," he snarled, "it fucking isn’t."
Frank bucked violently beneath him, the chair legs screeching against concrete. "Get off!"
The second he let go, Frank was up, putting the full width of the hallway between them. "You’re fucking insane." Frank said, scraped and quiet, which was somehow worse than if he’d screamed it.
"Me?!" Gerard laughed, and it came out ugly. "I’m insane? You threw yourself headfirst off a monitor because some drunk piece of shit threw a beer."
"Fuck you."
"Gladly."
Frank turned back. Something hot and ugly moved through his chest. "You’re such a fucking prick"
He locked his arms across his ribs before he did something he couldn’t take back. "And you’re one stupid motherfucker"
"At least I'm having fun."
"You’re bleeding on the floor, Frank."
"So are you!"
He looked down. Frank’s guitar had opened a thin line across his forearm during the set, still seeping. He’d forgotten about it entirely. He looked back up. "That’s not the point."
Frank seemed to finally feel the pain, bringing a hand up to his split eyebrow. "You don't get to decide what the point is."
"The point is you don't get to throw yourself off shit because you're pissed!"
"Oh, fuck off."
Gerard rolled his eyes, walking a few paces ahead. His hand shot out, wrapping fast around the back of Frank’s shirt, just below the collar, where the sweat had already soaked through and turned the fabric into something halfway disgusting. It didn’t matter.
He got a fistful and yanked. "Sure! right after you let the EMT look at your face."
Every time Gerard thought the struggle might be over, Frank would double down, jerking his shoulders so violently that Gerard had to dig in with both hands and leverage all his weight. He tried to ignore all of it to get him into the fucking ambulance, but each step was impossible, much more so when Frank started calling him a dickhead, and a drama queen, and whatever else he had in his repertoire.
They were three steps from the backdoor when Frank’s fist drove hard into Gerard’s side, a sharp, breath-stealing blow just under his ribs.
"Shit!" The word tore out of him as a ragged gasp, the burn spreading through his muscles. But his grip on Frank’s shirt didn't loosen. "Move it!"
Frank grinned, wild and unfocused, and swung again, this time aiming for Gerard’s wrist to break his hold. "I’m okay! You crybaby!"
"You cracked your head open!" Gerard snarled, twisting Frank’s collar in one hand and slamming his other palm between Frank’s shoulder blades, shoving him toward the exit.
Frank shoved back, boots scraping for purchase on the concrete. "I’m fine!"
"You got lucky!"
Frank wrenched free for one staggering second, just enough to spin around, face smeared with drying blood and fresh fury. He got right in Gerard’s space, close enough to spit. "Since when do you give a shit?!"
All the anger drained out of him, leaving something colder and far more certain. His voice dropped low, almost quiet. "You’re lucky you’re fucking cute."
Frank’s mouth snapped shut. All the furious tension bled out of his frame, his shoulders dropping like someone had cut all the strings. For a second he just stood there, wide-eyed and unblinking, blood drying in sticky tracks down his temple. Gerard didn’t wait for whatever was happening behind that stunned silence. The moment Frank’s posture went soft, Gerard’s hand closed around his bicep firmly but gently and guided him toward the exit.
He could feel the faint tremor running through Frank’s arm, could see the way his mouth hung slightly open as if he meant to say something but the words had dissolved. He walked compliantly now, steps shuffling and unsteady on the concrete. Gerard kept his grip firm but careful, half-expecting Frank to shake him off any second, to snap back into feral resistance. But he stayed quiet, pliant in a way that felt fragile. He didn’t speak or mention it at all, he didn’t want to shatter whatever strange truce had fallen over them.
It was only when the EMT reached for the antiseptic wipe that Frank seemed to snap back into himself. The poor medic had just started to dab at the gash above his eyebrow when Frank’s gaze cut past him, locking onto Gerard.
"This doesn’t mean you won."
Gerard stared at him for a long second, eyes tracking the fresh bloom of red where the antiseptic stung the split skin. "Won what?"
"You know fucking what." Frank’s eyes narrowed, the movement pulling at the gash above his brow.
"No" Gerard said, voice flat even if he was grinning. "I really don’t."
"This." Frank gestured vaguely between them with his good arm and immediately winced as the movement jostled his injured wrist still held firmly by the EMT. "Ow, shit."
"Hold still," the EMT said, not looking up from cleaning the gash.
Frank glared at Gerard as though this was somehow his fault. "You cheated."
"…I said you were cute."
"Don’t." Frank’s expression wavered, the hard lines of anger going slack for just a second, like a screen freezing mid-glitch, before settling into something distant and vaguely vulnerable. "Fuck you."
Gerard felt the grin twist across his face, adrenaline still burning in his chest. Frank, who only seconds before had been trying to wriggle out of Gerard’s grip like a damn coyote biting its own arm had just… stopped. Something behind his eyes seemed to short-circuit.
For a second, he wondered if Frank might actually faint, which would have been fucking hilarious if it wasn’t so disarming.
He had found the goddamn button. Not a metaphorical button, either, but a real, working, bioelectric switch embedded somewhere in Frank Iero’s messy wiring. All the years they’d spent on top of each other in vans, clubs, venues, hellholes, and all it took to override pure stubbornness was a backhanded flirt.
Say "you’re cute" and Frank’s operating system crashed straight to the blue screen.
Gerard tasted it at the back of his throat, felt it like a charge in his fingertips. He wanted to test it, and needed to see exactly how this worked. He was suddenly, intensely aware of the power he held.
Oh.
Game on.
The first thing that came to his mind after he realized the brand new and exciting way to make Frank shut up was how many variables he could try, what if it was only "cute"? Would "adorable" do it? Did Frank have a specific dictionary of words that shorted out his systems? Was it voice? Eye contact? The way you said it?
What if he tried it with pet names? Would "baby" do it? Would "sweetheart"? Would Frank combust or would he swing a fist the first time it left Gerard’s lips?
He was so lost in the theoretical possibilities that he missed the moment when the EMT let Frank go, and Frank slid off the gurney, face set and jaw ticking, but his hands shaking just enough to betray him. Gerard watched, fascinated, as Frank tried to reassemble himself in real time.
It took less than two hours before he found Frank again, patched up but still visibly pissed, he was back to that stupid frown that looked more like a pout. Probably because he had been dragged to medical like a toddler in the middle of a tantrum. He had it coming anyway for scaring the shit out of him.
Still, he was injured, and the moment Gerard spotted him by the loading dock, hunched over near a stack of flight cases with that familiar stubborn set to his shoulders, the instinct to march over and shove him into a chair was almost physical. He could see the tightness in Frank’s posture, the way he favored his bandaged wrist even as he pretended to help.
"Hey!" Gerard called out, breaking into a jog across the asphalt. Frank was squatting awkwardly beside a cabinet, one hand braced against his thigh like he might tip over. "Leave that shit alone. You’re supposed to be resting."
Frank rolled his eyes, and Gerard watched the motion pull at the white gauze taped above his brow. "I can fucking carry a speaker."
"You can barely carry your dignity." He shot back, tipping his chin toward a couple roadies who were already moving in to take over.
"Fuck you."
Okay. Now or never. He let a slow grin spread across his face.
"What's wrong, handsome?"
Frank’s head whipped around so fast Gerard worried the bandage might tear loose. Frank stared, silent. Not even a token attempt at snark. Just, frozen. In less than a couple of seconds, he was walking away from the loading dock. Gerard felt a mean little curl of satisfaction inside his chest at the totality of it.
Okay, other words worked too. And very well at that, he had successfully deterred Frank from doing yet another stupid thing, and it didn’t take half an hour of bickering back and forth. That was something.
Once the loadout was finished, Gerard found himself wandering through the dimly lit venue, the faint echoes of music still lingering in the air. He ambled past scattered equipment cases and empty beer cups, his mind buzzing with possibilities. A quick snack might help stave off the adrenaline crash, so he headed toward the makeshift green room in search of something edible. Maybe he could catch The Offspring backstage.
He couldn’t shake the thought of whether there was a necessary cooldown period for the trick he had discovered with Frank. Was there a limit to how often he could press that button?. If there was, he wanted to be respectful of it. Back in the bus, the stale air was thick with the smell of diesel and old carpet. Frank was slumped in the aisle seat, arms crossed with his legs sprawled across the tiny aisle and onto the opposite couch. He recognized that look, the one that meant he had decided to ignore Gerard’s existence all together. At least now he was icing his eyebrow, which was good.
Unlucky for Frank, Gerard needed to change out of his stage clothes, and his bunk is directly behind the bridge Frank has made of his legs across the aisle.
So of course, he tried talking first.
"Excuse me." he said, almost conversational, leaning against the edge of the kitchenette.
Frank just stared up at the bus ceiling, boots braced on the edge of the seat, arms folded tight. The shape of him dared Gerard to make something of it, for a moment he thought he might actually have to climb over him like some kind of deranged jungle gym. "No."
"I need to get past you."
"Go around."
He shrugs, gauging the situation. "Can't, you’re in the way"
Frank let out a slow sigh, as if exhaling centuries of disappointment. "Sounds like a problem."
He looked at Frank, really looked: the mess of dark hair, the crescent of bruised skin blooming under the gauze, the way his fingers tapped an unconscious rhythm on his wrist even as he pretended not to care. And maybe, for the first time in his life, Gerard had the upper hand.
Test number two.
"Sweetheart, move."
Nothing happened for the first two seconds. Frank’s eyes remained fixed on the ceiling, mouth set in a perfect line of defiance. Gerard could practically see the gears grinding, the frantic attempts at system override.
Frank’s lips twitched, like he was about to say something but the words shorted out before they reached his tongue. For a long moment, he just stared. Then he seemed to remember he had a face to save, and did his best to piece together a sneer.
"You’re fucking insufferable," Frank muttered, yet, his legs shifted, boots dropping one after another to the floor and clearing the path to the bunks.
"Thanks"
"Shut up!" Frank’s voice followed him, but there was no real venom in it now.
He ducked into his bunk, pulled out a change of clothes from under the messy blankets and headed for the bathroom. He could still hear Frank out there, deliberately slamming his boots against the metal frame, cursing under his breath, pretending to be mad at the world.
But Gerard knew better. He’d seen the look, hell, he’d engineered it.
Two for two.
From behind the bathroom door, he could hear a muffled discussion that slowly but surely escalated, then the heavy thump of something hitting the ground, booming through the floor. Ray’s tone was still measured at first, tight, polite, then Frank’s voice, flat and cold as a blade, something about pedal boards and how no one ever puts shit back where it belongs. Interesting.
He finished pulling on his jeans and stepped out into the narrow aisle. Exactly as he’d pictured: Frank was coiled on the couch like a spring, knuckles white where he gripped the melting ice pack. Ray stood over him, one hand planted on his hip, the other jabbing toward the floor where a tangle of pedals and cables sprawled like roadkill.
Frank tugged the ice pack from his face. A fresh bruise was coming up purple along his temple. "I was looking for my tuner."
Ray’s voice went dangerously quiet. "You couldn’t have asked?"
"You weren't there."
"So you just tore my board apart?" Ray’s sneaker nudged a stray cable, sending it slithering further across the floor.
"I didn’t tear anything apart."
Ray stabbed a finger toward the mess. "The distortion one is where my delay goes. They’re not even the same voltage!"
Frank’s smile was all teeth. "Maybe your delay wanted to see how the other half lives."
"You are such an asshole."
"Oh, fuck off, Ray."
Gerard busied himself by the bunks with the laundry bag, taking longer than necessary to turn a shirt right-side out. If anything, he was surprised the anger from yesterday kept seeping out of Frank like a broken faucet, he’d watched Frank go through phases before the kind where he’d do something reckless onstage, or disappear into the back lounge and not come out, or quietly eat whatever wasn’t his until the mood passed. Those he understood.
Frank could be a nightmare, could do stupid shit that made Gerard’s stomach drop, that was normal. But Ray was the one who had taught him every trick he knew. They had their scuffles every now and then, but this was all teeth and misfired anger, which seemed to irritate the fuck out of Ray too.
Ray took another step forward, his worn sneaker crunching on a loose patch of velcro. "Do you have any idea how long it took me to get that shit right? The chain alone–"
"It’s a pedalboard," Frank said, not looking up from where he was coiled on the couch. "Not the fucking Rosetta Stone."
"Don’t touch my stuff!" Ray’s hand slashed through the air, pointing at the jumble of metal and wires on the floor.
"Then label it!" Frank shot back, his head snapped up and sent the icepack flying to the side and hitting the couch with a wet thud.
"I shouldn’t have to label my own equipment because you’re a fucking gremlin!"
Frank was on his feet in one fluid, angry motion. "Say that again."
"Gremlin." Ray didn’t back down an inch.
Frank’s shoulders tensed, his hands curling at his sides. "You wanna–"
"Okay," Gerard said, standing up from where he’d been pretending to sort laundry. His voice cut through the tension but neither of them so much as glanced his way.
"You know what your problem is?" Frank barked, the fresh bruise along his temple pulsing purple under the bus’s cheap lighting.
Ray let out a short, disgusted laugh. "I don’t have time for this."
"Exactly!" Frank’s words hit like a slap. "You never have time for anything! Not for this, not for anyone!"
For one horrifying second, everyone froze. Ray’s arms crossed tight over his chest, his knuckles white where his fingers dug into his own ribs. Well, shit.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Ray said finally.
"Guys–" Gerard tried again, taking half a step forward.
Frank darted at him. "Stay out of it."
Ray scoffed, taking one deliberate step backward into the narrow aisle. "You wanna fight about the pedal board, fine. But don’t drag whatever the fuck else is going on into this."
"You don’t know what’s going on," Frank shot back with his chin tilted up, a vein had started to throb somewhere near his neck.
"Apparently neither do you."
"Fuck off."
Ray’s eyebrows shot up toward his hairline. "Oh, fuck you too."
Gerard sighed. He’d told himself it would be better to let them hash it out, after all, maybe Ray and Frank needed to get a few things off their chests, let the pressure fizz and pop instead of bottling it until it blew the bus apart at seventy miles an hour. But if there was any hope of keeping tonight from devolving into full-on carnage, he would have to intervene.
He looked at Frank, still flushed and shaking with leftover adrenaline, then at Ray, whose patience was hanging by a thread.
It was science, really, if you squinted.
"Frank," He said, with enough force to cut through the noise.
Frank turned toward him. If looks could kill, Gerard would be a smear on the linoleum.
He met that glare with his own version of challenge, a slow, crooked grin that he let spread across his face like a secret he was about to share.
"You look hot when you’re angry."
At first Frank turned to him, looking beyond bewildered. His lips stammered for a couple of seconds in a furious effort to come up with some retort, an insult, even just a ‘fuck you‘ would’ve probably done the trick. All that came out was a low, frustrated sound from deep in his throat, like a growl choked back by sheer disbelief.
Ray for his part looked like someone had just told him he won a million dollars. His mouth fell open and a startled laugh burst out of him, one sharp, disbelieving "ha!"
"Shut up!" Frank said.
Ray snorted, uncrossing his arms. "I just–"
"Shut up."
Oh. Three for three, technically, though this one landed differently. Handsome hit Frank somewhere behind the sternum and made him go rigid, like a cat that’d been picked up wrong. Sweetheart made the fight drain right out of him, leaving him silently compliant, even if only for a second. But this?
Hot. That one hit Frank like a round from a nail gun.
He forgot about Ray, and apparently it even made him reconsider his part in the mess. He lurched for the pedal board like it was the only flotation device in a sea of idiocy, suddenly very interested in the tangled wires and stomped metal he’d been fighting over thirty seconds ago.
"You're such a fucking dick." Frank picked up the first pedal, carefully winding the cable around it.
Ray didn't say anything. He just watched. He watched Gerard. Watched Frank. Watched the whole car crash unfold with the fascinated expression of someone trying to reverse-engineer it for future black-box analysis. "Are you serious?"
Gerard shrugged, still quietly fascinated by his discovery. "De-escalation."
"Huh." There was something almost like respect in Ray's grunt.
Meanwhile, Frank had slipped into a kind of angry autopilot, sorting the pedals by brand and slotting each cable back into place with increasingly unnecessary precision. Ray and Gerard exchanged one of those silent conversations that required nothing more than a glance.
Something clicked behind Ray's eyes. Then he turned back to Frank, narrowing his eyes, a smile already lurking beneath the surface. "Thanks, baby."
The cable Frank had been untangling whipped out of nowhere and smacked Ray square in the chest.
"Ow! Jesus–"
"Fuck off, Ray."
Ray didn't stop smiling, though his eyes watered slightly. "Worth a shot."
Gerard pressed his lips together hard, biting the soft flesh inside his cheek until he tasted copper. His shoulders started shaking with the silent laughter he refused to let escape.
Frank finally lifted his head, jabbing a finger first at Gerard, then at Ray. "I fucking hate this bus."
"You started it," Ray said, leaning back against the bunk frame and rubbing the fresh sting on his chest.
"I touched your pedal board" Frank snapped, his hands still moving as he forced the distortion pedal back into its Velcro-lined spot with more force than strictly necessary.
"And apparently Gee touched your fucking brain." Ray added, earning him another bundle of cable to the face.