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The basement smelled like it always did — old carpet, cigarette smoke that had soaked into the drywall years ago, and the particular staleness of a room that never quite saw daylight. It was Gerard's room technically, had been for years, but it functioned more like a communal space on nights like this. Nights where there was nowhere else to be and nothing better to do than sit in the blue-grey flicker of a television screen and let time dissolve.
Frank was stretched across the couch with his knees pulled up, a blanket bunched around his hips. He'd pulled on one of Gerard's old shirts at some point — a faded black thing, a size too big, that he'd borrowed so long ago the word borrowed had stopped meaning anything. Gerard was in the armchair to the side, legs slung over one arm of it, a sketchbook balanced on his knee that he hadn't actually drawn in for the past hour. Mikey was on the other end of the couch, half-asleep with his glasses still on.
On the screen, the credits of Saw were rolling. The room felt wrung out in that specific way it did after a good horror film — like all the tension had been squeezed out of the air and left something loose and comfortable behind.
Frank stared at the ceiling.
He'd been sitting on it for a few weeks now. It wasn't a big deal — that's what he kept telling himself. It wasn't a big announcement. But it also felt weird, keeping it from them, like a small stone he'd been carrying around in his pocket that had started to feel heavier than it was.
He said it the way he always said things — blunt, no lead-up.
"I started taking testosterone last month."
The words landed in the room. Mikey stirred, turned his head. Gerard's sketchbook stopped moving entirely.
"Yeah?" Mikey said, voice sleep-soft. He reached over and nudged Frank's ankle under the blanket. "That's good, man. Really." He meant it in the simple, clean way Mikey meant most things. Frank nodded.
But it was Gerard who moved. He sat up in the armchair, both feet hitting the floor, sketchbook sliding to the side. His dark hair fell forward around his jaw and he pushed it back automatically. He was leaning forward now, elbows on his knees, and there was something bright in his face — curiosity, but not the invasive kind. More like the way he looked at a comic he found genuinely interesting.
"Okay, wait," Gerard said. "Has your voice started changing yet? Like have you noticed anything?"
"Maybe a little," Frank said. "It's only been a month."
"What about body hair?"
"Dude."
"I'm asking."
"Yeah, a little. My legs, mostly."
Mikey sat up, stretched, and reached for his glasses to push them further up his nose.
"I'm happy for you," he said, and he looked at Gerard and then Frank with the calm knowingness of someone who recognized when a conversation was about to stop including him. "And I'm also going to bed." He stood, patted Frank's foot as he passed.
"You two are on your own."
"Night, Mikes," Frank said.
They listened to him shuffle up the stairs.
The door at the top clicked shut.
The basement settled back into its particular quiet — just the hum of the TV still on the credits screen, the low blue light it threw across the room.
Gerard was still looking at him.
"Can I ask you some personal questions?" he said. "Like — actually personal. I can back off completely, just say the word."
Frank considered him for a second. Gerard's green eyes were earnest in a way that was hard to look directly at sometimes. "Go ahead," he said.
"Have you noticed any changes — like, below the belt? Has anything shifted?"
Frank shifted against the cushions. This was the thing about Gerard — he just said things. Never wrapped them in enough layers of vagueness to make them comfortable, never seemed to register embarrassment the way other people did. Frank had always both admired it and found it slightly maddening.
"I haven't really, like — checked," Frank said. "But yeah. I've noticed some stuff."
Something moved across Gerard's face. Mild disappointment, maybe — the kind you'd feel when a mystery got left unsolved.
"You haven't looked?"
"I mean. I look. I just don't — examine."
"Fair," Gerard said, and tucked it away.
"Okay. Has there been more discharge than usual?"
Frank felt heat creep up the back of his neck. He was lying on a couch in a basement he'd been in a hundred times, talking to someone he'd known most of his life, and somehow this was the most exposed he'd ever felt with his clothes on.
"Yeah," he said. "That's been a thing."
"And your clit — has it gotten more prominent? Like, noticeably?"
He asked it the same way he would have asked about anything else. No theatrics, no careful lowering of his voice, just sitting across the room and looking at Frank with those ridiculous long lashes and that patient face.
Frank's embarrassment did something unexpected — it curdled into something almost like pride. "Yeah, actually," he said, and his voice had shifted, lost some of its defensiveness. "It's gotten pretty big."
"Yeah?" Gerard's expression did something
Frank couldn't entirely read. "Can I see?"
Frank laughed before he could stop himself.
"Dude."
"I'm serious."
The laughter died. Frank looked at him. Gerard was looking back, absolutely still, absolutely sincere. This was one of the more unsettling things about him — the complete lack of performance. He wasn't joking. He wasn't testing anything. He just wanted what he said he wanted, stated plainly, offered plainly, waiting.
"You're serious," Frank said.
"You don't have to," Gerard said. "I want to be clear about that. No pressure, no weirdness after. I'm just — I'm curious about your body. In a good way." He paused. "I think it's interesting. I think you're interesting."
Something tightened in Frank's chest. He'd liked Gerard for so long that it had become a kind of background condition, like tinnitus — always there, manageable, easy to ignore until the room got quiet enough.
The room was very quiet.
"Okay," Frank said.
He threw the blanket off.
Gerard stood and crossed the room without hurry. He sat down on the couch beside Frank, on top of the blanket, and turned toward him. The TV light caught his face at an angle — one side lit pale blue, the other in shadow, his dark hair framing those sharp, too-pretty features.
"Are you actually okay with this?" Gerard asked quietly. Not performatively, not nervously — just checking. Making sure.
"Yeah," Frank said. "I'm sure."
He pulled his pajama pants and underwear down and off in one motion, leaving himself in just the borrowed shirt and his binder, the hem of the shirt barely reaching his hips. The cold air hit him all at once and he exhaled sharply. His legs had the soft growth of new hair catching the low light.
He was already wet. He knew that before Gerard looked. There was something mortifying and also electric about it — his body deciding things ahead of him.
Gerard didn't look down immediately. He looked at Frank's face first, a gentle and unhurried inventory, like he was waiting for any sign that this had become something other than what Frank said it was.
Frank kept his legs together. He was holding himself very still.
Gerard reached out and placed his hand between his knees — no pressure, just a presence — and said, "Can I?" and Frank answered by letting his legs fall open.
The air between them shifted.
"Oh," Gerard said, and it wasn't a performed reaction, it was just — honest. He leaned forward and looked, his hand still warm and still against the inside of Frank's thigh, and the heat coming off Frank's body was something Frank was suddenly very aware of. He could smell himself and it made him want to disappear.
"It's beautiful, seriously" Gerard said.
He meant it. That was the thing — Frank could tell he meant it. There was no performance in his face, no careful politeness. Just genuine, uncomplicated appreciation, the way Gerard looked at things he found worth looking at.
"Is this turning you on," Gerard said, not looking up, "or am I turning you on?"
Frank stared at the ceiling. "Both," he admitted.
Gerard lifted his head. Frank could feel his gaze without looking back at it.
"Frankie." There was something in his voice now — warm and a little rougher.
Frank made himself look at him.
"Can I kiss you?" Gerard asked.
The question went through him like a current. He didn't answer with words — he just moved, and Gerard moved too, and then Gerard was over him, knees bracketing his hips, his weight settling forward. He slotted their hips together, the denim of his jeans pressing against Frank, and the friction was obscene and maddening in equal measure.
Frank reached up instinctively for something to hold onto and found the fabric of Gerard's shirt.
"Yeah?" Gerard said against his mouth.
Frank kissed him instead of answering.
He'd kissed people before. A few times, badly, in contexts that had meant nothing much. This was nothing like those. Gerard kissed the way he talked — directly, without performance, paying genuine attention.
Frank made a sound into his mouth that he immediately wished he hadn't.
Gerard pulled back a fraction. "Don't," he said, and his voice had gone low. "Don't be embarrassed about that."
"It was —"
"It was hot." He said it plainly. Factually. "Do it again."
Frank reached for the hem of his shirt. "Can I take this off?"
"Yeah." Gerard sat back to let him pull it over his head, and then Frank was left there, bare from the waist down, the borrowed shirt riding up, feeling distinctly like the less-clothed person in the room. He reached for
Gerard's shirt next.
"Okay?" he asked.
"Yeah," Gerard said.
When the shirt came off, Frank looked at him — the pale expanse of his chest, the dark hair that fell around his jaw, all that fair skin in the television's blue light — and felt something large and complicated move through him.
"Wait," Frank said.
Gerard went still immediately. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, I just —" Frank pushed himself up a little against the cushions, needing to be upright for this. "Are we actually doing this? Like, are we doing this?"
"Only if you want to."
"I want to," Frank said, fast enough to answer the question clearly. "I do. But I need you to know — I've never done this before. Any of this. And I've liked you for a really long time, Gerard, like a really long time, and if this turns into something that meant nothing I'm going to —" He stopped, pressed his mouth together, tried again.
"I've already let you see more of me than anyone else has. So."
Gerard looked at him for a long moment. In the quiet, the television hummed.
"You think I'd do that to you?" he said. His voice was level but there was something serious underneath it. "You really think I'd do that?"
Frank didn't answer.
"I've wanted you since high school," Gerard said. "I have spent years being —" He let out a short, almost-exasperated breath. "Very aware of where you are in a room. So no. This doesn't mean nothing. It means something significant to me."
Frank's chest ached a little.
"Okay," he said softly.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Gerard leaned back down.
His binder came off next — Gerard asked, and Frank said yes, and the moment it was gone Frank was bare in a way that was completely different, the cool air reaching his chest. His chest wasn't small. He was conscious of that. His skin there was clean of tattoos, different from the rest of him, softer somehow, and he felt Gerard's gaze track over it without judgment, without discomfort, with only the same open attention he'd given everything else.
Gerard kissed his neck first. Just below his jaw, then the curve where his neck met his shoulder, and Frank's head tipped back before he could stop it. Then Gerard's hand came up, warm and slow, and cupped his breast, fingers curving around it gently.
"Yeah?" he murmured.
"Yeah," Frank managed.
His nipples had gone tight almost immediately, hypersensitive in a way that made him catch his breath when Gerard traced a slow circle around one with his thumb. The sensation went straight through him, and Frank's fingers found the blanket.
After a while, Gerard suggested the bed.
"We need the other stuff from the nightstand anyway," he said simply, and stood, and held out a hand.
Frank stood and was acutely aware of walking across a room he'd been in a hundred times while completely bare from the waist down. The television threw shadows. He felt exposed and obvious.
Gerard's hand settled on the back of his neck — not guiding, just present, warm against his skin — and something about it loosened the tightness in Frank's chest.
He climbed onto the bed while Gerard went to the nightstand. From across the room Frank watched him — the line of his back, the way his dark hair fell forward as he opened the drawer — and felt the strangeness of this moment settling into something realer. Gerard shucked his sweatpants and boxers before climbing onto the bed, and Frank looked, because of course he did.
Gerard was completely shaved except for the dark trail below his navel, which struck Frank as somehow unexpected and very specific to him. His cock was thick and uncircumcised, already hard, a bead of precome at the tip, and Frank swallowed.
Gerard crawled over him, one hand braced by Frank's head.
"Hips up," he said, grabbing a pillow from beside Frank. Frank lifted and Gerard tucked it beneath him, tilting his hips upward, and then Frank was laid out and open, bare and exposed in a way that felt deliberately, carefully arranged.
He thought, briefly, about how pathetic he probably looked. Flushed and wrecked-looking, his dark hair a mess, all his tattoos and then the untouched pale skin of his chest, his body already slick and warm and giving him away entirely. Gerard, meanwhile, looked like something drawn — all clean lines and pale skin and those absurd feminine features that Frank had been quietly losing his mind over for years.
Gerard didn't seem to register the disparity. He was just looking at Frank like Frank was exactly where he was supposed to be.
He kissed him first. Long and deep, his weight settling between Frank's spread legs, and Frank could feel the drag of Gerard's cock against his navel as he moved, trailing warmth across his skin, and both of them were chasing something now without quite catching it yet.
"Ready?" Gerard said against his mouth.
"Yeah," Frank said. "Yeah, please."
Gerard opened the lube and warmed it between his fingers before touching him, which Frank hadn't even thought to expect but felt profoundly grateful for. His fingers traced along Frank's labia slowly, and Frank felt his whole body tighten and then release. When Gerard's fingers found his T-dick and began to stroke it — deliberately, unhurried — Frank's head pressed back into the pillow.
"Fuck," he breathed.
"Good?" Gerard said.
"Really good." The words came out rougher than he intended.
Gerard worked him open slowly, one finger sliding inside him first, asking before each addition, watching Frank's face the entire time with that same steady attention. He worked his way to three, and by then Frank had stopped being embarrassed about the sounds he was making, had stopped being embarrassed about much of anything, had dissolved into something fluid and oversensitized. He'd never had anyone touch him like this — had never had anyone touch him at all, never had anything inside him. Every sensation was entirely foreign and entirely overwhelming. He felt filled with static.
Gerard leaned down and pressed his mouth to Frank's collarbone, then to the scorpion tattoo high on his neck, the one Frank had gotten at seventeen from a guy who asked too few questions.
"Tell me if anything's wrong," Gerard said quietly, against his skin. "Anything at all."
"Nothing's wrong," Frank said. "Nothing is wrong."
Gerard opened the condom and rolled it on. He gripped Frank's hips with both hands, and Frank felt the nudge of him at his entrance — warm and blunt and real — before Gerard pushed in slowly, sinking into the wet heat of him.
The stretch was deep and full and unlike anything Frank had words for. He could feel the slick warmth of himself around Gerard, feel every inch of him settling inside, his body opening and taking and holding. He could feel the pulse of Gerard's cock in the place he was softest. Everything felt close and interior and overwhelmingly present.
Gerard stilled, fully seated, and looked at Frank's face.
"Okay?" he said.
"Don't stop," Frank said, and heard his own voice like it belonged to someone else — wrecked and unguarded. He didn't care. He was past caring.
Gerard moved slowly at first, hands braced on Frank's thighs, letting him adjust to the drag and fill of each thrust. Frank's legs locked behind his back on instinct, heels pressing into the base of his spine, pulling him closer and deeper. Gerard made a low sound against his throat and obliged.
Gerard pushed his hair back out of his face with one hand, then brushed Frank's aside too, clearing the space between them. Their eyes met. Frank held the eye contact for about three seconds before the intensity of it made him turn his head, and then Gerard's fingers were at his jaw, gentle, turning him back.
Stay, he seemed to be saying, without saying it.
Frank stayed.
The rhythm built. Frank could feel the movement in his chest, the sensitivity there adding to everything else, his body a circuit of too much feeling. He felt Gerard's thighs against the backs of his legs, felt every shift and drag, felt the whole overwhelming fact of being held and filled by someone who looked at him the way Gerard looked at him.
When he came his back arched clean off the bed. His legs went rigid and then slack.
He heard himself make a sound that he would normally have died from embarrassment over and found he couldn't access the embarrassment at all.
Gerard came with his hands tight on Frank's hips, one final deep thrust, his head dropping forward. Frank could feel the throb of him through the condom, felt him pulse inside the wet grip of him. Then the slow release of tension, the going-soft, and Frank rolled his hips once more in the aftermath because he couldn't help it, chasing that sensation of Gerard still inside him.
"Gerard," he said, breathless, dragging the name out.
"I know," Gerard said, low and rough.
He pulled out carefully and dealt with the condom, crossing the room to dispose of it.
Frank lay on top of the sheets and felt like the tide had gone out. He turned onto his side. His heart was still loud in his chest.
The silence of the basement was different now. Warmer, somehow.
He heard Gerard come back. The mattress dipped.
"Get under the covers," Gerard said quietly, and Frank felt the sheets lifted over him before he even moved to pull them himself.
Gerard got in beside him. The warmth of his skin — still bare — pressed against Frank's back as he settled an arm over Frank's chest, pulling him close. Frank could feel Gerard's heartbeat against his spine.
He stared at the wall. The TV had gone to standby, the blue light gone. The room was dark and close and warm.
"Hey," Frank said.
"Yeah."
"What does this mean?" He kept his voice even. He'd said his piece on the couch. He needed to hear it back now, needed it spelled out. "To you. What does this mean to you."
Gerard was quiet for a moment. Frank could feel him considering it — not stalling, just being careful with the answer.
"It means I finally got to be with someone I've been thinking about since high school," Gerard said. His voice was low, right by Frank's ear. "And it means I'd like very much for you to be my boyfriend. If that's something you want."
Frank exhaled slowly through his nose.
"Yeah," he said. "That's something I want."
Gerard's arm tightened around him slightly. Frank felt the press of his mouth against the back of his neck, a brief and quiet thing.