Married In My Mind

Early morning rays of sun tinted the sky a pale yellow behind the clouded sky. I buried my face in the crook of Frank’s neck, listening to his shaky breaths and speeding heartbeat. Sometimes he’d be able to control his dreams and slip out of the nightmare himself. The way his breathing hitched was all I needed to know he couldn’t fight this one on his own.
I slid my fingers up the back of his shirt and drew slow, soft patterns on his skin.
“Frankie, wake up.” I mumbled against his ear.
I pressed my lips against his jaw. A desperate squeak vibrated in his throat.
“Frank.” I said firmly, hugging him tight.
A shiver passed through his entire body. I could feel him twitch uneasily. And then he was awake… curling up in on himself and breathing heavily. I held him quietly until his labored breathing evened out. I pressed a kiss into his hair.
“Fuck.” He groaned as he started to snap out of it, adrenaline dwindling, muscles relaxing.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked softly.
He shook his head and crushed himself up against my chest.
I wasn’t sure how long we laid there drifting in and out of sleep. Frank would begin to whimper every time he’d slip into his dreams. In that place somewhere in between my dreams and reality I fretted over how I’d ask him if he meant it when he said he loved me. My heart fluttered at the thought.
But I just couldn’t bring myself to get the words out of my mouth.
Just like I couldn’t ask if he wanted to ditch New Jersey with me for awhile after we were done with recording. We could go away somewhere where we wouldn’t have to hide out in dim bedrooms when we wanted to touch each other. Maybe somewhere along the West Coast where it didn’t get so humid in the summer. We could get an apartment above a tattoo parlor, close to a comic store. Frank could get a dog and-.
I’d written too much about us. I’d thought way too fucking much about us.
My mind would always slip into these meticulously built universes where I loved him and he loved me right back. Even in those universes where Frank was a vampire I still fell for him in the end.

Frank kissed me gently after he’d managed to pull himself out of another almost-nightmare. His lips softly moved against mine. His uneven breaths tickled my face. If his dream was something bad about me he would always kiss me when he woke up. That’s how I could tell it had been about me.
There was an unspoken agreement and coinciding set of rules that forbode us from kissing more than a few times.
1.Our tongues had to stay in their respective mouths.
2.Any use of the hands had to be above the belt.
3.No hair pulling.
4.No pushing/grinding with the hips.
5.No stradling.
Those were the rules I’d set for myself anyway. If I didn’t carefully follow those rules, I was not to be trusted. Especially not first thing in the morning when I was still groggy.
I was sure Frank had his own version of the rules.
There had been one time I thought things had gotten out of hand. I’d woken up from an incredibly vivid and steamy dream that Frank had been sucking me off. I woke up in a sweaty panic, terrified we’d jeopardized everything.
“Maybe you should see a doctor or something?” I whispered after he’d pulled his lips away.
He froze and looked at me with a distressed frown.
“Why?” He asked. “You tired of me and my stupid bullshit already?”
“No...” I assured, pressing my lips to his forehead. “Fuck you for even thinking that. It’s just that neither of us are sleeping through the night.”
“Yeah…” he sighed, curling up against my chest again.
“You obviously don’t have to do anything you don’t want to... but I think you should see someone.” I said, running my fingers through his hair. “I’ll go with you if you want.”
Frank let out a deep sigh but didn’t respond. I braced myself for the arguing to start.
“It was just a suggestion. Please don’t be mad at me.” I said softly, hugging him tighter.
“I’m not mad at you.” he mumbled into my shirt. “I just… don’t fucking deserve you.”

Frank ended up making an appointment with his general practitioner for later that week. That doctor referred him to a psychiatrist. He asked me to drop him off and pick him up from his first few appointments, which I did without hesitation.
But like most things, we didn’t talk about it much.
It was late one afternoon when it finally came up. Frank sat silently in the passenger seat of my car with the radio off. He liked for everything to be very quiet after his visits with the doctor. He stared out the window at the grey clouds looming overhead.
“My doctor says I’m really fucking stressed out.” he said suddenly when the car was stopped at a red light.
“Huh.” I offered dumbly. There were a thousand questions I wanted to ask. I had no idea where to start.
“They gave me a prescription...” He continued. “So sorry in advance if I get weird...”
I’ll still love you no matter what. I thought but didn’t say. The car behind us honked when I didn’t notice the traffic light had turned green. I put my foot on the gas pedal, absently chewing on my fingernails with one hand, steering the car with the other.
“I’ll… I’m-I’ll always be here for you.” I mumbled.
Frank slid his hand across the space between us and rested it on my thigh. He slowly stroked at the fabric with his thumb.
“Thanks.” he said softly “You’re a good friend, Gerard.”

We stopped at the pharmacy on the way back to Frank’s place to pick up his new meds. We wandered the aisles of the drug store as we waited for the pharmacist to prepare his prescription. He got distracted by the small section of toys between the magazines and the greeting cards. He picked up a pink plastic sword with a neon orange handle and spun on his heels to hit me on the arm with it.
“Fight me, Gee!” he said, with a small smile on his lips.
“How old are you?” I grumbled, ripping the sword from his hand and pulling him away from the toys and into the next aisle.
“What? All of a sudden you’re mad you’re dating a fucking 5 year old?” He chuckled, letting me pull him along.
“I’m mad I’m what?” I squeaked.
“I… oh…. I guess I… I meant like...” he stuttered awkwardly.
Before Frank could compose himself my brain had already found an entirely new set of things to zero in on and freak out about…
I’d pulled him in front of the store’s selection of condoms. His mumbled apologies were framed by colorful boxes promising hot-n-cold sensations, fruity flavors, and the thinnest, most sensitive available on the market. It took a moment to catch up and realize the look on my face had nothing to do with what he’d said in the toy aisle.
“Are you even listening to me? What are you even-” He said, turning his head. “Oh.”
He glanced over at me and then back at the boxes, considering them.
“Should we-?” He asked. “To be safe, y’know? Just in case we can’t… stop.”
“It’s never been a problem before.” I shrugged. Well, tried to shrug, it was more like a nervous twitch.
“It’s been getting harder to not... For me at least…” He said in a low voice, stepping closer to me. “Maybe it hasn’t gotten harder for you but I’m going fucking crazy.”
“It’s been hard for me too.” I admitted softly, face flushing into an obvious blush. “But you know why we can’t.” I stared down at the floor.
He reached for my hand. I tried to pull it away but he seized it and laced our fingers together.
“Frank, don’t. Not here.” I whimpered.
“Gerard, I-” Frank started.
“IERO TO THE PHARMACY COUNTER.” a droning voice buzzed over the the intercom, startling both of us. Frank’s prescriptions were ready.
We stood there, staring at each other for a moment. I had no idea what the fuck to say and it didn’t look like he did either. He took a step towards me and leaned in.
“Hold that thought.” He said under his breath, glancing around to make sure no one was looking, and pressed a kiss to my cheek.
“I’ll wait for you in the car.” I nodded, swallowing hard.
I made my way out of the store and climbed into the car. I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the steering wheel, trying to focus on my breathing or the muffled sounds of traffic outside of the car. Anything that wasn’t what had just taken place between us.
It had been getting harder to follow the rules. I thought that had just been me though. What had he been about to say?
I kept my eyes closed when Frank finally opened the door and slid into the passenger seat a short while later. He set a plastic bag by his feet. I heard the faint, familiar sound of pills rolling around inside a bottle.
I lifted my head up and started the car. We drove to his apartment in silence. I had no idea what to say. I was trying desperately to keep my brain from pushing over into panic mode.
“Gerard?” Frank mumbled.
I made a small humming sound, not trusting my brain to come up with acceptable words.
He sighed deeply. His fingers tapped out an anxious beat on his knee.
“Nothing.” he said dejectedly. “Nevermind.”


Frank set the bag from the drugstore down on his kitchen counter and fished out his bottle of pills. He stared at the label on the orange bottle.
I glanced at the counter top to try and fight the curiosity at what they’d prescribed him. My eyes fell on the other contents of the bag from the drugstore.
“You bought-”
A box of condoms and a bottle of lube rested side by side, partially obscured by the shopping bag. I glanced over at Frank. His face had gone bright red. He stared at me with his lips pressed in a tight line.
“Frank, you shouldn’t have-”
“I’m not trying to suggest we use them right this second, Gerard. I told you it’s for just in case!” He interrupted. The blush on his cheeks deepened.
“But-” I squeaked.
“My doctor told me I should be honest with you about things. Even if it means we fight more. So-”
“You told your doctor about us?” I asked.
“You just sort of… came up. I don’t know! Don’t change the fucking subject!” He yelled.
He set the bottle on the counter and ran his hand through his hair.
“I can’t do this anymore…” He said. “I just…” He sighed dramatically.
“Can’t do what?” I asked softly. He couldn’t have been talking about us. Buying condoms and breaking up didn’t usually go together in my experience.
“I just… fuck, Gerard.” He growled, wrapping his arms around my waist and leaning in to press his lips against mine. I was too stunned to kiss back.
“Why did you have to write so goddamn much about us fucking?” He asked softly. “I know exactly what you want me to do to you in excruciating detail and it’s driving me insane.”
“How much of it did you read?” I whispered.
“Every fucking word.” he mumbled against my ear, sending pleasurable sensations shooting down my spine.
He framed my face with his palms and kissed me hard, quickly breaking rules 1 and 4. His tongue slid into my mouth as he pinned me against the counter with his hips. My mind was a million years behind my body, which could no longer be trusted to follow the rules. I gripped Frank’s hips, threading my thumbs through his belt loops to pull him tighter against me.
He slid his fingers through the hair on the back of my head and tugged, breaking rule number 3. His lips trailed down to my neck. I could feel his hard-on against my thigh. He sucked hard on the skin on my neck which pulled my brain into the moment as I quickly considered the marks that would be left behind.
“This is a really fucking bad idea.” I groaned, sliding my hands up the back of his shirt and dragging my nails down his back.
“No it isn’t. Shut the fuck up.” he growled, sliding a hand between us and palming at my cock through my jeans. Rule number 2… broken.
“Make me.” I gasped.
He pulled me by the arm down the hallway towards his bedroom. All that was left was rule number 5 and I had full intentions of letting it break.

I was not to be trusted...

Notes

sorry for the delay on this update.
this is kind of embarrassing but i had writers block cause i couldn't decide who tops. hahaha. omg.

with every other fic i've written i had the sex pretty well figured out. for this one i didn't for some reason? maybe it's because there's some pretty convincing arguments for both sides on tumblr and so my imagination has been skewed.

anyways i can't fucking believe yr comments on the last update. thank you thank you thank you.
any thoughts on this one?

-m