coffee dates and other things || frerard oneshots

nail polish

They weren't friends exactly. 

Frank was the kind of person who was friends with everyone and Gerard was the kind of person who's only friend was his brother. Gerard also happened to be the only person in their entire creative writing class who carried nail polish on them, apparently. At least, that had been Franks excuse when he'd walked up to Gerard while he was packing up after their lecture.

"Hey, Gerard, right?"

Gerard looked up at the sound of his name, feeling his heart stop when he saw who it was. Frank Iero was looking at him with his eyebrows raised inquisitively, his bottom lip caught between his teeth and a pair of rose-gold wire sunglasses holding his hair out of his face. Gerard swallowed.

"Yeah."

Frank let go of his lip in favour of smiling. "Great- um, not to be too forward, but do you happen to have any nail polish? No one else seems to have any but I've lost my entire box of colours and my nails are looking poorly." To emphasise his point he held out a hand to the other man, showing off the knuckle tattoos that spelt out 'H A LL O' and his supposedly dreary nails. In Gerard's opinion, they looked quite nice. They were clearly well taken care of, but they were quite plain for Frank Iero; the boy who was currently wearing bright green fishnets under his ripped up mom jeans, a baggy grandpa sweater and a velvet choker with a skull pendant hanging off it.

Gerard blinked and then thought about it, hauling his bag onto his desk to see what was in his spare pencil case. Aka the pencil case he kept all his necessities in: lighter, cigarettes, pocket knife, nail polish, eyeliner etc. "Uhm... I might have something other than black, but at the moment that's the only colour I know I have for sure." He mumbled, finding the small case at the bottom of his bag under his travel mug and a worn copy of Dracula.

He was acutely aware of Frank standing behind him as he opened it, feeling awkward and very much like he was wasting the other boys time. He rifled through it for a second, pulling out more nail polish than he'd been expecting. There was black, dark red, electric green, a warm yellow and a soft peach. Frank made a soft sound, that was awfully close to amusement.

"Interesting selection there Gerard." The other man teased, looking over the colours thoughtfully before reaching up to take his sunglasses off of his head. Only to put them back on, as if he was just doing it to get his hair out of his face. "Tell you what Gerard, I might have to go with the classics. Is it alright if I borrow your black nail polish for a bit?"

Gerard shrugged and nodded, putting the other colours back in his pencil case. "Yeah, sure, just bring it back tomorrow if you can."

Frank bit his lip again, eyebrows raised in question. "Or you could just come with me? You actually seem to be rather good at painting nails, whereas I'm rather shit. I usually get my mum to do them for me when we have breakfast over the weekend; but it's clearly not the weekend and therefore i may require a skilled hand to assist me."

Gerard paused for a moment, trying to wrap his head around what Frank had said before looking up in surprise. "You want me to paint your nails for you?"

Frank nodded a little shyly, as though he were suddenly unsure of his decision. "If you don't mind."

Gerard blinked, feeling his heart rate speed up. "Not at all."

So, no, they weren't friends exactly. But they knew each other.

Their apartments were in the same building, and it was small, like Gerard's was. A simple one-bed-one-bath, with a living area and a kitchen. It was decorated with posters, guitars and an assortment of tapestries, rugs and decorative pillows. Absolutely nothing matched and Gerard wasn't sure if he hated it or loved it.

"Black, right?" Gerard double checked, picking up the small bottle and shaking it for a moment. Frank hummed and nodded, holding both hands out against the kitchen counter. They were sitting in bar stools, Franks things thrown onto the couch nearby.

Gerard unscrewed the lid and wiped off some of the excess polish, before gently holding Franks hand and moving it around so he could smoothly apply a layer of black to his thumb nail. He blew on it briefly, and made sure it was even before moving onto the next finger, keeping his movements careful and neat.

By the time he'd finished one hand, Frank was seeming quite flustered, his eyelashes batting together as he blinked and looked away. "Are you okay?" Gerard asked, wondering if he'd done something wrong. 

"Wha- yeah, yeah I'm fine, next hand?" Frank responded, sounding rushed. Gerard furrowed his eyebrows but nodded, and held out his hand for Franks other one. 

His palms were smooth but his fingers were calloused from playing guitar, and his skin was warm. It was usually quite awkward to paint someone else's nails but something about Frank made it easier.

They sat in near-silence as he painted, the only sounds being the humming of electricity and the quiet playing of a radio. Until Frank spoke.

"How'd you get so good at this? You haven't gotten any on my skin."

Gerard shrugged, dipping the brush back in the bottle. "I don't know, I guess I just had a lot of time on my hands as a teenager so i spent a lot of it practising useless shit like applying eyeliner and painting nails. My little brother was an unwilling guinea pig until he hit his emo phase."

Frank snorted and Gerard smiled, blowing on his nails lightly before putting the lid back on the nail polish bottle and grabbing both of the other mans hands. He inspected them for a bit, making sure everything was even and neat before he let them go.

"All done." 

Frank didn't say anything, just stared at Gerard for a moment with a considering look in his eyes. Gerard was about to ask him what was wrong when Frank leaned forward.

"I have a confession to make." He whispered, eyes wide.

Gerard blinked a bit in surprise as Franks cologne wafted over him, and nodded dumbly.

"I know we've only spoken a handful of times but I really like you, and asking you to paint my nails was just an excuse to spend time with you, but now that you've finished I'm worried that we're going to go back to awkwardly polite conversation when we run into each other at the campus cafe or the elevator." Frank spoke in a rush and then bit his lip, eyes searching Gerards face for his reaction.

Gerard's face felt warm all of a sudden, his cheeks tingling with the appearance of a blush. "Oh." He squeaked, mumbling something else about how he also would prefer not to go back to the awkward politeness of elevator conversations. 

Something passed over Franks face but Gerard didn't have time to decipher it because suddenly lips were being pressed against his own and his brain short-circuited. Franks lips were warm and slightly sticky from his lip gloss, and the feel of them against his own was making Gerard's skin burn and fizzle like sparklers.

He lifted a hand to cup Franks face, moving one arm to wrap around his neck as Franks arms circled around his waist and tugged him closer. Frank had moved off his stool, leaning into their embrace and made a soft noise when Gerard tilted his head to the side. The kiss was soft and gentle, and when they finally pulled apart Gerard's lips felt fuzzy.

Frank was smiling at him disbelievingly and leaned forward to press a quick kiss to his lips again. Gerard's brain was slowly starting to reboot and he just about physically face palmed when the first words out of his mouth were: "I'm going to have to repaint your nails now."

i've never kissed anyone so i don't know how to write kiss scenes, forgive me