Schmoop Bingo fic what I did write pt 3
Title: Not So Secret Admirer
Author: roxy_palace
Fandom: Bandom
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating: PG - for swears
Warning: Nada, Enchilada
Disclaimer: No offence intended nor ownership implied
Challenge: Schmoop Bingo!
Prompt: Secret Admirer
Word count: 3341
AN: Beta by try_67 Thanks bb! This fic is a standalone, but part of an AU where Frank and Gee are a happy couple and run Skeleton Crew together, MCR never existed and they’re just awesome dudes from NJ. All the fic from the Schmoop Bingo card, which is here, will be in this ‘verse. This one is kind of a prequel. Other fic in this ‘verse are here.
Summary: Curse you, Mikey Way, he thinks. Curse you and the horse you...
*******
The first time Frank sees him is in the non-fiction section at Barnes and Noble, up a ladder, putting books away on the highest shelves.
And Frank cannot take his eyes off him.
Except that, standing next to the guy is Mikey Way - who Frank kind of knew in school - handing up the books one by one, looking bored out of his mind.
Frank isn’t bored though. Frank - psych class book-list all but forgotten - is transfixed.
Hot Book Guy, Frank’s oh so imaginative brain supplies, the guy up the ladder, is really frikken hot.
Every time he reaches out to slide a book home his tight, black tee shirt rides up exposing a sliver of opal coloured skin. And Frank cannot take his eyes off it.
Frank blinks. How has he never seen this guy before? Frank thought he knew everyone in his neck of Belleville. If he'd ever seen this guy before - the long sweep of his back, the slightly pink place where his jeans bite into his hip, or the soft curve of his ass in that tight, black denim - he'd never have forgotten it.
The guy is talking a mile a minute, holding a hand out for the books without looking at Mikey. Instead he scans the shelves figuring out where best to put the next book and when he finds the right spot he stretches, oh how he stretches...balancing on one leg, and shoves the books home.
Is Hot Book Guy, who looks a couple of years older than them, Mikey’s boss?
Frank watches Mikey as he hands over the books. He's sure not putting a lot of effort in. Not that Frank's ever put much effort in in front his bosses, but then his bosses have never looked like that.
Whatever the case, Mikey must have changed a bit since High School because Hello, Hot Book Guy’s happy trail is, like, right there, in Mikey's face. And if there's one thing Frank remembers about Mikey Way, it's that he knew a good thing when it was in front of him. But he really seems not to care. Maybe he needs new glasses?
Scurrying past the end of the aisle, round the paperbacks, Frank edges closer to them for a better look.
He hears HBG say something about cotton underskirts, but he figures he must have misheard that bit. Frank doesn’t really care because he can see HGB's face from here and the ‘Hot’ part of ‘Hot Book Guy’ just does not do him justice.
HGB looks like someone took Christina Ricci and a yaoi hentai wet dream, morphed them together with a male version of Vampirella and created Frank’s perfect dude. Frank's pretty sure his own eyes are just great big chibi stars by now.
Then the guy turns to Mikey, says something that requires a really big hand gesture, and almost falls off the ladder. Franks heart stops and his mind races through a scene where he leaps outfrom behind the gardening books, saves HBG from a broken neck, and they fall in love and live happily ever after. Hooray for literature!
Back in the real world, however, HBG catches himself in time and just goes right back to stocking the shelf.
But when HBG blinks, Frank can tell - even from this distance - his eye lashes are about four and a half inches long. That pretty much seals it, thinks Frank. He has to do something.
He takes a deep breath, plans a subtle entrance, and saunters in.
He stops just behind HBG’s ladder where he knows Mikey Way can see him. Only Frank didn’t count on Mikey’s acute case of Retail Blindness. HBG also seems to be rocking the Customer Blinkers. Neither of them notices him at all.
Frank bounces on his toes and waits for one of them to give in. But Retail Blindness - the ability to completely block out the customers until they are right up in your grill demanding to see the manager - is strong with Mikey Way and Frank caves when the guy gets out his phone and starts texting someone.
“Yo, Mikey Way,” he says finally.
(Frank sighs inwardly when HBG still doesn’t notice him. He hasn’t even stopped talking. Guys like HBG never notice stinky, pot dread, losers like Frank Iero anyway. But that will not ever stop him trying.)
“Hey, Frank,” says Mikey, who Frank is pretty sure he hasn’t seen in, like, three years, but who says hi as if they were just hanging out this morning. “’Sup?”
“Oh, you know,” mumbles Frank back, not even bothering to hide the fact that he’s ogling Hot Book Guy’s ass. “Stuff and things. And stuff...”
Mikey nods, pops his phone back in his pocket and hands another book to HBG from the trolley next to him.
Frank outright stares at the HBG’s nakedness (all two inches of it) for a couple of seconds when he stretches up to put it in a particularly hard to reach - if his precarious, yet delightful, lunge is anything to go by - place.
Which is when Frank notices that the guy has not only not noticed Frank, he hasn’t actually stopped talking either.
“And really,” says HBG, voice slightly strained from reaching. “What is a gender construction, if not a reflection of society around us, right? I mean...”
Frank doesn’t know what HBG is talking about, but is not all that surprised to see Mikey probably doesn’t know either. He’s only just popping out his ear buds now, to talk to Frank.
Frank raises his eyebrows at Mikey who shrugs back and hands the HBG another book.
“So,” says Frank after a second or two. “I’m playing at the Loop this weekend.”
“...If I choose to wear a dress to work...” says the HBG to no one.
“Cool,” says Mikey nodding.
“...It’s a not a statement about my sexuality, per se. So much as a reflection...”
“Yeah, like, come along. If you still like cool music,” Frank says and immediately wishes he hadn’t.
Mikey has always liked cool music. Mostly because he’s the coolest mother fucker ever.
But also because of his Legendary CD Collection - all hand-me-downs from Mikey’s Legendary Older Brother, who had been off somewhere like art school or living in an abandoned loft in the Village or writing subversive comics in Harlem or something when they were in school, but who'd still been the talk of Belleville High the whole of Frank's two years there.
Back in school, Mikey could get you any film, song, album or soundtrack you wanted, even the banned shit, anytime, anywhere. Yeah, Mikey fuckin’ Way had been the coolest.
Frank takes in the guy’s ironed bangs, beat up skate shoes, Judas Priest tee-shirt and scuff heeled flares. Yeah, Mikey’s still cool.
Mikey picks up a book, reads the spine and puts it back in favour of another in the dwindling pile on book trolley. “Pencey Prep. That’s your band, right?”
”...of American social mores and the hypocrisy...”
"Yeah,” says Frank hopelessly distracted by the full, rounded ass of the hottest of all Hot Book Guys, bobbing up and down in front of him.
“Like, I might bring someone,” says Mikey, looking at Hot Book Guy’s ass too only, Frank thinks, with less starry eyed stupor and more bemusement and vague repulsion.
Frank nods enthusiastically, shaking himself out of his butt daze. “Totally, yeah, bring - bring whoever, you know? Anyone. Everyone. Um...”
“...Because in the end, Mikey, in the end they are the losers. Not us. They are...”
“Cool,” says Mikey, smirking at him. Well, as much as Frank knows Mikey Way is capable of smirking, which is more like a slightly less blank stare.
Frank catches Mikey looking between Frank and HBG’s ass. God, could Frank be any more obvious?
He really fucking hopes Mikey isn’t dating this guy or something, because that would put a serious crimp in Frank’s plans. Frank’s plans being to stalk HBG for weeks until he either asks Frank out or gets a restraining order. HBG is that hot, but not even Frank would try to snake another dude’s dude.
Mikey glances up at Hot Book Guy and back at Frank like he’s weighing something up. “My bro here is really into that jangly, angry indie thing you guys do,” he says.
Frank feels his face flame up even as his blood turns kind of icy.
HBG is Mikey’s brother? That incredible ass is the brother ass of Mikey’s ass?
Frank has an overwhelming urge to just grab Hot Book Guy, who is also Mikey’s brother (Frank’s brain supplies the words Legendary Older Brother, but Frank is freaking out too much to cope with that thought just now, so he shuts it down), sling him over his shoulder and run off with him. And, if the guy was a little smaller - he’s pretty curvy, just how Frank likes ‘em - he probably would. But he dials it back to manic grin and hyperactive bounce.
“Your bro?” he squeaks.
“My bro,” says Mikey, pointedly looking at Frank over the rim of his glasses.
“...And that’s why it’s vital - vital, Mikey - that I wear a dress to work next week even though it will - quote, unquote - kill you stone dead, which I don’t believe , by the way...”
Frank finally clues in to what HBG (LOB...OMG!) has been saying for the last couple of minutes. He can’t help but immediately picture those thighs and that ass in a baby- doll mini dress.
Mikey steps around the bottom of the HBG’s ladder and shakes Frank when Frank starts choking on his own tongue a little.
“Dude,” says Mikey, frowning and slapping him on the back. “Do not die.”
“I’m okay,” stammers Frank. “I’m g-good.”
Mikey’s brother still hasn’t stopped talking or noticed Frank exists (typical). He’s moved on to something about needles and roller coasters now.
Frank looks up from his coughing fit to see him reach for a book from Mikey who is no longer in prime book handing out position on account of having to save Frank from choking to death on his own, HBG induced drool. Mikey’s fucking brother grasps at air, eyes still fixed on the shelves above him, and Frank leans forward, grabs a book off the pile and stuffs it in his hand. Mikey chuckles next to him.
“Thanks,” he says. “When Gee’s on a roll, he’s on a roll, you know?”
“Gee?” Frank rasps.
“Gerard,” smirks Mikey again. “My brother’s name is Gerard, Gee.”
“Okay,” says Frank, grinning at Mikey. “Okay, so you’ll come to the show Saturday and you’ll...you’ll bring your brother?”
“Yeah. I suppose,” Mikey says who moves back into his spot and hands another book up to Gerard.
Frank feels a lot better now that he knows HBG has a name. Gerard, he thinks, Gee...gee -gee. Giddy up, cowboy...Oh my God, his brother is standing right there.
“Ha ha!” Frank blurts somewhat desperately. “Okay, well...I better go! Saturday!”
“Saturday,” says Mikey, going back to his books.
Frank turns and high-tails it out of the aisle. But the stalker in Frank (which is, let’s face it, pretty dominant), makes him walk round back of the aisle to have another look at Gerard before he goes.
Adorably, Gerard is still talking. It’s something about sailboats and pots of paint and wolves, and Frank’s not sure, but he thinks he could listen to the timbre of Gerard’s voice everyday forever if he had to. It’s incredibly soothing to him; charming, in a way Frank is almost never charmed. It gives him the giggles.
“...Definitely banana yellow, anyway...Oh, hey, were you talking to someone just then?” Gerard says stopping and frowning down at Mikey. Frank see’s Mikey stop and pull out his ear buds again. He looks up and Gerard.
"Couple a minutes ago, yeah,” he says.
"Who was it? I didn’t see anyone,” says Gerard scanning the length of the aisle.
Frank ducks back behind the Martha Stewart display and peeks between the books.
“A guy from school,” says Mikey, picking up a couple more books and handing them to Gerard.
Frank has to stop himself from just bounding out from behind Martha, boxing Mikey’s ears and shouting ‘ME!’ He still might. Because Gerard’s face, Frank thinks, is like something from the Sistine frikken chapel. Per. Fucking. Fect.
Then Gerard smiles at Mikey and Frank, well, if he thought Gee’s voice was charming then this...this... Gerard reaches out to smoothe down a stray bit of his brother’s hair and laughs when Mikey ducks out of his reach. “What did he want?” Gerard asks as he turns back to his books, reading the spines and slipping them into place.
“Oh...” Mikey looks past his brother’s legs, down the aisle, and Frank could swear, swear, Mikey’s looking straight at him. “I think he wanted you to know you’ve got a secret admirer,” he says and his lips twitch into half a grin.
Frank’s guts just about drop out of his knees. Curse you, Mikey Way, he thinks. Curse you and the horse you...
“That’s nice...” says Gerard. He’s back on planet Hot Book Guy again and totally oblivious. “Oh, hey, did I mention that band I told you about, Pencey Prep? I saw a flyer they’re playing the Loop Lounge on Saturday?”
Frank’s heart leaps in his chest and he does a little dance of glee, a very little dance of glee, right there behind the Martha’s pinny.
“You don’t say,” chimes Mikey, still doing the barely there smirk Frank has grown in the last five seconds to drastically dislike.
“Yeah! I was thinking I might, you know...Wanna come with?”
Mikey’s tiny, barely there smirk spreads and he shrugs. “Oh, we’ll see,” he says and hands another book to Gerard. “We’ll see.”
*****
The first time Gerard sees him he’s careening round behind the wall of fans and throwing himself with total abandon across the stage.
Gerard can hardly make out anything about him - he’s a blur of red, blue, red spot lit colour - but he can hear that terrible, wonderful nasal whine of a voice. It’s the voice Gerard’s been listening to on repeat for the past six weeks and it’s even scratchier and more heartfelt live than Gerard could have hoped.
He’s half in love with the guy before the first song is even finished.
Mikey has got them a booth at the back of the packed venue jammed in against the wall. The long straight backed bench seat faces the stage and even though he’s trying to play it cool, trying not to fanboy over the band too much in front of his kid brother, he can still see the stage over the heads of the audience. And he can’t take his eyes off it. Off him.
So Gerard’s the first to see the guy launch himself off the stage at the end of the set and plough through the crowd - a tiny, painted, fireball of guh. Gerard lets himself daydream, just for a second, that the guy - Hot Pencey Guy - is headed right for him.
He’s exactly Gerard’s type. Okay, so Gerard’s never really had a type, unless you count ‘Anyone who’ll stand still long enough to let me stick my tongue in their mouth’ as a type.
But if Gerard did have a type it would be Hot Pencey Guy, whose is hair is buzz cut short and sticks up in reddish spikes, stiff with sweat. Hot Pencey Guy whose cheeks are smeared with eyeliner that’s dripped down from hazel eyes and sooty lashes. Hot Pencey Guy who looks insane or high or both. Who’s only wearing half a tee shirt. Who lost the other half when he threw himself into the mosh pit in the middle of his incredible band’s incredible set.
Gerard can feel his palms sweating the closer the guy gets.
Maybe he should say something, like, tell him how awesome the show was. But as Gerard watches his progress through the crowd it looks like every other guy in the place is saying the same thing. ‘Awesome show, dude’. ‘Great show, man’. And Gerard doesn’t want to be just another guy. He wants to be… someone a guy like HPG would notice. Someone HPG would want.
Guys like that never, ever, notice guys like Gerard, though. But, it never has stopped him from hoping.
From the corner of his eye he sees Mikey wave at someone. Mikey knows pretty much everyone but Gerard watches, stunned, as HPG waves back.
Then he not only waves back, he practically bounces over top of the crowd towards them.
And Gerard knows he’s having some kind of alcohol flash back nightmare, because Hot Pencey Guy really is coming over to them. Over. To them.
“Hey! Is that seat taken?!” HPG says, bouncing on his toes and pointing at the empty bench seat next to Gerard. His arm is all slick with sweat, taut and tanned and there is a tattoo around one of his wrists and Gerard just wants to lean forward and lick it. But…
“Yes!” says Gerard.
“No,” says Mikey.
“Yes, the seat is fucking taken,” squeals Gerard over the sound of his little brother inviting disaster down on Gerard’s head.
Because the thing is…the fucking thing is, he cannot meet HPG now. He’s too… fat/ugly/dressed badly/unprepared/stupid/unwashed/geeky/Gerard. He wants to meet HPG so bad, has wanted to for weeks and weeks, ever since he first heard the Pencey album and saw his picture in the liner notes. Gerard’s kind of sorry he shaved off the dreds, but he’s still fucking, fucking gorgeous. And Gerard so, so wants to meet him. But not until he’s fixed all that other shit (shit he should have fixed years ago, God damn it) so he won’t ruin any chance he has of HPG falling madly in love with him by being fat/ugly/dressed badly/unprepared/stupid/unwashed/geeky/Gerard.
Gerard sighs. Fuck my life. Fuck it in the ear.
The HPG looks between him and Mikey, and a cheeky - there is no other way to describe it - smile curls up on his cupid bow lips. Gerard squirms.
“Okay, then!” HPG chimes and dumps himself in Gerard’s lap.
Gerard has three seconds to compose himself before the guy is on top of him, arms slung round his neck, warm, sweat slicked skin under Gerard’s confused and clutching fingers.
“What the…”
“Hi!” the guy says brightly.
“Get the fuck off me, asshole,” Gerard forces himself to say, desperate to scrabble back a little cool, or at least to appear less like this is the greatest night of his young life.
He was sure it had sounded like less of a question and more of a commanding knock down/chance to escape in his head. But the guy just giggles and shrugs.
“No,” he says back. “I’m Frank Iero. I don’t think we’ve been introduced. But it’s okay. We’re going to fall in love, get married and have babies. Not all tonight, though. No rush, right?”
OhGodOhGodOhGod… thinks Gerard frantically. Did I just call him an asshole?
Frank smiles, his long eyelashes flutter against his cheeks and his pink lips perk up into a tiny, private, kind of grin like they’re sharing a secret - something sweet and sure and just theirs. Gerard’s heart stops. He blinks. It thumps back to life.
“Right,” he says again. Right. And he smiles too.
Author: roxy_palace
Fandom: Bandom
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating: PG - for swears
Warning: Nada, Enchilada
Disclaimer: No offence intended nor ownership implied
Challenge: Schmoop Bingo!
Prompt: Secret Admirer
Word count: 3341
AN: Beta by try_67 Thanks bb! This fic is a standalone, but part of an AU where Frank and Gee are a happy couple and run Skeleton Crew together, MCR never existed and they’re just awesome dudes from NJ. All the fic from the Schmoop Bingo card, which is here, will be in this ‘verse. This one is kind of a prequel. Other fic in this ‘verse are here.
Summary: Curse you, Mikey Way, he thinks. Curse you and the horse you...
*******
The first time Frank sees him is in the non-fiction section at Barnes and Noble, up a ladder, putting books away on the highest shelves.
And Frank cannot take his eyes off him.
Except that, standing next to the guy is Mikey Way - who Frank kind of knew in school - handing up the books one by one, looking bored out of his mind.
Frank isn’t bored though. Frank - psych class book-list all but forgotten - is transfixed.
Hot Book Guy, Frank’s oh so imaginative brain supplies, the guy up the ladder, is really frikken hot.
Every time he reaches out to slide a book home his tight, black tee shirt rides up exposing a sliver of opal coloured skin. And Frank cannot take his eyes off it.
Frank blinks. How has he never seen this guy before? Frank thought he knew everyone in his neck of Belleville. If he'd ever seen this guy before - the long sweep of his back, the slightly pink place where his jeans bite into his hip, or the soft curve of his ass in that tight, black denim - he'd never have forgotten it.
The guy is talking a mile a minute, holding a hand out for the books without looking at Mikey. Instead he scans the shelves figuring out where best to put the next book and when he finds the right spot he stretches, oh how he stretches...balancing on one leg, and shoves the books home.
Is Hot Book Guy, who looks a couple of years older than them, Mikey’s boss?
Frank watches Mikey as he hands over the books. He's sure not putting a lot of effort in. Not that Frank's ever put much effort in in front his bosses, but then his bosses have never looked like that.
Whatever the case, Mikey must have changed a bit since High School because Hello, Hot Book Guy’s happy trail is, like, right there, in Mikey's face. And if there's one thing Frank remembers about Mikey Way, it's that he knew a good thing when it was in front of him. But he really seems not to care. Maybe he needs new glasses?
Scurrying past the end of the aisle, round the paperbacks, Frank edges closer to them for a better look.
He hears HBG say something about cotton underskirts, but he figures he must have misheard that bit. Frank doesn’t really care because he can see HGB's face from here and the ‘Hot’ part of ‘Hot Book Guy’ just does not do him justice.
HGB looks like someone took Christina Ricci and a yaoi hentai wet dream, morphed them together with a male version of Vampirella and created Frank’s perfect dude. Frank's pretty sure his own eyes are just great big chibi stars by now.
Then the guy turns to Mikey, says something that requires a really big hand gesture, and almost falls off the ladder. Franks heart stops and his mind races through a scene where he leaps outfrom behind the gardening books, saves HBG from a broken neck, and they fall in love and live happily ever after. Hooray for literature!
Back in the real world, however, HBG catches himself in time and just goes right back to stocking the shelf.
But when HBG blinks, Frank can tell - even from this distance - his eye lashes are about four and a half inches long. That pretty much seals it, thinks Frank. He has to do something.
He takes a deep breath, plans a subtle entrance, and saunters in.
He stops just behind HBG’s ladder where he knows Mikey Way can see him. Only Frank didn’t count on Mikey’s acute case of Retail Blindness. HBG also seems to be rocking the Customer Blinkers. Neither of them notices him at all.
Frank bounces on his toes and waits for one of them to give in. But Retail Blindness - the ability to completely block out the customers until they are right up in your grill demanding to see the manager - is strong with Mikey Way and Frank caves when the guy gets out his phone and starts texting someone.
“Yo, Mikey Way,” he says finally.
(Frank sighs inwardly when HBG still doesn’t notice him. He hasn’t even stopped talking. Guys like HBG never notice stinky, pot dread, losers like Frank Iero anyway. But that will not ever stop him trying.)
“Hey, Frank,” says Mikey, who Frank is pretty sure he hasn’t seen in, like, three years, but who says hi as if they were just hanging out this morning. “’Sup?”
“Oh, you know,” mumbles Frank back, not even bothering to hide the fact that he’s ogling Hot Book Guy’s ass. “Stuff and things. And stuff...”
Mikey nods, pops his phone back in his pocket and hands another book to HBG from the trolley next to him.
Frank outright stares at the HBG’s nakedness (all two inches of it) for a couple of seconds when he stretches up to put it in a particularly hard to reach - if his precarious, yet delightful, lunge is anything to go by - place.
Which is when Frank notices that the guy has not only not noticed Frank, he hasn’t actually stopped talking either.
“And really,” says HBG, voice slightly strained from reaching. “What is a gender construction, if not a reflection of society around us, right? I mean...”
Frank doesn’t know what HBG is talking about, but is not all that surprised to see Mikey probably doesn’t know either. He’s only just popping out his ear buds now, to talk to Frank.
Frank raises his eyebrows at Mikey who shrugs back and hands the HBG another book.
“So,” says Frank after a second or two. “I’m playing at the Loop this weekend.”
“...If I choose to wear a dress to work...” says the HBG to no one.
“Cool,” says Mikey nodding.
“...It’s a not a statement about my sexuality, per se. So much as a reflection...”
“Yeah, like, come along. If you still like cool music,” Frank says and immediately wishes he hadn’t.
Mikey has always liked cool music. Mostly because he’s the coolest mother fucker ever.
But also because of his Legendary CD Collection - all hand-me-downs from Mikey’s Legendary Older Brother, who had been off somewhere like art school or living in an abandoned loft in the Village or writing subversive comics in Harlem or something when they were in school, but who'd still been the talk of Belleville High the whole of Frank's two years there.
Back in school, Mikey could get you any film, song, album or soundtrack you wanted, even the banned shit, anytime, anywhere. Yeah, Mikey fuckin’ Way had been the coolest.
Frank takes in the guy’s ironed bangs, beat up skate shoes, Judas Priest tee-shirt and scuff heeled flares. Yeah, Mikey’s still cool.
Mikey picks up a book, reads the spine and puts it back in favour of another in the dwindling pile on book trolley. “Pencey Prep. That’s your band, right?”
”...of American social mores and the hypocrisy...”
"Yeah,” says Frank hopelessly distracted by the full, rounded ass of the hottest of all Hot Book Guys, bobbing up and down in front of him.
“Like, I might bring someone,” says Mikey, looking at Hot Book Guy’s ass too only, Frank thinks, with less starry eyed stupor and more bemusement and vague repulsion.
Frank nods enthusiastically, shaking himself out of his butt daze. “Totally, yeah, bring - bring whoever, you know? Anyone. Everyone. Um...”
“...Because in the end, Mikey, in the end they are the losers. Not us. They are...”
“Cool,” says Mikey, smirking at him. Well, as much as Frank knows Mikey Way is capable of smirking, which is more like a slightly less blank stare.
Frank catches Mikey looking between Frank and HBG’s ass. God, could Frank be any more obvious?
He really fucking hopes Mikey isn’t dating this guy or something, because that would put a serious crimp in Frank’s plans. Frank’s plans being to stalk HBG for weeks until he either asks Frank out or gets a restraining order. HBG is that hot, but not even Frank would try to snake another dude’s dude.
Mikey glances up at Hot Book Guy and back at Frank like he’s weighing something up. “My bro here is really into that jangly, angry indie thing you guys do,” he says.
Frank feels his face flame up even as his blood turns kind of icy.
HBG is Mikey’s brother? That incredible ass is the brother ass of Mikey’s ass?
Frank has an overwhelming urge to just grab Hot Book Guy, who is also Mikey’s brother (Frank’s brain supplies the words Legendary Older Brother, but Frank is freaking out too much to cope with that thought just now, so he shuts it down), sling him over his shoulder and run off with him. And, if the guy was a little smaller - he’s pretty curvy, just how Frank likes ‘em - he probably would. But he dials it back to manic grin and hyperactive bounce.
“Your bro?” he squeaks.
“My bro,” says Mikey, pointedly looking at Frank over the rim of his glasses.
“...And that’s why it’s vital - vital, Mikey - that I wear a dress to work next week even though it will - quote, unquote - kill you stone dead, which I don’t believe , by the way...”
Frank finally clues in to what HBG (LOB...OMG!) has been saying for the last couple of minutes. He can’t help but immediately picture those thighs and that ass in a baby- doll mini dress.
Mikey steps around the bottom of the HBG’s ladder and shakes Frank when Frank starts choking on his own tongue a little.
“Dude,” says Mikey, frowning and slapping him on the back. “Do not die.”
“I’m okay,” stammers Frank. “I’m g-good.”
Mikey’s brother still hasn’t stopped talking or noticed Frank exists (typical). He’s moved on to something about needles and roller coasters now.
Frank looks up from his coughing fit to see him reach for a book from Mikey who is no longer in prime book handing out position on account of having to save Frank from choking to death on his own, HBG induced drool. Mikey’s fucking brother grasps at air, eyes still fixed on the shelves above him, and Frank leans forward, grabs a book off the pile and stuffs it in his hand. Mikey chuckles next to him.
“Thanks,” he says. “When Gee’s on a roll, he’s on a roll, you know?”
“Gee?” Frank rasps.
“Gerard,” smirks Mikey again. “My brother’s name is Gerard, Gee.”
“Okay,” says Frank, grinning at Mikey. “Okay, so you’ll come to the show Saturday and you’ll...you’ll bring your brother?”
“Yeah. I suppose,” Mikey says who moves back into his spot and hands another book up to Gerard.
Frank feels a lot better now that he knows HBG has a name. Gerard, he thinks, Gee...gee -gee. Giddy up, cowboy...Oh my God, his brother is standing right there.
“Ha ha!” Frank blurts somewhat desperately. “Okay, well...I better go! Saturday!”
“Saturday,” says Mikey, going back to his books.
Frank turns and high-tails it out of the aisle. But the stalker in Frank (which is, let’s face it, pretty dominant), makes him walk round back of the aisle to have another look at Gerard before he goes.
Adorably, Gerard is still talking. It’s something about sailboats and pots of paint and wolves, and Frank’s not sure, but he thinks he could listen to the timbre of Gerard’s voice everyday forever if he had to. It’s incredibly soothing to him; charming, in a way Frank is almost never charmed. It gives him the giggles.
“...Definitely banana yellow, anyway...Oh, hey, were you talking to someone just then?” Gerard says stopping and frowning down at Mikey. Frank see’s Mikey stop and pull out his ear buds again. He looks up and Gerard.
"Couple a minutes ago, yeah,” he says.
"Who was it? I didn’t see anyone,” says Gerard scanning the length of the aisle.
Frank ducks back behind the Martha Stewart display and peeks between the books.
“A guy from school,” says Mikey, picking up a couple more books and handing them to Gerard.
Frank has to stop himself from just bounding out from behind Martha, boxing Mikey’s ears and shouting ‘ME!’ He still might. Because Gerard’s face, Frank thinks, is like something from the Sistine frikken chapel. Per. Fucking. Fect.
Then Gerard smiles at Mikey and Frank, well, if he thought Gee’s voice was charming then this...this... Gerard reaches out to smoothe down a stray bit of his brother’s hair and laughs when Mikey ducks out of his reach. “What did he want?” Gerard asks as he turns back to his books, reading the spines and slipping them into place.
“Oh...” Mikey looks past his brother’s legs, down the aisle, and Frank could swear, swear, Mikey’s looking straight at him. “I think he wanted you to know you’ve got a secret admirer,” he says and his lips twitch into half a grin.
Frank’s guts just about drop out of his knees. Curse you, Mikey Way, he thinks. Curse you and the horse you...
“That’s nice...” says Gerard. He’s back on planet Hot Book Guy again and totally oblivious. “Oh, hey, did I mention that band I told you about, Pencey Prep? I saw a flyer they’re playing the Loop Lounge on Saturday?”
Frank’s heart leaps in his chest and he does a little dance of glee, a very little dance of glee, right there behind the Martha’s pinny.
“You don’t say,” chimes Mikey, still doing the barely there smirk Frank has grown in the last five seconds to drastically dislike.
“Yeah! I was thinking I might, you know...Wanna come with?”
Mikey’s tiny, barely there smirk spreads and he shrugs. “Oh, we’ll see,” he says and hands another book to Gerard. “We’ll see.”
*****
The first time Gerard sees him he’s careening round behind the wall of fans and throwing himself with total abandon across the stage.
Gerard can hardly make out anything about him - he’s a blur of red, blue, red spot lit colour - but he can hear that terrible, wonderful nasal whine of a voice. It’s the voice Gerard’s been listening to on repeat for the past six weeks and it’s even scratchier and more heartfelt live than Gerard could have hoped.
He’s half in love with the guy before the first song is even finished.
Mikey has got them a booth at the back of the packed venue jammed in against the wall. The long straight backed bench seat faces the stage and even though he’s trying to play it cool, trying not to fanboy over the band too much in front of his kid brother, he can still see the stage over the heads of the audience. And he can’t take his eyes off it. Off him.
So Gerard’s the first to see the guy launch himself off the stage at the end of the set and plough through the crowd - a tiny, painted, fireball of guh. Gerard lets himself daydream, just for a second, that the guy - Hot Pencey Guy - is headed right for him.
He’s exactly Gerard’s type. Okay, so Gerard’s never really had a type, unless you count ‘Anyone who’ll stand still long enough to let me stick my tongue in their mouth’ as a type.
But if Gerard did have a type it would be Hot Pencey Guy, whose is hair is buzz cut short and sticks up in reddish spikes, stiff with sweat. Hot Pencey Guy whose cheeks are smeared with eyeliner that’s dripped down from hazel eyes and sooty lashes. Hot Pencey Guy who looks insane or high or both. Who’s only wearing half a tee shirt. Who lost the other half when he threw himself into the mosh pit in the middle of his incredible band’s incredible set.
Gerard can feel his palms sweating the closer the guy gets.
Maybe he should say something, like, tell him how awesome the show was. But as Gerard watches his progress through the crowd it looks like every other guy in the place is saying the same thing. ‘Awesome show, dude’. ‘Great show, man’. And Gerard doesn’t want to be just another guy. He wants to be… someone a guy like HPG would notice. Someone HPG would want.
Guys like that never, ever, notice guys like Gerard, though. But, it never has stopped him from hoping.
From the corner of his eye he sees Mikey wave at someone. Mikey knows pretty much everyone but Gerard watches, stunned, as HPG waves back.
Then he not only waves back, he practically bounces over top of the crowd towards them.
And Gerard knows he’s having some kind of alcohol flash back nightmare, because Hot Pencey Guy really is coming over to them. Over. To them.
“Hey! Is that seat taken?!” HPG says, bouncing on his toes and pointing at the empty bench seat next to Gerard. His arm is all slick with sweat, taut and tanned and there is a tattoo around one of his wrists and Gerard just wants to lean forward and lick it. But…
“Yes!” says Gerard.
“No,” says Mikey.
“Yes, the seat is fucking taken,” squeals Gerard over the sound of his little brother inviting disaster down on Gerard’s head.
Because the thing is…the fucking thing is, he cannot meet HPG now. He’s too… fat/ugly/dressed badly/unprepared/stupid/unwashed/geeky/Gerard. He wants to meet HPG so bad, has wanted to for weeks and weeks, ever since he first heard the Pencey album and saw his picture in the liner notes. Gerard’s kind of sorry he shaved off the dreds, but he’s still fucking, fucking gorgeous. And Gerard so, so wants to meet him. But not until he’s fixed all that other shit (shit he should have fixed years ago, God damn it) so he won’t ruin any chance he has of HPG falling madly in love with him by being fat/ugly/dressed badly/unprepared/stupid/unwashed/geeky/Gerard.
Gerard sighs. Fuck my life. Fuck it in the ear.
The HPG looks between him and Mikey, and a cheeky - there is no other way to describe it - smile curls up on his cupid bow lips. Gerard squirms.
“Okay, then!” HPG chimes and dumps himself in Gerard’s lap.
Gerard has three seconds to compose himself before the guy is on top of him, arms slung round his neck, warm, sweat slicked skin under Gerard’s confused and clutching fingers.
“What the…”
“Hi!” the guy says brightly.
“Get the fuck off me, asshole,” Gerard forces himself to say, desperate to scrabble back a little cool, or at least to appear less like this is the greatest night of his young life.
He was sure it had sounded like less of a question and more of a commanding knock down/chance to escape in his head. But the guy just giggles and shrugs.
“No,” he says back. “I’m Frank Iero. I don’t think we’ve been introduced. But it’s okay. We’re going to fall in love, get married and have babies. Not all tonight, though. No rush, right?”
OhGodOhGodOhGod… thinks Gerard frantically. Did I just call him an asshole?
Frank smiles, his long eyelashes flutter against his cheeks and his pink lips perk up into a tiny, private, kind of grin like they’re sharing a secret - something sweet and sure and just theirs. Gerard’s heart stops. He blinks. It thumps back to life.
“Right,” he says again. Right. And he smiles too.