you'd be forced to face yourself
you’d be forced to face yourself
bandom, R, Frank/Gerard/Jamia, ~3200 words.
Written for withoutmaps because we both have boundary issues and a kink for threesomes. Title drawn from a line in The Dresden Dolls’ “Modern Moonlight” which shaped the backbone of the story: “stripped of your equipment you'll be forced to face yourself…”. Oh, and not insubstantially inspired by this photo from Projekt Gaymolution, but not really set during PR. I swear to god, I don't normally do POV-switches, but it REALLY works best for this fic.

Thanks to bunnymcfoo for the beta. Posted as a part of 14valentines. [Day 5] Sexuality

( Gerard and Frank pretend better than she does, pretending because they don’t know or can’t see it or some fucking thing. )


*

[Frank]

"FUCK, Frank."

Jamia's voice is breathless in his ear as she pulls him into a corner backstage seconds after he steps off. It's kind of shadowy, but not nearly shadowy enough for the voice coming from her mouth.

Frank feels the air shift as Jamia's lips press roughly against his, her breathing rough and jagged as if they've been fucking for hours. She bites and licks her way into his mouth and Frank's never fully understood why this fucking amazing woman sticks around, but he is willing to trade his soul to be able to do this for the rest of his life.

Jamia's chest is heaving as she presses against him more, her hand cupping his still-show-hard dick as she breathes into his ear: "God, you are so fucking dirty.”

“Huh?” Frank blinks, his high bleeding into confusion.

“You love it," Jamia continues, her voice rough and her body blocking his. "You love the attention, you love walking up to him in front of thousands of people and just taking, don't you?"

Frank's breath catches in his throat as his ever-hardening dick supports her theory. They've never talked about what he and Gerard do on stage. Jamia's a musician, she knows the difference between stage and reality and maybe he's let her believe that same division exists for the whole thing, but it's not the same as lying, right?

He loves her more than he loves breathing, but he wants Gerard. It's been true forever, since the first time he saw Mikey's weird older brother pick up a mic and work a crowd.

He doesn't have any idea how to reconcile that with the fact that Jamia is seriously the best thing that ever could have happened to him. Because he doesn't want her less because of the Gee thing, he wants her as much, more, different.

And it got worse, not better, when he realized that the Stage Gerard was only a tiny bit of the awesome that is everyday, normal, geeky Gee. The attraction didn’t shift, it didn’t go away. It's woven into life, now. It just is, it doesn't have to be talked about.

Except, apparently, it does. "You don't want to take him, though, do you? You want him to take you." Her voice is still husky and turned on, her mouth still near his ear as she roughly pulls down his zipper, her body blocking him from view. Seriously, Frank is in love with the most amazing woman ever. "You want to be pressed up against a wall with his fingers in your ass. You want him to fuck your mouth backstage, you want to beg, don't you?"

Frank can't deny it, won't deny it. He doesn't talk about it, but he won't lie. He’s fully intent on staying silent until Jamia cups his dick a little harder and just squeezes at the base. “Frank, answer me,” her voice is a warning. Don’t lie is in there somewhere, unspoken and behind it all.

"God. Yes. Yes, fuck, yes." He moans a little as her hand wraps around his dick and pumps.

"Shhhh," she hisses. "Quiet. Someone might hear."

Oh. God. Frank bangs a little against the wall as his head falls back. She knows that he has a … thing. For getting caught.

“I want to see that. I want to see Gerard fuck you and then I want to fuck you,” she grips his dick hard, harder than any girl ever has and she pumps as she hisses into his ear. “I want us to take turns with you until you can’t fucking move and then maybe I’ll blow him while you watch.”

Frank’s groan is muffled by Jamia’s mouth, her cupped hand catching most of the come that isn’t on the bottom of his shirt.

Frank is gasping, his head spinning from more than an orgasm. Jamia tucks his dick back into his pants and zips him back up. She leans in and kisses him, almost chastely, in contrast with her hand wiping on the inside of his shirttales.

“Think about it,” she smiles and just … walks away.

Frank may never think about anything else ever again.

*
[Jamia]

Jamia isn’t particularly kinky, it’s not that.

Well, okay. So if pegging or blindfolds or voyeurism or exhibitionism or liking to watch Frank tug against restraints is kinky, maybe she’s a little kinky.

But Jesus. Frank is, like, divinely designed for restraints. And Jamia’s grandma taught her that God didn’t make mistakes.

Kink or not, none of that is encouraging her to force Frankie’s hand on this Gerard thing. She really doesn’t particularly get off on threesomes – she’s tried them before, with her high school girlfriend and her best friend during their sophomore year of high school and once with a couple of guys she met while Frankie was on tour, when they were allowed to fuck other people. They were fun, sure, and she won’t deny that there was a bit of a flavor of forbidden in both experiences. There were hips and lips and wetness everywhere, which was both hot and oddly confusing. But while the idea of threesomes is pretty damn hot, she is fully aware that the reality can be vastly, vastly different.

But Jamia isn’t stupid. She’s not stupid, she’s not blind, and she’s tired of pretending that she doesn’t see what’s between Frank and Gerard. Because, really, it’s been seven goddamn years and if it was going to go away, it would have.

It hasn’t. So fuck it.

Gerard and Frank pretend better than she does, pretending because they don’t know or can’t see it or some fucking thing. But she knows. It’s more exhausting for her to excuse it away.

And really, the idea of the two of them is … really really fucking hot. Which, yeah, helps.

*

[Frank]

Jamia corners him four shows later, her face displeased.

“What the fuck, Frankie?” she hisses, her voice sounding close to the way it did the other day, his hips backed up against an amp again. But … this isn’t the same voice. Frank is pretty sure that she’s actually pissed.

“What?” he says, his voice weak. Maybe she’ll let him pretend.

“Don’t,” she shakes her head. Yeah, apparently not. “Gerard, Frankie. Gerard.”

Yeah. Really, really not.

“I thought you were joking,” he says weakly.

Jamia’s eyes narrow as she grabs the front of his shirt and drags him closer to her. Her voice drops. “You thought I was joking? When I told you that I wanted to watch you fuck your friend? While my hand was down your pants next to an amp thirty seconds after a show? What kind of joke would that be?”

“Ughnah,” Frank groans, dropping his head a little bit. There are actually not words for conversations like this. None.

“Get on it, Frank,” Jamia says, her other hand coming up to quickly stroke his cheek. “Get on it or I’ll do it.”

She walks away. He watches her go (he really does like to watch her go, she has amazing hips) and gasps a little.

He’s actually going to have to say something. Jamia doesn’t make idle threats.

*

[Gerard]

Another long-ass drive to another city – this time, it's St. Louis. The only difference is that it’s one of the rare days that they have a night off and a hotel room that night. Gerard is celebrating by chain smoking and sketching out the storyboard for the next Umbrella Academy.

His celebrations are, maybe, a little tame these days.

Frank is yawning when he joins Gerard in the back lounge, rubbing at his face as he tugs on a Sleater-Kinney sweatshirt that he must have stolen from Jamia.

Gerard’s smile should be small enough that it’s not noticeable, but Frank notices. He sticks his tongue out, scrubbing a hand through his hair as he flops on the couch next to Gerard, nearly upsetting a sketchbook, a couple of potentially-clean pairs of socks, and Gerard’s coffee.

“Gee.” His voice is scratchy with sleep and cigarettes. He reaches over and snags the still-burning cigarette out of the ashtray and fits himself comfortably against Gerard’s side.

Gerard waits for the rest of the sentence, but Frank is apparently done, smoking in silence and tapping his fingers on Gerard’s leg. Gerard raises an eyebrow and returns to his sketching, his arm raised a little to accommodate Frank’s shoulders.

Frank finishes his cigarette (Gerard’s cigarette) and, after stubbing it out, burrows his head in Gerard’s shoulder.

His breath slows and, a little while later, so does Gerard’s.

Gerard hadn’t felt tired, but … Frank looks comfortable. And it’s not like he’d go absolutely anywhere that Frank leads, but.

Sometimes Frank has good ideas.

*

Gerard wakes up a little later with Frank draped all over him, his breath huffing against Gerard's face. Somehow, in the course of sleep, they've managed to tangle their legs and arms with Frank on top of Gerard.

It's only after waking up enough to realize just how pretzeled together they are that Gerard realizes that Frank's breathing is way too fast for him to be asleep.

"Frankie?" Gerard asks, his voice worried. Maybe Frank's in the middle of a nightmare or maybe he's freaked out because Gerard's half-hard dick is pressed against his leg or …

"Gerard, I'm not freaking out," Frank mumbles into Gerard's chest. Gerard blinks. Is Frank psychic?

"No." Frank sighs, moving his head a little and cracking his neck. "You're doing that nervous thing where you think out loud."

Oh. That makes sense.

Gerard feels Frank's smile against his neck, Frank's arm tightening around Gerard's side. Frank's breath is still coming a little too fast and his heart is beating harder than Gerard remembers hearts beating.

"I'm gonna kiss you now," Frank mumbles into Gerard's neck.

The agreeable noise is instinctive. Gerard dares anyone to have a sleepy, warm Frank Iero draped all over them, talking about kissing, and not make agreeable noises. It's only when Frank's lips press against Gerard's that he realizes what he's agreeing to.

It doesn't mean that he stops it immediately, but he likes to think that he stops it pretty inhumanly quickly.

"Fuck, what?" he gasps, pulling his head away. "No, you … we … can't … Frank. Jamia."

Gerard wiggles quickly out from underneath Frank, moving at a half-run back to the recording studio in the back lounge, the only door in the entire bus that locks.

He hears Frank's voice fading behind him, saying something like "…her idea."

That doesn't make any sense.

Jamia's going to kill him.

*
[Jamia]

Jamia's going to kill Gerard.

Apparently, Gee freaked when Frank made his move, which isn't that surprising, but makes everything so much more annoying.

She's going to have to take care of this herself.

Jamia meets up with them in St. Louis. It's not that much of a pain in the ass, really – she's totally been planning on meeting up with the tour for a couple of days anyway, but she's going to have to run a whole bunch of damage control now, which is super tedious.

It's more annoying when Gerard actually runs away from her in the venue. For real. Runs. Shoves Ray at Jamia and runs away, his hands flapping.

Fucking Gerard.

She catches him a hallway and a half later – the advantage to her actually quitting smoking while Gerard and Frank have been "quitting" is that Gee loses his breath way before she does. She finds him gasping in a hallway, propping himself up against the wall for support.

"Gerard," she says, her voice a warning. "Stop running away from me."

"But you … Frank … kick my … fuck …" Gerard gasps, his face a very unsexy shade of red and his chest heaving.

"Gerard," Jamia says, maybe a little affectionately. "You're a fucking idiot."

"I …" Gerard wheezes, still catching his breath in a very non-metaphorical way. "I'm a what?"

*

[Frank]

Apparently, Jamia is better than anyone ever in terms of talking Gerard down from his self-imposed cliffs. The only reason that Frank knows this is that Gerard actually shows up, his hands fisted in his hoodie and his face flushed, at the door to their hotel room that night.

"Jamia says I am a fucking idiot," Gerard says with no preamble and a little bit of whine in his voice.

Frank blinks. This is not exactly how he imagined this going. "She said …?" he trails off, his voice raising toward the end of the question like he's actually finished it.

Jamia's hands flatten on Frank's hips, moving him subtly to the side to let Gerard into the door.

"Close the door," he hears her saying as he stares at Gerard some more. Gerard. Who is in his room. With his face down the way it's always down when he's about to hook up with someone and doesn't know if they're going to say yes.

Whether or not Frank has taken advantage of that face, it doesn't mean he doesn't know it.

"Gee," Frank says, his voice softer than Jamia's. "It's okay. Close the door."

*

[Gerard]

So. Um.

Frank and Jamia are hot.

Like. Really. Super, fucking, amazingly, seriously. Hot.

So it’s not as hard as Gerard thinks it should be to decide to walk in their room and close the door.

The minute he does, he has an armful of Frank and an eyeful of Jamia. Frank is lickingbitingnipping at Gerard like some kind of fucked-up welcome committee, while Gerard stares at Jamia, frozen.

She smiles.

Jamia smiles and reaches over and brushes a finger across Gerard's mouth, like a blessing or a favor or a gift. And, really, Gerard is a strong man, is a good man, but he’s still fucking human and there’s only so much that anyone could expect when he has Frank Iero kissing his neck and Jamia Nestor leering at him with her finger on his lips.

He puts a hand on Frankie’s neck and sucks Jamia’s finger into his mouth.

He’s fucked.

*

Threesomes aren’t simple. There’s a reason, after all, that most group sex happens in porn, where there are choreographers and, like, technicians. Threesomes are messy and there are more fluids and three sets of limbs is a lot more to manage in one bed.

But they manage.

Hell, they more than manage. At one point, while Gerard is fucking Frank and Frank is eating Jamia out, he catches the look on Jamia’s face – pure, total glee. He knows that it’s more than the oral sex, that there’s something that’s happened here for Jamia, something different than the fulfillment of old longing that’s happened for him. Frank is making noises like it’s his birthday and Halloween and Christmas Eve, all rolled in together.

They’re all getting something, here. He just doesn’t know what, exactly, it is.

Gerard wants to figure it out, he does, but he has his dick buried in Frank’s ass and Jamia’s belly is within stroking distance and Gerard thinks too much, but he’s not stupid.

He’ll take what he can get while he can get it.

*

Eventually, even the best-matched sex must end or at least pause. They are lying on the bed, all three of them smelling of sex and lube and the new-latex smell of condoms. Gerard would love to relax into it, but it doesn’t take that long for post-coital exhaustion to be overtaken by a vague flipping in his stomach. He looks over to see Frank draped across Jamia’s shoulder, biting under her jaw. Gerard is …

Gerard is leaving. Gerard has to leave. Now.

He only gets as far as shifting his weight away from Jamia before Frank notices.

“Where are you going?” he says, loudly. Louder and clearer than Gerard would think possible, considering how much his throat must hurt.

“I’m just …” Gerard trails off, his hand waving in a way meant to indicate ‘to leave you alone with your fiancé and go die of nastyjealousman shame in peace.’

“Gee,” Jamia says, opening her eyes and flinging out a lazy arm across his stomach. “No. Stay.”

Gerard bites his lip, staring at Jamia’s hazy gaze and Frank’s insistent one.

He should say “no.” He should go. He shouldn’t stay because staying says something more than “thanks for the sex” and he’s not sure if he can say anything more than that but less than “I love you.”

He should go.

But he can’t.

So he doesn’t.

*

[Jamia]

Jamia means it when she invites Gerard to stay. She means it the same way when she invited him to come in the first place. It’s hot as hell to be sleeping in between Frank and Gerard, to feel their totally discordant breaths against her sides.

But the middle of the night is a time to be honest with yourself and Jamia can be honest. She can.

She knows this is selfish, that wrapping this up like a gift to Frankie and a favor to Gerard is fucked up. She wanted it, she loved it.

It wasn’t until that moment when her eyes caught Gerard’s that she understood just how selfish this is, though. It wasn’t until she saw the disbelief and joy and love written on his face and in the arch of his back that she saw.

She sees now.

And though she wants to wake up in the morning and have hazy, lovely morning sex with the two most beautiful men she knows, wants to watch them blow each other and wash each other clean in the shower, she knows that asking Gee to stay was a step over the line. Doing it again would be dancing past anything she could feel good about.

She could be a better person. She could wake him up and apologize, thank him, and let him leave.

She could do even better than that. Jamia could take a deep breath and be the bigger person – she could leave in the morning to go get pancakes and let the two of them figure out what she already knows. She could buy each of them a copy of The Ethical Slut and they could talk about boundaries and balancing and jealousy and love.

But Jamia’s just not that good of a person. So she will sleep and she will wake up in the morning with two beautiful boys. She will order breakfast and they will laugh at Frank making up answers for the crossword. And then she will walk Gerard to the door and kiss him on the lips and say “thank you” and she will choose only to see the light in his eyes and none of the darkness.

She will shut the door on Gerard and smile at Frank.

She will never say a word.