(no subject)
Okay, so. After seeing those WiP amnesty-type posts around I thought I'd throw this up. This fic? Never going to be finished (in actual fic form). I can admit that now, really. It's just. I was all excited about writing it? And then kind of...not. I don't know anymore. I just wanted Gerard dressed in drag (for no good reason!) and then kind of lost focus somewhere down the line. (I should probably war that this was my first attempt at bandslash, and that the OC I created was mostly due to my not knowing who everyone was at the time/who would be most likely to force Gerard to dress in drag. *handwaves*)
By the way, people who have friended me recently and therefore do not realize why I have dreams where I end up on Dateline for writing badfic? This fic would be one of those reasons. Ahaha. Seriously. Feel free to run far, far away from here if you want. :D
When he made the bet Gerard had thought he was sure to win, but then he didn't. Which totally sucked, but whatever, right? It's not like he sold his soul or anything, he just has to dress in drag for a day because he lost, and Tina won. Besides, he's been taught that welshing on a bet it shitty thing to do, and it's not like it's going to be that bad anyway.
Only it is. It so is.
Tina practically skips into class the morning after he loses the bet and she's smiling so hard Gerard's worried she's going to break something. But then she comes up to him and he knows it's going to be bad, so very bad, before she even opens her mouth.
“What?” He asks, edging away from her and her fucking smiling.
Tina's smile widens and Gerard's never seen so many tiny, perfect white teeth aimed at him in his entire life. “The Bet.” she says, and he can actually hear the capital letters.
“Yes,” he draws the word out longer than necessary, wondering if maybe he should have stayed home sick or something because seriously, she's freaking him the hell out with all that smiling. Tina's not a smiley person in general. She prefers scowling and glaring and, on several memorable occasions, has been moved to actual physical violence involving her foot and other people's crotches.
Thankfully, not his. (Tina claims it's only a matter of time until this is no longer true.)
“The Bet.” Tina repeats, “The Bet wherein you promised, swore to me, that you would dress in drag if you lost. Which you did.”
Gerard nods slowly, trying not to make any sudden movements. “For a day.” He adds, in case there's any sort of -
“Oh, hell no.” Tina hisses, going from cheerfully - creepily - smiling girl to angry harpy in the span of a heartbeat. “You're not pulling that shit on me.”
Gerard blinks, doesn't dare move for fear she'll actually attack. She's got sharp little nails - claws - and tiny perfect teeth and he has no weapons to defend himself with, and holy shit, does she look pissed.
“The bet was for a week, Gerard. A week of you dressing in drag.”
“Um.”
“I know where you live.” She says, eyes narrowing, and Gerard bites back anything he might have said when he realizes she does, and maybe that wasn't such a smart move on his part, and oh, god, she's totally going to kill him in his sleep if he tries to weasel his way out now.
The glare on her face loses some of its ferocity and he risks taking a breath, then another when she backs off a step or two and he realizes he wasn't actually breathing.
“It won't be that bad,” she mutters, scowling up at him. “You could, hell I don't know, you could totally sucker one of the professors into calling it an extra credit assignment or something. I hear they're all over that pretentious 'Life Is Art' crap."
Gerard frowns, thinks that he should probably be offended on their part, maybe even on the part of art students everywhere, but she really does have a point. And hey, that's kind of a good idea anyway, like that whole killing two birds with one stone thing, only without the actual killing of birds and -
“Good.” Tina sounds...smug. Definitely victorious. “Meet me out front after classes so we can get you all dolled up.”
Gerard opens his mouth to...to something, but she's glaring again and oh, hey, wearing her steel-toed boots, and why didn't he notice earlier?
“Out front.” Tina repeats. “And it's no use running, because you can't.”
She's laughing at him now, that gleeful little smirk that he kind of loves, and kind of hates in place, because he can't. For one, she knows where he lives, and for another...he's...he's an art student. Art students don't do running.
And that...that doesn't even really make sense, but it sounds cool in his head, so...
Tina snorts like she knows what he's thinking, but before he can say anything the professor's at the front of the room clapping her hands and calling them to order in a disgustingly cheerful voice. He settles for glaring at Tina instead, hoping she won't make his life too miserable over the next week even though he knows that's exactly what she's going to do because his life sucks that way.
====
====
Gerard meets Tina out front at the agreed upon time, he knows not to mess around when it come to her, and they take a bus to a little store Tina knows - “Trust me, you'll love it” - and he ends up trailing after her the entire time. She flits from rack to rack of dresses and skirts and flowery, ruffly blouses picking through them with a frightening sort of focus.
“I know you,” she tells him when she catches him frowning. “And I know you're going to want to 'Do this right', so I'm going to find you some awesome clothes and you're going to shut up and like it.”
She doesn't add the “Or else”, but they both know it's there, and Gerard's smart enough to know when to keep his mouth shut.
Except for -
"No." He says firmly when they reach the back of the store, stomach churning. He has to draw the line somewhere and Gerard is so not going to wear - "There is no way in hell you're going to get me to wear that. Just...no.”
Tina frowns at him, like she has no idea what he's talking about and shakes the hanger she's holding. “Why not?”
Gerard's eyes narrow. “It's a prom dress.”
The smile she gives him is all sweetness and light and he can feel his skin crawling at the sight of it. “But you'd be the prettiest princess at the prom, Gerard. Don't you want to be the prettiest princess at the prom?”
Gerard scowls and crosses his arms, holding his ground and feeling like a petulant five year-old.
Tina rolls her eyes and puts the dress back with a sad little sigh, shaking her head and muttering about young girls these days as she starts rifling through another rack.
He ignores her after that now that they've gotten past the worst of the dresses and skirts and wanders over to look over the leather jackets. He glances up at her squeal of excitement but can't quite see what she's looking with her back to him.
When heads over he hears her murmured “Oh, this is perfect,” just as he reaches her, and cranes his neck to her holding a bundle of fabric. He can just make out the faint outline a dusty footprint on it and realizes it must have fallen off a hanger or something, but Tina's looking at it like it's the best thing she's ever seen.
He's just thrilled it's not pastel and that there aren't any ruffles.
Gerard gives her a dubious look, but Tina hands him the ball of material and several other things into his arms and give him a Look. Which, okay, normally he could ignore it, but she also uses her Mom Voice on him, and technically? Technically she isn't even a mom, but she babysits for her neighbors and has all of the necessary mom skills down cold, so Gerard listens.
It takes him more time than he'd care to admit to figure out how the stupid black thing is supposed to go, but after several false starts he's pretty sure he's managed to sort out all the straps and dangling pieces of fabric. He's not a hundred percent sure he doesn't have it on backwards or inside out or whatever, but he likes it. It's black and has this weird layered thing, something like lace over smoother fabric that might actually be satin, but not prom dress satin, so okay. He can deal with that.
Tina insisted he wear the white shirt - blouse - with it and he takes a moment to study his reflection in the warped mirror hanging on the changing room door. Fiddles with the skirt a little because it still doesn't look right but he can't figure out what's wrong, and messes with his hair. He even tries a few poses out, hands on his hips and other things he's seen models do on television and in magazines and makes a face at himself when he realizes what he's doing. Wonders if crying is an appropriate response to the fact that he sort likes the way he looks in a skirt and blouse, god, blouse. Not shirt, blouse.
Gerard decides to shelve his mental breakdown for the moment when Tina starts knocking on the flimsy door, tempted to pretend he can't hear her knocking. Which no, he's sure people all over the state can hear her, but then she gives one good, solid kick to the bottom of the door and he sees it give. The door actually bends a little and as much as he would like to Gerard can't hide out in the changing room forever.
"Jesus, fine, okay?" He flips the lock and cracks the door open. "Get in here before anyone sees."
She chortles at that, really, seriously chortles, and slips in through the open door and turns around to check him out and ends up staring at him.
"Fuck."
Gerard's eyes go wide at that, worried that he really does have the skirt on inside out or backwards or something, but the frown on Tina's face softens out when she reaches up to brush his hair out of his eyes. "How the hell do you manage to look better in this shit than I do?"
And...oh. Oh.
Gerard puffs his chest out and examines his nails as he watches her from the corner of his eye. "Well, you know how it is. Some people have it and others don't."
Tina smiles at him, the freaky one that's all sunshine and rainbows and then, oh yeah. And then there's a steel-toed boot in his crotch and fucking hell, Mikey better be straight (or at least bi-sexual) or their parents are never going to have the grandkids they keep hinting about.
"Get changed, princess," Tina says, stepping over him on her way out of the changing room. "We've got a few places to go before we're done making you into the prettiest little girl your parents never had."
====
====
Gerard's kind of horrified, but Tina smiles at him and taps her foot on the ground meaningfully and Gerard's still limping so he pulls the door open and holds it for her before following.
There are a a disturbing number of generic prints on the walls with landscapes and geometric art along with posters showing off various products. Soft music is playing over the speakers, something he's positive has been carefully selected to be calming and soothing and is really just sort of mildly annoying. He stops dead, however, when he lays eyes on the miniature jungle complete with a waterfall cascading into a pool.
He's still staring at it in fascination - there are intricate symbols and drawings etched into the fake stone that look a little familiar and actual fish - when someone comes out of the back area. "This him?"
Gerard glances over to see that Tina and the woman are talking, hands waving and he can't tell which one of them squeals loudest, but he doesn't get really worried until they turn as one and smile at him like a pair of Doublemint twins.
"All right then," the woman says, and cracks her knuckles like she's preparing for the toughest challenge of her life. "Let's get started."
"Um."
“Oh, call me Sherry, sweetie,” Sherry tells him, patting his shoulder like she really thinks his biggest concern is not knowing her name, and ushers him into one of the salon chairs. She does something with the foot pedals and he winces when it goes back a little too fast and he bites his tongue.
“Okay. Sherry. What...what's going on?”
Tina cackles somewhere off to his left and Sherry just smiles. “Close your eyes, honey. We don't want to get any of this in them.”
He wants to ask what it is they don't want to get into his eyes, but she just raises an eyebrow at him, bottle already in hand and he gives in and closes his eyes. He knows that sort of look well enough by now that it's not worth fighting.
"Don't worry," Sherry says as she starts the water running. “People usually don't start screaming until the end."
"I...” Gerard doesn't know if she's trying to be reassuring or if she's just evil like Tina. “Okay.”
Sherry hums as she works, and along with that and the steady massage of her fingers on his scalp and everything else, he almost doesn't hear Tina asking about wax jobs.
Almost.
====
====
Tina takes pity on him after the lingerie store and calls it a day. “We've got the basics covered, so unless some kind of emergency crops up, you're ready for next week.” She flashes him a smile, biting her lip to keep from laughing. “Your hair looks great, by the way.”
He grumbles and tries to act like he doesn't like it too, but her small act of kindness - probably the only one she's ever going to do in her life - was to get his hair done.
Nothing too dramatic, it's something that he would have gotten done himself if he knew the right place to go and not have it look like shit. More like glints of gold highlights like fish swimming in a sea of black and that's when she laughs and tells him he really needs to get some sleep if he's starting to talk like an honest to god Art Student.
He gives her a hug and makes sure she gets home safely before heading home himself, and it's not until he's inside that he realizes that he's going to look like a complete idiot on Monday.
In a moment of complete and utter panic he puts on the black skirt and the white blouse to see how bad he's going to look and stares at his reflection in the mirror. He doesn't look stupid, or not worse than usual anyway, and he's starting to wonder if maybe he should put his hair up or leave it down when Mikey walks in on him.
God, his fucking life.
"What the hell?"
"It's an Art School Thing." Gerard says, trying for haughty and pretentious. He wields capital letters with Intent because art kids like him are supposed be like that, right? And if he can sell it to Mikey then he might be able to convince himself he's Cross-dressing For Art, and not because he lost a stupid bet.
"So this isn't a you being gay thing? Or a you being fucked up thing?" Mikey asks, leaning against the doorframe. "Because...um."
"I'm not - " Gerard starts, but Mikey's flapping his hands at him with his “I so totally don't want to know. Really.” face on.
"Hey, yeah. No." Mikey says, straightening up from slouch. "It's cool, I just. Um." Mikey squints, and Gerard holds his arms out of the way when he steps forward and messes with the skirt until it falls more naturally. "Yeah, no. Those shoes don't work with that outfit." He looks at Gerard a little longer, head cocked to the side. "And you should leave your hair down."
Gerard watches Mikey wander out of the room looking completely unconcerned at his ability to read minds, and stares down at his sneaker-clad feet.
“Fucking hell." He mutters, kicking the bottom of the bathroom cabinet. "I need new shoes too?"
====
====
Tina meets him outside the next morning looking pissed, but thankfully she's wearing regular shoes and not The Boots. "What the hell is so important you had to get me up this early on a weekend for?"
"You didn't tell me I needed new shoes!"
Tina blinks and then doubles over laughing, hand over her mouth. "Holy shit, you really are a girl!" She gasps out, and Gerard is so not even laughing, this isn't funny!
When she finally gets her laughter - her stupid demented hyena laughter - under control she wipes her eyes and sighs. "You do know most guys don't even look past the boobs, right?"
Gerard crosses his arms because if he has to dress like a woman for this stupid bet he's going to do it right, dammit. She knows how he is about this kind of thing.
"God, fine, you prissy little diva. Shoe shopping it is."
Tina may have a heart of stone, but she also has decent taste and Gerard leaves the shoe store with a pair of awesome boots that she assures him will look perfectly fine with all of the clothes they bought the day before.
“Seriously, though, are you sure you're not a teenage girl trapped in a twenty-something geek's body?” She asks once they stumble out onto the sidewalk. “It's...you're really getting into this, you know. More than I thought you would.”
Gerard doesn't even know how he's supposed to respond to that, because really, what the hell? He tries out a Look of his own on her and she holds her hands up in a placating gesture. “Fine, fine. Whatever. Let's go see if we can find you some make-up or something, since you're so gung-ho about this.”
====
====
“Don't even think about it,” Tina snaps, slapping his hand when she finds him in front of a lipstick display. “You're not going for five-dollar whore, you're going for emo-goth-whatever the hell that is," Tina says firmly, on the verge of using her Mom Voice when he reaches for a tube of lipstick. "Put that back and I'll see if we can find you something with glitter.”
It's a tough choice, but, seriously, glitter.
"Fine."
Tina snorts and grabs his wrist, tugging him along in her wake. "Suck it up, princess."
====
====
Monday morning rolls around far too quickly for Gerard's piece of mind, and he's trying to remember how the black skirt goes together when Mikey sticks his head in and tells him Tina's there. And then she's there, in the bathroom with him shaking her head and honest to god clucking her tongue.
“Oh, princess. Not like that.” She sounds concerned, worried, but the grin tugging at her lips ruins the effect.
“Come here, let me fix you.” She orders, and he does exactly as she says feeling like some bizarre sort of doll as she arranges the skirt and settles everything in order. She takes a moment to squeeze his fake breasts and then, he really should have expected it, leers at him. “You're going to have to get used to that, by the way,” she says, patting his chest gently in apology. “You look good as a girl.”
Gerard honestly doesn't know what to say to that, so he settles for a glare. Tina just chuckles and pinches his cheek. “You're just so damned cute, sometimes princess.”
“Would you stop calling me that?” Gerard huffs, poking through the shopping bag with the make-up because if he's going to have to deal with her in his face the way she is, the least she can do is make him look pretty.
Tina laughs and takes the bag from him and sets it on the counter. “You're going to have a a heart attack if you don't calm down, okay? Just...breathe, think about...I don't know, puppies and kittens or vampires and werewolves or whatever takes you to your happy place.”
“Tina - “
“Seriously, Gerard. Relax.” She pulls out the eyeliner and turns to face him. “Relax or I'm going to wind up poking your eye out, and as funny as that would be to me, I'm pretty sure your parents would be upset.” She pauses, head tipped to the side. “Mikey wouldn't be too happy either, I guess.”
Gerard takes a seat on the edge of the tub when she points at it, and rolls his eyes before she closes in on him. “You make it sound like I'd be so fucking thrilled to lose an eye.”
Tina shrugs and turns his head a little more towards the light. “Hey, word on the street is that every little boy, even ones as precious as you, wants to be a pirate sometime, right? This could be your big chance to get started on that.”
“I think I'll pass.” He says, closing his eyes when she brings the eyeliner pencil up to his face.
“Sure, you say that now,” Tina says, fingers on his chin as she tilts his face up, “but just wait until next Halloween when you're rushing around to find a last-minute costume like always.”
He doesn't dare laugh, but he can't quite help the smile, either.
“Yeah, see?” Tina says, and he can hear the smile. “There's my pretty little princess.”
====
====
Tina's a bitch, but she's not a total one, so she sticks close on the train to school. And seriously, it's art school, so it's not likely that he's going to get hassled all that much there, but she's around. He catches glimpses of her in hallways and peeking around corners like a second shadow armed with a digital camera and a really fucking annoying laugh.
He's a little surprised at the way people treat him now that they think he's a girl. A little baffled at the way complete strangers open doors for him, smiling at him and offering friendly greetings in passing. And, maybe the weirdest thing, people are actually checking him out.
Really, seriously doing double-takes and slightly creepy once-overs that make him wish he'd thought to grab a jacket. Something to cover up with, and wonders if women, real women, go through that every day and how had he never realized?
It's freaky and disturbing and when he almost yells at someone that his eyes are “Up here, asshole!”, and has to find Tina before he completely loses it.
“Well, you're hot.” Tina tells him when he pulls her aside. “I mean, come on, there's no way you haven't noticed, right?”
He just stares at her for a long moment wondering if they're even speaking the same language. He's not...he's -
It's not like Gerard thinks he's ugly or anything, but he knows, all right? He's doesn't look anything like all the other guys he's gone to school with. He doesn't look anything like those guys everyone sees on television and in movies, and he's really kind of okay with that. It's not like -
“Christ, Gerard.” She swears, grabbing his wrist and dragging him into the nearest restroom.
He pulls back a little at the doorway because he's still got this weird “It's like an alien world” thing in his mind when it comes to any women's restroom. It's a holdover from pretty much his entire life as a member of the make gender, and he's sure it's a perfectly normal reaction on his part.
Mostly, though, it's from elementary school and hushed conversations with his classmates about what the girl's bathroom must be like based on brief glimpses of red tiles instead of green, and god, he has some weird issues.
“No shit.” Tina says, looking back with a raised eyebrow. “Just get in here all right?”
He follows since she's still holding onto his wrist, fingers tightening a little when she tugs him inside, and then she's behind him. Shoving him the last little bit to stand in front of the mirrors over the row of sinks. She moves to stand next to him, leaning a little into his side. She smiles at their reflection and one hand comes up to pat his face a little too hard.
“Okay, you need to listen to me on this, got it?” She asks, staring hard into his reflection's eyes. “This is...I can't believe I even need to explain this to you. You should know this by now.”
He's about to ask her what he should know but she pokes his cheek with a perfectly manicured nail. “See this? This is a fucking amazing face. Look at this bone structure.” Tina pokes him again. “And, okay, you could stand to get a little more sunlight, because you're really fucking pale, but it works. For you, it works.”
He looks at what she's looking at and just doesn't get it, doesn't see anything but his face staring back at him looking equal parts bewildered and skeptical. Tina looks like she's getting pissed, but before he can move away she's got his chin in her hand, shaking gently.
“Just...just forget everything else and look, okay? Pretend it's someone else's face if you have to, someone you've never met before. Think about it like a painting or drawing, something else.”
“I - “
“You're hot.” Tina says, grip on his chin tightening. “You're fucking gorgeous and you're an idiot for thinking you're not, okay? Forget that beautiful on the inside crap everyone spews because they can't see what's they've got going on. You're gorgeous all over and if you were into girls I would be all over you”
Gerard's...stunned doesn't even begin to cover it, and oh, yeah, there he goes. He watches the blush blooming on his cheeks in the mirror and Tina cracks the hell up, the hand on his face gone, and she's doubled over again, cackling like a loon.
“I. Um.”
When she stops laughing her eyes find his in the mirror and she sighs, shaking her head. “Okay, okay, so clearly you really are stupider than I thought. Just...you're not the ugly step-sister in this scenario, okay? You're hot as a guy, and, luckily for you this transfers over into you being hot as a girl.” She turns away form the mirror and looks at him, completely serious. “Unfortunately for you, this also means people will notice, and you're going to need to remember to carry mace and kick where it hurts if I'm not around to defend your highly questionable virtue.” Her lips are twitching by the end, and he can tell she's valiantly trying not to laugh.
“Oh, fuck you.”
“Oh, princess, save it for your future husband.” She makes kissy faces at him and plucks at his sleeve to get him moving. “Now hurry up or we'll be late for class.”
They make it with seconds to spare, the professor giving them a suspicious look, but Gerard smiles and waves and it's...okay, so it's a little creepy, but the professor smiles. Gerard's eyes widen and he takes the desk behind Tina's and does his best to pretend he doesn't notice her shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
====
====
By the end of the day Gerard's pretty much got the hang of things and Tina's stopped lurking around corners and in dark hallways prepared to get up in anyone's face if they give him trouble. She may be small, but she's got the heart of a really tiny, fierce Amazon, and steel-toed boots to back it up.
Tina's back at his side for the train ride home because they both know there are a lot of stupid assholes in the world and since this is really her fault she sticks it out with him.
"You suck." He mutters into her neck as they hug goodbye before going their separate ways for the night.
"You wish, princess." She whispers back, and pinches his ass when he lets her go. "Six more days!" She crows as she quickly dances out of his reach, grinning and laughing. “Six more days!”
Gerard groans and tries not to think about what else she's going to pull on him before the week's up, before he can go back wearing pants and again. Although he's going to miss the glitter, because seriously, glitter.
====
====
Things are going okay for the most part, if Gerard doesn't think about the interested looks he gets and occasional wolf whistles, and Tina's toned down the mockery. She doesn't take a picture every five minutes anymore, although she hasn't stopped dragging him over to people they know from previous classes to see if they recognize him.
Anyway. Anyway, he has a a few pages in one of his notebooks filled with notes and observations, mostly of the “What the hell?” variety in regards to how people treat him now. He's sure has more than enough to write a paper and is trying to determine which professor would be willing to buy his pitch for an extra credit assignment when Mikey calls him.
Or, well. Mikey's phone calls him, which might sound a little crazy, but he's not. He's reasonably sure he's not at least.
When he checks his phone he's sees Mikey's name, but the voice on the phone doesn't belong to Mikey. It sounds a little slurred, and Gerard sighs when he realizes Mikey's probably had a few too many when he tunes in again to hear the end of a long, rambling explanation.
“ - yeah, so someone slipped something in his drink or something, but it's cool, he's just out of it, and anyway, it would be great if someone came to get him.” And then, because Gerard's hearing sort of cuts out on him for a little bit there, “Hello? Anyone there?”
He gets the address out of the guy on the phone and tells him to “Stay put, fucking stay put and keep an eye on Mikey,” and hurries out of the house and into the cold without bothering to change or worry about anything else.
Gerard's not so much annoyed now as he is mildly - for him, mildly for him - freaking out, and he forgets that he's still dressed in drag. Forgets that boys like him (boys at all, period) don't go out in Jersey wearing skirts and make-up, especially at night and especially not to the kinds of places Mikey goes to listen to his bands.
None of this registers in his mind until he gets there and sees Mikey outside on the curb slumped down with his head on this guy's shoulder. Even then he doesn't pay attention to anything but Mikey until he gets out of the car and the guy, this seriously tiny little guy nudges Mikey and says something in his ear that Gerard's knows is supposed to be a whisper.
"Whoa, you didn't tell me you had a sister, dude."
Gerard stops, just fucking stops when the realizes the guy's staring at him with this huge smile on his face, and it's not creepy or anything, just kind of...weird.
That's when Gerard remembers all about the dressing in drag thing, and how he kind of forgets sometimes now because it's not a big thing anymore, it really isn't. It's like a Project now, and somehow it's been enlightening as hell and more than a little dispiriting at the same time. He totally gets that just because complete strangers (guys) are nice to girls, it doesn't automatically make them decent human beings, it just makes them human.
Mikey starts laughing and almost falls over from the force of it, he's laughing so hard, but Tiny Little Guy catches him before his face hits the pavement.
"She's hot." Tiny Little Guy says to Mikey, clearly too drunk to notice how loudly he's talking. That Gerard can hear him. And then, because he realizes Mikey's still laughing, Tiny Little Guy looks up at Gerard with that smile turned on high. “You're hot."
"Fuck me," Gerard mutters, careful not to smudge his makeup as he rubs his face with his hands because he is so not in the mood to deal with this shit at the moment. "Is he okay?”
Tiny Little Guy frowns and looks down at the top of Mikey's head. Pats him clumsily and nods a little too enthusiastically. “Yeah. He's just a little out of it.”
“Yeah.” Gerard says, sagging a little with relief as he eyes Mikey. “Yeah, I can see that.”
Tiny Little Guy giggles, giggles, and shrugs. “I think he got most of it out of his system when he barfed.”
Gerard's mouth twitches when Tiny Little Guy hooks a thumb over his shoulder towards a scraggly row of bushes a few feet away. “It was kind of awesome.”
Shaking his head Gerard moves forward to get Mikey on his feet and glances over at Tiny Little Guy to see if he's too drunk to help. He doesn't look that bad off, and when Gerard jerks his chin at Mikey with a raised eyebrow he scrambles to his own feet steadily enough.
“Yeah, yeah,” Tiny Little Guy says, bouncing on his feet a little. “Let me help you with him, yeah?”
Gerard bites back a laugh at his enthusiasm and the two of them manage to get Mikey up and moving, stumbling a little to the car. He takes a bit of a risk, letting Mikey lean on Tiny Little Guy while he struggles to get the back door open, but they both stay standing.
“Jesus. He's heavier than he looks.” Tiny Little Guy bitches as they shove Mikey into the backseat, and yeah, he really is.
Gerard leans in to make sure Mikey's seatbelt is fastened, ignoring him when Mikey bats uselessly at his hands and mumbles something under his breath. He takes a moment to stare at Mikey, takes his glasses off and sets them on the seat next to him. Gerard tips his head to the side and peels one of Mikey's eyes open and grins when Mikey flinches back and tries to smack him in retaliation when he recognizes Gerard.
“Fucker.”
Gerard's grin widens and he pinches his cheek, earning a scowl from Mikey that looks more like a really sad attempt at pouting. He's still looking at him though, even though that panicky feeling crowding his chest is mostly gone. “Always the sweet talker, Mikey.”
Mikey opens his eyes and glares at him, but Gerard just smiles and ruffles his hair as he ducks back out of the car and stands up. He has to slam the door and bump it with his hip to make sure it's solidly shut.
When he turns around Tiny Little Guy is staring at him, fucking stars in his eyes, and Gerard rolls his own. "You need a ride?"
Tiny Little Guy nods and shuffles his feet. "Yeah. My mom would...okay, she probably wouldn't kill me or anything, but she really wouldn't be happy if I came home like this, you know? And Mikey said something about it being cool if I crashed at your guy's place for the night?"
Gerard looks at him, really looks for the first time and notices that the guy's knuckles are a mess. Bloody and scraped all to hell, and when he catches Gerard looking he blushes, actually blushes, and scrubs his hand on his jeans.
"Sorry about that. There was like, this guy, right? And believe me, he was a total asshole, really bad news. I'm like...I know he was the one who messed with Mikey's drink? So I kind of kicked his ass.” Tiny Little Guy stutters to a halt, like he's just realized what he's saying and looks up at Gerard as though he's worried about his reaction. “Uh...not that I think fighting is awesome or anything, but he messed with Mikey, you know? So I couldn't let it slide. I mean, it's Mikey.”
Gerard smiles because he gets it. He does. He'd be looking for the bastard who messed with Mikey right now if Tiny Little Guy's hands hadn't told him everything he needed to know.
“Come on, it's fucking cold out here. You can tell me all about it on the way home.”
Tiny Little Guy smiles and wipes his hand on his pants again before holding it out for Gerard to take. “Okay, cool. Thanks. I'm Frank by the way.”
Gerard rolls his eyes again, but he's smiling back and taking Tiny Little - Frank's - hand because he's kind of cute in a dorky way and he looked after Mikey when Gerard wasn't there to do it. And Jesus, that fucking smile.
“Nice to meet you, Frank.” Gerard says, trying not stare when Frank's face lights up. “Now let's get going before we freeze.”
Frank stumbles a little, but makes it into the passenger seat without too much trouble. Gerard slides behind the steering wheel and double-checks to see that Frank and Mikey are buckled in before securing his own seatbelt and starting the engine. Frank waits until they're on the road before he starts babbling cheerfully about the bands they saw earlier and the way the asshole had actually cried, “No, for real, I'm totally serious,” and sneaking looks at Gerard when he thinks he isn't looking.
They get Mikey inside and settled in his bed without waking their parents, and then Gerard's leading Frank back out to the living room. He's got spare blankets out of the hall closet in his arms and Frank plods along a little unsteadily behind him, one of Mikey's pillows dragging on the floor.
Frank's pretty much asleep by that point so Gerard makes up the couch as fast as he can and pushes Frank towards it. Frank makes an indistinct noise of approval and flops down onto the couch, squirming around for a moment to find a comfortable position. Gerard waits until he's done before draping the blanket over him. Frank reaches out and grabs Gerard's sleeve when he goes to stand up.
“Hey, hey,” Frank says voice sleepy and warm, eyes closing before he finishes speaking. “So like, I know I already said it? But you're really, really hot.”
Gerard stands there for a long time watching Frank sleep.
Tiny little Frank with the fucking amazing smile. Tiny little Frank with the fucking amazing smile who has a thing for Mikey's non-existent sister.
====
====
The first thing Gerard does when he wakes up the next morning is check on Mikey to make sure he's all right. He knows he's overreacting, he knows Mikey's fine, but he still needs to check. Needs to see it with his own eyes.
Mikey flails a little when Gerard shakes him awake and catches Gerard in the ribs with a fist when he opens his eyes to see Gerard's face inches away from his. Gerard swears but lets it go because Mikey really does look like shit, and more importantly he's okay.
He manages to get dressed without having to call Tina for help, and when he's sure he hasn't forgotten anything (he goes over the checklist twice in his head) he starts on his daily quest for coffee. The living room is still dark so Gerard tries to be quiet as he walks past and into the kitchen, flicking the lights on as he starts rifling through the cabinets for the coffee filters.
He's tired and a little cranky and he can already tell he's going to need a lot of caffeine to get through the day. The fact that the coffee filters never seem to stay where he puts them doesn't improve his mood any, and he's practically on tiptoe feeling around the top shelf when he hears footsteps behind him.
He looks over expecting to see Mikey or his mom, but Frank lifts a hand in greeting and pulls out a chair at the kitchen table.
“Hey,” Frank mumbles, folding his arms on the table and resting his chin on them, watching Gerard. “Morning.”
Gerard smiles at him and goes back to his search. “Hey.”
“So I never got your name last night.” Frank says, and Gerard can hear the smile, picture it perfectly in his mind.
“Yeah, no.” Gerard answers, hopping a little to grab at the container of coffee filters he can just barely see. “No you didn't.”
Frank laughs, laying his head along his arms, still watching Gerard hug the coffee filters to his chest from the corner of his eye. “Is there a reason for that?”
Gerard shrugs, turns to do battle with the coffee maker now that the hard part's been dealt with. “Not really?”
Frank opens his mouth to say something, but apparently decides better of it when Mikey chooses to show up, feet dragging, and drops into the chair across from Frank. There's a soft flurry of sound, familiar and unmistakable, like feet impacting against shins and ankles accompanied by soft swearing. When Gerard looks over his shoulder at them Mikey and Frank are sitting up straight with their best “We're not doing anything,” smiles in place.
Gerard's not surprised when Frank cracks first, angelic smile replaced by a smirk and muffled laughter when he slaps a hand across his mouth. Mikey just smiles, stretching out a freakishly long leg to kick at him again.
Frank kicks back and they start talking about local bands and some show that's being held on Sunday, and Gerard notices that Frank's doesn't actually mention the previous night even though he keeps giving Mikey worried looks. Mikey doesn't seem to notice though, slumping down in his chair, eyes bright as they talk music.
“Here,” Gerard says, handing them both a mug of coffee and dropping a box of day-old donuts between them while he settles back against the counter. “I need to get going in a little bit, you two going to be all right on your own?”
He's talking to Mikey, his tone of voice making it sound like a joke, but he's looking right at Frank when he speaks. He knows Mikey's fine, that nothing's wrong, but he's still worried, and he needs to know Frank understands.
Frank seems to get what he isn't saying and nods as he takes a drink of his coffee. “Oh, yeah. Yeah. We'll be fine. I was going to drag him out to listen to some stuff anyway.”
“You are?” Mikey's still not quite firing on all cylinders, his coffee untouched for the most part.
Gerard frowns, but Frank's laughing again and leaning over the table to tap Mikey's forehead with his knuckles. “Yeah, man. I kind of have this new thing going. I mean we're still trying to figure things out so we sound like shit, but yeah. It'd be fun.”
Mikey nods, hands wrapping around his mug of coffee, and smiles. “Oh, okay. That sounds cool.”
Frank rolls his eyes, but he's smiling, and Gerard lets go. Tells them to behave and look both ways before crossing the street and then he's leaving. Ducking balled up napkins and laughing at their hurled insults and definitely not thinking about Frank's fucking smile or that damn laugh of his.
HAHAHA. I really don't know, okay?
So it was supposed to be that everyone knows that Gerard's dressing in drag - he tells them it's an Art School Thing, because seriously.
He's not stupid, okay? Not really, anyway. and he assumes Mikey told Frank that Gerard's dressing drag and is not an actual girl because Mikey and Frank are friends, and there is no third Way sibling, okay? Only Mikey assume Gerard told Frank...can you see where this is headed? Yes, that's right. Totally Rom-Com territory where Frank is always around when Gerard's dressed in drag and neither of them say anything about it because Gerard thinks Frank knows and Frank just thinks Gerard's a totally cool girl who loves comic books and other geek-tastic stuff. And they're all "ILU" at one another, or they flirt (BADLY) at one another and Mikey's rolling his eyes at them a lot (seriously, like every five minutes at least).
Gerard and Frank make out a little and Gerard freaks out in the middle of when he realizes Frank doesn't know he's a boy, and he runs away and avoids Frank. Mikey (who doesn't know what's going on, just that something is not right) pesters Gerard into coming out to see a show with him, this new band Mikey likes and Gerard goes even though he really, really doesn't want to. But when he gets there and realizes the band Mikey wants him to see is Frank's band he get mad and leaves (well, goes outside to smoke and wait until the show is over so he can bitch Mikey out on the way home).
Frank sees him and tries to go after him but he gets called back inside by one of his band members because they're up next and the guy drags him back inside and won't let go. Frank goes up on stage but he's really, really angry - more than usual.
[ This is an outtake I wrote that I couldn't actually use, even though it actually takes place during the course of the fic in my head:
After Frank's band finishes playing Mikey goes up to him and asks "What was that about, Frank?"
"Your fucking sister, that's what!" Frank says, glaring at him.
Mikey stares at him for a moment and then says "Gerard?"
And Frank, Frank has kind of had it with the weirdass Way family, okay? "Dude. Your parents suck at names."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Frank looks at Mikey like he's maybe not all there. "Gerard is a weird girl's name."
Mikey stares at Frank some more, like it's maybe a hobby of his or something.
"Dude, what?" Frank asks, and he's so seriously thinking about punching him right then.
Then Mikey says, really slowly in case Frank's forgotten English, "Gerard's my brother."
Frank stares this time because apparently it's contagious. "What?"
And Mikey rolls hie eyes and crosses his arms because he so totally does not buy Gerard's explanation for the whole dressing in drag thing. "Yeah, he says he's Cross-dressing For Art or some shit. I don't know, it's supposed to be some weird art school thing he's doing."
Frank doesn't say anything and Mikey straightens up all of a sudden and looks at him like maybe he gets why Gerard's been really, seriously weird the last couple of days. "Did the two of you ever actually talk?"
And of course Frank gets all offended. "Fuck you, we so did!" (Right before they started making out, even!)
Mikey just looks at him because he buys that about as much as he does Gerard's Cross-dressing For Art line. "No, really. Did you talk about anything besides comic books and movies?"
Frank gets really, really quiet because, well. They kind of didn't. (The whole time Gerard never told him his name, but Frank heard Mikey call him "Gee", and he didn't even look surprised or annoyed when Frank did it too, so Frank just thought it was short for something. Like Gina or whatever. He didn't question it because Gee was hot and liked him and he/she was hot, okay?)
Mikey just rolls his eyes and walks off in search of something to drink, because seriously. He needs one after dealing with Gerard and Frank all the time. ]
Meanwhile, Gerard's outside, and he can sort of hear Frank's band and he's upset, so he calls Tina and freaks out at her because it's all her fault, okay? She just listens to him bitch and then laughs and laughs and laughs, and Gerard hangs up on her. He's tempted to throw his phone in the street or at a wall or something, but it cost an arm and a leg and Frank's just not worth that, okay? (Except for how he is, but Gerard's not going there. Not a chance.) He turns around to drag Mikey home so he can just forget the day even happened, and Frank. Frank is right there.
Cue adorably awkward fumbling and Frank trying to bluff and saying that he totally knew Gerard was a dude the whole time, that he was just fucking with him. Gerard's not buying it though, and is all "Oh, yeah? how's that Mr. Gropey McGrope?"
Frank shuts him up by sticking his tongue in Gerard's mouth.
THE END.
By the way, people who have friended me recently and therefore do not realize why I have dreams where I end up on Dateline for writing badfic? This fic would be one of those reasons. Ahaha. Seriously. Feel free to run far, far away from here if you want. :D
When he made the bet Gerard had thought he was sure to win, but then he didn't. Which totally sucked, but whatever, right? It's not like he sold his soul or anything, he just has to dress in drag for a day because he lost, and Tina won. Besides, he's been taught that welshing on a bet it shitty thing to do, and it's not like it's going to be that bad anyway.
Only it is. It so is.
Tina practically skips into class the morning after he loses the bet and she's smiling so hard Gerard's worried she's going to break something. But then she comes up to him and he knows it's going to be bad, so very bad, before she even opens her mouth.
“What?” He asks, edging away from her and her fucking smiling.
Tina's smile widens and Gerard's never seen so many tiny, perfect white teeth aimed at him in his entire life. “The Bet.” she says, and he can actually hear the capital letters.
“Yes,” he draws the word out longer than necessary, wondering if maybe he should have stayed home sick or something because seriously, she's freaking him the hell out with all that smiling. Tina's not a smiley person in general. She prefers scowling and glaring and, on several memorable occasions, has been moved to actual physical violence involving her foot and other people's crotches.
Thankfully, not his. (Tina claims it's only a matter of time until this is no longer true.)
“The Bet.” Tina repeats, “The Bet wherein you promised, swore to me, that you would dress in drag if you lost. Which you did.”
Gerard nods slowly, trying not to make any sudden movements. “For a day.” He adds, in case there's any sort of -
“Oh, hell no.” Tina hisses, going from cheerfully - creepily - smiling girl to angry harpy in the span of a heartbeat. “You're not pulling that shit on me.”
Gerard blinks, doesn't dare move for fear she'll actually attack. She's got sharp little nails - claws - and tiny perfect teeth and he has no weapons to defend himself with, and holy shit, does she look pissed.
“The bet was for a week, Gerard. A week of you dressing in drag.”
“Um.”
“I know where you live.” She says, eyes narrowing, and Gerard bites back anything he might have said when he realizes she does, and maybe that wasn't such a smart move on his part, and oh, god, she's totally going to kill him in his sleep if he tries to weasel his way out now.
The glare on her face loses some of its ferocity and he risks taking a breath, then another when she backs off a step or two and he realizes he wasn't actually breathing.
“It won't be that bad,” she mutters, scowling up at him. “You could, hell I don't know, you could totally sucker one of the professors into calling it an extra credit assignment or something. I hear they're all over that pretentious 'Life Is Art' crap."
Gerard frowns, thinks that he should probably be offended on their part, maybe even on the part of art students everywhere, but she really does have a point. And hey, that's kind of a good idea anyway, like that whole killing two birds with one stone thing, only without the actual killing of birds and -
“Good.” Tina sounds...smug. Definitely victorious. “Meet me out front after classes so we can get you all dolled up.”
Gerard opens his mouth to...to something, but she's glaring again and oh, hey, wearing her steel-toed boots, and why didn't he notice earlier?
“Out front.” Tina repeats. “And it's no use running, because you can't.”
She's laughing at him now, that gleeful little smirk that he kind of loves, and kind of hates in place, because he can't. For one, she knows where he lives, and for another...he's...he's an art student. Art students don't do running.
And that...that doesn't even really make sense, but it sounds cool in his head, so...
Tina snorts like she knows what he's thinking, but before he can say anything the professor's at the front of the room clapping her hands and calling them to order in a disgustingly cheerful voice. He settles for glaring at Tina instead, hoping she won't make his life too miserable over the next week even though he knows that's exactly what she's going to do because his life sucks that way.
====
====
Gerard meets Tina out front at the agreed upon time, he knows not to mess around when it come to her, and they take a bus to a little store Tina knows - “Trust me, you'll love it” - and he ends up trailing after her the entire time. She flits from rack to rack of dresses and skirts and flowery, ruffly blouses picking through them with a frightening sort of focus.
“I know you,” she tells him when she catches him frowning. “And I know you're going to want to 'Do this right', so I'm going to find you some awesome clothes and you're going to shut up and like it.”
She doesn't add the “Or else”, but they both know it's there, and Gerard's smart enough to know when to keep his mouth shut.
Except for -
"No." He says firmly when they reach the back of the store, stomach churning. He has to draw the line somewhere and Gerard is so not going to wear - "There is no way in hell you're going to get me to wear that. Just...no.”
Tina frowns at him, like she has no idea what he's talking about and shakes the hanger she's holding. “Why not?”
Gerard's eyes narrow. “It's a prom dress.”
The smile she gives him is all sweetness and light and he can feel his skin crawling at the sight of it. “But you'd be the prettiest princess at the prom, Gerard. Don't you want to be the prettiest princess at the prom?”
Gerard scowls and crosses his arms, holding his ground and feeling like a petulant five year-old.
Tina rolls her eyes and puts the dress back with a sad little sigh, shaking her head and muttering about young girls these days as she starts rifling through another rack.
He ignores her after that now that they've gotten past the worst of the dresses and skirts and wanders over to look over the leather jackets. He glances up at her squeal of excitement but can't quite see what she's looking with her back to him.
When heads over he hears her murmured “Oh, this is perfect,” just as he reaches her, and cranes his neck to her holding a bundle of fabric. He can just make out the faint outline a dusty footprint on it and realizes it must have fallen off a hanger or something, but Tina's looking at it like it's the best thing she's ever seen.
He's just thrilled it's not pastel and that there aren't any ruffles.
Gerard gives her a dubious look, but Tina hands him the ball of material and several other things into his arms and give him a Look. Which, okay, normally he could ignore it, but she also uses her Mom Voice on him, and technically? Technically she isn't even a mom, but she babysits for her neighbors and has all of the necessary mom skills down cold, so Gerard listens.
It takes him more time than he'd care to admit to figure out how the stupid black thing is supposed to go, but after several false starts he's pretty sure he's managed to sort out all the straps and dangling pieces of fabric. He's not a hundred percent sure he doesn't have it on backwards or inside out or whatever, but he likes it. It's black and has this weird layered thing, something like lace over smoother fabric that might actually be satin, but not prom dress satin, so okay. He can deal with that.
Tina insisted he wear the white shirt - blouse - with it and he takes a moment to study his reflection in the warped mirror hanging on the changing room door. Fiddles with the skirt a little because it still doesn't look right but he can't figure out what's wrong, and messes with his hair. He even tries a few poses out, hands on his hips and other things he's seen models do on television and in magazines and makes a face at himself when he realizes what he's doing. Wonders if crying is an appropriate response to the fact that he sort likes the way he looks in a skirt and blouse, god, blouse. Not shirt, blouse.
Gerard decides to shelve his mental breakdown for the moment when Tina starts knocking on the flimsy door, tempted to pretend he can't hear her knocking. Which no, he's sure people all over the state can hear her, but then she gives one good, solid kick to the bottom of the door and he sees it give. The door actually bends a little and as much as he would like to Gerard can't hide out in the changing room forever.
"Jesus, fine, okay?" He flips the lock and cracks the door open. "Get in here before anyone sees."
She chortles at that, really, seriously chortles, and slips in through the open door and turns around to check him out and ends up staring at him.
"Fuck."
Gerard's eyes go wide at that, worried that he really does have the skirt on inside out or backwards or something, but the frown on Tina's face softens out when she reaches up to brush his hair out of his eyes. "How the hell do you manage to look better in this shit than I do?"
And...oh. Oh.
Gerard puffs his chest out and examines his nails as he watches her from the corner of his eye. "Well, you know how it is. Some people have it and others don't."
Tina smiles at him, the freaky one that's all sunshine and rainbows and then, oh yeah. And then there's a steel-toed boot in his crotch and fucking hell, Mikey better be straight (or at least bi-sexual) or their parents are never going to have the grandkids they keep hinting about.
"Get changed, princess," Tina says, stepping over him on her way out of the changing room. "We've got a few places to go before we're done making you into the prettiest little girl your parents never had."
====
====
Gerard's kind of horrified, but Tina smiles at him and taps her foot on the ground meaningfully and Gerard's still limping so he pulls the door open and holds it for her before following.
There are a a disturbing number of generic prints on the walls with landscapes and geometric art along with posters showing off various products. Soft music is playing over the speakers, something he's positive has been carefully selected to be calming and soothing and is really just sort of mildly annoying. He stops dead, however, when he lays eyes on the miniature jungle complete with a waterfall cascading into a pool.
He's still staring at it in fascination - there are intricate symbols and drawings etched into the fake stone that look a little familiar and actual fish - when someone comes out of the back area. "This him?"
Gerard glances over to see that Tina and the woman are talking, hands waving and he can't tell which one of them squeals loudest, but he doesn't get really worried until they turn as one and smile at him like a pair of Doublemint twins.
"All right then," the woman says, and cracks her knuckles like she's preparing for the toughest challenge of her life. "Let's get started."
"Um."
“Oh, call me Sherry, sweetie,” Sherry tells him, patting his shoulder like she really thinks his biggest concern is not knowing her name, and ushers him into one of the salon chairs. She does something with the foot pedals and he winces when it goes back a little too fast and he bites his tongue.
“Okay. Sherry. What...what's going on?”
Tina cackles somewhere off to his left and Sherry just smiles. “Close your eyes, honey. We don't want to get any of this in them.”
He wants to ask what it is they don't want to get into his eyes, but she just raises an eyebrow at him, bottle already in hand and he gives in and closes his eyes. He knows that sort of look well enough by now that it's not worth fighting.
"Don't worry," Sherry says as she starts the water running. “People usually don't start screaming until the end."
"I...” Gerard doesn't know if she's trying to be reassuring or if she's just evil like Tina. “Okay.”
Sherry hums as she works, and along with that and the steady massage of her fingers on his scalp and everything else, he almost doesn't hear Tina asking about wax jobs.
Almost.
====
====
Tina takes pity on him after the lingerie store and calls it a day. “We've got the basics covered, so unless some kind of emergency crops up, you're ready for next week.” She flashes him a smile, biting her lip to keep from laughing. “Your hair looks great, by the way.”
He grumbles and tries to act like he doesn't like it too, but her small act of kindness - probably the only one she's ever going to do in her life - was to get his hair done.
Nothing too dramatic, it's something that he would have gotten done himself if he knew the right place to go and not have it look like shit. More like glints of gold highlights like fish swimming in a sea of black and that's when she laughs and tells him he really needs to get some sleep if he's starting to talk like an honest to god Art Student.
He gives her a hug and makes sure she gets home safely before heading home himself, and it's not until he's inside that he realizes that he's going to look like a complete idiot on Monday.
In a moment of complete and utter panic he puts on the black skirt and the white blouse to see how bad he's going to look and stares at his reflection in the mirror. He doesn't look stupid, or not worse than usual anyway, and he's starting to wonder if maybe he should put his hair up or leave it down when Mikey walks in on him.
God, his fucking life.
"What the hell?"
"It's an Art School Thing." Gerard says, trying for haughty and pretentious. He wields capital letters with Intent because art kids like him are supposed be like that, right? And if he can sell it to Mikey then he might be able to convince himself he's Cross-dressing For Art, and not because he lost a stupid bet.
"So this isn't a you being gay thing? Or a you being fucked up thing?" Mikey asks, leaning against the doorframe. "Because...um."
"I'm not - " Gerard starts, but Mikey's flapping his hands at him with his “I so totally don't want to know. Really.” face on.
"Hey, yeah. No." Mikey says, straightening up from slouch. "It's cool, I just. Um." Mikey squints, and Gerard holds his arms out of the way when he steps forward and messes with the skirt until it falls more naturally. "Yeah, no. Those shoes don't work with that outfit." He looks at Gerard a little longer, head cocked to the side. "And you should leave your hair down."
Gerard watches Mikey wander out of the room looking completely unconcerned at his ability to read minds, and stares down at his sneaker-clad feet.
“Fucking hell." He mutters, kicking the bottom of the bathroom cabinet. "I need new shoes too?"
====
====
Tina meets him outside the next morning looking pissed, but thankfully she's wearing regular shoes and not The Boots. "What the hell is so important you had to get me up this early on a weekend for?"
"You didn't tell me I needed new shoes!"
Tina blinks and then doubles over laughing, hand over her mouth. "Holy shit, you really are a girl!" She gasps out, and Gerard is so not even laughing, this isn't funny!
When she finally gets her laughter - her stupid demented hyena laughter - under control she wipes her eyes and sighs. "You do know most guys don't even look past the boobs, right?"
Gerard crosses his arms because if he has to dress like a woman for this stupid bet he's going to do it right, dammit. She knows how he is about this kind of thing.
"God, fine, you prissy little diva. Shoe shopping it is."
Tina may have a heart of stone, but she also has decent taste and Gerard leaves the shoe store with a pair of awesome boots that she assures him will look perfectly fine with all of the clothes they bought the day before.
“Seriously, though, are you sure you're not a teenage girl trapped in a twenty-something geek's body?” She asks once they stumble out onto the sidewalk. “It's...you're really getting into this, you know. More than I thought you would.”
Gerard doesn't even know how he's supposed to respond to that, because really, what the hell? He tries out a Look of his own on her and she holds her hands up in a placating gesture. “Fine, fine. Whatever. Let's go see if we can find you some make-up or something, since you're so gung-ho about this.”
====
====
“Don't even think about it,” Tina snaps, slapping his hand when she finds him in front of a lipstick display. “You're not going for five-dollar whore, you're going for emo-goth-whatever the hell that is," Tina says firmly, on the verge of using her Mom Voice when he reaches for a tube of lipstick. "Put that back and I'll see if we can find you something with glitter.”
It's a tough choice, but, seriously, glitter.
"Fine."
Tina snorts and grabs his wrist, tugging him along in her wake. "Suck it up, princess."
====
====
Monday morning rolls around far too quickly for Gerard's piece of mind, and he's trying to remember how the black skirt goes together when Mikey sticks his head in and tells him Tina's there. And then she's there, in the bathroom with him shaking her head and honest to god clucking her tongue.
“Oh, princess. Not like that.” She sounds concerned, worried, but the grin tugging at her lips ruins the effect.
“Come here, let me fix you.” She orders, and he does exactly as she says feeling like some bizarre sort of doll as she arranges the skirt and settles everything in order. She takes a moment to squeeze his fake breasts and then, he really should have expected it, leers at him. “You're going to have to get used to that, by the way,” she says, patting his chest gently in apology. “You look good as a girl.”
Gerard honestly doesn't know what to say to that, so he settles for a glare. Tina just chuckles and pinches his cheek. “You're just so damned cute, sometimes princess.”
“Would you stop calling me that?” Gerard huffs, poking through the shopping bag with the make-up because if he's going to have to deal with her in his face the way she is, the least she can do is make him look pretty.
Tina laughs and takes the bag from him and sets it on the counter. “You're going to have a a heart attack if you don't calm down, okay? Just...breathe, think about...I don't know, puppies and kittens or vampires and werewolves or whatever takes you to your happy place.”
“Tina - “
“Seriously, Gerard. Relax.” She pulls out the eyeliner and turns to face him. “Relax or I'm going to wind up poking your eye out, and as funny as that would be to me, I'm pretty sure your parents would be upset.” She pauses, head tipped to the side. “Mikey wouldn't be too happy either, I guess.”
Gerard takes a seat on the edge of the tub when she points at it, and rolls his eyes before she closes in on him. “You make it sound like I'd be so fucking thrilled to lose an eye.”
Tina shrugs and turns his head a little more towards the light. “Hey, word on the street is that every little boy, even ones as precious as you, wants to be a pirate sometime, right? This could be your big chance to get started on that.”
“I think I'll pass.” He says, closing his eyes when she brings the eyeliner pencil up to his face.
“Sure, you say that now,” Tina says, fingers on his chin as she tilts his face up, “but just wait until next Halloween when you're rushing around to find a last-minute costume like always.”
He doesn't dare laugh, but he can't quite help the smile, either.
“Yeah, see?” Tina says, and he can hear the smile. “There's my pretty little princess.”
====
====
Tina's a bitch, but she's not a total one, so she sticks close on the train to school. And seriously, it's art school, so it's not likely that he's going to get hassled all that much there, but she's around. He catches glimpses of her in hallways and peeking around corners like a second shadow armed with a digital camera and a really fucking annoying laugh.
He's a little surprised at the way people treat him now that they think he's a girl. A little baffled at the way complete strangers open doors for him, smiling at him and offering friendly greetings in passing. And, maybe the weirdest thing, people are actually checking him out.
Really, seriously doing double-takes and slightly creepy once-overs that make him wish he'd thought to grab a jacket. Something to cover up with, and wonders if women, real women, go through that every day and how had he never realized?
It's freaky and disturbing and when he almost yells at someone that his eyes are “Up here, asshole!”, and has to find Tina before he completely loses it.
“Well, you're hot.” Tina tells him when he pulls her aside. “I mean, come on, there's no way you haven't noticed, right?”
He just stares at her for a long moment wondering if they're even speaking the same language. He's not...he's -
It's not like Gerard thinks he's ugly or anything, but he knows, all right? He's doesn't look anything like all the other guys he's gone to school with. He doesn't look anything like those guys everyone sees on television and in movies, and he's really kind of okay with that. It's not like -
“Christ, Gerard.” She swears, grabbing his wrist and dragging him into the nearest restroom.
He pulls back a little at the doorway because he's still got this weird “It's like an alien world” thing in his mind when it comes to any women's restroom. It's a holdover from pretty much his entire life as a member of the make gender, and he's sure it's a perfectly normal reaction on his part.
Mostly, though, it's from elementary school and hushed conversations with his classmates about what the girl's bathroom must be like based on brief glimpses of red tiles instead of green, and god, he has some weird issues.
“No shit.” Tina says, looking back with a raised eyebrow. “Just get in here all right?”
He follows since she's still holding onto his wrist, fingers tightening a little when she tugs him inside, and then she's behind him. Shoving him the last little bit to stand in front of the mirrors over the row of sinks. She moves to stand next to him, leaning a little into his side. She smiles at their reflection and one hand comes up to pat his face a little too hard.
“Okay, you need to listen to me on this, got it?” She asks, staring hard into his reflection's eyes. “This is...I can't believe I even need to explain this to you. You should know this by now.”
He's about to ask her what he should know but she pokes his cheek with a perfectly manicured nail. “See this? This is a fucking amazing face. Look at this bone structure.” Tina pokes him again. “And, okay, you could stand to get a little more sunlight, because you're really fucking pale, but it works. For you, it works.”
He looks at what she's looking at and just doesn't get it, doesn't see anything but his face staring back at him looking equal parts bewildered and skeptical. Tina looks like she's getting pissed, but before he can move away she's got his chin in her hand, shaking gently.
“Just...just forget everything else and look, okay? Pretend it's someone else's face if you have to, someone you've never met before. Think about it like a painting or drawing, something else.”
“I - “
“You're hot.” Tina says, grip on his chin tightening. “You're fucking gorgeous and you're an idiot for thinking you're not, okay? Forget that beautiful on the inside crap everyone spews because they can't see what's they've got going on. You're gorgeous all over and if you were into girls I would be all over you”
Gerard's...stunned doesn't even begin to cover it, and oh, yeah, there he goes. He watches the blush blooming on his cheeks in the mirror and Tina cracks the hell up, the hand on his face gone, and she's doubled over again, cackling like a loon.
“I. Um.”
When she stops laughing her eyes find his in the mirror and she sighs, shaking her head. “Okay, okay, so clearly you really are stupider than I thought. Just...you're not the ugly step-sister in this scenario, okay? You're hot as a guy, and, luckily for you this transfers over into you being hot as a girl.” She turns away form the mirror and looks at him, completely serious. “Unfortunately for you, this also means people will notice, and you're going to need to remember to carry mace and kick where it hurts if I'm not around to defend your highly questionable virtue.” Her lips are twitching by the end, and he can tell she's valiantly trying not to laugh.
“Oh, fuck you.”
“Oh, princess, save it for your future husband.” She makes kissy faces at him and plucks at his sleeve to get him moving. “Now hurry up or we'll be late for class.”
They make it with seconds to spare, the professor giving them a suspicious look, but Gerard smiles and waves and it's...okay, so it's a little creepy, but the professor smiles. Gerard's eyes widen and he takes the desk behind Tina's and does his best to pretend he doesn't notice her shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
====
====
By the end of the day Gerard's pretty much got the hang of things and Tina's stopped lurking around corners and in dark hallways prepared to get up in anyone's face if they give him trouble. She may be small, but she's got the heart of a really tiny, fierce Amazon, and steel-toed boots to back it up.
Tina's back at his side for the train ride home because they both know there are a lot of stupid assholes in the world and since this is really her fault she sticks it out with him.
"You suck." He mutters into her neck as they hug goodbye before going their separate ways for the night.
"You wish, princess." She whispers back, and pinches his ass when he lets her go. "Six more days!" She crows as she quickly dances out of his reach, grinning and laughing. “Six more days!”
Gerard groans and tries not to think about what else she's going to pull on him before the week's up, before he can go back wearing pants and again. Although he's going to miss the glitter, because seriously, glitter.
====
====
Things are going okay for the most part, if Gerard doesn't think about the interested looks he gets and occasional wolf whistles, and Tina's toned down the mockery. She doesn't take a picture every five minutes anymore, although she hasn't stopped dragging him over to people they know from previous classes to see if they recognize him.
Anyway. Anyway, he has a a few pages in one of his notebooks filled with notes and observations, mostly of the “What the hell?” variety in regards to how people treat him now. He's sure has more than enough to write a paper and is trying to determine which professor would be willing to buy his pitch for an extra credit assignment when Mikey calls him.
Or, well. Mikey's phone calls him, which might sound a little crazy, but he's not. He's reasonably sure he's not at least.
When he checks his phone he's sees Mikey's name, but the voice on the phone doesn't belong to Mikey. It sounds a little slurred, and Gerard sighs when he realizes Mikey's probably had a few too many when he tunes in again to hear the end of a long, rambling explanation.
“ - yeah, so someone slipped something in his drink or something, but it's cool, he's just out of it, and anyway, it would be great if someone came to get him.” And then, because Gerard's hearing sort of cuts out on him for a little bit there, “Hello? Anyone there?”
He gets the address out of the guy on the phone and tells him to “Stay put, fucking stay put and keep an eye on Mikey,” and hurries out of the house and into the cold without bothering to change or worry about anything else.
Gerard's not so much annoyed now as he is mildly - for him, mildly for him - freaking out, and he forgets that he's still dressed in drag. Forgets that boys like him (boys at all, period) don't go out in Jersey wearing skirts and make-up, especially at night and especially not to the kinds of places Mikey goes to listen to his bands.
None of this registers in his mind until he gets there and sees Mikey outside on the curb slumped down with his head on this guy's shoulder. Even then he doesn't pay attention to anything but Mikey until he gets out of the car and the guy, this seriously tiny little guy nudges Mikey and says something in his ear that Gerard's knows is supposed to be a whisper.
"Whoa, you didn't tell me you had a sister, dude."
Gerard stops, just fucking stops when the realizes the guy's staring at him with this huge smile on his face, and it's not creepy or anything, just kind of...weird.
That's when Gerard remembers all about the dressing in drag thing, and how he kind of forgets sometimes now because it's not a big thing anymore, it really isn't. It's like a Project now, and somehow it's been enlightening as hell and more than a little dispiriting at the same time. He totally gets that just because complete strangers (guys) are nice to girls, it doesn't automatically make them decent human beings, it just makes them human.
Mikey starts laughing and almost falls over from the force of it, he's laughing so hard, but Tiny Little Guy catches him before his face hits the pavement.
"She's hot." Tiny Little Guy says to Mikey, clearly too drunk to notice how loudly he's talking. That Gerard can hear him. And then, because he realizes Mikey's still laughing, Tiny Little Guy looks up at Gerard with that smile turned on high. “You're hot."
"Fuck me," Gerard mutters, careful not to smudge his makeup as he rubs his face with his hands because he is so not in the mood to deal with this shit at the moment. "Is he okay?”
Tiny Little Guy frowns and looks down at the top of Mikey's head. Pats him clumsily and nods a little too enthusiastically. “Yeah. He's just a little out of it.”
“Yeah.” Gerard says, sagging a little with relief as he eyes Mikey. “Yeah, I can see that.”
Tiny Little Guy giggles, giggles, and shrugs. “I think he got most of it out of his system when he barfed.”
Gerard's mouth twitches when Tiny Little Guy hooks a thumb over his shoulder towards a scraggly row of bushes a few feet away. “It was kind of awesome.”
Shaking his head Gerard moves forward to get Mikey on his feet and glances over at Tiny Little Guy to see if he's too drunk to help. He doesn't look that bad off, and when Gerard jerks his chin at Mikey with a raised eyebrow he scrambles to his own feet steadily enough.
“Yeah, yeah,” Tiny Little Guy says, bouncing on his feet a little. “Let me help you with him, yeah?”
Gerard bites back a laugh at his enthusiasm and the two of them manage to get Mikey up and moving, stumbling a little to the car. He takes a bit of a risk, letting Mikey lean on Tiny Little Guy while he struggles to get the back door open, but they both stay standing.
“Jesus. He's heavier than he looks.” Tiny Little Guy bitches as they shove Mikey into the backseat, and yeah, he really is.
Gerard leans in to make sure Mikey's seatbelt is fastened, ignoring him when Mikey bats uselessly at his hands and mumbles something under his breath. He takes a moment to stare at Mikey, takes his glasses off and sets them on the seat next to him. Gerard tips his head to the side and peels one of Mikey's eyes open and grins when Mikey flinches back and tries to smack him in retaliation when he recognizes Gerard.
“Fucker.”
Gerard's grin widens and he pinches his cheek, earning a scowl from Mikey that looks more like a really sad attempt at pouting. He's still looking at him though, even though that panicky feeling crowding his chest is mostly gone. “Always the sweet talker, Mikey.”
Mikey opens his eyes and glares at him, but Gerard just smiles and ruffles his hair as he ducks back out of the car and stands up. He has to slam the door and bump it with his hip to make sure it's solidly shut.
When he turns around Tiny Little Guy is staring at him, fucking stars in his eyes, and Gerard rolls his own. "You need a ride?"
Tiny Little Guy nods and shuffles his feet. "Yeah. My mom would...okay, she probably wouldn't kill me or anything, but she really wouldn't be happy if I came home like this, you know? And Mikey said something about it being cool if I crashed at your guy's place for the night?"
Gerard looks at him, really looks for the first time and notices that the guy's knuckles are a mess. Bloody and scraped all to hell, and when he catches Gerard looking he blushes, actually blushes, and scrubs his hand on his jeans.
"Sorry about that. There was like, this guy, right? And believe me, he was a total asshole, really bad news. I'm like...I know he was the one who messed with Mikey's drink? So I kind of kicked his ass.” Tiny Little Guy stutters to a halt, like he's just realized what he's saying and looks up at Gerard as though he's worried about his reaction. “Uh...not that I think fighting is awesome or anything, but he messed with Mikey, you know? So I couldn't let it slide. I mean, it's Mikey.”
Gerard smiles because he gets it. He does. He'd be looking for the bastard who messed with Mikey right now if Tiny Little Guy's hands hadn't told him everything he needed to know.
“Come on, it's fucking cold out here. You can tell me all about it on the way home.”
Tiny Little Guy smiles and wipes his hand on his pants again before holding it out for Gerard to take. “Okay, cool. Thanks. I'm Frank by the way.”
Gerard rolls his eyes again, but he's smiling back and taking Tiny Little - Frank's - hand because he's kind of cute in a dorky way and he looked after Mikey when Gerard wasn't there to do it. And Jesus, that fucking smile.
“Nice to meet you, Frank.” Gerard says, trying not stare when Frank's face lights up. “Now let's get going before we freeze.”
Frank stumbles a little, but makes it into the passenger seat without too much trouble. Gerard slides behind the steering wheel and double-checks to see that Frank and Mikey are buckled in before securing his own seatbelt and starting the engine. Frank waits until they're on the road before he starts babbling cheerfully about the bands they saw earlier and the way the asshole had actually cried, “No, for real, I'm totally serious,” and sneaking looks at Gerard when he thinks he isn't looking.
They get Mikey inside and settled in his bed without waking their parents, and then Gerard's leading Frank back out to the living room. He's got spare blankets out of the hall closet in his arms and Frank plods along a little unsteadily behind him, one of Mikey's pillows dragging on the floor.
Frank's pretty much asleep by that point so Gerard makes up the couch as fast as he can and pushes Frank towards it. Frank makes an indistinct noise of approval and flops down onto the couch, squirming around for a moment to find a comfortable position. Gerard waits until he's done before draping the blanket over him. Frank reaches out and grabs Gerard's sleeve when he goes to stand up.
“Hey, hey,” Frank says voice sleepy and warm, eyes closing before he finishes speaking. “So like, I know I already said it? But you're really, really hot.”
Gerard stands there for a long time watching Frank sleep.
Tiny little Frank with the fucking amazing smile. Tiny little Frank with the fucking amazing smile who has a thing for Mikey's non-existent sister.
====
====
The first thing Gerard does when he wakes up the next morning is check on Mikey to make sure he's all right. He knows he's overreacting, he knows Mikey's fine, but he still needs to check. Needs to see it with his own eyes.
Mikey flails a little when Gerard shakes him awake and catches Gerard in the ribs with a fist when he opens his eyes to see Gerard's face inches away from his. Gerard swears but lets it go because Mikey really does look like shit, and more importantly he's okay.
He manages to get dressed without having to call Tina for help, and when he's sure he hasn't forgotten anything (he goes over the checklist twice in his head) he starts on his daily quest for coffee. The living room is still dark so Gerard tries to be quiet as he walks past and into the kitchen, flicking the lights on as he starts rifling through the cabinets for the coffee filters.
He's tired and a little cranky and he can already tell he's going to need a lot of caffeine to get through the day. The fact that the coffee filters never seem to stay where he puts them doesn't improve his mood any, and he's practically on tiptoe feeling around the top shelf when he hears footsteps behind him.
He looks over expecting to see Mikey or his mom, but Frank lifts a hand in greeting and pulls out a chair at the kitchen table.
“Hey,” Frank mumbles, folding his arms on the table and resting his chin on them, watching Gerard. “Morning.”
Gerard smiles at him and goes back to his search. “Hey.”
“So I never got your name last night.” Frank says, and Gerard can hear the smile, picture it perfectly in his mind.
“Yeah, no.” Gerard answers, hopping a little to grab at the container of coffee filters he can just barely see. “No you didn't.”
Frank laughs, laying his head along his arms, still watching Gerard hug the coffee filters to his chest from the corner of his eye. “Is there a reason for that?”
Gerard shrugs, turns to do battle with the coffee maker now that the hard part's been dealt with. “Not really?”
Frank opens his mouth to say something, but apparently decides better of it when Mikey chooses to show up, feet dragging, and drops into the chair across from Frank. There's a soft flurry of sound, familiar and unmistakable, like feet impacting against shins and ankles accompanied by soft swearing. When Gerard looks over his shoulder at them Mikey and Frank are sitting up straight with their best “We're not doing anything,” smiles in place.
Gerard's not surprised when Frank cracks first, angelic smile replaced by a smirk and muffled laughter when he slaps a hand across his mouth. Mikey just smiles, stretching out a freakishly long leg to kick at him again.
Frank kicks back and they start talking about local bands and some show that's being held on Sunday, and Gerard notices that Frank's doesn't actually mention the previous night even though he keeps giving Mikey worried looks. Mikey doesn't seem to notice though, slumping down in his chair, eyes bright as they talk music.
“Here,” Gerard says, handing them both a mug of coffee and dropping a box of day-old donuts between them while he settles back against the counter. “I need to get going in a little bit, you two going to be all right on your own?”
He's talking to Mikey, his tone of voice making it sound like a joke, but he's looking right at Frank when he speaks. He knows Mikey's fine, that nothing's wrong, but he's still worried, and he needs to know Frank understands.
Frank seems to get what he isn't saying and nods as he takes a drink of his coffee. “Oh, yeah. Yeah. We'll be fine. I was going to drag him out to listen to some stuff anyway.”
“You are?” Mikey's still not quite firing on all cylinders, his coffee untouched for the most part.
Gerard frowns, but Frank's laughing again and leaning over the table to tap Mikey's forehead with his knuckles. “Yeah, man. I kind of have this new thing going. I mean we're still trying to figure things out so we sound like shit, but yeah. It'd be fun.”
Mikey nods, hands wrapping around his mug of coffee, and smiles. “Oh, okay. That sounds cool.”
Frank rolls his eyes, but he's smiling, and Gerard lets go. Tells them to behave and look both ways before crossing the street and then he's leaving. Ducking balled up napkins and laughing at their hurled insults and definitely not thinking about Frank's fucking smile or that damn laugh of his.
HAHAHA. I really don't know, okay?
So it was supposed to be that everyone knows that Gerard's dressing in drag - he tells them it's an Art School Thing, because seriously.
He's not stupid, okay? Not really, anyway. and he assumes Mikey told Frank that Gerard's dressing drag and is not an actual girl because Mikey and Frank are friends, and there is no third Way sibling, okay? Only Mikey assume Gerard told Frank...can you see where this is headed? Yes, that's right. Totally Rom-Com territory where Frank is always around when Gerard's dressed in drag and neither of them say anything about it because Gerard thinks Frank knows and Frank just thinks Gerard's a totally cool girl who loves comic books and other geek-tastic stuff. And they're all "ILU" at one another, or they flirt (BADLY) at one another and Mikey's rolling his eyes at them a lot (seriously, like every five minutes at least).
Gerard and Frank make out a little and Gerard freaks out in the middle of when he realizes Frank doesn't know he's a boy, and he runs away and avoids Frank. Mikey (who doesn't know what's going on, just that something is not right) pesters Gerard into coming out to see a show with him, this new band Mikey likes and Gerard goes even though he really, really doesn't want to. But when he gets there and realizes the band Mikey wants him to see is Frank's band he get mad and leaves (well, goes outside to smoke and wait until the show is over so he can bitch Mikey out on the way home).
Frank sees him and tries to go after him but he gets called back inside by one of his band members because they're up next and the guy drags him back inside and won't let go. Frank goes up on stage but he's really, really angry - more than usual.
[ This is an outtake I wrote that I couldn't actually use, even though it actually takes place during the course of the fic in my head:
After Frank's band finishes playing Mikey goes up to him and asks "What was that about, Frank?"
"Your fucking sister, that's what!" Frank says, glaring at him.
Mikey stares at him for a moment and then says "Gerard?"
And Frank, Frank has kind of had it with the weirdass Way family, okay? "Dude. Your parents suck at names."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Frank looks at Mikey like he's maybe not all there. "Gerard is a weird girl's name."
Mikey stares at Frank some more, like it's maybe a hobby of his or something.
"Dude, what?" Frank asks, and he's so seriously thinking about punching him right then.
Then Mikey says, really slowly in case Frank's forgotten English, "Gerard's my brother."
Frank stares this time because apparently it's contagious. "What?"
And Mikey rolls hie eyes and crosses his arms because he so totally does not buy Gerard's explanation for the whole dressing in drag thing. "Yeah, he says he's Cross-dressing For Art or some shit. I don't know, it's supposed to be some weird art school thing he's doing."
Frank doesn't say anything and Mikey straightens up all of a sudden and looks at him like maybe he gets why Gerard's been really, seriously weird the last couple of days. "Did the two of you ever actually talk?"
And of course Frank gets all offended. "Fuck you, we so did!" (Right before they started making out, even!)
Mikey just looks at him because he buys that about as much as he does Gerard's Cross-dressing For Art line. "No, really. Did you talk about anything besides comic books and movies?"
Frank gets really, really quiet because, well. They kind of didn't. (The whole time Gerard never told him his name, but Frank heard Mikey call him "Gee", and he didn't even look surprised or annoyed when Frank did it too, so Frank just thought it was short for something. Like Gina or whatever. He didn't question it because Gee was hot and liked him and he/she was hot, okay?)
Mikey just rolls his eyes and walks off in search of something to drink, because seriously. He needs one after dealing with Gerard and Frank all the time. ]
Meanwhile, Gerard's outside, and he can sort of hear Frank's band and he's upset, so he calls Tina and freaks out at her because it's all her fault, okay? She just listens to him bitch and then laughs and laughs and laughs, and Gerard hangs up on her. He's tempted to throw his phone in the street or at a wall or something, but it cost an arm and a leg and Frank's just not worth that, okay? (Except for how he is, but Gerard's not going there. Not a chance.) He turns around to drag Mikey home so he can just forget the day even happened, and Frank. Frank is right there.
Cue adorably awkward fumbling and Frank trying to bluff and saying that he totally knew Gerard was a dude the whole time, that he was just fucking with him. Gerard's not buying it though, and is all "Oh, yeah? how's that Mr. Gropey McGrope?"
Frank shuts him up by sticking his tongue in Gerard's mouth.
THE END.