MCR; Frank/Gerard; R

Title: Natural Disaster
Author: coffeewordangel
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Fake
A/N: So, once upon a time, I asked for prompts over here and quasilogical asked for Frank/Gerard domestic disasters. This is that. In a manner of speaking.


It happens like this: Frank needs a roommate. Apparently, independent record stores and garage bands don’t pay the bills. Or, not all of them at any rate. So he asks around and it turns out Mikey’s brother needs a place to live that is not their parents’ basement or Mikey’s couch. It’s the perfect solution and Frank happily empties out the spare room.

Frank doesn’t actually meet Gerard until they move him in and, by that point, Frank wonders if maybe he should have asked a few more questions. His first impression of Gerard is that he’s quiet and a little strange. It’s spring in Jersey so it’s a little chilly, but not enough to explain Gerard’s hoodie/puffy coat/double scarf combo. Still, maybe he has thin blood or something. He keeps edging away whenever Frank tries to talk to him, so he can’t just ask. Then Frank gets distracted by Bob and Ray maneuvering the bed up the stairs because, well, hot. Biceps and displays of manliness make him all weak-kneed.

It takes Frank about half an hour alone with Gerard, and some pretty uncomfortable attempts at conversation, to figure out that he’s quiet because he’s awkward, which Frank unwillingly finds adorable. Also, he’s bundled up like an arctic explorer because he’s sick. So of course Frank calls Mikey to chew him out.

“You made your brother move while he has the flu?”

Mikey snorts. “You’ve known Gerard for, like, five minutes. No one can really make him do anything. He insisted he was fine.”

“He’s not fine,” Frank persists. “He can barely stand up without falling over.”

“Gerard’s an adult. It’s the flu, not the plague. Relax.” Mikey sounds vaguely amused when he hangs up on Frank.

Intellectually, he knows Mikey is right: Gerard is an adult and not some stray Frank dragged home. Frank doesn’t even know him, but he does know what it’s like to be sick and alone and he wouldn’t wish that on anyone. So he sneaks out to stock up on Theraflu and chicken noodle soup, feeling somewhere between Florence Nightingale and nosy jackass. When he gets back, Gerard is cocooned in a Batman comforter that looks like it barely survived the 80s, on top of his still-bare mattress. He looks the epitome of miserable.

“Come to the couch,” Frank cajoles. “I made you soup.”

Gerard lets Frank help him shuffle to the living room where Frank has a mug of soup waiting. He decides not to mention that the majority of the can is still seared to the bottom of the pan. Most of the scorched bits got picked out and, really, isn’t the broth supposed to be the most important part? While Gerard listlessly sips at the soup, Frank heads into Gerard’s room to put sheets on the bed. No one should have to sleep on a bare mattress when they’re sick. The clean, tidy corners make Frank feel vaguely efficient and he wonders when the hell he turned into his mother.

“Hey, Gerard, do you…” He stops short when he notices that Gerard is passed out on the couch.

He’s curled up in a little ball at one end, nose tucked under the comforter, and looks like nothing so much as a little kid. This, of course, serves to make Frank feel extra pervy since he’s just taken a moment to realize that his new roommate is kind of pretty and oh, hello completely inappropriate crush on someone he doesn’t even really know. Frank crushes inappropriately a lot, though, so this isn’t insurmountable or anything, just kind of inconvenient. Not-sick Gerard will probably dispel all attraction anyway.

Mikey calls back and Frank thinks about not answering, but knows that will only exponentially increase the amount of mocking he will have to endure later. “Hello,” he answers resignedly.

“You tuck Gee into bed yet?”

“He’s crashed on the couch,” Frank mumbles. Mikey starts humming ‘Get Sick Soon’ and Frank flushes. “Shut up, asshole!” he snaps. “It’s not even like that.”

“Sure.” Mikey’s laughing at him again. “Have him call me.”

“I hate you,” Frank tells the dead air.

He’s about three chapters into Rose Madder when Gerard wakes up, pale and shaky and a little green. His eyes go wide and panicky, too much white showing around the edges.

“Bathroom?” he asks in a tiny, choked voice.

“Other side of your room,” Frank directs.

Gerard makes a mad dash for the bathroom and Frank winces in sympathy when the sound of Gerard retching reaches him. His mom always makes him tea with freshly grated ginger root whenever Frank is sick like this. Frank barely has bread, let alone ginger root, but he does find a lone can of ginger ale in the back of the fridge. It’ll have to do.

“Sorry,” Gerard apologizes when he reemerges, wincing slightly. “I’m not usually this pathetic. Or, I am, but more in a socially awkward way and not a gross, sick way.”

Frank shrugs and pushes the can of ginger ale at him. He even found a straw. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh. Dude. I don’t think I can ingest anything right now.”

“Small sips,” Frank orders. “Ginger is good for upset stomachs.” The excess sugar he’s not so sure about.

Gerard obediently takes the can. “So you do this often? Play nurse?”

Frank tries not to fidget. “Well, if you die I’ll have to get a new roommate so, really, this is in my best interests.”

---

It turns out that rooming with healthy Gerard is a lot like living by himself. Frank never sees him except when they arrive at the coffee pot at the same time. He’s not sure if Gerard is avoiding him on purpose or if their schedules are just that different. He almost misses fever-flushed, pliant, cuddly Gerard and then hates himself for it a little. It’s just. Frank doesn’t really like being alone.

It’s Thursday night and nothing is happening until Friday, so Frank plans on playing Guitar Hero and feeling sorry for himself. The light in the kitchen is on which means either Gerard’s home or he forgot to turn it off again. Their electric bill is going to be fun.

“Frank?” Gerard calls.

“Yeah?”

“You…might not want to come in here.”

So of course Frank heads straight for the kitchen and immediately finds himself on his ass in a puddle of soapy water. “The fuck?” he yelps.

Gerard is soaked and very obviously trying not to laugh at him. “Uh. The dishwasher kind of exploded? I called the super, but he sounded really stoned, so…”

Frank nods. Yeah, Jim is good for fuckall when it comes to building maintenance. “He’s the owner’s nephew and just sits on his ass all day getting baked. We’re gonna have to do dishes by hand from now on, I guess.”

“You want help up?”

Gerard’s hand is already outstretched and Frank doesn’t even think about it, just takes hold and tugs. His laughter is short-lived since the weight of Gerard crashing into his diaphragm knocks it out of him, but it’s totally worth it for the expression on Gerard’s face.

“So, Gerard, how come you’ve been avoiding me?” Frank wheezes.

“You are so strange,” Gerard accuses, but he’s smiling when he says it so he can’t be too irritated. “I’m not avoiding you. I just don’t want to get in your way.”

Frank snorts. “You’re not a guest, asshole. You pay rent. So stop being a Stepford roommate, okay? It’s fucking creepy.”

“So you want me to leave my shit all over the place.” Gerard looks skeptical.

“I don’t know.” Frank shrugs. “As long as it doesn’t stay there forever? Or trip me. Whatever. Just stop tiptoeing around like I’m going to kick you out if you make any noise. You live here too.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

After that, Gerard is more present. Or, well, his stuff is, at least. Gerard himself is still rarely around. Frank has figured out that if he’s home, he can usually lure Gerard out by making fresh coffee or watching cheesy horror movies very loudly. It’s not ideal because, honestly, Frank would rather have face time with Gerard than his ratty shoes or half-empty coffee cups, but at least it feels like he has a roommate rather than a ghost living with him.

---

Frank is, by nature, a pretty clean guy. He’s fairly attached to daily showers and the joys of clean clothes. Gerard, it turns out, is a bit of a slob. In a horrifying kind of way. Knowing this, Frank finds his earlier efforts at cleanliness sort of sweet and thinks back on them fondly when he discovers that coffee can indeed grow mold if left long enough. Also, it’s been over a month since Gerard moved in and Frank doesn’t think he’s touched the washer and dryer once. Maybe he’s afraid they will blow up like the dishwasher, or maybe he doesn’t know how to use them. Benefit of the doubt and all that.

“Hey!” Frank calls through the closed door to Gerard’s room. “I’m doing laundry. Bring yours out here!” Subtlety is for pussies.

There’s a flurry of shuffling noises and then the door opens and Gerard peeks out, blinking. “You don’t have to do my laundry.”

Frank shrugs. “Might as well.” And wow, that room could do with some airing out. Jesus.

“Um. Give me a second.”

Gerard disappears and then reappears carrying what looks to be a fucking metric ton of laundry. Frank doesn’t even know what to say. That shit is going to take all afternoon. He just squares his shoulders and leads the way and tries not to cringe at the mountain of clothes. At least most of it’s black. From the way Gerard’s eyeing the washer, Frank’s going to bet his mom’s been doing his laundry. So Frank sorts out a load of jeans and throws them in, bravely ignoring how Gerard’s reek of cigarettes and feet. He tosses in extra detergent just in case.

Phase one completed, except now Gerard’s sort of awkwardly shuffling in place. Frank frowns. “When’s the last time you ate something other than Doritos or cereal?”

“Um.” Gerard honestly looks like he’s trying to remember. The nose scrunch is pretty adorable. “I don’t know? I think I had a Pop Tart yesterday?”

“Sit,” Frank orders. “I’ll make us something.”

If Frank could isolate what it is about Gerard that turns him into a mother hen, then maybe he’d be able to stop it. As it is, all the laundry and cooking is making him feel like a jackass. A jackass in 50s-housewife disguise. Which, actually, Frank would totally read about a 50s-housewife who was a secret badass, fighting crime while cooking the perfect pot roast for her banker husband and 2.5 kids.

The flaw in Frank’s ‘cook food for Gerard’ plan presents itself rather quickly once Frank remembers that, oh hey, he can’t cook. He casts about for something he can microwave and comes up with a Hot Pocket that he can’t even remember buying. Frostbitten though it may be, it has to be more nutritious than Pop Tarts, right?

“Hot Pocket?” Frank offers, moderately embarrassed.

Gerard shrugs. “Sure.” He plays with the handle of his coffee cup. “You don’t have to take care of me, you know?”

Frank rests his hip against the counter and eyes his roommate. He doesn’t know how to explain that he’s overly fond of Gerard’s stupid pretty face without sounding like a crazy person. So he just shrugs back. “I don’t mind. Besides, it’s not like you’re very good at taking care of yourself, so…”

Gerard gives him bitchface number three. The one that means he’s not really offended, but thinks maybe he should be. “I do fine,” he replies stiffly.

“Uh huh. Eat your Hot Pocket.”

Gerard frowns, but obediently takes a bite. He waits until he’s finished the whole thing before saying, “That was kind of gross.”

“I figured. I have no idea how long that’s been in the freezer.”

“And you fed it to me anyway? What the hell kind of caretaker are you?”

Frank grins unapologetically. “The awesome kind who keeps making your lazy ass coffee.”

Gerard inclines his head and takes a sip of aforementioned coffee. “Point,” he concedes.

“Come watch movies with me while we wait for laundry,” Frank proposes carelessly, pretending his heart rate doesn’t increase while waiting for Gerard’s answer.

“Sure. It’s either that or lie in bed all day.”

Frank doesn’t think about offering to lie in bed all day with him. He doesn’t. At all. “Is that what you do all day? Your life. So exciting.”

Gerard flashes him a crooked little grin. “Sometimes I masturbate to break up the monotony.”

Frank studiously does not imagine that in full color surround sound HD. He is a rock of self-control. He is motherfucking Gibralter with this shit. “Evil Dead trilogy now. You can jack off later.”

“Yeah, okay.” Gerard tops off his coffee and heads out to the couch.

Frank pops in the movie and settles against the arm of the couch, legs flung over Gerard’s because, hey, he’s tactile guy, okay? This is totally normal behavior and in no way a blatant demonstration of his desire to get in Gerard’s pants. At all. He’s pretty much given up on getting over this thing, ridiculous as it is. Gerard, for his part, just rolls his eyes and pats Frank’s thigh.

When it’s time to throw the laundry in the dryer, Gerard insists that he can do it so Frank lets him. How much could he possibly fuck up a load of jeans? Besides, when he comes back to the couch he lifts Frank’s legs to resituate them over his lap, a little handsier than necessary, and Frank forgets about the laundry. It isn’t until Gerard gets back up to unload the dryer that Frank wonders how much supervision he might need.

“Oh. Um. Shit.” Frank can hear Gerard cringing.

“What happened?” Frank calls. Gerard wanders in holding a pair of jeans covered haphazardly in black splotches and swirls. Frank just stares. “How?”

“Um.” Gerard winces apologetically. “I might have left a marker in my pocket and it…leaked? I guess?”

“Of course.” Frank barely restrains himself from face-palming. “I guess we pretend they’re supposed to be like that. It’s…artistic?”

“I’m sorry. I mean. Fuck. I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Frank cuts him off before he can get rolling with the pointless apologies. It’s done and there’s no point in being pissed about it. The strange thing is that he’s not even all that inclined to be pissed because it’s Gerard. This should probably be more distressing than it is. Instead, it pretty much feels like just another day in Frank’s increasingly fucked up life.

---

Bob and Ray are the coolest guys to work for, ever, and Frank likes to think part of that is that they consider him a friend as well as an employee. The store is Bob’s baby, but Ray helps out when he’s not giving lessons or sitting in on studio gigs. Frank didn’t know they were fucking until he hit on Bob. Bob got all flushed and adorable until Ray came up behind him and wrapped his arms around Bob’s waist, giving Frank a look that was halfway amused and half possessive. At which point, Frank realized Ray could crush his skull with his thighs and apologized all over the place because he didn’t know and he’s a fucktard who has inappropriate thoughts about people like his roommate and his boss. Okay, the roommate thing came later, obviously, but the point is that there’s a pattern. A pattern of unrelenting lameness.

“How goes cohabitation?” Bob asks without looking up from his inventory form.

Frank hops up on the counter. “Weird. Gerard is kind of a hopeless case.”

Bob sets down his pen and looks at him. “Frank.”

“What?” Frank asks defensively, snagging a chip.

“You know what. Mikey’s brother, your roommate. I am not hauling that shit back down those stairs because you can’t keep it in your pants.”

“I haven’t done anything,” Frank protests.

“Yet.” Bob frowns at him. “Eventually you’re going to convince yourself it’s a good idea.”

Frank flips him off. “I’m a paragon of self control.”

“Is it opposite day again?” Ray asks from behind the boxes he’s carrying into the store proper. Frank ignores the insult and stares for a second because, well, biceps hi.

Bob smacks the back of his head. “Quit perving on Ray.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Frequently,” Bob says dryly. He heads over to help Ray unpack. “Tell Frank why he shouldn’t hook up with Gerard.”

“Well, it’s Gerard,” Ray states doubtfully. “He might be into that. He likes creepy.”

To which Frank interjects, “Hey!” at the same time Bob scolds, “Not helping!”

Ray shrugs. “Just saying. But if it goes to hell, I’m honor bound to side with Gee, and Bob will have to take your side because no one else will and it’ll be all Hatfields and McCoys. Bob and I will have to sneak around.”

“Yeah, you’d love that Romeo and Juliet bullshit. Don’t lie.” Frank snags another Dorito before Bob can stop him. Hey, he abandoned them. Frank’s just making sure they don’t go to waste.

Bob smirks. “Yeah, you could serenade me under my balcony.”

“Wait. Bob’s Juliet in this scenario?” Frank happily munches his ill-gotten chip. He loves his job.

Ray looks annoyed, but he looks annoyed a lot when dealing with Frank. “Okay, one, I live with you and we don’t have a balcony. Two, neither of us is Juliet because we are not female or thirteen. And three, quit scamming on Bob’s chips, Frank. Get your own.”

Frank deliberately chomps yet another chip. “So you’re saying I should hit on Gerard, like, yesterday so we can have lots of freaky sex.”

“No. I’m saying you should put down Bob’s chips and do some actual work. Also, that it’s probably a really bad idea to hook up with someone you’re living with. There’s nowhere to escape when it all goes to hell.”

Frank ignores Ray’s order to work. “It might not go to hell.”

Bob rolls his eyes. “You’re impulsive. Gerard’s neurotic. How is that going to end in anything but disaster?”

Frank surprises himself by being a little hurt that they both think he and Gerard together would be such a bad idea. Up until this point it’s just been an idle fantasy, albeit one he’s been unsuccessfully trying to suppress for the sake of his sanity. Now, well, apparently it’s something he wants. For real.

“But. It’s Gerard.” Frank tries to keep his tone light, but it comes out sort of strangled. Like, how could he not want to be with Gerard?

Ray stops and stares at him. “You’re serious about this? This isn’t just some ‘I want to fuck my roommate because he’s there’ sort of thing?”

“It’s Gerard,” Frank repeats in a small voice. This shit has gotten way too serious and it’s freaking him out a little.

Ray pinches the bridge of his nose, the way he does when he’s getting a headache, and sighs. “Yeah. That’s. That makes sense, actually. Gerard’s superpower is making people want to take care of him. He doesn’t do it on purpose or anything, and I think he’s annoyed when it happens, it’s just. Gerard.”

And, hey, Frank’s not going crazy with the Suzy Homemaker bullshit. Gerard’s got a superpower. That totally makes sense. “Yeah. Okay. What do I do?”

“I don’t know.” Ray shrugs. “Figure it out?”

“Thanks, Ray. That’s very helpful, yeah.” Frank glares at him. “Does this mean you won’t kick my ass if we hook up?”

“I am not going to kick your ass over Gerard Way. Just remember that I think this has the potential to be awful and I advised against it.”

“But you don’t actually object to the idea,” Frank pushes. That seems important, for some reason.

“No. I don’t actually object. Now will you do some actual work, for fuckssake?” Ray is practically pleading at this point and Bob looks ready to bust some heads on his boyfriend’s behalf and, since Frank’s head is the only one in the vicinity, yeah. Work.

Frank slides off the counter and grabs some CDs from the ‘already inventoried, need to be shelved’ pile and heads out to the floor. At this point he doesn’t know what he wants to do about Gerard or how much of a pussy he’ll be when it comes right down to it. Instead of worrying, he loses himself in the mindless repetition of alphabetization.

---

Frank arrives home to the shrill, insistent shriek of the smoke alarm. “Gerard!” he yells over the din, trying not to envision all worst case scenarios.

“Kitchen!”

Of course he’s in the fucking kitchen. Where else would he be? He’s in the kitchen, setting off the smoke alarm. Frank’s afraid to go look, but heads in anyway and is instantly glad he did. Gerard has flour dusted across his left cheekbone and the tip of his nose and he’s flapping ineffectually at the smoke alarm. Frank doesn’t know whether to laugh or jump him.

“What the fuck, Gee?”

Gerard yells something about cupcakes that Frank doesn’t quite understand over the headache-inducing noise. Finally he grabs a magazine and starts fanning just under the detector until it falls into sudden overwhelming silence, like the lack of noise is a shock to Frank’s ears. It takes a second for sound to start filtering back in.

“…been fine if your oven didn’t suck,” Gerard is saying when Frank’s eardrums come back online.

“I didn’t even know the smoke alarm worked,” Frank murmurs, mostly to himself. “Now, what about the oven?”

“It sucks,” Gerard explains passionately, waving his arms about to emphasize his point.

There’s a smear of batter under the hollow of his jaw and Frank tamps down on the urge to lick it off. “Well, the knob is kind of jacked. Bake is actually Broil, Broil cleans the oven, Clean Oven turns it off and Off is Bake.”

“And you didn’t think to share this information?” Gerard still looks pissed about the suckitude of Frank’s oven.

“I…didn’t think you were going to bake anything. I mean. Why would you?” Frank’s still trying to wrap his brain around this situation.

“To see if I could?” Gerard tilts his head like he doesn’t understand the question, like he frequently tries new things at random. Hell, it’s Gerard. Maybe he does.

Frank stares at him for a moment, things clicking into place. “You were watching a cooking show, weren’t you?”

Gerard ducks his head. “Yeah. They made vegan cupcakes look easy and delicious! So I looked up the recipe and bought stuff and here we are.” He gestures expansively. “Actually, it was pretty easy until the oven burned this shit out of everything.”

“Well.” Frank leans over to inspect the very black cupcakes. He peels off the charred top of the closest one. “I think just the top is ruined. The rest of this one looks okay.”

Gerard’s smile is made of sunshine and puppies. Frank is, unwillingly, fucking charmed. “I made frosting!”

“Okay, Betty Crocker.” Frank smirks. “Start frosting. I’ll start cleaning up the mess.”

“Oh!” Gerard looks around, wide-eyed, like he’s just now realizing the kitchen looks like a bomb went off. There’s flour everywhere. “I can help with that.”

“I’m counting on it,” Frank says wryly. “Pretty sure there will be plenty left to clean after you’re done frosting.”

He starts by filling the sink to do dishes and cracking a window to get rid of the smoked sugar smell overwhelming the room. Up to his elbows in dishwater, with Gerard puttering around behind him and occasionally brushing against Frank’s back because the kitchen is fucking tiny, Frank feels all sorts of domestic. It’s not as horrible as he always imagined it would be. He doesn’t suddenly want a white picket fence and 2.5 kids or anything, but a couple of dogs and Gerard around, blowing up his appliances? Yeah, he could handle that.

Frank is startled from reverie by Gerard hooking his chin over Frank’s shoulder, solid and warm. His pulse skips. “Hi?” he says breathlessly.

“Hey. You got kind of pensive. Find the meaning of life in the sink?”

“Forty-two,” Frank murmurs.

Gerard huffs a laugh against Frank’s neck, breath warm and damp, and it’s the easiest thing in the world for Frank to turn his head and slide their lips together. “Oh,” Gerard exhales against Frank’s mouth.

Frank pulls away slightly. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I just didn’t.” Gerard stops and smiles lazyslow. “Yeah,” he repeats before spinning Frank around to face him and crowding back into his space.

The counter is digging into Frank’s back and his shirt is soaked and it’s maybe the best feeling ever. Gerard is pressed up against Frank’s chest, impossibly present and real. He tastes sweet from the frosting, sugar and heat against Frank’s tongue. Gerard kisses like the world is ending, focused and intense, and Frank gives as good as he gets. He’s practically climbing Gerard to get closer when Gerard pulls away, breath ragged and uneven.

“Huh? Why’d you stop?” Frank’s having problems forming words.

Gerard smiles and nuzzles Frank’s jaw. “Pretend you met me someplace else and I wasn’t your roommate.”

Frank’s learned the best way to deal with Gerard’s tangents is to just go with it. “Oookay. And?”

“I wouldn’t fuck you on the first date.”

“This isn’t a date.” Frank tries to keep from whining. “It’s the kitchen.”

Gerard smiles at him serenely. “Exactly.”

---

They make out a lot. Frank hasn’t made out this much since high school. Of course, he hasn’t been this sexually frustrated since high school either. The bitch of it is that Frank’s pretty sure Gerard knows exactly what he’s doing. He keeps ambushing Frank with his mouth, the fucker; while Frank’s ranting about Bendis, or kicking Gerard’s ass at Guitar Hero, or just walking out of his bedroom. Gerard seems to take some sadistic pleasure in reducing Frank to nerves and need, then stepping away like nothing happened. Frank’s going insane.

“What the hell is he doing?” Frank whines to Bob after two weeks of this bullshit.

“Giving you an epic case of blue balls, sounds like.” Apparently Bob finds Frank’s pain fucking hilarious.

“It’s not funny.”

Bob stifles his laughter down to a smirk. “It kind of is, man.”

“It really isn’t.” Frank drops his head to the counter.

Bob sighs. “Ray is so much better at this,” he mutters resignedly. “Okay, look, I hate discussing relationship shit with you, but. You kind of suck at them. Maybe Gerard’s making sure you mean it or something.”

“I am not shit at relationships!” Frank protests. Bob looks like he’s gearing up to list all of Frank’s relationship failures and he really, really does not want to listen to that right now. “Okay, my track record is kind of shitty.”

“You think?” Bob raises an eyebrow.

“Yes, but not all of that was my fault and this is different.” Frank’s pretty sure of that because, yeah he wants to fuck Gerard so bad he can taste it, but it’s almost as good just being in the same room with him doing nothing. Which is kind of a new experience for Frank.

“Still. Wouldn’t Mikey warn him?”

Honestly, some days Frank forgets that Mikey and Gerard are brothers. “You think he’d do that?”

“I think if you fuck up his brother, Mikey Way will make your life hell. He’s a deceptively evil motherfucker.”

And yeah, one time when they were rooming together, Frank drank the last of the coffee without buying more. After a week of fielding calls from people looking for a partner specializing in bondage and water sports, he’d had to change his cell number. Frank can’t prove it was Mikey’s fault, but who else would have done it? Unfortunately, while they were rooming together Frank was also in his ‘fuck someone new every night’ phase. So he can see how Mikey might be concerned for his brother.

“Fuck.” Frank sighs heavily.

Bob rolls his eyes. “Go home. You’re useless today and it’s dead.”

Frank doesn’t question it, just grabs his shit and leaves. He has a moment of horrifying déjà vu when he walks into the apartment and gets hit with a wave of smoke. There’s no point in calling for Gerard. Frank just heads for the kitchen and finds Gerard and Mikey staring at a scorch mark on the wall. There is no way in hell Frank is ever getting his security deposit back.

“Do I even want to ask?” Frank asks wearily.

“Mikey killed your toaster,” Gerard explains mournfully.

Frank takes a deep, steadying breath. The Brothers Way, ladies and gentlemen. “What did my toaster ever do to you, Mikes?”

Mikey glares at his brother. “It’s not my fault. There was an electrical short or something. All I did was put the bread in and then there was this popping noise and flame.”

“It was pretty cool. In a terrifying kind of way,” Gerard relates.

“Is this some genetic thing with you guys? This inability to use appliances? Do they hate you for some past grievance or something? Did you kill a microwave‘s grandma?” This earns him a nasty look from Mikey, so Frank doesn’t press the issue.

“Right. I should get going,” Mikey states, giving his brother some secret sibling look before heading toward the door.

“You owe me a toaster, Mikey Way!” Frank calls after him. Mikey doesn’t even pause, just flips him off on his way out the door.

“It really was an accident,” Gerard reiterates.

Frank slumps down in the nearest chair. He’s tired and he doesn’t think it has anything to do with his defunct toaster. “I know. The thing was ancient.”

Gerard slides his palms over Frank’s shoulders in a way Frank thinks is supposed to be comforting. Frank flinches without meaning to and Gerard’s hands disappear, leaving his shoulders chilled in their absence. There’s a long, nerve-wracking silence that follows.

“What’s wrong?” Gerard asks softly.

Now that the moment is here, Frank really doesn’t want to have this conversation. “Are you fucking with me?” he blurts out before he loses his nerve.

Gerard takes a seat across from him. “Am I…no. I’m not. Why?”

“Because!” Frank gestures in a way he hopes means ‘you’re a giant cocktease and your brother thinks I’m a slut, are these things related?’

Apparently Frank’s gestures are not as eloquent as Gerard’s, because Gerard just repeats the gesture with raised eyebrows. “Because?”

“I, um. We haven’t really talked about what we’re doing, you just randomly grab me and then pretend nothing happened and I just. I don’t know.” Frank rubs at his temples. “Also, I’m pretty sure Mikey told you I’m this commitment-phobic slut, which isn’t true.”

The corners of Gerard’s lips are twitching. If he laughs, Frank is going to punch him in his stupid pretty face. “That’s…not exactly what he told me,” Gerard replies.

“Well I’m not.” Frank frowns. “That was four years ago.”

“He didn’t say you were a slut, Frank,” Gerard assures him. He runs a hand through his already-disheveled hair before continuing. “So. Mikey dragged me to one of your shows, like, six months ago? And you know you’re crazy hot when you writhe around on stage, right? It was sort of lust at first sight and Mikey was going to introduce us, but I’m a big chickenshit and left before he could, and then you needed a roommate and Mikey warned me not to fuck things up by hitting on you because it would be really stupid. I’m pretty sure he got cats just so I couldn’t move back in with him.”

“And then I kissed you,” Frank fills in.

“And I didn’t want to do anything that couldn’t be taken back. This has major potential to be catastrophic. Did I mention I’m a big chickenshit?” Gerard’s biting his lip nervously and being his twitchy self and Frank is so, so crazy about him.

Frank gets up and walks over to straddle Gerard, placing himself neatly in his lap. “It could also be really, really good.”

Gerard swallows hard and licks his lips. “Yeah. I got that.”

“So?” Frank stops just shy of brushing their lips together. “Worth the risk?”

“Completely.”

---

Bob has threatened to kill Frank if he doesn’t stop whistling and currently has his Ipod up loud enough to block him out. Frank can’t help it. He’s happy. He’s getting laid regularly by his surprisingly innovative geeky boyfriend, and tonight when he gets home they’re going to do disgustingly couple-y things like feed each other Chinese takeout and cuddle on the couch before going to bed to have more freaky hot sex. His life is good.

“Frank!” Bob bellows from the front. “Visitor!”

Frank comes out of the stock room and promptly hops over the counter to wrap himself around a bemused Gerard because he can. Boyfriend! He forgets, in his haste to kiss the hell out of Gerard, that they have an audience of one. Bob sighs in the longsuffering manner of martyrs and saints.

“Gross, you guys,” he interrupts. Bob is pretty anti-PDA. Despite his best efforts, Frank hasn’t been able to catch him and Ray doing more than standing too close to each other.

“Sorry,” Gerard apologizes breathlessly once he disengages from Frank’s mouth.

“Sorry, boss,” Frank parrots, not sorry at all. Bob hates it when Frank calls him boss and replies by flipping him off. Frank ignores him in favor of Gerard. “What are you doing down here?”

“I was in the area?”

Frank narrows his eyes. “Really?”

“Well…no.” Gerard shrugs. “But I wanted to see you. And, um, we might need a new microwave.”

“Again? Gee! I thought we had that conversation about not putting metal things in the microwave already.”

Gerard has the sense to look embarrassed. “It was a twist tie. I didn’t know there was metal in it! It was hiding! Undercover metal!”

Frank bites his tongue to keep from laughing. Gerard’s just so damn bad at this that he can’t help but kiss him again. “Okay, okay. I need to finish my shift and you need to go buy us a new microwave.”

“Yeah.” Gerard nods. “I’ll see you at home?”

Frank smiles brightly and firmly presses one last kiss to Gerard’s mouth before letting him go. “Definitely.”