Fic: Everything So Clear (van!days MCR)
Title: Everything So Clear
Summary: Frank looked over his shoulder at Gerard, who still had melting clumps of snow in his hair from the snowball Frank had thrown, and stuck out his tongue. “I can get warm later when we’re stuck in that van for another seven hours.”
Pairing: van!days Frank/Gerard gen
Rating: PG
Word count: 2000
AN: For yan_tan_tether as a holiday gift ficlet! Largely inspired from a chatfic with wasoncedelight. ♥
Frank woke up to Mikey saying, “Fuck. Fucking... Fuck.”
Each word was louder and louder, and Frank wondered how many ‘fuck’s he’d missed before waking up. Mikey was squinting out the front windshield, and when Frank blearily lifted his head he realized that everyone else had fallen asleep, too. In the back seat Toro’s hair was smooshed against the window, his face huddled down into his jacket and the fuzzy grey blanket Frank stopped fighting for when he finally identified a few of the stains on it. Otter was leaned back in the passenger seat, snoring loudly, and Frank craned looking around for Gerard until he finally located him laying comfortably on the back seat, using Toro’s thigh as a pillow.
They hadn’t lost anyone, then. Frank had a feeling that they were all lost instead, but was willing to give Mikey the benefit of just being nervous driving in the snow instead.
“What’s up?” he said, and his voice came out in a croak so he tried to find the bottle of water he’d been drinking out of... last night. That morning. Sometime.
Garbage was piled up halfway to the seat, and he found a water bottle that looked similar to last night’s, but he hadn’t decorated it so he couldn’t be certain. He squinted at it, and if nothing else there were no cigarette butts or unidentified grime floating in the water like the other bottles he could see from here, so he took a swig.
“I think...” Mikey paused to wipe at the windshield with a gloved hand, and Frank leaned up between the seats to hit the dashboard in the spot that sometimes unclogged the defroster. “I might have taken a wrong turn.”
Frank looked outside. The road was salted enough that they weren’t in danger of sliding into a ditch, but the ground and trees were coated in a thickening layer of the snow that was steadily flying at the windshield. If it were darker it would look just like flying through space, though Frank was glad that they still had light. They had to get to the fucking venue tonight.
It also looked way too rural to be the right road. “I thought it was a straight shot down the interstate,” he said.
Otter finally woke up with a grunt and blinked rapidly at them, rubbing at his face blearily and mumbling, “Are we there?”
“No,” Frank said tersely.
Mikey sighed and put on the turn signal, pulling into the first pull-off they came to. Otter fumbled at the map and said, “This doesn’t look right.”
“There was a fork in the interstate a while back,” Mikey said. “I might have accidentally taken an exit.”
“Fuck,” Frank said. There was not telling where they were or how long it would take to get back to the proper route.
He glanced back, but Ray and Gerard were both still sleeping and he didn’t want to ruin everyone’s nap. “We can figure this out,” he said. “What was the last road sign you saw?”
The three of them resolutely stared at the map and trying to figure out where in the hell they’d managed to end up. Mikey turned off the van to save gas, and the longer they sat the more cold air seeped through the cracks and into the warm cocoon it had taken most of the day to turn the van into. Frank slowly started to shiver, and wasn’t surprised when Gerard woke a few minutes later and crawled over the seat, pressing up against Frank’s side and mumbling, “Where are we?”
“Mikey got us lost,” Otter grumbled, brow furrowed as he traced another possible exit to see if it matched up with where they might be.
“It was an accident,” Mikey protested.
Frank made a face at Gerard when his cold hands brushed against his, and Gerard rubbed his hands together and leaned his head into Frank’s neck and asked, “Did you steal my gloves?”
“That was Mikey,” Frank replied, and Mikey flipped him off. Frank grabbed his wrist and said, “See?”
He attempted to tug the glove off but Mikey fended him off with one of his unnaturally sharp elbows. Gerard’s head bounced on Frank’s shoulder and he mumbled, “I don’t even care, fuckers, stop it.”
Ray called from the back, “Why are we in the middle of nowhere? Are we playing to cows tonight?”
Frank squinted out the window. “Dude, how fucking awesome, one of those view-finder things! Someone give me a quarter.”
“We’re not blowing any of the beer funds on a stupid view,” Otter said. “Take Mikey’s glasses, it’s the same fucking thing.”
Frank licked a finger and stuck it in Otter’s ear for being a fuddy-duddy and said, “I’m stretching my legs.”
He pushed Gerard off his shoulder - Gerard had already fallen back asleep, the fucker - and clambered over him to climb out the van door. The gravel was covered in just enough snow to make a squeaky crunch as he walked, and he scooped up a handful to find it was perfect packing snow.
Gerard hadn’t shut the door yet so he whirled around and threw the snowball inside, smacking Gerard in the side of the head. Clumps of snow clung to his hair as he yelped and pulled the door shut instinctively.
“Boring old man!” Frank yelled at the van and went to explore their turnoff more. The viewfinder was near a low stone wall that outlined the area, and when Frank got to it he saw there was a steep drop off and a gorgeous view of a snow-covered valley below them.
He looked at the viewfinder but then just grabbed onto it and used it as a balance as he pulled himself up onto the stone wall, which was a couple feet wide and not nearly as slippery as he thought it might be. He walked a few feet down it, leaving footprints behind him and holding his arms out to his side like it was a balancing act.
It was strange, not being in a city or a truckstop for once, and he didn’t even mind the snow sticking to his hoodie as he took in deep breaths of crisp fresh air.
Behind him he heard the doors to the van open and the crunch of footsteps as everyone else decided to take a break, too.
He kept pacing the stone wall carefully, looking at the fall and the sky and the snow. He didn’t even realize how cold he was until he heard Gerard behind him saying, “Come on, your hands are turning blue.”
Frank looked over his shoulder at Gerard, who still had melting clumps of snow in his hair from the snowball Frank had thrown, and stuck out his tongue. “I can get warm later when we’re stuck in that van for another seven hours.”
Gerard reached up and grabbed Frank’s hand and tugged, and Frank lost his balance and went tumbling off the wall and into Gerard. They ended up in a tangle on the snow-covered gravel, and Frank twisted and grabbed a handful of snow with his free hand and tried to find Gerard’s neck under his scarf and hoodie and seventeen other layers to shove the snow down.
Gerard yelped and twisted and tried to squirm his way out from under Frank, but Frank was a persistent motherfucker and wouldn’t let go. He kept grabbing snow and Gerard finally stopped trying to get away and retaliated in kind.
“You aren’t going to be cold at all later,” Mikey said from a few feet away, and Frank stopped his assault on Gerard for long enough to army-crawl to Mikey and pull him down onto the ground with them, flailing and kicking and sputtering as Gerard hit him in the face with a handful of loose snow.
“Fuckers!” Mikey yelped, trying to set his glasses straight and get the snow off his lenses.
Frank was flailing and Gerard was in and ticking Mikey mercilessly, hitting the most ticklish spots until Mikey was curled up laughing helplessly in the snow, shrieking and trying to grab at anyone in the way.
Frank wasn’t even sure who got his shoe off, he just knew suddenly someone was tickling the arch of his foot and he was helpless as Mikey, flopping in the snow and laughing.
Suddenly Ray was there, too, brandishing Frank’s shoe and yelling something about projectiles, and Frank didn’t even feel cold in the flailing wrestling match that ensued, throwing himself into it and spitting out mouthfuls of snow and wet hair that got in his mouth as he tried to retaliate.
Ray squirmed out of the mass and went chasing after his wallet after Frank pitched it towards the van, and after a minute Mikey sat up and scooted away, proclaiming himself blind and ineligible as he tried to wipe his glasses clean of smears and snow.
Gerard continued to tickle at Frank’s bare foot - fuck if he knew where his sock was now - and Frank finally managed to pant out between laughing fits that he was going to piss himself and Gerard too if he didn’t stop.
They lay panting in the snow. Gerard staring up at the sky, and Frank staring at Gerard, feeling the cold seeping up into his body now that he wasn’t in motion and noticing the snowflakes stuck to Gerard’s hair like dandruff and to his eyelashes like starlight.
“Come on,” Frank said, the cold filling his head with strange thoughts. “We should go back to the van.”
As if on cue the horn let out a feeble honk and Ray yelled, “We don’t have time to get any toes lopped off because of frostbite!”
Frank managed to climb to his feet and grabbed Gerard’s hand, helping him up. They ran back to the van, Frank half-skipping because of how fucking cold and sharp the ground was on his bare foot, and swinging their arms in a wide arc.
For the first time in a while Frank felt the free kind of happiness that movies told him kids felt, bright and airy and content right down to his sore cheeks and sides from laughter.
Frank realized just how soaked he was once he climbed into the van, and Gerard’s teeth were chattering, so they both stripped down, bumping elbows and knees as they struggled out of wet clinging clothes in the very back seat of the van.
“You’re going to get pneumonia,” Ray predicted. Otter was behind the wheel and started the van, pulling away from the pull-off in the direction they’d come from. Mikey was frowning at his hair in the passenger side view mirror.
“Fuck you, I am a picture of good health,” Frank replied. He spent the next five minutes willing himself to not cough, because he wasn’t going to eat his fucking words.
He and Gerard both threw their sopping wet snowy clothes in the very back with the merch and huddled together in their underwear, goose-pimpled and grinning. Ray offered them the grey blanket and Frank didn’t care what was crusted on it, it was warm and smelled like cigarettes and beer and comfort, and he snuggled up close to Gerard under it, resting his head on Gerard’s bare shoulder.
“You’re a good pillow,” Frank informed him, still feeling happy and content.
“You’re a kickass blanket,” Gerard replied, resting his head on the window and watching the snowy countryside pass.
Frank watched Gerard, trying to imagine what he was thinking and where that vision might take Frank’s life, and it was only when his eyes were drifting closed as warmth finally seeped into his bones that he realized he was holding Gerard’s hand again, pressed tight together on their bare thighs.
The last thing he noticed before he fell asleep was his shoe dangling from the rearview mirror, dripping melting snow onto the dash.
Summary: Frank looked over his shoulder at Gerard, who still had melting clumps of snow in his hair from the snowball Frank had thrown, and stuck out his tongue. “I can get warm later when we’re stuck in that van for another seven hours.”
Pairing: van!days Frank/Gerard gen
Rating: PG
Word count: 2000
AN: For yan_tan_tether as a holiday gift ficlet! Largely inspired from a chatfic with wasoncedelight. ♥
Frank woke up to Mikey saying, “Fuck. Fucking... Fuck.”
Each word was louder and louder, and Frank wondered how many ‘fuck’s he’d missed before waking up. Mikey was squinting out the front windshield, and when Frank blearily lifted his head he realized that everyone else had fallen asleep, too. In the back seat Toro’s hair was smooshed against the window, his face huddled down into his jacket and the fuzzy grey blanket Frank stopped fighting for when he finally identified a few of the stains on it. Otter was leaned back in the passenger seat, snoring loudly, and Frank craned looking around for Gerard until he finally located him laying comfortably on the back seat, using Toro’s thigh as a pillow.
They hadn’t lost anyone, then. Frank had a feeling that they were all lost instead, but was willing to give Mikey the benefit of just being nervous driving in the snow instead.
“What’s up?” he said, and his voice came out in a croak so he tried to find the bottle of water he’d been drinking out of... last night. That morning. Sometime.
Garbage was piled up halfway to the seat, and he found a water bottle that looked similar to last night’s, but he hadn’t decorated it so he couldn’t be certain. He squinted at it, and if nothing else there were no cigarette butts or unidentified grime floating in the water like the other bottles he could see from here, so he took a swig.
“I think...” Mikey paused to wipe at the windshield with a gloved hand, and Frank leaned up between the seats to hit the dashboard in the spot that sometimes unclogged the defroster. “I might have taken a wrong turn.”
Frank looked outside. The road was salted enough that they weren’t in danger of sliding into a ditch, but the ground and trees were coated in a thickening layer of the snow that was steadily flying at the windshield. If it were darker it would look just like flying through space, though Frank was glad that they still had light. They had to get to the fucking venue tonight.
It also looked way too rural to be the right road. “I thought it was a straight shot down the interstate,” he said.
Otter finally woke up with a grunt and blinked rapidly at them, rubbing at his face blearily and mumbling, “Are we there?”
“No,” Frank said tersely.
Mikey sighed and put on the turn signal, pulling into the first pull-off they came to. Otter fumbled at the map and said, “This doesn’t look right.”
“There was a fork in the interstate a while back,” Mikey said. “I might have accidentally taken an exit.”
“Fuck,” Frank said. There was not telling where they were or how long it would take to get back to the proper route.
He glanced back, but Ray and Gerard were both still sleeping and he didn’t want to ruin everyone’s nap. “We can figure this out,” he said. “What was the last road sign you saw?”
The three of them resolutely stared at the map and trying to figure out where in the hell they’d managed to end up. Mikey turned off the van to save gas, and the longer they sat the more cold air seeped through the cracks and into the warm cocoon it had taken most of the day to turn the van into. Frank slowly started to shiver, and wasn’t surprised when Gerard woke a few minutes later and crawled over the seat, pressing up against Frank’s side and mumbling, “Where are we?”
“Mikey got us lost,” Otter grumbled, brow furrowed as he traced another possible exit to see if it matched up with where they might be.
“It was an accident,” Mikey protested.
Frank made a face at Gerard when his cold hands brushed against his, and Gerard rubbed his hands together and leaned his head into Frank’s neck and asked, “Did you steal my gloves?”
“That was Mikey,” Frank replied, and Mikey flipped him off. Frank grabbed his wrist and said, “See?”
He attempted to tug the glove off but Mikey fended him off with one of his unnaturally sharp elbows. Gerard’s head bounced on Frank’s shoulder and he mumbled, “I don’t even care, fuckers, stop it.”
Ray called from the back, “Why are we in the middle of nowhere? Are we playing to cows tonight?”
Frank squinted out the window. “Dude, how fucking awesome, one of those view-finder things! Someone give me a quarter.”
“We’re not blowing any of the beer funds on a stupid view,” Otter said. “Take Mikey’s glasses, it’s the same fucking thing.”
Frank licked a finger and stuck it in Otter’s ear for being a fuddy-duddy and said, “I’m stretching my legs.”
He pushed Gerard off his shoulder - Gerard had already fallen back asleep, the fucker - and clambered over him to climb out the van door. The gravel was covered in just enough snow to make a squeaky crunch as he walked, and he scooped up a handful to find it was perfect packing snow.
Gerard hadn’t shut the door yet so he whirled around and threw the snowball inside, smacking Gerard in the side of the head. Clumps of snow clung to his hair as he yelped and pulled the door shut instinctively.
“Boring old man!” Frank yelled at the van and went to explore their turnoff more. The viewfinder was near a low stone wall that outlined the area, and when Frank got to it he saw there was a steep drop off and a gorgeous view of a snow-covered valley below them.
He looked at the viewfinder but then just grabbed onto it and used it as a balance as he pulled himself up onto the stone wall, which was a couple feet wide and not nearly as slippery as he thought it might be. He walked a few feet down it, leaving footprints behind him and holding his arms out to his side like it was a balancing act.
It was strange, not being in a city or a truckstop for once, and he didn’t even mind the snow sticking to his hoodie as he took in deep breaths of crisp fresh air.
Behind him he heard the doors to the van open and the crunch of footsteps as everyone else decided to take a break, too.
He kept pacing the stone wall carefully, looking at the fall and the sky and the snow. He didn’t even realize how cold he was until he heard Gerard behind him saying, “Come on, your hands are turning blue.”
Frank looked over his shoulder at Gerard, who still had melting clumps of snow in his hair from the snowball Frank had thrown, and stuck out his tongue. “I can get warm later when we’re stuck in that van for another seven hours.”
Gerard reached up and grabbed Frank’s hand and tugged, and Frank lost his balance and went tumbling off the wall and into Gerard. They ended up in a tangle on the snow-covered gravel, and Frank twisted and grabbed a handful of snow with his free hand and tried to find Gerard’s neck under his scarf and hoodie and seventeen other layers to shove the snow down.
Gerard yelped and twisted and tried to squirm his way out from under Frank, but Frank was a persistent motherfucker and wouldn’t let go. He kept grabbing snow and Gerard finally stopped trying to get away and retaliated in kind.
“You aren’t going to be cold at all later,” Mikey said from a few feet away, and Frank stopped his assault on Gerard for long enough to army-crawl to Mikey and pull him down onto the ground with them, flailing and kicking and sputtering as Gerard hit him in the face with a handful of loose snow.
“Fuckers!” Mikey yelped, trying to set his glasses straight and get the snow off his lenses.
Frank was flailing and Gerard was in and ticking Mikey mercilessly, hitting the most ticklish spots until Mikey was curled up laughing helplessly in the snow, shrieking and trying to grab at anyone in the way.
Frank wasn’t even sure who got his shoe off, he just knew suddenly someone was tickling the arch of his foot and he was helpless as Mikey, flopping in the snow and laughing.
Suddenly Ray was there, too, brandishing Frank’s shoe and yelling something about projectiles, and Frank didn’t even feel cold in the flailing wrestling match that ensued, throwing himself into it and spitting out mouthfuls of snow and wet hair that got in his mouth as he tried to retaliate.
Ray squirmed out of the mass and went chasing after his wallet after Frank pitched it towards the van, and after a minute Mikey sat up and scooted away, proclaiming himself blind and ineligible as he tried to wipe his glasses clean of smears and snow.
Gerard continued to tickle at Frank’s bare foot - fuck if he knew where his sock was now - and Frank finally managed to pant out between laughing fits that he was going to piss himself and Gerard too if he didn’t stop.
They lay panting in the snow. Gerard staring up at the sky, and Frank staring at Gerard, feeling the cold seeping up into his body now that he wasn’t in motion and noticing the snowflakes stuck to Gerard’s hair like dandruff and to his eyelashes like starlight.
“Come on,” Frank said, the cold filling his head with strange thoughts. “We should go back to the van.”
As if on cue the horn let out a feeble honk and Ray yelled, “We don’t have time to get any toes lopped off because of frostbite!”
Frank managed to climb to his feet and grabbed Gerard’s hand, helping him up. They ran back to the van, Frank half-skipping because of how fucking cold and sharp the ground was on his bare foot, and swinging their arms in a wide arc.
For the first time in a while Frank felt the free kind of happiness that movies told him kids felt, bright and airy and content right down to his sore cheeks and sides from laughter.
Frank realized just how soaked he was once he climbed into the van, and Gerard’s teeth were chattering, so they both stripped down, bumping elbows and knees as they struggled out of wet clinging clothes in the very back seat of the van.
“You’re going to get pneumonia,” Ray predicted. Otter was behind the wheel and started the van, pulling away from the pull-off in the direction they’d come from. Mikey was frowning at his hair in the passenger side view mirror.
“Fuck you, I am a picture of good health,” Frank replied. He spent the next five minutes willing himself to not cough, because he wasn’t going to eat his fucking words.
He and Gerard both threw their sopping wet snowy clothes in the very back with the merch and huddled together in their underwear, goose-pimpled and grinning. Ray offered them the grey blanket and Frank didn’t care what was crusted on it, it was warm and smelled like cigarettes and beer and comfort, and he snuggled up close to Gerard under it, resting his head on Gerard’s bare shoulder.
“You’re a good pillow,” Frank informed him, still feeling happy and content.
“You’re a kickass blanket,” Gerard replied, resting his head on the window and watching the snowy countryside pass.
Frank watched Gerard, trying to imagine what he was thinking and where that vision might take Frank’s life, and it was only when his eyes were drifting closed as warmth finally seeped into his bones that he realized he was holding Gerard’s hand again, pressed tight together on their bare thighs.
The last thing he noticed before he fell asleep was his shoe dangling from the rearview mirror, dripping melting snow onto the dash.