Chapter two - Frank - Kiss me (fuck me)

Dedicated to @captain-of-the-ships because I had totally forgotten about this fic before you reminded me today. I've just been so busy lately with eating oreos and cornflakes and cuddling my dog. Ah, my life.

Note to all you guys out there- this chapter is in Frank's POV, hence the word 'Frank' in the title up there.^ It's not Rose.

Anywayyyyy... Read on, dudes. And stay fabulous.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I couldn't sleep. Gerard kept shuffling around, rearranging the sheets. This was nothing new, but his insomnia had been getting increasingly worse lately and sometimes neither of us got to sleep until morning. Rose kept having to come and wake us up for work.

"Gee," I mumbled, rolling over. "What's the matter?"

"Can't sleep," he whispered. "Thinking about Rose."

"Sweetheart," I said, curling an arm around his waist. "She's alright, don't worry."

"She thinks she's weird."

"She is weird. And I'm weird, and you're weird, but it's a good thing."

"Are you sure we should be emphasising the fact that she's different whenever we talk about her?"

"Well, it's better than pretending that she's not."

Gerard paused. "You know..." he began tentatively. "You know Rose being... the way she is?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever think... um. No. I don't wanna say it. Never mind."

"No, Gee, come on," I complained. I was fucking tired and if it was keeping the both of us up then whatever he was worrying about was going to be important.

"Do you ever think that they did stuff to my mom when she was locked up?" Gerard asked in a small voice.

"What do you mean?" I asked carefully. I felt sick. Did he think that they raped her? Did he think that they injected her with another weird formula?

"I don't know," he said uncomfortably. "Do you think they did stuff to Rose?"

I started gnawing on my lip. "I don't know."

Gerard sniffed and burrowed into my chest. "Sometimes I have nightmares about it," he whispered. "About stuff they did to her."

"Oh," I mumbled. I didn't really know what to say. I knew he had nightmares. Sometimes I would have to wake him. I would have to keep telling him that everything would be okay until he stopped shivering and crying and fell asleep again.

It took me hours to get to sleep after he told me what he was dreaming about. I started to worry that the things he'd dreamt about had really happened. I wanted to push the worries out of my mind, but I was never going to forget about the shit we'd gone through back in Jersey. Rose was a constant reminder of everything. We loved her so much, but every time Gerard saw her, he saw his mother, and every time I saw her, I saw the vice president with his fingers pressed to a baby Rose's throat.

Despite this, I pushed the thoughts to the back of my mind. Rose was a blessing. We shouldn't be thinking of her negatively.

Still. Gerard was worried. I would talk to Rose about it. I would ask Bob. Later. For now I would sleep. I wrapped my arms around Gerard and he sighed and snuggled into my chest. We always slept better when we were closer. We always ended up each other's colours in the morning.

----

Rose had already left for school by the time I woke up. Gerard had disappeared off to his studio to paint. This would probably be the only time that everyone was busy and not pestering me for pocket money and junk food or cuddles, coffee and sex. I dressed and slipped outside to go and see Bob. When I got over to his house, the door was unlocked, so I just went straight in.

And then I squeaked and backed right out again. Bob was half naked, on top of another half-naked guy I had never seen before and really wished I would never have to see again. Irritatingly, this was not a random occurrence. After spending so much time with us, it had come to our attention that Bob was a massive slut.

I sighed, trudging over the road back home. I would talk to Bob later. For now, I would write.

----

I stared at the blank page before me and strummed a weird, out-of-tune chord in frustration.

I was horribly horribly blocked. I couldn't write lyrics, I couldn't write music. I was fucking bored as well; Gerard was still shut away in his studio painting and I had nothing to do. I just sort of sat there for about half an hour, playing random riffs that would end up infringing on copyright laws if I attempted to sell them. I wanted Rose to come home just so I'd have someone to talk to- I could never talk to Gerard when he was painting. He had this thing where he had to kind of work himself up and then paint everything away, and if I disturbed him during this he got quite agitated.

For once though, apparently, he wanted me to be a part of the art. He appeared in the living room doorway later that afternoon, covered from head to toe in about a hundred different shades of oil paint, acrylics, inks, watercolours, and what looked like charcoal in his hair. "Hi," he said awkwardly.

"Um," I said slowly, a little wary. "Hi."

His breathing was ragged and shallow, and his eyes had a slightly frightening wild look about them. His hair was sticking up at all sorts of weird angles, even with the paint weighing it down, and his clothes were completely ruined.

"What... what exactly is this?" I asked, gesturing inelegantly at the entirety of Gerard.

"It's art."

"Art," I repeated. "You're getting acrylic paint on my carpet."

He nodded.

"There is a rather large splodge of red ink on your crotch."

He nodded again. "Art."

"Let me guess. You are the art."

Gerard shook his head. "I can't be art on my own."

I sighed. "You want me to be art with you."

He grinned, his small white teeth the only block-coloured thing on his entire body.

I considered it. I had nothing better to do. I shrugged. "Yeah, alright." I stood up, leaving my guitar and my music behind.

Gerard took my clean hand in his and interlocked our fingers, spreading messy splodges of colour all over my white skin. He led me to the studio, where the whole floor was covered in paint. It was like a fucking sea of colours. Lively reds, rich greens, bright blues. It was one unique sea, but a sea all the same. Emptied out paint tubes, ink bottles, chalks and pastels floated on the ground like ships on water. Paint splattered the white walls of the studio. It was a ridiculous mess.

Gerard sat down, cross-legged, in the middle of the floor. I took a hesitant step towards him.

"Come on," he said. "Sit."

I shook my head. "I don't know if I want to-"

He grabbed me and pulled me down onto the floor with him. Colours splashed around us, and I felt like I was drowning in the overwhelming vibrancy. I ended up flat on my back, lying in a three inch deep puddle of purple paint. Gerard climbed on top of me. He was smiling, a real smile, full of anticipation.

"Gerard," I said warily.

He kissed my nose, leaving a spot of cadmium blue behind. "Just have fun," he whispered. He wrapped his fingers around my wrists and rolled us over so he was underneath me.

"What do you want me to do?" I didn't want to mess up his art.

"Do whatever you want to," he giggled.

I chewed on my lip thoughtfully, looking down at Gerard. He looked like a work of art already, a masterpiece. I didn't understand what I was supposed to add to him. Maybe he just wanted me to be a part of the thing he loved.

But I didn't know what I was supposed to do in order to become a part of it. Was I just supposed to immerse myself into the randomness of it all and dip my face in a bucket of ink? Was I supposed to at least make an attempt to paint myself properly? What even was 'properly'? Should I use a brush or just fucking roll around in the paint?

Gerard watched me thinking, probably sensing every single one of the thoughts running through my mind. "Art isn't about thinking," he said. "It's about feeling, Frank."

I was still at a loss. The paint didn't make me feel anything. It was a giant puddle of colour.

"What makes you feel? Come on. I need you to be a part of this. What makes you feel?"

"You," I said without thinking. I didn't need to think.

Gerard's face spread into a smile. "Get working, then."

"Working? Gerard, I don't understand-"

"Kiss me, asshole."

I blinked. "Oh."

I kissed him, and it certainly felt like art. I could taste the paint on his lips, taste the paint on his tongue. When I ran my fingers through his hair, I could feel the dust from the chalk and the charcoal. His hands slid up the back of my shirt, spreading paint over my back. It stuck to the fabric of my clothes.

This was what Gerard had meant. This was art. The discomfort and the sting of the acrylics, Gerard's soft hands roughened by the drying paint, the taste of watercolour and chalk and coffee at the same time. This was what he wanted to show me.

"Fuck me," Gerard said in a low voice.

I whined and tried to pull away. "In here?" I asked in a weak protest.

"I need you," he growled in my ear, licking a stripe up my neck. He kissed me again, hot and messy.

"Yeah," I breathed. "Yeah, okay."

Our skin slid together effortlessly with the wet paint. It was easy to pull my shirt over my head, easy for Gerard to slip out of his jeans and tee. The paint was cold on our bare skin, but Gerard's mouth was hot on my neck. His hands were warm sliding down my back, pressing me closer to him, and everywhere we touched seemed to burn with the colours.

We made love in the studio, on the hardwood floor, covered in paint and sweat and black and white. The whole room smelled of sex, acrylics and bleach, and by the time it was over, you couldn't see an inch of my natural skin, nor Gerard's. We were the same. We were every colour in existence except for our own.

"This is what I meant by art," Gerard murmured into my neck as we lay on the floor of the studio, curled together for warmth. "This is art."

"Oh," I breathed. "We should make art together in here more often."

Gerard nodded, pressing a kiss to my collarbone. "It would probably be best if we showered now, though."

"Agreed."

We showered together, watching our colours swirl down the drain, watching each other turn back to our original black and white. Even though once we'd dried off we just looked like normal again, I still felt like we were art.