Chimerical Romantics, 3/3

[dira]

Part One | Part Two

***

The Way household is not unlike a ship, in Frank's mind: a good ship, happy and well-run, all her lines neat and taut, ropes coiled, deck clean, all her men proud. The servants make up the crew, obviously, but Frank cannot decide from one day to the next whether Gerard is the captain, or Madame is. Eventually he concludes that Gerard must be, as he is master of the house for all the servants would never obey him against Madame: Madame is just Madame, and there is no equivalent rank, and Gerard would no more defy her than the servants could.

Frank is aware that he has no rank, either. He is aware that he is a passenger, and that he cannot pay his passage.

He is acutely aware that he will not be asked to--Gerard, Michael, Madame, they are gentles to the core, and they bestow their kindness where they will. A common sailor does best not to bite the hand that's nursed him back to health, nor would Frank ever dream of doing such a thing. But this can't continue forever. In his sickroom, when it was just him and Gerard--him and Mister Way, but Frank will never regain the vestiges of propriety he owes to Gerard, not after the first night he woke up halfway clear-headed and Gerard was perched on the edge of his bed with a cloth and a basin of water, and gave him a little to drink before bathing his forehead and wrists and throat in coolness.

But the green bedroom, and the bed within it like a pinnace, is a place outside the rest of the world; even when Michael visited him there, even when Madame came in and lectured him about how to sit and how to eat, it was all a part of some other world that didn't touch the real one. Frank was always half-convinced that this was a fever dream, or that he'd already perished and this was a heaven beyond all imagining, the mansion with many rooms he'd heard of once. As a child he imagined a villa, more windows, golden sunlight, different (better) food, but he could not have imagined Gerard, nor expected Michael's sweetness, nor Madame's grace bestowed upon him like the Virgin herself teaching him table manners.

It is when he begins to walk again that he realizes he still lives, and that the world outside can still touch him; it is there in the gentle condescension of Toro's gaze, in Pelissier's stolid refusal to be shocked by Mister Gerard Way's latest mad stunt. Frank is not even a passenger, but an exotic creature collected from some distant shore and packed along like so much baggage (Frank thinks of slavers, but it is not like that; he is not, Gerard is not, the house is not a ship at all).

It relieves him a little, when Gerard draws him into the circle of the others, commissions him as some kind of officer, perhaps a very junior lieutenant, an ensign, a powder monkey dressed up in fine clothes--but it is enough, a nod to propriety that will let him drink with Gerard and Michael and Toro and Pelissier, enough that Toro will argue with him and listen when Frank argues back. Toro demands that Frank make suggestions, help to devise plans, and sometimes Frank speaks to Toro alone, before meeting with the others, to try out his ideas, to make sure he has the words right so that he will not embarrass himself before Pelissier. Toro seems to understand, and argues with him until he knows his own side well; Toro, Frank thinks, is an excellent first lieutenant.

And Gerard is his captain. Frank wishes it were true, that the house were a ship, that they were cut off from the world on some storm-tossed sea (that Gerard's rarely leaving the house would become never, even though the nights when Gerard appears halfway to dawn, smelling of something sharper and stronger than wine or ale, tongue loosened along with his coat and neckcloth--oh, those nights, the things Frank thinks while he lies awake, murmuring responses to Gerard's half-coherent ramblings--they will be the death of him, his damnation). Frank could be something then, do Gerard some good service: bring him his coffee and help him to dress, or only be a common sailor, and yet do his work well and with a will, that Gerard's eye might fall on him with approval.

Might fall upon him with more than approval. Gerard might ask something of him then, if they were truly aboard a ship, if Gerard were truly his captain, Captain Way, and Frank's tongue shapes those words he dares not speak, for it would reveal everything he wishes and he knows those wishes are entirely wrong. But if only Gerard required some service of him, if only there were something Frank could do for him that no one else could, then Frank could be certain of his place, certain of meaning something to Gerard.

Then it happens. Gerard kisses him, sudden and shy, in the midst of teaching Frank something he doesn't need to know, and Frank realizes that Gerard is just getting the nerve to take what he wants from Frank. To ask for it, Frank thinks, for Captain though he is, Gerard is as shy as any hand who ever made some furtive grab for Frank in the darkness belowdecks. Frank is flooded with relief and joy, a shameful eagerness--at last, at last, Gerard has asked it of him, and he can assent, he can do something for Gerard that no one else can be asked to. Frank knows Gerard well enough by now to know that he would not stoop to press a servant, and naturally no gentleman could be expected--but Gerard has created an exception in Frank, by making him one of them even though he is patently not, and Frank holds very still, allowing Gerard to kiss him again and again before finally stepping back to say he understands, and yes, he will, he will, yes.

Gerard seems to think better of it, but Frank is reckless with the knowledge that Gerard wants this from him, wants him. He whispers "Later," as though it were up to him, as though he had any right to say when he would give in to Gerard. But Gerard nods, and Frank wills himself to be still until a better time.

***

Frank spends the rest of that day in a roil of anticipation, something twisting low and hot in his belly which is not quite shame or fear, for all that it belongs with both. But he has nothing to fear from Gerard: Gerard was not demanding but asking, out there among the trees. Frank knows it even though Gerard didn't say a word. Gerard is not the kind to demand, or he would have done it long since; likewise, no matter that Frank has given himself over to this, Gerard will not do the very worst to him. Gerard will take no pleasure in hurting him, and that is enough for Frank to know. Any harm he suffers incidentally will signify nothing. It is him Gerard desires, not his pain.

It is common enough by now for Frank to go up to bed alone at night, settling down to sleep without Gerard hovering nearby to help. Still, Frank stays awake, lying between the cool, soft sheets, waiting, wondering whether Gerard will come, what he will want. Wondering whether, having been once satisfied, he will be finished with Frank, or whether Frank can entice him to want more, to want Frank to stay.

There in the dark, the shame comes creeping upon him, for he cannot deny that his cock is hard, just thinking of the things that Gerard might do to him. He thinks of the other times, the best-worst, the times when his body betrayed him, revealing the perverse pleasure he took in being buggered, being used. He thinks of Gerard pressing him down into the mattress (he remembers the time with the whore, the only time he'd been so close to anyone in a real bed, though Gerard has come close, perching on the edge of the enormous soft mattress, leaning over him that one late night after one of McCracken's parties). Perhaps he will summon Frank from the bed, take him up against a wall or on the bare floor (more familiar surroundings, both, though he wonders how different it will be without a ship rocking and trembling around him). He thinks of Gerard taking him--uncertain, and made rough by it, maybe, or quick and assured, masterful. He thinks of the familiar burn, every different way it can hurt, and the secret shocking ways it feels good, and he is hard, so hard, aching.

He won't touch himself, he won't, but--he can prepare himself a little, for Gerard. Make things easier, later on. He doesn't let himself think too much about it, just sucks two fingers into his mouth, licking them well, and then curls on the bed, reaching between his own legs and pressing his fingers inside. He can't reach far, and his oddly-bent wrist hurts nearly as much as his arse, though neither hurts as much as all that. It makes his breath come short, it feels--incomplete, unreal, but it's not only pain, there's that treacherous thread of pleasure, and his cock jumps against his belly without his even touching it when he twists his fingers inside himself. Alone in the dark, his face flames at that, and he thinks--if Gerard had been here, if Gerard had seen him so wanton, so plainly desiring to be used this way...

He tells himself he's only taking a precaution--he'll take his pleasure now, and then there will be nothing to betray him before Gerard; better the sin alone than the sin and the humiliation all at once. He tugs his shirt up out of the way and curls his free hand around his cock, fingers still shoved inside himself, and he works both in an unsteady rhythm until his climax rushes down on him like a wave, knocking him flat and breathless, shaking and gasping.

He has the presence of mind, after, to roll onto his belly, making sure his shirt is pulled down just to his waist, covering the ugliness of his back but leaving the rest exposed. The touch of the soft sheets against his cock makes him shudder with something that is neither pain nor cold, and he shoves the blankets down a little and lies with his thighs spread, waiting. He feels lacking, waiting for Gerard to come for him, and he remembers the feeling he sometimes had--with another boy mostly, when it was belowdecks, on the floor between crates of supplies in the hold--a still moment when the other was first inside him, when the first shock of pain passed off, a knowledge that they were joined together, two bodies connected while he held the other's cock inside him--a jumble of sensation and feeling that never made sense after. But he thinks he would feel it with Gerard, with Gerard inside him, and he wants it desperately.

It's only when he wakes in morning's light, curled on his side with the covers tugged up to his ears, that he realizes Gerard isn't coming. Didn't come.

Or did come, and found Frank asleep, like a useless invalid; like the foolish woman in the scripture, asleep when the master of the house came upon her.

Or perhaps he did not want what he asked for, after all.

Frank bathes and dresses and goes down to breakfast; Gerard is nowhere to be seen until well into the middle of the day, when he appears looking pale and drawn, showing the obvious aftereffects of too much drink the night before. He watches Frank almost warily, but constantly, and he drinks very lightly that night. Frank thinks it through carefully, wondering whether something drove Gerard to drink so last night, or whether it was only that--that nothing stopped him from it. With a little more consideration, Frank realizes that it is not that Gerard does not want exactly what he asked of Frank--it is only that Gerard will not press him for it, not demand it of him, never call due the promise Frank made him.

So if Frank would give what he has agreed to give, he must offer it. The very thought makes his heart race with fear, with humiliations remembered and anticipated--but Gerard asked it of him, and Gerard has never been cruel. Of course, Frank has seen men turn cruel when it came to their pleasure, though they were kind everywhere else--but he cannot believe that of Gerard. Gerard has no edges about him hard enough to conceal that; his hands and voice are soft, gentlemanly, and if it had ever been his desire to see Frank crawl, he need only have not caught him as he fell, weeks ago. He did not let it happen then. He will not do it now.

Frank tells himself that again and again after he has worked out what he must do, and still he lingers in his own--in the green bedchamber, which does not belong to him any more than anything else in Mister Gerard Way's house. Finally, steeling himself, Frank slips out of his own room and into the servants' stair, taking their back ways to the master's bedchamber. Frank has never been there before, but he knows where it is, just as surely as he always knew where the captain was on any ship he served. He lets himself into Gerard's dressing room from the back stair, and hesitates a little longer in the little room where Gerard's valet would sleep if he could be persuaded to hire one.

Frank reaches out and touches one of Gerard's coats, thinking of Pelissier's man, Davies--he wears clothes nearly just as fine as Pelissier's, and no one looks sideways at him. Everyone knows just why Davies is in the house, and what he does, and if they don't speak to him, well, they don't not speak to him, either. Davies belongs. Frank could belong, if Gerard would let him; he's sure he could manage doing up buttons and polishing boots and bringing coffee and he's always had a steady hand with a razor, except when the fever was upon him. He thinks for a moment about that, about scraping a blade over Gerard's cheeks and chin and throat, as Gerard did for him a handful of times before he could manage for himself, and he shivers with a strange, formless hunger that isn't centered in his cock or his belly, that is just... wanting. He wants that, to be allowed to touch Gerard that way.

But he shakes off the thought--what he wants is no one's concern, not even his own--and remembers that he is here for a reason. He takes a deep breath and opens the door, and it's only when Gerard looks up--shaking his black hair back from his face and focusing on Frank with an expression that is entirely shocked, not at all (yet) angry--that it occurs to Frank that perhaps he should have knocked.

Gerard is sitting cross-legged in the center of his bed, sketchboard in his lap. At first Frank thinks he looks naked because he's wearing only a shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and collar open on the pale skin of his throat. When Frank steps a little further inside he realizes that Gerard is wearing only a shirt, his sketchboard propped on bare knees, bare feet tucked under bare thighs.

Frank stops where he stands when he realizes that, still yards short of the bed and Gerard. He opens and closes his mouth, unable to find an explanation for his presence, unable to shape the words to offer himself explicitly.

But Gerard relieves him of that burden, raising one hand to beckon him closer. Frank moves instantly to obey the silent command, walking all the way to the foot of the bed--still out of arm's reach from Gerard, who is smiling a little now, looking just uncertain enough himself for Frank to be entirely reassured that he's done the correct thing.

Gerard clears his throat and says, "You did say later, didn't you."

Frank nods, mouth gone dry, and wonders what he should do next; Gerard isn't moving the sketchboard that covers his lap, which seems to limit the possibilities or expand them in awful directions, but there is Gerard's smile, sweet and a little shy.

Gerard bites his lip and says, "I had been wanting to ask you, and this seems a good time..."

"Whatever you like," Frank says fervently, for he won't hesitate again, not now.

Gerard looks down at that, his dark, loose hair falling between them like a curtain, and his hands move restlessly around the sketchboard.

"I'd like to draw you," he says, without looking up. "Your back. Ever since I saw it I've been thinking of it, but I can't remember enough to draw it without you in front of me."

Frank winces, unseen, and looks away himself; he knows he isn't anything worth drawing, not like the beautiful subjects Toro paints--Madame's dignified loveliness or the shy prettiness of the upstairs maid. And of all the parts of him that might be considered presentable, his back is surely the least worthy (the first man ever to bugger him had liked his back when he was young, when it was unbroken and perfect, before he'd ever been flogged--but now it is scarred and tanned and defaced with tattoos, whole enough to serve but nothing like fine). But he had told Gerard that he could have whatever he wanted, and if what Gerard wants is to commit Frank's ugliness to paper, then Frank will give him that. Even that.

Frank turns away, cheeks already burning a little with shame--he remembers Gerard's first startled flinch away from him, and the shocked quality of Gerard's silence when Frank turned to show him, as though Gerard were looking upon something too awful to be spoken of. With his back turned, he shucks off his shirt and then, thinking he might at least remind Gerard of what else he has to offer, he quickly removes the rest of his clothes as well, shoes and trousers and stockings, till he is standing naked with his back to Gerard. It's strange, being entirely uncovered this way--he can't remember the last time he was buggered with his shirt off, or his boots, or had his trousers pushed further down than they had to be--but he will give Gerard anything, even this.

It takes scarcely a moment, and Gerard is silent--not even a sound of movement or breathing behind him--and then Gerard says in a small, choked voice, "I can't make you just stand there, you must be tired. Come and lie down, be comfortable."

Frank scrubs a hand across his face--must Gerard be so circuitous, so exhaustingly delicate, must he call everything he wants something other than what he really wants? It's easier with sailors, who demand what they demand, take what they take, and don't dress it up in other language.

But when Frank turns to come to Gerard's bed, Gerard has retreated into one corner, sketchboard still on his lap, as though he really did mean to draw him. Frank remembers that he loves Gerard's delicacy, his gentleness, and he will be on Gerard's bed--not his own, where he must sleep later, not against a wall or on the floor, not exposed among the trees and grass--and that is a kindness he had no reason to expect. So he smiles and goes, taking note of the quick skim of Gerard's gaze downward over his chest and belly and cock and legs. He lies down quickly, then, rolling onto his side and facing away from Gerard, for his cock is stirring under Gerard's scrutiny, and he does not want to be exposed in this one particular before he must--though Gerard did not ask him to take all his clothes off and Gerard did not ask him to come here tonight and it is surely obvious to Gerard how shamefully eager he is.

"There," Gerard says, and Frank can feel him shifting on the other side of the bed, sees shadows dance on the wall as Gerard turns up a lamp. "That's better, isn't it? Tell me if you get cold, we don't want you catching a chill."

Frank smiles a little, ducking his head to keep it out of sight, at Gerard's ridiculous coddling--as though Frank had never stood watch through every kind of weather, soaked to his skin, frozen to his bones; as though Frank could catch cold in this comfortable room in this fine sturdy house, with a stoked fire in the grate and the bright light behind him flickering warm on his skin.

He feels Gerard move once or twice behind him, but Gerard neither touches him nor comes closer nor seems to be drawing anything--there is no scratch of charcoal on paper, no matter how Frank holds his breath, listening. The silence and stillness stretch, and Frank is holding his breath more and more desperately, listening, every muscle tensing as he waits for whatever comes next--anticipation is the worst part, and he can't see Gerard, can't hear anything. At least he doesn't have to worry about his cock betraying him anymore; he feels nothing but a twisting anxiety in his belly. He is aware of every inch of the exposure of his skin, every single place he is bare before Gerard, the nape of his neck and the spot where the freshest of his scars cuts across the small of his back, the ticklish spot at the back of his knee, the sole of his foot. His hands curl inexorably into fists, and he holds them tight to his chest.

It occurs to him to speak, but his throat closes on words more tightly than on breath. He thinks he might look back, but he can't bear to think what he'll see--doesn't know whether it would be worse to see Gerard looking at him or Gerard ignoring him. After a long deliberation he forces himself to find out, twisting his neck to look, a quick, committed motion.

Gerard is leaning across his sketchboard, chin propped in one hand, fingers curled against his mouth. The other hand is still holding a stick of charcoal, motionless. Frank licks his lips, but again the anxiety fades when he actually looks at Gerard, instead of imagining what could be, who it could be, who it has been in the past. Gerard is like no one else.

Frank dares to speak at last. "You don't have to pretend you're drawing, you know. I--" and he can't believe he's saying it, that Gerard has let him grow so bold, but the words spill out of his mouth almost before he's translated them in his mind. "I wish you'd just tell me what you want."

Gerard blushes hot at that, which makes Frank want to laugh in a mad, wild way, the feeling of it bubbling in his chest. Gerard straightens up and says, "I do want to draw you! It's only that I don’t know where to start. I can't choose a line."

Frank squirms, trying to peer at his own back, thinking how it must look. "There are a lot of them, aren't there?"

Frank glances up only to find Gerard's eyes on his body, his arse or--no, Gerard is sitting up while Frank is lying down, Gerard is staring at the twist of his body. Frank can't help looking down at himself, the jut of his hipbones under the outlined birds, the skin of his belly pale above the dark curling hair, his cock lying against his thigh. When he looks back up at Gerard, he's still staring, and now his lips are a little parted, cheeks still just tinged with pink.

Frank rolls onto his back, and then onto his side facing Gerard. He's a body-width closer now, Gerard's knee nearly against his chest. "Maybe this side would be easier?"

Gerard's eyes drag up to Frank's face, flush blooming on his cheeks all over again. "Frank," he says, his voice husky and low and solemn. "You know that you don't have to--I would never--"

Frank feels a burst of uncertainty--desperate and exposed--but Gerard called him into his bed, and Gerard kept looking. After a wavering moment Frank settles on feeling exasperated, as he might with a powder monkey who simply could not learn fore from aft. Gerard has his lines all ahoo, fouled by his own gentlemanliness, and it will take a common sailor to get him all sorted. Perhaps a common sailor and a hatchet. Frank laughs suddenly at the thought, and pushes himself up to sit, face to face with Gerard.

"No," Frank says, grinning as Gerard smiles uncertainly back--and what a fine thing, not to be the only one confused, though of course he couldn't be so cruel as to leave Gerard in suspense. "No, of course you would never."

And he will never, so Frank leans in to make himself understood the same way Gerard did, pressing his mouth to Gerard's. Gerard's lips are already a little parted, and do not close against Frank's, nor deny the cautious pressure of Frank's tongue. Gerard's fingers brush Frank's skin like fluttering birds, lighting on his elbow and then his shoulder, thumb tracing the line of Frank's jaw. Frank drags kisses sloppily away from Gerard's mouth, concentrating on his touch. It's the touch that will tell.

Gerard's fingers slide into Frank's hair, twisting and tugging Frank gently back to Gerard's mouth for another kiss, lingering as if there were nothing but this, as if Gerard didn't already have Frank in his bed and must ask and ask and ask again. Frank thinks he might need to move matters along and reaches down, pulling tentatively at the sketchboard that still lies across Gerard's lap.

Gerard laughs against Frank's mouth and slips his hand from Frank's hair, breaking the kiss to shove the sketchboard from his lap. It hits the floor with a clatter, and Frank automatically looks, wincing at the sound and the destruction it heralds--fine paper crumpled or torn, the charcoal stick likely broken--but Gerard shows a fine gentlemanly disregard for his possessions. He never takes his eyes off Frank. His gaze is bright, avid, and he kneels up and kisses him again, one hand settling lightly on Frank's shoulder and the other in his hair. Frank waits for the push--Gerard is above him now, has the angle, the leverage, all the strength to overpower Frank or let him pretend to have been--but Gerard's hands just rest on his skin. Gerard's mouth just brushes over his mouth, tongue touching his lightly.

Gerard handles Frank with all the care he hadn't shown his drawing things, and it's ridiculous. Frank pulls back from Gerard's kiss, though not far enough to shake Gerard's hands from his shoulders, and knocks his forehead gently against Gerard's.

"You don't have to be careful with me, you know," Frank says. "You can do what you like, I won't mind. I'm used to it."

For an instant Frank thinks Gerard has actually understood him at last, for Gerard's fingers close, bruising-tight, on Frank's shoulders. But Gerard gentles his grip a second later, and pulls back to meet Frank's eyes. When he only stares, without saying or doing anything, it occurs to Frank that he oughtn't to have said that last. Gerard won't like the idea that others have been where he is, that Frank is naught more than a pawned jade, owned before by some other (though he has never desired so wildly to belong to any of them, no officer or gentleman he's ever met has been anything like Gerard). He must have known from the way Frank offered, but he won't like to hear it, now, like this.

Frank bites his lip--there is no way to take such words back--but Gerard doesn't push him away, though he is frowning now as he looks at Frank.

"That's a pretty paradox," Gerard says finally, and that doesn't make any sense at all. Surely there can be nothing pretty about it.

"What you said, I mean," Gerard continues, into Frank's uncertain silence. "It's a paradox; as soon as you say it it isn't true. As if you said out loud that you were mute."

Frank frowns back, tensing. "I'm no liar--"

"No, no," and Gerard kisses him--again softly, though Frank feels lost enough now to be grateful for the touch he scorned a moment before.

"You're perfectly honest, Frank, of course," Gerard says, rubbing his thumb distractingly against Frank's skin. "But if you will not ask me to be careful with you, it means I must be, because you don't expect me to be."

This is, Frank thinks, some particularly gentlemanly knot of logic; even Toro might not rise to this height of refined incomprehensibility.

"What if I do expect you to be?" For he would, if he had given it proper thought. Gerard is always careful of him, never demanding anything; Frank ought to have known it wouldn't change even if Frank were naked in his bedchamber.

"Well, then I don't dare disappoint you," Gerard says with a smile--and if it is a little mocking, Frank thinks at least it is himself he's mocking, and not Frank.

Frank bites his lip, because Gerard couldn't disappoint him except by sending him away, but he suspects it's best not to point that out. Gerard will only turn the words around on him again in some way he doesn't mean. "I don't want to disappoint you."

Gerard tilts his head, frowning as though that had never crossed his mind, and Frank starts to feel scared and uncertain all over again--hadn't Gerard wanted this? Hadn't that been what he was asking for? "What do you want, Frank?"

Frank feels his heart stutter in his chest. It doesn't matter what he wants, he's here for Gerard, and he wants--he wants that, he wants whatever Gerard wants so long as Gerard wants him.

He wants so much more than that, he wants Gerard, he wants to know for certain that he is desired, he wants Gerard to look at him--to draw him as though he were something beautiful, he wants this to last forever, he wants Gerard to use him, to take him and own him--he wants sinful, shameful things, and he cannot say a word, not in any language. He can scarcely breathe, his face flaming like he's been taken with fever again, and he wonders if Gerard can see it on him, see the words shining right through his skin like his ink and scars and rushing blood.

Frank actually tastes blood, realizes he's still biting down on his lip and forces himself to stop. He tries to raise his eyes to Gerard's, to think of what Gerard is waiting for him to say. If Gerard wants him to say it, not only to allow this but to ask for it first...

Gerard's hand cups Frank's jaw, and Gerard says, "Don't, Frank, don't--"

Gerard sounds so miserable that Frank finally does look up, but Gerard says nothing more, kissing him before Frank can meet his eyes. His tongue traces the bitten places on Frank's lip, stinging and sweet all at once, and Frank makes a wordless noise into Gerard's mouth, unable to hold back the sound.

But Gerard makes almost the same sound back, and he leans closer to Frank, his hand sliding to the back of Frank's neck to keep him close. Frank lets his mouth fall open under Gerard's, drinks in his kisses and breath and the small sounds Gerard makes, wanton, shameless, beautiful.

Frank unclenches one hand from where he's been clutching the fine linen sheets. If he can't give Gerard the words he wants, perhaps he can still make shift to show him he's willing, more than willing.

Gerard's kisses steal Frank's breath until he feels as light-headed as if he were standing on the deck of a burning ship, taking in nothing but smoke. His skin is as hot, too, a feeling like crackling flame dancing all through him as Gerard's kisses deepen and Gerard's fingernails scratch gently across the nape of his neck. Still, Frank keeps his wits about him enough to raise one hand, reaching out slowly. He'll let his fingers speak for him; if they can shape words out of ink and paper, they can do this.

Frank's touch falls lightly on Gerard's thigh, bare skin under his fingertips, but Gerard goes still at once, his mouth halting against Frank's. Even his breath stops, and Frank pushes, into the kiss and against Gerard's thigh, his fingers slipping under the hem of Gerard's shirt, his rough palm dragging against Gerard's soft skin like silk. Gerard moves when Frank hesitates again, his leg shifting slightly outward, pressing into Frank's touch. Frank dares to slide his hand further still, until his thumb is tucked into the crease of Gerard's hip, and then Gerard kisses him again, slowly but steadily. Frank shifts his fingertips against Gerard's skin, liking the feel of him--something fine and perfect--and liking even more the way he shivers a little at Frank's touch.

Gerard draws back from him with a last lingering kiss, and then he's biting his own lip--his teeth even and white against the slickly shiny redness of it--as he settles back on his haunches.

"Perhaps," he says, his hands falling away from Frank to curl in the hem of his shirt. "I could make this a bit easier."

Frank's lips part to ask--to answer--but Gerard is already moving, lifting his shirt, tugging it off over his head and tossing it down after his drawing things, leaving him just as bare as Frank. Frank can't speak, then, though he knows his mouth is hanging open. He can only stare at Gerard--every marble-pale inch, smooth and perfect without a single sharp edge. Only his cock juts out, standing up flushed with blood, the skin darker, and Frank thinks for a dizzy instant that his hand might not look out of place against it, of all places he might touch Mister Gerard Way.

The very thought of taking such an enormous liberty makes him snap his gaze back to Gerard's face, to see what Gerard is thinking--but Gerard is watching Frank with an uncertain look on his own face, biting his lip again just as Frank bit his.

Gerard is as naked as Frank is, and Gerard--Frank is staring at the evidence that Gerard desires this as much. Desires it more, perhaps, enough to admit it, enough to kiss Frank first. They are not at sea, and Gerard has nothing to excuse his desire but that he is a gentleman, and may do as he pleases. If Frank let anyone else here discover it--Frank would be driven out, which would leave him no worse off than he was before, but Gerard would have to stay here, rooted in this house, this island, with everyone knowing what he had asked of Frank. If Gerard is the captain of this ship, that traps him aboard it far more securely than it could ever hold Frank.

Gerard is braver than Frank has ever realized, and Frank cannot think of the words to tell him so--if it were even his place to say such a thing. He returns his hand to its place on Gerard's thigh, instead--if Gerard can be so brave, Frank cannot shame himself by doing less--and leans in as Gerard reciprocates, his hand warm on Frank's hip.

Their mouths meet halfway, and Gerard kisses Frank briskly, tongue pressing into Frank's mouth and mapping it out. He kisses as though he is finding his place, comparing the stars to his charts to be sure of his position and course. Frank keeps his hand steady on Gerard's skin, opens his mouth to receive his kiss, and awaits whatever will follow.

Soon Gerard breaks the kiss, pulling back just far enough to part his mouth from Frank's. He makes a low, half-musical sound, as he does sometimes when he is thinking, and then says, "Perhaps you wouldn't mind..."

Frank opens his own mouth to say that he won't mind, of course he won't, but Gerard doesn't give him time to say it, finishing his sentence with his hands rather than words. Gerard presses Frank down to the mattress with hands on his chest and shoulder--but he lays Frank down facing up, his back and his arse hidden against the softness of the mattress. His cock juts above his belly like a spar, and Frank feels himself blushing, feeling strangely exposed in this position, though there's little enough Gerard can do to him like this.

Gerard's hands don't leave his skin once Frank is lying flat, only shift across its surface. Gerard's hands glide over the flame above Frank's heart, the serpent on the side of his neck, and Frank lets his eyes flutter half-shut. The look on Gerard's face is intent, and he is touching Frank gently, his soft hands moving so lightly over Frank's chest and shoulders, up and down his arms. When that feather-light touch reaches down to his belly, Frank has to look, peeking through his eyelashes as Gerard's fingers trace the birds drawn between his hips.

Frank can't help arching into his touch, hips tilting toward Gerard's fingers, and Gerard looks up suddenly, looks him right in the eye and smiles so beautifully that Frank can't think or speak or breathe. Gerard moves, then, and Frank thinks it will be another kiss, but Gerard swings a leg across Frank so that he is straddling Frank's hips. He splays his hands across Frank's ribs and then settles lower, and Frank tears his gaze from Gerard's eyes just in time to see Gerard's cock brush against his. Frank's hips jerk up again, harder this time; the sensation is sharp as pain, but entirely the opposite, a lash of pure pleasure.

Gerard pushes down against him, his cock pressing hard and hot all along Frank's. It feels good, dizzyingly good, with no leavening of pain, or the knowledge of anyone else's either. There is just Gerard smiling above him, Gerard's weight settling gently over him like a heavy blanket, and Gerard's cock pushing rhythmically against his. Frank can scarcely breathe, cannot think at all, and when Gerard's lips brush against his cheek it takes Frank a while to understand the words, as though the waves of pleasure have washed English out of his brain.

"Are you used to this?" Gerard whispers. "Do you mind it?"

Frank shakes his head--no, he isn't, no, he doesn't--but Gerard's mouth is gone, trailing wet and soft down Frank's throat. Gerard shifts on top of him, settling his weight more heavily on Frank, shifting the friction slightly in a way that makes Frank's heart stutter in its frantic beating. Frank makes a hungry sound, unable to hold back, his hands landing on Gerard's shoulders and push-pulling restlessly. Gerard's whole body is pressing down against his now, all of Gerard's skin soft and smooth except where he is hard, sweat slicking between their bodies. Gerard moves steadily, as if this were a dance, while Frank feels himself writhing wildly, as if in the grip of a fever, as if he were fighting, though he has no desire to resist.

He is nearly--he cannot--he will shame himself, and even through the wild haze of pleasure he is aware of that, and that he has done nothing for Gerard, and that he cannot stop. He tries to say some of this to Gerard--to apologize, to ask what he should do--but Gerard doesn't seem to understand his words, only shakes his head and covers Frank's mouth with a kiss.

In the next moment he lifts up a little, and Frank thinks he will have a chance to get control of himself--but Gerard's hand closes on his cock and Frank loses control of words altogether, letting out a ragged cry as he thrusts into Gerard's grip. He loses all control of himself by the time he's run out of breath, climax crashing over him like a swamping wave, like a powder explosion--but all the while it lasts he is anchored by Gerard's hand, Gerard's mouth brushing against his, the frame of Gerard's body braced above him.

When he can think in English again, Gerard is still there, still smiling down at him. He takes his hand from Frank's cock as it goes soft, but settles it again on Frank's hip, and sated and wrung out as he is, Frank cannot but push into his touch.

Frank licks his lips, tries to command his limbs to move, and settles for asking, carefully, in the right words, "What--what may I--"

"Just this," Gerard whispers. "This is what I want from you. I want you to like this as well as I do."

Frank shudders, and his eyes close--Gerard is braver than he, so much, but that is what makes Gerard his captain, even if Gerard himself doesn't know it. He still can't make the words, can't tell Gerard what he wants to hear.

Gerard licks the sore spot on his lip, where Frank bit it earlier, and adds softly, "I'd like it if you touched me, too. If you wouldn't mind it too much."

Frank opens his eyes, meeting Gerard's for a moment--Gerard looks dazed, almost drunk; he is hard too, wanting, just as Frank had been. Frank slides his hand down from Gerard's shoulder, lowering his eyes to the shadowed space between their bodies. Gerard rubs his nose against Frank's cheek, breathes encouragement against his ear, and Frank feels as if he is moving in a dream as he watches his hand close around Gerard's cock.

Gerard shudders all over at the touch, and Frank squeezes a little, moving his hand up and down. It is a simple thing--he has done it for himself often enough--but this is something wholly different, Gerard's cock in his grasp, Gerard's breath in his ear, Gerard's body poised above him, with his own pleasure at Gerard's hands still echoing through his body like a struck bell. Gerard pushes into his grip, and his breath against Frank's ear turns to half-spoken words, and then to desperate kisses, and Frank can feel Gerard's body tensing with the nearness of his end.

Frank gathers his courage, turns his head to press his lips to Gerard's as Gerard's hips shove down against him, and Gerard vents something like a moan or a laugh against his mouth as he reaches completion, spurting over Frank's fingers, his hand clenching tight on Frank's hip.

Frank takes his hand away when Gerard has gone still, and wipes it carefully against his own thigh before he lets it touch the fine clean sheets. Gerard tips sideways a little, so that he is only half on top of Frank as he goes limp and heavy. Frank doesn't move, waiting for whatever Gerard will say or do next. He listens to Gerard's quick deep breaths, and tries to quiet his own, and the thunder of his heart. Something terribly important has just happened, but Frank cannot quite take it in. He is tired, and strangely happy, and Gerard's body still holds him here.

After a time, Gerard struggles up and reaches for the lamp by the bed, only to turn the wick down to nothing. In the dimness that follows, Frank braces himself to move, waiting only to be dismissed, but Gerard's arms close around him, tugging him back down to the bed.

"You must stay until I am asleep, please," Gerard murmurs, command and request sounding equally sweet in his sleepy slur.

Frank settles himself under Gerard's warmth, in the softness of the bed, and feels no urge to move if he is not required to. "I will stay."

Gerard's arms tighten. "Then you must stay until I have slept and woken again, and kissed you again. So that I will know this was real."

Frank thinks of the morning, thinks of another kiss, of Gerard desiring him to stay, and his heart speeds a little from its slow weary thumping.

"I will," is all he says, but in his heart it is a promise, an unspeakable truth stretching far beyond this moment, this night. He will go nowhere now until Gerard sends him.

***

When Gerard wakes there is a watery grey light creeping in around the edges of the curtains. Frank is still clasped in his arms, his back pressed to Gerard's chest, Gerard's breath stirring the hair at the nape of his neck. There is a sleepless tension in Frank's body, though Gerard is certain he was easy enough when Gerard fell asleep.

Gerard closes his eyes, licks his dry lips, and tries to gather his sleep-scattered wits. He ordered Frank to stay last night, but Frank certainly seemed willing--he had seemed entirely willing. Gerard had not pressed him; Frank had come to Gerard of his own accord. Frank is lying awake now, and Frank was nervous last night, but whatever he is frightened of in all of this, Gerard does not think it is himself.

He could well be frightened of those others, the ones who came before, who scarred his back and hurt him. I'm used to it, he'd said, and anything you like. What had he suffered, to let him so confidently estimate that Gerard could do nothing worse to him?

And now morning has come--or dawn, which is morning by Frank's utilitarian standards--and Gerard must say something. He must say the right thing, and he will only have one chance to say the right thing first. He must find some way to give Frank what he wants without compelling him to ask for it; he will never forget the sight of Frank's very blood welling before he would dare to ask for what he wanted.

Gerard flattens his hand against Frank's chest, feels the steady thud of Frank's heart in his grip. He feels something like vertigo, overwhelmed at the thought that he can hold Frank this way, and must now bear responsibility for him, for his happiness. Yet Frank is still in his arms, in his bed, and even at his most self-pitying Gerard cannot imagine that he is ill-used in this bargain.

He can only hope Frank will feel the same.

Gerard nuzzles at Frank's skin, not quite a kiss, but a reasonable prelude to speech at this entirely unreasonable hour. He speaks in a reedy whisper, but Frank still jumps a little at the first words, the beat of his heart lurching under Gerard's hand. "Shall I kiss you now, and let you go back to your own bed? Or down to breakfast, I suppose, you dawn-bird."

Frank does not relax, as though the suggestion eased him, nor does he turn to receive his kiss and be released. He holds perfectly still, not even breathing.

Gerard rubs his thumb thoughtfully along Frank's breastbone. "Or shall I tell you it is no fit time for anyone to be awake, and that I will be asleep again in a moment, and if you leave me now I shall believe I dreamt you after all?"

Frank moves a little at that, ducking his head against the pillow, exposing the back of his neck. Gerard cannot help but press his lips to the knob of Frank's spine, even as he recognizes that he's found the way of it, for now at least. Gerard squeezes him tighter, telling himself they'll find their way together, that it will not be so impossible to do right by Frank--and Frank will learn to trust him, and make it easier to find his way.

"Stay, then," Gerard murmurs, pressing his face to Frank's shoulder. "Stay and go back to sleep, it's hardly even light."

Frank does relax then, breathing again. Gerard takes that for answer enough, but Frank says, low, "It's raining. I was listening to the rain."

Gerard listens too, for a moment--he scarcely remembers to hear the pattering of the rain against the glass, familiar as any sound in this house--and then he says, "If it clears, we could go riding again."

Frank nods, and Gerard listens to the susurrus of his hair moving against the pillow, and wonders if someday that sound might be as familiar, and if he will hear it then as little as he hears the rain. He hopes so, and hopes not, all at once.

"And if it doesn't, I'd like to try drawing you again," he adds, and presses a small kiss to Frank's shoulder. "If you wouldn't mind it."

Frank nods and then shakes his head, and then squirms in Gerard's grip. Gerard loosens his hold at once, and Frank turns over to face him, looking him in the eye to whisper, "I won't mind."

Gerard can say nothing back for a moment. Frank is starkly beautiful in the monochrome light of a rainy dawn. He drops his gaze when Gerard stays silent, taking him in, and Gerard stares at his eyelashes, long and dark and not quite closed.

"If you didn't know where to begin," Frank whispers, low but steady. "If you needed to choose a place. There's the tattoo on my back, the skull. It's the first one I chose."

Gerard touches his forehead to Frank's and slides one hand over Frank's back until he thinks he's found the place, the knot of scar tissue between Frank's shoulder blades that forms one eye of the skull. He is filled with wonder at the thought that he might someday know exactly what is under his fingers at the barest touch, that he might have the time and permission to learn Frank so well. But more, he wonders at Frank's courage, to offer this, to ask. Surely they will find their way, if Frank can be brave and he can remember to think before he speaks.

Frank's eyes open a little and he looks up at Gerard as he adds, "Only I have never seen it, and I should like to know how it is from your hand."

He would not have had the chance, of course; for Frank to see the tattoo would have required two good mirrors and at least one man's help. It could be managed here, in Gerard's house, but Frank has asked Gerard for something and he shall have it. Gerard's eyes and hand will be Frank's mirror today. Later, when it is properly morning.

"I shall," Gerard murmurs, pressing close enough to seal the promise with a kiss. "Just as you like."