Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gerard’s hands were ten-and-two on the wheel, but his eyes kept flicking to the rearview mirror like the pile of cardboard boxes might suddenly catch fire.

“Do you think it’s weird if I throw up before we get there?” he asked.

Mikey, half-asleep in the passenger seat with his hood up and a gas station burrito in hand, shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing you’ve done this week.”

Gerard groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “I’m serious. What if nobody comes by the table? What if they come and hate it? What if I spelled something wrong in the bio and I get blacklisted from every con on the east coast?”

“It’s a local con, dude. Relax. It’s mostly teenagers and middle-aged guys looking for rare Gundam kits.”

“Oh good,” Gerard muttered. “I love disappointing two whole demographics at once.”

They were halfway to the hotel convention center, thirty minutes outside the city, wedged behind a mall and next to a Best Western that looked like it survived a zombie apocalypse. Gerard had gone over the checklist five times already, but he still felt like he was forgetting something. Business cards? Stickers? Dignity?

“You are bringing the Killjoys,” Mikey offered, biting into his burrito like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “People are gonna flip.”

Gerard swallowed a whimper. “God, I hope so.”

They hit a stoplight. Mikey leaned over to fiddle with the aux cord. “By the way! I texted a couple friends from a band I know. They’re in town this week. Gonna swing by and help us haul stuff in.”

Gerard blinked. “New people?”

“They’re cool. You’ll like ‘em.”

Gerard exhaled slowly, like that might calm the minor existential quake rolling through his chest.

“Famous last words.”

The convention center parking lot was already a sea of folding tables, tangled wires, and frantic nerds trying not to sweat through their cosplay. Gerard parked near the back, next to a food truck that smelled like regret.

Mikey slid out of the car and immediately waved at a group loitering by the loading dock. “Yo! Pencey Prep in the flesh.”

Three guys turned at once. One had a bleached buzzcut and a massive iced coffee; another wore sunglasses despite the overcast sky. But Gerard’s gaze caught on the third. He was shorter, grinning like he knew a secret, shaggy black hair with a lip ring, tattoos curling up his arms like smoke. He wore a vintage Misfits tee, torn at the neck, and red plaid jeans tight enough to be illegal.
Gerard had a single, devastating thought: Nope.

“Gee, meet Tim, Neil, and Frank. They’re from the band I mentioned. Ray’s here too! He’s not in the band, but he’s like...the group roadie-slash-therapist.”

Ray, taller with a frizzy overgrown buzz, gave a little wave. “Hey, man.”

Gerard nodded, barely hearing him. Frank stepped forward first, holding out a hand like he expected fireworks. “So you’re the Killjoy guy, huh? I read your zine last year. Sick stuff.”

Gerard’s palm made contact with Frank’s and he nearly forgot how to speak. What is happening. Why is he real.

“Thanks,” he croaked, then immediately wanted to crawl into the trunk and die.

They started unloading, Ray and Neil working efficiently, while Frank half-carried, half-juggled a box of merch and talked a mile a minute. He flirted with a vendor two tables down. He winked at someone’s mom. He whistled while taping down a poster like this was the best day of his life.
Gerard glared at a stack of comics.

Too loud. Too flirtatious. Too hot to be useful.

Wait.

Younger brother’s best friend. Yuck.

Right. Of course. Absolutely disgusting.

The con opened its doors at ten sharp, and the slow trickle of fans and collectors quickly became a full-on tide of backpacks, body paint, and B.O. Gerard adjusted his name tag for the sixth time and tried not to look like he was seconds from vomiting into his sticker pile.

The rest of the Pencey Prep guys had scattered. Ray went off in search of free snacks, Tim and Neil wandered toward a “DIY pedal building” workshop, and Mikey was mysteriously absorbed into a crowd of retro horror nerds. He reappeared every half hour or so to toss Gerard a juice box and make sure he hadn’t suffered cardiac arrest.

“You good?” Mikey asked at one point, nodding toward Gerard’s white-knuckled grip on a stack of zines.

“I’m great,” Gerard said, in the tone of someone being held at gunpoint. “Loving the human interaction.”

Mikey raised an eyebrow from behind his thick glasses frames, sipped from a Capri Sun, and disappeared again.

Somehow, the only one who hadn’t left the booth was Frank.

He leaned on the edge of the table, flipping through Gerard’s latest issue like he was trying to memorize it. Occasionally, he asked questions. Good ones. Thoughtful ones. He actually cared.
Which was annoying.

“I can’t believe you drew this by hand,” Frank said, turning a page. “The colors are insane. And Jet’s redesign? Brutal.”

Gerard blinked at him. “Thanks?”

“Party’s my fav though,” he shrugged.

“...You’ve actually read my stuff?”

Frank looked up from where we was flipping through one of the three volumes Gerard has brought with him.

“Obviously. Mikey talks about you all the time. Great promoter.”

Gerard smiled at that. Okay, clearly the guy cared at least.

“My hair was actually red for a little while. Because of poison.” Frank admitted with forced casualty. Like it was nothing. “You ever thought of dying your hair red?”

“I…”

But Frank was already upright, his eyes gone bright with whatever idea had grabbed hold of him. “Be right back,” he said, slapping Gerard on the shoulder like they were old friends, and then just…vanished. Into the crowd. Gone.

Gerard stared after him.
No. Sure. Leave. That’s cool. It wasn't like he was emotionally fraying at the seams or anything.
He picked up his sketchbook with unnecessary aggression. He looked up to see a potential customer had witnessed the whole thing, and was now slowly backing away from his table.

About an hour passed, just enough time for Gerard to spiral quietly into the tablecloth and redraw the same panel three times out of spite.
He was midway through contemplating whether to make JetStar lose an arm when a sudden hush rolled through the nearby booths. Not full silence, but a weird ripple of attention, like someone had released a minor celebrity into the crowd.

Gerard glanced up.
And immediately wished he hadn’t.

Frank was back.
In full Fun Ghoul cosplay.

He wore Gerard’s design like he’d been born in it: ripped black jeans, patch-covered camo jacket, fingerless gloves, neon green raygun holstered at his side. His shaggy hair was styled into a chaotic pseudo side-swoop. He even had the goddamn Frankenstein mask.

Gerard stared. Blinked. Stared harder.

Frank shrugged when their eyes met. “Closet cosplay, baby.”

Gerard felt himself go red. “You just…own this stuff?”

“What can I say? I’m prepared.”

Before Gerard could respond with something devastatingly witty (or scream), a group of teens swooped in like punk-rock moths to a flame.

“Dude, what are you cosplaying?”
“That’s sick, can I take a picture?”
“What type of gun is that?”

Frank grinned, basking. “Ask the creator. He’s right here.”

And suddenly all eyes were on Gerard.
He gave a half-wave, looking and feeling exactly like a sickly Victorian ghost.
“It’s a raygun…”

Gerard expected then to immediately loose interest once his nerd shit became too…nerdy. But to his shock, the kids started flipping through zines and asking questions: about lore, about art, about canon. It was actual traffic. From real people. Who gave a shit.

Gerard should’ve been thrilled.

Instead, he was… weirdly annoyed.

Because Frank was stealing focus. Looking hotter than the source material and acting like it was nothing.

Territorial. That’s what it was. He was feeling territorial.
Which was stupid. And also gay. Which was worse.

Frank did one dramatic pose with the raygun: tongue out, finger on the trigger, mask pushed up on his forehead like some chaotic pin-up. And suddenly there was a line.

A line.
At Gerard’s table.

He didn’t even have a banner till about a week ago, Mikey pulling out all the stops at Staples. But now, people were flipping through prints, asking if the limited-edition buttons came in a Party Poison variant, handing over cash like it didn’t burn. All while Frank winked and joked and let teenagers take selfies with him like a professional con mascot.
Gerard hunched behind the table like a vampire exposed to sunlight.

It wasn’t bad, technically. The foot traffic was nice. He’d actually handed out business cards. Mikey would be proud.

But.
But.
God, did he have to be so…Frank about it?

The pants were too tight. They were obscenely tight. And the jacket only added to it, cinched at the waist like some high-fashion post-apocalyptic bandit. He wore it all like armor. Like it wasn’t cosplay, but just how he walked through the world. And he flirted. With everyone. A girl with a cat-ear headband. A guy in a half-done Spidey suit. That was someone’s dad, probably.
Gerard caught himself watching the way Frank’s hips shifted when he leaned against the table and nearly choked on his own tongue.

“Earth to Gerard,” Mikey said, suddenly appearing at his side like some chill cryptid. “You good?”

Gerard startled. “Yeah. No. Fine. Totally good. Loving this. Loving the, uh…” he gestured vaguely toward the crowd, “the people.”

Mikey blinked at him. “You’re glaring at Frank like he ate your childhood goldfish.”

“I had a goldfish.”

“Exactly.”

“You killed him.”

“Not the point. Also, I was three, you have to let that go.”

Gerard scowled and turned back to sketching, only for his hand to immediately betray him and start doodling Fun Ghoul in profile. From memory.
Nope. Absolutely not.

He flipped the page with the force of a man exorcising demons.

Still. The crowd wasn’t going anywhere. And neither, apparently, was Frank. Gerard was going to combust. He was also going to kill Mikey.

He jabbed his pencil into his eraser like it had personally betrayed him.

Younger brother’s best friend. Yuck.
Right. Yes. So gross. Very straight…

The crowd eventually thinned out, as all mobs do, dispersing to food courts, panels, and the siren call of Funko Pop discounts.

Gerard exhaled for what felt like the first time in two hours and sagged behind the table, arms folded like a little raccoon hoarding what remained of his dignity. Frank plopped onto the other folding chair beside him, legs spread far too wide for someone not in a gang.

He was still in full costume. Gerard did not look directly at him. That way lay madness.

“Yo,” Frank said, nudging him with his knee. “You okay? You’ve been making those little distress mouse noises again.”
Gerard glared. “They’re processing noises.”

“Sure. About to blue-screen?”

Gerard huffed, but it was half-hearted. He was too tired to be truly withering.

Frank stretched his arms behind his head, popping a few joints in the process. “Hey! By the way, I'm playing a show Sunday night. My band, I mean. Pencey. Nothing huge, just a set at this little bar a few blocks out. You should come.”

Gerard blinked. “That’s the night the con ends.”

“Yeah,” Frank grinned. “Perfect sendoff.”

Gerard nodded slowly, trying not to seem too interested. A bar show. Okay. That felt…grounding. Somehow it soothed him to know that this absurdly hot human disaster was just punk enough to be playing dive bars. Also old enough, which was just a good thing all around.

“Maybe,” he said, like it was a concession. “I’ll think about it.”

Frank beamed and threw him finger guns before turning his attention back to a group of teens approaching the table. Gerard watched him, then promptly stopped watching him, because wow. Those pants again.

Later, Gerard stretched his legs and wandered toward the back of the con floor to refill his water bottle, only to pause when he caught sight of Frank just around the corner. He had his phone pressed to his ear, leaning against the wall with a lazy slouch.

“No, she’s fine,” Frank said, voice casual. “My girl’s always clingy, y’know? She freaks out if I leave for more than two hours.”

Gerard froze. My girl.

His stomach dropped. Heart. Spleen. Possibly soul.
Oh.
Oh no.

Of course he had a girlfriend. Of course. The flirting, the touching, the existence. It was just…Frank. Being Frank. Gerard turned on his heel and walked back to the booth like someone had shat on his sandwich.

He shoved the water bottle into his bag, sat down, and opened his sketchbook like he was about to perform emergency surgery.

“Oh God, Mikey.”

Mikey sat down with a bag of fries and stared at him for a beat. “Did you just find out you’re adopted?”

“Worse,” Gerard muttered, shading way too aggressively. “Frank has a girlfriend.”

Mikey blinked. “Okay?”

“I heard him. On the phone.”

“…Right.”

Gerard didn’t hear the dubious tone. He was too busy carving out a complicated spiral of emotional repression across a page of Fun Ghoul doodles he’d done that were in actuality just doodles of Frank. Plausible deniability. He would be normal now. He would be.

No more heart flutters when Frank smiled. No more blushing when Frank sat too close. No more treacherous daydreams about what Frank’s jacket might smell like.

Done.
Shut down.
System rebooting.
He flipped the page again.
Wrote STRAIGHT under it in all caps.
Just for himself. Just so he remembered.

Chapter Text

​​The first day of the con ended in a blur of noise, half-eaten protein bars, and sweaty cosplay.

The money had been… weirdly good. Like, actually good. Gerard counted the crumpled bills twice just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. Mikey confirmed the total with a low whistle and a pat on the back that nearly dislocated Gerard’s soul from his body.

“You made rent off fake people with laser guns,” Mikey said, proud in his own deadpan way. “Congrats.”

Gerard blinked at the stack of bills. “The dream is real.”

By the time they packed up the table, the rest of the band had vanished. Neil texted something about “getting tacos and losing Frank,” and Ray had already dragged Mikey off to the hotel bar under the guise of “networking” (read: gossiping about everyone’s outfits over whiskey). Which left Gerard alone with a luggage cart, a backpack, and his own spiraling thoughts.
Again.

By the time he made it up to their shared hotel room, his legs ached, his brain was fizzing like a bad soda, and all he wanted was to sleep for forty-eight hours in a cryogenic tank.
He flopped onto the bed without even changing clothes.

Mikey had thoughtfully left the lights dim and the fan on. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him.

Gerard woke up to Mikey standing over him with a Red Bull and a cereal bar.

“We’re late,” Mikey said. “And you have a panel.”

Gerard groaned like a man being informed of his own execution. “No.”

“Yes,” Mikey replied, already rifling through the suitcase for clean clothes. “You agreed to it. It’s called ‘Zines, Scenes, and Post-Apocalyptic Machines.’ I think someone called it ‘rad’ on Twitter.”

“I don’t wanna!” he shrugged as he pulled on a clean-ish hoodie and took the offering out of Mikey's hands.

“You signed up for it.”

“I was drunk on endorphins,” Gerard muttered as they evacuated the room.

“Don’t worry. You’re not even on first.”

Later, at the panel, He stood in the wings of a sad little ballroom, clutching his notes like they were a life raft. The crowd wasn’t huge, but it was enough. People. With faces. Looking.

Mikey had fucked off to do Gerard a favour and man the booth while Gerard was here. Which was good. He didn't need any distractions. He was a professional. He could talk about zines and sci-fi dystopias without mentally exploding.

The panel moderator, a peppy indie podcaster with pink hair and a tote bag that said "Support Queer Comics or Die Trying!", smiled warmly. “You’re up next.”

Gerard stepped onto the stage.

He could do this.
He had prepared. He had notes.
He had… absolutely no chill.

“Hi,” he said into the mic, his voice cracking like a 2006 YouTube upload. “I’m Gerard. I make The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, which is, uh. Post-apocalyptic.”

A polite chuckle from the crowd.
Okay. Fine. He could handle this.

He started talking about community storytelling and DIY ethics, about how his zines started as stapled pages in college dorms, about how the Killjoys weren’t supposed to be heroes, just survivors with good outfits and worse coping mechanisms.

It was actually going okay.

Until the moderator started saying: “So, your table is quite a hit right now. We hear you have a mascot?”

Gerard choked slightly on his water.

Gerard coughed into his sleeve. “I, uh… I don’t…he’s not my mascot. I didn’t hire him.”

“Where’d you find him then?” someone in the second row called out, bold and bright.

“I didn’t find him,” Gerard said, voice high and defensive, like he was on trial for something.

“Is he here?” the moderator asked, mic angled toward the crowd like she was MCing a game show. Gerard’s heart plummeted.

And then, from the back of the room, a hand shot up.

“Right here,” Frank said, way too cheerfully.

The audience twisted to see, already whispering.

Frank was still in cosplay: tight pants, ripped gloves, the jacket hanging off one shoulder in a way that was absolutely calculated and absolutely working for Gerard. He gave a little wave like he’d just been called up for a school talent show.

The moderator beamed. “Come up, come up!”

Gerard was beginning to feel bad he hadn’t picked up on her name.

“No, that’s okay!” Gerard tried to protest.

Too late. Frank was already striding down the aisle.

“Hi,” he said into the mic, winking at the moderator before throwing a grin Gerard’s way. “I’m not technically a mascot. I just like bothering him.”

Laughter.

“You’re a fan then?” asked the moderator.

“Guilty,” Frank said, flipping through a comic he’d pulled from his back pocket like a prop. “Read every issue available. Cried a little during Volume Two.”

“You did not,” Gerard muttered.

“Did too,” Frank shot back, all sweet sincerity. “The scene where Jet gets left behind at the gas station? Brutal.”

A murmur of agreement from the crowd.

Someone raised a hand. “Did you cosplay just for this con?”

Frank shrugged. “Kinda? I mean, I had the jacket already. And the pants…And the mask. And the gloves. And the boots. So. I guess…”

More laughter.
Gerard stared at the mic in front of him, wondering if he could crawl inside it and disappear.

“I’m normal,” he muttered under his breath. “I’m so normal right now.”

But Frank glanced over at him, and something about the look in his eyes (not pity, not mockery, just… encouragement) made Gerard sit up a little straighter.

The moderator asked another question, this one about symbolism in character design. Gerard froze.

Frank nudged him. “You’ve got this,” he murmured, low and private.

Gerard blinked.
“I…yeah. Okay. Um.” He turned to the mic.

They took a few questions after that, with Frank fielding the chaos and Gerard jumping in when he had something to say. It was almost… fun. Having Frank with him was like having a weird extrovert emotional support animal.

When the panel finally wrapped, the two managed to get off stage for barely a second before people came up to meet them.

“Picture?” someone asked.

“With both of you?” another chimed in. “Please?”

Gerard froze again, but Frank just slung an arm over his shoulder like it was the easiest thing in the world. “Of course. But hey! If you like the look, check out the actual comic outside. Stall thirty-seven.” He winked at Gerard. “Support indie art, y’know?”

A girl, about fifteen, looked up at Frank and asked: “Do you have a Twitter account?”

Gerard should’ve known better than to expect reprieve.

Every time they paused between photo ops, Frank found some new way to infuriate him: slinging an arm around his shoulder again like it was casual, cracking jokes about the Killjoys’ tragic backstories, calling Gerard “boss” with an inflection that somehow made it sound like a compliment.
Warm. Flirty. Infuriating.

“Thanks for reading,” Gerard muttered to one of the people who had come up to him, cheeks pink.

“Tell your friends,” Frank added, finger-guns blazing.

Gerard resisted the urge to physically implode.

Eventually, Gerard made it back to the table, losing Frank to the bathroom. Mikey had his feet propped up on a box of stickers like he wasn’t actively abandoning Gerard to the wolves. Yes, he was being a supportive brother and a great help, but he left him alone with Frank.

“I feel like I just got hit by a truck,” Gerard whispered, sagging into his folding chair.

“A truck with good cheekbones,” Mikey said, not even looking up from his phone.

Gerard blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

“Frank. I mean Frank.”

“Oh my god.”

Mikey looked up, squinting. “Hey, so, I wanted to check with you… are you okay if I bail?”

“What?”

“Smashing Pumpkins are in town. Like, right now. It’s one night only.”

“You’re ditching me to chase Billy Corgan?”

“You say that like it’s not the dream.”

Gerard opened his mouth. Closed it. “And you’re just gonna leave me with…” He really didn’t want to say Frank again. “...with the band?”

“Nope, Ray’s coming with. And Neils bar-hopping. I don’t know about Tim…”

Frank, who was currently across the aisle teaching a ten-year-old how to pose like Fun Ghoul on the cover of volume 2, caught his eye and waved enthusiastically.

“I mean,” Mikey said, “he seems to be doing a decent job running your PR campaign.”

“He’s running me into the ground.”

“He got us thirty new sales in an hour.”

Gerard scowled.

“I’ll sort the hotel,” Mikey added, already half-scrolling through Ticketmaster. “Promise.”

Gerard flopped back into his chair like a corpse. “I’m gonna die in this Holiday Inn.”

Mikey patted his shoulder. “At least die with some dignity. I’m getting pit tickets.”

And with that, Mikey was gone, disappearing into the crowd with a flash of his con badge and absolutely no sense of fraternal loyalty.
Gerard stared after him. Then turned slowly back to the table.

Chapter Text

Where Frank had reappeared, crouched down in front of a kid playing with a hobbit sword, animatedly talking through the plot of the first issue like he was narrating a bedtime story.

Frank looked up, caught Gerard watching him, and grinned.

“Mikey and Ray ditched us,” Gerard said flatly.

Frank didn’t even blink. “So now you’re stuck with me.”

“Oh good,” Gerard said. “My plan was to develop an ulcer before thirty anyway.”

Frank laughed. “C’mon, we make a good team.”

“You’re a chaos demon in skinny jeans.”

“And you’re a grumpy cryptid who draws hot apocalypse people.”

Gerard opened his mouth. Closed it.

“See?” Frank said, smug. “Dream team.”

The day managed to go well, sales even beating the previous day’s. Gerard could not have been happier to return to the hotel.

“So,” Frank said, balancing precariously on the hotel hallway carpet with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, “turns out Ray went off with Mikey.”

Gerard blinked at him, key card in hand. “And?”

“I was rooming with him. And he unbooked…And Tim and Neil are already snoring like dying lawn mowers in their room. I tried. I even knocked. Once.”

Gerard squinted. “So what, you’re homeless now?”

Frank gave a tragic little shrug, eyes wide and imploring. “I guess. Unless…”
Frank raised both brows.

“Uhhhhh…”

“C’mon,” he said, nudging Gerard lightly with the corner of his bag. “You’ve got two beds, right? Since Mikey left?”

Gerard stared at him. Then down at the key card. Then at the door. Then back at Frank’s annoyingly pretty, tragically hopeful face. He was worrying his lip ring between his teeth and…

“I hate this,” he muttered, opening the door. “Come in.”

Frank grinned. “I have slept on a merch table before, so I can handle literally anything. But I appreciate this.”

Gerard tossed his hoodie onto the nearest bed with more force than necessary.

“Anytime. You’re my current cash cow.”

“Thanks” Frank said innocently, already toeing off his boots.

They settled into their respective beds, the room quiet except for the hum of the air conditioner and the muffled sound of someone yelling in the hallway about vending machine Doritos.

Gerard lay stiffly under the covers, staring at the ceiling. Frank, across the room, was humming what might’ve been a Pencey riff under his breath.

“This is weird, right?” Gerard blurted.

“I don’t mind,” Frank said easily.

Gerard turned his head slightly. “You don’t?”

“Nah,” Frank said. “You’re cool. A little tense. But cool.”

Gerard swallowed hard. “I’m not tense.”

“You’re vibrating like a haunted doll. Ready to float to the ceiling and spray blood.”

Gerard buried his face in a pillow and groaned. “I will smother myself.”

Frank snorted. “Don’t die. We’ve got one more day of con, and I need my boss alive.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Never.”

Silence again. Not uncomfortable. Just…weirdly cozy.
Gerard rolled onto his side, pulled the blanket over his head, and screamed internally for seventeen consecutive minutes. The lights were out now, the room soaked in navy shadows. Just the soft hum of the AC and the occasional laugh or door slam from down the hall. Gerard was still wide awake. He could tell by the rustling sheets across the room that Frank was, too.

“Do you ever think it’s stupid?” Gerard asked suddenly. He regretted it immediately.

“What is?” Frank responded, sounding just as awake as he was an hour ago.

“Putting yourself out there. Making stuff. Art.” He paused. “Feels like screaming into the void sometimes. Or…like performing heart surgery on yourself in public.”

Frank let out a soft, surprised laugh. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Exactly like that. But then I see someone doing it anyway, making shit that’s weird and messy and raw, and it makes me want to try harder. Makes me want to be braver.”

Gerard’s chest went tight.

“You do that,” Frank added.

Gerard didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

“Your comic,” Frank said. “Your world. It’s not just good. It’s honest. I dunno…I see parts of myself in it.”

Gerard stared into the dark, throat tight with words he couldn’t say.

You don’t get it, he wanted to say. I wrote those characters to survive things I couldn’t name at the time. I built a world where you can be loud and strange and wrong and still worthy of love. And now you’re here, somehow real, and everything hurts in a way I kind of love.

But instead, all that came out was: “Thanks.”

Frank was quiet for a second. Then: “Anytime, cryptid king.”

Frank hummed like he was about to say something else, then didn’t.

Gerard pressed his fists against his eyes.

Because he wanted to say more. He wanted to tell Frank how much it meant. How much he meant. How he’d been watching every little gesture, every dumb smirk, every word like it was a hidden code. How he wished…God, he wished!... he could say something real.

But.

But.

Frank was Mikey’s friend.
Frank was probably just being nice.
Frank had a girlfriend.

So Gerard stayed quiet.
And in the silence, his heart did a slow, miserable backflip.

Gerard woke up to the sound of his phone buzzing violently against the nightstand. He groaned, face smashed into a pillow, and blindly slapped around until he grabbed it.

10:04 AM
58 unread notifications.

“What the hell,” he muttered.

Then he saw the first tweet.

@concrunchdaily:
@gerardway pls get me the fun ghoul cos guy’s number STAT
i’m in love and also he sold me a comic the other day

Followed by:

@skullb1tch:
didn’t realize the apocalypse twink at artist alley was ACTUALLY cosplaying from the comic?? I thought he was like a professional actor or smth. Wtf

And:

@dailycosfeed:
viral moment of the con: Hot “Fun Ghoul” punk cosplayer + “Fabulous Killjoys” awkward author at booth = power couple energy. we ship it.

Gerard blinked. Scrolled. Frank was officially Con Twitter’s favorite person.

There were photos now. So many photos. Him and Frank on the panel stage. Frank with his arm slung casually around Gerard’s shoulders. Frank grinning like the devil with a credit card.

“Jesus Christ,” Gerard whispered.

Across the room, Frank stirred and cracked an eye open. “What?”

Gerard turned the screen. “You’re trending.”

Frank blinked. Sat up, looked at the phone. Grinned.

“Dude. This is the dream.”

Before Gerard could respond, his phone buzzed again. This time: Mikey. He answered with the tone of someone already over it.

“When the hell are you getting back?”

“Heyyyy, man. Guess what?”

“No.”

“I’m going on tour with Ray.”

Gerard blinked. “What?”

“Smashing Pumpkins, man. Once-in-a-lifetime road trip. Ray’s got a van. We’re driving out to Arizona tonight.”

“You left me.”

“You have Frank!”

“Mikey!”

“Oh, also, I maybe kind of gave up the extra hotel room so you two would have to share. You’re welcome.”

Gerard went very still.

“You what?” he shrieked, quietly.

“You needed a push! You’ve been making moon eyes at him for the whole con and doing nothing about it.”

“You emotionally manipulative little bitch!”

“Love you! Have fun at the con!”

Click

Gerard stared at his phone.

Frank, still lying half-sunken in his hotel pillow, looked up at him and said, completely unbothered, “So…what’s up with Mikey?”

Gerard rubbed his eyes like it might physically reset the day. “I’m going to kill him. Slowly. With my bare hands.”

Frank just laughed. “You’re cute when you’re mad.”

Gerard made a squeaky noise only dogs could hear.

“I wonder if I can turn this into buzz for the show tonight.”

Gerard shrugged dumbly, before scrambling out of bed to get dressed. He left Frank in the room bolted down the hall. The elevator was painfully slow, like it knew he was having a breakdown in real time. Outside, the con buzzed louder than ever. By the time he got to the floor, the hallway outside Artist Alley was already going crazy.

He turned the corner…and froze.

There was a line.
Like, an actual, no-joke, winding line of people. Waiting in front of his table.

He blinked. Then blinked again. “Oh no.”

A girl near the front noticed him. “You wrote The Killjoys, right?” she asked, eyes wide.

He nodded warily.

She gasped. “I loved your panel yesterday. And the dynamic between you and Fun Ghoul? Iconic. I love that Tank Girl shit. I can’t wait to read this!”

Gerard made a strangled noise that might have been “thanks” or might have been a death rattle. It was weird that she just sort of accepted that Frank was Fun Ghoul. In all truth, Gerard had started to conflate the two in his head as well.

People started crowding in, asking for the comic, holding out cash before he even had the box open. His booth was chaos in seconds. He fumbled with the inventory, stacking zines in increasingly unstable piles, trying to answer questions with words that came out in the wrong order.

“Yes…I mean, the comic’s about survival but also, like, identity and, um…here, take a sticker.”

He was sweating through his vintage The Smiths tee.

Tim, who had shown up to help once he’d heard there was a crowd, blinked. “Holy shit.”

Gerard pointed feebly at the cashbox. “I’m sold out of Issue One.”

Tim grinned, set a coffee down, and clapped him on the back. “You’re a hit, man.”

“Oh thanks!,” he said, giddy at the prospect of being caffeinated.

“Favour from Frank, he sent me over.”

“Thank god he can’t see me right now. I’m a mess. I didn’t even get to set up the display.”

Tim gestured at the still-growing crowd. “Doesn’t matter. They’re here for the work. And, y’know. Maybe a little for the hot cosplayer.”

Gerard groaned. “Don’t say that.”

Tim leaned in, smirking. “Say what? Hot?”

Gerard threw a sticker at his face. “I will die.”

The line didn’t let up. They had to dig into backup prints. Gerard signed at least twelve sketchbooks and one forearm. Someone asked if they could Venmo him for the out-of-stock issue and just have it mailed.

Gerard debated texting Mikey for help with more prints. Then remembered Mikey was probably eating gas station jerky in a van somewhere is on his way to Arizona.

Instead, he scribbled a note that said:

SOLD OUT - THANK YOU!!

…and propped it up next to the Fun Ghoul pin display, which now held exactly one pin. It was bought up immediately by a woman, maybe about twenty, with a swoopy black fringe.

“Where’s your cosplayer?”

Gerard froze a little. Then turned to Tim. “Is Frank coming?”

Tim shrugged. “Texted to say he was working on a way to plug the show,” he said, then turned to the woman. “Our band, Pencey Prep, has a show tonight! You seem like the type,” he said as he passed her a flyer. “The hot cosplayer will be there.”

The woman went red and nodded, which was honestly what Gereard would have done. What he’d been doing all con.

Frank showed up twenty minutes later, in costume, already drawing looks from across the aisle.
He’d made some changes.

The mask and gloves were still there, but now he’d swapped out the signature yellow baseball tee for a shredded Pencey Prep tank, cut low enough to reveal collarbone and several miles of shoulder.

And the pants?

Gone.

In their place: military-issue cargo shorts. Tiny ones. Like, offensively tiny. Like, if Gerard looked directly at them for too long he was going to have to lie down in traffic.

Frank beamed as he sauntered up to the booth like he wasn’t actively committing Geneva Convention violations with his thighs.

“Hey, boss,” he said, slipping behind the table and adjusting his bandana. “Am I still allowed to shamelessly plug our set while working the booth?”

Gerard nodded wordlessly, already too busy trying to reboot his brain from the fatal error message reading: THIGHS??

“Yeah, man,” Time nodded, waving around his stack of flyers. “Gee’s been cool with this.”

“Cool.” Frank tossed another stack of band flyers onto the table like they’d been there all along. “Gotta hustle where we can.”

Gerard stared. Frank handed a flyer to someone in line and winked at a passing Harley Quinn.

Gerard cleared his throat, somehow remembering how to speak. “I’m… gonna go see if there’s a Staples nearby. We need more prints.”

Frank gave him a thumbs-up. “Booth’s in good hands.”
Great. Now Gerard was thinking about Frank’s hands.

He grabbed his messenger bag, muttered something about not dying while he was gone, and power-walked straight out of Artist Alley like his soul was on fire.

Outside, the air was cooler but not enough to chill his face, which was now in full blush meltdown mode.

Focus, he told himself. You’re a professional. You make post-apocalyptic zines about trauma and leather. Get it together.

He pulled out his phone and typed in “Staples near me” with shaking fingers.

At this rate, he was going to need to make at least twice the amount of prints. And maybe stop by the hotel to scream into a pillow.

Gerard juggled a warm stack of fresh prints and a plastic Staples bag full of posters as he pushed back through the convention center doors. His messenger bag banged against his hip, his fingers still slightly ink-smudged from checking proofs like a man possessed.

He’d gotten a hundred more copies of Volume One. After watching it sell out in two hours flat, he wasn't taking chances. He also grabbed smaller batches of Volumes Two and Three, figuring that at least some of the hype might carry over. And posters…why had he ever doubted them? He just knew they would sell. Especially the Fun Ghoul ones. He’d printed more than he thought he’d ever be able to move.

He was still mentally tallying receipts when he reached Artist Alley and stopped dead.

There was an actual security-guard-managed line, winding past three other booths and held back with yellow tape and a human wall of confused Zelda and SnotGirl cosplayers. His table looked like Comic-Con Disneyland.

Frank was running the booth like a drill sergeant in hot pants. It was the hottest thing Gerard had ever seen. He was behind the booth, barking out prices and merch bundles with a confidence that should’ve been illegal.

“Volume One’s back in stock!” Frank called. “Two and Three, too! Poster’s are eight unless you grab a comic! Then it’s five. Support indie art or cry about it later!”

Neil and Tim were on either side, handing off volumes like they were dealing contraband, each transaction punctuated with a band flyer slapped directly into the customer’s palm.

“Tonight. Eight p.m. Dirty Saints Bar. We open with a Misfits cover,” Tim was telling someone dressed like a sexy Slimer.

Frank looked up mid-sale and beamed. “Hey, the boss is back!”

Gerard blinked. “You…you mobilized an army.”

Frank gave him finger guns. “All in a day’s work, commander. Now get those new copies out.”

Gerard ducked behind the booth, fumbling with the stock like his brain was buffering. Tim immediately took the posters and started taping the display ones up around the booth in the most duct-tape-forward way possible.

An hour passed in a blur of shouting, signing, thanking, and repeating prices. Mainly, people came to see Frank in his costume. He took so many pictures. Gerard stopped thinking about his existential crisis long enough to actually enjoy the energy. He even laughed at a few customer jokes, nearly smiled for a picture, and only had to hide under the table once when someone told him the comic “changed their life” after reading it the night before.

Then, a familiar voice cut through the booth noise.

“You didn’t eat breakfast this morning.”

Gerard looked up. Frank stood there, holding out a brown paper bag and a hashbrown like some kind of benevolent demon. He looked smug and sunlit, his hair all windswept from running around, the bandana slipping a little to one side.

“I called Mikey and he said this was the sandwich you like,” he said. “And this has enough starch to kill a goat.”

Gerard took the bag with numb fingers. “…Thanks.”

Frank shrugged. “You’re doing great, you know.”

Gerard didn’t know what to say to that, so he bit into the sandwich and immediately choked.

Chapter Text

The rest of the day blurred into one long, surreal montage of faces, hands, money, and compliments. Gerard drifted through it in a haze, eating bites of his sandwich between customers and sipping his iced coffee like it was life support. Frank stayed glued to the booth, unshakable and endlessly competent, moving from customer to customer like he’d been born to run merch tables. Gerard could only assume he’d had experience from working at his band’s merch table.

It was stupid how good he was at it.
Even stupider how good he looked while doing it.

Gerard watched him while pretending not to. The mask had slipped further down his forehead, curling into his hairline, and the Pencey Prep shirt clung just right. The shorts (those damn shorts) showed off his tattooed legs in a way that felt deeply unfair to everyone else in the building. Frank cracked jokes. He posed for selfies. He handed over change and complemented cosplays and kept slipping in promo lines like "Catch us tonight before we’re famous."

Gerard couldn’t help it.
He liked him. Like, really liked him.

But Frank was straight.

And taken.
So Gerard buried it. Like always.

A girl in a black vinyl catsuit and glowing LED eyeliner leaned across the table, arms propped to push her cleavage together like a cartoon pin-up.

“You’re not selling your number, are you?” she said, voice like honey and danger.

Gerard blinked. Even he could admit she was hot. The kind of hot that made people agree to dumb things and then thank her afterward.

Frank just laughed, polite but distant. “Sorry. But hey, come to the show. I’ll dedicate a song to you.”

She pouted dramatically but took the flyer anyway and sauntered off.

Gerard blinked. “Wow.”

Frank shrugged. “Not my type.”

“Oh,” Gerard said. “Right. Loyal guy.”

Frank looked at him, amused. “To the cause, boss!”

Before Gerard could overthink that to death, another swarm of con-goers approached the table, and the rest of the afternoon was swallowed by sales and signatures and a steady, dizzying high he couldn’t shake.

By the time the final announcement blared through the overhead speakers and the hall started clearing out, Gerard was exhausted and glowing.
He’d made so much more money than expected. All his prints were gone, he’d sold out of most pins, and even Volume Three had moved a decent number of copies.

Tim and Neil packed up early to head to the venue. Frank stayed until the last second, doing a final sweep of the table with practiced ease before clapping Gerard on the back.

“Gonna go help load gear. You okay solo for cleanup?”

Gerard nodded. “Yeah. Go. Break a leg or whatever.”

Frank grinned. “Come early if you want! I've put you on the list already.”

“Presumptuous much?”

Frank just shrugged. And then he was gone.

Gerard exhaled and started packing up the leftovers, which mostly just meant sorting through empty boxes and wondering if this was real life.

As he was bundling up the tablecloth, someone cleared their throat nearby.
It was the panel MC with the pink hair carrying a messenger bag and a half-finished bubble tea.
“Hey!” she said brightly.

Gerard scratched the back of his neck. “Uh. Hi?”

She grinned. “I was gonna email you later, but…wanna come on my podcast? We do creator interviews, behind-the-scenes stuff. Everyone's already talking about the Fun Ghoul Phenomenon.”

Gerard blinked. “The what.”

“Twitter’s melting,” she said cheerfully. “You and your chaotic little cosplay boyfriend is, like, trending.”

“Oh, He’s not…”
Before Gerard could finish forming words, someone else tapped his shoulder.

A man in a staff shirt, badge marked “Logistics Coordinator”, gave him a smile.

“Hey. You’re Mr. Way, right?”

“Uh. Yeah?”

“Cool. Just wanted to say great work this weekend. You moved a ton of tickets after that panel. We’ll probably need to upgrade your booth next year.”

Gerard blinked. “I…next year?”

The man grinned wider. “If you’re coming back, yeah. And maybe invest in a team next time. Not just the hot one. We could sell out of tickets then.”

He saluted and walked off before Gerard could combust.

Gerard stood there, surrounded by the remains of his booth, his heart tap-dancing against his ribs. What the hell was his life?

The tavern was loud in the way only converted bowling alleys could be, half echo chamber, half neon buzz, sticky floors and beer breath and something electric hanging in the air like static before lightning.

Gerard hovered by the bar, clutching a Sprite like it might shield him from the crowd. The place was packed: people stuffed into booths and leaning against walls, shirts stuck to skin and mouths moving fast.

He could hear Pencey Prep already, guitars raw and vocals ragged and perfect, the kind of sound that made your bones feel loose.

And there he was.

Frank.

Frank with a guitar slung too low and his foot on a monitor. Frank screamed into the mic like it owed him money. Frank was still wearing the monster mask, now drenched with sweat and sliding down his neck, Pencey Prep shirt clinging to his chest, shorts still criminally short.

Gerard’s whole bloodstream rewired itself.

He told himself he was just here to support. That it didn’t mean anything.
But then Frank looked up mid-chorus.

And saw him.

His eyes flicked over the crowd, paused, locked. One corner of his mouth tugged up. Not a smirk, not stage banter, something private.

And Gerard felt it in his lungs.

Something shifted.

This wasn’t safe.
Gerard suddenly wanted everything.

He wanted Frank’s hands on him. He wanted to scream into the same void and hear an echo back. He wanted to draw this moment in a hundred panels and never explain it to anyone.

He was so so so sorry to whoever Frank’s girlfriend was.
But he was going to try to tap that.

Frank was looking back at him again. Holy double-take Batman!

Gerard let himself stare.

The show ended in a blur of distortion and crashing cymbals. People were still cheering as the band staggered offstage, soaked and grinning. Gerard stayed rooted to his spot near the bar, still clutching his Sprite like a talisman.

He’d just seen the sun rise in the form of a sweaty punk boy.
And now he had to pretend to be normal.

…
Actually. Y'know what? He couldn’t do this.

He turned to leave. To escape, maybe, or breathe, but didn’t make it more than five steps before a voice rang out behind him.

“Hey! Wait!”

Gerard turned.

Frank.
Still breathless from the set, eyeliner smudged and curls wild, sweat glistening at his collarbone. He stomped over like a man on a mission.

“Okay, what the hell,” Frank said, loud enough to cut through the after-show noise.

Gerard blinked. “Huh?”

“You’ve been acting weird all day. What’s going on? Do you have a problem with me or something?”

Gerard’s stomach folded in on itself. “I…what? I haven’t! I don ‘t have a problem with you.”

Frank groaned and threw his arms up. “Oh my god. You’re impossible. Dense. Painful.”

Gerarde realised he’d been caught in the act, and now very much wanted to die. He was already mentally coming up with platonic and very hetero excuses when Frank shook him again.

“Can’t you tell I’m flirting with you?”

Gerard went very, very still.
Then, quietly: “Aren’t you…with someone?”

Frank stared at him like he’d just grown a second head. “What?”

“I know you have, like, a girlfriend,” Gerard mumbled, mortified, “you said ‘my girl.’on the phone. I overheard you and…”

Frank blinked once. Twice.

And then laughed. Hard.

“Oh my god,” he said, wheezing. “You mean my dog?”

Gerard blinked. “Your…what?”

“My girl,” Frank said again, grinning now, “is my dog. Her name’s Sweet Pea and she sleeps on my head and I’d die for her. But she’s also very much a chihuahua.”

Gerard covered his face with both hands. “I’m going to walk into traffic.”

“Please don’t,” Frank said.

Gerard lowered his hands. Frank looked serious now. Nervous, even. And then Frank stepped closer. And Gerard did what any emotionally repressed, chronically anxious artist would do in that moment.

…He panicked.

“Do you want, like…a gum?” he blurted, pulling a half-crushed pack of spearmint from his pocket and shoving it between them.

Frank blinked at it. Then at Gerard.

Frank laughed. Not a mean laugh, but a delighted one. “Are you trying to mint your way into making out with me?”
Gerard wanted the earth to split open beneath his feet and swallow him whole.
“I’m trying to die with dignity,” Gerard muttered.

Frank took the gum. Popped one in his mouth. “I’d rather it be undignified.”

And before Gerard could spiral further, Frank leaned in.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t fireworks and orchestras.

It was soft. Careful.
But Gerard answered anyway, tilting forward, catching Frank’s mouth like a breath he’d been holding for years.

When they pulled apart, Frank’s nose bumped his, and Gerard was grinning so hard his cheeks hurt.

Frank stared at him like he was the last panel in a favorite comic. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

Gerard swallowed. “Yeah?”
Frank nodded, suddenly shy. “Ever since Mikey showed me your work. I’m damn near in love with The Killjoys. Then, I saw a picture of you and I was like…That’s my type”

Gerard made a high-pitched noise he did not authorize prior to it escaping.

“And then I met you,” Frank said, “and you were somehow worse. In a good way.”

Gerard leaned his forehead against Frank’s. “I can’t believe I thought you were dating your dog.”

Frank snorted. “And I can’t believe you offered me gum before kissing me.”

“Sorry, I’m a disaster,” Gerard mumbled.

“The best kind.”

And for once, Gerard believed it.

“Mikey’s gonna kill me for goin’ after his brother.”

Gerard giggled. “I promise he wont.”

Chapter Text

One year later, the con was back! And this time, Gerard had upgraded the booth.

It spanned two tables now, covered in neon cloth and stacked with seven issues, enamel pins, T-shirts, and limited-edition Fun Ghoul posters that sold out in the first hour. Frank’s cosplay had only gotten better…now complete with a leather holster and custom shoes. Gerard has his hair bleached and dyed red just for the event. Mikey had managed to swing them all proper leather jackets with the right symbols on them, and Ray had grown his hair out to be JetStar.

They’d almost put together a pin-up style calendar with pictures of the cosplay, but that didn’t make it through to a final draft.

They had a line that looped around the row. People came in full Killjoys cosplay. Some brought fanart. One girl cried.

Gerard was still bad at talking to strangers, but this time, he wasn’t doing it alone.

Frank handled the crowd like a pro, posing for photos, signing autographs, handing out Pencey Prep stickers with a wink. When someone asked if Fun Ghoul was single, Frank smiled sweetly and said, “Taken. Sorry, babe,” without missing a beat.

Gerard blushed every time.

But the real explosion came online.

Someone cosplayed Fun Ghoul at Emerald City and tagged Frank in it. He reposted it with three heart emojis and a blurry photo of the original costume, still stuffed into their closet next to Gerard’s con banner and a tote bag full of old zines.

Frank’s Twitter had a steady churn of fans yelling about his sleeve tattoos and punk takes on the costume. Pinterest boards collected screenshots of his mask tutorial videos and booth selfies.

And then came The Post.
The four of them crammed in a tiny studio. Frank holding a guitar, Ray at the mixing board, Mikey with a Mountain Dew can in one hand and a amp cable in the other. Gerard, in the corner, mid-laugh, eyeliner smudged and red hair a mess.

Caption:

Killjoys, Make Some Noise.🎶💀⚡ #Killjoys #FunGhoul #StudioVibes

Tumblr died. Pinterest melted. Twitter wept blood. Within twenty minutes, Rolling Stone was in Mikey’s inbox. Someone got a Battery City logo tattoo live on TikTok.

DMs flooded in: Are you making music?? Is it real?? Is that Party Poison in the corner?? Is this a dream??

Frank didn’t answer most of them. Except one.

Q: "Is the comic guy your boyfriend?"
A: "Yeah. He's my detonator."

And somewhere, in a centre print shop or DIYed in a bedroom, someone was probably already making shirts that said ‘He’s My Detonator’.