Archive of Our Own

Tour life for a newbie band meant that, sometimes, you were so broke you’d trade a guitar pick for half a burrito.

They survived on venue scraps most of the time, stale chips, half-eaten deli trays, abandoned instant noodles fished out from cupboards and musty basements. But there were always days like this, with nothing left to scavenge. So they pushed into the 7-Eleven, clutching their pooled $12.73 like it was the last spell in a dying wizard’s book, praying to the fluorescent-lit altar of BOGO sales.

"This is bullshit," Mikey said, looking very offended at the line of fridges.

Gerard looked over. "What?"

"$1.25 for a bottle of water"

Ray was already standing in front of the soda fountain, staring at the selection with the intensity of a man making a life-altering decision. "Big Gulps are seventy-four cents."

Mikey’s head snapped around so fast his neck audibly cracked. "Where?"

"Right here."

"Holy shit."

Gerard looked between them, crossing his tired arms across his chest and letting out a sigh that went on for about three seconds. "So four of those are…"

"Like three bucks?" Ray said, looking at Mikey because math was never the stronghold of the band. They needed at least two brains working the case. "That’s better than paying five whole dollars for tiny water bottles, isn't it?" 

Mikey instantly started doing bad math on the back of a scratch-off ticket he found in the parking lot, suggesting they were basically just paying for cups, and they could reuse those and fill them with water from a random tap water somewhere, maybe a church, churches had taps, didn’t they? Or a gas station bathroom, that could do the trick.

Ray was dead set on filling a Big Gulp with instant coffee and praying the cashier didn’t notice, because according to him that was a smart move that would save them exactly two dollars and seventeen cents, which was basically breakfast.

"That’s not a plan," Gerard said. "That’s a felony."

"It’s a gray area," Ray said. "It’s like jaywalking, but smarter"

"Fine! We get the damn soda, and then we're down to ten."

"Ten dollars and change."

"We need food." Gerard picked up a can of Spam, read the label for three seconds, and put it back down like it had insulted his mother. "What if we just eat the hot dog buns? Like, raw. No hot dogs. Just the buns."

"The buns are four dollars."

"God is dead." Gerard slowly looked around the store. "Where the fuck is Frank?"

The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Mikey offered a shrug as an answer while Ray had apparently begun Phase Two of his master plan: attempting to siphon boiling coffee directly from the machine’s spigot into a Big Gulp cup. Mikey provided cover by asking the cashier an elaborate question about lottery tickets.

Yet, the whole aisle smelled like burnt ambition and cheap arabica, anyone with a functional pair of eyes could see the coffee scam unfold.

Whatever, worst case scenario, they are forced to pay for 32 ounces of coffee, not the end of the world.

Gerard, who had just been mentally calculating the caloric ROI of eating nothing but ketchup packets for two days, turned and found Frank hovering near the pastries like a happy little ghost. Two honeybuns were performing a quick magic trick into the depths of his hoodie pocket.

Frank’s eyes flicked up.

Gerard’s did too.

A silent, wide-eyed standoff started.

Frank brought a single finger to his smiling lips. Shhhhh.

Oh my God. Gerard thinks. Frank’s stealing honeybuns. Why is that kind of… electric? Like a tiny lightning bolt in his chest, zapping his empty stomach and making his fingers tingle. Focus.

He’s stealing honeybuns, and now he’s doing the little "get over here, dumbass" wave with his free hand like this is a heist movie and not a 7-Eleven at the graveyard shift. This can’t be fucking good. Gerard stared at him for another second, his brain short-circuiting between hunger and hysteria.

Then, against every shred of dignity and self-preservation he’d ever pretended to have, he shot a glance toward the register where the cashier was still nodding along to Mikey’s elaborate theory about scratch-off ticket conspiracy. He looked back. Frank beamed, giving a tiny, conspiratorial thumbs-up with the hand not currently committing pastry-based robbery.

Ah, shit.

His heart was doing the Macarena against his ribs. He was going to help. Not like he had a choice; his armpits were already staging a full-scale sweat rebellion against the arctic AC, and Frank had apparently already drafted him into the 7-Eleven Felony Task Force without so much as a consent form.

He was about to attempt a full-body "no" tremor when Mikey materialized at his elbow.

"Okay, so."

Gerard nearly jumped out of his skin. "Jesus Christ!"

Mikey blinked at him. "What?"

"Nothing."

Frank was still standing beside the pastries. Cool as a cucumber.

Mikey leaned closer, lowering his voice like they were discussing something of grave financial importance. "We have twelve dollars and seventy-three cents. Ray says we can get four Big Gulps for under three bucks, but I think that's stupid because we still need actual food."

"Yeah." Gerard’s head started nodding and just… didn’t stop, like a bobblehead someone had whacked way too hard.

Mikey was still reading off the scratch off and its little numbers like he had solved capitalism once and for all. "So I was thinking we could get one of those little packs of deli meat and Kraft singles."

"Okay."

"And maybe bread."

"Sure." Gerard said, his eyes locked on the faint rectangular bulge in Frank’s hoodie pocket where two honeybuns were currently staging a jailbreak. His stomach did a full somersault.

"And then we could split the sandwiches between the four of us."

"Sounds good."

Mikey frowned. "You're agreeing with everything."

"I'm hungry." Gerard swallowed hard as Frank palmed a pack of powdered donuts like a magician practicing sleight-of-hand.

Mikey squinted at him. Then his gaze drifted over to Frank, who was now studying a rack of beef jerky, like he was considering a perfectly legitimate purchase. Mikey looked back at Gerard. "Why are you sweating?"

"It's hot."

"It's fucking freezing in here."

"I'm having a moment."

"Are you sick?"

"No."

Frank’s lips did a little quiver-dance and Gerard wanted to strangle him. The bastard was trying not to laugh.

Mikey, bless his oblivious heart, kept going on. "So bread, maybe some chips. We could probably get all that for, like, eight bucks?"

"Great."

"And then we'd have enough left for soda."

"Fantastic."

"And maybe honeybuns."

Gerard’s soul didn’t just leave his body, it did a perfect swan dive through the automatic doors, stole a pack of cigarettes, and hitchhiked to fucking Belize. He looked at Frank. Frank looked back, one eyebrow twitching like a dying moth.

Then Frank gave him a smile so conspiratorial it probably had its own secret handshake.

Gerard’s neck snapped away so fast he heard cartilage scream. "Yeah," he squeaked, voice cracking like a teenager’s. "Honeybuns sound great."

Mikey nodded, already halfway to the bread aisle. "Cool. I’ll go look."

Gerard waited until he was safely out of earshot, then he hissed, "You're fucking insane."

"You’re my accomplice now." Frank just shrugged one shoulder, a gesture so casual it felt like another crime.

"I haven’t even touched anything!"

"Yet." Frank's grin widened as he glanced toward the next aisle. "Come on."

Gerard stared at him. "Where?"

"Somewhere with better options."

"You already have two honeybuns."

"I know. Those are mine." Frank patted his pocket like he was soothing a small, sugar-addicted animal. He started walking.

Gerard realized three steps into the next aisle that his feet were moving entirely without his brain’s permission. He wasn’t following Frank to steal. Obviously. He was simply... moving in the same direction as him. Like a duckling.

Frank stopped in front of the Big Eats shelf.

Little bags of Corn Nuts dangled like shiny, salty prizes, slim enough to disappear into a pocket without leaving much of a trace. Next to them, individual salads and bruised bananas sat under a sign that said SALE!!!, probably contemplating their own expiration dates.

Frank studied the display.

Gerard studied Frank studying it, and wondered if maybe they’d both inhaled too much parking lot fumes earlier.

"Those," Frank whispered.

Gerard looked at the shelf. "What about them?"

"Easy."

"Easy what?"

"Easy to pocket."

Gerard’s stomach dropped through the floor and kept going. "You're fucking joking."

Frank gave him a look, not the usual one. This was the look Frank reserved for when he’d already decided something and God himself could not be convinced otherwise. "Gerard."

"No."

"I can't get food for four people by myself, I have one hoodie you have the other."

"Then don't steal food for four people."

Frank pointed at the bags. "I'm not stealing food for four people. We're stealing food for four people."

Gerard rubbed both hands over his face hard enough to see stars, which honestly would have been a relief, because then he wouldn’t be standing in aisle six of a 7-Eleven at… he checked his watch, at 11:14 at night, debating felony logistics with a man who had honeybuns in his hoodie.

Frank was already reaching toward the shelf. "You're helping me."

"I’m not"

"You're already here."

"I didn’t know you were going to make me steal some shit"

Frank gave him a little shrug. "Sure."

There was something deeply irritating about the way Frank said sure when he very obviously meant you're fucked.

Frank glanced down the aisle, left, then right, checking for people, maybe cameras, whatever, then back at Gerard. "Besides, there are rules."

Gerard blinked. "Rules?"

"Yeah."

"How do you know that?"

Frank paused. Just for a second. A fluorescent tube overhead buzzed like a trapped fly and the honeybuns in his hoodie pocket made a faint crinkle sound. "Got arrested once."

Gerard’s entire brain stopped. The word arrested sat in his head like a rock somebody had thrown through a window. He could hear the cashier humming near the register, and it sounded, suddenly, like a sworn statement against him. "...What?"

"Not for this."

"Oh."

"Anyway." Frank picked up a bag of Corn Nuts. "Food."

Gerard’s brain, apparently determined to ruin his life and then send him a thank-you card afterward, supplied an image so crisp and high-definition it felt like a documentary: Frank in a cheap plastic chair, wrists cuffed behind his back, fluorescent lights glinting off the metal. Frank’s expression wouldn’t be scared or angry, just bored, like he was waiting for a bus he knew was never coming.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Gerard physically shook his head, hard enough to make his own teeth rattle. Nope. He focused on the Corn Nuts like they were the last sane thing in the universe. Corn Nuts were simple. Corn Nuts didn’t come with complimentary felony charges.

Frank, meanwhile, was still turning the bag over in his hands like it contained the secrets of the fucking universe. "How many?" he whispered, not even looking at Gerard.

Gerard blinked. "What?"

"How many do you think we can get?"

Gerard stared at him. "You're asking me to budget a theft?"

"I'm asking you to participate in one."

"That’s so much worse."

Frank glanced down the aisle again, then up at the security camera mounted near the ceiling, then back at Gerard, like he was checking off boxes on a form. "Two each?"

"Two what?"

"Bags."

"Frank, we're not feeding an army."

"We have four people."

"That is not an army."

"Depends how hungry Mikey is."

Gerard opened his mouth. Closed it.

Because Mikey, when properly motivated, could eat a whole pizza in one sitting and still hover by the chip bowl. And there was something about the fluorescent light and Frank’s completely unbothered face that made this whole thing feel less like a crime and more like a math problem they were solving together.

Unfortunately, he had a compelling argument.

Frank glanced at him, then at the bag of Corn Nuts in his hand. His mouth twitched.

"Okay. This is how you do it," he whispered, like he was about to reveal the secret to folding a fitted sheet. "Just relax. Watch."

Frank waited until someone passed the end of the aisle. Then he moved.

It was so quick Gerard almost missed it, which was frankly insulting, because he’d been watching. He had his eyes on the situation, like a responsible adult, and the situation still went ahead and did a magic trick on him.

One second the bag was just a bag, hanging there on its little metal hook. The next, Frank’s wrist did this little twitchy flick, snatching two bags at once. His fingers did something that defied physics, a weird little tuck-and-roll motion, and suddenly one of the bags was just gone, sucked right up his sleeve like a jello shot. The other one stayed in his hand, dangling there all innocent, like it was waiting to be paid for.

It was a deranged magic trick. Abracadabra, motherfucker.

No hesitation. No fumbling. No dramatic sneaking around, and Gerard found that deeply offensive, because if you’re going to commit a crime you should at least have the decency to look shifty about it. You should sweat a little. You should check for cameras twice. That’s just manners.

Frank looked back at him, blinking, innocent as a Sunday school teacher who definitely knows where the communion wine is hidden. "See?"

Gerard stared. "What?"

Frank’s eyebrows lifted. "What?"

"Nothing." Gerard forced himself to look at the shelf instead of Frank’s hands. Safer territory.

Because now his mind was replaying the whole thing in slow-motion, 4K, director’s cut with commentary: the flick of Frank’s wrist, the unholy confidence, the zero-fucks-given energy of it all. Like he’d done this not a hundred times, but maybe a thousand. Enough to get cuffed, printed, and probably put on some kind of snack-theft watchlist.

Okay. Fine.

That is happening now.

He had been recruited into a life of crime because Frank Anthony Iero: rhythm guitarist, certified menace, and apparently a fucking magician, wasn't having Mikey’s plan of trying to make sandwiches and hope for the best. Gerard tried his best to replay the little movement of Frank’s hand and focus only on how the hell he managed to slip those damn Corn Nuts into his sleeve. Just the mechanics. Just the tuck, the roll, the vanish.

How the fuck did he do that?

Gerard watched Frank's hands. Fast. Really fucking fast.

The fucker is good with his hands.

Gerard immediately frowned. Bad sentence, terrible sentence in fact. They were talking about stealing snacks. This was not the time to develop a sudden appreciation for Frank’s dexterity.

He watched as Frank glanced toward the register, then back at the shelf.

Okay, he's doing it again.

Did he have sleight-of-hand training? Was there a secret orientation for this? Had everyone else received a fucking handbook? Frank's fingers moved again, same little movement. Gone.

Gerard stared at the empty hook, what the actual fuck. He looked at Frank's hands again. The little tuck-and-roll motion. He kind of understood it now. Sort of, if you squinted at it sideways and stopped asking questions.

Tuck. Roll. Pocket. Easy.

Except Frank was doing it like he was just browsing the store with the confidence of a madman, like the snack aisle owed him money. Like everything his hands touched just somehow made sense underneath them. Guitar, strings, picks, cigarettes, fixing shit, and now snacks. Frank could probably disarm a bomb or fold a fitted sheet without instructions and Gerard would believe it.

Gerard's eyes dropped to Frank’s fingertips where there was still a little red line right where his skin met the metal, probably from the show in Irving Plaza. He'd noticed it earlier. Frank's hands had been absolutely wrecked after that set.

They probably needed bandaids, he should steal bandaids. That was actually useful, that was if he was even capable of stealing, which the little corn nut operation was proving impossible to begin with, because apparently God had given him fingers and then gone on lunch break before teaching him how to use them.

Frank made it look so fucking easy. He made it look like the bag wanted to be in his sleeve.

And—

The bag slips from Gerard’s fingers.

It hits the floor with a sound like a gunshot in a library. The cashier’s head snaps up and Gerard’s brain offers, helpfully, that he could still sell Frank out for stealing, he could point and say "It was him.", but then he remembers they have a show on Thursday and Frank is the only one who knows all the bridges, so.

Frank doesn't even flinch or hurry, he doesn't even look at Gerard. Just plucks another bag off the hook like he’s selecting a fine wine, squints at the price tag, and chirps. "Are these on sale too?"

Meanwhile, Gerard is still standing there vibrating gently like a poorly-balanced washing machine, trying to figure out what kind of alternate dimension he just stepped into where petty theft is a performance art and his friend is its unhinged maestro.

Because this motherfucker is good.

Then the cashier, a man built like a retired linebacker who now hunts shoplifters for sport, answers without looking up from scanning a legit customer’s energy drinks. The already deep wrinkles on his forehead grow into canyons of pure suspicion. "...Yeah, they’re on sale. Are you blind or something?"

"Alright, thanks man" Frank chirps, completely unbothered.

Frank drifts closer, pretending to deeply consider a bag of beef jerky he wouldn’t ever buy because he’s a goddamned vegetarian who cries during documentaries about cows. He doesn’t even turn his head, just lets the words slip out sideways. "You’re supposed to tuck it first."

Gerard’s lips barely twitch. "I know"

"No, you don't."

"I almost had it."

"You threw it like a grenade."

"I know!"

Frank gave him that tiny fucking smile, the one that said I am enjoying your slow descent into snack-based madness. "Cute."

Gerard only manages to lock eyes with Frank, and what he finds is more infuriating than reassuring, because Frank just gave him a look, a roll of the eyes and a shrug. "Dude. Relax."

"Relax?"

"It’s 7-Eleven."

"That doesn't make it legal."

"Nobody said it was legal."

Frank reached past him and plucked another brand-name packet of cookies while they slowly pretended to browse the store, which for Gerard meant sweating into his hoodie and trying to remember what a normal person’s face does.

…He really needed to stop looking at Frank's hands.

"They make, like, millions of dollars," Frank continued, reaching past him to straighten a box of donuts that didn’t need straightening. "We’re taking like ten bucks worth of shit. I think they’ll survive."

"That's not how—"

"Way." Frank stopped dead on his tracks, looking at him through his eyebrows, which was frankly terrifying. "I need you to understand something very important."

Gerard swallowed. He could feel the cashier watching the back of his neck. He turned toward the shelf so his hoodie hid his face. "What?"

"You are taking this way too seriously."

"We’re stealing." Gerard whispered as he picked up a can of Pringles, read the label, and put it back upside down.

"Yes. Congratulations. You've discovered shoplifting."

Gerard opened his mouth, then shut it again.

Frank nodded toward the register as he resumed walking to the refrigerated shelves. "Also, unless you want to explain your ethical objections to the six-foot-tall grandpa who looks like he keeps a shotgun under that counter, you're gonna have to actually steal something."

"What?" Gerard stared at him.

"You heard me."

"You want me to steal something?"

"I want you to stop standing there looking like you're waiting for God to strike you down."

"Maybe he should."

"Cool. Tell him to wait until we’re outside. I wanna get yogurt first."

Frank found a small pack of peanut butter crackers priced at an unreasonable standard, made a face, and shoved the packet toward Gerard.

"Just take it, it doesn't bite" Frank is so close he can practically smell the van’s seats on his hair. This man smells like upholstery and danger.

"I know how pockets work."

"Then fucking prove it."

He actually pulls it off. Tuck. Roll. Pocket. The bag vanishes like it was always meant to do that, not even a whisper of crinkle, and the cashier keeps staring into the middle distance like he’s contemplating the void. Holy shit. His heart kicks against his ribs like it’s trying to escape. Did that just happen? Is he a wizard? Is this real life?

Frank gives him this tiny, serene nod, like a yoga instructor approving of his downward dog. Good. Breathe.

Gerard’s hand dives into his pocket to confirm reality. Did he just successfully commit a crime?

There is a crunch. He fucking freezes.

Slowly, he pulls out…

One fucking bag of Corn Nuts.

The same ones he had tried to smuggle and accidentally dropped like they were hot.

For one unhinged second, the laws of physics curl up and die. Personal space is a lie. Time is a suggestion. I did not put these here. I did not put these here.

Frank doesn’t even pivot from the protein bars. "Good."

"Why," Gerard whispers, voice cracking like dry twigs, "are there Corn Nuts in my pocket?"

"Snuck ’em in." Frank tosses the words over his shoulder like confetti as he shrugs.

"When?!"

"When you were having your little internal crisis over by the Slim Jims."

"I would’ve felt that!"

"You didn’t."

The absolute psychotic audacity of this dude.

So now Gerard is standing there in the fluorescent glow of the chip aisle, holding the Corn Nuts in both hands like they are evidence in a murder trial. The bag is warm from his pocket. "You put stolen food in my pocket without telling me?"

"Yeah."

"Why?!"

Frank looks genuinely confused by the question, eyebrows up, mouth pulled to one side. "Because you weren’t stealing anything."

"That doesn't make it better!"

"Sure it does. Now you're involved."

A hot flush prickles up the back of Gerard’s neck, spreading across his cheeks like a sudden fever. Because Frank didn't just steal something, he’d palmed the bag from the hook, closed the distance in one casual step while Gerard was busy short-circuiting, and slipped it into Gerard’s pocket without so much as rustling the fabric.

Not a single scrape of fingernail on denim. Just a small pressure against his hip, there and gone.

His brain stutters, tripping over itself. Oh. That was… weirdly intimate. The way Frank’s hand had fit so easily into his pocket without asking permission, without even warning him first — nope.

Meanwhile Frank has already turned his back, casual as ever, hands in his own pockets now, and is drifting toward the humming refrigerators like nothing happened at all.

"Come on," he says. "Yogurt."

Gerard stood frozen, the stolen Corn Nuts clenched in his sweaty palm like a confession. "I fucking hate you."

"No, you don’t." Frank doesn’t even break stride.

They finally spotted the refrigerated shelf, the glass fogged up and sweating, fluorescent light buzzing overhead.

Hard-boiled eggs, two to a pack. Meat sticks, shrink-wrapped like cigars. Cheese packets, the kind with the red wax rind. Little yogurts, rows of them, strawberry and peach and plain.

Actual protein.

Gerard’s hands started shaking. He shoved them into his hoodie pocket so Frank wouldn’t see.

Obviously because he was hungry. His stomach had been doing gymnastics since the last show, and there were only so many beef jerky wrappers a man could live on.

It definitely wasn’t because there was a cashier approximately twenty feet away, a grumpy old man in a green vest who kept glancing up from his crossword, who could potentially perceive him committing a crime. It definitely wasn’t because the fluorescent lights in this particular 7-Eleven were the exact color of an interrogation room on a cop show.

Or because Frank was standing close enough that Gerard could practically smell the strange and pleasant scent of him, stale coffee and deodorant, the ghost of a thousand cigarettes, leather seats, that one hoodie Frank refused to wash. Close enough that when Frank shifted his weight, his shoulder brushed Gerard’s and Gerard had to remind himself that shoulders are not a big deal.

Definitely not that.

He reached for one of the yogurts. Strawberry. His fingers hovered an inch off the cup, then stopped.

Gerard looked at the register. The cashier was squinting at the crossword again. He looked at the yogurt. There was a price sticker on the shelf. Seventy-nine cents. Seventy-nine cents, and his hand wouldn’t fucking carry it to his pocket.

He looked at the register again. The cashier yawned.

"Oh my fucking God," Frank muttered, loud enough that Gerard flinched.

"What?"

"You’re doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Thinking."

Gerard frowned. "I’m trying to figure out how to—"

"No, you’re trying to invent a legal loophole for stealing yogurt."

"I’m not stealing the yogurt."

Frank stared at him for a long second. Then he leaned in, squinting, like he was reading the fine print on Gerard’s face. "Fine."

Gerard blinked. "Fine?"

"Yeah. Fucking amateur."

Before Gerard could ask what that meant, and the word amateur was doing something to him, it really was, Frank reached into the refrigerated shelf, grabbed a yogurt, and without a single hesitation shoved it into Gerard’s front pocket, settling the little cup right against his abdomen. It was cold.

The cold did something. It did something Gerard was not going to examine.

That hit first. Then the fact that Frank’s entire hand had just been in his pocket. Then the fact that there was now contraband pressed against his stomach like a second, dairy-based spleen.

He made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a strangled complaint, which came out as more of a squeal, honestly, a sound he will be taking to his grave. "What the fuck!"

"You're welcome."

"You can't just—"

"Watch me" Frank reached past him for another yogurt.

Gerard slapped a hand over his wrist and clamped down like a panicked crab, scream-whispering. "Frank!"

"What?"

"You're putting food in my clothes!"

Frank looked calm as ever, one finger still hooked around the hem of Gerard’s pocket, probably gauging how much shit he could fit in there, completely unaware of how close they were. "Yeah. Because you weren't doing it."

"I was going to!"

"Sure you were."

"I was!" Gerard whined, refusing to let go even though some poor lady trying to get milk was definitely eyeing them over the dairy case at the other end of the fridges, her basket angled away from them like they had a contagious disease.

Frank leaned in, eyes wide with mock sincerity, close enough that Gerard could see the little chip in his front tooth. "Eventually?"

"Shut up." Gerard’s face went hot.

Frank grinned and grabbed a cheese packet off the shelf, and the fucker winked before tucking it into Gerard’s hoodie pouch like he was mailing a letter. "Relax. I’m packing you up."

Frank’s hands were already deep in the front pouch of Gerard’ s hoodie, fingers probing the worn seams and side pockets like he was taking inventory. He tucked a yogurt cup into one hidden corner, a cheese packet into another, all while Gerard stood frozen, every muscle locked. He could feel the cool shape of each new item pressed against his ribs, his stomach, the small of his back. And of course, hyper aware of how Frank’s hands were practically all over his torso. Jesus fucking Christ.

Twelve feet away and behind Gerard’s back, the cashier cleared his throat.

This is it. They’re going to jail.

The old man looks immediately suspicious, and also a little disgusted with their closeness, this was rural America after all. Yet, this man looked for three whole seconds at the situation before him and the suspicion lit up on his face like a christmas tree.

"Hey, so the Corn Nuts are actually three for two... sale... not BOGO... uh, can I help you with anything?"

For exactly four-tenths of a second, Frank’s fingers stilled inside Gerard’s hoodie like a burglar caught mid-heist. Then they resumed their mission, making sure the contraband was secure against Gerard’s body. This absolute fucking lunatic had apparently been waiting his whole life for the opportunity to weaponize social awkwardness on a molecular level.

Frank’s hand slipped out of Gerard’s hoodie, and before Gerard could even process the sudden absence of fingers near his kidneys, Frank was already pivoting toward the cashier with a smile that was equal parts deranged and angelic.

Frank didn’t answer, he just leaned in.

Smack!

A loud, theatrical kiss planted right on Gerard’s cheekbone, wet, slightly off-center, and smelling faintly of toothpaste and cheap body spray.

Gerard’s entire nervous system short-circuited. His knees actually buckled slightly. The cashier stared, mouth slightly agape. The woman by the dairy case froze mid-reach for the lactose-free milk. Somewhere behind them, a refrigerator compressor kicked on with a judgmental groan.

Frank grinned, letting his stubbly chin dig into Gerard’s shoulder while maintaining unnerving eye contact with the cashier. "Nah," he said, voice dripping with casual insanity, "all good, thanks."

Meanwhile, Frank is already executing Phase Two: The Grand Diversion.

Three bags of Corn Nuts materialize from the depths of his hoodie like doves from a magician’s sleeve. He spots Ray and Mikey still trying to figure out the sandwich situation and tosses the bags at Ray, smacking him square on the chest.

"You’re buying these!" he stage-whispers, which is to say he basically yodels it directly into Ray’s ear canal. Because Frank is not just running a misdirection seminar, he’s the seasoned professor of chaotic bullshit.

His fingers slot between Gerard’s like they’re plugging into a universal port for causing problems on purpose. Frank whispers as he makes them both march towards the automatic doors. "If anyone’s getting us arrested, it’s your face, dumbass. Now move."

They exit the sad 7-Eleven like it’s about to blow the fuck up, hand in hand. Into the questionable night.

Leaving behind a stunned cashier, a bewildered Ray holding three bags of salted nuts, and approximately twenty dollars worth of food-based contraband sweating against their skin.

Ray stood frozen, clutching the three bags of Corn Nuts like they were live grenades in the world’s most poorly funded heist movie. His expression hovered somewhere between religious epiphany and witnessing a public transit pileup.

Meanwhile, Mikey materialized at the register holding what appeared to be a single slice of deli meat that had escaped its packaging and the saddest loaf of bread this side of the Mississippi, completely oblivious to the fact that his friends were currently fleeing a crime scene they’d manufactured out of hoodies and sheer audacity.

And the real stroke of unhinged genius: the cashier wasn’t even looking at the bulging hoodie or Ray’s deer-in-headlights expression. No, he was too busy trying to compute two dudes who went from grocery-groping to public displays of affection in under six seconds. Frank hadn’t needed to sell some elaborate backstory. He just had to make everything so profoundly weird that the human brain short-circuits and defaults to not my problem.

Mission fucking accomplished.

They got maybe ten yards from the 7-Eleven, the automatic doors hissing shut behind them, before the cold night air finally jump-started Gerard’s brain back online. He could still feel the ghost of Frank’s lips on his cheek, a damp spot cooling quickly in the breeze.

"What the actual fuck was that?!" he choked out, voice tight and half-strangled as he cupped his cheekbone, it was so warm he almost forgot about the fact he was being used as a mule for free food.

Frank didn’t drop his hand, just swung their linked fingers slightly. "Decoy maneuver."

"You kissed me!!!"

"Yep"

"On my fucking face! In public!!!."

Frank’s thumb brushed idly over Gerard’s knuckles. "That’s usually where kisses go"

Gerard’s free hand flailed vaguely between them. "Why are you still holding my hand?!"

Frank glanced down at their linked fingers as if noticing them for the first time. He gave a slow, lazy shrug, the kind that made Gerard want to shake him. Or kiss him again. He wasn’t sure.

"Had to be convincing," Frank said, and his voice was so infuriatingly calm it sounded like a purr.

Gerard just goes silent, letting go of his hand and walking to the van in flustered-slash-angry stomps. He isn’t really sure.

His cheek is still damp, and honestly a little sticky, Frank is walking beside him like nothing happened, like he didn’t just detonate a social bomb in a 7-Eleven and then link their fingers together like it was a perfectly normal thing to do to avoid being arrested.

Frank is whistling. He’s actually whistling, some little tuneless thing, and Gerard wants to put him through the windshield of somebody’s parked Honda Civic.

And then Frank, casual as a man asking for the salt. "Pass me my yogurt?"

Gerard stops mid-step. He looks down at the hoodie, at the lumpy, vaguely dairy-shaped bulge riding against his sternum.

He looks at Frank and then back down at the hoodie.

"Why the fuck is your yogurt on my shirt?!?!?"

Frank doesn’t even slow down. "Because you have pockets."

Gerard opens the door to the van, breathing harder than he should. "Those aren’t—"

"Pockets!"

"That’s my stomach, asshole!" He huffed, taking a seat and starting to shake his hoodie loose of its contraband.

Gerard wants to cry, actually.

Two reasons: a) they are no longer inside that fluorescent-lit store with its sticky floors and the cashier who watched Frank’s mouth land on his cheek, and b) they have food. Actual, real food, which he is unloading onto the backseat of their van in the most humiliating inventory dump he has ever witnessed, one item at a time.

Plop. The yogurt, still cold, rolling against a crumpled interstate map.

Plop. The peanut butter crackers, in its sad little plastic sleeve, coming to rest against Frank’s discarded hoodie.

Crinkle. A lone bag of the damn Corn Nuts, sliding off Gerard’s lap and into the seat crack where they’ll probably live forever.

And the two of them just sitting there in the dark van with the dome light on, waiting for Mikey and Ray, who have committed no crime tonight except filling a soda cup with coffee and taking a dozen too many of the free ketchup packets from the roller grill area, which apparently doesn’t even count as shoplifting in this state.

Gerard sits there with his arms folded, hoodie empty at last, staring at the pile of food like it’s going to apologize. "I cannot believe this is my life."

"See? Worked great." Frank laughs beside him, sorting out the little haul.

The van door slides open with a rusty shriek. Ray and Mikey finally return, Ray’s arms stacked with four sloshing plastic cups gripped precariously between his fingers. The legally purchased bags of Corn Nuts dangle from his pinky, swinging like a pendulum. Mikey slips into the backseat clutching his sad, sealed ham and the loaf of bread so generic it’s just called "BREAD" in bold blue letters.

For a moment, no one speaks.

They just look at the little pile and something quiet and hungry passes between them. A silent, disbelieving acknowledgment: Holy shit. We actually have food.

"…How—?" Ray is about to ask, his voice hushed with something like reverence or alarm, when Frank shoves the sleeve of crackers at him.

"Easier when you have more hoodies to stuff shit into. Eat." Frank says, already giggling at his own marvel of engineering as he begins arranging Oreos into a shaky little pyramid on his knee.

Mikey is already tearing open the bread, he squeezes every last drop of a ketchup packet onto a slice. "The less we know the better," he mumbles around a mouthful of bread and condiment. "Just drive, Ray. I’ll hand you your dinner soon."

The van put a solid mile between them and the seven- eleven from hell, Ray at the wheel while being handed a sandwich that was more free condiment packets than actual food. Mikey was still meticulously layering stolen cheese singles when Frank suddenly plunged a hand into his own hoodie, he emerged with one of the honeybuns, its plastic wrapper fogged with body heat and clinging desperately to the pastry.

"Your cut, for helping out." He underhand-tossed it. It hit Gerard’s lap with a soft thump.

Gerard looked down at the honeybun in his thighs. "Weren’t those, like, your whole reason for living?"

"Your cut. Eat it before I change my mind" Frank rolled his eyes so hard his whole head lolled back. "I already saved your ass two, maybe three times."

Gerard just stared at it. He knew Frank would have fought a raccoon for these honeybuns. They were his holy grail, his white whale, his weirdly specific baked good of destiny. And here he was, handing one over like it was a medal for not having a complete mental breakdown in a convenience store.

He unwrapped it. Took a bite that was mostly air and sugar.

"Still think you're an asshole." Gerard muttered through the crumbs.

"Yeah, yeah."

"...It's good."

"I know." Frank said, already reaching for his dear cup of yogurt. He peeled off the lid, never mind the black lint from Gerard’s hoodie now clinging to the side like tiny pieces of a bad decision.

Frank paused, his thumb still hooked under the rim of the yogurt lid. "...Does anyone have a spoon?"

Silence.

The only sound was the hum of the van’s engine and Mikey chewing.

Ray leaned over and popped the glove box. A mess of stale napkins and gas receipts tumbled out. He sifted through them with a sort of hopeless diligence.

Mikey dropped to his knees on the gritty floor mat, patting blindly under the seats. His fingers came up dusty, trailing a forgotten guitar pick and something that might have once been a french fry.

Gerard pawed through the center console like a man digging for gold, but the only thing he found were old pens, a dead lighter, and a single mysterious earring shaped like a tiny skull. Nothing even spoon-adjacent.

Frank just stared into the cup, at the pale, lint-flecked surface of his prize.

"Fuck."

"Didn’t think of stealing cutlery, did we?" Gerard cackled around a mouthful of dry honeybun, crumbs dusting his jeans.

"Oh, fuck you, Gee!"