{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace","title":"Life may not be fair, but it's fairer than death.","subtitle":"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye...","author":{"name":"Roxy Palace"},"link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"service.feed","type":"application\/x.atom+xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom","title":"Life may not be fair, but it's fairer than death."}}],"updated":"2012-05-14T00:01:00Z","entry":[{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:106900","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/106900.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=106900"}}],"title":"FIC: Flight Deck, Natasha\/Imaginary!Steve\/Imaginary!Bruce NC17","published":"2012-05-14T00:01:00Z","updated":"2012-05-14T00:01:00Z","content":"Fandom: Avengers (Movieverse)
Pairing: Natasha\/Imaginary!Steve\/Imaginary!Bruce
Rating: NC17
Words: 1500+
Warning: dub-con, voyeurism\/exhibitionism kink
AN: from a bunny released into the wild by Anna_Unfolding. Just visiting this exciting fandom in the wake of my Avengers Squee! <3 
Unbetaed
 


It's been a long time since anything surprised Natalia Romanova. Especially where men are concerned.

The last time… Yeah, the last time left her vulnerable and slow witted; she vowed it'd never happen again. 
 
If love is for children, then lust is just a drug for childish adults, a petty distraction.  And she has no time for distractions. 
 
All the same, when she meets Rogers, Captain America<\/i> no less, the iron grip she has on herself slips just a little bit. 
 
There's a moment, a blink and then, "Hi," she says,  the guttural want<\/i> she's suddenly feeling resonating in the depth of her unfaithful voice.
 
She has a moment to collect her thoughts, sends Coulson to the bridge, and she starts walking. 
 
"You caused quite a stir round her, Captain," she says, adding a dig at Coulson's fanboy ways.  It isn't deflection, not at all, but it's the time she needs to get herself back under control. Not even Barton could have pegged what she was really thinking. Emotions are like knives. And Natasha's never been one for self harm.

He's big, the Captain.  Not that size means anything to Natasha.  Just, she's never been attracted<\/i> to it like that before.  "The bigger they come the harder they fall," her handler used to tell her back in Stalingrad, right before he'd sucker punch her, or worse. 
 
Actually, now she thinks about it, Ivan was the one who first showed her the value of controlling her feelings, of disguising want and fear and pain. He's the man who taught her the power of observation, of psychology, of using the illusion feeling to trip and trap the less disciplined. 
 
Or maybe he just harnessed skills she'd already learned the hard - harder way?
 
Whatever, Natasha is a closed book now.  A closed book drenched in red. 
 
Rogers' ledger, on the other hand, is drenched in nothing but glory. There's nothing guarded about him because he thinks he has nothing to hide. She's surprised to find how envious that makes her; surprised to find the attraction is to his goodness<\/i>, and not just the knowledge that here is one that can match her. It's embarrassing how obvious it all is; she can't believe she'd roll over for the Alpha to end all Alphas. 
 
She leads him across the flight deck towards the prototype Quinjet she's been meaning to get a look at when she spot a familiar figure narrowly avoid getting bowled over by a trolley of missiles. 
 
Banner stumbles his way towards them, hopelessly out of place amid the khaki and chrome in his tweedy suit and she hangs back as the two men make their - Coulson would call it epic<\/i> - introductions.
 
Natasha actually likes the doctor; he's mostly -  ironically - harmless when he's like this.  But she's curious to see what the Captain will make of him.
 
Because Banner...now, Banner is interesting.  This is a man who's also hiding nothing - not his fear, not his mistrust, not his vulnerability, nor his compassion. Even his intellect - it's all on show as if the weight of them is the lid holding his other<\/i>, more... problematic, emotions in check.  There's only so much a man can repress, after all. 
 
Natasha watches the men closely while giving the impression of polite disinterest. "The bigger they come, the harder they fall."<\/i>
 
Well, there's an exception to every rule. Natasha shivers. There's not much scares her, but...
 
Fear and desire. Desire and fear. Pain and pleasure and...rage.  The Other Guy<\/i>, as Banner calls him, terrifies her.
 
Hulk is the bogey man Natasha's been running from (at?) her whole life. He's the adult she couldn't escape as a little girl, the youth who wouldn't take *neyt* for an answer; he's the rage she has fought for years and years to control in herself. He is unleashed, unfettered, uncontrollable. For Natasha he is undeniable. 
 
She fears him almost as much as she wants him.
 
What will Rogers make of him?
 
Natasha's read The Captain's file of course.  Not the one they let Rogers read, the real<\/i> one, the one with all the dirt - anyone who thinks S.H.E.I.L.D. is above that<\/i> level of snooping is delusional. Rogers is a man's man.  He was a man's man 70 years ago and as far as S.H.I.E.L.D. know, that has not changed. He never dated before the serum, and afterwards there was only the War, and a school yard kind of crush on Director… or Agent<\/i> Carter as she was then.
 
Since the big thaw, there'd been no one.  Not for lack of opportunity, either.  Agent Hill had been pretty tenacious  - you don't get to be Fury's sword arm without tenacity - and S.H.I.E.L.D. have not been above putting temptations<\/i> in Rogers' way to lure him back into the world either. But he's never taken the bait.
 
In his apartment Rogers has two personal possessions - if you don't count the punching bags - one is a picture of Peggy Carter, the other is a picture of Sergeant Barnes with Rogers from before the serum. And that is the one he has next to his bed. 
 
"Make of that what you will."<\/i> That's what Director Fury had said to her. "He's no Tony Stark. You'll have to find some other way of getting under his skin."<\/i>
 
"Gentlemen, you might want to step inside," she says to the two of them.  "It's gonna get a little hard to breathe."  Amen to that. 
  
Rogers and Banner walk to the edge of the deck and watch the water churning in the ship's turbines. She sees them speak to one another, share an understanding.  She sees Rogers' hand hover at Banner's back as the other man leans forward. She sees him tuck his hand out of sight quickly when Banner turns to Rogers to speak.
 
Natasha's skin prickles; she clenches and un-clenches her fists, bites back a smile.  She  takes another deeper breath.
 
She's trained to see the little tells - the tenseness in the shoulders that says a man is on alert, the tightness by the eyes that says he's surprised and hiding it (or doesn't even know it), the quirk of his mouth that says he wants to say more but can't (or won't). The Captain had shown all of them when Banner shook his hand. 
 
Fusty's his thing?<\/i>, she thinks. That is surprising. They're such a strange mismatch; brains and brawn. She tries not to grin again at Rogers'  puffed up chest when Banner smiles at him. 
 
Brains and brawn.  Brawn and brains. It makes her think of...
 
*Howard Stark*.  Oh, of course.
 
Banner's short, dark and brainy too. And, now that she comes to think of it. Barnes was pretty similar - dark looks, a tactician's mind, a smart mouth. (She's read the files.  All the files.) 
 
But Banner is gentle where Stark, if the news reels were anything to go by, was a brash, self centred...well, was a Stark<\/i>.  And James 'Bucky' Barnes? Bucky's dead. And Steve doesn't seem the kind who likes to be reminded of that.
 
Maybe that's it?  Stark-like, but gentle? Bucky-like but, to all intents and purposes, immortal? 
 
Or maybe Steve Rogers just has a type?
 
Natasha would laugh at herself. Because the reality is Rogers has no idea that he leans in to Banner when he talks; he has no idea he hasn't quite looked the man in the eyes once, but can't seem to take his eyes off him. Rogers is clueless, the poor bastard.
 
It makes her giddy, excited. 
 
Where's her alpha male gone? Where would she like<\/i> her alpha male to go? To his knees.<\/i> Who for?  For Natasha?  No. For Banner.
 
She takes a deep, slow breath through her nose and she pictures… She shouldn't... but she can't help it...she pictures Rogers on his knees, hands behind his back; naked with his head lowered and his eyes closed, the taut curves of his muscles shining with his sweat. Boch smerti<\/i>  Her heart beat skips up a notch and she breathes deeper. She turns and leads the two men back to the airlock as the ship rises.
 
As they walk she pictures Banner standing over him, a white vest clinging to his chest, dark with perspiration, the belt of his suit pants undone, fingers twining in Rogers' hair as he looks... looks up at her. He's waiting for her word. Brains and brawn and control.
 
On the flightdeck Natasha smiles to herself, cups her hand to the side of her face and pretends to listen to her ear piece. Banner smiles when she glances at him. Natasha smiles back
 
She pictures them in her room below; all steel and frosted glass, and the three of them reflected in every surface.  She imagines nodding, just once, a curt drop of her chin, an order. And Bruce turns back to Steve, pulls his hair hard. Says, "Open your mouth...g-good. Good boy."
 
But Steve resists, eyes and mouth clenched tight, he shakes his head. 
 
Banner swallows. "Want me to get angry, Steve?" he says. "You want us to make you?  You want her<\/i> to?"
 
Steve's eyes flash open, cutting to her. Natasha licks her lips and smiles with just the corner of her mouth letting the want show in her face.  Steve blinks up at Bruce; the knot of his Adam's apple bobs up and down slowly and his lips part.
 
"Uh..."  His eyes cut over to Natasha again and she shakes her head, finger pressed to her lips. 
 
Steve squeezes his eyes shut. 
 
He's so perfect<\/i>, Natasha thinks, even like this with the pink blush of shame and excitement spreading over his cheeks. So easy to read.<\/i>
 
Bruce fumbles with his pants, pushes them down his thighs one handed and takes himself in hand. he presses the head of his cock against Steve's wet lower lip. Rubs it back and forth and sighs before pushing forward. 
 
Steve moans and tries to jerk his head away, but Bruce's grip on his hair is tight, Steve can't go anywhere.  His mouth stretches around Bruce's red flesh. His nostrils flare and Bruce's hips twitch. 
 
Natasha is so intent on Rogers' mouth it takes a moment for her to notice Banner's eyes on her, his sharp, shallow breathing, the way he bites his lip.
 
"Fuck him," she says.
 
And she can't help pressing her thighs tight together around her hand as Banner's head falls back and his hips stutter forward.  Steve whines, chokes on a deep thrust, and his cheeks hollow.  
 
"Jesus," Bruce hisses.  "Jesus Christ."
 
"He fucking loves it, Doc," she breathes.  "Look."  And Bruce slumps forward, both hands in Steve's hair now.  He twists away a little so he can see beneath him; Steve's hard cock jutting up from the junction of his spread thighs, the pale pink tip gleaming with pre-come, bobbing back and forth as Bruce fucks his face.
 
And Bruce laughs. His hands slipping out of Steve's hair down to cup his cheeks. "You-you do, don't you?" he pants, thumb sweeping over Roger's cheek bone. Their eyes lock as Bruce's hips keep pumping and there's just the 'ah, ah, ah,' of his laboured breathing, and wet sharp sounds of his cock in Steve's mouth. Oish moi, blya<\/i>
 
"Miss Romanoff?"<\/i>
 
Natasha blinks. Rogers is standing in front of her, a slight frown between his eyes, lips quirked in a questioning smile.  Natasha's hand is on the airlock controls but she hasn't pushed them.
 
Natasha smiles back before she can stop herself, and then frowns before she can stop that either.  Rogers reaches around her and hits the lock with a smile.  The doors whoosh closed and he turns back to Banner. "Apparently the Bridge has to be seen to be believed, Doctor," Rogers says as he stands back and waits for her to go through the inner door ahead of him, attention fixed on Banner.
 
Natash turns on her heel and heads off. It's a long walk to the bridge knowing they are both walking behind her. She enjoys every second of it.
<\/a>
"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:106553","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/106553.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=106553"}}],"title":"Fic: Pan Goes A Courting - R - Pete\/Patrick","published":"2012-04-23T21:57:39Z","updated":"2012-04-23T21:57:39Z","content":"Title:<\/b> Pan Goes A Courting
Author:<\/b> <\/a>roxy_palace<\/b><\/a><\/span>
Beta:<\/b> <\/a>anna_unfolding<\/b><\/a><\/span>, who always, always gets it.
Pairing:<\/b> Pete\/Patrick
Rating:<\/b> R
Word Count:<\/b> 6800
Disclaimer:<\/b> None of this bares so much as a passing similarity to reality.
Warnings:<\/b> Large doses of crack. And Patrick is too cute for words.
Summary:<\/b> Once upon a time there was a lonely trickster god named Pan who fell out of an apple tree and in love...

A\/N:<\/b> This is a sequel of sorts to Everyone Comes To Pan’s <\/a>and was conceived when <\/a>pennyplainknits<\/b><\/a><\/span>said she was imagining Patrick with little gossamer wings. Naturally that’s the kind of bunny that deserves immediate attention and care and mountains of juicy orange carrots! Penny my dear, the end result is for you.



*

One upon a time there was a lonely trickster god type guy named Pan (although he preferred to be called Pete).

He was lonely because he spent most of his time finding lost people, giving them a purpose, helping save the world and pulling pranks and tricks on folks; and not nearly enough time at parties, or playing B&A or just hanging around with his buddies.

Pulling pranks took up a lot of his time, and it was really the kind of thing one was better off doing solo...

"Sorry, can I interrupt you there, Rox?"

Pan? I'm right in the middle of...<\/i>

"I know, it's just... I'm thinking of nixing the whole tricky trickster<\/i> side of things, to be honest."

Really, Pan? But it kind of goes with the territory, doesn't it? You're a TRICKSTER GOD and all. If you're not tricking people, you're just... GOD, and some people sort of frown on that level of immodesty.<\/i>

"Hey! Immodest is my middle name, baby.”

No shit. <\/i>

“I’m like, the king of immodest. I mean, I’m only wearing pants out of deference for your preference for lady parts. Y’dig? Now, are you telling this story or am I? I tell a mean story. I could do it."

*Sigh* I'm telling the story. It's my post...<\/i>

"TL:DR"

...<\/i>and I'm telling the story, so if you wouldn't mind.<\/i>

"Okay, okay. No need to get tetchy. Hey! Don't forget to describe Pattycakes’ hair as the colour of wheat in high summer. And to say his cheeks were like harvest apples - dusky rose and sweet. And...and..."

Yes, yes, I was just getting to that part. No spoilers please. Now - <\/i>

One day, Pan was sitting in an apple tree...

"I was what in a where now?"

You were in an apple tree... You fell out of it. I mean, that's the story I heard from Patrick.<\/i>

"Patrick Tinkerbell Von Stumpalina is a lying liar who lies."

Uh-huh.<\/i>

"He is a fibulous fibber. A perverter of the factual. A fabricator of the actual. He is, in short, a teller of tall tales. Which is ironic."

This is in the Alanis Morrisette sense, isn’t it?<\/i>

"Because he is so short, you see. That's irony. Tall tales. Short man. See what I did there?"

Yes. I see. Once upon a time there was a trickster God named Pan who wouldn't let the story teller <\/i>do her job.

*Harumph*

Thank you. Now, where was I? Ah, yes.<\/i>

Once upon a time there was a lonely Trickster God named Pan who fell out of an apple tree and in love...

****

The first time Pan saw Tinkerbell, the little sprite was having a fist fight with a faun from the wrong side of the forest.

"Take it back!" Tinkerbell yelled, launching a fairly impressive looking haymaker at the surly faun's head, his face all scrunched and crimson with rage. "Take it back or I will box you into next century!"

Pan took a ring side seat on a log next to the clearing where the fight was taking place. There were already a couple of nymphs and a brownie watching too.

"I'm offering good odds on the faun," the brownie said, winking. But Pan wasn't the gambling type. Except for when he was, which was often, so he put a couple of winkies on the blond cherub whose name Pan was now absolutely sure was Tinkerbell.

The faun neatly side stepped Tink’s punch and parried his flailing, ill timed kick, which sent the little faerie sprawling in the dirt. “Ooomf!” was the sound Tink made as he landed. Pan winced. The brownie laughed and started to pocket Pan's coins.

But then suddenly Tinkerbell was back on his feet, and somehow the faun<\/i> was sprawled in the dust. And it all happened so fast Pan wasn't even sure what he'd seen, except that Tinkerbell was dusting off his hands, pulling down his little dark green tunic and hiking up his pale green tights.

"Blimey!" One of the nymphs giggled.

Blimey indeed!<\/i> thought Pan, who was president of the Scrappy Little Dudes Fan Club. Tinkerbell was one scrappy little dude.

Tink stood over the faun, both fists raised. "Now, you take it back, or there's a fuck-tonne more where that came from, goat-breath!"

The faun held his bloodied nose. "Imb borry by called boo a pumpling," the faun mumbled.

"And," menaced Tinkerbell.

"Anbd bat I said folk music was gay..."

"And...?" Tink raised a fist.

The faun cowed. "And<\/i> gay is not a synonym for stupid."

Tinkerbell put his hands on his hips, nodding. "Apology accepted," he said and held out his hand to help the faun up. The faun scrambled to his feet and Tinkerbell helped brush the dirt off his fur, and they shook hands before going their separate ways into the forest.

Only, Pete Pan entirely missed which direction Tink went because he was too busy swooning off his log in a dead faint backwards – although he did manage to grab a hold of the brownie’s ankle as he tried to slink away with Pan’s his winnings.

*

The next time Pan saw Tinkerbell he was wearing a turquoise sweater at a party after the Nearly End of the World.

"Psssssst."

Yes, Pan?<\/i>

"You should point them to Everyone Comes To Pan’s here. Maybe set up a rogue twitter site, street team a few blogs. Get Perez in on it. You know? PR<\/i>, baby."

Yes, thank you, Pan. I'm sure everyone knows about the fic.<\/i>

"Really? Because a quick glance at your comments tally tells a different tale."

...

"Not that there aren't some really great comments."

*taps foot*<\/i>

"Ooh! And one from Pennyplainknits! Damn girl."

*Arches eyebrow*<\/i>

"Ahem, so, you were saying? About the end of the world?"

The <\/i>Nearly End of World.<\/i>

"Right, that's what I said. So, like, carry on and whatnot."

*long suffering sigh*<\/i>

*

The beastly dragon was dead; Puck was back and Pan had found him. The Nearly End of the World had not been half as rough a ride as Pan had expected. And now there was a party.

Mikey was sylphed up to the nines and dancing with Ray; Frank and Gerard were, well, nowhere to be found<\/i>, Pan thought with prurient glee, and there was a big blond guy in the corner trying to ignore a number of curious familiars surrounding him.

That would be Bob<\/i>, Pan realized, Frank's Faerie ally<\/i>. Pan really liked Bob.

He was just about to go and sit on Bob's shoulders and demand they play Master-Blaster, from that human film, Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome<\/i>, when he was distracted by an apple-cheeked vision of loveliness loitering at the edge of the dance floor looking pissed.

Pan veered left and made for Tinkerbell, for lo, it was him<\/i>.

"S'up, beautiful?” Pan said as he sidled up to the little blond. “Heaven must be crying tonight, coz it’s lost an angel."

Tinkerbell turned slowly towards Pan, blushed almost scarlet, shook his head and disappeared into the crowd.

Mikey tripped lightly off the dance floor next to Pan. “Flamed, bro,” he said, nodding.

Pan sighed. He was going to have to re-think his usual game plan.

Mikey patted him on the shoulder. “You’re gonna have to re-think your usual game plan,” he said.

Pan really agreed.

The pair stood for a while watching the couples swirl by.

Finally Mikey turned to him. “How about I go over there and tell him what a cool guy I think you are?” he asked. “You know, makes up stuff to make you sound good.”

Pan grinned. “Yeah! Hey<\/i>,” he said, the grin sliding off his face as the back handed compliment slowly seeped through his love struck haze.

Mikey just winked, bounced on his toes a little and headed off after Tinkerbell.

“No, Mikey. Wait.” But Pan was too late. Mikey was already cornering Tink over by the trifle. Pan sighed and went to hide out back by the punch.

Truth be known, Peter Lewis King of the Woods Pan the Third didn't really have<\/i> a game plan per ce. He was a mythical being, a nature spirit, an elder god. Mostly his plans started with 'shock and awe' and went downhill from there.

"So, one night I will come to him in a shower of golden duckets!” Pan said to Keenan, waving his arms around over the punch bowl as Keenan tried to pour them both a cup. “And then he'll have<\/i> to love me."

Keenan blinked. "You want to give Patrick a golden shower?"

"Yes! Wait, what?" Pan said, pulling his arms in sharply and cringing. "No! And who the hell is Patrick?!"

Keenan gave Pan a level look. "The little blond sprite y'all been swooning over for the last twenty minutes? Dude’s name is Patrick."

"Seriously?!" Pan said, clasping his hands together and dancing up on his tippy toes. “Really?! Tinkerbell’s name is Pat-trick? Pattycakes? Tickle-trickle! The Trickmeister General! Trick!"

“Um,” Keenan said, wincing and shaking his head. He clutched his cup of punch closer. "Peeeee-ete."

"Keeee-nan," Pan cried, ignoring him in favor of grabbing his arm and splashing punch all over the place. "Am I not a trickster god? Should I not have as the boon companion of my heart a man named Trick?! AKA Tinkerbell?!"

"Pete,” Keenan said, cutting his eyes left.

Perhaps he’d gotten some punch in his eye<\/i>, thought Pan, who just continued his hysterical rant. "And shouldn't I adore him, and love him, and keep him by my side forever and a day? I will call him Tinkerbell and he will call me Big Dadd - "

"Pan.<\/i>" Keenan hissed.

The tone of Keenan's voice finally broke through Pan's reverie. "What?" He said, rocking back on his heels. Keenan's eyes flicked over Pan's shoulder and he raised his eyebrows.

A small cough sounded behind him. Pan swallowed and leaned forward to whisper to Keenan. "He's standing right there, isn't he?"

Keenan nodded. Pan cringed and made useless grabby hands at Keenan who just turned on his heel and disappeared back to the party. Fucknuts.<\/i>

"May I get to the punch bowl please?" a small voice said.

Pan turned slowly and stepped aside so Patrick, resplendent in a turquoise argyle sweater and matching knee socks, could pour himself some amber punch.

"Um," Pan said, winningly, tugging on the neck of his shirt. Man, it was hot in the cafe tonight. "Better watch out, that drinks sure packs a-a punch." Please stop talking, Pete,<\/i> Pan thought desperately, Please.<\/i>

Pan was in kind of a muddle. No one had ever shot him down before, let alone heard Pan in full tin-hat obsessive fantasy rant about them, like Patrick just had.

Pan was suddenly horribly aware that his usual charm wasn’t going to cut it with Patrick. Patrick was special. Patrick was precious. Patrick was calmly pouring himself a cup of punch right in front of Pan. Please tell me he didn’t hear the Big Daddy thing.<\/i>

Patrick drank his cup of punch and poured another before turning to face Pan.

"So," he said and looked at the floor. "I hear from Mikey we have you to thank for not being roasted to death in the belly of an angry metaphor."

"Oh, ah," Pan nodded. He waved his hand around a bit. His stomach rolled oddly and his hands felt a little clammy. He had lost his words completely. "Um..." This must be what ordinary people who like other ordinary people feel like <\/i>all the time.<\/i> he thought with dawning horror. Glarrrrrgh!<\/i>

Patrick took a slow sip from his cup and turned to watch the dancers spinning and dipping past. "I, ah, really like this jam," he said with a nod and a tap of his toes.

"Ah, er," Pan swallowed, and forced himself to put his hands in his pockets and stop bouncing on his toes. I could show you a few jams of my...no...I’m a slow jammer... absolutely not. I’d like to jam my... GOD NO...<\/i>

Pan cocked his hip and nodded. "I like noises," he said and then silently bit his tongue very, very hard. I like noises?! What the actual fuck?<\/i>

Patrick levelled a look at him over the top of his glasses. His eyes went a little, hazy and he tilted his head; and Pan couldn’t help feeling like Patrick was seeing a lot more than Pan’s too big teeth, sticky out ears and big old goofy jaw that was kind of aching from being made to smile so hard. Patrick quirked a cheek and frowned. “Huh,” he said, mostly to himself, before shaking his head a little and standing up straight.

"So, this is a dance,” he said to Pan. “Maybe we should, you know, dance<\/i>?"

"Dance," Pan said nodding. "Dance, um, with me?"

Patrick nodded, but before Pan could do anything to ruin it, Patrick had taken his hand and was dragging him out into the melee.

Patrick was a really good dancer. Even though they were kind of more dancing at<\/i> each other, than with each other, Pan could see that Patrick had all the moves. He was so good that Pan's strange nerves had all but danced themselves out of his body.

"So Tink," Pan said when the music finally turned slow and it seemed like there were a lot of couples pairing up and sliding closer together. Pan slipped his hand around Patrick’s waist and pulled him close. "You come here often?"

Patrick twisted out of Pan's embrace and put his hands firmly on Pan's shoulders, holding him at arm's length. He nodded, his eyes fixed over Pan's shoulder, waiting.

Pan glanced over his shoulder too. “Are we waiting for something?” he asked. Couples flew past them clinging to one another, bumping and grinding and writhing their way around the dance floor. Pan had some ideas about doing a little bumping and grinding of his own on the dance floor. But Patrick didn’t move. “What am I – are we – um, Patrick?”

"Your hands,” Patrick said quietly. “On my shoulders," Patrick said, and Pan saw his jaw get a little tight. "Sprite style."

Oh!<\/i> Pan thought, he’d heard about all the sprite cultural dances and their different meanings. He was pretty charmed that Patrick wanted to share some of them with him.

He placed his hands on Patrick's shoulders with a wink and a grin. But Patrick's thundery gaze wiped the smile straight off his face. "Oh, um, right," Pan flustered. "Ye Olde Sprite Stylee. Super serious bizniz. I dig it."

Only Pan didn't really dig it. Patrick looked so soft and inviting and Pan felt all...wanty and needy, like, if he couldn't get closer to Patrick, and soon, he was going to combust. It wouldn't be the first time!<\/i> Pan thought, remembering his brief yet volatile fling with a certain sylph back in the pre-enchantment days.

Patrick rolled his eyes. "Also, you can call me Patrick. Patrick of the Tree Stump," he said and he pushed Pan backwards onto the dance floor.

Pan sidled to the left, narrowly avoiding barrelling into Puck, who was watching the dancers jig by.

“But you look<\/i> like a Tinkerbell,” Pete said, and tried to turn them.

Patrick's nostrils flared. “Yes, but my name<\/i> is Patrick,” he said, crisp and terse.

Hmmm<\/i>, thought Pan. A guy can have more than one name, Pattycakes.<\/i>

They danced all night with Patrick saying very little except "No thank you," and "I don’t need another drink," and "If you try to touch it again I will punch you."

It was a very trying time for Pan, getting denied and denied and denied while Patrick continued hanging out with him anyway. He totally loved it.

At the end of the night, after Patrick actually did have to punch Pan (“I warned you, Pete!”), and had gone to the bathroom to run his hand under the cold faucet, Pan waited for him to come out so he could offer to walk him home.

But Patrick was nowhere to be found.

As Brandon and the boys packed up their gear and Frank and Gerard disappeared back into the storeroom, Pan found himself alone in the almost empty cafe.

"Well, shitnuts," said Pan with a great deal of feeling.

"I hear that," said Brandon lugging his tuba and accordion cases out into the night.

Pan went home alone. Yet again.

*

Pan, are you okay?<\/i>

"Sure, sure, I'm fine."

You don't really look<\/i> fine. <\/i>

"Nope, I'm good. Just a little speck of sentiment in my eye. Carry on."

Okay.<\/i>

*

Patrick, it turned out, was a singularly elusive soul. Pan sought him at the mead factory; he sought him at the Fae Dance School; he sought him at Mrs. Miggin's Pie Shoppe and Wand Emporium. But Patrick 'Tinkerbell' of the Tree Stump was not to be found.

"Have you tried looking for him at the Tree Stump, Pete?" Frank asked. He was stacking mermaid eggs in the tide pool tank at the back of the storeroom and the sticky mucous membranes were giving him a really hard time. He flicked more of the goop off his hand and it landed with a splat at Pan's feet.

"The Tree Stump?" Pan asked, scratching his head and taking a big step backwards.

Frank wiped his goopy hands off on his apron. "Patrick of the Tree Stump<\/i>? I’m no private detective or investigative journalist, Pete, but something tells me the clue to your beau's whereabouts may be hidden in his name."

"Huh," said Pan with a quizzical look. "You think?"

Frank nodded. Really slowly.

Careful to avoid any and all goop, Pan patted Frank on the back and headed off to the Park.

*

In the Fae world Chicago Central Park was a massive rolling wilderness filled with wild woods, magical beasts, questing knights and ice cream carts. It was also filled to the fucking brim with tree stumps. None of which seemed to come with a little blond sprite named Patrick attached.

"Okay, I'm getting seriously pissed off now," Pan said, kicking the everloving shit out of the big, gnarly stump in front of him. "The next stump I kick had better be Patrick's or I'm gonna smack a bitch."

"Hey Pete," a voice said from behind a bush.

Pan leapt up onto the stump which was not Patrick’s and put up his Karate dukes. "Who's there?!" he hollered.

"It's me, Spencer, you idiot," the voice said. "Get off that log and come give me a hand with the cart. It's stuck in a rut right now."

Pan took a deep calming breath. "Phew bro!" he said, leaping into the bushes and finding Spencer on his knees yanking a root for all he was worth. "I was just about to smack a bitch."

"Uh huh," said Spencer, giving Pan the mother of all bitch faces. "Perhaps you could start by smacking this bitchin’ root here and getting the cart into that clearing before the Polar Pops all melt."

Pan magic’d the root out of the way and Spencer smiled. "Ace!"

"Yes, I am," said Pan, completely oblivious to Spencer’s rolling eyes.

The nymph pushed the cart up the small bank into the clearing and set up his little umbrella and rang his little bell. His monkey familiar clambered up his leg and arm onto his shoulder and Spencer smiled.

Pan looked about. “So, um, you get much business off the beaten path like this?” He asked, mouth quirked with concern. It was a pretty dead end part of the forest, miles away from the stream at Beaver Town, or the Squirrelingshireville Oak.

“Enough,” Spencer replied with a sparkle in his eye and a frown on his brow.

Just then a little long-tailed, snub-nosed thing<\/i> came clambering out of the undergrowth and wound itself around Pan’s leg, before flipping itself over and lying there in the clover, kicking its little webbed feet in the air and chittering to itself.

“Um,” said Pan, looking down at the sleek-looking furry creature batting its long lashes at him.

“Hello...Bden,” Spencer said quietly.

“Bden? That looks more like an otter to me,” Pan said, raising his eyebrows and dropping down to one knee to scratch the otter’s tummy.

From between the trees, a dark-haired elf stepped, wielding a grin bright enough to eclipse Pan’s own. It dropped off his pretty face fairly quickly when he set eyes on Spencer though.
“Hello, Spence,” Brendon said quietly.

Pan looked between the nymph, Spencer and the elf, Brendon. “Wait, I’m confused. If he’s Spencer, and I’m Pete, and he’s Bden, then who and what the hell is this?”

“I am an otter, Mr. Pan,” the little fur friend said from down by Pan’s knee. “I’m Brendon’s new otter familiar, Ian.”

Pan looked up at Brendon. “You named your otter Ian<\/i>?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Brendon said. “I guess it’s a pretty odd choice, for an otter.”

Spencer sneered. “Because we all spend a lot of time wondering about good otter signifiers don’t we?” he said in his snarkiest tone – and Pan should know, because he’d heard and been the cause of many a snarky tone in the past.

“Well, I don’t know about you,” Brendon replied tartly. “But I like<\/i> thinking about otter names. I guess we’re just very. Different. People.<\/i>”

Spencer pursed his lips and his monkey turned his back on Brendon altogether.

Pan blinked between the two chaps, sensing a somewhat icy atmosphere forming in the middle of the summery park.

“Oh, don’t mind them,” Ian the Otter said, tugging on Pan’s tights. “Spencer’s in a snit because Brendon won’t move in with him, and Brendon’s in a snit because he thinks it’ll end in a horrible break-up if they live together.”

The atmosphere got about three thousand percent more icy as Brendon and Spencer patently ignored Ian talking about them – although Spencer’s cheeks had gone a really charming bright red – and continued staring each other out.

“Right, well,” said Pan, laughing a little nervous laugh. He nodded over to the edge of the clearing, and moved in that direction, waiting for Ian the Otter to follow. “I say,” he said, once they were both out of ear shot. “That’s all a bit on the tense side, isn’t it?”

Ian twisted around in the grass a little, did a strange eely kind of flip and sat up on his haunches. “It’s dumb,” he nodded. “But then, elves are kind of stupid.”

“Damned straight,” Pan said seriously.

Ian sighed. “They really, really like each other. Only, Brendon is afraid of change.”

Pan frowned. “Hmmm, change is kind of scary. But also change is good!” Pan dropped to one knee and slung an arm around Ian’s narror ottery shoulders. “Like, last week I was just some ordinary, everyday, old world trickster god, just going about my day. And now I am on a QUEST! To find my one true LOVE! Whose name is PATRICK!”

Ian made a funny little chittering noise, did a little tumble and roll, and sat up again. “Who, old Patrick Von Stump? The Sprite?”

Pan blinked and jumped up. “The very same!” he chimed. “Tell me you know where he lives. I’ve been looking for his tree stump for what seems like forever and...”

“You mean the one he’s standing by,” Ian said, pointing his little webbed claw at a gap in the trees. “Just over there.”

Pan turned and looked through the green leaves, and low and behold yonder was Patrick and his stump. Pan could just make out Patrick’s fire, and he seemed to be sitting on a log prodding something in a big copper cauldron. His clearing was quite a ways off, but Pan would have known him anywhere.

Pan smiled and sighed. “Brilliant, Ian,” he said. “I’m going to give you one wish. But make it snappy buddy because I have a date with a stump.”

Ian writhed around a bit and chittered some more. “Oh, keep your wishes, Mr. Pan,” he said. “I don’t think I need ‘em now.”

Pan glanced in the direction Ian the Otter was looking to see Brendon plastered to Spencer’s face by the mouth and trying to climb him.

“Huzzah!” Pan said happily. “Well, that’s a good omen, little buddy.” He looked down at Ian, who was resting his furry little chin in his fury little otter hands and sighing.

Pan patted Ian on the head and made off through the forest towards his one true love.

*

The Stump was less like a stump and more like a dead tree, leaning at an unlikely angle, leafless and sad looking. It wasn’t anywhere near Autumn yet, so it was odd that the tree should look so dead.

It had been a lot further away than Pete had at first thought, and also there were brambles and nettles and a little stream with snapping turtles and slippery rocks and if Pan wasn’t the god of the woods then he might have thought these woods had something against him.

“Knock it off, you guys,” Pan hissed as a low-hanging branch tangled in his hair and pulled a bunch of it out. “I’m like, the boss of you, so play nice.” A little shrub on the path ahead shuddered and shifted to one side. “That’s better,” Pan said, and promptly tripped over a rock the shrub was hiding, flipped head over ass, and landed in a puddle in the middle of Patrick’s clearing. “Ow.”

“You know,” said Patrick, not looking up from his cauldron. “For a forest deity, you make a hell of a lot of noise thundering around in there.”

“Ha ha!” Pan said, clambering to his feet as gracefully as he could. “Fancy - fancy meeting you here in this neck of the, ah, woods. I was just passing and, wow! Small world!”

Patrick looked at Pan with one raised eyebrow. He turned back to the cauldron in front of him, shaking his head.

“So, this is your stump?” Pan tried.

“It is,” Patrick said, and he lifted the cauldron off the fire with and started fanning the bubbling contents.

Pan winced. Patrick wasn’t much of a cook if the smell coming from that cauldron was anything to go by. Yikes! Pan had socks that smelled better, and that was really saying something.

“Took you long enough to find it,” Patrick said after a little while.

Pan blinked. “You, um, you wanted<\/i> me to find it?”

Patrick sighed. “I don’t do the sprite courting dance with just anyone, you know. But anyway, it’s no use now. You’re too late,” Patrick said and he looked at Pan unhappily. “I’m leaving soon.”

Pan staggered back. “What? What do you mean? Leaving here? When? For how long?”

Patrick shrugged. “As long as I need.”

Pan stomped his foot and twirled round. “You can’t leave here; I just arrived,” Pan fumed. “I just arrived and it’d be rude, or - or something.”

Patrick walked up to Pan and took both his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You – I...” He shrugged again, went up on his tippy toes and pressed a kiss to the corner of Pan’s mouth. “You should have come sooner,” he said and let Pan go.

“Patrick!” Pan cried. “No!”

But Patrick was waving his hands over the cauldron and whispering something that sounded like a spell. “Sorry Pete,” he said when his spell was done.

And suddenly, there was a thin strand of golden light rising out of the cauldron and attaching itself to the stump way up high, near the very top of the trunk. It started coiling and coiling and coiling, looking for all the world like some kind of knitted sock.

“Well, let me come with you then!” Pan said frantically, tugging at Patrick’s sleeve. “Let me come. I’ll – I’ll carry your bags and, and...”

“You can’t come where I’m going, Pete,” Patrick said wearily. And Pan stamped his foot again. There wasn’t anywhere in this forest that Pan couldn’t go.

“But where...”

And then the golden strand started to wrap itself around Patrick too, pulling him up the stump, winding him inside the crystal construction. Patrick’s eyes were already closed and Pan could hear his breathing get deep and even. Patrick was asleep; he was already gone.

The crystal strands continued spinning and weaving and winding; and Pan stood by, watching as his one true love disappeared.

Finally the strands went still and where there had been a sock, there was now a little crystal ball, faintly glowing golden, hanging from the uppermost branch of Patrick’s dead tree.

“This is total balls,” said Pan, and leapt lightly up to the nearest branch and sat down on it.

The crystal shell that Patrick’s magic had wound him into was smoky and almost opaque, but deep inside it Pan could see the dim outline of Patrick’s body, moving gently.

Pan sighed, pulled his knees up to his chest and waited.

*

He waited all through the summer, although Gerard and Frank came at one point and demanded he come down so the Wild Hunt could start.

“Nope,” Pan said, flicking a stray dandelion head off Patrick’s chrysalis. “You’ll have to start it this year, Puck.”

Frank frowned up at Pan. “Me? Seriously? C’mon dude, you know I’ll screw it up. You start the wild hunt, and Prince Valiant here ends it. That’s how it goes.”

“I’m not leaving so, you’re gonna have to.” Pan wedged himself into the angle of the branch and hung on. They weren’t getting him out of this tree without a fight.

Gerard tugged on Frank’s sleeve. He looked up at Pan. “Well, can we bring you anything, Pan?” Gerard asked. “You want food or...”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Pan said.

And eventually Frank and Gerard left.

Later he heard the raucous sound of the Hunt passing in the nearby forest. Gerard’s horn sounded loud and clear as they thundered by, the ground shuddered and Pan put a steadying hand on the chrysalis, which swung gently with the movement of the ground. Pan let out a long breath and continued to wait.

*

He waited all through the autumn. When the winds got up, blowing red and yellow leaves from the forest onto Patrick’s chrysalis, Pan brushed them off.

He waited all through the winter. Brendon and Spencer came and left him a blanket. And Keenan came and left him a pair of knitted socks. And lots of other Fae came and left tithes for the trickster god with the broken heart.

Pan didn’t really care. He brushed the snow off the chrysalis and held his blanket over it when it rained.

*

Pan realised the spring was coming when he opened his eyes one morning and there were bright spots of green polka-dotting the white blanket of snow covering his forest.

A couple of days later the snow was gone and in its place was a carpet of blue and a wall all around the clearing of green and pink and white and pale, pale orange. The fruit blossoms were out, and so were the bluebells.

The was green and white nearer to him too, because the stump was less of a stump now, and more of a flowering tree. Leaves of the palest green dotted the branches, and nestled within them were tiny white flowers with pale pink hearts.

Apple blossoms!<\/i> Pan thought. His favorites.

Pan scrambled to stand up on the branch and pull one of the flower-laden boughs closer to him. The scent of the flowers was heady and delicious. He looked down at the chrysalis about to tell Patrick about the changes around them when the words froze in his mouth.

Sometime in the night it had gone completely black.

“Patrick?” Panic - naturally - flaring in his gut, Pan scrambled down the side of the tree to a lower, branch; he pushed the leaves out of the way and leaned closer to the chrysalis. “Pattycakes?”

Pan swiped a hand over the nearest facet. He couldn’t see a thing; it was as black as a shard of onyx. He tapped a finger on the glassy surface. It was hard as glass, too.

“Oh gods,” Pan cried. “No!” He hammered on the surface of the chrysalis. It made an ominous hollow sound. Pan didn’t know what to do. He’d never had a caterpillar for a boyfriend before. This was totally outside his skill set.

He pummelled it with two fists. “Patrick!” He hollered. “Patrick!”

They say the sound of Patrick Von Stump’s chrysalis shattering could be heard all the way from Beaver Town to Oak Park. Some say even the Boggerts’s in Boggert’s Bottom heard the crack. Who knows?

“Well, I know.”

Yes, Pan. I know you <\/i>know. I was using a little poetic licence there to build a little dramatic tension?<\/i>

“Oh! Rhetorical and shit. Nice. Keep going. This is the good bit.”

Ahem.<\/i>

The chrysalis shattered; shards of the glassy structure firing out from the tree in all directions and with such sudden force that Pan was blown clear off his branch and down onto the bluebell-carpeted forest floor.

Pan lay amidst the sweet smelling flowers for what seemed like an age, watching the stars and little sparrows flitting around his head, and listening to his ears ringing.

“Son of bitch!” Pan said, when he was able to unclamp his teeth and feel his lips again.

The tree above him rustled. “Um, Pete?”

Pan shook his head and blinked. “Patrick!”

The leaves in the apple tree shuddered and shimmered and a shower of little white petals rained down on Pete.

“Um, yeah?”

Pan scratched his head. “Well, you don’t sound very sure,” he said. “Have you got a cap on? Are you wearing argyle and are you frowning?”

There was silence from the tree and then a little rustling. “Ah, no, no and yes. No. Well, I mean, I was<\/i> frowning, but now I’m not.” And there was a sound from the apple tree not unlike a giggle. “I’m a little giddy, to be perfectly frank.”

Hmmmmm,<\/i> thought Pan. That could be Pattycakes. Could be a monster. I’d better investigate.<\/i>

“Well, come on out and let’s have a look at you,” Pan said, scrambling to his feet and running to the foot of the tree.

“No!” Probably!Patrick hollered. “No, stay back. I’m - I’m not very nice to look at, Pete. I think you woke me up too early. I feel quite out of sorts and sort of... half cooked.”

Pan bit his lip. Half cooked doesn’t sound so bad<\/i>, Pan thought. He felt pretty terrible about waking Patrick too soon though. “I didn’t know what else to do,” Pan said, staring up into the branches and trying to get a look at Patrick. “Your chrysalis had gone all black, and...”

The branches shook a little, and more petals fell.

“I’m sorry?” Pan said, hugging the tree. “Maybe I can help, if you come down and let me take a look?”

“Well, okay,” Probably!Patrick said. “But I warn you. I’m looking pretty hideous.”

You could never look hideous to me, ‘Trick,<\/i> Pan thought, but didn’t say, because he didn’t want an already self-conscious sprite to feel even worse. “I can handle the fugly, baby. Come on down.”

Pan stepped back into the clearing and tried to look casual and relaxed. After some awkward shuffling about and an ill-thought out reclining pose, he settled on tense and staunch with his feet planted wide and his hands on his hips. He swallowed.

The branches rattled and shivered and shimmied. And finally they parted, and Patrick flitted out from between them, landing lightly on the grass in front of Pan.

He hadn’t been lying; he didn’t look the same. Gone were his curvy curves, and comfy rolls, and in their place were lean hips and long legs. His face was sharper too, but his bushy red sideburns were the same. His hair was fuller and brighter and longer, but still looked like spun gold. And when Pan looked beneath the hair he was delighted to see Patrick’s big blue eyes were just as blue and just as Patrick as he’d remembered them.

Of course the glittering gossamer wings which shivered and shimmered over Patrick’s shoulders were completely, devastatingly, gorgeously new. Pan smiled.

“You look fucking terrible,” he said with a smirk.

Patrick leaned back and punched Pan right on the nose.

*

“Oh my gods, I can’t believe you left that bit in!”

Well, I’m sticking to the story as I heard it straight from Patrick, Pan. And he did lamp you a good one, on account of his emotions being all over the place after just coming out of hibernation and all.<\/i>

“Yeah, but man, that’s not the most romantic ending I ever saw, holy shit.”

Well, I don’t really know from Romantic, Pan. I’m writing fairy stories with imaginary characters, in my pyjamas at 7:30 on a Friday night. I’m kind of relying on the info as given, you know what I mean?<\/i>

“True, true, you are sorta lame in that way.”

*purses lips*<\/i>

“Well, if you want I could finish the story then? I can add some fireworks, maybe a procession and dancing girls and boys and maybe, like crowns - yeah, there were definitely crowns - and Patrick swore to love me for all time...”

No thank you Pan, dear. I’m nearly done now. I’ll finish it.<\/i>


*

“I absolutely will not swear to love you for all time, dickweed,” Patrick said as he flicked through the latest edition of Elven Bride and Groom, his chin resting lightly on his hand as he perused the cumberbunds and cake toppers. Pan peered over his shoulder to see Patrick had circled a picture of a little sprite with a crown of leaves on his head grinning up from the page.

Pan’s shoulders dropped and he screwed up the little scroll he’d been writing on. “Aw, man.”

Patrick looked up. “‘For all time’ is not the Faerie way and you know it. Not even Gerard and Frank said ‘for all time’ and those two are like, glued at the crotch.”

“Ew,” Pan said, recoiling.

Patrick raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, okay, so not ‘ew’,” he grinned. “But I mean, we’re not them. We can say for all time if we want. They’re our vows.”

Patrick sat up and pulled Pan closer. He smiled up at him lovingly and immediately cuffed him round the head. “No,” he said. “We can’t.”

Pan threw himself on the bed with a desultory huff. “Pattycakes,” he whined. “I know knocking me about is the sprite way of showing affection, but sometimes could you just use your words instead?”

Patrick looked at least a tiny bit remorseful. “I just mean that,” he sighed. “I mean that we say ‘for a year and a day’ for a reason. You know? Brownies do it, Nymphs do it...”

“Yeah, yeah, even those little googly-eyed piskie things do it,” Pan said with a note of surrender in his voice. He pushed his tunic up and patted his belly. Looking up he noticed Patrick watching the movement of his hand out of the corner of his eye.

A-ha!<\/i> thought Pan, and he tilted his hips, arched his back and stretched; his top rode up higher and he let out a little sigh. Inside he was giggling.

Patrick put the magazine aside and clambered over the bed towards Pan, his wings quivering and flicking about, which actually Pan knew was a preeeeety good sign.

“Come here, you,” Patrick said, climbing on top of Pan. His wings dropped forward and brushed over Pan’s shoulders. Pan shivered and stretched up for a kiss.

Patrick sank his fingers into Pan’s hair and nuzzled into his throat. “Even though we say a ‘year and a day’,” he whispered against Pan’s skin. “It doesn’t mean we don’t hope ‘forever and ever’ or even mean it.” Patrick dragged his nose lightly down Pan’s throat and dropped little sucking kisses across his clavicle. “It’s not the terms of the love, just of the union.”

Above them his wings shivered again, as Pan let his hands wander all over Patrick’s back and hips. “Gods...” Patrick’s gossamer wings vibrated and flicked back and forth as his hips pressed against Pan’s. “And then, when the year and a day is over, we get to have another big party and make the vow again, see?”

“I suppose,” Pan sighed, pushing Patrick’s top up to get at the creamy skin beneath. “A year and a day does<\/i> have a nice ring to it.”

“Right?” Patrick whispered and continued to follow his kisses south.

“Oh - oh - Okay then,” Pan squeaked. “‘A year and a day’ it is.” He sighed and lifted his hips as Patrick peeled his tights off. “But,” Pan breathed as Patrick stopped at the object of his journey down Pan’s body and licked a long, hot stripe up it. “Holy Sunday <\/i>. - I-ah -I’m still calling you - sweet Frigga’s apples<\/i> - Tinkerbell. In the ceremony.”

But if Patrick heard, he didn’t say anything, and if he didn’t hear, Pan wasn’t going to repeat it. He had to keep some<\/i> surprises for their big day. After all, what kind of trickster god would he be if he didn’t?

The End.

*

“And you said you didn’t know from Romantic.”

*shrugs*<\/i>

“You’re a sly one, you. Hey, thanks.”

No, no, thank you Pan. See you round, okay?<\/i>

“Sure thing, Rox. Stay golden!”

I’ll do my best, Pan. I’ll do my best. <\/i>

<\/a>


"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:106335","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/106335.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=106335"}}],"title":"Fic: Bordertown for Bandon Reverse Big Bang art #13","published":"2012-04-12T09:34:45Z","updated":"2012-04-12T09:36:38Z","content":"Title:<\/b> Bordertown
Author:<\/b> <\/a>roxy_palace<\/b><\/a><\/span>
Pairing(s)\/Characters:<\/b> Ray\/Mikey, Frank\/Gerard (pre-slash), James Dewees, Bob Bryar, OCs, Wolfboy, Sparks
Summary:<\/b> They left after Elena. She'd always said there would be a sign, and Gerard couldn't help but see her death, her leaving<\/i> them, as anything but a sign to get the hell out of New Jersey.
Rating:<\/b> NC-17
Word count:<\/b> 16, 216
Warnings:<\/b> Non central-character death, grief, cavalier attitudes to violence, threats of violence, drug use, drying out, accidental drug use which is central to the plot, cavalier attitudes to drug use. Happy endings in spite of these things - this is definitely not Dark!fic but the verse it’s riffing on is quite dark.


Author notes:<\/b> Thank you to my beta, <\/a>gala_apples<\/b><\/a><\/span>, who knows canon inside and out and was able to guide me through the streets of Bordertown so i wouldn’t get lost, start a gang war or get dusted trying to go through the gate. There’s no way I could have done this without you! Thank you also to my first reader and beta <\/a>defect_no9<\/b><\/a><\/span> who is always a joy to me. ILU, doll face!

To my wonderful artist <\/a>amkave<\/b><\/a><\/span>: I am so sorry you didn’t get a writer who knows this lush and wonderful set of stories well - or at all. I wanted to write for you because I loved your art, and when I investigated what Bordertown was I realised it was a frikken wonder I had never read the books before. It is EXACTLY my kind of thing, and possibly the stories I have been waiting for my WHOLE LIFE. I have always loved that idea of worlds overlapping and crazy stuff happening in between.

Also, I was so stoked when I read there’s a story in the Borderlands series called Famous Last words, and also that you can get “dusted” going through the gate if you are not an Elf. AMAZEBALLS! No wonder you wanted a crossover so much!

I was fortunate enough to find Gala_Apples to help me out, with all the details of verse. She has been amazing with details and research and info about the Borderlands world. Also, she has been super supportive and encouraging, nudging me back on the right path when I wander off into some other mythos or get my elven\/elfin mixed up!

Finally, there is a death in the fic, and some confusion about who is dead and a great deal of grieving, but this is not dark!fic and there is a happy ending.
<\/a>

Bordertown<\/b><\/a><\/div>
Hosted at Dreamwidth

<\/a>amkave<\/b><\/a><\/span>'s beautiful art is here<\/a><\/div>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:106167","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/106167.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=106167"}}],"title":"Bandom Reverse Big Bang Art #3","published":"2012-03-27T17:01:12Z","updated":"2012-03-27T17:01:12Z","content":"\"\"<\/a>

"They thought the Earth would go down easy as a two dollar whore...But they didn't count on... IERO: ALIEN HUNTER. Protecting the Earth from the scum of the universe. Coming soon, to a theater near you!"<\/i>

Warnings: Absolutely no warnings unless you count how frikken hot Frankie is in that pic? In which case: WARNING: Unfeasibly-cute-rhythm-guitarist v sci-fi film mash up.
Artist Notes: Please don't pair Frankie with anyone outside MCR. Also, please no Pedicone, wives or het (unless it's Girl!Gee\/Mikey\/Ray\/Bob). Forbidden Alien!band love is welcome. As is bizarre tentacle sex. H\/C, romance, fluff, schmoop and general silliness are positively encouraged.<\/strong>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:105867","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/105867.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=105867"}}],"title":"Fic: Everyone Comes To Pan's Part Five","published":"2012-03-22T06:40:26Z","updated":"2012-03-22T07:12:27Z","content":"

Everyone Comes To Pan's
Part Five<\/b><\/div>
“This is fucking ridiculous.” Frank staggered under the weight of the armour on his back and front, the dull edges of his ill-fitting breast plate digging into his sides and the narrow neck almost choking him.

“I look like I’m gate crashing a Ren Faire, not saving the mother fucking world<\/i>.”

Gerard pulled the leather strap on his shoulder tighter and handed him his gauntlets.

“You look great,” Gerard said.

“I can’t see,” Frank said as the tinny sound of his voice ricocheted around inside the too large helm.

Gerard lifted up the visor and peered in. “What? I can’t really hear you that well out here.”

“Oh for fuck’s -” The visor closed on Frank’s retort. He reached up, slowly - those vambrace things were fucking heavy - and pushed up the visor himself.

“I said, this is fucking ridiculous. I can hardly move; I can’t fucking see. I mean, I might be wrong, but I’m fairly sure you have to be able to see<\/i> to defeat things, right?”

Frank felt Gerard futzing around with the strap under his chin keeping the helm on, followed by the unique joy of having 20 pounds of Faerie steel lifted off his head.

“Thank you,” he said, and glared at Gerard. Gerard stared. He pressed himself closer to Frank, slipping his fingers inside the chain mail of the coif covering Frank’s head and pushing it back.

“You - You used to do this all the time,” he said, smoothing his thumb over Frank’s brow and down to his cheek. He smiled. “You were like, like the king of the dragon slayers.” He turned away and started fiddling with a scabbard and sword on the shelf next to him.

Frank felt a surge of relief, which was quickly washed away by cold hard reason. He pointed at Gerard, who cut him a quick, sheepish look from the corner of his eye. “I so wasn't, was I?” Frank hissed with narrow eyes.

Gerard had the good grace to look embarrassed. “No? But...”

“Oh my God,” Frank groaned again. “Oh my fucking God.”

Gerard wrung his hands, patted Frank’s armour, and wrung his hands again.

“It’s not so hard,” Gerard said. “You know. It’s like I said that day when we were playing B&A. They’re really lazy. It probably wont want to fight you.”

The building shook all around them, the air clamoring with the sound of the Dragon’s roar.

Frank gave Gerard a look that he hoped very clearly said ‘What The Fuck?’

Gerard picked up the scabbard and fastened it around Frank’s waist. “You’re not going alone, Frankie.”

The storeroom door opened and Pete stuck his head in the door.

“It’s time, Frankie,” he said with a huge grin. “The Dragon's here. In the city. If we don't hurry, Norms will start seeing it and then we're all fucked.”

“What’s a Norm?” Frank hissed out the corner of his mouth.

“Non-Fae, humans,” Gerard hissed back.

“Fuck,” Frank breathed.

Frank started for the doorway but felt the weight of Gerard’s hand tugging him back.

“I should have told you. And now it’s too late. I should have...” He stopped and swallowed. “You have to survive, Frankie,” Gerard said. His voice was barely a whisper. “You have to come back. To me. You have<\/i> to remember.”

His fingers were white with clinging so hard to Frank’s armour. Frank wanted to feel it. Wanted to feel the bruises forming under Gerard’s hands as he clung to Frank.

“I’m scared,” Frank said, but even as he said it, looking into Gerard’s eyes, he felt it a little less. He shook the gauntlets off his hands and took Gerard’s hand in his.

“Me too,” Gerard said. Frank blanched, but Gerard shook his head. “No, no, I believe in you. I just... I’m scared you still won’t know me when you come back.”

“I - I know you, Gee,” Frank whispered. “I know you.”

Gerard ran the back of his hand down Frank’s cheek. His smile was sad.

Frank turned his face into the caress. He kissed Gerard’s palm. “I can’t believe that me not remembering could destroy everything,” he hung his head.

Gerard frowned. “Because you're you<\/i>, Frankie,” Gerard said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “When you're not you everything goes to shit.” Gerard kissed him, soft and sweet. And Frank could feel, everywhere, that he meant it.

*

Everything seemed to happen so fast after that. There were bows and arrows and lances handed out. Frank saw Mikey sharpening a sword and Ray struggling his way into a chain mail shirt. And then Mikey admiring Ray in the chain mail. Which, yeah, Frank had to admit, hung from Ray’s broad shoulders, fitting snugly over his big arms, a dang sight better than it did from Frank’s. As if he was born to wear it.<\/i> Frank thought desperately. He jammed his ill fitting visor back further. Fuck.<\/i>

And then Pete was pulling Frank out the door with Peppers close on his heels. He’d had only a second to look for Gerard, lock eyes with him, and then he was gone, pulled along by Pete, through the wild wood.

*

At the edge of the wood was the Library park.

The park was gone, of course, replaced by a rambling chaos of trees and vines.

“This wood is old,” Pete said, leaping up onto a fallen log. “Full of memory.”

Frank un hooked the stupid visor and chucked it aside. “Please tell me you’re not quoting Lord of the Rings.”

Pete cackled. “Snap! Dude, I fucking love those films. That Legolas, man, if only Elves really looked like that”

“Christ on a mother fucking stick, Pete! Can you take this a little more seriously?” Frank snapped. “I’m about to get roasted to death by fucking Godzilla.” Frank lent against a tree trunk. The armour was really heavy and Frank was really, really fucking ticked off.

Pete leaped lightly down from the log and undid Frank’s helm. He lifted it off Frank’s head and threw it to one side.

“I am taking this seriously, Frankie. This is as serious as I ever get.” He grinned. “I’m a trickster god<\/i>. I can’t show you how I really feel. That’d give the game away.”

Frank slumped. Peppers whined and put a paw on top of his foot. Frank leaned down and stroked her head. She turned to Pete.

Not far now, right Pan?<\/i>

“No,” Pete said to the chihuahua. “Not far, Princess.”

“Okay,” Frank said, hauling himself up again. “Okay.” And the three of them ran on towards the roar of the Dragon.

As they broke through into a clearing, Frank felt the wind kick up. A storm was brewing, blotting out the sunlight, and the air was heady with ions. Ahead, the Library loomed, it’s crenelations and spires piercing the iron sky. The gargoyles screeched and clawed the air, and wan lights flickered in the windows. The great iron studded doors stood wide open.

“That’s the gateway!” Pete called, the wind whipping away his voice. “The door to Faerie! You need to close it before Midsummer.”

Well, Frank knew how to close a door. That he could do.

What Frank didn’t know how to do was destroy the 20 foot tall, black scaled, flame snorting, red toothed thing<\/i> standing between himself and it.

The beast lifted it’s craggy head and belched fire in an angry arc across the sky.

Frank pulled his sword from the scabbard at his hip. He looked at it, and then back up at the Dragon.

“I’m gonna need a bigger sword,” Frank said, swallowing tightly.

“No you don’t. You can do it, you just have to believe!” Pete shouted into the wind. “Oh, no wait, that's the other thing. Fuck. I don't know. Throw something at it!”

The creature saw them then. It lumbered down from the portico of the Library towards them.

Frank shook off one gauntlet and threw it. It bounded off the dragon’s hide and landed at Pete’s feet.

Frank looked at Pete; Pete shrugged. “It was worth a shot!”

Frank took a deep breath and ran forward. He could hear Peppers yapping and snarling, and through a tiny slit in the visor he saw her darting in and worrying at one of the Dragon’s massive talons.

Frank yelled and dashed after her, but was forced back by an arc of fire from the beast’s massive nostrils. “No!” Frank screamed as Peppers disappeared behind a wall of flame.

The beast didn’t even see her, but as it took a step closer to Frank, it flicked Peppers aside like swatting a gnat. Her little golden body tumbled in the air and landed in a crumpled heap. She didn’t move.

Frank ran to her, and Pete tried to distract the Dragon, leaping in the air and calling it names.

Frank ran a gentle hand over her and she whimpered. He couldn’t feel any breaks. “Thank fuck,” he hissed. “Baby girl, can you hear me?”

He’s bigger than he looks.<\/i> Peppers sighed, and passed out.

Frank dragged himself back to his feet. This was fucking ridiculous. He started hauling off the armour.

He didn’t know who he had been, he didn’t know who he was going to be at the end of this. But he knew who he fucking was right now. And it was not Prince fucking Valiant or who the fuck ever.

He threw the armour to one side and shrugged off the chain mail vest. Underneath he still had on his jeans and Bob’s denim jacket, that’d have to do for protection. He kept the chain coif on, coz secretly he thought it was kind of bad-ass. But everything else had to go.

Pete landed next to him. “Take her!” Frank yelled, handing Peppers’ to him.. Pete picked her up and made for the edge of the Forest. “Okay,” Frank said to himself, adjusting his grip on the sword. “Lets show this fucker who’s boss.”

Frank turned and faced the beast.

He ran forward, darting in behind its lumbering tail and dodging the grabbing claws. Nipping in beneath it’s wing he hacked at the back of its leg. The sword bounced off the scales uselessly and Frank was thrown back, into the Beast’s reach.

He felt its claws close around him, and he was lifted into the air even as the air was crushed out of him.

He rained blows down onto the thing’s talon but it made no difference. It held Frank up to it’s great, red eye. Which, when Frank thought about it, was kind of a rookie mistake.

He threw back his arm and stabbed at the eye with his sword.

The creature screamed - which didn’t make Frank feel all that good. The Dragon hadn’t started this fight and now Frank had just hauled off and blinded it. He was seriously the worst vegetarian ever.

He felt really sorry for it, right up until it dropped him from 20 feet up, and Frank landed in a heap on the stone steps.

“Gah!” Frank had seconds to roll out of the way of a plume of flame snorted straight at him.

“Oh fuck you, dragon breath,” Frank yelled, but the wind whipped his voice away.

The Dragon reared back and Frank could tell it was about to let loose another plume when its shoulder flinched, like it’d been stung.

Frank looked around and at the edge of the clearing was Mikey - who definitely did the Prince Valiant thing proud - firing on the Dragon with a bow and Ray next to him, twirling what looked like a sling shot above his head, his chain mail glittering in the flash of the fire.

Frank staggered to his feet and ran for the trees.

The wind grabbed and pushed at him, and there was a horrible tearing noise. Frank looked behind him to see his own shadow being ripped away.

From the edge of the trees, Pete sprang forward and grabbed it, dragging it back by it’s heel. He rolled it up and tucked it into Frank’s pocket. Frank’s heart hammered in his chest.

“You should get that sewn back on as soon as you can.” He leaned in close and whispered, “If you survive and all. Sorry.” Pete made an apologetic face and shrugged.

Frank rolled his eyes. “Fuck,” he shouted.

“Frank!” Frank turned and saw Mikey darting towards them, head down as he forced his way into the gale.

The Dragon growled when it saw Mikey, and reared up. Its breath was hot and fierce and stank of roasted flesh. It was terrible to behold, and Frank felt his fear rise up in him like a wave of white cold ice.

Frank turned to Mikey and shook his head. “I can’t do it,” he said, and Mikey just frowned back at him.

“Hold on Frankie,” he shouted, his voice barely louder than the wind. “Gee is coming.”

The Dragon lumbered forward again, snapping its great red maw at them, belching huge plumes of ash and smoke into the air. Frank held up his sword, but it was no use.

The Dragon unfurled its mighty wings and flapped them against the air, Frank stumbled back. It roared a column of fire. But before it could lurch forwards and attack, it fell back.

“That’s right, asshole,” a voice behind Frank said, louder than the wind, and a million times more dear. “Back the fuck up.”

Frank turned and Gerard was there. On a horse. And in tights. Firing arrow after arrow into the Dragon’s hide.

“Where the fuck did you get a horse?!” Frank cried.

“He’s a Sylph, Frank,” Pan said, picking Frank up and dusting him off, as if that was some kind of explanation. Gerard galloped past them, and Pete stood back, clapping.

Frank blinked. Gerard was born for chain mail and heraldic tunics too, it seemed. As he parried the Dragon’s attacks, dodging and weaving, firing on the beast the whole time, he seemed greater somehow, taller and more noble.

“Wow... he, um... really suits the whole knight in shining armour thing.” Frank stammered.

“Well,” Mikey said, raising his own bow and knocking an arrow into it. “He is the leader of the Wild Hunt. And, I don't know if you noticed, but he's kind of a show-off.” He loosed his shot, and it lanced the Dragon’s neck.

Gerard rode forward, too close for arrows, which he threw the bow aside, and drew his sword.

He swiped the creature’s tail and it reared back again.

“Dude,” Mikey yelled at Frank. “This elf shot’s doing nothing to slow the Dragon down. You have to do something. That thing is gonna kill Gee!”

Mikey was right about the arrows; the beast brushed them off as if they were splinters. But Frank didn’t know what to do. He still couldn’t remember anything from his life before.

“You’re not thinking<\/i>, Frank,” Mikey said, dropping his bow and grabbing Frank’s arm. “You’re not thinking Faerie<\/i>.”

Frank shook his head. The image of himself from Bob’s book came to his mind. Fanciful names danced in his head.

Frank turned and saw Gerard duck as the Dragon’s tail failed towards him.

“You can save him,” Mikey said. “You know<\/i> how.”

Ray, fresh from throwing stones and clods of dirt at the beast, nudged Frank’s shoulder with his own. “You do know how,” he grinned. “You were made<\/i> knowing how.”

And Frank looked at Mikey. Looked right at him. Mikey was a Sylph. Like Gerard, who was still fighting the Dragon. And Brandon and Adam and Zach, they were Brownies. Ray was a Faun, and Pete, was Pan<\/i>, the God of the woods. But what was Frank? What the fuck was<\/i> Frank.

The Dragon reared up, twisted and swung its tail at Gerard again.

“I’m...” Frank staggered forward, clutching Mikey.

Mikey squeezed his arm. Frank looked into his eyes. Mikey nodded back.

“I’m a...” A word appeared in the air before Frank’s eyes, or maybe in his mind, or rising up from dark recess of his memory, or whatever. But it was a word, a name, a weapon<\/i>.

Frank let go of Mikey and ran forward. “Gerard! I know how to defeat it!”

Gerard pulled his mount up hard and turned back at Frank and didn’t see the tail coming again. It collected him, knocking him from the horse and sending him crashing down onto the steps, far heavier than Peppers or Frank had landed. He didn’t move.

“No!” Frank screamed and sprinted, but Mikey grabbed him round the waist, hauling him back.

“Frank you can’t... you can’t help him. Not like that,” Mikey yelled.

“Gee!” Frank cried and struggled in Mikey’s grip.

Please Frank,<\/i> Peppers yapped from the safety of the trees. Please.<\/i>

“Oh God.” Frank tore his eyes away from Gerard’s crumpled form, back to the Dragon.

“I am going to fucking destroy you,” he cried. “Imma make you into fuckin’ shoes<\/i> and fucking, a fucking belt!”

“That’s it,” Mikey said. “Tell him why!”

“Because I...”

“Go on,” yelled Ray..

“I am...”

And the wind roared and the mother fucking Dragon roared, and Frank thought maybe even Pete roared too. Above him a chink in the clouds appeared, and lance of sunlight fell across the steps of the Library. And something shifted in Frank. He breathed deep.

Say it, Frank.<\/i>

“I will defeat you because I am... Puck<\/i>, mother fucker,” he hollered, and the clouds rolled back, and the wind blew. “I am Puck. And you do not fuck<\/i> with Puck.”

“Oh, thank Christ,” Mikey said, grabbing his hand and running towards the beast. “Your heart name and your favourite threat. That’s like double brownie points in the memory stakes. Finish him!”

The Dragon staggered back at the sound of Frank’s name as if some almight fist had socked it, right in its pointy ear. It unfurled its mighty black wings and screamed. Ray, Mikey and Frank all rushed at it with swords drawn. Chinks began showing in its scaly hide, and it seemed to shrink in on itself.

Ray drove into its hind leg with his pike, and it crumpled enough for Mikey to leap up and stick the beast in the side with his sword. While it screeched and bellowed, Frank leaped up and brought the keen edge of his blade down slicing clean through the Dragon’s neck.

Frank fell to the ground in a disgusting shower of feotid, black blood. The Dragon’s dying body writhed, pitifully, and slumped down the Library steps. It’s head rolling out into the clearing. After long, loud seconds all was still.

Frank flung the sword aside and and ran to Gerard. “Gee, God! Gee!” Frank cried, crashing to his knees at Gerard’s side.

Mikey joined him, and Ray stood a few steps down. Pete landed on the steps next to Frank and gently put Peppers on the ground beside him.

Oh no,<\/i> she cried, and licked tenderly at Gerard’s hand.

“Pan!” Mikey called. “Is he...”

Pete shook his head. “He’s alive. But only just.”

“But... I killed it, the Dragon,” Frank said desperately. “That fixes everything, doesn’t it?”

Pete stood back and stroked his chin. “Well, yeah, I mean. That was the deal.” He shrugged. “But I guess, Gee screwed up.” He sighed. “That’s the problem with enchantments. If they can’t screw you one way, they’ll screw you another.”

“Enchantments...” MIkey said, his eyes fixed on Gerard. “Pan, you don’t think...” He looked at Pete.

Pete looked back and forth between the three of them. “Well, shit,” he said, with glee. “It can’t hurt!”

“What?!” Frank cried, grabbing Mikey’s hand. “What can’t hurt?”

Mikey smiled. “You remember, right? Now you do? Everything?”

Frank stared at Mikey. He had a clear picture in his mind of the tree where he was born. His mother smiling at him. Titania. Oberon. The clearing in the woods where the bonfire was built, where he first saw Gee. A man with a Donkey’s face. His first may dance. Tricking the milk maids to dance with him. Mikey’s smile, rare and precious. And Gee taking his hand. Their first kiss and every kiss after. The ribbons twined around their wrists. The flowers in Gee’s hair. Midsummer.

Frank let out a huge breath, stunned. “Yeah, I remember.”

“So, do what princes do, Puck, in all the fairy tales,” Mikey said, and he stood and moved away.

Pete cackled and flitted after him.

Peppers snuffled and covered her nose with her paw.

Frank looked down at Gerard. He remembered everything now, his lover, his soul mate, the first time Frank tasted his skin, their fingers knotted together, the sound of Gerard sighing and calling his name; The first time Frank looked into Gerard’s eyes under a midsummer moon, the bonfire light gilding his smile.

“Oh,” breathed Frank. And he bent his head and did what princes do.

He kissed his one true love.

*

“And then they all lived happily ever after...” Gerard unrolled the sewing kit and selected a long, thin needle.

Frank had made straight for the storeroom, his home in this world, he recalled. And that was where he was now, reclining on his bed of cushions as Gerard tended his wounds.

“I thought you didn’t like needles,” Frank said, arching an eyebrow and smirking. He stretched his foot out into Gerard’s lap and wriggled his toes.

Gerard grinned. “I don’t like them in me<\/i>, but I can use them. In an emergency,” he said and wrinkled his nose with a smile.

Frank held out his hand and Gerard cupped his beneath it. Frank dropped something dark and moving, and Gerard caught it up and shook it out.

“Shadows, as Pan says, are not to be trusted,” laughed Gerard, and he began stitching the shadow back to Frank’s heel.

“Too right,” said Frank reclining on the pillows and watching Gerard down the length of his nose. “Mine was off at the first sign of danger. Rat bastard.”

The dark shape in Gerard’s hand tugged and yanked and tried to get away. Gerard just stroked it and pulled it back into place. “Hush,” he said. And Frank went quiet.

Things had been different after the kiss on the steps of the Library as they limped back to Pan’s, ragged, and messed up, but far from beaten.

The woods had all melted back Under The Hill, the doors to Mag Mell opened both ways again, and Chicago was its same old, bustling, Norm-filled self. No one batted an eyelash at four bloodied little guys and a limping Chihuahua trudging off the El at Oak Park and disappearing into the dark recesses of an alleyway off Mornington Cresent.

“Do they really all live happily ever after?” Frank asked, pushing himself up on his elbows and watching closely as Gerard tied a knot and bit off the Faerie silk with his teeth. Once he was done he turned his face and kissed Frank’s ankle.

“Naturally,” he sighed, and pressed another kiss, higher up, on Frank’s bare calf.

Pan’s had felt a little different too, bigger, and glossier, somehow. There were faces at the tables Frank had never seen, doorways in and out of the café that hadn’t been there before. But Frank knew what they were and where they led. Frank remembered them.

Frank sighed. “No sudden Dragon attacks, or evil enchantments?”

“None,” whispered Gerard, kissing and licking at the soft skin on the inside of Frank’s knee.

“And what about term deposits?” Frank said with a sigh of his own as Gerard moved up his leg, caressing and kissing his inner thigh. “They have much to do with them?”

“Never heard of ‘em,” Gerard breathed, before trailing the tip of his tongue up Frank’s belly.

Frank remembered...

Gerard stretched out above Frank and smiled. “Well, my prince. You’re all shadowed up and ready to party.”

...And Gerard was the best memory of all.

Frank giggled. “Or...”

“Or nothing. It’s Midsummer. Puck’s night. Your<\/i> night. You’re the guest of honor.” Gerard pushed himself away. “We can come back here later,” he purred. “If you’re very, very good.”

Frank swallowed. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and hauled himself off the bed.

*

The boys had really out done themselves with the decorations in the café. Lanterns filled with firefly pixies, and garlands of flowers festooned every entrance. The ceiling glittered with stars, and the walls shone with them too.

The raucous sounds of Brandon, Adam, Zach and Keenan bashing about on Faerie instruments on a little stage in the corner greeted them when they entered the café, as did the sight of Ray twirling Mikey around the dance floor, his hooves clipping and clopping in time with the music.

Pete was dancing too, with a little blond sprite Frank was having trouble placing. They danced past. “But you look<\/i> like a Tinkerbell,” he heard Pete say. And Frank only just caught the sound of the sprite sighing and saying, “Yes, but my name<\/i> is Patrick,” as they spun past.

In the corner Frank spotted Bob, bailed up a little against the wall by Ray’s bearded dragon, and Keenan’s ferret. Frank promised himself he’d go and rescue him in a second. He giggled to himself.

Peppers and Raisin were chasing each other’s tails while Mikey’s cat, Dewees, watched on with amused detachment. Welcome back, Frankie,<\/i> he purred as Frank passed.

“Thanks!” Frank chimed.

And because it was his party, his welcome home, someone handed him a goblet and the heady scent of mead rose up from it. Frank took a deep swig and smacked his lips.
http:\/\/www.livejournal.com\/editjournal.bml?journal=roxy_palace&itemid=105867
Frank turned and Gerard was there. His burnished skin shone, and his eyes glittered. Someone had put flowers in his hair, and he was wearing a shirt made of green leaves. And he looked perfect.

Frank twined his arms around Gerard’s waist and looked up into his eyes. Gerard smiled, and leaning down he kissed Frank, licking his way into Frank’s mouth, stroking their tongues together. After some seconds he pulled back. “Happy Midsummer, Frankie,” he said.

Someone wolf whistled, and someone else cat-called, and someone yelled, ‘get a room.’

Frank grinned into the kiss and Gerard grinned back.

And they all lived happily ever after.

THE END.

Part One<\/a>\/Part Two<\/a>\/Part Three<\/a>\/Part Four<\/a>\/ Masterpost<\/a>

<\/a>
"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:105699","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/105699.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=105699"}}],"title":"Fic: Everyone Comes To Pan's Part Four","published":"2012-03-22T06:19:49Z","updated":"2012-03-22T07:09:26Z","content":"

Everyone Comes To Pan’s
Part Four<\/b><\/div>

He didn’t know how long he’d been stacking and ordering the boxes, desperately trying no to think of Gerard, when he felt it - the warmth of someone standing close, just over his shoulder. Frank froze.

"You shouldn't be in here," he said, trying to ignore the heat coiling low in his belly, the way his body flinched and keened at the same time. “I didn’t invite you this time.”

"You called," Gerard said, voice high and light. Because of course, of course it was him. As if Frank could have been in any doubt, the way Frank'd felt as soon as he'd known there was someone else in the storeroom.

"You called and I came," Gerard breathed, stepping closer, right up against Frank, his chest flush with Frank's back, hips pressed against Frank's.

"I didn't..."

But Gerard didn't let him finish. He slipped his arm around Frank's waist and pulled him closer, buried his face in the crook of Frank's neck, breathing deep, taking in his scent.

Frank let his eyes fluttered closed, his arms hanging loose at his sides. God<\/i>. His legs felt weak and a dull pleasure-ache rolled up his arms, into his chest, throbbing down between his legs. He’d been waiting for this, he realized. For Gerard's breath, warm against his tingling skin.

"Smell so good," Gerard breathed. "Coffee and chocolate and, Frankie, missed you...Frankie<\/i>."

Frank felt the words buzz against his throat. He let his head drift back onto Gerard's shoulder and pressed his hands back behind him, clutching Gerard's thighs.

They shouldn't be doing this. Not here, not when - not when Frank was such a mess. Ensorcelled<\/i>, Gerard had called it. 'Fuzzy headed’ and insane was Frank's term for it.

No, they shouldn't be doing this. Anyone could come in, Adam, or Brandon. God, Brandon could find them, touching<\/i>.

The pleasure-ache sparkled in Frank's gut. He tensed his muscles and relaxed, rolling his head a little as Gerard suckled his neck. Frank's nipples tightened; he pushed out his chest, begging to be touched. Jesus, fuck.<\/i>

Gerard pulled back a little and Frank whimpered. The back of his neck was chilled, bare. He reached up and cupped Gerard's head, fingers threading into his hair. He tugged. "C'mere."

Gerard laughed, lips damp and warm right next to Frank's ear. "You like that, Frankie. Like my mouth on you."

Frank moaned and rolled his head, mouth searching for Gerard's. "Kiss," he breathed, because he'd lost his words and only his hind brain knew what Frank wanted. The hand Gerard wasn't using to hold him up played across Frank's chest, massaging and caressing, stroking and pinching. Frank could feel himself starting to get hard, the buzzing, fluttering fullness in his cock demanding his attention.

Then there was Gerard's breath on his dry lips, the soft press of his wet mouth to Frank's, the tip of his tongue slipping between Frank's teeth.

Frank's knees buckled. He whined and Gerard laughed.

"Shhhh, shhhh, Frankie, that’s it. I've got you." His arm tightened around Frank's waist, and he pulled them back a few steps, towards the door. Frank felt Gerard land against it with a light thud, then felt his leg slip between Frank's, helping to keep him upright.

"That's it," Gerard breathed. "So good, Frankie. So good."

His voice. Frank had never heard him like that, desperate and drunk with it; rough and breathy and broken.

Something rolled tight and unfurled beneath Frank's heart. "Gee," he whispered. "Gee.<\/i>"

"Yeah, Frankie. Yeah." Gerard reached down and cupped Frank's cock through his jeans, pressing the heel of his hand in, then reaching down and tugging gently.

"Oh, fuck," Frank groaned.

Gerard massaged Frank's balls through the denim, then slowly slid his hand back to press against the underside of his cock, pushing up, hard in his jeans, again. Back and forwards, cupping and tugging on Frank until it was all Frank could feel, the pleasure-ache, slicing down through his body leaving him weak. Over and over; tugging and squeezing as Frank shuddered and writhed in Gerard's embrace, and tried, hopelessly, to grind down on his thigh.

"You call to me all day," Gerard breathed, and the hand around Frank's waist slid over his stomach, fingers splayed, bright points of heat over Frank's quivering muscles. "The way you move, the way you look<\/i>. Think I can't see? Think I don't hear it?"

"I, I don't..." Frank stammered for the words because he didn't<\/i>, he didn’t mean<\/i> to, he didn't know he was doing it.

"Shhhh," Gerard sighed and bit down a little on Frank's throat. "Shhh, I don't want to hear anymore of your lies."

He slid his hand higher, and pinched Frank's nipple. Frank bucked, and Gerard hoisted him back up, higher on the leg he had braced against the door.

"No. More. Lies<\/i> Frankie," he breathed, and pressed two fingers into Frank's mouth.

Frank couldn't help himself, moaning around Gerard's long, thin fingers, sucking them, laving at the salt-bitter iron taste of his skin. They felt smooth against his tongue, he sucked them hard, biting and pressing his tongue in between them, licking at the smooth curve between them. Gerard pressed them further back into his throat and Frank choked a little.

"Relax, that's it," Gerard breathed. "You can... that's it."

Frank relaxed and took it as Gerard's fingers pushed into him. His mouth watered around them, and his hips twitched.

Gerard trailed his other hand up Frank's fly and slowly tugged it open. He flicked the button open too, pushed his jeans out of the way and slipped his hand under the waistband of Frank's shorts. Gerard’s hand was cold and this was too much, too much. Frank wriggled and grabbed at Gerard's arms, scrabbling at his his biceps and digging in his nails. He pushed at the fingers in his mouth with his tongue, bit them. Pushed at Gerard’s arm, but he he was so strong. So much stronger than Frank.

Gerard hummed soothing sounds. "Uh uh, Frankie, calm down," he whispered. “Shhh. That’s it. Good.”

Frank felt cool-warm fingers on his cock, tight and firm, pulling Frank out of his clothes. Frank tried to look, but Gerard just pressed his fingers further back into Frank's mouth, keeping Frank’s head back against Gerard's shoulder.

"You want me to stop?" he sighed, nuzzling Frank's cheek. "Want me to leave?"

Panic gripped Frank. He struggled again, shaking his head and whining. He sucked hard on Gerard's fingers.

"Okay," said Gerard. He let his fingertips play lightly up Frank's shaft and dance over the head of his cock. He swirled the head in the palm of his hand and trailed his fingers down to the root again. His touch was feather light and nowhere near enough, not even in the same realm as enough. Frank felt the whine start in the back of his throat and his hips kicked forward, and Gerard's fingers slowed, skating almost ticklish over the skin of his cock.

Frank breathed through his nose in deep, frantic bellows. Please, please<\/i>. His thoughts had become a cacophony of panic and lust and aching.

Gerard massaged the little knot of nerves under the head of Frank’s cock – tiny little circles of sensation on Frank’s over-heated flesh -- darting away just as the sensations started to coalesce, just before Frank could latch on to the sensation and ride it home.

Home<\/i>. Frank moaned.

Gerard was relentless. His fingertips skated through the pre-come leaking from Frank’s cockhead. Dragging sharp arcs of sparkling pleasure up and down his cock, twisting and turning and massaging the pleasure-ache deeper and deeper into him. Frank was so sensitized he felt like the ridge of Gerard's fingerprint was as sharp as the scrape of a nail over his heated flesh.

Please, God.<\/i>

"Soon, Frankie," Gerard breathed, swirling his fingers as he dragged them from root to tip, over and over again.

Frank felt it rising in him, felt his balls pull up, slowly, achingly, into his body. His hips twitched. He was coming. He groaned and bit down on the fingers stroking his tongue.

"Not yet, Frankie," Gerard said, squeezing the base of Frank's cock between his thumb and forefingers.

Frank screamed, or he would have screamed, if he hadn't been choking on the fingers in his mouth. Fuck, no.<\/i> He sobbed and the tension drained out of his muscles and his orgasm sank back into the pit of his belly.

Gerard’s fingertips skated over him again. And Frank felt tears of frustration slip over his cheeks. Gerard licked at them, humming.

"Good," he sighed. “So good, Frankie.”

On and on it went, Frank rising and being pulled back under. On and on until Frank was nothing but the hand on his cock and the fingers in his mouth. He was a dead-but-twitching weight in Gerard’s arms, he couldn't loosen his fingers from their grip of Gerard’s arms, he couldn't release the sucking vacuum of his mouth.

He couldn't even get the little noises he was making, the little swallowed 'gah, gah, gah’s' in the back of his throat, to stop.

“Now, Frankie,” Gerard whispered, as Frank felt the glory rise up in him again, a spark of light from Gerard’s fingers into his cock, into all his flesh. "Can you see, Frankie? Can you see yet?"

But Frank couldn't see anything, he had trouble even understanding the words. He couldn't open his eyes; his head rolled on his shoulders; his skin tingled and ached.

"Open your eyes, Frankie," Gerard said. "Open them.”

But he couldn't; he didn't want to; he couldn't<\/i>.

"Open them, Frank." Gerard’s words were sharp and loud in the silent room. He pulled his fingers from Frank’s mouth. His hand gripped Frank’s cock hard, jacking him tightly. "Look," he growled. “Fucking look.<\/i>”

Frank blinked. The light hurt his eyes. Spots danced in his vision. He blinked away the tears, blinked the tendrils of dark light out of his eyes. "Oh God," he screamed.

The room was gone, the walls spreading out for miles in all directions, and there was nothing but wilderness and night-that-was-day and the throbbing, pounding of his flesh, and the stars singing and swirling above his head in time with the song-fire in his flesh. And there was Gerard, warm and tight and so, so warm around him.

Frank came in long hard jerks of pleasure that lanced through him, as his come arced out of his body.

"Do you see?" Gerard hissed, his voice hot and close. "Do you see, Frankie?"

Frank felt himself lift out of his body, and then felt himself slam back into himself hard. The world righted itself. The stars were silent. Four walls, shelves, sacks of flour and Gerard’s arms around him and the sound of them both breathing, heavy and hard in the oaty-clean scented store room.

Frank shuddered and shivered and shook. "I see," he sobbed. "I see."

*

Afterwards, dark and quiet was what Frank needed. The best place to get dark quiet was in a basement. They’d lain together on the floor of the store room for a long time. Quiet and wrapped in each other. But now Frank needed to be alone.

Gerard had driven him home and walked him to his door. Frank could tell he’d wanted to come inside too, but Frank needed silence to understand what he’d seen, what he’d felt.

On the way over, Gerard had been quiet, but the other thing Frank could tell was that Gerard was impatient. Frank didn’t know what for, not after what he’d already given him. Whatever it was, Frank couldn’t deal with that right now.

“I don’t want to - I need some time,” Frank had said, before Gerard could speak. They’d stayed there, clutching each other, panting in the store room. And Frank had felt it when Gerad retreated, like blood being pulled from his vein.

And now, at the door to Bob’s house, Gerard caught Frank’s face in his cupped hands and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips. “Come back to Pan’s when you’re ready, Frankie,” he said, and kissed Frank again, deeper, firmer – a kiss full of questions and the promise of answers. Frank slid his arms around Gerard’s waist and twisted his hands in the fabric of his shirt. “Come back and I’ll tell you everything.”

After a second Gerard pulled back. He looked at the front door, and back down at Frank. “You’d better get inside,” he said, his voice a hushed breath against Frank’s lips. “If you’re going.”

Frank shivered and untangled himself from Gerard. “I’ll – I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, and slipped inside.

Frank pressed his back to the closed door and took a couple of deep breaths. He still felt so weak, so shakey. He didn’t hear Gerard’s feet on the porch or the sound of his car starting, but when Frank turned a few seconds later and looked out the window, they were both gone.

“Bob?”

Frank sat down gingerly on the couch – his skin was still so sensitive, his vision was still swimming. Bob didn’t seem to notice Frank’s arrival; he was engrossed in blasting a bunker somewhere in the game. His face was fierce, but at the sound of his name he paused the game and shifted round in his seat.

“Holy fuck, Iero. Someone rough you up on the way home?”

Frank snorted. He had no idea what he looked like, but he could feel the hot flush still in his cheeks, and he figured his hair hadn’t come out of the store room the same way it had gone in. He reached up and smoothed it down.

He noticed his arms then. The ink was swirling - stars and words and signs bursting out and realigning and sinking back into his skin. Frank pressed closed his eyes.

“I need to tell you something,” Frank said.

Bob nodded and put the controller down.

“I think I’m having a mental break down,” Frank sighed, even though he knew, knew that wasn’t what was happening.

Bob took a deep breath. “Wait,” he said, standing. “I’m getting Peppers.”

He disappeared and few seconds later Frank heard the sound of Peppers’ little claws tearing up the steps from the basement. She flew into the room, and into Frank’s lap, yipping, and yapping and...

Oh Frank! You’re home! I Missed you. Don’t go away again! I missed you so much; you’re home! I’m really hungry. Feed me? You’re home!<\/i> Peppers said.

“Bob,” Frank winced. Because that wasn’t Bob speaking.

“I told you; she’s your dog,” Bob said, standing in the doorway, hands on his hips.

I waited for you all day today, Frank. And then Bob came home! I’m really hungry. Is it dinner time? It’s definitely dinner time. I missed you. Did you miss me? Rub my tummy. I love you!<\/i>

“Bob, Peppers is talking to me,” Frank said, looking up at his friend. “I think I need a doctor.”

Are you sick, Frank?<\/i> Peppers said, and sat staring at him, still on high alert, her little tail thumping.

Frank blinked. “I’m not...” Frank started to reply to Peppers, but stopped himself and turned to Bob, desperate for some kind of answer. Preferably one that didn’t include the words ‘Oh, didn’t you get the memo? Animals talk now. Roll with it.’. “Bob? What the fuck?”

“It’s okay, Frankie,” Bob said, sitting down on the couch again. He scratched behind Peppers’ ears and she sighed.

“You know my dad was Irish?” Bob said finally, and scooped Peppers’ out of Frank’s arms. “And like, he had a bunch of crazy assed stories from back there, as you would, about the police and the troubles and bombs in his back fucking yard. But he had other stories too,” Bob fixed Frank with a stare.

“About?” Frank choked out.

“Faeries,” Bob said, without a flicker of humour.

“Fairies?”

Bob shook his head. “Faeries, there’s a difference.”

Frank realised he was wringing his hands, trying to stop the ink on them from moving. He put his palms flat in his lap.

“They’re - they’re different in Ireland. Not little fluffy things with wings and shit. My old man, he was genuinely scared of them. Respectful, you know? And that’s how he brought me up. And that’s why you’re always welcome in my house, Frank. Always.”

Frank shook his head. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t.

Bob put his big paw on Frank’s shoulder and squeezed. “At first I was just waiting for you to tell me, or, I dunno, show<\/i> me or something. But then after you moved in, I knew there was something wrong.”

Frank shook his head. “What the fuck are you talking about<\/i>,” Frank said, dropping his head into his hands and groaning.

“I’m talking about you, a fucking, fucking Faerie, stuck in Chicago with no clue who you are!” Bob said, raising his voice and throwing up both hands. “I’ve been freaking out about it for fucking months. Waiting for you to snap and fucking curse me or some shit.” Bob stood up again and stalked over to the book shelf by the TV. He pulled down a big, grey leather bound book.

“All the books in this house, and you never looked at this one. Not once.” He held it out to Frank.

The words on the spine were all twisted and strange and full of too many consonants to be English. They were like the words above the door of the City Library. Gaelic.<\/i>

When Frank didn’t take the book, Bob opened it. “Look,” he said and pointed at the page.

There was a picture of a wood, dark and eerie, with tall gnarled trees in a half circle. And in the middle were Adam, Zach and Frank, rolling and playing in a mound of nut brown fallen leaves. Only they couldn’t really be Adam, Zach and Frank, because the book looked like it was a five thousand years old - well, a hundred or so, at least.

Only, there they were, three little, dark, painted men, peering out from the leaves.

“That’s not me,” Frank said.

“Frank,” Bob said, and he turned the page.

Frank had never had a portrait done, but if he had, he’d have been glad if it turned out like the one on the page in front of him. It had the weird arch of his eyebrows, and muddy hazel of his eyes, and even the little holes in his ears where he’d worn spacers. It was Frank, right down to the curling tail of the scorpion tattoo on his neck.

“This book was my grandma’s, and then my dad’s,” Bob said. “I’ve had this book for as long as I can remember. I knew who you were the day you walked into the Lobster Shack, Frankie. You’re one of them<\/i>.”

Frank felt the hot warmth rolling down his cheeks. He was crying. He looked up at Bob and shook his head. “No,” Frank whimpered. No. I’m not. I’m not. I’m a real person. Just like you. I’m a - I’m a...”

Bob’s jaw went tight and he breathed deep through his nose. “When you said about Pan’s, and like, when Peppers was so attached -” Bob turned the page and there was Frank with a little dark brown dog, and again on the next page with a big old boxer. “I knew you had to leave here. Leave my place...”

“So you g-gave me the jacket,” Frank stammered, and sniffed back a couple of tears. “To set me free.”

“You’re always welcome here. Always. But, I can’t keep<\/i> you here.” He waved his arm about. “You gotta go... cavort or some shit. I dunno what you guys do these days, but you gotta go do it. With them.”

He turned the last page and there was a bonfire, tall as the trees and raging, and round it were rings of little guys, a lot like Frankie, dancing and leaping and, yeah, cavorting.

“I don’t know why you’re here, in Chicago, I mean. But I know one thing. You’re not gonna get the answers from me. You’ve got to go back,” Bob said.

“To Pan’s, ” Frank said and wiped his eyes on the back of his hand.

*

All the lights were on when he and Peppers arrived at the little alleyway off Mornington Crescent.

Frank’s heart sank. He didn’t want to go in there. He didn’t want to see them all, and have them know that he knew, that he was a freak, like them.

He thought about running. Taking Peppers and just leaving. He could try Boston, or New York, or... but the thought of never seeing Gerard again... made his stomach ache.

Something welled up in him then, a protest. He’d seen them, Zach and Adam; seen them doing some sort of kitchen version of cavorting. He’d seen Mikey and Ray, felt Gerard, seen the stars. He’d seen the inked bats flying around on his own skin. None of them were normal.<\/i> But whatever they were, it wasn’t freakish. It was something really weird, and really beautiful.

It’s okay, Frank,<\/i> Peppers said. They’re our friends. They’ll know what to do.<\/i>

“You think so, kid?” Frank asked, looking down at her. She yapped.

“Okay,” he said, and pushed open the back door into the dark kitchen.

Inside he heard the murmur of voices, lots of voices, from the café.

Frank took a deep breath and pushed open that door too. The room beyond went silent.

Adam, Zach and Brandon were sitting cross legged on a table near the center of the room. Next to them stood Keenan, his little ferret drapped over his shoulders. Mikey stood with Ray across from them holding Dewees, the Burmese cat. There were several other waiters and dish hands there too. There were regulars, and other staff Frank barely knew. And in the middle of them all, standing on the biggest table in the café with his hands on his hips and his feet spread wide, was Pete.

“You’re late, Frankie,” he said with a wink. “I might have to dock your pay.”

Frank stared. “Pete? What the...”

“Frankie,” Gerard said, coming across the café to him immediately. “Frankie -”

“It’s okay, Gerard, “ Frank said, his eyes still on Pete. He turned slowly, to Gerard. “I know what I am now.” Frank swallowed. “Why didn’t you tell me?” It was all Frank wanted to know. Because they<\/i> must have known, mustn’t they? Why hadn’t anyone said?

“I - we...” Gerard reached for him and Frank felt that familiar tingle on his skin. He’d thought it was something special, just for him and Gerard. But it wasn’t, it was something else.

“What is that? When we touch, what is it?”

“It’s magic, Frank,” Pete said, leaping gracefully down from the table and walking over to them. He put his hand on Frank’s arm and the tingles zinged all over Frank’s body.

“We’re all enchanted,” Gerard said. “All of us. It’s...” He looked at Pete, who nodded. Gerard took a deep breath. “It’s why we’re here, at Pan’s.”

“Bewitched, ensnared, ensourcelled,” Pete said. “Oh, and I’m Pan, by the way. You got that, right?”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Jesus.”

“Okay, okay,” said Pete, holding up his hands. “Some of the other guys were a bit dense and didn’t get it the first time.”

“Hey!” Brandon said. Pete flashed him a huge smile.

“You mean, like, you’re all<\/i> literally like me?” Frank said, taking in the room and all the dear, beloved faces watching him.

“Well, we knew we were different, Frankie,” Gerard said. “We just didn’t, you know, know how<\/i> different.”

“But then Pan came. And we remembered,” Mikey said, walking over to them with Ray in tow, their hands locked. “Like you remember. You can remember, right Frankie?”

“Remember what?” Frank blinked. “I don’t remember anything.” It was really true. He couldn’t remember anything past a year ago. Not his family, or his home in New Jersey, neither of which were real, he realized; they never had been. He couldn’t remember the name of his high school or who his first crush was. Because they weren’t real. It was as if he hadn’t existed before the last 12 months.

Mikey bit his lip.

“Fuck,” Gerard said. “I fucking... fuck it.” He squeezed Frank’s hand, he turned to Pete. “Pan?”

Pete chewed his lip. “I’m not gonna say I told you so, Gee, but man, I frikken told you so. Sex magic is still magic. And the rules were...”

“NO MAGIC,” the whole room chorused. Gerard pressed closed his eyes.

“Wait , that was...” Frank lowered his voice, pitching it at Gerard and away from Pete whose ears were practically waggling. “That was magic, what we did?”

Gerard winced. “Frankie, I’m so sorry.”

Pete leaned in and touched his elbow. Frank flinched, but Pete didn’t move back. “Have you ever been homesick, Frankie?”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Can’t you just - does there have to be a story? Can’t you just tell me what the fuck is going on?”

Pete grinned. “There’s always a story<\/i> Frankie. Answer the question.”

Frank nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been homesick,” Frank said, finally and tugged on Gerard’s sleeve. Gerard pulled him close and wound his arm around Frank’s waist. Frank felt safe there, like that.

“You know that sensation?” Pete continued, leaping up on to another of the tables. “The tug just behind your breast bone, pulling you, calling you?”

Frank nodded. He did know that. It had gone away a little when he was at Bob’s.

“You can feel it right now, can’t you?” Gerard put his hand in the center of Frank’s chest, and Frank closed his eyes.

“Yeah,” Frank sighed. “I, yeah...”

“Well, we all feel that,” Pete said, leaping from table to table. “Only, none of us can do shit about it.”

“None of us can go home,” Ray said and he exchanged a look with Mikey.

“Because you forgot who you are,” Mikey said.

“Because we all forgot,” Gerard corrected quickly. “And... you’re the last.”

Pete skipped over the backs of some chairs, down to the floor in front of Frank again. “Pan's is a halfway house for the lost, for what's left of us, trapped here, when we forgot.”

Frank’s heart sank. Pan’s was just some, some holding cell<\/i>. “That’s ridiculous,” he hissed. “I’m not - Pan’s is amazing. It’s, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“It is, Frankie, it is,” Gerard said, rubbing Frank’s shoulders. “But it's not supposed to be like this. It's a conduit, not a refugee camp. You need<\/i> to remember so we can come and go as we please.”

Frank looked up at Gerard, he didn’t know what else to say. “But I’m no-one. I don't remember anything,” he hissed. “Besides, I’m happy how things are.<\/i> I don’t want to go anywhere.”

Gerard chewed his lip. “You know one thing about enchantments, Frankie? It’s a bad<\/i> sign when you’re happy.”

As if on cue a roar shook the building, setting the animals into a frenzy of cawing, and yowling and yapping and hissing.

“What the fuck was that?” Frank said, pulling away from Gerard and rushing to the café window.

“That?” said Pete, scowling. “Is the consequence of not playing by the rules.”

Mikey sighed and rubbed his eye. “And the rules were no magic, so now we're screwed because Gerard had to go sex magic you into seeing the wall between the worlds.” Mikey turned to Gerard. “Why can’t you keep it in your pants?”

Gerard held out his hands. “I didn’t... I couldn’t...” He put his hands on his hips and scowled. “He called<\/i> to me, Mikes. Like, over and over. In his domain.<\/i> How much longer could I go on like that? How?”

Frank turned away from that conversation and pressed his hands to the glass. He didn’t know how to process what Gerard was saying; that’d maybe, somehow he’d<\/i> caused all this<\/i>. Out the window, the proof was like a punch to Frank’s guts. They weren’t on Mornington Crescent anymore. Or maybe Mornington Cresent was gone? Frank didn’t know, but there were trees and a wild wood as far as he could see, which wasn’t far on account of the trees and wild wood pressing in against the goddamn glass.

“You said you’d tell me everything, Gee,” Frank said and Gerard, Mikey and Ray crowded around him to look out the window.

Pete landed on the window sill next to Frank. “To break the enchantment you had to do three things before midsummer's eve,” he said. “One was befriend a god.” Frank startled and looked up at him. Pete waved. “Hi! How are you?”

Frank shook his head. Fuck<\/i>.

Mikey stood shoulder to shoulder with Frank. “The second was to find your familiar,” he said, glancing back into café. Peppers yapped.

“And the third, and perhaps most important...” Gerard said, stammering to a halt.

Frank looked up at him. Outside the window the trees shuddered. “What, Gee? What was the most important?” Frank asked.

“The third was to remember, unaided, who you were.”

The roar shook the glass in the window pane and made them all take a step back.

*

Frank was sitting in a chair with his head in his hands. “So can I go over this one more time? I’m, I’m thousands of years old, from another world and now, because my magical elf boyfriend sexed me up, I have to defeat a fucking Dragon.”

Suddenly the reason trauma victims and other disturbed people rock back and forth became achingly clear to him. Frank rocked a little harder. It was soothing.

“I can’t believe you didn't tell him about the dragon,” Mikey said not even looking at his brother. The taut line of his back spoke volumes.

“What was I supposed to say, Mikey? ‘You’re an ancient woodland spirit, the love of my life and potential saviour of the mystical world! Oh and by the way, you’re next in line to slay the mighty Golgorath!’ Because, to be honest, the opportunity never really came up.”

Mikey cold eyed Gerard. Gerard threw up his hands.

“I have to slay it?” Frank squeaked. “I’m - I’m a vegetarian, for fuck’s sake. I can’t slay<\/i> anything!”

A roar shook the panels of the walls. Mikey sighed. “Frankie, think of it as self defense.”

“Oh my god,” Frank groaned.

After telling him he was going to face his worst nightmare, Pete had taken a few of the staff off to see to the defenses and to start helping the Faerie refugees, arriving in dribs and drabs.

It seemed that, with Frank still not able to remember, the wall between the worlds was crumbling, and not in a good, ‘welcome home!’ kind of way. If the wall fell, so did they all. Fae were coming to the café from all over the city. It was the safest place they knew.

“It’s almost Midsummer, Frank,” Pete had said. And Frank didn’t know what that meant, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t good.

Frank didn’t want to go outside and face whatever the hell that thing was. He didn’t want to be whatever the hell he was. He just wanted to go back to the part where he’d figured out that Gerard liked him, and he liked Gerard and there was finally kitchen-fu, and everything was awesome.

“Frankie?” Gerard was standing by the kitchen doors, his hand out towards him. Frank couldn’t seem to stop himself from rising and going to him. “You need to come with me,” Gerard said, taking his hand.

He led him to the storeroom, but Frank pulled back. “I- I don’t want...”

“It’s okay, Frankie,” Gerard said, opening the door. “It’ll be okay.”

It wasn’t the same room he’d left the night before. Or it was, only now there was so much more of it.

“Holy fuck,” Frank breathed. “It’s like the fucking TARDIS or some shit.”

Gerard laughed uneasily. “Sort of. I guess.”

The walls of the storeroom stretched away into dark recesses. Nearest Frank it was an ordinary pantry, with jars and cans and boxes of food, but the further away the shelves stretched, the more bizzarre the contents of them became. Tin cans gave way to steel lances, opaque jars to burnished breast plates. “This is our<\/i> storeroom. Everything we ever need is here.”

“How?” Frank spun around. “Was this always here?” Frank asked. “How did I never see any of this before?” He picked up a small jeweled dagger which glinted and started to glow.

Gerard plucked it from Frank’s fingers, putting it gingerly back on the shelf. He cupped Frank’s face in his hands and smoothed his thumbs over his cheeks. “We don't see the things we don't want to see,” he said, and pressed a kiss to the corner of Frank’s mouth. “Now, take off your pants.”

*


Part One<\/a>\/Part Two<\/a>\/Part Three<\/a>\/Part Five<\/a>\/  Masterpost<\/a>
<\/a>
"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:105309","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/105309.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=105309"}}],"title":"Fic: Everyone Comes To Pan's Part Three","published":"2012-03-22T06:14:00Z","updated":"2012-03-22T07:11:46Z","content":"

Everyone Comes To Pan's<\/b><\/div>
Part Three<\/b><\/div>
“You’re going.” Bob stood in the middle of Frank’s bedroom, hands on his hips, one eyebrow arched menacingly.

“I don’t wanna, I mean, it wasn’t really an invite, you know?” Frank sat on his bed, hand between his knees, trying not to look Bob in the eye. “Besides, like, the planters really need dusting, and I was going to soak the curtains...”

“‘You should come play with us some time, like tonight,’ is an invite, Frank. And I can dust my own goddamn planters, for Christ’s sake. You’re fucking going.”

Frank sighed. He never should have told Bob that Gerard kind of semi- maybe invited Frank to games night at Ray’s house.

Frank shrugged on his jacket and trudged out into the hall. Bob followed him and when he stopped in front of the door way, Bob reached around and pulled the front door open.

Frank trudged slowly out. On the door mat he turned around and looked up at Bob. “You’re not going to dust the planters at all are you?”

“Non,” Bob said, and shut the door in Frank’s face.

The El ride to Ray’s wasn’t far. Frank felt kind of dorky coming empty handed, but Gerard had been pretty emphatic about that. “Ray likes to play host, dude, just like, come as you are.”

So that’s what Frank was doing, standing on the porch outside the strange little cottage in Oak Park that Gerard’s directions had led him to, just arriving as is. He pulled at the hem of his tee shirt, and tried to pat down the fluffy tuft of hair at the back of his head that just refused to be tamed.

He knocked at the door.

The door flew open a few seconds later. “Eyebrows!” Ray cried. He had a beer in one hand, what looked like some kind of bearded dragon-lizard-thing draped over his shoulders, and grin on his face. “Awesome. Come in immediately and tell Way he’s wrong.”

Ray drew Frank by the elbow into the cozy little living room, crowded with his work mates, their freinds and a small menagerie of animals. Two cats, three dogs, including Raisin, a monkey and Ray’s huge fucking lizard. Frank suddenly missed Peppers a lot.

Mikey nodded at him, and shifted over so he could sit on the sofa too. He had a fat, grinning green-eyed cat in his lap, that licked it’s paw at Frank as soon as he sat down.

...<\/i>

“This is Dewees,” Mikey said. The cat put out one paw and promptly dug it’s claws into paw from Frank’s knee. Mikey unhitched Dewees’ paw from Frank. “Say hello nicely.”

“Hello, Nicely,” Frank winced.

“I was talking to the cat,” Mikey said.

Brandon came into the room from what appeared to be the kitchen and handed Frank a beer.

Zach held out a bowl of chips to him. “Keenan made them. They’re really good,” he said. And behind him Keenan preened.

Gerard was kneeling by the coffee table, over which was spread a map of what looked a little like Chicago, if Chicago had been laid out by acid casualties and psychopaths. There were little hand painted figures on the map, and in front of Gerard was a screen made from open books.

“I rolled a six and a nine, and a sixteen,” Brandon said, kneeling next to the table and handing Gerard a coke. Brandon stroked his chin and surveyed the board. “I go to the bank and make a term deposit.”

Gerard squinted at a pile of notes behind the screen. “You go to the bank,” he said, looking at Brandon. “But bump into an old friend who tells you about a pyramid investment scheme he’s just started. You consider giving him all your money.”

“I do not,” Brandon said indignantly.

“Brandon. You do.”

Frank frowned and turned to Mikey. “Um, what the hell are you guys playing?”

Mikey dragged his eyes away from the board. “B&A,” he said. “I know, it’s kind of dorky, but Gee and I used to play it when we were growing up and, like, it’s kind of nostalgic fun. I guess.” He frowned and looked back at the board. “You never played.” He said, not a question, a statement. But he looked a little stricken when he said it.

“I’ve never heard of this game.” Frank said, and felt a little sorry about it when Mikey rubbed his eyes, and looked forlornly at Gerard.

“Yeah, I figured,” Mikey stood and went over the Gerard, saying something to him before going into the kitchen and rummaging around in the fridge.

Gerard smiled at Frank. “Hey!” he said. “Come sit over here with me and I’ll show you how to play.”

Frank went over and knelt next to Gerard. There was a big, fat book open in front of him, covered in notes and scrawls, and a stack of papers next to that covered in numbers and names Frank had never seen and lists of skills Frank thought were odd: Holds driver’s licence<\/i>. Has traveled abroad<\/i>. Multiple partners<\/i>. Married<\/i>. On the next sheet was listed Can cook<\/i>, and Babies like you<\/i>.

“You’ll have to go slow,” Frank said. “This is like totally weird to me.”

Gerard rewarded Frank’s naivete with one of his coy half smiles. “It’s cool. It’s just like riding a bicycle.”

Frank frowned. “Yeah, but--” Gerard put a hand on Frank’s arm and interrupted.

“I mean, what I mean is, it won’t take you long to catch up.”

Frank nodded and shifted closer to the table.

Brandon had the dice again. He rolled and Gerard gave him some directions, which sounded to Frank like the rules for having the world’s most boring office job. He frowned down at the book Gerard was reading from. ‘Basements and Attics’, the game was called. And suddenly Frank realised what it reminded him of.

“This is - this is like Dungeons and Dragons, only really shit!” Frank said, way louder than he’d intended.

Twelve pairs of eyes stared back at him. Mikey shook his head. Frank’s heart sank like a fucking stone.

Raisin yapped.

Nice one ass hat<\/i>.

“Okay guys, let’s take a break for, um, more snacks!” Ray said, and the guys all stood and trooped into the kitchen, grumbling, followed by their pets. Frank winced.

“Smooth, Frankie,” Gerard said, and started shuffling through his pile of papers. Raisin licked his balls, and then lept up and tried to lick Frank’s face.

“Yargh!”

“Raisin, knock it off, go ask Ray for a chew.” Gerard said, not really looking up.

Frank was still trying to wipe all the dog-ball-scented dog spit off his arm, and didn’t notice Raisin trotting off into the kitchen at all.

“I’m sorry, man,” Frank said finally, picking at his nails and biting his lip. “I just - Why play a game about real life? Like, it’s so boring<\/i>.”

Gerard sat back on his heels and gave Frank a pensive look. “Is it?”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Fuck yeah it is. I mean, I go to the bank, and I go shopping. But, like, I’ve never fought a Dragon, or, or cast a spell.”

Gerard smiled. “Like in Dungeons and Dragons?

“Exactly!” Frank said, and waved at the table. “Like what about the dragons? What about the mages and the half elves?”

“You think this<\/i> real life is boring, Frankie?” Gerard looked thoughtful.

Frank nodded. “It’s fucking insanely dull. I mean, It was before I started working at Pan’s anyway. It fucking sucked. Getting fired, getting kicked out of my flat, begging for work from people I should have been punching in the ear. No money, no future. I mean. Most men lead lives of quiet desperation, right?”

Gerard laughed. “Right.”

“So why play that?” Frank rubbed his eye. Things were getting a little blurry. Maybe it was the beer. Gerard’s skin looked funny, kind of brazen, flowey almost. Frank shook his head.

Gerard smiled. “Why do you think we play it?”

Frank blinked. “This is what I’m asking you.”

Gerard leaned forward and whispered. “Don’t tell the other guys I told you, but in real<\/i> life Dragons are lazy. It’s practically impossible to get one to fight you.”

Frank shook his head. He never got a straight answer from Gerard and apparently, he wasn’t going to get one now.

Gerard leaned back and waved his hand around airily. “Half elves are stuck up. I mean, hello, they’re immortal. You don’t want to hang out with those guys. Ditto Mages.”

“Gerard.” Mikey was standing by the table, a glass in one hand and a plate in the other. He had a face like thunder, but sometimes it was hard to tell with Mikey.

Gerard just smiled and shrugged one shoulder. “Game time, kids!” he chimed and turned back to the table. “Okay, Zach, it’s your roll, and before you ask, no, you may not use your own dice. I know you of old, sunshine.”

Frank, no less confused about why there even was a game time, sat back on his haunches and sipped his beer.

*

After coming home from the game night Frank hadn’t been able to sleep so well. He’d tossed and turned, feeling out of sorts in a way he never usually felt at home in his basement.

At first light he gave in and got up. He read for a while, fucked around on the internet and finally, when he could resist the urge no longer, snuck up the basement stairs into the kitchen.

Frank opened the cupboard and pulled out Bob’s breakfast bowl and mug, and nearly threw both in the air when Bob, sitting at the kitchen table said, “Dude, this has got to stop.”

“Jesus, Bob!” Frank wheezed, clutching his chest, the mug hanging from one finger.

“I mean it,” Bob said, sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, arms folded across his chest. “You are not my, my you know<\/i>. You’re not. So, knock this shit off.”

Frank was speechless. “Bob,” he began, swallowing. “I don’t. I’m not, like. Crushing<\/i> on you or anything.” Frank’s face got hot and he winced even saying the word crushing<\/i> out loud.

“Jesus Christ Iero,” Bob said, rolling his eyes. “I fucking know that much.”

“Okay, God, good,” Frank said, chest heaving in relief. “I’m just, I’m not. I’m not doing anything,” he finished, pathetically, looking down at the bowl and cup in his hands and placing them on the counter.

Peppers trotted into the room and sat looking up at Frank.

"You know, she's really your dog," Bob said.

“How can you say that?” Frank’s stomach sank. “Peppers is, she’s your girl.”

Bob raised his eyebrows at Frank, and Frank looked down at Peppers.

Love Frank. Frank love Peppers. Love Frank. Love Frank. Frank play?<\/i>

“Bob, man...”

“It’s okay. Just, stop making my fucking breakfast and take your dog for a walk.”

He stood up and left and room, and few minutes later Frank could hear the sounds of Call of Duty revving up in the living room. Peppers’ tail thumped on the floor.

“Okay, kid,” he said. “Who’s your daddy?”

Peppers sprang up onto her hind feet, dancing about and yapping.

Frank!<\/i>

Frank crouched down. “Well, alright then,” he said, scooping her up and heading out into the hall.

He put her little jacket on her, clipped her lead to it and headed out to walk.

They ended up walking a lot further and longer than Frank had expected to, and by the time he turned them around for home, Frank realised he was going to be late.

If Gerard was allowed his dog in the café, and Ray his bearded dragon and Mikey his cat, then Frank didn’t see why a little peach like Peppers couldn’t come too. They hopped the nearest El and headed for Oak Park.

I want to get off the train and chase birds<\/i>

Frank looked around for who spoke and noticed at the woman sitting across the aisle smiling at him.

“Well, It’s nice weather for it?” he said to her. Man, city people were kind of fucked up.

Frank went back to his own thoughts. Simplest explanation for Bob’s behavior was that he was just not cool with Frank doing everything round the house, and that was fine. Probably it wasn’t normal to want to iron your room mate’s underwear. Frank snuggled Peppers up in his arms. What the hell was he thinking. Of course it wasn’t normal to want to iron your room mate’s fucking shorts. Jesus.

I love snuggles! I’d snuggle all day if I could.<\/i>

Frank determinedly did not look at the lady across the aisle this time, sheesh<\/i>. The train pulled up at Oak Park. Frank let Peppers down an stood up. The lady gave him a half smile as he walked past to the doors. Frank half smiled back. “Thanks for the TMI, Lady,” he muttered under his breath, and hopped off the train.

*

Peppers disappeared between the tables as soon as they arrived at Pan’s and a gaggle of rabbits, dogs, geese (!), mice and monkeys ambled after her. As Frank watched them all sniffing, licking and grooming each other it occurred to him how great it was there were never any fights. He guessed Pan’s pets were happy pets. Peppers looked happy, playing with Raisin and Dewees, so Frank left her too it and got to work.

In the kitchen Frank got stuck into a pile of courgettes and red peppers getting ready for the lunch time rush. The radio was playing lightly in the background, something he’d never heard before that sounded like a crazy cross between Thelonius Monk and Ke$ha.

“Saturjazzzzzz,” Keenan hissed at him over the prep table, and started juggling his paring knives.

Frank laughed, but the rhythm of the jazz seeped into his chopping and soon he found himself zoning out and humming along. He reached past Zach for another pepper, just as Zach passed Adam a courgette, the three of them working in synch, like some kind of veggie juggling act of their own. Frank threw a pepper up in the air and sliced it into little pieces on it’s way down. Awesome! He didn’t even know he could do<\/i> that. Some of Keenan’s frankly freaky looking chopping tricks must be rubbing off on Frank.

When the song finished, Frank looked up and discovered he’d chopped twice as much as he thought and the lunch prep was done and dusted. He stood back from the prep table, hands on his hips and smiled. His kitchen-fu was really, truly back.

“That is some impressive cuttin’, Frankie, ” Gerard said, cocking his hip against the prep tables and he small pile of empty red pepper boxes.

Frank grinned. He was even getting used to Gerard’s habit of sneaking up on people. This was a good day.

“There’s someone in the café asking after you” Gerard said. “Figured it was okay to get you since Peppers said he was okay.”

Frank’s eyebrows went up and Gerard cleared his throat. “I mean, you know, she was yapping and jumping up on him, so I figured you knew him.”

“Huh,” said Frank.

“So yeah, anyway, there’s a guy,” Gerard gestured over his shoulder, and then studied the pile of empty red pepper boxes closely, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth.

“Thanks,” Frank said, taking off his apron and heading out into the café. He glanced back at Gerard just as he went out the door, and saw Keenan patting him on the shoulder and Gerard shaking his head. Frank skipped out to the café, kind of glad thinking that Gerard might be bummed a dude that Peppers knew had come in asking for Frank and what that might mean.

He pushed open the café doors and was met with a stony silence. Which was totally creepy and weird considering every table was full.

And staring at a big blond guy standing near the door, clutching a jacket to his chest, scanning the room from under his brows.

“Bob!” Frank cried and set off, winding his way through the café towards his friend. The noise level started to creep back up again as the customers went back to their lunches and their conversations. But Frank could feel their eyes following him as he passed. He guessed it was odd to see a stranger at the café. Pan’s kind of thrived on regulars.

Brandon grabbed Frank’s elbow as he passed. “Who is that guy?” He asked, voice low and eyes wide. “He said he had your jacket.”

Frank smiled at him. “He’s my roommate,” Frank said. “Guess he figured I needed it.” Frank shrugged, and tried to sidle past Brandon.

Brandon grabbed his arm again. “Are you sure, Frankie?” Brandon said, and bit his lip.

Frank glanced at Bob who was in the middle of what looked like a staring contest with Ray’s bearded dragon, which was sitting in the top branches of a big, old fashioned hat stand. It’s yellow tongue darted in Bob’s direction. Bob took the smallest step back.

“Um, pretty sure, dude,” Frank said. He slapped Brandon on the shoulder and moved past him towards Bob.

“Hey!” he said cheerily, remembering how out of sorts Bob had been that morning. “You found us! Come to check out our kitchens?”

Bob’s eyes went wider. “Nope,” he said, his eyes cutting left to the kitchen doors swinging open and shut as waiters came and went.

“Well, you want lunch?” Frank gestured at a table over to one side that had just come free.

Bob’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. “Eat here? No,” he said, shaking his head.

Then he took a deep breath, visibly fought to relax his shoulders and smiled at Frank. “I already ate. I just,” he began again, taking another deep breath and glancing around the room before fixing Frank with a level stare. “I brought you a jacket. You’ll need it before coming back to the flat tonight.”

The room went strangely silent again. Frank looked over his shoulder at a table full of people all staring at him. He raised his eyebrows at them and reached out to take the jacket. Weirdos<\/i>.

Bob let out a long breath and smiled at Frank.

Frank held up the jacket. “Oh, hey!” He said. “This, this isn’t mine.” The thing seemed a little too big for Frank, but way too small to be Bob’s. Frank shrugged it on anyway. It fit him fine.

“Thanks Bob!” Frank said. And actually the jacket felt good on his shoulders; light and comfy. Frank grinned. “I don’t know where it came from, but I’m not gonna look a fashionable gift horse in the mouth.”

Bob grinned, and Frank felt like he’d relaxed in some way. “You’re always welcome in my house, Frankie,” he said.

Frank frowned. “Um, I should fucking hope so. I pay half the rent.”

“Of course,” Bob said, pointing a finger at Frank. “That’s what I meant.”

“Hey, man, I gotta,” Frank gestured over his shoulder at the kitchen. “Lunch rush is about to kick off, you know how it is.”

“Sure,” Bob said. “Hey, you want me to take Peppers home for you?”

“Nah,” Frank said, scanning the room until he found her. She was asleep in a little puppy pile, curled around the Angry Raisin, with Mikey’s big fluffy, tortoise shell cat wrapped around them both. “I think she’s fine where she is. Oh, hey, don’t like, mention the animals to anyone, okay?”

Bob’s eyes were getting wide again. “Uh, okay.”

“Yeah,” said Frank, picking up the bearded dragon which was making a lunge for Bob, and slinging it over his shoulder. “I don’t know how Pan gets away with it, but the customers seem to love it.” He shrugged. “Catch you later man.”

And Frank turned and went back to the kitchens to get the grill hot and ready for lunch.

*

“Nice Jacket, Frankie,” Mikey said.

They were hiding out in the storeroom. Ray was having one of his manic, ‘A Man Obsessed’, moments and Frank had learned it was best to get the hell out of his way, unless he wanted an accidental ladle to the face, or a lecture on how to correctly scrub under one’s nails.

“Bob gave it to me,” Frank said, reaching up from one of the top rungs to put a case of sardines away.

Frank clambered down the ladder and grabbed another case.

Finally Mikey said, “Dude, that's mega.”

Frank looked over his shoulder. “It's just a jacket, not an engagement ring. Come on.”

Mikey picked up another box of sardines and brought it to Frank. He sighed.

“I thought this would be easier. But it’s just, it’s getting harder<\/i>” Mikey said, frowning ever so slightly.

Frank bit his lip. God, was Mikey talking about the job? Frank thought he was doing so well at Pan’s. “You, like, you think I’m screwing up?”

“What?” Mikey said, shaking away whatever he’d been thinking to focus on Frank. “No, I think, I just think you should, you know, open you eyes to the - the possibilities, Frank.”

Frank was really confused. What the hell possibilities did Mikey mean exactly? The sardines were in the right place, and what’s more, Frank<\/i> was in the right place. The triumphant return of his kitchen-fu had made that clear earlier.

“You know,” Mikey said emphatically. “Stop,” he waved his hands about a little. “Repressing<\/i>.”

Oh.<\/i> “I’m not repressing anything,” he said, jumping down from the ladder and grabbing Mikey’s hands and squeezing them before stepping back and holding out his arms. “I’m not into Bob. Honestly. This jacket is not a big deal.”

Mikey peered at him over the rim of his glasses.

Frank smiled. “And before you ask, yes, I am totally out. You can tell anyone. I’m queer. I’m here. I couldn’t give a fuck about it."

Mikey closed his eyes slowly and pressed his fingers up under the lenses. “That’s - that’s great,” he said, and wandered back to the wall for another round of listless leaning.

*

Frank decided to stay in the store room for the rest of the day after Mikey finally went back to work. Ray’d come get him if they needed him on prep.

At some point in the afternoon he uncovered a box of seasonal decorations stuffed at the back of the biggest set of shelves. Only, they weren’t for any seasonal holidays Frank had ever celebrated before.

“What the hell is Lammastide?” Frank said to himself as he unfurled a banner with the word painted on it in big, corn-yellow letters. He wondered if Gerard knew. He wondered where Gerard was, he hadn’t seen him much today. Frank started pulling the banners out and unfurling them; Ostara<\/i>, Mabon<\/i>, Yule. The Lammastide<\/i> one was the biggest and had pictures of pumpkins and wheat and apples all over it. It was pretty well done.

“It’s the Harvest festival. For baking bread,” Gerard said, sending Frank about a foot in the air. He hadn’t even heard the store room door open. He was getting better at coping with Gerard’s sneaky ways, but every now and then, he caught Frank a good one.

“Jesus!”

“Sorry, Frankie,” he said, and sounded anything but sorry. A smile twitched the corner of his mouth. “I shouldn’t come in here without asking your permission.”

Frank took a few deep breaths and let his heart slow back down to normal again. “You, you’re like, you always have my permission, but like,” He took a deep breath and shook himself. “Maybe you should wear a bell, like Mikey’s cat?”

Gerard laughed. “On a little collar? I don’t know about that.”

Frank felt his face flush, and the started futzing with the banners trying to get them straight so he could roll them all up together.

Gerard, ran the banner from Frank’s hand through his fingers. “Lammastide isn’t for a couple of months,” he said, letting the banners drop and bending down and rifling through the box. He came up with a dark blue banner with red flaming letters on it. “Beltane is next,” he said.

He was standing really close, Frank was only just realizing. He felt the ghost of Gerard’s breath on his cheek. “You know what Beltane’s all about, Frankie?”

Frank didn’t know, but the word kind of made him feel uncomfortable. He took a step back, rolled the banners and put them back in the box. He didn’t know what to do with his hands suddenly, so he picked up a can of beets and fidgeted with it. “That, that more of the Gaelic your granny taught you?” He said, without really looking at Gerard.

Gerard chuffed a laugh and moved closer to Frank again. “Nah, it was part of a seasonal food thing,” Gerard said eventually, gesturing to the box of decorations. “Pan came up with it. You know, vegan, only serving food that was in season. We, um, we still do, sometimes.”

He stepped closer again and took the can out of Frank’s hand. He shook it a little. “But, like, everyone loves beets though, right?”

Frank looked up. Gerard was so close, his eyes were so golden and he smelled like... like something good from Frank’s childhood; something really good. Like the sharp tang of mint, the blossom of a honey apple tree, and something else, something... smokey.

He leaned forward.

“Frankie,” Gerard breathed.

The storeroom door flew open and light flooded the room. “Oh my god! Guys! You better get out here!” Zach stood in the doorway flapping a hand at them to follow him. “Raisin is shagging the little tea cup Chihuahua!”

“What the fuck?” Frank pushed past Gerard and Zach and made for the café.

On the little rug in front of the fire place the Angry Raisin was leaping around in circles trying desperately to get behind Peppers, who, much to Frank’s relief, was having none of it.

Every time Raisin got behind her, Peppers would leap away and round on him, dropping into play position and wagging her tail furiously.

“Dude, your dog is molesting my dog,” Frank wailed. He knelt and whistled for Peppers, who ran a little way towards Frank and then stopped still, waging her tail and - Oh dear God<\/i> - backed up to Raisin and wriggled at him.

“Now Frank, we have a no slut shaming policy in this work place,” Brandon said with mock solemnity. “Pan’s is a sex positive working environment.”

“Amen to that,” Zach said, and he winked at Keenan who went bright red and dropped his cleaver.

“I’m not slut shaming<\/i> my goddamn dog, Bran’,” Frank said, giving up on calling her and just grabbing Peppers up out of Raisin’s lascivious reach.

“You want ten million puppies around this place? C’mon, Peppers, didn’t your mama ever teach you to play hard to get?” Frank scritched her ears and tried to stop her yapping at Raisin.

This is true love. True love! I am his, and he is mine, for all eternity!<\/i>

“Thanks a lot, Zee,” Frank said. He was impressed inspite of himself that Zach did such a good impression of a female Chuchu.

“Dude,” Zach said. “I’m no biologist, but I think that’s called bolting the gate after the horse has been knocked up.”

“Zach, shut up,” Gerard said. He put his hand on Frank’s shoulder and squeezed, and suddenly Frank remembered Gerard’s scent, and the storeroom, and the fact that Gerard had called him ‘Frankie’ and almost kissed him not a minute ago.

“Oh my God, can you imagine what the puppies will look like?!” Zach cackled, ignoring him completely.

“Shut the fuck up, Zach,” Gerard snapped. But he wasn’t looking at Zach, he was staring at Raisin. And Frank wasn’t sure, but he could have sworn Raisin winked.

*

It was the first time Frank had been pleased to leave Pan’s at the end of his shift. And to be honest, he wasn’t really that<\/i> pleased, although he was glad he wouldn’t have to put up with anymore puppy-mama jokes from Zach and Keenan for a few hours, anyway.

Gerard had left early, taking Raisin with him. And the sparkle had kind of gone out of the evening after that.

Not even Adam super-gluing all the wooden spoons together and watching Mikey try to calm Ray down as he ranted and raved over them could cheer Frank up.

He’d spent most of the rest of his shift in the storeroom, with Peppers curled in one of the empty boxes, while he dusted and stacked and ordered things.

The café had been closed up when he’d finally left. Only a couple lights were still on, the one in Ray’s office, and the one over the prep table.

He’d turned that one off and headed out with Peppers in tow, locking the front door behind him.

Frank was halfway to the El when he realized he’d left his new jacket back at Pan’s. The weather must really be turning, because he hadn’t even noticed; it’d been so warm when he left the café. But it was new, and a gift from Bob, and he didn’t want to go back to the house without it.

They turned back, and Frank left Peppers tied up to the gate as he clambered over the fence to the back door he knew was still open. Ray’s light was still on.

“I’ll be right back, babycakes,” he said, scruffing her head through the chicken wire, and Peppers licked his hand.

He’d thought Ray was still working, but when he snuck into the kitchen - with every intention of scaring the shit out of him in his office, Brandon would be so proud - the light above the veggie prep area was back on. And although he couldn’t really see anyone in the gloom, he heard pots knocking together, and what sounded, vaguely, like feet slipping on linoleum.

Moving around the prep station, behind the patisserie station, Frank could see two figures, shadowed, moving in the half light.

He could tell immediately that one was Ray - the head chef didn't let his impressive mane out all that often in the kitchens, but when he did, it was hard to miss.

What was also hard to miss was that Ray was shirtless. And grappling with someone, pushing their arms out behing them, looming over them.

Frank paused and ducked down behind the prep bench. That someone was also shirtless.

That someone was also Mikey.

And they weren’t grappling.

The sound of the gasps and rasping breath hit Frank then. He was watching his friends fuck. He slapped one hand over his eyes. Oh god<\/i>. Frank had to get out of there and fast. He shouldn't be... well, not that they<\/i> should be, in the frikken kitchen<\/i>, but still. Frank didn't want to intrude, and he sure as shit didn’t want them to know he’d seen them.

Mikey was his friend, and Ray was his, his, well, supervisor, he guessed, and in the weeks he’d been working with them he’d never once had an inkling that they were anything more than work mates. So either this was new, or they’d been keeping it real secret. Whatever the case, Frank had to get the fuck out.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” Ray was saying, his forehead pressed to Mikey’s. “It’s nearly here. It’s so, so fucking hot.”

“God, yeah,” Mikey breathed. “Oh - oh, Ray.”

Frank yanked his hand away from his eyes and clamped two hands over his ears. He could not, could not, hear his friends’ dirty talk. < i>For the love of God. He started to crab walk back the way he came, but had to let go of his ears and balance himself or risk falling on his ass.

He edged round the back of the prep station and had the doors in sight when the sound of something clipping and clopping hollowly on the concrete floor made him glance back - and stopped him in his tracks.

Frank could see both of them now, Ray pressed against Mikey, between the stations. Mikey was naked, his legs up around Ray’s waist. And he was glowing. Not the kind of ‘glowing’ you read about in romance novels, but actual fucking light was coming from him. His skin, silver and white in the muted light seemed to ripple and shimmer, like fish scales only lit up, from within, like nothing Frank had ever seen before. He blinked. Was that body paint? Without thinking Frank edged a little closer.

Ray leaned over Mikey, one hand at his waist and the other gripping Mikey's wrist, his face buried in Mikey's neck. Mikey arched and bit his bottom lip, pulling his legs up higher around Ray's waist, hooking his ankles together. His muscles flexed and Ray hoisted Mikey up, pulling him back down to meet his hips. Mikey moaned.

"Fuck," Ray whined as his hips kicked forward. And he stomped. His cloven. Hoof.

Frank jammed a fist in his mouth to stop himself from shouting. Because Ray had hooves<\/i>. Where his feet<\/i> should be. And haunches, and a tail: short, furry and flicking wildly back and forth. In fact there was hair<\/i> all over his legs, and - and...

The words 'goat boy' flitted into Frank's mind and he had to fight to hold back the panicked giggle welling up in his chest. Ray was mother fucking goat boy; he had fucking horns and everything. And Mikey, God, Mikey was - what the hell was<\/i> Mikey? As Frank watched, Mikey dragged his shimmering leg up and down through Ray’s fur and purred.

Jesus christ.<\/i> Frank's skin was burning; his head swimming.

What the fuck was he seeing? He crawled forward. This wasn't fucking... fucking cosplay<\/i>. They were actual fucking hooves<\/i>, and Mikey had actual fucking scales and he was glowing<\/i>. Glowing and rising up from the counter Ray had him sprawled over, as Ray buried his, his fucking, goat cock<\/i> in Mikey's body. Again and again. God<\/i>.

Mikey kept rising, rising along with the sound of Ray grunting in time with every thrust of his hairy hips and the wet sound of his cock pushing into Mikey.

Mikey was silent now, teeth clamped down hard on his lip. The light from his body kept rising in intensity too as Mikey writhed, his hips kicking, his muscles tightening and releasing with each thrust.

And Frank was aware of the sound of Ray's hooves scrabbling at the floor as he was lifted too, the dark, shiny tips kicking at the concrete as he rose, buried so deep in Mikey, buoyed up by him, it seemed.

Then they were both hovering a few inches above the counter and the floor, and the light from Mikey’s body began to pulse and sharpen, and grow and grow. And Mikey was calling to Ray, calling his name over and over as if he was in pain. Only Ray wasn't hurting him. It wasn't pain.

Frank stood up then, was dragged up and forwards towards them. Gerard<\/i> he thought, crazily, desperately. Gerard<\/i>. His heart was racing; his breath came in rasped, frantic gasps; his fists were clenched tight. And as the light from Mikey’s body touched him, Frank realised he could feel it, feel what Mikey felt. Oh, God.<\/i>

And then Mikey called out, his head thrown back as Ray drove into him, harder and deeper, and there was a blinding flash which Frank felt in every cell of his body.

And then there was nothing.

*

“Is he breathing?”

Ow<\/i>

“What do you mean ‘Is he breathing’?”

Frank’s teeth hurt.

“I mean is air going in and out of him, what the fuck do you think I mean?”

His face hurt, kind of, too.

“Yes, dickhead, he’s breathing.”

He couldn’t see, but much to his relief, that was only because he couldn’t open his eyes. He could hear though, if the muffled-sounding voices going to and fro over him was anything to go by. So that was good.

“We shouldn’t move him.”

Gerard<\/i>. Frank knew that voice. It was Gee. Where the fuck was he? What the hell... oh... Oh.<\/i>

“I didn’t hit him with my car<\/i>, Gee.”

There was silence then, which Frank imagined contained some loud eyebrow shouting between Gerard and the second voice - Mikey.

Frank wiggled his toes in his sneakers, they seemed to be fine. But he was just going to lie here and hopefully hear something that would make sense of whatever the fuck he’d seen.

“Well, if you hit him with the same thing you hit me with, baby, he’s gonna be out for a couple more minutes at least.”

Ray<\/i>, thought Frank.

"This is him?” Ray said. “The last one?”

“the last one,” Mikey said quietly, and Frank felt someone’s hand brush his hair back from his face gently.

“Christ!” Gee again, sounding exasperated, or frustrated maybe. “This is exactly the kind of screw up we do not need. If he can’t remember on his own then we’re all fucked. No magic, Mikey. Remember? That was the deal.”

“That’s rich, coming from you, Mister ‘Dragons Are Really Lazy.’ Also, could you be any more obvious?”

Gerard made an annoyed sound.

“He knows one thing, you’ve still got a massive boner for him,” Mikey said.

Frank sucked in a gasp, just a tiny one and he felt like he caught it in time.

“Um, guys?”

Frank’s skin went icy. How was he the last? What was he supposed to remember? How were they fucked? Magic? Boner? He tried to calm down a little. The boner thing was pretty interesting, though.

“I think he’s awake,” said Ray.

“Frank?” Mikey said, and Frank felt a hand slide under his neck and squeeze him gently. “Frankie?”

Frank sat up slowly with Mikey supporting his head.

“Where am I?”

Mikey’s face swam into view. He was holding Peppers who yapped as soon as Frank opened his eyes.

Frank! Frank you’re awake! Love you so much Frank! I was so worried! Want to lick you better, want to heal you Frank!<\/i>

“Hey baby girl,” he groaned, touching his head gingerly, and then reaching out for Peppers. Mikey handed her over. His face was pretty grim for Mikey, who was usually much harder to read. “Mikes,” Frank said.

“You okay?” Gerard said, crouching down and reaching out to stroke Peppers. His fingers ran lightly over Frank’s and Frank shivered.

“I-I’m fine,” Frank said, and started to push himself up.

“Don’t stand up too quickly,” Ray said. Frank looked at Ray’s legs. They just looked like legs, the ordinary, non-goat kind. Frank blinked a and looked up in time to see Gerard and Mikey exchanging dark looks.

“I’m fine,” Frank said again and stood. He leaned heavily on the counter behind him and his head swam a little. “I have to go.”

“I’ll give you a lift,” Gerard said.

“No! No, thanks,” Frank said frantically. “I’ll get a cab. Okay. I’m...” He pushed himself away and through the front doors to the street, ignoring the sound of the guys calling to him.

His head was still swimming by the time he made it to the end of the block. Feeling dizzy, he sat in the gutter and put his head between his knees. Peppers curled up next to him, whimpering.

“Okay, honey. Gimme a second and we’ll get a -”

Frank looked up and Gerard’s little green Mini was stopped in front of him, the passenger door wide open.

“I said I’d give you a lift,” Gerard said, leaning over the passenger seat and pushing the door open a little wider.

Before he could stop her, Peppers had jumped up and trotted over the the car and into the tiny back seat. Frank sighed. Traitor<\/i> he thought, and got up to get in the car.

*

Gerard had been pretty silent for most of the ride, and Frank was kind of grateful. He had no idea what he’d say anyway, ‘So, I thought I saw your brother getting nailed by the head chef, who is also a goat boy. What’s that all about?’

Frank shook his head, he was just not equipped for that conversation.

He realized Gerard was looking at him a few seconds later.

“So, what happened back there?” Gerard said, glancing in his rear view mirror at the two dogs sitting up in the back seat. Raisin, Frank noted, was being a bit more of a gentleman now. Peppers was watching Frank intently, with her big dark eyes.

“Blood sugar,” Frank said, lying a little more easily than he usually could. “Low, yeah, blood and whatnot.” He turned a little in his seat and stared out the window. “It happens sometimes.”

Gerard hmmmed. “You’re feeling okay now?”

“Sure,” Frank said. He had this overwhelming desire to just turn to Gerard and tell him what he saw, but he couldn’t. He didn’t have the words.

They pulled up a few minutes later in front of Frank’s house. The lights were on and Frank was pleased Bob would be there. He needed some normal right now.

“You gonna be okay?” Gerard said, hand tight on the steering wheel.

Frank turned in his seat and reached for Peppers. Raisin was licking her ear and her little eyes were all closed and blissful. Frank stopped and looked back at Gerard.

Their eyes met and Frank felt fixed there, under Gerard’s stare. He heard his breath rasping, felt the heave and pull of the air his chest.

“I’ll be fine,” Frank said after a few seconds and pushed open the car door. He called Peppers and she leaped out of the car. Frank scooped her up and without looking back, he rushed inside.

He raced through the door and then walked to the window, watching Gerard sitting in the car, not leaving, staring up at the house.

Eventually Gerard started the mini and pulled away. Frank felt cold panic, suddenly. He threw open the front door and ran out onto the porch. The tail lights of Gerard’s car disappearing round the corner did nothing to quell the feeling he’d made a terrible mistake.

*

The red haired man walked towards him across the park. His pale, brazen skin was shining in the moon light, and the breeze lifted his hair, blowing the scarlet bangs into his eyes.

“Hello Frankie,” he said, and it sounded like a whisper straight into Frank’s ear, although the man was still so far away.

The closer he got to Frank the further away he seemed and Frank started to get agitated. “Come here!” Frank shouted, but it came out garbled and wrong.

He kept walking forward with that steady swaying gait, at once infuriating and mesmerising. Frank tried moving towards him, but he just got further away.

To Frank's horror the man stopped, raised his hand, and started to turn away.

Frank ran then, scrabbling through the long grass and grabbing weeds and clinging vines - why were there vines? And wet sand sucking at his shoes, and hands reaching up from the dirt, dragging him down. And all the time the man was getting further and further away.

"No!" Frank sat bolt upright in bed in his own room, the clock telling him it was time to get up even though the pitch dark basement always felt like the middle of the night.

The pillow behind him was soaked; so were his sheets. But he knew who he'd been dreaming about for what seemed like forever. He knew who the red haired man was.

Frank dragged himself out of bed, pulling the sodden sheets off after him, and got ready to head to Pan’s.

*

The mountain of unchopped mushrooms stared at Frank, and he stared back at it. He didn't even know where to start. He picked up his chopping knife and started slicing slowly.

Zach had already finished with the red peppers and was moving on to green beans. Frank glanced at him and noticed the way every movement of Zach's hands had a rainbow sparkle lightshow behind it. Frank blinked and Zach's hands went back to normal. He glanced away and back, and the rainbow sparkle returned.

Frank's own hands didn't seem to know which was left and which right today. The mushroom he was slicing crumbled into little pieces and Frank gave up.

He turned to Keenan, who seemed to be throwing glitter on the grill from a little pouch at his hip which sparked and burned with vermilion and magenta flames. Frank sighed. How had he never seen this stuff before?

There was Ray over by the fridges, his little horns plain to see, talking to his beared dragon. There was Ray's bearded dragon, talking back.

Adam floated, literally, into the kitchen to pick up and order.

And Mikey? Mikey was watching Frank from across the room, the light glinting off his delicate scales and opalescent skin.

Frank plastered a smile on his face and concentrated on the mushrooms. This wasn't happening. He was having a psychotic breakdown. That was it. A mild, totally alarming, but in no way outside his own head, psychotic breakdown. And all he had to do was ignore it all and he'd be fine<\/i>.

When the doors to the café opened next, Frank felt a prickling all the way up his spine, like fingers trailing over his skin. His heart kicked in his chest and he turned. Gerard<\/i>.

He was standing by the grill, his tray held up high, a copper bright smile on his burnished face. Colors flowed over him, green and red and white and pale, pale lilac, and his hair was flame red. Brighter than Frank had ever seen it. He lowered the tray, holding it out for the plates Keenan had prepared, and tiny, dimond white stars flowed from the movement of his arm. When he turned slowly towards Frank, billowing rills of stars flowed off his skin. Their eyes locked.

"Frankie," Brandon hissed and sidled up to him. Frank turned to Brandon, and when he glanced back, Gerard was gone.

"It's time for a little prankie!" Brandon said. His skin looked like leaves, papery and thinly veined. The ink on his arms was moving. He showed Frank a realistic looking rubber chicken. Frank nodded and kept on slicing mushrooms, as well as the odd finger.

"Dude, seriously, this thing is magic! You put it in the oven and it starts shooting fire!" Brandon said with hushed urgency. "I double quadruple triple dare you to swap it out for one of Ray's roosters. Go for gold!"

"I got a lot of work to do, Bran, ah Brandon." Frank cut a glance left at Brandon's beetle brown eyes. He tried not to flinch.

"You do, huh?" Brandon said, looking deflated. He shrugged. "I guess I'll see if Zach's keen."

Frank nodded and tried not to wince too visibly when he narrowly missed chopping the end off his finger. Luckily he wasn't bleeding, but he scooped up what he'd been chopping and binned it anyway. This was total bullshit. He couldn't concentrate. He didn't know what the fuck was going on. He brought the knife down hard on a fresh mushroom and sliced deeply into the palm of his hand.

"Motherfucker!" Frank shouted and clamped down on the welling blood.

"You okay, Eyebrows?" Keenan said, clip clopping on his little flame red hooves over to Frank. Jesus<\/i>.

"I'm fucking fine<\/i>," Frank hissed. "And my name is Frank, not Eyebrows<\/i>, not Littlie<\/i>, not, not fucking Frankie<\/i>. Just..."

He barged past Keenan, into the sanctuary of his store room.

*

He'd retrieved the first aid kit from a box of dried newts, of all things, the first week he'd been in the storeroom. Newts<\/i>. And he hadn’t bothered to ask... never mind. He was pretty glad he'd stored the kit in a more obvious place since then.

His hand wasn't bleeding too badly, but it hurt like a bitch. He wound a little gauze around it, tied it off, and slumped down onto a pile of boxes he'd yet to tackle.

God<\/i>, what was going on? Why had he even come in today. He felt sick about it. He also felt incredibly sick about leaving Peppers at home. It was like he couldn't do this day right.

He looked down at the boxes beneath him. He'd have to go out an apologize to Keenan eventually. It wasn't his fault. Frank was the one who’d been dreaming about Gerard for months before he’d even met him. Frank was they were waiting for, whatever the hell that meant.

Frank wanted to do something physical and brainless. He stood up and opened one of the boxes. More boxes. Okay. This, Frank could deal with, that was for fucking sure.

*
Part One<\/a>\/Part Two<\/a>\/Part Four<\/a>\/Part Five<\/a>\/  Masterpost<\/a>

<\/a>
"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:104994","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/104994.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=104994"}}],"title":"Fic: Everyone Comes To Pan's Part Two","published":"2012-03-22T06:09:27Z","updated":"2012-03-22T07:08:21Z","content":"
Everyone Comes To Pan’s

Part Two<\/b><\/div>

Gerard, that was his name, but everyone called him Gee. He was the head waiter, and sometimes he played Santa for charity, and everyone loved him. These were the things Frank found out as deftly as he could the next morning when he began work.

He was Brandon's mentor, kind of, or so Brandon kept saying while looking all starry eyed. Frank figured maybe Gerard had that effect on everyone.

Frank cringed. Just thinking of the way his body had been pressed to Gerard’s made his cheeks get hot. It was about the most action Frank had seen in a year, maybe longer, and it was never to be repeated. Because Frank was never going to talk to or look at Gerard again, if he could possibly help it.

He honestly thought he’d lost the job before he’d even started, which would have been a record, even for him. But Brandon seemed to think it was the best thing he’d ever seen in his life, and even Ray, who was kind of an intimidating hard ass, had been laughing as he swept up some of the broken china.

No one had seemed pissed at him at all. Even Gerard, whom Frank had accidentally dry humped practically -sweet withering Christ - had waved off his apology with a flick of his slender wrist and a bat of his insanely long eyelashes.

Frank was kind of fucked.

“Seriously Brandon, I want to pay for the breakages,” Frank said, standing in the storeroom with his hands on his hips as Brandon searched through boxes.

“Okay, you can like...” Brandon stood up and looked around the storeroom, before running a dusty hand through his hair and grinning at Frank. “I’ll tell you what. You can straighten this place up, and we’ll call it even. Actually, the storeroom can officially be your domain, or whatever.” He gave Frank a level look. “It’s a pretty full on job keeping this place in order. We haven’t had someone who could do it for a year and a day, at least. Think you’re up to it? “

Frank stood back and surveyed the state of the storeroom. The shelves were all crammed with spices and jars and cans in no particular order. Boxes of every size were stacked precariously all the way to the roof, and more lay up-ended or spilling their contents over the floor. There were piles everywhere, stacks of paper and, well, crap, basically, on every surface. Frank’s hands itched.

He grinned. “Thanks, man,” he said. Brandon dived back into the boxes.

He emerged a few minutes later waving some kind of golden flag. “Okay! Here it is!” He handed the flag to Frank. “This one is for you.”

“Um,” said Frank, holding up the flashy scrap of fabric as Brandon handed it to him. “A golden, um, thing? For dishwashing duty?”

“Yep,” Brandon smacked his hands together, dusting them off. “Pan said he didn’t want people doing the more mundane jobs to get blue, and lamé always cheers him up so...” Brandon waved a hand up and down.

“Ri-ight,” said Frank, slipping the neck band over his head. He looked up at Brandon. “And the ostrich feather accented elbow length washing up gloves are for...?"

Brandon turned away and shrugged. "Just coz."

Frank shook his head. Okay.

When he’d arrived that morning Brandon had gleefully informed him that, despite Ray’s insistence he start in prep, Frank should really learn all the jobs, starting at the bottom, so they were putting him on dish duty.

Ray didn’t start until three and maybe Frank could get on the prep table after that. But until then, suds up.

Frank didn’t mind. He was just happy to be working. And now he had a domain too. A thing that was just his to do. And looking round the room, he could see how much they needed him.

"So, when do I get to meet this guy?” Frank asked, snapping on the long washing up gloves.

“Who?” Brandon said, turning back to Frank and tugging on a crease in the lamé apron and smoothing it out.

“Pan,” Frank said. He reached behind himself to tie the apron on.

“Oh, you know. He’ll be around. Eventually.”

Frank was getting a picture of the guy, kind of frivolous, and maybe a little neglectful. Maybe the café was more of a vanity thing than a real passion. Maybe he just liked seeing his name up in glittery sequins when he brought his buddies over to show off. Frank had worked in places like that before. Kind of made things easier, the boss not being around much.

“Okay, so, how do I look?” Frank held his arms out. Brendon stood back and looked Frank over. He lifted a finger and twirled it. Frank rolled his eyes, but spun on his heel anyway.

“Fabbo!” Brandon said, clapping. “Now, lets go scrub some pots!”

*
If it wasn’t Keenan’s booming voice demanding a clean saucier within the next ten seconds, it was Brandon asking him to taste some bouillabaisse he thought might be too fishy (it was chili sauce), or Zach trying to send him out from some fallopian tubes (“You know? For icing?”) . Clearly, some of the guys in the kitchen felt Frank had come down in the last shower. But man, the work was good. He hardly noticed the time ticking by until an angular looking guy with faintly fogged up glasses sidled up to him and said, “Brandon said I should tell you to take you break with me.”

“Um, okay?” Frank said, pulled his hands out of the water, and stripping off the gloves.

“So, you should take you break now,” the guy said, pushing his misted up glasses up his nose. “Like, with me.”

“Well, who am I to turn down and invitation like that?” Frank said, and followed the guy into the café.

They found a spot in one of the alcove tables, tucked as far away from the customers – man, was this place ever<\/i> quiet? – as they could get.

“Hey,” Frank said sliding into the booth opposite the guy.

“Hey,” said the guy, and he reached over and plucked up a menu, opening it in front of his face.

Right<\/i>, thought Frank. He hadn’t seen the guy in the kitchens, and if Brandon was telling him what to do he was probably a waiter, so, like, he probably knew the menu by heart. And yet he was still staring at it like he needed a place to look. Frank felt a little awkward.

“So, you been working here long?” Frank tried.

“Mmhmm,” the guy said.

“It’s pretty great,” Frank sallied forth again.

The guy shrugged and turned the page.

Frank set his jaw. “I just jacked off in the storeroom,” he said lightly. “Later I’d like to shave Ray’s hair off and make it into soup.” ‘Bitches get slapped’ was one of Frank’s personal life mottos. Bob had taught him it.

“No, you didn’t,” Angular Guy said, looking up and narrowing his eyes at Frank. “And no, you don’t.” he sat forward in the seat and pinned Frank with a stare. “Do you know who I am?”

Shit. Frank swallowed. “Please tell me you’re not Pan.”

The angular guy blinked, the merest hint of a frown creasing his brow. He sat back in his seat.

Frank went cold and hot all at once. God,<\/i> he just told his boss he’d jacked off in the storeroom and wanted to shave his head chef. Way to go, jerkwad!

“I’m not Pan,” the guy said with a deep sigh, pushing the tips of his fingers up under his glasses and into his eyes. “I just thought...”

Frank blew out a breath. “Well, you know I’m fucking new, right?” he said, poking at the menu on the table between them. “How the fuck should I know who you are?”

Angular Guy shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to be a tool. I just thought -” He stopped and looked Frank in the eye for a couple of seconds longer than was comfortable. Frank looked away.

“Yeah,” the guy said. “Never mind.” He took a deep breath. “Let's start over, okay? I’m - I’m Mikey, I’m a waiter here.”

“And my brother,” a voice chimed from next to their table.

Frank cringed. Gerard.<\/i> God, Frank hadn’t been near him since yesterday’s catastrophe, except for a few times when he’d dropped dishes at Frank’s station, but Frank had hidden among the bubbles and pretended not see him.

Mikey rolled his eyes. “Hey Gee.”

“Hey Mikey,” Gerard said, although his eyes were on Frank, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Lunch?”

"The usual please," Mikey said, popping the menu back in the holder.

"And what would our resident acrobat like?" Gerard, said, raising an eyebrow at Frank. Frank’s mouth went quite dry.

Mikey kissed his teeth. "Can't you tell?" He asked.

Gerard turned to Mikey and gave him a tight smile. Frank git the feeling there was an old conversation going on and he’d just blundered into the middle of it. Maybe they were in the middle of some kind of sibling fight? Siblings did that, right? Frank had no idea.

He looked between the brothers, he could see a kind of resemblance, but Gerard was round where Mikey was all flat planes. Although they had the same gold flecked eyes and aquiline nose. Their lips matched too, and Frank really should not be staring at the guy’s lips, for the love of God<\/i>.

"It's like his thing," Mikey said, still playing ‘who’ll blink first?’ with Gerard. "He can tell what you want before you even know you want it."

"Right," Frank laughed.

Gerard shook back his shaggy red hair and took a deep breath. “Veggie cheese burger and fries.” Gerard said narrowing his eyes at Frank. He smirked and turned to go.

“I kind of wanted the pasta,” Frank said before Gerard could get too far away.

Gerard turned back and tilted his head. “No, you don’t.”

Frank raised his eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure I do.”

Gerard’s eyes narrowed. He blinked. “It’s your lunch hour,” he said with a graceful flick of his hand. “Feel free to screw it up however you want.”

“Thanks,” Frank called. Asshole.<\/i> He actually kind of did want a burger and fries now that Gerard had mentioned it. But he’d be damned if some, some part-time Santa was gonna tell him what to eat. Fuck that<\/i> noise. He rolled his shoulders. God, he felt so tense all of sudden. Like he was on the verge of screwing up. But he’d had the best morning of his working life. Nothing could possibly go wrong now.

Mikey tapped him on the back of the hand. “So,” he said. “You know the lamé apron is a joke, right? Ditto the feather gloves. The real aprons are under the commis’ station. Anyway, I guess you’d better, like, tell me about yourself. Or whatever.”

Oh Jesus,<\/i> thought Frank. Lunch was going to be painful.

*

“Your uniform is gold lamé? And you’re in love with some guy called Gerard?” Bob said, one eye on the TV screen and the other on the cardboard carton on noodles in his lap. He scooped up a mouth full and stuffed them in his mouth.

Frank sputtered out his rice and beans. “In love with... where the hell did you get that from?”

Bob put down his fork and squinted at Frank. To celebrate his first day at his new job, and not just the freak who lived in Bob’s basement (“You’ll always be a freak,” Bob had said, so Frank had climbed him until he relented), Frank had bought dinner.

Now they were sitting in the lounge eating it and playing Call of Duty while Frank tried explaining to Bob what Pan’s was like. Nothing he said did it justice though and he’d kind of given up after his fifth attempt at describing it more eloquently than “fucking awesome!”

Bob had asked him a few questions, and somehow he’d come up with L-O-V-E for Frank and Gerard. Like, What the actual fuck?

Frank put his empty carton on the coffee table and Peppers immediately leaped up into his arms.

Treat?<\/i>

Frank picked out a little red bean an held it out for her. She licked it and sneezed. Frank rubbed behind her ears.

“I dunno,” Bob said, scratching his beard and then his tummy. “Just you’ve mentioned him thirty one times this evening.” He shrugged. “I made an assumption based on the statistical evidence.”

Frank rolled his eyes. “He’s just this guy, you know.”

Bob arched an eyebrow. “Yeah,” he said, holding out a finger to Peppers and letting her lick it. “I know.”

He stood up and started collecting the cartons and stacking them back in their plastic carried bag. Frank fought for a couple of seconds, trying to stay sitting down, before putting Peppers on the floor and jumping up to push Bob away from the coffee table. “I’ll do it!” he said, a little forcefully.

“Dude,” Bob said. “You payed for it. I should - ”

Frank had already cleared all the cartons and tied the bag up. “You hate washing dishes. It’s cool. Let me. I like it.”

Bob held up his hands and backed off. “Whatever you say, Frankie.”

God, that look on Bob’s face said it all. Frank really was a freak. A washing, cleaning and tidying freak. He took the trash into the kitchen, scooped Peppers up in his arms and scurried down to the basement. What the hell was wrong with him?

*

The next day, it turned out that Ray was deadly serious about Frank never washing dishes again. Within minutes of Frank arriving Ray’d set him up at the prep table with Adam and Zach and told him not to leave it until he could chop a carrot forty different ways and knew exactly how to skin an eggplant blindfolded. He’d threatened Zach with death by mouli if he so much as suggested Frank wash dishes ever again.

Over the course of the day Zach kept trying to get Frank to stuff chili seeds down the sous chef’s shirt neck, or swap Ray’s baking powder for corn flour. But Frank was way too careful with his job to go pulling stunts like that already. Although, no one seemed to give a shit when Brandon wrote swear words on the plates in gravy, or when Adam replaced the soaked gelatin for the aspic with plain old boiled water. Even Ray had laughed when the commis chef up-turned a mould of beef flavoured water on himself half an hour later.

Frank had to admit, watching the Phillips boys prank on every single person in the kitchen was pretty hilarious. He hoped he’d feel relaxed enough to pull stunts like that one day.

Mikey came and fetched him for lunch again, and this time they talked about books and bands and the people they worked with.

It turned out that Mikey was actually a pretty alright guy, with excellent taste in music and a dry, dour kind of wit that had Frank in stitches a couple of times over lunch - “Some chefs end up looking exactly like the food. Look at the patissiere. Have you ever seen a man look more like a croissant in your life? Neither have I.”

He had more that a few stories about the clandestine romances going on in the kitchen too, and was more than happy to share his insights with Frank.

According to Mikey, Keenan had a crush on Zach that defied reason. Frank looked through the kitchen doors and saw Keenan straighten Zach’s chef hat and smile at him dopily. Mikey raised an eyebrow at Frank as if to say see what I mean?<\/i> and Frank giggled into his smoothie.

Ray had come into the café not long after that, waving his ladle at Brandon emphatically. Dinner prep clearly wasn’t going smoothly.

“What about Ray?” Frank had asked. “Who’s he bumping hot potatoes with?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Mikey replied, glancing at Ray. “Hey, let’s write him a secret admirer note and leaving stuck to his ladle. He’d fucking freak out.”

“Dude, that’s just mean,” Frank said with a giggle. Mean, and also, Frank was kind of in awe of Ray. If he was gonna start pranking, it sure as shit wasn’t gonna be with him and his ladle. “What’s with all the pranking anyway?” Frank asked nonchalantly. He chased a cherry around the bottom of his glass and speared it with his straw.

Mikey gave him a shrewd look. “Try it. You might like it,” he said, and stole a fry off Frank’s plate.

After lunch Frank put the gold lamé apron in a pot of consommé and asked Brandon if he would mind tasting it.

When Brandon’s ladle came up wrapped in gold fabric and dripping soup all over the place, Zach and Adam had cheered which made Frank puff up like a rooster. He’d accepted their high fives with glee. No one had ever high fived him in the kitchen before. He was pretty stoked.

*

Frank wasn’t sure how long he’d been in the store room, tidying for all he was worth, when he heard the door open.

The sound of his own name roused him from a bit of a stacking trance he’d been in and he came round the end of the boxes to see who it was. There were a couple of evening staff guys there Frank had seen, but never really talked to. He slunk back into he shadows so he could listen to what they had to say about him.

"Thank fuck they've got one of the littlies in the storeroom again,” one of them said. “It's been fucking chaos in here for months."

“Too right,” the other voice replied. There was the sound of heavy things being lifted. “Here’s to the little guys, I say!”

The sound of the storeroom door closing behind them released Frank, and he let out a long breath. Littlie<\/i>? How did being short make him better at cleaning up a storeroom? If anything it made the job way harder. How the hell was he supposed to get up to the top shelves?

Frank cast around and found and step ladder against one wall. There would be a bunch of dangerous climbing in his future, that was for sure. Still, they were pleased he was here.

The storeroom door opened and Mikey stuck his head in. “Evening prep, Keenan wanted me to tell you.”

“Oh hey, yeah, cool. I’ll be right out.” Frank tested the ladder against one of the shelves. It was kind of rickety and not very stable. Sheesh<\/i>.

“Hey,” Mikey said, coming all the way into the storeroom. “Sup?”

“I’m short,” Frank said, looking up the many, many rungs on the ladder, disappearing into the dark recesses of the storeroom ceiling.

Mikey blinked at him.

Frank snorted. “Yeah, newsflash, right? It’s just, I heard a couple of the guys say it was good there was a littlie in here.”

Mikey blinked some more.

Frank nodded. “That’s what they’re calling me, huh? Littlie?

Mikey shook his head. “No, they’re calling you Eyebrows, on account of...” Mikey waved a hand at Frank’s face. “And because Keenan’s insisting.”

“So what’s with the little thing?” Frank hopped up a few steps, well, three, to get to Mikey’s eye line.

Mikey rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t imagine,” he said. “Honestly.”

*

Keenan loomed over Frank, a meat cleaver in one hand and the head of chicken in the other.

There was a red chili poking out of the chicken’s mouth. Keenan’s face was deadly serious. “Frank,” he said, shaking the chicken’s head. “I want you to go over there, stealth mode, little brother, and put this red chili in that bowl of pastry creme. Can you do that for me?”

Behind him Zach snickered. “Chili in the pastry creme,” he said. “Priceless.”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Dude, come on. I’m not getting fired<\/i> over a fucking chili.”

Frank busied himself tearing open the sack of potatoes he’d just dragged out of the storeroom to prep for dinner. The chili did not belong in the pastry creme, Frank knew that; Keenan knew that. Frank suspected that even Zach knew that, although some of the things that kid got up to in the kitchen, Frank wasn’t so sure. It was kind of a wonder anything got cooked here at all.

“Who said anything about gittin’ burned, Frankie Uncanny Valley,” Keenan drawled back.

Frank frowned, what the hell did that even mean? Jesus, Keenan was a weirdo. He shook his head. Frank thought of Gerard, suddenly. He never seemed to bother with the pranks, and no one pranked him. Farnk wondered what he thought of it all. Gerard seemed above that kind of thing, aloof..well, maybe not aloof, but definitely above having his apron pocket filled with cumin seeds, or the pages of his order note book covered in lipstick kisses.

Keenan rolled his eyes. “That po faced mother fucker over there ne-eds this goddamn chili in his cream,” Keenan said, poking Frank in the cheek, disgustingly, with the chicken head. “Look at him, Look.”

Frank looked. The creme belonged to the pastry chef, a tall, long faced man who Frank realized he had not seen smile once in the kitchen since Frank’d arrived.

“Ryland does need cheering up,” Gerard said appearing as if out of nowhere next to the prep table. Frank and Keenan both jumped.

“Jesus, Way, you will give a man a heart attack one day,” Keenan said, waving his meat cleaver at him.

Gerard smiled, his eyes on Frank. “I hope not,” he said.

Keenan tsked. “Make noise when you walk!” He said, whacking the cleaver into the chopping board and using his free hand to slick back his hair. “You’ve zombified poor Iero here. Lookit, boy’s speechless!”

Frank realized suddenly, and with a great deal of heat flooding into his cheeks, that it was true. He’d just been standing there, staring at Gerard, a dopey half smile on his stupid face.

“Oh, Frankie’s no zombie,” Gerard said, leaning into Frank’s space a little and smiling. “He looks more - ” and Gerard’s eyes cut away to Keenan. “Ensorcelled<\/i> don’t you think, Big K?”

Keenan laughed. “He looks terrified, Way. Leave him alone.”

But that was not what Frank wanted Gerard to do at all. Not at fucking all.

“Wait,” Frank said, too quietly to be heard, as Gerard, also laughing, pulled back and sauntered out of the kitchen, balancing his empty tray on the tips of his fingers.

When Frank looked back at Keenan, the chef was smirking. “Fear is a terrible thing, Eyebrows,” Keenan said. “It can destroy worlds, deflate souflees, break hearts.<\/i>”

“Um... okay?” Frank was nonplussed.

Keenan nodded. “Now, go and put this mother loving chili in the goddamn creme, or so help me Jesus, I will make you peel every Po-ta-ta in Chicago. Come on!”

Frank had no idea what Keenan was talking about, with the fear and all. Well, not in the kitchen context anyway. But in the Gerard context? Yeah, maybe the chef was right. Frank had never really believed in that whole ‘going non verbal’ thing when confronted by someone you thought was hot. But that had been before he met Gerard.

He was going to have to man up and talk to Gerard sensibly. And he was gonna have to relax a little at Pan’s.

They liked him here, and he liked them. And maybe, maybe<\/i>, Gerard liked him too? Maybe.

Frank plucked the chili out of the chicken’s beak, winked at Keenan and snuck across the kitchen.

*

The only downside of living with Bob was Bob’s workmates coming over all the time and annoying the crap out of Frank.

“Jepha and Quinn haven’t been here for months; what the hell are you talking about?” Bob said, turning his back on Frank and emptying the packet of chips into the big bowl.

Frank sighed. “I guess, but like... do they have <\/i> to come over tonight?”

Bob turned and raised an eyebrow at Frank.

“Okay, well, do I have to pretend I like them?”

Bob shut the fridge door and put his hands on his hips. “You never pretend you like them.”

Frank shrugged, sulkily.

“One time, Jepha asked me if you had aspergers, on account of you always slinking out of the room when they come in,” Bob said, opening the fridge again and retrieving a sixer from the shelf. “I had to explain that you’re just shy, and kind of an asshole around new people.”

Frank scuffed his toe on the lino. “I just like my space,” Frank said, and he could hear how petulant he sounded. “What can I say?”

“You can say you’ll stay and play a few rounds of Left 4 Dead with us, eat some chips and sink a few cans.”

“Okay,” Frank said reluctantly and carried the bowl out to the living room.

An hour later, Frank was ready to stuff the bowl down Bob’s neck and leave him for dead. Only, it wasn’t really his fault his buddies were giving him the third degree.

“I cannot believe you’re working at Pan’s,” Quinn said, standing by the DVD shelf, and Frank scowled. Quinn was definitely judging them based on their DVD selection. He had a nasty looking sneer etched on his face and he kept pulling out the cases, reading the covers and wincing.

Bob had gone out for another sixer, leaving him alone with Quinn and Jepha - a fact Frank was not going to let him forget anytime soon.

Jepha nodded earnestly. “I have heard some,” he exchanged a look with Quinn. “Bad shit about that place.”

Frank closed the book he was trying to hide behind and looked up at them. “Bad shit? That place is awesome, man. Don’t believe everything you hear.”

He wished Bob would come back so he could leave, or that they would all decide to go out. Yeah, that would be perfect, because Frank wanted to clean the skirting boards, and knew Bob would be all weird about it if Frank started while they had guests. Bob hated when he did that.

“Yeah,” Jepha said, sitting down next to Frank, thanks for nothing<\/i>, and putting his hand on Frank’s knee. “Frank, that’s like, like a pretty fucked up gig.” He exchanged another forboding look with Quinn.

Quinn snorted. “Fucked up, alright,” he said giving Frank the once over. Frank raised his eyebrows. What the fuck?

Frank opened his book and stared down at the page determinedly. “I met a guy,” he said. “Told me they were hiring. They hired me. I love it.” He hated feeling like he was explaining himself to these jerks. He didn’t need to tell them shit about his job. If they wanted to believe the best café in Chicago was fucked up, that was their stupid business.

Frank’d been at Pan’s for six weeks now. Nothing had blown up, caught fire, spoiled, curdled or been set free accidentally on purpose so far. It was the best job he’d ever had.

Jephas scrunched up his face. “It doesn’t really sound like your kind of gig, though, man,” he said, smiling sheepishly, like he was itching to say more, but really wanted Frank to ask first. Oh man, Frank was so not at home to that particular brand of passive aggressive crap tonight.

As far as Frank<\/i> was concerned, his gig was one where he wasn’t getting fired and people talked to him like he meant something. Like say, oh, his gig at Pan’s.<\/i>

“I mean,” Jepha gestured to Frank, undeterred by Frank’s silence. “I mean, they’re freaks over there, right? Like, it’s some kind of fetish bar?”

Against his better judgment, Frank looked up from the page. “What the actual fuck?”

Quinn nodded. “That’s what I heard, too. And I heard the owner is some kind of recluse freakshow.”

Frank snorted. Okay, so that might be kind of true. Frank’d heard all sorts of things about Pan too and he still hadn’t met the guy since he’d started there. But Mikey called him a “sweet little dude,” and Brandon talked about him like he invented rock’n’roll, so Frank figured he must be alright.

“Pan’s, it’s for weirdos,” Jepha said, wrinkling his nose? “Like, why would you work in a place like that? You’re not, you know, like<\/i> that.”

Frank shook his head. “Well, you’d know, Jepha,” Frank said. He would have thought they were making fun of him, pranking even, only Quinn didn’t have a sense of humor that Frank had ever detected, and Jepha was too nervous of pissing anyone off to joke around.

Jepha shrugged. “Well, we know Bob. And he’s a good guy. Straight up. And he’d never work in a place like that. It’s kind of infamous in Chicago. Everyone says they know someone who’s worked at Pan’s. But I never met someone who actually worked there. Like, that’s mega.” Jepha frowned. “It’s in Willmette, right?”

“I heard it was Cicero,” Quinn cut in.

“Well, you’re both wrong, about, like, everything. It’s in Oak Park, and it’s a fucking café<\/i>, not a sex club, for fuck’s sake. And I am exactly that type,” Frank said through gritted teeth. “And so is fucking Bob for that matter.”

Jepha shrugged. “Whatever, bro. I just want something healthy for you, you know?”

“Man,” Frank said shaking his head. “Are you serious?”

Jepha patted Frank’s knee. “I just want you to think about it Frankie.”

Frank took a deep breath. He closed his book, tucked it under his arm and stood up. “You’ve got a point,” he said. “Like, why be happy, when you can be normal, right?”

Jepha shrugged. “You might not be able to get other work when you get fired from this one,” he said. “And sometimes, it’s better not to do the stuff that’s fun,” he made air quotes round that word. “Because you’re not getting anywhere, you know? I mean, I’ve been in this business a long time Frankie. I know how it goes.”

Frank thought about Zach giving him lessons on how to tie water balloons; he thought about Brandon and the lamé apron; he thought about the way Gerard sometimes looked at him, all focused and attentive. Frank smiled.

He took a deep breath and patted Quinn on the shoulder as he passed him. “Jepha, Quinn,” he said, walking out into the hall and clicking his fingers for Peppers to follow him.

“Yeah, Frankie?” Jepha said.

“Go fuck yourselves.”

Frank strolled down the hall to the basement stairs and bounced down to the basement, slamming his door behind him. He threw himself on his bed where Peppers immediately bounded into his lap from her basket under the bed.

Love Frank! Love Frank! Good Frank!<\/i>

Frank buried his nose in her golden fur and smiled.

*

“I want three over easy with a side of pig, burn that fucker, and shake that shit.” Frank had no idea what Brandon had just said, but apparently it was something to do with food. Food Frank was supposed to prepare in some way.

“Nope,” Frank said, shoulders sinking. “I got nothin’.”

“It’s okay,” Brandon said, patting Frank on the shoulder. “You’ll get it eventually.”

“I want three fried eggs flipped once, with crispy bacon, and a side order of hash browns,” Gerard said, coming up to the service hatch and leaning in.

Frank looked at Brandon. “Why can’t you just say that?”

Brandon blinked. “I did<\/i> just say that.”

Gerard looked at Frank. “He did just say that.”

“Yeah, but not like, in English.<\/i>”

Gerard giggled, which made Frank’s cheeks heat up.

“Gerard,” Brandon said with a smirk. “I’ll leave Frankie here in your capable hands. Maybe you can help him learn to translate, yeah?” And disappeared into the café.

Frank felt the heat spread down his chest. God damn<\/i>it.

“You’re all on your own on the grill today?”

“Keenan’s sick,” Frank said, and flipped one of the eggs onto a plate.

Gerard smiled, one eyebrow arched. “Keenan’s faking. Zach’s sick.”

Frank looked up sharply. “Please tell me you’re joking. I’m freaking out here!” Frank flipped the last two eggs and scrapped the bacon of the back of the grill. “Yuck,” he whined.

“Hey, that looks great,” Gerard said as Frank put the plate in front of him.

“It looks burnt,” Frank sighed.

“Exactly!” Gerard chimed. He looped his fingers around Frank’s wrist. “You’re doing great, Frankie. Really great.”

Frank swallowed. His skin tingled where Gerard touched him, and he realized with a flush of arousal that he wanted that feeling in more places than just his wrist.

Gerard darted away with the plate and Frank stood watching him disappear amidst the tables.

“Um, hello? Order up, Eyebrows.” Frank blinked and saw Brandon’s brother Adam, the one who Keenan wasn’t soft on, flapping an order at him.

Frank grabbed it and stuck it in the wire over the grill.

“Sunny day rain account, flipped on a shingle with frofro,” Adam said, and leaned on the counter examining his nails. “And go easy on the lallies this time.”

Frank took a deep breath, started cracking eggs, and hoped like hell that’s what Adam had just ordered.

*

At the end of his shift Frank stood in the alley, lit a smoke and inhaled deeply. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had a cigarette that tasted so good. It had been a while since he’d felt this shitty about his performance, but the heavy feeling in his chest was familiar. He’d fucking sucked in there today. In front of Gerard too. Jesus, that guy just messed with Frank’s calm, but in a way Frank was already desperate to have more of.

“Man, you make smoking look good, Frankie.” Gerard said stepping out of the shadows, a cigarette in his own hand and a grin on his face.

Frank choked a little on his smoke. “Huh?” Smooth, Iero.<\/i>

Gerard laughed. “I just mean, people who work the grill, you know, when they get a break they really enjoy their smoke. Right?”

Frank looked at the burning cherry on his cigarette. “I guess.”

Gerard leaned on the wall next to him, the long arch of his body from his shoulders down, angled towards Frank. He rubbed his thigh slowly and sucked on his bottom lip.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I worked the grill?” He said, looking up at Frank from under his lashes.

Frank shook his head.

Gerard lent in, his shoulder brushing Frank’s. “I broke forty five eggs,” he said, his voice low and secretive.

Frank laughed. “Yeah, well, you gotta break ‘em the cook ‘em,” he said, thorwing his cigarette, on the ground and grinding it in to the concrete.

Gerard scrunched up his nose. “True, but I broke them on<\/i> Brandon,” Gerard said with a shrug. He cut a look at Frank out the corner of his eye, and Frank cracked up. Gerard nudged him lightly with his elbow.

“Okay, okay, I get it. We all have bad days,” Frank said with a giggle. “I think you win in the ‘crap at the grill’ stakes though. Jesus.”

Gerard grinned. “Hey, your shift is over, right?” He tugged a little on Frank’s sleeve.

Frank nodded. “Yeah, I was gonna have a crack at the back of the storeroom. I haven’t even taken a look past the second row of shelves yet.”

Gerard shook his head. “Leave it,” he said, cupping Frank’s elbow and squeezing. “Let’s go get some ice cream. What do you say? It’s spring. The sun is shining, and like,” he shrugged again. “I wanna.”

Frank smiled, it was kind of hot out, now that Gerard mentioned it. And he was done for the day. Besides, Frank was pretty into how pleased and hopeful Gerard looked, the way he kept touching Frank. He wanted to keep him close, keep that look on his face a little while longer.

Gerard ducked inside, and came back a few seconds later with the little dark brown pug in tow.

“Oh!” Frank said, squatting down and holding out his hand to the pug. “He’s yours?”

Gerard grinned. “For my sins,” he said, rolling his eyes.

The pug came up and sniffed Frank’s fingers. “Hey, little guy,” Frank said. “Who’s so cute? Who’s so cute? What’s your name, little dude?”

The pug sat and looked up at Gerard and back at Frank.

“Raisin,” Gerard said. “The Angry Raisin.”

Oh you did not just call me that, you over grown, lilly livered, flower fairy - <\/i>

Frank frowned. “He kinda does look angry, now you mention it.”

The pug growled, trotted over to the wall by Gerard and cocked it’s leg. Gerard made an appalled face. “Nice, buddy. Thanks.”

You started it.<\/i>

“Well, come on, let’s hit the park?” Gerard looked down at the pug, who woofled back. “Yeah, that park,” Gerard said. The pug yapped and yapped.

“Man, you make me wish I had a dog.”

Raisin stopped yapping and stared at Frank. It was kind of un-nerving. Gerard picked him up and tucked him under his arm. “Um, you – you don’t have one?” Gerard asked, and he scritched behind Raisin’s ears.

“Yeah, my roommate has one. And, like, I love her to bits. But, she’s not mine,” Frank said with a shrug. Even if sometimes she feels like she’s mine,<\/i> he didn’t say. Because it was weird, and kind of mean to Bob. Frank always felt a little crummy for stealing her love from him.

“Well, they love who they love,” Gerard said. “Right Raisin?” The little dog yapped and licked Gerard’s mouth. “Yueach!”

Frank giggled, and the way the little dog panted at him it was almost as if Raisin giggled back.

*

The three of them took the El into the city and Gerard led them down back alleys and side streets to the park in front of the City Library.

Just inside the gates was a guy with an old fashioned ice cream cart, painted with dancing ice cream cones. The guy had a pleasant, round-cheeked face, scruffy with whiskers. He also had a monkey sitting on his shoulder. Frank was used to people with weird pets by now. It was like Pan’s attracted the city’s craziest pet owners.

As it happened, Frank recognized the ice cream seller from the café. And then when Gerard chatted with him, Frank realized he must be a regular. It was a nice feeling, Frank thought, to know people, to be connected. He’d never really had that before.

He frowned, only he must have once, right? Back home, with his – his family and friends? But Frank couldn’t recall ever having felt part of a community, not like this. Not where you could bump into someone in the park and have something to say to them.

“Ray said we’re all on for B&A tonight, if you’re still keen?” Gerard said to the seller, whose name was apparently Spencer.

“Count me and Bden in. Eight?” Spencer said, accepting the handful of coins Gerard offered him before Frank could protest about Gerard paying. But maybe they were in some kind of barter thing, because Gerard had paid with odd shaped coins like the ones he’d given Frank just before Christmas.

After Spencer handed them their cones and they’d wondered a little way along the path, Frank turned to Gerard and said, “You probably don’t remember, but, like, you gave me a bunch of those funny coins once. And it kind of saved my ass.”

Gerard looked startled. “Yeah, I did.”

“You remember?”

Gerard looked sheepish, and Frank felt<\/i> sheepish. It was weird they were only bringing it up now. It was weird that Frank was bringing it up at all. But Maybe not, because clearly it had made as much of an impression on Gerard as it had on Frank. Frank’s stomach flipped.

The corner of Gerard’s mouth twitched and he flapped a hand at Frank. “I recognized you that day,” Gerard said, and Frank felt his face heat up. “I mean, the day you came in. Just because you have, you know, your face is – um...” Gerard trailed off and concentrated on his ice cream.

“My face is what, dude?” Frank said, stopping Gerard with a hand on his elbow. “Jesus, don’t leave me hanging like that. What’s wrong with my face?”

“Nothing!” Gerard replied, appalled. “Nothing is wrong with your face. I like your face. I love – love that people call you Eyebrows.” Gerard trailed off.

Frank hid his grin in his chocolate chip and pretended not to see Gerard wince and shake his head, as if he was embarrassed at himself.

“I like your face too,” Frank said quietly.

“Well,” said Gerard, just as quietly. “Good.”

They both concentrated on their double scoops in companionable silence as they strolled through the park, amid the dappled sunlight, the chittering chattering of the birds, and the Angry Raisin’s little yips and yaps, telling the birds to fuck off.

“Man, I love this place,” Frank said, grinning at Gerard as they made their way towards the Library. “It’s like, my favorite building in the city.”

Frank turned to see Gerard looking at him, a strange little half smile on his face. “It is?”

“Totally, I mean, look at those fucking gargoyles, man. It’s insane. And, like, these steps, up to the massive fucking door, with the studs and the Latin. Or whatever the hell that is. Crazy assed.”

“It’s Gaelic,” Gerard said. Looking up at the words above the library lintel. They both sat on the steps, Gerard a couple down from Frank so his shoulder was paralelle with Frank’s knee.

“Yeah? Well, it’s fucking cool,” Frank said “Like something from a horror movie, or something.”

Gerard craned his ead back to see the lintel. “Do you – you can’t read it?”

Frank frowned, took a bite of his waffle cone and munched on it. “No,” he laughed. “I’m Italian- American, from New Jersey. We do garlic, not Gaelic.”

Gerard laughed. “It says: ‘Here is the doorway to all the worlds.’”

Gerard wasn’t making it up, Frank could tell. “Holy shit dude. You can read that?”

Gerard crumbled up the rest of his cone and threw it to the birds that strutted across the steps.

Flee! No feed! But then flee! But feeding first! With a mind to flee!<\/i>

The Angry Raisin took off after the flock, yipping and yapping, and the birds cawed as they rose in the air. Flee!!!! Right the fuck now!!<\/i>

Frank felt a funny little giggle rise up in him.

“Sure. My great-grandmother claimed decent from Mab, the Queen of the Fairies. Nanna taught me to speak the old language when I was just a little sprite.” He gave Frank a level look.

“Wha – seriously?” Frank stuttered.

“Nah,” said Gerard, dusting crumbs off his hands and quirking a smile. “There’s a translation on the plaque over there.”

Frank let the little giggle out and Gerard grinned back.

“So what else does it say, the plaque?”

Gerard leaned back and sprawled down the steps, closing his eyes and tilting his face up into the sun.

Frank couldn’t help but let himself look at Gerard, the long lean planes of his body, the delicate arch of his wrists, the curve of his neck. He was so... It was as if he were carved in marble, or cast in bronze. He was, Frank could admit it, he was fucking beautiful. His skin had this lustre, creamy and smooth. And he seemed at once so young, and so much older than Frank. The kind of guy people called an ‘old soul,’ Frank guessed. He let his gaze linger over Gerard’s long legs, and the way his tight jeans left, well, pretty much nothing to Frank’s imagination.

Gerard hmmed, and Frank’s eyes darted to his face to see him watching Frank, one eye open.

Frank swallowed. Jesus<\/i>, Frank could be such a fucking creeper sometimes.

“It says the guy who made this building fled Ireland in the famines,” Gerard said, “And wanted to create a place where all people could be free. So be built a library. Because knowledge is freedom.”

Frank grinned. “Yeah?”

Gerard nodded.

Frank lay back and put his hands behind his head. “That? Is fucking awesome. I mean, I know exactly what he means, because books can transport you, man. They, they’re little gateways to other lives you’ve never gotten to live, other places and people. Yeah, that is so cool.”

He looked back up the steps the doors, and the carved masonry above it. “Awesome.”

“You like to read?” Gerard asked, his head still thrown back, soaking up the sun.

“I like libraries,” Frank said, leaning back himself. “I like this one particularly.”

Gerard squinted one eye open again. Raisin trotted over and Gerard made an ‘unf’ sound when the little pug unceremoniously leaped up on his midriff, scrambled around in a circle for a few seconds and plonked himself down for a nap.

“Because it’s a kind of a gateway?” he asked, stroking Rasin’s rippling fur. Frank nodded. Gerard lifted his head and looked straight at Frank. “But what if it was real?”

“What if what was real?” Frank asked, unable to look away from Gerard’s fingers stroking Rasin.

“Everything,” Gerard said, and closed his eyes into the sunlight again.

*
Part One<\/a>\/Part Three<\/a>\/Part Four<\/a>\/Part Five<\/a>\/  Masterpost<\/a>

<\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:104873","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/104873.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=104873"}}],"title":"Fic: Everyone Comes To Pan's Part One","published":"2012-03-22T06:03:20Z","updated":"2012-03-22T07:07:55Z","content":"
Everyone Comes To Pan’s<\/b><\/div>
Part One<\/b><\/div>

"This is the haunt of the few gentle Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. "
- Edgar Allen Poe

*

"Come on Mr. Pollack, you can't fire me! It's a week out from Christmas."

Frank stood in the middle of the kitchen, a tray of wet and dripping dishes in his hands, his hair net slipping over one ear. His face was warm from the heat of the sink he'd been slaving over for the past couple hours during the dinner rush; warmer now that his boss had just dropped a bombshell on him.

"Frank, buddy, I'm not firing<\/i> you. I just," he sighed and shuffled through the small brown envelopes through his sausage fat fingers, and chewed the unlit stub of a cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. Frank tipped back his head and looked at the ceiling.

Pollack sighed. "Things are tough all over and I gotta let you go. I'm sorry," he finished with a shrug, holding one of the little envelopes out to Frank.

"Fuck," Frank said, hefting the tray onto the drying rack before wiping his hands on his apron and taking the envelope. It felt pretty thin. Frank tugged off his hair net. "Fuck, man."

"I'm really sorry, kid,” Pollack said, patting Frank on the shoulder as he walked past.

"Sure," Frank sighed. His name was scrawled in red on the front of the envelope. Lero, F.<\/i> "Sure you are."

Frank took his time packing up the stuff in his locker. Sacked. Again.<\/i> This clearly was not Frank’s year. It was just a crummy assed job doing dishes, but the thing at Pollack’s was the fourth job he’d lost in 8 months.

Frank stuffed his hair net into the bottom of his back pack.

The lockers were tucked away in a backroom of the kitchens. Just a couple of free standing ones, like the kind you got in high school only smaller, and smelling, impossibly, worse than anything Frank could remember from his youth. Frank heard the door to the storeroom open.

“...and canned the guy.”

Frank didn’t recognize the voice off the bat; he’d only been there a couple of months but the waiters had mostly been dicks, too big and important to talk to the pot scrubber. And as for the chefs? Forget about it.

“Jeez, thank Christ. I swapped out as many shifts as I could to steer clear of him. I know a fucking Jonas when I see one. Hey, hey, pass me the self raising.”

Frank loosened his grip on his back pack. He turned to say something - he didn’t know what, but something<\/i>.

“For the love of -,” the second voice said, straining under the weight of lifting something heavy. “Dude, don’t start that shit again...”

“I’m telling you,” the first guy cut in. “The guy was a Class A screw up. And a klutz! How many plates has he broken? I mean, I’m pretty sure he could curdle milk just by looking at it. He’s that useless. I’m not kidding.”

“Is this like that time you swore the Sous Chef was stealing sticks of butter to grease his roller skates?” The second voice groaned. Frank heard the sound of heavy things being dragged across the floor and the door opening again.

The first guy laughed. “Say what you like, but that guy? A jinx in any kitchen.”

The sound of the storeroom door slamming shut behind the voices jolted Frank. He shoved the rest of his gear into his pack and bolted out the back doors.

Out on the street it wasn't snowing yet, but the clouds above were groaning grey-blue with the weight of it. The wind whipped down Chancery, and Frank turned the collar of his denim jacket up and pushed his hands deep into the pockets as he walked into it. Goddamnit<\/i> .

He couldn’t really blame the chefs for the things they’d said. It wasn’t like it was the first time he’d heard it after all.

Frank couldn’t explain it, but lately he was<\/i> a fucking jinx in the kitchen. Everything he touched turned to shit.

In the job before Pollack’s he broke every second dish he washed. Before that he made a sack of flour explode and in the one before that, the live lobster tank in front of the restaurant smashed while he was cleaning it and half the lobsters escaped down a storm drain. To be honest, Frank didn’t really feel too bad about getting the sack for that. Live lobster restaurants were total bullshit anyway.

On the trash heap at fucking Christmas.<\/i> How the fucking fuck was this his life? It wasn't easy getting work; not many people ready to believe a guy covered in as much ink as Frank was worth a shot, even if it was just washing dishes and scrubbing floors. But kitchen shit was all he knew how to do. It was his thing<\/i>, even if, for some reason he sucked at it right now.

Frank knew he could be better. He just had to find the right place for him, the right kitchen. And when he did, he knew the pace, the sound, the physical exertion - getting it right<\/i>, getting people fed well - that<\/i> would be all he needed in life. When everything went right in a kitchen, it was an almost zen high – it was worth waiting for.

Frank shivered in the thin denim and wrapped his crummy excuse for a scarf round his face. Fuck it<\/i>, he didn’t even have a proper coat for winter, let alone a kitchen to screw up in.

If he was lucky, he had enough in his severance envelope to make it through the next couple of weeks; it wasn't like he had a million people to buy gifts for anyway. Well, there was Bob, but Frank was pretty sure he'd be happy with a six pack and bag of Cheetos. He'd have to be.

On the sidewalk ahead, a guy in a red jacket trimmed in white and floppy Santa hat was shaking a can at people as they passed. "Spare some change for the lonely this Christmas?" he asked cheerily as Frank reached him.

"No. Can you?" Frank snorted, intending to push past. Only the street was so crowded, Frank kind of got blocked in next to the guy. Frank glanced at him; from a frame of pretty, sooty colored lashes, gold flecked eyes glinted back. Frank blinked. He didn’t think Santas came in cute.

The guy smiled. "Of course!" He chirruped.

Frank stopped trying to squeeze between two elderly women who were loaded up with bags and packages, and turned to the Santa.

The can made a light tinkling sound as Santa held it out to Frank. "Take as much as you need."

Frank pulled back. The sidewalk was teeming with people cramming in last minute shopping. They slipped past Frank and the guy without so much as a second glance.

"Um, I think I 'll be fine. Thanks anyway," Frank said, frowning. That Santa suit was pretty thin. Thinner than Frank’s denim jacket, anyway. "Jesus, aren't you cold?" Frank pulled the neck of his thin jacket closer.

The guy laughed again. "I never feel the cold, Frank,” he said.

“It’s like 90 below out here. What are you, wearing a fucking tee shirt? Here,” Frank unwound his scarf and held it out to him, it wasn’t much, but at least Frank had a jacket.

He heard a kid in the crowd of shoppers start wailing, and then felt a short sharp jab to the shin. “Ow, what the fu-” Glancing down, Frank watched unable to move out of the way, as a small girl with a scrunched up face pulled back and kick him in the the shin again with all her might. “Son of a...”

“Oh, jeez, sorry mister!” A woman, who could only be this kid’s harried looking mother, grabbed the little girl’s hand. “Ginny, you apologize!”

“Don’t get rid of Santa!” the little girl yelled, and drew back her foot to punt Frank again. But before she could, her mom scooped her up.

“Don’t what?!” Frank could not believe this was frikken happening. He turned back to the guy in the Santa suit who was still fucking grinning. Fine<\/i>, thought Frank, last time I offer a cute guy a scarf.<\/i>

The mom shuffled a little ahead, hitching the kid up onto her hip. From over her shoulder the brat poked her tongue out at Frank. Frank poked his tongue out right back.

“What the hell is this day?” Frank said, tipping back his head and blowing at the sky.

Santa laughed. “You know that one good turn deserves another, right?” He quirked a grin out the corner of his mouth.

Frank waved the guy off and started to turn away. But Santa called, “Here!" and tipped the collection can. Frank had to stick out his hands to catch the contents; a small pile of silver and gold coins filled Frank’s cupped hands.

"What - don't!" Frank held his hands away from him, trying to shove the money back at him.

A group of teenagers crowded around them, pushing between them, drowning out the sound of Santa’s laugh. Frank clutched his hands to his stomach, trying not to drop the guy’s coins all over the sidewalk. There was a gap in the crowd but when Frank looked up, ready to give the money back - force it on him if he had to - Santa was gone.

"Oh for crying out - " He scanned the street, but he couldn't see past the shoppers and seasonal revellers; couldn't see the guy or his Santa hat anywhere.

The coins glinted in his hands, warm against his palms, and they all looked freshly minted, glittering and bright under the light of the streetlamps.

Some of them were odd shapes - little octagonal rounds with holes in the middle, round pointed triangles with grinning faces on them. He stuffed them into his pockets. "Next street collector I see is getting a whole lot of..." Frank fished one of the coins out of his pocket, "Mag Mell? Where the hell is that?” He made a little noise of disbelief. “Merry fuckin' Christmas," he said, stuffing the thing back in his pocket and making his way through the throngs of shoppers down into the subway towards home.

It was raining when Frank left the subway, that wet, misty kind of rain that gets you wetter than you realise. Frank pulled up his collar and trudged through it. His shin was still aching, and his now wet jeans chafed on it a little. Brat, sheesh!<\/i>

When he finally got to his place he got a little jolt of joy at seeing the lights were on. Bob was home.

But then he remembered about the job and the rent and the jolt turned icy in his gullet.

Frank weighed up heading down the street to the Irish bar on the corner for a couple of hours verses facing Bob and telling him he’d lost another job.

A neon four leaf clover flashed in the distance. Maybe they'd take Mag Mell coins? Couple of them had four leaf clovers on them. Frank looked back up at his apartment and sighed. Fuck it,<\/i> he thought, better to face the music sober.<\/i> He stomped up the stoop into the lobby of his building.

*

Bob stood in the hall looking Frank up and down. He held out a hand for Frank's bag, shutting the door once Frank had shuffled inside. “You want a towel?” He asked, kicking the door shut behind him. “You look like a drowned rat.”

“Nah,” Frank said, shaking his soggy hair at Bob instead. "Thanks, man," Frank said. Bob growled and pushed Frank’s head away from him.

Normally Frank’d be half way up Bob’s back by now demanding a piggy back and popcorn. But he felt dousing the guy with melted snow was as much of a liberty with Bob Bryar’s personal space as he had the right to demand right now, since there wasn’t going to be any rent coming this week either.

“Yeah, well. You gotta get a new job, but I won’t turn you out. Okay?”

Frank stared. “How... how did you know.”

Bob crossed his arms. “I can read you like a book, Iero,” he said and walked into the kitchen. “What else happened?”

Frank sighed and pulled out one of the kitchen chairs to sit on backwards. “There was a cute Santa. Maybe I worked with him somewhere? Called me Frank, anyway. At least, I think he did.”

Bob made encouraging sounds from the depths of the fridge, so Frank continued.

Frank considered sticking something down the back of Bob’s pants while he was in this vulnerable and ripe for comedic hi-jinx position, but thought better of it. “So I offered him my scarf,” Frank said. “Coz he had on, like, just a red shirt, right. And the next thing I know Wednesday Adams appears out of nowhere, and tries to kick a hole in my shin. Starts screaming about me getting rid of Santa -”

Bob’s stood up suddenly and nearly knocked himself out on the door roof of the fridge.

“Ow, fuck. You did what to who?” Bob emerged from the fridge, rubbing the back of his head and holding a can of coke.

“I didn’t do anything. So kid kicked me and accused me of getting rid of Santa, like I’m some kind of fairy hit man or some shit.”

Bob scowled. “Well, that’s how you get rid of … um... them.”

“Them?”

Bob looked uncomfortable. “Magical people. Faeries. Whatever. You, you know, you give them clothes.”

Frank snickered. “Okay, Harry Potter. But this wasn’t frikken house elves; this was a guy freezing his sack off in a Santa suit.” Bob wasn’t laughing back, though. He was rubbing his beard and frowning.

“Rowling borrowed that from real life, Frank,” Bob said, fixing Frank with his craggy-browed stare. “From Fairytales. Like, it’s how you free them, or whatever, from your service.”

Bob looked really uneasy now. He frowned. “You know the one about the poor cobbler?” He lent back against the counter. Frank shook his head, he’d never really been big on kids stories. He couldn’t really think of any off the top of his head.

Bob sighed. “Once upon a time there’s this poor cobbler,” he said. “And he can’t make enough pairs of shoes to survive, but one day he comes into his workshop and it’s full of shoes, so he hides out to see who's making them, and he sees these little guys come in and make them; they work all night. And so the cobbler is super grateful and makes them some little shoes of their own and leaves them for them. Only the little guys, they freak out, and he never sees them again. He gets rid of them and then, he like dies of poverty of something else all medieval and crappy.”

At the end of Bob’s speech Frank snaps shut his jaw. The entire year that he’s known Bob, he’s never heard him string that many words together in one go.

“Um, okay?” Frank says. “I didn’t know you were like, the keeper of the lore or whatever.”

Bob shakes himself, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, which Frank can’t help noticing had gone kind of red. “I’m not,” he sgrumbles. “Just shit my dad used to tell me. When I was a kid.”

Bob turned back to the fridge and pulled out a leftover take out container. “You want some of this?” He says, not looking at Frank. “I’ll heat it for you, but I’m not cooking shit.”

Frank reconsidered climbing on top of his only friend in the world. “You’re a star, Bob Bryar. A big soft, Irish star.”

“Half Irish,” Bob corrected. “The other half is Kick-Your-Ass-If-You-Don’t-Pull-Your-Shit-Together, so... you know,” Bob shrugged.

“Santa didn’t want the fucking scarf anyway, so he’s safe. And that kid is a brat.”

Bob chuffed out a laugh. “So long as Santa is safe. All I’m worried about.”

Frank felt better being home already. “Is um, is your girlfriend here?” he asked, hovering around Bob’s shoulder as he put the food in the microwave and bashed the buttons.

Bob grunted, lifting his chin in the direction of the living room. “She’s looking forward to seeing you. You know, I think she’s into you man.”

Frank waggled his eyebrows. “I know dude. Good thing I don’t dig chicks, huh?”

“Yeah, fuckin’ yeah,” Bob said, cracking open a coke. “Whatever.”

Frank headed to the living room, opened the door and Bob’s girlfriend threw herself at him, leaping up and licking his face. “Peppers, you little minx!” Frank cried, dropping to his knee and letting the tea-cup Chihuahua smother him with her doggy kisses. “Did you miss me? Did you miss me baby?!”

Peppers danced around his feet yipping at him.

“I’m home, scruff muffin. We can sneak around behind daddy’s back,” he said, rolling her over so he could rub her tummy.

Love Frank. Love Tummy. Love Frank and Tummy. Love Frank<\/i>

“Yeah, she really does love it. Look at her,” Frank called back at Bob.

Frank tickled up by Peppers’ ears and back to her tummy. “That’s my girl,” Frank sighed, running his fingers over her silky skin.

“She is a heart breaker.” Bob said, coming into the room and throwing himself on the couch. He dug an Xbox controller out from under him and resumed playing.

“She is a woman of discernment and taste,” Frank corrected, as Peppers licked his hand. “And she loves me.”

Bob snorted. “How can you tell,” he said, arching an eyebrow and restarting the game.

Pepper’s wriggled over and sat staring up at Frank her tail thumping.

Love Frank. Frank mine. Love Frank. Love Frank. Love Frank.<\/i>

Frank grinned at Bob and shrugged. “Look at that face. You can almost hear her speaking,” he said.

Bob rolled his eyes and handed Frank a second controller making a sound that may or may not have been a “Humph.”

*

The red haired man walked across the park to Frank’s bench and sat down next to him.

Behind him, the gleaming golden roof of the Library shimmered, it's arcane spires piercing the diamond studded sky. Dark as it was, Frank could see everything perfectly, as if each tree and blade of grass and, even the man next to him, was lit up from within. Frank should have been cold in just his t-shirt, out here in the park in the middle of the night, but the air was light and warm on his skin.

His new companion shivered. His features changed every time Frank looked away, and his skin seemed brazen, flowing from creamy white to vibrant pink and blue in places. Frank blinked and rubbed his eyes, but it didn’t make any difference. It was like he’d been drawn and smudged, Frank thought. The only clear thing about him was his hair, scarlet and shaggy and bright.

Frank focused on that colour. He immediately felt calmer and happier just looking at it. He wanted to put his fingers in it, like paint in a pot, and drag the color all over his skin.

“Hi,” the man said, shuffling a little closer to Frank; so close Frank could smell the warmth of his skin and hear the colour of his large eyes, golden and warm.

“Hello,” Frank said back. In his lap a brown paper bag crinkled. Frank took a handful of crumbs from the the little bag and scattered them on the path in front of the bench. Out of thin air, a flock of little - what were they? - Little people<\/i>, tiny people, with gossamer wings, descended on the crumbs. Frank turned to say something to his new companion, but the man seemed unsurprised, and unconcerned that they were being surrounded by - by fairies<\/i> or some shit.

“I miss you, Frankie,” the man said after a few moments of watching the little creatures squabble over the crumbs. He held out his finger and one of the fairies flitted through the air and alighted on the end of it. The red haired man stroked the little creature’s gossamer wing. Frank shivered.

“Miss me?” Frank asked, watching the man’s finger slip so gently over the wing.

The red haired man smiled. “I do.”

Frank missed the man. He desperately missed him. Which was strange to Frank because, he'd never seen him before in his life.

The little fairy flitted away. They both watched her disappear across the park towards the Library.

“Can you come home soon?” The man on the bench asked.

“Come home?” Frank said, looking down. The bag of crumbs had been replaced by the edge of a bed sheet, scrunched up in Frank’s tight fists. The ground beneath the bench started to shake. Frank grit his teeth. “Come home? I am<\/i> home.” Frank hissed.

The red haired man reached out, and ran the tip of one finger down Frank’s cheek. Frank's skin tingled and burned in its wake. “Are you sure?” The red haired man said.

The thunder under the bench became a roar, and Frank woke up, sitting in his bed and blinking at the room, trying to remember what he’d just been dreaming.

It was something terrible, he was sure. But also something warm and happy and - But it was no use. It was gone so fast that chasing it only pushed it further away.

Frank rolled over in bed and tried to get another half hour. Maybe the dream would come back.

*

When Frank had first met Bob they’d hit it off because it was like Bob was the only person who seemed to actually see<\/i> Frank when he was around.

This was at the Lobster restaurant, which, with hindsight, was probably the worst job Frank could have taken. Except that he'd met Bob, who spoke to<\/i> Frank, not just at<\/i> him. They’d bonded over a shared hatred for plunging living things into boiling water, and the head chef – a psycho who’d watched one too many British cooking shows and thought throwing sauce pans and four letter words around the kitchen was the way to get things done. Asshole.

Bob had quit that place not long after the Lobster Liberation incident (Frank still wasn't sorry). Now he worked at a bistro up town, but he’d offered Frank a place to stay when he didn’t have a bum dime to his name. He was the closest thing Frank had to a best friend in the whole of Chicago.

As compensation for having to put up with Frank, Frank had taken to getting up a few hours before Bob, or sneaking out after he’d gone to bed and cleaning the house from top to bottom. He’d make sure Bob’s breakfast was ready before he got up, maybe put some clean chef’s whites out for him, get the papers in off the porch and generally make sure all Bob had to do round the house was play Call of Duty and walk Peppers every now and then – when Frank wasn’t doing it. Man, Frank loved that dog.

Taking care of Bob seemed like the least he could do, under the circumstances.

Bob never mentioned it. He just left Frank to his own devices and Frank felt pretty good about that. As soon as he got some lasting work, Frank’d pay Bob the rent he owed or something, and then they could divvie up the housework or whatever.

Frank’d still be number one dog walker, though. That was a deal breaker.

He sliced an apple into a bowl and squeezed a little lemon on it and sprinkled it with cinnamon and sugar. He placed it next to Bob’s cereal bowl, then set the coffee machine going.

The kitchen was spotless, the living room was tidy and Bob’s laundry was folded, waiting for him on the bottom stair. Frank sighed, if only things went this easily in the work place. He looked down at Peppers sitting by his feet.

“Good morning, scruffmuffin,” he said. Peppers thumped her tail as Frank crouched down and scruffed her behind the ears. “I bet you want a W-A-L-K? I'm sorry, baby girl. I promise you a W-A-L-K when I get home tonight, okay? I have to find a job, kid." Frank stood and stretched. Peppers little tail thumped on the floor, and Frank grinned down at her. "I hid a chewchew in Bob’s bed. Go find it!”

Peppers scrabbled off towards Bob’s bedroom. Frank grabbed his jacket, keys and messenger bag. By the front door he paused, waiting for it.

“Peppers! Garrrgh! Too. Early!” A yell bellowed from the depths of the apartment and Bob’s bed.

Giggling, Frank locked the door behind him and headed out to find some work.

*

“Sorry kid,” the manager said. “I’m looking for someone with experience.”

“That’s funny,” Frank said. “The last place I tried said I was over qualified.”

The manager cold-eyed Frank.

“Yeah. Thanks for your time,” Frank said, hitching up his bag and turning to leave.

Well, that was it. The last place on his list. This town was officially dead to him.

An hour of aimless wandering later, Frank threw himself down on the park bench. He didn't have anywhere to go now. He'd trawled every street Downtown, asked in every two-bit diner, restaurant and café from South Side to Hillside and he was done. No one wanted Frank Iero in their kitchen.

He worried at a flaking piece of paint on the bench, digging his nail under the chip and prizing it off. He didn't want to go back to Bob’s place without some kind of news for him about work.

He shivered. What the hell was he doing sitting out in the freezing cold. He hadn't even noticed how cold it was as he’d been walking across town.

The late afternoon sun, low in the grey sky, glinted off the roof of the Chicago City Library.

Maybe Frank could go hide there for a couple of hours? He could lose himself in the books; he liked doing that anyway, usually. Plus, the city library had a big community notice board in the lobby. Maybe he'd find some work ads there.

Frank really loved that building; It had turrets, for crying out loud, and fierce-winged gargoyles plucked straight from Grimm’s Fairytales, Frank had always thought, hanging menacingly from the parapets. The doors were three times as tall as Frank, made from solid beams of wood, dotted with palm sized iron studs.

The frikken thing was a fortress of knowledge - straight out of a Dungeon Master's wet dream. Frank was fucking nuts about that place.

Today it looked like something out of a story book, with the glowering skies reflected in the tall, arched windows.

A flock of pigeons strutted and pecked across the entrance. He was never sure why, but something about pigeons always made Frank laugh.

Frank ran up the steps, scattering the flock as he went. It was as though he could hear their voices in the resulting cacophony of caws saying, Oh my god! What is it?! Flee! Flee!!<\/i>

Grinning to himself as he pushed through the doors, Frank shrugged off his jacket and stuffed it into his backpack. He went straight for the notice board behind the information desk and stood scanning it for a few minutes.

It was warm and dry and quiet, inside. And, even though there were no help wanted ads, Frank was fucking glad he'd come here.

He walked along the shelves counting the numbers painted up high on little wooden 'flags'. 396-396.8, 397-397.9, 398-398.8. Frank turned aimlessly into the canyon of books and strolled down it, eyes scanning the shelves.

"Modern Folklore<\/i>," he mumbled as he passed. "The Folk Meagerie. Under the Hill. The Magic of Mag Mell<\/i>..." Frank stopped. Mag Mell. Huh.<\/i>

He pulled the book off the shelf and then jumped about a foot in the air because behind it was a wide grinning face.

"Hi!” the face said, all teeth and glinting eyes.

"Jesus fuck!" Frank hissed pressing the book to his chest.

The face disappeared, and seconds later short guy, still grinning, popped round the end of the aisle. "Sorry," he said, holding out his hand. "I didn't mean to frighten you... no, strike that, reverse it. Anyway, hi!"

Frank blinked down at the guy's open palm, and because he didn't know what else to do he reached out and shook it.

"Hi?"

The guy jiggled up and down on his toes a little. “Look I'm not a weirdo or anything... no, strike that," he said. "Reverse it. I am kind of a weirdo. But my point is, I couldn't help noticing you.”

Frank winced. Wow, he'd never thought of the public library as a place to pick up guys.

"Um, okay. Well, I'm flattered and all but -"

The guy just laughed. "No, no, you misunderstand." The guy’s smile widened. "You looked so... I dunno? Lost, maybe? I hate seeing people looking like that. I collect lost people, see," he shrugged. "It's like, my thing<\/i>.”

Frank blinked. “Um, okay?”

The guy nodded. “I’m Pete, and I’m about to go outside in this glorious sunshine and eat this glorious sandwich,” he said, holding up something far too large to be a sandwich<\/i> all wrapped up in brown paper. “Wanna join me?”

"Well, um, nice as that sounds," Frank said, taking a surreptitious step backwards. Bob always said it was dickish how shy Frank could be around New People.

Do not get a job in Hospitality if you don’t like new people, dick head. Hospo is <\/i> all new people,<\/i> Bob liked to say. Frank thought that was fair enough in a work situation, but out in the everyday? Like, in a frikken library? Frank didn’t think it was his responsibility to de-shy himself or whatever for the library freaks.

"I'm not really hungry and - " Frank's stomach had other ideas about his shyness though, and growled loudly. He winced.

Pete smiled wider at the sound. "It's vegan," he said, shaking the bag a little. "C'mon. I can't eat it all myself. Tell you what, if it makes you feel better we can trade. My sandwich for a story."

Frank couldn’t help smiling. "You want me to, like, hang on... what?"

Pete put his hands on his hips, lent back and laughed. It wasn’t a big laugh, but he gave it his all, and Frank half felt the laugh bubble up in him too. He giggled. Okay, so, maybe he kind of liked this crazy asshole.

"You tell me a story - your story,” Pete said. “I give you a sandwich. Like, like tale busking!" Pete's eyes went a little distant. "Hmmm, that's a cool idea." He snapped back to Frank and grinned again. "I thought it up, okay, but you can use it if you want."

Frank shook his head. He had absolutely no fucking idea what the hell was going on. But he was starving suddenly, and smiling after what had been a pretty shitty day. Okay, so the guy was a whacko, but Frank was down with whackos.

"Okay, a sandwich for a story?" He asked.

"Your story," Pete said, nodding. "And don't try to trick me. I'll know if you do. We can smell our own." He winked and Frank found himself giggling again.

"Okay. C'mon then,” Frank said. “But I hate to break it to you, it's pretty crummy outside. It was just starting to, like, piss down when I got here."

They walked across the lobby and through the doors.

"You sure?" Pete said, and those words made Frank’s skin tingle. Hadn’t someone else just ask him that? He shook his head to clear it. Whatever it was, it was gone now.

They stepped outside, and Frank blinked. "Huh," he said. The sun was shining and the sky was bright blue.

*

"Okay, I've got, like... what the hell is that? Artichoke? Roast pumpkin and peanut butter. Or Carrot, spinach and grape jelly,” Pete said, prising up the corner of a sandwich before holding them both out to Frank to pick. “What's your poison."

The sandwiches were massive. And weird. Big slabs of seed filled, nutty scented bread piled high with the strangest shit Frank had ever heard of. Like, who put roast pumpkin in a fucking sandwich?

"Carrot and what the hell else, I guess," Frank said. Pete handed him half a slab, picked one up for himself and stuffed it in his mouth.

"Mokay, my smorry mees," said Pete, spraying seeds and bits of pumpkin everywhere.

Frank leaned out of the line of fire.

"Whoops. The story, c'mon," Pete said, swallowing his mouthful.

Frank took a tentative bite of the artichoke, grape jelly and peanut butter thing. The flavours burst over his tongue in new and starling combinations. Holy fuck<\/i>, he thought and fell on the rest of it like he hadn't eaten in years. "This should not work as a food combination, but..." He stuffed another huge bite into his mouth. “Mit mo buzz.”

"I know right? Zachary makes them, over at Pan's. It's like he's fuckin' magic or something," Pete grinned.

Frank nodded fervently. "Wow," he said, only his mouth is disgustingly full so it came out as more of a 'mow', with crumbs flying everywhere.

Pete flipped his hand in the air. "Okay, you've eaten my bread and salt, payment is due.”

Frank frowned and dug around in his back teeth, plucking out stuck seeds. "Okay, okay. So, um, I came to Chicago a year ago, well, like almost a year..."

Frank started and after a second found he couldn't stop, he told Pete about Bob and Peppers and how Chicago felt like home, almost but not quite. And he told him how, even though it was fucking hard, he couldn't go home yet, not until he'd made it here. Not until he'd tried.

Pete nodded, and asked questions and finally, when Frank had run out of things to say, Pete said, “So, like, tell me one thing you’ve done since coming to Chicago that you’re really proud of.”

The question threw Frank a little. He scrambled around for something, anything he’d done in the last year that he could honestly say he was proud of. But there wasn’t a lot. Fuck, that was kind of embarrassing. ‘I haven’t held down a job for more than a couple of months’ wasn’t anything to write home about, nor was ‘Failed to ever pay my rent on time’.

“Ah, this one time,” Frank said, picking at the peeling paint on the park bench. “I like, freed a bunch of lobsters.”

“Dude,” Pete said. “You just got through telling me that was an accident. C’mon, we can smell our own.”

“Fine,” Frank said, throwing up both hands. “There’s, like, nothing. I’ve done nothing I’m proud of. Okay?” Frank tore the corner of the sandwich wrapper on the bench between them.

“Again, I’m calling bullshit,” Pete said and crossed his arms. “What about Peppers? Didn’t you say something about her?”

Frank scratched his chin and screwed up his nose. “What about her? A Chihuahua likes me. I’m not sure if you know this about dogs, but like, they love anyone with a bag of kibble and chew chew.”

“Yeah, but you were telling me something about Peppers,” Pete said again, and swirled his hands round, trying to grab for the thread of that particular story. “Like, something you did for her?”

Frank thought about Bob’s little golden tea cup Chuchu. He really did love the fuck out of that - Oh, wait…<\/i>

Frank straightened up. “This one time, I got home to Bob’s and Peppers was acting kind of weird,” he said. “And like, when I picked her up she stank real bad. Bob wasn’t around, he’d been working nights… Anyway, I took her to the vet then and there, coz the smell was so bad, and like, her ears were all fucked up inside. And the vet said she had an infection, a really bad one.”

Pete grinned. “You saved<\/i> her.”

“I guess,” Frank said. And yeah, yeah, he’d saved Peppers. Saved her little, star-bright life. He swallowed down a lump that had popped up in his throat out of nowhere.

Pete’s eyebrows shot up. “And you’ve done nothing to be proud of?”

Frank laughed. “Point.”

Pete grinned. “Peppers is awesome,” he said. “I mean, she sounds awesome.”

“She is. She so is.” Frank grinned.

"Where's home for you, Frankie?" Pete asked, picking at his teeth with a finger nail. "Like, where did you come from?"

"Oh, you know... East," said Frank. He frowned. "Um, Jersey, I think."

Pete's lips twitched. "East?"

"Sure," said Frank. "But anyway, I'm here now and that's what matters, right? It's not where you're fuckin' from, but where you're at."

Pete shrugged. “The past is important too.”

Frank wasn’t so sure about that. He nodded anyway, though. "Jersey might be in my future too, anyway, 'cause I can't get a goddamn job to save my life.” Frank said, and popped the crust of the doorstopper in his mouth. “And, that’s the end of my story... and this sandwich."

It was kind of a bum note to end his tale on, but it was true. And he had the feeling Pete cared more about that than anything else.

Pete nodded and dusted off his hands. "What do you do? What's like your thing?" Pete asked. “What are you looking for, job-wise?”

Frank shrugged. "Kitchen hand," he said. "Food Prep. I’ll wait tables. I can make coffee at a push, but I'm not much good with the milk -"

Pete slammed his hands together and yelped.

Frank jumped almost out of his skin again. ""Fuck me! What?!"

"That is why I met you today!” Pete leaped up from the bench. “A job!"

Frank took a deep breath and blew it out. "You know where there's some work going?"

Pete nodded. "Frankie do you believe in fate?" Opening his arms wide and leaning back, he said, "Like really, really believe? Because if you don't believe, this might not be real."

Frank could feel his eyebrows inching up his forehead. Pete really was kind of a weirdo.

"Um, okay? I guess I believe then, if there's a job in it for me," Frank said.

Pete frowned. “Well, that'll have to do." He took a deep breath and thrust his fingers into his hair, messing it up insanely. He looked Frank in the eye. "The sandwich you just ate," he said, leaning forward. "And which, unless my eyes and ears deceived me, you enjoyed the fuck out of, was from Pan’s<\/i>, which even as we speak is in dire need of a kitchen hand<\/i>!”

Frank's stomach flipped and a little tingle of excited hope danced through him. He got a hold of it real quick though, and pushed it down. Just 'cause this Pan's place needed someone didn't mean they'd need Frank<\/i>.

"Point me at it, " Frank said. "I can only go see what they're looking for, right?"

"Right!" Pete replied, tearing off a wide strip of brown paper from their lunch and pulling the stub of a pencil from his pocket. He started sketching a rickety looking map on the paper. "Take the El to Oak Park," he said after a few more sketchy lines. "Second street on the left, and straight on till Mornington Cresent. Tell them Pete sent you." He looked up. "No, strike that. Reverse it. Whatever you do, do not mention me. The last guy I sent over there set the place on fire.” He grinned his mighty grin.

"Pete," Frank said, staring at the map. On the corner of the paper the word Pan's<\/i> was stamped in a large swirling font with little stars and moons floating on the page around it. "I-I don't know what to say."

"Say, 'Thanks Pete!' and then go get that job."

Frank smiled and tucked the map into his inner jacket pocket. "Thanks, Pete," Frank said.

And Pete smiled back, huge and bright.

*

Frank hopped the first El he could and made his way, with Pete’s somewhat shonky directions still fresh in his mind, to Mornington Cresent. The map took him down a couple of strange little alleyways to a road Frank was pretty sure he’d never seen before - a leafy little avenue with quaint little shops dotted along it.

He walked the length of the street looking for Pan’s, but at the end there was only a narrow little pedestrian thoroughfare next to a second-hand book store.

Frank scanned the street. There was a tall old fashioned looking lampost by the entrance of the thoroughfare, and sitting under it was a little, dark brown pug. It stared at Frank. Frank stared back at it.

"Don't suppose you know how to find a place called Pan's?" He said, and couldn’t help laughing at himself. Reduced to talking to animals. Whatever the fuck next?

You're looking at it.<\/i>

“Yeah, didn’t think so,” Frank muttered to himself. He turned back to the alley anyway, and walked a little further own it. There, half way down was a glittering silver dollar sequin sign. He walked closer to it. The sign said, PAN’S.

"How the hell did I miss that?" Frank. scratched his head.

Beats me<\/i>.

The pug trotted past Frank towards the café and in through the big green door under the sign. Frank followed.

*

Frank wasn’t sure what to expect - the sign outside was kind of crazy and bling, but the green door was pretty weathered and in need of a fresh coat of paint. Pan’s was a good name for a café though, Frank figured; he hoped he’d be cleaning theirs soon enough.

But as he pushed open the big green door, Frank realised Pan’s was actually probably short for Pandemonium<\/i>.

Every table was full, and between them rushed efficient looking waiters carrying huge trays of food and drink. The decor was pretty loud too; red and green and orange walls covered in art, with massive exposed beams of gnarled wood and wide knotty floor planks, pitted with use. At one end of the room was an open fireplace, as tall as Frank himself, stacked with logs and roaring with fire.

The tables were long, with high backed chairs, and three legged stools arranged higglydee piggledee around them. In front of the fire were wing backed settees, and on a rug by the hearth was the little black pug.

In fact, there were animals everywhere. Cats wound around chair legs; dogs dozed under tables; mice scurried over the table tops; turtles napped under the cake stands, and birds perched on shoulders. He saw rats scurrying up sleeves, which was super alarming in a café, but no one else seemed to give a rats ass. There was something a little bit Diagon Alley-like about the place. JK Rowling would shit.

Every table seemed full. Only, these weren't the usual patrons of the cafés Frank worked in. There were no yummy mommies with children at their knees, no writers tapping at their lap tops. There was a guy over there with a beard to his waist sitting with a woman with waves tattooed all over her arms, and a boy with what looked like implants on his forehead, almost like horns.

There were piercings and ink and all manner of body modification as far as the eye could see, and crazy-assed clothes too. Frank smiled. Ink.<\/i> The chances of Frank getting work here had, he felt, just doubled.

"Take a seat," a guy said, brushing past Frank bearing a tray loaded with steaming mugs and teapots and plates frothing with creamy cakes, held high above his head. "I'll be with you in a minute."

"Um," said Frank, unable to take his eyes off the woman sitting at the table in front of him who appeared to have an entire stuffed peacock sitting on her head, Frank assumed, by way of a hat. The peacock turned and blinked at him.

Okay,<\/i> thought Frank. Not stuffed then.<\/i>

“Um,” he said again. Only the waiter was long gone, weaving in and out of the tables on the far side of the diner. Frank looked around, but there didn't seem to be a spare seat anywhere.

Was this some kind of pet convention? Yeah, that was it. They were weird pet owning rockabilly cosplayers or something.

"There's a table at the back," the waiter said, flitting past again, this time with a cloth in one hand and two empty tankards in the other.

"No, I um -" Frank stammered. The guy stopped and looked Frank up and down. A smile lit up his face.

"Tell me you're here about the job!" He crowed.

"Man, I am so here about the job," Frank said.

"Oh my god!" The waiter launched himself at Frank grabbing one arm and dragging him between the tables. Looking back at him over his shoulder he said, "You are going to love<\/i> it here!”

"Don't you want to see my references?" Frank stumbled a little.

The waiter shot Frank a grin and a wink. "Nah," he said, flapping his cloth. "Follow me. I'm Brandon, by the way." He stepped over what appeared to be an Irish Wolf Hound, lying between the tables. "Watch out for Hamish," Brandon said, glancing down. "He forgets this is a place of work."

Frank stepped over the dog, which ignored him completely. "Um, is that - is that legal?"

Brandon shrugged. "They're regulars. You know how it is. We're pretty familiar with them," he said waggling his eyebrows. When Frank didn’t reply, Brandon stopped, turned to Frank and looked him up and down. “Oh!” He said and shook his head.

"What?" Frank asked. God, he would die if the guy suddenly decided he didn’t<\/i> want Frank after all.

“Nothing,” Brandon said, quirking a smile. “Just, I thought - you know what? Never mind.” He grinned, an impish kind of grin and lit up his whole face. “The hours are seven to three, five days a week, days shift around a bit, but we're all really flexible. Gee gets to choose his days since he's an oldest, but yeah, we can accommodate you! The pay is pretty shitty, but you get two meals and all your own tips. And baby, this lot tip big.”

Frank didn't know what was going on, but apparently he'd just gotten a job, so he felt pretty strongly that shutting the fuck up and going with it was the order of the day. Following his instincts in the face of Pete's crazy had served him well, after all.

Brandon turned and started leading him through the café again. Frank was so distracted by what appeared to be a ring tailed lemur swinging from a light fitting that he didn’t see Brandon stop, and ploughed straight into the back of him. “Fuck, sorry man -”

But Brandon hadn’t noticed. He was watching a table of weird looking old guys. “Dude, dude,” he hissed, drawing Frank close. "Watch this!"

The old guys sat down and as the oldest and most craggy looking one sat, there was and almighty and unmistakable FARRRRRRP!<\/i>

The room went completely silent for a second or two and then erupted in hysterical laughter as the shocked, hairy old dude shot out of the chair. He turned and scrabbled under the seat retrieving an actual whoopee cushion<\/i>, the kind of thing Frank hadn't seen since, well, he hadn't seen one in years and years.

The old man grumbled and muttered, slapping the cushion on the table before sitting, gingerly, down again.

Brandon slapped his stomach and nudged Frank's shoulder. "One of the classics! Priceless!"

Frank couldn't help grinning, but mostly it was in confusion. He’d once been fired for pranking a regular on April Fool’s Day by pretending to get his order all wrong. What the hell kind of café was this?

“C’mon,” Brandon said and tugged Frank's sleeve. He herded him towards a pair of high doors, with clear round windows in them. "The Kitchens are through here.” He pushed Frank through the doors ahead of him.

If Frank had thought the hubub of the café was intense, it hadn't prepared him for the mania of the kitchens.

Steam billowed into his face as he passed through the doors and he had to duck as a red pepper sailed past into the outstretched hand of a tall hatted chef, who began slicing it with lightening dexterity.

There were three large central tables around which five or six chefs moved in synch, like some kind of weird, stilted dance. Along two walls, flaming grills and stoves and ovens gently roared, while opposite them banks of glass fronted fridges and silver freezers loomed. In one corner Frank saw an open door which seemed to lead to a store room so chocka-block with boxes and sacks of flour the door wouldn’t close.

The clamour of pans and pots was undercut by the sounds of sizzling and steaming and bubbling, and the shouts of the chefs calling to each other in what sounded, Frank had always thought, like their own language. “Baist,” Frank heard. “Broil! Sautee! Grilladin!”

Food and utensils flew threw the air as they were required, and waiters sailed in and out of the two sets of doors, their trays piled high with orders.

But it was the smell, as always, that called to Frank. Rich, vibrant aromas and warm, mellow, hearty smells. Fresh fish, spices, blood, crisp greenery, apples and berries, reductions and sauces, the warm soul-scent of chocolate.

Frank's skin itched. He realized his fists were clenched tight against grabbing up the teetering stack of dishes or pouncing on a mound of unpeeled spuds. He felt fidgety and awkward in a way he ached to shake off. There was stuff that needed doing and Frank knew how to do all of it.

"Can I? Do you need..." He turned to Brandon and flapped a hand at the potatoes.

"Huh?” Brandon said, seeing Frank staring at the piles of unchopped veggies. "Oh! You want to start right now? That's what I like to hear! But no, it's okay. Tomorrow would be good though. I just want to introduce you to a few key players first.”

Frank sighed.

A tall, imposing looking guy in a starched white jacket and tall chef’s hat came storming out of the storeroom waving a ladle. "Where's my rou?!" He shouted. "There can and shall be rou! Where in the name of Pan is it?!"

"Ray?" Brandon called, and waved the chef over.

"Brandon,” Ray said, pointing the ladle at him. “I swear on my mother’s horns, that guy is worse than the numbskull you hired last week. No more Norms. You understand?

"Ha ha!" said Brandon, his eyes cutting to Frank quickly as he made what Frank assumed he thought was a subtle, cut throat gesture at Ray. "Let me introduce you to our new guy<\/i>." He turned a bright, if slightly forced smile on Frank.

Ray blinked. He looked Frank up and down, and gave Brendon a bemused look. "But -"

"Just in off the street looking for a job!" Brendon cut Ray off. Frank raised his eyebrows at Ray.

"Um... Hi!" Ray said, brightly, his former ire all but forgotten. "I'm Ray, the head chef!"

Frank hitched his bag higher on his shoulder and held out his hand. "Frank, um... the new pot guy." He said and looked to Brendon who nodded.

"Oh, hell no," Ray replied, and Frank felt his stomach plummet. Well, that didn't take long.<\/i> Frank had known it was too good to be true. Ray shook his head again. "No, you? You, I need on prep."

Frank blinked. "Well, thank you anyway... wait, what?" Frank looked between the two men. Brandon raised an eyebrow and smiled.

Ray nodded and pointed his ladle at Frank. "You have chef's hands," he said. "I'm not wasting them."

Ray’s attention was grabbed by something happening over Frank’s shoulder suddenly and he narrowed his eyes. "Hey! Bert, what the hell are you... I'm sorry Frankie,” he said looking back at Frank. "I gotta," he waved the ladle in Bert’s direction. "See you tomorrow at 7am sharp."

Frank sketched a salute, and Ray hared off across the kitchen. He turned back to Brandon to see he’d been joined by three other chefs.

"And this is Keenan," said Brandon, flipping out both hands presentation style towards a tall, broad shouldered guy in chef's whites with what looked like hand-painted flames rolling up the sleeves. “Our Friturier.”

The tall chef pointed a meat cleaver at Frank. "You chop it, Eyebrows," he said, with a midwest drawl. "I'll fry that mother till it can't speak." He winked and then chopped something<\/i> into tiny pieces, threw them in a bowl and tossed them in the air with what seemed to be... sparkly flour? He waggled his eyebrows at Frank. "Seven secret herbs and spices, little brother. Y'get me? Come on."

Two chefs next to him high fived and whooped. "Tell it like it is Keenan!"

"And," said Brandon with a sigh. "These are my brothers, Adam." The smaller of the two, with a bright smile, saluted Frank. "And Zach." Zach tipped his head back and smirked at Frank.

"S'up!" Frank said brightly, shaking the hands they held out for him.

Frank bounced on his toes in a rush of glee. These were his<\/i> kind of people, in his<\/i> kind of kitchen - covered in ink, with what looked like band shirts on under their whites, and one of them, Adam was his name? He was wearing brothel creepers - in a fucking kitchen<\/i>. He giggled and turned to Brandon. “Thank you,” he said. This - This is awesome.”

"I know right?" Brandon said, smiling back and clapping Frank on the shoulder.

Brandon tugged Frank's sleeve and lead him back towards the café doors. Frank didn't want to go though. There was still so much to see, he was sure.

“I mean, I can actually start now if you want,” he said. “I mean. I’m free, right now. Totally free. All yours. If you want. Are you sure you don’t want me to like, I don’t know, do stuff with potatoes? Because I can, I can do things with potatoes. And like those potatoes are not gonna peel themselves. Right?” Frank babbled and pushed open the double doors...

And completely failed to see the waiter with a tray full of dirty dishes blocking his way.

The rim of the tray connected with his shoulder, tipping it sideways in almost cartoonish slo-motion and a stack of dainty little tea cups teetered and toppled over the edge of the tray.

Frank lunged for them; The first cup landed in his outstretched palm, upside down and a luke warm slosh of tea flooded up his arm. A second one landed on top of it, and a third and a fourth, the last one balancing on the edge of it's fluted foot, before toppling on top of the stack.

Frank kicked out a foot tand the cup landed with a tiny thud on the top of Frank's Converse, wobbled slightly and was still. Frank let out a whoosh of breath.

There was a clatter of plates and Frank looked up to see the waiter had caught almost everything else on the tray. Everything except a half-full cream boat which teetered on the lip of the tray.

A splodge of whipped cream tipped over the edge of the boat, splattering to the ground. The little creamer, unbalanced completely, tipped with it and plumetted to the floor..

Without thinking Frank kicked the tea cup on his shoe up in the air, caught it in his left hand, and leaped forward to catch the creamer too. Only he misjudged the distance; his foot landed in the splodge of cream and Frank started to skid.

"Oh shitballs," the waiter said, and Frank ploughed into him at top speed, sending all the cups, saucers, plates and delicate china creamers flying again. His momentum carried them back though the kitchen doors into the café, and straight over the back of a chair onto one of the - thankfully empty - tables.

There was an almighty crash behind them, followed by a plaintive little tinkle.

Then everything went silent.

Frank prised his eyes open and looked up. Forty pairs of café customer eyes stared back. Hamish the Wolfhound's head popped up between the tables. He barked.

"Um," a voice from under Frank said.

Frank looked down. Pretty, sooty colored lashes and gold flecked eyes looked back at him. Cute Santa<\/i> was staring up at Frank with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

"Welcome to Pan's,” the guy said slyly. “Rough and ready dining is our specialty. See anything you like?"

*
Part Two<\/a>\/Part Three<\/a>\/Part Four<\/a>\/Part Five<\/a>\/  Masterpost<\/a>



<\/a>
"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:104657","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/104657.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=104657"}}],"title":"Fic: Everyone Comes To Pan's for Bandom Reverse Big Bang Art #26","published":"2012-03-22T05:54:54Z","updated":"2012-03-22T17:16:31Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"bandom"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"frank\/gerard"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"fic"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"brbb"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"art"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"mcr"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"f\/g"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"faeries are fun"}}],"content":"Title:<\/b> Everyone Comes To Pan’s
Author:<\/b> <\/a>roxy_palace<\/b><\/a><\/span>
Pairing:<\/b> Frank Iero\/Gerard Way, Mikey Way\/Ray Toro; side characters include Bob Bryar, some members of Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco and The Architects KC
Rating:<\/b> adult
Word count:<\/b> 35, 947
Summary:<\/b> "Second street on the left, and straight on till Mornington Crescent. Tell them Pete sent you."
Warnings:<\/b> One of the characters has goat!cock. You have been warned.
A\/N:<\/b> Written for <\/a>bandomreversebb<\/b><\/a><\/span>, for art prompt #26. Thank you first of all to my artist for creating such charming, inspiring, and gorgeous art<\/a>. I hope you enjoy the fic! I kind of went off piste with it, but your pictures were clear in my mind the whole time. Thanks also my number one beta and cheerleader, <\/a>anna_unfolding<\/b><\/a><\/span>, and the to the best first reader I could have hoped for, <\/a>halfeatenmoon<\/b><\/a><\/span>. Also, so much love and affection to my Twitter flist for cheering me on and putting up with my whining - I love you guys! Finally a thousand thanks to the mods for running this event and for putting up with my shocking lateness. Thanks guys!
This fic has a couple of key influences: Albion - a wonderful detailed book on British folklore, the creepy 70s version of Willy Wonka, Peter Pan of course, and The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams.
Disclaimer: Entirely fake.

Part One<\/a>\/Part Two<\/a>\/Part Three<\/a>\/Part Four<\/a>\/Part Five<\/a>\/  DW<\/a>

"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:104380","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/104380.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=104380"}}],"title":"Awesome Ladies Anthology II","published":"2012-02-15T17:50:47Z","updated":"2012-02-15T17:50:47Z","content":"Proud and honored to have taken part in this year's Awesome Ladies Anthology<\/a> with three short podfics in three fandoms. Massive thanks and congratulations to the organizers for bringing it all together and beating last year's record. And to my talented co-performers, for giving voice to all these awesome ladies. <3
"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:104078","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/104078.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=104078"}}],"title":"Fic: Mikey Way and the Quest for the Stone","published":"2012-01-08T01:57:11Z","updated":"2012-01-16T05:43:08Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"mikey\/frank"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"reel!fic"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"fic"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"ray\/vickyt"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"colombia"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"nc17"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"mychem"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"frank\/mikey"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"au"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"f\/m"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"romancingthestone"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"porn"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"m\/f"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"eric nally"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"mcr"}}],"content":"TAH DAH!  Here is the fic I wrote for the wonderful Lucefuge_5 in last year's stuffsit challenge.  Man, this fic came out HARD.  It didn't want to come, but I knew it was in there somewhere.  I'm so glad it got such a good response from Luce and she enjoyed it.  I really wanted to give my recipient the best work I could - hence no less than FOUR betas. 

Title:<\/b> Mikey Way and the Quest for the Stone
Author:<\/b> \"[info]\"<\/a>roxy_palace<\/b><\/a><\/span>
Pairing(s):<\/b> Mikey Way\/Frank Iero
Rating:<\/b> NC 17
Warnings:<\/b> Some potty talk, mock violence, guns, people shooting at Mikey, jokes about drug running, drug use and drug related violence, handle bar moustaches, death defying feats and Mikey Way’s faily Kung Fu.
Word count:<\/b> 28, 656
Summary:<\/b> “I’m in Colombia!” Mikey said, raising his voice over the crackle of a poor connection.
“No. no, no, no, no,” James wailed.
Mikey could really relate to his disbelief. He couldn't believe he was in mother fucking Colombia either.<\/i>

<\/a>A\/N:<\/b> This fic is based very loosely on Romancing the Stone<\/i> a really wonderful 80s, post-modern Rom-Com staring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas. There are also nods to Indiana Jones and the Goonies. The 80s were another country, dude.
It was also inspired by a Tweet by one Iero, Frank A, regarding his daughter seeing a resemblance between him and Harrison Ford. Be flattered, Frank.  You really are a hero.
Also, a nod to Stephen King for supplying Mikey with the best Twilight smack down of all time.

Immeasurable thanks to my betas, \"[personal<\/a>anna_unfolding<\/b><\/a><\/span> , \"[personal<\/a>mizubyte<\/b><\/a><\/span> , \"[personal<\/a>alasse<\/b><\/a><\/span>  and \"[personal<\/a>greedy_dancer<\/b><\/a><\/span>  who made this story what it is. You read it over and over, and you put up with my freak outs, your hand holding and care was pretty awesome.  I want to give some special thanks to Anners for coming to my aid in the depths of the night when I needed her most, even though it was tough for us both.  Turned out okay, huh kid? ;)

Finally, huge thanks to the mods for running the exchange. Your hard work made the whole thing go so smoothly.  It made it fun.

Read here in three parts on LJ<\/a>

and in one part (edited for small typos picked up after the Stuffsit post) on DW<\/a>
"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:103470","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/103470.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=103470"}}],"title":"Let's see how this goes...","published":"2011-12-26T22:41:33Z","updated":"2011-12-26T22:41:33Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"tryout"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"test"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"dreamwidthvsljtheepicbattle"}}],"content":" I've only used Dreamwidth to host fic over a certain length, but given recent fuckery I'm going to see what it's like as a new home. This is my first cross post. Hi!! "},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:102676","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/102676.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=102676"}}],"title":"An After School Special and Porn Studio Not!fics","published":"2011-12-10T02:42:25Z","updated":"2011-12-11T05:30:53Z","content":"Hey y'all,

So in honour of the incredible week of winter wonder the boys have given us:

\"\"<\/a>
Oh my GOD, Frank Iero, what is your face... And Jarrod... are you honest to shit SMALLER than Frank? Wow... just... WOW.

Anyway, in honour of that, I thought I'd repost the After School Special Not!fic I wrote a while ago inspired by that hot ass picture of Gee and the gang in their art studio prior to the DD release.

\"\"<\/a>

(DESPITE THE FACT THAT IS NOT FRANK!) Holy shit.  MY EYES.  Anyway, since the guys are clearly channeling the Wiggles these days, please change channels for...

This Is Not The Apocalypse You Were Looking For...

TAH DAH!!!!

I notice no one has commented on My Chem becoming the new hosts of an after school arts and crafts show on PBS called This Is Not The Post Apocalypse You've Been Waiting For, because that's CLEARLY what's going on in this picture.

See, they've already made Frank a pair of those tin can stilt things which explains why he is suddenly seventy thousand feet tall (ha ha IT'S NOT HIM YOU CAN'T FOOL ME!). 

Frank does the mimey, dance numbers about counting and standing up to school yard bullies.  Ray plays an acoustic guitar and has a puppet side kick called Not!Bob and they sing earnest songs about Vowels and dealing with your feelings and one called, Mommy Likes Ladies Too<\/em>. 

And Gerard does the arts and crafts and stuff, and Mikey is his assistant, and one time they did a diorama of Godzilla eating Manhattan and it was awesome. Mikey also reads the story at the end for Story time, and Frank always ends up asleep with his head in Mikey's lap. Which Gerard is not all that excited about.

So this one time, he accidentally on purpose superglue's Mikey's fingers together so he can't read the story! OMG what will the children doooooo?  But it's ok, because Gee can read the story while Ray takes Mikey to the Emergency Room.  And Frank ends up asleep (What? Dancing and mime take a lot out of a fellow) with his head in Gerard's lap, where it belongs.

And one day Not!Bob sings a song about Not Being Such A Big Baby, which includes the line "Just because he's your bosses brother, doesn't mean you can't ask him oooooouuuuuuut..." and Ray breaks like, two strings on his guitar.  But then Mikey says "I really liked Not!Bob's song..." and Ray says, "ORILLY?!" O_______o "Wouldyouliketogetacoffeewithmesometime.
.. maybeoknevermindohmygod..." and Mikey says "Ok, yes please."

And they have coffee and then they maybe hold hands a little bit. :D

Anyway, I keep seeing Frank in one of those kids show fake back yard sets, wearing his Homophobia is Gay tee shirt and bright pink sweat pants. Doing heel clicking high jumps and jazz hands and taking it all super seriously, but with big earnest grins to the cameras. (WHICH WE NOW KNOW HE ACTUALLY DOES DO FOR KIDS SHOWS HELLO)  He's all, "You know kids, sometimes our friends might think it'd be super funny to put LSD in our cherry cola and then watch us roll around on the floor for a couple of hours laughing at how our hands are made of cheese...and that's ok...But not all drugs are ok all the time..." And then Gerard comes out in his Tommy the Suggestible Bear costume and they do a song and dance about When To Say No. Meanwhile Mikey, who accidentally got stuck behind a fake tree, is watching trying not to piss his pants laughing at them.

And when they finish Gee and Frank stand around drinking bottled water and going over the routine and giving each other notes. And Mikey gets unstuck (by taking half the tree out with him) and comes over to hand them towels and shit, still not!smirking. BECAUSE THEY ARE RIDICULOUS.

Frank's all like,  "Wow, Gerard I really think you got the message out about like, the difference between drug USE and drug ABUSE today with the forward rolls and the star jumps and stuff. You were awesome."

And Gerard's all *BLUSHING*, "No way man, those high kicks you did totally punctuate the points. I couldn't do it without you, you know?"

And then Mikey practically swallows his tongue trying to keep a straight face and they have to take him to the Emergency Room again.

He ends up there a lot. 

And everyone smiles a lot and the children of America grow up happy and brave and strong.

I wrote this more than a year ago here<\/a>, and guess what?

IT CAME TRUE!!! OH MY GOD!!!

<\/div><\/a>


In other news, I am on DRUGS!  Because I am DEPRESSED! (I know, RL is such a mother fucking bummer compared to Fandom.  Sheee-it)

Actually, I don't feel very depressed today.  I really hope I'm not yacking back the meds for no good reason. BUT ANYWAY, in the depths of my personal woe, I was reminiscing - which my Therapist had expressly forbidden me to do, but I did any way.  REBELLION!  But it all turned out okay because I found this Not!fic which I wrote for my then lady love.

Lets all go to the MOVIES!

It may seem incongruous posting a fic about a Porn Studio run by Gerard Way when MCR have just outed themselves as the most perfect After School Special TV hosts ever.  (I'm DIFFERENT, ARE YOU?)

But I came across this and I just wanted to share it because it made me giggle a little bit when I found it. And who doesn't need that?! :)

So here, for your...dubious... enjoyment is:

I Never Told You What I Do For A Living...

Ok, so, instead of SVA and MCR, when Gerard finishes school he goes out to Hollywood to further his writing career...

He fails pretty miserably... but he meets this guy Ray, who is  trying to bust into film.  They meet via craigslist looking for an apartment.

They move in with this gross guy, Bert, who keeps macking on Gerard.  Gerard is like NO, ffs. Bert has some creepy ideas, and usually wanders around the house half baked, scratching his balls and stuff... gross... anyway...
 
Ray and Gerard are bemoaning their fates one day - talking about how skint they are, how no one understand their SKILLZ... when they hare grossed out by the sounds of Bert spanking it to some porn in the next room.  They are APPALLED, but then they hear Bert cursing and throwing stuff at the TV.

A few minutes later he comes out wearing a pair of washing up gloves and a really long singlet and starts whining about how no one makes quality porn anymore... it's all crap, if only they'd put a little feeling into it, instead of just, wide open asses with massive cocks pounding them...

And Gerard looks at Ray... and Ray looks at his 35mm Bole film camera (This would have to be a Canon 7D now, since film is, as they say, going down the crapper :( )in the corner of the lounge not getting used, and says "Gee... I think I just had an idea."

SO... the fic actually starts, when Mikey announces he's coming out to LA to see Gerard and try to bust into comics like him.  Gerard has been telling them all back home how successful he is at COMICS, but what he actually means is he is successful at HARDCORE EMO GAY PORN.

So successful he lives in a fucking mansion and drives a vintage Trans Am and knows everyone in Hollywood, because he make pornos with Nicholas Refn's cinematographic sensibilities.

So this stuff hardly looks like porn at all... it's fucking ART.  Which is what his No1 star, Frank Rider (AKA FRANK IERO) keeps telling him, but he can't hear, because he's in the mind set that this is just what he's DOING RIGHT NOW until he can make his REAL WORK, which is comics.

Frank, by the way, is insanely in love with Gerard, and everything he does on camera... every move he makes is designed to try and light Gerard's fire... but Gerard, who is too fucking busy planning for the day he leaves Porn behind to write something real, can't see that.  Nor can he see that the incredibly well written, detailed and loving scripts he produces and directs as the pornos are really good...

Ray is like, ALREADY THERE on the Porn as a lifestyle choice front, and totally loves the Porn world they have created.  He's like, "WAKE UP, we took the film world on on our terms and WE WON".   But Gerard has a way to go to get that yet... anyway...

So, like, their other No1 star is Bert, the filthy fucker, who will pretty much do and say any repulsive, dirty, porny thing Gerard can think of.  The fans LOVE IT.  He is so gross...
 
Watersports, Bert loves it. Public sex, Bert's keen. Putting cucumbers up his ass, there's a whole compilation DVD out of Bert doing exactly that. Eventually Gerard runs out of exciting, yet realistic ways for Bert demean and exploit himself sexually and he has to hire Black Lace author, James Dewees, to write the really sick stuff.

James and Bert - and unholy alliance of pure filth and weirdness.

That way Gerard can concentrate on the roman... I mean the real porn.

So anyway, Gerard has never ever written anything with Frank in a scene with Bert.  Never. He sometimes wont even have them in the same film.  He says the dynamic is all wrong, and besides... the tension of not delivering what the fans keep calling for  - a Frank Rider\/Bert Fuckstain feature - keeps them coming back for more... like UST between the leads in a primetime TV show.

One of the biggest selling series' they make, and which is written by Gerard is one called, 'Honey, This Winnebago Isn't Big Enough For Both Of Us', which is basically Frank and Bert driving round in a van and picking people up to hog tie and fuck. But because the van has to always be on the move - they are being chased by 'Smokie' who wants to "ride Franks ass for all the bad, bad things he's done..."  (basically Gerard's Gary Sue character) -  they can't be in the scenes together...So, one drives while the other fucks.

Cue scene where Bert walks into a shot where Frank is fucking Big Billy in the middle of the 'van set'.  Billy is trussed up in a sex swing, Frank is going for it and Bert just walks onto the set, points at them, looks straight into the camera and says, "Dude... this shit is so fucking unrealistic, I would TOTALLY PULL THE FUCKING VAN OVER IF THIS WAS HAPPENING OUT BACK. COME ON!"

But Gerard is unmoved. Bert is not allowed near Frank. "Because it would ruin the dynamic, there is no other reason, I don't know what you're talking about. "

So anyway... Mikey is coming out here and one thing he can not fucking know is that Gerard is the KING OF PORNDOM.

So... the other thing that Three Cheer for Sweet Jism studios is famous for is it's SUPERHERO PORN, basically, they make superhero movies where the side kicks always get fucked by the heroes.
 
"Gerard," Ray said reading 'The Claiming of (Over 18) Robin(crossed out) Sparrow', "This is really like a window onto your soul, isn't it?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Ray blinks. "This scene here... where the tall, round faced hero with scarlet hair, fucks his heavily tattooed, diminutive side kick  over the bonnet of his silver Trans Am?"

Gerard *confused face, shrugs*: "What?"

Ray rolling his eyes: "Nothing..."

Ray is SO over the UST BEHIND THE SCENES, it's bad enough they have to shoot the suff.  So, he talks to Dewees one day, and they hatch a plan...

Meanwhile, to get Mikey off the scent, the porny, porny scent, Gerard sets it up with the usual suspects - Brendon Banger, S Smith N. Wesson, and Big Billy - to shoot a no porn movie (He plans to shoot the fucking later and fix it all up in post... because HELLO, this is Hollywood and there's a motherfucking bottom - tee hee - line) and it's going to be a superhero film called, "I Never Told You What I Do For A Living".

So they're all set and Frank, who is playing the young, confused super who has only just discovered his powers - in the no-porn version it's seeing through time, in the porn version, it's having spunk which makes you fly -  is like "This is a really... great thing you are doing for your bro... like... you want his respect.  But I am a porn star, Gerard.  I fuck for a living.  That's what I do.  And that could be really cheap and seedy.  But... I work for you. And I work for you for a reason, and I think if Mikey knew that, if he knew why people work for you and love your films, he would be proud of you."

And Gerard is like HA HA YES BUT ASS SEX IS NO WAY TO MAKE A LIVING. I'M NOT A SLUT!

 and Frank is like... wow... did you just call me a slut?  I'm out of here....

 and Gerard is all WOE...

Meanwhile... Ray is sorting out the porn business, keeping it running secretly while the no porn film is being made as a distraction to Mikey. It's not his forte, but things are a little crazy at the moment so he's doing his best. (That's the line he gives Gerard, anyway. )

And he accidentally ok's a script re-write that Bert snuck in.  Second unit director, Brandon Phillips, sets up the shoot, and sends out the call sheets... to Frank and Bert...

Meanwhile back at INTYWIDFAL, there's a bunch of pornstars in superhero suits wandering around the sets with no beds and no hidden bottles of lube feeling very confused... Gerard keeps having to shout CUT, when they start making out furiously because in every OTHER SCRIPT Gerard's ever given them, that's what would be happening at that point in the shoot.

"So like... then I fuck him in the ass...or?"

"HA HA, you guys are so funny! Why would there be fucking in this TOTALLY NON PORN FILM?! HA HA. MIKEY WOULD YOU LIKE A DONUT? CRAFT SERVICES HAVE HEAPS... *shut the fuck up about the fucking!*"

Anyway, the next shot is supposed to be Frank, saving the day, but Vicky T, star wrangler and sometime femme porn director comes out to sheepishly tell Gerard that Frank wasn't in his trailer, nor was he in makeup...

Gerard's like... oh no... I really hurt Frank that much... I gave him all these lines to make up for it... because I know he's more than a fuck toy.... I am an asshole.

But then Ray tuns up "freaking out" and explains to Gerard what he's done and where Frank is... and the terrible mix up with Bert, and Gerard's like "THAT FILTHY FUCKER CANNOT FUCK MY FRANK!  *claps hand over his mouth*"

And Mikey, who's been watching all of this, is like... "Hey... aren't you Ray Toro, the porn cinematographer who won three Golden Stallions last year?"

And everyone goes really silent and stares at Mikey who shrugs."I watch a lot of porn."

Gerard doesn't have time to freak out about that, or the fact that Ray is doing that thing where he tucks his hair behind his ears and bobs his head a lot when he meets someone he thinks is cute IE MIKEY WAY WHO IS REALLY CUTE.

HE HAS TO SAVE FRANK FROM BEING BUGGERED BY BERT AND A RUBBER CHICKEN.

He high tails it across town to the studio where Brandon is shooting that day, but when he bursts in there's no one on set, there's just a bed, some fucking amazing lighting... and Frank.

...who tells him Ray phoned ahead an cancelled the shoot BECAUSE HE KNEW ALL ALONG HA HA HA!... so Frank never got boned by Bert. Although Gerard totally got played by Ray, sending him over there in a flap to rescue Frank...

Frank's like,  "You might have to do some sweet talking now, by the way.  Bert feels he's missing out on something pretty good..."

Gerard swallows... "Is he?"

Frank gestures to the bed. "You tell me.  Come here."

and they fuck like maniacs on the porno bed.  I MEAN THEY EVEN 69!!!   And then confess to being madly in love.

And Ray and Mikey go back to Ray's place to watch the 'rushes' of the his last shoot, 'Hang 'em (By The Balls) High'.  And I think we can all guess how that ends.

And everyone lives happily covered in come ever after.<\/a>


So yeah, that's what I've been doing instead of practicing Mindfulness, and writing my motherfucking stuffsit.  OH GOD.

On a positive RL note, I made a card for TellDeBatz, and it is awesome!  And I finally completed Yekith's Felt Fun Ghoul, which I will post some pictures of in a little bit, maybe.

Right, back to Stuffsit. \/o\\

xoxo<\/div>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:102464","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/102464.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=102464"}}],"title":"Voice Post Meme","published":"2011-11-26T09:26:14Z","updated":"2011-11-26T09:39:20Z","content":"

Pinched from <\/a>greedy_dancer<\/b><\/a><\/span> and recorded under very trying circumstances in an iPhone in the middle of the night...In which I sound like a drop kick. \/o\\ I AM SO INARTICULATE.<\/p>I don't feel that I did my love for F\/G or bandom any justice... this would be three hours long if I did. Also, I may come a cross a little tin hattish. 

Anyway, listen without prejudice as George Michael would say.

1. What's your username and is there a story behind it?
2. Where are you from and where do you live now?
3. What are you wearing?
4. How long have you been in bandom? How did you get into it?
5. Which bands are your favorites?
6. Which band members are your favorites?
7. Have you seen any of them in concert? Any fun stories or memories to share?
8. Do you have an OTP? What is it, and why do you love it?
9. What story do you wish someone would write?
10. Are you working on something for bandom right now? Tell us a little bit about it.
11. You've got fic open somewhere on your computer right now, don't lie. So go to one of your open tabs or word documents or whatever, and read us a couple of lines.
12. Say these words: Iero, haberdashery, LOLcat, flist, dirigible, halcyon, nemesis, ephemeral, languorous<\/a>


Voice Post Meme<\/a> by RoxyPalace<\/a><\/span>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:102230","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/102230.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=102230"}}],"title":"Only because no one will ask me anything...","published":"2011-11-16T21:22:00Z","updated":"2011-11-16T21:22:00Z","content":"Choose a number and ask me:

01. My sexual orientation.
02. What I'm really bad at.
03. The one person whose arms I'd like to be in.
04. My best first date.
05. A description of my self-esteem.
06. Who my best friends are.
07. My favorite book.
08. Biggest turn-offs.
09. A description of my best friend.
10. My favorite animal.
11. Someone I miss.
12. The reason behind my last break-up.
13. What I did yesterday.
14. My greatest achievements.
15. My favorite songs right now.
16. A description of my last kiss.
17. What I find attractive.
18. All of the pets I've ever owned.
19. My favorite ice cream flavor.
20. The one place I wish I was right now.
21. The most cruel thing anyone has ever said to me.
22. All of the places I've lived.
23. Qualities that make me more likely to love a person.
24. My future plans.
25. One of my internal conflicts.
26. What I'm doing tomorrow.
27. My life's aspirations.
28. My most embarrassing moment.
29. Two of my insecurities.
30. What I would do if I won the lottery.
31. What I love most about myself.
32. My biggest pet peeves.
33. What musical artists I've seen live.
34. How many kids I would like to have.
35. My idea of a perfect date.
36. What I'm really excellent at.
37. My most traumatic experience.
38. Where I would like to live.
39. The nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.
40. Whether I like where I live now.
41. What I can hear right now.
42. My relationship with my siblings.
43. What's currently worrying me the most.
44. Something I've repeatedly wished for.
45. My relationship with my parents.
46. What I dislike most about myself."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:102101","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/102101.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=102101"}}],"title":"When in doubt do a meme written by and for children...","published":"2011-11-14T06:57:57Z","updated":"2011-11-14T06:57:57Z","content":"SEE, I HAVE SO DONE STUFF WITH MY LIFE. LOOK:


Strike-out the things you've done.

1. Had beer.<\/strike>

2. Smoked an entire cigarette.<\/strike>

3. Smoked a cigar.<\/strike>

4. Done drugs.<\/strike>

5. Written on a bathroom wall.<\/strike>

6. Read a George Orwell book.<\/strike>

7. Had a physical fight.<\/strike>

8. Used Twitter.<\/strike>

9. Listened to Lady Gaga.<\/strike>

10. Been in a car accident.<\/strike>

11. Got suspended.

12. Got expelled.

13. Been allergic to something.<\/strike>

14. Got a computer virus.<\/strike>

15. Touched a real gun.<\/strike>

16. Had a dog.<\/strike>

17. Had a cat.<\/strike>

18. Been pregnant.<\/strike>

19. Camped out.

20. Swam in the ocean.

21. Wore a bikini.

22. Driven a car.<\/strike>

23. Been sent to the principal.

24. Ever liked someone.<\/strike>

25. Failed a class.<\/strike>

26. Failed a test.<\/strike>

27. Went to summer school.

28. Got worse than a D.

29. Read an entire book<\/strike>.  (WTF?)

30. Recorded my own music.<\/strike>

31. Had an xbox.

32. Worn heels more than 3 days in a row.

33. Wore fishnets.

34. Wore skinny jeans.

35. Been in love.<\/strike>

36. Hated someone.<\/strike>

37. Been cheated on.<\/strike>

38. Cheated on someone.<\/strike>

39. Did something sexual with someone of the same sex.<\/strike>

40. Practiced Christianity.<\/strike>

41. Worn makeup.

42. Lied to my parents about where I was going.

43. Had surgery.<\/strike>

44. Had my license.<\/strike>

45. Been to college or university.

46. Graduated high school.<\/strike>

47. Attempted suicide.

48. Worn colored contacts.

49. Painted my nails black.<\/strike>

50. Broken someone’s heart.

51. Had my heart broken.

52. Cried for an hour straight.

53. Lost something very valuable.

54. Got separated from one of my parents as a kid.

56. Got stung by a bee.

57. Eaten something bad\/expired.

58. Threw up from being so drunk.

59. Saw someone throw up from being so drunk.

60. Danced with someone of the opposite sex.

61. Owned an ipod.<\/strike>

62. Owned an iphone.<\/strike>

63. Fell for a best friend.<\/strike>

64. Stole a friend’s significant other.

65. Went far away from home for more than a week.

66. Moved out.<\/strike>

67. Ran away.<\/strike>

68. Teased my brother\/sister.

69. Been to a hospital.

70. Had food poisoning.

71. Had a job.

72. Been fired.

73. Lied to a friend.

74. Lied to a family member.

75. Had a Facebook.

76. Posted a video on Youtube.<\/strike>

77. Started a rumor about someone.<\/strike>

78. Talked bad about someone.

79. Dropped out of school.<\/strike>

80. Deliberately failed a test.

81. Been skinny dipping.<\/strike>

82. Counted to a million.

83. Counted to a thousand.<\/strike>

84. Ate rabbit meat.

85. Ate duck meat.

86. Had fast food.

87. Been to church.<\/strike>

88. Been to Canada.

89. Been married.<\/strike>

90. Had a divorce.<\/strike>

91. Broke a glass.<\/strike>

92. Hugged someone today.

93. Texted someone today.<\/strike>

94. Received a phone call today.

95. Threw something out of the window.

96. Ignored a text from someone on purpose.

97. Had my feelings hurt by a friend and never told them.

98. Wished I was somebody else.<\/strike>

99. Gone on exchange.

100. Got drunk and made out with a friend.<\/strike>
<\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:101614","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/101614.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=101614"}}],"title":"Fic: Crosstown - F\/G - NC17 - Part 1","published":"2011-11-13T04:27:22Z","updated":"2011-11-13T05:01:02Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"bandom"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"fanfiction"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"frank\/gerard"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"lgbt"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"frank\/gee"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"au"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"genderfucked"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"transgender"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"porn"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"mcr"}}],"content":"Title:<\/b> Crosstown
Part:<\/b> 1\/2
Author:<\/b> <\/a>roxy_palace<\/b><\/a><\/span>
Pairing:<\/b> Gerard Way\/Frank Iero
Rating:<\/b> NC-17
Word Count:<\/b>  9,731

Disclaimer:<\/b> None of this bares so much as a passing similarity to reality. Except for the bit where Gerard Way is fucking gorgeous and Frank Iero is made of WIN.

Warnings:<\/b> Hot person-sex, Genderfuckery, sexual identity crisis, retro-lingerie-a-go-go.

Summary:<\/b> How can he be having a sexual identity crisis now? For God’s sake, he once wore a pair of cut-off shorts to Pride.

A\/N:<\/b> To my beta <\/a>peekabooby<\/b><\/a><\/span> who is made of sunshine, gold dust and fucking flowers, fo shiz. <\/a>not0_fuckin_kay<\/b><\/a><\/span>, who read it in a very, very different form and who suggested it could be bigger and better. Dude, it’s for sure bigger! <\/a>try_67<\/b><\/a><\/span>, who is my constant cheer section and always asks the right questions. As ever, any mistakes remaining are entirely minezilla.
This is a story about a third-gendered person based very, very loosely on a RL friend of mine. She wouldn’t recognise herself in this story. It may not be a characterisation that some people feel comfortable with. As <\/a>peekabooby<\/b><\/a><\/span> put it, this is a character with a fluid gender-identity and whose behaviors and feelings do not necessarily apply to others who identify as other-gendered\/genderqueer. They just happen to be true for them.
She also suggests you take a gander here<\/a> if you have any more questions. ‘Tis tres informative.
If you have a problem with anything I’ve written or would like a clarification, please hit me up. I’m open to chat. And if you are offended, please know that was in no way my intention.<\/a>
Posted whole here<\/a>.

***
Crosstown<\/b>

***

She is four years old sitting on the floor drawing a picture for her Poppa. It’s of her and Baby Mikey and Grandma Elena, and Mommy and Daddy.

The babysitter asks her who’s who and when it gets to her gangly, sparkly, huge eyed drawing of herself the babysitter laughs. “That can’t be you, Gerard,” she says, taking the pencils off her and crossing out the upside down ‘g’ and back two front ‘e’s she’s painstakingly scratched under her self portrait.

The babysitter draws a couple of straight up and down lines with a big ugly ball head on top, like the sign Mommy taught her for the bathroom and writes GERARD underneath it.

The only thing it has in common with the pink, purple and violet confection of a figure she’d already drawn is that it’s in crayon.

“There you go, buddy,” said the babysitter, scruffing up her hair and play punching her on the shoulder. “That’s how you draw boys.”

*

Gee’s mom, the ultimate Jersey housewife, had always wanted a daughter. So when she finally got one, she made the most of it.

They shared clothes, make-up, boy-talk. Her mom had even taken Gee to get her first bra. That had been a strange, uncomfortable, vaguely mortifying experience - A trial she had somehow to pass on her way to becoming a woman. She always wondered if that’s how it was for other girls.

Her mom tried. Really she did. But, despite a mother’s clichéd attempts at understanding, the only person who really got it was Elena.

“If you don’t try how will you know?” she would say, carding Gee’s hair as she lay with her head in Elena’s lap. “You are an artist. There are no rules for you.”

She loved her Grandma, like no one else.

For her sixteenth birthday, despite a tantrum from her father that left everyone in tears and her baby brother hiding in his bedroom, Elena gave her a pair of silk stockings and a garter belt.

The first time she put them on she felt really alive.


***


Frank is just about as fed up as he thinks it is possible for a guy to get.

He’s going to be late to work again and he can’t call and let anyone know because for some God unknown reason his cell has exactly no coverage in this part of Jersey. And, joy of joys, the train that has just pulled in to his stop is full to bursting already. Clearly, it isn’t going to be his day.

He hates having to commute into Manhattan, but he needs the intern spot at the record label, needs the experience if he is ever going to have a label of his own.

They’ve got him by the balls, and they know it. He’s never been so poor or overworked, not even when he was still in school and trying to get by on tips from an evening job.

Frank knows he’s pretty lucky his mom let him move home while he isn’t earning. He sends up a silent prayer of thanks that she doesn’t mind feeding him in return for odd jobs round the house and a massive IOU redeemable the day he finally makes it.

Still - living at home with mom? Not ideal.

Another packed train rolls in and there’s a smallest of gaps when the doors open. He thinks about forcing himself into it but decides to wait. Frank’s little, but not that little. Standing on the platform, he watches the train leave and looks at his watch.

He needs to be at Rocket Records in 15 minutes but he’s a 25 minute train ride away. Frank kicks a discarded coffee cup off the platform onto the rails only to find it’s not completely empty. Half a cup of cold latte splashes over his foot.

“FUCK!” He shakes his foot out as his shoulders slump.

He’s wound pretty tight today, tighter than usual. A hipster kid walks past him in skin tight black jeans and glances at Frank, smirking at his soggy foot. “Asshole,” Frank mutters, but he can’t help noticing the lean curve of the guy’s thigh and the way the jeans hug his ass as he walks away.

Ok, so, maybe<\/i> a little bit of sexual frustration is winding him up too, Frank can admit that much to himself.

He hasn’t hooked up in ages, hasn’t really wanted to what with all the hours he’s putting in at the label. But even if he had wanted to, it’s pretty hard to score when the only place he can take someone is the single bed in his childhood bedroom, just one door down from his retiree mom and her boyfriend.

Maybe he’s reached his no-nookie limit?

It isn’t that Frank was some kind of Lothario player type. It’s just that it's been a really long time. A really, really<\/i> long time. It was easier when he was at school, but then isn’t everything? Love it though he does, New Jersey isn’t exactly gay-friendly. Sure, on paper the Jerz is 21st century all the way, but Frank knows that down on the corner with the Vinnies and the Sals of Belleville, men are still men and fags are still fuckin’ fags.

So, Frank Iero is a 28 year old, perma-single homo, living at home with his mother in the suburbs, getting paid dick to take shit from industry assholes all day long, with a soggy shoe and no one to hump.

No wonder he wants to punch things.

A train pulls in front of Frank and finally sees his chance. He flings himself bodily into the wafer-thin space between two guys in suits as soon as the doors open and hangs on as the train lurches out of the station.

He can’t see much past some guy’s armpit and the bouffant, curly hair of some old lady who’s even shorter than him.

Once they hit the city though, it starts to thin out a little. Not much mind, but enough to take deep breaths and stand up straight.

The rocking of the train and the heat of the bodies pressed around him put Frank in one of those early morning, commuter trances. His mind drifts to thinking about the last time he touched someone else’s cock – in the bathroom of the Loop Lounge, over a year ago. Frank snaps out of it but it’s too late. He’s feeling a little sorry for himself now. A year? Jesus.

At the next stop a bunch of school kids force their way onto the train and Frank winds up slammed hard up against an uncomfortable looking girl clutching a huge black portfolio to her chest. She tries to keep the thing flat but it won’t stay with all the bodies pressed around them.

When he first sees her he does a double take and it’s weird because Frank never really notices girls – hasn’t since high school when he started noticing boys. But something about this one, with her sooty lashes, massive eyes and messy bob just catches him off guard. He finds himself smiling at her. She blinks back, wary and maybe a little alarmed.

She looks like that painful kind of shy some self conscious and awkward girls get. Frank feels like an asshole, all pressed up against her in the crush. He’s desperate for her to know that he is no threat to her. He briefly contemplates saying something fucking moronic like, “It’s ok, I’m gay.” The thought makes him snicker, and the girl flinches. Nice one asshole<\/i>, Frank thinks to himself.

But then the low cut neck of her red dress gapes slightly and Frank can barely drag his eyes away. Her bust is really small, practically flat and he can see a little of the lace from her camisole, below the neckline of the dress, stoking against her pale skin. She has a freckle, just one, in the center of her chest.

Frank feels his body react. Tightening and tingling. What the fuck?

The doors shudder open at the next stop and then closed again, and everyone stumbles as the train jerks away from the platform.

“Sorry,” Frank says, holding himself back from her with one hand against the carriage wall, just by her ear, trying to give her as much space as he can. “Not a lot of room.” He grimaces apologetically.

The train lurches again, flinging Frank backwards. He can feel his feet trapped between the briefcases, backpacks and legs of other passengers. There is no way he can move to stop himself from falling forwards again and practically face-planting the girl’s chest. The sharp edge of her portfolio jabs Frank in the cheek. He grabs the first thing he can, which just happens to be her hips.

“Sorry, sorry. God, I’m...” He yanks himself back. She probably thinks he’s trying to cop a feel. He feels like such a creeper.

“’S okay,” she mumbles, pushing him back a little with her portfolio, but his thigh is still pressed against hers and she slides the portfolio down between them. Frank cringes.

“If I had a seat, I’d stand up for you,” he says, aiming for chivalrous and hitting awkward instead.

She smiles at that and ducks her head, rosy pink blush spreading across the bridge of her nose and across her décolletage. Which Frank, whose mother raised him so much better, cannot - Stop. Looking. At.

At East Street, she pushes past him and he feels her hand on his hip, just the briefest touch as she nudges him aside and makes her way through the crowd.

And that is that.

Frank looks for her the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that.

If he wasn’t a confirmed Fairy, he’d think he had a crush.

*

It’s almost a week before he sees her again, at the far end of the train car, clutching her portfolio, smoothing out a wrinkle in her curve-hugging skirt. She reaches back and runs a hand up the back of her her calf. Her sharp toed heels gleam as she turns her ankle to see where it looks like she straightened the seam of her stockings. Seams...wow...

He’s got pictures of his grandma from way back in the day where she’s wearing clothes just like that.

Frank smiles to himself. He knows scene girls who go for the Rockabilly thing, the Bettie Page thing, but this girl doesn’t look like one of them. It’s like she's the genuine article, like she just stepped out of the 1953 Harper's Bazaar Spring edition. Frank’s grandma had that very magazine on her bedside table when he was a kid, said it was one of the best years of her life.

The long, white column of the girl’s throat is turned towards him; she tucks a stray bang behind her ear, cocks her hip, and chews her lip. Her eyes dart left and right, and as Frank watches, she flips up the hem of her skirt and adjusts... Frank blinks - he’s only ever seen them in magazines like his grandma’s... a suspender holding up flesh-colored stockings.

Frank can’t look away. She’s like a 50s wet dream.

She adjusts the snap and smoothes the hem of her stocking across the top of her thigh. Then she looks up, straight into his eyes.

Frank jerks back and hides behind his newspaper until the train stops.

When he looks up again, she’s gone.

***

He was on the train again this morning – the guy with the neck tattoos.

Gee arrives at school early and spends a little time staring out the window of the studio and day dreaming as she finishes her coffee. She’s still a little buzzed from what she did on the train.

She can’t seem to put a stop to the little swoop of delight she gets every time she sees him. Even though she knows it’s pointless, insane, and possibly dangerous. What if he realises? He was looking at her again today. What if he finds out?

No one’s ever hurt her before. Even when they suddenly realised. Elena says that’s because she doesn’t look out of place or strange. She's a girl and she looks exactly as she should, so no one notices. Gee’s not sure about that. No two women ever look the same. She’s never had an idea of what women<\/i> should look like. Just what she<\/i> should look like.

Even so, no one’s ever really noticed her before.

Well, he’s noticed. He’s<\/i> noticed her. Something in her heart swoops; finally<\/i>. She tamps it down.

The first time she’d seen him he’d walked straight past her, head down, hands tucked into the pockets of his hoodie. The hood had been up, but she’d seen his face, the tip of his nose turned pink from the cold, and that had been enough. She never, ever forgets a face.

There’s just something about his<\/i> face, the line of his jaw, the arch of his brow. He looks kind, smart, interesting, and so beautiful.

She already knows he’s not a total jerk, so she doesn’t feel completely mental day dreaming like this. When he was pressed up against her in the rush hour crush he’d tried so hard not to creep her out. She’d noticed, but she’d been so freaked out that he might get too close, might feel that she wasn’t quite right, she hadn’t been able to talk to him.

Wasn’t quite right<\/i>. Elena would kick her ass if she heard her talking like that.

The bright city light pours over her drawing table as she gets out a fresh sheet of cartridge paper and sets up her watercolors, and sketches the loose lines of a man, sitting reading the paper. She takes time to give the suggestion of tattoos on his forearms and to get the shaggy cut of his hair right. But she gives the most attention to his profile – all strong, clean lines. She thinks she gets it pretty right.

She flashes back to what she did today, on the train, and it feels insanely daring. Her stomach lurches with excitement sinking into shock. But she thinks, she thinks maybe he liked it? Liked the flash of her thigh. She feels like she shared a very big secret with him. When she’d looked up and seen him watching – his eyes huge, lips parted, ruddy cheeked – she’d felt so powerful. It’s confusing. She let herself be looked at, and it felt so good.

Quickly, she puts the finishing touches on the lines of the drawing’s brow before soaking a brush in water and flooding sections of the page with it in preparation for taking the color – she’s going to surround his brightness with grey, because that’s how she sees him – her bright spark on a dark day. She knows her little sketch won’t do him justice, but maybe it’ll help her get him out of her system?

She sighs. Who is she kidding? She doesn’t know anything about him. He could be an asshole, a sicko, maybe even a bigot.

But as she looks at him on the page, and thinks about the way he looked at her, she can’t find it in herself to really believe that.

***

In true fashion, work turns completely to shit. Frank's focus is hazy; he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the girl and what he saw her doing on the train. Try as he might to concentrate on some executive’s coffee orders, or wrangling street teams and checking rider lists, Frank can’t seem to get past the image of the girl on the Crosstown, her silk covered thigh or the way the suspender bit into her creamy skin.

It’s freaking him out. He puts it down to too many hours spent working, and not enough time sucking cock. He misses cock. Other men’s cocks, specifically. But even as he thinks it, he remembers the girl turning up her hem, the bright gleam of the nickel suspender clasp, the sheen of silk stocking, and everything gets tangled up in his head.

So when he sees her next it’s kind of a strange relief, like a pressure valve opening.

She’s got a seat this time, the train is only half-full and at first Frank thinks, with a twinge of disappointment he can barely bring himself to acknowledge, she’s with someone - a guy, hanging over her from the hand rail between the seats.

But then he hears what the guy is saying.

“C’mon, c’mon, tell me your name...c’mon, I betcha got a pretty name to go with them pretty titties...c’mon...”

The guy isn’t touching her - if he had been, Frank would have decked the guy already. As it is, the asshole’s behavior makes Frank’s blood boil. He starts to move towards them, his eyes fixed on the girl who's squirming and trying to ignore the jerk-wad invading her personal space. There are other people around, all patently ignoring what’s going on in the corner of the car. Frank can’t figure out what the hell is wrong with people sometimes.

The girl’s cheeks are stained red and she’s chewing her lip. Her eyes are fixed on the front window of the carriage and away<\/i> from the asshole’s crotch which is practically in her face. She clutches her portfolio to her chest, knuckles white.

Frank gets the feeling from the way she looks that she’s holding something back, though. She’s not frightened like she had been when Frank was pressed against her. She looks uncomfortable, but also angry, as if at any second she’s going to tell this prick where he can get off. And maybe punch him in the nuts for good measure. Frank hopes so anyway.

Her anger makes her beautiful. She is so fucking beautiful. Frank feels hot all over; a tightening in his groin. Fuck.

Then the guy swings towards her, reaching out to touch her. Frank flinches, surges forward.

The guy, frustrated at the girl for ignoring him, cups himself and shakes his crotch at her. “You want some of this, Bitch? You want it? Tell me your fucking name!”

Suddenly, she pulls back looks the guy dead in the eyes and says, "Back the fuck off."

Frank comes up next to the guy, sees his eyes rolling, popping out of his head and he winds up to verbally assault her some more.

“Are you okay?” Frank asks the girl, cutting in. Her eyes are narrowed at the guy but dart over to Frank; she half-nods then shakes her head.

“Okay,” says Frank. He turns to the guy. “Why don’t you get lost, buddy? She’s not interested.”

“Why don’t you fuck off, peewee? I’m talking to her.”

Frank's seen this kind of asshole before; no class, no manners, no respect. Working with assholes like this every day, Frank knows that even though he's still<\/i> the new guy at work, stuck carrying boxes of vinyl and unloading instruments, you don't back down. So, while Frank may be short, he's strong. He grabs for the guy's shirt but the train lurches and he grabs the guy in the crotch instead.

Working with what he's got, Frank crush-yanks as hard as he can. The guy yelps and clings to the railing, curling downwards as the train lurches again. When Frank wished for more cock in his life, this isn't what he meant.

“In a second I’m going to let go of your balls.” He can't believe he's doing this. “You’re going to fuck off and leave us alone." Frank squeezes harder for emphasis. "Got it?”

The guy, who’s swearing and shaking, nods once. Frank lets him go and the guy stumbles back.

“Good luck with her,” he yells at Frank. “She’s a frigid bitch. Fucking dyke, lesbian cunt!”

Frank raises his fist and the guy pushes his way to the back of the car, flinging insults over his shoulder as he goes.

Frank feels a hand on his arm and looks back. The girl, still blushing, is touching him.
Frank blinks. She gestures to the empty seat next to her and Frank sinks down into it. The adrenaline is draining from his system and he feels lightheaded.

“Are you okay?” He asks as soon as he sits.

She nods. “You didn’t have to do that,” she says, voice low and quiet.

“No, I know. Sorry. I just...” he looks at her – her heart shaped face, her small, cupid’s bow mouth. “He was an asshole. You deserve better than that.”

She frowns. “Well, thank you anyway. You didn’t have to step up. You don’t even know me.”

Her voice is scratchy and a little deeper than Frank would have expected, but it suits her.

Frank looks into her eyes. “I do know you,” he says.

As soon as the words are out of his mouth he groans internally. What the hell is he saying? What if she thinks he’s just another creep hitting on her? That’s not what he wants. He wants her to think – to know... He wants something else.

The train jerks to a halt at the next station. The girl shivers and clears her throat. “This is my stop,” she says, standing.

Frank can’t take his eyes off the sinuous curve of her body unfolding. She’s a big girl, bigger than Frank, anyway, voluptuous and dark. He shakes himself. “See,” he says with a hopeless laugh. “I knew that.”

She frowns again, lips twitching in a confused smile before she pushes her way through the crowd and off the train. Frank catches a glimpse of the seam in her stocking running up the back of her thigh where the long split in her skirt parts as she walks.

*

Every day the following week, he takes a much earlier train.

He throws himself at those coffee runs, heavy boxes, and rider checklists like there is no Frank, only an Automaton designed specifically for the needs of Rocket Records.

But at night he goes home and trawls Cheesecake Pin-up websites and wonders what the fucking fuck is going on.

How can he be having a sexual identity crisis now? He’s 28 years old. He’s been out since he was 15. One time in the 9th grade, his mother spent a night rubbing his back while he cried himself to sleep over Tommy Williams. For god’s sake, he once wore a pair of cut-off shorts to Pride. And now he’s jacking off over retro lingerie and black patent pumps?

He takes some solace in the fact the bodies in the lingerie don’t quite do it for him, they’re not what gets him off, not what he wants to see. And none of them remind him of the girl on the Crosstown.

Maybe he’s not suddenly straight, just straight for her?

So it’s kind of a shock the next time Frank sees her. He’s not even disappointed that she’s just in jeans and a tee shirt. It’s a Saturday, after all. The portfolio leans against her knee as she stands in the middle of the empty train and clings one handed to the rail above her head. In her other hand she’s holding a comic. She looks relaxed as she leans on her arm and reads.

But Frank almost doesn’t get on the train when the doors open. He’s still trying to get his head around the last time they met, the way her body made him feel - like no woman has ever made him feel – and the almost comically pretentious things he said to her. ‘I do know you.’ Who the hell says that to a stranger?

Then she looks up from the comic book when the doors open. She looks up and smiles, huge and bright and warm.

Frank is pulled, bodily onto the train by that smile. He is so very, very fucked.

It’s okay, it's okay<\/i>, he tells himself as the door slide shut behind him. He’ll explain it to his friends somehow. ‘I met a girl I like,’ he thinks. It sounds insane, even in his own head, let alone out loud to Ray or Bob or even James, who is only 'half gay' anyway.

‘I met a girl and, I think I’m going to...we’re going to...’ Frank has never been with a girl, so he has no fucking clue what they’re going to do or even if she’d want to with him. Obviously he has a clue<\/i>, but not like... any practical understanding. How did he let this happen?

But then there’s her smile again and Frank can’t seem to care that much.

“Hi,” she says, bending down and tucking the comic inside her portfolio. “I’m so glad to see you.”

Frank grabs the rail next to her as the train lurches away. “Me too,” he mumbles, because his mouth is no longer his own, his brains are mush. “To see you, I mean, um...” He can’t help staring at the creamy gloss on her lips, the faint, glittery shadow on her eye lids. He needs to get a grip on himself.

“Oh?” she frowns, but it melts into a pleased smile. “I just, I didn’t thank you for sticking up for me the other day, and I felt kind of like an asshole. You know, after I ran off? I mean, I can take care of myself, right? I was just... I haven’t been doing full drag for that long. And that guy, he caught me by surprise.”

Frank’s mushy brain cycles through the words slowly. She has a strange way of talking out one side of her mouth. It is completely adorable.

“Full drag?” That’s when Frank looks at her, her flat chest and broad shoulders, her narrow hips, her ridiculously long, shapely legs. The tee-shirt is tight, barely covering her tiny, round belly, and her jeans are practically sprayed on. Frank can see the bulge of her cock beneath the leopard print belt slung round her hips.

He blinks. His stomach flips. She is fucking perfect<\/i>.

“Um,” by the time Frank’s eyes make it back up to her face she is biting her lip, her painted eyes, huge and sad looking.

“Yeah. Drag,” she says and that pink stain Frank has been fetishizing all week floods her face. She looks down at the floor. “I thought...I thought you knew. When you said...I thought you got it.”

He did, he thinks. Maybe he did. For sure, no other kind of girl ever got him hot like she had, with just a look and flash of thigh.

Frank doesn’t know what to say so he smiles, leans forward and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m Frank,” he says. She looks up again and grins.

“Gee, for Gina...or Gerard.” She shrugs.

“Hi, Gee,” says Frank with a laugh. “What are you up to today? You want to get some coffee somewhere? I’d like to buy you a coffee.”

Her answering grin, lopsided and large, is all that Frank can see.

***
Part two<\/a><\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:101101","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/101101.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=101101"}}],"title":"Dating, if you had a face...","published":"2011-09-14T20:35:14Z","updated":"2011-09-14T20:35:14Z","content":"So, <\/a>greedy_dancer<\/b><\/a><\/span>, \"[info]\"<\/a>anna_unfolding<\/b><\/a><\/span>, Basslineheart and \"[info]\"<\/a>crazybutsound<\/b><\/a><\/span> and I were chatting about online dating on Twitter.  And It reminded me that I once had a go at online bloke fancying...

I
orginally had a painfully insipid (god forbid they should know I read
comics... no dude wants on of THOSE chicks) profile.  But all it seemed
to do was attract a bunch of fucking creeps. I realised I was doing it
all wrong.

So I wrote an honest profile and it went a little something like this:

About me...<\/b>
Describe who you are, your personality, how you spend your time...    <\/b>
I
may be a (admittedly gay) boy trapped in a woman's body, because I like
sci-fi, movies where stuff blows up and not talking about feelings.  I
wish Bruce Willis was my dad.

If it wasn't for the fact that I
like pink, can't abide rugby and have a pathological passion for shoes, I
would still be very confused.
 
Playing sport<\/b>
I
regularly exercise. I like to run.  Although when I say 'run',
technically mean running for a bit, going into cardiac arrest,
staggering for a few lampposts, recovering against all odds and running a
bit more. I also like weight training and kick boxing. All of which
makes me sound incredibly butch, but I'm really very girly.

Watching sport<\/b>
I
never watch sport but I will watch any number of sports movies.
Especially if they are American and about Gridiron. Which incidentally
is a sport I would consider watching if I could. I'm really am that
pretentious.

My diet<\/b>
I'm a semi-vegetarian.  Fucking chickens.  They deserve everything they get.

Favourites<\/b>
I'm
anyone's for the price of a Laksa. Seriously. If I wasn't worried all
the coconut milk would stop up my arteries like clay I would eat one
every single night. Any Asian food is good by me. Except bear paw
soup...and that one they make out of bird spit in ..Indonesia. Gah!

Eating out<\/b>
I regularly eat out.  If you are smirking at any imagined innuendo then I suspect you should be looking elsewhere for love…
Having said that, I'm open to all offers, ladies.
 
Cooking<\/b>
I
regularly cook Asian food. But really badly, occasionally forcing me to
go out in search of something better. Possibly made by real Asians.

Hobbies<\/b>
I consider the time between seasons of American TV just a waste of life.

What I'd like to do<\/b>
I
have a savings plan for a Virgin Galactic flight. I hope Branson gets
the show on the road before I'm too old. Although if the way I go has to
be hurtling through the ionosphere at 9g then so be it.

Dream holiday<\/b>
Hurtling
through the atmosphere into geosynchronous orbit for a bit. Or San
Diego Comic Con.  Either way, I won't be with you.  I'll be with Han
Solo, my soul mate.

My ideal night out<\/b>
A curry Laksa,
followed by a couple of hours of Zombie killing (House of the Dead 3,
preferably), followed by a movie staring Daniel Craig\/Bruce Willis\/Vin
Diesel and a job lot of C4.
Just pretend you're planning an evening with your 14 year old nephew.

Favourite movies<\/b>
Star
Wars IV, V, VI (in their pre-CGI, 1970's, Han shooting first,
un-completely stuffed glory.), The Goonies, the Indiana Jones movies,
Big Trouble In Little China, The Life Aquatic, The Royal Tenenbaums,
Bottle Rocket, Rushmore - anything by Wes Anderson, Blade Runner,
Serenity, Anchorman (not Anchor lady and that's a scientific fact.), and
because I am actually a girl, Pride and Prejudice.
This list is woefully incomplete and in no way reflects my passion for 70's sci-fi, Jackie Chan, or Romcom

Watching movies<\/b>
I'd
prefer you to shut the fuck up\/avoid trying to grope me and –or hold my
hand during the film.  The movie we will be watching cost some poor
schmuck in excess of $100 million to make, so show some fucking respect.

Favourite TV<\/b>
Stargate
Atlantis (I know, I should be ashamed, but I'm just not), Smallville,
Heroes, Lost, Farscape, Deadwood, Battlestar Galactica TNS, Star
Trek...the usual suspects.
Actually, I don't really watch TV, I watch Boxsets...

Favourite Music<\/b>
My
Chemical Romance, Will Oldham, Magnolia Electric Company, Dismemberment
Plan (who are not really Emo.), Ramones, Misfits, The Desendents, Hole,
Morrissey.
Basically anything with guitars and shouting, or singing that is easily confused with moaning.
The only music I can't stomach is dub. I totally live in the wrong country.

How I like music<\/b>
Live, Gigs, Home, loud, obnoxious, defamatory, with explicit lyrics and aural health warnings.

Favourite Books<\/b>
My
favourite book is The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I
wouldn't even consider replying to your emails if you haven't read this
book. You don't have to like it, you just have to read it.

Art I like<\/b>
I
have a degree in Art History which has really stood me in good stead in
the employment market. Employers love knowing your spent 4 years
looking at pictures of naked people and fruit, and writing about it.
Really they do.
Art and I have officially broken up.

Children<\/b>
are best served on a bed of pilau rice.

Commitment<\/b>
is
key. The ability to commit to someone or something is a sure sign of a
good character. At least that's what my Nan says and she's been
committed several times, so she should know.

Communication<\/b>
is not my strong point. You'll need to be a mind reader. Seriously, I can barely talk.

Drugs<\/b>
are boring, but necessary if I want to stay on release into the community.

Expressing yourself<\/b>
through
the medium of interpretive dance is best under all circumstances. If
you are having an argument with your boss and can't seem to get your
point across, try a few pirouettes and a scissor kick or two. It always
works for me.

Housework<\/b>
is a ruse thought up by
pharmaceutical companies to get you to buy their pansy smelling death
sprays. A little dirt and in-ground grease never hurt anyone. Besides,
my Nan says human sweat is sterile.

Intimacy<\/b>
is not
something I approve of. In fact I don't really like to be touched. Or
even looked at. In fact it would be best, when we meet, if you sit with
your back to me and pretend I'm not even with you. That way I won't feel
claustrophobic and smothered.

Love<\/b>
is like a
butterfly. If butterflies had acidic tentacles of death and a single
flaming eye that could turn you to stone if it looked at you, and gaping
maws filled with razor sharp teeth, and breath like a long shoreman's
armpit in high summer.

Money<\/b>
is important. If you don't have any, you won't be getting 'any'.

Politics<\/b>
have motivated many of my actions in the past. For example, the time I voted
for Dan Quayle in the US elections. That was political. Also illegal.
But then, breaking the law, a hobby of mine, is political too, in a way.
So you see politics are quite important to me.

Racism<\/b>
is a fact. It's us or them, mate. And by them, I mean Australians. The bloody bastards.

Romance<\/b>
If Romance of you is a couple of tui lagers and a grope in the back of
your Datsun, then I'm your girl! I'll have none of this flowers and
candy nonsense. I'm really looking for a no cuddles, no foreplay kind of
a guy. Also one who falls asleep immediately after finishing his
'business'. Could that be you?

Sexism<\/b>
is the best way
to get a date. I mean, if the Good Lord hadn't wanted you to use your
womanly wiles to get a man's attention, then he wouldn't have put our
breasts on the front like that, would He? Right?

Technology<\/b>
is wrong. Ludd was right.

Work<\/b>
is not something I intend keeping up with after I meet the right guy. I
see marriage as a good reason to stop work altogether and start a regime
of eating creme fondant chocolates and wearing a lot of lace teddies
with matching ostrich feather accessories.

Religion<\/b>
I follow the Pukeko.


Needless to say, I got even fewer dates after posting this... :(\/:)<\/a>
"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:100165","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/100165.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=100165"}}],"title":"Hypothetically speaking...","published":"2011-09-04T11:46:50Z","updated":"2011-09-04T11:46:50Z","content":"The Hypothetical AU Meme: Take any one of the fandoms you know I write AND give me a type of AU (space opera AU, pirate AU, superhero AU, etc) or another time period (Ancient Rome, Regency England, etc). I will then explain the gist of the story I would write for that AU. <\/i>

Fandoms: Bandom<\/i>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:99645","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/99645.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=99645"}}],"title":"Fic: Touch - Schmoop Bingo Fic, #5","published":"2011-09-04T06:05:30Z","updated":"2011-09-04T06:19:01Z","content":"Title:<\/b> Touch
Author: <\/b>roxy_palace
Fandom: <\/b> Bandom
Pairing: <\/b> Frank\/Gerard
Rating: <\/b> NC17 – for swears and red hot man love.
Warning: <\/b> Nada, Enchilada
Disclaimer: <\/b> No offence intended nor ownership implied
Challenge: <\/b>\"[info]\"<\/a>schmoop_bingo<\/b><\/a><\/span>!
Prompt:<\/b> Wedding - Consumation
Word count: <\/b>
AN: <\/b> This fic is a standalone, but part of an AU where Frank and Gee run Skeleton Crew together, MCR never existed and they’re just awesome dudes from NJ. All the fic from the Schmoop Bingo card, which is  here<\/a>, will be in this ‘verse. Other fic in this ‘verse are linked from there.

***********

First there’s the car Gerard sends for him – a fucking white Trans Am with Uncle Sam flying over one wheel and MARRIED in bright primary colours across the back foil. The sight of the thing sitting in their driveway sets Frank laughing and he’s not sure he’ll ever stop.

Then there’s the suit – the Alexander McQueen suit, no less – that makes him look like an extra from Romanzo Italiano what with the velvet lapels and purple silk lining and all. He feels like five billion bucks when he slips it on and knots the tie.

There’s a black rose in a box in the fridge. He gets it out and pins to his lapel. He giggles for two full minutes while he does it.

Then there’s Hambone in a suit that makes him look like he’s on fresh from a court appearance.

Yeah, Frank’s practically hysterical with giggles by the time they have to leave.

Hambone picks him up fireman’s lift style and carries him out to the car. “Last time I get to do this, Short Round,” he wheezes, hefting Frank into the back seat. “Wrangling you is officially Gee’s job now.”

And maybe for a second the giggle sounds a little like a sob, caught in the back of Frank’s throat. Maybe.

But Frank is definitely giggling when they pull up in front of the Algonquin Hotel in downtown Trenton. The red brick facade and white stucco columns are a little sobering. But there’s a guy in a green and gold doorman’s suit waiting to open the door of the TA for Frank, and Frank’s never seen anything so ridiculous in his life.

So Frank is still going when Hambone gets stuck in the revolving doors – semi deliberately - that’s a joke that never gets old. And he keeps giggling when the concierge directs them to the Starlight Ballroom at the far end of the lobby.

It’s as if Frank can’t seem to stop the glee bubbling up inside him. He feels light, fizzy. Literally elated. He can’t actually believe this is happening.

But then he sees Mikey, Donna and Don standing in front of the ballroom doors, next to his mom and dad, and he hears the music he picked start up in the ballroom behind them.

And he knows this song, knows like he knows the sound of Gerard’s voice. It’s Mothersbaum’s Canon. That haunting, delicate, fairytale song he and Gerard chose half as a joke, and half because...

Half because that is kind of how Frank feels, like this is a fairytale. Which is insane, because that shit never comes true... except...

Gerard is there.

He’s standing behind his family, fussing with his cuffs and checking his tie in the mirrored column beside the ballroom doors.

And suddenly, Frank’s not laughing any more.

His heart stops – at least that’s how it feels – like first time a tattoo needle touched down on his skin; like the first time he saw Gerard, holding court up a bookshop ladder - and he looks just as beautiful and distracted and focussed as he did that day, with the tiny frown line between his eyes, the tight knot of his jaw. But then Gerard sees Frank’s reflection, hovering behind him in the spotted glass, and his face...it lights up.

And Frank’s heart leaps back into life. Gerard! it pounds. Gerard! Gerard!<\/i>

He turns, holds out his hand for Frank to take, and Frank feels the warm, soft slide of Gerard’s skin over his. His palm pressed to Frank’s palm, his finger tips against Frank’s wrist. Gerard tucks Frank’s hand under his arm pulls him in close.

Frank feels his mom behind him, smoothing out the shoulders of his suit; hears her sniffling. His dad says her name and she kisses Frank on the cheek before shuffling off towards the ballroom with him.

Frank watches Gerard give his Dad a one armed hug and accept a kiss on his cheek from his mom. She makes a show of wiping off the lipstick, tutting and cooing over her ‘baby, all grown up’. Frank grins. He loves Donna so much right now. She leans back and looks at them both; cups Gerard’s cheek with one hand and Frank’s with the other.

“My boys,” she says.

“Mo-om,” chimes Mikey, who’s hovering in the background, biting his nails. “C’mon. Jeez.”

Then Mikey is leading their mom away, handing her over to Don, and Frank’s folks have taken their seats and Gerard’s folks have gone to their seats too. And Hambone and Mikey, definitely two of the best men Frank’s ever met, are waiting for them just inside the doors.

And then it’s just them. Just Frank and Gerard standing arm in arm in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel, eyes and arms locked.

“You ready for this?”

“Fuckin’ A.”

“Let’s get fucking married then.”


****

Everyone he knows and gives a shit about is in the room when Frank promises his honesty, his loyalty and his respect to Gerard for the rest of his life. They’re all there to hear Gerard accept it and offer the same things back. They watch him slip the gold band on Gerard’s finger and receive a gold band of his own.

And every single one of them cheers when Gerard takes Frank’s face in his hands and kisses the living shit out of him.

Because they are mother fuckin’ one being, yo. Now and forever.

Married.

M. A. R. R. I. E. D.


It all gets a little crazy after that. Frank remembers a hail of confetti, rice, petals, those little bits of paper from the back of hole punch machine. Champaign bottles popping in time with the flashes of fifty cameras. Someone pinches his cheek. Someone kisses his neck. Someone feeds him the best vegan red velvet cake – oh, that must be his wedding cake – he’s ever tasted.

He’s kissed and been kissed by approximately seven thousand people, including his husband. His mother fuckin’ husband.

Yes!<\/i>

Frank feels different already. He knows it’s all in his head, but he feels like more. Bigger, more capable, stronger, as if some falling down part of himself has finally been shored up. Only he hadn’t known he was falling down until the prop was there. He looks at the ring gleaming on his finger. He can’t stop looking at it until he glances up and sees Gerard staring at his ring hand too. Frank catches his eye and grins.

There’s a party with lots of food and wine and smiling faces and small children who belong to one cousin or another, ducking in and out between the tables. And music, the music. All his bands, his friends, playing just for them.

“The first time I met Frank...”

“Welcome to the family Gerard...”

“There are some things you should know about Frankie here...”

“When Gerard was 11...”

“My brother,” says Mikey into the mic – the last speech of the night. “Has the biggest capacity for love of anyone I’ve ever known.”

The room goes quiet. Mikey’s speech has mostly been jokes about how short they both are – “This is the first wedding I’ve been to where the Grooms on top of the cake were life sized”; how much sex they have – “There’s nothing like walking in on your boss and your older brother – five times - to give you perspective...”; and how much of an asshole Frank is to work for – “No one needs three cell phones. No one.”

But then he gets down to brass tacks. He looks at Frank, locks eyes with him. The rest of the room recedes.

“He’ll never stop loving you, once he starts; his heart is so huge. It’s...you feel like it’s an awesome responsibility, you know? And it is. Because who gets loved like that, right? It’s precious.

“Having said that, my bro has dated a lot of dicks – sorry, Gee, but you know you did – and they never got it. They never understood the privilege they were being given...”

Mikey stops and swallows; and Frank feels the lump in his own throat. Gerard’s hand tightens on his but Frank can’t look at him. He knows he’s going to cry, but he can’t look at Gee. He can’t look away from Mikey.

“None of them understood it, Frank. Not until you.

“I never thought Gerard would find someone that deserved him - that deserved his love, Frank. Thank you, so, so much, for proving me wrong.”

Frank feels the collective sigh go around the room. He blows Mikey a kiss and turns to Gerard. His eyes are wet but clear and Frank...he’s not sure he can contain how this feels. He presses his forehead to Gerard’s.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Grooms.”

Frank feels the cheer that goes up, he feels it to the core of his soul.

*
Dancing like an idiot with his 15 year old metaller cousin feels fan-fucking-tastic after Mikey’s incredible speech. But even while he’s attempting the caterpillar (not in the Alexander McQueen, he’s in his travelling clothes now, they’re driving down to Wildwood tonight) and cheering Joel on to try the corkscrew, his eyes keep straying back to Gerard. Frank never has to look for him. He’s just there, when Frank looks up, talking to his dad and a couple of uncles, or laughing as Ray and Hambone chug back shots, or hugging Mikey.

And when Frank looks at him, he always looks back.

At some point – some lull in the action - Frank ducks out of the ballroom for a smoke. He’s been so high on the whole event he hasn’t even thought of smoking once, but as soon as he does, he needs that nicotine. He finds an access door next to a stair well and ducks out. He’s just about to light up when the door opens again and Gerard steps into the alley way.

“Baby...”

Frank doesn’t have time to think about dropping his smokes or how grimy the wall behind him might be. Gerard pushes him up against it, smothers Frank in his body. Frank pulls him in.

“Haven’t been near you all night,” pants Gerard. “Just fucking...need you”

“Gee...Gee-gee...”

Gerard’s mouth on his, his tongue, the tip of his tongue against Frank’s. Frank clings to Gerard’s shoulders, spreads his legs and lets his husband press closer.

“Looked so fucking good in that suit, Frankie. So good,” he breathes the words against Frank’s throat before biting and sucking his way down to Frank’s collar. His hips pulse against Frank’s, his thigh is a hot, tight pressure against Frank’s cock. He’s so hard. He’s gonna come in his fucking pants at this rate.

“All for you, Gee. Wanted to look good for you.”

“You did,” sighs Gerard, cupping Frank’s face. “You so did. So perfect.”

Gerard trails one hand down Frank’s throat, pressing all those tender places he seems to know get Frank hot, stroking and fondling his chest and ribs. His hand slips between them and he cups Frank’s cock, hard and throbbing in his pants.

“Fuck...”

“Yeah, you wanna do that here? You want me to fuck you in this alleyway, our families all inside wondering where we are, what we’re doing?

“Gee...”

Frank squeezes his eyes tight. Gerard’s hand feels so good, just the right amount of pressure for him to rut up against. He can’t seem to stop himself. Gerard’s mouth is pressed against his ear.

“Press your face against this wall, spread your open and tongue fuck you. Anyone could catch us, Frank. Me with my...eating you out...you begging for it. You would beg, wouldn’t you?”

Frank can hear himself whimpering.

“I fucking want you...”

Frank forces his eyes open. Gerard’s face is so close, his eyes so wide, pupils blown, his lips bruised and bitten from kissing Frank like they’re not going to be kissing everyday for the rest of their lives.

“Yeah...Have me, Gee. I’m...I’m yours.”

Gerard’s mouth closing over Frank’s again. Frank opens for him, gives him everything his body wants, just with his mouth. Gerard’s hand. Gerard’s hips. His eyes, his legs, everything.

But Gerard stops.

God save them both, he does. And he pulls back, cups Frank’s face in his hands, the soft pad of his thumb brushing over Frank’s lower lip.

Frank wants to suck it into his mouth. He licks at the tip of it.

“Not here, not for our first time,” breathes Gerard.

Frank looks at him. He’s right. Not in some shitty back alley, like they have something to hide. He wants to fuck his husband for the first time in a bed, goddammit.

“Right then,” breathes Frank back. “Let’s wrap this shindig up and get on the road.”

*

An hour later, after more kisses, photographs, promises to call, come for dinner, hang out when they’re done honeymooning, they’re in the car. They’re in the Trans Am - for the love of God - with Gerard at the wheel and they’re speeding away from the party, from their families and friends. Speeding towards the rest of their lives together.

Fast as Gerard drives – and that boy likes to go fast – Frank has never felt more safe than he does now in the seat next to him.

The first hour on the road is sheer exhilaration and Frank is riding high on Champaign, adrenalin, joy, love, and Gerard – beautiful, sober Gerard.

The second hour is pretty much Frank in a knock down, drag out fight with that hell bitch, Sleep.

Sadly, Frank’s never been much of a fighter.

The last thing he remembers is Gerard turning down the radio, despite Frank’s protests that The Banner is exactly what he wants to be listening to on his wedding night, goddamnit, and pulling a few levers on the side of his seat to drop it back a little. Then he’s out like a light.

He wakes up, God knows when later, when the car leaves civilisation, apparently, for dirt track hell.

“It’s hardly a dirt track, Frank,” murmurs Gerard as he handles the car on the metal road. “You wanted isolated. Isolated doesn’t come in asphalt....I really fucking hope that was the right turn off and we’re not about to be slaughtered by Florida inbreds... wear our heads as hats...”

“Awesome...” whispers Frank, blearily, and presses his nose to the cold window. “But I thought we were going to South Jersey, not Florida.”

“Well, where ever we are, baby,” Gerard says, distracted by trying to stay on what passes for a road out here in the sticks. “It sure as fuck ain’t Trenton. “

Frank giggles. He doesn’t really care where they were. They could spend the rest of their honeymoon in the back seat of the Trans Am for all he cares, just as long as he didn’t have to let Gerard out of his sight for a moment.

After a few more bumps, ruts and gravelly skids, the headlights bounce off the windows of a tiny house, surrounded by trees.

Frank feels a little cottony of mouth and gritty of eye. It’s been a long, glorious day. Gerard parks the car and turns to Frank.

“This is it.”

Frank grins. The brochure Mikey found them said ‘Renovated one bed boat house – off the beaten track, but right on the water. All mod cons. This romantic hideaway is the perfect place to disappear to...’

Romantic hideaway had pretty much sold it to them. And now here they are, at the southern tip of Jersey, surrounded by cedars and pampas grass and standing on the low, slatted deck of a ramshackle looking house.

“The guy said he’d leave the key...” Gerard reaches up above the door and feels along the eave. He grins at Frank, who could barely stop himself from swaying, and holds up a shiny silver key. Frank wants to smile back, but it means closing his eyes and he isn’t sure he’ll be able to open them again once he’s done that.

He carried their three bags up to the stoop and that had been pretty much the last of his reserves. Frank is about three seconds from falling asleep where he’s standing.

“Okay, baby. You look so ready to crash. Let’s get inside and get you to bed.


That perks Frank up a little. Bed. Bed with Gerard. Bed with Gerard, his husband. Who he is allowed to sex up.

Awesome.

“What’s awesome?” Gerard asks as he bundles their bags over the threshold, and gently takes hold of Frank’s elbow as he sways towards him again.

Frank hadn’t even noticed he’d said that out loud. “Bed,” he mumbles and makes a move to step over the door way.

“Hey...hey, hang on,” says Gerard, pulling Frank back. Frank stumbles into Gerard’s embrace and looks up at him.

God<\/i>, thinks Frank, blinking into the dim over head porchlight which is framing Gerard’s hair in a gold glow. My husband is fucking beautiful. <\/i>

“This is our first night together in our home from home,” Gee says and brushes some of Frank’s hair back from his face. Frank nods and presses himself a little closer reaching up and twining his arms around Gerard’s neck.

Gerard grins “You look so fucking tired,” he says, as if Frank’s near stupor is the most adorkable thing hes ever seen, and hoists Frank up with his arms round his waist, carrying him over the threshold.

Frank giggles into Gerard’s neck as he feels himself being lifted; his feet only a few inches off the ground. “Jesus...you’re such a sap!”

“You know it, sweets,” laughs Gee as he carries Frank over the threshold.

Inside, the house is just as ramshackle, but Frank doesn’t really have time to see it because his husband is bundling him up the rickety stairs at the back of the room.

The bed, huge, white sheeted and surrounded by a shimmery mosquito net, is on a mezzanine with a little moonlight flooded bathroom off to one side. Frank gets a glimpse of an old claw footed tub gleaming under a wide, louvered window. He can also hear the sea, shuddering up to the wall of the house and rolling straight under it where it juts over the water on pilings.

As Gerard starts going through one of the bags, Frank opens on of the curtained windows and looks out. They are literally floating on the ocean, midnight blue and glittering. The moon is high above the water.

“Baby, come see this...”

Frank feels Gerard press up behind him a second later. “Whoa...” Gerard breathes.

“Yeah, good find Michael James...oh...”

Frank sighs as he feels Gerard’s mouth press up against his neck. He feels warm and languid and he lets himself relax back into Gerard‘s embrace, tipping his head back on his shoulder.

“Don’t...talk about...Mikey...just...now...” Gerard punctuates words with hot sucking kisses up and down Frank’s neck. Frank’s skin tingles where the night air touches Gerard’s tongue slicked path.

“Who?” Breathes Frank, and for a second, the merest second, he really can’t remember who they were talking about.

He turns in Gerard’s arms and offers up his lips. He sighs again when Gerard claims them.

Gerard starts manoeuvring them back towards the bed. Frank lets himself drift in the warm, soft-strong cage of Gerard’s arms, his mouth, the solid brackets of his thighs. Frank feels so good, all over, dozy and content with the low grade hum of arousal and want, want, want.

The night air is scented with salt and dragon flowers and Gerard’s skin as he slowly undresses, on his knees above Frank. He pulls off his t-shirt, thumbs open the button of his jeans and Frank reaches for all that soft, white, white skin, brushing it with the tips of his fingers, tracing the dark brown aureole of Gerard’s nipples, crinkling through the dart of hair below his navel.

Gerard stops undressing to pull Frank’s t shirt over his head, trails warm-cool fingers of his chest, rubbing gently at Frank’s nipple, brushing over his stomach with the back of his hand. They map the contours of each other’s bodies.

“Lie back, sweetheart...”

Frank lets himself sink into the bed. The pillows crowd around him like billowy cirrus.

He feels Gerard loosen and remove his belt...and then...he’s asleep.

*

He wakes - he doesn’t know how much later, under the covers. His back is boiling warm but his front, his arms and legs, are freezing.

There’s a watery, pale light coming into the room from the little bathroom now.

He knows exactly where he is the moment he’s conscious, and a spear of delight lances right through him, from his tingling groin to his thudding heart.

The warmth, delicious and whole, is Gerard pressed up behind him. And the reason he’s cold...Gerard has stolen all the blankets. As per usual.

Frank smiles to himself. He snuggles back into Gerard’s arms.

He feels Gerard’s hips press forward against him. Hears him mumble a pleased sounding hum in his sleep.

Frank shifts his hips back again, rubbing himself against Gerard’s centre. Frank wants - he really fucking wants - Gerard to wake up now.

Frank reaches back and tugs on the blanket a little until it comes free a little and he can pull it over himself. He feels a little seedy from the late night and the wine and the long drive. It feels early. He can’t even be sure he’s slept all that much.

His bladder starts hollering for attention and Frank has to throw back the blanket and wriggle out from his safe, warm, lovely, place.

Gerard is still fast asleep, head tilted back slightly, his mouth open. Frank can hear the little snore at the back of Gee’s throat. He’s never realised before but that sound...it’s so stupid, but, he really fucking loves that sound.

The tiles on the floor of the bathroom are freezing. Frank pees as fast as he can, washes his hands, thinks about it for a second and turns the shower on over the bath tub. He jumps in and lathers himself up as quickly as he can. He spends a little longer washing his cock than is strictly necessary . But he’s turned on, been turned on since he woke up feeling Gerard all warm and snugly behind him. God he wants...he wants...

Gerard’s got to wake up some time, right?

Frank dries himself and tiptoes back into the room to discover that, no, Gerard apparently does not have to wake up some time.

Frank’s husband – and thinking that word gives him an insane thrill – is now sprawled across the whole bed , a giant, dishevelled X ,with the sheet pulled up to his chin. His pointy nose peeks over the top of the sheet, which flutters with ever y snorey breath Gerard takes. His hairy toes poke out the bottom of the sheet, twitching as he dreams of...Frank’s not sure what, but he’s sure Gerard will regale him with the tale when he wakes up. Hearing Gee’s dreams is one of Frank’s favourite things.

He slips in beside Gerard, snuggling against him, letting his damp hair drip a little on Gee’s chest.
Gerard shifts under Frank, his warm, soft skin sticking to Frank’s, his dry gentle fingers brushing over him.

“’M up...’m up...what?”

“Oh, did I wake you?” Frank whispers. He can’t help giggling a little, because Gerard’s head is up off the pillow turning left and right as if looking for something, something he would no doubt find if only his eyes were open.

“Nope,” mutter’s Gerard, smiling dopily. “Just resting my eyes.”

“Oh my God,” hisses Frank, s digging his fingers into Gerard’s sides a little. “We’ve only been married a matter of hours and you’re already turning into your dad. I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen for another twenty years or something?”

“W’as wrong with my dad?” Gerard mumbles, lifting his arm, eyes still closed, so Frank can snuggle closer. “He’s a Silver fox, donchknow.”

Frank giggles again. And Gerard flips them over, pinning Frank to the bed in one swift move.

“And now laughing at my dad, huh? Huh?” Gerard has Frank’s hands pushed up above them, but Frank’s not all that interested in getting away.

“Don’t...mention... your ...unf, your dad...just now...” Frank peppers kisses up and down Gerard’s throat, and the tender spot just under his ear, Frank knows gets him going.

Gerard chuckles. “Frankie...oh...” he pushes and pulls until Gerard has Frank on his back. Frank can feel Gerard hot, hard cock, bobbing up and down between them every time he moves.

It feels so good, every time it touches his little zings of delight lance along his nerves, squeezing at his heart.

“I fucking love...I fucking love this,” Gerard sighs. “Your body... your...” His hand snakes down between them and Frank feels it wrap around him.

He groans and pulses his hips.

“I would think about it, sometimes, at work...you know, I imagining it,” says Gerard and Frank can’t help but think he looks so beautiful, being so oddly bashful, as if Frank would ever mind hearing Gerard’s fantasies.

“Or, before we were together, if I was getting off alone. And...” he swallows hard. “And I used a toy.”

Frank groans. He knew Gerard used toys, sometimes, to get off, more often before they started seeing each other. But they’d never used them together. Maybe they would now? Not tonight, but in the future. Everything was possible for them. Frank wanted to give Gerard every possible delight they could imagine together. Why not toys and, and games even? Why not?

Gerard sighs. “Is it...can I tell you? I don’t...Do you want to...?”

“For the love of God, don’t stop,” hisses Frank back. “I want to hear all of ...oh....all of it.”

Gerard smiles, grinds his hips against Frank’s and licks his red, red lips.

“At first it’s just the pressure of something so much bigger than I am used to,” Gerard swallows and squeezes frank’s hands. Rolling his hips, Frank watches Gerard’s eyes flutter closed and swallows himself.

“Squeezing out my, my... almost hurting as it pushes in.”

Frank’s cock is trapped up against’ Gerard’s. He feels the slick lip of his bell-end slide over Gee’s hip. He bites his tongue and his eyes roll back in his head as the lance of pleasure arcs through him. Gerard’s voice anchors him, drives him.

“It feels so much like someone else touching me...cooler than my own hand...smoother than my skin...different...”

He blinks down at Frank. Frank reaches up for a kiss and Gerard licks into his mouth before pulling back again and grinding down onto him.

“I imagine your hand, Frankie.” He sighs, rolls his hips again. “So gentle, curled inwards, pressing me open, you pushing my thigh out of the way. Fisting me, Frankie. Oh, can you.... fuck.”

Frank has to close his eyes then. They rutt, there’s no other word, pounding against one another, sweat slicked and so hot.

They’ve never done that...fisting. But Frank wants to, wants to be that close to Gerard. Not tonight, but one day.

Gerard’s not done with this particular wishlist yet.

“But then the shape, Frankie, the silky soft feel of the thing inside me. I imagine cock. Hot and hard and huge...Your cock, baby.”

Gerard lifts his weight off Frank, leans back a little, his elbows bracketing Frank’s head. He looks down between them and watches the way their cocks slide together.

“I imagine you. You again...so gentle, and yet, yet you’re making me take it.

“You're holding my hands above my head, grinning as you fucking...hurt me. So fucking big I think I'm going to die. To split in half...and it feels so good, Frankie...so hot, and it makes the ache inside me...the fluttering in my belly, the ache, the ache ratcheting higher and higher and it pushes...and I force myself down on it.

“And then the slightest tilt of my hips and it slides deeper. Oh, impossibly deep. Holy fuck.”

They stagger a little, hips grinding. And Gerard slips up, shifting his legs over Frank’s thighs, straddling him. The pressure gone from Frank’s cock is like a punch in the guts. He wants it back. He wants... he just fucking wants.

But then Gerard is sitting up, leaning back. He reaches behind him and Frank feels him take hold of his cock – squeezing and pulling on it. “Get...Frankie, in my bag, can you reach...Get me the glide, Baby.”

It takes a couple of seconds for Frank’s brain to come online enough from him to scrabble over the side of the bed and fossick round in Gee’s messenger bag long enough to find the little bottle of Wet, or astroglide or whatever the fuck it is and shove it into Gerard’s free hand.

He chuckles.

“There weren’t...Condoms...I didn’t...”

“We don’t need ‘em anymore,” sighs Gerard, and he pushes his hips back, letting Frank’s cock slip against his ass, pressing it against his inner heat.

“Oh fuck...”

“Yeah,” Gerard smiles and snicks open the little bottle, reaching behind himself with it.

Frank hisses when he feels the cool gel drizzle over his cock, slipping between Gerard’s fingers, against his crack.

He’s going to fuck his husband. Not the first time he’s fucked Gerard, but the first time they’ve barebacked, the first time Frank has ever barebacked.

His cock leaps and Gerard starts twisting and rotating his hips, all the time keeping Frank’s cock trapped against his ass.

“Want you in me, Frankie,” Gerard whines, and pumps his hips again and again, as if he’s rubbing Frank’s cock against his hole. Frank’s balls ache. He realises that’s exactly what Gerard is doing. Oh fuck.

“Yeah, yeah...” Frank reaches for Gerard’s hips to steady him. “Fuck me, Gee-gee. C’mon.”
Gerard rises up, hold’s Frank’s cock still, and slowly, slowly sinks down on it.

Frank feels... he doesn’t even know what...he can feel everything, the wet, velvet heat of Gerard’s skin sliding over his cock. The way he’s twitching inside<\/i>, pulling him deeper with ever spasm. Frank can’t look away from Gerard’s face, his long sooty lashes, damp with his sweat, fluttering on his cheek, his eyes clenched shut, head thrown back as he takes it, takes Frank’s cock.

“Oh fuck, Gerard...fuck...”

“Yeah,” Gerard breathes, coming to rest in Frank’s lap, hands buried in his hair, thighs quivering with the effort of keeping him upright. “Yeah.”

He starts to rotate his hips, slowly, so fucking slowly. And Frank hears himself make a noise like he’s swallowing his own tongue.

He watches as Gerard eyes open and he focuses. He tilts forward and looks down at Frank.
“Fuck yeah,” he says, smiling. “Motherfucking fuck yeah.” And he twists his hips hard, pulling and pushing Frank’s cock in and out of him.

“And, Frankie,” he says, picking up where he left off. “Frankie, feel that, feels like it’s thundering against ah, ah...fuck, place inside me, feels like it has never been touched before...but needs it. Oh fucking hell I need it, so hard and so deep, Frank.”


Gerard’s thighs flex, and Frank’s cock feels like it is being sucked by Gerard’s body. He feels his balls pull tight. He’s going to come. He reaches for Gerard’s cock, and gets a moan of approval as he starts jacking him hard.

“Frankie,” he pants, leaning down, hips still pumping them both forward. “Th-there's no end to the ache, Frankie. Spreading out from everywhere, from inside my, my...oh fuck, oh fuck... I didn't know it was going to feel this fucking good, Frankie. I didn't know I needed this...Fuck...oh fuck.”

Gerard groans as he grinds down and Frank feels himself slip deeper inside.

Gerard’s cock erupts in Frank’s hand, and Frank can feel the spasms and contractions inside him clamping down on Frank’s own cock. He lifts his hips and seconds later feels the lance of his orgasm rip through him.

Gerard collapses forward, Frank’s cock still trapped inside him, whimpering and moaning Frank’s name as Frank’s dick twitches out the last of it.

He lies on Frank, squeezing his sides with his thighs.

Frank can hardly breath, or move to catch his breath. He feels like his orgasm is still going, little twitches zinging along his dick with every breath Gerard takes and his heart feels too huge for his chest.

He wraps his arms around his husband and pressed his face into Gerard’s neck.

“I love you,” Gerard breathes. “I love fucking you.”

He pulls back, looking down at Frank with dazed, happy eyes, and Frank smiles.
<\/a>
"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:97563","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/97563.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=97563"}}],"title":"The Happiest Fuckin\u2019 Place on Earth (tm) by Roxy_palace for BBB 2011","published":"2011-08-31T09:08:34Z","updated":"2011-09-12T06:46:01Z","category":[{"@attributes":{"term":"fob"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"bandom"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"cobra starship"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"fan art"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"fan mix"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"gerard way"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"gerard\/frank"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"romance"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"fic"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"ferard"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"bbb"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"frank\/gerard"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"nc17"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"shenanigans"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"frank iero"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"bandom big bang"}},{"@attributes":{"term":"mcr"}}],"content":"Title: <\/b>The Happiest Fuckin’ Place on Earth (tm)
Author:  <\/b>\"[info]\"<\/a>roxy_palace<\/b><\/a><\/span>
Bands: <\/b>MCR, FOB, P!ATD, CS
Pairings:<\/b> Ferard, with some blink and you miss it Bob\/Ray, Mikey\/Alicia, Patrick\/Pete
Rating: <\/b>NC17 (very strong language throughout, some sexual activity)
Word Count:<\/b> 27, 419
Warnings: <\/b>Action, adventure and Mikey Way in a Goofy Suit.

Summary: <\/b>Only two kinds of people worked at Disneyland Park, Anaheim, CA: Frank Iero, and everyone else. What happens when our cynical, maintenance-man-with-a-grudge<\/a> meets new Disney employee, Gerard Way, a starry-eyed Mouse fanatic<\/a>? Find out when you enter The Happiest Fuckin’ Place on Earth. Have a magical day!<\/blockquote>
  Note: <\/b>Thank you to the incomparable \"[info]\"<\/a>anna_unfolding<\/b><\/a><\/span>. So much more than a beta. This would be half a story, and mine a half a life, without you, xoxo. Thanks also to  \"[info]\"<\/a>try_67<\/b><\/a><\/span>and  \"[info]\"<\/a>vegesoup<\/b><\/a><\/span>, the best first readers, ever. Any mistakes still standing are mine and mine alone! Also thank you from the bottom of my heart to the incomparable mods of this event.  You are the greatest.

Enter the Happiest Fuckin' Place on Earth (tm)<\/a>
Hosted at Dreamwidth<\/p><\/center>

<\/p>

Other Disneyverse<\/b>:
Head<\/a><\/div>

<\/p>

Bonus Tracks\/Enhanced Content<\/b><\/div>Fanart: <\/b>[Frank learned a lot on the way over the newest part of the park with its newest team member<\/a>.]

[A gust of warm air billowed into his face, followed a few seconds later by another gust, then another.<\/a><\/u>]
Both by the amazing \"[info]\"<\/a><\/span>squashbee<\/b><\/a> Can't thank you enough for these.  Incredible!

[Gerard and Frank at the Haunted Mansion<\/a>] by the amazing, kind and talented <\/a>deadorasleep<\/b><\/a><\/span>.  Thank you so much.

Fanmix:<\/b> [When You Wish Upon A Star<\/a>] by the incredible  \"[info]\"<\/a>heartsdesire456<\/b><\/a><\/span> Still rocking this jam on my way to work in the morning!"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:97017","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/97017.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=97017"}}],"title":"Happiest Fuckin' Place On Earth (tm) by Roxy_Palace Bonus content! Fan Mix!","published":"2011-08-15T12:06:54Z","updated":"2011-08-31T09:38:15Z","content":"Hands up who's the luckiest little fictionaire in the world... ME! Thank you so, so much <\/a>heartsdesire456<\/b><\/a><\/span> . I didn't give you a lot to go on, but you pulled together some keen sounds and you really understood the heart of the story. It's brilliant! Cover art! \"\"<\/a> Track listing, with bonus Goofy!Mikeyway!! \"\"<\/a> 1.When You Wish Upon A Star- performed by Julie Andrews 2.Time After Time- Elliot Minor 3.Heartbeat Song- The Futureheads 4.More Than A feeling- Boston 5.Original 1955 Mickey Mouse Club Theme Song- written by Jimmie Dodd 6.I Don't Believe- Cinema Bizarre 7.Hysteria-Def Leppard 8.Half Life- Duncan Sheik 9.Changed By You- Between The Trees 10.It's A Small World (After All)- written by The Sherman Brothers 11.Times Like These- Foo Fighters 12.So This Is Love- from Cinderella Download When You Wish Upon A Star right here<\/a>. The Happiest Fuckin' Place On Earth (tm) Masterpost is right here."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:96655","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/96655.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=96655"}}],"title":"Happiest Fuckin' Place On Earth (tm) by Roxy_Palace Bonus content! Fan Art!","published":"2011-08-15T11:42:38Z","updated":"2011-09-01T09:50:58Z","content":"LOOK AT THIS GORGEOUSNESS!<\/b> Fan art by the darling <\/a>squashbee<\/b><\/a><\/span>  THANK YOU SO MUCH!  I love it to bits.  Just... LOOK!!!! \"\"<\/a>
Frank learned a lot on the way over the newest part of the park with its newest team member. Frank had learned that Gerard liked comic books, D&D, The Misfits, croquet (seriously? The fuck?), Audrey Hepburn and Harry Houdini. He’d discovered that Gerard could French braid hair, liked barbecue sauce on his French fries (the weirdo) and thought Iron Maiden’s Killers<\/i> was probably the greatest LP in the history of British Metal. Frank was now in possession of the knowledge that Gerard’s last name was Way and that the guy really fucking liked to talk. And what’s more, Frank learned that Gerard believed in M-I-C (See you real soon!) K-E-Y (Why? Because we LIKE you!). He believed hard. <\/i><\/blockquote>
\n
Not only did <\/a>squashbee<\/b><\/a><\/span>  draw the most perfect Donald Duck Cart EVER, but look at Frank's grumpy little face!  And Gee's failing, happy, first-day-at-the-happiest-place-on-earth arms! AND, AND!!!!  YAY! "},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:roxy_palace:95396","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/95396.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/roxy-palace.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=95396"}}],"title":"BBB is for lovers. ","published":"2011-07-23T21:26:19Z","updated":"2011-07-23T21:26:19Z","content":"A mixer claimed my fic!!!!!  I feel so honoured!  EXCITE!  I did a little stalking too, and she seems VERY FRIKKEN COOL.  YAY!  Can't wait to see what she comes up with.  Amazing. Felt sure no one would want it. It's kind of mental. Shit, now I'd better fix the thing up!!!

AMAZING summaries to be had over there though! Including one I have to read about Human Taxidermy. SICK!  But also Footballer!Pete, RundownCinema!Ferard and SPACE PIRATES!  Also a really frikken interesting sex slave AU with the wives in heroic sounding roles... Usually I don't read wives, but sexslave!Gerard is kind of a compulsion of mine. IDEK.

So yeah, all round amazing wave two so far!!!"}]}