Hear Me Out
by imp

Hear Me Out

imp

Summary

It's not so much the turning into a girl that's a problem; that's happened before. It's the fact that Frank doesn't turn back.

Notes

None

Chapter One

Frank would always think, a little, that it happened because he got lazy, let his guard down. That if he'd been a little more careful, a little less trusting that with Gerard sober and Bob drumming they were through the bad times, it would never have happened.

Which was completely stupid, of course, and he knew it. Mostly. But they didn't even know why it had happened, God or fucking Fate or some kind of random mutant spider radiation, so sometimes he liked to wallow in the idea that it was all his fault for being a moron. Better that than assuming people sometimes just happened to turn into girls without an explanation in sight. Frank was a big believer in faith as a safety net, no matter how fucked up the net in question might be.

||

He got drunk and went to sleep the second to last date of Warped, which was a mundane way to start a crisis. Less mundane was waking up with tits pressing against the mattress, but it had been a hell of a night and he had a hangover, so it didn't occur to him that fucking tits were on his chest until well into his first cup of coffee.

When he realized, he dropped the cup. The liquid soaked his shirt and burned his tits what the fuck, and he yelled loudly enough to be heard two states over.

"Frank?" Mikey said from the bunk area. Two thumps later, he was out and blinking at him. "Uh."

"Fucking tits!" Frank yelled, pointing at them.

Mikey nodded. "I can see. Uh."

"Fucking tits, fucking - tits." He gave up and sat down on the couch. "Tits."

"Did you, um." Mikey poured himself a mug of coffee. "Did you check to see if you have the other parts?"

It hadn't even occurred to Frank. Horror crept over him as he spread his legs and -

"Shit," he said. He felt flat-out wrong. "Shit."

Mikey bobbed his head. "Are you sure they're real?"

Frank stripped immediately, feeling himself - but there were no seams, nothing to indicate someone had somehow tricked him into thinking he was a chick. Impossible or not, the proof was in front of him. On him. "Mikey."

After a long second full of lip-chewing, Mikey sat down and held out his arms.

Frank huddled close, trying to ignore how wrong his body felt now, squashed against Mikey's like it had been a million times before.

||

"Oh my god," Ray said.

"Holy shit," Bob said.

"...I want a drink," Gerard said.

Reality was bashing Frank over the head in the form of his four best friends staring at him like he was an alien, and there was no fucking way he wanted to get up and face the truth. Unfortunately, he had to pee.

"I have to, um." He wiggled. "I need to piss, guys, could you -?"

They moved away immediately, all of them jerky, uncertain. Frank didn't blame them; he half expected something to change, even if he didn't really know what. Would he even know if he was different? It wasn't like he had anything to gauge his reactions against, any way to say, well, I totally wouldn't freak out as much about turning into a goldfish, so clearly it's the pussy that has me running scared.

"Frank?" Gerard said.

Shit. Fuck emotions, being a girl was making him go insane. "Yeah, no, I'm here. Sorry."

"You don't need, like. Help." Mikey frowned. "Do you?"

"Jesus, no," Frank said. "I think I can figure out how to work a pussy."

"Vagina," Gerard said.

"Who's got one? Pussy."

Gerard frowned and Frank felt like kind of a dick, but whatever, he'd lost his. It was justified.

Peeing hadn't been a traumatic experience since he'd eaten too many Gushers in sixth grade and peed so red he thought he was bleeding from his dick. It was now, though, crouching awkwardly and letting his bladder go and thinking about how if this lasted long enough, he really would be peeing blood.

Shit, what if it never went away? Frank shook his head hard, grabbing the toilet paper. It would go away. It had to.

The entire band was standing right outside the bathroom, and they looked at him expectantly when he came back out. He had no clue what they wanted him to say, so finally he just half-shrugged and said, "Uh. Wiping's a pain?"

"We called Brian," Gerard said. He was using his comforting tone, which would have been nice if Frank didn't have a chick's body. Some things, it turned out, were beyond even Gerard Way's magical comforting ability. "He's making some calls."

"Right, yeah." Frank flopped down on the couch. "Just let me know when he gets a hold of Gandalf, or whatever."

He didn't really wish for a show, but in some ways it would have been easier; as it was, they were due to spend most of the day on the road, crammed into the bus. He didn't really want to look at anyone else, much less talk to them.

Mikey wound up sitting next to him eventually anyway, though. "Brian's still looking."

"I'll change back," Frank said determinedly. "Maybe next time I wake up it'll just be as a guy."

"Is it really that uncomfortable?"

Frank glared.

"Okay," Mikey said. "Hey, um." He held out his phone. "You could talk to Pete."

Of all the Mikey Way non sequiturs he'd ever been subjected to, this was one of the least fathomable. "What?"

Mikey bit his lip hard. "When I'm having issues, he's good for it. You don't even really have to say much, just let him talk at you. He...it's easy not to be in your brain with him, you know?"

Frank privately thought that was mostly Mikey's crush talking, but he wasn't far enough gone to actually say it. "Thanks, Mikey."

Mikey nodded and sat back, watching the scenery fly by out the bus window.

"Is that why you talk to him so much?" Frank said finally.

Mikey didn't even blink. "That and he's fun to be around. Kiss."

"TMI, Mikey," Frank said. It wasn't, of course; he'd seen Mikey and Pete making out more than a few times.

"Sure," Mikey said, nonplussed. "But it's true."

Frank made a face and moved to tackle him, but his tits moved and everything was fucking wrong, and in the end he wound up sitting back again.

Frank's cell phone display read 5:30 when Brian called. "Hello?"

"Jesus, you even sound different."

"Thanks," Frank said, gritting his teeth. "Do you know what the fuck is going on with me?"

"Not in as many words, no."

"Awesome. I'll just throw myself in front of the bus, then."

Brian sighed into the phone. "Calm down, Frank. No one knows exactly what's going on, but it's not like you're the only case anyone's ever heard of."

That was promising, kind of. In a world where turning into a girl was a problem people actually had to face. "And? Do I get my dick back soon?"

"Maybe," Brian said. "The problem is, no one really knows why it happens. The people I talked to, one guy went a week, one girl went a month. The only sure thing is that it's whole chunks of time, not a day and a half or anything."

"Jesus," he said. "So what the hell are we going to do about shows?"

"I guess just put you in a hoodie, hope no one notices."

He wasn't exactly Pamela Anderson, but - "What if they do?"

"Then we deal with it then. There's no perfect solution, Frank, but canceling shows will just make people suspicious. And fans deserve to see you play."

"I'm not me," Frank said.

"Bullshit," Brian said.

Frank tried and failed to fight the guilt: Brian sounded exhausted. "Fine, I'm me. But I'm still a chick."

"Even if someone thinks they see, they're not going to believe their own eyes. Just play, okay? I'll try to figure out how to end it."

He couldn't actually say no without feeling like the shittiest person in the world. "Fine. I...thank you."

"It's my job, isn't it? Wait. Actually, don't answer that," Brian said, and hung up.

Frank went back to staring at his knees, trying to ignore all parts of him that looked even a little different. He was doing a completely awesome job until his pussy (and Jesus, there was no good word, was there?) started itching.

He didn't want to touch it, or scratch it, or even really think about it, but it was itching, and he didn't even last five minutes before reaching down to scratch.

Except...Christ, he had a vagina. Scratching turned into poking a little, not fingering himself as much as just trying to figure out what was where from this angle. It felt like being in tenth grade all over again, hand up a girl's skirt for the first time - except the skirt was his, and he was pretty sure he was actually less successful this time than he'd been as a zitty fifteen-year-old.

At least tits didn't make him incapable of coming up with lame similes, he thought, pinching his clit.

It felt good, but not as good as he'd expected. Okay. He wasn't actually looking to get off, anyway, so he moved down, pulling apart folds of skin and sticking the tip of his finger in himself.

The feeling was...Frank had fingered his own ass a little, but weirdly, it didn't feel like that. The bit of a finger wasn't as much, didn't stretch him or take any effort. If anything, it felt like sticking a finger somewhere more like his nose, which was a disturbing enough train of thought that Frank shut it down right away.

"Okay, I don't need to ask what you're doing, but could you not do it on the couch?"

Frank looked up, frowned at Gerard. "I'm not trying to get off, are you crazy? I'm just seeing what's what." But he took his hand out of his pants anyway, wiping his fingers on an already-dirty Kleenex.

"You're not? I would be."

"You wouldn't," Frank said. "Seriously. I don't even know they're my parts. It's fucking weird."

"Maybe," Gerard said. He didn't even sound doubtful as much as just confused.

"Anyway, Brian told me I had to play." Frank shrugged. "So I'm borrowing one of Ray's hoodies, I guess."

"Do you need underwear or anything?"

"A bra, probably." It would, he realized suddenly, do a hell of a lot to stop the bouncing. "Actually, as soon as possible."

Gerard nodded, fingers drumming on his knees in the way that meant he needed a drink. These days, though, he'd be grabbing a cigarette instead of a beer. "I'm sorry, by the way."

Frank shrugged uncomfortably, looking away. "It's not your fault."

"Yeah, but - "

"Which one of us is the girl, here?"

"Neither," Gerard said quickly.

"I was trying to make a douchey joke." Frank sighed. "Look, the point is, I don't want to talk about it."

Going by Gerard's expression, that statement alone was plenty douchey. Still, as the sex-changed one, Frank was feeling pretty entitled as far as the right to be an asshole went. "Okay," Gerard said quietly.

"Just." Frank shook his head hard. "I'm going to change back, and that'll be the end of it, so it doesn't matter."

"I get it, Frank."

But Gerard was still looking like Frank had kicked his puppy. Fuck it, he thought, and went to lie in his bunk.

||

"Frank?"

"My tits are still here and I don't want to talk about it," he said meanly.

"...I just wanted to know if we could do a quick rehearsal," Ray said, sounding ashamed. "Just...as reassurance, I guess. For both of us."

Not even Gerard could make him feel like that much of a dick that quickly. "Yeah, okay, let's do it," he said, rolling out of the bunk.

Ray blinked. "I. Wow."

His shirt felt weird, like it was scraping against...hard nipples, he realized, looking down. Ray's look made a lot more sense. "Like a slap in the face, huh?"

"It's not even hot." Ray frowned. "They're boobs, they should be. But they're not."

"Comforting," Frank said, and grabbed a hoodie of his own, yanking it over himself before following Ray to the back of the bus.

His guitar didn't feel any different; if anything, he'd have expected it to be heavier, but none of his muscles had actually disappeared. It didn't occur to him until he tried to find a place to put the strap that didn't poke a boob that he was kind of butch.

"I'm kind of butch," he said out loud, strumming a chord.

"Yeah, I guess," Ray said, and started playing a riff, something Frank recognized from the past few times they'd messed around. He responded immediately, playing, frowning and shifting when his guitar pressed up against his crotch or his strap dug into a sensitive spot.

Ray sped up, and Frank matched him, picking up his part when Ray went from riffing straight into I'm Not Okay. Ray was headbanging, of course, and Frank let himself get into it, moving his feet, throwing his body -

Halfway through the song, he overbalanced and fell over.

"Shit," he said from the floor of the bus.

Ray held out a hand. "You okay?"

"I'm not that different," he said, unable to keep from being pissed at himself. "I'm not fucking - fuck. Why the hell does it matter?"

"Center of gravity, maybe?" Ray said in what Frank suspected was the most reasonable tone he had.

It didn't help. "Fuck the fucking center of gravity," Frank said, and kicked the wall.

"I'm sorry," Ray said. He sounded miserable, like he thought it was his fault or like it was some epic tragedy that Frank was a chick, and Frank didn't know what to say to that.

"It's not your fucking fault," he said, and put Pansy on the floor. "I'm just...I'm going to go for a walk, okay? That'll probably help."

He would have punched Ray out if he'd said 'be careful'. Luckily, Ray just nodded and sat back down. "See you."

"Yeah."

The parking lot was dirty and everyone was crabby. Luckily, pretty much no one paid attention to Frank. He walked through the line of buses and fold-up chairs, crossing the road to head into the gas station before rolling his eyes at himself and going out back instead.

Mikey and a girl were leaning against the wall. "Um," he said, folding his arms over his chest. "This is awkward."

"No," Mikey said. "This is Alicia."

She poked her head out to look at Frank. Frank recognized her, vaguely. "Hi," he said.

She waved. "You gave me a ride once, if you're wondering how you know me."

He hoped she wasn't actually a mind-reader; it would present more than a few problems. "Oh. Okay." He looked at Mikey. "So what's your damage?"

It wasn't until Mikey waved a hand that Frank realized he was wearing those gloves, the ones with Pete's ugly logo on them. "Last day."

That didn't explain Alicia, but it at least reduced the levels of weird to normal Mikey caliber. "Right," he said, turning to go. "I'll see you later, then."

"If it's any consolation, I can't even tell you're a girl," Alicia said.

Frank stopped dead.

"Oh my god," Mikey said, sounding horrified. "Alicia, I told you."

"And I ignored you. Seriously, just turn around, okay? I'm not going to run and tell the National Enquirer or anything stupid like that."

"They wouldn't believe you even if you did," Frank said, but he turned and walked back.

Mikey looked downright scared. He should be, Frank thought viciously.

"You need a bra," Alicia said.

"I know that, thanks," he said without looking at her.

"I have a few you can probably have."

"Alicia..."

"I don't need a few," he said loudly, glaring at Mikey, "because I'm not going to stay a girl."

She sounded flat-out amused when she said, "Okay, I have a bra you can probably have. Better?"

He fucking hated feeling like the immature one. "Thanks," he said, as nicely as he could manage.

"Not a problem," she said. "It really would suck. No offense to either of you, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to wake up with a dick." She moved into Frank's line of vision when she got off the wall and started walking away. "I'll see you later, Mikey."

"You're kind of lucky she has the thickest skin on tour," Mikey said when she'd left.

"Does she really?"

"Probably not, but she hides it well. You were seriously a jerk. Like, massively."

"Don't you mean a bitch?"

"No," Mikey said simply.

Frank sat back against the wall, as far away from Mikey as he could without actually being in the dumpster. "I fell over, jamming with Ray," he said. "Ray thinks it might be my center of gravity."

"Oh." Mikey moved closer; Frank really wished he had the balls to tell him not to. "You'll adjust pretty quickly, won't you?"

"I don't want to adjust. I want my body back." He winced right away at how petulant it sounded. "Just...I don't even like calling it mine. They're not my tits, it's not my pussy..."

"You'll change back, and then it won't be a problem," Mikey said.

But he sounded about as certain as Frank felt. "What if I don't?" Frank said. "Or what if it's a long time?"

"Then we'll buy tampons and hug you a bunch." Mikey put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. "It'll be okay."

He leaned into the touch, shaking his head at himself. "I feel like a fucking girl."

"Very funny," Mikey said, and pulled him closer, cuddling insistently.

Touch shouldn't have solved anything when he was like this, but it was comforting even with Mikey's bony elbow poking his side. When the cell phone alarm the others had forced Mikey to set beeped, he sighed and leaned back. "Thanks."

"Any time." Mikey skimmed his phone. "Alicia dropped a bra by the bus, by the way. We can grab it before soundcheck."

"She's nice," Frank said.

"Yeah, she is." Mikey smiled, the kind of small secret smile that Frank knew he wasn't aware of making, the one that meant they'd be hearing more about her.

"Let's go," Frank said, leading the way.

||

"It's just a show," he told his feet quietly. "It's just a show." He took advantage of the roaring crowd to punch his thigh. "Just a show."

Gerard tended to walk as heavily as a baby elephant, which was the only reason Frank knew it was him coming up behind Frank until he said quietly, "We'll be okay."

Frank looked up. Gerard was standing awkwardly, looking half in his stage persona already. "I know."

"We can keep it low key, if you want."

"Fuck low key. I've got a bra, I'll be fine."

Gerard blushed. Of course he blushed, he was Gerard Way and he was still getting used to not living in his mom's basement. "I know it's weird, but I wasn't actually worrying about your body."

"Having tits didn't make me go insane."

"Frank."

Gerard sounded exasperated enough that Frank caved. "I'm okay. I just want to get this over with, you know? If I've played one show like this, I can do it again."

"It really sucks," Gerard said. He sounded pissed, like he wanted to find whoever had done it and kick his ass. The image made Frank smile a little, if only because he'd seen how Gerard fought, and it was more or less hilarious.

"Yeah, it does," he said. "But whatever. I'll be okay."

Mikey poked his head around the corner. "We're on in, like, a minute," he said. "Bob's making noises."

Gerard smiled at Frank awkwardly. Frank rolled his eyes and hoisted his guitar, walking up and standing next to Ray.

"Deep breaths," Ray said.

"That's what she said," Frank said, and bounded onstage.

||

It was easy. Ridiculously, insanely, stupidly easy.

Because no one knew who he was. He fell over a few times, but he fell over during most shows, and the insane euphoria of playing to, playing up, and sometimes playing with the crowd almost erased the overwhelming feeling of weirdness.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he said afterwards, grinning widely.

Gerard hugged him tight. Frank could almost ignore the way his chest felt. "That was amazing. You were amazing."

"Fucker," Frank said, ducking away, "I'm always amazing."

"How could we forget," Bob said, deadpan.

Frank kicked him in the shins, then dove into his bunk. "Wake me up when Cortez finds a place to shower."

"What makes you think he'll know of one?"

"Jizz, man," Frank said. "He has to have some way to wash it off."

Sure enough, he was only forty-five minutes into his nap when Mikey poked him awake. "Shower mafia wants you."

Frank raced out to the hose they'd found, grabbing his hoodie and starting to pull it off.

The fabric rubbed against his boobs, though, and he realized exactly what he was about to do.

"Shit," he said. "Shit."

"Fuck off," Matt said, "it's the best place I could find."

"Yeah, no," Frank said. "I'm -" He was a shitty liar; his mind raced as he tried to come up with something to say. "I'm feeling kind of sick. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"It's the last day of tour," Matt said.

"Whatever, you're coming back to Jersey with us and you know it. At least for a visit." Frank pulled his hoodie uncomfortably. "Look, man, I can feel the - the diarrhea! I can feel it coming. I gotta go."

Matt looked queasy, and Frank felt almost brilliant. "Right, okay. See you."

Frank's sick-totally-sick hobble gave way to a fast walk as soon as he was out of Matt's sight. He wanted to run, but he'd already tried it and didn't want to repeat the experiment, no matter how crazily sensitive it was of him to be freaked out by it.

"Fucking boobs," he muttered, and shut the bus door hard.

"You're not washed," Gerard said from the couch.

"Neither are you," Frank said. "What the hell, were you waiting up for me?"

"I did it when you were a guy, too," Gerard said quickly.

"It was stupid and creepy then, too."

"Was it public?"

Frank clenched his jaw, sitting on the floor. "Just about as public as something like that can get, yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"I wish people would stop saying that." His voice was even higher than what was now (temporarily, fucking temporarily) normal. "Seriously, unless you're all part of some kind of weird sex-change cult or whatever the fuck - "

"I think it's more that we don't know what to do."

"So don't do anything. Why do you have to?"

Gerard was staring at him incredulously, which was completely stupid, because Frank wasn't the one being a moron currently. "Because you're part of our band," Gerard said finally. "Because you're Frank."

"Undying love is great, but I still have boobs." Frank shook his head. "Whatever, you know? This is the adjustment period. Hopefully, it's the only period I'll ever have."

Gerard groaned. "That wasn't even funny."

"It was hilarious." He could feel himself getting sleepy just sitting on the floor, so he stood up. "I'm crashing. Cross your fingers for cock in the morning."

"I always do."

||

Frank woke up the same way he'd gone to sleep: dirty, cranky, with a headache and boobs pressing into the mattress.

"Fuck," he muttered, and rolled out of bed, sticking his foot in water.

He froze. Water, okay: water was wrong. Maybe instead of turning into a girl, today's suck was going to manifest itself in a flood, all Noah's Ark or some shit.

Or maybe, he realized when he opened his eyes, someone had just decided to stick a huge bucket of warmish water right by his bed.

"...guys?"

"Are you naked yet?" Ray said, walking in with a hand over his eyes.

Frank grabbed the nearest solid object - a shoe- and lobbed it at him. "Fuck off, you've seen me naked before."

Ray took his hand off his eyes, blushing. "You're not, anyway."

"Why would I be?"

He pointed to the bucket. "That's for your bath."

A sponge bath - fucking duh. Frank didn't know why he hadn't thought of it before. "Oh, dude, thanks. Soap?"

Ray tossed it to him. "Gerard's idea," he said. "Um! I'm going to go!"

Frank threw his pants at Ray's back as he left.

It wasn't fun or even really a relief, but it got him clean, and he managed to rub himself down without too many mental conniptions. When he was done he put on an old pair of gym shorts, and - after a few seconds' debate - a hoodie.

In the lounge, he nudged Mikey over and stole Bob's coffee. "Gimme."

"Asshole," Bob said, but he let Frank keep it, like he always did.

"I'm going to miss Warped," Mikey said.

"I'm not going to miss the way you smell. Thanks for the bucket, by the way," he said to Gerard.

Gerard nodded. "Not a problem."

Frank wanted to say a bunch of shit, none of which really mattered in the long run. He bit his lip and stayed quiet; the others did the same, until the bus was filled with more awkward silence than they usually had in a week.

"This is ridiculous," Mikey said finally.

"We're going back to Jersey. Ridiculous is a requirement."

"I thought that was organized crime," Ray said.

"Organized crime can be ridiculous," Bob said. "You've watched the Sopranos, right?"

"That's inaccurate," Frank said. "My grandfather -"

"We know, Frank," Bob said. "Calm down."

"Fuck off, I am calm." He was clinging to threads here and he knew it; this was his way of pretending everything was normal. Everyone's way, maybe. "My point is, my grandpa would stick your body in a freezer."

"No, he wouldn't," Brian said from the doorway. "It would make you cry."

Frank moved back a little, hunching his shoulders, but Brian didn't even really look at him. "You've got a few days until you need to start getting ready for headlining," he said. "Gerard, you've just got an interview on Wednesday."

"Do I have to?"

Brian didn't even glare, just looked at him. Gerard made a face. "Fine, fine."

"If anything changes, call me, okay?"

It took Frank a second to realize Brian was talking to him. "Right," he said. "Yeah."

They slept most of the way to Jersey, part post-tour exhaustion and part flat-out boredom. Even Mikey, who'd been checking his Sidekick freakishly often and looking as down as Mikey ever looked, napped with his head half in Gerard's lap.

It didn't occur to Frank until he hailed a cab that if he went home, he'd have to explain to his entire extended family why he was suddenly a chick. He used the two seconds it took to climb into the cab to think about it before giving the driver Jamia's address.

He took his hoodie off on her front stoop; she'd let him stay as long as he needed to, and he was a little worried that if he didn't tell her straight off, he'd wind up taking her floor space for two weeks and going back to the band without ever letting her know.

She came at the third knock after the fourth doorbell ring, which meant she'd either been sleeping, jamming, or was just in a shitty mood. Frank couldn't tell, though, because she was beaming the second she opened the door.

"Frank!" she said, and grabbed him into a hug.

"Uh," he said, and she leaped back.

"...Frank?"

"Yeah." He crossed his arms. "Um."

"You've got tits."

He nodded.

"You...seriously? Can they even do that on touring? Isn't there a recovery period?"

"I didn't get surgery, Jamia."

"You didn't," she said flatly.

He shook his head. "I woke up like this."

"Right, sure, you just woke up with boobs?"

"And no dick. And a pussy."

Jamia stared.

"...I can show you, if you need me to?"

She kept staring, so he shrugged and unbuttoned his pants.

"Holy shit," she all but yelled when he got his pants down. "Jesus fucking - get inside!"

He hobbled in with his pants around his ankles. As soon as the door was closed, she turned and glared at him. "Explain now. And pull your pants back up."

There wasn't a whole lot to explain, but Frank did his best, telling her about Brian and their hope he'd change back soon. "So yeah," he finished, "I have no fucking clue how long I'm stuck with this, but I'm pretty much using you as a motel so I don't have to talk to my mom."

Jamia nodded. "Any time, you know that. Have you - you know. Explored?"

"People keep asking that," he muttered. "Not so much, no. I poked around, but...it's not mine, you know?"

"Not really, but I can take your word for it. I'm guessing you haven't bought any supplies?" At Frank's blank look, she elaborated, "You know, tampons, bras."

"I have Alicia's," he said, tugging on the strap. "It fits okay, I think." It didn't, actually, but he doubted a good-fitting bra would be much better even if he could bring himself to go shopping for one.

Jamia nodded. "You're welcome to my tampons, if it comes to that. Or if you want pads I can pick some up."

He wasn't sure he'd be okay with sticking anything in himself, much less a cardboard tube - but then, maybe his opinion would change. He was still holding out hope for changing back before then. "You're my favorite."

"Damn right I am." She tucked her hair behind her ear, looking at him hard. "A month."

He blinked. "Huh?"

"You've got a month, and then you're buying a few bras and at the very least taking a mirror into the bathroom and getting used to your cunt."

He processed the terminology, then the order, then the knowledge that out of all the people in the world, she was the one who was most likely to actually get him to go through with it. "...okay."

"Good," she said. "My plan for today was pretty much watching TV and eating Pop-Tarts. You in?"

"Fucking duh," he said, and plopped down on the couch.

Jamia was incapable of actually vegging for a solid day; she got up to vacuum and to yell at some kids on a punk forum, and she spent a solid half hour trying to fix the leg of the coffee table. "I give up," she said when even wood glue failed. Frank didn't even try to help, flipping the channel to Alias and pretending to be engrossed instead.

She gave him sheets and a blanket for the couch, but he didn't think she was really surprised when he wound up climbing in with her, tucking his hands against her back. It had been years since they'd dated and he was pretty sure even kissing her would be astronomically weird, but she was still his go-to person for comfort; she'd been the one he called when he wanted to give up the band back in Japan, and she was the first person to hear from him about Gerard and Matt and Bob.

"Stop worrying," she said, pressing back against him. "Even if it's awhile, you've got friends and family who love you. And it's not like it's got teeth or something."

The statement itself wasn't too comforting, but she was warm and solid and, yeah, a girl. Frank didn't want to be one, but Jamia was a pretty awesome one; somehow the two blended together in his head and turned into him mumbling a thank you against her neck.

It didn't take him long to fall asleep after that.

||

He managed two days of TV-watching, Internet-surfing, and Sidekick-checking before he started going stir crazy.

"You need a plant," he said the Friday night after he'd arrived. "I mean, you can't have a dog. But you should have a plant."

"My apartment's not a greenhouse," Jamia said, flipping through paperwork from Eyeball, "and you're not an interior decorator. Now shut up and let me concentrate."

He shrugged and sat back, forcing himself to watch yet another episode of Jeopardy.

He was expecting to have to make a break for it, but Jamia woke him up early the next morning. "Up and at 'em," she said, yanking the blankets off. "We're going out."

"Noooo," he moaned, flailing for the blankets. "Later."

"Now," she said cheerfully. "There's coffee."

"Hate you," he mumbled. "Evil hell-bitch."

"Yeah, yeah." She caught his wrist and pulled him up, putting her hands on his shoulders and turning him towards the bedroom. "Jeans and a hoodie are fine, but you have to dress like an actual person. Come on."

Her own mug of coffee was sitting on the nightstand; he made a beeline for it and gulped as much as he could, wincing as it burned his mouth. "Why're we going out?"

"You think I didn't see your longing glances at the window? Please, Iero." She waited for him to finish the coffee before saying, "Your duffel's over there."

He stripped and went over to it, tugging on Alicia's bra - he was pretty sure you were supposed to unhook them, but whatever, it was already stretched weirdly and looking kind of grimy - and wiggling into his pants.

Jamia had a cheap full-length mirror hanging on the back of her door; he made the mistake of glancing in it as he was buttoning his pants. The seam of the jeans pushed against his pussy uncomfortably, and he raised a hand, poking his tits and watching in the mirror.

"You really have been trying to ignore it, haven't you?" Jamia said quietly.

"Like you'd do any different," Frank said, and shrugged, turning away from the mirror to pull on the hoodie.

The hug was neither unexpected nor completely uncomfortable; he leaned into her, closing his eyes.

"It's been almost a week," he said. "What if - "

"If it doesn't go away, you'll get used to it," she said. "You will. Come on, Frank, people get used to amputated legs and blindness and all kinds of things. You're not even broken, just different. And if you tell me having a cunt is like having a disability, I'm going to hit you."

It felt like a brick to the stomach, if something like that could be a positive experience. "I'm just sad, you know?" He forced himself to smile flippantly. "If I stay a girl we can't have our Jersey wedding."

"My dreams are shattered," she said, ruffling his hair before turning to walk out. "Now come on, Romeo."

He glanced in the mirror before following.

||

The next few weeks were low-key enough that Frank kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. What the other shoe could possibly be when he'd already been magically turned into a girl, he didn't know; maybe being turned into a bug like in the Kafka novel. Bits of college stuck with him at weird times.

"I don't want to be a cockroach," he told Jamia, a week before they were due to be back on the road.

She snorted. "Then go visit your mother."

"She can't actually turn me into a bug." Frank paused. "Probably."

"She can make you feel like one, though." Jamia sighed. "Frank, it's been more than long enough. You should just tell her."

"Tell her what, exactly? 'Hey, guess what, you have a daughter now? Let's bond?'"

Jamia just looked at him, the flat, take-no-shit look he would have thought she practiced in front of a mirror had he not known how many times she'd practiced on him. "Don't be a dick."

He'd lost the fight; really, he'd lost it two seconds after she brought it up, because he knew damn good and well that she was right. "Fine," he said. "Tomorrow."

||

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. His mom wasn't the ship-him-off-to-researchers type - actually, he didn't know many moms who were, which was yet another reason X-Men had lied to him - and she wasn't the crying type, but he expected at least a little freaking out.

What he didn't expect was for her to go to the library and research and check out books on gender identity.

"Um," Gerard said, poking his head into Frank's bunk. "Wow."

There were two three-inch binders full of printed-out stuff from the internet and six library books, along with a paper that had online renewal instructions. He'd almost expected to get a book report assignment, too. "Yeah. She doesn't do things halfway."

"Apple, tree, and so on." He craned his neck. "I've read a few of these."

"Of course you have," Frank said.

"Hey, what's this?" Gerard said, grabbing the Penny's shopping bag.

"Bra," Frank said.

Gerard pulled the hand mirror Jamia had forced him to take out and raised his eyebrows. "You need a mirror...?"

He weighed the pros and cons, then put on as dirty a smile as he could, tilting his knee so his legs spread. "Exploration. Since I'm apparently stuck like this for awhile."

Gerard dropped the mirror like it was going to bite him. "Um."

And Frank, who had trouble letting a joke go in the best of circumstances, said, "It's for looking, man, not sticking it in there. Relax."

"You're - you." Gerard pointed a finger at him, frowning. "Asshole."

"No, the other one," Frank said, and cackled, ducking Gerard's half-hearted slap.

"So what you're saying is you're getting used to it," Gerard said finally, his blush slowly going down.

"As much as a person could, I guess." He shrugged. "Jamia said amputees get used to it, and it's way worse for them."

Gerard nodded slowly. "Um. Have you - " He waved at the box of tampons (Frank still would've preferred pads, but on tour that was like asking for a climate controlled tent to be set up ten minutes after they parked the buses: it wouldn't work) sitting precariously on a library book. "You know?"

Frank shook his head. "Any day, apparently."

"Right. Good luck." He rocked back on his heels, looking at the floor. "...and I do hope you change back soon, you know. It sucks."

"I kind of wish everyone would quit saying that, even if it does." Frank moved a strap on his bra uncomfortably; Gerard looked kind of like a kicked puppy. "But thanks."

Gerard nodded, hunching down so he could sit on Bob's bunk. "Fuckin' headlining."

"It's a little terrifying," Frank said, and kicked out, shoving Gerard horizontal so he could climb in and cuddle. "We're going to get made fun of for this, aren't we?"

"Probably. Calling you a girl would be insensitive, though."

It was good enough for Frank.

||

The first few shows were easy. He arranged his own sponge baths, kept covered up, and kept his head down.

The next few shows should've been just as simple, but...it grated on him. He hadn't stayed this clothed pretty much since he started touring, and people were noticing. Add that to the kind of constant vigilance that came with hoping to god people didn't notice he had tits, and he was pretty on edge. His period, of course, came two fucking shows after he freaked himself out by almost forgetting to put on a hoodie before he went to hang with the guys, so he had to put up with bladder jokes while he ran to the bathroom twice as much as he used to, hide his tits, and keep performing like nothing was wrong.

Midway through the tour, he was back to waking up every morning, hoping to God he'd be changed back. Feeling the same body against the bed wasn't jarring like it had been two months beforehand, but it was discouraging as hell. Not like Japan - nothing like Japan, thank god, he'd take a leaf from Gerard's book and go hang himself from the nearest tree - but just tiring in a way that meant he kept getting colds and snapping at anyone who looked at him funny.

He hadn't heard of the shitty local punk band that was playing at the local dive the night they hit Boston; it didn't matter. They were playing the next day, which meant a night of hanging with the guys and keeping anyone from touching him.

Fuck it. "I'm going out," he announced the second they parked the bus, standing.

"...it's hotel night," Mikey said.

"Yeah. Who am I rooming with?"

Gerard held up a hand; Frank tossed him his backpack. "Stick this on the bed you don't want, man. I'll see you later."

"Frank?"

Ray looked honestly worried. Frank stopped with his hand on the door. "I'll be fine," he said. "It's a show full of hardcore snobs and the room'll be dark, no one's going to recognize me."

"You're sure about that," Bob said flatly.

"I don't need a fucking babysitter, Bryar." He said it too loud; now Mikey was chewing his lip, which from Mikey was a pretty big reaction. "Just...I'll be okay." He looked at each of them in turn, trying to get them to believe it. "You can kick my ass if I'm not."

None of them answered. He wound up looking at Gerard questioningly, because the only real chain of command they had was that Gerard called the shots. He looked pretty thoroughly freaked out, but he nodded, the hand not holding Frank's bag twitching in a half-wave.

He bolted.

Jogging probably wasn't smart, but he did it anyway, keeping up for almost two blocks before he slowed to a walk. He had some time before the show, and arriving exhausted wouldn't do jack shit.

By the time he got to the door and paid the lurking guy who was hopefully a club employee and not just a creepy, muscley dude, the band was already onstage, drunkenly warming up. He could feel his whole body tensing with excitement as he walked towards the pit.

Someone knocked into him and he was pushed forward, tits pressing against the guy in front of him's back. Even if he'd been a guy he wouldn't have wanted to start a fight, and it'd be twice as ugly if he was a girl: he ducked out of the way, slipping under someone's arm and smiling, trying to play himself off as a punk kid who wouldn't know any better.

It worked. He mentally fistpumped and turned back towards the stage, just in time for the frontman to grab the mic and slur, "So...yeah. Let's get fucked up."

The band launched into their first song, and the pit exploded with overenthusiastic moshing and drunken howls. Frank threw himself into it, knocking bodies with the guys around him, ignoring the glances and the few gropes in favor of screaming back at the singer. He almost went down once, hauled himself back up and kicked wildly, throwing his arms up just in time to catch a crowdsurfer.

Two elbows to the face and one almost-broken finger later, the show was over. Thrumming excitement was pure adrenalin; no one fucking knew him here, not the shitty band or the assholes in the pit or anyone. He left the bar covered in other people's sweat, went back to the hotel and knocked on the door, still grinning. He felt like he should be vibrating in place, or somehow glowing, something to express the sheer release that kind of show brought. He felt -

Gerard opened the door, blinking at him, then wrinkling his nose. "Hey."

Well, okay. He also felt filthy, and probably looked nasty, too. "You've got no fucking room to talk," Frank said, and made a beeline for the shower.

Ten minutes later, he headed out and crawled under the covers. Naked sleeping was something he was just getting used to again; Gerard, he reasoned, was pretty much going to have to deal with it.

Gerard's method of dealing apparently depended on staring blankly at the ceiling. "I'm under the covers, genius," Frank said, wiggling a little. He felt good - warm, more comfortable than he'd been pretty much since waking up with this body. "Stop being a lady."

"That's kind of self-hating, don't you think?" Gerard said, but he rolled over, obviously making himself comfortable.

"I'm not a lady." It weirded him out sometimes, how smooth his thighs were. It wasn't new; they'd been like that when he was a guy, too. It was just...weird. He kept running a finger over his skin, wiggling. "So it's okay. And you know I don't mean it anyway."

"Maybe." Gerard yawned, mouth going wide enough for his jaw to crack. "Fuck. I know beds are made for sleeping, but hotel nights, man, I feel like we should be awake to enjoy them."

"You could watch porn," Frank said, skipping fingers over his cunt. He'd done the whole mirror thing already, but this was a little different; less clinical, more just poking around.

"I wouldn't want to give you penis envy." Another rustle, and - "...you can do that in the bathroom, you know."

"Huh?"

Gerard nodded pointedly at the moving lump in the sheets that was Frank's hand.

"Oh," Frank said, and stopped flicking the folds of skin. "I wasn't, sorry. Just poking, you know?"

"Uh-huh," Gerard said. He rolled over again. "Goodnight."

It made Frank smile, the way most things involved Gerard being earnest and bordering on sweet did. "Goodnight."

He closed his eyes, but he already knew he was way too keyed up to actually sleep. He lay on his side, but that just made him feel weirdly squished, so he rolled onto his stomach - but he felt too hot like that, so he wound up on his back again, knees loosely gapping. He wouldn't fall asleep like that, but his legs were stretching a bit, and it was comfortable. He rested a hand on his stomach, eyes drooping shut.

Thinking about the show again made him restless, but that wasn't quite enough to stop him. He twitched a little, muscle memory and euphoria, wiggling and rubbing a hand over his hip, tapping the hipbone. His body wasn't that different, really, but he was almost getting reacquainted with it. Hey there, he thought, poking the bit of fat spilling off his hips.

He'd feel a little like a lunatic later, remembering, but that didn't change the fact that he didn't really notice sliding his hands down to his pussy (cunt, he was getting used to calling it; the word sounded as weird in his mouth as it had in Jamia's, but he liked it) and rubbing two fingers over himself until the feeling made his leg jerk.

It felt like a muscle reflex, a little - or it would have if getting his knee hit by a rubber hammer normally made him pop a boner. He moved a thumb down to his clit and stroked again, and...yeah, definitely not a reflex.

He knew what girls getting turned on looked and felt like, but somehow, it felt bizarre from this angle anyway. He could feel his clit poking out at the same time he was getting wetter, running his fingers over himself, pressing the tips of his fingers against his opening but not quite going in, not yet.

On impulse, he reached up and brushed two fingers over his nipples. It didn't do much, and he sighed a little in disappointment and moved his hand back down.

But in the process, his hand caught the sheet and tugged it a little, fabric sliding over his nipples. And that fucking killed. He pressed the heel of his hand against his clit and closed his eyes.

Like being tickled, then. Okay. He kept moving against the sheet a little, rubbing his clit and feeling himself get wetter, biting his lip and fighting the urge to slide a finger in, fuck himself even a little. He twisted his hand so he could rub his clit faster, wiggling against the sheets, until he was sweaty and oversensitized, so close to coming it almost hurt.

Then, when he was at the old, familiar point where he'd do any number of stupid things to get off, he let out his breath slowly and slid a single finger inside himself.

He wasn't expecting to moan involuntarily. He was far enough gone that he didn't even realize why it mattered until Gerard said, "Frank, what the fuck?"

And - shit. Shit. Forgetting about Gerard was fucking stupid, Frank had no idea why he had. "Sorry," he said, too fucking obviously breathless. He pulled his hand away, fingers wet, cunt almost aching. Christ, it was get off or explode now, why the hell had he been such a dumbass. "I, um."

"Bathroom, dude. Seriously."

Gerard's voice was tight, but he didn't sound embarrassed, not completely. Frank bolted anyway: figuring out the hows and whys of Gerard's tone was very much for another time.

There was no good place to rub one out in the bathroom, so he settled for kneeling on the floor, sitting back so he was leaning against the bathroom door and moving a hand back down to his cunt. He'd lost a little bit of the urgency, but he was plenty wet enough for his finger to slide in easily still.

He crooked it as best as he could from this angle, thrusting, eyes sliding shut. The burn of his muscles shouldn't have been good like this, but it was; he tilted his thigh out and rubbed his thumb over his clit again, the pad and the knuckle and the nail, just enough to catch and make him gasp.

Adding another finger and thrusting hard didn't feel anywhere near as intense as playing with his clit did, but it felt necessary, and he thrust his hips and let his head fall back against the door as he came hard, cunt clenching around his fingers.

"Frank?" Gerard called out.

Frank gritted his teeth, forcing his hand not to move. He could probably go again, but...no. It was already going to be awkward enough tonight, tomorrow, and probably the next day, too; making it worse would just be stupid. "Fine," he said, and stood awkwardly, rinsing his hand off.

It didn't occur to him that he was naked until he turned off the bathroom light and walked into the room. Gerard had the nightstand light on.

"Oh! Shit. Sorry." Gerard moved his hand over to the switch, but he didn't turn it off.

"...your pajamas have rocket ships on them," Frank said finally. He walked over to his bed and got in, trying to ignore the feeling of his thighs sliding together, resolutely not thinking about how he must have looked to Gerard.

"My pajamas are awesome," Gerard said, and finally - fucking finally - hit the lights.

"I'm going to sleep for real now," Frank said. His side was still uncomfortable, but he rolled over anyway, facing away from Gerard.

Gerard didn't say goodnight that time, which made sense, except for how Frank kind of would have liked to hear it.

||

They didn't talk about it the next morning, which was nice; Frank was as one hundred percent in support of avoiding any and all talk about being caught in the act as he ever had been, and Gerard was doing his chronically shy basement dweller thing again. He was hoping they'd just conveniently forget about it, and after most of the day going by with no one saying anything, he half thought they had.

Then Mikey walked up to him backstage and said, "I'm not sure which is worse, hearing a detailed story about my best friend taking his vagina for a spin, or hearing it from my brother."

"It was a learning experience - ow," he said when Mikey pinched him. "Jesus, calm down."

"Then stop being an asshole," Mikey said. "Gerard was...oh."

Frank blinked. "What?"

Mikey just shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "Buy a vibrator and learn to use the shower or something, okay?"

"You must have the world's shittiest sex drive," Frank said. Mikey spluttered, but he just grinned and jumped onstage.

||

The East Coast legs of tours were always easier, just because the cities were two or three hours away instead of six or seven, or a whole day's drive. That didn't mean any of them really enjoyed it, though. Frank wound up dozing off as often as not.

An hour outside of Philadelphia, he woke up from a nap to see Gerard sitting on the floor a few feet away, sketching.

"You're going to catch something just from sitting on it," he mumbled, stretching.

Gerard jumped, angling the sketchbook away from Frank. "What?"

"What're you drawing?" Frank said instead of answering.

"Nothing," Gerard said. "You should go back to sleep."

"Screw you, Mary Poppins." He held out a hand, looking at Gerard expectantly.

He'd almost never seen Gerard this filled with dread. It was almost enough to make him relent - or, okay, no, it just made him more curious. He'd taken a stab at shame, anyway. "Show me."

Gerard sighed and handed it over. Frank flipped a few pages back and inspected the drawings. Cute little cartoons, okay. Stick figures of the band, cool. He turned the page.

"I just got really bored, it's probably not very good," Gerard said quickly.

"It's okay." He looked at the girl in the picture, snorting at the lazy scribbles of non-drawn tattoos on her arms, taking a second to look at the way the shadows played over her legs. "Who is it?"

Gerard didn't say anything. He flipped to the next page: another sketch of the girl, this time with an arm angling down, but her face still not showing. "Gerard?"

"It's, um." He looked completely humiliated, which Frank didn't get at all. He wasn't Picasso or whatever, it wasn't like he had taste, but they didn't seem that bad.

"It's you," Gerard mumbled.

"...the last five minutes make more sense now," Frank said finally. Gerard didn't look up.

He looked back down at the page. Tattoos, pretty hefty muscles for a girl: he could see it. The tits had thrown him off a little, which was so completely stupid he was smacking himself mentally.

"I know it's weird," Gerard said. "But you were right in front of me, and honestly, you make a good subject when you're asleep. I'm sorry."

Frank waved a hand, still looking down at the drawings. "You don't have to be sorry," he said absently. "They're nice, I like them."

"I drew your tits, though."

And hey - suck it up and deal, right? "I have tits," Frank said, passing the sketchbook back. "I have for awhile. Odds are, I'm going to keep having them for awhile."

"Still - "

"They're drawings of me and I say they're okay, so cut it out with the guilt complex." He reached down and cupped a breast, jiggling it a little. "And honestly, I'm getting more comfortable with it every day. Not that I want to keep it, but it's not that bad a body to have, you know?"

Silence.

"The not answering thing is getting old," he said, and looked up.

He groaned as soon as he did. Despite being on a bus, Gerard had run away - into the back lounge, if the thumps could be relied on.

"Moron," he muttered, settling back and closing his eyes. Odds were he wouldn't sleep again, but there wasn't anything better to do anyway.

||

The kicker of it was, he was expecting Baltimore to be easy.

It was the last show of what Brian told them had been a wildly successful tour. Frank had so far managed to avoid letting anyone but the band see his incriminating parts, and things between him and Gerard had relaxed enough that he didn't think twice about them rooming together again.

So yeah, Baltimore was supposed to be a fucking cakewalk. It made sense, then, that it was an unqualified disaster.

They hadn't done much of anything physical lately; Frank flung himself around the stage, but he didn't touch the others half as much as he had. It wasn't about the fact that he was a girl as much as it was about the fact that his body had felt emphatically like not-his for long enough that he got used to not touching people.

But, hell, it was the last day of the tour and he'd finally learned how to balance tits and a guitar strap in a way that didn't give him a rash. If that wasn't cause for celebration, he thought, dropping to his knees in front of Mikey and playing for all he was worth, what was?

Mikey barely reacted. It was Mikey-weird not to, but he'd been a little bit worse than usual. Frank shoved the thought out of his head and bounded across the stage, stopping to grin at Ray before rubbing against Gerard.

He could feel Gerard's hard-on, which wasn't unusual at all; the way Gerard missed a beat and stumbled back, though, was. He kept singing, but he was glaring at Frank, backing away until he was against Ray's side and staying there.

Frank gritted his teeth. There was nothing he could do here, it was onstage, they were playing a show, and performing was the most important thing. So he whirled around and spat on the crowd before leaping out to crowdsurf.

Hands. Hands all fucking over, and he realized it too late. No one notice, he half-prayed, playing as best as he could, no one fucking notice, until they delivered him back to the stage and he ran over to look up at Bob.

Bob was glaring but it was comfortable anyway, with his back to the crowd and Gerard. He stayed there during Gerard's entire rambling speech, just kept looking up at Bob until Ray started playing the first bits of Prison.

He didn't even look at Gerard after the show. The tech took his guitar and he headed straight for the bus, climbing into his bunk and lying there stiffly. He wasn't tired in the slightest - he wanted to go out, get hammered, and get into a fight, but that wasn't an option. Never was, anymore. He could probably take the same kind of guys he'd been able to before, but getting beat up was too risky.

"Fuck," he said quietly.

"Accurate," Bob said from behind him.

He kept staring at the wall. "I get it, okay? You don't have to shove a drumstick up my ass, or whatever."

Bob didn't answer. Frank could tell from the sounds that he was lying down in his own bunk, - and Christ, how much time had he spent with this band, anyway, if he could picture Bob getting ready for bed just by the few rustles he made? Too much fucking time. Not too much to be happy, but too much to risk it like he had tonight.

On impulse, he rolled over and launched himself into Bob's bed, clinging as best as he could. For a second he thought Bob would try to push him out, but he just sighed and rearranged them so he could hug Frank.

"What if it's permanent?" he mumbled into Bob's shoulder. "Seriously, what if I fucking -" He breathed harshly. "What if I don't go back?"

"Ever thought about it before?"

Frank pulled back so he could glare. "Of course I fucking have."

It didn't move Bob, of course. "What do you think about it, then?"

No one else would have had the guts to make him question it out loud like this. He probably should've considered that before climbing into Bob's bunk.

"Frank."

"I'm thinking, shut up." He bit his lip hard. "Jamia says I'll get used to it."

"Callous of her."

"Not really," he said defensively. "She's right. People get used to way worse things than this."

"Then get used to it." Bob tapped his back a little, nodding down at his tits. "You act like they're gonna bite you. Which is valid, for the first month or so, but Frank, you're going to go nuts like this."

It was a good point, but Frank wasn't in the mood to concede a damn thing. "How do you know? I could be getting off every night. And every morning. I could be a masturbation fiend."

"Except you're the loudest person on the bus."

"Fuck you, I'm - okay. Yeah." He shook his head. "It was too weird. You have no idea how weird it was."

"Okay. What about now?"

Now he completely failed at dealing with being horny around his bandmates. "I'm trying," he said finally.

He wasn't really surprised when Bob hugged him, because Bob being easy when it came to comforting his bandmates was a way worse kept secret than Frank's somewhat new tits. "You can sleep here, if you want," Bob said.

"Screw you, Bryar, like I need an invitation." He crawled over Bob, settling himself against the wall. Bob pressed back obligingly; it was suffocating, a little, but it was dark and he knew Bob would break him if he tried to wiggle, so there was nothing left to do but close his eyes and go to sleep.

||

Reports and reviews of the tour were staring to come out in force and Frank was just beginning to get worried that rumors would leak too when Brian called to tell them the Paramour was booked and they'd be flying out.

"...shit," Frank said, staring up at the house.

Mikey pushed his glasses up on his nose. "So like. If we all get murdered, do you think they'll find the bodies?"

"Ghosts don't eat human flesh," Gerard said, and opened the front door.

Frank couldn't fight the feeling that they should be going through a side entrance. He didn't even feel intimidated, really, just freaked the fuck out. His skin crawled when he set foot inside.

"At least it's atmospheric?" Bob said, sounding doubtful.

Mikey shivered.

||

Things went downhill so fast that if Frank had had the presence of mind to think about it, he would have been amazed. Ray and Gerard were both miserable in the way that only two people completely failing to create anything of worth could be, and Mikey...

Frank had nightmares about Mikey. Mikey kept getting drunk and stumbling through the hallways, sleeping on Gerard's floor, whispering creepy shit into the other's ears. Mikey had been the one who rolled his eyes and disclaimed everything in monotone outside this house, but inside it, he was the one who talked about the ghosts like he thought they were real.

It took guts to walk around the house at all, much less at night, and normally Frank didn't even bother. But Mikey hadn't come out of his room at all today, and Ray and Gerard had gotten into a shouting match. Everything was falling apart, and Mikey was getting the worst of it.

He was already halfway crazy when he got to Mikey's room; he'd heard strange noises, walked through cold spots, the whole nine yards. But he wasn't crazy enough to hallucinate Mikey's door being locked or Gerard yelling down the hall.

Yelling for help. He took off running without really thinking about it, turning corners and climbing stairs until he came to a dead end.

He blinked and turned. It couldn't possibly be a real dead end, there had to be something -

The distant hall light caught on a doorknob he'd missed before. If he couldn't blame the house for Mikey's door being locked, he could at least blame it for the paranoia that made him not even think twice before he barreled into the room.

It was empty, dark, and cold everywhere. He closed his eyes, feeling compelled to move even as he was too terrified to do much of anything.

Little girl. He could feel it right here, the tits and the cunt and everything that had changed, and it made him feel stupidly small and weak. Like it mattered – fucking house, he knew it didn't matter, except he fell to his knees, shivering, and all of a sudden it did.

Mikey wouldn't have talked to him. Hell, none of them would have. He'd have been a slut, a whore. Pencey never would've formed. He was stuck with tits and all the success a dick had gotten him. It was wrong, he was wrong, he was -

Cold.

"Fuck off," he whispered, and passed out.

||

When he came to the room was perfectly normal. The lights were also on, which was the creepiest part of it – fake comfort from a fucking haunted room. He left the second he could stand, debating searching for Gerard before he went back to his own room, locking the door and sleeping.

He dreamed about Gerard sneering at him like he never had in reality and woke up half believing he was drowning in the house itself. Weak little girl, he thought as he woke up - which, fuck whoever or whatever was sending those thoughts through his head, but he couldn't make himself ignore them, not completely.

Two days later, they were all sitting in the practice room when Mikey finally came out of his room.

"Jesus, Mikey," Gerard said, all but leaping up and going over to him, "we thought you -"

But Mikey flinched away. His eyes were sunken, face pale. "I think I need to leave," he said dully.

None of them sighed; hell, none of them so much as moved. But Frank swore he heard an exhalation anyway.

It wasn't anywhere close to the weirdest thing that had happened lately, assuming the house was listening.

||

It took getting out of bed, walking down to the pool, and almost tripping over Gerard for Frank to realize why he'd had the impulse in the first place.

"I could drown myself," Gerard said, kicking the water. "This fucking house - something would hold me down."

Frank sat down uncomfortably. "You'd make Ray cry. That's like a one-way ticket to hell."

Gerard shook his head, not even smiling. "I'm a shitty fucking brother."

"You're not," Frank said immediately. "You're not. Or if you are, I'm a shitty fucking friend."

They'd been in the house long enough that each others' actions had stopped making sense, motivations sliding from their own personalities to whatever the fuck was haunting them. Frank was still surprised when Gerard turned and kissed him.

"...no," he said a second later, leaning away.

Gerard just shrugged and went back to staring at the pool.

||

Leaving the house shouldn't have felt like running away. They'd written the album, Mikey was getting better to the point where he could come into the house for hours at a time, they were fucking done.

But all of them looked over their shoulders as they left anyway.

"I think it wants to keep us," Gerard said, but no amount of sarcasm in his voice could make any of them not shudder and take it twice as seriously as they should have.

Frank hoisted his bag and spent the entire taxi ride to the airport studiously not looking at Gerard. They hadn't discussed the temporary insanity by the pool, and Frank didn't want to; weepy sex wasn't his style even if he was into his bandmates fucking the female body he was stuck in.

But unfortunately, being greeted by Mikey combined with the depression being at the house had caused finally starting to lift meant both he and Gerard flung themselves on Mikey at the same time.

"I - shit. Sorry," Gerard said, backing off. He was blushing, twice as embarrassed as he'd been when Frank had turned him down at the pool; that fucking house, Frank thought yet again, and stepped away.

"He's your brother, man," he said, making the mistake of looking at Mikey. He was arching an eyebrow, the look twice as effective now that he'd gotten Lasik'd. There was no way either of them was going to escape without being interrogated.

Gerard took a step forward anyway, going back to hugging Mikey. Frank faked interest in the cloth tree next to them, determinedly ignoring the rest of the band.

"So, seriously," Mikey said quietly on the plane, "what the hell was that?"

"We're just kind of." Frank couldn't actually make the words come out, so he shook his head, saying instead: "It was that fucking house."

"Okay," Mikey said. "But what exactly did that fucking house do to you?"

"Nothing," Frank said. "Tell me about your girlfriend."

Mikey looked about as convinced as if Frank had pitched his idea for turning the Paramour into a daycare, but he waxed romantic about Alicia anyway.

||

Recording and promoting sucked up enough time and energy that Frank was barely able to think about his continuing vagina-having problem, much less the shit with Gerard, until they were gearing up to tour again.

Ray's voicemail said they needed to talk interview logistics, so Frank wasn't really expecting to see Gerard napping half on a duffel, half in Ray's lap when he showed up at the apartment Ray was getting ready to leave.

"What," he said, but Ray shook his head and put a finger to his mouth.

It took him an impressively short amount of time to get out from under Gerard without Gerard so much as stirring. The magic of practice, Frank thought as Ray led him into the kitchen.

"You're still a girl," Ray said.

Frank looked down at his tits, then back up at Ray. "Really," he said flatly. "I hadn't noticed."

"I just -" Ray sighed. "Brian asked me to talk to you."

"About?"

"If you don't change back," Ray began, but Frank shook his head hard.

"Then I'll just fucking wear hoodies outside for the rest of my natural life," he snapped. "If I can do it jamming with Leathermouth, I can do it signing autographs."

"Frank, think this through. Sooner or later -"

"Sooner or later nothing." Frank clenched his hands in fists, willing himself not to lash out. "I'm handling it, okay? I can even rub one out without freaking myself out now. I'm the brave fucking little toaster of sex change, now fuck off."

"...Brian's been hearing rumors," Ray said in a rush.

As often as Frank got sick, he wasn't expecting to actually feel nauseous, not like this. "Rumors?"

Ray nodded. "About you and - you can guess, right?"

"I don't want to," he said, but they both knew what answer that was.

"Apparently someone got some pictures of you crowdsurfing. Nothing conclusive, but people are already starting to talk."

"They've seen me topless," Frank said. "In shirts that -"

"There are rumors you had a sex change," Ray said. "Surgery, obviously. But there are even more rumors that you were a girl all along."

"I didn't have these," Frank said, poking his tits hard.

Ray shrugged. "So you got implants," he said. "The point is, there's two rumors circulating and more and more people believing them. If you don't change back soon, Brian thinks we should go public."

"Saying what? That I'm a fucking - what the fuck do you want me to say?"

Ray swallowed hard before saying, "Brian's first call was to Craig. The label already knew, did you know? They've had the pictures since before Paramour. They're okay with saying you were a girl and lying about it, but telling everyone you got a sex change is out of the question."

Frank didn't have to read more library books to understand exactly how shitty of a move that was on the label's part. "Brian hasn't talked to Gerard, has he."

"Seriously?"

Yeah, okay. Dumb question. Frank sat down in the kitchen's lone folding chair, thinking hard. He kept hoping - monthly anniversaries, and he had high fucking hopes for the one-year anniversary - but Brian had told him the longest one had lasted six months, and Frank had long since passed that mark.

"What if I change back?"

There was a long silence before Ray said, "Brian doesn't think you will."

"Fuck you," Frank said immediately, "Fuck both of you, fuck - fuck."

Ray didn't say anything. He looked ashamed, which was good, because it made Frank want to punch his stupid fucking face a little less. Only a little, but still, better than nothing.

"Fine," he said finally. "Tell Brian to do his thing. Send out a press release or whatever - by the way, our guitarist is just a really butch girl."

"I'm sorry," Ray said quietly, and left him alone.

Mikey didn't seem surprised when Frank crashed at his place that night, rubbing his back while Frank pressed his face into the couch pillows and thought hard about everything that wasn't the band.

dont fucking tell me about anything anyone says, he texted to Brian right before he went to sleep.

||

Of course, Brian didn't have to tell him. The flood of emails and phone calls did the job just fine.

Gerard was livid. "You might change back still," he said. "And the fucking label - what the fuck. If you had gotten a sex change then they wouldn't even fucking let you say it? We should have just told them you did, the fucking dicks, let them deal with their transphobia and their fucking -"

"Calm down, Gerard," Frank said dully. They were an hour outside Manchester and he'd just gotten an email from Jamia detailing the S//C related fallout; on the bright side, it was cold enough that wearing the hoodie he'd gotten way too used to wasn't even going to be stuffy. "It's done."

"I'm going to give an interview. Screw them, they can't stop me from telling fucking Rolling Stone I think they're full of shit. And why does it even matter if you were a girl all along? Fuck it, if I was a girl I might not tell anyone either. They're fucking hypocrites, sexist fucking - "

"Calm down, Gerard," Mikey said, and pinched him hard.

Frank appreciated the intervention in kind of the same way he appreciated the label being considerate enough to have Ray tell him before they completely fucked up his standing with the band's fans. He didn't say anything, just pulled his hood up and waited for them to reach the venue.

||

Sound check was torture: the techs kept staring, to the point where Frank just took off his hoodie and let them look, even though the venue's heating was shitty and it gave him goosebumps. Everyone was giving him concerned looks, and his mom kept texting him talking about class-action lawsuits, which was nice of her except for how the truth was Frank had sex-changed magically, and that wasn't something you could really tell the Supreme Court.

The show made sound check look like a walk in the park, though. He went ahead and wore a normal t-shirt, and it killed him to see the number of people flipping him off, yelling that he was a bitch or a whore or what the fuck ever. He'd have happily kicked all their faces in - it wasn't even a moral issue, since he was just as much a chick as they were.

But the person he couldn't beat up was Gerard, who stopped before Thank You For the Venom and said, "This song's about not being what they want you to be. Stop Frank after the show and ask hi - her about it, I'm sure she'll be able to explain it to you motherfuckers."

He played the song as viciously as he knew how and tried to tell himself that Gerard meant well.

||

He didn't sign afterwards; fuck anyone who expected him to, he thought, even as the guilt set in. The others hung out in the lounge for awhile, doing the tour talk thing - cities, the opening band, how gross port-a-potties were - but Frank made a beeline for his bed.

Explaining it, if the others had caught him and made him, would have been impossible. He wasn't happy and the adrenalin rush was the nasty kind that was unique to a bad crowd.

But he got himself off anyway, fucking his hand hard, thinking of every single person who'd sneered at him and chanting fuck you, fuck you, fuck you in his mind.

He didn't even bother getting up to wash his hands; falling asleep smelly and sweaty felt, stupidly, like another small bit of defiance.

||

"So I'm a girl now," he said slowly a few days later.

Gerard glared at him. The interviewer was fifteen minutes late and they were both in shitty moods; Frank knew he wasn't helping. "You're not a girl."

"Maybe I don't think I am, but everyone else does." He shrugged. "If the guy ever shows up he's going to talk to me like I'm a girl."

"I took gender studies, Frank," Gerard said, flicking ash off his cigarette almost hilariously violently. "You think I don't know?"

He wasn't sure Gerard did. Even he hadn't, not until he'd gotten up in the middle of the night and realized going for a late-night walk had a whole new facet of danger to it now. But this wasn't the time or the place, and he knew it. "Well, okay. You see my point, then."

"Yeah, I'm just not sure I - oh, hi!"

Gerard might be able to smile at the guy jogging up to them, but Frank's expression was more or less stuck in sullen. "You're really late."

"Sorry, an appointment ran long." He stuck his hand out. "I'm Mark."

Gerard and Frank both stood up to shake it. Mark only stared at her chest for a few seconds, which was gratifying, but Gerard stopped smiling anyway.

But weirdly, the questions were boring. When'd you form the band, what's the concept for the album, blah blah fucking blah until Frank was twitching in his seat and looking around for something more entertaining than Mark's bland face and Gerard's answers, which while as smart as ever, were both pretty cookie-cutter and kind of dampened by Gerard snippy.

"He wasn't that bad," Frank said after Mark had thanked them and left.

"Just wait until the article's published," was all Gerard would say.

||

The show the next night was almost uneventful. Gerard didn't say anything about Frank or feminism, and Frank more successfully ignore the bitching and concentrated on the fans who were still screaming. But then Prison came up, and -

All he fucking did was kneel. That was all, and Gerard should've been used to it by know. He'd done it before. Not with a soaked white shirt and boobs under it, but still.

Frank doubted anyone in the crowd knew his reaction, which Frank could give Gerard credit for. But Gerard's mission was apparently to shut him down completely: he turned and walked away, leaving Frank kneeling and feeling like a tool.

He gave up after that. The fuck ever, his job was to play his instrument.

The idea of signing autographs afterwards was about as appealing as the thought of being drawn and quartered, but he forced himself out to the fence anyway.

"Thanks," the first girl said; "I really like your band," the second one said; "You're seriously a chick?" the first guy he signed for said.

Frank took what he thought was an impressively self-controlled moment to think about cause and effect and consequences before saying, "No, I used to be a dude but I woke up a girl one day. By magic." He smiled, and Worm glared the guy out of existence.

"I think it's kind of cool," one of the last girls said. She was the kind of tall that could only be awkward, a little hefty and very obviously unsure of herself. "Why'd you hide it, though?"

Frank hated, fucking hated, having how much of a douche he wasn't thrown in his face like that. Because in the end he bought into Gerard's whole philosophy, and if he could be the guy fixing all those kids' lives, he pretty much thought he would be.

"Everyone's got to grow up sometime, right?" he said, shrugging. "Hiding was easier. This is better."

The girl smiled and set her shoulders a little straighter. "Thanks," she said, and left, leaving Frank to sign the last few scraps of paper and album sleeves. Worm actually physically patted his back in approval before doing his gruff bodyguard get-back-on-the-bus routine.

Frank didn't find Gerard on the bus, though. He wasn't even in any of the cupboards; experience made Frank check them twice.

It finally occurred to him to change buses, so he did, searching just as carefully. Gerard was, of course, sitting in the studio in the very back, smoking like a chimney.

"Ray's going to kill you," Frank said.

"I'll tell him you did it." He stubbed the cigarette out, patting himself down. "Hey, do you -"

"Only if we go outside."

He didn't expect Gerard to follow him out; he wasn't that addicted, and Frank knew he was currently pretty low on the list of people Gerard wanted to spend time with. But Gerard leaned against the bus and looked at Frank expectantly.

Frank shrugged and handed a cigarette over, holding out his lighter. "We need to talk about the stage act," he said.

Gerard almost dropped his cigarette. "We do?"

"Hold still," Frank said, clicking the lighter. Gerard obeyed, and when Frank saw the telltale glow he let go and put the lighter back in his pocket. "You can't keep shutting me down like that."

Gerard took a drag, then another one, narrowing his eyes and blowing the smoke out like he thought he was in a fucking art house movie. Frank clenched his jaw. "Answer me."

"I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to say, Frank. You've gotten Brian's emails. Half our fans think we're fucking now, the other half are pissed that we weren't being transgressive, we were just getting off onstage. It's not an okay thing to do anymore."

And the kicker was that, yeah, Frank did know that shit. It just paled in comparison to the knowledge that for him, that kind of contact was pretty essential. "You know how crazy I get up there. You know it's not about sex or fucking with heteronormative standards, not always."

He couldn't read the expression on Gerard's face, which was completely ridiculous. He'd kicked Gerard in the balls before, for God's sake, he didn't expect tamer grinding than you'd find at a middle school dance to suddenly be an issue. "I don't want this to change," he said when Gerard didn't answer. "I don't know why you do."

Gerard was looking at him like Frank was a somewhat dim kindergartener. "It's not about whether or not I want it to change," he said. "It's about the fact that it has. People are saying all kinds of shit about us - and I'm the fucking asshole who buckled under label pressure. We should've just said you had a sex change." He shook his head hard, slumping back against the bus. "And they scream all kinds of bullshit at you, our fans, like every fucking thing I've been telling them doesn't matter now that they know you're a chick. What's that supposed to tell me? And you know grinding up against me's going to make that shit worse."

Which...yeah, okay, he couldn't actually argue any of that. He changed tact instead. "So what if they yell? Girls aren't allowed to need the same kind of release as guys? They're not allowed to get physical onstage? That's sexist bullshit, Gerard."

"That's not what I meant, it's not -"

"And you know it's sexist. I'm the same person, why the hell should I have to suffer because people are even more scared I'm getting off on it?"

Gerard had a pocket penlight he'd gotten from a cereal box a few years back; it had Tony the Tiger's face on it, and Frank was always a little mystified that he still carried it around. Now, though, he shone it directly in Frank's face.

It was a challenge. Frank looked back, as calm as he could make himself.

"I still don't think you're right," Gerard said, turning the flashlight off. "I mean, you've got a point, but..."

"It's my risk. You can't tell me it's not. I'm the one who's going to get yelled at. Also," he added quickly, "you're going to help me sign tomorrow."

Gerard blinked. "I am?"

Now that he'd thought of it, it seemed like ten different kinds of perfect. Frank nodded hard. "Fuck yeah, you are."

"Okay," Gerard said finally. "Fine."

"Excellent." Frank leaned forward, quickly to keep himself from talking himself out of it, and plastered himself against Gerard, head on his shoulder. "See, asshole? I'm still here."

Gerard hugged him back, but didn't relax in the slightest, so Frank let go after a few minutes and took a step back. "Tomorrow," he said.

"I really am sorry," Gerard said.

It was a shitty response even for him. "I know," Frank said, and went inside.

||

"Check it out," Mikey said the next day, waving Frank over to his computer.

Frank knelt next to the lawn chair Mikey had somehow finagled. "Webzine?"

Mikey rolled his eyes. "Gossip site. They're calling you fat."

"Fuck them," Frank said automatically, then frowned. "Wait."

"You're a girl now, remember? Oh, hey."

"Do I want to know?"

"They're talking about Pete," Mikey said, attention zeroed in on the website.

Frank knew how useless trying to hold his attention now would be. He patted Mikey's head and walked away.

Fat, he thought, jumping on Bob's back. Fuck them was he fat. "Hey," he said, looping an arm around Bob's neck when Bob swatted at him, "am I fat?"

Bob groaned. "You know that being a chick doesn't mean you actually have to be a chick, right?"

Kicking was awkward at this angle, but Frank did it anyway - and then did it again for good measure. "I wouldn't be asking if a gossip rag hadn't started, like, analyzing my fucking BMI just because I have boobs."

The nice thing about Bob was that he never got his panties in a twist when someone called him wrong. "Oh," he said. "I don't know. You're not a body-builder. Or, uh, Jessica Alba. What are you supposed to look like now?"

"Fuck if I know. My arms are too big to be Jessica Alba." He put his chin on the top of Bob's hair. "Maybe I should lift weights again. Like, regularly."

"...that won't make you look like Jessica Alba," Bob said finally.

"Nah," Frank said.

He wasn't completely sure, but he thought Bob might have been hugging his legs.

||

Group interviews fucking sucked.

"So," the girl said, "if you could date any member of the band, who would it be?"

Group interviews fucking sucked.

Frank struggled to come up with something to say. "I dunno," he finally said. "Who would you date?"

The interviewer laughed, loud and fake. She was really skinny and Frank couldn't help but meanly wonder often she'd been told to lose weight, even as Gerard and Ray started talking cheerfully about how they'd never been able to date pretty people in high school. It was nice of them, but it took another two questions before Frank could say anything that wouldn't get the label dumping them on their asses.

That night, he spat on the crowd and humped Gerard's leg and flipped off whoever was screaming 'whore' like he had Gerard's cock in his mouth right in front of them. That would make a show, he thought, and kicked over the mic stand.

It was a hell of a show. Frank said goodbye to the crowd by defiantly flipping the bird again, both hoping they got the message and knowing they wouldn't.

When they went backstage he whooped. "Fucking killed, man. We fucking killed."

"Try not to lick me in the middle of a solo," Ray said. He tolerated Frank jumping on his back, though.

"Okay," Frank said once things were more or less settled, "we're going. Come on." He grabbed Gerard's wrist and pulled him towards the door of the bus.

"What," Mikey said. Gerard and Frank both did the complicated eyebrow-wiggle/headshake combination that meant 'I'll explain later'. The downside of being in a band this close was it was kind of hard to develop private body language without everyone else picking up on it, too.

"Gerard?" Worm said when they got outside.

"I'm not drugged or anything," Gerard said.

Worm shrugged and followed them both out to the awning a bunch of fans were gathered under. They gravitated towards Gerard, of course, but after Gerard had signed they came over the Frank.

It was pretty much the same as last night: a few suspicious, a few disappointed, one or two actually glad. Frank smiled and thanked them and then looped his arm in Gerard's like he was Dorthy, leading him away.

"So," Gerard said, "what..."

"You saw, didn't you?"

When Gerard kept looking blank, Frank sighed. "It matters to a few of them. It sucks, but it's important at the same time, you know?"

"I know it's important. I just wish - Christ. It's so fucked up that I'd be more resentful of this than you are."

"I spent plenty of time hating it." He frowned, trying to think of a good way to say what was looping in his head. He gave up, saying instead, "But what am I going to do? I'm fucking stuck."

"Yeah," Gerard said. "Yeah. Okay."

They were a pair of dysfunctionals, but Frank knew better than to say it out loud. He followed Gerard onto the bus and hung with the guys, stubbornly refusing to count it as anything but a win.

||

The next week was one piece of shitty luck after another.

The interview Gerard had been wary about was published, and it was all about how Frank was an impatient bitch and never listened to Gerard and was probably going to leave the band, and also how Gerard had looked more feminine than he had. It was complete bullshit, which Frank would've been happy to tell anyone who asked him; the problem was, no one did.

Then, two days after the interview, Jamia called.

"What the fuck do you mean, they're backing out? They can't fucking do that!"

"They kind of can," Jamia said. She was keeping her tone completely normal, which Frank appreciated, because pity would make him flip his shit faster than anything. "It's just the scene, Frank. You know how it goes."

"It's never fucking gone this way for me before," Frank said. He kicked the tire of the bus hard, fighting the urge to yell. "They know how I am. Why should thinking I've always been a girl matter? It's fucking bullshit."

"That's how it is for girls." Jamia sounded apologetic, but only just barely. "You'll find another way, and we have Costa and -"

He gave up, letting himself yell. "Fuck how it is for girls, fuck Costa, and fuck the little bitches who think it fucking matters! I'm not a fucking girl, they know it!"

He realized his mistake too late. "You're right," Jamia said coldly, "you're not a fucking girl. If you were a fucking girl you wouldn't have talked them into forming a band in the first place. Cry on someone else's shoulder if your reason is that you're not really a girl."

She'd never actually hung up on him before, but she did right then, leaving Frank to stare at his phone display like it had answers.

"Leathermouth?" Bob said quietly.

Frank whirled around. "Christ, don't do that."

"Sorry," he said, but he didn't sound apologetic. Frank couldn't really blame him; his end of the conversation had been pretty douchey.

"I just...even if they think I'm a girl, they know me, they know I can front a band. So why?"

Bob shrugged and held out a carton of cigarettes. "The scene."

"That's what Jamia said." Frank shook his head, not taking a cigarette. "And you're okay with it?"

Cramming that much sarcasm into one look had to count as a talent. "Why do you think I'm in this band? Of fucking course I'm not okay with it."

"...I was a dick," he said, knuckling his forehead. "I just can't...Jesus. I love this band, but Leathermouth was mine."

"Kind of sucks that giving it up wasn't your choice," Bob said.

Leaning against Bob and feeling comforted sounded like an awesome, brainless solution to everything right now, but Frank had spent enough time leaning that the contrary part of him made him stand up straighter and ignore the implied sympathy. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. Keep going with Skeleton Crew, yeah, but - what? Start a fucking riot girl band? We could have Mikey sing, it'd be edgy."

"Or you could call Jamia and talk it out with her."

Duh. "Right," Frank said. He pulled out his phone and hit speed dial. Bob, being Bob, didn't move, even when Frank waved a hand at him.

"Don't bother apologizing," Jamia said in greeting, "just stop being such a girl about things."

"Funny," he said. "So what are we going to do?"

"Leathermouth was nice but not too marketable," Jamia said. "If you want to start up another band then go for it, but we can definitely concentrate our efforts in other areas. Clothing, for example."

He knew from experience that she was reading from notes now. "I'm so very much the empty-headed figurehead," Frank said.

Bob and Jamia snorted simultaneously. Creepy, Frank thought, and listened to Jamia talk about profit.

It was a relatively short conversation, if only because Frank pretty much trusted Jamia's judgment and was in no state to be making conjectures of his own. "Go for it," he said when she started to wind down. "I'll be the elbow grease as much as I can."

"Thanks," Jamia said. He thought she was going to hang up, but instead she sighed and added, "You'll find another band. Not everyone is a douche. Hell, for me, you're one of the not-douches."

"And now I'm a chick. That doesn't even count as karma, does it?"

Jamia snorted. "Not really. Just play your lameass heart out, okay? We'll figure it out."

"You're the best," he said, and ended the call.

"Does she think your heart will heal?" Bob asked. He didn't sound completely sarcastic.

"Eventually." Leathermouth, Frank thought deliberately, remembering the fun of recording the songs and screaming like an idiot. It hurt, so he did it again, forcing himself to get past the entitled asshole in him screaming about how unfair it was.

"Okay." Bob flicked his forehead. "Now go back to my bunk and get the polaroids off the wall."

"I got twenty pictures of you on the same day," Frank said, exaggerating the whine in his voice and opening the bus door. "That's a fucking achievement."

"Frank."

Bob looked like he was going to do his level best to break Frank, so Frank jumped into the bus and closed the door. Once he'd peeled off all the polaroids (and reattached them to Bob's favorite duffel bag), he went out to the lounge and sat in Mikey's lap.

"Leathermouth broke up because I'm a chick," he said.

"Holy shit. That sucks, man, I'm sorry."

"Yeah," he said, and stuck his nose in Mikey's ear.

It felt weirdly normal. The boobs, the lack of a dick, the teasing - well, not normal, but close enough that he could mostly ignore it in favor of clinging to Mikey when he tried to push Frank off. "You're so gross," Mikey said, but he sounded kind of relieved.

Which, okay. Frank liked to tell himself that Mikey was an unobservant airhead, and he totally was, but he wasn't unobservant enough to just not notice his friend not acting like himself post-involuntary sex change.

"I'm not okay. With it," he added quickly, because Christ. "But...yeah, whatever. I think I was half expecting it. And Jamia and Bob were mean to me till I stopped whining."

Mikey smiled up at him. "You know, I'm really proud of you for -"

"Shit, Mikey, who do you think you are? Gerard?" He tumbled off Mikey's lap. "No heartfelt conversations." For one, if they had that talk about Frank's band ending, he was pretty sure he'd cry like a girl. A baby. What the fuck ever.

"Okay, hang on," Mikey said. He fished around in his pocket for a second before finally handing Frank a red gumball. "Pretend it's your stupid band."

Frank rolled his eyes, but as he bit down hard, he kind of did.

||

He doubted Mikey meant going on a honeymoon to be a catalyst for anything other than him having a bunch of sex with his new wife, but it was anyway.

At first things were okay - not normal, but not really stressful, either. Frank liked Cortez, who had plenty of all kinds of porn and didn't mind the fact that Frank was a surprise female. But Cortez wasn't Mikey, and before Frank even really realized it, he was texting, emailing, and calling Mikey morning and night.

He was sitting in a mall arcade in Nashville, doing his level best to beat the pinball machine, when Gerard said, "So Alicia called me."

He jumped back - and, of course, ran right into Gerard. "Sorry," he said, turning around. "Mikey's not dead, right?"

Gerard, the freak, took a step back. "Mikey's healthy and Alicia's more sexually satisfied than I really wanted to know about, but she pretty much begged me to make you cut the contact down to maybe an email or a phone call a day."

Frank frowned. "Mikey promised me no woman would ever come between us."

"...seriously?"

"Well, no," he said, "but it sounded good. I'll try to rein it in."

Gerard smiled; Frank blinked at him. "Did you whiten your teeth or something?"

"Just last year, why?"

"Nothing," Frank said, looking away. Gerard's smile had always been distracting, so why it would be worse now, Frank wasn't sure. "So. Less talk so Mikey can have more sex?"

"Pretty much," Gerard said. "Alicia mentioned something about a strap-on."

"That's disgusting," Frank said.

"Well, it's a healthy expression of their sexual preferences."

"...it's disgusting."

"Pretty much, yep," Gerard said. "Hey, have you beaten it yet?"

Frank went along with the subject change, turning around to the pinball machine. "Nah," he said. "Pinball's for lamers anyway."

"I fucking love pinball, shut up."

He was expecting Gerard to push him out of the way, but instead he pressed against Frank, putting his arms around him to reach the controls. He had to crane his neck to look over his shoulder. "Seriously?"

"Oh." Gerard blinked and pulled an arm away, waiting until Frank had moved before saying, "Sorry."

"You're such a freak," he said, but he stood close to Gerard's side, watching him play.

After Gerard beat Frank's high score, they walked back to the bus together. Frank saw at least one person staring at them with the most obvious thoughts in the world in their heads, so he flipped them off.

"We're not dating," he said, flopping down on the grass next to the bus. "Seriously, why the fuck do people think we are?"

"I'm the frontman and you're the girl." Gerard shrugged. "Maybe you should just tell them you're a lesbian. It would be true, kind of."

"Whatever, I read the chapters on appropriative sexual identity. And I'd be lying anyway, I still like both."

Gerard raised his eyebrows. "Is that technically coming out?"

Frank flipped him the bird, too. "You've seen me suck cock."

"True." Gerard stuck his hands in his pockets, looking stupidly awkward.

"Sit down or something, Christ," Frank said.

"I'm actually going to make a run down to the comics store. I'll see you at soundcheck?"

"Ray wants us to get there a half hour early, we're going to eat cookies and have a band meeting. Hey, wait." He rolled to his feet. "Comics?"

"...it's a long walk?"

Frank narrowed his eyes. Gerard looked like the last thing he wanted Frank to do was come with him, which normally would be Frank's cue to back off, but Gerard was his band. When he acted weird, the rules were different. "Right, it'll be so hard for me to keep up with Gerard Way, Olympic athlete."

"Fine, fine, you can come."

"Not unless it's a sex toy shop - hey!"

Gerard punched him again. "No orgasm references. Or masturbatory references in general."

"That's abuse," Frank said, and took advantage of Gerard's arm to haul himself up with it. "I'm telling. Beating on the female and all."

Gerard actually looked concerned. "It's not -"

"I was kidding, dude." Frank shook his head. "You hit worse than my grandma. Let's just go to the store, okay?"

It turned out to only be a block away. The second they arrived, Gerard made a beeline for the back and Frank reached for his phone.

Except he wasn't allowed to text Mikey. He frowned, considering Jamia or maybe Brian - but neither of them really needed Frank's stupid Gerard-related texts. Okay.

"Hey, honey," the guy behind the counter said.

Frank turned to look over his shoulder. He hadn't heard the bell, but -

"You looking for some chick books?"

Right, the guy was talking to him. He gritted his teeth. "No."

"You sure? I've got all the girl power stuff, Supergirl, Batgirl -"

Frank blinked. He wasn't even all that pissed, but coming up with a response that wasn't mild to moderate violence was proving surprisingly challenging. "No."

"Sweetheart, you can't just walk into my store and not spend any money," the guy said.

Property damage would get him in trouble as much as a punch. "You're a sleaze," Frank said finally. "I'm here with a friend. Shut up or he won't buy anything."

It was mild to the extent of almost being embarrassing, but it worked: the guy looked disgusted and finally turned away.

Gerard wound up buying two used comics that cost ten cents each, plus tax. Frank stuck his tongue out at the guy, and then both his middle fingers.

"What was that about?" Gerard said once they'd left the store.

"You pick weird times to be perceptive. Comic book store skeeze, you know the type. How long do we have left?"

"Jesus, fucking asshole - an hour and a half."

"Food," Frank said, and made a beeline for the gas station.

Pop Tarts probably only counted as dinner with other guys in bands, but since they were the only people Frank ever talked to, he didn't feel too bad about buying two boxes. "Want one?"

Gerard shook his head. "I only like -"

"Strawberry, I know, fucked if I'm not going to change your mind someday." He chewed loudly, opening his mouth to show Gerard the bits until Gerard made a face and looked away.

||

Two more Pop-Tarts and the half of Bob's energy drink that didn't wind up in Frank's dirty underwear pile later, Frank was bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting for Gerard to stop talking about anchovies or whatever the fuck he was going on about so they could play.

He was on his second pair of jeans this tour; his first pair had finally given way in both the thighs and the ass. This pair was still stiff from newness and not years of sweat, and the knees weren't even worn all the way through yet. He picked at them while Gerard talked.

As soon as they started playing he exploded, doing everything he could think of plus a kick to Cortez's shins to let the energy out. It only marginally worked; he wound up grinding against Gerard and licking his neck, rolling on the stage wildly, all the shit people got on him for doing multiplied by however the fuck much caffeine had been in Bob's demon drink

Even if Mikey had been around to harass, he would have been smart enough to leave before Frank had a chance to start. Cortez was almost as good: he, Ray, and even Bob were making a beeline for the exit faster than Frank assumed had occurred to Gerard. So instead of bugging one of them, he wrapped his arms around Gerard's neck, jumping up and clutching Gerard's hips with his legs.

"Frank! What the fuck are you - oh, shit."

They went down like a bag of bricks. It would have been kind of hilarious if Gerard's head didn't crack hard against the floor. "Shit," Frank said, "shit shit shit, are you okay?"

"Glarngh," Gerard said.

It wasn't sexy at all, but somehow Frank wound up leaning down and kissing him anyway.

"...what," Gerard said when he leaned back.

"Yeah, I don't know." Frank leaned down again, but Gerard put a hand on his chest. Granted, it was splayed against his tits, but he was pretty sure it was meant to stop him. "What?"

"We - no," Gerard said.

He winced. Gerard might not have actually meant to throw his own words back at him- it wasn't like it was an original objection - but it still stung. "Why?"

"Because you said no." Gerard's chin was set, his nose wrinkled.

"Months ago," Frank said. He didn't even know why he was pushing the issue, really, except Gerard was being stubborn and it was fucking stupid. "Come on."

"Come on nothing." Gerard pushed at him ineffectively. "Let me up, Frank."

So Frank did, out of shock as much as anything else. "Gerard -"

He stood up and brushed his hands down his front, not looking at Frank. "It's too weird like this. It's not even -"

"If you say I'm not in the right body, I'll turn you inside out. Fucking literally," Frank snapped.

Gerard had the annoying habit of going from self-righteous to sad and kicked-puppy-ish in the blink of an eye. "Frank."

Two weeks ago his only thoughts of any kind of lip contact with Gerard had been almost exclusively performance-related. Now, though, he wanted to hump Gerard until they both got off like this, then go back to a cozier hotel room than the label would ever book for them and do it again.

It was completely ridiculous. He stood up, looking away from Gerard. "Let's just forget about it, okay?"

"Okay," Gerard said.

He sounded relieved and Frank wanted to punch him. He walked back to the bus instead.

||

Jamia had sent him text after text about S//C, the logistics of rearranging funding they'd planned for Leathermouth, how to get the word out about their artists, tons of shit he normally would've had enthusiastic ideas for and about. He closed his phone without answering any of the texts, shoving it in a duffel bag.

They were leaving at the asscrack of dawn and it was a stupid idea, an amazingly, overwhelmingly stupid idea, to stand up and walk out in search of the nearest bar. He did anyway, sitting down and ordering a beer with every intention of getting drunk and brooding.

The problem, of course, was that after a few minutes he got bored. Fine, he thought, and downed the beer.

"You want something stronger, honey?" the guy said.

"Fuck off," Frank said, and went out onto the shitty dance floor.

It really was shitty, with loud, tinny music playing and a rickety fence that looked like it belong in a fucking pasture penning everyone in. But right now Frank just needed human contact, the threat of that contact being unfriendly, anything to give him something to fucking do.

The first guy who grabbed his ass went away after a heel grinding on his instep. The second one grabbed his hip and moved in for his tit, though, so Frank jerked his elbow up and brought it smashing into the guy's nose.

"What the fuck!" he yelled, barely audible above the music. Frank shrugged and turned. "Don't do that."

"You crazy fucking bitch." He wiped his hand on his jeans, balling his fist up. "C'mere, then, let's do this."

Frank just leaped at him.

He'd learned enough about the body he was in to know what its strengths and weaknesses were. He didn't bother punching the guy; he just rolled, grabbed the guy's back, and hopped on. He went straight for the guy's eyes and dug his fingers in, clinging to his back and kicking had at his groin. When the guy howled he took his fingers out and got him in the best chokehold he could manage at this angle.

"You fucking bitch," the guy sputtered. "Fucking let me - "

"That's enough," a voice said from behind Frank.

The guy turned around; it was the bar's lone bouncer type. "Oh, thank god."

"He was groping me," Frank said.

"Did you tel him to stop?"

Shit. "You think he would've if I had?"

The bouncer just crossed his arms, glaring.

"...fine," Frank said, and let the guy go.

"Bitch," he muttered.

"I'm leaving now," Frank said loudly.

It felt bizarre to just walk away. He wasn't used to backing down - running away, sure, but not just turning his back on someone still begging to have the shit kicked out of them. But getting thrown out by a bouncer would be twice as bad, and it wasn't like he'd get much damage in before it happened.

"Goddamn fucking pussy," someone said.

Frank gritted his teeth, but walked out even faster.

||

"Frank."

Frank did another push-up and didn't say anything. Gerard sighed. "Frank."

Pull-ups weren't manageable on the bus, but situps were. He rolled over, belatedly realizing the strategy would put him face-to-face with Gerard.

"We need to talk about this," Gerard said.

He was doing his whole super-emoting I Will Save You! thing. Frank wasn't interested.

"No, we don't," he said, and got to his feet.

Gerard crossed his arms. "Yes, we d -"

Frank gave up, pushing him hard and running off the bus. "No we fucking don't," he muttered, and went to find a place to hang - and hide - until they had to play.

||

The text came fifteen minutes before Frank was planning on dragging himself to soundcheck.

what did you do

Frank sighed and texted Mikey back. tell ur brother to stop dumping his problems on you too. honeymoon remember?

not an answer

The problem with Mikey was that Frank knew him well enough, had spent enough time around him, for it to be completely impossible for Frank to not picture Mikey crossing his arms and not-glaring at him until he spilled. kissed him again.

what

had a thing @ paramour did it again. kissing offstage

A long pause, then: he likes boys too you know

Frank rolled his eyes. awesome for him why do i care?

stop being a dick

i'm not

But Mikey didn't answer. Frank gritted his teeth and turned his phone off, resisting the urge to call and badger Mikey until he gave up and left Frank alone.

Or told Frank what to do so everything wasn't a massive clusterfuck. That would work, too.

||

Missing Mikey again was what sealed the deal.

Right on the tail end of shitty fucking food poisoning he was coming down with a cold no one he'd talked to had, all not-quite-nausea, headache, and borderline fever. Worse, despite crashing in the middle of a Worcester coffee shop a few hours earlier, he couldn't sleep.

Normally he'd bug Mikey, just because Mikey was good for lying in his bunk like a dead tuna and letting Frank curl around him. But Mikey wasn't there, and Ray and Bob were sleeping, both of them too tired for Frank to be able to justify waking them up to himself.

He didn't even realize Gerard wasn't in his bunk until he walked out and saw him drawing on the couch. Shit.

"You don't have to," Gerard said without even looking up.

Frank froze mid-turn. "Seriously, man, it's -"

"It's fine." Gerard shrugged, pencil not even stopping. "We don't have to talk if you don't want to."

It sounded like a loaded statement, but Frank had so much snot in his nose he could barely breathe and he was already getting cold, so he just sat down on the other end of the couch.

"We have to do awards ceremony shit sometime soon, right?"

This time, Gerard stopped drawing. "Yeah, probably."

"Maybe I should get a skirt. And like, underwear that says 'fuck you'."

"Seriously?"

Frank watched the way Gerard's mouth was pinching, like he was trying not to smile, and gave in. "Nah. It would be funny, though."

"Until everyone called you a bitch and a slut and shit. If you wear a suit they'll call you a dyke, though."

"Worse things."

Gerard nodded, going back to drawing. "It's coming up on two years, isn't it?"

"Couple months. I'm trying not to think about it."

"Hoping you turn back?"

Frank thought about lying. It would be nice, easy. "Not really. It's...fuck, I don't know. I think I'm getting used to it. And I don't want to have to deal with whatever excuse the label would come up with for me having a cock again."

Gerard actually looked up at that. "Seriously?"

Frank shrugged. "Yeah."

"That's..." He chewed on his lip. "I just didn't expect, I guess. You'd think label drama would be worth getting the right body back."

Which, yeah. He'd been in this one for less than two years, and the guy one for his entire fucking life. But - "I won't cry if I get it back. But at this point, hoping feels like a pretty big waste of time."

He wished he and Gerard were on the same wavelength, that he knew what Gerard was thinking when he got that funny little thoughtful look and nodded. "I get that, I think."

"Mostly right now I'd settle for having Mikey back."

For whatever reason, Gerard went with the subject change. "I fucking miss him. I saw him more than this even in college."

Bad idea, Frank told himself even as the idea jumped to the forefront of his mind. Bad idea, bad idea, bad -

"I miss being able to bunkjump the guy. He's weirdly good at cuddling, you know?"

"You are, too." Gerard set his pad of paper down. He looked like he was trying to stare a hole in the bus floor.

And, yeah, Frank had been hinting. So instead of answering, he climbed awkwardly into Gerard's lap and pushed him down, lying half on top of him, half against the back of the couch.

"Don't get weird about my tits," he said, sticking his arms as much around Gerard as he could.

"Don't get weird about my dick," Gerard said. It came out rushed and embarrassed-sounding: Gerard thought snotty innuendos way more than he ever said them offstage.

Frank gave him the most sarcastic look he could manage and closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep.

||

When he woke up the next morning, Gerard's dick was pressed against his hip. Gerard himself was stiff as a board, very obviously awake.

"You know," Frank mumbled against his shoulder, "one of the advantages of being a girl is totally the morning wood thing."

"Frank."

He sounded strangled, so Frank looked up - and was slapped in the face with the truth.

It wasn't a huge moment or anything. Gerard's face was red and he looked half-miserable, half-turned on, and completely greasy. But something about the way he was, something about the way they were, made Frank realize he was pretty set on making out with Gerard now and fucking him later.

Okay then, he thought, and mentally steeled himself. "I mostly said no because the house was haunted and I was freaked out."

"Um. What?"

"At the Paramour."

"What?"

"When you kissed me and I said no," Frank said patiently. "It was the whole haunted house aspect."

Gerard frowned. "So..."

"So. I don't know." Frank wiggled a little, then regretted it when he realized that actual morning wood or not, he was turned on, too. "If I was a guy -"

"If you were a squid," Gerard said quickly. "I mean - not that I like squids as much as guys, but -"

It was a good time to kiss him, Frank thought, and did it. They could work out the particulars later.

Frank had always been a fan of kissing; this time was no different, even if touching Gerard's hair did make him think dreamy thoughts about showering and an industrial-sized bottle of Suave. They were still pretty new to each other, and Frank's brain was protesting a little, because the stage adrenalin that usually accompanied this kind of thing with Gerard was completely non-existent.

"Okay, so," Gerard said when they pulled apart. He sounded a little out of breath and had a dopey little smile that Frank was pretty sure he was copying on his face. "We're going to have to talk about this."

Frank's nipples were hard; he wiggled a little, grinning when Gerard pressed up against him. "Okay."

"And we can't really make out right now, because Ray will get sentimental and Bob will throw things at us."

Grinding up against Gerard's thigh was surprisingly effective. "Okay."

"And we need to talk about the sex thing, because I don't want to pressure you into anything, and also I feel like you should know that you were totally hot as a guy too, and I've wanted you at least since I got sober. You can call Mikey if you want, he knows."

"Okay." He risked life and limb to push the hair out of Gerard's face, watching closely for his reaction.

"And -"

Enough was enough. Frank kissed him again.

||

Ray did get sentimental and Bob did throw things, but Ray's idea of sentimental mostly involved a lot of hugs Frank would have enjoyed anyway and Bob picked relatively clean socks to throw, so all in all, Frank thought they were doing okay.

The show that night went off without a hitch, and what partying there was didn't even involve anyone talking about Frank's tits, ass, or general femininity. It was pretty much awesome, and when he got back to the bus, he took advantage of being small to wiggle into Gerard's bunk and poke his stomach.

"Wake up, loser."

"No sex," Bob said loudly. "I swear to God, Iero, no bunk sex or I'll -"

"La," Ray said even louder. "La, la, la la la."

"I wasn't sleeping," Gerard finally said.

"Okay, well, come on." Frank grabbed his hand and tugged, dragging him out of his bunk.

"No sex on the couch, either!" Bob yelled.

Ray mumbled something inaudible. Frank pushed Gerard down. "For the record, I'm not having sex with you until you shower."

"Okay," Gerard said happily.

They made out like teenagers until they fell asleep. It was pretty much awesome.

||

Frank had dealt with plenty of shitty interviewers since the label's announcement. It had gotten bad enough that he more or less expected the questions - who in the band would you date, why did you lie, blah blah fucking blah like he'd come into the interview with a button on that said 'Ask me about my vagina'.

Though actually, he'd read enough feminist stuff to know he kind of had, if only figuratively speaking.

This interviewer blindsided him not by being rude, but by being polite. "There's been a lot of talk lately about how you're dealing with people knowing you're female," he said. "Is it hard, being on the road in that situation?"

He shook his head. "Not with the band or the crew. It's weird being in unfamiliar places, though. You have to be careful. Guys picks fights with other guys, but it's rougher with girls, you know?"

He nodded. "But your band hasn't had a problem with you hiding your true identity?"

Frank shrugged, doing as best as he could to keep close to the truth. No matter how many times he told this particular lie, it didn't sit well with him. "They knew who I was. Even if they hadn't known I was a chick, they'd have known me."

"And how have fans been reacting?"

Frank thought about talking about the shitty ones, but - that wasn't the point, he told himself, and he knew it. "Really supportive," he said. "They've been amazing. It's kind of nice to go out there and back up what Gerard says when he tells them girls can rock out."

"That sounds uplifting. So your new video, can you tell us a bit about it?"

The rest of the interview was relaxingly mundane. When Frank went back to the bus he expected it to be empty, but instead everyone was sitting around, doing just enough of nothing to let him know they'd been waiting for him. "It was fine, assholes," he said. After a second's consideration, he plopped down on Bob's lap. "The guy was a little surprised when I told him I was pregnant with twins, though."

Bob groaned. "You'd think your big sex change adventure would at least make you less of a brat," he said.

Frank craned his neck so he could look at Gerard, who was drawing with his head propped up by Ray's legs. "Why would you think that?"

"Hell if I know," Gerard said dryly.

"Oh, by the way, Brian's going to be calling." Ray moved Gerard off his lap enough to get a sheet of paper out of his pocket. "He has a list of stuff you're not allowed to do on Projekt Rev."

Sometimes Frank was a little weirded out by being this much of a near-stereotype, this much of a character; he knew he'd shaped himself into it, but the reminders were still a surprise sometimes. "Don't shave members of other bands, don't destroy sets - I can behave if I have to," he said, still skimming.

"Sure you can," Bob said. "Just like Jurassic Park was a safe scientific experiment."

"Speaking of scientific experiments, what are you and Gerard going to do about the stage stuff?" Ray said.

Frank frowned. "That's not a scientific experiment."

"People will take it the wrong way," Gerard said. "I'm not sure if -"

"There's no right way to take it, though. It's just adrenalin, that hasn't changed. Us being involved just means there won't be speculation."

"And they'll think it's like that anyway." Gerard chewed his lip. "Yeah. Okay."

"So just, whatever?"

"Sure. Whatever."

"Awesome," Ray said. "No more kicking me, then."

Frank didn't confirm or deny, just waggled his eyebrows as dirtily as he could.

||

The problem was, they both kept putting it off.

There was no real reason to. Frank knew they were both expecting to fuck, assuming they would soon; but everyone was busy, and then Projekt Revolution started, and somehow they fingered each other and made out and fucking was always pushed down the list of things to do.

The third night, Frank was hornier than he'd been in awhile, full of pent-up energy. He grabbed Gerard by the hair and pulled him down, humping his head in front of God, the audience, and the rest of the band.

Gerard just went with it, still singing. Frank ran away, going to the other side of the stage and flipping them off before lying down on his back and flailing.

"Well, they didn't try to lynch you," Ray said afterwards.

"Fuck them. It's a legitimate expression of my sexuality." He swiped Worm's Doritos and wiggled, trying to get his clit in a spot that wasn't rubbing against his pants seams. "When's our next hotel date?"

"You mean you guys haven't - seriously?"

Frank shrugged.

"How much do you guys make a year?" Bob said.

"Uh." Frank glanced at Gerard. "I don't know. Enough."

"Then take forty bucks, go to a motel, and stop procrastinating on sex, Jesus Christ."

It was a good idea. "Right, awesome, thanks," Frank said, and grabbed Gerard's wrist, pulling him off the bus.

"We're walking to the motel?" Gerard said.

"Sure," Frank said, then realized exactly what he was doing. "Uh. You're cool with this, right?"

Gerard stopped, not saying anything. For a near-sickening second, Frank thought he was somehow doing something wrong; but then Gerard pulled him closer and kissed him, hands moving down to his ass.

"Okay," Frank mumbled, wiggling. He kissed Gerard again, making it as dirty as he could. "This works."

"So there's your answer. Now come on."

They decided to semi-splurge and stay at a Marriot; "It's totally a step up from the Holiday Inn," Gerard said, eyes wide and tone earnest.

"I'm not going to care about thread count when your dick's in me," Frank said.

"Shit," Gerard said.

He sounded so blissed out that even Frank had to laugh at it. "Come on," he said, and dragged him into the hotel.

It only took a minute to book a room. Frank was tempted to do the whole making out in an elevator thing, but it turned out their room was on the first floor, so instead he grabbed the keycard, ran down the hall, and held the door open for Gerard.

As soon as it was closed he pressed Gerard against it, went up on his toes - and wrinkled his nose.

"Okay," he said. "Shower."

Gerard made disappointed noises, but he didn't exactly look surprised. He only took a few minutes; since he was wet all over when he came out, though, Frank figured it counted.

Frank himself was bare-ass naked, because he didn't believe in wasting time. "Why do you have a towel on your head?"

"My hair needs to dry." Gerard was looking him up and down, eyes wide. "You. You're really pretty, you know."

Frank rolled his eyes. "Yeah, dumbass, I know," he said, and tackled Gerard.

He didn't go down, largely because Frank grabbed him and forced him not to fall. He did kind of squawk, though, which gave Frank the opening he needed to wrap Gerard's towel around his face.

"...Frank?"

He tugged the towel, guiding Gerard over to the bed. "Lie down."

Gerard did. Frank pulled the towel off, taking a second to look down - getting laid, fucking yes, Frank had missed this - before he straddled Gerard and leaned down to kiss him again.

"Oh, Christ," Gerard said. His hands were on Frank's waist, then his legs, then his back - he was kind of ADD about it, actually, but Frank was desperate enough for touch that he didn't care. "Come on," he said. "Anything."

Gerard blinked up at him for a second before rolling them and - oh, yeah, okay. This worked. Frank grinned and spread his legs. "Main event?"

"No," Gerard said, kissing and sucking his neck. Frank tried to be patient, because hey, when someone's sexual preferences run to pretending to be a vampire, it's polite to just humor them. But after a few minutes of what felt like some pretty intense hickey-ing, he wiggled. "Gerard, come on."

"Savor it later," Frank said. "Are we seriously going to make love in missionary if I let you run things?"

"Have some faith," Gerard said, and flicked his nipples.

He already knew it was different with someone else, but knowing Gerard was going to be fucking him, fucking Christ, he wanted more of that. "Come on," he said. "Come on, Gerard, just - "

When he was a guy, he'd always played it up, kissing down the girl's stomach and maybe biting their thighs. Gerard, though, Gerard just scooted down, wet hair flopping against his face and flicking water droplets against Frank's skin, until he was far enough to be able to bend and lick Frank's clit.

It worked. It really, really fucking worked. "Keep going," he said tightly.

"You thought I was going to stop?" Gerard rubbed a finger around Frank's hole, licking until Frank sighed impatiently and pushed forward.

He was used to fingers by now, but not Gerard's; not Gerard breathing on him and sucking his clit lightly while he thrust.

"You can use another one," he said, struggling not to do something embarrassing like flail so hard he wound up kicking. "Please use another one?"

"Hold still," Gerard said, and splayed a hand on his stomach. Frank was pretty sure Gerard couldn't make him - he had leverage and muscle mass on Gerard - but it helped calm him down anyway.

"Okay," he said, squeezing his eyes shut when Gerard pushed another finger in. "This is weird, fuck this is weird."

He reached down to his clit, trying to get Gerard to move his fingers, but Gerard just turned his hand over and grabbed Frank's fingers hard. "Not yet."

Frank was going to kill him. Or better yet, buy him a cock ring and make him suffer. "Damn it, Gerard."

"You feel good." Gerard licked him, open and messy. "Taste good, too."

"Cock ring," Frank muttered, gritting his teeth.

Gerard looked up. "What?"

Fuck, he hadn't meant stop. "Nothing. Eat me out more."

Gerard had his nose wrinkled in confusion and it looked ridiculous when he laughed, but Frank almost wanted to stop the sex for stupid cute talk and cuddling anyway. "Christ," he said. "Gerard, just do it."

"Nike isn't the way to my heart," Gerard said, but then he curled his fingers and flicked his tongue rhythmically and shit, okay, this was good.

Coming like this was sharper, more surprising; Gerard kept finger-fucking him, but he moved his head until he could watch Frank's face.

All Frank could focus on was the way Gerard's tongue was stretched out, still obscenely playing with Frank's clit. "Lie back," he said finally.

He regretted the order when Gerard pulled his fingers out. Once Gerard was on his back he sat up on his knees, a little wobbly, pressing two fingers half into himself because he couldn't actually manage with nothing.

Gerard actually moaned. "So fucking hot, Frank. Always."

"Yeah, um." He rocked his hips a little, biting his lip. "Condom?"

Gerard flailed around for one and rolled it on. The second he did, Frank said, "Fucking finally," and climbed on top of him.

"Wait! Shit. Wait." Gerard dug his fingers into Frank's hips. "What if this is it?"

Frank blinked at him. "We're doing this again, if that's what you're trying to say."

"No, I mean. What if this changes you back?"

And, okay. Admittedly he hadn't thought about it much, but..."You seriously think that after almost two years what changes me back will be your dick?"

"Oh." Gerard blushed bright red. "I guess that's kind of dumb, hunh."

"Yeah," Frank said, and sat on his dick.

It wasn't actually that simple, of course. There was lining up and sinking down and embarrassing noises and a hell of a lot of wiggling. But the end result was pretty much perfect, so he wasn't complaining.

"Wow." Gerard thrust a little. "Wow."

"God, shut up, you've fucked girls before. I'm trying to enjoy my virgin moment."

"Um," Gerard said, too loudly.

Frank couldn't help it: he burst out laughing. "Shit, you're easy."

"You're a freak," Gerard said, and thrust up again.

They got a lot less chatty after that, Frank changing angles until he found one that made his head spin, Gerard breathing hard and running his hands up and down Frank's body like he thought Frank was planning on disappearing.

"My tits," he said finally. "You can reach from there."

He could, brushing Frank's nipples just as Frank started rubbing his clit.

"Shit," Frank said at the same time Gerard thrust harder.

"I can feel you," Gerard said. Any other time he would have sounded pathetic, but now Frank just leaned forward, kissing him - and then cheating, twisting his nipple not quite hard enough to be painful.

"We're going to do this so many times," he said, and squeezed as deliberately as he could.

Gerard coming and Frank's own hand on his clit pushed him over the edge, too; they were going to have to learn how to space it out, he thought as he fell forward, because he wanted to see more of Gerard's stupid orgasm faces.

"That was really nice," Gerard said quietly. He was running his hands over Frank's skin, his back and arms and sides. Frank was starting to get that it was a nervous habit; it was also sweet.

"I'm sleeping now," he mumbled, wrinkling his nose and sniffing so he didn't leave a snot trail on Gerard's shoulder. "But I love you and shit."

Gerard pulled the blanket up over them. "I love you and shit, too."

||

Frank woke up still a girl, of course. Gerard was sleeping like a rock and probably would be until Bob called and threatened to leave them behind, so he got up and showered, took the condom off the floor and put it in the trash, and crawled back into bed.

"Mrpmh," Gerard said, and sniffed. "Ooh, hey."

"Hey."

"You showered."

"Yeah, freak, and you're going to, too."

Gerard smiled dopily and pulled Frank closer, like he was a fucking teddy bear or something. He didn't object enough to break away, though.

||

The rest of Projekt Rev was somehow both stressful and relaxing in the way only touring could be. Frank never quite got used to having to watch out for himself, hyperaware of the kind of crowd he'd be trying to get through; he also never really got used to having the freedom of touching Gerard when and how he wanted, though that one was a hell of a lot nicer than the personal safety thing.

The two year sex change anniversary came and went. Frank celebrated by taking Bob out to get drunk with him; it wasn't like old times and he missed the rest of the band even as he got falling-down drunk, but it was a nice little fuck you to mark the occasion, and Frank was pretty contrary no matter what body he was in.

Having Mikey back, though - having Mikey back was fucking phenomenal, and the whole band felt it. Frank wasn't sure what it said about either of them that he and Gerard wound up fucking a lot more backstage after Mikey's hiatus ended. Probably nothing charitable, but whatever, Frank had a cunt where his dick used to be. He was allowed a weird relationship or two.

"It's still weird," Gerard whispered on Mikey's third night back, hand sliding up Frank's thigh, fingers thrusting into his cunt.

"We're a band." Frank fisted a hand in Gerard's hair, squirming against him. "Come on, Gerard, we have to go on soon."

Gerard grinned and thrust into him, kissing him just in time to muffle their quiet almost-moans.

It felt good, and Frank thrust back against Gerard, reveling in the way the cement of the wall felt, the bruises he knew Gerard's fingers would leave. "Fucking amazing," he said. "Gerard, fuck, fucking love you."

"Yeah, Christ, just -" Gerard squeezed his eyes shut as he came. It was still new enough for Frank to want to watch, stalling finishing on his own in favor of savoring the way Gerard flushed and bit his lip, wrinkled his nose and whined a little.

"This band," he said when Gerard was back enough to open his eyes and move a finger to Frank's clit. "We're – this band."

He knew Gerard understood, so he bit his own hand and let go, bucking frantically between Gerard and the wall. "Oh God," he said afterwards.

"Stop fucking, guys, we're on in five," Ray yelled. He sounded far away, but not so far that they wouldn't have heard at least a little. Frank wiggled back into his pants, cracking up even as Gerard started to look completely humiliated. "Come on," he said, and pulled Gerard towards the stage.

||

Things weren't winding down, exactly, just changing. Frank felt the first twinges of the need to write, but they were paired up with the half-formed dream of holing up in Jersey and working on S//C for awhile. And having sex every day in a bed. According to Mikey, it was a seriously amazing way to live, and Frank thought he could try it out for a year or so.

He wasn't really surprised to find out that Ray and Gerard had been talking about the same thing. "I've still got shit to say," Gerard said. "But Ray's proposed to Krista, and...you know. You and me..."

"We're serious." Frank fluttered his eyelashes. "You loooove me."

"You know I do, asshole." Gerard threw a pen at his head. "But – time off might be good."

Frank nodded. "One last tour, though, right?"

"Brian's already scheduling stuff around Bamboozle."

"Awesome," Frank said, and ran off the bus to tell Bob.

||

Their last tour didn't feel anything like their first tour in any ways except the important ones.

Frank tried to pay attention. It was important, he knew; they wouldn't have this again for awhile. His memories of the past six years all blended together – playing as a guy, playing as a girl, daring the crowd over and over again to give him more, scream louder.

A lot had changed since they'd toured in tiny clubs all over the northeast. Hell, a lot had changed since Frank had woken up with tits. But – but, he thought, dropping his guitar to grin at the crowd and kiss Gerard dirtily. But some of it was the same. The feeling of playing with this band, his band, how much he'd give up to keep it all together. That was stronger, if anything.

He poured a water bottle on himself and shook his head, spraying droplets as it soaked his shirt. Seeing his tits was inescapable now, and he grinned when he caught Gerard looking at him, laughed at Mikey's eyeroll.

They didn't quite get it; hell, Frank himself didn't. He just knew that tits aside, he felt exactly the same, and that was every bit as important as the scorpion on his neck.

So he turned to the crowd, soaking wet and obviously female, and crooked his fingers. Bring it on.