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October 31st came to New Jersey with rain lashing against the windows and a mouthful of black hair mashed up against Frank’s face.
“Hey. Hey, wake up.” Frank blew out air a few times until there wasn’t any more hair on his tongue, then tried to pull his right side out from under Gerard. It was hard; his arm was mostly asleep. Gerard groaned and tucked his face deeper into Frank’s neck. “It’s my birthday, motherfucker, you better have my present.”
Frank shook his arm a little, and that managed to dislodge him; Gerard looked up at him sleepily and smiled. “Happy birthday, Frankie. I love you.”
“Love you too,” Frank said, and kissed the tip of Gerard’s nose. As if that wasn’t the only present he really needed anyway. “Breakfast?”
“I’ll walk to the bakery,” Gerard said in answer. “Well, I’ll take Tess out. Then I’ll go to the bakery.” He rolled to the edge of the bed and sat up, reaching towards the ceiling, ruffling his hair like it would help the mess it was in.
“You should bring her along.” Frank stretched out, starfishing over as much of the bed as he could take up. “There’s this girl who works at the bakery who loves her. She gives me a little treat for her every time I come by.”
“I mean, who wouldn’t?” When Gerard got up, the movement of the mattress must have woken up the dog in question, because the lump under the covers started wriggling until a little nose poked out from underneath, and a tail started thumping against the mattress. Beaming, Gerard knelt down next to the bed and tucked the duvet back until Tess’s face was visible. “Hi, honey!” he cooed.
If Frank watched any longer, he was pretty sure he’d get a cavity. “Gerard. You know she will pee in the bed if you wait too long.”
“I know, I know. Just, wait, let me get a picture of you two.” As soon as Gerard stood up and went to get his phone, Tess extracted herself from the tangle of blankets and crawled across the top of them over to Frank, giving his face a cursory, stinky lick before climbing on top of his chest and settling her face right in the crook of his neck. He wrinkled his nose, pretty sure he could feel his lung capacity decreasing by the second, but cradled her little body closer.
The camera shutter clicked, and Frank looked up a second too late to smile for the picture. “All right, Tessie, let’s go get Frank some birthday breakfast, yeah? You wanna go outside?”
With some difficulty, thanks to her awkwardly short legs and portly body -- more than once, with Gerard out of earshot, Bob had described her as a potato on toothpicks -- Tess managed to get off of Frank and leap down to the floor, where she landed and looked up at Gerard with total adoration, her tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth since there were no teeth to stop it. If Mikey had been there, he definitely would have made a joke about Frank and his dog looking at Gerard in the exact same way, but he wasn’t, so instead, Frank stole Gerard’s pillow and curled around it and fell back asleep to the sound of Tess’ little nails clicking along the floor, all the way to the front door.
“You were right,” Gerard said, kicking the door closed half-closed behind him and perching on the edge of the bed to lift Tess back up.
“Mmm. Yeah I was.” Blinking himself awake, Frank turned onto his side so he could look at Gerard fully. “About what?”
“The girl at the bakery.” As he unwound his scarf, Gerard sat the slightly grease-stained paper bag down on the nightstand next to two coffee cups. “Her name’s Jen. By the way. And she was so happy to see Tess. She agrees that she’s the cutest dog on the planet, probably.”
“Oh, I didn’t know she was blind,” Frank quipped, scratching Tess in question on her side and watching her little leg thump against the blankets.
“She isn’t,” Gerard said, wounded. “You’re so mean to Tessa, Frankie.”
“Hey! Hey. I am not mean. I just tease her. And it doesn’t matter, she can’t understand, I use a nice tone and that’s all they care about. Here, see -- hey, baby girl.” Frank whistled and she turned to look at him with her big eyes. “Yeah, oh, do you smell bad? Do you smell so bad? Yeah, you do,” he wheedled, rubbing the sides of her face, folding over her ears. In response, she just panted harder and pressed closer to Frank, her tongue lolling out further, her tail still beating so hard that Frank was surprised she didn’t sprain it.
“Stop, you’re gonna give her a complex.” Gerard leaned sideways and took Tess’ face in his hands, scratching under her chin and then kissing her forehead. “You’re the cutest dog in the world, Theresa.”
“Oh, using her full name.” Frank snorted. “Anyway. What did you bring me?”
“Well, now that you’re done,” Gerard said, a hint of admonition in his voice. “I told her it was your birthday and she gave me two Halloween donuts for free. I think they have orange cream inside.”
“No shit.” Scrambling into a fully sitting position, Frank made grabby hands towards the bag.
Biting back a smile, Gerard reached inside and pulled out a pumpkin-shaped donut with a grinning jack-o-lantern face. “Here you go. Oh, there’s coffee, too,” he added, turning to the nightstand and grabbing a cup. He took the lid off, releasing steam, and blew on it a few times, then offered it to Frank.
For some reason, that simple gesture, the fact that Gerard was really here, his hair all crazy and his cheeks all pink from the fall wind, wearing yesterday’s jeans and Frank’s ratty Misfits t-shirt scooped off the floor, a little too small for him -- Frank felt something inside him come loose and the breath whoosh out of his lungs. It must have shown on his face, because Gerard’s eyebrows knit together and he set the coffee back down. “You okay?”
“I just -- I’m just really fucking… grateful,” Frank finished slowly. Because grateful was the right word. He wasn’t really the praying-out-loud type, at least not yet, but this was the closest he’d ever gotten, probably. Makes sense that it would be because of Gerard. He caught his hand going to his neck habitually, had to remind himself the rosary was still hanging over the lampshade, but managed to turn it into scratching his chest instead.
The smile that broke over Gerard’s face was almost hard to look at. “Me too.”
They really did just sit on the bed beaming at each other like idiots for a second before Frank remembered the donut in his hand, and Gerard caught a whiff of the open coffee. Then it was just eating and drinking in companionable silence, Tess snurfling around the blankets for crumbs between them. When she was satisfied that she’d vacuumed them all up, she toddled down to the end of the bed and sat down with a fwump.
Wiping his hands on his pajama pants, Frank leaned over and rested his chin on Gerard’s shoulder. “Thank you for bringing me donuts and coffee.”
He felt rather than saw Gerard’s smile, his cheek squishing up and pressing into Frank’s. “You’re welcome.” When he turned his face the smallest bit and caught Frank’s lips, he tasted like icing, grainy with sugar on his tongue, and coffee, and the tiniest hint of a cigarette beneath it all. It was such a quintessentially Gerard combination, and it drove Frank fucking crazy to be able to know that. He didn’t break for air for as long as he could manage, and when they did finally draw apart, Gerard looked as half-stunned as Frank felt.
“Hey Tessa?” Frank said, keeping his eyes trained on Gerard, who tilted his head to the side slightly. “Go to your bed.”
Blinking slowly, she struggled to her feet and jumped down, using the chest at the foot of the bed as leverage, then trotted out towards the living room, where her bed sat in the window.
Gerard goggled. “When did you teach her that?”
“Hey, did you think that all those weekends you go back to the office to read, I just sit on my ass here?” Frank was grinning proudly. “Whoever said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks had never met me.” He reached up and grabbed the collar of Gerard’s jacket and started to inch it down his arms.
“She’s so smart,” Gerard said, holding his arms out behind him so Frank could take his coat off the whole way. “I can’t believe she learned that, I -- oh. Hi. Hi.” Like a lightswitch flipping on, he looked back to Frank, who had Gerard’s shirt rucked halfway up his back and was kissing his neck.
“Welcome to the party,” Frank said, amused.
“I thought it was your birthday,” Gerard grinned, and reached out to close the door the whole way.
“St. Theresa Iero, I swear on your motherfucking pretentious namesake, you are gonna wear this outfit and you are gonna like it, so help me God,” Frank said through gritted teeth as he caught her around her middle again. She looked up at him, eyes so big and round it was laughably cartoonish, and he blew out a breath, picking her up and tucking her under his arm. “Listen, I know, okay, but Gee bought us these costumes and he was really excited about them.”
The only answer he got was a sad sort of whuff.
“There you are,” Gerard said anxiously, reaching out to pet Tess as Frank arrived in the living room again. “I don’t get it, she usually loves wearing clothes.”
“Oh my God, if I could tell you of two years ago that you’d say that sentence in this context,” Frank muttered, and bent down to put Tess gently on the floor. “I think she really hates the hat.”
“Okay. Well, maybe we can just bring that along to Mikey’s and take a few pictures once we’re there, you know?”
“Probably a better plan than trying to force it on her. I’ll hold her, okay, you get the dress on.” Frank scratched at his neck absently where the straw around his collar was tickling him.
“Try not to rub it too much, you’ll mess up the makeup,” Gerard said. His costume clattered as he leaned down to pick up the little blue-checked dress from the floor where it had fallen after their last failed attempt.
“Yeah, I know.” Kneeling down on the floor, Frank grabbed Tess and pet her, rubbing her ears, down her back. “Okay, try it now.”
This time, when Gerard slipped the fabric over Tess’ head, with Frank lifting her front legs up and through the armholes, she didn’t resist at all, seemingly contented by the lack of a wig being forced onto her head. Soon enough, she was tearing around the room with her little skirt flaring behind her.
“Hey, don’t you think these costumes are kinda on the nose?” Frank said, pulling his triangular slouchy hat back a little and scrunching up his nose to resist the urge to scratch it.
“What? No, of course not,” Gerard said absently, the light shining off his silver face paint as he sat down fully on the floor, watching Tess go. “She really is the cutest thing.”
Her tail wagging, she ran up to Frank, and he leaned down to adjust her costume. The fact was that it was ridiculous, there was really no denying it. “Oh my God, you look so stupid,” he said in the cutsiest voice he could manage, right next to Tess’s ear so Gerard couldn’t hear. She panted happily and licked a long stripe up the side of his face.
Out of the corner of his eye, Frank could see Gerard looking not just at Tess, but at the both of them together, and was forcibly reminded of this morning, the way something had shifted, the way it did every day when he was with Gerard. Again, he almost lost his breath just from the force of that feeling.
“She really is,” he said, and tried to keep his voice as neutral as possible, because he couldn’t tell Gerard he was getting choked up over their dog in a fucking Dorothy costume of all things.
Eventually, and with much collecting of accessories, they managed to make it out the door (and then back in the door because Gerard forgot his oil can, and then back out the door for real). “Off to see the wizard, I guess,” Gerard said over the sounds of Tess’s panting from the backseat.
“Oh my God, please tell me Mikey is being the wizard of Oz.” Frank grinned.
“No, he hasn’t been a wizard since he was twelve, I think,” Gerard mused, pulling out of the driveway.
“When was the last time you were a wizard?”
“I’m not going to answer that because I know you’ll make fun of me,” Gerard said archly, and ignored Frank’s snickering from beside him.
“Anyway,” Frank said presently. “The whole wizard thing has kind of lost the appeal now that we know it’s real, right?”
Gerard shrugged. “I was kinda hoping Ray would show up in robes with a big white fake beard.”
“Okay, yeah, that would be pretty cool,” Frank conceded. “Only if he makes a bunch of fire come up and shouts ‘YOU SHALL NOT PASS!’ though.”
“Well, yeah, of course.” Gerard shot him a smile, brief but sweet, from the driver’s seat.
If you’d have asked Frank of two years ago what his dream life would be, matching couples and dog Halloween costumes with Mikey’s mystery brother would be absolutely nowhere on his radar, thank you very much. But it turns out things can change a whole fucking lot in a very short amount of time. And Frank of today couldn’t think of a single thing he’d rather have for his birthday that wasn’t right here in the car with him, or waiting to welcome them at the shop.
The cheesy part of his brain that only got stronger with exposure to Gerard really wanted to make some kind of pun about the yellow brick road, or clicking your heels together, but Frank had done plenty of sappy self-reflecting today. Instead, he turned on the radio just to hear Gerard sing along and closed his eyes, only realizing halfway through the thought that he was saying thank you inside his head.