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This flight was going to be hell. Not ten minutes after liftoff and Linke already knew it just from looking at his friends and bandmates scattered across the plane.
Jan was twitching and fidgeting all over the place even though Micha and Juri had managed to coerce a couple of the other passengers into switching seats so that the three of them were sitting in the front center row immediately in front of the monitor display. The idea had been that the extra quarter meter of space in front of him would make Jan feel less claustrophobic and reduce his anxiety as much as possible which for Jan was a hardly noticeable difference. Even from five rows back Linke could see Juri's frustrated glances in Jan's direction, glances that told Linke that Juri was in the process of deciding whether to pin Jan to his seat or simply haul Jan into his lap to give the DJ something other than the confines of the cabin to think about, the delicate sensibilities of the rest of the passengers be damned.
Timo was sitting two rows behind them in the aisle seat, moaning loudly about how much he hated flying. David was being less than helpful, pointing out cloud formations to his acrophobic best friend so often that Linke could only presume that David was secretly a sadist.
That left only Frank unaccounted for. Linke had seen him take a seat farther back in the plane (that was a lie: Linke had memorized Frank's seat number and had already deduced how far away it was from his own). It was far enough back that he would have to physically get up to go talk to him. Linke wasn't exactly keen on doing that though, considering he'd been the one responsible for their last breakup.
ØØØ
"What're you making?" Linke had murmured in Frank's ear as he wrapped his arms around his boyfriend's waist. Frank had been standing over the stove, stirring a pot of simmering stew, the heavy smell blending wonderfully with Frank's cologne. Linke rested his chin on Frank's shoulder.
"Goulash," Frank had said, smiling softly as he brought a hand up to caress Linke's cheek.
"It smells good. Who's it for, your secret lover?" Linke had teased in what he thought was a light tone. It didn't come out that way.
Frank had gone stiff and his tone was cool and angry when he answered.
"Why do you always have to be so insecure, Chris?" Frank said. "I don't have a 'secret lover' or whatever you want to call it. Honestly, every time we start to make this work, you have to go and ruin it."
"I am not insecure," Linke had snapped back as he unwound his arms from Frank's stiff form. Frank had torn himself away from him as well to lean against the oven door.
"Insecure, jealous, suspicious, it's all the same. You," Frank had said, pointing his index finger at Linke's nose. "Don't trust me."
"Your words, Frank, not mine."
"Whatever, Chris. Deny it all you want because it doesn't matter to me. I'm over this."
"Are you breaking up with me?" Linke shot back. "Because you know what? I want us to be over."
Frank's face had gone white but Linke had been too angry to consider taking back his words.
"You really feel that way?"
"I do," Linke said nastily.
"Fine," Frank said quietly.
"Fine."
"We're through."
"We're through."
ØØØ
That had been a week and a day ago. They hadn't talked since, except when absolutely necessary as two people playing in the same band had to. Linke was still mad at Frank and was sure Frank was still angry with him. It hurt to be single and see the man you were in love with every day and not be willing to even talk to him until he talked to you first because, apparently, relationships made everyone revert back to sandbox logic.
Being trapped inside a jet going hundreds of kilometers an hour thousands of kilometers off the ground was not making the situation better. Linke wished he had said something to Frank earlier before they had even gotten to the airport because now they were headed to China, all the way across the world. Linke had no one but his bandmates and the techs to talk to for the seven hours of the flight. Seven hours on a plane with only an iPod and a book was not sounding like a good thing now, occupied as his mind was with thoughts of Frank and the failure that was their on-again-off-again relationship.
Linke dug his copy of Sebastian out of his bag and turned to his marked page. He read for all of ten minutes before becoming paranoid that the elderly woman sitting next to him was reading the book out of the corner of her eye.
Seeing as that page consisted of a particularly graphic description of an incubus getting it on with a client and had the added bonus of proving within two paragraphs that it was not a story meant for a straight male to be reading, Linke quickly shut the book and shoved it back into his bag. He then kicked the bag under the seat in front of him and rubbed his eyes wearily.
He could almost feel Frank's arms around him, the muscular definition of the singer's biceps and deltoids, and the press of Frank's chest against his. Linke could just feel the scratch of the stubble on Frank's chin and the intense aroma of his favorite cologne mixed with his aftershave, the two smells lingering comfortingly over the muskier scent that belonged to Frank alone.
Linke kept his eyes closed as he breathed in deeply, hoping futiley to catch Frank's scent in the air. But his ex was too far away and all Linke got was the circulating air that smelled of stale cat and flowers, both of which he assumed came from the old woman who had been trying to take a peek at his book earlier.
His throat began to sting as the muscles tightened painfully in reaction to his thoughts, Linke's body forcing him to realize how much he missed Frank. Linke shook his head to dispel his maudlin thoughts. He tapped his fingers on the armrest, fervently wishing away the urge to pull his phone out and send a text back to Frank just to say hello. Linke reminded himself that even if he were allowed to text on the plane he wouldn't be able to reach Frank through his cell without some sort of technological miracle.
Nothing he did worked and Linke was soon as much a ball of anxious energy as Jan, his left leg shaking nervously and his fingers twitching as his breathing grew fast and ragged.
Linke checked the time on the monitor and wanted to stab the nearest flight attendant. 5:52. He had almost six more hours before they even reached Beijing Capital, the airport in China.
Linke thought he might kill himself before then, if not physically, then mentally.
ØØØ
When you, at the age of 21, are so bored that you start making shapes out of your complimentary bag of pretzels, you know something's wrong, Frank thought to himself as he rearranged the brown twists to make something that vaguely resembled a house.
He had brought a Rubik's cube along to puzzle over on the flight as well as a Paula Deen cookbook to read. Frank wasn't so much interested in the recipes in the cookbook (he couldn't imagine ever wanting to eat, let alone make, Buffalo Chicken Livers or Crawfish Etouffe) as learning the English words for teaspoon, garlic, julienne cut, and so on.
The book had been a gift from Linke and that had been, eventually, the reason for keeping it. Frank spoke very little English and was barely literate in the language but Linke had been all too glad to curl up in bed with him and translate the words while Frank tried to follow along with the English written on the page. Most of the time, Frank would end up closing his eyes and just listening to Linke's voice.
Frank hadn't meant to bring that particular book because it reminded him too much of Linke and being stuck with a memento as your best form of entertainment while on a trip with your ex was hardly a good idea. He had picked it because he needed to improve his English and someone, albeit Linke, had told him that the best way to learn a language was to relate it to something you like to do. Frank liked cooking. It was a talent that could have easily gone untapped had his bandmates been able to prepare food without burning it or poisoning themselves in the process. Frank had been more than a bit embarrassed by his interest in cooking when he'd first started with Nevada Tan and it was an outing with Linke that had actually gotten him most of his library of cookbooks.
He and Linke had been at a bookstore in Neumünster, searching for the newest copy of some magic series Linke was reading when Frank came across the cooking section. Before that, he hadn't even known there was a cooking section in regular bookstores, having only ever seen his family's old books shoved into the cabinet next to the microwave at home. It was an awesome revelation for the singer. Here, there were books with the answers to every question he could think to ask, books with recipes for foods he'd never eaten before, and books with color pictures of every dish so you'd know what the finished product would look like.
Frank had spent a good thirty minutes staring at the colossal bookcase filled with recipes from all over the world, everything from Caribbean braised pork and chicken curry to paella and gazpacho to hang shao paigu and you mian jing. Frank had been in paradise as he took book after book off the shelves, each filled with glossy photos of mouthwatering foreign dishes and lists of ingredients with words Frank had no meaning for. He had run to the nearest chair, upwards of eighteen priceless, heavy cookbooks clutched against his rib cage as though someone was just waiting to steal them from him.
He had stacked them on the floor and cracked one open in furtive excitement, pouring over the contents until his curiosity couldn't bear it and he picked the next one up and the next, reading as fast as he could while checking the prices and trying frantically to decide which he could afford and which he couldn't. They were all too precious to be left behind but too expensive to choose between.
He had wanted to cry at the thought of leaving so much knowledge behind, all of it seeming in that moment so incredibly, inescapably important.
But he had to choose and so he did. Thinking carefully, Frank had selected three of them and had put the others back unhappily. He had run his fingers over their glossy spines, silently promising that someday he would find a way to read them again.
Frank had proceeded to the register in sadness, his arms feeling suddenly empty for all that they were holding over a hundred Euros' worth of reading material. He had paid for his books and then had found Linke waiting outside. They had ridden the bus back to David's house, Frank nose deep in souvlaki and spanakopita recipes.
He had been shocked the next morning to find six books stacked by the foot of his bed, all six of them books he had lingered over the day before. He had been overjoyed and confused, wondering how Linke had known which ones he'd wanted the most. When he'd confronted Linke about it, a confrontation consisting pretty much of a question and a positive answer, no real depth, Linke had smirked and handed him the copy of Paula Deen's Kitchen Classics, saying that the only copy had been in English but that he'd be glad to translate it for Frank.
It was the day that Linke gave him Paula Deen's book that Frank truly started to fall in love with him.
ØØØ
"Ow," Timo moaned for the umpteenth time. "Ow, ow, ow. When are my ears supposed to pop?"
"When you shut the hell up," Linke muttered under his breath as he continued to stare out the window of the taxi van.
The streets of Beijing were crowded, insanely so with thousands of tiny, black-haired pedestrians everywhere. The culture shock hadn't hit Linke yet but Jan sure was getting elbowed every other minute for pointing out anyone with non-Chinese features. It wasn't that Jan was trying to be a racist dick, Linke supposed, it was simply that the local demographics were as radically different from anywhere in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as possible. The closest thing to Asian in Neumünster, or most of Germany for that matter, were the Turks and they didn't exactly fit the stereotype of "Asian" looks, whatever those were supposed to be.
"It says here," Micha read from his guidebook, Willkommen in Peking, "That you should avoid asking for a hotel room with the numbers eight, eighteen, thirteen, or one-sixty-eight because people think they're lucky."
"If they're lucky, wouldn't we want one of those?" Timo grumbled. "Fuck it, Misch, I'm tired and I don't give a damn about lucky numbers or any of that superstitious shit. Please just shut up."
As none of the other guys felt like talking, the tech kept quiet for the rest of the trip to the hotel. The ride was full of uncomfortable silence and politically incorrect statements from Jan's way accompanied a heartbeat later by complaints of "ow! What the fuck was that for?" that everyone, especially Juri, the inflictor, ignored.
By the time they were out of the van and into the hotel, Linke's mood had gone from sour to hellish. He planned to get inside and collapse on the nearest bed for a good four hours, then get up and get something to eat.
The fact that he had stopped in the hotel lobby to use the restroom had Linke riding the elevator to his room alone. He dragged his suitcase down the carpeted hallway, noting the unpleasant smell of cigar smoke and ass hovering there, before sliding his key into the lock and pushing the door open with his shoulder.
Linke froze when he saw who his roommate was. Frank stared back at him, biting his lip nervously.
"I'll go ask Juri if he's willing to switch," Frank said emotionlessly, his gaze not quite meeting Linke's.
"No," Linke said hollowly. "It's not that big of a deal and Juri's not going to appreciate packing his things back up again."
Not to mention that this is the way we always room, Juri with Jan, Timo with David, you with me, Linke thought to himself. Or that you'd have to explain why you don't want to room with me.
"You sure?" Frank asked, an expression Linke couldn't read flickering in his eyes for a second before fading away.
"Yeah. This is how we always do it, right?" Linke asked, trying to remember if that was true or not. Most of their concerts lately had been day trips, not overnight hotel affairs.
"Right," Frank echoed. He turned back to his suitcase. Linke, figuring that was the end of the conversation, went to take a shower to kill time. No point staying where it was awkward and painful when he could spend twenty minutes getting clean with unlimited hot water.
ØØØ
Linke wasn't expecting Frank to be shirtless and lounging on the far bed when he got out of the shower. He tried to ignore Frank's creamy skin and peach-colored nipples but the more he tried, the harder it became. Frank's hair was a mess from the Beijing humidity, a terrible temptation with its just-got-laid appearance and his jaw outlined by long wisps of hair that Linke wanted so badly to reach out and touch because he'd never felt it so long.
Frank, naturally, was oblivious to Linke's growing interest, making Linke feel worthless that Frank didn't care enough to notice that his ex was watching him. When they were together, Frank would turn and smile when Linke looked at him, letting him know that even though they weren't talking that Frank knew that he was there.
Now there was nothing. Frank was completely focused on the television, watching some talent search show that Linke didn't recognize. It amazed Linke that everyone he knew wasn't as obsessed with Frank as he was. Linke could not imagine not wanting Frank for all that Juri, Jan, and Timo, the three more straight-leaning guys in the group (Linke had his own suspicions on the validity of that, especially considering Jan's tendency to hover around Juri in some form or another at all times), had told him on multiple occasions that they were not interested in the singer. Linke had to assume they were lying to cover up their secret attractions to Frank because Frank was the epitome of sexiness in his opinion.
In Linke's skewed logic then, if they liked Frank, then why wouldn't girls find him attractive as well? And, continuing with this logic, those girls far outnumbered him and one of them was bound to be more attractive, and who was to say that Frank wouldn't succumb to her, whoever she was?
That didn't make him jealous, though, just open-minded.
ØØØ
Frank forgot breathing was necessary the moment Linke stepped out of the bathroom in only a towel, his long, black-dyed hair clinging in wet strands to his neck. When Linke grabbed his clothes off the floor and headed back into the bathroom- something he, even two weeks ago, wouldn't have done, Frank got a clear view of his tattooed left arm and neck.
Linke normally covered most of his body up, so Frank did not often get the chance to see his inked skin without some form of clothing obscuring his view. Frank was too squeamish to get a tattoo himself and he had long admired Linke for the courage it took to have someone basically stab him in the neck a hundred times over with pricks of permanent ink. He had been seriously disappointed to find out that Linke's neck was not extra-sensitive where his tattoo lay but that disappointment had quickly faded when he had discovered that Linke went crazy any time Frank traced over those black letters with his tongue. It was a sweet torture to the bassist that Frank did not feel at all bad about inflicting. It certainly always led to more interesting things between them.
There wouldn't be any "interesting things" this week after the fight they'd had. Frank, despite all the hours he'd spent mulling over what he had said, had not yet thought of an apology that Linke would not laugh in his face for and tell him to go fuck himself over.
It was so not helping that they were rooming together.
ØØØ
Three concerts in four days had Linke groaning out loud. Each part of his body ached, from the pads of his fingers to the balls of his feet. Everywhere that even pretended to have a set of nerves was making its complaints known in the form of muscle spasms and pain-filled cramps.
Why Frank had commandeered the bathroom the instant they had gotten back to the hotel and then refused to go out with the rest of them, was beyond Linke's now alcohol-befuddled mind.
He supposed Frank was just tired and let him be after snagging a quick shower in David and Timo's room, shrugging when Timo demanded to know why he didn't just kick Franky out since the singer wasn't coming anyway. Linke didn't think Timo needed to know a damn about how he and Frank were and weren't getting along.
Frank was still in the bathroom when he got back an hour later, having walked with Jan back from the Irish pub up the street where David and Juri were giving an impromptu performance. Linke suspected Jan was tired of watching Timo go all fangirl on David and bored without Juri to get shit-faced with. Jan wasn't the top thing on Linke's mind anyway so he let it go and simply walked with Jan, listening to the DJ ramble on about this and that.
Linke slammed the door closed, his mood having taken a severe downward turn the instant he left Jan's company. Frank still in the shower and Linke's clothes thrown haphazardly over his own bed, Linke collapsed on Frank's bed. He snagged the remote from the nightstand and flipped through the channels, his mind far more focused on Frank and what could possibly take two hours to do in the shower.
Anger began to seethe within him when Linke, more than a bit drunk, finally settled on the idea of a groupie. Some skank had taken his Franky and was currently engaging in heavy shower sex with him. Yes, Frank was just lording it over him, fucking a girl in the bathroom they were sharing while Linke was not two meters away. Bastard.
The bathroom door opened finally. Linke glared at the entranceway, waiting for Frank to emerge, skank on his arm.
"Prick," he hissed.
"Excuse me?" Frank, freshly shaven and looking too sinfully hot for words, had the audacity to ask.
"You heard me, you bastard. Bringing girls back to the room to fuck like I wouldn't know," Linke snarled.
Frank stared at him, looking adorably hurt and confused. Linke dismissed it for what it was- a front to keep him from suspecting the dirty truth. Too late.
"Did you have fun fucking her into the wall? Did you like her wet pussy around your cock and her manicured nails on your shoulders? Did you like her fake blonde hair all wet and silky?" he continued, proud that he wasn't slurring his words.
"What are you talking about?" Frank asked in bewilderment.
"You know what I'm fucking talking about. You and that fucking whore hiding behind you," Linke said.
"What are you talking about, Chris?" Frank asked again.
"You know what," Linke spat.
"There's no girl," Frank said softly. "You've had too much to drink, Chris, and you're imagining things. Either that or you've gone completely insane because there's no one else here."
"Oh, so I'm insane, are I?" Linke snapped. "Then how come she's right-" he said as he got off the bed and stumbled over to the bathroom. He shoved the door open and leaned against the doorframe for support. "-here."
The bathroom was empty. Linke, in the part of his mind that was still somewhat rational, felt like a fool as Frank stared at him.
"Are you sure you're okay? You're acting really weird," Frank said, reaching out to grab Linke's arm.
Linke grimaced and turned away from Frank's concerned gaze.
"I'm tired, I'm drunk, and I'm fucking heart-broken," he muttered before flopping down on Frank's bed. He turned his head away as Frank, still wearing only a towel, sat down next to him.
Frank stroked Linke's hair gently.
"You think I'm an idiot, don't you?" Linke mumbled.
"Kind of, yeah," Frank said softly, his fingers moving slowly through Linke's shoulder-length hair. It felt amazing, Linke thought privately, to have Frank touching him again, not accidental brushes or friendly movements but really touching him when it was just the two of them, alone, with no one between them to see what they were doing. "But, in a way, it's sweet that you're acting like this. At the very least, it shows you care," he whispered and leaned over to kiss Linke's temple.
"Mm. How come every time I'm around you, I come off looking stupid? It's like you suck the cool right out of me."
Frank smiled and kissed Linke's forehead, the kiss lasting that one heartbeat longer than necessary just like all of Frank's kisses did.
"There'd have to be 'cool' there to suck in the first place," he laughed.
"Are you saying I'm lame?" Linke asked, smiling slightly.
"I'm saying you're drunk," Frank said quietly. "And you need to get some sleep."
"Do I have to sleep in my own bed?" Linke whined. "I'm already settled in." Frank smiled and pushed Linke's hair back from his face. He took the pillows from Linke's bed and placed them on his own, motioning for Linke to move off the bed so that he could peel the sheets back. Linke collapsed gratefully on top, kicking his shoes off over the side. Frank rearranged the sheets around him before changing into a pair of boxers.
Linke was asleep when Frank turned the lights off and crawled in next to him, spooning up behind the bassist and wrapping his arm around Linke's middle. He pressed his face into Linke's back and quickly fell asleep. There would be time to talk in the morning when Frank could be sure Linke would remember everything and would have full control of his words. For now, Frank was simply content to hold his lover and sleep, secure in the knowledge that Linke still wanted him.