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Frank is curled up on the loveseat, a battered edition of Pet Sematary cozied in his grasp, when Gerard nearly startles it from his hands entirely. They stand before the loveseat with their sketchbook abandoned on their sofa, arms bracketing either side of him, bringing their lips to his temple in a ghostly kiss bringing shivers down his spine.
He looks up, swearing quickly and apologizing for it, claiming he’d only been startled, and his words crumble as they usually do when they’re met with Gerard’s sparkling earthy eyes beneath the sweeping curve of long eyelashes. It’s incredible how Gerard never ceases to halt his breathing with that magnetizing beauty the naturally possess, even when Frank thinks he should be used to it by now— but becoming used to it and unaffected would mean his soul has been fucking devoured or something else horrifically tragic.
Frank discards the book like it’s something meaningless to stroke a hand across their cheek, grinning. “What’s with the sweet smothering?”
“It is not smothering,” They claim with faux indignation. “Sometimes you just look so adorable. It’s not like I can help myself.”
Frank hums with suspicion, studying Gerard’s poorly contained smile and the twinkling wideness of their eyes. “No. I think you want something and you’re trying to find a way to tell me.”
Gerard giggles, muffling it in Frank’s hair where they bury another kiss before pulling away, standing upright. “Maybe you’ve got me there. I thought about bribing you with sweets and your disgustingly sweet coffee, but flirting usually works a little better.”
Frank tips his head curiously. “Bribing me? You know all you have to do is stand there looking pretty and I’m basically putty in your hands, right?”
A floral pink blush spreads across Gerard’s cheeks as they sway in place, fingers tugging down the edge of their t-shirt Frank thrifted for him as a gift, a lucky vintage they’d been searching for relentlessly.
“I was thinking about how you’re always so curious about my drag and fascinated with all my stuff.” Gerard bites their lip. “So . . . I thought maybe you’d want me to put you in it?”
Frank’s heart sprints in his chest. He had considered it before, pictured his features enhanced by the airbrushed application of the prettiest colors he could imagine, embellished in a gown and cascading curls so he was hardly recognizable, but so achingly perfect that everyone would have no choice but to gaze upon him in awe. It brings a shiver circulate under his skin imagining it, but he always shies away, thinking it may become something he’ll want to revisit and he didn’t want Gerard to feel he was trying to hog their spotlight and interests. He feels he already hogs their space from time to time, an insecurity he’s working to shake.
“Like . . . put me onstage?” Frank asks.
“Not if you don’t want to,” Gerard rushedly clarifies. “It can be something just for you and I to see. I mean, if you wanted to go onstage, I could always fix up a routine for us. We’d have to come up with a real catchy stage name for you first.”
“One step at a time.” Frank laughs nervously, stomach in knots just from picturing it. He ruminates for a moment, meeting the hopeful twinkle in Gerard’s eyes and deciding he doesn’t have the heart to squander it— or eliminate his own wanting, for that matter.
“Okay,” Frank agrees, heart jumping. “But I can’t do the heels. That’s your thing, my ankles can’t fucking handle the stilts you buy.”
“Don’t worry, fair maiden, I can just carry you around if your ankles stop working.”
Frank takes a pillow to lightly hit their side with, eliciting a peal of loud laughter from them before they take his hands to bring him to his feet.
—
Frank is immediately overwhelmed by the amount of makeup Gerard spreads out over the counter. Until he counts each one and realizes it isn’t as daunting as he thinks; they’re only duplicates of each other and ranges of shades, multiple tubes of lipsticks and round palettes of blush, pots of eyeshadow going from the deepest pitch to a shimmery spring-like pink Frank remembers seeing glisten across their eyelids.
“Headband time!” Gerard takes a fluffy lavender headband and slides it over Frank’s forehead and back to guide his hair away from his face. They tip his face up with a finger under their chin, making his cheeks grow warm at the gesture, and they beam down at his clear blend of nerves and excitement.
“What even are you putting on me?” Frank eyes the makeup curiously.
“It’s a surprise.”
“If you pull one of those pranks on me and make me up like a fucking clown—”
Gerard breaks out into another clear and joyful laugh, eyes crinkling from the wideness of their grin. “If I really wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have gone through the effort of pulling out some of my most expensive products from their dungeon.”
“Dungeon?”
Gerard's smile simmers down to a bashful smile as they rummage through the makeup, lashes touching the tops of their cheeks, a soft chuckle filtering through their nose. “It’s a drawer I hardly open unless it’s a special occasion. So I call it a dungeon because they’re locked away, cold and abandoned until I come around and pull them out.”
“You’re fucking adorable.” Frank addresses his admiration as much as possible instead of holding his tongue like he once did. Although he had good reason to, there’s moments where he wishes he could’ve let it burst through the way it desired when it was hammering at his chest, demanding freedom. He has access to express himself however he pleases whenever he wants, so his new plan is to voice his affection each time it strikes him like this; a sunbeam shining through a heart of glass, warm and molten filling him up from the inside out.
Gerard’s shy smile turns softer. They don’t respond to the compliment, but Frank knows it stays with them when their hands fumble collecting their needed cosmetics, pink filling their cheeks like a fresh strawberry stain.
They turn to Frank once they’re finished, examining his face like an artist considering their canvas. They take a jar of some unknown substance, maybe moisturizer, and Frank has no warning before they’re dipping their fingers in and applying a chilled glob to his cheek. He yelps and they laugh, spreading the moisturizer into his skin with gentle strokes.
“Sorry, but beauty is suffering sometimes.” Gerard presses an apologetic kiss to his forehead. “It’ll be worth it. I’m gonna make you look so pretty.”
“I wasn't pretty before?” Frank pouts. Gerard hums, leaning down to quickly peck his protruding lower lip.
“You’re always pretty, Frankie.” Something about their caramelized tone makes Frank feel dizzy. The next time a cool dollop of moisturizer touches his skin, he’s grateful for the sobering coldness sucking the heat from his flushing cheeks.
Frank grows used to the temperature and feels the adjustment, even finding solace in the gentleness of Gerard’s fingers applying an additional primer over the moisturizer, just so there’s fewer chances of the makeup cracking, so they claim.
“My fucking foundation is gonna make you look like a ghost,” Gerard snorts as they tap a small river of foundation on the back of their hand. Frank cracks his eyes open and snorts himself after finding the porcelain hue of the makeup that matches Gerard’s fair complexion just fine, but Frank’s own skin tone takes a more honeyed hue. He hadn’t realized just how pale Gerard’s skin is until he studies the makeup that’s nearly white and thinks back to every performance of Gerard’s where their makeup never looked unflattering.
“I’ll blend it with some liquid bronzer, don’t worry. Let that be another reassurance that I’m not turning you into a clown.” Gerard takes the bronzer to blend the two products together, creating a more suitable hue, and Frank arches an impressed eyebrow. They begin to gently pat it into Frank’s skin with a new sponge and Frank nearly cringes away from the texture plastering to his face.
“This stuff feels sticky, how can you stand leaving it on for hours?” Frank wrinkles his nose at the feeling of it being patted along his face.
Gerard tuts. “C’mon, it’s not that bad. You’re just a baby.”
“ Gerard ,” Frank whines when it goes underneath his eyes and he swears he can feel it collecting in the creases there before Gerard smooths it over.
“Once it settles into your skin and I powder you up, it won’t feel so tacky. This is one of the lightest brands I’ve ever owned. You wouldn’t survive using any of the stuff I started out with. The cheapest thickest paste at the drugstore. I looked like a cake by the end of the night.” Gerard resumes gently patting the makeup into place and the comparison they make brings Frank’s mind to wandering, a suitable distraction.
There’s a yearning that rises in him when Gerard subtly mentions the beginning of their drag, going unsettled from how few details he truly has in comparison to all the history that must be waiting to be told. Frank never pushes, but his raging curiosity thinks now it the best opportunity to finally gently dig in and get his answers.
“You’re sure you don’t have any pictures from when you started? Anything?” Frank blinks open his eyes and looks up, mustering his best puppy-dog eyes in hopes of coaxing out the chance Gerard may be keeping something hidden away on purpose.
Gerard chuckles softly, tapping the tip of Frank’s nose with the concealer brush they switched out the sponge for, dotting light concealer underneath his eyes.
“Are we back to asking each other questions?” Gerard asks, their voice quiet and almost nostalgic.
“I guess we are.” Frank feels warm to return to this and it spreads through his insides rapidly like spilled ink. “I just feel like there’s so much I want to know about you still.”
“I don’t have pictures . . . didn’t think to take any. I was living in the moment not wondering if I’d want to look back at it in more ways than memory and retelling the story.”
Gerard pulls back a moment waiting for the products to settle. They pretend to be occupied with selecting a powder, toying with a jar of the translucent kind by slowly tossing it from one hand to the other. They glance at him from the corner of their eyes, their lips quirking up in a slow smile.
Pulling out a chair, they swivel it around and sit, scooting in to be so near to Frank’s face that the faint freckles around the bridge of their nose are more visible, filling Frank with the insurmountable urge to kiss each one.
“What exactly do you want to know?” Gerard twists open the powder, spilling some into the cap and taking a brush to it.
“You’ve never really told me the story aside from some small details. I just— I kind of started picturing my own version of it. So sometimes I forget that’s not what actually happened.” Frank almost fumbles with his words, embarrassed to be admitting how often he thought about it, enough to script a version.
“Your own version?” Gerard brightens, finishing up with the powder and moving onto the eyebrow pen patiently awaiting their expert grasp. “What happens in that one?”
“Uh,” Frank says awkwardly, willing himself to push back the sheepishness that wants to engulf him, and clears his throat to continue at a slow pace. “Your girlfriend put you in a dress while you were both drunk. Like you said. You pretended to be more out of it than you actually were because you couldn’t stop thinking about how pretty you looked. You kept on that note until your friend caught your interest in the drag clubs you’d walk past on your nights out in the city. So they took you to one where you were just . . . fucking swept off your feet by everything you saw there, and you wondered what it would feel like to be the one in a sparkling evening gown singing to all those people staring at you like you hung the moon. You didn’t really know what that meant just yet, so you kept coming back and studying the people there, their movements and their outfits, maybe copied them when you were alone at home. Until one of the performers recognized that magical look in your eye and plucked you from the crowd to join them.”
“Interesting,” Gerard says pensively, faint amusement like a blooming flower bud coloring it softly. “Well I bet you’re pleased to know that’s pretty close to the truth.”
“But not quite,” Frank catches on, a grin tugging the corners of his mouth.
“Not quite,” Gerard echoes. The strokes of the eyebrow pen are feathery light, just like the silence that follows where both settle into a delicate pause, letting Gerard work. Frank’s heart somersaults as he focuses on Gerard’s face on concentration, tongue pressing to the corner of their mouth while they finish with their brows and move onto an eyeshadow palette resting open in their lap.
“Alright. Don’t blink or open your eyes while I’m trying to do this unless I say so and I can tell you what really happened.”
“Done deal.” Frank automatically shuts his eyes, angling his face perfectly for Gerard to begin. Their giggle is soft as the brush when it glides over his skin, surprisingly soothing sweeping eyeshadow into the deep crease of his eyelids.
“So, the dress my girlfriend put me in. I’ll never forget it. It was like, impossibly tight on me, but not in a totally bad way. It was black, obviously, an awkward length near my knees, and the straps crossed in the back. I remember those straps itched like hell. But god, it was perfect. I didn’t want to tell her how much it meant, or what I felt looking at myself in it. It was like that was just for me to feel.”
“Little black dress, huh?” Frank’s mouth curves into an instinctive smile. He had an inkling the dress would be black— he envisioned it like so.
“It’s always the little black dress, isn’t it?” Gerard enthuses. “I stole it right before we broke up.”
Frank laughs, surprised and loud. “No way. Did she ever figure it out?”
Frank senses them shrug and can clearly picture them pursing their lips. “Probably. Not like she would miss it, I’d never seen it on her and we dated for maybe two years. But anyway. I took it and altered it. I didn’t know jackshit about sewing, so I took a couple of classes to figure it out and I was able to make it a little shorter and add a slit going up the side.”
Frank’s stomach feels hot at that subtle detail. “Oh.” he croaks.
“ Oh ,” Gerard emphasizes on the word, lightly teasing as it passes like velvet through their lips and feels just as soft as the brush blending out the eyeshadow dusted across his lids. “Pretty sure all of the city got a good look at my entire thigh.”
“You wore it again?” Frank swallows hard.
“For my first drag performance. It was all I had and I was too nervous to shop for a new one. I paired that with some heels I borrowed off from the first drag queen I befriended, got a cheap dark red wig, and my makeup wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t exactly as neat as it is now. I got on that stage and nearly broke my damn ankles and thank god I was wearing stockings with how much the dress kept shifting. If I turned to the side then— yeah, a slit isn’t a very good idea when you’re putting on a show.”
A smirk creeps its way onto Frank’s mouth. “I would’ve liked to be in the front row.”
The makeup brush taps his temple to reprimand him. It only causes his lips to part over his teeth in an impish grin.
“Of course you would. But you know you don’t need to be at a show to get a good look.”
Frank knows his privilege well and takes advantage whenever he can.
A comfortable silence engulfs them for a long while. Gerard completes whatever masterpiece they had planned on his eyes, flustering Frank with their incandescent laughter each time he flinches at the liquid eyeliner hovering so closely to his waterline, the fear of it entering his eyeballs keeping him from relaxing. His smile remains situated on his lips when the wand of mascara weaves through his curled eyelashes, top to bottom.
Gerard’s face hovers closest for that specific application; lips slightly parted in focus, eyes squinting, relaxing and then not between every careful upwards flick of the wand. Frank seizes the opportunity to gaze openly at them, eyes tracing along the perfect line of their delicate nose and the length of their own lashes that hardly need as much product as Frank’s do because of their naturally lush look.
Sometimes it’s nearly painful to look at Gerard, not because they’re completely without flaw, but because even the things that would be considered flaws according to conventional beauty standards tie together so beautifully with the rest of them that they’re gorgeous in a way that isn’t easy to find. It makes Frank glow from the inside getting to observe them closely like this.
He feels the urge to break his gaze away on occasion because he thinks Gerard can see it in those moments— his butterfly in a jar that’s always resting in his chest. Tapping at the glass Gerard has reached in and cradled so carefully it doesn’t feel like confinement. Frank can never feel like a prisoner in their hold, not when he feels he’s been so free of his ordinary guard since he started speaking to them and falling truly in love.
“You’re staring,” Gerard sing-songs quietly, breaking the bubble of silence.
Frank’s flush creeps down to his neck. “What else do you expect me to do when you’re so close?”
Gerard smiles, twisting the mascara tube shut once they’re finished. They go to draw back, taking Frank’s comment as a complaint, but Frank quickly fastens his hand around their wrist. Gerard shoots him a puzzle look Frank has the pleasure of watching disintegrate when he rocks forward in his chair to capture Gerard’s lips in a soft kiss. Their taste is sweet as the sound that emerges from them, a tangled little gasp of surprise and contentment. Frank’s heart pounds, the butterfly in the jar frantically fluttering its delicate wings.
Frank knows it’s forever when he can kiss Gerard now and it still feels like the first time, he just hopes he’s in great enough luck to have the feeling requited when he’s ready to confess it.
When Frank pulls away, his breath feels ragged and warm on his own lips. Gerard watches him from half-lidded eyes searching between both of his. The wrist that Frank has been unknowingly gripping onto tightly breaks free so Gerard’s fingers stroke up his palm and hold his hand so gently it makes him ache and yearn for more of that affectionate softness Gerard has a way with.
“You’re gonna smudge the makeup off your nose if you keep at that,” Gerard breathes against his lips.
Frank shuts his eyes, a laugh bursting in his throat. Gerard leaves him with one parting peck that tingles on his lips even when they pull away with pink cheeks to rummage through tubes of lipstick, retrieving two and uncapping them to hold them out.
“Pick your poison. Red or . . . red.” Gerard shrugs.
Frank tries to shake off the dazed feeling from the kiss to focus, squinting at both the tubes in Gerard’s hands. “I like the brick red.”
Gerard’s eyebrows shoot up high. “Brick red? Your eye for color shades means you’re really meant for this. There’s hardly a difference between these two.”
“I have an artist and drag performer for a partner, you think I don’t know obscure shades like amaranth and coquelicot? Look, clearly one of them is brighter than the other.” Frank taps the one on the right matter-of-factly.
Gerard huffs. “Nerd.”
“I learned from the queen of nerds.”
Gerard feigns offense, breaking off into laughter almost instantly after Frank does. They scoot in again, this time with their ankle hooking around Frank’s and their knees pressing into his, and their index finger tapping Frank gently on the lips takes him by surprise. His lips part on instinct and Gerard hums with approval, bringing the lipstick to his lower lip first to drag it across his skin.
It feels sensitive and the makeup is thick, smelling faintly of cheap plastic vanilla, but something about it enlivens Frank with a quick thrill bolting up his spine. He meets Gerard’s gaze when the color is transferring to his skin and he’s thoroughly pleased watching how Gerard’s eyes darken a tad in the process, their throat moving around a swallow. Frank wonders what he looks like— if this is obscene or beautiful or a tantalizing combination of both.
Frank’s relieved when the lipstick application is over because he was bordering on springing out of the chair and clumsily climbing into Gerard’s lap to tarnish the seamless layer of lipstick and smear it over any bit of their skin he can reach. He takes a deep breath to settle himself down.
“Perfect,” Gerard murmurs with satisfaction. Moving onto blush, Frank watches them take a fluffy brush and dip it into the pan, picking up a slightly peachy rosy shade to sweep it across Frank’s cheeks. He doubts he needs it with how flushed he feels.
“The dress . . . what did you ever do with it?” Frank returns to the topic to rid himself of the lingering heated feeling that pooled in his stomach.
Gerard’s eyes sparkle. “I still have it.”
“And you haven’t shown it to me?” Frank exclaims, nearly bolting out of his chair.
“We haven’t exactly had this discussion in full yet, before you attack me. It’s put away with the rest of my drag clothes. It’s kind of like a good luck charm, even though I haven’t touched it in years. I doubt it still fits.”
Frank’s excitement brews in him so vastly that he can’t help what he asks next and still doesn’t regret it when it tumbles free. “Can I see it?”
Gerard opens their mouth to answer, but takes a pause, as if something dawns over them. Their eyes widen with delight. “Do you want to wear it?”
Frank’s heart sinks and kicks its way back up in a deep stroke of surprise.
“Gee,” Frank stammers. “I— fuck, I couldn’t. That’s like, your special dress.”
“You’re special to me too, Frankie.” Gerard’s expression is soft, warming Frank in all the right places. “I think you’d look more beautiful in it than I ever did.”
“Nothing is more beautiful than you.” Frank says it so quickly, a natural instinct. Gerard frowns, shaking their head and reaching out to gather both his hands in theirs. Their skin is soft and warm against Frank’s that steadily grows clammy at the thought of having something with so much importance slipping over him. He doesn’t know if he’s earned the right to do more than appreciate it at a distance.
“C’mon, honey. I want you to wear it. What if I put it that way?” Gerard pulls out all the stops with irresistible doe eyes penetrating through Frank’s hesitation and weakening him. Damn, his knees feel wobbly and he isn’t even standing.
“Bold words from someone who knows I’d do anything they ask for.” Frank mutters. Gerard giggles brightly, squeezing his hands before letting go.
“Exactly. We’re almost done here, then we can move onto hair and I’ll pull out the dress. You’re sure about no heels? You have fucking perfect calves for them.” Gerard’s eyes track down Frank’s legs.
“Don't look at my calves. And yes, I cherish my life and my ankles, wimpy as they may be.”
Gerard takes a bottle of setting spray, shaking it up with a smirk fixed on their lips. “Close your eyes and hide your calves. This is gonna be a little cold.”
—
When Gerard unearths the dress, Frank is in awe. It certainly isn’t the finest quality, and the alterations made to it are visible with slightly crooked thread and the too-high angle of the slit in the side, but it’s Gerard’s, so none of that matters. It smells of their perfume and dust from being packed away for years, the material is a tad stretched out from where it rested too tight against their body. The fabric is cool to the touch when Frank reaches out and touches it with an admiring hand, picturing the way this must have clung to Gerard and brought out something within them that was destined to change their life for the better.
Frank struggles to pull it on over himself in the bathroom. He insisted he didn’t need help despite Gerard’s continual offers, but only because he wants them to witness the perfection and none of the flaws in between which come with wrestling into the tight dress and combatting the tangle of the straps in the back. The stoned fishnet tights had been enough of a hassle, his toes getting caught in the webbing and his balance faltering every time he needed to tug them upwards all while being careful not to rip any tears into them.
By the time Frank has wrangled himself into the dress and tights, he’s crimson in the face and panting. His wig has by some miracle managed to stay intact with all of Gerard’s clever pins and tricks to keep it from sliding off, a silky mass of dark waves that tumble over his shoulders and tickle the bare skin of his back that isn’t obscured by the pinching straps of the dress. Gerard was right— it isn’t as obscenely short on him due to the slight difference in height and the lack of heels, but it still makes him blush tracing the hem settled on his thighs.
Frank makes it a mission not to look in the mirror until Gerard has seen him fully completed. He wedges his feet into the black pumps Gerard lent him, rearranges his cascading hair, and takes a deep shaking breath before waltzing out the door.
Gerard is eagerly awaiting him, having pulled out a rolling chair into the center of the bedroom to be ready for his presentation. Frank takes great satisfaction in the fact their mouth pops open and their face is engulfed by flames even as he stumbles out as awkwardly as he does, making a poor attempt at modeling. Frank can’t help the endless tumble of bashful laughter that falls from him as he turns this way and that, holding out his arms to do a spin and nearly stumbling in these unfamiliar shoes.
He strikes a pose, one hand on his hip that he tilts out and the other on the doorway, crossing one ankle over the other. He tries his best at mimicking Gerard’s stage voice when he says, “How do I look?”
Gerard looks comically baffled by the almost spot-on impression. Which causes the two to burst out into gut-aching laughter, Frank collapsing out of his pose to hold his stomach. It takes a moment for them to regain their breathing and to fall out of laughter, but the chuckles remain, even as Frank crosses the space between them stop in front of Gerard with his hands smoothing out the dress.
“You know, I don’t see how you didn’t know the slit would cause problems.” Frank touches the place where the fabric splits and reveals a large portion of thigh. “I can feel a breeze in places I’ve never felt a breeze before.”
Gerard covers a giggle with two hands over their mouth. They reach out to settle an anchoring hand on his hip while the other tugs down the skirt more, the warmth of their skin sinking through the fabric and nearly making Frank wobble all over again.
“Believe it or not, it fits you a little better than it fit me.” Gerard circles Frank into their arms, tipping their head back to smirk up at him. “And by the way, you look way hotter in it.”
Frank turns his head as if that could make his deep flush escape Gerard’s notice. His eyes catch on the frame of the full-length mirror hung on the wall, lingering.
“Can I see myself?” He asks.
“Of course!” Gerard practically bounds up, more enthusiastic than Frank who is in a crossfire between excitement and nerves.
He fidgets on his way to the mirror, Gerard’s hands covering his eyes until he’s brought to a steady halt.
“You’re gonna freak,” Gerard says lightly. “Okay, take a look.”
Gerard’s hands lift away from Frank. It takes a moment for him to lock eyes with his own reflection and swim past the bizarre confusion that comes with meeting an image in the mirror that doesn’t align with what he’s used to seeing. Until he points out the similarities in his features, but even then, a shocked single laugh rattles through his body when he drinks himself in entirely.
He looks . . . beautiful. It’s alien to describe himself with a word he reserves for Gerard, but it’s the first thing that resonates in his racing mind as he scrambles to keep up, to process that this is him he’s looking at in the mirror. The makeup isn’t as harsh as he believed it would look on his face; it softens it significantly, shimmery shadow following the smoky cut crease and intricately winged eyeliner bringing out the doe-eyed roundness of his hazel eyes, the color shining through more vividly with the color of the dark hair framing his face and the red at his lips that seem fuller and lush.
The dress sits snug on his body, but it brings out a pretty silhouette and makes the fact that he has truly awesome hips stand out. Even if he doesn’t quite have all the curves to fill it out, especially in the chest area, he somehow makes this work with the appearance of his legs in the fishnets and the dramatic tumble of hair falling down his back.
He finds himself wanting to go further. Cutting down the dress’s length, switching the hair out for a deep scarlet, experimenting with glitter pressed to his eyelids and an obscene amount of gloss to his lips. It startles him— but in the same vein, he feels dangerously alive.
“Oh my god,” Frank nearly squeaks. “You’re in huge fucking trouble.”
Gerard’s face falls. “Why?”
“I think you just awakened something in me.”
Gerard practically squeals at the news, settling their arms around Frank’s waist to lean their head against his. “Well maybe whatever just awakened in you would like to come out and say hi to Joy next time she’s all dressed up and ready to go.”
Frank shudders at the excited thrill he receives even picturing it. It’s one thing to have ever imagined getting to stand in Joy’s presence, it’s another to have reached the point where he can coexist with her, looking just as beautiful.
“Maybe,” Frank says thoughtfully, drifting. “Maybe someday. For now I think I’d prefer to experiment here with you. In private.”
“We can experiment as much and as often as you want, Frankie.” Gerard kisses the side of his head. “You’re beautiful, you know that?”
Frank smiles bashfully, fastening his hands over Gerard’s threaded together over his belly. He strokes their skin, watching the flutter of his own eyelashes every time he blinks, the slight part of his vivid red lips. He feels warm watching himself, strangely affectionate— he thinks he can grow used to this.
“Yeah,” he whispers. “I do now.”