(no subject)
One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This
Chapter: 2 of 2
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Title from the New York Dolls album.
"You're not the one whose entire fucking history has been erased, Frank," Gerard practically spat, and Frank didn't tell him that most of his life after joining the band had been Gerard, and all of that was gone too.
There was this party, one of the rare times that they were home, and Frank wanted to just sit back and chill, but there was this party, and Gerard wanted to go, and so they argued, until Gerard snapped, "Fine I'll just go by myself then."
They ended up getting a ride from Bob and one of his friends, Bob leaned in and whispered in Frank's ear just as they were about to get into the car, "I have no fucking clue who this guy is, right?" Which could mean they were best friends or it could mean that he was a stalker that somehow got Bob's number and thought he'd try his luck, or it could be anything in-between, nowadays. Frank shrugged and opened the door for Gerard to slide in. The entire ride they sat as far as possible from one another. Bob made a few awkward attempts at conversation to monosyllabic answers from everyone but his possibly-friend, whose name Frank couldn't remember but who seemed well acquainted with him too, and eventually he gave up to stare outside the window.
"Finally," Gerard muttered, as they drew up at an unfamiliar place, people milling around everywhere.
"Yeah," Frank said. His intention was to get as drunk as he possibly could, and he was well on his way there too, downing beer after beer in the backyard with Mikey who showed up sans Christina Ricci ("I miss my real girlfriend," was all he said.) but with a foul mood that Frank was only too glad to share. He watched Gerard idly, wandering around looking slightly lost and aimless until he was stopped by one guy or another wanting to say hi or get laid. He never stayed to talk long though, but the one time he looked at Frank he flashed him an annoyed glare and turned away, taking a gulp of his drink that Frank thought was soda but he couldn't tell for sure.
Frank was going for another beer when he spotted Jamia, sitting on a deck chair and laughing with some other girl that Frank didn't recognize. Her smile faded when he approached, but she only shook her head at her friend, who got up and left but not without shooting him a dirty glare. "Hi," he said, and her answering hi was faint and uninterested. "I-" He wanted to say Imissyouiwishthiswaslessfuckedupiwishihadnthurtyoueventhoughididnt but nothing came out and instead he just ended up with a generic "How are you?" and that was all.
She shrugged. "Good," she said. "Pretty good. And you?"
"I'm. I've been better, I suppose."
"Oh," she said, and looked away awkwardly. "Sorry," she mumbled then. "I have to go. Nancy's waiting."
"Sure," Frank said, and he asked, before he could tell himself not to, he asked, "Do you think I could maybe I don't know, call you sometime?"
And she shook her head and said, "No I don't think so, Frank. But you take care okay?"
"Yeah, okay," and she was gone. Frank stared after her for a while, and then he looked for Gerard, but he was gone too. Frank looked for him outside for ten minutes, asking around until someone said, "Yeah I think I saw him go in with uh, Carl? Yeah, Carl."
Carl, as it turned out, was pushing a not-too-happy Gerard up against a wall in one of the upstairs corridors, all "Let's go into the bedroom baby," until Frank grabbed him and shoved and after that it was all arms and legs and his rage and finally, finally, someone (Ray, his voice in Frank's ear, "Calm down, dude.") holding him back until he stopped, or Carl was gone and it was too late to get him back.
Gerard just crossed his arms and shook his head, biting his lips. "Fuck," he said, over and over. "Fuck fuck FUCK," all the way back to Frank's place. He couldn't stop shaking, and Frank tried to hold him but Gerard just prickled at him like a porcupine with its quills bared, his face furious and red.
They stumbled through the door and Frank made to leave, only Gerard had grabbed hold of his jacket and refused to let go. Frank caught Gerard's wrist with one hand, spun him around so he hit the door, only slightly hard. "You're crazy," he said to Gerard. "Crazy, you hear me?"
"No," Gerard said. "I'm mad. We're all mad here." He pushed himself up onto his toes, but Frank pressed in, lifted him up until he was forced to wrap his legs around Frank's waist. His eyes were clenched tight and his palms were slack against Frank's collarbone, and Frank was so hard and he couldn't stop, couldn't stop touching him and couldn't stop feeling him and when he came, he bit down hard on his lips to stop the last syllable of Gerard's name from escaping from his mouth.
1.
After the party, which caused bruises to blossom across Gerard's pale skin that Frank hadn't noticed that night, hadn't noticed him even getting them, he found Gerard one day, sitting on the couch and thumbing through a magazine. He said, when Frank silently took it from him, "I think I fucked it up somehow. Geraldine, I bet she never fucked up like this."
"You say this like you're different people."
Gerard glanced sharply at him. "Well aren't we? Everything's different. I'm not even sure why, but it is."
"I don't think you fucked up, G." Frank said, but Gerard only frowned unhappily and took the magazine back from him.
2.
Bert caught him while he was on his way to soundcheck, bounded up all bright-eyed and curious. "So I heard you and G got back together."
Frank tried to ignore him, but Bert kept on pursuing him. Like a gnat, Frank thought. No wonder he and Gerard got along so well. Fucked, he reminded himself. They used to fuck. But then usually he'd follow that with a "But not his Gerard", only now his Gerard and Bert's Gerard were almost the same, and this was when Frank usually stopped thinking about it and started wondering what color underwear Gerard was wearing today, or whether he was wearing any at all. But Bert. Who wouldn't quit. "It's just that I wanted to tell you that I'm cool with it, with you guys."
"I'm so glad I have your permission, Bert." The stage was two hundred feet away. Maybe if he ran. He could see Bob up above, bent over some wires. Bob would protect him.
"Yeah, it's just that G and I, it would never have worked out. She's so fucking hot dude, but I couldn't take her bitching all the time. And anyway that night, we were both drunk or we would never ha-"
3.
Later, as Gerard wrapped ice and gauze around his knuckles and made worried noises over all the blood, Frank said grimly, "Most of it's not mine."
Gerard clucked disapprovingly. "Bert said you started it."
"Fuck Bert. And I don't want you talking to him again."
The hands fussing over him stilled. "You're not telling me not to talk to Bert."
"But I am. He's a jerk and I don't want you messing around with him." He didn't say again. Not again.
But Gerard only said, quietly, with only the slight widening of his eyes to show how surprised he was, "You don't tell me what to do, Frank."
Frank said nothing, because he wanted to argue, and accuse, but there was nothing to accuse Gerard of. Nothing at all.
4.
But then two nights later they had another argument over something inane, and it was never like this with Jamia, with her everything was easy camaraderie and quiet moments shared together. They only ever argued over the silliest things and he never felt rage rising over him like heat, like he could kill someone or smash something just to see it break.
"Fuck you fuck you fuck you," Gerard spat, and then he was gone, out the door and stomping down the steps.
Frank fell asleep waiting for him, and when he woke up Gerard was just stumbling in, face pale and clothes disheveled. "Where have you been," Frank asked wearily, sitting up on the bunk. He wasn't entirely sure he cared at that point, but it felt like it was only the polite thing to do.
"Nowhere. Out." Gerard refused to look at Frank, his eyes wandering instead to the floor. His lipstick was smeared, all across his pale face liked dried blood. "I don't want to talk to you," he said, and he locked himself in the bathroom.
Frank went back to sleep.
5.
"It's just that I can't stand him," he snarled to Bob, who was busy installing carpet and nodding his head in a manner that Frank knew meant he was uncomfortable, but he couldn't bring himself to stop talking. "I'm supposed to walk on eggshells whenever he's in one of his moods, and god forbid I ever have a bad day too, because then all hell breaks loose because how dare I have an emotion that isn't directly connected to how he's feeling at the time. Don't even start about when he's PMSing. I make him soup, and he complains that it's too cold or too salty or tastes funny. Do I look like a cook to you? And the way he giggles, and talks about the most inane things ever like I fucking care about the crappy movie version of Constantine." Frank ran out of steam, finally, and looked expectantly at Bob.
Bob opened his mouth. Bob closed it again.
"Well?"
"I think," Bob said carefully, putting down the piece of brown carpet he'd been holding. "That that's…Gerard."
Frank's lip curled up. "I guess so," he said.
6.
The photo shoot went badly. Gerard was tired and snappish, and everyone else was just uncomfortable. They were doing an Alice In Wonderland shoot. They put Gerard in a checked blue frilly dress with capped sleeves and a frock over it. Pigtails, knee high stockings and heeled Mary-Janes completed the ensemble. Mikey got to be the chesire cat, Bob insisted on being the Mad Hatter, Ray was the White Rabbit and Frank somehow ended up as a vaguely male-looking Queen.
The photographer kept using a type of flash that made everyone's eyes feel like they were melting every time he snapped a picture. Gerard said, finally, "My feet fucking hurt and can't I get a fucking decent outfit for once," and then he said, "Fuck this shit I didn't sign up for this," and he stormed off, throwing off his top hat, where it floated in the air like a small black UFO before stumbling to the floor.
Frank said, "You guys are such a bunch of fucking sissies," and he went off to find Gerard, found him smoking in someone's abandoned dressing room.
"Don't fucking start," he said prissily.
"I wasn't. I just wanted a smoke." Gerard passed him the cigarette, and they stood there silently for a while.
"So," Gerard said finally. "Are you talking to me again?"
"I thought you were the one that wasn't talking to me."
Gerard raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. "What, with you sulking like that what the fuck was I supposed to do?"
"I wasn-," Frank stopped, tried again. "I don't want to fight, G."
Gerard just stared at him. "We should go back," he said, after what seemed like an interminable silence. He made a face. "My feet still fucking hurt though." Frank looked at his stilettos.
"Yeah," he said. "I guess they would.”
The photographer didn't say anything for the rest of the shoot, just took their pictures and seemed grateful that Gerard was in a better mood, but later Frank overheard him telling his assistant, "That Way chick, really hot but such a fucking unreasonable bitch," and it occurred to him that maybe he should go and punch the guy out, but he was weary and exhausted and he'd already used up his random acts of violence tokens for the week, so he went and let Ray give him a shoulder massage instead. He spotted Gerard, leaning against a wall and flirting with a camera tech, but when they were leaving the studio Gerard walked up to him and slipped his hand into Frank's.
"I asked the guys to go ahead, called a cab," he said. "We'll just ride back together, the both of us." In the back seat of the cab, they were all mouth and skin and tearing at one another until Gerard gasped, "Frank, please," and it wasn't enough, even as he was shuddering and burying his face in the crook of Gerard's neck, it wasn't enough. But it would have to do.
IV.
"Sometimes I think, everyone thinks I'm a girl, remembers me as a girl. So maybe I really am. Maybe we're all delusional, and I'm Geraldine Way and I lost my virginity to some boy named Steve when I was seventeen, and I never had sex with Kat and I almost didn't make it to this band and I," he took in a deep breath, shuddered. "Mikey says he knows everything now. He explained it all to me. He said he called Mom and Dad and somehow managed to ask them about us, about how we were as kids, how I was. Grandpa likes to talk. And it's. It's all starting to make sense now. It does. My memory's changing. I can feel it."
And Frank said, "I know who you really are, Gerard."
But his own memory was changing too. It changed the more Gerard and him fucked, it changed everytime someone talked about Geraldine, everytime the crowd yelled out her name when they were onstage. Geraldine Geraldine Geraldine. The Way brother that wasn't. The one that got flowers and jeers from guys and dirty glares or naked adulation from girls. It got to the point where he could barely remember that it had ever been any other way.
1.
Gerard was exhausted. Frank could tell. Not in the way that he got exhausted on tour, but in the way that he got frustrated and run-down and reached for the nearest thing that would take that all away. But Frank reached out and kissed his make-up away and held him down and he shivered and shimmied and his hands curved restlessly against Frank's back, and he only snapped once or twice when Frank talked to him, told him to concentrate and think. Times like this, it was almost exactly the way it used to be.
"I just thought," Gerard said suddenly, "If we had happened when I was Gerard. Why didn't it happen?"
"I don't know," Frank replied. But he did, because there might not have been a Bert, but there would've been a someone, or a something, because he'd spent a long time coming to terms with who he was and who Gerard was and they were friends, friends was everything despite what they both wanted from one another.
"I need a vacation," Gerard said slowly.
2.
And so they went. A week's break from the tour, fuck the consequences. Somewhere by the beach, a small house with a leaky roof and patchy plumbing but a gorgeous king sized bed with snow white linen sheets that little elves would replace every morning. They'd fuck all day and Frank would make those drinks with the umbrellas in them, minus the alcohol for Gerard and minus the fruit punch for himself, although he pretended not to notice whenever Gerard drank from his glass. At night they'd walk down the beach or stay in, watching bad movies on cable until one or the other fell asleep.
He'd never wanted anyone like this before, not even Gerard back when they first met, when he was shy and quiet except for when he'd go on to Frank excitedly about some thing or another, and Frank would pretend to listen and think about how grateful he was that he was here.
But then other than the drinking and the fucking they didn't talk about anything at all, and every time they seemed to be on the edge of something, Frank pulled back, or Gerard pulled back. There was a pink elephant in the room, Frank thought tiredly, and no-one wanted to bring it up. But finally Frank said, "We need to talk," and Gerard just said, "Tomorrow, please. Tomorrow."
V.
You wake up one morning and you're in an all male band. Then the next and you're in Neverland. And of course, one day you wake up and everything goes back to the way it should be.
They said: We could discuss this tomorrow. Discuss Bert. Discuss them. Discuss how they'd changed, and how they hadn't, and how he was now a peripheral member of the band and no-one knew his name and he still didn't mind and Gerard still did. Mostly they'd discuss Bert whom he hated even though he didn't remember them fucking and really, Bert going "You guys back together again, huh?" and shrugging and punching Frank on the shoulder, didn't mean anything at all, and him subsequently punching Bert in the nose was, in retrospect, entirely uncalled for, and he owed a big apology, but now, now it seemed all he owed was irrelevant because.
1.
Gerard was back. Frank woke up, and found himself in his bunk, nowhere near the beach. He wandered around for a while until he saw Gerard, sitting on the steps of the bus and eating cereal. "You're back," Frank said.
"Uh...where'd I go?" Gerard looked around him furtively. Frank shook his head and walked off, unable to deal right at that moment.
"Gerard's back," he told Mikey, and Mikey nodded his head curtly. "Yeah, last night I was in bed at home and suddenly I'm here. I think I scared people with the screaming. "
"Yeah."
"So I went out and Bob was already up, and he'd found a couple of posters and it's - we're exactly where we were six months ago. To the day."
"Oh," Frank says. "I guess that explains it then. Kind of," and he made to move away but Mikey put a hand on his shoulder.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine."
2.
They had a meeting, all of them, minus Gerard who for some reason had gone out shopping with Bert. Mikey said, "Well," and Ray said, "Well," and Bob said, because he was quick and possibly the first one to get it, "Fuck if I don't want to have to figure out what I did the last six months or so. But at least it's only six months and not my entire lifetime."
This was when Brian wandered in, looking for one of them to sign something, and Mikey turned to him and said, "Gerard's a guy, right? Always has been?"
Brian said, patiently and slowly "Yes."
Everyone sighed in various degrees of relief, and Brian backed away from them all. "Okay I'll be going now."
"So that settles it then," Mikey said, once he was gone and safely out of earshot.
Only when they finally caught up with Gerard he said, "I was a what?" and laughed and walked away.
Frank said, "I don't understand."
"Maybe he's in denial?" Bob said, and shrugged.
"Sure, that's it," Frank replied, and stared after Gerard's retreating back.
3.
"Wait, so I was a girl?"
"Uh," Bob said finally. "You were a girl."
"For six months?"
"Yeah."
"Was I hot?"
Frank looked at Ray who looked at Bob who was looking at his feet. Mikey only examined his fingernails and declined to involve himself in the conversation. Gerard frowned. "I bet I was hot. I wish I remembered. So what happened? Tell me everything, I want to know."
"Gerard," Frank asked suddenly. "What makes you think we're all not just putting you on? I hardly believe it myself, and I was there."
"I just do, that's all," Gerard said simply. "Besides, no-one could make this shit up."
"You really don't remember anything at all?"
"No of course not. I think I'd remember if I was a girl for six months." Gerard paused. "I hope."
4.
So it was as if the past six months hadn't happened at all. Gerard remembered nothing, and no-one else remembered anything either, and except for the four of them sharing the same memories they might as well have not lived them at all.
Mikey said to Gerard in passing once, "You know I almost slept with Christina Ricci. It's a good thing I never did, isn't it?" and Gerard laughed, and Frank flushed and looked away. Mikey blinked, but Gerard was frowning, looking at them both. "What?" he said.
"Nothing," Frank said. "I need to call my girlfriend."
The phone was slippery in his hand, but Jamia was exactly the same, cheerfully telling him about her day and how she'd missed him. "I miss you too," Frank said, but then he pretended he had a bad connection and hung up. Mikey's first phone call after they'd realized they were back was to Alicia. It was only a week to Jamia, but for Frank it had been six months. He ended up wandering around afterwards until he found Gerard, leaning aimlessly against a bus and smoking. "Hey," he said. He took the cigarette from Gerard's fingers and Gerard moved away from him.
"So," Gerard said eventually, shifting from foot to foot. "No-one wants to tell me what happened."
"There's not much to tell. You were a girl for six months. Everyone else thought you were a girl too. Except for all of us. We freaked, we adjusted, and then everything went back to normal."
"Were we doing the same thing," he asked, waving his hand in the direction of the concert grounds.
"Yeah, pretty much." Frank smiled. "You were the goth Karen O."
"No, fuck no." He brightened suddenly. "Was I seeing anyone? Was I a hot lesbian?"
Frank almost choked, but he took a deep breath and let it out and said, "No you weren't a lesbian. Uh, you were seeing Bert for a while but you broke up."
Gerard laughed. "Bert? It figures. He's too young for me though."
"I guess you just like younger guys," Frank said faintly, and Gerard's smile faded away.
"Are you not telling me something?"
"No. That's it." He threw his cigarette onto the ground and stomped it out. "I have to go, G. Ask Mikey if you want to know anything else. He's the one that kept track of everything that happened."
5.
Mikey said, "But this is what we wanted, right? Everything back to normal. Everything's back to normal. That world-"
"Fucking sucked." Bob finished for him, and Frank nodded his head and smiled, but inside him something broke, burnt hot and cold at the same time. Gerard was Gerard and everything was back to the way it should be, the way they all remembered it, except that the brightest thing in his head now was Geraldine, with her soft skin and her smile and the way her body moved beneath his, on top of his. Tiny fists, soft breasts and long hair: that was his life.
But the Gerard now was the same too, only a different sex, and Frank couldn't look at him sometimes. He caught up with Frank once, who was hurrying out of the room as soon as he spotted Gerard entering it. "You're avoiding me. Why are you avoiding me?"
"I'm not avoiding you."
"Yes you are." Gerard looked hurt. "I don't know what I did wrong. Did I do anything wrong?"
"No, no you didn't. There's nothing going on, G."
"Yes the- did I do something as, as her?"
Frank shook his head mutely, but Gerard gasped. "I did, didn't I. It's so odd. It's as if I woke up one morning and all you guys changed and I was the only one that didn't, and you know things that I don't, and you've had conversations that I haven't had. I was sitting down once and Mikey and Ray were discussing this new song and I don't know the song even though they said I'd written it." Gerard frowned. "I wish I remembered. I really wish I remembered."
"No, G, you don't," Frank said, and he walked off.
6.
But Gerard was persistent, and in between bouts of bugging Mikey he bugged Bob and he bugged Ray until finally one day he threw back the curtains over Ray's bunk and said gleefully, "You and I did it!" and it was too much and Frank just stared until Gerard's smile faltered, and faded away totally.
"Oh," he said softly. "Frank, I don-"
But Frank just shook his head. "It's complicated, G. And I don't. We shouldn't talk about it. I don't think we should talk about it. Forget it never happened." He smiled, only a little bitterly. "One of us already has."
"I don't remember any of it, Frank. I wish I did, but I don't. I was just. No-one told me, by the way. I just guessed. I didn't thin-"
"I know."
7.
But now Gerard knew, and Frank knew he knew, and it shouldn't have changed things, but it did. Sidelong glances thrown his way when they were onstage, offstage Gerard was stammery and a little shy and Frank wasn't any better. He kept thinking about Geraldine, and how this Gerard wasn't so different from her, in fact exactly the same, just missing the last six months. He went out with Jamia and couldn't bear to look at her, and sometimes it was guilt and sometimes it was just that he wished she were someone else.
He wasn't that type of person. Only he was afraid he was (had been, once, twice, it was enough and he couldn't make himself believe it didn't count), and every time he saw Gerard his heart clenched and he couldn't breathe.
Mikey said, cornered him on the bus one day and just said softly, "You guys were terrible as a couple, right? You're not seriously considering?"
"I'm not seriously considering anything. We're both in relationships, and anyway mind your own business."
"It's just that. You're all wrong for one another. I remember that. Don't you remember that?"
"Yeah, I remember." But it got harder each day. Each day that passed by he spent more and more time with this Gerard, and it went from awkward to less awkward to them making excuses to touch one another and for Gerard to lower his head and blush and for Frank to imagine what it would be like to kiss him, just once. And again, and again. They had good times together, the two of them. Times he couldn't imagine having with someone else. Not even Jamia. And the bad, in retrospect, wasn't so bad at all, not as far as Frank could recall.
"Frank," Mikey said. "Don't."
Frank shook his head, but then Gerard arrived in the doorway, leaned against it and smiled at him, and Frank said, "No."
Chapter: 2 of 2
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Title from the New York Dolls album.
"You're not the one whose entire fucking history has been erased, Frank," Gerard practically spat, and Frank didn't tell him that most of his life after joining the band had been Gerard, and all of that was gone too.
There was this party, one of the rare times that they were home, and Frank wanted to just sit back and chill, but there was this party, and Gerard wanted to go, and so they argued, until Gerard snapped, "Fine I'll just go by myself then."
They ended up getting a ride from Bob and one of his friends, Bob leaned in and whispered in Frank's ear just as they were about to get into the car, "I have no fucking clue who this guy is, right?" Which could mean they were best friends or it could mean that he was a stalker that somehow got Bob's number and thought he'd try his luck, or it could be anything in-between, nowadays. Frank shrugged and opened the door for Gerard to slide in. The entire ride they sat as far as possible from one another. Bob made a few awkward attempts at conversation to monosyllabic answers from everyone but his possibly-friend, whose name Frank couldn't remember but who seemed well acquainted with him too, and eventually he gave up to stare outside the window.
"Finally," Gerard muttered, as they drew up at an unfamiliar place, people milling around everywhere.
"Yeah," Frank said. His intention was to get as drunk as he possibly could, and he was well on his way there too, downing beer after beer in the backyard with Mikey who showed up sans Christina Ricci ("I miss my real girlfriend," was all he said.) but with a foul mood that Frank was only too glad to share. He watched Gerard idly, wandering around looking slightly lost and aimless until he was stopped by one guy or another wanting to say hi or get laid. He never stayed to talk long though, but the one time he looked at Frank he flashed him an annoyed glare and turned away, taking a gulp of his drink that Frank thought was soda but he couldn't tell for sure.
Frank was going for another beer when he spotted Jamia, sitting on a deck chair and laughing with some other girl that Frank didn't recognize. Her smile faded when he approached, but she only shook her head at her friend, who got up and left but not without shooting him a dirty glare. "Hi," he said, and her answering hi was faint and uninterested. "I-" He wanted to say Imissyouiwishthiswaslessfuckedupiwishihadnthurtyoueventhoughididnt but nothing came out and instead he just ended up with a generic "How are you?" and that was all.
She shrugged. "Good," she said. "Pretty good. And you?"
"I'm. I've been better, I suppose."
"Oh," she said, and looked away awkwardly. "Sorry," she mumbled then. "I have to go. Nancy's waiting."
"Sure," Frank said, and he asked, before he could tell himself not to, he asked, "Do you think I could maybe I don't know, call you sometime?"
And she shook her head and said, "No I don't think so, Frank. But you take care okay?"
"Yeah, okay," and she was gone. Frank stared after her for a while, and then he looked for Gerard, but he was gone too. Frank looked for him outside for ten minutes, asking around until someone said, "Yeah I think I saw him go in with uh, Carl? Yeah, Carl."
Carl, as it turned out, was pushing a not-too-happy Gerard up against a wall in one of the upstairs corridors, all "Let's go into the bedroom baby," until Frank grabbed him and shoved and after that it was all arms and legs and his rage and finally, finally, someone (Ray, his voice in Frank's ear, "Calm down, dude.") holding him back until he stopped, or Carl was gone and it was too late to get him back.
Gerard just crossed his arms and shook his head, biting his lips. "Fuck," he said, over and over. "Fuck fuck FUCK," all the way back to Frank's place. He couldn't stop shaking, and Frank tried to hold him but Gerard just prickled at him like a porcupine with its quills bared, his face furious and red.
They stumbled through the door and Frank made to leave, only Gerard had grabbed hold of his jacket and refused to let go. Frank caught Gerard's wrist with one hand, spun him around so he hit the door, only slightly hard. "You're crazy," he said to Gerard. "Crazy, you hear me?"
"No," Gerard said. "I'm mad. We're all mad here." He pushed himself up onto his toes, but Frank pressed in, lifted him up until he was forced to wrap his legs around Frank's waist. His eyes were clenched tight and his palms were slack against Frank's collarbone, and Frank was so hard and he couldn't stop, couldn't stop touching him and couldn't stop feeling him and when he came, he bit down hard on his lips to stop the last syllable of Gerard's name from escaping from his mouth.
1.
After the party, which caused bruises to blossom across Gerard's pale skin that Frank hadn't noticed that night, hadn't noticed him even getting them, he found Gerard one day, sitting on the couch and thumbing through a magazine. He said, when Frank silently took it from him, "I think I fucked it up somehow. Geraldine, I bet she never fucked up like this."
"You say this like you're different people."
Gerard glanced sharply at him. "Well aren't we? Everything's different. I'm not even sure why, but it is."
"I don't think you fucked up, G." Frank said, but Gerard only frowned unhappily and took the magazine back from him.
2.
Bert caught him while he was on his way to soundcheck, bounded up all bright-eyed and curious. "So I heard you and G got back together."
Frank tried to ignore him, but Bert kept on pursuing him. Like a gnat, Frank thought. No wonder he and Gerard got along so well. Fucked, he reminded himself. They used to fuck. But then usually he'd follow that with a "But not his Gerard", only now his Gerard and Bert's Gerard were almost the same, and this was when Frank usually stopped thinking about it and started wondering what color underwear Gerard was wearing today, or whether he was wearing any at all. But Bert. Who wouldn't quit. "It's just that I wanted to tell you that I'm cool with it, with you guys."
"I'm so glad I have your permission, Bert." The stage was two hundred feet away. Maybe if he ran. He could see Bob up above, bent over some wires. Bob would protect him.
"Yeah, it's just that G and I, it would never have worked out. She's so fucking hot dude, but I couldn't take her bitching all the time. And anyway that night, we were both drunk or we would never ha-"
3.
Later, as Gerard wrapped ice and gauze around his knuckles and made worried noises over all the blood, Frank said grimly, "Most of it's not mine."
Gerard clucked disapprovingly. "Bert said you started it."
"Fuck Bert. And I don't want you talking to him again."
The hands fussing over him stilled. "You're not telling me not to talk to Bert."
"But I am. He's a jerk and I don't want you messing around with him." He didn't say again. Not again.
But Gerard only said, quietly, with only the slight widening of his eyes to show how surprised he was, "You don't tell me what to do, Frank."
Frank said nothing, because he wanted to argue, and accuse, but there was nothing to accuse Gerard of. Nothing at all.
4.
But then two nights later they had another argument over something inane, and it was never like this with Jamia, with her everything was easy camaraderie and quiet moments shared together. They only ever argued over the silliest things and he never felt rage rising over him like heat, like he could kill someone or smash something just to see it break.
"Fuck you fuck you fuck you," Gerard spat, and then he was gone, out the door and stomping down the steps.
Frank fell asleep waiting for him, and when he woke up Gerard was just stumbling in, face pale and clothes disheveled. "Where have you been," Frank asked wearily, sitting up on the bunk. He wasn't entirely sure he cared at that point, but it felt like it was only the polite thing to do.
"Nowhere. Out." Gerard refused to look at Frank, his eyes wandering instead to the floor. His lipstick was smeared, all across his pale face liked dried blood. "I don't want to talk to you," he said, and he locked himself in the bathroom.
Frank went back to sleep.
5.
"It's just that I can't stand him," he snarled to Bob, who was busy installing carpet and nodding his head in a manner that Frank knew meant he was uncomfortable, but he couldn't bring himself to stop talking. "I'm supposed to walk on eggshells whenever he's in one of his moods, and god forbid I ever have a bad day too, because then all hell breaks loose because how dare I have an emotion that isn't directly connected to how he's feeling at the time. Don't even start about when he's PMSing. I make him soup, and he complains that it's too cold or too salty or tastes funny. Do I look like a cook to you? And the way he giggles, and talks about the most inane things ever like I fucking care about the crappy movie version of Constantine." Frank ran out of steam, finally, and looked expectantly at Bob.
Bob opened his mouth. Bob closed it again.
"Well?"
"I think," Bob said carefully, putting down the piece of brown carpet he'd been holding. "That that's…Gerard."
Frank's lip curled up. "I guess so," he said.
6.
The photo shoot went badly. Gerard was tired and snappish, and everyone else was just uncomfortable. They were doing an Alice In Wonderland shoot. They put Gerard in a checked blue frilly dress with capped sleeves and a frock over it. Pigtails, knee high stockings and heeled Mary-Janes completed the ensemble. Mikey got to be the chesire cat, Bob insisted on being the Mad Hatter, Ray was the White Rabbit and Frank somehow ended up as a vaguely male-looking Queen.
The photographer kept using a type of flash that made everyone's eyes feel like they were melting every time he snapped a picture. Gerard said, finally, "My feet fucking hurt and can't I get a fucking decent outfit for once," and then he said, "Fuck this shit I didn't sign up for this," and he stormed off, throwing off his top hat, where it floated in the air like a small black UFO before stumbling to the floor.
Frank said, "You guys are such a bunch of fucking sissies," and he went off to find Gerard, found him smoking in someone's abandoned dressing room.
"Don't fucking start," he said prissily.
"I wasn't. I just wanted a smoke." Gerard passed him the cigarette, and they stood there silently for a while.
"So," Gerard said finally. "Are you talking to me again?"
"I thought you were the one that wasn't talking to me."
Gerard raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. "What, with you sulking like that what the fuck was I supposed to do?"
"I wasn-," Frank stopped, tried again. "I don't want to fight, G."
Gerard just stared at him. "We should go back," he said, after what seemed like an interminable silence. He made a face. "My feet still fucking hurt though." Frank looked at his stilettos.
"Yeah," he said. "I guess they would.”
The photographer didn't say anything for the rest of the shoot, just took their pictures and seemed grateful that Gerard was in a better mood, but later Frank overheard him telling his assistant, "That Way chick, really hot but such a fucking unreasonable bitch," and it occurred to him that maybe he should go and punch the guy out, but he was weary and exhausted and he'd already used up his random acts of violence tokens for the week, so he went and let Ray give him a shoulder massage instead. He spotted Gerard, leaning against a wall and flirting with a camera tech, but when they were leaving the studio Gerard walked up to him and slipped his hand into Frank's.
"I asked the guys to go ahead, called a cab," he said. "We'll just ride back together, the both of us." In the back seat of the cab, they were all mouth and skin and tearing at one another until Gerard gasped, "Frank, please," and it wasn't enough, even as he was shuddering and burying his face in the crook of Gerard's neck, it wasn't enough. But it would have to do.
IV.
"Sometimes I think, everyone thinks I'm a girl, remembers me as a girl. So maybe I really am. Maybe we're all delusional, and I'm Geraldine Way and I lost my virginity to some boy named Steve when I was seventeen, and I never had sex with Kat and I almost didn't make it to this band and I," he took in a deep breath, shuddered. "Mikey says he knows everything now. He explained it all to me. He said he called Mom and Dad and somehow managed to ask them about us, about how we were as kids, how I was. Grandpa likes to talk. And it's. It's all starting to make sense now. It does. My memory's changing. I can feel it."
And Frank said, "I know who you really are, Gerard."
But his own memory was changing too. It changed the more Gerard and him fucked, it changed everytime someone talked about Geraldine, everytime the crowd yelled out her name when they were onstage. Geraldine Geraldine Geraldine. The Way brother that wasn't. The one that got flowers and jeers from guys and dirty glares or naked adulation from girls. It got to the point where he could barely remember that it had ever been any other way.
1.
Gerard was exhausted. Frank could tell. Not in the way that he got exhausted on tour, but in the way that he got frustrated and run-down and reached for the nearest thing that would take that all away. But Frank reached out and kissed his make-up away and held him down and he shivered and shimmied and his hands curved restlessly against Frank's back, and he only snapped once or twice when Frank talked to him, told him to concentrate and think. Times like this, it was almost exactly the way it used to be.
"I just thought," Gerard said suddenly, "If we had happened when I was Gerard. Why didn't it happen?"
"I don't know," Frank replied. But he did, because there might not have been a Bert, but there would've been a someone, or a something, because he'd spent a long time coming to terms with who he was and who Gerard was and they were friends, friends was everything despite what they both wanted from one another.
"I need a vacation," Gerard said slowly.
2.
And so they went. A week's break from the tour, fuck the consequences. Somewhere by the beach, a small house with a leaky roof and patchy plumbing but a gorgeous king sized bed with snow white linen sheets that little elves would replace every morning. They'd fuck all day and Frank would make those drinks with the umbrellas in them, minus the alcohol for Gerard and minus the fruit punch for himself, although he pretended not to notice whenever Gerard drank from his glass. At night they'd walk down the beach or stay in, watching bad movies on cable until one or the other fell asleep.
He'd never wanted anyone like this before, not even Gerard back when they first met, when he was shy and quiet except for when he'd go on to Frank excitedly about some thing or another, and Frank would pretend to listen and think about how grateful he was that he was here.
But then other than the drinking and the fucking they didn't talk about anything at all, and every time they seemed to be on the edge of something, Frank pulled back, or Gerard pulled back. There was a pink elephant in the room, Frank thought tiredly, and no-one wanted to bring it up. But finally Frank said, "We need to talk," and Gerard just said, "Tomorrow, please. Tomorrow."
V.
You wake up one morning and you're in an all male band. Then the next and you're in Neverland. And of course, one day you wake up and everything goes back to the way it should be.
They said: We could discuss this tomorrow. Discuss Bert. Discuss them. Discuss how they'd changed, and how they hadn't, and how he was now a peripheral member of the band and no-one knew his name and he still didn't mind and Gerard still did. Mostly they'd discuss Bert whom he hated even though he didn't remember them fucking and really, Bert going "You guys back together again, huh?" and shrugging and punching Frank on the shoulder, didn't mean anything at all, and him subsequently punching Bert in the nose was, in retrospect, entirely uncalled for, and he owed a big apology, but now, now it seemed all he owed was irrelevant because.
1.
Gerard was back. Frank woke up, and found himself in his bunk, nowhere near the beach. He wandered around for a while until he saw Gerard, sitting on the steps of the bus and eating cereal. "You're back," Frank said.
"Uh...where'd I go?" Gerard looked around him furtively. Frank shook his head and walked off, unable to deal right at that moment.
"Gerard's back," he told Mikey, and Mikey nodded his head curtly. "Yeah, last night I was in bed at home and suddenly I'm here. I think I scared people with the screaming. "
"Yeah."
"So I went out and Bob was already up, and he'd found a couple of posters and it's - we're exactly where we were six months ago. To the day."
"Oh," Frank says. "I guess that explains it then. Kind of," and he made to move away but Mikey put a hand on his shoulder.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine."
2.
They had a meeting, all of them, minus Gerard who for some reason had gone out shopping with Bert. Mikey said, "Well," and Ray said, "Well," and Bob said, because he was quick and possibly the first one to get it, "Fuck if I don't want to have to figure out what I did the last six months or so. But at least it's only six months and not my entire lifetime."
This was when Brian wandered in, looking for one of them to sign something, and Mikey turned to him and said, "Gerard's a guy, right? Always has been?"
Brian said, patiently and slowly "Yes."
Everyone sighed in various degrees of relief, and Brian backed away from them all. "Okay I'll be going now."
"So that settles it then," Mikey said, once he was gone and safely out of earshot.
Only when they finally caught up with Gerard he said, "I was a what?" and laughed and walked away.
Frank said, "I don't understand."
"Maybe he's in denial?" Bob said, and shrugged.
"Sure, that's it," Frank replied, and stared after Gerard's retreating back.
3.
"Wait, so I was a girl?"
"Uh," Bob said finally. "You were a girl."
"For six months?"
"Yeah."
"Was I hot?"
Frank looked at Ray who looked at Bob who was looking at his feet. Mikey only examined his fingernails and declined to involve himself in the conversation. Gerard frowned. "I bet I was hot. I wish I remembered. So what happened? Tell me everything, I want to know."
"Gerard," Frank asked suddenly. "What makes you think we're all not just putting you on? I hardly believe it myself, and I was there."
"I just do, that's all," Gerard said simply. "Besides, no-one could make this shit up."
"You really don't remember anything at all?"
"No of course not. I think I'd remember if I was a girl for six months." Gerard paused. "I hope."
4.
So it was as if the past six months hadn't happened at all. Gerard remembered nothing, and no-one else remembered anything either, and except for the four of them sharing the same memories they might as well have not lived them at all.
Mikey said to Gerard in passing once, "You know I almost slept with Christina Ricci. It's a good thing I never did, isn't it?" and Gerard laughed, and Frank flushed and looked away. Mikey blinked, but Gerard was frowning, looking at them both. "What?" he said.
"Nothing," Frank said. "I need to call my girlfriend."
The phone was slippery in his hand, but Jamia was exactly the same, cheerfully telling him about her day and how she'd missed him. "I miss you too," Frank said, but then he pretended he had a bad connection and hung up. Mikey's first phone call after they'd realized they were back was to Alicia. It was only a week to Jamia, but for Frank it had been six months. He ended up wandering around afterwards until he found Gerard, leaning aimlessly against a bus and smoking. "Hey," he said. He took the cigarette from Gerard's fingers and Gerard moved away from him.
"So," Gerard said eventually, shifting from foot to foot. "No-one wants to tell me what happened."
"There's not much to tell. You were a girl for six months. Everyone else thought you were a girl too. Except for all of us. We freaked, we adjusted, and then everything went back to normal."
"Were we doing the same thing," he asked, waving his hand in the direction of the concert grounds.
"Yeah, pretty much." Frank smiled. "You were the goth Karen O."
"No, fuck no." He brightened suddenly. "Was I seeing anyone? Was I a hot lesbian?"
Frank almost choked, but he took a deep breath and let it out and said, "No you weren't a lesbian. Uh, you were seeing Bert for a while but you broke up."
Gerard laughed. "Bert? It figures. He's too young for me though."
"I guess you just like younger guys," Frank said faintly, and Gerard's smile faded away.
"Are you not telling me something?"
"No. That's it." He threw his cigarette onto the ground and stomped it out. "I have to go, G. Ask Mikey if you want to know anything else. He's the one that kept track of everything that happened."
5.
Mikey said, "But this is what we wanted, right? Everything back to normal. Everything's back to normal. That world-"
"Fucking sucked." Bob finished for him, and Frank nodded his head and smiled, but inside him something broke, burnt hot and cold at the same time. Gerard was Gerard and everything was back to the way it should be, the way they all remembered it, except that the brightest thing in his head now was Geraldine, with her soft skin and her smile and the way her body moved beneath his, on top of his. Tiny fists, soft breasts and long hair: that was his life.
But the Gerard now was the same too, only a different sex, and Frank couldn't look at him sometimes. He caught up with Frank once, who was hurrying out of the room as soon as he spotted Gerard entering it. "You're avoiding me. Why are you avoiding me?"
"I'm not avoiding you."
"Yes you are." Gerard looked hurt. "I don't know what I did wrong. Did I do anything wrong?"
"No, no you didn't. There's nothing going on, G."
"Yes the- did I do something as, as her?"
Frank shook his head mutely, but Gerard gasped. "I did, didn't I. It's so odd. It's as if I woke up one morning and all you guys changed and I was the only one that didn't, and you know things that I don't, and you've had conversations that I haven't had. I was sitting down once and Mikey and Ray were discussing this new song and I don't know the song even though they said I'd written it." Gerard frowned. "I wish I remembered. I really wish I remembered."
"No, G, you don't," Frank said, and he walked off.
6.
But Gerard was persistent, and in between bouts of bugging Mikey he bugged Bob and he bugged Ray until finally one day he threw back the curtains over Ray's bunk and said gleefully, "You and I did it!" and it was too much and Frank just stared until Gerard's smile faltered, and faded away totally.
"Oh," he said softly. "Frank, I don-"
But Frank just shook his head. "It's complicated, G. And I don't. We shouldn't talk about it. I don't think we should talk about it. Forget it never happened." He smiled, only a little bitterly. "One of us already has."
"I don't remember any of it, Frank. I wish I did, but I don't. I was just. No-one told me, by the way. I just guessed. I didn't thin-"
"I know."
7.
But now Gerard knew, and Frank knew he knew, and it shouldn't have changed things, but it did. Sidelong glances thrown his way when they were onstage, offstage Gerard was stammery and a little shy and Frank wasn't any better. He kept thinking about Geraldine, and how this Gerard wasn't so different from her, in fact exactly the same, just missing the last six months. He went out with Jamia and couldn't bear to look at her, and sometimes it was guilt and sometimes it was just that he wished she were someone else.
He wasn't that type of person. Only he was afraid he was (had been, once, twice, it was enough and he couldn't make himself believe it didn't count), and every time he saw Gerard his heart clenched and he couldn't breathe.
Mikey said, cornered him on the bus one day and just said softly, "You guys were terrible as a couple, right? You're not seriously considering?"
"I'm not seriously considering anything. We're both in relationships, and anyway mind your own business."
"It's just that. You're all wrong for one another. I remember that. Don't you remember that?"
"Yeah, I remember." But it got harder each day. Each day that passed by he spent more and more time with this Gerard, and it went from awkward to less awkward to them making excuses to touch one another and for Gerard to lower his head and blush and for Frank to imagine what it would be like to kiss him, just once. And again, and again. They had good times together, the two of them. Times he couldn't imagine having with someone else. Not even Jamia. And the bad, in retrospect, wasn't so bad at all, not as far as Frank could recall.
"Frank," Mikey said. "Don't."
Frank shook his head, but then Gerard arrived in the doorway, leaned against it and smiled at him, and Frank said, "No."