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It wasn’t long after My Chem split up that Adam got the first text. A single black-and-white photo from an unknown number is something he would have normally ignored, or even blocked. But the content…well. It’s always been a running joke that Adam likes to be choked, he encourages it, because it’s true, but he mostly keeps it on the down-low how that desire runs even deeper, and the photo on his phone sends a spark through his skin. The curve of a lip, a pale unblemished neck, and a thin black cable, nothing more and yet the thrill runs through his bones all the same, has to bite his lip to keep a trembling sigh inside, and he doesn’t block the number.
It’s honestly embarrassing, how long it takes him to figure out the sender. They send him a photo most weeks, something different every time—rope, cuffs, collars; their entire form hanging from the ceiling in silhouette—always works of art, rarely in color except to punctuate. Adam saves the one that’s a wall-cube of black full of a riot of colored ropes, and it’s when he’s looking at it much later that his eye catches on something…a pen, or actually maybe a paintbrush, barely visible under the rope but there nonetheless, and he’s not stupid, there’s only one visual artist both so familiar with Adam’s needs and so persistent in his pursuits that they’d spend two years texting him erotic photos to no response. He doesn’t jump the gun just yet, but he spots other clues now that he’s looking—one week the corner of a graphic novel on the floor, the next a glimpse of his handwriting in an open notebook, and a few months later, a focus on his black eye the week Mikey told everyone about Gerard’s stupid injury. Adam texts the next morning after that one: getting into photography now? Gerard doesn’t text back for three days, because he’s an asshole, and when he does it’s not from his phone but from the burner, a dark eye and dark lips quirked in a grin, a microphone cable wrapped three times and pulled taut between delicate fingers, and a caption, I just think about you sometimes.
The photos don’t stop over the next several years, but they do become more sporadic, sometimes weeks and sometimes months between new ones. The summer he’s on tour with Frank Iero and The Used they come every week like clockwork and they start to border on the edge of explicit in a way that makes Adam want to scream, to the point that Frank laughs and laughs when Adam knocks wild-eyed on his bus door begging. He has good hands, huh, the burner texts that week, caption to an impossible photo of tattooed hands wrapping dark rope around smooth wrists. The hands in the photo are missing several marks from the ones that wrapped Adam’s wrists a few nights previously, but yes, he admits, Frank does have good hands for this kind of work. He doesn’t fuck Frank, though, and Frank doesn’t fuck him, and Adam never asks if Gerard wanted them to fuck because he’s old enough now to know not to ask questions when he’s not sure he’ll like the answer.
My Chemical Romance gets back together, as John always said they would (and John would know a thing or two about forgiveness, Adam knows that in his soul) and when he gets the text from Mikey asking if they’re available to open on the reunion tour at all Adam nearly chokes—the message that follows on its heels isn’t from Mikey but Gerard, WANTYOU etched on his neck in black marker like it’s 2007 with a thin cord wrapped tightly around his throat, the most blatant expression of desire Adam’s seen from him in the ages they’ve been texting. Somehow he manages to fumble out a yes to Mikey before throwing open his jeans and jerking off furiously, coming to the memory of Gerard’s teeth in his neck, and the same yes he sends to G is accompanied by a photo of his own. The burner never replies so quickly but it does this time, a simple desperate fuck, adam, and when he gets John on the phone to share the news he knows there’s an audible smirk in his voice.
Their reunion is postponed two years while the world goes insane but absence makes the heart grow fonder and Adam shares his own photos, he’s no artist but he does his best. One lazy afternoon Adam gets an audio clip from Gerard’s real number and waits until he’s alone to listen anyway—but it’s just a song, a new song, and Adam sends back a clip of something he’s been thinking about and suddenly everything really is exactly as it was, sharing music and sharing sex and sharing the things that linger in the dark, Adam and Gerard against a world that wants them to be who they’re not except they’re both done trying to fit in those boxes. Adam doesn’t know what he’s expecting to happen when they finally see each other in Denver—something extreme, something explosive, some culmination of the years of flirtation and photography, but in the end it isn’t really anything like that at all. In the end Gerard just smiles softly at Adam backstage before he goes on, his hand lingering on Adam’s bicep and then his wrist just a moment too long, and the kiss they share between their sets is sweet and affectionate. There’s a hotel night between Denver and Portland and they spend it re-learning each other’s bodies, the way the years have put muscle on their bones, the sculpture of Gerard’s legs and Adam’s arms.
“Jesus fuck, G,” Adam murmurs into Gerard’s mouth when they discover he can still hold Adam upright against the wall, bare chests sweat-sticking against each other as Gerard pins Adam’s hands with his own.
“Adam, god,” is what Gerard’s panting on repeat later with Adam’s tongue swirling around their cock, hands buried in his hair and tugging deliciously. Adam never let his hair grow this long when they were fucking before and he sends a note of admonishment to his twenty-something self, because the way G winds it through his fingers and pulls him to exactly where they want Adam to be is nothing short of heaven. The muscles in Gerard’s thighs flex and shift with every swipe of Adam’s lips and he can’t help thinking about what those muscles would look like strained against one of Gerard’s ropes, maybe the thick forest green one from that one picture. They didn’t bring rope but they did bring lube, and the groan that falls from Gerard’s lips when Adam slides in his first finger is everything he’s been waiting to hear for so long. Gerard grips the bedsheets tightly while Adam works, head thrashing from side to side and drawing attention to those mesmerizing lines of his neck, the ones Adam would recognize anywhere now, and he’s so ready when G hauls him up the bed, pins him down by his shoulders, and just shoves down on his cock so fast Adam’s vision blurs.
“When we get to LA,” Gerard says later, his arm wrapped around Adam’s chest, “you should come to mine.” Adam hums.
“Will you wear one of your outfits if I do?”
“You can even pick it.”
That’s how Adam winds up backstage his last night on the tour with his hands under Gerard’s skirt, fingers pressed hard into their ass and thighs just minutes before they need to go on. He’s just so fucking sexy like this, the cheerleader Adam never even knew he could dream about, and his pout feels like it comes from his entire body when Ray pulls G out of his arms. Once the whole band is out on stage Adam checks his phone and laughs, from the other side of the stage and with absolutely no visibility Frank had sent please stop manhandling my singer I need him, and Adam just sends back a smiley face knowing Frank won’t see it until encore at the earliest and settles in to watch the show. Whether it’s for Adam or not Gerard goes crazy with his mic cable tonight, every time Adam looks up it’s around his neck or wrists or entire torso, looking so tangled from Adam’s angle that he wonders a few times if a tech is going to have to step in and the feeling in the pit of Adam’s stomach isn’t simple arousal, no, it’s something more complex, anticipation and anxiety and something warm, too—fondness, maybe, and the thrill of curiosity that always comes with following Gerard’s lead. Adam stays back during the break before encore, just waving when he’s favored with one of those bright smiles, but as soon as Gerard makes it down the stairs after the encore he’s flying into Adam’s arms, kissing his neck like he’s fevered with it and maybe Adam lets it go on for longer than he should, until Mikey’s standing next to them rolling his eyes begging them to get out of the way of the crew and go be disgusting somewhere else.
Adam draws teasing circles on the top of Gerard’s exposed thigh the whole way to their place, knowing that it’s only Gerard’s endless desire for privacy that keeps them from touching him and it’s a delight, to watch G squirm under his fingertips. Once they’re through the door, though, there’s nothing left to stop Gerard from shoving Adam right up against the wall to the left and kissing him like his life depends on it. Gerard kisses him down the hall, through doors and down stairs, and Gerard doesn’t stop kissing him even when he trips over a threshold and they land in a heap on soft carpet, Adam’s head just barely not hitting the floor.
“Fuck,” Gerard laughs, “been meaning to get that fixed.”
“Motherfucker.” Adam wraps his hands around Gerard’s perfect waist and pulls him back in, teeth dragging on their bottom lip so Gerard gasps of it, grinds his hips into Adam and fuck. Gerard takes the opportunity to peel Adam’s shirt off and throw it…somewhere, it doesn’t matter, G’s tracing Adam’s tattoos with his fingernails and he can’t handle the way the shivers go straight to his dick, all amplified looking up at Gerard’s hair in his eyes until they roll off him abruptly and he whimpers.
“We can fuck in the hall if you want,” they say, climbing to their feet, “but I thought maybe I’d show you behind the scenes of all those photos you loved.” Adam doesn’t need to be told twice. He follows behind Gerard now, watching the way his skirt swishes around swaying hips, so enthralled by the lines of Gerard’s waist down to his bare feet that he doesn’t even notice when they walk into the most interesting room on the planet until Gerard stops short and wraps Adam in his arms. It’s the room all the pictures are from—there’s the shelving that holds the ropes, over by the window the desk with the brass fittings, and the bed with the four posts has a latticed headboard, too, of course it does. Everything in the room is elegant and refined, the lighting warm and soft. Adam’s impressed, but it really is truly on brand for Gerard Way to be able to construct and furnish a fucking kink dungeon that could practically be a guest bedroom, and Gerard cackles when Adam tells him so. “Please, it’s just a room. Here, hang on.” They walk Adam over and sit him down on the bed. “I realize I’ve been assuming—”
“Yes,” Adam cuts him off, but Gerard holds up a hand. Their head is tilted to the side, considering.
“We never did this, before.” Adam realizes with a start that G’s right, actually—they’ve fucked on hotel beds, stolen a cable or two and wrapped them around each other backstage, and talked about their fantasies constantly, of course, but in all the years they’d never been in the right place at the right time to get to try anything elaborate. So maybe G has a point, but Adam knows what he wants, has known it for years.
“I want you to tie me to this bed and fuck me into it.” Gerard pulls back, then grins, and oh, the way that smile lights up their entire face, the sweetness of the laughter that fills the room, Adam’s absolutely putty in their hands.
“Red, yellow, green?” Adam nods, and then leaps off the bed, walking to the storage covering the walls. “Tap three times work for you?” He shivers, fingers reaching out to touch just the ropes, considering the weight, the texture.
“Yeah.” His mouth is dry all of a sudden. “Water?”
“In the nightstand.” Adam hears G grabbing a couple bottles out of the bedside tables. “If you want cuffs they’re in one of the drawers. There’s a nice leather set.”
“Got a microphone cable?” He’s only joking, but Gerard laughs.
“You know I do! I know I did some pics for you with it!” That’s right, he did. Adam finds it, considers it, and ultimately discards it—they don’t need to resort to it tonight. Eventually he pulls out three ropes, one in a silky-soft black hemp braid, and the other two thicker, a vibrant royal blue he feels like he remembers from a photo. He holds them up for Gerard to review. “Oh, the blue. Good call, it’ll look nice on you, pretty boy.” Adam grins at the old pet name and drops the rope on the side table before uncapping a water bottle and chugging half of it down. Gerard’s looking at him consideringly again, now, and so it’s Adam’s turn to tilt his head in return.
“What’s up?” G looks…almost uneasy, for the first time all night.
“Logistics are going to be tough. If you’re tied to the posts. There’s a zipper on the dress, I can’t reach.” Ah. Adam reaches out, grabs one of Gerard’s wrists and holds tightly.
“G,” he starts, “do you want to take the dress off to fuck?” Almost imperceptibly, G shakes his head, so Adam shrugs. “Then don’t. Problem solved.” Adam picked the damn dress; he wants to get fucked in it. Gerard looks beautiful in it. Why should they have to take it off? He pulls G tightly against his body then, wraps one of his arms around his back while keeping hold of the wrist. “You look amazing, babe. If you’ve been fucking someone who won’t let you wear—”
“No, no, no, I just thought—” Adam growls and thrusts his hips into Gerard, half-hard but fully-obsessed with the way the skirt feels under his fingers, the firmness of muscle noticeable in a way it could never be through jeans. He tucks his head into Gerard’s neck and licks, one long stripe from collarbone to mouth, and when he flicks his tongue Gerard’s lips part to let him in. Then he falls backwards into the bed dragging G down with him, and they laugh into his kiss, mood restored. Gerard starts fumbling at his belt with a “here, let’s get you undressed, gorgeous” and Adam sighs into his touch, his words, Gerard knows him so well.
Once he’s naked and laid out on the bed, G picks up the black rope and slowly, gently unwinds it before looping it around Adam’s neck, once, twice, three times, pulling it just tight enough that it kisses his skin, lays there softly like fingertips. The first blue rope goes around his left wrist three times as well, and when Gerard turns back around from tying it to the headboard he beams. “Fuck, Adam, you look so good like this.” They just stand there gazing at Adam and he feels—overexposed, flushed hot under his skin, heart racing, perfect. Instead of going for another rope, though, G climbs on top of Adam’s chest and takes hold of the one around his neck. “Color?”
“Green.” Adam’s so green, incredibly green, starts to try to lift himself up with his unbound hand to kiss Gerard green. “Green, green, please, G, fuck.” And Gerard tugs. Just a little, but it still makes Adam gasp, clench his fingers together into fists. A little more, and his eyes close before he even knows he’s doing it.
“Adam?”
“Green, fuck’s sake.”
“Just checking.” There’s a smile in his voice. “I’ve never done this to someone else, you know.”
“You did it to me backstage all the time!” Gerard pulls again and Adam, well, he’s not to blame for the low moan he lets out, it feels so fucking good and he can still breathe perfectly fine, it’s just the sensation, the knowing that G absolutely could completely cut him off from his air supply if he wanted, and the trust that he won’t. “Green, by the way, fuck.”
“With a shitty microphone cable and a thousand people around, yeah.” He pulls and holds this time, tighter tighter tighter until Adam’s breathing does become labored, just a bit, and then it drops. He opens his eyes to meet Gerard’s, smiling down at him so fucking fond, so ridiculously proud it could take Adam’s breath away on its own. His heart pounds in his chest beneath G’s thighs and he rests one finger from his unbound hand on a leg and taps, once. “If you’re nonverbal we’re not doing any more, Adam, I’m serious.”
“Fine, fuck, green!” But Gerard cups his face in their hand, soft eyes gazing down so gently.
“We fucking lived, pretty boy. You get it, right?” Of course Adam gets it, but he’s so hot and so hard that he wants to luxuriate in it, doesn’t want it to stop.
“Sorry, G. Green.” So he tugs on the ropes again, not as tight but holds it for longer and Adam holds his own breath too, and he feels it, the way his chest swells and fingers shake, the pit in his stomach and sparks in his thighs and he has to breathe in because he has to, he needs. “G, fuck, touch me?” Time slows down. He’s writhing on the bed, bucking his hips trying to find any kind of pressure and breathing in trembling gasps and G won’t touch him and won’t let go and it’s so close to perfect. “Please, please, god, fuck,” he’s chanting, begging, whole body shaking furiously but still without relief, clenches his fingers into G’s leg with his eyes closed as though they’re letting the air out and then Gerard drops the rope and covers his lips with theirs and his hand’s on Adam’s cock and he’s coming glorious, stars behind his eyes, like nothing he’s ever felt before or ever will feel again.
Adam doesn’t come to, because that would mean he blacked out, but he does gain awareness, slowly, and when he does he finds Gerard holding the open water bottle out for him. “Can you drink this without spilling it everywhere, or do you need to sit up?” Adam snatches it easily from their hand and downs the whole thing without spilling a drop, smirking as he hands it back. G doesn’t reward him with anything but a raised eyebrow, but then, he wouldn’t. They hold out the other blue rope and Adam dutifully puts his wrist inside it, letting Gerard do the delicate wrap covering his arm, the knot to stop it from tightening any further and then he beckons for Adam to slide up before attaching him to the second post. “Color?”
“Still green. Like your dress.” Gerard grins and does a cute twirl, dress flying up to show off that those little white shorts vanished somewhere at some point and god, now that he’s looking Adam can spot the way their cock tents the dress and it’s fucking gorgeous, he wants it so bad. G, of course, notices the direction of his gaze and smirks.
“It’s nice having you tied down like this, you know. Convenient.” His tone is conversational but the movement anything but, they crawl back on top of Adam and oh, yes, slide all the way up until they’re practically sitting on his shoulders, just out of reach and skirt blocking Adam from getting his mouth around Gerard. “You want under my skirts, pretty boy?”
“Yes,” Adam growls, hands clenched into fists, and G’s eyes sparkle. They lift up the skirt and lean over, tease at Adam’s lips with the head of his shaft so that Adam can only lick at it, feel the way it glides across his face smooth and wet, and their breath hitches deliciously. It’s a strain, but when Adam manages to get his head up so he can lock his lips around the tip and suck Gerard moans, drops the skirt so all Adam can see is dick and fabric and G comes closer, letting Adam take even more. The angle fucking sucks but the absolutely filthy sounds coming from Gerard make it worth it until he has to drop his head back down, half-choking on Gerard in his mouth and the rope still around his neck and the fabric blocking his air—cocksucking and asphyxiation may be two things Adam loves dearly, but they just don’t go together. He raps his knuckles twice on the bedpost, as best he’s able; Gerard gets the point and scrambles back. His eyes are filled with worry, once Adam can see them. “M’good, G. Just.” He breathes in, deep, in through the nose and out through the mouth, once, twice, three times.
“Do you want me to take this off?” They finger at the rope around his neck, but Adam shakes his head vehemently.
“No, fuck no.” Absolutely not, it feels so good, the smooth weight of it even if it’s quite loose now, Adam still knows it’s there and it’s a pleasure to his skin. “You might just have to do me instead, though.”
“Is that so?” Gerard sweeps their eyes down Adam’s body, to his cock only starting to stir, and smiles. He moves slowly, lavishing attention on every piece of him and Adam revels in it—the spiky scrape of teeth on his shoulder, the spark that waves through his bones when G rolls his nipple between their fingertips, the way his entire body relaxes as gentle nails scrape down his sides and all of it under Gerard’s eyes so full of that focus, always overwhelming to have fully turned on anyone. He nips and licks at Adam’s hipbones and then grins up at him from under their hair as they lock delicate thumb and forefinger around the base of his dick. “You’re doing so good for me.” Their breath is warm and wet and teasing, other hand digging into Adam’s thigh, and when they finally close their lips around his cock Adam lets out a sigh he didn’t know he’d been holding. Adam thinks highly of his own skills but Gerard’s are nothing to laugh at, licking and humming his way up and down the length of him to meet his fingers, hollowed cheeks pulling his cock to attention in a way Adam didn’t think he was ready for but damn, he can’t complain.
“Fuck, G, god,” Adam moans, and every time he jerks his hands to try to put them on G’s head he shivers at the realization that he can’t, the lack of control. “Please.”
He slides off Adam’s dick with a pop. “Please what?” Adam would love to say he glares down at G but he doesn’t, he can’t, he wants. “Tell me what you need, pretty boy.”
“Fingers, fuck, c’mon.” Gerard climbs off him, presumably to retrieve the lube, and Adam can’t keep himself from squirming, from pulling at his bonds. If he had access to his hands he’d definitely have one wrapped around his cock right now.
“Color?” Gerard’s voice comes from off to the side, and Adam drops his hands immediately.
“Green, sorry.”
“Hm.” Their smile is audible. When he gets back on the bed he’s holding a bottle of lube and a condom, and Adam closes his eyes, wiggles his hips with a grin. “Patience.”
“Never really my strong suit, G.”
“Oh, I’m aware.” He starts to slide in with one finger and takes Adam’s cock back in his mouth almost simultaneously. It makes Adam gasp; he feels Gerard smirk and that’s just so sexy and annoying, so perfectly G. Adam’s living for the way Gerard feels, hot and wet both outside and in, like it covers and coats everything that Adam is, and when he feels the ropes around his neck tighten his eyes fly open to see G with the ends wrapped around their other hand not pulling, just holding, keeping Adam in place, perfectly. Another finger joins the first and then before too long a third, the assault on Adam’s senses never-ending, he begs and moans and pleads and in moments when G’s tugging around his neck and hitting his prostate with those fingers Adam thinks he sees heaven.
Gerard doesn’t drop the rope when he slides up and away but Adam whines anyway, the emptiness inside him a void, the air hitting his cock startling-cold. G tears open the condom wrapper with their teeth and rolls it on one handed and then he’s pressing in, slowly until he’s buried all the way to the hilt and Adam can’t stop himself from wrapping his legs around G’s back to take them even deeper and Gerard doesn’t slap him down, just groans. They look so fucking good, the skirt flowing around their hips as they thrust them into Adam over and over again and sweat flying from hair that Adam pulls to get his hands in, strains against the bond on his neck to try to kiss them until he’s choking on it and they shove him down, biting Adam’s lower lip so hard he howls. With the angle change Adam knows he’s going to come again and come like this, a shivering mess tied exactly where G wants him so he just lets go, allows whatever words pass through his lips to do so and gives in to the sensations at his wrists and throat and cock, the drops of sweat that fall on him and the tone of whatever Gerard’s saying, sweet and filthy in equal measure. Adam wraps his fingers around the bedposts just to hang on to something and feels the tension start to rise in his gut, the pleasure in waves as Gerard pounds against every perfect spot and he feels like he’s been teetering on the edge for too long when the rope-collar pulls tight to his skin and that’s it, he loses himself completely in choking moans and full-body shakes, screaming G’s name as they fuck him somehow faster, sloppy and arrhythmic and when they come they whisper Adam’s name like a prayer, fucking everything into Adam until he collapses into the bed by his side.
Moments later Gerard hasn’t moved, but he reaches up to detach Adam from the bedpost and when Adam puts his arm around G reflexively they chuckle. “Meant for you to undo the other one.”
“In a minute,” Adam replies, and one-handed but not without difficulty undoes the clasp and the zipper on the back of Gerard’s dress. Then he rolls over to untie his other hand and remove the careful bonds on each wrist, letting the rope fall to the ground off the side of the bed. The one around his neck he takes off last, and he misses it when it’s gone, rubbing at the places where it used to be. Gerard’s face doesn’t move out of the pillow where he’s buried to direct Adam to the bathroom to clean up, and they still haven’t moved when Adam returns either, so he just shrugs and climbs under the blankets, dropping a kiss on the back of his head.
Adam wakes up slowly the next morning, shoulders aching and Gerard pressed warm and naked against his back. Like so much else, waking up slowly with Gerard is new, and so is the thought that comes to him when he spots the rope-pile on the ground where he left it last night. G whines when he untangles himself to lean down and retrieve the black one, but his eyes twinkle when they see what Adam’s holding. “What’s that for?”
“I know you have a show, but it’s gotta be several hours before you need to be there. Thought you might like a turn?”
Gerard grins.