For: arsenicjade
Title: Crunchy And Taste Good With Ketchup
Pairing: Bob/Gerard
Rating: R
Warnings: swearing, fluff, DRAGONS
Summary: Bob is a dragon. Gerard is his treasure. 8400 words.
Author's Notes: This is probably not the story arsenicjade expected. It is not the story I expected to write for her, that's for sure. I originally started with an entirely different idea that, frankly, ended up being dead boring. I was discussing the situation with rue_quercus and seimaisin and this story appeared. They, along with exitsign, were invaluable in its creation. rue_quercus and seimaisin also deigned to beta for me as well. They are awesome.



Warped 2005

Gerard wasn't sure exactly what time it was. Half-past late, he knew that much, but beyond that it was all a blur of road noise and the acidic burn in his throat of too much coffee and too many cigarettes. He'd been staring at the top of his bunk for what felt like days at this point, his mind whirling and looping, constantly telling himself that, yes, really, sober is better.

A blind was open somewhere in the front of the bus that let in a narrow beam of moonlight, just enough to let him see the outlines of everyone else's closed curtains. They'd gotten used to him keeping his curtain open at night, to waking up to his bloodshot eyes staring out of a nest of tangled bedding. No one said anything, but he knew they were worried about him, about how he was coping with all the reminders of last year.

He didn't know how to tell them that it was okay, that it was hard, but not impossible. He didn't know how to tell them that he was okay.

He could hear everyone breathing and shifting in their sleep and that was soothing in its own way. He felt safe knowing everyone was here and sleeping peacefully even if he wasn't. After all the time on the road, their sleep noises were as familiar as his own. Ray's quiet mumbles and Frank's slightly wheezing breaths were as much a part of the night for him as Mikey's restless movements. Bob's abbreviated snores were newer, but still seemed to fill a hole in the night.

Gerard thought maybe there was a lyric somewhere in there and he was considering digging around in the mess of his bunk for a notebook and pen when he heard Bob get up to go to the bathroom. He told himself it was just human nature that had him turning his head to watch with slitted eyes as Bob passed by. There was nothing prurient in his interest, nope nothing at all.

There was just enough light from the moon and the big fluorescent lamps on the highway that he could see Bob was bare chested--which was pretty fucking odd to begin with, even though it was hot as all fuck in the bus at night sometimes--and seemed to be shimmering. The strange sheen had him blinking rapidly, thinking maybe he was so tired his vision was blurring, but no. Bob was shiny.

Gerard blinked again and rubbed at his eyes, a tiny knot of panic forming in his stomach. Bob wasn't one for groupies--none of them were--so it wasn't some girl's leftover body glitter. And--okay, that was the only logical explanation Gerard could think of for what he saw.

Seriously, what the hell?

He was hallucinating, seeing shit. God, he was fucked. He'd been sure he hadn't done himself any permanent damage, sure he'd managed to get through the drinking and the drugs without fucking up his body, but obviously he was wrong wrong wrong.

Gerard closed his eyes and forced himself to take five slow breaths. It was probably nothing. He was just tired. Or it was glitter left over from the unicorn shirt Frank'd bought Mikey two cities back. Or--fuck, maybe Bob had been sneaking into Gerard's makeup kit when everyone else was asleep. Gerard wasn't necessarily going crazy.

The deep breathing helped pull him out of his head and back into his body. It wasn't a real calm, but it was enough to have him rolling his eyes at himself. Brian was not wrong when he called Gerard 'Princess McDramapants' last week.

He quietly slid out of his bunk and padded down the hallway after Bob, the last Coke Zero he'd had while drawing prodding him out of bed and away from his lurking freak out. He leaned against the wall next to the bathroom door and tried to convince his body that sleep was an awesome thing, because he had very obviously hit the wall without even noticing. If thinking his drummer was shining in the moonlight wasn't a sign of exhaustion, he didn't know what was.

He just needed to pee and sleep.

The line of light from under the door clicked off a second before a half-naked Bob shuffled back into the tiny hallway. He mumbled something incomprehensible at Gerard before brushing past him, his arm rubbing against Gerard's for an electric moment in the cramped bus hallway, and collapsing back into his bunk.

Gerard made sure the door was closed before he flicked on the light and held his arm up to the bare bulb. There were a few pieces of gold--almost like peeled-off chunks of body paint--stuck to the arm of his t-shirt and he huffed out a laugh at his own craziness. Maybe he had spent too much time in his mom's basement if some inexplicable body glitter had him thinking something weird was going on. But then, between one blink and the next--and if Gerard hadn't been blinking at fully-caffeinated speed, he'd have missed it--what looked like paint shimmered into scales the size of his fingernail before disappearing into a puff of gold dust that settled almost invisibly on his arm.

Okay. What?

Gerard managed to scrape a good bit of the gold dust off his sleeve and into an empty eyeshadow container he found in the bathroom. The physical evidence kept him from feeling completely insane when the sheer impossibility of what happened overwhelmed him.

The more he thought about it, about Bob, the more Gerard was convinced that some of the fucked up shit he thought he'd hallucinated when Bob was teching was real. Like last summer's Warped stopover someplace in Texas, when Bert had sworn to Gerard that Bob was breathing fire, Gerard, seriously.

Or the time in England when Bob'd been arguing with Otter about something stupid and he'd stomped off, smoke from his cigarette trailing behind him.

Except they'd all run out of cigarettes an hour before.

Or when Gerard had been passed out in the van somewhere in the ass end of Germany while everyone else explored the ruins on the other side of the small strip of forest lining the highway. He remembered clawing his way through the darkness in his mind for a moment and rolling his head enough to see the ruins silhouetted against the winter-bright sky through the van window. A flash of something had caught his eye and just for a moment he saw something moving sinuously through the trees.

Something huge.

Something unreal.

He'd closed his eyes and then it was Bob heading towards him, tripping over the exposed roots and slapping at the low-hanging branches. Nothing weird, just Bob.

Just Bob.

But if Bob was...a dragon?

That was so fucking cool.

It was strange, but Gerard had never given thought to how easily Bob had fit into the hole Otter left behind. There hadn't been an awkward transition phase or even a time where his edges truly sparked off any of theirs. Maybe it was having everyone's attention focused on Gerard and his recovery that had allowed Bob to become one of them, to become family without any of the growing pains Gerard would have expected.

However it had happened, Bob had managed to slip himself into the cracks of their lives, to just be without any of the questions or teasing some of his quirks probably deserved. Because he knew that if Frank hadn't been hovering over Gerard like an anxious mother, Bob's predilection for being as covered as possible at all times would've resulted in every stitch of clothing being frozen into perverted shapes at the most inconvenient time.

It made him curious what else they had missed about him. Aside from, you know, the whole mythical creature thing. So he employed a little stealth and started watching Bob.

All the time.

The thing was, though, Gerard wasn't all that stealthy.

It took a while, but a few weeks after The Occurrence (as Gerard had taken to calling it), Ray pulled him aside and said, "Gerard? Is there a problem with Bob? Has he - Does he make you uncomfortable?"

Gerard had to blink at that, because what? "What?"

Ray shifted on the ugly dressing room couch. "It's just, well, you've sort of been watching him like you expect him to jump you in a dark alley."

"No!" Not that Gerard would turn down being jumped by Bob because, hello hotness, but that wasn't really what Ray was talking about. "No, I – He -" Shit, there really wasn't a way to say I think our new drummer can transform into a giant fire-breathing dragon without sounding like he needed to be committed. "I'm not afraid of Bob."

"Okay," Ray nodded, instantly accepting, and Gerard loved him for it. "So the staring?"

"I - I think he's fascinating to look at?" It was sort of a question and sort of not because whatever else was going on with Bob, he was pretty fascinating to look at. "Did Bob say something to you?"

"No, but he's been getting a little squirrelly the past few days so..."

Gerard sighed. People he liked always ended up getting squirrelly around him. "Yeah."

Ray nodded again and settled back next to Gerard, obviously letting the subject drop. He offered Gerard one of his earbuds and shrugged when Gerard waved him off and picked up his laptop again.

He had thousands of years of dragon mythology to review.

***

Somewhere in the Midwest, October 2005

If he'd been asked a couple of years ago (you know, if it was something he talked about--ever), Bob would have told you that the worst thing about being a dragon wasn't the whole breathing fire thing--he had learned to control that shit when he was a toddler, thanks--it was finding space to transform when he was on the road. It wasn't like he was one of those poor bastard werewolves or something where he had to transform on a regular basis, but if he went longer than a few months without stretching his wings, he definitely got a little testy.

He knew when he signed on to drum for My Chem that the opportunities for transforming would be drastically reduced from what he'd been used to as a tech, but even he hadn't guessed exactly how much time he'd be spending with the guys on the rare occasions they weren't touring. It wasn't that he regretted his decision or wasn't 100% in love with his band, but between Frank making himself at home on Bob's back and having actual security follow him around in case of rabid fangirl attack, Bob hadn't been able to sneak away at all since joining up. He'd been home a couple of times and had made use of his grandparent's little bit of land, but it just wasn't the same as breaking free of the rest of the tour and wandering through the Black Forest for a hour or so.

Plus, it made him way more likely to hoard random things (like pop-tarts and clean socks) when he couldn't transform. It would be easier, he knew, if he could actually hoard his treasure, but he was pretty sure Gerard would protest being tucked away in Bob's lair. So he made do by keeping Gerard close and physically hoarding other things--like his freakish collection of cannibalized drum kits and the truly ridiculous amount of bootlegs safely stored in his apartment--but it just wasn't the same.

The hoarding wasn't something he was terribly proud of, but it was as much a part of being a dragon as was a deep and true hatred for Walt Disney.

It was totally valid to hate that creepy mouse fucker for Maleficent because, grotesque stereotypes aside, that shit was just ridiculous. Bob knew the very fact he could transform into a dragon broke all sorts of laws about conservation of mass and science, but he was not a thousand foot tall bottom-heavy monstrosity with too-small wings. And don't even get him started on The Dragonslayer or fucking Tolkien. Smaug was just hanging out, hoarding shit--as dragons do--when that little fucker of a hobbit sneaked in and stole his treasure.

He maybe had a few issues with media representations of his people.

And, you know, long standing nightmares about Sleeping Beauty.

None of which was an excuse for being careless enough to let his entire band, Cortez, Brian, and Worm follow him to the spot he'd scouted on the outskirts of whatever podunk Midwestern town they'd settled in for the night. He wasn't sure how they knew to follow him or how they managed to avoid detection, but they knew now and that knowing took the decision whether or not to tell them out of his hands.

He considered changing back, but his clothes were piled neatly under the pine tree on the other side of the clearing and the very last thing he wanted right now was to be naked on top of everything else. Everyone was varying levels of freaked out except for Gerard, who appeared to be vibrating in place. Bob started a silent countdown from ten and as he hit 'one,' Gerard flung himself forward, twisting out of Ray's weak grasp.

"I knew it! I fucking knew it!" He did a little dance and spun around to face the others. "I knew I wasn't hallucinating anything!"

Bob couldn't help it, he snorted a little plume of smoke at Gerard's antics but immediately regretted it when Worm paled and swayed on his feet. Fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuck. That was exactly why Bob had struggled with telling everyone. He really didn't want to be treated any differently or, god forbid, for anyone to be fucking scared of him. He wasn't dangerous or any bullshit like that. Fucking Bert had caused more property damage in his life than Bob ever had. He backed up a couple of steps and lowered himself down to the spongy ground, trying to appear as nonthreatening as a thirty-foot long predator could.

Gerard didn't seem to notice any of the byplay going on around him as he finished up his little victory dance and announced to the heavens, "This is the greatest thing that has ever happened in my entire life!" He started laughing, but not hysterically Bob was happy to note. "Vampires could come shooting out of the ground and you would still be cooler, Bob. Vampires!"

Bob huffed out another smoky laugh and Gerard took a few steps forward before he stopped himself. "You're a dragon, Bob. Holy fucking shit. Can you set shit on fire? Can I touch you? Will you set me on fire? Please don't set me on fire."

Gerard moved forward again and stopped an arm's length from Bob's head. He set a hesitant hand just below his ear and ran his fingers over the tight scales, whispering, "Oh, wow. It's like snakeskin, but warm," before flinging his arms around as much of Bob's neck as he could and squeezing gently.

Bob heaved a huge, smoky sigh of relief. He'd been worried about everyone's reactions, no lie, but he had to admit that the person he'd been most worried about was Gerard. He might have been the hugest geek on the planet and the most likely to think Bob being a dragon was fucking awesome, but Gerard was Bob's treasure. He was Bob's...everything. It didn't often happen like that since most treasures were inanimate objects, but when it did, it was pretty all-consuming. So much so that his entire band was staring at him with varying levels of 'what-the-fuck' and all he could think about was how fucking glad he was that Gerard wasn't scared. Gerard being frightened of him was something he really couldn't even begin to contemplate.

Gerard laughed into Bob's scales, "So awesome," and loosened his grip enough to turn and say, "Mikey, come 'ere, it's so awesome!"

When Mikey didn't automatically appear at his side, Gerard turned his head and finally noticed the rest of the guys were not as thrilled as he was with one of their band members turning into an improbable beast. "Mikey? Frank?"

Frank shook his head, stumbling back into Mikey. "Someone please tell me that I am running one fuck of a fever. Lie to me if you have to, because if you try to tell me that Bob is a giant fucking dragon, I might cry or something."

Fuck fucking fuckstick. He should have known better than to get too comfortable. Bob dropped his eyes to the ground and leaned away from Gerard, trying to get some space between the two of them. He knew his fucking wings were drooping, but if shit got ugly, he didn't want Gerard to get caught in the middle.

Gerard was having none of it, though. He looped one arm over Bob's neck and turned to face the others. "What the fuck, you guys? It's just Bob."

Brian narrowed his eyes and took a small step forward. "You don't seem all that surprised, Gerard. Did you know about this?" The and not tell anyone was left hanging in the air.

"Bob didn't tell me, if that's what you're asking." Gerard scratched his nails down the edge of Bob's spine ridge and Bob could hear the smile in his voice when Bob's ears started to flutter with pleasure. "But I always knew there was something different about him. I was just too high to put it all together before."

Brian edged another few steps forward, the others keeping pace a handful of feet behind him. He stopped just shy of Bob's snout and propped his hands on his hips. Bob knew exactly what he was seeing--pure gold scales and wings edged in scarlet; five claws per leg topped with black talons the size of butcher knives; eyes the size bowing balls, but exactly the same blue as he had in his human form--but was unprepared when Brian only rolled his eyes and said, "Jesus Christ, I do not have enough insurance coverage on anything," before stomping out of the clearing and back towards whatever they drove out here.

The tension hanging around everyone cleared at Brian's off-hand acceptance and they all shuffled forward until they surrounded his head in a loose semi-circle. Worm and Cortez shook their heads in near tandem before heading in the same direction as Brian did, undoubtedly to make sure he wasn't having a quiet breakdown on the side of the road.

Ray took one look at Gerard and said, "No."

"No what?"

"No, you cannot force Bob to RP in dragon form."

Gerard's pout was tangible. "I'd roll the dice for him."

"Who even said you'd be on his team?" Frank frowned and pushed at Gerard's shoulder, adding, "Maybe one of us wants to be on Team Bob's a Badass Dragon."

"Fuck you, Frankie. I totally called dibs."

"Did not."

"Did too."

Bob rolled his eyes and settled in for the long haul, guiltily enjoying the way Gerard was tracing patterns around the edges of his scales. Gerard and Frankie could argue 'did not/did too' almost as long as Gerard and Mikey could, but he wasn't moving until he absolutely had to. If he could have done it without knocking half of his band over like bowling pins, he'd have been shaking his head at himself for being ridiculous. He was a giant, glittering teenage girl. Bob shook out his wings and refolded them along his back, not noticing the silence that had fallen over his bandmates.

Gerard's grip on his neck slackened a little. "Bob. Bob! You have wings! Can you fly?"

Bob snapped his wings out to their full span and folded them up again an little smugly. He knew exactly how awesome his wings were.

"No, seriously. Can you fly?" Gerard was wearing a particularly stubborn expression that Bob knew from experience would not go away until he got exactly what he wanted.

Bob carefully got to his feet, making sure he didn't accidentally topple anyone over, and used his snout to nudge Gerard towards the others. When they were all together, he herded them to the edge of the clearing before backing to the center and flapping his wings just enough to get a few feet of lift. He barely had his feet back on the ground before a tiny Frank-shaped missile launched himself at Bob and tried to scramble up his flank.

"Frankie, what--"

"Dragon ride!" Frank managed to get himself up onto Bob's back and was perched between two of his spine ridges, holding onto his neck for dear life. "Come on, horsey!"

And that was it for Bob. There was only so much a man could be expected to take. He closed his eyes and between one second and the next he went from dragon form to human.

Naked human.

With Frank still clinging to his back.

Fuck.

"Get off me," Bob growled, unsuccessfully trying to shake Frank off.

"You're naked, Bob." Frank started laughing and twined his legs around Bob's waist. "I've never seen you so naked before!"

Bob resisted the urge to cover himself up with his hands because that shit always looked stupid. "If you don't get off me, I'm going to be the last naked person you see. Ever."

Frank snorted and risked his life to let go with one hand and attempt a grope. "I'd die happy, though."

"Frank!" Gerard made an aborted attempt to reach for Frank, but he obviously didn't know how to grab him without getting a handful of Bob in the process.

"Hey, I thought you were just freckle-y, but you can sort of see your scales in the sunlight!" Frank poked at Bob's shoulder, rubbing the wrong way to see if he could feel any difference between regular skin and Bob's.

Bob shrugged and tried not to shudder at how wrong it felt when his skin was brushed the wrong way. "Yeah, I try to keep covered up, mostly."

Gerard had stepped up close at Frank's observation and had one hand hovering over Bob's shoulder. "It's pretty."

This was really not the way Bob had pictured nakedness + Gerard happening in his life. For one thing, it had certainly never involved having fucking Frank Iero attached to him like a limpet. Also, the word "pretty" hadn't really factored into the various naked Gerard scenarios in Bob's head. (Except in that one fantasy about Gerard going to SVA in drag, which honestly wasn't even Bob's kink, but, well. Gerard.)

"Here," Mikey said, holding out the pile of Bob's clothes. Bob felt the warm scrape of Ray's hands between Frank's stomach and Bob's back a split second before Frank squawked and his weight disappeared.

"Thanks, man." Bob yanked on his shorts and pants as quickly as he could without looking like a douche and was halfway into his t-shirt when he heard Frank hack out a laugh.

"Dude, your mom laid you in an egg, didn't she?"

Bob froze, only his eyes visible above the neck of his shirt. After a second, he finished pulling it on and carefully brushed away the few renegade pine needles sticking to it. "Do not talk about my mom, Iero."

The others were making 'quit it' motions that Bob could see out of the corner of his eye, but Frank had his face all scrunched up, obviously imagining Bob's mom laying an egg. Bob pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes and by the time the spots had faded from his vision, Ray had dragged Frank away and Mikey was holding out Bob's beat up Vans.

He loved his band.

***

Touring, Autumn 2005

Gerard knew peppering Bob with questions about the whole dragon thing was going to irritate him, but he couldn't help it. Every answer Bob gave him only brought up another dozen questions. Besides, Bob was being remarkably patient with all of them. Frank and Mikey had questions of their own, and Ray kept shaking his head every few minutes as if he just couldn't believe his drummer was an actual dragon. Cortez was tuning a guitar, but pretty obviously listening to all of them, and Brian--poor Brian--was on the phone to their insurance carrier upping their coverage on everything ever. Again. Gerard thought that was sort of a waste because Bob was probably the least destructive of all of them, even with the fire breathing.

Fire breathing.

Brian thumbed his phone off and dropped it on to the bench next to him. "I am blaming you for this, Gerard."

"Me?" Gerard reluctantly turned from his inspection of Bob's totally human looking hands. "How is it my fault Bob is a dragon?"

"I don't know. It just is." Brian rubbed his hands over his face. "So how did you figure this out?"

Bob looked pretty fucking curious too and Gerard ducked his head, absentmindedly smoothing his hand down Bob's forearm. "Bob molted a couple of scales on my sleeve during Warped and that got me thinking."

They all just stared at him for a second before Ray laughed and said, "Only you, Gerard."

"Only me what?"

"Only you would automatically jump to 'dragon' from something like that."

"Well, what else could it be?" Gerard was actually confused about this.

Ray made a face. "I don't know. Some weird kind of STD?"

"Hey!"

"Sorry, Bob."

Frankie's phone rang with Jamia's tone and that seemed to break up their impromptu meeting. Gerard figured they were all okay on the dragon front until two days later, when Brian stopped in the middle of his new and improved 'Fire Safety is Your Friend' lecture and sat down in the middle of the bus aisle as if his strings had been cut.

Ray and Cortez exchanged a look and Ray squatted down in front of Brian. He waved his hand in front of his blank stare. "Brian?"

Brian didn't respond and didn't stop the slight rocking motion he'd started either. It was pretty troubling, especially since Gerard never thought they'd actually break Brian. Ray sat back on his heels and rubbed at his chin. "Well, shit."

Cortez knelt next to Brian and poked at his shoulder until he exhaled heavily and swatted at Cortez's hand, snapping, "Knock that shit off. Can't a man have a breakdown in peace?"

"Quit being a drama queen, Schechter." Despite his words, Cortez was frowning a little and curled his hand around the back of Brian's neck.

"Fuck that." Brian pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Bob is a dragon. And possibly hatched. I'm still a little unclear on that part. This is not something I ever thought I'd have to deal with."

Cortez squeezed the back of his neck. "Sack up, man. It could be worse."

Brian turned his head just enough to glare at Cortez. "If you tell me you're a werewolf, I'm going to stab you in the eye."

Cortez grabbed Brian's shoulders and turned him all the way around, saying earnestly, "I'm a werewolf. And Bob got me pregnant."

It didn't surprise Gerard when it took Ray, Bob, and Frank to pull Brian off of Cortez because, while he may have been little, he was a whirlwind of rage. It didn't help that Cortez was too busy peeing himself with laughter to defend himself or that Frank was laughing too hard to do much more than get in the way.

(For months afterward, Frank will randomly tell Brian he is pregnant. This will start some truly ridiculous internet rumors. The next time Jamia visits, she will grab Frank by the ear and say, "What's this I hear about you being pregnant, Frank Anthony?"

Because he is a man with little to no sense of self-preservation, Frank will answer, "It's not my fault! Bob got me pregnant."

"I never touched Frank." Bob may be a huge and fearsome dragon, but Jamia is vicious and thorough so he will tell her, "but Cortez did."

Matt Cortez is not a stupid man. He will run away.)

Gerard frowned, thinking hard. "Bob, you can't get a dude pregnant, can you? Like," he didn't quite know how to signify magical dragon reproduction, so mostly he did jazz hands, "by magic?"

Bob stared at him for a second before saying slowly, "Gerard, I'm a dragon. I fly. I breathe flame. I eat cows sometimes. That is what dragons do. We do not get dudes pregnant by magic. What--how did you even come up with that?"

Mikey answered before Gerard could, "The internet."

Bob looked like he wanted to hit his head against the wall. "Okay, once Brian stops being traumatized he's going to have to have the 'don't believe anything you read on the internet' talk with you. Again."

Gerard felt that was very unfair. It was just the one time! "Bob, you're magic. How do you know you don't have magical impregnation powers?"

"Because I don't!" There was a little puff of smoke with that statement and Bob took an obvious moment to calm down. "Gerard, I'm a dragon. Yes, I'm a magical creature, but there are rules, okay? I'm not suddenly going to be able to impregnate people by magic."

"I'm not saying you impregnate them by magic. There's sex involved!" Gerard subsided at Bob's look, but thought If I end up laying an egg, I'm going to be so pissed. When he realized exactly what he just thought, he curled into a little ball of 'oh jesus' on the couch next to Mikey and let Frank distract Bob with an argument about eating cows. ("They're living creatures!" "Yes, and they are fucking delicious.")

Mikey gave him a look and prodded him with one foot. "You're totally freaking out about maybe laying an egg, aren't you?"

Gerard nodded miserably, not even caring when Mikey rolled his eyes and called him a freak. He heaved a giant sigh and let Mikey rub his back with his feet, knowing he was going to have sort-of-nightmares about laying eggs and tiny baby dragons all week.

He was so pathetic.

***

Good Samaritan Hospital, September 2006

The smell of the hospital was the first thing Bob noticed. It was a particular mix of disinfectant and sickness that made him want to sneeze. Something--some sense of wrong surrounding his body--told him that sneezing was a particularly bad idea, though. He blinked his eyes open, squinting even in the darkened room, and tried not to panic. He was a dragon. Staying out of human hospitals was one of the first things he remembered learning. While he looked human enough on the outside, there were enough differences in his internal physiology that going to a regular doctor was like asking to be locked up in some research facility.

The door to his room was closed, but it looked like a regular door, not a reinforced one, and while he was sluggish with painkillers and whatever else was in the IV he could see on the pole next to him, he wasn't tied down in any way. Most telling, though, was the sight of his mom asleep in the chair on the other side of his bed. She would never let anything happen to either of them, so wherever they were had to be safe.

Reassured, Bob finally took stock of his body. For the first time in days, his leg wasn't a throbbing mess, but he thought that might have more to do with the painkillers than anything else. He had an icepack strapped to the side of his head and the muscles of his face felt strangely stiff and unresponsive. That more than anything had him opening his mouth to get his mom's attention and have her tell him he was fine. His throat and mouth were so dry, all he could make was a strangled squawk, but it was enough to jerk his mom awake.

She closed her eyes for a moment when she saw that he was conscious. Bob felt a stab of guilt at making her worry. It wasn't that he was trying to get himself killed by not taking care of himself. After all, he had been burned lots of times when he was a kid learning to control his fire and he was fine the next day. He sort of forgot about how that had been his dragon form and burns he he received would be gone by morning. His human form was just so fragile sometimes.

His mom shook her head and levered herself out of the chair before leaning against the side of his bed. She dropped a straw into a plastic cup of water and let him take a long swallow. Bob whispered hoarsely, "Thanks."

"How much do you remember from the last couple of days?"

Bob remembered pain and heat in his leg and the feeling of falling, but that was about it. "Not much."

"The burn on your leg turned septic and a staph infection settled near your brain. You have to keep the abscess iced until the antibiotics finish. You were about two days from dying, Bob."

He winced at her tone. "I've never had problems with a burn before, Mom."

"Because you were transformed," she said, so quietly that Bob could barely hear her. "Your human form can't take the same amount of injury. You should have transformed as soon as possible after you got burned."

"We were in the middle of press for the new album, Mom. Also, in the middle of Los Angeles."

"You're telling me Brian couldn't have found you someplace for a few hours?" She folded her arms over her chest, saying sternly, "And don't lie to me. I know they all know. Brian was smart enough to call me before they called an ambulance, so you didn't end up on the cover of Scientific Weekly."

Bob squirmed, hating how his mom could make him feel like a naughty eight year old. "I didn't want to cause any problems. We were already behind a little because of Gerard's ankle."

"If you were not already in the hospital, I would beat you black and blue."

Before Bob could answer, Gerard poked his head in the door. "Oh, hey! You're awake! Has your mom threatened you about being an idiot yet?"

Bob rolled his eyes and tried not to react to Gerard's presence. It was much easier to pretend he didn't want to loll back and let Gerard scratch at his belly scales when he didn't have a cocktail of pharmaceuticals running through his system. He felt himself relaxing into the bed, knots of tension he hadn't even realized he was carrying around dissolving as Gerard took his response as an invitation, angled through the door and hobbled towards the bed.

His smile faded the closer he got to the bed and he was frowning by the time he stopped. His hand hovered over Bob's arm as he said, "All your scales molted off."

Bob lifted up the arm not attached to the IV and squinted at his skin. His arm looked strangely bare without the nearly invisible pattern of scales he was used to and he was a little freaked out, but he didn't want to worry Gerard or his mom any more. "I'm fine, Gerard. It was probably just the fever."

Gerard's look of total disbelief would have been hilarious if his mom hadn't reached out to pinch the skin on Bob's side. "You really are an idiot."

"Ow! That's child abuse!" Bob mentally consigned his default answer to any question about his health to the restricted words pile next to 'goatfucker'. (Ray hated that phrase for some reason.) "I'm drugged to the gills, but I'm not dead yet, so I guess I'll survive."

"As long as he keeps ice on his head until the antibiotics get rid of the staph infection, he'll be fine." She offered him the water again, adding, "He can't transform until the doctor says it's okay, though. She's not sure what that would do."

Bob twisted his head to get the straw out of his mouth so that he could ask, "Doctor?"

"My cousin Matthew's girl, Lucy. You're lucky she's working out here."

He conceded that with a nod and slumped back into his pillows, suddenly exhausted. He felt Gerard's warm hand on his too-sensitive skin and heard his worried voice saying his name, but couldn't find the energy to reassure him. The last thing he heard before falling into sleep was his mom's voice saying, "Just let him rest, Gerard. You and I can have a little chat."

***

Outside of Detroit, February 2007

Bob was really hot.

It was both an subjective and objective observation on Gerard's part. Physically, Gerard would be hard pressed to name a more attractive person in his acquaintance. Bob also radiated heat like a motherfucker. It made touring with him in the summer a dicey proposal sometimes since the extra heat made him crabby, but it also made him the most argued over commodity during the winter months. They all were a little shameless in their machinations to share space with Bob. Frankie would poke and prod and generally harass Bob until he snapped and either wrestled him to the ground or just sat on him. Mikey's strategy was similar to Gerard's in that each would sit in one place looking pitiful and freezing until Bob sat next to him and spread a blanket over them both. Surprisingly, Ray was the sneakiest. He never complained about the cold or wandered around the bus looking like the Little Matchgirl. No, Ray would just shut himself and Bob up in the back studio until Bob's body heat raised the ambient temperature of the whole space. It was genius because no one else could steal him away while they were in the studio, but unless they were in a groove, Bob generally found the rapidly warming room too hot for his taste and would leave as soon as he could.

The only unwritten rule of the little competition was that Bob's bunk was out of bounds, both because they all had some small shred of decency left and because Bob viewed sleepy times as sacrosanct and would not hesitate to launch anyone out of his bunk if they weren't invited. And Gerard wanted to be invited, not because the bus was freezing tonight (thought it really was), but because he wanted Bob to want him there, and not just because he was humoring his lead singer.

Pretty much everyone and their mom had voiced their opinion on Gerard's epic (Ray), teenaged (Mikey), visible from space (Frank), only-slightly-ill-advised (Brian) man crush on Bob. Literally everyone and their mom; he'd fielded separate phone calls from Ray's mom, Frank's mom, Bob's mom, and his own traitorous mother in the past couple of weeks wondering when he was going to stop mooning around like an ugly girl on prom night and do something.

It wasn't that Gerard was displeased with the maternal stamp of approval on his gigantic crush on Bob, it was just that the mental image of Bob's mom saying 'go get 'im, Tiger' was something that stuck with a man. It wasn't enough to put him off trying to woo Bob, but the pressure was a little overwhelming.

Also, his wooing skills were a little...non-existent.

Which would explain why he was dithering outside of his bunk in the middle of the night, frozen solid and half-heartedly poking around in a mostly-clean pile of laundry for some thicker socks or something. He thought he was the only one awake, so he may, perhaps have squeaked when Bob's disembodied voice came out of the darkness. "Jesus, Gerard, I can feel you shivering from here. Put on a hoodie or something."

"I'm trying to find one!" Gerard felt ridiculously let down, but what the hell was he expecting? Bob was not going to pull him into his bunk and promise to keep him warm all night long, no matter how long he lingered in the narrow walkway. Fuck, he was pathetic. Gerard pulled on one of Ray's hoodies and crawled into his bunk, wrapping himself in his blankets and trying to be a brave little toaster, in spite of the shivers that he couldn't stop no matter how tightly he held himself.

After a few minutes, his bunk curtain slid open and Gerard pulled his head out from under his blankets to see a grumpy looking Bob standing there, grumbling, "Shove over."

"What?"

Bob sighed, very obviously put out. "Shove. Over. I can't sleep when I can hear your teeth rattling from my bunk."

Gerard slid back automatically when Bob started to climb in next to him, even though his brain had completely locked up. Bob dug his hands into the blanket-burrito Gerard had made of himself and pulled and tugged until everything was more or less organized. He slid under the covers and curled himself against Gerard's back, sliding one arm up under the pillow and one around his waist. Gerard wiggled back until Bob's knees were tucked against his own and had to turn his head to stifle a laugh in the bedding.

"What?" Bob still sounded grumpy, but he nuzzled his face against the back of Gerard's neck and scratched his fingers over his belly.

"Nothing. I just - I'm so used to Frank that it's weird being the little spoon."

Bob huffed out a big breath. "You can be the big spoon tomorrow, okay? Just go to sleep."

Gerard froze at the mention of the possibility of more of this in the future. He squirmed in Bob's arms until their noses were almost touching. "Bob..." For all of his words, Gerard didn't know how to ask for this, didn't know he could ask for this. He twisted his hands in the hem of Bob's shirt and tipped his chin up just enough to feel the heat of Bob's breath on his mouth. It was pretty fucking dark with the curtain of the bunk closed, so Gerard felt more than saw Bob flush red before the hand on his hip tightened and then Bob's mouth was against his.

Bob's kiss was surprisingly hesitant--just the warmth of breath and the brush of lips--until Gerard sighed and slid his cold hands under Bob's shirt. Bob sucked in a quick breath, as if shocked by Gerard's chilled skin, then rolled Gerard under him.

He wasn't used to the weight of a man's body on him -- his bisexuality was more theory than practice at this point -- but he could get used to this. Gerard stretched out under Bob, luxuriating in the feel of finally being warm.

Bob breathed out an almost silent laugh. "You're just using me for my body heat, aren't you?"

Gerard hid his smile in the curve of Bob's neck and flattened his hands on the small of his back. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Liar." Bob scraped his teeth down the shell of Gerard's ear and did something that sent an almost visible wave of heat out into the enclosed bunk.

"Magic," Gerard whispered, feeling his eyes widen. "That is so fuckin' awesome."

Bob shifted up onto his elbows, looking down at Gerard with an expression that somehow combined shy and smug at the same time. "It's nothing, really."

"It's not nothing! It's magic. You're magic," Gerard said, hooking a hand behind Bob's head and urging him down. The kiss started out relatively chaste, but as soon as Gerard opened his mouth, Bob groaned deep in his chest, sliding a hand into Gerard's hair and tugging. One kiss turned into two into five into a dozen and within minutes the rest of the world had faded into the background. Even though he knew everyone was pretty much an arm's length away, Gerard couldn't help but moan into Bob's mouth. Their legs were tangled together under the covers, but it only took him a second to get his knees outside of Bob's, pressing them even closer together. He pushed his fingers into the short hair on the sides of Bob's head and pulled them apart just enough to whisper, "You're magic, Bob. And being a dragon has nothing to do with it."

Bob's grin started in his eyes and spread across his face, like the sunrise at the end of a movie or something, Gerard thought. He opened his mouth to say something else, but was unexpectedly interrupted by the sound of someone making loud fake gagging noises.

There was no mistaking who that was. "Frank," Gerard moaned, cringing.

"Oh, Bob!" Frank said in a piercing falsetto. "You're magic!" Switching to baritone, he added, "No, you are-- no, you are!"

"Frank," Bob growled. "I will rip your balls off unless you shut up now."

There was a moment of profound silence as Frank obviously weighed Bob's level of commitment to his threat, then subsided with little more than an indistinct grumble. Gerard could feel Bob's satisfied 'heh' against his mouth and his smugness was so inexplicably hot that Gerard couldn't stop himself from leaning up and kissing Bob again.

Bob's startled noise faded into one of satisfaction as Gerard moved against him and nothing else mattered but the two of them. He had just settled into Bob's rhythm when a noise caught his attention enough to drag his attention (and mouth) away from Bob.

"Guys?" Ray was standing next to their bunk, his hand firmly over his eyes. "I'm happy for you, really, but please stop. No sex on the bus, remember? Besides, Mikey's bunk is right under you."

There was an almost instantaneous buzzing noise and startling vibration against Gerard's thigh. He jumped, making a noise that most certainly was not a shriek, and fumbled in his jeans pocket until he could pull out his phone. Flipping the lid open, he saw that he had a text message from Mikey: pls no sex on top of my head thx.

Gerard groaned, covering his eyes with his hands. There was a light thump from underneath which he knew, from years of sharing bunkbeds with his brother, was the sound of Mikey kicking the bottom of Gerard's bunk. "Sorry, Mikes."

Beside the bunk, Ray shifted uncomfortably. "Okay, I'm gonna just... go back to bed now. Uh, congratulations?"

Gerard nodded, his eyes still covered by his hands. "Thanks, Ray."

Bob propped his head on Gerard's shoulder. "Is that it from the peanut gallery? I'm surprised Schechter hasn't jumped in with his two cents."

Gerard threaded his fingers through Bob's hair, rubbing at his scalp. "I think he and Cortez sneaked off somewhere to have sex that wasn't two feet from everyone."

"Where? The kitchen?" Bob froze as the likelihood of that became apparent. He shuddered a little before settling heavily onto Gerard. "Remind me to bleach everything in the world tomorrow."

"Yeah, okay." Gerard hugged Bob and dropped a kiss on the top of his head. Bob snaked his arms under Gerard and hugged him back, making a rumbly noise.

"Are you... purring?" Gerard asked.

The rumbling noise stopped. "No," Bob said, completely unconvincingly.

"You are! Do all dragons purr, or is it--" Mikey's foot thumped against the bottom of the bunk again. "Uh, maybe we should move this over to your bunk." Bob's bunk was at the very end of the row, with Cortez's bunk (now empty) above it and two bunks mostly used for storage across from it.

The rumbling noise started up again. "That is an awesome idea," Bob said so cheerfully that he almost sounded stoned.

Before Gerard could even ask, Bob pulled him out of the warm bunk and down the aisle to his. He bundled Gerard into the thin bedding before sliding in next to him. He closed the curtain behind himself and almost immediately started putting off heat. He nuzzled his face into Gerard's neck, purring again and honest to god giggling.

"Bob? Are you okay?"

Bob dragged his open mouth over Gerard's throat and rubbed over his belly. "I am fantastic." He giggled again, "You're in my lair."

Gerard grinned into the darkness. "Your lair, huh?"

"Mobile lair. My real one is in Chicago." Bob pushed his nose behind Gerard's ear as he shifted to settle on top of him. "Now that you're here, you can never, ever leave."

"Never?"

"Never ever." Bob nodded against Gerard's head, adding, "I can put a coffeemaker and pencils in here. And a microphone."

Gerard huffed a laugh into Bob's hair and hugged him. "Just me and you in your lair?"

Bob pushed up onto his hands, an oddly serious look on his face after all the purring and giggling. "Gerard," he was obviously trying to whisper, but Gerard was sure the driver could hear him, "you're my treasure."

Gerard's mouth dropped open as he stared up at him. "I'm your what?"

Bob nodded seriously. "My treasure. We have -- dragons hoard stuff, you know? Gold, and jewels, and maybe occasionally clean socks--that's what a dragon does," he said, totally forgetting that he was even trying to talk quietly. "Except when you're hanging out in your lair, minding your own business, and some little fucker of a hobbit sneaks in and steals your treasure... anyway. Every dragon has a treasure. And you're mine."

Gerard was pretty sure his eyes were heart-shaped right now, like a cartoon character. "Bob, that's... wow. Oh, wow."

There was a loud sniff from further down the corridor. "Dammit, that's so sweet I can't even mock you for it," Frank said.

Bob closed his eyes briefly. "I'd kill him, but that would involve leaving the bunk."

"No killing." Gerard pulled Bob back down on top of him, kissing him, "Or leaving the lair."

Bob started purring again and moved off Gerard enough so he could breathe, "Our lair."

"Yeah. Our lair," Gerard closed his eyes to try to get some sleep before dawn. "Oh, hey. Hotel tomorrow."

Bob just purred louder.

THE END