xojemmaxo

Title: The One Where Frank Auctions off his Virginity (Almost)
Pairing: Frank/Gerard
Rating: PG-13ish?
Summary: Frank Iero is a resourceful fucker.
Notes: Just a stupid little thing I wrote for an Anon on

bandom_meme, for the prompt Frank auctions off his virginity to the highest bidder to raise money for something important! (i.e. could be tuition money, money for a surgery, etc., etc.). I had fun writing it, it's a nice break from school and essays and school and essays...

Frank Iero is a resourceful fucker. He can make an el cheapo guitar capo from a pencil and two elastic bands; he can duct tape his knees when the holes in his jeans become ridiculous. Mostly it’s because he’s so poor – when you’re renting a shitty apartment and trying to put yourself through college by working two equally badly paying part time jobs, money is really fucking thin on the ground. He doesn’t complain, or whatever, about the standard of the picture on his tiny-ass TV, or that he can’t afford internet unless he goes to the library or the college, where they have it for free. His basic needs revolve around food, music, and affording his tuition and his apartment.

But when the rent on his apartment suddenly increases, and his second boss fires him for fighting with a co-worker – what the fuck, right - he can’t actually afford both the apartment and tuition and still be able to feed himself without, like, going dumpster diving.

And so, Frank is forced to complain.

“Fucking sucks so hard,” he tells his best friend Mikey, Mikey’s brother Gerard, and college acquaintance Ray over coffee at Starbucks. Frank doesn’t have any coffee because he can’t bear to part with even spare change - he needs that shit. “I’m so poor I’m going to have to sell my guitar to some asshole stranger who won’t even look after her right.” Frank won’t really sell Pansy, of course – if he becomes a hobo on the street, Pansy’s coming with him.

Mikey sort of hums a bit and then drops his gaze back to his phone, where he’s texting furiously. He's obviously sick of hearing Frank bitch. Okay, so Frank hasn’t been all that inaudible about the mouldy carpet in his apartment, whatever.

He swings his foot at Mikey's shin and grins at the resulting yelp and glare, then turns to Gerard and Ray, who are sitting opposite in the booth.

"Did you hear that? I'm going to have to sell my guitar," reiterates Frank mournfully. Gerard looks at him with his weird bright eyes, which, with the help of eye liner and eye shadow and his carefully cultivated cadaverous skin tone, have sunk right down into his skull. He twists his mouth around and says, "Don't you have anything else to sell?"

"Only the clothes off my back," says Frank, poetically. Sometimes he thinks that minoring in a Creative Writing Class makes him a poet, or maybe an artist. It doesn't.

"You don't need to sell the clothes off your back, Frank,” says Ray. “If you were really short of money, I'd buy Pansy off of you, and then sell her back to you once you got another job."

"Yeah, right," says Frank. "You'd never give her back. Besides, I'm never selling Pansy ever." So that leaves the clothes off my back, and maybe prostitution."

That gets Mikey's attention, because Mikey is quietly and weirdly hyper-sexual, and he looks up briefly to say, "You'd never be a successful prostitute. You need to be into everything to be a prostitute. Frank, you've never even fucked a guy before."

"Uh..." Ray suddenly looks uncomfortable. "I'm just gonna go to the bathroom." He leaves the booth, and both Gerard and Mikey lean in towards Frank in a freaky synchronised brother move.

"I have too fucked a guy before," says Frank indignantly. An old lady sitting a few tables away looks at him disapprovingly, and he lowers his voice a little. "I sucked off that one guy at the party we went to in sophomore year, remember?" he asks, directing the question at Mikey, but it's Gerard who answers.

"It only counts if there was anal penetration," he says dismissively. "With a dick."

"Okay... well, then, no." Frank slumps back. "I almost feel, like, ashamed."

Gerard cackles his weird fucking 'haHA!' laugh and sits back too. "Don't be," he says. Then he brightens. "You know, I heard about this one girl in Russia who auctioned off her virginity, to like, pay for school or whatever." He shakes his head. "How horrible is that?"

"That never happened," argues Mikey, and while they banter, Frank thinks. He could sell his virginity, he thinks, if he still had it, but he lost it in like junior year to a girl named Marnie something. In fact, he's pretty much done everything of importance in that department by now.

Except, he's never had a dick up his ass.

"Hey," he says loudly, interrupting the mild battle, "Why don't I sell my virginity?"

There's a moment of perfect silence, save for the Starbucks noises around them.

Mikey says, "You're gonna auction off your butt-virginity?"

"Yeah!" says Frank, ignoring Gerard, who's looking at him with absolute horror. "It's better than selling Pansy!" He bets he'd get a fair amount of cash for it, too - maybe enough to finally buy a car. "How much d'you think I'd get for it? What would you guys pay for it?"

"You can't sell your virginity, Frank," says Gerard in a hushed tone, like he hasn't had about five minutes to process or whatever.

"Uh, yeah I can," says Frank. "It's my anus."

"Gross," says Mikey, furrowing his brow. "I don't like that word."

"Anuuuus," sings Frank, and then gets back to business after seeing Mikey's delicious cringe. "So how much would you pay for it? Gerard?"

Gerard's shaking his head. "No, no, Frank, don't sell your virginity," he says. "I shouldn't have put the idea into your head. If you're really that desperate I've got like ten thousand in my bank account, I got it when Helena died. I can lend you some money. Just don't sell your virginity."

"I don't want your money," says Frank. Then he grins. "Unless you're willing to place a bid?" Gerard looks down into his coffee, frowning. "No."

"Come on, man, how much would you pay for my virginity?" Frank asks again. He's not giving up until he gets an answer.

Beside him, Mikey shrugs and says, "I'd pay a couple hundred, I guess."

"A couple hundred?" Frank raises his eyebrows at Mikey. "Asshole. You better beat that, Gerard."

"I wouldn't pay anything for it," says Gerard. "It's creepy." He's toying at a loose thread in his fingerless gloves, looking at the table.

"Ugh, whatever," says Frank. "It's settled.” If a tightass like Mikey would pay a couple hundred, there's gotta be some loser out there who'll pay even more than that. “Mikey, text every gay or bisexual guy you know right now and tell them about this once-in-a-lifetime offer."

Mikey agrees and Gerard starts up his rant again about how Frank has self respect and he shouldn't do this, but Frank just sits back in the booth and imagines the bids rolling in.

***

Frank's... not exactly prepared for the bids that do come rolling in the very next day. He and Mikey always eat lunch together in the small cafe' inside the small community contained within the college, and as soon as Frank meets him there, Mikey says, "Gabe Saporta bid a hundred. Pete Wentz bid fifty but that was before Gabe bid, so now he wants to bid again, I'm talking to him now." His fingers flutter and tap on the keys of his phone. "Oh, and Mr. Perry seemed interested."

"Mr. Perry?" Frank gapes. "Isn't he your psychology professor?"

"Yeah," says Mikey. "But he only bid like twenty five dollars, so I don't think he's that interested." He pauses and glances up at Frank. "You okay?"

Frank closes his mouth. "He's a professor!" he says indignantly. "And like, ninety years old!"

"Pete just bid a hundred and fifty," says Mikey mildly.

Frank forgets about Mr. Perry. "One fifty! Fuck yeah!" he says, slapping at Mikey's skinny warm shoulder with excitement. "It's only the first day!"

"Hm," says Mikey. "I think they'd bid more if they knew there was a deadline."

"Oh yeah," says Frank. "Like on eBay?"

Mikey laughs. "Yeah. A month okay?"

"Awesome," says Frank. He feels light-headed. He's going to be fucking rich in a month.

***

The bids get higher - the first week in, Pete flirts at three hundred dollars until Gabe just goes for it and raises the price to three seventy five - and as they get higher, Gerard, who Frank sees every time he gets coffee at Starbucks with Mikey or any time he goes to Mikey's house, tries to persuade Frank to call the whole operation off because it's wrong, he's too innocent, blah blah blah.

He ambushes Frank when they're at Mikey and Gerard's mum's house - where Gerard moved back to when he dropped out of college - when Mikey goes to the bathroom halfway through Resident Evil (who does that, seriously). Gerard pauses it like Mikey hasn't seen the thing like a thousand times, and when he's gone he turns to Frank and says, "I'll give you four hundred dollars to call off the auction."

Frank screws up his face incredulously. "Are you kidding?" he says, and when Gerard just stares at him from the other end of the couch, his completely serious face juxtaposed with his stupid pink My Little Pony shirt that Frank is pretty sure must be ironic enough and tight enough on Gerard to actually belong to Mikey, he sighs. "Look, Gerard. I know you don't want me to -" he drops his hands into his lap, frustrated, "Sell my soul to some guy through my ass virginity, or whatever, you bizzaro creep, but I'm going to do it anyway, man. I need the money."

"But-" Gerard looks distraught, but Frank knows Gerard and he looks distraught a lot, so he doesn't feel too bad when he snaps, "Just let it go."

***

Frank puts up posters around the college. All he does is write 'VIRGINITY UP FOR AUCTION' and his details and a sort of summary of the situation in Sharpie on some paper. He also includes a little photo of himself, just so no one thinks he might be really ugly and won't want to bid. He makes a bunch of copies at Kinko's, which costs an obscene amount of money, by the way. Because it's a sort of arts-based college, which somehow means an increase in sexuality-tolerant people, Frank feels pretty safe putting up the stupid, hot pink and black (totally punk) flyers.

The posters bring in some more bidders. Most of them text Mikey (Frank maybe listed Mikey's phone number on the flyers instead of his own), but a couple email Frank and one sends him a picture of their feet. He doesn't reply to that one.

By the end of the second week, Frank's virginity has accumulated a price of nearly a thousand dollars and there are seven people who are willing to pay - with the exception of Mr. Perry, thankfully, he dropped out of the competition pretty quickly.

Mikey seems pretty invested and serious about the project because he's a good friend, and Ray becomes a bit skittish because he doesn't want to listen to Frank's questions about sex, like, "Hey, Mikey, what if I shit halfway through?" or "Gerard, when did you lose your virginity?"

***

Frank has so many questions that he, Mikey and Gerard all end up in a teenage girl sleepover type situation, with the three of them sitting cross legged on Gerard's bed. Gerard's scribbling something in his sketchbook while they talk and Mikey's solemnly painting his nails, just to see how it looks.

"So it hurts, right?" asks Frank, acting nonchalant, but he kind of really doesn't want it to hurt. He actually sort of feels a little nervous when he thinks that in a little less than three weeks, he might have some stranger's dick up his ass.

"Oh, yeah," says Gerard, at the same time Mikey goes, "No, not really."

"Does it really?" asks Frank, feeling kind of panicky now. "What? How much?"

"Frank, you have tattoos," says Mikey, rolling his eyes. "Gerard, stop trying to freak Frank out."

Gerard looks sulky. "It does kind of hurt," he says. Frank breathes a sigh of relief. Gerard's pain threshold is ridiculous, he can't even get a needle without crying all over the place. Frank will be just fine.

"It just sort of stretches," continues Gerard, watching Frank's face intently for any sign of him having second thoughts. "And burns."

"It doesn't hurt," says Mikey again. "Don't listen to him, Frank... can you pass me those tissues over there? I just fucked up my pinky." He's scowling, wiping red polish off his cuticle, tracing carefully around his fingernail.

“Okay, so it doesn't hurt,” says Frank, handing Mikey the tissues. “I can deal with that.”

There's a strained silence where Mikey goes on cleaning up his nails and Gerard's face is looking all pinched and red from not saying something, and then he finally bursts out, “You seriously don't have a problem with losing your virginity to someone who's paying for it?”

Frank's stomach drops, like it has a problem with it or something, but the rest of Frank's fine with it because he seriously needs money.

“Sure,” he says nonchalantly. “What's wrong with it?”

Gerard says, “Okay.” Which means he's about to rant about human rights and prostitution and, like, body issues or something, so Frank cuts him off before he can begin. “You know what – don't tell me. I'm not changing my mind about this, okay, I need the money. And seriously, if you really wanted to do something about it, you would've placed a bid or whatever. I'd rather my ass cherry be popped by you than, like, Gabe Saporta.”

Too late, he realises what that sounds like – he's not in love with Gerard or anything like that, they're just friends, but honestly, he'd rather Gerard or even Mikey - though that would be weird - take his virginity than someone he's only said 'hi' to once or twice. He opens his mouth to set the record straight, but Gerard's face is flaming and he starts talking.

“I'd rather it be me as well, Frank, I mean – I've been -” he keeps cutting himself off, then he takes a big breath. “But I don't want to pay for it, I don't want it to be like that.” He looks kind of agonized as well, like it's physically painful to speak.

“Well, that's kind of the aim of the game, dude...” says Frank, then his mind catches up and he says, “What do you mean you don't want to pay for it? Is this -” He jolts so hard that he nearly upsets Mikey's nail polish. Mikey sighs and twists the lid back on it with his long, red tipped fingers. “Is this like a Pretty Woman thing?” He doesn't think the analogy is quite right, he hasn't even watched all of that movie, but he knows Gerard gets the gist of it because he has seen the movie, and he starts getting flustered and flapping his hands around.

“No, no, I don't want the prostitute to fall in love with me, Frank, I don't want there to be a prostitute at all, I don't want you to sell your virginity to anyone because I want it for free. I want -” He pushes a palm against his eye and laughs sort of helplessly. “I want to be your boyfriend, Frank. And I don't want to pay.”

Suddenly, all Gerard's lectures about how the virginity auction is the worst idea ever make a whole lot of sense. Mikey purposefully smudges a finger into the nail polish on his thumb, swears mildly, and leaves to go to the bathroom to clean it off and to wait for the Serious Conversation to end.

Frank's sort of shocked, like, he literally had no idea Gerard was pining for him, or even thought he was attractive. So Frank's either as emotionally stupid as a cow or Gerard's just really subtle only when it comes to liking someone. Probably a bit of both, he thinks absently, staring at Gerard from across the bed and zeroing in on his worried eyes and his mouth, which has flattened into a thin line.

“Frank?” says Gerard, sounding panicky. “Are you going to say something?”

“I dunno,” says Frank. He feels kind of floaty and like he could just sit here for a while, thinking about Gerard and his stupid long hair and the way that Gerard thinks he's hot and wants to be his boyfriend. “I don't really know what to say.”

If this were a romantic movie, Gerard would probably become muscular and tanned and go, “Say yes,” all intense and leaning in to kiss Frank, and Frank would swoon and grow tits, but this is real life, so of course what really happens is that Gerard stays hunched up as far away from Frank as he can, pale and scared, and Frank looks back at him, too confused about what he's actually feeling to make a decision to either kiss Gerard or leave the room. He doesn't know if he wants to kiss Gerard, but there's an itchy, impatient feeling growing under his skin, and he can't sit still so he does lurch forward – and then has to crawl a bit because he misjudges the distance between them – and awkwardly fits himself against Gerard and mashes their lips together, ungraceful and uncomfortable. It's only a soft press of cold mouths, and it doesn't help Frank decide or think straight.

“I don't know if I'm that gay,” he murmurs after he pulls away. Gerard looks blissed out and still worried.

“Then...” Gerard licks his lips. “Then I don't know. Did you like that?”

Frank rolls his eyes a little bit. “A mouth is a mouth, man. I know I'm bisexual, or whatever – but, like, I don't know if I'm all the way into dick.”

Gerard looks down. Frank thinks he's staring at the collar of Franks shirt. It's strange how close they are when Frank was all the way over the other end of the bed a second ago.

“And there's still the auction. And I need the money.” Frank takes his hand off Gerard's shoulder, where it had drifted to, and rubs at his own face.

“I can lend you money...” says Gerard slowly. “But I don't want anything in exchange for it. I don't want to pay for you. I just don't want you to be kicked out of your apartment. You can pay me back for it.” He looks up again at Frank, sudden. “You just have to call off the auction.”

“Um.” Frank's throat is dry. “I'll see what I can do?”

“Okay.” Gerard's smiling now, and he looks hopeful. Frank really hopes he doesn't fuck this up and become, like, strictly heterosexual, suddenly. That would suck a lot.

** *

Frank tells Mikey to text all the bidders and tell them that the auction isn't going to happen. Mikey actually winces.

“I dunno, man,” he says. “Gabe and Pete are having a bidding war. They're getting pretty vicious.”

“Oh, Jesus,” says Frank. “How much is it now?”

Mikey glances at his phone. “Gabe just bidded two thousand one hundred and twenty plus his favourite pair of neon Converse.”

“Two thousand dollars?” Frank slaps his hands to his face. “This is getting way outta hand.”

“I know,” says Mikey. “Gabe doesn't even have that much money. He works at a deli.”

“You need to tell them,” says Frank. “Please. I – promised Gerard.”

“He told me,” says Mikey. He sighs. “Ill tell them the auction's off. But it's not my fault if Pete thinks he owns you now anyway and tries to molest you.”

“I'll take that chance,” says Frank, grinning.

* * *

Frank doesn't get molested, thankfully. The worst thing to happen is Gabe coming up to him on his way to his Creative Writing class, tossing his head and gesturing like he's reciting Shakespeare, and saying, “I almost had your sweet little ass, Iero.”

“Almost,” Frank says, and speedwalks away because Gabe's legs are monstrously long and he could catch up to Frank in seconds.

Pete loses interest in Frank pretty quickly because, from what Mikey tells Frank over lunch, a new kid called Patrick Something has moved into one of Pete's classes, and apparently he and Pete are soul mates.

* * *

Gerard won't have sex with Frank right away, even though Frank protests that it would test if Frank is into dick or not. Instead, he takes Frank on dates (to the comic book store and the movies and to shows, which is basically what they always do, except without Mikey) and tries to woo him with drawings of gory carnage and werewolves and, strangely, Christopher Walken. Frank loves the drawings and he enjoys the 'boyfriend' stuff, too, like making out and getting off with Gerard in a whole bunch of ways, but they still haven't fucked. Frank likes being fingered, though, he likes the weird foreign feeling of Gerard's fingers, slick and callused all at once, and permanently stained with charcoal and paint, inside him.

The relationships Frank's been in have always felt so... formal, and full of boundaries, but this feels more like friendship, maybe, friends with benefits, but at the same time it's so much more, more than even boyfriends. Frank doesn't know. Sometimes he has trouble with relationships and feelings and shit. Anyway, Frank's not going anywhere and Gerard definitely isn't either.

Frank doesn't have to have a dick in his ass to know that he's totally gay for Gerard.