Much more rewarding than NPR
Recent prompt ficlets.
The Number/Pairing Meme
Bob/Jepha, Give Losers a Chance
For thesamefire
#121 "Give Losers a Chance," Beck vs. John Lennon
"Really? This is what you're doing at one a.m. after a show? Rockstar."
Jepha looks away from the tv but doesn't take his hand off his dick. Hot sound guy looks back at him, one eyebrow raised.
He can hear, very faintly, the sounds of the party going on outside the bus, but honestly, he'd rather jerk-off in the back lounge and go to bed early. "Well, if you've got something better to do, Bryar, don't let me keep you."
He didn't mean it as an invitation, so he's kind of surprised when Bob shrugs and sits down next to him.
Jepha's watching some chicks-with-dicks porno; technically it's Quinn's, but Quinn doesn't appreciate it properly. He waits for Bob to make a snide remark, but Bob doesn't say anything, just spreads his legs and pops the button on his jeans.
Jepha looks back at the tv. He's jerked off with people in the room before, fuck, he's done it while fending off Bert's drunk monkey clinginess with his other hand. But those were always his friends, not their hot new badass sound guy.
Jepha's really conscious of the fact that he's naked and Bob isn't. Bob's not touching him, but Jepha can still feel the heat of his body. After a minute he's not listening to the porn soundtrack anymore, he's listening to Bob, the rustling snap of skin on skin, his uneven breaths. He realizes that he's matching Bob's strokes, and his hand stutters. He starts up again, and now he has to concentrate on Bob's rhythm so he doesn't fall into it again. He's pretty sure that's weird.
Jepha closes his eyes and lets his head drop back against the couch. He wants to laugh at himself. He is never jerking off in the back of the bus again, this is way too complicated.
Bob comes with a choked grunt, and Jepha has to make an effort to keep his eyes shut.
He's close, achingly hard, but he can't quite make it, too focused on Bob, and his own racing thoughts, and something missing. Then Bob reaches out and tugs on his nipple ring, just the right side of too hard, and he's coming.
"Shit," he says, trying to catch his breath, "what."
"You're not exactly subtle," Bob says, and Jepha whips his head around, mouth open to tell him to fuck off.
But Bob is smiling at him, not mocking, just tiny and sweet and almost shy, and Jepha shuts up.
Bob shrugs. "All I'm saying is you should give it a chance. Socializing after a show, I mean."
"I do-" Jepha starts, but he's watching the way Bob ducks his head and looks away, and yeah, maybe he's not good at subtle after all. He nudges Bob's ankle instead.
"Well, I guess I could try it. With just one or two people," he says, and Bob grins at him.
Bob/Brian, I'll Be Just Fine
For sinsense, who asked for a happyhappyhappy porn ficlet about how Brian only like to fuck to depressing/angry songs, and what Bob does to make him get over that.
#12 "All That I've Got" The Used
Bob doesn't really notice at first. He's kind of distracted by the blowjobs. When he's having sex with Brian, he's not paying attention to the music in the background: the other bands on tour, the songs they blast between the buses after shows, whatever CDs are in the player when they commandeer the back lounge.
He probably wouldn't have noticed in the hotel, either, except that all of the sudden Bert's voice is coming from the speakers.
"Oh fuck no."
"What?" Brian says a little breathlessly.
"I can't have sex with this on. It's like Bert is in the room or something." Bob stops the music and starts editing the playlist on Brian's laptop. "Okay, wow, from now on, how about nothing by anyone we've toured with?"
"No Tatu."
"Fuck you," Bob says mildly.
"Hey, I'm trying-"
"And failing, because I'm not having sex to a bunch of songs about cheating girlfriends and horrible break-ups. Where's your Barry White?"
Brian makes an outraged sound and jumps on Bob's back, and because Bob is mostly kidding about the Barry White, he lets Brian's momentum pull them down to the floor.
The next morning, Gerard says, "So, I will totally take your creepy unhappy relationship playlist over nothing. Just for future reference."
Bob can feel the tips of his ears turning red, but he says, "See? Even Gerard thinks it's weird."
Brian rolls his eyes. "Gerard likes to have sex to songs about death."
"Well, yeah," Gerard says, "but they're romantic songs about death."
Later, after a brief scuffle that ends with Brian's feet in Bob's lap, Brian says, "It just, it reminds me of tour sex. I have good associations with those songs."
"Oh," Bob says.
The next time they have a hotel night, Brian gets them a room on a different floor from the rest of the guys.
Bob says, "Hey, I want to try something," and shows Brian the scarf.
"Someone spent too much time around Jepha," Brian says, but he lies back anyway, lets Bob tie his hands to the bedframe above his head.
"I'm not the only one," Bob says, nodding at Brian's dick, which is clearly interested in the proceedings. Brian shrugs as much as he can and grins at him.
Then Bob turns on the music.
"You bastard," Brian says, laughing. Bob was only mostly kidding about the Barry White.
Bob smirks at him and nudges his legs apart, pushing his knees up, so he can lean in and lick Brian's ass.
Brian stops laughing.
Bob takes his time, licking up behind his balls, tracing lazy circles around Brian's asshole, pushing inside him with slow, wet strokes of his tongue. He's pretty sure he could make Brian come just from this, but he's in no hurry, he's got other plans for tonight.
"Oh, fucking fuck," Brian says when Bob stops, "Bob, please."
"Shhh," Bob says soothingly. "It's okay."
Brian looks at him when he pops the cap on the bottle of lube. Bob is watching Brian's face when he slides two fingers inside himself.
He takes longer than he needs to with this part, too, just to see Brian's rapt expression.
Brian's biting his lip by the time Bob finally rolls the condom on him. When Bob kneels over him and wraps his hand around the base of his dick, Brian's hips snap up like he can't quite help it.
Bob grins at him. "Next time I'm tying your ankles down, too," he says, and sinks down onto Brian's cock in one smooth move.
They both suck in a hard breath.
Bob takes a second to breathe, then starts moving. He's copying the rhythm of the music, slow and relentless, and when Brian tries to speed him up, pushing up against him, Bob stops completely. He holds Brian still with the weight of his body, and Brian makes a noise, half-laugh, half-sob.
"Okay, okay," Brian says, and when Bob starts moving again, Brian matches him, and it's exactly right.
Bob gets a hand on his own dick, jerking himself off against the counterpoint of Brian moving inside him.
His voice comes out rough and breathy when he says, "Brian, I wanna, can I-"
"Yeah," Brian says, "yeah, come on, do it."
Bob strokes himself harder, faster, and Brian's hands flex like he's trying to reach out and touch.
"Fuck, Brian," Bob says, and comes all over Brian's face and chest.
Brian thrusts up into him a couple more times, ragged and jerky, and comes soundlessly, mouth falling open.
Eventually, when he's feeling less jello-like, Bob unfolds himself with a groan, makes himself take care of the condom and untie Brian.
Brian sits up and shakes his wrists out, then pulls Bob in and kisses him fiercely. "I get it," he says, "I get it. I know this isn't tour sex, okay? I don't want it to be that."
Bob feels the last little bit of tension in his shoulders unknot, and he presses his forehead against Brian's.
They're quiet for a moment, and then Brian says, fake-mournfully, "It's the product of years of conditioning."
Bob snorts. "It's the product of one summer when you were sixteen."
"Whatever, it will still take years of deprogramming before I'm completely over it."
Bob snorts again, but he's smiling. Bob maybe has years of playlists already organized in his head.
Brian/Gerard/Ray, A Decent Melody
For pearl_o
#301 "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" U2
When Brian quits (fails) rehab, he's pretty sure the last person he wants to see is Gerard.
Then he opens the door and sees who they sent, and he realizes he was wrong.
"Fuck." The door lurches under his weight and his stomach lurches with it and- "I'm going to throw up."
"I get that reaction a lot," Ray says solemnly.
Brian wants to tell him to fuck off for being able to joke about it, but he really does have to throw up.
He pukes until he feels hollowed out and empty, and Ray rubs his back through it and brings him glasses of water and wet washcloths. Once, Brian feels Ray's fingers brush over his skull right above his ear, and he's pretty sure it's an automatic, ingrained gesture-his hair is too short to need to be pushed back. It's probably just the dry heaves that make that seem funny.
Later, he's curled up on his side, a folded-up towel under his head, and he's watching Ray, because if he closes his eyes he gets dizzy. "So," he says, and his voice sounds hoarse and raw. "You ever get tired of doing this?"
Ray gives him a little shrug. "I hate seeing you guys do this to yourselves, but I'm not going to stop-" He waves his hands around, apparently to indicate sitting in a bathroom that smells like vomit and booze, waiting to see if someone he cares about is going to die of alcohol poisoning.
Brian closes his eyes.
*
Gerard wasn't a surprise.
Brian saw him, them, play for the first time, and it was like watching someone cut their own heart out and offer it to you on-stage, and Brian just knew.
Off-stage, Gerard was shy and quiet, tucking his hair back behind his ear, and not quite meeting Brian's eyes. The first time Brian got him to have an intense, thirty minute conversation about comic books with actual eye-contact it felt like a victory. So, yeah, falling stupidly in love with Gerard wasn't a surprise.
He wasn't expecting Ray, though.
Gerard's the one with the vision, but Ray has always been the one who dug his heels in and did the work. So right from the start Brian liked him for the entirely selfish reason that Ray made his life easier. It's just that somehow along the way, Ray became the one he leaned on, and then the one he was pushing up against the wall in some shitty venue, during that time with a new drummer and a newly sober singer, when they were all just waiting to see if everything was going to fall into place, or just fall apart.
Brian doesn't really remember any of the times he hooked up with Gerard, just a hazy sense-memory of alcohol and body heat. He doesn't know if Gerard remembers, either, and he has no intention of ever asking.
He remembers everything about the times with Ray with cut-glass clarity, up to and including the time he found Ray asleep on the couch and Gerard drawing him. He looked at the soft, sweet expression on Gerard's face and thought, Oh. Well, yes. Because, really, it was perfect. Ray was in love with Gerard, because everyone was in a little in love with Gerard, and he would make Gerard happy, and they would have each other on tour. Like tying up loose ends, and it made Brian's chest feel tight.
After the show, he got roaring drunk. The next morning, he flew back to Jersey early, and didn't go back for the rest of the tour.
And that was that.
*
He wakes up in the morning and he feel like he's been hit by a truck. He spends a few moments contemplating hangovers, and how they're never quite bad enough to make drinking seem unappealing, before he has enough energy to reach for the water and the economy-size bottle of ibuprofen Ray left on the nightstand.
When he staggers out into the kitchen, Ray is sitting at the table reading the newspaper. There's a plate of greasy diner hash-browns in the toaster oven and a two liter bottle of Coke in the fridge.
There's also two bottles of vodka and a bottle of tequila on the counter, brand new and unopened, because Brian threw away all the liquor in his house when he went into rehab.
Ray hasn't touched them and Brian tries not to think about it while he eats the hash-browns, tries not think about how what his hangover really needs is a shot or two of vodka in his Coke.
"Gerard didn't just magically sober up after Kansas City," Ray says, and Brian flinches. "You don't-we know this is hard, we still-"
"You don't know shit," Brian says, and Ray flinches.
Brian goes back to bed.
He wakes up again in the afternoon, and Ray is sitting on the couch with a half-eaten pizza watching basketball. Brian makes it all the way through that game, and the one after it, before he has to get up and do three shots of vodka at the kitchen sink.
Ray doesn't say anything, but he looks so sad that Brian doesn't pour the fourth shot.
"Fuck," he says, gripping the counter hard enough to make his knuckles white.
Ray tugs him away from the sink, turns him around. He kisses Brian's forehead, and then his mouth, soft and careful, and then nudges him towards the bedroom.
Brian's stomach is knotted up with something like apprehension, but Ray just curls up around him on the bed. It's been so long since Brian just slept with someone that he's kind of forgotten how nice it is. He holds onto the arm Ray wrapped around him, stares into the dark and tries to match Ray's breathing.
When he wakes up, Ray is still curled around his back, but now Gerard is pressed up against his front, and he doesn't know when that happened.
It takes him a minute to realize he also doesn't know what commitments they're blowing off to come hold his hand. He would actually have to look up their schedule to know where they're supposed to be.
Gerard snuffles against his throat, then opens his eyes and kind of scrunches his nose up at Brian.
Ray sits up and yawns. "Cavalry's here," he says, and leans over Brian to kiss Gerard, easy and closed-mouthed, before getting out of bed.
Gerard smiles at Brian and kisses him just the same, then leans over the side of the bed to dig out his cigarettes.
Brian takes the cigarette and the lighter automatically.
After a minute, Ray sticks his head out of the bathroom to say, "You two will die in a fire."
Gerard blows a stream of smoke at him and Ray rolls his eyes and retreats.
"Do you think he'd make us coffee if we stayed in bed and looked pitiful?" Gerard asks.
"No?" Brian says, a little thrown by the sudden domesticity.
"Hmmm."
"Gerard-"
"I've got the name of another guy," Gerard says in a rush. "It's not a clinic, it's more, um, non-traditional."
Brian opens his mouth, but doesn't know what to say. Gerard hugs him.
"You saved my life, Brian." Gerard always says this, and for the first time, Brian can maybe understand what he means, how literal it feels. "I'm going to save yours if it fucking kills us both."
Brian snorts weakly and looks down at his hands.
"If this doesn't work out for you, we will find something different." Gerard meets his eyes, serious and steady. "You're not in this alone."
Brian looks at Ray, hovering in the doorway, equally serious.
"Yeah," he says, "okay."
*
Gerard's mountain-man therapist is not bad. When he leaves, Brian feels good, more stable, more grounded. He still wants a drink, but for the first time in a long time, there are other things he wants more.
He hitches his bag higher on his shoulder, and starts walking towards Gerard and Ray.
Timestamp Meme
One year after Pretty Pink Ribbon
For sansets
Gerard is recording and Lindsey's on tour in Europe, but they both take a couple of days off so they can spend their anniversary in Paris.
They have sex on every flat surface in the hotel room, including a bout of ridiculous and giggly shower sex, and in between they take their sketchbooks to tiny cafés and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and pretend they are penniless artists.
It's glorious.
The morning of their last day in Paris, they order in coffee and chocolate croissants and fuck, slow and sweet and lazy, and afterwards, they doze off in the pale new sunshine.
When Lindsey wakes up, she feels...good. Loose and relaxed and happy. She eases out of bed carefully, not wanting to wake Gerard up, and goes to the bathroom to pee and brush her teeth.
Then she stands naked in the middle of the room and tries to decide if she wants to go back to bed, or maybe order lunch, or maybe just draw Gerard while he's sleeping. He's sprawled out on his stomach, rumpled and a little flushed, and there's a bite-mark on his shoulder.
She stretches, long and luxurious, and feels a little spark of something in her belly. Oh, she thinks, looking at his mouth, and then, why not?
She drops into the big armchair by the window, fake-silk upholstery smooth and cool against her skin, and sprawls out, sliding her hands down over her breasts and belly and inner thighs, brush of fingers between her legs.
She's not in any hurry, taking little stroking passes over and around her clit, fingertips barely dipping inside her. She's not really thinking about anything in particular, just jumbled fragments of memory and fantasy blending together.
On the bed, Gerard stirs and wakes up. He blinks at her, and then his eyes widen and he grins.
She thinks about it, about crooking her finger and having him come over and finish what she started. But in the end she just spreads her legs wider and slides a finger inside herself, bringing it out slick and shining to spread the wetness around her clit. She'll regret it in a month or so, when it's just her and her right hand and Gerard's voice on the other end of the phone, but for now there is something almost decadent about getting herself off while he watches, like having dessert for dinner.
He props his chin up on his crossed arms.
The room is still and quiet, and it seems like the only sounds she hears are the wet slip and press of her fingers against her clit, and her uneven breath. She closes her eyes and lets her head fall back against the chair, biting one lip as the tension builds in her thighs and belly.
"What are you thinking about?" Gerard asks, low and hushed, and she gives him a half-shrug.
"Nothing. You. Fucking you-" How his face looks when he comes, and how it's the same expression when she's the one on her back. She curls two fingers inside herself and presses the heel of her hand to her clit, and her orgasm washes over her like a long, slow wave, like something warm and golden spilling inside her.
"Oh," Gerard says softly, and she opens her eyes.
She pushes herself up and out of the chair and crosses the three steps to the bed. Gerard rolls onto his side when she crawls into bed, so he can catch her wrist and slide her fingers into his mouth. He licks at them and she shivers and pets back, tiny movements of her fingertips against his tongue. When she pulls her hand away and kisses him, she would like to think that she tastes herself on his lips.
She flops down next to him and puts her head on his shoulder, and he curls his arm around her. In six hours, she will be taking an overnight train back to her band, and in twelve, Gerard will be flying back to his. But this, here, now, feels like it will last forever.
The morning after Irresistible Force/Immovable Object
For yan_tan_tether
Frank leans up to kiss Bob, soft and sweet.
"Love you," he says into the phone, and he doesn't look away from Bob.
Bob closes his eyes just for a second, because he is so, so fucked.
Frank ends the call and Bob sits up. He fishes his shirt out from the mess on the floor and pulls it on, and makes it all the way to the door before he remembers.
"The door's still stuck."
"Yup," Frank says. Bob turns around. Frank is sitting in the middle of the bed, naked to the waist and still holding on to Bob's Sidekick. He's as quiet as Bob has ever seen him, and Bob can't read his expression.
"So...do you want to talk about last night?"
Bob snorts. "Not especially, no. Do you want to call someone to open the door?"
"Not especially, no."
On any other day, Bob would go over there and make Frank give him the phone back. Today, Bob is not really up for a platonic wrestling match, not when he can still hear Frank telling Jamia everything he wanted to do to Bob, when he can still hear Jamia whispering in his ear giving him permission, blessing, suggestions. Not when he can he still feel Frank's skin, fever-hot, pressed against him.
Bob sits down on the floor and lets his head thunk back against the door.
Frank looks at him for a long moment, then tosses him the phone. Bob, startled, catches it mostly out of reflex. He hesitates, and Frank says in a rush, "I'm sorry about last night."
Bob makes himself smile. "Nah, it's cool, you were-"
"No, I mean, I'm sorry I didn't have the balls to say something sooner, I'm sorry we asked you like this." Frank is tense all over, and he has that serious, intent expression he gets when he's talking about something really important. "But even if I wasn't, wasn't-"
"Sober?"
"Whatever. Jamia was, and she still said this was okay, so."
Bob blows out a breath and looks up at the ceiling. He wants to make a joke about Jamia having power of attorney over Frank's dick, but he doesn't think it will come out funny. And he really doesn't want to say what he was thinking last night, that he would have rather Jamia had just said no instead of acting like Bob fucking Frank wasn't a big deal. Like it wouldn't mean anything.
He is suddenly ready for this conversation to be over. He flips open the Sidekick and Frank scrambles out of the bed and into Bob's lap. Bob steadies him automatically.
"Listen, listen, I don't-I still want this, Jamia still wants this," Frank says. "It was a shitty way to ask, but the question still stands. I don't want to pretend this never happened." Frank glances away for a second. "Unless you don't want this. Us."
"Shut up," Bob says, and his hand tightens on Frank's hip. Something like hope jumps in Frank's eyes.
"I swear, we wouldn't ask if it wasn't important to us."
"Jamia-"
"Gets back in two days."
Bob can feel himself wavering. "How do you know that this is going to work out? That we won't fuck this up?"
Frank shrugs. "I don't. But sometimes you just gotta take that leap of faith and trust that the universe won't kick you in the balls."
Bob thinks about that phone call in the middle of tour, about the shitty van that picked him up at the airport in Jersey.
Frank can tell the second he gives in, because his face lights up and he laughs. This time, when he leans up to kiss Bob, Bob kisses him back.
What happens when it's time for Sophie to go to kindergarten ( Third Wheel universe)
For secrethappiness
Jamia knows that if you try to argue Frank out of a bad idea, he will dig his heels in and hang onto it beyond all reason. But if you let him think about it for a while, he'll usually recognize the flaws in his plan on his own, often before a hospital stay is required.
So she just exchanges a look with Bob and makes a noncommittal noise.
Two days later, Frank flops down across their laps on the couch and says, "Okay, fine, maybe we can't home-school her on the bus until she's eighteen."
Brian schedules the end of the summer tour so all three of them can be there on Sophie's first day of kindergarten.
Sophie's got one hand wrapped around Frank's and her little ladybug-shaped lunchbox in the other, and she's practically vibrating with excitement. Jamia's carrying Nate, because Sophie wanted her little brother to see her school. Bob brings up the rear, a solid, comforting presence, even if Jamia has to keep poking him to get him to stop glaring suspiciously at the other parents and children.
Bob stands out less than he'd worried he would. There's a lot of couples, but there's a fair number of grandparents and step-parents and aunts and uncles, and nobody's counting heads.
Frank introduces all five of them to the teacher, and they don't explain Bob.
"Oh," she says, and there's a little bit of a question in it.
Jamia smiles back, candy-sweet and it doesn't reach her eyes. The band knows about them, and their families, but she'll be damned if she's going to explain it to some random stranger.
The teacher drops it.
They make small talk with the other parents while the kids run around the classroom. Sophie has a very serious discussion with Bob about how to fit the most stuff in her cubby. Then it's time for the goodbye hugs, and the walk back to the car without Sophie.
Frank sniffles. "Shut up," he mutters, before they say anything, but Jamia's not really in a position to make fun of him, and she just slides her arm around his waist.
Bob catches her eye over Frank's head and gives her a tiny, wry smile before he slings his arm around Frank's shoulders from the other side.
They have two weeks, and then the band starts touring again. It's not so bad at first. It's not the first time they've been apart for a tour leg; Jamia and the kids would skip the international ones and the ones with a lot of flying. Bob and Frank call and video-conference as often as they can. They manage to come back for a couple of long weekends, and the whole band is back for Thanksgiving, and they have an entire month off at Christmas. (Or as it's known in their household, the Non-Denominational Winter Festival of Love, Peace, and Token Gift-Giving. Jamia is working on the name.)
It's just that she misses them. She got spoiled by these last couple of years of touring together, and now it's like back in the van days. Only worse, because Sophie and Nate miss them, too.
The band ends up having a show scheduled the same day as Sophie's class's spring play. Jamia spends an hour trying to cheer Sophie up with plans for videotaping the play, and then locks herself in the bathroom and cries.
Two days later, she opens the door and Bob is on the other side.
"Surprise," he says, a little sheepishly.
"Bob!" Nate says, and steps out from behind her legs, holding his arms up imperiously.
"Hey, kiddo," Bob says, and when he reaches down to ruffle Nate's hair instead of picking him up, Jamia knows why he's back.
Later, in the kitchen, she makes him take the braces off so she can run her fingertips over the scars from his last surgery. "How bad is it?"
Bob shrugs. "I could have played a couple more shows."
She makes a dubious noise.
"I'll be good to play the summer tours, so I'll be home until then. They're going to announce it tonight. We wanted to surprise you."
"That's-" She stops, swallows. "Come pick up Sophie with me, she'll be so thrilled."
There's a lot of stuff she can't bring herself to hope for, because it's too much like hoping for other people's unhappiness. But at the play, when she looks over and sees Bob with the video camera and Nate standing on the chair next to him, solemnly holding up the cell phone so Frank can hear, she believes like she did all those years ago that they can have this, they can make this work.
The Number/Pairing Meme
Bob/Jepha, Give Losers a Chance
For thesamefire
#121 "Give Losers a Chance," Beck vs. John Lennon
"Really? This is what you're doing at one a.m. after a show? Rockstar."
Jepha looks away from the tv but doesn't take his hand off his dick. Hot sound guy looks back at him, one eyebrow raised.
He can hear, very faintly, the sounds of the party going on outside the bus, but honestly, he'd rather jerk-off in the back lounge and go to bed early. "Well, if you've got something better to do, Bryar, don't let me keep you."
He didn't mean it as an invitation, so he's kind of surprised when Bob shrugs and sits down next to him.
Jepha's watching some chicks-with-dicks porno; technically it's Quinn's, but Quinn doesn't appreciate it properly. He waits for Bob to make a snide remark, but Bob doesn't say anything, just spreads his legs and pops the button on his jeans.
Jepha looks back at the tv. He's jerked off with people in the room before, fuck, he's done it while fending off Bert's drunk monkey clinginess with his other hand. But those were always his friends, not their hot new badass sound guy.
Jepha's really conscious of the fact that he's naked and Bob isn't. Bob's not touching him, but Jepha can still feel the heat of his body. After a minute he's not listening to the porn soundtrack anymore, he's listening to Bob, the rustling snap of skin on skin, his uneven breaths. He realizes that he's matching Bob's strokes, and his hand stutters. He starts up again, and now he has to concentrate on Bob's rhythm so he doesn't fall into it again. He's pretty sure that's weird.
Jepha closes his eyes and lets his head drop back against the couch. He wants to laugh at himself. He is never jerking off in the back of the bus again, this is way too complicated.
Bob comes with a choked grunt, and Jepha has to make an effort to keep his eyes shut.
He's close, achingly hard, but he can't quite make it, too focused on Bob, and his own racing thoughts, and something missing. Then Bob reaches out and tugs on his nipple ring, just the right side of too hard, and he's coming.
"Shit," he says, trying to catch his breath, "what."
"You're not exactly subtle," Bob says, and Jepha whips his head around, mouth open to tell him to fuck off.
But Bob is smiling at him, not mocking, just tiny and sweet and almost shy, and Jepha shuts up.
Bob shrugs. "All I'm saying is you should give it a chance. Socializing after a show, I mean."
"I do-" Jepha starts, but he's watching the way Bob ducks his head and looks away, and yeah, maybe he's not good at subtle after all. He nudges Bob's ankle instead.
"Well, I guess I could try it. With just one or two people," he says, and Bob grins at him.
Bob/Brian, I'll Be Just Fine
For sinsense, who asked for a happyhappyhappy porn ficlet about how Brian only like to fuck to depressing/angry songs, and what Bob does to make him get over that.
#12 "All That I've Got" The Used
Bob doesn't really notice at first. He's kind of distracted by the blowjobs. When he's having sex with Brian, he's not paying attention to the music in the background: the other bands on tour, the songs they blast between the buses after shows, whatever CDs are in the player when they commandeer the back lounge.
He probably wouldn't have noticed in the hotel, either, except that all of the sudden Bert's voice is coming from the speakers.
"Oh fuck no."
"What?" Brian says a little breathlessly.
"I can't have sex with this on. It's like Bert is in the room or something." Bob stops the music and starts editing the playlist on Brian's laptop. "Okay, wow, from now on, how about nothing by anyone we've toured with?"
"No Tatu."
"Fuck you," Bob says mildly.
"Hey, I'm trying-"
"And failing, because I'm not having sex to a bunch of songs about cheating girlfriends and horrible break-ups. Where's your Barry White?"
Brian makes an outraged sound and jumps on Bob's back, and because Bob is mostly kidding about the Barry White, he lets Brian's momentum pull them down to the floor.
The next morning, Gerard says, "So, I will totally take your creepy unhappy relationship playlist over nothing. Just for future reference."
Bob can feel the tips of his ears turning red, but he says, "See? Even Gerard thinks it's weird."
Brian rolls his eyes. "Gerard likes to have sex to songs about death."
"Well, yeah," Gerard says, "but they're romantic songs about death."
Later, after a brief scuffle that ends with Brian's feet in Bob's lap, Brian says, "It just, it reminds me of tour sex. I have good associations with those songs."
"Oh," Bob says.
The next time they have a hotel night, Brian gets them a room on a different floor from the rest of the guys.
Bob says, "Hey, I want to try something," and shows Brian the scarf.
"Someone spent too much time around Jepha," Brian says, but he lies back anyway, lets Bob tie his hands to the bedframe above his head.
"I'm not the only one," Bob says, nodding at Brian's dick, which is clearly interested in the proceedings. Brian shrugs as much as he can and grins at him.
Then Bob turns on the music.
"You bastard," Brian says, laughing. Bob was only mostly kidding about the Barry White.
Bob smirks at him and nudges his legs apart, pushing his knees up, so he can lean in and lick Brian's ass.
Brian stops laughing.
Bob takes his time, licking up behind his balls, tracing lazy circles around Brian's asshole, pushing inside him with slow, wet strokes of his tongue. He's pretty sure he could make Brian come just from this, but he's in no hurry, he's got other plans for tonight.
"Oh, fucking fuck," Brian says when Bob stops, "Bob, please."
"Shhh," Bob says soothingly. "It's okay."
Brian looks at him when he pops the cap on the bottle of lube. Bob is watching Brian's face when he slides two fingers inside himself.
He takes longer than he needs to with this part, too, just to see Brian's rapt expression.
Brian's biting his lip by the time Bob finally rolls the condom on him. When Bob kneels over him and wraps his hand around the base of his dick, Brian's hips snap up like he can't quite help it.
Bob grins at him. "Next time I'm tying your ankles down, too," he says, and sinks down onto Brian's cock in one smooth move.
They both suck in a hard breath.
Bob takes a second to breathe, then starts moving. He's copying the rhythm of the music, slow and relentless, and when Brian tries to speed him up, pushing up against him, Bob stops completely. He holds Brian still with the weight of his body, and Brian makes a noise, half-laugh, half-sob.
"Okay, okay," Brian says, and when Bob starts moving again, Brian matches him, and it's exactly right.
Bob gets a hand on his own dick, jerking himself off against the counterpoint of Brian moving inside him.
His voice comes out rough and breathy when he says, "Brian, I wanna, can I-"
"Yeah," Brian says, "yeah, come on, do it."
Bob strokes himself harder, faster, and Brian's hands flex like he's trying to reach out and touch.
"Fuck, Brian," Bob says, and comes all over Brian's face and chest.
Brian thrusts up into him a couple more times, ragged and jerky, and comes soundlessly, mouth falling open.
Eventually, when he's feeling less jello-like, Bob unfolds himself with a groan, makes himself take care of the condom and untie Brian.
Brian sits up and shakes his wrists out, then pulls Bob in and kisses him fiercely. "I get it," he says, "I get it. I know this isn't tour sex, okay? I don't want it to be that."
Bob feels the last little bit of tension in his shoulders unknot, and he presses his forehead against Brian's.
They're quiet for a moment, and then Brian says, fake-mournfully, "It's the product of years of conditioning."
Bob snorts. "It's the product of one summer when you were sixteen."
"Whatever, it will still take years of deprogramming before I'm completely over it."
Bob snorts again, but he's smiling. Bob maybe has years of playlists already organized in his head.
Brian/Gerard/Ray, A Decent Melody
For pearl_o
#301 "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" U2
When Brian quits (fails) rehab, he's pretty sure the last person he wants to see is Gerard.
Then he opens the door and sees who they sent, and he realizes he was wrong.
"Fuck." The door lurches under his weight and his stomach lurches with it and- "I'm going to throw up."
"I get that reaction a lot," Ray says solemnly.
Brian wants to tell him to fuck off for being able to joke about it, but he really does have to throw up.
He pukes until he feels hollowed out and empty, and Ray rubs his back through it and brings him glasses of water and wet washcloths. Once, Brian feels Ray's fingers brush over his skull right above his ear, and he's pretty sure it's an automatic, ingrained gesture-his hair is too short to need to be pushed back. It's probably just the dry heaves that make that seem funny.
Later, he's curled up on his side, a folded-up towel under his head, and he's watching Ray, because if he closes his eyes he gets dizzy. "So," he says, and his voice sounds hoarse and raw. "You ever get tired of doing this?"
Ray gives him a little shrug. "I hate seeing you guys do this to yourselves, but I'm not going to stop-" He waves his hands around, apparently to indicate sitting in a bathroom that smells like vomit and booze, waiting to see if someone he cares about is going to die of alcohol poisoning.
Brian closes his eyes.
*
Gerard wasn't a surprise.
Brian saw him, them, play for the first time, and it was like watching someone cut their own heart out and offer it to you on-stage, and Brian just knew.
Off-stage, Gerard was shy and quiet, tucking his hair back behind his ear, and not quite meeting Brian's eyes. The first time Brian got him to have an intense, thirty minute conversation about comic books with actual eye-contact it felt like a victory. So, yeah, falling stupidly in love with Gerard wasn't a surprise.
He wasn't expecting Ray, though.
Gerard's the one with the vision, but Ray has always been the one who dug his heels in and did the work. So right from the start Brian liked him for the entirely selfish reason that Ray made his life easier. It's just that somehow along the way, Ray became the one he leaned on, and then the one he was pushing up against the wall in some shitty venue, during that time with a new drummer and a newly sober singer, when they were all just waiting to see if everything was going to fall into place, or just fall apart.
Brian doesn't really remember any of the times he hooked up with Gerard, just a hazy sense-memory of alcohol and body heat. He doesn't know if Gerard remembers, either, and he has no intention of ever asking.
He remembers everything about the times with Ray with cut-glass clarity, up to and including the time he found Ray asleep on the couch and Gerard drawing him. He looked at the soft, sweet expression on Gerard's face and thought, Oh. Well, yes. Because, really, it was perfect. Ray was in love with Gerard, because everyone was in a little in love with Gerard, and he would make Gerard happy, and they would have each other on tour. Like tying up loose ends, and it made Brian's chest feel tight.
After the show, he got roaring drunk. The next morning, he flew back to Jersey early, and didn't go back for the rest of the tour.
And that was that.
*
He wakes up in the morning and he feel like he's been hit by a truck. He spends a few moments contemplating hangovers, and how they're never quite bad enough to make drinking seem unappealing, before he has enough energy to reach for the water and the economy-size bottle of ibuprofen Ray left on the nightstand.
When he staggers out into the kitchen, Ray is sitting at the table reading the newspaper. There's a plate of greasy diner hash-browns in the toaster oven and a two liter bottle of Coke in the fridge.
There's also two bottles of vodka and a bottle of tequila on the counter, brand new and unopened, because Brian threw away all the liquor in his house when he went into rehab.
Ray hasn't touched them and Brian tries not to think about it while he eats the hash-browns, tries not think about how what his hangover really needs is a shot or two of vodka in his Coke.
"Gerard didn't just magically sober up after Kansas City," Ray says, and Brian flinches. "You don't-we know this is hard, we still-"
"You don't know shit," Brian says, and Ray flinches.
Brian goes back to bed.
He wakes up again in the afternoon, and Ray is sitting on the couch with a half-eaten pizza watching basketball. Brian makes it all the way through that game, and the one after it, before he has to get up and do three shots of vodka at the kitchen sink.
Ray doesn't say anything, but he looks so sad that Brian doesn't pour the fourth shot.
"Fuck," he says, gripping the counter hard enough to make his knuckles white.
Ray tugs him away from the sink, turns him around. He kisses Brian's forehead, and then his mouth, soft and careful, and then nudges him towards the bedroom.
Brian's stomach is knotted up with something like apprehension, but Ray just curls up around him on the bed. It's been so long since Brian just slept with someone that he's kind of forgotten how nice it is. He holds onto the arm Ray wrapped around him, stares into the dark and tries to match Ray's breathing.
When he wakes up, Ray is still curled around his back, but now Gerard is pressed up against his front, and he doesn't know when that happened.
It takes him a minute to realize he also doesn't know what commitments they're blowing off to come hold his hand. He would actually have to look up their schedule to know where they're supposed to be.
Gerard snuffles against his throat, then opens his eyes and kind of scrunches his nose up at Brian.
Ray sits up and yawns. "Cavalry's here," he says, and leans over Brian to kiss Gerard, easy and closed-mouthed, before getting out of bed.
Gerard smiles at Brian and kisses him just the same, then leans over the side of the bed to dig out his cigarettes.
Brian takes the cigarette and the lighter automatically.
After a minute, Ray sticks his head out of the bathroom to say, "You two will die in a fire."
Gerard blows a stream of smoke at him and Ray rolls his eyes and retreats.
"Do you think he'd make us coffee if we stayed in bed and looked pitiful?" Gerard asks.
"No?" Brian says, a little thrown by the sudden domesticity.
"Hmmm."
"Gerard-"
"I've got the name of another guy," Gerard says in a rush. "It's not a clinic, it's more, um, non-traditional."
Brian opens his mouth, but doesn't know what to say. Gerard hugs him.
"You saved my life, Brian." Gerard always says this, and for the first time, Brian can maybe understand what he means, how literal it feels. "I'm going to save yours if it fucking kills us both."
Brian snorts weakly and looks down at his hands.
"If this doesn't work out for you, we will find something different." Gerard meets his eyes, serious and steady. "You're not in this alone."
Brian looks at Ray, hovering in the doorway, equally serious.
"Yeah," he says, "okay."
*
Gerard's mountain-man therapist is not bad. When he leaves, Brian feels good, more stable, more grounded. He still wants a drink, but for the first time in a long time, there are other things he wants more.
He hitches his bag higher on his shoulder, and starts walking towards Gerard and Ray.
Timestamp Meme
One year after Pretty Pink Ribbon
For sansets
Gerard is recording and Lindsey's on tour in Europe, but they both take a couple of days off so they can spend their anniversary in Paris.
They have sex on every flat surface in the hotel room, including a bout of ridiculous and giggly shower sex, and in between they take their sketchbooks to tiny cafés and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and pretend they are penniless artists.
It's glorious.
The morning of their last day in Paris, they order in coffee and chocolate croissants and fuck, slow and sweet and lazy, and afterwards, they doze off in the pale new sunshine.
When Lindsey wakes up, she feels...good. Loose and relaxed and happy. She eases out of bed carefully, not wanting to wake Gerard up, and goes to the bathroom to pee and brush her teeth.
Then she stands naked in the middle of the room and tries to decide if she wants to go back to bed, or maybe order lunch, or maybe just draw Gerard while he's sleeping. He's sprawled out on his stomach, rumpled and a little flushed, and there's a bite-mark on his shoulder.
She stretches, long and luxurious, and feels a little spark of something in her belly. Oh, she thinks, looking at his mouth, and then, why not?
She drops into the big armchair by the window, fake-silk upholstery smooth and cool against her skin, and sprawls out, sliding her hands down over her breasts and belly and inner thighs, brush of fingers between her legs.
She's not in any hurry, taking little stroking passes over and around her clit, fingertips barely dipping inside her. She's not really thinking about anything in particular, just jumbled fragments of memory and fantasy blending together.
On the bed, Gerard stirs and wakes up. He blinks at her, and then his eyes widen and he grins.
She thinks about it, about crooking her finger and having him come over and finish what she started. But in the end she just spreads her legs wider and slides a finger inside herself, bringing it out slick and shining to spread the wetness around her clit. She'll regret it in a month or so, when it's just her and her right hand and Gerard's voice on the other end of the phone, but for now there is something almost decadent about getting herself off while he watches, like having dessert for dinner.
He props his chin up on his crossed arms.
The room is still and quiet, and it seems like the only sounds she hears are the wet slip and press of her fingers against her clit, and her uneven breath. She closes her eyes and lets her head fall back against the chair, biting one lip as the tension builds in her thighs and belly.
"What are you thinking about?" Gerard asks, low and hushed, and she gives him a half-shrug.
"Nothing. You. Fucking you-" How his face looks when he comes, and how it's the same expression when she's the one on her back. She curls two fingers inside herself and presses the heel of her hand to her clit, and her orgasm washes over her like a long, slow wave, like something warm and golden spilling inside her.
"Oh," Gerard says softly, and she opens her eyes.
She pushes herself up and out of the chair and crosses the three steps to the bed. Gerard rolls onto his side when she crawls into bed, so he can catch her wrist and slide her fingers into his mouth. He licks at them and she shivers and pets back, tiny movements of her fingertips against his tongue. When she pulls her hand away and kisses him, she would like to think that she tastes herself on his lips.
She flops down next to him and puts her head on his shoulder, and he curls his arm around her. In six hours, she will be taking an overnight train back to her band, and in twelve, Gerard will be flying back to his. But this, here, now, feels like it will last forever.
The morning after Irresistible Force/Immovable Object
For yan_tan_tether
Frank leans up to kiss Bob, soft and sweet.
"Love you," he says into the phone, and he doesn't look away from Bob.
Bob closes his eyes just for a second, because he is so, so fucked.
Frank ends the call and Bob sits up. He fishes his shirt out from the mess on the floor and pulls it on, and makes it all the way to the door before he remembers.
"The door's still stuck."
"Yup," Frank says. Bob turns around. Frank is sitting in the middle of the bed, naked to the waist and still holding on to Bob's Sidekick. He's as quiet as Bob has ever seen him, and Bob can't read his expression.
"So...do you want to talk about last night?"
Bob snorts. "Not especially, no. Do you want to call someone to open the door?"
"Not especially, no."
On any other day, Bob would go over there and make Frank give him the phone back. Today, Bob is not really up for a platonic wrestling match, not when he can still hear Frank telling Jamia everything he wanted to do to Bob, when he can still hear Jamia whispering in his ear giving him permission, blessing, suggestions. Not when he can he still feel Frank's skin, fever-hot, pressed against him.
Bob sits down on the floor and lets his head thunk back against the door.
Frank looks at him for a long moment, then tosses him the phone. Bob, startled, catches it mostly out of reflex. He hesitates, and Frank says in a rush, "I'm sorry about last night."
Bob makes himself smile. "Nah, it's cool, you were-"
"No, I mean, I'm sorry I didn't have the balls to say something sooner, I'm sorry we asked you like this." Frank is tense all over, and he has that serious, intent expression he gets when he's talking about something really important. "But even if I wasn't, wasn't-"
"Sober?"
"Whatever. Jamia was, and she still said this was okay, so."
Bob blows out a breath and looks up at the ceiling. He wants to make a joke about Jamia having power of attorney over Frank's dick, but he doesn't think it will come out funny. And he really doesn't want to say what he was thinking last night, that he would have rather Jamia had just said no instead of acting like Bob fucking Frank wasn't a big deal. Like it wouldn't mean anything.
He is suddenly ready for this conversation to be over. He flips open the Sidekick and Frank scrambles out of the bed and into Bob's lap. Bob steadies him automatically.
"Listen, listen, I don't-I still want this, Jamia still wants this," Frank says. "It was a shitty way to ask, but the question still stands. I don't want to pretend this never happened." Frank glances away for a second. "Unless you don't want this. Us."
"Shut up," Bob says, and his hand tightens on Frank's hip. Something like hope jumps in Frank's eyes.
"I swear, we wouldn't ask if it wasn't important to us."
"Jamia-"
"Gets back in two days."
Bob can feel himself wavering. "How do you know that this is going to work out? That we won't fuck this up?"
Frank shrugs. "I don't. But sometimes you just gotta take that leap of faith and trust that the universe won't kick you in the balls."
Bob thinks about that phone call in the middle of tour, about the shitty van that picked him up at the airport in Jersey.
Frank can tell the second he gives in, because his face lights up and he laughs. This time, when he leans up to kiss Bob, Bob kisses him back.
What happens when it's time for Sophie to go to kindergarten ( Third Wheel universe)
For secrethappiness
Jamia knows that if you try to argue Frank out of a bad idea, he will dig his heels in and hang onto it beyond all reason. But if you let him think about it for a while, he'll usually recognize the flaws in his plan on his own, often before a hospital stay is required.
So she just exchanges a look with Bob and makes a noncommittal noise.
Two days later, Frank flops down across their laps on the couch and says, "Okay, fine, maybe we can't home-school her on the bus until she's eighteen."
Brian schedules the end of the summer tour so all three of them can be there on Sophie's first day of kindergarten.
Sophie's got one hand wrapped around Frank's and her little ladybug-shaped lunchbox in the other, and she's practically vibrating with excitement. Jamia's carrying Nate, because Sophie wanted her little brother to see her school. Bob brings up the rear, a solid, comforting presence, even if Jamia has to keep poking him to get him to stop glaring suspiciously at the other parents and children.
Bob stands out less than he'd worried he would. There's a lot of couples, but there's a fair number of grandparents and step-parents and aunts and uncles, and nobody's counting heads.
Frank introduces all five of them to the teacher, and they don't explain Bob.
"Oh," she says, and there's a little bit of a question in it.
Jamia smiles back, candy-sweet and it doesn't reach her eyes. The band knows about them, and their families, but she'll be damned if she's going to explain it to some random stranger.
The teacher drops it.
They make small talk with the other parents while the kids run around the classroom. Sophie has a very serious discussion with Bob about how to fit the most stuff in her cubby. Then it's time for the goodbye hugs, and the walk back to the car without Sophie.
Frank sniffles. "Shut up," he mutters, before they say anything, but Jamia's not really in a position to make fun of him, and she just slides her arm around his waist.
Bob catches her eye over Frank's head and gives her a tiny, wry smile before he slings his arm around Frank's shoulders from the other side.
They have two weeks, and then the band starts touring again. It's not so bad at first. It's not the first time they've been apart for a tour leg; Jamia and the kids would skip the international ones and the ones with a lot of flying. Bob and Frank call and video-conference as often as they can. They manage to come back for a couple of long weekends, and the whole band is back for Thanksgiving, and they have an entire month off at Christmas. (Or as it's known in their household, the Non-Denominational Winter Festival of Love, Peace, and Token Gift-Giving. Jamia is working on the name.)
It's just that she misses them. She got spoiled by these last couple of years of touring together, and now it's like back in the van days. Only worse, because Sophie and Nate miss them, too.
The band ends up having a show scheduled the same day as Sophie's class's spring play. Jamia spends an hour trying to cheer Sophie up with plans for videotaping the play, and then locks herself in the bathroom and cries.
Two days later, she opens the door and Bob is on the other side.
"Surprise," he says, a little sheepishly.
"Bob!" Nate says, and steps out from behind her legs, holding his arms up imperiously.
"Hey, kiddo," Bob says, and when he reaches down to ruffle Nate's hair instead of picking him up, Jamia knows why he's back.
Later, in the kitchen, she makes him take the braces off so she can run her fingertips over the scars from his last surgery. "How bad is it?"
Bob shrugs. "I could have played a couple more shows."
She makes a dubious noise.
"I'll be good to play the summer tours, so I'll be home until then. They're going to announce it tonight. We wanted to surprise you."
"That's-" She stops, swallows. "Come pick up Sophie with me, she'll be so thrilled."
There's a lot of stuff she can't bring herself to hope for, because it's too much like hoping for other people's unhappiness. But at the play, when she looks over and sees Bob with the video camera and Nate standing on the chair next to him, solemnly holding up the cell phone so Frank can hear, she believes like she did all those years ago that they can have this, they can make this work.