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Given that Gerard is, for the first time in quite a while, so head-over-heels for a woman that he can hardly breathe, it's a little bit of a mystery to him how he keeps ending up with Frank's face in his crotch.
It's not like he's planning it. This time. Mostly. Of course there's the traditional "Prison" shit, because there still isn't anyone they want less at their shows than the assholes who called them fags and beat the shit out of them when they were kids, or their figurative asshole descendents who might, in their daily lives, be doing the same thing to the current crop of misfit toys that make up the heart of most MCR crowds. But this, lately, it's just… it's like being with Lindsey has switched on some sort of current inside him, and when he gets up onstage it comes crackling out, lighting him up, sparking off the sweaty upturned glowing faces of all the kids out in the audience, and he couldn't shut it off if he tried. And Frankie is, well, Frankie, only turned up to eleven, somehow, flailing all over the place like a downed power line, leaving a trail of blissed-out destruction in his wake.
And his face in Gerard's crotch.
Or his hand on Gerard's ass, or his tongue on Gerard's neck, or Gerard's hand down Frank's shirt, or whatever. The point is, this shit keeps happening, on a pretty regular basis, and Gerard is starting to wonder if Lindsey is maybe starting to wonder just what the fuck is going on.
"Gee," Lindsey says after a few weeks, while they're stealing a handful of precious afternoon minutes on the blessedly and very temporarily empty MSI bus. "Did you ever think that maybe you should have sex with Frank?"
"Muunhh?" Gerard replies cleverly. His fingers are still wet with her and her red lipstick is smeared all over his cock and Frank is, honestly, pretty much the last thing on whatever tiny bits of his mind remain online at the moment.
Well, maybe not the last thing. But pretty far down the list, after Lindsey's breasts, Lindsey's shiny dark hair spread over said breasts, Lindsey's plaid skirt, some random Sailor Moon associations, a stray Rebis fantasy that he will never disclose to anyone on pain of death, and—
"I'm serious," Lindsey says. She rolls her head to look at him, a sly curve to her mouth. "It'd be hot, for one thing."
"Yeah?" Gerard asks, hoping his answering smile looks even a fraction as sexy as hers does. In reality, it probably looks at least somewhat freakish, but since Lindsey seems to find his freakishness sexy, he guesses it all works out. Including the part, apparently, where he tends to fondle his bandmates onstage, even if he's pretty sure that for Lindsey, this is all more of a hey, let's play Han Solo and Greedo kind of a scenario than a hey, you should actually have actual sex with your actual guitarist scenario. At least that's what he's going with, because the alternative is more than he can deal with at the moment.
Regardless, "You're kind of a crazy awesome girl, Lindsey Ballato," he tells her solemnly, feeling the tug like all his molecules are just kind of stretching toward her. Even when he's right next to her, it seems like he can't get enough of her, to a degree that invokes strange alien-parasite kinds of comparisons that he doesn't even find romantic, let alone whatever Lindsey might think. He lets his fingers drift again instead, down to where she's still wet, still sensitive. He presses a kiss to her cheekbone.
She gasps and arches up; her legs fall open to an angle that's awkward and graceful and perfect. Gerard crowds closer. She smells like cinnamon gum and sex and smoke and him.
"Gerard." His name is half-buried in her moan. "I—"
"Lyn-Z!" Someone pounds on the main door. "Let the dude breathe, he's got a show tonight!" It sounds like Steve.
"Fuck off, it's good for him!" Lindsey shouts back, but she and Gerard have both been touring long enough to know that bogarting the bus is a capital offense. She stretches out for one last, messy kiss, then shoves his hand away with a groan of disappointment and rolls off the bunk, straightening her skirt.
"I mean it," Gerard tells her as he forces himself to his feet. His legs feel like jelly, and his hands are clumsy as he attempts to button enough buttons on her shirt to approach decency. "You're fucking amazing."
"I know," she says, but she's blushing a little, even under the sex-flush, and she looks up at him with the sweet, open smile that makes his chest ache with everything he wants to do and be for her. It's only been a few weeks so he's too chickenshit to tell her yet, but he knows already that he loves her, fucking scary loves her.
Then she grabs his hand—the one that was between her legs about thirty seconds ago—and slowly licks his fingers clean, one by one. Gerard's eyes roll back into his skull, and by the time he can see again, Lindsey's nudging him gently but irrevocably toward the door.
"Stevie," she calls, "the sex swing is broken, can you help us?"
The door bangs open. "Well, this is a goddamn disappointment," Steve says, shaking his head remorsefully. "I heard Gerard Way was naked in here, and now the whole rest of my Girl Scout troop is gonna be crying into their cookies and it's all your fault."
"Are you sure they're not crying 'cause they saw you naked?" Gerard fires back, though it's a good thing his finely-honed bantering skills run on autopilot at this point, because between the love and the lust, his brain and his body are both seriously otherwise occupied.
Steve ruffles Gerard's hair. "Get off my bus, you hussy."
"Thanks for the time, man," Gerard says, and he means it. He kisses the hand that Lindsey's got wrapped around his, then stumbles down the steps and makes his way to his own bus.
"Gerard's back from the Love Bus!" Ray announces, not even looking up from his issue of Edge.
"Thank God. I hope you kids are using protection!" Cortez squeaks from the bunk Gerard still can't help thinking of as Mikey's.
Bob's voice floats out from the kitchenette. "Don't worry, honey, I gave him the talk."
"Fuck all of you motherfuckers," Gerard starts, turning to lambast Ray first with his scorching wit, at which point something small and many-limbed and liberally inked leaps up behind him and attaches itself to his back.
"You gotta hydrate, man," Frank says gleefully in his ear. Jamia's back in Jersey for a few days, dealing with some Skeleton Crew stuff, so Frank's resumed his customary position of First Wrecking Ball on the USS MCR. He's currently wagging a bottle of Gatorade back and forth in front of Gerard's face. Which actually sounds pretty good—and it's Gerard's favorite flavor, too, the kind that turns his mouth blue—and Gerard would be all over that if he wasn't so busy falling into the wall.
"Ow!" Frank shouts, laughing, as they go down in a pile of arms and legs and blue-tinted plastic. Ray glances at them long enough to make sure no one's actually hurt before turning his attention back to his magazine.
"Don't break shit," he says, in the absent tone of someone who has weathered countless potentially shit-breaking situations over the years.
"Help!” Frank yells when Gerard (mostly unintentionally) rolls on him. "Bob! Help!"
"Actions and consequences, my son," comes the disembodied voice from the kitchenette.
Gerard disentangles himself enough to get to his hands and knees and stare down at Frank, who's flushed and giggling, hair in his eyes. Without thinking, Gerard reaches down to brush it aside for him and suddenly Lindsey's voice is in his head like a VH1 pop-up video: did you ever think that maybe you should have sex with Frank?
The truth is, Gerard can admit to himself in the privacy of his own brain, that he can hardly remember a time when he didn't think about that. Frank is entwined with Gerard's life in every way that matters, and entwined with Gerard's actual physical body more often than not; he's loyal and passionate and hilarious and fucking rock-solid dependable about anything short of being near a microphone when it's time for him to sing. Gerard would challenge anybody not to think about sleeping with Frank when faced with that kind of affectionate, profane temptation on a daily basis, year in and year out.
But he's been through it in his head a million times, a million almost-moments that have never once outweighed the reasons it shouldn't—can't—happen. Not because he's harboring any delusions about anyone else harboring any delusions about whether he's into guys, but because Frank has Jamia, has always had Jamia. And above and beyond the obvious—that he loves them both and that the two of them together give him hope for the kind of long-term happiness he's always feared is strictly fictional, and he doesn't want to fuck that up for his own sake as well as theirs—he's also always been peripherally aware that Jamia could snap him like a twig. That woman has come out grinning from pits that Gerard wouldn't have gone near in full riot gear.
And now Gerard has Lindsey, who is the best thing that's happened to him in a long time, this sweet and fierce and shining gift on a battered stage. And it feels almost blasphemous to want something else, too, to want more when he's already been given so much more than he ever hoped to deserve.
Gerard is a fucking greedy motherfucker, basically, but he's trying very hard not to be. And he can't quite wrap his head around the idea that Lindsey would really want him to be, either.
"Yo. Earth to Gerard," Frank says breathlessly, twitching a bit. "This is not the time for a brain adventure, dude, this floor is fucking disgusting."
Gerard shakes his head a little to clear it. "Actions and consequences," he intones, but he struggles to his feet and extends a hand to help Frankie up. "Now give me the fucking Gatorade."
* * * * *
"Shit," Gerard hisses as he scrapes his knuckle against the tree trunk for what feels like the fiftieth time. An amphitheater night and non-travel night had seemed like the perfect opportunity for making out up against a tree at two in the morning, which is something Gerard has always wanted to try. Much like beaches and bathroom stalls, though, he's discovering that it's easier in theory than in practice; he's from New Jersey and he's spent the vast majority of his life in one enclosed space or another, he's not used to all the fucking nature that's in nature.
Lindsey, who's probably got her share of bark scrapes, too, snickers and arches forward to give him more room, which works out well on a lot of levels, actually. "Fucking nature," she growls into his ear.
He grins. "Seriously, whose idea was this?" He slides the injured hand around to cup her breast, shoving her tank top up and out of his way. Suddenly, his hand feels totally fine. His miracle cure will be forever lost to science, though, because—
Her head thumps back against the tree trunk. "Better than the bus," she points out.
"Fuck yes," he agrees fervently. Her nipple is small and hard against his palm, then under his tongue; he takes it between his teeth and tugs gently.
"Mmm," she hums, deep in her throat. Her fingers dig into his hair. "So did you—ah," she breaks off as he flicks his tongue across her nipple again, then, "Did you think about what I said? About Frank?"
Frank. The thought sends a jolt of involuntary heat to Gerard's dick, a quick sense memory of Frank's open mouth pressed to his shoulder, earlier, under the lights. But no, he's with Lindsey, he should be thinking about Lindsey. "Do you want to sleep with Frank?" he asks, nuzzling the warm hollow of her sternum, and it starts out as a joke, just something to fill the space, but as soon as it's out of his mouth, he realizes he's not exactly sure what he wants her answer to be.
She scratches lightly against his scalp. "Under very specific circumstances, maybe. But we're talking about you right now."
And okay, this has officially become a conversation that can't be had with his mouth on Lindsey's boob. Unfortunately. He straightens up and pulls her shirt back down carefully, then smoothes a sweaty strand of hair out of her face. "Are." It comes out hoarse, and he swallows. "Are you serious about this?"
He can feel her heart start to thud, but her eyes stay locked on his. "Yes."
"I…" he starts, but for once, nothing else seems to be forthcoming. David Bowie would probably know the appropriate response to this. "I don't get it," he admits finally. He hunches a shoulder. "Are you trying to, like, let me down easy? Because—"
"No." Lindsey twists her fingers in his belt loops and pulls him tighter against her. "Hell no. This is not an either-or situation, here. It's just. You're always telling your fans to be themselves, right?"
He shrugs. "Of course, but—"
"Well, then I think you should take your own advice," she says triumphantly.
It startles a laugh out of him—she's just so j'accuse! about it—but he still doesn’t know for sure where she's going with this, and if he gets it wrong… well. He can't get it wrong. "And sex with Frankie is being myself?" he asks.
"Gerard." She tugs on his belt loops again, somewhere between nervous, possessive, and straight-up emphatic, and despite his confusion, something behind his sternum goes gooey. "You and me," she says, in a tone that makes him wonder if she's rehearsed this speech before. "We're so fearless onstage. And I just keep thinking… why should it just be there? Why should people we barely know be the only ones who make us feel like we can be that way? Why do they get the best parts of us?" Her words are tumbling over themselves now, and she grabs his head and kisses him fiercely, messily, teeth and tongue and the damp heat of the humid night. Then she pulls back, still holding his face between her hands. As if he could look away when she's so wild and honest, with the light of transgression in her eyes. The punk siren next door. He can hardly breathe. "I want to be that fearless all the time, Gee," she goes on, oblivious to how Gerard's heart is pushing the limits of his chest. "And I want you to be that fearless, if you want to be. I want—"
And he can't take it anymore. "I love you," he blurts out. His stomach immediately starts doing backflips of relief and terror, and his mouth keeps moving. "I know that sounds nuts, but I don't fucking care. How's that for fucking fearless? I love you." He hears himself laughing as he kisses her—something close to a hysterical giggle, really, but she's giggling, too, and trembling a little against him, so it's okay—and it's maybe the first time in his life that building something has felt as daring as breaking something.
"You are nuts," she says shakily, her eyes shiny, "and that's why I love you, too, we'll be fucking crazy scary nuts together," and she kisses him again, and he knows they're actually probably going to want to finish this conversation at some point, but right now, she loves him, and she loves that he loves her, and all he wants is to touch as much of her as he possibly can.
He drags her down to the ground with him, down to the old blanket that Bob had chucked at his head as he made his way to the door, because Bob is a very wise dude. Lindsey's already pulling her shirt over her head, and when he unzips her skirt, she's on her back and lifting her hips to help him before he's even got the zipper all the way down. He tosses the skirt aside, leaving her wearing thin argyle knee-socks and short black boots and a lot of pale, creamy skin, and when she looks up at him and smiles, Gerard's sure that sheer biological imperative is the only thing keeping him conscious.
"Fuck," he breathes, "seriously, I love you."
She gives him a blinding grin, then fists one hand in his shirt collar and yanks.
But after his shirt has served its purpose as a handle, there's not much further point to it, so he squirms and twists while she works it off over his head. In the process, she elbows him in the face and he gets a cramp in his thigh, but it's worth it to fall forward again and feel her pressed against him, skin to bare skin. He runs his tongue up the line of her neck, feeling her shiver from his chest down to his pelvis.
"C'mon," she says, "c'mon, c'mon," and she works one hand between them to pop the button on his jeans.
He wrestles them down, along with his underwear, just far enough to get some freedom of movement—fucking tight-ass jeans, he has learned this lesson a dozen times, and yet—and by that time, Lindsey's waiting with an unwrapped condom. Between the two of them, they manage to get it slicked over his cock, and then he's bracing himself on both hands and sliding inside her with a groan.
She's hot and tight around him, and it feels so fucking good he can't move right away, just breathes her in, his forehead tipped down to hers.
"God, this is crazy," she whispers. She sounds just like he feels, awe teetering on the edge of hysteria. From this angle, he can just barely distinguish the curve of her smile, down there below her nose.
"Yeah," he whispers back. It's oddly comforting, knowing that they're in this together, unsure of what exactly they're doing or where it's all going to end but still sure, somehow, of each other. She tilts her hips and clenches around him, and he sucks in breath.
"I'm really, really fucking glad we booked this tour," she murmurs. She writhes a little underneath him, one hand trailing up over his ass.
Gerard dips his head down to bite gently at her jawline. "Hmm, me too," he agrees. "I mean, I really feel like having you guys around reminds us of our punk roots, you know? And that's really important, both for us and for the kids, and—"
"Fuck you," Lindsey laughs, and she shoves hard at his shoulder and gets enough leverage that he somehow ends up flat on his back, with her straddling him. "Want to try that again, Gee?" she asks sweetly. She's hovering over him, and he can feel the heat of her on his cock, but she's just out of reach, and she's got him pinned down with her shins hooked over his legs. The muscles of her thighs are solid against his sides. Gerard clicks another mental picture to add to the long list of images he replays in his mind when Lindsey is doing her thing onstage, contorted around the luckiest bass alive.
"I feel like the luckiest bass alive," Gerard tells her, and she throws back her head and laughs, which has the awesome side-effect of bringing the slick heat of her into contact with his dick. Gerard's eyes snap shut and he arches up involuntarily, desperate for friction.
In the dark, Lindsey's voice curls like smoke into his ear, "I'll accept that," and then he feels her hand on his cock, guiding him into her again.
Gerard's kind of worried about her knees on the uneven ground—fucking nature, seriously—but she doesn't seem concerned, setting up a steady rhythm while his fingers dig into the skin of her hips. She arches back to find a better angle and her breasts are pale and soft, her hair streaming down her back, a few stubborn stars piercing the sky above her, and it's like every pagan-goddess fantasy Gerard's ever had since he discovered Marion Zimmer Bradley. He is totally down for some Beltane action.
"Fuck," he chokes out, "fuck, you're so beautiful—"
She looks down at him and smiles crookedly, her nose wrinkled, her face flushed, suddenly so human and familiar that Gerard actually, literally stops breathing for a second.
Then, "C'mere," he says, when he can form words, and hauls her down to kiss her. On the next roll of her hips, she gasps into his mouth. "Good?" he asks, and she hums wordless agreement against his tongue. He braces his feet and thrusts up hard to meet her, feels her ragged moan spill over him like honey. "Yeah," he says, his voice hoarse like he's just torn his way through a full set. He works a hand between them so that he can thumb her clit the way she likes, just this side of rough. "Yeah, yeah, come on."
Lindsey drags her teeth against his bottom lip, then tears her mouth away to press it hot and close to his ear. "I saw you earlier," she says, moving faster on top of him now, clenching around him again, her breath damp on his neck. "You and Frankie. Onstage. I watched you."
Gerard can't help it; he moans, and his hips stutter, losing their rhythm. Lindsey shakes against his fingers and makes a tiny, helpless noise, but sets the pace again quickly, relentless.
"He loves to have his mouth on you, Gee," she breathes, "it's so pretty, you're so pretty together, I wish you could see yourselves, oh, God, I love you, I want you to—fuck, harder, I need—just—" and Gerard obeys blindly, pushing up into her, pinching her clit, and she gasps and shakes and comes, fluttering around him, pulling him with her in a bright, sweet rush.
When the starbursts fade from Gerard's vision, Lindsey's sprawled out on top of him, and a cool breeze is starting to drift through the trees, carrying the scent of green things with it. "Nature is awesome," Gerard says feelingly.
Lindsey makes a noise into his neck that's like a giggle grafted on to a happy groan, then slowly slides off of him, nibbling at his bare chest as she goes. Gerard ties off the condom and tosses it into the bushes—sorry, nature, he thinks guiltily—and collapses next to her. Their skin sticks together wherever they touch, but the breeze is still sliding around them and it's kind of perfect, the contrast of warmth and cool. Gerard imagines that they're on their own island, like The Blue Lagoon only with Starbucks, with the rest of the world oceans away.
"I have thought about it," he says suddenly. "The thing with Frank." It's the first time he's ever admitted it out loud to anyone besides Mikey.
Lindsey goes still for a second or two while Gerard pictures his words hanging in the air like a particularly fine bouquet of bunk reek, and then she shifts toward him, fitting the top of her head to the curve of his neck. Immensely relieved, he gropes for her far hand and tangles their fingers together.
"It's just," he says, on a long exhale. "There's Jamia, and the band, and."
Lindsey nods. "I get it. It's scary." She grips his fingers tighter. "And to be perfectly honest, I'm kinda scared, too. But I think… I think we all deserve the chance to be as happy as we can possibly be, you know? At least I hope we do."
Gerard rolls that around in his heart for a minute, then nudges her forehead with his chin and contorts his neck until he can kiss her mouth, awkward and off-center. And once he starts, he's right back in it again; he has to roll onto one shoulder to get a better angle, take the kiss deeper. When he finally pulls back, his forehead pressed to hers, their joined hands resting on the bare skin of her waist, his throat closes.
"The world is a fucking mess," he tells her hoarsely, "and then I get near you and everything makes so much sense. What's with that?"
Up close, he can actually feel the heat rise to her face. "That's 'cause we're staaaars, baby," she says, Robin Leach by way of Austin Powers, and presses a hard kiss to his lips. "Besides," she goes on, "I'm totally complicated." She pokes him in the sternum with one knuckle. "I'm a fucking riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a god damn Rubik's cube, and don't you forget it."
He laughs, a bright, silly sound that feels kind of like Pop Rocks in his mouth. "Yes, ma'am."
She giggles, and then shivers against him. He wraps his arms around her reflexively, dragging a corner of the blanket over her.
"You're cold," he says, "we should go."
"Mmm." She burrows closer, and her hair tickles his nose. He tilts his head back and makes a half-hearted attempt to pick constellations out of the handful of stars visible above them. He has to narrate the process for Lindsey, of course, only half-aware of what he's saying, mainly focused on how warm and soft she is and the way her laugh resonates in his chest. They've just about got a new Pokemon star cluster assembled when she shivers again.
"Okay, that's it, come on," he interrupts himself. "I'm too old for camping."
"But not too old for camp," she says, grinning, and he tosses his head, or at least as best he can. Tosses his chin, really.
"Never that, darling." He smacks a loud kiss on her forehead, then abruptly rolls on top of her. "Steamroller!" he announces. A guaranteed mood-breaker, as Gerard learned the hard way years ago.
"Oh my God," she chokes out. She swats at his shoulders and side, but mostly ineffectually, since she's laughing too hard to get much force behind it. "You can't play steamroller with one person, you weirdo!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was violating the Steamroller Geneva Conventions." He's laughing, too, enough that when she finds the right angle and shoves, he ends up on his back again. He's really got to stop falling for that move. Or maybe not, seeing as it worked out pretty well for him the last time.
"Ha!" She clambers to her feet triumphantly. "Steamroll that."
"Is that a challenge?" he asks, levering himself vaguely upright and trying to look as threatening as he can, pale naked nerd that he is.
"Please," she says scornfully. But when he reaches out to grab her elbow, she lets him, and lets him draw her in close for a kiss. Sweet and easy, with his hand on her jaw and his stomach doing that shivery, jittery thing again.
When he pulls back, she gives him another blinding grin, then skips back half a step and twirls on the spot, head tipped up to the sky and an unmistakably dorky giggle bubbling out of her mouth. A pale naked nerd, and the thought—the sheer awe-ful perfection of it—makes him as suddenly and oddly shy as she is, after her little interpretive dance of glee. They both turn toward their discarded clothes with red faces and jaw-cracking smiles.
After he's got his jeans pulled on again, his throat is clear enough that he can say, conversationally, "By the way, if Jamia beats me to death for bringing this up, I want Mikey to have all my collectibles."
"Like you guys have separate possessions," she scoffs, preoccupied with the hook on her skirt.
It's a fair point; Gerard makes a mental note to keep some shit away from Mikey just for the dramatic value of earmarking it for him in the event of his beloved older brother's untimely death. He's just starting to consider the funeral choreography—different than "Helena," obviously, the last thing he wants is to be remembered as derivative, and the guys are gonna mock him either way, but fuck that, it's his funeral—when he catches up to what Lindsey is saying, which is,
"But anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about the Jamia side of things."
Gerard freezes with his shirt halfway over his head. Suddenly, it occurs to him that Jamia and Lindsey have had more than their share of time to kill together on this tour. "Dif hmoo nng," he starts, before yanking his shirt down and attempting to make human speech. "Did you and Jamia talk about this?"
Lindsey winks. "Let's just say I have reason to believe she'd be cool with it. Theoretically. If you sacked up and talked to Frank about it."
"You're kind of an evil mastermind," he says, narrowing his eyes at her.
"Maybe," she says. She tosses the blanket to him. "And also, I love you. So there's that."
"Hmm," he muses, pulling the blanket down from where it landed on his head. "Now I think I know how Superman feels. Oh, God, you're making me identify with Superman. Don't tell Frank I said that, he'll never want to sleep with me then."
"You could identify with Professor X," she offers.
He blinks at her, then shrugs and takes her hand very deliberately. "Okay, see, now you're stuck with me forever. I'm sorry. But you've brought this on yourself, so, you know. But I'm pretty self-sufficient, almost housebroken, can get wet after midnight—"
"You're a freak," she laughs, and it sounds exactly like I love you as she drags him back toward the buses.
* * * * *
The next day, Gerard wakes up with no idea where he is or what time it is; the space inside his bunk is day-dark, and he can feel the rumble of the road underneath him. Cortez and Ray are trading Magic cards in the lounge a few feet away. He's in his usual pre-coffee fog where his head feels like it's stuffed full of cotton balls, and it's enough to make him wonder briefly if the night before was just his subconscious finally making it up to him for all those goddamn nightmares. Then he yawns and stretches as best he can and sees a smear of dirt on his arm—actual dirt, not just grime, he thinks loftily in the direction of Frank's bunk—and a little thrill of adrenaline shivers through him. He suddenly feels a lot more awake.
He's in the kitchenette staring down the coffee pot and feverishly counting the drops till he can get a halfway decent cup out of it when Frank stumbles in barefoot, wearing sweatpants and a v-neck white t-shirt.
"Coffeeeeeeee," Frank murmurs, tipping to rest his forehead against Gerard's arm. He's always snuggly right after he wakes up, and even better, said snuggling is blissfully unlikely to turn into wrestling, teasing, poking, hotboxing of farts, or any of the other delightful ways that Frankie tends to blow off steam when he's been in an enclosed space for more than about ten minutes. There are times when Gerard thinks that the fact that not a single one of them has ever actually killed Frank and dumped his body on the roadside is evidence of a higher power or Frank possessing some kind of metahuman powers or both.
"Coffeeeeeeee," Frank repeats in an aggrieved tone that suggests the coffee fairies' service is fucking terrible, and slumps around to drape himself over Gerard like a blanket, temple snugged up against Gerard's collarbone, arms slung loosely around Gerard's waist.
Gerard drops his chin to the top of Frank's head. His usual response would be something along the lines of, I made it, I drink it, motherfucker, but he's missed Frank while he's been off on the Bus of Secret Marital Bliss with Jamia, so even Frank seeking to steal the precious caffeinated joy that should rightfully be Gerard's seems like kind of a nice nod to tradition. The sun is pouring through the dirty window, turning everything in the kitchenette a muted gold. Everything except the coffee and grape jelly stains on the counter, at least. "I made it, I drink it, motherfucker," Gerard says, but without heat, and Frank snorts a laugh and squeezes him a little.
It could be like this all the time, Gerard thinks, running his fingers lightly up and down Frank's spine. Well, not all the time—he's not under any illusions that him and Frankie fucking would cut down much on the enclosed-space shenanigans, and anyway, his mom always told him that you take people as they are and don't look to change them, and he believes that now more than ever—but more of the time, at least. And to have these moments without having the constant running interrogation in his head as to why he's touching Frank, whether he's crossing a line, whether he has ulterior motives, what Jamia would say, what Lindsey would think, what Frank is thinking, for that matter. To have permission. Clarity. That sounds overwhelmingly fucking appealing, to be honest, to the point where even the thought is like a bright spike of joy in Gerard's chest, and he's just opening his mouth to say Frank's name when Ray comes in.
Frank immediately attaches himself to Ray instead, clinging to him from the side with his face mashed against Ray's arm. "Coffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," he wails plaintively.
Ray laughs. "I don't know what you want from me, dude, I can't make it brew any faster."
"You're the gadget guy!" Frank says, muffled. "Make it work!"
"Aren't I the coffee fiend around here?" Gerard says, feigning hurt. Or maybe not quite feigning it, seeing how quickly Frank had transferred himself to Ray. Frank's always snuggly when he wakes up; it doesn't necessarily mean anything. Gerard abruptly realizes that they've got several hours of driving ahead of them, and that this would be just about the worst possible time for any potentially awkwardness-creating conversations. "Quit stealing my schtick, Frank," he says instead, and it comes out pissier than he meant it to. Ray looks at him kind of strangely over the top of Frank's head, a narrow-eyed, perceptive look made possible by 1) having been awake for more than five minutes, 2) having had coffee already, and 3) being Ray Toro.
"C'mon, Frankie," Ray says. He squirms one arm out of Frank's grip and uses it to put him in a gentle headlock. "Come drool in wonder at my bitchin' new artifacts. Gee'll bring the coffee when it's done."
"Your artifacts? Is that what we're calling them now? We seriously have to work on your pick-up lines, man," Frank sighs, but he lets Ray turn him toward the door.
"Says the guy who will never have need for pickup lines ever, ever again," Ray retorts. He gives Gerard another quizzical Look before he goes, and Gerard replies with a quick shrug and flap of his hand to telegraph it's cool.
"Fucking right I won't," Frank's saying happily as Ray drags him out into the hallway. "And neither will you, or Christa will have you killed." Their voices fade under the growl of the road.
By the time Gerard makes his careful way out with the coffee (having, of course, downed a few sips for himself in the kitchenette first, as a finder's fee), Frank's on the couch. Corporal Dwayne Hicks is manhandling a pulse rifle on the TV—hot, Gerard thinks absently, just as he's done every time since he first watched this movie at age eleven—and Frank's got his legs stretched out over Bob's lap. Ray's in the chair, with Matt at his feet, head resting on Ray's knee. Their new Magic cards are neatly stacked in a box on the coffee table, abandoned in favor of the movie.
For the first time ever, Gerard's kind of annoyed to have such a goddamn touchy-feely band. How the hell is a guy supposed to tell what's touchy-feely and what's just touch me?
When Gerard hands over the coffee, Frank looks up at him and smiles beatifically, all big eyes and heart-shaped face. "Thanks, man."
Mixed signals! Gerard wants to yell at him, him and his bright delicious smile, but instead he just says, "I'm gonna go call Mikey," and leaves Hicks to obliterate alien ass without him.
Of course, talking to Mikey isn't super-helpful from a practical perspective—"You could try pulling your head out of your ass," is Mikey's first thoughtful suggestion when faced with Gerard's dilemma, followed by "Or you could just listen to Lindsey because she's way smarter than you"—but it's good to hear his voice anyway, hear him sounding happy and solid and whole. And sympathetic, after he gets through with the mocking, both of which are more comforting than Gerard really wants to admit.
And after a while, a clearly well-caffeinated Frank bounds in like Tigger on speed, whisking back the curtain on Gerard's bunk and almost giving him a heart attack. "Is that Mikey? Can I talk to him?"
At least by that point Gerard and Mikey have moved on from talking about Gerard's potentially labyrinthine love life to recapping their favorite Voltron episodes. "Some miniature weirdo wants to talk to you," Gerard tells Mikey.
"MIKEYWAY!" Frank hollers toward the phone, his mouth three inches from Gerard's face. "WITHOUT YOU I DWELL IN DARKNESS!"
"It'll go away," Gerard says dryly, but he hands over the phone, and by the time it's been passed around to everyone on the bus, and everyone has told Mikey—under cover of bullshit, and then directly—how much they love and miss him, Gerard is feeling warm and fuzzy and centered enough to let the whole thing ride for a while.
*****
Lindsey doesn't bring up the Frank Issue when they all reconvene later that night in the sticky Florida heat. Possibly she doesn't bring it up because Gerard's tongue is in her mouth, then between her legs, then in her mouth again while he fucks her against one of the half-set-up stages, which is, as it happens, also a much better sex location in theory than in reality. Gerard's getting so disillusioned on this tour. But he's getting disillusioned by way of getting laid, so he's cool with it, and Lindsey gives him an incandescent smile and tells him she missed him even though it's been less than five hours since he danced her around a rest stop, so that's more than worth a cramp in his ass.
But the next day, he's slouched against a riser and squinting into the late morning sun, idly calculating how long he can stay there before he needs to go warm up, when he sees Lindsey and Frank standing in the shadow of the MSI bus. Frank's chin is ducked down a little, but he's smiling, and Lindsey's gesturing the way she does when she's not quite sure what to do with her hands.
Gerard is suddenly very, very sorry he never learned to read lips.
It's not long before Lindsey stops talking, her hands falling still. Frank looks up at her, head tilted and eyes just slightly narrowed; after a short pause, he shrugs, smiles wider and nods. Lindsey breaks into a grin of her own and leans forward to plant a kiss on his cheek. Gerard can hear the smacking sound, even from a few dozen feet away. Then Lindsey disappears inside the bus, and Frank ambles over toward Gerard.
"Hey," Frank says, and Gerard's heart is thudding so loudly he's surprised he can even hear the word.
"Hey," he manages. Or something vaguely like that. Then his mouth starts moving, and he honestly has no idea what he's saying—something about Greedo, possibly—and Frank says,
"So Lindsey says you have something you want to talk to me about."
Frank's eyebrows are quirked in genuine curiosity, and Gerard feels relief and gratitude flood through him; obviously Lindsey didn't say what, exactly, Gerard wanted to talk to Frank about, so his escape route is still wide open. He could make up anything: sound mixing, drinking the last of the coffee, questions about the nature of the universe, fantasies about Frank's mom, anything. The awesome thing about talking all the time is that most people start out only half-listening to him anyway.
The point is that it's a gentle nudge, rather than a shove, and it gives Gerard the guts to take his metaphorical balls in his hands and say, "Lindseythinksweshouldsleeptogether."
Frank blinks. "Uh. Okay. Do you need caffeine? Or was that not supposed to be English?"
Yes, caffeine is exactly what Gerard needs, here with adrenaline suddenly screaming in his nerve endings. I think we all deserve the chance to be as happy as we can possibly be, he hears in his head, and clears his throat. "Lindsey," he says. "Thinks. We should sleep together."
Then there's more blinking, followed by a cackle. "Sure," Frank says. "Absolutely, let's do that. And then we can…" He trails off, and leans closer. It takes a massive effort of will for Gerard not to move backward, all his instincts of years of torment clawing at him to protect himself, to hide.
"Oh my fucking God," Frank says. "You're serious." He breathes in deep, and his mouth quirks in a gleeful grin. He grabs Gerard's wrist. "You're serious! Oh my fucking God!"
"Yes?" Gerard manages, too overwhelmed by abrupt terror to try to read Frank's reaction in any detail.
"I," says Frank, simultaneously ducking his head and grinning so widely he looks like the top of his head is going to just flop open and start spewing rainbows and shit. "Dude. Hell yes. Hell yes."
Gerard swallows. He wasn't expecting this to be quite so easy; it's like getting himself all geared up to kick down a door that's already open. Not that he's ever kicked down a door, but he's totally imagined doing it, and he has a really good imagination. "But, Jamia," he says weakly.
Frank laughs. "Dude. I've had a Gerard exception since…. Wait. Here." He yanks his phone out of his pocket and starts stabbing away at the keys, while Gerard exercises superhuman restraint in not asking if a Gerard exception is what he fervently hopes it is. Because it seems clear enough, but then, even with how awesome Gerard's life has been lately, he can't believe it's quite that awesome, alternate-universe awesome, Wolverine presenting him with a light saber while Freddie Mercury wails in the background awesome, so. He's a little skeptical.
Frank shows him the text before he sends it: hey, lindsey thinks me and g should hook up. thoughts?
Then he hits send, and then there's an eternal stretch of seconds where he and Gerard just sort of sit there. Waiting. In silence. Jamia might be at the store, might have her phone turned off, might be in the shower, might be time-traveling or have been beamed to another planet. Gerard can hear a couple of techs talking about acoustics; further in the background, it sounds like someone's having a water fight.
"I guess maybe I should've thought this through—" Frank starts, at the same time that Gerard blurts out,
"So I was thinking about Grindhouse, and it occurred to me that—"
And then they both crack up, snickering and clutching at each other, and Frank is actually snorting, and for some reason, Gerard has the bizarre feeling that no matter what Jamia's response is, this—this weirdest-ass, most surreal conversation of his life, and he's had a few—is all going to be okay.
They're still giggling when Frank's phone buzzes, which makes Gerard swallow his laughter pretty quickly. His heart starts doing this spastic, flappy thing against his ribs. Frank looks at the text; his grin blooms instantly, the sappy bright one he can never quite repress, and his cheeks redden under his festival tan.
"Here," he says. He holds out the phone with a hand that's shaking slightly, and Gerard reads:
knew i liked her. about fucking time, pun intended. send pictures, i love you.
Gerard blinks. "I. Ah. Um." How the hell does he respond to that? He could draw her a card: Thanks for letting me rub your husband's face on my crotch, with little flowers and squirrels and candy-pink hearts. But that's not even really what they're talking about, and he gets a sudden Technicolor vision of him and Frank, not onstage but off, in a dark corner somewhere, just hands and heat and everything he's always denied imagining.
His life is not this awesome, is the thing. "What if she thinks you're kidding?" he asks. "What if—"
His phone buzzes. The text from Jamia reads: i'm totally serious. and I love you too. Then, a few seconds later: bite him behind the ear, where the bones tat is. he loves that.
"What?" Frank asks, looking up from where he's been typing in a response on his own phone, and Gerard can feel how weird his own face looks. "Dude, you look like someone just hit you in the face and you kinda liked it. Do you like that? Because when I kicked you in the balls that one time, you were all—okay, what's it say, who's it from?" He plunks himself down next to Gerard and crowds close, his curiosity obviously overcoming his desire to give Gerard shit about his alleged kinks.
Gerard shows him the texts. Frank laughs again, and the tips of his ears are red now, too; when he grabs the phone from Gerard and leans forward, Gerard can see the delicate bones in question, there behind Frank's ear like a twisted road sign. He licks his lips and leans closer. Just to see what Frank is typing, of course.
this is frank. no state secrets on an unsecured line. i love you, g does too. look for our dicks on youtube.
always do, comes Jamia's response after a minute.
And then a minute or so after that, Gerard and Frank are done chuckling, and they've put their phones away, and they're just left sitting there in the sunlight with the realization that their girlfriends have just told them to have sex.
"So," Gerard says eventually.
Frank looks at him, face solemn but eyes crinkled at the edges. "Yes."
Gerard scrubs a hand through his hair. God, it's too fucking light out, this is not a late-morning conversation, this is a conversation for dark corners and preferably some sort of mind-altering substance, even if it's just a post-show high. Who the hell has these kinds of conversations when it's barely even noon?
"It is really nice out," Frank agrees, squinting up into the sunlight, and Gerard realizes he said all of that last part out loud. He hates it when he does that.
Fortunately, he's rescued from an immediate response by someone belching into a microphone, followed by Jimmy's voice, drifting to them over the grass. "Check. Check. Check out your mom's ass in that dress."
Frank huffs out a laugh from low in his throat, closing his eyes against the sun. The curve of his Adam's apple seems to be begging for Gerard's teeth. The bass and guitar kick in, half-tuned and sporadic but oddly comforting as Gerard struggles for a smooth transition; he's always gonna remember this, this first move on one of his best friends, on Frank, over whom Gerard has been Lady-Elaine-style pining for over half a decade now, and he wants it to be something good.
Suddenly Frank makes a choking sound and doubles over. It takes about five years off Gerard's life before he realizes that Frank is laughing: huge, helpless peals punctuated by wheezes in between.
"What?" Gerard demands, feeling the echo of Frank's hysteria tugging at the corners of his mouth like a reflex, even though he doesn't actually know what's funny yet.
"Dicks," Frank gasps out desperately, clutching his stomach, "dicks—are for—"
At which point the melody resolves into something recognizable, and Gerard is confronted with the fact that MSI, whether thanks to Magneto-esque planning or sheer fucking coincidence, is currently soundchecking "Dicks Are For My Friends."
All the tension in Gerard's body spirals up and snaps abruptly, and when he comes down, he's laughing so hard he can barely breathe, making braying noises that are probably confusing the hell out of any wildlife in the vicinity.
By the time he gets his shit together enough to look over, Frank's eyelashes are tangled with tears of hilarity, and that's it, Gerard has to kiss him, needs to kiss him or there will be a Gerard-shaped explosion that will put their pyrotechnics to shame. But they're right out in the open and this thing is going to be the hot topic soon enough without their help (primarily because the Linkin Park dudes make TMZ look restrained), and the rest of the band is still on their bus, and Gerard's not sure of the etiquette of using his girlfriend's bus for hookups, even girlfriend-abetted hookups, and—
"C'mere," Frank says, still hiccupping. "Just—fucking—come here." He grabs Gerard's hand and tugs him underneath the riser.
They end up kneeling, surrounded by metal legs and shims and the dim light that's filtering in through the cheap black polyester curtains. The dirt is cool under Gerard's knees, grounding him against the heat pulsing through his body. Frank glances up quickly, and Gerard hurries to reassure him,
"They just set this thing up like an hour ago. No way any spiders have had a chance to move in yet."
Frank lets out a relieved breath. "Thanks, man," he says, a little sheepishly.
Gerard smiles at him, and really, really hopes he's not going to puke from the churn of anticipation in his stomach. This stop-and-go is totally killing what minimal mojo he has.
"Hey." Frank reaches out, cups a hand around Gerard's cheek. Gerard leans into the touch, and Frank inhales unsteadily; his uncertainty gives Gerard courage—he's not the only one fucking terrified, here—and he leans forward to press his mouth to Frank's.
Something feels… off, for a few seconds, until Gerard realizes he's waiting for the audience, for the screams and squeals that always serve as the soundtrack of these moments. But there's nothing, just the swift intake of breath through Frank's nose, the tiny mmph of surprise. And then Frank pulls back long enough to groan, "Oh, fuck, Gee," and then he leans in and kisses Gerard for real, dirty and desperate, with his hands tangled in Gerard's hair.
Within seconds, Gerard has smacked his shoulder and then his head on the metal support behind him, but Frank's tongue is hot and eager in his mouth, which makes this easily Gerard's favorite Frank-related injury of all time.
"Sorry, Gee," Frank pants between kisses, curving a protective hand around the back of Gerard's head, "Sorry, careful, I can't—" and then he trails off into incoherent noise as Gerard shoves one hand underneath Frank's t-shirt.
"Fuck, Frankie, you feel so good," and seriously, Gerard has touched Frank's bare skin approximately nine hundred thousand times, what with how Frank is both an aspiring fucking nudist and a relentless fucking cuddler, but it's a whole different experience now, infinitely amplified by the hitching rise and fall of Frank's chest against his and the half-choked-off noises he's making in Gerard's ear.
"You're not even feeling the good part yet," Frank tells him, grinning and rubbing his hard-on against Gerard's thigh. Gerard collapses in giggles against his neck.
"That," he gasps out, "is the worst line ever, oh my God, how did you ever get laid—"
"Kinda like this," Frank says, and promptly tips Gerard back on his ass against the support, gets his pants open and his underwear out of the way before Gerard even has time to register what he's doing, and sucks Gerard's cock into his mouth.
"Jesus fuck," Gerard yells, probably way louder than he should; his hips buck up helplessly toward the wet, slippery heat.
Frank takes it, then pulls off long enough to give Gerard a mock-disapproving look. "Rude," he says, and pins Gerard's hip in place with one hand while he reaches for Gerard's balls with the other. Reaches for Gerard's balls, in fact, through the giant hole in the inseam of his jeans, making the hole even larger in the process. Gerard is absolutely taking that as an endorsement of his fashion choices. Or at least he's going to when he can breathe again, and when he can think anything besides fuckfuckfuckyes as Frank does impossible, incredible multitasking things with his hands and his mouth and his tongue, delivering on every promise he's ever made with his uncanny ability to continue to play guitar while placing himself and others at extreme bodily risk.
Frank's hair is falling forward, dragging against Gerard's belly, and Gerard reaches down to tangle a hand in it, wanting to see his face, his mouth. Frank looks up at him with dark, earnest eyes, and enough intensity to make Gerard shudder with it and arch back against the metal behind him, straining against Frank's hand on his hip. Frank's eyelids flutter shut again, and he makes a muffled humming sound around Gerard's cock.
"Fuck, Frankie," Gerard whispers, watching the stretch of his lips, the tanned, colorful contrast of his fingers against the pink of Gerard's skin. "You don't know how fucking long…." He trails off as something nags at the edge of his brain; after a few seconds he realizes it's a steady thump of a bassline, somewhere in the distance. Something familiar, something… Lindsey, he realizes with a shock, Lindsey soundchecking over on another stage while Frank blows him underneath this one, and the sound pounds through the ground below them and just then Frank does something particularly wicked with his tongue and Gerard grabs the metal support desperately and comes so hard he could swear he fucking levitates.
Vaguely, he's aware of Frank swallowing around him, staying with him through the aftershocks until it's too much and Gerard pulls back slightly with a hiss. Frank raises his head then, mouth swollen and eyes sharp, content and intent at the same time. Gerard twists a hand in his shirt collar and hauls him up for a messy kiss. He can taste himself on Frank's tongue.
"Let me," he mumbles, garbled, "let me—" His fingers scrabble at the waistband of Frank's shorts.
"No argument here," Frank says, maybe more fervently than he means to, judging by the way he laughs at himself and his eyes dip down quickly before coming back up to meet Gerard's. Gerard's caught for a split second between hugging him and fucking him, a dilemma that he resolves by pressing a sloppy kiss on his cheek while simultaneously sticking his hand down Frank's pants.
Frank sags forward against him and makes a sound that's half-whimper and half-shout; Gerard guesses his compromise worked out okay.
Frank's cock is hot and hard and smooth, curving perfectly into Gerard's hand, but the angle isn't quite right and Gerard's hand is too dry, so he nudges Frank around to lie back against him while he thoroughly licks his fingers and palm.
"Gee," Frank moans, watching him hungrily, the back of his head digging into Gerard's shoulder, hips moving restlessly, "Gerard, please."
"Shh," Gerard says, "I got you, I got you," and when he closes his hand around Frank's cock again, they moan together. "You don't know how many times I've imagined this," Gerard tells him, fascinated by the slick slide of Frank's dick against his palm, the shape of it in his hand. "I tried not to, but I did, when I heard you jerking off at night, when I heard you, I couldn't help it—"
Frank grabs a handful of Gerard's jeans and thrusts harder into his grip. "Me too, goddammit, me too…."
Gerard is rocking against Frank's ass now, even though he won't be ready to go again for a while yet. But he does, after all, have a really good imagination. "Every fucking time you get near me onstage, I get hard," he murmurs hoarsely, cheek against Frank's temple. "I want to fuck you so bad, Frankie, I want you to hold me down and fuck me, I want to lick all your tattoos, suck you and make you beg, I have years of this shit, Frank, I don't even have words for all the things I want to do to you—" and then, suddenly remembering, he leans down to scrape his teeth against the tattoo just underneath Frank's ear.
Frank shakes hard against him, breathes out his name and comes all over the ground in front of them.
Gerard hums happily, and buries his nose in Frank's hair as he slumps backward, boneless. "Hey," he says. "Your wife gives pretty good advice."
"Ngh," Frank says in what sounds like agreement, before he reaches up and drags Gerard down for another kiss.
When they break apart, Gerard wipes his hand off on the ground next to him, then curls an arm around Frank's chest. "I think I want to marry Lindsey," he muses. At which point it occurs to him that perhaps discussion of their respective wife and possibly-future-wife is completely inappropriate pillow talk.
Frank doesn't bat an eye, though, just angles his head and fucking beams at him. "Seriously? That's awesome, man, that girl is great. If you can get her roofied up long enough to commit to your diva ass, then by all means—ow!" he objects as Gerard smacks him on the knee. He quickly grabs Gerard's smacking hand and wraps it around his chest, too, keeping it trapped with his own hand. Then he snuggles back into Gerard's chest with a contented sigh.
The metal support behind them is getting less and less supportive and more and more stabby the longer they sit there, plus they've got soundcheck soon, but Gerard's not quite ready to rejoin the world just yet. He's still not a hundred percent sure this is actually happening in the universe that he typically inhabits. "Hey," he says, muffled in Frank's hair. "You said you've had a Gerard exception for a long time, right? So why didn't you say something?"
Frank doesn't respond for a few seconds, then he hitches one shoulder and rubs his thumb along the outside of Gerard's palm. "Gee, I fucking love you to death, man, but… you were kind of a mess for a while, there."
He says it totally without malice or judgment, just matter-of-fact and even affectionate, and Gerard has already flinched instinctively before he realizes he actually isn't hurt at all. Huh. He nuzzles the back of Frank's head, and Frank weaves their fingers together.
"I thought maybe I could help you more as your friend, you know?" he goes on. "You and the band, I just… I didn't want to lose you guys, and if that meant never doing this, well." He pauses, then clears his throat and looks back up at Gerard with a sly smile. "Obviously I made this decision before I actually knew what it was like to have your dick in my mouth, though. Because it is on now, man—Lindsey and J and me are gonna work out some kind of schedule, but don't worry, we'll make sure you get no less than six hours of sleep at night, no more than two orgasms a day, maybe three on off days, and—"
Gerard's almost grinning too wide to kiss him.
* * * * *
"Thank you, you fucking beautiful motherfuckers!" Gerard shouts into the mic, shaking sweaty hair out of his face. The kids in the front section shout and squeal and jostle each other, hands outstretched, and Gerard winks at them, causing what he deems to be a safe degree of hysteria. It still cracks him up, somewhere deep down underneath his cocked hip and his inarguably fabulous hair, that he, Gerard Way, who couldn't get a date till he was eighteen, is causing hysteria of any kind in anybody.
"You are all. Fucking. Beautiful," he repeats, beaming out at them, and he means it.
Ray rips out a chord to echo the sentiment. When Gerard looks over at him, he's grinning, and also managing to roll his eyes without actually moving them at all, a trick he's perfected over the years. And one which he's been employing more or less constantly for the past few hours, ever since Gerard and Frank stumbled back to their bus and Ray took one look at them and went, "Holy shit, finally, congratulations!" and hugged them both, followed by, "The people on this tour are having way too much sex," after which he disappeared to find out how soon Christa could come visit.
Gerard blows him a kiss.
Frank bumps into him from the right side. "Slut," he growls, his lower lip dragging against Gerard's ear; it sounds like anything but an insult. There are more squeals from the audience, and Gerard can see the wicked shape of Frank's smile behind his tangled curtain of hair.
"Back at you!" he shouts, mouth angled away from the mic, and Frank's bare shoulders shake with laughter.
Behind them, Cortez groans. "Save the grab-ass for the song, Jesus," he tells them, starting to pick out the intro for "Prison." Bob crashes his cymbals in solidarity, and Ray and Frank pick up the slinky, relentless beat in perfect unison. Noise rises up from the crowd like a wave.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gerard catches the flash of Lindsey's grin, there where she's watching from the wings, still sweaty from her own set. He can feel the heat of her eyes on him, and he's suddenly suffused with the absolute certainty that they can do anything, him and his band and his girl and his boy and his boy's girl and all of them, in this together, fucking unstoppable.
"I want you all to do something for me!" he calls out to the crowd. "I want you all! To be! As happy as you can possibly be. I think we all deserve that, don't you? Do you think you can do that for me?" As he shouts, the steady throb of the music weaves around him, as solid and promising as their traditional pre-show huddle. Every curve of his heart feels wide open and shining, even the corners that have been in shadow for years, the corners he didn't even know he had.
The crowd is roaring agreement, a storm of heat and sound and energy. Gerard tips his head back, holds one hand out, and gestures for more.