Archive of Our Own

The first time that Frank sees Gerard after he locks himself in the bar’s single person bathroom. 

It’s not that he didn’t know that this was a hazard of this place—of this neighborhood—it’s just that somewhere between the first and third beer he had forgotten about the fact that he was in hostile territory and had started enjoying himself. And then he had caught sight of red hair rendered neon under the glare of the spotlights and forgotten all about the pulse of the bass beneath his skin and the heat of the booze through his veins. 

And now he’s in a bathroom.

It’s funny how these things go. One minute he can be fine—throwing his body around, grinning at strangers who feel the same drugged-up thrill at the music that he does—bent double beneath the paper towel dispenser the next. Fuck. He can hear the screaming of the vocalist beyond the door, still feel that hypnotic rhythm in his feet and ass where they touch the tile, and it all clashes horribly with the harsh, irregular beat of his breath, the way that the floor is icy through his jeans and his hands feel like they aren’t attached to his body. 

Mikey had said it was safe. Or, rather, Mikey had suggested the show, and Frank had been nervous, and Mikey told him not to worry about it. And Frank, idiot that he was, had believed that to mean that Gerard wouldn’t be there, because Mikey would know if Gerard was going somewhere and he wouldn’t put Frank in that situation. And maybe he hadn’t, and maybe he didn’t, but Frank is still on the disgusting bathroom floor.

He can hear his own breathing, loud despite the music, and he hates it with a suddenness that startles him. He can feel his heart pounding wildly in his chest, and his tongue is thick from all of the panting he’s been doing, and he can’t stop. All he can think about is that hair, and the last time that he and Gerard had spoken, when he reached out and Gerard shook his head, crying like he was the one hurting, and his hair had been black then, not this new red, and oh-Frank is going to be sick.

The toilet bowl is cold beneath his palms the same way that the tile is. Frank sits like that for a long time, clutching the porcelain and staring at the graffiti on the walls with eyes too unfocused to read it, and he might be crying but he can’t be sure. Distantly, he thinks that it’s been a long time since he’s had a panic attack this bad. Usually when this thing happens he’s in his apartment, emotions brought to the surface by some sad movie or one too many beers or some combination of the two, and he can just brush his teeth and haul himself to bed in whatever state he’s left in. The screaming crowd is indicating that this is not that situation.

He should stand up. It takes at least five minutes of thinking that thought on repeat before he gets around to forcing his body into the motions, and then he doesn’t get very far before he’s choking on his own breath again, caught in that same loop of Gerard and Mikey said it would be okay and fine. So he needs help. He digs in his pocket, opens his phone with clumsy hands, and navigates to his messages. The number of unread texts is a bit staggering, but he can’t worry about that right now. Mikey probably won’t even be checking his phone. They’re at a show after all, he should be moshing and finding some new girl to press against a wall and hanging out with his brother and Frank is just here, dead weight and unable to fucking stand. He sends the text anyway.

Frank: in the bathroom, cld use some helf

There’s no response, because why would there be, Mikey is having fun, but then there’s knocking on the door and a muffled voice raised over the music saying, “Frank?”

He flips the lock, which is about all he’s capable of, and hopes that that’s enough. When Mikey enters it takes him a second to notice Frank, like he thought there would be someone standing in front of the door as opposed to curled up against the wall. He doesn’t say anything about it, though, because he’s good like that and never does, just locks the door again and lowers himself to sit next to Frank. Neither of them speak. Frank’s breathing is bothering his own ears, but every time that he begins to get it under control he thinks about Gerard again, and it all goes to shit. 

Eventually, Mikey hands him a paper towel and asks if he’s ready to go. All Frank can do is nod pathetically. Words feel particularly out of his reach at the moment. He lets Mikey grab his arms and haul him up, and then leans in when Mikey wraps one lanky limb around his shoulder like a shield and leads him towards the door. Outside the bathroom the noise is much louder, and Frank pushes further into his friend like that can somehow hide him from the world. The band sounds good. Really good. And Frank had been having fun. Look at him now.

Pressed close together they make slow progress to the exit and Frank stares at the floor the entire way, just in case Gerard is nearby. Outside has the biting edge of mid October, and Frank has never been more grateful to be under-dressed. The chill is like a blanket over his raw nerves, soothing his sweaty skin and drying the stupid tears still on his cheeks. He drags in the first deep breath he’s had in what feels like hours, and Mikey’s arm tightens almost imperceptibly around his shoulder. 

Mikey slides into the driver’s seat of Frank’s car without asking while Frank lights up a cigarette and tries to get his shit together. About halfway through the drive back to their apartment he manages to grind out, “Sorry about that.”

There’s a long silence, where Frank blows his smoke out the window and Mikey makes sure they don’t fucking die in the death trap that is a car.

Just before they pull onto their street, Mikey says, “I didn’t know he would be there.” It isn’t pitying, and it isn’t an apology, but it’s exactly what Frank needs. It was just chance. Mikey didn’t know.

Frank manages a half laugh that isn’t far off from a sob, and flicks his filter into their neighbor’s yard. Their apartment is on the third floor, and they take the cement steps silently. Once inside, Mikey grabs them both a glass of water while Frank flicks through horror movies, settling on the lowest rated one he can find, and they sit on their lumpy couch in silence until Frank drifts off to sleep.

The thing about it is that Gerard isn’t absent. They still have all the same friends, frequent all the same places, Frank’s roommate is Gerard’s brother for fuck’s sake. It’s just that Frank doesn’t know how to act around him anymore. They had agreed that stopping whatever it was that they were doing wouldn’t fuck up their friendship, but Frank can’t hear Gerard’s voice without getting sick to his stomach. It’s a problem. 

All of their friends know, of course. He doesn’t know if Gerard said something—Frank certainly didn’t—but Ray and Geoff and Dewees get into the habit of casting sympathetic looks at him whenever he enters the room, and no one talks about Gerard around him anymore. Unless, of course, Gerard is present. This also shouldn’t be a surprise seeing as, again, Gerard is Mikey’s brother, but every time Frank hears that laugh in their living room his body does this awful thing where all of his muscles tense at once in some fucked up battle between fight and flight and his stomach makes a bid for freedom via his throat.

When they are at the same functions, Frank is careful to look in his direction, but only a regular amount, and to smile at his jokes when it’s called for, and generally to act unaffected. He isn’t sure if it’s working. Sometimes he catches Gerard looking at him in a way that he can’t understand, with his straight brows furrowed and his eyes all wide. When this happens Frank lets his gaze slide over him like he doesn’t notice, and immediately throws himself into whatever conversation is happening closest to him. He’s fine.

Frank invites Gerard to his birthday, because he invites everyone to his birthday, and they’re supposed to be behaving normally towards each other. By the time Halloween rolls around he’s so busy trying to decorate and clean and prep for the party that he doesn’t even have time to worry about it anyway. He’d picked up extra hours at the music store to make up for all the money he’s spending on booze and weed for the party, so he’s been going nonstop for two weeks, and Spirit Halloween has been getting increasingly expensive in the last few years. 

By ten the party is in full swing. There are people in every room of their shitty little apartment, and all of the windows are open to try and compensate for the body heat and various smokes, and the game of Street Fighter in the living room has gotten serious. Frank almost doesn’t hear the knock at the door, but he’s taking a breather sitting on the back of the couch as Ray and Mikey hurl increasingly convoluted threats and combos at one another, and it doesn’t even occur to him to be nervous as he answers it.

Of course Gerard is there, looking unfairly beautiful in tight black jeans and a black button-down and a black vest and a red tie, red hair slicked back and face pallid in dramatic stage paint. Frank might hate him. They both stand there for a little too long as Frank weighs the instinct to slam the door in Gerard’s face with the instinct to grab him by the tie. He settles for standing back and wordlessly inviting him in. Gerard looks uncomfortable as he crosses the threshold, like he really is an old-school vampire who needs to be invited into places, but then he’s inside Frank’s apartment and Frank is closing the door behind him and they’re both just staring at each other. Frank is so concentrated on molding his expression into a smile that he flinches when Gerard abruptly shoves a wrapped present towards him that Frank didn’t even realize he was holding.

“Happy birthday,” Gerard says with his beautiful, crooked grin, and Frank feels suddenly exposed as his eyes run over him.

He manages to grit out, “Yeah, thanks dude,” which he considers to be suitably casual, but he doesn’t take the gift, because the look Gerard is giving him is pinning him in place.

“You changed your costume,” Gerard says simply. Oh. They were supposed to be vampires together. Before. Gerard was going to be the suave, Bram Stoker’s Dracula-style count, and Frank was going to be the ghoulish Count Orlok. After the breakup Frank hadn’t felt much like matching.

“Oh, I mean-yeah, I didn’t—” 

But Gerard just shakes his head. “You look good.”

Frank feels blood rushing to his face and hates himself for it. “Thanks,” he says, and grabs the present before he can do something stupid like return the compliment. “Uh, there’s sodas in the fridge, if you want.” And then he walks away at a normal pace to put the gift on his bed with the others and tries not to think too much about gelled red hair and long fingers.

Much later in the night, Frank crashes down on the couch and leans his head back against the cushion in a full-body exhale. The party is good—it’s great—and the playlist is some bizarre combination of Halloween classics like Monster Mash and less-classic picks like most of Black Flag’s discography. Mikey might have done jack and shit to set up for the party, but his music taste is immaculate. The world is spinning in a way that makes Frank unsure if having his eyes open or shut is worse. The body next to him shifts a little, and he realizes with some embarrassment that he threw himself basically on top of them.

He’s already scooting away by the time he risks opening his eyes to throw out a casual, “Sorry.” but it’s Gerard there, because of course it’s Gerard there, he’s been lurking all night, and Frank feels the high of the party crash to the ground. Gerard is looking brooding and uncomfortable, the way he always looks at parties, and before Frank would always take his hands and lean into him and make sure to keep him busy so that he didn’t feel too weird about not knowing people. Now Frank doesn’t do any of those things, just rolls his head back to its forward position and does his best to not think about the spinning room or the heat curling low in his gut, which is significantly more difficult than just one or the other.

Eventually his eyes start to slip closed, and his muscles do that full-body jolt that always happens when you’re just beginning to drift off. A hand comes to his shoulder, and a soft voice asks, “Are you okay?” but Frank’s just about gone at this point, and he only offers a quiet hum in response. He hears that same voice exhale a quiet laugh that he can almost place but not quite. The darkness has turned multicolor behind his eyelids. He leans further into the couch, and far away he hears a voice call Everyone out!

There’s a temperature shift that always comes with the mass exodus of bodies, and then the music is much softer and another body sinks onto the couch with him. “Happy birthday,” Mikey says, and Frank just kind of grumbles in response. “You gonna sleep on the couch?” he asks, and Frank grumbles again and makes grabby hands at his best friend. He hears a huffed sigh, and a suspicious silence like maybe people are having a silent conversation over his head, and then firm hands are sliding behind his back and under his legs and picking him up in a bridal carry. 

Frank doesn’t bother to open his eyes to acknowledge Mikey, just drapes his arms around his neck and calls it a day. There’s a shit ton of cleaning up to do, but he’s the birthday boy and he’s allowed to get carried to bed. Just this once. Each step sends a jolt through his body that’s oddly soothing, and Frank tucks his face into Mikey’s neck, mostly because he knows how much Mikey hates it. Except, Mikey’s hair shouldn’t be long enough to tickle Frank’s nose, and he smells warm, and sweet, and Frank has never known Mikey to care enough to wear cologne. The hand against his back is rubbing gentle circles with its thumb, and Frank allows himself to sag even more into the touch.

Mikey lays him down on his bed so gently, like he’s precious, which is also out of character, but it’s Frank’s birthday and they’re both drunk. He’ll tease him about it tomorrow. Frank curls into his blankets, unable to care about the makeup that’s surely smeared across his face or the outside clothes touching his sheets. Tomorrow. It’s a tomorrow problem. He mumbles out something that’s supposed to be, “Good night,” but definitely isn’t, and hardly registers the soft fingers smoothing sweaty hair from his face. His pillow is cool and smooth against his warm cheek, and his blankets are comfortingly heavy. He’s gone before the door shuts.

Frank wakes up to an anvil in his brain and eyes that feel crusted shut. He stretches his legs from where they were tucked against his chest and relishes the series of pops that accompany the movement. The stupid sun is shining in through his east-facing windows where he forgot to close the curtains the night before and doing a good job of stabbing him through his closed eyelids. Great. So far his stomach feels fine, but he has a feeling that’ll change as soon as he’s unfortunate enough to become vertical. Not for the first time, he considers never drinking again. 

The party was good, though. Good music, good people. It went until he fell asleep which, as far as he’s concerned, is how parties are supposed to work. When, exactly, he fell asleep is more of a question, but he’s sure Mikey will be more than happy to tell him about how fucked up he was the night before. He licks his lips, and his tongue feels like marshmallow. Water. Water would be good.

With great trepidation, Frank opens his eyes. The sun is worse than he’d thought. He had been able to see it through his eyelids, sure, but with his eyes open it’s brutal. His head pounds in agreement. Slowly, stretching all of his limbs in the process, Frank moves to sit up. The shift in positions sucks, but the end product isn’t so bad. Someone removed his socks before tucking him in. That was nice. The floor under his feet is cold, and he’s still in his jeans from last night. There’s a moment where he weighs water with changing before changing wins out. Except, the only pajama pants he has are Gerard’s, because he always just slept in his underwear. And it turns out that pajama pants are really comfortable, so he kept them. Sue him.

Adorned in fleece batman pants and a Joy Division shirt that might be Mikey’s, Frank wanders into the kitchen to make coffee. About halfway through that process, when he’s grabbing a glass for water with one hand and tipping the pitcher into the coffee machine with the other, he hears a noise from the couch. It’s not unusual for their friends to crash at their apartment after a party, though, and so he thinks nothing of it as he starts the coffee and wanders towards the bathroom for Advil. Painkillers, then water, then coffee. And maybe cereal, if he can handle it. That seems good.

In the bathroom he catches first sight of his face, smeared green and black by turns from the makeup and bodypaint he fell asleep in. His sheets must be ruined. He digs under the sink for one of the rags that he and Mikey keep there and scrubs at his face. It only kind of helps. His skin has taken on a sickly green hue—a shower is certainly in order. He tips two Advil into his palm and shuffles back to the kitchen where the scent of coffee is suffusing the room. It reminds him of the thickness in his mouth, and he knocks the pills back with his water. Behind him, he hears that shuffling again.

He turns around, just as a head of red hair peers above the back of the couch. Fuck. 

“Frank?” Gerard asks, as though he wasn’t just asleep in Frank’s apartment, passed out on Frank’s couch. Nausea rears its spiteful head.

Some noise struggles its way from Frank’s throat, choking and cracked. Gerard blinks his bleary eyes at him. Frank is making coffee. He is making coffee, because his birthday was yesterday, and he’s horribly hung over, and his ex who is his roommate’s brother and one of his best friends is on his couch staring at him with big, eyeliner-ringed eyes. 

With nothing better to do, Frank turns back to the coffee machine and wills it to work faster. He is normal. He is not affected by what happened between them. He is an adult who can have complicated relationships and maintain connections to his ex that he is desperately in love with who does not love him back. This is normal. 

The room is quiet except for the patter of dripping coffee and his heavy breathing. He stares harder at the coffee machine as he hears more shuffling behind him. It’s fine. He is a mature adult, and this is fine. Gerard clears his throat, the way he always does when he first wakes up and hasn’t had any fluids yet. In his mind’s eye, Frank can picture his eyes still lidded with sleep, his hair stuck up in all directions, his stupid black button down rucked up at the waist. Nothing about this is fine. Frank can hear his own heart pounding in his ears, the way the trickle of the coffee is off-meter with his breathing, feel the weight of Gerard behind him. He grips the sticky countertop, like maybe that will help. Gerard is in his apartment. Gerard is in his apartment, and Mikey is asleep, and Frank cannot do this.

He grabs a mug from the overhead cabinet, clumsy like he doesn’t live here, and dumps the coffee into his cup before it’s finished brewing. He doesn’t add sugar or his dairy alternative like he normally would. He just takes his black coffee that’s probably shitty from not percolating properly and retreats to the safety of his room. Like a coward. He sets the mug on his bedside table too hard and draws his knees up to his chest. There’s a pressure behind his eyes that has nothing to do with the alcohol. He cannot cry over this. He knows implicitly that if he cries then it’s over. What will be over, he isn’t sure, he just knows that under no circumstances can he allow it to happen.

Frank fists one hand into his hair that’s gotten too long, pulls it hard. His breath is coming fast and uneven, and he cannot do this again. He puts the other hand at the base of his throat, just a little bit of pressure so he can’t keep panting, and squeezes his eyes shut. He focuses on his breathing, that heavy pressure against his windpipe, the heartbeat that he can feel through his skin. 

More than anything, Frank wants to be angry. Wants to be mad that Gerard would think it was okay to stay the night at Frank’s apartment when he had a car and was fully sober. It’s cruel. Like breaking things off between them wasn’t enough, like it wasn’t enough that Frank has humiliated himself wanting something he can’t have, that he feels stripped bare with all of his fucking guts on display whenever Gerard is in the same room. 

It’s like a fucking game, some twisted cat and mouse where Frank keeps trying to put distance between them and Gerard keeps tracking him down again so that he can smile at Frank across the room and Frank can feel those sparks in his chest before he remembers what happened all over again.

With a level of control that he feels is rather impressive, Frank releases his hair and neck and sits up straight. The air rushing back to his brain makes the world feel big and heavy. He puts both of his feet flat on the floor, fists one hand in his blankets like that will steady him, and reaches for his coffee. It’s still warm, which is good, because it means he hasn’t been holed up in his room freaking out for too long. He drains the whole mug, even though he doesn’t like black coffee, and goes back to the kitchen for a refill.

Maybe, when he gets there, Gerard will be gone. He will have gotten the message that he’s fucking unwelcome, and he will have left.

He hasn’t, of course. Instead he’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, holding the Ghost Face coffee mug he always uses—the one he left at Frank’s apartment for exactly this purpose—and running a thumb over the chip on the rim. He looks up when Frank enters the room, and Frank swallows so hard his throat clicks. Even now, rumpled and exhausted, Gerard is beautiful. He has this ethereal quality to him with his smooth, pale skin and heavy brow and upturned nose. Frank knows for a fact that he looks like shit. A little voice in his head is telling him that this is just another reason that they could never work, (why would someone like Gerard want someone like him) but Frank has bigger things to deal with right now than his own miserable self-worth.

He opens his mouth, but the grated noise that comes out is definitely not a word, so he closes it, clears his throat, and tries again. “You,” he says, “you have to leave. I need you to leave.” And there’s a swell of hysteria, like bile rising up his esophagus, but he swallows it down, just as hard as he did before. Just as he’s been doing for the last month whenever Gerard is in proximity to him.

Gerard’s brows furrow, but he doesn’t move. “Frankie—”

Frankie. Intimate. Like they are something. He wants to tell Gerard that that isn’t his name anymore, yell that he lost access to that nickname when he threw Frank away.

“Don’t,” Frank bites out instead, and then he turns his back and walks to get himself another cup of coffee before that awful, wounded noise he feels lodged behind his Adam's apple can get free. 

There’s a long pause where the only sounds are the coffee pouring into Frank’s mug and the clink of the spoon along the rim and the sound of the fridge opening and closing as he grabs his almond milk. Eventually, Gerard must get the hint that Frank isn’t going to turn back around, because he lets out a quiet sigh and Frank hears him shuffling around to grab his things. Frank glares down at his coffee until he hears the front door opening. He waits out the silence, followed by another sigh, and the final shutting of the door, gentle, like an apology.

When he’s gone, Frank collapses on the couch and pulls his knees back up to his chest, mug cradled in both palms. He thinks about all of the things he has to do today to get the apartment back in livable shape and very pointedly does not think about the fact that his old fuck of a couch is still trying to bounce back from the indent of Gerard’s body, and that Gerard’s Ghost Face mug is still half-full on the coffee table amongst the mess of beer bottles and Solo cups. 

He still hasn’t moved when Mikey finally emerges some indeterminate amount of time later. Neither of them speak, and Frank listens to him grab his own mug and upturn the last of the coffee into it. Mikey, bless his fucking heart, puts on another pot.

“Did you ask him to stay?” Frank asks eventually, even though he doesn’t really want the answer.

Mikey sighs. “Frank….”

“I know. I know he’s your brother and I’m not-I’m not trying to be difficult, I don’t want to stop you guys from hanging out or anything, I just”—Frank goes to run his hands over his face, but he’s still got a coffee mug in his hands, so he settles for tonguing at the pucker where his lip ring used to be and biting the line of scar tissue on the inside of his cheeks. “I am trying to handle this shit,” he says eventually, “but some warning would have been nice.”

“He was worried about you.”

“Don’t,” Frank says tightly, for the second time that morning.

Mikey sighs, but Frank feels the air in the room shift as he relents. “You work today?” he asks eventually.

“Nah, figured I deserved two days off for my birthday.”

Mikey hums in acknowledgement, and they settle back into silence. Eventually Frank gets up to refill his coffee again and starts the ordeal of gathering all of the trash into one bag and recycling in another. Mikey puts on some movie at a low volume and starts wiping stickiness from various surfaces. They’ve done this enough times that they each know their own jobs, and they move around one another easily.

“Last thing,” Frank says, “and then I swear I’ll drop it.” He waits for Mikey’s acknowledgement to continue. “Was he the one who put me to bed last night?”

Another sigh. “You were really out of it, dude. He was just—”

“Worried. Yeah, I got it.”

Frank is true to his word and doesn’t bring Gerard up again. Not when he washes the Ghost Face mug and sets it in the drying rack, not when he has to scrub at the couch with a damp rag because there’s white grease paint on the cushion, not even when he finds the red tie discarded under the coffee table. He just puts it on Mikey’s bed and goes back to vacuuming. 

He’s thinking about him though, because he always is. That’s another of those little things that makes Frank nauseous if he examines it too much. Gerard is the one who carried him to bed. It was Gerard’s neck that he had nuzzled into, and Gerard’s thumb that was running along his spine, and Gerard who brushed the hair from his forehead before leaving him to sleep. Gerard had taken off his socks, because he knows that Frank hates his outside clothes touching his sheets. Gerard had stayed over because Frank was really fucking crossed, and he was worried. 

It’s driving Frank crazy. Try as he might, he can’t square the Gerard who said they would be better as friends, who had shaken his head when Frank reached out, who had said he didn’t think they were working as though Frank hadn’t been in love with him for years with the Gerard who carries him to bed, and fully sober chooses to sleep on the couch, and smooths the hair from his forehead.

Just when Frank feels like he has a grip on the situation, Gerard switches it up on him again, looks at him with that something in his eyes, smiles quietly at one of Frank’s shitty jokes. He just needs to not, Frank decides. He needs to accept that they’re over, that Gerard doesn't want him (that maybe he never did), and move on. And he can be civil in group situations, but he is not going to read into Gerard’s actions, and he’s going to stop giving him openings so that he can worm his way inside of Frank again. As far as Frank is concerned, he and Gerard are acquaintances connected by mutual friends and that’s it. Frank is going to have self respect if it fucking kills him.

With this new resolution, Frank throws himself into his job and into his music and into his other relationships. He keeps himself so busy that he doesn’t have time to think about Gerard even if he wanted to. He starts teaching guitar lessons at the music store on top of his usual hours so that he’s there almost every day of the week. When he’s not there, he’s practicing with his band, making connections, writing lyrics until late at night. He says yes to individual hangouts and avoids groups, even when he has work the next morning, and most of the time when he gets home he doesn’t have the energy for much more than brushing his teeth and collapsing into bed.

And okay, so maybe it’s convenient that these things keep him out of the apartment except for sleeping, and maybe he’s overly cautious the rare times when he is home during the day, but it’s fine. Frank is coping as best as he can, and you know what, groceries aren’t feeling like so much of a stretch anymore, and the band is really starting to sound like something special, and Frank isn’t even isolating himself the way that everyone warned him not to do. He is coping well. So if his friends would stop trading glances when they think he isn’t looking, that would be great.

They’re all out at some new bar that Ray suggested, the kind of place that’s too new to be dirty but wants to be anyway. Frank wasn’t going to come, but it was pay day today, and Mikey convinced him. He’s DD but he’s still nursing his one beer and bought everyone a round anyway. He’s staring down two consecutive days off for the first time since his birthday, and for the past fifteen minutes he’s been idly listening to his friends talk while daydreaming about walking in for a new tattoo. 

His visions of patchwork sleeves are interrupted by an elbow in his side and the sudden realization that everyone is looking at him. “...Huh?”

Mikey rolls his eyes to the group before turning back to him. “We’re talking about dating.” Behind him, Geoff waggles his eyebrows for effect.

Frank scoffs out a laugh that’s just on the wrong side of bitter, but he thinks he plays it off okay. “Like I have time for that,” he says, going for flippant, and he is paying enough attention to notice the look that Ray and Mikey share. “What?” he asks with a frown.

“Dude, you haven’t given yourself a chance to breathe in months,” Ray says. “You barely even took time off for the holidays.” And Frank will forgive him this meddling because he sounds stupidly sincere.

“I have this whole weekend off!” Frank protests, but he knows before he even says it that it won’t do shit. Everyone’s just staring at his still, and he’s starting to feel that tension in his shoulders; his proverbial hackles raising like a cornered fucking animal. Fight or flight. “No, look,” he says, already knowing that he’s just digging himself deeper, “I know I’ve been busy, but I’m being productive, and sales are up at work—I might even get a raise soon—and I’ve been writing all kinds of shit, and we’re”—he gestures at himself and Dewees—“starting to sound really good, like playing shows good, and none of that would be happening if I was just sitting around on my ass!” He takes a gulp of his beer to punctuate the statement, and sets the glass down too hard. 

“We’re not attacking you—” Mikey starts archly, but Frank shakes his head.

“I’m going for a cigarette,” he says, grabs his coat, and flees.

It’s fucking cold outside, in true January fashion, but Frank doesn’t care. He knows that he’s been wound up tighter and tighter in the last months, and that he shouldn’t be taking it out on his friends, but he isn’t sure what else to do. He’s got all of these feelings, and nowhere to put them, because Gerard was the person he would talk about all of that shit with, even before they were…whatever they were. Frank had made the decision not to call it dating after his birthday, when he slammed a door on those thoughts and wedged a chair under the handle. And maybe running himself ragged isn’t exactly therapy, but it’s all he has.

He lights his cigarette with fingers that are already getting stiff from the cold and takes an angry drag. 

“Nice gloves,” a voice says, and Frank’s eyes dart to the fingerless skeleton gloves (Gerard’s fingerless skeleton gloves) that he dug out of his closet when the winter really hit before looking towards the speaker with a heart that’s already dropped to his stomach.

Of course it’s Gerard, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his stupid camo jacket that is way too thin for this weather and anxious eyes darting between both of Frank’s. Maybe it’s the cold, but he looks drawn in a way that he hasn’t since he got sober. His eyes are bigger in his face than usual and the red hair is faded and lank. “Thanks.” 

“Cn’I bum one?”

Frank hesitates, but eventually he passes over his beat-up pack of smokes and lighter. He’s been smoking too much lately, and his chest’s already feeling tight. Maybe one less cigarette would be a good thing. He leans back against the brick of the building which does not do his freezing body any favors, stares straight ahead, and listens to Gerard’s fumbling fingers against cardboard and the flick of the lighter. When Gerard passes them back their hands touch, and Frank tries to appear unaffected.

They stand like that for a while, smoking their cigarettes as Frank’s fingers grow increasingly numb and Gerard stands uncomfortably to the side, shoulders drawn up from the cold and smoke hanging gauzy in front of him. He still holds his cigarettes the same way, open-palmed in a gesture that draws Frank’s eyes to his long, artist’s fingers and his crooked lips. Frank focuses very carefully on the stop sign across the street and does not think about the other things he’s seen Gerard’s lips do. 

Eventually he huffs his smoke out in a sigh that’s less angry than he’d like it to be and stubs out the cherry. “What do you want, Gerard?”

If possible, Gerard’s shoulders twitch higher. “I wanna talk to you, Frank. It’s been months and I’ve barely even seen you.”

Frank lifts one of his own shoulders in a half-shrug before flicking his filter into a drift of grey snow. He watches it vanish into a filter-shaped hole of its own making. “Been busy.” 

A pause. Frank can hear the crackle of fire when Gerard takes a drag. “I know,” he says, “you’re never at home anymore. Whenever I ask Mikey where you are he says you’re at work, or practicing, or just out.”

Frank knows it's a bad idea before the words are even out of his mouth. “Why’re you asking Mikey about me?”

Gerard bites out an incredulous sound that’s closer to a bark than a laugh. “Because I care about you, motherfucker! You’re my best friend! And after-there were a few weeks where we were fine, and then you kicked me out and you wouldn’t even look at me, and now you’ve fucking vanished! I miss you, and I’m worried about you, and I just want you to fucking talk to me!” The last bit comes out as a yell, and Frank feels a muscle in his jaw jump.

He doesn’t look up from that hole in the snow. “I’m fine,” he says. 

“You’re not,” Gerard says, so confident, like he knows him, and Frank’s eyes are on him before he can stop himself. Gerard’s face is open and desperate, and if Frank had been feeling flight in the bar he feels the fucking kill instinct now.

He straightens up slowly, hands in his pockets, and feels his mouth twist itself into something ugly. “What do you want me to say, Gerard?” The words come out cold and mocking. “That I’m miserable? That it hurt my fucking feelings when I told you I loved you and you backed up like I was dirty? Do you want me to tell you that seeing you afterwards, when we were ‘fine’, fucked me up so badly that I was having panic attacks? I fucking hate myself for saying I love you, and I hate myself more for feeling it in the first place, and I have been working myself into the ground trying to distract from the fact that I still fucking do!” 

He’s taking in big, hysterical breaths, and the air is so sharp in his lungs. He clenches his fists tighter, so that he can feel nails digging into his palms. He hopes it leaves a fucking mark. “And the worst part,” he says, voice gone quiet again, “is that you don't give a shit, and you never fucking will.”

Gerard looks fucking gut-punched, cigarette hanging forgotten from his fingers. The part of Frank that he hates the most is glad about it. “Of course I give a shit,” Gerard says quietly. “Frankie, I—”

“Do not. Fucking call me that,” Frank says, and he turns around and walks to his car.

Frank’s feeling pretty good about things in a sick, vindictive kind of way, until he remembers that Mikey had driven them to the bar and Frank hadn’t gotten the keys from him. And that he didn’t pay his tab, because he wasn’t planning on screaming at his ex outside of the fucking bar, and he was the one who had bought everyone drinks in the first place. Fuck. Frank can’t go back inside, because he knows that if Gerard is there, or if one of the guys looks at him wrong he will actually lose it. There’s something in his stomach that feels like hunger pangs but isn't, twisting and writhing in him, and when he finally unclenches his fists he can feel his hands shaking. 

For lack of anything else to do, he leans against the car and scrubs his hands over his face, twisting his fingers in his hair. If he could just get a fucking grip then he could go back in there and pay his fucking tab. And then maybe get the keys and hide out in the car until Mikey is ready to go. Fuck, he’s been shitty.

He knows his friends are just worried about him, but it feels like any act of care will be enough for him to fucking unravel; all of himself that he’s been holding together by sheer fucking willpower will fall to pieces, and he doesn’t think that he can come back from that. Frank is stretched thin, like that sheet of skin from Doctor Who, and he is extremely close to tearing apart. He scoffs into his hands at the mixed metaphors, and then scoffs at himself for having that reaction. He shoves the heels of his palms into his eyes and watches the colors spark bright behind his eyelids. 

The self loathing that he’s been ignoring for so long is fucking eating him alive. He hates himself for how he’s been treating his friends, and how he spoke to Gerard, and he hates himself for being the one to put himself into this position in the first place. He was stupid for thinking that Gerard could love him back, for thinking that they were doing anything other than fucking, and he’s stupid now for being so broken up over the result. 

Frank has spent more than his fair share of time dissecting their relationship: listing all of the times that he laid himself bare, was too vulnerable, all of the times he served Gerard his own heart on a fucking platter and followed him around like a stray dog desperate for scraps and interpreted need as want. And all of the times since, when Gerard was just trying to be a good friend, was trying to keep their relationship afloat for the both of them because Frank was too busy being fucking heartbroken to remember that they were friends first (though he can’t think of a time that he didn’t love Gerard), and Frank lashed out and pushed him away and tried to hurt him back like some wild fucking animal. 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Quickly enough that he’s startled by his own actions, Frank is on the ground and shoving fistfulls of dirty snow against his face. Anything to get him out of his own head for five fucking seconds. It’s cold, frozen enough to be chunky and kind of sharp, but it does help. He kneels there, letting his jeans soak through, and takes deep, gulping breaths.

He is okay. He is going to go back in there, and pay his stupid tab, and he is going to apologize to his friends. And if Gerard is there then fine, Frank will apologize to him, too. He nods to himself and stumbles upright. His entire body feels numb, and his feet don’t seem to be working very well in his shitty Chucks. He squeezes his eyes shut one last time, rakes fingers that are simultaneously burning and numb through his hair, and walks back into the bar.

Inside, he goes straight for the bartender and pays his tab before he even bothers looking around. It’s warm enough (or maybe he is cold enough) that the air hurts his skin, but he figures that’s a good sign that he doesn’t have frostbite. After paying, he turns and walks back to the booth, and tries to look both well-adjusted and contrite. Gerard is not there, and he isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. When he gets to the table he just kind of stands at the head of it for a moment, like an idiot. The guys are all looking at him, and Mikey in particular is looking unimpressed. Gerard probably told him what happened.

Frank runs his hand over his face again, a habit he did not used to have, and says, “Look, I’m sorry I freaked out. And I’m sorry I’ve been freaking out. For a while. I’ve been taking my shit out on you, and that’s shitty. I’m not…going to be doing that anymore.”

There’s a pause, but then Mikey scoots over a little on the booth where Frank had been sitting earlier and says, “Your lips are blue.”

Frank collapses down next to him, relieved to get off his feet that are only just starting to regain feeling. “Yeah,” he says lamely.

He thinks he’s off the hook—that’s an olive branch if he’s ever seen one—but then Ray, fucking Ray, asks, “Then what are you gonna do instead?” Frank catches his hands going for his face again, and shoves them into his lap.

“I’m gonna fucking talk to him.” And that’s that.

Saying that he’s going to talk to Gerard and actually talking to Gerard are two very different things. The last messages in their chat are from the week following Frank’s birthday, and they aren’t great.

November 1 at 11:05 a.m.

Gerard: hey, i’m really sorry about last night and this morning i didn’t mean to cross a line can we pls talk?

November 1 at 5:23 p.m.

Gerard: look it’s fine if you’re mad at me i deserve that but please don’t shut me out

November 3 at 2:45 p.m.

Gerard: Frank? i’m worried about you

November 7 at 1:33 a.m.

Gerard: i asked Mikey and he said that you were OK. please text me back

Gerard had used to be in Frank’s phone as Gee <3. Changing it was one of the first things that he had done after the breakup in some petty scramble for control; the distance couldn’t hurt him if he caused it first. Frank had not responded to any of those texts. He had been too far into his spiral of self hatred at that point, convinced that Gerard was reaching out because of pity rather than any genuine desire to speak to him, that it would be best for the both of them if Frank just vanished off of the fucking earth and left Gerard to find a best friend who wasn’t a lovesick pervert. There’s a large part of him that does still think that, honestly, but if not talking to Gerard and choking down his own feelings is going to make him a total dick, then he’s just going to have to fucking talk to Gerard.

He spends his first day off just staring at the old chat, wracking his brain for anything that could encompass what he’s feeling. “Hey, sorry I said all that shit to you. I meant it but I didn’t have to be such a dick about it. Wanna get coffee?” doesn’t seem right. Neither does, “I haven’t stopped thinking about you for three months and I think you’ve ruined me for everyone else, let’s be friends again.”

So he blasts Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, which is a CD that Gerard gave him, and cleans the apartment top to fucking bottom, and starts trying to put words to the music that’s been knocking around in his head for the past few weeks. The lyrics are, predictably, not very happy. He makes pasta and he and Mikey eat dinner on the couch in front of the Living Dead trilogy, which they haven’t done in a very long time.

About halfway through the second one, after Frank opens his chat with Gerard for the fourth time, Mikey heaves a sigh and says, “Just fucking text him, dude.”

“But I don’t know what to say,” Frank whines back. It’s hard to tell with the only lighting in the room coming from the flickering screen, but he’s pretty sure Mikey just delivered a stage-worthy eye roll.

“He has been begging you to talk to him for the past three months. He’s unbearable to be around. You could ask him to go get his fucking blood drawn with you and he would say yes.”

Frank has a lot of difficulty believing that, but he doesn’t say it. Instead, knowing just how transparent it is and stealing himself against Mikey’s response, he asks, “He’s been unbearable?”

Mikey scoffs so hard that he actually has to cough before he can speak. “I don’t know why I talk to either of you,” he says. “You’ve both been miserable for three fucking months and neither of you will fucking communicate with one another. It’s insane that I’m still friends with your sorry ass.”

Frank crosses his arms petulantly and bites down on his tirade that Gerard doesn’t want to talk to him, he made that infinitely clear, because Frank is a freak who is way too into his best friend and read too much into their relationship, and because Frank humiliated himself saying I love you, and he watched the confusion and disgust play out across Gerard’s face in real time, and he was a stupid fucking idiot for thinking that Gerard could ever feel that for someone like Frank. But that isn’t true, because Gerard has been reaching out for months and Frank hates it.

He doesn’t say any of that. Instead, he approximates a smile that Mikey probably can’t see and sing-songs, “Love you too, Mikeyway.” 

Mikey throws a fistfull of popcorn, and they’re back on solid ground.

Eventually, after much guessing and second-guessing and typing and deleting, Frank sends a very simple message:

Today at 11:15 p.m.

Frank: Can we talk?

He doesn’t know why he bothers to capitalize and punctuate, like it’s a work email or some shit, but the way he usually types feels too vulnerable. Like it would be too much of him in the message if it was his usual lowercase and typos.

Gerard doesn’t respond that night, and Frank is so nauseous with anxiety that he’s on the bathroom floor until the early hours of the morning. Forehead rested against the cool of the toilet seat, he smiles at the similarity of his situation to that bar bathroom months ago. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Gerard says no, or doesn’t respond. If he’s finally burned all of their bridges. The self absorbed, self loathing part of his brain where he’s been spending most of his time says that it would be the perfect final humiliation. Putting himself out there just to get rejected one last time. The part of his brain that he’s been trying to listen to more says that Gerard is an anxious person and is probably doing the exact same thing that Frank did all day.

When Gerard still hasn’t responded the next morning, Frank starts really regretting sending the text when he doesn’t have work to distract him. He turns his phone off so that he can’t check it and decides to do laundry. All of it, including his and Mikey’s towels and sheets and the rags under the sink. They don’t have laundry in the building, but there’s a laundromat a few blocks over that’s seen better days.

Usually, Frank would load everything into his car and drive there. Today he chooses to walk, which means multiple trips back and forth between the laundromat and the apartment in the sharp wind and slushy snow. By the end of his last trip he has a nose that won’t stop running and a tell-tale soreness in his throat. He doesn’t care.

He and Mikey make dinner again, which just means frozen veggie pot stickers for Frank and chicken nuggets for Mikey, and settle down with the original Star Wars trilogy. Frank doesn’t think he’s ever been less hungry in his life, but he forces himself to choke down a few dumplings with a lot of water. Not eating won’t do his shitty immune system any favors.

He makes it through all of Star Wars before finally relenting and reaching for his phone. It always takes a minute for messages to come through once it’s been turned back on, but he didn’t miss much. There’s a video from Dewees of some new melody he’s come up with, a few from his mom about some cousin Frank’s never met, and one text from Gerard:

Today at 6:34 p.m.

Gerard: Yes. What time?

The formality of it shouldn’t bother him, he’s the one who started it, but he’s hit with a wave of missing Gerard so strong that it takes his fucking breath away. This was the man who lived at his and Mikey’s apartment more than his own. Who did Frank’s eyeliner and spent every movie whispering trivia into his ear. Even now, as much as he regrets it, Frank doesn’t think there could be a world in which he does not fall in love with Gerard. The heart on his hands isn’t a lie, he is fucking hopeless, and he’s been gone on Gerard Way for years. When Gerard kissed him that first time, all cigarettes and sweat after a show at an overfull bar, Frank’s fate had been sealed. Now, he stares at a text that might as well be from a stranger and tries not to think too hard about what that means.

Ideally, Frank would see Gerard immediately. Tomorrow. Bright and early. So that he doesn’t have time to stew, or work himself up, or get any more sick than he definitely already is. Except, Frank has work for the next six days, and he knows himself well enough to know that whatever happens with Gerard cannot happen when he’s already fucking exhausted from his job. Which means that he won’t be available to actually talk until next Sunday. Which means that Frank is staring down the barrel of six days of crippling anxiety. 

The issue is that something had been set in motion, and then it was stopped. Like Frank had made the decision to jump off a cliff, driven there, walked right up to the edge, and…. Nothing. He’s just staring down into a fucking abyss. There’s no resolution to anything except for the fact that Gerard did agree to speak with him, and that could mean anything. For all he knows, Gerard just wants to meet up so that he can tell Frank in person that he has no interest in ever seeing or speaking to him again. Or maybe he wants to continue their argument, throw Frank’s words back in his face like he didn’t get to when Frank walked away. Or, worst, he wants to apologize, to tell Frank that he’s sorry that he can’t return his feelings, that Frank’s a great guy, really, he just doesn’t see him that way, that he’s sorry if any of his actions have given Frank the impression that he might. That last option keeps Frank up most of the night with a pit in his stomach that oscillates between hunger pangs and nausea and a throat that hurts when he swallows. It’s not great.

He stumbles into work the next morning with a thermos in one hand and a Dunkin’ Donuts cup in the other, so that he’ll have a backup for when he finishes the first. Brian takes one look at him and puts him on inventory in the back. Frank takes that as a sign that he’s coping well. For lunch he packed himself a sandwich before he left the apartment, but he only gets a few bites in before it turns to sawdust in his mouth. Instead, he buys another coffee.

By the end of the day his hands are shaky and his head hurts and he is definitely coming down with something. Whether the first two things are caused by the third is up for debate. He manages to finish his sandwich one-handed while driving home, which he’s feeling pretty proud about, until he lands on his knees in the bathroom again. That seems to be happening a lot, lately.

When Mikey gets home he takes one look at Frank and rolls his eyes, but he makes them tomato soup for dinner, so Frank can’t be too mad. The headache hasn’t gotten any better, despite the Advil that Frank’s been downing, and the soup is starting to feel like lead in his stomach, so he heads to bed early in case the issue is the three hours of in-and-out sleep he got the night before and not sickness at all. And then he lays there, and stares at the ceiling, and thinks.

Frank’s always been a nervous guy. Hell, he’s been spiraling for months because he can’t be in the same room as someone without getting an anxiety attack. But this is different. This is a concentrated fucking attack on him by his own shitty brain, and it’s already gotten his immune system on board. His head is aching to the rhythm of his pounding heart, and his stomach is making a strong attempt at turning inside out, and try as he might he cannot relax his muscles. It’s ridiculous.

Before, when this happened, Gerard would always pull Frank into his arms and tuck him under his chin and card his fingers through Frank’s hair. The combination of Gerard’s slow heartbeat and the scrape of his blunt nails against Frank’s scalp was hypnotic, and his brain would forget all about why it was so worked up in the first place. Now, Frank settles for loud music and a walk.

Mikey has long gone to bed when Frank steals into the living room, and even though there’s no reason for it Frank is relieved. He doesn’t need him to know just how far off of the fucking deep end Frank has gone over his brother. It’s bad enough that Mikey’s seen his stupid panic attacks, he doesn’t need to see this as well.

It’s cold outside, and Frank hadn’t bothered to throw on a coat over his ratty hoodie and Gerard’s pajama pants. He walks anyway. Frank has always liked how peaceful the world gets at night. Everything is hushed, and there are no cars on the roads, and the only light comes from the occasional street lamp and that of the faint moon struggling against its cloud cover. In the dark, the snow almost looks pristine.

He wanders along residential streets chain smoking until The Misfits’ Static Age plays all the way through, and then he stumbles back to the apartment on feet that he didn’t realize had gone numb and fumbles with his keys for an embarrassingly long time before he’s able to get through his front door. This time, when he curls, shivering, under his blankets, he passes out immediately.

The next morning is both better and worse. He wakes up before his alarm, which is fucking unfortunate since he once again barely got any sleep, but he’s too wired to try to go back to bed. The headache that he’s been nursing for the last 24 hours has expanded from his temples to behind his eyes, and there’s a definite hitch in his throat when he breathes, and he’s out of Dayquil. He pukes as soon as he makes it to the bathroom but, in a moment of optimism, makes himself another sandwich for lunch before filling his thermos and heading out. 

Tuesdays are usually when they get new shipments, and Frank spends the majority of his shift redoing inventory and restocking the floor. All of the bending over and standing up has his head pounding by lunch, but he manages to get through half of his sandwich before heading to the coffee shop down the street. Usually he would be chatting with his coworkers, telling them about his weekend, discussing upcoming shows and the music they’re working on and the people who come to the shop for lessons.

Today he does his work silently, and no one tries to rope him into their conversations, not even Andrew. He’s been avoiding the mirror, but from the looks that people have been shooting him, he guesses it isn’t good. More importantly, though, he’s too focused on doing his job properly to think about Gerard for the entire shift, and when he gets back to the apartment he turns right back around to go to the grocery store and the pharmacy. He falls into bed exhausted, stomach full of Gatorade, Nyquil, and saltines, and is gone as soon as his head hits the pillow.

Wednesday is more of the same, except he’s on register, and he doesn’t bother with lunch at all. Mikey looks unimpressed when he mumbles that he’s fine, and they order pizza instead of bothering to cook dinner. Frank isn’t an idiot. He knows that he’s sick, and he also is fully aware of how his body tends to handle sickness. It’s just that he can’t bring himself to care. He’s still standing at that stupid precipice, looking down, and he can’t see what’s waiting for him. Every day that ticks by is a day closer to him seeing Gerard again, and Frank isn’t sure anymore if that’s a good thing or not.

The moments in the last few days when he’s allowed himself to think have been filled with red hair and hazel eyes and smudged eyeliner. It’s like he’s passed through all stages of grief and circled back around to fucking pining, which isn’t a stage of grief but something much worse. The look on Gerard’s face when Frank said those awful words is etched into the insides of his eyelids, a rotoscope of shock and confusion and disgust, right alongside the tenor of his voice when he said Frankie the last time they spoke and the way that his eyes had widened when Frank yelled at him.

A part of Frank had known in November when he first started picking up hours that keeping himself this busy would end badly. His immune system has never handled stress well, and Frank hasn’t been going easy on it. He just hadn’t known that it would happen the same week that he’s freaking the fuck out about seeing his ex. It seems fitting, though, that everything would come to a head at once. Like karmic punishment with a solid right hook.

He’s about a day from the point where he would normally cancel all of his obligations in favor of downing medication and watching shitty TV on the couch, but Frank is at the point where the idea of boredom is far worse than whatever will happen to his body if he keeps working. Even worse than the boredom, though, is the idea of having to text Gerard again, to cancel. Having to explain to him that he’s fucked himself from working too hard, the thing everyone told him he shouldn’t be doing, because he couldn’t handle rejection, and that he can’t hash out their relationship because he’s too busy fucking throwing up every time he thinks too much. Plus, pushing their talk further out might actually fucking kill him.

Frank wakes up in the middle of the night, sweating, from a vivid dream that he can’t remember. He falls back asleep thinking about the scratching of Gerard’s pencil in his sketchbook and the stupid, breathy laugh that both he and Mikey share. He chooses not to examine it. Getting ready for work the next morning is a monumental fucking effort, and Frank stares at himself in the mirror that he’s been avoiding as he brushes his teeth. He looks haggard, eyes bloodshot and bruised. He could really use a shower, but there’s no way that’s happening right now. He’ll wear a hat. After he rinses his mouth he tries for a smile, but gives up quickly. His skin feels raw, like the nerves are closer to the surface than normal.

At work, Brian tells him not to come in the next day, and that he cancelled Frank’s Friday and Saturday guitar lessons. It’s exactly what Frank was convinced he did not want to happen the night before, but he doesn’t even have the energy to argue, just slouches to the register and collapses onto the stool. By the end of the shift he’s made enough stupid mistakes that he thinks Brian might have given him off more for the store’s sake than Frank’s. He tries not to feel too guilty. Mikey texts him that he won’t be home for dinner, and Frank picks at a slice of cold pizza in front of the TV for an hour before giving up. If he’s not feeling better by Saturday, he decides, then he will suck it up and text Gerard.

He can’t sleep again, despite the copious amounts of Nyquil in his system, and tosses and turns for hours before giving up and padding back to the living room. There, he settles in with antibiotic tea and Lord of the Rings, and tries not to wake Mikey with his hacking cough. The next morning he opens his eyes to Mikey setting a mug of coffee, a Gatorade, and the bottle of Dayquil on the coffee table. Frank could kiss him.

“D’you work today?” Mikey asks, though he already knows the answer. Frank just shakes his head. If he tries to talk, he might cough, or have to throw up again, and his body aches too much for that right now.

Mikey nods back. “There’s soup in the fridge for you, ‘n I got the hot water bottle out if you need it. You should text Gerard.”

Frank narrows his eyes at him. There it is, the ulterior motive. Frank didn’t tell Mikey about their meeting, but he has no doubt that Gerard did. Of course Mikey is going to meddle. He probably fucking told Gerard that Frank is sick, too. The traitor.

Mikey just narrows his eyes in return and walks away. Asshole. Frank makes a mental note to cook his favorite meal, once he’s better. He listens to the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy that day with his eyes closed to try and alleviate the pressure behind them. The volume of fluids he’s been downing makes him have to pee constantly, and the trek to the bathroom honestly doesn’t feel that much less treacherous than Frodo’s journey to Mordor. He keeps getting light headed half way through the walk and has to clutch at the walls for balance.

Mikey’s right, of course. Even if Frank is miraculously better tomorrow instead of worse there’s no way he’ll be in any condition to leave the apartment by Sunday. It’s just that texting Gerard is maybe the most difficult thing he’s ever had to do. It makes his heart pound in his aching chest in a way that physically hurts and not for the first time Frank wonders what he did in a past life to deserve this shit. He commences the same ritual that he did earlier, opening his phone to the chat and staring at the messages before giving up and turning it off. And repeat. The emotionlessness of their text exchange is heavy in his stomach and he keeps staring at the capital letters and periods like they’ll whisper a secret message to him. Maybe he’s coming down with a fever.

Eventually he graduates from rereading their texts to actually trying to type something. That doesn’t go much better. His fingers are weak and uncoordinated on the keypad, missing letters or replacing one with another, and his hands are shaky enough that his phone keeps slipping. He will deal with this. He will be an adult and text Gerard. Just…later.

When he wakes up again, the apartment is dark and the TV is off. Frank has no idea what time it is, and his phone is dead. Whatever. He slumps to the kitchen to down water straight from the faucet, then to the bathroom to knock back another dose of Nyquil and approximate brushing his teeth. He’s disgusting crawling into bed, can feel the grime on his skin where it touches his sheets, but doing something about that seems so monumental that it doesn’t even bear thinking about. At least, he thinks, Gerard will not have to see him like this.

The next morning (afternoon? He isn’t sure), Frank wakes to the sun stabbing his sore eyes through their crusted lids and a headache that could rival a car alarm. There’s a moment of intense dejá vu as he steals himself to open his eyes and sit up. He always forgets how much being sick just fucking sucks. His body is like rocks, and his head is vibrating on his shoulders, and his skin feels like one massive bruise. He allows himself a moment to wallow, which he’s been doing a lot of lately, and then squeezes his eyes shut as he pushes himself upright. The headrush is fucking hateful, but he makes it. Maybe he can get away with not opening his eyes at all. Just shuffle around with his hands out in front of him like a zombie, navigate the apartment through touch.

The process of standing up takes that idea off the table pretty much immediately. His eyes snap open as soon as he starts swaying, and he has to make a mad grab for his headboard. When he gets to the living room no one is there, even though it’s Saturday, but his phone is plugged in on the kitchen counter with a scrawled note that says, “Staying at G’s so I don’t catch your shit. Text him!!” 

Frank mumbles something under his breath that doesn’t even make sense to himself, and grabs the phone. Did he tell Brian that he wasn’t coming in today? Brian said he cancelled Frank’s lessons, but did he have a shift too? He can’t remember. He has to shut his eyes against the searing white of the screen as it powers on.

He will text Brian. Just in case. And then he will text Gerard…something. Because Mikey told him to. Gerard would probably understand if there were typos, right? If Frank says that he’s sick? He tries to nod to himself, but that does not help with the headache, and he has to slam his eyes shut against a wave of sudden nausea. First, though, he will get coffee. And water. Maybe not in that order.

He concentrates on measuring the grounds exactly, and pouring water to just the right level, and even goes so far as to rinse the carafe before clicking it back into the machine. It suddenly seems very important that he be able to make a perfect cup of coffee. He fills a glass from the tap with the same level of precision, but realizes too late that the water was set to warm, not January-cold. He drinks it anyway.

He texts Brian with one hip braced against the counter, doing his utmost to not look at the screen while he types. 

Frank: stil dying. hope i didnt hve wo9rk. sry

Less than professional, but he and Brian are friends. He will text Gerard after coffee. Once he’s a little more present and bolstered by caffeine. When he reaches into the cabinet for a mug, the only one in there is Ghost Face. Frank takes the time to cast a withering glare at the collection of dishware sitting untouched in the sink before setting the mug down on the counter with significantly more force than necessary. Mikey never does the fucking dishes, and Frank hasn’t even considered what that might mean until this moment. He probably should have thrown the thing away months ago, after his birthday. Or at least given it to Mikey to take back to Gerard’s place. That’s probably where he’s been spending so much of his time, actually.

Frank can’t decide if he’s annoyed by it or not. Is he glad that he doesn’t have to see Gerard? Obviously. Does he appreciate being treated like an emotionally fragile china doll? Not even a little bit. Frank pointedly ignores the voice in his head saying that he very much does want to see Gerard, and fixes his coffee with the same concentration as earlier. He even stirs it with a spoon, which he only does when he’s feeling fancy. Or buying himself time. Fine. He’ll text Gerard. 

He sticks the spoon in his mouth to lick off the last of the coffee before leaving it in the sink with its fallen siblings and shuffling over to the couch. There, he piles himself with blankets because he can feel the chill setting back in and wraps one hand securely around the mug, ignoring the handle and relishing the faint burn of the ceramic. Technically, it’s not a big deal to cancel. Frank has backed out of a lot of things in his time. Hookups, jobs, social gatherings. It’s just that those things aren’t his ex-slash-best friend. Who Frank has been a certified asshole to. He presses the mug against his temple, and it helps a little. What do normal people say? “Hey, so sorry I can’t make it, I’m feeling a little under the weather and don’t want to get you sick. Is it possible to reschedule?” 

“Fuckkkk,” he groans out loud. Which sends him into a coughing fit that sloshes coffee all over his hand. Whatever. “This isn’t a fucking work meeting,” he tells himself. “Just”—cough—“be cool.” Frank has never been cool in his life. Passionate? Yes. Anxious? Definitely. Laid back? Absolutely fucking not. He moves the coffee mug to his cheek instead. One-handed and extremely slowly, watching the screen through slitted eyes, Frank punches out, “cant make it tmrw. sick. reschedule?” 

He stares at it for a second, making absolutely sure he hasn’t accidentally reconfessed his love, or insulted Gerard’s mother, or something equally relationship-ending. Not that there is a relationship. It seems okay, and he hits send before he can think better of it. Pressing that stupid little button kick-starts his heart into overdrive again, and he half inhales his steadying gulp of coffee. He’s still bent double on stomach pangs when his phone buzzes, which only makes his stomach hurt worse. Fuck, he’s a mess.

Gerard: oh no how bad is it? can i bring you anything?

Frank stares at the screen for a while before the letters come into focus, then longer to understand what they mean. What would Gerard need to bring him?

Frank: imm good

Frank: thx

He sits there, rim of his coffee mug tucked under his bottom lip, chewing on where his lip ring used to be, but his phone doesn’t buzz again. Does Gerard not want to reschedule? Has Frank shot him down one too many times? He feels raw, like someone has taken sandpaper to his emotions. Frank is so fucking tired. He hasn’t had a full meal or a good night’s sleep since he first texted Gerard five days ago. He’s been subsisting off of coffee and gatorade and drugs, and sleeping barely five hours a night, and he doesn’t think he’s ever needed a shower more in his life. He sets the mug down so that he can press his fingers over his aching eyes and breathes slowly through a raw throat. What the fuck is wrong with him?

He twists his fingers into his greasy hair, in case that will somehow help. His skin feels clammy, and his stupid legs won’t stop jittering, and his stomach has settled into a pulsing sort of ache. Frank decides that he hates being sick more than he hates anything else in the world. He stays in that position for a long time, mostly because after a certain point he forgets how to do anything else. He feels apart from himself, like his body is hunched over on the couch but Frank isn’t. It’s kind of nice.

Slowly, he becomes aware of a noise in the otherwise silent apartment. It’s a sort of tapping, inconsistent but slowly increasing in volume. Did he forget to turn the faucet off? He can’t remember. He listens to it some more. There’s another noise, too, he realizes. It almost sounds like-

And then he opens his eyes, because someone’s at the fucking door. Mikey wouldn’t knock, he lives here, and he definitely hasn’t invited anyone over. But they’re still knocking, and they might even be calling his name. “‘M comin’,” he mumbles, and shoves himself to his feet. He grabs a blanket to wrap around himself as he moves towards the door, because truly it is so fucking cold. Maybe it’s not him. Maybe the heat’s off. He’ll check the thermostat later. 

Frank flips the deadbolt, and the knocking stops abruptly. He opens the door slowly, and squints at the person on the other side. Gerard, right arm still half raised, looking some combination of terrified and sheepish that Frank doesn’t think he’s ever seen before. And Frank just…stands there. He feels like he’s missed something, but he’s not sure what. Like he got to the movie late and the characters are mid-scene and he doesn’t even know who they are.

Gerard is shoving his raised hand through his hair now, like he always does when he’s anxious or thinking. It’s hot, in a windswept, roguish kind of way. He’s holding a white plastic bag in the other. Frank’s eyes track how the handle is wrapped around his wrist. ”Um,” Frank says, and then he doesn’t say anything else.

Gerard clears his throat. “I-um. Sorry, I know I didn’t text you back, I just kind of showed up at your door, and you can tell me to leave and I will; I won’t bother you again, or we can reschedule for when you’re feeling better, or we can, like, talk on the phone or something, but. I mean, I know…I know how sick you can get. And Mikey’s been at mine, so I figured you probably didn’t have anyone helping you out, you know, and I just”—he lifts both of his hands in a halfhearted sort of what-can-you-do gesture. “I brought soup and rice.”

“...What?”

“To eat. Since I know you get nauseous a lot, and that’s always what you used to eat, um. Before. The rice like…settles your stomach, right?”

Frank blinks at him while his brain tries to catch up. He hasn’t had to interact with anyone other than Mikey since Thursday. It’s Saturday now, right? Because he was supposed to see Gerard on Sunday, but he had to cancel. But now Gerard is here. And he brought food. “Yeah,” Frank says, and finally shuffles out of the way so that Gerard can enter.

He skirts around him, like Frank might lash out if he gets too close, but Frank just keeps holding the door open stupidly. Gerard sends him a nervous smile over his shoulder as he toes off his shoes, and Frank’s brain comes online enough for him to close the door and flip the deadbolt again. He suddenly wonders just how stale it smells in the apartment, just how stale he smells. He hasn’t really looked in the mirror since Thursday either, and he wasn’t looking great then. He probably looks fucking awful right now in the same Danzig hoodie he’s been wearing all week and Mikey’s sweatpants that are way too long and a fucking blanket cape. Jesus.

“Sorry about….” He waves his arm around to encompass the everything of his nasty apartment and also his nasty self. Gerard hangs his jacket on the hooks by the door and blinks at him.

“You’re sick,” he says simply.

Frank follows him helplessly over to the counter where Gerard starts pulling things out of his bag and setting them in groups. He brought way more than just soup and rice. When Gerard catches Frank staring at the three different flavors of Gatorade he lets out a breathy little laugh and scrubs his hand back through his hair. “They were out of your favorite.” Like that explains anything about any of this. 

“We don’t have”—Frank has to break off to cough, the dry kind that seize his whole body. “Sorry, there’s coffee, but all the mugs are dirty. Um. But I can wash one. If you want?”

Gerard just looks at him for a long time. “Go sit down, Frank,” he says eventually. “I’ve got this, I promise.”

So Frank goes back to his blanket nest on the couch and sips his cold coffee and tries to figure out what, exactly, is happening right now. He told Gerard that he couldn’t talk because he was sick, and Gerard took that as a sign that he should go fucking shopping so that he could come over and make instant rice in Frank’s kitchen. For the second time in the span of ten minutes, Frank feels like he’s missing something. He’s pretty sure that he told Gerard that he didn’t need anything. Right? And isn’t Mikey literally at Gerard’s apartment right now? If they were that worried, couldn’t Mikey have just dropped these things off? It doesn’t make sense, and Frank doesn’t realize that he’s scowling until he gets a sharp, stabbing pain behind his eyes again.

There’s movement in his peripheral, and Frank looks up. Gerard, holding a steaming mug in one hand and a bowl in the other. He sets them down in front of Frank and then backs off again. It’s weird. “It’s lemon ginger tea,” he says, “and rice.”

“But we’re out of clean mugs,” Frank says dumbly.

He watches Gerard’s eyes flick to the Ghost Face mug still in his hands. “I washed one.”

Frank looks at the mug too. He remembers not to frown. “You didn’t have to do that.” There’s that same high pitched, nervous laugh from earlier. It tugs at something in the pit of Frank’s stomach.

“‘Course I did. I care about you, Frank.”

Frank’s eyes snap up, too fast, and Gerard is already watching him. His face is intense, brow low over wide eyes, lips firm. It’s that same indecipherable look he kept giving Frank before his birthday.

“Don’t do that,” Frank says quietly.

“Do what?”

“Say that shit! You know how I-you know how I feel about you. When you say things like that….” Frank shakes his head. Coughs. “It’s not fair. It’s cruel. So just. Don’t.”

Gerard’s tongue darts out to lick his lips before bringing a hand up to bite at his nails. Frank looks away.

“Why did you want to talk to me, Frank?”

So they’re doing this now. Frank tongues at the scar on the inside of his lip and scoots to the side so that he’s not in the middle of the couch anymore. Gerard sits against the arm, and the distance between them feels like a fucking chasm. “Because I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I was wound up, and you hit a nerve, and I lashed out. I was trying to hurt you.” He drags a hand down his face. This shouldn’t be so difficult. “And I’m sorry.”

There’s a long pause in which Frank graduates from prodding at the scar with his tongue to picking at it with his teeth.

“Did you mean it?”

Frank jerks his head to stare at Gerard. He’s gnawing on his lips too, talented hands fluttering around each other and picking at the strings of his ripped jeans. Strands of red have fallen into his face, and the mousy brown of his roots are showing at the top. His lashes are long and dark where he’s watching his own fingers work. He’s fucking gorgeous.

Frank chokes on a bitter laugh that turns into another cough. It’s like he can’t stop hurting himself. “Which part?”

Gerard looks back at him through his lashes, eyes too anxious to be coy. “About-about still being in love with me.”

Frank scoffs out a breath and puts down his mug so that he can bury his face in his hands, dig his fingertips into his temples. “Jesus, Gerard.”

“Please, I’m not—I just need to know.” His voice is so soft.

Frank squeezes his eyes shut until they hurt, bites down on his lip, and tenses all of his muscles like he’s bracing himself for impact. They’re both quiet for a long time.

“Frank?”

“‘Course I meant it.” His voice is tight. Choked. How is this happening again? Why is he letting it happen again? But it’s Gerard, and Frank would do fucking anything if Gerard said his name like that. “I’ve been in love with you since I fuckin’ met you, Gee.” He can hear the loathing woven through the words, feel it in the way his lips twist around them. “I don’t think it’s ever going to stop.”

“Frank, look at me.” Frank just shakes his head, chokes on another laugh. He presses the bends of his fingers against his eyes.

“Please.” And how can Frank do anything except obey?

He removes his hands from his face slowly, knots them together in his lap, looks up—

And Gerard is kissing him. One hand on Frank’s jaw, smooth and warm, the other propping Gerard up as he leans across that space between them, and his eyes are closed, and just for a second, Frank allows himself to enjoy it. He tastes like he used to, cigarettes and coffee, and Frank can feel the urge to sink into the touch—the sudden heat in the pit of his stomach—but he can’t. 

He pushes Gerard away, stands up quickly enough that he has to grab the arm of the couch for support, and then he’s put the coffee table between them. “What the fuck,” he says, and there are so many warring emotions in his chest that he feels like he’s going to fucking explode.

Gerard is still sitting on the couch, cheeks a little flushed and lips parted, looking at Frank from beneath furrowed brows, and Frank finally places that look as pleading. It only serves to make him angry. “Gerard. What the fuck are you doing,” he says again.

Gerard blinks. Licks his lips. “Frankie,” he starts, and his voice is way too wrecked for a single fucking kiss.

“No. No, absolutely not.” Frank feels hysterical. “You don’t get to do that. You can’t-you can’t break things off because I have feelings for you, and then”—he waves his hands around to encompass everything that just happened. At some point he started pacing. “I wanted to apologize. Because I thought you were trying to maintain our friendship and I just couldn’t handle rejection. But this—I don’t know, Gerard. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but this is fucked up. Getting me to, what, open up to you so you can get one last fuck in? Do you get off on fucking rejecting me or some shit?” His breath is coming faster and faster, and he knows he sounds crazy, but he doesn’t know how to stop. He’d said he wouldn’t let this happen again. He’d told himself that he wouldn’t give Gerard an opening, would hold his boundaries, would have some fucking self respect—

“Frank!” His attention snaps to Gerard the way that it always does, and he feels that familiar loathing curdling in his stomach.

“What,” he spits back, and feels the insane urge to bare his teeth.

“Just listen to me. You can yell at me after, but I need you to listen first. Before you jump to any more conclusions.”

Frank hisses out a slow breath from between his teeth. His shoulders are tensed like there’s going to be a physical fight, and he does not feel well. Gerard gestures to the couch where Frank had been sitting and he nearly collapses on it, immediately pulling up his legs and crossing his arms like they’ll somehow protect him from this. He watches Gerard close his eyes, take a deep breath in and let it out slow. When he opens them they are anxious and intent and honey-warm. Frank clenches his jaw.

“That was a shitty thing to do,” he starts, “and I’m sorry.” Frank opens his mouth, and Gerard shoots him a look that has him snapping it shut again. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I don’t just want a fuck, and I don’t get off on rejection, or whatever you think. I just”—he closes his eyes, another slow breath—“I fucking miss you, Frank. When you said you loved me in October I was so fuckin’ scared. I didn’t think I deserved you, and I thought I was gonna ruin everything, and I figured it would be better if I ended it before that could happen. I didn’t think about you. And I’m sorry. Those first few weeks, I saw you pull away from me, but my head was so far up my own ass, I figured you just needed time and then we could go back to normal. But then, after your birthday...."

His eyes are big and miserable, and Frank has to fight the instinct to look away. “You were so upset that morning, and at the time I didn’t even understand why. Those texts I sent, I was apologizing, but I didn’t really understand what was wrong. Mikey had to explain it to me.”

Frank scoffs out a laugh. Mikey fucking Way. Gerard’s eyes narrow at that. “He was pissed, y’know? At me, I mean. Said I was being a dick. That I was fucking you around and not thinking about your feelings. And I wanted to apologize, for real, but by then you were already gone. I kept trying to come up with reasons to be at your apartment, to hang out there instead of at mine, but it didn’t matter. Ray invited me to that bar, but I only showed up ‘cause Mikey said you’d be there, and I figured that was my best chance at actually getting to apologize.”

For the first time since he’s started talking, Gerard looks away. Down at his hands where they’re fiddling with his sleeve again before he runs one through his hair and leaves it sticking up in all directions. Again, Frank forces himself to look anywhere else.

“And then I didn’t even apologize. I yelled at you, like I’m fuckin’ entitled to your time. I was trying to apologize and I was fucking thinking about myself again.” He looks back up, waits until Frank makes eye contact. “But I am sorry. I’m sorry I rejected you, and made you feel like you weren’t wanted, and I’m so fucking sorry that I made you think I didn’t care. What I said earlier, I meant it. I care about you so much I’m fucking sick with it.” At that, Frank croaks out a genuine laugh, and the smile that Gerard gives him in return is brilliant.

Frank takes in a big breath, like he’s going to say something, then pauses. Swirls the words around his mouth with his tongue and chews them in his cheek. Opens his mouth once in a false start, and then bites the fucking bullet. “And the kiss just now? What was that?”

Gerard gnaws on his lip, but the look he gives Frank is unwavering. “The kiss was ‘cause I’m in love with you, too.”

There’s a moment, infinite and ephemeral, where nothing moves. The stretch of a rubber band. Frank hears the words and doesn’t understand them. He looks into Gerard’s eyes and has a moment to marvel at the way that the afternoon light turns them from brown to golden-green, and how they turn down at the corners. He loves those eyes. And then the band snaps, and Frank can feel the reverberation in his bones.

“No.”

“I mean it, Frank. I’ll say it as many times as you want me to. I’ve been so stupid, and I didn’t think I deserved it, or I thought you deserved better, but I am. I’m really fuckin’ in love with you.”

But Frank is already shaking his head. Slowly at first, and then harder, more firmly, so that it hurts. “No,” he says again, and his voice breaks on it like a fucking death knell. There’s something trapped in his chest, heavy and sharp, that’s making it difficult to breathe. Every instinct in his body is telling him to run—to put something solid between himself and Gerard—but he can’t move. He’s pressed into the arm of his shitty, lumpy couch that he and Mikey dragged from an alleyway, and the only barriers between himself and Gerard are his own legs and crossed arms. Cornered. 

And he realizes abruptly that this was Gerard’s plan all along. To trap him in his own apartment and get him to let his guard down so that he can sneak in for the killing blow. He had been crafty about it, waiting until Frank was sick and vulnerable and guilty to launch his final attack. Frank, with his traitorous, bleeding heart, had fallen for it easily. Hook, line, and fucking sinker.

The air in the living room is so thin, and Frank’s breaths aren’t pulling in enough oxygen, not around that thing in his throat, and there’s a strange ringing in his ears. He thinks, briefly and insanely, that if he stays still then maybe Gerard will go away. He’ll lose interest, like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, and Frank will be able to make a break for it. But he’s done a pretty fucking impressive job of freezing, and Gerard’s eyes are still locked on him with a look that spells absolute ruin.

He’s saying something now that Frank can’t listen to, because whatever it is will be his undoing. Instead, Frank focuses his eyes on a point just beyond his head and concentrates on pushing air in and out of his lungs. His breaths have taken on an odd, stuttering cadence. If he focuses, he can hear the rhythm of them: long and hitching on the inhale, fast and desperate on the exhale. The thing in his chest is moving up his throat with terrifying efficiency, and he doesn’t know what will happen once it reaches his mouth. He clenches his teeth, just in case. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees movement, but if he looks at Gerard then he might die.

The hand on his knee makes his entire body flinch. Distantly, he hates himself for it. One more vulnerability. One more chink in the armor. It’s a light touch, gentle and hesitant. Just do it already, Frank thinks, though he doesn’t know what it is. Do it and get out so that I can pick myself back up. But Gerard is still talking, all low and soothing, like Frank is a wild animal. They’re not words, exactly, but the idea of them. How English must sound to someone who doesn’t speak it.

Behind him, the light from the windows sets Gerard’s hair up into a fiery halo. He counts the exposed bricks on the neighboring building’s facade. Movement on his knee, and Frank’s eyes jump to it before he can stop them. Gerard’s thumb is running along his knee cap, firm and repetitive. It leaves a burning sort of trail in its wake. He can feel his fingers knotted in the fabric of his zip-up, shaking with tension, and his neck aches from how stiffly he’s been holding it. Slowly, muscle by muscle, he relaxes. The hand on his knee squeezes in approval.

In his lap, Frank watches his fingers pick at his cuticles. It feels like the morning after his birthday, panicked and trapped in his own apartment. Just like that morning, he knows that he needs to speak, that nothing will change if he doesn’t, but it’s taking everything in him just to hold back that pressure in his throat. He can feel Gerard’s eyes on him. The only noise in the room is the stutter of Frank’s own breathing. 

“Frank?” Gerard asks, and a part of him is surprised to be able to recognize his name. He doesn’t respond. “I want you to breathe with me, okay?”

It sets Frank’s teeth on edge, how gentle he’s being. Stop. Make it hurt. 

Gerard sucks in a deep, pointed breath, holds, and exhales just as slowly. Frank, despite himself, does his best to follow along. He can feel the fluttering of his heart in his chest, the rush of blood in his ears. Gerard does it again, just as slowly, and Frank breathes with him. He doesn’t know how long they stay like that. At some point, the hand on Frank’s knee starts to rub his leg in slow, soothing strokes.

Despite how quickly it came on, the panic takes a long time to release him. It leaves him slumped against the couch, freshly exhausted and sore like he’s gone through a full-body workout. Gerard is still there, rubbing his leg and just watching him. 

It takes Frank a long time to remember how to speak again. “Why are you here,” he says, mostly so that he can’t say something worse, like thank you, or I missed you, too.

“There’s a lot of reasons.” Gerard’s voice is almost a whisper. “I was worried about you. I owed you an apology. I—” He bites off the sentence, but Frank knows what he was going to say.

He just shakes his head, runs unsteady hands over his face and into his hair. Closes his eyes and clenches his jaw. He’s so tired.

“Why.”

Gerard lets out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Frank. I told you why; I told you the truth. I mean it.”

Frank breathes in, uneven and too deep. His exhale is long and slow, until his body is begging him to take in more air. It’s quiet like this. He holds it until he can’t. Gerard is telling him something that he can’t let himself believe. It hadn’t even occurred to him as a possibility until Gerard had said those words, and now there’s something that feels horribly like hope growing in his chest. He opens his eyes and stares down at Gerard’s smooth hand and long fingers where they’re still resting on his calf. “I can’t believe you,” he says honestly. “I don’t know how.” So quietly that he doesn’t know if Gerard even hears.

There’s the click of his throat as he swallows. “I haven’t given you any reason to.” His fingers twitch; an aborted movement. “But I’d really like to start.”

The noise that comes out of Frank’s throat is fucking humiliating all on its own. The tears are worse. He inhales sharply, tilts his head to the ceiling and tries to pass it off as digesting that information. He’s not sure it works. His head is fucking pounding, and Frank realizes too late that the sharp thing in his throat was a sob. “Say it again.”

Another swallow. “I love you.”

“Again.”

“I fucking love you.”

Finally, Frank looks at him. Gerard is staring back. Intense, jaw set, daring Frank to argue further.

He steels himself. “Fucking prove it.”

There’s a beat. Long enough for Frank to second guess himself, and then Gerard’s lips are on his. It’s like the last kiss, Gerard’s hand cupping Frank’s jaw, spanning the distance between them, but this time Frank lets himself fall into it. Gerard’s lips are firm against his, demanding like he’s proving a point. When he pulls back Frank’s eyes flutter open, and he didn’t even realize he’d shut them.

“Okay?” Gerard whispers, right against his lips. Frank just nods and Gerard moves over until he’s next to Frank, one leg folded under him so they’re facing each other. “Tell me to stop,” Gerard says, and then he’s kissing him again, one hand circling to the back of Frank’s neck, holding his head steady as the other finds its way to the outside of his thigh. 

Fingers tangle in his hair, and Frank’s lips open on a sigh that Gerard immediately takes advantage of. He slips his tongue into Frank’s mouth like he’s hungry for it, licking at his teeth and tongue before Gerard pulls back to suck at Frank’s bottom lip.

He leans into it, legs spreading to allow Gerard closer and hands finally coming up to run through Gerard’s hair like he’s been wanting to for months. It’s soft, longer than the last time he got to do this. He scrapes his nails along the scalp and Gerard hums into the kiss. Just to see if he’ll let him, Frank tightens his fingers and pulls his head back. Gerard goes easily, letting Frank’s lip fall from his mouth.

Frank’s lungs ache from everything that’s happened in the last hour, but he can’t bring himself to care. Gerard’s eyes are lidded and dark as he watches him, lips stretching into a crooked smirk. Frank guides Gerard back in, tilting his head to fit their mouths together, and smiles against him when Gerard’s lips part automatically. Frank licks over them anyway, tastes the raw spots where he’s been chewing on them, and then sinks his own teeth in.

Gerard jerks a little against him, and Frank tightens the grip on his hair in punishment, holding him still as he tugs on his lip before licking back into his mouth. He needs to relearn Gerard: what he tastes like, the noises he makes, everything.

When they come up for air again there’s a strand of spit connecting their lips. Gerard licks it away and uses the hand still at Frank’s neck to tilt his head back, leaving his throat long and exposed. The other hand is tracing up and down Frank’s thigh, moving a little higher, a little further in every time. Each stroke sends a wave of arousal right to his core.

Frank’s hands fall to his waist as Gerard brushes his lips over his Adam’s apple before licking up his neck to his jaw in a broad, flat stroke. He nips at the bone there and Frank lets out a small, broken sound before he can stop himself. Gerard just huffs a breath against his skin and drags his teeth up to the juncture between jaw and ear where he tongues at Frank’s gauge. 

Frank’s head is lolling back, supported by Gerard’s strong hand, and his whole body shivers when Gerard whispers, “Frankie,” right into his ear. “Missed you, sugar,” he says, nipping at the shell of Frank’s ear, “so fuckin’ much.”

Frank makes that sound again, fists his hands in the hem of Gerard’s shirt to haul him closer until they’re on top of each other, Gerard’s fingers settling at Frank’s hip and digging in. They fit together perfectly, and Frank is so far gone on Gerard that it’s stupid. He’s missed how easily they can fall into this dynamic, how quickly Gerard can take control. He cranes his neck back, trying to give Gerard and his mouth more access as he slips his own fingers under Gerard’s shirt, feeling the soft skin just above his waistband. 

He’s mouthing at the column of Frank’s throat now, moving down until he can sink his teeth into the meat between shoulder and neck. Frank’s whole body seizes in a gasp, the way it always has, and Gerard’s tongue laves over the skin. Tasting him. His jaws tighten as the hand on Frank’s hip climbs higher, and Frank knows that he’ll have a bruise there tomorrow. Gerard trails his fingers along the waist of Frank’s sweatpants in a featherlight touch that has his stomach muscles contracting. The feeling of Gerard is everywhere, all-consuming, and Frank is desperate for more.

He digs his fingers into Gerard’s belt loops, trying to haul him still closer, but Gerard resists. He releases Frank’s neck, pulling back until their lips are almost touching, but when Frank tries to kiss him again he moves away. Frank lets out a little whine, and Gerard breathes out a laugh. “So impatient for me,” he murmurs. “Use your words, sweetheart.” And goes back to sucking at Frank’s throat.

It goes straight to his cock, and Frank gasps in a stuttering breath. Gerard knows how difficult speech is when he gets like this. But Gerard is also mean. “Wanna-ah-need to feel you. Wanna touch you.” Gerard pulls back again. Asshole.

“Touch me where, Frankie?” he teases, spit-slick and gorgeous. Frank levels him with his best glare which is immediately ruined by a gasp when Gerard chooses that moment to slip his thumb under his waistband, right at the apex of Frank’s thigh. And then he stops. “I’m waiting,” he says in a singsong voice, and Frank bares his teeth at him.

“Anywhere. Just- wherever you want. Come on, Gerard.”

He’s rewarded by Gerard’s thumb tracing inward. “Good,” Gerard says, all slow and condescending, and Frank chokes on a moan.

Gerard leans back, and Frank watches with wide eyes as he crosses his arms in front of himself to pull the hem of his shirt over his head. It leaves him with his back arched, the soft expanse of his torso on display. Frank runs his palms reverently over his smooth skin, warm under Frank’s cold fingers. He feels Gerard take in a stuttering breath.

“You miss me, sweetheart?” Gerard asks, and sticks his pointer and middle fingers into Frank’s open mouth before he can respond. Frank lets out a muffled groan, and looks Gerard in the eyes as he closes his mouth around them and sucks. “Love your fucking mouth,” Gerard murmurs, and Frank just blinks at him before slowly bobbing his head, almost pulling off before taking the fingers back in. He’s painfully hard and Gerard hasn’t even touched him yet.

Gerard exhales harshly and just watches for a moment, eyes tracking Frank’s movement. He parts his fingers so that Frank can lick between them, tasting his skin and curling his tongue over a knuckle. Something like awe flashes across Gerard’s face as he watches Frank, eyes blown and lips parted, and Frank hums around him in appreciation. Slowly, Gerard pushes his fingers further until they brush the back of his throat. He watches with interest as Frank gags around them, pressing down on the back of his tongue before pulling his hand away so that Frank can launch into a coughing fit. Sexy.

The force of it rocks his torso into Gerard who immediately wraps his arms around him. The coughing is long and harsh, grating in his throat, and the entire time Gerard holds him against himself, running a hand over his back beneath his hoodie. 

Eventually the fit calms enough that Frank can rasp out, “Sorry,” through heaving breaths. Gerard nuzzles into Frank’s unwashed, greasy hair and inhales deeply, palm pressed against the small of his back.

“You don’t have to apologize for bein’ sick, sugar. Let me take care of you.” He shifts so that he can trace his tongue inside the shell of Frank’s ear at the same time that he rakes his blunt nails down Frank’s back. It sends a tremor through his entire body, and his cock twitches where it’s straining in his sweats. “Gonna take you apart, Frankie,” Gerard is whispering against his ear, hot breath sending more shivers down his spine. “Gonna make you mine again, I promise.”

Frank drops his forehead to Gerard’s shoulder and pants. He’s so turned on it’s insane. His skin is hypersensitive and every touch feels heightened in a way that’s almost too much but so, so good. Gerard’s hands shift to his waist, thumbs stroking along the divots of his hips as Frank turns his head to mouth at Gerard’s collarbones. He hums, and Frank can feel the vibration in his throat.

Eventually, Frank pulls back. “You wanna go to my room?” His voice is raw.

Gerard tightens his grip on Frank’s waist before letting go. “Lead the way, angel.”

Frank’s room is about as much of a mess as the rest of the apartment is, but he doesn’t have time to worry about it before Gerard is pressing himself against his back, sliding his hands under Frank’s hoodie to grope at his chest as he grinds his hips forward. Frank’s breath catches and he lets his head fall onto Gerard’s shoulder, shoving his ass against him. Gerard thumbs over one of his nipples and Frank bites off a gasp, hips jerking into nothing.

Against his ear, Gerard laughs. “So fuckin’ responsive, Frankie. Love that about you.” He pinches at Frank’s other nipple, and Frank whines and squirms in response. Gerard is so fucking hard where he’s grinding into his ass, and Frank wants him, grabs at his thighs to try to pull him in closer.

Immediately, Gerard’s fingers are around Frank’s wrists, bringing them back in front where he can ring them both with one hand. He presses the other around Frank’s waist and bites the side of his neck in punishment, holding him still. “You have to let me take care of you, sweetheart." He licks over the indentation of his teeth. “Think you can do that? Think you can be a good boy for me?”

The words make Frank’s hips twitch forward again, and he tugs at his wrists just to see. Gerard’s grip doesn’t falter. He presses his teeth against Frank’s pulse point in warning.

“Yes,” Frank gasps, “yes, I’ll let you take care of me. Fuck, c’mon, Gee. I need you.”

At that, Gerard’s hips snap forward, pressing against Frank’s ass and grinding hard. They both groan at the contact and Frank tries to arch further back, desperate. Gerard runs his free hand up Frank’s stomach, rucking up his hoodie as he goes, until it settles right on the column of his neck. Frank whimpers, and Gerard’s fingers tighten immediately. “You’re so easy for me,” he whispers, voice warm and heavy. “Don’t even have to do anything and you’re fucking moaning for it.”

Frank nods mindlessly, and Gerard abruptly releases him, stepping back and leaving Frank stumbling to regain his balance. “Strip,” he commands coldly, and the shift in tone has Frank reeling.

He’s quick to follow instructions, dropping his clothes into an unceremonious pile on the floor until all he’s left in is his underwear. “Those too.” He isn’t sure if he shivers from chills or the sheer authority in Gerard’s voice. Frank pushes his briefs down more slowly, feeling suddenly self-conscious. He wraps his arms around his waist when he turns to look at Gerard. Gerard, who has taken his own clothes off without Frank noticing, who is sitting on Frank’s bed with his legs wide and cock heavy between them.

“C’mere Frankie,” he says, voice gone soft again, and Frank moves to stand between his open thighs. Gerard pulls Frank’s hands from his waist, sets them on his own shoulders as his eyes run heavy over his body. “You’re so fucking beautiful. ‘S all I could think about whenever I saw you, ‘n how you weren’t mine to touch anymore.” He sets his broad hands on the outside on Frank’s thighs, smooths them up towards his ass. “Gotta make up for lost time, angel.”

The first slide of their cocks together is fucking electric. Gerard is pulling Frank in by his ass, kneading the muscle and grinding their hips together in long, filthy drags. It’s just on the wrong side of too dry that has Frank’s knees going weak and his fingers digging into the meat of Gerard’s shoulders. Fuck, he’s missed this. He hasn’t been with anyone else since Gerard. He’d tried a couple of times, after he’d had a few beers in him, but it never got far before he was imagining Gerard’s face instead of a stranger’s, and even Frank wasn’t self-flagellating enough for that. In front of him, real Gerard’s eyes are black and lidded, lips parting as he drags Frank against him.

“Gerard,” Frank breathes, just to taste his name.

“Yeah, Frankie?”

“Say it again.” It comes out pleading.

Blunt nails digging into his ass, dragging him in hard and heavy. It pulls him off balance, buckles his knees so that Gerard’s all that’s holding him up. Teeth against his collarbone, strong enough to bruise.

“Love you. I fucking love you, Frank.”

Frank's head hangs down in a moan, and Gerard leans up to meet him. The kiss is syrupy slow, lips and tongues moving against each other, breath in each other’s mouths. Frank’s hips move automatically, chasing friction in minute circles. Gerard laugh-sighs into his mouth, licks along Frank’s tongue again before pulling back to rest their foreheads together.

“Whaddaya want, sugar? Tell me how to make you feel good.”

Frank whines. He hates it when Gerard does this. It’s supposed to be Gerard’s job to make decisions, not his. “Whatever-whatever you want, Gee.” Their hips are still grinding together, sending little twinges of pleasure up his spine.

One of those perfect hands leaves Frank’s ass and comes back down. Hard. Frank lets out a yelp that shakes into a moan as it rocks him further into Gerard.

“Try again.”

Frank lets out a petulant whine and Gerard slaps him again.

“Fuck! Okay, okay, jesus.” Another slap, harder than the last two, that has Frank fully collapsing into Gerard as his knees hit the bed.

“Fuck me! Want you to fuck me, Gee. Wanna feel you in me. Please,” he adds for good measure.

Gerard’s hand smooths over his burning ass in approval. Fucker. Lips next to his ear: “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Frank just tucks his face into Gerard’s neck and doesn’t respond.

The fingers that wrap in his hair and yank his head back are viscous, and he chokes on another moan. “Was it?” When he still doesn’t answer, Gerard nods his head for him, and Frank is so hard it hurts.

“There we go,” Gerard murmurs, so gentle again. He brings his other hand up to tuck a few strands of hair behind Frank’s ear, so tender that he can’t breathe. “I’m gonna take such good care of you, Frankie,” he whispers.

They stay like that for a moment, Gerard’s palm cradling Frank’s jaw, Frank’s arms around Gerard’s shoulders. It feels like it could last forever.

“Wanna feel you,” Frank whispers eventually. He watches Gerard’s lips curl into his perfect, uneven smile. Gerard leans in for one more kiss, chaste and so fucking sweet, before pulling away.

“Get on your back for me, angel.”

Frank takes his time getting settled, squirming into the middle of his unmade bed and pushing at the pile of pillows that he only has because Gerard wanted them until they’re perfect. He’s inexplicably nervous again, even though they’ve done this plenty of times before. As cliche as it sounds, there’s something in the air, warm and crackling and alive. 

He watches Gerard rummage around in his bedside drawer before pulling out a bottle of lube and a condom, and a sudden pit opens up in his stomach. He hadn’t even thought about it, but Gerard could’ve—and Frank suddenly feels so stupid for not having prepared himself for this possibility.

“I’m clean,” he says, voice too unsteady. “I haven’t…since we”—he swallows. He’s asking a question that he doesn’t want the answer to, not really, he should’ve just left it alone—

Gerard looks at him with a considering expression before he breaks into another smile. “Okay, Frankie,” he says, dropping the condom back in the drawer and moving towards the bed. “Me neither.”

Frank lets out a shaky breath and presses his hands over his face. Jesus Christ. He has got to get his shit together. He feels the bed dip, and Frank lowers his hands to see Gerard smiling down at him.

He traces a finger over Frank’s cheekbone, down his jaw to his chin. “So fucking pretty, Frank.” Moves his thumb to Frank’s bottom lip, presses down slightly. “I wanna draw you like this. All laid out for me. Fucking gorgeous.”

“Can it wait?” Frank wants to know, lips moving over the rough pad of Gerard’s thumb. He squirms his hips for emphasis.

Gerard lets out a laugh—a real one, not his sex laugh—and pulls his hand away. “I was trying to be romantic.”

“There’s plenty of time for you to be romantic later. Sex now.”

Gerard doesn’t move, just looks at Frank carefully and bites his lip. “Later?” he asks. Frank feels a stupid smile start to spread itself across his face.

“Yeah, Gee. Later.”

Another one of those moments that feels like it could stretch on infinitely, and then Gerard is straddling Frank’s thighs with purpose. Frank gasps as Gerard rolls his hips down to meet him. He sets his hands on Gerard’s strong thighs, feels his muscles working as they grind together, precum making every thrust smoother, slicker. It doesn’t take long for heat to start pooling in Frank’s stomach, for his own hips to start tilting up to meet Gerard’s with every thrust, and he digs his nails into that soft flesh, urging Gerard faster, harder. And Gerard sits back.

Frank’s hips cant up into nothing, and his eyes snap open from where he’d had them squeezed shut to glare. “Gerard,” he says, voice too breathy to be demanding, and the fucker just winks at him.

“Patience, sugar. I said I was gonna take care of you, yeah?”

“You’re not taking care of me. You’re fucking teasing—”

But there’s the snap of a bottle cap, and Frank shuts right up. There’s a moment of shuffling where Gerard spreads Frank’s legs with his knees and stares into his eyes the entire time, and then a cool, slick finger is trailing up the inside of Frank’s thigh. He flinches at the contact and Gerard shushes him, so fucking condecending, as his other hand pets at the swallow on Frank’s hip. 

His finger presses against Frank’s hole without preamble, and he chokes on a breath that quickly turns into a cough. And then he keeps coughing, hard enough that his whole body is trying to curl inwards on itself, shaking and spasming, and Frank is so distracted by all of that that he doesn’t even know what Gerard’s doing until he feels that finger press into him, slow and deep. Gerard’s left hand is smoothing along his hip and up over his waist, and Frank still hasn’t stopped coughing, but he can feel Gerard stroking and crooking that finger inside of him, and it’s so many sensations that Frank isn’t even able to feel them all.

“Gee,” he manages eventually, chest burning like he’s been through a fire.

Gerard pulls his finger out and presses back in with two, drawing a whine out of Frank’s abused throat. “There you go, Frankie,” he’s murmuring. “So fucking tight for me, sweetheart, you feel so good.” 

Frank can feel himself shaking and he doesn’t even know what it’s from. Suddenly, he feels fucking drained. Gerard’s moving his fingers slowly, scissoring as he presses in and curling as he pulls them out. His eyes are heavy on Frank’s, brows drawn in concentration. He’s so fucking beautiful like this: hair falling into his face and bottom lip tucked between his teeth, and Frank wants to keep this image of him forever.

He’s spent so long not looking at Gerard that he feels out of practice. Like picking up an instrument you haven’t touched in years. And he has to keep reminding himself that he’s allowed to stare, doesn’t have to avert his eyes. That Gerard loves him. He grabs weakly at the hand still petting his hip, tugs on it until Gerard gets the message and leans down for a kiss. It’s messy and uncoordinated, lips and tongues and teeth all sliding against one another, and when Gerard’s clever fingers finally brush against that spot inside of him Frank’s jaw goes completely slack on a gasp.

Gerard presses his advantage, fucking his tongue into Frank’s mouth at the same rhythm that his fingers are hitting his prostate, and Frank can’t do much else beyond take it. Whatever strength his muscles had been holding onto is gone now, leaving him pathetically limp under Gerard’s ministrations, and it’s not even because of the sex.

Gerard doesn’t seem bothered, though, not even when Frank has to close his eyes against a surge of dizziness (seriously, what is wrong with him), and uses the bonelessness to press in a third finger. It’s so fucking good, satisfying in a way that’s only partly to do with pleasure, and Frank lets out a whimpering little moan. Gerard’s free hand is running along his torso—tracing his tattoos, Frank knows—pausing occasionally to twist a nipple or scratch along his ribs. It’s sending automatic shivers through him, making his sore muscles twitch and tense, and his hypersensitive skin is toeing the line of pleasure and pain.

“Gerard,” he starts, and then has to pause to collect himself before continuing. Gerard’s fingers press against his prostate again and don’t stop, bearing down until Frank is fucking arching under him. “Please,” he manages, “need you to—” and then Gerard’s hand is on his neglected cock and the words are gone.

Gerard tsks disappointedly and smears precum along Frank’s length before stroking him once, slow and firm. “I’m taking care of you, remember? I know what you need, sugar. You just gotta lay there and take it.” Frank tries to press up into the hand on his cock, but Gerard’s fist moves with him, denying any friction. “Will you let me, Frankie?” He pulls his fingers from Frank’s ass, and Frank lets out a miserable wail. He’s somehow both limp and shaking, nerves raw wherever something’s in contact with his skin, and suddenly that hand on his cock is the only thing keeping him grounded. It squeezes him, just a little, and his next breath comes out as a low whimper. 

A pause. “Frank?” Gerard’s voice is different. Softer. Frank just whimpers again, and he feels Gerard shift between his legs as that hand releases him. He lets out a sob before he can stop it, and then there are hands on his jaw, tracing along his shoulders. “Frank, I need you to look at me.” Gerard’s voice is firm, commanding but not harsh. With significant effort, Frank opens his eyes. Gerard is watching him carefully, fucking gorgeous even with his brow furrowed in concentration.

“I need you to talk to me, sweetheart. Tell me what’s going on right now. Do you need me to stop?”

Frank shakes his head and stops just as immediately. The world does a little pirouette on its axis. It takes him a moment to formulate his response, longer to remember how to use his mouth to say it. “‘M okay, just-just sick, Gee. Feels good, ‘s just…” he flops a hand around uselessly. “A lot.”

Gerard hums, considering. His thumbs stroke along Frank’s collarbones. “Do you want me to keep going?”

Frank hums in the affirmative. It’s about all that he has left in him. Gerard smooths a hand through his hair, and his eyes flutter closed again.

“You want me to be gentle, angel?”

God, Frank loves this man. “No, Gee,” he manages. “Want you to fuck me.”

Gerard huffs out a laugh at that, runs his fingers through Frank’s hair one last time. “Okay, sugar,” he says. “I think we can do that.” And then tightens his hand into a fist and pulls. 

Between them, Frank’s flagging cock jumps to attention. Gerard leans down to lick into his mouth again, slow and exploratory, running his tongue along Frank’s teeth and poking at the scar of his piercing. The hand in his hair controls his head, moves him how Gerard wants, and Frank lays there and lets it happen. It’s perfect. The other hand runs along his throat to find the bruise where Gerard bit him earlier and digs in. It’s a sore, blunt kind of ache, and Frank hums in approval. Against his mouth, he feels Gerard smile.

“Okay, Frankie,” he says when he pulls back, “I need you to look at me while I do this, okay? Can you do that for me?” The words are sweet and condescending, just how Frank likes it. He opens his eyes in silent response to Gerard’s smirking lips. I love you, he thinks.

Gerard runs a thumb along his jaw before releasing him and reaching for the lube. Frank watches the entire time, taking in how he swivels at the waist to reach behind himself and the graceful way his fingers pop open the lid to the bottle and the way he throws his head back when he finally wraps those fingers around his cock. Frank is so fucking lucky. He knew it the first time they were together, when Gerard had been his, and he knows it now, easy as breathing. Gerard is the most beautiful person in whatever room he’s in, and he’s all Frank’s. It’s not the first time he’s had the thought, but maybe it’s the first time that it’s been true.

Two taps on his cheek, not quite hard enough to hurt. “You with me, sugar?” Frank just nods, taking in that blissed-out expression as Gerard’s hand moves over himself, how his lashes flutter and the controlled way he pushes his breaths in and out. Gerard’s hips are chasing his hand, little stuttering movements, and Frank wants.

He presses his hips up in a silent plea, feeling his stretched ass clench around nothing, and Gerard breathes out another mocking laugh. It’s not fair that he can hold himself together with a hand on his cock when Frank feels like he’s losing his mind just from watching. Gerard’s hand and cock are already shiny with lube, but he holds his hand to Frank’s mouth anyway.

“Spit,” he says, like he even has to ask, and Frank gathers as much saliva as he can before spitting into Gerard’s palm. He watches hungrily as Gerard spreads it over his own cock, wrist flicking on the upstroke and thumb teasing at his head. He wants to swallow him down, wants to take him so that he can be Frank’s as surely as Frank is his, wants to leave some indelible mark so that Gerard can’t leave him behind again. Frank did not used to be this possessive, but Gerard’s changed him in more ways than he wants to think about.

Frank snaps back to himself as Gerard shifts on the bed, clean hand bringing one of Frank’s legs to his shoulder. He presses the other leg outward with a knee as he lines himself up, and Frank savors the stretch in his hips, the burn of neglected muscles. He thinks he would let Gerard do anything as long as he kept looking at Frank like that, like he’s the only thing worth seeing. 

“Ready?” Gerard asks, and doesn’t wait for an answer as he presses into Frank in one long, slow drag. His hands are on Frank’s hips, sticky and warm against his chilled skin, holding him in place. Frank is so full that he can barely breathe, and Gerard doesn’t give him any time to adjust before he starts moving. The first thrust of his hips has Frank’s eyes rolling back. It’s so good, firm and deep, unhurried like Gerard knows he has all the time in the world. His arms are limp on the bed beside him, but he lets out an approving hum and spreads his legs wider. More.

Gerard obliges, settling into a rhythm that punches Frank’s breath out of him with every stroke, and Gerard’s hands are wandering again, not touching his cock but tracing along the And between his hips and up the notches of his ribs when he inhales and twisting strands of hair around his fingers. It’s overwhelming, how Gerard is everywhere, and Frank wonders how he ever managed without it.

Gerard is speaking, a constant stream of “Fuck,” and “So good, angel,” and “Love you like this,” and Frank is dizzy with it.

“Gee…” Frank sighs out, just to say it, and finds the strength to grab one of Gerard’s hands in his, digging his nails into the space between those delicate bones so that his fingers flex outward. He hears the stutter in Gerard’s breathing where he trips on his words and grins at it, at being able to affect him like this. He raises Gerard’s hand to his lips, then flattens it against his throat again, craning his neck into the touch.

Gerard’s hips snap forward, sharp and punishing, like his restraint is slipping, and Frank lets out a low moan of approval. “More,” he says, “more, more, more,” too strung out to be demanding. Gerard’s hand tightens around his throat anyway.

He holds it just long enough for Frank to start to feel weightless from lack of blood, and then releases at the same times that he shoves his hips forward, angle shifted just enough, and Frank sees fucking stars. He does it again, slowing his pace to match the squeeze of his fingers and hitting his prostate every time. Frank is floating; his heartbeat is loud and frantic in his ears, face hot from bloodrush and eyes rolled so far back into his skull that it hurts. He’s gasping at the ceiling, body twitching and bowing with every thrust, and then there are fingers curling behind his bottom teeth, dragging his head back down, and Frank’s eyes snap to Gerard’s like they’re helpless to look anywhere else.

“Told you to look at me, Frankie,” Gerard says, sharp and scolding. “Somethin’ up there more interesting than me?” Frank tries to shake his head but Gerard’s got him fucking hooked, other hand pressed to his sternum now to hold him still, and all he can do is take it as Gerard drives his cock into him again and again. He can feel the drool gathering in his mouth, too fast for him to swallow it all, and tears starting to clump his lashes.

He tries to say something, but it’s garbled around Gerard’s fingers, and spit is dripping down his fucking chin. Gerard laughs at him, high and mocking. “Did I fuck you stupid, sweetheart? You forget how to talk when there’s a cock in you?”

Frank whines, high pitched and stupid, just like Gerard said, and blinks away tears that roll down his cheeks. He’s so fucking close, cock heavy and leaking against his stomach, and he tries to tell Gerard to touch him, please, with just his eyes. 

Gerard softens, presses his fingers against Frank’s tongue, other hand petting over his chest and stomach before moving to play with the hair right at the base of his cock. Frank’s whole body fucking convulses at it, but Gerard doesn’t do anything more, just scratches his blunt nails against the skin.

“You’re taking it so well, angel,” he says, voice gone low and silky. “You want me to make you cum?” Frank tries to nod but can’t, and Gerard’s beautiful lips curl into a sweet smile. “Okay, love.” Then he spits into his own palm and finally, finally, wraps his hand around Frank’s cock. He moans loud and strangled at that first touch, and he’s so close, just a little more—

Gerard leans forward, noses at his jaw, and then licks right up Frank’s throat where tears and saliva and sweat have mingled. Another full-body shiver runs through him, and then Gerard’s lips are at his ear and he’s whispering “Want you to cum for me Frankie, c’mon, cum for me, sugar,” right as his thumb circles the tip of Frank’s cock, and he’s gone.

His back bows as he cums, vision whiting out and every muscle tensed as the feeling rushes through his body. Distantly, he can hear himself sobbing what might be Gerard’s name, but the rushing in his ears is too loud to be able to tell. It’s crashing over him in waves, only growing in intensity, and it’s not stopping. Frank can feel himself shaking apart, his overwrought body unable to handle everything that’s coursing through it, and it’s too much, until the feeling crests and he falls boneless into the bed.

Gerard is still on top of him, fucking fast and unsteady into his limp body. Moans are mixing with Frank’s name, desperate and unintelligible, until he thrusts all the way in and grinds down, sinking his teeth into Frank’s neck. It sends sparks of pain/pleasure along fried nerves. He’s basking in the weight of Gerard on top of him, the heat of his sweaty body, the dull ache of his neck between his teeth. He is Gerard’s, in every sense of the fucking word, and it’s perfect.

They lay there for a long time, until Frank finds the strength to wrap his arms around Gerard and pull him up, closer. He shivers as Gerard’s softening cock slips from his hole, but Gerard just pulls him in, breath hot in the crook of his neck. Eventually, Frank starts shivering from the drying sweat, and he forces Gerard up to grab them a damp rag.

When he comes back, he’s got that nervous look in his eyes, like the time it took for him to wet a cloth was enough for him to overthink everything. If Frank wasn’t so exhausted, he would probably be in the same boat. As it is, he just reaches limply for Gerard, and he seems to get the message. He climbs back into bed after, and Frank immediately pulls up the blankets and curls up against him. Whatever strength his body had that morning—which wasn’t much—is utterly sapped, now.

Gerard cards his fingers through Frank’s hair, and he hums in approval, pushes into it like a dog. Above his head, Gerard chuckles and scratches at his scalp. Frank presses a sleepy kiss to his chest in response, and feels himself beginning to drift off.

Fingers tapping against his shoulder bring him back, and he cracks a quizzical eye open to look at Gerard. “What, Gee?” Voice rusted and broken.

There’s a long silence where Gerard’s fingers switch to tracing patterns along his skin, and he keeps inhaling like he wants to say something before letting the breath out again. Frank pushes himself up a little more, so he can look Gerard in those hazel eyes.”What’s going on?” he asks again, and he can taste the moment that his brain realizes there’s something off and kicks his heart into gear.

Gerard licks his lips and looks down before meeting Frank’s eyes again. “What you said earlier, about later, did you mean it?” Frank swallows back a laugh that’s a little too bitter, and this time he’s the one to look away.

“‘Course I did.” A pause.

“Are we…okay?” His voice is small, and Frank feels his shoulders tense. He wants to reassure Gerard, say obviously, I wouldn’t have let you fuck me like that otherwise, or, I would do anything to keep you, just tell me what, or maybe just kiss him. He doesn’t do any of those things.

Instead, he steels himself and says “I don’t know, Gee, are we?” He watches Gerard’s jaw clench, sees his chest stutter on an inhale.

“I meant everything that I said. I love you. I’m in love with you. I want to be with you, Frank.”

Frank pushes out a slow breath. Gerard sounds so unsure, and Frank hates that he’s the cause even as that tiny part of himself preens at it. “Okay,” he says, and watches those muscles in Gerard’s jaw twitch. “I want that too. But I also meant what I said: I don’t know how to believe you. And I can’t”—he swallows, bites at his lip. “I can’t give you-all of me-until I do.”

He meets Gerard’s eyes again, intent like he’s searching Frank’s face for a lie. Slowly, Frank leans up to kiss him. Firm, like a promise. Gerard melts into it immediately, wraps his arms around Frank’s waist and kisses at his cheek, his temple, his forehead. Frank lets himself go boneless in his arms again as Gerard whispers into his hair, “Okay, Frankie. I’m gonna show you. For as long as you let me. I swear.”