Frank on a Leash

Waking up to find yourself in someone else's room is always a little disorienting. Humans sleep to recharge their brains and bodies, to provide a release for all the stress in every day life and to let go of reality for a few hours. When they wake up, they expect to find the world in the the same shape as they left it. Mikey always expects to see his radio the first thing in the morning, because that is the way he always faces when he sleeps. He expects to hear the dull whine of his alarm splitting through his head and not giving him a choice whether he was waking up that morning or not. This morning, he blinked sleepily at the light spilling through the window and wondered where the hell his radio was.

Fuzzy sleep was clogging his mind, lulling him into semi-consciousness, so he didn't really give a shit that his radio was missing and his walls were a different color and he was on the wrong side of the bed. He tucked his arms under his pillow and curled up, trying to get back to sleep. It must have been Saturday, because his alarm didn't go off, and he liked to sleep in on the weekend. It meant less time without Frank. He was well on his way to drifting off when he felt a little nudge to his back. He rolled onto his back and Bella jumped on his chest, burrowing under the covers with him.

"Bella!" Frank was standing in the door way with a leash in his hand. He dropped it onto the floor and jumped on the bed with Mikey and Bella. He picked her up and decided against reprimanding her after she turned her doleful fake innocent gaze on him. "Sorry, Mikey. I took her out for a walk, and she's just used to piling into bed with me when I let her."

"Aw, it's okay, Frankie, she's just cuddly," Mikey said, reaching out to tug Bella back to her spot on his chest. Bella was fast becoming his favorite pet, and he thought it was okay to think of her as partly his, too. Frank wouldn't mind. She licked at his chin and laid her head back down on his chest, adjusting her legs to lay out behind her.

Frank leaned over to press his nose to Mikey's, ghosting spiderweb eyelashes across his sun kissed cheeks. "She missed you, Mikey. I know it sounds weird, but I know she did. We have that pet-owner telekinesis, and she was really disappointed when she didn't get to wake you up last weekend."

That was the way it went whenever Mikey spent the night over at Frank's house, Bella waking them both up at around eleven and planting herself in between the two to be cuddled, pawing at whoever didn't tend to her wishes. She was more like a baby than a dog.

"Aw, poor baby. Hey, Frank, what time is it?" Mikey asked, absent-mindedly petting Bella. He knew now that it wasn't Saturday, it was actually Wednesday, and he had a test today in third period that he didn't plan on having to make up. Forget about having no makeup or clothes. His third period teacher was an idiot who didn't believe that students should be allowed to make up tests--they just shouldn't get sick on her test days, and Mikey didn't tolerate anything other than an A on his tests.

"Er," Frank looked away guiltily. He knew he should have waken Mikey up when his alarm went off, but Mikey looked really tired and he didn't want to, he wanted to spend the day lazily at home with Mikey, maybe re-exhausting his comic book collection and fighting over dibs on the better spot on the couch next to the table. He glanced over at the alarm clock on the bedside dresser. "It's almost nine."

Mikey perked up. "Oh, okay. I won't miss my test then." He sat up, Bella falling into his lap and looking up at him indignantly. How dare he sit up when she was comfortable? She decided to relocate to Frank's lap, she knew he wasn't so freaking spastic.

*

Mikey stood awkwardly in front of Frank's bathroom mirror, squinting at himself and asking himself if he was really about to do this. His legs were encased in pants that didn't hang off his ass and make everyone wonder about the size of his thighs. Frank had found some of his cousin's blue jeans that she'd left here--yeah, Mikey was forced to wear girl pants like Jared, eesh--the last time she was over. He hated them, they were stifling his legs and showed how girly his hips looked, how he swung them when he walked and cocked them to the left when he stood still. He was wearing one of Frank's shirts, a white one that had Bart Simpson on it that nearly hung off his shoulders and made his arms resemble toothpicks, but he was planning on wearing his coat all day so it didn't really bother him.

What did bother him was himself. He was getting so fucking superficial that he cared about whether he left the house without makeup and a certain brand of pants. His scowl was reflected back at himself in the mirror as he leaned in and just--studied. His face. The self-loathing that usually accompanied his scrutiny as he looked in the mirror in his own room was gone for the most part now, chased away by Frank's constant--everything. The small little touches of their hands when Mikey was off in his own little world, or when Frank would just stare at him, slip off his glasses, and say that his eyes were pretty.

"Fraaank..." he whimpered softly, only half hoping that Frank would hear him, because all he was really going to do was whine about how much he hates himself and hope that Frank says something nice about him.

Frank popped into the bathroom with Bella cradled in his arms. "Yeah?" He hitched her up onto his shoulder, garnering himself a little grunt, because she wasn't down with all the sudden man-handling she'd been put through this morning.

"I'm turning into a fucking girl." He frowned at the mirror and wondered why mankind ever invented the little fuckers. They made people hate themselves, yeah? Made them think that they had to pack into gyms and spend millions on plastic surgery instead of feeding the starving children in Africa or finding a cure for AIDS--they were what is wrong with America. "When I become supreme ruler of the earth, I am melting down every single mirror and using them to create my spaceship!" he spat out, giving one last lingering glare to the glass before turning to Frank and curling his arms around one of Frank's.

Frank didn't really catch anything Mikey was saying...He was trying to listen, but Bella kept pawing at his chin and all he got out of it was a rant about spaceships. Which was actually one of Mikey's usual rants, so he nodded like he understood perfectly and added input. "Yes, because...then the aliens will be blinded." And he decided, after Mikey smiled and pecked him on the cheek, that it was the right answer and silently felt a sense of accomplishment. He let Bella jump out of his arm and then decided that he could devote his full attention to checking Mikey out, because this was a once in a lifetime deal. Mikey in girl pants. Like a fucking whore. The denim clung snugly to his wispy thin legs and settled over his curved hips like they were made for him, detailing out in stone sharp hipbones that met the fabric in a sloping arc.

Frank ran his thumb down the outer seam of the pants, a pleasant heat running down his back. "These look good on you, Mikey."

They think that if they just wipe all that shit off of your face and get you into some tight jeans that you'll bloom into a perfect fucking butterfly and rub in everyone's faces that they liked you from the start. Bob's not right, Mikey thought. He couldn't be. Frank liked him when he was all gothed out, and he likes him now because they are boyfriends and it has nothing to do with the fact that Mikey was in tight pants. Frank's not superficial like Mikey. He doesn't spend hours in front of a mirror putting on makeup and telling himself that he's ugly. Frank's just running his hand down Mikey's leg because--

"I don't like them," Mikey snapped, jerking his leg away, pressing into his other leg and making himself wobble for a moment. He latched onto the counter, digging his fingers into the sharp corners. He went around Frank and into the hallway, putting all his effort into not swinging his hips. But that was harder than he thought, because to keep that momentum he had to stop swinging his arms and suddenly his walk was robotic. He just stopped, standing up completely straight so his fucking hip wouldn't pop out to the side.

Frank followed after him into the hallway, watching his stiff display and cringing inwardly, wondering what was up. "Hey, what's wrong, Mikey? Are you okay?" He stepped hesitantly closer to Mikey, put a hand on his shoulder and waited for the explosion. Mikey hung his head and whimpered.

"My hips are showing."

Frank followed the line of Mikey's awkwardly bent body, taking in one last look at how nice his legs were, before landing on his slim hips. Frank bit back the urge to trace the prominent bones with his thumb, to lean down and kiss them, because Mikey did not want to be touched. "So? Your hips are nice. You don't like them?" Mikey shifted a little bit, his shoulders slumping, his hip pitching out to the side, arms crossing themselves over his chest. Within those tiny movements, Mikey underwent a change from robotic to feminine. Frank thought back to what Mikey had been complaining about earlier. "Oh! Mikey, you don't have girly hips, okay?"

Frank snubbed out his conscience, telling it that he could get away with lying this time because this was a really fucking mundane lie and it will make Mikey feel better. But he did. He had really nice, tan, curved hips that reminded Frank of his last girlfriend. No, fuck that, hips that his last girlfriend would die to have, that she would sell her mother for. Mikey's whole look today was slightly feminine, from his glossy black hair hanging in his face, his softly lined pouty lips, thin waist and curved hips. Aside from his very masculine jawline and the slight stubble on his face that Frank had become enthralled with the moment he woke up next to the sleeping Mikey and noticed it, he might be able to pass for a tall girl with glasses.

Frank tugged Mikey into a hug, winding his arm around Mikey's shoulders and nosing into his neck, trying to stomp out his hesitance. Mikey wasn't responding to his touch, so he let his arms hang loose and sighed. Sometimes he could get Mikey perfectly, almost in some pseudo-psyche way that had him believing in Soul Mates and that shit, but every once in a while Mikey became a completely different person that he found almost--oh shit, he hated to say it, but inhuman. It was perfectly normal for a teenage boy to worry about whether other people liked him and how he looked and all of that, but Mikey was taking it to extremes, his moods swinging dangerously from one extreme to another, topped by his trust issues. Frank sometimes thought that Mikey really doesn't trust him, but then guilt floods him for doubting his boyfriend.

Frank scrubbed at his nose while toeing the ground and trying to come up with something completely out-of-the-blue like he usually did to lighten the mood, but nothing came. His internal chatter box was exhausted, between all the emotions he'd suddenly found himself faced with over the past two days--jealousy at Jared and Ray, frustration with Mikey, pity, sympathy, contentment, and confusion--it was an overload on his normally plain pallet and he didn't know how to deal. He took a shuddering breath and blinked away tears because this wasn't a fucking time to cry, nothing sad was even happening. Mikey just didn't want to touch him. He should be used to it by now.

They were just wasting time standing in the hallway when they could be going outside to get in Mikey's car and go to school so he could take his precious test--oh, fuck this, was Frank actually getting jealous of a piece of paper that any normal person would loathe? Who the hell does that! He threw up his hands in defeat and spun around to trudge down the steps, stomping his feet like it was the stairs' fault that he was in love with someone who didn't like hugs and thought a test was more important than wasting the whole day cuddling.

Mikey followed suit sans stomping, actually kind of cowering behind his boyfriend, completely convinced that he had pissed off Frank and he would never want anything to do with him again. He grabbed his coat from the rack as he passed by it, noticing that Frank had forgotten to get one and plucked off a black one before following Frank out the door and to the car, shivering and pulling his thick coat closer around his body against the cold Jersey wind the moment he stepped out the door. He ducked into the drivers seat next to his shaking boyfriend and passed the coat over the gear shifter. Frank eyed him up and down before muttering his thanks and shoving his arms through the sleeves of the jacket. At that point, Mikey was sure that Frank was pissed off at him.

He cranked up the car and turned on the heater, letting the car get warmed up before pulling out of Frank's driveway. He would have liked to say something, some shit about how he was sorry for being the way he is, that he doesn't want to put Frank through all of this, but the silence seemed to have sucked all of the breath from his lungs and he could hardly breathe, let alone talk. Besides, Frank was usually the one to start the conversations, and Mikey wouldn't know what to say other than, 'hey, Frank,' and hope he answers, and if he doesn't, then. Well. He has fucked up.

And he's not going to even attempt to fix it.

*

At school, things got a little better, they arrived five minutes before third period began and Mikey was able to take the test. But he finished predictably quickly, answers falling directly from his mind to be projected on paper without his consent, and it gave him almost an hour to rethink how shitty he felt. If Frank wasn't happy, then he wasn't, and it sucked that his life had suddenly started revolving around someone else without his permission. He wasn't the top priority anymore. Frank was, and if he had to suck up his bitchy attitude and make the first move to apologize, then he really couldn't see any way around that.

"Hey." Someone was whispering to him. He jerked his head up and squinted at the girl in the desk in front of him. He had abandoned his glasses when he decided to lay his head down and maybe take a nap and didn't see any reason to put them back on just yet. The world looked a little better blurry and without all the fine lines and frowns.

"What?" Leaning his chin on his knuckles in the most sardonic way he could manage, he motioned for her to go on. Girls were completely useless to him. Why did they insist on talking to him when he was so obviously gay? He winced inwardly at the accusation he inflicted upon himself and backtracked. When I am obviously in a relationship?

The girl--he could make out chin-length chocolate hair swept to part in the middle and a wide grin--leaned in unnervingly close to his desk. He thought momentarily about telling her to fuck off, but. He could stand to be a little more polite, he supposed. Not that he was looking for any more friends, but he didn't really want everyone to hate him like he knew they would if he kept up his bad ass goth routine. And, now that the girl leaned in, supporting her weight on one arm, he could make out sweet little freckles dusting her nose and cheeks and big chocolate brown eyes that matched her hair. She looked nice. He was assuming all of this and making stereotypes, of course, but she did look like she was a sweetheart. His fingers crossed themselves as he hoped that all she wanted was to borrow a pencil, and not say what he was fearing.

"Hey, you look good today." Shit. Well, there was one person that proved Bob's theory right. He suddenly felt less inclined to be nice and waved away the compliment with a little 'thanks' and laid his head back down on the desk, throwing the fur-lined hood over his head in a weak attempt to block out the world buzzing gently around him.

*

With hands clasped tightly around his own pinprick of a waist, tugging futily at the back of his coat to urge it down a little further to cover his ass, Mikey walked slowly and self-consciously to his fifth period class. The time to apologize waited, hung open for him, anticipating with eager eyes and ears to see if he would get down on his knees and beg. Deep circles adorned his boyfriend's eyes as he slumped down in his seat and fiddled with a bit of his own hair, punching some guilt into Mikey's chest. He stood in front of Frank's desk, running his finger over the buffed edge nervously.

"H-hey, Frankie?" Like using a nickname was going to help. Frank blinked blearily up at him, eyes seeming to dilate out of focus then return back to the present.

"Yeah, baby?" His voice was laced with sandpaper and sawdust, sprinkling more guilt across Mikey's littered torso. He squirmed around a little, unnerved by the difference in height since Frank was sitting, and crouched down in front of his desk, grabbing for a hand underneath the desk, holding on tight. Smaller fingers squeezed against his own reassuringly, surging confidence through his veins.

"I was being an asshole this morning, I'm sorry. S'just...girl pants are really uncomfortable, and everyone's been staring at my ass." A dorky grin and secretive lean-and-whisper made Frank smile even as jealously bit at him, on the sidelines of his mind. First up was Mikey's apology.

"Oh, Mikey, that's okay." Smiling, he raised a hand to pet at Mikey's hair fondly, to pull lightly at the thin wisps that got caught under his glasses. "Everyone has their bitchy days. Now...who the fuck was looking at your ass? Because I want names." He pressed his thumb against Mikey's sheepish blush and slid it across the expanse of crushed petal, wishing more than ever that they weren't in school. In class.

Sufficiently pleased with himself, Mikey stood up, joints cracking in his knees and coaxing an age joke from Frank, and headed back to his own seat where he planned to finish the nap he had started earlier. He stretched out his arms over his head, yawned silently, and closed his eyes to the flood of people that would be rushing in to beat the bell in a matter of seconds.

He was woken up by a little nudge to his foot, blinking up wearily to Frank's face hovering over his desk. He had a triumphant grin splattered on his face.

"And Goth Sleeping Beauty is awake!" he announced to the empty room, throwing his hands up in imitation of a soccer player who just made a goal. "Come, my dear, we shall away!" Tugging on Mikey's sleeve impatiently, he whimpered at the time Mikey was taking in waking up. He stretched his arms up over his head and--nevermind, his hips were showing, Frank was content. He slumped down in the desk opposite Mikey and watched as his boyfriend yawned, scrubbed at his eyes, ran a little pink tongue out over his bottom lip and turned his unobscured gaze on Frank. His glasses hung discarded in his coat pocket, unused for nearly the whole day because Mikey was slowly realizing that the world was prettier blurred out and let out of the glass bubble he lived in. He never really had thought much about his glasses before, they were there to help him after all, to give him the precious gift of sight, but he really hated them. Why didn't he have good vision like everyone else? Why is every aspect of his life different from the people around him?

"Ready, Mikey?"

"Yep." Mikey pushed himself up to follow Frank out the door and to the cafeteria. It was nearly snowing outside, and while Mikey despised being stuck in a crowded cafeteria watching everyone else ingest God-knows-what into their systems, he was not going to make Frank go outside with him and freeze his ass off. See, this was the 'putting Frank first' part of his personality that he just discovered and didn't have much of an opinion on. He was taking someone else's opinions into question, not just relying on his own knowledge to get him through the days, and life, it seemed, without a logical path of thought was exhausting. Instead of getting to class minutes early to study for tests, he found himself waiting outside Frank's classes, walking him to his locker, sharing small hidden kisses and thinking about them throughout the whole class. He couldn't just immerse himself in a book or homework, not with the word 'Frank' always flashing in the back of his mind in bright neon. He really hoped Frank appreciated how much he'd turned his life around just for him.

"Ah, fuck, there's nowhere to sit," Frank grumbled, reaching behind to grab Mikey's arm and lead him over to the corner of the cafeteria to sit on the floor. He was avoiding the bathroom for now, the sudden rush of exactly what the red shit on the wall was hitting him last night while he was cuddling up to Mikey and his hand brushed over the gauze. He'd been in a fuzzy-content state, cool black covering his mind and body, slowly petting at Mikey's ribs as the third CD they'd popped in--Alkaline Trio, also Mikey's choice--played on in the background. He'd just been feeling out the ripples and dents in Mikey's side when his fingers stumbled over rough dappled material and he remembered that Mikey was hurt.

"You don't mind the floor, do you Mikey?" It was a little too late to ask, but he wanted to be nice.

"No, s'fine." Mikey settled himself beside Frank in the dark junction of the white wall, shrugging off his jacket in the process because there was body heat galore in the tiny space. As soon as his black was tossed aside, behind his back so he knew where it was, he felt like all eyes were on him. It's what color did to him now. He didn't know how Frank could stand wearing red and pink and green and all the other bright colors his wardrobe consisted of and not feel like he stuck out so bad. Of course, he knew that probably no one was looking at him, but that didn't stop the prickle on the back of his neck, the increased rate of his heartbeat, the slight spasm that wrecked his shoulders.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just...the absence of black, you know." Mikey's answer was nonchalant, not at all like he'd just been freaking the fuck out.

"Well, did you know that black is the absence of color? And white is the epitome of all colors bouncing back into the human eye?"

"Yes, I know."

Frank nodded--of course Mikey knew--and leaned back into the cove they had created for themselves. He didn't know where he was going with that first statement, he just wanted to sound smart for once. About colors, such a technical subject that was sure to impress Mikey.

"My brother is in art school, and he tells me things like that all the time," Mikey continued, a new note entering his voice, something like...admiration? This seemed like one of the topics that Frank deemed 'safe' for Mikey. Along with robots, aliens, and whether human hearts are edible frozen. "I kinda miss him."

Frank leaned in, one hand propping his head up, and motioned his hand for Mikey to go one. Something stirring in the air between them, promising more than a few quick words about how his brother is a good drawer.

Mikey closed his eyes, finding words just spilling out like he wasn't talking to Frank in a crowded cafeteria, something intimate like he was just alone and talking to himself. "Gerard...was pretty much the only friend in my life, up until I met you. He thinks that he's never going to be anything, like he's always saying that to me when we talk, but I know that I'm the screw-up of the family, and he's going to be fucking famous, and I'm going to go live with him in a huge mansion where we can play videogames all day and beat the hell out of each other." A smile crept its way onto Mikey's lips and he let his head fall onto Frank's awaiting shoulder, nosing into the collar of his jacket and sighing out all the cramps in his heart. "N when he comes around for holidays and shit, he doesn't treat me like everyone else does. If he wants to throw me out a window, he'll do it. Then, like, apologize later and give me a popsicle. Red ones, because he knows that I don't like things that taste purple."

Frank pressed his smile into Mikey's temple and started to thread his fingers through the black silk of Mikey's hair. Softly, with his mouth still attached to Mikey's temple, "How does everyone else treat you?" How do you want to be treated?

"Not like he does. Everyone else either thinks that I have a gun hidden in my coat, or that I'll fucking break if they touch me. I know that normally I push people away and avoid contact, but that's only because everyone is so predictable. 'Cept you, I never know what you're about to pop off with, and that's one of the reasons that I like you so much, Frankie. And Gerard...he's unpredictable too, and I like that trait in the human race. Animals are sweet and cuddly, but they lack the emotion for spontaneity. Even when everything is quiet and peaceful and a dog just flips out, it's not just an act. They always hear or smell something that sets them off, but humans have the ability to do it whenever they like without a catalyst." Teeth bit into the soft underside of Frank's chin and he yelped. "See? I had no reason to do that."

Frank rubbed at the spot, pouting. "Then why'd you do it?" The burn was just seeping further into his skin each time he rubbed at the spot, so he quit, his hand soon replaced by a soft kiss.

"Did it hurt? Sorry."

"Nah, don't worry about it."

From a few feet over, Frank could hear fake-retching sounds, oddly reminiscent to a certain time in a certain ice cream parlor, and he didn't even have to look up to be so pissed off that he jumped up, grabbed the blond by the shirt, and pulled him into the boy's bathroom. His catalyst: blood, vomit noises, and gauze. See, he wasn't all that spontaneous.