lisaroquin (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} lisaroquin) wrote in ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} lisaroquin_fic,@ 2008-01-06 15:28:00 |
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FIC: Art of Codependency Arc: Chicago--MCR 15/mature
full header & part one
Sunday. is. Hell.
Kat shows up at noon and just fuck...
Her boyfriend is wearing khakis and a button down, close cropped hair and clean shaven and his shoes are so shiny they're almost laughable. He's a loan officer in a bank and apparently his name is Jason. He looks like he's off to lunch at a country club or something not do anything that might actually require sweat. Kat gives Bob a glance that's part pleading, part apologetic. He brought friends, three of them, each just as nicely dressed. All of them staring like they've just encountered aliens.
Gerard's wearing the baby blue t-shirt with an airbrushed picture of Mikey and Alicia's Bunny the cat wearing her hoodie with rabbit ears. It'd been one of Gerard's birthday presents--from BunnyCat herself --which at least had gotten Gerard's attention enough to grumble that now he had to figure out how to buy cat presents for Christmas. It was given in the spirit of smart assed little brotherness completely. Bob had spent the morning mostly trying to figure out if Gerard had packed it not paying attention (and put it on with equal inattention and didn't realize what he was wearing), had packed it deliberately just to tell Mikey he wore it without the witnesses likely to take pictures of him in it (which Mikey and Alicia so would) or if Jamia had packed for Gerard and had purposely been being an ass or just simply distracted. All of the above were equally likely.
Frank hasn't bothered to tame his hair anymore than Gerard has, and hasn't bothered with a shirt either, his jeans are ready to fall apart and Jamia wanders out in a tank top and boxers not quite awake, and looking well fucked--which made Bob very thankful for the soundproofing on the spare room, put in for his drums, but yeah, definitely had other uses.
Bob has at least managed a shower and a comb through his hair though it might not look it--it's long enough to be aggravating in the collar of his t-shirt and his beard needs trimmed desperately, but he hasn't gotten around to that either. His jeans are old, about to fall apart and stained to hell, but comfortable--and he's planning on attempting to move shit with the assistance of Frank and Gerard, it seems logical to wear something he's not going to care if it gets all dirty or ruined. Frank trying to relieve tension in air or cheer someone up, ended up in ...well, it was Frank. And he'd packed for ten days of Frank taking care of him accordingly--which meant he had nothing that he would mourn the loss of in his bag, and god only knew what in the closet and dressers he hadn't bothered to look. His plain white t shirt had "I *heart* G" written on it in faded sharpie, and was too tight. It's Frank's in all actuality, or one Frank made two sizes too big for himself, but it keeps ended up in Gerard or Bob's shit. He didn't remember seeing it when he packed and hadn't noticed til he got it on, and promptly forgot about changing it in bracing for dealing with separating up the shit in the apartment.
"Why are you wearing Frank's shirt?" Jamia asks still struggling for awake and taking a drink of her coffee. Frank giggles.
Bob makes note to kill Frank after they're back in Jersey and Frank's no longer officially taking care of Bob. The little shit. No wonder Bob didn't remember packing the damn shirt and it seemed like he was about six shirts short in what he'd thought he'd packed.
"Because I'm not having an affair with Gerard, honey, that's just a cover. I'm having an affair with Bob. We're emigrating to Canada and getting married." Frank giggles.
"I only promised not to kill him in Chicago, Jamia." Bob says matter-of-factly.
"Gerard will totally protect me." Frank says smugly.
"I have to live with him, Frank," Gerard points out.
Jason and his friends simply stare. Jamia just rolls her eyes.
"Hey, how ya been, Kat?" Jamia asks.
"Okay." Kat manages.
They pretty much ignore the staring. Or try to.
Jason introduces his friends, Marcus, Landon and Colby, with emphasis on Colby being a lawyer.
Bob tilts his head and frowns at Kat a little. "The hell?" he asks softly. "It's like that?" What the hell? She had to know that he wouldn't fight over any of the shit or hassle her.
Kat looks miserably uncomfortable. "No" she says softly. "I- this is new.." she looks at the couch.
"Yeah, Jamia helped pick it out." Bob shrugs. The couch was big and brown and some kind of material that was soft and kinda fuzzy. It was about the polar opposite of the far more formal and feminine influenced sofa that had sat there.
"Kat made a list of things she still wants from the apartment" Colby-the-lawyer said coldly producing a piece of paper.
"Oh fuck you," Frank snarls.
"Calm down, Gee," Bob says automatically feeling Gerard tense and snap into something between Stage-Gerard and Fucking-Dangerous-Psycho-Gerard. "We don't need that." Bob said looking at the ass still holding out the paper. "Kat?"
"Jason insisted so--just so this could be finished, not forgetting anything or..."
Bob nodded slowly. "Yeah, makes sense, I guess." he said quietly. "You know I won't...I..."
Jason looked like he swallowed a lemon. Colby sneered. "The dining room set."
"Okay," Bob said quietly.
"The hutch in the spare room--"
"That's...Kat's," Bob frowned. "I--Kat? I've got to clear my shit out of it but..."
Kat swallowed and shook her head. "I--"
"Can you just--take that list and shove it." Bob looked at Colby. "Doesn't have to be done like this. I can't think of anything Kat would take that I'd argue with and that hutch was her fucking grandmother's why would I try to keep it even if it's got mostly my shit stashed in it at the moment..."
"This from a man with a reputation of random violence--"
"What?" Bob gapes.
"BOB!" Gerard shouts, incredulous.
"Gerard, calm down." Bob reaches and grabs Gerard's arm, trying to physically ground him. He notices Jamia shifting to stand in front of Frankie.
"Photographer you punched," Kat swallows.
"Photographers totally fucking don't count." Frank snarls.
Bob simply stares at Kat. "You can't think..."
She shook her head. "I don't, I swear I don't. Jason's just protective..."
Bob nods slowly. "Okay..."
*
The stand-off feeling of everything didn't ease much, even as they started loading things.
Bob's stuff emptied out of the hutch, and a chest that had been at the foot of the bed they'd had, as well as the dressers. Photographs and such dropped with Jamia's promise of copies of whatever from the couple shoeboxes and the few albums.
When the ordeal was finally finally over, Bob gives Kat a tired smile. "Don't be a stranger, mom'll be upset, she wanted me to tell you hello. And you ever need anything--just pass the message through mom, okay?"
Jason glared.
"Dude, the fuck?" Bob asks tiredly. "Kat and my mom always got along good. And hell, I'm going back to Jersey in a few days then to California to record. Why should my mom be punished? She adores Kat. Always has. And hell I'm never home--that's kinda how you got in the fucking picture." Bob snorts.
"Bob, don't."
"Sorry, Kat, sorry" he says softly.
"Why do --"
Gerard looks at the one who spoke, he honestly can't remember if it's Landon or Marcus, and doesn't really give a shit truth told. They mostly had just stared, Colby was a fucking dick and evidently more capable of winding Jason up than depriving Mikey of his coffee could drive him batshit. "Why do what?"
"Why are you wearing that shirt? A kitty?"
"That's my niece Bunny," Gerard grins widely.
Bob chokes fighting a grin. "Damn it, Gerard, now we can't shave her to piss Mikey and Alicia off if you're calling her your niece." And Frank stumbles into his side clinging and giggling so hard he can barely stand. Jamia laughs and Kat smiles for the first time the whole afternoon, a real smile and laughs just a little.
Kat hugs Jamia, and surprisingly Gerard, whispering something in his ear Bob doesn't catch.
"There will be tickets waiting, next time we play Chicago." Gerard murmurs and gives Kat a squeeze.
And then they're gone, finally, thankfully.
"Go change," Frank announces.
"What?"
"Me and you, Bryar, we're going out."
"We're what?"
"Out. Booze. Music. We're going. Change your fucking clothes now." Frank orders.
*
They pretty much fall out of the cab when they get home. Bob's not sure who is holding who up because neither of them are too good with the whole being vertical thing at the moment, but they somehow make it to the apartment.
"Oh. God." Jamia groans.
Frankie giggles and stumbles away from Bob into Jamia.
Walls are nice. They keep Bob from landing on his face. He thinks he'll just lean against this one for a nice long while, until the room stops wobbling and spinning.
"You are totally fucking trashed, aren't you?" Gerard shakes his head.
"His fault." Bob points at Frank.
"Uh huh." Gerard agrees and moves to Bob's side, steering Bob to the master bedroom. Jamia a step or so behind steering Frank into the spare bedroom.
"Sorry," Bob murmurs dismally as Gerard pushes him back to sit on the bed.
"You will be in the morning," Gerard snorts and crouches down to take off Bob's shoes because there's no way Bob is managing without a nosedive to the floor just now.
"I'm an asshole..."
"You're a dumb ass maybe" Gerard shakes his head and reaches for Bob's belt, unbuckling it and pulling it off. "You want your shirt and pants off or not?"
"Uh.."
Gerard takes that as off and reaches for Bob's shirt, it takes a bit of tugging and bumbling because Bob is hopelessly uncoordinated but that's off. Gerard doesn't pay the least bit of attention to the strangled sound Bob makes as he pushes the blonde back and undoes the button-fly jeans and works them down and off.
"M'sorry," Bob repeats blearily. And he is. He doesn't want to be this fucked up around Gerard. It's not that they have ever made that big of an issue of it, simply if any of them were going to get fucked up they did it away from Gerard, and now Gerard and Mikey since he'd sobered up. It wasn't that big of a deal. Keeping the bus more or less dry wasn't that much of a hardship for anybody.
"Shhh," Gerard whispers. "Don't pass out. Be right back."
Bob is less than happy about having to sit back up, but Gerard is insistent when he returns, forcing half a bottle of water down Bob, and leaving it, and an unopened one on the nightstand along with the Tylenol.
"Sorry," he whispers again as Gerard crawls into bed and curls against him.
"S'okay," Gerard murmurs with a shift, an arm across Bob's chest, their legs half tangled together.
"Mmm," Bob disagrees arms moving, uncoordinatedly, almost of their own accord around Gerard who shifts just that much more into Bob. Gerard's hand moves up and threads through Bob's hair, an odd move in that it's usually Bob petting Gerard's hair. It feels nice though.
*
Bob wakes up with the feeling something is strange and wrong, disoriented beyond anything he's felt in a long time. The jolt of shock and almost fear that has him trying to sit up quickly is a mistake as his head and stomach both vehemently protest that move. He falls back, his head protesting further at the slight bounce, his stomach not all that happy with it either.
He slowly tries to think through the fog of the hangover to figure out what the hell has his heart pounding and fear-sick clutching at him worse than hangover-slightly-nauseous-if-try-to-mov
Slowly, horrifically it dawned on him. He was alone. When they'd been writing in Maine he'd had his own room, but the manic pace and strange hours they kept, they were writing and that was different, fundamentally somehow. And they'd passed out more than slept. They'd passed out on the couch next to each other too tired to make it to beds more than once. A few times he had made good on his threat to drag Gee to bed and pin him down when that song had come together and had him too wound up to rest even when at the point of near-collapsing from exhaustion. The night in the hotel and the one night just him and Frank at his mom's he hadn't slept so well but...
He always woke up first, and Gerard was invariably tangled up, burrowed into, wrapped around him by morning. Somehow, some way, whether it was Gerard sprawled half on top of him or curled in a little ball with Bob spooned around him holding him tight. Bob always woke up first tangled up with Gerard.
Oh.
Fuck.
When the fuck had he managed to fall for Gerard! How fucking stupid was he?
What the hangover hadn't managed that realization does, and he nearly knocks Jamia into the wall in the hallway making a run for the bathroom.
A hand is there rubbing his back, a second hand tucking a few wayward pieces of hair behind his ear.
Gerard. Fucking Gerard fussing over Bob's hangover. And worse, he likes it. Likes the hand on his back, the hand in his hair.
The worst fucking hangover he's had in years, and there's Gerard.
His brain really shouldn't be trying to go in so many circles when it was foggy and aching. Circles that all had to do with Gerard, and how fucking stupid he was for falling for his band's front man.
"Gonna shower," He manages to grunt.
"Kay. I'll go get ya something to put on."
His head hurts to the point everything hurts from his hair to his toenails and he's pretty sure the queasy refusing to leave his stomach even after puking up half his guts was all to do with Gerard and nothing to do with whatever the hell Frank all poured down him the night before.
*
Jamia is evil. That's cool though. Her evil torture of dragging them shopping to organize the apartment and get all the piles of things in the bedrooms back into some sort of shelves or dressers or something is torture but necessary and she tends to know exactly what she wants and not piss around about it. Shopping with a hangover is hell, but no less than he probably deserves, and certainly a better option than arguing with Jamia on a mission.
Her first order of business is a rental car which ends up a minivan. Then shopping. Two stores, four hours, one batch set to be delivered late that afternoon and the next the next morning, how Jamia pulls off that miracle Bob doesn't know, and is a little scared to ask.
*
They keep busy. Jamia has no sympathy for the dying. Frank claims he's dying at any rate. Jamia rolls her eyes and bosses delivery men, then them.
Bob doesn't complain. It's his shit after all. And honestly, would still be laying in the same piles where stuff was emptied out or kicked aside in moving out what Kat wanted to take a year from now. Jamia's not allowing that. Bob isn't brave enough to argue either, the woman can make Frank sit still for God's sake. That's like a super power or something.
*
Tuesday morning Bob wakes up first, spooned behind Gerard limbs tangled, his nose in the back of Gerard's neck. It takes a concentrated effort not to jump out of the bed, he resolutely ignores the urge to burrow closer and nuzzle. He slowly disentangles himself. Gerard makes protesting noises in his sleep.
"Shh, it's early."
"Coffee,"
Bob snorts, "Your wish is my command, princess," which, is kind of true. Kind of. Bob would do anything for any of the other four if he could. And spoiling Gerard with his favorite frappe latté whatever the hell it is overpriced frothy stuff is an easy thing. And Gerard was not above the occasional precious princess diva moments too.
"F'ker," Gerard mumbles into the pillows wriggling back into the warm spot where Bob had been and drifts back to sleep.
*
Something tightens around Bob's chest as the day wears on. The apartment is in near order. Things sorted through and a couple boxes sat by the door that would be taken over to his mom's. Odds and ends tossed in it that Kat could eventually pick up from his mom's. A couple romance novels, a CD that Bob is dead certain is not his, a pair of underwear that had gotten inside a pair of Bob's sweats in the wash and folded, and put into the drawer. Just stray little things that when shits been mixed together so completely so long it takes time to sort and untangle more than an afternoon's stand off.
It's not so much the apartment and the erasure of Kat's presence from it, it's how sharp and shaky Gerard is getting as the day wears on, Bob wants to reach out and touch, calm, soothe, but steadfastly doesn't not trusting his judgment or his motives.
"You need dishes," Jamia declares.
Bob doesn't dare open his mouth to say he doesn't see why that's a priority at the moment. They're pretty much living on take out with plastic silverware while they're here. True, Kat had cleared the kitchen of pots and pans and dishes and silverware, and basically everything but a half dozen coffee cups. His dishes and stuff had long since gone in the trash or to goodwill or something. Fifth hand hand-me-downs or thrift store or Wal-Mart clearance to begin with, not a bit of it matching. It had been good enough for just him, fresh out of school and scraping to get by. Kat had replaced it with either her own stuff, or new bought after they were together, that she took all that seemed natural and hell, like he was ever home for it to be an issue especially when his mom would feed him when he was sick of take out.
Bob wants to argue, a lot, when Jamia kicks them out. Him. Gerard. And Frank. On a mission to go stock his kitchen with appropriate dishes and utensils and pots and pans and shit like that.
"Don't you want help when the delivery guys show up babe?"
"No." Jamia glares. "They'll put stuff where it needs to go and I can get things organized faster alone."
"Okay." Bob agrees. He doesn't mind Jamia's sort of taking over the reconstruction of his apartment. She knows how to put things in order and it's just easier to let her refill the spaces so he doesn't have to think about stuff that used to be there. And she's right, they've only got so much time to get things done, they're here and who knew when the next opportunity would arise. After they were done recording that's for sure.
"Where are we supposed to go? Target?" Frank wants to know.
Jamia hands them an address and a store name she's copied out of the yellow pages, and even made a phone call to see what brand names they carry. "You can't screw up too badly there."
*
Bob's head is throbbing. He sticks two cookie sheets and a pizza pan, three skillets and half dozen pots, wincing at the goddamned price tag on the soup kettle but oh well.
"Why are you getting cookie sheets?" Frank frowns.
"I like cookies."
"So you buy cookies."
"Frank," Bob shakes his head.
Gerard looks at Bob. "Think we could try out the cookie sheets tonight?" he asks then glances down looking sheepish.
"Sure," Bob agrees.
"Huh?"
"Bob makes killer peanut butter chocolate chip cookies," Gerard smiles. "He made me some once."
"You can make cookies?" Frank squeals. "You've never made me cookies, you fucker! I want cookies!"
"Are you fucking six, Iero?" Bob chokes. "You're going to have to find a cookbook that has vegan cookies in it though because I only know how to make things with eggs and butter. Or you're just going to have to cheat on your principles for cookies."
"My mom has one of those." Frank points to a Kitchen Aide. "She loves the thing. Its one of the first things I bought when I could afford it. She like lusted after the stupid thing for years but would never buy one herself because they cost so damn much."
Bob looks at it a long moment, it seems familiar. "Think that's what mom used to have and she was just about crying when it died finally."
Gerard nods. "Mom has one. I think she loves it more than me and Mikey. Frank we need another cart. Red for your mom?"
Bob thinks a moment. "Yeah." he's reaching to make room in the cart as Gerard looks for a red deluxe with every possible attachment and doohickey. Bob doesn't ask what the damned thing costs. He's pretty sure he doesn't want to know, but his mom will love it, and he kinda accidentally fucked off Mother's Day in the middle of writing up in Maine so...yeah.
A coffee pot, a toaster. A set of mixing bowls and measuring cups and spoons. He basically lets Frank go wild and grab one of everything from one aisle he can identify most of what Frank grabs so that's something, and says he'll probably use the stuff if he's ever home to cook. Some other things Frank says his mom has, he knows he's gotten put to work handing things or his hands whacked by the things when trying to snitch from whatever his mom was cooking.
Bob stares at the aisle of plates and place settings and his head starts to throb. The aisle of finer, thinner china-type dishes had been ignored for the heavier stoneware type stuff. Bob points to a navy blue. "How about those?"
Gerard wrinkles his nose. Frank shrugs.
"Fine. You're the artist, you pick." Bob sighs.
"They're your dishes."
"Gerard..." Bob groans. "Fine, if you won't pick I'll get those."
They leave the aisle with a mix-and-match compiled set, half plain navy blue, half a bright royal blue full of some sort of squiggly navy, white, black and gray-ish to gray-ish blue designs that are kind of abstract-ish or something. Bob doesn't know, but Gerard likes them and claims they match the plain navy well enough.
The total at the checkout makes him want to cry just a little but hands over his credit card.
*
Jamia calls twice, worried.
The first time they're in a bookstore, just as Frank is paying for the vegan cook book with cookie recipes in it. Bob doesn't think they look all that appetizing because cookies are supposed to have butter and eggs and not soybeans and tofu or whatever, he didn't look at the recipes really, but Frank wants vegan cookies.
The second time they're in the grocery story.
This time Jamia flat out asks if they're on something. Frank and cooking of any sort other than reheating in the microwave, just isn't a good mix.
*
The book cases and whatnot, the dressers in the bedrooms all finally delivered and in place when they--an eternity and a fucking half later--get back to the apartment. It looks different. Kinda strange, not quite his, but better than empty spaces. Maybe something he will want to come back to, knowing it's here and not the empty spaces and piles.
Cookies take til fucking three am. Even the vegan ones didn't turn out half bad Bob has to admit, though Frank pouted obnoxiously about his cookies being made second. Bob hopes it is only his own paranoid imagination that Gerard seems more tense and sharp as the night wears on. But Frankie's bouncing and teasing and climbing all over Gerard seems to follow apace with Gerard's sharp and tense.
*
Wednesday morning, or rather afternoon, Bob wakes up with Gerard clinging to him like a burr. There's no way to disentangle himself without waking Gee.
He hears them on his way to the kitchen after his shower. Gerard, Frank and Jamia.
"Did I fuck up?" Jamia asks.
"No, no you didn't. He woulda left it for three fucking years." Frank insists.
"No." Gerard agrees. "It looks great, Jamia, and he'd never have done it. We wouldn't have thought to make him or know where to start, it looks great...that's...that's not it."
"You guys have a fight?" Frank asks worried and wary.
Gerard's shaking his head as Bob enters the kitchen.
*
Bob spends the remainder of the afternoon before they, or really he but its not like the others will not go too, has to head to George's club lost in thought. Gerard all tenseness and jagged edges on the end of the couch, sketching out something almost angrily with slashing heavy lines. Bob's stomach twists and his heart tightens just a bit with each scratch of pen over paper. The two boxes by the door become three with some flower vases that had been under the sink and a box clear back up on the top closet shelf of Kat's are unearthed in the process of packing away the piles of shit dumped on along the walls of the bedroom so Kat could take what she wanted and Sunday afternoon could end.
The angry scratch of pen over paper finally cuts too deep, Bob wants to pull Gerard in his arms or his lap and tangle his hand in his hair and make Gee look at him, tell him what the fuck is tearing at him. He doesn't. Doesn't dare. He really honestly wants to do a helluva lot more than that but he doesn't let his mind go there. "Think you could maybe draw me something for the wall? They're kinda bare."
Gerard looks up, startled and some new kind of broken that Bob can't put a finger on and doesn't like one bit. "Really?"
"Yeah." Bob says.
*
Thursday is the same. Or close enough. Gerard sharper, more jagged, bruised eyed from lack of decent sleep. Bob wants to drag him back to bed and make him rest so intensely he doesn't even stay in the same room as Gerard if he can avoid it for the afternoon. He can't. Doesn't trust himself not to do something stupid and berates himself, silently, violently as he goes through the CDs putting them on the shelves that were his choice of the three Jamia said were okay, finding nearly a dozen of Kat's or perhaps friends of Kat's that she'd ended up in possession of, because they weren't his, and both Frank and Gerard denied having seen them before so Bob was fairly certain that they didn't make their way home with him off the bus somehow, which had happened in the past, and not such a big deal if not for the distance of Chicago and Jersey.
Bob stares at the boxes from where he sits on the end of the couch waiting for the others. Frank and Jamia are in the spare room, Gerard's just made a dash from the bathroom to the bedroom in nothing but a towel. "I'M GONNA KILL YOU FRANKIE!" is shouted before their-his-bedroom door is slammed.
He's pretty sure everything left of Kat's is in those boxes. That just kind of leaves a taste of ashes in his mouth. He still loves her, kinda thinks he always will a little. She's Kat. Nothing to blame or be angry about, hell, he didn't blame her a bit. Hell, how could he? It just was. There was only so much he had, only so much was left when the music and the guys took so much. And on the road and on the road and on the road some more, she was left on her own, and didn't have as much as she deserved when he was home. He couldn't change it, wasn't all that sure he would if he could, and if that little dork made her happy that's what counted he supposed, even if it would feel really good to bust the fucker's nose or something.
Gerard comes out a heart beat before Frank and Jamia, Bob's heart nearly shatters. Gerard. looks. like. fucking. shit. He's looking all hurt and worried at the boxes then Bob and...
"Be back in a minute," Bob growls in the vague direction of Jamia and Frank and is on his feet, he wraps his fingers carefully around Gerard's wrist and gives him a gentle tug, leading him back to the bedroom.
"Gee. You up to--" Bob swallows. And Gerard fucking curls inward on himself, hurt, furious.
"You don't need to worry about me."
"Goddamn it, Gerard," Bob whispers roughly. He can't stop his hand, the one holding Gerard's wrist, from sliding up Gerard's arm to tangle in his hair. "And it'd do as much good to tell me not to breathe, I kinda just do."
That twisted up expression Bob absolutely despises flashes through Gerard's eyes.
"Stop it. What? Fuck, Gee, What?"
"We don't know how to take care of you."
"You are, you do," Bob insists.
Gerard swallows and snorts, mostly disgusted and a bit angry.
"You are," Bob repeats, his fingers tightening a little in Gerard's hair. "You are." He doesn't have the words, and doesn't trust himself not to blurt something utterly stupid and just fucking ruin everything. "This is good." Bob has no fucking clue what exactly is good. What Jamia's bullied him into on getting the apartment back in order. Just that Gerard and Jamia had followed him in Frank. That Frank hadn't driven him insane yet and the trip was almost over. That...that Gerard's still damp hair felt good tangled around his fingers. "You're doing good, all of you--I'm just..."
Gerard relaxes, not much but a little, uncertain-hurt-worried but not so much with the guilty-angry-self-hatred dark spiral of what the fuck ever.
"You do. Promise." Bob offers.
Gerard gives him a little nod of agreement.
"C'mon, lets get goin'."
*
Jamia looks at them hard and some of the wary eases back out of her eyes. Frank presses up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist and kinda vibrates with a big grin. Bob keeps his arm around Gerard's shoulders on the way to the car because once he's touched he can't quite let go, and that's what he's been afraid of doing the last couple days.
He leaves Frank and Jamia to their own devices and drags Gerard back with him, Trace is already there waiting, and if he thinks it's kinda odd Bob doesn't give a fuck, Gerard spends most of the night stretched up on the balls of his feet just a little, just enough to rest his chin on Bob's shoulder from behind and watch Bob and Trace with the soundboard, bobbing a little in time to the music and bruising Bob's shoulder just a little with that, but it's good.
*
Even if it was four when they tumbled into bed once again, they were up at eight-thirty and out the door at nine Friday morning. Gerard, Frank and Jamia all sporting raccoon-smudged eyeliner for the night before and Jamia the only one that gave a half-hearted thought to a brush.
Bob's mother has claimed the day, and the next. And they're not disappointing her. The boxes of Kat's shit and her belated I'm a shitty son mother's day present loaded up all of them clinging to their travel mugs of coffee as they get in the van. And it's a really good thing Bob could probably drive the route between his apartment and his mother's house in his sleep, because it's almost what he does do.
*
Gerard's rubbing his calf on as they sit on the back step having a cigarette.
Bob shakes his head and reaches for Gerard's ankles, Gerard moves with the tug turns to lay back head in Frank's lap and legs across Bob's. "Not surprised, you were on your toes all night." his hands slide up the hem of Gerard's jeans' leg and fingers press against the knotted muscles of Gerard's calves. Gerard makes a moaning little sigh that makes Bob glad the jeans he grabbed are baggy and his shirt too, and untucked. His mother's a little less than pleased with the collective barely awake bum look but was forgiving when she realized the night before had been spent with Bob working sound at George's.
"Gee sounds like that when he's just really getting into it when he's jacking off." Frank informs Jamia.
Gerard's eyes nearly pop out of his head, his face goes scarlet and the back of his hand connects hard with Frank's chest. Bob chokes, because, Frank is kinda right and bunk curtains aren't exactly sound proof. Gerard kicks at him a little.
"I've spent time on tour with you guys, you know," Jamia says in a tone that kind of implies 'duh'.
*
This time it's Bob's mom at the airport, and Gerard a little awkwardly returning her hug and both of them agreeing solemnly when she orders them to take care of each other, call often and she expects them home for a few days after they're done recording in California. Bob doesn't even try to argue with her. He resolves himself to disappointing her with another 'break up' when Gerard finds someone because Bob thinks personally he's just kinda...done. Things ending with Kat and Gerard was simply his friend and bandmate, all he would ever want from Bob. So he was pretty sure he was just done and there wasn't likely ever going to be anyone that was more than a few nights distraction and certainly not anyone worth his mother ever meeting.
"Make sure he trims that damned beard soon," Bob's mom orders tucking a strand of hair behind Gerard's ear.
"I will." Gerard agrees. Bob knows he's not getting out of that, the flailing look Gerard gives him as his mother turns her attention to him pretty much says you so fucking are because she's not being mad at me
A final hug for both of them and they thankfully have to board and are on their way back to Jersey.
full header & part one
Sunday. is. Hell.
Kat shows up at noon and just fuck...
Her boyfriend is wearing khakis and a button down, close cropped hair and clean shaven and his shoes are so shiny they're almost laughable. He's a loan officer in a bank and apparently his name is Jason. He looks like he's off to lunch at a country club or something not do anything that might actually require sweat. Kat gives Bob a glance that's part pleading, part apologetic. He brought friends, three of them, each just as nicely dressed. All of them staring like they've just encountered aliens.
Gerard's wearing the baby blue t-shirt with an airbrushed picture of Mikey and Alicia's Bunny the cat wearing her hoodie with rabbit ears. It'd been one of Gerard's birthday presents--from BunnyCat herself --which at least had gotten Gerard's attention enough to grumble that now he had to figure out how to buy cat presents for Christmas. It was given in the spirit of smart assed little brotherness completely. Bob had spent the morning mostly trying to figure out if Gerard had packed it not paying attention (and put it on with equal inattention and didn't realize what he was wearing), had packed it deliberately just to tell Mikey he wore it without the witnesses likely to take pictures of him in it (which Mikey and Alicia so would) or if Jamia had packed for Gerard and had purposely been being an ass or just simply distracted. All of the above were equally likely.
Frank hasn't bothered to tame his hair anymore than Gerard has, and hasn't bothered with a shirt either, his jeans are ready to fall apart and Jamia wanders out in a tank top and boxers not quite awake, and looking well fucked--which made Bob very thankful for the soundproofing on the spare room, put in for his drums, but yeah, definitely had other uses.
Bob has at least managed a shower and a comb through his hair though it might not look it--it's long enough to be aggravating in the collar of his t-shirt and his beard needs trimmed desperately, but he hasn't gotten around to that either. His jeans are old, about to fall apart and stained to hell, but comfortable--and he's planning on attempting to move shit with the assistance of Frank and Gerard, it seems logical to wear something he's not going to care if it gets all dirty or ruined. Frank trying to relieve tension in air or cheer someone up, ended up in ...well, it was Frank. And he'd packed for ten days of Frank taking care of him accordingly--which meant he had nothing that he would mourn the loss of in his bag, and god only knew what in the closet and dressers he hadn't bothered to look. His plain white t shirt had "I *heart* G" written on it in faded sharpie, and was too tight. It's Frank's in all actuality, or one Frank made two sizes too big for himself, but it keeps ended up in Gerard or Bob's shit. He didn't remember seeing it when he packed and hadn't noticed til he got it on, and promptly forgot about changing it in bracing for dealing with separating up the shit in the apartment.
"Why are you wearing Frank's shirt?" Jamia asks still struggling for awake and taking a drink of her coffee. Frank giggles.
Bob makes note to kill Frank after they're back in Jersey and Frank's no longer officially taking care of Bob. The little shit. No wonder Bob didn't remember packing the damn shirt and it seemed like he was about six shirts short in what he'd thought he'd packed.
"Because I'm not having an affair with Gerard, honey, that's just a cover. I'm having an affair with Bob. We're emigrating to Canada and getting married." Frank giggles.
"I only promised not to kill him in Chicago, Jamia." Bob says matter-of-factly.
"Gerard will totally protect me." Frank says smugly.
"I have to live with him, Frank," Gerard points out.
Jason and his friends simply stare. Jamia just rolls her eyes.
"Hey, how ya been, Kat?" Jamia asks.
"Okay." Kat manages.
They pretty much ignore the staring. Or try to.
Jason introduces his friends, Marcus, Landon and Colby, with emphasis on Colby being a lawyer.
Bob tilts his head and frowns at Kat a little. "The hell?" he asks softly. "It's like that?" What the hell? She had to know that he wouldn't fight over any of the shit or hassle her.
Kat looks miserably uncomfortable. "No" she says softly. "I- this is new.." she looks at the couch.
"Yeah, Jamia helped pick it out." Bob shrugs. The couch was big and brown and some kind of material that was soft and kinda fuzzy. It was about the polar opposite of the far more formal and feminine influenced sofa that had sat there.
"Kat made a list of things she still wants from the apartment" Colby-the-lawyer said coldly producing a piece of paper.
"Oh fuck you," Frank snarls.
"Calm down, Gee," Bob says automatically feeling Gerard tense and snap into something between Stage-Gerard and Fucking-Dangerous-Psycho-Gerard. "We don't need that." Bob said looking at the ass still holding out the paper. "Kat?"
"Jason insisted so--just so this could be finished, not forgetting anything or..."
Bob nodded slowly. "Yeah, makes sense, I guess." he said quietly. "You know I won't...I..."
Jason looked like he swallowed a lemon. Colby sneered. "The dining room set."
"Okay," Bob said quietly.
"The hutch in the spare room--"
"That's...Kat's," Bob frowned. "I--Kat? I've got to clear my shit out of it but..."
Kat swallowed and shook her head. "I--"
"Can you just--take that list and shove it." Bob looked at Colby. "Doesn't have to be done like this. I can't think of anything Kat would take that I'd argue with and that hutch was her fucking grandmother's why would I try to keep it even if it's got mostly my shit stashed in it at the moment..."
"This from a man with a reputation of random violence--"
"What?" Bob gapes.
"BOB!" Gerard shouts, incredulous.
"Gerard, calm down." Bob reaches and grabs Gerard's arm, trying to physically ground him. He notices Jamia shifting to stand in front of Frankie.
"Photographer you punched," Kat swallows.
"Photographers totally fucking don't count." Frank snarls.
Bob simply stares at Kat. "You can't think..."
She shook her head. "I don't, I swear I don't. Jason's just protective..."
Bob nods slowly. "Okay..."
*
The stand-off feeling of everything didn't ease much, even as they started loading things.
Bob's stuff emptied out of the hutch, and a chest that had been at the foot of the bed they'd had, as well as the dressers. Photographs and such dropped with Jamia's promise of copies of whatever from the couple shoeboxes and the few albums.
When the ordeal was finally finally over, Bob gives Kat a tired smile. "Don't be a stranger, mom'll be upset, she wanted me to tell you hello. And you ever need anything--just pass the message through mom, okay?"
Jason glared.
"Dude, the fuck?" Bob asks tiredly. "Kat and my mom always got along good. And hell, I'm going back to Jersey in a few days then to California to record. Why should my mom be punished? She adores Kat. Always has. And hell I'm never home--that's kinda how you got in the fucking picture." Bob snorts.
"Bob, don't."
"Sorry, Kat, sorry" he says softly.
"Why do --"
Gerard looks at the one who spoke, he honestly can't remember if it's Landon or Marcus, and doesn't really give a shit truth told. They mostly had just stared, Colby was a fucking dick and evidently more capable of winding Jason up than depriving Mikey of his coffee could drive him batshit. "Why do what?"
"Why are you wearing that shirt? A kitty?"
"That's my niece Bunny," Gerard grins widely.
Bob chokes fighting a grin. "Damn it, Gerard, now we can't shave her to piss Mikey and Alicia off if you're calling her your niece." And Frank stumbles into his side clinging and giggling so hard he can barely stand. Jamia laughs and Kat smiles for the first time the whole afternoon, a real smile and laughs just a little.
Kat hugs Jamia, and surprisingly Gerard, whispering something in his ear Bob doesn't catch.
"There will be tickets waiting, next time we play Chicago." Gerard murmurs and gives Kat a squeeze.
And then they're gone, finally, thankfully.
"Go change," Frank announces.
"What?"
"Me and you, Bryar, we're going out."
"We're what?"
"Out. Booze. Music. We're going. Change your fucking clothes now." Frank orders.
*
They pretty much fall out of the cab when they get home. Bob's not sure who is holding who up because neither of them are too good with the whole being vertical thing at the moment, but they somehow make it to the apartment.
"Oh. God." Jamia groans.
Frankie giggles and stumbles away from Bob into Jamia.
Walls are nice. They keep Bob from landing on his face. He thinks he'll just lean against this one for a nice long while, until the room stops wobbling and spinning.
"You are totally fucking trashed, aren't you?" Gerard shakes his head.
"His fault." Bob points at Frank.
"Uh huh." Gerard agrees and moves to Bob's side, steering Bob to the master bedroom. Jamia a step or so behind steering Frank into the spare bedroom.
"Sorry," Bob murmurs dismally as Gerard pushes him back to sit on the bed.
"You will be in the morning," Gerard snorts and crouches down to take off Bob's shoes because there's no way Bob is managing without a nosedive to the floor just now.
"I'm an asshole..."
"You're a dumb ass maybe" Gerard shakes his head and reaches for Bob's belt, unbuckling it and pulling it off. "You want your shirt and pants off or not?"
"Uh.."
Gerard takes that as off and reaches for Bob's shirt, it takes a bit of tugging and bumbling because Bob is hopelessly uncoordinated but that's off. Gerard doesn't pay the least bit of attention to the strangled sound Bob makes as he pushes the blonde back and undoes the button-fly jeans and works them down and off.
"M'sorry," Bob repeats blearily. And he is. He doesn't want to be this fucked up around Gerard. It's not that they have ever made that big of an issue of it, simply if any of them were going to get fucked up they did it away from Gerard, and now Gerard and Mikey since he'd sobered up. It wasn't that big of a deal. Keeping the bus more or less dry wasn't that much of a hardship for anybody.
"Shhh," Gerard whispers. "Don't pass out. Be right back."
Bob is less than happy about having to sit back up, but Gerard is insistent when he returns, forcing half a bottle of water down Bob, and leaving it, and an unopened one on the nightstand along with the Tylenol.
"Sorry," he whispers again as Gerard crawls into bed and curls against him.
"S'okay," Gerard murmurs with a shift, an arm across Bob's chest, their legs half tangled together.
"Mmm," Bob disagrees arms moving, uncoordinatedly, almost of their own accord around Gerard who shifts just that much more into Bob. Gerard's hand moves up and threads through Bob's hair, an odd move in that it's usually Bob petting Gerard's hair. It feels nice though.
*
Bob wakes up with the feeling something is strange and wrong, disoriented beyond anything he's felt in a long time. The jolt of shock and almost fear that has him trying to sit up quickly is a mistake as his head and stomach both vehemently protest that move. He falls back, his head protesting further at the slight bounce, his stomach not all that happy with it either.
He slowly tries to think through the fog of the hangover to figure out what the hell has his heart pounding and fear-sick clutching at him worse than hangover-slightly-nauseous-if-try-to-mov
Slowly, horrifically it dawned on him. He was alone. When they'd been writing in Maine he'd had his own room, but the manic pace and strange hours they kept, they were writing and that was different, fundamentally somehow. And they'd passed out more than slept. They'd passed out on the couch next to each other too tired to make it to beds more than once. A few times he had made good on his threat to drag Gee to bed and pin him down when that song had come together and had him too wound up to rest even when at the point of near-collapsing from exhaustion. The night in the hotel and the one night just him and Frank at his mom's he hadn't slept so well but...
He always woke up first, and Gerard was invariably tangled up, burrowed into, wrapped around him by morning. Somehow, some way, whether it was Gerard sprawled half on top of him or curled in a little ball with Bob spooned around him holding him tight. Bob always woke up first tangled up with Gerard.
Oh.
Fuck.
When the fuck had he managed to fall for Gerard! How fucking stupid was he?
What the hangover hadn't managed that realization does, and he nearly knocks Jamia into the wall in the hallway making a run for the bathroom.
A hand is there rubbing his back, a second hand tucking a few wayward pieces of hair behind his ear.
Gerard. Fucking Gerard fussing over Bob's hangover. And worse, he likes it. Likes the hand on his back, the hand in his hair.
The worst fucking hangover he's had in years, and there's Gerard.
His brain really shouldn't be trying to go in so many circles when it was foggy and aching. Circles that all had to do with Gerard, and how fucking stupid he was for falling for his band's front man.
"Gonna shower," He manages to grunt.
"Kay. I'll go get ya something to put on."
His head hurts to the point everything hurts from his hair to his toenails and he's pretty sure the queasy refusing to leave his stomach even after puking up half his guts was all to do with Gerard and nothing to do with whatever the hell Frank all poured down him the night before.
*
Jamia is evil. That's cool though. Her evil torture of dragging them shopping to organize the apartment and get all the piles of things in the bedrooms back into some sort of shelves or dressers or something is torture but necessary and she tends to know exactly what she wants and not piss around about it. Shopping with a hangover is hell, but no less than he probably deserves, and certainly a better option than arguing with Jamia on a mission.
Her first order of business is a rental car which ends up a minivan. Then shopping. Two stores, four hours, one batch set to be delivered late that afternoon and the next the next morning, how Jamia pulls off that miracle Bob doesn't know, and is a little scared to ask.
*
They keep busy. Jamia has no sympathy for the dying. Frank claims he's dying at any rate. Jamia rolls her eyes and bosses delivery men, then them.
Bob doesn't complain. It's his shit after all. And honestly, would still be laying in the same piles where stuff was emptied out or kicked aside in moving out what Kat wanted to take a year from now. Jamia's not allowing that. Bob isn't brave enough to argue either, the woman can make Frank sit still for God's sake. That's like a super power or something.
*
Tuesday morning Bob wakes up first, spooned behind Gerard limbs tangled, his nose in the back of Gerard's neck. It takes a concentrated effort not to jump out of the bed, he resolutely ignores the urge to burrow closer and nuzzle. He slowly disentangles himself. Gerard makes protesting noises in his sleep.
"Shh, it's early."
"Coffee,"
Bob snorts, "Your wish is my command, princess," which, is kind of true. Kind of. Bob would do anything for any of the other four if he could. And spoiling Gerard with his favorite frappe latté whatever the hell it is overpriced frothy stuff is an easy thing. And Gerard was not above the occasional precious princess diva moments too.
"F'ker," Gerard mumbles into the pillows wriggling back into the warm spot where Bob had been and drifts back to sleep.
*
Something tightens around Bob's chest as the day wears on. The apartment is in near order. Things sorted through and a couple boxes sat by the door that would be taken over to his mom's. Odds and ends tossed in it that Kat could eventually pick up from his mom's. A couple romance novels, a CD that Bob is dead certain is not his, a pair of underwear that had gotten inside a pair of Bob's sweats in the wash and folded, and put into the drawer. Just stray little things that when shits been mixed together so completely so long it takes time to sort and untangle more than an afternoon's stand off.
It's not so much the apartment and the erasure of Kat's presence from it, it's how sharp and shaky Gerard is getting as the day wears on, Bob wants to reach out and touch, calm, soothe, but steadfastly doesn't not trusting his judgment or his motives.
"You need dishes," Jamia declares.
Bob doesn't dare open his mouth to say he doesn't see why that's a priority at the moment. They're pretty much living on take out with plastic silverware while they're here. True, Kat had cleared the kitchen of pots and pans and dishes and silverware, and basically everything but a half dozen coffee cups. His dishes and stuff had long since gone in the trash or to goodwill or something. Fifth hand hand-me-downs or thrift store or Wal-Mart clearance to begin with, not a bit of it matching. It had been good enough for just him, fresh out of school and scraping to get by. Kat had replaced it with either her own stuff, or new bought after they were together, that she took all that seemed natural and hell, like he was ever home for it to be an issue especially when his mom would feed him when he was sick of take out.
Bob wants to argue, a lot, when Jamia kicks them out. Him. Gerard. And Frank. On a mission to go stock his kitchen with appropriate dishes and utensils and pots and pans and shit like that.
"Don't you want help when the delivery guys show up babe?"
"No." Jamia glares. "They'll put stuff where it needs to go and I can get things organized faster alone."
"Okay." Bob agrees. He doesn't mind Jamia's sort of taking over the reconstruction of his apartment. She knows how to put things in order and it's just easier to let her refill the spaces so he doesn't have to think about stuff that used to be there. And she's right, they've only got so much time to get things done, they're here and who knew when the next opportunity would arise. After they were done recording that's for sure.
"Where are we supposed to go? Target?" Frank wants to know.
Jamia hands them an address and a store name she's copied out of the yellow pages, and even made a phone call to see what brand names they carry. "You can't screw up too badly there."
*
Bob's head is throbbing. He sticks two cookie sheets and a pizza pan, three skillets and half dozen pots, wincing at the goddamned price tag on the soup kettle but oh well.
"Why are you getting cookie sheets?" Frank frowns.
"I like cookies."
"So you buy cookies."
"Frank," Bob shakes his head.
Gerard looks at Bob. "Think we could try out the cookie sheets tonight?" he asks then glances down looking sheepish.
"Sure," Bob agrees.
"Huh?"
"Bob makes killer peanut butter chocolate chip cookies," Gerard smiles. "He made me some once."
"You can make cookies?" Frank squeals. "You've never made me cookies, you fucker! I want cookies!"
"Are you fucking six, Iero?" Bob chokes. "You're going to have to find a cookbook that has vegan cookies in it though because I only know how to make things with eggs and butter. Or you're just going to have to cheat on your principles for cookies."
"My mom has one of those." Frank points to a Kitchen Aide. "She loves the thing. Its one of the first things I bought when I could afford it. She like lusted after the stupid thing for years but would never buy one herself because they cost so damn much."
Bob looks at it a long moment, it seems familiar. "Think that's what mom used to have and she was just about crying when it died finally."
Gerard nods. "Mom has one. I think she loves it more than me and Mikey. Frank we need another cart. Red for your mom?"
Bob thinks a moment. "Yeah." he's reaching to make room in the cart as Gerard looks for a red deluxe with every possible attachment and doohickey. Bob doesn't ask what the damned thing costs. He's pretty sure he doesn't want to know, but his mom will love it, and he kinda accidentally fucked off Mother's Day in the middle of writing up in Maine so...yeah.
A coffee pot, a toaster. A set of mixing bowls and measuring cups and spoons. He basically lets Frank go wild and grab one of everything from one aisle he can identify most of what Frank grabs so that's something, and says he'll probably use the stuff if he's ever home to cook. Some other things Frank says his mom has, he knows he's gotten put to work handing things or his hands whacked by the things when trying to snitch from whatever his mom was cooking.
Bob stares at the aisle of plates and place settings and his head starts to throb. The aisle of finer, thinner china-type dishes had been ignored for the heavier stoneware type stuff. Bob points to a navy blue. "How about those?"
Gerard wrinkles his nose. Frank shrugs.
"Fine. You're the artist, you pick." Bob sighs.
"They're your dishes."
"Gerard..." Bob groans. "Fine, if you won't pick I'll get those."
They leave the aisle with a mix-and-match compiled set, half plain navy blue, half a bright royal blue full of some sort of squiggly navy, white, black and gray-ish to gray-ish blue designs that are kind of abstract-ish or something. Bob doesn't know, but Gerard likes them and claims they match the plain navy well enough.
The total at the checkout makes him want to cry just a little but hands over his credit card.
*
Jamia calls twice, worried.
The first time they're in a bookstore, just as Frank is paying for the vegan cook book with cookie recipes in it. Bob doesn't think they look all that appetizing because cookies are supposed to have butter and eggs and not soybeans and tofu or whatever, he didn't look at the recipes really, but Frank wants vegan cookies.
The second time they're in the grocery story.
This time Jamia flat out asks if they're on something. Frank and cooking of any sort other than reheating in the microwave, just isn't a good mix.
*
The book cases and whatnot, the dressers in the bedrooms all finally delivered and in place when they--an eternity and a fucking half later--get back to the apartment. It looks different. Kinda strange, not quite his, but better than empty spaces. Maybe something he will want to come back to, knowing it's here and not the empty spaces and piles.
Cookies take til fucking three am. Even the vegan ones didn't turn out half bad Bob has to admit, though Frank pouted obnoxiously about his cookies being made second. Bob hopes it is only his own paranoid imagination that Gerard seems more tense and sharp as the night wears on. But Frankie's bouncing and teasing and climbing all over Gerard seems to follow apace with Gerard's sharp and tense.
*
Wednesday morning, or rather afternoon, Bob wakes up with Gerard clinging to him like a burr. There's no way to disentangle himself without waking Gee.
He hears them on his way to the kitchen after his shower. Gerard, Frank and Jamia.
"Did I fuck up?" Jamia asks.
"No, no you didn't. He woulda left it for three fucking years." Frank insists.
"No." Gerard agrees. "It looks great, Jamia, and he'd never have done it. We wouldn't have thought to make him or know where to start, it looks great...that's...that's not it."
"You guys have a fight?" Frank asks worried and wary.
Gerard's shaking his head as Bob enters the kitchen.
*
Bob spends the remainder of the afternoon before they, or really he but its not like the others will not go too, has to head to George's club lost in thought. Gerard all tenseness and jagged edges on the end of the couch, sketching out something almost angrily with slashing heavy lines. Bob's stomach twists and his heart tightens just a bit with each scratch of pen over paper. The two boxes by the door become three with some flower vases that had been under the sink and a box clear back up on the top closet shelf of Kat's are unearthed in the process of packing away the piles of shit dumped on along the walls of the bedroom so Kat could take what she wanted and Sunday afternoon could end.
The angry scratch of pen over paper finally cuts too deep, Bob wants to pull Gerard in his arms or his lap and tangle his hand in his hair and make Gee look at him, tell him what the fuck is tearing at him. He doesn't. Doesn't dare. He really honestly wants to do a helluva lot more than that but he doesn't let his mind go there. "Think you could maybe draw me something for the wall? They're kinda bare."
Gerard looks up, startled and some new kind of broken that Bob can't put a finger on and doesn't like one bit. "Really?"
"Yeah." Bob says.
*
Thursday is the same. Or close enough. Gerard sharper, more jagged, bruised eyed from lack of decent sleep. Bob wants to drag him back to bed and make him rest so intensely he doesn't even stay in the same room as Gerard if he can avoid it for the afternoon. He can't. Doesn't trust himself not to do something stupid and berates himself, silently, violently as he goes through the CDs putting them on the shelves that were his choice of the three Jamia said were okay, finding nearly a dozen of Kat's or perhaps friends of Kat's that she'd ended up in possession of, because they weren't his, and both Frank and Gerard denied having seen them before so Bob was fairly certain that they didn't make their way home with him off the bus somehow, which had happened in the past, and not such a big deal if not for the distance of Chicago and Jersey.
Bob stares at the boxes from where he sits on the end of the couch waiting for the others. Frank and Jamia are in the spare room, Gerard's just made a dash from the bathroom to the bedroom in nothing but a towel. "I'M GONNA KILL YOU FRANKIE!" is shouted before their-his-bedroom door is slammed.
He's pretty sure everything left of Kat's is in those boxes. That just kind of leaves a taste of ashes in his mouth. He still loves her, kinda thinks he always will a little. She's Kat. Nothing to blame or be angry about, hell, he didn't blame her a bit. Hell, how could he? It just was. There was only so much he had, only so much was left when the music and the guys took so much. And on the road and on the road and on the road some more, she was left on her own, and didn't have as much as she deserved when he was home. He couldn't change it, wasn't all that sure he would if he could, and if that little dork made her happy that's what counted he supposed, even if it would feel really good to bust the fucker's nose or something.
Gerard comes out a heart beat before Frank and Jamia, Bob's heart nearly shatters. Gerard. looks. like. fucking. shit. He's looking all hurt and worried at the boxes then Bob and...
"Be back in a minute," Bob growls in the vague direction of Jamia and Frank and is on his feet, he wraps his fingers carefully around Gerard's wrist and gives him a gentle tug, leading him back to the bedroom.
"Gee. You up to--" Bob swallows. And Gerard fucking curls inward on himself, hurt, furious.
"You don't need to worry about me."
"Goddamn it, Gerard," Bob whispers roughly. He can't stop his hand, the one holding Gerard's wrist, from sliding up Gerard's arm to tangle in his hair. "And it'd do as much good to tell me not to breathe, I kinda just do."
That twisted up expression Bob absolutely despises flashes through Gerard's eyes.
"Stop it. What? Fuck, Gee, What?"
"We don't know how to take care of you."
"You are, you do," Bob insists.
Gerard swallows and snorts, mostly disgusted and a bit angry.
"You are," Bob repeats, his fingers tightening a little in Gerard's hair. "You are." He doesn't have the words, and doesn't trust himself not to blurt something utterly stupid and just fucking ruin everything. "This is good." Bob has no fucking clue what exactly is good. What Jamia's bullied him into on getting the apartment back in order. Just that Gerard and Jamia had followed him in Frank. That Frank hadn't driven him insane yet and the trip was almost over. That...that Gerard's still damp hair felt good tangled around his fingers. "You're doing good, all of you--I'm just..."
Gerard relaxes, not much but a little, uncertain-hurt-worried but not so much with the guilty-angry-self-hatred dark spiral of what the fuck ever.
"You do. Promise." Bob offers.
Gerard gives him a little nod of agreement.
"C'mon, lets get goin'."
*
Jamia looks at them hard and some of the wary eases back out of her eyes. Frank presses up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist and kinda vibrates with a big grin. Bob keeps his arm around Gerard's shoulders on the way to the car because once he's touched he can't quite let go, and that's what he's been afraid of doing the last couple days.
He leaves Frank and Jamia to their own devices and drags Gerard back with him, Trace is already there waiting, and if he thinks it's kinda odd Bob doesn't give a fuck, Gerard spends most of the night stretched up on the balls of his feet just a little, just enough to rest his chin on Bob's shoulder from behind and watch Bob and Trace with the soundboard, bobbing a little in time to the music and bruising Bob's shoulder just a little with that, but it's good.
*
Even if it was four when they tumbled into bed once again, they were up at eight-thirty and out the door at nine Friday morning. Gerard, Frank and Jamia all sporting raccoon-smudged eyeliner for the night before and Jamia the only one that gave a half-hearted thought to a brush.
Bob's mother has claimed the day, and the next. And they're not disappointing her. The boxes of Kat's shit and her belated I'm a shitty son mother's day present loaded up all of them clinging to their travel mugs of coffee as they get in the van. And it's a really good thing Bob could probably drive the route between his apartment and his mother's house in his sleep, because it's almost what he does do.
*
Gerard's rubbing his calf on as they sit on the back step having a cigarette.
Bob shakes his head and reaches for Gerard's ankles, Gerard moves with the tug turns to lay back head in Frank's lap and legs across Bob's. "Not surprised, you were on your toes all night." his hands slide up the hem of Gerard's jeans' leg and fingers press against the knotted muscles of Gerard's calves. Gerard makes a moaning little sigh that makes Bob glad the jeans he grabbed are baggy and his shirt too, and untucked. His mother's a little less than pleased with the collective barely awake bum look but was forgiving when she realized the night before had been spent with Bob working sound at George's.
"Gee sounds like that when he's just really getting into it when he's jacking off." Frank informs Jamia.
Gerard's eyes nearly pop out of his head, his face goes scarlet and the back of his hand connects hard with Frank's chest. Bob chokes, because, Frank is kinda right and bunk curtains aren't exactly sound proof. Gerard kicks at him a little.
"I've spent time on tour with you guys, you know," Jamia says in a tone that kind of implies 'duh'.
*
This time it's Bob's mom at the airport, and Gerard a little awkwardly returning her hug and both of them agreeing solemnly when she orders them to take care of each other, call often and she expects them home for a few days after they're done recording in California. Bob doesn't even try to argue with her. He resolves himself to disappointing her with another 'break up' when Gerard finds someone because Bob thinks personally he's just kinda...done. Things ending with Kat and Gerard was simply his friend and bandmate, all he would ever want from Bob. So he was pretty sure he was just done and there wasn't likely ever going to be anyone that was more than a few nights distraction and certainly not anyone worth his mother ever meeting.
"Make sure he trims that damned beard soon," Bob's mom orders tucking a strand of hair behind Gerard's ear.
"I will." Gerard agrees. Bob knows he's not getting out of that, the flailing look Gerard gives him as his mother turns her attention to him pretty much says you so fucking are because she's not being mad at me
A final hug for both of them and they thankfully have to board and are on their way back to Jersey.