sex in wartime is sweeter than peace

Hope feels good.

2008-10-30T00:46:51Z

I just watched Obama's informercial. My God. No anger. No bitterness. No negativity. Just pure love for our country and its people and its ideals. Just hope.

You know, I supported Hillary in the primaries. I would have loved to see her as a presidential nominee. I was skeptical of Obama's ability to lead. But in the weeks since the convention, watching him in the debates and seeing how he's handled his campaign and the financial crisis, he won me over. And now, after watching this? I would be damn proud to call him my president, perfect or not.

Barack Obama is a GOOD man. You cannot fake that. If you try, the cracks show. There aren't cracks on Barack Obama and seriously I think that responsibility lies with his mother and grandparents. Whatever faults they might have had, they clearly taught him about love. And what he produced tonight? This was a love letter to our country. A clear and concise statement of what he wants to do with us and for us if we'll just take his hand.

I love my country. I've always loved my country even at its worst, even when I was appalled at our behaviour and our arrogance. But tonight, for the first time in a really, really long time, I have hope for us. And that feels pretty damn amazing.

For those of you who didn't get to see it, or who are outside the US and are interested, here it is.

Heaven's the next town with a girl and a bar

2008-10-29T23:42:07Z

So my morning started off with me waking up 45 minutes later than I meant to, which meant not doing the fest writing before work which I really needed to do and instead racing to catch the T which, of course, I missed , so I had to get the next train which happened to break down in the subway tunnel for 18 minutes before they finally managed to lurch it into the nearest station and of course they had to pack our crowded train into another crowded train which made everyone cranky and misanthropic by the time we got to my stop.

And then my day spiraled down from there. Yay. No use going into all the details (mostly it involves having too much work to do this week and next and not enough hours in the day in which to get everything done) but suffice it to say by the time I got home tonight I really wanted to inflict physical damage on any inanimate object that might cross my path. (Also if the Commonwealth of Massachusetts does not get my voter registration card here by next Tuesday I'm going to have to hurt someone.) And to add insult to injury I forgot my iPod today so there was no immersing myself in tunes to ignore the world. Dammit.

Tonight, however, I've drowned my sorrows in a hot shower and made a cup of tea and I'm about to crank up the heat in my bedroom and throw myself into finishing this damned snarry_holdays fic that will not end, omg.

But first, a few things I like today:

Yes We Can (hold babies). Best. Blog. Ever. Kids + Obama = \0/. I really shouldn't want to write kidfic about a presidential candidate. Really. I shouldn't. But I mean, dude. With pictures like this one...

An awesome photo of the Old 97's I hadn't seen before today. \0/ Dear Rhett, you are so pretteh....I am now thinking about slashing you with Jared Padalecki because OMG lanky Texans FTW.

This is what I can see from the porch outside my bedroom. I love fall. It's glorious.

The writing/reading nook in my bedroom that I am currently occupying. The blue cards contain my plot for my snarry_holdays fic. :D Also please to be noting the SUPER FABULOUS floral decal on Severus the MacBook that I purchased recently from Etsy. (Yes, I realize actual Severus would be aghast at the girliness, but in the immortal words of the Draco Malfoy that lives in my head, pfft, he'll live. *g*)

And on that note, I have to go make Snape and Harry have sex. Which is a lot harder than you'd think. *cries*

ART REC: What I Did on my Summer Vacation by chibitoaster/littleblackbow

2008-10-26T12:49:43Z

If you like Snarry, you have to go see littleblackbow/chibitoaster's Snarry Games submission.

It's incredible. I'm not going to spoil it, but it includes what is possibly my FAVOURITE plot twist ever and it's something you don't see too much on the slash side of fandom, which is a pity. And Rana's picked the absolute best music to go along with it. It's perfect. Seriously. I'm still choked up over it.

What I Did on my Summer Vacation by chibitoaster/littleblackbow, PG

ETA: Also? Best. Challenge. Ever. on snape100 this week. *snogs bethbethbeth and ponders how many drabbles can be written in seven days*

Read. This. Fic. Srsly.

2008-10-24T23:14:24Z

Okay, so I just finished The Evil Devil Child and the Perfect Gift from hp_cross_fest and seriously, OMG. It is dirty. It is filthy. It is perverted. It is hysterical. Do be forewarned by the pairings though: Albus Severus/Scorpius/Draco, Harry/Scorpius, Albus Severus/Scorpius, Harry/Draco and all four together.

I think this version of Scorpius is my very favourite ever. He's sweet and kinky and brilliantly Slytherin and I now have the sudden urge to read more Scorpius fic except I can't because I'm supposed to be writings which means I have to get off the Intrawebs right now and get back to work. Which I am. After I tell you all to go read this fic. :D

they might be psycho killers but tonight I really don't care

2008-10-24T02:47:09Z

Two quick things that have made me \0/ today:

1. Supernatural. OMG HEART. Also, I have decided that since I can't personally climb up Jared Padalecki, the next best thing is for me to daydream about Rhett Miller climbing up Jared Padalecki and being wicked with him. Mmmm. Floppy haired, drawling Texans FTW!

2. This video of Jens Lekman singing Black Cab in a black cab and recorded for the Black Cab Sessions. \0/ \0/ \0/ Brought to you by the awesomeness that is luciamad who pointed me to it. :D Jens! In a black cab! Singing Black Cab! *flails* Seriously, how much more awesome can life get?

And on that note I have to go back to writing my ass off for the next couple of days which equals pretty much being offline. Or making a marked attempt to be. Thank God for Isolator and a significant stash of productivity-enhancing classical music. (OMG, I hate Snape and Harry right now more than you can possibly imagine. *shakes fist at them* Behave, dammit! And stop talking so damn much. ARGH. I'm looking at you, Harry. Stupid, stupid, stupid men.)

The wide open spaces all around me, the moon and the stars up above

2008-10-21T23:29:38Z

So after a lot of research and internal debate, I ordered a G1 Android phone (aka the first Googlephone) from T-Mobile today. It's supposed to arrive on Nov. 10, knock wood. There's a part of me that feels kind of bad for deciding against an iPhone, especially because I've wanted one for two years now. But a couple of things swung me towards the G1, despite the fact that it's not as aesthetically pleasing as the iPhone.

First the fact that the G1 has a keyboard is a big thing for me...I've tried the iPhone onscreen keyboard multiple times and I just haven't been happy with it. It's not easy for me to type on. And I don't want to spend that kind of money on something that I won't like, especially since I primarily want to use it for Internet access. Secondly, I already have a T-Mobile account and I switched to them in the first place because I had serious connection/customer service issues with Cingular/AT&T. I like T-Mobile a million times better. Thirdly, and this was the really big one, I'm a huge Google user. Every single day I access my gmail, gdocs, gcal, gnotebook multiple, multiple times. My fandom life is tied up in Google (God help me if they ever go evil). So, since my phone is my connection to fandom and my friends/family instead of work, having all of that tied into it is a huge benefit for me. I'm not too concerned about the audio/video elements of the G1 that are subpar to the iPhone because I use my iPod for both of those. I'm meh about having them on my phone.

So. We'll see. I've never ever ordered the first edition of any gadget before and I'm a bit nervous, but overall it seems to have pretty good reviews so far. I'll post my own after I get it and play around with it.

But wow, I've never not picked an Apple product. I feel a bit guilty. I think I'll have to spend a little more quality time with my MacBook to make up for it. :D

Also, I just submitted my nominations for yuletide! Here are the ones I picked:

Bones (Well, duh. That was a no-brainer.)
RPF - Old 97's (I realize that this fandom at the moment consists mostly of me and djinnj, but I want some Rhett slash, dammit. No seriously, I really do. Go nominate it, please, please, please?)
Lloyd Alexander - Westmark (I can't decide if I want slash or het where Mickle wears a strap-on. Don't look at me like that. You know she would.)
Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book (One word. Silas.)
St. Trinian's (femmeslash FTW)
True Blood (oh, what the hell, I heart this cheesy show)

And Rhett Miller just released new tour dates in December. I think I've managed to convince myself that it would be COMPLETELY responsible to hit up two concerts in Philly and DC in one weekend. *looks shifty* I'm calling it my Christmas present to myself. *G*

Now, back to writing and getting-ready-to-RP. :)

Dreaming again of a train track ending at the edge of the sea

2008-10-19T03:50:07Z

So it's been a couple of weeks since I've posted...lots of work going on and lots of fest writing, although the work seems to be trumping the writing lately much to my (and my deadlines') dismay. It's been trumping a lot of things, actually, and since I have some big projects lined up for the next two months, that's probably going to be the case for a while. :/

But, um, hi! :D

Today was kind of an awesome day...my diocese had its confirmation service today, so I am now officially Episcopalian/Anglican. \0/ I had to be at my church at 8:30 this morning for the rehearsal/meeting with the bishop before the 10 a.m. service, which meant getting up at the same time I do every weekday, but it was worth the not-sleeping in. The whole service was a really profound experience for me. When our bishop laid his hands on my head for my confirmation prayer, I choked up a bit. It's hard to explain, really. The whole service just meant a lot to me, particularly because doing this was my own choice and not one that was placed on me by other people.

Also my priests and bishops are seriously awesome. \0/ for left-wing, actually-giving-a-damn-about-people religion. (I have a post in me about that versus the right-wing religion I grew up in. Someday I'll crack and write it. Maybe.)

Anyway. Celebration was had afterwards when I dragged ze_dragon to the Pru for Sephora purchasing and Cheesecake Factory noshing. Their Hungarian goulash is FTW.

Recently I've started obsessing over Bones. Like seriously obsessing. I started off knowing how season 3 ended since I was curious last May when the OMG NO THEY DIDN'T posts started cropping up on my flist. So I went in knowing about Zach. I started by watching the premiere of season four, then I backed up and inhaled season three so that I knew what had gone on that might affect season four. Then I went back and ripped through season one and now I'm halfway through season two. (Yes, I am totally watching in an insane manner, I recognize this.)

But OMG, my love for Zach has grown and grown, even knowing how things are going to wind up. Dammit, I want him out of the institution for good. :( :( :( So I can slash him with Hodgins.

Also, I have decided that I have a HUGE crush on Emily Deschanel. Which is kind of funny because I've had a crush on her sister Zooey for a while. (I think it's the She and Him album. *g*)

I mean, hi. I cannot decide which one is more awesomely hot:

SEE? Emily. Zooey. Zooey. Emily. I CANNOT CHOOSE! This has been tormenting me for weeks now. I guess I'll just have to go for both. :D

Anyway, I've also been reading the books by Kathy Reichs that the series was based on, and I can say definitively that I prefer the TV version of Temperance Brennan. The book version's really kind of Mary Sueish in a weird way and I kind of...well...am not fond of her. Plus she's nasty to the one character in the books I like. Who happens to be the slightly antisocial, snarky bastard who is in no way a love interest but who I think is SO much more interesting than the character that's set up as the love interest who happens to bore me to tears. WHAT CAN I SAY I HAVE A TYPE. I'm so predictable. Anyway, the books are interesting enough since the forensic elements of them are very detailed and fascinating. (The most recent one I read had a four-page in-depth description of how blood spatter works, for example.) But I'm meh about the characters. I highly prefer the TV show. (And I'm seriously glad they changed Brennan's whole personality. I love TV Brennan's social awkwardness. *g*)

And I've started to drive ze_dragon crazy by asking her constantly, "okay, oh forensic student roomie o' mine, is what they're doing even possible", to which she usually provides a solid scientific explanation because she is freaky smart about this sort of thing, and half the time I end up going, ew, gross, I really didn't need to know that which amuses her greatly. And we have an ongoing discussion about the delicate balance of eating while watching maggots wriggle out of decomposed bodies. (As in, she can cheerfully do it, and I get a little green sometimes. Which would be why she's the forensics student and I'm the graphic designer. *G*) Although I do think this show is desensitizing me more than the X-Files and Millennium did, which is saying something, given that I'd eagerly chow down on lo mein on Friday and Sunday nights without a second thought to any blood or gore spattered across my TV screen. Now I'm getting used to eating while eyeing half-rotted skulls. Go, me!

Speaking of the X-Files, I have only this to say about Thursday's Supernatural: Been there, done that, seen it in XF, Season Five, Post-modern Prometheus which frankly was a million times better than the SPN take on early horror flicks. PMP had heart. And Cher. Okay, faux!Cher, but STILL. I was really disappointed with SPN this week. :/ Of course, I'm willing to admit that PMP was one of my all-time favourite XF episodes, so that probably affects my opinion some. Okay. A lot. *g* Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting back to normal SPN. If SPN can be said to be normal. *G* I want some more Dean/Castiel interaction, dammit.

In completely unrelated news, there's an Autumn/Halloween challenge going on at pornish_pixies. Submission is open to all members and watchers, so I highly, highly encourage people to submit art and fic for it. Highly. Really highly. Submissions are due by November 8 and if you're writing fic, you can write as little as 500 words or as much as 10,000.

And if you're interested in some excellent autumnal Severus/Regulus, you should go over to pornish and take a look at drachenmina's Our Night which is deliciously awesome.

Also, I am RPing a thread tonight that is tearing me up. It's cathartic for my woobie, but oh my God, it's painful. *may be having a bit of RP bleed at the moment*

And look, in one post I've managed to go from church to Bones to lesbian crushes to forensics to Supernatural to gay porn about wizards to angsty RPing. NEVER SAY I AM NOT WELL ROUNDED. Or something. :D

I heart my OTP.

2008-09-22T04:06:55Z

Um.

THIS PICTURE OH MY GOD.

OH MY GOD.

YOU GUYS, THERE IS WALL LEANING. THERE IS POSSIBLE TOUCHAGE. THIS COULD GO PLACES IN MY HEAD, SCREW CANON. THERE IS NO WALKING AWAY IN MY HEAD, HELL NO. IN MY HEAD THERE IS HOT TEACHER-STUDENT WALL SEX, OH YES.

I have to have a high-res copy of this photo. I have to. Somewhere in cyberspace there HAS to be a high-res copy of this photo. And I need. No, really. I need. *gimmee hands* Does anyone in Germany happen to have a copy of this calendar they can scan in?

Will write fic in exchange for high-res photo. Seriously.

*eyes photo again*

GAH. I NEED THIS MOVIE. I WILL BE IN OTP HEAVEN. DO NOT FUCK THIS UP FOR ME DAVID YATES, YES, I'M LOOKING AT YOU.

Birds love and bees love and whispering trees love

2008-09-17T04:43:43Z

So, it's halfway through the month now and I've barely posted. Er...real life's been a bit busy with work and moving...

Still a saga on the latter as the moving company admitted today that they've officially lost eight of our boxes and can't find them anywhere in their warehouses. Awesome. I'm going to have to call their insurance company tomorrow and figure out how we can be compensated. Color me not thrilled...I'm missing my Wacom tablet, winter clothes and half of my bedding and Dragon's missing a bunch of her textbooks. :/ I'm trying to be Zen about it though because, really, what can you do? Possessions are just possessions, after all.
I've been a bit worn out and under the weather the past week or so. Lots of headaches and coughing and copious amounts of napping on the couch when I get home. One of my coworkers had a bug recently and came to work anyway (due to issues with our leave time), so I suspect I might have picked it up from her. Unfortunately, I can't take a day off either which doesn't help with the getting to feeling better bit. Alas. Woe. I am cheering myself up, however, with large doses of Ella Fitzgerald. Who can make any day brighter.
I'm rereading Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyer's The Power of Myth right now and really, it's amazing how much a twelve-year-difference can make in my enjoyment of it. I remember being a bit bored and impatient at times with Campbell in grad school. Now I keep finding myself nodding as I read, agreeing with him both as a human being and as a writer. And I very nearly missed my T stop on the way home tonight because I was caught up in the book. Which is of course why I'm now downloading some of Campbell's lectures to listen to at work tomorrow. And I think I might go back and reread The Hero with a Thousand Faces again. Very interesting.
I'm finishing up my outline tomorrow hopefully for my snarry_holidays fic so I can actually dig into writing. Because that would be good, yes. Because I have a deadline approaching. Quickly. Urk.
I splurged this weekend and bought 10 Adrien Brody DVDs for a total of $50. Now I'm just waiting for them to arrive in the mail from various Amazon Marketplace sellers. Today's arrival was The Darjeeling Limited. \0/ I might force ze_dragon into an Adrien fest Friday night. Apropos of very little at all...I rode the T today with an Adrien-lookalike who was wearing a t-shirt that read Optimus Prime says stay in school. For some reason this amused me greatly.
As it's now officially the 17th on the East Coast, I can say happy birthday to my baby sister! *snugs mulberry_ink* I heart you.
I'm on my way to bed. But as I go, a link to share. The Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator. Hours of fun for the whole family. *nods sagely* And on that note, good night, Eye Jay.

Art oh my God art.

2008-08-31T02:09:44Z

So, littleblackbow is auctioning off some of her art to help cover some expenses this month and you guys. It's abso-bloody-lutely GORGEOUS work.

There's some H/D and some Snack and some Remus/Sirius....and a beautiful watercolor Regulus. (The Remus/Sirius sex piece just blows me away.)

Go look. Go buy. Seriously. I know there are some people on my flist who would KILL for some of this. OMG.

*flails at littleblackbow*

You’re scoring her shipwrecks with fiddles and dobros

2008-08-28T19:35:38Z

So I went to take a short nap last night at 8 o'clock before I tackled some things on my to-do list like send out p_p invites, answer some comments/email and do some RPing. Um. I woke up from said short nap at 7:30 this morning. I've been...a little tired lately. Sadly I could still take a nap right now.

I currently have no furniture in my apartment (unless you count an air mattress furniture, which I don't.) Two-pronged moving is a pain in the butt seriously. (Six days left! Six! \0/)

You know you've officially become a Massachusetts resident when you're rewatching Men In Black for the thousandth time as ze_dragon and I were recently and when they zoom in on Truro, MA on a satellite map you suddenly turn to one another at the same time and say, dude, that's so very much the wrong end of the Cape, duh.

Anyway, to sum up, life lately = pretty much working and moving accompanied by a lot of Old 97's interspersed with some Van Morrison to help with the staying sane part.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the Old 97s the past few days because when I say I've been listening a lot I mean probably 20 hours a day worth of listening. (That's really not all that much of an overexaggeration, sadly. *g*)

I always feel so weird when I talk about bands meaning a lot to me for one reason or another, and then there's the whole emo-kid "OMG this band saved my life" thing that just makes me kind of wince a bit even though I do understand that emotion. I've never had a band save my life, but I've had three artists so far in my life whose music has made things tolerable for me at difficult times--for which I will love them forever. Dwight Yoakam got me through college and grad school without committing homicide, Van Morrison helped me endure turning 30, and the Old 97's? Well, they got me through my dad's death. I spent most of the summer after he died listening to Satellite Rides on repeat. I wasn't letting myself fall apart very much those months because I felt like I had to keep it together for a number of reasons, the least of which was that my mother just wasn't capable of coping. So I'd curl up in bed or on the couch at night with that album playing and ... it helped. A lot. I could get out of my head listening to Rhett and Murry and Ken and Phillip and I really, really needed to get out of my head right then.

Part of it, I think was taking something that was my dad's (country music) and making it something of my own (adding a rock/alternative twist). Part of it was that the music just took my mind off things I couldn't change or fix. And part of it was that I associated Rhett (and still do to be frank) with something else that helped me escape during those months: by that time he was my icon for Harry in the RPG I play in.

There are moments when I think it's a bit strange that a band that I associate so clearly in my head with losing my father is so important to me now. But it's not quite the same. I can't ever listen to the CD I had in my car of Rosemary Clooney songs that was playing the day I drove to the hospital only to find out my dad had died. I pulled all of those songs off my iPod because I just can't go there even now. But the Old 97's and Rhett in particular...I don't know. They were comfort. They still are. They remind me of my dad and what I loved about him and how much I miss him...and that's oddly comforting.

(It's also curious, I've found, that my life can be split into before Daddy's death and after. My whole headspace shifted in that one moment and that day's become the reference point for my adulthood. Honestly I think it was the turning point for me becoming an actual grown-up. Which would amuse my dad immensely, let me tell you.)

Anyway. Long story short, they're very much my favorites. And I'm about to get choked up, so I'm just going to shut up now and go back to work.

Instarec: Boundaries by Florahart (H/D)

2008-08-25T03:03:39Z

Okay, so if I said the words Harry/Draco, penis enlargement and beautifully hysterical porn in the same sentence would you be interested? Because you should be.

florahart's written a fantastic fic for pornish_pixies that includes all three and OH. MY. GOD. I howled my way through it. So much love. Seriously.

Boundaries, Harry/Draco, NC-17

Read. Now.

Excuse me while I go fangirl Flora madly.

I really need a H/D icon...

Jumping over tables to get close to her, that's not the sign of a philosopher

2008-08-25T00:50:33Z

So tired. I have now packed up nearly my entire life into seventeen boxes and three suitcases which somehow seems oddly humbling, and I'm waiting for my last load of laundry to finish so I can tape up the last box and be done. The movers will be coming tomorrow at one for phase one of the moving process--long story short, since Sept 1 is the THE moving day in Boston courtesy of the rather large student population, as of tomorrow night I'm living out of a carryon and sans furniture for a week. \0/ It'll be like camping in my living room....which is about the only way you'd get me to go camping, come to think of it.

Dungeons last night was brilliant fun. We had a gamewide year-long plot arc that ended in a flurry of activity, which meant hardcore RPing from 8:30 at night to 3:45 in the morning, OMG. It was, as those of us still stumbling about punchily around 2 a.m determined, epic--one of those moments that reminds me how much I love RPing with this fantastic group of writers. \0/

Speaking of writing (go with it, really, I'm too damn tired to think of a better segue), I sat down and figured out my writing schedule for the rest of the year because I'm going to have to be very organized when it comes to my writing this fest season. So far I have plots for all but the two exchanges that I haven't gotten my assignments for yet. I just have to beat the plots into outlines now, which I think I'll do next week. It's going to be a very Snarry and H/D heavy season for me. :)

September/mid-October:
snarry_holidays fic
Sweet Charity Harry/Draco for purely_ironic (I haven't forgotten! *g*)

October/mid-November:
sshg_exchange fic
snapelyholidays fic
hd_holidays fic

Mid-November/into January:
gossymer's Harry/Draco for livelongnmarry
accioslash's Snape/Harry fic for livelongnmarry

Call me masochistic, but I'm all flaily about being able to write so much fic, and about the plots I have. I feel like I haven't written anything really plotty in months. Which I guess I haven't....huh. My past two fics have been a lot shorter than my usual.

I'm considering making the box of brownies that's been sitting on my counter for the past three days. Hm. Or I could just sprawl exhausted on the couch and stare blankly at whatever crap's on TV tonight....chocolate....tv.....chocolate....tv....

More adventures in Episcopalianism

2008-08-17T16:07:57Z

It is not a good idea to forget to put all the priest's patens (the glass plates that hold consecrated wafers during Eucharist) on the altar before service. One ends up having priests and lay eucharistic ministers freaking out three minutes into Eucharist with good reason since, hi, no place to put the wafers to be distributed. (I feel the distinct need to point out this was not my fault. *g* Still, um, oops?)
One of my favourite lay liturgists looks exactly like Alan Rickman, albeit twenty years younger. I seriously kid you not. He even has Alan Rickman's hair. And when he came down after Eucharist today to hang with the us while we were cleaning up, he took off the white surplice he wears over his black high-necked, many-buttoned cassock...and yes. He looks rather distinctly like the movie version of you-know-who. Yes, I found this a bit distracting. *g* I kept wanting to say, you know, R, if you had a greasy black wig.... However, I restrained myself. For now. It's going to come out at some point though because eventually he's going to ask me why I keep staring at him curiously. \0/
One of the parts of the service that I love a lot is the Prayers of the People section from the Book of Common Prayer. It's a bit hard for me to explain why this part of the service moves me. It just does. Particularly the parts where our reader makes additions based on current events...today, for example, we prayed for Russia and Georgia. But the part that really gets to me is that every time we pray the prayers, my church makes certain to add a prayer of peace for our enemies and those who hate us, both as a country and as individuals. And I realize that may seem condescending on the surface, but oh, man, in practice it's not. In fact, every single time it just twists in me and shakes me up a bit because praying peace for someone who I know holds something against me is really hard for me to do. When I get a grudge I hold onto it, and if I'm going to pray for my enemies, dude, I'm going to pray that they get theirs, you know? Fire and brimstone rained upon their heads! Bring the bastards down! (Um, I can be a very vindictive person sometimes when I feel I've been wronged in some way. :/ Sigh. It's not one of my favourite traits.) And here I'm having to stand in church and pray instead that they're given peace.

Every single time it shames me a great deal...and I think that's actually good for me. I've been trying lately to pry my fingers off of some life events that have left me angry and bitter towards some individuals. I'm really tired of holding on to those things. It just takes too much energy, but it's also really hard to let go sometimes, you know? Really hard. But still. I'd like to let go of them because it's not doing me or the other individuals any good to dig my fingernails in. And I think a bit of personal shaming and striving to actually try to meet the ideals of my religion instead of just paying lip service to them might not be such a bad thing... *looks chagrined*

Nap now and then food and packing, I think; I managed to get a total of three and a half hours of sleep last night because I stayed up to do some RPG stuff. \0/

Hey, look, I have a travel saga, is anyone shocked? :D

2008-08-12T05:37:41Z

I'm finally home, after spending twelve hours in various airports/planes. Really, you guys, I'm starting to think the travel gods actually do have it out for me. First of all, in getting to Terminus, I had the shuttle I was supposed to take to LaGuardia from Logan get cancelled, though fortunately they squeezed me on another flight so I could make my connection to Chicago. And then today I left the hotel just a bit after 11 a.m in cab with dementordelta, headed to Midway. I got there only to find out that because there was weather issues in the NYC/Northeast corridor, my 1 p.m. flight to LaGuardia was...yes, oh yes....cancelled. And. There was no other flight out of Midway until Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. and the other airlines were already booked because of this, so Delta couldn't swap me over.

I was about to call my boss and say, oops, need another day off I guess, when the Delta agent decided to check what was going out of O'Hare and found a late afternoon flight there headed to Atlanta where I could pick up a connection to Boston...but only with half an hour to spare. I said hell yeah, and I even got the Chicago-Atlanta flight upgraded to first class because the agent said I was the first person who hadn't bitched her out about the flight being cancelled. \0/ Then she also put me on standby for two earlier flights just in case I could squeeze on either of them since it was a really tight connection window.

I cabbed it over to O'Hare (because while there's a train between the two airports I frankly didn't have the time to navigate a brand new public transport system with two incredibly heavy bags.) Of course, this ends up costing me $75. Ouch. Sigh.

Standby was a no-go on both early flights, so I ended up on the 5:20 Atlanta flight, and oh my God you guys, I am made for first class. Free booze. A window seat I could curl up in and doze. Leg room. Being able to get off the plane quickly. Damn, I wish I was rich. I'd fly first class all the time. Well. Actually I probably wouldn't because the frugal Irish in me would have a hissy fit. But I'd fly it some. *G* It was so lovely. And such a contrast to the Atlanta-Boston leg (which I made it to with ten minutes to spare, thanks ever so, Hartsfield-Jackson and your fucking insane web of concourses, bah). I ended up in a middle seat next to a woman who I swear to God I could have possibly killed. No. Really. Killed. She was up and down and up and down to go to the bathroom (on a two hour flight, OMG) and of course the rest of the row had to get up so she could get out every time she wanted to. And if my arm brushed hers she got all snippy and glary and rude, and I was finally at the point where I was about to say, look, lady, I'm in the claustrophobia seat and I'm trying really damn hard not to touch you because I'd like to smash your head against the window and I'm trying to avoid that temptation, trust me, but dude, there are times that we might have a bit of skin contact, so deal with it. And then when we landed she shoved me out of the way when I was trying to get my carryon down so that she could get hers, nearly causing me to drop mine on the head of a poor teenaged girl. *stab stabbity stab*

I was going to try to catch the T home, but we had to circle Providence in a holding pattern for a while before they'd let us land, so of course, by the time I managed to get through Logan Terminal A, there was no chance of making it to the station before the last train. Which meant yet another cab. All in total today I've spent $140 solely on cabs. I just. Gah.

Anyway. That is the tale, and you should all feel sorry for all the people who had to get cranky texts from me today while I was in transit. :)

Hopefully I'll have a proper Terminus report later (though I can say that during the course of the weekend geoviki and amanuensis1 successfully pimped me into Miyavi and Death Note respectively. *g*) For now, however, I'm off to shower and then to bed. I have to be up way too early for work in the morning. Gah.

\0/

2008-08-06T17:10:25Z

Happy birthday, bethbethbeth! You're the bestest. *hugs*

Half an hour and I'm headed to Logan. Three hours early. Because Delta.com still won't spit out my damned boarding pass. *eyes it balefully* But that's okay because I'll be using those three hours to frantically try to finish my presentation...

Still, TONIGHT I WILL BE IN GOOSEY'S APARTMENT AND TOMORROW I WILL BE AT THE HILTON. \0/\0/\0/\0/\0/

Also I am currently sitting in my cubicle with hot rollers in my hair. Don't ask. Really. *ducks under desk*

Gone, um, Terminusing

2008-08-06T02:54:38Z

Stupid Delta.com hasn't let me print my boarding pass for tomorrow at all today. ARGH. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I have to take a shuttle down to LaGuardia to catch my flight to Chicago. THIS DOES NOT BODE WELL FOR MY TRAVEL LUCK, YOU GUYS. :/

Am currently finishing up a load of laundry and packing my bag for Terminus. I am attempting--attempting, I say--to fit five days worth of clothes into a large duffle bag because I have a phobia of checking bags. Okay, maybe not phobia. But I really hate it. We're going to see how creatively I can pack. Fortunately everything I own is black or grey so there's going to be a lot of mix-and-matching this weekend. \0/ And as long as I have room for my hot rollers I'm a happy camper. However, lugging this on the T tomorrow is not going to be fun. I think I might grab a cab to Logan from work instead of Ting it. *ponders*

OMG. I can't believe I leave for Chicago tomorrow afternoon. I AM SO NOT READY. I'm still finishing up my presentation! *grimaces* Don't hate me too much if it sucks. And can someone please tell the TSA that a stupid quart bag is NOT enough room to hold all my makeup for five days? Dammit.

Okay. May or may not be around in the morning depending on how busy work is. Shall see some of you shortly (ETA: Will be at the Snarry and Snaco meetups I know for certain and our Snape panel is at 2 p.m. on Friday), will miss the rest of you muchly. *smushes flist* Back Monday night!

P.S. Dear SUP, please, for the love of God, do not do anything incredibly stupid like 6A did last year during Prophecy. Kthanxbai.

I SHOULD BE IN BED BUT I HAVE TO SQUEE.

2008-08-03T06:56:32Z

Y, halo there, El Jay! I just got back from seeing the Old 97's play their very last concert on their current tour which was down on the Cape, almost all the way at the tip (hello two+ hour drive one way!) and I just had to inform the internets of this one very important fact: I HAVE RHETT MILLER'S SETLIST AND GUITAR PICK OH YES I DO.

\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/

I have also once again been copiously sweated and spit upon by the man himself (HOORAY!), ze_dragon and I got my favourite spot right in front of Rhett's mic stand, first row, and Murray grinned right at me as I sang the entire lyrics of W. Texas Teardrops at the top of my lungs with him.

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And I got smacked by Rhett's butt when they were going on stage, Dragon got Ken's guitar in her side when Ken came down into the audience to play for part of a song, and during the opening act, Rhett came out and stood RIGHT BEHIND US (no I'm not kidding RIGHT BEHIND US) for a song or two, wearing a pink button-up over a lavendar t-shirt, and he worked that, baby. And when we drove into the parking lot of the Wellfleet Beachcomber, we looked immediately to our right and Rhett and Murray were standing right outside of this teeny tiny bar, just chilling. Also, Rhett played Oppenheimer as a dedication from this guy to his girlfriend, after which the guy PROPOSED to her, and then Rhett sang Question and you guys! *flails*. It was so romantically sweet.

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AND THERE WAS STAGE GAY. DUDE. We had Ken flicking his tongue at Rhett and Rhett rubbing up against Murray and Ken talking about going into Provincetown next week for BearFest and Rhett telling him not to flirt with his boy (one of the techs). I was like LOL BOYS DO NOT MAKE ME SLASH YOU BECAUSE I WILL, I'M SERIOUS.

Ken and Rhett rock my world. No, seriously.

\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/

And the opening act was Sleepercar and they are AWESOME. I have purchased their CD and will be trying to convert you all soon. :D And best of all? Their drummer? Looks REMARKABLY like my Marik in Dungeons. I was kind of jaw-droppy. So I got to see my Harry (Rhett) and my Marik tonight. THIS MAKES ME REALLY STUPIDLY HAPPY. I KNOW I KNOW. BUT I CAN'T HELP IT. SEE?

Let's have another view, shall we?

I just. *flails*

Best. Concert. Ever. OMG. And OMG, I have to go to bed. I have to be at church at 8:20 in the morning for Altar Guild. OMG. OMG. Sleep is necessary. But I love this band. OMG, I love this band so stupid much.

YOU GUYS DID I MENTION I HAVE RHETT MILLER'S SETLIST AND GUITAR PICK? 'Cause I do. *TODDLERFISTS OF GLEE, PEOPLE, TODDLERFISTS OF GLEE*

I just.

2008-08-01T16:39:27Z

So this morning I reread Nine and Sixty Ways by goseaward in prep for my Terminus panel next week and oh my God.

Have you ever had one of those moments when all the reasons why you love your OTP so damn much just slam smack into you and you have this really enormous emotional wave of woobieness for them crash over you to the point where you get a little leaky because you really, really adore them?

(Oh, God, that has got to sound so crazy to nonfannish ears.)

Anyway. Yeah. Had a moment like that rereading Goosey's fic. It just reminded me of how flaily I was after Half-Blood Prince came out and how much I love Snape and Draco together.

Don't get me wrong. I love Snarry. I love Harry/Draco. Let's face it, I love pretty much any combination of Snape/Draco/Harry you can think of. But the fact of the matter for me is that Snape/Draco is deep under my skin now, whether from writing them for so long in my fic or RPing them for years in Dungeons, and they'll always be my OTP of OTPs.

I love the way they fit. I love the parallels between their lives and the wild dissimilarities. I love their Slytheriness. I love the subtle power play between the two of them that exists under the surface. I love the improper properness of their courtship. I love Snape's protectiveness towards Draco and Draco's respect towards his Head of House (grudgingly bitter though it may be at times). I love how Snape can lose himself in the self-centered whirlwind that is Draco Malfoy and how Draco can find himself in the snarky solidness that is Severus Snape. I love that Snape can make Draco grow up some. I love that Draco can turn Snape's world upside down. I love that Snape can pretend not to want Draco and that Draco can wake up one morning and decide to seduce him. I love how their interaction with Lucius and/or Narcissa affects their interaction with each other. I love how Draco just accepts being rich as his due and how Snape has a hard time getting past his poverty. I love that there's a strange teacher-student dynamic that underlies everything, making it tense and angsty at times and oh so very questionable. I love their complexities. I love their fucked-up-ness. I just love them, fictional characters or no.

And okay, I'm seriously about to get all sniffly at work, dammit. But I really do adore these two so much and I'm always going to, canon be damned. (I still maintain that Asteria-bloody-Greengrass is actually Severus Snape in drag, dammit, and Scorpius Malfoy is the product of mpreg, AND I DO NOT CARE WHAT JKR SAYS. So there. Hmph.)

The thing I love about fandom is this is about the only place I can say all of the above without getting those oh my God, you've lost your mind, you realize they're not real, right? looks.

Or at least not many. :)

And now I'm going to pull myself together and go read some, oh, I don't know, Snape/Black for my Terminus presentation. That will eliminate ALL my humiliating woobieness right there, oh yes, it will.

*slinks away*

*is not thinking about writing Snape/Draco fic instead of finishing my Terminus presentation, oh no, not at all*

Attention Snape/Draco shippers!

2008-08-01T03:27:33Z

I know there are a few of you around here. :D

ravenna_c_tan is planning a Snaco lunch at Terminus on Saturday at noon. Sign up here if you're interested in joining us!

A request

2008-07-31T02:17:48Z

I have a friend in the UK who has a rare blood condition called Paroxysmal Nocturnal Haemoglobinuria. She found out recently that, due to the exorbitant cost of the experimental drug, the NHS may not fund the medical trial she is a part of. While some people with milder forms of PNH may not require the drug, she and the other members of her trial have severe enough symptoms that they need this drug to live what we would consider a normal life. Without it, simple things such as walking up a flight of stairs or going to the store are difficult.

She's detailed her experience and what's going on with the trial and the funding here: http://pnhlondon.wordpress.com. Please, please take a few minutes to read about the situation. In her words: I don’t want to stop living my life simply because the system decides my life isn’t cost effective enough. I don’t want to when there is a drug out there that will let me live my life. I don’t want to have to go back to the life that was because medical decisions are now being made by administrators and politicians instead of doctors.

As of now the matter's been referred to Health Minister Dawn Primarolo for a final decision. The patient group is requesting that people contact Primarolo's office to express support for funding the treatment.

Dawn Primarolo MP
PO Box 1002
Bristol
BS99 1WH

or

Dawn Primarolo MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

(email) primarolod@parliament.uk
(tel) 0117 909 0063; 0117 909 0064

While they prefer snail mail and other forms of direct contact, the group has also set up an online petition for UK residents here. Please note that in order to sign the petition, you will have to provide a real name and the first line of your UK address. If you are worried about your fannish name being connected to your real name, please use a non-fannish email address.

Thank you so much, guys. A few moments of your time could make a huge difference in someone's life.

Let's watch it swim against the water's flow

2008-07-28T14:59:54Z

So, gossymer has done these absolutely fabulous badges on Zazzle. You should go and stock up for Terminus. (I'll be walking around with two-thirds of them on my bag. *G*) She's also made some of them into LJ icons. Check them out here.

Speaking of Terminus, I'm still digging my way through fic. I think I'm starting to get PWPed out though... *eyes cross*

And for those of you in bandom who may have missed it yesterday, I posted a 15,000-word Frank/pretty much everyone in MCR fic. You can find it here: Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room.

Off to read more fic now....

FIC: Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room 1/2 (Frank/Mikey, Frank/Bob, Frank/Gerard, Pete/Mikey)

2008-07-27T06:45:38Z

This weekend luciamad is moving out of town, and this just breaks me a bit. I can't even begin to tell you guys how much I adore Luc and how incredible of a friend she's been to me over the past two years. I'm going to miss sprawling across my couch with her and watching Supernatural and Project Runway and all our other shows so fucking much. Hell, I'm going to miss her so fucking much.

I first started this fic almost a year ago because Luc asked me to write some Frank/Mikey for her, and she's been an endless cheerleader for me finishing it, even though she's only seen bits and pieces of it here and there. So this? This is entirely for you, Luc. With all my love and affection.

Title: Buenas Noches From A Lonely Room
Pairing: Frank/Mikey, Frank/Bob, Frank/Gerard, Pete/Mikey
Fandom: MCR
Rating: NC-17
Word count: approx. 14,700
Summary: Frank wants to touch Mikey, to slide his fingers across the sharp angle of his cheek just below his glasses, to drag his thumb along the curve of his bottom lip, to smooth his palm down Mikey's long throat.
Disclaimer: All the boys belong to themselves and this never happened.
Warnings: Semi-canon AU. (based on canon events, but some elements--such as the lack of girlfriends--may have been tweaked for story purposes)
Author Notes: Many thanks to supergrover24 and ze_dragon for their betas. And much, much love to luciamad. Thank you so much for everything. *hugs* Title stolen shamelessly from Dwight Yoakam.

"Do you ever wish you knew the future?" Mikey asks Frank one night. They're cross-legged on the hood of the van, doors open, Hendrix blaring from one of the mix CDs Ray burned the other day. Beer bottles between their knees, they stare out at a near-empty parking lot in Tulsa—or maybe it's Plano, Frank can't recall. He just knows it's fucking hot and dusty and flatter than his Cousin Maria's tits.

He takes a long drag off his cigarette and curses the broken air conditioner in their rattrap hotel. Matt and Ray have walked down the block for food—given that they won't get paid until after their gig tomorrow night, it's going to be seventy-five-cent burgers from McDonald's again, Frank knows, and he swears someday he's reallygoing vegetarian, he doesn't care what the others say—and Gerard's back in the room, up to his neck in an ice-cold bath. Knowing Gerard, he's chilling the beer in the water with him. Frank lets the bitter cigarette smoke roll across his tongue before blowing it out in a thin gray stream. It twists in the humid, heavy air, hanging for a moment before fading into the almost starless sky. A drop of sweat rolls down his temple, drips into his eye. He blinks away the salty sting.

"What the fuck for?" Frank taps his cigarette against the white paint of the hood, leaving behind a black streak of ash. "Takes all the fun out of life."

Mikey just shrugs and lifts the bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon to his mouth. It's all they could afford from the 7-11 down the street, scraping together nickels and quarters from beneath the back seat of the van. "Just want to know if all this is worth it someday, you know?" He licks his bottom lip, and Frank's stomach twists in that way he knows is entirely a Bad Idea.

It's not that Frank's confused about his sexuality. He was pretty damn certain about it the first time he sucked off his senior mentor, Andy Tisch, during Rutgers' orientation. But this is Mikey, for Christ's sake, and Frank knows the rules. It's one thing to fuck around with your friends on stage. Totally different once you step off.

Mikey's looking at him curiously and Frank flushes, takes a sip of beer. He recognizes the tone in Mikey's voice, the self-doubt. Mikey's never been entirely certain of his place in the band. Frank thinks that's stupid. Mikey's Mikey. That's all that matters.

Frank shrugs and looks around them. "Beats the hell out of Borders, don't you think?"

A bright grin flashes across Mikey's face for just a moment. It's enough. "Maybe, yeah."

Frank taps his bottle to Mikey's. "Screw health insurance and 401ks. We're fucking rock gods, man."

"You, maybe." Mikey's mouth quirks wryly to one side. "Me on the other hand—"

"Fuck you." Frank stretches out across the van hood, the heels of his Chuck Taylor All Stars dangling over the grille. Gerard's black Sharpie comic book doodles—half of them obscene in at least thirty states—are spread across the red sneakers. He takes another drag off the cigarette and passes it to Mikey. Thunder rumbles in the distance and whispers of a faint breeze stir the thick air for just a moment.

Mikey shakes his head and exhales a puff of smoke. "Gee's the talented Way, man, you know that. I'm just plain old Mikey—"

Frank rolls onto his side, mouth twisting down. "Shut the fuck up," he says, almost too roughly, and Mikey blinks at him, ash from the cigarette tip drifting into his lap. Frank looks away. The vacancy sign beneath the hotel name blinks red-orange at them. "You're not just plain old Mikey," he says after a moment. "So, just—" He breaks off and looks back at Mikey. "You're not, okay?"

"Okay," Mikey says slowly and he's looking at Frank, his eyes dark in the harsh halogen glare of the streetlight above them.

Frank wants to touch Mikey, to slide his fingers across the sharp angle of his cheek just below his glasses, to drag his thumb along the curve of his bottom lip, to smooth his palm down Mikey's long throat. Instead, he doesn't move, doesn't blink, doesn't breathe, doesn't think.

And then the rain falls, thick fat hot drops that slap against the pavement and the van, slowly at first and then faster, hard and heavy. Mikey pulls away, lifts his face up into the rain, lets it splatter his glasses and slick his cheeks, his hair, his mouth as he laughs.

"Fuck, yes," he says, sliding off the van. He stretches his arms out, his Anthrax t-shirt sticking to his thin chest, his shorts hanging low off his hips as he turns a slow circle, grinning at Frank, and Frank knows then if he didn't know before.

He's lost.

***

"We should share an apartment," Mikey says one day during practice. "I'm looking at a place. Second floor of a shitty house."

Frank looks up from his guitar. His thumbnail catches on the E string. It twangs loudly in the basement. "What?"

Mikey frowns down at his bass and tunes the strings. "You. Me. Apartment. Share. Cheaper rent."

"Right." Frank hesitates. His brain knows living with Mikey Way is probably not a good idea on a number of fronts. His body's screaming at him to suck it up.

His body wins.

"Sure, dude," he says, just as Ray comes in with a cardboard box filled with styrofoam cups and bags of milopita from the Greek bakery down the street. "I don't need to have my mom cosign the lease do I?" Their cash flow ratio, while better than the first year or two, can still be, well, spotty at times.

Mikey grins at him. "My dad already did."

"Then you're on." Frank takes the coffee, black with extra sugar, that Ray hands him.

"Move your shit in next weekend," Mikey says and he plugs his bass in, his hair falling over the rims of his glasses as he dips his bass down and spins, strumming the first few chords of Early Sunset Over Monroeville.

So fucked, Frank thinks, resettling Pansy's strap on his shoulder as Gerard ambles in, yawning. With a sleepy growl, he knocks aside the drumsticks Matt taps against his shoulder and his brother laughs, sharp and bright. Frank doesn't even have to turn to know exactly where Mikey is behind him.

He sighs. So fucking fucked.

***

Frank's shit consists of two duffle bags filled with t-shirts and jeans, four guitars, three amps, two boxes of books, another box of guitar tabs, a laptop, a Playstation and a paper box filled with games, a twin bed he's had since he was fourteen, a case of Heineken he steals from the fridge in his dad's garage, and a worn blue gingham couch his Aunt Donnamaria (mother of the woefully flat-chested Cousin Maria) hands off to him as a housewarming gift.

Mikey bounces on the end of the couch. Frank's framed and autographed Black Flag poster shifts on the wall above. "It has some give." Mikey studies the couch dubiously. "Think it'll withstand a good fucking?"

Frank tries not to think about that. He fails. "Maybe." He tugs his t-shirt down over the waistband of his shorts. "Although, really, I'd rather you not fuck on my couch, thanks."

"I'd use a rubber," Mikey says and he sprawls across the couch, bare feet propped on the armroll. His toenails are painted black, and flecks of dark polish are scattered across the pale skin of his big toe. His green madras shorts—vintage from Goodwill's dollar bin—bunch up around his pale thighs. Frank looks away.

"No fucking on the couch," Frank snaps and at Mikey's raised eyebrow, he shrugs. "Use your own goddamn bed."

"Whatever." Mikey rifles through the box of Playstation games. "Dude, you have Sonic the fucking Hedgehog?"

"I'm a classic," Frank says and he grabs two Heinekens from the fridge and tosses one to Mikey. "Be nice to me and maybe I'll let you play."

Mikey's already got the controllers out and is plugging the Playstation into his TV—a 30-inch monster perched on a wobbly pressboard stand purchased at Wal-Mart. Four important screws are missing; Mikey's rigged it with duct tape and carpenter's glue.

"This," he pronounces with obvious glee, "is going to be awesome."

Frank just smiles faintly and sits down next to him. The couch sags a bit beneath his thighs.

He's not so certain.

***

The apartment's tiny.

Frank's bed nearly fills his entire bedroom, and he has to climb over it to get to his closet. He gives up on hanging anything up properly; he just throws his laundry into two piles on the floor—clean and dirty. Usually he remembers which is which.

Mikey's a worse slob than he is. Frank's the one who has to go around picking up glasses and plates and copies of AP and Blender and Guitar Sound and the occasional shitty Rolling Stone when they get suckered into buying it for an article or two. And Frank's the one who insists on them recycling. Mikey just blinked up at him when he first complained about the piles of bottles and cans in the trash and said, okay, whatever, man, then went back to reading In Cold Blood.

It takes Frank two months to train him to put them in a box to load in the back of Frank's tiny hatchback Honda—circa 1991—for the weekly trip to the recycling center. The first time Mikey remembers without Frank bitching at him, Frank walks into the living room—where Gerard is sprawled across the floor, sketching a new comic while informing Mikey exactly how badly he sucks at Kingdom Hearts—and throws himself across Mikey dramatically, kissing his temple.

Somehow, Frank manages to hide his shiver at how soft Mikey's skin is against his mouth.

Mikey pushes him away, controller clutched tight in both hands, and tells him he's fucking crazy. Frank waves a crushed Pepsi can in front of him. "Such a good little recycler," he says, wiping away a fake tear from the corner of his eye and Mikey flips him off and swears when Goofy is killed by Oogie Boogie.

Gerard just laughs and the next day a sketch of Mikey as The Recycler (complete with too tight briefs, a flowing green cape, and shoulders brawny enough to hoist a dumpster on) is taped to Mikey's mic stand.

Frank steals it when Mikey jumps Gerard, laughing as he pushes his brother to floor. He folds it into fourths and tucks it in a box in the back of his closet. He feels like such a fucking girl.

He doesn't really care.

***

The thing about Mikey is that you have to protect him from himself sometimes.

It's not that he's stupid. Frank bristles any time anyone suggests that—even Gerard. Mikey's not fucking stupid, Frank knows. He's smart, and he's funny, and half of what he says in that dry tone of his goes right over most people's heads because they don't really listen. Mikey's odd, people think, and Frank would agree with that.

But he likes odd.

Mikey's also fucking smart. He just tends to exist in his own world sometimes, and Frank teases him about Mikeyland, where it's okay to take a heater into the shower, or put a fork in the toaster, and Mikey just smiles back at him, shrugs ruefully and points out that toasters just short out when you stick a fork in them; they don't actually kill you...he doesn't think.

Frank confiscates the forks.

He knows, though, that he has to watch out for Mikey's silences. Frank learns the different kinds—the quiet that Mikey needs when he's been around people for too long, when he has to retreat into himself, to recharge. Frank gives him space at those times, lets him spend a weekend in his room, curled up on the bed with a back issue of NME from the mid-70s.

And then there's the quiet that comes after a cheerful burst, the quiet that's deep and heavy and bitter. The quiet that wraps itself around Mikey and sucks the joy out of him, the quiet that's dangerous, angry and deep.

Those are the quiets that Frank dreads, the ones that have him knocking on Mikey's door, pushing it open despite his sullen go the fuck away. Frank curls up on the bed with Mikey and just lies there, waiting. And finally Mikey sighs and turns towards Frank, and says I don't know how the fuck you put up with me and Frank just smiles faintly and says, hey, man, half the rent money, right which always makes Mikey snort.

Frank puts on Portishead's Dummy. They lie stretched across the afghan Mikey's grandmother knitted, and they listen to Beth Gibbons whisper about this silence I can't bear as they stare at shadows that twist across the ceiling each time headlights sweep across the cheap aluminum blinds hanging cockeyed across Mikey's windows. And when Mikey lays his head against Frank's shoulder, Frank barely moves, holds his breath, almost afraid to scare Mikey until he feels him relax against his side. Frank touches Mikey's hair, a quick, light brush of his fingers across Mikey's temple, and his hair is soft against Frank's fingertips. Mikey breathes out slowly. He closes his eyes.

When he wakes up the next morning, Frank knows, the quiet will have broken. He smoothes his hand over Mikey's hair again, brushes his knuckles across Mikey's cheek. It takes hours for Frank to fall asleep.

They never talk about it afterwards. They never talk about a lot of things, though.

***

Halfway through their first Warped tour the lead singer of The God Awfuls punches Mikey in the face. Frank doesn't stop to find out why or what (though later he discovers something was said about Gerard and Mikey told the shit to fuck off—although perhaps maybe not as nicely as that); he just throws himself onto De Franco, fists connecting with whatever body parts he can come in contact with.

Frank ends up with a black eye and bloody nose and a vague memory of Fat Mike pulling him off Kevin as Ray decked the guitarist.

A beer's pressed into his hand, and his head is tilted back, someone's wadded-up Bob Marley t-shirt up against his nose.

"Scrappy little shit," Fat Mike says approvingly, and Ray snorts.

"He's a fucking Italian from fucking Jersey, man," Ray says. "What do you expect?"

Frank grins, then winces. He lowers the t-shirt (which smells like beer and cigarettes and sweat). Mikey's frowning at him from a few feet away, sitting spread-legged in a shaky lawn chair with a frayed blue-and-green plaid plastic woven seat. His elbows are on his knees. He leans forward, and his hair falls into his eyes. His glasses are cocked slightly; one leg is held on by duct tape swiped from the road crew. A bruise purples on his cheek.

"Nice repair job," Frank chokes out. He can taste blood in the back of his throat.

"Fuck off," Mikey says, mouth tight and Frank's stomach twists. Mikey stands up; the chair falls over to one side. Frank can't help but stare at Mikey's ass in retreat, jeans from the clearance rack in Bloomingdale's juniors department sliding low on his hips.

"Mikey," he starts and he tries to stand up, but Ray's hand on his wrist stops him. Frank sinks back into his chair.

Ray doesn't look at Frank. "He'll get over it," he says after a moment, and Fat Mike nods and claps Frank on the shoulder.

"Drink your beer, Iero," he says and he taps his own bottle against Frank's before lifting it to his mouth. "Fuck knows you earned it."

Frank drinks.

***

Warped is one big maintenance drunk. Frank doesn't know who the hell's bus he's ended up in or how many bottles of Heineken he's finished, but he's draped between Maja Ivarsson and Juliette Lewis and, with Adam Lazzara, they're singing along to the entire Born to Run album.

He lights a cigarette with shaky hands and wonders how the hell he doesn't just ignite himself. Ray could probably explain it. Ray can explain anything.

And then Mikey's there, hands in his pockets, and whatever he's saying Frank can't hear because the music is too loud. Juliette shouts something in his ear as she and Maja push him up, their hands on his ass, and she takes his cigarette as he stumbles forward. Mikey catches him. Frank runs his hand down Mikey's cheek.

"You haven't shaved," he says, and Mikey's pushing him to the door and down the steps. Frank only trips once. Mikey's hand is on his elbow, steadying him.

A light rain falls from the dark sky, faint drops that barely strike Frank's skin before they're gone.

He falls against the side of a bus, and he laughs just because he can. Being drunk is incredible. Wonderful. He presses his shoulders against the cool metal, raises his hands above his head. The window is smoothly slick against his knuckles, and Frank lifts his face, lets the rain sprinkle against his cheeks. It's cold and light and Frank isn't certain anything's ever felt so fucking good.

He hurts still from earlier. Fat Mike says his nose isn't broken; Frank thinks that's shit, but right now he doesn't care. Nothing matters at this moment, in this breath, and he lolls his head to one side, looking at Mikey. "You're angry," he says, and his brow furrows. He doesn't want Mikey angry with him.

"You're drunk," Mikey says, and he's leaning against the bus now with Frank. He reeks of beer and two-day-old sweat, and Frank's breath catches because even underneath the tour stink, he still smells like Mikey.

Frank nods. "Shit, yeah." Rain catches on the edge of his eyelash; he blinks and it seeps into his eyes, burning slightly. "You're mad because I hit what's his face--De Franco."

"I'm mad because you're a fucking idiot," Mikey says, and he touches Frank's nose lightly. Frank hisses, and Mikey drops his hand. "Look, don't fucking fight my battles, all right?"

Mikey's eyes are dark in the shadows. Frank can hear someone laugh in the bus behind him and he knows this is a bad idea, knows it's a really fucking bad idea, but he wants and Mikey's looking at him and Frank can't fucking think anymore.

He touches Mikey's cheek, drags his fingertips across the sharp angle of his jaw, smoothes his thumb over the soft swell of Mikey's bottom lip and Mikey whispers Frank with the slightest hitch in his breath.

Frank kisses him.

Mikey tastes like beer and Jack and Pringles, and Frank can't get enough. He grabs the belt loops of Mikey's cargo shorts, grasping them tightly as he presses Mikey back against the bus. Mikey's hands are in Frank's hair; he gasps softly as Frank rocks up against his hip.

Frank scrapes Mikey's bottom lip with his teeth. He licks the sting away.

"Frank," Mikey says again, his voice almost broken now, and when Frank slides his hand between them and rubs Mikey's dick through his shorts, Mikey groans.

The rain falls harder, spotting Mikey's glasses, and Frank licks across the wet skin of Mikey's throat, buries his face in Mikey's damp hair. Their t-shirts stick together. Frank works at Mikey's hardening cock, then slides his hand under the edge of Mikey's shorts, pushing them up his thigh until Frank's fingers catch the edge of Mikey's white briefs. He kisses Mikey roughly and smoothes his fingertips over soft cotton and hot skin.

"Please." It's a soft huff of breath against Frank's jaw and Mikey pushes his hips forward, kisses Frank roughly, hungrily, sucking at Frank's lip ring.

Frank drops to his knees, warm, wet asphalt beneath him, and he jerks open Mikey's shorts. Mikey pushes at his underwear, his other hand still caught in Frank's wet hair. His half-hard dick hits Frank's mouth. Frank catches it eagerly, tongue sweeping across the head.

Mikey's hips buck; his hand tightens. "Fuck," he whispers and Frank looks up at him.

He's beautiful. Wet and lean, his hair sticking to his gaunt cheeks. Mikey's pushed his t-shirt up just enough to rest his hand on his stomach. His fingers tense with each stroke of Frank's mouth along his cock.

Frank loves the way Mikey's dick tastes. Salty-sweet and hot and damp--he slides a finger beneath Mikey's balls, stroking just enough to make Mikey groan his name again.

He pulls back to watch him.

There are voices a few buses over, Frank can hear them, but he doesn't fucking care. It's just him and Mikey and the rain and the tiny square of warm light spilling over Mikey's face from the window above and Jesus fuck...

Frank shoves his hand down his shorts. He's already fucking hard. Mikey watches him, tells him to let him see his cock, Christ, and Frank has the zipper undone and his cock in his hand as Mikey slams his head back against the side of the bus with a sharp cry. Rain streams down Mikey's neck, thin rivulets that gleam wetly in the shadows, and Mikey's light and dark against the side of the bus.

"Suck me," he gasps. Frank has him in his mouth again. His tongue curls around hot skin, his nose rubs against crisp, sweaty curls and when his finger brushes back against Mikey's ass, smoothing over soft, puckered skin, Mikey jerks, eyes wide, his fingers twisted tightly in Frank's hair. "Frank," he chokes out again, and Frank sucks him harder, drags his mouth up Mikey's cock as he presses his fingertip into Mikey just enough.

Mikey shouts, and he shoves his hips forward, nearly choking Frank on his dick. Frank can barely swallow down fast enough as Mikey comes, thighs shaking.

It only takes a few quick strokes for Frank and then he's leaning against Mikey's hip, face pressed against the sharp jut of Mikey's hipbone as he gasps for breath. His fingers are sticky and wet, and the rain washes his come off the asphalt.

Mikey pulls away, tucks himself back together. "Frank," he says, and Frank looks up at him blankly. Mikey hesitates for a moment. He squats down, zips Frank's shorts. The brief brush of Mikey's fingers over Frank's cock makes him shiver. Another five minutes and he'll want—

"Come on, man," Mikey says quietly and it's the blank look on his face that snaps Frank back. "The bus..."

Someone walks past then, a group of laughing and shouting shadows in the rain and Frank's shaking. His stomach roils, and he knows he's drunk. Too drunk. He tries to push himself up; the world twists just enough to send him back down to his knees. Mikey, he tries to say. Instead, he dry heaves.

Mikey catches his shoulders. "You okay?"

Frank nods. He climbs to his feet, rocking only slightly. "I should—"

He barely makes it to the narrow stretch of grass behind the bus before he hits his knees again, retching.

Mikey's there, hands on Frank's skin. The rain pours down.

Frank falls against the grass and presses his face into a puddle.

He's fucked everything up.

***

Frank's in the catering tent nursing a Dixie cup of coffee, a cigarette, and a splitting headache when Mikey sets a plate of fried bread in front of him. His stomach lurches and he taps his cigarette against the side of the folding table, sending ash scattering across the scarred laminate top.

"Eat." Mikey sits down next to him.

Frank exhales a stream of smoke, then stubs his cigarette out on the edge of the paper plate. He flicks the butt to the ground and tears off a corner of the bread. It's standard breakfast fare every morning. A hangover necessity.

They're silent for a good two minutes before Mikey says anything. Frank's been waiting for it. Knows it's coming.

"Last night," Mikey begins but Frank cuts him off.

"I was drunk." He chews a bite of greasy bread and swallows. The nauseous twist isn't the hangover. "You weren't much better."

"Yeah. I guess." Mikey doesn't say anything for a moment, then he sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He looks everywhere but Frank. "You know I'm not gay."

He's been expecting it. That doesn't make it any easier. "A mouth's a mouth when you're hard," Frank says finally. His voice is surprisingly even.

"I guess." Mikey looks up at him. "I mean, it was good, but..." He trails off, his cheeks flushing.

Frank stares down at his plate. The bread's half-gone; grease still streaks the plate, soaking into the thick paper. "It happened; we'll forget it, okay?"

Mikey leans back in his chair. "Frank," he says hesitantly, before he catches his bottom lip with his teeth. His glasses are smudged with fingerprints. "I don't want you to think—"

"I said I got it." Frank stands, picks up his coffee. It's barely lukewarm. "Look, I told Gerard I'd go through a few new riffs with him before lunch." It's a lie and they both know it, but Mikey won't say anything.

He doesn't, just nods, and Frank can feel him staring at him as he heads out of the tent in search of Matt or Ray or, hell, even fucking Fat Mike.

Anyone but a Way.

Fuck.

Frank pulls his hoodie tighter around him and steps out into the rain.

***

Word gets out soon enough. Frank knew it would. He sucked off a bandmate in the middle of the fucking parking lot for Christ's sake.

It's whispers at first, and a few mutters of faggot when he passes some of the bands. Frank just flips them off and walks on. They'll be off tour in another week, heading for Japan and there's other stuff he has to worry about anyway. Like Ray's shouting matches with Matt every time they come off stage, and the fact that Chris pulled him aside yesterday to tell him about Gerard's coke problem.

Frank runs a hand through his hair and drags his tongue over his lip ring. It's cold and metallic-tangy. He's hiding behind the row of buses, in some city that he can't fucking remember. The heat of the bus burns through his t-shirt. He doesn't care. He just needs some space away from everything. Everyone.

Mikey.

Gerard finds him.

"Hey," Frank says hesitantly and he's just dropped his cigarette to the ground, scraping the toe of his Chucks over it when Gerard punches him in the gut.

Frank's bent over, gasping, and Gerard pushes him back against the bus, fingers twisted in Frank's hair. Frank winces at the smack of hot metal against his skull. "Don't fuck with my brother, Iero," Gerard says, jaw set, and Frank just nods and breathes out slowly, blinking past the pain.

Gerard lets him go.

"It was a mistake." The words come out in huffs. Frank leans his head against the back of the bus, gingerly this time, and touches his stomach. It's going to bruise. Fuck Gerard's fucking bony knuckles.

"Damn right," Gerard says, mouth clenched around a cigarette. He lights it and takes a drag, then breathes out a smoky puff and doesn't say anything for a moment. "I punched him too," he adds finally and hands the cigarette to Frank.

Frank inhales. The tobacco is sharp, unfiltered. He rolls the smoke across the top of his mouth before exhaling. "Wasn't his fault."

"Wasn't just yours." Gerard takes the cigarette back. They stare out through the chain link fence at the dull brick back of some squat building across the alley. Graffiti's sprayed across half the wall—badly. Just some kids with a couple of bottles of spray paint and too much time to kill.

"Faggot," Gerard says finally, lightly, not looking at Frank.

Frank grins. "Fuck you."

"Got a thing for Ways, Frank?" A small smile quirks the corners of Gerard's mouth when Frank doesn't answer. Red eyeshadow's still smeared beneath his eyes, and his hair is filthy and snarled. He takes another drag off the cigarette and tilts his head to read the graffiti. "I don't think that's how you spell pussy." He runs a hand through his hair, then pulls a whiskey flask out of his jeans. He uncaps it and takes a swig, then another. Frank can smell the Jack from here.

They're silent.

"I talked to Chris." Frank flattens his hands against the warm metal beneath him. Gerard looks at him then, slides the flask back into his pocket, and his eyes are dull. Empty. It scares Frank. "You've got to do something, man."

"Maybe." Gerard drops the cigarette, grinds it out with the heel of his boot. His lank hair falls into his face; his shoulders hunch as he shoves his hands in his pockets.

Frank bumps Gerard's shoulder. "You've got us."

Gerard smiles at that. "You sure that's a good thing?"

A siren wails in the distance. Frank stares at the graffiti. Someone's tried to draw a face. The nose is too big. "Not really," he says and he tugs at his lip ring again, "but it's all any of us have at the moment."

Gerard just sighs and looks away.

***

Japan's the turning point, a few weeks from hell that they struggle through. Afterwards Gerard sobers up, and they fire Matt and replace him with Bob. Frank knows it's the right thing to do, for the band, but it still hurts like hell. Frank's never been good with friendships ending. It's too painful for him.

Sometimes he misses Matt. He waits for the call, for the silence crackling over the phone, and then the hey, man, let's meet at the Brewhouse, yeah? that'll mean everything's okay.

It never comes.

He and Mikey are careful around each other at first. Too quiet. Too uneasy. Ray pretends he doesn't notice that Frank sometimes leaves the room as Mikey comes in or that Mikey sometimes falls silent when Frank's talking. Bob just watches them curiously. Frank guesses Ray's told him. He hopes he has, at least.

It's weird living with someone you don't see that much. Frank spends a lot of time in his room. Alone. Sometimes he crawls out through the window onto the slope of shingled roof that angles out over the front stoop, ashtray in hand, and sits for hours at dusk, watching the sun set over Winthrop Street. It's quiet out here, the tar shingles scratchy and hot against his bare feet, and it's peaceful, or as peaceful as Jersey gets at least. He watches the Lims across the street, wheeling their two-year-old down the sidewalk in a scraped-up wagon; next door Eddie's in the driveway, working on his '82 Malibu that's broken down again.

The needle on his turntable catches at the start of Rudimentary Peni's Cosmic Hearse, hanging for a just moment before the guitars kick in.

Mikey climbs through the window and sits next to him. Frank doesn't say anything, and he manages to hide his surprise well enough he thinks. Instead he hands over the cigarette and pulls another from the pack in the pocket of his shorts. The cellophane is slick under his fingertips.

They sit silently for a while, the smoke from their cigarettes curling up into the tree branches above them. Frank can see the last quarter of the Jets game flickering from one of the apartment windows two houses down. Nick Blinko screams behind them.

"Gerard says we're being shits," Mikey says finally, and he stretches his legs out. His heels dangle over the gutter.

Frank flicks a bit of ash off the tip of his cigarette. It drifts into the cracked ceramic ashtray that has Greetings from Asbury Park emblazoned across the rim. He rubs his fingertips over his eyebrow. "Yeah," he says, and he takes another drag.

Mikey hunches his shoulders, rocks forward, tense. His fingers drum against the shingles. "So we're good?" he asks, almost hesitantly, and Frank's throat tightens.

He looks over at Mikey, at hollow eyes watching him nervously and he smiles. "Yeah," he says again, and it's true, he knows. There's not anything he wouldn't give Mikey, not if he asks.

It's worth it when Mikey's grin nearly blinds him.

***

"So," Bob says one morning when Frank's standing half-awake in front of the coffeemaker in Mrs. Way's kitchen, still in his black peacoat and woolen cap, "man, you got to get over Mikey."

Frank jerks at that, and his gloves drop to the floor. He bends to pick them up, and Bob just raises an eyebrow. "Fuck off," Frank says, looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and the coffeemaker beeps. He pours a cup and drains it immediately, straight and black, and he swears he can feel the caffeine hitting already—even if Mikey always tells him that's only psychological.

Bob shrugs. "It's true." He brushes past Frank and pours a cup of coffee for himself. Frank pulls his hat off and shoves it into the pocket of his coat. Bob leans against the counter and watches him. "How long has it been since you've been laid?"

Six months, two weeks and three days, Frank thinks, and he can still feel the gravel of the parking lot beneath his knees. But who's counting?

Instead he snaps, "You offering?" and he hangs his coat on a hook next to the door.

Bob just looks at him over the rim of his coffee cup.

Frank flushes and walks away.

***

They fuck in the back of Bob's rented Blazer, parked in the loading dock of the old K-Mart. Frank doesn't mean for it to happen, but Mikey'd come home the night before with some girl and Frank had spent what felt like half the goddamn night listening to the steady thump of Mikey's headboard against the wall. He didn't give a fuck if it'd actually only been half an hour at most.

He can still hear her gasps in his head as he ruts against Bob, his jeans pushed down his thighs, their cocks dragging together, hot and hard and slick, and his mouth tightens. Bob pushes up against him, his hand splayed on the cold window above him, and he swears in Frank's ear, bites his throat.

"Fuck, come on, man, harder," Bob says and Frank turns his head, kisses him roughly just to get him to shut up, and Bob groans.

Afterwards they lie sprawled together, breathing hard. The windows of the Blazer are steamed up, except for Bob's handprint. Frank can see snow starting to drift again, piling on the rusted chains of the dock.

He closes his eyes and presses his forehead to Bob's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he chokes out, and Bob strokes his fingers through Frank's hair and whispers "It's okay, dude, all right? It's just fucking."

Frank just nods. He can still feel their come, sticky and warm against his stomach.

For the first time since he lost his virginity, he feels guilty about a fuck.

***

Much to his grandmother's dismay, Frank stopped going to Mass the summer after high school. He'd done his time with Monsignor Fadrowski and the sisters, and he figured that should stand him good stead for at least another twenty years. Maybe more.

And yet he finds himself dipping his fingers into the font of holy water inside the church door, wet fingertips pressing against his forehead, chest, left shoulder, right shoulder.

Frank slips into the back pew of the nave, the kneeler creaking softly beneath his weight as he murmurs a quick prayer. An old woman in front of him looks back sharply, then smiles as he dips his head and mouths sorry.

He doesn't know why he slipped out of bed at dawn after a night of no sleep, doesn't know why he's here at early Mass for the first time in years—except he does.

Since his baptism, there's been only one way he's been taught to deal with guilt.

There's something strangely comforting about the familiarity of the liturgy, the ritual of standing and sitting and kneeling, the quiet Lord, hear our prayer after each petition in the General Intercessions.

Rain streams down the windows of the small stone church, muting the jewel-toned light of Saint Dominic and Saint Anthony of Padua as Frank kneels again, murmuring Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Grant us peace.

The old woman in front of him looks back again. Monsignor Fadrowski holds up the chalice, and Frank closes his eyes and just breathes.

When he leaves, he pulls out his cell phone and dials.

"Hi," he says when Bob answers. "Do you want to pick me up?"

***

They use a bed this time, a hard queen-size in the extended-stay suite-with-kitchenette that Bob's been renting in downtown Belleville. Frank didn't even know there were extended-stay motels in Belleville. Most people just want to get the fuck out.

He bends over Bob's back, his hands slipping on slick, flushed skin and gasps as he pushes in again. Bob's muscles tense beneath his fingers; he arches and shoves back against Frank with a gasped fuck, and Frank drags his mouth across Bob's shoulder. He tastes like sweat and skin and cigarettes and Frank's balls jerk. Bob's tight around him and hot, Christ.

Frank shoves at him, pushes Bob down against the mattress, thighs spread wide as he fucks him. Bob grunts and twists, gasping Frank's name into the thin motel pillows with each rough thrust of Frank's hips.

This is what he wants, Frank knows. This is what he needs. A good friend, a good fuck. He groans and bites the side of Bob's neck.

Bob swears and twists his fingers in the sheet. Frank slams into him again, pushing him harder against the mattress.

He tells himself he's not thinking of Mikey.

For a little while, he believes it.

***

It's May when Bob looks at him one Sunday morning over the top of the Sun-Times and says, "You're still not over him, are you?"

Frank sets his coffee cup down, stares out the window of Bob's apartment. Geraniums are blooming in terracotta pots on the fire escape across the alley, bright bursts of pink and red against filthy brick. Frank's always liked Bob's kitchen. It's small, but it's bright and airy. Not like his and Mikey's. Frank sighs and twists the coffee cup across the worn wood of the table. "Probably not," he says quietly.

Bob doesn't say anything for a moment, then he folds the paper and nods. "When's your plane?"

"Four," Frank says. He catches his lip ring between his teeth.

Bob's fingers curl around his. They're warm and soft and large, and Frank's always felt safe when Bob touches him.

It's just safe isn't always enough.

"That gives us time for a last fuck," Bob says as he pulls Frank towards him.

Frank's already reaching for his belt.

***

Mikey picks him up at Newark, driving Frank's rattletrap Honda. "So how was Chicago?" he asks as he tosses Frank's duffel bag into the back seat, and Frank shrugs and catches the keys Mikey throws at him. He's lit up a cigarette already, as soon as he stepped out of baggage claim.

"I don't think I'm going back," Frank says as he slides behind the wheel of the car. "Alone at least."

Mikey just looks at him out of the corner of his eye. "Yeah?"

Frank eases the car out into the lane. "Yeah." He exhales a stream of smoke through the half-open car window. "It's cool though. Bob and me."

"Well, good," Mikey says. "Gerard'd be pretty pissed if you fucked up the band right before Warped." A moment later he squeezes Frank's arm quickly, then props one sneakered foot on the dash as Frank takes the Route 21 exit off the Newark Airport Interchange.

Frank relaxes.

He's home.

***

They're two weeks into Warped when Frank walks in on Mikey on his knees, sucking Pete Wentz's cock.

"Fuck," Frank says numbly and he stumbles off the bus. He grabs Gerard's arm as he reaches for the half-open door. "You don't want to go in there."

Gerard frowns at him, one foot on the step. "What the fuck, man, it's ninety fucking degrees out here."

"Seriously, dude, I'm telling you." Frank pulls a pack of cigarettes out of the back pocket of his shorts. "You don't want--"

"Jesus Christ, Mikey, fuck," he hears and a few seconds later Gerard stumbles out of the bus, ashen-faced.

Frank hands Gerard a cigarette; Gerard lights up silently. He leans against the bus, next to Frank, and exhales. "There are some things you don't want to actually see your little brother doing, you know?"

"Told you not to go in." Frank takes a long drag off his cigarette and closes his eyes. He can still see Wentz's fingers twisted in Mikey's hair, can still see the pale, shadowed curve of Mikey's bare shoulders in the dim light of the bus lounge, can still hear the soft suck of Mikey's mouth on someone else's dick. Frank's chest aches; he can taste metallic bile in the tightness of his throat. He opens his eyes and stares up into the brightness of the sun, not caring that it makes his eyes water. It's an excuse, after all.

Gerard scratches his upper lip. Smoke curls around his dirty hair. "You okay with this?" he asks after a moment and he doesn't look at Frank.

No, Frank wants to say. Instead he just shrugs, a quick tensing of his shoulders that he knows Gerard will read into. "It's Mikey's life."

They both fall silent; there's nothing else to say.

Part Two