Warped Tour means a lot of partying, a lot of exhaustion, and a lot of hanging out with other bands. Everyone's dirty and busy and tired all the time, just jazzed up enough to ignore it. There's also the hours spent on the bus traveling from location to location, though, with nothing to do but entertain yourself or hope someone else is feeling gracious enough to do it for you, and those are the worst.
Frank decides it's a good time to start knitting again.
"Dude," Gerard says from somewhere near Frank's ear. He's spread out on the couch under one of Mikey's blankets, recovering from a 24-hour stomach bug that has made the rounds and taken turns knocking them all flat. Gerard tries to blame Ray, but the timing isn't right. By Bob's tracking, it most likely came from one of the guys from Taking Back Sunday, who picked it up from Avenged Sevenfold, who got it from someone in Midtown around the same time Ray did.
"Dude," Gerard says again, in the thin, pitiful voice he always uses when he's sick or injured. "Why did you decide to start knitting in July? It's fucking a million degrees outside and you're making scarves."
"Mittens are hard," Frank answers. He twists around on the floor to look up at Gerard, who's still horizontal but has considerably more color than he did a few hours ago. "My stitches are more even now, though, check this shit out."
Gerard snorts, but he does examine Frank's handiwork for a good ten seconds before he gets bored and lapses back into looking pathetic. "I'm dying," he declares unhappily.
"You're not dying," Frank says immediately. He scratches behind Gerard's ears like he's petting a cat, ruffling his hair. He's not used to Gerard's new hair yet, not completely. Sometimes he can only see the black framing his face, and then Gerard will turn around or lean down and Frank's surprised by the tufts of blond.
He likes it, though. He thinks it makes Gerard look kind of like an exotic skunk, but in a really cool way.
"We're all dying," Gerard counters. He does look miserable. "A little every day. Slowly decaying until we finally fall apart."
"That's a cheerful thought," Frank comments. He tugs a little on the longer strands, and Gerard's eyes fall closed. "We're also regenerating every day, growing new cells and things."
"I'm not," Gerard insists. "I'm fucking old."
"I can't argue with you there," Frank agrees. He scratches more because Gerard seems to like it, and adds, "This isn't so bad. You'll be over it by tomorrow morning." Ray hadn't done more than retreat to his bunk for a day and occasionally ask someone to bring him some water, so Frank knows this is mostly Gerard being a drama queen. He knows what it's like to be sick, though, so he's still sympathetic.
"I could be dying," Gerard decides vaguely. "In, like, an alternate universe. I could have leukemia or Parkinson's or some shit."
"We could all be dying, then," Frank points out.
Gerard opens his eyes enough to study Frank through the slits. "I am dying," he reminds Frank, but he's smiling. "You'll be sorry when I'm gone."
"I'll knit you a shroud," Frank promises. "A really nice one."
"Yeah?" Gerard's eyes glitter with interest. "Will it have, like, black roses and bloody thorns and ravens?"
"A whole forest of bloody thorns," Frank agrees. "With skeletons tangled in the vines. It'll be like fucking Sleeping Beauty."
"Cool," Gerard says. His fingers twitch the way they always do when he wants a pencil. "Hey, is there any more coffee?"
"You're not going to sleep," Frank warns him, unraveling his row of stitches and sticking the needles back into his ball of yarn. "You've had six cups in the past hour."
