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Frank is curled up against the wall of the van, squished between a stack of merch boxes in front of him, and Shaun up against his right side. Squeezing eight dudes in the van, along with all of their shit and the merch that won’t fit in the trailer, is a fucking feat of geometry, but they’re managing. All of that Tetris when they were kids was good for something, anyway. No one has any personal space, and the van smells like three-day-old moldy ass, but it’s home for now, and Frank really wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
He’s just about to nod off again when Gerard leans forward behind him, pulls Frank’s headphones off, and starts to whisper in his ear. "Hey, Frankie," he says, breath tickling the sensitive skin behind Frank’s ear.
Frank involuntarily lifts his shoulder up against the sensation and Gerard swats at him. He turns to glare, but only half-heartedly. "What the fuck, Gee? I was almost asleep."
Gerard seems unconcerned. "Hey, so, when we get to Des Moines? What are you doing?" he asks.
"You mean aside from playing a show?" Frank replies, because he has no idea what Gerard is after, and mocking him after he woke Frank up from his almost-nap seems like the natural thing to do.
"Shut up," Gerard says, offhandedly. "I meant after."
Frank hasn’t really thought about it. "I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about it." It’s only when he sees Gerard’s wide, manic grin that he realizes he maybe should’ve made something up. "Why?" he asks, suspicious.
"Well, okay, Mikey is meeting up with some girl he knows, and that leaves us one short unless I play while I DM and I hate doing that, and we’re right in the middle of our campaign. So, will you?"
"Will I what?" Frank asks. He’s playing dumb for now, but he knows full well what Gerard is after, having listened to him and Mikey and Ray and one of the techs for Piebald talk about their campaign almost constantly when they weren’t either playing a show or too wasted for the past two weeks.
Gerard nuzzles closer into Frank’s neck as he speaks. "Join the campaign." He sounds whiny already. This doesn’t bode well for escape. It also doesn’t help that Gerard knows full well that Frank is a total sucker for him.
"Come on, Gee, you know I hate playing DnD. And I’m awful at it," Frank tries.
"That’s okay, I can talk you through it," Gerard responds, pleading.
"Okay, but I still hate it."
Gerard just whines at him again, and gets more intense with the nuzzling. Frank lifts his shoulder again to try to get him to stop.
"Come on, Frankie, you know you want to," Gerard begs.
"But I really don’t. Why can’t Otter play?" he asks.
"No!" Otter shouts from the front seat, like he even knows what the fuck they’re talking about.
"Fucker!" Frank shouts back, which earns him an elbow in the side from Shaun. Speaking of. "What about Shaun? Or Eddie?"
"They’re going to the party with Mikey. Frank, you’re our only hope. Please?" And then Gerard heaves himself halfway over the seat to get in Frank's face, crowding Shaun out of the way. He pulls out the puppy dog eyes, with his long, thick as fuck eyelashes, and Frank is a goner. He always is.
"Ugh, fucking fine, I’ll play in your stupid campaign," he grumbles, fumbling around for his Walkman.
Gerard smacks a wet kiss on his cheek then bounces back onto his seat. "You’re the best, Frankie."
"Yeah, I know," Frank says, rewinding and stopping, rewinding and stopping until he gets to the beginning of the song he missed while Gerard was hassling him. The Walkman is kind of a pain that way, but he discovered on their first tour that in the piece of shit van all his discman did was skip around, and he spent the entire tour listening to a lot of country music and NPR, whenever they could even find a radio signal. At least with the Walkman he could dig out his favorite mix tapes from middle and high school. He closes his eyes as Jeremy Enigk’s voice whines something unintelligible at him.
***
The show that night is awesome, the kids in the crowd so fucking into it, feeding off the band’s energy and throwing even more back at them. After, all Frank wants to do is take a shower and sleep for a million years. Their next show isn’t for two days, and it’ll only take one to get there, so they’re actually staying in a motel tonight. They found one just off the interstate, cheap but actually clean and relatively nice, if outdated. The midwest is really good for some things.
After Frank has spent a full twenty minutes under the hot spray of the shower, his skin pink from the heat and scrubbing down twice, he emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam to see Gerard and Ray pulling the little round table that had been by the window in between the two double beds. Fuck, with the show and his amazing shower, he had nearly forgotten. But they’re getting their books out, and Piebald’s tech, Justin, is in the room getting set up, too.
Gerard looks up when he hears Frank come into the room and he smiles hugely. "Frankie! Good, you’re done! We want to get started, we have a lot we want to try to do before everyone gets back to crash out," he says in a rush, unfolding the game board, which looks more like a placemat than anything else to Frank.
"Uh, yeah. Do I need to like, I don’t know-- what am I doing?" Frank feels kind of lost, no idea what Gerard has planned. He takes a seat on the edge of one of the beds, across from him. Justin hands him a beer, which he accepts gratefully.
"Oh, here," Gerard says, as he hands him a booklet. "You’re just going to play Mikey’s character. It’ll be easier than inserting someone new at this point. His only rules are don’t get killed, and don’t kill Ray or Justin."
Frank flips through the book Gerard gave him, and sees that Mikey’s character is some kind of fucking woodland druid. "Are you serious? Why can’t I be something cool, like an orc, or a wizard or some shit?"
Ray sits down next to him, and says, "Because I’m the wizard and orcs are bad guys in this campaign, so Gee plays them."
"Of course, he gets to do something fun," Frank complains. But he looks at Gerard, who has his hopeful look on, so Frank just takes a sip of his beer and fully gives in. "Fine, fine, I’ll be a fucking druid, whatever."
"Druids are pretty cool, actually, you have access to all of your spells without Gee’s permission. Ray has to ask first," Justin puts in.
"Sweet, I can do what I want!" Frank crows.
"Well, not really, but," Gerard starts, but then cuts himself off. "Okay, whatever, let’s just get started. Ray, when we last stopped, you had just discovered a girl hidden behind a cluster of trees. What do you want to do?"
"Wait, who plays the girl?" Frank interrupts before Ray can even say anything.
Gerard visibly holds back a sigh before answering. "I play all of the non-PC’s."
"What are-" Frank starts.
"Non-player characters, which is what you guys are. Player characters," Gerard finishes before Frank even gets the question out. "Okay, so Ray, what do you want to do?"
Ray talks to the girl, and learns that some group of apparently bad guys have put a spell on her town, but she managed to escape by doing something with a goat and some water maybe, Frank kinda zones out for a minute. He drains his beer and grabs another one, nudging Gerard as he gets up. "You want one?"
"Nah," Gerard says. "I have to be somewhat sober when I DM, and I’m still working off my buzz from the show."
Frank nods and sits back down. Apparently they’re on their way to the village now. They round a corner and suddenly there’s a goblin in front of them on the path.
"Frank," Gerard says, startling him. "It’s your turn. You’re in front of the goblin. What do you want to do?"
Frank thinks about it, then asks, "Can I kick him in the face?"
Justin giggles and Ray looks at Frank like he’s crazy. "What?" Frank asks. "I want to kick him in the face. Can I?"
Gerard just looks amused. "Sure. Uh, hand-to-hand combat, I guess? So, roll your D20, your 20-sided die. You need to roll at least a 12 to do any damage," Gerard explains.
Frank rolls and he gets a 13, just barely what he needs, but a win's a win, so he throws his arms up. "Yes! In your fucking face, goblin fucker!"
Ray and Justin are shaking their heads at him, but they’re both smiling. Gerard giggles, and says, "Okay, you’ve successfully kicked the goblin in the face, but now he’s fucking pissed at you. Justin, you’re up."
Justin rolls his attack and ends up taking the goblin out. They finally make it to town, and get in front of the evil sorcerer making all this fucking trouble. Gerard puts on this really hilarious voice when he plays the dude, and Frank can’t help but laugh the whole time. This makes Gerard blush and Ray elbow Frank in the side, but it’s worth it for Gerard’s stupid red face, which, in Frank’s opinion, is one of the best stupid red faces in existence.
Ray and the sorcerer get into a crazy spell fight, and Frank has to help. He fucks up his first roll and gets knocked out for a turn. Ray takes his next spell to revive him.
"Mikey said to not die, remember?" he reminds Frank, like Frank needed reminding with Gerard’s worried looks coming his way. Justin manages to do some more damage, and then it’s Frank’s turn again.
Frank thinks for a minute, then asks, "Can I roll to kiss him?"
"What!?" Ray exclaims. "Come on, Frank, quit fucking around, that’s not going to do anything."
But Gerard speaks up. "No, it’s okay. Go ahead, Frank. Roll D20, you need 18."
Frank rolls and actually gets it. "Pucker up, buttercup," he says, then leans across the table and plants a sloppy, wet kiss on Gerard’s chapped lips. "By the way, I just cast a poison spell," he whispers as he pulls away.
Gerard makes a hilarious groaning sound. "The sorcerer has been defeated," he intones gravely.
"Holy shit, Frank!" Ray says.
Justin gives him a high-five. "Nice one, dude," he says.
Gerard just smiles a small, secret little smile at him, then tells them what happens to the village after the sorcerer is dead.
They play for a few more hours, until Justin looks like he’s about to pass out where he is and the other guys start to filter back into the room. Frank helps Ray move the table back out of the way, as Gerard packs up all of their stuff and Justin heads back to Piebald’s room. Mikey, Shaun and Eddie still aren’t back, but Otter and Cortez are currently fighting over who gets to shower first, and Ray is on one of the beds reading a magazine. Frank digs around in his bag for his cigarettes and gestures at Gerard. He nods and follows Frank outside.
Frank walks out to the lot and sits down on a parking block. He lights two cigarettes and hands one over to Gerard, who takes it with a mumbled "thanks" and sits down next to Frank.
"Thanks for playing tonight," Gerard says after a few minutes.
"You’re welcome," Frank replies. He takes another drag, then adds, "Also, you fucking owe me."
"I’ve been thinking about that," Gerard says. Frank glances at him out of the corner of his eye. Gerard has that little smile quirking up one side of his mouth. Frank remembers how warm his lips felt when he kissed him during the game, how different his lips felt when he wasn’t trying to sing at the same time. Frank wants to kiss him again.
Gerard turns his gaze right on Frank. His eyes look dark and mysterious in the dim, yellow light of the parking lot. Frank clears his throat. "So, uh, what were you thinking then?"
Gerard takes another drag, then flicks the butt away, blowing smoke out the side of his mouth at the same time. He’s still looking at Frank in that same intense way, then he’s leaning forward, his hands cupping around Frank’s face and sliding up to cradle his head, his lips suddenly on Frank’s again.
Frank opens his mouth slightly and leans into the kiss. He drops his cigarette somewhere on the ground then runs his hands up Gerard’s arms until he’s clutching at his shoulders. Gerard licks gently inside Frank’s mouth, and Frank opens up for him, moaning quietly as Gerard deepens the kiss, his heart beating almost out of his chest, this is happening. Frank drags a hand through Gerard’s hair, tangling his fingers around the messy strands and tugging slightly. Gerard groans and leans in closer, nearly toppling them off the narrow concrete block. Their mouths break apart, hot, damp air between them as they both pant slightly.
"Maybe we should go somewhere else?" Frank suggests breathlessly.
"Yeah," Gerard agrees, looking dazed but at the same time, really focused on Frank. "Back inside?"
Frank shakes his head. "Uh no, I’d rather not make out with you in front of the guys."
Gerard laughs. "Oh right, yeah no. I forgot they were in there. I was just thinking it was a place to lie down." He bites his lip at that, and Frank has to focus on thinking of an alternative place to go instead of launching himself into Gerard’s lap.
Then he has a fucking brilliant idea. "No one’s in the van."
Gerard’s eyes light up, and then he’s on his feet, grabbing Frank’s arm and dragging him up and across the parking lot. "You’re a fucking genius," he says as he pulls his key chain out of his pocket. He unlocks the side door and holds it open for Frank, grinning as Frank hops inside.
Frank stretches out on the middle bench seat and watches as Gerard climbs inside and shuts the door. "C’mere," he says, crooking a finger at Gerard.
Gerard drops to his knees on the seat and crawls up over Frank, hovering above him. Frank grabs his collar and pulls him down for another kiss, tugging until Gerard stops trying to hold himself up and gives in, dropping all of his weight on top of Frank.
"Fuck yeah," Frank says as they shift against each other, getting comfortable. Gerard nuzzles in his neck and it tickles just like it had earlier in the day, but Frank doesn’t try to bat him away this time. Instead, he tips his head back, giving Gerard full access and a clear hint. He isn’t disappointed; Gerard takes his time, sucking and licking a line from just under Frank’s ear all the way around to the other side. They’re lazily grinding against each other, hands groping down sides and backs. They’ve never really done this before. They’ve done their fair share of cuddling and sleeping on each other, and they’ve kissed on stage, open, dirty, rough kisses, but nothing like this. This is slow, and deliberate, both of them practically sober for once. Frank can’t deny he’s thought about it, wanted it. It’s heady stuff to realize that Gerard apparently feels the same way.
It’s starting to get hot, and when Frank opens his eyes and sees the windows have already fogged up he laughs. Gerard pauses in his campaign to make Frank look like a vampire bite victim and lifts his head up to see what’s funny. Frank points at the window, and Gerard just gives him a dirty smile, and then starts tugging on Frank’s shirt. Frank gets the hint and lifts his arms over his head so Gerard can tug his shirt off. He goes for Gerard’s shirt next, but Gerard grabs his wrists and pushes his arms back above his head, presses down and whispers, "Stay".
Frank moans at that and arches up against him. Gerard presses a kiss against Frank’s lips, then meanders slowly down, pausing to bite at a nipple, and lick across Frank’s stomach. He looks up as he gets to Frank’s pants, and Frank nods, lifting his hips as Gerard gets his pants undone, tugs them and his underwear down to his thighs. Gerard zeroes in on his dick, nosing around the base, little licks driving Frank insane. He’s already fully hard, the making out taking him more than halfway there, and Gerard breathing on his balls getting him the rest of the way now. He whines softly and Gerard quits fucking around, licking a stripe up Frank’s dick, dipping his tongue into the slit before closing his mouth around the head and sucking gently.
Frank’s hips snap up involuntarily, and Gerard presses down on them with his hands, keeping Frank pinned in place while Gerard takes him almost all the way down.
"Fucking hell," Frank gasps, straining to keep his hands where Gerard put them, instead of what he wants to do which is grab Gerard’s head and fuck up into his mouth. But Gerard won’t let him, and he doesn’t really need to, Gerard’s sucking him hard and fast, Frank can barely catch his breath.
He feels his orgasm coming a mile away, building up from his toes. "Fuck, Gee, I’m gonna come," he warns, but Gerard just sucks him harder, pulling the orgasm out of him. Frank bucks against Gerard’s hands as he comes, toes curling in his shoes, squeezing Gerard with his thighs.
Gerard pulls off once Frank is finished shaking, licking his lips and looking flushed and still really fucking turned on. Frank grabs at him again and Gerard falls forward, his mouth sloppy on Frank’s lips as they kiss, Frank tasting himself on Gerard’s tongue. Between the two of them, they fumble Gerard’s pants open and Frank finally gets his hands on Gerard’s dick. He has vague thoughts of getting them flipped around so he can get his mouth on Gerard’s dick too, but Gerard gasps against his lips as he thrusts into Frank’s hand, "Fuck, Frankie, you feel so good, not gonna last." So Frank tightens his grip and Gerard thrusts into his fist a few more times until he’s clutching Frank’s shoulders and groaning into his mouth, his come spilling out onto Frank’s hand and stomach. He collapses on top of Frank, apparently unconcerned about the mess between them.
They lie there for a while, both of them catching their breath. Eventually, they squirm around and get their pants back on, finding some napkins to wipe up their mess. Frank looks up from doing up his belt and Gerard’s looking at him with that same fond smile he always gives Frank, but it feels different now. Better. Frank smiles back and pulls Gerard close, kissing him softly.
"So, I think if that’s what I get in return, you can count on me to play DnD with you any fucking time you want," he says once they break apart again.
Gerard laughs. "Well, I wanted it to be worth your while."
"Oh it was," Frank agrees. "But what was with all the 'stay put' stuff? Not that I didn’t like it."
Gerard blushes again. "Uh, well," he starts, scratching a hand through his hair, then patting his pockets, probably for his cigarettes. "I guess it’s just kind of bleeding over from running the game? I like to be in control, so."
"Oh really," Frank says as he gropes around on the floor for his shirt, pulling it back on.
"Yeah, it’s worse when we LARP, actually," Gerard says, opening the door of the van and stepping out, lighting a cigarette.
Frank follows him. "Huh, so. If we do that, then I should just roll for a blowjob instead of a kiss, is what you’re saying?" he asks, smirking.
Gerard grins at him. "You can always try."