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"This." Frank waves a hand at the living room and kitchen, stained carpet and bare walls. He grins. "This is where the magic's gonna happen."
Gerard, Ray and Otter follow him inside, poking their heads into the empty bedrooms. Frank watches them while he unbuttons his coat, and decides that he already likes how the place looks with people in it; he can't wait for Mikey to get his ass back here and help make it theirs.
"Are we gonna get fucked up here tonight or what?" Frank drops his jacket in the corner of the living room and rolls his sleeves up to get ready for some box-lifting. "Me and Mikey need to break this shit in!"
"I'm in," Gerard calls from where he's started picking at his teeth in the bathroom mirror. "I stashed a few bottles of Jameson in my parent's garage before we went on tour." Frank nods and points a finger at Ray, who freezes with his head halfway into the fridge.
"Uh." Ray looks shifty and ducks behind the fridge door. There's nothing in there yet. "Didn't we just have a party for your birthday a few weeks ago? My brother, I haven't seen him in—"
"Your brother is invited, Ray. You're not skipping out on this." Frank cuts a line across the room with his finger, stopping in front of Otter.
"Always, dude," Otter says easily, pulling the rim of his baseball cap down. "Where's the lady of the house anyway?"
Frank snickers. "Fucked off as soon as he heard we'd be lifting boxes. He's probably out inviting all of Jersey to the party."
"Awesome," Gerard contributes from the bathroom, "I wanna see all of Jersey in your two-bedroom, Frankie. Sardine that shit."
Otter snorts and follows Ray out the door as they stomp down the wooden staircase to the van. "I bought you delicious, greasy breakfast today, man. You better pull your weight," Frank tells Gerard. Frank's halfway down the staircase before he realizes Gerard isn't following. His voice echoes in the stairwell when he calls back, "I'll let you carry pillows!"
.
The guys leave after lunch, begging off with showers and girlfriends and free dinner at their mom's. Frank has just gotten back from a pizza and booze run and stowed the vodka in the freezer when Mikey shows up to eat.
"Casa del Good Times, man," Frank says as he and Mikey knock the necks of their beer bottles, grinning at each other. There are boxes and duffel bags piled high by the front door and Frank's sweaty from carrying them up the stairs but he's pretty excited to unpack. They've been touring so much this year that Frank's just happy not to be living out of a backpack for a little while.
"My first real place, shit." Mikey grabs a boom box from his room, setting it on the living room floor and plugging in. "I can't believe I made it out of my parent's house before my older brother."
"I can," Frank laughs and pops open the CD deck as soon as Mikey leaves the room, plucking out Meat is Murder and dropping in some At The Drive-In. Mikey makes a sad sound from his bedroom. Frank calls "Vetoed!" over the wail of guitars and they start unpacking.
By five o'clock there are four empties on top of the fridge, a grease-stained pizza box in the kitchen sink, and a small island of shit in the middle of the living room.
"Huh," Mikey says, pushing his glasses up his nose. "That's it?"
The island is comprised of at least six boxes of CDs and tapes, four video game consoles and boxes of games, one television set, two small stacks of comic books, an even-taller stack of movies, five coffee mugs, and assorted cables and guitar straps draped over top.
"I really thought I had more to my name," Frank observes from the kitchen counter, kicking the heels of his Adidas on the cupboard below.
Mikey suddenly spreads both his hands out wide, pausing for a second to say "Oh!" before disappearing down the hall to their rooms.
He reappears with his bass and walks it to the pile. "Aw shit," Frank laughs, hopping off the counter to get his favorite guitar, "how'd we forget that, dude?"
It takes a few moments of struggling against gravity (Mikey crunches Frank's copy of the new Outkast album underfoot—by accident, Frank's ass) until they have their guitar cases leaning against each other over the pile, precariously balanced.
"I've got way more stickers on my case," Frank says, "'cause of how I'm such a vet in the 'biz."
"I don't need stickers when I'm already friends with the bands," Mikey says easily.
They admire their pile for a moment before Frank realizes that they're staring at the most valuable stuff they own and maybe it shouldn't be in the middle of their living room if they're about to have an epic house party.
"Wait!" Mikey fishes a disposable camera out of the backpack he'd dumped by the fridge earlier. "Give me something, Iero," he says from behind the camera. Frank makes a pretty unattractive face but Mikey's smiling when he snaps the photo.
"Y'know, some of these aren't even band stickers," Mikey points out as he hauls Frank's guitar off the pile and into his room. "I'm pretty sure this one's for the Salvation Army. And—" there's a soft noise from down the hall as he puts it on the carpet "—is that a label from a smoothie bottle?"
"You know it," Frank smiles. "Seasoned vet, I told you." He drops to his knees and starts looking through their boxes for a shortlist of CDs for the party.
.
"Another lawn chair!" one of the girls by the front door announces to the room at large when someone new arrives with more donated furniture, and at least five people toast with bottles held high, laughing.
Frank can't walk five steps without someone stopping him to talk. The air is humid and reeks of sweat and spilled beer, Thrice blaring from the stereo just loud enough that people have to shout to hear each other properly. A few guys are shoving each other around while they smoke by the window, there's a very involved game of poker going on at their new kitchen table, and at least three people are sprawled on the floral-print mattress someone dumped in the middle of the living room. It's nice to see so many familiar faces in one place and Frank's feeling good.
"Shit," Frank laughs when people move aside to tuck the new chair under the table, clapping Mikey on the shoulder as he worms past him to get to the vodka in the freezer, "we're gonna be decked out, dude!"
"B-Y-O-Furniture," Mikey agrees, meeting his eyes with a smile for a moment before turning back to the girl he was talking to. Frank recognizes the short red hair: the girl Mikey's been hooking up with on and off the past few months whenever they're in town.
Frank goes to break the seal at some point after midnight. There are some dudes hot-boxing the bathroom, one guy he used to run into at Pipeline and two of his friends, so after Frank's pissed and tucked his dick away, he stays in there with them to catch up.
"Ah, fuck you," Frank laughs when Chaz, sitting on the countertop, kicks at Frank's knees and reminisces about going to see his band play in '96. Frank plucks the joint from his smirking lips and takes a double hit, pausing while he holds it in to sit down on the lid of the toilet seat. "Sector 12 was the shit, man," Frank drawls on an exhale, earthy-sweet smoke curling up in front of his face. "Ahead of our time."
The two dudes in the bathtub ask what Frank's been up to since Pipeline closed down, so he tells them about Pencey and jumping ship to My Chem, touring, how crazy it was that they made it to Europe last spring, while they pass the blunt around.
They brace their laced-up shit-kickers on the rim of Frank's tub and look at him skeptically, like he's just another kid from Jersey talking big about his own band. It doesn't give Frank the itch between his shoulder blades that it used to. Maybe he's just too stoned to care, or maybe he doesn't need to put his fist in a dude's gut to prove that his band is going places; they can just watch and see.
One more joint and two interruptions from people who have to piss later, Frank's smiling to himself, paying more attention to the happy chemical buzz in his bloodstream than the conversation, when one of the guys slaps his own thigh hard, laughing, and Frank looks over. "No fucking way, the kid with the Disney tapes?" he's saying, and Chaz nods back at him, grinning. "Man, I heard he got into some serious shit."
"He's in Frank's band, dude," Chaz says with raised eyebrows, pushing sweaty hair out of his face and pointing at Frank.
Frank grins, "Fuck yeah he is. Mikey Way? He's my roommate too, we moved in today."
Just then Chaz chokes on the hit he was taking, raising his middle finger in the direction of the bathtub when the guys call him a pussy. "Frank—" he says, voice reedy as he emerges from his coughing fit. "Fuck, this is some strong shit. Frank, man, you gotta watch yourself."
Frank frowns. "Why?"
"Remember when he auditioned for Pencey? Like, what—four years ago?"
"Five," Frank says. Shit, he'd almost forgotten Mikey had tried out back then.
"Five, yeah." Chaz waves his hands around in the hazy air for a second. "Dude, he had the biggest fucking hard-on for you!" The guys in the tub burst out laughing, "No way!" and "Aw, fuck, for real?"
"What?" Frank blinks and rubs a hand up and down the back of his head, over the buzzed hair there. He has no idea how long he's been in here or how much he's smoked. He's feeling kind of fucked up. "Mikey?"
"Yeah dude," Chaz says, "remember Sam? With the leopard tattoo? We were dating, she and Mikey were tight back then. He was so into you he totally puked at her house before the audition."
"I—" Frank shakes his head. He feels kind of offended on Mikey's behalf. Or something. "No, man, fucking…" he swallows, closes his eyes to find the words, "Mikey's the straightest fuckin' arrow I know, seriously."
"Whatever, dude." Chaz grins. "Just be careful he doesn't jump you in the middle of the night." He makes some kind of groping gesture and it sets the other dudes off laughing again.
Frank stands up abruptly, kind of pissed off, but then remembers he's at his own party and he's trying this thing where he doesn't punch smug assholes in the face anymore.
"… the fuck ever," Frank mutters instead and ignores the chorus of "Oo-oh" from the fucking leather peanut gallery in his bathtub while he jiggles the doorknob open and spills back out into the hallway.
"Whoa, Frankie," Ray says as Frank bumps into his chest. His eyes are kind of unfocused, sweaty pieces of hair sticking to his forehead. "Killer party!"
Frank gets the bathroom door closed behind him and takes a deep breath of the relatively fresh air, licking his lips. "Yeah," he says absently, but he can't help grinning when Ray plants a big clammy hand on Frank's forehead and runs it down his face. "You're messed up, dude," Frank giggles as Ray's fingers catch on the neck of Frank's t-shirt and drag it down a bit.
"I know, right? Shiiiiiit." Ray laughs and then he's slipping down the wall and accidentally tickling Frank's ribs and Frank goes down with him, laughing along.
.
Living with Mikey Way is kind of like what Frank imagines dorms at college would have been like, if he hadn't lived at home: they eat a lot of instant noodles, go home to do laundry, stay up way too late playing Zelda, brag about the shits they take, and hang socks on their doorknobs when they're getting laid.
The awesome thing about living with Mikey Way in their own apartment, though, is that no one gives them crap for being messy, and they're old enough to fill their own fridge with booze. Also they're in a fucking band and don't have to go to class. That part is especially awesome.
Whenever they go out Frank helps Mikey with his stupid pointy fake mohawk, Mikey's limp hair in one hand while he blow-dries it up with the other. "The new Blur album isn't complete shit," Mikey'll say from between his shoulders, bent over and braced on the kitchen counter, and Frank will tell him that yes, it really is, as he smears hair gel on Mikey's neck, making him laugh.
Sometimes Frank makes the mistake of eating scrambled eggs or a grilled cheese or whatever the fuck else his stomach has decided it won't digest that week, and Mikey will turn up Die Hard real loud on their TV and they'll shout lines at each other through the bathroom door until Frank's better.
They argue over track listings for mix CDs, kneeling on the carpet in front of the shitty computer Frank's dad leant him. They host a couple of poker nights (and more than one D&D session that lasts until five in the morning). And whenever Frank needs a record from an obscure band, or a new pair of shoes after he loses his at a show, or they get high and decide they have to own a bread-maker, Mikey will smile knowingly from under his stringy bangs. "I know a guy who knows a guy," he'll say, cross-legged on the mattress in the middle of their living room or tipping back in one of the plastic lawn chairs in their kitchen, "who can get us that."
Sometimes Frank thinks about 1998, about Mikey's audition and what Chaz said, and can't remember much aside from Mikey's spotty skin and skinny legs and how Frank fucked up his elbow spinning into a stack of speakers that night. Frank feels kind of bad that he can't remember more. He wonders if it's something Mikey remembers really well.
"What?" Mikey asks around a mouthful of Chef Boyardee, when he catches Frank staring at him.
"Your face," Frank answers absently, and gets a few bony toes in his side for his trouble.
.
They play a show in Passaic that month and, apart from one night in New York, they've been off tour for nearly six weeks. It feels like a homecoming, in a way.
"Look at that fucking line!" Frank announces to the rest of the guys, slamming his hands against the van window as they pull up at the venue. It feels strange to be playing a show on a full night of sleep, for once; Frank's got energy to spare.
It's fucking cold out, so Frank wraps his denim jacket around himself tightly as he tumbles out after Otter slides the door open. He hugs and fist-bumps old friends in line, warm puffs of air between them as they laugh. It's awesome to see so many people who've been coming out to their shows since the start.
"Next spring, probably," Frank is telling a girl he met backstage a few months ago, "that's when we're hoping the record'll be done, anyway. Who fucking knows!" Frank looks down the line, spots Mikey's tangled hair—Mikey did it himself tonight, their bathroom reeks of hairspray now—and Ray's head rising and falling in the crowd as they talk to people. He sees Gerard and Otter smoking with the bouncer and it feels good, like Frank's got a place he belongs. His cheeks already hurt from smiling so much.
Frank's strung tight backstage, pacing in the hallway and rubbing his hands back and forth over the buzzed-short crown of his scalp while Mikey and Ray chill and talk about a mutual friend they saw outside. Frank knows he's being exactly the kind of twitchy motherfucker that Gerard can't handle when he's nervous before a show, but he can't help it.
When he gets sick of cracking his knuckles and rolling his shoulders, Frank comes up behind Mikey and grinds his fists into the meaty part of his back for a little while just to do something, blue t-shirt bunching under his knuckles. Mikey bears it patiently and keeps talking, only raising a finger to push his glasses up when they're jolted down his nose.
"How do you live with this spaz?" Ray asks eventually, laughing as he peers over Mikey's shoulder.
Mikey shrugs but Frank sees the way his ear moves back, knows that it means Mikey's smiling. "Because he loves me," Frank says magnanimously, crowding Mikey with a bear hug from behind.
"Erk," Mikey says when Frank squeezes, but laughs a little when Frank hops up on his toes to plant a dry kiss against Mikey's jaw. "I'm only in it for the free meals," Mikey says to Ray in a stage whisper, "I don't think he's realized that I haven't bought any groceries yet." Frank tries to tickle Mikey from behind but nearly gets an elbow in his face before he darts out of the way, light on his toes, grinning.
The venue is perfect, fucking perfect, audience tight up against the stage as Gerard hunches his shoulders and screams the beginning of Skylines at them. Frank loves it here because he knows every inch of the stage, knows what it's like under his shoes, his knees, his cheek. He knows the sticky floor of the pit, too, has been on that side of the room more times than he can count.
Frank trips on a cable during Sorrows and only catches himself with a rush of adrenaline as he twists at the last second and lands on his back. He's up almost immediately and his eyes are open but he's not really seeing anything, lurching around in time with the driving chorus. He can never stay still during this song; if he didn't have a guitar to hold onto he'd be throwing his head back and his elbows out, spinning in the pit, screaming hard into people's faces as they passed him by.
He finishes the song sharing the mic with Gerard, throat hoarse, and staggers backwards in the sudden quiet as the ring of Ray's guitar dies out and the crowd screams back at them. Gerard grips Frank's shoulder hard for a second before shoving him away, a kind of pat on the back, and Frank turns to meet Ray and Otter's eyes with a big shit-eating grin.
Spaz, Mikey mouths at him with a small smile, legs spread and feet planted firmly in the same spot they've been since the start of the set. Frank sticks his tongue out just as he slams into the opening chords of Honey and bends double with the force of the down-stroke. When he whips his head back up, Mikey's eyes are still on him but his face is kind of hard to read, teeth in his bottom lip.
Frank's mouth is suddenly watering and he turns to spit at the empty side of the stage. He plants a shoe on his amp, braces himself with a bent knee, and bangs his head in time with every person in the room.
.
The night doesn't end when they stumble off the stage on jelly legs with stupid smiles on their faces, sweat-soaked t-shirts sticking to their skin. They shoot the shit with the crowd for the next hour or so and Frank runs into a couple of friends from college, the rare few he met who weren't total douchebags.
He hasn't seen them since he dropped out, and it feels pretty awesome to show that them that this is what he does for a living. They don't talk down to him—good for you—the way so many people do when they actually mean get a real job. Frank walks with them to the merch table and gets them some free CDs.
Of the group from Frank's old school, the two chicks and one of the guys who came from upstate are too wasted to drive home, so Frank gets them a ride back to his and Mikey's place in the band's van. He kind of likes having a place to offer up for people to crash at, a place that's not just the back seat or his mom's basement.
They sit around the living room smoking a few bowls and eating from a couple of battered bags of Cheetos that Frank found under a seat in the van. Mikey settles down in the corner and smokes with them, smiling quietly through their catch-up conversation about shitty cafeteria food and bullshit professors. He doesn't really meet their eyes much but Frank knows his body language, knows it's not a big deal.
Frank takes a piss and when he gets back his friends are ripping on Mikey for staying in the exact same spot on stage all night. Frank hesitates, frowning, but Mikey's smiling that little smile that means he's having a good time.
"Epic stage fright," Mikey says, eyes in his lap where he's fingering a green plastic lighter. "I'm a deer in fucking headlights every time, you should see when they have to carry me offstage." Frank's friends laugh and Frank joins them, sitting back down on the floor.
"We were gonna just take a cardboard cut-out of him to Europe," Frank explains, cracking his knuckles, "save ourselves an airplane ticket. But we couldn't leave the fucker behind."
Mikey suddenly looks up for the first time since they got the bong out, meets Frank's eyes with a smile that shows a little teeth, and out of nowhere Frank's cheeks get hot.
"Where the fuck did those Cheetos go?" Frank asks, cutting his gaze to someone else.
Eventually one of Frank's friends starts to pass out propped up against the wall, so they decide to call it a night. He offers his bed to one of the girls and Mikey follows suit for the other one and her boyfriend. He and Frank only move enough to hit the light switch and grab the funky-smelling blanket from behind the TV before they collapse back on the mattress in their living room.
"Oh god," Frank moans, wiggling around a bit just to feel all his body parts intact, "what a fucking show, huh?"
"Mmm," Mikey agrees and tries to spread-eagle it, nailing Frank in the face, "totally awesome."
"Motherfucker," Frank says. He bites at Mikey's hand until he pulls it back and rolls away onto his side. "Pillows?"
"Ungh," Mikey replies, tossing his glasses a few feet away before groping around for a hoodie that he passes to Frank.
"Thanks, man." Frank balls it under his head and collapses onto his back. It's only then, with the high of the show worn off, that he feels the ache in his knees, the bruise forming on his back where he hit the stage. It feels good to not be moving anymore.
He thinks Mikey's already passed out and is focused loosely on the soft noise of cars passing by on the wet street outside when Mikey suddenly says, "We dropped out of college a year ago last month."
Frank startles at the noise, shaking the mattress slightly, and blinks up at the dark ceiling. "Yeah." He sucks his lip ring into his mouth, pops it back out again. "Shit, a year ago. My family was so fucking pissed."
Mikey snorts lightly, "'Least they weren't losing two sons to a shitty punk band."
Frank rolls his eyes, bumps the back of Mikey's ankle with his socked foot. "Don't even, you had Elena all over that shit."
Mikey hums in agreement. "Fuck, can you believe that was only last year? We've toured the country since then. We've been to Amsterdam." He laughs to himself. "We nearly lost Ray to Amsterdam."
Frank giggles too, remembering the passport shit-show that spring, and lets out a big sigh, smiling into the darkness. "This is for real, Mikey Way. For real for real."
Mikey rolls onto his back and looks over at Frank, eyes huge without his glasses on.
"What?" Frank feels kind of weird under Mikey's gaze and shoves at his shoulder half-heartedly. "I'm just, like, having a moment. Okay?"
Mikey pushes his hair out of his own face. "I have a lot of moments, dude. I get it."
They smile at each other in the dark for a minute before Mikey pulls the blanket back up and Frank suddenly gets a whiff of stale sweat and hair product, screwing his face up at the smell. "Aw, dude, you fucking reek. Did you change when we got home?"
Mikey squeezes his eyes shut while he smiles one of his biggest, stupidest, middle-of-the-night smiles and says "Nope!" brightly before tucking the blanket up around his ears.
"Asshole," Frank mutters, but there's not much feeling behind it.
The last thing Frank thinks before he passes out is that Mikey didn't bring that red-headed girl home, even though Frank saw them talking at the show. It strikes Frank that he never found out her name, even though he ate his Count Chocula across the kitchen table from her a few times.
.
It's a pale sort of dawn light outside when Frank wakes up and has to piss. He rolls out from under the blanket and stumbles into the bathroom, eyes still mostly closed while he does his thing.
He stops when he gets back to the living room to lift his hands up over his head and stretch, scratching at his stomach where his belt dug in and left marks in his sleep. He falls heavily down onto his knees on the mattress and only remembers Mikey's there when the lump under the blanket bounces slightly.
"Shit," Frank whispers and freezes, holds his breath, but Mikey doesn't move. His hair's all fucked up and he's half on his back, arm across his own chest and mouth slightly open.
Mikey looks so young, so different without his glasses on. His arm's kind of soft-looking where it's flung across his chest and he's got a patch under his chin where he forgot to shave. It has that look like it'd be rough, maybe prickly.
Frank blinks.
He totally just thought about kissing Mikey Way's neck.
Frank digs the heels of his hands into his eyes for a minute and takes a deep breath. He breathes evenly, watching lights dance behind his eyelids, and thinks about pushing Mikey's broad shoulders down into the mattress and grabbing the pale skin of his hips where his girl-jeans have slipped down, feeling the jut of Mikey's hipbones under his palms. And—well.
Frank drops his hands into his lap and looks hopelessly down at his actual roommate, the line of his jaw, eyelashes dark against his pale skin, long fingers splayed out across his own belly. Frank would totally hit that, holy shit.
Frank bounces up onto his feet, sucking in a breath. He's smiling, which is fucking stupid, it's ass-o'clock in the morning and he's got the beginnings of a hangover and he's never been into a dude before and it should be scary or stupid but it's just—it's Mikey. It doesn't feel anything but good. Frank stares down at Mikey for a few more moments, at the way the sharp and soft lines of his body seem to take a different shape when Frank thinks about fitting himself along them.
There's no fucking way Frank's going to go back to sleep now, so he steps into his sneakers, pulls on a hoodie, and grabs the Discman that's sitting on top of the TV before slipping out the door. It's dead out on the street, too early for commuters and too late for kids stumbling home from the bar. It's overcast and everything's wet from the rain the night before, cold enough for Frank to put his hood up and dig his hands in his pockets.
Frank pulls the plastic headphones on and flips through the mix CD as he thinks about 1998, wonders what Mikey imagined them doing, how Mikey saw the lines of Frank's body and thought yeah. Want that.
He's ten minutes into his walk when a shitty song from the new Blur album comes on the CD. Frank's thumb hovers instinctively over the "next" button in his pocket, but he smiles and doesn't press it this time, sneakers hitting the pavement, left-right.
.
"Living with Mikey Way is like taking one for the team," Frank says into the phone as he suffers through another afternoon kicked off his own computer so that Mikey can stalk his one million MySpace friends or whatever. Frank is still in his room and when Mikey gives him the finger without turning around, he can see the shifting muscles of Mikey's back through his t-shirt.
"Eh," Frank responds when Gerard asks if Mikey's making out with someone in a bed that's not his. Again. "He's making out, like, electronically. With everyone on the internet." Gerard laughs and Frank elaborates: "He's totally slipping the tongue to this chick with a uni-brow, I can see it from here. Did you know your brother was into cybersex?"
"It's not a uni-brow, it's make-up," Mikey says and Frank is already laughing as Gerard tells him about the time their parents banned Mikey from the computer because they accidentally saw an e-mail with some pretty explicit photos attached.
"How's writing going?" Frank asks after a while, idly working his bare toes through the slats on the back of the lawn chair at his desk to dig into the bare skin at the base of Mikey's spine.
Mikey bats his toes away but Frank comes back as soon as Mikey's hand is curled over the mouse again. "Yeah?" Frank asks around a smile while Gerard explains lovers making deals with the Devil.
"Shit!" Frank laughs when Mikey finally grabs Frank's foot and yanks hard, so Frank loses his balance and falls on his back on the mattress. Mikey climbs on top, bony knees digging in to all of Frank's soft parts as he grabs Frank's forearm. Gerard sighs like he always does when he thinks people aren't paying enough attention to him. "No! Gerard, I can't—" Frank tries to get his arm back, laughing, but he's still holding the phone in one hand.
"Oh fuck!" Frank drops the phone and kicks out when Mikey gives him an Indian sunburn, sharp flare of pain at the twist of his skin, lifting his hips off the bed until he tips Mikey over. Frank punches randomly at Mikey's scrawny arms and kind of eyes up where his too-small t-shirt stretches across his chest and pinches in at the armpit. Frank thinks about how much he'd miss tits if he was with Mikey, but the heat of Mikey's thighs tangled up with his and the giggle Mikey's got going on feel pretty good.
Frank meets Mikey's gaze, tries to ignore Gerard's long-suffering voice coming from somewhere in the folds of his bed sheets, and makes what he hopes is an if you kissed me right now I would totally let you face at his roommate.
Mikey rolls off and passes him the phone, so Frank thinks maybe he needs to work on his faces.
.
It's only a few weeks before Christmas, and that means it's less than a month before they fly to L.A. to start recording the new album. It feels kind of surreal and far away to Frank, cross-legged on his living room floor while the five of them dick around with new song ideas.
Frank's been plucking out notes, trying to follow along with the melody that Gerard's singing with gibberish not-yet-lyrics. Ray's boxers are sticking out of the top of his pants as he leans over his amp, fiddling with the feedback, while Otter sits at one of their wobbly lawn chairs and bangs his sticks idly off a lone snare drum between his knees.
Frank looks over to the kitchen where Mikey is stirring sugar into the coffee he's been carefully preparing for the last five minutes. He's still got his bass slung over his shoulder and when he leans forward to pick the mug up, the neck of his bass swings forward, knocking the entire cup into the sink before Mikey can curl his fingers around the handle.
"Oh," Mikey says sadly. Frank snorts.
"Bel-ieve," Gerard sings, on his back on the living room mattress, and frowns up at the ceiling. "Sle-eve?"
"Guys, I don't think L.A. is gonna be able to handle us," Otter says as he raps his sticks on the rim of his snare.
"Yeah," Gerard says, rolling over onto his stomach and sighing. "I need to go work on these more. Somewhere I can surround myself with lots of pictures of blood."
Frank smiles down at his guitar, picking at his D string. Fuck yeah, this is his band.
After Gerard and Otter leave, Ray hangs around a little bit to practice what they've been calling Gerard's 'pissed-off teenager song'. The lyrics are still in progress but it scratches an itch for all of them, kind of like closing the book on a chapter of their lives while spitting a big fuck you into its face at the same time.
Ray's solo for the song is killer, and Frank kind of forgets the chords he's supposed to be playing, hand stilling on the neck of his guitar while Ray closes his eyes and plays. He's banging his head a bit, biting his lip, and the way he bends the notes makes Frank's skin tingle. He never gets tired of watching Ray Toro shred his face off.
Frank's been thinking about Mikey's Pencey audition a lot lately. Watching Ray now, he thinks about My Chem shows he went to before he joined, about how he had to elbow kids out of his way constantly to keep a clear view of Ray, because Frank wanted to see just where his fingers landed on his guitar, to see if some of that would maybe rub off on Frank.
Frank blinks and looks over to where Mikey's fiddling away at his bass, unplugged, next to him. Mikey looks up at him and smiles, the line of his jaw softening and his eyes warm. Frank's face heats up and he closes his eyes, tipping his head back against the wall as his stomach clenches just trying to imagine Mikey feeling that way about Frank, eighteen and awkward on his own guitar. Damn.
Frank thinks blushing constantly has got to give this guy some idea that Frank wants him to make a move, already. Fuck.
"Good call, I'm pretty tired too," Ray says, and Frank opens his eyes to see him slipping his guitar into its case, smiling. "But it is pretty awesome not having someone's sleeping parents upstairs telling us to keep it down when we practice here."
"Only this princess, if he passes out on us," Mikey says, poking Frank in the stomach with his bass.
"Now why," Frank asks, wrapping his fingers around the neck of Mikey's bass and grinning, "would you go and fuck up your tuning like that?" He laughs and ignores Mikey's protests as he grabs randomly at the tuning pegs, twisting them in different directions.
"And I'll just leave my tuner right here?" Ray rolls his eyes, setting it down on the floor in front of them before propping the door open with his foot and hoisting his guitar and amp through it. "'Night!" he calls behind himself and Mikey and Frank echo it, giggling, as the door swings shut.
Frank feels warm and happy, likes that at the end of the day when everyone's gone home, he's here on the beer-stained carpet next to Mikey.
"Can you actually do it by ear?" He asks after a few minutes of watching Mikey pluck at the strings, turning the tuning pegs back and forth.
"Nah, just trying to look cool," Mikey admits before giving up and settling back against the wall. He stretches his legs out in front of him, toes turned in.
Frank strums an A chord, tinny with his guitar unplugged. It's quiet in their apartment, just the faint noise of a television coming from an apartment somewhere above them, the ticking of the radiator, and the hum of their fridge.
"Do you remember when you tried out for Pencey?" Frank asks, ignoring the heat prickling across his neck as he casually slides the chord up a few frets, turns it into an A-sharp.
Mikey huffs a little laugh, ducking his head down under his hair. "Yeah. Shit, dude, that was ages ago."
Frank hums in agreement, watches the way the little muscles in Mikey's forearm work while he plucks out some kind of a walking bass line, fingers stretched wide and making the tendons in his hands stand out in relief.
"I saw Chaz at our party. Remember him, he dated Sam? Used to hang out at Pipeline at lot?" Mikey doesn't say anything. Frank plays a shitty harmonic scale and stops with an exhale, closing his fingers over the strings and looking down at their feet. "He reminded me about it, I'd totally forgotten."
Mikey's still silent beside him and Frank thinks shit, that was too obvious, and forces a small laugh. "God, I was such a fucking poser then," he smiles into his lap. "Thought I was seriously hot shit because I went to more shows than the kid sitting next to me in chem class. What the fuck."
They both laugh softly that that. "Not to mention all the baggy t-shirts," Frank adds.
Mikey wiggles his toes in his grey socks. "Gerard went through the same phase, dude."
Frank remembers why he did it, and the feeling isn't a fantastic one. "Felt like I could hide what a fat-ass I was," he says with a dry laugh. "Thought throwing punches could do the same, too."
Mikey's quiet for a moment and Frank turns his head along the wall to look at him. He's got a few spots on his chin and his carefully-sprayed-up hair obscures his right eye, and Frank thinks yeah, okay, we all have our own shit.
"I thought you were cool," Mikey tells his feet. "You didn't take anybody's crap, even though you were the only kid in that group still in high school. Like you weren't ashamed, or whatever." Frank watches Mikey's face as he says it, and it makes his stomach flip over. Frank swallows.
Mikey looks up at him when Frank doesn't say anything, and Frank tries not to make any funny expressions or drop his gaze to Mikey's lips, just thinks I know you wanted me I know you wanted me I know you wanted me at Mikey's face like if he thinks it loud enough, Mikey'll hear.
Mikey's eyes slip down to Frank's mouth for a fraction of a section and Frank sucks in a breath, fingertips digging into the strings of his guitar, Yes, now, do it, but Mikey stands up quickly and pulls the strap of his bass over his shoulder, dropping it onto the mattress.
"I'm fucking wiped, dude," Mikey says and doesn't meet Frank's eyes when Frank frowns. "'Night?"
"Yeah, okay... 'night."
Frank sits in the living room for a while, looking at Mikey's bass on the mattress in front of him. He should maybe take a fucking hint already, but he's never been very good at that. He tries and he tries until things go his way or he gets knocked on his ass; either way he knows where he stands.
Frank doesn't move until Mikey's finished brushing his teeth, until he hears the creak of Mikey's bedsprings shifting under his weight and it's quiet except for Frank's breath. He thinks about just saying it, just putting it out there: I know you were into me, dude. He thinks about spreading his arms wide in front of Mikey's surprised face, looking up at him, saying here I fucking am and waiting.
Waiting.
Frank tongues his lip ring and sides his fingers down the neck of his guitar, and somewhere between the second and the twelfth fret, he realizes that he's waiting for Mikey to make a move. That audition was five fucking years ago, why would Mikey decide to make his move now?
Frank needs to get his shit in gear.
.
Frank's shit-in-gear plan gets off to a great start the next morning, when he sets his alarm early to make pancakes. Or, okay, empty a box of Aunt Jemima mix into a bowl, add water, and pour blobs of batter into their lone frying pan.
Frank's standing there in boxers and a hoodie (he was going to try being shirtless to distract Mikey with his totally hot body, but it's December and it's fucking cold, so Mikey'll just have to get the backs of his beautifully-sculpted legs), rolling an unlit cigarette back and forth in his mouth, when he hears Mikey's bedroom door open and then the front door unlatch right after.
"Mikey—" he spins around and starts, but Mikey's already halfway out the front door.
His head appears, eyes kind of all over the place. His hair has that look like he hasn't even seen a mirror yet, and he's already leaving the house. "Yeah?"
"Pancakes?" Frank tries to smile very casually as he says this, but he may still have a bit of morning wood going on, he hasn't looked down and it would probably be pretty sketchy to do it while Mikey's standing right there.
"Um, parents. I should... visit them, haven't gone over in a while," Mikey says vaguely. "Sorry?"
"Sure?" Frank's cigarette flops neatly out of his downturned mouth and onto the linoleum floor just as the door swings shut. Well shit.
.
Frank may be totally hopeless about how to get Mikey Way to put out, but he resolves not to be a fucking emo kid about it and eats every last pancake himself before spending the morning answering e-mails and playing some Excitebike on his NES. He has lunch with Shaun and Hambone at a diner, sits like a creeper on a bench at the park and watches other people's dogs play, and doesn't let himself go home until dinnertime.
Mikey isn't there.
Frank's cheeks sting from the cold and he can't feel his fingers when he gets into the apartment so he thinks fuck this noise and pours himself a bath. He goes the whole nine yards, even lighting a stick of incense (they bought it mostly for when parents visit and they've only got a five-minute warning to clear out the smell of weed) and plugging the stereo in just outside the door, popping in a mix CD he made a few summers back.
When Frank's done washing his hair and scrubbing at his 'pits with a bar of soap, he lies there a little bit, warm and happy, while Jello Biafra sings Pol Pot Pol Pot Pol Pot Pol Pot! at him through the door in his weird, beautiful, Biafra way. Frank lets his fingers float in the warm water and wiggles them in time to the guitar while the thinks about Mikey.
Frank's never been into a dude before, not in a way where he thinks about sinking his teeth into the wide muscles of his shoulders, or fisting a hand in his stupid tangled hair. Frank's been with a fair number of girls; he definitely likes ones who can hold their own, and he's got a spank bank full of memories of those ones to last a lifetime. But Frank's never even kissed another guy, or touched another dick before.
He wonders how weird it would be and skims the palm of his hand over the head of his own dick, bobbing slightly in the ripple of the water. Frank tries to pretend that it's not his dick he's touching, making a circle with his thumb and forefinger and jacking himself idly with a showy sort of twist at the head. It feels good, and Frank imagines that he's feeling some other dude's cock swell and fill out under his palm while he closes his eyes and sucks his lip ring into his mouth to worry at it with his teeth.
It surprises Frank to realize that despite all the touring and living in close quarters for the past few years, he's never seen Mikey's dick. Frank hums, echoing tinny off the bathroom tiles, while he pulls at his own. It's not always true, but usually bigger dudes have bigger dicks. Frank doesn't know if that's something he's into or not.
Frank blushes when he pushes two fingers into his own mouth, keeps his eyes closed, but thinks what the fuck ever, no one's watching, and stuffs as many fingers in there as he can, trying to imagine what it'd feel like to suck a dude off. It's awkward and his fingers don't taste like much of anything, but Frank starts to pump his cock a little faster. It's kind of hot in a weird sort of way, drooling all over himself, and Frank gasps when his fingers slip a bit farther back and he nearly gags, dick twitching in his hand.
"Ah, fuck," he moans loudly around his knuckles just to hear it, rolling the back of his head from side to side along the rim of the tub, and the splashing noise as he speeds up his hand on his cock would be kind of ridiculous if Black Flag wasn't blasting from the stereo at the same time. Frank thinks about Mikey's blue corduroy pants, the ones that always ride too low, and imagines just slipping them down and off and getting his hand inside. Or—fuck, Frank feels his balls draw up, toes curling in the water—Mikey pushing Frank down onto the floor, grinning his stupid grin while he wraps long fingers around Frank's dick and jacks him off, tight and fast.
It's a total stroke of luck that when Frank comes, it's into the cupped palm of his hand (a reflex, considering he usually rubs one out when he's in bed), because gloppy bits of jizz floating around the bathwater would be a bitch to clean up. Frank swallows thickly as he comes down from it, chest rising and falling in the steamy air of the bathroom, licking his lips and fighting to keep his eyes open when it feels like his entire body's leaked out of his cock.
Frank leans over the edge of the tub to wipe his hand off on the towel hanging by the sink, making a mental note to stick it in the laundry later, before smiling happily and sinking back down into the water.
Frank's eaten some leftover chow mein for dinner and is on the phone with his mom when he hears the front door open. He doesn't get up, tries to play it cool. It's only when Mikey's finished clattering around in the kitchen and Frank hears him swing the bathroom door shut and turn the shower on, that he realizes his spunk is all over Mikey's towel and he totally forgot to take it out of the bathroom.
"Shit! Mom, I gotta go." Frank laughs at himself—seriously, this is his life—and agrees to spend Christmas at home before hanging up and tossing the phone into the mess of blankets on his bed.
"Frank?" Mikey's voice is kind of lost behind the sound of the spray hitting the tub, but he must have heard the door open or felt the rush of cold air when Frank came into the bathroom.
"Yeah, hi!" Frank thanks the landlords that be for giving them a shower curtain that isn't see-through, as he stealthily slips Mikey's towel off the hanger and replaces it with one Frank had grabbed from Mikey's closet. "Sorry, I just had to—um." Frank spins around in place aimlessly and then stops, facing the toilet. "Take a piss! I couldn't hold it. Y'know."
"You gotta stop mainlining those venti lattes," Mikey says from the other side of the curtain, but he doesn't sound too concerned.
Frank's zipping up when he notices Mikey's clothes in a pile on the floor. He pauses. Frank's pancake plan didn't work out, but he's just had another brilliant idea about how to help Mikey Way get over himself and look Frank in the eye again.
"Yeah, those fucking lattes," Frank says loudly as he shucks his t-shirt and steps out of his pants as quietly as he can. "Later!" Frank has to bite his lip to stop from laughing as he scoops up Mikey's clothes, leaving his own in a pile on the floor, and slams the bathroom door closed behind himself.
When Mikey steps out of the bathroom, Frank is sprawled out in one of the lawn chairs in the kitchen, wearing Mikey's stupid bell-bottomed jeans and baseball t-shirt. "'Sup," Frank says, not lifting his eyes from the issue of AP in his lap as he flips the page. He has to fight to keep his lips from quirking up, though, when he sees Mikey move into his peripheral vision and gets a glimpse of knobbly ankles sticking out beneath too-short pants. Frank starts laughing.
"What the fuck?" Mikey's glasses are sort of foggy and his eyebrows are draw together. He looks kind of put out. Frank's t-shirt is pretty short on him, and Mikey's got one hand fisted in the waist of Frank's baggy cargo pants, presumably to hold them up. Frank didn't actually expect Mikey to put the clothes on.
"What the fuck, what the fuck?" Frank grins, and slaps his magazine closed before primly crossing his legs.
"You're wearing my—" Mikey waves a hand from Frank's head to toe. "Could you even do them up?"
"It was kind of a struggle," Frank admits, "my balls are totally crushed right now."
That finally makes Mikey smile and he pauses for a few more seconds, looking confused, before sighing and dropping down onto the living room mattress. "Okay, fine." Mikey sprawls out on his back and Frank's belly twists hotly when he notices that Mikey isn't wearing any underwear, faint line of pubes showing above the waist of Frank's cargo pants. Well shit, that'd be because Frank stole Mikey's underwear and it's now on the floor of Frank's room. Frank giggles.
"What?" Mikey lifts his head up, giving himself approximately four chins, and peers at Frank down the line of his nose.
"Nothing." Frank levers himself off the chair and onto the floor, wincing as he pops the top button on the jeans with his thumb and forefinger. "Ah fuck, these are so tight." Mikey looks kind of smug about it. "I just wanted you to chill out, dude, you were all weird this morning."
Mikey blows a raspberry into the air as he looks back up at the ceiling, tugging the hem of Frank's t-shirt down. The pants are too low to properly cover up his stomach. "Dunno what you're talking about."
"Riiiiight," Frank drawls. "How's the family?"
"Fine." Mikey combs his fingers through his wet hair. "I got a quarter off Gee, it's in my back pocket if you wanna smoke it."
Frank grins and fishes the baggie out of his jeans. "That's a way better haul than the usual leftover marinara, dude."
They fight over what music they're gonna blaze to—Mikey isn't in the mood for a band with more than two guitars, what the fuck ever—but they finally decide on the new Strokes album that neither of them has had a chance to listen to yet. When they've smoked the joint down to the filter, Julian Casablancas is begging Please don't slow me down if I'm going too fast and they've pushed the mattress up to the wall so they can sit propped against it, legs spread out in front of them.
"She bailed on him yesterday," Mikey's explaining after Frank asks what's up with that chick Gerard is always talking about, "and told him her grandma was sick."
"Ouch," Frank winces. "Sick grandmas, that's bad news. Gerard is getting played."
Mikey sighs and sticks his bottom lip out, dropping the roach into his now-empty beer bottle and setting it on the carpet. "He gets so into girls, y'know? Like, I could never tell him, but I think it scares them off."
"Gotta learn how to play it cool," Frank agrees. He should know, he's dealing with the skittery motherfucker sitting right next to him. Frank rubs his hand over his face, feeling kind of swimmy and unfocused. "Fuuuck, I'm feelin' good. You?"
"Mm-hm," Mikey hums with a smile, giving Frank a once-over with red-rimmed eyes. "Look at you. My fuckin' jeans, man. I hope you're wearing boxers."
Frank sits up straight and laughs, shoving at Mikey's shoulder. "I am but I know you aren't, dude. Those are my pants you're rubbing your balls all over."
Mikey wiggles around on the mattress and Frank goes "Aw, no. Come on!"
"You're the one who took my underwear." Mikey laughs, tucking his hair behind his ears. It's kind of stringy and soft-looking without any shit in it. Girly, maybe.
"I can't believe your goddamn flared jeans are so fucking tiny," Frank complains. "I should be smaller than you, fuck this shit."
Mikey crawls across the room to his backpack, rooting around in it while Frank tips his head to the side and eyes the soft-looking dimples at the base of his spine, the top of his ass showing above Frank's sagging cargo pants. "I can see your crack," Frank says, because he's terrible at keeping his mouth closed when he's stoned.
"Sucks to be you," Mikey says and doesn't pull the pants up as he crawls back to plant his ass next to Frank again, flush up against him this time. "Cheese?" He wraps a long arm around Frank's shoulders and holds the disposable camera out in front of them with his other arm.
"Oh! Fuck yeah, cheese," Frank laughs, and presses his cheek up against Mikey's, smooth from shaving in the bathroom earlier. "Motherfuckin' gouda," Frank says as he grins so big his eyes squeeze shut. Mikey laughs—"No! One more!"—and Frank rolls his eyes.
"Here," Frank says, and grabs the side of Mikey's face to hold him in place as he smashes his lips up against Mikey's cheek for a kiss. "Mmm?" he mumbles into Mikey's skin while he takes the picture.
"Ah! Shit. Yeah, okay." Mikey's kind of pink and smiling down at his lap when Frank pulls back. He turns the disposable camera over in his hands.
"Sorry, I'm just trying to get into your pants," Frank says.
"You are in my pants," Mikey says, and it makes Frank feel all warm inside when they both laugh.
"Damn straight." Frank leans over and tucks a finger into one of the belt loops just below Mikey's hipbone. He's totally flirting with his roommate, what the fuck.
Mikey gets all pink again and Frank lets himself look, grinning. Before he can stop himself he says, "Y'know, Chaz told me you were gonna try to get into my pants."
Mikey goes kind of still against Frank's side and Frank closes his eyes for a moment, breathes through the wave of embarrassment prickling hot across his skin, and keeps going: "He said Sam told him, when you tried out for Pencey."
"I don't even remember…" Mikey says and kind of trails off. His hair's fallen in his face again. He puts the camera on the floor and shoves his glasses up. "That was a long time ago, dude."
"Mikey." Frank's already all up in his space, can smell Mikey's shampoo and his sweat, and is surprised by how easy it is to just slip his fingers out of the belt loop and close his palm over the front of Mikey's—or Frank's, whatever—pants. "It's cool," Frank says. He has to close his eyes because his heart is racing, but he presses his forehead to Mikey's temple, breathing hot against his cheek.
"Uh," Mikey says quietly, and his hand twitches between them but he doesn't move away. "Frank, that's my dick."
Frank giggles suddenly, because he's high and kind of immature and Mikey just said 'dick'. Also, he's putting the moves on a dude. "I know it's your dick," Frank says, and sort of rubs his nose back and forth against Mikey's cheek a bit. "I was kinda thinking about this, today. Before you got home." Ah fuck, he shouldn't be doing this high, he's not gonna be able to keep anything to himself.
Mikey's breath comes out kind of shaky. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Frank echoes immediately, and at some point the nervous roiling in his stomach has turned into a nice warm buzz, maybe because Mikey hasn't pushed him away or maybe because Frank's already half-hard in Mikey's stupid too-tight jeans, and yeah, yeah, he can do this. Frank pops the button on the cargo pants easily. "I've never, uh..." Frank hesitates after he's got the zipper down, feels Mikey's stomach tense under his fingers, "touched another guy's dick before."
"Oh." Frank opens his eyes to see Mikey's lips wet and red and parted. He turns his gaze down to watch his own hand, chipped black nail polish and skin a shade darker than Mikey's, slip under the fabric and rest over warm, hot skin. "Shit," Mikey breathes, curling his fingers into the loose fabric at the sides of his pants, "Frank."
Frank licks his lips and pulls Mikey's dick out, careful of the zipper, and palms it a little. "Thought about how big you'd be," Frank says around a dry swallow, and Mikey's breath hitches, cock hardening in Frank's hand. He's bigger than Frank, that's for sure, pink and curving up against dark hair and a pale belly. "Thought about blowing you," Frank adds, and folds his palm over the length of it, trapped between Frank's hand and Mikey's stomach.
"Shit, Frankie." Mikey's eyebrows are drawn together, eyes squeezed shut as he pants, "What the fuck."
Frank's sweating through Mikey's t-shirt and totally hard in Mikey's jeans now, and there's gotta be a better position than this. He swings a leg over Mikey's lap to sit on his thighs, bracing his free hand against the wall next to Mikey's head.
"What, dude?" Frank asks, grinning, and decides that he kind of likes being a cock tease. He curls his shoulders in and moves his hand up and down a little, turning it to rub his thumb over the sticky tip of Mikey's cock.
"Fuck you," Mikey swears, face all screwed up and hands fisting at his sides. "I'm too stoned for this shit," he groans, cheeks pink, "I'm gonna blow my load all over your shirt. Seriously." He meets Frank's eyes with a tight little smile. Fuck, that's hot.
Frank licks his lips and sits up, taking his hand off the wall to finally get the stupid jeans he's wearing open. They're too tight to push down while his knees are spread, though. "Ungh, these fucking pants." Frank rolls off of Mikey until he's on his back on the mattress, planting his heels and lifting his hips so he can wiggle them down and off with his underwear. He bounces back up onto his knees quickly and settles himself in Mikey's lap again, getting his hand back on his cock. Mikey's staring at him, mouth hanging open. "What?"
"Just—fucking—" Mikey swallows, Adam's apple bobbing, "you're gonna kill me, dude. Like twenty minutes ago we were talking about where we could get burritos this late at night and now your dick's waving all over the place." Mikey grins helplessly and closes his eyes. "I'd be creaming my pants if you'd done this when I was eighteen."
Frank blushes and smiles, ducking his face to mouth at Mikey's neck—damp and clean-tasting—while he starts to move his fist up and down on Mikey's dick. "Fuck, dude, you have no idea how hot that is. I was totally fucking clueless until Chaz told me."
"Yeah?" Mikey finally seems to remember he has hands too and folds them tentatively over Frank's hips, clammy and warm. "I was—fuck," he swears and tilts his head to the side to give Frank better access as he sucks a bruise into Mikey's neck "—totally embarrassing, I thought you were so fucking cool."
Frank snorts and shifts his shoulders to get a better angle, pumping Mikey's cock. "I was fat, angry, and still in high school, dude. You've got shitty taste."
Mikey's fingers squeeze at Frank's hips and Frank grunts, pushing them forwards a bit so his own dick bumps up against the back of his hand.
"Are you insulting my taste while you try to get me off?" Mikey's fingers slide up Frank's back under his shirt, digging into his shoulder muscles, and it feels good. "This is like the worst hand job ever."
"Fuck you, it's my first one." Frank bites softly at the place where he'd been sucking and Mikey swears, jerking away. "Mm-hm, you like that shit."
They stop ripping on each other for a few minutes while Frank spits in his palm and sits back on Mikey's legs. Mikey's hands skid down Frank's back and land on his thighs, and the look that he levels at Frank is dark and hot and makes Frank think that Mikey knows things, and maybe has moves, and some time when Frank isn't being a tunnel-vision pothead, he should try stuff out with him.
"Can I..." Mikey asks, sucking his bottom lip in his mouth until it pops out, red and wet. Frank nods dumbly as he gets his spit-slippery fist back around Mikey's cock, tries to remember what he likes when girls do it to him. Mikey licks his palms and closes them both over Frank's dick, fingers interlocking as he twists and pulls up, like a fucking pro.
"Oh fuck," Frank moans, head tipping back, running his free hand over his buzzed hair and down across his own face. His skin feels like it's vibrating, and he grinds his fist down into his own thigh, eyes screwed shut, just so he won't put it through the wall above Mikey's head instead. "Fuck, that feels good."
"Remember at the Pencey try-outs when you were playing 'Attention Reader' and you almost knocked over Shaun's keyboard, so you spun off and nailed your elbow on the speakers?" Mikey asks all in a rush, voice low. Frank can't open his eyes or he's gonna bust a nut all over both of them, but he nods, trying to remember to breathe and keep moving his hand on Mikey's cock at the same time. "You just screamed into the mic and played harder, like fucking nothing..." Mikey's breath catches and he loses his rhythm on Frank's dick for a second, "Shit, Frank, you always just throw yourself into it, like fucking nothing."
Frank groans and stuffs his fist in his mouth. He's shocked when Mikey's hands stall out on his cock and suddenly his fingers are slick with Mikey's jizz. "Whoa," Frank says, blinking his eyes open. He searches Mikey's face, flushed pink, eyelashes dark against his cheeks behind his glasses. He can't believe he didn't even see him come. "Dude, fuck."
Mikey lifts heavy-lidded eyes to Frank's and smiles at him kind of stupidly with his limp hair tucked behind his ears. "Fuck, I made you come," Frank grins.
"No shit." Mikey smiles for a few more moments, catching his breath, before he gets busy pushing Frank onto his back on the mattress and climbing over him, one knee between Frank's legs and one arm braced on the mattress beside him while he starts jacking him off hard.
"Ahhhh, fuck," Frank moans. He feels weirdly exposed, in Mikey's t-shirt and no pants, writhing around on the mattress. But he feels kind of restricted too, with Mikey's broad shoulders and long body hemming in him. Frank kind of likes being held down, and when he rubs an aimless hand across his own face and down his chest, Mikey quickly wraps vice-like fingers around his wrist to pin it against the bed beside him.
Frank grins huge then, like this is where it gets good, and struggles hard against Mikey's grip, tensing his bicep and lifting up. Mikey just grins back and presses down, looking like the smuggest motherfucker on the planet, even with his soft dick hanging out of his pants. "You gonna fight me?" Mikey asks and digs his fingertips into the pulse point on Frank's wrist warningly.
"Maybe." Frank lifts his hips into Mikey's fist and tries to look dangerous, but his eyes slip shut on their own, "Fuck." He already knows he's kind of a touch-whore when he's turned on, and being high doesn't help. He has to tip his head back, rub it up and down and side to side all over the mattress, rough texture against his flushed cheek, just to ride out the feeling that's crawling under his skin. "Goddamn, Mikey Way." Frank moans and surges up to give his roommate the shittiest kiss ever, just as he comes all over his fist.
"Fuck," Frank gasps as his muscles give out and he falls back onto the mattress.
Mikey follows him down, licking into Frank's mouth and rubbing his thumbs in big, firm circles behind Frank's ears until Frank's arms are splayed like noodles out at his sides and his lips feel numb and the spunk between their bellies is starting to dry.
From the stereo, Julian Casablancas sings We were young, darling, we don't have no control.
Frank thinks, yes.
.
Living with Mikey Way is awesome, because Frank gets to blow him in the morning before they've even brushed their teeth or changed out of each other's clothes.
"You sure you've never—ah, fuck—done this before?" Mikey asks, voice tight, fingers scrabbling at Frank's scalp like he wants to grab on to something.
"Mmmph," Frank says around his dick, and feels pretty good about himself. He's gonna ask Mikey to hold him down again, when it's his turn, and thinks that he'll put up a better fight this time.
The guys come over in the afternoon for their last practice before Christmas, and Ray brings burritos. "It's like we made them happen with our minds," Mikey marvels as he sets one carefully in his lap. He and Frank share a smile.
"I got my shit sorted out," Gerard tells the room at large, in case anyone was wondering. Frank's busy running the extension cord from his bedroom to the living room so they can all plug their gear in. "I got fucked over by a chick, whatever, it was great for my process."
Mikey gives him a little pat on the arm and Gerard throws him a sad-brother look, so Mikey pushes his burrito across the table and raises his eyebrows. Frank rolls his eyes at them.
"Frank, do you have the tuner I left here the other day?" Ray asks, flicking a pinto bean from the back of his hand onto his burrito wrapper.
"Yeah man, just let me grab it." Frank pushes clothing piles around his floor until he finds the tuner and hesitates when he sees a stack of Pencey Prep CDs.
Frank should maybe wait until the other guys have left, but he's never been good at controlling his impulses. "Mikey Way," he announces in the kitchen, dropping a poorly-wrapped present down on the table in front of his roommate. Mikey looks up at him warily. There's a chance that Frank only had leftover wrapping paper from his birthday and no tape, so it's just kind of folded up. "Merry Christmas," Frank says with a grin, turning away to pick up his guitar and sit on the carpet by his amp.
"Oh," Mikey says, "are we doing the present thing?"
"Nah," Frank says and plays a bit of Monroeville while Mikey opens the wrapping.
"What is it?" Otter leans over to see and Gerard scoots his lawn chair closer.
"A Pencey EP?" Mikey sounds confused. He pops the CD case open and adds, "A Pencey EP that you signed." He and Gerard look down at Frank with matching clueless expressions.
Frank smiles from the floor and doesn't lift his gaze down from his guitar. "It recently came to my attention that Mikey Way used to be our number one fan. Thought I'd just, y'know. Give him some memorabilia."
"Frank, he already has all your albums," Otter says, confused. "I'm pretty sure all of us have more Pencey records than we know what to do with."
Frank looks up. Mikey is narrowing his eyes at him and Frank wants to think Mikey's cheeks look a little pink, but when he's sober his poker face is killer. Frank decides to count it as a blush. Frank's gaze slides over to the other guys, and is surprised to see Gerard wearing a shit-eating grin.
"Mikey did idolize you, dude," Gerard says, slapping Mikey on the arm even as his little brother sighs. "He wouldn't fucking shut up about your 'stage presence' or whatever, whenever we saw you play."
Frank's chest feels a little full and he straightens up, pointing his pick at Mikey. "Ha! Right? Right?" He raises his eyebrows and points at the CD. "Frame that shit!"
Mikey rolls his eyes but Frank sees him slip it into his room later.
They run through four full songs after they eat, and even though half the lyrics are still gibberish and he needs to remember to practice a bit over Christmas, Frank's pretty fucking proud of them. Mikey goes to check his e-mail, so Gerard pulls a pack of beers from his bottomless pit of a backpack and they shoot the shit for a while until he comes back.
"It's kind of amazing that you've never gotten crap from your landlord before," Ray says. "With the parties and the band practices."
"And the D&D!" Gerard adds, tipping the neck of his bottle at Ray. "That shit got rowdy."
Frank rests his beer between his thighs and rubs the condensation off on the carpet. "He lives in Trenton. I think we've seen him, what, once?" Mikey nods, grabbing a beer and settling in next to Frank, close enough that their shoulders touch. Frank stares at his lap so he doesn't smile too big.
"Aaaand we may or may not have given him a fake phone number," Mikey adds.
"Two-four-four-'nads'," Frank reminds him and they laugh.
"Nads!" Mikey repeats, nose scrunched up under the bridge of his glasses.
"What are you guys, twelve?" Ray asks. "Who even calls them 'nads' anymore?"
Frank and Mikey can't stop giggling. "Keep saying nads!" Mikey wheezes.
Frank takes a leak when Gerard starts listing words for testicles (he's been really into synonyms lately) and shakes off with a big smile on his face before zipping up. He ducks into his room to grab the stereo and something to listen to when he notices the wrapping paper in the middle of his bed. Did Mikey give it back to him? Frank steps onto his mattress to pick it up and realizes there's something inside.
It's a jewel case and the white liner has IOU printed across it in permanent marker. Frank frowns and looks up at the door of his room briefly, can hear Ray's giggle as Mikey's voice rises above it with "Go-nads!" before breaking down into laughter. Frank smiles and flips the case open.
My Chem's Platinum-Selling Epic Album Which Was Also Nominated For Three Oscars, in Mikey's chicken scratch. It takes a moment for Frank to realize what the scribble underneath it is: Mikey's signature.
"You just fucking wait," Frank says quietly to himself with a smile that feels like it takes over his whole face.
He tucks the CD under his pillow before following the laughter back out to his living room.
.
END