Part I

The problem was that Gerard was a frankenstein. The Way family had five generations of frankensteins to their name and Gerard was the best and brightest of them.

Frankensteins had that spark of genius which made them scientists and artists, musicians and inventors. The list of well-known frankensteins was long and illustrious: Tesla, Einstein, Dickinson and Bryon. Blake, Kahlo, and Feynman, Franklin and da Vinci. St. Germain, Beethoven, Mozart. Frankensteins were often also severely lacking in common sense, and Gerard was no exception to that particular characteristic.

Mikey was the black sheep of their family, just as intelligent as Gerard, but well-organized and sensible. He was the main reason why WayBros Biologic Enterprises was the success it was.

It was his responsibility to make sure that Gerard ate regularly, didn't set things on fire and didn't get lost when they went into town. Ray Toro, their best friend since junior high and their majordomo, helped but Ray's main duty was to make sure that the household ran smoothly. He cooked and cleaned, but he drew the line at doing their laundry. It was because of him that Castle Way had lights, running water and heat all the time.

Mikey was spending more and more time with the business end of WBBE, fighting off the constant maneuverings of their rival Clandestine Industries and that left Gerard mostly unsupervised.

Which was not good. Not good at all, because Gerard could (and did) get into a lot of trouble on his own.

The miniature kittens were the last straw. They were cute and fuzzy and about the size of ping pong balls. Something about their smaller dimensions made them less prone to provoking sneezing and itching and watering eyes from those who had allergies; Gerard could finally indulge in his lifelong dream of having cats as pets. He kept the half-dozen that he'd created in a hamster cage that he'd gotten for Christmas years ago and he spent hours making googly-eyes and cooing at them.

It was disgustingly sweet; Mikey thought he was going to throw up. He looked at Ray, who coughed to hide a laugh and mumbled something about scrubbing the grout in the bathroom. Traitor, Mikey thought with a scowl.

"We can call them Mittens™."

Mikey just looked at him blankly.

"Miniature kittens. . .Mittens™." Gerard did some jazz hands and smiled appealingly.

"You're not serious." He could feel his left eye twitching.

"Mikey—" There was just the faintest hint of a whine in Gerard's voice.

The Mittens™ alone wouldn't have been so bad but Gerard accidentally left the cage open and once the Mittens™ got into the walls of their castle, it was a lost cause. The Mittens™ reproduced quickly to fill the space they occupied (Asexual budding, Mikey!), were constantly underfoot and they made it impossible to get a good night's sleep, with the mewing and the purring and the pouncing.

Even Ray was losing patience with the Mittens™. "Gerard needs someone to help him." He had a broom and a dustpan and was sweeping up Mittens™ and moving them to the enclosure he'd built for them.

"I don't need a fucking igor," Gerard grumbled.

Mikey just fished several Mittens™ out of his bowl of cereal with a spoon and raised an eyebrow. He tried to wipe the milk off them with his sleeve but they just took that as another game and Mikey gave up. The Mittens™ would hopefully groom each other later. Otherwise, Mikey would have to bathe them, which was hard because they were so tiny. Maybe he could just give them a good rinse in the kitchen sink. They had a colander. . .

Gerard had the sense to look sheepish.

"You've created the cat equivalent of tribbles and they've gotten loose in our castle, and if we don't do something they are going to take over the world." Mikey pointed accusingly at Gerard with his spoon.

"Oh, hey, I totally did make cat tribbles!" He looked enormously pleased with himself.

"Fuck," Ray said, covering his face with his hands.

Mikey sighed. "I don't care if you think you don't need an igor. For the sake of our sanity, you are getting one." He stared down at his legs, resigned, as a double handful of Mittens™ started climbing him like an enormous tree.

"Mikey—"

"No." He held up a hand. "That's it, Gerard. I can't handle this anymore. I don't know about Ray, but I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep since the Mittens™ got loose." He plucked a Mitten™ off his leg with a flinch as tiny claws dug in. "The first thing the igor is going to help you do is capture all the Mittens™ and fix them so they can't—" Mikey made air quotes, "—asexually reproduce."

"Bud."

"Whatever," Mikey glared. "No more."

Ray piped in with, "They've turned into a menace, Gerard," as he cleared away their breakfast dishes.

"But—"

"No." Mikey used his most serious voice. He was done.

WayBros Biologic Enterprises, Inc invites applications from research associates for a full-time mid-level position to start as soon as possible.

The applicant's area of expertise is open, but experience with organic systems is preferred. The successful candidate will be responsible for developing and implementing original research as well as collaborating with current WBBE staff, helping manage on-going projects, writing technical reports and proposals, inventorying and replenishing laboratory stock as necessary, minor office work, and brewing coffee.

WayBros Biologics has an extensive on-site laboratory, including a Hood single molecule real time RNA polymerase sequencer, a scanning tunneling electron microscope, an inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometer interfaced to a gas chromatograph with cool on-column and programmable thermal vaporization injectors and a pulsed field gel electrophoresis set-up.

Additionally, WayBros Biologics is offering a generous compensation package to the successful applicant which includes fifteen paid holidays, two weeks of paid vacation time, paid sick leave, medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401k plan and a suite of rooms at picturesque Castle Way.

Send letter of application including curriculum vitae, official transcripts, research philosophy, and description of professional interests and goals along with three letters of reference to WayBros Biologics, Box AA, Belleville, NJ 07109

WayBros Biologic Enterprises, Inc invites applications from research minions for a mid-level position to start as soon as possible to assist in the quest for complete and utter world domination.

The applicant's area of expertise is open, but experience with organic systems is preferred. The successful candidate will be responsible for supporting the current WBBE staff in their endeavors, helping manage on-going projects, writing technical reports, interrogating spies, inventorying and replenishing laboratory stock as necessary, minor office work, and brewing coffee. Loyalty is a must.

WayBros Biologics has an extensive on-site laboratory and offers a competitive compensation package to the successful applicant which includes a suite of rooms at Castle Way.

Send letter of application including curriculum vitae, official transcripts, philosophy for world domination, and description of professional interests and interrogation styles along with three letters of reference to WayBros Biologics, Box AA, Belleville, NJ 07109

By the end of the month, Mikey had accumulated over a hundred responses to his classified ads in MSM and EOG. He managed to cull the pile a bit by checking references and throwing out the obviously crazy-in-a-bad-way applicants. From there, he narrowed down his pool by examining each candidate's field of specialization.

One of the more intriguing applications was from an artificial intelligence-robot hybrid. Zie had an excellent educational background and an impeccable employment record, as expected. Both Mikey and Gerard would agree that robots were cool and would never even think about discriminating against those of a more mechanical nature, but Mikey wasn't sure that zie was a good fit with Gerard's research. He put hir in the pile of people "to interview" anyway, just because he was curious.

Next, Mikey discarded the ones with a spotty employment history and the ones looking for an entry level job. They needed someone reliable, and Gerard was not a good match for an inexperienced researcher. The ideal candidate was someone who could (and would) stand up and say no to some of Gerard's more unrealistic schemes. Or at the very least, put the brakes on any plans that were likely to get them all thrown into jail.

"Holy shit!" A chorus of tiny meows answered him. He and Ray hadn't made much headway against the infestation of Mittens™ in his office. "Fuck, Gerard! Gerard!" Mikey shouted as he galloped down the stairs toward the basement laboratories. "Geraaaard!" He burst into the main lab and skidded to a stop in front of Gerard's work bench. "An Iero applied for the job!"

Gerard hmmm'd absent-mindedly, not looking up from the microscope he was peering into. "A who did what?"

Mikey moved closer and waited, foot tapping, until Gerard looked at him. "An Iero. Applied for the job. Our job. Your job. As your igor." Mikey was still mostly tongue-tied in disbelief. An Iero, for fuck's sake. It would be such a coup for WBBE and would look great in the annual report.

"And that's…a good thing?" Gerard tried out an enthusiastic smile but failed miserably, and his eyes kept sliding back toward the microscope.

"Oh, for the love of—" Mikey fought the urge to bury his fingers in his hair and yank. "The Ieros are one of the most infamous clans of igors in the world."

"Ah, okay. Super. That's good, then." His fingers twitched toward the microscope and he jerked his hand back, looking guilty.

Mikey was immediately suspicious. "What are you working on, Gerard?"

"Nothing." Gerard stared at the ground and tangled his fingers in the hem of the Iron Maiden t-shirt under his lab coat. It made him look about five years old as he perched there on his lab stool.

Sighing, Mikey pushed his hair out of his eyes. Gerard was a terrible liar. "No, really. What are you working on?"

"Muppies™. I didn't want the Mittens™ to get lonely."

"Absolutely not."

"Mikey—"

"No." Mikey tried to hold firm against Gerard's big-eyed pathetic look. "At least, not until we settle the issue of an assistant." He scrubbed roughly at his face. "Weren't you working on a new strain of pollution-eating bacteria?" Sometimes it helped to redirect Gerard's energy in a more. . .positive direction.

"Borrring," Gerard intoned, pouting a little.

Mikey steeled himself against it. He'd had years of practice, after all. "Maybe. But it'd be nice if you finished up that project so we can put in out on the market. Clandestine Industries just tried to patent a similar bacteria that clearly infringes on your research; I've got our lawyers working on a lawsuit."

Gerard frowned and looked at him. "Finding that particular organic pathway was nothing but luck. How did Clan Industries even come up with the same idea?"

"Espionage. They were paying someone in the post office to monitor our shipments of supplies and pieced it together from that." Mikey shrugged. "I took care of it."

"You always take care of everything," Gerard said. "Thanks, Mikes."

"Bacteria, then?"

"I guess." Gerard sighed. "Slave driver."

"Right," Mikey laughed.

In the end, Mikey decided to interview seven people. He'd had six good candidates, but Gerard insisted on a prime number and Mikey liked seven better than five. Mikey also created a list of standard interview questions that he wanted to ask and when Gerard looked over the list, he just shook his head, grabbed a Sharpie and started crossing some of them off.

"Hey, those are my questions; make up your own." Which Mikey realized may have been a tactical error on his part when he saw the glee on Gerard's face.

"Fine, I will."

"Fuck," Mikey said. What should have been a straightforward process just became so much more complex than it needed to be. Mikey wasn't sure why he was surprised. He sighed. "Five questions for you, five for me?" he offered as a compromise.

Gerard grinned. "Perfect." He wandered off toward the labs, whistling cheerfully.

Mikey had such a bad feeling about this.

When he told Ray about it later, he just shook his head sadly at Mikey, curls bouncing. "You should know better by now."

Sighing, Mikey nodded. "He just so damn sneaky sometimes."

Ray just patted his shoulder consolingly. "Well, at least the interviews will probably be more interesting with Gerard's questions."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

Greta Salpeter was a brilliant, well-educated woman who specialized in biologic computer systems. For her master's thesis she constructed a physical model of logical AND and OR gates that used the herd behavior of lemmings to operate the gates. She'd had a post-doctoral position at the Center for Unconventional Computing and had published an impressive series of papers while she was there. Mikey thought she might be a good fit with Gee because of his interest in biological cellular automata and robots.

Dr. Salpeter was younger than Mikey expected, blonde haired and blue-eyed, elfin. He had Ray bring her down into his office, where he and Gerard were drinking coffee and talking about the best way to round up the Mittens™. Mikey was thinking about catnip-scented traps and Gerard was toying with the idea of a vacuum system to gently suck Mittens™ out of the nooks and crannies of their admittedly drafty old castle.

"Hello." Mikey stood up and held out a hand. "We're very pleased to meet you, Dr. Salpeter," he said, giving Gerard's chair a surreptitious kick.

Gerard belatedly got to his feet and did the strange half-bow-half-bob thing he did when he felt shy. "Hi."

Dr. Salpeter had a firm handshake and a direct gaze that appealed to Mikey. "Thank you, Mr. Way, Dr. Way. I was pleased to have the opportunity to apply for this job."

Mikey smiled. "Well, let's get started, shall we? Tell us about yourself."

Dr. Salpeter sailed through Mikey's five questions, confident and articulate, talking about her research, her skills as handling conflict with other researchers, her ambitions, her volunteer work with underprivileged kids. Mikey was suitably impressed; he hadn't expected to find such a good prospect so early on in the interview process.

"Your resumé is very impressive," Gerard said. "I'm especially curious about your ideas on biological distributed information processing. Fascinating stuff." He shuffled through the pile of papers on the desk in front of him. "If you can bear with us for just a little longer, I have a few questions of my own to ask."

"Of course," Dr. Salpeter said, smiling.

Gerard nodded. "How many balloons do you think it would take to fill up this room?" He gestured widely.

Her smile disappeared. "I'm sorry?"

"Think of it as a thought experiment, Dr. Salpeter. How many inflated balloons do you think it would take to fill the room?"

It went downhill from there. Dr. Salpeter floundered her way through Gerard's increasingly surreal and nonsensical questions, and Mikey got more and more pissed. Gerard wasn't usually deliberately mean, but watching Dr. Salpeter miserably struggle to keep up made Mikey reconsider that.

"Thank you, Dr. Salpeter," Gerard said, getting to his feet and holding out his hand to her. "We really appreciate you taking the time to interview with WayBros Biologic Enterprises. There are a few other candidates that we need to interview, but we should be able to get back to you by the end of next week to let you know what our decision is."

Nodding, she let herself be escorted out by Ray. The minute she was out of earshot, Mikey rounded on Gerard. "What the fuck was that, Gee? 'How would you get an elephant into a refrigerator?' Seriously, what the fuck?"

"I wanted to see how creative she could be, Mikey." Gerard looked at him earnestly. "Creativity is such a huge part of being a scientist and a lot of people just don't have that spark. Dr. Salpeter is an talented woman, good at what she does, but she doesn't have that—that—"

"Je ne sais quoi?" Mikey's voice was wry.

Gerard grinned. "Yeah, that. She'll be a great asset to any company. Just not ours."

Mikey looked at him. "You never make things easy."

"I don't do it on purpose," Gerard said in protest. "I just figured, if I have to have an igor, I want someone who fits. Otherwise, what's the point?"

"True enough." Mikey sighed. "The next interview's in an hour. I'll have Ray fetch you a little before, yeah?"

Gerard looked like a kid who'd been told it was time for recess. "Super."

Mikey just shook his head.

Dr. Robert McCracken was a researcher who specialized in the biomedical aspects of exotic fungi. He was having some success in uniting Western and Eastern medical traditions, finding fungi that helped fight organ rejection after transplants and eased the symptoms of depression.

He was short, neatly dressed, with his long blond dreadlocks tied back. He smiled and he shook hands and Mikey's first impression was yes. Except that he noticed that Gerard didn't offer to shake hands; in fact, Gerard made it a point to not get too close to Dr. McCracken, and tried to keep Mikey away from him, as well. Weird, even by Gerard's standards.

"Tell us about some of your current research, Dr. McCracken."

He smiled, and something about the smile pinged Mikey as wrong. Maybe Gerard was onto something.

"Currently I'm working with Cordyceps, which is a genus of parasitic fungi. They mostly infest insects. The fungi actually control the insects to a certain degree, causing them to exhibit behaviors that are favorable to the survival of the fungi."

"But not the insect," Gerard interrupted flatly.

"No, not favorable to the insect." Dr. McCracken nodded, blue eyes wide. "I'm trying to see exactly how the fungi manipulate the host and trying to extrapolate that to vertebrates, as well." He shrugged. "Fungi have been used for a long time in traditional medicine; I'm just exploring the pharmacology of some of the more promising species."

Gerard nodded. "Interesting." He indicated Mikey. "We have a few questions we like to ask, just to get an idea if you'd be a good fit here at WBBE."

"Please, go ahead."

Mikey wasn't sure what was going on, but he followed Gerard's lead. "What do you consider to be your greatest weakness?"

The interview went smoothly, with Dr. McCracken answering all of Mikey's standard interview questions thoughtfully. When Mikey looked at Gerard curiously, Gee just tilted his head in a way that said 'no' and didn't ask any of his special je ne sais quoi questions. In any other situation, Mikey would have been pleased, but Gerard was acting increasingly twitchy, so Mikey just carefully shook hands with Dr. McCracken and had Ray escort him out.

"Emergency decontam, now, Mikey, he might have gotten spores on you," Gerard said, pushing him into the decontamination chamber right outside of the office. That was Gerard's seriously scaredworried voice. "Clothes off." His voice was muffled through the thick plexi and Mikey just did as he was told, shedding clothes as the sealed chamber filled with disinfectant. "I'm gonna flash your office, and make Ray decontam, too. Be right back. Don't go anywhere."

Mikey had to wonder where Gerard thought he was going to go, naked and shivering.

It wasn't until hours later, all three of them wrapped in bathrobes and drinking coffee in the kitchen, that Gerard finally explained.

"The fungi that he was working on had taken him over."

"Like, 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'? Pod people and stuff?" Ray asked.

"Yeah." Gerard was pale and quiet.

"How did you know? He seemed perfectly normal when I brought him down to the labs, a little quiet, maybe, but nothing that indicated that he'd been taken over by a fungus." Ray's brown eyes were curious.

"Yeah, how did you know, Gee?"

Gerard traced a scratch on the wooden tabletop, over and over. "I'd met him, once, briefly. At a conference in L.A." He grimaced. "Dr. McCracken is—was a very loud, obnoxious individual. Outgoing, gregarious, the life of the party. Like a squirrel on crack. The difference in personality was striking. And knowing that he was working with parasitic, mind-controlling fungi. . ."

Mikey shuddered. "Ugh."

"Yeah." He swallowed the rest of his coffee and set the mug down with a thump. "I was worried about alarming him, because a lot of fungi can explosively sporulate, and I really didn't think that would be a good thing. Spores everywhere, and no telling what they would have done to us." He shivered and looked into his empty mug. "I called a friend at the CDC and they took him in. They say his brain and body's riddled with the fungi, so they've quarantined him and are trying to communicate with the fungi now. They think Dr. McCracken, the person, is gone."

"Like a fucking horror movie zombie," Ray muttered.

"Yeah. Except the zombie has an alien intelligence controlling it." Gerard sighed softly. "I wonder how many people he managed to infect."

Mikey stared at Gerard for a long moment before he got up and cleared the schedule for the rest of the day. The three of them sat close on the couch eating ice cream and watching 'Fellowship of the Ring,' trying not to think of the possibilities.

The next applicant was an A.I., one of the more advanced models of extrapolative computers. Zie called hirself TRicK and presented hirself as a small, boxy, dog-shaped robot with rotating antennae for ears and a red glowing bar for eyes. Zie even had a tail.

"It makes it easier for humans to relate to me if they have a physical presence to focus on." The voice was smooth and masculine, with only a hint of metallic overtone to indicate that it was being synthesized from within the robotic form.

"I can see that," Mikey said, looking at the robot's 'muzzle'. They'd carefully lifted the heavy robot up onto the desk. "Humans definitely try to orient themselves toward what they consider to be the intelligence they're talking to. Hard to do with a disembodied voice."

"Indeed." TRicK intoned.

"I can't help but notice the shape of your mobile," Gerard said, ignoring Mikey's frantic hand-gesture across his throat to cut. He reached out and patted the side of the robot. "Are you a fan of the show?"

"Oh, yes," TRicK said, voice warming. "Very much so."

"Thought so." Gerard grinned. "Awesome."

"I also find that humans are more comfortable when presented with a familiar shape."

"Yeah."

"Okay, then," Mikey interrupted. "Tell us about yourself, TRicK."

TRicK was a fascinating intelligence. Zie had started out as a experimental computer, and once the frankenstein who'd created hir had given hir enough memory to work with, zie'd bloomed into sentience. "Dr. McCoy lobbied for my reassignment as a sentient and helped me navigate some of the intricacies of human society."

Hir research specialty was, unsurprisingly, human-A.I. interfaces. Zie was trying to find ways for A.I.s and humans to have a fuller understanding of each other, parallelling some research into human-A.I. hybrids. Communication was key, zie thought, and communicating mind-to-mind was the future wave of interaction between humans, A.I. and all kinds of computer-based intelligences.

When it was Gerard's turn to ask his questions, TRicK didn't hesitate. Zie elaborated on the possible methods of getting an elephant into a refrigerator, and explained how zie came up with the number of balloons zie thought could fit into Mikey's office. "It's a straightforward problem, really; that's what calculus was invented for. But I assumed that you wanted a more creativity-driven answer than what dry mathematics provides."

Gerard just beamed happily, nodding.

TRicK thanked them for the opportunity to interview with WBBE and Mikey and Gee both watched hir trundle away.

"If we don't hire hir, we definitely need to invite hir to come over and hang out with us," Gerard said. "Because zie is motherfucking awesome."

"Yes."

"Hello."

Dr. Alicia Simmons was the most gorgeous woman that Mikey had ever laid eyes on. She was tall and slender with curves and her fingers were graceful as Mikey took her hand in his.

She was a paleogeneticist; she'd done her thesis on the possibility of recreating extinct creatures by using genetic material gathered from the La Brea Tar Pits (Just like 'Jurassic Park,' Mikey! Except with Pleistocene mammals!). In the meantime, she'd worked with several prominent companies on fine-tuning the extraction and processing techniques. She held several patents on her work and was well on her way to becoming a force to be reckoned with in the field of extinction genetics.

"Hel—hello," he stuttered back, shaking her hand and blushing. He knew that Gerard was giving him a puzzled look, but he couldn't help it. She was beautiful, all dark hair and sultry eyes, prim business suit and the hint of tattoos under her pure white shirt. . .

"I'm Gerard Way and this is Mikey," Gerard said, holding out his hand. "We're very glad to meet you." He nudged Mikey back toward his chair and he fell into it. His knees felt sort of wobbly.

"Hello," she said again, with a small smile.

Mikey couldn't look away from her.

"So, Dr. Simmons," Gerard said. "Tell us about yourself."

She went into her background in greater detail, explaining what her current research entailed and Gerard made all the appropriate noises in all the appropriate places, little encouraging 'hmmms' and 'oh, yeses' while Mikey watched her face raptly.

"What made you go into genetics?" Gerard asked.

"I always wanted to have a pet wooly mammoth." Her voice was soft and sweet and Mikey really couldn't make himself look away from her.

"Awesome." Gerard nudged his foot under the table and Mikey forced himself to stop mooning over her and participate in the discussion, asking for clarification about some of her answers. "Have you ever had a conflict with someone you worked with? How did you resolve it?"

Dr. Simmons took her time answering, her gazing turning inward while she tapped thoughtfully at her lower lip. Mikey's eyes were drawn by the movement and it took a kick to his shin from Gerard to get him to look away.

"Well, I once worked for a professor who thought that he was entitled to claim my research as his own," she said softly.

"And what did you do? Report him to the guild?" The Igors' Guild had procedures in place for dealing with conflicts between frankensteins and igors, ensuring that igor rights were protected.

"Oh, no, I killed him."

Mikey blinked. He tried to remember if her application had come in through MSM or. . .no, she'd definitely applied through EOG.

"Old school igor," Gerard said, beaming. "With ambition."

"Yes," she agreed.

Gerard nodded and asked the next question.

"What did you think?" Gerard asked, with studied casualness. "Aside from the fact you thought she was hot."

"Super hot." Mikey toyed with his coffee mug. "I think she has too much ambition to work as your igor." He looked at his notepad and made a face at all the stupid hearts he'd doodled. He ripped the sheet off the pad and crumpled it into a ball, tossing it toward the wastebasket. And missing. "Fuck."

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too. You'd come down to the labs and find me dead with a knife in the middle of my back." He smiled and stole Mikey's notepad to doodle pictures of Dr. Simmons chasing him around the lab with a butcher knife. "But she'd still be a great addition to WBBE as a full frankenstein."

Mikey stared at him. "A lot of effort for someone we just barely met." There were forms that would need to be filled out, petitions to be filed with both guilds, fees to be paid. Letters of recommendation. "And maybe she's happy being an igor." He pointed at the drawing. "Also, a butcher knife is not the most ideal weapon to murder someone with."

Gerard sighed. "Mikey—"

"Besides, she's dangerous."

"Only if we try to screw her over." Gerard chuckled. "And you just want to—"

Mikey held up his hand to keep Gerard from making the obvious juvenile comment. "Don't."

Heaving another sigh, Gerard nodded. "Okay. But I really don't think Dr. Simmons plans on being an igor for the rest of her life, Mikey. Her research interests mesh well with a lot of what WBBE is doing and I think we need to snap her up while we have the chance."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. She's brilliant and ambitious and a perfect addition to WBBE. And once we've gotten all the paperwork taken care of, you can ask her out."

He blushed again. "Fuck you."

Gerard just grinned.

Dr. Gabe Saporta was the tallest, skinniest person that Mikey had ever met. He was also the only double doctorate they were interviewing, philosophy and physics. It struck Mikey as a strange combination, but Gerard had just nodded.

"A lot of quantum physics is philosophy, Mikes."

He'd shrugged, because what could he say to that? He knew nothing, really, about either subject. But Gerard had seen Dr. Saporta's application and had immediately put it into the "to interview" pile.

Dr. Saporta also had rather questionable taste in clothes, wearing purples and neon pinks, but Mikey wasn't going to judge, because Gerard was sitting next to him in a rumpled suit with his hair sticking up like he'd just rolled out of bed. Which, after a glance at the clock, might not actually be far from the truth. Also, Gerard's socks were mismatched and his vest was buttoned wrong.

"We're very pleased to meet you, Dr. Saporta," Gerard said.

"Likewise," Dr. Saporta replied. "I appreciate the opportunity to interview for the job."

Mikey nodded. "So, tell us a little about yourself."

Dr. Saporta liked to talk. A lot. He told Mikey and Gerard about his life, his education, how he came from a family of philosophers and theologians who were still upset with his apparent defection to science. His mom wouldn't speak to him, though she did nag him through his brothers about taking care of himself properly and managed to find the time to complain about the lack of grandchildren. His father, on the other hand, just kept trying to set him up with nice young women.

He told them about trying to find the perfect balance between science and religion and how he was pretty sure that quantum physics was the answer to everything.

"It sorta is, isn't it?" Gerard said. "It's what unifies everything in the universe, including faith and truth."

Dr. Saporta smiled at Gerard. "Exactly." He went on to explain how processes at the quantum level influenced things on a macroscopic level and that his research focused on those macroscopic changes.

"You understand that WBBE doesn't currently have a particle accelerator or a cyclotron of any sort on site?" Gerard asked. "I've been wanting one, but my current research interests haven't been focused on the quantum level and so I've had a hard time arguing for the capital outlay to build one." He slanted a glance at Mikey, who ignored him.

Dr. Saporta nodded. "But you have a moat."

Gerard brightened. "We do! It'd be perfect, wouldn't it? We could drain it, find a new home for the crocodiles and piranhas and build a nice little circular accelerator."

"Yes. If you could secure the funding..."

Laughing, Gerard bumped shoulders with Mikey. "Yeah, that's the hard part, sometimes. This guy watches every penny like a hawk."

Mikey's phone beeped quietly; it was Ray. Who would only interrupt them if it was something really important. "Hold on; I have to take this." He squeezed Gerard's shoulder as he walked by, stepping out into the hallway and shutting the door behind him. "Yeah?"

Ray didn't bother with pleasantries. "Saporta's a card-carrying member of the Assassins' Guild. And guess who he's currently working for?"

"Fuck. You're kidding me."

"Nope," Ray said. "Sending the data to your phone."

"I thought he seemed too good to be true." He looked back into the office, where Gerard was gesturing animatedly to Dr. Saporta. "Gee really likes him, too."

Ray inhaled sharply. "You left him alone with Saporta?"

"He's fine," Mikey assured him. "Gee's armed, he's always armed when there are strangers around. Gun and knife."

"Still—"

"I know." Mikey rubbed at his eyes tiredly. He just wanted the rest of the interviews to go smoothly, without pod people or blazing hot tattooed women or corporate assassins. Please, God, they only had two more to go. No more surprises. "Thanks, Ray."

"De nada. I'll be right down," he said, and hung up.

"Sorry about the interruption," Mikey said, stepping back into the office and sitting down again. He noted, with approval, that Gee had sensed that something was amiss and had undone the guard on his sheath, making it easy for him to draw his knife, if necessary. "So, Dr. Saporta, how long have you worked for Pete Wentz and Clandestine Industries?"

"Fuck," Gerard hissed in surprise.

"I'm sorry? I don't understand—"

Mikey used his phone's built-in projector to run the three-d video that Ray had sent him. Pete Wentz and Saporta walking together, Saporta's arm slung companionably across Pete's shoulders. There was a hollow feeling in his stomach, anger and regret and too many nights thinking of all the things that had gone wrong.

"I don't know—" Mikey didn't even have a chance to finish his sentence before Saporta sprang into motion, leaping impossibly over the desk and crashing into Gee, knocking him to the ground. All those fucking self-defense lessons finally paid off, because Gee kicked Saporta off and quickly rolled to his feet, knife out. There was a feral grin on his face.

"C'mon, you fucker," he said to Saporta, who was apparently part ninja, because he threw something on the ground in front of Gee, which made a loud bang and started filling the office with thick, dark smoke. "Ray, Ray!" Gee shouted. "He's getting away! Raaay!"

Mikey couldn't see anything, so he drew his gun and headed toward the windows. They needed to clear the room of smoke.

"He's gone. He ran into me on the way out the front door." Ray's voice came from the hallway.

"Well, fuck!" Gee sounded pissed.

Mikey wrestled the window open, breathing in fresh air.

"Release the fucking hounds, Ray!"

There was a long pause. "We don't have any hounds, Gee."

Ray sounded so apologetic that Mikey snorted, turning it into a cough before Gee noticed. The smoke was clearing and he could see a faint outline of Gee, hands on his hips, tapping his foot impatiently. "Well, what do we have, Ray?"

"We have the wolves, of course, which are kinda like hounds, but you know they're pretty tame. I don't know if they would actually eat anyone, if that was your plan."

The smoke had cleared enough for him to see Gerard.

"Fuck!" He rounded on Mikey. "Why don't we have any badass creatures to hunt and devour our enemies, Mikes?"

"Because you and Ray keep making pets out of them?" There was no way that Mikey was taking the blame for this. He wasn't going to mention the pseudo-dragons, the gryphon, the basilisk. Or the fucking nightmare, which still refused to wear a saddle.

He'd tried.

"Oh." Gerard deflated. "Yeah, I guess we do."

Mikey was close enough that he started running his hands over Gee, making sure nothing was broken. "You okay?"

Gerard nodded. "Yeah. Back hurts a little from when I hit the floor, but I didn't bang my head. Bith my lipth, though," he said, sticking out his bottom lip and trying to look at it.

Mikey looked and nodded. "You're bleeding a little, but it doesn't look too bad." He couldn't help himself, he pulled Gee in for a hard hug. "Christ, you scared me." He could feel himself trembling from the adrenaline rush.

"Me? I didn't do anything," he said, muffled against Mikey's shoulder. "It was that fucker Saporta." Gerard held tight, rubbing Mikey's back soothingly.

"And Pete."

"Yeah." Gerard's voice got quiet. "And Pete."

"You okay, Mikey?" Ray sounded hesitant, like he was afraid to interrupt.

"We're both fine. You?"

"Yeah." Ray shifted from foot to foot. "I'll get the ice cream."

"'New Hope' or 'Empire'?" Mikey asked, face still buried in Gee's hair.

"'New Hope' for sure."

Mikey just nodded.

Mikey waited until he was sure Gee had gone to bed. And then he waited a little more, toying with his phone, trying to distract himself from the anger that was bubbling just under the surface of this thoughts. Gee could have been killed and it was all Mikey's fucking fault.

He wanted to throw his phone against the wall, watch it shatter into shards of hard plastic and glass. Instead, he dug into his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. He wiped the dust off of it; he hadn't had a drink in years, not since Gerard had almost died and he and Pete—

Fuck. Since he'd left Pete in the middle of the night to rescue his older brother. By the time Gerard had recovered enough that Mikey could think clearly again, it had been too late. Pete stopped answering his calls, had changed the lock on his door and hadn't given Mikey a chance to explain.

He poured a shot into his coffee mug and tossed it back, wrinkling his nose at the burn. Mikey looked at his phone, and before he could lose his courage, punched in Pete's. It rang twice and went straight to voice mail, which wasn't a surprise. Pete actually didn't like talking on his phone, preferring to text an endless series of messages at all hours of the day and night: random questions, bits of poetry, photos, links to interesting stuff on the internet.

The lack of text messages had, strangely enough, been one of the things Mikey had missed most.

"It's Pete. Speak your piece."

Mikey had a second to wish that he'd given some thought to what he was going to say to Pete. He'd never found the right words for Pete, even though he'd tried for years. Mikey took a deep breath, closed his eyes and remembered how much Pete's silence had hurt, and how scared he was this afternoon when he'd seen Saporta jump over the desk with deadly intent.

Everything suddenly became clear and he felt his anger transform into something cold and brittle. "You ever fucking do something like that again, Pete, and I'll kill you myself, no matter how much I—" He took a deep breath. "Leave Gerard out of this. It wasn't his fault, was never his fault. It was mine."

He could hear the hum of the connection and wondered if Pete would actually listen to the message. Wondered if Pete had listened to any of his messages that he'd left since that night. A wave of tiredness washed over him and he just wanted the oblivion of sleep. "Miss you, Peter Panda," he whispered. He cut the connection and tossed the phone carelessly onto his desk.

"Fuck this shit," Mikey said to himself, pouring more whiskey into his mug. Getting drunk seemed like a great idea.

It wasn't a great idea, of course. He woke, curled up against Gerard's back. He moaned in agony; something small and vicious was trying to claw its way out of his head.

"Mikey?" Gerard, probably in deference to Mikey's raging headache, rolled over slowly to face him. "You okay?"

"No," he croaked. "I'm dying."

Gerard sniffed disdainfully. "No, you're not. You're just hung over." But he apparently decided to take pity on Mikey. "Hold on, I'll get you something." He slipped out of the bed, leaving Mikey curled in a ball, clutching at his head.

Mikey could hear Gerard poking around in the medicine cabinet: the rattle of a pill bottle, the squeak of the faucet handle, running water. The edge of the bed dipped down and "Here," Gerard said softly.

Slitting his eyes open, Mikey stared at the glass that Gerard was holding out. His other hand was cupped; Mikey really, really hoped there were some nice pills to make his head stop trying to kill him. He pulled himself to a sitting position and held his hand for the pills, tossing them back and chasing them down with huge gulps of water. He held out the glass to Gerard. "More?" he asked hopefully, because suddenly he felt dehydrated and the water tasted so good.

Gerard refilled the glass twice more before Mikey was sated. He laid down and Gerard climbed back in, pulling the covers over both of their heads, creating a safe, warm haven for both of them. They'd done this a lot as kids, hiding from the world. . .

Even in the dimness, Mikey could see Gerard's face, pale and serious. "What?"

Reaching out, Gerard carefully brushed a strand of hair out of Mikey's eyes. "I just wonder, sometimes." His voice was barely above a whisper.

"About what?"

"About maybe I was wrong in calling—"

Mikey thought he was too hung over to feel much beyond the pounding in his head and the weird nausea in his stomach, but no, Gerard was proving him totally wrong. "Shut the fuck up." He grabbed a handful of Gerard's sleep shirt and twisted it in his hand, inhaling and exhaling slowly, deliberately. "Don't you—don't you fucking say it."

"Mikey." There was so much in Gerard's voice, pain and regret and a million other things that Mikey was too tired, too hung over, too pissed to identify. "If I hadn't called, if you hadn't had to come and save me from my own stupidity—" Gerard ran a hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face. "Maybe it would have been better just to let me go."

"Fuck you," Mikey gritted out. "Fuck you, Gerard." That night was etched into his memory with acid, the terrifying fear that the EMS wouldn't get there in time, of coaxing Gerard to stay on the phone and talking to him, of trying to keep Gerard from being pulled under by the weight of the pills he'd eaten.

"You'd be happy." Gerard's voice was small and he wouldn't look at Mikey. "You wouldn't be stuck taking care of me; you'd be living your own life—"

"I am happy, you stupid motherfucker, and you're mine to take care of." He yanked on Gerard's shirt, trying to shake some sense into him. "Pete's issues don't have anything to do with you. He didn't trust me, didn't trust in us and it wasn't your fault." He pinched Gerard's arm, hard, scowling as Gerard flinched away. "Don't you ever think that again. I love every broken part of you, even when you're being an idiot." He took a deep breath and blinked rapidly. "You're my brother. It's always been you and me against the world. It always will be."

Gerard finally looked at him. He drew in a shaky breath, nodding. "Okay, okay." He brought their foreheads together and closed his eyes. "Love you, Mikes."

"You drive me crazy," he muttered, closing his eyes. Gerard just laughed, a little unsteady.

Lindsey Ballato had written her doctoral thesis on cephalopod intelligence and had spent the last five years trying to communicate with various species. Lately, her studies had taken a turn toward increasing the intelligence of several varieties, namely the Giant Pacific Octopus and the Giant Squid, using genetic engineering.

Mikey had visions of gigantic squid-like creatures rising from the ocean and attacking ships, wrapping tentacles around screaming people.

She laughed. "No, Mr. Way. At least, not yet." She was dark haired and she had dimples, bright red lipstick and was wearing what appeared to be a heavily modified school girl's uniform. He couldn't help but notice she had very nice legs.

"Cephalopods are really fucking smart, Mikey" Gerard interjected. "If you were going to make a list of animals that were most likely to develop sentience, with or without human intervention, it would be something like: apes, dolphins, cephalopods, and parrots."

"Parrots?" Mikey hadn't know that.

Dr. Ballato had been casually flirting with Gerard since the interview had started, but Mikey was pretty sure Gerard, as usual, hadn't even noticed. But now, there was something more in her eyes, a sharper interest in his brain. He coughed to cover his snort of laughter. Only Gerard.

"So, what do you hope to accomplish in the long run? Increase cephalopod intelligence, then what?" Mikey asked, twirling his pen between his fingers.

"Take over the world, of course." She looked at him like he was an idiot. "Create an army of cephalopod soldiers and dominate the planet."

"Awesome." Gerard grinned. Dr. Ballato smiled back. "Tell me more," he said, wiggling in his chair like an excited puppy.

Mikey thought that in spite of how smart Dr. Ballato was, she might not be the best igor to hire for Gerard. The last thing he needed was for someone to seriously encourage Gerard with plans for world domination. At least, not with genetically modified cephalopods.

"I liked her," Gerard said at dinner that night. "I'm really interested in her work with cephalopods."

Ray looked baffled for a moment. "Squid?"

Gerard nodded "And octopi."

"Giant squid and octopi," Mikey clarified. "She wants to create an army, take over the world, the usual."

"Ah." Ray shook his head. "Ambitious."

"Amazingly intelligent," Gerard said dreamily.

"Amazingly hot, too," Mikey said around a forkful of pasta. "Also, she was flirting with Gee pretty hardcore."

"What?" Gerard sounded outraged. "She was not!"

Mikey rolled his eyes and Ray laughed.

Mikey had scheduled Frank Iero's interview last, mainly because he was hoping that he was going to rock the interview hard and blow the rest of the candidates away. Well, the ones that were still in the running, which at this point, was. . .no one. Each of the applicants had impeccable credentials and the brilliance to succeed as igors, and none of them had been right for Gerard and WBBE.

All he could do was cross his fingers and hope for the best, because he didn't know if he could sift through any more resumés. Or sit through any more interviews.

Frank Iero showed up early, which was a huge plus in Mikey's book. Gerard's igor needed to be more responsible and conscious of things like the passage of time, which was definitely not Gerard's strong point. Gee was lucky to remember what month is was, let alone what day of the week.

He was small and stocky, wearing a pair of black-framed glasses that made his eyes look huge. He was dressed neatly in a dark suit and tie. Very conservative, maybe too conservative, Mikey thought, until he shook hands with Dr. Iero. His hands were covered with tattoos, sprawling across the back of his hands and down across his fingers. Mikey didn't have time to make most of them out, but he caught H-A-LL-O spelled across the knuckles of Dr. Iero's right hand. He guessed that maybe W-E-E-N was inked on his left hand, though why you would want the word Halloween written on your fingers. . .they'd find out soon enough, if they hired him.

And once he saw past the facade of conservativeness, Mikey started to notice the other things. Dr. Iero's tie actually consisted of a pattern of tiny little skulls. At the edge of the high collar of his shirt, Mikey could see a little bit of inked skin; Dr. Iero had a lot of tattoos. His dark hair, which Mikey had thought was cut short, was actually tied back and probably brushed the tops of his shoulders. Both ears were pierced, though empty of jewelry, and Mikey was sure he spotted a tiny divot in his lip where a ring normally rested. Not conservative at all, then. Mikey breathed a silent sigh of relief.

He looked over to Gerard, who had shaken Dr. Iero's hand and retreated back to his chair. There was a blush high on Gerard's cheek and he was staring down at the papers in front of him, shuffling them purposefully.

"Thank you for meeting with us, Dr. Iero. We appreciate it."

Dr. Iero's eyes widened a little. "Thank you for giving me the opportunity to interview with WayBros Biologics. I've been following the progress of Dr. Way's research for a number of years, so being invited to interview here was something like a dream come true for me."

That was promising. Gerard had progressed to doodling himself fighting off a horde of Dr. McCracken look-alikes and Mikey kicked his leg under the table. This was important, dammit. Mikey did not want to start the whole process over with a new batch of applicants.

"Tell us about yourself, Dr. Iero," Gerard said, kicking back at Mikey and missing, only managing to kick Mikey's chair.

Dr. Iero talked about his educational background and his lifelong interest in biological systems. "My parents—my whole family, actually, are more interested in mechanical systems, so I was kinda the odd one out in my family. But even though they never really understood me, my parents always supported me, and made sure I got the education I needed to pursue my research interests."

"Having the support of your family is important," Mikey said.

"Yes," Gerard agreed. "Was it hard, coming from a well-known family of igors?"

Biting his lip, Dr. Iero took a moment to consider the question. "In some ways, yes. Because there's this sense of expectation, not only from your family, but from everyone who has ever heard of the name Iero. It would have sucked even more if I'd chosen not to be an igor, though. Like, if I'd wanted to be a musician or an artist or a writer. . ."

"No reason you can't be more than just an igor, if you wanted," Gerard murmured sympathetically. Art and science were twined in Gerard's blood and he'd made the decision, early on, not to choose between them. He'd wanted both, and Mikey knew how hard he'd worked to make that happen. Gerard slid his drawing across the table so Dr. Iero could see the bloody little doodles that he'd had drawn.

"Oh, awesome! You're fighting off a horde of zombies!" He giggled and the sound was so open and bright that Mikey couldn't keep from smiling.

"Not technically zombies, actually. Uh. Fungus men? Long story," Gerard said, waving his hand around. "My parents told me that if I wanted to be a scientist, I'd have to give up my art. All my professors at school said the same thing, that I couldn't have both." He shrugged. "Just made me more determined to prove them all wrong."

"And you did, Gee. WBBE is doing well, and your last art show sold out," Mikey said.

Gerard grinned. "Yeah. Couldn't have done it without you and Ray, though."

"I want that." Dr. Iero's voice was intense.

Mikey looked at Dr. Iero, eyebrow quirked upwards.

"I want my science and my music." He looked a little scared, but determined. "I want to work for WayBros Biologics and I want my music."

Gerard tilted his head in thought. "There's a empty lab that would work well as a practice space. And Ray plays guitar."

Mikey looked at Gerard warningly. They were getting ahead of themselves. "Let's finish up with the interview, shall we?"

"Sure," Dr. Iero said, easily enough, but Mikey thought that he looked more resolute than when the meeting had started.

They went through the rest of Mikey's normal interview questions about his ability to work with other people and what he considered his weaknesses and what former coworkers and bosses were likely to say about him.

"They'd probably say that I'm a hard worker, someone with a lot of imagination who usually thinks outside of the box." He shrugged. "Most people think I'm a nerd, maybe a little strange, but I'm okay with that."

"What's your favorite movie?" Mikey couldn't resist asking.

"'Fellowship of the Ring.'"

Gerard just traded a look with Mikey. Dr. Iero might just be the one. The only thing that concerned Mikey was the fact that Dr. Iero had bounced around a lot from job to job. He wanted to know why. It was going to be the make or break question, and Mikey was afraid of the answer. But he had to ask, because WBBE depended on him asking tough questions. "I noticed from your resumé that you've worked for a number of different employers over the course of your career. Why is that?"

Dr. Iero folded his hands together and studied them for a long moment. "I'm. . .odd, even for an igor. And I try very hard to get along with my coworkers and employers, but I've never found a place where I really felt at home. And after a while, I start to get. . .restless."

Gerard was nodding. "Do you think you could feel at home here, with WBBE?"

And that was the million dollar question.

"I think—" Dr. Iero paused to clear his throat. "I think, yes." He looked up and met Mikey's eyes, then looked at Gerard. "Yes."

"Okay," Gerard said, his voice soft. "I've got a few more questions. Fun questions, not boring ones like Mikey was asking."

"Hey!"

Dr. Iero smiled. "Shoot."

"If you could be any superhero, who would you be and why?" That was Gerard's favorite question, hands down, and Mikey found himself very interested in Dr. Iero's answer.

Part II

The minute Ray escorted Dr. Iero out of the castle, Gerard locked himself in the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. He was flushed and his skin felt tight and prickly. He splashed cold water on his face, blotting it dry with the sleeve of his shirt.

"Gerard?" Mikey knocked on the door, sounding worried. "You okay?"

Gerard wasn't sure how to answer that, exactly. Dr. Iero— He'd never felt such an instant, overwhelming physical attraction to someone he'd just met. It was unnerving, to say the least. "Yeah, I'm fine."

There was a pregnant pause. "Then why are you hiding in the bathroom?"

"I'm not hiding," he said indignantly. "I'm—doing things."

"Like hiding?"

"Noooo." And to prove it, he opened the door to glare at Mikey.

Something must have showed on his face, because Mikey took one look at him and sighed. "Oh, Gerard."

"What?"

Mikey just shook his head and pulled Gerard in for a hug. He wanted to push Mikey away, wanted to pretend to be unaffected, but Mikey's arms always felt so good around him, home and security and safety. He snuggled in closer. "Dr. Iero is very good looking," Mikey remarked, like somehow Gerard might have missed that.

"Oh? Do you think so?" Gerard tried for casual, but ruined it by laughing. "Oh my God, Mikey, he's hot."

"Mmmm." Mikey rubbed soothing circles on his back and Gerard tried to purr, but only managed a sort of grumbling sound.

"Do you think we could engineer people so they could purr?"

Mikey paused for a second before going back to what he was doing. "I'm not sure why people would need to purr, but I guess it wouldn't be impossible. . ."

"Sometimes, like when your brother is petting you, you just feel good and you want to. . .purr. It'd be an excellent way to express non-verbal contentment and happiness."

"Or you could just verbally express those sentiments, being the sort of creature which can express things verbally."

"Sometimes I just don't have the words." Gerard sighed. "Something to think about for later, though." He gave Mikey a hard squeeze before backing away. He sat back down at the table and paged through Dr. Iero's resumé. "What do you think, Mikey?" Gerard trusted Mikey's opinions about people, a lot more than he trusted his own.

"I think that he'd be a good fit here. He's obviously smart, well-organized, determined, creative. He would give you something to push against, and wouldn't hesitate to shove back if that's what you needed."

"Hmmm. But?" Gerard was almost sure there was a but; he could read it in Mikey's voice, in his body language.

"But. . .he's hiding something. There's more to his erratic employment history than simply not fitting in, and even with the background check, I couldn't find out what it was. His previous employers all spoke highly of him, but it felt like there was something they weren't saying." Mikey looked puzzled.

"Do you think he might be working for Pete?" After Saporta, it seemed like a reasonable question. Who knew how far Clandestine Industries influence extended?

"I'm not sure. I've dug pretty deeply into Dr. Iero's background; if he's working for Pete, there's no indication of it." Mikey shrugged. "I don't think it's Pete. I don't know what it is, but I'm pretty sure that Pete Wentz has nothing to do with the mystery of Dr. Frank Iero."

Gerard sighed. "We're running out of options, though. We could run the ads again in MSM and EOG. Well, maybe not EOG; I think we got a slightly higher quality of candidates from MSM than from EOG. Either way, though, we could keep looking." He met Mikey's eyes. "Or we could go with Dr. Iero, who seems to be an excellent choice, in spite of his mysterious aura. It seems like he would fit in perfectly here."

Mikey pinched at his nose, looking like he was fighting off a headache that was building behind his eyes. "That's what I'm afraid of. He seems to fit in too perfectly. It almost feels like a trap."

Shrugging, Gerard folded Dr. Iero's curriculum vita into a paper airplane and sent it sailing across the room. "At least we'll be walking into it with our eyes wide open?"

"I'm not entirely convinced that's a good thing," Mikey muttered.

"Let's give him a try, Mikey. I'm tired of these damn interviews; I just want to get back to the lab. And I have a feeling that he's going to work out for WBBE."

"I'll get started on the paperwork."

"See if he can start on Monday. I've got some ideas that I want to bounce off of him—"

"No," Mikey interrupted. "He's going to help you work on the Mittens™. Then you can start working on other stuff. Mittens™ first. Promise me, Gee."

"Fuck. But they're mostly under control with the force field that Ray set up." Gerard knew, by the set of Mikey's jaw, that it wasn't enough. "Fine. Mittens™ first, then other stuff."

"Pinky promise, Gee."

Gerard rolled his eyes before sticking out his pinky. Mikey hooked his pinky around Gerard's and they shook on it. "You are so ridiculous, Mikes."

Mikey just laughed. "Whatever."

WAY BROTHERS ACCUSED OF UNETHICAL CREATION OF DOOMSDAY BIOLOGICALS!!! WENTZ CLAIMS DESTRUCTION OF HUMANITY IMMINENT!!!

Gerard choked on his coffee when he saw the headline of the Belleville Register. "Fuck, Mikey!"

Mikey hmmm'd and looked up from his report. "Oh. Yeah, that." He got up and poured himself some more coffee and rummaged in the cabinets, finding a box of pop tarts. "Want one?" he asked, gesturing with the box.

He shook his head. "'Yeah, that'?" Gerard echoed incredulously. He couldn't believe how calm Mikey was about the whole thing, toasting his pop tarts like he didn't have a care in the world. This is the kind of stuff that led to angry mobs burning down the homes of frankensteins.

"They're talking about the Mittens™, Gee. I leaked some pictures of them being cute, issued a press release and have two interviews scheduled for this afternoon."

"Oh," he mumbled. Still—

Mikey's voice hardened and he set his coffee mug down with more force than necessary. "Pete's gonna have to try harder."

And Gee couldn't stop the flood of guilt he felt at that. "'M sorry."

"Don't be," Mikey said. "It's not about you, it's never been about you, Gee. Pete just. . .holds grudges long past the point of sanity."

Gerard nodded in agreement, but deep in his heart, he still felt the guilt.

Dr. Iero (Call me Frank!) could indeed start on Monday. He showed up Sunday morning with a carload of his personal belongings and Gerard watched from his window as Ray helped him carry his stuff up to his suite of rooms down the hall from Gerard's. Gerard had reminded Ray to give Frank a set of keys, the answer to the riddle for the Sphynx guarding the front gate, and the location of all the trap doors.

It would really suck for the newest member of the household to be eaten by the Sphynx on his first day of residence at Castle Way.

Gerard was feeling restless, too distracted to work on any of his current projects. He thought about starting up something new, but he couldn't until the Mittens™ problem was resolved. He'd promised Mikey, dammit.

Maybe he could loophole it by claiming a promise given under duress didn't count as a real promise? No, Mikey would probably be pissed at him for that.

He threw himself onto his bed, grabbing a sketchpad and opening it to a new page. He let his mind wander as he sketched out Mikey and Ray, turning them into the most awesome vampire hunters ever, arming them with swords and stakes while vampires hissed from the shadows. He added Frank, wearing leather armor and holding a wicked stiletto.

As he sketched out Frank's shape, Gerard realized that there was something a little off about the proportions of his body. His upper body was too stout, like his chest was overdeveloped. If he were taller, Gerard would suspect that he had wings, because you needed to have really big chest and shoulder muscles to flap your wings with any power. But it didn't make sense for Frank to have wings and then weigh too much to get any lift.

. . .Unless Frank's bones were hollow and his muscles were less dense than regular muscles. Or if he had an anti-gravity belt. . .

The memory of Frank's tattoos distracted him, though, and he turned to a clean page, drawing Frank's hands from memory, adding the H-A-LL-O and the W-E-E-N, the other letters lower on his fingers that spelled out—Gerard closed his eyes, picturing it, yeah. B-O-O-K-W-O-R-M inked on alternating fingers. There was the spider's web in the space between Frank's thumb and pointer finger, with hopeless written above it, which didn't make any sense until you combined it with the half-heart and romantic on his other hand.

"Hopeless romantic, huh?" He kept drawing, adding the pierced heart with the drop of blood that sprawled over the back of Frank's hand, the skull and crossbones, and the barbed wire encircling his wrist. There were more tats on the underside of Frank's wrist and something written in red letters, but Gerard hadn't gotten a good look at those. Maybe later he'd get Frank to show Gerard all of his tattoos.

There'd been a bit of ink peeking out from under the collar of Frank's shirt and Gerard could only guess that there were more tattoos hidden under the high neckline and long sleeves of Frank's clothes. Gerard closed his eyes again and tried to imagine what Frank looked like under his stuffy shirt; dark lines and swirls of color against his skin. . .

Gerard shifted on the bed and gasped a little in surprise at the pressure on his dick, which was erect and throbbing. "Fuck," he hissed. He felt betrayed by his own body. He rolled onto his side and buried his face into his pillow, refusing to touch. He was a grown, rational person, able to ignore the sexual demands of his body, for fuck's sake. Just because he had a boner didn't mean he had to do something about it. It would go away, if he just ignored it and thought about other things.

He concentrated on reciting the elements on the Periodic Table, in order of atomic weight. He got as far as carbon (atomic weight of 12.0107) which made him think of black ink on tanned skin, imagining Frank's hands on him, touching him in ways— "Fu—fuck," he stuttered, feeling sweat bloom on his skin. He bit his lip and tried calculating π, getting as far as 3.1415926535 before giving up in frustration. His brain just kept flashing pictures of Frank's hands, the way he'd folded them carefully and rested them on his knee as he'd talked.

Gerard pressed the palm of his hand against his cock, catching his breath at how hard he was, and how fucking good it felt. He tried to remember the last time he'd touched himself, the last time he jerked off, and realized it'd been a while. Lately, it just seemed like too much effort and the whole process usually left him feeling alone and pathetic afterward.

Right now, though, he just felt a desperate need to come, the blood pounding through his veins, hot and demanding. "Christ," he panted, wrestling with the button and zipper on his jeans. He rolled over onto his back and pushed them down, wiggling to get them off. He dragged his fingers up his thighs, brushing against the sparse hair there and shivering. Suddenly every nerve was sensitive and tingling and he couldn't help but shove his hand into his shorts, mouth falling open on a groan as he wrapped his fingers around his dick.

He wasn't going to last, he could feel it in his bones.

He tried not to think about Frank as he started stroking his cock, because perving on your new employee struck him as really bad karma and rude as well, but he couldn't help himself. He wasn't sure how he was going to look Frank in the eye again, but right at this moment, as his body thrummed and sang, he didn't care. "Oh, oh fuck." It felt so good and he gritted his teeth, pushing hard into his hand as the pleasure crested, rolling through him. It pulled his back into an taut arch and wrung a soft moan out of him. "Fuck," he hissed as he relaxed back onto the bed, shivering in reaction. "Fuck."

Making a face at the mess he'd made, he wiped his hand off on his shirt before dragging it over his head and dropping it onto the floor. The smell of sex was strong in the room; he knew he should get up and open the window, let the scent dissipate, but he felt too lazy and content to move. He drowsed, soaking up the afternoon sunlight like a cat.

Breakfast and lunch at Castle Way were informal affairs. For the most part, it was coffee and pop tarts for breakfast, and sandwiches for lunch. At other times, it was leftover pizza and Chinese take-out. But dinner was always something they sat down to, Mikey, Gerard and Ray, seven P.M. every night on the dot. It was a time to touch base and reconnect, to talk about what they'd been doing during the day, and what they were planning on doing for the night.

And now there was Frank.

Frank was a vegetarian and lactose intolerant, and Ray hadn't had time to go shopping, so dinner was little more freeform than usual—omelets and whatever add-ins they found in the fridge and pantry: mushrooms, cheese, tomatoes, bell peppers, ham. Gerard felt himself blanch at the sight of the mushrooms, not really comfortable with fungus after Dr. McCracken, and both Mikey and Ray avoided touching them as well, but Frank had no problems slicing them up and adding them happily to his veggie omelet.

Mikey diced up some potatoes and cooked them with garlic and onions, while Ray and Gerard set the table and set out drinks and condiments. It should have surprised Gerard how easily Frank fit in, but it didn't. He raised an eyebrow at Mikey, who just shrugged.

"If you guys are going to talk, you need to do it out loud and in English, so Frank and I can participate in the conversation."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Mikey said.

Ray snorted and looked at Frank. "These two, they have this secret eyebrow language." Ray waggled his own eyebrows. "They'll have these long, involved conversations without saying a word."

"That's kinda—"

"Weird? Creepy?" Gerard supplied.

"No, I was going to say—cool. That's really cool." Frank grinned. "Knowing someone so well you don't even need words."

"You think so now," Ray said. "But eventually, you'll definitely think it's creepy."

"You only say that because you don't speak eyebrow fluently." Mikey raised both of his eyebrows as an example.

"Fuck you."

Gerard giggled, and found that Frank was laughing with him. It made him feel warm inside, like they were in together on a secret. And then he realized that he was developing the hugest crush on Frank, and maybe that was not a good thing, at all. Fuck.

"What do you have planned for this evening, Gee?" Ray asked, squirting ketchup onto his omelet, making it look like it was bleeding.

Gerard started to talk about the new project he wanted to work on, but closed his mouth with a snap. Fuck, he'd almost forgotten. He could feel Mikey's eyes on him. "Mittens™. I'm not allowed to work on anything else until the Mittens™ are under control."

"Mittens?" Frank held up his tattooed hands and wiggled his fingers. "Like, for your hands? Are you inventing some kind of new biological outerwear to keep your fingers warm?"

"Nooo." Though the idea did have merit. Gerard's hands always got really cold in the New Jersey winters. "Mittens™ as in miniature kittens."

"Miniature kittens?" Frank looked confused. "Like, aren't kittens already small? Why would you want them to be smaller?"

Gerard huffed and blew his bangs out of his eyes. "Because they're cuter when they’re miniaturized."

Ray was trying not to laugh; Mikey wasn't even trying.

"Fine, motherfuckers." Gerard stomped over to the doorway of the kitchen and pushed the button on the repurposed garage door opener that was duct taped to the wall. The subsonic hum that came from Ray's anti-Mittens™ force field died away, only to be replaced by the sound of scuttling and a chorus of mews.

"Gerard! Dammit, I just got the last ones out of the kitchen—"

"Fuck," Mikey squawked as a horde of Mittens™ washed over his feet and started climbing him. "Ow, Gerard, you asshole!"

Frank just watched the chaos unfold with a bemused look on his face.

"So, we need a two-fold plan. One, a way to capture all the Mittens™. Two, a way to keep them from continuing to asexually reproduce." Gerard chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully.

Frank frowned. "Do they really have to be captured first? Or can we come up with a plan that will make them stop reproducing without having to "fix" each and every Mitten™?"

Gerard sighed happily. "That's brilliant. And will save us time, if we can figure out how to do it." He looked at Frank. "Maybe something like those bug bombs, but instead of pesticides, it can be something that will stop the Mittens™ from reproducing?"

"Well, that's an idea. But I think it would help if I saw exactly how they're asexually budding." He gave Gerard a look from behind his glasses. "Exactly why did you think that was a good idea?"

"It would have been fine if they hadn't got loose," he mumbled. He had the computer display the blueprints for the Mittens™ on the electronic whiteboard that took up the most of one wall in the lab. "There."

"Hmmm." Frank walked up to the wall, following the schematics. "Oh, that's a sweet solution to the replication issue. No chance of mutation there."

Gerard beamed. "Thanks."

Frank pointed to a section. "Here, though."

Looking closely, Gerard saw the problem. "Oh, I fucking know, that's pretty clunky." He shook his head. "I was trying to keep things simple, but sometimes it might be better to stick to the tried and true methods, yeah?"

"Yeah. In this case, the complexity is what keeps everything working properly. So, if we just design a gas that will tweak this little bit here like this—" Frank used his stylus to redraw part of the structure, making it impossible for the Mittens™ to continue budding, asexually or not. "That would solve the problem nicely."

Staring at the board, Gerard mentally walked through the process. "Ah, but then further on, here—" he pointed, "—it causes other issues. See? The protein synthesis stops working correctly."

"Oh, yeah." Frank drooped a little.

"That's a great start, though. Let's see what we can do to reverse the effects of the faulty protein production."

It took them awhile to brainstorm their way to a solution that didn't involve any unwanted side-effects.

"Okay, so that's great, now for the really hard part, designing a gas that will cause the changes we want and not changes we don't want."

Frank yawned and Gerard looked at the clock. "Oh, it's really late. Go to bed, Frank."

"No, no, Gee—" He stopped, looking embarrassed.

"You can call me Gee," Gerard told him softly. "Gee or Gerard, either works." He liked the way Frank said his name, familiar and intimate.

"Okay, Gee." Frank smiled at him.

"Go to bed; it's late. We can keep working on this tomorrow."

"By which point another 3,345 Mittens™ will have spawned."

Gerard shrugged. "What's another 3,345 more Mittens™ compared to the millions we already have?"

Laughing softly, Frank conceded the point. "True. Okay, then, I'm going to bed. Goodnight, Gee."

"Goodnight, Frank," Gerard said softly, watching Frank leave the lab. When the door shut behind him, Gee scrubbed at his face tiredly. "I'm so fucked."

Gerard and Frank spent the next week developing and testing different kinds of hormone-like chemicals that would 'neuter' the Mittens™ and keep them from reproducing further. Frank had wanted to create a gas so that it would permeate the walls of the castle and get into all the nooks and crannies that the Mittens™ had gotten into. Gerard pointed out that delivery of a gas was less reliable in a drafty old castle without synthesizing a huge amount, which was inefficient.

Instead, they decided on a liquid which could be added to the food they were feeding the Mittens™. They would be able to dose all of the Mittens™ that way and wouldn't have to worry about having to create an excessive amount of the chemical. They synthesized a small portion of the liquid and tested it on a handful of Mittens™, watching carefully for unexpected developments.

They kept an eye on the Mittens™, examined them repeatedly to ensure they remained in good health and that no other changes were made to their systems other than to switch off the asexual budding behavior.

"I think we did it, Mikes," Gerard said over dinner one night.

"Oh, thank God," Ray muttered under his breath, causing Frank to snort and accidentally inhale some black beans. He spent the next five minutes coughing them up as Ray slapped his back in an effort to help.

"You okay, Frank?" Gerard asked, concerned. Frank wasn't turning blue yet, but Gerard wasn't sure he remembered how to do the Heimlich maneuver. Ray probably knew how, though. Ray knew everything.

Frank waved away Ray's helpful back slapping. "Yeah," he croaked, reaching for his glass of water and downing most of it. "'M fine."

Mikey shrugged. "So you've figured out how to fix the Mittens™?"

"Well, it's not like they're really broken—" Mikey glared. "Okay, yes, a way to fix them. We've tested it and it hasn't done anything to the Mittens™ except stop them from multiplying, so yes. A success, mostly due to Frank." Gerard wasn't kidding; Frank had a very different way of looking at things that had proved invaluable in their search for a way to turn off the asexual budding.

The tips of Frank's ears turned red and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair, focusing on his black beans and rice.

"Seriously, Mikey. I never would have come up with the solution on my own."

"Good." Mikey raised an eyebrow and Gerard felt his own cheeks heat up.

"Mikey," he hissed, looking worriedly at the other side of the table. Frank and Ray seemed to be having a conversation about the food and weren't paying any attention to Mikey's eyebrows. "Whatever."

"I was just asking," Mikey said lightly. "No need to raise your hackles at me."

Gerard scrunched his own eyebrows at Mikey.

"Okay, sorry, never mind. I won't ask again." He held up both hands defensively.

"Ask what?"

"Nothing, Frank," Gerard said, scowling at Mikey. "Nothing at all."

"One of those brother things," Ray said with a smile. "They do that all the time."

"Do not!" Mikey and Gerard said in unison.

Ray and Frank just laughed at them.

"Hmmm. . ."

Gerard poked at his breakfast and looked up from the article he was reading about the creation of new classes of biologicals using fullerenes as a sort of template. "Hmmm, what?" he asked Mikey absently.

Mikey pushed his reading glasses higher up on his face and gestured to the reports he was reading. "Clandestine Industries is up to something."

"Again?" Gerard shook his head. "Now what?"

"They appear to be attempting to buy up the world's supply of iridium." Mikey set down his coffee mug and finished off the last bite of his pop tart.

"Good luck with that," Gerard said. "Iridium's pretty damn rare, and pretty damn expensive."

"Yeah, but why would Clan Industries go to the expense of trying to corner the market? Are you using iridium for something?"

Gerard thought about it for a minute. "Nope. It's useful, because it's non-reactive and dense and has a high tensile strength but—oh." He smiled. "The joke's on Pete, then."

"Oh?" Mikey echoed archly.

Gerard chuckled. "Yeah, I published a paper a couple of months ago talking about using spinnerets to to spin polymer fibers. Most commercial polymer spinning uses spinnerets composed of an iridium alloy, because of the reduced rate of corrosion."

Mikey looked confused. "I don't recall you working on a project like that."

"Well, I wasn't talking about using machines." Gerard knew that he shouldn't feel so superior about using biologicals in the place of mechanicals, but he couldn't help it. "I was talking about using spiders, engineering them bigger to do the spinning. A few years ago these guys in Madagascar collected all these Golden Orb spiders and milked them of their silk. Then they wove it into this beautiful cloth. . ." He mimed weaving with his hands.

"Spiders?"

"Yeah. Spider silk has some really fucking amazing properties; the problem is that milking the spiders is very labor intensive. So making the spiders bigger would solve part of that issue. But. . ."

"But what?"

Gerard shook his head. "Frank doesn't like spiders. Really doesn't like spiders. So I scrapped the project."

Mikey looked at him with a raised eyebrow and Gerard felt himself blush.

"Shut up."

"Okay," Mikey said, agreeably enough.

Once the Mittens™ were under control, Gerard and Frank searched for a new project to work on. Nothing interesting immediately jumped out at them, so they spent a few weeks reorganizing and inventorying the labs. They made a list of all the consumables that needed to be replenished. Gerard always added a few things that were exorbitantly expensive, a sort of wish-list of things he'd like to have for the lab.

"Maybe a quantum UV crosslinker." Gerard sighed dreamily. "A SLO-MO. Maybe a small cyclotron."

"Go big or go home, Gee. A decoherence analyzer, with a chaos detector."

Gerard goggled at Frank. "Yeah, no way Mikey'd buy us one of those. There's only three of the fucking things in the entire world. But it'd be nice. . ."

"Maybe someday," Frank said.

"Maybe."

It was baffling how easily Frank fit into their lives at Castle Way. Gerard often forgot that he hadn't known Frank forever, that there was still a lot of things they didn't know about each other. But they were learning, day by day.

Ray made them all go to a football game as part of his grand scheme to keep them from turning into recluses, though Gerard argued rather vehemently that it was part of his nature as a frankenstein to be reclusive. And part of his job description.

Frank tried to explain the rules of the game to Gerard, but it made no sense to him and after the third repetition, Frank gave up. He bought Gerard a hot dog and Gee happily ate it while people inexplicably cheered and booed.

In retaliation, Gerard made them all go to an exhibit about bioluminescence at the natural history museum, which in hindsight, was a little disturbing. They'd had no idea how many different fungi were bioluminescent.

"Have you heard anything more about Dr. McCracken?" Ray asked at one point, while they were all staring at a rotten log covered with glowing mushrooms.

Gerard shrugged. "They're trying to find another way to host the fungi so they can see if there's anything left of his mind. The fungi's trying to be cooperative, but nothing's worked, so far."

Frank just looked at them curiously and Mikey explained about Dr. McCracken in a quiet undertone. Frank looked suitable horrified and shuddered.

"Yeah," Gerard sighed. "The world's a scary place, sometimes."

Gerard said, "You know, I was thinking. . ." Frank smiled and refrained from making any kind of smart-ass comment. Gerard paused. "You're nicer to me that Mikey is."

Frank nodded. "It's part of the contract I signed with WBBE."

That startled a laugh out of Gerard. "Okay, I take that back." He grinned at Frank.

"You were thinking—?"

"About something you said when you first got here."

Crossing his eyes, Frank made a silly face. "I've said a lot of things since then, Gee."

"About biologic outerwear." Gerard threw the words at Frank like a gauntlet.

"Oh-kay." Frowning, Frank shook his head. "You're going to have to use some more words, Gee. I'm not following you yet."

"I was thinking—" Gerard stopped as something under Frank's shirt moved. He blinked, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary; maybe it was just something about the shadows.

"Gee? Something wrong?"

"Yeah. I mean, no, I was thinking—maybe we could create a fabric that was actually alive."

"Ew. How would you cut it, or sew it?"

"No, no. You wouldn't do either—you'd just train it to take on the forms you'd want. Something warm and furry and hypoallergenic, maybe something that purred when you petted it. So it's more than something that keeps you warm, it's something that soothes you, comforts you, surrounds you. . ."

"Smothers you. . ." Frank added, sotto voce, making Gerard giggle.

"You have a pretty evil brain," Gerard pointed out.

"Me? I'm not the one who tried to take over the world with cuteness."

"We all have our talents." Gerard shrugged and turned to his computer. "What should we base our wearable animal on? Can you make up a list of soft, fuzzy animals?"

"Sure, no problem."

"Great," Gerard said, sketching out some possible designs. He heard Frank moving around the lab to his own workstation, but then he fell into a creative trance, unaware of the passage of time until—

"Here," Frank said, breath fanning against Gerard ear and making him shiver. "I was hungry and made myself a sandwich. Made one for you, too."

Frank's face was close and Gerard couldn't tear his eyes away from his mouth, drawn to the glint of silver of his lip ring. He wanted to kiss Frank, wondered what it would be like to flick at the metal with his tongue. He started to lean forward, watched as Frank's eyes slid closed and stopped himself just in time.

"Gee?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Frank," he whispered, and left the lab before he did something he'd really regret.

Gerard had never been more tempted to get drunk. He walked down into the city, found a bar and went in. He parked himself at a table and chain-smoked, remembering the taste of whiskey, and vodka, and rum, the way it burned going down and pooled in his stomach, warming him from the inside out.

It was impossible to forget how he'd felt when he'd been drinking, the way it pushed back all of his insecurities and fears, made him strong and brave. The way it made every difficult thing seem simple and possible.

Gerard didn't have that luxury anymore. He'd made promises to himself, and Mikey, and he had every intention of keeping them.

The server came over and he ordered an endless succession of diet sodas and coffees until the caffeine made it impossible for him to sit still any longer. He paid his bill and headed out on foot, hoping to walk off his combination coffee and cigarette high.

After a while, he realized that the buzzing he felt wasn't the caffeine, but his phone. Mikey, Frank and Ray had texted a total of 20 times in the last few hours: Frank, Mikey, Ray, Ray, Frank, Frank, Frank, Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray, Mikey, Mikey, Mikey, Mikey, Mikey, Mikey, Mikey, Mikey.

"Weird. Fibonacci sequence." He deleted all of the messages without reading any of them and went into a 24-hour drug store, just because he could. Ray and Mikey usually did all of their shopping; Gerard was always overwhelmed by the sheer number of things that he wanted to touch and examine.

Tonight, he was by himself and there was no one to stop him from smelling every cologne and perfume in the store's not-so-inconsiderable selection. He had just spritzed on something called Drakkar Noir, which Gerard supposed sounded very manly, when Ray found him.

"Gerard? You okay?"

"Mmmhmmm." He sniffed at his wrist, wrinkling his nose. "Smells better in the bottle."

"Mikey's worried."

He looked at Ray, who looked concerned, as well. "I know. I just needed—" Gerard didn't know how to explain it, but Ray was nodding.

"He knows. We know." He looked around the mostly empty store. "You're freaking out the store security. You ready to come home?"

Gerard nodded, suddenly realizing how tired he felt. "Yeah." He wrapped his arms around Ray's waist and leaned into him. "Thanks for coming to my rescue. Again."

"No problem, Gee." Ray dropped a casual kiss on his head. "Let's go home and take the wolves out for a walk in the hedge maze and you can tell me what's bothering you."

"Okay."

Ray had named the wolves Geri and Freki, after Odin's faithful companions. They chased each other like puppies in the maze while Ray and Gerard sat on a stone bench in the middle of the labyrinth.

"Have you ever been in love, Ray?" Gee asked quietly.

Ray didn't answer right away, carefully considering Gerard's question and his answer to it. That was one of the best things about Ray, the way he didn't rush into anything.

"Yes," he said after a while. "Not always as deeply as I thought, but yes. You?"

"I thought I'd been in love, a couple of times. Victoria in high school, Spencer in college. A couple of other times." He broke off a branch from a nearby shrub and stripped the leaves off of it.

"But now. . .?"

Gerard stared at his hands, fingers twisted together, in his lap. "I'm not so sure anymore. Frank—what I'm feeling—" He blew his bangs out of his face. "It's different."

"Good different or bad different?" Ray's voice was gentle.

"I don't know." Gee leaned his head on Ray's shoulder. "I don't know what to do. I want Frank, God, I need him, and there's these feelings, but it's so intense, it scares me."

"That's okay, though. You're allowed to be afraid."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." They sat there, silent and comfortable, until there was a loud splashing sound, accompanied by happy growling and yipping. "Oh, hell. Geri and Freki just got into the fountain. Bath time tomorrow," Ray said, resigned.

Laughing, Gerard stood up, pulling Ray with him. "Thanks, Ray."

Mikey was waiting for him in the kitchen when they got inside and the first thing he did was pull Gerard into a hard hug. He sniffed, and then pushed Gerard away, his nose wrinkling. "You reek."

"I tried on some of the colognes at the drugstore," he admitted sheepishly.

"All of them?"

"Well, no, just many of them."

"Okay." Mikey sneezed. "You freaked Frank out pretty badly, Gee. He thinks he did something wrong." There was only the slightest hint of a question in Mikey's voice.

"No! He didn't do anything—it was me." Gerard started pacing.

"Gee."

Gerard knew that tone of voice. That was Mikey's 'I'm being patient but you're being ridiculous voice.' "I almost kissed him."

"Okay," Mikey repeated calmly. "You are allowed to kiss really hot tattooed guys that you really like."

"Maybe." Gerard threw himself into a chair and squinted at his thumbnail before chewing on it. "My track record is pretty abysmal for that kind of thing."

"What, kissing?"

"No, the whole—" Gerard waved his hand around, indicating everything, "—relationship thing." He rocked his chair back in a way that would have had their mom yelling at him.

"Gee, Gee, did you somehow propose to Frank?"

"What? No!" Gerard almost fell out of the chair. He flailed his arms, bringing the chair back to the ground with a loud thump. "What the fuck, Mikey?"

Mikey rubbed at his eyes, looking tired and Gerard felt a wave of guilt wash over him. "So let me get this straight. You didn't kiss him, you aren't dating him and you managed not to propose to him. What relationship thing are we talking about?" Mikey used air quotes just to ensure that Gerard knew he was being mocked.

"Fuck you, Mikey."

"No, I'm serious. It's one thing if you kiss him and he's a terrible kisser and you're having second thoughts. But you're having second and third thoughts about a relationship you're not even having yet. A theoretical relationship."

It sounded absurd when Mikey said it out loud. "So you're saying. . ."

"I'm saying maybe you should wait until you're actually having a relationship before you start freaking out about it."

"But—"

"No buts, Gee."

"Okay." His voice was small. "But I'm not going to have a relationship with Frank, so it's moot point."

Mikey just raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"I'm not."

"Okay. But you should apologize to him, because he really thought he'd done something wrong."

"I'll think about it."

Mikey gave him a look, but Gee stood firm and refused to commit to an apology out of stubbornness. "Okay, then," he sighed. "I'm going to bed." He dropped a kiss on Gerard's head and sneezed. "You still reek."

"I know."

"Goodnight, Gee."

"'night, Mikes. Love you."

Gerard really didn't want to talk to Frank about their near kiss, but he knew that Mikey was right, he owed Frank an apology at the very least. So, in a time-honored frankenstein tradition, Gerard decided to create a gift to demonstrate the depth of his sorrow, rather than using words to talk about his feelings.

He spent the rest of the night feverishly working in the lab, never happier that he'd managed to convince Mikey that the exorbitant cost of a temporal accelerator was worth it. Because it was so worth it.

When Mikey stumbled into the kitchen in search of caffeine, Gerard was wide awake and jittering. On the kitchen table was Frank's apology-present, a plant in a huge pot, vine-y and trailing up a tomato cage, with several subtly striped fruits nestled in among the bright green leaves. Gerard had found one of those "HELLO MY NAME IS" stickers and stuck it on the pot, with the name AUDREY III Sharpie'd in. Under the name were the words I'm sorry. He'd refrained, just barely, from doodling a carnivorous plant onto the sticker.

Mikey approached the plant cautiously, which Gerard didn't think was unwarranted, given its name. "Gee?"

"Frank mentioned that the one thing he'd missed as a vegetarian was bacon. He said the facon was okay, but it wasn't the same."

"Oh-kay."

"So I made him a tomacon plant."

"A what?"

"A tomacon plant. Tomatoes that taste like bacon, for delicious vegetarian BLTs."

"Coffee," Mikey said, making sad little pawing gestures. "I need coffee to deal with tomacon plants."

Gerard took pity on him and got him a mug, letting him take a couple of sips before pointing to the plate of sliced tomacon on the table. "Taste it."

Mikey grimaced at him. "Can you let me finish this first," he asked, holding up the mug.

Nodding, Gerard tried to stop his foot from tapping out a fast beat, but that just made his fingers try to rap out a syncopated rhythm on the table. Maybe he'd shouldn't have drank that last pot of coffee. . .

"Did you sleep at all last night?" Mikey asked, dragging the plate closer. He poked at the tomacon slices, cutting one in half before popping it into his mouth. Gerard watched, anxious, as Mikey chewed thoughtfully.

"Well?"

Mikey held up a finger and ate the other half of the slice. "It's amazing, Gee. Really does taste just like bacon. Did you use pig genes?"

"I thought about it," he confessed, pushing back his bangs. "It would have been easier. But I figured that wouldn't count as vegetarian, if the plant was part pig."

"Probably not," Mikey agreed. "So how did you do it?"

Gerard shrugged. "The flavor of bacon isn't hard to synthesize. Just had to get the texture right, so I spliced a combination of eggplant and breadfruit genes into the tomato and tinkered to get the flavor to come out right."

It was always weird when Mikey looked at him like he was brilliant or something. "I'm sure Frank will love it," Mikey said blandly.

"You think so?"

"Yeah."

"Good." Gerard fidgeted for a moment before touching the plant, stroking his finger across a leaf. "I think I'm about to crash," he said faintly. He was starting to feel light-headed and disconnected.

"You didn't sleep, did you?"

Gerard could hear the resignation in Mikey's voice. "No, I started working on Frank's present, and once I started, I didn't want to stop."

Mikey nodded. "Go get some sleep. And shower. You still reek."

"Oh." He'd forgotten about that. "Yeah. Sorry."

"Goodnight, Gee," Mikey said with a smile.

It was amazing how much better life was after eight solid hours of sleep and a shower. Gerard went down into the lab and before he could do anything, Frank jumped on his back with an excited yell.

"Oh my God, Gee, it's fucking awesome! A tomacon plant! I can't believe you made it for me!"

Frank's arms were choking him, so Gerard got his hands under Frank's legs and hitched him up higher on his back so he could breathe again. "Good, yeah?"

"Yeah!" Frank wiggled and Gerard struggled to keep his balance. He staggered over to the couch and dumped Frank onto it, watching him bounce. "No one's ever made me a plant before." He giggled and looked at Gerard, a huge smile on his face.

Gerard caught his breath at how open Frank was, every thought and emotion so clearly written on his face.

"Gee?" Frank's smile disappeared like the sun behind a cloud. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head, forcing himself to smile at Frank. "Nothing. I was just thinking."

Frank shook his head, disbelief written clear on his face. "Don't. Don't—lie to me. I don't like being lied to."

"No, Frank, no." Gerard gestured. "I'm not lying to you. Nothing's wrong. You just surprise me, sometimes, with—"

Frank frowned. "It's too much, isn't it?" He looked at his hands, lacing his fingers together. "I try, but I'm always too much."

"No!"

Frank looked at him in surprise. "No?"

"No. Not too much. Never too much. Just surprising and unexpected and joyful."

Frank blushed and slanted a glance up at Gerard. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, Frankie," Gerard said, smiling. There was so much more he could say, but he wasn't ready to go there, wasn't ready to face what he was feeling, so he settled for, "I like you just the way you are."

"I like you, too, Gee."

Frank was turning out to be exactly what Gerard needed. Somehow, even though they hadn't known each other for very long, Frank had an instinctive understanding of how to handle Gerard, to keep him on track and going in the right direction. He was an unerring judge of Gerard's moods and had the uncanny ability of plying Gerard with coffee at just the right time.

Even better, in Gerard's mind, was the fact that Frank had integrated himself smoothly into their little family. They ate dinner and watched movies together; Frank played video games with Ray and went to the movies with Mikey. He let Gerard sit in on his guitar practices in the empty lab, and Gerard was spellbound as Frank thrashed around the room, pouring his heart into the sounds he pulled out of his guitar.

Some days, Ray would join in, headbanging his way through the jam session, grinning through his sweaty hair at Frank, whose smile was as big as the moon and twice as bright. It made something in Gerard's stomach flutter uncomfortably, but Gerard still wasn't ready to deal with his feelings yet, so he just kept them to himself. He only thought about it when he was exhausted and his willpower was ebbing low, and he couldn't stop his hand from sliding into his underwear and wrapping around his hard cock. . .

The guild finally gave into the pressure and elevated Dr. Simmons to full frankenstein, and the next day Mikey called her and asked her on a date. They went out to dinner and Mikey staggered home two days later, a little worse for wear, clothes torn, bite marks visible on his neck.

"Fucking hell," Frank murmured, watching Mikey wince as Ray helped him take off his jacket. "You get into a fight?"

"No," Gerard said, nudging at Frank. "He got laid."

"No shit?" Frank looked absolutely delighted.

"Yeah. Dr. Simmons," Ray said.

Mikey flipped Ray off.

Frank asked, "Dr. Alicia Simmons?" His eyes grew wide. "I saw an article about her in EOG. She's fucking hot." He looked speculatively at Mikey. "And fucking scary."

"You have no idea," Mikey said.

Gerard just laughed.

They focused on the wearable biologics project (Pettable clothes, Frank!). Frank compiled a long list of soft and fuzzy animals, and then they spent weeks petting the various critters and ranking them in order of softness and fuzziness. It took some doing, because some of the animals were rather exotic and not easily petted. Some were dangerous to touch.

Gerard was actually surprised at how many animals were deceptively furred. Polar bear fur looked fluffy, but was actually coarse and rough, as was lion fur. Wolf and fox were softer than expected. Koalas were fluffy; panda bears were mostly dirty. Tigers, clouded leopards and chinchillas had silky and cool fur that Gerard loved; he couldn't keep his fingers from touching. Frank's taste ran more toward furry and warm, like baby harp seals and red pandas.

Frank loved animals and Gerard couldn't believe how much Frank smiled as they went to zoos and animal preserves and wildlife refuges. It made Gerard happy to see Frank so happy. He didn't let himself think about the implications of that too closely.

They made up lists of their favorites and spent days discussing the pros and cons of each animal, both subtly lobbying for the ones they liked best. A few animals required revisiting, mainly because Gerard really loved seeing the wonder and joy on Frank's face when he petted the tigers.

"Why does it have to be only one type of animal, Gee? Couldn't we try a mix of animals?"

"Frank, you motherfucker! That's brilliant!" Gerard could have kissed him. But didn't. Just barely.

In the end, for their first test run, they decided on a blend of chinchilla, tiger and red panda.

"There's something ironic about that," Frank said with a giggle.

"Maybe. Nature might be red in tooth and claw, but modern science will change that." Gerard made claws with his fingers and growled.

"You're mangling Tennyson" he said mildly. "That's not quite what he meant." He sighed. "Poor tiger. Getting turned into a blanket."

Gerard pursed his lips. "Better this way, than the old fashioned way of hunting them."

"True," Frank agreed. "Are we gonna make 'em purr?"

"Of course. It's part of the appeal of cats, yeah?"

"Or—" There was a dangerous glint to Frank's eye. "Maybe we could make 'em trill. . ."

Gasping, Gerard stared at Frank. "Oh my fucking God, Frank, Frank, you're a Trekkie, too?"

Frank just examined his fingernails. "Maybe."

Gerard grabbed his elbow. "We've got to watch that episode and take notes, see if we can replicate the sound.

In the end, Frank and Gerard, with input from Ray, decided that the sounds the tribbles made on Star Trek were not going to work because they were a little too loud. Purring, though, was still an option.

They ending up watching the tribble episode anyway. Frank sat at one end of the couch, Ray at the other, with Gerard stretched out between them, his head pillowed on Frank's thigh. They moved on to Gerard's favorite episode, which was 'The City on the Edge of Forever.' Ray wordlessly handed Gerard a tissue at the end of the episode and Frank studiously ignored Gerard's sniffles. Then they watched Ray's favorite episode, the one with the rock-lifeforms, and by that point Mikey had joined them with a bowl of popcorn which they threw at the television while they watched the absolutely horrible episode where Spock's brain got stolen by the hot space-chicks.

Gee protested against the term 'space-chicks' but had to agree with Mikey that 'space-women' didn't have the same ring to it. Ray just shook his head and refused to get involved in the discussion.

Gerard ended up squished against Frank to make room for Mikey and he hummed happily to himself. Frank was warm and smelled good and he leaned trustingly against Gerard, which made Gerard's stomach flutter weirdly.

They watched a couple of the better episodes and then Ray and Mikey drifted off to their rooms, while Gerard and Frank insisted on ". . .just one more episode. . ."

Gerard woke hours later stretched out on the couch, uncomfortable and confused. He'd been having a dream in which he was trapped in warm and clingy quicksand. He slitted his eyes open to find that it was Frank who was warm and clingy, draped across his chest and drooling a little in his sleep. Sighing, Gerard relaxed and slung his arm across Frank's torso.

After a moment, Gerard realized that Frank's back felt a little strange under his arm, ridged and bumpy in unexpected ways. Gerard was curious, because there was definitely something going on. Frank's upper body was much more muscled than expected, but Gerard knew that it wasn't because Frank worked out a lot.

He touched Frank lightly, really curious now about the secrets Frank had under his clothes. Frank always wore long sleeved shirts, sometimes several layers of them. Gerard knew that it was partly because Frank got cold easily, and he'd assumed that it was partly because Frank wanted to keep his tattoos under wraps, hidden away for some reason. But Gerard was convinced that there was something more going on.

Frank made a unhappy noise in his sleep and his side rippled under Gerard's hand, which did nothing to sate Gerard's curiosity. "S'okay, Frank," he murmured, brushing the hair out of Frank's face. "You're safe." Gerard would make sure of it. The mystery would wait until Frank was ready to share.

He should have expected that it would happen sooner or later, but it was still a surprise when it did. Also, awkward. Very, very awkward.

Gerard stumbled into the kitchen in search of coffee and came face to face with Dr. Simmons, wearing one of Mikey's old tee shirts and very little else. She was sitting at the table, staring into her coffee cup like it contained the secrets of the universe.

"Good morning," Gerard said, pouring himself some coffee and joining her. He hadn't had a chance to talk to her since Mikey had started seeing her, and he needed to fulfill his big brother duties and make sure her intentions toward Mikey were honorable.

She looked up and gave him a small smile, her dark makeup smudged around her eyes. "Morning." There was a bite mark on her neck and Gerard struggled really hard not to think about that.

Gerard grimaced; it was too early for this kind of shit, but Mikey had always been there for him and so he forced his brain into gear. "So, Dr. Simmons—"

"Call me Alicia," she interrupted.

"Alicia," he said. "Okay, so—" He didn't know what to say. "You and Mikey—" Why was this so fucking hard?

"I love him," she said, before he had a chance to say anything else. "I know we haven't been together for very long, but—" She shrugged, the motion graceful. "I love him."

"Don't hurt him." That was the most important thing. "The thing with Pete—" Gee didn't know if Alicia understood how bad things had gone with Pete.

"He told me, a little." She paused. "He still loves Pete, you know."

Gerard did, and that was the worst part of the whole fucking thing. Mikey couldn't stop loving Pete, even though he'd tried. "I know."

She nodded and took a sip of her coffee. "He has a big heart."

"The biggest." Gerard just wanted Mikey to be happy. He deserved that, more than anything. Looking at her, he caught a glimpse of the woman behind the tough exterior. He saw the love she had for Mikey and that was the reassurance that he needed. He nodded.

"Gerard." She reached across the table and touched his hand. "Thank you—thank you for trusting me with his heart."

He shrugged shyly. "You're welcome."

While Gerard worked on getting the right combination of furry animal genes for their wearable biologics project, he had Frank work on figuring out how to make the biologics purr. Which meant that Frank spent a lot of time investigating which animals actually purred, and how they did it.

"A bunch of animals purr," he reported. "Including guinea pigs, elephants, raccoons and gorillas."

"Oh?" Gerard asked. "I thought it was just cats."

"Nope." Frank scribbled some notes. "But if you take the more scientifically accepted definition of purring—"

"Which is?"

"A continuous sound production that alternates between pulmonic egressive and intressive airstreams."

"Okay." Gerard made a face. "Dry words for a soothing aural phenomena."

"Then only members of the Felis genus, plus the Panthera genus, and genets purr. Felis includes the domestic cat and smaller wildcats, while Panthera includes tigers, lions, jaguars and leopards."

"What the hell is a genet?" Gerard had never heard of them.

Frank held his hands about a foot and half apart. "They're a cross between a cat and a mongoose, spotted with really long tails. They live in trees, for the most part. From Africa and Europe."

"Show me a picture," Gerard demanded. He was half-convinced that Frank was making the creature up. "Huh." It did look like a cross between a cat and a mongoose, pointy-nosed and curious. He tapped at the picture on the monitor. "Prehensile tail?"

Frank gave him a strange look. "No, not prehensile. Just long, for balance."

"Hmm. I always wanted a tail."

"Like a possum? So you could hang from tree branches?"

"Maybe? It'd come in handy, sometimes?" He thought about it. "Or extra arms. Like Doc Ock from Spider-Man, but with like 80 percent less evil?"

"Tentacle-things? Like a squid? Or a jellyfish? Kinda gross and slimy, though." There was something in Frank's voice that was off, but his face was giving nothing away.

"Not really. I think tentacles are cool. Not a lot of animals have them. And mechanical ones like Doc Ock had would be useful to people with disabilities."

"Cool?" Frank's voice was disbelieving. "Really? You think tentacles are cool?"

Gerard shrugged. "I think all kinds of thing are cool. Tentacles, zombies, tribbles, Mittens™. One of the other igors we interviewed was really into cephalopods, trying to increase their intelligence." He let himself pout a little. "Mikey wouldn't let me hire her, because he thought she was a little too determined to take over the world with her octopus army."

"Octopus army?" Frank asked faintly.

"Yeah." Gerard sketched out a quick octopus soldier on the paper on his desk, complete with armor and weaponry. "It would have been cool," he said a little wistfully. "But I'm glad we hired you, because you're more awesome that an octopus army would have been." He watched, fascinated, as Frank blushed.

"I don't—"

"It's the truth, Frank." Gerard waved his hand, indicating the lab and Castle Way. "You've made such a difference. You keep me on track, make sure I don't set anything on fire, keep me from wandering too far away on weird, useless tangents. . ."

"Mikey told me that one of my key job duties was to keep you from setting things on fire. He stressed that repeatedly."

Gerard sighed. "It's only happened a couple of times, but he never lets me forget."

"Well," Frank conceded. "Things catching on fire is kinda scary. And potentially hurtful, and I think none of us want to see anyone hurt."

"True." Gerard worried at his bottom lip with his teeth. "So, tails," he said brightly.

"No tails for you, Gerard. And really, I think the biologicals we're creating really won't need tails, either."

Gerard scoffed at that. "Everyone could use a tail. They would be fuzzy and very fashionable."

Frank looked him over and grinned. "Fashionable?"

"What?" Okay, so maybe he'd been wearing the same clothes for a couple of days, and maybe they were really wrinkled but he knew fashionable when he saw it on other people. People not him.

Frank just shook his head and laughed.

It was late and everyone was asleep, but when Gerard went into the den he found Mikey sprawled out on the couch in the dark, listlessly flipping through channels on the television. The sound was muted and the images from the television threw strange shadows on the wall. Gerard was instantly worried. "Mikey? What's wrong?"

Mikey wouldn't meet his gaze, just kept changing stations. Gerard sat down and stubbornly pushed and shoved at Mikey until his head was cradled in Gee's lap. He rested his one hand on Mikey's side and brushed back his hair. "What happened?"

For a while, it looked like Mikey wasn't going to answer. And then finally, he shrugged, a bare movement of his shoulders. "Sometimes people aren't who you think they are."

Gerard felt an icy stab of fear. "Mikes—what's going on?"

He inhaled raggedly and rubbed his face against Gerard's thigh. "Nothing."

That was obviously an untruth, but Gerard let it go for now, because Mikey could be obstinate, but he would tell Gerard when he was ready. In the meantime, Gerard just kept petting Mikey and talking to him quietly, unsurprised when Mikey fell asleep, looking exhausted and raw.

Gerard couldn't figure out why Mikey had such bad luck with relationships. Gee hadn't had much success either, but he had his suspicions on why. Mikey was an awesome person: kind, caring, considerate, intelligent, rich, good-looking. A catch. And yet, somehow, he kept falling in love with the wrong people. Before Pete there was Ryan, and before Ryan it had been Z.

It pissed him off, because for all the hell that Gee had put Mikey through, he deserved to be fucking happy. He sighed and tried to get a little more comfortable on the couch.

He kept watch over Mikey through the night.

Frank brought some of the Mittens™ into the lab so he could study the mechanisms of purring more closely. "Purring seems to serve multiple purposes," he said. "It's partly a communication thing, the animal indicating its emotional state."

"So when a cat purrs, it's happy?"

Frank shook his head. "Not necessarily, according to the literature. Cats will purr when they're in pain, when they're sick, when they're content, when they're happy. Or when they want you to feed them."

"So, basically, cats purr when they're. . .alive?"

"Pretty much."

Gerard shook his head. "Not really useful as an indicator of their emotional state."

"Well, no," Frank admitted. "But, the purring seems to have some unforeseen side effects."

"Really? Like what?"

"Purring encourages an increase in bone density and muscle mass. It also speeds healing. Some researchers are looking into the practical applications, because astronauts have a problem keeping consistent bone density in zero-g and it can be a big issue on long term missions." Frank pointed out some diagrams, loss of density and mass versus time in zero-g.

"Couldn't they just play recordings of purrs, or does it actually have to be generated from a living biologic system?" Gerard found the idea of using purring to heal absolutely fascinating.

"No one's seems to have figured that out yet. Either way, it's an interesting area of research we could explore."

Gerard nodded. "Definitely."

Gerard knew something was going on, because when he walked into the kitchen, the conversation between Mikey and Ray abruptly died. He grabbed an orange from the fruit bowl that Ray kept stocked to keep them from getting scurvy (Like pirates, Mikey!) and leaned against the counter nonchalantly. "What's up."

"Nothing," they said in unison, looking guilty.

"Uh-huh." Gerard peeled the orange and teased a slice free, popping it into his mouth with a happy little sound. "You both are terrible, terrible liars." He looked from one to the other. Ray's mouth had a particularly mulish twist to it and from that, Gerard guessed they'd been arguing.

"It's nothing, Gee," Mikey said, and really, he was going to worker harder at being convincing.

"Right." He thought about the other night, when he'd found Mikey in front of the muted television, upset but unwilling to talk about it. "If you don't tell me what's going on, I'm going to go and create Muppies™ and then them loose in the castle."

It was almost comical how fast that changed their minds.

"Fucker," Mikey growled. "Ray thinks—"

"Ray thinks," Ray interrupted calmly, "that someone is poking around where they shouldn't be. Reports have been displaced, papers shuffled, drawers rifled through, things rearranged. Nothing major, nothing's missing, but—"

Gerard was confused. "Who—"

Mikey took a hard breath. "We think it's Alicia."

"But why?" Gerard was flabbergasted.

Ray shrugged and looked uncomfortable.

Gerard walked across the kitchen and hugged Ray, because he could only imagine how hard it would have been for him to tell Mikey. "Thanks, Ray." He held out his other arm to Mikey. After a long moment, he felt Mikey's arms creep across his shoulder and he reeled Mikey into the hug. "We'll figure it out," he whispered.

Gerard and Frank used the Mittens™ to measure some basic characteristics of purring, things like frequency and decibel levels, amplitude and duration of the ingressive and egressive phases of the purrs. They borrowed a couple of non-miniature cats from some friends, aggravating Gerard's allergies, and measured the attributes of their purrs as well. They did the same with some bigger cats down at the zoo.

After a couple of weeks, they had an impressive set of purring data, and no conclusions.

"Okay, so let's just build some larynxes and see if we can get them to purr," Gerard said.

"We need to do some electromyographical studies of larynxes, first. I want a better understanding of how the biomechanics of sound production works."

Gerard shrugged. "Okay, you work on that. I'm going to go forward with creating a finding a good mix of genes to produce the wearable biologics."

Frank nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

They went to their separate lab benches and got to work.

A while later, there was the sound of shattering glass and "Motherfucker!"

Gerard looked up to find Frank holding out his arms, liquid soaking his lab coat and shirt. "Shower, now, Frank. Clothes off." He pointed to the emergency shower/eye wash station in the corner.

"No, I'm fine—"

"Now, Frank." Gerard's tone of voice, sharp and commanding, brooked absolutely no arguments. He took lab safety very seriously. He took Frank's safety seriously. "Get in the fucking shower and take your clothes off."

"Gee—" Frank looked terrified. "Please—"

"For Christ's sake, Frank. I know you have issues; I'll turn around so I can't see. But get in the fucking shower now." As he turned his back on Frank, he pulled out his phone out and called Ray. "Lab accident," he said succinctly, listening to the rustle of clothes as Frank stripped.

"You and Frank okay?" Ray asked.

"I am. Frank's in the emergency shower right now. Hold on." Gerard raised his voice a little, so that Frank could hear him over the sound of running water. "What was in the flask, Frank?"

"Oxalic acid."

"Did you get any in your eyes? Ingest or inhale any of it?" It wasn't the worst thing that Frank could have spilled on himself, but there was still the potential for danger.

"No, no, nothing like that."

"Okay, stay under the water for about fifteen minutes," he said to Frank, before switching back to Ray. "He's fine, no ingestion or inhalation. Going to make him shower and then check him for chemical burns. We're going to need the acid neutralized, and the lab aired out."

"I'll need an accident report for the insurance company," Ray said. "I'll be down in a bit to work on clean up."

"Yeah, I'll make him write up an accident report, maybe not tonight, but tomorrow, definitely. We're done for the day." Gerard desperately wanted to turn around, to make sure Frank was okay, but he'd promised Frank he wouldn't.

"I'll take care of the lab, Gerard. You take care of Frank."

Gerard took a deep breath, focusing on Ray's voice, letting it center and calm him. "Take care of Frank," he repeated. "Thanks, Ray." He hung up and tried to shove his phone into his pocket, but his hands were shaking, so it took a little effort. "You doing okay, Frank?"

There was a pause. "Yeah."

"There's towels and a bathrobe in the cabinet next to the shower; the robe's way too big for you, but it'll do for now." Gerard crossed his arms over his chest, hugging himself.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—" Frank said, and it took everything Gerard had to not turn around.

"It's okay." Gerard took another deep breath. "Just an accident. It's not a big deal; Ray will clean up in here." The water shut off and Gerard heard the cabinet creak open. "Go change into something comfortable and I'll come check on you in a bit, okay?"

"Okay," Frank said, voice small, and Gerard listened as he padded out of the lab.

"Fuck," he sighed shakily. He just stood and breathed for a while, counting each inhale and exhale. He heard footsteps in the hall and knew it was Mikey.

"Gerard, you okay?" Mikey asked. "Ray said something about a spill. . .?"

Gerard turned and looked at Mikey, standing in the doorway. He summoned up a half-hearted smile. "Yeah, a little accident. We're both okay."

"Good." Mikey moved close and hugged him, hard and quick. "You need anything?"

He needed to stop being a coward. It was time to quit running away from how he felt. He shook the tension out of his shoulders and stood up straight. "No, I've got it under control."

Gerard stood in front of Frank's door for a long moment, collecting his thoughts and his courage, before knocking.

"Come in," Frank said, still sounding a little subdued.

Frank's room was very different from Gerard's. Gerard tended to stick with the traditional dank and dark dungeon look, blacks and reds. Frank had been trying for something more warm and homey, browns and greens, earth tones. It worked; his rooms were open and welcoming. It suited him.

He was sitting on the couch they'd helped him move in, Ray and Mikey and Gerard all huffing and puffing as they carried it up the stairs to the third floor. Frank had jumped on the couch and lounged on the cushions, cracking jokes as they'd maneuvered through the hallways.

Now, though, Frank was curled up in one corner of the couch, arms wrapped protectively around himself. It made something inside Gerard ache to see him like that, tense and unhappy and almost—fearful.

"Hey." Frank had changed into an old pair of sweat pants and several layers of long-sleeved shirts, comfort clothes, Gerard supposed. His feet were bare. "You all right?"

He wouldn't look at Gerard, just kind of shrugged at him.

"Frank." Gerard crouched down on one knee in front of him, trying to see his face. "Do you—will you trust me?" He tried to keep his voice steady, but the hand he held out shook slightly.

"I want to, so fucking much," Frank said, voice tight. "But it's hard—"

"You've become an important part of our family here, with me and Mikey and Ray, and I don't use the word ‘family' lightly." He waited until Frank met his eyes. "It's so important that you feel safe and comfortable here, because it's your home, too." Gerard touched Frank's bare foot.

Frank raised his chin. "And what about you? How do you feel about me?"

Gerard caught his breath at Frank's bravery. "Oh." His heart was pounding hard and fast in his chest, and there were what felt like vicious, blood-sucking butterflies fluttering in his belly. He looked at Frank's toes, trying to gather the words. "I've never been good at this. The few relationships I've had, I've managed to fuck up pretty hardcore. I don't want to do that with whatever's between us." After a moment, he peered at Frank through his hair. "I'm—afraid," he admitted softly.

"I'm not any good at this, either," Frank whispered. "The trust thing. But I want—I want this—"

Frank was being so courageous; there was no way Gerard couldn't do the same. He nodded and swallowed hard. "All right." He leaned forward slowly and pressed their lips together in a chaste kiss. Frank's lips were softer then they looked, warm. A sense of certainty washed over Gerard.

He pulled away to watch Frank's face, to see his reaction. Frank unfolded himself from the couch and stood up, reaching for the hem of his shirts. "No, let me," Gerard said.

Frank eyes were wide, but he nodded, slowly. "O—okay." His voice was rough.

A tiny smile crept onto Gerard's face. He stood up and reached for Frank's shirts, pulled them over Frank's head, laughing a little as the collars got caught on Frank's ear and ruffled his hair. Frank was biting his bottom lip and Gerard licked at his mouth, kissing him again.

Frank was wearing an strange garment under his shirts, something sort of like a vest, made of what looked like lightweight canvas. It covered Frank from neck to waist, a series of thin, parallel straps buckling across his chest, leaving his arms exposed. It reminded Gerard of a straight jacket, designed to restrain.

And as Gerard had suspected, Frank's arms were covered with tattoos, from shoulders to wrists. Black, blue, red, and green, a rainbow of bright colors and stark black lines, swirling and snaking over warm flesh. Gerard wanted to trace each one with his fingers, tease the meanings from Frank, taste them with his mouth. It made Gerard wonder what other tattoos that Frank still had hidden away.

Gerard tilted his head and tried to figure out Frank's vest. His eyes followed the shape of the fabric, examining the straps and buckles. He was sure it was created to bind and constrain. He just wasn't sure why.

"Last chance to turn back, Gee," Frank joked, but he was pale and sweating. "There are things man was not meant to see. . ."

"Shhhh." He kissed Frank again, taking his time, tracing the shape of Frank's lips with his tongue. Frank opened his mouth with a hungry sound and Gerard had to struggle with himself not to get lost in the taste of Frank. There were more important things to do.

Gerard watched as his fingers found the first of the straps and unbuckled it carefully, pulling the belt loose from the prong. He could feel Frank trembling and he wanted to find a way to reassure him, to make Frank understand that no matter what was under the vest, it wouldn't change the way Gerard felt.

He knew, though, that the best way to convince Frank was to just show him. So he undid the next buckle, and the one below it, and finally the last of them, sliding his hands under the fabric and pushing it off Frank's shoulders.

"Oh." He couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice, and he saw Frank flinch. "No, no, you're beautiful."

And Frank was. Slowly uncoiling from where they'd been wrapped around his torso and held in place with the vest were four—tentacles. They were a little thinner than Frank's arms and longer, tapering off into rounded ends. Growing smoothly from Frank's side, they were just as tattooed as Frank's arms, but in a very different style. "May I?" Gerard asked formally, not wanting to touch without permission or to cause Frank any discomfort.

Frank shrugged, trying for nonchalant and failing, tentacles rippling. "Sure." He held one of the tentacles out to Gerard.

Gerard carefully cradled it between his hands. It felt just like the rest of Frank, strong, warm and smooth. From the way they moved, Gerard suspected that they were all supple muscle, like an elephant's trunk. And the tattoos, tribal-looking swoops of color, spiralling around Frank's tentacles, dancing across his skin. "Gorgeous, absolutely fucking gorgeous," Gerard breathed softly.

The tentacle slipped out of Gerard's grasp and brushed across his cheek before tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear. There was no doubt in Gerard's mind that Frank's tentacles were as dexterous as his fingers and hands were. He smiled as Frank wrapped his tentacles around Gerard's waist and pulled him close, kissing him, licking into Gerard's mouth and exploring.

"What do you like, what do you want?" Gerard asked as he rubbed his hands up and down Frank's back, relishing the feel of skin under his palms. He brushed a kiss against Frank's ear. "Tell me," he whispered.

Frank tensed against him, pulling away a little, his face turned to the side. "I—"

"Frank?" Gerard wasn't sure what was going on, but it was clear that Frank's mood had shifted; his head and tentacles drooped. "Frank—" Gerard wrapped his arms around Frank and held him tight.

Frank mumbled something against the skin of Gerard's neck, making him shiver.

"What?" Gerard shook his head. "C'mon, Frankie, talk to me."

"I said," Frank snapped, "I haven't done a lot so I don't know what I like or what I want." He shook loose from Gerard's hold and crossed his arms over his chest, tentacles looping around his torso. His face was flushed.

"But—"

"But what, Gee? The few times I let someone see me—" He broke off with a brittle laugh. "I'm lucky one of my cousins is a tattoo artist, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten them tattooed." He touched his bare chest angrily, tentacles waving around in agitation. "I've never—just a couple of mutual jerk-off sessions, a blow job once—"

"Okay, it's okay," he soothed. Gerard reached out and carefully cupped Frank's face in his hands and pressed another kiss to Frank's mouth, slow and undemanding. "It's okay. I was just surprised, that's all."

Frank gulped in a breath. "After a while, I was too scared to put myself out there," he confessed. "Too afraid to let someone close enough to touch me, because then they'd know. . ."

"Yeah, I get it," Gerard said. "But now you have me, and you don't have to be afraid anymore. I just want to make you feel good." He slid his hand down Frank's neck, across his shoulders and down to a tentacle. "Let's try this. I'm going to touch you in different places, and you tell me whether it feels good or not, okay?"

"Okay."

Frank didn't sound totally convinced, but that was fine. Gerard knew what he was doing, and he was very good with his hands. And his mouth. "Kiss me. You like kissing, right?"

"Yeah," Frank breathed, leaning in and going up on his tiptoes. Gerard opened his mouth and let Frank in, rubbing their tongues together, swallowing the needy little sound that Frank made.

And with that, it was like a switch was thrown. Frank nipped at Gerard's lip, and his tentacles settled around Gerard, hip, neck, waist and ass, while Frank wove his fingers into Gerard's hair and pulled. Gerard shifted his weight and pushed his thigh between Frank's legs, feeling how hard his cock was. "That for me?" he asked against Frank's lips. "You hard for me?"

Frank moaned and Gerard took advantage of the situation, pushing his tongue in and exploring the heat of Frank's mouth. "Yeah," Frank mumbled between kisses. "Yeah, you—"

"Good," Gerard whispered. "You make me hard, too." He pressed against Frank's hip, letting him feel his erection. "So, you like kissing, and you like me doing this." He rocked his leg against Frank, listening to Frank's breathing quicken into desperate panting. "How about this?" He rubbed at Frank's nipples, teasing them into hardness with the pads of his thumbs, smiling at the inarticulate sound that Frank made. "You're sensitive there?"

"Not—not normally," he managed. "But—oh, fuck—"

"Yeah." Gee nosed along Frank's neck, breathing in his scent, while he pinched and played with Frank's nipples. "You like that, too." He felt Frank's tentacles curl and tighten around him in response. He let his hands drift down, feeling the differences in musculature across Frank's ribs and abdomen.

Gerard wanted to take his time and explore the way Frank's body was put together, discover the secrets of how his tentacles worked, feel the structural nuances of his body with his hands. But that was for later, when he wasn't so hungry for Frank. . .

Frank's sweatpants were old and stretched out; it didn't take any real effort to push them down far enough until they fell and puddled around Frank's feet. He'd gone commando and Gerard hid his smile against the side of Frank's head.

"Oh," Frank said, like he was surprised to find himself suddenly naked.

Gerard's fingers flexed on Frank's hips, digging in a little. "Yeah, 'oh'," he whispered, and kissed Frank again, walking them slowly over to Frank's bed. "Gonna make a mess, dirty up your sheets—"

Frank choked on a laugh and let Gerard push him down on the bed, tentacles plucking at Gee's shirt and pants. "Off, take your clothes off." Gerard scrambled to pull his shirt over his head while Frank's tentacles worked at the button on his jeans. He got it open and slid two tentacles under the waistband, pushing Gerard's pants and underwear down.

"Hold on, hold on, boots," Gerard said, trying not to lose his balance and fall on Frank. Tentacles wound around his hips, steadying him, as he kicked off his boots and scraped his socks off his feet.

Frank was watching him, wide-eyed, and Gerard took a moment to look at Frank, spread out on the dark sheets. He was gorgeous, olive skin and a faint trail leading down to a hard cock jutting out from a nest of dark hair, tattoos sprawled everywhere.

"I wanna suck you," Gerard murmured, and Frank inhaled raggedly. "You like having your dick sucked?"

"I—I don't know," he said in a rush, face flaming. "I've only—"

"Okay," Gerard said. "Scoot up onto the pillows for me." He climbed onto the bed and touched Frank's knees, gently urging them apart. His thumb stroked softly against the sensitive skin there; Frank shivered. Frank bit his lip as Gerard settled between his legs, wrapping his arms around Frank's thighs and burying his nose into his pubic hair, inhaling loudly. "I love the way you smell, Frankie. Sweat and soap and musk and mmmmm. . ."

Frank shivered and gasped, and Gerard looked up to see Frank's hands fisted in the sheets and two of his tentacles wrapped around the slats of the headboard. The wood creaked a little, giving Gerard an indication of how strong Frank's tentacles were. The thought of that kind of strength gave Gee a thrill.

"Bet you taste good," Gerard mumbled, taking the head of Frank's cock into his mouth and swirling his tongue around. Frank froze and cried out, head dropping back onto the pillows and his mouth falling open. He looked like he was in agony.

"Gerard—Gee, oh my God, Gee—"

Gerard concentrated on sucking Frank's dick, ignoring his own painfully hard erection trapped against the blanket. He wanted to make it good for Frank, that was important. Carefully, he relaxed his throat and worked on taking Frank in deeper, swallowing around him and feeling Frank struggling to stay still under him.

There was a wet slurping sound and Gerard craned his neck a little to see what Frank was doing and—oh. He was sucking on a tentacle-tip, getting it wet and—Frank brushed the tentacle down Gerard's back, leaving behind a cool trail that made Gerard shiver. He pulled off Frank's cock with a gasp as the tentacle went lower, lower, sliding between Gerard's cheeks and pushing in. "Oh, fuck!"

Frank was looking at him, eyebrows pulled together. "Gee? Is this—?"

"No, it's fine," he said breathlessly. He couldn't stop himself from rocking back, needing more. "It's good, Frankie, it's—" He arched when Frank went deeper; Gerard shuddered at the fullness and knew he wasn't going to last much longer at this rate. "Fuck." He went back to sucking Frank's dick, trying to ignore the prickling heat that was pounding through his blood, making him want to rub urgently against the bed and come.

Frank was panting and tense, wound tight; Gerard could feel how close his was, could taste it on his cock. "You gonna come for me, Frankie?" His words made Frank twist desperately under Gerard's hands, voice broken as he babbled and swore. Frank pulled his tentacle out a little before pushing back in, hard and wide. Gee groaned at the sensation. He took Frank as deep as he could, fighting against his gag reflex, swallowing repeatedly until—

"Gee!" Frank twitched and moaned and Gee's mouth was flooded with come, bitter and astringent. Gerard softened his mouth and gradually pulled off Frank, overwhelmed by the sounds Frank was making.

"Fuck, Frankie," he gasped and Gerard barely had time to reach under and grab his own cock before he shuddered and came, spilling hot across his own hand. "Oh, fuck. . ."

"Gee, Gee," Frank said, still shaking. "Please, Gee, hold me—"

Gerard crawled up Frank's body and rolled off to the side, pulling Frank into his arms. "S'okay, Frankie. I got you." Frank's eyes were closed and his breathing was slowing, his smile satisfied and happy. Gerard couldn't resist kissing him before dozing off.

They slept for a little while, wrapped tight around each other. Gerard woke first and watched Frank sleep, feeling drowsy and content. He let his fingers wander over Frank's tentacles, unable to keep from tracing the trailing lines of ink.

He was fascinated by the tentacles, but he was trying hard not to make Frank feel uncomfortable by making a big deal over them. Gerard wanted to touch, to examine, to figure out the musculature under the smooth skin. He had a million different questions about how much thought, if any, that Frank had to put into controlling them.

"My grandparents came up with the idea," Frank said softly, startling Gerard. "They thought that having more 'hands' might be useful while working in the labs, so they fiddled with my dad and his sibs. His generation only have two bothria."

"Bothria. . ."

Frank grinned. "Fancy word for tentacles. Bothrium, singular, bothria, plural."

"Ah." Gerard brushed the back of his knuckles down the length of a bothrium, watching as Frank shivered. They were sensitive; Gerard filed that information away for later. "So, only two for your dad's generation. . ."

"Yeah." Frank rubbed his face against Gerard neck. "Nana was pretty pleased with the results, and my pop thought that having tentacles was a huge advantage for an igor, so they decided to try to do more with me and my cousins."

"Four."

"Yeah, four."

Iero family gatherings were probably pretty interesting. Gerard shrugged. "It seems like they have the potential to be useful."

"People tend to focus on the mutant factor," he said bitterly.

"There's nothing wrong with you, Frank. You're beautiful."

Frank shook his head. "You're the only one who's ever thought that."

"I find that hard to believe." Gerard gently cupped Frank's face between his hands and kissed him. "I'm sure others have found you beautiful."

"No," he sighed.

"Well, you are, inside and out. And if people couldn't see past your tentacles to the wonderful person you are—" Gerard shrugged. "Their loss. There are plenty of people who count themselves lucky to be your friend. Me, Ray, Mikey. Oh, and wait until you meet TRicK."

"Gerard, you don't get it, do you? I'm a freak. People don't want to be around me, because I'm different. That's why I hide what I am."

Frank's words made Gerard's heart ache. "Frank, if there's anyone who comes into our house who can't accept you for what you are, then they're not going to be welcome here." He shrugged. "I hate the idea of you hiding yourself away, because I love the way you look, tentacles and all, but it's your choice."

Frank used a tentacle to touch Gerard's face, tracing his eyebrows, the slope of his nose. "You really think that?"

"Yeah," Gerard breathed softly. "So beautiful. I want to trace your tattoos with my tongue, following them along the length of your bothria. I want you to wrap me up with them, squeeze and touch and tease me. I want to suck on the tentacle tips, because I suspect that they're as sensitive as other parts of your body. I want all of you."

"Fuck," Frank hissed, wrapping a tentacle around the back of Gerard's neck and pulling him close, kissing him. "Yeah, I want that, too."

"Good," Gerard mumbled against Frank's mouth.

"You have to promise to be patient with me," Gerard murmured, hours later, like he was picking up the threads of a forgotten conversation.

"Wha?" Frank asked, half asleep. He blinked slowly at Gerard.

They were lying in the bed, still facing each other. "I'm not good at the whole—" He made a gesture meant to incorporate him and Frank and everything they meant to each other, but Frank still looked confused. "I don't have a lot of experience with this kind of thing."

Frank just scrunched his forehead up. "What kind of thing are you talking about?"

"Sex, love, relationships." He took a deep breath and raised his hand to his mouth to bite at his fingernails. He stopped himself, but didn't know what to do with his hands, so laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. "Life." He had barely talked to Mikey about what had been in his head that night, but he didn't want to hide anything from Frank. "I tried to kill myself, once."

"What?" Frank sat up on the bed, wide awake. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"In college." Gerard closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the disappointment on Frank's face. "It was hard, you know? Studying science and art, not belonging in either world. I was too rational for the artists, too creative for the scientists. I didn't have a lot of friends." He felt Frank lie back down and felt a little reassured.

"I can imagine."

Gerard shrugged. "It was the first time I was away from home, away from Mikey—he was going to school in Chicago—and I was lonely, and I found that if I drank enough and took enough pills, I didn't feel alone anymore. Didn't feel anything, really."

"Gee, look at me." Frank's voice sounded sad, and Gerard couldn't make himself open his eyes.

"And one day I woke up and couldn't come up with a single reason not to swallow all the pills I had, so I did."

"Gee."

He felt Frank's lips against his forehead and realized that he wanted Frank to know everything about him, the good and the bad.

"I guess at some point after I ate all those pills, I changed my mind." He opened his eyes slowly. Frank looked back without judgment or what would have been worse, pity. "I ended up calling Mikey and telling him what I done."

"Gerard." Frank wrapped every limb he had around Gerard and squeezed him, so tight that Gerard couldn't breathe.

"No air," he wheezed, half-jokingly. "Turning blue—"

Frank loosened his grip, but didn't let go, like he was afraid Gerard would slip away if they weren't touching. "You called Mikey, then what?"

"I was fading fast, you know? I'd taken a lot of pills, washed them down with whatever alcohol I'd had on hand—I was mumbling, mostly incoherent and Mikey was absolutely terrified, I could hear it in his voice, the way he was talking." Gerard nuzzled at Frank's hair, wondering idly what kind of shampoo he used. It smelled good. "He kept yelling at me to stay with him, but I was so tired and it was easier to close my eyes and just let go. . ."

Frank swallowed hard, clutching at Gerard. "And then?"

Gerard shrugged. "I don't know. I don't remember anything after that, except—" He closed his eyes, remembering. "I was some place peaceful and quiet, where nothing hurt and I didn't feel so alone." Gerard could still feel a faint echo of tranquility. He sighed. "Mikey had called the EMTs and they were on their way, but by the time they got to me, I was mostly gone."

"What do you mean?" Frank's voice was shaky and Gerard pulled him close.

"My heart had stopped, and I wasn't breathing. I'd dropped the phone, and the EMTs could hear Mikey screaming as they worked on me." Gerard stopped, trying to calm his roiling stomach. He and Mikey had talked about it, exactly once, and it hadn't been pleasant for either of them. "It took them a long time to revive me, like maybe I hadn't wanted to come back."

"You died." Frank was pale, his eyes wide.

"Yeah. Mostly dead." Gerard pressed a kiss to Frank's forehead. "But they brought me back, and I woke up and all I could feel was relief that I wasn't fucking dead anymore." He chewed on his lower lip pensively. "And now I have to wonder if I was brought back for a reason."

Frank still looked a little shocky, so Gerard pulled the covers over them both.

"What reason?" he asked.

"To be with you." Gerard shrugged. "From the moment I met you, I've felt this—connection with you. Maybe it's fate. I don't know, but I'm not going to question my luck."

Frank wiggled around until he could rest his head against Gerard's chest. He suspected that Frank was listening to his heartbeat.

"It scares me to think about losing you before I even had the chance to have you," he murmured, playing with the sparse hair on Gerard's chest. "To have gone through the rest of my life feeling the absence of something, feeling the loss of you and never knowing why—"

"I know," Gerard whispered. "I'm sorry, Frankie."

"You're here now," he said. "That's what matters."

Hunger finally forced them out of bed and into the shower.

"We stink," Frank said. "And I'm starving." One of his tentacles wrapped around Gerard's wrist and squeezed.

Gerard nuzzled at Frank's neck and inhaled. "Sweat and spunk and warmth and us. I like it."

Frank wrinkled his nose. "Ew."

Laughing, Gerard pulled him under the spray of water. They took their time, now that their immediate physical hunger had been satisfied. They washed and shampooed and touched and dried each other off with big, fluffy towels.

Frank found some old clothes that would fit Gerard, and he picked his vest up off the floor, holding it up and looking at it.

"Do you think you need to wear that here at home?" Gerard kept his voice neutral. It had to be Frank's decision to trust that Mikey and Ray would accept him, just like it had to be Frank's decision to show them what he really was.

"I don't know." Frank sounded a little scared, and his eyes were big. He bit his lip and set the vest on the bed. "I have some shirts packed away that were altered with my bothria in mind."

"Okay." Gerard waited patiently while Frank dug out the specially tailored shirts and put one on with a flourish. Frank looked like. . .Frank. Beautiful and smart and his. Gerard held out his hand. "C'mon, let's go get something to eat."

It was almost dinner time, and Ray and Mikey were in the kitchen cooking. Gerard kept a hold of Frank, feeling the tension and fear in him. "S'okay," he whispered, leaning down for a kiss.

Ray saw them first, and he didn't look away, just took in Frank's extra appendages with a long blink and a smile. "Awesome, Frank," he said, and Frank let out the breath he'd been holding.

"That's what you've been hiding?" Mikey scoffed. "I thought you were a spy for Wentz and Clan Industries."

"How do you know I'm not?" Frank retorted smartly, his fear evaporating with Ray and Mikey's easy acceptance.

Gerard wrapped his arm around Frank and squeezed. "Ve haf vays of making you talk," he said in the world's worst Russian accent, making them all laugh. Gerard looked from Ray, to Mikey, to Frank. His family.

"So, that's pretty icky," Gerard said, peering into the tray filled with nutrient solution and a disembodied larynx. Frank had built it from scratch in his search for a purring mechanism.

Frank wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, I know. But I needed to figure things out." He pointed at the schematic on the whiteboard with a bothrium. "Now that I have a handle on the purring, it'll be easy to incorporate them into the wearable biologics."

"Speaking of," Gerard said, opening the temporal accelerator. "Got a test subject here." He pulled out a circle of grey fur, thin and flat. "Meet Fluffy."

"It looks like a furry pancake," Frank said.

"Yeah." Gerard draped it over one of Frank's tentacles, watching as Fluffy shifted to conform to Frank's shape.

"It's warming up."

"Uh huh. Soft and warm. Gently clings. Purrs. Well," Gerard corrected himself, "eventually will purr. Doesn't require anything in the way of food or water, doesn't shed or make a mess, just leave it in the sun for a couple hours a week and it's all good."

"What were you thinking for the initial production?"

Gerard petted Fluffy gently. "Blankets. Then ponchos and scarves."

"So awesome," Frank said distractedly, watching Gerard's fingers stroke the pancake. "Feels good." He shook his head. "Wearable biologics. We're brilliant."

"We totally are," Gerard agreed, and leaned down to steal a kiss.

Epilogue

She met him at a Starbucks in Chicago, being careful to make sure she wasn't followed. He joined her on a bench outside the shop, huddling over a Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha while she sipped at her Caramel Macchiato. The wind was cold and biting.

"I'm done, Pete," she said in her soft voice, eyes dark and serious.

Pete looked into the distance, watching the traffic stream by. He pried the lid off of his Mocha and blew on it, trying to cool it down faster. "Why?"

Alicia closed her eyes and tipped her head back a little, sighing. "Because I'm in love with him."

Pete made a small sound, pain and betrayal, his Mocha slipping from numb fingers to crash onto the ground, splashing coffee everywhere.

He got up and started to leave, but Alicia was fast, faster than him. She grabbed his elbow and pulled him back to her side. "I love him."

It was like twisting a knife. "I get it, 'Licia, I fucking get it. You love him."

"No, I don't think you really get it. I love him." She squeezed his arm hard, to make sure she had his complete attention. "But I love you, too."

He looked at her, taking in her razor sharp intelligence and looks to match. "Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh,'" she mocked. She kicked at his feet. "It wasn't hard to fall in love with him. Thanks for the warning, asshole."

Pete pushed his ball cap back and squinted at her. "I thought it was just me that was susceptible to his many charms."

"You're such an idiot." Alicia leaned against Pete, curling close and resting her head on his shoulder. "He's sweet and funny and smart and absurd. Absolutely fierce and protective of his family and those he loves." She slanted a glance at him.

Pete bit his lip. "He threatened to kill me the last time he called."

Alicia shook her head. "He still loves you, you know?"

Pete looked at her, surprised. "What? No, he—"

"He wanted to be up front about that. Didn't want mislead me about where his heart was."

"What the fuck is wrong with him? He's got you, he doesn't need me," Pete whispered fiercely.

"Maybe he needs both, Pete. Did you ever think about that? The way that maybe I need both of you." The wind whipped her hair into her face and she pushed it back.

"How would that—I don't know how that works. Does that even work in real life?"

Her eyes were piercing. "It can, if you stick around to work things out, rather than running away."

"I wasn't running," he mumbled.

"Bullshit, Pete," she said, but her voice was gentle. "He told me what happened, you know." Alicia pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. "He had to leave because Gerard almost died. Not because of you."

Pete shrugged, a bare, broken movement of his shoulders.

"Listen." Alicia said. She rested the palm of her hand against his cheek. "I'm going back to Jersey tonight and telling Mikey everything. And when he's done being angry at me, we're going to talk." She arched an eyebrow at him. "In a week, I'm going to be in New York and I want both of you there. I'll take you guys out to dinner, we'll talk." She grabbed Pete's hand and twined their fingers together.

"I don't know, 'Licia, it's been so long, and I've been so stupid—"

"Yeah, you have," she agreed. "But it's time to face up to your mistakes and apologize so we can move on with our lives. Mikey's got a big heart, Pete. You know that. Big enough for both of us."

Pete moved close, nuzzling against her neck. "I'm scared," he whispered.

"You wanna know a secret?" she asked. "Me, too. But I'm willing to take the risk. Are you?"

"Maybe."

She shrugged, knowing that Pete would have to make his own decisions. "You've got some time to make up your mind, Pete."

Pete laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. "You make it seem so easy."

Alicia slapped his arm. "You make it more difficult than it needs to be. Happiness is right there, within your reach. You just have to grab for it."

"Alicia—"

"Just think about it, okay? I think this could work, could be the best thing ever for all three of us. I love you. That will never change. But I want more."

He looked at her and she kept still, letting him see how much she loved him, and Mikey, and how badly she wanted this to work. "I'll think about it."

Which was 'yes' in Pete-speak. She leaned forward and kissed him, soft and sweet. "Thank you, Peter Panda." She stood up and touched his face. "I'll see you in a week."

He watched her walk off, shivering a little without her keeping him warm. His phone was in his hand, dialing Mikey's number without even thinking about it. It went directly to voice mail. "Mikey—" He paused and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, dude. For everything."

-fin-