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Unwritten Bandslash #3: Bob Wakes Up with Ladyparts!
I just finished this and I have to post it right this second or it will continue dragging out toward infinity. Please excuse any infelicities you run into toward the end. :)
7300-ish words. I am bad at summarizing.
As best I can tell, the Bob Wakes Up with Ladyparts idea started like this, on June 28, 2007, talking to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iulia about an interview with Patrick Stump:
...Obviously, Bob is my favorite.
The initial idea was reinforced by this video of Bob talking about and then playing Welcome to the Black Parade, in which he mentions that the big Black Parade kit was at the very limit of his ability to play, and that he was never actually comfortable with it, hence the dual kits starting on Projekt Revolution.
So over time this idea--Bob gets switched and can't drum right and hates it--turned into a whole Bob/Gerard story called, naturally,
Juliet Loves the Beat
The story starts with Gerard waking up on the bus on July 7, 2007, the morning of the second-to-last UK festival they did before coming home to a short break and then Projekt Revolution. He does an automatic headcount, confirming the wherabouts of everyone in the band (the techs who sleep on the bus are trusted to look after themselves and tend to have a lot of mysterious tech things to do before shows, so there's no point even trying to guess where they all are). He thinks of Mikey, first, touches his phone--Mikey is back home with Alicia, and Gerard has only slept through about eight hours of the twelve Mikey demanded before anyone in the band was allowed to call or text him again. So Mikey's okay.
Gerard can hear Ray and Cortez trash-talking over video games, so they're accounted for. Bob is obviously awake--his bunk is empty--but it's weird, because he left his curtain open. Bob never leaves the curtain open. Gerard goes up to the kitchen, gets coffee, attempting to mull this over. He sits down next to Frank, who is scowling and disemboweling a pop-tart, and Frank says, "Bob left his curtain open."
Gerard nods, sips his coffee, wonders whether to worry--Bob's right next to Cortez, as a former tech, in terms of people who can be trusted to look after themselves--but it's weird. Bob never leaves his curtain open.
The bus door opens and somebody wearing Bob's clothes--well, Bob, obviously--except moving weirdly, not like Bob--but who else could it possibly be--dashes in, tosses a set of keys on the counter, and dives into Bob's bunk, yanking the curtain closed.
Gerard and Frank fling themselves into the corridor between the bunks, and push the curtain up to look, and they see Bob's black hoodie and cargo shorts and high socks, draped over a shape that curves in places and ways Bob shouldn't curve. And then the person in Bob's bunk looks back over their shoulder with familiar wide blue eyes fringed in blonde lashes, and a black lip ring standing out stark against soft pink lips, and smooth cheeks, rosy pale skin spattered with freckles, a soft jawline. Unmistakably Bob; unmistakably female.
Bob twists away, hiding his--her--his face, just as Ray and Cortez, having felt the disturbance in the force, come into the hallway, having realized something is wrong. All four of them hear a voice--Bob's inflections, Bob's words, but even in a husky whisper, that's not Bob's voice--say, "I tried. I don't think I can play the whole set."
Gerard watches as a hand--a hand that still has faint colored traces over the fingers from Bob and Frank's Sharpie fight two days ago--rises and presses flat against the back wall of Bob's bunk. It's not Bob's hand, or Bob's wrist; it's a little smaller, a little more delicate. It's a hand that isn't going to be able to play the whole set, if they can even get Bob out of this bunk, because Bob is--Bob--
So Gerard decides right then and there to pitch a diva fit, the full Amy Winehouse. He gets hold of their tour manager and demands a hotel room--specifying with a bathroom because this is the UK after all--starting immediately and for overnight, after the show, and then he'll fucking fly to Dublin. And oh yeah, Bob is going to come hang out with him in said hotel room. Bob is a calming influence.
They pull it off, and an hour later--with three or four hours to go before they need to be on stage--Gerard and Bob are in a hotel room, no one outside the band having really gotten a good look at Bob or paid him much attention; Gerard kept all the techs and the tour manager focused on his manufactured drama, and Bob stayed huddled silently in his hoodie. He's got a backpack, with his clothes to wear on stage. An ace bandage from the first aid kit. A couple of roles of gaffer tape.
Gerard hustles Bob into the bathroom for privacy and, uh, maybe a bath, because Bob seems a little less... bathed... than Bob usually does. Not that Gerard says this out loud because Gerard likes all his limbs attached. Also, Bob doesn't need any kind of criticism right now.
So then Gerard takes it upon himself to sit on a not-very-comfortable hotel bed and call Brian and tell him that something's up with Bob, but Gerard can't tell him what exactly--he can't put it into words, and he's not sure he has the right. So he winds up talking all around the edges to tell Brian that Bob's not okay and they may not be able to finish the sets today and tomorrow. It's not that Bob's sick or hurt--nothing a hospital or doctor could do, anyway--and he's not drunk or on anything, or coming off anything. He's just ...
He's just in bad shape, and he might not be able to play today or tomorrow, or to play full sets if he can get on stage. They're going to do their best, but ... that's what's going on right now. And no, Brian can't talk to Bob.
Basically, it all comes off sounding like Gerard is trying not to tell Brian that Bob got raped; Brian senses that something genuinely and seriously bad has happened and that he cannot fix it directly, and goes off to manage things as best he can from the States. Gerard fidgets and listens at the bathroom door, trying to guess if there's anything he can do, anything Bob needs--but he hears just enough uneven breathing to know that Bob's alive and that Bob really, really doesn't need to be interrupted right now.
Bob goes into the bathroom still swathed in his hoodie--but he can't hide in there forever and he knows it. After a couple of seconds of bracing himself, he pulls it off, though he keeps the t-shirt underneath.
It's baggy, but it doesn't actually hide his--his tits, which a are huge and ache from the few minutes he spent trying to play after he discovered what had happened and bolted from the bus. (Most of the time he was gone from the bus was spent trying to convince himself to get out of the dim equipment trailer and go back to face the guys.) They bounced all over the place and hurt like a motherfucker, which made him feel incredibly guilty about every time he ever let a girl behind his kit so he could watch her play (except the last person he let behind his kit so he could watch was Patrick Stump, and he'd totally trade six inches of height if he still had--if he was still...).
The point is, he has tits and they hurt, even when he mashed them against his body with one arm to try drumming with the other. He figures he can strap them down somehow to get through the next couple of shows--the tape, maybe, but definitely on the outside of the ace bandage or a t-shirt--he's seen enough gaffer tape pranks to know...
He's just stalling now and he knows it. In t-shirt and sleep pants, Bob shuffles over to look into a mirror for the first time.
The first glance is just weird: weirder than when he shaved for the Ghost video but almost easier, because it's just... weird. His face is naked but it's also pretty much somebody else's face, even if it's somebody who looks a lot like him--a girl's face, soft and round-cheeked with big blue eyes. The lips are different, pinker or softer or something, making the lip ring seem really startling and new all over again even though it's one of the few things that feels the same from the inside.
It looks like a suggestion, on these lips, like an invitation--sexy--begging the question of how it would feel to push between those lips--except his dick doesn't harden at the thought because he hasn't got one, and in back of where it should be, there's this warm wet soft feeling, wanting, and those are his lips and every guy who sees them is going to think about putting his dick in Bob's mouth and Bob grits his teeth and shuts his eyes and finds his way back to the switch. Turns off the lights.
In the dark, still with his eyes closed, he gropes his way over to the shower, turns it on and gets under the water even before it heats up all the way. The shock of cold makes him catch his breath, and he tells himself that's what makes him cry. When he can't stop he blames this body, because with all these goddamn curves, with this fucking absence between his legs, he's got to have girly hormones, too, right? So of course he's crying, shaking, of course he can't catch his breath, of course he winds up curled up on the floor of the shower.
Eventually he pulls himself together enough to wash, keeping soap and speed between himself and the body under his hands, but after that, after he knows the general shape of things, he goes back and makes himself touch, even between his legs (which makes him feel queasy and disoriented and wrong, more so when his fingertips skid across a spot that feels good in that liquid-hot-wrong way). Even down his scarred calf, which also feels different and wrong: it's a girl's leg that’s ugly and fucked up now, and that seems worse somehow, more wrong. So he takes his hands away from that, experiments a little with how flat he can squash his chest with his hands, and finally realizes he's standing in the dark groping himself and it's not even fun, and turns the shower off and gets out.
He dries off--alternately scrubbing at his skin with the towel and patting quickly to get it over with--and pulls on the clothes in his bag. Boxers, baggy shorts, and then he's standing there debating what to do next because his tits are kind of bouncing and swaying all over the place and they're fucking distracting. It takes a couple of tries and his hands are shaking and he's breathing funny, but he manages to get the ace bandage wrapped pretty firmly around his chest, and after he's pulled his shirt on and turned his back to the mirror, he turns the light on again. It looks... sort of okay, he thinks. Better, definitely. But he's sort of afraid to move or breathe deeply in case the bandage falls off and he's pretty sure this isn't going to stand up to drumming, even for a shortened set. He's going to need help.
So he grits his teeth and opens the door and says, "Um, Gee?"
And Gerard, who has been just standing at the window chain-smoking since he got off the phone with Brian, turns and immediately offers Bob the remaining half of his cigarette, which Bob accepts and takes a drag from before saying, "That bad, huh?"
Gerard says, "Dude, I'd be--I'd be way more fucked up than this. Um. How..."
That's maybe how fucked up are you, anyway or just how are you or maybe it's something really unhelpful like how the fuck did this happen which Bob can't even think about. Regardless, Gerard stops at that one word and waves it off, and gives Bob a not-quite-terrifyingly manic helpful look.
Bob gets back on script. "I need--could you--" he waves the tape vaguely at his chest, and Gerard says, "Binding, right. You already did the ace bandage?"
Bob nods, and Gerard lights another cigarette and gets all professional and perfectionist about it, making Bob raise and lower his arms, turn sideways, turn back, as Gerard adds layers of tight tape. What he doesn't do is cop a feel or act weird--well, not weirder than Gerard-weird, anyway. It's sort of reassuring, and Bob is feeling a lot better by the time he's gotten his hoodie on and confirmed in the mirror that he really does look pretty much like himself from the neck down, although his walk still looks wrong--he walks without thinking about it and that looks... like a girl walking. He tries to consciously walk like himself and winds up looking, as Gerard puts it, "Like you just crapped your pants." Gerard suggests limping like his scarred leg hurts, and that does cover up the rest of the weirdness but also throws the rest of his body out of whack.
By the time Bob's paced the whole small length of the room about a hundred times and they've more or less given up on the walking thing, Bob's feeling on a fairly even keel, like this is just a thing he has to deal with and Gerard, and probably the rest of the guys, are going to be cool about helping him out.
And then Gerard says, "Hey, do you want me to do some makeup for you?"
Bob recoils--physically as well as in all other senses--from the idea, thinking of girl parts and lipstick and Gerard had been so cool about everything so far, almost let him forget what exactly it was that was wrong with him, that they had to hide--
And Gerard gets all big-eyed and waves his hands frantically and says, "No, I mean, no! Just, to help you look more like usual--it wouldn't work up close, but with your hood up, or from the stage--just some shadowing and--just effects stuff, Bob, not. Nothing like that."
And it's Gerard and his frantic if sometimes misguided good intentions all over, and it's familiar, and it lets Bob calm down a little--and calm Gerard down--and agree that it sounds like it could be good, why not give it a try. And Gerard pulls out a makeup kit Bob hadn't noticed him bringing along--not that Bob had been noticing much, he'd have to admit--and sits practically in Bob's lap, tilts his chin this way and that and mutters and hums to himself as he applies stuff to Bob's cheeks and nose and forehead, fluffs and arranges Bob's hair--still the same length, at least, still the same color blond. He gets up and squints and finally says, "Okay, stand up and look in the mirror, just, like, out of the corner of your eye."
Out of the corner of his eye, in the mirror, is him. Bob.
The illusion falls apart when his head whips around and he looks to see--there's just a stranger there, a girl stranger, though kind of stocky and hidden in a hoodie, with weird patches of color on her cheeks and nose.
"Yeah, well, if anybody gets that close noticing the makeup job will be the least of our problems," Gerard says.
Bob puts his hood up, and Gerard hands him a cigarette, and they sit quietly together until Worm--who must know, but says nothing, just squeezes Bob's shoulder, and it occurs to Bob suddenly how careful Worm was not to touch him, when they came out to the hotel--comes to take them back to the festival in time to go on stage.
Bob manages to get his kit into a mostly usable configuration--all minute shifts of is stool and a few of the drums--and powers through the opening song of the set on pure guts. The second and third he flies through, on the adrenaline rush of making it through the first one. But then it's time for Black Parade, and Bob kind of fucking hates being the one-man drum corps even when that's the hardest moment of his day. The performing rush is gone and he's biting down on his lip, ring hard against his teeth, even as he starts. He forces his way through it, the click like a lifeline in his ear.
When the song's over Gerard turns and makes a face, worried. Bob kind of wants to die--his whole body hurts, overall and specifically, not just his taped-up mashed-down tits, but his hips and thighs and back and shoulders and everything down to his fingertips, every muscle and bone and tendon that is slightly wrong and protesting being forced to do the same work. He knows Gerard wants him to give in and get off stage. He even knows he probably should, because he's gotta save some juice for the show tomorrow.
Bob forces his jaw to unclench, turns his head and spits--not blood, hardly any--and then grits his teeth again without his lip in the way, and counts them into one more song. He knows it's a mistake inside of thirty seconds, but by then they're playing the song and he's not going to stop in the middle unless his arms actually fall the fuck off. He knows the guys all know it's a mistake, too, because they're stuck with his ragged playing, following it and making it work. He's not supposed to be the guy they have to look out for like this--but then, fuck, he's supposed to be a guy.
He doesn't think about it. He plays. He gets to the end of the goddamn song, somehow, and he barely has time to force his cramped fingers to drop the sticks before Ray and Cortez are standing at the back of his riser, waiting for him. He tries to stand and they catch him as he stumbles, half folded over, and hustle him off. Frank clears a path, and Worm falls in behind them, and Bob's vaguely aware of Gerard saying his name into the microphone, giving some kind of explanation as DeWees starts leading them into Cancer.
After a walk long enough for his legs to mostly start working again, there's a van, and Bob gets in and huddles silently next to Frank, who fidgets like a motherfucker but doesn't say a word, and doesn't touch Bob. Nobody says anything. Nobody moves. And then Gerard's there, squeezing in next to Bob on the other side, talking to DeWees about something normal--the crowd, some sign someone was holding up--and then DeWees says something to Ray and Frank twists to answer. And if he's careful not to touch Bob, instead of crawling into his lap and leaning over him, well, Gerard reaches over and touches his face, frowning at his bitten lip. Bob pulls away, just a little, but Gerard leans closer, staring, and says, "You should put something on that, I'll get something from Worm."
For a second Bob remembers Gerard's face when he caught a glimpse of Bob's burned leg, after he'd busted out of the ER and before the gangrene. It's the same anxious look, the same cautious interference. There's this one thing that's the same. Bob doesn't think anyone can blame him for holding on to it.
Gerard winds up staying with Bob at the hotel that night--the rest of the guys head off to Ireland immediately, but Gerard and Bob go back to the same hotel room so Bob can take a bath, drink the actually cold beer that someone bought him, and smoke a lot. Gerard just smokes a lot. Worm is around somewhere, but declines to share their room even though no one's sure where he is going to sleep. Still, that leaves a bed for Gerard and a bed for Bob, and Bob doesn't have the heart to actually get really drunk--though his tolerance is fucked along with everything--so he's just lying in bed in this weird daze, not quite wasted enough to just pass out, and too far gone to keep pretending nothing's wrong. He's on the ragged edge of crying for what feels like hours, and he knows Gerard isn't asleep, and he knows Gerard wouldn't judge him, but he's not this guy and he can't let it go.
Eventually it's morning, and Bob takes another long shower, and wraps himself up, and Gerard tapes him up, and Worm collects him for a drive and flight over to Ireland. The show's worse, or better, or just the same shit over again, but when it's over it's over, and they're headed home.
Bob's not really especially surprised when Gerard casually announces that he's going to Chicago with Bob, even though it's the first he's heard of it. Ray's going home to Krista, Frank to Jamia, Worm to his wife, Cortez to his complete porn collection. Gerard's been broken up with Eliza for less than three weeks, and however weird Bob thought that whole whirlwind thing was, Gerard's alone again and obviously digging the chance to be the one taking care of somebody else. Bob thinks for half a second about being macho enough to refuse to be taken care of, but all things considered ... he's not.
Bob calls his mom and lets her know he's home and alive and has the end-of-tour crud and will come visit when he's feeling better--his voice is hoarse and fucked-up enough to make it seem believable--and then he and Gerard crash--him in his own bed, Gee on the couch--for nearly a solid day. They get pizza delivered and smoke American cigarettes and drink coffee and Red Bull and at some point Bob starts feeling kind of human and himself again, the misery and shock of the whole thing lifting a little.
That's when he realizes he's got less than three weeks to get the fuck in shape for Projekt Rev, and the first thing he needs is the right gear. He does some googling (girl drummer tits and then, thinking that through a little better after he sees the results, which make him feel kind of sick and exposed all over again, drummer bra, which is a lot more reassuring) and then he gets up early, while Gerard's still asleep on his couch, and marches himself down to a suburban mall and gets what he needs: the most badass full-coverage chest-compressing undergarment known to womankind. Two, in fact. The ace bandage got rank pretty fast.
Properly equipped, Bob goes home, sets up his practice kit, and starts drumming. He does basics, exercises, until he gets the hang of how to sit--and where--and he thanks fucking God that everybody went for the rotating riser thing so he won't have to deal with the full Black Parade kit on every song. Gerard smokes his cigarettes and sits on his couch or at his kitchen table or on his floor, working on Umbrella Academy stuff. Bob works on the drumming in short bursts through the day, smokes, gets groceries delivered, ices his wrists (he's irrationally irritated that, if he was going to get stuck with girl wrists, he couldn't at least get stuck with girl wrists in factory-fresh condition--oh no, they're still kind of fucked up, just like his). (At bad moments, he's sort of comforted by it.)
The first time the drumming really clicks and feels right and natural and easy and awesome, the first time he really loses himself in the rhythm and the noise and everything, he gets a little turned on by it, which is normal, except he gets turned on girl-style which is really, really not. He drops the sticks and gets up and walks around, shaking and smoking and running his hands over his hair--not his face, not his weirdly naked face--and thinks about how bad he wants to take a shower and how bad he wants to pile on like three more layers of clothes--he could do it, he still has some stuff left from when he was at his heaviest, he could do a couple of layers of hoodies easy--and never, ever see or touch or think about the body under the clothes ever again.
After a while he realizes that Gerard is following him from room to room, silent, not coming too close, but not leaving him alone either. He thinks about bolting, but he doesn't want to go outside and he doesn't really want to be alone, he just wants to know that--that this is--that he still--
He turns, and Gerard is giving him that same anxious, eager-to-help look--the one that had mostly disappeared, the last couple of days, as they just hung around and Bob wore baggy clothes and a fucking straitjacket of a bra and pretended nothing was weird. But now everything is weird, and Gerard wants to help, and Bob....
It makes sense, for a split second, and that's the most anything has made sense since Bob realized what was happening in his pants and dropped the sticks, so he goes for it. He grabs Gerard by the front of his shirt and kisses him. Just to see what happens.
(The thing is, Gerard's kissed him before, back before Bob was in the band. Bob was never completely sure if it was just a drunk thing. The first time he was sure it was random, and the second time he figured it was just the fact that he was around all the time what with teching for them and living out of the same van, and the third time he decided if it happened again he was going to have to really think Gerard meant something by it, and then the tour ended and then Gerard got sober and the kissing thing stopped and Bob had bigger things to worry about.)
Gerard kisses back, which Bob thinks is maybe the right reaction and then thinks is totally fucking wrong because his body is ALL SET to move on from kissing to other stuff Bob doesn't want to think about, and Bob pushes back from the kiss all of a sudden, backs up until he hits a wall.
Gerard just stands there, wide-eyed, hands still at his sides. Even when Bob grabbed him and kissed him, he hadn't presumed to touch. But then the hands come up, waving frantically, and Gerard is saying it's okay, everything's cool, he gets it, it was just a whatever, a thing, a--nothing to do with Bob being--whatever! It's fine!
Bob kind of almost laughs, buries his face in his hands. "I know it's fucking fine, Gee," he mutters. "I liked it fine all the other times, too."
(Gerard is a little vague on the existence of other times, but, now that Bob mentions it, a few fuzzy memories slot into place.)
"So..." Gerard says.
"So my cunt also likes it fine and I am--"
Bob just stops there, because, really, what else can he say.
"Oh," Gerard says, and then, "oh. That would be. Yeah."
Bob nods, face still in his hands, and Gerard says, "Do you want to try it some more and see if--"
Bob's head whips up and Gerard's hands start waving again.
"Just! Like, to see if--I mean--not anything else! Just, if you want to. That would be. Um."
And Bob stares at him--so fucking worried, so fucking careful, and yet still so completely fucking Gerard--and walks over, slowly, waiting for the moment when he's close enough that Gerard goes still again, drops his hands, almost fucking holds his breath.
Bob smiles a little, leans in and kisses Gerard, lightly, without touching him anywhere else, and says, "Not right now. But maybe later?"
Gerard waits until Bob backs away a little before he nods frantically and then abruptly disappears to have a cigarette, and Bob decides that maybe that shower isn't such a bad idea after all.
So then there's this very slow process of exploration--a lot of makeouts and clothed groping and grinding and Bob having private shower time to poke around and decide how he feels about things and occasionally feeling stupid as fuck over reinventing high school and dry humping except Gerard is so fucking Gerard about it all that he can't feel that bad.
Although it turns out that coming in your pants this way results in more sticky damp discomfort than Bob ever thought girls had to deal with.
Then they get to the part where Gerard wants to have a long and meaningful talk about intercourse and gender roles and Bob's feelings and Bob just starts stripping in self defense and, when that doesn't shut Gerard up completely, takes Gerard's clothes off him, too. By the end of that night, they've absolutely, undeniably had sex under any possible definition, and it was pretty fucking weird and also pretty awesome; Bob falls asleep feeling pretty good, really, if this is how it's going to have to be.
But he wakes up in the morning, looks under the covers to be sure, and then gets up and looks around on the floor for a bra to put on, because he is still in the same body he fell asleep in, and he's still got a fuckton of practicing to do, and Projekt Rev's barely a week away now. Sex is great and everything, but he still has a job to do and he's still not exactly sure how he's going to do it when it comes down to it. He's improving, but it's just not a lot of time, and...
And it's Projekt Revolution, and some of the bands they'll be touring with are great and everything, but it's Projekt Revolution and Bob has enormous tits and he just knows this is not going to end well. Gerard's great, the guys will be great, he can buy all the badass drummergirl undergarments he wants, this is still going to suck.
And that's it, for a few days. Bob practices harder than ever, Gerard writes, they both smoke a lot, they have sex, the sex is great, the sex changes nothing.
So Bob wakes up one morning and the clock in his head says seventy-two hours. He's got three days before he and Gee have to go catch a plane and meet up with the rest of the band and start another tour. Three fucking days, and he's not ready, he's got so much more work to do, three days, three days...
And right about then Gerard says, "Hey, I know this is me and everything, but I think we've been staying in too much."
Bob turns his head and raises an eyebrow. This cannot possibly be an innocent observation, and he instantly starts trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, what this means, what Gerard is trying to do--
"Bob, Bob, chill," Gerard says, nuzzling at Bob's (bare, soft) jawline, running a hand down (the curve of) Bob's side. "Hey. You've been working yourself like crazy. You need a day off. We both need a day off."
"And..." Bob says warily.
Gerard switches from nuzzling Bob's shoulder to mouthing at Bob's throat, mumbles something right into the sensitive spot he found the other day that gets Bob wet when he's not busy trying to figure out Gerard's nefarious plans. And, okay, maybe a little bit even when he is.
"What?"
"...clothes to wear," Gerard mumbles.
Bob punches him in the ribs, kind of hard, and Gerard yelps and scrambles away, but, Bob notices, doesn't actually get all crazed and hand-wavey like he did at the beginning. Gerard's stopped being so careful with him, and that's good, isn't it? Sort of?
"Look, I'll make you a deal," Gerard says, itching absently at his stubble, and Bob can't help but itch automatically at the corresponding patch of stubble burn on his thigh. "If you dress up like a girl to show me around Chicago, I'll dress up like one too."
Bob stares for a second, and then he squints, and then he concentrates on killing Frank with his brain because obviously someone told Gerard about what Bob thought of the story about Gerard in drag.
"You'll dress up like a girl," Bob says, as neutrally as he can.
Gerard beams and waggles his eyebrows and says, "Want me to go first?"
It's a process, as it turns out; a really fucking long process even after Bob grudgingly accepts that Gerard did not buy him any really upsetting clothing--it's not even that different from what he usually wears, except for how it's cut to hug this body, and the bra is ...
The bra is really not minimizing anything, so much. Kind of the opposite. Bob gets the bra on and then loses a few minutes being totally mesmerized; so long that Gerard starts calling through the bathroom door and then comes in to make sure he's okay, and then also gets kind of mesmerized, and....
Well, it takes a long time to get ready.
But Bob gets safely dressed in cropped jeans and a low-cut t-shirt (it covers enough that he doesn't get totally distracted by his own tits, but Gee's right, it would be kind of a shame to cover them up completely) and then Gerard goes off to get ready while Bob tries to find a pair of socks that will cover up his legs--it's too hot for long pants, but he's not shaving his legs and he's definitely not walking around flashing his hideous fucking burn scar. But the shape of his calves changed, or his brain is girlier, or something, because none of the socks he can find stay up right, or look right, or feel right, or...
The bathroom door opens, and Gerard is standing there in a little black skirt, tall black boots, and a tank top that shows off Gee's fucking impossible tits. Bob just stares. And stares. And wonders whether there are words to express how completely fucked up this is, and whether he cares.
After a couple of minutes Gerard just starts laughing and says, "Now you know how I feel!" and Bob can't even feel freaked out, because, Jesus. Gerard and his tits.
Gerard refuses to let him look under the tank top and see how he did that, but the cleavage is definitely there, and definitely Gerard's pale, soft skin, and the idea of going outside is getting more ridiculously overrated all the time, especially when Gerard says, "No, I got you socks, they were in the bag."
There were socks in the bag, little tiny anklet socks that barely stuck up above the tops of the (admittedly badass) sneakers Gerard had already helpfully decorated with tiny Sharpied ninjas.
"Oh," Gerard says, when Bob fumbles to explain why those socks are not okay. "Oh! Right. I forgot the best part. Lay down."
Bob is suspicious, but--okay, Gerard is wearing like some kind of corset, and really tall boots, and Bob is only human. He lays the fuck down. And it's not like he didn't know it was coming, but it's still weird as fuck when Gerard starts drawing on the back of his leg, especially when he's drawing over the scar tissue, and the ticklish feeling disappears into numbness.
When Gerard's done, there is another whole production to get enough mirrors set up so Bob can see it at what Gerard considers a good angle: the burn scar is a flame--the long surgical scars, the lower parts of two torches--no, drumsticks. Flaming drumsticks. And the smoke, curling sideways down Bob's leg, resolves into two words: I survived. It's kind of amazing, Gerard's art on his body, although Bob's not any more sure he likes the idea of every fucking person he walks past getting to see it.
Bob looks up at Gerard. "How long have you been planning that?"
"Uh," Gerard says. "Probably... um, before you got out of the hospital the last time. Yeah."
So at least that's not just about him having tits, either.
"You really...."
"I really want to see if Navy Pier is one percent as awesome as the Jersey Shore," Gerard says firmly. "Come on."
So out they go, and Bob feels conspicuous as fuck just walking to his car, but Gerard holds his hand and doesn't let him bolt. They head toward the nearest El stop, only Gerard spots a comic shop and realizes how long it's been since he was in one and then Bob has to stop and find a parking space and before he knows it he is walking into a comic shop, in public, dressed like a girl with huge tits and a crazy scar-art thing happening on his leg, and Gerard in drag holding his hand and towing him toward the indie section.
After a few minutes Bob manages to relax and detaches Gerard's death grip so he can go browse the Superman titles, and a few minutes after that Gerard comes over and picks up a Batman and then whispers to Bob--husky, soft--protecting the illusion, Bob realizes, remembering that he couldn't talk at all, the first time he did this--to look, over there.
Bob looks, just in time to see a teenaged boy go bright red and stop staring and then look up again like he can't resist. Kind of the way Gerard looks at him sometimes. Kind of ... kind of like two hot women just walked into a comic shop on a random weekday afternoon and blew his mind. Bob gets that stop looking at me twinge, except he looks at Gerard, who's watching him with a more worried version of the same expression, and he just rolls his eyes and turns back, and makes a point of grabbing Gerard's ass when he reaches past him for another comic.
Bob has to admit, it was good to go into the comic shop before they rode the El down to the Loop, because now the ice is kind of broken and he can glance around with more curiosity than paranoia and see that, yeah, maybe that guy, maybe that one's looking at him. But even more people are just ignoring them, because they just look like two chicks riding the El and not talking much. Bob reaches over and fixes one of the little sparkly hair things Gerard's got in the deliberate mess of his hair, and Gerard flashes him a sly, pretty smile, and Bob thinks about how many more people would be watching if they started making out, kind of likes the thought and kind of hates it and mostly just doesn't want to be those people on the train, so he leans into Gerard a little but keeps his mouth to himself. When Gerard reaches for his hand, he holds on.
Gerard declares Navy Pier possibly as much as ten percent as awesome as the Jersey shore, and they get cotton candy and elephant ears and play stupid games and ride a couple of rides and walk around among crowds of people, holding hands and, okay, maybe making out a little once or twice (Gerard! Cleavage! Distracting!) and by the time somebody mutters something about dykes as they walk past, Bob is starting to be more inclined to think it's funny than to want to hide or punch anyone. It helps that Gerard, who's being careful not to talk or laugh too much, smiles his crooked smile and slants Bob a knowing look from behind his sunglasses and winks one dark-rimmed eye and obviously thinks it's hilarious.
So everything's awesome until it starts getting dark and, just like the Jersey Shore, Navy Pier starts filling up with kids dressed in black who are there ironically and Bob starts wondering what happens if they get recognized and it's all starting to make him kind of uncomfortable again, because the tone of the looks he gets--that they get--are changing a little.
And then they bump into someone, or whatever, somebody takes some kind of offense to Gerard--a guy takes some kind of offense to Gerard, starts hassling him, and--the guy obviously thinks he's a chick, that they both are, obviously doesn't know, and if Gerard speaks up to defend himself this will just get uglier--and if Gerard speaks up and gets recognized this is going to be a mess--and--
And Bob doesn't really think about it. He's Bob, he used to tech, and he's used to dealing with guys ten times as drunk and at least twice as mean as this asshole who made Gerard's mouth go all flat and angry, and he steps up tall, shoulders square, and says, "Back the fuck off."
And the guy does. He mutters something under his breath, but he backs up, lets Bob and Gerard walk away, and Bob's almost shaking with the realization that he's--that he can still be him, that he's still--still enough. Still capable of handling whatever.
And then they head home, and Gerard makes a teasing remark about Bob being his hero, and Bob maybe barely waits until they're through the door before he pushes Gerard up against the wall, pushes up Gerard's skirt, and blows him. And after, when Gerard has his breath halfway back and asks what that was for, Bob rests his forehead against Gerard's thigh and says, "You're the best girlfriend a boy could want, that's all."
And then they go to bed. And then Bob wakes up back to his old self--just lays there and stares until Gerard also wakes up. There's about a half-second of Bob wondering if maybe this changes things, if--he doesn't need Gerard anymore so Gerard's going to go find someone else to worry about--except Gerard just says, "Do you need some time alone with your dick first, or...?"
And then Bob finally gets to pay Gerard back for all the stubble-burn.
THE END.
This entry is crossposted at http://dsudis.livejournal.com/531063.html.
7300-ish words. I am bad at summarizing.
As best I can tell, the Bob Wakes Up with Ladyparts idea started like this, on June 28, 2007, talking to
iulia about an interview with Patrick Stump:dira: Patrick: Yeah, it was...was it 'Thank You For The Venom'? Can't remember the name of it, can't remember what song I played. But it was one of their fast ones.
ChartBlog: That's SO unfair. You wanna be doing one of their slow ballads.
Patrick: I chose that song! And I did pretty well, except Bob Bryar, the drummer, likes to set his drums pretty far away, and he plays with his arms instead of his wrists. And so I couldn't come up with some of the really fast fills, cos I don't have the arm strength that he does. He's a lot more buff than people give him credit for.
iulia: Mmmm, Bob.
dira: (...I kind of want to write girl!Bob fic, where switching fucks with Bob's upper body strength, and he's fucking furious about it.)
dira: (Like, yes, okay, his dick is missing, but mostly HE CAN'T PLAY THE FUCKING DRUMS RIGHT.)
...Obviously, Bob is my favorite.
The initial idea was reinforced by this video of Bob talking about and then playing Welcome to the Black Parade, in which he mentions that the big Black Parade kit was at the very limit of his ability to play, and that he was never actually comfortable with it, hence the dual kits starting on Projekt Revolution.
So over time this idea--Bob gets switched and can't drum right and hates it--turned into a whole Bob/Gerard story called, naturally,
Juliet Loves the Beat
The story starts with Gerard waking up on the bus on July 7, 2007, the morning of the second-to-last UK festival they did before coming home to a short break and then Projekt Revolution. He does an automatic headcount, confirming the wherabouts of everyone in the band (the techs who sleep on the bus are trusted to look after themselves and tend to have a lot of mysterious tech things to do before shows, so there's no point even trying to guess where they all are). He thinks of Mikey, first, touches his phone--Mikey is back home with Alicia, and Gerard has only slept through about eight hours of the twelve Mikey demanded before anyone in the band was allowed to call or text him again. So Mikey's okay.
Gerard can hear Ray and Cortez trash-talking over video games, so they're accounted for. Bob is obviously awake--his bunk is empty--but it's weird, because he left his curtain open. Bob never leaves the curtain open. Gerard goes up to the kitchen, gets coffee, attempting to mull this over. He sits down next to Frank, who is scowling and disemboweling a pop-tart, and Frank says, "Bob left his curtain open."
Gerard nods, sips his coffee, wonders whether to worry--Bob's right next to Cortez, as a former tech, in terms of people who can be trusted to look after themselves--but it's weird. Bob never leaves his curtain open.
The bus door opens and somebody wearing Bob's clothes--well, Bob, obviously--except moving weirdly, not like Bob--but who else could it possibly be--dashes in, tosses a set of keys on the counter, and dives into Bob's bunk, yanking the curtain closed.
Gerard and Frank fling themselves into the corridor between the bunks, and push the curtain up to look, and they see Bob's black hoodie and cargo shorts and high socks, draped over a shape that curves in places and ways Bob shouldn't curve. And then the person in Bob's bunk looks back over their shoulder with familiar wide blue eyes fringed in blonde lashes, and a black lip ring standing out stark against soft pink lips, and smooth cheeks, rosy pale skin spattered with freckles, a soft jawline. Unmistakably Bob; unmistakably female.
Bob twists away, hiding his--her--his face, just as Ray and Cortez, having felt the disturbance in the force, come into the hallway, having realized something is wrong. All four of them hear a voice--Bob's inflections, Bob's words, but even in a husky whisper, that's not Bob's voice--say, "I tried. I don't think I can play the whole set."
Gerard watches as a hand--a hand that still has faint colored traces over the fingers from Bob and Frank's Sharpie fight two days ago--rises and presses flat against the back wall of Bob's bunk. It's not Bob's hand, or Bob's wrist; it's a little smaller, a little more delicate. It's a hand that isn't going to be able to play the whole set, if they can even get Bob out of this bunk, because Bob is--Bob--
So Gerard decides right then and there to pitch a diva fit, the full Amy Winehouse. He gets hold of their tour manager and demands a hotel room--specifying with a bathroom because this is the UK after all--starting immediately and for overnight, after the show, and then he'll fucking fly to Dublin. And oh yeah, Bob is going to come hang out with him in said hotel room. Bob is a calming influence.
They pull it off, and an hour later--with three or four hours to go before they need to be on stage--Gerard and Bob are in a hotel room, no one outside the band having really gotten a good look at Bob or paid him much attention; Gerard kept all the techs and the tour manager focused on his manufactured drama, and Bob stayed huddled silently in his hoodie. He's got a backpack, with his clothes to wear on stage. An ace bandage from the first aid kit. A couple of roles of gaffer tape.
Gerard hustles Bob into the bathroom for privacy and, uh, maybe a bath, because Bob seems a little less... bathed... than Bob usually does. Not that Gerard says this out loud because Gerard likes all his limbs attached. Also, Bob doesn't need any kind of criticism right now.
So then Gerard takes it upon himself to sit on a not-very-comfortable hotel bed and call Brian and tell him that something's up with Bob, but Gerard can't tell him what exactly--he can't put it into words, and he's not sure he has the right. So he winds up talking all around the edges to tell Brian that Bob's not okay and they may not be able to finish the sets today and tomorrow. It's not that Bob's sick or hurt--nothing a hospital or doctor could do, anyway--and he's not drunk or on anything, or coming off anything. He's just ...
He's just in bad shape, and he might not be able to play today or tomorrow, or to play full sets if he can get on stage. They're going to do their best, but ... that's what's going on right now. And no, Brian can't talk to Bob.
Basically, it all comes off sounding like Gerard is trying not to tell Brian that Bob got raped; Brian senses that something genuinely and seriously bad has happened and that he cannot fix it directly, and goes off to manage things as best he can from the States. Gerard fidgets and listens at the bathroom door, trying to guess if there's anything he can do, anything Bob needs--but he hears just enough uneven breathing to know that Bob's alive and that Bob really, really doesn't need to be interrupted right now.
Bob goes into the bathroom still swathed in his hoodie--but he can't hide in there forever and he knows it. After a couple of seconds of bracing himself, he pulls it off, though he keeps the t-shirt underneath.
It's baggy, but it doesn't actually hide his--his tits, which a are huge and ache from the few minutes he spent trying to play after he discovered what had happened and bolted from the bus. (Most of the time he was gone from the bus was spent trying to convince himself to get out of the dim equipment trailer and go back to face the guys.) They bounced all over the place and hurt like a motherfucker, which made him feel incredibly guilty about every time he ever let a girl behind his kit so he could watch her play (except the last person he let behind his kit so he could watch was Patrick Stump, and he'd totally trade six inches of height if he still had--if he was still...).
The point is, he has tits and they hurt, even when he mashed them against his body with one arm to try drumming with the other. He figures he can strap them down somehow to get through the next couple of shows--the tape, maybe, but definitely on the outside of the ace bandage or a t-shirt--he's seen enough gaffer tape pranks to know...
He's just stalling now and he knows it. In t-shirt and sleep pants, Bob shuffles over to look into a mirror for the first time.
The first glance is just weird: weirder than when he shaved for the Ghost video but almost easier, because it's just... weird. His face is naked but it's also pretty much somebody else's face, even if it's somebody who looks a lot like him--a girl's face, soft and round-cheeked with big blue eyes. The lips are different, pinker or softer or something, making the lip ring seem really startling and new all over again even though it's one of the few things that feels the same from the inside.
It looks like a suggestion, on these lips, like an invitation--sexy--begging the question of how it would feel to push between those lips--except his dick doesn't harden at the thought because he hasn't got one, and in back of where it should be, there's this warm wet soft feeling, wanting, and those are his lips and every guy who sees them is going to think about putting his dick in Bob's mouth and Bob grits his teeth and shuts his eyes and finds his way back to the switch. Turns off the lights.
In the dark, still with his eyes closed, he gropes his way over to the shower, turns it on and gets under the water even before it heats up all the way. The shock of cold makes him catch his breath, and he tells himself that's what makes him cry. When he can't stop he blames this body, because with all these goddamn curves, with this fucking absence between his legs, he's got to have girly hormones, too, right? So of course he's crying, shaking, of course he can't catch his breath, of course he winds up curled up on the floor of the shower.
Eventually he pulls himself together enough to wash, keeping soap and speed between himself and the body under his hands, but after that, after he knows the general shape of things, he goes back and makes himself touch, even between his legs (which makes him feel queasy and disoriented and wrong, more so when his fingertips skid across a spot that feels good in that liquid-hot-wrong way). Even down his scarred calf, which also feels different and wrong: it's a girl's leg that’s ugly and fucked up now, and that seems worse somehow, more wrong. So he takes his hands away from that, experiments a little with how flat he can squash his chest with his hands, and finally realizes he's standing in the dark groping himself and it's not even fun, and turns the shower off and gets out.
He dries off--alternately scrubbing at his skin with the towel and patting quickly to get it over with--and pulls on the clothes in his bag. Boxers, baggy shorts, and then he's standing there debating what to do next because his tits are kind of bouncing and swaying all over the place and they're fucking distracting. It takes a couple of tries and his hands are shaking and he's breathing funny, but he manages to get the ace bandage wrapped pretty firmly around his chest, and after he's pulled his shirt on and turned his back to the mirror, he turns the light on again. It looks... sort of okay, he thinks. Better, definitely. But he's sort of afraid to move or breathe deeply in case the bandage falls off and he's pretty sure this isn't going to stand up to drumming, even for a shortened set. He's going to need help.
So he grits his teeth and opens the door and says, "Um, Gee?"
And Gerard, who has been just standing at the window chain-smoking since he got off the phone with Brian, turns and immediately offers Bob the remaining half of his cigarette, which Bob accepts and takes a drag from before saying, "That bad, huh?"
Gerard says, "Dude, I'd be--I'd be way more fucked up than this. Um. How..."
That's maybe how fucked up are you, anyway or just how are you or maybe it's something really unhelpful like how the fuck did this happen which Bob can't even think about. Regardless, Gerard stops at that one word and waves it off, and gives Bob a not-quite-terrifyingly manic helpful look.
Bob gets back on script. "I need--could you--" he waves the tape vaguely at his chest, and Gerard says, "Binding, right. You already did the ace bandage?"
Bob nods, and Gerard lights another cigarette and gets all professional and perfectionist about it, making Bob raise and lower his arms, turn sideways, turn back, as Gerard adds layers of tight tape. What he doesn't do is cop a feel or act weird--well, not weirder than Gerard-weird, anyway. It's sort of reassuring, and Bob is feeling a lot better by the time he's gotten his hoodie on and confirmed in the mirror that he really does look pretty much like himself from the neck down, although his walk still looks wrong--he walks without thinking about it and that looks... like a girl walking. He tries to consciously walk like himself and winds up looking, as Gerard puts it, "Like you just crapped your pants." Gerard suggests limping like his scarred leg hurts, and that does cover up the rest of the weirdness but also throws the rest of his body out of whack.
By the time Bob's paced the whole small length of the room about a hundred times and they've more or less given up on the walking thing, Bob's feeling on a fairly even keel, like this is just a thing he has to deal with and Gerard, and probably the rest of the guys, are going to be cool about helping him out.
And then Gerard says, "Hey, do you want me to do some makeup for you?"
Bob recoils--physically as well as in all other senses--from the idea, thinking of girl parts and lipstick and Gerard had been so cool about everything so far, almost let him forget what exactly it was that was wrong with him, that they had to hide--
And Gerard gets all big-eyed and waves his hands frantically and says, "No, I mean, no! Just, to help you look more like usual--it wouldn't work up close, but with your hood up, or from the stage--just some shadowing and--just effects stuff, Bob, not. Nothing like that."
And it's Gerard and his frantic if sometimes misguided good intentions all over, and it's familiar, and it lets Bob calm down a little--and calm Gerard down--and agree that it sounds like it could be good, why not give it a try. And Gerard pulls out a makeup kit Bob hadn't noticed him bringing along--not that Bob had been noticing much, he'd have to admit--and sits practically in Bob's lap, tilts his chin this way and that and mutters and hums to himself as he applies stuff to Bob's cheeks and nose and forehead, fluffs and arranges Bob's hair--still the same length, at least, still the same color blond. He gets up and squints and finally says, "Okay, stand up and look in the mirror, just, like, out of the corner of your eye."
Out of the corner of his eye, in the mirror, is him. Bob.
The illusion falls apart when his head whips around and he looks to see--there's just a stranger there, a girl stranger, though kind of stocky and hidden in a hoodie, with weird patches of color on her cheeks and nose.
"Yeah, well, if anybody gets that close noticing the makeup job will be the least of our problems," Gerard says.
Bob puts his hood up, and Gerard hands him a cigarette, and they sit quietly together until Worm--who must know, but says nothing, just squeezes Bob's shoulder, and it occurs to Bob suddenly how careful Worm was not to touch him, when they came out to the hotel--comes to take them back to the festival in time to go on stage.
Bob manages to get his kit into a mostly usable configuration--all minute shifts of is stool and a few of the drums--and powers through the opening song of the set on pure guts. The second and third he flies through, on the adrenaline rush of making it through the first one. But then it's time for Black Parade, and Bob kind of fucking hates being the one-man drum corps even when that's the hardest moment of his day. The performing rush is gone and he's biting down on his lip, ring hard against his teeth, even as he starts. He forces his way through it, the click like a lifeline in his ear.
When the song's over Gerard turns and makes a face, worried. Bob kind of wants to die--his whole body hurts, overall and specifically, not just his taped-up mashed-down tits, but his hips and thighs and back and shoulders and everything down to his fingertips, every muscle and bone and tendon that is slightly wrong and protesting being forced to do the same work. He knows Gerard wants him to give in and get off stage. He even knows he probably should, because he's gotta save some juice for the show tomorrow.
Bob forces his jaw to unclench, turns his head and spits--not blood, hardly any--and then grits his teeth again without his lip in the way, and counts them into one more song. He knows it's a mistake inside of thirty seconds, but by then they're playing the song and he's not going to stop in the middle unless his arms actually fall the fuck off. He knows the guys all know it's a mistake, too, because they're stuck with his ragged playing, following it and making it work. He's not supposed to be the guy they have to look out for like this--but then, fuck, he's supposed to be a guy.
He doesn't think about it. He plays. He gets to the end of the goddamn song, somehow, and he barely has time to force his cramped fingers to drop the sticks before Ray and Cortez are standing at the back of his riser, waiting for him. He tries to stand and they catch him as he stumbles, half folded over, and hustle him off. Frank clears a path, and Worm falls in behind them, and Bob's vaguely aware of Gerard saying his name into the microphone, giving some kind of explanation as DeWees starts leading them into Cancer.
After a walk long enough for his legs to mostly start working again, there's a van, and Bob gets in and huddles silently next to Frank, who fidgets like a motherfucker but doesn't say a word, and doesn't touch Bob. Nobody says anything. Nobody moves. And then Gerard's there, squeezing in next to Bob on the other side, talking to DeWees about something normal--the crowd, some sign someone was holding up--and then DeWees says something to Ray and Frank twists to answer. And if he's careful not to touch Bob, instead of crawling into his lap and leaning over him, well, Gerard reaches over and touches his face, frowning at his bitten lip. Bob pulls away, just a little, but Gerard leans closer, staring, and says, "You should put something on that, I'll get something from Worm."
For a second Bob remembers Gerard's face when he caught a glimpse of Bob's burned leg, after he'd busted out of the ER and before the gangrene. It's the same anxious look, the same cautious interference. There's this one thing that's the same. Bob doesn't think anyone can blame him for holding on to it.
Gerard winds up staying with Bob at the hotel that night--the rest of the guys head off to Ireland immediately, but Gerard and Bob go back to the same hotel room so Bob can take a bath, drink the actually cold beer that someone bought him, and smoke a lot. Gerard just smokes a lot. Worm is around somewhere, but declines to share their room even though no one's sure where he is going to sleep. Still, that leaves a bed for Gerard and a bed for Bob, and Bob doesn't have the heart to actually get really drunk--though his tolerance is fucked along with everything--so he's just lying in bed in this weird daze, not quite wasted enough to just pass out, and too far gone to keep pretending nothing's wrong. He's on the ragged edge of crying for what feels like hours, and he knows Gerard isn't asleep, and he knows Gerard wouldn't judge him, but he's not this guy and he can't let it go.
Eventually it's morning, and Bob takes another long shower, and wraps himself up, and Gerard tapes him up, and Worm collects him for a drive and flight over to Ireland. The show's worse, or better, or just the same shit over again, but when it's over it's over, and they're headed home.
Bob's not really especially surprised when Gerard casually announces that he's going to Chicago with Bob, even though it's the first he's heard of it. Ray's going home to Krista, Frank to Jamia, Worm to his wife, Cortez to his complete porn collection. Gerard's been broken up with Eliza for less than three weeks, and however weird Bob thought that whole whirlwind thing was, Gerard's alone again and obviously digging the chance to be the one taking care of somebody else. Bob thinks for half a second about being macho enough to refuse to be taken care of, but all things considered ... he's not.
Bob calls his mom and lets her know he's home and alive and has the end-of-tour crud and will come visit when he's feeling better--his voice is hoarse and fucked-up enough to make it seem believable--and then he and Gerard crash--him in his own bed, Gee on the couch--for nearly a solid day. They get pizza delivered and smoke American cigarettes and drink coffee and Red Bull and at some point Bob starts feeling kind of human and himself again, the misery and shock of the whole thing lifting a little.
That's when he realizes he's got less than three weeks to get the fuck in shape for Projekt Rev, and the first thing he needs is the right gear. He does some googling (girl drummer tits and then, thinking that through a little better after he sees the results, which make him feel kind of sick and exposed all over again, drummer bra, which is a lot more reassuring) and then he gets up early, while Gerard's still asleep on his couch, and marches himself down to a suburban mall and gets what he needs: the most badass full-coverage chest-compressing undergarment known to womankind. Two, in fact. The ace bandage got rank pretty fast.
Properly equipped, Bob goes home, sets up his practice kit, and starts drumming. He does basics, exercises, until he gets the hang of how to sit--and where--and he thanks fucking God that everybody went for the rotating riser thing so he won't have to deal with the full Black Parade kit on every song. Gerard smokes his cigarettes and sits on his couch or at his kitchen table or on his floor, working on Umbrella Academy stuff. Bob works on the drumming in short bursts through the day, smokes, gets groceries delivered, ices his wrists (he's irrationally irritated that, if he was going to get stuck with girl wrists, he couldn't at least get stuck with girl wrists in factory-fresh condition--oh no, they're still kind of fucked up, just like his). (At bad moments, he's sort of comforted by it.)
The first time the drumming really clicks and feels right and natural and easy and awesome, the first time he really loses himself in the rhythm and the noise and everything, he gets a little turned on by it, which is normal, except he gets turned on girl-style which is really, really not. He drops the sticks and gets up and walks around, shaking and smoking and running his hands over his hair--not his face, not his weirdly naked face--and thinks about how bad he wants to take a shower and how bad he wants to pile on like three more layers of clothes--he could do it, he still has some stuff left from when he was at his heaviest, he could do a couple of layers of hoodies easy--and never, ever see or touch or think about the body under the clothes ever again.
After a while he realizes that Gerard is following him from room to room, silent, not coming too close, but not leaving him alone either. He thinks about bolting, but he doesn't want to go outside and he doesn't really want to be alone, he just wants to know that--that this is--that he still--
He turns, and Gerard is giving him that same anxious, eager-to-help look--the one that had mostly disappeared, the last couple of days, as they just hung around and Bob wore baggy clothes and a fucking straitjacket of a bra and pretended nothing was weird. But now everything is weird, and Gerard wants to help, and Bob....
It makes sense, for a split second, and that's the most anything has made sense since Bob realized what was happening in his pants and dropped the sticks, so he goes for it. He grabs Gerard by the front of his shirt and kisses him. Just to see what happens.
(The thing is, Gerard's kissed him before, back before Bob was in the band. Bob was never completely sure if it was just a drunk thing. The first time he was sure it was random, and the second time he figured it was just the fact that he was around all the time what with teching for them and living out of the same van, and the third time he decided if it happened again he was going to have to really think Gerard meant something by it, and then the tour ended and then Gerard got sober and the kissing thing stopped and Bob had bigger things to worry about.)
Gerard kisses back, which Bob thinks is maybe the right reaction and then thinks is totally fucking wrong because his body is ALL SET to move on from kissing to other stuff Bob doesn't want to think about, and Bob pushes back from the kiss all of a sudden, backs up until he hits a wall.
Gerard just stands there, wide-eyed, hands still at his sides. Even when Bob grabbed him and kissed him, he hadn't presumed to touch. But then the hands come up, waving frantically, and Gerard is saying it's okay, everything's cool, he gets it, it was just a whatever, a thing, a--nothing to do with Bob being--whatever! It's fine!
Bob kind of almost laughs, buries his face in his hands. "I know it's fucking fine, Gee," he mutters. "I liked it fine all the other times, too."
(Gerard is a little vague on the existence of other times, but, now that Bob mentions it, a few fuzzy memories slot into place.)
"So..." Gerard says.
"So my cunt also likes it fine and I am--"
Bob just stops there, because, really, what else can he say.
"Oh," Gerard says, and then, "oh. That would be. Yeah."
Bob nods, face still in his hands, and Gerard says, "Do you want to try it some more and see if--"
Bob's head whips up and Gerard's hands start waving again.
"Just! Like, to see if--I mean--not anything else! Just, if you want to. That would be. Um."
And Bob stares at him--so fucking worried, so fucking careful, and yet still so completely fucking Gerard--and walks over, slowly, waiting for the moment when he's close enough that Gerard goes still again, drops his hands, almost fucking holds his breath.
Bob smiles a little, leans in and kisses Gerard, lightly, without touching him anywhere else, and says, "Not right now. But maybe later?"
Gerard waits until Bob backs away a little before he nods frantically and then abruptly disappears to have a cigarette, and Bob decides that maybe that shower isn't such a bad idea after all.
So then there's this very slow process of exploration--a lot of makeouts and clothed groping and grinding and Bob having private shower time to poke around and decide how he feels about things and occasionally feeling stupid as fuck over reinventing high school and dry humping except Gerard is so fucking Gerard about it all that he can't feel that bad.
Although it turns out that coming in your pants this way results in more sticky damp discomfort than Bob ever thought girls had to deal with.
Then they get to the part where Gerard wants to have a long and meaningful talk about intercourse and gender roles and Bob's feelings and Bob just starts stripping in self defense and, when that doesn't shut Gerard up completely, takes Gerard's clothes off him, too. By the end of that night, they've absolutely, undeniably had sex under any possible definition, and it was pretty fucking weird and also pretty awesome; Bob falls asleep feeling pretty good, really, if this is how it's going to have to be.
But he wakes up in the morning, looks under the covers to be sure, and then gets up and looks around on the floor for a bra to put on, because he is still in the same body he fell asleep in, and he's still got a fuckton of practicing to do, and Projekt Rev's barely a week away now. Sex is great and everything, but he still has a job to do and he's still not exactly sure how he's going to do it when it comes down to it. He's improving, but it's just not a lot of time, and...
And it's Projekt Revolution, and some of the bands they'll be touring with are great and everything, but it's Projekt Revolution and Bob has enormous tits and he just knows this is not going to end well. Gerard's great, the guys will be great, he can buy all the badass drummergirl undergarments he wants, this is still going to suck.
And that's it, for a few days. Bob practices harder than ever, Gerard writes, they both smoke a lot, they have sex, the sex is great, the sex changes nothing.
So Bob wakes up one morning and the clock in his head says seventy-two hours. He's got three days before he and Gee have to go catch a plane and meet up with the rest of the band and start another tour. Three fucking days, and he's not ready, he's got so much more work to do, three days, three days...
And right about then Gerard says, "Hey, I know this is me and everything, but I think we've been staying in too much."
Bob turns his head and raises an eyebrow. This cannot possibly be an innocent observation, and he instantly starts trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, what this means, what Gerard is trying to do--
"Bob, Bob, chill," Gerard says, nuzzling at Bob's (bare, soft) jawline, running a hand down (the curve of) Bob's side. "Hey. You've been working yourself like crazy. You need a day off. We both need a day off."
"And..." Bob says warily.
Gerard switches from nuzzling Bob's shoulder to mouthing at Bob's throat, mumbles something right into the sensitive spot he found the other day that gets Bob wet when he's not busy trying to figure out Gerard's nefarious plans. And, okay, maybe a little bit even when he is.
"What?"
"...clothes to wear," Gerard mumbles.
Bob punches him in the ribs, kind of hard, and Gerard yelps and scrambles away, but, Bob notices, doesn't actually get all crazed and hand-wavey like he did at the beginning. Gerard's stopped being so careful with him, and that's good, isn't it? Sort of?
"Look, I'll make you a deal," Gerard says, itching absently at his stubble, and Bob can't help but itch automatically at the corresponding patch of stubble burn on his thigh. "If you dress up like a girl to show me around Chicago, I'll dress up like one too."
Bob stares for a second, and then he squints, and then he concentrates on killing Frank with his brain because obviously someone told Gerard about what Bob thought of the story about Gerard in drag.
"You'll dress up like a girl," Bob says, as neutrally as he can.
Gerard beams and waggles his eyebrows and says, "Want me to go first?"
It's a process, as it turns out; a really fucking long process even after Bob grudgingly accepts that Gerard did not buy him any really upsetting clothing--it's not even that different from what he usually wears, except for how it's cut to hug this body, and the bra is ...
The bra is really not minimizing anything, so much. Kind of the opposite. Bob gets the bra on and then loses a few minutes being totally mesmerized; so long that Gerard starts calling through the bathroom door and then comes in to make sure he's okay, and then also gets kind of mesmerized, and....
Well, it takes a long time to get ready.
But Bob gets safely dressed in cropped jeans and a low-cut t-shirt (it covers enough that he doesn't get totally distracted by his own tits, but Gee's right, it would be kind of a shame to cover them up completely) and then Gerard goes off to get ready while Bob tries to find a pair of socks that will cover up his legs--it's too hot for long pants, but he's not shaving his legs and he's definitely not walking around flashing his hideous fucking burn scar. But the shape of his calves changed, or his brain is girlier, or something, because none of the socks he can find stay up right, or look right, or feel right, or...
The bathroom door opens, and Gerard is standing there in a little black skirt, tall black boots, and a tank top that shows off Gee's fucking impossible tits. Bob just stares. And stares. And wonders whether there are words to express how completely fucked up this is, and whether he cares.
After a couple of minutes Gerard just starts laughing and says, "Now you know how I feel!" and Bob can't even feel freaked out, because, Jesus. Gerard and his tits.
Gerard refuses to let him look under the tank top and see how he did that, but the cleavage is definitely there, and definitely Gerard's pale, soft skin, and the idea of going outside is getting more ridiculously overrated all the time, especially when Gerard says, "No, I got you socks, they were in the bag."
There were socks in the bag, little tiny anklet socks that barely stuck up above the tops of the (admittedly badass) sneakers Gerard had already helpfully decorated with tiny Sharpied ninjas.
"Oh," Gerard says, when Bob fumbles to explain why those socks are not okay. "Oh! Right. I forgot the best part. Lay down."
Bob is suspicious, but--okay, Gerard is wearing like some kind of corset, and really tall boots, and Bob is only human. He lays the fuck down. And it's not like he didn't know it was coming, but it's still weird as fuck when Gerard starts drawing on the back of his leg, especially when he's drawing over the scar tissue, and the ticklish feeling disappears into numbness.
When Gerard's done, there is another whole production to get enough mirrors set up so Bob can see it at what Gerard considers a good angle: the burn scar is a flame--the long surgical scars, the lower parts of two torches--no, drumsticks. Flaming drumsticks. And the smoke, curling sideways down Bob's leg, resolves into two words: I survived. It's kind of amazing, Gerard's art on his body, although Bob's not any more sure he likes the idea of every fucking person he walks past getting to see it.
Bob looks up at Gerard. "How long have you been planning that?"
"Uh," Gerard says. "Probably... um, before you got out of the hospital the last time. Yeah."
So at least that's not just about him having tits, either.
"You really...."
"I really want to see if Navy Pier is one percent as awesome as the Jersey Shore," Gerard says firmly. "Come on."
So out they go, and Bob feels conspicuous as fuck just walking to his car, but Gerard holds his hand and doesn't let him bolt. They head toward the nearest El stop, only Gerard spots a comic shop and realizes how long it's been since he was in one and then Bob has to stop and find a parking space and before he knows it he is walking into a comic shop, in public, dressed like a girl with huge tits and a crazy scar-art thing happening on his leg, and Gerard in drag holding his hand and towing him toward the indie section.
After a few minutes Bob manages to relax and detaches Gerard's death grip so he can go browse the Superman titles, and a few minutes after that Gerard comes over and picks up a Batman and then whispers to Bob--husky, soft--protecting the illusion, Bob realizes, remembering that he couldn't talk at all, the first time he did this--to look, over there.
Bob looks, just in time to see a teenaged boy go bright red and stop staring and then look up again like he can't resist. Kind of the way Gerard looks at him sometimes. Kind of ... kind of like two hot women just walked into a comic shop on a random weekday afternoon and blew his mind. Bob gets that stop looking at me twinge, except he looks at Gerard, who's watching him with a more worried version of the same expression, and he just rolls his eyes and turns back, and makes a point of grabbing Gerard's ass when he reaches past him for another comic.
Bob has to admit, it was good to go into the comic shop before they rode the El down to the Loop, because now the ice is kind of broken and he can glance around with more curiosity than paranoia and see that, yeah, maybe that guy, maybe that one's looking at him. But even more people are just ignoring them, because they just look like two chicks riding the El and not talking much. Bob reaches over and fixes one of the little sparkly hair things Gerard's got in the deliberate mess of his hair, and Gerard flashes him a sly, pretty smile, and Bob thinks about how many more people would be watching if they started making out, kind of likes the thought and kind of hates it and mostly just doesn't want to be those people on the train, so he leans into Gerard a little but keeps his mouth to himself. When Gerard reaches for his hand, he holds on.
Gerard declares Navy Pier possibly as much as ten percent as awesome as the Jersey shore, and they get cotton candy and elephant ears and play stupid games and ride a couple of rides and walk around among crowds of people, holding hands and, okay, maybe making out a little once or twice (Gerard! Cleavage! Distracting!) and by the time somebody mutters something about dykes as they walk past, Bob is starting to be more inclined to think it's funny than to want to hide or punch anyone. It helps that Gerard, who's being careful not to talk or laugh too much, smiles his crooked smile and slants Bob a knowing look from behind his sunglasses and winks one dark-rimmed eye and obviously thinks it's hilarious.
So everything's awesome until it starts getting dark and, just like the Jersey Shore, Navy Pier starts filling up with kids dressed in black who are there ironically and Bob starts wondering what happens if they get recognized and it's all starting to make him kind of uncomfortable again, because the tone of the looks he gets--that they get--are changing a little.
And then they bump into someone, or whatever, somebody takes some kind of offense to Gerard--a guy takes some kind of offense to Gerard, starts hassling him, and--the guy obviously thinks he's a chick, that they both are, obviously doesn't know, and if Gerard speaks up to defend himself this will just get uglier--and if Gerard speaks up and gets recognized this is going to be a mess--and--
And Bob doesn't really think about it. He's Bob, he used to tech, and he's used to dealing with guys ten times as drunk and at least twice as mean as this asshole who made Gerard's mouth go all flat and angry, and he steps up tall, shoulders square, and says, "Back the fuck off."
And the guy does. He mutters something under his breath, but he backs up, lets Bob and Gerard walk away, and Bob's almost shaking with the realization that he's--that he can still be him, that he's still--still enough. Still capable of handling whatever.
And then they head home, and Gerard makes a teasing remark about Bob being his hero, and Bob maybe barely waits until they're through the door before he pushes Gerard up against the wall, pushes up Gerard's skirt, and blows him. And after, when Gerard has his breath halfway back and asks what that was for, Bob rests his forehead against Gerard's thigh and says, "You're the best girlfriend a boy could want, that's all."
And then they go to bed. And then Bob wakes up back to his old self--just lays there and stares until Gerard also wakes up. There's about a half-second of Bob wondering if maybe this changes things, if--he doesn't need Gerard anymore so Gerard's going to go find someone else to worry about--except Gerard just says, "Do you need some time alone with your dick first, or...?"
And then Bob finally gets to pay Gerard back for all the stubble-burn.
THE END.
This entry is crossposted at http://dsudis.livejournal.com/531063.html.
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Did I ever tell you that when I was pregnant my fingers got longer? (Joints loosen up during pregnancy apparently.) And it fucked up my fiddling, because my fingers weren't coming down on the strings where I thought they were. (Then I had a baby who would wail every time I picked up the fiddle, and that was, effectively, the end of my music career.)
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