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Frank isn’t doing this because he’s desperate. Yes, he’s poor, okay, and yes, he wants to finish college, but there are lots of ways. He’s doing this because he wants it. Wants the comfort of knowing what he’s supposed to do, of knowing where he’s supposed to be. Wants the reassuring awareness that he has a job he’s not going to be fired from; wants the feeling of someone to come home to every night. He looks through all his potential buyers—sponsors, technically, whatever—for someone he wouldn’t mind coming home to every night.
Gerard Way pops out as soon as Frank looks over his file. Mostly because he’s one of the younger ones, and his intro says he’s into comics and art and movies. He’s only a few years out of college, independently wealthy due to his art.
Also, he’s beautiful.
In Frank’s opinion, wanting to come home to someone every night is a thousand times better than just having someone you’re willing to come home to.
He doesn’t hesitate before responding that Gerard’s offer has been accepted.
--
“We do not want to convert to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We’re Satanists and we practice Voodoo and have orgies every Wednesday and we will curse off your reproductive organs and force feed you the meat of babies and virgins if you don’t go away,” says the guy—presumably Gerard—in one bored breath as he opens the door. He stops, though, once the door is open, blinking down at Frank. “You,” he says, sounding confused and a little disconcerted, “are not a Jehovah’s Witness. You have tattoos. And piercings.”
“I’m, uh,” Frank says, rubbing awkwardly at the back of his neck, shifting a little from foot to foot, “I’m—you bought me.”
“Oh,” Gerard says, flushing bright red and ducking his head. “Um, I guess I did. Come—uh, come in, I guess.”
Frank does.
--
“I’m not around a lot,” Gerard says apologetically. “Mostly I’m in my studio. But yeah. Here’s the kitchen—eat whatever you want, tell me if you run out of something or want something else, whatever, and I’ll give you my card—and if you could, like. Make dinner sometimes, that’d be cool, cause Mikey says I’m going to burn the house down, living here by myself, and he’s probably right, so—“
“Eat, make dinner, no burning house, check,” Franks says, beaming at him.
Gerard smiles back, wide and lopsided and so, so sweet that Frank’s chest aches. “Right,” he says, softly, eyes on Frank’s face. After a second, he clears his throat and resumes his tour. “So, down there’s the basement—that’s where my studio is, try not to go down there unless I’m with you, my stuff’s just the way I like it. Here’s the living room…”
Frank follows him around the house—it’s not that big, but from what Gerard says, it’s just him and his brother, so it doesn’t really need to be. The arrangement is mostly the same as it would be if he were living at home—free food, free place to sleep, keep things clean, make dinner—but without the shame of living with his parents for the rest of his life.
Frank watches Gerard’s mouth when he talks, his hands, his legs, his ass, and he feels a soft, low hum of satisfaction settle into his bones. This is going to be so much better than home.
--
The first night, Gerard says awkwardly, “You can have Mikey’s room. My brother’s. He won’t be back till the semester’s over, he goes—he’s away.” Mikey is in Atlanta with Gabe and Bill, starting his second semester at college. He doesn’t have the virus, doesn’t have to worry about the weird, sick urges that curl themselves around Gerard’s organs and try to push their way out. He’d thought this live-in student/help thing would be perfect—Mikey normally keeps Gerard from burning the house down by accident, but he’s gone, and Gerard had thought it would be nice to have some company, too. Not that Gerard technically needs to eat real people food, but he does it as something to do, something to keep the cravings, the addiction, at bay—like when he used to chew gum to keep himself from smoking.
But there’s something about Frank that’s screaming at all the dark, sharp parts of Gerard, the virus in his veins. Something that makes Gerard want to sink his teeth in and suck him dry.
Frank looks at him sidelong. “If that’s where you want me.”
“Or you could, you know,” Gerard gestures helplessly, looking away from Frank’s face, not even really sure why he offers, “sleep with, uh. Me.” It’s shitty idea—Gerard hasn’t ever seen someone and just wanted to touch them, break them like this. Everything about Frank is begging Gerard to shred him, to press bruises and bites into him just to see his face contort.
Gerard’s offering anyways.
Frank’s lips curl up, and Gerard wants to sink his teeth into them. “Lead the way,” he says, voice a little rougher than before.
Gerard does, trying to push back the constant, bizarre urge to rip Frank’s throat out and roll in the mess. He’s hard before he even makes it to the bedroom.
--
Frank pants, open-mouthed, against Gerard’s throat. “I didn’t—I didn’t exactly—“ he sucks in a sharp breath as Gerard’s fist tightens around him, “Can you just—come here?” He leans forward, trying to catch Gerard’s mouth in a kiss.
Gerard bites at his lower lip, and it’s not a kiss at all, just a nip. “Is this—Is this right? I haven’t. I mean—Is this—”
Frank’s hips stutter against Gerard’s hand as he comes, startling himself with the suddenness of it. Breathing harshly, blinking back the stars at the corners of his eyes, he says incredulously, “You haven’t done this?” He runs his fingertips over the bulge in Gerard’s pajama pants, tracing the outline of his cock teasingly.
Gerard’s hand closes, hard, around Frank’s wrist and yanks his hand away. Gerard doesn’t look at him. “I’m not. I don’t—I’m not gay,” he mutters darkly, turning away. A little less sharply, he says, “I just—I wanted to try.” Defensively, he adds, “You said in your ad that, that—that sexual things were okay, were included, as long as they weren’t, like. Damaging.” He says the last word with a weird sort of emphasis, like it’s somehow hilarious.
Frank’s eyebrows come together, but he bites his tongue and says as politely as he can, albeit maybe a little stiffly, “I guess I did, didn’t I?” He’d meant blowjobs, handjobs, sex, sure—but he’d meant giving them, or at least being involved, like a boyfriend, not like. Like a practice dummy, like a blow up doll. “You’re the one paying, I guess,” he adds, and he doesn’t bother to hide the bitterness in his voice.
--
Gerard waits to jerk off until after Frank is asleep. Then he does it quick and messy, graceless and rough, wiping his hand on one of the various shirts littering the floor around the bed.
He has no idea if he’s gay, doesn’t give a shit. He doesn’t like people at all, gender aside. This has nothing to do with that, it’s just the easiest way to keep Frank away. He’s hungry, and normally, normally, he feeds off Mikey, only lets himself feed off Mikey, because he doesn’t ever want to hurt Mikey, won’t hurt Mikey, and that. That’s safe. He found out the hard way, in college, that feeding off anyone else gets to him in a way it doesn’t get to Bill, doesn’t get to Mike or Stone—he can’t stop, can’t hold himself back, even when he drinks so much it makes him sick. Especially then.
But he’s hungry, and he’s never seen anything he wanted like this before, girl or boy.
So he’s not kissing Frank, not letting Frank in, because Gerard’s never kissed anyone, never let anyone in, and if Frank laughs at him, Gerard isn’t a good enough man that he won’t just sink his teeth in and keep going.
So he holds Frank an arm’s length away and breaks him the only way he can that won’t end with Mikey looking at him with tired, disappointed eyes and saying again, “I’ll take care of the body, Gee.” Once was enough of that for a lifetime, and it’s happened more than once already.
--
Frank has his first day of classes the next day. It’s a Monday, and on Monday, he has Intro to Anthropology and US History. His anthro professor isn’t so bad, but he can’t pay any attention to his history class at all. Gerard’s eyes, dark and shuttered, keep flashing under his lids when he blinks.
Gerard wasn’t in bed when Frank woke up—there was a note, though, stuck to the fridge with a little magnet shaped like a unicorn, that said I’m not around much in the day. Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge, let me know if you need anything else. There was a phone number underneath, which Frank had programmed into his cheap little flip-phone. He’d made freezer waffles for breakfast and eaten them dry on the way out the door.
Now he’s sitting in the back row of Dr. Webbing’s USH course, tapping his pencil irritably, when he should be paying attention, because he’s basically sold himself into indentured, awkward servitude so he can be here. But he’s not paying attention, because he keeps getting distracted by thoughts of Gerard.
Which is stupid, because Gerard doesn’t want him—isn’t gay. Gerard is paying for him to go to school so that Frank can. Can clean his house and make dinner and occasionally let him jerk him off when Gerard is feeling magnanimous and experimental.
And the thing is, since the second Gerard smiled at him, that first time, all messy and really, theoretically unappealing, Frank has felt absolutely sick with want.
--
When Gerard is anxious, his art shows it.
When he goes down to his studio in the morning, he sits at his drawing table, fully intending to work on this awesome idea for a comic book he’s been rolling around in his head for the last few weeks.
Instead, the lines that appear on the paper in front of him turn into an image of Frank, sprawled on the floor of the living room, television still on in the background, mouth slack, eyes shut, twin holes in his neck, a dark patch of liquid on the carpet below him.
He sets it aside, starting the comic again. It’s out of his system, now.
Except that the next drawing, and the next, and the painting after that, are all studies of Frank—of his hands, of his mouth, of his flesh split open, of his bloody insides shining.
After he passes the half-dozen mark, Gerard gives in and lets his urges out properly onto the paper. There’s no danger, if it’s just paint, just ink.
--
Gerard is sitting crosslegged on the counter when Frank gets home from class and grocery shopping, staring perplexedly at the oven.
“You’re on the counter,” Frank says. His hands are full of grocery bags and his school bag is over his shoulder. With Gerard on the counter, he kind of doesn’t actually have anywhere to put them.
“Something’s in the oven,” Gerard replies slowly, quietly, not looking away from the oven at all—like if he speaks too loudly or takes his eyes off it, the oven will snap open and try to bite him or something.
Frank nods. “Yeah, that’s, uh. It’s a lasagna?”
Gerard looks away from the oven, finally, to blink owlishly at Frank. “A…lasagna.” He sounds utterly baffled by the idea.
“Yeah, like. With—it’s a lasagna. It’s pasta that you put in the oven. You live in Jersey, dude, don’t tell me you don’t like lasagna?” Frank might have to crawl into a hole and die if Gerard doesn’t like lasagna. Frank may or may not have gotten up for school like three hours early to make it so it could cook while he was out.
Gerard looks like he has to think about it. “I… like lasagna.” He still sounds perplexed, but he shakes his head and says, a lot less like a confused child, “Mostly I was wondering how the oven was on without you here.”
The bags are starting to make Frank’s arms ache, so he eases the groceries onto the counter between Gerard’s ass—hisass, god—and the toaster, dropping his book bag on the floor with a thump. “Yeah, there’s a self-timer thing. You can program it to turn itself on.” He gestures at the array of buttons on the front of the oven. “Do you seriously not know how to work your own oven, dude?”
Gerard’s lips twitch a little, like he’s thinking about smiling. “Not really, no. It just came with the house.”
“So, when you want food, you…?”
Gerard looks away, biting his lip over what is definitely a smile. It makes soft things skitter in Frank’s stomach. “Order in, I guess. Or I ask Mikey.” He slides down from the counter then, and he’s standing close enough that Frank can feel the heat from his skin, can smell him. “I should probably go back to work.” Actually, he smells sort of like he maybe doesn’t shower that often, and this close, Frank can see grease shining in his hair.
Something sharp still jerks in Frank’s gut, and Frank wants. “The lasagna should be almost done,” he says, licking over his suddenly freakishly dry lips. Gerard’s mouth is this close, he could just—“Are you hungry?”
Gerard’s eyelids flutter, just once, and his hand spasms a little in midair, like an aborted motion he’s thought better of. “Yeah,” he says, slow and a little rough.
Frank leans in a little more, puts a hand on Gerard’s chest to steady himself. Fuck the lasagna, Gerard’s skin is warm under his hand, and Frank can feel his breath on his face, and—
And Gerard rocks back on his heels, jerking his head away. “I—uh.” He cringes and ducks his head, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “I mean. Right. I need to finish this thing I’m—I’ll be back. Yes. Dinner. I’ll be back for dinner.”
He’s gone before Frank can tell him how much longer the lasagna will be; before Frank can ask him to stay, or what he’s working on, or what his favorite color is, or what his favorite movie or holiday or thing to drink is.
Even with the heat radiating out from the oven, Frank feels sort of cold.
--
Gerard gets halfway down the steps before he’s unzipping and bringing himself off with a few rough jerks and a choked off cry. He catches himself against the wall and breathes, hard, through his nose until he’s not dizzy with want and fear.
Hungry. Yeah, he’s hungry.
He forces himself to finish detailing the knobs in Frank’s spine, forces himself to paint in the edges of ragged, torn flesh around it. Then he lets himself get lost in the shine of light on exposed bone, the elegant folds of broken skin, until he stops feeling like he has to actually do this to Frank anywhere but on paper.
Then, Gerard lets himself push away from his desk and make his way upstairs to try the half-remembered entity that islasagna.
--
“That smells—good,” Gerard says, a little stilted, from the kitchen doorway.
“Yeah?” Frank asks, ducking his head to hide a smile.
“Yeah,” Gerard says, smiling a little back. “Do you—I mean, we could—Mikey and I sometimes, we watch movies when we eat?”
Frank grins. “Sounds awesome.”
When Frank picks The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to watch over dinner, Gerard squints at him. “Seriously?” he asks, pulling a face. “Isn’t that kind of… gross? And creepy? I mean, for eating during.”
Frank waves his hands at him, displaying his tattooed knuckles. “I’m a Halloween baby,” he explains, grinning. “I likegross. And creepy.”
Gerard’s mouth quirks up. “Well. In that case.” He waves his fork, which is covered in red sauce, at Frank. “Also, this tastes nice.” He sounds sort of surprised by that, and Frank isn’t sure whether to be insulted or pleased.
“It’s my ma’s recipe,” Frank settles on. His mother can, like, magically hear anyone talking about her food; she can decide how to feel about Gerard’s commentary on it for herself. “Secret sauce and all that shit.”
Gerard sniffs at it, eyebrows up, but takes another bite. “How is it secret?”
Frank shrugs. “Dunno. All Italian mothers have a secret sauce, it’s a thing.”
“I see,” Gerard says, chewing sort of obscenely. “Okay. Movie?”
“Movie,” Frank agrees, taking a bite of his own lasagna and reaching for the remote.
--
When the movie ends, Frank gets up without looking at Gerard, takes the plates to the kitchen, rinses them and puts them in the dishwasher. When he’s done, his hands are shaking.
“You don’t have to sleep in my room,” Gerard offers softly from the doorway. “If you don’t want, I mean.”
Frank swallows. “No,” he says, looking intently at his socked feet. “I mean, no, I want.” Jesus fuck, he really, really wants. Just. More than—more than last time. Or less. But he’s pretty sure he’s going to take whatever the fuck Gerard wants to give him, because Gerard’s eyes are dark and shuttered and his smile is sweet and stupid and his hands on Frank’s skin feel suspiciously like a home he’s never been to, never seen.
Gerard nods a little jerkily and steps back, heading down the hall.
Frank follows.
--
Gerard jerks Frank off every night for two weeks, intent and focused and almost creepily clinical, and Frank shuts his eyes and tells himself he doesn’t mind that he can’t touch back. Gerard always stays at a distance, keeping a solid foot of space between them except for Gerard’s hand around him. Frank can’t kiss him, can’t press against him. It’s like a very weird sort of bondage, like having his hands tied behind his back, except that there’s no cuffs or rope to help him.
In the days, Gerard is mostly holed up in his basement studio, and Frank is mostly at class, refusing to fail out of school because he’s living with some weird recluse who he desperately, stupidly, wants to kiss.
In the evenings, there’s a delicate sort of balance between the distance of the day and the frantic not-quite-closeness of the nights. In the evenings, after Frank gets home from classes and does his “chores,” after Gerard shuffles out of his studio, they start to develop something very like friendship. Frank makes dinner—vegetarian food, because Gerard can eat whatever he wants, but Frank isn’t cooking animal flesh, okay, it’s gross—and they curl up at opposite ends of the couch, watching movies or old cartoons in semi-silence, occasionally breaking it to laugh quietly, or pettily judge various characters on screen. During commercials, they talk softly about ridiculous things, about dinosaurs and zombies and what they wanted to be when they grew up—Gerard wanted to be an astronaut until he discovered art, and Frank has always wanted to play music, even if he’s not sure what he’s going to school for.
As dull as the days are, and as awkward and frustrating as the nights are, Frank falls into something sort of like a rhythm, and he doesn’t let himself be surprised by how comfortable he’s starting to be. And if Gerard’s eyes are always shadowed, if he always moves away too quickly, if his voice catches when he calls Frank Frankie, well, Frank lets it go for now.
--
“So you’re an artist?” Frank asks over dinner one night. He’s got his anthropology textbook open in his lap, but he’s not really reading it. Gerard has a sharpie in one hand and is sketching rough lines over his napkin. It might be a pair of lungs; Frank can’t really tell from here.
Gerard nods, but doesn’t look up. “Yeah.”
“What kind of art?” Frank cranes his neck to try to see what Gerard is working on without being too obvious, but Gerard jerks the napkin back.
“Comics, mostly,” Gerard says, still examining his napkin-sketch intently. Tongue poking out of one corner of his mouth, he adds a small detail to a corner. “I do paintings, too, more, uh… marketable stuff, I guess.”
Frank is a giant nerd, so his voice is kind of embarrassingly squeaky when he says, “Comics, seriously? Like, do you have finished stuff that I could—oh my god, you work from home, can I see?”
“No!” Gerard does look up, then. There’s a sort of pinched look on his face when he says, “Uh, I kind of—I’d really rather you didn’t.”
Frank feels kind of stupid when he says, “Oh.”
Gerard half-shrugs, just one shoulder, and tucks his napkin sketch into the pocket of his jeans. “I should go.”
Frank nods and returns to pretending to read his textbook. “’Kay,” he says softly, trying not to sound as thrown as he is.
Gerard pads past him in sock-feet, quiet and still painfully noticeable. He stops in the doorway, though, and says, almost too quietly for Frank to hear him, “Frankie?”
Frank bites his lip. “Yeah?”
“Another—another time, maybe.” He’s gone, then, down the stairs into his studio, and Frank doesn’t see him again until it’s time for bed, and then it’s just the same as every other night.
--
Gerard had kind of thought that giving himself that one allowance, that one act of touching, breaking—he’d thought that would be enough, would keep the roaring, dark parts of him quiet. (Failing that, maybe the art would.)
It doesn’t. The urge is still yawning huge under his skin, still screaming at him, and he’s hard basically all the time. He waits, always waits, until Frank is asleep, to deal with it. Okay, so there are maybe a couple of (dozen) times he indulges himself in the cool darkness of his studio, leaning back in his desk chair and imagining Frank’s throat under his teeth, his body spread and straining against Gerard’s.
When Gerard finishes tonight, though, Frank is blinking at him with sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes.
When Gerard meets his gaze, Frank’s tongue darts out, licking over his lower lip, and he says, voice still sleep-rough, “I could do that for you, you know.”
Gerard swallows, and feels his fangs drop down from the new wave of arousal spiraling through him. “I can’t—I can’t ask for that,” he mumbles, trying to keep his lips over them so Frank doesn’t see.
Frank’s hand swipes over Gerard’s stomach, dragging his fingers through the sticky, cooling mess. Eyes never leaving Gerard’s, his licks his fingers clean. “You don’t have to ask,” he says softly. Before Gerard can protest, he’s leaning in, licking over the white splatters on Gerard’s ribs. He looks up at Gerard with dark, hungry eyes through his bangs, licking a smear of white off the corner of his mouth, and says, “You just have to say I’m allowed.”
Gerard’s stomach clenches at that, and if he hadn’t just come, he’d be hard again, willing or no. “Frank,” he says, and it’s not really what he means to say at all. His hands clench ineffectually at his sides, and he wishes, wishes so badly, that he knew what the fuck he was doing.
Frank smiles at him, though, and says slowly, “Gerard.” He wraps his tongue around the word like he wants to savor the taste.
“I—“ Gerard huffs out a breath. “I’m not—“
“Gay,” Frank finishes for him, mouth twisting wryly, and that isn’t actually what Gerard was going to say at all. Safe, he was going to say, or sure what I’m doing, or maybe a good enough person not to want this. Frank’s voice is small, and he doesn’t look at Gerard when he offers, “You could pretend I’m not—that I’m a girl.” He sounds so broken, so low, when he adds, “You know, if you—if you want.”
Gerard doesn’t have words for the way his chest tightens, for the guilt that rises up in his throat and chokes him. He wants to take Frank, and Frank’s miserable, ashamed face—wants to take him and tear him apart and put him back together so he can’t look so hurt. Before Gerard has the chance to think about it—to talk himself out of it, really—he’s curling his hands around Frank’s arms and hauling him up, up, crashing their mouths together. It’s messy and violent and totally,totally wrong—Gerard doesn’t know how to do it right, maybe, but he knows he’s doing it wrong.
Frank doesn’t seem to mind. He moans, soft and desperate, into Gerard’s mouth. He’s crawling up to straddle Gerard properly, framing his face with his hands, gently using his thumbs to press Gerard’s jaw open wider, to slow the movement of his mouth.
“Sorry, sorry, I know I’m—“ Gerard starts to say, a little frantic in his embarrassment at how bad he is at this.
Frank nips a little at his lower lip, swipes over it with his tongue. “Shh,” he says, smiling against Gerard’s lips. “It’s good. You’re good.” He curls his tongue into Gerard’s mouth, licking past his lips and teeth to stroke against Gerard’s own, and Gerard feels a spike of want that has nothing to do with hunger, spreading lightning-fast all the way down his spine.
--
Gerard bites his lip until it bleeds in an effort to keep silent when Frank’s hand wraps around him. He’s never liked the taste of his own blood, used and dry and empty, but he digs his teeth in, anyways.
“No,” Frank says sternly, licking over the mess and sucking Gerard’s lip into his mouth. It stings, but in the sort of way that makes arousal coil low in Gerard’s gut. “No,” he says again, and, “I like noises. Noises are good.”
That’s probably for the best, since Gerard doesn’t think he could help the noise he makes when Frank licks over the head of his cock, even if he’d bitten through his arm. “Frank, Frankie,” he pants, hips stuttering up.
Frank doesn’t laugh at him, just pins his hips to the bed and wraps his lips around him, sucking hard, crooking a finger against the soft skin behind Gerard’s balls.
Gerard comes embarrassingly quickly. Frank still doesn’t make fun of him for it, doesn’t laugh at him at all. Gerard tells himself that that’s all that’s keeping Frank alive, but he’s pretty sure that the way Frank’s eyes are shining with his own sort of hunger maybe plays a part in that, too.
--
Frank lets the months of want seep out of him and into Gerard as he kisses him, strokes his hands over him, sucks marks into his skin.
He urges Gerard up, onto his hands and knees, and before Gerard can argue with him, Frank is licking him open.
Gerard is silent and painfully still, barely balanced on trembling arms.
“Gerard,” Frank presses, nipping at Gerard’s tailbone. “Gee,” he says, dragging his nails gently down the backs of Gerard’s pale, pale thighs.
Gerard lets out a low, stifled whimper.
Frank does it again, a little harder this time, licking over Gerard’s entrance at the same time.
Gerard’s voice cracks on a groan. “Fuck,” he hisses through clenched teeth, hands tightening in the sheets.
“You like that?” Frank teases, scraping a nail over the tender skin in the crease of Gerard’s thigh. Gerard mumbles something that Frank can’t hear. Frank scratches over Gerard’s hip this time, hard enough to leave a thin, red line. “Hmm?”
“Yes,” Gerard spits out, defensive and venomous at once. “Yes, okay, I like it.”
Frank doesn’t let the tone get to him, just licks up the back of Gerard’s balls, sucks one into his mouth, savors the little catch in Gerard’s breathing. He moves down, sucking small bruises into Gerard’s thighs, buttocks, lower back. Mouth hovering over his spine, Frank says, “That’s why?”
Gerard’s arms are shaking harder now, barely holding him up. “Why what?” he asks, which is moronic, really, because Frank knows he knows what Frank’s talking about.
Frank presses one finger into him, fast and hard, crooking it against his prostate in one fluid motion. It’s too dry, really, barely spit-damp, but Gerard keens, back arching, pushing back onto Frank’s finger. “Why you wouldn’t let me touch you,” he says, flicking his finger sharply.
Gerard hisses, sucking a breath in through his teeth, and grits out, “Not just that.”
Frank slides in a second finger, curling them, scissoring Gerard open. Gerard’s breathing is erratic, his hips jerking sharply whenever Frank crooks his fingers at the right angle. “What, then, Gee?”
“It—it’s personal,” Gerard protests, voice breaking like an overexcited teenager’s.
Frank bites the smooth curve of one buttock, grinning when Gerard groans. “Gee. I have my fingers inside of you. It doesn’t get a whole lot more personal than that.” He rubs over Gerard’s prostate again, a reminder.
Gerard’s arms finally give out, and his shoulders hit the bed. “If—if I tell you, you have to swear you won’t—“
Frank adds a third finger, stretching him wide, and promises, “I’m not going anywhere, Gee.” He pulls his fingers out, maybe a little less gently than he should.
Gerard twists around, lying on his back, looking up at Frank. “Come here,” he says softly, and it’s less of an order, really, more of a question.
Frank leans down, slanting his mouth over Gerard’s. Gerard’s hand wraps around him, guiding him to his entrance, and Frank breaks his lips away to say, “Don’t you want—“ Lube, Frank was going to say lube.
“No, I just—No. Just make it hurt,” Gerard murmurs against Frank’s ear, arching his hips up. “Make me feel it, come on.”
Frank drags his nails, hard, down Gerard’s sides, pushes his hips sharply forward, and complies.
--
Gerard’s teeth graze Frank’s neck, seeking the right spot, and when he finds it, he sucks at it a little, bringing the blood to the surface. “This is me telling you,” he tells Frank’s throat. Frank’s pulse beats, rapid and musical, under Gerard’s lips, and Gerard lets his fangs drop down.
Frank nods, lets out a breathy noise of assent, but doesn’t stop moving, not for a moment, hips thrusting fast, nails digging into any part of Gerard he can reach.
Gerard bites down on the purpling bruise on Frank’s neck. Frank groans and tightens his hand around Gerard’s hip fiercely. Gerard doesn’t let up, though, keeps pressing his teeth down until the skin breaks, the tang of iron flooding his mouth.
Frank makes a long, broken sound and collapses onto Gerard, shuddering. Gerard winds his arms around him, holding him steady, and retracts his fangs so he can suck at the bite. Frank tastes like apples and nicotine, harsh and sweet on Gerard’s tongue.
“Gee,” he whimpers, hands clenching and unclenching on Gerard’s sides. “Gee.”
Gerard sucks harder, tonguing at the puncture marks to keep them open, and Frank sobs, hips grinding down frantically, pressing him deeper into Gerard.
“This—“ Gerard whispers into the wound, lips bloody, “This is why I didn’t.” He bites gently on the flesh around the wound, keeping the bite from closing. He smoothes his palms down Frank’s back, pressing him closer, and he circles his hips, just a little bit. Just enough, with the venom working.
Frank’s whole body spasms, and he’s sobbing Gerard’s name over and over and over as he goes over the edge.
Gerard doesn’t let go, even when Frank’s stopped shaking.
--
Frank is still reeling from the venom when he says, “You wouldn’t let me—because you wanted—“
Gerard’s tongue rasps over the bite, and Frank shudders at the hurtgoodhurt of it. “I want to rip you apart with my mouth and lick your organs clean,” he says, surprisingly mildly, considering the content.
“Oh,” Frank says, because he can’t actually figure out through the venom-haze what the correct response to that sort of declaration is.
“I was planning on trying to resist the urge, though,” Gerard adds, pressing small, biting kisses into the underside of Frank’s jaw. He’s still hard, cock trapped between them. He rolls his hips a little, lazily, and adds, “Since I’ve gotten sort of vaguely attached to you being alive.”
“Is that—I mean, that’s not why you bought—sponsored—me.” He should really be freaking out a little more than this. “To eat me?” That idea should really disturb him, actually. At all. In some way, Frank should really be bothered. The fact that he isn’t is most likely indicative of some horrible mental disorder.
Gerard rubs his nose behind Frank’s ear, licks a little over the skin there, and Frank melts closer. “No. I don’t usually want—I don’t bite people other than—“ he cuts off with a frustrated huff. “I just wanted company, Frankie.”
Frank can feel stars glittering in his fingertips, his spine, leftover tingling patches of the venom. He’s still inside Gerard, pressed too tightly to him to move. “But—“
“The wanting—that wasn’t til I met you.” He nips at the shell of Frank’s ear and rubs up against him again, slow and languid. “You know,” he adds, a little laughter in his voice, “I hadn’t realized vegetarians taste different. Like fruit, sort of.” He bites—a love bite, not a vampire bite—at the other side of Frank’s neck. His hips don’t stop moving, and the motion gets a little more erratic when he says, “It wasn’t. It was never about being gay or not. You just—you’re just Frank.” He hums against Frank’s skin, jerks his hips sharply. “I’ve never wanted to touch someone before. Not since the virus, anyways.”
Frank pulls back enough to look at Gerard’s face. For once, there’s nothing hidden, no shadows, and Gerard looks almost angelic. His hair is spread out in black streaks over the pillow, and the only indication that not all is right with the world is the smudge of drying blood on his jaw. “Bite me again,” leaves Frank’s mouth before he really gets the chance to think about it.
Gerard doesn’t ask, Are you sure? Doesn’t give Frank a chance to take it back. He just smoothes his thumb over Frank’s jaw, gently turning his head up, out of the way, to bare his neck, and bites.
The venom sweeps through Frank’s veins, and he’s hard again so fast it makes him dizzy. Gerard makes a desperate, helpless noise as Frank’s cock stretches him open again. Frank keeps his head down, keeps it still, so Gerard’s teeth don’t rip his skin any more than they already have, and starts to move his hips.
Gerard’s hips jerk up and he sucks so hard on the bite that Frank’s head spins, and then Gerard’s cock is twitching between them as Gerard comes before Frank is even halfway there.
“Keep moving,” he groans into Frank’s skin, voice wrecked, hips still twitching upwards.
Venom-high, Frank doesn’t think he could stop moving. He thrusts blindly into Gerard again and again, more aroused by the lightning in his arteries and the raw, choked noises coming from Gerard’s throat than by the sensation itself. When he finally jerks forward, coming and burying himself deep, Gerard growls, clenching his teeth deep into the wound, and Frank’s vision blacks completely out from the painneedpainmorewant that floods him.
When he comes to, blinking back the darkness, Gerard is still sucking gently on the bite. “Gee,” he says hoarsely. When Gerard doesn’t stop, doesn’t look up, he says, a little louder, “Gerard.”
Gerard’s eyes flick up, and he pulls back guiltily, licking his lips. “Sorry,” he says, sounding actually contrite. His pupils are still blown, and he’s vibrating, a little.
Frank pushes some of Gerard’s hair off his forehead, tucks it behind his ear. “See?” he says lightly, “You’re not gonna break me.”
“I want to break you,” Gerard says, and it’s matter-of-fact, not cruel at all.
Frank doesn’t really know what to say to that, except, “I’m not actually worried.” He isn’t.
Gerard nuzzles against the marks on Frank’s neck. It hurts, but it’s bruise-twinges, nothing Frank can’t handle—if he’s telling the truth, nothing he doesn’t enjoy, really. “You probably shouldn’t be.”
Frank feels warm and light all the way down to his toes in a way that has nothing to do with the venom or the blood loss.
--
The next night, when the sun has gone down and Gerard has left his studio for the night, when Frank has finished classes and finished restoring the house (and more specifically, the bedroom) to some semblance of human living conditions, Frank and Gerard meet on the couch, curling up on opposite ends like they always do. Gerard sets his coffee on the coffee table, then flicks the television on, turning to the SciFi channel and settling in.
On the first commercial, though, Gerard looks down at a strange pressure on his leg and finds Frank’s hand there. “Uh. What’re you doing? “
Frank isn’t looking at him when he says, awkward and soft, “I just thought, since—“ He cuts off, biting his lip. “But I can just, you know. Not.” A little braver, a little less awkwardly, he adds, “Though it’s kind of not fair that you’ve gotten to touch me and I can’t even—“
Gerard brushes his fingers over Frank’s lips to quiet him. “I didn’t mean that you couldn’t. I’m just. I’m bad at this, okay? I—you can, you can touch me now.”
“Promise not to snap and drink me dry?” Frank asks, teasing and light, like he’s not actually concerned, like he’s sort of maybe giddy, relieved.
Gerard snorts and takes a sip of his coffee—another addiction to distract him from the major one. “No.”
Frank examines him for a long moment, eyes solemn and considering. “You should show me your studio,” he says, finally, which isn’t actually what Gerard expected at all.
“Um,” Gerard says, shifting awkwardly. “I don’t think—“
Frank’s hand wraps around his, tangling their fingers together, and for a brief, disconcerting moment, Gerard’s urge to bite him is completely swamped by his desire to curl up in his lap and live there for the rest of his life. “Come on,” he says, smiling encouragingly, eyes bright, like he’d actually rather see the crap Gerard draws than have sex with him.
Which, of course, sends Gerard into a flurry of hyperventilating panic that he’s actually as terrible at sex as he’d thought he’d be, and Frank was just being really polite last night. Added to that is the fact that in Gerard’s studio are a dozen sketches, a half dozen paintings, of Frank in various states of bloody disarray, and there is no way that Frank seeing them is going to end well. And then Frank will flip his shit, and Gerard will have to either kill him or let him leave, and he’s not actually sure which would be worse right now.
His panic is firmly cut off by Frank’s mouth on his, biting his lips open, licking past his teeth. “If you show me,” he murmurs into Gerard’s mouth, “I’ll blow you afterwards.”
Gerard closes his eyes against the rush of blood downwards, and the immediate, harsh snap of his fangs into his mouth. “Fuck,” he breathes, throat tight, hands clenching in Frank’s shirt.
Frank trails kisses down the slope of Gerard’s jaw, licks at the skin behind his ear. “Show me.”
--
Frank’s fingers hover over the oil painting, tracing the lines of his own insides, laid open to the light. “This is—“
“Fucked up,” Gerard cuts in, looking anywhere but at Frank. “Now you see why I didn’t want to show you.”
Frank turns to look at him, squinting. “You do realize I like gory shit, right? I mean, you’ve seen the movies I watch.”
Gerard shrugs, still looking somewhere over Frank’s left shoulder. “That’s not your gore. This is.”
Frank looks over the display, gnawing his lip ring a little, considering them carefully. Gerard has them arranged so the sketches are hung between the paintings, spacing them out across an entire wall. There’s one painting of Frank, asleep—or maybe dead—on the couch, veins glowing softly under his skin, stark enough that they shine through his tattoos. One wrist is hanging limply, a stream of blood sliding over his palm to pool on the floor. The lettering on Frank’s knuckles is painted precisely, and the scorpion on his neck is framed with two swollen puncture wounds. He lifts his hand to rub over the ink on his own neck, and sure enough, the placement of Gerard’s teeth had been exactly to either side.
“Come here,” Frank says, voice catching a little on the vowels.
Gerard actually meets his eyes, finally. “You’re not freaking out,” he says, a vein of incredulity in his voice.
Frank twitches his fingers at him impatiently. “No,” he agrees, rolling his eyes, and when Gerard still doesn’t come closer, Frank gives up and goes to him. Gerard is taut, frozen, under his hands, so Frank slides his palms under the back of his shirt, smoothing over his spine. Gerard stays still, shaking a little, like if he moves, he might just break down completely and tear Frank open until he looks like one of the pictures on the wall. “I could take iron supplements.”
Gerard unfreezes a little at that, blinking down at him. “What?”
Frank shrugs. “If you wanted to—I’m obviously not down with you actually killing me, but if you decide to, it’s not like there’s a lot I can do about it. But, you know, short of my death, I’m pretty much down for whatever. Just, I should probably take something, if you’re going to be doing that.”
Gerard’s hands come up, gripping his hips, harder than is maybe strictly necessary. Frank relaxes into it, presses closer. Gerard leans in, resting his head on Frank’s shoulder, nudging at the puncture wounds on Frank’s neck with his nose. “You’re insane.”
“Pretty much certifiably, yep,” Frank agrees amiably, nipping sharply at the skin of Gerard’s throat. Gerard jerks, just a little, hands spasming on Frank’s hips.
“We should, uh, go,” Gerard says, hands clenching even tighter as Frank’s teeth sink deeper into the juncture of his neck and shoulder.
Frank makes a low noise, licking up the line of Gerard’s throat, sucking a bruise into the skin on the underside of his jaw. “But we had a deal,” he complains, pouting against Gerard’s skin. The thought of shoving Gerard up against his drawing table and—Frank wants, okay, and Gerard said he could. “You said I could,” he adds, because that seems sort of necessary.
--
"I-- I don't think. I mean, here? The—Frank, there’s a picture of you bleeding out two feet away,” Gerard protests, backing up until he hits the wall. “You’re in, like, my creepy stalker shrine dedicated to me wanting to eat you.”
Frank grins at him, honest and visceral. "It’s sort of flattering,” he says, and then he's on his knees, oh god. “And there’s that one of Liza Minnelli as the Virgin Mother, too. Totally not just a creepy stalker shrine." He thumbs open the button on Gerard's pants, knuckles pressing briefly against the soft flesh of Gerard's belly.
"Frank--" he starts to say, starts to protest again. But then Frank is mouthing wetly at his cock through his underwear, and Gerard clutches at the wall frantically. The feel of paper ripping under his fingertips is secondary to all the other sensations. He can feel Frank’s pulse hammering below the skin of his lips, in the pads of his fingers where they’re touching him. "Frank," he says again, but it's mostly reverent this time.
"Gee," Frank says, and it's not anything, not a question or a response, it's just a confirmation. Then he's hooking his thumbs into Gerard's underwear, dragging them down over his hips, and Gerard only feels the chill of the air for a moment before Frank's mouth is on him, hot and slick and tight. Gerard's hips buck off the wall, stuttering up into Frank's mouth gracelessly as Frank sucks hard at the head.
"Fuck," Gerard hisses through tightly clenched teeth, trying to remember what it's like to have control over his muscles so he doesn't accidentally choke Frank in some sort of spastic fit. It would sort of suck to kill him by accident, and dead blood isn't half as satisfying. If Gerard is killing Frank, he's not doing it with his dick. "Sorry," he adds, face red.
Frank looks up at him with just his eyes, sinking his mouth down over Gerard slowly, so fucking slowly. He brings his hands up Gerard's legs, fingers trailing through the fine hair dusting his thighs, and stops when he reaches Gerard's hands, clenched in fists by his hips. He twines his fingers through Gerard's and then pulls back, off his cock, and says, voice raw and wrecked, "I kind of like it better that way, actually." He guides Gerard's hands up to his hair, and, stroking his thumb over the pulse in Gerard's wrist, he adds, "It's sort of—it’s better if you pull my hair."
Gerard's fingers tighten involuntarily, because fuck. "Frank," he says, helpless and small, and he's thinking that maybe he's just forgotten every other word he's ever learned.
Frank uses his own hands to pin Gerard's hips to the wall, thumbs digging sharply into the curve of Gerard's hipbones, a grounding counterpoint to the soft kisses he's pressing into the crease of Gerard's thigh. "You could just fuck my mouth," he says, and then he's wrapping his mouth around Gerard again, before there's any chance of Gerard responding.
Gerard's hips do it for him as Frank's tongue presses down on the vein on the underside of his cock, and they arch away from the wall as Gerard's fingers tighten again in Frank's hair. Frank makes a tiny, throaty noise of approval, so Gerard does it again, slower, more deliberate. He curls his fingers around as much of Frank's hair as he can and tugs, slow and sharp, and pushes his hips up as he pulls Frank in. Frank whimpers around him, but it doesn't sound bad, so Gerard pushes himself all the way in, groaning when he's against the back of Frank's throat. Frank's throat works around him once, maybe a gag, but he pushes himself closer, nosing at the hair at the base of Gerard's cock.
Gerard sucks a breath in, and another, and then, trying not to just come instantly and completely embarrass himself, he pulls back a little and thrusts forward again, fucking Frank's mouth shallowly. Frank's eyelids flutter, and he slackens his jaw, just running his thumbs over Gerard's hips, anchoring him, as Gerard's hips move faster.
"Frank, Frank," he babbles, and then he's slamming forward, jerking Frank's head close and holding it there as he comes. Frank's fingers dig into his skin, doubtlessly leaving bruises, but his throat moves around Gerard, swallowing until there's nothing left. Panting, Gerard gingerly unhooks his fingers from Franks hair, letting him pull back. He hadn't meant to pull that hard, hadn't meant to--
"Fuck," Frank says, hoarse and gravelly, and then he's pressing his hips forward, against Gerard's leg, jerking unevenly, like he can't even manage a rhythm, as he pants against Gerard's thigh. "Fuck," he says again, and it's desperate this time, needy and deep.
Gerard swallows, once, reminding himself that his limbs and muscles, do, in fact, work, and he pushes Frank back, away from his leg. Frank falls onto his back on the rug, looking stunned until Gerard follows him down. Gerard doesn't waste time, just frees Frank from his clothes as quickly as he can, and he stops worrying about whether he's going to be any good at it and just does it, opening his mouth and licking over Frank's cock, sucking kisses over the head and down the underside. Frank lets out this raw, desperate noise, and his hips twitch forward, sliding his cock against Gerard's jaw, and Gerard stops thinking about anything in the world other than getting Frank to make that sound again.
Fangs withdrawn-- which is not actually easy, when Frank is being all hot and edible and fucking pulsing with blood against his mouth--he wraps his mouth around Frank, moving back and forth in a semblance of the rhythm he'd built with Frank's mouth earlier, and when Frank is panting and whimpering and clutching at Gerard's hair, Gerard crooks a finger behind Frank's balls and presses up, hard and smooth.
The sound Frank makes is strangled and beautiful, and then he's tugging Gerard off as he comes messily over his own stomach, hips jerking off the floor.
"Shit," he hisses when his hips stop twitching, "fuck, Gee."
Gerard ignores him, leaning forward to lap at the pool of come on Frank's belly. He'd-- he wants to taste him, wants the completion of that sound on his tongue. It's thick and salty and a little bitter, but it's nice, it's Frank. Not-- it's not as good as blood, and the black, twisted curl of the virus in Gerard's gut whines at him about that, but underneath the bitterness is that same tang of nicotine and apples, and Gerard lets his fangs drop down, finally.
"Gee," Frank whimpers, tugging at him, "No, no, come on, that's-- you don't have to do that."
Frank doesn't actually sound like he minds, though, so Gerard continues to lick him clean, occasionally letting the tip of one fang scrap over the skin. When Frank's stomach is clean, Gerard licks carefully at his cock. Frank's cock twitches limply, like maybe if he hadn't just come, he'd be hard again against Gerard's tongue, but his body is still trying to make the effort. Gerard strokes over him with his tongue, sucking over the head softly until he can't taste anything but skin, blood beating faintly below the surface. Frank is breathing harshly, open mouthed, and his hand is tight in Gerard's hair.
"Gee," he murmurs, heavy-lidded, when Gerard pulls back, chasing the taste over his lips with his tongue. "Come on, do it.”
Gerard’s eyes flick guiltily to the indigo webbing of blood in Frank’s thigh. “Last night, though.”
Frank’s legs slide a little further apart, and Gerard can’t resist the urge to lick over the crease of his thigh, feeling blood thrumming against his tongue. “I’m not even lightheaded today,” Frank says, stroking a hand over Gerard’s hair and arching his hips up at the same time. “Just a little?”
Gerard isn’t sure he can manage just a little, and says so.
Frank shrugs. “If you go too far, I’ll punch you.”
“You’d have to knock me out,” Gerard points out, eyeing Frank’s veins with real consideration now. “If you don’t, I think I’d just end up killing you if you hit me.” He runs a thoughtful finger down the length of the biggest vein in Frank’s thigh, scraping a little with his nails. This, he’s never done—necks, it’s been necks and wrists and strangers, or sometimes Mikey, not Frank, not wanting him, getting hard in Gerard’s hand while Gerard sinks his teeth in, panting and whimpering and begging for him, not just the venom. Gerard licks over the thin skin, tracing the blue lines, nipping gently. He wraps his fingers around Frank’s soft cock, squeezing lightly, thumb brushing over his balls.
Frank’s hand tightens in his hair, pulling hard, and Gerard’s eyes flutter shut. “Fucking do it,” he rasps, voice ragged. “Please, please, come on.”
Gerard ignores him, takes his time, sucking at the skin until he finds a spot, right at the juncture of Frank’s thigh and groin, dark and soft and damp with sweat. Frank makes a sweet, broken noise when Gerard just licks at it, hips twitching.
The noise he makes when Gerard bites down is so far from sweet that something in Gerard’s chest aches with the feeble, frantic need in it. Frank’s hand jerks at Gerard’s hair, cock swelling to fill his hand. Gerard tightens his fingers, jerking his wrist roughly as he lets Frank’s blood wash over his tongue, down his throat. Frank groans, jerking against Gerard’s teeth as he tries to thrust into Gerard’s fist, gasping when the motion makes Gerard’s teeth tear a bigger gash in the skin.
Gerard squeezes his eyes shut and basks in the suddenly easier flow of blood into his mouth, sucking hard, until he’s dizzy with the taste.
And then Frank’s fist collides with his temple, sending Gerard sprawling.
--
When he blinks the stars from his eyes, he’s face down in the carpet, and Frank has one knee on his spine. “Uh,” Gerard says, a little hazy.
Frank snorts. “No killing me, remember?”
“Wasn’t,” Gerard protests blearily. “Just tasting.”
“Mmmhm,” Frank says, but the pressure on Gerard’s back eases up a little, and Frank is straddling his hips. Softer, he says, “This venom shit is insane.”
Gerard hums in agreement and wiggles his hips, grinding up against Frank’s cock. “Sorry,” he says, not really terribly sorry at all. Frank is the one who moved, who ripped the skin more. Gerard has pointed out how not-good he is at self control.
Frank’s fingers brush his neck, moving Gerard’s hair out of the way so that one side of his neck is bare. Leaning down, Frank nips at the shell of Gerard’s ear, dragging his nails over Gerard’s shoulder blades at the same time. Blood-high and lazily aroused, Gerard arches into it. “It’s gonna be kind of hard to keep pressure on this and fuck you at the same time, you know.”
“Lemme lick it.” Gerard struggles to get up, to flip over, but Frank isn’t moving, and he’s actually pretty heavy.
“Uh,” Frank says, and, “no.”
Gerard rolls his eyes. “Venom. Saliva seals the wounds so we can save snacks for later. It’s why I had to keep biting, last time.”
Frank is still for another moment, and then he’s clambering off Gerard so fast he nearly kicks him in the ribs.
Gerard just flips over and scoots over, hovering over the sluggishly bleeding wound in Frank’s thigh. “Oh,” he says, feeling a little sick. The rip in the skin is larger than he’d realized, and for a moment, he sees it gaping wider, revealing blood vessels and muscles. The high, and the desire for more, dissipates in the wake of a pang of sudden regret. Then, closing his eyes against the urge, Gerard laps gently at the gash.
Frank is breathing shallowly through his mouth, eyelids fluttering, when Gerard leans back. “I’m sorry,” Gerard tells him, sincerely this time. “I didn’t mean—“
Frank’s hands close around his arms, dragging him up, closer, and then Frank’s cock is pressing, thick and heavy, against Gerard’s leg. “Make it up to me.” He’s shuddering, rubbing up against Gerard, dragging his cock back and forth in the crease of Gerard’s thigh.
Gerard doesn’t hesitate even a second before rearing back on his thighs and lining Frank up. Frank’s hands clench on Gerard’s thighs as he starts to ease down, working Frank into him.
Frank’s hips jerk, driving him into Gerard hard enough that Gerard’s eyes roll back into his head and he groans. Gerard doesn’t have time to rise up, sink back down, like he’s pretty sure he’s supposed to. He’s sort of distantly grateful, because that means he can’t do it wrong. Frank just holds him steady, hips snapping up, harder and harder, until Gerard is seeing white and scrabbling desperately for something to hold onto as he goes over the edge.
Frank flips them over, Gerard’s back skidding on the carpet, driving into him again, again, again, and Gerard clings, lost in the sound of Frank’s harsh breathing, the press of Frank’s fingertips into the flesh of his thighs. Frank leans down and latches onto the side of Gerard’s throat with his mouth, sucking hard, biting down. Gerard jerks up, into it, groaning, and the pressure of Frank’s teeth doesn’t let up.
“Fuck,” he breathes, and, “Frank, fuck.” And then the skin is tearing, just a thin line of broken flesh, under Frank’s teeth, and Gerard feels all the strength coil and spiral out of him in one moment, until he’s boneless, twitching, breath shuddering, on his back on the carpet.
“Gee, fucking fuck, Gerard,” Frank pants into the curve of his shoulder, snapping his hips again, once, pressing himself deep and then collapsing, heavy and limp.
Gerard, hands still trembling, smoothes down Frank’s hair, pushing it off his sweaty forehead. “You okay?” he asks, smiling a little.
Frank blinks heavy lids. “I didn’t actually mean to break the skin.” His hand comes up, fingers tracing the sore spot on Gerard’s neck. Gerard tips his chin out of the way and leans into the touch. It’s not actually bleeding, it’s barely a cut at all. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Gerard looks around the room, at the series of pictures of Frank, skin torn and insides exposed, and snickers. “Oh yeah, that’s absolutely what you should be worried about here.”
Frank punches him halfheartedly in the ribs. “Shut up,” he complains, smiling against the fabric of Gerard’s shirt. “I have it on good authority that I’m allowed to knock you out, you know.”
Gerard turns his head, hiding his grin, and says, “Yeah, yeah, such tough talk.” When Frank goes to move, mock-affronted, Gerard tightens an arm and says, softer, against his hair, “Don’t—can you just stay?”
Frank wraps an arm around him and snuggles down against Gerard’s chest. Gerard can’t even pretend it’s not exactly what he wants—even beyond the ever-present urge to bite, to tear, to drink him in, is the desire to just squeeze as close to Frank as he can and stay there. Strangely, foreign as the feeling is, it’s sort of comfortable.
As if he’s reading Gerard’s mind, Frank’s fingers tighten on Gerard’s side, dragging him just a little closer.
Sighing contentedly, Gerard closes his eyes against the gore on the walls and lets himself fall asleep to the sound of Frank’s even breathing.
--
EPILOGUE:
When Mikey comes home, he finds a smear of blood on the doorknob and a very, very quiet house.
He sighs and opens the door, prepared to scold Gerard about killing people yet again.
Except that there’s someone distinctly not Gerard, sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee and holding an ice pack to his neck.
“Um,” Mikey says, blinking in consternation.
The guy looks up from his coffee and breaks out into a smile. “You’re Mikey,” he says, beaming.
Mikey takes a couple steps into the kitchen. He doesn’t look like a vampire, which is only slightly reassuring. “And you’re… in my kitchen.”
“I’m Frank,” the guy says, offering his hand. There’s a smear of dried blood over the palm. “Oh,” he says, smiling apologetically, “don’t worry, it’s mine.”
That’s doesn’t actually reassure Mikey at all, but he shakes anyways, because once you’ve spent long enough with Gerard, blood stops bothering you. “Where’s my brother?” he asks, because polite as the stranger is, Mikey is worried.
“Asleep,” Frank says reassuringly. “Well,” he amends, less reassuringly, “I knocked him out. But he’ll wake up in a bit. You want some coffee?”
Mikey stares at him for a long, long moment while he tries to put things into a sensible order in his head. “Uh,” he says, “So, basically I’m going to need you to tell me why I’m not supposed to be calling the cops or strangling you for knocking Gee out.” He sits down. “Also, coffee is an acceptable prelude to convincing me not to kill you.”
Frank grins, then winces as he gets up from the table. “Coffee it is,” he says, pouring Mikey a mug. “Black, right? Gee said you drink it black.”
“Black,” Mikey agrees faintly, feeling like a chunk of his life has gone by while he wasn’t there for it. “Yes.”
“Cool.” Frank sets the mug in front of him, settling back into his own chair and wincing again. “And I knocked him out because he asked me to, so I’d appreciate not getting the cops involved.”
“He… asked you to knock him out.” Mikey doesn’t make an effort to keep the incredulity out of his voice.
“It’s part of a deal we have. He gets out of hand, I hit him with blunt objects.” Frank shrugs. “If you wait like a half hour, you can ask him yourself.”
Mikey doesn’t have to wait half an hour, because just then, Gerard comes stumbling out of the bedroom, blinking blearily and scrubbing his hand over his face. Mikey watches, eyes widening, as he presses a kiss to Frank’s temple and says, “Sorry, Frankie.”
Frank smiles at him, the soft, fuzzy-edged smile that Bob gives Mikey first thing in the morning when he’s not bothering to hide what he’s feeling. “S’okay,” he says fondly, “I’ve had worse.”
Gerard smiles wryly and mutters something that might be, “Yeah, I know, I did those, too,” and he swipes a fleeting kiss over Frank’s mouth. Then he pulls up a chair and says, “Hey, Mikey.”
“Hey,” Mikey says, sounding very far away, even to himself.
“This is Frank,” Gerard says helpfully, leaning back in his chair and throwing his legs over Frank’s lap. Frank puts a hand on his knee and squeezes. “He lives here now.”
“Oh,” Mikey says, feeling a little dizzy. “That’s, um. That’s great, Gee.”
Frank beams at him—Frank’s face is apparently made for smiling; his eyes light up and everything. “See? Not a serial killer.” He doesn’t look at Mikey for long—an instant later, he’s turning the smile on Gerard and grinning up into his eyes.
“Yet,” Gerard says teasingly, knocking their shoulders together. He says to Mikey, very seriously, “I’m trying to convince him that the two of us would make an excellent crime duo.”
“We would,” Frank agrees, not looking away from Gerard’s face, “except that we’re both really lazy. And crime requires getting out of bed.”
Gerard waggles his eyebrows. He says, “Bed. Right, we should really go there.” And then he’s up, dragging Frank to the bedroom. “We’ll hang out later, Mikey,” he calls cheerfully, not bothering to turn around.
Frank waves at Mikey over his shoulder.
Mikey lets his head hit the table with a reassuringly solid thunk.
END