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“It’s like fucking Mordor out there,” Bob says, peering out of the window at the darkening sky.
They’re in a hotel somewhere in Florida, trapped by a hurricane that’s shut down the entire state. Brian’s cancelled their next two shows and it seems likely that he’ll have to do the same for at least two after that.
“I don’t remember the weather in Mordor ever being mentioned,” Frank says, from where he’s sprawled on one the beds. They’ve got three rooms, but for now they’re all spread out in his and Ray’s, taking advantage of room service and pay-per-view movies. “I’m pretty sure the descriptions focussed more on the desolation and the orcs.” Gerard and Mikey might be the resident geeks, but Frank can hold his own, especially when it comes to literature.
“I like storms,” Gerard says. “Always have. When we were kids Mikey was scared of them. We’d sit up together telling stories until he was calm enough to sleep. It was nice.”
Frank conjures the image, the Ways before he knew them, back when Mikey was still smaller than his brother, lying curled together under the sheets of Gerard’s bed, arguing about Star Wars while a storm rages outside. He’s torn between making disgusting little aw noises at how cute the image is, and running to the nearest bathroom to jack off, because he realised long ago that his crush on the Way brothers had reached unmanageable proportions.
Mikey sprawls down beside Frank and says, “Makes me feel like a kid again, being in here all warm while there’s a storm outside.”
“Oh!” Gerard says, and rummages through his bag, the one full of drawing pads and pens that he refuses to ever be separated from. “A fan sent me this. If we’re going to be kids again, we should do it properly.”
He’s holding a box with ‘truth and dare’ written on it.
“I was thinking more hot chocolate and blanket forts,” Mikey says, grinning at his brother. He’s mostly teasing, but there’s a little of that special light in his eyes that he keeps only for Gerard. Frank is totally okay with the fact that he maybe watches them a little too much.
“We should totally have truth and dare and blanket forts,” Frank says, sitting up.
Bob shakes his head. “I’m not remaking the beds for you afterwards,” he says.
“We’re rockstars,” Gerard says with a grin. “We’re supposed to trash hotel rooms.”
He urges Frank and Mikey up off the bed and pulls the comforter and pillows down onto the floor, then does the same with the other bed. He looks so proud of himself when he’s finished that Frank can’t help laughing.
“That’s not a fort,” Ray says, surveying Gerard’s handiwork critically. “That’s more like a nest.”
“It’s the non-violent alternative to a fort,” Gerard says, in his best ‘I have the moral high-ground’ voice, and Frank laughs even harder.
“Come on,” Mikey says, grabbing Frank and Bob’s hands and dragging them down into the blanket nest Gerard’s made in the space between the beds.
It’s the tight fit, the five of them crammed into the space, but it’s cozy. Frank kinda does feel like a kid again, like this is a sleep-over and he’s being allowed to stay up late because he doesn’t have school tomorrow. He rests his head on Ray’s shoulder and grins round at his band.
“Truth or Dare,” Gerard says, setting the box down between them.
“I don’t get why you need the box,” Bob says. “Surely the point of truth and dare is that it’s improvised. Like, spur of the moment stuff.”
Gerard shrugs. “I’m shit at coming up with questions. I always end up asking really lame stuff, like what someone’s favourite film is.”
“That’s because you’re really lame,” Mikey says, ducking when Gerard tries to punch him.
“No, but this could be fun,” Ray says, looking inside the box. “There’s like boxes of dares and truths in here. It could be good. We already know so much stuff about each other, it’d be hard to come up with questions.”
“You’re all so fucking infantile,” Bob says, but he’s grinning as he says it. “If we’re going to do this we should have a bottle of cheap-ass tequila to drink.”
There’s a moment of silence, they’re still careful and a little awkward around the subject of Gerard’s sobriety, but Ray breaks the tension. “Nah, it’s more fun like this,” he says. “It’s pretty hard to embarrass these guys when they’re wasted, and the game’s no fun if you’re not embarrassing people.”
Ray unpacks the box, pulls out the two cartons of cards, one marked truth, the other dare, and a spinner.
They make a flat space in the middle of the group for the spinner.
“I get to spin it first,” Frank insists. “Perks of being the smallest.”
Mikey sticks his tongue out at him, but Frank ignores him and spins. It lands on Gerard.
“Okay Gee, truth or dare?” Frank asks.
“Truth,” Gerard says immediately.
Ray takes a card from the truth box. “Who was your first kiss?” he reads. “That’s hardly fair. We all know it’s going to be Mikey.”
Gerard shakes his head in mock disgust. “Dude, I’m three years older than him. I was not making out with my brother when he was ten.”
Mikey laughs softly. “’Cos making out with your brother when he was thirteen was so much better, morally.”
“It’s all fine, so long as I don’t get you pregnant,” Gerard says with a grin.
Mikey’s face goes deadly serious. “Gee, there’s something I need to tell you…”
The rest of the band burst out laughing as Gerard wrestles his brother to the ground.
“Careful Gerard,” Mikey cries, in between bursts of manic giggling, “You wouldn’t want to hurt the baby!”
“Uh, guys…” Bob says, when Gerard pins Mikey, grinning down at him in a way that makes it all too clear that they’re more than brothers. “Remember that conversation we had about not mentally scarring your band mates?”
The Ways sit up. Sometimes Frank kinda hates Bob. Ray would have at least let them get as far as kissing before he stopped them. Frank’s not sure if Ray’s just naturally more chilled than Bob, or if prolonged exposure to the rest of the band has warped his brain.
Bob is the least comfortable being around the brothers. He tries hard, and they all appreciate it, and most of the time it’s all totally cool, but any hint of their true relationship and he starts getting uncomfortable.
They’ve known Bob for years, he’d tech’d for them back when Otter was still their drummer, and they’ve hung out with him loads, but the secret of the Ways is one they keep for the brotherhood of the band only. Frank can remember so clearly when Bob found out, Ray and Frank telling him while Mikey and Gerard stood in the background, holding hands and trying to pretend they weren’t terrified. They always look like that when someone new finds out about them, and Frank hates it. Hates that they can’t be open about their love like other couples are.
“So who was it?” Ray asks.
“This girl in my English class. Suzie something. Fletcher maybe? We got paired together for a project, she came back to mine to work on it. You know, all the clichés.”
“Except the bit where your baby brother walks in and demands to stop kissing her and come play Sonic games with him,” Mikey says with a laugh. “I had no idea that was your first kiss!”
Ray laughs. “What did you do?”
“What do you think?” Mikey asks. “He beat my high score on every level.”
“At the time I had no idea I was just waiting for Mikey to be old enough. But I was totally just waiting for Mikey to be old enough.”
Bob looks like he thinks that’s creepy. Frank thinks it’s the most adorable thing he’s ever heard.
Gerard spins, not bothering to look where it lands, eyes only for his brother. It lands on Bob.
“Dare,” he says, before anyone can ask him.
Frank reads the card, because the Ways are busy doing their mind meld thing.
“Drink a glass of water without using your hands,” he reads. He struggles to his feet, managing to elbow Ray in the gut as he does so.
There’s no glasses, but they’re successful enough now that their hotel room has one of those free tea and coffee things, so he fills a beige mug and brings it back.
“Over there,” Ray says, pointing to the corner of the room. “Me and Frankie have to sleep on these blankets tonight. I’m not having you spilling water all over them.”
Turns out, he was right to be cautious.
“Whoever invented this game was a fucking psychopath,” Bob says, while he rummages in Rays case for a dry shirt. Clean would be expecting too much, but at least Ray’s stuff hasn’t just had a mug of water tipped down it.
He pulls on a Zelda shirt, old and faded, but dry and roughly the right size, and nudges the spinner with his foot as he sits down.
“Did that count as a spin?” Gerard asks, peering at it. “It only moved about a millimetre…”
“It totally counted,” Frank insists, because he wants a turn.
“Okay Frank,” Mikey says, “Truth or Dare?”
“Truth,” Frank says, because he doesn’t especially want to get water all over his only clean t-shirt.
“Last thing that really turned you on?” Mikey reads, and grins at him like he knows already that it’ll be something embarrassing.
He really can’t tell the truth, which is that it was the idea of Mikey and Gerard as teenagers, huddling together in the basement of the Way family home. His band are pretty fucking open minded, but that might just be a step too far, even for them.
“Er, porn,” he says lamely.
“Yeah,” Mikey says, “And…”
“You know who Milo and Elijah Peters are?” Frank asks.
Gerard won’t, he knows. He’s stolen Gee’s computer enough over the years to know that the porn Gee likes is the homemade stuff, a couple and a camcorder fulfilling exhibitionist fantasies.
He should have predicted that Mikey would know. It’s the kind of thing Mikey remembers.
“That’s your thing?” Mikey asks, and he sounds surprised. “Twins?”
Frank shrugs. No, it isn’t. Honestly he finds identical twins in porn kinda creepy – it’s all a bit narcissistic – but it’s a little more conventional than admitting straight out that what does it for him, what’s done it for him since the first time he met the Ways, even before he knew they were a couple, is incest.
Mikey Googles a picture on his phone and shows it too Gerard, who pulls a face. “No tats or piercings or anything,” he says, clearly judging Frank’s taste.
“Hey,” Frank says, a little defensively, “You find me porn star brothers with piercings, I’ll watch them instead.”
Ray claps his hands over his ears and groans. “Seriously, I’m as open-minded as the next guy, but can we move on? This conversation is disturbing as fuck.”
Frank spins, all to glad to have people talking about something other than his incest kink, and when it lands on Bob, nudges it until it’s pointing at Mikey.
Mikey glares at him. “That’s definitely cheating,” he declares. “Gerard back me up, that was totally cheating.”
“It totally was,” Gerard agrees solemnly. “And you still have to take your turn. It’s not fair to make Bob take two turns.”
“That’s how the game works though,” Ray points out. “It’s not meant to be fair.”
“Yeah, well Bob doesn’t have any particularly interesting secrets,” Gerard argues, which was totally Frank’s reasoning, but he hadn’t been going to say it out loud.
“How do you know?” Bob demands, sounding offended. “You didn’t ask me!”
“But you’re Bob,” Frank says, hoping this won’t get him punched. “You’re all sensible and stoical and shit. Like Ray. You’re both too sensible and monogamous to have any dirty secrets.”
“Well tough,” Bob says, punching Frank in the arm, but not as hard as he could. Drumming gives you serious arm muscles, not to mention years of lugging amps around.
Mikey snatches a card from the box, holding it triumphantly. “Truth or Dare?” he asks Bob, poking Gerard in the belly when he tries to snatch the card off him.
“Whichever will get me less wet and or embarrassed,” Bob says immediately.
“Uh, you get a choice between talking seductively for the rest of the game, or… okay, that one, definitely. What was the last alcoholic drink you had, and where did you drink it?”
“I had a couple of beers with the tech guys after our last gig,” Bob answers immediately. “In that weird little cupboard thing the venue insisted was a green room.”
Mikey reaches for the spinner before Bob can, shoving the little needle so hard that the whole thing nearly tips over.
The spinner lands on Frank. Frank is starting to think this whole game may have been rigged just to embarrass him. He wouldn’t put it past the fans. Don’t get him wrong, he fucking loves those kids, they’re totally awesome, but some of them can get a little… intense. “Dare,” he says quickly, remembering quite how embarrassing the Truth had been.
“Kiss the person in the room you’re most attracted too,” Bob reads out, and Frank considers shouting his safe-word. Ray, at least, knows what it is (there’d been weed and a conversation about bondage. He doesn’t remember a lot of the details).
He doesn’t, because that would be almost exactly as awkward as the truth.
“I can’t,” he says.
Mikey gives him his best quizzical eyebrows. They’re pretty damn quizzical.
“I can’t choose,” Frank admits, ducking his head to try and hide his blush. It doesn’t work, because he’s got fuck-all hair to hide behind.
“We are a pretty fucking gorgeous band,” Bob says with a slow grin. “I guess you’ll just have to kiss everyone you’re attracted too.”
Frank really wishes that it were possible to die of embarrassment, because then at least his band would stop looking at him like that.
As quickly as he can, he leans forward and presses quick smacking kisses to the Way’s cheeks, Gerard then Mikey.
“I’m just gonna sit here and hope the ground opens up and swallows me,” he says indistinctly, his face buried against his knees.
Ray, evil fucker, laughs. “I told you this was more fun sober,” he says, presumably to Bob.
“I’m really starting to regret becoming your drummer,” Bob mutters, but he doesn’t sound like he really means it.
“Just spin the fucking spinner,” Frank mutters. “It’s someone else’s turn to be humiliated.”
Bob does, and it lands on Mikey.
“Truth,” Mikey says, with that little eyebrow twitch that’s his version of a grin. Frank thinks sometimes that there’s no way Mikey’s ever going to get wrinkles, ‘cos he never moves his actual face.
“How old were you the first time you had sex,” Bob reads, and groans. “Whoever sent you this game is a fucking pervert Gee,” he adds.
Gerard grins.
“Define sex,” Mikey says. “I mean, are we talking first mutual orgasms, or the first time there was actual penetration involved?” He catches his brother’s eye and grins properly, that wide wicked smile he only uses when he knows he’s embarrassing Gerard. “Not that there was much of a difference. You held out for all of… three weeks, wasn’t it, Gee?”
Gerard blushes and Frank tries very hard to think about how cute he looks when he blushes, because it’s that or let his mind go back to underage Ways.
“You’re very persuasive,” Gerard mutters, but he’s smiling his crooked little smile at Mikey and they’re looking at one another like they’re sharing reminiscences.
“I was fourteen,” Mikey says, not taking his eyes off his brother. Frank can’t decide if he wants the ‘no eye fucking on the bus’ rule to apply to the hotel rooms as well. One the one hand, it’s breathtakingly hot, on the other hand, it’s breathtakingly hot and he’s surrounded by his band. And he’s sharing a room tonight.
“Seriously?” Ray demands, incredulous. “Fourteen? I hadn’t even had my first kiss at fourteen!”
Mikey shrugs, unconcerned. “It’s not like you didn’t already know my sex life was fucked up. When you live with the guy you’re fucking, it’s kinda inevitable that stuff gets done in the wrong order.” He grins, wide and wicked and beautiful, and adds, “I’d been fisted before the first time I went on a date.”
Frank can feel his face going red, but there’s nothing he can do about it. No way could he not blush, not when his mind is full of images of Gerard fucking fisting Mikey, Jesus Christ. The Way brothers are going to be the death of him.
Bob makes a face, clearly assaulted with the same mental images as Frank, but not enjoying them nearly as much.
“Guys, you know I don’t care, but I could seriously do without the mental images. However much Frank’s enjoying them.”
Bob is a bastard, and Frank is definitely going to kill him, as soon as he’s finished having a fucking panic attack, because the Ways are looking at him, Jesus Christ, there should definitely be rules about looking at people like that…
Ray clambers to his feet. “Come on Bob,” he says, all fond annoyance. “Lets go have a straight boys party in your room.”
They leave, and Frank, desperate to create a distraction asks, “What do you think you do at a straight people party?”
“Watch hetero porn,” Mikey says immediately. “And drink cheap beer. Me and Pete used to have them.”
Frank isn’t sure whether he should point out that if you looked up pansexual in the dictionary, you’d probably find a picture of Pete Wentz’s face.
Mikey clearly reads his expression. “Well it wouldn’t have been a themed party if we actually were straight,” he points out. “It would just be a party.”
“It wasn’t a party Mikes,” Gerard says. “It was you and Pete sitting around in your underwear getting wasted and watching really really bad porn.”
Frank thinks that actually sounds like a pretty good party. Although he may be being swayed by the image of a mostly naked Mikey.
“If they’re having a straight people party,” Mikey muses, “Does that make this the queer people party?”
“Ah,” Gerard says, brightening up. “Queer people parties I know about. From what I remember of Art School, they mostly involved Tequila, cross-dressing and avoiding questions about my boyfriend.”
“You don’t drink, neither of us brought any women’s clothes and Frank’s single,” Mikey points out. “Queer people parties don’t sound as fun as the straight version.”
“I am not watching porn with you,” Frank says quickly, because he knows that light in Gerard’s eyes, and that would be spectacularly awkward. It’s bad enough that he knows what they sound like when they come (he's got living with them in a van to thank for that). If he actually saw what they looked like, he’s pretty sure he would never not be hard ever again.
Mikey gives him his very best Mikeyway look, by which Frank means he peers at him through his bangs, his face utterly unreadable.
“So,” he begins, and Frank groans because he knows Mikey well enough to know that that tone of voice can only mean trouble, “How long have you been lusting after our bodies?”
Now he’s thought about it, the weather probably isn’t that bad. He could totally walk to the nearest working airport. Although he’s not sure he’s got enough money to start a new life in Timbuktu…
“Pretty much since the first time I saw you on stage,” he admits, because Mikey has some kind of fucked up superpower where he knows when people are lying about embarrassing stuff. Or possibly he just knows Frank way too well.
Gerard smiles and there’s something of his stage persona in his face now, something predatory that’s making Frank’s insides do flips.
“Hey Frank,” he says, “Truth or Dare?”
“Er, dare?” Franks says, half a question because he has no fucking idea what’s going on.
“I dare you…” Gerard takes his brother’s hand, leaning against him. “I dare you, to kiss Mikey.”