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lizhanneTitle: Doris And The Telescope
Author:anne_elliot
Pairing: Brian Schechter/Gerard Way (Gerard Way/Pete Wentz in the background)
Rating: PG-15 (lots of swearing)
Word Count: 6064
Notes: AU. Written forturloughishere for this year's Sweet Charity Auction. Thanks for helping a good cause, I hope you enjoy this! Thanks to drown_thecity for the beta ♥ and to zephyrina, veecious, ashlein and sourcream_onion for the cheering and hand-holding. I usually don't like huge lists of names in notes but it was only fair, since this fic would have never seen the light of day on time if it weren't for these lovely ladies. Thank you all.
"What are you doing?"
Brian grabbed Gerard's arm, turning him so that he could see his face.
"You know I can't do this. I have to go."
"Please. You don't have to."
Brian's hand slid down Gerard's arm and wrist, taking hold of his hand.
"You know you don't."
Gerard looked up at him, eyes wide in the dark.
"Stay," Brian whispered, inching closer to him.
*
When it came to sex, Brian mostly didn't give a fuck. He had girlfriends, he had boyfriends, and never flaunted either of them, because he's a gentleman. Somehow his ink and "fuck you" attitude seemed to have spared him from fitting into the common, threadbare stereotype that could have gotten him called "faggot" or made his life a bit more complicated in his job as a construction worker, but that didn't mean he didn't care. Hell, some of the guys on his team knew and knew exactly what he thought about using certain words in front of him, and that's why he found it weird when he heard a muffled "fucking fabulous princess" and a laugh from a corner.
Two of the new guys, yeah, that must be it, he thought, but before he could think of an appropriately insulting way of making them shut up (or simply smacking their heads with his hammer) he looked up and saw the one they must have been talking about.
And that's how he met Gerard. Gerard was pale and polite and had a fucking beautiful smile as he looked around the house, crouching down in a corner to study the light.
"Hey," he said, taking in the black hair, the long hands and stopping for a second, forgetting the words when the other man looked up at him. Those eyes, fuck. Brian felt something electric slither down his spine, swallowed and tried to concentrate as he stretched out a hand in greeting. "I'm Brian, I'm the head of the team working here. You must be...?" Brian tried with a questioning motion of his hands.
"I'm Gerard, hi," the man replied, getting up and shaking Brian's hand. Warm and firm, and maybe Brian would have liked to linger on the touch a bit longer, but he politely let go when appropriate. "Yeah, I'll be taking care of the interiors."
Brian nodded, remembering Ray had mentioned something about the interior decorator coming over in the next few days. "Aren't you a bit early? Everything's still quite rough around here."
“Yeah, I know, but I like to -” Gerard waved his hands around, with a crooked half-smile, “get a feeling of the place as soon as I can. I’m a perfectionist, what can you do.”
Feeling like a ridiculous, walking cliche, Brian smiled, thinking that he really wouldn’t have minded having Gerard around the place for as long as he could. If nothing else, he was pretty. Really fucking pretty. Shallow much, Schechter? he thought at himself, and put on his best professional face. Well, as professional as he could, given that Gerard was still smiling at him, and the instinct to flirt fought hard with the instinct not to give anything for granted. I’m just as bad as those assholes calling him a princess, fuck.
“A perfectionist, hm? Well, let me give you the tour. There’s nothing much to see, but let me know if there is anything I can do to help you.”
If maybe his voice lingered a bit too much on the “anything”, and if his smile wasn’t completely professional, well then, Brian was only human. Especially when Gerard thanked him with a huge smile and started to walk alongside him, removing his scarf and tugging his hair behind his ears as they went along.
*
At the end of week one, Brian knew what Gerard’s favorite music was, that he liked to paint in his spare time, and that he had a younger brother he loved very much. He also learned that Gerard lived with his boyfriend of two years, and tried to push back any stray flirting ideas, because Brian had principles.
It was hard, though, especially when Gerard would turn up in the room Brian was working on and ask if they could have lunch together so they could wrap up their discussion on the relative merits of the Jersey punk scene of the last ten years or so. Brian tried to ignore the (whispered, because they knew better than risk their lives) jokes of the other guys, and tried to enjoy Gerard’s company without letting his imagination run too much.
The fact that Gerard liked to pepper his talk about the music scene with references to his boyfriend and his band made it easier, even if Brian was sure that he’d caught Gerard staring at him more than once. Whatever, he always thought, he knew he wasn’t bad-looking and Gerard had eyes. It meant nothing.
At the end of week two, Brian was starting to hate any mention of Gerard’s boyfriend, suspected that Gerard wasn’t happy the more Gerard talked about him, the smile never reaching his eyes, and the way he looked sleepy and slow in the morning made Brian start buying two cups of coffee before arriving at work. He tried getting the same thing he always got for himself, and even if maybe he didn’t get it right, the look in Gerard’s eyes and his grateful smile as he grabbed the paper cup made it worth it.
“Didn’t get much sleep last night?” He asked, cursing himself for what his question seemed to imply. Thankfully, Gerard always seemed to take things at face value, because he grimaced and shrugged at the same time, as if trying to dispel a bad memory.
“No, Pete came home late. I didn’t know he was going out and I was a bit worried, but it wasn’t anything big, I just – I worry too much at times. I should learn to relax.”
“You should drink less coffee, then,” Brian joked, trying to change the subject.
Gerard clutched his cup to his chest and gasped in mock horror, recoiling at the horrible thought of a life without coffee.
“Thank you,” Gerard said when they’d stopped giggling, staring at the smoke of his cigarette and then at Brian. He tried not to read anything else but “thanks for the coffee” in it, and smoked with determination.
At the end of week three, Brian had a full rewards card from the coffee shop down the street, knew how Gerard liked his coffee, and when he caught Gerard leaning against a wall while they talked, absently playing with a strand of hair while staring at Brian’s mouth, he knew that he was fucked. So fucked..
Because talking about mouths, Brian had thoughts about Gerard’s. Thoughts that sometimes kept him awake at night (until he tired himself out, at least), and that made him want to pin Gerard against a wall, staining his black clothes with white paint and dust and sweat while he found out if Gerard’s mouth tasted like coffee exactly as Brian thought it did.
The fact that when he was lost in these thoughts, Brian would sometimes look up and find Gerard looking at him, as if he knew what Brian was thinking about, didn’t help, not even when Gerard said goodbye on Friday talking happily about his programs for the weekend with his fucking omnipresent boyfriend.
Yeah. So fucked.
*
“...And so this probably means nothing. I guess. We barely speak, for fuck’s sake, and he keeps on blabbering about his boyfriend as if he’s afraid I’ll corner him in one of the empty room and ravish him. ‘My boyfriend’s playing a show tonight, my boyfriend’s taking me out to dinner tomorrow, my boyfriend’s fucking saving the world with his mere existence’. He talks about the man way too much, if you ask me.”
“Did you just use the word ‘ravish’, Brian?”
Ray’s laugh was muffled by the bottle of beer he was currently chugging on, a clear attempt to hide it, but Brian was man enough to recognize when he was being ridiculous.
“Yes, yes I did. Fuck. The point is, he doesn’t look happy. I have no idea when or why the fuck I started noticing, but he doesn’t, and I can’t help but want to... ravish him,” he concluded miserably, swearing at himself and shaking his head. His hands flexed on the table, fighting the urge to take a swig out of Ray’s beer, but his discipline kicked right back in and he stopped himself, as always. It was never going to be easy, but the trick was to distract himself with other things. Somehow he didn’t think his sponsor would approve Gerard as a distraction, but Brian couldn’t help it.
“I’m ridiculous, right?”
Ray arched an eyebrow at him, looking strangely cryptic.
“Well, yes, you are. Crush and all, you know. But... On the other hand, are you sure you never saw Gerard before? Because I am pretty sure you know his boyfriend, at least by name. Maybe he and his crappy band aren’t exactly famous, but he sure is infamous.”
“Infamous? The fuck? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, you’ll see. You’re still coming out with me tonight, right? I’ll show you.”
“Ray, come on, I like to know what I’m getting myself into. Who’s the guy?”
Ray Toro, as it turned out, could be a stubborn motherfucker when he wanted to. No matter what Brian tried, Ray just kept his fucking amused smile plastered on his face, and Brian could only try to be patient, or try to kick the truth out of him. Since Ray was, technically, his boss, he guessed the last option would be less than ideal, so he sighed again, cursed at himself for the thousandth time since recognizing his weird, ravish-inducing crush-thing on Gerard, and practiced his zen.
*
Later that night, the idea of kicking Toro looked much, much more appealing, “technically his boss” be damned. The music was atrocious, and the club/art gallery hybrid was so full of pretentious scene assholes that Brian had started almost unconsciously looking for a fight the second he set foot in it. The band, in particular, was fucking horrid. He recognized the singer, Pete Wentz, a tiny asshole who kept screaming about punk rock being dead while doing his best cheap punk rock impression, and he rolled his eyes, wishing Ray would stop fucking with him.
“Come on, Ray, tell me why the fuck you brought me here. You know I hate this place – I would still be working here instead of building houses for a living, if I didn’t hate this scene so much.”
That was only a half truth and Brian knew it, but looking at the stage and the soundboard didn’t hurt as much as it did when he gave up his dream; he could almost be nonchalant about it now and besides, it wasn’t the reason he was there that night. He physically prodded Ray with a punch on his shoulder, but he only shushed him and pointed his chin to stage left, where Pete Wentz was currently shrugging off his bass and walking up to a waiting Gerard, who offered him a bottle of water.
Wait.
“Pete Wentz. Pete Wentz is Gerard’s boyfriend? Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I thought you knew? I forgot you haven’t been around here for a while, and besides, when I found out you didn’t know I wanted you to see it with your eyes. And enjoy the face you’re making right now.”
“Asshole.”
Brian turned his attention to the stage. Gerard was hanging next to Pete, smiling nervously and again, not happy. Something turned in Brian’s gut, equal parts “he deserves better” and “you’re just making shit up to see what you want to see”, but the way Pete ignored Gerard after a quick kiss and disappeared with his posse, no, that he didn’t make up. After a few awkward seconds where he stood there, completely expressionless and playing with the – still unopened - bottle of water Pete had thrust back into his hands, Gerard moved back into the crowd, unknowingly walking towards Brian. It didn’t take much effort for Brian to cross his path, but keeping his breathing in check, that, that was much more difficult.
Gerard was still Gerard, pale and pretty, but something in the low lights of the place made his eyes, his skin, stand out more, and Brian felt again the need to crush his lips, tangle his hands in Gerard’s hair and feel him breathe against him. He closed his eyes, fought the impulse once again and smiled, waving at Gerard to catch his attention.
For some reason, Gerard didn’t seem happy to see him. He didn’t seem happy in general, actually, but Brian was still monitoring his brain for self-delusional bullshit, so he ignored that and concentrated on not staring at Gerard instead.
“So, Pete’s the famous boyfriend, right?”
He said as greeting, raising a mocking eyebrow in Wentz’s direction. Fighting self-delusional bullshit was one thing, but if Pete was Gerard’s famous boyfriend, he almost felt entitled to mock. The guy was a whore, and even if Brian had heard he’d somewhat calmed down in the last two years, Gerard’s forced enthusiasm when talking about him now made even more sense. Being in a relationship with Pete Wentz couldn’t be easy for anyone.
“Yeah, you know Pete?” Gerard’s answer was plainly nervous, and almost defensive, or so it sounded to Brian.
He shrugged. “Used to, back in the day. Nodding acquaintance more than anything. I didn’t think I’d see you here tonight, when Ray dragged me out of the house.”
“Oh, I don’t come to Pete’s shows all that often, but he was so insistent to have me here, so.” Gerard shrugged too, unconsciously replicating Brian’s own movements of a few moments before, his eyes shifting uncomfortably to where Pete was laughing in the middle of the adoring crowd.
“Yeah, I understand.” Brian was suddenly embarrassed, as if he’d just seen something private, something he wasn’t meant to see, something that made Gerard too vulnerable in his eyes. And fuck, there was the impulse to kiss him, again, to take away the nervous look in his eyes. “I’d better go now, it’s quite late and I have to be at the house early tomorrow, the glass for the windows is coming in at last.”
He hovered for a second, thinking of something to say that would make the situation less awkward, but one look at Gerard’s nervous hands fidgeting with the bottle and he gave up.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Yeah, right. Tomorrow. Goodnight.” And suddenly Gerard was off, shuffling in the middle of the crowd but headed for the exit, not for Wentz, Brian couldn’t help but notice.
*
“He’s not always like that, you know.”
Brian jumped and cursed, bending down to pick up the hammer that slipped from his hands when he heard Gerard’s voice. Gerard had come in late and avoided him all day, and fine, if he wanted to play this game, Brian could play too, so after one first awkward stint at conversation, he hadn’t looked for him anymore.
Now he was standing in the middle of the doorway of what would eventually be the master bedroom, scuffling his feet on the floor nervously. Brian noticed the dark shadows under his eyes and sighed, shaking his head.
“What do you mean, the “ignoring you” part or the “attention whore” part?”
Gerard grimaced, and Brian wished he could take his words back, even if he meant every word. Damn, but seeing Gerard waste his time on Wentz made him mad. Still, to his surprise, Gerard recovered and fucking smiled, moving further into the room and looking out of the main French doors opening on the garden.
“He is an attention whore, I’ll give you that. I know, I’ve always known. But it’s just an act, at least in public. He’s – he’s a good man, and things haven’t been great lately, but we’re working on it. We know it, and we want to fix it. We have something good.”
“It would be nice if you sounded a little more convinced, you know that?”
Brian stalked closer to him, his hands itching to close around Gerard’s arms, to slide up to his neck. Gerard shook his head and shrugged at the same time, almost apologetic.
“I never said it’s easy. But I want it to work. I owe it to him- to us. And he’s willing to do the same for me.”
That would have been good, would have been perfectly fine. Brian still thought that Gerard was wasting his time with Wentz, that it was a shitty choice, but he was going to fucking respect that choice.
The only problem was that Gerard had to look up at him then, his eyes big and worried, somehow asking Brian to believe him so that he could be convinced too, and Brian couldn’t help it, his hands and his feet moved on their own and he was cupping Gerard’s face in his hands, kissing him and pushing him against the glass.
In spite of his earnest words, it was surprising how quickly Gerard responded to Brian’s touch, kissing back and hooking his hands behind Brian’s neck, pulling him close. They moved without thinking, breathless and perfect, and if he had any brain power left Brian would have wondered when the fuck he started talking like a Danielle Steele novel, but now kissing Gerard and having him so close was even better than he’d thought.
The light scrape of invisible stubble on Gerard’s chin against his, the way his hands clutched his neck, how warm he was and the unmistakable erection pushing up against Brian’s – yes, it was fucking good, and Brian slid his hands to Gerard’s lower back, pulling him even closer.
Brian smiled when he heard Gerard gasp, his lips curling around their kiss, and sneaked his hands under Gerard’s shirt, the feeling of his heated skin making him even more frantic. He was about to do something, close the door and drop on his knees and suck Gerard off, open Gerard’s pants and simply touch him, anything, when Gerard broke off the kiss and pushed him back, firmly.
“No,” Gerard said, even as his eyes trailed back to Brian’s mouth involuntarily.
“Fuck. I. What?”
“This is not working on it. I promised Pete, I promised we’d try to work things out, and this is most definitely not doing the right thing. He doesn’t deserve it, and I can’t. It’s not that I...” When Brian looked up at that, Gerard took an involuntary step back, shaking his hands in denial in front of him. “...Never mind, never mind. I shouldn’t have done this and I’m sorry. I don’t want to throw away two years of relationship without trying first.”
Before Brian even found the words to reply, still aroused and now kind of angry, too, Gerard sidestepped him and got out of the room, not running maybe, but certainly not looking back either.
Well, fuck. Fuck. Brian kicked the wall, resisting the impulse to punch it too, and the pain of his toes smashing against the steel of his boot sobered him down somewhat, even if he was still mad at Gerard and his obstinacy, not to mention nursing the worst case of blue balls of the last ten years at least.
Also, the wall now sported a lovely black dent, which he’d have to fix before Ray came around in the afternoon. Brian snorted, and punched the wall after all.
*
The morning after, Gerard didn’t show. Brian was expecting it, of course; he’d spent the previous night alternatively cursing himself for being such an idiot, Gerard for being such a naive shithead, and ending up jerking off in the shower anyway while he thought about Gerard’s body pressed against his.
What Brian hadn’t been expecting was Gerard not showing up at all for the rest of the week, even if Ray didn’t seem at all surprised when Brian told him what happened.
“I guessed something had happened when he told me he had enough to work on, and that he could do the rest from his office for a couple of weeks at least.”
Ray hadn’t commented, though, just rolled his eyes and mumbled something about too much fucking drama, but he’d patted Brian’s back and made him promise to go out with him on Saturday.
“No scene club this time, I promise.”
That’s how Brian ended sitting in a taxi on a Saturday night, bored out of his mind and half thinking of calling Ray to tell him he didn’t feel like going out. It wasn’t that he wanted to stay at home and pine about Gerard, but he really didn’t feel like being around people, or anywhere that wasn’t his couch. The ridiculous thing was that the more he thought about the whole thing, the angrier he got. At Gerard, at Wentz, and at himself for letting things get out of hand so much.
He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that it took him a while to notice the yelling couple on the sidewalk, standing next to a car that was blocking traffic as soon as the light turned green.
“Get the fuck off the way, you fucker!” yelled the taxi driver, honking furiously, and Brian looked up with mild annoyance, only to recognize a furious-looking Wentz getting in the car and driving away, leaving a shocked Gerard on the sidewalk.
“Wait, fuck, wait!” Brian told the driver before they could move, jumping out of the car without thinking. “I’ll be right back!”
The driver had much better things to do, though, or was angry enough not to care if he was losing part of the fare, because he yelled something indistinct but certainly not nice at Brian and drove away angrily, wheels screeching on the asphalt.
To top his wonderful evening, Gerard wasn't even looking at him, or didn't seem to want to acknowledge Brian's existence anytime soon. He was staring at the sidewalk and smoking, shaking his head in disbelief and looking up now and then, as if he couldn't believe Pete wasn't coming back for him.
Brian took a deep breath, and walked closer to him, trying to understand where the instinct to play the fucking useless knight in jeans armor had come from, and why wasn't he walking away right now? Gerard had made it pretty clear that he didn't want to have anything to do with him, but Brian couldn't in all honesty leave him alone in that part of town in the middle of the night.
"Gerard? Are you okay?"
As if noticing Brian only then, Gerard looked up and immediately away, clearly embarrassed and possibly a little annoyed, Brian couldn't tell.
"What do you think, Brian?"
Gerard's voice was heavy with sarcasm, but Brian didn't even have the time to react before the other continued: "You shouldn't have stopped, you've already done enough and I can handle myself. Find another taxi or something, I'll walk home."
Brian couldn't fucking believe it. "Are you out of your mind? It's Saturday night, another taxi would take at least an hour to come, so I might as well walk. Do you have any idea where you are? Do you enjoy being robbed and beaten to a pulp on your evenings out?"
"No, I just like the thrill of being dumped by my fucking boyfriend in the middle of the road because I find it entertaining! Drop it, please, you don't have to get involved."
“A bit too late for that, don’t you think? I’m not fucking leaving unless you tell me to, and guess what, I have to walk home anyway since my fucking cab left, so we might as well do it together.”
Gerard looked doubtful, not to mention still angry, but if Gerard wanted to put up a competition, Brian would fucking show him angry. He was stranded in a less-than-nice neighborhood, in the middle of the night, and all because Gerard was an idiot, and Brian didn’t know what was good for him.
“Don’t be an idiot, Way, let’s go.”
Brian started walking down the street, and if Gerard flinched at Brian calling him by his surname, something he’d never done before, Brian pretended not to see it. After a couple of steps, he heard Gerard hurrying up after him, and soon they were walking side by side in silence, with the only soundtrack of Brian playing nervously with his lighter, flicking it on and off at regular intervals.
"Could you stop that, please?" Gerard asked after a few minutes, having clearly lost the fight between not wanting to talk and being annoyed. To be completely honest, Brian hadn't even noticed he was doing it, too busy not looking at Gerard and wondering how long it would take them to get back to a more decent area.
To be even more completely honest, he wasn't exactly sure where they were, and he was also aware of the fact that calling Ray would have probably been the better option, but - he hadn't seen Gerard all week, and he hated the feeling of things left unresolved between them.
"What? Oh, right. Sorry. You want one?" Brian replied, putting his lighter to its proper use and offering the pack to Gerard. He seemed to hesitate for a second but took one, and Brian lit it for him, most definitely not staring at the way the orange glow of the flame reflected on Gerard's face.
"So, you wanna talk about it?" Brian tried, after a couple more minutes of walking and talking in silence. "Want to tell me what happened?"
He tried to keep his voice casual, but now that the anger was dying down and that Gerard wasn't ignoring him anymore he started to feel mad at Wentz, an itch under his skin to get the idiot and kick him for leaving Gerard alone in the middle of the night.
"No."
Well, okay. Maybe Brian wasn't mad only at Wentz, after all. Whatever. He lit another cigarette with the butt of the first one, and kept on walking. He was busy trying to understand where the fuck they were, and reconsidering the idea of calling Ray, when Gerard’s voice surprised him.
“It was stupid, really. He said he’d take me to dinner and a movie, alone, like in the old times, but then his friends called and he suddenly wanted to go to that fucking party. I didn’t even complain, I just told him to take me home then, but just like that we were off, and yelling. He said I never support him in anything, always pissing on his fun, and I – honestly, I think I did all I could.
He's not bad, I know it, it's just that things stopped working and I don't know, maybe I should have handled things differently."
"Gerard."
"Yes?"
"If you're going to defend him even after this, just shut the fuck up, please."
Not his most diplomatic move ever, maybe, but it was the best Brian could do, short of pinning Gerard against a wall and shaking him until he saw what an idiot he was being.
After that, it was silence again for a while. Brian was thinking about his last words, wondering what he could say to apologize without actually saying he was sorry, because he felt he shouldn’t have been so harsh, even if “but you could have it so much better, if you only wanted” didn’t seem like a decent alternative.
He was about to open his mouth to say something, anything, when suddenly he looked up and recognized the house, a little further up the street.
“Hey, I know where we are!”
“What, you didn’t know before? Why was I following you, then?”
Gerard was smiling, though, so Brian’s “fuck you” was almost affectionate, and said with a smile.
“Come, we put up the living room doors yesterday and you haven’t seen them yet. Come on, I have the keys.”
It was weird, wandering around the empty house at night, with Gerard at his side. Brian kept remembering the days they spent there together, talking and planning things and stealing glances at each other.
He couldn't have been so wrong in reading things, and he remembered the way Gerard had kissed him back before running away, so he decided it was time to play his best (and trickiest card), because if Gerard wanted to waste his chance with him, it had to be for a real reason, and not for a misplaced sense of loyalty to someone who didn't really deserve it.
The moon was full and up in the sky, shining in through the windows. Brian opened the French doors in the master bedroom and walked outside, sitting on the porch and lighting up yet another cigarette as Gerard sat next to him, after a split second of hesitation.
"The doors look good," Gerard started, right as Brian opened his mouth to say "There's something you should probably know."
Gerard looked at him, puzzled and questioning. “Brian, please don’t start again.”
“No, just – give me a second and listen to me, okay? When I met you in that club, I was surprised to see you with Pete, but I wasn’t surprised to see him act like that. I’ve worked in that place, I’ve seen him around a lot, and Gerard, you can’t seriously not know that Pete Wentz is the biggest scene slut around. He’ll fuck anything that moves or talks to him, and yeah, he slowed down a bit in the last two years apparently, but from what I heard he’s not been a saint lately. Ask Ray, if you don’t believe me.”
No reply came. Brian didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing but he continued, trying to get his point across.
“I know you feel something here, I remember how you weren’t exactly disgusted when I kissed you, and fuck, if you don’t want to give it a try with me, okay, if you’re scared to start something new after years with someone else, fine, but you shouldn’t do it out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to someone who doesn’t deserve you. I know Pete isn’t a bad person, I’m not saying he cheated on you the whole time, but – he’s not a saint, Gerard. If his way of ‘working on things’ is dropping you off in the middle of the street to go to a party, then you shouldn’t waste energy on him.”
Still no reply. None was probably going to come, though, because Gerard, who’d been hiding behind his hair during Brian’s tirade, suddenly got up, shaking his head, and turned his back on him, taking a step.
"What are you doing?"
Brian grabbed Gerard's arm, turning him so that he could see his face.
"You know I can't do this. I have to go."
"Please. You don't have to."
Brian's hand slid down Gerard's arm and wrist, taking hold of his hand.
"You know you don't. Think about it."
Gerard looked up at him, eyes wide in the dark.
"Stay," Brian whispered, inching closer to him.
“You know what? Maybe you should have told me earlier, instead of making me look like an idiot and waiting for me to find out like this.”
And just like that, Gerard turned and walked away, jumping down the patio and disappearing down the street.
Well, fuck.
*
The following Saturday found Brian at home, watching tv in his sweatpants and eating old reheated Chinese takeout, just as he should have done the previous week. Staying at home would have meant not meeting Gerard, not being a complete asshole and an idiot, and not having to witness the cold way Gerard had treated him the whole week, avoiding him as much as possible.
At least Gerard hadn’t disappeared like after their kiss, even if it wasn’t a reason to celebrate. Brian missed talking to him, sharing his ideas on the house and buying two coffees every morning. After the first day, when he saw Gerard back at work, Brian had tried buying two again on Tuesday, but the distant look in Gerard’s eyes when he’d said hello had made Brian drink both of them himself, rather than having to suffer a polite refusal.
Brian shook his head, trying to think about something else, and blamed Ray for the hundredth time that night. If only he hadn’t been so insistent in getting him out of the house, then – but Brian knew he wasn’t being fair. Ray was a good friend, and blaming him, even if good for his frustration, wasn’t good for much else.
He had refused his latest invitation, though, because given Brian’s luck in the last days he didn’t want to tempt fate. When he heard the doorbell ring, though, his first thought was that Ray had come to try and convince him in person, and he rolled his eyes as he dragged himself to the door.
“Fuck’s sake, Toro, I told you I’m not going out tonight! I-”
Brian’s voice died in his throat, because standing in his doorway, looking nervous and offering a cup of coffee as if it was a hand grenade, was Gerard.
"..The fuck?" Brian knew he wasn't being very articulate (or nice, for that matter), but he really wasn't expecting to see Gerard there. Not that he wasn't glad to see him, but what exactly was he doing there? And why?
Still, Gerard had coffee, and Brian wasn't going to refuse a coffee offering anytime soon, especially - as Gerard's small, nervous smile seem to indicate - if it was supposed to be a peace offering. The right corner of Gerard's mouth turned up at Brian's exclamation, as if he'd been expecting a similar reaction.
"I'm sorry to burst in here like this without warning, but I thought I might lose my nerve if I called. Or if you told me not to come. I would have come anyway, but it would have been awkward. So. Right. Coffee?"
And Gerard lifted the cup again, offering it to Brian. Not knowing exactly what to do, and too stunned to realize that he should at least invite Gerard in, Brian took the cup and held on to it, even if it was still too hot.
"Gerard, I -"
"No, Brian, please. Let me talk. I'm still mad at you, and yes, I do realize it's not the best way to start this" - this what, Brian thought, clutching the cup harder - "but you should have told me about Pete earlier. Do you understand that I felt like an idiot?"
Oh, Brian understood. He'd thought about that a lot, and wanted to tell Gerard that it wouldn't have been fair, that faced with Gerard's repeated conviction in trying to work out things with Pete, it wouldn't have been nice of him to undermine things just because he wanted to - what if Pete had really changed? But he couldn't, because Gerard dismissed him when he opened his mouth to talk with one sweeping gesture of his hand, and continued.
"I know, you're probably going to tell me that I needed to realize it by myself, but it's quite clear now that I couldn't. I was too wrapped up in guilt and habit, and - I don't know, maybe I was just scared. But even if you were an idiot, and you were, I was one, too."
Gerard stopped then, looking at Brian hopefully, saying nothing. When Brian didn't move, not sure he was understanding things correctly, he shook his head and smiled again, laughing a little at himself.
"You're going to make me say it, right? Okay, I guess I deserved it."
Gerard stepped closer to Brian, took the coffee cup out of his hand and put it on the small shelf next to Brian's keys and wallet. He was standing right in front of him, and Brian could see his dark eyelashes, his huge eyes, the way his hair probably hadn't been dyed in a while at the roots - and most of all, his mouth, looking as soft as Brian remembered it to be.
"I'm sorry I ran away that night. I'm sorry it took me so long to realize that Pete was history and that it wasn't worth clinging to what I used to have with him. I'm not saying it's all my fault, I told you, but I'm here now, if I haven't lost my chance. And I really, really hope I haven't," Gerard whispered, inching closer and closer, so that his last words were drawn on Brian's skin by his lips.
"Do I really have to answer that?" Brian smiled, whispering too and feeling silly for it, because who was going to bother them now? He reached around Gerard with an arm and slammed the door closed before kissing him, so that he could push him against it.
Author:
anne_elliotPairing: Brian Schechter/Gerard Way (Gerard Way/Pete Wentz in the background)
Rating: PG-15 (lots of swearing)
Word Count: 6064
Notes: AU. Written for
turloughishere for this year's Sweet Charity Auction. Thanks for helping a good cause, I hope you enjoy this! Thanks to drown_thecity for the beta ♥ and to zephyrina, veecious, ashlein and sourcream_onion for the cheering and hand-holding. I usually don't like huge lists of names in notes but it was only fair, since this fic would have never seen the light of day on time if it weren't for these lovely ladies. Thank you all."What are you doing?"
Brian grabbed Gerard's arm, turning him so that he could see his face.
"You know I can't do this. I have to go."
"Please. You don't have to."
Brian's hand slid down Gerard's arm and wrist, taking hold of his hand.
"You know you don't."
Gerard looked up at him, eyes wide in the dark.
"Stay," Brian whispered, inching closer to him.
*
When it came to sex, Brian mostly didn't give a fuck. He had girlfriends, he had boyfriends, and never flaunted either of them, because he's a gentleman. Somehow his ink and "fuck you" attitude seemed to have spared him from fitting into the common, threadbare stereotype that could have gotten him called "faggot" or made his life a bit more complicated in his job as a construction worker, but that didn't mean he didn't care. Hell, some of the guys on his team knew and knew exactly what he thought about using certain words in front of him, and that's why he found it weird when he heard a muffled "fucking fabulous princess" and a laugh from a corner.
Two of the new guys, yeah, that must be it, he thought, but before he could think of an appropriately insulting way of making them shut up (or simply smacking their heads with his hammer) he looked up and saw the one they must have been talking about.
And that's how he met Gerard. Gerard was pale and polite and had a fucking beautiful smile as he looked around the house, crouching down in a corner to study the light.
"Hey," he said, taking in the black hair, the long hands and stopping for a second, forgetting the words when the other man looked up at him. Those eyes, fuck. Brian felt something electric slither down his spine, swallowed and tried to concentrate as he stretched out a hand in greeting. "I'm Brian, I'm the head of the team working here. You must be...?" Brian tried with a questioning motion of his hands.
"I'm Gerard, hi," the man replied, getting up and shaking Brian's hand. Warm and firm, and maybe Brian would have liked to linger on the touch a bit longer, but he politely let go when appropriate. "Yeah, I'll be taking care of the interiors."
Brian nodded, remembering Ray had mentioned something about the interior decorator coming over in the next few days. "Aren't you a bit early? Everything's still quite rough around here."
“Yeah, I know, but I like to -” Gerard waved his hands around, with a crooked half-smile, “get a feeling of the place as soon as I can. I’m a perfectionist, what can you do.”
Feeling like a ridiculous, walking cliche, Brian smiled, thinking that he really wouldn’t have minded having Gerard around the place for as long as he could. If nothing else, he was pretty. Really fucking pretty. Shallow much, Schechter? he thought at himself, and put on his best professional face. Well, as professional as he could, given that Gerard was still smiling at him, and the instinct to flirt fought hard with the instinct not to give anything for granted. I’m just as bad as those assholes calling him a princess, fuck.
“A perfectionist, hm? Well, let me give you the tour. There’s nothing much to see, but let me know if there is anything I can do to help you.”
If maybe his voice lingered a bit too much on the “anything”, and if his smile wasn’t completely professional, well then, Brian was only human. Especially when Gerard thanked him with a huge smile and started to walk alongside him, removing his scarf and tugging his hair behind his ears as they went along.
*
At the end of week one, Brian knew what Gerard’s favorite music was, that he liked to paint in his spare time, and that he had a younger brother he loved very much. He also learned that Gerard lived with his boyfriend of two years, and tried to push back any stray flirting ideas, because Brian had principles.
It was hard, though, especially when Gerard would turn up in the room Brian was working on and ask if they could have lunch together so they could wrap up their discussion on the relative merits of the Jersey punk scene of the last ten years or so. Brian tried to ignore the (whispered, because they knew better than risk their lives) jokes of the other guys, and tried to enjoy Gerard’s company without letting his imagination run too much.
The fact that Gerard liked to pepper his talk about the music scene with references to his boyfriend and his band made it easier, even if Brian was sure that he’d caught Gerard staring at him more than once. Whatever, he always thought, he knew he wasn’t bad-looking and Gerard had eyes. It meant nothing.
At the end of week two, Brian was starting to hate any mention of Gerard’s boyfriend, suspected that Gerard wasn’t happy the more Gerard talked about him, the smile never reaching his eyes, and the way he looked sleepy and slow in the morning made Brian start buying two cups of coffee before arriving at work. He tried getting the same thing he always got for himself, and even if maybe he didn’t get it right, the look in Gerard’s eyes and his grateful smile as he grabbed the paper cup made it worth it.
“Didn’t get much sleep last night?” He asked, cursing himself for what his question seemed to imply. Thankfully, Gerard always seemed to take things at face value, because he grimaced and shrugged at the same time, as if trying to dispel a bad memory.
“No, Pete came home late. I didn’t know he was going out and I was a bit worried, but it wasn’t anything big, I just – I worry too much at times. I should learn to relax.”
“You should drink less coffee, then,” Brian joked, trying to change the subject.
Gerard clutched his cup to his chest and gasped in mock horror, recoiling at the horrible thought of a life without coffee.
“Thank you,” Gerard said when they’d stopped giggling, staring at the smoke of his cigarette and then at Brian. He tried not to read anything else but “thanks for the coffee” in it, and smoked with determination.
At the end of week three, Brian had a full rewards card from the coffee shop down the street, knew how Gerard liked his coffee, and when he caught Gerard leaning against a wall while they talked, absently playing with a strand of hair while staring at Brian’s mouth, he knew that he was fucked. So fucked..
Because talking about mouths, Brian had thoughts about Gerard’s. Thoughts that sometimes kept him awake at night (until he tired himself out, at least), and that made him want to pin Gerard against a wall, staining his black clothes with white paint and dust and sweat while he found out if Gerard’s mouth tasted like coffee exactly as Brian thought it did.
The fact that when he was lost in these thoughts, Brian would sometimes look up and find Gerard looking at him, as if he knew what Brian was thinking about, didn’t help, not even when Gerard said goodbye on Friday talking happily about his programs for the weekend with his fucking omnipresent boyfriend.
Yeah. So fucked.
*
“...And so this probably means nothing. I guess. We barely speak, for fuck’s sake, and he keeps on blabbering about his boyfriend as if he’s afraid I’ll corner him in one of the empty room and ravish him. ‘My boyfriend’s playing a show tonight, my boyfriend’s taking me out to dinner tomorrow, my boyfriend’s fucking saving the world with his mere existence’. He talks about the man way too much, if you ask me.”
“Did you just use the word ‘ravish’, Brian?”
Ray’s laugh was muffled by the bottle of beer he was currently chugging on, a clear attempt to hide it, but Brian was man enough to recognize when he was being ridiculous.
“Yes, yes I did. Fuck. The point is, he doesn’t look happy. I have no idea when or why the fuck I started noticing, but he doesn’t, and I can’t help but want to... ravish him,” he concluded miserably, swearing at himself and shaking his head. His hands flexed on the table, fighting the urge to take a swig out of Ray’s beer, but his discipline kicked right back in and he stopped himself, as always. It was never going to be easy, but the trick was to distract himself with other things. Somehow he didn’t think his sponsor would approve Gerard as a distraction, but Brian couldn’t help it.
“I’m ridiculous, right?”
Ray arched an eyebrow at him, looking strangely cryptic.
“Well, yes, you are. Crush and all, you know. But... On the other hand, are you sure you never saw Gerard before? Because I am pretty sure you know his boyfriend, at least by name. Maybe he and his crappy band aren’t exactly famous, but he sure is infamous.”
“Infamous? The fuck? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, you’ll see. You’re still coming out with me tonight, right? I’ll show you.”
“Ray, come on, I like to know what I’m getting myself into. Who’s the guy?”
Ray Toro, as it turned out, could be a stubborn motherfucker when he wanted to. No matter what Brian tried, Ray just kept his fucking amused smile plastered on his face, and Brian could only try to be patient, or try to kick the truth out of him. Since Ray was, technically, his boss, he guessed the last option would be less than ideal, so he sighed again, cursed at himself for the thousandth time since recognizing his weird, ravish-inducing crush-thing on Gerard, and practiced his zen.
*
Later that night, the idea of kicking Toro looked much, much more appealing, “technically his boss” be damned. The music was atrocious, and the club/art gallery hybrid was so full of pretentious scene assholes that Brian had started almost unconsciously looking for a fight the second he set foot in it. The band, in particular, was fucking horrid. He recognized the singer, Pete Wentz, a tiny asshole who kept screaming about punk rock being dead while doing his best cheap punk rock impression, and he rolled his eyes, wishing Ray would stop fucking with him.
“Come on, Ray, tell me why the fuck you brought me here. You know I hate this place – I would still be working here instead of building houses for a living, if I didn’t hate this scene so much.”
That was only a half truth and Brian knew it, but looking at the stage and the soundboard didn’t hurt as much as it did when he gave up his dream; he could almost be nonchalant about it now and besides, it wasn’t the reason he was there that night. He physically prodded Ray with a punch on his shoulder, but he only shushed him and pointed his chin to stage left, where Pete Wentz was currently shrugging off his bass and walking up to a waiting Gerard, who offered him a bottle of water.
Wait.
“Pete Wentz. Pete Wentz is Gerard’s boyfriend? Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I thought you knew? I forgot you haven’t been around here for a while, and besides, when I found out you didn’t know I wanted you to see it with your eyes. And enjoy the face you’re making right now.”
“Asshole.”
Brian turned his attention to the stage. Gerard was hanging next to Pete, smiling nervously and again, not happy. Something turned in Brian’s gut, equal parts “he deserves better” and “you’re just making shit up to see what you want to see”, but the way Pete ignored Gerard after a quick kiss and disappeared with his posse, no, that he didn’t make up. After a few awkward seconds where he stood there, completely expressionless and playing with the – still unopened - bottle of water Pete had thrust back into his hands, Gerard moved back into the crowd, unknowingly walking towards Brian. It didn’t take much effort for Brian to cross his path, but keeping his breathing in check, that, that was much more difficult.
Gerard was still Gerard, pale and pretty, but something in the low lights of the place made his eyes, his skin, stand out more, and Brian felt again the need to crush his lips, tangle his hands in Gerard’s hair and feel him breathe against him. He closed his eyes, fought the impulse once again and smiled, waving at Gerard to catch his attention.
For some reason, Gerard didn’t seem happy to see him. He didn’t seem happy in general, actually, but Brian was still monitoring his brain for self-delusional bullshit, so he ignored that and concentrated on not staring at Gerard instead.
“So, Pete’s the famous boyfriend, right?”
He said as greeting, raising a mocking eyebrow in Wentz’s direction. Fighting self-delusional bullshit was one thing, but if Pete was Gerard’s famous boyfriend, he almost felt entitled to mock. The guy was a whore, and even if Brian had heard he’d somewhat calmed down in the last two years, Gerard’s forced enthusiasm when talking about him now made even more sense. Being in a relationship with Pete Wentz couldn’t be easy for anyone.
“Yeah, you know Pete?” Gerard’s answer was plainly nervous, and almost defensive, or so it sounded to Brian.
He shrugged. “Used to, back in the day. Nodding acquaintance more than anything. I didn’t think I’d see you here tonight, when Ray dragged me out of the house.”
“Oh, I don’t come to Pete’s shows all that often, but he was so insistent to have me here, so.” Gerard shrugged too, unconsciously replicating Brian’s own movements of a few moments before, his eyes shifting uncomfortably to where Pete was laughing in the middle of the adoring crowd.
“Yeah, I understand.” Brian was suddenly embarrassed, as if he’d just seen something private, something he wasn’t meant to see, something that made Gerard too vulnerable in his eyes. And fuck, there was the impulse to kiss him, again, to take away the nervous look in his eyes. “I’d better go now, it’s quite late and I have to be at the house early tomorrow, the glass for the windows is coming in at last.”
He hovered for a second, thinking of something to say that would make the situation less awkward, but one look at Gerard’s nervous hands fidgeting with the bottle and he gave up.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Yeah, right. Tomorrow. Goodnight.” And suddenly Gerard was off, shuffling in the middle of the crowd but headed for the exit, not for Wentz, Brian couldn’t help but notice.
*
“He’s not always like that, you know.”
Brian jumped and cursed, bending down to pick up the hammer that slipped from his hands when he heard Gerard’s voice. Gerard had come in late and avoided him all day, and fine, if he wanted to play this game, Brian could play too, so after one first awkward stint at conversation, he hadn’t looked for him anymore.
Now he was standing in the middle of the doorway of what would eventually be the master bedroom, scuffling his feet on the floor nervously. Brian noticed the dark shadows under his eyes and sighed, shaking his head.
“What do you mean, the “ignoring you” part or the “attention whore” part?”
Gerard grimaced, and Brian wished he could take his words back, even if he meant every word. Damn, but seeing Gerard waste his time on Wentz made him mad. Still, to his surprise, Gerard recovered and fucking smiled, moving further into the room and looking out of the main French doors opening on the garden.
“He is an attention whore, I’ll give you that. I know, I’ve always known. But it’s just an act, at least in public. He’s – he’s a good man, and things haven’t been great lately, but we’re working on it. We know it, and we want to fix it. We have something good.”
“It would be nice if you sounded a little more convinced, you know that?”
Brian stalked closer to him, his hands itching to close around Gerard’s arms, to slide up to his neck. Gerard shook his head and shrugged at the same time, almost apologetic.
“I never said it’s easy. But I want it to work. I owe it to him- to us. And he’s willing to do the same for me.”
That would have been good, would have been perfectly fine. Brian still thought that Gerard was wasting his time with Wentz, that it was a shitty choice, but he was going to fucking respect that choice.
The only problem was that Gerard had to look up at him then, his eyes big and worried, somehow asking Brian to believe him so that he could be convinced too, and Brian couldn’t help it, his hands and his feet moved on their own and he was cupping Gerard’s face in his hands, kissing him and pushing him against the glass.
In spite of his earnest words, it was surprising how quickly Gerard responded to Brian’s touch, kissing back and hooking his hands behind Brian’s neck, pulling him close. They moved without thinking, breathless and perfect, and if he had any brain power left Brian would have wondered when the fuck he started talking like a Danielle Steele novel, but now kissing Gerard and having him so close was even better than he’d thought.
The light scrape of invisible stubble on Gerard’s chin against his, the way his hands clutched his neck, how warm he was and the unmistakable erection pushing up against Brian’s – yes, it was fucking good, and Brian slid his hands to Gerard’s lower back, pulling him even closer.
Brian smiled when he heard Gerard gasp, his lips curling around their kiss, and sneaked his hands under Gerard’s shirt, the feeling of his heated skin making him even more frantic. He was about to do something, close the door and drop on his knees and suck Gerard off, open Gerard’s pants and simply touch him, anything, when Gerard broke off the kiss and pushed him back, firmly.
“No,” Gerard said, even as his eyes trailed back to Brian’s mouth involuntarily.
“Fuck. I. What?”
“This is not working on it. I promised Pete, I promised we’d try to work things out, and this is most definitely not doing the right thing. He doesn’t deserve it, and I can’t. It’s not that I...” When Brian looked up at that, Gerard took an involuntary step back, shaking his hands in denial in front of him. “...Never mind, never mind. I shouldn’t have done this and I’m sorry. I don’t want to throw away two years of relationship without trying first.”
Before Brian even found the words to reply, still aroused and now kind of angry, too, Gerard sidestepped him and got out of the room, not running maybe, but certainly not looking back either.
Well, fuck. Fuck. Brian kicked the wall, resisting the impulse to punch it too, and the pain of his toes smashing against the steel of his boot sobered him down somewhat, even if he was still mad at Gerard and his obstinacy, not to mention nursing the worst case of blue balls of the last ten years at least.
Also, the wall now sported a lovely black dent, which he’d have to fix before Ray came around in the afternoon. Brian snorted, and punched the wall after all.
*
The morning after, Gerard didn’t show. Brian was expecting it, of course; he’d spent the previous night alternatively cursing himself for being such an idiot, Gerard for being such a naive shithead, and ending up jerking off in the shower anyway while he thought about Gerard’s body pressed against his.
What Brian hadn’t been expecting was Gerard not showing up at all for the rest of the week, even if Ray didn’t seem at all surprised when Brian told him what happened.
“I guessed something had happened when he told me he had enough to work on, and that he could do the rest from his office for a couple of weeks at least.”
Ray hadn’t commented, though, just rolled his eyes and mumbled something about too much fucking drama, but he’d patted Brian’s back and made him promise to go out with him on Saturday.
“No scene club this time, I promise.”
That’s how Brian ended sitting in a taxi on a Saturday night, bored out of his mind and half thinking of calling Ray to tell him he didn’t feel like going out. It wasn’t that he wanted to stay at home and pine about Gerard, but he really didn’t feel like being around people, or anywhere that wasn’t his couch. The ridiculous thing was that the more he thought about the whole thing, the angrier he got. At Gerard, at Wentz, and at himself for letting things get out of hand so much.
He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that it took him a while to notice the yelling couple on the sidewalk, standing next to a car that was blocking traffic as soon as the light turned green.
“Get the fuck off the way, you fucker!” yelled the taxi driver, honking furiously, and Brian looked up with mild annoyance, only to recognize a furious-looking Wentz getting in the car and driving away, leaving a shocked Gerard on the sidewalk.
“Wait, fuck, wait!” Brian told the driver before they could move, jumping out of the car without thinking. “I’ll be right back!”
The driver had much better things to do, though, or was angry enough not to care if he was losing part of the fare, because he yelled something indistinct but certainly not nice at Brian and drove away angrily, wheels screeching on the asphalt.
To top his wonderful evening, Gerard wasn't even looking at him, or didn't seem to want to acknowledge Brian's existence anytime soon. He was staring at the sidewalk and smoking, shaking his head in disbelief and looking up now and then, as if he couldn't believe Pete wasn't coming back for him.
Brian took a deep breath, and walked closer to him, trying to understand where the instinct to play the fucking useless knight in jeans armor had come from, and why wasn't he walking away right now? Gerard had made it pretty clear that he didn't want to have anything to do with him, but Brian couldn't in all honesty leave him alone in that part of town in the middle of the night.
"Gerard? Are you okay?"
As if noticing Brian only then, Gerard looked up and immediately away, clearly embarrassed and possibly a little annoyed, Brian couldn't tell.
"What do you think, Brian?"
Gerard's voice was heavy with sarcasm, but Brian didn't even have the time to react before the other continued: "You shouldn't have stopped, you've already done enough and I can handle myself. Find another taxi or something, I'll walk home."
Brian couldn't fucking believe it. "Are you out of your mind? It's Saturday night, another taxi would take at least an hour to come, so I might as well walk. Do you have any idea where you are? Do you enjoy being robbed and beaten to a pulp on your evenings out?"
"No, I just like the thrill of being dumped by my fucking boyfriend in the middle of the road because I find it entertaining! Drop it, please, you don't have to get involved."
“A bit too late for that, don’t you think? I’m not fucking leaving unless you tell me to, and guess what, I have to walk home anyway since my fucking cab left, so we might as well do it together.”
Gerard looked doubtful, not to mention still angry, but if Gerard wanted to put up a competition, Brian would fucking show him angry. He was stranded in a less-than-nice neighborhood, in the middle of the night, and all because Gerard was an idiot, and Brian didn’t know what was good for him.
“Don’t be an idiot, Way, let’s go.”
Brian started walking down the street, and if Gerard flinched at Brian calling him by his surname, something he’d never done before, Brian pretended not to see it. After a couple of steps, he heard Gerard hurrying up after him, and soon they were walking side by side in silence, with the only soundtrack of Brian playing nervously with his lighter, flicking it on and off at regular intervals.
"Could you stop that, please?" Gerard asked after a few minutes, having clearly lost the fight between not wanting to talk and being annoyed. To be completely honest, Brian hadn't even noticed he was doing it, too busy not looking at Gerard and wondering how long it would take them to get back to a more decent area.
To be even more completely honest, he wasn't exactly sure where they were, and he was also aware of the fact that calling Ray would have probably been the better option, but - he hadn't seen Gerard all week, and he hated the feeling of things left unresolved between them.
"What? Oh, right. Sorry. You want one?" Brian replied, putting his lighter to its proper use and offering the pack to Gerard. He seemed to hesitate for a second but took one, and Brian lit it for him, most definitely not staring at the way the orange glow of the flame reflected on Gerard's face.
"So, you wanna talk about it?" Brian tried, after a couple more minutes of walking and talking in silence. "Want to tell me what happened?"
He tried to keep his voice casual, but now that the anger was dying down and that Gerard wasn't ignoring him anymore he started to feel mad at Wentz, an itch under his skin to get the idiot and kick him for leaving Gerard alone in the middle of the night.
"No."
Well, okay. Maybe Brian wasn't mad only at Wentz, after all. Whatever. He lit another cigarette with the butt of the first one, and kept on walking. He was busy trying to understand where the fuck they were, and reconsidering the idea of calling Ray, when Gerard’s voice surprised him.
“It was stupid, really. He said he’d take me to dinner and a movie, alone, like in the old times, but then his friends called and he suddenly wanted to go to that fucking party. I didn’t even complain, I just told him to take me home then, but just like that we were off, and yelling. He said I never support him in anything, always pissing on his fun, and I – honestly, I think I did all I could.
He's not bad, I know it, it's just that things stopped working and I don't know, maybe I should have handled things differently."
"Gerard."
"Yes?"
"If you're going to defend him even after this, just shut the fuck up, please."
Not his most diplomatic move ever, maybe, but it was the best Brian could do, short of pinning Gerard against a wall and shaking him until he saw what an idiot he was being.
After that, it was silence again for a while. Brian was thinking about his last words, wondering what he could say to apologize without actually saying he was sorry, because he felt he shouldn’t have been so harsh, even if “but you could have it so much better, if you only wanted” didn’t seem like a decent alternative.
He was about to open his mouth to say something, anything, when suddenly he looked up and recognized the house, a little further up the street.
“Hey, I know where we are!”
“What, you didn’t know before? Why was I following you, then?”
Gerard was smiling, though, so Brian’s “fuck you” was almost affectionate, and said with a smile.
“Come, we put up the living room doors yesterday and you haven’t seen them yet. Come on, I have the keys.”
It was weird, wandering around the empty house at night, with Gerard at his side. Brian kept remembering the days they spent there together, talking and planning things and stealing glances at each other.
He couldn't have been so wrong in reading things, and he remembered the way Gerard had kissed him back before running away, so he decided it was time to play his best (and trickiest card), because if Gerard wanted to waste his chance with him, it had to be for a real reason, and not for a misplaced sense of loyalty to someone who didn't really deserve it.
The moon was full and up in the sky, shining in through the windows. Brian opened the French doors in the master bedroom and walked outside, sitting on the porch and lighting up yet another cigarette as Gerard sat next to him, after a split second of hesitation.
"The doors look good," Gerard started, right as Brian opened his mouth to say "There's something you should probably know."
Gerard looked at him, puzzled and questioning. “Brian, please don’t start again.”
“No, just – give me a second and listen to me, okay? When I met you in that club, I was surprised to see you with Pete, but I wasn’t surprised to see him act like that. I’ve worked in that place, I’ve seen him around a lot, and Gerard, you can’t seriously not know that Pete Wentz is the biggest scene slut around. He’ll fuck anything that moves or talks to him, and yeah, he slowed down a bit in the last two years apparently, but from what I heard he’s not been a saint lately. Ask Ray, if you don’t believe me.”
No reply came. Brian didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing but he continued, trying to get his point across.
“I know you feel something here, I remember how you weren’t exactly disgusted when I kissed you, and fuck, if you don’t want to give it a try with me, okay, if you’re scared to start something new after years with someone else, fine, but you shouldn’t do it out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to someone who doesn’t deserve you. I know Pete isn’t a bad person, I’m not saying he cheated on you the whole time, but – he’s not a saint, Gerard. If his way of ‘working on things’ is dropping you off in the middle of the street to go to a party, then you shouldn’t waste energy on him.”
Still no reply. None was probably going to come, though, because Gerard, who’d been hiding behind his hair during Brian’s tirade, suddenly got up, shaking his head, and turned his back on him, taking a step.
"What are you doing?"
Brian grabbed Gerard's arm, turning him so that he could see his face.
"You know I can't do this. I have to go."
"Please. You don't have to."
Brian's hand slid down Gerard's arm and wrist, taking hold of his hand.
"You know you don't. Think about it."
Gerard looked up at him, eyes wide in the dark.
"Stay," Brian whispered, inching closer to him.
“You know what? Maybe you should have told me earlier, instead of making me look like an idiot and waiting for me to find out like this.”
And just like that, Gerard turned and walked away, jumping down the patio and disappearing down the street.
Well, fuck.
*
The following Saturday found Brian at home, watching tv in his sweatpants and eating old reheated Chinese takeout, just as he should have done the previous week. Staying at home would have meant not meeting Gerard, not being a complete asshole and an idiot, and not having to witness the cold way Gerard had treated him the whole week, avoiding him as much as possible.
At least Gerard hadn’t disappeared like after their kiss, even if it wasn’t a reason to celebrate. Brian missed talking to him, sharing his ideas on the house and buying two coffees every morning. After the first day, when he saw Gerard back at work, Brian had tried buying two again on Tuesday, but the distant look in Gerard’s eyes when he’d said hello had made Brian drink both of them himself, rather than having to suffer a polite refusal.
Brian shook his head, trying to think about something else, and blamed Ray for the hundredth time that night. If only he hadn’t been so insistent in getting him out of the house, then – but Brian knew he wasn’t being fair. Ray was a good friend, and blaming him, even if good for his frustration, wasn’t good for much else.
He had refused his latest invitation, though, because given Brian’s luck in the last days he didn’t want to tempt fate. When he heard the doorbell ring, though, his first thought was that Ray had come to try and convince him in person, and he rolled his eyes as he dragged himself to the door.
“Fuck’s sake, Toro, I told you I’m not going out tonight! I-”
Brian’s voice died in his throat, because standing in his doorway, looking nervous and offering a cup of coffee as if it was a hand grenade, was Gerard.
"..The fuck?" Brian knew he wasn't being very articulate (or nice, for that matter), but he really wasn't expecting to see Gerard there. Not that he wasn't glad to see him, but what exactly was he doing there? And why?
Still, Gerard had coffee, and Brian wasn't going to refuse a coffee offering anytime soon, especially - as Gerard's small, nervous smile seem to indicate - if it was supposed to be a peace offering. The right corner of Gerard's mouth turned up at Brian's exclamation, as if he'd been expecting a similar reaction.
"I'm sorry to burst in here like this without warning, but I thought I might lose my nerve if I called. Or if you told me not to come. I would have come anyway, but it would have been awkward. So. Right. Coffee?"
And Gerard lifted the cup again, offering it to Brian. Not knowing exactly what to do, and too stunned to realize that he should at least invite Gerard in, Brian took the cup and held on to it, even if it was still too hot.
"Gerard, I -"
"No, Brian, please. Let me talk. I'm still mad at you, and yes, I do realize it's not the best way to start this" - this what, Brian thought, clutching the cup harder - "but you should have told me about Pete earlier. Do you understand that I felt like an idiot?"
Oh, Brian understood. He'd thought about that a lot, and wanted to tell Gerard that it wouldn't have been fair, that faced with Gerard's repeated conviction in trying to work out things with Pete, it wouldn't have been nice of him to undermine things just because he wanted to - what if Pete had really changed? But he couldn't, because Gerard dismissed him when he opened his mouth to talk with one sweeping gesture of his hand, and continued.
"I know, you're probably going to tell me that I needed to realize it by myself, but it's quite clear now that I couldn't. I was too wrapped up in guilt and habit, and - I don't know, maybe I was just scared. But even if you were an idiot, and you were, I was one, too."
Gerard stopped then, looking at Brian hopefully, saying nothing. When Brian didn't move, not sure he was understanding things correctly, he shook his head and smiled again, laughing a little at himself.
"You're going to make me say it, right? Okay, I guess I deserved it."
Gerard stepped closer to Brian, took the coffee cup out of his hand and put it on the small shelf next to Brian's keys and wallet. He was standing right in front of him, and Brian could see his dark eyelashes, his huge eyes, the way his hair probably hadn't been dyed in a while at the roots - and most of all, his mouth, looking as soft as Brian remembered it to be.
"I'm sorry I ran away that night. I'm sorry it took me so long to realize that Pete was history and that it wasn't worth clinging to what I used to have with him. I'm not saying it's all my fault, I told you, but I'm here now, if I haven't lost my chance. And I really, really hope I haven't," Gerard whispered, inching closer and closer, so that his last words were drawn on Brian's skin by his lips.
"Do I really have to answer that?" Brian smiled, whispering too and feeling silly for it, because who was going to bother them now? He reached around Gerard with an arm and slammed the door closed before kissing him, so that he could push him against it.