BRBB Fic: Ass-Kickin' Chick Music (1 of 2)
Title: Ass-Kickin' Chick Music
Author: ladyfoxxx
Bands (and/or pairings): MCR (FOB, CS, MSI), always-a-girl!Gerard/always-a-girl!Frank, always-a-girl!Gerard/Pedicone, Pete/Mikey, past always-a-girl!Gerard/Lindsey
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 20 700 words
Warnings: Some Pedicone-bashing, cheating, general disregard for any coherent sense of time whatsoever
Summary: She's not someone's girlfriend. She's not anyone's anything. She's a fucking force. Gee doesn't know if she wants to be her or fuck her.
Author notes: ciel_vert's excellent mix Never Was A Cornflake Girl which inspired this fic features some fantastic bands and songs and it does such a good job of telling a story all by itself. I hope I've managed to do it justice. Huge props to mizubyte for making this story so much better and helping it make actual sense.
Also available on A03
Ass-Kickin' Chick Music
"Is this too slutty?" Gee rubs the eyeliner around her eyes until it goes smoky, then flips her hair over her shoulder and turns around to face Mikey.
Mikey's sprawled across Gee's bed, more interested in the issue of Doom Patrol under his nose than his sister's half-assed attempt at a fashion show. He looks up, finally, and skates his eyes over Gee's outfit and general coiffedness. Gee's gone for a cut-off denim skirt and tights with skulls on them, a Misfits t-shirt with the neck hacked out of it, and makeup that she hopes falls somewhere above "cute" without reaching the lofty heights of skanky.
Mikey quirks an eyebrow. "I don't think there's any combination of clothes in your wardrobe that could qualify as slutty."
Gee frowns. "What's that supposed to mean?" She turns back to the mirror, trying to see herself with fresh eyes, trying to look past the baby fat and too-pale skin and hair that hasn't seen a hairdresser in years. She just wants to look nice.
Actually, fuck nice, she wants to look hot. She's dating a drummer, she should look hot. Girlfriend-of-a-hot-guy-in-a-band hot. "I want to look hot," she tells the mirror.
"You look good," Mikey says, but he sounds bored. But then, Mikey always sounds bored. Gee glares at him, hard enough that some waves of displeasure must make it through the comic book, because he looks up and rolls his eyes at her.
"Aren't you going tonight?" Gee asks, because Mikey isn't exactly dressed for going out. Unless sweatpants have suddenly become the next big thing and she missed it.
"Later. It won't really get happening until like, one."
That makes exactly zero sense to Gee. "You'll miss all the bands."
"I've seen all the bands."
"Mike said they were gonna be doing some new songs tonight," Gee tries, but Mikey isn't even going to be bribed with the promise of new music tonight.
"Yeah, I'm not really into The Bled and that other band sucks ass. I'll just go after and catch up with everyone."
Gee nods and tries to keep her expression blank. She really, really doesn't want to have to go this gig on her own, but she's not going to drag Mikey along out of pity so she tries to shake it off. Mikey and Mike don't really get along that well anyway.
"Okay, I guess I'll see you later then." She ruffles his hair before slipping out of the room.
*
The venue isn't very big, but that means it's packed. Gee weaves her way through the throngs of bodies, ducking elbows and scooting past carelessly waved cigarettes. The so-called backstage area is nothing more than an old cellar, and the guy minding the door recognises her from other gigs and lets her by.
The room is crowded with more than just the band; Gee pushes up on her toes and peers over as many heads as she can, trying to spot Mike. She gets a glimpse of his shaved head - it looks like he's talking real close with someone - and charts her course for that corner of the room, pushing past a whole bunch of people who really don't need to be crowding this room up. It's fucking hot back here and she's already sweating in her tights.
Clutching her messenger bag close to her hip, she weaves through a few more bodies and her view of Mike clears enough to see that no, he's not actually talking to the girl with the blue dreads, they're making out. It takes a moment for what Gee's seeing to compute in her brain - their lips are locked, chests pressed close and Mike's got one hand on the girl's ass. It doesn't look new. It looks really fucking friendly.
For a long moment all Gee can do is clutch her bag and stare. Mike's other hand is on the girl’s neck, his thumb drawing slow circles on her skin and she shakes with revulsion when she realises he's done that to her, that it's not just for her, it's like a stock move of his, and oh my fucking god-
"No," she says, and it comes out louder than she planned. Loud enough that Mike startles and breaks the kiss, blanching when he sees her. He quickly replaces the look of shock with an easy smile.
"Hey Gee." He's a little breathless. Breathless from kissing that girl - the one with longer legs and bigger tits than Gee. The one who's glancing between them now, looking unsure.
"Gee, this is Natalie." Mike doesn't even take his hand off her ass. "Natalie, this is Gee," he adds with a nod at Gee, still smiling like this is nothing, like this is okay. Like this is something they do.
Gee is livid. She can barely breathe, her vision blurring around the edges, her blood singing in her ears with rage. Mike's smiling at her like he wants her to play along, like he wants her to just accept this, be cool with it, be the cool girlfriend who doesn't care that her so-called boyfriend is going around sticking his tongue into random skanks. Well fuck that.
"No," she says again. "You don't get to do this."
"Do what?" Mike asks, his expression blank, shifting on his feet a little. Natalie takes a step back, looking uncomfortable and Gee just wants her to keep on stepping.
"Her."
Mike glances at Natalie and back at Gee, like he's only just figured it out. "Babe, we never said we were exclusive."
Gee's mouth drops open. "We never said we weren't." Her voice rises unsteadily and fuck, fuck she can't do this here. She can't do this in this crowded airless room, she can't do it with Mike's fucking hookup staring at her. She wills Mike to take it back, to apologise, to tell Natalie he's sorry, it's not happening.
He doesn't. He just fucking… doesn't.
"Look, if you just-"
"No." It comes out so much louder this time and she knows people are watching them. Fuck, she can't do this. "This is not-" she stumbles over the words, trying to figure out what she needs to say. She shouldn't even have to say it, it should be so obvious. All she ends up with is, "No."
Her face is hot and it's not until she starts blinking that she realises just how close she is to tears. She flashes back to Mike two nights ago; the soft smile on his face as his hand crept down the front of her jeans as he whispered, "It's just you, baby girl. It's just you." It's like a punch in the gut and Gee spins around, suddenly sure she's going to fall apart and she can't. She fucking can't. Not here in front of all these people.
She's pushing out of the room before she's finished the thought, stumbling through the crowd, just needing to get out. The night air hits her face as she steps outside, cool against her burning skin. She fumbles through her pockets for her cigarettes, hands shaking as she lights up. There's a steady stream of people still entering the venue, but they either don't know her or don't want to approach the chick in the army boots who is clearly freaking out.
She smokes two cigarettes down to the filter. By the time she's grinding the second butt out on the pavement, she's got a mild head rush and her hands are pink from the cold. She glances at the venue doors but all the movement near them is people going in, not coming out.
Mike's not coming after her, that much is clear. She drills her shoe into the ground until the filter is a smear of white fluff on the pavement and stamps off down the road, her eyes damp and cold, vision blurry with tears.
She drops her keys twice trying to get the front door unlocked, and then it just magically opens. Mikey's on the other side, in his skinniest jeans and the Ramones t-shirt he wouldn't let her cut the neck out of last week (even though he'd wear it anyway). He's clearly about to go out, but he takes one look at her mascara-streaked face and wraps his arms around her, tugging her inside.
Mikey's chest is too bony to be comfortable, but Gee tucks her face into it anyway, sliding her arms around his waist and hanging on so tight she can feel all his ribs digging into her. They stand in the kitchen for a long time, Gee snuffling and leaking all over his shirt while Mikey cards gentle fingers through her hair.
"I'm sorry," she says snottily, between deep sobbing breaths. She's not sure if she's apologising for spoiling his night by being a drama queen, or for crying all over him and ruining his shirt. Mikey just makes soothing nonsense noises until her shoulders stop shaking.
When she can finally breathe he tucks her bangs behind her ears and says "You're better off without him," because he's fucking psychic and can totally tell she's having a Mike-related meltdown.
She palms her eyes and takes a steadying breath. "Sorry," she says again, "I'm okay now. You should go."
"Yeah, sure you are," he says with gentle sarcasm, the angle of his eyebrows clearly stating his disbelief. "Go wash your face, I'll put on Empire. I think we've got some microwave popcorn."
Gee nearly starts crying again from sheer relief. She wraps her arms around him and squeezes, rubbing her nose into his shoulder. "You're the best brother."
Mikey pats her back gently, "I know."
*
They end up marathoning the original Star Wars Trilogy until Gee passes out with Ewoks singing in her ears. When she wakes up, Mikey's passed out on her bed beside her, the covers littered with empty chip packets and popcorn kernels. Gee slides her legs carefully out from where they’re tangled with Mikey’s and goes to the bathroom to pee.
Washing her hands afterwards, she glances up, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the dusty mirror over the sink. She's pale and drawn, streaks of mascara augmenting the dark shadows under her eyes. She leans in closer, water still rushing over her fingertips, her gaze locked to the girl in the mirror's. She's not pretty - she'll never be pretty, the best she can hope for is 'cute'. She's definitely not hot.
She shuts off the faucet, shaking the droplets off her fingers, glancing back into the mirror unwillingly. The girl in the mirror isn't a drummer's girlfriend. She isn't anyone's girlfriend. Really, Gee should embrace this. She should just give up on the whole idea of a boyfriend-partner-whatever. Maybe she should shave her head, join a nunnery - no, a cult. Just, not a sex cult, that would be counterproductive.
She wipes a wet hand across the mirror, smearing her reflection and turns away, rubbing her hands dry on her tights as she walks back to her bedroom. Mikey's still asleep, and he's taking up way more of the bed than he was before. There isn't really enough room to curl into a ball and sulk, not without waking him up, so she heads for her desk instead.
Her hair halos around her face as she bends low and sketches, fingers and pencil dancing over the page. Her romantic wounds are still too raw to draw Mike as the victim of various grisly deaths (her usual antidote to heartache), so she sketches herself instead. She makes herself a comic book character, a heroine with a mane of flowing hair and awesome boots. Comic book Gee's legs are longer, her tits bigger, her features prettier.
When the drawing is finished, she leans back and studies it. It's not her. It's not even close. She frowns, letting her fingers close around the page until it crumples, and drops it on the floor. She crawls back onto the bed and rests her head gently on Mikey's shoulder. He smells like cigarettes and hairspray; familiar and comfortable.
She doesn't manage to go back to sleep.
*
"Gee?" Mikey's voice is muffled through the door.
Gee looks up from her sketchpad, her eyes all bleary from staring at the same point inches from her face for so long. "What?"
Mikey slips inside the room, slowly coming into focus as Gee's eyes adjust to looking at things that aren't her sketchpad. He's wearing his good jeans and one of the shirts he reserves for going out.
"There's a show on at the Loop tonight. You should come." Mikey seems intent on ignoring the fact Gee's been wearing the same pajamas for three days and she's surrounded by empty coffee cups and crumpled paper - clear signs she's in no fit state to deal with the outside world.
Gee wrinkles her nose at Mikey and pulls her sketchpad closer to her chest. "I've got a lot of work to do." It's not a lie, she does have a lot of coursework due, she's just not doing any of it.
"You know the period of mourning for a relationship isn't supposed to go longer than the length of the actual relationship, right?"
"Fuck you; it's not even been a week. I'm allowed to mope." Gee scrubs the back of her hand across her eyes.
"Well come and mope at the Loop. The music will be better."
"Shut up, you love the Smiths."
"Not when it's the same album on repeat for a week." Mikey hits pause on Gee's CD player and levels her with one of those stern looks that make him look more like a big brother than a baby brother. "You need to get out, you're getting all…" he waves a hand at her general state, "you know."
Before Gee can protest about all the very important work she needs to do, Mikey pries her sketchbook from her hands and drags her off the bed, giving her a shove towards the bathroom. "Just come for the first band. If you hate them, I promise we'll come home."
"Mikey-" she tries to argue, but he bats her away and gives her another push toward the bathroom.
"Three songs," he insists. "After that I promise I will leave the club and drive you home if you hate it." He crosses his heart with a quick hand gesture. "But you have to come. You owe me for last week."
Gee opens her mouth to argue, but Mikey totally has the upper hand here. She does owe him. What the hell, she might as well go; it might even help to shake her out of this funk, as long as- "Wait, he's not-"
"Mike won't be there."
"I would prefer if you called him That Cunt. He doesn't deserve to share a name with you."
Mikey doesn't manage to completely hide his smile at that, he just keeps pushing her forwards until there are tiles under her feet. "Don't worry; this lineup is totally not his scene, okay? There's no way he suddenly developed taste."
Gee glares at him. ”Musical taste”, Mikey clarifies. “Now get ready, We're meeting Ray in an hour."
Gee sighs a loud, put-upon sigh, but she does as she's told. Sometimes Mikey is right about things.
*
Mikey's not always right about everything, though. The moment they step into the club Gee starts to think this may be one of the rare occasions when he's wrong. She's not ready to be here. There are just too many people. Also, despite Mikey's many repeated assurances that there's no way Mike would show up at a gig that's entirely female-fronted bands, she's still nervous as hell that she's going to turn around and come face to face with the asshole.
She swallows the urge to flee and reminds herself that she only needs to survive three songs. She will absolutely hold Mikey to his promise and she refuses to feel bad about that. Her fingers itch for a drink, so it's a relief when they start heading towards the bar. Ray's leaning up against it, his fro visible above the bulk of the scattered crowd. The moment he spots Gee and Mikey he puts down his beer and scoops Gee up in a hug that pulls her up on her toes. She smiles into his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his broad back. God, why can't she like guys like Ray? Ray is an honest-to-god good guy. If only he didn't feel like as much of a brother to her as Mikey.
"Hey," Ray says, pulling back to ruffle Gee's hair, "you made it."
"Mikey wouldn't let me stay home," she complains.
Ray nods, "I'm glad you came," he tells her with a genuine smile, as he leans across to catch Mikey in a one armed hug. Mikey extricates himself to lean across the bar and immediately gets the bartender's attention without even trying. It's his superpower.
When Ray speaks again, it's to tell Gee about the headlining band and she's so fucking glad he knows her well enough not to try to talk to her about Mike right now. Even the idea of a sympathetic mention of the whole situation feels like pressure behind her eyes.
"I know the drummer," Ray explains. "He's really good. I haven't seen these guys play with this exact lineup, they've got a new bassist now, but they rocked the Battle of the Bands pretty hard last month, so we're in for a show."
"Is that your professional opinion?" she asks, right about the time Mikey turns around with a beer in each hand.
"No," Mikey slips into the conversation seamlessly, handing Gee her beer, "he's got a hard-on for the lead singer." Despite the low light in the club, Gee can see Ray's cheeks darken with a telling blush.
"Oh, it's like that, is it?" she teases.
Ray shakes his head and shoots Mikey a weighted look. "You know, Mikey, people tell you things because you look like you know how to keep a secret, but really you're the worst gossip I've ever met."
Mikey flips Ray off and takes a drink of his beer. The house music dies down and the tell tale shriek of feedback tells them it's nearly show time.
"C'mon, we should get down the front," Mikey says, grabbing Gee's wrist and leading her through the crowd. Gee's thankful she's got Mikey in front of her and Ray behind her, as she clutches her glass to her chest and they wade through the sea of strangers.
They score a good spot near the front and off to the side, out of the way of the likely-to-form moshpit. The band - all dudes - are onstage, the drummer, bassist and keyboard player in position, instruments primed. The guitarist is bent over fiddling with the knobs on an amp and there's no sign of the singer. Gee tugs on Ray's t-shirt. "Where's your girl?"
Ray shakes his head, not taking his eyes off the stage. "Wrong band, Gee. She's in the headliner."
"Oh," Gee says, and then the guitarist on the stage turns around and Gee has to make a swift reassessment of gender. From behind Gee would have sworn it was a guy, but front on Gee can see that it's actually a girl with a pretty impressive mohawk, bleached at the sides and dark up the middle. She's wearing a white wifebeater over a black bra and shredded jeans that hang low on her hips, leaving a flash of inked skin visible between the bottom of her shirt and the top of her jeans. She steps up to the mic, greeting the crowd with a handful of insults in a harsh, throaty voice and Gee can't do anything but stare.
Then they start to play.
It's fast and loud, a wall of sound. It hits Gee right in the chest, vibrates down her body to the soles of her boots. The singer is vicious, spitting, snarling, screaming down the mic as her fingers blur over the frets. There's ink on her knuckles too, but her fingers are moving too fast for Gee to figure out what. The music is heavier than Gee would usually go for, the lyrics screamed rather than sung, but Gee can't look away from the tiny singer. She's fierce, and fast, and fucking scary. She's amazing.
She's not someone's girlfriend. She's not anyone's anything. She's a fucking force. Gee doesn't know if she wants to be her or fuck her. By the time they hit the first big solo, she's spinning across the stage, kicking out, crashing into the bassist who barely even reacts. She falls to her knees and plays through another solo before leaping up and running back to scream down the mic again. Gee feels like she should be exhausted just watching, but the energy coming off her is electric.
Mikey's eyes are heavy on Gee at the end of the third song. She glances over to find him looking so fucking smug she wants to punch him. Damn him. Why does he always have to be right? She shoves her half-drunk beer into his hand and wades into the moshpit.
The rest of the set is just as loud, just as shattering, and Gee lets it sweep her away. She loses herself in the crush of bodies, taking hits in the ribs and legs, bouncing with the beat, letting the crowd throw her around. She still can't take her eyes off the singer, leaning up on tiptoe to watch her through shifting crowd. The blur of black-and-blonde hair screams and spits, winds herself up in the mic cable and fires venom into the crowd between songs. It's not a massive crowd, but she's giving as much as if this was a full stadium. Gee is entranced.
At the end of the set Gee joins in the enthusiastic applause, yelling and cheering. The singer looks out into the crowd, smiling for the first time in the whole set, and she's so pretty Gee can't believe she mistook her for a guy.
When she turns to leave the stage and the house lights come up, the spell is broken. Gee drags herself, sweaty and covered in newly-earned bruises, over to the side in search for Mikey. She finds him not far from where she left him, chatting to the guy who does sound for some of the gigs - Bob or Ben, Gee can't remember.
Mikey takes in her battered appearance and smiles. "That good, huh?"
Gee doesn't try to fight the grin that stretches her mouth. "I fucking needed that," she tells him, and doesn't manage to listen to anything Mikey and the sound guy talk about for the next few minutes. Her mind is still completely lost in the moshpit.
It isn't until Mikey stumbles into her, splashing her arm with beer, that she notices Mikey's struggling to stay upright after being nearly-tackled by an interloper. It takes a moment for Gee to decode the black-and-white blur as the singer of the band who just played, currently wrapped around Mikey like a spider-monkey and yelling, "Mikey, you fucker! I thought you weren't coming!"
Mikey manages to stay upright and grabbing her around the waist so she doesn't fall down. "I never said I wasn't coming, Frankie."
"Yeah, but you wouldn't commit!" She jumps down and pokes him in his bony chest. "From you, that's like admitting you're not coming."
"It's like you don't trust me at all," Mikey says, swatting her hand away lightly. "I even made Gee come," he adds, inclining his head towards Gee and then suddenly this girl - Frankie - is looking at her with wide eyeliner-smudged eyes.
"You're Gee?" she asks, and launches herself at Gee before she even has time to answer, grabbing her in a breath-stealing hug. She's squirmy and a little sweaty but it feels nice - weird, but nice.
"Um, yeah," Gee manages, still a little freaked out that the girl she's just been watching on stage is hugging her.
"Mikey has told me so much about you, I feel like I met you already." Frankie leans out of the hug but keeps her hands tight on Gee's shoulders, like she's worried Gee's going to try to run away. She's half a head shorter than Gee; her singlet nearly transparent with sweat, and her chest mottled with ink, and a red flush that's likely due to her throwing herself all over the stage.
Gee doesn't know how to respond, because Mikey hasn't told Gee shit about Frankie. Well, he might've actually, but Gee isn't good at remembering stuff about people before she meets them. She struggles for something to say and remembers that Frankie just played a set. "Great show, you guys are vicious."
"Yeah?" Frankie tilts her head to the side, "You liked it?"
Gee can't actually find words that encompass how much she liked it. She struggles through words like transcendent and revelation, but before she manages to get any of them to leave her mouth, Frankie's being dragged off, protesting, by the bassist from her band. Gee can't hear what he's saying, but the words "label guy" and "I told you, down the back" and "unprofessional" make it through to her ears.
Frankie's yells, "I'm coming, god" and "we don't want to look too eager" back at him. Gee tries not to frown as the tiny ball of energy gets dragged away from her.
"Hey, you're staying after, right?" Frankie yells, and Gee can't tell if she's yelling at Mikey or Gee, but she nods anyway, and Frankie flings her hand above her head, fingers curled into a fist with her pinky and index fingers straight. Gee's mouth stretches into a smile and she raises her own hand in a metal fist in response.
Mikey's smile is all too knowing. "You like her, don't you?" It's not even a question, because the answer is obvious.
"She's amazing." Gee says, and Mikey just nods, like he knows what Gee really needs right now is to see a hot chick being fierce. He's like Yoda, only way more smug.
Luckily the next band doesn’t take too long to get started, so she doesn't have to put up with Mikey giving her shit all that long. The second band isn’t anywhere near as earth-shaking as Frankie's band. If Gerard had to choose a word to describe them it would be "folky", but it's not a bad thing. There's only so many times you can have your world shifted under your feet in one night.
She, Ray and Mikey drink companionably, trading notes on the band between songs. There’s one more band playing after these guys - The Interrobangs - the headliner Ray's so fond of. Gee resists the temptation to wind Ray up about his supposed crush on the lead singer, so Mikey does instead, because he has no soul.
When the headliners finally get up and play, they are pretty damn good. They're tight where Frankie's band had still been a little loose, tuned and harmonised and so in synch the two guitarists even head-bang in tandem. Gee can see why Ray likes them; they're technically perfect, marketable enough to appeal to the mainstream, but heavy enough to still be edgy. The lead singer is a pretty brunette with a throaty voice and when Gee sneaks a look at Ray he's beaming up at her, his face a mixture of awe and admiration, his beer halfway to his mouth like he was about to take a drink and forgot about it.
Towards the end of the set, Gee starts to get fidgety. Some part of her doesn't want to stick around and talk to Frankie again. She'll never admit it out loud, but she's a little scared Frankie is going to figure out Gee isn't actually cool and scene, like Mikey; she's just a loser who doesn't know how to talk to anyone who's not her brother, or Ray.
In the end, she chickens out. She tells Mikey she's tired - fine but tired - and insists he doesn't have to drive her home. He looks skeptical, but she knows he really wants to stay - the aftershow partying is his favourite part of the night.
"Are you sure?" he presses, like she's secretly going to run off and cry in the bathroom or something.
She waves him off. "I'm fine, just tired, I promise. I had a good time, I swear." She gives him a hug, "I'll see you at home."
Mikey's fingers are warm on her back as he hugs her.
Gee knows she's being stupid, but she goes home anyway and crawls into bed still wearing her gig clothes. She lies on her back, her own hand warm on her chest and she nods off thinking about Frankie spinning across the stage.
*
The next morning (or afternoon, really, by the time Gee is awake) she Googles Frankie's band. She looks at every picture and listens to every music clip on P.S. Don't Write's MySpace page. The recordings are rough and they really don't capture the energy and spunk of the band live. The pictures are sparse, mostly black and white, and Frankie's glaring in almost all of them; in one she's even flipping off the camera.
Gee bummed she can't find one of Frankie smiling, but it probably doesn't fit with the band's aesthetic. She tries to conjure it from memory, wondering if she remembers it enough to sketch it.
Okay, this is getting creepy.
She shuts down the old clunker of a laptop and goes upstairs looking for coffee. What she finds in her kitchen is so unexpected at first she thinks she's hallucinating. But no, there's a tiny, tattooed, mohawk-sporting girl at Gee's coffee machine, wearing a pair of boxer shorts with Batman on them.
"Ah, hi?" Gee says, figuring if the Frankie-hallucination talks back, then maybe she is actually here.
"Oh thank god," Frankie says. "Can you show me how to work this thing? I'm having caffeine separation anxiety and Mikey's like, dead to the world." Frankie asks, turning around and Gee can see now that she's wearing Mikey's Anthrax t-shirt. Mikey's favourite Anthrax t-shirt.
"Oh." Gee's brain suddenly catches up. Because of course Frankie and Mikey hooked up last night. Of course that would happen.
Her stomach twists up at the idea, making her feel all sick and gross and she can't figure out why. Why should she care if Frankie and Mikey hooked up? It's not like Mikey hasn't had a thing with half the girls on the scene at some point or another and it's not like Gee is interested in Frankie like that, is it?
Is it?
Shit, she can't think about this right now, she's been quiet for too long and it's getting creepy.
"It's cool, I'll do it. It's not the best coffee or anything, but it's all right." Gee finally answers, giving herself an internal shake as she heads for the coffee machine. She can make coffee in her sleep; she can sure as hell do it now. Conversation, maybe not so much. Frankie doesn't seem to notice.
"At this point I'd drink flat, warm Pepsi just for the caffeine hit." Frankie flops down into one of the kitchen chairs, her legs sprawling awkwardly. She's even got tattoos on her calves. Gee tries not to stare, but they look amazing.
"I feel I should point out at this juncture that I really fucking hate Pepsi," Frankie adds, with a smile.
"I kind of figured that," Gee says, fiddling with the coffee machine even though there's nothing that really requires fiddling at this point, she just doesn't feel ready to turn around just yet.
"What happened to you last night, I thought you were going to hang around after?"
Gee swallows, trying to keep her voice casual as she tells Frankie the same lie she told Mikey last night. "Yeah, I meant to, I just, you know, I just hit the wall. I would have been shitty company, I was so tired." She nerves herself to turn around, leaning back on the bench to see Frankie.
Frankie frowns at her, "You gave me the metal hand, that's like a promise. Not cool." Frankie chases the comment with a ridiculous face that makes Gee smile. She takes the two steps to the kitchen table and flops down into a chair next to Frankie's.
"I know. I'm sorry." Gee brushes a hand through her hair to give her hands something to do. When she glances up, Frankie doesn't look mad, she's just picking at a crack in the plastic tabletop.
"I get it. Mikey said you'd had a rough time recently."
"Oh god, he has such a big fucking mouth." Gee's going to kill Mikey. The last thing she needs is for Frankie to know she's a loser who can't keep a guy.
"Hey, it's not your fault you hooked up with a douchebag. It's happened to us all, you know?"
"Sure it has," Gee counters, because she can't imagine Frankie falling for stupid Mike stupid Pedicone's fucking nice guy act. She gets up to pour the coffee.
"Hey I'm not immune, girl. I've been there. I'll tell you from experience you have free reign to be man-hatey and angsty as fuck for at least another week, two if he used the L-word. Go on and break out some Alanis Morissette."
Gee snorts out a laugh, nearly spilling the coffee as she pours. "Yeah I'll just be down in the basement with Jagged Little Pill on repeat."
"Doesn't it ever bother you that none of the situations she describes in “Ironic”, are actually ironic?"
Gee smiles in spite of herself and places the two mugs on the table. "You know it didn't before, but now it kind of does."
"False advertising," Frankie states with surety. "You got any sugar?"
Gee slides the sugar onto the table and fetches the milk from the fridge, sniffing it surreptitiously to make sure it smells okay before putting it down. She watches Frankie spoon in at least four sugars into her mug and they end up just shooting the shit over the table, drinking their coffee and talking about random stuff. Somehow it's easier talking to Frankie this way; having it sprung means she didn't have time to get herself all wound up like she did last night. She's still not sure exactly why that happened, but she likes Frankie; she's funny and irreverent and she has great taste in comics and movies.
They've finished the pot of coffee and started eating cereal out of the box when Mikey finally emerges from his sleep cocoon. Frankie springs up from the table, mussing up his hair and setting his glasses askew. "Hey sleeping beauty, nice of you to join us."
Gee looks away. She busies herself putting on another pot to brew, because she doesn't really want to be around for the next part, where things will no doubt get weird and awkward. Mikey's hook-ups don't tend to hang around that long. Or rather, he doesn't let them hang around that long. For a moment she's irrationally annoyed at Mikey for hooking up with someone as cool as Frankie, because Gee could totally see herself being friends with her.
She waits for the pot to brew, leaning against the bench by the coffee machine instead of sitting down again; listening to the coffee percolate underneath the soundtrack of Frankie teasing Mikey over how much he drank last night. When the pot’s brewed, she tops up her own cup and makes one for Mikey just the way he likes it. She slides it in front of Mikey and starts to head back downstairs.
"Where are you going?" Frankie asks, and she looks concerned.
"Oh, I've got, um," Gee waves a hand towards the basement, "stuff. To do. School stuff."
"Oh," Frankie says, looking disappointed and Gee's brow furrows in confusion. "Is it like, all day stuff? Because we're hanging at Gabe's later - you should come."
"Yeah Gee," Mikey adds, nodding like this is something that is actually going to happen and he's not going to blow Frankie off for some other gig or girl or boy later.
"Ah. Sure. Okay," Gee stutters. Frankie looks so hopeful she can't seem to bring herself to say no, even though it's totally not going to happen. Plus she finds Gabe a little creepy sometimes. (She's pretty sure he and Mikey have some kind of booty-call arrangement going on, but she totally doesn't want to think about that right now. Especially when he's sitting next to the girl he hooked up with last night, oh my god.)
"Cool!" Frankie says, bouncing a little in her seat.
Gee tries to smile, but it feels more like a baring of teeth. She escapes to the basement, still not sure what to do with all these feelings she's having against her will.
When she re-emerges hours later in search of coffee and her fingers stained with ink, she's surprised to hear more than once voice coming from the living room. She peers around the doorway, to find Mikey and Frankie in the midst of what looks like a pretty fierce game of Mortal Kombat. Gee blinks in confusion, because what the hell? Frankie's still here? In the entire history of Mikey's hook-ups he's never kept one of them around this long.
Frankie's shriek of defeat startles Gee out of her trance. Frankie throws down the controller and starts smacking Mikey in the arm. "You asshole, I totally had you, what the fuck was that?"
Mikey just grins smugly at the screen, and when Gee glances over she can see he was playing Sub Zero. "Oh yeah, you shouldn't let him play Sub Zero he'll just pull that Ice Blast shit on you."
"Thanks for the totally-too-late-to-be-helpful advice!" Frankie says, and gives Mikey another kick. Mikey elbows her, grinning wide and he and Frankie look way too cute together. Gee's stomach dips and she's not sure why.
Frankie looks up at Gee, "So are you done being boring McBoringpants now? We're gonna head over to Gabe's soon."
Gee shrugs,"Sure, I guess."
Frankie beams at her and Gee knows she's going to have to go to the damn party, whether she wants to or not. The thing is, she kind of wants to now.
*
Gabe's parties are usually an exercise in discomfort. When Gee, Mikey and Frankie arrive he cruises over and does his usual number of sleazing on each of them in turn. It's weird. Gabe is totally skeezy but he's so obvious about it, it's almost charming. The few times in history he hasn't sleazed onto Gee were strangely disappointing, leaving her with a distinct sense that maybe she just wasn't looking cute enough that night.
Tonight is not one of those nights. He leers at Frankie and then at Gee, and he's still groping at Mikey's waist even as he grins at both of them. "Looking good girls."
Frankie rolls her eyes at Gee and pats Gabe on the face. "You too Saporta, but if you touch my ass I'll punch you in the face."
"Ooooh," says Gabe, trading a grin with Mikey. "She's a feisty one."
Frankie snags Gee by the wrist and drags her off in search of beer. Somehow they manage to lose Mikey on the way there, so Gee grabs an extra can for him. Frankie notices and says "ooh, good idea," and shoves an extra can in her hoodie pocket as well. That wasn't what Gee meant, but she doesn't bother to explain. They squeeze out of the overcrowded kitchen and manage to find a couch that no one else is sitting on and flop onto it. The beer is cheap and crappy, but it's free so Gee drinks it anyway.
"What happened to Mikey?" Gee asks, not so much for herself, more for Frankie since she's kind of his date, sort of.
Frankie just shrugs and pops her can open with a hiss of air. "He'll find us eventually. He's probably stalking that band from Chicago - Armless Angels or whoever; he's such a scene whore."
Gee snorts out a laugh. She should probably come to Mikey's defence as his sibling, but the truth is, he is totally a scene whore. She shifts on the couch, which makes Frankie move, wriggling around until her feet are tucked under her. It presses her knees lightly into Gee's thigh. Gee feels like she should shift sideways and give Frankie some more space, but she doesn't. She waits for it to get awkward, but Frankie just starts talking about the band playing on the stereo - some local act that played the Boiler Room recently and just signed to Eyeball. It isn't until Frankie describes the singer that Gee realises she's seen them play.
"Oh yeah, the front man, he's huge, right? And angry? He's got a tattoo of a bear on his chest."
"Yeah - that's them!" Frankie chimes in, wiggling again so she's facing Gee more and launches into a story about how he and his drummer had a huge fight before a show once and they both played the set with blood all over them. She's really animated and Gee's laughing her too-loud, honking laugh before she can stop herself. She claps a hand over her mouth to try and stifle it, but she's still grinning hard enough to have a cheek ache by the time she can gasp in a breath. When she looks up, Frankie's watching her, her own mouth pulled up at one side in a smile and her eyes shining.
"What?" Gee says, feeling suddenly on-the-spot.
Frankie just smiles, shaking her head, "Nothing, you just," she regards Gee again, "it's just good to see you laughing, is all. Mikey was really worried about you for a while there."
And boom, just like that the shadow of Mike fucktard Pedicone casts itself over Gee's night. She looks away, picking at a hole in the couch arm, fighting back that icky drop in her stomach she still gets when she thinks about the whole fucked up situation.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up. You don't have to talk about it," Frankie adds, and she does sound genuinely sorry.
Gee rolls a few sentences around in her head, ones that change the subject, or drop the subject, or give her a reason to leave the room. She takes a swig of her beer to work up to saying one of them out loud, but what comes out is,
"I don't think it's so much that I liked him. I think I just liked the idea of him, you know?"
"Like, the idea of being with someone?" Frankie asks, her voice neutral.
"Yeah, I mean, someone like that, someone talented who's trying to like, express themselves and stuff."
Frankie makes a weird snorting sound and when Gee looks at her she's got a hand smushed over her mouth and her shoulders are shaking.
"Are you - are you laughing?" Gee asks, and oh my god, Frankie is totally laughing.
Frankie wipes her mouth off, blinking as she tries to swallow the rest of the laughter down, "I'm sorry Gee, I'm not laughing at you, I swear, it's just;" she snickers again, her mouth all twisted up as she tries to keep herself under control. "Look I'm friends with some of Pedicone's friends and he so totally isn't in The Bled to express himself musically." Frankie does air quotes around the last part, or at least, as much air quotes as you can do with a can of beer in your hand.
"Why else would he be in a band?" Gee asks her, genuinely confused.
"Um, for the pussy?" Frankie says, her eyebrows arched up like it's the most elementary thing in the world.
"Is that why you're in P.S. Don't Write? For the sex?" Gee asks.
"No!" Frankie says, then thinks for a beat, "well, maybe a little. It's not a bad bonus, but no. I'm not in it for the pussy; I'm in it for the music. It's like therapy for me. If I couldn't get up there and let all this shit out, I'd probably end up like, robbing a convenience store or something, or screaming at random people in the street. I just need to get my shit out, you know?"
Gee nods, "It looks pretty cathartic, what you do up there." What she doesn't say is that it also looks amazing. She's still a little in awe of Frankie-on-stage, even if Frankie-off-stage is actually someone funny and cute and endearing.
"I'm just glad people let me keep doing it. I think I'd go crazy if I couldn't get my shit out on stage the way I do. Is that what art is like for you? Do you just have stuff you need to get all out on the paper, or whatever?'
"Sometimes," Gee admits, tracing the coded numbers on the top of her beer can with her fingernail. "Sometimes I feel like if I don't get, like, this image out of me it'll just build up and fester, or worst that it'll decay - like, blur away in my memory, or whatever, and I'll lose it."
Frankie nods, "Yeah, I get that with lyrics, like if I don't find something I can write on like right now I'll lose the words, so I end up with shit scrawled on the back of napkins, or newspapers, and once I had to steal a menu from this diner because I'd written this block of text on the back of it. I actually felt really bad about that."
"You'd make a terrible thief."
"Yeah, I really would," Frankie agrees, and the conversation dies for a moment while they both take sips of their beer.
Gee's the one to start it up again, and in a way she doesn't even mean to, the words just fall out. "I guess I just worry that like, what if that was my one shot at having something with someone, and I chose the wrong person, and now I won't be able to find someone else, you know?"
"You don't get just one shot at having a relationship, Gee. And it sounds like it went south because he was a lying, cheating, scumbag, and not because of anything you did."
"But what if he was a lying, cheating scumbag because I wasn't, like, good enough? Because I wasn't enough?"
"Hey." Frankie tugs the beer out of Gee's hands and presses their hands together. Her fingers are cool and a little damp. "Don't make me make you a mix-tape of chicks kicking ass music, because I will. That shit's not true. He's the fuckup, not you. He doesn't deserve you."
"Easy enough to say," Gee says with a self-deprecating smile. "You don't even know me."
"I know enough," Frankie says, and squeezes Gee's fingers. "I know you’re Mikey's sister, and he adores you; you've got excellent taste in music and comics and you're really fucking cute, too."
Heat crawls up Gee's neck and she knows she's blushing. Frankie doesn't call her on it though, just keeps looking at her all earnest and sincere. She's got the prettiest smile.
"Gee," Frankie says, and her voice is kind of throaty and rough, and she looks more nervous than Gee would have thought possible. "Have you ever thought about-"
She doesn't finish the sentence because Gabe bellows loudly over the crowd in the gathered room, "Shots! We're doing shots! Drink or we will mock you and think less of you!" and he starts throwing plastic disposable shot glasses around like confetti. One lands in Gee's lap and she picks it up, pinched between her thumb and forefinger. Gabe's got another freakishly tall guy with him, who looks vaguely familiar. He's so pretty it's almost feminine, thin as a rake, and he's holding a bottle of vodka in each hand, wiggling them around showily.
Frankie glares at both of the tall dudes pushing vodka on the gathered crowd before sighing and snatching her own tiny cup off the couch. She looks at Gee, cocking an eyebrow, "Are we doing this?"
"You mean, are we going to fold to peer pressure to avoid the mockery of our peers?"
Frankie shrugs. "Free alcohol?"
Gee grins and holds her cup out towards Gabe and his offsider, who fills both hers and Frankie's without getting too much on the carpet. He gives her an assessing smile as he lifts the bottle back up and Gee manages to fight the urge to look away. He's way too pretty, and way too tall, and way too much like Gabe, but it's a nice little bump to her ego all the same.
She glances over to Frankie just in time to see her shoot her vodka. It doesn't go down that well, because Frankie sits up coughing after, glaring at the tall pretty guy.
"You didn't wait for me - we're supposed to do them together," Gee chides, trying to figure out why Frankie looks so suddenly annoyed.
"Sorry," Frankie says, but she doesn't really sound sorry. She shoves her empty cup towards the guy whose name Gee should probably figure out already. "Fill her up."
The guy rolls his eyes but does as he's told, somehow managing to glare at Frankie without really moving his face, before sauntering over to the next section of the room where there are lots of vocal kids waving cups at him.
It's in the back of Gee's throat to ask what the hell just happened, when Frankie turns back to her and raises her tiny cup, spilling a few droplets of vodka on the couch. "We can do this one together," she says, and smiles at Gee - big and wide, and Gee can't fathom saying no to that. She raises her own cup and touches it gently to Frankie's then they both shoot the vodka together.
It's cheap and awful and it burns all the way down. Gee comes up for air with a rough breath, her throat burning and her face scrunched up in what she's sure is a highly unattractive expression. "Ugh, that's fucking awful."
"Exactly," Frankie says, and snatches Gee's empty cup. "We totally need another one." She bounds across the room before Gee has time to protest and comes back with another two shots for them to drink. And Gee drinks hers, because Frankie wants her to, and somehow that's enough reason to do it.
The night gets hazy after that. There's more vodka, a lot more vodka, and Mikey returns to the fold with some guy with emo hair and a lot of tattoos. There's even more vodka and possibly some Sambucca, and a definite moment in the night where Gee can't feel her knees.
She pokes at them, then gets Frankie to poke at them, and Mikey too, but she just can't feel them.
Frankie presses some ice on her knee, "Can you feel that?" and shit, okay Gee can, even through her tights, and it's fucking cold. She grabs for the ice, but it's too slippery for her to get purchase. Frankie ends up putting it down her shirt, and Gee shrieks. Before she knows what's happening it devolves into a really pathetic drunken wrestling match that ends with Frankie and Gee in a pile, laughing too hard to keep trying, the ice already melted away.
Gee lies on her back, her chest still bubbling with laughter, smushed up against Frankie, who's laughing so hard it's making them both shake. Her cheeks are rosy from exertion or alcohol and the dark part of her mohawk flops over one of her eyes. Her eye makeup is smudged and her mouth is stretched into the most gorgeous smile. Gee loses her breath for a moment just looking at her.
"Nice one girls." Gee looks up to see Gabe towering above them. "All that needed was some Jell-o. And bikinis." He nods solemnly.
"Bikinis hey?” Frankie counters. “I thought you'd want us topless." She pulls up the bottom of her shirt, flashing her stomach at him and Gee catches a glimpse of ink she wants to see so much more of.
"Don't let me interfere with your artistic vision, ladies. If you want to get the girls out, I won’t stop you." He grins wide, leering and waggling his eyebrows at them. Somehow it's even funnier after all the vodka and Gee laughs until she's breathless.
The night continues in a haze of vodka and laughter and in the end they don't make it home, crashing out wherever they land.
When Gee wakes up, she's more relaxed and comfortable than she's ever been in her life. There's a warm body lying up against hers, an arm lying loosely around her waist, and breath feathering over the back of her neck. She enjoys that sensation for one stunning moment, before her hangover kicks in with a vengeance, a splitting pain in her head vying for attention with a roil of nausea in her stomach. She groans and goes to flip over, but she can't move because she's all wrapped up by someone who is probably Mikey (he's been known to stealth cuddle attacks.)
She reaches down to tug his arms away, blinking blearily when she notices the ink across the knuckles of the hands around her. It's not Mikey. It's Frankie.
Gee turns her head slowly to peer behind her. Frankie's still asleep, breathing softly into Gee's shoulder, her face slack and relaxed. Gee looks down at her hand where it's covering Frankie's, her thumb on Frankie's pulse, their fingers entwined.
She doesn't want to get up, she realises. She doesn't move, just glances around the room, which is scattered with sleeping bodies, empty cans and broken plastic shot cups. No one else is awake that she can see. No one needs to know she woke up. She lays her head back down, closes her eyes and enjoys the feeling of Frankie pressed against her.
She falls back asleep almost instantly.
*
When Gee wakes up the second time, it's to a pointy finger jabbing her in the arm. "Ow," she squeaks. The finger jabs harder, "Ow!" she says, louder, and tries to slap the hand away, but it doesn't work.
"Gee. Gee, wake up, we've gotta go. Gee. Gee." Mikey keeps chanting Gee's name and poking her in the arm until Gee grabs his hand and says, "What! What? I'm awake!"
"You're not awake 'til you open your eyes," Mikey argues and fine, fucking fine, Gee opens her eyes. The view is a hell of a lot less nice on this awakening; it's just Mikey glaring down at her over his glasses, his hair all messed up and sideways. Frankie's nowhere to be seen.
Gee flattens a hand to her forehead, but it doesn't stop the painful pulsing in her head every time her heart beats. "Oh god, I drank too much vodka."
"We all drank too much vodka," Frankie's voice chimes in. Gee turns her head squinting into the too-bright sunlight filtering in from the window behind the couch Frankie's sitting on, curled up in a ball and looking as miserable as Gee feels. "I blame Gabe," Frankie adds.
"Gabe and that tall guy, the one with the vodka bottle," Gee says. "The bottle full of evil."
"That's Bill," Mikey says, "and he's really not a bad guy."
Gee just glares at him. "How are you not hungover?"
Mikey shrugs. Gee kind of hates him. She sits up and the room spins around her and the contents of her stomach start to press at the back of her throat. She lies back down again.
"Kill me. Please. Do me the favour." She flops a dramatic hand across her eyes, her other hand resting on her queasy stomach. "Or just leave me for dead, go on without me, I'll only slow you down."
Mikey sighs, blowing air up out of his mouth and making his stiff bangs tremble. "You're such a drama queen." He shoves her upright and holds her shoulders until the world stops spinning. Frankie grabs Gee's hands and tugs her to her feet. She weaves a little, but doesn't collapse back to the ground, which she decides is a win.
"Why do I have to move?" she asks in a piteous voice, as Mikey drapes her coat on her shoulders and steers her out of the room.
"We're getting food," Frankie explains. "Greasy, healing food. And then we are going to find a couch to lie down on and not move for the rest of the day."
"I like this plan." Gee says, leaning on Mikey more than she probably has to. "This is an excellent plan."
They totally stick to that plan, couching out at the Way's with bellies full of greasy diner breakfast to work their way through a chunk of Romero's back catalog. Frankie's feet are tangled up with Gee's and she's warm up against Gee's side where they're all smushed together on the couch.
She knows most of the words to the good parts of Dawn of the Dead just as well as Gee and Mikey.
"Dummies! Dummies! Dummies!" They yell in harmony. Frankie's the first to crack up, but soon they're all laughing until Gee's headache is threatening to return.
It's a shame when they run out of time and Romero flicks and Frankie has to go. She throws herself across Mikey and Gee on the couch in some kind of slam-hug and mumbles something about next weekend into Mikey's shirt.
She sweeps out in a rush, still wearing Mikey's Anthrax t-shirt and the house feels weirdly quiet after she's gone.
Gee picks at a hole in the couch cushion, trying to put together words to tell Mikey that whatever he's got going on with Frankie is fine by her. Mikey spent the whole weekend with her, obviously this is something special, Frankie might even be girlfriend material. It puts a weird feeling in her stomach to think about that, but fuck, it's about time Mikey got serious with someone, and Frankie is awesome.
She tries to find a way to tell Mikey she's cool with it, but she doesn't want to say she approves, like she's got some kind of say in his love life. Instead she just bumps shoulders with him, "So, Frankie's pretty cool."
"Yeah, I like her." Mikey says, and it sounds casual enough but Gee can see the smile pulling at his mouth. He's totally into her.
Gee ruffles his sticky hair and smacks a kiss on his forehead before she goes back downstairs. Her baby brother is growing up.
She crawls into bed relaxed and worn out in that way she only gets after a big weekend. She rolls onto her side, and shifts when she feels the crunch of paper under her shoulder. She pulls it out and finds a sketch of Pedicone, crushed to death under a falling elevator, dark pencil shading all around his head to indicate a pool of blood. As she stares at the picture she can barely remember sketching, she realises this is the first time she's thought about Pedicone all day.
She wrinkles her nose at the page, scrunches it into a ball and tosses it towards the wastebasket.
She misses, but it doesn't matter.
*
Part Two
Author: ladyfoxxx
Bands (and/or pairings): MCR (FOB, CS, MSI), always-a-girl!Gerard/always-a-girl!Frank, always-a-girl!Gerard/Pedicone, Pete/Mikey, past always-a-girl!Gerard/Lindsey
Rating: NC-17
Word count: 20 700 words
Warnings: Some Pedicone-bashing, cheating, general disregard for any coherent sense of time whatsoever
Summary: She's not someone's girlfriend. She's not anyone's anything. She's a fucking force. Gee doesn't know if she wants to be her or fuck her.
Author notes: ciel_vert's excellent mix Never Was A Cornflake Girl which inspired this fic features some fantastic bands and songs and it does such a good job of telling a story all by itself. I hope I've managed to do it justice. Huge props to mizubyte for making this story so much better and helping it make actual sense.
Also available on A03
Ass-Kickin' Chick Music
"Is this too slutty?" Gee rubs the eyeliner around her eyes until it goes smoky, then flips her hair over her shoulder and turns around to face Mikey.
Mikey's sprawled across Gee's bed, more interested in the issue of Doom Patrol under his nose than his sister's half-assed attempt at a fashion show. He looks up, finally, and skates his eyes over Gee's outfit and general coiffedness. Gee's gone for a cut-off denim skirt and tights with skulls on them, a Misfits t-shirt with the neck hacked out of it, and makeup that she hopes falls somewhere above "cute" without reaching the lofty heights of skanky.
Mikey quirks an eyebrow. "I don't think there's any combination of clothes in your wardrobe that could qualify as slutty."
Gee frowns. "What's that supposed to mean?" She turns back to the mirror, trying to see herself with fresh eyes, trying to look past the baby fat and too-pale skin and hair that hasn't seen a hairdresser in years. She just wants to look nice.
Actually, fuck nice, she wants to look hot. She's dating a drummer, she should look hot. Girlfriend-of-a-hot-guy-in-a-band hot. "I want to look hot," she tells the mirror.
"You look good," Mikey says, but he sounds bored. But then, Mikey always sounds bored. Gee glares at him, hard enough that some waves of displeasure must make it through the comic book, because he looks up and rolls his eyes at her.
"Aren't you going tonight?" Gee asks, because Mikey isn't exactly dressed for going out. Unless sweatpants have suddenly become the next big thing and she missed it.
"Later. It won't really get happening until like, one."
That makes exactly zero sense to Gee. "You'll miss all the bands."
"I've seen all the bands."
"Mike said they were gonna be doing some new songs tonight," Gee tries, but Mikey isn't even going to be bribed with the promise of new music tonight.
"Yeah, I'm not really into The Bled and that other band sucks ass. I'll just go after and catch up with everyone."
Gee nods and tries to keep her expression blank. She really, really doesn't want to have to go this gig on her own, but she's not going to drag Mikey along out of pity so she tries to shake it off. Mikey and Mike don't really get along that well anyway.
"Okay, I guess I'll see you later then." She ruffles his hair before slipping out of the room.
*
The venue isn't very big, but that means it's packed. Gee weaves her way through the throngs of bodies, ducking elbows and scooting past carelessly waved cigarettes. The so-called backstage area is nothing more than an old cellar, and the guy minding the door recognises her from other gigs and lets her by.
The room is crowded with more than just the band; Gee pushes up on her toes and peers over as many heads as she can, trying to spot Mike. She gets a glimpse of his shaved head - it looks like he's talking real close with someone - and charts her course for that corner of the room, pushing past a whole bunch of people who really don't need to be crowding this room up. It's fucking hot back here and she's already sweating in her tights.
Clutching her messenger bag close to her hip, she weaves through a few more bodies and her view of Mike clears enough to see that no, he's not actually talking to the girl with the blue dreads, they're making out. It takes a moment for what Gee's seeing to compute in her brain - their lips are locked, chests pressed close and Mike's got one hand on the girl's ass. It doesn't look new. It looks really fucking friendly.
For a long moment all Gee can do is clutch her bag and stare. Mike's other hand is on the girl’s neck, his thumb drawing slow circles on her skin and she shakes with revulsion when she realises he's done that to her, that it's not just for her, it's like a stock move of his, and oh my fucking god-
"No," she says, and it comes out louder than she planned. Loud enough that Mike startles and breaks the kiss, blanching when he sees her. He quickly replaces the look of shock with an easy smile.
"Hey Gee." He's a little breathless. Breathless from kissing that girl - the one with longer legs and bigger tits than Gee. The one who's glancing between them now, looking unsure.
"Gee, this is Natalie." Mike doesn't even take his hand off her ass. "Natalie, this is Gee," he adds with a nod at Gee, still smiling like this is nothing, like this is okay. Like this is something they do.
Gee is livid. She can barely breathe, her vision blurring around the edges, her blood singing in her ears with rage. Mike's smiling at her like he wants her to play along, like he wants her to just accept this, be cool with it, be the cool girlfriend who doesn't care that her so-called boyfriend is going around sticking his tongue into random skanks. Well fuck that.
"No," she says again. "You don't get to do this."
"Do what?" Mike asks, his expression blank, shifting on his feet a little. Natalie takes a step back, looking uncomfortable and Gee just wants her to keep on stepping.
"Her."
Mike glances at Natalie and back at Gee, like he's only just figured it out. "Babe, we never said we were exclusive."
Gee's mouth drops open. "We never said we weren't." Her voice rises unsteadily and fuck, fuck she can't do this here. She can't do this in this crowded airless room, she can't do it with Mike's fucking hookup staring at her. She wills Mike to take it back, to apologise, to tell Natalie he's sorry, it's not happening.
He doesn't. He just fucking… doesn't.
"Look, if you just-"
"No." It comes out so much louder this time and she knows people are watching them. Fuck, she can't do this. "This is not-" she stumbles over the words, trying to figure out what she needs to say. She shouldn't even have to say it, it should be so obvious. All she ends up with is, "No."
Her face is hot and it's not until she starts blinking that she realises just how close she is to tears. She flashes back to Mike two nights ago; the soft smile on his face as his hand crept down the front of her jeans as he whispered, "It's just you, baby girl. It's just you." It's like a punch in the gut and Gee spins around, suddenly sure she's going to fall apart and she can't. She fucking can't. Not here in front of all these people.
She's pushing out of the room before she's finished the thought, stumbling through the crowd, just needing to get out. The night air hits her face as she steps outside, cool against her burning skin. She fumbles through her pockets for her cigarettes, hands shaking as she lights up. There's a steady stream of people still entering the venue, but they either don't know her or don't want to approach the chick in the army boots who is clearly freaking out.
She smokes two cigarettes down to the filter. By the time she's grinding the second butt out on the pavement, she's got a mild head rush and her hands are pink from the cold. She glances at the venue doors but all the movement near them is people going in, not coming out.
Mike's not coming after her, that much is clear. She drills her shoe into the ground until the filter is a smear of white fluff on the pavement and stamps off down the road, her eyes damp and cold, vision blurry with tears.
She drops her keys twice trying to get the front door unlocked, and then it just magically opens. Mikey's on the other side, in his skinniest jeans and the Ramones t-shirt he wouldn't let her cut the neck out of last week (even though he'd wear it anyway). He's clearly about to go out, but he takes one look at her mascara-streaked face and wraps his arms around her, tugging her inside.
Mikey's chest is too bony to be comfortable, but Gee tucks her face into it anyway, sliding her arms around his waist and hanging on so tight she can feel all his ribs digging into her. They stand in the kitchen for a long time, Gee snuffling and leaking all over his shirt while Mikey cards gentle fingers through her hair.
"I'm sorry," she says snottily, between deep sobbing breaths. She's not sure if she's apologising for spoiling his night by being a drama queen, or for crying all over him and ruining his shirt. Mikey just makes soothing nonsense noises until her shoulders stop shaking.
When she can finally breathe he tucks her bangs behind her ears and says "You're better off without him," because he's fucking psychic and can totally tell she's having a Mike-related meltdown.
She palms her eyes and takes a steadying breath. "Sorry," she says again, "I'm okay now. You should go."
"Yeah, sure you are," he says with gentle sarcasm, the angle of his eyebrows clearly stating his disbelief. "Go wash your face, I'll put on Empire. I think we've got some microwave popcorn."
Gee nearly starts crying again from sheer relief. She wraps her arms around him and squeezes, rubbing her nose into his shoulder. "You're the best brother."
Mikey pats her back gently, "I know."
*
They end up marathoning the original Star Wars Trilogy until Gee passes out with Ewoks singing in her ears. When she wakes up, Mikey's passed out on her bed beside her, the covers littered with empty chip packets and popcorn kernels. Gee slides her legs carefully out from where they’re tangled with Mikey’s and goes to the bathroom to pee.
Washing her hands afterwards, she glances up, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the dusty mirror over the sink. She's pale and drawn, streaks of mascara augmenting the dark shadows under her eyes. She leans in closer, water still rushing over her fingertips, her gaze locked to the girl in the mirror's. She's not pretty - she'll never be pretty, the best she can hope for is 'cute'. She's definitely not hot.
She shuts off the faucet, shaking the droplets off her fingers, glancing back into the mirror unwillingly. The girl in the mirror isn't a drummer's girlfriend. She isn't anyone's girlfriend. Really, Gee should embrace this. She should just give up on the whole idea of a boyfriend-partner-whatever. Maybe she should shave her head, join a nunnery - no, a cult. Just, not a sex cult, that would be counterproductive.
She wipes a wet hand across the mirror, smearing her reflection and turns away, rubbing her hands dry on her tights as she walks back to her bedroom. Mikey's still asleep, and he's taking up way more of the bed than he was before. There isn't really enough room to curl into a ball and sulk, not without waking him up, so she heads for her desk instead.
Her hair halos around her face as she bends low and sketches, fingers and pencil dancing over the page. Her romantic wounds are still too raw to draw Mike as the victim of various grisly deaths (her usual antidote to heartache), so she sketches herself instead. She makes herself a comic book character, a heroine with a mane of flowing hair and awesome boots. Comic book Gee's legs are longer, her tits bigger, her features prettier.
When the drawing is finished, she leans back and studies it. It's not her. It's not even close. She frowns, letting her fingers close around the page until it crumples, and drops it on the floor. She crawls back onto the bed and rests her head gently on Mikey's shoulder. He smells like cigarettes and hairspray; familiar and comfortable.
She doesn't manage to go back to sleep.
*
"Gee?" Mikey's voice is muffled through the door.
Gee looks up from her sketchpad, her eyes all bleary from staring at the same point inches from her face for so long. "What?"
Mikey slips inside the room, slowly coming into focus as Gee's eyes adjust to looking at things that aren't her sketchpad. He's wearing his good jeans and one of the shirts he reserves for going out.
"There's a show on at the Loop tonight. You should come." Mikey seems intent on ignoring the fact Gee's been wearing the same pajamas for three days and she's surrounded by empty coffee cups and crumpled paper - clear signs she's in no fit state to deal with the outside world.
Gee wrinkles her nose at Mikey and pulls her sketchpad closer to her chest. "I've got a lot of work to do." It's not a lie, she does have a lot of coursework due, she's just not doing any of it.
"You know the period of mourning for a relationship isn't supposed to go longer than the length of the actual relationship, right?"
"Fuck you; it's not even been a week. I'm allowed to mope." Gee scrubs the back of her hand across her eyes.
"Well come and mope at the Loop. The music will be better."
"Shut up, you love the Smiths."
"Not when it's the same album on repeat for a week." Mikey hits pause on Gee's CD player and levels her with one of those stern looks that make him look more like a big brother than a baby brother. "You need to get out, you're getting all…" he waves a hand at her general state, "you know."
Before Gee can protest about all the very important work she needs to do, Mikey pries her sketchbook from her hands and drags her off the bed, giving her a shove towards the bathroom. "Just come for the first band. If you hate them, I promise we'll come home."
"Mikey-" she tries to argue, but he bats her away and gives her another push toward the bathroom.
"Three songs," he insists. "After that I promise I will leave the club and drive you home if you hate it." He crosses his heart with a quick hand gesture. "But you have to come. You owe me for last week."
Gee opens her mouth to argue, but Mikey totally has the upper hand here. She does owe him. What the hell, she might as well go; it might even help to shake her out of this funk, as long as- "Wait, he's not-"
"Mike won't be there."
"I would prefer if you called him That Cunt. He doesn't deserve to share a name with you."
Mikey doesn't manage to completely hide his smile at that, he just keeps pushing her forwards until there are tiles under her feet. "Don't worry; this lineup is totally not his scene, okay? There's no way he suddenly developed taste."
Gee glares at him. ”Musical taste”, Mikey clarifies. “Now get ready, We're meeting Ray in an hour."
Gee sighs a loud, put-upon sigh, but she does as she's told. Sometimes Mikey is right about things.
*
Mikey's not always right about everything, though. The moment they step into the club Gee starts to think this may be one of the rare occasions when he's wrong. She's not ready to be here. There are just too many people. Also, despite Mikey's many repeated assurances that there's no way Mike would show up at a gig that's entirely female-fronted bands, she's still nervous as hell that she's going to turn around and come face to face with the asshole.
She swallows the urge to flee and reminds herself that she only needs to survive three songs. She will absolutely hold Mikey to his promise and she refuses to feel bad about that. Her fingers itch for a drink, so it's a relief when they start heading towards the bar. Ray's leaning up against it, his fro visible above the bulk of the scattered crowd. The moment he spots Gee and Mikey he puts down his beer and scoops Gee up in a hug that pulls her up on her toes. She smiles into his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his broad back. God, why can't she like guys like Ray? Ray is an honest-to-god good guy. If only he didn't feel like as much of a brother to her as Mikey.
"Hey," Ray says, pulling back to ruffle Gee's hair, "you made it."
"Mikey wouldn't let me stay home," she complains.
Ray nods, "I'm glad you came," he tells her with a genuine smile, as he leans across to catch Mikey in a one armed hug. Mikey extricates himself to lean across the bar and immediately gets the bartender's attention without even trying. It's his superpower.
When Ray speaks again, it's to tell Gee about the headlining band and she's so fucking glad he knows her well enough not to try to talk to her about Mike right now. Even the idea of a sympathetic mention of the whole situation feels like pressure behind her eyes.
"I know the drummer," Ray explains. "He's really good. I haven't seen these guys play with this exact lineup, they've got a new bassist now, but they rocked the Battle of the Bands pretty hard last month, so we're in for a show."
"Is that your professional opinion?" she asks, right about the time Mikey turns around with a beer in each hand.
"No," Mikey slips into the conversation seamlessly, handing Gee her beer, "he's got a hard-on for the lead singer." Despite the low light in the club, Gee can see Ray's cheeks darken with a telling blush.
"Oh, it's like that, is it?" she teases.
Ray shakes his head and shoots Mikey a weighted look. "You know, Mikey, people tell you things because you look like you know how to keep a secret, but really you're the worst gossip I've ever met."
Mikey flips Ray off and takes a drink of his beer. The house music dies down and the tell tale shriek of feedback tells them it's nearly show time.
"C'mon, we should get down the front," Mikey says, grabbing Gee's wrist and leading her through the crowd. Gee's thankful she's got Mikey in front of her and Ray behind her, as she clutches her glass to her chest and they wade through the sea of strangers.
They score a good spot near the front and off to the side, out of the way of the likely-to-form moshpit. The band - all dudes - are onstage, the drummer, bassist and keyboard player in position, instruments primed. The guitarist is bent over fiddling with the knobs on an amp and there's no sign of the singer. Gee tugs on Ray's t-shirt. "Where's your girl?"
Ray shakes his head, not taking his eyes off the stage. "Wrong band, Gee. She's in the headliner."
"Oh," Gee says, and then the guitarist on the stage turns around and Gee has to make a swift reassessment of gender. From behind Gee would have sworn it was a guy, but front on Gee can see that it's actually a girl with a pretty impressive mohawk, bleached at the sides and dark up the middle. She's wearing a white wifebeater over a black bra and shredded jeans that hang low on her hips, leaving a flash of inked skin visible between the bottom of her shirt and the top of her jeans. She steps up to the mic, greeting the crowd with a handful of insults in a harsh, throaty voice and Gee can't do anything but stare.
Then they start to play.
It's fast and loud, a wall of sound. It hits Gee right in the chest, vibrates down her body to the soles of her boots. The singer is vicious, spitting, snarling, screaming down the mic as her fingers blur over the frets. There's ink on her knuckles too, but her fingers are moving too fast for Gee to figure out what. The music is heavier than Gee would usually go for, the lyrics screamed rather than sung, but Gee can't look away from the tiny singer. She's fierce, and fast, and fucking scary. She's amazing.
She's not someone's girlfriend. She's not anyone's anything. She's a fucking force. Gee doesn't know if she wants to be her or fuck her. By the time they hit the first big solo, she's spinning across the stage, kicking out, crashing into the bassist who barely even reacts. She falls to her knees and plays through another solo before leaping up and running back to scream down the mic again. Gee feels like she should be exhausted just watching, but the energy coming off her is electric.
Mikey's eyes are heavy on Gee at the end of the third song. She glances over to find him looking so fucking smug she wants to punch him. Damn him. Why does he always have to be right? She shoves her half-drunk beer into his hand and wades into the moshpit.
The rest of the set is just as loud, just as shattering, and Gee lets it sweep her away. She loses herself in the crush of bodies, taking hits in the ribs and legs, bouncing with the beat, letting the crowd throw her around. She still can't take her eyes off the singer, leaning up on tiptoe to watch her through shifting crowd. The blur of black-and-blonde hair screams and spits, winds herself up in the mic cable and fires venom into the crowd between songs. It's not a massive crowd, but she's giving as much as if this was a full stadium. Gee is entranced.
At the end of the set Gee joins in the enthusiastic applause, yelling and cheering. The singer looks out into the crowd, smiling for the first time in the whole set, and she's so pretty Gee can't believe she mistook her for a guy.
When she turns to leave the stage and the house lights come up, the spell is broken. Gee drags herself, sweaty and covered in newly-earned bruises, over to the side in search for Mikey. She finds him not far from where she left him, chatting to the guy who does sound for some of the gigs - Bob or Ben, Gee can't remember.
Mikey takes in her battered appearance and smiles. "That good, huh?"
Gee doesn't try to fight the grin that stretches her mouth. "I fucking needed that," she tells him, and doesn't manage to listen to anything Mikey and the sound guy talk about for the next few minutes. Her mind is still completely lost in the moshpit.
It isn't until Mikey stumbles into her, splashing her arm with beer, that she notices Mikey's struggling to stay upright after being nearly-tackled by an interloper. It takes a moment for Gee to decode the black-and-white blur as the singer of the band who just played, currently wrapped around Mikey like a spider-monkey and yelling, "Mikey, you fucker! I thought you weren't coming!"
Mikey manages to stay upright and grabbing her around the waist so she doesn't fall down. "I never said I wasn't coming, Frankie."
"Yeah, but you wouldn't commit!" She jumps down and pokes him in his bony chest. "From you, that's like admitting you're not coming."
"It's like you don't trust me at all," Mikey says, swatting her hand away lightly. "I even made Gee come," he adds, inclining his head towards Gee and then suddenly this girl - Frankie - is looking at her with wide eyeliner-smudged eyes.
"You're Gee?" she asks, and launches herself at Gee before she even has time to answer, grabbing her in a breath-stealing hug. She's squirmy and a little sweaty but it feels nice - weird, but nice.
"Um, yeah," Gee manages, still a little freaked out that the girl she's just been watching on stage is hugging her.
"Mikey has told me so much about you, I feel like I met you already." Frankie leans out of the hug but keeps her hands tight on Gee's shoulders, like she's worried Gee's going to try to run away. She's half a head shorter than Gee; her singlet nearly transparent with sweat, and her chest mottled with ink, and a red flush that's likely due to her throwing herself all over the stage.
Gee doesn't know how to respond, because Mikey hasn't told Gee shit about Frankie. Well, he might've actually, but Gee isn't good at remembering stuff about people before she meets them. She struggles for something to say and remembers that Frankie just played a set. "Great show, you guys are vicious."
"Yeah?" Frankie tilts her head to the side, "You liked it?"
Gee can't actually find words that encompass how much she liked it. She struggles through words like transcendent and revelation, but before she manages to get any of them to leave her mouth, Frankie's being dragged off, protesting, by the bassist from her band. Gee can't hear what he's saying, but the words "label guy" and "I told you, down the back" and "unprofessional" make it through to her ears.
Frankie's yells, "I'm coming, god" and "we don't want to look too eager" back at him. Gee tries not to frown as the tiny ball of energy gets dragged away from her.
"Hey, you're staying after, right?" Frankie yells, and Gee can't tell if she's yelling at Mikey or Gee, but she nods anyway, and Frankie flings her hand above her head, fingers curled into a fist with her pinky and index fingers straight. Gee's mouth stretches into a smile and she raises her own hand in a metal fist in response.
Mikey's smile is all too knowing. "You like her, don't you?" It's not even a question, because the answer is obvious.
"She's amazing." Gee says, and Mikey just nods, like he knows what Gee really needs right now is to see a hot chick being fierce. He's like Yoda, only way more smug.
Luckily the next band doesn’t take too long to get started, so she doesn't have to put up with Mikey giving her shit all that long. The second band isn’t anywhere near as earth-shaking as Frankie's band. If Gerard had to choose a word to describe them it would be "folky", but it's not a bad thing. There's only so many times you can have your world shifted under your feet in one night.
She, Ray and Mikey drink companionably, trading notes on the band between songs. There’s one more band playing after these guys - The Interrobangs - the headliner Ray's so fond of. Gee resists the temptation to wind Ray up about his supposed crush on the lead singer, so Mikey does instead, because he has no soul.
When the headliners finally get up and play, they are pretty damn good. They're tight where Frankie's band had still been a little loose, tuned and harmonised and so in synch the two guitarists even head-bang in tandem. Gee can see why Ray likes them; they're technically perfect, marketable enough to appeal to the mainstream, but heavy enough to still be edgy. The lead singer is a pretty brunette with a throaty voice and when Gee sneaks a look at Ray he's beaming up at her, his face a mixture of awe and admiration, his beer halfway to his mouth like he was about to take a drink and forgot about it.
Towards the end of the set, Gee starts to get fidgety. Some part of her doesn't want to stick around and talk to Frankie again. She'll never admit it out loud, but she's a little scared Frankie is going to figure out Gee isn't actually cool and scene, like Mikey; she's just a loser who doesn't know how to talk to anyone who's not her brother, or Ray.
In the end, she chickens out. She tells Mikey she's tired - fine but tired - and insists he doesn't have to drive her home. He looks skeptical, but she knows he really wants to stay - the aftershow partying is his favourite part of the night.
"Are you sure?" he presses, like she's secretly going to run off and cry in the bathroom or something.
She waves him off. "I'm fine, just tired, I promise. I had a good time, I swear." She gives him a hug, "I'll see you at home."
Mikey's fingers are warm on her back as he hugs her.
Gee knows she's being stupid, but she goes home anyway and crawls into bed still wearing her gig clothes. She lies on her back, her own hand warm on her chest and she nods off thinking about Frankie spinning across the stage.
*
The next morning (or afternoon, really, by the time Gee is awake) she Googles Frankie's band. She looks at every picture and listens to every music clip on P.S. Don't Write's MySpace page. The recordings are rough and they really don't capture the energy and spunk of the band live. The pictures are sparse, mostly black and white, and Frankie's glaring in almost all of them; in one she's even flipping off the camera.
Gee bummed she can't find one of Frankie smiling, but it probably doesn't fit with the band's aesthetic. She tries to conjure it from memory, wondering if she remembers it enough to sketch it.
Okay, this is getting creepy.
She shuts down the old clunker of a laptop and goes upstairs looking for coffee. What she finds in her kitchen is so unexpected at first she thinks she's hallucinating. But no, there's a tiny, tattooed, mohawk-sporting girl at Gee's coffee machine, wearing a pair of boxer shorts with Batman on them.
"Ah, hi?" Gee says, figuring if the Frankie-hallucination talks back, then maybe she is actually here.
"Oh thank god," Frankie says. "Can you show me how to work this thing? I'm having caffeine separation anxiety and Mikey's like, dead to the world." Frankie asks, turning around and Gee can see now that she's wearing Mikey's Anthrax t-shirt. Mikey's favourite Anthrax t-shirt.
"Oh." Gee's brain suddenly catches up. Because of course Frankie and Mikey hooked up last night. Of course that would happen.
Her stomach twists up at the idea, making her feel all sick and gross and she can't figure out why. Why should she care if Frankie and Mikey hooked up? It's not like Mikey hasn't had a thing with half the girls on the scene at some point or another and it's not like Gee is interested in Frankie like that, is it?
Is it?
Shit, she can't think about this right now, she's been quiet for too long and it's getting creepy.
"It's cool, I'll do it. It's not the best coffee or anything, but it's all right." Gee finally answers, giving herself an internal shake as she heads for the coffee machine. She can make coffee in her sleep; she can sure as hell do it now. Conversation, maybe not so much. Frankie doesn't seem to notice.
"At this point I'd drink flat, warm Pepsi just for the caffeine hit." Frankie flops down into one of the kitchen chairs, her legs sprawling awkwardly. She's even got tattoos on her calves. Gee tries not to stare, but they look amazing.
"I feel I should point out at this juncture that I really fucking hate Pepsi," Frankie adds, with a smile.
"I kind of figured that," Gee says, fiddling with the coffee machine even though there's nothing that really requires fiddling at this point, she just doesn't feel ready to turn around just yet.
"What happened to you last night, I thought you were going to hang around after?"
Gee swallows, trying to keep her voice casual as she tells Frankie the same lie she told Mikey last night. "Yeah, I meant to, I just, you know, I just hit the wall. I would have been shitty company, I was so tired." She nerves herself to turn around, leaning back on the bench to see Frankie.
Frankie frowns at her, "You gave me the metal hand, that's like a promise. Not cool." Frankie chases the comment with a ridiculous face that makes Gee smile. She takes the two steps to the kitchen table and flops down into a chair next to Frankie's.
"I know. I'm sorry." Gee brushes a hand through her hair to give her hands something to do. When she glances up, Frankie doesn't look mad, she's just picking at a crack in the plastic tabletop.
"I get it. Mikey said you'd had a rough time recently."
"Oh god, he has such a big fucking mouth." Gee's going to kill Mikey. The last thing she needs is for Frankie to know she's a loser who can't keep a guy.
"Hey, it's not your fault you hooked up with a douchebag. It's happened to us all, you know?"
"Sure it has," Gee counters, because she can't imagine Frankie falling for stupid Mike stupid Pedicone's fucking nice guy act. She gets up to pour the coffee.
"Hey I'm not immune, girl. I've been there. I'll tell you from experience you have free reign to be man-hatey and angsty as fuck for at least another week, two if he used the L-word. Go on and break out some Alanis Morissette."
Gee snorts out a laugh, nearly spilling the coffee as she pours. "Yeah I'll just be down in the basement with Jagged Little Pill on repeat."
"Doesn't it ever bother you that none of the situations she describes in “Ironic”, are actually ironic?"
Gee smiles in spite of herself and places the two mugs on the table. "You know it didn't before, but now it kind of does."
"False advertising," Frankie states with surety. "You got any sugar?"
Gee slides the sugar onto the table and fetches the milk from the fridge, sniffing it surreptitiously to make sure it smells okay before putting it down. She watches Frankie spoon in at least four sugars into her mug and they end up just shooting the shit over the table, drinking their coffee and talking about random stuff. Somehow it's easier talking to Frankie this way; having it sprung means she didn't have time to get herself all wound up like she did last night. She's still not sure exactly why that happened, but she likes Frankie; she's funny and irreverent and she has great taste in comics and movies.
They've finished the pot of coffee and started eating cereal out of the box when Mikey finally emerges from his sleep cocoon. Frankie springs up from the table, mussing up his hair and setting his glasses askew. "Hey sleeping beauty, nice of you to join us."
Gee looks away. She busies herself putting on another pot to brew, because she doesn't really want to be around for the next part, where things will no doubt get weird and awkward. Mikey's hook-ups don't tend to hang around that long. Or rather, he doesn't let them hang around that long. For a moment she's irrationally annoyed at Mikey for hooking up with someone as cool as Frankie, because Gee could totally see herself being friends with her.
She waits for the pot to brew, leaning against the bench by the coffee machine instead of sitting down again; listening to the coffee percolate underneath the soundtrack of Frankie teasing Mikey over how much he drank last night. When the pot’s brewed, she tops up her own cup and makes one for Mikey just the way he likes it. She slides it in front of Mikey and starts to head back downstairs.
"Where are you going?" Frankie asks, and she looks concerned.
"Oh, I've got, um," Gee waves a hand towards the basement, "stuff. To do. School stuff."
"Oh," Frankie says, looking disappointed and Gee's brow furrows in confusion. "Is it like, all day stuff? Because we're hanging at Gabe's later - you should come."
"Yeah Gee," Mikey adds, nodding like this is something that is actually going to happen and he's not going to blow Frankie off for some other gig or girl or boy later.
"Ah. Sure. Okay," Gee stutters. Frankie looks so hopeful she can't seem to bring herself to say no, even though it's totally not going to happen. Plus she finds Gabe a little creepy sometimes. (She's pretty sure he and Mikey have some kind of booty-call arrangement going on, but she totally doesn't want to think about that right now. Especially when he's sitting next to the girl he hooked up with last night, oh my god.)
"Cool!" Frankie says, bouncing a little in her seat.
Gee tries to smile, but it feels more like a baring of teeth. She escapes to the basement, still not sure what to do with all these feelings she's having against her will.
When she re-emerges hours later in search of coffee and her fingers stained with ink, she's surprised to hear more than once voice coming from the living room. She peers around the doorway, to find Mikey and Frankie in the midst of what looks like a pretty fierce game of Mortal Kombat. Gee blinks in confusion, because what the hell? Frankie's still here? In the entire history of Mikey's hook-ups he's never kept one of them around this long.
Frankie's shriek of defeat startles Gee out of her trance. Frankie throws down the controller and starts smacking Mikey in the arm. "You asshole, I totally had you, what the fuck was that?"
Mikey just grins smugly at the screen, and when Gee glances over she can see he was playing Sub Zero. "Oh yeah, you shouldn't let him play Sub Zero he'll just pull that Ice Blast shit on you."
"Thanks for the totally-too-late-to-be-helpful advice!" Frankie says, and gives Mikey another kick. Mikey elbows her, grinning wide and he and Frankie look way too cute together. Gee's stomach dips and she's not sure why.
Frankie looks up at Gee, "So are you done being boring McBoringpants now? We're gonna head over to Gabe's soon."
Gee shrugs,"Sure, I guess."
Frankie beams at her and Gee knows she's going to have to go to the damn party, whether she wants to or not. The thing is, she kind of wants to now.
*
Gabe's parties are usually an exercise in discomfort. When Gee, Mikey and Frankie arrive he cruises over and does his usual number of sleazing on each of them in turn. It's weird. Gabe is totally skeezy but he's so obvious about it, it's almost charming. The few times in history he hasn't sleazed onto Gee were strangely disappointing, leaving her with a distinct sense that maybe she just wasn't looking cute enough that night.
Tonight is not one of those nights. He leers at Frankie and then at Gee, and he's still groping at Mikey's waist even as he grins at both of them. "Looking good girls."
Frankie rolls her eyes at Gee and pats Gabe on the face. "You too Saporta, but if you touch my ass I'll punch you in the face."
"Ooooh," says Gabe, trading a grin with Mikey. "She's a feisty one."
Frankie snags Gee by the wrist and drags her off in search of beer. Somehow they manage to lose Mikey on the way there, so Gee grabs an extra can for him. Frankie notices and says "ooh, good idea," and shoves an extra can in her hoodie pocket as well. That wasn't what Gee meant, but she doesn't bother to explain. They squeeze out of the overcrowded kitchen and manage to find a couch that no one else is sitting on and flop onto it. The beer is cheap and crappy, but it's free so Gee drinks it anyway.
"What happened to Mikey?" Gee asks, not so much for herself, more for Frankie since she's kind of his date, sort of.
Frankie just shrugs and pops her can open with a hiss of air. "He'll find us eventually. He's probably stalking that band from Chicago - Armless Angels or whoever; he's such a scene whore."
Gee snorts out a laugh. She should probably come to Mikey's defence as his sibling, but the truth is, he is totally a scene whore. She shifts on the couch, which makes Frankie move, wriggling around until her feet are tucked under her. It presses her knees lightly into Gee's thigh. Gee feels like she should shift sideways and give Frankie some more space, but she doesn't. She waits for it to get awkward, but Frankie just starts talking about the band playing on the stereo - some local act that played the Boiler Room recently and just signed to Eyeball. It isn't until Frankie describes the singer that Gee realises she's seen them play.
"Oh yeah, the front man, he's huge, right? And angry? He's got a tattoo of a bear on his chest."
"Yeah - that's them!" Frankie chimes in, wiggling again so she's facing Gee more and launches into a story about how he and his drummer had a huge fight before a show once and they both played the set with blood all over them. She's really animated and Gee's laughing her too-loud, honking laugh before she can stop herself. She claps a hand over her mouth to try and stifle it, but she's still grinning hard enough to have a cheek ache by the time she can gasp in a breath. When she looks up, Frankie's watching her, her own mouth pulled up at one side in a smile and her eyes shining.
"What?" Gee says, feeling suddenly on-the-spot.
Frankie just smiles, shaking her head, "Nothing, you just," she regards Gee again, "it's just good to see you laughing, is all. Mikey was really worried about you for a while there."
And boom, just like that the shadow of Mike fucktard Pedicone casts itself over Gee's night. She looks away, picking at a hole in the couch arm, fighting back that icky drop in her stomach she still gets when she thinks about the whole fucked up situation.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up. You don't have to talk about it," Frankie adds, and she does sound genuinely sorry.
Gee rolls a few sentences around in her head, ones that change the subject, or drop the subject, or give her a reason to leave the room. She takes a swig of her beer to work up to saying one of them out loud, but what comes out is,
"I don't think it's so much that I liked him. I think I just liked the idea of him, you know?"
"Like, the idea of being with someone?" Frankie asks, her voice neutral.
"Yeah, I mean, someone like that, someone talented who's trying to like, express themselves and stuff."
Frankie makes a weird snorting sound and when Gee looks at her she's got a hand smushed over her mouth and her shoulders are shaking.
"Are you - are you laughing?" Gee asks, and oh my god, Frankie is totally laughing.
Frankie wipes her mouth off, blinking as she tries to swallow the rest of the laughter down, "I'm sorry Gee, I'm not laughing at you, I swear, it's just;" she snickers again, her mouth all twisted up as she tries to keep herself under control. "Look I'm friends with some of Pedicone's friends and he so totally isn't in The Bled to express himself musically." Frankie does air quotes around the last part, or at least, as much air quotes as you can do with a can of beer in your hand.
"Why else would he be in a band?" Gee asks her, genuinely confused.
"Um, for the pussy?" Frankie says, her eyebrows arched up like it's the most elementary thing in the world.
"Is that why you're in P.S. Don't Write? For the sex?" Gee asks.
"No!" Frankie says, then thinks for a beat, "well, maybe a little. It's not a bad bonus, but no. I'm not in it for the pussy; I'm in it for the music. It's like therapy for me. If I couldn't get up there and let all this shit out, I'd probably end up like, robbing a convenience store or something, or screaming at random people in the street. I just need to get my shit out, you know?"
Gee nods, "It looks pretty cathartic, what you do up there." What she doesn't say is that it also looks amazing. She's still a little in awe of Frankie-on-stage, even if Frankie-off-stage is actually someone funny and cute and endearing.
"I'm just glad people let me keep doing it. I think I'd go crazy if I couldn't get my shit out on stage the way I do. Is that what art is like for you? Do you just have stuff you need to get all out on the paper, or whatever?'
"Sometimes," Gee admits, tracing the coded numbers on the top of her beer can with her fingernail. "Sometimes I feel like if I don't get, like, this image out of me it'll just build up and fester, or worst that it'll decay - like, blur away in my memory, or whatever, and I'll lose it."
Frankie nods, "Yeah, I get that with lyrics, like if I don't find something I can write on like right now I'll lose the words, so I end up with shit scrawled on the back of napkins, or newspapers, and once I had to steal a menu from this diner because I'd written this block of text on the back of it. I actually felt really bad about that."
"You'd make a terrible thief."
"Yeah, I really would," Frankie agrees, and the conversation dies for a moment while they both take sips of their beer.
Gee's the one to start it up again, and in a way she doesn't even mean to, the words just fall out. "I guess I just worry that like, what if that was my one shot at having something with someone, and I chose the wrong person, and now I won't be able to find someone else, you know?"
"You don't get just one shot at having a relationship, Gee. And it sounds like it went south because he was a lying, cheating, scumbag, and not because of anything you did."
"But what if he was a lying, cheating scumbag because I wasn't, like, good enough? Because I wasn't enough?"
"Hey." Frankie tugs the beer out of Gee's hands and presses their hands together. Her fingers are cool and a little damp. "Don't make me make you a mix-tape of chicks kicking ass music, because I will. That shit's not true. He's the fuckup, not you. He doesn't deserve you."
"Easy enough to say," Gee says with a self-deprecating smile. "You don't even know me."
"I know enough," Frankie says, and squeezes Gee's fingers. "I know you’re Mikey's sister, and he adores you; you've got excellent taste in music and comics and you're really fucking cute, too."
Heat crawls up Gee's neck and she knows she's blushing. Frankie doesn't call her on it though, just keeps looking at her all earnest and sincere. She's got the prettiest smile.
"Gee," Frankie says, and her voice is kind of throaty and rough, and she looks more nervous than Gee would have thought possible. "Have you ever thought about-"
She doesn't finish the sentence because Gabe bellows loudly over the crowd in the gathered room, "Shots! We're doing shots! Drink or we will mock you and think less of you!" and he starts throwing plastic disposable shot glasses around like confetti. One lands in Gee's lap and she picks it up, pinched between her thumb and forefinger. Gabe's got another freakishly tall guy with him, who looks vaguely familiar. He's so pretty it's almost feminine, thin as a rake, and he's holding a bottle of vodka in each hand, wiggling them around showily.
Frankie glares at both of the tall dudes pushing vodka on the gathered crowd before sighing and snatching her own tiny cup off the couch. She looks at Gee, cocking an eyebrow, "Are we doing this?"
"You mean, are we going to fold to peer pressure to avoid the mockery of our peers?"
Frankie shrugs. "Free alcohol?"
Gee grins and holds her cup out towards Gabe and his offsider, who fills both hers and Frankie's without getting too much on the carpet. He gives her an assessing smile as he lifts the bottle back up and Gee manages to fight the urge to look away. He's way too pretty, and way too tall, and way too much like Gabe, but it's a nice little bump to her ego all the same.
She glances over to Frankie just in time to see her shoot her vodka. It doesn't go down that well, because Frankie sits up coughing after, glaring at the tall pretty guy.
"You didn't wait for me - we're supposed to do them together," Gee chides, trying to figure out why Frankie looks so suddenly annoyed.
"Sorry," Frankie says, but she doesn't really sound sorry. She shoves her empty cup towards the guy whose name Gee should probably figure out already. "Fill her up."
The guy rolls his eyes but does as he's told, somehow managing to glare at Frankie without really moving his face, before sauntering over to the next section of the room where there are lots of vocal kids waving cups at him.
It's in the back of Gee's throat to ask what the hell just happened, when Frankie turns back to her and raises her tiny cup, spilling a few droplets of vodka on the couch. "We can do this one together," she says, and smiles at Gee - big and wide, and Gee can't fathom saying no to that. She raises her own cup and touches it gently to Frankie's then they both shoot the vodka together.
It's cheap and awful and it burns all the way down. Gee comes up for air with a rough breath, her throat burning and her face scrunched up in what she's sure is a highly unattractive expression. "Ugh, that's fucking awful."
"Exactly," Frankie says, and snatches Gee's empty cup. "We totally need another one." She bounds across the room before Gee has time to protest and comes back with another two shots for them to drink. And Gee drinks hers, because Frankie wants her to, and somehow that's enough reason to do it.
The night gets hazy after that. There's more vodka, a lot more vodka, and Mikey returns to the fold with some guy with emo hair and a lot of tattoos. There's even more vodka and possibly some Sambucca, and a definite moment in the night where Gee can't feel her knees.
She pokes at them, then gets Frankie to poke at them, and Mikey too, but she just can't feel them.
Frankie presses some ice on her knee, "Can you feel that?" and shit, okay Gee can, even through her tights, and it's fucking cold. She grabs for the ice, but it's too slippery for her to get purchase. Frankie ends up putting it down her shirt, and Gee shrieks. Before she knows what's happening it devolves into a really pathetic drunken wrestling match that ends with Frankie and Gee in a pile, laughing too hard to keep trying, the ice already melted away.
Gee lies on her back, her chest still bubbling with laughter, smushed up against Frankie, who's laughing so hard it's making them both shake. Her cheeks are rosy from exertion or alcohol and the dark part of her mohawk flops over one of her eyes. Her eye makeup is smudged and her mouth is stretched into the most gorgeous smile. Gee loses her breath for a moment just looking at her.
"Nice one girls." Gee looks up to see Gabe towering above them. "All that needed was some Jell-o. And bikinis." He nods solemnly.
"Bikinis hey?” Frankie counters. “I thought you'd want us topless." She pulls up the bottom of her shirt, flashing her stomach at him and Gee catches a glimpse of ink she wants to see so much more of.
"Don't let me interfere with your artistic vision, ladies. If you want to get the girls out, I won’t stop you." He grins wide, leering and waggling his eyebrows at them. Somehow it's even funnier after all the vodka and Gee laughs until she's breathless.
The night continues in a haze of vodka and laughter and in the end they don't make it home, crashing out wherever they land.
When Gee wakes up, she's more relaxed and comfortable than she's ever been in her life. There's a warm body lying up against hers, an arm lying loosely around her waist, and breath feathering over the back of her neck. She enjoys that sensation for one stunning moment, before her hangover kicks in with a vengeance, a splitting pain in her head vying for attention with a roil of nausea in her stomach. She groans and goes to flip over, but she can't move because she's all wrapped up by someone who is probably Mikey (he's been known to stealth cuddle attacks.)
She reaches down to tug his arms away, blinking blearily when she notices the ink across the knuckles of the hands around her. It's not Mikey. It's Frankie.
Gee turns her head slowly to peer behind her. Frankie's still asleep, breathing softly into Gee's shoulder, her face slack and relaxed. Gee looks down at her hand where it's covering Frankie's, her thumb on Frankie's pulse, their fingers entwined.
She doesn't want to get up, she realises. She doesn't move, just glances around the room, which is scattered with sleeping bodies, empty cans and broken plastic shot cups. No one else is awake that she can see. No one needs to know she woke up. She lays her head back down, closes her eyes and enjoys the feeling of Frankie pressed against her.
She falls back asleep almost instantly.
*
When Gee wakes up the second time, it's to a pointy finger jabbing her in the arm. "Ow," she squeaks. The finger jabs harder, "Ow!" she says, louder, and tries to slap the hand away, but it doesn't work.
"Gee. Gee, wake up, we've gotta go. Gee. Gee." Mikey keeps chanting Gee's name and poking her in the arm until Gee grabs his hand and says, "What! What? I'm awake!"
"You're not awake 'til you open your eyes," Mikey argues and fine, fucking fine, Gee opens her eyes. The view is a hell of a lot less nice on this awakening; it's just Mikey glaring down at her over his glasses, his hair all messed up and sideways. Frankie's nowhere to be seen.
Gee flattens a hand to her forehead, but it doesn't stop the painful pulsing in her head every time her heart beats. "Oh god, I drank too much vodka."
"We all drank too much vodka," Frankie's voice chimes in. Gee turns her head squinting into the too-bright sunlight filtering in from the window behind the couch Frankie's sitting on, curled up in a ball and looking as miserable as Gee feels. "I blame Gabe," Frankie adds.
"Gabe and that tall guy, the one with the vodka bottle," Gee says. "The bottle full of evil."
"That's Bill," Mikey says, "and he's really not a bad guy."
Gee just glares at him. "How are you not hungover?"
Mikey shrugs. Gee kind of hates him. She sits up and the room spins around her and the contents of her stomach start to press at the back of her throat. She lies back down again.
"Kill me. Please. Do me the favour." She flops a dramatic hand across her eyes, her other hand resting on her queasy stomach. "Or just leave me for dead, go on without me, I'll only slow you down."
Mikey sighs, blowing air up out of his mouth and making his stiff bangs tremble. "You're such a drama queen." He shoves her upright and holds her shoulders until the world stops spinning. Frankie grabs Gee's hands and tugs her to her feet. She weaves a little, but doesn't collapse back to the ground, which she decides is a win.
"Why do I have to move?" she asks in a piteous voice, as Mikey drapes her coat on her shoulders and steers her out of the room.
"We're getting food," Frankie explains. "Greasy, healing food. And then we are going to find a couch to lie down on and not move for the rest of the day."
"I like this plan." Gee says, leaning on Mikey more than she probably has to. "This is an excellent plan."
They totally stick to that plan, couching out at the Way's with bellies full of greasy diner breakfast to work their way through a chunk of Romero's back catalog. Frankie's feet are tangled up with Gee's and she's warm up against Gee's side where they're all smushed together on the couch.
She knows most of the words to the good parts of Dawn of the Dead just as well as Gee and Mikey.
"Dummies! Dummies! Dummies!" They yell in harmony. Frankie's the first to crack up, but soon they're all laughing until Gee's headache is threatening to return.
It's a shame when they run out of time and Romero flicks and Frankie has to go. She throws herself across Mikey and Gee on the couch in some kind of slam-hug and mumbles something about next weekend into Mikey's shirt.
She sweeps out in a rush, still wearing Mikey's Anthrax t-shirt and the house feels weirdly quiet after she's gone.
Gee picks at a hole in the couch cushion, trying to put together words to tell Mikey that whatever he's got going on with Frankie is fine by her. Mikey spent the whole weekend with her, obviously this is something special, Frankie might even be girlfriend material. It puts a weird feeling in her stomach to think about that, but fuck, it's about time Mikey got serious with someone, and Frankie is awesome.
She tries to find a way to tell Mikey she's cool with it, but she doesn't want to say she approves, like she's got some kind of say in his love life. Instead she just bumps shoulders with him, "So, Frankie's pretty cool."
"Yeah, I like her." Mikey says, and it sounds casual enough but Gee can see the smile pulling at his mouth. He's totally into her.
Gee ruffles his sticky hair and smacks a kiss on his forehead before she goes back downstairs. Her baby brother is growing up.
She crawls into bed relaxed and worn out in that way she only gets after a big weekend. She rolls onto her side, and shifts when she feels the crunch of paper under her shoulder. She pulls it out and finds a sketch of Pedicone, crushed to death under a falling elevator, dark pencil shading all around his head to indicate a pool of blood. As she stares at the picture she can barely remember sketching, she realises this is the first time she's thought about Pedicone all day.
She wrinkles her nose at the page, scrunches it into a ball and tosses it towards the wastebasket.
She misses, but it doesn't matter.
*
Part Two