00015d 06h 14m 05s
Frank rubbed the little bar on his left wrist with his right thumb.
It wasn’t like he was anticipating everything all at once and looking over his shoulder everywhere, waiting for that ring to tell him he’d found the one.
But he was, in a way. He was so, so lonely. Ever since he’d left college (actually, even in college), it’d just been a series of one-night stands, maybe one-week couples, working against the TiMER. It never worked out, of course.
The TiMER was always right.

00012d 12h 58m 23s
Gerard woke up with a massive headache and a new addition to his body.
“The fuck?”
He looked at his left wrist, twisting it back and forth as he looked though sleep-and-hangover-blurred eyes. Was that…that was one of those goddamned TiMERs?
Mikey and Ray both hovered by the couch Gerard had passed out on sometime last night. Uh oh, Mikey had his concerned face on. He sometimes wondered who the older brother was, honestly.
“The fuck is this here for?”
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Gee. You need somebody,” Mikey said, and he looked like he’d been crying sometime earlier. Fuck. He’d managed to hurt Mikey again.
“I don’t want a goddamn TiMER!”
“You did at midnight last night, about four beers in,” Ray shook his head. Ray had tracked him down sometime last night then.
Mikey left for his bunk then.
“I didn’t want a TiMER,”
“I know you didn’t. Which is exactly why you have one!”
“Ray, damnit, I’m going to get it removed,”
“You’re not going to keep hurting Mikey, Gerard. I can’t let you do that to him. Again.”
That stung. A lot. But Ray was right. What was Gerard’s problem? Loneliness. He knew that, but was too prideful to admit it. Loneliness meant depression. Depression meant a beer to calm it down. Sometimes, the difference between one and three got blurred, though.

00010d 02h 18m 40s
It wasn’t easy to hide, though. The TiMER was in that one part of the wrist you had to have just the right bracelet for. It was way too hot for long sleeves. And strangely, none of the bracelets any fan made him fit just right there, to cover that little bump on his wrist up. Then again, that was logical. Most people probably tried it on themselves, and they owned TiMERs or something. Not many that got the TiMER did so unwillingly.
And well, the fangirls got a hold of the news really fast. He just had to make a Starbucks run. He wasn’t going to function without coffee. The barista called his name, and while he wasn’t afraid to show his face – hey, free coffee- he reached out tentatively because that stupid TiMER felt so exposed. He tried to turn his wrist, but nope. The barista noticed.
“Gerard Way has a TiMER!”
All of the eyes in the place turned. Gerard was fine with attention, just not to that. A small posse that apparently knew who he was fell upon him instantly.
“Gerard, can you autograph this? Please?”
“Gerard, I ‘m a HUGE fan!”
“Let’s see the TiMER!”
The camera on one girls’ phone flashed before Big Worm was able to fend them off.
It was viral on the internet in less than an hour.

00008d 17h 02m 38s
Frank satisfyingly pressed “Buy Now” on the Ebay offer. Somebody had gotten a huge schedule conflict and was selling VIP passes to My Chem’s concert super cheap. Frank liked plenty of bands, but My Chemical Romance was marked as “Most Played” on his iTunes. And here he was, about to go actually meet them face to face. He’d been to a concert but last time, couldn’t get his hands on VIP tickets.
That was purely chance, and what a stroke of luck it was.

00003d 01h 29m 11s
Gerard walked off stage, wiping his forehead with the back of his sweaty hand. It didn’t do much good, obviously, so he traded the wireless mic for a towel with one of the techs.
They didn’t have another show for a few days. It was a relief, touring was a tiring part of the musician’s life, and it would be a miracle to have a few days to himself. In a hotel. With running water. And preferably, a Starbucks nearby.
They just had another day of tour bus travel. Dallas wasn’t a humongous venue, not like LA or London, but it was fairly decent. Plus, they had this one steakhouse there that the entire band had liked. Oh, Gerard would kill not to have another night of post-show Easy Mac, but he didn’t eat much before a show and was exhausted post-show. Easy Mac in the bus microwave it would have to be.
He got back and dug around all of his stuff for his phone charger, changed with skilled precision in a moving bus into Batman pajamas. Gerard zonked out even before they got organized enough to move the tour bus.

00000d 00h 1m 12s
Frank watched his clock go down. The seconds didn’t tick, but there was a silent tick in his head.
Finally, it timed out to zero at exactly midnight. Frank exhaled air he didn’t know he’d been holding. It was really something to know you were meeting your soulmate sometime tomorrow. Like, the person you were legitimately going to spend the rest of your life with. Millions of questions filled Frank’s head. His timer had only started two weeks ago. He was going to meet that one person today though. After only fifteen days. How lucky, some people didn’t find their soulmates for years.

00000s 00h 00m 00s
When his TiMER timed out, it woke Gerard. He didn’t know why it did, he just woke up and glanced at the red numbers on the clock staring 12:00 at him. He looked at the new bar on his wrist – he still considered it new- and swallowed.
He was meeting his soulmate today. Sometime today, and oh shit. They had a show. What if they somehow didn’t meet because of the show?
Wait, he wasn’t supposed to care, he reminded himself. Except it helped Mikey.
But he honestly didn’t care.
Gerard rolled over to gain a few more hours of precious sleep.

-Eight hours later-
Frank stood shivering outside the venue. The show wasn’t for like ten hours, but he could barely wait. He didn’t care that the stage wasn’t in the best part of town. He didn’t care it was one of the rare “cold” days in Dallas. (Of course, “cold” was defined as anything below 60 degrees) He was going to live on one bottle of Dr. Pepper, two energy bars, and a fully-charged cellphone and ipod for the next few hours. Well, until the show, there were a few girls that had shown up just as early…
Seven hours later-
The battery on Frank’s iPod was nearly out. Finally, finally, they were letting the VIP tickets in to the small pre-show meet and greet. Frank had this excited-jittering feeling as he showed them his pass and was admitted into a back room. He was somewhere in the middle of the line, but Ray Toro was in view from here. He could hardly contain his excitement as he got closer and closer to the table. Finally, he was up to Ray.
“Nice seeing another bro in the line of girls,” he commented with a grin. Frank had brought along one of his posters, and Ray signed over himself in silver Sharpie.
Next was Mikey, who commented something about how stoked he was for the show to Ray and handed back the signed poster to Frank with a large grin.
Then, Gerard. His personal hero. Frank probably looked really stupid with a hugeass grin he had on his face but Gerard didn’t seem to notice.
“You excited for the show?” Gerard asked, looking up as he handed the poster back.
“Yeah I-“ Frank started before they made eye contact.
Their TiMERs sounded off at exactly the same time.

The first to react was Mikey as they both stared at each other with questions running through their heads. There was a small uproar in the fans that happened to be waiting there. A few cheers, a few “FAKE!”s being yelled out, but both of them knew they had legitimate TiMERs. TiMERs were never wrong.
Mikey stood up and escorted Frank behind the tables as Big Worm worked to calm the fans, threatening to bounce them if they kept this up.
Frank wasn’t sure what to do. This wasn’t exactly what he imagined. He stood awkwardly behind the table as the band continued to sign, just a little bit faster than they had. You couldn’t disappoint fans. He got a few dirty looks and a few amazed ones. It was sort of surreal.
It was probably most surreal because did his TiMER just go off for Gerard Way? His role model and hero? It was a crazy thought.
They got through signing, and Frank was now living one of his dreams. They only had a few minutes to talk as the band warmed up – they actually stretched. Gerard wasn’t saying anything because suddenly, his vocal warmups were more interesting. Mikey spoke to him instead.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Frank. Frank Iero,”
“Where are you from?”
“I was born in Bellville, actually, but I came down here to Dallas for college,”
“You look old for college” Mikey stated as he did some sort of arm stretch.
“I sorta dropped out and just wasn’t able to go anywhere,”
“You’re not alone. Actually, I’m the only one here without any college,” Mikey furrowed his eyes a little.
They didn’t talk much after that as the band went to grab their gear and give their high fives. Apparently, Frank being a soulmate of Gerard’s had the perk of getting backstage passes, and he got to watch the whole show from the side. He missed rocking with the crowd, but he was living every fan’s dream, so he really couldn’t complain.
He noticed Gerard glanced offstage a lot more to look at him, and he wasn’t as…focused, maybe?...as he usually was. After the show, he practically breezed past Frank, trading his mic for a towel with one of the techs. Mikey was the one to take Frank with him back to the bus, where they stopped outside.
“He dosen’t like me,” Frank said.
“He’ll warm up. He’ll have to,” Mikey said, with a faraway pained look in his eyes. “Anyhow, how fast can you pack your bags? If you wanna come with us, of course. We’re overnighting here,”
“Probably a few hours,”
“Cool. Be at the Omni by 8 tomorrow morning. Oh, and uh, don’t tell anybody about us of course. Like, any personal shit,”
“No, uh, I know,” Frank said, swallowing.
“Cool, here’s my number,” Mikey said, flashing him his phone and Frank programmed it into his.
Frank barely processed his actions even though the ride home meant multiple DART train switches. HE got inside and immediately set to work.
So he had sort of an idea of what to pack, but not really. He allotted himself two duffels, hoping that wasn’t too much. It was a squeeze, but he fit five pairs of jeans, twelve shirts, two hoodies, and two pairs of shoes into one of them. In the other one he packed some personal stuff, like his laptop, his ID, all the chargers (He double and triple checked those), and a few hats. Still having lots of room in that bag, he made his way to the kitchen and picked out a few vegetarian-friendly snacks (Few meaning most of them, actually) and threw them in the bag. He had a small mental deliberation, looking at his Epiphonie in the corner. He wanted to bring it because he did love playing and wasn’t too bad, but would it be tacky to bring on the band bus?
Eh, he decided he didn’t care. He took it from its stand, threw some picks into the bag, then lay the guitar carefully over his bad. He set his phone alarm for six and tried to curl up to milk the time he had for sleep.

“You can’t pretend he dosen’t exist Gerard!” Mikey protested.
“Some stupid machine chose him for me!”
“The TiMER is never wrong, you know that,”
Gerard shook his head. “I just want a goddamn beer,” he said, frustrated with the whole matter.
“I thought you’d change,” Mikey stated, hurt obvious in his eyes and he stormed off to the hotel room’s shower.
Gerard stared blankly at the floor, putting his head into his hands. He didn’t mean to hurt people. God, he was hurting his own brother. But this was just new and sudden, and now, they were going to have a person Gerard was supposed to love cramped in the bus with them for the other half of the tour.
Gerard couldn’t even admit to himself that the Frank’s face was on his mind as he turned over in his bed and pretended to fall asleep until he eventually did.

-Five hours later-
Frank was a whirlwind of motion as soon as his phone alarm went off. He left a note promising his roomie he’d send payments as he could, and explained as best as he could what had happened without any major details.
He grabbed his bags, too excitedly nervous to eat breakfast, and threw in all the very last minute items, like his toothbrush and comb. He left the house and headed for the DART station. He hopped on the next Red Line and gripped onto one of the standing pedestrian bars, giving his seat to some really chatty morning businesswoman commuter. He’d already Googled it and figured out his stop was at Reunion.
Feeling a little bit like him carrying two bags and a guitar on his back may have looked more than a little suspicious somehow, he quickly made his way from the station and to the hotel. He hadn’t actually been inside the Omni before and was surprised by its grandeur. From here, though, he hadn’t been told what to do.
“Hey, I’m looking for…uh, Gerard Way’s room?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t reveal personal information,” The clerk said with a smile.
“No, no. I’m like…um, I’m his soulmate and all, um…I’m Frank Iero,”
“Frank?” another voice questioned behind him. He turned around to stare into the face of the businesswoman he’d given his seat to earlier.
“That’s me?”
“I’m Melinda, one of the assistants. I was told to expect you. Thank you, by the way, for the seat,” She smiled, and gestured to one of their bellhops at Frank’s duffles. “Come along, I’m supposed to get you on the bus about three minutes ago,” Frank followed her out back of the hotel, where the bags were being thrown in and everything on the bus checked. He took his duffles from there, when Melinda escorted him onto the bus with a gesture. He took a deep breath and scaled the steps.
There was just as much activity inside, just with less people.
“Ray, where’s my iPod charger?”
“Mikey, don’t touch that switch!”
“I wasn’t gonna, Ray!”
“Guys, seriously, where’s my goddamn charger? It’s about to die!”
Frank cleared his throat. “You can borrow mine, Gerard,” Frank offered.
Gerard looked up in surprise, staring at him for a second with an unreadable expression. “That’d be great,”
Frank wasn’t sure where to put his bags or stuff, so he threw it onto the nearest chair for now and dug through the personal shit bag, throwing Gerard his charger. He took with glee, scrambling for a port so it didn’t die on him.
Mikey had evidently not touched the switch as he was the first to come to Frank’s aid. “C’mon, I’ll show you your bunk. Damn, only two bags? That’s less than Ray and he’s like…the god of tour packing.”
Ray quickly attacked from the back of the bus. “Thirty bucks he forgot something!”
Mikey led him to the middle of the bus, where there were six bunks. Mikey threw one of his bags in one of the bottom bunks.
“Sorry, the Ways love the top bunks and you sadly have last pick,”
“Nah, short guy in the bottom bunk, it makes sense,”
Mikey then noticed the guitar on his back. “You play?”
“Yeah, pretty much one of the few things I do,” Frank laughed a little nervously.
“If nobody’s napping, maybe we can play sometime today on the road” Mikey offered.
Frank gave a small smile and nodded, to which Mikey left him on his own, heading for the front of the bus to go swipe the peanut butter from Gerard. Frank carefully crawled down into the bunk, putting his stuff at the end. Luckily for him, if he curled up just a little while sleeping, he could still keep his stuff inside his bunk and out of the guys’ way. He felt a little like he was intruding, as nice as Mikey had been.
The tour bus lurched while he was still precariously sitting and Frank hit his head on the wall. “Fuck,” he muttered to himself, rubbing the back of his head. He sat in his bunk a moment, not really knowing what to do. He unzipped his clothes bag and took out a hoodie, shrugging it on carefully so he didn’t hit the bunk again. He got the confidence then to make his way to the front of the bus.
Ray had his nose in an issue of Alternative Press, Gerard was texting, and Mikey was engrossed in some DS game. It was amazing how quickly they settled, and it left Frank with no clue what to do. But now he was here and it’d be more awkward to turn around. He stood awkwardly in the doorway that connected the bunk hallway to the front lounge.
Mikey glanced up, moved over in his couch a little, then went straight back to his game, which Frank took as an invitation and took the seat next to Mikey. Frank pulled out his phone but had nobody to text, so he just stared at his home screen.
“So…where are we heading?” Frank broke the silence.
“Down to San Antonio,” Ray responded when the Ways shrugged. Ray apparently was the only one who memorized the tour schedule.
“Cool,” Frank said, his voice lowering in disappointment his attempts to make conversations seem to have failed.
Ray looked up at him. “You know any good food there? You've had to have been there, right?”
Frank was confused for half a second. “Yeah, there’s this great Mexican place. They spiced their bean burritos and it wasn’t bad at all,”
“That was pretty specific,”
“Um…yeah. I guess. I’m a vegetarian, you know? So I can only order a few things at restaurants,”
“Oh, cool,” Ray said, glancing back down at the magazine.
“Better tell the manager or whoever,” Gerard piped in finally.
“What?”
“You’re a vegetarian. Everybody else here has a weakness for meat,” Gerard smacked on his gum. “If you want vegetarian stuff, gotta tell whoever shops for food,”
“Thanks,” Frank nodded, feeling relieved Gerard had finally spoken to him.

They made it to San Antonio in about four and a half hours. Turns out you can get there pretty fast when people move out of the way of a line of tour vehicles. It was just past lunchtime, so it was unanimously decided they would go to the restaurant. Things hadn’t gotten less awkward, but at least it was just a short ride and not two full days on the bus or something.
“You know, Ray would be epic in a mariachi band,” Mikey said, obviously thinking out loud as he popped a chip in his mouth with a faraway look.
“Minus the fact I’m not Mexican?”
“Wait, I said that out loud?
“Uhh-huh,” Ray and Gerard acknowledged at the same time.
It took a while for their server to make his way back. They ordered their food and talked about mariachi bands – where they got into a challenge on who could speak the most Spanish. This weighed unevenly in Frank’s favor – where he had lived in Dallas was a heavy Latino area.
“Usteded tres…uh, no tienen ninguna…posibilidad,” Frank churned out, not a hundred percent sure that was right but figuring he could probably bullshit it.
“I’m out,” Mikey gave in.
“Uhh-huh,” Gerard agreed.
Ray shrugged “I didn’t pay attention. I had French anyway, not that I remember it.”
The food arrived then.

-5 hours later-
“Soundcheck!” the call came loud and clear.
There was a scramble of activity in the bus as everybody grabbed their gear. Frank still felt like the awkward fourth wheel as he stood and watched them from the side practice with “DESTROYA”. Mikey’s bass had to be tuned a little and Gerard’s in ears were being funny, but otherwise, it was a smooth practice.
They walked off and went back, grabbing water bottles as they made their way to the dressing room. Frank stood quietly in the corner, but kept noticing Gerard kept glancing back at Frank in between swipes of base makeup from the tiny little makeup tech. They hadn’t really talked since the vegetarian talk, which was awkward enough because hello, they were supposed to love each other for all of eternity.
Soon enough, Frank lost track of the time, they were all out on the stage with the intro to “Na Na Na” playing. It became clear by the end of the song the band was still in their full element. Nobody spared a glance offstage to Frank. Gerard was blasting his voice around and hopping around the stage like usual.
Frank had this itch to be up there shredding it with them, but was dragged back into the reality he was barely wanted as is.

Frank didn’t sleep well that night. All the other guys had no trouble, but Frank couldn’t sleep with the vibrations and occasional small bumps and shifts in the bus. He found himself drifting off once on a particularly smooth part of highway, but the blissful sleep it lured him into lasted him all of an hour. The rest of his sleep came intermittently.
After he woke up from quite literally maybe two and a half hours of sleep total at 5am, he gave up. He was exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep for the life of him. He carefully rolled out of the bed and made his way through all the stuff scattered everywhere to the front lounge. As quietly as he could, he found the instructions for the in-bus coffee maker and brewed just two cups’ worth. After some looting, he found disposable cups he figured would be okay to take and some sugar packets, but Frank didn’t like the brand of creamer the guys had, so he’d just have to live with some extra sugar.
He was staring out the window- not that he could see much, 5:30 was not an opportune time for sightseeing- and about halfway through choking down coffee when he heard shuffling and a soft thump from the bunk area. Gerard tiptoed into the front lounge and looked at Frank, tilting his head toward the coffee pot questioningly. Frank nodded, and Gerard got the other cup, then went to sit across from Frank.
“Didn’t sleep well?” he asked.
“The bus moved too much,”
“Oh. You get used to it. It’s kind of soothing now, actually. The rocking, I mean,”
“When will that happen? I’m about to die from no sleep right now,”
“Welcome to the tour life,” Gerard answered.
They sat in silence a long moment.
“So…what do you do on bus days?” Frank asked.
“Um, pretty much whatever. Eat, sleep, play video games, read, play instruments, y’know. We’re not an exciting bunch,”
“So…what do you like to do?”
“Uh, video games. And drawing, but I’m sure you knew that,”
Frank nodded. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t torn through Umbrella Academy more than once.
“What do you do?”
Frank was a little surprised. “Um, the only thing I’m okay at is playing guitar,” he admitted sheepishly.
“Really?” Gerard looked a little perkier. “We’ve been curious as to what another guitar player might add,”
“Oh, I don’t know if I’m that…”
“How many songs of ours do you know on guitar?”
“Um….” He stalled. “Almost all of them,” he answered, red rising in his cheeks.
Gerard gave him a critical look for half a second, but his excitement seemed to have caught up to him. “I think I know what we’re dedicating bus time to,”

Frank hadn’t played for this long in a while, as evident by painful blisters. He kept at it anyway, hoping to get the callouses he had once. It became routine that every time they had a bus day, some portion went to practicing with Frank. They had figured out where his guitar could come in to most of their tour set, and right now, they were tinkering with Helena. If he could learn Helena and Bulletproof Heart within three days, he would have officially learned how to play a tour set in less than two weeks. It was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time.
What had really changed, though, was Gerard’s attitude toward him. He was a lot less reluctant to talk to Frank now. While the whole romantic thing hadn’t shifted an inch, talking was a start. The music was distracting Gerard, and Gerard was getting closer to Frank, so Mikey was back to normal now, relieved Gerard had mostly stopped drinking again.
The first thing they did together was go and get their TiMERs removed. They got quite a few stares – TiMERs normally united men and women together, so it was rare to see a homosexual couple – though “couple” was kind of a loose term- walking through the doors together. Frank had never identified himself as fully straight, though, and Gerard was the same way. Frank kind of counted it as their first date, of sorts. Even if Gerard didn’t feel the same.

Frank hadn’t expected Gerard was working up to this. Apparently, behind his back, it had been decided Frank was on trial. To be a member.
“We’re approaching…oh, fuck, I don’t know where we are, but it’s one of our smaller shows. So, you wanna play with us?”
“Small” in My Chemical Romance terms was still well over five grand people.
“I don’t know….are you really sure you want me to?”
“Well, I have to keep you around, and you might as well put your awesome guitar skills to use instead of just sitting there watching,”
Frank stopped. Gerard’s wording caught him off guard. ‘Have to keep you around’. He swallowed the hurt, trying not to let it show. “Sure, then,” he barely realized he said though his overwhelming sense of “not wanted”. He’d just got himself into a production of over 5000 people with the person who invited him not even wanting him around.
Frank didn’t sleep that night on the bus either.

“You look like shit,” Ray commented him, handing Frank a cup of coffee.
“Yeah,” Frank brushed off.
“Something wrong?”
Frank’s mouth pressed into a thin line as he forced himself to shake his head, looking down into the coffee as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. I mean, it was common knowledge they were supposed to be mates, but “I love somebody who doesn’t love me back” wouldn’t go over well.

“Ew, it feels funny,” Frank mouthed over the bite block, scrunching his face, but being careful not to move his ears. The audiologist laughed beside him and Ray snorted. Frank was being fitted for custom in-ears now, but receiving some standard ones that didn’t quite fit but would work until then.
They waited a few minutes and then the audiologist pulled the impression out, giving the box to the assistant that accompanied him. One of them, Frank couldn’t remember his name now. They walked out back to the car. Ray drove back to the venue – he was probably the best driver of the whole band, to be honest - and Frank went for the bus immediately. He really just wanted something to eat – for some reason, he got hungry when he got nervous.
The audience was getting a surprise tonight when an extra member walked onstage with them. He felt really sick with nervousness and yet here he was with a granola bar. What if he messed up? That would be super-embarrassing.
Frank wouldn’t be attending the signing, which the band was currently getting ready for. Frank did, however, put on the stage clothes he was assigned. A black and yellow long sleeved shirt, a green sleeveless vest, black pants, a cord belt, and a pair of black motorcycle boots were laid neatly in his bunk, but he didn’t want to change in the tiny little tour bus bathroom. He was accompanied by another bodyguard to the venue dressing room where everybody else had gone to.
Gerard appraised his stage getup. “I’m glad I made an extra sketch,” He handed Frank some fingerless gloves and a red, white, and blue wristband. It was all comfortable enough. It was an interesting contrast of colors. Frank had already been filled in on the whole Killjoy story…well, what he didn’t know of it, but it was surreal to now be dressed like one, like he was actually already a part of their story. Ray, Mikey, and Gerard went off to go sign autographs so Frank was the first one to receive a quick brush of makeup. “Just a base,” the tiny – seriously, she was smaller than Frank – makeup artist said “so your face doesn’t wash out in the lights,” Frank had never had makeup on before. He added that onto his growing list of firsts.
Soon, Frank was going through the warm-up routine with them. He’d seen it multiple times, now he was doing it. It was all like a hazy dream, to be honest. All of a sudden, he was being handed his guitar. He even joined in the pre-show ritual of high fives, but missed Ray by accident. He didn’t have enough time to correct it before they were being funneled out.
Thay had already decided they’d not train any lights on Frank yet, all throughout Na Na Na. Mikey had been shoved to the back of the stage, though he did so without complaint. It became obvious to the crowd that somebody else was there, but they couldn’t see it get enough camera light to figure it out.
After the final notes, Gerard took a few breaths.
“So you’ll notice that Mikey’s been moved to the back of the stage,” Gerard started, to which the crowd cheered. What didn’t they cheer for?
“We’ve been looking for some new talent to add to the band. And you, Denver, are going to be the first to meet him,” The crowd gave a louder cheer. There was a long pause before Gerard brought the microphone back up.
“Give it up for Frank Iero!” Gerard said simply and the lights around Frank lit up. Frank froze for a second in terrified hesitation, but when the crowd positively roared, he grinned and waved.
Gerard turned to face the band and gave the drummer a nod. Frank readied his fingers on the frets and jumped in right after the fourth cymbal – perfectly in time with Ray. He’d managed not to mess up the beginning of Not Okay. Sweet. He could do this.
It was just over halfway through the set and somewhere in the middle of Teenagers that Frank started to really move around the stage. He found himself getting comfortable with the stage and less nervous about messing up. If he didn’t think about the crowd, he wasn’t nervous one bit.
The rest of the show went without a hitch. Before Frank knew it, he was walking offstage with the guys. His heart was till beating with adrenaline in his chest.
“Holy. Fucking. Shit.” Frank beamed. He jumped a little excitedly, even if he had put most of his energy out on stage. He didn’t care to take a towel, he sort of guiltily and excitedly shoved the guitar to the appropriate tech. The rest of the band was a little more lethargic from the performance. They were still all smiles – whether that was on Frank’s behalf or their own was up in the air.
It was a night on the bus, so the after party was pretty much butter-free popcorn and a Coors Light from the fridge. One by one, they started to pick off to the bunks. Frank hit his bunk at 1:30, his body finally realizing he had no energy, and had the best sleep he’d had for two weeks.

It wasn’t that Gerard didn’t like him. Really. Frank was easy to get along with. As he got to know Frank, little new details about him, Gerard could relate to a lot of what he liked. They both had similar extroverted personalities and were random as fuck. Frank was more energetic than him, Gerard was smarter maybe, but they both really fit well together.
The problem Gerard had was being forced to love. He wasn’t being pushed headfirst at Frank, but suddenly he was sharing a life with the guy he was supposed to love for all of eternity.
In his defense, he was trying. He’d incorporated him into the band – which, by the way, was a smart move, the fans were roaring with glee – he’d been trying to pick up on everything Frank said, trying to remember it all, and he’d been talking to Frank a lot more. He’d nearly given up drinking again for Mikey and for himself.

One week left of the tour. Frank had no clue what he was going to do with his life. Gerard lived all the way in Los Angeles, and Frank still had ties in Dallas. It was getting close to having to decide. Frank didn’t have the money to move. He didn’t have the resources. Most importantly, he was still in love with somebody he was convinced didn’t love him back.
He knew he’d fallen too easily. Frank tried to make himself feel better with all the random shit Gerard did on stage. Gerard looked over at him for more than just a second? Maybe that was some little sign. It was stupid, Frank knew. Frank had just fallen in love with his stupid face. The way he talked so passionately about music and comics made him grin. The way he let himself go on stage and shed his barriers made Frank just want him.
Frank was shredding hard on the guitar that night, feeling the stage adrenaline high and trying just not to think about Gerard too much. They were into “Not Okay”, only three songs in since they shifted the set list slightly. They were just getting over what Frank called the quiet part of the song, the piano bridge. He was really anticipating the strum that led Gerard into “I’m okay now!” and gave it a hard strum while hopping up in the air, too close to the front apparently.
Frank felt his shoe catch under the front speaker. The last thing he felt was himself falling before he blacked out with a thud.

---

Beep. Beep. Beep.
Since when was Dead! on the setlist? Frank had a moment of panic and jolted up, feeling for the –wait, he had no guitar. And the disorienting lights weren’t on stage. Frank blinked a few times, the white of the room unfamiliar. It took him three seconds to register the hospital bed, the fact that he was in it, and the fact that this very bed was in a hospital room.
Frank regained his senses. He was in the hospital. A hammering headache hit him then, and Frank groaned and leaned back into the unfluffy pillows. There was a rush of movement to his bed.
“Frank!” His mother grabbed his hand. “Oh baby, you’re awake. Thank goodness,” His mother kissed him on the forehead as Frank tried weakly to push her away and figure out what the hell had gone on. The only other person in the room sat in one of the chairs in a corner. Frank swallowed. The post-sleepiness eyes of Gerard looked at him from the corner, but Gerard didn’t otherwise move.
“Frank, baby, how do you feel? “
“Hungry,” he lied, looking at Gerard a brief second.
“What do you want?”
“No jell-o. Um. Rice. Rice is good,” Frank stumbled. He wasn’t really going to eat it, the last thing he wanted to do was eat right now. His mother nodded and rushed right out of the room. Frank really hoped the line was long.
He waited a second. “So, what happened? I don’t remember fucking anything but that I was on stage and now I’m not,”
Gerard looked at him like a bird had landed on his head or something for a second before crawling out of the chair – obviously stiff as he cracked his neck – and came to sit by Frank’s bed. Gerard didn’t make any move to touch or coddle over him – good, he knew his mother would be doing the bulk of that- but he was fidgeting with his hands like he wanted to.
“We were just going over the bridge and you tripped over your speaker. Security tried to get you but…man, you fell eight feet. Could’ve fucking broken your neck. You twisted your ankle but…” Gerard tried to trail off.
“But?”
Gerard swallowed. “You fucking cracked your head like an egg, Frank,” he said, voice hitching. “I’ve never seen that much blood. They did transfusions on you and shit, and they had to like, give a hundred stitches. You…you fucking nearly bled out and fucking died, Frank. It was horrible,”
That was sort of an understatement. He’d nearly died? He tried to swallow which ended up moving his jaw which hurt his head pretty badly. “How long…”
“A week,”
Frank’s eyes opened. “The tour…”
“We canceled the rest. I mean, the photos are everywhere of the whole thing, Frank. It’s no surprise,”
They canceled the tour. Gerard stayed behind just with him, and if it was any evidence by his appearance (Even if he had seen Gerard with three days without a shower on tour), he’d barely left.
A nurse came in to check on Frank, inserting something into one of the IV’s that led into his body. He felt the effects about half a minute afterwards, and it nagged at drowsiness but he fought it.
“How long have you…”
“As soon as I could get out of the show,”
Before Frank could open his mouth to say anything more, his mother barged in with the rice. Gerard went back to the corner of the room, though his mother didn’t notice.

Three days later, a miserably bored Frank still sat in his hospital bed. His doctor came in to make his round on Frank.
“Frank, you’re looking great. Remarkable, actually. You could go home in two days-“
“Really?!” Frank wanted to jump.
“-if there was somebody who could watch you,”
Frank sat down in disappointment. His mother couldn’t do it (She'd left the day before), and his roommate had evicted Frank and put all his stuff in storage after Frank missed one payment. The doctor left after some idle conversation.
Frank noticed the look he was getting from Gerard in the corner, as usual. “What?”
“You don’t have anywhere to go?”
“No,” Frank said, cautiously.
Gerard mused a bit. “Come live with me,”
Frank choked out a “What?” because he was pretty certain he just heard “come live with me”.
“Come move in with me,” Gerard restated. “I know what you’re thinking, but I’ve been thinking about this. Frank, I fucking suck at relationships. But we’re not supposed to suck. We’re supposed to love each other passionately, or something like that,” Gerard closed his mouth for a second to think.
“What I’m trying to say is, I think this is the one chance I have left, and fuck Frank, I do want to take it,” Gerard touched Frank’s arm lightly, touching his right pointer right over where the TiMER had been.
“I’ve really just started to believe in that stupid device,” Gerard commented. “And it’s not even on me anymore,”
Frank didn’t know what to say for an eternity of ten seconds. “I’ve always believed in it,”

Three days later, Frank was in Los Angeles in Gerard’s house. Frank pouted when Gerard told him not to take anything. Really, he was fine, he could grab is own shit, you know. But Gerard made him sit on the couch as he moved Frank’s seven boxes of stuff into Gerard’s spare for now.

Just for now.

Notes

Well, this is the only chapter I have here, but I may make more stories from this universe!
Also posted on Archive of our Own, so yes, that is still me.