fic: made me that much stronger
made me that much stronger
always-a-girl!Jepha/Dan, AU, The Used
~4500 words, R.
Warnings: Kink (domination/submission), het, slash and drag. Sort of.
Notes: This is for sinsense with a beta by secrethappiness. Because they’re TERRIBLE ENABLERS.
It’s not real, it didn’t happen. Mostly because Jepha Howard has a (presumptive) penis - we’ve at least heard enough about his cock sleeve that I would assume it is true. I’d go through the “don’t Google yourselves” schtick, but really? If you’re reading this, I hope you enjoy it, Used Boys.
*
Jepha’s always been strong. She’s always been hard because that’s what you have to be when you grow up a girl on an Army base, when you’re a girl playing in a band, when you’re on the road 300 days a year with a cabal of boys and men who don’t always have your best interests in mind.
You learn to hold your own in the face of men who won’t.
Not her guys. Fuck, no. Other guys, roadies and managers and dudes in other bands, yes, they are the kind of guys that Jepha’s always known not to let pour her a beer or hand her shit that isn’t still in the packaging. But not Jepha’s band, not her guys. They’re the kind of men that women dream about - devoted and sweet and dorky and funny. They would kill someone in a heartbeat if they had even a thought that someone was going to half-think about disrespecting Jepha. So they don’t know, not only because she really doesn’t want a trail of bodies following their tours, but also because she thinks that it would make Bert cry.
And Jepha would rather dump a pre-poured drink on the ground or have to quietly knee some fucker in the balls behind the bus than see Bert cry.
Because her guys are fucking hers. They’re also smelly and drunk half the time, and they like to try to teabag each other in their sleep.
But it’s just all a part of the dream.
*
It took Bert coming in to make them a real band, Jepha knows that. A lot of people thought that she would resent him for stealing her thunder or some shit, that she would make himself prove himself to take her spot.
It was never her spot, but it’s as much her band as anyone’s. And she’ll admit that the minute she heard Bert scream, she knew that it was it, he was it.
They were it.
And thank fucking god because she couldn’t take much more of the band that she had sacrificed for not being It.
But they were.
“That was fucking amazing,” Quinn had said first, his eyes huge. Jepha tried not to smirk, not to play the obnoxious all-knowing older sister role too much. But god, if Quinn could have just seen his own face, like this dirty little Mormon kid was the answer to all of his prayers.
And, fuck, maybe he was.
It was only after Quinn and Branden piled upstairs to try to con Jepha’s mom out of some cookies that Jepha stepped in front of Bert. She wasn’t trying to be intimidating, but she knew what she looked like to this ridiculously small kid, the edges of her tattoos showing around her shirt and her eyebrows raised.
He was only three years younger than Jepha, but fuck if she could remember ever looking that young.
“You clean?” she’d asked, her voice pitched low.
Bert had stepped back closer to the wall, like a small animal that had been spooked. “What?” he’d asked, his eyes darting around.
“Don’t play me, Bert,” she’d said, her voice still quiet. She hadn’t wanted to be that girl, but Quinn and Branden had no fucking idea what to look for and. Well. Jepha did. “What are you using?”
Bert had looked like he was going to either cry or bite her, a look that Jepha would become all too familiar with later. Then and, really, always, that face makes her crumble.
“Look,” she’d said, her voice quieter, trying to make it softer. “I waited until they left. I just want to know what’s up.”
Bert narrowed his eyes and Jepha couldn’t tell if it was to show his anger or trap his tears.
“Meth, mostly,” he said after a few beats of silence. “Weed. I drink. I’m gonna quit, though.”
Jepha’s known users for years. She’s dated them, she’s held their hands when they were coming down and she’s heard their promises.
“That would be good” is all she could say, then. Because it would have been good. But she knew, even then, that she couldn’t ask him to promise.
The look of disbelief and gratitude on Bert’s face, though, when she’d dragged him up her basement stairs and shouted “So, I think we’ve found ourselves a new fucking singer,” when Quinn asked “Hey, man, do you need a place to crash?” made her want to make him guarantee it. Because she wanted him, she wanted that hope, she wanted to help him save himself. She wanted him to promise.
But she still didn’t make him. Jepha had already learned not to ask for things that people couldn’t know they could deliver.
*
Her shrink Carol, the one her dad insisted she start seeing when Lillian’s piece-of-fucking-shit dad actually fought for custody and won, always wanted to talk about Jepha’s issues with strength.
“Do you think your tattoos relate to that?” she’d asked Jepha once, relatively early in.
“What?” Jepha had scowled and slumped down further in her chair. Stupid fucking therapy. Stupid fucking James and his stupid fucking lawyers. Stupid fucking Jepha for fucking a rich dude whose parents could afford shit like lawyers and for dropping out of school for a band and for being 19 and not having her fucking kid.
“For some people, tattoos might be a visible marker of strength,” Carol explained, crossing her legs and leaning back in her chair.
Jepha hated therapy.
“I don’t fucking know,” she’d muttered, tapping her fingers in counterbeat to the ‘thump, thump’ of her foot.
But that was kind of a lie. She knew, she knows.
The tattoos … they’re more than a little bit about that.
*
Her first tattoo, the lightening bolt, it was the first time that she really needed it. She was 17 and Strange Itch had just started talking about recording an album. Matt had jumped on her back and she had flinched - his leg had just dug into her side, that’s all.
“Not man enough to carry me?” Matt had whooped, knocking out a beat on her head.
And, for whatever reason, not like it was so very different from every other damn day, it just hit Jepha, like some kind of clarity that she’d always kind of had, but needed to know for sure.
She was never going to be man enough, but she better be fucking strong enough.
And, yeah, they happened to be in front of a tattoo shop and, yeah, maybe she had something to prove.
People say all the time that everyone regrets their impulsive tattoos. But there has never been a minute in Jepha’s life, not from the second she walked into the shop until now, that she has regretted turning around, dumping Matt on his ass sneering at him while she said: “Yeah, but I bet I’m stronger than you, douchebag” and walking into that shop.
And every single time she looks down at that finger, it’s like a big, cosmic “fuck you.”
It’s the best decision that Jepha’s ever made.
*
Every tattoo after that, every time she gauged up her ears, every time she walked into a piercing shop and walked out with a new glint of silver at her nipples-ear-lip-clit, it was what she needed to do.
People stopped asking if she could carry a goddamn amp after she tattooed her wrist.
They stopped asking if she needed extra time to get ready in the morning when she started her chestpiece, stopped hovering over her at afterparties after she finished her calf and brought her ears up to a 00.
They stopped asking if she was okay entirely when she tattooed her neck and under her chin, the images and words like a taunt.
Choke her. Just try.
Nobody did. It was better than armor. It was a dare.
*
Jepha used to have this girlfriend, one of the only real girlfriends she’s ever had. It’s not that she doesn’t like fucking around with (and just generally fucking) girls, but first she was living in fucking Utah with a dearth of dykes and then she was always touring. And the thing about touring is that it always has been be domain of guys.
But there was this one girl, Jamie, one of Branden’s drum techs, that Jepha actually managed to have a little bit of something with that lasted longer than a couple of months. She was hot as fuck and had some hidden hard edges that Jepha found crazy attractive. She also loved this girly clothing, all of these ruffles and lace and shit that every other woman on tour (Jepha included) shrugged off and sometimes even mocked.
Jamie, though, loved them.
Jepha had asked her about it, how she had managed to make it in this life so long and remain so soft.
Jamie’s eyes hardened and she leaned into Jepha’s space within the bus, her stare scary and her mouth thin.
“There’s not a goddamned thing that’s soft about me, Jepha Howard,” Jamie had hissed, her nails digging into Jepha’s thigh. “It’s a different kind of strong, to walk out that door with pink nail polish and a flowered tank top, but it’s still strong.”
Jepha nodded, her mouth dry and her eyes locked on Jamie’s flinty gaze. She knew.
And, even after Jamie moved on to other tours and other people moved into Jepha's bed, she never forgot, either.
*
Jepha knows better than to take a beer from someone outside of her band, she knows better than to fuck too many guys on tour. She knows that the rules are different for her than for any of the guys and tries her hardest not to resent Bert for that when she sees him and Gerard making out in front of cameras like it’s no big deal, when he comes on the bus after a hotel night rubbing at his wrists and tugging down his sleeves over the last traces of rope burn.
And the thing is, it’s not a big deal. Because Bert is Bert. And, because Jepha is Jepha, she takes her moments behind equipment vans with merch girls and stolen moments in bathrooms with guys in bands leaving the tour. She keeps her shit quiet because she has to, but it doesn’t mean that she can’t look, that she can’t wish.
And sometimes, she gets caught looking.
“Seriously, you’re into the drummer with rabbit teeth and the weird eyes?” Bert yells in her ear as she watches the opening acts.
Jepha rolls her eyes and shakes her head at him as she sips at her lukewarm beer. “I like New Transit Direction.”
“Yeah, you’d like them in your pants,” Bert snickers, licking at her neck and jumping on her back. Her hands go down automatically to catch his knees. Six years of this shit at least lends itself to some decent reflexes when it comes to Bert Wrangling.
“The whole band?” she says mildly as she walks away from the stage, Bert still clinging to her back. “You think they’d fit?”
Bert cackles in her ear and licks the part of her hair. “To the dressing rooms! I have more beer to drink!”
*
It may have been Bert that made them a real band, but it was Dan that made them complete.
It sounds fucking ridiculous, like something from one of those supermarket romance novels that Jepha has absolutely never read, but it’s still true. Branden was there and he is a hell of a drummer, but Dan is … Dan is the kind of steady that Jepha knows that they need at the backbeat with enough skills to mix it up sometimes.
Plus, and she’s not above admitting this, he’s really kind of bizarrely hot.
Fine, whatever. She might potentially find rabbit teeth and strange eyes hot.
Plus, those forearms. Not like drummers were usually un-built people (there is a reason that Jepha’s fantasy taste has tended to run toward the rhythm section, regardless of gender), but he seriously has some forearms. Good arms to have.
Jepha imagines what he could do with those arms, the hold against a struggling body, the way his big fucking hands could curl around a wrist or an ankle or a throat. Dan looks like the kind of guy who could go hard enough, who could make it the kind of hard and fast that guys never seem to believe that Jepha really wants, like she’s going to fucking break. She likes it hard and just a little painful all the fucking time because she can take it and knowing that she can take it makes it hotter, makes her feel stronger.
Dan could make her feel stronger.
But that isn’t why Dan made them what they always needed to be. He’s a great drummer, he breaks sticks on stage like it’s not a thing, he smiles big and works hard. He also knows when to leave Bert and Quinn to their weird mind-meld, when to steer Bert away from his next line without pissing him off, when to turn on his headphones and when to break into an argument.
He just knows how to fit. So it’s not about the fantasies but they don't hurt either.
*
Every time Jepha comes back with more tattoo work, Dan gives her this look that she doesn’t know how to read. She's noticed that he doesn’t shy away from the bruised places, the edges of flaking tattoos the way that everyone else does. He doesn’t touch them intentionally, either, but he just acts like nothing has changed, like there’s not another part of Jepha that’s marked, changed.
She doesn’t know what to do with his lack of reaction but, more than that, she doesn’t know what to do with her own response when he presses a little harder than she expects against a new bruise or the swollen edge of a healing tattoo.
Her breath catches every time, but fuck if she knows what it means.
There are moments where she thinks that Dan knows what it means when he presses just a little too much, crowds just a little more than is normal. Those moments are disconcerting.
And hot.
*
Quinn drags them to some godawful mall in the Midwest, claiming that it had been at least two hours since his last coffee. They split up at the entrance and Jepha thinks she's being careful but she still gets caught
Ever since Jamie, she sometimes find herself staring in the windows of these girly lingerie stores, places where she’s never even tried to go. Because she’s not that girl. She’s a bras at JC Penny’s kind of girl, a combat boots and cargo shorts kind of girl.
She’s not lacy bras and panties, not flippy nightgown skirts.
But. But. Sometimes, she’ll walk by, sometimes she’ll stop, sometimes she’ll wonder what it would feel like to have the lace pressed up against her nipple rings, the satin rubbing against the tattoos on her hip.
“See something you like?” Dan’s voice ghosts across her ear and he's damn near pressed against her back.
Jepha starts before she turns around. Dan doesn’t move.
“Please,” she scoffs a little, her voice sounding convincing. Strong. “That’s not … that’s not me.”
“Why?” Dan asks, his eyes wide.
Jepha laughs and waves her hand, meaning to include everything, every tattoo, every piercing, every part of her.
“Can you see me in a pink lace bra?” she smiles, shaking her head.
“Sure, why not?” Dan’s asks, his eyes still wide, his face open.
Jepha tries to step back, but her back is actually up against the glass in the storefront.
“Um,” she tries, not really knowing what to say.
Dan smiles, his mouth stretching across impossibly tiny teeth and widening the whole of his face as he presses his face closer to hers and kisses her check.
Kisses her cheek.
“Why not?” he repeats as he pushes away.
*
So, okay. Maybe Jepha has thought about it. Maybe, sometimes, she thinks about going to Victoria's Secret and buying a frilly nightgown-y thing (she's not even sure what they're called). Sometimes, she thinks about what it would be like to wear the pink lacy bra, to be that kind of girl.
It’s not because she wants to feel like a girl. She is a girl. She’s a fucking awesome girl, with her boots and her men’s shorts and her tattoos and her kick-fucking-ass bass.
But … it’s almost like she could cross some kind of a line, the line that tells her that girls like her aren't supposed to look like that - they're supposed to be cool with dirty and hard, with not having any soft edges, always being in control.
Jepha’s never had any interest in drag to make her look like a boy, but there are the rare days that she wonders about drag that would make her look like a femme.
*
Weeks later, long enough later that her guard is down, when Jepha finds the pink and white striped bag in her bunk, the distinctive curve of writing over the bag.
There’s a note on top of the ridiculously small slips of cloth:
Why not?
*
They have a hotel night a few nights later. A few long nights later, nights where Jepha fingers the soft, silky cloth in the privacy of her bunk and wonders but doesn't try.
She manages a quick shower at the venue after the show, cold but still effective. It’s just like always, Quinn and Bert sharing one room and Jepha and Dan sharing the other. She’s usually grateful for the split, the chance to get a night away from the Quinn and Bert show.
She’s still grateful this time, but there’s a pit of something in her stomach, something like fear and maybe excitement, mostly her wondering if she is going to fuck this up, too. Because there’s something about the moment when Craig hands them their keycards, a catch in Jepha’s throat that feels like expectation, like longing, like hope.
She covers it quickly enough that Quinn and Bert don’t see a damn thing.
Dan, though. Dan’s smile spreads slowly across his face like a promise.
Jepha doesn’t exactly run to the elevator, but it’s a close thing.
*
“G’night, motherfuckers,” Quinn’s voice carries down the hall as Jepha flips him off and closes the door.
She turns around and Dan is just … right there.
“So,” she says, her voice cracking a little and her body tense.
Fuck, what if she’s read this wrong?
“So,” Dan says in his normal voice, his everyday fucking-around voice almost. But not quite. He smirks at her and leans in a little. “Why not?” he says against her neck.
Jepha’s breath stutters a little. “You …”
“I want to,” Dan says smoothly, like he’s picking up the end of her thought. “If you want me to.”
Jepha looks down at Dan’s thick forearms curving up into drummer biceps, her eyes skating across his shoulders and up to his face. He looks like Dan, like the guy she can trust, like one of the guys.
“I want you to,” she says, barely, her voice catching at the end. “I just. Yeah.”
Dan nods a little, moving his arms up around hers, holding her shoulders just tight enough. “You have to tell me if I have to stop.”
Jepha nods, her head jerking a little, not totally sure that this is actually happening in the real world and not in her head.
“What are you going to say?” Dan asks, his voice curious and firm.
“Gerard,” Jepha blurts out, without even thinking about it.
Dan raises his eyebrows at her silently.
“No, just. I would never say ‘Gerard’ during sex,” Jepha groans, staring at the floor. “I’m not fucking Bert.”
Dan’s smile spreads further across his face. “Yeah, you’re really not.”
Jepha is ridiculously happy and proud that she’s made him smile. It's not like it’s never happened before. But really, it hasn’t. Not like this.
Dan’s hand is on her chin, just above the “choke” tattoo, as he pushes her face up to meet his eyes.
“Did you bring the stuff I left you?”
Jepha nods silently.
“Get it.”
Jepha walks over to the bag the techs already brought up to the room, glad that she had thought of putting the smaller bag inside it before the show. She shuffles through the bag a little and finally finds the crumpled Victoria’s Secret bag underneath another set of dirty t-shirts. She pulls it out, victorious, her smile fading as she turns around to see Dan.
Just staring at her. With these eyes.
“Put them on,” he says, his voice quiet, but firm.
Jepha … well, it’s not like she’s never been naked in front of Dan. Hell, Dan’s probably seen her tits more than most of the people she’s dated. But. This feels different.
She pauses, her hands stilling on the fabric she’s been sliding through her hands without thinking.
“On,” Dan’s voice isn’t any harder, but it’s firmer, somehow. Jepha’s not even sure how she can tell the difference between the two right now, with her heart beating through her fucking ears. “Here. Now.”
Jepha nods, heat rushing to her head as she strips off her jeans and tank top. She hadn’t exactly planned for this when she took her shower after the show, but she’d also forgone underwear and an undershirt, so. Maybe she’d kind of hoped.
She can’t believe that she’s still capable of it, that she can still blush, but apparently she can. She feels a flush spread down her chest as she strips off her pants and reaches onto the bed to grab the pieces of cloth.
Dan’s face is impassive, his eyes watching every movement but not giving away a damn thing. She feels his eyes sliding across her skin, not sure if she imagines his gaze snagging on the flash of silver at her clit or the curve of ink around her hip.
Jepha pulls the scraps of cloth out of the bag, moving to slide into them quickly.
“Hey,” Dan’s voice is soft, but it’s not a question, either. “Slower.”
Jepha closes her eyes and nods, her hands shaking a little. She has never in her life felt this naked or this turned on.
She pulls the underwear on first, stepping into them and pulling them slowly up her thighs. They fit, pulling taut across her lower belly and ass. She feels the slide of the underwear against the bareness of her skin and, okay, maybe she kind of understands why some girls wear this for that feeling. Her eyes open when she realizes what that means, that Dan must have researched her size, maybe gone through her bag while she was off the bus or in the bathroom.
Dan steps just a little bit closer to her, his eyes dark and his body taunt. He motions to the bra.
Jepha nods and pulls on the satin-y bra, hooking it automatically behind her back, smoothing her hands over the cups, fingers catching a little on her nipple rings beneath the cloth.
It’s weird. It’s not bad weird, it’s just … Jepha’s never had stuff like this. She’s never looked down at her own body and seen the sheen of satin, the contrast of pale pink against her tattoos and the sun-darkened tan of her skin. She’s never felt the calluses on her fingers through slippery material …
It’s a little scary, like she’s given something up, like she’s given in.
It’s also more than a little exciting.
There must be something showing on her face, something in the rise and fall of her chest, something that hints at all of this going on. She feels Dan’s finger under her chin, a slight pressure pushing up.
“Hey,” Dan’s voice is still quiet, but there’s something under it that makes Jepha’s head rise to meet his eyes. “No. That’s … this is perfect. You’re tough and you’re beautiful and you’re strong. Like this.”
Jepha’s breath comes out in a rush, her shoulders slumping a little. Her head stays up, though, her hands resting on her hips. “Yeah.”
Dan circles her slowly, his eyes mapping out her body, his hands hovering just above her skin.
“Good,” his voice is a little rougher, his tone a little higher. “Get on the bed. On your back.”
Jepha nods again, not sure why she’s being so quiet. But there’s something about this, a tautness to the room, that feels like it’s being held in place with her silence.
She slides onto the bed, pushing herself up toward the pillows. She can hear her own breath picking up, smell herself through the thin satin of the overpriced underwear. He hasn’t fucking touched her yet but she's more turned on than she's been in years.
Dan smiles, small and real, and crawls up the bed to push her legs apart. His breath is hot and wet against her thighs, his fingers brushing against the edges of the underwear.
“Good,” Dan says again, right before he licks the crease of her thigh. Her breath catches and her hands tighten on the sheets.
Fuck.
Fuck.
He’s going to fucking tease.
Dan laughs like he can read her fucking mind, like she said that out loud, and seriously, he’s barely touched her and she’s pretty sure she’d beg if he wanted her to.
And it goes like that, Dan touching and teasing, Jepha held just at the edge for-fucking-ever. He brushes and looks, licks and teases for what seems like an eternity before he even gets her naked, takes even longer before he does a damn thing that could be read as R-rated.
And normally, Jepha likes it fast and hard. But fuck, there’s something about this, the sureness of Dan’s touch, the number of times he brings her just to the edge of saying something, of doing something, of pushing him on his back and just fucking taking …
Well, it works.
It takes Jepha most of the night to learn that slow is not mutually-exclusive from hard, that bruises blooming over her hips and thighs and shoulders hurt differently when they’ve been applied over the course of hours.
And when Dan kisses her - for the first fucking time - at the end of it all, it’s like a guitar string snapping, like tension released, like every stupid perfect thing ever.
The next morning, when Jepha tries to avoid his eyes, embarrassed, Dan just pulls her down on the bed and makes out with her for twenty minutes.
It's nice but not as nice as Dan's eyes, still bright and sure, after she packs the panties and bra and is just Jepha again
“Beautiful like this,” Dan says against the back of her neck, running a finger between her t-shirt and her cargo shorts as they climb onto the bus. “Also.”
*
Jepha doesn’t want to be a boy and she doesn’t want to be a femme girl all the time.
But sometimes, she kind of likes fucking with gender, with power, with expectation. So, every once and a while, she wants to be in drag. She puts on the frilly shit and the lipgloss and tells Dan that she wants him to boss her around. She likes it when he's in charge, when he pushes just a little farther than she knows how to be pushed.
But not all the time, just the times that she's being subversive.
Jepha always likes the pain, that'll never go away. It just so happens that Dan gets what it does to her, how she builds strength from it.
Dan gets that. In fact, Dan fucking loves it.
And Jepha loves feeling stronger all the time, in drag or out.
always-a-girl!Jepha/Dan, AU, The Used
~4500 words, R.
Warnings: Kink (domination/submission), het, slash and drag. Sort of.
Notes: This is for sinsense with a beta by secrethappiness. Because they’re TERRIBLE ENABLERS.
It’s not real, it didn’t happen. Mostly because Jepha Howard has a (presumptive) penis - we’ve at least heard enough about his cock sleeve that I would assume it is true. I’d go through the “don’t Google yourselves” schtick, but really? If you’re reading this, I hope you enjoy it, Used Boys.
*
Jepha’s always been strong. She’s always been hard because that’s what you have to be when you grow up a girl on an Army base, when you’re a girl playing in a band, when you’re on the road 300 days a year with a cabal of boys and men who don’t always have your best interests in mind.
You learn to hold your own in the face of men who won’t.
Not her guys. Fuck, no. Other guys, roadies and managers and dudes in other bands, yes, they are the kind of guys that Jepha’s always known not to let pour her a beer or hand her shit that isn’t still in the packaging. But not Jepha’s band, not her guys. They’re the kind of men that women dream about - devoted and sweet and dorky and funny. They would kill someone in a heartbeat if they had even a thought that someone was going to half-think about disrespecting Jepha. So they don’t know, not only because she really doesn’t want a trail of bodies following their tours, but also because she thinks that it would make Bert cry.
And Jepha would rather dump a pre-poured drink on the ground or have to quietly knee some fucker in the balls behind the bus than see Bert cry.
Because her guys are fucking hers. They’re also smelly and drunk half the time, and they like to try to teabag each other in their sleep.
But it’s just all a part of the dream.
*
It took Bert coming in to make them a real band, Jepha knows that. A lot of people thought that she would resent him for stealing her thunder or some shit, that she would make himself prove himself to take her spot.
It was never her spot, but it’s as much her band as anyone’s. And she’ll admit that the minute she heard Bert scream, she knew that it was it, he was it.
They were it.
And thank fucking god because she couldn’t take much more of the band that she had sacrificed for not being It.
But they were.
“That was fucking amazing,” Quinn had said first, his eyes huge. Jepha tried not to smirk, not to play the obnoxious all-knowing older sister role too much. But god, if Quinn could have just seen his own face, like this dirty little Mormon kid was the answer to all of his prayers.
And, fuck, maybe he was.
It was only after Quinn and Branden piled upstairs to try to con Jepha’s mom out of some cookies that Jepha stepped in front of Bert. She wasn’t trying to be intimidating, but she knew what she looked like to this ridiculously small kid, the edges of her tattoos showing around her shirt and her eyebrows raised.
He was only three years younger than Jepha, but fuck if she could remember ever looking that young.
“You clean?” she’d asked, her voice pitched low.
Bert had stepped back closer to the wall, like a small animal that had been spooked. “What?” he’d asked, his eyes darting around.
“Don’t play me, Bert,” she’d said, her voice still quiet. She hadn’t wanted to be that girl, but Quinn and Branden had no fucking idea what to look for and. Well. Jepha did. “What are you using?”
Bert had looked like he was going to either cry or bite her, a look that Jepha would become all too familiar with later. Then and, really, always, that face makes her crumble.
“Look,” she’d said, her voice quieter, trying to make it softer. “I waited until they left. I just want to know what’s up.”
Bert narrowed his eyes and Jepha couldn’t tell if it was to show his anger or trap his tears.
“Meth, mostly,” he said after a few beats of silence. “Weed. I drink. I’m gonna quit, though.”
Jepha’s known users for years. She’s dated them, she’s held their hands when they were coming down and she’s heard their promises.
“That would be good” is all she could say, then. Because it would have been good. But she knew, even then, that she couldn’t ask him to promise.
The look of disbelief and gratitude on Bert’s face, though, when she’d dragged him up her basement stairs and shouted “So, I think we’ve found ourselves a new fucking singer,” when Quinn asked “Hey, man, do you need a place to crash?” made her want to make him guarantee it. Because she wanted him, she wanted that hope, she wanted to help him save himself. She wanted him to promise.
But she still didn’t make him. Jepha had already learned not to ask for things that people couldn’t know they could deliver.
*
Her shrink Carol, the one her dad insisted she start seeing when Lillian’s piece-of-fucking-shit dad actually fought for custody and won, always wanted to talk about Jepha’s issues with strength.
“Do you think your tattoos relate to that?” she’d asked Jepha once, relatively early in.
“What?” Jepha had scowled and slumped down further in her chair. Stupid fucking therapy. Stupid fucking James and his stupid fucking lawyers. Stupid fucking Jepha for fucking a rich dude whose parents could afford shit like lawyers and for dropping out of school for a band and for being 19 and not having her fucking kid.
“For some people, tattoos might be a visible marker of strength,” Carol explained, crossing her legs and leaning back in her chair.
Jepha hated therapy.
“I don’t fucking know,” she’d muttered, tapping her fingers in counterbeat to the ‘thump, thump’ of her foot.
But that was kind of a lie. She knew, she knows.
The tattoos … they’re more than a little bit about that.
*
Her first tattoo, the lightening bolt, it was the first time that she really needed it. She was 17 and Strange Itch had just started talking about recording an album. Matt had jumped on her back and she had flinched - his leg had just dug into her side, that’s all.
“Not man enough to carry me?” Matt had whooped, knocking out a beat on her head.
And, for whatever reason, not like it was so very different from every other damn day, it just hit Jepha, like some kind of clarity that she’d always kind of had, but needed to know for sure.
She was never going to be man enough, but she better be fucking strong enough.
And, yeah, they happened to be in front of a tattoo shop and, yeah, maybe she had something to prove.
People say all the time that everyone regrets their impulsive tattoos. But there has never been a minute in Jepha’s life, not from the second she walked into the shop until now, that she has regretted turning around, dumping Matt on his ass sneering at him while she said: “Yeah, but I bet I’m stronger than you, douchebag” and walking into that shop.
And every single time she looks down at that finger, it’s like a big, cosmic “fuck you.”
It’s the best decision that Jepha’s ever made.
*
Every tattoo after that, every time she gauged up her ears, every time she walked into a piercing shop and walked out with a new glint of silver at her nipples-ear-lip-clit, it was what she needed to do.
People stopped asking if she could carry a goddamn amp after she tattooed her wrist.
They stopped asking if she needed extra time to get ready in the morning when she started her chestpiece, stopped hovering over her at afterparties after she finished her calf and brought her ears up to a 00.
They stopped asking if she was okay entirely when she tattooed her neck and under her chin, the images and words like a taunt.
Choke her. Just try.
Nobody did. It was better than armor. It was a dare.
*
Jepha used to have this girlfriend, one of the only real girlfriends she’s ever had. It’s not that she doesn’t like fucking around with (and just generally fucking) girls, but first she was living in fucking Utah with a dearth of dykes and then she was always touring. And the thing about touring is that it always has been be domain of guys.
But there was this one girl, Jamie, one of Branden’s drum techs, that Jepha actually managed to have a little bit of something with that lasted longer than a couple of months. She was hot as fuck and had some hidden hard edges that Jepha found crazy attractive. She also loved this girly clothing, all of these ruffles and lace and shit that every other woman on tour (Jepha included) shrugged off and sometimes even mocked.
Jamie, though, loved them.
Jepha had asked her about it, how she had managed to make it in this life so long and remain so soft.
Jamie’s eyes hardened and she leaned into Jepha’s space within the bus, her stare scary and her mouth thin.
“There’s not a goddamned thing that’s soft about me, Jepha Howard,” Jamie had hissed, her nails digging into Jepha’s thigh. “It’s a different kind of strong, to walk out that door with pink nail polish and a flowered tank top, but it’s still strong.”
Jepha nodded, her mouth dry and her eyes locked on Jamie’s flinty gaze. She knew.
And, even after Jamie moved on to other tours and other people moved into Jepha's bed, she never forgot, either.
*
Jepha knows better than to take a beer from someone outside of her band, she knows better than to fuck too many guys on tour. She knows that the rules are different for her than for any of the guys and tries her hardest not to resent Bert for that when she sees him and Gerard making out in front of cameras like it’s no big deal, when he comes on the bus after a hotel night rubbing at his wrists and tugging down his sleeves over the last traces of rope burn.
And the thing is, it’s not a big deal. Because Bert is Bert. And, because Jepha is Jepha, she takes her moments behind equipment vans with merch girls and stolen moments in bathrooms with guys in bands leaving the tour. She keeps her shit quiet because she has to, but it doesn’t mean that she can’t look, that she can’t wish.
And sometimes, she gets caught looking.
“Seriously, you’re into the drummer with rabbit teeth and the weird eyes?” Bert yells in her ear as she watches the opening acts.
Jepha rolls her eyes and shakes her head at him as she sips at her lukewarm beer. “I like New Transit Direction.”
“Yeah, you’d like them in your pants,” Bert snickers, licking at her neck and jumping on her back. Her hands go down automatically to catch his knees. Six years of this shit at least lends itself to some decent reflexes when it comes to Bert Wrangling.
“The whole band?” she says mildly as she walks away from the stage, Bert still clinging to her back. “You think they’d fit?”
Bert cackles in her ear and licks the part of her hair. “To the dressing rooms! I have more beer to drink!”
*
It may have been Bert that made them a real band, but it was Dan that made them complete.
It sounds fucking ridiculous, like something from one of those supermarket romance novels that Jepha has absolutely never read, but it’s still true. Branden was there and he is a hell of a drummer, but Dan is … Dan is the kind of steady that Jepha knows that they need at the backbeat with enough skills to mix it up sometimes.
Plus, and she’s not above admitting this, he’s really kind of bizarrely hot.
Fine, whatever. She might potentially find rabbit teeth and strange eyes hot.
Plus, those forearms. Not like drummers were usually un-built people (there is a reason that Jepha’s fantasy taste has tended to run toward the rhythm section, regardless of gender), but he seriously has some forearms. Good arms to have.
Jepha imagines what he could do with those arms, the hold against a struggling body, the way his big fucking hands could curl around a wrist or an ankle or a throat. Dan looks like the kind of guy who could go hard enough, who could make it the kind of hard and fast that guys never seem to believe that Jepha really wants, like she’s going to fucking break. She likes it hard and just a little painful all the fucking time because she can take it and knowing that she can take it makes it hotter, makes her feel stronger.
Dan could make her feel stronger.
But that isn’t why Dan made them what they always needed to be. He’s a great drummer, he breaks sticks on stage like it’s not a thing, he smiles big and works hard. He also knows when to leave Bert and Quinn to their weird mind-meld, when to steer Bert away from his next line without pissing him off, when to turn on his headphones and when to break into an argument.
He just knows how to fit. So it’s not about the fantasies but they don't hurt either.
*
Every time Jepha comes back with more tattoo work, Dan gives her this look that she doesn’t know how to read. She's noticed that he doesn’t shy away from the bruised places, the edges of flaking tattoos the way that everyone else does. He doesn’t touch them intentionally, either, but he just acts like nothing has changed, like there’s not another part of Jepha that’s marked, changed.
She doesn’t know what to do with his lack of reaction but, more than that, she doesn’t know what to do with her own response when he presses a little harder than she expects against a new bruise or the swollen edge of a healing tattoo.
Her breath catches every time, but fuck if she knows what it means.
There are moments where she thinks that Dan knows what it means when he presses just a little too much, crowds just a little more than is normal. Those moments are disconcerting.
And hot.
*
Quinn drags them to some godawful mall in the Midwest, claiming that it had been at least two hours since his last coffee. They split up at the entrance and Jepha thinks she's being careful but she still gets caught
Ever since Jamie, she sometimes find herself staring in the windows of these girly lingerie stores, places where she’s never even tried to go. Because she’s not that girl. She’s a bras at JC Penny’s kind of girl, a combat boots and cargo shorts kind of girl.
She’s not lacy bras and panties, not flippy nightgown skirts.
But. But. Sometimes, she’ll walk by, sometimes she’ll stop, sometimes she’ll wonder what it would feel like to have the lace pressed up against her nipple rings, the satin rubbing against the tattoos on her hip.
“See something you like?” Dan’s voice ghosts across her ear and he's damn near pressed against her back.
Jepha starts before she turns around. Dan doesn’t move.
“Please,” she scoffs a little, her voice sounding convincing. Strong. “That’s not … that’s not me.”
“Why?” Dan asks, his eyes wide.
Jepha laughs and waves her hand, meaning to include everything, every tattoo, every piercing, every part of her.
“Can you see me in a pink lace bra?” she smiles, shaking her head.
“Sure, why not?” Dan’s asks, his eyes still wide, his face open.
Jepha tries to step back, but her back is actually up against the glass in the storefront.
“Um,” she tries, not really knowing what to say.
Dan smiles, his mouth stretching across impossibly tiny teeth and widening the whole of his face as he presses his face closer to hers and kisses her check.
Kisses her cheek.
“Why not?” he repeats as he pushes away.
*
So, okay. Maybe Jepha has thought about it. Maybe, sometimes, she thinks about going to Victoria's Secret and buying a frilly nightgown-y thing (she's not even sure what they're called). Sometimes, she thinks about what it would be like to wear the pink lacy bra, to be that kind of girl.
It’s not because she wants to feel like a girl. She is a girl. She’s a fucking awesome girl, with her boots and her men’s shorts and her tattoos and her kick-fucking-ass bass.
But … it’s almost like she could cross some kind of a line, the line that tells her that girls like her aren't supposed to look like that - they're supposed to be cool with dirty and hard, with not having any soft edges, always being in control.
Jepha’s never had any interest in drag to make her look like a boy, but there are the rare days that she wonders about drag that would make her look like a femme.
*
Weeks later, long enough later that her guard is down, when Jepha finds the pink and white striped bag in her bunk, the distinctive curve of writing over the bag.
There’s a note on top of the ridiculously small slips of cloth:
Why not?
*
They have a hotel night a few nights later. A few long nights later, nights where Jepha fingers the soft, silky cloth in the privacy of her bunk and wonders but doesn't try.
She manages a quick shower at the venue after the show, cold but still effective. It’s just like always, Quinn and Bert sharing one room and Jepha and Dan sharing the other. She’s usually grateful for the split, the chance to get a night away from the Quinn and Bert show.
She’s still grateful this time, but there’s a pit of something in her stomach, something like fear and maybe excitement, mostly her wondering if she is going to fuck this up, too. Because there’s something about the moment when Craig hands them their keycards, a catch in Jepha’s throat that feels like expectation, like longing, like hope.
She covers it quickly enough that Quinn and Bert don’t see a damn thing.
Dan, though. Dan’s smile spreads slowly across his face like a promise.
Jepha doesn’t exactly run to the elevator, but it’s a close thing.
*
“G’night, motherfuckers,” Quinn’s voice carries down the hall as Jepha flips him off and closes the door.
She turns around and Dan is just … right there.
“So,” she says, her voice cracking a little and her body tense.
Fuck, what if she’s read this wrong?
“So,” Dan says in his normal voice, his everyday fucking-around voice almost. But not quite. He smirks at her and leans in a little. “Why not?” he says against her neck.
Jepha’s breath stutters a little. “You …”
“I want to,” Dan says smoothly, like he’s picking up the end of her thought. “If you want me to.”
Jepha looks down at Dan’s thick forearms curving up into drummer biceps, her eyes skating across his shoulders and up to his face. He looks like Dan, like the guy she can trust, like one of the guys.
“I want you to,” she says, barely, her voice catching at the end. “I just. Yeah.”
Dan nods a little, moving his arms up around hers, holding her shoulders just tight enough. “You have to tell me if I have to stop.”
Jepha nods, her head jerking a little, not totally sure that this is actually happening in the real world and not in her head.
“What are you going to say?” Dan asks, his voice curious and firm.
“Gerard,” Jepha blurts out, without even thinking about it.
Dan raises his eyebrows at her silently.
“No, just. I would never say ‘Gerard’ during sex,” Jepha groans, staring at the floor. “I’m not fucking Bert.”
Dan’s smile spreads further across his face. “Yeah, you’re really not.”
Jepha is ridiculously happy and proud that she’s made him smile. It's not like it’s never happened before. But really, it hasn’t. Not like this.
Dan’s hand is on her chin, just above the “choke” tattoo, as he pushes her face up to meet his eyes.
“Did you bring the stuff I left you?”
Jepha nods silently.
“Get it.”
Jepha walks over to the bag the techs already brought up to the room, glad that she had thought of putting the smaller bag inside it before the show. She shuffles through the bag a little and finally finds the crumpled Victoria’s Secret bag underneath another set of dirty t-shirts. She pulls it out, victorious, her smile fading as she turns around to see Dan.
Just staring at her. With these eyes.
“Put them on,” he says, his voice quiet, but firm.
Jepha … well, it’s not like she’s never been naked in front of Dan. Hell, Dan’s probably seen her tits more than most of the people she’s dated. But. This feels different.
She pauses, her hands stilling on the fabric she’s been sliding through her hands without thinking.
“On,” Dan’s voice isn’t any harder, but it’s firmer, somehow. Jepha’s not even sure how she can tell the difference between the two right now, with her heart beating through her fucking ears. “Here. Now.”
Jepha nods, heat rushing to her head as she strips off her jeans and tank top. She hadn’t exactly planned for this when she took her shower after the show, but she’d also forgone underwear and an undershirt, so. Maybe she’d kind of hoped.
She can’t believe that she’s still capable of it, that she can still blush, but apparently she can. She feels a flush spread down her chest as she strips off her pants and reaches onto the bed to grab the pieces of cloth.
Dan’s face is impassive, his eyes watching every movement but not giving away a damn thing. She feels his eyes sliding across her skin, not sure if she imagines his gaze snagging on the flash of silver at her clit or the curve of ink around her hip.
Jepha pulls the scraps of cloth out of the bag, moving to slide into them quickly.
“Hey,” Dan’s voice is soft, but it’s not a question, either. “Slower.”
Jepha closes her eyes and nods, her hands shaking a little. She has never in her life felt this naked or this turned on.
She pulls the underwear on first, stepping into them and pulling them slowly up her thighs. They fit, pulling taut across her lower belly and ass. She feels the slide of the underwear against the bareness of her skin and, okay, maybe she kind of understands why some girls wear this for that feeling. Her eyes open when she realizes what that means, that Dan must have researched her size, maybe gone through her bag while she was off the bus or in the bathroom.
Dan steps just a little bit closer to her, his eyes dark and his body taunt. He motions to the bra.
Jepha nods and pulls on the satin-y bra, hooking it automatically behind her back, smoothing her hands over the cups, fingers catching a little on her nipple rings beneath the cloth.
It’s weird. It’s not bad weird, it’s just … Jepha’s never had stuff like this. She’s never looked down at her own body and seen the sheen of satin, the contrast of pale pink against her tattoos and the sun-darkened tan of her skin. She’s never felt the calluses on her fingers through slippery material …
It’s a little scary, like she’s given something up, like she’s given in.
It’s also more than a little exciting.
There must be something showing on her face, something in the rise and fall of her chest, something that hints at all of this going on. She feels Dan’s finger under her chin, a slight pressure pushing up.
“Hey,” Dan’s voice is still quiet, but there’s something under it that makes Jepha’s head rise to meet his eyes. “No. That’s … this is perfect. You’re tough and you’re beautiful and you’re strong. Like this.”
Jepha’s breath comes out in a rush, her shoulders slumping a little. Her head stays up, though, her hands resting on her hips. “Yeah.”
Dan circles her slowly, his eyes mapping out her body, his hands hovering just above her skin.
“Good,” his voice is a little rougher, his tone a little higher. “Get on the bed. On your back.”
Jepha nods again, not sure why she’s being so quiet. But there’s something about this, a tautness to the room, that feels like it’s being held in place with her silence.
She slides onto the bed, pushing herself up toward the pillows. She can hear her own breath picking up, smell herself through the thin satin of the overpriced underwear. He hasn’t fucking touched her yet but she's more turned on than she's been in years.
Dan smiles, small and real, and crawls up the bed to push her legs apart. His breath is hot and wet against her thighs, his fingers brushing against the edges of the underwear.
“Good,” Dan says again, right before he licks the crease of her thigh. Her breath catches and her hands tighten on the sheets.
Fuck.
Fuck.
He’s going to fucking tease.
Dan laughs like he can read her fucking mind, like she said that out loud, and seriously, he’s barely touched her and she’s pretty sure she’d beg if he wanted her to.
And it goes like that, Dan touching and teasing, Jepha held just at the edge for-fucking-ever. He brushes and looks, licks and teases for what seems like an eternity before he even gets her naked, takes even longer before he does a damn thing that could be read as R-rated.
And normally, Jepha likes it fast and hard. But fuck, there’s something about this, the sureness of Dan’s touch, the number of times he brings her just to the edge of saying something, of doing something, of pushing him on his back and just fucking taking …
Well, it works.
It takes Jepha most of the night to learn that slow is not mutually-exclusive from hard, that bruises blooming over her hips and thighs and shoulders hurt differently when they’ve been applied over the course of hours.
And when Dan kisses her - for the first fucking time - at the end of it all, it’s like a guitar string snapping, like tension released, like every stupid perfect thing ever.
The next morning, when Jepha tries to avoid his eyes, embarrassed, Dan just pulls her down on the bed and makes out with her for twenty minutes.
It's nice but not as nice as Dan's eyes, still bright and sure, after she packs the panties and bra and is just Jepha again
“Beautiful like this,” Dan says against the back of her neck, running a finger between her t-shirt and her cargo shorts as they climb onto the bus. “Also.”
*
Jepha doesn’t want to be a boy and she doesn’t want to be a femme girl all the time.
But sometimes, she kind of likes fucking with gender, with power, with expectation. So, every once and a while, she wants to be in drag. She puts on the frilly shit and the lipgloss and tells Dan that she wants him to boss her around. She likes it when he's in charge, when he pushes just a little farther than she knows how to be pushed.
But not all the time, just the times that she's being subversive.
Jepha always likes the pain, that'll never go away. It just so happens that Dan gets what it does to her, how she builds strength from it.
Dan gets that. In fact, Dan fucking loves it.
And Jepha loves feeling stronger all the time, in drag or out.