Chapter Text
Frank really doesn’t like driving. It’s not like, an intense hatred, or anything, but he’s not one of those people that can just be happy driving for hours; it just makes him feel short and he gets bored within five minutes flat if no one’s in the car with him, and can hardly stand to pay attention for as long as it usually takes to get somewhere. But Gerard and Mikey live too far away to walk in the sticky heat of the Jersey summer, so he’s suffering for the sake of getting to see them before they all have to catch a flight tonight. Mostly to actually remind them they’re getting on a plane tonight, because they’re both too spacey to even remember to pack fucking clean underwear for the couple of months they’ll be gone, and it’s already bad enough dealing with the Way stink on tour when it’s cold out, let alone when the sky is literally fucking melting. Fucking July.
Projekt revolution, Frank can’t fucking believe it. He’s so looking forward to this tour, partly because he’s hardly hung out with the guys for like the last month because they’d been on tour since fucking February and all just hibernated for a month to prepare for the fact that after this tour they’ll have, like, one more month before they’re back on tour for another eight months, but mostly because – even after six years – he still can’t believe he’s part of his favourite fucking band. Ever since Frank was younger, ever since he started playing in bands as a kid, he knew all he wanted to do was be in a band. He’d constantly be joining or starting or being a temporary sort-of-half-member in as many bands as he could, in the hope that one day, one of them would make it and he’d finally get to live out his dream. The first time any of his bands actually got kind of serious, was with Pencey Prep. They recorded in a real fucking studio and everything. Ironically, when his dream actually showed the first few glimmers of coming true, was the first time he doubted it. Sure, he had doubted it in the way that every now and then he’d see someone doing something or talking about their job, and be like “huh, I wonder what that’d be like,” but he’d never actually doubted it. Until they started recording their first album, of course.
Frank’s always loved playing, and performing, and everything about music, which is where his dream started in the first place (that, and the huge influence from just about everyone in his dad’s family being some kind of musician). But then, once they got into the studio, he started to doubt everything. At first he thought maybe it was just because it was slow; recording would be tedious and boring and he’d spend hours trying to get just one bit and then have days of not doing anything while other parts were recorded. But he couldn’t stop that other doubt in his mind, the tiny, nagging voice that would appear whenever you wanted to believe in something but your brain decided to just do its own thing and convince you otherwise. That voice would tell him that this wasn’t it. That big dream that he’d been looking for, waiting for, working towards in most of his free time, it wasn’t what he wanted. Because there wasn’t that magic there. As childish as it sounded, Frank knew what he was looking for, he knew there should be this click, and that he’d know when this was going to be something big. That didn’t happen with Pencey Prep, and soon – after they’d released their first album – they just drifted apart and decided to call it quits. Not before Frank got the chance to meet Gerard, though. Well, Gerard and the other guys that would hang out in shitty basements with greasy hair and weird ideas for fashion, and somehow managed to scrape together enough to form a band. Frank knew straight away when he first met them that they were his people, so he was more than willing to help them get gigs and sneak them into their studio to record.
When he first heard the guys play, he knew they’d be his favourite fucking band. Probably for the rest of his damn life. Which is why, after Pencey had disintegrated and Frank had taken to just following around the newly named My Chem, and they asked him if he wanted to play guitar for them, his brain pretty much imploded just with the feeling of ‘holy shit’ and he still hasn’t recovered. He’s made three fucking albums with them and he still hasn’t recovered.
Frank doesn’t even bother knocking on the Way’s front door, because no one ever fucking answers it anyway, so he goes round to the side door instead. Mikey had given him the only spare key they had a couple of years ago after Frank may have kind of attempted to break into their house. Again.
“Oh, hey there Frankie,” Mrs Way says without even looking up, sitting at the kitchen table flipping through some magazine, “Mikey’s out right now, he’ll be back soon but Gerard’s downstairs.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Frank replies, and he isn’t even gonna deny that he feels pleased with the smile she gives him; he’ll never not be jealous of Gerard and Mikey for having such a cool mom that let them do whatever the fuck they wanted when they were teenagers.
“Say hi to Linda for me!” She calls out after Frank, as he’s going down the stairs to Gerard’s hobbit hole.
Gerard’s not facing the door when Frank comes in, he’s just hunched over one of his desk drawers, digging through it and mumbling something to himself, which Frank instantly sees as a golden fucking opportunity. He doesn’t think before he runs across the room and launches himself at Gerard’s back, hooking his legs round his waist and his arms round his neck, yelling “Surprise motherfucker!” probably way too loud in Gerard’s ear.
“Oh, fuck,” Gerard says, stumbling backwards and almost making to push Frank off but just sighs instead, “fuck, Frank.”
“D’ya miss me?” Frank asks, still clinging on tight, which is hard when Gerard has no fucking balance whatsoever and is so close to falling back on top of Frank, and isn’t even doing anything to try and fix it.
“I didn’t miss being fucking attacked,” Gerard says, “Jesus Christ, I think you gave me heart failure.”
“Whoops,” Frank says, moving his legs round until he can twist his whole body round Gerard, so they’re facing each other instead, and Frank has a brief moment of hypersensitivity in regards to his crotch pressed against Gerard’s stomach, but he crushes that thought quickly. It’s not like Gerard would be weirded out if Frank got a boner, he can hardly complain when he’s been up close and personal with it before, but if he’s gonna he’s got to at least fucking warm up to it. “Sorry.”
“Fucking hell,” Gerard says, grabbing onto the desk with one hand and Frank’s back with the other, finally getting his balance, “how do you do this shit?”
Frank shrugs, “Come on,” he says, kind of shoving Gerard’s shoulders, which doesn’t work very well when they’re still attached, “I wanna sit,” he explains, shoving him again in the direction of the bed.
“Okay, okay,” Gerard huffs, just stumbling backwards until he hits the bed and falls back on it, because he’s a fucking idiot and doesn’t think things through to put Frank down first so he doesn’t get his chest crushed and a chin to his forehead.
“Ow, now you’ve given me a concussion too,” Gerard says as they disentangle themselves from one another.
“You gave that to yourself,” Frank says, laying back on the bed to look up at the ceiling, and Gerard sits up a bit so he can look at Frank, “you didn’t think to put me down first.”
Gerard sighs, “Still,” he says, and Frank can all but hear the pout.
Neither of them make any move to sit up, so they just kind of lie there for a bit, and Frank can’t help but laugh when he looks over and sees Gerard fucking lying on his side with his head rested on his elbow.
“What?”
“You look like you about to ask fucking Leonardo DiCaprio to paint you,” Frank explains, and Gerard rolls his eyes, but he’s not exactly hiding his smile, so he’s counting that as a point towards Great Jokes Frank Has Made.
“I missed you,” Gerard says, still smiling, and Frank’s just noticed how close he is, kind of leaning over Frank and looking down at him.
“Yeah?” Frank asks, and Gerard’s face goes serious, nodding sincerely.
They don’t say anything after that, so Frank just stays lying there, staring at Gerard’s face like a fucking freak, and maybe focusing too much attention on his lips. He’s just considering the logistics of how to lean up to kiss him without fucking up his neck when Gerard leans down, all slowly so Frank can see it coming in like fucking slow motion until their lips are touching. The kiss is gentle and slow and soft in a way it never is and it’s like they’re married and have all the fucking time in the world, which makes Frank’s heart ache in a way he doesn’t quite understand.
“Fuck, I’ve fucking missed you,” someone says, and Frank only realises it’s him when Gerard replies with a, “shut the fuck up and let me kiss you.”
That’s when the kiss speeds up, passionate and deep, back into familiar territory, and when Gerard falls back against the bed, he pulls Frank with him, so he ends up with his knees on either side of Gerard’s waist, his back kind of hunched up because he’s way too focused on the kiss to think about moving his legs down. But, then that would give Frank’s crotch better access to Gerard’s crotch and he’s just about to act on that thought when he hears Mikey come in and yell out a random jumble of vowels and swear words.
“Jesus fucking Christ I was out for literally five minutes and you guys are already having sex?”
“We were just kissing,” Gerard says once he and Frank have separated themselves, both sitting on the edge of the bed, and Frank feels his heart swell at how cute Gerard looks, his voice small and his ducked head doing nothing to hide the dark blush high on his cheeks.
“Just cause you’ve never seen it yourself…” Frank adds.
“Oh my god, Frank,” Mikey says, sitting on the edge of Gerard’s desk, “you’re such a child.”
“Hey, I’m, like, almost 26. I’m basically the same age as you.”
“Doesn’t mean you act like it.”
Frank rolls his eyes, pushing himself off the edge of the bed to sit on the floor instead, because cross-legged is way more comfortable than just having your legs hang awkwardly. He kind of spontaneously kisses Gerard on the cheek as he stands up, and Gerard smiles down at his lap, his cheeks going pink again, making Frank insides twist. It’s like they’re a fucking couple, what the fuck. “Are you guys ready?”
“For what?” Gerard and Mikey ask in sync and it makes them sound like fucking twins.
“The fucking tour, dumbass,” Frank says, hitting Gerard’s shin. “What’s the plural of dumbass?”
Mikey shrugs, as Gerard groans, “That means we have to get a flight tonight.”
“See, this is why I had to fucking come over to make sure we weren’t all waiting at the airport for you two idiots.”
“We might’ve noticed, like, eventually,” Mikey says, and even he doesn’t sound like he believes himself.
“Yeah, maybe when me and Ray were fucking enjoying having two seats each.”
“Maybe we were just being awesome friends,” Gerard says.
Frank rolls his eyes, “You guys are weirdos,” he says, standing up, because even though he wishes he could hang out and put Mikey and Gerard’s insane movie collection to good use, he has way too much shit to do and his mom would give him way too much shit if he didn’t at least spend a bit of time with her before he left, “but as amazing guitarists as me and Toro are, I don’t think we could manage with out a singer or a bass player.”
“Just a whole set of guitar solos,” Gerard says, sounding kind of airy, which means he’s not even present in the moment anymore and his brain’s just drifted off thinking about other things, “that’d be cool.”
“We’d actually have a decent smelling bus,” Frank adds, trying not to laugh when Mikey makes a face at him that isn’t really a face, but Frank’s known him for long enough to recognise the difference between Mikey’s emotionless monotone and his slightly-different-emotion monotone.
“See you tonight,” Mikey says, and Gerard doesn’t even say anything, which Frank didn’t expect anyway because whatever the fuck he said triggered some train of thought that sent him off to Gerard-land. Just as Franks going upstairs, he can faintly hear Mikey saying, “What the hell was that about? You and Frank aren’t usually…” before he’s out of earshot. Frank can’t even bring himself to care, because of the warm bubbling in his stomach that has a little too much to do with Gerard and not enough of an explanation for.