Chapter Text
Early 2003.
"Fuuuuuuuuck—" Frank isn't too sure who invented beds. But whoever did invent beds, and whoever put those beds in motels for people like him to lay upon after spending eight days in the van? He wants to kiss that person. On the mouth. With tongue. "— yes."
He's sprawled out face down holding a nearly empty beer bottle when Otter comes to poke at his side, his voice coming from somewhere overhead. It's asking:
"So? Are you coming?"
"Mmrgbbgh."
He's too drunk and floaty to really know where he's being asked to go, so he just swats at Otter to leave him the fuck alone and presses his face into the pillow. He wants to stay. His body hurts, his joints, his stomach, most of all his feet. It's good pain, it's a sign of being alive and kicking. But he's also exhausted and needs a second. He kicks off his shoes. Gerard, he assumes it's Gerard, laughs and passes him by. Ray is in the middle of a phone call with Brian, and Frank can hear the rustling of a map.
"Fine, stay, jeez. You coming Toro?"
The room is loud with all of them in it. It's loud when they're all living in a single van, sneakily rooming together in one motel room to save money, sleeping in beds together. They eat together, piss together, play together, fight together. And it's awesome as much as it's gross and claustrophobic. Frank has never been too precious about his solitude. So it was obliterated first thing as he started going after his dreams? Big fucking deal. He has the power of punk rock and beer on his side.
Also, he's in love, so that's something.
When Ray almost joins the others for whatever fetch-quest they've got going, Frank nudges him with a socked foot, and they share a look. The look. And then instead of throwing his jacket back on and walking out the door, Ray's closing it behind Gerard and bolting it shut.
"Sorry Brian, I, uh, gotta, yeah, talk to you later," Ray says before tossing the phone.
Frank chugs his beer down and throws the empty bottle on the floor just in time for Ray's big hands to come down like the hammer of god, ready to rip his clothes off.
They know how to make the most of the time they have, usually. But this show was good. Really good, and they're a bit high with it, and really really drunk, so Frank decides to put up a fight, and soon they're rolling around, doing pretty illegal pro-wrestling moves and maybe getting an article of clothing off now and then.
It's not efficient, but it's fun. It makes Frank's chest feel so tight with joy he fears his heart might pop.
Ray's left his Walkman blaring and they jerk each other off to the tunes of tinny thin demos fighting their way through the earphones on the floor. It's beautiful, really, listening to Ray's reedy voice go wobbly and whiny to the tune of new songs, to feel his fingers on his dick while Frank can imagine them flying on the neck of his guitar. Frank presses his forehead against Ray's and he can feel the pulse of Ray's temple hammering away.
Ray's heavy and hot in his palm. Frank's mouth waters. He want so many things; he wants to ride Ray, choke on him, keep him still and tell him to be patient as Frank licks and bites him all over. But that can wait until they get back home. For now, he teases Ray with his thumb, spits in his palm and jerks him off with all the expertise and finesse he can muster. Ray returns the favor. His calloused fingers make Frank shake apart in record time.
By the time Ray comes, Frank's already lying beside him sated and stupid and loose. He can't stop licking Ray's sweaty neck, leaving big sloppy kisses behind his ear, on his cheek. Ray's back arches up from the bed as the last of his orgasm rolls through him. Frank pulls him into a kiss, and Ray smiles against his mouth.
The kiss is eventually interrupted by rattling of the safety chain, and then knocking on the door. Ray looks over his shoulder, eyes bugging out and ears turning red. Gerard's timid tone comes through the door, calling for them:
"Ray? Frank?" The knocking grows furious, and finishes with what Frank thinks is a kick. "Why's the door locked?" Gerard asks, but it doesn't sound like it's directed at them. Mikey, most likely.
Sharing a look, they dissolve into a fit of stupid giggles. Ray tries to shush him, but Frank just laughs harder, and muscles his way to the edge of the bed. The room is a mess of luggage and loose items of clothing and smells like sweat and sex— they're only responsible for the sex part, the sweat-reek emanates mostly from the Way's belongings in the corner. Ray pulls his underwear back on, and starts putting on his jeans.
"Just a second guys!" Ray calls to their trio of freezing orphans waiting outside the door. Then, with a hushed tone, he mumbles; "Fuck, fuck, fuck, didn't think they'd be back so soon."
"Relax man," Frank yawns, itching for a cigarette. "I'll come up with something."
There's really no need; Mikey's known about his thing for Ray ever since Frank first laid eyes on the guy, and Gerard is enough of a romantic that he'd probably support them if they promised one of them will eventually die in a tragic manner, leaving the other to take on a roaring rampage of revenge of some kind. And Otter… Frank makes a face. Well Otter will just have to deal.
"We're gonna go buy some more smokes, assholes." Mikey's voice pipes up. "This door better be open by then." Frank can hear the non-verbal parts of Mikey's pointed tone by now. How he's basically doing them a solid, but asking there to not be any visible jizz stains anywhere by the time they come back. There's some hushed voices and Otter going ugh, then the sound of footfalls getting further and further away.
Frank snorts, reaching for his shirt half-assedly, but lets it slip through his fingers to the floor and opts to watch Ray get dressed instead.
Maybe it’s the beer, maybe it’s the post-orgasmic haze that gets him a bit misty, but he gets weirdly emotional gazing at the gentle curve of Ray’s back all the way up to his neck, where his hair is fuzzy and gets caught in tangles every time Frank puts his hand there and holds on.
Maybe it's the fact that he gets to hold on, that every night is another chance to sneak off somewhere and work through the post-show jitters with Ray. That he's in his favorite band in the world, that he gets to regularly play music and scream out lyrics to a crowd of kids who scream the words right back at him. Sometimes he can't believe it's real. That this is his life.
“Can’t wait for the world to see you,” Frank slurs out. Ray pulls on a shirt and gives him a weird look. He’s about to say something dismissive and shy, so Frank cuts him off. He meets Ray’s eye and says:
“I mean it. We’re gonna show 'em, all of them. We’re gonna play everywhere, at the - the fuckin’ Giants Stadium, and they’ll see just how good you are. We are. I promise.”
Ray picks up and throws Frank’s jeans at him, and the last thing Frank sees before the denim hits his face is a redness creeping up Ray’s neck.
"Keep dreaming, Iero," Ray tells him, but kindly, like he means it. Like he needs Frank to keep dreaming, especially when he's too scared to do so himself. And that, Frank can do.
-
Late 2005.
"What in the — Iero? IERO!"
The world slams back into him with a clash and a bang. With a sharp intake of breath that nearly catches in his throat, Frank sits upright and blinks blearily at the world coming back to focus around him. As the harsh halogen lamps overhead glare right into his tired eyeballs, he squints, which makes his manager Marvin appear to split three ways like a Cerberus in a loud tie.
Frank is at work, he realizes. And he's fucked.
Marvin is a man in his mid forties, apparently severely divorced, and he runs his section of this furniture slash household-goods warehouse like the fucking navy just to feel something. Barely taller than Frank, he's shaped like a soda can, balding, and perpetually angry. At least at Frank. He's perpetually angry at Frank and completely unable to get off of his case.
"Sorry. Sorry, I must've…" Frank mumbles and rubs his face.
"Yes, you must've," Marvin says, and looks Frank over from head to toe, giving a click of his tongue and an especially sharp look at his neck tattoo while he thinks Frank isn't looking. "Get back to work. Please."
And before Frank can apologize (again) or come up with a bullshit explanation for sleeping on the clock (again), his manager leaves, clutching a clipboard and hotly mumbling about how they can't even let Frank work with customers, and possibly something about 'countercultures'. Frank stares ahead like he's in a vegetative state.
He wants a smoke so bad he could start crying. Like really crying, like kids do. Loud and proud and with big tears all over his face that would be all swollen from screaming. But he has completely slept through his break, and then some.
As he's rubbing his tired face some more and fucking with his hair, he can hear the sound of heels clacking against the floor as Tina rounds the corner into the break room like a shitshow-seeking missile. Frank gives her a flat mumble in the general shape of a hello.
"Hey Frankie. Guess you got your ass beat again." Frank shrugs, and gives Tina a grim look. Out of all of his co-workers, he hates her the least. She laughs uproariously, making her big earrings cling and clang. Her smile-lines are deep as they criss-cross the corners of her eyes and cheekbones. "Damn kid, you look like shit. Out late partying again?"
"What're you, my mom?" Frank asks, and immediately regrets doing so, because it reminds him of the fact that he has to listen to his mother's passive aggressive sighs all night tonight if he doesn't find something better to do.
It's been only a few weeks since he moved out again, but she keeps insisting he show up. To fix something around the house, to drink tea, to have dinner, to slam back wine and get wasted by the television. His best guess is that she got used to the company, which is hilarious, since Frank is famously shit company these days. He grumbles and stands up to head back to work sorting out the stock. Tina laughs again, pours herself a cup of the stuff that goes for coffee around here, and heads to the display floor.
When he's completely sure no one can see him, Frank ducks in between the tall shelves, digs out his cell from his back pocket, and shoots Ray a text.
'can i eat dinner at urs? plz'
He doesn't wait by the phone, and instead gets to work.
The day is a slog, as usual. The lights make everything in the backrooms look like this hue of greenish gray that hurts to look at. Nothing exciting happens, except maybe they get a new line of ugly modernist furniture and have to somehow remember the names that are nearly impossible to pronounce, and the smoke breaks don't come by fast enough, and Frank is so under-stimulated he feels like he might become a statistic somewhere if nothing changes. But.
This is both the most long-lasting and the best paying job he's had— enough that he could finally get a place of his own and haul his shit out of his mother's basement— and honestly, he's running out of favors to ask people whenever he ends up getting fired, and so is his mom. So he keeps his head down. He takes the banter from Tina, the dirty looks from Marvin, he hauls shit from A to B, and he waits for the day to be over. The text comes half an hour before Frank's shift ends. He's humming along to the tinny radio, and as Mick Jagger sings about his favorite flavor— cherry red—Frank digs out his phone where it's vibrating in his back pocket.
Ray tells him: bring applesauce:)
So Frank answers, suppressing a smile: cool.
While he's shooting a text to Mom to tell her he can't swing by tonight because Ray Toro desperately needs applesauce and his help with something or other, his manager rounds the corner, immediately pointing at the cellphone in his hand like it's a smoking gun. "Iero!" He snarls, wagging a finger. "I thought I've made it very clear —"
"Sorry, sorry," Frank pockets his phone and puts his hands up, like he's calming a bull, or perhaps begging for a robber not to shoot him. Really, he's keeping his palms up in the air just so he doesn't form fists and pummel them into Marvin's face "It's my mom, she's, you know. Lonely." There's a pause, with Marvin looking confused in the face of sudden vulnerability and emotional up-frontness. Frank forces a polite smile. "Won't happen again, boss."
"No. No it won't," Marvin tells him, a barely concealed threat, and Frank just nods and smiles like he's oblivious to that, like his blood isn't boiling with how much he does not care. He's left alone, and takes his last smoke break. Out on the loading dock, he kicks some cargo. It doesn't even leave a dent, and his toes hurt for rest of his shift.
Frank doesn't talk to anyone he doesn't need to as he clocks out, just gets his shit and jogs to his car. He sits behind the wheel for a while, before heading to the nearest grocery store, where he stares at the wide variety of applesauce for a long, long time.
-
He almost drives into the opposite direction out of habit. He ends up having to go around Ray's old place to correct course.
Frank misses that apartment. Having lived with Mikey for a while, they didn't exactly have much privacy even when they weren't touring, so Ray's was a safe haven of sorts. They had lots of sex in that apartment. Lots of really good sex, and hung out naked afterwards, eating takeout. Frank reminisces about that, especially about the sex, until it's time to find parking.
Before he rings the doorbell, he checks and double checks the applesauce, then fucks around with his hair for a second, like it'll help much. Ray answers the door like he's taken a running start from the kitchen. He greets Frank with a warm smile, which only grows wider as Frank tosses the applesauce at him.
"You got her favorite brand." Ray sounds moved. Frank rolls his eyes and ducks inside. He abandons his jacket at it's usual spot on top of the stroller that takes up most of the space by the entrance. Ray never says shit about it, even though it must make the blankets inside smell like a smoker died in there.
"Yeah well, me and Mia are pretty tight. Of course I know what her poison is." He looks at Ray, and Ray is already looking right back. There's a moment there. A quiet, long one. Ray has some wild stubble going on. His lips look pink and soft. This close he smells like laundry detergent and apricots.
There's a loud, warbled wail that rings down the hall from the kitchen.
"Food is, uh, almost done. There's root beer in the fridge," Ray tells him, as Frank pushes past and meanders into the kitchen with a quiet uh-huh.
Mia is already hanging out in her high chair, with some kind of orange shit all over her tiny face. She looks him over like she's trying to decide if she's happy to see him. Frank scoffs, and as he walks past her to the fridge, plants a big kiss on the top of her head. Mia shouts something like "Sbuh lababa!" and drools.
"Busy day today?" Frank asks as he hauls out the bottle from the fridge and reaches for the closest clean root beer receptacle in the cabinet. He grabs a bright red sippy cup, stares at it, shrugs, and fills it up. By the time he's seated, Ray is done giving him a judgemental look and is laughing at his choice instead. He gets back to feeding Mia, who is still staring at Frank like he's the most interesting thing she's encountered all day.
"Nah, she's been pretty chill, now that we're past the cold she had. She's been practicing standing up all the time, she just chooses not to do it while you're around? Or gonna be around. She's spooky like that."
Frank hums, and sinks against the table to just stare at Mia until she gets bored of staring back. Then he settles into looking at Ray. His profile, his small smile. The way the sunset filters through the window, and shines through his hair, and make the hue of his eyes seem so vibrant Frank gets a bit stupid in the head. The silence between them is easy, peaceful. Frank has to break it, before the squeezing inside his chest develops into a medical issue.
"You know what we should do?"
"What?" Ray asks without taking his eyes off of Mia, who's trying to reclaim some feeding time autonomy, grabbing at the spoon full of mashed up fruit and porridge that Ray's trying to get her to ingest. A small display of disrespect for authority, but Frank acknowledges it all the same.
Mia is a pretty cute baby. Fat and big eyed, she smiles a lot and talks in this weird baby-talk that she seems convinced is a legit language other people just haven't learned yet. Funnily enough she looks exactly like her dad, but only looks like Ray when she's screaming her head off. Genes are weird like that. She's only a year and change— he was at her first birthday party a couple of months ago. He brought cupcakes, which Mia could have destroyed about a dozen of if they'd let her.
Ray shakes his head to get his hair out of the way as Mia tries to grab it. He has let it get long in the past eight months. Frank can't stop imagining it flopping around under stage lights.
"We should go on tour forever," Frank tells him, elbows on the table, head in his hands. "Never come back."
Ray huffs out a laugh. Then he makes an exaggerated face of happy surprise, the kind where his brows fly high and eyes go wide, and his mouth opens into a wondrous oh! and Mia falls for it like the absolute amateur she is, mimicking the face and letting Ray slip some apricots in her slobbery maw.
"Sucker," Frank mutters, shaking his head. Mia does have the decency to look pissed that she's been played though, scrunching up her nose and making angry— as angry as babies can sound— noises, bobbing her head so her dumbass cute pigtails made up of maybe four strands of hair each sway and ploink around. So far her hair is thin and pin-straight, but Frank has seen Ray's baby pictures. That's just how the Toro kids start off. She'll be drowning in hair in five to ten years.
"Would have to add her to the line-up," Ray says thoughtfully, cleaning Mia's face off with a kitchen towel in a couple of swipes. "Give her a tambourine or somethin’. Think an X on the wrist could do it?"
"She could be our manager. I've seen her hit the bottle.” Frank gives Mia a little grin, and Mia smiles back with a mouth full of food. Gross. “Could drink so many fuckers under the table, get the best deals out of them like that," Frank muses and snaps his fingers. The sound fascinates Mia so much Ray can feed her a couple spoonfuls without any further tricks.
"Deals?" Ray snorts and feeds Mia the last spoonful. She's over it at this point, looking around like she's bored. "Out of who?" Frank mimics her, scratching at his thumbnail where the nail polish is peeling off. Marvin keeps giving him shit for it, so he probably won’t be painting them again for a while.
"Y'know. Label reps and shit."
Ray considers the dodgy nature of Frank's clipped response and cleans off Mia’s hands. She's fascinated by the feel of the skin around Ray's fingertips where his calluses are slowly diminishing.
"Work was that bad?" Ray asks. Frank melts against the table and lets out a long-suffering groan, like he's dying a painful death. "Yikes."
"In fucking deed," Frank sighs. Ray is quiet, like he's thinking.
"You know… I can check with Lou and the shop? If there's a Friday and a Monday I can sneak out and the rest of the guys are up to it, we could make a weekend of it. Borrow Tucker, maybe. Find some basements, play 'em."
Frank appreciates the attempt, but the sweet gesture sours and burns on its way down. Frank nods, and gets up from where his face was planted against the tabletop. He croaks an answer;
"Yeah. Sure."
It's weird seeing Ray like this, all domestic, playing house, though Frank doesn't hate it. He can’t afford to, without being a complete asshole.
Ray's brother Lou takes crazy shifts when he can, and Ray makes up for the difference, all to keep their little family in house and home. Lou had a girl, and then after a shotgun-wedding they had a baby girl, and Frank doesn't exactly know what happened then but in the end Lou ended up with the baby girl without any other kind of girls, and Ray pays less in rent by playing Mrs. Doubtfire.
And alright, yeah, he’s a good goddamn person who gave up his own apartment and dropped everything else in his life to help his brother raise a kid. He's as much as Mia's dad as Lou is at this point.
Ray's really good at playing house, is the thing. He's really good at it, and the kid is cute, and Ray looks pretty happy being a dad, and he and Frank haven't played together on a stage in almost two years. And the worst thing is that it doesn’t even seem like Ray misses it.
They jam sometimes, but not all together. They never write anymore. They never got around to finding a new drummer for fuck's sake. By the time they were ready for that (by the time Frank had bullied and rallied everyone to get ready for that or else), Ray had to step up as an uncle-dad. After the death of their grandma, Gerard has been busy with recovery and avoiding bars and clubs like the plague, sinking all his free time into writing stories and sketching out ideas for comic books with Mikey, who has a whole life outside of them doing god knows what with his new boyfriend, his boyfriend’s girlfriend, and the boyfriend’s girlfriend’s husband. Otter quit and moved away after the prolonged break they took after the funeral, which itself was a direct consequence of the huge Mortal Kombat-esque screamathon argument he and Ray had by the roadside after My Chem's last show in Philly, and Frank… well.
He's just been waiting for this all to even out, so they could get back out there.
But, seeing as he’s seated at a kitchen table having root beer out of a sippy cup next to a panorama of domestic bliss, that hasn't been happening. Ray lifts Mia out of her chair, and plops her in Frank's arms without a second thought, and Frank just stares at this little girl who smells like apricots and baby-puke, who may never even know that her uncle-dad is the best guitarist the East Coast has ever seen, and it's like a hole opens up in Frank's stomach, and cold air from outer space comes blowing in.
It's in these moments he's afraid he hates this kid. That this is hate in its purest of forms, only he's never felt it before so he can't really tell. It's really scary, so he doesn't look at her anymore. Frank just holds her close tenderly and strokes her back. She grabs at his shirt and he lets her.
Ray digs the veggie lasagna out of the oven— because he can make veggie lasagna now and willingly does when Frank comes over, after he offhandedly mentioned liking it once, years ago. It smells good. Really good. His mouth waters, and once it's cooled off on his plate, he eats a few bites with all the enthusiasm of a starved dog. But as Mia babbles on and reminds him of her existence, the guilt starts to set in. It forms a knot in his esophagus that's hard to pass by.
"Are you okay?" Ray asks him when Frank keeps poking at his lasagna and pointedly not eating. Mia is flat on her back on a blanket on the floor playing with a baby contraption that can't be more recent than the 80's, with faded colorful birds and butterflies and ladybugs hanging overhead. She loves kicking the shit out of them. "Frankie?"
Frank snaps out of his haze, and shrugs before he starts shoveling food in his mouth so he doesn't have to answer. Swallowing is physically painful, but he manages. Ray looks at him with a frown, then tries; "… Is it your mom? Or the new place?" Frank shrugs again, so Ray jumps to conclusions. "You know, if it's weird being alone, that old school friend of mine is still looking for a roommate. I could hook you guys up?"
And Frank hates that. He hates how it sounds. Hooking up with anyone other than Ray. Living with anyone other than Ray, on the road, in their shitty van that sits in Gerard's parents driveway.
"Don't you miss it, Toro?" Frank asks as soon as his mouth isn't full anymore. He fixes Ray with a desperate look. "The band? Touring? Playing? Don't you miss it?"
"… Of course I miss it." Ray frowns and sits back in his chair, looking at Frank like he's a bit hurt, and Frank realizes his tone really sounded more like he was accusing rather than asking. He's about to apologize, but then Ray's gaze falls to the table, and lower, to the floor where Mia is starting to look tired of abusing woodland critters. And when he looks back up, he's the apologetic one.
"Just not how you miss it, Frankie."
Frank nods. He can't argue with that. Ray knows him too well by this point, he'd know the difference. He stares at his cooling lasagna, then they eat the rest in silence. Afterwards he brings the dishes to the sink, while Ray starts to run hot water. They're standing side by side, not touching. They might as well be miles apart.
Frank's insides cramp up in pain like he's somehow emotionally triggered his fucked-up-guts-disease. The squeezing inside his chest is unbearable.
"I do miss us, though," Ray tells him then, in a voice that is so small, so careful Frank cannot stand it. So Frank drops the plates into the sink and with half a step he's in Ray's space, he's pushed him against the sink, hands on either side of his face, and they're kissing.
Frank pulls Ray down by the hair so he can push his tongue in his mouth, and Ray moans, sighs, and his hands are on Frank's shoulders, arms, his hips, and it's like they're out there somewhere again, dry-humping in a club bathroom or shotgunning weed in a gas-station parking lot while all the others are sleeping. It's right. It's bearable. All of it. The fact that the band never took off, how it feels like they're all getting further and further away from each other, how Frank's stuck working these dead-end jobs that kill him, how he's not sure if living in his mother's basement for a while was better than the solitude of living on his own, in this life, day in day out.
How still feels like he's got so much to say, so much to do, how he needs the world to see Ray, his Ray. That all isn't right, but this is. This is. Frank bites Ray's lip hard enough to make him yelp in pain, and it's right, and he just needs Ray to feel it too.
And then Mia starts crying. Ray stares at Frank from up close, like a spell has broken, before rushing to Mia and leaving Frank with the dishes clattering around under the running water. Frank turns the faucet off.
"Hey, hey girl, what's up?" Ray comforts her in a low voice, and Frank starts doing the dishes silently. He can hear Ray bouncing her around with slow meandering steps around the small kitchen, then he stops behind Frank, stays there for a second before Mia wails again, and then he's off to calm her and put her to sleep.
Frank can still feel Ray's stubble on his chin, lips buzzing where Ray's tongue brushed against them. He gets a text while he's drying the plates and forks, Mikey hitting him up about a party he and Ray should attend at Gabe's friend's friend's place somewhere just pass Passaic.
It isn't here, and it isn't at home, so Frank puts the dishes away and sneaks out while Ray's still quietly singing 'Fear of the Dark' in lieu of a lullaby in the other room.
-
The parties Mikey invites him to nowadays are ridiculous. Like, high-school movies from the 80's level of ridiculous. He can hear the music pulsing out of the house before he even gets out of the car. The yard is full of people coming and going, all dressed up more stupid than the last. The house is cramped and full of people talking, smoking, drinking, and the makeshift dance floor in the living room is almost a solid mass of swaying human bodies. He starts looking for the kitchen.
The countertops are full of booze. Frank starts digging for space in the fridge for his own six-pack, and manages to cram the beers in only by removing two cans from the plastic. So he immediately chugs one, burping and grimacing the whole way through, then heads back nursing the other one.
The house is packed with scene adjacent people, so Frank ends up chatting with a lot of old acquaintances and friends of friends. He tries looking for Mikey, but eventually gives up and parks his ass in the downstairs hallway, listening to a bunch of old rock-dudes fight about music, about work, about music for work, about which new albums sucked, about who's sold out recently, things of this nature. And Frank is jealous of their insular bullshit, of their high horses and all the Monday-morning quarterbacks, about how much they care. Sure, as people they are insufferable, but they have guts, they have the passion, and they each have their little bands that they think is the very picture of integrity and hardcore. It's endearing to him.
Mikey finds him about twenty minutes later. An arm snakes over his shoulders, and as Frank glances over, Mikey's there smiling this small happy smile, and Frank gives him a sideways hug.
"Took you long enough to show up." Frank doesn't ask if he was fucking one part of his weird daisy chain of hookups upstairs, because whenever Frank starts to think about it too much, it gives him a headache. Mikey gives him a knowing smile, and shrugs. They leave the arguing men in the hallway. Mikey takes him by the hand and leads him to the kitchen, where he picks out a bottle of vodka and starts pouring shots.
"Ray couldn't make it?" He asks, handing Frank one.
Frank has brought the shot glass halfway up to his lips before he realizes that this is in fact a setup. He gives Mikey a dirty look, and then downs the vodka.
"Didn't ask," Frank answers through a slight grimace.
"Yeah. Yeah he mentioned something like that," Mikey muses, then knocks back his shot. He sits on the kitchen table, and Frank digs out his beers from the fridge. He jumps up to land his ass next to Mikey. "He said you just flaked out on him."
"Does Toro have a fucking Bat-Signal or something whenever his feelings are hurt? Because you sure as hell don't answer my calls on a random Friday night."
It comes out a bit more bitter than Frank wanted to go for. He drinks some beer and Mikey gives him this look. A look that he perfected in the little time they were roommates, and they sometimes fought, because of course they did. And Mikey would somehow use his eyeballs to defuse the situation with a look, that's a mixture of general put-upon-ness and pleading and something else that makes Frank want to not be mad anymore. Frank doesn't fall for it anymore though. He sticks to his guns, shrugging and looking at the people who come and go, like this one girl who just blatantly steals one of his beers right in front of him. He doesn't really care. There's so much booze to go around, he'll live.
"He's just worried about you," Mikey says. Frank stares down at the beer in his hand. "You know, I'm kinda worried about you. Both of you. You're being so fucking weird."
"We're not," Frank retorts.
"Are too. He talks to me, you know."
Frank rolls his eyes.
"Yeah," He drawls. "I got that." Mikey looks at him one more time, long and hard, and then reaches for one of Frank's beers. He pulls the tab.
"He says you guys aren't fucking anymore."
Frank whips his head around, scandalized, and reflexively squeezes his beer so hard the tin creaks. "He fucking told you that?"
"No, but you just did," Mikey grins. Frank narrows his eyes and huffs. He can feel his ears grow hot and a bit red, but mostly he's just relieved that Toro isn't gossiping behind his back about this sort of crap. Not with Mikey, at least. With Gerard? Probably. Definitely. "Did you guys break up?"
"We weren't together, Mikey. Not like, officially or anything," Frank sighs. "We were just messing around. And now… Now we're not," Frank explains loftily.
He's a lying liar, really. He keeps thinking about kissing Ray, and it's not like it was their first kiss in two years either. It's not like they're not messing around, because there is a mess there, for sure. There have been… moments. But then life gets in the way, or Frank tucks tail and runs away before Ray can make a huge deal out of it.
Maybe it's wishful thinking, that Ray would make a huge deal out of it. Sure, Ray calls even though Frank never picks up, and he leaves texts which Frank likes to pretend he doesn't read— mostly consisting of sad faces like :-( and pleas to 'call me back?'— but it's not like he ever brings it up much once Frank has let things cool down, and comes skittering back for quality time and vegetarian home-cooked dinners. Rinse and repeat. For two years.
That's normal. This is a normal kind of non-relationship to have.
"… Okay," Mikey starts slowly. "So you fucked up and fumbled him." Frank opens his mouth, but Mikey soldiers on before he can come up with something to say; "So what? You guys could be together now. You clearly want to. Both of you."
"Fuck off, okay? It's just—" Frank takes a deep breath, then sighs. "It's just… not the same anymore."
There's barely any heat in his words. It's hard to explain, even to people who were there. How in one moment it felt like him and Ray were going to be it, forever, in every way that matters, and the next they're growing apart, with Ray staying up nights with a fucking infant, learning how to change diapers, how to run a house like a responsible adult, to make sure Mia survives from one day to the next and that his brother doesn't get crushed by the grief of the general direction his life took.
Frank barely fits the equation. He drinks. And then he drinks some more, and Mikey takes pity on him and drinks with him.
"Sometimes new things can be good, you know," Mikey tells him quietly. Frank pretends he doesn't hear him over the music.
-
Many drinks and one disappeared Mikeyway later, Frank's smoking on the back porch when someone lays hands on him. In hindsight it's probably supposed to be a light tap to capture his attention, but in the moment Frank only registers someone smacking the shit out of his shoulder, hard enough to make him stumble. In his drunken haze Frank bites down on his cigarette and is ready to throw the first punch, but when he turns to see who the fuck is fucking with him, he's met with a smiling stranger swaying from foot to foot.
"You! Where do I know you from?" The stranger demands, and Frank stares at the guy in quiet bewilderment. He's a wiry, hyped up thing, maybe a year or few younger than Frank. His sneakers are green. Frank stares at them.
"Fuck if I know, dude," Frank dusts of his shoulder, and leans against the wall. The guy won't leave, instead sidling up to him and grinning from ear to ear. He gestures wildly with his hands, making the hundred and one bracelets he's wearing clink and clatter.
"No, no, I know you. I've seen you play, man, I'm sure of it! You're the, uh— " He snaps his fingers, brow furrowed in thought.
Something sour pours all over the faux-light mood Frank had built for himself. Vodka makes him end up morose and low, so he looks over into the backyard morosely and lowly and shrugs.
"I was—" Frank sighs, scratches at his neck. "I'm in My Chemical Romance," Frank tells the fucker, whose whole face lights up, and he claps his hands together and points at Frank like he's just spotted a rare animal at a zoo. Something in his smile ain't right.
"Right! Right! Fuck, you guys, you're the Vampire motherfuckers! Man, I saw you once in Philly, that night was crazy, man," He laughs and shakes his head. Frank drags in smoke and holds it in his lungs until it stings. Then he breathes out very slowly.
"Cool."
"Yeah man, real cool. So," the guy leans into Frank's space, plants his hand on Frank's shoulder again. "What are you guys up to these days? Is it true that you guys broke up? Didn't your fag vampire shit sell or was it just a lack of—"
And Frank knows he shouldn't do it, really. He knows. He could just push this guy away, and tell him to fuck off, and point him out to Mikey and say he's an asshole. But before he's even aware that he's going to do it, Frank has punched the fucker in the nose, tripped him backwards onto the porch, straddled him to punch him once more. His knuckles sting, and he's seriously debating if he should put his cigarette out on this fucker's face, but before he can do that he's tackled from the left and goes flying.
There's no air. Not in his lungs, not in his head, nowhere, it's all been pushed out of him. He hits the porch with a thump, cigarette flying out of his gasping mouth as his skull makes contact with the wall of the house. He doesn't know the guy who's clambering on top of him. Maybe it's a friend of the dirtbag Frank punched. Maybe some random passerby who likes to fight. Frank is reeling from the hit to his head, so he doesn't block in time, rising his arms sluggishly and way too slowly to stop the fist coming at his face. The guy on top of him gets a few good hits in, nailing his cheek and jaw until there's enough screaming around to gather attention, and someone pulls him off. There's ringing in Frank's ears. Voices come from afar.
"Frank?"
That's his name, his cue. He blinks, and he's no longer lying down, he's sitting on the porch, leaning against the wall. He blinks again, and Mikey's there. Frank frowns, and shakes his head. His face hurts. He looks around, but Mikey snaps his fingers in front of his face to pull his attention back in.
"What? Fuck, fuck off," Frank slurs and slaps Mikey's hand away. He spits blood on the porch. Mikey sighs.
"He okay?"
"He's fucked up, is what he is," Mikey says to the faceless voice up there in the heavens. Frank spots two legs behind Mikey, and follows them with his eyes, having to crane his neck real far, because it's a tall motherfucker he's looking at.
"Gabe," Frank greets him after a few beats, and nods curtly. Mikey and Gabe share a look.
"I mean, he remembers you," Mikey considers. Gabe grins and shrugs.
"Everyone remembers me."
"Ah fuck," Frank grimaces, and touches his cheek. It's cold. Mikey is holding a bag of frozen peas against his face. Frank grabs it. "Sorry. There was this— this fucking asshole," Frank looks around, but doesn't spot the fuckers he fought with. "Talking shit about us. Motherfuckers."
"Yeah yeah, I get it. But you've probably had enough, okay? I called Gerard. He's coming to get you."
Frank blinks. Then he groans, and tries to get up. "I'm fine. I'm fucking fine, okay? I'll, take the bus or something."
"So you can fistfight the driver?" Gabe asks, like he's actually curious. Frank laughs, and falls heavily back on his ass. Mikey sighs.
"He's already on his way, just sit tight." Mikey leans in, and Frank hasn't seen him look like that often. He looks like this is really important to him. He squeezes Frank's arm, and says, "Please?"
And Frank suddenly feels like an asshole, like he needs to curl up under the porch and die there. So he just nods, and sits still. Gabe hands him a coffee mug full of cold water, and Frank sips it slowly for a small eternity, until he sees headlights turn in down the street.
-
"— and so, I'm kinda shopping around for a publisher, but I'll keep posting it online for now. One of the nurses actually told me his son reads the comic, isn't that cool?"
"Yeah, man, that's awesome," Frank tells Gerard, rubbing his face, promptly forgetting someone just beat the shit out of it, and wincing when pain blooms forth to remind him of it. Gerard provides a comfortingly constant stream of conversation, so Frank doesn't have to say much. He's in his element at this time of night; bubbly, creative, driven. They got most of their songwriting done at nights like this too, with Gerard throwing bits and pieces of melody at them and Ray and Frank would just try to keep up and wrangle whatever they heard into music, and those nights would go on for what felt like forever.
Nowadays Gerard puts all that creative power into his comics, which he seems to work on at all times outside of job at the hospital (instead of doing normal human-things like sleeping), which itself was supposed to just be a temporary gig to keep him from moving back home with his folks. Frank points out as much.
"I like it there. Really, I do," Gerard tells him, and laughs after Frank gives him a doubting glance. "The nurses are cool, I get to work nights, and they got okay coffee if you know where to look. And when no one is dying, I get to just sit back and sketch a bunch. It's a pretty sweet deal."
Frank looks out the window. They're almost in his neighborhood.
"Doesn't it like… fuck with you? All the dead people? Especially at night."
"They can't help when they die," Gerard shrugs. "It's not so bad." He goes a bit quiet, and then adds: "Doesn't fuck you up like seeing people you care about does."
And Frank thinks back to Gerard's grandmother's funeral. How Mikey cried silently, as Gerard just stared ahead, like he wasn't there. Like he was in some other time and place, but he was angry. Scary angry. But when Ray wrapped an arm around Gerard's shoulders, it was like the pain crashed back in all at once, and he deflated like a balloon. Frank felt uncomfortable witnessing that kind of grief up close.
He hasn't seen Gerard have a drink since, which feels nothing short of miraculous to him. When he heard that Elena was dead, his first thought was: It's all over. Gerard is going to drink himself to death, if the drugs don't get him first, and Frank will never see him again. He wasn't ready for the opposite to happen. He wasn't ready for this Gerard, years later, to seem… if not jumping for joy, at least he's comfortable.
Gerard turns to his street, and pulls up by the curb. Frank's face pulses with pain, and he knows he needs to ice it more, or he'll have to explain to his manager come Monday why half of his face is one giant bruise. He looks towards his home, thinks about the quiet, about the dark.
"Are you working on something new?" Frank asks right before he gets out of the car, and Gerard picks up what he's putting down, killing the engine and following Frank without asking. He's nice like that. Always has been.
"Well. There's this story about a dying cancer patient, and a marching band, and there are all these characters, like…" Gerard starts telling him about the story, about the setting, about the aesthetics and what he wants to capture, from films to music. He talks all the way from the car over to Frank's apartment, at times supporting Frank's drunken gait when he almost trips by the curb and again in the stairs, and doesn't stop because Frank lets him in.
"Sounds like it could've made a pretty badass concept record," Frank tells Gerard. The journey through one's death. The characters, themes, lines. The Black Parade. Gerard looks at him, and Frank thinks he spots something akin to sadness in Gerard's eyes. But he smiles, and shrugs off his jacket.
"I guess. But it's going to be something different, now. And that's fine." He pauses when Frank turns the lights on, and Frank can't blame him.
All his shit is still in boxes and bags, most of them in the entryway. Frank has to suck in his stomach to get by the narrowest part. He leaves Gerard behind, makes it to the kitchen and starts going through his freezer, to grab an ice cube tray with no ice cubes in it. It'll have to do.
"And?" He prompts, because Gerard is still looking at his bare-bones apartment. There's a bed by one wall, the TV by the other. Other than his stereo and his guitar, he's only got bare necessities unpacked.
He doesn't say it with any real bite or challenge to it though. He wants to be nice. Wants for Gerard to stay, and not leave him alone. Gerard is fidgeting with his scarf, and sits down on the floor by Frank's bed. Frank in turn kicks his shoes off, and curls up on the bed. He closes his eyes, pressing the ice cube tray to his throbbing jaw. He mumbles; "The cancer patient was a soldier?"
"Oh. Uh. Yes! So then it turns out the Parade isn't like some imaginary deathbed hallucination, but this band he saw in the war, part of a propaganda-machine for this Soviet-type dictatorship whose soldiers he fought against. And the narrative kinda flips when he dies, to be about the band, how they went rogue and ended up in gulags and shit, and then—"
Frank wakes up with a start.
The silence around him is heavy and thick. It's getting light outside. The world he can see from his window is a sleepy hue of grayish blue. He's been asleep for a couple of hours at least. Frank looks down at the wet tray beside his pillow, at the blanket that's been laid over his body. There's a glass of water and an aspirin by his bed, with a note. Frank would recognize Gerard's scrawl anywhere.
Had to go. Call me whenever, OK?
xoxo, G.
Frank looks at the note for a long time, then at the aspirin, and looks over to the hallway where Gerard has pretty much rummaged through all of his packed shit to find painkillers and a notepad. Frank laughs, then gets up to crack open a window. He lights up and smokes quietly, still feeling thoroughly drunk and beaten. The city sleeps. Frank thinks about all the people out there somewhere, on the road. Coming, going, leaving, returning.
And that's fine. Gerard's words float around inside his skull like in a particularly thick soup. He never said thank you for the ride, and should apologize for dozing off in the middle of Gerard's pitch. Sometimes new things can be good, you know, Mikey's voice tells him. Frank looks at the sky turning lighter and lighter shades of gray. His throat feels tight, and his whole body is so heavy, the floor might just give out from under him.
Before he goes back to sleep he walks over to his stereo sitting sadly on the floor by the foot of his bed. He quietly presses play, and turns the volume low, barely audible.
He curls up under the blanket, listens to the first few notes of 'Romance', and falls asleep.